If SIDEWAYS gets the prize for best scenery in a supporting role, GARDEN STATE gets the prize for best movie using NJ as a setting. It tells the story of an LA actor/waiter (writer/director/star Zach Braff) who returns home for his mother's funeral and to face his past. There's his doctor father, his slacker hometown friends, and a cute lying epileptic girl (Natalie Portman) who ends up stealing his heart. This film is obviously the work of a young person, but one with real talent; the story is talky but sincere, and the music is [as advertised] good. For a break from the NJ of the SOPRANOS, check out this little corner of the GARDEN STATE.
Previously on World's Worse Comic Character Movies, we were stuck somewhere between DAREDEVIL and BATMAN FOREVER. Well, the contest's over - and ladies and gentlemen, CATWOMAN is the paws-down winner. I can honestly say I don't think I've seen a worse movie about a mousy woman (Halle Berry playing mousy - can you see the problems already?) who gets flushed into a polluted bay, dies, is rescued by some crazy Egyptian cat, wakes up to at least a second life where she's sassy and supposedly super in the way cats are (can see far, can climb a wall, lands on her feet, and, sadly, that's not a metaphor), gets swooney with a cop (Benjamin Bratt) who's also chasing the [wrongly] criminally implicated Catwoman, ends up in a couple of really fake looking fight scenes with her beauty-business nemesis (Sharon Stone), and saves the day. Not that there are that many movies I've seen with that plot, and thank goodness for that. The plot is lame, the directing is jumpy, the action scenes are bad (and it looks like the actresses can barely keep themselves from laughing), her leather outfit is stupid, and even the music stinks. The guy who directed this used just 1 name, which I think he made up. And that's the only good idea he had.
While I'm on bad, but not the worst, movies, let's discuss Julianne Moore in THE FORGOTTEN. In this X-FILES rip off, Telly (JM) is a Brooklyn woman married to that bald doctor with the tumor from ER (Anthony Edwards); their kid was "killed" in a plane crash a year earlier. Telly discovers at movie minute 10 that all the evidence of the kid's existence has disappeared, and even ER Doc says they never had a kid. Worse, her psychiatrist (Gary Sinise) agrees. This set up might have reinforced your belief that borough living ain't all it's cracked up to be, or at least kept you guessing for a while. But within literal minutes, Telly finds another parent (a conveniently single dad and ex-hockey player) and, by destroying his home office decor, reminds him of his missing daughter, thus effectively removing any question about whether she's crazy or the victim of a cosmic plot. They have to run from various law enforcement agencies, and my first thought was that Julianne should dye that red hair or get a hat, but as the days go by and they never stop to shower, her hair gets darker anyway. Creepy events ensue, there's a deserted beach house, and Agent Mulder's sister Samantha shows up at the end. NOT! But that would have been good. Because it's the same kind of story, only without our beloved Fox Mulder. Or even Agent Scully (though there was Telly's red hair to remind us of her). There was one cool touch in this movie: the director used a lot of unsettling overhead shots to set up the scenes, and they contributed to the movie's mood of paranoia. And that was it.