1998

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October 6, 2008

The Wedding Singer

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 1998, comedy, entertainment, movies, romance, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |
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Adam Sandler’s best comedy is 1998’s The Wedding Singer. Brimming with delight and a gentle spirit, this film is bubbling with romance and lightly dipped in 80s brightness.

Naturally the notion that The Wedding Singer is an Adam Sandler movie may do enough to put off the more serious cinema lovers, as Sandler’s “best work” can evidently only take place in pretentious art-house pictures in which Sandler isn’t actually Sandler at all. But this Frank Coraci film actually places the comedian in the right temperature for perhaps the first and only time of Sandler’s career. And it works like a charm.

Sandler is Robbie Hart, a former rocker turned wedding singer. The film takes place in 1985, placing Hart possibly right at the point in his life where he realizes that he’s “gotta make a living” instead of running around in spandex doing David Lee Roth impressions. Of course, the spandex is what got him “the girl” in the first place. “The girl” is Linda (Angela Featherstone) and the wedding is right around the corner. We first meet Robbie when he’s doing his thing at a wedding, as per usual. He is entertaining and light-hearted.

Julia Sullivan (Drew Barrymore) is a waitress who works weddings. She runs into the illustrious Robbie and they share a brief, fleeting conversation. Julia is engaged as well, but she waits for her beau (Matthew Glave) to set the date. Fast-forward a bit to Robbie’s wedding day and he is left standing at the altar thanks to Linda. It turns out that Linda only wanted the spandex boy and couldn’t envision settling down with a mere wedding singer. Robbie takes it hard, of course, and runs the gamut of depressing behaviour.

Julia, meanwhile, has problems of her own and begins to discover the true nature of her fiancé. She enlists Robbie’s help to plan her wedding, but quickly realizes that Robbie cares more about her than her own fiancé does. Robbie also realizes that Julia’s fiancé is a jerk and his deepening feelings toward Julia add confusion to the mix. In true romantic comedy fashion, the truth must come out in time for the third act and there’s a rush to the airport.

The Wedding Singer works because the performances are pitch-perfect and the foundation is a sense of lovability and profound joy. Ensconced in the music of the 80s, the film propels forward through a combination of heart-warming and hilarious sequences with a tone that is as light as air. It is like an old-fashioned romantic comedy, with its relatively predictable plotline and its saccharine characterizations. Robbie is a gentle spirit who simply wants to find love, while Julia is a woman with the same desires. Both wind up off course as their lives progress, so it’s up to Hollywood romance to bring them together.

There are slick cameo performances, such as a hilarious turn by Steve Buscemi giving a toast gone wrong and Jon Lovitz as another wedding singer taking in the benefits of a depressed Robbie Hart. One of the better sequences comes courtesy of the one and only Billy Idol, who has a significant part to play in the film’s sweet and syrupy finale.

The songs are also wonderful, especially some of the film’s original numbers. Sandler’s “Somebody Kills Me” is hilarious in its angst, as Hart explains that he’d be listening to a lot of The Cure when he wrote it. The delightful “Grow Old With You” is a favourite, too, as its romantic lyrics comprise the film’s best moment. The 80s hits are packed in as well, with “White Wedding,” “99 Luftballoons,” “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record),” and other stellar tracks filling the soundtrack.

All in all, The Wedding Singer is an exercise in fun and old-time romance. The plot is predictable but delightful and the film’s overall tone is sugary sweet. It is well worth a look on a day when things aren’t going so well and a buoyant sense of laughter and romance might be of some assistance.

8.5/10

Trailer:

 

October 4, 2008

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 1998, action, entertainment, horror, movies, thrillers, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , |
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Jennifer Love Hewitt’s cleavage returns in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, a sequel that literally takes the best parts of its original and makes the most of them. This 1998 teen slasher film is, of course, the sequel to I Know What You Did Last Summer. While the 1997 flick “benefitted” from the Kevin Williamson screenplay, the 1998 sequel featured a Trey Callaway screenplay and Danny Cannon’s direction.

