From: "Julie E Reynolds" <jewelsks25@mailcity.com>
Subject: [MV] Worst Movie
Date: 01 Oct 1999 10:20:09 -0500
I think PayBack is the worst movie that I have seen in a long time. I am a long time fan of Mel Gibson, but this movie had too much violence. I thought it was slow paced and the coloring and lighting of the movie was dark, dingy, and depressing!!!!!! This was by far one of Mel Gibson's worst movies!
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> I think PayBack is the worst movie that I have seen in a long time. I am a long time fan of Mel Gibson, but this movie had too much violence. I thought it was slow paced and the coloring and lighting of the movie was dark, dingy, and depressing!!!!!! This was by far one of Mel Gibson's worst movies!
I couldn't disagree more. I loved that it was dark and broody. I
loved that it was violent (because the violence had a point for a
change). And I loved Mel being a nastay boy. My only problem with
Payback came with the second half of the movie that Mel wrestled off
the director and reshot to make himself all likeable and hammy and
chummy. Bah to that Lethal Weapon routine. Gimme down and dirty "Mad
Max" type Mel or give me someone else.
If you want worst movie, try Meet The Deedles. What the crap was
Dennis Hopper thinking getting involved in that pile of cack? Worse
than Chairman Of The Board, worse than Batman And Robin, worse than
Godzilla, Wild Wild West and speed 2 combined. Worse even than Good
Burger.
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My favorite movie of all time has to be the German film "Das Boot". The detail in the movie is amazing. Every sound has a purpose, no matter how small. The same goes for facial reactions to certain things i.e. slight grimacing.
The other thing that is great about this film is how powerful of an anti-warfilm it is without excess gore and violence, like "Saving Private Ryan". That movie gave an excellent depiction of the horrors of war but it seemed like it relied more heavily on that than character development. It didn't really show the intellectual side as much.
Because "Das Boot" was just as effective as "Ryan", while being more intellectual, I have great respect for it.
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From: ("David M Hoptman") <David.Hoptman@wellpoint.com>
Subject: RE:[MV] Favorite Film
Date: 01 Oct 1999 11:28:00 -0700
Here is a list of some of my favorite movies are(in no particular order):
1.Good Fellas
2.Star Wars
3.Raiders Of The Lost Ark
4.Logan's Run
5.Halloween I
6.Annie Hall
7.Breakfast Club
8.Hair
9.Grease
10.Saturday Night Fever
11.Ferris Bueller's Day Off
12.Fast Times At Rigemont High
13.The Big Chill
14.Taxi Driver
15.The Wizard Of Oz
16.Miracle On 34th St.
---Dave
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My favorite movie of all time has to be the German film "Das Boot". The detail in the movie is amazing. Every sound has a purpose, no matter how small. The same goes for facial reactions to certain things i.e. slight grimacing.
The other thing that is great about this film is how powerful of an anti-warfilm it is without excess gore and violence, like "Saving Private Ryan". That movie gave an excellent depiction of the horrors of war but it seemed like it relied more heavily
on that than character development. It didn't really show the intellectual side as much.
Because "Das Boot" was just as effective as "Ryan", while being more intellectual, I have great respect for it.
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From: ("David M Hoptman") <David.Hoptman@wellpoint.com>
Subject: RE:[MV] Favorite Film
Date: 01 Oct 1999 11:54:00 -0700
Oh,I forgot one of my all time favs: The Rocky Horror Picture Show---Dave
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Sender: owner-movies@lists.xmission.com
Reply-To: movies@lists.xmission.com
Here is a list of some of my favorite movies are(in no particular order):
1.Good Fellas
2.Star Wars
3.Raiders Of The Lost Ark
4.Logan's Run
5.Halloween I
6.Annie Hall
7.Breakfast Club
8.Hair
9.Grease
10.Saturday Night Fever
11.Ferris Bueller's Day Off
12.Fast Times At Rigemont High
13.The Big Chill
14.Taxi Driver
15.The Wizard Of Oz
16.Miracle On 34th St.
---Dave
------------------( Forwarded letter 1 follows )--------------------
Sender: owner-movies@lists.xmission.com
Reply-To: movies@lists.xmission.com
My favorite movie of all time has to be the German film "Das Boot". The detail in the movie is amazing. Every sound has a purpose, no matter how small. The same goes for facial reactions to certain things i.e. slight grimacing.
