So many movies, so little time, so this'll be an in-brief session, although there are a couple that do deserve the time they earned...something like that anyway.  Here we go.

Killing Zoe - stars Eric Stoltz, Julie Delpy

This came out around the time Tarantino ruled the roost, and his name is all over it in the production credits.  However I doubt very much whether he had much of a hand in this.  He probably just made money out of having his name put on the cover.

What we're dealing with is Zed, Zed's a safe cracker, one of the best in the business.  He travels to Paris for a job.  Noone will tell him the time.  After a liaison with a call girl, Zoe, he meets up with his questionable best friend who has organised the job.  They take drugs.  The job is, you guessed it, the very next day, a high profile bank in the CBD and the only bank that opens on Bastille Day - is that spelt correctly, anyone?  Hostages are taken, the police roll in, Eric takes more drugs, and Zed is increasingly reluctant to go through with all of it.

This one let me down the same way Jackie Brown let me down, trying to pull out the Tarantino isms left right and centre but falling flat.  Stoltz as the reluctant drug taker makes a stark contrast to his Pulp Fiction dealer-role and his performance belies the premise of the movie - Zed looks as confused as the audience!  Its one of those movies that tries to shock you with profanity and taboo surrounded by creative directing but through these eyes its trying too hard to do something it can't.  I actually enjoyed it the first time, but now, things have changed.  3 stars.

Orange County - stars Colin Hanks, Jack Black, Catherine O'Hara, John Lithgow

Shaun applies to Stamford, and on his guidance councellor's advice, does not choose a second (or third, or any other) school as a backup.  But where Shaun is a shoe-in, the transcript the councellor sends to Stamford is not Shaun's.  He is not accepted.  Shaun's brother Lance, who is "forever getting over the night before", decides that this isn't good enough and will get Shaun into Stamford himself.  "I can get you there in three hours dude".  Hilarity ensues.

Its actually not that funny a movie, not as funny as I was expecting.  Its more a situation of empathy with Shaun, because just about every situation he's in makes  you groan out loud, the poor guy!  Meanwhile, Jack is typically sensational with his own brand of slapstick-come-visual humour, you end up hanging out for scenes involving him.  His character is permanently on drugs, there's no better man to carry this kind've thing off.

But if not for Jack, this would be cutting room floor material, there's not that much to keep you interested, its your typical boy doesn't get his way therefore disfunctional characters around him come to the rescue with half assed plans that have no chance of succeeding yet do and we all live happily ever after.  Actually I didn't get to the end, the disc was scratched so badly I got fed up with it freezing.  I hope they all lived happily ever after.  3 stars.

Heat - stars Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Jon Voight, Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore...ah heck, everyone!

I forgot how good this flick really is.  Awsome!  De Niro and Pacino in form and together in the same flick couldn't really go wrong could it?  No fuckin' way!  For those that have seen this and enjoyed it, go see it again immediately!

Neil McCauley (De Niro) heads a crew who take down banks, trucks, you name it, so long as there's big money involved.  They're well organised and untouchable, or so one would think.  Detective Hanna puts sleep very low on his list of things to do in order to get his man.  When McCauley's crew makes a mistake on their most recent job thanks to an over-zealous new guy, Hanna gets a sniff and is on the case.

Complete with complex character building, stellar directing and showcasing one of the most impressive gun battles ever put to screen, I seriously am having trouble finding fault here, if I had to pick something it would be that the DVD had no extras; man I would love to know more about how it was all put together.  Film-wise, 5 stars, package-wise, 4 and a half.

Men In Black II - stars Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones

Continuing to protect the earth from the scum of the universe appears to be a tough job, particularly when the segue between the first movie and the second is thinner than recycled toilet paper.  Off-hand mentions of previous characters who didn't get a second cap - or more likely were smart enough to turn the offer down - make an already weak link struggle further.  Everything seems strained and forced and in the end I was lucky to get through the whole thing.  2 stars.

Any Given Sunday - stars Al Pacino, Jamie Foxx, Dennis Quaid, Cameron Diaz

This is officially my favourite movie of all time, the best story telling ever put to screen in my opinion.  Sure, I haven't seen Gone With The Wind or whatever else is touted as great by the critics, but I'm me and they're not so kiss my ass!  I was due to see this again, and sure enough, its still on top, although Heat just caught up a fraction.

Any Given Sunday tells the story of the fictional Miami Sharks struggling to make the playoffs in the fictional AAFA league.  A veteran quarter back whose body is struggling with the load, an aging coach whose heyday might just be over, a zealous owner who won't take losing for a result, and the third string quarter back who carries the pressure of expectation from everyone to get the team through - himself no spring chicken.  Friendships  and loyalties are tested and broken, seemingly irreparably, ghosts of the past are haunting everyone, back room deals are going on, and its all so they can reach a goal that they all share in common.  Brilliant.

