croupier

this is one of the first movies to put clive owen on the map. its not a big movie, in fact its scale is very very small. it follows owen, a struggling writer, as he gets a job at a small casino in england as an operator of a roulette wheel. there are many rules for working in a casino, the film shows us, they must not fraternize with the customers or fellow workers, they must keep to themselves, they must be trustworthy. all of these things seem to fit the loner perfectly. or at least thats the way it seems at first. owen meets a customer who makes an impression and when he stumbles into her while out on a day off she strikes up a conversation which quickly leads to a relationship. this is not on accident. turns out she wants him to break his trustworthy code and play an important role in a planned casino heist. could this turn into a story for a book? his decision to find out takes him on a path he would have never thought that he would go on and leads him to make some bold choices in his life.

the film is very interesting as it is narrated by owen and we get to hear his inner monologue. he shares with the audience the structure and rules of the casino and his own life, but then talks of wanting to be a character in his own book and making decisions that he wouldnt make, but that his character might.

life as a house

the film follows chris kline, who plays an architect model builder, as he gets let go from his job and at the same time comes to find out that he has terminal cancer. now with his priorities back in line, he decides to finally build that house on the ocean that he has always put off. he forces his estranged teenage son to join him in building the house. as the movie progresses he begins to build his relationship with his son as the house is getting built. oh what a clever metaphor, huh? everything in this movie is about as heavy handed. kline does a great job and is very interesting as a man who has lost so much as he tries to rebuild himself with what time is left. here's the big problem with the movie though: the son is played by hayden christensen. he must have graduated from the ryan phillipie school of acting because he is about as natural an actor as a piece of plywood! what could have been a decent movie, if cliched, instead turns into a 'worlds worst actor' display of destruction that leaves every positive aspect of the movie destroyed because of christensen. i almost feel sorry now for george lucas who seemed to have gotten suckered into hiring this worthless actor to ruin star wars episodes 2 and 3!

modigliani

andy garcia plays the 1920's artist modigiani and his chaotic life and death. we join modigiani as he is a member of what seems to be an artistic community just jam packed with other famous artists. among them is pablo picasso, a man modigiani sees as a rival. as these artists try to out do each other, modigliani meets the girl of his dreams and starts a love affair with her. this go great at the beginning, but then alcohol gets the better of him. but by this time she is pregnant and he must make the right choices if he is to keep her. she also is facing the pressure from her family who hate him because he is jewish. the rivalry between the artists heats up as an art competition takes place pitting all of them against each other. who will win, picasso or modigliani? all of which leads to modigliani making some wrong decisions and a return to the bottle. the movie is pretty good, capturing the care free attitude of being an artist and the chaos of these men during this time period. garcia is perfect as modigliani, though he seems a bit old for the part. i did not care for the actor who played picasso, but that could be because i have always thought of picasso as being played by anthony hopkins. anyway, the movie brings an interesting view of the challenge of the artists' lifestyle compared to the responsibility of being a family man.

to walk with lions

this movie follows the real life story of george adamson, a man who went to live in africa and set up a lion reserve for lions that were to be set free from captivity. i guess there was already another movie about him called 'born free' and this is a sequel to that initial setting up of the reserve. in this film richard harris plays george and we join him as he has been living on the reserve taking care of dozens of different lions, trying to keep them safe from potential hunters and the like. at the beginning of the film we join a new recruit who has just arrived to be an assistant to adamson. as he begins to learn about the place adamson has set up, they begin to have a conflict with the local government who says they can no longer give him protection or grant him the land he has been using for all these years. the assistant tries to find an alternate place to keep the lions safe, but adamson is not interested. he has supported them here for this long and is not going to give up on this place now. the film, though it has admirable intentions, is not very good as a movie. the story of adamson is very compelling, but they obviously did not have much of a production budget. almost any time there is a lion on the screen it is stock footage cut to make it look like the lions are there with the actors. this becomes especially troublesome when they are supposed to be interacting in any way. also, we never really understand why adamson isnt willing to move the lions. it is apparent that the lions are in eminent danger by staying where they are, but adamson's bull headedness makes any other opportunities for their continued freedom impossible. its a great story, but the obvious budget problems along with the unexplained character motivations make this one a pass.

