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Jim Carrey has finally rebounded from the disaster of The Cable Guy. Carrey plays a lawyer, who constantly lies and makes promises he never intends to keep. This habit is drawing him further away from his young son. One day, he lies about being delayed from coming to his son's birthday party. So, as a birthday wish, his son asks that his father go one whole day without telling a single lie. Even the small little white lies!! That's when the movie really gets going!For 24 hours, Carrey cannot get a single lie to come out of his throat. Because of this inability to fabricate, some major problems crop up at his job. It gets even worse, since he's defending a client (Jennifer Tilly) who is trying to sue her millionaire husband in order to gain a load of money. Problem is Tilly's a little shady herself, so normally Carrey would try and lie his way around such details. Not today however!
Carrey's usual rubber-faced antics are used to perfection here. They work mainly due to the fact that he uses such talents, only when it is needed for the plot. Take for instance the scene in which Carrey attempts to will himself to lie about a pen being red, when it is actually royal blue. The results are sidesplitting and that scene alone reminds us of why Carrey is a great comic talent. The movie does go a little overboard from time to time (but would it be a Carrey film if it didn't), and there is still the usual problem of Carrey having no solid supporting characters in his films. But most of the time, this film is a load of fun.
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One of the least successful film versions of the Biblical life of Jesus Christ (Max Von Sydow), the story follows Jesus through some of the great events of his life: The sermon on the Mount; the resurrection of Lazarus; the crucifixion, etc. He gathers his Apostles, one who (Judas Iscariot) will eventually betray him. The film devotes much of its time to agonizingly slow scenes, involving Jesus' sermons and miracles. What makes this a relatively good film is the great production design, beautiful score, some well-dramatized moments and an excellent performance by Von Sydow in the lead. Eventually however, due to the various cameo appearances throughout the film, it becomes a game of "spot-the-star". This becomes distracting after awhile. Still, if you are into religious fairy tales, then you should enjoy it all the way.Note: For a better picture about the life of Jesus, see Martin Scorsese's controversial The Last Temptation of Christ, which features an extremely different interpretation of the famed bible story.
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An excellent production from the master of the grand epic, Cecil B. De Mille! This story follows the life of Moses (Charlton Heston), from his time as a son of Egypt to the time when he led the Hebrews out of Egypt. It takes some time for Moses to form the Exodus, mainly due to the fact that the Pharaoh Rameses' (Yul Brynner) heart becomes hardened by his wife, Nefretiri (Anne Baxter), a former lover of Moses during his days in Egypt.What makes this good is the towering productions and performances, all held together by De Mille's skillful directorial touch. Some pretty good special effects help a bit. My favorite moment: The parting of the Red Sea, which is visually stunning. There are some dated elements to the characters' actions, but most of the time the cast (impressively lead by Heston) comes off smashingly. I'm not one who is particularly interested in biblical stories, or at least not much of a believer in them. I see such stories mostly as just another form of fairy tale, with religious mysticism and mumbo-jumbo thrown into the mix. So indeed, it is a strange feat how this particular tale manages to suck me in.
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Barry Levinson's wonderful directorial debut follows six friends in 1959 Baltimore, who meet at the local diner and contemplate about life from their childish perspective. Among the various characters, there is Boogie (Mickey Rourke), who owes a large amount of money to a local loan shark, but spends most of his time trying to bed girls in typical post-adolescent fashion. Shrevie (Daniel Stern) is the only married one of the bunch, who despite being married, still has an immature view on marriage. One particularly funny scene involves a fight between him and his wife (Ellen Barkin), when he finds she misplaced a record in his collection. He's the type of person that organizes them in a confusingly orderly system (labeled by year, type of music, alphabetically, etc.), which drives the people around him, who just want to listen to the damn music, crazy.Levinson recreated the era of the feel-good 50's to perfection, with an appropriate soundtrack and fresh performances from a time when Rourke, Stern, Kevin Bacon, Paul Reiser and Steve Guttenberg were young, wet-behind-the-ears actors. Part of the credit should also go to Levinson's script and his knack for creating and inventing realistic dialogue. By the way, this is part of what fans of Levinson like to call his "Baltimore trilogy". So if you wish, you should probably also rent Tin Men and Avalon to go with Diner.
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Macauley Culkin sunk to a real low point in his career, when he made this heartless, relentlessly nasty film. Culkin stars as a real bad seed, who attempts to drag his cousin (Elijah Wood) into his dark, sadistic world. In the course of 90 minutes, Culkin attempts to drown his sister, drop his cousin off from a high tree, cause a major freeway accident, kill a dog and push his mother off the top of a high cliff (which is rather conveniently placed not 10 yards from the family homestead).It's disheartening to see such a major star miscast so badly, in a role that requires a lot of different emotions. Instead, Culkin, even when he's hurting people and causing mayhem, still tries to pull off that "look-at-the-cute-little-rich-kid" routine he does in every other picture he's been in. Wood, in the secondary role, easily steals the spotlight from Culkin. Most child actors rarely become great adult actors (with the definite exception of Jodie Foster). However, Wood has a much better chance than Culkin ever had (especially now with all the turmoil in Culkin's once-private life).
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A comedy which gives new meaning to the term "brain dead"! MTV phenom Pauly Shore and Sean Astin star as two geeky teens, who thaw out a caveman (Brendan Fraser) and help integrate him into 1990's teenage Southern California life. From time to time however, Shore (despite his third billing) attempts to steal the spotlight constantly from the co-stars.Shore has gotten most of his stardom from his obnoxious surfer-dude language, which isn't all THAT different from Bill & Ted, Wayne & Garth, Cher from Clueless or Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Astin's role is unlikable and the rest of the characters are just stupid and unappealing. Fraser easily steals the picture from his limp co-stars, combining prehistoric antics with modern day ones.
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A stunning picture from former cinematographer Nicholas Roeg (who also did the breathtaking visuals for this one). The adventure story takes place in the Australian outback, where a teenage girl (Jenny Agutter) and her little brother (Lucien John) attempt to make their way through the scorching desert. They are helped by an aborigine boy (David Gulpilil), who has been sent by his people out into the wilderness, in order to learn how to survive on his own and become a man (a process known as a "walkabout", hence the title of this picture). Agutter and John learn how to survive just as skillfully and become slightly seduced by the call of the wild.The desert does indeed seem more seductive in this picture, than the scenes of banal existence in the civilized world. Three impressive performances, an enchanting story and an amazing adventure that puts most Hollywood material to shame.
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