Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 23 November 2000

It kicks off from the opening scene when we see Natalie (Diaz), Dylan (Barrymore) and Alex (Liu) defuse an impossible situation aboard an airliner.  They come from varied backgrounds but have been recruited by the reclusive Charlie to carry out world-saving assignments.  Their contact with Charlie is through “middleman” Bosley (Murray) who is little more than an aging womaniser.

The latest assignment will be a tough one.  They are approached by vixen Vivian Wood (Lynch) when a millionaire scientist, Eric Knox (Rockwell), is kidnapped.  Knox had developed a revolutionary computer program with the ability to remember and replicate any voice it hears.  In the wrong hands, it could be used to manipulate global satellites and throw the world into chaos.  Oh no!

The Angels’ are hungry for some lovin’ but have to forego relationships with their boyfriends (Tom Green, Luke Wilson and Matt LeBlanc) until they track down the kidnappers and generally “kick ass”.  If you wish to continue, please read on.

Bottom line, you can’t describe Charlie’s Angels without using “popcorn” and “movie” together in the same sentence - you know exactly what you’re in for when you buy that ticket.  The strongest feature comes from the brisk pace it sets.  Action is prominent and time is not wasted on trivial side characters, awful dialogue and attempts to bring authenticity to the script (a pitfall many recent action films have fallen victim too).

Diaz, Barrymore and Liu must have had a ball and their effervescence shows.  Instead of playing perfect tough gals, they show a hilarious ditsy side in many scenes with particular praise going to Cameron Diaz.  They know it’s all for fun and don’t try to take it any further.  Disappointingly, more wasn’t made of Bill Murray.  The comedic genius seemed too tightly bound by the script and Murray wasn’t given the flexibility to show his great talent, improvisation.

First-time director Joseph McGinty Nichol is simply known in the credits as McG and I’m at a loss to understand why.  His direction of Charlie’s Angels shows he has talent though and his boldness should be rewarded with future projects.  Credit is also due to the special effects team and editors Peter Teschner and Wayne Wahrman who have created the best action sequences since The Matrix.

This is not the sort of film I endorse nor would I see it a second time.  Still, if tacky action films need be made you may as well go the whole way and Charlie’s Angels fits the bill.  Given its huge success in the United States and the lack of decent scripts, one feels a sequel will be just around the corner.  I may save my scathing review for then.

Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 16 November 2000

There is a detective named Peter Novak who is trying to track down the killer.  The body count is increasing and subtle clues are being left - he knows the killer wants to be caught.  Sure enough to clues lead to the house of Carl Stargher and Novak has his man but due to heavy trauma, Stargher lapses into a coma from which he will never awake.

There is a young lady by the name of Julia Hickson who is missing.  Novak knows Stargher was behind her kidnapping but the whereabouts of her and the tank remain unknown.  The only person who can answer both questions is Stargher but he will never speak again and the clock is ticking.

Finally there is child psychologist, Catharine Deane.  For 18 months she has been part of a secret project trying to help a young boy awake from his own coma.  Through complicated technological advancements, she has travelled through his mind trying to unlock the mysteries that keep it traumatised.

As the pieces fit together, Deane is recommended to Novak as the solution to his problems - she could search Stargher’s mind for the location of the tank.  Fraught with danger, this will be like nothing like Deane has experienced before.  She will traverse the mind of a serial killer...

One wonders how writer Mark Protosevich managed to put this movie on paper.  It is remarkably complex and relies on heavy computer imagery and illusions to create the effect of being within one’s mind.  Director Tarsem Singh deserves credit for providing one of 2000’s most original films.  From the opening credits, nothing is certain and what lies behind the next bend is never known.

Whilst intriguing, The Cell never seems to take the next step.  The premise is interesting but too much time is spent outside rather than inside Stargher’s mind.  Many supporting characters appear to be going through the motions with predictable actions and dialogue - they’re just distracting puppets in the main show.

Plenty of discussion has been preceded The Cell from the United States with critics calling it everything from “one of the best films of the year” (Chicago Sun-Times) to “an awfully generic variation on the overworked serial-killer genre” (New York Post).  All I can suggest is to look deep and make up your own mind.  That is of course, if someone hasn’t already looked there first.

Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 23 November 2000

Diana (Rodriguez) is a tough girl in her final year of high school.  Home life has been tough since her mother passed away several years earlier and her father’s always shown favour for her younger brother Tiny (Santiago).  Tiny is given $10 a week by his father for boxing lessons and Diana resents the treatment Tiny receives.

At the gym one day, Diana finds the best way to express herself is in the boxing ring.  Hector (Tirelli), the boxing coach, is hesitant but sees talent in Diana and agrees to let her train if she’ll put in the effort.  All this is going on behind the back of her father and Diana will have a hard time keeping it from him.

Has the whole world gone topsy-turvy?  If any of this seems vaguely familiar, one need only recall Billy Elliot.  Instead of a boy learning ballet, we have a girl learning boxing and both are battling the odds and the wishes of their parent.  Girlfight is a tough, gritty look at boxing but like Billy Elliot is more a study of people and the things that drive them.

