The Matrix (1999)

Weird that the poster is more purple-tinted than green

Directed by: The Wachowski Brothers.. now Siblings (Speed Racer wasn’t as bad as it was unnecessary)

Written by: The very same Wachowskis (I loved the hell out of V for Vendetta)

Starring: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Joe Pantoliano, Gloria Foster, Marcus Chong, Julian Arahanga, Matt Doran, and Belinda McClory.

What it’s about: oh man, is it so old that people on the Internet don’t know what The Matrix is about?  Well, a man discovers that the life he thought he was living is based on a technological lie

B-Movie Alternate Title: A World Ruled by Machines

Movie Mash Up: Dark City + The 13th Floor + TRON

What I liked: The movie is a stunning technological marvel, even a decade later.  Highly influential, in both negative and positive ways.  It is a pretty interesting story, though I hate that it dulls the impact of TRON.  The action is great, and the entire movie looks gorgeous, especially on Blu-Ray.

What I disliked: Ehn, the acting isn’t stellar or anything.  Also, there are aspects of the movie that just seem hokey nowadays.  Sure, you can blame other movies for paying homage to The Matrix so much that viewing the original film has dulled any impact it once had.

Would I recommend it to anyone?: Sure!  It has been a highly influential movie for the past decade (for better or worse) and everyone should see it at some point.  Just leave it at that.  Don’t watch the sequels that do not exist.  THE SEQUELS THAT DO NOT EXIST.

Rating: 4 / 5

At least it isn’t one of those goddamn Magic Eye things.

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Directed by: Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez (they’ve really done nothing noteworthy aside from this movie)

Written by: Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez

Starring: Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard and Michael C. Williams

What it’s about: the first super popular “found footage” movie, which shows what happened to three filmmakers when they went missing during a camping trip for their documentary about the local legend, The Blair Witch

B-Movie Alternate Title: Lurking In the Woods

Movie Mash Up: Paranormal Activity + Deliverance + The Children

What I liked: I love this movie.  It is one of my favourite horror movies of all time.  I love everything about it.  Everything that most everyone else hates about it, I love.  It’s one film that truly benefits from watching with the commentary on a second time.  You gain a greater appreciation for everything that went into it.  And fuck anyone that tells you it isn’t scary.  I just watched this in the dark by myself.  If someone would have knocked on my door while I was watching it, I would have screamed.  And how is it that this movie looks better than 28 Days Later… did?  This is an older DVD, based off of film stock.  Blows my mind.  I love that there is no way this movie would seem plausible now, not even 15 years later.  I love that the documentary actors seemed so real.

What I disliked: That I usually end up watching this movie by myself.  Only time I watched it with someone, it was a first date.  Strangely enough, I got laid that night.  It’s 79 minutes long, and the pacing and acting and everything is perfect for the type of movie it is.  Which is to say that you have to suspend disbelief to believe that it truly did happen.  Which is perfectly fine, since we do it for every other movie anyways, but nooooo people want stupid scares.  This is why we can’t have nice things, people.

Would I recommend this to anyone?: No.  At the risk of coming across as a pretentious critic, this movie isn’t for everyone.  It is fucking excellent, but most people won’t see that, won’t be able to make that suspension jump or will get bogged down in the shaky camerawork or some other mundane detail.

Rating: 5 / 5

Mystery, Alaska (1999)

I wrote this review awhile back, and I still enjoy the movie, but it’s become more of a guilty pleasure for me.  I can recognise that it ultimately isn’t that good, and have adjusted my ranking accordingly, but at least it isn’t insulting to hockey fans.

Directed by the man who directed all three Austin Powers movies, Jay Roach, Mystery, Alaska was intended to be one of the ultimate David vs. Goliath sports movies of all time.  A small Alaskan town has their local hockey team featured in a Sports Illustrated article written by a former local boy (Hank Azaria).  The NHL sees the article and thinks it would be a great idea if the Mystery team played the New York Rangers in an exhibition game, during the league’s All Star Break.

One of the things that I really liked about this movie is that they didn’t shy away from all aspects of big league sports.  The NHL Players Association has a problem with the exhibition game and actually goes to court to try and stop it from taking place.  The local judge (Burt Reynolds) is disgusted that a jury made a mockery of his courtroom because the accused (Michael Buie) was the leading scorer on the team.  In my opinion, it’s one of the more real fantasy sports movies to ever be made.

