Don-121 Reviews

L.A. Confidential (1997)

This film is flash with no substance

[1/10 · 13 September 1999]

This movie is total flash with absolutely no substance. Potato Chips for couch potatos. The stylization is flat. It would seem from the other reviewers that if you find a bunch of 1930's outfits and cars that your movie is now "stylized". And what's with Kim Basinger? The big shoker is that we see a photo of the detective kissing a prostitute on the floor with all her clothes on? Oh my god! I can overlook a few plot and motivation flaws (there were many in this move), but what's the big payoff here? An ending riddled in cliches. This movie has all the empty calories of a can of Pringles. I'm mystified at positive response people gave this one.

Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)

This movie continues the curse of odd numbered Trek movies

[5/10 · 2 August 1999]

This movie blows, and I don't mean that in the nicest possible way. Only the party faithful will find redeeming qualities in this film. The eye-candy has been sitting on the shelf a little too long, like and old box of Ju-Ju Bees. The premise could have been made up by a high school English class. There are some amusing moments, but not enough to call it a comedy. There is some action, but not enough to call it an action film. It was basically a two hour TV movie. Where do they get off using up perfectly good theater space for this stuff? If they get another shot at making a movie, I hope they put the warm, fuzzy crap on the shelf and come up with a story that's worth paying $8 for.

Two Small Bodies (1993)

If you like disturbing dialog, you'll enjoy this movie

[7/10 · 9 June 1999]

I don't know. I kinda liked it. I thought this move was very much in the fashion of Tenneseee Williams. Two small bodies (Does the title refer to the dead children or the two principal characters?) talk to each other about their messed up lives. This dialog is intertwined with the detective's attempt to find the killer of the two children. I have this idea that it's the purpose of art to make you think or feel something; anything. This movie disturbed me at some level. That made it worth watching.

Antz (1998)

An enjoyable film, but suffers in Disney's shadow

[7/10 · 15 May 1999]

Antz, on it's own, would have been a good movie, if you enjoy Woody Allen's neurotic characters and self-depreciating one-liners. When held up to the same standard as "A Bug's Life", however, it's looks like a cheap immitation. I don't know how these movies spontaneously pop up -- like one year we get a pair of asteroid movies, the next, a pair of animated ant movies -- but "Antz" is worth seeing once. "A Bugs Life" is worth owning, you'll want to watch it again and again, uh, I mean your kids will want to watch it again and again.

Ronin (1998)

Starts out as a smart film, ends up in cliches

[4/10 · 9 May 1999]

This could have been a brilliant movie, but the writers seem to have forgotten what kind of a movie they were making about 3/4 of the way into the film. I found that I simply didn't care what was in the case after a while and just gave up. The action became gratuitous after a while and, quite frankly, boring. Yes, some of the case scenes were incredible in the technical detail -- travelling down the wrong way on a highway -- but I found myself yawning after 10 minutes of that stuff. It was like the writers forgot about the story they'd initially gotten us interested in and just worked on how to plug one chase schene after another into the movie. I was highly disappointed that something with so much promise degenerated so quickly into action movie cliches.

Brimstone (1998–1999)

This is one of the best shows on TV. Don't miss it if it comes back again.

[12 April 1999]

Brimstone is (was) one of the best shows on TV. I only got a chance to catch the rerun of a few episodes in March. If FOX ever attempted to market this show, I missed it. I only found it by chance. It only took a few minutes to see that this show was different. OK, so maybe I never got through much of Milton, but I loved the universal themes of good and evil and how it's difficult sometimes to tell them apart. The creators of this series pick up on the basic premise of fallen angels and marry it to a slick detective series. The mix makes for some great moments, both funny and remorseful. This show should have been given more of a chance to build an audience before they pulled the plug.

The Mask of Zorro (1998)

Even for a mindless swashbuckler, this one stunk

[6 February 1999]

I had low expectations going into this movie. I was prepared for your typical mid-summer action movie. However, this movie was so riddled with bad cliches, it made it difficult to enjoy the great stunts. Most movies involve some amount of "suspension of disbelief", but this one went beyond what I could stomach.