Adam Baldwin Reviews by ladyjayne

TALK STORY

Adam Baldwin Reviews

POSTED BY: LADYJAYNE
UPDATED: Thursday, February 12, 2004 12:53
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VIEWED: 3842
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Sunday, January 11, 2004 3:28 PM

Have I ever told you folks just how much I love Netflix??

Thanks to this lovely online dvd rental service, I'll be getting to watch a whole mess of Adam Baldwin movies over the next few months. He's been in a ton of stuff, as I'm sure most of you here know, so I wanted to share some reviews with you.

One thing I'll be looking for someone else to post, however: A review of FULL METAL JACKET. It's not something I could possibly bring myself to watch. Out of the three Kubrick films I've attempted to watch, I've only been able to stay awake for one (THE SHINING) and even then it took me three days to get through it.

--Kala

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Sunday, January 11, 2004 4:05 PM

LADYJAYNE

INDEPENDENCE DAY

Not a film you could make today. It was odd watching it last week. First time I'd seen the film since 9/11. But it's still worth it just to hear Bill Pullman say, "Nuke 'em all."

Unfortunately for the Baldwin enthusiast, this isn't the best film to watch. While strikingly handsome, of course, Major Mitchell is a rather blandly written character. He seems to be the head-honcho at the famed Area 51 in New Mexico, but other than getting to shoot a Coke can off one of the alien craft and helping the President into his plane, he has very little to do.

I actually didn't even finish watching the film this time. Once Maj. Mitchell had finished helping the President with his flight gear, I turned it off. It makes me wonder, however, if they added a much needed line from Jeff Goldblum to the new extended version. I always felt he should say, "Gosh, good things these aliens use PCs. I'd have never been able to send a virus to them if they had Macs."

--Kala

Next week: Francis Ford Copella's DR. JEKYL & MR. HYDE

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Sunday, January 11, 2004 5:19 PM

SAINT JAYNE

Quote:
Originally posted by ladyjayne:
"Gosh, good things these aliens use PCs. I'd have never been able to send a virus to them if they had Macs."

ROFL... Don't worry about the Mac users - they're pretty benign - not into taking over planets. It's those viral Linux-using aliens you've got to watch.

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Thursday, January 15, 2004 4:54 PM

LADYJAYNE

DR. JEKYL & MR. HYDE

Marvelous concept! If only someone else would have written the script. It is unsurprising this was not a big screen movie. Even we dumb Americans know that Tiger vs. Dragon is just a cliche when you don't have Chow Yun Fat in your cast.

Set in Hong Kong, a young ambiitious Dr. Jekyl (Baldwin) and his wife Muriel are on their honeymoon. Of course it wouldn't be a Copella movie if they didn't get in the way organized crime bosses.

On a brighter note, however, for the obsessive Baldwin fan, this one's more than worth watching. Lots of screen time, plus you get to see both faces: with & without goatee. I do believe that part of why he was chosen for this part was becuase he truly does look like a completely different person when clean-shaven. Although how the gangsters he crossed could have possibly missed a 6' 5" American in Hong Kong...well, see paragraph #1.

The dvd doesn't have any bonus material, unless of course you count Baldwin's shower scene.

--Kala

Next week: Lady Jayne: Killer
(I kid you not. That's the name of the movie)

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Friday, January 16, 2004 1:40 AM

LADYJAYNE

More on DR. JEKYL & MR. HYDE

One of the problems I had with the movie was its timeline. The entire story takes place over two months. With the premise being Jekyl's transformation and healing by "Chinese medicine" rather than conventional western medicine, the time frame was just too short.

It seemed too rushed that Jekyl, a former emergency surgeon, would have made his transformation to his embrace of a new way of thinking. Baldwin does an incredibly believable job with the short time frame, but knowing his talent and how wonderfully he can play character development, I would have liked to see the film play out over two years rather than two months. Again, this is one of its short comings that would keep it in its "made-for-cable" slot.

--Kala

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Friday, January 16, 2004 4:44 AM

HARDWARE

FULL METAL JACKET

The Kubrick movie, based on the novel "The Short Timers" by Gustav Hasford, follows a young man through Marine boot camp and into Vietnam.

The film is divided into two acts. The first, detailing the Marine recruit's ritualized debasement at the hands of Gunnery Sgt. Hartman (R. Lee Ermey). The second follows Pvt. Joker (Matthew Modine) through Vietnam as a reporter for military newspaper Stars and Stripes.

