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Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

Jul 12

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So, what could be timelier than releasing a Halloween slasher film around… July? The plot (i.e. flimsy device to set up killing horny teenagers by) is something that you might actually see on MTV’s Fear show. Busta Rhymes is the head of an online entertainment company and has proposed a contest where the lucky few get to spend a night in the creakily and poorly lit house of serial killer Michael Myers. Their prize seems to be nothing more than the notoriety of being seen live on the net. College student Sara Moyer (Bianca Kajlich) is one of the lucky winners along with her stars-in-her-eyes gal pal and culinary obsessed friend (‘Save the Last Dance’’s Sean Patrick Thomas). Some other people get picked including the requisite smart girl and “weird” guy. And then there’’s the horn dog played by the insufferable Thomas Ian Nicholas of ‘American Pie’ fame. For some randomly selected process it’s kind of odd that three people who are all good friends got picked. Eh, oh well.

Anyway, the kids go exploring through the decrepit remains of the house with cameras strapped to their heads. Why the house wasn’’t knocked down after the first baker’’s dozen of murders is anyone’s guess. The kids try and look for any clues to explain the psychological nature of Mr. Hack-N-Slash. Michael Myers eventually makes a homecoming complete with his favorite set of cutlery and goes to town. People go missing and eventually the participants, with Busta at the wheel, figure out that this whole thing ain’’t make believe.

Now this movie could have been a lot worse, although the scene where Myers kills a cameraman with a tripod leg is dearly pushing it. Jamie Lee Curtis even shows up for about five minuets in the beginning before having an early confrontation with Myers. Let’’s just say that Curtis seemed to want out bad, and realistically who can blame her?

I realize there are certain leaps of logic when even entering into the darkened theater to take in a slasher flick, but ‘Halloween: Resurrection’ doesn’t just defy logic, it slaps you across the face with it like a cold fish. Myers is no super human entity, to the contrary, and should actually be pushing 50. But man, can he still jump out of walls needlessly like the Kool-Aid man. And can he still dangle from poles with one arm like a champ. Talk about upper body strength.

There’’s a scene toward the beginning of the film in the basement of the mental hospital Jamie Lee resides in. Two guards retreat down there and one of them stops to purchase a vending machine goodie while the other goes ahead only to meet his doom. The lone guard now timidly searches around the nearby laundry machines and discovers his colleague’s head inside the tumbling machine. If you look closely, and do some marginal thinking, you’ll find out that in order to achieve this spook Mr. Myers actually had to put money into the laundry machine. Talk about your commitment to fear.

This whole bloody ordeal is streamed live across the Internet with something like 50 camera choices. Now the Internet, if no one’ told you, is not exactly a small thing. Wouldn’’t someONE someWHERE be watching one of the camera angles where they DO happen to see the killings and phone someone? Maybe everyone in the world just has a dial-up modem. You must realize that this bare-bones cheesy reality show concept was likely from everyone making a movie as they went along.

Let’’s face it folks, the thrill of this whole thing is gone. Somewhere along the way, I’’m guessing 19‘83, the whole concept just got stagnant and poorly executed. But now with the rise (or resurrection if you will) of the slasher genre in our post-irony world we get things like Jason in Space! And Michael Myers in an episode of MTV’s Fear! The draw is supposed to be the tightly wound suspense but, and maybe it’’s just me, where is the suspense when you could care less about the cheese-heads that are supposed to be the heroes and you KNOW what’’s going to happen to them?

Busta Rhymes, the thespian, is going to need more time to hone his craft. LL Cool J took up the rapper-come-Halloween-victim role in the last film, 1998’’s ‘Halloween: H20’ (which flagrantly did not take place underwater at all). To compare the acting prowess of the two rappers is like questioning the cooking ability of the Star Trek starship captains. It’’s just very inconsequential and should never be asked rightfully. Tyra Banks is in this movie for some reason even though her scenes account for about a weekend of work. Everyone else in the cast is forgettable, even the cute Uma Thurman-looking redhead who has the most head-scratching nude scene in an underground crypt.

