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Viva la Bam (2003)
"Viva la Bam"
VIVA LA BAM This "Jackass" spin off focuses on the (obviously scripted) adventures of Bam Margera and his pals (Johnny Knoxville, Brandon Dicamillo, etc). This show, while it has its fair share of gross-out comedy and crazy stunts, focuses mainly on Bam's torturing of his parents.
I'm sorry to say this, Bam, but... you're in no way as cool as you think you are. This ego tripped show is not only painfully unfunny (and yes, I liked Jackass), but also narcissistic beyond belief. The overly stylized intro ends with Bam coolly explaining that he's going to do "whatever the f***" he wants to. How about you do something that is actually funny? I liked "Jackass" for what it was worth. The camera-work was horrible - any idiot could have made a better show with a camcorder in their parents' garage - but at least the show moved at a steady pace and never felt boring between the crazy, dangerous or simply disgusting stunts the pals performed.
Not so with "Viva la Bam". We follow our hero around as he plays pranks on his friends and tortures his relatives, but never does it feel like anything else than really lame and scripted comedy. The stunts and pranks are mildly entertaining, but presented in such a tedious and dull fashion that they can barely make you smile.
"Viva la Bam" is a poor spin-off of that does little good but feed Margera's already too big ego. I don't recommend this lame and unimaginative show to anyone.
Young Frankenstein (1974)
"It's pronounced Fronkonsteen!"
YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN
A Mel Brooks comedy
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) has spent his life trying to live down the bad reputation of his name. When he inherits the castle of his infamous grandfather, Victor Frankenstein, he changes plans and decides to make grandpa's dreams come true. Working after Frankenstein Sr.'s notes, Frederick sets out to create life in his laboratory. If only his assistant Igor (hilarious Martin Feldman) hadn't screwed up by stealing an abnormal brain for the monster...
Mel Brooks truly is the king of spoofs. With SPACEBALLS, he spoofed the entire STAR WARS trilogy, while still managing to write a coherent plot into the comedy. HIGH ANXIETY faced the hard task of spoofing Hitchcock, one of the most revered directors in film history, and succeeded brilliantly. Even the misfired Dracula: DEAD AND LOVING IT had some clever stabs at the vampire genre.
YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN is not as much of a spoof as it is an homage to the classic '33 horror film. Shot in black and white, with amazing cinematography and gorgeous set design that perfectly captures the spirit of FRANKENSTEIN, the film is great to look at as well as hilarious.
Gene Wilder is solid as Frankenstein, but it's Martin Feldman who steals the show as the hunchbacked assistant, Igor. His wild facial expressions and memorable lines ("what hunch?") make him one of the funniest characters you're ever likely to see on film. The most classic gag in the film might be Igor's "walk this way" pun at the train station. Kenneth Mars is also a treat as the armed and dangerous police inspector Friederich Kemp.
Overall Mel Brook's movie is solid, beautiful to look at, consistently funny and definitely worth a look. 8 out of 10.
The Deadly Bees (1966)
"The dog's meat, have you seen it?"
THE DEADLY BEES
A Freddie Francis shocker
Vicki Robbins (one-note Suzanna Leigh) is a pop singer who has worked herself into exhaustion by dancing in front of hot studio lights while wearing thick fur coats. For relaxation, she is sent on a vacation to the lovely Seagull Island, to stay at the farm of Ralph (wooden Guy Doleman) and Mary Hargrove (chain-smoking Catherine Finn). Little does Vicki know that Mr. Hargrove's bees may not be up to any good!
The 60's sure were an interesting year for movies. Actors had oily hair. Actresses had beehives on top of their heads. People walked around publicly wearing yellow cardigans. Say what you want about the 60's fashion, but you can't take your eyes off it.
THE DEADLY BEES is a movie which is exactly as corny as the title suggests. Representing everything that is wrong with Great Britain, we follow the misadventures of characters so dull and uninspired that we root for them to be killed off as soon as possible. The movie also has a crummy, dirty feel to it, and the hideous locations and sets don't help.
BEES' flaws ranges from the most basic goofs (blatant continuity errors such as the sky switching from clear to clouded between shots), to bad casting (Frank Finlay is by far the dullest villain in movie history), to bad special effects (plastic bees that are obviously not alive; bees badly superimposed over characters), to a script with the most obvious "twist" you could possibly imagine. I don't know what went through Freddie Francis mind when he made this abomination, but it certainly wasn't "at least this will be fun to watch!"