Long-time Captain and Sheriff of Mystery, John Biebe (Russell Crowe) is nearing the end of his playing days and he knows it.  I think Crowe does more with this role than he ever did in the overrated Gladiator, showing off his heart and humour in a much more subdued fashion than the bluster of Maximus.  Mary McCormack is wonderful as usual, playing the wife of Biebe as well as she played the wife of Howard Stern in Private Parts.  It’s a testament to her abilities as an actress that she can be winning as the wife of a multi-media superstar, and still seem believable as the wife of a relative nobody.

The supporting cast seem to be the kind of people you’d see walking around a small town; big fish in a little frozen pond.  Ron Eldard brings some shining charisma to his character, the local lothario that seems to have bedded every woman in town, including Mayor Scott Pitcher’s (Colm Meaney) wife, Mary Jane (Lolita Davidovich).  Azaria plays his reporter character as a Big City slimeball to start, slowly slipping back into the small town underdog, regretful of his outsider status.

Even though it’s a Disney-produced movie, it’s not your most typical of family fare.  The amount of f-bombs dropped in this one would probably make Michael Eisner soil himself, not to mention the teenage sex, adultery, and premature ejaculation! You’ll find out that Stevie Weeks (Ryan Northcott) is fast at everything.  Anyways, I liked Mystery, Alaska a lot (Note: not as much as I used to), and it’s probably my second favourite hockey movie of all time (Note: I don’t think that anymore).  For some reason, it seems to ring true to me, and I’m a big fan of the underdogs as well.

3 / 5

The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)

Who would have ever thought that the director of Predator would be able to pull off a classy remake of a Steve McQueen movie?  Not just a remake, but a remake where things are changed for modern audiences and it makes sense and actually benefits the finished product.  John McTiernan directed this movie based off of the original 1968 McQueen version, and changed the entire execution of the theft sequence to make it more palpable to people in these much more troubled times.  He’s also managed to make an elegant heist movie, a less dirty, Mamet-lite type film with a charismatic and attractive lead actor where throughout the entire movie you don’t really view him as the antagonist at all.  It’s not a monumental achievement or anything, but it’s noteworthy.

Pierce Brosnan stars as the titular character, a wealthy man who – to combat boredom, presumably – decides to start stealing art.  Not just art, but a Monet worth around $100-million.  Doing so attracts the attention of well, obviously the police, but an intelligent and ridiculously attractive insurance investigator, Catherine Banning (Rene Russo).  Banning knows he took the painting, Crown knows she knows, and the rest of the film is a dance, a tango where they give and take from one another in a battle of intellect and heart.

Yeah, I wax a bit romantic on the film making choices that McTiernan makes, but it works so well.  It doesn’t hurt that Brosnan is clearly a handsome man that exudes class, and that audiences would have a hard time ever rooting against the man.  Russo is at her slinky, sexy best in this film, one that gives us a glimpse, well LONG lingering stares more like, of just how attractive she truly is.  It’s a wonderful movie, no one gets hurt, and we all have a good time.

4 / 5

10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

This is another re-posting of an older review with a couple changes, namely that Heath Ledger won an Oscar posthumously for his portrayal of The Joker in The Dark Knight, and I actually downgraded the movie from 3.5 to 3.  Read on if you like!

If you happen to sit down and watch 10 Things I Hate About You and think to yourself “Self, this movie kinda feels like a PG-13 high school sitcom on the Family Channel,” you wouldn’t be at all surprised at the director’s previous credits. Gil Junger’s career has mostly been limited to almost laughably bad sitcom fare, this movie, and Black Knight. Therefore, without having even seen Martin Lawrence Goes Medieval, I will crown 10 Things Junger’s best movie to date. A modern take on William Shakespeare’s “The Taming of The Shrew”, this movie features a cast of up-and-coming Hollywood youngsters, as well as solid comedy vets to keep them anchored.

If you’ve never experienced Shakespeare’s “Shrew”, well you’re in for a rollicking fun time filled with drunken high school parties, alternative grrl-rock, and a bunch of other stuff the Bard had no idea would ever exist. Well, it’s pretty much like what I know of Shakespeare’s catalog: ridiculous situations, humourous observations, star-crossed young lovers that can’t be together for some reason, that sort of thing. It’s no Much Ado About Nothing, but it does the job when it comes to entertaining me for an hour and a half.

