Movie Review The Girl Next Door

The Girl Next Door (2004) 

Directed by Luke Greenfield

Written by Luke Greenfield, Stuart Bloomberg, 3 Other Screenwriters

Starring Emile Hirsch, Elisha Cuthbert, Timothy Olyphant, James Remar, Paul Dano 

Release Date April 9th, 2004 

Published April 10th, 2004

When do you think Hollywood ran out of original ideas? It's been awhile I know that, but I never imagined just how bad things were until I saw the latest commercial campaign for the teen sex comedy The Girl Next Door. The ad campaign actually touts the film’s lack of an original idea, calling the film American Pie meets Risky Business. This isn't the first unoriginal idea but it's the rare example of a film that doesn't try to hide it in some way. The Girl Next Door comes right out and admits that it has not one original idea and watching the film reinforces just that.

Emile Hirsch stars as Matthew. He’s class president, valedictorian and on his way to law school at Georgetown University. That is until he meets the titular girl next door, Danielle (Elisha Cuthbert). The two kids meet cute as Matthew spies on Danielle from his bedroom window. She catches him and turns the tables on him, taking him out for some public humiliation, the funniest moment in the film.

From there begins a rather dull movie courtship where the straight-laced Matthew comes out of his shell with the help of the wild child Danielle. Like every romantic comedy, there is a roadblock and this one is a doozy. It seems that in a previous life, Danielle was a pornstar and her past is catching up with her in the form of her former director Kelly (Timothy Olyphant). Kelly wants her back in front of the camera and will do anything to get her back. It's up to Matthew and a pair of his high school buddies to help her find a way out.

I will give the ad campaign of the film a little credit, it doesn't lie. The film does indeed lift liberally from both American Pie and Risky Business. In fact, Risky's writer-director Paul Brickman should be seeking a writing credit and some compensation for the direct rip-offs employed by director Luke Greenfield and writers David Wagner and Brent Goldberg. Simply switch the film’s porno storyline with Risky's hooker storyline and you have nearly the same film. 

Whereas Tom Cruise's character becomes a pimp in order to pay off Rebecca Demornay's debt to Joe Pantoliano, Emile Hirsch's Matthew directs a porn film with the help of Danielle's porn star friends to pay off her debt to Timothy Olyphant’s Kelly. Where Cruise and Demornay have sex on the subway, Hirsch and Cuthbert have sex in a limousine. And on and on.

There was one good thing about Girl Next Door and that was the lovely Elisha Cuthbert who, despite a weak script that does her few favors, manages to shine with a sweet and sexy performance. Cuthbert helps Hirsch's rather weak performance when they are on screen together, but when it's just Hirsch, the star of the terrific indie film The Secret Lives Of Altar Boys, he and the film struggle mightily. Hirsch may have a bright future ahead of him but he needs to choose his scripts better. More Alter Boys style stuff and no more teen sex comedies.

The Girl Next Door is yet another example of cynical Hollywood filmmaking that puts demographics ahead of actual filmmaking. This is a film that was approved in the pitch meeting by executives who didn't care if there was a good script as long as they had the right amount of T&A; to parade in front of the camera and enough familiar elements to lull audiences into mindless nostalgia. I can't register honest surprise about this film but I can lament it and decry it.

Movie Review Hidalgo

Hidalgo (2004) 

Directed by Joe Johnston

Written by Daniel Fusco

Starring Viggo Mortensen, Omar Sharif, C. Thomas Howell 

Release Date March 5th, 2004 

Published March 4th, 2004 

There is a much-abused phrase in Hollywood, you've seen it more than you can even remember. Disney abuses it more than any other studio by far. That phrase is "Based On A True Story.”

Hollywood loves this term because it can lend an air of credibility to a story that is rather blatantly dull or stupid. More often than not the basis of a true story is applied when a story revolves around a person that producers can only prove lived at some point in human history. The rest is a mishmash of hackneyed Hollywood cliché and directorial trickery.

Case in point the latest mediocre Disney "true story" Hidalgo starring Viggo Mortensen.

According to legend recorded by Frank Hopkins himself, Frank Hopkins and his horse Hidalgo raced and won all of the most dangerous and prestigious long distance races in the world. As we meet Frank in the movie, he is winning another race while humiliating a proper English gent played by C. Thomas Howell in an embarrassingly, hammy cameo. Hopkins has made a fortune off not only distance races but also being the fastest deliveryman in the West.