‘Halloween: Resurrection’ is sloppy, dumb and above all things not scary. It seems Michael Myers is the ultimate boogey man –  he’’s survived seven straight duds.

Nate’s Grade: C-

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Star Wars: Attack of the Clones (2002)

May 23

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Yes, it’s easy to say that Attack of the Clones is better than Phantom Menace, but hey, most anything was better than watching that movie about trade and taxes. The truth of the matter is that for a long while Clones is just as boring as Menace, especially anything involving Anakin onscreen. It’s slow moving, dull, and remarkably poorly written. Lucas cannot write dialogue and someone needs to take away his yellow writing notebooks before he strikes again. The movie only shows life during the last 45 minutes when it finally cooks with a non-stop rush of action. Before then though I would recommend resting up for this period.

Can anyone ever say “no” to the Jedi master in plaid? What Lucas needs desperately is collaboration, writing and directing. Lucas needs to loosen up the reign of his empire before the three Star Wars prequels undermine the original set. He may have the technology to create any manner of CGI creature but he has no power to get his actors to show any of the realistic and animated life. It seems all Lucas cares about is directing blue screens and leaving his actors out to dry.

And that much ballyhooed romance between Anakin and Amidala? Oh ye God, what romance? You could find something more alive in a monastery. Portman and Christenson have as absolutely no chemistry (unlike the romantic pairs in another, huge Hollywood movie out now). Portman has perfected the staring ahead method. I don’t know if that’s supposed to be romantic. Now I like Natalie Portman, I really do. Her performance in The Professional gets me every time, but her acting is stiff and overly serious here.

I thought Anakin could not get any more annoying than Jake Lloyd’s awful “yippee”-filled run in Menace, but I’m starting to reconsider this begrudgingly. It’s easy to see why Christenson was chosen, he looks like the lost N’SYNC member. His acting on the other hand is not with the force. The Clones Anakin mopes around and when he gets upset he whines in a falsetto voice. It’s actually quite funny to see the future Darth Vader, evil master of the Dark Side and much feared, whining like a six year old throwing a tantrum. This Anakin needs a time out and a lolly.

When Anakin returns to become a protector for the senator, upon their first meet in ten years he shoots her the puppy eyes and says, “I see you have grown as well — grown more beautiful.” Subtlety, thy name is not Anakin Skywalker. The very next scene where they’re alone he’s trying to put the moves on her, though he does not try and use the force to undo her bra. Then somewhere along the line his dogged persistence just wears Amidala down and she relents. She says, “I’ve been dying a little bit day by day, ever since you re-entered my life.” Ugh. You’re likely to find more romantic passages in a Harlequin bodice ripper at 7-11.

The romance in Clones is like spontaneous romance. There is no beginning, the nurturing of it is not shown, we don’t see the eventual progress. All that happens is he shows up and then instant romance. It just happens. I don’t think so. It’s like a kid went to a girl’s third grade birthday party, then they meet in high school for the first time since that day and are instantly in love. Do you buy that? Well I certainly don’t.

The scenes revolving around Obi-Wan are the only ones worth opening your eyes for. Ewan McGregor has got the Alec Guiness voice down and proves to be a capable leading hero. His voyage to see the clone army and Jango Fett is the subplot that we want, but the movie keeps skipping back and forth between this and the inept romance. By this time everyone knows that Yoda shows off his fighting mettle with a light saber. This is a great idea and the audience I saw it with was having the time of their life during this moment. It’s the only part of the movie that taps into the feeling of whimsical fun of the original trilogy.

Lucas curtailed the criticism of Menace saying it was the setup for all five other movies. I imagine he’ll say the same thing with this one, except that it was setup for four movies. Yes it’ll make a huge amount of bank. Yes it’s a technical achievement but what good are all the bells and whistles if we as an audience are bored? You’ve got one more Star Wars left George, please do it right.

Nate’s Grade: C+

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Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001)

Aug 26

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Kevin Smith returns back to his comedy roots. No more movies with a message (Chasing Amy and Dogma) it’s back to good ole’ snowballing and stink palming. His latest, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, is like a giant thank-you card to all his fans that have made the man who he is today. It ties up the entire View Askew universe so Kevin can drift off into uncharted ventures of film making and not have to keep referencing the same damn characters. Plus there’s plenty of good-natured vulgarity to go around.

