Reviews

As far as I am concerned, when it comes to camptacular television, "Saved by the Bell" is one of the best shows ever made. It's not a truly good sitcom like "Roseanne", "All in the Family" or "The Cosby Show", and doesn't have the surrealism of shows like "The Drew Carey Show", but it's not supposed to.

It's a sitcom. Sitcoms work exclusively in stereotypes. There's the jock, the popular guy, the political girl, the dumb girl, the dork, the pretty girl.. what else do you need? If I wanted to spend the time, I could break this down into archetypical Greek Theatre characters, but, a) I'm lazy, and b) it's "Saved by the Bell", for the love of pete! The show is nothing but purely mindless entertainment. Absolutely no thought needs to be brought to the table. Even "Full House" required more input (at least from the viewpoint of McLuhan's 'hot media' v. 'cold media' theory) than "Saved by the Bell".

This comment? More effort than was needed to enjoy "Saved by the Bell". Reading and writing.

Panic Room *** ½

It's about time someone made a good thriller. Don't Say A Word tried to be a thriller, but failed. Most thrillers today wind up with the protagonist spouting off a clever one-liner and then shooting the bad guy. In fact, a thriller starring Jennifer `J-Lo' Lopez was previewed before Panic Room. When a thriller lists a song in its credits during the preview, especially when the song is off of an upcoming album called `J to the Lo', you can bet it's going to be predictable as all get-out. And not in the good way. Panic Room is predictable in the good way.

I saw an interview with Alfred Hitchcock several years ago. To paraphrase what he said: Show the bad guys placing a bomb underneath the dining room table. Then, have the good guys sit at the table and talk about baseball. The audience knows that the bomb is there, but the good guys don't. While the baseball conversation is happening, the audience is squirming in their seats thinking `Don't talk about baseball, you idiots! There's a bomb under the table!' Does the bomb go off? It might, and that's what makes a thriller work – show something bad that might happen, and then pile surprises on top of that.

The trailers for Panic Room tell you everything you need to know about the plot. Actually, there isn't much of a plot. It's a premise. Playwright George Bernard Shaw once said that he never used plots. He had a situation, put characters into the situation, and watched what would happen. That's what happens here.

Meg Altman (Foster) and her daughter Sarah (Stewart) just moved into a gorgeous house: a mix between a townhouse and a brownstone, or, a brownhouse. The house has all sorts of nifty things, like an elevator (the last resident was very rich and disabled). The movie gets its title from the panic room in the house. It's explained in the trailers, but, to recap, the panic room is a house within the house. It has its own ventilation system, phone line, plumbing, and electricity. If you shut the massive steel door, no one can get in. Now, the last resident had loads of money and several kids. The inheritance is in dispute, and there are millions of dollars missing. Three people who know more about the panic room than Meg and Sarah break into the house. Junior (Leto), Burnham (Whitaker) and Raoul (Yoakam) are the bad guys – some worse than others. Then, things get messy. And tense.

I like David Fincher. I like him a lot. Se7en is a near-classic. Fight Club is in my DVD collection. I'm not entirely sure what his motives as a director are (the great directors typically explore their psyches on the screen: Spielberg fights Nazis and tries to forgive his father, Lucas relives his childhood, Hitchcock showed his contempt for humanity, Kubrick asked the questions that needed to be asked), but whatever they are, they sure look cool. Fincher started off directing music videos, so he understands pacing and editing – essentials for a thriller.

Now, for a thriller to really work, it has to start off slowly. You need to be introduced to the characters, details need to be shown, and all of these things take time. No detail is unimportant in a thriller. Often, however, the details are shown quickly or are not the center of attention. The first part of a thriller needs to move slowly. We already know that these robbers are going to break into the house, and the mother and daughter will be locked in the panic room. So, from the beginning, the audience is already anxious – when is it going to happen? Then, of course, it does happen. Other things are added into the mix, and we keep saying, OK – now what? How does this wind up? But, it shouldn't be tense all the time. The audience needs breaks. Throw in a laugh, or a lull in the action. Fincher has this down.

Enough of my lecture series – time to get into the nitty gritty. What did I like?

First off, the story. I don't care if it was plausible or not – it had me. I didn't notice any loose-ends or plot-holes. Even apparent plot-holes are addressed. `Why the hell didn't we do that?' asks Raoul at one point. The thing he's referring to is obvious, but, given the premise, it's understandable why the thugs didn't do it in the first place.

Secondly, the acting. Jodie Foster is no slouch at all. The fact that she spends most of the movie in a leotard doesn't hurt, either. Forest Whitaker is excellent. He has a very quiet presence on the screen, but he commands attention. Jared Leto – he's almost a chameleon. I didn't recognize him at first. Very good character actor. Kristen Stewart – I've never seen her before, but her performance is unforced, which is tough to find in a child actor. Dwight Yoakam – wow. This is only the second time I've seen him act, but he is very, very good. He was absolutely unrecognizable in Sling Blade, and he is just evil in this role.

What didn't I like? Hmmm....

This is really odd for me to say, but the special effects. Don't get me wrong – they were excellent. I thought that Blue Sky (the people who did Ice Age) did it. They did the FX for Fight Club, and similar techniques were used, but, Toybox handled the digital FX here. While they were very, very good effects, at times it seemed to draw me out of ‘the moment'. Things are cool, I'm entranced by the movie, and then all of a sudden I'm snapped back into reality because of an effect. This is coming from a guy who grew up with the Star Wars movies. But, the effects should add to the story, not remind the audience that they are watching a movie. Did Keanu Reeves really do that crazy bending in The Matrix? Of course not. Did it work? You betcha. Can a camera really move through walls like it does in Panic Room? No. Does it work? Yes, but only to a point. After that point, it actually detracts from the experience.

Is Panic Room Hitchcockian? It actually almost is. That is, if Hitch were making movies today, and didn't have nearly as many issues, he might have done this. If you're claustrophobic, you might want to skip this. If you want to see how a thriller should be made, you need to check this out. And, if you hate Dwight Yoakam (unlike me. I think he's great.), you DEFINATELY want to see this.

40 Days and 40 Nights (no stars) Directed by: Michael Lehmann Written by: Rob Perez Starring: Josh Hartnett and a bunch of people I don't care about Rated R (Nudity and the Fall of Rome)

Never in my life have I been so offended by a movie. I've seen Pink Flamingos, which features acrobatic genitals, a morbidly obese woman in a playpen eating eggs and a drag queen eating dog poop. That didn't offend me. I laughed the whole way through Natural Born Killers. However, this seemingly innocent 'romantic comedy' made me want to destroy everything around me.

I wish I could say that I'm not mincing my words. Obviously, I have to. Which is probably for the best.

If you don't know the premise of the movie already, good for you. Matt (Hartnett) is a slut. He has been single for six months and is having sex with any female in sight. But, oh, the poor guy is still hung up on his ex-girlfriend. So, even though he's a huge whore, he gets freaked out after the act, and sometimes during the act since he's still thinking about his one true love. He confides his problems to his brother, a priest-in-training. Matt then decides to do the 'unthinkable' - no sex (or sex-related activities) for 40 days! But, then he meets a girl, starts liking her a whole lot, and, for some reason, feels compelled to lie about the fact that he's taken a vow of celibacy for Lent. People are betting that he can't make it. Stuff happens, and I hate this movie.

