Movie Review: Avenging Angelo

Avenging Angelo (2003) 

Directed by Martin Burke 

Written by Steve Mackall 

Starring Sylvester Stallone, Madeleine Stowe, Anthony Quinn, Raoul Bova, Billy Gardell

Release Date May 20th, 2003 

Published July 5th, 2003 

It's been a rough couple years for Sly Stallone's film career. The man has gone from the world’s biggest box office draw to holding his film premieres at Blockbuster Video. Nevertheless, Stallone is still a huge star internationally and whether or not he is successful in the US, he can make movies for international audiences for the rest of his career. Successful money making movies that American audiences almost never see. His latest is a romantic-mob comedy Avenging Angelo.

As you watch the film you can hear the Hollywood pitch meeting, "It's When Harry Met Sally meets The Sopranos.” Stallone is Frankie, a mob bodyguard for an aging Mafioso played by Anthony Quinn. Employing both a flashback and voiceover from Stallone we learn that Quinn's character had a child years ago but was forced to give the child up because of a vendetta from his enemies. Now as Quinn is dying he is ready to tell his daughter the truth.

The daughter is an unhappy housewife named Jennifer (Madeline Stowe). She’s married to a cheating husband who forces her to send her son to military school. After finally catching her husband cheating with a close friend, she throws him out. At the same time the mob boss has passed on and sent Frankie to deliver the news to Jennifer. Surprise, your real father was a mob boss! Not only that but the secret is out that you are a mob princess and there are people out to kill you. So, Frankie moves into her home to protect her.

There are some very funny moments in Avenging Angelo, especially in the chemistry of Stallone and Stowe. Though Stowe's performance is somewhat on the shrill side, she is tempered by Stallone's relaxed, confident performance. Unfortunately, the story that surrounds the performances is contrived and unconvincing. Once Stowe accepts her new persona as a mobster's daughter, she starts talking about whacking people and taking on the family business. Apparently, the transformation from WASPy housewife to Italian mob mother is only a script contrivance away.

Director Martyn Burke is yet another in a long line of directors who are excellent technicians but not great directors. Burke is a great choice if you want a straight transfer of script to screen but if you're looking for innovation, for a director to bring some spice to a familiar story, you should look elsewhere. See Avenging Angelo for Anthony Quinn. While this film may not be the perfect coda for his amazing career, it was nevertheless his last film and that makes it historic. That Stallone and Stowe make the film mildly entertaining around him is a nice bonus.

Movie Review Jeepers Creepers 2

Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003) 

Directed by Victor Salva

Written by Victor Salva 

Starring Ray Wise, Justin Long, Nicki Aycox 

Release Date August 29th, 2003 

Published August 28th, 2003 

I can remember clearly not expecting much from the first Jeepers Creepers movie and being quite surprised by how much I enjoyed it. What was most surprising was the character development--most horror films don't have any. Justin Long and Gina Phillips playing brother and sister in the movie was refreshing and the two had a familiar, brother sister chemistry that I enjoyed. 

Jeepers Creepers developed two likable, believable lead characters for actors Justin Long and Gina Philips. What also worked was director Victor Salva's creative homage to Spielberg's little seen classic Duel, a film that has long deserved cult status. It wasn't a great film but it had the right mix of horror movie scares and knowing humor. For the sequel, director Salva returns without any of the elements of the first film, save for a cameo by Long, and makes another standard issue crappy sequel right off of the Hollywood assembly line. He didn't even use the creepy song that was a supposedly critical part of the first film.

Traveling down a lonesome backwoods highway, a group of teenagers are singing (as teens are so apt to do) about the big game they just won. Suddenly, a tire blows and the team's coaches and the bus driver make a grisly discovery--a sharp throwing star-like device made from human flesh and bone. Undeterred, it's back on the bus and not long before yet another fleshy weapon fells the intrepid bus.

Meanwhile as the adults parse the inanity of the horror plot, a group of central casting's biggest cliches argues over things even more inane and ridiculous than the film's plot. As the kids become aware of the trouble they are in, we watch a couple of rather unintentionally funny moments as the adults are picked off one by one by the flying demon we in the audience know is the Creeper. It is not until one of the cheerleader chicks passes out and has a very convenient psychic vision that the cliche kids figure out what they are dealing with. Not that knowing it does any good.