No other movie tells it like this, the subject matter itself lends a hand but by no means overbares the relationships that are taking shape.  There's no throwbacks to scenes of yore to make up plot holes, it goes from start to finish and ties it all up with one neat little bow.  Present!  Oliver Stone, take a bow, and great commentating by the way.  Adding authenticity is the use of actual football players both past and present, the character Shark Levay is in fact played by NFL Hall-of-famer Lawrence Taylor: the only defensive player in history to be given awarded the coveted MVP and who in fact revolutionised line-backing in the modern game.  The DVD version is one I've waited to see a long time as its packed with extras, the making-of giving me even further insight into my favourite flick.

If you haven't seen it, don't let the idea of gridiron put you off, its about way more then that.  A completely biased 5 stars!

Enemy Of The State - stars Will Smith, Gene Hackman

Robert Dean's life is turned upside down when an old friend drops a package on his person before being horribly disfigured by a truck - but Robert doesn't know he has it.  When his bank accounts are frozen and newspaper articles start reporting false allegations, he goes into damage control, but the loss of his business colleague and ex-girlfriend makes the fan get shit-heavy and fast.  What could these people possibly want with him?  He finds an unlikely ally in ex-NSA counter intelligence agent Edward Lyle, but since both are compromised in every way its an uphill battle to save themselves and get the bad guys.

This is a technophile's dream, and I think what makes it plausable is the fact that its not hard to believe this is actually going on somewhere in some secret squirrel building 25 stores underground in the middle of the desert...er...probably.  And a great cast pulls this off, the NSA's goon squad are my favourite, a whose who of up and coming Hollywood support, including Jack Black in probably his most serious role, at least that I have seen.  Will's Will and Gene's Gene, don't think anyone stretched there, having said that I really enjoyed Will's performance.

Once again Jerry Bruckheimer must take a bow for this, aside from a couple of duds he manages to take it to the next level each time, most impressive.  He's fast becoming my favourite producer, in his words he picks "story based scripts, the action comes second".  I'm keen to see anything he puts his name on, and yes, he does cock it up sometimes.  Just look at Con Air and Bad Company...actually his name is on Kangaroo Jack as well but lets not go there.  So yeah, bring it on Brucky.  For anyone interested, Bad Boys II, Pirates Of The Carribean and King Arthur are three of his upcoming titles.

Solid movie, a thriller crossing the political and social boundaries into the secret society that does or doesn't exist out there.  Big brother may only be televised at set times, but he's always watching.  4 and a half stars.

Blue Crush - stars Kate Bosworth, Michelle Rodriguez

I was a bit numbed by this, I'm being impressed with some great surfing cinema on one hand, and really bummed out by an unfinished and inherently weak plot.  I think they evened themselves up in the end.

Anne-Marie is a top surfer who has won a wild card into the Women's Pipe Masters, held at Pipeline, arguably the most dangerous wave in world surfing.  But memories of an horrendous accident at this very break three years prior continue to haunt her.  She rooms with friends Eden, Lena and younger sister Penny who she is putting through school, and works as a maid at a ritzy hotel.  They struggle to make ends meet but care little because they live to surf.  A fortuitous meeting with a football star leads Anne-Marie into budding love but causes distraction to her training, will she be ready in time for the big day?

The good bits are marred by the bad as I said before, but the water footage is probably the best I've seen put to the big screen.  You really do feel some of the dumps, and the footage is REAL footage.  Despite some body double surfing shots, it is in fact the actresses themselves who are out there paddling around in a trechorous 25 foot swell.  They had to learn to surf as part of the pre-production for the movie so yeah, its actually them out there.  Also impressive is the fact they used Pipeline for their filming, don't you hate it when they say its something and its not.  Case in point, the Bell's Beach footage in Point Break - there isn't a pine tree within cooee of that place, so what's with the foliage???  Did they think Australian's weren't going to watch the movie???  So yeah, kudos to all involved there.

The bad bits aren't all that bad I spose, but they're enough to make you wonder.  I mean there's a scene in the beginning where they're struggling to find money for food, next thing they're buying petrol.  Anyone?  If you're gonna go and make such a fuss about how broke they are, follow through for everyone's sake.  Then there's the whole big sister guardian issue, once again they open the can and the worms just seem to die and dry up.  So why go there in the first place?  Who knows.  You've got people falling in love too quickly, over the top psycho locals and way too many throw backs to bad 80's high school movies, Revenge Of The Nerds anyone?  The difference is everyone's pretty.

And yes, there are chicks in bikinis, yawn.  Having said that there wasn't any overtly sexual undertones going on so interesting that advantage wasn't taken of the lasses there.  Kudos to those in charge for it too.  Great surfing footage, bad story, 3 stars.

Love And A Bullet - stars NOBODY

I didn't think people made movies this bad any more, I managed to get through about 10 minutes worth, I deserve a medal.  0 stars.

