Movies : July 2006
29 July 2006
John Tucker Must DieHeather (Ashanti), Carrie (Arielle Kebbel), and Beth (Sophia Bush) discover that the love of their life in high school is one John Tucker (Jesse Metcalfe) and they enlist wallflower Kate (Brittany Snow) in a scheme of humiliation and revenge. One-dimensional characters, no original score, weak plot… but Snow has a bit of the pre-partying Tara Reid about her, and Carrie leaves the side of the school’s PowerMac G5 off.
91 minutes.
25 July 2006
Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man’s ChestA little less repetitive this time around, although no less derivative (didn’t I just see the painted indigenous peoples in King Kong?). Johnny Depp continues his is he drunk? performance as Jack Sparrow. With Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom continuing to run around in essentially nonsense circles, there is much to divert. Just don’t question the physics of motion too closely, eh?
150 minutes.
23 July 2006
My Super Ex-GirlfriendSet in Manhattan, filmed in Brooklyn, starring Uma Thurman as a woman keeping herself busy texting on the subway when she’s approached by architectural project manager Matt (Luke Wilson) on a dare by his best buddy (Rainn Wilson, dispensing bad relationship advice throughout). Matt claims to be shy because his last girlfriend was psycho but as he gets to know art gallery manager Jenny an unusual vibe is developing… meanwhile the city is grateful to superhero G-Girl as she defies bullets to capture brand-name jewelry thieves and extinguishes penthouse-level building fires. Matt’s boss (Wanda Sykes) is suspicious of the way he looks at colleague Hannah (Anna Faris). It is funny, and Thurman’s performance hits the spot in many ways, but the sympathy seems to be more with the guy’s inability to score with someone who’s not crazy and less with the lonely woman with a heavy responsibility which cannot be shared.
97 minutes.
21 July 2006
Clerks II
More of the same.
Not quite as funny as the last time
these characters graced the screen, certainly, and I never believed that the Mooby’s location was a functioning retail establishment. Rosario Dawson plays the manager, but nothing is made of this in a movie with the word
clerks
in the title (she does add a certain
bounce
to the proceedings though). Ooh, look, someone gave writer-director Kevin Smith a crane to play with.
101 minutes.
15 July 2006
A Scanner DarklyAt least I wasn’t tempted to fall asleep (like I was at the last time I went to see a rotoscoped film directed by Richard Linklater). Ostensibly the story of narcotics officer Fred, who works in a scramble suit to hide his identity, who is also Bob (Keanu Reeves), an addict hooked on Substance D, who rooms with paranoid Barris (Robert Downey, Jr.) and clueless Luckman (Woody Harrelson), and is chummy with nervous Donna (Winona Ryder). A tale of a wasted generation from long ago with the sole remaining science-fictional aspect being the scramble suit… but surely this is completely a pothead’s invention? The suit, which projects random images of humanoid parts (without necessarily being of humans as such), hides the wearer’s identity but incessantly advertises its use. There’s some amusing doper humor, a little conspiratorial twist at the end, with an assured performance from Downey, but he and the others are too well known for even the artistry of the rotoscoping to subdue.
100 minutes.
04 July 2006
The Devil Wears PradaAn aspiring journalist just out of college has unwittingly networked her way to the outer office of the editor-in-chief of Runway magazine. Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) has directed her first assistant (Emily Blunt) to find a second assistant, and even though Andrea Sachs (Anne Hathaway) is hopelessly wrong for the milieu—she’s never even heard of the editor in chief of Runway!—she’s hired and Andy is in over her head with quite a demanding boss. But art director Nigel (Stanley Tucci) gives her a push (and some fashion guidance) and Andy begins to get the hang of it. The raw power of a person at the top of her game with assorted underlings at her disposal is heady indeed, and the cattiness of the dialogue is consistently amusing.
107 minutes.
Entries subject to editing at any time. Last edited on: 07-Nov-2007