Parallel to the kids on the bus is the story of a farmer played to great unintentional comic effect by Ray Wise (better known as Leland Palmer to Twin Peaks fans). Wise chews the scenery as his son is picked off by the Creeper in the scene that played well in small bites in the film's trailer. After losing his kid, the farmer goes all MacGyver/Rambo and sets out to kill the Creeper.

The film's big mistakes are innumerable, from script to cast to effects, but the biggest problem is the Creeper himself, who was largely unseen in the original. For the first 30 or so minutes of the first film, I thought the truck was the bad guy. In Jeepers Creepers 2there are extended shots of the Creeper's face that show him to be a 1930s cartoon character come to life. (I swear I saw this guy stalking Porky Pig in black and white.) This demystifying of the Creeper lessens his effectiveness to be scary and when he makes facial gestures and mimes, he reminds the audience of Freddy Krueger (and a far better horror film playing in the theater next door.)

What Freddy or Jason lost in becoming the focal point of their respective series was made up for in the personality department--Freddy with his horrible quips and puns and Jason's miming and head tilts. The Creeper has no such hook.

The film also establishes certain rules for the Creeper and then proceeds to defy them. Supposedly, he feeds on fear yet, when he swoops off with the team's coach, the guy had no idea there was anything to be afraid of. The Creeper murders numerous people offscreen who seem to have been clueless to his existence before he killed them. The Creeper is supposedly out for particular body parts but he still kills at random.

Pointing out plot holes in a horror film is like shooting fish in a barrel, so I must report the few good things in Jeepers Creepers 2. I really enjoyed Ray Wise's comic scene chewing; I realize that the humor his character creates is unintentional but it's still the best part of the film. Wise's character makes the films ending its most effective moment, even if it is, as I said, unintentionally humorous. The other good scene in the film is a dream sequence, which gives the characters a little plot update. It's an extremely convenient plot device, totally random and hackey from a screenwriting perspective, but it is well shot and Justin Long's cameo is a nice reminder of the first film's shocker climax.

It seems any film with a "2" behind the title has sucked big time this summer and Jeepers Creepers 2 is yet another example of that. Does this mean that Hollywood will make fewer sequels? No. Does this mean they will try to make them better? No. What does it mean then, it means there are plenty more crappy sequels to come and likely one of them will be bad enough to make you forget how bad Jeepers Creepers 2 was.

Movie Review My Boss's Daughter

My Boss's Daughter (2003) 

Directed by David Zucker

Written by David Dorfman 

Starring Ashton Kutcher, Tara Reid, Terrence Stamp, Andy Richter, Molly Shannon 

Release Date August 22nd, 2003 

Published August 24th, 2003 

A lot has been written recently about Ashton Kutcher, mostly about his romance with Demi Moore. For me though what was most interesting is that despite his successful film career, he recently signed on for two more seasons of TV's That 70's Show. Whether it's because he loves the show and his cast mates or it's merely career insurance against films like My Boss's Daughter is up for question. It's nice to see that his temporary tabloid celebrity hasn’t gone to his head. It has however gone to the heads of the Hollywood executives who leech off such celebrities to help empty their shelves of trash such as My Boss's Daughter, a film that has collected two years of dust for a reason.

In My Boss's Daughter, Kutcher is a hapless book editor who dreams of a promotion and a chance to date the boss's daughter Lisa (Tara Reid). The boss Mr. Taylor (Terrence Stamp) is a severe taskmaster who fires people for sport including his secretary Audrey (Molly Shannon) for making bad coffee. When Tom bumps into Lisa in the hallway after a rather brutal encounter with her father, she asks him to come over to her place. Unfortunately Tom mistakes the invitation as a date, actually Lisa has a boyfriend and Tom has just volunteered to house sit for his boss while she goes out.

When poor Tom arrives for what he thinks is his date he finds his boss and quickly realizes his mistake. Instead of getting close to Lisa his night will be taken up with the boss's prize Owl. But that's not all, once the Boss is gone his no good son Red (Andy Richter) shows up. He is followed by the former secretary who came to get her job back, and then it's a drug dealer named T.J who has some business with Red.

Naturally, all of these people wreak havoc while Tom tries desperately to maintain the house and the bird. Thing's go from bad to worse when Lisa comes home and Tom has to hide the various destructive elements that have converged on the house.

