Michelle-Rodriguez Movie Reviews
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Prove them wrongGirlfight is a rivetting and inspirational story of an angry younge women who finds not only discipline, dignity or self respect but also love, in the most unlikely place.
a feel good party moviefavorite line
Kenny Fisher(Seth Green)- are you crying.oh no baby please!, you are far to fine to look so sad.
Can't Get Enough Of This Movie!
Can't Hardly WaitCo-written and co-directed by a pair of newcomers, Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan, "Can't Hardly Wait" (which was titled "The Party" up until about a month ago) is essentially a shameless rip-off of Richard Linklater's 1993 film, "Dazed and Confused," an insightful period piece set in 1976 about suburban Texas teens carousing on the last day of school.
There are also bits and pieces here from "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," "American Graffiti," "Animal House," "16 Candles" and even the ancient "Bye Bye Birdie," but most of the ideas come from Linklater's movie.
We get the "Bye Bye Birdie" connection right off when Elfont and Kaplan stage a non-singing variation on "The Telephone Hour" from that film, in which one teen gossips to another, spreading the word that the graduating class' golden couple, Top Jock Mike (Peter Facinelli) and Homecoming Queen Amanda (Jennifer Love Hewitt), have broken up. Mike is going off to college and now has no time for high school girls.
This leaves the field open for Preston (Ethan Embry), an introverted, brainy kid who has nursed a crush on Amanda for four years and now plans to take action. Interwoven throughout the all-nighter are several missed encounters between Amanda and Preston, as well as subplots about a white kid who thinks he's African American (Seth Green), a geek (Charlie Korsmo) and his two sycophants (characters who are direct steals from "16 Candles") and the class cynic (Lauren Ambrose), the only intelligent person on hand, whose favorite quote is Oscar Wilde's "A true friend stabs you in the front."
Actually, the young cast works wonders with this material. There really isn't a bad performance here, with Embry, Ambrose and especially Hewitt turning in impressively self-composed work. The filmmakers tease us with Hewitt's character, at first only showing her in bits and pieces (sort of like Godzilla in its movie). But once Hewitt gets her first movie-star close-up, the audience went wild and applauded as if she were the Meryl Streep of Teen Trash.
Hewitt is a sweet, pleasing presence who almost redeems the junkiness of the movie surrounding her.
There are also cameos by TV's Jenna Elfman ("Dharma and Greg") as an erotic dancer and Melissa Joan Hart ("Sabrina, the Teenage Witch"), who's funny as "The Yearbook Girl," a dweeb intent on getting as many autographs in her yearbook as possible. And Jerry O'Connell ("Scream 2") pops up as a former high-school prince who has gone to pot.
He's playing the role that Matthew McConaughey nailed so perfectly in "Dazed and Confused," a film also noted for early screen appearances by Ben Affleck, Parker Posey, Rene Zellweger, Milla Jovovich, Rory Cochrane, Jason London and Joey Lauren Adams. You might want to check it out. It achieves what "Can't Hardly Wait" only timidly hints at -- the giddy class structure among teenagers.
It also makes partying look like a lot more fun.
a feel good party moviefavorite line
Kenny Fisher(Seth Green)- are you crying.oh no baby please!, you are far to fine to look so sad.
Can't Get Enough Of This Movie!
Can't Hardly WaitCo-written and co-directed by a pair of newcomers, Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan, "Can't Hardly Wait" (which was titled "The Party" up until about a month ago) is essentially a shameless rip-off of Richard Linklater's 1993 film, "Dazed and Confused," an insightful period piece set in 1976 about suburban Texas teens carousing on the last day of school.
There are also bits and pieces here from "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," "American Graffiti," "Animal House," "16 Candles" and even the ancient "Bye Bye Birdie," but most of the ideas come from Linklater's movie.
We get the "Bye Bye Birdie" connection right off when Elfont and Kaplan stage a non-singing variation on "The Telephone Hour" from that film, in which one teen gossips to another, spreading the word that the graduating class' golden couple, Top Jock Mike (Peter Facinelli) and Homecoming Queen Amanda (Jennifer Love Hewitt), have broken up. Mike is going off to college and now has no time for high school girls.
