“Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow”

One of the most anticipated movies of the summer is finally
being released today. Promising to hearken back to the days of pulp
magazines and matinee serials, “Sky Captain and the World of
Tomorrow” stars Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina
Jolie.

Set in an alternate world of zeppelins and Art Deco, the
world’s most famous scientists are being kidnapped. Intrepid
reporter Polly Perkins (Paltrow) discovers they have been abducted
by the evil Dr. Totankopf, who plans, in typical mad scientist
fashion, to take over the world. Perkins calls upon her old flame,
ace fighter pilot Joe “Sky Captain” Sullivan (Law) and
his Flying Legions to save the day.

Like Steven Speilberg did over twenty years ago with Indiana
Jones, director Kerry Conran draws inspiration from the now defunct
Saturday matinee serials to create the sci-fi pulp world of
“Sky Captain.”

The film uses a new filming technique, which places the actors
against a blue screen in order to digitally add in the sets and
scenery in the computer.

While George Lucas did this with the “Star Wars”
prequels with middling results, the use here has an effect of
creating a whole new world for the movie’s pulp story to take
place.

 

“Mr. 3000”

One of America’s favorite pastimes, baseball, serves as
the backdrop to the new Bernie Mac comedy, “Mr.
3000.”

Ten years ago, baseball legend Stan Ross (Mac) celebrated his
3000th hit and became a legend. Now, on the eve of his induction to
the Hall of Fame, after hawking his name to numerous enterprises,
he finds out that three of his hits do not count.

Mac makes his leading debut in this movie after numerous
supporting roles and headlining his own sitcom, “The Bernie
Mac Show.” For “Mr. 3000,” Mac seems well-suited
to play the aging sports’ star, with his brash,
tell-it-like-it-is comedic stylings.

With the home run record broken by Mark McGuire in 1998 and then
again by Barry Bonds a few years later, the baseball world could
use some satirizing on its record obsessed mindset.

 

Wimboldon

For those who have ever desired to step out of the
spectator’s seat and see what goes on in the lives of
illustrious tennis professionals, this could be the flick to
see.

“Wimbeldon” is a brisk and jaunty romantic comedy
that takes fans behind the scenes of two fictional tennis
champions, Lizzie Bradbury (Kirsten Dunst) and Peter Colt (Paul
Bettany). Lizzie is an energetic and free-spirited competitor
filled with ambition, and Peter is a more experienced yet also
free-spirited tennis professional taking his last stab at a
Wimbeldon championship.

After an accidental run-in between the two, they quickly find
themselves in the midst of an affair while also keeping up their
appearances as they compete against reputable Wimbeldon challengers
for the title of Wimbeldon champion.  The story takes the
viewer along for the ride as the two lovers adventurously flee from
the eyes of the public and their inquisitive competitors.

Conflicts arise when Lizzie’s protective father, who is
intently concerned with Lizzie’s game, steps into the picture
and causes her and Peter’s relationship to seize.

“Wimbeldon” gives viewers a great window into the
oftentimes too public lives of famous athletes, and makes known the
compromise made between their public and private lives. It gives an
animate depiction of the emotional and mental strain that also goes
on in a tennis player’s mind during intense competition -
especially when love comes into the picture.

The filming is also unique and impressive - fans of tennis
should expect a fairly accurate depiction of the mechanics of
tennis and the atmosphere that surrounds a tennis tournament of
such prestige.

Dunst and Bettany create a cloudless chemistry that makes this a
clever romantic comedy, and an interesting tale about tennis, love,
and all that falls between.

 

-Jennifer Rickard/The Daily

 

National Lampoon’s Gold Diggers

Remember the movie “Airplane!”, and the scene where
Ted Stryker is telling his life story to the passengers sitting
next to him, but the passengers would rather kill themselves than
hear anything more.

I bring this up not to suggest that “National
Lampoon’s Gold Diggers” is as funny as this or any
other scene in “Airplane!”, but to tell you what you
will be wanting to do to yourself while watching the film.

Never-do-wells Cal (Will Friedle) and Lenny (Chris Owens) have
been trying to find the good life without actually doing any work.
They come across a scheme to marry condom heiresses Betty and Doris
Mundt (Louise Lasser and Renee Taylor, respectively), kill them,
and then inherit their fortunes. What the duo does not know is that
the sisters come up with the exact same plan to collect on
insurance money. Hilarity, supposedly, ensures.

Those expecting the same sort of raunchy humor that was found in
the other National Lampoon movies will be severely disappointed. It
is not just that “Gold Diggers” is not funny, but that
you cannot see how anyone could think it was funny.

Most of the humor derives from situations where the two senior
ladies try to seduce the two young men. If your idea of humor is
for 60-year-old actresses dressing in lingerie and trying to act
sexy, then you might laugh once or twice during the movie, but I
know that the sooner I never see a woman old enough to be my
grandmother engaging in kinky sex acts the better.

Nothing else to the movie fares much better. The characters are
as thin as the newspaper you are holding now. Neither the acting
nor the writing makes them more than the types that they are, so we
the audience never care that the two guys are just trying to find
the easy life or that the heiresses have been swindled out of their
original fortunes. Also, while you may remember some of the actors
here from other, better projects, they never exert themselves here
above mugging for the camera.

The only people I can honestly recommend “National
Lampoon’s Gold Diggers” to is sadists will who drive
their friends to the theater and masochists who will watch the
film.

 

-Zachary Privott/The Daily
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