For a short time in the middle of My Boss's Daughter director David Zucker actually strings together a series of very funny gags. Both Andy Richter and Molly Shannon have some very funny moments and Kutcher manages to play well off of them. What the film never manages however is a consistent storyline. The plot is entirely incoherent and most of the humor is never in any sort of context, that some gags manage to work on their own is a tribute to the director who has always had a way with a good gag.

Sadly, the talented director of the gag movies Baseketball, Naked Gun and Airplane chooses to play too much of My Boss's Daughter straight. The film could have functioned on the same level as Naked Gun et al had the director simply tossed out the conventional romantic plot, put in a few more sight gags and one liners and allowed his talented cast to fly off the handle the way we know they can. 

Kutcher, Richter, Shannon and even Terrence Stamp, who's roles usually tend toward the more serious of British drama's, show a great chemistry and comic timing that with some massaging by the director could have been an effective parody. But it never materializes and what is left with is a number of funny gags, some horribly misguided gags and an ending that is an absolute trainwreck that threatens to destroy what little goodwill the film had earned.

For the talented cast I can put aside the trainwreck but the missed opportunity of My Boss's Daughter is quite sad.

Movie Review Marcy X

Marci X (2003) 

Directed by Richard Benjamin 

Written by Paul Rudnick 

Starring Lisa Kudrow, Damon Wayans, Christine Baranski, Richard Benjamin

Release Date August 22nd, 2003 

Published August 21st, 2003 

An Open Letter to Hollywood

After sitting through the Gigli's, the Kangaroo Jack's and the Lara Croft Tomb Raider's it's clear you don't care about the American filmgoer. You have made it clear that you have no respect for our intelligence, no respect for our taste, no respect period. I understand that but I still must ask one favor, if you listen to us, the American filmgoer just one time please listen to this plea. Never allow director Richard Benjamin to make another film as long as he lives. His latest effort Marci X is clearly the worst that you in Hollywood could possibly ever make, and if it's not God help us all.

Normally this is the part of the review where I give a synopsis of the plot but unfortunately, I couldn't find one. Somewhere buried beneath a series of witless skits and musical interludes is something about a rapper played by Damon Wayans and a rap record that has drawn the ire of a conservative congresswoman played by Christine Baranski. Lisa Kudrow plays the daughter of the owner of the record company who is forced to take over the company when her father has a heart attack.

That is the setup but the execution, oh if only I were using execution literally, is a horrendous satire of rappers and rap culture that is inane, offensive and tremendously unfunny. References to rappers such as Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg and Eminem are tossed in alongside characters that stand in for people such as Puff Daddy, Jennifer Lopez and Suge Knight. God help Richard Benjamin if Suge Knight sees this film, although that might not be a bad thing. Can you sue someone for just referring to you because the rappers whose names and images are dragged through this film deserve restitution.

It comes as no surprise that Marci X has the stink of two years on a studio shelf, only Satan himself could be responsible for this film ever making it to theaters. The film's jokes certainly show the film's age, despite an overdubbed reference to Martha Stewart's legal troubles, one scene is a sendup of Puffy and J.Lo's nightclub incident. Of course the whole thing is a horribly misconceived take on Ice T's Cop Killer crossed with the Two Live Crew censorship case both of which happened over ten years ago.

Not that a more up to date script could help this mess. Benjamin's direction is so amazingly witless that he manages to not merely embarrass Kudrow, Wayans and Baranski, but humiliate them. The stars were complicit in their humiliation but it's hard to believe three such talented performers could have ever imagined that what they were making was this bad. Proof of that is that Kudrow and Wayans actually manage to spark some chemistry when they are short-circuited by the film falling apart around them.

Roger Ebert has a line that I have cribbed a number of times to describe just how bad a film is. Ebert said of a film called Mad Dog Time that it did not improve upon the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time. Marci X is actually an insult to the very screen it's projected on. I beg Hollywood, please do not allow Richard Benjamin to inflict any further damage on the film-going public. Not many will see Marci X but for the brave fools who do, you owe it to them to make sure Mr. Benjamin never makes another film.

Movie Review Thirteen

Thirteen (2003) 

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke

Written by Catherine Hardwicke, Nikki Reed 

Starring Evan Rachel Wood, Nikki Reed, Holly Hunter 

Release Date August 20th, 2003 

Published December 30th, 2003 

I have a niece who just turned thirteen. Recently she's become moody, narcissistic and vain. Your basic, everyday teenager. She wants to pierce her ears in more than one spot, she wants a tongue ring and a belly ring and talks incessantly about boys at school, including a guy who she met who has a car. The thought of that boy and his car is more frightening than any horror film that I've ever scene.

