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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 14 March 2004

For young teenagers, good looks and popularity are more important than ever.  Single mother Melanie (Hunter) is about to learn how much difficulty this can create.  As a recovering alcoholic, Melanie has been through her own dramas of late.  She has recently separated from her husband and pays the bills with a part-time job as a hairdresser.  It’s a battle but she’s trying hard to keep her children happy and her own life on track.

Her daughter, Tracy (Wood), has reached the delicate age of “thirteen” and is about to consumed by a world of appearances.  Tracy has natural good looks and gets great grades at school and has natural good looks but wants something more.  She wants attention and popularity.

The “coolest” girl in school is Evie (Reed) and Tracy slowly weaves her way into the friendship group.  Evie however is a manipulator and soon has Tracy at her ultimate disposal.  Tracy is shoplifting, smoking, and drinking.  She sneaks out at night to go partying and now has both a nipple and tongue ring.  Tracy and Evie have become inseparable.

At first, Melanie was approving of her daughter’s new friend but now she realises trouble in brewing.  Tracy won’t listen to her mother’s warnings and is using her disapproval for her mother’s new boyfriend as an excuse to be rebellious.  The relationship between mother and daughter is fast deteriorating and Melanie knows she must act fast or risk losing touch with her daughter forever.

During the opening half hour, I thought Thirteen was going to be another one of those preachy tales where the message dominates the story.  In hindsight, I know I am mistaken and can praise this flick as a gritty, realistic portrayal of how difficult life can be at a teenager.  The screenplay itself has been written by director Catherine Hardwicke and 16-year-old Nikki Reed (who stars as Evie).  Reed drew on her own experiences to craft the script and many of the events you see on screen mirror her own life story.  Knowing this only makes me appreciate her performance even more.  It can’t have been easy playing the “bad girl” but he comes through with a blistering performance.

Holly Hunter earned an Oscar nomination for her role and Evan Rachel Wood (as Tracy) can consider herself unlucky not to do so having already received a Golden Globe nomination.  Such raptures show I’m not alone in my praise for Thirteen and its wonderful performances.  There’s a lasting impression to be taken from this movie and those who relate to the story will take away even more.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 04 March 2004

Pieces Of April is a wonderful low-budget piece built around a touching story.  Director and writer Peter Hedges tried hard to get Hollywood funding but no studios were forthcoming.  Unwilling to relent, Hedges managed to pull $300,000 together and shot the film in two weeks using digital cameras.  There’s no big name stars, top-notch sets or smooth visual effects to sucker audiences here.  All Hedges has to rely upon is the story and thankfully, he delivers.

It’s Thanksgiving but not a time for celebration for the Burns family.  42-year-old Joy Burns (Clarkson) has terminal cancer.  She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband Jim (Platt), daughter Beth and son Timmy.  Deep down the kids know this will be the last Thanksgiving they will spend with their mother.

There’s one regret Joy has and it concerns her eldest daughter, April (Holmes).  They have never seen eye to eye and now the rebellious April lives in New York with her latest boyfriend (Luke).  Against the strong wishes of other family members, Joy has decided to go to New York for Thanksgiving in a final attempt to make peace.

April sees the same opportunity and is trying heartedly to produce a Thanksgiving feast.  She’s got her mum’s turkey recipe and a few other special treats to impress the reluctant family.  And then, the stove breaks down.  There’s no way to cook the turkey and she’s stressfully banging on neighbouring apartment stores looking for someone to help out.  She knows there’s a lot at stake.

The film follows both April’s dinner preparation and Joy’s road trip with equal times spent on each in a rather short film (just 81 minutes).  Peter Hedges is no stranger to writing a good script having previously adapted What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? and About A Boy for the big screen.  He keeps things light in the film’s first half with some unexpectedly great one-liners (particularly from Patricia Clarkson).  Towards the later stages, the film enters its more dramatic phase with a fitting conclusion.  Without revealing more, I was pleased at what point Hedges chose to end the film.  There was no need to draw it out.

Is there a fitting adjective to describe Patricia Clarkson?  She received her first Oscar nomination for this role (lost to Renee Zellweger) and is thoroughly deserving of it.  Clarkson is a darling of the independent film circuit and I am continually applauding her work.  A good film with a small paycheck is always preferred to a bad film with a large paycheck.  I’ve actually now seen her four times in the last seven months on the big screen – the other films being Dogville, The Station Agent and All The Real Girls.

Once again I plead with you to find your way to this film.  You may have to sift through your newspaper to find where it’s showing but the extra effort will pay dividends.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 13 March 2004

Watching The Butterfly Effect is like putting together a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle with few pieces missing.  It’s great fun as you’re going along but there’s a sense of confusion and disappointment waiting for you at the very end.  Then again, any film about the intricacies of time travel is bound to mystify.

The film centres around Evan Treborn who is played by Ashton Kutcher.  I’ll say straight out that Kutcher doesn’t belong here.  I feel unusually sympathetic making this statement because other critics have already given him a pasting.  The rumour is that he cancelled many press interviews after the initial negative reactions and has been very depressed by the whole experience.  It’s not that Kutcher is a poor actor but rather he is a poor choice for this role.  The Butterfly Effect is a deeply serious film and the producers have taken an ill-timed gamble by choosing a lead actor who specialises in comedy.