It is while delivering orders to a US military outfit that Hopkins witnesses the brutal massacre of Indians at the Battle of Wounded Knee. It was on the orders that Hopkins himself delivered that the massacre took place and the guilt destroyed him, turning him into a raging, pathetic drunk. No longer a racer, Frank takes a gig with Wild Bill's traveling West show where he humiliates himself daily by falling off his horse.

It is then that Frank is challenged to go to the Arabian Desert and take part in the most dangerous distance race in history, the Ocean of Fire. A race across the Arabian lands, through three countries worth of desert, sandstorms, locusts and triple digit temperatures that could cook a man in his saddle. With prodding from Hidalgo, your typical Disney horse with human characteristics, Frank hops a boat and heads for the desert.

Obviously, this is one of those perfectly Disney-fied adventure plots with plenty of PG derring-do and exotic locations. Director Joe (Jumanji) Johnston delivers on every mediocre cliché you expect from an adventure story of this type. This includes a powerful Arab sheik (Omar Sharif) PC'd up for mass consumption with just the right balance of cliched Arab savagery, religious tolerance and heroism. The sheik has your typically exotic daughter as a love interest for the heroic American and Johnston and screenwriter Joe Fusco even throw in an evil British chick as a symbol of Western imperialism. Oh, but don't forget, this is based on a "true story.”

I will say this for Johnston and cinematographer Shelly Johnson, they make Hidalgo look gorgeous. The racing scenes provide plenty of striking scenery that make up the most compelling moments. Of course, they can't be satisfied delivering just the compelling and interesting race so they interrupt it with a dull, predictable rescue scene when the sheik's daughter is captured by marauders.

In his first post-Aragorn outing, Viggo Mortensen initially shows some deadpan charm. Unfortunately, his best scenes are opposite C. Thomas Howell's hammy and hilarious cameo that can't help but make Mortensen look like gold. Mortensen's deadpan charm quickly turns dead and he's almost blown off the screen by his far more animated horse. Women will still find Mortensen's handsome, Old Spice commercial smile but I have to assume that when the film nears the two-hour mark eye candy must turn sour.

Overlong, cliched but pretty to look at, Hidalgo is a prototype Disney offering that we thought was in the past after last year’s terrifically fun Pirates of The Caribbean and Freaky Friday. Of course, mediocre crowd-pleasing is always easier than inventive and thus Hidalgo will find a nice comfortable spot in the Disney live action library next to Bicentennial Man and Armageddon.

Movie Review: Twisted

Twisted (2004) 

Directed by Phillip Kaufman

Written by Sarah Thorp 

Starring Andy Garcia, Samuel L. Jackson, Ashley Judd

Release Date February 27th, 2004

Published February 26th, 2004

I recently read a blind item in the trades about a producer who showed his new film, a thriller with A-list cast, to a group of friends. The producer was worried the film wasn't any good and hoped the friendly crowd could deliver some constructive notes. The crowd, including at least one professional critic, laughed derisively throughout the film. The suggestions the director was given about the film included dropping the film’s dramatic score and adding a voiceover that establishes the film as a parody rather than a thriller.

Now I'm not saying that that blind item referred to the new Ashley Judd serial killer movie Twisted, but being that the film is a laughably bad thriller with an A-list cast... Hmm…

Judd stars in Twisted as Jessica Shepherd, a newly promoted homicide cop. With help from her mentor and surrogate father, Lt. John Mills (Samuel L. Jackson), Shepherd moved up the ranks quickly but deservedly. As good as her life might seem Shepherd has issues that include heavy drinking and a penchant for one night stands with strangers. Her troubles likely stem from her father, a former cop who went on a killing spree just after Jessica was born. A killing spree that ended with her father taking his own life after killing her mother.

Jessica's first murder case is a real doozy, a serial killer whose signature is a cigarette burn on the victim’s hand. With her new partner Mike Delmarco (Andy Garcia), Jessica investigates a killer who happens to be murdering men that Jessica has slept with. Interestingly, on the nights that the murders happen, Jessica spends the night passed out after drinking. After the third or fourth time this happens, people begin to suspect Jessica is the killer.

