serendip83 Reviews

A Piece of the Action (1977)

Dated Misfire

[3/10 · 12 June 2005]

Worth a look on late night TV otherwise skip this misfire.

Piece of the Action starts off like a crime caper and ends up wanting to be a morality play. Problem is there is no character development. We are supposed to accept Cosby and Poitier as personalities not actors playing fully developed characters.

This is an uneven script. You can almost see two movies cut into this thing.

There's the crime caper.

And there's the Welcome Back Kotter type class of losers who need to get jobs. This is the morality play part. And it's all jive.

We're supposed to accept Cosby and Poitier as wonderful guys who lead blessed lives even though they are no better than the mob guys they swindle.

What a mess.

Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (2004)

worth a look

[30 April 2004]

A pretty good documentary that could be called Metallica: Group Therapy. Not much is shown in this film beyond the therapy sessions and I feel that cheats the audience. I mean, what we learn from this film, is that the two dominate members are control freaks. So, I don't doubt that they had control over what was released in the film. And that's a shame. Because, as much as I like what I saw on the screen, I felt things were parsed. We are not really invited into the home lives of these people. We do see Lars and his paintings....but, you don't get a sense of the man at home.

Maybe, when the dvd is released, the band will allow the filmmakers to release all of the footage they did not give their approval on.

Because, as it stands, I think fans will find the footage too filtered.

Chasing Papi (2003)

VERY LIKEABLE BUT TOO LIGHT-WEIGHT FOR ITS OWN GOOD!

[17 April 2003]

Chasing Papi is a light diversion.

This is a watered down verison of the movie Shampoo, with Eduardo Verástegui playing the Warren Beatty role of the cad and womanizer. However, Chasing Papi is all eye candy with no substance.

In a nutshell, Chasing Papi is about three women who live in three different cities. Verástegui is based in Los Angeles but he gets around. A set of circumstances bring all three girls to his L.A. pad where they confront each other. This is all established in the first ten minutes of the movie.

Verástegui goes into such a state of disbelief that he over medicates himself and passes out. That leaves the remaining seventy minutes to the three girls played by Roselyn Sanchez, Sofía Vergara, and Jaci Velasquez. There is a subplot buried here of the three girls discovering their inner strength but I say: GIMMIE A BREAK. This movie is all eye candy. The girls look great and are there to appeal to the men in the audience.

This is supposed to be a comedy but the only cast member who elevates the movie from trivial farce to a truly comedic spirit is Paul Rodriguez. Unfortunately, his role is small and not enough to wish you had spent your time more wisely.

Identity (2003)

Clever Script, Roller Coaster Horror, but I'm exhausted!

[11 April 2003]

First off, I really liked this movie. It is very well done. It has a clever script. Good sound-effects; cinematography and editing are all top notch. And it is well cast.

And I would advise not reading the reviews because most critics like to give away the plot and this is a movie you should see without knowing a single plot twist.

That being said, I left the screening feeling somewhat exploited and manipulated. And I'm not sure I can tell you why. It's just a feeling. While the script is very clever, it's as if this movie was written first with shock gags, and then the words were added in later.

And I must warn you that this movie falls into the category of horror not mystery. Yes. There is a mystery, but the way this movie is presented, it really is a Horror film. If you liked The Hitcher, you will love this film. But, beneath the surface, this film is like going on a really fast roller coaster with a maniac at the controls. When you get off, you just want to get the hell out of the park.

A Mighty Wind (2003)

FANTASTIC!!! A SEND UP OF THE MUSIC YOUR PARENTS LOVED BUT YOU HATED!!!

[10 April 2003]

When I was a teenager I had some friends over and we went through my parents' record collection. We discovered odd creatures like Lawrence Welk and Peter Paul and Mary. We looked strangely at the album jackets: pictures from another era, odd hairstyles. We put the music on the turntable and collectively went: YUCCK!!!

What if you could do a send up of the music your parents loved but your hated?

Director/writer Christopher Guest has done just that in his send up of the Folk Music genre in a movie entitled "A Mighty Wind."

Since the basic structure of this movie has been mentioned on this board, I will only say that you have to see this movie to appreciate it. It's spot on funny. All of the characters are extremely weird. Everything works.

Go see it!

XX/XY (2002)

XX/XY misses the mark

[9 April 2003]

XX/XY feels undone.

Take the male adolescent fantasy of bedding two females and hopefully watching them bed each other, throw in some complications, and see where it takes us, is essentially the crux of this movie.

Unfortunately, despite the excellent camera work and sharp performances by the cast, something is missing in this screenplay in order for us to empathize with these characters. It's as if the writer wanted to give everybody equal screen time, but forgot to flesh out the true love interest--Sam, played nicely by Maya Stange. If Maya were further fleshed out as a character, the audience might actually feel satisfied by the end of this so so movie.

Too bad. There is a diamond in the rough here...but it is buried in shallowness.

Speaking of shallowness, considering the constant state of free love depicted in the movie, nobody seems concerned with STDs or AIDS. What's up with that?

A Man Apart (2003)

Not Bad, Not Great

[5 April 2003]

This is the type of movie that would have been fine in the days when you could go to a theater and see two movies for three dollars. A Man Apart would have been perfect as the second movie along with Enter the Dragon or Dirty Harry.

But today in major cities we have to pay ten dollars. Is this movie worth ten dollars? No.

A Man Apart is entertaining. It moves quickly. It has nice editing, lots of action. Performances are ok for this type of movie. But we have seen this plot before. It's Hard Target revisted.

If your video store has a bargain day with a cheap rental, A Man Apart might be worth viewing on a Saturday night. So, I would suggest that you wait for the film to come to video.

The Good Thief (2002)

A Sad State of Affairs

[1 April 2003]

There are so many things wrong with this movie I don't know where to start. First, what is the movie about? Is it a character study or a crime caper? The screenwriters seem to be going for the former in the first hour or so. Nick Nolte is strung out on heroin when we meet him--he is shooting up in a bathroom in some nightclub; his eyes are puffy and he looks like hell. I'm thinking--great make-up job. But then he kicks his habit and he still looks like hell.

In that first hour, Nick hooks up with a 17-year old hooker, played by Nino Kukhanidze. I don't know whether to blame the director or the actress. Nino's performance is sort of indifferent. Not sure whether the director told her to play the part like a numb street hooker who is dead to the world. But the problem is that her performance is so uninteresting. You cannot feel for a person you don't care about.

The second half of the movie is the crime caper. A paint by numbers scenario that is humorless. The only saving grace is the last ten minutes of the movie which feels sort of dropped in after too many test screenings. Don't know about this one. I'm sure the story about the making of the movie would be a lot more interesting than what is on the screen. I would say wait for the DVD but why bother.