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Mean Girls
Comedy Paramount PG-13
Mean Girls generated a lot of buzz when it first came out, but as you might have guessed, I'm not a Mean Girl, so I gave it a pass. Eventually, my wife put it to the top of our Netflix queue and I got my chance to watch a movie without a theater full of teenagers. I was curious if Tina Fey has the writing chops to pull off 30 Rock.



The answer is a resounding yes.



There's a sad irony in the portrayal of the protagonist, Cady Heron, played by Lindsay Lohan. Lohan's Hollywood personality is far more like the Mean Queen Bee antagonist (Regina George, played by Rachel McAdams) these days. Fortunately, this movie was filmed when Lohan was on the verge of stardom and transitioning from cute Mousketeer to party bombshell. In that regard, Mean Girls is both a coming of age film and a scorching attack on the backstabbing culture of teenage girls.



To whit, Cady has returned to the U.S. after being home schooled in Africa. She skipped the entire maturation process that girls go through. This is a blessing in that Cady is completely unaware of her growing feminine presence and a curse, because she has no idea how to survive the social rigors of high school. Cady also happens to be SMOKING HOT, an attribute everyone was presumably too polite to point out while she was being home schooled.



Cady ends up making friends with two kids that gently transition her into high school life: artsy Janis Ian (Lizzy Caplan) and "almost too gay to function" Damian (Daniel Franzese). The two provide a comedic duet of biting commentary on high school politics and perpetrate all manner of pranks to get back at their archenemies, the Plastics. The Plastics are an unholy triumvirate consisting of aforementioned Regina, fawning Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert), and dumb as rocks Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried). Janis and Damian hatch the perfect plan: use Cady to infiltrate the Plastics and destroy them from within.



The problem is that's exactly what happens to Cady. When she finally manages to oust Regina, Cady discovers she's become the person she supposedly hates. Drama, tears, and a struggle over a cute boy (Aaron Samuels, played by Jonathan Bennett) ensue.



What separates this movie from all the other teen movies out there is the persistent humor of Tina Fey's script. This is a movie taking a serious look at what makes girls hate each other, and when the teachers get involved they actually try to do something about it using psychological techniques. In other words, the adults aren't all complete morons. Even the "bad guys" are more than one-dimensional ciphers.



The movie is peppered with lessons about trust between friends, learning to like yourself, and accepting people for who they are. All of this is done with humor and the surprising aplomb of a very mature cast that never dumbs down the script...except for Karen, a character almost "too dumb to function."



The extras on the DVD really make Mean Girls shine, especially an interview with the original author of Queen Bees and Wannabes, Rosalind Wiseman. The extras elevate Mean Girls from teen comedy to smart social commentary. It's worth viewing for anyone who has a teen girl...or is one.

Men in Black
SciFi.Comedy Columbia/Tristar Studios PG-13
This imaginative summer comedy from director Barry Sonnenfeld (Get Shorty) is a lot of fun, largely on the strength of Will Smith's engaging performance as the rookie partner of a secret agent (Tommy Lee Jones) assigned to keep tabs on Earth-dwelling extraterrestrials. There's lots of comedy to spare in this bright film, some of the funniest stuff found in the margins of the major action. (A scene with Smith's character being trounced in the distance by a huge alien while Jones questions a witness is a riot.) The inventiveness never lets up, and the cast--including Vincent D'Onofrio doing frighteningly convincing work as an alien occupying a decaying human--hold up their end splendidly. --Tom Keogh

