They CAN'T make them like they used to

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001)
Starring: Woody Allen, Helen Hunt, Dan Aykroyd, and David Ogden Stiers
Director: Woody Allen
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

An insurance investigator (Allen) becomes an unaware, remote-controlled jewel thief after a clever crook (Stiers) hypnotises him. To clear his name, he turns to a female executive at his firm (Hunt), but the situation only gets worse because she has also been hypnotized by the same crook.


"The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" features a screenplay that might have been written in 1939. The goofy comedy/mystery plot, the patter, the humor, the romantic entanglements, the pacing of the film... it's all a throwback to the period in which the story is set. Unfortunately, the one thing that isn't up to the cinematic period this film is a homage to is the acting.

Don't get me wrong. The acting here is decent enough for a modern movie, but it's not the kind of acting the script and the film needed (never mind that the director and screen writer are the same person). This material calls for talents like John Howard, Heather Angel, Cary Grant, Bud Abbott, and Katharine Hepburn. The problem is, there simply aren't actors like them anymore, although there are a small handful who come close. None are cast in the leads here, however.

"The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" tries to be a movie of the kind they, literally, don't make anymore. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

In the end, it's a film that Woody Allen fans will appreciate (I suspect... I'm not a big fan of his work myself, so it's hard for me to judge), but fans of the lighthearted mysteries from the 1930s and 1940s it's emulates (like me) will be disappointed, as the film is nowhere near as good as the potential in the script.

'Air Force One' features kick butt president

Air Force One (1997)
Starring: Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, Glenn Close and Grace Marshall
Director: Wolfgang Petersen
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

When the plane carrying the President of the United States (Ford) is hijacked by Russian nationalists who want to force the release of an imprisoned war criminal, the President escapes capture and sets about kicking some terrorist ass.


"Air Force One" is a great little action film that anyone who appreciates an exciting plot featuring terrorists getting whacked in hand-to-hand combat by an unlikely hero and an interesting cast of characters portrayed by talented actors.

Harrison Ford portrays the sort of president that I think every American deep down wishes we could have the helm of our country (but will probably never get) while Gary Oldman chews the scenery to pieces and just about steals the movie as one of the most vicious characters you'll ever love to hate.

All-star cast can't give this movie heart

Lies and Alibis (2006)
Starring: Steve Coogan, Rebecca Romijn, Sam Elliot, Henry Rollins, James Marsden, James Brolin, Selma Blair, and John Leguizamo
Directors: Matt Checkowski and Kurt Mattila
Rating: 5 of 10 Stars

Retired con-man Ray Elliot (Coogan) is running a successful business that establishes alibis and covers for husbands and wives who cheat on their spouses. It is a good life... until one of his clients (Marsden) murders his lover. Ray must find a way to deal with the police, the blackmailers, and even his own past when it comes back to haunt in him the form of eccentric assassin The Mormon (Elliot). To top off the total collapse of Ray's quiet retirement, he may be falling in love with his new executive assistant (Romijn).


"Lies and Alibis" is a light-weight comedy that follows the pattern of all good caper and "Big Con" movies. It's got a collection of fine actors, who each portray quirky characters (with Sam Elliot as the Latter-Day Saint polygamist assassin and his sidekick Henry Rollins; Brolin and Marsden as obnoxious wealthy father and son who make Elliot's The Mormon character look almost like a decent guy, because at least The Mormon seems to have some semblance of honor; and Leguizamo as an innocent bystander who gets caught up in the events, being the most fun to watch. Top-billed stars Coogan and Romijn are okay, and they play well off each other in the scenes they share, but it's the other cast members who make this movie entertaining.

I don't say this very often, but I think this film would have been better served if it had been ten or fifteen minutes longer. The perfect storm of Bad News that forms around Ray and his carefully constructed multi-layered con that ultimately extracts him from it, take so much time to set up that we only skim the surfaces of just about every character in the film. We gain some insight into Ray, but even though he's narrating events constantly, he still keeps most of his secrets from us. (This makes the twist ending to the film and Ray's final exit from his current life, a little bit of a cheat, even if it is set up in plain view as the final 15-20 minutes of the movie unfolds.) Everyone else, however, remain total mysteries, particularly Romijn's character, who is so ill-defined I can't even remember her name.

What we have here is a nicely executed bit of plot machinery, but the film has no heart.

"Lies and Alibis" is like those animatronic displays they used to have at Disneyland (and they may still... it's been 30 years since I've been there)... everything in it comes with perfect timing, but there's no humanity or personality here. Despite good performances by all the actors involved, despite a neatly executed caper and con-game plot, I still felt unsatisfied when the end of the movie came, because there was nothing to get involved with emotionally.

'Formula 51' doesn't work

Formula 51 (2002)
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Carlyle and Emily Mortimer
Director: Ronny Yu
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Elmo McElroy (Jackson) is a master chemist who has created the ultimate in "designer drugs." After screwing the State-side drug syndicate he had worked for, he dons a kilt and travels to Liverpool, England to sell his formula for $20 million. Here, everything that can go wrong does go wrong, and Elmo finds himself on the run from corrupt cops, dimwitted skinheads, and a mysterious assassin (Mortimer) who is intent on gunning down everyone around Elmo. Can Elmo and his one ally--low-rent hood and soccer fan DeSouza (Carlyle)--find a buyer who stays alive long enough to purchase Formula SoM-51?


