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Film Frailty & Sweet Thing

Frailty
Rating: 2.5 bananas
imdb record
Reviewed April 22, 2002
Released 2001

I thought this was a pretty solid thriller with some nice twists and turns and only a few major flaws. The atmosphere of the piece was quite nice. It felt nice and dark. There was a good sense of dread that creeped up as the movie progressed. The movie established a mood and stuck with it quite well.

The performances were all pretty good. Matthew McConaughey puts in a pretty good, shell-shocked performance as the narrator of the film. Bill Paxton gets the religious nut thing down to a T. And the kid who plays Fenton is just plain kick ass. You can see him become more and more unhinged as time goes on. I totally bought his character arc.

And there was one kick ass scene which genuinely scared me. My whole body experiences the chill. Good job, Bill.

Dialogue was quite weak. I spent a lot of time thinking, "People just don't talk like that." And they did too much of the X-Files bullshit that I hate so much. You know, where they talk in cryptic phrases which convey no information whatsoever but sound all creepy and shit just to establish a mood. Man, if I was one of those characters, I'd just have to say, "Dude, what the fuck? Just spit it out asshole? You done said the same shit four times now!"

Another problem is the ending. It had a pretty good ending which they stretched out about five minutes too long. Just hammer the point home, why don't you? I get it already! Ah well. They were pleased with themselves. Guess they just wanted to revel in their wit.
And often, clever plot twists were telegraphed too well. At the beginning of any given scene, you could generally tell how things were going to turn out.

All in all, pretty good. Not incredibly compelling, but fairly enjoyable. If it was on cable, I'd watch it again, but I probably won't make an effort to see it again.

The Sweetest Thing
Rating: 3 bananas
imdb record
Reviewed April 22, 2002
Released 2002

This movie made me laugh out loud several times. In fact, I might very well have laughed out loud at every scene in this movie. And when I wasn't laughing, I was generally grinning. The film does not take itself seriously at all. It's just a collection of funny scenes with some sort of plot loosely tossed into the mix to keep the thing moving along. The plot is fairly standard romantic comedy type shit, but it's done in an entertaining manner.

Oh, and that scene from the preview where the guy hits his head on the cab window and Cameron sympathetically winces is not actually in the film. Which is good, because that scene made me cringe.

ll the actors in this thing are funny. I didn't expect to like Selma Blair too much, but she's goddamn funny. She has almost nothing to do with the plot of the film. She just sort of gets into these bizarre situations that are meant solely for laughs. And they all work really well.

Thomas Jane makes a good leading man. He is very likeable, doesn't seem smarmy in any way, and has an easy-going, fun air about him.
Jason Bateman kicks ass! Who'd have thunk it?

And Cameron and Christina Applegate make a great pair. They have a lot of chemistry, a lot of energy, and don't mind making themselves look like real people. Meaning, when one of them gets stuck in the eye with a penis while the other one squats over a urinal in a dirty men's room, they don't seem too concerned with the Hollywood feminine ideal of chastity and sugary-spiciness.

And I guess that's what makes the movie so damn funny. We've probably seen a hundred comedies where guys have these conversations and do these gross things and engage in this weird sexual conduct, but we never see movies where the leading women do the same type of shit. Yet, at the same time, the movie's not just replacing men with women. These bizarre situations really do seem to be told from a female point of view. But, what do you expect? The thing was written by a woman who also happens to have been a writer on South Park. So, given that combination, you pretty much know what to expect.

I'll buy this one on DVD.

Reviews by Brandon Salinas

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