Big D-2001

I have been a huge fan of Kevin Smith since his 1994 debut, "Clerks." I even loved the extremely underrated "Mallrats." His best of the first three did go to "Chasing Amy." Now, with "Dogma," it is Smith's most ambitious picture. It took on the controversial subject of religion and played its satire and takes it seriously at the same time. Boy, were there some really funny moments.

The best thing about Kevin Smith is that he puts so much effort into his dialogue. His characters engage in long conversation in all his movies that are never too long and always interesting. Here, his characters spit back and forth about their views of religion and explaining the plot, which was informing me even more by the next scene. The performances were pretty good. Linda Fiorentino is perfect here and is a fierce and compelling actress. She gave one of the best female performances of the 90's with "The Last Seduction," where she was unjustly robbed of a Best Actress Academy Award nomination. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck do their Matt Damon and Ben Affleck thing, but it still works. The movie does brighten up a bit whenever they come on screen. They work well together even though they give each other too much exposure outside of the movies. Chris Rock is pretty funny here because Smith gave him some pretty colorful phrases to work with. Jason Mewes as Jay is at his funniest here than any of Smith's previous movies. Unfortunately, I was rather bored whenever Alan Rickman came on the screen. For me, his tired and aging look took away from his performance and sort of brought the film down. Oh, well. Lately, I have become very distracted with Salma Hayek. She has lost the spark and fire I enjoyed so much in "Desperado" and "Fools Rush In." She is, well, okay, here, but at least she made up for her ridiculous eye-candy role in "Wild Wild West."

Anyway, I really did enjoy this film for what it was. It was funny, thought-provoking, insightful and ambitious. It was a good time at the movies. I can't wait till Kevin Smith's next film.

This is definitely one of the most original films ever created. The whole concept was bizarre and surreal, but it make the journey all the more enjoyable. The script, by Charlie Kaufman, is quirky and hilarious but what the film has most going for it is the element of surprise: you never know what will happen next. The performances were wonderful across the board with an extremely talented cast playing roles against type.

John Cusack has made the biggest stretch he's made as an actor in a very long time. He downplayed his usual wise-cracking persona to play a more subtle and pathetic character. Great acting choice. If I didn't know Cameron Diaz was in the film beforehand, I would have had a hard time recognizing her. She was looking like bottom-of-the-barrel trailer trash throughout the movie and this is the best performance I have seen from her. I was never truly impressed with her as an actress before but my head was turned here and I hope to see more of this caliber from her. I have been a big fan of Catherine Keener since "Living In Oblivion" and she has further impressed me in "Walking & Talking," "The Real Blonde" and "Your Friends & Neighbors." She is a wonderful actress with a spunky, hard-edged and sarcastic presence that is unavailable to most actresses working in Hollywood today. Let us not forget John Malkovich, himself, for another great performance here. He, as Julia Roberts did in "Notting Hill," shows that he is not just playing a caricature of himself, but someone is his position with depth and ambiguity that, I imagine, is much different that himself.

The director, Spike Jonze, has recently starred in "Three Kings." By looks alone, you couldn't tell that he would bring to life such an extraordinary motion picture. This material, had it been in other hands, may not have been successful. It was handled with the right amount of comedy and surrealism. I hope this film is nominated for Best Picture next year.

All right, well, at least it was better than `The Haunting,' this summer's big budget, special effects laden haunted house thriller. I still liked `The Haunting' on the basis of its production value, which is top-notch. One of the biggest problems with `The Haunting' was the script, which was a mess. The story was all over the place, the dialogue was poorly written. It did have a creepy mood to it, but the scares were few and far between and the ending was ridiculous.

Now, about `The House on Haunted Hill,' it wasn't gargantually better than the aforementioned film, but it was scarier. I got that impression from the opening scene, which was gory and somewhat frightening. Geoffrey Rush shows a lot of range in his performances. Here, he seems to play a role that has `James Woods' written all over it. Also joining the cast is Famke Janssen of `GoldenEye.' I am still trying to figure out how good of an actress she is, for she gives very good and very bad performances, depending on the quality of the script. Once again, Taye Diggs is on board. (This film opened one week after `The Best Man.' This film was #1 at the box office and `The Best Man' was #2. Very interesting.) I must say that I truly despise Chris Kattan of `SNL' fame. His last film, `A Night at the Roxbury,' is one of the worst films ever made and I am quite annoyed with his presence. Here, he doesn't even come close to redeeming himself for that piece of cinematic trash but buries himself deeper. Oh, well. Anyway, because of its modest budget, we are deprived of the huge special effects that were so occupied with `The Haunting.' There are a few nice special effects, although the effects in the ending aren't the highlight of the story and are almost as ludicrous and uneven as `The Haunting.' I am recommending this because it has a few effective jump scenes, some nice twists, interesting characters and a couple moments of sheer suspense.