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A NIGHT AT THE ROXBURY (**1/2)- sigh... what is it with these movies made from Saturday Night Live sketches? Other then the Blues Brothers, they all turn out either really mediocre or just plain bad. Sadly, "A Night at the Roxbury" falls into the "really mediocre" category. It's about two loser brothers who live in Los Angeles and go clubbing every night, despite being despised by women everywhere (except for their next door neighbor). The jokes are mostly pretty lame and the situations they get into are all cliche and schticky. I'll give the movie credit for having a few reasonably funny parts in it, but these parts are few and far between. A lot of people like this movie though, so maybe I'm just being weird about it. Check it out only if you're in the mood for some really dumb humor and the Police Academey movies have all been rented by other people.
NO MAN’S LAND (*****)- not since Dr. Strangelove have I seen such an effective anti-war film. Set primarily between the front lines of the Serbian-Bosnian conflict, No Man’s Land follows the story of two Serbian soldiers and one Bosnian reconnaissance man who have been trapped in a trench and are being fired upon by both sides. One of the Serbians, it is soon discovered, cannot move because he is lying on a mine which will explode if he takes his weight off of it. A good-hearted United Nations relief-worker becomes involved, although he is bogged down by so much bureaucracy it is almost impossible for him to do anything, and so does a media crew, lead by a woman more eager to get the story then to actually help anyone. Obviously, one could write essays about how each of these characters represents a global force-- No Man’s Land is not just a movie about the absurdity of the Serbian-Bosnian war, it’s about the absurdity of all wars and the absurdity of the culture surrounding wars as well. Yet, although the characters clearly stand for larger forces, they never seem like caricatures… each is an individual, and it is a mark of the excellent writing that they seem as such. Another mark of the excellence of the writing is seen in the film’s humor; though it is dealing with intense situations, the script remains consistently, darkly funny. No Man’s Land would have been an excellent anti-war film without this humor, but it is made so much more effective because of it. Once we are able to laugh at something, we are able to discredit it. I read once about a man who was tying to overthrow the government in Afghanistan by producing a television show mocking it. He figured that as soon as people started to laugh at their government, they would no longer take it seriously, and it would lose its power. I don’t know how far he got, but I’ll bet that if his show had stayed on the air he probably would have succeeded. Laughter is powerful, and No Man’s Land realizes this. I am not sure how this movie was received when it was shown in Serbia (where it was made), but I will bet it was an amazing experience. Even just watching it at home is an amazing experience. Check it out.
NORTH (***1/2)-cameo, be they name. "North" is a family movie featuring so many talented actors you wonder why the movie isn't all that good. But then you realize it a few minutes later... it's because the whole thing is way too corny. The plot involves a seemingly perfect child named North who decides to abandon his self-absorbed parents and search the world for new ones. The whole film is done in a sort of "fairy tale" fashion, which ends up being quite nifty. Bruce Willis plays a mysterious narrator who follows North on his travels, adopting a number of humorous guises. Sounds great, right? Well, some parts of it are, but a lot of it is pretty sappy, and the end is pretty lame too. The evil kid with the slicked back hair would have been fine in small doses, but he ends up being shown so frequently that one can not help but cringe everytime he appears. And finally, I wasn't really into the whole "crack" scene. I mean, you can say the word "crack" in a movie maybe once or twice without it becoming annoying, but in this one scene it's like every other word anyone says. Maybe I'm being too picky. Oh well. I thought this movie, overall, was pretty good, but there were many small things that bugged me. You should probably check it out anyway.
NOSFERATU (****)-the classic silent horror movie about a vampire. Now, I haven't seen a lot of silent movies, or a lot of movies from this time period (late 20's) so my rating is kind of arbitrary. Even by today's standards, however, this movie is pretty creepy. Max Schreck, the guy who plays Count Orlock the vampire, does a disturbingly good job. Oh, yes, and "Nosferatu" is especially cool to watch if you've seen the new John Malkovitch movie, "Shadow of the Vampire" which is all about the making of this movie. The sets and the many of the scense from that movie are exactly the way they are in this one. It's bizarre. Anyway, I would definatley suggest this movie. Some parts are pretty hokey but hey, give them a break... they were pioneers of this type of film. Check it out.
NOVOCAINE (***1/2)- written and directed by Steve Martin, "Novocaine" is a film about a successful dentist (also played by Mr. Martin) whose life spins terribly out of control the day he meets a seductive new patient, played by Helena Bonham Carter. We watch as one of Martin's lies leads to another, snowballing into a twisted mess of violence and deceit. Martin's writing is enjoyably campy, making the film more of a dark comedy than anything else. Unfortunately, the plot eventually becomes a bit too tangled for its own good, and we end up having to have things explained to us in several monologues rather than finding them out for ourselves. Also, for a movie that seems so humorous so much of the time, it's disconcerting when we are occasionally slapped with scenes of pretty graphic sex and violence (watch out for the scene with the scissors, kids). It's as if half the time the movie can't figure out what it wants to be: a tongue-in-cheek comedy, or an all-out thriller. In the end, though, the writing is sharp enough, and the performances good enough (check out Kevin Bacon, especially, as the hotshot actor studying police work) that "Novocaine" is worth watching.
NURSE BETTY (****1/2)- This movie stars Renee Zellwegger (of "Jerry Maguire" fame) as well as Chris Rock and several other famous people who's names I am forgetting. It's about a woman stuck in a dead-end life who ends up witnessing the brutal murder (I won't get into details, but let's just say it's pretty gross) of her husband and goes into post traumatic stress syndrome. She believes she is actually a character in her favorite television show, and travels to California to meet the actor she has a crush on. Sounds dumb, but it's actually a really cool movie. Check it out. As of right now (9/21/2000) it's still in theatres.
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Email: dumbsweater@aol.com