20 Dates | |
---|---|
Directed by | Myles Berkowitz |
Written by | Myles Berkowitz |
Produced by | Phoenician Films |
Starring |
|
Cinematography | Adam Biggs |
Edited by | Lisa Cheek Michael Elliot |
Music by | Robert F. Mann Steve Tyrell |
Distributed by | Fox Searchlight Pictures |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 87 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $60,000 (est) |
Box office | $536,767 (domestic) |
20 Dates is a 1998 American mockumentary film. Myles Berkowitz directs and stars as himself, a man who decides to combine "the two biggest failures in my life--professional and personal" by setting out on a filmed quest to have 20 dates and come out with both a movie career and a love interest. While most of his dates are disasters of varying stripes, Myles ultimately meets the lovely Elisabeth on his 17th date and they completely hit it off, leaving him with a new dilemma when he wants to finish the movie anyway and puts his new romance at risk.
After screening at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival, it was picked up by 20th Century Fox's indie division Fox Searchlight Pictures. An early version of the film had previously screened at the 1997 Slamdance Film Festival. [1] It received mixed reviews from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 35% of 34 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.1/10.The website's consensus reads: "20 Dates explores relatable romantic and career frustrations -- unfortunately, it does so through the exploits of someone who's hard to watch and harder to root for." [2] Metacritic recorded a score of 36 out of 100, [3]
Film critic Christopher Null of Filmcritic.com awarded the film four and a half stars out of five and called the film "hysterical" [4] while Leonard Clady of Variety called it "a mockumentary of inordinate skill", concluding that it's "a satisfying and entertaining movie." [5] James Berardinelli of ReelViews.net called the film "inconsequential" but, at the same time, admitted that some parts of the film are "often hilarious." [6]
On the other hand, film critic Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film a half star out of a possible four stars, opining that "the film has the obnoxious tone of a boring home movie narrated by a guy shouting in your ear" and concluding by calling the film "incompetent and annoying." [7] Jeff Millar of the Houston Chronicle said the film is "a joke" and that "Berkowitz is a rather annoying person". [8]
Gigli is a 2003 American romantic comedy crime film written, co-produced and directed by Martin Brest, and starring Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, Justin Bartha, Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Lainie Kazan.
Love's Labour's Lost is a 2000 British musical romantic comedy film written, directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh, based on the comic play of the same name by William Shakespeare. The first feature film to be made of this lesser-known comedy, Branagh's fourth film of a Shakespeare play was a box-office and critical disappointment.
Bad News Bears is a 2005 American sports comedy film directed by Richard Linklater, written by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa and starring Billy Bob Thornton, Greg Kinnear, Marcia Gay Harden and Sammi Kane Kraft. It is a remake of the 1976 sports film The Bad News Bears, produced by Paramount Pictures. Unlike the original film, it received mixed reviews and grossed just $34 million against its $35 million budget.
John Campbell McTiernan Jr. is an American retired filmmaker. He is best known for his action films, including Predator (1987), Die Hard (1988), and The Hunt for Red October (1990). His later well-known films include the action-comedy-fantasy film Last Action Hero (1993), the action film sequel Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), the heist-film remake The Thomas Crown Affair (1999), and The 13th Warrior (1999). His last completed feature film was the mystery-thriller Basic, released in 2003.
Summer of Sam is a 1999 American crime thriller film about the 1977 David Berkowitz serial murders and their effect on a group of fictional residents of an Italian-American neighborhood in The Bronx in the late 1970s. It focuses on two young men from the neighborhood: Vinny, whose marriage is faltering due to his cheating, and Ritchie, Vinny's childhood friend who has embraced punk fashion and music.
Incident at Loch Ness is a 2004 mockumentary starring, produced by and written by Werner Herzog and Zak Penn, while also serving as the latter's directorial debut. The small cast film follows Herzog and his crew while working on the production of a movie project on the Loch Ness Monster titled Enigma of Loch Ness. Incident at Loch Ness won the New American Cinema Award at the 2004 Seattle International Film Festival.
Superstar is a 1999 American romantic comedy film and a Saturday Night Live spin-off about a quirky, socially inept girl named Mary Katherine Gallagher. The character was created by SNL star Molly Shannon and appeared as a recurring character on SNL in numerous skits. The story follows Mary Katherine trying to find her place in her Roman Catholic private school. The movie is directed by former Kids in the Hall member Bruce McCulloch. It stars Molly Shannon, Will Ferrell, Elaine Hendrix, Harland Williams, Mark McKinney, who appeared in many of the Mary Katherine Gallagher SNL skits on TV, and Glynis Johns in her final film. Molly Shannon received a nomination for Blockbuster Entertainment Award "Favorite Actress - Comedy" but lost out to Heather Graham in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.
