jimmyg Reviews

When the Cat's Away (1996)

The most depressing light comedy going

[27 September 1999]

When the Cat's Away is completely mis-billed as a light romantic comedy. Actually it's a sprawling and rather depressing film. It's all very realistic, which means that none of the characters are exactly sympathetic, and it is full of so many depressing messages that the plot and lighter moments get completely bogged down. We kind of wanted a light, feelgood evening's entertainment. Instead we got thoroughly depressed.

The Mummy (1999)

Mummy without a soul

[1/10 · 7 June 1999]

The Mummy is complete pants! Badly researched, terribly scripted, and acted with grim disgust by the entire cast. This film stinks as much as it abuses the audience's intelligence. It plagiarises films it so desperately wants to be (Indiana Jones, the English Patient and Aliens) without understanding what made them good - characters not formula. As a result a lot of people die who we don't care for, and without sexual chemistry the romantic comedy is t-e-r-r-i-b-l-y forced. Even the special effects are soulless. The greatest crime though is John Hannah. What is he doing in this film? They can't have paid him enough.

Love and Human Remains (1993)

A strangely endearing comedy about sex and serial killers

[9 March 1999]

This is a lovely film. I always tell my friends that this is a gentle sex farce. It's not. I keep on forgetting that Love and Human Remains is a brooding, dark movie, full of smart lines, a great looking cast and a lot of intriguing ideas. There's also one of the more spurious serial killer plots of all time. Frankly, there's really only one suspect, and the whole serial-killing as metaphor for moral despair/AIDS is both trite and already dated. So frankly, forget the serial killer aspect of the plot. Watch this film instead for the great way it develops characters - the endearingly heartless gay waiter who's so bored he prefers waiting tables to acting. and the book reviewer who doesn't like leaving her room. There are some lovely scenes, and some cracking lines of quotable dialogue ("Hi Honey, I'm homo!") that make the film a lot more memorable and endearing than it appears. It does Canada no favours though.