This leaves the field open for Preston (Ethan Embry), an introverted, brainy kid who has nursed a crush on Amanda for four years and now plans to take action. Interwoven throughout the all-nighter are several missed encounters between Amanda and Preston, as well as subplots about a white kid who thinks he's African American (Seth Green), a geek (Charlie Korsmo) and his two sycophants (characters who are direct steals from "16 Candles") and the class cynic (Lauren Ambrose), the only intelligent person on hand, whose favorite quote is Oscar Wilde's "A true friend stabs you in the front."
Actually, the young cast works wonders with this material. There really isn't a bad performance here, with Embry, Ambrose and especially Hewitt turning in impressively self-composed work. The filmmakers tease us with Hewitt's character, at first only showing her in bits and pieces (sort of like Godzilla in its movie). But once Hewitt gets her first movie-star close-up, the audience went wild and applauded as if she were the Meryl Streep of Teen Trash.
Hewitt is a sweet, pleasing presence who almost redeems the junkiness of the movie surrounding her.
There are also cameos by TV's Jenna Elfman ("Dharma and Greg") as an erotic dancer and Melissa Joan Hart ("Sabrina, the Teenage Witch"), who's funny as "The Yearbook Girl," a dweeb intent on getting as many autographs in her yearbook as possible. And Jerry O'Connell ("Scream 2") pops up as a former high-school prince who has gone to pot.
He's playing the role that Matthew McConaughey nailed so perfectly in "Dazed and Confused," a film also noted for early screen appearances by Ben Affleck, Parker Posey, Rene Zellweger, Milla Jovovich, Rory Cochrane, Jason London and Joey Lauren Adams. You might want to check it out. It achieves what "Can't Hardly Wait" only timidly hints at -- the giddy class structure among teenagers.
It also makes partying look like a lot more fun.
Blue Crush"Blue Crush" took place one the beaches of Maui, Hawaii in modern day time. The star Ann Marie, played by Kate Boswell, is a young women tring to succeed in the surfing world, and raise her younger sister by herself. Ann Marie and her two friends work in a fancy hotel to make money to pay the bills and put her sister through school. After Ann Marie and her friends are fired from there job, the meet a pro football player that was staying in the hotel. The pro football player, played by Matthew Davis, wants to learn how to surf and offers to pay the girls $150 a day for lessons. Ann Marie soon falls in love with him and begins to drift away from the pipe compition. All of Ann Marie's friends believe in her but she has a fear, due to the near drowning incident that happened three years earlier at this same location. If Ann Marie could pull off the compition she could gain exposure to the pro surf world, and make enough money to pay for her little sisters college. During the competition she begins to lose her train of thought until her boyfriend arrives.
"Blue Crush" is a Drama/Romantic Comedey in a Color production. A sound track by Lenny Kravitz has DTS surround sound 5.1 in English.
I rated this film a 3. I based my rating on the fact the movie didn't have much momentum until the final scene at the pipe competition.
Fluffy entertainment.Bosworth stars as Anne Marie, a hotel maid in Hawaii who lives with her two friends (Michelle Rodriguez and someone I don't recognize) and her younger sister, Penny (Mika Boorem). In their spare time, she and her friends surf, particularly as practice for the upcoming "big" competition that you know is going to pad out the lengthy conclusion. Anyway, complications arise when Anne Marie finds herself falling for a handsome pro football player (Matthew Davis) who's arrived for the pro bowl. Which will she place above all else, her newfound boyfriend or the big surfing competition?
As far as lightweight entertainment goes, Blue Crush delivers just enough that you won't feel you've completely wasted almost two hours of your life. This is thanks mostly in part to Bosworth's performance, she's sympathetic and likeable, showing hints of a promising career. Then there's Matthew Davis, who's shown he can deliver a good performance (Below, for instance) and is okay as the pro quarterback, but more importantly, he and Bosworth actually have some decent chemistry together.