The two romantic leads – Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles – have gone on to become quite talented actors, with Ledger even being nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his performance in Brokeback Mountain (and winning one for The Dark Knight). Even back in 1999, you could tell that both of them had a gift for their craft, or at least knew how to accentuate their positives. Ledger is charming as Patrick Verona, the high school bad ass that nobody seems to know anything about, just as Stiles is convincing as the abrasive and opinionated “heinous bitch” Kat Stratford. They also exhibit an excellent chemistry between one another, one that should have been envied by the other two romantic leads, Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and the super cute Bianca (Larisa Oleynik). It’s not that those two are terrible together, it’s just that it’s not nearly as convincing, what with Cameron’s puppy dog affections and Bianca’s desire to be with the vapid stud Joey (Andrew Keegan).

It’s mostly a decidedly average movie, what with pretty much every high school movie cliche in the history of film being used. What pushes it above the level of forgetable teen comedy is the main cast, the interesting premise, and everyone involved in the movie “getting it”. What other movie has a horny, smack-talking guidance counsellor like Allison Janney’s Ms. Perky? Larry Miller is also at his dry-delivery best as the father of the Stratford sisters, horrified that one of them will get all knocked up at some high school orgy. Plus, David Krumholtz playing Jeremy Piven to Gordon-Levitt’s Cusack. Surprisingly better than I ever thought it could be.

3 / 5

Man on the Moon (1999)

Damn, what a time capsule this movie is.  Remember way back in 1999 when Jim Carrey was considered a genius instead of an annoyance?  Oh, precious memories.  Now it just seems like he’s either doing the greatest Andy Kaufman real life impersonation ever, or he’s just “sold out”.  If you want to be truly amazed at what a time capsule this movie is, look at all the actors that I’ve tagged for this movie.  Patton Oswalt with a mustache and mullet!  David Koechner not acting like an ass!  Mary Lynn Rajskub barely recognizable!  Courtney Love looking like a real live human being!

Now if you’ve been reading my reviews for the past couple days, you’ll know that I’ve been on kind of a professional wrestling string of movies.  Sometimes I try to extend these things, and this isn’t one of those tenuous strings, it’s a legitimate connection.  Back in the early 80s when wrestling was still a territorial business, Kaufman went down to Memphis to continue to play his misogynistic blowhard Intergender Wrestling Champion character.  Memphis is Jerry “The King” Lawler country, back then and to a certain level, still today.

The only way to describe what Kaufman and Lawler pulled off back then is brilliant.  Kaufman put himself over as one of the all-time greatest heels in wrestling history.  Granted, it was somewhat cheap heat, but the venom the crowds spewed at him, man, you don’t see that kinda passionate hatred every wrestling show.  I realise I’m using a lot of wrestling jargon here, so I’ll cut this part short, but it still amazes me to this day how well it was pulled off.

It’s hard to say which Carrey performance I enjoy more, his spot-on portrayal of Kaufman, or his touching performance in The Truman Show.  Normally I disdain biopics, as they’re the second easiest kind of awards show fodder (right after “half retard” (never go “full retard”)), but the acting that director Miloš Forman got out of Carrey was nothing short of otherworldly.  The entire cast is wonderful, from Carrey to the awesome Paul Giamatti to the understated Danny DeDevito.  Usually these biopics kinda feel a bit hollow and fake, but you can tell there was a lot of love from these actors for the real Andy Kaufman, and the whole movie is genuinely heartwarming in my books.

5 / 5

Beyond the Mat (1999)

Yesterday’s review of The Wrestler made mention of how wholly depressing of a movie it is, no matter how celebratory some of the events in it were portrayed.  It made mention of how fairly accurate it was in capturing the fates of some wrestlers after their time in the limelight has died down.  Now, try to imagine how depressing an actual documentary of professional wrestling would be, oh wait, don’t imagine because director Barry W. Blaustein already did it, way back in1999.  The events in this film took place during one of the cyclical “UP” periods of the professional wrestling industry, when it was cool to like wrestling.  If the cycle continues, in a couple years we’ll see a new upswing.

Surprising for a documentary about wrestling from over 10 years ago, it doesn’t actually focus on too many guys who’ve died.  I will say that three of the main focuses of the movie – Mick Foley, Terry Funk, and Jake “The Snake” Roberts – probably should have died a couple times over.  Jake at least 20 times.  Back in the day, this doc was somewhat eye-opening and revolutionary, pulling back the curtain and showing us the inner workings of the industry.  Nowadays, if you become a well-known wrestler, you usually write a book about all the wacky backstage antics and the road and so on, and there’s a lot less mystique to the business.

