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Go
 April 24, 1999-- Marc If Quentin Tarantino were dead, he'd roll over in his grave. Go wanted to be Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs so bad it was sad. The problem was, the movie's writer, John August was a bit overeager in his attempt to mimic Tarantino's masterpieces. In fact, this film was pretty much a combination Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. It took from the drug use and circular narrative of Pulp Fiction and from the multiple-points-of-view format of Reservoir Dogs. Such a combination had the potential to be really cool, but when August or the director, Doug Liman, whichever it was, teen-ified this movie, they should have thought twice. Or three times. At least one more time than they did. Go was riddled with stupid teenage situations and all that crap that has come to be associated with wannabe Gen-Xers and the WB channel, like a rave with horrible music, a kid tripping on too much ecstasy, horrible apathy in the characters, and uninteresting sexual jokes. The big problem was, the characters, mostly teenagers, were put into adult situations. How many high schoolers do you know that have to pay for rent? I don't know any. And then there was the fact that half of the movie was just random. It was like the writer said "oh yeah and this would be funny to add on" and added it, plot be damned. For this day and age, and for the time of the year that Go was released, there were surprisingly few special effects. Strike that, there weren't any. Even footage of Simon and his friends driving out of one parking lot was obviously recycled in another scene. Go obviously wasn't made for special effects, but they couldn't have hurt at all. In that vein, good actors instead of those from TV shows such as Dawson's Creek and Party of Five would have gone greatly. The only actor I really liked was Timothy Olyphant as Todd Gaines, a mean but funny drug dealer. The others either just didn't work in their places or didn't act well. Finally, if this movie hadn't had the circular narrative format, where the plot folds back on itself and the viewer learns more about it with every runthrough, this movie would have been a total flop. Granted the circular narrative is central to the film, however I believe that Pulp Fiction would have been a great movie even if it had been told linearly. I mean, how can you go wrong casting Sammy J. as a bad mofo? Billy Madison April 12, 1999-- Marc The first time I watched this movie, I laughed. A lot. The second time, I laughed even more. But the third time...aw crap I laughed again. I lost count of how many times I've seen Billy Madison somewhere around eight, and it's a permanent part of my collection. There aren't any of those cool special effects that have become pretty much the staple of movies in the '90s, but who needs 'em in a movie this good? Adam Sandler is hilarious. I still haven't seen a movie of his that I didn't think was funny enough to make me pee my pants at least once overall (that was a figure of speech, it doesn't happen every time I watch his movies. At least not that you know). I have to say that I don't really like his CDs, but that's a falling I can accept. Maybe with his newfound success as a writer/actor (well relatively newfound) he'll be able to NOT make that stuff. The best part of this whole movie (and just about every movie Sandler has made) is that the geeky/dorky guy gets the beautiful girl. In Happy Gilmore, he got the girl. In The Water Boy he got the girl. In The Wedding Singer he could have had BOTH girls if he'd played his cards right. I love this stuff!
The Matrix
March 31, 1999-- Dechter I admit it. I wanted to see this movie so badly, I went to the first show this afternoon in Spokane. The show started at 2:20pm and I wanted to be there a little early as well as get a new pair of shoes, so I left at about 1:15pm. It usually takes about 30 minutes to get to the Spokane Valley 12 theater on the far east side of Spokane, but that was before some genius decided to close the interstate. Well, it's not really closed, but it is cut down from six lanes to two lanes (one in each direction) from 6am to 6pm or so. So, I had to get off the interstate and use the damn surface roads. And of course I had to deal with the Left Lane Lame-os. We've all seen them, and we all hate them. The people who absolutely must be in the left lane at all times. And they have to go about 5mph under the speed limit. In fact, today I saw a dumb-ass lady crusing in the left lane and as I approached in the right lane (which was absolutely clear, btw) she swerved into the right lane to avoid a truck waiting to turn at a crossroad, cutting me off. I honked and told her she was number one (read into that folks), only to watch her pass the truck and move slowly back into the left lane. Idiots.   On to the movie. It was cool. Not quite Phantom Menace cool, Out of Sight cool, or Pulp Fiction cool, but cool none the less. Many people have compared this film to Blade, in that they both involved heavy martial arts booty-whoopin' and a techno soundtrack. Personally, I liked Blade a little more. It is close though. Whereas Blade was a little weak on plot, The Matrix has so much plot, the movie becomes muddled. The entire second act could be cut and the movie trimmed down by 20 minutes and it would flow much better. It just seemed a little slow. Especially, when considering at that point there had only been two kick-ass action sequences. About those action sequences, though. Wow. The trailer does them no justice. They were just too few and far between.
There was also some off the wall stuff about a human resistance and people living near the core of the earth, but that was never explained nor mentioned again. That stuff could have been cut, too. However, don't let any of the short comings keep you from this film. It was still incredibly cool, and upon subsequent viewing, I may warm up to the faults, but as of now, I give it 4 of 5. 
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