Most people consider the movie's anchor to be the surfing sequences. Aside from a scene of horrible CGI, these setpieces are lovely to look at and shot quite well, but they are repetitive, and by the final competition, it just drags uncomfortably. Amidst the story are the typical cliches, including a scene in a bathroom stall that you just know right from the get-go how it's going to pan out.
Aside From Bosworth and Davis, the rest of the cast is serviceable at best. Michelle Rodriguez continues her "angry chick" acting and she's not very good at it, either. Mika Boorem is a talented young actress, but there's nothing here to stretch her acting chops. It's easy to see how Blue Crush became a minor box office hit. The "girl power" story draws in the scores of teenage girls and the tantalizing promise of girls in bikinis will have the guys salivating.
All this comes at the expense of the portrayal of the men in the story, who are almost exclusively seen as hot-headed, rash, and uncleanly. Only Davis shows some honorable qualities but even he is revealed to be a bit of a wild guy. Still, complain as I might, Blue Crush did entertain me for most of its running time, and I guess that counts for something. As Saturday night rental fare, this is a movie that should go down fairly easily.
** 1/2 out of *****
good popcorn movieI was pleasantly surprised. By no means is this a great movie, or perhaps even a good movie. But it is a pretty good movie. It is pretty lighthearted and surprisingly well done. Blue Crush tells the story of three friends (played by Kate Bosworth, Michelle Rodriguez, and real life surfer Sanoe Lake). Bosworth plays the lead, Anne Marie. Anne Marie is preparing to surf in one of the toughest surf competitions in the world, Pipe Masters. It is at the Bonzai Pipeline in Hawaii. People don't simply get hurt surfing there, people really do die at Bonzai. Anne Marie lives with her two friends and is also raising her younger sister. They live in near poverty, and to pay the bills (not all the bills in any given month), they work as maids at one of the resorts on the island.
The story follows Anne Marie as she trains for the competition, and focuses as much on her relationship with her friends, family, other surfers, and a guy, as it does on the training. The cinematography is quite beautiful (we are talking about Hawaii here). Director John Stockwell worked to get this movie as realistic as possible, filming on location, using locals who actually live the lifestyle presented in Blue Crush, and hiring top female surfers to give their insights (and also as stunt doubles for much of the surfing...Sanoe Lake does her own surfing, though).
While the movie may be a bit on the overly simple and sentimental side, this is a fairly good popcorn movie.
Director Rob Cohen treats this like Roman tragedy for MTV junkies, pushing every scene to adrenaline-pumping extremes; when his camera isn't caressing a spectrum of nitrous oxide-enhanced dream machines, it's ogling countless slim 'n' sexy race babes. The undercover-cop scenario cheaply borrows the split-loyalty theme perfected in Donnie Brasco; a rival Asian gang adds mystery and menace; and digital trickery is cleverly employed to explore the fuel-injected innards of the day-glo racecars. It's about as substantial as a perfume ad, but just as alluring, and for heavy-metal maniacs of any age, Diesel's superblown '69 Charger proves that Detroit muscle never goes out of style. --Jeff Shannon
Life's 10 Important Lessons - courtesy of Hollywood2) You get all the hotties if you are cool.
3) If you are cool you can afford a nice house, parties, and fast cars without having a job.
4) You make friends with cool people by beating up uncool people.
5) If you are rich and asian, you must be a gangster.
6) Properly tuned 4 and 6-cylinder engines have just as much top end as supercharged V8's and V12's (but V8's can do wheelies.)
7) It's ok to let your friends sleep with your sister, as long as you threaten to break their face first.
8) A woman's purpose in life is to sleep with cool guys.
9) No one ever dies as a result of street racing.
10) There are no ugly women at car shows.
The movie gets two stars because of the racing scenes (hey, gotta give credit where it's due). Besides, we weren't really expecting oscar material, right? Looking at the other reviews on this site, apparently girls only need a couple of hot guys in the movie to be happy. So sad. Maybe this is actually a chick flick?
