Reviews

I love this film! Morgan Spurlock is this brilliantly average guy who's message is conveyed all the more powerfully for his very averageness. This is a guy I'd date -- and have, in one form or another; he could be your brother or best friend or best friend's brother. He undertakes the interesting experiment of discovering how a month-long McDonald's diet will affect his constitution. His findings, under the administration of a small team of doctors, nutritionists, and health professionals, are astounding; stopping just short of terrifying, really. The very direct and clearly unquestionable effects of his consumption are quick and quite without relent for the duration of the diet -- compared at more points than one in the film, by surprised health care professionals on all levels, to the effects of long-term alcoholism.

A really disturbing sub-text of the film is the impact this 'instant gratification' societal psyche we've engendered is affecting our children: even in their schools, who we so often blindly trust to 'teach the children well', the junk food culture abounds. The 'lunchlady' fare of Salisbury steak, reconstituted mashed potatoes, and fruit cocktail that we so frequently suffered as children ourselves has not been subsidized, but replaced in many schools by fries, pizza, chips and what's offered as a 'healthy alternative' to Cokes (by specific example in this film), Country Time Lemonade and Gatorade. The film also explores, in brief, the impact of this diet on our children's performance in school. Particularly as a mother, I found this exploration disturbing, if not entirely unsurprising.

Overall, the film is just amazing. It imparts a very important and enlightening message while managing to completely avoid preachiness. Witty, bright, and very easily identifiable; this film shows us, with indubitable and progressive evidence, what we do to ourselves in the short- and long-term, in continually surrendering our bodies AND OUR CHILDREN to the marketing ploys of processed foods...fast food, in particular. This is a DON'T MISS film for one and all.

It is, primarily, the story of two young Catholic boys on the cusp of manhood; and one's discovery that the world is more nuanced, sometimes sadder, and occasionally richer than that which he knows. We watch the boyhood black-and-white vision of Frances Doyle, played with surprising depth by the very talented young artist Emile Hirsch, transform gradually to shades of grey as he closes the door on one phase of life to enter another, not even turning to glance over his shoulder. Kieran Culkin, too, turns in a simultaneously beautiful and tragic performance as Frances's best friend, Tim Sullivan.

Somewhat brash and completely unapologetic, Altar Boys delves the minds of 14-year-old boys in all their hormonal and conflicted glory; from the imaginary alter-lives they lead in the collusive effort of creating comic book heroes to Frances's first love testing the bounds of their friendship in ways both startling and completely expected, to an riotously-14-year-old-inspired plot to kill the nun they so detest - played with great reserve, yet to great effect by Jodie Foster - by loosing a cougar into her office, it's no-holds-barred and (at least I expect) dead-to-rights in depicting the indefatigability of boys' imagination and penchant for mischief.

I am all about the characters and these were interesting and charming and exasperating; silly and rotten and exhilarating. Like "Stand By Me", the characters were richly drawn, well-layered and both primary players had very impressive depth for playing these roles as full-fledged people and not merely...well, not merely '14-year-old boys'. Unlike "Stand By Me", these characters were fleshier -- if for no other reason than because of the added two years' life experience.

Hirsch's portrayal of Frances's battle within himself, in dealing with a very sensitive secret told him by first love Margie Flynn (Jena Malone does a great job) was realistic and truly conflicted -- not at all cut-and-dried -- and did a fine service to young men everywhere...even if her secret turned out to be a manipulative betrayal, of sorts.

Culkin's Tim possessed a worldliness reflective of his love for William Blake and Edgar Allan Poe: as much in his critique of cartoon hero "KickAss" kicking the s*** (literally -- the s***) out of Vincent D'Onofrio's Father Casey as in his tearful (but not over-wrought) roadside warning to Frances of , "Don't you ever tell me to 'Get real' again, okay? Because I know real."

I kept catching myself thinking how the character Tim possessed the mystical combination of intelligence, wit, passion, and Devil-may-care bravado that drove me wild as a pre-teen girl, so while it was a unique juxtaposition that the slightly more uninspired Frances 'got the girl', it wasn't implausible, but rather added a bit more depth of curiosity to this unique and very interesting film. The very slightest hint of a reverse Cyrano early-on really was charming.

If for no other reason than the performances, this film is worth checking out. I could see where in less-talented hands, the script and perhaps even the direction could've fallen flat, but the screen talent carried this one really, really well. Someone once said that they could be enthralled, watching D'Onofrio read the phone book. I concur completely, and this film was no exception to the greater amount of work I've seen of his: small parts, huge impressions. Jodie Foster is...well, she's Jodie Foster: if I need to say more, you haven't seen enough of her films. But these young actors are ones to watch for, I believe.

I simply cannot get enough of D'Onofrio. I have seen him in some clunker films; I've seen him in roles where I walked away thinking, `What the Hell was I thinking?!'.or more to the point, `What the Hell was he thinking?!?'

This is NOT one of those films.nor is this one of those roles. I brought this movie home expecting a sort of attempt at Warhol-meets-Fellini-esque fair. Boy, was I off base. This is an immensely deep and oft-as-not deeply painful character study that forces the at-home voyeur to look inside the darker shadows of his or her own soul at times, to look at the most vulnerable - and thus, well-hidden - facets of our humanness, but it's of its own vein entirely. This film is character-driven, and it strives neither to idealize nor to indemnify either primary character (or their motivations) at all, just to illuminate them. It explores the things that make us tick, in the post-modern reality TV-driven, voyeuristic society we have created. The beauty is, it creates fictional characters who are far more real, touchable, enviable, pitiable and personal than any single seasonal product presented for our viewing enjoyment since the boon of this frenzy. I think this film is pretty Avant Garde in that it explored this phenomenon before it became the huge cash cow that it now is: pre- Survivor, Bachelor/Bachelorette et.al., ad nauseum...

