Och's Quick Flick Pick

So there's no time to read The Och's lengthy film reviews, huh? Okay, you're excused for now! In the meantime, Och's Quick Flick Pick is designed for you to take a brief gander at the star-rated film(s) that your friendly neighborhood online movie reviewer had previously critiqued. So sit back and find out briefly what Frank had to say about the flicks that previously crossed his path (or in some cases...wrath!) **Note: the following star-rated film reviews and their quotes may be taken from sources other than Frank's Sitting In Judgement: The Ticket Stub film website.

Frank's 4 star movie rating (****)

Frank's 3 star movie rating (***)

Amelie From Montmartre (2001) (***1/2): "...Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet instills a supreme giddiness to the charming French romantic comedy Amelie From Montmartre...(it) resonates with a glistening eccentricity that engulfs this whimsical, flowing Parisian melodramatic tale...sprawling with unlimited flair...Amelie is pragmatic, lighthearted, imaginative and clearly one of the best romantic charmers to come along in a year that has been dominated by posturing fluff..."

A.I.:Artificial Intelligence (2001)(***1/2): "...no doubt the Spielberg indelible touch and the posthumous injection of Kubrick's imprint make for a wondrous collaboration of insurgent, festive filmmaking...an undeniably surging, deeply heartfelt piece of moviemaking..."

Baby Boy (2001): "...a potent urban melodrama...genuinely gripping and thought-provoking..."

The Dish (2000): " (***1/2): "...this critically acclaimed Australian charmer is an absolute joy...amusingly appealing and grandly nostalgic...a refreshingly vibrant dramedy that is both quirky and alertly poignant...clearly one of the best offbeat, stirring comedies to hit the big screen in years...an absolute treat that cannot be missed..."

Fat Girl (2001)(A Ma Soeur): "...an intensifying inquiry into the unexplainable appetite of female adolescent sexuality...blunt and polarizing...vividly imaginative and compounding...Catherine Breillat's heavy exploration of feminine absorption is blistering..."

Ghost World (2001) (***1/2): "...in Terry Zwigoff's stridently astute Ghost World, he examines the nature of youth-oriented alienation with offbeat poignancy and supportable depth...a haunting and taunting winner that will put you in that reflective, redemptive frame of mind..."

Iron Monkey (2001)(***1/2): "...may be one of the most coveted frenzied films to emerge from the Hong Kong cinematic scene within recent years--and to that sentiment, I wholeheartedly agree...the storyline is a familiar one but at least it's not a random, one-note chopsocky session like many of its contemporaries...a joyous, absurdist showcase..."

Legally Blonde (2001): "...resiliently riotous...a frothy legal eagle comedy with a feminist slant...a carefree, smart satire..."

Sexy Beast (2001): "...cheeky thriller with animated flair...stylistic, absorbing and intensely paced...crackles with vaunting confidence and substance..."

Spy Kids (2001): "...a junior-sized spy thriller that is devilishly imaginative and bizarre...spry and incessantly rowdy..."

Frank's 2 star movie rating (**)

Along Came A Spider (2001): "...Director Lee Tamahori takes on an uphill task of trying to serve up a convoluted and meandering suspense thriller and convey its impact as this stylish, moody intrigue piece...unfortunately, Tamahori's big screen adaptation of James Patterson's novel Along Came A Spider is nonsensical, spotty and tediously mechanical..."

American Pie 2 (2001): "...does serve up the carnal crust in its usual ribaldry, but the taste is so routinely familar...basically, this film is as cheaply stimulating as giving a hickey to a blow up doll...director J.B. Rogers directs American Pie 2 in an inept, frantic fashion...but why should that deter the hot-blooded frat boy types from seeing this vapidly voyeuristic vehicle?..."

The Animal (2001): "...an intentionally goofy comedy that has all the aspiration of a whoopie cushion full of needles...prominently juvenile and unctuous...a futile sight gag..."

The Anniversary Party (2001)(**1/2): "...a hollow and temperate exercise...feels deliberately stagey..."

Bandits (2001): "...a disjointed and woefully pared-down buddy-buddy road flick that amuses itself in self-deprecating fashion...annoyingly clownish...the larceny should stop here--enduring such jaunty dribble puts us all up the river without a paddle..."

Bones (2001): "...cheesy urban frightfest...rapper Snoop Dogg barks up the wrong tree in director Ernest Dickerson's garishly laughable thriller...riddled with misguided camp and countless staggering spook-infested cliches'...there are sticks and stones that can break the brittle Bones..."

The Caveman's Valentine (2001)(**1/2): "...an ambitious and shaky neo-Gothic thriller...gently frothy yet mildly distorted in tone..."

Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles (2001): "...another fish-out-of-the-water premise...a tired and unecessary third installment to the Crocodile Dundee movie series..."

Don't Say a Word (2001)(**1/2): "...a whispering, overextended psychological thriller that utters nothing worth repeating that you already haven't seen before...superficial and glossy...a jittery, suspense piece with no clear identity of its own..."