No Way Out - stars Kevin Costner, Gene Hackman, Will Patton, Sean Young

To this day this remains the best political thriller I've watched.  I find political thrillers a bit of a yawn and its a genre I tend to ignore - barring the JFK era flicks of course.  How is it that Kevin gets in all these?  I have a theory that because he plays the character who helps the president avoid the Cuban conflict, this basically signed JFK's death warrant two years later, so Kev comes back in JFK to identify the killers.  Probably.

When the defense secretary accidentally (?) kills his mistress, his right-hand man begins an elaborate witch hunt in order to cover up the indiscretion.  Tom Farrell is brought in to help out with the investigation.  Trouble is, the man they're hunting doesn't exist, yet the man the evidence points to is Farrell himself, who was also seeing the same woman.  The irony of inadvertently hunting down himself gives way to proving who actually did kill the woman, and time is not on his side.

This thing anchored me to the edge of the seat when I first saw it.  Was a sleeper-hit back in the day, it managed to gross a little over 35 million at the box office in the US, but I don't recall it hitting the cinemas here at all.  It was one of the first things I saw on video, I remember that much, and I remember being blown away by it then and not really understanding the political undertones running through it.  I'm still there getting blown away today.

Costner is Costner, I'm convinced this will never change, having said that you cope with it here.  Gene is Gene, but he's in great form here if a little restrained, Will Patton is the pick of the bunch though playing the conniving assistant willing to do anything to keep his man in the game.  The one draw-back is the music, its bloody awful!  Taking into account it was made in the heady days of 1987 it can be forgiven, but only just.  Concentrate on the subject matter is my advice.  3 and a half stars.

Bait - stars Jaime Foxx

Bait tells the story of an ex-con, Alvin, on the fast track back to the big house whose cell mate just happens to know where 42 million bucks worth of stolen gold is hidden.  Of course he doesn't divulge such information, just gives him a message "Go to the Bronx Zoo, there's no place like home".  Not thinking anything of it, Alvin watches in vain as his cell mate is taken away for interigation, never to be heard from again.  Fast foward 18 months and Alvin is back on the streets with an unexplained new lease of life, but something isn't quite right, including money that just seems to turn up on his doorstep from the government.  Torn between admitting to living a charmed life and wary of his past catching up with him, more strange events lead him to believe something is not right, as the same faces begin turning up under different guises.  He'd be right if he thought he was being followed, but he'd only know half the story.

Jaime Foxx's big break was playing Steamin Willie Beamen in Any Given Sunday and I quite liked what he did there, so I was curious to see if this turned out well on his shoulders.  The rest of the cast is give or take so it would be on his shoulders to carry this movie, in my opinion.  Well he's good and he's bad and I think that where Bad Company went wrong, so did this.  Its taken some of the best ideas, both cinematic and directoral and tried to incorporate them all into one flick.  The smart talking hero whose both funny and intelligent (pick one, Rush Hour for one), the gold being heisted (Bad Boys), the calm yet evil odd-accented villain (Die Hard III), the tracking technology (Enemy Of The State), I could go on.  So yeah, where not much is original these days, this one's not even moderately thought up.

Painfully elongated scenes and badly timed dialogue didn't make for much entertainment.  I hung in there in the hope it would get better, but no, very plain jane.  2 and a half stars.

Gone In 60 Seconds - stars Nicholas Cage, Giovanni Ribisi

I reviewed this back in Feb so I won't bang on, but I wanted to highlight the extra features that come with the DVD since this is the first time I've seen it in this format.  Two words, really impressive even to these eyes.  There's a great making of, a fantastic interview with Jerry Bruckheimer (a must see for any doubters), loads of behind the scenes stuff on stunts and the sets and the setups.  There'd be an hour's worth just in the extras package I reckon.  All good.  I still want to be a car thief, 4 and a half stars.

Van Wilder: Party Liaison - stars Ryan Reynolds, Tara Reid

I avoided this for a long time, I'm over the whole teen road trip funny ha ha college movie thing.  I know that may shock some of you, but hey, deal.  But when there's little else on the shelf and you heard it was ok...from someone you can't remember...ah why not.

Actually its not bad.  Van Wilder is in his seventh year of college and is everybody's friend.  Actually he's become an institution of sorts on campus.  Life is good until the beginning of spring semester and Van's father finds out his son is still at college and cancels payment on his fees.  With the help of his new assistant, Van must find a way to pay his own tuition while avoiding the journalistic probing of an aspiring - and hella cute - reporter, and making sure that everyone gets to party.

This actually isn't that bad, it breaks the mould a little in that our hero is in his late 20's so I could relate a bit closer to the character.  Its also got that romantic comedy aspect about it, as opposed to just a straight teen gross-out flick - tell you what though, there's one particular scene where I nearly lost my lunch, lets just say I'll think twice about eating home made cream buns.

Its a little bit smart, a little bit funny, a whole lot romancy, and generally a good laugh.  One of the catch phrases is "everyone wants to be Van Wilder", this I can attest to if nothing else.  3 and a half stars.

Phew, now where's my arthritis medicine...

BH