In the first act we see Hartman victimize everyone in the name of turning civillians into Marines. Pvt. Joker receives his fair share of abuse, but the mountain falls on Pvt. Gomer Pyle (Vincent Donofrio). Donofrio does a great turn as a bewildered victim driven further and further from sanity by Harman's character, but everyone's performance was overshadowed by Ermey's portrayal of an abusive senior drill instructor. How Ermey was passed over for the Oscar that year amazes me. Still, Ermey was a drill instructor in real life, so perhaps some of it wasn't acting.

The second act follows Pvt. Joker in Vietnam where his cerebral attitude about the nature of mankind clashes with the spartan military outlook. As a reporter it would be natural to expect him to be in rear areas but during the Tet offensive even reporters have to put down their cameras, pens and notebooks and pick up their rifles. Joker is sent to Hue (Huhway) where he is reunited with boot camp buddy Pvt. Cowboy (Arliss Howard) who is leading a Marine squad through the city fighting Vietcong forces that have taken the city. One of the members of Cowboy's squad is machine gunner Animal Mother (Adam Baldwin)

Animal is the brutal counterpoint to Joker's cerebrality. Where Joker wants to contemplate the whys and wherefores and make light of the horrible things he is seeing in war Animal lives in the moment. The act is all that matters and he revels in killing as much as he revels in the war.

After the denoumnent you are left wondering who is the enemy? A Vietnam veteran friend of mine said that Kubrick summed up the Vietnam experience better than everyone else who had ever attempted it when, after an hour of non-stop combat he showed you dog tired Marines marching through a battlezone into the sunset singing the "Mickey Mouse Club" theme.

This movie is only superficially about the war. Kubrick took great liberties with the book, the two are really nothing alike. But, even allowing those liberties with the source material, he made a great film. I would put this film in the "must own" category for any library.

The more I get to know people the more I like my dogs.

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Friday, January 16, 2004 12:10 PM

LADYJAYNE

Hardware,

Thanks so much for the review! I'm sure our readers were getting sick of only hearing from me.

--Kala

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Monday, January 19, 2004 3:30 AM

LADYJAYNE

Oh yeah...

I forgot that there's one other Adam Baldwin film that I just don't think I can stomach watching. I tried to watch HOW TO MAKE AN AMERICAN QUILT many years ago, but there were no characters I could relate to. I turned it off about 45 minutes into it. Don't remember any of the characters, so I don't know who Baldwin played.

Here's a good filmography, btw. I'd love to read more reviews from other folks.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000284/

--Kala

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Friday, January 23, 2004 2:33 PM

KALATHENA

LADY JAYNE: KILLER

A word of advice: Never choose a screen-name based on a character in a movie you've never seen. You may end up hating the character or worse yet find out that the movie is so terrible that there's no possible way you could ever watch the whole thing.

No believable characters. Stilted and predictable dialogue. Some decent acting by Baldwin and the kid who plays Carey, but other than that, don't bother.

Gotta go watch "Jaynestown" now to get the bad taste out of my mouth.

Next week: NEXT OF KIN

--Kala

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Tuesday, January 27, 2004 5:46 AM

KALATHENA

NEXT OF KIN

This film did a lot more for me than I ever would have expected. From the moment I heard Patrick Swayze say the name “Gerald” (which he pronounced “Jurl”) I knew I was going to make quite a connection. You see, I had an uncle Gerald/Jurl. And an uncle Billy, uncle J.D., uncle Berl, and an uncle Lloyd. Aunt Verbie and Aunt Annie Mae are still with us. Aunt Jekita is not. It was something of a surprise to me to find that the family in this film was from Appalachia rather than southern Missouri (that’s Mi-ZER-uh, by the way) as my relatives are. The cast had that from-the-boot-heel, swamp-rabbit accent and mentality down pat.

Aside from this small glitch in geography, NEXT OF KIN was an enjoyable movie. It told the story of Truman Gates (Swayze), a self-described “mountain boy” who left the poverty of Appalachia to become a member of the Chicago police force. While the surface of the conflict was to catch the young mob strong arm Joey Rosselini (Adam Baldwin), the underlying theme revolved around the strong ties of blood relatives. It was a very un-Joss-like message, telling us that the family we are born to will have bonds stronger than any that can be forged among friends.

The scenes set back in Gates’ hometown where he takes his wife Jesse (Helen Hunt) are very touching. The film avoided two very common traps of showing rural areas through the eyes of city dwellers. Jesse Gates was neither appalled by the way her husband’s folk lived nor did she stand in awe at their rural beauty. It was nice to see Hunt playing this role, treating these people just as people, not necessarily understanding their ways, but not elevating them to an exotic display for tourists.

