Holes (2003)
DIRECTOR: Andrew Davis
CAST:
Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight, Patricia Arquette, Tim Blake Nelson, Shia LaBeouf, Khleo Thomas, Dulé Hill, Henry Winkler, Siobhan Fallon, Nathan Davis, Eartha Kitt, Scott Plank, Roma Maffia
REVIEW:
I wasn’t expecting too much from Holes the first time I saw it, and with some reason; Disney’s live-action films aren’t generally noted for their quality (or even for being bearable). Fortunately, Holes is a surprisingly enjoyable exception, well-acted, quirky, and with a surprising amount to offer adults as well as the young readers of Louis Sachar’s much-loved book. Continue reading
Anaconda (1997)
DIRECTOR: Luis Llosa
CAST: Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Jon Voight, Eric Stoltz, Jonathan Hyde, Owen Wilson, Kari Wuhrer, Vincent Castellanos, Danny Trejo
REVIEW:
Much like 1995’s The Ghost and the Darkness, Anaconda is another hokey ’90s creature feature that tries to do for its designated “monster” what Jaws, the grand daddy of them all, did for sharks. With The Ghost and the Darkness, it was a pair of man-eating lions. With the simply-titled Anaconda (recalling the B-movie Piranha), its giant people-swallowing snakes in the depths of the Amazonian jungle. And much like the previous Jaws wannabe, Anaconda just can’t get the hang of this sort of thing. But unlike the lion movie, that was self-serious to a sometimes unintentionally comical extent, Anaconda at least has a goofy, campy element, and its level of intentional tongue-in-cheek humor, while not going all-out with it on as fun of a level as Tremors, has led to it becoming a “so bad it’s good” cult classic that can be enjoyed on a silly level as long as you’re not trying to take it too seriously.
Continue readingThe Odessa File (1974)
DIRECTOR: Ronald Neame
CAST: Jon Voight, Maximilian Schell, Mary Tamm, Maria Schell, Derek Jacobi
REVIEW:
The Odessa File follows 1973’s The Day of the Jackal as another adaptation of one of Frederick Forsyth’s international thrillers (like the previous film, The Odessa File is based on Forsyth’s best-selling novel of the same name), and while it’s not up to its predecessor’s level when it comes to potboiler intrigue (though really neither was its source material), it’s a sporadically effective little 1970s thriller that occasionally feels a little dated and silly but also features some effective moments and some interesting underlying themes.
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