Hey folks, Harry here... There's only one film on this list I wish I've seen and that CURSE OF THE JADE SCORPION... But hell, I'm a devout follower of Woody Allen. I love his work completely. He's made a couple that didn't work for me, but in all... he is amongst my fave directors working . And I'm delighted that Dreamworks has decided to give him a home. So we can see more Woody... over and over again... Yippeee!!! Here's that bitter bastard of a reviewer.... CAPONE....

Hey, Harry. Capone in Chicago here with a few choice nuggets...

ROCK STAR

It’s kind of funny to think that the guy (Stephen Herek) that directed BILL & TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE also did films like MR. HOLLAND’S OPUS, 101 DALMATIONS, the first MIGHTY DUCKS movie, and Eddie Murphy’s unwatchable HOLY MAN. And as I was walking into ROCK STAR last night, I was really hoping for something close to BILL & TED in its examination of the sub-culture that surrounds tribute bands. Yes, believe it or not, there is such a thing. I remember when I lived in New York for a couple of years, there was a Bruce Springsteen tribute band called Tramps Like Us that could have sold out medium-sized venues every night if they’d wanted to. They were hugely popular. Somebody out there will make the great tribute band movie but ROCK STAR ain’t it. It’s not top-to-bottom awful by any stretch, but in the shadow of something like ALMOST FAMOUS, it seems fake and slightly overblown.

Mark Wahlberg is perfectly cast as Chris Coles, the obsessive fan of the fictional mid-1980’s heavy metal band Steel Dragon (a band somewhat like Judas Priest singing Def Leppard songs). Chris, who lives is Pittsburgh, has studied every note and every move of Steel Dragon’s lead singer Bobby Beers (Jason Flemyng), and has even created the tribute band (don’t call them a cover band) Blood Pollution. During rehearsals, Chris frets over every note; he wants it perfect. When he attends a Steel Dragon concerts, he’s right in the front row singing note-for-note with the singer. There’s even a rival Steel Dragon tribute band that Chris gets into a fight with over the correct color of the lapels of Beers’ leather jackets. Even when I describe the set up of the movie, you’re probably thinking it’s a comedy. It certainly has very funny moments, but the film is not nearly as biting or insightful as it needs to be. Wahlberg strikes all the right poses and grinds like real heavy metal singer would, but off stage he’s something of a dud. He’s got a cute girlfriend/manager (Jennifer Aniston), but when his band mates kick him out of the band because they want to incorporate some of their own music into the set, he feels lost and hopeless.

As if on cue, Chris gets a phone call from Steel Dragon’s guitarist, and before you know it Chris is on a plane to L.A. to audition for Steel Dragon after Beers leaves the group. It’s at this point in the film that I began to lose interest. I’ve been paying attention to music long enough to know that, in most cases, fans to not take to new singers the way they do in this movie. People are still screaming about Sammy Hagar joining Van Halen. The band members rename Chris “Izzy,” tell him to use a British accent whenever possible, and immediately baptize him in the waters of drugs, women, and bigger hair. I don’t want to spoil anything, but as the film gets closer and closer to the end, the believability factor decreases, culminating in a completely unbelievable ending that seems to imply that Chris Cole was one of the early founders of grunge music in Seattle. Director Herek uses his typically heavy-handed approach to emotions and situations. There’s never any doubt in my might what’s going to happen next in ROCK STAR and what tried-and-true young lady Chris will end up with, despite his many screw ups. It felt more like MR. HOLLAND’S OPUS than ALMOST FAMOUS.

Probably the funniest moment of the film occurs during the end credits’ outtakes reel. I won’t ruin it, but it involves a musical ghost from Wahlberg’s past visiting him during the filming of a concert scene. ROCK STAR is filled with every rock n’ roll cliche under the sun. The characters feel like players in a plot rather than human beings with somewhat complex thought patterns. Despite my being a huge Wahlberg fan, I didn’t like ROCK STAR very much.

THE CURSE OF THE JADE SCORPION

Say what you want about the old perv, but Woody Allen is on a roll. His last film, SMALL TIME CROOKS was his biggest money maker in years and also one of his funniest movies. Before that SWEET AND LOWDOWN offered Sean Penn a chance to remind us how great an actor he could be in this somewhat disturbing film. Heck, I even liked parts of CELEBRITY. But the set-in-1940 CURSE OF THE JADE SCORPION is something special, not only from Woody Allen the writer-director but from Woody the actor.