Now having seen a film called Thirteen about a girl who looks and acts uncannily like my niece, I can't imagine a horror film that could approach what I saw in this first time feature from director Catherine Hardwicke.

Evan Rachel Wood stars as Tracy, a high school outcast until she meets a friend who changes her life. Her name is Evie (Nikki Reed) and she is the most popular girl in school. Evie is also a troubled girl from a broken home who steals, smokes and has more sexual experience than a thirteen year old girl should have. Tracy, also from a broken home, is attracted to Evie's freedom and envious of the attention lavished on her from everyone, including her younger brother Mason (Brady Corbett).

Evie herself envies Tracy's relationship with her mother Mel (Holly Hunter), so envious that eventually she starts calling Mel “Mom” and nearly moves in with the family. Evie's own home is with her flighty cousin Brook (Debra Kara Unger), a model/bartender with an addiction to plastic surgery. It's not hard to see why Evie has such a screwed up sense of self and why she projects so much love on Mel and Tracy.

As the friendship progresses, so does the teen’s experimentation in destructive behavior. While Evie seeks Mel's love and approval, Tracy has begun rebelling against her mom. Mel doesn't help matters by taking up with a former boyfriend, Brady (Jeremy Sisto), who's drug problem and abusive behavior are some of the seeds of Tracy's discontent. The kettle boils over with the reappearance of her absentee father played by D.W Moffat in an effective cameo.

Catherine Hardwicke began her career as a production designer on the film Laurel Canyon. In her first time helming a picture, Hardwicke utilizes her skills as a production designer to create a very intimate, even claustrophobic atmosphere. The subject matter is real and substantive, helped greatly by Hardwicke's co-writer Nikki Reed. It was the thirteen year old Reed, the daughter of a friend, that inspired the story of Thirteen. Searching for a way to help the thirteen year old Reed get back on track after being on the rebellious end of this same story, Hardwicke helped Reed write the screenplay that became the film.

Reed's contributions give gravity to the story. But the scariest part of Thirteen is what we in the audience bring to the story in terms of our own experiences. Everyone has a younger sister, or niece or cousin who went through similar experiences with drugs or alcohol or sex. My sister lived a good portion of this film and my newly teenaged niece is showing a rebellious side recently.

Evan Rachel Wood also brings real life experience to Thirteen. Wood was thirteen years old when she shot this film and her looks and attitude fit the character perfectly. Wood knows this rebellion, though to what extent is something only her family is aware of. Her performance is a revelation and the announcement of a real talent to watch. As for Nikki Reed, the first time actress gives a good account of herself opposite this group of veteran actors.

Finally, there’s Holly Hunter who has been skirting the edges of mainstream Hollywood for a number of years. Hunter seems to be at a point in her career where she can work when she wants and on what she wants. Her performance is passionate and heartbreaking and she is most deserving of her Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. This is Hunter's best performance since her 1988 Oscar nomination for Broadcast News.

It's been a renaissance recently for female filmmakers with directors such as Lisa Cholodenko, Rebecca Miller, Alison Anders and Sophia Coppola each making magnificent films. Add Catherine Hardwicke to that list. Thirteen is a terrific debut and Hardwicke is a director with a very bright future.

Movie Review: Uptown Girls

Uptown Girls (2003) 

Directed by Boaz Yakin

Written by Allison Jacobs 

Starring Brittany Murphy, Dakota Fanning, Marley Shelton, Donald Faison, Heather Locklear

Release Date August 15th, 2003

Published August 15th, 2003  

Much like Heath Ledger, Brittany Murphy is a star who was seemingly thrust upon us by the Hollywood-marketing machine. Ever since her debut as the sweetly naive makeover victim in Clueless, Murphy seemed destined for years of best friend supporting roles, and maybe a television career. Somewhere along the line that changed and Hollywood decided she would be a star. The first test of that stardom is the slight girl-power comedy Uptown Girls co-starring true star in the making Dakota Fanning.

In Uptown Girls, directed by Remember The Titans Boaz Yakin, Murphy is Molly Gunn. Molly is the trust fund party girl daughter of a dead rock star. With millions in the bank and an accountant paying the bills, Molly's life is filled with clubbing and sleeping. Molly did attend college but has never held a job. That all changes when Molly's accountant runs off with her millions, leaving her nothing.