The plot of Jay and Silent Bob is nothing too heavy but seems to keep the film on a continuous pace, unlike the sometimes stagnant feel Mallrats had (what, they’re in one location for 90 minutes). It seems that after getting a restraining order at the Quick Stop on them, Jay and Silent Bob learn that Miramax is making a movie from a comic book that is in fact based off of them. Learned of the riches they could make they seek out the comic’s author Holden McNeil (Ben Affleck’s first appearance in the film) and demand a piece of the pie. Holden tells them that he long ago sold his right to his partner Banky Edwards (Jason Lee, in his second appearance in the film) and that there’s nothing they can do to stop the film. Jay suddenly gets the idea that if they stop the movie from ever getting made then they don’t have to worry. So off go our stoner duo on a mission to sabotage and satirize Hollywood.

Along the way are a hitch-hiker (George Carlin) advising the best way to get a ride is to go down in your morals, a confused nun (Carrie Fisher), the cast of Scooby Doo offering a ride (which will be 100x funnier than the feature film coming out this summer), a beautiful band of international diamond thieves (Eliza Dusku, Ali Larter, Jennifer Swalbach-Smith, Shannon Elizabeth), a rescued chimpanzee, a dogged Wildlife agent (Will Ferrell), and a full barrage of hilarity once Hollywood is finally hit.

The best barbs are laid out by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon bickering about the other’s film choices on the set of Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season. This moment is truly inspired and full of great humor from Gus van Sant too busy counting his money to yell action to Damon turning into a vigilante hero. I almost fell on the floor laughing during this sequence.

When Jay and Silent Bob hit Hollywood is when the comedy starts hitting its stride as this Jersey Greek chorus interacts with the Hollywood life and encounters many a celebrity. The jokes are usually right on target except for Chris Rock’s performance of a racism obsessed film director. Rock’s portrayal becomes grating to the moviegoer far before it’s over, though he does get a few choice lines.

Smith as a director has finally elevated his visual art into something that can sustain itself instead of his earlier just-hold-the-camera-and-shoot movies. There are pans, zooms, quick cuts, cranes, action sequences, and even CGI. Smith is evolving as an artist but still staying his “dick and fart joke” self, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is evidence. And that’s fine by me.

Nate’s Grade: B

Reviewed 20 years later as part of the “Reviews Re-View: 2001” article.

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American Pie 2 (2001)

Aug 3

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First and foremost I disliked the first American Pie movie. It just rang very transparent for me and I didn’t laugh once – a capitol crime with a comedy in my book. So I wasn’t exactly looking forward to another addition with the American Pie family, but ventured out with friends and found myself enjoying this second helping of raunch. And this time I genuinely laughed at several points and found it overall less insipid.

To American Pie 2‘s benefit all the characters have been introduced prior and are familiar to the audience, therefore no time is wasted on pointless set-up. The movie jumps right out to the familiar faces and decides to further the AP2 universe. Jim (Jason Biggs) and friends are returning back home after their first year of college. Jim has not had a sexual experience since his prom night with Michelle the band geek (Alyson Hannigan) and he is completely in doubt of his abilities in the bedroom. Complicating matters is the news that the Czech student of his fantasies Nadia (Shannon Elizabeth) is on her way back and is eagerly anticipating another tryst with Jim. Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) is still hung up on his ex Vicky (Tara Reid) and worrying that his friends will grow apart and college will change everything. Oz (Chris Klein) seems to be doing fine with his monogamous relationship to Heather (Mena Suvari), despite the taunting of Stifler (Sean William Scott) that he needs to spread out. Finally Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) is still chasing after the only woman that ever caught his heart, Stifler’s mom.

After the boys return back to their roots the police bust a party at Stifler’s pad, and they are without a place to party for the summer. Kevin brings to their attention the idea of renting a cabin on the beach for the summer. The place serves as a spot for the boys to enjoy their sunshine-y days away from school and stay together as friends, as well as attempt to get an abundance of tail. Hi-jinks ensue.