From a technical standpoint, yes, this movie was well made. Clever edits and sight gags. Better than average. The acting was well done. The writing wasn't terrible. It was a bit dated (Matt is a 'dot commer'), but, it was fairly snappy.

However, this film made me sick.

It made me sick on many different levels. It sickens me when people are reduced to nothing more than their most base urges. Yes, people get horny, but that's not the primary motivation in people's lives. I refuse to believe that it is. There are schools of philosophy that teach that we are little more than pleasure-seeking machines. I disagree with those schools greatly.

While I am not the most religious person in the world, I don't stand for religions being debased in this way. Any religion. It's one thing to make a religious satire like The Life of Brian or a song like `Every Sperm is Sacred'. It's quite another to pass off a vow of celibacy for Lent as being equal to the temptations Christ faced while fasting in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights. It's one thing make the suicide scene in M*A*S*H look like `The Last Supper'. It's just plain wrong to make Josh Hartnett into a Christ-symbol by being handcuffed to a bed so he won't break his vow.

Sex, or the lack thereof, can be a very, very funny thing. `Seinfeld' did it very well on at least two occasions. The `Master of My Domain' episode is a perfect example of this. So is any episode of `Benny Hill' or `Laugh-In'. Things like that deconstruct sex, show just how silly and stupid and just plain fun it is. 40 Days and 40 Nights elevated it to such a level, made it the primary focus of every character in the movie that there are no redeemable people in the movie. Everyone in the film is a slut, or wishes that they were. I wish I were kidding.

The movie hates women. Which sickens me even more. I've been watching the Fight Club DVD for about a week. Fight Club features such lines as `If I had a tumor, I'd name it Marla,' and `We're a generation of men raised by our mothers. Maybe another woman isn't what we need in our life.' One scene in 40 Days features 2 women trying to regain the 'power' of withholding sex back from Matt by making out in front of him to make him break his vow. Another has a woman spreading her legs to show off the tattoo on her inner thigh, making the most unsubtle innuendoes ever, and then making a photocopy of her butt, just in case he changes his mind. The female lead, Erica, is frustrated because she has such a great relationship with Matt, but she isn't having sex with him. Fine, we get the point. It's not just men that think about sex. But, why portray women as being men without the same anatomy? As I stated earlier, everyone in the movie is a slut. A trollop. A whore.

What sickens me the most is that this movie will make lots and lots of money. It comes out less than a week after Fox aired a show about a bunch of fat people gorging themselves on mayonnaise, hard-boiled eggs and butter to prove who was the most deserving of being executed by John Doe from Se7en. Now, we are treated to a movie that reduces the audience to nothing more than genitals with bodies attached, and tries to make us laugh about it. It takes one of the most sacred times of the Christian year and turns it into a joke. It takes the concept of strengthening yourself through self-denial and turns it into a parlor game. Perhaps I'm being puritanical. Perhaps I should lighten up. Perhaps I'm just waiting for the return of vomitoriums so we can continue gorging ourselves until our society collapses under the weight of its own excesses.

Did I mention that this movie offended me?

The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of The Ring ****

Ross: `Hello? Didn't you read The Lord of The Rings in high school?' Joey: `I had sex in high school.' – Friends

Wow. Wowie. Wowwowwowwowwow!

Hmmm... That's not much of a review, is it? I should probably give some details and whatnot about what I thought of the film and why. And, I will.

If you've not heard of The Lord of The Rings, you're probably not a geek. The classic epic is responsible for the world today. Wizards and dragons and elves and dwarves... these are all playable characters in the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game, played by geeks the world over. Geeks who also read The Lord of The Rings, and went on to form software and hardware companies and became very, very rich. If it weren't for the books and the RPGs, you wouldn't be reading this review on your computer. I'm exaggerating, of course, but the books have had a massive impact on literature and popular culture. If it weren't for LotR, we wouldn't have Harry Potter. It's that simple. Led Zeppelin would have had fewer things to write songs about, and I'm guessing that the crown wouldn't rest heavy on Conan the Barbarian's brow, which would mean that we would be a world without Arnold Schwarzenegger. The series is that big.

If you are unfamiliar with the story, here's a summary. Long ago, magic rings were forged and distributed to the races of the world: three went to the elves, seven went to the dwarves, nine for humans and one for the Dark Lord Sauron. The One Ring was the most powerful, and, naturally, evil. After a massive assault by the races of Middle-Earth on Mordor, where Sauron ruled, the One Ring was lost. Eventually, it fell into the hands of Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit. Bilbo (Holm) passed the one ring to his nephew, Frodo (Wood). Now, the battle in which Sauron lost the Ring did not kill Sauron – he's just been biding his time and regaining his strength, and wants the Ring back. The only way to stop Sauron from getting the Ring and taking over Middle-Earth is to destroy the Ring. The only place that this can be done is in the Cracks of Doom – Sauron's basement. Hobbits are small and not very tough. Clearly, if Frodo is to destroy the Ring, he's going to need help. Gandalf the Grey (McKellen), Frodo's hobbit friends Sam (Astin), Merry (Monaghan), and Pippin (Boyd), the elf Legolas (Bloom), the men Strider (Mortensen) and Boromir (Bean) and the dwarf Gimli (Rhys-Davies) form the Fellowship of the Ring. 3...2...1... begin adventure NOW!

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Lord of The Rings is an epic, widely regarded as a classic of 20th Century Literature, and has been studied even more thoroughly than the Star Trek universe. You can buy evlish dictionaries, runic dictionaries, and chronologies and histories of Middle-Earth. Fans of Tolkien's universe range from people who have heard of hobbits to people who speak high- and low- Elvish with equal fluency. If Jackson and company screw up, then they have lost their primary fan base with this series. Fortunately, they didn't screw up. In fact, they did everything but screw up.

As always happens when adapting books for cinema, things get left out, things get changed and things get moved around. I only noticed one adventure that was left out and one scene that was altered. These abridgements were minor and didn't take away from the story in any way.

One distinct advantage that cinema has over books is that movies don't have miles and miles of exposition. Do a cut, show some things, bang – story told in 20 seconds, rather than five pages. Jackson gets a +2 bonus to adaptation from literature.

Honestly, I could not find anything to dislike about LotR. Not a one. Some purists may complain about Arwen (Tyler) being given a bigger role – to them I say `Shut up. Liv Tyler is wonderful to look at, and, besides, you're not the only audience. There are people out there who haven't read the books, and some who haven't even heard of them.'

Gladiator may have re-introduced the old-style Hollywood epic to cinema, but LotR shows how it's supposed to be done. Old Hollywood epics, like Ben Hur and The Ten Commandments and Spartacus were big stories that demanded big visuals. LotR delivers. Epics demand big special effects. Present and accounted for. Epics demand clear direction and acting. Again, it has it all.

