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Ok, here's the deal. Periodically, I'll put a movie review on this page. My scale is as follows:

Utter crap; a total waste of 90 minutes of your existence


Possibly worth watching if you're suicidal or drunk or high or immortal


Slightly below par of standard Hollywood fare


A decent movie, worth seeing once


A good movie; a candidate for multiple viewings


An excellent piece of cinematic work; worthy of high praise and a spot on your video rack

 


Woman of the Year - (1942; approx. 114 mins.; reviewed 3/13/2004) A movie that doesn't tend to work very well as a comedy--possibly it just hasn't aged well in that regard--this film is quite good as a character study. One can really empathize with Tracy's character as he attempts to cope with life as Mr. Tess Harding. Both Tracy and Hepburn are eminently watchable, as always, in this story of a gruff sportswriter who falls for a erudite diplomat's daughter. The trouble in the movie starts when they get married and she seems to fail to grasp the true significance of the commitment that such a move entails. The only real bit of comedy to be found in this piece is the inspired breakfast scene toward the end of the film. The chemistry between these two actors is pure gold, and the supporting cast are competent. It simply strikes me as odd that this film was marketed as a comedy, when the story, if not necessarily the tone, is very serious indeed.  

 My rating:



Hellboy - (2004; approx. 132  mins.; reviewed 4/25/2004) I wanted to like this film a lot more than I actually did. There are a lot of good elements here that don't ever really seem to come together as a cohesive whole. There are some really nifty characters, such as the title character, deftly played by Ron Perlman with just the right combination of tough-talking machismo and emotional vulnerability (physically, he seems to be nigh-invulnerable, like The Tick). Some of the elements of the narrative are very clever indeed: the government agency "overseeing" Hellboy's activities, the paranormal activities of the SS under Heinrich Himmler, the love triangle among the young FBI agent, Hellboy, and their volatile colleague Liz, et cetera. The crux of the problem with this film is that for roughly 99% of the movie's extensive running time, you have very little idea of what's actually going on; it's as though the filmmakers created a set of intriguing characters and said, "These guys seem interesting, so let's just follow them around with a camera for a while." While others may legitimately disagree with my viewpoint on this matter, I am of the belief that a good movie is one that tells a coherent and interesting story. Here we see the mad monk Rasputin, in the world of Hellboy a powerful and extremely hard-to-kill sorcerer, nipping over to Nazi Germany to aid the National Socialists in their goal to dominate the world. Fast-forward 50 years and a newly-resurrected Rasputin is out to destroy the world and create a Hell on Earth with the unwitting aid of our protagonist. At least, that's what I was able to piece together in the final 30 minutes. Meanwhile, this world  is populated with a lot of fascinating entities, many of whom exist solely for the purpose of being pummeled into submission by Hellboy. His aforementioned near-invulnerability, truly showcased in the film's final, anticlimactic fight scene, robs the narrative (such as it is) of a substantial amount of dramatic tension. Well, I have high hopes for summer's Spider-Man 2.

 My rating:



Spider-Man 2 - (2004; approx. 127  mins.; reviewed 7/10/2004) Spider-Man was a terrific comic-book movie, in the vein of such classics as Batman (1989, of course) and Superman II (1980) [sorry, Superman, but even Jor-El would concede that the sequel far outshone the original in your case]. Some critics have panned certain elements of the film, although it was generally well regarded. Personally, I have to take issue with those who denigrate Willem Defoe's Green Goblin character as a mediocre or even poor villain. The characterization (which is, in some ways, not dissimilar to Molina's Octavius) of a driven man pushed over the brink of sanity was played with the energy that only an actor of Defoe's caliber can truly convey. Moreover, the other casting choices were brilliant, with the possible exception of Kirsten Dunst, whose faux red hair always reminds me in some small still corner of my brain that she's not really Mary Jane. Now that the first film did a marvelous job introducing the characters and their conflicts to us, Raimi, Maguire and crew pick up more or less where they left off in 2002. Peter Parker is still having trouble managing his personal life, Spider-Man is still saving lives, J. Jonah Jameson is still on a crusade against the Webslinger, and Mary Jane still is confused about Peter's feelings for her. The film shows how both Peter and May (once again played by a marvelous Rosemary Harris, who seems like everyone's favorite aunt and who has some of the film's best lines) are struggling to cope with the loss of Uncle Ben and how Harry Osborn is struggling to come to terms with the loss of his father and the knowledge that his friend Peter knows the person responsible for his death. In the second film, Peter/Spidey must battle physicist-turned-madman Dr. Otto Octavius a.k.a. "Doc Ock," who has inadvertently grafted four mechanical arms to his body. The story leaves several options open for possible sequels, although I won't spoil any secrets by discussing them here. More importantly, the plot is told with a genuine warmth and humor that truly overshadow the action sequences (of which there are plenty). This is a film sequel that exceeds the reach of its predecessor if only because the hero gets the girl in the end (okay, that was a spoiler). Comic-book readers will grin when they hear the line with which Mary Jane sends her man out to battle evil-doers: "Go get 'em, Tiger!" Amen to that.

 My rating: