Park City's Flick Chick by Jill Adler
November 2005 - Lastest Movie Reviews in a Nutshell
Legends of Zorro
Film Rating: PG
Why can't they leave well enough alone?? Everyone's older now that a decade has passed since The Mask of Zorro and, despite the dearth of good swashbucklers on the silver screen, ol' Zorro should have stayed home and hung up the mask like his wife wanted or at least have waited for something less silly and more provocative. Don Alejandro de la Vega (Antonio Banderas) married Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones) had a kid, then divorced. Probably to corral the under-12 set, Zorro is more Saturday matinee spoofiness than a playful romp laden heavily with Latin testosterone. California is about to join the U.S. and the bad guys want to nix the deal. Zorro, Elena and son save the day. There's a bunch of really cool stunts that might have been worth the ticket price if the 10-year-old wasn't so annoying. Plus, we've seen it before folks, ehem- Spy Kids? Wait for the DVD.
SAW II
Film Rating: R
For those of you who loved the first Saw and hate this one, you're all smoking crack. As original as the premise was for the initial Sundance film, IT SUCKED. It sucked soo badly I couldn't wait for the leads to die. But in Saw II, something happened. They cast actors who could act and they crafted a screenplay with enough fun, twists and tension to keep you hoping for survivors even as the demented Jigsaw serial killer ceremoniously picks off his captives. This time we get Jig's story. The sadistic bastard who sets booby traps for his victims where they have just minutes to save themselves or die horrible, mutilating deaths, thinks he's doing them a favor. He's not a killer, just someone who leads his victims to greater awareness of life by clamping an iron trap around their neck and giving them 60 seconds to cut the implanted key out of their own eye socket before the spring slams shut and pierces their head from back to front with rusty nails. Poor, misunderstood Jig. This time he's out to teach the seemingly sedate Detective Mason (Donnie Wahlberg) that he can't deny his badcop past. He kidnaps Mason's teenage son and stuffs him into a dilapidated, booby trapped house along with seven other delinquents. Don't worry. I'm not going to give anything away. Plot holes and thin character development aside, this horror flick will satisfy anyone's taste for stage blood.
Shop Girl
Film Rating: R
Hands down, my favorite movie in months. Steve Martin (King Tut, Ex-Saturday Night Live Guy) wrote the novella and now lives the part in this elegant, sadly romantic comedy about an ordinary girl desperately wanting a jumpstart while staring at the world from behind the formal glove counter at Neiman Marcus. Mirabelle (Claire Danes) lives a non-descript life in a non-descript apartment with her aloof cat. For some disturbing reason she seems to have only two options for company: Jeremy, the eager idiot her own age with absolutely no social skills or hygiene and Ray (Martin), the equally lonely, well-heeled 60-year-old searching for somebody to make him feel worthy of existing. This sugar daddy, however, gets what he's doing, grasps his limitations and adores his prey. He draws Mirabelle to him but there's nothing gross in this waltz. Both misfits get what they need from the relationship and we buy into it. I first heard this story as narrated by Martin on a Books on CD and wondered how it would translate on film. It does. In a huge way. True, this is a chick flick but it should also connect with the men out there. I'll be damned if Claire Danes doesn't get an Oscar nod for this one.