Anyways kiddies, review these lessons and use the enclosed coupons on your Toyotas, Hondas and Acuras. Natural selection will take care of the rest.
Derek (who is "uncool" because he doesn't use words like "sick" and "phat" in his reviews)
New SoCal ClassicWhat do I see? As someone born and raised in Southern California, I see a stylized, but faithful, version of where I live: people of different (and mixed) ethnicities, the frictions that develop from diverse cultures and values, the "haves" and the "have-nots" addressing their economic needs in legal, "gray" and illegal ways. And, what is the common denominator that bring all these people together? They (we) all love their (our) cars! The cars are rolling expressions (metaphors?) of who the characters are and, more importantly, who they want to be. You don't get more SoCal than that!
Yes, it was the cars, the racing and the action that initially drew me to F&F. To get all that, plus a clear-eye look at contemporary life in SoCal, elevates this movie to classic status.
Best movie ever!
Director Rob Cohen treats this like Roman tragedy for MTV junkies, pushing every scene to adrenaline-pumping extremes; when his camera isn't caressing a spectrum of nitrous oxide-enhanced dream machines, it's ogling countless slim 'n' sexy race babes. The undercover-cop scenario cheaply borrows the split-loyalty theme perfected in Donnie Brasco; a rival Asian gang adds mystery and menace; and digital trickery is cleverly employed to explore the fuel-injected innards of the day-glo racecars. It's about as substantial as a perfume ad, but just as alluring, and for heavy-metal maniacs of any age, Diesel's superblown '69 Charger proves that Detroit muscle never goes out of style. --Jeff Shannon
Life's 10 Important Lessons - courtesy of Hollywood2) You get all the hotties if you are cool.
3) If you are cool you can afford a nice house, parties, and fast cars without having a job.
4) You make friends with cool people by beating up uncool people.
5) If you are rich and asian, you must be a gangster.
6) Properly tuned 4 and 6-cylinder engines have just as much top end as supercharged V8's and V12's (but V8's can do wheelies.)
7) It's ok to let your friends sleep with your sister, as long as you threaten to break their face first.
8) A woman's purpose in life is to sleep with cool guys.
9) No one ever dies as a result of street racing.
10) There are no ugly women at car shows.
The movie gets two stars because of the racing scenes (hey, gotta give credit where it's due). Besides, we weren't really expecting oscar material, right? Looking at the other reviews on this site, apparently girls only need a couple of hot guys in the movie to be happy. So sad. Maybe this is actually a chick flick?
Anyways kiddies, review these lessons and use the enclosed coupons on your Toyotas, Hondas and Acuras. Natural selection will take care of the rest.
Derek (who is "uncool" because he doesn't use words like "sick" and "phat" in his reviews)
New SoCal ClassicWhat do I see? As someone born and raised in Southern California, I see a stylized, but faithful, version of where I live: people of different (and mixed) ethnicities, the frictions that develop from diverse cultures and values, the "haves" and the "have-nots" addressing their economic needs in legal, "gray" and illegal ways. And, what is the common denominator that bring all these people together? They (we) all love their (our) cars! The cars are rolling expressions (metaphors?) of who the characters are and, more importantly, who they want to be. You don't get more SoCal than that!
Yes, it was the cars, the racing and the action that initially drew me to F&F. To get all that, plus a clear-eye look at contemporary life in SoCal, elevates this movie to classic status.
Best movie ever!
Director Rob Cohen treats this like Roman tragedy for MTV junkies, pushing every scene to adrenaline-pumping extremes; when his camera isn't caressing a spectrum of nitrous oxide-enhanced dream machines, it's ogling countless slim 'n' sexy race babes. The undercover-cop scenario cheaply borrows the split-loyalty theme perfected in Donnie Brasco; a rival Asian gang adds mystery and menace; and digital trickery is cleverly employed to explore the fuel-injected innards of the day-glo racecars. It's about as substantial as a perfume ad, but just as alluring, and for heavy-metal maniacs of any age, Diesel's superblown '69 Charger proves that Detroit muscle never goes out of style. --Jeff Shannon
Life's 10 Important Lessons - courtesy of Hollywood2) You get all the hotties if you are cool.
