Movies You Won't Like

The Last Airbender

2012-02-13T21:44:00.004-05:00

Hello? Hollywood? I'd like to report a rape. Haha, just kidding. Rape is nothing to joke about. Especially when the victim is a respectable American anime series, and the perpetrator is one Mr. M. Night Shyamalan. Hey, I've got a novel idea. How about a movie actually follow the source material for once? Wow, that'd be great. Funny how it never happens, not even close.

Okay, so I came into this experience not knowing anything about the majesty and splendor that is the cartoon "Avatar: The Last Airbender". I just thought the movie looked like something I'd enjoy, and there's a Rifftrax for it, and I had a gift certificate. After I finished it I started watching the cartoon to see how close it was, and well, disappointment ensued. I mean in the movie. I'm kind of obsessed with the TV show now. I watched the entire series in about a week, and I'm on the second run-through. It's pretty much the greatest thing I've ever seen. More on that later.

The movie certainly has its flaws aside from the fact that it hardly follows the TV show at all. First off, the acting is abysmal. The kids who did the cartoon voices could wipe the floor with them. Seriously, do you know who's in this movie? Aasif Mandvi. No joke. The token Indian correspondent from "The Daily Show", and he's not a minor character, either. He's one of the main villains. In the cartoon this guy was voiced by Jason Isaacs. Yes, Jason Isaacs. If you don't know him, you should. He's a seasoned British actor who pulls off an American accent pretty decently.

Another gripe I have, and it's a big one - half the character's names are being pronounced incorrectly. You'd think as a fan of the series, M. Night Shyamalan would know how to pronounce the character's freakin' names! And it isn't just minor characters that no one cares about. I'm talking about the Avatar. The bald kid on the cover! The main character! The kid's name is Aang, not Ahng. It's not hard. In fact, they're even mispronouncing the word "Avatar". Oh the humanity! Not even that, all the personality has been sucked right out of everyone. The TV characters are multifaceted and often hilarious. It's a kid's show, but it's pretty damn funny. The movie has virtually no humor.

Ok, on to plot. M. Night must have assumed that I'd watched the cartoon before the show, but he was wrong. Not very considerate on his part. He doesn't let me in on things that I should probably know, like why the kids travel to the North Pole to begin with. That's kind of important. Since I'm nice, I'll let you in on the plot. It's anime, so it's kind of complicated. Pay attention. In this world there are four nations named after the four elements: air, water, earth, and fire. Certain people in each nation can manipulate the elements, and they're called benders. The Avatar is a magical person with the power to manipulate all four elements. That's the bald kid, Aang. Unfortunately he got himself trapped in the ice in true Captain America fashion for 100 years. During that time the Fire Nation started a war and attacked all the other nations. Aang is unfrozen by a couple of siblings named Sokka and Katara, who are from the Water Tribe in the South Pole. Now Aang has to master all four elements and take out the Fire Lord and save the world. And that's not even all of it. I've left some stuff out.

Following the Avatar, and trying to kill him constantly, is the Prince of the Fire Nation, a delightfully pissy young man named Zuko. The movie made him a dark-skinned Indian kid, when in the show he's quite pale and kind of bald. This Indian fellow (who was in "Slumdog Millionaire", which I hear is a good movie, so I haven't seen it) is actually a pretty good actor, so I can forgive his appearance. Plus he's kind of hot. He does my favorite character justice. Seriously, I love this guy. In the movie and especially the show. He's a villain, but you can tell he's really a good person deep down. He's complicated, and I like that in a villain. You know, I sort of wanted him to succeed. The Fire Lord burnt Zuko in the face for being a puss, and banished him from the Fire Nation and sent him on a seemingly impossible quest to find the Avatar, a quest he's been on for a few years now.

So you see this is a very good cartoon, and I really wish someone competent had taken control of this movie, because it could have been epically badass and perhaps the greatest film ever. They just left so much good stuff out and put in some mediocre crap that didn't make any sense. Still, I really wish it had been good enough to merit a sequel. This movie is only based on the first season, where Aang masters water. The second and third seasons are the real gold. I would have liked to have seen them in live action. Way to fail, Shyamalan. Who knows it anyone will ever try to make this series into a movie again? You've ruined it. Really, who the hell thought it was a good idea to let this guy get his hands on a Nickelodeon show? I thought he did horror movies. Next time he should stick to those, because I hardly ever watch them.

I recommend if you watch this you do so with the Rifftrax, because it's hilarious that way. And I highly recommend the cartoon, because it's the greatest thing I've seen in a long while.

The Woman in Black

2012-02-13T16:59:00.004-05:00

No, to answer your question.

Honestly, I only saw this because there's really nothing else good playing right now, but my sister really wanted to go to the movies today because she's currently unemployed and extremely bored. And what the hell else do I have to do? Also, Harry Potter is in it.

I'm such a puss - I don't like scary movies and I tend to avoid them. Now I remember why. I was scared before walking into the theater. I even checked the parental guidelines on IMDB beforehand just to make sure there wasn't too much gore. On a side note, gore isn't scary, it's just yucky. This movie doesn't have a lot of gore, but it has plenty of other disturbing elements that made me shit my pants.

So, Daniel Radcliffe is in it, and his name isn't Harry anymore, it's Arthur Kipps. He's a young lawyer whose wife is dead, and he's a single dad taking care of his four year-old son. I should also mention that it's the early 1900s by my estimation. Arthur has to go to this recently deceased widow's house to sort out her affairs - you know, stuff lawyers do when there's a death. The house is in a marsh, and is the creepiest building I have ever seen. It's grey, there's ivy hanging all over it, and it looks like it has a face. I hate houses that look like faces.

The movie takes a while to get going, but we soon figure out that this house is haunted. After watching ~~Harry~~ Arthur poke around in the dark for what seems like a long time, the scary shit starts. At first it's just noises and shadowy figures and faces in windows, but it gets worse. So much worse. In one scene, Arthur hears a banging noise from the room down the hall, and he approaches it (why?!) to find a rocking chair rocking, rather enthusiastically, by itself. Now at this point I've got my coat over my entire head, expecting the worst, when I'm rewarded with a very quick image of a dead-looking woman rocking in the chair, her face pretty much right in the camera. And she's gone as soon as she showed up. It's a good thing it was just me and my sister there, because I screamed like there was a rapist after me. I'm serious, I literally screamed. And then we started laughing really hard at how wussy we were. The screaming followed by the laughing actually occurred a few times. There were times when I wanted to leave, but I wouldn't because wasting eight bucks is even scarier to me than crazy dead ladies.

So basically, some horrifying stuff pops of nowhere when you least expect it, making you jump out of your seat. And the whole time I was thinking why don't you leave this house?!! That's how a horror movie should be, I think. Classic pants-shitting fun that makes you want to sleep with the lights on. And I don't believe in ghosts at all. I'm thankful for that, otherwise I'd probably be sleeping at my Dad's house tonight. The great thing about this movie it's consistently scary, unlike "Paranormal Activity", which was only scary in the last five minutes.

I was pretty entertained in general, but I don't ever need to watch it again. I should also like to point out that there's some child suicide. The woman in black makes children go crazy and off themselves, which is pretty disturbing. It adds to the creepiness because they're all ghosts too. Honestly, when I was in the theater watching it, I hated it, but now that I'm home with my kitty cat, I thought it was a pretty cool movie. If you see it be sure to bring extra pants. Expect to leave the theater looking like Daniel does in the movie poster.

Green Lantern

2012-01-05T21:23:00.006-05:00

I know, this movie came out in June and it's taken me this long to get my ass over to the Redbox, even though the Redbox is housed in the very building I happen to work in. Anyway, from the moment I saw the trailer, I knew this would be a movie for me. The trailer alone made me laugh out loud and exclaim, "This looks beautiful!" And by "beautiful" I of course meant gloriously silly. It's essentially about a guy who inherits a magical ring from a purple space alien, and now he has to save the Earth from certain destruction. So it's your standard science fiction superhero movie. And it's got Ryan Reynolds, who was voted Sexiest Man Alive in 2010 for a reason. Damn. I could watch that man read the phone book.

Ryan Reynolds plays Hal Jordan, an Air Force pilot who doesn't play by the rules. When I saw this I was worried that this was going to turn into "Top Gun" with space aliens, but luckily I was wrong, and there was neither Kenny Loggins nor homoerotic volleyball. One day Hal stumbles upon a purple alien named Abin Sur (played by the guy who was Jango Fett in the Star Wars prequels), who crash landed on Earth and is now dying. So he gives Hal his green ring and his green lantern, which will give him superpowers and make him one of 3600 other Green Lanterns whose job it is to protect the universe from stuff. Now all Hal has to do is put the ring on and recite the cheesy oath ("in brightest day, in blackest night..." see, it is cheesy), and he becomes a Green Lantern, or rather, a superhero in a tight green suit who can fly and travel through space without ever succumbing to extreme temperatures or needing to breath pesky oxygen. This movie breaks and horribly distorts the laws of physics. I expect nothing less.

Now I was tricked into thinking the villain was another Green Lantern named Sinestro, because first of all, his name is Sinestro, which sounds like "sinister"; second, he's played by Mark Strong, who has been a villain in everything I've seen him in so far; and third, he kind of looks like Satan. But no, he actually turns out to be alright. (He's the guy on the right up there.) The real villain is someone named Paralaxx, because you know in all sci-fi movies you have to have character names that sound like prescription drugs. Paralaxx could easily be a laxative, which makes sense because he looks like a giant pile of shit. His objective is to destroy planets - including Earth, obviously - and suck up all their life energy to make himself more of a badass.

Now it's up to Hal to save not only the planet, but also his love interest/damsel in distress. Her name is Carol, and you know she's the love interest because she spends her first few scenes yelling at Hal. Naturally she comes around - no woman can resist a man who can fly, throw tractor trailer trucks fifty feet up, manifest machine guns out of thin air, and punch the villain in the face so hard he goes hurdling straight into the sun. Come on now.

So as you can imagine, there's a lot of excitement here, mixed in with some ridiculousness, sci-fi cheesiness, and of course, a touch of romance. Totally right up my alley. I wasn't bored for a second.

Camille (1936)

2011-11-03T20:41:00.003-04:00

Here's a movie I thoroughly enjoyed. This is exactly the type of movie a single cat-owning woman watches while eating a pint of ice cream lamenting over the fine young man she happens to be infatuated with this week. All I lacked was the ice cream.

I just had to look this one up. If anyone's seen the 80s version of the movie "Annie", then you've seen pieces of this film. When Mr. Warbucks took Annie to the movies, this is what they saw, so I knew what was coming because they totally spoil the ending. I'm glad though, because it's a sad ending and it would have sucked to have gotten my hopes up for something happy only to be crushed with disappointment. So I'm gonna spoil it for you, too. You'll thank me.

Now, you'd think this movie would be about a woman named Camille. That's what the Netflix envelope told me. Way to fail, Netflix. There's no one named Camille in this whole film. I know because I watched the whole thing waiting for this Camille person to show up, and she stood me up. The heroine's name is Marguerite. She's played by Greta Garbo, who, before watching this film, I wouldn't have known if I had tripped over her corpse. I know, I know, she's one of most famous actresses of all time, whatever. She talks like she's constantly high throughout the entire film. Maybe it's the tuberculosis. You see, Marguerite is very ill. She gets weak and coughs a lot, so I'm calling that tuberculosis, because I have a medical degree in film. (That's not supposed to make sense.)

Anyway, Marguerite meets our dashing leading man, played by Robert Taylor (I know, who?), at the theater, because as the movie informs us in the beginning, this is where you met men in 1847. And by theater they mean women dancing on stage in poofy skirts. The poor bastards, that's the best entertainment they had. That and cigars.

The leading man is named Armand, and he's actually really handsome, and I hardly ever find men in old movies attractive (with the exception of Captain Von Trapp. Mmm.) He's the best looking dude in this movie by far. So he comes up to Marguerite during intermission and pretty much tells her he's been stalking her for months now, and now that he's finally met her, he's sure he's in love with her. Seriously?! Some bitches have it so easy.

Unfortunately Marguerite ends up dating, or courting I guess, the Baron de Varville, even though he's ugly and hit her in the face one time. But, he is a baron and he does have money. Armand sees Marguerite at a party later on and gives her back the handkerchief she dropped in the theater, which he's been carrying on his immediate person at all times for six months in hopes of running into her. Seriously, I should have been born in the 1800s when completely insane behavior was socially acceptable.

But he wins her over somehow and they run away to the country together (which is where everyone in old movies goes when they're in love) and magic ensues. Then Armand's father stops by and convinces Marguerite to leave Armand because he's pretty much giving up everything, including his career, for her, so she leaves him and goes back to the baron, and then she gets really sick again and it's all very sad.

The movie ends with Marguerite on her deathbed, determined to stay alive until Armand comes to her, and at this point there's not a dry eye in the place. Here's where I could have used that pint of ice cream. Of course he comes to her, and he promises her that she'll get well again and they'll go back to the country and everything will be perfect, and as he's yammering on and on and on about sunshine and kittens, she dies in his arms, and the movie ends. It's like the most beautiful, hammy moment in film history. Such glory. I really don't know how something can be so depressing and yet so romantic at the same time. I guess it's because she died happy, since she was with him and got to see him one last time. Christ, I need some chocolate.

Cannon Movie Tales: Puss In Boots

2011-09-06T18:30:00.005-04:00

Being a cat person, I liked this movie. Oh, and this isn't the new Shrek spinoff with Antonio Banderas, by the way. That's another entry, for the future, because you know I'm seeing that shit.

Now, I realize most people aren't familiar with the original story of Puss in Boots, other than that it's about a cat wearing, well, boots. Luckily for you, I happen to know far too much about fairy tales for my own good. Allow me to fill you in. As the story goes, a miller's son inherits his father's pet cat, much to his dismay, since his two brothers got the house and the donkey. Puss, not wanting to be dinner, promises to help the miller's son become rich if he only gives him a sack and a pair of fancy boots. This the miller's son does, so Puss goes out, catches birds and rabbits in his sack, and takes them to the king. Puss tells the king that the gifts are from the Marquis of Carabas, the name he has so cleverly given to his master. Puss then steals an ogre's castle by asking the ogre to turn himself into a mouse as a display of his power (ogres can do that by the way) and then eating him, and the "Marquis" pretty much pretends the castle and surrounding grounds belong to him. The king is pretty impressed at this point and gives the miller's son his daughter to marry. Happily ever after. The end.

Okay, so you may be wondering, like I was, how did the Cannon Group pull this off in 1988, long before adorable computer-generated talking animals? Well, in the beginning, Puss is just a plain old tabby cat. And then this happened...

Sorry if you see a Hormel ad here. Really takes away from my point.

Yeah, that's Christopher Walken. For a moment I thought that he was desperate for doing this movie, but then I realized it kind of makes sense. Walken was singing and dancing in "Hairspray", after all. (Yeah, there's singing and dancing in this movie - it's Cannon.) He's good at whimsy. But yeah, they decided to make Puss turn into a human. So essentially, we don't really see much cat action.

As for the other characters, I will say I'm glad the miller's son is actually handsome. Far too often the Cannon Group has no idea what a handsome man is supposed to look like. Nice job here, though. I'd marry him. The ogre, on the other hand, was questionable. He's no Shrek. He just looks like a fat guy with a unibrow and some unfortunate acupuncture.
Other than that, this movie is very faithful to the fairy tale. I omitted a few details in my description for space, but those details are in the movie, too. The movie even adds a few new things - but they're things that flesh out the story to make it longer and movie-like, not stupid unnecessary stuff that makes no sense to the plot.

Oh yeah, and the singing. I guess if the music isn't something I've experienced in my childhood, then I'm not going to like it as an adult. The songs weren't great, and I usually just wished they were over, especially when dancing was involved. When I want to see dancing, I turn on "Dancing With the Stars" (great show, by the way). In a movie, I want plot.

So, it was pretty good. Lots of fun and silly I've-known-you-for-a-day-and-I-love-you romance. I just wish my cat would get up off her ass and help me get rich and married. Hmm, I don't see that happening.

Red Riding Hood

2011-09-04T21:29:00.006-04:00

Okay, I'm a little indecisive on this one. I've only just finished watching it and I haven't quite gathered my thoughts and formed an opinion yet. It doesn't matter, I'll work it out here. This movie smells like "Twilight". Romance, supernatural creature, a Mustache Dad. That's right, Mustache Dad from "Twilight" (Billy Burke) is in this. (But here he's simply Five O' Clock Shadow Dad.) Oh yeah and it's supposed to be romantic. Not quite absurd, unrealistic, Amy-will-eat-this-shit-up romantic, but still.

The plot is about this girl named Valerie (Amanda Seyfried), who right out the gate tells us in voice over narration that she lives in a town situated next to the evil dark forest, where everyone lives in fear of the werewolf that eats children and such. Okay Valerie, here's a pertinent question: Why the hell did they set up a town here, and why the hell hasn't anyone picked up and moved?! There, I've solved the movie's main dilemma. I guess this is why I'm not a screenwriter.