The Mexican
Comedy Dreamworks Video R
Part road movie, part romantic comedy, part thriller, and a whole lotta fun, "The Mexican" could get by on star power alone, but it offers Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, "and" a clever plot full of delightful surprises. It's a thoroughly enjoyable shaggy-dog story in which the downtrodden Jerry Welbach (Pitt) copes with a dual dilemma: his girlfriend Samantha (Roberts) has just dumped him to pursue solo ambitions in Las Vegas, and a manipulative mobster has ordered Jerry to Mexico to retrieve a coveted antique pistol (the "Mexican" of the title) that carries a legacy of legend, death, and danger. Jerry soon has his hands full with bandits, bloodshed, and a grizzly hound dog that vanishes and reappears with amusing regularity. En route to Vegas, Samantha's taken hostage by a burly assassin (James Gandolfini) who's attached to the gun-fetching scheme and is, in more ways than one, not who he seems to be.
Like a good magic act, J.H. Wyman's original screenplay distracts you from its gaps of logic, using unexpected revelations to fuel its strategic vitality. It also provides a wealth of character development, and director Gore Verbinski ("Mouse Hunt") gives his stellar cast equal time to shine. It hardly matters that Pitt and Roberts spend most of the film apart; their time together is worth waiting for, and the machinations that separate them play out like a cross between vintage Peckinpah and "Romancing the Stone". And why is the accursed "pistola" so valuable? That's just another surprise, setting the stage for the arrival of yet another big-name star, whose motivations are pure in a film full of double-crosses and darkly shaded humor. With a giddy plot like this, star power is just icing on the cake. "--Jeff Shannon"

Miami Guns - Vol 1
Anime.Comedy A.D. Vision
Well, Miami Guns is what I would call an instant classic. It is just that hilarious. In fact, it is probably the funniest anime I've ever seen, eclipsing even Excel Saga in terms of craziness and humor.
In the future, Miami has become so crime-ridden that the rich people of the city have formed their own paid police force called Miami Guns. After young, rich, beautiful, spoiled, and psychotic Yao receives a death threat, she is assigned a Miami Gun bodyguard named Lu Amano, who just happens to be the daughter of the police chief. After the assasin is caught, Yao decides that being a police officer would be a fun and exciting job so she joins the force.
In the first episode, A foiled bank robbery turns into a worse situation when the robber holds a baby hostage in a standoff with the Miami Guns. That is, until Yao shows up, parachuting out of a helicopter. When she opens her chute she is slammed into the wall of a skyscraper, then she drifts through a tree, then hits the top of a car, backflips and falls over the hood, and lands on her face on the cement. This is the kinda of thing she does. Will the baby survive the hostage-taker....and the Miami Guns?
The second episode is a parody of summary episodes in anime series. Yah and Lu think that after ONE episode, the audience needs a summary of all the episodes that have come before! The origin of how Yao came across her beloved Mauser pistol is revealed in a sequence that made me cry it was so funny. Also, a lot of the supporting characters in equally funny parts are introduced and the back story.
The third episode is about a phone call for help from a girl's school that came in the middle of the night to the police station but was cut off before more was said. Yao and Lu are sent undercover to find out what the problem is. This episode was a masterpiece from the lesbian overtones of Yao and another student to the sadomasochist principal. It was just hilarious.
The last episode was a great parody of the anime Initial D which I have never seen but was great nevertheless. Someone has been running drivers off the road and leaving tofu on their injured bodies. Of course, the ever ballistic Yao sees this as an exciting challenge, seeing as how she only joined the force for shoot-outs, car chases, etc. Noone can identify the serial wrecker except to say a giant rabbit is involved.
I recommend this series with the highest marks. It is a classic, and is probably the funniest anime out there. Pretty skimpy extras:
Translation Notes
Image Gallery
Japanese Trailers
Character Guides
In addition to this dvd, I would also recommend Excel Saga and Magical Shopping Aracade Abenobashi as other series that you would find funny and treats the same basic themes as Miami Guns. Volume 2 of Guns comes out on August 3, 2004.

Miami Guns - Vol 2
Anime.Comedy A.D. Vision
Following the introduction of the deadly police duo Yao and Lu in the first volume of Miami Guns, the gloves are off and nothing is sacred. Miami Western Village (yes, you read that right) is the home of cowboys, gunslingers, and the mysterious killer Maria Rose. It's Spaghetti Western done Japanese style! And when a mad bomber threatens Miami City with explosives disguised as watermelons, it's up to Yao, Lu, and special FBI liaison, "Bruce," to save the day. And did we mention the pro wrestling tournament?

