Congratulations. You found a boat. In the middle of the ocean, of all places.
– Epps, Ghost Ship
Reviews – Movies: G
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.
Garden State (2004)
1/5 | Reviewed 3.24.07
So there’s this pasty-faced young guy (Zach Braff), and he’s all emo and shit, and then his mom dies and he goes back to New Jersey for the funeral, and then I go CLICK with the remote, because pasty-faced young guys who bask in their cultural disassociation are boring, on film as in life. The inevitable entrance of Natalie Portman would have added unbearable cuteness to an already abysmal morass of self-pity masquerading as social commentary, desperate attempts at quirkiness, and Braff wandering slack-faced through the indie soundtrack of modern despair. To paraphrase Dorothy Parker: If you can watch it, well and good / But as for me, I never could.
The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)
2/5 | Reviewed 5.14.07
You know the expression “You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs,” right? Well, how about “You can’t build a railway bridge in Kenya without losing half your workers to a pair of maneating lions?”... No? Damn. Anyway: from a true tale of turn-of-the-century Kenyan carnage comes this movie, starring Val Kilmer as an Irish engineer who has to contend with African heat, worker animosity, and a couple of killer lions that work in tandem to stalk and devour the workers. The story of the Tsavo lion attacks is a fascinating tale of war between humans and animals, but you wouldn’t know it from watching this film; never have lion attacks seemed so boring. I can’t really put my finger on what, exactly, is wrong with this film; it’s like they got the ingredients right, but somehow failed to combine them correctly. The story plods along, punctuated by the occasional bloody cat attack, and just when you’re starting to think about turning it off and going to the zoo instead, along comes utter weirdness in the form of Michael Douglas, rolling his eyes and overacting as a rootin’-tootin’ American hunter who wants to help Kilmer kill the kitties. The casting in general is quizzical (did nobody screentest Kilmer’s Irish accent?), but sticking Douglas in this role is a gaffe as bad as Jon Voight’s South American snakehunter role in Anaconda—Douglas is an actor made for the urban jungle, not the African one. It was all rather amusing, albeit unintentionally, but overall I wouldn’t recommend this film, even for shits and giggles.
Ghost Ship (2002)
3/5 | Reviewed 9.13.06
A team of salvagers locates a mysterious, deserted ocean liner adrift in the Atlantic; they explore the ship, discover a gleaming hoard of treasure, and prepare to take their find back to civilization—but it’s increasingly (and grimly) obvious that something on the ship doesn’t want them to make it home... It’s your typical quirky-characters-trapped-and-hunted fare—and, while it ain’t Masterpiece Theater, I’ll admit I’d expected a lot worse. The characters are broadly drawn and, while not exactly nuanced, at least they’re amusing, sympathetic, and not as stupid as the usual horror-heroes. I’ve heard that this movie was originally intended to be less gory and more psychological; while I probably would have liked that better, the dumbed-down (and entrailed-up) new plot works as well as campy horror can. Oh, and the first scene? Priceless.
Girl With A Pearl Earring (2003)
4/5 | Reviewed 12.16.05
I dimly recall reading this book a few years back, but I can’t say it made any lasting impression on me. In the years since I read it, the plot has gotten mixed up in my head with other novels set in that general time and place, particularly Gregory Maguire’s excellent Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister. So, when I popped this movie in and sat down to watch, I was fortunate enough to be able to view the story with fresh eyes. | Read Full Review
The Governess (1998)
2/5 | Reviewed 9.13.06
In 1840s England, a young Jewish woman disguises her identity to work as a governess for a wealthy rural family, and finds herself falling for her charge’s proto-photographer father. Incoherence ensues—or, more accurately, incompleteness. This movie felt like three or four half-movies in one, built on themes that never quite explained or resolved themselves fully—the alienation of the Jews in Victorian England, a young woman’s grief for her dead father, the exploration of photography as artistic medium, and so on. And then there was the unlikeliness of the science-meets-art photographic meanderings—you can either invent modern photography or you can invent modern erotica, but you can’t invent both at the same damn time. Occasionally, a scene or an image would actually send the intended message, but then someone would get their kit off and bump the subliminal meaning right out of the scene. I don’t know whether or not to blame Minnie Driver for her character’s unrealistically modern characteristics; I do blame her, however, for interpreting the direction “hold still for photograph” as “stare vacuously into the camera with mouth hanging open.” Only Tom Wilkinson’s performance really stood out (as did his manly bits—and did I mention the rampant nudity?). The whole thing felt fractured and half-finished—plus, I was distracted by the horrible mental picture of Driver and Wilkinson’s offspring (eugh). The only thing that made it worthwhile was Clementina, the horribly morbid little charge; that was like a glimpse into my future as a parent...
Ground Control (1998)
3/5 | Reviewed 11.05.07
The Netflix synopsis really sounded hilariously awful: “In the stressful business of air traffic control, Jack Harris (Keifer Sutherland) was the best—until a crash ended his career. Haunted by the tragedy, Jack struggles to cope. But when a fierce storm cripples the Phoenix airport, he's called back into action. Now, he must fight his demons to clear his conscience and save the lives of hundreds of people.” …I swear, you can taste the badness, can’t you? I sure could. So I was surprised—and perhaps a wee bit disappointed—to find that it wasn’t that bad. In fact, it was actually quite watchable. While not very technically accurate (ye gods, I hope not—if there are really only two overworked electricians scrambling around the Phoenix ground control system, remind me never to fly into that airport), the story manages to be interesting without resorting to cheap gimmicks—the climactic catastrophe involves a mundane lightning strike, while lesser plots would have thrown in a giant conspiracy and a few gun-toting hijackers just for good measure—and touching without overdoing it… much. Sutherland’s character is very likeable, kind of shy and sweet, and he doesn’t overdo the I does have deemonz! thing. Robert Sean Leonard has a fun role as a cocky controller whose schadenfreude sometimes gets the best of him; normally that kind of character gets kicked in the teeth while the “good guy” goes on to glory, but this movie reins in the moral punishment to good effect. The one false note was Kristy Swanson as a “nerd”, the kind who comes in with a buttoned–up sweater and dorky glasses, but whose hair comes down and bad eyesight clears up just in time for the hero to notice how hot she really is. This isn’t a classic, but it’s not a bad way to spend a couple of hours.
