"The title, incidentally, refers to the weight that a body eerily loses at the instant of death, that could be construed as the weight of the soul"

Obvious, but ANSWER: 21 Grams

Dear lord, he thinks it's true.

"I never really got those ships. How do they fly? They're not in space, where there's no gravity."

ANSWER: The Matrix Revolutions

I... There's no gravity in space? He doesn't... I... Does he know about other things that fly here on earth?

"It is pure pagan glee, a raptor's flesh fest, a zesty paprika of cannibal stew, stylized toward almost total abstraction, beyond describing, beyond imagining except by its makers."

ANSWER: Blade II

No, it's not a description of one of his other reviews. My question is, is the stew made of cannibals? That's ironic. The "paprika of cannibal" part is particularly confusing. Maybe he thinks "paprika" is a cooking style? I'd also like to mention that later in the same review he says "the plot, while nonsensical if you don't believe in vampires, has a truly intriguing force..." So you have to actually believe in vampires to make sense of the plot. Fascinating.

This isn't a guess-the-movie item, but I had to include the quote. It's from another Sunday page-filler, "Gone but Not Forgotten,"about movies that shouldn't have gotten Oscars. Hunter prepares to babble about Gone With the Wind with an extended apology/come-on to "Southern ladies" who might presumably take offense, leading to this:

"I love your wit, your mirth, your toughness. I love the way you always cross your legs like women and never like men."

I am speechless.

This one's a little different -- instead of the movie's name, try to guess who he's describing:

"[A] model who has turned into an excellent actress [...] [She] doesn't overplay her hand; her reaction to the slaughter is distinctly recognizable as shock and total fear. She goes white and slack and almost loses control of her faculties. "

ANSWER: Harrison's Flowers. Which means that the "excellent actress" is... Andie MacDowell.

If the fact that she "almost loses control of her faculties" doesn't come close to overplaying her hand, what on earth would?

"He's one of the moviest things about the film but by no means the only movie thing."

ANSWER: Hart's War

I see. Is there reason he couldn't use the word "cliche," since that's plainly what he meant?

Katie emailed me to let me know that in his review of Everybody's Famous, Stephen Hunter declared: "I am a stupid, arrogant American..." Tell us something we don't know, Steve.

"Is this a lot of victims by Jet Li standards? Or is it rather modest? Out of context, I have no idea. [...] Without a PhD in Jetology from the University of Hong Kong, who can speak authoritatively?"

ANSWER: Kiss of the Dragon

I'm pretty sure there are people who know a lot about Hong Kong martial arts movies. So someone can speak authoritatively, and given that you're being paid to talk about movies, it seems like you could bother spending ten minutes doing research on the subject. Because, I don't know how to tell you, but as a critic, sometimes it's your job to provide context.

"The movie is brought to a limp, but never crippled, by its agenda, which is feminist but sensible"

ANSWER: Songcatcher

It's limping but it isn't crippled? So it's just wearing tight shoes? He does have a gift for torturing metaphors, I must admit. Oh, and the "feminist but sensible" bit? Very nice. Thanks for distinguishing it from the usual kind of CRAZY feminism.

Props to Jenn Babiarz, who alerted me to this fabulous opening:

"Nothing succeeds like abscess, and [TITLE] is a pocket of infection on the skin of the American body cultural."

ANSWER: Scary Movie 2

So there's a pun, but.. huh? Does an absess typically succeed at anything? Anyone else think that he thought of this "joke" and just wanted to use it, without worrying about whether it made any sense?

"Yet these momentous discoveries -- that he is gay, that he enjoyed dinner with a friend, a nice Peruvian chianti and some fava beans -- only slowly emerge as the film [TITLE] plays out, beautifully evoked by directors David and Laurie Shapiro."

ANSWER: Keep the River on Your Right

Yes, I know. There's nothing particularly awful about that sentece. But wait, context matters. That was the start of the fifth paragraph in the article. It was the first time Hunter mentioned that he was talking about a movie, much less mentioned the title. After reading the entire article, it's not clear whether the movie is a documentary or not. I really want to quote the whole thing so you can see how frustrating it is to read four paragraphs of random facts about someone without knowing why you're meant to care, but that would really be pushing the fair use laws, so I won't. Just trust me.

"I have no idea by what alchemy such an illusion is produced, but in mid-gunfight he will stop things, and the camera will then move through and around the frozen-in-time objects and men and find a new location from which to observe the action, at which point speed returns. Amazing stuff, if that's the kind of stuff that amazes you."

ANSWER: Time and Tide

So, first of all, apparently the whole "freezing the action and swooping the camera" shtick managed to escape Mr. Hunter, even after being featured in The Matrix, five hundred videos, and five thousand commercials. I always suspected he lived in a cave, so that's fine. Johanna and I spent a while trying to decide if he was being saracastic, that's how confused we were. And that last sentence? Well, much like the whole thing: is he trying to be funny? Or is he really that dumb? You're right. I don't want to know.

"It's set either the day before yesterday or the day after tomorrow... that is, now."

ANSWER: Traffic

He gets paid by the word, that's the only explanation. And was anyone wondering whether this movie was a historical drama set in some distant age?

