American Psycho II - stars Mila Kunis, Captain Kirk

I loved the first one, I'm pretty sure the business card scene is one of my favourite in recent cinema history, total classic.  I'm not sure how to review this without ruining a couple of nice little plot enhancements, the first of which happens two minutes into the movie, so I'll tread as carefully as I can.

Rachael Newman is an aspiring college freshman whose goal is to become her professor's teaching aid which will vault her into the FBI's Quantico training facility - she wants to hunt down serial killers for a living and believes she'll do a great job.  Trouble is, freshmen can't normally apply for the TA job and there are three other aspiring FBI wannabe's in her class who are as qualified for the job and seniors to boot.  So what does one do to outwit the opposition?  Watch and learn.

If you enjoyed the first one, you will enjoy this though it might be on a totally different level.  Our DVD had "Comedy" on the cover...not sure it was that funny.  Totally entertaining though.  A couple of things to keep in mind; where Patrick Bateman's life-taking-glitch operated almost solely on impulse, our new heroine is quite calculating and precise, even going to lengths to frame others for a couple of deaths.  Also, our heroine kills for a higher purpose, she won't kill someone unless its absolutely necessary.  There endeth the differences.

The director - of no apparant fame or notoriety - has kept faithful the frank and open nature of death, to the point of it being trivial in the face of the rest of the plot.  You actually become more concerned with how she will get the job, as opposed to whether or not she will get away with murder.  This was what I loved about the first one, I mean the guy was totally mental, almost beyond the point of no return, yet manages to superficially survive in society and escape any kind've scrutiny despite the fact he's killing everyone.  So you end up wondering how his next business meeting will go rather than worry about possible victims.  Death becomes second nature.  So what is it that makes you watch a movie, take one of the most immoral acts against society, and put it in the background in favour of material thoughts?  The magic of the movies?  Are we all killers deep down?  Intriguing wouldn't you say.

See the first one before you see this is my recommendation, you'll have a better idea of how our American Psychos work.  Great fun.  4 stars.

JFK - stars just about everyone, including Kevin Costner

I recall sitting in the cinema when this first came out wondering how on earth they didn't get a conviction in the case after all that faffing about, and if I was ever going to get the feeling back into my butt.  Second time around its all too clear.

Firstly, I realise that the numbness in my buttocks was simply the temporary cut of blood circulation to the nerve endings in that region...aaaaanyway...

JFK chronicals the first and only public prosecution ever brought against suspected perpetrators of the assassination of President John F Kennedy.  Oliver Stone, pat yourself on the back son, this would have to be one of the only movies I can remember where anything to do with anything about film making went completely out the window simply because its subject matter was too important to miss.  Totally engrossing.  And you really do sit there at the end and go "all that evidence and no proof, bummer".  Having said that, the intertwining of original footage and recreated footage is just about seemless, Oliver gets more pats there.  The year 2029 is going to caus' a stampede at the public archives, this marks the expiry of seals on over 50 CIA documents which will point to the organisers and killers of JFK that faitful day.  Or will they...?  Oh and as far as realising how they didn't get a conviction since the first time I watched it, its pretty clear to me now, man I used to be slow!

We hired the DVD version which comes with a second disc.  Not only are there a bunch of uncut versions of scenes in the original film, they are narrated by Stone who not only explains why it was cut or culled and regrets he holds for it, but also fills in even more of the JFK story itself.  Stone obviously learned everything there was to learn on every skerrick of information that is available, which I think further proves how well this story has been brought to the screen.  Whoever said truth was stranger than fiction had no idea.  I'd love to give it 5 stars but struggle when you have Costner pretending to be from Louisiana, in my opinion he and Kevin Bacon should've swapped spots.  4 and a half stars.

And just to show how caught up in these things I get, we hired 13 Days and I'm hot on the trail for Ruby - what an era!

Speed - stars Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock

Having recently done the Point Break thing I thought to myself "self, how many more movies that I thought were classic back in the day am I going to hate now?"  So Speed was of course on the list, LOVED this movie when I first saw it.  "Pop quiz hotshot...", that phrase has been used ad infinitum ever since.

Nothing much to the plot, crazed bomber is thwarted by a couple of LA's finest, said crazed bomber then sets about plotting his revenge by planting another bomb on a bus.  At 50mph its armed and should the bus drop below that afterwards, BANG.  But where so many films in this genre suffer from overcomplex plots, this one succeeds in spades.  Its one of the original all-action blockbusters that the early-to-mid-nineties brought with it, and we've actually got Keanu in some pretty decent form acting-wise too.

The film doesn't slow down, its one dire situation after another, and despite that bus-jumping scene its stood the test of time very well.  Ordinary people in extraordinary situations, I think most people can appreciate that mantra.  4 stars.

The Last Minute - stars noone of consequence, Jason Isaacs makes a cameo

I honestly can't work out what this film was trying to tell us.  We're dealing with the meteroic rise to fame of our hero, Billy Byrne, albeit thanks to the machine that drives pop culture...namely the media, but there are button pushers that control them as well.  Very very annoying though, because that sentence encompasses perhaps the first 20 minutes, then we're dealing with some post-apocalyptic existence.  Seriously, I can't even blurb this film for you, its a hotch potch of several plots with very little segue between them.  What's even more annoying is that we don't even know what Billy did to be so famous.  In the beginning he's walking through some office building where a boss-figure heaps a bunch of praise on him.  A little later he admits that his passion is pen and paper.  So what is he???  No idea, my guess is a song-writer, though you never see him sing or perform in any sense.  Perhaps the film makers were making a point that it doesn't matter what makes you famous, but that fame itself is

I guess it didn't help that I fell asleep a couple of times, and that the DVD was so scratched we skipped a few chapters just to get through it, and then it failed right before the end...yeah nah I don't think we missed anything.  We picked this one up out of sheer curiousity, we'd both been looking at the cover for weeks and re-reading the back thnking it might be ok, and faced with very few other titles of interest we picked it up.  Doh!

Actually this and American Psycho II were both scratched really badly, so we took them both back and got credits.  Wahoo, the next couple are freebies, tops.  We ended up going up the road to a different store to rehire APII which is why we got to see that in its entirety in the end.  Whoa, tangent.  2 stars.

BH