The other thing that is great about this film is how powerful of an anti-warfilm it is without excess gore and violence, like "Saving Private Ryan". That movie gave an excellent depiction of the horrors of war but it seemed like it relied more heavily
on that than character development. It didn't really show the intellectual side as much.
Because "Das Boot" was just as effective as "Ryan", while being more intellectual, I have great respect for it.
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<a href="http://www.moviejuice.com/1999/doublejeopardy.htm">Click here for the full review!</a>
http://www.moviejuice.com/1999/doublejeopardy.htm
October 2, 1999
"I'll take contrived and far-fetched plots for one-hundred, Alex."
Judd-clan black sheep Ashley puts the "imp" in "implausible" in Double Jeopardy, the latest from that fine director Bruce Beresford, maker of Driving Miss Daisy and the more recent epic Good Work is Hard to Find in Hollywood Nowadays.
"What is 'career-slump,' Alex."
Ashley's got an impossibly fabulous and rich Marlboro Man husband who gives her a new sailboat in return for Ashley's gratuitous yet richly rewarding nude scene. No wonder I'm at full mast!
But Ashley wakes up adrift with blood on her hands and no hubby in sight. Whoops! Is he dead or did he just dump her for Annabeth Gish? No offense, Annabeth, but who in their right mind would do that? Any chick who shows her privates to a billion Oscar viewers is a woman you don't dump, Mr. Marlboro!
Double Jeopardy was originally intended as a plotline for an episode of TV's Diagnosis Murder, but according to star Dick Van Dyke: "A flying nanny and a chimney sweep who dances with cartoons is more believable than this shit."
So Ashley goes to "the big house" for wrongful-death. Make that "the big HAIR house" - this prison has its own hair salon: dozens of inmates, scissors-galore, and no guards. Did Ashley have to rush this house? Is she a felon or a pledge?
Isn't there supposed to be a scene where all the gals are in short-shorts and belly tees as warden Brigitte Nielsen herds them into the showers? Is that a different movie?
As luck would have it, fellow jailbird and Bride of Con-Air Edwarda G. Robinson informs Ashley that she can kill her hubby for real now because, according to the Harvard Movie-Law School, she can't be tried twice for the same crime as long as that crime isn't a sequel to Double Jeopardy.
You know you're in trouble when a character explains the core concept of a movie and the audience laughs.
Eduarda also informs her that we're forty minutes into this movie and it's about time for Tommy Lee Jones to show up, since the audience forgot he was even in the cast.
Ashley is paroled into a halfway house for wayward relatives of Country music stars. There, she cleverly escapes parole officer Tommy Lee thus becoming the latest in a long line of fugitives Tommy Lee is out to catch.
Does Tommy Lee read these scripts first or is the dialogue so second-nature he can just guess and come out right? Tommy, some advice: Plug your next script into MS Word and do a search and replace: "Will Smith" for "fugitive." Okay?
Ashley's chasing her son and her hubby. Tommy's chasing Ashley. And I need a chaser.
Ashley travels to picturesque New Orleans where scenery substitutes for scenario and funeral dirges play like Cab Calloway's opening band. There, Ashley gets stuck in a blinding rainstorm in the bustling French Quarter clogged by a million umbrellas where - SURPRISE - she's spotted by a cop!
If you think that sounds unlikely, an early draft of the script featured two mausoleums opening so the putrid remains of Howard Hughes and Jimmy Hoffa can shuffle out, grab her, and turn her in to the Feds. Here's some of the dialogue:
HOWARD HUGHES
Jimmy, grab her! I'm afraid of germs!
JIMMY HOFFA
Howard, I don't have my wits about me. I'm in a million pieces!
HOWARD HUGHES
Never mind, I'll cling to her mercilessly with my excruciatingly long fingernails!
And so on.
Get this: When she finally tracks down the Marlboro Man, she wins him in a Bachelor auction! Evidently, she just missed chances to bid on O. J. Simpson and Klaus Von Bulow.
When Tommy Lee catches up with the Marlboro Man and explains the fantastic notion that Ashley thinks he's her living dead husband, Marlboro says: "That's pretty far-fetched." Finally, something sensible in this crappy flick!
In the shocking climax, Tommy Lee finally gives in to the audience's total absence of credulity and captures Ashley by preposterously blowing fully deputized angels out of his butt. Wings flapping, the angels handcuff Ashley and take her back to movie jail, where the manicures and highlights are on the taxpayer and sauna privileges require a prison ID.
