Movie Review No Such Thing

No Such Thing (2002) 

Directed by Hal Hartley

Written by Hal Hartley 

Starring Sarah Polley, Helen Mirren, Julie Christie, Baltasar Kormakur

Release Date March 29th, 2002 

Published July 8th, 2002 

Director Hal Hartley is known for his unusual, free-form style of filmmaking. When Hartley’s style is really on to something  good the result can be brilliant. But when it's wrong it is often massively so. Such was the case of Hartley’s 2001 release, No Such Thing. The film is an absolute catastrophe. It’s a meandering and often pointless feature desperately in search of a purpose. 

The film stars the lovely Sarah Polley as Beatrice, a naive young television intern whose fiancée, a reporter, disappears while doing an investigative report in Iceland. Beatrice's Uber-bitch boss, played by  Helen Mirren, and credited only as ‘The Boss’, wants to exploit the boyfriend’s disappearance based upon the sensationalistic rumor that a real-life monster killed the TV crew.

Is the monster some sort of legend or does he really exist? Beatrice offers to fly to Iceland to investigate and is given the assignment but on the way there she is nearly killed in a plane crash. Once again, The Boss sees a story she can exploit. The one survivor of the plane crash is her intern so she naturally assumes she will have an exclusive. Beatrice however, refuses to be interviewed so The Boss fires her. 

After 2 years under the care of the kindly Dr. Anna (Julie Christie), and with miracle surgery, Beatrice learns to walk again and continues her journey to Iceland where she encounters the Monster. Former Robocop 3 star Robert John Burke is the extremely put-upon monster who would be fine if people would just leave him alone. He isn't as psychotic as he is annoyed, so if killing a couple of people here and there will buy him some peace then he'll kill. 

Arriving in the village where her fiance and his crew disappeared, Beatrice is convinced to drink herself into a stupor by the locals. Then, they strip her and leave her as an offering to The Beast who’d really rather be left alone than have to kill anyone.  From there, Beatrice and the Monster form an unusual bond, which leads them to New York and the media spotlight and inklings of the monster’s origin.

If my plot description is convoluted you should see the movie. I've seen more coherent storylines in untranslated original language anime cartoons. Hal Hartley both wrote and directed No Such Thing and he appears to want to make a statement about our over-saturated media. However, Hartley tells the story in such a way that he is just beating the audience over the head with his own personal dislikes regarding the media. 

The film’s resolution, if you could call it that, is an annoyingly stupid metaphor, a statement about our society that is so obvious I'm stretching to call it a metaphor. The dialogue practically screams what Hartley should be saying much more quietly. Media bad. No subtlety, no thoughtful statement about how consumer society and a 24 hour news cycle have combined to create a poisonous public discourse. No, No Such Thing is basically Hartley shouting in your ear, MEDIA BAD! 

Not even the incredible Sarah Polley can make a dent in the mess that is No Such Thing. In this film she's called upon to dull her best features, her wry intelligence and sharp wit in service of Hartley’s hammer blow approach to metaphor. Would you tell Meryl Streep not to do an accent? Then don't tell Sarah Polley to not be acerbic. Polley, when she was acting, before she moved to the director’s chair, was one of our sharpest actors and seeing her be dull in No Such Thing is a major letdown. 

I will say this for Hal Hartley, when he fails he fails spectacularly. No Such Thing is quite clearly a swing for the fences. Unfortunately, he struck out.

Movie Review: Death to Smoochy

Death to Smoochy (2002) 

Directed by Danny Devito

Written by Adan Resnick 

Starring Edward Norton, Robin Williams, Catherine Keener, Jon Stewart, Pam Ferris

Release Date March 29th, 2002

Published March 28th, 2002

I'm not one of those people who harbor a visceral hatred for kids show hosts. Frankly if you feel the need to, even jokingly, take the life of one of the Teletubbies, you need to examine your anger issues. Nonetheless if you are one of the degenerates who sign online petitions to have Barney drawn and quartered, you may be just the audience for Death To Smoochy.

