Donovan's Reef

Polynesian Pleasure
There are days when things just don't go right. Business doesn't hit on all cylinders, or something in one's personal life is out of alignment. Irritation can set in. Frustration. Just plain old down-in-the-dumps mopeyness.

There ARE things that can be done about this, especially if you have a VHS or DVD player. You can pop in any number of good movies and use your scene selector to get you to that "special part" that just warms your heart and chases your blues away.

You can watch the end of "Shenandoah" from the point where Jimmy Stewart goes to the family cemetery to talk to his wife Martha, on through to the arrival of "the boy" in the middle of Sunday preaching. Or you can watch James Cagney as George M. Cohan get his Medal of Honor from FDR in "Yankee Doodle Dandy", tap dance down the White House steps and join in the troop parade down Pennsylvania Avenue singing "Over There". Or you can scene-select to the Von Trapp family singing "Edelweiss" as a...

Last Ford/Wayne Teaming a Lighthearted, Brawling Comedy...
What do you do when you're a workaholic 68-year-old director, and your doctor orders you to take a vacation? Well, if you are John Ford, you grab John Wayne and your 'Stock Company' of actors, jaunt off to Kauai, the "Flower Isle" of Hawaii, and make "Donovan's Reef", a old-fashioned, brawling comedy! While the film was certainly not 'top-drawer' for either the director or star, it is a pleasant diversion, and would mark the final 'film' teaming of the legendary pair.

"Donovan's Reef", equal parts "South Pacific", "Hawaii", "What Price Glory?", and "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon", was already 'nostalgic', by the time it was made, as so many actors who would have been Ford 'naturals' in key roles had passed away, or were too old to play the characters believably. Thus you have Lee Marvin instead of Victor McLaglen, Jack Warden in a 'Ward Bond' role, and Elizabeth Allen in a part 'tailor-made' for a younger Maureen O'Hara. Even Wayne, himself, at 56, seems a bit...

GETS BETTER WITH EACH PASSING YEAR
Professional movie reviewers and published guides do not rate Donovan's Reef very high. More than a few seem to look down their noses at this light comedy. But I have always liked it. Nothing about this movie is supposed to be taken seriously with the sole exception of its subtle rejection of racism. (Some may nitpick about certain depictions of the "non-whites"; but only the hard hearted would fail to notice that the "whites" come off as essentially foolish as well.) At the center is the battle of the sexes between Wayne and Elizabeth Allen-each side getting its share of victories and comeuppances. All the characters are likable and the writing is sharp and witty.

Of special enjoyment is the Christmas Pageant in the leaky chapel. I have never been able to think about the "three wise men" of the Christmas story without this scene coming to mind. The Polynesian ceremony at the end of the film is also humorous as well as touching.

The setting is supposed to be French...

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Changing Lanes

One of the Most Underrated Movies in Years
South African director Roger Michell directs this hit suspense thriller starring Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson. Michell is actually very skilled and has a tremendous amount of mainstream appeal. He also directed last years Venus, which was another solid film albeit very different from Changing Lanes. Ben Affleck plays Gavin, a successful Wall Street attorney who must file a power of appointment for his company, which is run by his father-in-law played by Sydney Pollack. The document will sign a company over to his law firm and that company is owned by a dying man. Ethical questions certainly surround the document and as things unfold we find out even more. Doyle is played by Samuel L. Jackson, he is an insurance salesman and a recovering alcoholic who wants badly to restore his family before his wife takes his children away to the west coast. We get the feeling that Doyle is a wounded man and his actions are unacceptable at times. Actually both characters are deeply flawed...

A superb thriller and character study.
Changing Lanes happens to feature two movie stars in the lead roles and is funded by Paramount Pictures, one of the top film production studios. So is it with anything less than pure surprise that this doesn't turn out to be an action or buddy picture? Not only does this film happen to be a character-driven thriller, it's also an intriguing look at societal pressures on the human individual, delivering in a manner that is intense, edgy, and perhaps even quite frightening.

Ben Affleck stars as Gavin Banek and Samuel L. Jackson is Doyle Gipson. Banek is a high-priced lawyer who is ready to finalize a big deal with will turn over a recently deceased millionaire's entire fortune to his firm. Gipson is a recovering alcoholic who's doing everything he can (mainly by purchasing a house in Queens for them to settle in) to save his marriage and keep his wife from taking the children and moving to another state. Both Banek and Gipson are on their way to court when their cars crash into each...