Miami Guns - Vol 3
Anime.Comedy A.D. Vision
When partners Yao & Lu are ordered to clean up an island resort paradise, the assignment seems like a reward, until they find themselves stalked by a masked serial killer. They may not be at Camp Crystal Lake, but it's certainly Friday the 13th! Then, while the Miss Miami Contest is designed to crown Miami City's most killer body, killers descend on the competition in droves seeking the bounty on Yao's dead body. But not assassins, survival beauty pageants nor even a giant, lecherous octopus will keep Yao from her rightful crown, or will they?

Miami Guns - Vol 4
Anime.Comedy A.D. Vision NR
Loose ends (and a scantily clad Yao) get tied up when the revenge seeking Nagisa Tojo springs her ultimate trap on her unsuspecting arch rival. It's a battle of Yao's ignorance versus Nagisa's bloodlust in a story of loyalty, trust, betrayal and friendship that tears the Miami Guns apart. But the duty bound Lu Amano and the vengeance seeking vigilante Yao Sakurakouji find themselves working together again when a vicious terrorist organization takes the Miami Police and Yao and Lu's fathers hostage, threatening to destroy all of Miami City. The Organization had better be prepared, because two violence prone police ladies, a mysterious lone gunman, a pair of gay lovers and a hyper intelligent alligator are a force to be reckoned with!

A Midsummer Night's Dream
ArtHouse.International 20th Century Fox PG-13
Imagine a work by Shakespeare reduced to one of those pretty, glossy coffee-table picture books that have only a dollop of text alongside its sumptuous photographs, and you might have Michael Hoffman's adaptation of "A Midsummer Night's Dream". This all-star version of Shakespeare's comedy is gorgeously shot in Tuscany, complete with a magical forest, breathtaking landscapes, beautiful villas, picturesque villages, stunning period costumes--oh wait, there's supposed to be a "story" here, too! Hoffman hijacks Shakespeare's basic premise but doesn't instill it with much more than surface shine and transplants it to turn-of-the-century Italy. Ergo, it's left up to the actors to find the heart and soul of this classic play, in which the fairies of the forest play mix and match with four young lovers, courtesy of a magical love potion. Hoffman couldn't ask for better (or better looking) actors to play Shakespeare's dreamlike love games--Michelle Pfeiffer, Rupert Everett, Calista Flockhart, Christian Bale, Stanley Tucci, Kevin Kline, Anna Friel, Dominic West, the list goes on and on--but he sure as heck doesn't know what to do with them, aside from putting them in various states of undress. Only Flockhart (as the lovestruck Helena), Tucci (a sprightly Puck), Pfeiffer (dazzling and funny as the queen of the fairies), and especially the sublime Kline (as weaver-turned-donkey Bottom) seem to connect with their characters in ways that make this adaptation occasionally soar; the rest are inexplicably left to flounder. Hoffman does seem to set himself right with the film's climax, when Bottom's amateur acting troupe hilariously enacts the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe (it helps that the troupe includes Roger Rees, Sam Rockwell, and Bill Irwin). Those searching for a more in-depth exploration of Shakespeare's farce might do better to look elsewhere, but if it's gorgeous actors and scenery you're in the mood for (along with an evocative opera soundtrack), and an all's-well-that-ends-well ending, this "Midsummer Night" will give you pleasant if weightless dreams. "--Mark Englehart"

