Momma's Past Picks 'n Pans 
 |  Starring: Antonio Banderas, Diane Venora, Omar Sharif, Dennis Storhoi, & Sven Wollter. Based on Michael Crichton's book "Eaters of the Dead"... Ibn Fadlan ( Antonio Banderas), an Arab emissary in the year AD 922, finds himself in the company of a band of bawdy Vikings Joining their campaign to save a nordic village from a deadly band of mysterious evil attackers...Let the games begin! Finally! After sitting on a shelf for over a year, Disney released The 13th Warrior, although they did so with almost no fanfare, build up or hype. Fact is, it's not even playing on many screens. After enduring all these last few months filled with the Star Wars, Austin Powers, Wild Wild West, Eyes Wide Shut non stop marathon movie hype resulting in a long string of high priced boring lackluster films, I really needed more movie good times. ... 'n this one gave me a very good time! What a delight to just go and enjoy some mindless movie pleasure. This is a fun adventure film beautifully shot with a great looking bunch of engaging vikings, wonderful costuming, set design, great action sequences, real Arabian horses, and ANTONIO! WHOOHAW... he is certainly delicious! Many "legit" critics have trashed this film as being filled with cliches and plot holes, two dimensional... yada yada yada. I say nay! For myself and Da Hunk we thought although, not a grand epic, the movie was exhilarating, cinematic, and, more importantly, simply entertaining! It was a solid four bagger with the fifth bag added automatically for the Antonio Factor.
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 |  Finally the long period of bad movies has ended! These last few months have certainly produced alot of high priced stinkers! Runaway Bride directed by Garry Marshall and starring Julia Roberts, Richard Gere, Joan Cusack, Hector Elizondo, & Rita Wilson saved us from yet another dull disappointment. Yeah, it's cornball and illogical at times, but the chemistry between Julia and Richard made up for the plot holes and made for a good time. There are some real funny one liners sprinkled throughout that will even have you laughing out loud. Frankly this comedic script was in fact better in regards to relationships than in the whole over-the-top-this-is-serious Eyes Wide Shut debacle. Surprisingly Richard Gere was even animated and appeared to be having fun for a change and what can I say about Julia other than that dang smile sure does light up the screen! This film didn't have that extra special magic of some of my previous favorite romantic comedies, but at least this time out, my teeth weren't clenched and I had a good time at the movies for a change. Fact is Da Hunk liked it better than I! All those years of dragging him off to warm fuzzy movies has sure payed off. Ain't love grand?
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 Beware! This time the Emperor Kubrick is definately naked! I went [opening day last week]... I saw [unfortunately with eyes and ears wide open]... I try to forget! [Yes! It was that bad and will forever remain on my worst-movie-ever-seen list!] Fact is, the film was such an over-the-top-stinker, I don't even want to recall the dirty details to give you a complete review. So if you really want to feel my pain, visit Mr.Showbiz, the one critic who actually saw the same film that The Hunk & I suffered through... "... narratively and thematically, Eyes Wide Shut is something of a laughable disaster: an agonizingly long, perversely dull, childishly conceived fantasia on marital sexual angst that could only have been made by someone (like Kubrick) fully basted in their own indulgent megalomania and cut off from normal channels of human contact"... Mr. Showbiz |
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Arlington Road directed by Mark Pellington, is one of those films you're either gonna love or hate with no in between and Lordie it sure didn't work for me! So how can a movie with Tim Robbins, Jeff Bridges, and Joan Cusack not be great? Simply combine fabulous actors (like below with Instinct) with a totally illogical story! The film starts off with a great opening sequence only to segue into 110 S-L-O-O-O-O-W, S-L-U-G-I-S-H, P-L-O-D-D-I-N-G minutes until the not so usual hollywood ending. By then I didn't care how it ended for all I wanted was to be out of the theatre. What a shame. I have been thirsting for a good thriller, but I was neither engaged nor thrilled by this cinematic trip down Arlington Road. I should of taken a detour by watching The Usual Suspects again on cable, and wait for Kubrick to fill my thrill quotient! |
