54 (1998) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

I won't pretend that "54" was a good movie. It might have been good, but it just couldn't figure out what to concentrate on, so it used a scattershot approach and ended up just rambling through a bunch of episodes, all of which were pretty much undeveloped sub-plots. 
But I thought ol' Austin Powers was absolutely great as Steve Rubell, so good that I was wondering for a minute if they did some kind of Forrest Gump thing where they used footage of the real Steve Rubell. I wouldn't have been at all critical if they had nominated Myers for an Oscar. Of course, he was performing next to Ryan Phillippe, who was nominated by the Razzies as the worst actor of the year for this movie, so that might have made Mike seem better, but I think the silliness of the Austin Powers and Wayne's World movies has kind of blinded us to the fact that Myers is really a talented and versatile performer. 

NUDITY REPORT

Ryan Phillippe shows his butt

DVD info from Amazon.

  • Widescreen letterboxed, 1.85:1

  • a music video

The ALMA society did nominate Salma Hayek as best actress in a feature film for her performance in this movie. That is an award specifically created to honor Latin performers, and  Salma undoubtedly deserved the nomination because she did a good job -

-  but it's only fair that I tell you that other nominees for other awards included Eric Estrada for Chips '99, and Wilmer Walderrama for "Love Boat: the Next Wave".

The Critics Vote

  • General consensus: three stars. Maltin 2/4, Berardinelli 2.5/4, Apollo 53/100

  • Rotten Tomatoes summary. 17% positive reviews.

The People Vote ...

  • With their votes ... IMDB summary: IMDb voters score it 5.3, Apollo users 67/100 
  • With their dollars ... budget $13 million, domestic gross $17 million
IMDb guideline: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence, about like three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, about like two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, about like two stars from the critics. Films under five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film, equivalent to about one and a half stars from the critics or less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Based on this description, this film is a C-.

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