Michael Burns
Occupation
Filmmaker
Bug (2007) Review
By Jay Antani
Terrible
On my way out of William Friedkin's latest Bug, I overheard a gentleman in the lobby say to his companion that he hopes everyone involved in the picture fires their agents. The movie could mean at least a long stint in the doghouse for its two leads, Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon. It's regrettable, because the actors are clearly giving all they've got and then some to a project that, ultimately, amounts to a staggering miscalculation. As for Friedkin, I'm guessing he'll stay put for a few years before returning with another questionable clunker.
Working from Tracy Letts' adaptation of his own play, Friedkin gives us a five-character chamber piece, set in a downtrodden motel room out in the sticks. Bi-curious basket case Agnes (Judd) works as a waitress in a redneck bar by night, and shacks up in a motel room, in a pot-, coke-, and booze-induced stupor by day. It's her meager defense against the onslaught of just-paroled ex-husband Jerry (a beefed-up and amusing Harry Connick Jr.), who drops by to inflict verbal and physical abuse, not to mention dredging up memories of her long-lost son. The woman's only respite is her girlfriend, R.C. (Lynn Collins), a fellow waitress who's a tad too freewheeling for the reserved Agnes. Twitched-out and fragile, she meets her perfect match in the taciturn Peter (Shannon), a war veteran who harbors traumas of his own. Soon after they hook up, Peter becomes increasingly convinced that his body's been colonized by bugs -- bugs laying eggs and traveling up and down his bloodstream. Peter claims to be an escapee from a government medical lab where he was the subject of nefarious tests. He suspects the bugs were bio-engineered by the government to be tools for mind control. Before you know it, Bug has become a full-blown freak show, fueled by military-industrial conspiracies, and styled after Macbeth as the paranoid Peter and the needy Agnes become obsessive partners in mutual destruction.
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Confidence Review
By Blake French
Extraordinary
If Heist held your attention and The Score kept you guessing, you need to see Confidence, James Foley's stunningly original sting movie that puts the majority of sting movies to shame. Who knew that Foley, the man responsible for brainless thrillers like The Corruptor and Fear, would helm a genre film that outwits even those from acclaimed filmmakers David Mamet and Frank Oz?
Confidence has triple the pizzazz of any caper movie released in the past several years. To say that it keeps you guessing would be misleading; the film has so many twists, turns, and reveals them in such an order that you don't even know where to start guessing. You'll need a scorecard to keep everything in order. Yet, remarkably, in the end, everything adds up without any apparent plot holes. It's astonishing.
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Get Over It Review
By Pete Croatto
OK
Get Over It at least has one thing that a lot of other high school movies don't: earnest, affable leads. It also has all of the key flaws that make going to teen movies so risky: an almost unbearable goofy streak, a plot with the strength of a newborn fawn, and bland supporting characters.
The movie makes the same mistakes over and over and eventually drains one's patience, but yet I stuck around because the leads played kids I would have liked to know.
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