Subject: [MV] MovieJuice! ADVANCE - Week of September 6, 1998
Date: 06 Sep 1998 16:12:40 -0400
ROUNDERS - J'AI MOL A LA TIT
by Mark Ramsey
http://www.moviejuice.com
September 6, 1998
Attention, America! They're standing at attention! Only a blind man could stroll by the magazine rack without gaping at the rack on the cover of this month's Vanity Fair: It's Rounders co-star Gretchen Mol's essentially barenaked nipples gaping back. Shouldn't Vanity Fair upgrade to Vanity Extraordinary just this once? Will Utah video stores be editing out this cover along with the nude scenes in Titanic? Don't women in Utah have nipples?
Inside Vanity Bare, literary darling Bret Easton Ellis conducts a Q & A with the nipples voted by their alma mater: "Most Likely to Trade a Peek for Stardom." Here's a revealing excerpt:
Q. It's great to see you. Both of you. What may I call you, exactly? The two, the brave, the proud?
A. Her Highnesses will do.
Q. Both of you seem very excited at your recent coming out. Do you answer to the Bat-signal? Were you beamed with too much radiation during Gretchen's last dental cleaning? Not since giant tarantulas invaded the California coast have I witnessed anything so colossal.
A. Watch it, pal. These Tridents are nuclear-tipped.
Q. Did they call your new picture Rounders because calling it Erecters would be redundant?
A. Look, we're a little traumatized ever since we peered back at Sodom and Gomorrah and excitably transformed into the salt pillar-like monuments we are today. You should see us on Independence Day when we unfurl flags and shoot off rockets....
Don't get me wrong, Gretchen is one hot tamale. But is she talented? Who would know? She gets about three minutes of designated girlfriend screen-time in a role fit only for a pre-star with a nice pair of...credentials. No wonder Janeane Garofalo whines about objectification of women and Meryl Streep can barely find a gig, because damn if it doesn't work! I may be human, but I'm not proud of it.
The ads describe Rounders as a "thriller." The "thrilla in vanilla," maybe. This Poker-mania is insufferable succotash! What do they think this is, "Cards-ageddon"? Not since a dingo ate my baby have I been so befuddled by what sounds like English. Unfortunately for me, I left my Star Trek Commander Data Universal Translator at home. Where are the subtitles? What the hell are they talking about? Is the audience poker-faced or just bewildered?
"If you can't spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker," voiceovers 5-Card Stud Matt Damon, starring as "Blonde Matt." And if you can't spot the sucker in the first half hour of this movie, then the audience is the sucker. And I'm calling a spade a spade.
Ever-likable Matt is a cardshark, a law student, and a truck driver. If that sounds like three different movies in one, then you get the problem. Matt needs to reconcile his humdrum existence and ridiculously hot girlfriend with his lifelong passion to play cards. Good going, ace.
Get your Oscar ballots ready, gang. You heard it here first: Ed Norton. Ed's always good, but he's the perfect shining star here - an actor's slot machine jackpot. In real life, Ed is Courtney Love's Hole-puncher. Here, he plays a guy named "Worm" because he aerates the ground and if you cut him in half both ends will live. Or something like that.
Look out for John Malkovich in a Jimmy Walker-style Jordache sweatsuit, with a tris-hokey Russian accent and a beard so overgrown, the rainforest breathes a deep sigh of relief. Noah could stock an ark with the biodiversity living in that facial forestation and, no doubt, have plenty of day-old soup left over for himself. John's a card ringer who plays dirty by hiding aces in his beard, next to scattered debris from his breakfast of Alphabits. One shake of the head, and he's a Scrabble instant winner!
First Snake Eyes, now Rounders. Is this the leading edge of some sort of frightening LaLa-Land trend? Are these dice-heads and cardsharks only the beginning? Just when we thought it was safe to go back to the gameroom, Hollywood has green-lighted a plethora of game-based Thrillers:
- Lawn Jarts: Wesley Snipes returns in a suburb-friendly sequel to Blade. Only the silver-tipped jarts can kill the vampires, unfortunately they also kill the neighborhood pets.
- The Badminton Conspiracy: Sean Connery - whose balls are legendary - investigates the stunning dumbing-down of Tennis.