So Valerie is quite in love with this fellow named Peter. Let me tell you about Peter. The movie made me dislike him, and tried very, very hard to convince me that he was the werewolf. Also, he has the telltale douche bag smirk. If you trust anything I say, trust this. I know the douche bag smirk. This right here is it:
Ugh, he just wreaks of asshole. Is it deceptive? Certainly. Is it sexy? Oh Christ yes. That's why the ladies can't resist it. But I'm one that knows better. Look, don't touch. And furthermore, who was the hairdresser on set? An idiot? Men should not spike their hair in period pieces! That look is so this century! Way to suck the realism out of everything. The point I'm trying to make is, they led me on. It's really easy to think this guy is evil and eats babies. Truth is, he genuinely loves Valerie. Meh.

Valerie's fiance, on the other hand, I was routing for. Check him out.
Mmm, mmm. Boyishly handsome, sweet, humble. The best part? This actor is Jeremy Irons' son! I didn't even know he had a son! Wonderful. But does he get any action? Nope. Oh well, I'll love him if you won't, Valerie.

So throughout the movie, the village tries to rid themselves of this wolf menace by doing the usual - blaming the retarded, accusing witches, calling in Gary Oldman. Gary Oldman plays a priest, which is funny because the priests were the ones chasing him in "Dracula". Ha. I love him and I'm glad he's here, doing his thing.

The thing with this movie is, they really pour on the tension. You know what a tension hook is, right? That dissonant high pitched musical note that makes you think there's someone sinister around the corner, but it turns out it's only someone perfectly innocent like the grandmother sneaking up on the main character inexplicably and in a way that would never happen in real life? Yeah, that seemed to happen every few seconds. It was kind of noticeable.

Though I must give this film props for keeping me guessing right up until the very end. I suspected that whole damn town at some point. It doesn't help that all of them act really creepy and totally suspicious. And you know they're gonna throw some crazy twist at you - the wolf is the last person you'd ever suspect. They were dropping "hints" left and right to try to make you think the wolf is one person, but then five minutes later they drop another "hint" and you're positive it's someone else. I was positive it was going to end a certain way, and then it didn't, and I wasn't prepared. In short, I think I'll like it a lot better the next time I watch it, when I know who to trust and who to mistrust.

Super Mario Bros.

2011-08-29T21:25:00.002-04:00

This little gem comes to us from the crazy messed-up world of 1993, back when my good friends Mario and Luigi were still relatively pixelated. Then came this film. Oh, some say it was the greatest mistake in video game-to-movie history, and some people said it was unnecessary and well, rather stupid, but you know me - unnecessary and stupid is right up my alley. Also throw in my favorite video game of all time, and you have a winner. And besides, what movie is "necessary" anyway? Honestly, I've seen so much worse.

Okay, so admittedly, I have a grand soft spot for anything Super Mario. I used to play #1 and #3 religiously, so much so that my mother had to hide the cartridges from me just to get me to go play outside. I LOVE this game. And yet, it seems a lot of people who loved the games hate this film. Let's explore that, shall we?

I've heard it said this movie has a pretty stupid concept. But seriously, when you think about it, isn't the game pretty stupid? (I say that with only love.) Two plumbers fall into another dimension - one Mushroom Kingdom, if you will - only to find it's run by evil dinosaur-like creatures who've kidnapped the princess, all while strange mushrooms grow all over the place, which the plumbers must consume to enhance their power, thus saving said princess. That's the game, that's the movie. Certainly some things are different, but the concept is the same.

Bob Hoskins, a British man mind you, plays Mario, and he is brilliant. I don't know how a man who was born in the U.K. can pull off such a wonderful Brooklyn accent so perfectly. When I first saw him in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", I seriously thought he was American. In short, he's just the guy to play Mario. Fat plumber with a sassy Italian mustache. I'm also really glad they didn't give him that over-the-top Italian accent that he seems to have in the games. (Lasagna! Mama mia! Pepperoni!)

Then there's Jon Leguizamo. You should know I'm sort of in love with him. He's a bit young to be Luigi, and it's hard to imagine him as Mario's brother, but he's fine, so who cares? And he's Latino, which helps. In movie land, that's the same as being Italian.

Anyway, the Mushroom Kingdom is basically Manhattan, but like a parallel universe. In this universe, people share a common ancestor with dinosaurs, much the same way humans in our world share a common ancestor with apes. They use the phrase "descended from dinosaurs" which I guess is technically true. I'm not Richard Dawkins, okay? The point is the dinosaur people aren't mammals, but they look exactly like humans for some reason.

The Mushroom Kingdom is kind of a dump. It's run by an evil dictator named, you guessed it, King Koopa. Koopa's castle - get this - is the World Trade Center. That's right, and the top part of it is destroyed/missing, which is really eerie and slightly unsettling given their current state of nonexistence. But the city itself is kind of cool - full of easter eggs to amuse people who've played the game - companies named Thwomp and Bullet Bill's for instance. Also, Bob-ombs and Yoshi make a cameo. I love Yoshi! Here he looks like an actual T-Rex, only little and benevolent. Also making an appearance are Goombas and what I assume are Koopa Troopas. They were a bit scary looking, but I think that may have been the point. Toad shows up too, but unfortunately Koopa turns him into a Goomba, which wasn't very nice. As I recall, in the games there were several Toads, so I guess that's not a total loss. (If you don't know what any of these things are, I feel sorry for you. It's like I'm speaking Spanish isn't it? Or Italian, right, cause it's the same thing?)

So the plot is that a meteorite hit Brooklyn 65 million years ago and split it into the two dimensions. The dinosaurs stayed on one and the humans stayed on the other. Or rather, the humans showed up later because they were busy evolving at that point. Anyway, a meteor splitting Earth into two dimensions is really not something any intelligent person would ever believe, but for a movie based on a Japanese video game, I guess I can accept it. Koopa wants the princess because for whatever reason, only she can merge the two dimensions. Koopa is greedy and wants to rule both of them, you see.

Enter Mario and Luigi, into the Mushroom Kingdom to rescue the princess, until much to their dismay, they find that she is in fact...in another castle. Okay it didn't happen like that but it would have been awesome, right? No, she's in the right castle. And Luigi falls in love with her. That's right, folks, Luigi! I guess since I always played as Mario (I insisted my sister be Luigi) I always assumed it's Mario who gets the booty. But then, Luigi is Jon Leguizamo. No offense, Bob, but you can't compete with that shit. You gotta go with what makes sense to the viewer (in some cases). But no worries, Mario has a lady friend of his own, so nobody thinks he's a lonely fat guy.

So that's that. Is it silly? Certainly. Is it stupid? Yeah, perhaps. Is it delightful? Most definitely. Now, Hollywood, it's time to get off your lazy asses and make me a Zelda movie. And....GO! Can you imagine how wonderful that would be? Get that kid who played Eragon to be Link, Amanda Seyfried could be Zelda, Benicio Del Toro could be Ganon, and you've got gold. Morgan Freeman could voice the Great Deku Tree! I'm just throwing out ideas here. It really is a shame Nintendo learned their lesson with this Mario movie (which flopped, btw) and won't ever do Zelda. Bastards.

Kate & Leopold

2011-08-20T12:13:00.003-04:00

I thought I'd take a break from fairy tales and write about something realistic. Hahaha, just kidding, this is another romantic fantasy! I'll never tire of it. I knew I would love this movie the moment I saw the trailer at the tender age of sixteen (don't you dare do the math!). It's a bit far-fetched, perhaps inconceivable, but I enjoy it nonetheless.

Basically it's about a modern day New York City businesswoman who falls in love with a time traveling duke from 1876. I know, right? Meg Ryan is said businesswoman, and her name is Kate, and she's kind of annoying. I didn't really see it when I was a teenager, but I do now. Even though she plays pretty much the same character in every movie I've seen her in, this time she seems more than a bit harpy-like.

Leopold is the handsome Duke of Albany, played by the ever sexy Hugh Jackman. And he gets to keep his accent here, unlike the X-Men movies. Leopold ends up in our time by following Kate's ex-boyfriend Stuart, who found a time portal on the Brooklyn Bridge, and who was lurking in 1876 for a day. Apparently to get to 1876 (just that one year for some reason, the bridge was still under construction), one must jump from the bridge's girders and simply trust that you aren't going to die. I remember the first time I ever visited the Brooklyn Bridge - I squeed with excitement and exclaimed, "This is where you jump to get to 1876!!" and I recalled the part of the movie when Stuart says to Kate, "You have to cross the girder and jump" and she replies in disbelief, "That girder?!". Hahaha, joy.

Anyway Leopold meets Kate because she happens to live in the apartment below Stuart, and though they're broken up, she still likes to berate him. Stuart ends up in the hospital from falling down an elevator shaft, because, get this, Leopold happens to be the inventor of the elevator, and since he's here, all the elevators in NYC are broken! Oh, what a twist! Not really. So Kate ends up spending time with Leopold in Stuart's absence. She's annoyed by him at first (they always are) since she doesn't believe that he's from another time and thinks he's just another crazy person in NYC.

Well I gave it away already, but she ends up jumping off the girder and following Leopold back, after knowing him a week and spending half that week screeching at him. So you know it'll never work out, especially since she's a pants-wearing career woman suddenly thrust into the position of rich 19th century duchess/housewife. Hahahaha I don't think so! Now, for someone like me, I can think of nothing better than to be a duchess in beautiful old New York City. I really want to go there in the 1800s. It sounds glorious. But I have a feeling Kate's going to be jumping the girder again after a few years, once the thrill is gone. A sequel to this movie would be as terrible as it would be fascinating. Cause I'm curious. But I guess I shouldn't be negative and just assume that Kate and Leopold lived happily ever after in married bliss until one day Kate dies thirty years before she was ever born. Oh, time travel!

Cannon Movie Tales: Sleeping Beauty

2011-08-20T04:53:00.002-04:00

This movie is infinitely better than "The Frog Prince". Let me get off track here and tell you about a memory I have. When my sister and I were kids, we used to visit my grandmother (Memere) on Sunday nights while our parents went out to dinner to get away from us. We'd eat McDonald's and watch TV or a movie, while Memere sat in the other room, watching "60 Minutes" and smoking cigarettes. This movie is one we most liked to watch. So I sort of have a bias. Other people may not watch this and long for chicken McNuggets like I do.

But I think even without that, this movie is pretty good. It's funny, there are magical creatures, the songs aren't half bad, it's enchanting, and Morgan Fairchild is in it. Win all over.

Everyone knows the story, and this one isn't much different. Morgan Fairchild plays the Queen, and the movie starts with her singing by a pond about how she longs for a child. I do this a lot. Just kidding, I hate children. Then an elf comes along, played by Kenny Baker, or the guy you call whenever you need a little person in a movie role. He was R2-D2, so he's awesome. The elf, looking to do a good deed, offers to make her a fertility potion consisting of a rabbit's tale, some apple cider, fresh mountain snow, and the queen's tears. Or she could just have sex with the King. Maybe someone should have told her that.

The queen gives birth and names her daughter Rosebud. Rosebud is played by Raquel Welch's daughter, Tahnee, who can't sing but tries anyway. All the trouble begins when, at the grand feast, it's discovered there aren't enough golden plates to accommodate all nine of the magical fairies. Fairies apparently are too good to eat off of silver, I guess. This means they have to not invite one, and they choose the red one. It's a poor choose because she just happens to be the most ~~sensitive~~ evil.

The King does the only sensible thing and has all the spindles in the kingdom destroyed. What I like about this version is that we get to see the effects of such a decision on the kingdom. After sixteen years, everyone's clothes are worn out and ripping, so they complain to the king and queen by way of song and dance. You know if the Tea Party would complain to President and Mrs. Obama with song and dance, people might like them more. Or not. Anyway I always thought the song was delightful and would have it in my head for years to come.

Another one of my favorite parts is when the white fairy puts the whole kingdom to sleep, and subsequently covers the place in ivy vines. It's so cool. Also, when the prince rides up on his white horse (what else?) singing his little heart out with the greatest of cheesiness. I love it. Don't take my word for it; you can watch it for free on YouTube, or on Hulu if you don't mind commercials.

Cannon Movie Tales: The Frog Prince

2011-08-15T19:21:00.011-04:00

Okay here's the thing. I found this delightful little film company called Cannon Group that made a series of fairy tale movies in the 1980s, and they all look ridiculous. So I have to review all of them. Okay, the interesting ones. I'm making this into a brief series of my own. I may do them all at once, I may not. As with all the entries, it depends on whatever I feel like watching, which at least 60% of the time is cheesy 80s fantasy anyway, right? So here you go.

I watched this little film last night on Netflix, and I have to say, I am both horrified and confused. Let's see, the acting was poor, the sets and costumes were unrealistic, it was historically inaccurate, the script was bad, the songs were nauseating, and the frog prince gave me nightmares. It just barely crossed the line into too-stupid-for-me-to-enjoy territory.

This is a touching story about friendship, and of course, pedophilia. Seriously, this girl (you'll recognize her as the little girl who played little orphan Annie in the 80s version), is playing a 12 year old. The actress isn't a day over fifteen. Note that the frog prince is well into adulthood, and possibly his thirties. And we're supposed to accept this as okay. I'd like to know when we're going to see a movie involving an older woman and an innocent young man, perhaps a movie version of Garth Brooks' "That Summer", which in case you don't know is about a lonely widow stealing the innocence of her farmhand one hot summer night. Oh yeah. That would be a film.

I always thought "The Frog Prince" fairy tale was about an adult princess and an adult frog, like a good love story. That would be far less nauseating. And you know what else would keep my breakfast down? If that frog didn't look like he just hopped out of the darkest pits of Hell. You should see him head on. This is him, and my subsequent reaction:Georgia didn't care for him either -she had to shut her eyes. If I saw that thing in my bedroom I'd pick up the cat and I would straight up leave. I'd call the landlord and tell him to tear up my lease. I'd move back in with my father...oh wait, never mind. The point is, he makes Howard the Duck look downright cuddly. At least Howard the Duck had sassy wisecracks.

Anyway, so the plot goes, the Princess Zora (aptly named after a race of water creatures from The Legend of Zelda games) is lonely and has no one to talk to, because she has Helen Hunt for a sister (really) and Helen Hunt is kind of a bitch. Typical older sister, doesn't want the younger one around because she's young and immature. I have an older sister, so I know. Zora is lamenting by the royal pond one night and out pops the demon frog, singing and dancing about how his fellow frogs all thought he was too tall, like anyone gives a damn. All the while I'm wondering why Zora isn't screaming and running away. The frog makes her promise, in the creepiest way possible, to be his friend and let him come back to the palace with her. Kind of a weird thing to ask of a little girl, but alright.

Then the frog, who she's calling Ribbit, offers to teach Zora how to act like a princess. He would know. Not only is he creepy, he's also quite effeminate. But you know he isn't gay because he's obviously into little girls. Helen Hunt goes and gets jealous and does the only sensible thing in the movie - she throws Ribbit into a pit to die of water deprivation, or I guess thirst would be the word I'm looking for here. So Zora braves the "Wood of the Black Heart" (gag) to find him. When she does, she kisses him (on the cheek - thank the movie gods!). Then he turns into Jambi from PeeWee's Playhouse. Seriously, that's the same guy, only without makeup. He's less horrifying as a human, but still by no means handsome.

That's all I have to say about that one. It might be fun to laugh at with friends, provided your friends have a good sense of humor.

PS. Found this while searching for pictures for this entry, and had a good laugh:

That about sums it up.

Justin Bieber: Never Say Never

2011-08-08T19:17:00.004-04:00

First off, let me say, I watched this as a joke. I'm not thirteen years old. I thought it would be funny to review it, and if I'm being honest, it wasn't as painful as I thought it would be. Certainly I'm no Justin Bieber fan, nor am I an anti-fan. I really don't understand why people hate him. Sure his music sucks (oh boy!), but he's got an undeniable charm and preciousness that I didn't know about before.

So anyway, I was curious. Why the hell is this skinny Canadian kid so damn famous? This movie is pretty much your answer. I could not be the Biebs because when I was his age, there was no YouTube. Boggles the mind. And despite what everyone says, he does in fact have talent. He can play the guitar, the piano, the drums, and the trumpet (well, in fact!). I can't wait til he hits puberty finally and starts singing with a man voice, and then maybe he'll hire a better song writer, because he could be doing a lot better, and maybe even get fans that are male and older than fifteen.

Let me talk about these idiot fans for a minute. Gawd, some of the most obnoxious psychotic creatures in all the nation. (I dislike teenage girls to begin with, but still...) Were young girls this nuts over the Beatles? I don't know. It's the same with all of them - painted faces, posters proposing marriage, T-shirts with his face on them, girls from 3 to 13 shouting, "Oh my god, I LOVE Justin Bieber!!1 He's so cute, I love his smile, I love his hair, I know everything about him....he was born on March 1st, 1994 at 12:56am....it was a Tuesday! I'm going to marry him someday. We're GOING to be husband and wife! Do you hear me?!!! JUSTIN WILL BE MY HUSBAND, UNITED FOR ALL ETERNITY IN HOLY MATRIMONY!!!"

For real.

I wonder if young Justin knows that he has an army of teenage girls willing to do his bidding at a moment's notice? Seriously, if he asked them to kill the president, then the president would be dead within a matter of hours. He could make them do anything! Anything. And I sort of understand. When I was that age I was all about Zach Hanson (obviously I was into the youngest Hanson brother, haha). I wanted to marry him, too, and I had posters of him and his brothers all over my wall. But looking at it from a twenty-something perspective, it looks downright insane. There's no kinder word for it. It just looks like mental illness.