Michelle Rodriguez has come from obscurity for her first film role.  The role requires both acting ability and supreme physical strength and few would have met the criteria.  You clearly see Michelle bulking up as her training regime increases. It’s the great interaction between Michelle and other cast members that makes the film.  Karyn Kusama’s direction of the boxing scenes and Theodore Shapiro’s music score are highlights that shouldn’t go unnoticed.

Once again illustrating the importance of storytelling, Girlfight has it all - action, laughter, romance and drama mixed with a dash of realism.  All’s fair in love and boxing.

Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 09 November 2000

McGinty wants total control over team selection.  His list of players consists entirely of “has beens” and those that “never were” but they’ve all caught the eye of McGinty some time over his career.  His quarterback is Shane Falco (Reeves), a college star who choked four years ago in the Sugarbowl (when the team lost by 45 points) and was never heard from again.

Athletes don’t often get a second chance but for this team, that opportunity has been presented to them.  They’ve got nothing to lose and everything to play for.  A chance to make amends for past disappointments.

The pitiful screenplay from Vince McKewin (Fly Away Home) takes stereotypes to an unattainable level.  Every team member has their own heartbreak story and it’s tiring to listen to and believe them all.  Reeves has a love interest in Brooke Langton which nothing more than a frivolous distraction.  It’s as if the story doesn’t know what it wants to be.  It tries to throw in laughs, romance, drama, action and in the end, it adds up to a zero interest value.

What they were thinking in getting Howard Deutch to direct?  Just look at his last two films, Grumpier Old Men and The Odd Couple 2, and one tells you that he’s not a guy who’ll bring flair to this production.  His direction is flat and when compared against that of Oliver Stone’s in this year’s other big football flick, Any Given Sunday, it looks even worse.  The football scenes were confusing and I could  not understand his insistence on showing the cheergirls every ten seconds.

As much as I loathed The Replacements, the two performances from Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman shone.  I have never rated Keanu Reeves as an actor but my respect has increased over the past two years.  When he rejected Speed 2, the press ridiculed him but he rebounded with The Matrix, winner of four Academy Awards.  Here, Reeves underplays his role and shows that a leader need not necessarily be the most outspoken.

Gene Hackman was equally impressive as coach McGinty.  He’s in a similar position to the replacements in that this is going to be one of his last opportunities to coach at this level.  He’s not loud, he doesn’t shout at the players - he’s there to have fun and it’s invigorating to see a coach played that way.  Hackman also has the honour of closing the film with a line that epitomises the feeling one has for his character - “greatness, however brief, stays with a man.”

Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 23 November 2000

With all the movies I’ve seen, there are plenty of great stories to tell.  At a screening of Very Bad Things, the projector was too low and in several scenes boom mikes were visible at the top.  At a screening of The Green Mile, two reels were played out of order leaving the audience in a very confused state.  At a screening of The Mighty, I was the only one in the cinema and yet a Hoyts attendant with a food tray stood down front for ten minutes during the trailers in the hope someone would buy something.

In the words of Magnolia, “this was not just one of those things”.  How many times have you seen a film so bad that you were left laughing uncontrollably?  How many times have you seen film where you spent more time with your hands over your eyes than looking at the screen?  How many times have you seen a film where an audience member screamed out in full voice, “Fuck, how did that get past the censors?”, not once but twice?

Kevin And Perry Go Large is based on an English television show with Harry Enfield and Kathy Burke starring as two hideously ugly teenagers looking to get laid.  When they read in a porno that everyone sleeps with everyone in Ibiza, they’re soon on their way.

Mr. Cranky is a favourite critic on mine in that every film receives a rating from one bomb to five bombs.  Just recently, a sixth bomb was introduced with the caption “proof that Jesus died in vein”.  Whilst Mr. Cranky has had the good fortune not to have seen Kevin And Perry Go Large, I feel I can carry the flame and describe the film as such.

I would love to elaborate on all the gross and disgusting scenes but the conclusion should put just the right picture in your mind.  Perry videotapes Kevin’s parents having sex “bondage” style.  He then takes the tape, becomes horny and gets large (that’s the film’s term for an erection).  The tape is then accidentally seen by one of Ibiza’s top DJs who uses it to accompany a mix put together by Kevin and Perry to screen for thousands at a nightclub and can I add that Kevin’s parents also happen to be there.

If this sounds like your kind of movie, please tell me and I will make sure I never speak to you again.  It is one of life’s great tragedies to see 36-year-old Kathy Burke in her role as Perry.  Three years ago she won the best actress award at Cannes (for Nil By Mouth) and now she is playing a 15-year-old teenager joking about erections, acne and ejaculation.  This was truly painful and the memories will be hard to erase.  To think that Billy Elliot was screening in the cinema next door.  My most favoured and least favoured films of 2000 screening side-by-side with a two-foot thick wall in between.  Unfortunately, I was on the wrong side.