Love Hewitt is Julie James, of course, and she’s in full recovery mode after the events of the first film. Jumpy and frequently nervous, James has trouble getting on with her life at college in Boston and wants to leave every sign of her old life behind. Her grades are slipping and her relationship with Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr.) is suffering, too. Luckily, her roommate Karla (Brandy Norwood) wins a trip via a radio contest and the pair head out on an all-expenses-paid trip for four to the Bahamas. Karla brings her boyfriend Tyrell (Mekhi Phifer) and a friend Will Benson (Matthew Settle) to help cheer Julie up.

Unfortunately, the trip to the Bahamas isn’t what it seems and it doesn’t take long for the four to realize that there’s some serious trouble afoot. Not only was the trip planned at the beginning of hurricane season, but all of the hotel guests are leaving because of upcoming storms. That leaves the four alone with a few staff members at the resort, but they try to make the best of it until Julie’s past comes around once again. The Fisherman returns and it’s up to Ray to make his way to the resort before it’s too late.

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer is more convoluted and perplexing than the original, but it features a great deal more eye candy. Director Cannon knows how to capture his young starlets better than his predecessor and ably slips Love Hewitt in more than one compromising position to show off her ample assets, including the infamous tanning bed sequence. Brandy gets in on the act, too, spending the last third of the movie with her shirt ripped open to reveal her bra.

Beyond the eye candy, however, there’s nothing here. The whole setup of the radio contest and the inexorable finale is so far-fetched as to be ridiculous. Not only does the notion of such a trip and its components completely discredit the intelligence of the lead characters, but it simply startles in its stupidity. Without getting into spoilers, anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of geography ought to know why the trip is a stinker.

The “big reveal” is astounding in its idiocy, too. When the Fisherman makes his way to the island resort, he has an “in” that is so abundantly transparent as to need no explanation. Red herrings are easily tossed aside, as in the first flick, but this time the plot twist is so abundant in its obviousness that rasping laughs are the only appropriate response.

The performances are simply not good, with Love Hewitt and Brandy doing well enough but the males of the cast simply floundering around. Prinze Jr. has always been absolutely awful, but he sinks even lower in this tripe with a horrific cliché-ridden performance that could be among the worst in the genre. Settle is bad too, mining the depths of B-movie bullshit to deliver his lines. Of course, Callaway’s toned-down screenplay has a lot to do with the garbage here.

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer exceeds the original in the cleavage and bouncy-boobies department, but flounders everywhere else. It remains a sorry excuse of a film, a lukewarm cash-grab aimed at draining more out of the already nauseating teen slasher pool.

1/10

Trailer (complete with Spanish subs because…you know):

 

August 18, 2008

Waking Ned Devine

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 1998, comedy, drama, entertainment, movies, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , |
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Kirk Jones made his directorial debut with a quaint little film called Waking Ned Devine back in 1998. Since then, Jones went on to direct Nanny McPhee and will direct his third picture in 2009, a comedy-adventure film starring Robert De Niro and Kate Beckinsale entitled Everybody’s Fine. With Waking Ned Devine, known purely as Waking Ned throughout the non-North American world, Jones shows his chops for creating diminutive human comedies.

The fictional village of Tullymore in Ireland is the milieu for this charming story of camaraderie and shenanigans. When word reaches Jackie O’Shea (Ian Bannen) and Michael O’Sullivan (David Kelly) that someone in their miniscule village has won the Irish National Lottery, the cute-but-conniving duo sets out to find the winner with a variety of schemes, including a carefully-prepared chicken dinner. After narrowing down the list of suspects, it is discovered that Ned Devine (Jimmy Keogh) is the winner. One problem: Ned’s dead, baby.

Jackie is convinced in a dream that Ned would want to share the winnings with his friends, so he and Michael construct an intricate and often-hilarious scheme to fool the claim inspector (Adrian Robinson) and collect the money. The inspector indeed presents some minor problems, so Jackie and Michael must convince the entire village to go along with the plan so that the cash can be split between all 52 residents of Tullymore.

Waking Ned Devine is an amiable story and the performances are grand. The movie works because it captures the sense of small village life so truthfully. The local pub serves as the nucleus of activity, with lots of gossip and prying. The pleasant villagers watch out for one another, too, and the sense of community adds a touching element. Naturally, there is the village killjoy, Lizzie Quinn (Eileen Dromey), who wants to make things interesting, but she is dispatched in a way that conjures visions of the most enjoyable dark comedies.

