Posts Tagged ‘Jennifer Love Hewitt’
Tuesday, July 4th, 2023
I remember seeing I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER when it came out. I believe I enjoyed it for what it was – it had the appropriate ratio of competence to goofiness for a slick studio teen slasher sequel in the post-SCREAM era. I did not know or remember that it made less than the first film did on a bigger budget. Of course, this was 1998. They had not yet run over the home video industry, thrown it in the sea and vowed to never speak of it again, so that was where horror movies would thrive, and it at least made enough to justify a DTV sequel.
Things were different then. Horror was more disreputable, even when it was expensive and starred beautiful people from TV shows. Critics had taken to SCREAM, but of course they were gonna hate the goofily titled sequel to SCREAM’s less show-offy, more traditional cousin. But fuck ‘em. This is a solid slasher sequel. Not in the sense of “this is one of the all time great horror movies,” but in the franchise slasher sense of “we took this format and put some enjoyable spins on it and there are some cool touches and some enjoyably dumb ones so I can rewatch it every once in a while and still enjoy it.” That’s what I wanted, and this delivered. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: 4th of July, Bill Cobbs, Brandy Norwood, Danny Cannon, Freddie Prinze Jr., Jack Black, Jeffrey Combs, Jennifer Love Hewitt, John Frizzell, John Hawkes, Mekhi Phifer, Muse Watson, Rasool Jahan, slashers, Trey Callaway
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 10 Comments »
Monday, July 3rd, 2023
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER is a major pillar in the late ‘90s streak of newfangled glossy studio teen slasher movies. It was released less than a year after SCREAM, two months before SCREAM 2, and three months before Dawson’s Creek started airing, so it was the first real test of whether or not SCREAM was a fluke for screenwriter Kevin Williamson. He’d already been hired and written this loose adaptation of the 1973 young adult suspense novel by Lois Duncan before SCREAM, but when that was a hit all the sudden it became a priority. Williamson was still involved, seeming to have a hand in choosing the director and cast, according to interviews.
Set on two consecutive 4th of July holidays in the small fishing town of Southport, North Carolina, it’s the story of fresh high school graduates Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt, CAN’T HARDLY WAIT), Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr., DELGO), Barry Cox (Ryan Phillippe, 54) and Helen Shivers (Sarah Michelle Gellar, SOUTHLAND TALES) accidentally running over someone late at night while driving home from drinking on the beach. Worried about their lives being ruined by manslaughter charges, they decide that rather than report it they should dump the body in the water and swear to never speak of it again. As kids do. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: 4th of July, Anne Heche, Bridgette Wilson, Freddie Prinze Jr., J. Don Ferguson, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jim Gillespie, John Debney, Johnny Galecki, Jonathan Quint, Kevin Williamson, Lois Duncan, Muse Watson, Ryan Phillippe, Sarah Michelle Gellar, slashers
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 24 Comments »
Thursday, June 21st, 2018
June 12, 1998
CAN’T HARDLY WAIT is a summer of ’98 teen comedy that seems to mean something to people who were the right age then. I’m too old, but for some reason I saw it back then and it didn’t work on me. And now I gave it another shot.
It’s a one-day-right-after-graduation story in the tradition of AMERICAN GRAFFITI or DAZED AND CONFUSED or BLADE [citation needed], centering around a party where Preston (Ethan Embry, LATE PHASES) is trying to get up the guts to talk to his secret crush Amanda (Jennifer Love Hewitt, I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, GARFIELD) because he heard she broke up with her jock asshole boyfriend Mike Dexter (Peter Facinelli, TWILIGHT). Preston thinks he can win her over by giving her a love letter he’s been revising for four years. Good luck with that one, pal. He drags along his cynical best friend Denise (Lauren Ambrose, WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE), who I was relieved to realize does not have an unrequited crush on him (in fact they laugh about having briefly dated in middle school). She’s very unhappy and ignored at the party, which obviously means she’ll have her rocky heart softened by an unexpected love connection or some shit, but she’s the most charming and relatable character, the one who seems like she probly wouldn’t like this movie, and I’m sure the main reason why some people do. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Deborah Kaplan, Ethan Embry, graduation, Harry Elfont, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Lauren Ambrose, Michelle Brookhurst, Nicole Bilderback, Peter Facinelli, Seth Green, Summer of '98, teens, Victor Togunde
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Reviews | 49 Comments »
Saturday, July 14th, 2012
When last I saw Garfield and friends, I was in a Bush-re-election-induced mania, the type that would cause a man to watch the movie GARFIELD. Now I decided to watch part 2 as part of our nation’s celebration of the comic strip going on in San Diego. That shows you how tolerant we, as a society, have grown toward Garfield. It’s like the whole thing about a lobster in a pot and the burner turns on and it gets slowly hotter and the fuckin thing doesn’t notice ’til it’s too late because it’s so gradual. Somehow I went from being horrified by the bizarre digital abomination that stars in this movie to not really being that bothered by it when I choose to watch part 2 of my own free will.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bill Murray, Billy Connolly, Breckin Meyer, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Roscoe Lee Browne, talking animals, Vinnie Jones
Posted in Comic strips/Super heroes, Reviews | 42 Comments »
Sunday, November 7th, 2004
the asshole cat
Man, what a fuckin week. On Tuesday Bush got either “re”-elected or re-“elected,” and I’ve been stumbling around muttering to myself ever since. Stabbing at my porridge with my spoon, staring blankly out the window, mouthing the word “why” to myself over and over again. One thing I know, there are some things in this world that just cannot be explained. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Sometimes people vote for a president that couldn’t be trusted to put on his own pants. And sometimes a guy gets the blue state blues, walks around town in a daze, suddenly finds himself at home having rented the movie “GARFIELD,” not really knowing how or why. I know for a fact this happens because you’re lookin at the guy who it happened to. Me. It was weird.
What this is is a movie based on the popular comic strip from the 1980s called Garfield. Like all comic strips it is not funny and about a talking animal. This is a cat called Garfield who is orange. The thing about Garfield, he is real fucking fat, he eats lasagna. That’s funny because real cats eat cat food, but this one also eats lasagna. Also he says “I hate Mondays” at the beginning although this does not turn out to be important. But it is that sort of detailed characterization that makes him, you know, Garfield. I guess. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bill Murray, Breckin Meyer, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jim Davis, Peter Hewitt, Stephen Tobolowsky
Posted in Comic strips/Super heroes, Family, Reviews | 28 Comments »
