Arlington Road (1999)

July 10, 1999Posted in1990s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Theatrical, Thriller

*½/****
starring Jeff Bridges, Tim Robbins, Joan Cusack, Hope Davis
screenplay by Ehren Kruger
directed by Mark Pellington

by Bill Chambers Wrote Josh Young, in issue #493 of ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: "With studios now viewing the mid-level, Oscar-nominated directors as a luxury they can no longer afford, established auteurs…are facing increasingly stiff competition from slick young music-video turks who'll work for a mere pittance." From its galling opening sequence, I wondered what Arlington Road would look like had it been sired by someone more established in movies than the director of Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" clip. Director Mark Pellington is so mindful of 'the image' that writer Ehren Kruger's plotting eventually drops off the tightrope of credibility. Could a veteran filmmaker, comparable in status to the late Alan J. Pakula, swindle us more successfully with the same screenplay?

Wild Wild West (1999)

July 2, 1999Posted in1990s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Sci-Fi, Theatrical, Western

*/****
starring Will Smith, Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, Salma Hayek
screenplay by Brent Maddock, S.S. Wilson, Peter S. Seaman, and Jeffrey Price
directed by Barry Sonnenfeld

by Bill Chambers If you don't think Kevin Kline in drag is funny, wait 'til you see Will Smith in drag–it's even less funny. By the time Jim West (Smith) had disguised himself as a belly dancer to retrieve his captured comrade Artemus Gordon (Kline) from the clutches of evil Dr. Loveless (Kenneth Branagh), I was unequivocally bored with Wild Wild West, the new summer action-comedy from Men in Black director Barry Sonnenfeld. Is the Old West really a breeding ground for slapstick, anyway? If your answer is yes, you're probably thinking of Blazing Saddles, but Blazing Saddles was a parody of the western genre that also satirized the social climate of 1974, not a nineteenth-century romp in and of itself.

Hurlyburly (1998) – DVD

June 28, 1999Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Drama, DVD

***/**** Image A Sound A- Extras B+
starring Sean Penn, Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright Penn, Chazz Palminteri
screenplay by David Rabe, based on his play
directed by Anthony Drazan

by Bill Chambers The word "hurlyburly" describes the thought processes of Eddie the Cokehead to a tee. As played by Sean Penn, hypersensitive Eddie is a wind-up toy that threatens to stroll right off the tabletop–he just doesn't let things go. At first, his behaviour smacks of self-absorption, narcissism, solipsism ("My biggest distraction is me," he tells a loved one). Eventually, we come to understand that Eddie is an existential Sherlock Holmes, desperate to get to the bottom of, quite literally, everything. Hurlyburly is about how a place like Hollywood can eat a person like Eddie alive, because there's no there there. What you see is what you get.

Stephen King’s Storm of the Century (1999) – DVD

June 22, 1999Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Canada, Drama, DVD, Horror, Stephen King, Television, Thriller

Storm of the Century
**½/**** Image A Sound B+ Commentary A-
starring Tim Daly, Colm Feore, Debrah Farentino, Casey Siemaszko
teleplay by Stephen King
directed by Craig R. Baxley

by Bill Chambers Donald Trump probably hears it every time he gets a divorce: “Give me what I want and I will go away.” Stephen King, prolific author of books beautiful (The Green Mile serial) and banal (Insomnia), recently wove a miniseries, the TV equivalent of an “event movie,” around this loaded demand. For three consecutive nights during last February’s sweeps week, viewers tuned in to Storm of the Century wondering what the psychic, psychotic Linoge (Colm Feore) could possibly want from the townsfolk of a New England inlet on the eve of a blizzard loosely inspired by the one that was christened “storm of the century” when it passed through the Eastern seaboard in 1993.