Molly is forced to move in with friends, first her stuck up prissy best friend Ingrid (Marley Shelton) and then her non-threatening male best friend Huey (Donald Faison). Molly must also get a job for the first time in her life, which Huey helps her out getting. He sets her up in a job working as a nanny for a precocious 8- year old named Ray (Dakota Fanning). Ray is the daughter of a record company executive (Heather Locklear in a cameo), who doesn't want a nanny. Ray is the strangest 8-year old on the planet, neurotic on par with Woody Allen, a neat freak, and fan of classical music.

What do you bet that Molly's wild child will have conflict with Ray's orderly clean lifestyle? Not the most original premise and not the most original script either. This puts the onus on Murphy and Fanning to carry the film through it's dull familiarity. Neither actress sadly is up to that task. Both actresses work very hard but the strain shows in scenes of treacle sentimentality.

These problems should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the work of director Boaz Yakin who is one of the rare directors who aspires to mediocrity. His goal is the mid range. He goes for smiles where better directors go for laughs and melodrama where better directors go for actual drama. His Remember The Titans was a blockbuster that got better reviews than it deserved thanks to the charisma and talent of Denzel Washington. That film was stuffed with every sports movie cliche imaginable and topped of with more melodrama than daytime TV. The same could be said of Uptown Girls, though thankfully without the sports.

Movie Review Grind

Grind (2003) 

Directed by Casey La Scala 

Written by Ralph Sall 

Starring Mike Vogel, Vince Vieluf, Adam Brody, Jennifer Morrison, Tom Green 

Release Date August 15th, 2003 

Published August 15th, 2003

No one will believe me now but it's true. Years ago, I predicted that one day filmmaking would be completely taken away from the artists and given over to the marketing departments of major studios. They will operate without scripts and shot lists, only posters and taglines. They will thinly outline the most marketable elements necessary to sell the film to the selected demographic. They will test market everything right down to the individual lines of dialogue for the maximum marketability. Well the final product of this marketer's wet dream is finally in theaters. Grind is the very first movie made entirely by marketers and unspools like the 90 minute commercial it is.

Let's cut to the chase, it's about four guys who's goal in life is to become pro skaters like their hero Jimmy Wilson (one of the London brothers, it doesn't matter which one). They believe that if they can show Jimmy a tape of their skating he will invite them to join his tour. So like Grateful Dead fans, they begin tailing the tour in a beat up van. All the while they’re chasing female models cast as extras and just missing their hero at each stop.

Along the way there are unnecessary cameos by Tom Green, Bobcat Goldthwaite and Stephen Root doing an odd variation on his character from Office Space. The cameos do nothing to add to this mess and Green's appearance actually brings the film to a screeching halt. Green is such an oddball you must wonder if his character was a practical joke on his part that the producers didn't get and left in the film. I honestly believe Green is that smart, and I had a lot of time to develop that theory as the film grinded away through another banal skating exhibition.

I'm not sure if it was the way the film was edited or if the skating was that dull but I was bored even during what the film was all about, the skating. I haven't been on a skateboard since I was 14 years old and I broke my tailbone, but you don't have to be a fan of the X Games to be unimpressed by the skateboard exhibitions in Grind. Only a cameo by Tony Hawk shows any real talent. Of course the skateboard stuff might have been good but with the way it was shot and edited we won't ever know. What ended up on the screen was not very impressive.

Grind functions as a sports movie, it even has a big game at the end, though it's entirely inconsequential. The sports movie clichés are mixed in between fart jokes and banal dialogue about friendship and being a team.

The cast doesn't come off as badly as their skateboarding talent. Each of the four leads has a modicum of charm but any shred of good acting was left on the cutting room floor. Only Joey Kern as Sweet Lou makes any real impression, his relaxed humor provides the film’s few bright spots. Novice Eric Rivers has the film’s main role and at best I can say I didn't hate him. That said, his bland performance is exactly what the marketers were looking for, good looking, vague, banal and inoffensive. He's not so bad that it's memorable but he's not so good either.

As I write this Grind has failed miserably at the box office. It's a minor victory for artists over the marketing overlords, but they will be back. Armed with their demographics and market research.

Be afraid, be very afraid.