Orgazmo (1998)

★★½
Trey Parker's Orgazmo has all the qualities of an amateur's film project. It is cheap, overacted and frequently goes for shock value instead of genuinely clever gags. It is also very funny when it works. Imagine standing around the shallow end of a swimming pool but getting sprayed with water as compensation. It isn't as satisfying, but you're still getting wet. When an overweight woman known as the T-Rex mounts Parker's Joe Young during a porno shoot, the obvious sight gag inspires no more than a chuckle, until we get a great dissolve into Young's mind, giving us a visual of how he deals with his unenviable situation.

Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! (2004)

★★★
Robert Luketic, the director of Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!, knows exactly what makes Kate Bosworth so endearing. She has a lovely smile. Here, Bosworth doesn't shy away from smiling, which is one of the reasons why I liked this movie. Oh, don't get me wrong. The script has some real humor in it, the performances are charming without being sickly cute, and I liked how the character of Tad Hamilton was presented. By 2004, Bosworth was receiving a steady stream of work. Her supporting role in The Rules of Attraction was small, but she captured our attention the moment she appeared on the screen. She demonstrated in Blue Crush that she could hold her own as a romantic lead, which she does to perfection here.

Election (2005)

★★
Prolific Hong Kong director Johnnie To juggles a large cast of characters set against the backdrop of the Triad societies in Election, a fast-paced yet convoluted story that nearly sinks under the weight of so many gangsters vying for screen time. I watched the movie twice. The first time I was really confused on who was who. A second viewing cleared things up, but not enough to get a firm grasp of who was working for whom. This is a story that would have greatly benefited by having its cast trimmed down. It is absolutely possible for a movie to feature many characters. Just off the top of my head, I'm thinking of Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line, which has nothing to do with Election, except as an example of how a story can feature a lot of actors who weave in and out of the narrative as it progresses.

Blast from the Past (1999)

★★★
Brendan Fraser was the lovable goofball of the '90s.  He had established himself as a light comedy actor who seemed bewildered at his surroundings.  He was really good at it too.  Through Encino Man and George of the Jungle and 1999's Blast from the Past, he became the go-to actor for these fish-out-of-water stories.  His willingness to take on these roles, some of which were downright silly, made him a dependable leading man for a specific kind of movie.