AP2 almost seems to follow the formula of the first one to the letter. The opening scene has Jim’s dad (the always hilarious Eugene Levy) walking in on an embarrassing moment for Jim (you think he’d learn that doors have locks at this point). Jim encounters a horrific sexual accident that he must discuss with his father afterwards. Stifler gets a not-so-nice encounter with a bodily fluid in the beginning party. And it all ends with a big party to end all parties with everyone hooking up with a partner for some post-coital spooning. The script was written by the same writer of the first yet he seems to be playing connect the dots with his own formula.

What American Pie 2 does to separate itself as more enjoyable than the first is give the interesting characters the majority of the time and leave the least interesting sputtering for air. The interesting ones follow: Jim is a nice guy full of the same insecurities that plague a teenager and intimacy, and Biggs plays him as an everyman who somehow always seems to come into sadistic moments of embarrassment. With Jim’s wish to be more sexually adept he visits the infamous band camp and finds Michelle once again who agrees to coach him on techniques and pointers. Hanigan is given an incredible amount more of screen time and she’s glowing in every second of it.

Also the man-you-love-to-hate Stifler has a larger role leading his group of lakeside roommates into encounters with lesbians and other sexual calamities. Scott may be playing Stifler as a jerk but he’s entertaining and genuinely funny, and at one point you can’t help but root for the crass frat boy. Finch has learned that Stifler’s mom will be paying a visit to their cabin at the end of the summer and spends his time studying up on Tantra and Zen to fully explore his inner sexual prowess.

The entire cast from the first American Pie romp does return, though not everyone has equal time. Mena Suvari (still looking so young) leaves in the beginning of the film and then comes back at the very end. The insatiably annoying Reid (who has eyes that I can’t tell where her whites end and irises begin) thankfully is only in the film for two short scenes which leads me to question was she even necessary in the first place? Natasha Lyonne is only in scenes alongside Reid, so her stint in the sequel is equally as brief. Elizabeth’s role might be central to Jim’s quest for sexual fulfillment, but she only pops up in the last eight minutes of the film – and doesn’t show her breasts this time. Now that I think about it Klein and Nicholas really weren’t in the film too much either except for standing in the background while another character talked.

The soundtrack is a collection of every pop “punk” band that’s been playing on MTV since May of that year. It’s like the producers just watched the channel for a week and would point to the ones they wanted.

The film still is a mishmash of gross out sexual humor and sentimentality, but for some reason it’s a lot easier to swallow the second time around. For all its bodily fluids and crudeness, American Pie 2 has a stickily sweet secretly conservative old-fashioned heart. Though the makers would never tell you so. In a summer almost bankrupt on entertainment value I’ll leisurely take a slice of American Pie 2.

Nate’s Grade: B-

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Jurassic Park III (2001)

Jul 20

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Jurassic Park 3 – or – How I Stopped Worrying About Plot and Started Loving Dinosaur Mayhem

As we last left Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) he is still making the rounds to financially support his ailing archeological digs in Montana. A couple (William H. Macy and Téa Leoni) ask the good doctor to be their guide as they have chartered a plane to fly over the island of Isla Sorna (or Nublar, I forget which, they’re both really Hawaii anyway). Grant hesitates at first but when their checkbook comes out he begrudgingly accepts – proving again like the first two, that no matter what the danger, archeologists will do whatever for grants. The truth is that the couple is searching for their lost boy (Trevor Morgon) who was stranded on the island when he partook in an idiotic para-sailing sight seeing adventure by the island. Of course the plane gets destroyed and they must all fend for themselves.

Jurassic Park 3 makes no bones about what it really is – a dino thrill ride. There’s no opportunities to flesh out characters, there’s no time for set-up, it’s just straight to the island and constant running from peril from there. The pacing of the film and structure is like an amusement park; the people are on one ride that thrills, then they quickly move to another within minutes, and repeat for an afternoon of fun. To boil it down it’s dinos chase humans, stir, and bake for 90 minutes.

