Video Picks Archive

January 11, 2000
This Week's Video Picks
Back to Archive

Reviews by Matt Heffernan <matt@filmhead.com>

This week my picks are Me, Myself & Irene (2000 - ) and Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly) (1966 - ).

The first film this week is the latest work from Peter and Bobby Farrelly, the creative team behind There's Something About Mary and Dumb and Dumber. Jim Carrey stars as a Rhode Island state policeman who suffers from multiple personality disorder. At any moment, he can go from a mild-mannered guy into a raging psychopath, but his medication can control it. Unfortunately, he loses his medicine while escorting Renée Zellweger to the Upstate New York town where she is awaiting trial. While not up to the level of the Farrellys' previous work, Me, Myself & Irene is still an entertaining film, thanks mostly to Carrey's energetic performance.
Full review from June 23, 2000

While Carrey's character is within the psychotic personality, he basically does an impression of Clint Eastwood. So, I figured a good second pick would be The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Sergio Leone remade Kurosawa's samurai films Yojimbo and Sanjuro into the "spaghetti westerns" Fistful of Dollars (1964) and For a Few Dollars More (1965), with Eastwood playing a gunslinging version of Toshiro Mifune's ronin. In 1966, Leone made the last film of the trilogy, this time without any source material. The result was a sensation that eclipsed the popularity of the first two films, and has remained a permanent fixture in the public consciousness. While many remember The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly for its stark violence and operatic drama, it is Ennio Morricone's influential score that haunts the viewer. It is just another example of how something uniquely American, like the western, can be interpreted by a foreign artist and provide an entirely new perspective. The genre was never the same again, and one could blame its demise on this film, which made the prospect of making a better western futile.

Here's some merchandise for sale at

Me, Myself & Irene (2000)	-- VHS
Me, Myself & Irene (2000)	-- DVD
Me, Myself & Irene, a screenplay novelization by David Jacobs	-- Paperback
Me, Myself & Irene: Soundtrack	-- Compact Disc
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)	-- VHS
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)	-- DVD
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack	-- Compact Disc

webmaster@filmhead.com