Peter Jackson is the Kiwi version of Sam Raimi. Both started out in indie/cult cinema (Raimi with the Evil Dead series, Jackson with Dead Alive and Meet the Feebles). Both made a sudden leap into ‘legitimate' cinema (Raimi with the fantastic A Simple Plan, Jackson with Heavenly Creatures) And now, both are directing all-but-guaranteed blockbusters (Raimi with next summer's Spider-Man, Jackson with the LotR trilogy). Using a relative unknown to helm an adaptation of a classic is actually a good thing. A big-time director would be too tempted to put ‘trademarks' into the film. Jackson is very much a part of a new ‘school' of cinema. Naturally, when cinema first began as an art form, many directors were self-taught. They then passed this knowledge on to underlings, who carried on the traditions. Then true film schools were founded, etc., etc. In the 1970s, two new ‘schools' of cinema arose – the film school student who loves movies, typified by Spielberg and Lucas, and the directors who learned how to make movies by making movies, typified by Scorsese and John Sayles (who both learned from B-Movie King Roger Corman). Beginning in the 1980s, yet another ‘school' began to emerge – kids with cameras. These kids grew up to become Sam Raimi and the Coen (Fargo, O, Brother, Where Art Thou?, Raising Arizona) Brothers. Even though Jackson was half a world away from the kids with cameras ‘school', he belongs with them. By making self-produced-written-acted-filmed-edited-everything-involved-with-the-film-films, the kids with camera school learned how to tell a story without wasting anything. This sort of economy is what an epic needs.

The acting is also very good. The casting was perfect. No one but McKellen could play Gandalf. While other actors could probably play Frodo, Wood has the right degree of ‘innocence' needed for the character. Plus, there's nothing like a fantasy film or a Star Wars movie for giving character actors and little people work.

This is a film that deserves to be seen. Don't let the three-hour running time put you off. There isn't a slow part in the film. It didn't drag once. Besides, Titanic was over three hours, and you saw that, didn't you? The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of The Ring is actually shorter, and it's much better. Plus, there are two sequels!

Not Another Teen Movie **1/2

Don't let the title fool you – Not Another Teen Movie is just that: another teen movie. The cast is photogenic, everything is predictable, there's gratuitous nudity, and it all works out in the end.

If you've seen any of the ‘teen' movies EVER made, you already know what Not Another Teen Movie is about. Take bits and pieces from (in no particular order) She's All That, Cruel Intentions, Grease, any movie directed by John Hughes, American Pie, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Lucas, Rudy, any of the sports movies that didn't star Denzel Washington or Gene Hackman, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Clueless, Bring It On, Can't Hardly Wait, Pretty in Pink, American Beauty and Better Off Dead. Now that you've got those, and probably some that I forgot to mention, watch Airplane!, The Naked Gun, Kentucky Fried Movie, and Hot Shots!, and Dumb and Dumber, and then you have Not Another Teen Movie.

You already know the cast – they're all stock characters. The Popular Jock (Smith), The Pretty Ugly Girl (Leigh), The Nasty Cheerleader (Pressley), The Beautiful Weirdo (Smith), The Obsessed Best Friend (Jungman), The Desperate Virgin (Evans)... just look at the movie poster. It has everything you need to know right there. You already know what's going to happen, because it is, despite the title, another teen movie. The only difference between this and I Can't Hardly Wait to Bring It to theClueless Ridgemont High Breakfast Club is that the jokes in this movie are intentional.

Some of the jokes are clever. The school's name is John Hughes High. The cafeteria is the Anthony Michael Dining Hall. Some of the jokes are laugh-out-loud funny. Some of the jokes are big-old gross-outs. And that's fine. Unfortunately, it's all been done before, and better.

What was right with the flick? The soundtrack, first of all. Nearly all of the classic ‘themes' are represented: `Don't You Forget About Me', `Oh, Yeah', `Bizarre Love Triangle' – they're all there, but they're covered by bands like Orgy, Goldfinger and Face To Face.. The covers are good, but originals would have been better. The cast was also good. Mostly no-names, but no-names with some measure of comic timing and/or physical comedy skills.

What was bad? Some of the movies that were being parodied were wrong choices. Grease? Absolutely. She's All That? More power to you. The Breakfast Club? Why? Better Off Dead? Wasn't that a spoof in the first place?

Most of the time, Not Another Teen Movie is just awfully pleased with its own cleverness. Part of it seems like an homage to Jim Abrams, Jerry Zucker and David Zucker (the men behind Airplane! and The Naked Gun) put together by high school kids. The writers know what's funny, but don't know why a joke is funny, which is critical for a spoof. Airplane! worked because it was acted seriously. The actors behaved like they were in a disaster movie. When Leslie Neilson says `Don't call me Shirley,' he's not playing it for laughs, and that's why the joke is funny, apart from the pun. When this flick is spoofing teen ‘dramas', it works just fine. When it's adding it's own absurd jokes, it's funny. When it's trying to spoof a comedy, well, that's just asking for trouble.

If you're looking for an homage to a filmmaker, check out Mallrats (Kevin Smith's tribute to John Hughes) or The People Under The Stairs (Wes Craven's love letter to Sam Raimi's Evil Dead series). If you're looking for a Cameron (Fast Times at Ridgemont High) Crowe fix, Vanilla Sky opens this week. If you really want to see a spoof, anything involving the Zucker Brothers is good (except for Ghost, which isn't meant to be a comedy). If you want to have some cheap laughs, some occasionally clever pop-culture references and sight-gags, and some brief nudity, then Not Another Teen Movie is probably right up your alley.

Ocean's 11 *** ½

`If it's a remake of a classic, rent the classic!' – Jay `The Critic' Sherman.

OK, confession time. I've never seen the original Ocean's 11. This probably makes me a bad person, and makes your trust in my ability as a movie reviewer very, very shaky. The original is, from what I'm told, a classic. It had the Rat Pack. Frank, Deano, Sammy. It defined cool. Cool didn't even exist until the original came out. Oh, people thought that they knew what cool was, but they were living lies. Lame lies. Square lies.

Now, I've never seen the original. But, I liked the current version. Given the fact that the original is ALWAYS better than the remake, I can only assume that the original might even make me cool. Might.