For me, this movie doesn’t really explain why I’m still a wrestling fan, nor why I have been for decades.  Just thinking about showing it to someone with a passable knowledge of the business scares me, because if they see what these guys put themselves through on a nightly basis, hell for a lifetime, and don’t at least understand it a bit, well they’ve got to be questioning why I still watch it.  Seeing Foley get his head hit 20 times with a steel chair by The Rock, while watching his wife and two young kids in the front row, bawling their eyes out.  How do you rationally explain that to someone?

There are some wonderful human stories in the movie, as well as deeply depressing.  Jake Roberts is a man who by all rights should be dead by now, but possibly because of some Faustian deal keeps going.  Blaustein captures a heart-wrenching meeting between Jake and the daughter he hasn’t seen in four years, and seeing Jake admit to his own failures to his girl, well it affects you.  But Jake’s such a crafty bastard, an expert in psychology, that you’re never sure if he’s just working the cameras for maximum effect.  Oh, and if you don’t know, “working” is wrestling terminology for making something appear real.  Or maybe it was a worked shoot.  Whatever.  Sometimes I feel dumb for knowing these things.

If you have no interest in wrestling, then I doubt you’d enjoy the film.  You probably wouldn’t see the passion these people have for entertaining people, just seeing the pain they put themselves and others through on a daily basis and ask yourself why they do it and why am I watching it?  If you’re a wrestling fan though, it’s close enough to being a bible.  It’s a movie that probably had a far bigger effect on the industry than anyone in the industry would ever agree upon.

4 / 5

Toy Story 2 (1999)

Just so you know, this is another re-posted review, back from my snarkier days.

Right off the bat, let me say that Toy Story 2 ended up being far better than it had any right to be. Originally envisioned by Disney as a straight-to-video sequel, the folks at Pixar decided they didn’t want to sully their good name by lending it to an inferior product. So they expanded on the original sequel idea, pumped up the running time with even more awesomeness and ended up with one of the most underrated movies of all time. I say this despite it’s 100% rating at RottenTomatoes, and its score of 87 at Metacritic. How is that such a critically lauded film can seemingly be so easily forgettable? Perhaps it was just a case of people enjoying themselves but not being able to put it on the same level that they felt after watching the first Toy Story. Whatever it is, people need to get over it because Toy Story 2 is nothing short of excellent and it should be hailed as nothing but.

The entire voice cast of the first Toy Story return to their respective characters, giving them a little more depth and showing off a bit of the knowledge they gained in the past few… well I was going to say years, but it appears hardly anytime has passed at all. Andy (John Morris) is still a kid, his sister Molly is still a baby, and his mom (Laurie Metcalf) is still single, which is odd enough for a Disney film. Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz (Tim Allen) are getting along famously and the rest of the toys are loving their pseudo-lives. Unfortunately disaster strikes as Woody’s arm suffers a tear just before he was about to go off to Cowboy Camp with Andy, resulting in Andy’s mom retiring Woody to the dusty shelf where broken toys die. All of this leads to Woody being stolen by Al the Toy Collector (Wayne Knight) at a yard sale, and eventually results in the introduction of Woody’s old gang of similarly-themed toys. The story is really deep and amazing actually, I’m not doing it any justice at all here.

If you loved Toy Story, the sequel is just as good – if not better – and takes you on a much greater emotional rollercoaster than the first managed to do. The best example I can think of for this is Jessie’s (Joan Cusack) song, a little musical interlude that for my money is one of the best uses of a song in a movie ever. The fact that it’s a Sarah McLachlan song and l’m still touched by it shows you exactly how powerful that piece of cinema is to me. The song perfectly captures Jessie’s feelings, and just how crazy she may go if things don’t turn out for the best. And it’s not just the song, but the gorgeous Pixar animation and scene-setting, it gets me a little glassy-eyed everytime.

Everything about Toy Story 2 is excellent and awesome. From the Buzz / Zurg storyline to the absolute chaos the toys cause on their way to rescue Woody to the awesome Wheezy the Penguin (Joe Ranft), everything solidly rocks hard. It’s not one of the general cash-in on the name value of the original sequels. The characters grow and mature in ways that usually aren’t ever seen in animated kid flicks. The jokes are funny without insulting anyone’s intelligence, the animation is jaw-droppingly gorgeous and the running time is nowhere near the bloated levels most sequels shoot for. At Pixar, they almost always value quality over quantity, and Toy Story 2 is simply one of the best movie sequels of all time because of that ideal.

