Blue Streak (1999)

Number Rolled: 72

Movie Name/Year: Blue Streak (1999)

Genre: Action, Comedy

Length: 94 minutes

Rating: PG-13

Director: Les Mayfield

Writer: Michael Berry, John Blumenthal, Stephen Carpenter

Actors: Martin Lawrence, Luke Wilson, Peter Greene, Dave Chappelle, Nicole Ari Parker, Graham Beckel, Robert Miranda, Olek Krupa

It’s a funny thing about expectations. There are times I will sit down to watch a movie and think it’s going to be great only to find that it sucks, other times I’ll sit down to think I’m about to waste two hours and wind up completely absorbed by the story. I definitely sat down with a groan to watch this movie.

I’m not a fan of Martin Lawrence. I don’t mind Luke Wilson, but I feel like he’s type-cast a LOT. I find Dave Chappelle annoying most of the time (though I loved him in Robin Hood Men in Tights). To top it off, the cover they used on Netflix for the movie was ridiculous. I thought it was going to be horrible. I was expecting it.

Honestly, it really wasn’t so bad. It had its annoying Martin Lawrence-y parts that almost turned me off, but for the most part it was pretty entertaining. You get this jewel thief who goes to jail after hiding his last heist in an air duct only to find, when he gets out, that the air duct belongs to a police precinct. In an “undercover” operation of his own, he pretends to be a cop to get it back and a series of semi-predictable but funny events take place.

In the long run, it’s not something I’m going to go out of my way to recommend to people, but I won’t warn them about it either. The majority of it is very stereotypical of this kind of movie, but the ending was cute and it wasn’t terribly done.

All in all? A basic “C”.

Overall Opinion – 3/5

The Cable Guy (1996)

Number Rolled: 70

Movie Name/Year: The Cable Guy (1996)
Tagline: Are you ready to get wired?

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Thriller

Length: 96 minutes

Rating: PG-13
Production Companies: Columbia Pictures Corporation, Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, Licht/Mueller Film Corporation
Producer: Judd Apatow, William S. Beasley, Bernie Brillstein, Brad Grey, Marc Gurvitz, Andrew Licht, Jeffrey A. Mueller 

Director: Ben Stiller

Writer: Lou Holtz Jr.

Actors: Jim Carrey, Matthew Broderick, Leslie Mann, Jack Black, George Segal, Janeane Garofalo, Diane Baker, Ben Stiller, Eric Roberts, Andy Dick, Harry O’Reilly, David Cross, Owen Wilson, Kathy Griffin, Misa Koprova, Paul Greco, Tabitha Soren, Rikki Klieman, Robert Simels, David Bowe, Bill Clinton
Stunt Doubles: Bob Brown, Tom Elliott, Erin Ricotti, Erik Rondell

Blurb from Netflix: A lonely and disturbed cable guy raised on television just wants a new friend, but his target, a designer, rejects him, with bad consequences.

I’ve got a lot of friends who are really into this movie. I, personally, have no problems with Jim Carrey (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, In Living Color, Bruce Almighty). He’s the King of stupid movies – in the best way. However, I just didn’t see what everyone else seemed to see in this film.

Quite frankly, for the majority of it, I was bored.

Carrey was his normal, funny-faced, over-acting self and Matthew Broderick (Finding Amanda, Bee Movie, The Producers) really compliments that over-the-top character with an understated character of his own, but that’s really all there was to it.

It was also a bit too long for what it was, though the social commentary of the ending was pretty cool.

I really don’t have much else to say about this movie. It’s not even really that I didn’t like it, I simply didn’t care about it. I was watching it and the clock at the same time. 

All in all, the ending made it watchable, though I doubt I’ll be going out of my way to watch it again.

Languages

Speech Available: English

Subtitles Available: English

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – 54%

Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 51%

Metascore - None

Metacritic User Score – None

IMDB Score – 6.1/10

Trust the Dice: Selina's Rating – 2.5/5

Movie Trailer:

Last Night (1998)

Number Rolled: 97

Movie Name/Year: Last Night (1998)
Tagline: It's your last night on Earth. Go out in style.

Genre: Drama, Comedy, Romance

Length: 95 minutes

Rating: R
Production Company: Rhombus Media, Telefilm Canada, La Sept-Arte, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Haut et Court, Canada Television and Cable Production Fund, Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit, Cineplex
Producer: Caroline Benjo, Joseph Boccia, Niv Fichman, Daniel Iron, Jennifer Jonas, Sheena Macdonald, Carole Scotta, Barbara Willis Sweete, Larry Weinstein, Nathan Lafionatis

Director: Don McKellar

Writer: Don McKellar

Actors: Don McKellar, Sandra Oh, Roberta Maxwell, Robin Gammell, Sarah Polley, Trent McMullen, Charmion King, Jessica Booker, David Cronenberg, Tracy Wright, Genevieve Bujold, Callum Keith Rennie, Karen Glave

Blurb from Netflix: A group of very different individuals with different ideas of how to face the end come together as the world is expected to end in six hours at the turn of the century.

I found this movie very difficult to get into. It felt like the first half hour of the movie was just people talking about nothing.

Last Night is an apocalypse movie… but you don’t actually really get exposed to that until the middle.

Since the movie came out in 1998 I can only imagine that it was inspired by the supposed looming 'apocalypse' in 2000 – though the movie never really said WHAT was bringing the world to the end. (My guess would be the sun exploding, but that’s just me.)

You get to see – through this movie – what a group of different people have decided to do with their last six hours on earth. The rules have changed and there’s no right or wrong anymore.

As you can guess, there is a lot of sex (shown and implied), a lot of pillaging, and pretty much everything else an apocalypse might trigger in humanity.

It’s… ok. Not much more or less just… ok. Just on the border of imaginative.

Languages
Speech Available: English
Subtitles Available: English

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – 84%

Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 85%

Metascore - 65/100

Metacritic User Score – 8.4/10

IMDB Score – 7.3/10

Trust the Dice: Selina's Rating – 2.5/5

Movie Trailer: