Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

Posted on March 14, 2004 by Felix Vasquez

Twas once a skeptic to the quality of the film now am a believer that Disney can still trot out quality films. My Mea Culpa was to assume that even with such a cast as Geoffrey Rush and Johnny Depp aboard that this would be a stinker, but once more I was wrong. Gore Verbinski who did an excellent directing job in the recent thriller “The Ring” conveys the true spirit of swashbuckling films in “Pirates of the Caribbean”, a film that is very reminiscent of the old Errol Flynn Pirate epics that stunned audiences in the early 1900’s in its truest essence; the swashbuckling film genre is dead only recently being brought to the screen with the bland “Cutthroat Island” a film that had style but little substance.

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From Justin to Kelly (2003)

Posted on March 14, 2004 by Felix Vasquez

Brothers and sistas, mothers and fathers, I come to you today not only as a megalomaniacal egotistic movie critic but as a fellow movie go-er! Thus I have witness the plight that is “From Justin to Kelly”! Can I get a amen?!

If I asked you (the reader) who watches “American Idol” I’d probably receive an onslaught of hands raised followed by cheering; but if I asked you how many people went to see this film, I’d without a doubt be welcomed with deafening silence and a few mutters, thus Americans finally knew the extent FOX was willing to milk their cash cow known as “American Idol”! Can I get a amen?!

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American Wedding (2003)

Posted on March 14, 2004 by Felix Vasquez

I’m a fan of “American Pie”; I loved that movie, I thought it was very funny and the closest we’ll get to a classic comedy of the modern era, I mean what other movie featured such a hilarious sight as a guy having sex with a pie? Then there was “American Pie 2”, not exactly a creative title for a sequel, and all in all it was a mediocre film with a mediocre plot. There were minimal laughs, obvious jokes and puns, and nothing else to feature, then with a further saturation, there’s “American Wedding”.I was strictly against a third film in the “American” series, and now it’s clearly evident my instinct was right all along.

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Bringing Down The House (2003)

Posted on February 29, 2004 by Felix Vasquez

This movie presents a common comedy formula often ensured to bring laughs but hardly do they ever and “Bringing Down the House” tackles the formula head-on: upper class white family is intruded by hip black person, hip black person lives with upper class white family, teaches upper class white father to appreciate kids and wife more and upper class white family grow to love hip minority. In a star vehicle of this kind I expected what I’d heard of “Non-stop laughs”; sure someone who watches comedies lately knows to never listen to hype, and boy was this film hyped.

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Crush (2001)

Posted on February 5, 2004 by Felix Vasquez

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.

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Hey Arnold! The Movie (2002)

Posted on January 25, 2004 by Felix Vasquez

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.

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Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat (2003)

Posted on January 14, 2004 by Felix Vasquez

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.

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