3) If you are cool you can afford a nice house, parties, and fast cars without having a job.
4) You make friends with cool people by beating up uncool people.
5) If you are rich and asian, you must be a gangster.
6) Properly tuned 4 and 6-cylinder engines have just as much top end as supercharged V8's and V12's (but V8's can do wheelies.)
7) It's ok to let your friends sleep with your sister, as long as you threaten to break their face first.
8) A woman's purpose in life is to sleep with cool guys.
9) No one ever dies as a result of street racing.
10) There are no ugly women at car shows.
The movie gets two stars because of the racing scenes (hey, gotta give credit where it's due). Besides, we weren't really expecting oscar material, right? Looking at the other reviews on this site, apparently girls only need a couple of hot guys in the movie to be happy. So sad. Maybe this is actually a chick flick?
Anyways kiddies, review these lessons and use the enclosed coupons on your Toyotas, Hondas and Acuras. Natural selection will take care of the rest.
Derek (who is "uncool" because he doesn't use words like "sick" and "phat" in his reviews)
New SoCal ClassicWhat do I see? As someone born and raised in Southern California, I see a stylized, but faithful, version of where I live: people of different (and mixed) ethnicities, the frictions that develop from diverse cultures and values, the "haves" and the "have-nots" addressing their economic needs in legal, "gray" and illegal ways. And, what is the common denominator that bring all these people together? They (we) all love their (our) cars! The cars are rolling expressions (metaphors?) of who the characters are and, more importantly, who they want to be. You don't get more SoCal than that!
Yes, it was the cars, the racing and the action that initially drew me to F&F. To get all that, plus a clear-eye look at contemporary life in SoCal, elevates this movie to classic status.
Best movie ever!
Little intrigue, lots of opportunity missedWith Resident Evil he has given us a decent story with a touch of complication and a fair amount of suspense. My main gripe is the fact that the movie looks far too slick to be as truly disturbing as the grainy and filthy Zombie movies of the '70s. Plus the violence isn't all that graphic but there is still plenty of fun to be had in watching a bunch of office workers turn into the living dead and it's scary how cheaply their lives are considered by the Umbrella Corp. they work for. I'm certainly not going to work in an office for a company like that if that's what they're going to do to me.
The characters are thin but not entirely one-dimensional. You do end up siding with some of them and feel urgency in their futile escape from the underground skyscraper (shouldn't that be 'Groundscraper' then?). Milla Jovovich is cuter here than she was in Fifth Element or Zoolander but Michelle Rodriguez just plain annoys me. All I've ever seen her play is a moody Latino who frowns all the time. It's time for here to try and expand her range a bit and I wish someone else played her character.
Video games will never make for classic movies. They can be mind-numbingly terrible (Super Mario Brothers, Double Dragon) or competent, such as this. Just turn a blind eye to the really, really bad FX at the end when a CGI monster goes on the rampage. My old Commodore 64 was capable of better graphics.
The DVD is in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen and a choice of Dolby 5.1 or DTS 5.1 soundtracks which sound great but, as a result, also serve to highlight he meaningless and clichéd Marco Beltrami/Marylin Manson 'score'.
Creepy and fun.Recommended.
Top notch horrorPlot:
It takes less than a minute for all heck to break loose as the virus is released upon "The hive"(an underground facility where the film takes place). The poor workers are trapped and we witness an intense and very sad series of scenes. Cut to above the complex where we meet out star, a beautiful young woman who can't remember who or where she is. In come the S.T.A.R.S members(the good guys) to save the day. They are here to see what went wrong at the Hive. All of this happens in only minutes...just hinting at how fast-paced this film is going to be. We meet many people, majority very likeable as they go deep into the Hive. The beauty of the film really comes out here. The film started so quickly and left so many things un-explained that we feel exactly like the lead. Everything is a mystery and every second of the film is part of the mystery unfolding.