botched

yikes, what a crap fest. the story of this one is that a thief has been hired to go in to a wealthy man's penthouse loft and steal a valuable ancient cross. the heist goes as planned until they get to the elevator of the building. on the way down all hell breaks loose and the thiefs are stuck with a bunch of other people on one of the floors. i'm not entirely sure what happens next (and to be honest, i dont think the film makers do either...) because then there seems to be a seven foot tall vikking welding a broadsword that shows up and starts killing the different people on that floor of the building. there are traps set up and human sacrifices and arguing and heads being exploded by a mace. make sense? sure doesnt. and to top off all that unrelated nonsense, the whole thing looks like it costed about 40 bucks. with the music and opening credits, it looks like this is supposed to be a comedy, but i get the feeling that it wasnt originally, but due to such a crappy product, they changed it in the editing process from a bad movie to a bad movie thats trying to be funny. this one just looks like a poorly shot tv show from the 80's. avoid at all costs.

robinson crusoe

when i read this book in junior high i thought it would make such a cool movie! it would, but this one isnt it. the story is a familiar one, robinson crusoe finds himself shipwrecked and the only survivor on a desolate island. he recovers as much as he can from the ship and tries to do his best to stay alive. as the years go by he finds a local inhabitant who he calls friday. this particular adaptation of the book glosses over many of the parts of crusoe's story that i always found the most interesting: how did he manage those first days and months? this moive skips past much of that first inner turmoil of realizing that he is alone and must fend for himself. instead this film focuses on the religious aspect of crusoe and friday as they try to come to terms with their differing beliefs. crusoe is adamant that catholicism is the only way, but friday sticks by his local indigenous faith. the whole thing falls apart into the 'white man savior' idea very quickly as the two of them are attacked by a bunch of natives. the movie never quite recovers and just kind of peters out at the end. i will give them respect for one thing in the movie: they dont shy away from showing brosnan's magnificent chest hair!

true romance

this movie seems to hold a high place in cinema because it is written by quinten tarentino. that may be, but it is written poorly! the story starts with christian slater's character working at a comic book store. a woman comes in and hits it off with him and they have a whirlwind romance. we soon find out that the woman is actually a prostitute paid for by slater's boss because he thinks slater needs to get out more. the two of them are in love none the less, and now they need to find a way to get her away from her pimp. poor decisions are made by everyone in the movie, and theres a huge gunfight that ends with slater and his girl on the run. by the end of the film there are a bunch of different sides, the mob, the police, the pimp, and slater who have a grand showdown. since its tarentino, it must of course end in a blood bath. yes, tarentino does a great job with the interesting conversations his characters have along the way. but the big problem for me is that no one acts in a way that would be even remotely interpreted as rational. everyone in this thing does the exact opposite of what a logical human would do. because of that i did not care at all what happened to these people and when so many were left dead it was of no consequence.

chances are

this one is definitely from the 80's back when everyone was trying to make robert downey jr. 'happen'. it didnt quite work until about 25 years later, but you can see in this movie why he was given so many second chances. the film is pretty ridiculous, its about a happily married guy who dies and in heaven is sent back to earth (that whole reincarnation thing was big in movies back then i guess...) but they forgot to wipe his memories. twenty years later the reborn guy goes to meet the family of a girl he likes and just met. it turns out that the girl's mom is his wife from his last life! (kinda creepy that he made out with his own daughter, huh?) the wife, played by sybil shepherd has never moved on from her husband's death and now this kid is claiming to be him! she has a really hard time with it, as one would expect, and the family tries to deal with where to go from there. downey is good as the boy torn between what he knows and what he seems to remember, and they do a pretty good job of showing that conflict in both he and shepherd. there are a few funny bits to it and at times its even a little touching as we see the hope of a woman who never let go of the love she had that was taken away so suddenly.