Smoochy is, at first, the story of kid’s show icon Rainbow Randall. On TV, Randall is a paragon of childish virtue and off-screen he is a boozing, drugging womanizer who makes cash under the table selling prime space on his show for parents who want their kid on TV. After the IRS catches up to Randall, he loses his show and eventually his mind. Enter Sheldon Mopes AKA Smoochy the Rhino played by Edward Norton. Smoochy is a good-hearted vegetarian who spends his free time performing his unusual kid’s songs at methadone clinics. After being discovered by a TV executive played by Catherine Keener Smoochy moves onto primetime TV and becomes the sick obsession of Randall.

There are also subplots involving Jon Stewart's network executive and Danny Devito's talent agent conspiring with an evil charity organization to put on an ice show and something to do with Irish mobsters. Honestly once you get to the mobsters, the film has become so incoherent you don't care why they are in the movie. There are a few funny moments in Smoochy, especially Norton's weird and creepy kids songs that I pray are on the film’s soundtrack. Also, the film’s ice show climax is so amazingly elaborate and over the top it almost saves the picture.

Unfortunately those moments lack the proper context to be truly funny, and the films narrative structure, or lack thereof, ruins any of the films remaining comic potential.

Though Norton and Williams are funny, the supporting performances are not, especially Keener whose innate intelligence renders her unable to sell the film’s broadly comic setups. In the end, Death To Smoochy is an occasionally funny mess that wants to be a dark comedy, but turns out to be just plain dark.

Movie Review: Blade 2

Blade 2 

Directed by Guillermo Del Toro

Written by David S. Goyer

Starring Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, Ron Perlman, Leonor Varela, Norman Reedus

Release Date March 25th, 2002 

Published March 24th, 2002

Back in 1998, Blade modernized the tired vampire genre with pure balls to the wall adrenaline and Pre-Matrix quality fight scenes. Forget the brain-dead script and Stephen Dorff's screen chewing, Blade was awesome, pure entertainment and nothing more. Now comes the sequel, and it far surpasses the original. It's bigger, dumber, and even more entertaining.

Blade 2 reintroduces us to our hero, half-vampire, half-human, all-vampire hunter Blade, played by the ultracharismatic Wesley Snipes. He is searching for his mentor, Kris Kristofferson, who we believed to be dead in the first film. We come to find out that he is alive and has been turned into a vampire. Blade finds his mentor and rehabs him with a special serum. Whether the serum worked remains in question for the balance of the film, providing some fun suspense.

But that’s just the beginning. The vampire nation has offered Blade a truce and wants a face-to-face meeting to discuss a plague worse than vampires. It seems there is a mutated vampire virus called the Reaper strain that mutates vampires into stronger, more volatile beings, who feed on both humans and vampires. Blade realizes the reapers are a bigger threat than vampires and agrees to lead a team of vampires known as the Bloodpack, highly trained vamps who had been trained to hunt Blade but now must take orders from him. 

Thankfully, we are spared introductions to each member of the pack save for Reinhardt (Ron Perlmen) and Nyssa, played by the gorgeous Leonor Varela. Norman Reedus rounds out the cast as Blade's lackey and gadget guy. The film is stylish and sly with a fantastic soundtrack of rock-rap claptrap that hits all the right notes, always spiking right as Blade snaps someone’s neck or breaks someone’s limbs. The film is ultraviolent but in a completely cartoonish way, it’s a nod to its comic book roots.

Director Guiermillo Del Toro keeps the pace up and the plot to a minimum providing a perfect balance between gory violence and dark humor. The film never takes itself seriously and never asks the audience to do so either and it is that element that makes this film easier to enjoy than say Resident Evil or Tomb Raider. Blade doesn't care too much about story or character development, it relies on star Wesley Snipes to make the action credible and entertaining. Snipes exceeds expectation, oozing charisma and a dark sense of humor that the character lacked in the first film.

Blade 2 is endlessly entertaining though probably not for everyone. It definitely worked for me and I think it's one of the best films I've seen this year.

Movie Review Sorority Boys

Sorority Boys (2002) 

Directed by Wallace Wolodarsky

Written by Greg Coolidge

Starring Barry Watson, Michael Rosenbaum, Harland Williams, Melissa Sagemiller, Heather Matarazzo, Brian Posehn 

Release Date March 22nd, 2002

Published March 23rd, 2002 

I used to like college-based comedy. Films like Back to School and PCU are charming, funny films. But in 2002 we were treated to the genre at its worst with the god-awful Slackers and the shockingly worse Sorority Boys.

After getting kicked out of their fraternity, three idiot friends get the brilliant idea to dress up like girls and join a sorority. Barry Watson from TV's 7th Heaven is the lead doofus, backed up by Michael Rosenbaum from TV's Smallville and comedian Harland Williams. The guys aren't attractive enough to join a good sorority so they join a Sorority known as the doghouse. Because the girls are ugly, get it???

If you haven't already figured it out, our previously loutish leads will learn the lesson of not judging a book by its cover. They learn this oh-so original after school special message from your typical Hollywood group of girls who are only unattractive because the script says they are. Watson's love interest is Soul Survivor star Melissa Sagemiller, who is unattractive because she gets good grades and wears glasses.

There is not one original moment in this film, nor is there even one good chuckle. The film should have gone straight to the WB network as a marketing tie-in for its talented stars' more appealing series work. Both 7th Heaven and Smallville have more originality in the opening credits than Sorority Boys has in its entire 90-minute runtime.

Movie Review Showtime

Showtime (2002) 

Directed by Tom Dey 

Written by Keith Sharon

Starring Eddie Murphy, Robert DeNiro, Rene Russo, Kadeem Hardison, Nestor Serrano 

Release Date March 15th, 2002

Published March 14th, 2002 

The buddy cop movie is a dying genre. For every Rush Hour and Lethal Weapon there are any number of odd couple mismatched partners. One partner is the gruff vet, the other is the crazy wildman. They fly around big cities fighting drug dealers and terrorists, blowing up city blocks and killing any number of people with no consequence. The latest example of this mindless stupidity is the Deniro-Murphy mismatched buddy cop movie Showtime.

Robert Deniro is the gruff but lovable detective who breaks all the rules, and always gets his man. Deniro's most recent bust cost the city of Los Angeles millions of dollars. The only way to pay the debt is to team up with a pretty TV producer (Rene Russo) for a Cops-style reality TV show. Of course Deniro, while he's a good cop, isn't very friendly. The producer decides he needs a wacky partner. Enter Eddie Murphy as a beat cop who wants to be an actor. Eddie sees the TV show as a way to further his acting career. So now we have our gruff but lovable lead and wacky off the wall partner, now we need a colorful bad guy.

Well the bad guy in Showtime wasn't all that colorful, I honestly can't remember whether the baddies were drug dealer or terrorists. Actually, they might have been drug-dealing terrorists. It doesn't really matter.

Eddie Murphy is a spectacularly funny actor, but he needs to make better decisions. As the star of Beverly Hills Cop, Murphy was Mr. Attitude. He was the coolest guy in the room and he knew it. In Murphy's most recent roles he has allowed himself to become less confident, less cool. Murphy has allowed himself to be made the fool. Eddie's appeal is as the Bugs Bunny of the action movie. He is at his best when his character is one step ahead of everybody, cracking wise and kicking ass. In Showtime and his most recent work he has been buffoonish and it's not fun to watch. Like Willie Mays with the New York Mets or Michael Jordan with the Washington Wizards, Eddie Murphy has lost a step.

It isn't just Murphy that makes Showtime a dull movie. Combine Murphy's performance with Deniro's sleepwalking and the lame dying mismatched buddy cop movie and you get Showtime. 

Movie Review Resident Evil

Resident Evil (2002) 

Directed by Paul W.S Anderson

Written by Paul W.S Anderson 

Starring Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Eric Mabius, James Purefoy, 

Release Date March 15th, 2002 

Published March 15th, 2002 

I hate science fiction!