- Toy Story II: For the first time, Hollywood decides to produce a vast army of Christmas toys representing a movie sequel without bothering even to produce the sequel! Says Disney head Mike Eisner: "Hey, if Dreamworks had done this with Small Soldiers, they'd be better off!"
- BINGO: Ray Liotta follows up his head-scratching impersonation of Rat Packer Frank Sinatra with an equally incredible impersonation of crooner Bing Crosby. Crosby's heirs threaten to sue, but only if someone can explain to them who Ray Liotta is.
And don't miss Gretchen Mol's follow-up to Rounders, called Erect-er Set.
Copyright 1998 Mark Ramsey. All rights reserved. NO PORTION MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR.
********************
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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Subject: [MV] MGM OnLine Newsletter Vol. 11
Date: 09 Sep 1998 14:40:10 -0600
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Subject: [MV] MovieJuice! - Week of September 13, 1998
Date: 13 Sep 1998 15:52:14 -0400
SIMON BIRCH - BIRCH DEFECTS
http://www.moviejuice.com
by Mark Ramsey
September 13, 1998
In preparation for Simon Birch, I decided to brush up on my studies of flora and fauna. There's birch and oak and maple and pine, for starters. And what they all have in common is they grow REALLY SLOWLY. In fact, by the end of two Birch-filled hours, I'm in full support of global deforestation. I was so itchy I wanted to saw that kid in half because counting the rings would be more interesting than suffering this dialogue.
Simon Birch is a tiny sick kid played by real-life tiny sick kid Otowumba Nngolooma. Otowumba, whose African roots were cleverly disguised by special effects, heard about Brad Pitt's commitment to realism by chipping his teeth for a role, so he injected himself with a fatal dose of terminal cuteness, last used by the little girl in Hope Floats and siphoned directly from the jugular vein of that kid in Jerry Maguire.
Besides this illness, however, Otowumba also suffers from a disease called "Exploitatious Hollywoodus." Wouldn't the money dumped into this flick have been better invested in Jerry's Kids than in this gratuitous exercise in foul-mouthed 12-year old banter? Isn't it cute when sickly kids (or healthy ones for that matter) talk about boobs? "My balls just turned to raisins," says Simon. Awwwww! Cute! More detail than I wanted, pal.
But Simon is not just sickly, foul-mouthed, and horny. He's also very spiritual; an "instrument of God." Taken together, this combination qualifies him either for premature death or for the Presidency. And who wouldn't choose premature death?
Otowumba was discovered in a traveling circus show. When his carnival sidekick removes his upper torso, it seems, there are ever smaller Otowumbas inside, thus allowing Hollywood a range of models to choose from just like the friendly folks down at Beverly Hills BMW. In fact, back in the early 80's, Xerox attached a rope to Otowumba, put a button on his back, and slid him along a wrestling mat as an early model for what computer users now call a "mouse." The model for "floppy disks" was Pamela Anderson Lee, but that's another story.
Little sickly wise-ass Simon is a big trouble-maker in this flick. He does almost nothing but drives the adults batty anyway. As the minister tells him, "We need a break from you, Simon." What kind of lame-ass Mayberry juvenile delinquency is this? Beware, Simon, or you'll be sharing a cell with Otis the drunk. Coming up next: Simon joins the Jets in West Side Story and Simon wraps unauthorized masking tape around the nose bridge of his glasses. Damn rebel!
Believe it or not Jim Carrey's in this movie, proving not only that he can make movies that aren't funny, but movies that aren't any good at all. Narrates Jim: "Time is a monster that cannot be reasoned with. It responds like a snail to your impatience." You got that right, baby. Why not put that line on the movie poster: "Simon Birch: It responds like a snail to your impatience."
Did I mention that Ashley Judd's in this movie? She plays the best looking gal in town. And from the looks of this town, the runner up has four legs. Her beau is played by the unlikeliest casting call of the year: Oliver Platt. Oliver Platt?? With Ashley Judd?? Dapper Ollie, who looks like the bastard son of Gary Cooper and Oliver Hardy, has died and gone to casting heaven! And if that's not unbelievable enough, Ollie plays a drama teacher who's STRAIGHT, thus making him rare as the Hope diamond but not nearly as well cut.
