Jason Lee is a prime example of a very talented actor who has the chops to make primo movies yet consistently star in cinematic fecal matter such as “A Guy Thing”. Lee continues starring in half-baked terrible films like “Dreamcatcher” and “Stealing Harvard” and continues to waste the talents he presents in his past films. “A Guy Thing” has the plot of a sitcom with a storyline done to death and is inevitably doomed to the fate of posing as an hour and a half long big screen commercial sitcom and is just as bland. Lee has shown promise in films like “Chasing Amy”, “Dogma” and the excellent “Almost Famous” in which he managed to steal most of the scenes he was in, but Lee has proved that though he’s excellent as a supporting actor, he just can’t hack it as a leading man yet.
Tag Archives: Romance
The Shape Of Things (2003)
Adam is an out of shape, meek, and nerdy security guard for the local college museum and sticks out like a sore thumb until he comes across Evelyn who is taking pictures of a sculpture. After the requisite reluctant warnings and arguments he grudgingly asks her out and she accepts taking a keen interest in him. Their relationship soon begins to blossom and Evelyn begins taking an eager and somewhat odd fascination with Adam. But as they’re relationship grows more, his friends begin noticing his increasing change in appearance and soon is forced to decide between Evelyn or his best friends. Neil Labute (who penned the original play, wrote the script, and directed) is best known for his cynical works in films like “Your Friends and Neighbors” and “In the Company of Men”, but I’d never seen a film of his before.
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)
I’m not a fan of romantic comedies, and these days they all seem to have something in common and it’s something that was never present in the classic romantic comedies: these days romantic comedies are incredibly bland. As bland as bland can be, so it was no surprise I entered this film with lower than low expectations. But I managed to actually be surprised at how entertaining and enjoyable this was to watch in its first half. First off, I’m in love with Kate Hudson, so it wasn’t a completely difficult time watching her in this film, and I actually laughed here and there. Hudson and McConaughey pull in two hilarious performances as two people who are attempting to outdo each other.
Before Sunrise (1995)
Two people from different parts of the world meet on a train and decide to tour Vienna for one night and witness everything the city has to offer while they bond with one another and fall in love, but as the night ends and the two become closer, will they separate come morning, or will they stay together? I’m officially considering myself a fan of Richard Linklater; this director/writer creates some of the most thought provoking films ever made, it’s hard to believe his films aren’t being released into the mainstream.
The Guys (2002)
Where were you on 9/11? Everyone who was somehow connected with the horrible tragedy of September 11th asks that; especially people who were living in New York at the time. Where were you on 9/11? What were you doing at the time? I’ve been asked that ever since. Being a born and raised New Yorker, it’d be only natural the topic of 9/11 would pop up sooner or later, and instantly the conversation and everyone involved in it would shift into a sort of sad slumped shoulder mode and gaze down in sadness. 9/11 had a profound effect on everyone, especially people who lived in New York during that tumultuous summer. Since then, there’s been countless films, television specials, documentaries, books, memoirs, and even comic books and trading cards chronicling the tragedy (for a lack of a better word).
The Passion of the Christ (2004)
One can’t deny that “The Passion of the Christ” was a bulldozer of endless publicity, and endless debate, and controversy, and uproar and anger and discussion, and feuds and so on and so on. Regardless of which blockbuster that was spawned on the American audience, “The Passion of the Christ” was a highly hyped and much publicized film, because it deals with religion. Religion takes brothers and sisters and family and divides them, it angers people, motivates them, inspires them, and causes them to commit heinous acts in the name of it. Thus explaining the Crusades, the search for the holy grail, and the war we are experiencing now. Religious wars. Religion, regardless of how you cut it is important, if an unnecessary and somewhat defunct part of the human condition that should be removed. Religious films aren’t just films, they expose a part of the human soul called religion, something many people live by and swear by. For better and for worse.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
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.