An excellent movie with an excellent plot
This movie has got to be one of my favorite movies by far because it's different. It's unique, it's just different from other movies and should be put in a different gnere for that reason even though it's a drama movie. Ben Affleck plays an attorney while Samuel L. Jackson (one of the best actors!!!) plays a car salesman. When there is a car accident between the two, the attorney leaves the scene because he has to be in court. But the car salesman also needed to be in court so that he can get joint custody of his children. But, his car doesn't work now, and he loses custody of his children. In the meantime, the attorney is missing important paperwork which he accidentally left at the accident and the salesman now posseses and refuses to give back. The two then engage in a "war". But, the protagonist clearly is the salesman as you feel terribly for him after what the attorney does to him. The movie is sad and tragic with an amazing performance by Jackson and I shall always remember it...

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Importance Of Being Too Earnest

The Creek runs dry
All good things must come to an end. That sentence, divided in two, was the title of the two-hour series finale of Dawson's Creek, which aired at the end of the show's sixth season, ending a show that helped to bring about the rise of the WB as a television network.

Season six picks up not long after where season five left off, with Joey Potter (Katie Holmes) back at Worthington, Dawson Leery (James Van der Beek) working for a director in Los Angeles, Pacey Witter (Joshua Jackson) returning to the east coast after a summer on the road with his girlfriend Audrey Liddell (Busy Phillips). Jen Lindley (Michelle Williams) and Jack McPhee (Kerr Smith) return for another year at Boston Bay College, and as the season begins, they are both still living with Jen's Grams (Mary Beth Piel).

Things certainly change pretty quickly for a number of the young adults who viewers watched grow up on the creek for the previous five seasons. Joey finds herself involved with a gentleman...

SEASON 6... a step up!
Season 6 was a giant step up from season 5, particularly in the second half of the season when the show returned to form. Dawson is largely absent the whole season and has totally isolated storylines the majority of time. Things really pick up midway through when Pacey and Joey finally get together again. this is good as Holmes and Jackson have more chemistry together than all the other couples in the show combined. Show #615 "Castaways" is probably the most well written and enjoyable episode of the series run when Joey and Pacey get locked inside a K-Mart overnight. ...The season finale is also an amazing ending. would recommend.

how can it not be great? - it's Dawson's Creek!
Ok, so there were admittedly a few flaws - like we barely see Dawson...but by the 6th season his droning on and on and over analysis are a bit annoying anyway. And I miss seeing the Jack/Jen combo as much as before. They work so well together. I liked the new characters. Audrey (introduced in the 5th season) I thought annoying at first, but I really ended up liking her character...though it was disappointing that they made her go crazy (kind of like Andy...hmm...the Dawson's Creek way of getting rid of people - make them go nuts). But Andy really was a sucky actress, where Audrey was not (she was ceaselessly peppy and had the party girl attitude down to a T, but don't we all know people like that?). Eddie I just loved and I thought he and Joey fit really well together. I would have been happy with her ending up with him or w/Pacey - thank God for a good ending!! Overall Dawson's Creek is amazing b/c I have similar situations occur in everyday life where I think "wow, this is SO...

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Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

A Jolly Exciting Movie
Why is it, that we want more from a movie than is on offer? Come on chaps, "Lara Croft - Tomb Raider" isn't a film of any intellectual merit, it is merely an exciting adventure movie with a whole host of good special effects and lots of quality funny moments. I for one really enjoyed this film, I expected nothing from it other than a series of explosions and gun battles and that is what I got and I loved every single minute of it. The plot wasn't too complicated, with Lara piecing together a mystery about an ancient clock and two pieces of a mystical triangle that has the ability to fragment time and space and of course there are the obligatory bad guys trying to get their hands on it. There was a fine cast of characters from Iain Glenn playing the evil Mr. Powell (the main bad guy) to Chris Barrie of Red Dwarf fame coming across with great aplomb as the overtly English Butler Hillary who tries and fails to make his young employer into a regal young lady instead of a...

Love the Movie on Blu-Ray
This is one of the types of movie that work best in blu-ray. The fast action really looks better in Blu-ray, and I don't think you will be disappointed. I don't ever look at the Extras, so I'm sorry but I can't comment on them.

