Jason F.C. Clarke

When my friends suggested we go see Drop Dead Gorgeous, I
agreed only due to the fact that I had a gift certificate and therefore was not
actually paying to see the film. Unfortunately, the Theater Nazis said my gift
certificate could not be used on movies that just opened. Why this is a policy
is beyond me. I could go to the same film with the same certificate a week
later. Where’s the logic?

In any event, I realize that being so biased against a film
ill-suits a self-titled ‘reviewer.’ Therefore, I will assure the reader that I
had no innate bias against the film; I simply was looking more toward
seeing Inspector Gadget or Deep Blue Sea. 

Drop Dead Gorgeous was curiously similar to Election,
which came out earlier this year. Both are about competition, and both have
heroines with high aspirations and cutthroat tactics. But where Election
combined both the ambition and the ruthlessness into a single character, Drop
Dead Gorgeous divides it between Denise Richards’s spoiled rich girl and
Kirsten Dunst’s sweet girl next door.

The film is in the format of a documentary, which seemed to me
an odd choice for this film. The documentary is about an annual beauty pageant
in Mount Rose, a small town in Minnesota and apparently the ‘oldest beauty
pageant in America.’ The only entrants are members of the town, and the pageant
is run by former pageant winner Gladys Leeman (Kirstie Alley), whose own
daughter Becky (Richards) is in the pageant this year. Becky’s major rival is
Amber Atkins (Dunst) a poor trailer-park denizen whose mother Annette (Ellen
Barkin) can’t seem to stay away from the bottle (does it mean anything that I
saw the film two nights ago, yet had to go look up all the film names on IMDb?).

The old tradition of ‘bizarre quirky small-town behavior’ is in
full swing here, as Amber practices her tap dancing while working at her
after-school job, putting make-up on corpses at the local funeral
parlor.  Becky, on the other hand, just practices being pretty – and
using her handgun at the school gun club, where she’s vice-president. The
president is yet another pageant candidate, and when she is the victim of an
unfortunate tractor accident – it explodes – the film begins its main plot.
While it’s not difficult to figure out the culprit behind the quenched beauty
queens, there is more than enough for the audience to do in is figuring out who
the next victim will be.

While the performances are fine, none of them are particularly
outstanding. Kirstie Alley does fine as the fading beauty queen using her
daughter to fulfill her dreams, but she never truly rounds out the villainous
feel of the role. Richards has nothing to do in the film except look
disturbingly perfect and happy, though she ends up with one of the funniest (and
twisted) scenes in the film. 

The star is Dunst, who comes across endearingly as the ambitious
girl who seems too nice to push to achieve her dreams, but they end up being
fulfilled anyway. Dunst portrays Amber with as a sweet, intelligent and nice
girl who gets exactly what she deserves.

And so does everyone else. In fact, pretty much everyone in Drop
Dead Gorgeous ends up with what they deserve. It’s a refreshing film with a
refreshing (if naive) message – everything comes out in the wash. 

Deep Blue Sea is a JAWS rip-off. Of course, you
might be one to say that about any film with monster sharks eating humans – I
certainly would. But that’s because I’m a big JAWS fan. However, bias
aside, Deep Blue Sea is not shy about letting you know it’s a JAWS

rip-off. It not only acknowledges it, but it plays with it. And guess what? It
pays off in an entertaining, if not original, movie.

The film stars no one except Samuel L. Jackson, who plays a
millionaire entrepreneur financing the whole ‘cure Alzheimer’s disease with
shark brain goo’ project, and LL Cool J, who plays a chef/preacher/alcoholic.
The rest of the main characters are played by actors I’ve never heard of who do
an adequate job of being victims.

What this film will become famous for is the utterly surprising
killing of one of the main characters at a completely surprising moment. No
amount of preparedness can save you from the abrupt chomp on this poor
victim. 

There’s not much to say about the plot. Basically, scientist Susan
McAlester (Saffron Burrows) lost a relative to Alzheimer’s disease, so she
believes that she can cure it with some sort of chemical found in mako shark
brains. So off she goes into an underwater lab once used to build submarines,
with a fleet of computers and a tough-guy shark wrangler (Thomas Jane).
Unfortunately, to get enough liquid to do the job, McAlester had to increase the
brain mass of the shark by at least five times  – making for
super-intelligent sharks. Oddly enough, this also requires that the sharks get
nearly five times larger than your average mako shark.

