Hey everybody. After a long absence, I'm back (seems like I say that every time). What with the holidays and all that goes along with that as well as spending over a week trying to get my computer up and running, I couldn't really do any posting. But now the new year has started (Happy 2006 -- let's hope) and my system is fully functional, the reviews can begin again. And so, I bring you five new reviews today. This is all the stuff I had promised you previously. Coming soon to filmbrats.com: reviews for King Kong (2005) and hopefully (1933), Broken, Brokeback Mountain, The Producers (2005), Capote, Match Point and the work of experimental filmmaker Mark O'Connell. So you can see this site will be plenty busy. I still want to see a few more of the bigger name award contenders before I compile my list for best of 2005, but you can expect that relatively soon as well. You don't want to miss it.



The Kid (1921)
Review by Jon Waterman

**1/2

A sad single mother who believes she has no other options, places her baby into an empty car. It turns out that two thugs are driving the vehicle. Since they do not want the crying newborn to foil any of their plans, they dump it off into the alley. Shortly thereafter, our hero, the tramp comes along and discovers the child. He tries his best to place it with someone who can help, but a lurking police officer who is under the impression the baby belongs to the tramp won’t let that happen. And so a man who can hardly take care of himself must now find a way to provide for two.

Writer/director Charles Chaplin once again brings us his lovable tramp character; this time in a longer scale. At 61 minutes, this film runs almost twice the length of most of the previous entries in the series. Luckily, there is enough here to keep your interest for virtually the entire picture. Unluckily, it’s not side-splittingly funny. Some of the attempts at throwback humor instead come across as trying to sell the same joke again as new, especially the run-ins with the cop. Perhaps if the situations offered some variance, then it would be funnier. Mostly the gags are clever, and they’ll induce a good smile, but they aren’t strong enough to illicit a huge response.
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+++++++++


The Ice Harvest
Review by Jon Waterman

1/2 star

Charlie and Vic have just pulled off a monumental robbery. They are currently in possession of two million dollars, and the plan went off without a hitch. Or at least they believed so. Somehow the boss they stole from got wind of the scheme, and he is sending his goons after the crooks. Charlie and Vic find themselves trying to figure out a way to remain out of sight and away from each other. But with un-trustworthy Vic is the guy handling the cash and the gun-wielding baddies chasing them, Charlie just may get a little too anxious. It’s a slippery slope of a Christmas caper.

And they fall flat on their face on the black comedic ice. Writers Richard Russo and Robert Benton completely fail to produce a believable, exciting, interesting, intriguing, funny, thrilling, mind-warping heist picture. The biggest problem is that the film is set up to be a comedy. If it doesn’t attempt to make you laugh, there is absolutely no way it could ever work. There are too many zany mishap situations that occur to allow for a straight crime flick. Unfortunately, the comedy isn’t efficient, rapid firing or on target.
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+++++++++


The NeverEnding Story
Review by Jon Waterman

***

Bastian Bux gets teased a lot at school. Bullies tend to chase him down and throw him into dumpsters. In order to escape the pressures of daily life, he runs and hides up in the school’s attic. One day before doing so, he wanders inside an old bookstore. There he encounters an old man that tells young Bastian about a book unlike any other. This book will immerse you in ways previously thought impossible. Intrigued, Bastian borrows the book and runs up into the school attic and begins to read away. What he finds is fantasy world on the verge of being destroyed by the abominable creature known as The Nothing. The only hope the land has to survive is for Bastian to read on and root for the story’s boy warrior, Atreyu.

I gotta tell ya, maybe if/when I was younger, I’d have a little more sympathy for Bastian. But watching it as a twenty-something makes me see that kid was a huge geek and he really didn’t do himself any favors with the way he acted. I’m not saying he was asking for it, necessarily, but come on – the kid plays hooky by going to a bookstore and hiding IN SCHOOL. Try to have a little common sense by not going down that alley or wearing that backpack, or at least change your name, Bastian Bux (no one will think to rhyme that).
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+++++++++


Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Review by Jon Waterman

**

It’s his fourth year at Hogwarts and young Harry Potter is starting to grow up. Some aspects of his budding adulthood are voluntary, such as his romantic feelings towards a particular classmate and what can safely be assumed as being his first date. Other aspects are forced. His name gets entered and then selected to participate in the Tri-Wizard tournament; an extremely dangerous competition designed to act as the be all and end all (sometimes literally) to determine the best student wizards. Since Potter is the first underage sorcerer to participate in the contest reserved for elite near graduates, one can only assume that outside forces are interfering…but what…or whom?

“I love magic,” says a wide-eyed Harry Potter as he stands in sheer amazement that a tent that looks so tiny on the outside can actually be as palatial and spacious on the inside. This simple statement essentially sums up the status of this series of movies. We’ve seen it all before, but they try to play it off as new. It should be obvious to everyone that the tent will be able to easily accommodate the ten or so people as they enter clown car style, yet for some reason the person who should be least surprised is the most.
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++++++++


Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic
Review by Jon Waterman

***

Sarah is sitting around the house with a couple of friends as they talk about all the projects they have going on. When it comes time for her turn, Sarah is forced to make up something in order to sound popular and busy. What she comes up with is a live stage show that night in which she will sing, dance and tell jokes about everything and anything, including AIDS, the holocaust, dead relatives and strippers. So, now it’s time to make it happen, because her friends are going to be watching backstage. Can she pull it off?

The answer is yes. That’s just the opening sketch. The rest of the film is devoted to showing us her stage show interspersed with a few songs shot separately as music videos. If they’re going to break it up with anything, I wish they had included more sketches a la “Pulp Comics” (except funny). Although the songs are filmed nicely and have a couple good lines, mostly they fail miserably. Her standard surprising, out of left field approach is missing most of the time, especially when the chorus has to be repeated or the premise of the song is picked up.
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