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In movies: NOV 2002 harry potter and the chamber of secrets I hate it when people say 'read the book!', so I'm not gonna say it. I liked the newest installment of the H. Potter franchise, where our hero takes on the newest set of intrigue that has beset the Hogwarts school of Wizardry. These are fun movies- and I can make the same complaints that the other reviewers seems to make; occasional wooden acting (I think that the actor playing Ron got worse in this one, and Harry-- well you gotta love him, but D. Radcliffe seems like a pretty boring little dude.) and too many unexplained leaps in the story line-- but we can easily get past that stuff to revel in the unbridled innocence that i think is truly at the heart of the Potter universe. Some people will hate this movie, I will not defend it-- I don't need to. It'll make a boatload of cash and the behemoth will plow forward. That being said- if you liked the first one, you'll like this one. If you didn't, you should save your money for Solaris or the new indy Armenian flick that's playing down the street. Grade: B+ OCT 2002 the ring Don't be deterred by antipathy that the mainstream press has had for the ring, the newest entry in the cryptic supernatural horror movie genre. I'm not quite sure what the deterrent has been for these critics; there is not anything about this movie that I find particularly formulaic or flawed. The movie centers around a videotape that spells doom for all those who watch it, but this potentially weak sounding premise is handled very well, and the atmospherics of this film are its greatest strength. There are many traditional scares in this movie, but the greatest chills come from the story itself. which carefully develops at a rather even pace throughout the movie. I had no complaints with the acting in the ring, Naomi Watts reacts appropriately to the horrible sequence of events that she watches unfold. As I implied earlier, the story is the star of this film, and the characters are appropriately developed, but do not receive much focus. Overall, the ring is an engaging, chilling movie, that is well constructed and leaves a lasting impression. Grade: A-
exit wounds I was surfing through the myriad of HBO channels today when I noted that this Steven Seagall (no relation) vehicle was featured. My interest in this movie had been sparked back during its initial release, because it had actually topped the box office in its first week. I assumed that there had to be something that people wanted to see in this movie, because generally Mr. Seagall tends to keep as many people out of the theater as he draws. I personally have no problems with Steven Seagall movies; he only plays one kind of character-- misunderstood, underdog cops/park rangers/cooks who just happen to be able to kick some major ass, and always walk around grumbling about how misunderstood they are. It was sort of a tired formula even at its inception with above the law (wasn't that the first one?) but for tv watching its not nearly as bad as some of the other alternatives. So I don't suppose I really need to give a plot synopsis of exit wounds as one could basically insert the plot of any other Seagall movies, but I think the appeal of this particular installment was the casting of DMX in the role of the misunderstood drug dealer / community advocate. DMX is by no means a great actor, in fact, he is probably a pretty bad actor, but he definitely exudes a level of cool prowess that was always detectable in his music. Some of his lines are pretty laughable ('I'll have a Hennessy Paradis'), but we can forgive him, right? Anyhow, I don't know if I recommend this one, but the fight scenes didn't seem too bad, and the DMX factor raises the movie to slightly above mediocre.
Grade: C+
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