More Fall Film Reviews
Film reviews by Michael John Legeros
Copyright 1994 Michael John Legeros
CLERKS ======
Hilarious, ultra-low budget comedy from film school dropout Kevin Smith chronicles a day in the life of two convenience store slackers (Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson). They spend most of their day ignoring customers while discussing everything from fellatio to self-fulfillment. The premise is strictly sitcom and the photography is grainy as all get-out, but you could spend ten times the film's budget (a reported $27,000) and still not get dialogue half as good as this.
Originally rated NC-17 for language. Not recommended for viewers with sensitive ears.
Grade: B+
KILLING ZOE ===========
Remake RESERVOIR DOGS as a French art film and you're halfway to KILLING ZOE, writer/director Roger Avary's slow-moving story of a failed Bastille Day bank robbery. Eric Stoltz stars as an American in Paris who gets in *way* over his head when hooks up with a band of nihilistic bank robbers. He's the safecracker who's blissful unaware that the bank job is a botch job from the word go.
Though intriguing on all fronts, the film is paced at half the speed of PULP FICTION, which Avary co-wrote with Quentin Tarantino. In English and French.
Grade: B-
THE ROAD TO WELLVILLE =====================
Based on the novel by T. Coraghessan Boyle, THE ROAD TO WELLVILLE doesn't go very far. Bowels, bowels, and more bowels are explored by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (a buck-toothed and bespectacled Anthony Hopkins), who, in the early 1900's, advocated abstinence, vegetarianism, and frequent defecation. He also invented the cornflake. Really.
Checking-in to Kellogg's Battle Creek Sanitarium are Matthew Broderick and Bridget Fonda, just two of the many well-known faces in this failed comedy. Leave your laughter at the door and you can marvel at the unfunny antics of John Cusack, Michael Lerner, Lara Flynn Boyle, John Neville, and Dana Carvey.
The art direction is impeccable and some of the early sequences are amusing, but the novelty quickly wears off as writer/director Alan Parkers tries his darnedness to turn doo-doo into drama. What he ends up with is something that I can't print here. Phew!
Grade: D+
STARGATE ========
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA meets STAR WARS. This epic sci-fi film is more sheer spectacle than anything else. Director Roland Emmerich (UNIVERSAL SOLIDER) shamelessly rips off Lucas and Spielberg and just about any other cosmic cliche that he can lay his hands on. The film is overlong, the characters are cardboard, and the script is filled with some of the most laughable details in modern sci-fi history.
That said, there's still plenty to watch here. Sci-fi fans should enjoy the sculpted sands, the morphing headdresses, and a surprisingly spunky James Spader. He plays the Egyptologist who gets to prove his theory that that "somebody else" built the pyramids. Less interesting are co-stars Kurt Russell and Jaye Davidson of CRYING GAME fame.
Grade: C-
STAR TREK GENERATIONS =====================
Trek fans may be more forgiving, but, for the rest of us, the sluggish STAR TREK GENERATIONS is a mixed bag at best. The story is interesting, but each scene goes too long. The cast is earnest, but the direction lacks punch. And so on. (The best example of the latter is a Klingon comeuppance that delivers none of the impact of a similar scene in STAR TREK II.)
Original Enterprise captain James T. Kirk appears on both ends of the story, though they cut the scene where Shatner turns to the screen to plead "get a life." Remarkably unremarkable.
Grade: B-
MIRACLE ON 34th STREET ======================
In a season of THE SPECIALIST and PULP FICTION et al, maybe a remake of MIRACLE ON 34th STREET *is* necessary. John Hughes certainly believes in Santa Claus and his Les Mayfield-directed production does nothing to tarnish the memory of the 1947 original. The romance between costars Dylan McDermott and Elizabeth Perkins doesn't work too well, but the film makes a strong case that Richard Attenborough is the definitive Kriss Kringle. His chemistry with children can moisten any eye.
No Claus for alarm.
Grade: B+
JUNIOR ======
Arnold Schwarzenegger pregnant? Sure, Billy Crystal did it before in RABBIT TEST, but the sight of Schwarz with a bulging belly is a casting coup comparable to Dustin Hoffman in TOOTSIE. What should be nothing more than a one-joke premise actually gets better as it goes along. Director Ivan Reitman (DAVE, TWINS) wisely keeps the farce to a minimum, so the first hour moves slower than you might expect. Don't expect too many yuks from Danny DeVito, but you can't beat those early romantic scenes between Emma and Arnie. How's *that* for a collision of acting styles?
Bring hankies, ladies.
Grade: B+
-- Michael J. Legeros Raleigh, North Carolina
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