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Dick
Sheppard
Return to Thunderdome
Movie Reviews |
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Academy
Award Retrospective:
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MORE REVIEWS |
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11
Movies to Own
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Love
and Sex
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Reservoir
Dogs
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Combat
Shock
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Valdez
Is Coming
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Pulp
Fiction
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Butch
Cassidy & the Sundance Kid
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Woodstock
(3 Days of Peace and Music)
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Harold
and Maude
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Raiders
of the Lost Arc
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Apoc0lapse
Now
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The
Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Click
here for the skinny on each Send
in your list
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Side-by-Side
Compare:
Cheaper By the Dozen
Versus Cold
Mountain
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I got the feeling Steve Martin was humoring
Hillary Duff, rolling his eyes in his mind when acting scenes with her.
Piper Perabo was the young actress you couldn't wait to see on screen in
this movie...[more] |
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Rant from the Archives:
Why
I Won't Be Going to See Charlie's Angels
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June,
2003: If
you missed it, way back in October of 2001, with anthrax alerts in the
air, Drew was hosting Saturday Night Live. And there was a report that
someone in the building had received a letter containing anthrax..
[more]
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Feature: |
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On
the Waterfront |
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“Marlon
Brando that bastard, stole my grandmother’s cat,” exclaimed my
buddy Jim as we exited his car in the parking lot in Hoboken, New
Jersey. You see on the site of this large white concrete multi-layered
lot once stood Jim’s grandfather’s bar, which was used in a few
scenes of “On the Waterfront.” His family lived upstairs from the
bar, and when a cat was needed for a scene between Eva Marie Saint’s
character Edie and her father Pop Doyle, Jim’s grandmother’s cat
was immediately cast for the role. [more] |
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Keanu Reeves:
The Worst Actor of All Time -- Not
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I just don't get what
makes up a good actor. People who study acting, or study films, or watch a
lot of movies, will tell you that Keanu Reeves is hand's down the worst
actor today. Hand's down. Everyone tells me this.
I
just don't get it. What makes a good actor? What makes Reeves so bad... [more]
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Dick Sheppard
Return to Thunderdome
Movie Reviews
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Always a
bit behind the schedule of movies just released,
Dick Sheppard nonetheless occasionally picks his
head up from reading a book and watches a movie on
TV; free broadcast TV. You can read his reviews
here. |
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Reviews:
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Crusing
"..red
bandana in your right rear pocket, you take it in the keester, in the left,
you're packing fudge.."
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Harlem Nights
"Possibly
the best ever line uttered in any movie was in Harlem Nights."
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Miss
‘ems:
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The
Watcher |
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Keanu
Reeves lethargically plays a psychotic strangler who taunts a
pill-popping, diabetic Chicago homicide detective (talk about a fucked
up dude) also played lethargically by James Spada. Mira Sorvino plays
Spada’s shrink. |
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This is
a forgettable movie, the only interesting twist to the story is that
the Keanu character sends Spada pictures of his victim days in advance
of killing them. This leads to unintentionally comic scenes whereby
the media frantically alerts the public to find the pictured potential
victim, or hopefully to have her find herself before the piano-wire
toting Keanu does. Naturally
this doesn’t happen and at least one ignorant dame gets the life
bloodily choked out of her. Mira Sorvino is wasted as the shrink, and
you don’t feel the least bit anxious when she’s tied up in a
warehouse, surrounded by flammables with Keanu threatening to light
the works. You are almost begging him to get his shit together long
enough to start the blaze for two reasons: 1) it’s the kind of movie
where you need something – anything – badly out of the ordinary to
happen; and 2) you like a good fire even if it means the fetching Mia
goes up in smoke.. |
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From
Russia with Love |
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James
Bond in Istanbul to steal a Russian coding machine, which in turn is
to be stolen from Bond by the evil SPECTRE organization. The SPECTRE
broad instead falls in love with Bond, helping to foil the plot.
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Funniest casting in the movie is a young
bleach-blonded Robert
Shaw (of later “Jaws” and “The Sting” fame) as the SPECTRE
assassin who gets his butt kicked (what else) by Bond during a
trainride brawl. Otherwise comparatively boring as a Bond flick, even
as only the second one made. The Nazi-ish SPECTRE uber-broad,
“Number 3” is a hoot as she tries to kill Bond with her
poison-dagger-tipped shoe. Let’s face it: plenty of dames would love
shoes like that and would use them with abandon on any and all guys in
range. |
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Watch
'ems: |
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Breaker
Morant
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Well-acted
period piece story about three Australian officers on trail for
ambiguous murders during England’s African Boer Wars in the
early 20th
Century. Plenty of
interesting British colonial atmosphere and colonial pomp,
excellent pacing, great English acting. |
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O
Brother Where Art Thou? |
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George
Clooney as the likable head of a band of Depression-era chain-gain
escapees who find Southern adventures good and bad.
Some of Clooney’s presence and scenes bring Gable to mind;
others are corny. |
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On balance, fun for all.
Some over-the-top stereotyping add to the hokey Southern
setting. Outstanding soundtrack. |
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Dr.
No
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The
very first of the incomparable James Bond films, from 1962.
Dashing supersecret -agent and precursor of the 60’s-style
“International Man” James Bond tracks an evil-doer into his
Caribbean lair.
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The usual car chases, broad encounters, and
over-the-top gadgetry make this first Bond picture the signature for
all that follow. Ursula Andress as the first “Bond girl” sets a
standard that might still be unmet. One of this reviewer’s best
movie scenes ever is when Bond, about to make his signature “shaken
dry” martini, finds his Smirnoff “red” vodka spiked; he casually
reaches into a draw and pulls out a bottle of Smirnoff Silver.
Smooth – classic Bond.
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Patriot
Games
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This
reviewer’s favorite Harrison Ford roles are as Tom Clancy’s
action-oriented CIA field man, Dr. Jack Ryan. Alec Baldwin had the
role in, “The Hunt for Red October,” but Ford defines it in this
excellent revenge-driven movie. |
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An angry Ryan stymies an IRA
kidnapping attempt on a Royal Family member and spends the rest of the
movie tracking down the bad guys before they get his family. James
Earl Jones is great as Ryan’s CIA boss; Sean Bean and Richard Harris
play strong in IRA roles.
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Clear
and Present Danger
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At
the request of the president, CIA man Jack Ryan winds up in the middle
of a deadly Colombian drug war. James Earl Jones makes another fine
appearance even though his character dies, and Willen DaFoe adds
intrigue as an enigmatic CIA field agent.
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Plenty of double-crossing
and shoot-ups, as Jack Ryan defies the odds and his President to bring
the “truth” to the American people. The scene in which Ryan
confronts the primo drug lord by knocking on his door and presenting
his CIA business card is classic Clancy and played strong by Ford.
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