It seems that in every Jurassic movie we have some kind of new scientific theory being explored and eventually vilified. In the first it was dinosaurs behaved more like birds and perhaps evolved into them, the second had something to do with maternal behavior and parenting. And now in Jurassic Park 3 the new scientific dig is that raptors could communicate verbally to one another – in essence talk. There’s even a sequence late into the flick where they basically “talk” straight for something like a minute. I was hoping Dr. Doolittle would waltz in at any moment and start singing, but, despite my best hopes and wishes, it was not to be.

The effects and animatronics have gotten better than ever, and they were stellar to begin with. There are moments of great thrills and fun, but too often then not, it all feels routine. What should be an awesome sight of dinosaurs roaming is now blasé. What should be fearsome coming face to face with the familiar predators like T. Rex and the raptors now seems, well… too familiar. The only true moment of great awe and freshness is when the group is walking along a rickety walkway only to discover they’re inside a giant aviary complete with hungry pterodactyls.

Acting in a Jurassic Park film usually consists of a healthy scream and some fast legs. Everyone is okay by those standards, but Leoni’s character is just far too annoying. I would’ve enjoyed the flick more if she had been eaten. In another stroke of sure luck, all of the major Hollywood cast members survive yet all the extras or unknowns perish. Call it the Poseidon Adventure syndrome (Thank you Ebert for writing this first so that I might rip you off in the future).

Director Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer, Jumanji) inherited the dino franchise from master guru Spielberg and has done a fairly capable job with his efforts. The action is fast and there are a couple of particularly nice visual set-ups sprinkled through out the film. The marvel that was in Spielberg’s touch is the most missing however. The “script” (and I use this in a very loose sense) is actually co-credited to Alexander Payne, which is a rather interesting morsel. The most interesting one though has to be that the young Morgon has actually starred in another dinosaur picture before in his short career – Barney’s Great Adventure.

For action fans in this bleak summer release period Jurassic Park 3 will serve a fine dish at 90 minutes of fast dinosaur attacks and squeals. Hopefully though the ‘Jurassic Park’ franchise will be stopped before the wonder it used to have turns passé. Because right now it’s teetering on the brink.

Nate’s Grade: C+

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The Mummy Returns (2001)

May 5

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Does this mean the following sequels will be called The Mummy Forever and The Mummy and Robin? Our tale takes place ten years after the first. Our archeological heroes in Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz are now married and the proud parents of a blonde English boy (Freddie Boath) – who of course, gets into as much trouble as his parents do. Supposedly there’s this buried army of dog warriors from an Egyptian God. The trick is, you have to defeat their leader The Scorpion King to gain control over their ranks. So our good guys stumble upon setting things in motion accidentally, while our bad guys raise Imhotep (our mummy from the first one) with plans of him toppling The Insect Marvel.

The story of Mummy redux deals a lot with past lives and destinies. It seems miraculously everyone in our story is related to one another be it past or present (and we ain’t talking inbreeding). They fulfill their destinies – or whatever, mainly just fight with pointy things.

Many of the same characters return from the first one, almost like an ongoing serial. There’s the cowardly bumbling brother-in-law (John Hannah), the Arabic prince sworn to protect society form the evils of mummy-ness (Oded Fehr), and hell, even the damn mummy himself (Arnold Vosloo). We even get more of Vosloo’s dead girlfriend from the first picture. She has the honor of sharing a grotesque screen lip-lock with the decaying mummy. Talk about commitment.

Somehow pro wrestler The Rock (Is he in the phone book as “Rock, The”?) got into this film. His role is The Scorpion King, a cursed uber warrior of ancient Egypt. As you would expect from someone so elegantly named after a large, un-moving, mineral – The Rock’s acting is largely un-moving. He has one line in a different language, poorly delivered as well, then has five minutes of screen time battling people two feet smaller than him with the pearliest whites this side of the Nile. He shows up again later as a scorpion/human hybrid but is replaced with (say it with me class) CGI.

The acting is pure cornball, but to some degrees pleasantly so. We can’t have people taking themselves too seriously while being chased by little dead pygmy babies. Fraser seems to be leading the way for the next generation of action stars. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje appears in a small role as one of the big bad’s henchmen. After watching him for years on Oz it was a personal pleasure to see him on screen. Boath is the real surprise. If he were grating (like some lil’ Star Wars kid) I’d root for any undead creature to suck his nine year-old bones dry. He is fun to watch and acts like a kid, not a child actor acting like a kid.

The Mummy Returns will enchant you if you were enchanted by the first one. My stance on the mummy’s predecessor was that it was a tongue-in-cheek dose of cheese and adventure. It was nothing to write home about but it was a fun popcorn flick. However, The Mummy Returns throws the gauntlet down with the “bigger is better” rule of thumb almost tripling everything the first tried. It practically throws everything at you in its onslaught including a CGI kitchen sink. You’ll get computer everything. It’s almost like the producers are having a mummy wholesale – “everything must go!” As in reference to there is so much computer generated images in this film that it could be classified as the first living cartoon.

The action in The Mummy Returns is relentless. The pacing is fast and must be the bane to all those people who must squirm in their chair afraid they will miss something – you will. Most movies move through plot points, like from A to B. With The Mummy Returns, on the other hand, everything just bleeds together in a linear mess. It’s rather exhausting to watch.

The Mummy Returns continues to have its tongue firmly planted in cheek. Except with its onslaught it almost resembles a scene from Species with said tongue going in cheek then outside of brain cavity. If you’re hungry for an all-you-can-eat version of a movie, then The Mummy Returns might whet your appetite.

Nate’s Grade: C+

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Hannibal (2001)

Feb 6

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Trying to sequelize Silence of the Lambs is surely harder than trying to sequelize The Blair Witch Project. The novel Hannibal by Thomas Harris I don’t think will be confused as a necessary burst of creative ambition, and more of a chance to cash in on the love of Hannibal Lector. Though I’ve not read a line from the book from what I’m told the movie is faithful until the much hated ending. Starting a film off a so-so book isn’t a good way to begin, especially when you lose four of the components that made it shine Oscar gold.

The element that Silence of the Lambs carried with it was stealthily gripping psychological horror. It hung with you in every closed breath you would take, surrounding you and blanketing your mind. I mean, there aren’t many serial killer movies that win a slew of Oscars. Lambs excelled at psychological horror, but with Hannibal the horror turns into a slasher film more or less. What Lambs held back and left us terrified Hannibal joyfully bathes in excess and gore.

Julianne Moore, a competent actress, takes over from the ditching Jodie Foster to fill the shoes of FBI agent Clarice Starling. Throughout the picture you know she’s trying her damndest to get that Foster backwoods drawl she used on the original down. The problem for poor Moore though is that her character spends half of the film in the FBI basement being oogled by higher-up Ray Liotta. She doesn’t even meet Hannibal Lector until 3/4 through. Then again, the title of the film isn’t Starling.

Anthony Hopkins returns back to the devil in the flesh and seems to have a grand old time de-boweling everyone. Lector worked in Lambs because he was caged up, like a wild animal not meant for four glass walls, and you never knew what would happen. He’d get in your head and he would know what to do with your grey matter – not that he doesn’t have a culinary degree in that department in this film. Lector on the loose is no better than a man with a chainsaw and a hockey mask, though he has a better knowledge of Dante and Florentine romantic literature. Lector worked bottled up, staring at you with dead unblinking calm. He doesn’t work saying goofy “goody-goody” lines and popping out of the shadows.

Since the director, screenwriter, and female lead didn’t show up for the Lambs rehash, it feels a tad chilled with Ridley Scott’s fluid and smooth direction. The cinematography is lush and very warm.

Gary Oldman steals the show as the horribly disfigured former client of Lector’s seeking out revenge. His make-up is utterly magnificent and the best part of the film, he is made to look like a human peeled grape. Oldman instills a Texan drawl into the character yet making him the Meryl Streep of villainy.

Hannibal is no where near the landmark in excellence that Silence of the Lambs was but it’s not too bad. It might even be good if it wasn’t the sequel to a great film. As it is, it stands as it stands.

Nate’s Grade: B-

Reviewed 20 years later as part of the “Reviews Re-View: 2001” article.