If it's not Star Wars or Star Trek: Next Generation, it's almost guaranteed I'm going to hate it. So you're probably wondering why I would subject myself to the Sci-fi schlock of Resident Evil. Maybe I'm a movie masochist. Or maybe I'm open-minded enough to see a film before I judge it. Or maybe I heard Milla Jovavich gets naked and I'm just a perv.

Resident Evil is the latest video game-to-movie adaptation, a combination that has yet to yield a solid effort. It's the oh so original story of an evil, futuristic corporation that develops evil biological weapons because they are a corporation and they are evil. After a break-in leads to a biological weapon being deployed in the evil corporation's evil underground lab, killing thousands of employees, the company's evil supercomputer locks down the facility. The company then sends in their crack security team to investigate. Well, investigate or just blow stuff up and die weird painful deaths, it's all in how you look at it.

That leaves our heroine Milla Jovavich to fight the evil supercomputer which is a combination of Hal from 2001 and the little girl from Poltergeist. She's not just fighting the computer though; there are also the zombified corpses of the evil corporation's former employees.

All of which makes Resident Evil a weird amalgamation of George Romero's Living Dead and every bad science fiction movie of the last 4 years from Hollow Man to Ghosts Of Mars. The most egregious are the direct lift from Ghosts of Mars. I kid you not, Resident Evil lifts an entire scene directly from Ghosts.

Milla Jovovich is a talented actress and she does all she can with the material she is given. The same goes for her co-star, Girlfight's Michele Rodriguez, who hits all the tough girl poses that in a better film might make her a viable choice for an action leading lady.

Resident Evil isn't the worst video game adaptation, that title still belongs to Super Mario Bros. and Tomb Raider. That's about the nicest thing I can say about Resident Evil.

Movie Review Kissing Jessica Stein

Kissing Jessica Stein (2002)

Directed by Charles Herman-Wurmfeld

Written by Heather Juergensen, Jennifer Westfeldt

Starring Heather Juergensen, Jennifer Westfeldt, Scott Cohen, Jackie Hoffman, Tovah Feldshuh, Michael Ealy, Jon Hamm 

Release Date March 13th, 2002 

Published September 18th, 2002 

When it comes lesbian relationships in film, we generally get distracted by the sex stuff and the relationship aspect gets lost. That is not the problem with the comedy Kissing Jessica Stein. In fact you would be hard pressed to find many problems in this wonderful comic romance. Written by and starring Heather Juergensen and Jennifer Westfeldt, and adapted from their stage play, Lipschtick, Kissing Jessica Stein is the non PC story of two straight women who begin a tentative lesbian romance. 

Helen (Juergensen) is an art gallery owner who has dabbled in bisexuality but is first glimpsed cheating on a jerk boyfriend in the middle of a gallery show. Helen is tiring of the meaningless sex and is exhausted of men so she places a personal ad seeking a woman. Helen's ad catches the eye of a copy editor named Jessica (Westfeldt) almost by accident. As Jessica and some friends are glancing over the personals they come across an ad in which there is a quote from Jessica's favorite poet. While Jessica's friends dismiss the ad after finding it's a women, Jessica finds herself strangely intrigued. In a move that totally goes against her conservative nature, Jessica answers the ad.

Helen and Jessica hit it off and thus begins a series of funny, sweet moments of a budding relationship. The film is well written and well acted. It's no surprise that Juergenson and Westfeldt, who have been doing this material for a long time, have chemistry unmatched by many straight romantic comedy couplings.

The supporting cast is as strong as the two leads, especially veteran actress Tovah Feldshuh as Jessica's mother. The role could have been a sitcom knockoff of a stereotypical overbearing Jewish mother. Instead, Feldshuh brings a wonderful calmness and ease to her performance and has one extraordinary scene with Westfeldt as she finally opens up about the new relationship that is funny, smart and touching.

Kissing Jessica Stein never gets overly caught up in the sexuality of Helen and Jessica's relationship, at least not in the sleazy B-movie way most lesbian relations are treated. Sex is an issue in their relationship but it isn't the only issue. While the ending left me cold, I still really liked Kissing Jessica Stein, one of the best comedies of the year.