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JACKIE BROWN (****1/2)- this is a really good Quentin Terrentino film about a bunch of people who are all trying to get a half-million dollars. Like "Pulp Fiction" this movie is done in such a way that it almost feels like you're reading a book rather than watching a film. It's very cool. Samuel L. Jackson plays a bad ass dude in this movie, just like in "Pulp Fiction", but this time he is a little more sinister. Also, he has a much uglier hair do. Other than him, this movie includes such big stars as Bridget Fonda, Micheal Keaton and Robert DeNiro. Quentin Terrintino does NOT make an appearence, and I'll leave it up to you to decide weather this is a good or bad thing. Over all, the writing, acting, and direction are all top notch. So what keeps it from being a five star movie? Honestly, I can't really tell you. Not to be all Zen crazy, but it's sort of an intangible thing. The whole aura, the whole feeling of the movie makes it not quite as good as Pulp Fiction, or even Fight Club. See it anyway. In the video store I went to, it was classified as an "action" movie, but there's really very little action at all.
JACKIE CHAN'S FIRST STRIKE (***)-I origionally thought I would put this under "F" for "First Strike", but it turns out that the actual name of the move *is* "Jackie Chan's First Strike". This is just one of the many crazy things about this movie. The plot... well, the plot is never important in Jackie Chan movies... but the plot has somthing to do with Russian mobsters and a briefcase. Other than that, I can't really tell you much. Frankly, it dosen't even matter. The real point of this movie is to show Jackie doing lots of wild stunts and getting into fights and being funny. All of which he does quite well in this movie. I don't really know what else I can tell you. If you're a fan of Jackie Chan (hey, that rhymes!) you'll probably like this moive, and if you're not... well, I doubt that this'll change your opinion. Stunts in this one include, among others, Jackie Chan snowboarding and Jackie Chan fighting sharks.
JAKOB THE LIAR (****)- on the box this video comes in it says "Williams' best film since 'Good Will Hunting'". Well, let's think about what he has been in since then. Hmm... there was "Flubber", and there was "Bicentennial Man" in which he played a robot. So, basically, there was not much competition for this to be his best movie. In it, he plays a Jewish guy in a Polish ghetto during World War II who tells everyone he has a radio, even though he really dosen't. The most notable performance, I thought, was the guy who played the Nazi commander near the end. He has a little speech that I thought was pretty good. Check out this movie if you are a fan of either Robin Williams or mass genocide. Nanoo nanoo!
JURASSIC PARK III (**)- might as well be called "Jurassic Suck", it sucks so much. This is (if you hadn't guessed) the third installment in the Jurassic Park film series. It revolves around a small group of characters led by paleontologist Alan Grant (who you may remember from the origional movie) and their plight to find a lost boy named Eric, and then get off of the dinosaur-infested island. The film just assumes that everyone in the audience knows the back story about how the dinos were grown via complicated genetics science as part of an extravagant theme park, and then broke loose to eat people and destroy things, so it makes no effort to explain. It makes no difference anyway; the point is, there are now more people on the island, and more dinosaurs. To explain the plot would be akin to telling you something you already know, it's so predictable. What I will tell you about, though, are the dinosaurs. Ok... there's a really big one called a "Spinesarus" who is pretty much the "main bad-guy" in the film. I'm not sure if this is a real dinosaur or not, but it looks pretty funny, so I wouldn't be surprised if someone just made it up for the movie. There's also a bunch of pterodactals (the flying dinosaurs). I had always thought these were nice, herbovoric dinosaurs, but I guess not, because they try to eat the people in this movie. Yeah. So, anwyay, "Jurassic Park 3" (or "Parque del Jurassic Tres" for our Spanish friends) is pretty lame, and, if I were you, and I had just read this review, I would not go see it.
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