My advice on Double Jeopardy:
Wait for the home game.
Copyright 1999 Mark Ramsey. All rights reserved. NO PORTION MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR.
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Subject: [MV] MovieJuice! - AMERICAN BEAUTY - Petal to the Mettle
Date: 03 Oct 1999 14:31:42 -0400 (EDT)
AMERICAN BEAUTY û Petal to the Mettle
by Mark Ramsey
<a href="http://www.moviejuice.com/1999/americanbeauty.htm">Click here for the full review!</a>
http://www.moviejuice.com/1999/americanbeauty.htm
October 3, 1999
A very reliable source told me a Buffy story this week. Hush, hush, secret stuff, he told me. Okay, I'm all ears. What's the secret?
It seems one of Buffy's real-life ex-flames divulged to him that she's "very vocal" during sex, and she likes to "give as well as receive." Oh my God, no! Can you imagine?!
Dude, this describes half the women in LA and all the ones in the acting profession. Vocalizing during sex is as much a part of the actor's resume as flair with a serving tray and a gig with Roger Corman. At least tell me something I can get sued for!
From one American Beauty to another....
You know you're in the presence of something special when a simple, character-driven movie sticks in your craw and won't let go. American Beauty is one of those movies that the average Joe will leave saying "that was pretty good I guess," and will wake up the next day saying "why can't I forget about that damn movie?" Sometimes, thanks to my severely limited intellectual abilities, I know something's good even if I don't know why. This is the whole theory behind PBS, for example.
Kevin Spacey's hair has finally declared a cease-fire with his scalp resulting in an easing of tensions between his comb and brush. The ever-exceptional Kevin is first seen jerking off in the shower in what I must imagine was a particularly satisfying yet exhausting day on set. Kevin's enslaved in a stifled mid-life in pursuit of an American dream that's universally defeating. He's in "The Matrix" big-time.
Annette Bening is Kevin's wife. Last seen as Zazu the Occultist in the summer sleeper hit Minnie Driver is an Alien, Annette is a go-getting real estate agent, the virtual viral spawn of Tony Robbins and Mary Kay. "In order to be successful one must project an image of success at all times," she mantras. And in order to date Buffy one must get busy in a soundproof room at all times, it would seem.
Theirs is a typically and deeply tweaked American family, living quietly on Robin Hood trail in the house with the red door.
I'll tell you this, Marines don't come off looking too good in this flick. Are we looking for a few good men or a few good gay-bashing, Napoleonic, testosterone-addled, misogynistic, discipline-mongering, family-drug-testing, spirit-crushing tyrants? American Beauty supplies one answer, anyway. Kevin and Annette's Marine family next door is "American Gothic," add a bayonet, subtract a pitchfork.
And then there's eyebrow aficionado Peter Gallagher. Does he shake the dust off that brow or just replace the bag when it's full? I wonder, does he close those eyes or hibernate them for the season?
I'll never forget Peter in Summer Lovers, one of the greatest bad movies of all time, where the high concept of "two hot chicks and a guy get naked in Greece and go swimming" has yet to be equaled for mind-numbing simplicity and hormonal nuclear fission. Forget points on the gross, I'll settle for multiple takes! You go, boy!
It doesn't take long for 42-year-old Kevin to enter his dirty-old-man phase. One look at sprightly, high-kicking cheerleader Mena Suvari and the fantasy sequences begin - sequences which I found hilarious, even if nobody else in the theater did. My favorite occurs when Mena opens her blouse and rose petals burst out in a fragrant swarm, bringing new meaning to the term "flower show." She's a flower-power fem-bot, baby!
As Mena correctly intuits, "If people I don't even know look at me and want to fuck me, then I really have a shot at being a model." That's true for everyone but Peter, who needs a buzzsaw trim to see anything through that thick underbrush of brow. The last time that brush was thinned, America's Most Wanted nabbed three felons.
It was about three-quarters of the way through this flick when the oldest couple in the theater could evidently take no more, and out they went. Pining away, they were, for the good old days of Hollywood, when nobody cussed, nobody was gay, nobody molested their kid with wire hangers, and Mildred Pierce was all the rage. Where's a depression and a World War when you need them?
