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Frankjwilliams
Reviews
The Big Kahuna (1999)
The Big Nothing (lots of spoilers, but what is there to spoil?)
Friday night.
Me and a friend figured it'd be a good plan to rent a movie, before going out. After a chanceless expedition to find something worthwhile, 'Identity' and 'The Big Kahuna' were the only two movies we nominated. We flipped a coin and it was heads, so we rented 'The Big Kahuna'. Alright, Kevin Spacey, Danny de Vito, what could go wrong? During the first 15 minutes of the movie, it felt it could turn out good, although the constant blabbering of Spacey's character started to annoy. Three guys: two marketing veterans, De Vito and Spacey, and a new guy, in a hotel room planning a reception to get some big cheese business guy to use their lubricants. After 30 minutes, nothing has changed. There's only conversation. We start to think this movie was made in one day, and in one take. Every half ass bit of dialogue stayed in somehow. And all of a sudden, after 45 minutes... NOTHING, still nothing! Dear god! I guess the screenwriter, who also wrote the original play, must have thought that if he'd just let the characters talk on and on and say quasé intelligent and insightful things, he would have a brilliant movie. Then there's the reception which the whole movie is about. Big cheese dude doesn't show up, Spacey's character goes halfway nuts (but not in a funny or cool way, just annoying), De Vito doesn't care (he doesn't care about anything, which IS interesting) and the new guy doesn't know whether he cares. New guy spoke to big businessman, didn't know it was him, got a card and went to big businessman's party, it all leads to nothing.
Nearing the end there are some decent conversation between De Vito and the new guy and that's about it.
Now, a movie were nothing happens can be very interesting, when there is great dialogue, likeable characters, great actors, and some kind of coming of age-ending, but this movie offers none of those features. 98 percent of the movie takes place in the terribly boring hotel room, which makes you want to sleep, the overall pace of the film does so even more. I'm sorry if I've spoiled the whole movie for you, but then again, you could say, I've saved you a couple of bucks, which you can now invest in beer or food.
Chicago Cab (1997)
The greatest movie to see alone, late at night, when it's Christmas-time
I saw this movie around Christmas 2002, it was about 02.00 am, I thought I'd make one more walk around the channels. Then I saw a guy in a cab on BBC, and the colors of the movie seemed okay -You know, when a movie is really dumb, or bad, it often has intense and bright colors-. I wasn't doing anything at the moment, so I left it on. Then I became more and more interested in it, and decided to turn of the computer and focus only on the movie. I think this is a movie that truly represents the spirit of Christmas, although I am still not sure what the hell that may be, I'm sure this is it. Paul Dillon, whom I did not know beforehand plays his character brilliantly. He's a quiet guy, who somehow got into the job of cabdriver. He has to work on Christmas-eve and he gets all these strange people in his cab who tell him about what happened to them lately, and that's it! Fantastic. From there you see him trying to say the right things, and that maybe is the most beautiful thing about this movie. The movie is really easy going, you can just sit, do nothing, just watch and let it pass by. Therefore, when watched alone, late at night, at Christmas-time, this is the perfect movie for the moment, and deserves 10 out of 10 points.