Allen plays C.W. Briggs, a veteran insurance investigator whose fast talk and somewhat prehistoric views on women make him a likely target for unemployment when the company president (Dan Aykroyd) hires a female efficiency expert (Helen Hunt) to streamline the office to save money. Allen is the best at what he does, mainly because he listens to his gut on his cases rather than his brain. He co-workers believe he is as lucky as he is good, and they love him for it. The first thing that struck me about this film was Allen’s confident performance as Briggs; this is not the typical cowering, stammering Woody persona (okay, he does stammer sometimes, but more out of frustration than nerves). Briggs is also a ladies man, and he hates that he can’t use his usually reliable charms on Hunt.

One day after work, many of the employees gather at a club to celebrate a co-workers birthday. The entertainment that night is master hypnotist Voltan (David Ogden Stiers, who makes the most of this minimal role). Selecting Allen and Hunt as volunteers, he hypnotizes them into thinking they are alone on a tropical island and madly in love. The image of Allen in a deep trance is something to behold. His neck cranes, his eye brows shoot straight up, his mouth is partially open (you half expect him to start drooling), and it’s one of the funniest thing I’ve seen in his movies. Allen and Hunt are eventually brought out of their trance and have no memory of the events.

When Allen gets home that night, he gets a phone call for Voltan. Using a signal word that immediately puts Briggs back under his spell, Voltan tells Briggs to go to back to the insurance office, examine the security plans for a rich client, and go to the client’s house to steal their jewels. When Briggs wakes up, he has no memory of the burglary, and his boss immediately puts him on the case. The next night, Voltan does the same thing with a different client. As Briggs investigates the cases, he begins to suspect Hunt is the criminal since she has access to the security records. She, not trusting his judgement, hires an outside private investigative firm to find the crooks, and they lead her right to Briggs.

JADE SCORPION plays like a masterful comedic event right out of the 1940s. It goes from being a comedy to a mystery to a complex wrongfully-accused pursuit film. I kept running it through my head, “How is he going to realize what’s happening to him?” It’s a great guessing game where the audience knows everything that’s going on, but the characters don’t. Charlize Theron is floating around the film as the daughter of the first victim, who throws herself at Allen because he’s so different from all the handsome, well-built men she’s used to. “There’s a compliment in there somewhere,” Allen bemuses. Per usual with Allen’s films, every cast member is perfectly chosen to capture the mile-a-minute speech patterns and general mind set of men and women in pre-War New York City, and at times you forget what era you’re living in because the movie feels so authentic. Allen has conceived a funny, structured, complex and totally entertaining piece. Sure he’s a little old to be playing this character, but who else could? THE CURSE OF THE JADE SCORPION is one of his finest.

AMERICAN OUTLAWS

AMERICAN OUTLAWS (a.k.a. YOUNG GUNS REDUX) is yet another historically lazy and uninspired telling of the early years of the James-Younger Gang. And of course no one is more qualified to direct such an epic shit pile then the man that brought us FLUBBER and ENCINO MAN, Les Mayfield. TIGERLAND’s Colin Farrell has about as much personality here as a pine cone in his portrayal of Jesse James. The sum total of Scott Caan’s (son of James Caan) acting ability is to wave his arms around in the air and squint into the sun; he plays Cole Younger. As the film begins, the men that eventually make up the gang fight in their final battle of the Civil War and return home to begin farming again. But almost as soon as they settle in, the railroad baddies come a’callin’ to buy up their property and plant some tracks right through their petunias. Timothy Dalton rises from the dead to play the rail company’s heavy-handed enforcer, Allan Pinkerton. Dalton looks like he’s swallowed two Pierce Brosnans since he last played James Bond; it’s not a pretty sight. Also on hand to bore you silly is the completely awful Ali Larter as Jesse’s Girl, Zee Mimms, and Kathy Bates, who reprises her role from TITANIC as the unsinkable Molly Brown (only for some reason everyone in this film calls her Ma James; I’m not sure why because she plays this part exactly the same as the other. Oh well.).

I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say, AMERICAN OUTLAWS has nothing new to add to the Western or outlaw genres. There are a lot of galloping horses, bloodless gun fights (gotta get that PG-13 rating!), heterosexual male bonding/hugging, villains in black, TNT explosions, bank robberies, throwing back whiskey, a way too happy ending; you know the routine. A part of me really wants to recommend this film to all you aspiring film students as a perfect example of a paint-by-the-numbers movie that doesn’t make the slightest effort to be original or creative. And a note to/about Scott Caan: Sons of actors, please stop wasting my time trying to pretend you know how to act. Scott Caan, Josh Brolin, and the king of all meatheads, Freddie Prinze Jr. (I’m sure there are others, but I’m too tired to think of there names), please just go away. I just got a pass to see Junior’s SUMMER CATCH next week and my stomach is turning.

Capone (Click to mail me a box of stogies!)

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