So anyway, I guess this documentary is kind of entertaining even if you're like me and don't really give a damn about the Biebs. I could have done without all the concert footage though. Way to wear out my mute button! Of course if you're one of his adoring fans, then this film will be gold for you. Justin's topless a few times (man is he scrawny!), you get to meet his grandparents, you see downright adorable videos of him as a child, and you get a glimpse into what life is like for him on the tour, about to play a sold out show at Madison Square Garden. Even I thought it was nice to see him in this very human way. Because he is pretty adorable, and actually really likable as a person. And I'll totally understand if I get made fun of for saying that. You go right ahead. Call it propaganda, but I like Justin, even if his music isn't my thing. I just hope the next movie they make about him isn't about his downfall and subsequent turn to drugs and hookers. But, that's show business.

Ladyhawke

2011-07-27T19:26:00.003-04:00

Why is it that the most absurdly wonderful things came out of the 1980s? I mean, I came out of the 80s (though I'll be damned if I'm telling you what year). So yeah, that's probably why.

And here I thought Michelle Pfieffer's fantasy roles were limited only to "Stardust". I don't know much, do I? Netflix found me this little gem. Netflix, who knows me better than any useless man has ever bothered to, obviously saw the tagline "The magical legend of an unforgettable love" and just, somehow... knew. I mean, just read that tagline again. It couldn't be more for me if it had my freakin' name in it!

Obviously Netflix was right. This is a story about two cursed lovers - Isabeau, who turns into a hawk during the day, and Captain Navarre, who turns into a wolf at night. The lovers can never be human at the same time, except maybe for the fleeting moments of dawn and sunset. And they've been this way for two years, with no sex! (It's always nice to have characters you can relate to.) All this came about because an evil bishop was in love with Isabeau, but she chose Navarre instead, so the bishop called upon Satan to send a curse from Hell upon them. Because that's apparently what Satan spends his time doing. Cursing folk.

Along to help break the curse is none other than Ferris Bueller. That's right, a young, precious, adorable twenty-three year old Matthew Broderick. He plays a thief named Phillipe, who sort of acts as unofficial main character, since the narrative follows him, and not the lovers, around. Okay I guess that makes him the actual main character. But he goes where the lovers go, helping them out, so I guess it follows them too. Whatever, it's not important. Navarre keeps him around because he wants to kill the bishop, and Phillipe happens to know how to sneak into the church through the drain. He's also sort of the comic relief, so you know he isn't getting any; he's really just a vessel to tell the story. He's got this quirky habit of talking to God in a barely-there, mostly American-sounding British accent, as though God were standing right there next to him. It amused me. Eventually he gave up on even trying to be British and just stuck to talking like Ferris, which is fine. If you can't be British, then stop, I say.

And since this is a fantasy movie, there must be a wise old man. He might be a wizard, a healer, a storyteller, or even the town drunk, but rest assured he will be old and he will know shit. Our token old guy this time around is a fellow called Imperius, and he's a monk/healer. Somehow he knows how to break the curse. And, get this, all they have to do is stand before the bishop. The catch is, they have to both be human when they do. Impossible, right? Wrong! Their solution is not to stand before him at sunset or sunrise, because apparently that doesn't work (?), but to do it on a solar eclipse. If you don't have "Total Eclipse of the Heart" in your head, then you do now! You're welcome.

Needless to say, it's a good ending. It's a sweet, romantic movie. They had me worried for a second since I knew that I was not watching Disney, but they pulled through. So naturally I really liked it. It's what I call "chicken soup for the cougar-spinster cat lady's soul" (<--excellent book idea!).

Also Captain Navarre is pretty hot. Just sayin'.

City of Angels

2011-07-24T20:40:00.003-04:00

This right here is pure silly 90s supernatural romance. It's even got Meg Ryan, who was in every romantic movie back then. And then there's Nicolas Cage. Usually older men with receding hairlines do nothing for me, but I've always found him oddly attractive. Maybe I'm alone on this.

When I think of this movie, not only does that Goo Goo Dolls song come to mind, but also the words "creepy" and "silly", and "what the fuck?". Funny, it didn't seem so weird last time I saw it, which was many years ago. Still, I like it. It's a pretty interesting concept.

If you're not familiar, this is basically a movie about a woman and an angel falling in love, which I've certainly never seen on film before - unless you count 1987's "Date With an Angel", which I don't because I haven't seen that one yet. "City of Angels" is very sweet and touching in a lot of places, but when it's not, it's actually a bit ridiculous. I had to laugh a few times.

Meg Ryan plays a doctor named Maggie, and Nicolas Cage is the angel named Seth who stalks her hospital, waiting for dead people to take to the afterlife. Seth is curious about human life, because he can't feel, or taste, or do much of anything really. He's particularly interested in Maggie, because she's pretty, and because he saw her crying over a patient she couldn't save, and I guess that moved him in some way. So he decides to break all the rules and appear to her, in perhaps the creepiest way possible. He shows up at the hospital at night, long after visiting hours are over, in his black trench coat that he always wears, and speaks to her without much emotion at all. He looks like he wants to bomb the place. The hilarious part is that she's into it! She thinks he's a total hottie and wants his number.

So they end up hanging out. She thinks he's at the hospital visiting Dennis Franz's character, a former angel named Nathan, which sort of becomes the truth. And Maggie totally accepts his weird behavior - asking her to describe the taste of pears for him, for instance. But once she learns that he's a supernatural being, she has some trouble accepting it. I would not have this trouble.

Meanwhile Nathan tells Seth all about how he used to be an angel like him many years ago, and the only way to become human is to fall (you know, like a fallen angel, get it?). And he means literally. So Seth jumps off a skyscraper and becomes a human. Seriously. Now he can bleed and feel and lie and all that fun stuff. The best part - he can have sex now! And that's just what he does. He finds Maggie at her retreat in Lake Tahoe and well, one of those awkward movie sex scenes ensues.

And then Maggie gets hit by a logging truck and dies. For real. So Seth jumped off a building for nothing. Seriously, that's how it ends. Is it necessary? Not really. Is it a shitty way to end a film? Certainly. I can just remember seeing this in the theater, being in the bathroom after the film, and listening to some chick weeping over the whole thing and reciting Nicolas Cage's touching last few lines about how he'd rather have one day with her than an eternity without her or some shit, and me in the stall rolling my eyes and trying not to puke.

I don't know why Seth is so bent out of shape about it. He knows about the afterlife, and that he's gonna go back to heaven and see Maggie someday anyway. Fifty or sixty years probably isn't going to seem that long to a guy who's presumably been alive for quite a while. I think that's why I never got too upset about the ending. At least Seth got some nookie, you know?

PS. You have that Goo Goo Dolls song in your head now don't you? Yeah, me too...:/

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

2011-07-24T19:27:00.004-04:00

I do believe this is the greatest thing I have ever seen. Is there any movie series more awesome than Harry Potter? I can't think of any. Disagree? Well, you're wrong.

Being a total Harry Potter fangirl, I was present at the midnight showing. It's taken me a while to absorb the majesty. This movie will affect you, unless you're like my father and don't understand why people would wait in line for five hours for "this kind of tomfoolery". Here's a book series I actually read (Yes, I do read...), several times in fact. I don't even know why it's so good, it just is. When I read the book for this film a couple of years ago (as soon as it came out, obviously), I wept like a beaten infant. I did likewise in the theater. I'm not too proud to admit it. I just apologize to the poor fellow sitting next to me. I think I've only ever cried like that while watching "The Notebook", and luckily that was in the privacy of my parent's house, so damn, I guess that was quite a while ago.

Let me tell you why this whole Harry Potter book/movie thing makes me so emotional, and it's not just because it involves magic and lots of fanciful things that don't actually exist. (I'm getting emotional just writing about it.) It's not just because I'm the grandest of saps, either. You know, after spending seven books, eight movies, and several years of my young adulthood with these characters, I got a bit attached to them. These sweet, magical people are my friends. I love them as though they were real. And to watch them suffer and die is a lot like the real thing. And boy, does J.K. love to make her characters suffer and die. Wow. It's a little too intense, and I'm questioning my mental balance now. But through all the carnage, the end of this epic saga is a happy one. Ralph Fiennes never does find his nose again, but it's happy nonetheless.

There are so many memorable moments - Ron's mom calling Bellatrix a bitch, Neville beheading the snake with sword of Gryffindor, Ron and Hermione making out, Harry and his friends robbing a bank and escaping on a dragon, the epic battle to protect Hogwarts, Harry finally destroying Voldemort, and pretty much everything Dame Maggie Smith and Alan Rickman do and say. How can you not be filled with joy and emotion?

Oh, and let me tell you about Mr. Alan Rickman, the legend. First of all, the character of Snape is absolutely wonderful, and I wish I had better words to describe him other than "wonderful". You think this guy is evil right up until the very end, right until he's dying and says to Harry, "You have your mother's eyes" (aw jeez, I lost it!), and you find out that he was in love with Harry's mother for years and was always only trying to protect Harry. (It's not a spoiler if everyone knows about it already, okay?). You realize that Snape actually has more than one emotion, and boy does Alan Rickman play this guy well. Hand this man an Oscar! We get to see a side of Snape that's never been seen before - a vision of a lonely, tormented, greasy haired man. It's just glorious. The fact that no one in these movies have won awards for any of the films is evidence that the Academy is full of shit. There, I said it.

Anyway, this movie is classic good vs. evil, dark against light. That's why I ate it up. All of these wizards are fighting the impossible fight against this racist, murdering, nose-less psychopath, all for the rights of muggles and half-bloods (the right to be alive, specifically). And you know the good wizards are gonna win because they have the corny shit like love, and family, and friendship. It's so friggin' magical I can't stand it. Way to go out with a bang, Harry. Holy shit. Way to go out with a bang.

Truly, Ms. Rowling, I hope that you are in your mansion in the U.K. right now rolling around in euros, in true Scrooge McDuck fashion. Why she hasn't been knighted yet, I have no idea.

So in short, if you've never experienced anything Harry Potter, you're missing out. It's time to get on that wagon. You won't regret it.

The Dark Knight

2011-06-14T19:15:00.004-04:00

I know what you're thinking, and yes, it is pretty insane that up until today I had not seen this movie. Sure, it's been a few years now since it came out. Heath Ledger is cold and decomposing. This has been on the old Netflix list for some time now, and well, she just happened to show up in my mailbox last week. So there you go.

You know how superhero movies are usually pretty cheesy and never win any awards? This isn't like any of those. It's kind of like nothing I've ever seen before, which is funny because it's not really my speed. It's got a lot of dude stuff - guns, cars, explosions, you know. Not much romance and no magical creatures. Still, it held my attention. Usually when I watch a film I get distracted and have to find something else to do while simultaneously watching the movie, even good movies. Maybe it was because I've never seen this movie before, but I had my lap top in my lap staring at that screen for the entire two plus hours. I didn't even look away to pet the cat. That's how intense this was. Again, I am sad that Heath Ledger is dead. He did some fine work, and I believe he would have done even grander work had he lived. And those sentiments have nothing to do with how fine he is. (Although, even in dorky clown makeup, he was still pretty fine.)

So this movie is so much more than a weird guy dressing like a bat at night to fight crime. It's light years away from the old Adam West Batman, with the tights and silly fight scenes and such. No, this movie stuck with the realism, which I generally dislike, but this is an exception. There's no Robin, no bat phone, no typed-out sound effects. It's darker and messes with your emotions.

Now, I don't know shit about Batman, and this is the first Batman movie that I've seen sober, so I'm not familiar with things the way other people might be. Apparently all you need to be a villain in Gotham City is an unfortunate facial deformity and some form of mental illness. Luckily the Joker has both. He's a mysterious fellow with no actual name, who rather enjoys making chaos, much to the dismay of Batman. And he's so darn clever, I was constantly wondering if Batman was ever going to start winning. He didn't really, there was some deep discussion about Batman being a vigilante, a protector, as opposed to a hero. Then I totally missed what became of the Joker at the end. I guess he got away, as the song goes.

Gary Oldman is in this too, which made me happy. He was totally faking an American accent, and it would have bothered and distracted me if his performance wasn't so phenomenal. There's also Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine, both of whom I haven't yet found anything to complain about. Talk about an all-star cast. Oh yeah, and I guess Christian Bale is pretty big, too, though I think I've seen him in only a couple of other things (no, I haven't seen the Newsies!).

So, I don't know what it was that kept my attention throughout. I've seen plenty of car chases and explosions. Maybe it was the crazy way Heath Ledger played the Joker. I just wondered what he would do next, and if Batman would get to him before he blew up the entire city. I'm sure there's something deep here that I've missed, but I don't really care because I was too entertained.

See this movie if you haven't yet. (Odds are you have.) It's one of those genuinely good movies, that's well made and yet somehow still entertaining. Thumbs up.

Just Like Heaven

2011-06-05T19:42:00.003-04:00

This movie is stupidly brilliant. It's so perfect for this blog I'm surprised I haven't gotten around to reviewing it just yet. I say perfect because it's one of those movies that everyone else has told me they hated, and yet I love it. My former roommate watched it one evening when she was bored and was appalled at it's atrocity. Hence, Movies You Won't Like. Hey, the title has to make sense once in a while.

The premise is this: Elizabeth (Reese Witherspoon, the Meg Ryan of her day in my opinion) is a doctor, and she was in a terrible car accident. Presumably, she's dead. Her relatives have rented out her apartment, still furnished, to a sexy young man named David (Mark Ruffalo, mmmmm....). Pretty soon David is seeing Elizabeth's spirit in the apartment, and she thinks she's still alive! She assumes that David is, I don't know, homeless...or crazy...or something.

And then it gets romantic. I know, right? That's not even where the silliness starts. David does what every movie character does when confronted with ghosts - he tries ridiculous ways to get rid of her, including but not limited to a priest (I don't think I need to tell you how that works out) and the Ghostbusters. That's right, I said it. The Ghostbusters. But the best help David gets is from the skinny kid who played Napoleon Dynamite. He works in a book store and has a "gift". He's smart enough to figure out that Elizabeth isn't actually dead. Also, he's a delightful little ham.

So it gets kind of sweet (you might call it dumb) when David agrees to help Elizabeth remember who she is (because her memory isn't so good). And they bicker like an old married couple, but you know it's because they're totally falling in love. I mean, it's pretty heartfelt. Especially when David talks about his dead wife and cries a little bit. I laughed.

Come to find out, Elizabeth has been in a coma for three months. And her sister is thinking about signing the papers to take her off life support! Oh my goodness! Can they figure out a way to get Elizabeth's spirit back into her body before she gets unplugged? Can David convince Elizabeth's sister that he's not a crazy person who's hallucinating her soon to be dead sister? Can David steal Elizabeth's body from the hospital without facing criminal charges? Does anyone other than me take this shit seriously? Hmm, probably not. But you know I ate all of it up like pudding. Delicious chocolate pudding with fluffy whipped cream. Eat it up, bitches.

And you know what, as it turns out, only their love could bring Elizabeth back to life. Because it was totally meant to be. It was like Prince Charming waking up Snow White. Christ, I love this crap. It's like the chocolate chips in my freshly baked banana bread.

All in all, there's more cheese in this movie than any given dish at Denny's. You'll probably hate it. But me, I obviously loved it. I guess you have to be a spinster cat lady to really enjoy these kinds of things. I suggest you don't see it, otherwise I'll be embarrassed and you may perhaps think less of me.

Belle and the Beast: A Christian Romance

2011-05-26T20:52:00.004-04:00

I do know how to find horrible movies, don't I? And no one does horrible cinema quite like evangelical Christians. Look, I'm not here to harp on Christianity, but there's a reason why Hollywood is filled with Jews and atheists. If there's a good faith-based movie out there, I have yet to find it. Even the Christians who reviewed this on Netflix thought it was bad!

I can't tell you how many versions of this classic fairy tale I've seen over the years. A few. And all of them seem to have a little something that differentiates them from the original story. This one decided to put in a little Jesus. (Okay Jesus was actually never mentioned, so calling it a "Christian" romance is a bit silly.) The main character is a young lady named Belle, who is a lot like my sister in that she's in her twenties and, for no adequately explored reason, still lives with her single father. She's in grad school but would rather live with her annoying teenage siblings and father instead of moving the hell out and getting a sweet bachelorette pad.

Now the beast, Eric, is this fancy rich guy who acts like a five year old having a tantrum. People actually call him a "beast". Yeah, it's that stupid. He's just a really pissy guy. And although they don't come out and say the word, the movie wants you to believe this Eric fellow is an atheist, but he's not. Eric is angry with God because his wife died in a car accident and he thinks this is God's fault (it is). So you see he isn't an atheist at all because atheists don't actually believe God exists in the first place. Why is this so hard to understand? Huh-durrrr.....

God isn't Eric's problem. His acting ability is. Hahaha, just kidding (not really), but seriously, he's just depressed, and that makes him treat other people like shit. I know, I'm a registered psychologist. Belle seems to think that finding God again will make him happy. But really, he was happy just having her around. And I thought that was kind of sweet. It almost got to me. If any of the performances were the least bit believable, then it might have gotten to me a little better. Holy shit, the acting was bad. You know, if your product is so important, you should sell it better, okay? Bad movies like this just get you laughed at. See, I'm doing it now. Hahahaha.