Good...but coulda been better...
This has got to be the best attempt at a good game-based movie that I've seen. There were a few minor plot discrepancies that didn't quite follow the storyline of the game, but they could be ignored-I actually didn't notice them myself until my avid Tomb Raider-playing pal pointed them out. I loved the action sequences-the "ceiling ballet" being my favorite, and I think that Angelina Jolie did a suberb job portraying our feisty heroine. The music was probably the best part of the movie, though. The fast-paced techno stuck with me more than the actual story did, and I bought the soundtrack almost immediately afterward.
What I didn't like was that the storyline of the movie wasn't that well developed. The charcters were typical, the events were ordinary, and the plot was so predictable that I found myself speaking the dialogue before the characters did! The story wasn't that detailed or involved. A third-grader could have followed it without trouble. I had been hoping for...

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Primal Fear

"Your job is to sit there and look innocent."
The archbishop of Chicago has just been brutally murdered and 19-year old altar boy Aaron Stampler (Edward Norton) is found running from the scene, covered in the man's blood. It looks like an open and shut case against the simple, stuttering boy, until dashing Martin Vail (Richard Gere), a self-proclaimed "big-deal lawyer," offers to defend him - pro bono. The prosecutor he'll be facing in the courtroom is none other than his ex-girlfriend (Laura Linney), who is still bitter about their past. With the help of a psychologist (Frances McDormand), Vail discovers a shocking secret about young Aaron that may save his life.

This is a great movie; I've seen it many times and it never gets old. Gere is perfectly cast as the handsome and confident charmer, and Edward Norton surely had one of his best roles ever as Aaron - and this was his first movie role. He is so charismatic that you will not be able to take your eyes off him. The search for the killer's motive is intense...

A more than solid thriller, with a twist
When I had first laid eyes on Primal Fear on pay-per-view years ago I had first dismissed at as another Hollywood who-done-it courtroom drama with no originality. And was I ever wrong. Primal Fear may seem like something you've seen before, but the clever, highly intelligent, and twisting script makes the film soar to unexpected heights, and Edward Norton's breakout performace as murder suspect Aaron has to be seen to be believed (Norton would receive a Golden Globe and his first Oscar Nomination for Best Supporting Actor which Cuba Gooding Jr. ended up winning for Jerry Maguire). Richard Gere has the starring role playing Norton's lawyer who seems to be the only one who believes Norton's innocence. With a super twist ending and a superb all star cast which includes Laura Linney, Frances McDormand, Steve Bauer, John Mahoney, Maura Tierney, and Andre Braugher, Primal Fear is a near superb little gem that I strongly suggest seeing.

Why gamble with money, when you can gamble with people's lives?
"I don't have to believe you. I don't care if you are innocent. I'm your mother, your father, your priest." This is what defense attorney Martin Vale (Richard Gere) tells his client, Aaron Stampler (Ed Norton), as they are preparing to defend him against charges of killing the Archbishop of Chicago.

Of course, later, Marty says: "I believe in the notion that people are innocent until proven guilty. I believe in that notion because I choose to believe in the basic goodness of people. I choose to believe that not all crimes are committed by bad people. And I try to understand that some very, very good people do some very bad things."

So--which one is true? Nobody is quite what they seem in this legal procedural that will keep you in your seat and your finger away from the 'Pause' button for its entire 2 plus hours' duration.

First, you see the kindly Archbishop attended by a heavenly choir at a charity function. The city loves him. But, is his public...

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Bless The Child

THE GOOD SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH
Hey...look a movie where Catholics aren't the villains! No bad priests, no psychotic nuns. For once, the devil is the devil!!!An FBI agent who actually carries a bible and was a former seminarian, but is not fanatical. BLESS THE CHILD worked for me because it was about good vs. evil, and good wins out. Critics blasted the movie, so what? It's an entertaining and ultimately frightening movie with some classic scenes. When Kim Basinger confronts the evil Rufus Sewell who says she wouldn't shoot him in front of her niece, she says "Close your eyes." And when Sewell has the little girl on the roof and mocks the temptation of Jesus by Satan, and tells her to jump from the roof and see if God or his angels rescue her, she sits and says "After you." Jimmy Smits, Ian Holm and Angela Bettis lend expert support and in a brief role, Christina Ricci proves what a dynamic young performer she can be.
Cliches? Not really. The use of the special effects I feel was...