The Fast and the Furious: (2001) "...high-octane vehicle that wants to relish in its uncontrollable impishness...another pseudo-stylish, gas-guzzling drama that coasts on its empty fumes...this film has many mileage of familiarity on it and boy, it's enough to "drive" you crazy..."

15 Minutes (2001) (**1/2): "...high-voltage buddy-buddy action thriller that is rudimentary and hollow...goes through all the kinetic, hyper-standard motions..."

Hannibal (2001)(**1/2): "...an inflammatory, wincing gorefest...any sense of structure or suggested suspense is abandoned for a more crass, sensationalistic tone..."

Hardball (2001): "...a cloyingly crass kiddie comedy that tries to stretch a single hit into a triple...(a) psuedo-uplifting urban feel-gooder..."
Heartbreakers (2001): "...one of those flimsy put-on farces that loudly announces its zany intentions but to whimpering slapstick results..."
Joy Ride (2001) (**1/2): "...(director) Dahl dresses up this fuel-injected spectacle with silly-minded edge-of-your-seat fury...a gas guzzler sensationalistic suspense piece that blows its own horn too loud for anyone to care about its sinister proclamation..."
Imposter (2002): "...Gary Fleder's "Imposter" poses as a thriving sci-fi adventure...its real identity--a glossy-looking, predictable and lukewarm futuristic yarn..."
Just Visiting (2001): "...a distractingly mockish time travel comedy that arrives on the scene and just sits there like an unwanted houseguest who has overstayed its welcome...a childishly feeble American imitator of the French farce Les Visiteurs..."
Kiss of the Dragon (2001): "...star Jet Li and his screenwriter Luc Besson provide the kinetic goods to energize this lopsided and overwrought kung fu crime caper...a bone-crushing, boisterous bore..."
K-Pax (2001)(**1/2 stars): "...although quite well-intentioned in its festivity and profoundness, director Iain Softley basically serves up a loopy, pseudo-wholesome story about an arbitrary space shot challenging the conventions of reality...the premise is an overused ploy that regurgitates the same ol' familiar cliches' that bombard these types of staid supernatural genres...K-Pax gets lost in its gawky chattiness...a wincing saga about tolerance and acceptance that is as appetizing as snacking on a chocolate-coated meteor..."
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider:(2001) "...a boisterous and banal fantasy-adventure vehicle...tediously over-the-top...pours it on thick as the convoluted antics of the film pile on top of each other like a leaning stack of flapjacks..."
The Last Castle (2001): "...filmmaker Rod Lurie (THE CONTENDER) serves up a heavy-handed maximum security melodrama that is as hard to swallow as two-day old prison food...overzealous and undeniably spotty, The Last Castle is a posturing jailbreak thriller with all pretentious pomp yet no particularly special circumstances...with a big budget and eclectic cast to boot, Lurie knows how to carry on garrulously when his heart beats in a patriotic mode...the movie's poster advertises "a castle can only have one king"--that may be true, but how come this "Last Castle" has so many jesters in it?..."
Max Keeble's Big Move (2001): "...high-spirited but a tired preteen premise...nothing more than a rudimentary script that is laced with childish pranks that have no energy or sense of direction...devoid of any real twists or turns that will keep the older demographic fulfilled..."
The Mexican (2001): "...Gore Verbinski's vastly uneven Tarantino-esque crime caper is a long-winded, flimsy adventure yarn that wastes the star power of its so-called grade A cast..."
Osmosis Jones (2001): "...for the most part, the film has the comedic flow of a bowel movement...the film pushes itself to the limit without giving any chance for the jokes to register naturally...and even when the jokes are realized, they either consist of tedious puns or are related to sophomoric inferences like popping zits and bladder banter...if the cute potty-themed quips tickle your fancy then I imagine that it does not take much to entertain the average moviegoer looking to sacrifice some brain cells..."
Pearl Harbor (2001): "...clunky and mammothly plodding..."
Planet of the Apes (2001)(**1/2): "...this film exists solely for breathing life into yet another overexhausted movie franchise from yesteryear...has lost its sizzle and surge...(an) underwritten simmian saga..."
The Princess Diaries (2001): "...a half-hearted, pseudo-charming, dated fable about young female empowerment and self-realization all rolled up in a jittery, saccharine-coated comedy..."
Rat Race (2001): "...the film is more gimmick than comedic gumption...staggers to the finish line with exhaustive jokes and one-note caricatures that are exceedingly annoying...spotty and needlessly baseless..."
Riding in Cars with Boys (2001)(**1/2): "...(a) wildly sentimental chick flick...the movie has good intentions but appears inexplicably sweet-toothed for its own sake...no doubt Riding in Cars with Boys will get a majority of the estrogen crowd nodding with teary-eyed approval...as a dark comedy, Marshall's sardonic tone is too wishy-washy; she never seizes the moment to hit a raw nerve in a movie that's lean and sugar-coated