Overall, THE DEADLY BEES is a tedious, slow, contrived mess filled to the brim with boring characters, offensively ugly locations, bad editing, lame SFX, and a dog that looks like it hasn't bathed for months. All in all a repulsive cocktail that all masochists will enjoy. From me, this movie only warrants a weak 2 out of 10.
George Lucas in Love (1999)
"Well, maybe you weren't meant to write agricultural space tragedies."
GEORGE LUCAS IN LOVE
A Joe Nussbaum parody
1967. George Lucas (convincingly nerdy Martin Hynes) is having trouble finishing his script for his epic about space oats, "3XR-259.7". When he meets Marion (Lisa Jakub) he finds true love and realizes that inspiration is right in front of him.
The spoof genre is a tough one. If it works, it can be hilarious, if it doesn't, it's often dreadful. Movies like Not Another Teen Movie are perfect examples of what a bad spoof is: lazy writing, lame attacks on famous movies, mind-numbingly stupid jokes, and an inconsistent plot.
Thankfully, GEORGE LUCAS IN LOVE is everything a spoof should strive to be. The jokes are clever, subtle and spot-on. The characters are hilarious spoofs of famous "Star Wars" names, especially the backwards-talking professor (Patrick Kerr), George's stoned roommate (Jason Peck) and his visions, and the evil asthmatic Aaron (Jeff Wiens).
The acting is top-notch, even if most of the cast members' characters are purely for comedic purpose. The best part of the movie is probably the shattering twist at the end.
GEORGE LUCAS IN LOVE is a movie that does perfectly what it's supposed to do. It generates many chuckles but even though it's a very good production and a clever spoof, the laugh out loud-level is not as high as in another recent Star Wars spoof, the hilarious "A Lost Hope". Still, it is a good spoof film and easy to enjoy. 8 out of 10.
Batman: Dead End (2003)
"Look at my face! This is who I am! My MASK is permanent!"
BATMAN: DEAD END
A Sandy Corolla feature
The Joker (scenery-chewing Andrew Koenig) has escaped from Arkham asylum and Batman (Clark Bartram) chases him into a dark alley in the middle of a stormy night. What awaits in that alley might be the most dangerous foe Batman has ever met...
"Batman" certainly is an established character. His appearance and name is well-known in most of the world, and the character has spawned comics (oh, excuse me, "graphic novels") for more than 60 years, as well as six feature films of varying cinematic importance. Ever since the cult phenomenon's start in 1939, there has been a huge fan base, which is evident in this fan film. Sandy Corolla takes the pretty ludicrous characters seriously, and gives the fans what they want.
Clark Bartram, although he has few lines, is not bad as the Bat (certainly much better than George Clooney's and Val Kilmer's pathetic attempts of characterization). He works fairly well in his skintight costume, although it is a bit too bright to blend into the dark environment. While it's hard to not think of him as a fan jumping around in a cheap Halloween costume at times, his performance is above average.
Andrew Koenig shows an energetic, if annoying performance as the Joker. He is all over the place chewing the scenery, but the script is pretty good and his lines are at least better than anything coming out of Arnold's mouth in the horrible "Batman & Robin". Corolla brings up the theory that the Joker is the "bastard child" of Batman, adding at least some depth to the characters.
The action is somewhat bland, but the idea is good and the twist-in-the-end hilarious. It would be stupid to be too hard on this fan film, especially considering how bad it could have been (read: Batman & Robin). It's refreshing to see that a newbie director can, using no-name actors and a low budget, create a much better film than Joel Schumacher and his all-star cast were able to. 7 out of 10.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
"He's a beaver, he shouldn't be saying anything!"
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE
An Andrew Adamsson blockbuster
World War II is raging and the four Pevensie children are sent away from their mother to live in the mansion of the eccentric professor Kirke (entertaining, if wasted, Jim Broadbent). During a game of hide-and-seek, little Lucy (Georgie Henley) finds a wardrobe that leads to a different world. It's Narnia, a land which has been plagued by winter for hundreds of years, ruled with an iron fist by the evil witch queen Jadis (Tilda Swinton). The Pevensies must defeat the witch and take their places as kings and queens of Narnia.
I can't tell you how sick I am of movies with never-ending titles. If it isn't something as overlong as CON: TLTWTW, it's Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Fun With Dick and Jane, or The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lava Girl in 3-D. All I'm saying is, a movie title should have quality rather than quantity.
