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Oliver Stone is back into speculation in his latest film. This film biography of President Richard Nixon (Sir Anthony Hopkins), follows Nixon through some of his most trying years. Included is his famous 1960 debate with Kennedy, his election campaign of 1968 and the Watergate scandal that eventually led to Nixon resigning. Hopkins is fantastic as Nixon. Even though he doesn't look or sound like Nixon, he still does Nixon's gestures and speech patterns excellently, including that smile that Nixon seemed to turn on with the simple push of a button.Many of the supporting cast is excellent too. James Woods as sleazy White House chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman and Paul Sorvino as famed presidential assistant Henry Kissinger, come off best of the supporting cast. Joan Allen, however, as Pat Nixon, is miscast. She didn't act, look or speak like the ex-first lady. At least Hopkins succeeded at some of those things. This is very interesting and entertaining, though the information in the film is not always factual. There are plenty of scenes where you can tell it's just speculation. For all we know, these could be complete bullshit. Stone also, like always, has a tendency to overblow his film subjects. Yet, despite these flaws, the film comes off well and at times, is very sympathetic towards Nixon.
People say Hopkins deserves an Oscar nomination for this film. In this, I have to agree. He was the greatest thing about the film. I can't say the film altogether is great, but it's good enough to get a few other nominations, like the wonderful cinematography, from Stone's frequent cameraman Robert Richardson. Stone possibly could get a nomination, but don't hold your breath.
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This is surely one of the best movies of 1995, and certainly one of the most suspenseful, The Usual Suspects is about five criminals, who meet in a line-up and decide to start pulling off heists together. However, they get involved with a crimelord named Keyser Soze. The gang is forced by Soze's minions to become part of Soze's underworld. Eventually, it leads to a shoot-out between Soze's reluctant gang and a rival gang, on a cargo ship.This all happens in flashback, with a detective (Chazz Palminteri) trying to piece together who Keyser Soze is, with the help of the survivor of the reluctant gang, a crippled coward (Kevin Spacey). This film has a well-kept secret of who Soze is, and I'm certainly not going to reveal who he is. It's probably one of the best-kept secrets since The Crying Game. The acting is excellent, including Gabriel Byrne (Cool World) and Stephen Baldwin (Threesome), the most talented of the Baldwin brothers. Great direction and a compelling screenplay make this one of the best films I've ever seen in my entire life.
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This film contains four stories from differant directors, and centers around a bellhop named Ted (Reservoir Dogs) and some of the strange characters he meets at his hotel, on New Year's Eve. The movie starts off with a piece by Allison Anders (Gas Food Lodging), which is probably the worst of the bunch. A strained comedy about a coven of witches (led by Valeria Golino and Madonna) trying to release their leader from a curse. However...the witches need one vital ingredient. To get it though, the witch assigned to get the ingredient (Ione Skye) has to make love to Roth. With a lot of bad sex jokes thrown around, this episode is surprisingly sexist for a film directed by a woman.The goods come in the middle with the next two. Alexandre Rockwell (In The Soup) directs a hilarious piece, in which Roth is forced to play out a sex drama with the bound-and-gagged wife (Jennifer Beals) of a deranged bisexual (David Proval). Robert Rodriguez's (Desperado) tale is the best one. A sidesplittingly funny story, where Roth is supposed to watch over a couple of misbehaving children. The children do all types of stuff. Smoking, drinking, setting the room on fire, stabbing a needle in Roth's leg and finding a dead woman under their bed. This episode goes way over the line of good taste. My type of movie.
Finally, we get to Quentin Tarantino's tale. I was hoping for this one to be a great ending to the film. Unfortunately, even great directors produce some duds. This is not the worst of the bunch, but it certainly isn't the best. In this one, Roth is asked to settle a strange bet between two Hollywood big-shots (Tarantino and Bruce Willis). This one is mostly talk, talk, talk and no action, until the end. By the way. Tarantino has got to stay out of his films! All the segments should have been directed by the same director, like Night On Earth. Despite this though, it's still a cool film.
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An okay comedy, that gets more than a little idiotic after a while. Ice Cube plays a young man in the 'hood, who's unemployed and is spending his Friday trying to find two hundred bucks to save him and his friend's life from a big-time drug dealer. In the meantime, he has to contend with his family and odd assortment of neighbors.This comedy isn't for all tastes. To me, it's not a very funny comedy. There are some funny moments (hilariously provided by comedian Chris Tucker), but not much else. Ice Cube is a better dramatic actor than he is a comic actor. The movie also reinforces some of the stereotypes that have come out in the 1990's. The only really good reason you should see it is for Tucker's performance as Ice Cube's dope-smoking friend, Smokey. He makes the movie.
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