Gods and Monsters (1998) [Collector’s Edition] – DVD

June 14, 1999Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Biopic, Drama, DVD, UK

***/**** Image A Sound B Extras A-
starring Ian McKellen, Brendan Fraser, Lynn Redgrave, Lolita Davidovich
screenplay by Bill Condon, based on the novel Father of Frankenstein by Christopher Bram
directed by Bill Condon

by Bill Chambers Retired filmmaker James Whale (an uncanny Ian McKellen) invites his gardener, a young ex-Marine named Clay Boone (Brendan Fraser), into the drawing-room for drinks and cigars. The scene purposely recalls the one from Whale’s The Bride of Frankenstein in which Karloff’s Creature accepts a lonely blind man’s hospitality, only to sour things by erupting at the sight of an open flame because he’s terrified of fire. Likewise, hulky Clay cuts short his time with Whale when the director’s conspicuous, some might say flaming, homosexuality begins to disgust him. “Same difference,” James tells Clay. “Fear and disgust. All part of the same great gulf that stands between us.”

Love & a .45 (1994) – DVD

June 9, 1999Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Crime, DVD, Romance, Thriller, ZERO STARS

Love and a .45
ZERO STARS/**** Image B Sound B+ Extras A-
starring Gil Bellows, Renee Zellweger, Rory Cochrane, Jeffrey Combs
written and directed by C.M. Talkington

by Bill Chambers Call it Naturally Boring Killers. Scaredy-cat, white-trash lovers Watty (Gil Bellows) and Starlene (Renee Zellweger) are so devoid of personality that, while on the lam, they keep talking about the exploits of other famous outlaw couples (Bonnie and Clyde, for instance). A pop detachment datestamps the piece: In 1999, 1994’s alternately violent and ironic Love and a .45 seems quaint. It’s also intolerable.

Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace Illustrated Screenplay – Books

May 19, 1999Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Books About Movies, Star Wars

written by George Lucas
FFC rating: 6/10

by Bill Chambers Chiefly, I bought Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace Illustrated Screenplay a week before the movie opened because I wanted to know what kind of screenwriter is George Lucas. (It was also the most desirable life-preserver I could grab while caught in the recent tidal wave of Star Wars hype.) The book wound up a handy reference manual as I wrote my review of the finished film, but that doesn’t justify its $21 (Canadian) sticker price. (It can be had for much less online.)

Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999)

May 18, 1999Posted in1990s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Star Wars, Theatrical

This one's pretty rough, folks; mea culpa. Reprinted for posterity and completism, since Walter reviewed the other two. Some minor edits made for clarity.-BC

**/****
starring Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Potrtman, Jake Lloyd
written and directed by George Lucas

by Bill Chambers Forgoing my typical formula in an effort to write something that stands out from the pack. I can't promise not to spoil anything, but I will do my best to avoid giving too much away.

Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) – DVD

May 12, 1999Posted in1990s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, DVD, Sci-Fi, Star Trek, Thriller

*½/**** Image A Sound A+
starring Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner, F. Murray Abraham, Anthony Zerbe
screenplay by Michael Piller
directed by Johnathan Frakes

by Bill Chambers Stardate: 12/13/98 Everything about this ninth entry in Star Trek's feature-film franchise seems on the cheap, from its Roger Corman-grade special effects (the series' worst since Star Trek V: The Final Frontier) to its highly derivative and ugly ad campaign (the poster is nearly identical to that for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country). But Michael Piller's not-even-half-baked screenplay should ultimately claim responsibility for the failure of Star Trek: Insurrection. I'm about to give the same unsolicited advice to Trek producer Rick Berman that I've given to the financiers of James Bond movies: it's time to breathe life back into this workhorse by hiring solid genre writers and a real director. While we're at it, put that visor back on La Forge!

Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies – Books

May 9, 1999Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Books About Movies

Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies
FFC rating: 9/10
edited by Mark C. Carnes

by Bill Chambers Steven Spielberg’s nineteenth-century set Amistad was criticized in the pages of Roger Ebert’s “Movie Answer Man” for its characters’ use of the greeting “Hello,” an uncommon conversation-starter until well after the introduction of the telephone. Experts are wont to nitpick such details, and the collection Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies has provided a panel of experts a forum for their criticisms of so-called fact-based motion pictures. For trivia buffs like myself, who learn as much from what a movie gets wrong as from what it gets right, the book is page after fascinating page of Hollywood getting caught taking liberties great and small.

