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Slim-25
Reviews
Wild Things (1998)
It didn't make my heart sing.
Hi, my name is Slim and I just saw a movie about teenage lust, adult lust, lesbian lust, alligator lust, and bad acting lust. And thrown in because the producers figured the movie needed more plot lines was stupid cops, crooked cops, greedy cops, and stupid lawyers, crooked lawyers and greedy lawyers. However, they must have run out of illiterate actors to read the rotten script because they had one actor being all types of the cop. And wouldn't you know it, Kevin Bacon played the cop.
I'm talking about Wild Things' and if wasn't for the some of the teenage girl wet T-shirt shots and some bare breasted lesbian rubadubdub scenes the bad acting would've had me snoring all throughout it. As it was, I had to keep on kicking myself while waiting for some gratuitous teenage chest thrusters to appear. Basically, we got a movie about a Florida high school counselor who's accused of getting beasty with one of the rich hormonally amped teenage babe students but another student who's the campus wrong side of the swamp drugged tatoo queen says it's all a sham and so the counselor gets a settlement' and then it turns out that they were all in it together.
We got scenes of straining bursting breasts, we got scenes of straining bursting lawyers, we got scenes of teenage wasteland, we got scenes of rich white folk wasteland, we got scenes of bad writing wasteland, and finally we got actors who are in a wasteland of a movie.
One wasted, blown out, sucking star. Go check it out but only if you want to keep on playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
El Monte Slim
Limbo (1999)
Life ain't fair.
Hi, my name is Slim and I just saw a movie about how just when you think life is going good and you got all the major stuff like food, money, and love dialed in and it's just about time you got comfortable with a six-pack of some cold longnecks WHAM! that cold-ass harlot Bad Luck cold cocks you one. Then the next thing you know you're stuck on some wet, dank, isolated-on-the-buttwipe-end Alaskan island with this gal you were just getting to know real well, not to mention her teenage daughter who's into self-mutilation and strange stories, and to top it all off some drug running nimrods who just got burned are looking for all your butts with their superduper peekaboo scoped rifle.
I'm talking about Limbo, made by the one of best directors who doesn't give a damn about Hollywood and does it his way all the time-John Sayles, and has one of my favorite babe actress-Mary Elizabeth Maistrantonio. It all takes place somewhere way up in Alaska where men are fisherman, women are fish cleaners, and the tourists are stupid fat Midwesterners. My babe Mary is this singer who just left her 51st, or 63rd, or 102nd guy and goes right after her 52nd or 64th or whatever, who is this guy who used to be a fisherman but due to 'unforeseen circumstances' isn't one now. But since way up there in fish country winters are long and women are scarce and fish just don't last all winter he decides she is all right, and besides she is Mary Elizabeth Maistrantonio. Anyway, he and she and the teenage daughter decide to go for a boat ride, so off they go along with his long-lost half-brother who decides to pull a con on his half-bro and use him as a bodyguard for some stupid pigheaded easy money drug deal. But of course it ain't easy money, and so it's a man overboard and everyone swim for their life scene.
We got fish being cleaned, fish being shot, fish being canned, fish being fish, we got pretty postcard pictures of somewheres up in Alaska which looks like they got enough trees to build all of us a 5000 square foot house, we got losers in a bar with their own barstool, we got Robinson Crusoe only Friday is a babe and her daughter, and finally we got an ending that just goes to show that we don't really know what's going to happen in our lives.
Three and a half bright north stars. Go check it out but only if you want to watch a movie where when it's over you want to go back for more. Or else drop kick a size 12 metal toed boot to the rear of Sayles for ending the movie the way he did.
Ronin (1998)
Japanese for very many car chases
Hi, my name is Slim and I just saw a movie that is probably on one of those lists those moral majority types are making up in Washington, D.C. due to its 'violence content'. You know, stuff like guns blazing into a bunch of folks out shopping, or guns blazing while there are a bunch of stupid white-folk tourists looking at some old stone relic, or guns blazing while speeding down a crowded freeway so we got double violence with car crashes and bullets flying. Now I don't know what they were saying 40, 50 years ago when kids were in bed listening to The Shadow or The Lone Ranger or any of those other radio shows where folks were killed or fell off buildings or got impaled or whatever. Maybe it was okay because it didn't show it.
I'm talking about Ronin, with Bobby De Niro. You would think that with all the bullets and car chasing in this movie Bobby would be playing what he does the best--some Mafia gangster. But nope, he is some sort of blackballed ex-CIA spook for hire who teams up with some thugs and malcontents and other spook types who are recruited by some Irish babe to get this piece of luggage cleverly disguised as an ice-skates holder. So they go after this case, but the folks who have it don't want to give it up. Then some Russians or East Germans or someone from that old Cold War bozo brigade decide they want the case, also. Which means we got all sorts of opportunities for gun battles with small guns, big guns, machine guns, and one grenade launcher. And since all these guys are into fast cars, we got just as many cars as guns. But all this takes place in France, so we aren't talking about good old American violence, we are talking about good old French violence. Then again, good old French violence would be folks getting their heads chopped off, so maybe we just got good old American violence in France. And since everyone speaks American, some with an Irish accent, some with a French accent, some with a German accent, and some with a New York accent, I guess we can say American is the language of choice for violence.
