Film Freak Central

Double Jeopardy (1999) [Widescreen] - DVD

**/**** Image A Sound A Extras D+
starring Tommy Lee Jones, Ashley Judd, Bruce Greenwood, Annabeth Gish
screenplay by David Weisberg & Douglas S. Cook
directed by Bruce Beresford

by Bill Chambers Imprisoned for the murder of her husband, whose apparently dismembered body was never recovered from the deep blue sea, Libby Parsons (Ashley Judd, who's very good) calls her little boy from a phone bank and hears him say this: "Daddy!" It's Double Jeopardy's most convincing moment, relying as it does on the ignorance of a child--so persuasive, in fact, that you may wonder at film's end if it had been imported from another screenplay altogether.

Drive Me Crazy (1999) - DVD

**/**** Image B Sound A- Extras D
starring Melissa Joan Hart, Adrien Grenier, Stephen Collins, Ali Larter
screenplay by Rob Thomas, based on the novel How I Created My Perfect Prom Date by Todd Strasser
directed by John Schultz

by Bill Chambers I've seen so many bloody teen movies over the past two years that Drive Me Crazy felt like the beginning of a new semester. All my old friends were there--the jock, the rebel, the slut--and I once again looked forward to attending a prom, here called a "Centennial." Now and again, however, the film manages to tread, if not break, new ground as it recycles that old saw about an adversarial boy and girl who fall for their own love charade as they attempt to make former sweethearts jealous. Would you believe that every single one of its characters is (gasp!) insecure?

Revenge of the Nerds/Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise [Fox Double Feature] - DVD

REVENGE OF THE NERDS (1984)
***½/**** Image A- Sound B+
starring Robert Carradine, Anthony Edwards, Ted McGinley, Bernie Casey
screenplay by Steve Zacharias & Jeff Buhai
directed by Jeff Kanew

REVENGE OF THE NERDS II: NERDS IN PARADISE (1987)
½*/**** Image A- Sound B+
starring Robert Carradine, Curtis Armstrong, Bradley Whitford, Courtney Thorne-Smith
screenplay by Dan Guntzelman & Steve Marshall
directed by Joe Roth

by Bill Chambers One's great, the other ain't, and that's the truth, Ruth. Revenge of the Nerds, too often lumped in with the T&A comedies that flanked its theatrical release (Up the Creek, Porky's Revenge, et al.), is a cinematic gem of exemplary construction--one of the best, most empathetic teen movies with which John Hughes was not affiliated. Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise, alas, sequelizes the trashy rep of its predecessor rather than the reality.

What Planet Are You From? (2000)

**½/****
starring Garry Shandling, Annette Bening, John Goodman, Ben Kingsley
screenplay by Garry Shandling & Michael Leeson and Ed Solomon and Peter Tolan
directed by Mike Nichols

by Bill Chambers To paint a picture of how juvenile Mike Nichols's What Planet Are You From? can get, its running gag is a humming penis. The film stoops, often, to a level of humour rarely found outside the schoolyard--or an episode of "Married With Children". Yet there's infectious sunshine in Garry Shandling's first big-screen starring vehicle that makes it difficult to begrudge its bad taste. Whatever issues I may take with What Planet Are You From? certainly have nothing to do with being offended by it.