Okay, anyway, I'm ranting, sorry. My bad, I don't pre-write. (Who has time for that shit?) The rest of the story is quite similar. Belle's father breaks a vase in Eric's mansion while working on the plumbing or the electric or some shit I don't feel like looking up, and Eric is naturally pissed off. But Eric is a total dick about it and forces Belle to work as his assistant until the debt is paid off. (Go Google the word "extortion".)

Meanwhile, there's a Gaston-like guy lurking around chasing after Belle. He's not handsome at all, though. He's got bug eyes and stalker-like tendencies. Now, most men in real life know when to take "no" for an answer and when to quit. This fellow, Craig, doesn't. The two of them went on maybe one date and he's convinced she's the one. He's the sort of guy that makes you consider moving to a different state. He senses Belle is getting close with Eric, so he calls Belle's father's workplace pretending to be Eric, and gets the father fired. Oh no he didn't! He did. So Belle slaps Eric in the face and fake cries as her fake looking mascara runs down her face, and my head explodes at such a shit festival of a performance.

But you know obviously everything works out. Eric finds his faith again, which I suspect wasn't entirely gone in the first place, and he gets happy with Belle. But no sex. Hell, he didn't even get any tongue. Ah, celibacy.

All in all, the acting was terrible and the production value was on par with a small town high school, but it wasn't too preachy (for the genre I guess) and it's sort of romantic, even if the cheesy 1990s watered down Vanessa Williams-esque soundtrack forced my dinner to rise again and ascend into the toilet. Or descend. Sorry, I'm having Catholic school flashbacks. Won't happen again.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

2011-05-25T20:43:00.004-04:00

Stranger tides, indeed. I must say, though, I love this franchise. I'm pretty big on franchises. This installment is a bit different in that it's really mostly about Jack, and I said, "Okay Disney, Johnny Depp is pretty much the only man over 40 who I find as sexy as any 20 year-old, the way he plays Jack is certainly unparalleled, and I suppose I can live without Orlando Bloom, so I'll bite." Glad I did. Damn.

Let me start with this. You know what I love about Disney? Disney is comfortable. Disney is safe. Sure, people might complain that their movies are predictable (this one was), but that's what I like. I take comfort in knowing that only peripheral characters are going to die, and that everything is going to be okay. All the sexy men make it out of this movie in one piece.

So basically, Captain Jack Sparrow spends the film on a not-so-noble quest to find the Fountain of Youth. (Although I think he's already found it, because he's looking fine. Ahaha.) But then Penelope Cruz drugs him and he ends up on Blackbeard the Pirate's ship, which is fine because Blackbeard wants the Fountain of Youth, too. Now if you've seen the trailers you know that Penelope brings breasts to the franchise and serves as a love interest for Jack, which we haven't really gotten before. Christ knows Disney loves romance as much as I do. And that's not even all we get - more on that later. Penelope plays Angelica, a woman who was going to become a nun until she had relations with Jack and decided to take the path of debauchery. I'm sure all nuns secretly wish that Johnny Depp would come into their lives and steal their innocence and save them from a life of dull celibacy Hell, I'm sure all women wish for that.

At this point in the movie I'm looking around every corner just hoping with all my heart for an Orlando Bloom cameo, because I always need something young and pretty to look at. I really thought they were going to leave me hanging, until we meet Philip the sexy missionary. That's right, I used sexy and missionary in the same sentence. I didn't think it was possible, but then this movie has mermaids in it, and they don't exist in real life either. Anyway, holy shit (sorry, horrible pun) this man is fine. He had me saying "Orlando who?". For realsies. I have a likeness of Orlando above my bed. I may have to switch it out.

Now, Philip the sexy missionary has his own sort of subplot that pleasantly surprised me. (Alright it's Disney, I guess I wasn't that surprised, but I was excited anyhow.) He's on the ship with Jack and Blackbeard, and they run into some mermaids because they need one of their tears to make the Fountain of Youth work (it's strange and complicated pagan stuff, you know, like the first movie). And I said to myself, wouldn't it be amazing if the sexy missionary fell in love with one of the mermaids in true "The Little Mermaid" fashion? And much to my happiness, they totally freakin' went there, when I was worried that might be too silly even for a Pirates movie. And yet I was amazed that the writers somehow knew exactly what I wanted to happen next in the film. See, they know you can't have a hot guy in a movie if he's not falling in love with something. But you know what, it wasn't totally lame or stupid like you might expect. That whole thing worked out in a completely acceptable way that satisfied me greatly. It was sort of like the movie "Splash", starring Tom Hanks, only this wasn't dumb. And Philip took his shirt off, so everyone wins.

(I still can't believe they went there.)

Really that was the highlight of the whole movie for me. The rest of it was filled with what you might expect - sword fights, thick accents, men who never shower, quirkiness, palm trees, boats, good humor, pagan rituals, and Jack escaping from guys who have really epic wigs. All in all I thought it was really exciting, and I'm gonna come right out and say that I liked it even better than the last installment. I seriously hope they make more. Unlike Shrek, this series hasn't run out of steam yet.

Titanic II

2011-04-30T22:38:00.004-04:00

What, you didn't know they made a sequel to "Titanic", the greatest movie ever made? Oh no they didn't! Really, it's not a sequel - Titanic II is just the name of the ship. Good thing, too. James Cameron would want nothing to do with this shit festival. Remember how the original won all those awards, was visually stunning, left you in suspense, brought you to tears, and had a sexy 20 year-old Leonardo DiCaprio? Well, you'll get none of that here dammit! The original made me weep with emotion. This one made me weep with laughter. Watch the trailer, it's hilarious:

I know, right? It's as awful as it looks. There are so many things that are bad and wrong about this movie that I don't even know where to begin. I guess I'll start from the beginning. Our main character, or Rose, if you will (I won't), is named Amy Maine. No really. She stole my name and location. This girl is a nurse who for some reason, the movie doesn't feel like telling us why, decided to work aboard the Titanic II. I suspect it's because her ex-boyfriend, a super rich douche-guy named Hayden, is the one who supposedly built the ship. And he's no Mr. Andrews. The first time we see him, he's boarding the ship with an entourage of no less than four busty women with their nipples poking through their dresses in an obvious manner. So right off the movie makes you think he's a bad guy, and not the Jack Dawson of the film. But no, this is what we're stuck with for a male lead. Ugh. There's really no competing with 1998 Leo. Leo was in another universe of talent and sexiness. And he could actually act. Also, more than two people actually know who he is.

So right off the bat I notice that everyone is speaking in American accents, even though the trailer explicitly says in dramatic white lettering, "THE SAME COURSE". No. We're in New York. And this movie isn't very good about giving the audience important information like where the boat is actually leaving from. And when it does give you plot information, like back story, they do it in the stupidest and most unbelievable way possible, with poorly written lines that even the best actors couldn't convince you to take seriously. Anyway, we finally figured out that Titanic II is being launched from NYC, but only when they show the Statue of Liberty in the harbor after twenty minutes of watching Amy running her fingers through her hair while all the other passengers wave. So I guess it's the same course, only backward. I assume they're going to England, but they never say. Getting back to the lack of pertinent plot information, we never really learn why the hell this stupid ship was made in the first place. Hundredth anniversary of the sinking I suppose (even though in 2010, when this was made, it had only been 98 years). It's mentioned once or twice. But nothing on how it was built, how long it took, how it's different from its predecessor...like did they fix what was wrong with the first Titanic? Nope, screw you audience! You don't deserve this kind of knowledge! Plus, this film is only an hour and half, which is half as long as the first movie. So there's really no time to get invested in the characters. I found I didn't give a rat's ass if all of these idiots drowned. I sure as hell wouldn't get on the Titanic II, because you know that shit's hitting an iceberg.

Now, the actual sinking was pretty much nothing like the original, and probably wasn't even scientifically accurate. Here's how it went down (haha, pun...). Some members of the coast guard were up in the North Atlantic, standing on an iceberg, when one of them drops a canister on the surface, causing a huge chunk to crack off and fall into the ocean and start a massive tidal wave. This tidal wave took the iceberg with it and slammed into the Titanic II, as well as every other ship and submarine in the ocean. The best part of the movie was when they showed a guy in a submarine standing next to a periscope trying to maneuver the sub away from the wave in time, and he says, "Let's get this cigar smoking." I was in tears laughing. Anyway, I'm no scientist, but I have my suspicions that none of this is possible. I've never heard of an iceberg causing a tidal wave. I should mention there were two tidal waves. I guess another chunk fell into the ocean after and capsized the already sinking ship. (The submarine was screwed. They didn't make it. Sorry.) So at this point they're totally fucked. Mostly because the writer got confused and must have thought for a second he was remaking "The Poseidon Adventure".

Meanwhile, Amy and Hayden are trying to find scuba gear instead of getting on the lifeboats. The lifeboats are useless anyway, not only because they're no help against the second tidal wave, but also because, as the movie informs us, they were built only for show and don't actually float (!?!). What, do they have holes? Even a "just-for-show" lifeboat should float! Hell, we know that even the doors float!

So Amy and Hayden are trying to find the closet with the scuba gear, and we never see any water. The water we do see, outside the ship, is an obvious swimming pool. And it's clearly not the interior of a boat we're looking at, because there are concrete walls! This is throughout the movie. I never felt like I was on a ship. Parts of it looked like your local event hall. At least James Cameron was smart enough to flood all the sets to make it look like the thing was actually sinking. Very little flooding here. And supposedly this time it was only going to take about a half an hour for the ship to be underwater, but those thirty minutes came and went, and the ship's nose was still the only thing submerged. It wasn't like half of it sunk first and then the whole thing split. The second tidal wave came and flipped it before that could happen. But our heroes were in a closet at the time, so everything was okay. The door was jammed. That's the only plot twist they could think of. Seems like every door these two jackasses came to was freakin' jammed.

Now the boat is upside down as well as sinking, and Amy and Hayden are trapped in the scuba closet, which is slowly filling up with water. And I'm just like, "Okay movie, drown these bastards already so I can go to bed!" But there's only one wetsuit and one oxygen tank left, so Hayden, ever the gentleman, gives it to Amy. Hayden reassures Amy by saying, "It's okay, you can bring me back to life." Um...no she can't. Dude, you aren't Jesus Christ.

So the thing is on its way down to the bottom of the ocean, all the way under mind you, when a guy from the coast guard who happens to be Amy's father scuba dives into the sinking ship, as she's sinking, finds the two of them, and pulls them out and back up to the surface. I had a good laugh at that one. The best part is, Hayden dies, because he wants to be like Leo, and they want you to feel something. I felt nausea, and joy that the movie was over. Because that's how it ends. The credits just roll out of nowhere, and much like with "The Day the Earth Stood Still", I was left saying, "That's how it ends?". Yup. Now, I was sad when Leo died, and it wasn't just because it's a terrible waste of a gorgeous young man. Jack was likable, we invested in him, we had time to know him, to love him. I didn't really care about Hayden. I'm not sure anyone did.

Oh yeah, and no word on how these tidal waves affected the people on land. Was there a tsunami that destroyed the entire east coast of America and the west coast of Europe and Africa? I guess that wasn't important. The important thing is some blonde douche named Hayden has a lot of hot young bimbos that will miss his stupid haircut, and weep for five minutes before finding someone else equally bland and uninteresting. Oh wait, no they won't, all those bitches drowned. Hahahaha!

The Music Man (1962)

2011-04-04T13:35:00.005-04:00

I only watched this movie because I'm singing a medley of songs from the musical with my chorus, and I wanted to know what the hell I was singing about. It wasn't a complete waste of my time. But like most musicals made in the 60s, it was too goddamn long. When a lady has to work at five in the morning, she needs a movie to end at a decent hour.

I'm gonna start negative. Dance numbers that seem to go on for days do not work on my generation. We just don't have the attention span. Sorry. But six straight minutes of nothing but a bunch of people dancing around is not enough to keep my finger off the fast forward button. That doesn't sound like a long time, but believe me, it feels like an eternity. Enough already! It's why I never made it through "The Producers", and I never shut movies off part of the way through.

That said, I've always loved a good musical, and this one is quite good. I like the music, and I like the plot, but she did drag a bit. Two and a half hours - what a haul. The title character is a fellow named Professor Harold Hill. He's not really a professor. He's sort of a con man/traveling salesmen, although one could argue that those two things are the same. The year is 1912, and Harold Hill wants to make some money off the stupid folks in River City, Iowa, and to do that he's going to convince them all to start a big band and have them buy instruments and uniforms off of him. They don't know that Harold doesn't know jack shit about music. These people are pretty gullible - Harold persuades them by telling them that music will keep their boys out of the pool hall and away from cigarettes. Apparently pool tables lead to debauchery. And smoking. Good to know.

As Harold is screwing the community, he's also trying to screw a twenty-something spinster librarian named Marion (yes, her name rhymes with her occupation). What's creepy about this is that the actor who plays Harold was about 44 years old at the time. Ewwww. (Look at the picture.) I guess some ladies are into dudes who are old enough to be their father, but not me. I'm too much of a cougar to find Harold remotely attractive. Anyway, Marion gives in eventually. Women are helpless against fruity dance numbers. She sings "Til There Was You" to him, and it reminded me of when that old lady sang it in "The Wedding Singer". I love that song. I'm such a sap. The best part is when she figures out that Harold is con man, and she's pretty much okay with it. Hmm.

Another highlight is the school board, played by a real barbershop quartet. Who doesn't love a good barbershop quartet? I know I do. They spend the movie coming after Harold asking for his credentials, in dissonant yet beautiful four part harmony. My choir is singing one of their songs, and it's pretty hard. Just to let you know.

I'm also a big fan of the song "Shipoopi". It comes out of nowhere. All of a sudden the cast decides it wants to do the shipoopi, and Buddy Hackett starts singing. Does it have anything to do with the plot? Nope, but it's a silly little song just the same. Family Guy parodied it, and it was beautiful. That's really the only reason I know what it is. Unfortunately my choir isn't doing that one, and I confess I'm a little disappointed.

So for the most part this is a fun little musical. Could I watch it again without fast forwarding? Probably not. You should really watch it though, because it's a classic and all.

P.S. Ron Howard is in this too, as a small little boy named Winthrop. He has a lisp and plays the trumpet. Hahaha.

Letters to Juliet

2011-02-26T12:00:00.003-05:00

Okay, I've been wanting to review this one for awhile now, but I haven't gotten around to it because I've been really busy lately playing Mahjong on my computer. (That game is like crack - don't play it.) Alright what was I talking about again? Oh right, sappy romance. My sister saw it before me and was kind enough to reassure me that the ending is in fact happy, because goodness knows I don't want to have to endure another "The Notebook". (Okay, I suppose you could argue that that movie ends happy, but still, I hate movies that keep me balling after the credits are done.)

This movie rules. It's so sweet, almost unbelievably sweet, and I ate it up like pudding. Duh. Come on, the tag line is "What if you had a second chance to find true love?" I sighed just writing that. I watched it on Valentine's Day alone with my cat.

Okay so apparently in Verona, Italy, where "Romeo and Juliet" takes place, there's this group of hens who call themselves "secretaries of Juliet", and women from all over the world post letters on a stone wall under Juliet's balcony in Verona. It's like Dear Abby or something, only all the letters are presumably about men. So these hens answer the letters and give them advice. This is where Amanda Seyfried comes in. She's an American girl named Sophie, who is engaged to an Italian cook named Victor. Victor's not necessarily a douche bag, but he never listens to what Sophie says and just wants to talk about what's going on with him, namely, food. I couldn't help wondering throughout the film why these two were even together in the first place. It's like they're together out of convenience.

Sophie and Victor live in NYC, but they're taking a pre-honeymoon vacation to Italy because they won't have time for an actual honeymoon, as Victor is opening his new restaurant soon, and it's all about him. He's a nice enough guy, and the movie doesn't make you hate him, but it does make you think Sophie can do better. While in Italy, Sophie gets bored pretty fast because Victor just wants to sample cheeses and fancy Italian mushrooms and wines, which is nice but there's a lot of other really nice shit in Italy to see that isn't food related, you know? So they sort of compromise - Victor heads to a wine auction for a few days while Sophie sees the sights by herself. And you know at this point that these two shouldn't be getting married if they're okay with spending their honeymoon apart.

This is when Sophie stumbles upon the wall with the letters on it, and since she's ~~nosy~~ curious, she follows one of the secretaries back to the office and inquires about the letters and the horde of crying women outside. Since Sophie has some time to kill without her dumb fiance, she volunteers to help answer letters. This is when she finds a really old letter behind a brick in the wall, written in 1951 by a woman named Claire. Claire was an English girl who had a thing back in the day with a sexy Italian boy named Lorenzo, but she was too scared to marry him and ran back to England. When Sophie writes her back, Claire shows up in Verona, and we find that Claire is in fact an aged Vanessa Redgrave. With her she brings her sexy blonde grandson with his sexy British accent. This young man is called Charlie. And though he's got a bit of a stick up his ass (well, he is British), you know he's a far better match for Sophie than Victor. I also know that because my sister spoiled it.

