90s Movie Review - Random Hearts

Director: Sydney Pollack
Genre: Drama/ Romance/ Mystery
Runtime: 132 minutes
Year: 1999
Starring: Harrison Ford, Kristin Scott Thomas, Charles S. Dutton, Bonnie Hunt, Dennis Haysbert, Sydney Pollack, Richard Jenkins, Paul Guilfoyle, Peter Coyote, Dylan Baker, Bill Cobbs, Kate Mara

I WATCHED THIS MOVIE FOR MY 2024 MOVIE CHALLENGE
WEEK 46: A FILM FROM YOUR TEEN YEARS
 
Description: Police Seargeant Dutch Van den Broeck (Harrison Ford) and U.S. Representative Kay Chandler (Kristin Scott Thomas) lose their spouses in a plane crash, and they soon discover that their partners were having an affair with each other.

Review: The wife of tough Internal Affairs Sergeant Dutch was killed in a plane crash, as was the husband of politician Kay. Kay and Dutch find out that their spouses were sitting next to each other on the plane, but were also having an affair. Dutch wants to find out why.

On paper, this film sounds interesting. But in practice, it doesn’t work. Mainly because it does not really know in which direction it wants to go. At first, it’s a drama. Two people losing their other half in a tragic accident. Then it turns into a mystery, when they are trying to discover why they were on that plane and why Dutch’s wife didn’t use her real name. And eventually some romance is sprinkled in as well. And it has some strange side-plot of this case that Dutch is working on, that has nothing to do with the actual plot. It just feels very messy. And it’s also very boring, especially given that this film is over two hours long.

Great cast, making the best of it. But really a dull film with little to interest me.

Rating: 2/ 5

00s Movie Review - Along Came a Spider

Director: Lee Tamahori
Genre: Drama/ Crime/ Thriller
Runtime: 104 minutes
Year: 2001
Starring: Morgan Freeman, Monica Potter, Michael Wincott, Dylan Baker, Anton Yelchin, Mika Boorem, Kimberly Hawthorne, Billy Burke, Penelope Ann Miller, Michael Moriarty

Description: When a congressman’s daughter under Secret Service protection is kidnapped from a private school, detective Alex Cross (Morgan Freeman) investigates the case even though he’s recovering from the loss of his partner.

Review: A sociopath with murderous tendencies has been posing as a teacher for two years and is patiently waiting for the moment he can strike. He kidnaps the daughter of a senator. Although the school was supervised by the Secret Service, they did not hinder him.
Detective Alex Cross, who we already met in the movie “Kiss the Girls”, is contacted by the kidnapper and together with Secret Service agent Jezzie Flannigan he tries to find the young girl.
It’s an okay thriller, mainly because of Morgan Freeman. I just love him s Alex Cross. But “Along Came a Spider” is nowhere near as good as “Kiss the Girls” was. The story is interesting, but towards the end it’s rushed and loses tension. Just above average.

Rating: 3/ 5

100 Movie Challenge 2017 - # 68: Happiness

Director: Tod Solondz
Genre: Drama
Runtime: 134 minutes
Year: 1998
Starring: Jane Adams, Dylan Baker, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jon Lovitz, Jared Harris, Lara Flynn Boyle, Molly Shannon

Description: The lives of several individuals intertwine as they go about their lives in their own unique ways, engaging in acts society as a whole might find disturbing in a desperate search for human connection.

Review: Looking for a film about happy families, happy relationships and happy people. Then “Happiness” is not your movie. It’s a very misleading title. The people in this movie are anything but happy and happiness is not present.
We follow several people. Like Joy Jordan, who claims to be very happy but isn’t everything but that. She is super nice, but is humiliated and broken over and over again. Her sister Trish thinks she has it all, but she doesn’t know that her husband jerks off to teen magazines and likes young boys. And he openly discusses sex with their young son. And then there is Alan, a lonely single man, who calls random women and talks dirty to them.
I guess “Happiness” isn’t for me.

Rating: 2/ 5

100 Movie Challenge 2017 - # 19: Selma

Director: Ava DuVernay
Genre: Drama
Runtime: 128 minutes
Year: 2014
Starring: David Oyelowo, Oprah Winfrey, Common, Tom Wilkinson, Giovanni Ribisi, Dylan Baker, Tim Roth, Alessandro Nivola, Cuba Gooding Jr.

Description: A chronicle of Martin Luther King's campaign to secure equal voting rights via an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965.

Review: Racism is an issue that will always be a part of our society, even in a civilized world. And that’s why the Martin Luther King biopic “Selma” is still relevant, to this day. There will always be a certain inequality between people of a different race or religion. In “Selma” we meet Martin Luther King two years after his “I had a dream” speech.
“Selma” centers around the Alabama town Selma. Together the people wanted to fight for equal rights and the right to vote, for everyone. Formally the black people were allowed to vote. But in reality it was a lot more complex. We see this in one of the first scenes of the movie. Where a woman has to get through an impossible test to proof she has the right to vote.
Director Ava DuVernays shows with her script many situations with injustice. This is something you just can’t ignore. But the most interesting part is how she portrayed her leading character. King is a loyal idealist. But along the way we see his imperfections. Very well done and King is well portrayed by David Oyelowo.
“Selma” is a great picture based on one of the most inspiring men in American history.

Rating: 4,5/ 5

100 Movie Challenge 2016 - # 130: Trick 'r Treat

Director: Michael Dougherty
Genre: Horror/ Thriller/ Comedy/ Drama
Runtime: 82 minutes
Year: 2007
Starring: Anna Paquin, Brian Cox, Dylan Baker, Lauren Lee Smith, Quinn Lord, Moneca Delain, Tahmoh Penikett, Brett Kelly, Britt McKillip, Leslie Bibb, Isabelle Deluce, Jean-Luc Bilodeau, Alberto Chisi, Samm Todd

Description: Five interwoven stories that occur on Halloween: An everyday high school principal has a secret life as a serial killer; a college virgin might have just met the guy for her; a group of teenagers pull a mean prank; a woman who loathes the night has to contend with her holiday-obsessed husband; and a mean old man meets his match with a demonic, supernatural trick-or-treater.

Review: Halloween is the perfect setting for a horror movie. And when it comes to horror movies with this theme, there are way too many. “Trick r Treat” is surprisingly fresh, eventhough the movie never played in theaters and went direct to DVD. For real horror fans, “Trick ‘r Treat” is a favorite.
The movie follows severals stories, set during the night of Halloween: A group of young pretty girls are on their way to a party, where one of them will probably experience their ‘first time’. A chubby boy steals candy from the porch of his teacher, with major consequences. This teacher’s neighbor gets an unwanted visitor. And a group of teens wants to reveal the truth about a story they once heard about a massacre. Between all these stories we see a kid wearing a bag on his head.
The way the stories intertwine, is done very well. The movie is not predictable and is sometimes very surprising. “Trick ‘r Treat” also has humor and manages to create a scary atmosphere. The film shows the essence of Halloween: legends that are told and passed on and traditions that no one knows where they came from and why we do them. Filled with a lot of elements that horror movies need: killers, ghosts, werewolves, vampires, creepy kids and a lot fo pumpkins.

Rating: 3,5/ 5