You’ve Got Mail (1998) – DVD

May 5, 1999Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Romance

**½/**** Image A Sound B+ Extras B+
starring Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Greg Kinnear, Parker Posey
screenplay by Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron
directed by Nora Ephron

by Bill Chambers I'm no grammarian, but AOL's syntactical redundancy of a catchphrase "You've got mail!" has always been nails-on-a-chalkboard for me. Nora Ephron's You've Got Mail the movie is somewhat redundant, too: It bears more than a passing resemblance to the 1993 Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan-Ephron outing Sleepless in Seattle while also being the second remake of Ernst Lubitsch's The Shop Around the Corner, which I'm embarrassed to admit I've never seen. (Have since rectified.-Ed.)

The Matrix (1999)

April 3, 1999Posted in1990s, Action, Australia, Authors: Vincent Suarez, Martial Arts, Sci-Fi, Theatrical

***/****
starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving
written and directed by Lana and Lilly Wachowski (née The Wachowski Brothers)

by Vincent Suarez There's an early moment in The Matrix when Keanu Reeves's character retrieves contraband from a hollowed-out copy of one of the canonical texts of Postmodernism, Simulacra and Simulation, in which Jean Baudrillard suggests that modern reality is little more than a series of items and experiences replicating all that has come before; that ours is a reality comprising resemblances. It's details like these which elevate The Matrix above the vast majority of recent science-fiction films. Yet, like the strain of contemporary philosophy informing it, The Matrix is full of inconsistencies and contradictions, holes you could drive a truck through… But it's a scenic drive.

Analyze This (1999)

March 8, 1999Posted in1990s, Australia, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Crime, Gangster, Robert De Niro, Theatrical

**½/****
starring Robert DeNiro, Billy Crystal, Lisa Kudrow, Chazz Palminteri
screenplay by Peter Tolan and Harold Ramis and Ken Lonergan
directed by Harold Ramis

by Bill Chambers Robert De Niro is not a comedian. He used this to his advantage in what is arguably his best performance, as The King of Comedy's Rupert Pupkin. In that 1982 media-age satire from Martin Scorsese, a film that becomes more prophetic with each passing year, Pupkin is a struggling comedian obsessed with talk-show host Jerry Langford (a self-parodying Jerry Lewis) and the thought of appearing on his program. Pupkin's routines, however, are painfully unfunny; moreover, he is blithely unaware of their mediocrity. That his jokes don't sound like they were written to bomb (they're like warmed-over Henny Youngman one-liners) is because of De Niro's desperate delivery–the actor has awful comic timing in his bones.

Jackie Chan’s First Strike (1996) + Rush Hour (1998) [New Line Platinum Series] – DVDs

March 1, 1999Posted in1990s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Crime, Drama, DVD, Hong Kong, Martial Arts, Thriller

First Strike
**½/**** Image B Sound A-
starring Jackie Chan, Chen Chun Wu, Jackson Lou
screenplay by Stanley Tong, Nick Tramontane, Greg Mellott, and Elliot Tong
directed by Stanley Tong

RUSH HOUR
*½/**** Image A Sound A Extras A+
starring Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker, Tom Wilkinson, Elizabeth Peña
screenplay by Jim Kouf and Ross LaManna
directed by Brett Ratner

by Bill Chambers Early on in Rush Hour, the smash-hit buddy-cop movie from last fall, there’s a shot of Jackie Chan clinging tenaciously to a Hollywood street sign as he dangles several feet above the L.A. traffic. It’s a powerful metaphor for Chan’s career: Rush Hour represents his last-ditch effort to become a Stateside action star after finally finding a measure of Hollywood success with the popularity of HK imports like Rumble in the Bronx and Supercop. (Indeed, Chan includes said image in the colour stills portion of his autobiography I Am Jackie Chan, annotated by this caption: “On the set of Rush Hour–hanging on to another chance at Hollywood success.”) This final gamble, after striking out in the early-’80s with Cannonball Run II and The Big Brawl, his English-language debut, paid off handsomely. But why?

3D IMAX and the “Coloss”al Waste of Money

February 21, 1999Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Blog

by Bill Chambers Pete and I exit off the highway and discover that parking at the Colossus will require turning the corner in the opposite direction, driving to the end of that street, making a U-turn, and keeping our eyes peeled for access to the giant lot. The name is fitting: the cinema is huge. One can see it from hundreds of metres away. From space, maybe. It's an eyesore, really. The building itself is the size of a shopping mall, capped by an old-fashioned, Day the Earth Stood Still-style spaceship with two antennas (antennae?) jutting out of it. No wonder they premiered My Favorite Martian here.

