Change Your Image
SamthFan
Reviews
Fraternity House (2008)
Total waste of time
This is the story of two siblings on their last day of college that suddenly realize that they like the life of debauchery and don't want to give it up for a 9-5 life in banking. It takes place over a 24 hour period, beginning with a 6am backyard barbecue and beer-fest. Go figure.
This film is a cheap knock-off of every fraternity movie without any of the originality or charm. The character development is pathetic--most of them are caricatures--and the plot is ridiculous. The production quality suggests that it was made by a bunch of college students with a hand-held. If you want some mild titillation, then go for it, but otherwise don't waste your time.
The Hours (2002)
A dreadful bore
I could handle Mrs. Dalloway, The English Patient and various other chick flicks that I dutifully attended with my wife, but The Hours was too much. I think I suffered even more than the women in the film as I endured their tedious self-pity. Time seem to slow to a crawl as the music and the actors droned on incessantly. By the end I was ready to kill myself. It couldn't come soon enough.
Mickey Blue Eyes (1999)
Unrealized Potential
The basic plot summary for Mickey Blue Eyes showed a lot of potential: mild-mannered English auctioneer gets sucked into the mob business of his future bride's family. Unfortunately, the story line, casting and direction leave most of the potential unrealized, simply because the whole story is so ridiculously implausible. The movie suffers from trying to mix parody, romance and drama.
The intrinsic problem is that certain genres lend themselves to being parodied much more easily than others, e.g. horror and action/adventure are easy and concentration camps are tough. It is very hard to balance the ruthlessness that is the basis of mob life with the light-hearted antics one wishes to see in a comedy. Analyze This, which was quite good, and Married to the Mob, which was pretty weak, are more successful than Mickey Blue Eyes because everything in the movie played for laughs.
Burt Young does a good job as a humorless mob boss but Jeanne Tripplehorn is totally miscast as a mobster's daughter (Michelle Pfeiffer and Mercedes Ruell are far more convincing as mob wives than Jeanne Tripplehorn is as a mob daughter.) Hugh Grant is fine playing the role of Michael, the befuddled English romantic, but Michael's attempt to portray "Mickey Blue Eyes" is ridiculous and tiresome. Who can't imitate Brando playing Corleone?
I'm glad I didn't pay to see it in the theater.
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
The film was negatively impacted by the absence of Han and Leia
Although grand in scope and full of magnificent special effects, the film was not able to equal the earlier films due to the absence of Han and Leia. Their wit and romantic interest made up for the rather bland Jedi knights and provided spark to the dialogue of the earlier films, whereas the inclusion of the moronic Jar-Jar Binks in this film hurt it.