Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal) just got out of a mental institution for cutting her self due to stress, and now comes home to even more stress including her overprotective mother (Leslie Anne Warren) and resorts back to her old habits. She soon decides to get a job in typing and instantly becomes skilled, looking for a job. She stumbles upon a small law firm run by a militant E. Edward Grey (James Spader) who is mostly professional and soon develops an odd fascination with her. They soon find they each have a fancy for the sadomasochistic. The aspect that makes this movie so unique is that both characters are so pathetic at times, and somehow become drawn to each other. Grey is a lawyer in a quiet and boring firm who quivers in his office, and Holloway is a nimble and meek girl who tends to hide behind her desk; self inflicted torture is what draws them together emotionally and sexually.
Tag Archives: Romance
Real Women Have Curves (2002)
Ana is proud of her body, and she doesn’t hide it; not from her mother not from anyone and struts confidently. What’s so unique about that? She’s a heavy set girl. Often times in Hollywood movies, the main character who is often a girl that is as thin as a stick pretends to look ugly. Not that America Ferrerra is ugly; she’s a very beautiful girl. But, there’s this perception among the masses that a girl has to be thin to be beautiful but what the film says is that you can look any way you choose and still be beautiful. It’s a message injected from writer Josefina Lopez; It’s a positive message, it’s a realistic message, and it’s a message that should be spread to many of today’s young girls. In a world where beautiful means successful, this film is grounded in reality showing that Ana is beautiful and successful just because of who she is.
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002)
In this original animated adventure, we meet Spirit (Voice of Matt Damon), a noble and protective stallion that leads his group of horses along the mid-west. One night, curiosity takes over and he snoops around a confederate army camp. He gets too close for comfort and mistakenly gets caught by soldiers. Now Spirit will go on the journey of a lifetime, discovering the meaning of friendship, loyalty, courage and love. I was really hesitant to watch this movie, because animated movies in the theaters have been in a large slump, especially since watching “Lilo and Stitch” and “The Road to El Dorado”. But all my disillusionment was taken away when I laid my eyes on this. Boy, was I in for something spectacular.
Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
Michael J. Fox voices the character of Milo Thatch, an archaeologist who in his field is considered to be eccentric by his colleagues. Milo believes that the lost city of Atlantis is under water and he wants to retrieve the Shepard’s Journal, a book that proves to be a map to finding Atlantis. No one wants to provide the funding for his proposed expedition, until one night he’s taken to an eccentric old millionaire who wants to help him. He gives Milo the Shepard’s journal and tells him that his grandfather once wanted to explore Atlantis. So, Milo is then taken to a shipyard where he meets a team of explorers who are going along with him. All seems well, but after a while, Milo begins to suspect they have ulterior motives.
Tuck Everlasting (2002)
I have never heard of this book before and I was rather hesitant to watch this due to the fact that it was left basically unnoticed and pushed to the side in the midst of all the big budget trash in the theaters. I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of this story. Alexis Bledel gives a really good performance as the main character Winnie and really helps drives this movie. She’s a really gifted actress and is able to pull off the early century lingo without fault of flaw. She reminds me of a young Brooke Shields giving both hard gritted strength and warm vulnerability all at the same time. I really became interested in her character and really wanted to know how she would end up by the end of the movie.
Stealing Harvard (2002)
Sure, this is a lame comedy, and surprisingly, I wanted to see this because I’m a big fan of Jason Lee. The movie is so silly and inept it’s pretty enjoyable. It’s not hard to see that much of the dialogue in the movie is improvised, especially by “comedian” Tom Green who looks like he made up his entire monologues. At one point he throws a paper ball into a car at a girl, and you can tell she wasn’t expecting it. Tom Green manages to be funny in some very rare parts of the movie and had me chuckling occasionally. Jason Lee whose starred in great films like “Dogma” and “Almost Famous” is a pretty good straight man in the film and just stands around reacting to Tom Green’s foolishness.
National Lampoon's Van Wilder (2002)
Out of all the bad teen sex campus romps, to the classics, this has to be the worst most putrid piece of trash I’ve ever seen. This poor excuse for a comedy features the same old tired clichés we’ve seen from other sex romps except everything falls flat here. After about ten minutes into the film, I could tell the writers were scratching the bottom of the barrel with basically nothing to write in to the story. They even begin resorting to desperate measures by showing a butt shot of Merriman. Then there’s this far-fetched storyline that goes nowhere. How is it he’s able to rent a hall and hire his own employees? How is it he’s able to drive a personalized golf cart around campus when other people are walking? How is it he’s able to walk in and out of classes without the teacher’s complaining?