Anyway, Sophie offers to help Claire find Lorenzo, much to the dismay of Charlie, who thinks it's a waste of time and will only cause his grandmother pain. Since there are quite a few Lorenzo Bartolinis in the area, what ensues is a grand quest of knocking on doors in search of Claire's long lost love, all while Sophie and Charlie bicker like a married couple (fall in love).

Just when you think Claire is about to give up and fly back to England, the real Lorenzo rides up on a white horse. Okay it wasn't white, but it may as well have been. Now that that business is settled, viewers are left to wonder, what about Charlie and Sophie? Claire tells Charlie, "Don't wait fifty years like I did," and I squeed with delight and shouted at my laptop, "Go get her Charlie!" but Sophie was already back at the hotel with Victor, so Charlie was cock-blocked and went home.

Don't worry, it ends well, otherwise I would hate this movie. Alright, I won't say, but it's super sweet. I loved it. Totally unrealistic, which is why it's awesome.

Krull

2011-02-17T14:57:00.017-05:00

I'm going to do things a bit different this time. I have never seen this fantasy film from the 1980s, and I want to try reviewing it as I go. I did that with "A Muppet Christmas Carol", but I had already seen it 100 times anyway.
Okay here we go. A play-by-play.
02:35 - Already we have the obligatory overhead spaceship flyover shot that was so common in the early 80s. I didn't know this was a space movie. My expectations have just heightened.
05:18 - A voice over narration yammers on about all worlds being enslaved by this "beast" fellow. Apparently he's not a nice creature, as there's some discussion about burning villages and "cries of the dying". But not to worry, there's a hero on the way. God I love the 80s.
09:20 - Princess Lyssa has decided to marry a Prince Colwyn, who is from the enemy country. It's pretty cliché, but they hit it off pretty well and are making out in mere minutes. The prince is goofy looking and has absurd wavy hair, and you can probably guess that the princess has a poofy perm, otherwise it wouldn't be the 80s.
24:48 - The wedding is interrupted because it was about time the princess got herself kidnapped, setting up a very nice cheesy fantasy movie plot. Lovely. The prince seems to be the only one who survived this attack, hilariously enough, and now it's up to him to save the princess, in true Super Mario fashion. A old man named Ynyr, who people call "the old one", tells the prince that his bride is being held at the beast's place, or the "Black Fortress". Whoever made up these names should have been fired. Jesus. Anyway, the only way to kill the beast is by using a legendary weapon called the Glaive, which is just a badass flying blade. So I just spent a good ten minutes watching the prince scale a mountain looking for this thing, with no rock-climbing equipment whatsoever. He really is a hero. Not sure why he didn't go to the blacksmith and get one forged. I guess even though that would have saved him some time, it's not all that interesting.
25:57 - Oh my goodness, the fruits of his labors! At the top of the mountain is what I can only assume is a volcano, and the Glaive is at the bottom of a pool of liquid hot magma. And yes, he is going to stick his hand in it. I wonder how this will pan out...
26:29 - He shoots, he scores! And without so much as a "fuck, that's hot!", our hero acquires the Glaive.
Ba da da da!
Hmm. It doesn't look all that impressive. Seriously, no man has met the beast and lived to tell about it, but this dopey looking thing is supposed to do the job. Riiiight....It's not even sharp!
Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to note that prince has some awfully upsetting chest hair. And he looks like Conan O'Brien.
27:22 - Quick cut-away to the princess in the fortress. Apparently the beast wants to marry her and be her king. Offff coooouuuurse he does. Awesome.
30:08 - Ynyr informs the prince that they now have to find the Black Fortress, which is hard because it's never in the same place twice. Then a comic relief character just sort of drops in out of nowhere, and it's none of the audience's damn business who the hell he is. He looks like Eric Idle, but I've been wrong before.

At this point my DVD is skipping, so I'm going to take it out and rub it with some toothpaste. (It's an ancient Japanese DVD cleaning remedy.) Seriously, has this DVD really been rented that many times? Come on, Netflix.

Washed DVD. Now Windows Media Player is not responding and the DVD will not eject from my laptop. I think I just broke my computer. Damn you Japanese!

Restarted computer. Rewashed DVD. Just found out that this movie is available on "Watch it Now". So why am I wasting my time on shoddy DVD technology?! Oh, and nobody tell Netflix why their DVD smells like minty freshness. (Don't try that by the way, it only works a little bit.)
Anyway...where were we?
32:00 - Okay. The comic relief is named Ergo the Magnificent, and he is a touch crazy. The prince suggests that he travel with them, but Ergo isn't having it, because he doesn't travel with peasants. Why do I feel like something is about to attack him, subsequently changing his mind?

Wow, I'm good. Suddenly Ergo is going the same way the prince and the old guy are going.
33:00 - Another cutaway to the princess. The beast lets her know she can go wherever she wants in the fortress, and that she will rule over countless galaxies. Doesn't sound so bad. Sounds kind of like Beauty and the Beast, in fact.
35:00 - Our heroes are attacked by robbers. And one of them Robbie Coltrane - Rubeus Hagrid himself! Delightful! I've never seen him in anything other than Harry Potter.

I predict these robbers will turn out to be helpful.
36:03 - And so the robbers decide to follow the prince, as I predic- Holy shit it's Liam Neeson! What a lovely surprise!

38:21 - Seems we're being followed by a John Denver-like cyclops...
Ynyr graciously fills us in. It seems the race of cyclopes traded one of their eyes for the ability to see the future, but they were tricked, and the only future they see is their own death. Oh yeah, and the guy above saves the comic relief's life, but he's not ready to come out yet. Later perhaps. I bet he's got a great personality.
43:25 - And our heroes have found what apparently they were looking for:
This guy! The only one who knows where the Black Fortress is! It's a wonder he knows where anything is, with his eyes always shut. He is a seer and lives with a little boy named Titch. I think that's suspicious. While the green guy thinks about where the fortress is, our comic relief bugs Titch for some candy.
46:51 - Well the seer is pretty useless. Because of the beast, the seer can't see where the fortress is unless he goes to the Emerald City. Or the Emerald Palace. Emerald something. I have a lot to pay attention to, okay?
47:22 - Oh, Emerald Temple.
51:46 - The gang is attacked by the beast's minions, who call themselves slayers, but they're saved by the deus ex cyclops. At this point the cyclops decides to make himself known. Might as well. Did I not see that coming? Also, the comic relief seems to be getting attached to Titch in a very strange way.
53:19 - Princess cutaway. I was just thinking. The fortress kind of looks like the inside of someone's body. It makes sense. The fortress is supposedly always moving. What if the cyclops is actually the fortress?! I've just blown my own mind. Hmm, I wonder if that prediction will come true. I don't know, it's a stretch.
55:55 - One of the robbers is lost in quicksand. Well that's one way to get rid of unnecessary peripheral characters. The Oregon Trail method, if you will. Don't worry, it wasn't Liam Neeson or Robbie Coltrane, so no one cared.
1:00:51 - The seer is killed by a changeling. Whoopsie! Titch is sad, but I think he'll be fine. He's got Ergo the Comic Relief to comfort him. Oh wait, how will they find the black fortress? "There is one who might help," Ynyr says. The Widow of the Web. Okay, why didn't we go to her first? I get the feeling I'm going to like her. I predict she's an old girlfriend of Ynyr.
1:03:16 - Ergo turns himself into a puppy to please Titch. I think he just wanted Titch to carry him around for the rest of the quest.
1:08:45 - Princess cutaway. Maybe the Black Fortress is the beast. Hmmmm....Maybe I should stop making predictions. (Edit: Turns out I was totally wrong. Fail.)
1:11:09 - A foxy lady who works for the beast tries to seduce the prince so she can kill him. But she stops herself. Because, as she says, "For in the hour I knew you, I loved you." Seriously, is the prince really that charming? I don't think so. Lose the facial hair and we'll talk.
1:17:00 - Ding ding ding!! The Widow of the Web is Ynyr's lost love! I so called that shit! Wow, this movie is getting kind of awesome. Anyway, she lets Ynyr know where the fortress is. Unfortunately in exchange Ynyr only lives long enough to let Prince Colwyn know where it is. Oh well, I'm not that sad.
1:41:17 - Fueled by the powers of testosterone, our heroes make it into the Black Fortress. It's about time too, I've been watching this for a good three hours now. Inside, they are attacked by slayers, and more of the peripheral characters are lost, and this time that includes Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane. Sorry. At this point in the timeline, Prince Colwyn holds back the rest of the gang and declares, "No. I must go on alone." Of course.
1:47:08 - The prince fights the beast! Finally! And the movie has become The Legend of Zelda. Turns out the Glaive actually has blades that come out of it, which make it a lot more threatening than I originally thought. It's rather like a boomerang with balls. Naturally.
I swear I've seen a weapon like that in one of the Zelda games. Or maybe it was Mario. Had to be one of those, I've never played anything else.
1:48:36 - Oh! Just when you think the beast is dead, he comes back to life in true horror movie fashion! I wonder if this will be even more like Zelda, and killing the beast once only makes him stronger, or turns him into Ganon.
1:50:48 - No Ganon, but since the prince lost his Glaive thing, he had to find another way to kill the beast. And apparently the only way was to use a flame that the princess gave him. It's like the flame of their love or something deliciously cheesy like that. At any rate, Colwyn toasts the beast's ass.
1:53:45 - And just like at the end of "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time", the hero has to escape with the princess before the fortress collapses on top of them.
1:57:42 - Mercifully, the movie ends, with our heroes (what's left of them) walking off into the sunset in glory and victory! Huzzah!

Oh boy, I hope you've enjoyed this journey. I feel like I've been watching this movie for days. It probably only took a few minutes for you to read it though, so you don't know what I'm talking about. All I know is, it was light out when I started, and now it is not. Fine film, though. I sort of loved it. They don't make these glorious epic hero fantasies anymore. It's a shame, because they're freakin awesome.

Queen of the Damned

2011-01-27T14:03:00.004-05:00

Long before vampires sparkled, there was Stuart Townsend and well, this shitty little film. It happens to be one of my favorites - my guiltiest of pleasures, I assure you. It came out when I was in high school when I really wanted to be a goth, and I thought watching this movie was the answer (it wasn't). I liked vampires before it was cool, though. It's all Anne Rice's fault.

Now there are a lot of reasons why people hate this movie, and I understand. But there are also a lot of things about this movie that are totally awesome. The soundtrack, for example. The whole thing was written by Jonathan Davis of the band Korn, if that tells you anything. If you like Korn then you know that this soundtrack kicks some serious ass. It's got songs performed by Disturbed, Chester Bennington of Linkin Park (<3), Orgy, Static X, Marilyn Manson, and Papa Roach - all the music I loved in high school. I ate that shit up like pudding.

Okay, on to the actual film. I know it's based on the book by Anne Rice, and if you've read this blog before, then you can probably guess that I haven't read it. So if there are discrepancies, I'm not going to know about them. I've heard there are plenty though. Sucks if you like reading. What's wrong with this movie is that the script is very poorly written. Some of the dialogue makes me roll my eyes with its lameness. But then you have a scene where Aaliyah rips out a vampire's heart with her bare hands and eats it, and instead of dialogue there's a dark rock song playing in the background, and it makes it all worth it. That was pretty ridiculous/awesome.

The main character (one of them anyway) is a sexy vampire named Lestat, who in "Interview with the Vampire" was played by Tom Cruise. For some reason I've never seen that movie. This time he's played by the delicious Stuart Townsend. Now, based on looks alone, I'd rather watch Stuart Townsend. He's probably not as good an actor, but since I never saw the other film, I really can't say. Re-watching this movie has reassured me that it is possible for a man to be pale with woman-y eyeliner and still be sexy, unlike some vampires I know who look like they do very strong illegal drugs with alarming frequency. Lestat, thankfully, doesn't look like a powder factory exploded on his face, and he doesn't look like he's wearing more lipstick than any straight man has a right to. (I still kind of like Twilight, I want to make that clear...) Let me get right to the point - the man is freakin' hot. I don't care how hammy his acting is.

All the vampires are pretty hammy in this film, come to think of it. I guess being undead makes you incredibly melodramatic. Seriously, there's more ham in this movie than Easter dinner at my Aunt Kathy's house. And that's a lot of ham. She slaughters the pigs herself. No she doesn't, but that would be awesome.

The gist here is that Lestat has been asleep for a hundred years or so, because being immortal is boring, but he wakes up when he hears the alluring sounds of late 90s/early 2000s rock music. Really. To anyone who doesn't like that kind of music, it's kind of hilarious. For me, it makes total sense. So he pops out of his coffin, wearing a long black trenchcoat and holding a violin, all while Jonathan Davis plays in the background. It's so my cup of tea. He goes on to find himself a band and rises to stardom as a vampire rock star, spending much of his time eating his fan girls and donning leather pants.

Meanwhile there's a foxy librarian named Jessie running around who is fascinated with Lestat for obvious reasons (ladies love leather pants). She reads his journal and tracks him down to ask him what it's like to be a vampire, and he shows her by eating an innocent woman in front of her. But Jessie doesn't take this an obvious sign that maybe she should stay away from him. Must be the leather pants.

The title character, Queen Akasha, is played by Aaliyah, which I always thought was kind of random. This was her last role, unfortunately, and not because she sucked, but because she died in a plane crash before it came out. Okay, she did kind of suck. I don't like to speak ill of the dead, but really. Total scenery chewer. Anyway, Akasha is about 6000 years old, and lived in Egypt before it was Egypt. She was sleeping for awhile, too, until she heard Lestat's music (leave it to Korn to wake the undead...). She was fascinated because he lived in the open like she did 6000 years ago. So she makes him her consort. I love that word, consort. I want a consort.

I heard from disgruntled fans on Amazon that Akasha's motivation was really killing most of the men in world, because she's a man hater. This isn't addressed in the movie. She really has no motivation here. She just wants to kill all the humans because they're useless and only serve as food. So it's really up to Jessie and her ancient vampire family to stop Akasha and make Lestat come to his senses. You see, the ancient vampires respect humans, much like I respect the humble yet delicious cow and the majestic yet savory chicken. Hmm, I'm hungry now.

I think I just like this movie because it has blood, a hot guy, and some badass tunes. I have very simple needs. If you want a well-acted movie with a well-written script and some sleepy indie music in the background, you'll have to look elsewhere. As for me, this is the type of ham I will gladly stick my fork into.

The Muppet Christmas Carol

2010-12-25T09:49:00.004-05:00

Well, it's Christmas morning - I think it's time for my annual Christmas movie review. I've been putting it off. I'm actually watching it as I'm reviewing it, which I've never done before. This one here is another of my favorites. Now, I know "A Christmas Carol" has been done a million times and everyone is sick of it (I assume), but nobody has ever done it like the Muppets. I love those Muppets. I'm so amused by the fact that they live among humans and none of them think it's weird.

The Muppets are so genius because they can be heartfelt and hilarious without being cheesy and stupid. Seriously, they made "A Christmas Carol" funny, and yet it still retains it's soft and cozy message of Christmas joy. They've cleverly kept in Charles Dickens's original prose by having the movie narrated by Gonzo (who was always my favorite) and Rizzo the Rat. Gonzo is playing the part of Mr. Dickens. Both of them contribute a lot to the humor as the token comic relief characters. They're allowed to break the fourth wall, so that makes it even better.

Scrooge is played by Michael Caine, and he is pretty good at it. I enjoy him. They couldn't very well make Scrooge one of the Muppets. None of them are evil and crotchety enough. All the Muppets sing about what an asshole Scrooge is as he walks down the street, and in true movie fashion, he doesn't even notice (yes, this is a musical, but the songs aren't too bad). In this version, Scrooge employs not only Bob Cratchit (Kermit!!!), but also all of the rats (love them!). It's funny because Scrooge is supposed to be cheap, and yet he employs at least half a dozen bookkeepers.

When Scrooge gets home, he is confronted by the ghosts of the Marley brothers. I know, there are two in this one, but only because they are played by those two old Muppets that constantly bitch about everything. I really love them - they're so pissy. They sing to Scrooge about how he's going to rot in hell with chains. Scrooge accuses them of being undigested beef, as the story goes. It's a bit scary for wussy kids, but as Gonzo says, "It's alright, this is culture."

The first ghost is a creepy computer generated child lit like a supernova. They fly to Scrooge's past, with Gonzo and Rizzo following close behind. Instead of Fezziwig's, Scrooge's old employer is Fozziwigs, and obviously, it's Fozzie. This is where Scrooge met his ex-girlfriend, Belle. I don't remember her from any other version...anyway, the thing with Belle didn't work out because all Scrooge cared about was money and Belle just wanted to get married. Ha, women! They have a sweet little song together before Scrooge and the ghost move on again. I always thought that little romance was intriguing, but they never actually revisit it. I wonder if Belle ever remarried, or if she's a crazy old cat lady now somewhere. I guess I'll never know. Anyway, at this point Scrooge can't take it any more and says to the ghost, "Why do you delight in torturing me, spirit?", so they go back home.

The Ghost of Christmas Present is a huge muppet, taller even than Scrooge, and repeats himself constantly. For some reason Scrooge gets along with him really well. The big guys sings to Scrooge about what makes Christmas so great - the singing, the joy, the love, the food, the people (it's why I love Christmas). Scrooge learns that even poor people that don't have shit (like me) can enjoy Christmas, because it's not all about money. It's about the love, man. And then Scrooge dances a bit and it's uncomfortable.