Synopsis time. Danny Ocean (Clooney) just got out of prison for a con he pulled 6 years ago. He's had a lot of time to think. Lots. And, he's come up with a plan. A big plan. A cool plan. A crazy plan, man. He's going to rob three casinos in Las Vegas on the same night. But, to do this, he needs to get a team together. A cool team. A crazy team, man. Not unlike Jake and Elwood Blues, he has to get the band back together. First up: Frank Catton (Mac). He's the inside man. Next: Rusty Ryan (Pitt), a co-conspirator. Now: how to make this plan work. They'll need money. That's where Reuben Tishkoff (Gould) comes in. He's a former casino owner, and, it just so happens that the three casinos Clooney & Company plan to rob belong to Terry Benedict (Garcia), the man who bought Reuben out. Reuben doesn't like him, and gladly agrees. They'll also need drivers and ‘utility men' (my term). Enter Turk (Caan) and Virgil (Affleck) Malloy, a couple of bored citizens of Utah. Then we need some techies. Livingston Dell (Jemison) is a hacker and Basher Tarr (Cheadle) is a demolitions expert. They need a ‘grease man' (the movie's term) – someone who can get in and out of tight places easily. Enter Yen (Qin), a Chinese acrobat. Another inside man wouldn't be bad, so why not get Saul Bloom (Reiner) – he's got plenty of experience. And, someone with quick hands and an ability to tail people. That would be Linus Caldwell (Damon). Throw in a femme fatale named Tess Ocean (Roberts), make sure that she's the ex-wife of Danny Ocean, and man alive, it looks like we have us one heck of a movie! Stuff is gonna get robbed, stuff is gonna blow up, there may be plot holes that we don't care about, and, by golly, we're gonna have fun!

I'm actually kind of glad that I went into Ocean's 11 with a blank slate. I was able to enjoy the movie without comparing it to the original. I can only hope that this remake is able to stand on its own merits, rather than suffer constant comparisons to the original. Much like The Shining or Fight Club – the books were excellent, and the movies based upon them were different, yet still excellent. You don't say, `That's not the way it happened!' when watching the movie versions. The books and the movies are two separate, yet equally rewarding experiences. Hopefully, this will be the same with the two Ocean's 11.

What did I like about Ocean's 11 2001? Plenty. I like George Clooney. Especially when he's playing George Clooney. He's a handsome man, he looks like a classic leading man, but he doesn't have a whole lot of range. And that's just fine with me, frankly. Brad Pitt does a George Clooney impersonation throughout the movie, and, that's cool too, man. Andy Garcia isn't a ‘bad guy' in the movie, but, he's a jerk, because he doesn't like Danny Ocean. Julia Roberts plays Supporting Actress Julia Roberts, rather than Melodramatic Romantic Comedy Julia Roberts, and looks good doing it. She's not strictly eye candy, but she's not a major player in this flick. I'm not going to do a run-down of each and every character in the flick. That would be boring for you. Just know that I didn't see a single bad performance.

Cinematically, I loved it. Soderburgh seemed to blend ‘60s cinematography (French New Wave zooms, Kubrick-esque tracking shots and angles,) with a... ummm... It's too early to say 21st Century style, so I'll just go with a television sensibility. He knows when a shot should linger, he knows when to use a quick-cut, and he knows when to do a montage. The style never overshadows the story or the characters.

What didn't I like about this movie? Well, not much. Personally, I think that classics should be left alone, so I guess I didn't like the fact that this was a remake. I would have liked to have seen more of the planning of the heist, but that probably would have gone against the almost ‘innocent' tone of the movie.

If you haven't seen the original, by all means go and see this version. But only if you promise to see the 1960 version. If you have seen the original, use your own best judgement.

Behind Enemy Lines ***

Bravo niner delta, what's your vector, Victor?

You'll hear lots of dialogue like that in Behind Enemy Lines. Military code talk is one of the coolest things ever. Vector, copy, come back, affirmative, negative, no-go, R(ally)P(oint)... That stuff is just plain COOL.

Back to the movie review. So – you're making a war movie with airplanes. Let's make sure you have everything you need. Stock footage? Check. Lieutenant with a ‘bad boy' attitude? Check. Stuff blowing up? Check. Politically ambiguous military situation? Che – what? That doesn't make sense. I mean, we're America... (Don't worry – We're the good guys. It's all the rest that's ambiguous.)

See, Behind Enemy Lines is set in Bosnia during the ‘last' days of the civil war in Serbia/Yugoslavia/Bosnia-Herzegovina. Chris Burnett (Wilson) is stationed on an aircraft carrier in the Adriatic Sea. The ship is commanded by Admiral Leslie Reigart (Hackman), who in turn is under the command of NATO, represented by Admiral Piquet (de Almeida). Now, Burnett is a bit of a maverick. Not like the Tom Cruise type – Burnett is tired of being in the Navy. He signed on to be a fighter pilot, not a sitting around on the ship pilot. In fact, he's handed in his resignation papers. Of course, you can't just leave in the middle of a mission. When the ship returns to port, Burnett is done. Reigart doesn't really care for Burnett – he used to have potential, but now he's just dead weight. So, in a bit of vindictiveness, Reigart assigns Burnett (a navigator) and his pilot, Stackhouse (Gabriel Macht), on a recon mission on Christmas. The recon? A lake. Lovely. But, radar picks up some activity. Activity OFF OF THE ASSIGNED COURSE. Now, we've established that Burnett is a maverick, so, naturally they do recon over there. They take pictures of mass graves. Then, they get shot down. BEHIND ENEMY LINES. This is not good. See, NATO planes were not supposed to be making fly-bys in that area. A peace treaty has just been signed, and things could fall apart at any moment. So, Reigart has a choice to make – does he risk the lives of thousands of people to get one man? Does he ensure peace and leave a man behind? We all know the answer to that.

Behind Enemy Lines is slick. It is very, very slick. Teflon. It looks like a video game. A really cool video game. Shifty frame-rates, cool filters, Matrix-style special effects, Saving Private Ryan-camera-effects, it looks way cool. It's not universally realistic, but, stylistically it works very well.

The acting is also good. No one is going to win any acting awards in this picture, but, no one stinks. If you don't know who Gene Hackman is, turn off your computer right now. You have some serious catching up to do. If you don't know who Owen Wilson is, start paying attention. This guy is good. Very, very good. You may have seen him in Zoolander (he was the blonde model). You may have seen him in Shanghai Noon with Jackie Chan. You may have seen an underrated comedy called Rushmore – he co-wrote that. He's just beginning to get recognition, and he deserves it. While I think he's better in comedies, he's no slouch as a leading-man-action-hero. Joaquim de Almeida doesn't stand out, but you've seen him before. (He played Bucho (the bad guy) in Desperado)

So, that leaves us with the story. It must be tough to make a war movie now. WWII was easy – the bad guys were easy to spot. But, to make a movie based on any war post-1970 must be tricky. Things like finding ‘bad guys' aren't easy anymore. Even in something like the Gulf War. To paraphrase Mark Wahlberg from Three Kings: `I forget... Are we shooting people anymore?' The Balkan conflict was really, really tricky. First of all, there were three sides. Secondly, there was a huge history of racial strife in the area. Thirdly, NATO stepped in to prevent the war from spreading into Macedonia, which would have brought Greece (a NATO member) and Turkey (another NATO member) into the war against each other. Fourthly, keeping all the factions straight was very, very hard unless you studied political science. Behind Enemy Lines doesn't get too bogged down in the details, which is good. Nor does it name real names. Slobodan Milosovic is not mentioned, but he is implied. The story is about an American airman in the middle of the conflict, but it's not based on the story of Lt. Scott O'Grady.

What we have here is a slick, mostly non-political (there are some references to landmines being bad for children and other living things) war movie. It's not perfectly paced, but it's close. The cinematography is really, really cool. And stuff blows up.

