Tag: Reese Witherspoon

Election

MPAA Rated – R
It’s 1:43 Long
A Review by:
– The Dude on the Right

Election
Movie Stats & Links
Starring: Matthew Broderick, Reese Witherspoon, Chris Klein, Jessica Campbell
MPAA Rated: R
Released By: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: 1999
Kiddie Movie: Don’t even think about it.
Date Movie: Sure, bring her along.
Gratuitous Sex: Some, but nothing gratuitous. More talk than action.
Gratuitous Violence: Nah.
Action: Nah.
Laughs: Chuckles and gut-busters usually caused by character lines totally unexpected.
Memorable Scene: Anytime Reese changes facial expression.
Memorable Quote: A couple. One by Tammy Metzler, “Sometimes, when I’m sad, I sit and watch the power station.” Another by Paul Metzler, “I really was surprised when Lisa Flannigan asked me for a ride home and then began blowing me.”
Directed By: Alexander Payne

Ahhh, high school.. Where kids learn about growing up, sometimes get laid, play sports, get involved in extracurricular activities, and just want to get the hell out of there. The groups are always the same, the teachers are always the same, but nowhere could I have imagined a run for student government president as came out in the movie “Election.”

“Election” tells the story of Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon), the always with the right answer, always involved in drama, yearbook, government, and any other student organization as long as she is usually the head honcho, and the always is the most known student in high school but not the most popular. It is finally her senior year and her dream is about to come true – President of student government. Enter Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick), the bestest teacher in the school, the one everyone goes to with their problems, the one always there grooming the youngins for adult life, and the one who finally gets sick of miss goody-to-shoes Tracy. He can’t stand that Tracy is running unopposed for President and decides that she needs to lose, and who better to lose against than Mr. Popularity – Paul Metzler (Chris Klein). So, teacher Jim convinces Paul to run, and all is well until Paul ends up with his sister’s girlfriend (or wishes she was her girlfriend), so Tammy Metzler (Jessica Campbell) figures she can get back at Paul by running for President too.

Sounds a little confusing, huh? Well, it’s not, and throw in some comical sidelines of teacher Jim’s screwed-up life at home and you get an adult comedy that won’t be seen by many people because it’s kinda artsy, kinda stuck in only a few theaters, but had me laughing and really enjoying the performance by Reese (her ability to switch facial expressions from concerned to cheery to totally pissed-off to pleased to a vindictive bitch is most excellent), by Broderick (he’s so much better playing the confused character rather than the hero), and by Campbell (she’s great as the lesbian high-schooler who is the loner yet finds her place should really be at the catholic school for girls and does everything she can to get there). A lot of dry humor, some out-right laugher spots, and a twisted look at how lives can become unmanageable in just one day.

Leave the kids at home for this one, it’s definitely for the older crowd able to reflect back on their own twisted high school lives. Too adult and you might be offended, too young and you might not be able to relate yet.

It’s 4 stars out of 5 for “Election.” It made me laugh, made a lot of the audience laugh, and the two ladies leaving the theater next to me said it was pretty good, too.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

American Psycho

MPAA Rated – R
It’s 1:37 Long
A Review by:
– The Dude on the Right

American Psycho
Movie Stats & Links
Starring: Christian Bale, William Dafoe, Reese Witherspoon
MPAA Rated: R
Released By: Lions Gate Films
Kiddie Movie: Don’t even think, or have the slightest inkling, to bring anyone under, well, anyone young.
Date Movie: This might be a better movie to see solo.
Gratuitous Sex: Yup, it has it!
Gratuitous Violence: It’s about a killer. Yes, I would consider it violent, and very gratuitous.
Action: No action really.
Laughs: Mostly because it was so over the top.
Memorable Scene: Any of the killing scenes.
Memorable Quote: Too long to write down, but anytime Patrick is giving his spiel about pop music.
Directed By: Mary Harron

Sometimes a movie is spooky-scary, sometimes a movie is gory-scary, and sometimes a movie is just so over the top that it can be more like a comedy than the shocker it is supposed to be. Such was my feeling after seeing “American Psycho.”

“American Psycho” is adapted from a novel that is supposedly even more twisted than the movie. I wouldn’t know, I never read it. But this is what I do know. “American Psycho” looks good, Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman almost inspires me to get up and do 1000 crunches in the morning, buy some girly facial products, be glad I wasn’t on Wall Street during the eighties, and from now on, whenever I hear some Huey Lewis and the News or Phil Collins, the only image in my head will be of and axe wielding psycho or a threesome, respectively.

I guess the easiest way to put the synopsis is something like this – Like I said, Christian Bale plays Patrick Bateman. He’s a Wall Street kind of dude in the eighties. Simple enough. But the dude is nuts. I don’t mean sits all day and talks to imaginary people or is classified as what most people would consider nuts, I’m talking this dude has too many cards in his deck, and most of those extras have to do with popular music. The problem with these extra cards – they make him need to kill people.

So, you’ve got this Wall Street dude, lunching with his Wall Street buddies, all playing the “I’m better than you” game by flashing business cards and telling which restaurant they could get into, but Patrick takes it another step further by hacking up his friends and women. Alright, so the guy is psycho, and I guess maybe to be totally psycho it has to be way over the top, but can you keep a straight face and not chuckle when our hero is running down an apartment hallway, butt-naked, wielding a chainsaw, chasing his next victim. I just laughed. And maybe that’s the problem with “American Psycho,” maybe it’s just too over the top to be shocking. Sure, it was interested to hear Patrick recite his reviews of some of the top hits of the eighties as he gets ready to behead a victim or two, how underrated some of the earlier work of Huey Lewis was or how Phil Collins really came into his own after he went solo, but it was just so bizarre that I wasn’t freaked out by it, and just couldn’t wait to see how our hero would take out his next victim (I was really looking forward to the nail gun through the head – damn phone call!).

Is “American Psycho” a good movie. I would say it is interesting. It looks good, Christian Bale plays the calm, cool, collected psycho in a way that almost makes being a psycho a cool option, and it does try to touch on how stupid power brokers on Wall Street can act to the rest of us, but it could have been more shocking by maybe being less shocking. I don’t know if that made any sense, but I was just more entertained than shocked, whether that was the intention or not.

“American Psycho” gives a movie with a lot of quality kills, some quality sex, and a new look at popular music in the eighties. It also made me laugh. On a normal scale I would have given “American Psycho” about 2 stars, but add in the triad off kills, sex, and eighties music, well, let’s nock that up a few notches to 4 stars out of 5. So over the top it was funny, I wasn’t really sure if I wasted my money or got my money’s worth. But it did leave an image.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!