In one poignant moment, Kevin hears his daughter is in love. "Good for her," he says smiling, and that single gentle expression speaks emotional volumes that could alone earn this guy an Oscar.
In this not so delicate tale of life, things are not what they seem, not what they're "supposed" to be. But the beauty is there, gurgling beneath the surface, a wellspring of peaceful, blossoming ordinariness. Hidden in strange, lonely glances and drafty places where you least expect it.
American Beauty is one such sacred place.
Copyright 1999 Mark Ramsey. All rights reserved. NO PORTION MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR.
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From: "Amy J. Fugate" <eleanor_rigby@angelfire.com>
Subject: RE: [MV] Scariest/Favorite
Date: 05 Oct 1999 17:00:49 -0700
The scariest movie for me was A Clockwork Orange. For some reason, it keeps me up, i can't sleep after i watch it. Is anyone else that way about the movie?
>> The scariest movie ever for me was The Eyes of Laura Marrs. It has an
>> extremely young Tommy Lee Jones in it. Probably isn't really
>> scary now, but
>> when I was 7 it kept me up for many nights.
>
>The movie that made me lose sleep as a kid for some reason was The
>Reincarnation Of Peter Proud. I just found it spooky I guess.
>
>Jim
>
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<a href="http://www.moviejuice.com/1999/fightclub.htm">Click here for the full review!</a>
http://www.moviejuice.com/1999/fightclub.htm
October 10, 1999
Brad Pitt's rules of Fight Club, inscribed for posterity on his stone-tablet abs:
The first rule about fight club is the winner will tongue-kiss me after every fight.
The second rule about fight club is you will use a colon after an independent clause to introduce a list of particulars, an appositive, an amplification, or an illustrative quotation.
The third rule of fight club is thongs only, thongs forever.
The fourth rule of fight club is each fight will be preceded by our national anthem as we drop trou for a 21-johnson salute.
The fifth rule of fight club is no shoes, no shirts in the fight, but you may yank hair and give wedgies.
The sixth rule of fight club is you must clean up after your own bloody pulp, particularly if your spraying life-essence blocks my shot or obscures my mark.
And the seventh rule is that only members are entitled to special privileges like early boarding on USAirways, free stays at the Hyatt, and bulk food discounts from the Price Club.
Okay everybody, let's count the days until a random act of violence is blamed on Fight Club.
The idea behind this flick can be summed up in one simple phrase: Cubicles = Bad, Bloody Pulp = Good.
If you take this movie seriously, you'll be alarmed by its mix of fascist propaganda, sadism, and fortune-cookie philosophy. On the other hand, if you take it seriously, you should have your head examined. Or, if you're Brad Pitt, you should have your head examined for lice. This boy's grungy!
Does Fight Club promote violence? Absolutely! In fact, what I love about this movie is that it will inspire countless young, soul-depleted office drones to launch neighborhood fight clubs in order to pummel each other into coordinated terrorist bombings of all corporate art. Now there's a cause you can get behind. Would this include the paintings of Jack Palance, Red Skelton, and Frank Sinatra, by any chance?
Eddie Norton is the listless, insomniac cubicle-dweller who meets up with soap-seller and anarchist-Yoda Brad Pitt, who blurts life lessons like "It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything." Then again, if we do anything, we've got something, so if you need nothing to do something you'll never do anything because you can't lose everything. Take that, Brad!
This and many other philosophical Cliff Notes may be found etched into the stone-carved muscles on Brad's bod, where the "happy trail" leads to spiritual bliss and the planted flags of Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Aniston.
Brad's chiseled musculature is so defined, girlfriend Jennifer needs a topographical map and climbing-wall training for foreplay. Hey Brad, do you have a personal trainer or a brick-layer?
Director David Fincher's camera swoops and sails in and out of tiny spaces, out of Ed Norton's mouth, down a gun barrel, in an exhibitionistic and self-conscious effort to be slick and showy and mod. David couldn't be more flamboyant if he wore a strapless gown to the premiere. Okay, already, you're a cinematic maestro - let the plot play.
Playing against type is Brit-stuffy, Victorian-era specialist Helena Bonham Carter. In fact, Helena's so far against type, type has filed a high class action suit with attorneys Merchant, Ivory P.C. You don't dis type, Helena!
Helena scores with the movie's funniest line: "My God, I haven't been fucked like that since grade school."
I guess ya gotta be there.