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After seeing the wonderful Instinct trailer 'n loving both Anthony Hopkins and Cuba Gooding Jr., I was really anticipating seeing this film at a sneak preview as it looked like it would be a great psychological thriller. Unfortunately, this was NOT the case! Our first clue of impending movie doom was the majority of the scenes featured within the preview trailer were all throw-away scenes from the movie that truely played no part in moving the plot forward and it would seem only filmed for inclusion in the trailer to excite, entice, and separate us from our hard earned bucks. Da Hunk and I, like most of you out there, only go to movies that we feel we will enjoy. Especially since the price of admittance almost requires obtaining a bank loan these days. Even tho I would pay good money to watch Anthony Hopkins read the phone book, this film was a huge disappointment! Anthony Hopkins plays Dr. Ethan Powell, an anthropologist who goes to Africa to study gorillas and winds up living with them ala Jane Goodall. Events occur and he is accused of the murders of several Africans. Having been held in a foreign prison for a year, he's then extradited to the U.S. for continued incarceration. Enter Cuba Gooding as Dr. Theo Calder to do the psych evaluation and ascertain why our anthropologist has run amok. What follows are a few psych sessions between Powell and Calder with both Hopkins and Gooding emoting their hearts out. What a shame the writers & director didn't give them the lines and a story worthy of their awesome talents. Instead of writing a smart script to engage us, they resort to alot of preachy fillers & endless corney over-done movie cliches and stereotyped images... from the dank southern crumbling prison, the bad warden, the oh-so typical bad prison guards, to the merry band of psychotic prisoners who somehow overcome their individual psychosis to band together as a cohesive team to thwart the bad guy. Oh paleeze... pass the haldol! Sadly, this was not "Silence of The Lambs Does Gorillas of The Mist" We spent alot of time after the movie talking about what the movie could have been, instead of what it was! That, my friends, is a big hint to save your money! p.s. The best part of this whole movie going experience was seeing the exciting trailer for The 13th Warrior coming out in August starring Anthony Banderas 'n Omar Sharif! Oh Baby! |
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 | Where was Kenneth Branagh when I needed him most! Unlike Branagh's most delicious bawdy cinematic romp "Much Ado About Nothing", this latest movie rendition of the Bard's A Midsummer Nights Dream was NOT the frothy fairyland frolic I was so looking forward to! I expected to have a great time with such inspired casting! The trailer got me... hook, line and sinker! Whoa, I said to Da Hunk, this film is gonna be yummy eye candy 'n even went so far as to bet five bucks that he would love it also! I mean... woohoo... Kevin Kline as Bottom, Michelle Pfeiffer as Titania, Queen of the Fairies, Rupert Everett as Oberon, the King of the Fairies, Stanley Tucci as Puck, Calista Flockhart as the lovesick Helena, David Strathairn as Theseus and Sophie Marceau as his fiancee, Hippolyta. This was a sure bet, I said, for a good time... NOT! Ok ... the opening credits were visually delightful with fairies flittin' about 'n I still had fervent hopes of da hunk 'n I enjoying ourselves and winning that five bucks to boot. Unfortunately the magic quickly disappeared after the first few scenes until it thankfully reappeared ninety minutes later at almost the very end when Bottom and his fellow actors performed their play-within-a-play “Pyramus and Thisbe” to celebrate nobleman Theseus' wedding. I say thank da gods for The Man and The Moon, Bill Irwin as the Wall and Sam Rockwell as Thisbe for injecting some sparkle of life but alas, they came way too late into this slow slow moving tale to keep me entertained! Let alone save me from paying off that darn five dollar bet! Dag nab it! I hate it when the trailer is better than the movie! If you're wanting a fun lively Shakespearean romp... just rent Branaugh's Much Ado About Nothing That one's a sure fire winner 'n no sucker bet! |