Director Philip Kaufman is a pro who directed Quills, The Right Stuff, and The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Here all of the skill that he brought to those films is completely missing. In Twisted, he merely translates Sarah Thorp's weak script from paper to film. The script is an amalgam of serial killer clichés including, as Roger Ebert has dubbed it, the talking killer who reveals the evil plot, going on just long enough for the cops to arrive to arrest them.

There is also a twist, which I guess is required of a film called Twisted. Then again, the twist may be the only reason the film is called Twisted, nothing that happens in the film would lead you to calling the film by that name otherwise. Of course, they had to call it something and the titles Double Jeopardy, Kiss The Girls, and High Crimes were already taken.

When people complain that Hollywood has run out of original ideas, they can point to Twisted as the prime example of a film without an original one.

Movie Review Soul Plane

Soul Plane (2004) 

Directed by Jesse Terrero

Written by Chuck Wilson, Bo Zenga 

Starring Kevin Hart, Method Man, Snoop Dogg, Tom Arnold, Arielle Kebbel

Release Date May 28th, 2004 

Published May 27th, 2004 

Seeing as many films as I do, I can't tell you how many times a trailer has been better than the movie. That is most certainly the case with Soul Plane. It had a terrific trailer that evoked the best of the Airplane and Scary Movie series only to turn out even more unwatchable than the worst of the Naked Gun franchise.

Comedian Kevin Hart stars as Nashawn, a guy who had a really bad experience on an airplane ride. So bad that he was awarded a settlement so large he was able to start his own airline. NWA is Nashawn Wade Airlines (Niggas Wit Airplanes would have been funny but they didn't use it). It's the first airline aimed at African-Americans with all the stereotypical amenities. Airplanes with bouncing hydraulics, pimped colors and spinning hubcaps. The terminal is named for Malcolm X and has a fried chicken stand.

On the plane’s maiden voyage, Nashawn is joined by his cousin Muggsy (Method Man) who shows music videos in the plane, hosts a mile high nightclubn and runs cockfights in the baggage area. Muggsy also hires the pilot, Captain Mack (Snoop Dogg), whose fear of heights and proclivity for mind-altering mushrooms becomes a problem once the plane is in the air.

As for passengers, there is one white family on the plane, the Hunkee (pronounced Honky) family. Dad (Tom Arnold), Stepmom (Missi Pyle), son Billy (Ryan Pinkston) and daughter Heather (Arielle Kebbel). While Dad chases the kids around the plane, Billy gets a rap star makeover and Heather is seeking a boyfriend in the club. As for the stepmom, she is trying to find out if that legend about African-American men, you know the one, is true.

All of this sounds like it could be funny but in the hands of first time Director Jesse Terrero it's poorly executed. The script by Bo Zenga and Chuck Wilson feels like two completely different scripts combined to make one movie. One is a straight three act comedy with a linear story and subplots and the other is an outlandish Airplane-style sendup. Together they are a painfully misshapen unfunny collection of groan-inducing jokes crammed into a tremendously dull story of family togetherness and growing up. Huh?

I haven't seen Kevin Hart's standup act but it must be funnier than the many attempts to make him a mainstream star. Two failed sitcoms and now this horrendous movie, either Hart is not funny or he needs to fire his agent. Method Man on the other hand continues to impress me. His upcoming sitcom looks iffy but his role in How High and his limited work in this film shows a charismatic comic presence almost as funny as some of his raps as part of the Wu-Tang Clan.

It looked so funny in the trailer. But then how many times has that happened?

Movie Review Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed

Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed (2004) 

Directed by Brett Sullivan

Written by Megan Martin

Starring Tatiana Maslany, Emily Perkins

Release Date January 30th, 2004 

Published February 17th, 2004 

Why is it that so many crappy horror flicks get 2000+ screen rollouts while a number of very good horror films are sent straight to video? Films like House Of The Dead get major rollouts while brilliant horror films like May and the original Ginger Snaps were shuffled off to low-key video releases. This makes absolutely no sense and now with the release of Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed, we have another example of a brilliant horror film going to video as a number of bad movies crawl into theaters.

Brigitte (Emily Perkins) is back, having survived her sister Ginger’s (Katherine Isabelle) attack, which nearly killed her. Unfortunately, she too is now fighting the transformation. Using some kind of witch's brew, Brigitte is able to stave off her inner-werewolf. However, she has other problems, another werewolf is on her tail with thoughts of mating. As she dodges the werewolf she accidentally OD's on her potion and is mistaken for a junkie. This lands Brigitte in a drug clinic where, separated from her drugs, she can't fight the beginning transformations.