`What wicked webs we weave when we practice to deceive.' - A Quotation by something Shakespeare wrote that seems to make a good intro to a movie about espionage.

Spy Game is... well, just look at the title. It's not a Merchant-Ivory costume drama. It's a movie about spies. Actually, it's a movie about when spies had to stop acting like spies in the early 1990s.

The year is 1991. The Berlin Wall is down. The first George Bush is President. And something not exactly nice is going on with the spooks at the CIA. Nathan Muir (Redford) is an agent, and is retiring. Today. He's awakened by a phone call from the American Embassy in Hong Kong. One of Muir's proteges has gotten into a bit of a mess in China. Seems that Tom Bishop (Pitt) was trying to pull a rescue operation in a Chinese prison, and things went poorly. This couldn't have come at a worse time, as the President is just about to head to China to secure a trade agreement. The head spooks, led by Charles Harker (Dillane), want to know what Muir knows about Bishop. Muir wants to know what exactly is going on, and why the CIA hasn't just pulled an extraction. 3...2...1... make plot twist go NOW!

Spy movies are convoluted, and they should be. Spy Game isn't in the James Bond mode of spy films. It's more of a Tom Clancy type story. More believable, but with fewer dangerously hot bad girls and explosions.

Spy Game is drenched in cinematic style. You're always aware that you are watching a movie. But, that's one of Tony Scott's (brother of Ridley Scott) strong points. He also made Top Gun and Crimson Tide. He makes slick, commercial films. Sort of like a better version of Michael Bay. Surprisingly, the quick-cut style, wacky filters, and shifts of frame-rate work well in this flick. It looks good, it sounds good, and, feels good for ¾ of the movie.

Why only ¾? It's not because of Tony Scott, or any of the actors. Redford plays a company man who knows when and how to cross the line, and does it well. Brad Pitt is Robert Redford if Redford had chosen to be a character actor instead of a leading man. Stephen Dillane is good at being slimy. So, it comes down to the story, then, doesn't it?

And, the story is good, up until the end. Most of the movie is done in flashback, with Muir explaining his history with Bishop - from Vietnam, to Berlin, to Lebanon. Any one of these stories on its own would have made a pretty good movie on its own. Actually, Spy Game almost feels like a series of short films. The bits that happen in the film's `present' are good, too. Up until the end. With the sort of build-up presented, you expect a bigger ending than what you get. The ending is (mostly) plausible, but, it needed something more. Explosions, or a shoot-out, or a fight, or something. It just didn't feel right. It plays something like the espionage version of The Usual Suspects, only without Keyser Soze. Apart from that quibble, it's certainly watchable, and, probably should be seen more than once, just to get all the details. I think I may have missed some, due to some technical problems that were fixed quite easily, but, they happened during the second reel when most of the exposition was going on. So, my suspension-of-disbelief was suspended, and the rest of my understanding suffered because of it.

Quidditch is the Best. Game. Ever.

So, I saw Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone. Sorry. I couldn't think of a better intro than that. I'm trying to avoid things that have been said and will be said. Things like: `If you haven't heard of Harry Potter...' and `Pottermania is sweeping the nation...' I saw Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone. Regardless of anything anyone writes or says about the movie, it will be a huge hit. Fortunately, it's a good flick.

Now, the movie assumes that the audience will know pretty much everything about Harry and his friends. So, much of the film feels like Harry Potter and The Abridgement of The Sorcerer's Stone. More on that later.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Potter mythos, here's the setup. Harry (Radcliffe) is a wizard. But, he doesn't know it. His parents were killed when he was a baby, and he was left on the doorstep of his closest relatives, the Dursley's. Uncle Vernon (Richard Griffiths) and Aunt Petunia (Fiona Shaw) are muggles. (That's wizardese for non-magic users.) And they hate anything that is out of the ordinary, including Harry. Harry sleeps in the closet under the stairs, and is tormented by his cousin, Dudley (Harry Melling). This has gone on for 11 years. One day, a letter arrives for Harry from the Hogwarts Academy for Wizards. This is not welcome in the Dursley house, you can bet that. Uncle Vernon wants nothing to do with these stinking letters, and, after much ado, he moves the family out to a house on an island where no one can deliver the mail. That, however, doesn't stop Rubeus Hagrid (Coltrane) from finding Harry, and taking him to Hogwarts, after stopping in Diagon Alley to pick up his school supplies. Everyone, it seems, knows Harry, and the legend surrounding him. He was the only survivor of the attack that killed his parents. Harry, just 1 year old, seems to have beaten the greatest threat that the world of magic has ever faced – the dread Lord Voldemort, or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Harry has lots to learn about wizards, witches, and the world he now lives in. Fortunately, he has help from his friends Ron Weasley (Grint), Hermione Granger (Watson), Hagrid, and Headmaster Albus Dumbledore (Harris). Unfortunately, he also has to put up with Professor Serverus Snape (Rickman), Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) and his gang, and staying out of the trouble that young wizards and witches tend to get into.

For those of you familiar with the Potter stories, here's a good place to resume reading.

Overall, the movie was very good. However, as I said, parts of it felt like an abridgement. `Well, duh,' you're probably thinking. `They couldn't put EVERYTHING in.' And, I agree. But, the things that were cut out were the things that I really liked about the book. Harry's relationship with the Dursley's, for instance. There is some very, very funny stuff to be found there. It also seemed like they made Harry `nicer' in the movie. He's not a jerk by any stretch of the imagination. But, he gets into less trouble in the movie... OK, I have to stop this right now. I'm not trying to compare the book and the movie, I'm here to tell you about the movie...

I think I can continue now.

What was good about Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone? Many, many things. The casting was dead-on. Especially with the non-Harry characters. Emma Watson is perfect as Hermione Granger. Rupert Grint was also a great choice for Ron Weasley. Draco Malfoy and his gang are also played very well by those actors. And the actors (yes, actors) who played Harry Potter did fine jobs. Two people played Harry, because Radcliffe's voice changed during the filming. So, in some scenes (I think I spotted one), Harry's voice is done by Joe Sowerbutts. I understand that Sowerbutts also plays the voice of Harry in various other media.

The special effects were also quite good. Mostly. The mixing of real and computer-generated backgrounds and animations is good for the most part, but not universally. Some of the CGI characters were outstanding – Hagrid's dragon Norbert and Fluffy, the 3-headed dog, come to mind as great examples. The Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Slytherin is lots of fun to watch, but not quite up to par with the previous ‘cool' CGI sequence – the pod race in The Phantom Menace. Of course, since Industrial Light and Magic did the special effects for Harry Potter, it's understandable, since ILM is working on another movie you may have heard of. Star Wars Episode II – Attack of the Clones. But, hey, the special effects do their job, and I'm not gonna complain. Sometimes it's apparent that the people are acting in front of a green screen, but, for the target audience, they'll be mind-blowing. Probably the best effect in the movie is Hagrid. I don't know if they used CGI trickery, or prosthetic limbs, but Robbie Coltrane sure does look at least 8 feet tall. That's certainly bigger than should be allowed. (The previous sentence used to prove that I am not a muggle.)