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Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000)

Oct 28

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Let’s openly admit it from the start … there’s no way the people behind this could win. The Blair Witch Project was a phenomenon in indie cinema that likely will never be seen again. The movie certainly didn’t need a sequel, and probably couldn’t be easily hatched with its cracker-jack ending anyway. We, as a nation, are not only expecting any Blair Witch sequels to fail; hell, we’re demanding it. This is the state my mind I waded in as I started to see Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2.

Burkitsville Maryland has become quite a hotspot for tourism because of the success of The Blair Witch Project. Local residents sell items such as rocks and stick figures to jabbering tourists, some of whom have come overseas. This is where our tour guide Jeff (Jeff Donovon) enters. He leads our band of characters into a tour of the Maryland woods. Each of his campers has their own reason for going. There’s the engaged couple with Guy (Stephen Baker turner) as the skeptic and realist, and Girl (Tristine Skyler) as the supernatural believer. Then there’s Wicca gal (Erica Leerhson) who’s out to disprove the bad reputation of the Blair Witch. Finally, there’s pseudo-psychic Goth girl (Kim Director) who really has no purpose except to wear pancake makeup and whine about how she’s unfairly treated by society for dressing in black.

This motley crew of slacker backpackers spends a night in the woods and turns it into something that you would see advertised during a commercial for Howard Stern. The alcohol mixes with the drugs and the next morning no one can remember a thing. Their surveillance equipment is destroyed and Guy’s lengthy paper is littering the ground like snow (it must have been over a 1000 pages for the amount that continuously falls). Accusations fly, and after a brief stay in a hospital occupied with ghostly images of dead children, the group decides to take refuge in Jeff’s secluded residence. It just so happens that it’s an empty warehouse in the middle of nowhere. Perfect setting for scary things to jumps out at people, and they do. The remainder of the movie is spooky shenanigans happening in this big bad haunted house until the mandatory muddled ending.

Book of Shadows (some studio exec must have tacked it on because it sounded “cool” since it has nothing to do with anything) takes off promisingly enough. The first ten minutes show the effect the first film had on the community and the fans with a mock-documentary fashion. Then it’s over quickly and we get a glossy film, a 20 million dollar budget and Marilyn Manson scraping his larynx or killing an owl on the soundtrack. Can you say “corporate fast buck”? I know I did. The sequel to the soggy backpack adventure of indie fame bears little resemblance to its predecessor. The only common line between the two is an assortment of unknown actors starring, which isn’t necessarily a good practice for every movie

None of the characters in Book of Shadows are truly interesting at all. Surprisingly enough though, they have an intelligent conversation about the blame of media and how it can affect others’ will. This, as should be guessed, is the high point of the film. It makes little difference that the most intelligent conversation in the film occurs when everyone is wasted and high by camp light.

The first movie was by no stretch a lesson in horror but it was innovative and relied on a practice of creating horror in your mind, which I can at least admire. Blair Witch 2 has no scares in it whatsoever. It has gore, blood, and things that are thought of as scary: bats, darkness, mean dogs, dead children, insane asylum kooks etc. Problem is none of these things work. They’re all textbook but they never work in execution.

Blair Witch 2 was directed by documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger. He co-created the truly excellent and gripping Paradise Lost films over the hysteria and blame that convicted Gothic teens in Arkansas of murder. It’s easy to see some similar themes in Blair Witch 2, which include a Goth crying out against the way she’s seen and treated and a Wicca crying out against the way she’s seen and treated. They’re carryovers from his earlier works. But Berlinger’s first step up to fictional direction is really a step down. He’s so good at storytelling and underscoring tension and drama in his documentaries, so what went wrong? I think it was probably studio interference (look at the title), but Berlinger may just not be up to snuff for fictional film. Which is fine because he’s one of the best documentary filmmakers alive next to Errol Morris, Michael Moore, and Barbara Koppel. Berlinger will bounce back but he may not want to make a fictional film again.

