Les Jones

A&E > 60 Second Movie Reviews

No, not a movie review that can be read in 60 seconds. A review of 60 seconds of the movie, silly.

Okay, so there's a story behind this. I walked out of a movie today. Can't remember the last time I did that. Melissa stayed (though she later said she wished she had walked out, too) so I decided to pop into all of the movies in the multiplex to get a quick feel for each. To heck with reading movie reviews. From now on this is how I'll decide what movies to watch.

The Missing (Tommy Lee Jones, Kate Blanchett) - Excellent acting and interplay between the cast. If it has a plot at all it should be a winner.

Gothika - Hard to judge, but seemed like a good enough horror flick. (It was dark and there was some scary stuff. Is there some other criteria for horror movies?)

The Haunted Mansion - Cheesy, unfunny Eddie Murphy vehicle.

The Last Samurai - Tom Cruise wasn't in the scene I watched, but the movie looked great. They were marching into battle and it looked like it was going to be a doozy of a dilly. If I could have stayed to watch any of the movies in the multiplex it would have been this one.

Elf (Ed Asner, Will Farrell, Bob Newhart) - We actually saw this a few weeks ago and loved it. Just to test the methodology I was using I popped in and watched 60 seconds. Even in that short glimpse the acting, mood and pacing were great, and I would have predicted it would be good.

Cat in the Hat (Mike Meyers) - I can imagine that two hours would be exhausting. I felt punch drunk after much less than that. Heavy on prop comedy, with lots of contemporary gags - the part I watched had some out-of-place joke about insurance or some such. Hyperactive kids might love it, but a lot of the jokes will go over their heads.

Bad Santa - Billy Bob Thornton doesn't play a lovable, funny drunk. He plays an alcoholic. Less funny ha-ha and more funny weird.

Love Don't Cost a Thing - The 60 second test let me down on this one. Thirty seconds after I walked in the cleaning crew followed, and 30 seconds after that the move ended. What I can tell you for sure is that the credits were sensibly-organized and legible, and how many times do you hear that about a movie these days?

Stuck on You (Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear) - The previews for the new Farrelly Brothers movie play it as a comedy, but the part I saw was dramatic, and had a "big heart" as they say.

Something's Gotta Give (Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Keanu Reeves) - This is the one I walked out on. It's a pity I watched more than 60 seconds of this stinker and its bad dialogue. "Barry? You're Erica Barry, the famous playwright?" "I remember you now. I saw an article about you in The New Yorker." Frugal masochists can go to a matinee and get two hours of that punishment for the low, low price of $5.