Go and see this movie. If for no other reason than you'll be able to understand what kids these days are talking about. If you already know, you won't be disappointed in the adaptation. If you don't know, well, you're in for a treat. It's not like you will be able to avoid the franchise. Hopefully, they'll only get better, like the books have.

You can usually ‘bank' on a heist movie to be entertaining. Weak pun, I know. But, I needed a way to start off this review, and couldn't think of a way to start it off with a ‘bang'.

Still here? Good.

The Score is another good summertime movie. It doesn't try to bend genres around; it doesn't try to be something that it's not. It's a movie about a heist. Not a heist with aliens, not a heist with talking animals, not a heist with a Will Smith song about it, just a heist, plain and simple. Knowing that, you know what to expect, and that's what makes it good.

One of the fun things about heist movies is trying to see what will go wrong. I'm not spoiling anything here – things falling apart is one of the staples of the genre. It's seeing how and when and why the plan falls apart that keeps us going to these movies.

That being said, here's a rough breakdown of the plot: Nicky (DeNiro) has been in the business for 25 years, and is thinking that it's time to ‘retire', live with Diane (Bassett), and run his jazz club full-time. Max (Brando) offers him (you know what's coming) One. Last. Score. A score that will pay Nicky $4 million. Now, for something this big, it's gotta be tough, and an insider will be needed. Enter Jack (Norton), who as ‘Brian', a developmentally disabled part-time janitor, has unrestricted access to the Montreal Customs House where the heist will go down. From here we connect the dots, try and out-guess the crooks, try and figure out what will go wrong, make mistakes, watch the plot twists, and enjoy the show.

This is a strict genre piece. It's not breaking any new ground here. It's not Reservoir Dogs, and doesn't try to be. There are some Tarantino-esque bits of dialogue (not so much with the sailor talk, but with the terse bits of detail), but, that's to be expected. With the massive footprint that Quentin Tarantino made on American cinema, it's nearly impossible not to steal from him, especially in movies about crime. The actors are all stock characters, but the actors who are playing them represent 3 generations of the best actors American cinema has ever seen.

Marlon Brando may be a big fat man now, but his acting is still top-notch. His eyes are incredibly expressive, and you can still see elements of the animal magnetism that made him a star. Robert DeNiro... well, he's Robert DeNiro. He's not charting new territory like he did in Raging Bull or Taxi Driver, but, it's not like he's going to turn in a bad performance. Besides, it's not like he's acting for Martin Scorsese. Edward Norton is so good that it's scary. His portrayal of ‘Brian' might be better than Kevin Spacey's ‘Verbal Kint' character in The Usual Suspects. Angela Bassett is there as a plot device – not quite a femme fatale, but as a motivation for DeNiro's character. But, in order for a character like that to be able to hold her own against the likes of Brando, DeNiro and Norton, the actress would have to be good. And, she is.

And, what about Frank Oz? You know that you've seen that name somewhere before. Oz was ‘Miss Piggy', ‘Fozzie Bear', ‘Yoda', ‘Grover' – yup, a Muppeteer. He's done acting without a Muppet, too (as the man who gives Jake Blues his belongings back when he leaves prison in The Blues Brothers, for example). Now, after having worked with George Lucas, John Landis and Jim Henson, Oz has clearly learned something about directing. He's not a notable director, he's not prolific, but he puts out good work, and he can handle actors who really know their stuff (Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss in What About Bob?, Eddie Murphy and Steve Martin in Bowfinger). This makes him almost ideal for directing a film like this. He's not out to make a huge artistic statement; he's here to make a good movie. And, he has.

Is The Score a classic? As a film, probably not. As a chance to see three truly gifted actors on screen at once (and the first time they share the screen together is electric), it just might be. Odds are, this will wind up being a sleeper hit, either in the theatres (like The Usual Suspects was), or on video (like The Shawshank Redemption was). Either way, you're not going to go wrong with seeing this movie.

Fall is probably my favorite season of the year. There are all sorts of boring reasons that I could list, but the one that you're probably most interested in (as you're reading this) involves movies. Summer is over, kids are back in school, and Hollywood starts bringing out ‘riskier' films. The costume dramas, the Robin Williams dramatic pieces, the Mirimax Oscar Contender ® -- things like that. Now, while Bandits probably won't win any awards, it's a character piece that would have been overlooked in the summer.

By character piece, I mean that it shifts genres. The previews look like a heist/caper movie with a romantic comedy subplot. Those previews aren't misleading. However, what they don't show is that the romantic comedy is more along the lines of Being John Malkovich than the collected works of Julia Roberts. More on that later.

Bandits is about 2 bank robbers – Joe (Willis) and Terry (Thornton). As is usual in heist movies, they want to go straight. Which takes money. Which means robbing banks. Joe is the muscle, Terry is the brains. Terry's plan: daylight robberies. They kidnap the bank manager the night before the robbery, and spend the night with him/her, and then, before the bank opens, have the manager open the vault and give the ‘all-clear'. Works like a charm. Terry's plans are great. Until Terry gets hit by a car driven by Kate (Blanchett). Terry, you see, is a hypochondriac, and thinks he received a concussion. Kate, on the other hand, is massively depressed. Not the most rational pair. Kate drives Terry back to the hideout, where she meets Joe and Harvey (Garity). Harvey is Joe's cousin, a wanna-be stuntman and their ‘front man'. Terry knows that an outsider in the mix is a bad thing, Joe wants to sleep with Kate, Harvey is dense – LET THE FIREWORKS BEGIN!

Probably the best part about this movie is the actors. Billy Bob Thornton is an amazing character actor. Just look at Slingblade. Bruce Willis can play nearly any role you put in front of him, and play it well. Cate Blanchett is a name that isn't familiar to most moviegoers, but she's really, really good. (She was Queen Elizabeth in Elizabeth, a psychic in The Gift, and will either be praised or pilloried by geeks when she assumes the role of Galadriel in the upcoming The Lord of The Rings trilogy).

Another big plus in this movie is the focus on character rather than plot. George Bernard Shaw (a playwright) once said that he hated plots. He just put characters into a situation and watched what happened. That's what we see in Bandits – we don't get massive amounts of detail about the planing of the heists, we don't have a moral. It's not like it's a Martin Scorsese movie. What we have is a strange marriage/love triangle thing (ala Being John Malkovich or Chasing Amy) that works because we believe the actions that the characters are performing, and we believe the actors that are playing the characters. The principle characters are well written and well rounded.

This review is shorter than previous ones, but, honestly, there isn't a whole lot of detail that can be written about. I don't have the words to describe character interaction, and the subtleties therein. Stuff blows up, guns are involved, but the focus is on character.

Monsters, Inc. ***

Parents – you might want to make sure that your kids don't read the next sentence. The monster in your closet is REAL.

