Z/Web

Author: Bob Gale

Director: Bob Gale

I don’t know what I expected with this film, but I certainly got more than I bargained for. It’s an amazing movie. It reminded me a lot of The Princess Bride — not for the setting or plot, but in tone. That’s a film with a seemingly straightforward story suddenly veers out of line and goes off on wild, surreal tangents, just like this one. The “plot” is about a young man trying to find himself. He’s 22 and his attorney father is pressuring him to go to law school, but he’s not sure what he wants to do with his life. When his birthday wish is granted, he ends up on Interstate 60 — a highway that doesn’t exist. Along this road he meets fascinating characters and visits strange towns. There’s a town where drugs are legal and another where everyone is a lawyer and lawsuits are as common as breathing (as a matter of fact, breathing will probably get you sued for using someone else’s air). This is bizarre, quirky, and magically brilliant. There’s humor, drama, and deep thought. It’s the kind of film you could watch multiple times and see new things each time. The cast is fantastic, with short pieces involving Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Kurt Russell, Ann-Margret, and more. The main characters of James Marsden and Gary Oldman are excellent. One of my favorite scenes involves the awesome Chris Cooper, who plays a terminally ill man determined to stop all dishonesty. When he sees a homeless guy with a “will work for food” sign, he tries to trade an apple for a windshield cleaning, but the bum doesn’t actually want food, of course. He just wants a handout. The resulting clash is hilarious! Another great scene is in a diner when a guy with a bottomless stomach appears. He eats enough for ten people and is still hungry. It turns out that he was also granted a wish many years earlier, a wish to be able to eat as much as he wanted, and now he has to eat unbelievable amounts of food but stays hungry. The moral, of course, being that you should be careful what you wish for. (Really that’s a theme of the whole film.) Now I don’t want to give the impression that this is like the greatest movie ever, but it’s charming, surprisingly deep and complex, has a lot of humor, great performances, and a number of classic plot twists that are just awesome. It’s a little long at two hours and it’s uneven in a few places, but once you get started, it will hook you in and you can’t stop watching (it gets better as it goes along). You just have to see what weirder thing is coming next. Excellent.

Very strange, badly promoted film. The terrible title turned me off when this was in the theatres, but the genre surprised me even more when it turned out to be a comedic horror flick! In that light, it’s actually pretty good, bizarre and funny. The concept is great: Elvis Presley is still alive and in a retirement home in Texas. He apparently exchanged lives with a top Elvis impersonator and it was that man who died. Of course no one believes this old guy is the “real” Elvis: they think he’s the impersonator who fell off a stage and broke his hip. Anyway, that’s just the setting of the story, which deals with a strange Eqyptian undead monster that comes into the old folks home at night and robs people of their souls. Elvis and his pal (who’s delusional) set out to stop the monster. It’s silly, funny, and terrific, but the title still sucks.

Director: Michael Mann

This film came out of nowhere — I saw not a single preview and barely heard about it, so I wasn’t at all sure it was any good. To my surprise, it was great! Tom Cruise plays a cool bad guy, one of the most ruthless hit men ever portrayed on screen. Jamie Foxx, usually reduced to comical idiot roles, plays straight here, as a taxi driver Cruise uses to drive him around to various kill sites in one night. The performances of both are great, which is good, because they take up most of the screen time. The characterization of the taxi driver is deep, and while we don’t learn as much about Tom’s character, we do learn some background that explains a little of his career choice. The plot is excellent, as against his wishes the innocent taxi driver is given more and more responsibility to help the hit man. The climax is great when the shy, reserved taxi driver finally takes action and tries to stop the hit man, and the two square off in a gun battle. It’s an excellent film. Lots of cool action, a non-stop pace, deep characters, and a satisfying ending.

This movie gave me pretty much what I expected, a fun actioner pitting Alien against Predator with humans in the middle getting killed by whichever monster happens to be in their path. The beginning’s weak as the film struggles to concoct a “plausible” scenario for getting the two creatures into the same place at the same time. It’s ridiculous and irrelevent: just get the humans in a remote place with the creatures and watch the blood splatter. Once the killing starts, it doesn’t stop, and the film’s pretty good. I liked the ending a lot — it’s a clever way to kill the monster — and the human heroine is cool. I heard some reviewers don’t think this was as fun or as good as