Original Sin (2001) Antonio Banderas, Angelina Jolie, Thomas Jane, Jack Thompson, Gregory Itzin, Allison Mackie, John Pringle, Cordelia Richards, James Haven, Pedro Armendariz Jr. Written and directed by Michael Cristofer, based on the novel "Waltz Into Darkness" by Cornell Woolrich. 112 minutes. Rated R, 1.5 stars (out of five stars)
Review by Ed Johnson-Ott, NUVO Newsweekly www.nuvo.net Archive reviews at http://reviews.imdb.com/ReviewsBy?Edward+Johnson-Ott To receive reviews by e-mail at no charge, send subscription requests to<EMAIL_ADDRESS>or e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>with the word "subscribe" in the subject line.
For "Original Sin," the road to the screen has been rocky. Initially slated for release last November, the film was bumped twice, finally landing in the dog days of summer 2001. Advance screenings of the film were denied to all but a few critics, generally a sign that the studio realizes it has a dud on its hands. So is "Original Sin" really all that bad?
Yes it is, but the melodrama does offer some rewards. The location settings are gorgeous and there is a healthy sprinkling of T&A (with Angelina Jolie providing the "T" and Antonio Banderas the "A"). More importantly, the movie is entertainingly bad. Veteran readers know that, as a rule, I don't encourage people to patronize lousy films. Most of the time, there are plenty of quality offerings on the marketplace that are more deserving of our money and besides, the "let's go laugh at the failings of others" mindset reflects an elitism that makes me uncomfortable.
But things are different this summer. Quality films, to put it mildly, have been few and far between, so as far as I'm concerned, it's fair to find our kicks where we may. "Original Sin" will never join such treasures as "Valley of the Dolls," "Road House" and "Showgirls" in the Bad Movie Hall of Fame, but it'll do until something worse comes along.
The film, adapted by director Michael Cristofer from the Cornell Woolrich novel, "Waltz into Darkness" (which was also the source for the 1969 Francois Truffaut film, "Mississippi Mermaid"), opens in a turn-of-the-century prison, as Jolie's character, slated for a dawn execution, tells her lurid tale to a priest who appears desperately horny. The freshman writing class tone is quickly established when she says things like, "This is not a love story, it is a story about love."
Wary of local gold-diggers, Cuban coffee dealer Luis Antonio Vargas (Banderas) makes arrangements to secure a mail order bride from America, listing himself as a mere clerk to dissuade foreign gold-diggers. A practical man, Luis chooses a frumpy looking lady, hoping she will be a loyal mate able to provide him with children. Imagine his surprise when his fiancée, Julia Russell (Jolie), turns out to be infinitely more attractive than the woman in the photo.
Julia explains that she sent a different woman's image because she didn't want to be selected solely for her pretty face. Luis then confesses his deception, leading Julie to state, with great significance, "We have something in common, We are both not to trusted."
After their wedding, Luis and Julia retire for a glorious night of carefully choreographed lovemaking, with their bodies positioned to display her breasts and his bottom as erotically as possible. Jolie and Banderas are attractive people and watching them naked is fun, although the filmmakers' insistence on using one of Banderas' legs to cover Jolie's crotch makes it look like he's trying to climb her.
Luis, the stupidest man who ever lived, immediately instructs the bank to make his personal and business accounts available to Julia, despite the fact that she seems nothing like the woman with whom he corresponded. His blissful ignorance continues as the warning signs mount up. Luis must force Julia to write to her sister Emily, who is frantic over her lack of communication. Shortly after Julia complains about the chirping of a pet bird, it is found on the floor of its cage with a broken neck. Finally, when she cleans out his accounts and disappears, Luis begins to suspect that something might be wrong.
Incidentally, if you're afraid I'm giving too much away, rest assured that all of this happens in the first 30 minutes of the movie, leaving plenty of time for numerous dopey plot twists, a great deal of operatic acting and more footage of her tits and his ass.
Along the way, private detective Walter Downs (played by Thomas Jane, who was terrific as Mickey Mantle in the HBO movie "61*") turns up, hired by the frumpy woman's sister to find out what happened to the real Julia.  Oh, the pathos of it all.
The cast appears to recognize the trashiness of the story, adjusting their performances accordingly. Banderas is suitably impassioned, while Jolie alternates between vamping and pouting (and with those lips, she can really pout). As for Thomas Jane, he starts off acting suspicious and cagey, then accelerates to a Snidely Whiplash level of nastiness. His most startling moment comes when, to prove his power to humiliate, he forces Luis against a wall, verbally taunts him while rubbing his cheeks against those of Luis and then finishes establishing his dominance with a full-on kiss. If anyone ever questions the difference between sex and rape, show them this chilling scene.
And if anyone ever questions the difference between real drama and a laughable potboiler, show them "Original Sin."
© 2001 Ed Johnson-Ott
========== X-RAMR-ID: 29141 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 242768 X-RT-TitleID: 1109215 X-RT-SourceID: 591 X-RT-AuthorID: 1099 X-RT-RatingText: 1.5/5
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews


| Home | Libraries | People | FAQ | More |
Short tutorials on regular expressions can be found
here and here.
关于正则表达式的简短教程可在 这里
和 这里
找到。
The main book on regular expressions is Mastering
Regular Expressions, published by O'Reilly.
正则表达式的主要书目：Mastering Regular Expressions,
published by O'Reilly。
Boost.Regex forms the basis for the regular expression chapter of the Technical
Report on C++ Library Extensions.
Boost.Regex 被作为 Technical
Report on C++ Library Extensions 中关于正则表达式一章的基础。
The Open
Unix Specification contains a wealth of useful material, including
the POSIX regular expression syntax.
Open
Unix Specification 中有许多有用的材料，包括POSIX正则表达式语法。
The Pattern Matching
Pointers site is a "must visit" resource for anyone interested
in pattern matching.
Pattern
Matching Pointers 对于任何对模式匹配有兴趣的人，是一个"必须看"的网站。
Glimpse and Agrep, use
a simplified regular expression syntax to achieve faster search times.
Glimpse and Agrep 使用了一个简化的正则表达式语法来获得更快的搜索时间。
Udi Manber and
Ricardo Baeza-Yates
both have a selection of useful pattern matching papers available from their
respective web sites.
Udi
Manber 和 Ricardo
Baeza-Yates 在他们的网站上都有一些有用的关于模式匹配的论文。


Responsible for providing architecture design and solutions to business vision/problem statement. Experience in the successful delivery of complex applications. Migration to cloud computing using Amazon Web Services components and Continuous Development/Deployment. Owning the complete software lifecycle from design through development to devops. Leading software engineering teams for successful delivery of Quality products. Also served as the production delivery lead supporting complex Rewards and HCS domain systems. Owning the stability and reliability of large complex applications of the Rewards and HCS domain. Managing production troubleshooting activities including production incidents and war rooms(priority 1 and 2 incidents). Leading the development of automation and scripts to develop production environments. Leading the initiative to increase the monitoring capabilities making a huge impact on reducing mean time to detect and mean time to restore. Improved faster incident resolutions, better communication during war rooms, Increased application performance and Efficiency. Specialities: Architecture design and solutions, Product Increments, Process Improvements, Agile methodology, Product increment planning, Github, Azure DevOps, New relic, Estimations, Web services, Data/Predictive Analytics.
Responsibilities: Providing architecture design and solutions to business vision/problem statement. Work with the stakeholders and product manager to understand the business architecture. Work with project manager/scrum masters and business analysts to make sure business architecture is translated into business requirements. Work with the software engineering teams and other architects in sharing the proposed architecture design and validating the architecture governance during for successful delivery of products/projects. Owning the complete software lifecycle from design through development and deployment. Service level owner lead for multiple critical services/ applications under Human Capital Services domain. Specialties: Architecture designs and solutioning, Agile methodology, Process Improvements, Product increment planning, Github, Azure DevOps,Octopus Deploy, New Relic, Estimation, Technical Delivery Management, Cloud Computing/Amazon Web Services, Qualtrics/Salesforce APIs, Redis Elasticache, AWS S3, Lambda, Web & Single Page Applications(SPA), Web Services/Windows Services, Performance Tuning etc. Single Sign-On(SSO) using NAM and Okta. Analyzed and implemented data privacy and security for HIPAA, GDPR and PCIDSS compliance. Data Analytics and Predictive Analytics. Management: Stakeholder Management, Vendor Management, Coaching/Mentoring team members and People Management.
Work closely with business teams while gathering requirements. Provide High level estimations of features. Provide high level design to development teams and data model. SOA models and API models to integrate and communicate with other applications. Work with on-shore/off-shore development teams, code reviews, provide standards etc., Responsible for the stability and reliability of large complex applications within TRP/HCS domain.
Work with architects to review the high level design, provide low level design of components, provide guidance to development teams, code reviews, review test cases from QA to make sure all test cases are covered, provide alternative solutions to business on features/business processes etc., Managing production troubleshooting activities including production incidents and war rooms(priority 1 and 2 incidents).
Senior developer/analyst with quality delivery of software products. Assist the QAs and analyze the issues during regression and load testing.
Emphasis on Information Technology Principles with focus on Information Security, Managerial Accounting, Product Development, Data Analytics, Digital Marketing and Business Management.
Emphasis on Computer Applications with focus on Software Development, Computer Programming, Organization Behavior and Information Security.
Emphasis on Team Management, Leadership Skills and Crisis Management.