Welcome to Mooseport is a 2004 American political satire comedy film directed by Donald Petrie, and starring Ray Romano and Gene Hackman in his final film role to date. It was filmed in Jackson's Point, Ontario and Port Perry, Ontario.
James Berardinelli is an American film critic and former engineer. His reviews are mainly published on his blog ReelViews. Approved as a critic by the aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, he has published two collections of reviews of movies on DVD and video. He is also a fantasy novelist, publishing a trilogy from 2015 through 2016 known as The Last Whisper of the Gods.
Paycheck is a 2003 American science fiction action film directed by John Woo. Written by Dean Georgaris, it is based on the 1953 short story "Paycheck" by Philip K. Dick. The film stars Ben Affleck, Uma Thurman, Aaron Eckhart, Paul Giamatti, Michael C. Hall, Joe Morton, and Colm Feore. The film was released on December 25, 2003, by Paramount Pictures in North America and DreamWorks Pictures internationally, to negative reviews.
Surf's Up is a 2007 American animated mockumentary comedy film produced by Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation, and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. It was directed by Ash Brannon and Chris Buck from a screenplay they co-wrote with Don Rhymer and producer Chris Jenkins, based on a story by Jenkins and Christian Darren. The film stars the voices of Shia LaBeouf, Jeff Bridges, Zooey Deschanel, Jon Heder, and James Woods. It is a parody of surfing documentaries, such as The Endless Summer and Riding Giants, with parts of the plot parodying North Shore. Real-life surfers Kelly Slater and Rob Machado have vignettes as their penguin surfer counterparts. To obtain the desired hand-held documentary feel, the film's animation team motion-captured a physical camera operator's moves.
Stay is a 2005 American psychological thriller directed by Marc Forster and written by David Benioff. It stars Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts, Ryan Gosling and Bob Hoskins, with production by Regency and distribution by 20th Century Fox. The film represents intense relationships centering on reality, love, death, suicide, and the afterlife.
Drumline is a 2002 American coming-of-age teen comedy-drama film directed by Charles Stone III. The screenplay, which was inspired by the Southwest Dekalb High School Drumline, was written by Tina Gordon Chism and Shawn Schepps. The film follows a young drummer from New York, played by Nick Cannon, who enters the fictional Atlanta A&T University and bumps heads with the leader of his new school's drum section. Zoe Saldaña, Leonard Roberts and Orlando Jones co-star.
Undertow is a 2004 American psychological thriller film co-written and directed by David Gordon Green and starring Jamie Bell, Devon Alan, Dermot Mulroney and Josh Lucas. Taking place in Georgia, the film tells the story of two boys pursued by a murderous uncle.
Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie is a 2002 American animated Christian musical comedy adventure film produced by Big Idea Productions and released by Artisan Entertainment through its F·H·E Pictures label. Written and directed by Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki in their feature directorial debuts, it is the first of the two theatrical feature films in the VeggieTales series, before The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie (2008).
Instinct is a 1999 American psychological thriller film, directed by Jon Turteltaub, and starring Anthony Hopkins, Cuba Gooding Jr., George Dzundza, Donald Sutherland, and Maura Tierney. It was very loosely inspired by Ishmael, a novel by Daniel Quinn. In the United States, the film had the working title Ishmael. In 2000, the film was nominated for and won a Genesis Award in the category of feature film. This was the first film produced by Spyglass Entertainment.
The Darjeeling Limited is a 2007 American comedy-drama film directed by Wes Anderson, which he co-produced with Scott Rudin, Roman Coppola, and Lydia Dean Pilcher, and co-wrote with Coppola and Jason Schwartzman. The film stars Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Schwartzman as three estranged brothers who agree to meet in India a year after their father's funeral for a "spiritual journey" aboard a luxury train. The cast also includes Waris Ahluwalia, Amara Karan, Wallace Wolodarsky, Barbet Schroeder, and Anjelica Huston, with Natalie Portman, Camilla Rutherford, Irrfan Khan, and Bill Murray in cameo roles.
Flirt is a 1995 drama film written and directed by Hal Hartley and produced by Good Machine.
Getting Away with Murder is a 1996 American black comedy film directed and written by Harvey Miller.
Three Colours: Red is a 1994 drama film co-written, produced and directed by Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski. It is the final installment of the Three Colours trilogy, which examines the French Revolutionary ideals; it is preceded by Blue and then by White. Kieślowski had announced that this would be his final film, planning to retire claiming to be through with filmmaking; he would die suddenly less than two years later. Red is about fraternity, which it examines by showing characters whose lives gradually become closely interconnected, with bonds forming between two characters who appear to have little in common.