Director Stuart Gordon, the man who brought us the cult classic “Re-Animator” tells the tale of revenge in this low budget thriller about a young man named Sean Crawley, an out of work struggling man with no clue to his purpose or what he’s doing but takes any job he can get. After meeting a man named Duke in one of his jobs, Duke (George Wendt: Cheers) makes him a job offer. The details he gives him are vague and he seems to dance around what the job entails, but desperate, Sean agrees to meet with Duke’s boss Ray (Daniel Baldwin) a cocky self-assured rich man who tells Sean he wants a rival of his (Ron Livingston in a walk on role) followed. Sean agrees to tail his rival and proceeds to do so for a number of days until he’s approached by Ray to kill him and eliminate him as competition.
Category Archives: Movie Reviews
Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003)
I liked “Legally Blonde”. I thought it was a very cute, very fluffy piece of comedy, I thought Reese Witherspoon was adorable for the most part and the characters were cute including Selma Blair whom played the resident villain, but “Legally Blonde” was based on a true story, and I really doubt this ever happened. The opening recalls the events of the first film through the three supporting female characters, Elle Wood’s friends, looking through a photo album, it’s sort of a sub-conscious message to the audience from the writers and director: “You liked the first film, right? well, this isn’t as good… but the first one was cute.”
Extreme Ops (2002)
This is not regular ops, this is not plain ops, no this is Extreme Ops, what are Extreme Ops? Who knows, and we never really find out, but in this film we meet a group of extreme risk takers and extreme stuntmen, not sports stars but more rebellious young men and women who will take any risk. They’re gathered by an extreme commercial director to record an extreme DV camera commercial, but when they arrive on the mountain to record some sequences, they’re accidentally neighbored with a group of terrorists that think the group of extreme boarders, skiers and risk takers are really CIA agents out to stop their operation. Not very smart terrorists considering they’d probably be aware by now who is or isn’t a government official.
Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)
In this charming flick for chicks, and basically any woman seeking entertainment in the fulfilling sense, Diane Lane off her successful Oscar nominated role in “Unfaithful” takes a much lighter approach this time around with this fun-filled satisfying romp worthy of watching. Based on the book from Frances Mayes, the charming Lane plays Frances, a woman who is basically a sort of socialite around the town, but her life is basically cut down when her husband (whom we never see) divorces her, leaving her for another woman. A wreck and with no clue as to what to do next, she moves into an apartment in a divorcee complex next to a man who sobs on a nightly basis. Her friends, a lesbian couple decide to give her a trip to Italy, she refuses not ready to get into the social scene yet, but much to her surprise, it’s a gay tour.
The Village (2004)
After lots of cryptic movie posters all over the walls in theaters, posters that showed two hands holding a letter, posters that wouldn’t tell a thing to the casual movie-goer, after cryptic television teasers, commercials that gave nothing away but still kept audiences shocked with its atmosphere induced images, and after a really cheesy really bad mock-documentary exploring the “The Buried Secrets of M. Night Shyamalan” which ended up being nothing than a promotional program , director M. Night Shyamalan has again kept audiences wondering, has kept the media guessing, and has kept critics talking.
Swimming Pool (2003)
Sarah, a renowned author making a decent living with a series of books with the character of Inspector Dorwell somewhat shies away from the throws of recognition and seems to hate almost being worshiped. She’s experiencing a creative meltdown of a sorts and is sent by her publisher, with whom she’s having an affair with, to his country house in the far end of France away from civilization to work on her new book, though she isn’t sure what she’s writing yet. She gets more than she bargains for asking for inspiration when her publisher’s daughter Julie comes to stay at the house unannounced. The two instantly dislike one another, and are exact opposites; Sarah played by the elegant and stunning Charlotte Rampling is a somewhat withdrawn, cold and uptight woman while Julie played by Ludivine Sagnier is stunning, very, very sexy, seductive, adventurous, and very mysterious, but the two don’t like each other.
Le Divorce (2003)
In the film, Roxeanne is the humble American wife who takes care of her daughter and is pregnant, but when her husband leaves her on the eve of her sister Isabelle’s arrival, she finds she must struggle to pay for her apartment and daughters ballet lessons. Isabelle is quickly comfortable in the French culture but stands by Roxeanne, but when a painting they’ve inherited suddenly is caught between a rival family, they have to fight to take it home and received the money that’s rightfully theirs. “Le Divorce” is a study, a study of American values about love, life, marriage, divorce and the role of woman versus French values about the exact same topics. It’s a sort of America vs. France allegory set through a struggle between two families, a notion that is especially exercised in the scene in which Hudson, Watts and Thomas Lennon’s characters meet with the appraiser for dinner, and they all begin sparring with him in their knowledge of wines, cuisines, and just wit in general.