Anyway, the usual Jurassic Park-style storm shows up,
knocking everything haywire just when the super-makos decide to rebel. Then, we
switch to Alien, with the sharks hunting the humans down the flooded
halls of the complex. Then it’s chomp chomp, chomp chomp, only a few survivors
are left. And lots of homages to JAWS sprinkled about.

As a thriller, however, the film works. The filmmakers get a lot
of mileage out of how hard it is to see a shark in when you’re on the surface
and it’s in the water (although when it’s a 20-foot shark in a 30-foot room, I
have a hard time believing you wouldn’t see it, but anyway). 

LL Cool J’s character is fun, and Jackson is his typical cool
self, but otherwise the actors are just there as fish food. But it’s fun to
watch them fight the sharks or, ultimately, lose the battle. Either way, there
are indeed thrills and chills here, it’s just that we’ve seen them before. 

My first taste of The Blair Witch Project came from Newsweek,

who ran a combined article on American Pie and Blair Witch. But
where American Pie was standard Hollywood fare – better than much that
comes out of Hollywood, but Hollywood fluff nonetheless – The Blair Witch
Project is one of the most frightening, elemental, and powerful films I have
ever seen.

First, I must provide the essential premise of the film, as it has
been shown all over the media:

In 1994, three student filmmakers vanished in the woods while
filming a documentary. A year later, their footage was found.

Those words adorn the very beginning of the film. From there on,
everything you see will be tainted by the realization that there can (probably)
be no happing ending to this footage. 

Once the film begins, we are entirely within the world of the
camera, much more tightly than we ever have been before. This is raw footage,
(seemingly) uncut, with a definite sense of someone on the other side of it. Due
to its format, The Blair Witch Project has a sense of realism almost
unheard of in modern cinema.

Back when movies were first made, black-and-white classics like Frankenstein
and Dracula, and especially the very early Nosferatu, were scary
to its audiences because cinema was so new. To those audiences, there was a
realism in seeing people moving on a screen, of seeing an unearthly white
vampire moving toward someone, that is unheard of in our postmodern, jaded
society. That’s why Blair Witch works; we all make films on our own
little videocameras, and they look just like what we see in Blair Witch.
So when the weird noises start in the woods, when the strange voodoo objects
appear, the effect is much more real than – oh, I don’t know, say a
computer-generated cherub opening its eyes and looking at you in the
multi-million dollar special effects extravaganza The Haunting, which
opened last week? 

While Blair Witch does ultimately become very scary, it is
mostly a ‘creepy’ scary, a sense of something being not quite right, of
impossible things actually occurring. The sense of realism is so strong that
innately, we find it hard to believe that these strange sounds and voodoo
objects are really there; such things don’t actually happen in real life.
And of course, in the back of our mind we know it’s simply a fictional motion
picture; regardless, the creepiness remains. There are also scary parts in the
tried and true tradition of modern horror, but they’re wisely spread out through
the film.

One caveat: as the above implies, if you’re going in hoping for
another Scream, don’t even bother going. Much of the film is devoted
simply to the teens being lost in the woods, and in fact, The Blair Witch
Project is almost as effective a dramatic film about being lost in the woods
as it is a horror film. Also, these are real kids out in the woods without a
script, and half the time they’re a lot funnier than their scripted blockbuster
counterparts.

The film will, of course, become a cult classic, sharing a place
with such preeminent horror as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the original Friday
the 13th, and The Evil Dead. As of right now (the weekend of July
30th), Blair Witch – which was bought by its distributor for $1 million

– has been making more per theater per day than it cost to make
($30,000-$60,000, I’m not sure of the exact figure). For a film shot entire with a standard video camera and a Super 8, I
would definitely label that an accomplishment.

In any event, The Blair Witch Project is a very frightening
film, but the key element is imagination. An unimaginative person would not be
scared of strange noises in the night; they’d assume it was an animal, or some
other easily explainable occurrence. But, to quote a character Thomas Harris’s
novel Red Dragon: ‘Fear comes with imagination, it’s the penalty, it’s
the price of imagination.’ When it comes to a film like The Blair Witch
Project, this is one of the truest statements ever made.