This is truly a film where acting almost comes last. An effects fest, NARNIA opens up with a mostly CGI sequence showing the German bombs falling over London. We are after that treated with talking CGI beavers, CGI wolves and foxes, CGI castles, entire CGI landscapes. WETA (previously worked on the Lord of the Rings trilogy) has also done a great make-up work, starting out with a nervous James McAvoy as a faun, all the way up to a huge battle between everything from cheetahs to minotaurs in the finale. Fans of fantasy shouldn't be disappointed: There are few mythical creatures that you won't find somewhere in NARNIA.
Moving on to the acting, however, this is where the film almost falls apart. For all the talking CGI animals, NARNIA simply does not contain a single believable performance from the leads. Voice acting aside, it often feels like all we see is a bunch of amateurs trying to act. William Moseley is simply laughable as Peter "the magnificent". He handles the "older brother" act fairly well for a newbie, but when he's suddenly put in full body armour and in charge of an army, it just doesn't work. Much more believable is Georgie Henley as the youngest sister. Anna Popplewell's interpretation of Susan is pretty ho-hum, while Skandar Keyes is far below average as Edmund. Much younger actors than him have created believable characters (read: Hayley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense) and the casting is just horrible.
Tilda Swinton's White Witch, supposedly the biggest main character in the movie (the CGI lion aside) is nothing special. She is definitely not awful, she just misses something to make her character memorable (although writing also should be blamed for this).
The biggest waste is probably Liam Neeson who shows up in the last 20 minutes to voice a computer generated lion, Aslan, the messiah of the film. Even he seems to have a hard time putting some emotion to his voice acting, and his voice seems out of place, plain and simple.
Andrew Adamson has had no problem delivering the goods with his half-raunchy, hilarious comedies Shrek and Shrek 2, so why doesn't it work in NARNIA? Well, it's quite simple: While the Shrek movies were satirical parodies, Adamson wants to make NARNIA the next big epic in the vein of the recent Lord of the Rings films, something he is just not capable of, especially considering that the novel was a cute and cozy children's story. The Narnia novels are amazing in their own genre, but Adamson has got it all wrong: they are just not supposed to be epic adventures.
The final battle feels like a cheat; since this is supposed to be a Disney movie, there can be no real violence or gore except for some faint flashes. The witch's death takes place off-screen, which is just lame. As mentioned before, William Moseley is completely out of place as the hero-of-the-day and only manages to look silly.
Overall, THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE is not a complete waste of time. There are some really good effects, but if you're looking for anything memorable, forget it. NARNIA is a run-of-the-mill blockbuster which is very disappointing considering Adamson's previous work and the amazing novel. Except for a small cameo by Rupert Everett, resurrected from Shrek 2, there's just not much fun here. 6 out of 10.
25th Hour (2002)
"Champagne to my real friends, and real pain to my sham friends."
25TH HOUR
A Spike Lee joint
Montgomery "Monty" Brogan (excellent Edward Norton) is a drug dealer who lives in New York with his beautiful girlfriend Naturelle "Nat" Riviera (Rosario Dawson). When the cops raid his home and find a kilo of cocaine hidden in his couch, he is given 24 hours of freedom before going to jail for the next seven years.
Edward Norton truly is one of the greatest actors of our generation. Despite only having appeared in movies since '96 - his movie career is shorter than Jake Gyllenhaal's (!) - his relentless work and complete nailing of his characters in movie after movie, has turned him into the most promising actor of his generation. His work in 25TH HOUR is remarkable, perfectly showing Monty Brogan's cynical and stone cold nature through his acting. The peak of his work in this film has to be his monologue in the bathroom, where he basically lashes out on everyone, even himself.
However, as flawless as Norton is, it is Philip Seymour Hoffman who steals the show as the quiet and almost sociopathic Jacob Elinsky, an aging school teacher who gets feelings for his 17-year old student Mary D'Annunzio (a gorgeous Anna Paquin). This subplot is even more interesting than Monty's story and it's almost a shame that it is so open-ended. Hoffman nails the character and truly shows what a chameleon he is. Compare his work in a film like Punch-Drunk Love to this - a completely different person! I cannot give enough praise to his performance.
Spike Lee directs 25TH HOUR with style and focus, making it a thoroughly entertaining, engaging and intoxicating trip through the lives of Monty Brogan and his friends. Props must also go to the aforementioned Anna Paquin, who shows that she is more than great looks, and Brian Cox as Monty's caring father.
Overall, 25TH HOUR is everything a movie should strive to be: An engaging story told at a great pace, with impeccable style, believable characters and a blazing soundtrack. If there are flaws in this film, I must fail to see them. 10 out of 10.