Breaking Away – A cute and charming movie about growing up. Breaking may not add up to much in the end, but it is
enjoyable enough getting there. A
young and talented cast (including Dennis Quaid and Daniel Stern) are fun in
their own right, but it’s the humor and sweetness of the film that’ll stick
with you.
The Foreigner – Direct-to-Video Seagal offering leaves a
lot to be desired. In fact, it
leaves almost everything to be desired.
Seagal punches and shoots his way through double-crosses, triple-crosses,
and quadruple crosses as a former CIA agent trying to keep a package out of the
hands of corrupt Russians, CIA agents, assassins, businessmen and a soccer mom.
Inglorious Basterds – Quentin tarantino’s newest is a clear
Sergio Leone homage that has a group of Jewish soldiers (led by Brad Pitt)
trying to single handedly take down the Nazis. Of course, this being a Tarantino film, there are a lot more
characters than you’d think necessary, a few neat stand-offs, seemingly
extraneous dialogue, and plenty of quality film-making. However, there’s equally enough to feel
wrong about with the movie, including the glossing over of a real issue,
reflective negativity, extreme violence and odd editing so that it feels as if
several major scenes are missing.
Each scene may be some level of amazing in itself, but the whole is less
than the sum of its parts.
Major League – As baseball season winds down, and the
Brewers lose their chance at the playoffs, its important to get into that “We
can do it” attitude. Major League
is a harmless, silly, and decently funny sports film about the worst baseball
team ever created. Some
characterizations are better than others, but in the end, it feels like a
standard underdog sports film, with every single scenario able to be guessed in
advance. It’s funny, but that
doesn’t make it good.
Major League 2 - The Indians are back, and not quite as good. Inevitable sequel feels like more of the same, only without any heart. Like the first one, I found Willie “Mays” Hayes to have the funniest moments (Wesley Snipes had the role the first time through, and Omar Epps had it the second), but there are a few scenes that are funny enough to make it worth watching. Well, maybe.
Under Siege 2: Dark Territory – Steve Seagal went back to
his most mainstream role for this decent sequel, as an ex-special forces
soldier-turned cook-turned terrorist puncher. There is some extreme violence this time around, and its
likely more violent than any other Segal film. But the film also boasts great villians in the smarmy Travis
Dane (Eric Bogosian, who is near perfect) and the emotionless killer Penn
(Everett McGill, also really good).
They are the best pair of movie villains to come along at least since
Busey and Jones tore up the Missouri.
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