Arlington Road stars Jeff Bridges and Tim Robbins. Jeff
Bridges is the guy from Arachnophobia, not the guy from Dumb &

Dumber. That guy, who’s also in Gettysburg, is Jeff Daniels. I just
want to get that straight, because I spent half my time during this movie trying
to remember who was in Dumb & Dumber, since it clearly wasn’t Jeff
Bridges.

But on to the film. How is it? The answer is, pretty good. I admit
that this film suffered from what I call "Traileritis." That’s when
the trailer for the film basically gives away the entire plot. In case you
haven’t seen the trailer for the film, I won’t give away too much about the
plot.

Jeff Bridges is Michael Faraday, a university professor who
teaches a course in domestic terrorism. He’s the single father of Grant; his
wife, an FBI agent, was slain in a botched FBI raid. When the film opens, he is
living comfortably in suburban Virginia with Grant and his new girlfriend,
Brooke.

Thanks to a graphic and disturbing (but effective) opening scene,
Bridges meets his neighbors, Oliver Lang (Robbins) and his wife Cheryl (the
wonderfully quirky Joan Cusack). The screenwriter of this film seems to think
ordinary names are boring; how many other films can you name with an Oliver, a
Grant, a Brooke, and a Brady (Oliver’s son)?

Anyway, Faraday and Lang become fast friends. But then Faraday
mistakenly receives a piece of mail for Lang from a Pennsylvania University,
though Lang had told Faraday he had gone to college in Kansas (got that?).
Faraday becomes quite suspicious of this, without any clear reason other than
being paranoid. Faraday then begins his own investigation into his mysterious
neighbors.

I won’t go into too much more detail, other
than to say that Robbins does an excellent job at being both congenial and
chilling, and Bridges is convincing as a man consumed by his own paranoia.
Cusack, as Robbins’s loving wife, is even more chilling than Robbins, with her
easy smile and caring nature.

The ending is where the film falls apart. It’s
the kind of ending that forces you to rethink the entire plot of the film; and
while it explains a few seemingly implausible instances, it creates more than it
explains. Consider, can things like the outcome of a car crash be predictable?
Can you be sure that the driver won’t be killed? And if you want to clear
out a building, the obvious thing to do is to call in a bomb threat of your own.
Don’t call and claim that someone else is putting a bomb there;
call it in yourself! Like the scene in Die Hard: With a Vengeance where
Bruce Willis is trapped in traffic, so he sends out a report of an officer down
and then follows the ambulance.

The end of Arlington Road also places it into a certain
category for me. It’s abbreviated by TBGW. Once you’ve seen the movie, you may
be able to figure the acronym out; if not, feel free to send me an e-mail.
Anyway, this is a moderate thriller, with a few intense moments, but you can
definitely wait to rent it.

Disney has been somewhat in a slump the last few years with their films. They abandoned their traditional format of using fairy tales for their primary animated fodder after the Oscar-nominated Beauty and the Beast, and the result has been a series of hits and misses, from the botched Pocahontas to the hilarious Aladdin.

When Disney works from novels, such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame or The Woman Warrior (a book by Maxine Hong Kingston and the inspiration for Mulan), the filmmakers have to try and stuff the story into two hours. When they work from a fairy tale, they usually have to spread it out–and that’s where the room for their classic songs come from. What’s more, the songs make more sense in the fairy tale setting, whereas Victor Hugo certainly didn’t write any songs for The Hunchback (at least, not to my knowledge).

Tarzan is a film that is true to the Disney formula with the fun and adventure that was lacking Hunchback and Pocahontas. Phil Collins’ soundtrack is refreshingly subdued, and except for one clever and entertaining song (“Trash the Camp”), not a single note issues from the characters’ mouths.

Actually, there’s a distinct lack of dialogue in much of this film – but that’s not a bad thing necessarily. Tarzan is a part of the natural world, and as such he often communicates through movement rather than his voice. But what movement! This is one of the most energetic Disney films I’ve ever seen. Tarzan slips, slides and swings through the forest with dynamics that would be nearly impossible to capture in live action. Finally, a Disney film with animation that rivals their Japanese counterparts.

The plot is familiar–indeed, it’s embedded in Western cultural tradition. A Victorian family is stranded on a desert island; the parents are killed by a panther, and the boy is raised in the wild by gorillas, who name him Tarzan (voiced by Tony Goldwyn).

