Anyone who knows me or has even an inkling of what my reviews are like know I love almost everything Spielberg does, and Spielberg manages, through “The Terminal” to create a sense of something that all comedies lack: humanity, and through its humanity, comedy that is all so amusing and likable (I laughed aloud whenever Navorski looked into the surveillance cameras). Spielberg creates a film in the Capra-esque sensibility and it creates human characters that people can love and or feel sorry for in the process. Viktor Navorski is now a man without a country after his beloved country of Krakozhia engages in a coup and war breaks loose. His passport, visa, and anything else he owns are now deemed confederate dollar rendered basically useless. The problem is he can not step foot in America, and he can not go back home, so now he’s marooned in the airport.
Tag Archives: Romance
Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! (2004)
Tad Hamilton is a big star with the ladies, and after he’s caught doing some naughty things with a lady friend, he’s pressured into re-invigorating his career with a contest for a lucky girl. Rosalee just happens to be that girl. A young wide-eyed fan, she and Tad for an instant friendship, but her friend Pete doesn’t trust him. Ah, the old “Sixteen Candles” formula that has undoubtedly been used before over and over again, and this time around it’s a good variation. Bosworth, a beautiful girl who literally glows whenever she’s on-screen plays Rosalee with much affection and is a great leading character here. She’s someone to root for. While “Win a Date!” doesn’t proceed with originality it accomplishes great characters.
Species III (2004)
After the sequel to Species, the army is now transporting her body to the morgue for testing, but discovers she’s not exactly dead and has given birth to two offspring. Sil, the original species (cameo by Natasha Henstridge) is killed, but not before she gives birth to a child which is stolen by a soldier and taken in. The name of the child is Sara a brand new species/half-breed. Sara is played by the beautiful and angelic Sunny Mabrey, who pulls in a good performance as the new creature forced to discover the world. She presents the same sexual appeal predecessor Henstridge did, and is just as threatening.
The Station Agent (2004)
The reason why I love independent movies and prefer them over any big-budget event movie is simply for that reason: independent movies are movies, and not events, thus they do not become gimmicks. Independent movies have the advantage of having a low budget because a low budget helps separate the men from the boys. With an independent movie you learn whether the writers and directors shouldn’t even be in Hollywood or have created a work of art. Like someone once said, “just because you can work a film camera, doesn’t mean you should be behind one”, and that’s exactly it. With Indies you either have a pretentious work of crap, a work of schlock, or a work of art; low budget productions help cut through the bullshit and expose real actors, real filmmaking and real writing. Our story “The Station Agent” is all of the above: a real work of art, real filmmaking, real writing, all with real acting.
Garden State (2004) (DVD)
I like Zach Braff a lot, so when “Garden State” came around, I took a chance and made a blind buy (buying without having seen the film) on the DVD, and, not surprisingly, I wasn’t disappointed, as a matter of fact I was shocked at how utterly accomplished Braff has become. “Garden State” is further proof to why “Scrubs” is such an underrated mistreated property. Directed by, written by, and starring Braff, he plays twenty – something out of work actor Andrew Largeman, a young man whose sleepwalking his way through a heavily medicated life of hazy dreams and meaningless benign events of monotony and routine and basically doesn’t know where it all is ending or beginning for him through his work as a pretend Asian man. And his medicine cabinet stacked through the brim with anti-depressants.
The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004)
It was a known fact that Peter Sellers thought very little of his own self. He had a love-hate relationship with his own persona as a man who both hated and thought very highly of himself and such is shown in the new and first biographical picture of Peter Sellers, the genius behind films like “Dr. Strangelove” and the “Pink Panther” films, a man who was revered as a comedy genius during life and after his death. What is suggested here is that he was such a miserable man and such a mama’s boy, that he could never find true happiness with a woman in his life, regardless of who it was and what happiness they offered him as is shown by his countless wives including his first Anne (Good performance from Emily Watson), to his unsuccessful romancing of Sophia Loren (The gorgeous Sonia Aquino).
Torque (2004)
Why anyone would want to rip off “The Matrix” is understandable; it was a very influential movie that paved the way for a lot of really bad, and mediocre rip-offs to come for years that I would inevitably have to suffer through, but why anyone would want to rip-off “The Fast and the Furious”, a mediocre action popcorn flick fueled (no pun intended) only by Vin Diesel’s pecks and some good effects is a stunner. Like many have said, dumb studio execs tend to confuse high grosses with film quality and what “The Fast and the Furious” had was not quality. Charisma? Yes. Good effects? Granted. But quality? I’m afraid not, my friend, so why do we have to suffer through these horrible rip-offs? Directed by Joseph Kahn, who is, surprise, surprise, a music video director, composes one really bad B movie that isn’t even worthy of being called a B movie because it’s so blatantly a really long drawn out music video sans the music ad nauseum.