Evan Treborn suffered from “blackouts” as a child.  He would actively do things but when quizzed later, would have no memory of them.  Neurosurgeons could find no problems but the symptoms were eerily similar to that of Evan’s father, who wound up in a mental institution.  At the age of 13, a series of events (which I won’t detail for fear of spoilage) forced Evan and his mother to leave town forever and start a new life in a new place. 

Now, Evan is a studious 20-year-old quietly celebrating the fact he hasn’t had a “blackout” in over seven years.  He takes a girl back to his dorm but she uncovers a box of journals written by Evan under his bed.  He briefly reads of them and a life long forgotten comes flooding back… literally.  He is taken back in time to the moment he is reading about.  Only he is not there as a passive observer – he can change the events as they unfold.  But as he changes the past, he unknowingly changes the future and the life he will return to will not be what he expects.

There’s plenty of food for thought and I’ve had a good think and read a few internet articles on whether all the events that unfold in this film make sense.  I’m sure if it were possible, the creators of The Butterfly Effect might themselves sneak back in time to change a few elements of the screenplay.  I’m not 100% convinced but I give credit to any filmmaker who still has me thinking after I leave the cinema.  Subsequent to writing this review I’m sure to be asking others for their thoughts.

The star of the show is 16-year-old John Patrick Amedori who plays a younger version of Evan.  When the older Evan travels back into the younger Evan’s body, Amedori perfectly captures the Kutcher persona and delivers his dialogue without the slightest hesitation.  I’d be betting on more good roles and a promising future for this latest teen star.

The “butterfly effect” theory prescribes that “if the initial state of the nonlinear system is changed only slightly, one cannot predict the difference in how each system will evolve over time.”  I guess that also means that no two people who see this film will have the same opinion.  Damn.  Defeats the purpose of writing a review, doesn’t it?

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 03 March 2004

I expected much better.  Once Upon A Time In Mexico is the third film in the series from writer/director Robert Rodriguez following 1992’s El Mariachi and 1995’s Desperado.  Antonio Banderas is back in the leading role but the only star of this film is Johnny Depp.  In the space of twelve months, Depp has shown that an otherwise ordinary character can be turned into something far more interesting.  I’m not the only one who agrees.  The Academy just awarded him with an Oscar nomination for Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl.

Depp plays a corrupt C.I.A. agent looking to kill a Mexican general.  There are many characters in the mix and given it’s been a few days since I’ve seen the film, it’s all become a blur.  Why couldn’t Rodriguez have made a more memorable film?  There’s a president in there somewhere and Antonio Banderas is a drifting guitar player looking to settle an old score.  Eva Mendes and Enrique Iglesias provide eye candy for the younger audience and Willem Dafoe and Mickey Rourke are in there to show that old guys still have what it takes.  That’s about that.

My point is that this film is just a glossed up muddle of action scenes lacking in story.  When you consider his first two films were made for less than $5m, Rodriguez hasn’t done enough with his $29m budget this time around.  He’s paid for some better actors and some half-decent stunt scenes but there’s no flow to the story and aside from Depp, not enough humour to appeal to me.

And that’s my two pesos.

Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 07 March 2004

I flat out did not want to see this film.  My grade is reflective of this and too bad if I am being prejudice.  I left home at 12:20pm for a 12:40pm session and seriously contemplated missing the turn-off and going straight into work.  Do you see the seriousness of this statement?  I actually considered missing a movie to work instead.

But then I thought, well, what’s the point of that?  As a critic, I’m going to have to see this trash eventually whether it be at a theatre or at home on video.  So my car made the correct turn and veered in the direction of my nearest multiplex.  In the back of my mind I still hoped for a miracle.  Could the session be sold out leaving me the luxury of returning home?  I was kidding myself (and knew this for sure once I saw all the empty seats inside the theatre).

As I sat there waiting for it start, a painful memory came over me.  I had looked up this film earlier on the internet and it said the duration was 123 minutes.  Now that is a joke.  I tried thinking but couldn’t remember the last comedy I saw that was longer than two hours.  Something’s Gotta Give was 128 minutes but that was more of a romantic drama with a hint of comedy.

So let’s get down to the storyline.  Take a Panadol because this could leave you (as it did me) with a pain in the head.  Darren Hill (Gooding Jr) works in New York for an advertising agency.  He has just been fired because his boss has released his resume was bogus – he never did get a degree from Yale.  Darren likes living the high life but is up to his eyeballs in debt.  Every credit card he has is “maxed out”.

He is tracked down by a private investigator who gives him news that his aunt has passed away.  He has to return to the small Georgian town where he grew up for the funeral.  At the reading of the will, Darren is left stock to the value of $150,000 provided that he lead the church choir and win a bible song contest called the Gospel Explosion.  What were the screenwriters thinking?  So despite knowing nothing about music, he bluffs his way through, recruits a bunch of misfits and finds a lead singer with a beautiful voice (Knowles).  Does he win?  You’ll have to see the film to find out.  Oh hang on, in that case then yes, they win.  And he undergoes a big moral change in the process.

Just have a look at the poster for The Fighting Temptations.  Certainly the worst of the year and how it can encourage any patron to attend is beyond me.  If you do see it, I suggest taking a pen and paper.  Then you can compete with your friends in the latest quiz sensation – “How Many Plot Holes Can You Find?”  My score was 86.