That monster is big and scary and is gonna make you scream and is gonna keep on doing it until you grow up. Tough. That's the way it is. But, don't think that it actually WANTS to scare you. It's not mean, it's just doing it's job. See, that monster works for Monsters, Inc. Monsters, Inc. supplies all the power to Monstropolis, and your screams provide that power. Sadly, you haven't been doing your job lately. You're growing up too fast. You don't scare easily. And, because of that, Monstropolis is in an energy crunch. So, when that big scary monster shows up tonight, make sure that you scream really, really loud. Just don't touch the monster. Children are toxic. You don't want to hurt the monster, do you?

You might want to take a quick break and calm your children down now. Reality is tough.

Much like the Toy Story franchise, Monsters, Inc. presents us with a look into a secret world. A world of monsters. Guess what? Those monsters are just like us, but not in a Twilight Zone episode kind of way. More like the going to work, having friends and families kind of way. Unlike most of us, however, the monsters are computer generated.

Synopsis time: Monsters, Inc. is roughly a day in the life of James P. `Sully' Sullivan (Goodman), and his friend Mike Wazowski (Crystal). They're best friends, roommates, and partners at Monsters, Inc. (`We scare because we care.') Sully does the actual scare-jobs, while Mike is, for lack of a better term, his crew chief. Mike handles the logistics, the paperwork (poorly), and everything else not involving the actual scaring of the children. Sully is the top scarer in the company, followed closely by Randall Boggs (Buscemi) – a sort-of cross between a gecko, a chameleon and a snake. The head of Monsters, Inc. is Henry J. Waternoose (Coburn), a crab thing. Waternoose is concerned both about the current energy crisis and about the quality of the new scarers. They're just not all that scary, and tend to be just a little stupid and/or clumsy. Waternoose wants Sully to help train the new recruits, Randall wants to be in first place, and Mike just wants to make Celia (Tilly), a mix between Medusa and a cyclops, his girlfriend. Mike is in a hurry to get on his date with Celia and, once again, forgets to file his paperwork. Sully decides to do it for him. Mike left the paperwork on his desk on the Scarefloor.

Now, the mechanism by which the monsters emerge from a closet is this: a child's ID card is scanned into a computer. An automated system then summons up the ‘other' side of the closet door in that child's bedroom. The door is inserted into a slot on the Scarefloor, power is applied to the door, a storage battery is attached to a receptical next to the door, the monster goes into the door, scares the kid, and comes out. No doors are supposed to be on the Scarefloor after the end of a shift. But, guess what Sully finds? He peeks into the bedroom, to make sure no monsters are present before he shuts the door down (so he doesn't trap the monster). But, a big problem arises – the little girl (Biggs) that has that closet comes out, and into Monstropolis. This is not good. This is one of the worst things that could happen. And, she really likes Sully, whom she renames Kitty. Her name is Boo, at least according to Sully. Begin wackiness in T minus 3... 2... 1... make audience laugh now!

Overall, Monsters, Inc. is very well done. Then again, it was done by the same people behind the Toy Story franchise and A Bug's Life. And, it's certainly in the same vein. The writing is tight, the pacing is perfect, and the characters are entertaining. Most importantly, it won't make grown-ups stupider or bored. There are times when the movie is a bit dark in tone, but not too much, and certainly not too intense for kids.

As far as the animation goes, well, it's PIXAR, for the love of pete! It started off as a subsidiary of Industrial Light and Magic. Of course it's going to be outstanding. However, the competition is tougher in 2001 than it was in the late ‘90s. Square Pictures Final Fantasy raised the bar considerably in terms of what can be done with computer animation. Sully is a hairy monster. Hair all over. It's so close to being done right that you can just feel it, but it's not perfect. It's not distracting, but it's not quite perfect. Yet. But, in terms of the light-sourcing and the ‘physics' that the monsters obey, it's dead on. Same with the facial expressions. Even though Boo looks like a plastic toy (this could be by design, of course, since it's intended to be cartoony, while Final Fantasy went for realism), the range of emotions she's capable of displaying is amazing. Then again, PIXAR was able to make a desk lamp convey emotion (in the groundbreaking Luxo, Jr.). You're not going to go wrong with seeing Monsters, Inc.

Welcome to London 1888, ladies and gentlemen. What a grand city she is! Everything you could possibly want can be found within her borders. We have the latest and most effective psychological therapy ever discovered – the prefrontal lobotomy! A tap-tap here, and a tap-tap there, and one more tap-tap on this side and voila! The patient is cured! And, look at how civilized we are – take this young man, for instance. John Merrick was trapped in the hell of the freak show. But we will civilize him yet! Don't be alarmed by how he looks – he's not an animal, after all. He is a man! We have gaslight in the streets, and London has no prostitution. Oh, there are some... unfortunates... but pay them no mind. What a time to be alive! Unless you're an unfortunate, of course.

The legend of Jack the Ripper is a horse that just won't die. More than 100 years after his crimes, we still don't know who he was, how many he was, what he was or why he was. Oh, sure, we have plenty of suspects and rumors (Lewis `Alice in Wonderland' Carroll, Prince Albert Victor, a conspiracy involving the British Monarchy), but we are no closer to finding out the truth than we were in 1888. Which means that we can still bring it up again and again.

From Hell, at least in comic form, has been cited as being probably the closest to the truth as we will ever get. How many comic books can you name that have bibliographies? As far as the movie goes, well, it is plausible.

Now, I'm sure we all know at least a little bit about Jack the Ripper. `He' was the first documented serial killer. `He' killed prostitutes in London's East End. `He' didn't do it very nicely. And, `he' got away with it. That's pretty much all anyone knows about `him'. From Hell is a mystery because it has to be, but it's not a whodunit. It also attempts to show what Victorian London was like. It wasn't pretty. The industrial revolution was still new, poverty was rampant, racial tension ran high due to Jewish and Oriental immigrants, the monarchy was not yet a figurehead, and the world was rigidly divided into upper and lower class. Middle class didn't even exist. All of these facts are important to the story.

And that story is this: A prostitute has been murdered in London's East End. Brutally, methodically, and a ‘trophy' was taken. Enter Inspector Abberline (Depp). Abberline is known for his ‘visions', which are aided by the use of opium or laudanum. These visions have helped him solve cases in the past, and his partner, Sgt. Godley (Coltrane), is confident that they can help in this case. As prostitute after prostitute is killed, more clues and patterns emerge. It's obvious that the killer(s) know anatomy very well, and have plenty of money. This would indicate a cultured person. But, no civilized person would do such a thing! Preposterous! Police Commissioner Warren (Ian Richardson) suggests that Abberline concentrate on Jewish butchers, or ferriers. Tradesmen, yes, but a gentleman? Certainly not! Hmmmm.. But, wait! We have some peculiar witnesses – not to the murder of the first prostitute, but to a rather strange event. An event that seems to involve the Special Branch (think FBI). Mary Kelly (Graham) knows that something strange is going on. The rest of her friends are of the opinion that the press should be told. Mary thinks that this Inspector Abberline might be their best bet – for the sake of protection. Protection from the Nichols gang – wanna-be pimps who are demanding protection money. The plot gets deeper and deeper, but manages to stay less confusing than JFK.

