Alright, Harry here and after about 5 hours of beer in a hot tub with friends, my back is no longer hurting and I've got a smile on my face, so it's back to duty for me. Now here we go... from the above headline... from the name of the spy (coming from ALIENS a fairly testosterone driven movie), one would assume that our fearless spy hated the film. That he would just rather puke up freeze-dried chicken bits, then watch a Sandra Bullock, kicking addiction movie. Well, that would be making an ass out of u and me, cause ol Hicks here dug the film. And feels that this is Sandra's best film to date. Now 28 DAYS is about 6 or 7 months from arriving in a theater near you so we'll just have to wait and see if it stays good all that time, but the heads up first word from the cage is that it's a pretty damn good date movie. We'll see...
Hi there Harry,
Corporal Hicks reporting in from a long(but necessary) shore leave to brief you on the latest Sandra Bullock vehicle, 28 Days. First of all, I need to address the rumors that I am dead. Sorry David-fucking-Giler and Walter-fucking-Hill, but I am, indeed, still alive and ticking. Anyway...Now I understand that(maybe) this type o' film ain't exactly the norm for you guys, but I find it essential to bring it up. Via connections within the Colonial Marine Corp, I was able to snag a couple of tickets to a screening down in the Marina Del Rey area. I, myself, am not generally inclined to see the aforementioned woman's films(although I have met the lady and she is, indeed, quite nice), but I figured it was worth a shot, not to mention free. And, of course, this was a work print(bad sound, discontinuity of color between shots, temp track audio, etc...)
Anyway, onto the film:
Bullock stars as Gwen Cummings, a fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants kind of girl who frequently gets drunk/high with her lover Jasper(Dominic West, of Episode I and Midsummer Night's Dream). The movie begins with her in a taxi cab being driven to a drug/alcohol rehab center. During the drive, she flashes back to an evening of "crazy" fun with Jasper followed by scurrying the next day to the wedding of her sister Lily(Elizabeth Perkins), where she proceeded to ruin the...proceedings. It seems that Gwen had, in a drunken stupor, stolen a limosuine and driven it into the front of somebody's house; hence, jail or rehab. Upon arriving at the rehab center, Gwen is greeted by tons of caricatures of patients as they chant and sing "Lean on me." Thus begins the "fish out of water" portion of the film. Gwen, very reluctantly, has to get used to all the rules and regulations of the center and get along with the other "inmates." This is when we meet Cornell(played oh, so brilliantly by Steve Buscemi), who is the director of the clinic. He catches Gwen doing some "illegal" stuff and offers her an ultimatim of follow the rules or go to jail. The rest of the film is, essentially, Gwen realizing the error of her ways and deciding to turn her life around with the help of some other struggling adicts(namely Viggo Mortensen as a Philadelphia Phillies starting pitcher). In the end, as expected, she dumps her fiancee Jasper and hooks up with Viggo.
I'll tell ya, this is the best role Bullock has ever had. There is, actually, quite a lot of depth to the character and she pulls it off convincingly, for the most part. All of the other supporting characters do fine work with a decent script. The real star, though, is Buscemi, who does a phenomenal job of playing it straight; this is the best cameo(it is rather short) role he's ever had(if only he could have been in it longer). As I mentioned before, the script is good; while the story is contrived and cliched at times, the dialogue is generally right on. Betty Thomas(of Doctor Dolittle fame, yeah right) puts quite an interesting spin on the direction; she uses very stylish jump cuts and flashbacks, not to mention a really strange way to establish certain scenes. For a romantic drama, the editing is very good; to tell ya the truth, i never got bored during the movie. The pacing and the characters kept me interested. Unfortunately, a few too many "crises" and underdeveloped characters stopped me from truly connecting to the piece, but these were little flaws. On the whole, I'd go so far as to say this is Bullock's best film to date. It's definitely geared toward women(you'll see), but would be great as a date movie. >{?It's supposed to come out sometime early next year. It's worth a look.
This is Corporal Hicks, signing off(only temporarily, of course).