We got gun battles galore, and even with automatic weapons we still got guys who can't hit a dead-ass slow target 10 feet in front of them much less a moving target like a car, we got cars speeding through all the narrow streets of France meanwhile there ain't no other cars on these streets so maybe the French were on strike again, we got a piece of luggage everyone wants but we never find out what's in it and finally, we got Bobby De Niro talking like he just finished reading some sort of seventh grade story about "Stupid Things to say so you can sound Stupid."
One and a half 9mm stars. Go check it out but only if you want to start thinking that movies like this give gratuitous violence a bad name and that maybe Bobby De Niro has hit hard times.
Elizabeth (1998)
If you think it's bad in Washington, DC, go see this movie.
ELIZABETH
Hi, my name is Slim and I just saw a movie about religious men scheming to get rid of the head of state and powerful men are also involved and an advisor of the head of state is involved in skullduggery and intrigue and meanwhile the head of state and some young shapely thing is making like a two-backed beast. Meanwhile, the country is falling apart and the head of state is going to war with some wacko who is tucked away in some far-off land.
I'm talking about "Elizabeth", which takes place some time around the 1550's in merry olde England. The way I figure, Henry VIII has died, and he had this daughter with one of his many wives, but he wanted a son so he chopped off the wife's head. Well, another one of his daughters has taken the crown, but then she dies and the other daughter becomes Queen. Except she's Protestant and the Catholics really don't like that, so they decide to off her. Well, at first she's in a tizzy and can't figure out what's going on because she's in heat and runting about with this Lord. But luckily there's this advisor who is dialed into all the scheming, and he tells the Queen and well, a lot of guys end up with their head on a pole. We got dark, dank scenes of some tower and castles in England, we got lords a leaping and lasses a skipping, we got all sorts of fancy dressed pompous asses strutting about, we got the Queen being a wench, we got some guy being readied for a Burger King commercial, and finally we got a bunch of religious guys going to find out if there really is a heaven. Also, we got all these scenes jumping and bopping about and I sure do wish all these producers and directors would stop watching so much MTV.
Two and three-quarters stars. Go check it out if you think Washington, DC is really bad and couldn't get any worse.
El Monte Slim
Wag the Dog (1997)
Is it real, or is it just Hollywood?
WAG THE DOG
Hi, my name is Slim and I just saw a movie that damn near makes me want to move to someplace like Mexico or Russia where the government is corrupt, everyone knows the government is corrupt, and it ain't no big deal when the government does something that is corrupt. But here in the good old USA, we all like to believe our government isn't corrupt, that it doesn't do corrupt things, and if it does do something that is corrupt then heads will roll.
I'm talking about `Wag the Dog', and sure it is supposed to be pure Hollywood but you know it's all just a bit too believable. Not to mention that it came out before gitalong Bill and thar' she blows Monica became such a popular item. It almost makes you wonder that maybe there is some truth to it all, and what we see is no way what it really is. Anyway, what we see in this film is the president getting in trouble with some young thing, and so all these cloak-and-dagger government types start thinking they got to do something because the election is soon, so they come up with the idea of a war, but there won't really be a war, just an illusion of one. So they hire this big shot Hollywood producer to make up this illusion, and they all get together and just hoodwink the whole gullible folks who are out there in American TV land.
We got conspiracy theories, we got statements on the stupidity of folks like you and me, we got way too much similar stuff between the movie and reality, we got yahoos acting like VIPs, and finally we got the government being one big schemer, liar, deceiver, and doer of ill deeds.
Almost three stars. Go check it out, then go register to vote so we can get a whole new bunch of crooks in because they can't be any worse than what's in Washington now.
El Monte Slim
Titanic (1997)
Boy meets girl. They fall in love. Ship sinks.
Hi, my name is Slim and I just saw a movie that cost enough to keep me and all my inbred cousins supplied with hooch and chips until the next millennium. We are talking big bucks here, so many millions that it makes even me drool. And here's the kicker: the plot of the movie can be summed up in about a dozen words. Poor boy and rich girl meet. They fall in love. Ship sinks. Some folks say there's all this other stuff about man vs. nature and man and technology and man and the haves and haves not, but all that stuff is about 15 minutes out of the 3 1/2 hours the film takes. So it doesn't really count. You know by now I'm talking about Titanic, made by the same guy who gave us the greatest Arnold Schwarzenegger flick ever made, Terminator, by James Cameron. Well, this time around Jimmy boy decides to make a movie where everyone knows the ending, so he can use all his creative juices and tons of dollars from who knows where to build a 3/4 size replica of the ship. None of those miniatures for Jimmy boy, oh no he wants the real thing. So we got lots of nice shots of the ship sailing in the ocean, shots from above and to the side and above and from the side and oh hell you've seen one you've seen them all. Too bad whenever the shots go into the ship and onto the ship and show what is going on you realize you've seen all that before also. As I said, everyone knows what happens to the ship. And to most of the people on it. Not much suspense here. We got rich folks strolling about, with the women wearing these hats that could be used as landing fields for seagulls; we got teeming masses of humanity dancing and drowning, but not at the same time; we got lust and the two backed beast between the poor boy and rich girl; we got lots of people going swimming against there wishes in the dark and cold ocean; we got the star of the show sinking and sinking and sinking, but being brought back to life by the wonders of modern day technology. Three stars. Check it out but only if you like big ships and tear jerking love stories.
El Monte Slim