Why does everyone hate this?
I love movies with religious tones to them, despite not being any which way religious myself. Stigmata and End Of Days, and now this, are excellent examples, although Constantine overdoes it slightly. The trailer gets it totally wrong, and makes it look more like an Exorcist movie, than what it eventually ends up being. Don't think it's going to be an Exorcist movie, it's so much deeper, and I ended up working out what was going to happen quite soon into the movie. So unlike me.

The actors in this also do an excellent job. Everyone raves about gorgeous Kim Basinger is, but they forget she can do plain & ordinary just as well, and pulls it off. Rufus Sewell was perfect for the cult leader he played (with shades of Scientology?), and with those eyes, god I'm surprised I didn't have nightmares after watching this movie! The slight lazy eye makes him stand out from everyone else. Jimmy Smits, wow! For an older guy, he's definitely kept in shape, and looks good! I wasn't sure...

Bless the Child, Bless the World
Bless The Child is a theatrical tribute to the current world's situations plagued by an intoxicating need for quick solutions to problems no matter what the cost. The film shows how some will give up their lives, and their souls, in order to fulfill their needs instead of conquering their battles themselves.

The movie starts with a single and middle-aged Maggie (played by Kim Basinger) meeting her long-lost-sister, Jenna (Angela Bettis) ,who brings, and leaves her newborn to her Brooklyn apartment for her to take care of. Persistent in finding out what is wrong with the child, and disagreeing with the doctor's diagnoses of autism, Maggie places the child, Cody (Holliston Coleman), in a Catholic school where she hopes she will come out of whatever is causing her problems.

A case of murdered children in the area brings federal agent and former seminary student John Travis (Jimmy Smits) to Brooklyn to help the police investigate the murders. With a specialization in occult...

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Ask The Dust

The more I think about it the more I'm smitten...
`Ask the Dust' is not a bad movie, not by any means, but I will say that even with it's under two-hour running time it seems a bit long. The fact that this is a slow moving drama of course doesn't help the matter, but what does help is the dedication both Colin and Salma give to their characters. This film is adapted from the critically acclaimed novel by John Fante about an Italian writer Aturo Bandini (Farrell) as he moves to LA in 1932 in pursuit of inspiration for his next short story. As he struggles to find that inspiration he meets a sassy young barmaid Camilla (Hayek) who both tests his patience and his heart strings, for she is everything he wishes he had and yet is trying to escape.

They begin their love affair fighting and they continue fighting throughout most of the film. It's a wonder they stay together, but it's apparent that they see in each other something that makes them happy. Both of them share the similar wanting of acceptance, and neither of them...

I Really Enjoyed it!
This highly enjoyable film is told in a narrated form like a Raymond Chandler story. Collin Farrell plays a young writer named Bandini who recently moved to Los Angeles from Colorado. He lives in a type of boarding house where he can just enter his room through the window and he has the view out of the window of the first palm tree he has ever seen. Donald Sutherland plays his alcoholic neighbor who constantly barges into Bandini's room (it is never locked ) to talk about life and to let Bandini know when he is entertaining the milkman so Bandini can grab some milk from the unwatched milk truck.

Bandini idolizes M L Menckin and aspires to be just like him. He writes stories based on his experiences and submits them to Menckin, hoping that Menckin will publish them. Down to his last nickel, Bandini goes to a bar and orders a cup of coffee from the exotic looking Mexican waitress (Salma Hayak). The coffee comes literally curdled from probably spoiled milk. Bandini uses...

Critics Didn't Love The Film, but Give It A Chance, You Might
I know, the critics didn't love ASK THE DUST. I think I know why. Any film that has a writer as a protagonist, who writes what sounds like amateur prose and falls in love with a woman who seems to have more than a few similarities, at least health wise to the heroines of CAMILLE/LA TRAVIATA isn't going to make too many critics cheer. They've seen it all before and believe it was done better in earlier versions. It's also a bit far fetched to believe that a mediocre at best writer would have a champion in a figure like H. L. Mencken, but it all happens in this film. There is also a character who doesn't add much to the film but is played by a revered veteran, in this case Donald Sutherland. Fail to use a great actor in a proper way and the critics will balk. Of course there are times when clichés on the screen work well on the written page, and people I know who have read the 1939 classic on which the film is based say that the book does work well, but critics didn't seem to...

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