Word: plot
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Adapted from Elmore Leonard's Rum Punch, the plot follows a female flight attendant (Pam Grier) as she sets about holding on to some cash, orbited by a small-time gunrunner (Samuel L. Jackson) and a lovelorn bailbondsman (Robert Forster). Unfortunately, Tarantino has complicated things by letting too much B-movie slip into his creation: specifically, bits of a score from the blaxploitation movie Coffy and a none-too-riveting acting style on the part of the title's heroine...
...which he's selling us his interests is no longer interesting. His vividly imagined, detailed criminal underworld, with a language all its own, was what helped hold together the short-attention-span oddities of his first two endeavors. Now, shocking devices foisted upon this movie's stultifyingly paced plot and Grier's well-intentioned yet boring performance seem instantly tired. At one point, the "sudden shoot" gimmick--witness Tim Roth's character in Reservoir Dogs, or Pulp Fiction's poor victim of Vincent Vega's gun and a bump in the road--seems downright offensive, suggesting a world where such...
...Henry James's notoriously dense novel, bringing its melodramatic and erotic undertones to the forefront. A well-bred but dowerless English girl (Helena Bonham-Carter), secretly engaged to an equally impecunious journalist (Linus Roache), persuades her lover to court a young American heiress dying of TB (Alison Elliott). The plot thickens as the three take a pleasure trip to Venice. The scenes in Italy are lovely, and the three stars give superb performances--esp. Bonham-Carter, who brilliantly captures the complexities of her character. --Lynn...
Kinnear, rounding out the trio, graciously avoids stereotypes and earns his own fair share of the audience's attention and sympathy. Other films would use Simon as a wheel in the plot, but As Good As It Gets is sensible enough to create complete portraits of all its major characters. Cuba Gooding Jr. is amusing in a smaller role as Simon's art dealer, and Shirley Knight gives an understated performance as Carol's mother, who wants nothing more than to see her happy. She offers the sage piece of advice that "a normal boyfriend" simply doesn't exist...
...forces conspiring against us converge in mid-to-late-October. Their ranks include the abusive parental pair of Mother Nature and Father Time. Nature unleashes her arctic winds upon us, and Time steals our sunlight. Also implicated in the plot are our esteemed professors--who break fundamental laws of mathematics with the administration of multiple midterms--and our own sense of self-doubt...