Ghost Town
Ghost In The Mush-Sheen
Trailers & Mo
From the man that wrote the screenplay for
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (read into that however you likes) comes a film that greatly suffers from genre personality disorder.
David Koepp's Ghost Town starts off as a light comedy that turns into a light romantic comedy, then into a not so light romantic drama and finally ends up being a light drama,
complete with aliens in a Mayan temple. This roller coaster of mishmashed emotions serves as
Ricky Gervais' first starring role in a Hollywood movie, after bit parts that stood out in such poop as
Stardust,
Night At The Museum and
For Your Consideration. Gervais, best know for playing
David Brent on the UK version of The Office, is a solid choice to play wise-cracking, people loathing dentist Bertram Pincus (can you say bestest character name of the year?), cause he's the only one keeping this film afloat. He's relatively unknown in the States, but for audiences who go and see this fluff piece, hopefully that won't be the case anymore. After having a near-death experience at the hospital, Gervais makes like
Haley Joel Omelette and sees dead people. His
Bruce Willis is
Greg Kinnear, a cheating husband who got ran over by a bus, and his
Olivia Williams (where the ef have you been, you cutie pie?) is
Téa Leoni, the widow that Kinnear wants Gervais to prevent from marrying some d-bag. He's reluctant at first, but eventually takes on the assignment, and in the process starts falling for Leoni, as well as re-evaluating his wise-cracking, people loathing ways. Didn't see that coming, did you? There are a bunch of other ghosts (including Cameron from
Ferris Bueller's Day Off!) begging Pincus to help them as well, but there's so little attention paid to them until the very end that it feels kinda tacked on. To make up for it, they should turn this idea into a TV sitcom, where Ricky G helps dead people. Maybe they can make Haley Joel Omelette his partner and then we can see them seeing dead people! DEAD PEOPLE!!!!
The Song Doesn't Remain The Same: although the choice of using the Beatles 'I'm Looking Through You' in the title sequence was a fine one, we think they missed a golden opp to use the Specials' classic song that shares the same name as the film's title [
d]
Verdictgo:
Sum Merit But No Stinkin BadgesBattle In SeattleWTOh Snap!
Trailers & Mo
In 1999 the
World Trade Organization met in Seattle to discuss things and stuff about the organization, the world and trading (sounds juss as thrilling as the snooze-fest
Trade Federation scenes in the new
Star Wars movies, eh?). It was all poorly organized (sorry, there was no better word to use) and to make splatters worse, there were a zillion different groups protesting the meetings. What started off as simple civil disobedience, qwikly turned ugly, and bloody and gassy (not in a flatulence kinda way) and all hell broke loose. Windows were smashed, and so were faces, as the city was forced to send in the brute squad (
I am the Brute Suqad!). First time director
Stuart Townsend (aka, Mr
Charlize Theron and
the guy who was originally suppose to play Aragorn in LOTR) takes this high-charged event and throws a bunch of fictional characters around it to humanize the experience. There's a pregnant lady (Charlize, doing Stuart a favor) caught in the maelstrom between the brute squad (led by her not so brute on-screen hubby
Woody Harrelson, and his pretty brute pretty boy pal
Channing Tatum) that was sent in by the frantic mayor (
Ray Liotta), who are all trying to keep the peace with the protesters (
Martin Henderson,
Michelle Rodriguez,
André 3000 and
Jennifer Carpenter), whilst the action is being captured on TV by the local news hottie (
Connie Nielsen). Townsend intercuts actual footage from the melee into the film to heighten the realism and the drama, which was a wise idea considering how staged his reenactments appear. Like with
Ghost Town, little focus is thrown on the minor players who are of more interest. The WTO peoples are pushed into the background (unless you count a few scenes with an angry
Rade Serbedzija), and it never becomes clear as to what they're doing that's so wrong to provoke these protests in the first place. Nonetheless, it's worth a look, so this lady wonth protest too much
Keep Battalin': there'll be another Battle In Seattle this year, but this one
pits the Gonzaga Bulldogs vs the UCONN HuskiesVerdictgo:
Jeepers Worth A PeepersHounddogYou Aint Nothing... Much
Trailers & Mo
Yes, this is the
Dakota Fanning gets raped movie. Most of the film you're waiting for it to happen, and then when it does, there's the rest of the film and that's purty much that. Yep. And before and after the shocking deed is done, which isn't so shocking cause you know it's coming, Dakota Fanning sings Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' like 10 nillion thymes and
Piper Laurie yells and
David Morse is creepy, then is struck by lightning and becomes stoopid and naked, and
Robin Wright Penn comes and goes and there's a bunch of nice helpful African Americans being nice and helpful to the white folk cause this is the South of olde and then the credits roll
EnTitled: here's our picks for the top twenty films where the title is based on a song (we're not including movies where the song was created juss for a movie, like
Purple Rain, or are featured in a musician's biopic, like
La Bamba, or are other films found in this post, cause they wouldn't even crack the top 100)
1.
Stand By Me - Ben E King
2.
Blue Velvet - Bobby Vinton
3.
Boys Don't Cry - The Cure
4.
Pretty In Pink - The Psychedelic Furs
5.
Mister Lonely - Bobby Vinton
6.
Man On Fire - Andy Gibb
7.
Boogie Nights - Heatwave
8.
Roxanne - The Police
9.
Sixteen Candles - The Crests
10.
Pump Up The Volume - M|A|R|R|S
11.
Valley Girl - Frank Zappa
12.
Pieces of April - Three Dog Night
13.
Man On The Moon - REM
14.
Some Kind of Wonderful - The Drifters or Grand Funk Railroad
15.
Strange Brew - Cream
16.
24 Hour Party People - Happy Mondays
17.
Can't Buy Me Love - Beatles
18.
Less Than Zero - Elvis Costello
19.
(My Own) Private Idaho - The B52s
20.
Walk Like A Man - Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons
what say you?
although don't say anything if yer top pick is
Pretty WomanVerdictgo:
Sum Merit But No Stinkin BadgesSeattle and
Dog open in limited release, while
Ghost Town will play at a theater near jews starting tomorrow
until next thyme the balcony is clothed...