Scrooge also sees his nephew Fred making fun of him in front of all his friends, and he realizes that even his family members think he's an asshole. Oh boy, that's rough. So they move on to Cratchit's house. This is a great part because Miss Piggy is in it. Everyone loves Miss Piggy because she's a fabulous, sassy broad. I wish I could be that awesome. Mrs. Cratchit is cooking a goose, because I guess if she was making a Christmas ham that would be exceedingly creepy. The Cratchits, as the story goes, have far more children than they can afford, and for some reason only Tiny Tim gets to go to church with Bob. Not sure why the rest of the family gets out of going to church. I also wonder why Cratchit's children aren't deformed, retarded, half-pig, half-frog type freaks of nature. Oh well, I guess that's not Christmas-y.

Scrooge is touched by Tiny Tim (not literally, lol) and how much joy he spreads even though he's sickly and his father is poor (because Scrooge doesn't pay Cratchit shit.) Already we can see Scrooge becoming a better person, and it's magical. He really doesn't need the creepy-ass future spirit, but it would incomplete if we didn't stick him in. This guy is scary for a kid's movie. Even Gonzo and Rizzo decide to back off, saying "You're on your own, folks. We'll meet you at the finale."

This part of the movie is more trash talking about Scrooge. He realizes that if he doesn't change his ways, people will talk shit about him even in death. I mean he never cared what people thought about him before, but I guess now he does. Anyway it gets worse when the spirit takes him to the Cratchit house, where there's no more joy because Tiny Tim is all dead, and this makes Scrooge upset. Scrooge really decides he needs to change when the spirit shows him his own grave. I don't why this should upset him so much, it doesn't matter if he's a saint the rest of his life, he's still going to die. Oh well.

Next morning Scrooge is a changed man. You know how it goes, he wishes Merry Christmas to everyone, pays a little boy to buy a turkey, gives an obscene amount to a charity, visits his family, gives coal to his rat bookkeepers, and gives the Cratchits a grand Christmas turkey dinner, in which apparently the entire town of London is invited. And of course there's uppity song and dance. I've always said that's the way to end a film - in song.

So, in closing, I hope all of you feel a similar joy this Christmas, whether you believe in the Jesus thing or not (either way, it's an excuse to eat and drink and be merry in the dead of winter...) and thanks for reading this shit - it's all the gift I need. Merry Christmas!

Simply Irresistible

2010-11-28T16:56:00.004-05:00

I've done it! I have found a romantic comedy I didn't like! And it's even a fantasy romantic comedy, and I still thought it was stupid. I've been stewing about it for days, wondering if it was even worthy enough for me to review it. It is. Let me show you the trailer:

I'm embarrassed now. What you must think of me, that I actually take time out of my day to watch crap like that. But I had to show you the trailer because there's so much stupid, you had to see for yourself.

Sarah Michelle Gellar should really stick to killing (and having sex with) vampires, because she's far more believable that way. Here she plays Amanda, a cook who isn't very good at cooking. She owns a restaurant with her Aunt Stella, who is played by Betty Buckley. This is me and Aunt Stella:
Seriously, I met her last February in New York. If only I had known she was in such a horrible film, I would have asked her why. Why Betty, why? (This is the most famous person I've met, and I wanted to brag about it. You're jealous.) Anyway, the restaurant is totally failing because Amanda can't cook and apparently neither can Aunt Stella. The only reason they still have the restaurant is because Amanda's mother was an exceptional cook, but she's long dead now, so business has decreased, while the rent has increased, so the place is gonna close down unless a magic crab can save the day. That's right, only a magic crab can save the day.

The crab is given to Amanda by an oddly dressed man in the market, and it's never quite explained but I think they want you to believe this guy is an angel sent by Amanda's mother to save the restaurant. It's rather like "Ratatouille", only less believable. Remember "Ratatouille" was about a rat who lived in a chef's hat and told him to do things, and yet it was superb.

The handsome love interest is the only bright spot in this movie. He's got gorgeous eyes and a smile that'll get you pregnant. At about the 0:20 mark in the trailer you can see it. Boom! You're pregnant. I now have a dozen children.

Obviously Amanda wants to impress the handsome man, named Tom, when he wanders into her restaurant one day. In her search for one of her mother's better recipes, she finds her mother's old earrings instead, and the viewer is led to believe this is significant, as though the earrings are what are about to save the day, but no. The crab, lounging on a shelf somewhere, waves his claw and suddenly Amanda has created the most delicious meal ever, which is crab, incidentally. So the magic crab has assisted in the murder of one of its own. Nice. Anyway we're never really sure if it's the crab or the earrings that make her cook well, as I guess the screenwriter just didn't care.

Some other crap happens and later, Tom returns to the restaurant after hours to get some. Food, I mean. He brings Amanda vanilla orchids, which she uses in some type of pudding I imagine. The crab waves his claw again and suddenly they're both surrounded by vanilla scented fog which makes them make out. The making out causes them to float, which you saw in the trailer if you bothered to watch it. Now, it's not often I shout at my laptop when watching a film. Last time I shouted at a film was Eragon, and we know how bad that movie was (although I watch it quite frequently for some reason). These were my exact words: "No, no, no! You can't be serious! This is stupid! This is so stupid!" I'm talking about this movie now, not Eragon, although it applies to both movies.

So, the general idea here is that the crab makes Amanda cook food that makes people horny. Or at least that's what I gathered. Really it makes people feel what she's feeling. I guess she was horny around Tom, and for good reason. Also, it made them randomly dance together in a department store like they were in a 1950s musical or something. It was like an LSD trip, and I said "Really?" to my computer. Tom doesn't take being food-bewitched so well. He thinks Amanda is a witch or something, but the food has made him love her, and he laments about it on a couch in the fetal position, like a schoolgirl (or me), to a lady he works with.

I'm not doing it justice. The movie is a lot worse than I'm making it sound. The good thing is, it makes me feel like a much less shitty writer. You know, it could have been good, if they took the stupid stuff out. I saw "No Reservations" a few years back, and that was about food and love, and that wasn't stupid. "Ratatouille" wasn't even stupid. Of course that was Disney and Pixar, and they usually do a good job with that sort of thing.

Don't watch it. You saw the trailer. That's enough. (Now you have that lame "Crush" song in your head, don't you? I apologize.)

Megamind

2010-11-11T19:02:00.002-05:00

Brought to you by the geniuses at Dreamworks Animation SKG. (I think you know where this is going.) Seriously, this company can do no wrong. I dare them to come out with a shitty film! If they've made a shitty film already, I certainly have not seen it. Have I said that before? I don't care, I'll say it again.

Now if I were a brilliant screenwriter, if only, then this is pretty much the concept I'd crap out. Make the villain the main character. Let the villain get some for once. While I'm not crazy about super heroes, the concept is brilliant just the same. Has it been done before? Maybe. Do I care? Not so much. I must say, this movie is not just funny, but I think it has an ass load of heart. I mean it's really sweet. Let me elaborate.

The film starts and we get Megamind's life story. Megamind is an alien, raised in a prison. When he was sent off to school he was always picked last and the kids liked to throw dodgeballs at him. (I can relate.) Naturally he grew up to be pissed off and devoted his life to evil, because he realized it was the only thing he was really good at. The hero, Metro Man (voiced by the even delicious-sounding Brad Pitt), is also an alien, except he was raised in an mansion and was very popular in school. This is why he grows up to be the superhero. So Megamind's entire life has consisted of endless battles between good and evil with Metro Man. Megamind is also particularly fond of kidnapping the foxy lady TV reporter, Roxanne (you don't have to turn on the red light....sorry).

Life is turned upside down when Megamind finally defeats his nemesis and takes control of the city, thereby wreaking havoc on society. The problem is, he gets bored pretty fast. He doesn't know what to do with himself now that Metro Man is gone. Disguised as a librarian, he laments all his troubles to Roxanne the foxy reporter, and together they plan to stop Megamind, which is a bit of an issue as you might imagine. So Megamind starts hanging out with Roxanne a lot, and I sat there in the theater thinking, "Oh my God, this is actually going to happen. All my movie dreams are about to come true right here." That's right, they totally fall in love. Oh yeah, they freakin' went there. I know. Glorious.

Meanwhile Megamind has a master plan to create a new superhero using Metro Man's DNA. Thus Titan is born! Turns out Titan was actually a huge mistake. He's really a fat nerdy guy named Hal who likes video games. Also he's Roxanne's cameraman, and has a stalker-esque crush/obsession with her that I can totally relate to. Since Roxanne rejects him, he gets ultra pissed and insists on being the villain instead, which leaves Megamind to be the hero. The plot really thickens once Roxanne learns she's been making out with Megamind this whole time instead of an adorable librarian. But she pretty much has to get over it because Megamind is the only one who can stop Titan now.

So wow, did not expect things to go exactly the way I wanted them to, but obviously I'm not going to object to that sort of thing. If it was all guys in capes flying around lifting heavy stuff without any romance, I may have fallen asleep. But no, I was not bored once. I would totally see this shit again and not be ashamed. I recommend you do the same.

Earthsea

2010-11-05T12:10:00.003-04:00

Okay, so this one is technically a "TV miniseries you won't like". Netflix conned me into thinking it was a movie, when it was actually just a little something made for the Sci-Fi Channel that was based off a fantasy book series. I knew I would enjoy it because most of the reviews on Netflix said it was terrible and did not follow the books at all. People who read are so damn touchy, you know? Obviously I didn't read these books. Jesus, the movie was just under three hours, imagine how long it would have taken me to read the books! Months, perhaps. I'd rather waste my free time watching movies. So I anticipate this being a long review, because the movie was long too, and we have much ground to cover.

Here we go. First off, if you've ever even heard of this, give yourself a high five. Or clap your hands, which is the same thing. It was made back in '04 before Sci-Fi jumped on the "let's spell our name incorrectly to seem cool" bus. So that was a while ago, and this movie has long since faded into obscurity. Luckily Netflix excels at finding me obscure fantasy crap. Our hero is named Ged, and he is played by the guy who was in the X-Men movies. No, not Hugh Jackman, James Marsden, Patrick Stewart, Ian McClellan, or even Halle Berry. I'm talking about Shawn Ashmore, the kid who played Iceman. I was always attracted to him. In this movie he has a dorky curly haircut, but I got over it. The first time we see him, he's rolling around in the grass with a lady I assumed was his love interest, but he forgot about her pretty damn quickly because he kept having dreams about a much foxier lady that he'd never actually met. Now Ged lives in a pretty shitty village, and has a pretty depressing life as the son of a blacksmith. The blacksmith, by the way, is the worst actor I have seen outside of "Troll 2". My local theater would not hire this man. Obviously, like every hero, Ged wants to travel to distant lands and be awesome. Things really heat up when he saves the village using magic, killing himself in the process, but you know he's not going to stay dead because there are two and half more hours left of this movie and he's the main character. Sure enough, he's brought back to life by none other than Danny freakin' Glover. That's right, the guy from the "Lethal Weapon" movies. Who knew he was the Lord and Savior? I probably should have known.

So Ged decides to leave with Danny Glover and study the ways of magic under him. Danny Glover is something of a wizard, you see. But Ged grows impatient and leaves Danny Glover after what feels like only days, because Danny's cooking sucks ass and it's taking way too long for him to become a wizard. Instead, Ged travels to a wizarding academy. No, it's not Hogwarts. If only. It's very similar, though, albeit with far less whimsy. The headmaster, or Archmage, is a man with a long white beard. He's the Dumbledore of the film.

Meanwhile, the villain is wandering about, trying to get his hands on an amulet that will grant him and his girlfriend immortality. His girlfriend, Kossil, is a priestess in the same convent as the foxy lady who shows up in Ged's dreams (ooh what a coincidence!). Kossil spent the film either scheming or having sex. I kept calling her Princess Sideboob because she was naked so often. When she wasn't naked she was dressed ultra-conservatively, in true Princess Leia fashion. Anyway Princess Sideboob is the right hand to the High Priestess Thar, but Thar makes the foxy lady from Ged's dreams (named Tenar) her successor instead, because Tenar is a much nicer girl and isn't plotting to kill the high priestess in order to get the amulet that grants immortality. Oh fantasy fiction! Did you expect anything less?

While this is happening, Ged gets kicked out of Hogwarts for summoning a creature of pure evil all in an attempt to one-up his arch rival, a bitchy blonde boy named ~~Draco~~ Jasper. The creature is called a Gebbeth, and is intent on taking over Ged's body and doing mean things like murdering children for no good reason. Ged goes crawling back to Danny Glover, who advises him to go after the Gebbeth instead of running like a pansy. Ged does this of course, and the Gebbeth possesses him and forces him to kill some children. Then the Gebbeth leaves and the movie forgets about him for awhile.

Ged finds his comic relief, who was his best friend at school, and they travel to the convent where Tenar is. (I don't really know why they went there. I watched this two days ago and a lot happened, and my memory isn't what it used to be.) The comic relief guy is exactly the sort of fellow who might read the Earthsea books. He's a fat guy who lives with his sister and constantly talks about how much he loves food. And if there were video games in Earthsea, you can be sure he'd be playing them while eating whole bags of Cheetos. Not that there's anything wrong with that. This guy's name is ~~Ron Weasley~~ Vetch. Lovely.

When they get to the convent, which I guess is where the amulet is supposed to be, Ged gets himself locked up because he was sneaking around like a thief or something. And the high priestess was all like, "Maybe if you'd just asked me for the amulet instead of sneaking around like a criminal, I wouldn't have to lock you up," or something to that effect. Either way, pwnage. Ged is lucky though, because Tenar has been locked up, too. She was framed for the attempted murder of the high priestess. Oh, Sideboob! At it again!

What follows is a bloated climax in which the villain shows up and does some stuff, the Gebbeth shows up and gets pwned by Ged, and Ged and Tenar find the amulet and peace is returned to the land of Earthsea, blah blah blah. This review is getting long and I have better things to do. Okay no I don't. It's a good ending, but my heart goes out to the poor girl in the first few scenes of the movie who was rolling around in the grass with Ged. Ged so told her he was coming back. Typical freakin' man. He says he's going to call and the next thing you know, he's off and married to some chick with bigger boobs than you. Gawd!

Anyway, I enjoyed this movie. It was so long, but somehow it held my attention throughout, which is not always easy. I hear it was nothing like the books, but as a movie by itself it wasn't bad at all, unlike some book-movies...(Eragon). So if you have three hours to kill, give it a watch.

The Neverending Story II: The Next Chapter

2010-10-22T17:11:00.003-04:00

Okay, so I know I haven't actually reviewed the first one, but is that really necessary? It's common knowledge that "The Neverending Story" is a grand cinematic achievement. What isn't so well known is the shitty sequel. So it's gotta be done.

This movie, unlike its predecessor, is pretty terrible. It's stupid in that good, funny way though, so I didn't shut it off. The entire cast is different, with one exception - the creepy bookstore guy. I guess he had nothing better to do. Bastian has been replaced, inexplicably, by Jonathan Brandis. He was in "Ladybugs" with Rodney Dangerfield. Now I really want to go watch that. You remember him - cute little blonde kid with the bright blue eyes. I had such a crush on him years ago. It's a shame he hung himself. Let's hope starring in this movie had nothing to do with that.

Atreyu is all wrong. I used to have a crush on him, too, when I was still a youth. Alas, they recast him, and now he is played by some Filipino kid who looks nothing like Atreyu. They're not even the same race. Like I wouldn't notice.

In the first movie, they got away with using "the nothing" as a villian, which is pretty vague but kind of brilliant because we are in a storybook world where "nothing" is probably a real threat. It worked. Instead of "nothing", this time around we get "emptiness", which could be argued is the same damn thing. Not only that, we get a little extra villainy in the form of some evil chick named Xayide (I dare you to pronounce that correctly! ha ha!). She dressed in ridiculous outfits and had even more ridiculous henchmen. One of them is Nimbly, a man dressed in a giant chicken costume, essentially. The other is a guy named Tri-Face, who has three faces that look like Bicycle playing cards. The actor looked familiar, but I was mistaken. This is what IMDB says about him: "[His] last acting job was in 1991...After 10 years competing with Giovanni Ribisi, Leo DiCapprio, and others, he decided to go a different direction. He chose to accept God's amazing love, follow Christ, and went on to pastor a church." I hope he pastors in his Tri-Face costume. That's all I could picture when I read that, and it made me laugh.

Xayide's master plan is to take away Bastian's memories using a machine that Tri-Face built. Whenever Bastian uses Orin (the necklace, remember?) to wish for something, he loses one of his memories. The idea is that eventually he'll forget what he was supposed to be doing. You know it's not going to take very long because he's a kid - how many memories can he possibly have?

Xayide also has at her disposal a bunch of giant monsters that everyone just calls "giants" because they can't think of anything better to call them. And I thought we were in a land of imagination. The giants are pretty depressing. Bastian takes them out with a can of spray paint. Not sure why he didn't wish for a sword instead, but whatever. Although I guess if all it takes is a can of spray paint, then a swift kick in the balls would have taken them down pretty quickly. No need to waste a wish there.