The animated film succeeds in many areas all the previous live-action films could not. Tarzan’s gorilla parents, the loving Kala (Glenn Close) and the belligerent Kerchak (Lance Henriksen, an unusual choice for Disney) could never have the same personality and humanity in a live-action film without segueing into comedy (see George of the Jungle). Close and Henriksen succeed in giving their characters depth. Goldwyn’s Tarzan has a deep, resonant voice, the kind that easily attracts Jane, played by Minnie Driver.

All in all, Tarzan is a visual feast. The African jungle has never looked more gorgeous, or more interesting as it speeds by you as Tarzan slides from branch to branch. The story is fun, the characters are interesting, and the plot, while predictable, plays itself out to a satisfying end.

American Pie is a funny movie. Let’s get that out of the way first. It’s very funny; it’s also quite risque. The sexually squeamish be warned: the infamous scene in There’s Something About Mary is taken to the next level here, with the offending bodily fluid being ingested. The film is brutally frank and, occasionally, truthful about teen sex in a way I found refreshing. While there is the obligatory aggrandizing of sexual activity, it’s touched by a curious amount of sentimentality and even sensitivity.

First, the comedy. It’s almost entirely based upon sex and its various effects upon teenagers. The most uproarious scenes have been predictably shown in the ads–namely, an encounter between one of the male teens and the title characters. There’s a lot of masturbation jokes, too, but I think that even parents can relate to one scene in which a father desperately tries his hardest to successfully have That Talk with his son.

The basic plot line revolves around four teens–Oz (Chris Klein), Jim (Jason Biggs), Kevin (Thomas Ann Nicholas) and Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas)–who make a pact to lose their virginity by the time they graduate, in three weeks. What’s interesting is the way the stories play out–there’s a subtext to the comic writing that’s not there in other comedies. One of the boys’ story is a romance; another a tragedy; another a comedy, and the last a sort of Modernist carthasis, though it doesn’t really become clear until the end.

The performances are good. Biggs’s Jim is an affable lug, and his scenes with his well-intentioned father are funny as well as endearing. Chris Klein, as Oz, essentially reprises his role from Election, but rather than being an entirely clueless jock, he falls for a choir girl and begins to question his place in the school dynamic. Tara Reid, as Nicholas’s girlfriend Vicky, deserves a lot of credit for successfully portraying the sexual pressure on girls in today’s teen world. Natasha Lyonne is also a treat as Vicky’s “experienced” friend.

Buffy: The Vampire Slayer fans beware: Alyson Hannigan (Buffy‘s Willow) does appear in the film (as band geek Michelle), but her part is quite brief. However, her role pays off in one of the funniest lines in the film, shortly before the end.

American Pie will doubtlessly go down as one of the Great American Teen Flicks, like Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Scream. It’s as enjoyable as, well, a good slice of pie.

It’s been an entire month since it opened. Well, about a month. Anyway, I now feel that I have digested this film enough to review it. Of course, by now it’s already become a part of pop culture–witness the denigration of Jar Jar Binks–as well as a part of Star Wars lore, so I’m probably not looking at it entirely objectively. But I’ll do my best. This review, unlike several of my others, will not be a pseudo-professional review–given my enthusiasm for the subject matter, though, that would be nearly impossible anyway. But I digress–on to the review!

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace is a (deep breath) good film. I will not lie; it is not a great film, nor is it anything like what I expected. That is both a good and a bad thing.

I was discussing this film with a friend online, and I believe I have hit upon the main dilemma that George Lucas faced and, ultimately, failed in solving. Lucas wanted to create a film for both the core group of Star Wars fans and the mass-market audience. Thus, he ends up pandering to both. Jar Jar Binks is not just in there for kids; he’s there to make the women who came with their obsessed boyfriends laugh. And I have first-hand evidence–a friend or two of mine–that he did his job, in that respect. The “Jar Jar Must Die”-style websites are the creation of diehard Star Wars fans, embittered by this shameless creation.

Jar Jar Binks was entirely computer-generated. This could have been an excellent opportunity to show how a realistic CGI character could take the leading role in a film–IF JJB had been cool. But he is decidely not so. However, he is at times amusing. Even I will admit that. This may actually be a greater achievement than a bad-ass CGI character.