If you had ever told me 70's dashboard light crooner Meatloaf would become a fine character actor, I never would have believed it. But sure enough, he has. And with enormous Boobs Out Of Hell, too: The XR-71 Denise Richards model, to be exact. First used to cushion water landings on Amelia Earhart's Lockheed, those XR-71's boast sturdy fiberglass construction, steel-belted radial design, and pop-top nipples for refueling. In a tragic turn of events, a sudden resonating jiggle resulted in hurricane-force winds and millions of dollars of damage in the Florida panhandle.
Here's the high concept: Fight Club = Raging Bull + The Sixth Sense + Meatballs.
If your sense of humor runs dark, then put up your dukes.
Copyright 1999 Mark Ramsey. All rights reserved. NO PORTION MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR.
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Subject: [MV] MovieJuice! - THE STORY OF US - When Hairless Met Sally
Date: 15 Oct 1999 18:13:13 -0400 (EDT)
THE STORY OF US û When Hairless Met Sally
by Mark Ramsey
<a href="http://www.moviejuice.com/1999/storyofus.htm">Click here for the full review!</a>
http://www.moviejuice.com/1999/storyofus.htm
October 15, 1999
And I thought I'd seen everything.
Imagine my surprise when the lights go down and the trailer for Tom Hanks in The Green Mile unspools - backwards and upside down. Yikes!
Naturally, the projectionist was too busy honing his high school A/V skills and crafting clever hand shadows to notice anything askew for three solid minutes! Hey, don't they teach this kind of thing in projectionist trade school, right after the class called "Remedial Focusing Strategies: Fixing Fuzzy Wuzzy Was a Bear" and before "Volume Management: They Call them 'Talkies' for a Reason"?
Let me tell you, there were more audience belly laughs in those three trailer minutes than in all SNL-spawned Molly Shannon movies combined! Plus, there's something about seeing a guy on death row walk backwards away from death row that saps the moment's dramatic gravity, if you ask me. How very New Wave! When does ELIM NEERG EHT open, anyway? emit yadiloh?
Things straightened out just in time for The Story of Us.
Wow, this is one downer of a romantic comedy! Granted, there's tons of funny stuff here, but those spoonfuls of sugar force down a hell of a lot of medicine!
All-pro Bruce Willis celebrates his first post-Demi production by outfitting his scalp with partial head-tarp #47A. Why settle? Well, #67C was on deck, blow-dried and ready, but it flipped agents to UTA when negotiations went limp and the ends split over a conditioning clause. At least #47A covers Bruce's medula oblongata - that's the part of his brain responsible for all theme restaurant investments and blues performances. Keep that part in the shade or else! It's eyeballing Mariel Hemingway futures!
Co-star Michelle Pfeiffer looks Pfabulous, but her movie-marriage to Bruce is anything but. We're talking show-marriage, Bill-and-Hillary-style. For a hundred minutes our heroes are either at each other's throats, nostrils flaring, or ignoring each other's presence in stone-cold solemnity. Whew! I need a hit of Zoloft!
All that until the remarkably abrupt and infamously Capra-esque ending, made possible in no small part by the presence of executive producer Frank Capra III! Fortunately, Bruce finds Zuzu's petals just in time to realize that all those years of marriage to Demi were just a Pottersville gin-joint nightmare.
Soundtrack, schmoundtrack. Eric Clapton strums and hums through vast portions of this movie like a relentless, inescapable El Torito mariachi band, Tears in Heaven-style. It's all-Eric-all-the-time. Is this music or a Turkish Prison torture strategy? Eric's the troubadour of the tattered, classic rocky marriage, and he's trying to break my will - someone hide his guitar picks!
"Everything that's important in the world is in this bed right now," purrs Bruce when Michelle and the kids join him. Everything, that is, except Pamela Anderson Lee, who would provide two of everything and life-raft protection in the event of a sudden natural disaster - just in case anything "natural" ever happens her way.
Much of Bruce's trouble is due to his close friendship to comedian Paul Reiser. Bruce's life may be going to hell, but thanks to Paul at least each dreadful minute with Michelle costs him only 5 cents off-peak after 7pm and all weekend long.
Script-wise, this baby's well-crafted from the very opening frames. No surprise that The Story of Us is co-produced and co-written by Alan Zwiebel, the comedy God responsible for one of the funniest shows nobody's seen, "It's Garry Shandling's Show." I worship the ground his pedicurist crawls on; I eat the dust swept by his illegal alien domestic.