"They're blue-collar working guys encased in canvas, leather and lead, umbilicalled by chain and oxygen hose to a surface craft..."

ANSWER: Men of Honor

First cataclysmizer, now umbilicalled. Steven, you're not Joyce; quit making up words.

"He thus resorts to psychic nihilism and fractionalization, as if becoming two beings."

Bonus hint: one character is described as "the cataclysmizer."

ANSWER: Fight Club

Seriously, does anyone edit this stuff? Cataclysmizer? Psychic nihlism?

"Mostly it was McQueen posing without seeming to notice the camera, his style radiating outward like a wave of radioactivity."

ANSWER: The Thomas Crown Affair -- the review is of the remake, though obviously(?) he's talking about the original here.

Radiating like...radioactivity. Nice simile.

"We fear what hunts us. That is why we fear the shark."

ANSWER: Deep Blue Sea

Okay, sweetie, time for your meds. Last time I checked, sharks don't hunt us. I haven't seen one single great white on safari. That "landshark" sketch on the old SNL-- that was just a joke.

"There's not much story, which is another way of saying there's too much."

ANSWER: Lake Placid

I think this demonstrates his keen grasp of language.

"The values - headed by pleasure, defined as instantaneous appetite gratification, at the expense of everything else - are deeply shallow. Nobody's very good looking. The colors are vulgarly garish."

ANSWER: Run Lola Run

Nobody's very good looking? Sadly, it is not unusual for Mr. Hunter to rate movies based on the attractiveness of the cast. Hint: he likes Nicole Kidman's hair a lot.

"It recognizes that those earlier black generations lived in a different world and were locked in a more tragic prison than Camp No. 8. It was a Devil's Island called Repression, where all the signposts read: "Anger Not Permitted on Pain of Death." They couldn't articulate their fury but had to tunnel deep into their souls and hide it. The system that oppressed them was immutable as the Earth itself."

ANSWER: Life -- yes, the Eddie Murphy movie, yes, really.

I just don't know what to say about this except "huh?"

"It's the kind of mock-Blenheim Palace with mahogany walls and leather sofas, portraits with little brass lights over them, lots of Persian rugs and servants who probably had ancestors at the Round Table to get hair that snowy-perfect."

ANSWER: 8 MM

Oh, that kind of mock-Blenheim Palace. Right. And no, I have no idea what the Round Table has to do with having white hair.

"The film could be a trip, a kick, a hoot. But it's a trap, a quirk, a snootful. Watching it is like riding a roller coaster through a meat grinder."

ANSWER: Payback

The reviewer could be annoying, insipid, repetitive. But he's actually... no, wait, I got it the first time.

Both quotes are from the same review, and it's pretty obvious what the movie is, honestly, but nonetheless:

"Shakespeare is blocked is what Shakespeare is. Anybody who throws words at paper or screen will recognize the phenomenon: the clottage is general, like the snow falling on Ireland in the beginning of Joyce's 'The Dead.'"

I think poor Joyce was dragged into this in a feeble attempt to distract us from the lame comparison. Essentially he's saying that writer's block is general, just like snowfall is. What? Oh yeah, and: "clottage?"

"It plays like knockabout farce, with swordfights, tavern wenches whose D-cups runneth over, couplings and uncouplings, drinking bouts,issues of theater history, mix-ups, brawls and a little bit of nastiness regarding Shakespeare's competitor Christopher Marlowe (who was gay and is played by the gay Rupert Everett in a nice moment of sheer touche!)."

ANSWER: Shakespeare in Love

There's so much here. First, I'm not sure we can say with any authority what Christopher Marlowe's sexual preferences were. Second, I imagine that Rupert Everett would have reason to be offended at the implication that his casting was some sort of gay in-joke and not based on anything like his actual acting abilities. Third, "sheer touche?"

"Likewise, the Egyptian architecture has been cleverly created to carry a message. Its geometric mass and density almost beyond human measure aptly invoke a world with many followers and but one leader, who in his own mind thought he was beyond human and nearly a god himself. It's the architecture of human delusion, grandly evil in its assumption of the ruler's right to command the totality of social obedience."

ANSWER: The Prince of Egypt

I want to see an interview with an animator who says that yes, in fact we did design the architecture based on human delusions. As opposed to basing them on what we know about Egyptian architecture.

"[TITLE CHARACTER], on the strengths of lectures, books, plays and an almost autistic talent for epigrams..."

ANSWER: Wilde

An autistic talent for epigrams. What more can one say?

"Some call him the space cowboy and some call him the gangster of love, but in [TITLE], Warren Beatty finds a new personality."

ANSWER: Bulworth

This was the first sentence of the review, mind you, so don't go thinking that I'm taking things out of context so they don't make sense. They didn't make sense in context either.

"In a final witless trope, the movie's credits declare that it was directed by Alan Smithee when the director of record, Arthur Hiller, took his name off the credits in a coincidence too cute to be true."

ANSWER: An Alan Smithee Film

But... but... but it's true that Hiller took his name off the movie. So does that mean it's not that cute after all? Good, because I didn't think it was cute at all. Maybe a bit ironic, but not especially cute.