Justacoupla' reviews:
BUBBA-HOTEP 2003
Ever tell someone the plot of a movie you just saw, and they're all "cool!" and you're all, "I know - right? But it totally sucked." Well, that's what a review of Bubba-Hotep amounts to. Bruce Campbell, bless his heart, plays an elderly Elvis with a broken hip and Ossie (i'm-a-BLACK-actor) Davis plays JFK, circa: now. They battle a mummy. Campbell gives the best performance of the movie and his career. He's a surprisingly subtle and nuanced King, who's spent the last two decades in a nursing home, after falling onstage impersonating the impersonator he hired to replace him for life. HE's the Evlis that died. Davis' character may or may not be JFK, but he does have a scar where the magic bullet would have gone and he does have his room dressed to look like the Oval Office. The mummy steals souls by sucking them out of old people's butt holes and that may be where the scales tipped. The mummy element of the plot that seems force fed to a movie that didn't need or want it. At the end of the day, Bubba-Hotep turns out being a better conversation piece, than a movie. And Davis should at least tried a Kennedy accent.**
MONSTER 2004
A serial killer movie this sympathetic could never be made about a male killer. That said, this is still a pretty great movie. Bassinger-esque Oscar aside, Charlize Theron is good as Aileen Wornov, the john-killing intersate hooker slash serial killer. But she got a Bassinger-style Oscar for a performance that's good but still vaguely reminicent of Dennis Quaid's portrayal of Jerry Lee Lewis. Christina Ricci gives the real top shelf performance. An early rape scene is painful to watch and all the kill scenes are pretty violent in a really not fun way. It's explicitness gives it an edge of exploitation, but it feels sincere. ***
BUBBA-HOTEP 2003
Ever tell someone the plot of a movie you just saw, and they're all "cool!" and you're all, "I know - right? But it totally sucked." Well, that's what a review of Bubba-Hotep amounts to. Bruce Campbell, bless his heart, plays an elderly Elvis with a broken hip and Ossie (i'm-a-BLACK-actor) Davis plays JFK, circa: now. They battle a mummy. Campbell gives the best performance of the movie and his career. He's a surprisingly subtle and nuanced King, who's spent the last two decades in a nursing home, after falling onstage impersonating the impersonator he hired to replace him for life. HE's the Evlis that died. Davis' character may or may not be JFK, but he does have a scar where the magic bullet would have gone and he does have his room dressed to look like the Oval Office. The mummy steals souls by sucking them out of old people's butt holes and that may be where the scales tipped. The mummy element of the plot that seems force fed to a movie that didn't need or want it. At the end of the day, Bubba-Hotep turns out being a better conversation piece, than a movie. And Davis should at least tried a Kennedy accent.**
MONSTER 2004
A serial killer movie this sympathetic could never be made about a male killer. That said, this is still a pretty great movie. Bassinger-esque Oscar aside, Charlize Theron is good as Aileen Wornov, the john-killing intersate hooker slash serial killer. But she got a Bassinger-style Oscar for a performance that's good but still vaguely reminicent of Dennis Quaid's portrayal of Jerry Lee Lewis. Christina Ricci gives the real top shelf performance. An early rape scene is painful to watch and all the kill scenes are pretty violent in a really not fun way. It's explicitness gives it an edge of exploitation, but it feels sincere. ***