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Reviews
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991)
Fantastic...a must-see 'making of'.
This is a fantastic documentary on the making of 'Apocalypse Now'. Essential viewing for fans of that motion picture, or just film students in general. It's a real shame that (as of July 2003) this still hasn't been released on DVD; the VHS release is long out of print and getting increasingly difficult to find...
Notting Hill (1999)
The supporting cast saves the day...
(MILD SPOILER ALERT - SPOILERS AT END OF COMMENTS)...... The big problem that my wife and I both had with this movie was that we just couldn't muster a lot of sympathy for Julia Robert's character - she never seemed to earn the trust and love of William, the bookkeeper (and is it me, or does Hugh Grant have a patent on this type of character?).
The supporting cast is superb, however (particularly Rhys Ifans), and there was enough witty dialog to redeem the film somewhat. All in all, a somewhat enjoyable if ultimately lightweight movie.
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P.S. The plot is pretty predictable - you just know that when William opens the door in his pajamas he'll be faced with a sea of photographers; you know that at some point towards the end of the movie that Will will have to go through a bunch of cartoon names to try to hook up with Anna - sheesh, my wife and I even said "I'll bet Will's wearing the scuba goggles at the movie"...and sure enough, he was. The setups for way too many of these plot elements were WAY too apparent.
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The Perfect Storm (2000)
Skip the movie and buy the book instead.
Boy, what a disappointment!
The special effects are the *only* thing that redeem this big budget clunker. George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and the rest of the cast are pulled under by groan-inspiring, cliched dialog that make those parts of the film bracketing the action practically unbearable to watch.
Save the money you'd have spent on seeing this and buy the book instead. It's outstanding - a lot more gripping than this awful shipwreck of a movie....
Kurt & Courtney (1998)
A pathetic, embarrassing piece of excrement.
The most horrid, inept, irresponsible, miserable excuse for a "documentary" that I've ever had the misfortune to waste 90 minutes on. This film was so bad that I'm amazed it stuck to the film, let alone got released.
The director/interviewer wanders around aimlessly with a camera, digs up what appears to be anybody with even the most tenuous of connections to Kurt and/or Courtney, and lets them ramble on at length. None of these people seem to be able to provide any real insight into Kurt & Courtney's relationship, and more than a few of them appear to completely lack any credibility whatsoever. Hank Harrison and Tom Grant in particular come off as shameful weasels trying to make a couple of fast bucks off of whatever controversy they can manage to fuel, and it's downright embarrassing to watch.
The sheer ineptitude displayed throughout is mind-boggling - the "60 Minutes"-style ambush interview of Courtney they attempt, only to have the camcorder batteries run out just before they sneak in (they apparently had plenty of juice to film them rehearsing the ambush and getting drinks out of a vending machine beforehand, though!); watching first the tabloid guy and then the director completely lose their nerve on the two occasions they actually manage to speak to Courtney on camera (at an ACLU benefit dinner); etc. It's almost as if they scraped together every scrap of film they had and just released it.
Avoid this one. Watching a test pattern for an hour and a half would be more informative.
Fandango (1985)
One of the best of the genre; fantastic yet oddly underrated
I stumbled across this movie years ago while flipping thru the channels late one night, and instantly fell in love with it. It's easily one of the best movies of the genre; there's an emotional resonance here that's hard to come by in any movie, let alone one that *appears* to be a standard coming-of-age/buddy/road-trip flick.
It's also (in my humble opinion) probably Kevin Costner's finest piece of work next to 'Dances With Wolves'. Costner's role as Gardner is one that seems perfectly suited to him; I can imagine anyone else being able to pull it off.
The soundtrack is *perfect*, especially the wedding sequence - besides being a great flick, this movie turned me on to Pat Metheny! The soundtrack, unfortunately, was never released, although I liked the movie enough to assemble the tracks individually.
This is one of those rare movies that leaves one with a nice afterglow, even after many viewings....much like 'Diner' or 'American Graffiti'. I've seen 'Fandango' way too many times to count, and am on my second or third VHS copy - I'm hoping this comes out on DVD sometime soon....