“Replace Kinzel; he looks like a man who’s developing an opinion.” Yeah, that’s right, you smooth bastard. Big friend of the working man, that’s you. Shake their hand and hand them a pink slip. Slip it to ’em like a goddamn knife. Yeah, let’s hear it for redemption, Blake. Let someone else go off and fight your goddamn wars; then maybe the corpse will sit up and forgive you; that the idea? You want forgiveness? I’ll give you forgiveness, you numb-nuts.
– Kinzel, The Big Brass Ring
Reviews – Movies: B
RATINGS KEY
0/5 – Terrible. Not worth the eyestrain.
1/5 – Bad. Only watch it if there’s nothing else on TV.
2/5 – Okay. It’s not bad, but it’s not good either.
3/5 – Average. Rent it and watch it once.
4/5 – Good. Worth watching a few times (or even buying).
5/5 – Excellent. Watch it, buy it, quote it, love it.
Babel (2006) · Reviewed 5.30.07
2/5
Like Crash, but duller.
The Big Brass Ring (1999)
2/5 | Reviewed 3.24.07
An aspiring politician, caught in a heated Senate race, is confronted by an old mentor who still wields power over him in the form of compromising photographs that may ruin his protege’s career. But the secrets in this circle run deeper than mere youthful indiscretions... Based loosely on a plot originally penned by Orson Welles, this movie has lofty aspirations that never quite pan out. The acting and the script are well above par, but somehow the film just doesn’t hang together—I got the distinct impression that it had been carelessly edited, and that some vital information was left on the cutting room floor. I probably wouldn’t have bothered to keep watching this if it hadn’t been for Ewan Stewart, whose Southern American accent was amusing but whose aura of quiet menace more than made up for his dialectical deficiencies. Good viewing for Stewart fans; everyone else can take it or leave it.
Borat (2006)
1/5 | Reviewed 3.25.07
I caught Sasha Baron Cohen doing a Borat sketch on Saturday Night Live awhile back, and found it disappointingly dull—all obscenity, no humor. Now, I have nothing against obscene humor, as long as there’s some humor in with the obscene; obscenity for the sake of obscenity is just boring and puerile. Sadly, Borat is all obscenity, in a juvenile “ooh! he said a dirty word!” kind of way. I was neither shocked nor amused; it takes more than a few incest jokes, a slew of homosexual references, and a constant barrage of swear words to hold my interest. Everyone else may like this stuff, but I got bored with third-grade humor after... well, after third grade. After a laughless twenty minutes, my husband and I gave up on this film and went on to Das Boot instead; perhaps Borat would have gotten better eventually, but it wasn’t worth my time to find out.