Anyway, the plot isn't that much different - Atreyu and Bastian have to find their way to the Ivory Tower and save the Childlike Empress. This time Bastian is actually in the story though, and not just reading it. Also, it's not nearly as scary. "The nothing" used to scare the pants off of me, and I can't tell you how traumatized I was when Atryeu's horse was lost to quicksand. The horror! Yeah, there's no horror here. I could blame it on the fact that I'm an adult now, but I won't. All this movie has is a poor attempt at whimsy that just comes out looking stupid. It's not as cool or badass.

Since Bastian was lost in the story, his father couldn't find him and went all around town looking for him. Finally the clueless idiot starts to read the book and gets really excited and into it (ridiculously), but he doesn't fall into the world like Bastian did. That really would have been stupid. In the end, Bastian wishes Xayide had a heart, and apparently that makes her explode, so now he can go home and tell his father he loves him. I puked.

So yeah, watch the first one, skip this one. It's a perfect example of why some sequels are completely unnecessary.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

2010-10-08T13:39:00.004-04:00

I know it's been a while since I've reviewed anything. September was pretty lame. No worries though, because nothing gets me out of a slump quite like the sexy, sweaty, masculine man-body of Jake Gyllenhaal. Mmm. I mean, look at this movie poster. Tell me that doesn't get you going. I know, this movie has other stuff in it, but my memory is a little fuzzy. I watched it days ago.

Anyway, I hear this is based on a video game, and since it wasn't Zelda or Super Mario, I have never played it. It was directed by a guy who did one of the Harry Potter movies, and it was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. We all know Jerry has yet to produce crap, so obviously it was quite the enjoyable experience. There was action, romance, magic, and an attractive man. You can't lose.

The attractive man, Mr. Jake Gyllenhaal, plays the title role of the prince of Persia, Dastan. (That's a sexy name, I don't care who you are.) The king sort of adopted him off the streets, so he isn't really a prince, but whatever. Trouble begins when Dastan is framed for the murder of his father, and he has to go on the run with the love interest, Tamina, and prove his innocence. Tamina is a princess (not his sister, don't worry, different kingdom...) and quite feisty, as most heroines are. Dastan and Tamina don't get along very well at first, but you know it's only because they're in love, or soon will be at least. No woman is strong enough to resist such biceps.

Now this whole thing with the sands of time - Tamina is the protector of a very important dagger that contains the sands of time in the handle. If you push the jewel on the handle, you go back in time, usually only a minute or two, but still. I would make great use of this, whenever I say something dumb in front of an attractive man. I'd be pushing that button all day. But there is a way to make it so you can go back in time a lot farther, and that is why the villain wants it, because the villain is the king's brother, and he wants to go back in time to make sure he kills his brother as a child, so he can be king. It's kind of mean, but it makes sense.

So Dastan not only has to prove his innocence, he has to convince everyone that his uncle actually killed the king, and keep him from getting the magical dagger. It's pretty exciting. It's not like those other action movies from ancient times where it's all serious and no fun. There's fun here. There's romance, there are jokes, there's comic relief. The comic relief takes the form of a man in love with ostriches. I shit you not. He kissed one. So that was pretty awesome.

Also, this is a Disney movie, even though it doesn't really look like it. This pleased me because I knew there would be a happy ending. And I was not disappointed. I was only annoyed by Jake Gyllenhaal's obvious British accent. It was really unnecessary. They weren't British or American in ancient Persia, so what difference does it make? No need to force an accent on someone. Other than that, A+. I want this one on DVD.

Furry Vengeance

2010-08-28T21:12:00.004-04:00

I wonder, if I took a crap into the Netflix envelope and sent that back instead of the actual DVD, do you think anyone would notice? Gawd, I think I finally found something as awful as "Jingle All the Way", which if you remember is the worst movie I've reviewed so far. This one comes pretty close. I mean I guess it's good if you're retarded, or three years old. Or three years old and retarded. (Yeah I used the word retarded. Wanna fight about it?) You know if it weren't for this blog, I would have avoided this movie like the plague that it is, but I knew in my heart that it would be truly terrible and good for a laugh. I pride myself on knowing shit when I see it.

Just when you thought Brendan Fraser was gaining a shred of credibility, this turd comes out. Everyone knows Brendan is my favorite actor, not because I think he's any good, but because I know he's not. (It makes sense. To me.) I know the entire world will disagree with me on this, but I think Brendan Fraser deserves a hell of a lot better than the shit he takes. "The Mummy" and "Journey to the Center of the Earth" were cinematic gems. What the hell happened?

But enough about Brendan. Apparently he's gone back to his Pauly Shore days and nothing can be done. Let me tell you why this movie eats so much ass. First of all, I don't like any film where the animals are smarter than the humans. They're all led by one highly intelligent raccoon, and they all take great pleasure in running people off the road with large rocks, thus murdering them. The opening scene shows them doing this. Movie animals love to fuck with rich businessmen that don't care about nature. Look, I don't care for rich businessmen myself, and yeah, they usually don't give a damn about nature, but come on woodland creatures, murder never solves anything. (Okay, maybe it does, but the repercussions aren't really worth it.) The development's getting built, bitches.

The animals' blood lust is not satiated, so they decide to screw around with Brendan Fraser, henceforth called Dan. Luckily Dan is immune from death by raccoon because he's the main character. Instead, all of Act II is utterly bloated with scenes of Dan getting pissed on, sprayed by skunks, knocked over, stung by bees, thrown into rivers, pushed off rooftops, and [insert bullshit slapstick shenanigans]. I didn't think it would end. You know if he'd just run that bitch-ass raccoon over at the beginning of the film, he wouldn't have this problem. Now his wife and son think he's crazy, and rightfully so. (His wife is played by Brooke Shields, whose career is obviously in the toilet, poor gal.)

The really stupid part (that's right, it's worse!) is when Dan's son tells him about the research he's been doing on the forest, and apparently he found out that the raccoon has tortured many a settler from Vikings to Puritans whenever they tried to develop his land. The film then cuts to a few shots of Brendan Fraser dressed as a Viking and a Puritan, getting his ass kicked by the raccoon. And I wept inside for his poor, departed career.

Dan eventually solves his problem by getting animal control on the scene and locking up all the woodland creatures in cages. This pisses off Dan's son, but only because he's trying to get with a chick who's clearly an environmentalist, not because he gives a shit. So Dan goes to visit the raccoon and tells him his feelings, and then realizes that the raccoon has a family and was only trying to protect them. Let's not forget that this raccoon is immortal. I just wanted to point that out. So Dan has a change of heart and lets the animals go free.

The movie ends with a grand orgy of animal vengeance, where the animals go all "Braveheart" on the mean investors, excluding Dan because of his change of heart. (No seriously, they showed Mel Gibson in a thought bubble above a squirrel's head. I know...) I'd like to point out also that the animals make sounds that no real animal would ever make. They exclaim things like "Bye-bye", "Woohoo", "Wee!" and "Ha ha!". They communicate with each other as though they were people and build elaborate contraptions that no animal could fashion. This is further proof that if animals ever became intelligent somehow, they would no doubt take over the world and enslave the human race. Be warned.

Okay now for positives. The animals were really cute. Also, I laughed once, when Dan slammed the brakes on his SUV and exclaimed "Miley Cyrus!" in surprise. But that's no reason to see this movie. You totally don't have to now, as I told you the only funny joke. And if you want to look at a cute animal, here you go:

There, now go eat an entire stick of butter, and you will know what it feels like to watch this movie. I saved you an hour and a half. You're welcome.

Blood of Beasts (Beauty and the Beast)

2010-08-24T17:11:00.004-04:00

According to Netflix, this movie is called "Blood of Beasts", but the entire time I was watching it I kept saying to myself, "Holy shit, this movie is exactly like 'Beauty and the Beast'." Turns out it is (that's the alternate title) - except in live action. And with Vikings. No seriously - freakin' Vikings. And I was fully prepared to make fun of its plagiarism.

Speaking of plagiarism, look at this movie poster. Could it look any more like "The Lord of the Rings"? I did a Google Image search and almost skipped by it because I thought the chick on the cover was Arwen. Why hasn't anyone sued?

Okay, so you're probably wondering, what the hell is this turd of a movie and why should I be interested in it? Well I'll answer you. This movie is depressingly bad, but in the wonderful way that it's still totally watchable because it's pretty darn (unintentionally) funny. Also, Vikings rule.

As I mentioned, the plot is Beauty and the Beast, except everyone worships Odin. As far as deities go, Odin is a bit of a dick. Also, I was annoyed by the characters saying shit like, "Thank Odin" and "Odin knows". As if they talked like that. Pshaw! Anyway Odin is a shitty deity because he cursed this nice guy named Agnar by turning him into a beast. You can sort of see poor old Agnar on the poster. He's in the bottom left. Tell me that doesn't look like he just skinned a bear and put it over his head. Still, I liked Agnar, because like the Wolfman, he kills people, though it's not really his fault. He's like a cross between Disney's Beast and Grendel from "Beowulf".

Belle's name in the Viking version is Freya, and she kicks ass because she goes to rescue her father (the king) from the beast when all the big Viking men puss out and leave him there. If you saw the Disney version you know that Belle traded herself for her father so that he could go free. Now, since the men are totally butt-hurt that one of their womenfolk had the balls to rescue the king when none of them would, they decide to grow some pairs and rescue Freya to regain their masculinity. They are led by none other than Gaston, or Sven, hilariously enough. Sven, like Gaston, is a total douche bag. Apparently he's supposed to be handsome, too, but I'm not buying it. Look at this guy:
Someone should tell him the rat tail goes in the back. He kind of looks like Ryan Reynolds, if Ryan Reynolds were ugly and had his forehead lengthened by several inches. Really, most of the men in this movie were disappointing, while the women were quite foxy. One exception was a guy named Eric, who resembled Corey Feldman, but is actually the guy from "Dungeons and Dragons", which I've never seen but really probably should. He's cute.

While in captivity, Freya learns that the beast is actually a pretty nice guy. We the audience know that he was once named Agnar, and that Freya used to date him. Freya is a bit slow and doesn't recognize him. And so they fall in love, and I couldn't help but sing to myself..."There's something sweet/and almost kind/but he was mean and he was coarse and unrefined!" Yeah, you have that in your head now. You're welcome.

One great thing about this movie that actually kind of sucked because someone had to die for it was the Viking funeral. You really can't have a movie about Vikings without one. That's probably the reason for killing off characters in Viking movies. I've always said this how I want my funeral to go. People often think I'm joking, but I'm not. Seriously. Set my boat on fire and send me down the Saco River. There, it's published on the Internet now - so you have to.

I'll partially spoil it by saying the beast becomes human Agnar again. He wasn't very attractive, so when that happened I exclaimed, "Oh God put the fur back on!" and laughed at my own joke. Alas, there was no one there to laugh. Feel free to laugh as you're reading this though. Or not, suit yourself.

The Other Guys

2010-08-19T20:40:00.003-04:00

Now this is how you make a cop movie. A funny one anyway. Say what you want about Will Ferrell (I hear he's not very nice), he makes a damn fine film. The jokes were funny, the car chases were awesome, and the action sequences were...well, they were very well done.

Oh, and did I mention this whole thing is narrated by none other than Ice-T? Seriously, who better? I love Ice-T. He kicks ultra ass and brings the pain on "Law & Order: SVU". The second this movie started and I heard his voice, I was delighted.

The film starts out focusing on a couple of cops, played by Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson, who are basically the star cops of the force. They kick the most amount of ass and get the most awards for doing so. Will Ferrell and his partner Marky Mark are "the other guys". Will, or Allen, works at the desk and does accounting. He wears large glasses and no one takes him seriously. Marky Mark (I'll never stop calling him that) plays Allen's partner, Terry. Terry has a bit of a temper. He hates Allen and is constantly giving him a hard time because Allen is a total nerd and incessantly hums while he works.

You see, Allen is such a total puss because he doesn't want to lose control of himself like he did in college, back when he was a pimp and called himself "Gator". That's brilliant comedy right there. I wish I was that funny. Anyway, when Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson get cocky and end up accidentally killing themselves by jumping off a building, somebody has to step in and fill their shoes, so to speak. Terry wants himself and Allen to be the ones to do that, so he forces Allen to get out on the streets and do some real police work. And obviously some hi-jinks occur, and there is much hilarity. For example, Allen drives a red Prius, and Terry tells him he feels like he's driving around in a vagina. That's gold. Also, Allen's Gator personality randomly comes out the more he loosens up, resulting in him saying shit like, "Gator's bitches better be using jimmies!" Such gold.

So the script was written by a couple of guys who have written for Will Ferrell before, and it was pretty noticeable because I felt like Will wrote it. It actually felt like the actors were improvising a lot of the time. There were certain scenes that reminded me a lot of "Best in Show", which also seemed improvised. There's no way to describe it, but you can just tell when the lines haven't been written down by anybody. Or maybe that's what the writers want me to think. There's no mention of it on IMDB, so I may never know. Oh well.

This is certainly worth seeing, as it will make you laugh, especially if you're like me and you enjoy Will Ferrell's brand of humor. And his delivery - it's Leslie Nielsen good.

Ghost Town

2010-08-12T22:38:00.002-04:00

What a clever, witty, and delightful little film. Netflix really does know what I like. First off, it stars Ricky Gervais, who is one of Britain's funniest actors. Thanks, Britain! He was in "Stardust", my favorite film of all time, so obviously I love him.

This isn't your typical romantic comedy. It's actually funny. (To clarify, I love romantic comedies for the romance, not the jokes. This one has both.) And you would think that with a plot like this, one that I've seen hundreds of time, it wouldn't be very good. But I was pleased. This is the story of a man named Bertram Pincus (most British-sounding name ever!) who hates people, which makes sense because people suck. He makes his living as a dentist. Why? Because he gets to shove things into people's mouths and make them shut up. Isn't he wonderful? What a joy! Also, he's British, so even when he's being an ass, he sounds classy.

After being dead for seven minutes on the operating table, Pincus can see ghosts. The ghosts bug the hell out of him, as one would expect if you've seen any other film in which a character can all of a sudden see ghosts (and yes, there are plenty of scenes involving Pincus seemingly talking to himself and getting funny looks). One particular ghost is Frank (Greg Kinnear), who wants Pincus to stop his widow from marrying this lawyer guy that he doesn't particularly care for. Since Pincus hates people, he's quite reluctant to help Frank. It reminded me of "Over Her Dead Body" a little bit, only not mind-numbingly and depressingly bad. This movie deals with dead people in the correct way. Though it had supernatural elements, it didn't come across as stupid.

Eventually Pincus decides to help Frank, because all the other ghosts are bothering Pincus, and Frank promises to make them go away. The plan is for Pincus to woo the widow, whose name is Gwen (and played by Tea Leoni), so that she'll dump the fianceé. And it's funny because Ricky Gervais is a very average looking guy, and his character is not a particularly nice person, so his odds aren't so good. But he manages!

What I thought was nice was the lack of kissing in this movie. To be honest, I really don't need to see Ricky Gervais making out with Tea Leoni. The romance is implied, like they used to do in old movies. The end is pretty much left up to the viewer. Do they get together at the end? Probably. In my head they do. Other people might watch this and assume they just remain friends. It really doesn't matter. It's not like in other romantic comedies where they insist on unnecessarily showing you the wedding scene at the end. You know, it's not about you show in a film, it's what you don't show. So, way to stay classy, movie.

Inception

2010-08-09T14:37:00.004-04:00

What's this? I'm reviewing the number one movie in America, a critically acclaimed masterpiece that doesn't contain magical creatures or stupid humor? Have I gone mad?! Perhaps. Or perhaps I've succumbed to peer pressure.

I saw this the other night, and I wasn't going to review it, but here it is. I didn't want to review it because it's one of those movies that you really have to pay attention to in order to really get it, and well, I've been watching a lot of mindless children's fantasy lately, so thinking was something that I wasn't quite prepared for. Also, I didn't want to look stupid by saying I had a hard time with it.

Now I like to consider myself an intelligent woman, but when it comes to movies I'm just your average drooling retard who laughs merrily at a set of shiny dangling keys. It's rather like someone who only ever eats McDonald's, and then one day eats a vegetable, and subsequently pukes it out. (I know, my analogies suck.) Lucky for me the film wasn't all vegetables.

This movie actually did satisfy some of my needs, even if it was delivered in fancy "good" movie fashion. And it has Leonardo DiCaprio, and though I preferred him in 1997 when he was youthful and sexier (Mmm...Titanic), I'm pleased to report that he also makes for a very handsome older man. There, now that my raging hormones are out of the way, on to the film itself!

Leo plays a guy named Dom Cobb, who is a thief of sorts - he gets into people's heads while they're dreaming and steals important information. The plot involves a job he gets in which he has to put an idea into someone's head through a dream. This is called inception. And we have a title! So Dom and his adorable sidekick (Joseph Gordon-Levitt - I know, where's he been?) enter this guy's mind in order to convince him not to take over his dying father's company. The guy who hired Dom to do this was competing with this company, so there you go. Anyway, they get Ellen Page to be their "architect". Basically she just builds the landscape and the places in the dreams, through her imagination I assume. And in they go.

