Mike's Movie Tips

Shallow Hal 3/4 Starring: Jack Black, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jason Alexander, Susan Ward, Joe Vitrelli Rated PG-13 for Language and Sexual Content The Farrelly Brothers are the kings of mixing raunchy humor and sweet romance (" Hall Pass " aside).  They became famous with "Dumb and Dumber," but fell aside with "Kingpin."  Their status in Hollywood was cemented with the hysterical "There's Something About Mary," which set the new bar for raunchy comedies.  "Shallow Hal" is just as politically incorrect, but not nearly as gross.  It's primarily a love story (albeit a funny one). On his deathbed, Hal's father (a cameo by Bruce McGill) gave a morphine-induced piece of advice to his son: marry the hottest person you can find.  Love means nothing.  That's something that Hal takes to heart.  The problem is, he looks like Jack Black, and most women don't want to have anything to do with him.  His best friend ...

3.5/4 Starring: Robin Williams, Robert Sean Leonard, Ethan Hawke, Josh Charles, Gale Hansen, Kurtwood Smith, Norman Lloyd Rated PG for Mature Thematic Material (I guess) Poetry does nothing for me.  I've studied it in school, read some "good" poetry and some (in my opinion) that was astonishingly awful (I recall reading one poem in the 7th grade by Nikki Giovanni as being gag-worthy).  Whatever your opinion of poetry is, it won't make a difference to your enjoyment of "Dead Poets Society."  Inspirational stories, particularly ones about teachers, are a dime a dozen.  This one rises to the cream of the crop, and is easily the best of them that I have seen. The film takes place in the 1950's, when most of America was (or tried to be) traditional.  Nowhere is that more the case than at Welton Academy, a prep school in what is probably New England.  Here, they pride themselves on their rigidity and tradition.  The four pillars of the scho...

3/4 Starring: Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, Scott Glenn, Eva Mendes Rated R for Strong Brutal Violence, Pervasive Language, Drug Content and Brief Nudity It's always worth sitting up and taking note when an actor manages to completely dominate the screen.  Sometimes it happens with an unknown actor (Hilary Swank in " Boys Don't Cry " and Cate Blanchett in " Elizabeth " are two examples).  Other times it's a famous thespian reminding us why we go to their movies in the first place.  Denzel Washington is an actor of immense and diverse talents.  He won his first Oscar playing a black Union soldier in "Glory," an angel in "The Preacher's Wife," and he did Shakespeare for Kenneth Branagh (he was Don Pedro in "Much Ado About Nothing").  In "Training Day," Denzel plays a corrupt cop. Not just any cop, mind you.  Alonzo Harris has spent so much time fighting drug-related crime that he has become th...

3/4 Starring: Ben Kingsley, Tea Leoni, Luke Wilson, Philip Baker Hall, Dennis Farina Rated R for Language and Some Violence "You Kill Me" is another movie where the trailer indicates that the movie is something that it is not.  The trailer makes this movie to be a twisted black comedy with razor sharp humor.  The reality is that the film is primarily a drama with little instances of black comedy thrown in (most of the jokes are given away in the trailer, although not the best one).  Be that as it may, it's still a pretty good movie. Frank (Kingsley) is a hitman for the Polish mafia in Buffalo, New York.  He's also an alcoholic, and after he passes out drunk before he can take out a rival (Farina), his boss Roman (Hall), sends him to San Francisco to get cleaned up.  There, he gets a sponsor, Tom (Wilson) and meets a girl, Laurel (Leoni).  As he's struggling to stay sober, tensions back home increase the pressure for him to get sober. E...

3.5/4 Starring: Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, Peter Sarsgaard, Oliver Platt, Chris O'Donnell, Timothy Hutton, Dylan Baker, Tim Curry Rated R for Pervasive Sexual Content including Some Graphic Images and Descriptions In some ways, "Kinsey," the film, is as important today as Kinsey's research was back when it was released.  Although we as a society at least acknowledge human sexuality as existing, it is still considered taboo.  Consider the Christian Right's almost fanatic furor over sex education, homosexuality and abortion.  Or another example, the MPAA.  We certainly have come a long way from where we were, but in order for children and adults to be well-adjusted, we still have work to do to decrease our skittishness in terms of human sexuality. Alfred Kinsey (Neeson) is a young professor at Indiana University.  Affectionately called "Prok" by his graduate students, he obsessively collects bugs for study.  But after a disastrous encount...

3.5/4 Starring: Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto Rated R for Sci-Fi Violence/Gore and Language In space, no one can hear you scream. It's an ominous tagline to be sure.  One of the better ones, in my opinion (the only one I can think of that comes close is "Let he who is without sin try to survive," which adorned movie posters for "Seven").  Although marketing and trailers have a tendency to overestimate the value of the film they are advertising (there are way too many of these to count), that's not the case with Ridley Scott's monster movie, "Alien."  This is a truly frightening and atmospheric horror film. A crew of seven people are coming back from a mining mission in deep space.  They are: Captain Dallas (Skerrit), Executive Officer Kane (Hurt), Warrant Officer Ripley (Weaver), Navigation Officer Lambert (Cartwright), Science Officer Ash (Holm), and grunts...

3/4 Starring: Christian Bale, Taye Diggs, Angus MacFayden, Sean Pertwee, Sean Bean, Emma Watson Rated R for Violence The theme of the dystopian future will always compel because it reminds us how much art and expression mean to us (despite the fact that it is the least respected field of study these days) and how much of a myth the utopia is.  While no one is going to give Kurt Wimmer's debut film "Equilibrium" marks for originality, it is well acted, compelling and features some truly eye-popping action scenes. After the third world war, humanity realized that human emotion was the cause of all the violence and pain.  Therefore, a new society was made that, with the help of a medication called Prozium, has completely done away with human emotion and all its sources.  Art, music, expressive clothing (even so much as a hair ribbon) is considered contraband, and those with it are arrested and usually killed (if they don't die fighting for the arts to begin with)...