The Story of Us is not a story for all of us, just the grown-up married ones living difficult together-lives and hoping for that hasty epilogue where good sense - and a well-written soliloquy - always makes endings happy.
Copyright 1999 Mark Ramsey. All rights reserved. NO PORTION MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR.
********************
AND DONÆT FORGET ABOUT ôFIGHT CLUBö
<a href="http://www.moviejuice.com/1999/fightclub.htm">Click here for the full review!</a>
http://www.moviejuice.com/1999/fightclub.htm
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<a href="http://www.moviejuice.com/1999/theinsider.htm">Click here for the full review!</a>
http://www.moviejuice.com/1999/theinsider.htm
October 21, 1999
If you smoke I feel sorry for you.
Not because the evil tobacco companies have snared your unholy souls and are slowly fouling your lungs with every puff, but because actuarial tables among smokers indicate you're not likely to live long enough to see the end of The Insider. Then again, who will?
Longer than a king size Winston and way slower burning, The Insider was covered on 60 Minutes in half an hour. Just panning Al Pacino's nose takes longer than that!
I'm talkin' nearly three hours of whistle-blowing! What if the butter on my popcorn goes rancid? Will I be able to tell the difference?
Join perennially cranky and self-righteous mad-man Pacino as he champions the cause of good so nobly, he should be wearing tights and a big red cape. He's the King of the Round Table and all the Knights are wearing black Armani with pink shades.
Al's face is a tempest of battling wrinkles. Picture cheeks, chin, and nose colliding like continental plates slip-sliding over his hot-headed molten mantle and jamming against each other violently in ridges, faults, and trenches. Al's sneeze registers on the Richter scale.
It's Intensity-Man! Beware the heat-vision from his dark and droopy eyes! I-Man comes from a planet where excess caffeine and really bad New York drivers spike blood pressure so high it spurts out your ears the way semi-digested Caesar salad spurts out Lara Flynn Boyle's mouth.
Al is 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman, best known for the famous Minutes segment "Opera Singers - Who Gives a Shit?", and who, thanks to this whole nasty tobacco episode, gave up news to produce the TV show "Two Guys and a Girl." That's the show being repackaged for the Discovery channel and re-titled "Two Retards and a Forensic Pathologist." It's a synaptically-challenged dig for signs of comedy!
The Insider is one of the big buzz flicks of the fall for reasons I can't fathom. It's 60 Minutes writ large and long. So the tobacco company scientist blows the lid off the fact that tobacco kills and (duh) the tobacco companies know it. Al gets mad. CBS chickens out on the story so they don't get sued. Al gets madder. Then CBS runs the story. Al gets so mad his facial plates are venting liquid magma. Finally, Al leaves on principle, which is what I was tempted to do by the end of hour two.
Let's face it, until the tobacco companies hire a phalanx of armed gunmen to snuff whistle-blowers, how scared can we really be for this scientist guy? The most frightening thing he faces is a suspiciously curious golfer and a clumsy stranger who leaves footprints in his garden. Hey, at least Blair Witch had twigs and piles of rocks!
Meanwhile, and most horrifying of all, that annoying Aretha Franklin-voiced Pepsi kid, Hallie Eisenberg, somehow finagled the role of the scientist guy's daughter, despite the fact that Ed Bradley looks more like her daddy than she does.
Who would have guessed that CBS would have the world's hottest corporate counsel!? Now I know the "R" in Edward R. Murrow stands for "GRRRRRrrrrr!" Snoop-star and former Jennifer Tilly movie-mate Gina Gershon unsettles every brief in the house and triggers more than a few birthday suits. You don't need a litigator to stroke the foreman in this court, boys. Is this Black Rock or Blue Balls?
Christopher Plummer plays Mike Wallace as if Mike had spent his formative years sipping tea with a nanny named Tiggy. Did somebody replace the ticking clock with the Sound of Music? Did John Barrymore just join the 60 Minutes cast?
Fearing the impact of bean-spilling, Mike says "I don't plan to spend the end of my days wandering in the wilderness of National Public Radio." Look, Mike, at your age you're lucky "60 Minutes" doesn't describe the maximum interval between peeing. If he's "wandering in the wilderness," chances are he doesn't know where to or where from.