On the surface, this film is.well, it's pretty shallow. But the character interpretation and execution brings a depth to the movie that makes it very much worth exploring. It's about fear and desperation and shame. It's also about judgment. It's about how the choices we make to let people into our lives affect us far more personally than we sometimes like to think. And for that matter, how personal the very act of choosing to let someone in really is.

Camera, played by Hope Davis, is a guerilla filmmaker who quietly charges into her latest subject, Guy's, life one morning as he walks onto the street. He first expects he's the subject of a Candid Camera prank, then of a stalker, and finally a mere object. Camera follows his every move, refusing to reveal her name, why she's filming him; but she also refuses to stop filming. Guy's life falls far short of idyllic anyway: he's holding onto his job, his girlfriend and even his home by a thread. Camera's arrival and subsequent pursuit sees to the effective dissolution of the things that sustain in his life, but he becomes obsessed nonetheless with the appeal of being watched. Camera vacillates between manipulation of his feelings and becoming an unsuspecting victim to her own.

D'Onofrio's art is that of bringing utter humanity to the darkest of monsters.or is it the other way around? Therein lies the beauty: I have never, ever encountered characters that can somehow grate so much that I want to shake the teeth from their skulls, while I want to just hold them and make it all okay, at the same time. I vacillate. I've watched my share of the current RTV fare: I can start out empathizing with a character and decide that I just don't like them; I can start out hating a character and decide I wouldn't mind having that person as a buddy (even if, in small doses); but I just can't hold empathy for long enough either way to feel such conflict for any of them, really - and these are 'real people'. In this movie (like a couple of others that have made me a staunch fan of D'Onofrio's), I want to smack him AND hug him. I want to be offended sometimes, but I just can't because the things he expresses and the ways in which he expresses them are so intrinsically honest and real and.just human.

This is a hard film to get your hands on here in the U.S., but if you have the opportunity, I'd highly recommend it. But be prepared to stare some of your darkest demons right in the eye for about ninety minutes: there is no escaping them in this vehicle.

I saw this movie recently with the very greatest of hopes.

I have been a Sherlock Holmes fan for as long as I can remember, so when I saw the box for this film on the shelves at my local video store, I yanked it up without even looking at the synopsis on the back. After watching the movie, I might have enjoyed the synopsis more...a LOT more.

The characters were two-dimensional and under-developed at very best: no depth at all was brought to any one of them, but for the struggling Rebecca Doyle, portrayed by Gabrielle Anwar...and in this setting, finding anything to like about her was a struggle. James D'Arcy never even saw the mark in attempting to bring humanity to the legendary Holmes; he just came off weak and vacillating in D'Arcy's hands. Vincent D'Onofrio - of whom I am an incredible fan normally, and who is notoriously known as "the Human Chameleon" for his most uncanny ability to lose himself in a role - just phoned this performance in, when I'd have loved to have seen a far more layered interpretation of this legendary bad guy. Roger Morlidge does a serviceable job of Dr. Watson, but it's just not enough.

The plot was presumptuous of far too much detail relevant to the Holmes legend to introduce such intricacies as the reasoning behind the heroin addiction suffered by he and his brother, without providing much substantive sub-plot to make it plausible...or even make us care.

The fencing battles between Holmes and Moriarty are well-executed, but only consume a cumulative twenty minutes of the film at the very most.

Writer Piers Ashworth didn't think outside the box in his creation of this "new perspective", he just created a new box and hopped right in. Director Graham Theakston didn't seem to even attempt to transcend the poor scripting with crafty, smart, or inspiring visuals.

I just didn't get it.

This is one of the most passionate stories of any I've had the pleasure of discovering, for all its quietude. It is very rare that a love story can make my heart ache - especially for both individuals. This one did.

Vincent D'Onofrio captured the very soul of Robert E. Howard and made me love him, even as I wanted to throttle him for all his self-centered and defensive posturing. He seemed to breathe Howard's intensity and intensely personal battles, and in so doing, brought real life to a man who could - possibly in any other hands - easily have been caricaturized, for so many different layers to be expounded.

Renee Zellweger gives an amazing performance wrought with a delicate balance of 1930's gentility and femininity and tough-as-nails grit: this, for me, is her absolute best performance thus far (and I loved her in Jerry Maguire!). Her southern roots show beautifully in this unbelievable portrayal of such complexity and simplicity.

Michael Scott Myers delivers very sweet and touching dialogue which is real enough to keep your teeth from aching in this, his freshman effort and Director Dan Ireland integrates scenery, background, and players so aptly that one can smell the corn at which the frustrated Howard hacks away in rage (a symbolic reality which he's incapable of controlling) in his father's cornfield; feel the splintered the wood planks that devise the old homestead where Bob asks Novalyne to `suppose you were a lonely, beautiful woman.,'; and taste the pain of a very real love lost.

I am amazed that this movie didn't garner far more public acclaim; it deserves it!