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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 24 January 2002

Mallrats (1995) was his first commercial effort and very much a disappointment.  Chasing Amy’s (1997) look at love and relationships helped rediscover my enjoyment for Kevin Smith.  Dogma (1999) was his boldest project but the heavy religious aspect was a little too much.  And so, we have arrived at film five - Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back.

It’s fruitless recommending this film to anyone not familiar with Kevin Smith.  It reunites characters from his previous four films and pokes fun at Hollywood and the recent trend of bad scripts.  The story revolves around two characters who have appeared is his past works and a cult icons.  Jay (Mewes) is a foul-mouthed hormonal “kid” and Silent Bob (director Smith) is his sidekick who never says a word.

If you saw Chasing Amy, you’ll remember that a comic book was created based on the lives of Jay and Silent Bob.  It was called Bluntman & Chronic and in Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back, the rights to the film have been purchased by Miramax executives and production is set to begin in three days time.  Jay and Silent Bob have only just learnt of this and are introduced to a new technological marvel called the “internet”.  Scanning a movie gossip website, they’ve found their names trashed by those around the world who think the Jay and Silent Bob story is crap and shouldn’t be made into a movie.  To save their image, they set off for Hollywood to make sure the movie never gets off the ground...

The plot is not important but the jokes certainly are.  The film’s essence is the way it mocks everything about Hollywood and its film industry.  There are eight million cameos but without spoiling all of them, I had to admit a scene involving Jason Biggs and James Van Der Beek rivaled anything I’ve seen in a long term in terms of hilarity.  Smith fans will pick up on many of the subtle (and not so subtle) jokes that carry forward from his past films.

A bold project but not everything works as expected.  A subplot involving four young ladies who steal diamonds isn’t particularly funny and too much is made of it.  It’s strange that Smith has come up with jokes that are so good and yet others that are so bad.  Every person has a different sense of humour and no matter how hard you try, you can’t make someone laugh at something that they won’t find funny.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 17 January 2002

destiny, n.  The power that is believed to determine the course of events.

Why is it that horoscopes are published in every leading newspaper and magazine?  Easily mocked, they entice our curiosity in that perhaps our fate is, to an extent, predetermined.  In terms of love, is there one person we’re absolutely destined to be with?  Many have lost a night’s sleep trying to solve this mystery.

In a New York department store, Jonathan (Cusack) and Sara (Beckinsale) meet after they simultaneously snatch the final pair of black mittens from a counter display.  They talk, go for ice-cream, and skate together on Central Park’s Wollman Rink.  After the night of their lives, Sara reaches to give Jonathan her phone number on a small piece of paper but a sudden wind blows it from her hand and into the mist.

A strong believer in fate, Sara takes this to be a sign.  Prepared to let destiny decide, she makes Jonathan write his number on a $5 bill which she promptly uses to buy mints at a newspaper stand.  For Jonathan, she writes her name and number in a book, Love In The Time Of Cholera, and vows to sell it the following day to a used book store.  If either finds the object with their respective phone numbers, it’s surely meant to be.

Years of unsuccessful searching pass and Jonathan and Sara have finally moved on with their lives.  Both are engaged to be wed but on the verge of taking life’s ultimate commitment, memories and feelings of a single night long ago resurface.  With friend Dean (Piven), Jonathan revives his quest by searching every used book store in New York and by “chance” comes across a valuable clue - the receipt from the purchase of the mittens listing Sara’s credit card number.  Sara now lives in San Francisco but takes friend Eve (Shannon) on a spur-of-the-moment trip to New York to see if the same magic from all those years ago will reunite her with true love.

From a realism perspective, the film is difficult to swallow as the coincidences are one too many.  Chicago Sun Times’ critic Roger Ebert described it best when he said “that fate is not merely knocking on the door, it has entered with a SWAT team and is banging their heads together and administering poppers.”  Still, you can’t take a film like Serendipity too seriously.  It’s designed to give people cheerful hope in their own romantic conquests with the thought that two people can be perfect for each other.

Cult star John Cusack’s (High Fidelity) passionate personality makes him ideal for this role.  English starlet Kate Beckinsale (Pearl Harbor) makes a worthy “soul mate” but can’t match Cusack’s humour.  Jeremy Piven is one of those actors who always supports but never leads - his face will be familiar but few will know his name.  His recent credits include Black Hawk Down, Rush Hour 2, The Family Man, Kiss The Girls, Grosse Pointe Blank and Heat.  In Serendipity, Piven shares some hilariously insightful scenes with Cusack highlighted by a moment the two share together on a plane.

So, do we control our own destiny or does our destiny control us?  Haven’t you ever had one of those days where everything goes amazingly perfect or one of those days where everything goes horrendously wrong?  Could it be more than just a coincidence?  That fact that I’ll never know the answer makes it all the more fun to think about.

Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 24 January 2002

1975.  Fighting in Vietnam, Nathan needs a marksman to eliminate a military leader and is introduced to rookie Tom Bishop.  Tom learnt his craft in the “boy scouts” and has a deadly aim.  Nathan senses much ability in him and one year later, offers him a lucrative opportunity to train and become a CIA agent.

1985.  In Beirut, Tom and Nathan are working together on an important assignment.  An important leader is to be killed but the death has to be made look an accident.  With a narrow window of opportunity, months are spent setting up the operation but Tom falls for a young medical assistant (McCormack) and may have lost sight of the mission (for better or worse).  It’s a turning point in all their careers.