According to the opening credits, this movie wasn't based on a book, it was "suggested by" a book. Just what does that mean? Did the book call its agent? Was there arm-twisting involved, or just page-turning? If this flick can be "suggested by" a book, can it be "ignored by" the audience?
Simon Birch was made for a different era. They don't make 'em like this anymore, and who can blame 'em? No wonder the studio sought a script polish from long dead scribe Preston Sturges who refused, saying he's working on a script for the third movie based on runner Steve Prefontaine, because - in the words of Sturges - "there can never be enough movies about runner Steve Prefontaine."
One thing good about this movie: It follows all the Screenwriter's Rules. Such as:
1. When the baseball moves in slo-mo, that means the batter's gonna hit it
2. When the kid doesn't know who his dad is, it's got to be one of the stars
3. A nagging cough means death is near
4. Old folks always die before the final reel
5. The extensive use of foreshadowing allows the audience to see everything that matters before it matters so we can all leave early, missing nothing
And why did they change the kid's name from Owen Meany (in the book) to Simon Birch? Oh to Hell with it, who cares. I can't wait for this movie to hit video, DVD, and Laserdisc so I can avoid renting it in as many formats as possible. Will someone please install a countdown timer above the exit sign in this theater. Or at least turn up the lights so I can find a gun and shoot myself.
Simon Birch is blah.
Copyright 1998 Mark Ramsey. All rights reserved. NO PORTION MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR.
********************
SHAMELESS PITCH:
Anyone who misses an opportunity to see the revamped Orson Welles Classic "Touch of Evil" should have their frickin' head examined. Run, don't walk, to the theater when it comes to your town. It'll make you stand up and cheer. You'll feel ten feet tall. And all that other stuff Joel Siegel always says. But God bless Joel, because he's signed up to the MovieJuice list.
********************
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 top of the left frame. 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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David wrote:
<Some classy movies are to be
<commended for their technical merit, but they just don't <make you
feel
<good. Saving Pte Ryan, alas, belongs to the latter.>
Sometimes...no... a lot of times a film is not designed to make you
feel good. Sometimes it is meant to teach, influence and even make
you feel bad. If you don't care to have those feelings then I can
understand why Private Ryan would produce such a negative opinion.
On the other hand, despite its few flaws I felt that the movie gave
me the closest feeling to how horrifying an experience war can be
than any other movie except for Apocalypse Now (in a completely
different manner). I didn't leave the theatre walking on a cloud but
was humbled to imagine the horrors I have been spared by the actions
of average men/boys thrown into hell (my father included).
WW I was joined enthusiastically by many countries because over the
years the idea of war had become romanticized. Trench warfare proved
to be anything but. I think it important that we never allow such
distortion of reality to develop again.
David Chronenberg is a filmmaker that I believe is a true artist but
I do not see his films either because they simply repulse me. I have
enjoyed some of his movies but stopped going because I found myself
more nauseated than anything else. In spite of that I cannot deny
his genius.
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The guy from Asia is back. That's me. :) Not Jackie Chan. Although this mail is about him. ;)
Rush Hour debut worldwide a few days ago. Has anyone seen it? It stars Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan - the martial arts veteran from Hong Kong. I have seen the trailer of Rush Hour and, in my opinion, Jackie's moves are slooowww... :) Perhaps a sign of old age? Heh heh heh. I mean, he is fast and furious-paced in the shows he used to be in, like Drunken Master II (oh, that's in Cantonese...). Rush Hour seems to be more forceful acting rather than natural fighting sequences.
Anyway, I'll probably be watching the show tonight. Perhaps I'll have a different opinion after that? :) In the meantime, what comment do YOU have?
Wong
Sibexlink Sdn Bhd of Malaysia
The Emerging Markets Data Center
http://www.sibexlink.com.my
Get free personalized email at http://email.lycos.com
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Subject: [MV] MovieJuice! - Week of September 20, 1998
Date: 20 Sep 1998 20:42:19 -0400
RUSH HOUR - BEVERLY HILLS CHOP
by Mark Ramsey
http://www.moviejuice.com
September 20, 1998
I was ready to check my brain at the door to this theater. Unfortunately the coat rack was chocked full with a wide variety of frontal lobes in every shape and size. So in I went to take my medicine which I strongly suspected would be fatal.
Whoa! Hey Mikey, I liked it!
