Reviews: film
As a service to our readers, we've decided to offer up a scale of comparison each week to help you decipher what each star rating means. This week, we've chosen the rollercoaster career of Clark W. Griswold...er, Chevy Chase. We wanted to include his cameo in Last Action Hero, but simply couldn't find the room. For that, you have our sincerest apologies.
If you disagree with our ratings, drop us an email at jayplay2005@gmail.com. We won't listen to what you have to say, but it'll probably make you feel better to bitch at us.
Chevy Chase movies
Excellent
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation,
Caddyshack, Fletch
Really good
National Lampoon's Vacation, Funny Farm
Three Amigos
☆ ☆ ☆
Good
Dirty Work, National Lampoon's Vegas
Vacation, Orange County
☆ ☆
Doesn't suck, not good Spies Like Us, Memoirs of an Invisible Man
Sucks National Lampoon's European Vacation Cops and Robbersons, Snow Day
(Zero Stars)
Sucks huge
Caddyshack II, Flock Lives,
Man of the House.
MOVIES
Get Rich or Die Tryin'
R, 134 minutes, Southwind Theatre
1/2
20|Jayplay 11.17.05
Within the first five minutes of Get Rich or Die Tryin,' it's already established that Marcus (Curtis Jackson, a.k.a. 50 Cent) is a good guy, even if he is working with the bad guys. In the middle of a hold-up, he winks at a frightened child. An anguished look passes over his face when one of his crew shoots someone in the leg. It turns out that he only agreed to this job on the term that no one would get shot.
head with Marcus' basic decency after that, but he's still presented as a gangster with a heart of gold. Yes, he deals drugs. Yes, he gets into fights. Yes, he kills people — but only the drug-dealing competition, and they kill people right back, after all. He's just doing what he has to do, it seems, and no one is getting hurt.
50 Cent isn't a great actor, but he gets by,
The movie stops hitting you over the
mostly because he doesn't try too hard. Marcus' grandmother tells him, "When I look in you're eyes, I don't know what you're thinking." That pretty much sums up 50 Cent's performance, too.
The idea is that Marcus wants to be more of a rapper and less of a gangster, but the movie focuses on the violence, not the music. There's a ruthless rise to power, a murder to be avenged and a baby to be protected. And Marcus' rapping career is pushed to the background. That's too bad, because it's the most interesting part of this movie.
- Kit Fluker
Arrested Development:
The Complete Second Season
Not rated, 18 episodes, 396 minutes, now available on DVD, List price: $39.98
★★★★
Last week's news that Fox had canceled its Emmy-winning comedy Arrested Development did not come as much of a shock. Massive critical acclaim and a small-but-loyal fan base is not enough to save a show if it has low ratings. Season two has been released in a DVD box set and is a showcase for great ensemble acting, pin-point comedic timing and sharp, silly writing.
Arrested Development is a mock documentary of the Bluth family, focusing on Michael (Jason Bateman). He tries to keep his dysfunctional brothers, sister and parents together after his father, George Sr. (Jeffery Tambor) is arrested and imprisoned — first for stealing company money and then for committing some "light treason." Season two picks up after George has escaped from prison and is on the lam in Mexico, and, later, hides in the attic of the Bluth's model home. The rest of the family includes Michael's older brother, G.O.B. (pronounced Job, as in the Bible); younger mamma's-boy brother, Buster; twin sister, Lindsey; alcoholic mother, Lucille, and son, George Michael. And, yes, that's the voice of Ron Howard narrating everything.
What makes Arrested Development work so well is how silly it is and how
dead pan it's played by its characters. For example, take the running plotline of Michael's brother-in-law, Tobias (David Cross), who first confuses The Blue Man Group for a group of depressed men and later becomes obsessed with joining the group to the point where he paints himself blue from head to toe: "I just blue myself," as he points out. Another involves George Michael's religious girlfriend, Ann, who is so
bland that her yearbook picture says "not pictured."
Each episode is memorable for its own reasons. After watching "Afternoon Delight," you will never think of the song the same way again. "Ready, Aim, Marry Me" stars a hilarious guest performance by Martin Short as a former body builder who's paralyzed from the waist down and is carried around by a deaf giant because he won't go
in a wheel chair. In "The Immaculate Election," Tobias, in an attempt to become closer with his daughter and prove to his wife that he's a good actor, dresses up as a singing British nanny, a la Mrs. Doubtfire. There's also some Mary Poppins thrown in there.
The extras are a little light, and the commentary on three episodes is not as good as on the first season DVD set because it's missing Jason Bateman this time
around. Arrested Development is the funniest show on TV, and here's hoping another network is smart enough to pick it up and put it in a time slot where viewers can enjoy its brilliance for years to come.
Jon Ralston