Screenwriters Michael Breckner and David Arata effectively tell both the present and the past story simultaneously.  It’s well told and maximum value is extracted from its two hour length.  Questionably, both Pitt and Redford look the same in 1975 as they do in 1991.  Surely a little extra make-up could have been used.

The film’s premise is interesting for two reasons.  Firstly, we get a close look at how a spy operates and how they develop the skills that keeps them hidden and removed from suspicion.  Secondly, we get a look at the CIA and their extraordinary ability to obtain information about anyone or anything.  Both concepts are well explored but slight annoyances arose from moments that were a little too hard to believe.  The cool ending will please audiences but it doesn’t suit the tone of the film and I consider it far-fetched.

Pitt and Redford cruise through their performances.  Both are solid but neither will list their roles as a career highlight on their resumes.  Academy Award nominee Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Secrets And Lies) makes a nice cameo as Nathan’s secretary but her talent is wasted in such a small role.  As a CIA agent intent on exposing Nathan’s activities, Stephen Dillane behaves stupidly.  One with his position and qualifications shouldn’t so easily outsmarted.  The same must be said for the entire group that met at the boardroom at CIA headquarters.

Director Tony Scott seems to attracted to stories about power and its effects with Spy Game following his previous efforts, Enemy At The State and Crimson Tide.  The formula behind all three films is similar and if they didn’t climax with the obligatory crowd-pleasing Hollywood ending, may have left a more lasting impression.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 10 January 2002

Made in 1960, the original Ocean’s Eleven was neither well received nor reviewed.  Starring Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Dean Martin and Joey Bishop, the film’s production was secondary to the cast spending time wining, dining and gambling in Las Vegas.  The film was more fun for the cast than for the audience.

Knowing the troubles that plagued the 60s version, Soderbergh’s reputation is the film’s greatest asset.  For the opportunity to work with one of the world’s leading directors, the talented cast all took pay cuts.  A film with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia and Julia Roberts would ordinarily cost $100m in wages and would never get off the ground.  Thanks to Soderbergh, we’re seeing them all on screen at the same time.

The premise is nothing new.  Just hours after being released from a four year stint in prison, thief Danny Ocean (Clooney) is back at work.  Speaking with old friend Dusty Ryan (Pitt), the two are masterminding an impossible robbery – to rob three of the biggest casinos in Las Vegas on the same night.  Assembling a team of eleven experts, they’re all prepared to take the punt and $150m split eleven ways is an attractive lure.

If a film could be “cool” then Ocean’s Eleven is it. The actors, the locale and the plot give it a light-hearted seriousness.  Clooney and Pitt share some delicious dialogue and soak up some fantastic one-liners (many which were improvised).  Andy Garcia was the film’s best in my eyes.  As the casino owner (i.e. the “bad guy”), he doesn’t overplay the character and his simple cocky demeanour is enough to have us root for those against him.

The only part that disappoints is the impracticability of the robbery.  It seems too easy and I preferred the more indepth pre-robbery planning that we saw in The Score, released last year.  It’s too hard to believe that one could pull off much a massive robbery so simply today.  Then again, maybe I’m taking thinks a little too seriously.

Steven Soderbergh won the Academy Award last year for his direction of Traffic (he was also nominated for Erin Brockovich).  Many consider his follow up selection as slightly bizarre.  I believe it to be a great chance to unwind and escape the pressure that will follow much of his future career. Soderbergh has immaculately captured the beauty of Vegas and shot much of the film in an actual casino (the Bellagio).  I’m sure they’ll appreciate the advertising but I hope the casino’s actual security doesn’t mimic that of the film.  If so, I’m getting ten men together.  Are you in?

Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 17 January 2002

It’s the simplicity of the story that gives it its realism.  Trish (Philips) and Darry (Long) are driving together across the country to visit their parents for the holidays.  They are passed on the road by a maniac driving a large van and only narrowly avoid him.  Further down the highway, they see the same van pulled over beside an old church and a hooded figure is dumping large sacks (similar to body bags) down a sewer pipe.

They instantly attempt to call the police but the mobile phone is out of power and the nearest pay phone is miles away (isn’t it always the way?).  After being passed on the road by the van again, Darry decides they must turn back and see what’s down that sewer pipe - someone could still be alive down there.  Accidentally falling down the pipe, Darry witnesses that which no man should see.  A basement filled with horrors previously unimaginable.

Left speechless and shaken by the ordeal, Trish and Darry head to the nearest town to alert the authorities and it is at this point where things really get creepy.  At a petrol station, they are warned by a mysterious telephone caller that when they hear the song “Jeepers Creepers”, they must run at all costs.  Already unsettled, Trish and Darry do not know what to make of it all.  Is this just some cruel joke or are their lives really in danger?

Gina Philips and Justin Long work really well off each other.  They argue like any brother and sister and their childish fights really annoyed me (which they’re supposed to).  Seeing Trish tell Danny not to go down the sewer pipe is a perfect example - she just never lets up.

The ending is very creative.  With most films, you can always tell the ending is coming up because the pieces have all been put together and you can just tell from the music and dialogue that it’s almost time to stretch the legs.  Not so in Jeepers Creepers.  The film ends rather sickly and abruptly - a pleasant surprise.

With little at risk financially, I guess director/writer Victor Salva (Powder) had the opportunity to take a few chances.  The teen slasher genre is abused and overworked and his efforts to “change the script” have worked successfully and I commend him for it.  I hope he continues his boldness in the sequel currently in development.  Sequels - they’re inevitable, aren’t they?