mackey3000

Greg Pritikin's DUMMY is an amusing, sometimes clever and oh-so-independent (indie heads will know what I mean) comedy. Adrien Brody gives a pre-OscarWin performance that I honestly think is better than his work in THE PIANIST (though keep in mind I was one of the few people who didn't go gaga over that film). He is delightfully understated, sheepish and reserved as Steven, an ultra-insecure social outcast who buys a dummy in a store and ends up creating him into a wooden psychiatrist who's method surprisingly, though slowly, has a positive effect on Steven. The cast of beyond eccentric goofballs is a riot: Ron Liebman and Jessica Walter are hilarious as Steven's whacked-out-of-their-skull parents (the latter playing a character that clearly plants the seeds for the ubermonstrous Mommy Dearest Lucille Bluth she would inhabit a year later in the remarkable TV show ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT), Vera Farmiga is lovely and charming as Steven's love interest, Jared Harris is memorable as a psychotic wannabe actor who stalks his ex-girlfriends, and the film is all but stolen by the always scene-stealing Illeana Douglas as Steven's sister, who gave up on her dream and hasn't been able to find any sort of happiness or fulfillment since, and a revelatory Milla Jovovich as Steven's best friend, a lovable Gothic loon who's bursts of anger, fits of insanity, and tendency to use "f**k" as a punctuation mark may have been the result of an ultra- repressed childhood at the hands of her sick, tyrannical nightmare of a mother. There really isn't that much of a plot here, and that is one of the film's strong points. Like in so many previous, refreshing independent films that tried to do something different, the strength of it is in the wonderful work by it's character-actors, the way it makes us believe and care for it's offbeat characters, and that magical feeling (usually an indie trademark) that we are watching people whose behavior may seem a little out of the ordinary, but whose emotions couldn't be more ordinary, normal, and HUMAN. B

Oliver Stone's aggressive, in-your-face, timeless bloodsoaked masterpiece NATURAL BORN KILLERS is a film that NEVER gets old! The power it has the first time you see it is exactly the same power you'll feel when you see it for the eight or ninth time. This is one of those movies like REQUIEM FOR A DREAM that is just ridiculously AMAZING! It's hard to believe a filmmaker who's just a regular human being like everyone else could succeed so perfectly and astonishingly in capturing and showing every single message and critique he wanted to put in the forefront. Though it's sharp, audacious, angry, unapologetic, eye-opening satirical attack on the greedy and soulless disgrace that is mainstream media, and the awe-striking way in which it constantly shows in so many different ways why the media is such a lying fear-promoting monster, is what makes it such a MONUMENTALLY important film, it would be brilliant film-making even without it. Stone has always been one of the most energetic, ambitious, and visually creative filmmakers in America, and he uses those skills to the max in this, the standout of his amazing career.

Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis couldn't have nailed the psycho persona, and all the different emotional and psychological wreckage that comes with it, more dead-on! But the real acting standout of this film is the wonderful Robert Downey Jr.'s remarkable, raw, unforgiving, explosively hysterical turn as media scumbag Wayne Gale. He may have a Robin Leach-like accent, but don't be fooled: There is no doubt that this is f**king Geraldo Rivera IN EVERY POSSIBLE WAY! I'm surprised Rivera wasn't throwing the same disgraceful, disgusting, and shamefully self-righteous hizzy fit that the pathetic John Grisham threw, since the film captures (with a depressingly small amount of exaggeration) everything that makes Geraldo such reprehensible media vermin.

To all the people who said this film was responsible for inciting violence: Shame on you! Isn't it funny that the vicious and dangerous moral and PC police always targets the best films? Like DOGMA, BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE and REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, this is one of the most socially conscious AND socially valuable films of it's time. And, like REQUIEM, it is a film that puts most film-making to shame and transcends the power of it's medium, thus becoming not just a great film, but a terrific humane achievement. A+

Joel Schumacher's VERONICA GUERIN is definitely his best film since 1993's FALLING DOWN, though that's really not saying much at all since his only film in between that time that I could even tolerate was the mildly entertaining PHONE BOOTH. The amazing Cate Blanchett is predictably terrific as Guerin and her performance alone makes the film worth watching. I have to say I really don't understand why so many people are making a case about what an unlikable person Guerin is in the film (and may have been in real life). It's true that she was careless and sometimes naive, but I'm not convinced her intentions in uncovering the evil drug dealers who were poisoning Ireland so terribly were self-serving. I know many people feel that the movie painted her in that light, but I sure didn't. I really felt this was a woman who just couldn't stomach what was going on (8-year old kids playing with heroine needles, dealers using innocent children to dupe the police, etc.) and was sick and tired of being the only one who had the cojones to do something about it. It's a film that has a sort of disadvantage in how powerful it can be since it begins with the ending, thus we already know the tragic result of Guerin's crusade. Still, Blanchett is always a captivating and fascinating actress, and the actors who play the evil drug lords are utterly despicable, hateful and fearsome, which makes it easier to get caught up in the tense drama as it's happening, even if we already know how it will end. Not a great film, but a solid and IMPORTANT one. After seeing this film, I strongly believe in my heart that for all the lives that may have been saved by her crusade, this woman deserved to have her story told. Was she stubborn and reckless? Yes, and there are a lot less heroine-infected toddlers and prostituted teens in Ireland thanks to her. What a "stupid bitch", huh? B