Visually, the film is effective, if not affective. The comic was done in black and white, but the movie is in color. The opening sequence is good at establishing the squalor and claustrophobia of London's East End, and remains consistent throughout. It's not striving for realism, necessarily. It's not expressionistic, but it is good at evoking the desired mood – bleak. The violence is well done. It's not subtle, but we are spared seeing what `Jack' actually did.

Plot-wise, the movie works. The tension never really reaches a fever pitch, but, we know most of the facts already. We just want to see who did it `this' time. And, we want to know if it will have as happy an ending as it can.

From Hell isn't horror, it's not really a mystery, it's not suspense, it's not a costume drama. It's historical fiction, and it's well done.

Don't Say A Word is a thriller. Well, it looks like one, anyway. It has grit, rain, creepy phone calls, paranoia, all the things that should be in a thriller. But, it's lacking two key elements: thrills and tension.

Here's the synopsis (yeah, my style is coming back to me now...): Dr. Nathan Conrad (Douglas) is happily married to his wife Aggie (Janssen) and is madly in love with his daughter, Jessie (Bartusiak). Conrad is a psychologist who is known for his ability to work with teenagers. He's in his own practice now, but he used to work for the State of New York. On Thanksgiving Eve, he gets an emergency call from one of his former colleagues, Dr. Sachs (Platt). Sachs needs Conrad's help in reaching a girl named Elizabeth. Elizabeth has been in institutions for the past 10 years, beginning shortly after her father died. Her records show mental illness after mental illness – post-traumatic stress disorder, paranoid schizophrenia, catatonia. Not a healthy girl, but non-violent, until just the other day, when she nearly killed a man with a razor blade. Without Conrad's help, she'll be drugged up and locked away for the rest of her life. But, as Conrad soon discovers, she might be faking most of her illnesses. He has little time to worry about that, however, as the next morning, he discovers that his daughter has been kidnapped! He gets a phone call from Patrick Koster (Bean), and receives instructions. Get a number out of Elizabeth's head, and you get your daughter back. Don't say a word to the police. None of this is a surprise, as we've seen the trailer for this movie.

As I said before, this movie looks like a thriller. But, it doesn't feel like a thriller. Conrad is working under a strict timeline. He gets Koster's phone call at 10 am, and he has until 5 PM to get the number. But, the pacing is all wrong. I never got the sense that time was running out. Yes, a thriller should build slowly, but it shouldn't keep the same pace the whole way through. It spent the right amount of time on the build-up, and then kept on truckin' at the same pace the whole way. Which meant that you were able to spot the ‘thrills' coming a mile away.

The last half of the movie just felt contrived. Yes, it's a movie, suspension of disbelief, etc., etc. But, the unexpected should fit within the framework of the universe that the film creates. Se7en worked because we believed in John Doe. We didn't know how he was able to do what he did, but we believed he could do it. Psycho worked because we believed that Norman Bates was just that insane. We're given little bits of information about the antagonist's past (Doe's diaries, Bates' mother). We don't get the same thing with Koster. While Sean Bean is a good character actor, what his character is doing doesn't make sense with what we know about the ‘world'. Oliver Platt is a fantastic character actor, but he's mostly wasted in this movie. And I didn't buy Murphy's portrayal of Elizabeth.

Don't Say A Word isn't without its good points, however. Skye McCole Bartusiak could go far, provided she doesn't take ‘kiddie' roles. There's something in her eyes that hints at big things to come. Haley Joel Osment things. Kirsten Dunst things.

For the most part, however, Don't Say A Word makes a good effort, but falls short of the mark

Briefly, Rock Star is a fairy tale. It's not really about rock and roll. It's about a male Cinderella (a Cinderfella, if you will, and if you don't mind a Jerry Lewis reference) who, instead of marrying a prince, marries a rock band... but at what cost?

This movie has several hurdles to clear -- This Is Spinal Tap, Wayne's World 2, and "VH1's Behind The Music". The audience already knows what happens in a rock and roll band. Thankfully, the movie isn't out to top anything or be a cautionary tale. It's just there to entertain.

If you've seen any trailers for this movie, you'll know what the story is: Chris Cole (Wahlberg) is the lead singer of a Steel Dragons tribute (NOT cover) band called Blood Pollution. When the lead singer for SD is fired, Cole is recruited to join as the new lead singer. Begin rise of fame. During his career with SD, his relationship with his girlfriend/manager Emily (Aniston) is strained. Will things work out? Will Steel Dragons be able to keep fans with a new lead singer? WILL HAIR METAL SURVIVE? All of these questions will be answered in the movie, if not here.

Although the movie is based around a fictional band, certain activities didn't need to be made up. Just as Hannibal Lecter is a combination of several serial killers, Steel Dragons is based on several metal bands. Nods are given to Judas Priest, Black Flag, Metallica, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Guns 'n' Roses, Van Halen, and probably a host of others I can't think of right now. Adding to Rock Star's r&r credibilty is the casting of Zakk Wylde (one of Ozzy Osbourne's guitarists) and Jason Bonham (a drummer, and son of late Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham). So, the music is going to be of high quality, regardless of your feelings towards hair metal as a genre.

The movie is set in the mid-1980s, when post-glam hair metal was making big strides in top-40 music. This distinction is very important. Steel Dragons is not Twisted Sister or Motley Crue or Judas Priest or Metallica. It's more in the vein of Def Leppard or Winger or Bon Jovi. Girls will like this band. Cole (who is known to the public as Izzy) will not scare girls like Lemmy from Motorhead. The time that the movie is doubly important in that it happens before hair metal becomes a parody of itself, and, even more importantly, before the dread beast from the Northwest emerges from Seattle. It happens during the glory days of hair metal. Power ballads? Absolutely. Guitarists moving in unison? You bet. Tight leather pants? Oh, yeah. Once upon a time, this was actually cool, and not campy or homoerotic. Well, in retrospect, it was always homoerotic, but girls still liked it. And, that's what rock and roll is all about.

However, it's not what the movie is about -- it is about, to steal the tagline, "a wannabe who got to be". Here's where the movie tends to disappoint. The cast was incredibly talented, but the characters are fairly one-dimensional. Which is not to say that the performances were bad -- some of the scenes were incredibly passionate, but I would have liked to have seen more character in the characters. Chris Cole is, to put it bluntly, a geek. He knows things about Steel Dragons that would put a Trekkie who sleeps in his Spock ears and could write a 20-page dissertation on why Kirk is a far better captain than Picard to shame. Details about the color of the thread in costumes, what year and tour a particular outfit was worn, not to mention lyrics and choreography. This kid is devoted to his dream. Emily has a head for business, and is devoted to Chris. I really would have liked to have seen more backstory between these two characters. As they were written, however, I felt just a little bit left out. The character of Miggs (Spall) however, was just about perfect. He is THE roadie. Not the god-of-all-roadies that we saw in Wayne's World 2, but just a guy who can get the job done. And, of course, as this is a fairy tale, he is as close as we come to a fairy godmother.

If you're looking for a good character study within an industry, watch Boogie Nights. If you're looking for a date movie, Rock Star is probably better. And less awkward.