Mission - Impossible III
Action.Adventure Paramount Home Video PG-13
At the time of its release, "Mission: Impossible III"'s box office was plagued by the publicity backlash against couch-jumping star Tom Cruise. It's too bad, because this third installment of the spy thriller franchise deserved a better reception than it got. First-time feature director J.J. Abrams (bigwig TV director/producer of "Lost", "Alias", & "Felicity") proves more than able-bodied in creating a "Mission: Impossible" that's leaner and less over-stylized than John Woo's sequel and less confusing than Brian De Palma's original. Plot is still a throwaway here (Cruise's Ethan Hunt rescues his kidnapped former trainee and works to steal a device that... well, we don't really know what it does, but it's something about mass destruction that costs $850 million), but the action sequences, particularly one where Ethan faces down a helicopter on a bridge and gets flung hard against the side of a car, are particularly impressive since Cruise, at 44, is still doing most of his own stunts and shows no hint of the weathered look that's struck his action-star peers. (Though no "Mission: Impossible" stunt will ever be quite as simultaneously nail-biting and funny as the first film's wire-dangling break-in of CIA headquarters.)
"Mission: Impossible III" boasts a pedigreed cast, particularly Oscar® winner Philip Seymour Hoffman ("Capote") as baddie arms dealer Owen Davian. Hoffman plays Owen all teeth-clenched and cool, especially when threatening to kill Ethan in front of his lovely new wife (Michelle Monaghan) who has no idea of his spy life. But in his first action-film lead role, Hoffman's almost too calm and collected to really make a memorable villain, especially when the rest of the cast--Ving Rhames (the only other cast member to return for all three films), Asian film star Maggie Q, and an underused Jonathan Rhys-Meyers--are a highlight as Ethan's IMF team. "Mission: Impossible" is still fun popcorn spy fare, and if Cruise chooses to end the franchise here, at least he goes out on a high note. "--Ellen A. Kim"

Monster House
Animated.Comedy Sony Pictures PG
The spooky shadows and eerie creaking of a rickety old house are brought to life via lush CGI in "Monster House". A young boy named DJ has suspicions about the house across the street and the cranky old man (voiced by Steve Buscemi, "Fargo") who lives there. When the old man has a heart attack and is carried away by an ambulance, DJ thinks the danger is over. Unfortunately, as he, his friend Chowder, and a candy-selling prep-school girl named Jenny discover, the house itself has plans--plans that include eating all the kids who'll be trick-or-treating that Halloween night. "Monster House" begins with some deliciously creepy scenes that will send chills down children's spines (and may be too intense for younger viewers); animated movies rarely make such effective use of what isn't being shown. The animation is vivid and detailed (though CGI still has a ways to go in capturing the full range of human facial expressions). But like most horror movies, the anticipation of horror is much more exciting than the horror itself; as the secrets of "Monster House" are revealed, the movie's thrills unravel. The noisy explosions at the end aren't half as much fun as the slow twitches of a few blades of grass in the movie's elegant beginning. --"Bret Fetzer"
More "Monster House" on Amazon.com
CD Soundtrack

The Art of Monster House

Playstation 2

Stills from "Monster House" (click for larger image)













Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Comedy Columbia Tri-Star PG
Could this be the funniest movie ever made? By any rational measure of comedy, this medieval romp from the Monty Python troupe certainly belongs on the short list of candidates. According to Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide, it's "recommended for fans only," but we say hogwash to that--you could be a complete newcomer to the Python phenomenon and still find this send-up of the Arthurian legend to be wet-your-pants hilarious. It's basically a series of sketches woven together as King Arthur's quest for the Holy Grail, with Graham Chapman as the King, Terry Gilliam as his simpleton sidekick Patsy, and the rest of the Python gang filling out a variety of outrageous roles. The comedy highlights are too numerous to mention, but once you've seen Arthur's outrageously bloody encounter with the ominous Black Knight (John Cleese), you'll know that nothing's sacred in the Python school of comedy. From holy hand grenades to killer bunnies to the absurdity of the three-headed knights who say "Ni--!," this is the kind of movie that will strike you as fantastically funny or just plain silly, but why stop there? It's all over the map, and the pace lags a bit here and there, but for every throwaway gag the Pythons have invented, there's a bit of subtle business or grand-scale insanity that's utterly inspired. The sum of this madness is a movie that's beloved by anyone with a pulse and an irreverent sense of humor. If this movie doesn't make you laugh, you're almost certainly dead. --Jeff Shannon

Monty Python's And Now For Something Completely Different
Comedy Columbia/Tristar Studios PG
An anthology of Monty Python's best sketches from their 1st & 2nd seasons of their original TV show.