The way the story is told is in different layers cut together from different times. It’s interesting enough and sets up some mild foreshadowing but by the end, when it makes it clear who will survive and who won’t, it becomes annoying. The ending crawls along and presents two possible scenarios (spoilers): one; it invalidates everything before and shows the nature of humans with hysteria and their own capabilities for evil (better ending), and two; some supernatural force interfered and did bad stuff (boo!). Reluctantly I think most people will go with ending number two. The understanding of the ending is too fundamental toward the enjoyment of this film. This further muddles the whole film and the reason for even watching it.

The flick initially took me by surprise but then left me muddled in confusion that has yet to cease. Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 is a conundrum of a film. It’s really not very entertaining or innovative. In fact, it’s really not that great at all. It will be interesting to see how people receive this film with years of distance. I think it could be kindle an interesting film class discussion on the pressures of following up a phenomenon. Studio execs certainly had their say and certainly wanted Blair Witch bucks, but the public is older and wiser, and repackaging the same old tricks will not work the same. Owls, dead children, and shadows of friggin’ stick figures will not scare an audience without a story. Of course, after Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 bombed so succinctly, the ones left horrified were the studio executives. The public had the last laugh.

Nate’s Grade: C-

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Mission: Impossible II (2000)

May 29

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John Woo’s loud and flashy sequel to DePalma’s overwrought Mission: Impossible comes with both guns blazing — and doves flying. Since EVERYONE from the show, minus Tom Cruise, was killed in the first movie, the series starts off with a fresh cast complete with weak villain. Dougray Scott plays the rouge MI agent who steals a virus and its subsequent antidote to only release the super virus onto the world and make a super steady pharmaceutical profit from the the antidote. One wonders what the MI agency does except create rogue operatives for movie plotlines. Oval-faced, glass-eyed beauty Thandie Newton, who was last seen croaking and spitting river water in Beloved, plays Cruise’s new love interest. Her role isn’t really fleshed out but she provides the sparkle and charm, not to mention plenty of spice, that is necessary. The real problem MI:2 has is the action. Now Woo is a marvelous choreographer of action, his visions are poetry — but they all seem so cliche now that most of the action came across as hollow and just empty noise. There are moments of excitement but they are few and far between a hackneyed lumbering plot. Still, in a summer wishing for fireworks you can’t fault MI:2 for delivering.

Nate’s Grade: B-

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Scream 3 (2000)

Feb 6

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Master of the macabre Wes Craven returns to the most anticipated and secretive horror series in recent memory. The Scream saga opened the doors for the teen proliferation of all that is commercial, and now the same people come back to close the book on what they started. At least that’s what the idea was.

Craven proves his directing credentials even more so with this vapidly dull sequel to the sequel about horror sequels. Even when the story is dragging, and it will, he wrings some amount of tension and excitement that I’m sure would likely be absent from any other director’s hands.

The void of teen powerhouse scribe Kevin Williamson is distinguishing, but newbie Miramax goldenboy Ehren Kruger walks the walk effectively. What is sadly absent are the touches of irony and intrigue that Williamson dabbled through like a French chef. Ghostface loses the edge it had in the earlier flicks where the deaths would all be unusually related to the topic at hand in some clever way. But in Scream 3 the irony is left behind at the Williamson offices and killer-man-guy just hacks people away. No interesting approaches or set-ups, just unrelenting running and slashing.

Scream 3‘s biggest drawback may be the lack of the central mystery the first two exhibited so well. Scream 3 introduces about 15 different characters, but then quickly enough kills off about 14 of them. Face it kids, if Scream 3 is your first Scream flick you ain’t making it to the end credits. Kruger lays no clues or red herrings for the audience to gape and trip over in wondering who is behind the killer’s mask. More time is spent needlessly killing needless characters than creatively playing the audience along an intricate guessing game that would have made the movie more enjoyable.

It may sound like I’m coming down hard on Scream 3 but, on the contrary, I had a huge amount of fun with it. Parker Posey is wonderful. I was laughing often and was usually entertained even though I could sense the franchise losing steam. Besides a lame ending (two in a row), Scream 3 is good popcorn fun but nothing more promising than that.

Ladies and gentlemen the Scream horror series has finally degenerated into the very thing it’s making fun of. Except with this installment it seems not to know that the joke is on them.

Nate’s Grade: C+

 

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