What I think:
Now I won't give anymore away....the film does any amazing job of setting everything up, and slowly building up until the really scary stuff starts. Some of the acting at the start is a little off, but later the acting is great. You really start to care about the people, and when people die the way the characters react really gets to you. To top it off, this film has some of the best writing I've seen in a long time. I'm a writer so I'm usually very picky, but I was very happy with this films ability to surprise the audience. I see every horror movie, so I can always say what will happen next. In Resident Evil though, I had no idea what would happen. From opening scene to the completly amazing ending, I was susprirsed. There is even one specific scene that is so surprising, even after it happens you are still in dis-belief. By the time the film was over, everyone in our audience looked exhausted. I know I was. And if that still isn't enough, the movie fits perfectly in with the video games. Must you play the games to understand? No. People I saw it with have never played the games, but they still understood everything. However, if you have played the games, you will definitly appreciate the movie even more, if that's possible.
Little intrigue, lots of opportunity missedWith Resident Evil he has given us a decent story with a touch of complication and a fair amount of suspense. My main gripe is the fact that the movie looks far too slick to be as truly disturbing as the grainy and filthy Zombie movies of the '70s. Plus the violence isn't all that graphic but there is still plenty of fun to be had in watching a bunch of office workers turn into the living dead and it's scary how cheaply their lives are considered by the Umbrella Corp. they work for. I'm certainly not going to work in an office for a company like that if that's what they're going to do to me.
The characters are thin but not entirely one-dimensional. You do end up siding with some of them and feel urgency in their futile escape from the underground skyscraper (shouldn't that be 'Groundscraper' then?). Milla Jovovich is cuter here than she was in Fifth Element or Zoolander but Michelle Rodriguez just plain annoys me. All I've ever seen her play is a moody Latino who frowns all the time. It's time for here to try and expand her range a bit and I wish someone else played her character.
Video games will never make for classic movies. They can be mind-numbingly terrible (Super Mario Brothers, Double Dragon) or competent, such as this. Just turn a blind eye to the really, really bad FX at the end when a CGI monster goes on the rampage. My old Commodore 64 was capable of better graphics.
The DVD is in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen and a choice of Dolby 5.1 or DTS 5.1 soundtracks which sound great but, as a result, also serve to highlight he meaningless and clichéd Marco Beltrami/Marylin Manson 'score'.
Creepy and fun.Recommended.
Top notch horrorPlot:
It takes less than a minute for all heck to break loose as the virus is released upon "The hive"(an underground facility where the film takes place). The poor workers are trapped and we witness an intense and very sad series of scenes. Cut to above the complex where we meet out star, a beautiful young woman who can't remember who or where she is. In come the S.T.A.R.S members(the good guys) to save the day. They are here to see what went wrong at the Hive. All of this happens in only minutes...just hinting at how fast-paced this film is going to be. We meet many people, majority very likeable as they go deep into the Hive. The beauty of the film really comes out here. The film started so quickly and left so many things un-explained that we feel exactly like the lead. Everything is a mystery and every second of the film is part of the mystery unfolding.
What I think:
Now I won't give anymore away....the film does any amazing job of setting everything up, and slowly building up until the really scary stuff starts. Some of the acting at the start is a little off, but later the acting is great. You really start to care about the people, and when people die the way the characters react really gets to you. To top it off, this film has some of the best writing I've seen in a long time. I'm a writer so I'm usually very picky, but I was very happy with this films ability to surprise the audience. I see every horror movie, so I can always say what will happen next. In Resident Evil though, I had no idea what would happen. From opening scene to the completly amazing ending, I was susprirsed. There is even one specific scene that is so surprising, even after it happens you are still in dis-belief. By the time the film was over, everyone in our audience looked exhausted. I know I was. And if that still isn't enough, the movie fits perfectly in with the video games. Must you play the games to understand? No. People I saw it with have never played the games, but they still understood everything. However, if you have played the games, you will definitly appreciate the movie even more, if that's possible.