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LA CONFIDENTIAL (****)- a great movie. Kevin "American Beauty" Spacey, Russel "The Gladiator" Crowe, and that other guy are all very good. It's an intense movie, and violent in some places, but vastly entertaining. Danny DeVito is good, too.
LEGALLY BLONDE (***1/2)- this is one of those movies where I get to say, "Surprisingly, this movie was not all that bad". Well, actually, it is pretty bad. But no, not really in every respect. I mean, the writing and acting and cinematography and everything are pretty much run-of-the-mill, and... well, I don't know... what I mean to say is... as a film in the artsy, creative, and critically-acclaimed kind of way, it's not all that great. But in terms of pure, brinless entertainment, it's probably one of the best movies this summer. Ok. The plot: Reese Witherspoon (from "Election", "Pleasentville" and some other sutff) is a California college girl madly in love with her preppy boyfriend. One day, though, he breaks up with her in order to attend Harvard "Law School" in the state of "I Forget... but it's on the East Coast". Maybe Conneticut, but probably more like Massachucets. Maybe Maryland. Anyway, so, he dumps her and goes off to school. She is heartbroken... until, that is, she devises a plan: she will go to Harvard also and show her boyfriend that she's really not as dumb as he thinks she is. So, obviously, she gets in, and then has a multitude of adventures involving a cast of colorful, but streotypical and two-dimensional characters. The movie gets off to a rocky start, but once it's established what is going on, it gets a lot better. I would suggest it.
LITTLE BIG MAN (****1/2)- a classic western movie starring Dustin Hoffman. One of the few movies I think I might consider "epic". It's a lot like Forest Gump, except that it's set in the late 1800's. Also, of course, this movie came out way before Forest Gump, and is more "light hearted". Check out the makeup on Hoffman as the old man! Incredible! Overall, this is a fantastic movie. Today is a good day to die.
LOCK, STOCK, AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS (****1/2)- this is an English action/comedy about blokes who get in a spot of trouble, and end up having to obtain a whole bunch of money in just a few days. Good acting, good story, good writing. They have some pretty cool special effects, too, sort of like the ones in the Matrix where it's like "Super Slow Motion", but the ones in this movie seem a lot more artsy. It's very nice. The ending is really cool, too, but I won't give anything away.
LOOK WHO'S TALKING (****)-Kristy Alley, John Travolta, and Bruce Willis' voice star in this romantic comedy which involves a talking baby. Well, ok, he dosen't really "talk" persay, but it's as if the audience can hear what he's thinking. And he thinks a lot. He's really a smart baby. He's a lot smarter than I was at that age, I think. Anyway, it's a pretty good movie, if not a tad predictable. The footage of the sperm and the everything in the beginning is beautiful. Although, it is a bit hard to believe that the baby knows words like "cosmic" while he's still in the womb. Suspend disbelief, I suppose. Overall, it's a nice film to watch if you can't decide on anything else.
LUCKY NUMBERS (***)-man, I had a lot higher expectations for this one. John Travolta and Lisa Kudrow star as small town TV personalitites who attempt to rig the state lottery. For the first hour or so, I was thinking I would give it two stars, but the end picked up quite a bit, so I gave it three instead. A lot of the scenes (especially in the beginning) seem like they should have been left on the cutting room floor, or been re-shot, because they lag. The acting is pretty decent, and the script is ok... but, like a bad cupcake, the whole thing just didn't really sit well with me. And what was the point of having it set in the eighties? Was it just for that lame joke about Microsoft at the end?
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