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mikeyjak
Reviews
Better Luck Tomorrow (2002)
Mediocre Movie + Asian Cast = Mediocre Movie w/ Asian Cast
Its all well and good that this movie is attempting to break down stereotypes (perhaps by replacing them with other stereotypes), but that doesn't necessarily make for a good movie.
You could have changed a few names, used some different actors, and this would be an ordinary, bland movie about "rich youth gone bad". It has been done better.
I liked the characters, but the story just wasn't developed enough and they never really get into motivations. They tried to throw in a few lines of "what is the meaning of life", but that does *not* connect various scenes into an actual telling story and it does *not* a plot make.
Too many loose ends are left at the end of this movie. If they want to pretend they "meant to do that", well, I just don't believe 'em. You never really get into most of the characters deep enough to explain why you had to watch them run around for the previous 2 hours.
"Amongst Friends" was the same movie done several years back, but it was just better written.
A Walk in the Clouds (1995)
The worst movie ever
The worst movie ever. Horrible script, even more horrible acting from Keanu. I saw this move with 4 women, worrying that I was going into a chick flick, and even the chick flick lovers couldn't stand it. A ridiculously slow, bad movie...
Zoolander (2001)
not funny
"This is one of those movies you either get the sensibility of or you just don't."
For those of you who don't "get" lousy puns, and joke you've already seen before, this really is not a good movie. Just not funny. It is a mediocre Saturday Night Live sketch gone on an hour+ too long.
Empire (2002)
Horrible Script
I've always been a Leguizamo fan, and he does a good job of working with what he's given here, but the script is just horrible.
The "characters", if you can call them that, are often ridiculously unrealistic. The "investment banker" isn't even close. The attempt at paralleling CEOs and dug dealers not only has been done to death, but is done more poorly here than anywhere I've seen. They took an overly simplistic idea, and still did it badly. And then the lesson falls short because the guy was a plan and simple crook anyway.
Amazingly, Leguizamo is still somewhat believable, but the story isn't. And it wasn't even fun. At least if the ride was fun, I'd take the BS. But this was just disappointing.
200 Cigarettes (1999)
No, just another bad movie
Bad characters. Bad dialogue trying to pass as witty. Just a bad, bad movie. Painful at times. Not far off from a talking heads movie, yet the conversations were slow enough that even if the movie involved gunfire they'd still be boring.
And, no, the characters would have been stereotypes back in 1981 as well. A bad movie is a bad movie, no matter how one tries to sell it as a "well, you had to be there". Well, I was there. It wasn't like that. It didn't suck this much. No excuses, please. See "Last Days of Disco" if you want relative accuracy... 200 would suck in any era.
A Walk in the Clouds (1995)
The worst movie ever
The worst movie ever. Horrible script, even more horrible acting from Keanu. I saw this move with 4 women, worrying that I was going into a chick flick, and even the chick flick lovers couldn't stand it. A ridiculously slow, bad movie...
Disturbing Behavior (1998)
An Intelligent Movie for Dumb People
This is about as simplistic as a movie can get. It is an incredibly dumbed-down rip-off of works that have made intelligent statements about the human condition (Clockwork Orange, Slaughterhouse 5, etc.). It's great for people that can't understand the cliff notes of these works.
I'm guessing that this movie (like the Faculty and other music-video excuses for movies) is geared toward the 12 year olds who feel like losers in their high schools and want to pretend that being a bad athlete or getting bad grades is cool, and *that* is why they run slow ("I meant to do that"). It's almost as poignant as Titanic's "Rich is Baaaaaad, poor is good and cute" message. This movie isn't about understanding the difficulties of being a teenager (which could be a cool thing for a movie to do); it's about giving them blanket excuses. In this town, anything a teenager can do with a cool soundtrack behind him (even if illegal or stupid) is cool, but anything that helps get you into college (like studying) is just a tool of Big Brother.
Don't get me wrong, this would be a cool music video. Katie Holmes makes it worth watching (ooh, the navel, the navel), if only we could turn the dialogue off.
Incognito (1997)
Better than most of the junk out there
I was VERY pleasantly surprised by this one. Its dialogue on the true meaning of great art is truly interesting, even if simplistic (but not relative to most films out there).
I thought Patric was pretty good, but it's the script itself that does most of the work.
The scenery and imagery is also fantastic.