Kate (Andie MacDowell) is a lonely respectable forty year old head mistress at a boarding school who gets together every week with her friends to tell horrible stories about their week and discover who is the saddest. Then Kate meets Jed an ex-pupil whom she begins to have an affair with. Soon the affair begins to turn into a relationship and she is no longer sad. Jed, her romance isn’t charismatic nor is he charming or likeable and is simply a one-dimensional character who we never get to know much of, so we never care when something happens to him.
The Hitcher II: I've Been Waiting (2003)
Out of all the films out there “The Hitcher” wouldn’t be my first choice for a sequel, as a matter of fact, there’s not really a need for sequels these days, yet Hollywood continues to pull them out despite big budget or small budget as is revealed in this inferior straight to video sequel to the eerie chiller from 1986. It’s hard to set up a story for a sequel that wasn’t really necessary; we have B queen Kari Wuhrer as C. Thomas Howell’s girlfriend Maggie, Howell’s character Jim from the original film is now grown-up and sports a bad five ‘o clock shadow and a scratchy deep voice to better accentuate his manly persona, Kari Wuhrer plays the inept girlfriend to Howell’s Jim whom is never truly informed on Jim’s horrible past, but urges him to seek professional help… why would she suggest he get personal help when she doesn’t know what happened to him?
Dracula II: Ascension (2002)
When a coroner brings in a charred body, he and a doctor named Elizabeth discover that the body is that of Dracula. When they get a mysterious offer from a buyer who will offer them millions of dollars for his body, they and a group of college students decide to take it upon themselves to discover what makes Dracula immortal while hoping to extract the evil from within the essence but when Dracula becomes too hot to handle, a mysterious knife wielding priest is on the hunt for them and will stop at nothing to take Dracula down.
Hey Arnold! The Movie (2002)
I’m a fan of the “Hey Arnold!” television animated series. I grew up with it. It’s one of Nickelodeon’s banner television shows about growing up. Sadly, what we see in “the movie,” is just a glorified three part TV special that’s mashed in to a movie. And it’s a god awful closer for such a great show. What the animated series thrived on was the large cast of magnetic characters from the neighborhood, but this fails to bring anything truly magnetic to audiences to watch. “Hey Arnold! The Movie” is a half-assed effort that does no justice all around to a truly entertaining cartoon. What many of the executives at Nickelodeon do with their products when making them into feature films is completely take away what made the cartoon so likable to begin with.
The Good Girl (2002)
I was rather intrigued by watching this movie, because it received a ton of critical acclaim and rave. Jennifer Aniston is the title character in this independent movie and this is possibly her best film out of her entire career. Jennifer manages to stray from her corky persona that made her career into a more complex and interesting individual. Throughout the entire movie, we feel her misery as her go-nowhere life is deteriorating her spirit so rapidly it’s painful. Jennifer is excellent in this movie expressing great sympathy from her audience and giving off much depth. I loved this character out of the entire movie and even in scenes that make her unlikable, you can’t help but feel for her.
Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat (2003)
We received an onslaught of merchandising and advertising once this bomb was released, and the cat in the hat was literally everywhere you looked, an obvious sign of studios spending too much money on a crappy film, when it could have been spent on a better film. The filmmakers don’t call it “The Cat in the Hat”, they call it “Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat”, just to assure everyone this definitely is the book their children and their children’s children read. This is not, however, Dr. Seuss. It’s an embarrassment.
Antwone Fisher (2002)
Based on the true story of Antwone Fisher who rose to fame as an acclaimed writer from a life of hardship and directed by legendry Oscar-Winning actor Denzel Washington (Training Day, Glory), new comer Derek Luke takes the title role of Antwone Fisher, a young Navy seaman with a short temper who gets into many fights with different men in his regimen. He’s assigned a therapist Dr. Jerome Davenport, a militant but eager psychiatrist who attempts to break through to Fisher. He’s only given three sessions to see the soldiers and give an evaluation and recommendation regarding their fate with the military, but when Fisher refuses to talk, Davenport persists and week after week they meet until Fisher decides to start talking. Little does he know that not only is Fisher receiving the therapy, but Davenport as well who is having marital troubles with his wife whom are often estranged with each other emotionally. Davenport sees something in Fisher, something special, and he inevitably breaks him.