Surprise, surprise, Rush Hour is gobs of fun. Gobs and gobs. In fact, this is the kind of fun Lethal Weapon used to be before the Holy Roman Numeral empire invaded and comic-relief guest stars and love interests began popping out like Peter Falk's glass eye when he concentrates really hard.
Now don't get me wrong. This ain't no cinematic revolution, and there's nothing novel about this formula. And no, snoot-heads, Oprah Winfrey and Tom Hanks ain't in it, and Spielberg wouldn't wipe his ass with this script (if only because he's got people who do that for him). Don't go looking for a paradigm shift or even a March-of-Dimes shift here, unless you mean the shift from Wheel of Fortune to Hollywood Squares.
Think of this as Beverly Hills Cop - The Next Generation. And that's okay with me, because this movie is more fun than a barrel of monkeys - and that includes the upcoming stinks-from-here epic Mighty Joe Young.
Rush Hour features Chris Tucker in a role which more than makes up for his last gig in the constitutionally cruel and humiliatingly unusual punishment called The Fifth Element. Can you believe how high-pitched this guy's voice is? Rumor has it that Puff Daddy sampled Tucker for his new song titled "Silently Calling all Dogs!"
During the recent MTV Music Awards, Tucker was chatting with Madonna when his snake charmer pitch coaxed her nipples free of their faux Hindu wrappings, causing them to jingle jangle across the stage, clapping together like cavernous finger cymbals celebrating the great Vishnu and magnetizing Nielsen families across the land into a chorus of stunned acquiescence that passes for viewership nowadays. Yes, people were peeking and meters were peaking as Madonna expressed her spirituality in the only way that focuses our attention: with boobies blaring! Jimmy Swaggert, take note! May I suggest a muscle-shirt?
Tucker is often confused with Chris Rock, but get it straight: Chris Rock is funny like a sonofabitch. Chris Tucker talks like a girl. That's it. Plus, thanks to his vocal range, Chris could play in a children's movie - as the children, that is.
All Tucker doubt aside, James Earl Jones on helium couldn't do a better job of it than Chris. This guy's got it! This Chris Rocks! How do you not get a kick out of lines like "I'm Michael Jackson, you Tito; your ass belongs to me."
And let's not forget Far Eastern good luck charm Jackie Chan. "You want a Cup O' Noodles or something?" Chris asks Jackie. The Chan-man is my Buddha's Delight, baby! He's the Fred Astaire of the Martial Arts flick, and while Chris may not be Ginger Rogers, he's a dandy Leslie Caron. Look out Chinese Mafia, it's Jackie and Blackie to the rescue!
I saw Jackie belt out some Presley tune on the Howie Doody Mandel show recently (yes, that's right. That was me watching). And all I can say is that Jackie may not be able to speak English, but he sure sings it better than Elvis.
So, as in all cop/buddy movies, our unlikely duo teams up to fight crime and save the girl (the aptly named "Soo Yung"). Jackie and Slappy venture to Chinatown (where every crook owns a restaurant, it seems) to take on the venomous but much admired "Too Hung," the odious "Dog Dung," the diminutive "Tom Thumb," and the emaciated poseur-child for bulimia, "Ally McBeal."
Unfortunately, Ally and Jackie face off. When Ally shakes her fist in a fit of unhinged fury, her wrist breaks clean in half, since gravity is too strong a force for her fragile, bird-like bones. Thank God producer David Kelley was on the scene. Looking on in horror, Kelley quickly penned an episode where Ally's hand comes to life and dances across the sink in the unisex bathroom, thus guaranteeing Emmy nominations by the truckload.
Tired though the whole buddy cop concept may be, Jackie and Wacky are energetic dynamos. They're like humanoid action/comedy Altoids - seriously strong salt and peppermints, with a fresh, what-the-hell attitude only seen in up-and-coming stars with something to prove. The mix may not be new, but as NBC likes to say, Jackie and Tacky make it "new to you."
See Rush Hour. You'll laugh your ass off.
Copyright 1998 Mark Ramsey. All rights reserved. NO PORTION MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR.
********************
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 top of the left frame. 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! - "What Dreams May Come" and "Ronin"
Date: 27 Sep 1998 17:11:16 -0400
This week, a MovieJuice double feature! The 4-1-1 on Ronin, plus a special preview of Robin Williams' What Dreams May Come! Read it all and weep.
