This gets four stars for nostalgia, Seattle-bias, and cultural relativity. I find Lloyd Dobbler to be one of cinema’s great nice guys. He is not outstanding in anything beyond his niceness, affection for the valedictorian of his high school, and funny monologues. He is medium smart and medium cool, but not intimidated by others, a real everyman. We laugh at LLoyd’s particular speech style and root for him as he fails to fall into any predictable plot traps.
I don’t didn’t really like Lloyd’s love interest and the story is more centered on her and her father. Though their situation is kind of necessary to bring out how cool Lloyd is. Frasier’s dad is the most “controversial” character of the film. Some may be conflicted on their feelings for him because he tries to be a good dad, but pushes his daughter to dump Lloyd and steals from old people. He justifies all this by saying he does it for his daughter. In my mind, this guy is a jerk and proves it by snapping at Lloyd when he politely acts as go-between between father and daughter at the end of the film. This interchange serves to cement the dad as a jerk and Lloyd as a stand-up guy.
My favourite parts of the movie are when Lloyd talks about what he wants to do for a living, the guys hanging out at the Gas ‘n Sip and when Frasier’s Dad’s credit cards get denied while he is flirting with the saleswoman. Note none of these scenes had the heroine.
Also note that since writing this I have become a little annoyed at how good Lloyd is. This guy has the potential to set unreachably high standards for women searching for Mr. Right. I wonder how many eye rolls have been caused by mental comparisons to LLoyd Dobbler. Dobbler is even more dangerous because he has the apperance of mediocrity. People could have the conception that everyone has the capability to be a Lloyd Dobbler. How many relationships have been sabotoged by Dobblerized expectations?
I guess this is a fun concept. Two people talking for an entire movie while meandering through Paris. There are some really long takes in here, which impresses me. Though there is nothing of Good Fellas caliber.
What I don’t really like is the dialogue and characters themselves. They came across as staged and artificial. It was a little wearing to watch for a long time straight. Maybe it was just wierd because I don’t have conversations with one person for that long of a time; but these two people who supposedly felt this epic chemistry didn’t seem to feel that strongly about eachother. The whole thing just left me cold.
This is one of those movies that I have seen parts of on channel 11 afternoon matinees many times. I was surprised to see that it was made in 1988. And I was even more surprised to show it to a high school class> What I like about this movie is that Sigourney Weaver does a nice job of being the career-driven biatch. She does a nice job of being mean and manipulating, yet a little sympathetic because she seems messed up in the head.
I am worried about a man crush review trend here, but I am going to continue anyway. The other part of the film that I like is the young Harrison Ford. He is just so damn handsome! Plus there was a bonus sighting of Alec Baldwin in the film. Other than the fact that the film is not funny, the thing I don’t like about it is Melanie Griffin. She is annoying and ridiculous.
I feel like this entire review could have a spoiler tag, but am going to try and avoid giving anything away the end to all the Critical Blog readers who have not seen the film. For good or ill, the film subscribes to a kind of Homeric view of the world. Heros in the Illiad fight to attain immortality through the risk and glory of combat while these people see boxing the same way. There is also a bunch of emotional stuff, dark lighting and a wierd sub plot with a guy named Danger. While I was not gaga over the film I liked how most of the characters behaved and I liked most of the boxing scenes.
In addition to the boxing stuff, I enjoyed the tone of a lot of the movie. I think they do a nice job of not overdoing it, even though there are some ridiculous scenes. Then again, I could be a little biased in favor of Eastwood.
Jon Heder is back, and Dynamite by any other name is still explosive in this comedy about misfits versus mean jocks. Rob Shneider is the straight man and David Spade is kept to managable doses. So I felt like it was well-balanced. Jon Lovitz also does some pretty fun stuff. While I am not sure whether it would be good if I wasn’t watching it with my brother, I still have fond memories.
There is not a ton of originality, but if you like people finding new ways to show nerdiness and lack of coordination this is a film for you. I especially like how it starts kind of absurd than slowly spins into a hurricane of ridiculousness.
I recently saw a film with this guy and was once again faced with the question of “What have I seen this guy in?” So I looked up his name and serched his filmography (157 films and TV Shows). I can barely remember a couple of these and am just guessing at his character because he is basically always the same guy.
One of the classes I subbed for was showing this film as part of a unit on feminism. The plot features three women working for a middle manager jerk in faceless corporate america. What made it interesting was the cast. It was interesting to see Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton in their supposed primes. I have become especially interested in Dolly Parton because while watching her perform at the Oscars I was informed that she was far more than a big set of ta tas. Apparently, she is also a pretty big time song writer. I also really enjoyed the performance of Dabney Colman. He does a good job of being one of those stand by movie jerks. He really lights up the stage.
Overall, I didn’t find the film to be very special. There were a few funny parts, but I am sure the movie was better when it first came out. Then again, I didn’t get to watch the second half, when the three stars were going to turn the tables on their boss, so it may have gotten waaaay better.
We got season one from the library and just starting slogging though season 3. Season 1 was very da Vinci code. Everyone was potential love interest, secret medieval plot, and cliff hanger to cliff hanger plotting. Season 3 seems to have less action cliff-hangers and more emotional cliff-hangers.
The episodes also seem to follow a pretty regular plot line. There is a briefing. The annoying tech guy introduces a gadget. The start off in a fancy party then break into the back room, hit one snag in the plan, deal with the snag with mixed success and make a narrow escape. Interspersed with the missions are scenes with her and Dad talking about their personal agenda which is kept secret because of the dangerous beauracracy. We also get some scenes where Sydney (Garner) tries to maintain some sort of personal life. Sometimes they try some comedy by having her take personal calls while she is on an OP, talking to her friend about her love life while she’s on her way to steal or blow up her objective.
Throughout the series, the characters make lots of annoying decisions. The two old guys, her dad and her boss are like ten steps ahead of everyone else. Because of this, I find the parts of the show with Dad to be the most interesting. They seem to really want us to know that the young people are dumb and emotional. Still, it is fun enough that I plan to watch as many episodes of Season Three as possible until it is over due to be returned to the library. At the same time, I would not tell anyone that they had to see this TV show. A pretty good time, but not worth going out of your way for.
So I read this comic a while ago. I really like some of Alan Moore’s stuff and I was not especially impressed with this one. But it was Alan Moore so it was still good. Anyway, I looked forward to this with mixed feelings. It seemed like the Matrix guys had some potential to do some good things with the script, actually hold true to some of the depth of characters. At the same time, the last Matrix movies really petered out and there was a mean review in the New Yorker.
Imagine my delight as I really got into the film. It wasn’t just a big action fest, and I ended up getting into the somewhat ridiculous plot. I was especially happy with the job that the V guy did. I thought he did well at bringing life to a dude with no face. It will be interesting to see how The Watchmen comes out.
Say Anything... (1989) 
