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Working links in the members' page, text-only
in the AdultCheck version "He Got Game", from Johnny
Web
Excellent Spike Lee
movie. To me, this was a good reality-based film,
with some superb visuals and a good selection of
appropriate music to lend strength to the story.
Lee decided to try something different with the
visuals. He used a lot of colored ambient
lighting, and then pumped up the contrast to
exaggerate some of the colors, and it seems to
create a unique feel which really worked for me.
The first two Milla collages and the Rosario
Dawson topless shots give you a good feel for it.
Denzel Washington killed
his wife, unintentionally, in a family argument.
While serving time for it, he is offered some
leniency on his jail time in exchange for talking
his basketball superstar son into attending the
governor's Alma Mater.
Surprisingly, there
isn't all that much basketball in the movie,
although there is an in-depth analysis of the
pressures and temptations a superstar high school
athlete would feel, especially if he came from an
impoverished background. But the film is more
about learning the difference between right and
wrong, and growing up enough to do right when you
recognize it.
The cast featured
excellent performances from Milla Jovovich and
Denzel Washington as two people who seem lost but
may still turn their desperate lives around. Ray
Allen, a real basketball star, plays the son, and
he is distracting at first, because he's not an
actor and he can be stiff. But once you get into
the movie, that all just seems like part of the
character, and you don't really notice it. Lots
of fun cameos from some of the top coaches in
basketball, ESPN personalities, and the
ubiquitous Shaq. In Shaq's case, he could really
literally be ubiquitous since he is not much
smaller than the physical universe.
Milla. Yes, I know I was
harsh when I described Milla's Joan of Arc, but I
feel she more than made up for it with her
visceral and convincing perfomance here. Plus she
looked incredible in that platinum wig (first
collage) (1,
2,
3)
Chasey Lain Jill Kelly Rosario Dawson
"101
Nights of Simon Cinema", from Johnny Web
Do you remember the old
Monty Python schtick about the extremely silly
party? Well, even the members of that party found
this movie a little too silly. Simon Cinema is
the fictional 101 year old man after whom cinema
is named, and the movie is his remniscences about
the highlights of the medium since it began. It
features plenty of cameos from about every big
star you can think of (DeNiro makes a complete
fool of himself), plenty of real film clips from
old classic films, and plenty of "in the
manner of" sight gags and impersonations.
Guess, for example, what happens to Julie Gayet's
bike when she parks it.
The movie is fun,
actually. Like a giant trivia game, with plenty
of eye candy to help it move along. Julie Gayet's
sub-plot is pretty much irrelevant to the thrust
of the movie. Simon Cinema hires her, and she is
a film nut, so his talks with her are the device
to recount all he has seen in 100 years. For some
reason, there are also a couple of tedious scenes
of her "real" life away from Mr Cinema,
but this worked out OK for us, because it gave us
her topless scene.
There are American
actresses more beautiful than Gayet, but I can't
name one other actress who can light up a room
the way this woman can. She has a radiant energy
that just draws you into her smile.
Gayet (1,
2)
Fay Wray in King Kong
Since the IMDb has almost
nothing, here's additional info on the movie -
The NT Times review
"Jagged
Edge", from Tuna
Here're Tuna's comments on Jagged Edge, new to
DVD today. "Glenn Close is wonderful (as
usual) in this better than average courtroom
who-done-it. When a wealthy woman is brutally
murdered, her husband is the prime suspect. Close
is hired to defend him. The well written plot
asks two questions -- Did he do it, and will he
be found guilty. Good plot and good performances
make a great film." Scoop's
note: I've never seen the film, and I don't
believe I've seen any previous caps of this
scene, so I was pleasantly surprised to see so
much of Glenn. Thumbnails
Close (1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8)
"Psycho",
from Tuna
Scoop's note: This is
the black and white Hitchcock version, not the
remake. I assume you all know what this is about.
If not, perhaps you meant to go to scooby.com.
Those meddling kids! Anyway, now study it frame
by frame to se what Janet Leigh did or didn't
expose in the shower at the Bates Motel. Thumbnails
Janet Leigh (1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12,
13,
14)
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