5 / 5

Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999)

As I previously mentioned, 2011′s #movieaday goal was based around watching 365 brand new movies (to me).  2012 will not have that limitation put upon them, which – honestly – makes it so much more attainable.  Also, I just did it, so I don’t care if I miss a day.  One of my Christmas gifts was the Blu-Ray box set of the Star Wars movies, all of them, episodes I – VI, the great and the bad.

I remember the anticipation for this movie as being, well it was the most anticipated thing of all time, anywhere.  The most modern thing I can attribute that to nowadays, would be the release of The Dark Knight Rises in several months.  It won’t be the same though.  I won’t be waiting outside until the ticket windows open, two weeks before the movie even hits theatres, no, I learned my lesson thanks to Episode I.

The hardest part when it comes to discussing the Prequel Trilogy is separating fanboy cronyism from actual film criticism.  Whatever you think of Jar Jar Binks (Ahmed Best), you have to be able to analyze the other aspects of the film, and just get over that completely righteous anger over Binks’ creation.  Because, even though he sucks (hard), there’s still a whole movie going on around him, and for the most part … well, it’s far below the standards of the Original Trilogy.

The two bright spots are Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor’s performances as Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi, respectively.  There’s humour and heart and actual emotions in their depictions of the two Jedi Knights.  You could also say Darth Maul (Ray Park) was pretty badass, but that is tempered by the fact that SPOILER ALERT he gets killed off far too early.  It was also neat seeing Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu, clearly the most kickass of all Jedi Knights.  And there’s all the little hints and Star Wars nerdery throughout that makes it tolerable.

However, director and writer George Lucas made such a terrible decision when it came to Jar Jar Binks, that it overshadows everything else in the movie.  Jar Jar’s stench is palpable in everything, and there’s also the silly little decisions that Lucas made when it came to directing actors in the movie.  He’s not an actor guy, he’s the tech guy.  Even though McGregor’s performance is fun and good, he looks entirely too bemused at the goings on around him.

And then there’s Jake Lloyd, portraying the future SPOILER ALERT Darth Vader as young Anakin Skywalker.  So many dumb things included, like his “WHOOOAAAAA” when Qui-Gon lifts him into Anakin’s pod racer.  This kid has faced death on numerous occasions in past pod races, yet he’s amazed at being lifted three feet up in the air by a Jedi Knight?  Better, nerdier, fatter and more socially awkward people than I have written longer articles on all the things that are wrong with Episode I, and while I don’t particularly like the movie, it’s a kind of guilty pleasure for me.  After all, it still is Star Wars.

2 / 5

RKO 281 (1999)

Today’s Hollywood is a much different and salacious beast than the Hollywood studio system that Orson Welles got into back in 1940.  Back then, pretty much one man controlled most of the media outlets in America, and he used those newspapers and radio stations to broadcast his own views to the country.  Because of William Randolph Hearst, many of the film studios would not dream of ever offended him so as not to be blacklisted throughout his many media holdings.  Also around this time period, Adolf Hitler started his evil rampage and yes, there are many similarities between Hearst and Hitler.  Begins with H, six letters, also the evil tendencies they had.

RKO 281 has nothing to do with Randy Orton, and it is actually the original production number of the film Citizen Kane, widely considered to be one of the greatest American movies ever made and it really is that good.  Kane was the creation of Welles (Liev Schreiber) and Herman J. Mankiewicz (John Malkovich), and it is also widely believed to be completely about Hearst (James Cromwell) and his life choices.  I wasn’t there, so I can only comment that yes, that appears to be exactly what it is based on everything that I’ve seen and read.

Anyways, the movie RKO 281 is all about the production of the movie, and the war to get it released.  Normally I like my Welles impersonators to be a bit more bombastic (more like Christian McKay in Me and Orson Welles), but I guess Schrieber does a decent enough job.  It was also a pleasure to enjoy a Roy Scheider performance again.  There’s some decent acting going on, but it all just felt cut too much.  There’s a wealth of content that could have been used to pad out the running time a bit, add some meat on to the bones.  As it stands, it’s an enjoyable enough film, but it left me hungry for more.

3.5 / 5