Rush Hour 2 (2001)(**1/2): "...dynamic duo Chan and Tucker kick butt and butt heads in the cop-kicking cut-up caper Rush Hour 2, a frolicking but familiar kinetic vehicle...the film pretty much delivers more of the same result from the previous blockbuster but the geographic changes in locale may give this offering a little more dimension..."
Serendipity (2001)(**1/2): "...a chewy romantic marshmellow offering that occasionally serves up the tasty fluff...an innocuous date movie that never reaches the pinnacle of vapidity but then again never establishes a firmness that sets it apart amid other thinly-veiled romantic dramedies..."
Someone Like You (2001): "...a generically sappy romantic experience...an indigestible fluff piece..."
Training Day (2001)(**1/2): "...director Antoine Fuqua supplies Denzel Washington with that dream of exercising his ominous urban coolness in the showy and gritty police thriller Training Day...the film is more or less an obsequious vehicle where Washington can strut his dastardly stuff in an otherwise penetrating but arbitrary streetwise adventure...an overexhaustive bad-to-the-bone bravura makes Training Day an acceptable premise to overdose on if you are willing to fall for the farfetched alluring revulsion...personally, this undercover movie reviewing narc finds "TD" a kind of a tough pill to swallow..."
Frank's 1 star movie rating (*)
Corky Romano (2001)(* 1/2): "...as scattering and graceless like a bunch of sprayed bullets from an uncontrollable machine gun, Corky Romano shoots off its aimless, punishingly garish antics in all different directions...merely a myopic footnote that cannot match its own nonsensical raucous tone...extraneous and feeble-minded..."
Evolution (2001)(* 1/2): "...labored and inadequately protrusive...(an) uneventful boisterous summer movie that is as significant as an after-dinner belch...flat and baseless hybrid of both Ghostbusters and Men In Black...an antiquated notion of nonsense..."
Freddy Got Fingered (2001): "...someone needs to give Freddy the finger alright--let's start with the middle one and go from there...an achingly nauseating, witless, self-indulgent comedy...a collossally dumb and incoherent gagfest that desperately tries to call attention to itself...off-balanced, defectively rancid exercise..."
Get Over It (2001)(*1/2): "...a joyless, juvenile vehicle...a taxing and stale teen comedy..."
Glitter (2001): "...if poor Mariah Carey suffered a well-publicized breakdown prior to the release of this disposable display, imagine what she'll feel like to learn that she may have appeared in one of the worst ill-advised pointless flicks of the year...all that "glitters" in this lyrical stinker definitely is not gold!...(a) musical monstrosity vanity piece..."
Joe Dirt (2001): "...tasteless, blandly misguided humor...a trailer-trash satire that barely registers anything remotely watchable...a disposable vehicle that will rival other forgettable SNL misfires..."
On the Line (2001)(* 1/2): "...what really perplexes me is how it took a handful of writers to develop the blandly numb On the Line, a clumsy romantic comedy featuring pop group sensation *NSYNC heartthrob Lance Bass...besides the obvious ploy to capitalize on the frenzy of Bass and his fellow bandmates, I can't imagine the reasoning behind producing such a lame, klutzy production...loopy and simplistic...if you're a starry-eyed teenybopper with *NSYNC posters over your bedroom, chances are you will be enamored by this empty-headed fluff piece..."
Original Sin (2001)(*1/2): "...(a) turgid, lavishly lame and misguided sexual noir...a torrid tease..."
Say It Isn't So (2001)(*1/2): "...aimless and rambunctious...this incest-based farcical fable is nothing more than a series of cruel, unimaginative gags posing as a smirky smorgasbord of cheap laughs..."
Scary Movie 2 (2001)(*1/2): "...the incessant diet of slapstick violence, sexual innuendos, racial epithets and other sensational methods to juice up this protruding, pointless project seems so desperate and dispiriting...the Wayans lucked out with their cobbled-together string of demented jokes in Scary Movie. Here, they push their luck as they pile on the unpolished smirkiness in Scary Movie 2..."
See Spot Run (2001): "...why didn't Spot run away from this jittery, idiocy-driven comedy caper that has all the entertaining value of a mushy milkbone dog biscuit?..."
Swordfish (2001)(* 1/2): "...absurdist ultra techno-thriller...flavorless, sprawling mess posing as a complicated, hip uber-actioner...indigestable, chaotic, and callow..."
Tomcats (2001): "...shamelessly myopic and shoddy...pointless...a desperately numbing product..."
What's The Worst That Could Happen? (2001)(*1/2):"...scatterbrained, charmless comedy caper...a forgettable case of crime and punishment..."
Zoolander (2001)(*1/2): "...Ben Stiller certainly obliges some of the masses with Zoolander, his brainless, overzealous spoof...(an) exceedingly exhaustive and simple-minded satire...silly sensational absurdist piece of skewered entertainment...a darn fashion "mis"-statement..."