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Cookie's Fortune directed by one of my all time favorites, Robert Altman is simply a movie lover's sweet tasty treat! Starring: Patricia Neal, Charles S. Dutton, Glenn Close, Julianne Moore, Liv Tyler, Lyle Lovett, Chris O'Donnell, Ned Beatty, Courtney B. Vance, and Donald Moffat Want to have a good time? Listen to some great Delta Blues? Feel in the mood for some mellow southern hospitality? Then mosey on over to your local theatre to visit with the quirky, zany townsfolk of Holly Springs Mississippi ya'll. It's Easter weekend & living ain't so easy for elderly widowed Jewel Mae (Patricia Neal) "Cookie" Orcutt. Although she has a wonderful relationship with her closest pal/caretaker Willis (Charles S. Dutton) an honest man who has a taste for bourbon & fishing, she misses her beloved dearly departed mate big time and decides to join him in the golden hereafter. Elsewhere, alot of the locals are busily rehearsing for a production of Oscar Wilde's Salome at the Presbyterian Church under the direction of Cookie's over-the-top wacked out estranged niece Camille (Glenn Close) and starring as Salome, Camille's dim witted sister Cora (Julianne Moore). Unfortunately before you can say "kiss my righteous grits", the greedy needy controlling Camille stumbles upon Cookie's suicidal departure scene, eats the farewell note, rearranges the evidence, cries murder, 'n Willis is the only logical suspect and so the tale begins... Once again Altman gives us a feel good movie chock full of colorful characters that are great fun to meet 'n spend time with. It was a joy to see Patricia Neal after a ten year absence from the silver screen and her scenes with Charles Dutton were worth the admission price in themselves. This is one delightful cookie 'n I'd order a bakers dozen of the same! |
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The Matrix is a cyber sci-fi thriller written 'n directed with unbelievable panache by the brothers Andy and Larry Wachowski This film was everything the "X-Files: Fight The Future" and "The Fifth Element" should have been 'n more! Woohoo... Wadda Trip! It's a visually stunning, pyrotechnic thrill ride. Not to be missed on the big screen! The exhilarating martial arts sequences choreographed by Hong Kong stunt specialist Yuen Wo-Ping will leave you breathless and the visual effects and cinematography are some of the best I have ever seen. The storyline isn't anything new, but it worked, and this film is simply just too much fun! So if you want a good time and a real visual treat... go see it! I'd go back and see it again in a second. It's THE virtual eye candy entertainment needed to fill our fun quotient! 
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The play's the thing... and what a play it is! Tom Stoppard and Marc Norman co-wrote The Perfect screenplay! The movie screen literally ignites with energy, passion and life! Shakespeare in Love (directed by John Madden) is simply film making at it's absolute finest! Few films ever attain their goal of making movie magic for their audience, but this film does that and more. There are good reasons that this film garnered 7 Oscars! A 'lil plot hint... It's 1593 and Will Shakespeare (played by Joseph Fiennes, who should have been nominated for Best Actor in my opinion) is having trouble completing his newest play, "Romeo and Ethel the Pirate's Daughter." Then the writer's-blocked bard meets Viola (Gwyneth Paltrow who absolutely glows throughout this film and received her first Best Actress Award for this role). She has disguised herself as a man to audition for one of Shakespeare's plays (women weren't allowed on stage in Elizabethan times). Will and Viola fall in love, and after a few comic turn of events Will's inspired to finish his play and rename it "Romeo and Juliet." Add to the mix the wonderful characters played by Ben Affleck, Geoffrey Rush, Judi Dench, Rupert Everett, and Colin Firth. Season heavily with fabulous costuming and set design and you have the recipe for the perfect movie! Grrrreat lines... grrrreat acting... you'll have a grrrrreat time... a momma promise! This fantastic film goes on my all time favorite list!
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 | analyze this directed by Harold Ramis is just too much fun! Especially good viewing for any psychiatric professional like myself or gumba out for a good time. Who wudda thought Crystal 'n DeNiro together? This unlikely duo's chemistry and comedic timing mixes impeccably for one killer comedy that will have you howling. The plot is simple...
The Problem:
The Solution:
The Closure:
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