Movie Rental Recommendations -- BP-BZ
The Brady Bunch Movie
A perfect parody of the TV show. The only thing that could have made it better would have been to add more dance numbers.
IMDb | Other Reviews Denise Felder
Braveheart
Pretty much everybody loved this movie, and it even won an Best Picture Oscar, so maybe I shouldn't even be giving my opinion on it. But I want to vent. So there. I found it so unwatchable that I didn't even make it to what I presume is the good, worthwhile part, the fight scenes. Under the thin veneer of a culturally, historically significant storytelling Mel Gibson made a three-hour long ego trip which gives him endless opportunities to prance around as a figure of god-like perfection. If you don't buy into the primitive, one-dimensional hero worship, there is nothing left for you but irritation at Mel's unrelenting barrage of smirking, winking, ingratiating self-aggrandizement. Every plot device, every character exists for the sole purpose of proving William Wallace's pure, infallible wonderfulness in every way. Worst, most simple-minded movie I've seen in ages.
IMDb | Other Reviews Ed Dykhuizen
Breakdown
This is one of those stories that
could happen and that it's almost frightening. A couple is driving across country when there car breakdown in the middle of nowhere. A trucker finally stops to help and the wife leaves with him, so the husband can watch the car. She never comes back and when the husband gets to the next town, no one has seen or heard of her. It's a great story and so suspenseful that I had to keep myself from fast-forwarding to the end. I just had to know what happens. Doesn't disappoint. Great for a Friday date -- she'll be hanging on to you the whole time.
IMDb | Other Reviews Jon Errickson
One of the most refreshing films of the year, this offers proof that a strong story and characterizations can still exist in action films. Writer/Director Jonathan Mostow cribbed ideas from two of the best thrillers ever made (Steven Spielberg's "Duel" and the Dutch film "The Vanishing") to come up with his deceptively simple storyline -- Man and Wife have car trouble, Wife hitches ride, Wife disappears -- and steadily tightens the screws. As he proved in the underrated "Unlawful Entry," no one is Kurt Russell's peer when it comes to portraying suburbanites out of their depth. And his ability in the lead role carries this film through the few narrative rough spots. Lean, mean, and thankfully free of 90s action cliches (there isn't a single morph or slow motion shot of someone out-running a fireball), this film never does what the title suggests.
Andrew Wright
Breaking The Waves
This movie is a heartbreaking tale by director Lars Von Trier, who brought us the equally memorable ZENTROPA. In 1970s Scotland, a naive, religious young woman named Beth marries an oilrig worker named Jan. But he soon has to leave to go back to work, and Beth is devastated. She begs God to bring him back to her, no matter what. And Jan does come back-- completely paralyzed. When he begs her to take a lover and tell him the details, she starts a downward spiral-- losing her honor and sanity. Von Trier's use of a hand held camera gives us the impression we are watching real life rather than a movie, and the musical introductions to each stage of this story are beautifully appropriate. This is a movie you won't get out of your head for a long time.
IMDb Other Reviews Debra Scott
Bullworth
Warren Beatty stars as a jaded U.S. senator who, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, hires a hit man to kill him. Thinking he has nothing to lose, Sen. Bullworth sets out on a fundraising trip and proceeds to tell it like it is. First stop: An inner-city black church so stereotypical you half expect the congregation to invite the crass politician to stay for a fried chicken picnic. With two beat-box homegirls and an indifferent (allegedly intriguing) Halle Berry in tow, Bullworth bluntly tells special interest groups what makes them special -- their money -- and blames big businesses like insurance companies for the demise of the country. Overall, this movie has a lot of good things to say, but nothing we haven't heard before. And the idea of a candidate going from ineffectual to a political messiah overnight is a little far fetched.
IMDb Denise Felder
Burn Hollywood Burn: An Alan Smithee Film
So, you think you like bad movies, eh? Maybe you've seen a few Ed Wood films or "Mystery Science Theater" episodes and you think it would be a lark to give some bad films a once-over with your ironic sensibilities. Maybe you're actually an old pro at the ironic cinematic reclamation game, and have whiled away many an hour laughing at the likes of "The Postman" and "Speed 2." Well, no matter who you are, you will not be able to squeeze an ounce of joy from the horrific "Burn Hollywood Burn: An Alan Smithee Film." Unbelievably bitter, petulant, and primitive, it will give you a brand new understanding of how stupid a film truly can be. The guilty party, Joe Eszterhas, no doubt believed he was creating a scathing, irreverent send-up of Hollywood -- suffice to say, he didn't. It will change your life, but not in a good way.
IMDb | Other Reviews Ed Dykhuizen
But I'm A Cheerleader
Any movie that has Cathy Moriarity as the headmistress of a gay re-orientation camp can't be all bad, and "But I'm A Cheerleader" has a lot of good parts. The film is the crayon-colored, story of a cheerleader named Megan whose parents think she is (shhh…) a
lesbian. As quick as you can say lavender pumps, Megan is shipped off to True Directions, a camp guaranteed to make girls into women and boys into macho men. It's a place where Ru Paul Charles, out of his traditional drag, is a "reformed" camp counselor and where the campers are kidnapped by militant gays to see how the "other half" lives. Director Jamie Babitt infuses the movie with acerbic tongue-in-cheek humor that mercilessly skewers our society's obsession with "family values." Two snaps up for the hilarious absurdity of "But I'm A Cheerleader."
Full Review | IMDb | Other Reviews Debra Scott
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