Lots of folks at CBS say this flick stretches the truth tighter than Jennifer Lopez's mysteriously and suddenly taut butt. Even the movie's promotional propaganda acknowledges "certain events depicted in this film have been fictionalized for dramatic effect," which is another way of saying, "whatever Pacino wants, Pacino gets."
Is Mike Wallace really a petty, arrogant ass? Are Al Pacino's facial wrinkles really independently remote-controlled by a crew of technicians from Jim Henson's muppet shop?
That, and Andy Rooney, tonight on 60 Minutes.
Copyright 1999 Mark Ramsey. All rights reserved. NO PORTION MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR.
DONÆT FORGET TO VISIT MOVIEJUICE.COM!
Hey, kids, don't forget to visit the MovieJuice! Site at http://www.moviejuice.com. The pictures are half the fun (and sometimes more than half the laughs)!
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BIG NEWS: MOVIEJUICE.COM SIGNS DEAL WITH TRIMARK PICTURES
This is no joke, folks. And youÆre the first to know.
Mark Ramsey of MovieJuice.com has signed a deal with Trimark Pictures furnishing the rights to selected portions of the MovieJuice spoof, ôThe Walt Witch Projectö (or, as DisneyÆs Joe Roth calls it, ôthat damned security infractionö).
A few legally innocuous scenes from ôWalt Witchö will be featured in TrimarkÆs upcoming video, ôThe Bogus Witch Project.ö ItÆs a compilation of the best 614 ôBlair Witch Projectö spoofs, drawn from the 240 million ôBlairö spoofs produced nationwide, giving all-new meaning to the term ôGrossö National Product.
In case youÆre slow on the trigger and youÆve missed ôThe Walt Witch Project,ö you can see whatÆs yanking TrimarkÆs crank at:
<a href="http://www.moviejuice.com/1999/waltwitchproject.htm">Click here for the fun!</a>
To dispel the gossip, it is NOT true that Calista Flockhart will receive an acting credit as ôBundle of Twigs #49ö
Now that IÆve sold a movie, letÆs review the statistics:
Number of movies IÆve sold: 1
Number of movies sold by net movie-gossip kingpin Harry Knowles: 0
Number of new baseball movies Kevin Costner is likely to sell: 0
Amount of money MovieJuice.com is likely to receive from the deal: 0
Amount of money made by most huge and highly valued Internet merchants: 0
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DONÆT FORGET TO VISIT MOVIEJUICE.COM!
Hey, kids, don't forget to visit the MovieJuice! Site at http://www.moviejuice.com. The pictures are half the fun (and sometimes more than half the laughs)!
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DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL! Just go to http://www.moviejuice.com and follow the directions at the bottom of the left hand side. It's very easy. NOTE: YOUR NAME CANNOT BE REMOVED FROM THE LIST UNLESS YOU UNSUBSCRIBE USING THE EMAIL ADDRESS YOU REGISTERED WITH). And don't write me lots of mean-spirited crap. I won't read it.
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Subject: [MV] MovieJuice! - HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL - Fright Club
Date: 30 Oct 1999 16:51:28 -0400 (EDT)
FREE ADVANCE SCREENING PASSES TO ôDOGMAö FROM MOVIEJUICE.COM
If you live in or near San Diego, get free advance screening passes to Kevin SmithÆs (ôChasing Amy,ö ôClerksö) hot new movie, ôDOGMA.ö Just send an email to dogma@moviejuice.com with ôI want Dogma passes from MovieJuice.comö in the Subject line.
Visit http://www.moviejuice.com/1999/dogmatix.htm for all the details.
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HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL û Fright Club
by Mark Ramsey
<a href="http://www.moviejuice.com/1999/house.htm">Click here for the full review!</a>
http://www.moviejuice.com/1999/house.htm
October 30, 1999
House on Haunted Hill is scary and frightening all right.
Scary bad and a frightening waste of talent. That is, in case the LA Coroner determines there's any talent to be found here.
Why couldn't these be the filmmakers who disappeared in the Blair woods? This flick would have been way better had it been played completely for laughs or at least on ice-skates.
I'm looking forward to the DVD and the special Director's audio apology track: "I'm sorry about this scene...And this one...Oh, this one too."