But allow me to lay JJB aside. He is just one part of the problem. You’ve also got the stuff for the core group which the mass-market knows nothing about–for instance, the fact that Senator Palpatine becomes the Emperor of Return of the Jedi. Lines like “We’ll watch your career with great interest” (spoken by Palpatine to young Anakin Skywalker, the future Darth Vader) fall entirely flat on the ears of anyone who hasn’t seen the previous trilogy. In that respect, this is almost definitely a film that must be watched after viewing the original trilogy.

But enough–down to the nitty gritty. The characters are not particularly well-developed; only Neeson’s Jedi Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, is given any kind of backstory–and that’s because he dies at the end of the film (I warned you there’d be spoilers!). This is Lucas’s only chance for characterization; Ben Kenobi, Queen Amidala, Senator Palpatine and, most importantly, Anakin Skywalker will be developed over the next few films. Luke, Leia and Han were similarly underdeveloped in the original film; only Ben Kenobi was given any characterization (Peter Cushing embedded some in Tarkin with his acting alone, but that’s somewhat different).

Now, the acting. Neeson does fine in most scenes, especially when acting with Ewan McGregor; however, if he’s ever in a film with CGI characters again, he’s going to need to work on his imagination. He never feels like he actually sees Jar Jar Binks. Ewan McGregor, on the other hand, does a marvelous job with Jar Jar, as does Natalie Portman. Portman’s performance is also wonderful, and seeing a young actor like her do so well makes Jake Lloyd’s acting seem even worse. I really, really hate to pick on a kid at all, but I simply wasn’t impressed with Lloyd’s performance in this movie.

However, all the actors–including Neeson–are upstaged by Ian McDarmid as the sinister Senator Palpatine. Darth Sidious aside, McDarmid seamlessly enters the science fiction world of Star Wars, and seems perfectly comfortable in his role. He’s devious, scheming and insincere–just as his character should be. He’s a pleasure to watch.

The plot: mediocre at best. Who is this Trade Federation? I’ve never heard the like mentioned in all of the Star Wars mythos. In terms of the Star Wars mythos as a hole, this film’s plot has no real significant elements except the fact that Queen Amidala and Anakin Skywalker meet, and Senator Palpatine becomes the Supreme Chancellor. The Gungans? Never heard of ’em in the original trilogy. Darth Sidious? Pretty obvious he’s just the Emperor. Darth Maul? Dead, dead, dead.

The effects, of course, are astounding. However, I’ve reached the point where I’m a bit jaded with computer graphics. This film, with a computer-generated aspect in almost every shot, actually rings a bit false to me. In the original films, those deserts, those arctic places, even those forests–none of it was CGI, and we got to see lots of it, close-up. Naboo looks gorgeous–in the CGI long-shots. But we never get a real good look at the landscape. And as good as the effects are, I can still tell that JJB, the battle droids and most of the pod-racing aliens are CGI.

I have to admit, this review isn’t as in-depth as I’d like to be, and it’s also a little more negative than I might have written. I may revise it at a future date, maybe after I see it again, because it’s been a while. In any event, it is a Star Wars film, and it’s still a lot of fun.

If anyone strongly disagrees with this review or any other review on this site, feel free to write in your own–I’ll post it under the same review.

I planned to read A Midsummer Night’s Dream before I saw this film. Unfortunately, I got busy and was unable to do so. However, the plot is simplistic enough that one can tell where the film was taking risks or toying with Shakespeare’s play (though some would say that these are one and the same).

At any rate, the creators chose to set this adaptation in late 18th-century Italy–apparently just so the characters could ride bicycles. While the locations, including a castle and the Italian countryside, are often gorgeous, the majority of the film takes place in a grove that looks like it was left over from a 40’s Tarzan film. This grove is also dark and dank, and overall a rather uninteresting place to set a film. But that’s more a limitation of the script than the filmmaker’s vision.

The plot centers around four lovers. Demetrius (Christian Bale) wants to marry Hermia (Anna Friel) but she loves Lysander (Dominic West). But her father approves of Demetrius and not Lysander, so she is given the choice to marry Demetrius or die. Complicating matters is Helena (Calista Flockhart), who is infatuated with Demetrius and thus annoys him to no end. Hermia and Lysander decide to run away, and tell Helena their plan; Helena then tells Demetrius in hopes that he will abandon the hopeless Hermia and love her instead.