While in the clinic, she meets a strange girl named Ghost (Tatiana Maslany), who is in the clinic with her grandmother who had a curious accident. Ghost helps Brigitte escape and get her inner-werewolf under control. The girls escape to Ghost's family cabin where they make a last stand against the werewolf.

The setup is quick and easy to explain but there is so much more to Ginger Snaps 2 than its plot. The genius of Snaps is the subtle humor, the dark comic atmosphere and the serious horror film gore. These are some of the genre’s best blood-soaked horror scenes in a good long while. Director Brett Sullivan was the editor on the original Ginger Snaps and clearly he learned a lot while doing it. His touch and style perfectly evoke the first film without ever seeming like a direct copy.

The script by first time writer Megan Martin is whip smart, funny and scary and as played by the terrific cast it works as straight horror and ironic, hip dark comedy. There is a lot of subtext in the script about drug use and promiscuity and such but it's played with great wit and there are no lessons learned, or morals taught. Just a great horror comedy.

What really makes Ginger Snaps 2 work is the performance of Emily Perkins as Brigitte. For a horror film, she does a lot of emotion and a lot of real acting. This is no shrinking violet, Perkins really digs into this material and makes you believe every moment she's on screen that she is serious. Perkins is playing both straight horror and deft subtext and she does both very well. Tatiana Maslany as Ghost is equally effective in a far different role than Perkins. Maslany is playing the story on two different levels, as a scared kid and fascinated onlooker. To say anymore is to give away too much.

Fans of the original will be happy to hear that their beloved Katherine Isabelle is back as Ginger, though only in a cameo as a figment of Brigitte's imagination.

The only problem I have with Ginger Snaps 2 is its ending. The ending is surprising but it's not quite the ending audiences are hoping for. It functions as a setup for another sequel, which isn't exactly a bad thing given the high quality of the franchise thus far. Still, it’s a little too modern Hollywood for my taste. Ironically Ginger Snaps 2 was shot back to back with not a sequel but a prequel which will reunite Ginger and Brigitte in the 19th century.

Ginger Snaps 2 is yet another example of the ridiculousness of the Hollywood system. Large scale releases for House Of A Thousand Corpses or Cabin Fever infest theaters to lukewarm reactions but gems like Ginger Snaps languish on video store shelves. Rent it with the first Ginger Snaps and May the next time you see a major Hollywood studio unload some lame attempt at a horror film into your local multiplex.

Movie Review Gerry

Gerry (2002) 

Directed by Gus Van Sant

Written by Gus Van Sant

Starring Matt Damon, Casey Affleck 

Release Date February 14th, 2003

Published February 8th, 2004 

There has always been a hunger for films that challenge traditional cinematic form. Films that break with convention and deliver something that is diametrically opposed to Hollywood filmmaking. For the most part these challenging films came from Europe where the avant-garde arose as an artistic movement and a reaction to the encroachment of Hollywood formalism into European film markets. These challenging films are still being made but the hunger for them has died down, beaten back by the invention of the blockbuster and the big business that is Hollywood.

These films, however rare, are out there and Gerry from director Gus Van Sant is one of the most fascinating.

The film begins without credits. We simply open with light classical score and a long shot of a car on a lonely highway. This shot lasts for three or four minutes before switching to a shot of our two protagonists played by Casey Affleck and Matt Damon as they continue to drive. No words are spoken. Finally, they reach their unspecified destination, a hiking trail through the desert. Still no words are spoken.

It isn't until the 8-minute mark that a line of dialogue is spoken but it's not very enlightening except as a minor sign of things to come. A sign that says this is not a film where dialogue is going to explain, enlighten or entertain. As the two friends continue their journey, they bail on the hiking trail for a supposed shortcut before finally becoming lost in the desert. All of the film’s dialogue act as conversations that have already started before we met the two characters. There is a joking conversation about Wheel Of Fortune, some odd conversation about what I think was a video game, but not anything that is going to lead to a conventional plot.

The lost in the desert situation is no Blair Witch exciting fight for survival or wacky slice of life ala some ridiculous sitcom. It simply is what it is, two guys lost in the desert looking for a way out. The two characters never react the way you would expect from a conventional plot. There is very little whining or carrying on. Indeed neither character seems all that concerned about surviving or dying. If they are concerned they keep it to themselves, it's up to us in the audience to fill in the blanks.