Monty Python's Life of Brian
Comedy Anchor Bay Entertainment R
"Blessed are the cheesemakers," a wise man once said. Or maybe not. But the point is Monty Python's Life of Brian is a religious satire that does not target specific religions or religious leaders (like, say, Jesus of Nazareth). Instead, it pokes fun at the mindless and fanatical among their followers--it's an attack on religious zealotry and hypocrisy--things that that fellow from Nazareth didn't particularly care for either. Nevertheless, at the time of its release in 1979, those who hadn't seen it considered it to be quite "controversial." Life of Brian, you see, is about a chap named Brian (Graham Chapman) born December 25 in a hovel not far from a soon-to-be-famous Bethlehem manger. Brian is mistaken for the messiah and, therefore, manipulated, abused, and exploited by various religious and political factions. And it's really, really funny. Particularly memorable bits include the brassy Shirley Bassey/James Bond-like title song; the bitter rivalry between the anti-Roman resistance groups, the Judean People's Front and the People's Front of Judea; Michael Palin's turn as a lisping, risible Pontius Pilate; Brian urging a throng of false-idol worshippers to think for themselves--to which they reply en masse "Yes, we must think for ourselves!"; the fact that everything Brian does, including losing his sandal in an attempt to flee these wackos, is interpreted as "a sign." Life of Brian is not only one of Monty Python's funniest achievements, it's also the group's sharpest and smartest sustained satire. Blessed are the Pythons. --Jim Emerson

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
Comedy Image Entertainment R
Perhaps only the collective brilliant minds of the Monty Python film and television troupe are up to the task of tackling a subject as weighty as The Meaning of Life. Sure, Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, and their ilk have tried their hands at this puzzler, but only Python has attempted to do so within the commercial motion picture medium. Happily for us all, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life truly explains everything one conceivably needs to know about the perplexities of human existence: from the mysteries of Catholic doctrine, to the miracle of reproduction, to why one should avoid the salmon mousse, to the critical importance of the machine that goes "Ping!" Using fish as a linking device (and what marvelous links those aquatic creatures make), The Meaning of Life is presented as a series of sketches: a musical production number about why seed is sacred; a look at dining in the afterlife; the quest for a missing fish (there they are again); a visit from Mr. Death; the cautionary tale of Mr. Creosote and his rather gluttonous appetite; an unflinching examination of the harsh realities of organ donation, and so on. Sadly, this was the last original Python film, but it's a beaut. You'll laugh. You'll cry (probably because you're laughing so hard). You may even learn something about The Meaning of Life. Or at least about how fish fit into the grand scheme of things. --Jim Emerson

The Mummy
Horror Universal Studios PG-13
If you're expecting bandaged-wrapped corpses and a lurching Boris Karloff-type villain, then you've come to the wrong movie. But if outrageous effects, a hunky hero, and some hearty laughs are what you're looking for, the 1999 version of The Mummy is spectacularly good fun. Yes, the critics called it "hokey," "cheesy," and "pallid." Well, the critics are unjust. Granted, the plot tends to stray, the acting is a bit of a stretch, and the characters occasionally slip into cliché, but who cares? When that action gets going, hold tight--those two hours just fly by. The premise of the movie isn't that far off from the original. Egyptologist and general mess Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) discovers a map to the lost city of Hamunaptra, and so she hires rogue Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) to lead her there. Once there, Evelyn accidentally unlocks the tomb of Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo), a man who had been buried alive a couple of millennia ago with flesh-eating bugs as punishment for sleeping with the pharaoh's girlfriend. The ancient mummy is revived, and he is determined to bring his old love back to life, which of course means much mayhem (including the unleashing of the 10 plagues) and human sacrifice. Despite the rather gory premise, this movie is fairly tame in terms of violence; most of the magic and surprise come from the special effects, which are glorious to watch, although Imhotep, before being fully reconstituted, is, as one explorer puts it, rather "juicy." Keep in mind this film is as much comedy as it is adventure--those looking for a straightforward horror pic will be disappointed. But for those who want good old-fashioned eye-candy kind of fun, The Mummy ranks as one of choicest flicks of 1999. --Jenny Brown



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