The four of them end up in this mystic grove, where Oberon (Rupert Everett) and his wife Titania (Michelle Pfeiffer) have apparently been hanging out since Roman times. Oberon, angry with his wife over the custody of their child, comes up with a concoction to make Titania fall in love with the first thing she sees–which turns out to be Nick Bottom (Kevin Kline), an aspiring actor turned into a half-donkey half-man creature by an amused Puck, a satyr and aid to Oberon, the latter of whom also decides to try and rectify the situation with the four lovers by sending the oft-confused Puck (you can just imagine the chaos that creates). Got all that?

For what is supposed to be a comedy focusing on the trials and tribulations of the four lovers, the biggest laughs in Midsummer come after the young’uns’ problems have been solved, when they’re at a play passing the time before they can all go to bed and make love. Nick Bottom, cured of his ass-ness, and his fellow actors put on a performance of Pyramus and Thisbe that is awesome in its amateurism.

With the exception of Kline, who gives a certain kind of romantic wistfulness to his Nick, and Pfeiffer, whose Titania has one excellent scene (the one in which she is introduced), none of the actors provide a particularly impressive performance. Of greatest interest is, of course, Calista Flockhart of Ally McBeal fame. Her performance as Helena is one of the better in the film, but still rather dull, in a very not-quite-ready-for-film manner. A pleasant surprise is found in Max Wright, best known for his work on the 80’s sitcom ALF. Wright plays a wry member of Bottom’s acting troop whose cigarette is in his mouth so often that at one point he pulls it out to repeat a line.

While the film is at times fun and definitely a good date film, it’s not much more than that. It’s a light bit of fluff, but perhaps that’s the way the Bard intended his comedies to be.

Like the original film, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me is a fun romp that mocks 60’s pop culture and Bond films. While it recycles quite a few jokes from the original, there’s enough new material here–and enough fun in seeing the familiar characters–that Spy lives up to its only claim–to be not bigger, not better, but funnier than Star Wars: The Phantom Menace…and in some ways, more fun.

The story once again pits Austin (Mike Myers) against his arch-nemesis, the indefinably accented Dr. Evil (also Myers). After a ridiculous but amusing plot twist to rid Austin of his new bride, Vanessa (Elizabeth Hurley, in a game cameo), Austin is back on the case, this time tracking Dr. Evil back to 1969, where he has gone to swipe the frozen Austin’s “mojo” and thus render him powerless.

While the loss of his mojo doesn’t seem to affect Austin much (there’s really only one scene in which his lack of mojo figures prominently), he still has his hands full tracking down Dr. Evil, who’s residing in his “hollowed-out volcano.” Luckily CIA agent Felicity Shagwell (Heather Graham) is there to assist him. While Graham does a competent job as Austin’s sidekick (her intelligence upstages Austin’s, in the same way Penny on Inspector Gadget was the real reason Gadget always succeeded), she doesn’t mesh with Myers as well as Hurley did–and her American accent seems strangely out-of-place.

However, there are several new characters to spice things up. Before leaving the 90’s, Dr. Evil has himself cloned–but the clone is a mere 1/8 his size. He dubs this creation “Mini-Me” (Verne Troyer). A hilarious dwarf that gives off, as Dr. Evil puts it, “creepy Oompa-Loompa vibes,” Mini-Me is much funnier than the disgusting Fat Bastard (Myers yet again), a Scottish double-agent for Dr. Evil that weighs “a metric ton.” While Mini-Me’s vicious nature and flat-out creepiness, combined with Dr. Evil’s fatherly affection for the little monster, makes for some of the film’s best laughs, the toilet humor surrounding Fat Bastard is utterly sickening. Watch out for the “coffee scene.” There’s no need for it.

The film’s best laughs come from a wonderful scene, of a type not found in the first one, when Austin and Felicity are caught in a compromising silhouette. No, it’s not what you’re thinking–it’s much funnier than that. Other amusing scenes include Dr. Evil’s rendition of Will Smith’s “Just the Two of Us” to his precious tiny clone and Dr. Evil’s reaction to a sip of Austin’s mojo.

