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Reviews
In the Wrong Hands (2002)
This is Just A Bad Movie...
No establishing shots, extremely bad acting (with a couple of notable exceptions), a lot of hokey dialogue and the direction was awful, which probably explains why the directorial credit is Alan Smithee
There are big jumps in story, weak events that set up major plot points, and I did i mention the acting? The two romantic leads are just stiff and lifeless.
That being said, there are a couple of cool scenes, one is a backroom gangster crib, a la the Sopranos, and the other is in the back parlor of a club with a different group of gangsters. if the story had been about them, it would have been far more interesting.
POSSIBLE SPOILER
The big finale in the movie is a car chase and a shootout. Too bad there is no sense of who is chasing whom or where they are going. In the shootout, people appear out of nowhere, and we have no idea who is on what side until the end.
I know this movie got a little play because it was post-9/11 with themes about the Afghan community in Los Angeles, but come on. Maybe the reason the Taliban banned art was junk like this... Sheesh.
The Slaughter Rule (2002)
Extremely Uncomfortable...in a good way...
This is a prime example of a flick that breaks all the rules and is still damn good. You always hear filmmakers blather on about how they work their own way, and then you see their junk and think that maybe they should have read a book. This is not one of those times. it's an intense look into sports and rural life and how they interplay with one another in the Midwest.
I was drawn to it by the title, and although it is about football, i could totally relate because when i played Youth baseball, I was on a team so bad one year that literally half of our games were called off early.
Not that this has to do totally with sports, it is more about male relationships, as Roy, the lead character deals with the death of his father through his participation in six-man football. As the story unfolds, he is cut from his own team and hooks up with a new team coached by a strange outsider played by David Morse. he starts off just being intense, but then becomes creepy (there is a homoerotic undertone between coach and player). Ryan Gosling, who plays Roy is solid and Morse is terrific. This ain't "Remember The Titans" but still very much worth checking out. It got good press at this past year's Sundance Film Festival.
Pauly Shore Is Dead (2003)
Better than you think it will be...
Okay, this is a pauly shore movie, and it is actually good. It is a mockumentary about Pauly faking his death and getting caught and how his life/career go into a downward spin as a result.
SPOILERS BELOW, JUST TO WARN YOU
Anyway, what struck me about this is how it seemed that he has a sense of humor about his "weasel" days. The guy openly makes fun of himself and his movies. Maybe this is just a shallow attempt to re-invent himself, but more likely, i think he has a sense of humor and it's a mea culpa.
Funny bits involve running clips from Kurt Loder, E! TV as well as a subplot about an obsessed fan, it's all woven together pretty well.
Lots of cameos, I mean lots! Tommy Lee, Heidi Fleiss, Bill Maher, Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, Vince vaughn, and Vern Troyer (mini me) just to name a few. In fact at times, all the celebs kind of took me out of the story, but in the end, it is pretty funny and well done.
Pauly openly mocks his Fox TV Show and ends up m,ore or less being saved by Todd Bridges, who is pretty funny as himself. Anyway, I don't know if a distributor will pick this movie up, but it should no doubt be on HBO or Showtime, where i think it would be very well-received. If you get a chance, check it out, even if you hated Pauly shore, yo might actually get a kick out of it.