In it's minimalism of one handheld camera, sparse dialogue and characters, Gerry is a direct challenge and reaction to the typical explain-it-all-style of the Jerry Bruckheimer era. No obvious explanatory dialogue that leads the audience to obvious conclusions, no quips and no filler before the next explosion of bullets. Gerry has none of those elements and goes to the very opposite extreme. For that I was willing to stick with and feel rewarded at the end. Challenged to create much of the movie in my own mind I was mesmerized by the film and it's techniques.

The films title is odd and not just in it's spelling of the oft-used name. In the film, both characters refer to one another as Gerry but one suspects that it is neither of their real names. In fact, Gerry is an in joke amongst Damon and Affleck's circle of friends. A “Gerry” is a fuck-up, someone who constantly screws up. A fitting title for two guys who manage to get lost in the desert in this day and age when everyone everywhere has a cellphone, pager, blackberry, and any myriad number of other electronic leashes to the outside world.

In that sense, what if the whole film is one big in-joke? What if Damon, Affleck and Van Sant simply went to the desert, film absolutely random shit and called it a movie? They put it together professionally with technical prowess in editing, shooting and scoring to make it look legitimate. Then released the film so that people like myself could rhapsodize about it's minimalist genius and it's influences garnered from Bela Tarr and Fassbinder and other people only snobs have ever heard of.

Whether or not we have been made a fool of, we will never know. I for one don't care if I have been duped. I enjoyed the opportunity to so actively watch the film. To take my mind in odd directions in order to fill in the empty passages that are filled with shots of the two actors walking and the sound of rock under foot. Gerry is a form of film meditation and I dug that about it. 

Movie Review Gang Tapes

Gang Tapes (2001) 

Directed by Adam Ripp 

Written by Adam Ripp

Starring Darris Love, Trivell 

Release Date February 1st, 2001

Published October 20th, 2002 

It’s been called the movie “they” don’t want you to see. Some have compared it to the Blair Witch Project, for it’s shaky cam style and improvised dialogue. These are merely marketing concoctions that don’t do the film justice. What the film Gang Tapes really is, is the most truthful and shocking look at life in inner city Los Angeles.

As the film begins with vacation footage of some nameless white family, the audience wonders if they are watching the right movie. Then as quickly as the occurs the dread begins as the family on the tape begins to shed light on the situation, they are lost. Suddenly and violently the once happy family is gone, brutally car jacked, their fate unknown. The beginning of Gang Tapes is jarring enough but as the film develops, the shocks continue. The audience is given moments of calm, followed by horror that leads to more shocking realistic violence.

The film is the creation of Adam Ripp, a first time writer-director with more courage than talent. Ripp worked with actual gang members in the making of Gang Tapes, giving them a digital camera and a minimum of storyline to carry forward thru the film. The lone actor in the film is Darris Love whose minor television work is the experience amongst the amazing cast. A young man credited as Trivell is the film's focal point. Kris, a fourteen year old who has grown up worshipping the gang members in his neighborhood, is our eyes and ears behind the camera. 

As Kris gets deeper involved in gang life the audience is treated to more and more shocks and sadness. We witness Kris being beat into the gang, a ritual wherein the gang kicks and punches Kris until they feel he is tough enough to be a member. We see Kris and his idol Alonzo (Love) demonstrating how to make rock cocaine. And in the film's most shocking and hard to watch scene, Kris commits his first murder.

Gang Tapes is an amazing film, in style and subject. In style it is a likely unintentional homage to French cinema verite and the European Dogme 95 movement. Indeed Gang Tapes meets most of the requirements of a Dogme film, save for it’s use of weapons and director Adam Ripp being credited as the director. More than likely the style of the film has more to do with budget than obscure European film movements but the similarities are striking if you are a scholar.

In subject Gang Tapes makes every other film of the gang genre seem superficial in comparison.

Much like the best of early 90’s Gangsta Rap, Gang Tapes shines a light on inner city gang activities that many would like to ignore. People such as Los Angeles Congressional Representative Maxine Waters who would rather staple her eyes shut than acknowlege the gang activity that takes place in the very district from which she was elected.

The film could stand for a little more editing and a tighter pace but it is nevertheless challenging, shocking and sad. This is a brilliant and valuable work of art.