Reviews

I saw this when I was a kid and thought it was the best movie ever. Saw "Fish" again while in my late 20s, and my fake snobishness at the time didn't allow me to enjoy it anymore. Saw it again recently, and now? I love it. Really love it. It's never anything more than it seems to be: lots of basketball for basketball fans, and that's OK.

If you're looking for something more, consider that Julius "Dr. J" Erving headlines the cast in the opening credits. Meadowlark Lemon, the Harlem Globetrotters legend, is third. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is fifth, even though he doesn't have a single line. Considering how funny he is in "Airplane," not allowing him to speak was a mistake. Even so, Dr. J is the start, and the more Dr. J moves we get to see, the better.

Obviously, Dr. J wasn't cast for acting abilities, but let's give him credit for one scene late in the movie when he gives a pep talk to his teammates during the big game. It's actually pretty stiring. It had me ready to jump through the screen and give it my all ... until my back seized up from getting out the recliner so fast.

If you're curious, Gene Siskel recommended this movie on the old Siskel & Ebert show, while Roger Ebert didn't. Those 1970s and '80s broadcasts are on YouTube, and it shouldn't be hard for you to find the one in which they review this movie. The funniest part is how Siskel laments about how they have such a lousy basketball team in Chicago. All he needed to do was wait a few years.

Every bad review here about "Ted" is on target, but so is every good review.

It certainly has all the weaknesses that other reviewers mentioned, but it still has the same charm and energy as most all the Buffy episodes from the high school years. There's plenty of sharp, fun dialogue, and John Ritter makes an exceptionally unnerving villain. This episode comes early in the Buffy run, so to get somebody like him to be on the show must've been a pretty big deal, and he does a great job of playing against type. Buffy's mom (Kristine Sutherland), while not a favorite of everyone, is pretty good, too, in this one.

While "Ted" clearly isn't one of the high points of Buffy's terrific second season, it's still has lots of funny lines and interesting moments.

Yes, we love our football way down in Alabama, and this movie does a decent job of showing that. It's about a high school football team in Alabama, and if you're actually from the South, you might enjoy it a little more than if you're not. It's kind of like being from New York might help you enjoy "Sex and the City" than if you're not.

There are tons of University of Alabama references, so if you just can't stand the mighty Crimson Tide, you might want to skip this one. The football coach quotes "Bear" Bryant, and the team wears crimson jerseys. Also, the winner of a big scholarship that the high school gives always uses it to attend Alabama.

"Legend" also has a strong Christian theme, but it's not overbearing. It's not like it's trying to convert you -- instead, it's just part of the movie, just like Christianity is a part of Southern towns.

Maybe my only minor nitpick is that the Southern accents don't ring true for every character in the movie. Some of the actors sound like they're trying hard to sound like they're from Alabama. Lacey Chabert's accent sounds true, but then again she's originally from Purvis, Miss. However, I'm from the South, so the accents stand out to me. If you're not Southern, you probably won't even notice or care about them.

I gave the movie a 6, with four points for Nick Stahl's performance before he was "changed" by the bad guys, and two bonus points for Katie Holmes' midriff. There's not much else of interest in "Behavior." Still, if you're a Nick Stahl fan, it's a decent look at some of his work. The movie is at its strongest when he's on the screen.

It's raw, shocking and even erotic.

When I first left the theatre, I couldn't shake the images of Bijou Phillips' magnificent body (of which we see plenty in "Bully"). Yes, if you want to see lots of good-looking female flesh, there's enough to go around. Phillips and Rachel Miner have enough nude scenes to fill an adolescent's fantasies for a long time.

Later in the day, however, other thoughts crept into my mind. It's a true story, but even if it were total fiction, it still would hit pretty hard. It's a brutal story about seven young adults who are willing to murder one of their own. The stark portrayal of the events leading up to the crime and the killing itself just won't leave me.

I find myself looking for every bit of information about this hideous murder. You'll laugh when I tell you the name of the last movie that sent me looking for more background like this -- Titanic. Talk about opposite ends of the spectrum!

The last time actress Franka Potente and director Tom Tykwer teamed to do a movie, they did the marvelous "Run Lola Run." While "The Princess and the Warrior" isn't quite as good, it's still a solid follow-up. In fact, Potente may be better in "Princess." She's wonderful as the shy, quiet nurse Sissi. Tykwer, who also is a musician, weaves together the music and the screen images as well as anybody. If you like the movie, don't forget to buy the soundtrack. It's a treat.

OK, I'm the type of guy who loves those independent movies that usually don't make it out of the art houses. Sometimes they're foreign with sub-titles, sometimes they don't have happy endings, sometimes they focus more on an interesting character rather than a plot. So what in the world was I doing in a theatre watching "Legally Blonde" and why did I like it so much?

It doesn't have much depth, the main character is much too perfect, and the storylines are rather predictable. Still, it's so charming that I really didn't care about that other stuff. It simply is a fun movie with no pretentions or cause. I would've missed out if I had looked down my nose at it just because it's a Hollywood blockbuster and not one of my art-house flicks. Besides, not all of those independent movies are all that great anyway.

I read a comment somewhere comparing "Clueless" to "Legally Blonde," and there are some similarities. However, "Clueless" has a certain dry wit to some of its jokes. There's nothing sly about "Legally Blonde," but don't interpret that as a weakness. Like I said, it's a fun movie, and take it like that.

... and Molly Parker is having sex with all of them!

If you're like me, then you saw Parker's mesmerizing performance in Center of the World and searched out more of her work. In "Kissed," she's excellent and almost enough to pull this film up to the level to which it aspires.

Give "Kissed" credit for having the guts to make necrophelia such a dominant theme, but at the same time, that's its downfall, too. Sure, necrophelia is symbolic of something greater (attempting to get closer to God and Heaven), and we're supposed to recognize it as a device. But necrophelia still is a sickness, and I have a hard time accepting that it can be anything other than extremely deviant.

I really thought he was above this kind of low-budget garbage. I thought he made good movies. And the same for Mena Suvari, who's been so good in everything she's done.

How many of you were like me -- you saw that Hoskins and Suvari were starring in "American Virgin," so you rented it, figuring it would meet a certain standard?

Also, what about Esai Morales? I didn't realize that his career had fallen so far down the tubes that not only is he appearing in something like this, he's not even a star. He only has a few lines and a bit part.

She's stunning in this one. She plays her part so well. I didn't realize she had such a flare for acting. I guess I should have realized from her music videos that she has a real screen presence.

"Dancer in the Dark" is a touching movie about a woman slowly going blind because of a genetic affliction that unfortunately has been passed along to her son. She is working to raise money so he can have an operation to save his sight. However, she loves movie musicals and sometimes loses herself in her own musical numbers.

"Dancer" rips the emotion right out of you. At the screening I saw in New York, during one time late in the movie when the movie was momentarily silent, I could hear plenty of others sniffing because they had been crying. "Dancer" is shot with a handheld camera and has grainy colors -- except for the musical numbers when the camera is stationary and the colors come alive.

Then you might love this movie. I sure did. "Love of the Game" received bleak reviews, so I wasn't expecting much. But I'm a big baseball fan, and it's likely that any baseball movie will turn me on.

I read in several reviews that this movie wasn't as good as Kevin Costner's "Bull Durham" or "Field of Dreams." I can't disagree, but that's like saying that some nice, new baseball park doesn't stack up to Yankee Stadium or Wrigley Field -- it's an impossibly high standard.

In "Game," Costner plays an aging pitcher trying to pitch a perfect game in Yankee Stadium. But while he's doing so, he keeps thinking back to his relationship with Jane, played by Kelly Preston. His flashbacks to important moments in his relationship with Jane are woven almost seamlessly in with the baseball action.

So if you don't like baseball, you might wonder why anybody would love this movie. But if you do ... give it a shot. You won't be sorry.

"Sunday" would've been a decent little movie had it been cut from nearly two hours, 45 minutes to about two hours. By the time we get to the predictable Big Game at the end, we're ready for the movie to end.

Still, "Sunday" had some pluses. Jamie Foxx did well. So did Al Pacino. Lawrence Taylor was decent, considering he's a football player and not an actor. Also, all the quick camera cuts and hard-driving music manage to give a sense of intensity that the dialogue fails to deliver.

On the other hand, it would've been nice to see the pace of the movie slow down at times. The constant fast pace wears thin, since "Sunday" is so long. I noticed that one of the songs used also was used in the movie "Run, Lola, Run," which also was very fast paced but lasted about half as long as "Sunday." Oliver Stone should've taken that idea, too, from "Lola." Also, Cameron Diaz is wasted. Her role doesn't seem to fit her, especially early in the movie when she tries to spit out one football term after the other, without convincing us that she knows or cares what they mean. She's better than this.

OK, it's not really so bad that you'll fall asleep. Visually, it's interesting, especially in the first half of the movie. However, it's riddled with cliches and wastes the talents of a couple of pretty good young actors -- Vin Diesel and Radha Mitchell. Diesel also was in "Saving Private Ryan" and "Boiler Room," which are more representative of his talents. Mitchell was fantastic in "High Art" and "Love and Other Catastrophes." In fact, she was the reason I went to see this.

When I was 7, I thought this movie was the greatest of all-time. Now I'm 34 and still think it's really, really cool. Who could resist the adventures of Snoopy? "Peanuts" managed to speak to me when I was a child and it continues to do so now that I'm an adult.

When I first saw "Immortal Beloved," I enjoyed it immensely. Gary Oldham played Beethoven wonderfully, gave the character depth and inspired plenty of emotion in me. I loved how the music was used, too.

However, this movie is a little like "Braveheart" -- I lost a little respect for it later when I read the real story and saw how historically inaccurate it was. Still, it's a wonderful movie, and I'd recommend it to anyone who loves period pieces. But if you're looking for the final word on Beethoven, go read a book.

This is a cute movie, written and starring the two guys who created South Park. They've invented a game combining basketball and baseball, played in the driveway of their home. Naturally, it goes world-wide, and the two heros become stars.

The movie is filled with cute, funny gags. You might write off some of them as too sophomoric, but most are on the money. The best bit might be the parody of "Unsolved Mysteries" with Robert Stack. He's always been good at poking fun at himself.

Even if you don't like the movie, you at least have to recognize the talent of Jane Horrocks, who plays L.V., the soft-voiced, shy daughter who turns into a different person when she sings to her dead father. After watching her play Bubble in "Absolutely Fabulous," who knew she could perform like that? Her singing is out of this world. Combine that with her interesting portrayal of L.V., and you have all the reason you need to see this movie. It's too bad the Academy Awards didn't recognize her.

However, she's not all there is to the movie. Brenda Blethyn plays the immature mother, and she deserved the Oscar nomination she received. Michael Caine is solid as the talent agent who is dating the mother and banks his career on L.V.

Also, there's Ewan McGregor, who plays a shy telephone company repairman who loves pigeons. His character develops a sweet relationship with L.V.

Imagine Ally McBeal if she wasn't a lawyer and instead was a drug-addicted homeless prostitute, then you have Jane Doe. That might sound like a bad thing, but actually it isn't. Calista Flockhart plays Ally McBeal with a wide range of personality and she does the same with Jane Doe. Unfortunately, it's just not a good movie. Some of the dialogue is incredibly trite, and even Flockhart can't work around it. Still, it's worth seeing for Flockhart fans -- if nothing else for the shock value of seeing her curse up a storm at times.