Eek! It's Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush doing James Woods doing Vincent Price in a role originally set for Tom Hanks until Tom realized it just fuckin' sucked. The main chill in House on Haunted Hill is the one in Geoffrey's career of late. Here's a fella who won an Oscar playing a guy who's nuts, and now he's proving life imitates art.
Famke Janssen, the Judi Dench of B-movies, splices "fuck" into her dialogue the way a scientist inserts genes into DNA. "That's Enter-fucking-tainment," sez Famke, who's one part Frumpke and two parts Funke.
Buy into this movie, and the ticket counter chick hands you a scratch-off game card. Trust me, it's your only chance to come out a winner here. I love a movie that dispenses with all quality pretense and skips straight to a bribe! That's what Saving Private Ryan needed: game-cards! "Pizza Hut presents, 'Kick the Krauts at Omaha Beach and Win!'"
What's that noise? It's the sound of a cold wind whipping through the empty and abandoned heads of our nubile female costars! They're interchangeable sweet-young-California casting couch tomatoes! Say, this old dark house is on swanky Melrose Place!
Thanks to the correspondence courses from the "Camp Crystal Lake School of Acting" and the good fortune only a panty-free audition can guarantee, these perky noses can smell fear from miles away! These fake boobies are divining rods for terror! So perfect are their complexions, a tiny cut becomes a cute, widdow-tiny cuttsie wuttsie.
Shudder as these haunted haus fraus tremble, just like they did before the Laker Girl cuts. Shriek as these boo-babes wave flashlights at each other to sustain their tans through the long night.
House on Haunted Hill is a remake of a campy old Vincent Price flick which is one of my personal video favorites. When the original was on the big screen, silly, spooky skeletons drifted over the audience's heads. Thinking quickly, the producers of this new version tied Lara Flynn Boyle and Courtney Cox to a clothesline and yanked them across the theater in a horrifying display of dangling bones.
Here's the creepy premise of House on Haunted Hill: Several strangers are brought together for a party and promised $1 million each if they make it through the night alive. Will anyone survive the night and emerge millions of dollars richer? Not if they're sitting in the audience, that's for sure. And if they do earn their millions, will they spend it on acting lessons?
Who invited these strangers to this haunted house, anyway? Well, it turns out the house did. You see, there's a lot of energy in this house, and energy goes through the phone, and the phone is hooked to the Internet, and...oh, forget it. All I can say is that if my house invites strangers over, I hope their last names are Jolie and Ryder.
Hey, AOL, can I use Parental Controls to limit the time my house spends online? I'm concerned it's downloading illegal pictures of pre-teen condos.
The house, you see, used to be the home of a Psychiatric Institute for the Criminally Insane, where Matthew McConaughey was once caught naked playing bungholes.
Naturally, the great evil in this movie is the CGI-monster - powered by Hell itself, along with Silicon Graphics, Dominos Pizza, and plenty of pre-IPO stock options. CGI condenses into a thick black cloud of computer-game smoke which devours every living thing in its path, and Peter Gallagher too.
Comic relief is provided by SNL regular Chris Kattan, who busts out of Lorne Michaels prison long enough to prove Red Buttons actually does have an equal, and flicks don't have to be SNL-inspired to stink up a theater.
The lovely invitations printed up by the house promise "terror, humiliation, perhaps even murder."
Close.
House on Haunted Hill is a terrible humiliation, perhaps worthy of murder.
Copyright 1999 Mark Ramsey. All rights reserved. NO PORTION MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR.
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Everybody else is selling it, why not me?
<a href="http://www.bmvs.com/sites/mramsey1/videos/qsearch.asp?startat=0&keywords=blair+witch&by=title">Buy The Blair Witch Project Here!</a>
Visit http://www.bmvs.com/sites/mramsey1/videos/qsearch.asp?startat=0&keywords=blair+witch&by=title for all the details.
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DONÆT FORGET TO VISIT MOVIEJUICE.COM!
Hey, kids, don't forget to visit the MovieJuice! Site at http://www.moviejuice.com. The pictures are half the fun (and sometimes more than half the laughs)!
********************
TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS LIST:
DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL! Just go to http://www.moviejuice.com and follow the directions at the bottom of the left hand side. It's very easy. NOTE: YOUR NAME CANNOT BE REMOVED FROM THE LIST UNLESS YOU UNSUBSCRIBE USING THE EMAIL ADDRESS YOU REGISTERED WITH). And don't write me lots of mean-spirited crap. I won't read it.
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