It is the performance of David Kelly, a legend in the UK and an unknown in North America, that really sets things thing on fire. His wrinkly rear serves as side-splitting a co-star as one could wish and his uncanny ability to sensitively play his part in the whole tribulation is catching in its delight. Kelly inhabits Michael with an almost well-mannered humour, never overplaying anything and logically bringing comedy to the role. He is winning and amusing.

Waking Ned Devine serves alongside The Full Monty and Local Hero as one of the strong British Isles small town comedies. The United States seems to have a scarcity of these types of films, choosing instead to focus on broad narratives of city life and dismissing the forgotten characters of the villages in the pockets of the hills as part of the quirkier indie movie crowd. The splendour of Waking Ned Devine is in its refusal to cast its characters as exaggerated hyperboles. Jones, instead, fondly directs his cast with attention to detail and utilizes their strengths.

The main “point” of Waking Ned Devine is fun. When the telephone booth goes flying, it’s fun. When Michael must make his way to a cottage buck-ass naked, it’s fun. Jones’ ability to grant this enjoyment is unimpeachable, as though his only intent in creating roadblocks for his characters is so that he (and the audience, of course) can benefit from watching them conquer. Regardless of his inspiration, Kirk Jones’ Waking Ned Devine is a pleasure.

8/10

Trailer:

 

April 17, 2008

The Thin Red Line

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 1998, drama, entertainment, movies, trailers, war | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line is the best war film of the modern era, period. It is an enduring film, one that takes its time with the subject matter and delves into the very soul of the environment and the characters. Like all Malick films, The Thin Red Line is a sensory experience that evokes emotion from a simple glance at the leaves or a look at the flowing water below. Malick’s tenacity to capture the atmosphere in which he dwells is one of the greatest parts of his films, but The Thin Red Line proves that his configuration of battle sequences and character development isn’t bad either.

The film marked Malick’s return to filmmaking after a twenty year absence. As such, the line-up to work with the director was massive and featured many of Hollywood’s A-listers. The casting process was extensive, to say the least, with actors from all corners of Hollywood looking for parts. Kevin Costner, Brad Pitt, and Tom Cruise all expressed interest in appearing in the film. Billy Bob Thornton, Viggo Mortensen, Gary Oldman, Mickey Rourke, and others all acted in it but had their scenes cut due to length constraints.

Malick’s film covers the fictional story of a United States forces company during the Second World War. The men are fighting in the Battle of Guadalcanal in the Pacific theatre. Malick focuses on some of the individuals in the C Company, most notably Colonel Tall (Nick Nolte), Private Witt (James Caviezel), and Private Bell (Ben Chaplin).

Colonel Tall is trying to impress his superiors, namely Brigadier General Quintard (John Travolta), so he pushes his men hard and makes several bad decisions. His fixation with getting recognized as a capable leader drives events in the film and costs many lives. Private Witt is introduced as the film opens. He has gone AWOL and is discovered on an island in the South Pacific. When a military boat picks him up, he is chided by First Sergeant Welsh (Sean Penn) and forced back to the front. Private Bell’s story is told in part through flashbacks, as we learn of his relationship with his wife and how it dissolves through time.

This is no run of the mill war movie. Many war films, such as Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (which came out the same year), often provide a more action-oriented focus. With The Thin Red Line, Malick focuses on the nuances of war and the emotions behind it. He avoids linear construction, instead composing various events that lead us through the frenzied haze of warfare.

This is a movie that works more as a piece of poetry or like a true piece of art. Its focus is elsewhere and, while that may be disorienting to some, it is the idyllic capture of war and the evil that men do that makes this one stand apart from the norm. Malick’s desire to show the incongruous nature of war, to show the pandemonium, to show the battle without the action and without the hyped up half-truths so common in American films, and to show the often-abrupt conclusions of things is immeasurably woven into the fabric of this movie.

It is a symphony. The film opens with strings warming up in an orchestra as Malick shows us a world untouched by the scarring of war. When we’re introduced to Witt on the island, we see the wholesomeness of life without the appointment of evil. When Witt’s internal dialogue wonders how malevolence got into the world and how we lost the love we were given, we know where he’s getting it from.