********************
WHAT DREAMS MAY COME - I'M A SOUL, MAN
by Mark Ramsey
http://www.moviejuice.com
September 27, 1998
Welcome to class, students. I'm professor Beer-pak Chopra. Today's lesson in Metaphysics is called What Dreams May Come. It stars misty-eyed Robin Williams and a misty-eyed cast from the mist-shrouded island of misteria, mister. And it'll have your inner child cheering for more - more milk and a blanket, anyway. Even the Way of the Wizard is pointing toward the exit.
If my Id liked it, but my Superego thought it sucked, am I doomed to schizophrenia or just plain doomed? If this movie is therapy, is my $7.50 covered by Aetna?
"When I was young...." voiceovers Robin at the very beginning of this flick, as the soundtrack teeters on the edge of an Eric Carmen moment. Robin's goal, once dead, is to bring his wife back from Purgatory or a really messy house (they seem to be the same thing). Yes, death, insane asylums, funerals....this flick's a real two-hanky charmer. All aboard for Heaven and Hell. Everybody off at Hell.
What do you want from a flick where most of the cast is dead for most of the movie? Cuba Gooding Jr. spends his first on-screen minutes in a misshapen fuzz, having gained posthumous possession of the infamous Romulan cloaking device mysteriously set on "Photoshop Blur."
"So if you're aware you exist, then you do," proclaims Cuba, as Ushers sweep down the aisles passing out Descartes Cliff Notes. Consider it the Cuban Revelation.
Look for Max Von Sydow as the afterlife guide. This poor guy is going through a lot of exertion here, but Max hasn't aged a bit. He looked 80 when he tussled with vomit-spewing demons way back in The Exorcist, and now he looks maybe 81.
According to ancient Greek philosopher Pat Benatar, "Hell is for Children," and there are tons of kids in this afterlife. Some flit, some fly, some have no mouths, but all, it seems, have Twyla Tharp dance training and stage moms with Culkin-like aspirations just off camera.
On the way out, somebody said "It's kinda like Ghost." Yeah, sure. Exactly like Ghost. Except Demi's a dead psycho, Whoopi is played by that light-hearted, laugh-a-minute, jolly joker Max Von Sydow, and - most incredibly of all - Patrick Swayze is an Oscar winner. Exactly like Ghost!
"It was...interesting," noted another hapless audience member, praising the film with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for intensely sobering NYU student films and the thrills and chills of NPR's All Things Considered. Why, that was the most...interesting...time I've had at the movies since last Summer's event-film spectacular: PBS - The Movie.
Much will be made of the exotic look of this movie, as Robin prances and dances across the painterly afterlife landscape, proving what every CGI programmer already knew: Heaven is a SUN workstation at ILM!
In this computerific Garden of Eden, Robin walks on water, just like he does in real life, to chase down Annabella Sciorra, which almost nobody does in real life. Say, isn't that Annabella Andrews singing "the hills are alive with the Sound of Music"?
Pretty as this panorama is, Robin soon finds his way to Hell - or as they call it in L.A., the Santa Monica Freeway. Robin trots gingerly over a garden of heads - and I don't mean lettuce, pal. In fact, there's so much jumping, diving, and swimming in this flick I thought I was watching a Summer Olympics highlight reel.
There are lots of lessons to take away from What Dreams May Come. For starters:
- If you die, move to a place in the sun
- Art fans get the best cribs
- All dogs really do go to Heaven
- Max Von Sydow isn't dead
- Folks in Heaven look like Max or Cuba Gooding, never like Patricia Arquette (Hey, why bother even calling it Heaven? If it were Heaven, wouldn't everyone look like Patricia Arquette?)
Can love conquer all? Will Robin ever give up? Will Robin kick my frickin' ass?
Thank God Wild Things' Denise Richards wasn't the object of Robin's affection, despite the appropriateness of the term "object." You see, Denise has had more body parts replaced than the Bionic Woman and a '67 Chevy combined. In fact, scientists estimate that if Denise were to die nothing would decompose except for her brain.
This must be why Denise has offered to donate her brain to science - in her words - "just like I did last time."
Copyright 1998 Mark Ramsey. All rights reserved. NO PORTION MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR.
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RONIN - MISSION IMPLAUSIBLE
by Mark Ramsey
http://www.moviejuice.com
September 27, 1998
What's this? A movie from United Artists? I haven't seen one of these in a while. Are Mary Pickford and Doug Fairbanks back in front of the camera? Is Chaplin out of retirement? And it's a talkie yet!
Let's play MGM Jeopardy (and before you folks at MGM get defensive, I don't mean that as a pun - even though it works as one):
Answer: Ronin.
Question: Where can you find every former Bond actor in the universe?
Hey, I'm not kidding. This is some kind of shaken, stirred reunion! All the Spies Who Loved Me, the former heavies and not so heavies, are here. It's like when PBS brought every worldwide cast of Les Miz together in London on one stage - even the Eastern European casts who couldn't carry a tune if their lives depended on it but know how to dodge bullets like nobody's business.
The producers of this flick put out a casting call far and wide for every actor in Europe with deep bags under their eyes, and they're all here, folks! Robert DeNiro is DeRonin, he's a Soldier of Fortune. As usual, he's deMasterful. Costarring with Bob is all of France, which is lacking bags but is plum full of baguettes. This movie may not win an Oscar, unless of course there's a category for espresso consumption.
Why, this is a veritable French travelogue. Not only do I feel like I just visited France, I feel like I've killed a few people there. Not bad for a guy whose French is limited to "cherchez les femmes" and the fried variety. De Gaulle of de French to call a city "Nice." Isn't that a reach? What could be nicer? I just love those little cop cars that look like ice cream trucks with that annoying siren. Are you going to arrest me, Officer, or release an ice cream sandwich on its own recognizance?
This Tour de France shows a nation where everyone's white and dresses in black. All stare suspiciously at each other, but absolutely nobody thinks the name "Seamus" is funny. Go figure.
Ronin has Jean Reno cast once again as the French equivalent of the unmade bed. Natascha McElhone and former Infiniti guy Jonathan Pryce are Irish terrorists whose dialogue is typical of this:
She: Have yeww seen Daniel Day Lewis, Seamus?
He: Shiite! No! Have yeww? Is he in this Foookin' movie?
Everyone's out to get a briefcase - or as they call it in Europe - a valise. Nobody seems to tell you what's in the valise, but everyone's after it. Hitchcock used to have stuff like this all the time. Because of his ravenous appetite, he called it a "McMuffin" - or something like that. In fact, entrepreneur Ray Kroc liked the term so much, he licensed it for his nascent fast food restaurant, resulting in the only thing Hitchcock ever made that appeals to folks under 20. Hitch had Egg McMuffins and Sausage McMuffins and - during the making of The Birds - Puffin McMuffins. What he really wanted were Grace Kelly's McMuffins, but that's another story.
Despite the once Bondaged cast, this is what a Bond flick should be. Great action, rockin' car chases (believe it or not), and great DeNiro. No silly gadgets, no ridiculous stunts, no trumpety theme song, no cheesy, glib one-liners, and best of all, NO BOND!
Help me understand something. Here's Bobby and the crew zig-zagging madly around the narrow roads of France. But somehow, in the midst of these dramatic, frenzied chases, the cars signal and flash their lights to pass! What kind of bizarre, high speed, near fatal collision courtesy is this? This is the most gentlemanly death race I've ever seen! Shouldn't DeNiro lean out his window to say "so sorry, chap" as he passes every bewildered motorist? Is he tossing out samples of Grey Poupon as he switches lanes?
Is France some kind of scumbag magnet? Everyone in this movie is trying to cheat and double-cross each other. Double-cross, triple-cross. There's enough Cross here to open a pen factory. Why can't we all just get along?
Don't miss the most highly anticipated acting debut of the year when figure skater Katarina Witt shows her chops (and, sadly, little else), thus paving the way for songbird Jewel, who has already conquered the worlds of music, poetry, and soon movies, proving we're all a bunch of fucking idiots.
Ronin is Rock and Roll adrenaline. Murderous, speed-deadly fun for the whole family. As Unmade French Bed says, "no questions, no answers. That's the beeezness we're in." Here's a flick that proves there's no beeezness like show beeezness, brother.
Copyright 1998 Mark Ramsey. All rights reserved. NO PORTION MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR.
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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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