Snake Eyes (1998) – DVD

February 17, 1999Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Crime, Directors: Brian De Palma, DVD, Mystery, Nicolas Cage, Thriller

**/**** Image B+ Sound A
starring Nicolas Cage, Gary Sinise, Carla Gugino, Stan Shaw
screenplay by David Koepp
directed by Brian De Palma

by Bill Chambers The setting: an Atlantic City hotel casino. Homicide detective Rick Santoro (Nicolas Cage) excitedly attends a big heavyweight showdown with his best bud, Commander Kevin Dunne (Gary Sinise), a Washington yes-man assigned to protect Kirkland, the Secretary of Defense (Joel Fabiani), who has a seat in the second row. As a buxom blonde (Carla Gugino) quietly converses with Kirkland, the fighter (Stan Shaw) is knocked down for the first time in his career. Simultaneously, sniper shots are fired into the crowd. An assassin is immediately caught, though not before Kirkland has expired and his mystery woman (farsighted and bereft of her specs) has escaped in the ensuing stampede. Santoro launches an impromptu investigation, his detective skills consisting mainly of screaming at people until they yield. He is the verbal correlative to the boxer in the picture.

Affliction (1998)

February 17, 1999Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Canada, Directors: Paul Schrader, Drama, Japan, Mystery, Thriller

***½/****
starring Nick Nolte, Sissy Spacek, James Coburn, Willem Dafoe
screenplay by Paul Schrader, based on the novel by Russell Banks
directed by Paul Schrader

by Bill Chambers

Wade: "I get to feeling like a whipped dog some days, Rolfe. And some night I'm going to bite back."
Rolfe: "Haven't you already done a bit of that?"
Wade: "No, not really. I've growled a little, but I haven't bit."

Why Paul Schrader chose to adapt Russell Banks's disquieting literary novel Affliction is no great mystery: its story follows an arc similar to that of Schrader's best known works, such as his screenplays for Scorsese's Taxi Driver and his own Hardcore. Affliction's Wade Whitehouse (Nick Nolte), like Travis Bickle before him, is a man who fixates on exposing corruption in repression of his own violent past. In Bickle's case, planning the assassination of a governor perhaps defers the pain of Vietnam, from which he was honourably discharged; Wade has been afflicted for years by his father Glen's wickedness.

Rumble in the Bronx (1996) + Mr. Nice Guy (1998) – DVDs

January 25, 1999Posted in1990s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Crime, DVD, Hong Kong, Martial Arts, Thriller

RUMBLE IN THE BRONX
***/**** Image A Sound A-
starring Jackie Chan, Anita Mui, Francoise Yip, Bill Tung
screenplay by Edward Tang and Fibe Ma
directed by Stanley Tong

MR. NICE GUY
**/**** Image A Sound B+
starring Jackie Chan, Richard Norton, Miki Lee, Karen McLymont
screenplay by Fibe Ma and Edward Tang
directed by Sammo Hung Kam-Bo

by Bill Chambers Prior to his breakout stateside hit Rush Hour, Chinese box-office sensation Jackie Chan's Hollywood forays were the terrifically unsuccessful films The Cannonball Run I & II and The Big Brawl (which planted Jackie in Prohibition-era Chicago!). When American studios–namely, "mini-majors" New Line and Miramax–elected to give him a second chance, not by casting him in their movies but by importing, dubbing, and retitling his more recent Hong Kong hits and putting the full force of their niche-adept marketing machines behind them, the results were much different: Rumble in the Bronx made a small mint for New Line, which almost immediately signed him up for Rush Hour (review forthcoming), last year's sleeper hit. (Sadly, Chan's masterpiece, Drunken Master II, has yet to be distributed in North America by a North American company. Perhaps it's too, well, drunken.)