While Saving Private Ryan is rumination on the peripheral costs of war and on the “price of freedom,” The Thin Red Line is so much more. It is a meditation on the internal costs of war, on the stain war puts on the souls of men, and on the price that is paid for us all through our own desire to do evil to one another. It is not an anti-war film, mind you. It is real.

Malick gives us pause with The Thin Red Line. He makes us wonder about crossing the line and about the costs associated with what happens when we do. He gives us reasons to weigh up what we’re seeing and doesn’t flamboyantly manoeuvre a consequence. Instead, it’s art. It’s an open door to the upsetting and blood-spattered world of combat. Like Malick’s other pieces, The Thin Red Line is a reflection on the stuff of life. It is the best and most fitting film about war I have ever seen.

10/10

Trailer:

 

October 7, 2007

Out of Sight

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 1998, comedy, crime, drama, entertainment, romance, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , |
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Out of Sight

Out of Sight is a sizzling crime caper film directed by Steven Soderbergh and based on the novel by the same name by Elmore Leonard. The 1998 film is regarded in some circles are Soderbergh’s “comeback film” after releasing a series of critically-acclaimed but financially fruitless films. Out of Sight won the Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best Screenplay and won National Society of Film Critic’s awards for Best Film, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. The film was only a modest success in its theatrical release and didn’t make that much at the box office despite a rather stacked cast and charming dialogue.

Out of Sight revolves around the relationship between a United States Marshal named Karen Sisco, played by Jennifer Lopez, and a career thief named Jack Foley, played by George Clooney. The relationship begins after a prison escape, as Foley takes Sisco hostage in the trunk of a car driven by his associate and right-hand man, Buddy (Ving Rhames). After the escape, Foley lets Sisco go and begins to work on a “last job” with Buddy and Glenn (Steve Zahn) that involves the robbery of a shady businessman named Ripley (Albert Brooks). Before the plan is formulated entirely, Glenn runs off on Buddy and Foley and attempts to work the plan with a group of cold-blooded and murderous thugs, led by Maurice (Don Cheadle). With Sisco in pursuit, the robbery becomes progressively more intricate and the amorous tension between Sisco and Foley becomes more observable.

The rights to Out of Sight were purchased by Danny DeVito after his success with the 1995 film adaptation of Get Shorty, also an Elmore Leonard piece. Apparently the source for Leonard’s Out of Sight came from the author seeing a picture in the Detroit News featuring a female federal marshal with a shotgun over her hip. Leonard began to pen his story about a striking marshal and some of the incidents she would get into on the job and, soon enough, Out of Sight came together. The character of Karen Sisco was also used for a brief television show that never really got off the ground.

Out of Sight works as a film because of the characters and because of the exceptional dialogue shared between them. While comparisons to other dialogue-heavy capers are to be anticipated each time a character has a conversation that isn’t crucial to the plot, what drives Out of Sight isn’t so much the unrelated dialogue as the dialogue that spins the web of seduction and apprehension between its characters. With such rich depth, Soderbergh’s film works with its disjointed timeline to provide a double-edged sword of intrigue and a cast of characters with individual interests and great personal depth. Each character is worthy of examination and infatuation and each character is performed fluently and with intrinsic style, making for a marvellous ensemble piece that works like few others are able to.

The film also works because of its intelligence. The plot is based on the carelessness and absurdity of criminal activity without turning itself into a slapstick formula piece. Out of Sight functions because each character maintains their “cool,” despite having several situations spiral significantly out of control. Characters trip repetitively, only to meet their downfall as a result of their inherent inelegance. Characters take drugs, only to trip up as a result of the inconsistencies patterned through their drug use. Characters fall in love, only to be tripped up as a consequence of their passions. While the relationship between Sisco and Foley surely forms the centerpiece of the tail, the essence of Out of Sight is largely based around the characters around the central relationship and how the contributions from this shady and scandalous cast of characters impacts the normative relationships between human beings.

Out of Sight is mercilessly stylish, humorous, and charismatic. It is a dazzling look at crime and romance that pulls no punches and maintains a sort of cool virtuousness when other films would have faltered down roads of garishness and weak attempts at grit. Out of Sight works because it has the capacity to make its audience feel good about watching it and maintains its inherent integrity because of the strength of the source material. It is a valuable, riveting, and clever crime caper.

8/10

Trailer: