Archive for the ‘Romance’ Category
Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
ALWAYS is very cutesy and sentimental, it’s got some pretty weak comedic bits and it’s definitely the weakest full-length Spielberg I’ve watched in this marathon so far. But it’s still pretty good, and with some things nobody could’ve done as well as Spielberg.
This one’s about the pilots who dump the red stuff on forest fires, and the Tom Cruise of red-stuff-dumpers is former shark expert and Close Encounterer Richard Dreyfus. The Anthony Edwards is John Goodman and the Kelly McGillis is Holly Hunter. Actually, Dreyfus looks kinda like Paul Newman in this one, strutting around in aviators, leather jacket, baseball cap and grey mustache. The point is he thinks he’s awesome, and everybody else agrees. His girl seems to have when are we gonna settle down? type issues, but he makes her happy by buying her a nice dress, something you don’t see around the base much because she’s the only woman there.
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7 people like this post.
Tags: Audrey Hepburn, Brad Johnson, Douglas Trumbo, firefighters, ghosts, Holly Hunter, John Goodman, Keith David, remakes, Richard Dreyfuss, Roberts Blossom, Steven Spielberg
Posted in Drama, Reviews, Romance | 47 Comments »
Sunday, June 12th, 2011
chapter 4
released May 25th, 2001
WARNING: contains spoilers for PEARL HARBOR and World War II
After three financially successful action movies in a row (BAD BOYS, THE ROCK, ARMAGEDDON), Michael Bay got a once-in-his-career itch to make An Important Movie. He probly had SAVING PRIVATE RYAN on the brain, and definitely TITANIC.
Ever since James Cameron’s movie broke all box office records studios had been threatening to make asses of themselves by blatantly trying to catch more lightning in that same melodramatic-love-story-during-historic-disaster bottle. Jan de Bont almost did a love-story-on-the-Hindenburg movie, for example. PEARL HARBOR wasn’t as obvious of a copycat as that because 1) it was a love story set against a war movie as much as a disaster and 2) the love song on the end credits was by Faith Hill instead of Celine Dion. Totally different.
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9 people like this post.
Tags: Alec Baldwin, Ben Affleck, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Cuba Gooding Jr., Dan Aykroyd, Ewan Bremner, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale, Mako, Michael Bay, Summer of 2001
Posted in Action, Reviews, Romance, War | 88 Comments »
Friday, December 24th, 2010
Everybody knows about Christmas horror (BLACK CHRISTMAS, CHRISTMAS EVIL, the SILENT/DEADY NIGHT saga, etc.). And of course there’s Christmas action (DIE HARDs 1-2, the works of Shane Black). But did you ever notice there’s Christmas crime, too? I just reviewed SILENT PARTNER, and there’s THE ICE HARVEST, BAD SANTA and others. So I was using the Google.com websight to see if there were others and came across this interview with a guy who did a book just about Christmas movies. He chose this CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY as a movie he wishes were on DVD and that more people knew about.
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5 people like this post.
Tags: Christmas, Christmas crime, Deanna Durbin, Gene Kelly, Herman J. Mankiewicz, noir, Robert Siodmak, W. Somerset Maugham
Posted in Crime, Reviews, Romance | 12 Comments »
Friday, November 12th, 2010
aka CHALLENGE OF THE NINJA, SHAOLIN VS. NINJA, SHAOLIN CHALLENGES NINJA
HEROES OF THE EAST is a really top notch Shaw Brothers production that’s half all-time classic martial arts movie, half romantic comedy. There are cultural differences that separate it from a Katherine Heigl movie besides just martial arts, the main one being arranged marriage. In a Heigl picture she’s forced to be with a guy she initially hates because of a baby, here it’s because of powerful Chinese and Japanese business families trying to expand their reach by making their kids marry each other.
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7 people like this post.
Tags: Gordon Liu, ninjas, Shaw Brothers, Yasuaki Kurata
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews, Romance | 15 Comments »
Monday, December 14th, 2009
Hey, any of you guys ever seen TITANIC? It’s one of the later movies from the guy who did TERMINATOR. Bill Paxton stars as Brock Lovett, a deep sea explorer using THE ABYSS-style equipment to search the wreckage of the Titanic for a lost diamond. Along the way he meets Rose (Gloria Stuart), a 101 year old survivor of the famous shipwreck who teaches him valuable life lessons and what not. Also there are some flashbacks featuring Kate Winslet (HEAVENLY CREATURES ) as the younger Rose and Leonardo Dicaprio (THE QUICK AND THE DEAD), but don’t worry, he’s not supposed to be young Bill Paxton, he’s a different character.
Really, I’m surprised you guys haven’t heard of this. It was a pretty big deal at the time from what I remember. (more…)
3 people like this post.
Tags: Bill Paxton, Billy Zane, disaster movies, James Cameron, Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio
Posted in Reviews, Romance | 69 Comments »
Thursday, February 21st, 2008
Imagine you’re Nicole Kidman (well, a character played by Nicole Kidman) and your husband died ten years ago. (Not Tom Cruise or the country singer guy she’s with or whoever, I am talking about a fictional character played by Nicole Kidman). You’re still sort of getting over this but your boyfriend (the head vampire from 30 DAYS OF NIGHT [but not a vampire, just the same actor]) has proposed to you and you think you’re finally ready and you’re gonna make this work.
And then a 10 year old boy (the kid from X-Men 3 [playing a different character {I think I will stop mentioning what other movies they've been in}]) shows up at your apartment and tells you that he’s your dead husband Sean. Hopefully this hasn’t happened to most of you, so just try to imagine what it would be like.
At first you might laugh it off and not want to embarrass the poor kid, he may be emotionally fragile or something. But he keeps showing up and seems to know things. So you go to his parents to tell them to do something about it. And they yell at him but he refuses to say he’ll leave you (Nicole) alone. And then he faints.
So then you feel sorry for him again and invite him over so your family can quiz him and sort of prove to him that he’s not who he says he is. But he keeps passing all the tests.
I mean what the fuck are you gonna do? Is this an uncomfortable situation or what? Aren’t you gonna get creeped out? Not that you are gonna believe this kid is your dead husband reincarnated, but what would possess a kid to pull some shit like this? And how could he do such a good job? I mean jesus. The rational explanation is actually scarier than the supernatural one.
Shit, even if he thought he was your LIVING husband that would be creepy. Or if he thought he was your cousin Jeffrey. Or your former co-worker from when you drove a delivery truck. I don’t care who he thinks he is, a little boy following you around making spurious claims is fucked up. I’m against it. (more…)
Only 1 person likes this post. Kinda sad.
Tags: Nicole Kidman
Posted in Drama, Mystery, Reviews, Romance | No Comments »
Saturday, February 2nd, 2008
Recently a reader named David Lambert sent me a very accurate email:
“…I’ve loved your site for almost a decade now, but my one complaint is the almost complete lack of reviews for Westerns.
The Western is the most bad-ass genre out there and it’s a huge hole in your ‘reviewography.’
How can a guy calling himself ‘Outlaw’ Vern not represent the genre that the term ‘outlaw’ comes from?”
You got me, David. I knew he was right so I pledged to “at least review RIO BRAVO or something,” and he gave me a variety of other suggestions that could come in handy if I am to strive for this particular type of excellence.
You guys probaly all saw it already but just in case: RIO BRAVO is Howard Hawks’s 1959, 2 hour and 40 minute “last great western.” The opening 5 minutes or so is done with no dialogue, but with musical cues any time somebody gets punched or shot, so it kind of seems like a musical pantomime or something. It’s goofy but it’s a great opening because it establishes the basics about the three main characters. First you got Dean Martin as Dude, a pathetic unshaven drunk trying to get a drink at the saloon. Then you have Claude Akins as Joe Burdette, the asshole who throws a coin into the spittoon so that poor Dude will have to reach into a pound of spit if he wants his drink. And then John Wayne as Sheriff John T. Chance, who kicks over the spittoon before Dude reaches in, to save him some dignity.
The first shot of John Wayne is looking up at him from the ground, so even though this is a traditional western and not as gritty as the revisionist ones I prefer, you are definitely gonna get some badass in here. The spittoon incident turns into a fight. Chance gets in Burdette’s face, Dude hits Chance over the head with a board, Burdette is gonna shoot Dude, but some dude tries to calm him down so he shoots that guy instead. Then he goes to another bar. (more…)
Only 1 person likes this post. Kinda sad.
Tags: Howard Hawks, John Wayne, siege movies
Posted in Drama, Reviews, Romance, Western | No Comments »
Thursday, November 29th, 2007
The original THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR is not one of my favorite Steve McQueen pictures. It’s stylish and well-made, I can see the appeal of it. But first of all, as much fun as he may have had doing it, McQueen was not meant to play that kind of upper crust character. And secondly, as cool as you want him to be because he’s played by Steve McQueen, Thomas Crown is not a very cool character. He’s The Man. A rich guy who has other people do his work and then takes credit for it. Just because he picks up the money out of the garbage can after all the real work is done he gets to call it his Affair? There’s no justice in that movie.
John McTiernan’s loose remake takes care of those problems, while introducing other ones. While I’m much more fond of Steve McQueen, Pierce Brosnan is a way better choice to play this character. He’s smooth, he’s handsome, he looks kind of like Fred MacMurray but more girly, he has an accent. And there’s no way to imagine him working with his hands or having dirt on him or his hair unkempt. He IS Thomas Crown.
And in this version Crown is more than just the mastermind, he also does the stealing himself. In this one he’s an art thief, and the art he steals is his own, almost. He owns a museum, but his company has been forced into a merger. On the very day he signs the contract a team of European mercenaries busts in to steal Crown’s favorite Monet from the gallery. But we soon realize that the mercenaries have been anonymously hired by Crown himself. He doublecrosses them, gets the painting himself and leaves them to take the blame.
And then the story itself is like the original: Renee Russo is an insurance investigator who quickly figures out that Crown did it and tries to prove it. Meanwhile they are courting each other, toying with each other, possibly in love and not sure where their or each other’s loyalties lie. A cat and mouse game, if the cat and mouse were fucking each other in about ten different positions and pouring liquor on each other and shit. (more…)
Tags: McT
Posted in Crime, Reviews, Romance, Thriller | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 25th, 2007
In James Cameron’s idea of a romantic comedy Schwarzenegger plays Harry Tasker, an agent for the “Omega Sector” secret spy agency who protect America from terrorism and are led by Charlton Heston with an eyepatch. He has one eye on the enemy, the other eye on infinity. Or something. The opening shows that Harry is willing to blow shit up but is more of a suave James Bond type than the usual Schwarzenegger character. He gets his way through trickery, wears a tux and even does a tango with Tia Carrera. (Remember when she was supposed to be a big deal?) He just happens to be a muscleman under that tux but nobody seems to notice in the movie, it’s not really relevant to the character.
Harry spends alot of his time being followed in a van by his woman-hating loyal manservant Tom Arnold (before he sidekicked for Jet Li or Steven Seagal) and his GGWATBOADSINR (good guy who appears to be of Arab descent so it’s not racist) Academy Award nominee for GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK Grant Heslov. But when he’s not trying to stop terrorists from getting nuclear weapons he faces the much bigger problem of relating to his wife Helen (Jamie Lee “I cut off Michael Meyers’s head” Curtis) who thinks he’s a boring computer salesman.
That’s the comedic part of the movie is that it’s more about the wacky home life than the spy shit. Harry always blows it and gets home late for work when an extended action sequence comes up, so his wife and kid (Eliza Dushku) think he’s a dirtbag. But we know he’s really a charmer because of the way he always apologizes to everybody as he rides a horse through a crowded hotel chasing a dude on a motorcycle. (more…)
Tags: James Cameron, Jamie Lee Curtis, Schwarzenegger
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Reviews, Romance, Thriller | 7 Comments »
Monday, July 23rd, 2007
After watching the TERMINATOR movies for the first time in years I was so excited about James Cameron I decided I should go back and re-watch the Cameron movies I didn’t like, see if maybe my perspective has changed. Maybe there was some magic there I just wasn’t picking up on.
So of course I had to go back to the beginning, the smash debut, the one that started it all for director James Cameron. Orson Welles started out with CITIZEN KANE, James Cameron started out with PIRANHA PART TWO THE SPAWNING. What can you say, man, it was a different era.
It’s always mildly amusing to remind everybody that an oscar winning director started out making a b-movie sequel about flying killer fish, but honestly I’m just being a smartass, I actually think that’s cool. It’s something to be proud of, especially if you can later look back and see how that movie connects to their later ones, which is the case here. I saw this one a long time ago and I don’t remember thinking it was very interesting, but I changed my mind this time. In my opinion it’s actually kind of good. Seriously. No joke. The original PIRANHA is a little better because the premise lends itself better to the kind of dry humor that Joe Dante and John Sayles were going for than for actual drama. Early on there’s some painfully broad comedy and cheesy ’80s moments. There’s a stereotypical Jewish lady picking up a POLICE ACADEMY style nerd, there’s a “cool” ’80s girl rocking out on headphones, the precursor to Sarah Connor’s roommate in THE TERMINATOR. But it quickly settles in to a more serious James Camerony type of movie. Except with no money and it’s about flying super-piranhas.
Of course to guys like me James Cameron is important because of ALIENS and the TERMINATOR movies. And then it seemed like we lost him forever when he directed TITANIC and spent the next ten years pissing away his talents analyzing submarines and shipwrecks. But then I go back and watch this again and finally make the connection that he’s been obsessed with that deep sea shit since the first scene of his first movie. The best way to explain the marriage between James Cameron and PIRANHA is to say that P2 starts out with scuba divers going into a shipwreck to screw. Any director could figure out a way for a couple to screw in the woods or in a car or an evil hotel or an abandoned building or some haunted bushes, but only an elite few director/scuba divers would have an underwater sex/death scene. And James Cameron is the king of that world. (more…)
Tags: James Cameron, Lance Henriksen
Posted in Drama, Horror, Reviews, Romance, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 2 Comments »