"Formula 51" wants to be a crime comedy occupying the ground somewhere between "Snatch" and "Pulp Fiction." Unfortunately, it has a confused, messy script, characters who never rise above stupidly obnoxious or being total cyphers, and virtually every attempt at humor is either tired retreads of too-often-seen gags or simply unfunny. And then there's a fact that Jackson spends the whole movie in a kilt, something that the cast and crew seemed to think was the film's comedic highlight, but which is really just mystifying, slightly dumb, and the source of too many bad attempts at humor. There are a couple of mildly interesting story twists and several scenes with some good acting in them, but the bad far outweighs the good in this movie as it rushes from badly thought-out scene to badly motivated action sequence.

There's enough action in the film to keep the viewer entertained, but there are also too many characters in the film who are so dumb that one wonders how they dress themselves in the morning. And they're not dumb in the way they were in "Pulp Fiction" or "Snatch"... they're dumb in an eye-rolling, "okay, the writer thought this was funny and it might be if I was high or drunk, but in actuality it's just stupid" sort of way. There's also the issue of a subplot involving a corrupt cop so blatantly violent and corrupt that he wouldn't even a believable as a character in a film set in some third-world hellhole, let along England. The actors are all good--with Jackson and Carlyle playing nicely off one another--but the weight of the awful script keeps them from really accomplishing anything worthwhile.

Star-filled Christie adaptation is worth looking into

The Mirror Crack'd (1980)
Starring: Angela Lansbury, Geraldine Chaplin, Rock Hudson, and Elizabeth Taylor
Director: Guy Hamilton
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

When a harmless local from the English village of St. Mary Mead is murdered at a reception held in the honor of visiting Hollywood celebrities (Hudson and Taylor), only the keen mind of spinster detective Miss Marple (Lansbury) can separate the innocent from the guilty and solve a murder mystery with a motive rooted in the hazy past.


"The Mirror Crack'd" in one of the many star-filled Agatha Christie adaptations that were produced during the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties... and this one has enough stars in it that even Carl Sagan would have been astonished. Even the supporting cast is made up of well-established actors, such as Tony Curtis, Kim Novak, Edward Fox, and Charles Gray.

The amazing collection of talent is supported by a well-written script, and the 105-minute running time of this very excellent example of a cozy mystery movie breezes by in what seems like no time. The spoofing of Hollywood stereotypes is well done in the film, with Taylor, Novak, and Curtis being particularly funny.

On the downside I don't think Lansbury made the best Miss Marple, but that's not so much a negative critique of her performance but a reflection of the fact I don't think she's right for the part; Lansbury simply doesn't have the sort of disarming and completely unassuming aura that a Miss Marple must excude. Lansbury isn't bad in the part, she's just miscast and therefore is doing as well as can be expected.

If you like these sorts of movies--be they Christie adaptations or originals--you'll find that "The Mirror Crack'd" is one of the better of its kind. The only truly bad part of the film is the musical soundtrack. I think the composer mistook St. Mary Mead for Chicago, and no one had the heart to tell him.

When Ninja Attack....

Mask of the Ninja (2007)
Starring: Bernice Liuson Sim
Director: Kevin Anderton
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

A Chinese secret agent (Sim), who has studied the ways of the Ninja, sees her skills put to the test when she is beset by enemies on all sides.

"Mask of the Ninja" is a three-minute short that's a hilarious spoof of martial arts movies. The filming and editing is nicely done, and the acting is also very nice. Of course, this is just a three-minute short, but it's so good that it leaves you wishing for more. Plus, it's guarenteed to make you laugh.

Watch the film yourself by clicking below!



A big "Thank You" to Vic Clay (who appears as one of the two bums at the very beginning of the film) for calling this film to my attention.

An Analytical Double Feature

Analyze This (1998)
Starring: Billy Crystal, Robert De Niro, and Lisa Kudrow
Director: Harold Ramis
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Billy Crystal stars as a successful psychiatrist whose life is turned upside down (not to mention endangered) when a hardboiled mob-boss (Robert deNiro) seeks him out for treatment of depression.


This movie is fun to watch as a spoof on mob films, and the way that Crystal and DeNiro's characters both learn about themselves as a result of their assocation is also a worthwhile element of the film. However, there is just a little too much crammed into the script, so some events seem to move too fast, and some supporting characters don't get enough exposure to bring their roles fully into focus.



Analyze That (2002)
Starring: Billy Crystal, Robert De Niro, and Lisa Kudrow
Director: Harold Ramis
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Billy Crystal, Robert Deniro, and the supporting cast all reprise their roles from Analyze This in this sequel of a rare breed... it's actually funnier than the original!

The story picks up a few years after the end of "Analyze This," as Crystal's character is called upon to cure reformed mob boss Paul Vitti (DeNiro) of an apparent mental breakdown and then help ease him into normal society as a law-abiding citizen. Can a nebbish psychiatrist reform a life-long criminal?


This is less of a mob-spoof than the orignal, and more about Vitti's attempt to extracate himself from his mob life and the interplay between Crystal and Deniro's characters. The film also features some funny self-referencial bits about Hollywood "mob realism" and a nicely done "caper" crime as Vitti seemingly returns to criminal life. On the downside, "Analyze That" suffers from some of the script weaknesses as its precessor--some elements and characters are annoyingly under-developed.