There are two fun “actor surprises” that I found in this film. An “actor surprise” for me is finding someone you know and like, playing a role that you didn’t know they’d had. First was Ted Levine, best known for his chilling portrayal of Jame Gumb in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. He has a very small role in the opening of the film and is very hard to recognize. The other is Ben Stiller, who plays mob boss John Isabella’s estranged son Lawrence. It was a bit strange seeing Stiller play such a serious character.

For the Adam Baldwin fan, this is a good one. Baldwin excels at playing the hot-head who doesn’t take the time to consider all of the consequences of his actions. While watching I kept thinking that the role of Joey must have been a fun one to play. I could definitely recommend this film to anyone who’s a fan of Baldwin.

Next week: THE RIGHT TEMPTATION

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Friday, January 30, 2004 12:06 PM

CALHOUN

Smoke Jumper - In the line of duty:

I believe this one is a true story, a kind of docu-drama.

The movie centres around Baldwin who plays Don Mackey a parachuting forest firefighter(smokejumper). It seems to chronicle Mackeys life leading up to the tragic end in which America experiences its largest loss of firefighter life in one incident(obviously pre 9/11).

AB looked in his prime in this movie, he was very cut and always walked around with clenched fists soz his biceps were pumped :) my kinda stupid :)

I recommend this to any AB fans, although it wasnt an action blockbuster it was AB after all so you cant lose.

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Monday, February 2, 2004 3:03 PM

KALATHENA

THE RIGHT TEMPATION

The difference between a mystery and a thriller is really quite simple. In a mystery, you know *what* is going on, but you don't know *who* is doing it. In a thriller, you know *who* is stirring up trouble, but you don't know *what* exactly it is they are doing.

I was quite surprised when I found out what exactly it was that Anthea Farrow-Smith (Dana Delany) was up to in this thriller. I really hate predictable movies, but this was not one of them. It had some marvelous twists that even I couldn't figure out.

The film begins when Farrow-Smith hires former undercover police detective Derien McCall (Rebecca DeMornay) to follow her husband, Michael (Keiffer Sutherland). Throughout the film we get to find out more of the Farrow-Smiths' *and* McCall's background. The revelations are nicely paced making the viewer want to see the next one, but not get too frustrated about not having enough information.

Had the plot not been this intriguing, I know I would have lost interest quickly. I was, of course, expecting to see Adam Baldwin, but did not get to see more than three scenes with him. Baldwin only appears in the backstory as McCall's supervisor in her final case as a police detective. It was a rather bland role for him. Not much script for him to work with. The role could possibly have been expanded, but the film would have needed at least another 20 minutes to do that.

If you're just going to watch the film for Baldwin, you might not want to bother. If you like Sutherland as much as I do, however, it's very much worth a look.

Next week: MY BODYGUARD

--Kala

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Friday, February 6, 2004 3:41 AM

KALATHENA

MY BODYGUARD

I cannot stress this strongly enough: This is a MUST SEE for any Adam Baldwin fan. I am shocked and appalled that this did not launch him into super-stardom.

Baldwin plays the title character in this story about a well-to-do teen who goes from a private academy to an urban public school. Clifford Peache (Chris Makepeace) finds himself at the mercy of the school bully, Moody (Matt Dillon) and decides to hire his own bodyguard, the friendless Ricky Linderman (Baldwin). But reaching out to the closed off Linderman proves to be quite a task.

As fans of Jayne Cobb, we know Baldwin can do stoic. He's been doing this for a long time, apparently. It can be a tough line to walk between playing stoic and wooden acting, but to watch Linderman move silently down the city streets, well, as a mom he just made me want to reach out and tell him "It doesn't matter what happened, honey. It'll be okay."

If you enjoy character driven stories, this is also a great movie to watch. Peache struggling with his own isolation of moving to a new school really shows the empathy that he has for Linderman. It's a wonder to see the walls slowly come down for both boys as they connect and learn how to become friends.

There was a lovely actor surprise in this film for me. Joan Cusack plays Shelley, a girl desperate for the attentions Moody, who later discovers they may not be worth much. Cusack is always a delight to see with her barely tameable silliness. Later, Joan's dad, Dick Cusack, briefly appears as the school principal.

The ending is not one I would have chosen to write myself, but for 1980, it seemed to fit.

I'm glad I waited until I was an adult to see this film. I could not have appreciated its depth when I was 14. Nor could I have appreciated the marvelous performances by Makepeace and Baldwin. But especailly Baldwin.

Next week: GACY
(Please bear with me if I can't watch this film; I'm not sure how I'll handle it.)

--Kala

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Thursday, February 12, 2004 12:53 PM

KALATHENA

GACY

Yawn.

Don't bother.

--Kala

Next Week: 800 LEAGUES DOWN THE AMAZON

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