25 Words or Less: Harder Than You Think

Confining yourself to writing no more than 25 words on a movie is harder than you think. So if you think we are short changing these movies, remember, it could have been much worse.

AMERICAN PIE (DVD)

(Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz, 1999) “Saved By The Bell’ with dick jokes.

– Hexagram

AMERICAN PIE II (DVD)

(J.B. Rogers, 2001) “Saved By The Bell: The College Years” with dick jokes.

– Hexagram

CHARLIE’S ANGELS: FULL THROTTLE (AIRPLANE VERSION)

(McG, 2003) You’ve come a long way baby. Not. Talk about grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrmercial power!

– Demon

FREDDY VS. JASON

(Ronny Yu, 2003) Scary? Hardly! But parody of already heavily parodied products revives the Monster versus Monster horror subgenre with fun results.

– Demon

FRIDA (DVD)

(Julie Taymor, 2002) Selma Hayek scrumptious playing that one-eyebrow-havin’ bitch who couldn’t paint.

– Hexagram

GIGLI

(Martin Brest, 2003) What the heck is this thing? Of course I didn’t see it.

– Demon

THE HOURS (DVD)

(Stephen Daldry, 2002) Hours… and hours… and hours. Two suicides - script beckons my own. Ex: “I want to write about sunsets… feelings… the threads in this towel..” Aaagh!

– Hexagram

HULK

(Ang Lee, 2003) More thoughtfulness and psychodrama than one needs in a movie about an angry green guy who smashes tanks.

– Demon

INTOLERABLE CRUELTY

(Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, 2003) Coen Brothers catch their breath with this tolerable movie.

– Demon

THE JUNGLE BOOK 2

(Steve Trenbirth, 2003) Disney’s first travesty of Kipling classic bad enough, but rehash is crime against nature. Better is Korda’s 1942 film starring Sabu as one bad-ass Mowgli.

– Hexagram

KILL BILL VOLUME 1

(Quentin Tarantino, 2003) Pretentious and awkwardly paced movie captures look, feel, and of course violence of Japanese exploitation. But not the emotion.

– Demon.

THE RECRUIT

(Roger Donaldson, 2003) The trailer for this film is a nice three-minute summary of the whole movie, complete with spoiler giveaway. Why waste 90 minutes?

– Hexagram

THE RING (DVD)

(Gore Verbinski, 2002) Outtakes CD from this film would have filled the plot holes nicely. Too bad, but it’s still a stylish creepy good time.

– Hexagram

T3: RISE OF THE MACHINES

(Jonathan Mostow, 2003) T2: good machine protects boy from bad machine. T3: good machine protects older boy from bad machine. Like aluminum cans, series degenerates with each recycling.

– Demon

28 DAYS LATER

(Danny Boyle, 2003) Terror is tangible in this groundbreaking horror video/film. But end scene at manor is overdone with horny fascists seeking slavegirls.

– Demon