There are a few problems in the film. The most obvious is the lack of the fish-out-of-water theme from the first film; once Austin’s back in the 60’s, the film begins to drag a bit. There’s also too much of Dr. Evil–he definitely has more screen time than Austin, unlike the original film. This is unfortunate; a little Dr. Evil goes a long way. However, since Dr. Evil is vastly funnier and more interesting than Austin, his overuse is forgiveable.

The aforementioned toilet humor does go overboard too often. But it’s made up for by scenes like the silhouette.

Overall, the film is about as funny as the first one–it recycles some old jokes, but makes up for them with new ones. While the fish-out-of-water theme is lacking, the switch to a focus on Dr. Evil–it could almost be called “Dr. Evil: The Spy Who Came After Me”–creates some balance. But most importantly, it’s fun.

I have to admit, I’ve been a fan of Drew Barrymore since Poison Ivy. This is a slightly
naughty film that also stars Roseanne’s Sarah Gilbert and Tom Skerrit, whom I’m not a big fan of. Anyway, the film stars Barrymore as a Lolita-like teen hired to help around the house when Skerrit’s wife gets sick or is in an accident or something. Anyway, you know how it goes, one thing leads to another and Skerrit and Barrymore, to quote my friend Michael Mazzilli, “get it on.” The wife kills herself, Gilbert’s character catches her dad and Ivy in bed and is understandably screwed up by this, and the whole thing is tragic, etc. etc. Anyway, this movie made me a fan of Barrymore. Perhaps for the wrong reasons. Hmm. Anyway…I really became a fan of Drew Barrymore after The Wedding Singer. This is a sweet little movie starring Barrymore and Adam Sandler as two lovebirds destined for each other, despite the usual 2-dimensional villainous love interests. Barrymore has, as Jay Carr of the Boston Globe wonderfully put it (paraphrasing Dreiser, I think), a “face that inspires yearning.” She makes you want to make everything perfect for her, to give her whatever she wants. She’s adorable.

Barrymore plays this role to a tee in her newest film, Never Been Kissed. It’s a sweet movie focused around high school, a genre that has been pushed by Hollywood lately (see my review of Election).

In Kissed, Barrymore plays a reporter, Josie, who works for the Chicago Sun-Times. In the breakthrough assignment of her career, Josie is sent undercover to a high school for a human interest story. Of course, Josie, who was at the top of her class at Northwestern, was not exactly the most popular student at her high school–a fact which is related through a series of heartbreaking flashbacks. Josie seems headed for disaster during her undercover assignment, failing so miserably to infiltrate the “popular” clique that she is mistaken for a Special Ed student. Enter David Arquette as Josie’s brother Rob, a 23-year-old wash-out looking for one last chance at making it into minor league baseball by going back to high school and joining the team. Of course, he becomes popular in a single day, and uses that popularity to make Josie into a high school star.

Barrymore plays the insecure Josie with a perfect blend of intellectual confidence and social ineptitude. As she becomes more and more mired in the culture of the popular clique, we see her fight against it inwardly, remembering the smart, slightly geeky girl who first befriended her (played by the wonderful Leelee Sobieski). Of course, there’s a love interest as well–Sam Coulson, Josie’s Shakespeare teacher, played by Michael Vartan, whose job it is to basically stand around and look attractive.

There are a few misfires in the film. The flashbacks to Josie’s high school experience occasionally ring false with their viciousness–particularly the scene in which she waits for her prom date. The way that Vartan’s Coulson flirts with Josie seems so improper that I almost want to agree with her boss when he tells her that Coulson’s scandalous behavior should be her story. And finally, there’s the rather implausible final scene, which I won’t ruin for the reader; I’ll refer to it as Roger Ebert did, as the “5-minute wait.”

The one amusing, if rather cheap, scene is the one in which Coulson’s girlfriend is introduced. I’ve never seen the “other man/woman” character be introduced and revealed in all their evil 2-dimensionality so quickly. Even Billy Zane’s character in Titanic had a few minutes before he became totally evil. It’s a nice counterpart, however, to Barrymore’s similarly shallow boyfriend in The Wedding Singer.

Overall, Never Been Kissed is a charming, entertaining crossover between the high school coming-of-age film and the romantic comedy. It doesn’t break any new ground, but it doesn’t do anything too wrong, either. While I don’t recommend it for those who are troubled by scenes of extreme embarassment–I cringed through half this film–it’s still a nice film for a date on a Saturday night.