Of Mice and Batmen

January 16, 1999Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Blog, Disney, Superhero
by Bill Chambers I can't bear to open my ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY or read the trades these days...LOOK WHAT'S HAPPENING IN TINSELTOWN! BATTING AN EYELASH It was recently announced in the trades that Mel Gibson and his frequent collaborator Richard Donner are thisclose to signing on for the fifth Batman film. After entrusting the franchise to Joel Schumacher and Akiva Goldsman for two atrocious movies, Warner Bros. is looking for fresh blood...again. Typical of the studio, their search has not extended beyond the Warner family. Word is, Nicholson may even return as the Joker. The film will be shot in Australia,…

Film Freak Central’s Top 10 of 1998

December 31, 1998Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Best-of Lists, Blog

Editor's Note, December 24, 2012: I didn't make a list in 1999. And Life is Beautiful? Sheesh. The prose here is also a particularly embarrassing shade of purple.

Top1098The following Ten Best list reflects only the opinions of Bill Chambers–Film Freak Central's webmaster–and not necessarily those of this site's other contributors.

10. Henry Fool
Hal Hartley movies never make Top 10 lists; they're considered pompous and pretentious by people who are just those things. Simon's metamorphosis from garbage man to renowned author under the tutelage of worldly Henry Fool was one of this year's most thoughtful character studies; Hartley, ever the pop intellectual, mines issues of classism and censorship in a grunge landscape like some poet of the street.

Mighty Joe Young (1998)

December 25, 1998Posted in1990s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Disney, Family, Theatrical, Thriller

*½/****
starring Charlize Theron, Bill Paxton, David Paymer, Rade Serbedzija
screenplay by Lawrence M. Konner & Mark Rosenthal, based on the 1949 screenplay by Ruth Rose
directed by Ron Underwood

Story_newhdrby Bill Chambers The most absurd remake of 1998? It's a toss-up between Gus Van Sant's Psycho and Mighty Joe Young, the new Disney picture based on the old RKO one. I knew I was in trouble when a polished, computer-generated version of that famous radio-tower logo appeared before the opening credits; like Psycho, this is less a remake than a simulation of one. There was no great demand for another giant ape movie–make that ape movie, period. (Witness the quick deaths of Buddy, Born To Be Wild, and Congo.) And while this latest entry in an inexplicably prolific genre is an inoffensive time-waster, it's also an assembly-line product through and through, lacking the charm and idiosyncratic plotting of vintage jungle pulp.

Six Days Seven Nights (1998) – DVD

December 9, 1998Posted in1990s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, DVD, Romance

**/**** Image B+ Sound A-
starring Harrison Ford, Anne Heche, David Schwimmer, Jacqueline Obradors
screenplay by Michael Browning
directed by Ivan Reitman

by Bill Chambers Still smarting from back-to-back high-profile failures (the Arnie-gets-pregnant comedy Junior and the Billy Crystal/Robin Williams team-up Father's Day), director Ivan Reitman needed a hit, badly. In casting Six Days Seven Nights, he took out the closest thing to a living insurance policy you will find in Hollywood: Harrison Ford. For Ford's co-star and the female lead, he chose Anne Heche, who's spent a few years in the trenches (best friend and wife roles) gaining traction as the next Meg Ryan. Then Ford seemed to go through a mid-life crisis, sporting an earring and a hip new look on the talk-show circuit that felt like a rejection of his stoic image and the fans thereof. And Heche came out as a lesbian in a public declaration of love for Ellen DeGeneres. It created a lot of static for both their performances and audiences to overcome, yielding Reitman's third flop in a row. Does this mean Six Days Seven Nights is some buried treasure you'd be lucky to discover at the video store? Not really, because the movie is pretty unremarkable except as a PR train crash. Let's be honest: Reitman has coasted since Ghostbusters; sometimes he hits a double, but this is not one of those times.

Apt Pupil (1998)

October 25, 1998Posted in1990s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Canada, Crime, Drama, France, Stephen King, Theatrical, Thriller

***/****
starring Brad Renfro, Ian McKellen, Elias Koteas, David Schwimmer
screenplay by Brandon Boyce, based on the novella by Stephen King
directed by Bryan Singer

by Bill Chambers "No man is an island," goes the famous John Donne poem, effectively summarizing Apt Pupil's central themes. Though hardly a great film, Bryan Singer's ambitious adaptation of Stephen King's same-named novella* is nonetheless challenging, a bleak picture destined to be misunderstood by the masses. But perhaps the most shocking aspect of this inclement psychological thriller is that a major studio got behind it.