The dreams are the cool part. This whole movie is like being in a dream. The laws of physics and reason no longer apply, as I'm sure anyone who saw the trailer for this will know. Whole cities fold in half. It's awesome, and actually looks real. People swim through the air as though it were water. Stairs go nowhere. Gravity is flipped around in every direction. It's like an M.C. Escher painting or something. Visually, it's pretty friggin' remarkable, and makes all other cinematography look like shit. Seriously, twenty years ago this movie would not have been possible, and any attempts would have been super lame. I have a useless film degree and I can't even figure out how they made this look so realistic. Computers, I imagine. Really good computers.

Now, this is kind of deep. (For me.) The dreams are so realistic that you wonder if it's even a dream at all, or if the dream is the reality and the reality is actually a dream. I remember talking about this is in Psychology 101, but I doodled a lot in that class, so...yeah. Still, at the time I thought the concept was pretty interesting and that someone should make it a movie. Guess I missed my chance. Shit.

One of my favorite parts was Dom's dead wife constantly interfering in every dream they went in. She killed herself because she thought it would bring her back to the dream world she lived in with Dom. She was mistaken. And I was wondering the whole time if Dom was going to just stay in the dream world where his wife was pretty much still alive, even though none of it was real. But he had children in the real world that he was trying to get back to, so he couldn't. It was pretty romantic, I thought.

So I liked it. I mean it was totally something my dad would watch, and our movie tastes differ greatly. (He likes to say, "Amy, if there's shit on TV, you'll find it!"). Even if you think the plot sucks, the visuals are just so damn awesome that it doesn't even matter.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

2010-08-03T13:58:00.003-04:00

I think if I read the actual book, I'd be as disappointed as I was about Eragon. Luckily I don't read, so I really enjoyed this film. I'm going to be reviewing it on its own, as a film, instead of a book made into a film. Maybe one day I'll read the book and come to hate this movie for it's inaccuracies, which I'm sure must exist, but for now I don't care and I'll simply say: I like this movie.

Our hero is a Zac Efron lookalike named Percy Jackson, who is a demigod and the son of Poseidon. Let me just say that Percy's mother deserves the grandest of high fives for banging Poseidon (Kevin McKidd), god of the sea and sexy doctor on "Grey's Anatomy". Percy's demigod status gives him such grand powers as - wait for it......ADHD and dyslexia! He can't read English properly, only ancient Greek. Awesome. Oh yeah and he can move water around. Sort of goes without saying. Poseidon and all.

Percy's comic relief best friend is a sassy black crippled kid named Grover, who is in fact a satyr, or man-goat, and not actually cripple. He was hilarious and I loved his furry goat legs. So the plot here is that Percy finds out he's a demigod, and is sent away with his comic relief to a training center designed specifically for demigods. Apparently the gods get freaky with humans a lot, and apparently they have never heard of birth control somehow. Here Percy finds out one of his wheelchair-bound teachers is really a centaur, played by Pierce Brosnan, which if I were in my mid 40s, I'd be really excited about. This just furthers my belief that all handicapped people are in fact magical creatures. That's why they get special bathrooms and parking spaces. They're magic!

In the training center, the demigods play capture-the-flag, but it isn't lame like real capture-the-flag - they play with real swords and ancient Roman battle armor. Why couldn't we do this in elementary school? This is where Percy meets his love interest, because ladies love a demigod (if that doesn't get you laid, I don't know what will). She's a demigod named Annabeth, who is the daughter of Athena and beats the shit out of Percy when they first meet, so you know they're gonna be in love.

Anyway, it turns out everyone thinks Percy went and stole one of Zeus's more important lightning bolts, but you know he was framed because well, I never saw him take it. Now everyone wants to kick his ass, especially Hades. Of course Hades does. He wants the lightning bolt for himself so he can overthrow Zeus and take over Olympus. You think he would have learned by now that that shit doesn't work. Hasn't he watched the countless movies about himself? Maybe he should have a talk with Ralph Fiennes or James Woods. They'll tell him what's up. But because he doesn't know any better, Hades kidnaps Percy's mother and takes her to the underworld. Now Percy has to get her back, and the only way to do that is to collect three of Persephone's stones, which are located all across the United States. Why have the gods moved from ancient Greece to America? I don't know! Nor do I care! The stones will help them get out of the Underworld, because apparently once you go down there, there's no getting out.

On his magical quest Percy takes his comic relief and his love interest, and the first place they go to is Medusa's lair. Hmm, "Clash of the Titans", anyone? (This movie is better.) Medusa is played by Uma Thurman, and she was a bit over-the-top, but I guess when you're playing a chick with snakes for hair, that sort of thing is acceptable. Medusa's head is pretty much the deus ex machina of Greek myth movies. Seriously, whenever there's something that you can't beat, just point Medusa's face at it, and it's toast. I laughed when Percy used the reflection in his iPod to see Medusa around the corner, much like Perseus used the reflection in his shield. It made me say to myself, "Need to kill Medusa? There's an app for that." Then I had a good laugh.

The last place they travel to is Las Vegas. (The second was Tennessee, but nothing I feel like mentioning happened there. There was a hydra and it was badass. There.) The Vegas part delighted me. The three of them ate some lotus flowers in the Lotus casino, without knowing that lotus flowers are drugs that dull your senses and make you forget what you were doing, so that you essentially stay at the casino indefinitely. (The casino workers are lotus-eaters - it's a Greek myth. From the Odyssey, I think.) The goat man had a pretty great time with this, because as everyone knows, satyrs are total man whores. He was up on stage dancing to Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" with a crowd of Vegas showgirls, and it brought me immense joy. He had his goat legs out and everything and no one batted an eye.

Once they get all the stones, it turns out that the entrance to the Underworld is behind the Hollywood sign (who knew!). I was delighted to see the Ferryman waiting for them. I swore he was being played by Alice Cooper, but upon checking the IMDB, I realized he was just some British guy I've never seen before. Alice Cooper would have been funnier. Oh well.

Eventually they rescue Percy's mother, get the lightning bolt back and head to Olympus to return it to Zeus, who I've seen as Boromir from "The Lord of the Rings" (Sean Bean is his real name). Olympus has for some reason moved to the top of the Empire State Building. I know, I could have sworn it was in Greece. Next time I'm in New York City I'll have to check that out. Again, I'm not sure why they decided to move their production to America. Maybe because it's more prominent than Greece is nowadays. I don't know, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

I won't reveal the ending, but it's a kid's fantasy movie, so I think you can guess. Maybe I'll go read the book now and ruin my joy. Maybe not.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

2010-07-24T20:25:00.007-04:00

I thought this movie was really good. I mean obviously. I was super excited when I first saw the trailer for it. It's made from the same guy (Jerry Bruckheimer) who brought us "Pirates of the Caribbean" (all of them) and both "National Treasure" movies. You wouldn't think "National Treasure" would be that good, but I was proven wrong once I saw it. Fun movie. But that's another review. This one has Nicolas Cage in it, too. I've always enjoyed him, ever since I first saw him in "City of Angels", which had Meg Ryan and was uber-romantic, so duh, I loved it.

Mr. Cage isn't the hero, though. I mean he sort of is, but really in this movie the fate of world rests in the hands of a physics nerd named Dave. Do you even need to ask? Of course I loved him. He has a certain Shia LaBeouf-ness about him, in that he's an inarticulate dork, but good looking at the same time. He has an undeniable charm, and I thought he was precious.

So Dave is told by Nicolas Cage, whose character name is Balthazar Blake (badass name? You bet!), that they are both sorcerers. You see Balthazar was an apprentice to Merlin, and when I first heard this I thought, "Oh Gawd, here we go, another Merlin ripoff," but no! It wasn't horrible! I should have more faith in Jerry Bruckheimer. He delivers the goods. But yeah, Balthazar has in fact been alive for a thousand or so years (how? who cares!), searching for the one who can defeat the evil sorceress Morgana. It's not as bad as it sounds, I promise. So poor, sweet Dave is obviously the one to do it. He inherits Merlin's powers, so they call him the Prime Merlinian. I'm not even making that shit up. I know, it sounds like Prime Meridian! (That's the longitude line at 0 degrees, for those who don't remember elementary school geography. Dur.)

So yeah, it's Dave mission to stop the villain from releasing Morgana from a jar called the grimhold (or something), in which she's been trapped for a thousand years in the body of Balthazar's girlfriend. See, this movie isn't stupid at all. The villain's name is Maxim Horvath. I though he said "whore bath", and had a very good laugh to myself. I think I need my hearing checked. Anyway this guy has got it in for Nicolas Cage, and wants to get Morgana out so she can raise an undead army to destroy the world or some nonsense. On a side note, I'm tired of Morgana always being evil in movies. From what I've heard she was a rather passive fairy queen. Also, what could any villain possibly gain from destroying the world? I'll never understand it.

Meanwhile Dave keeps getting distracted by a blonde girl he has a crush on. Blonde, Dave? Come on now. I'm kidding, this provided me with much needed romance, so I shouldn't object. Even Nicolas Cage has a lady in this movie, and though both romances were predictable, I was pleased they were there. I mean, what lady wouldn't want a man who can shoot flaming plasma balls at people you don't like? It's true, magic will get you laid. This movie proves it. (Kidding, there's no sex, this is Disney.)

This movie has many of the things I enjoy in film. Behold:
Um, how can you say no to that? And since it's Disney, you know you're gonna be enchanted, and you know everything is going to turn out alright in the end. I was worried for a second until I remembered that. The only thing I thought was too weird was a not-so-subtle homage to Mickey Mouse's Sorcerer's Apprentice bit from "Fantasia". I say it's not-so-subtle because it's almost exactly the same, only there's no hat and Dave isn't a mouse. Really, Disney? You have to pimp your classics so obviously? Here's what I thought of "Fantasia": Zzzzzzz.....

Still, I highly recommend this one, and I want the DVD when it comes out. This shit is right up my alley.

Eclipse

2010-06-30T14:34:00.003-04:00

The good news is that this movie is actually pretty good, and is far superior to its predecessors. The bad news is - I have nothing to make fun of! I might actually admit to people that I enjoy this series now. The plot is actually starting to go somewhere, with a lot less moping and a lot more neck-breaking. That's something I can get behind.

What I think made this one better is that it wasn't all about Edward and Bella. I mean it still kind of was, as they are the main characters, but this time other people actually got some screen time - and lines! (Except for poor, sweet, Mike Newton. It's a shame because he's getting cuter.) First of all, let me talk about Jasper. He's the one that looks like Harpo. He had maybe two lines in each of the last two films. What a waste of a handsome man. Not to mention he's one of the more interesting characters in the series. He lived during the Civil War and was an officer for the Confederate Army. Mmm, a southern gentleman in uniform... Anyway, we got to hear some back story. In fact, there was a lot of back story in this movie, which I'm okay with. I love it when there's back story in films based on books. Something about it gets me excited.

We also got to see where Rosalie came from, which was awesome for the following reason: In life, her fiancee left her to die, so once she became a vampire, she toasted his ass. That's reason number 867 why I want to be a vampire - if a man scorns you, you can viciously murder the son of a bitch. Really, all day I was thinking about what I would do if I were a vampire. I don't even care about the immortality thing, I just think it would be awesome to be able to throw Buicks at people and run really fast and freak people out and be super dead (pun) sexy and young all the time. I'm so jealous!

Speaking of sexy, everyone in this damn film is sexy. No doubt, I would do at least fifty percent of the cast. Stephanie Meyers is kind of a genius - writing a book with copious amounts of sexy mythical creatures, some of whom see fit to remain shirtless for much of the time. Thank you for that. You know, Jacob always pissed me off in the books, but I can't possibly stay mad at him when I watch this movie. His torso is like living art. I honestly don't remember anything he said. Still, I just wanted to say to him, "Sweetheart, she's not ever going to pick you, it's time to move the fuck on. I'm pretty single at the moment..."

Alright, I'm not going to spend this entire time ranting about the overly attractive cast. Stuff happens in this movie. There's a lot more action. It's no "Die Hard", but still. The opening scene is a dude getting hunted and bitten by a vampire - he's all bleeding and screaming and it's just awesome. Really set the mood quite well, I thought. Victoria, who is played by a brand new actress (as if I wouldn't notice), has been spending much of her time in Seattle forcing this guy to bite people and make them vampires, all so they can go kill Bella. I mean really, how many people does it take to kill this girl? She's the most awkward, weak, and clumsy little thing alive. I could kick her ass. A strategically placed rabies-infested badger could take this girl down. I don't know, I thought it was kind of funny.

So the Cullens have to fight off all these new vampires, with help from the ever-shirtless werewolf Indian tribe, and you can imagine how awesome that turns out. The end is just one big fight, and it's pretty amazing. A bit lacking in the gore department - I expected more, but I suppose vampires don't bleed. They're more like porcelain. I was reminded of the time I accidentally smashed the lid on the back of the toilet seat years ago when I was a chambermaid. Vampires break in a similar fashion.

Anyway, this movie kicks so much more ass than the other ones, because no one is mopey and depressed, and it isn't all kissing and mushy stuff (although there's a fair amount of that). I'm not one to complain, though, I got excited when Edward proposed to Bella. You know how I love my mushy stuff. Twilight though, is a lot like movie theater popcorn (which I'm enjoying stale at the moment) - it's so delicious, but there's too much of it and you can't stop eating it, and before you know it, you feel kind of sick. I've compared these films to too much food before, I know...I think I'll compare the next movie to Cinnabon. Yeah, that's pretty accurate.

Shrek Forever After/The Final Chapter (whatever it's called...)

2010-06-17T19:46:00.006-04:00

I like Shrek. He's a swell guy. He knows I would never speak ill of him. I'm not saying I didn't like this movie, because I did, but it just didn't feel necessary. Of course one could argue that no sequel is ever necessary, unless you're a popular book series, but I felt it wasn't as needed as 2 and 3 were. Shrek 2 and 3 brought me immense joy, but I believe the franchise has finally lost some steam (or maybe it's because I paid thirteen dollars to see it in 3D - highway robbery!). The writers must have realized it too, because as far as I know this will be the last one. I hope so. I have plenty of closure after three sequels that I'm certain a fourth sequel will only be depressingly bad.

One thing that every sequel needs is continuity. You have to make me believe that this story could conceivably follow the last one. This time around they went with the tired what-if-all-this-never-happened theme. They did that with Cinderella 3, which is a movie I'm happy to say I haven't wasted my time on, since I believe there should never even have been a 2 (that one was abysmal), and that both of those sequels were an insult to Walt Disney.

Anyway, you would think putting all your characters in a parallel universe would make it easy to keep things consistent. Not so much. I have one small gripe. Okay, it's a big gripe. The villain in this film is Rumpelstiltskin, which makes sense because if you know anything about fairy tales (which I do, a lot), then you know this guy is fond of making deals with people and then screwing them over. My problem is we've seen Rumpelstiltskin before - he had a speaking part in the last film, albeit a small one - but this isn't the same character! (Look at the photo!) The name is the same, but he looks completely different! Did they think I wouldn't notice? Are they insane? It's not a different guy, how many dudes named Rumpelstiltskin could there possibly be? In Shrek 3 he was sort of jaded and downtrodden (you remember, in the bar, Prince Charming called him "Frumpy Pig Skin" by mistake), but now he's been turned into your typical determined, slightly crazy, power-hungry villain (see movie poster above...see, that's not that same dude, not by a long shot). Also, this new guy isn't likable like the other Shrek villains. He was just an asshole, and looked like one of those old troll dolls from the 90s, except you can't make a wish on his tummy.

I mean, come on. It took away from the film's believability, and that irked me. Or maybe I'm just upset because I miss Justin Timberlake...his character, Arthur, was not in this film at all, and I loved him because he was adorable, but they decided to leave him out. Boo to that.

Other than that, Shrek 4 is still pretty damn funny. Dreamworks rarely makes an unfunny film, and Shrek is no exception. With an obese Puss in Boots, Fiona looking like Xena, and a delightful Pied Piper who uses his flute to make people dance to "Shake Your Groove Thing", I found myself greatly amused. There were a lot of fun things happening that delighted me, as usual.

The movie starts out with Shrek and Fiona living their stressful life as parents, and I thought, "Gawd, I can't relate to parents with this barren womb of mine...", but luckily this changed as the movie progressed, I'm happy to say. Once Shrek makes a deal with Rumpelstiltskin, because he just wants one day as a real (bachelor) ogre again, he has to make Fiona fall in love with him all over again, since Stiltskin tricked Shrek and essentially sent him to this parallel universe. I don't know why Shrek didn't see that one coming. Apparently, in this world, Shrek never rescued Fiona, so she went and rescued herself and now, with a bunch of other ogres, heads a Les Mis-like resistance against Rumpelstiltskin, who is now king of Far Far Away, and who has turned the place into an economically downtrodden shithole. As an old spinster cat lady, I got choked up a bit when Fiona told Shrek how she spent years in that tower waiting for true love's first kiss, but it never came, so she had to go out into the world alone and make something of herself. And Shrek could only apologize for not being there for her when she needed him, and Jesus Christ, if I wasn't in public I would have cried a bit. I'm getting misty just writing it.

So for me, this sequel was the most romantic. I can totally see why other people may disagree with me of course, and that's okay. Besides the Rumpelstiltskin thing, the lack of Justin Timberlake, and that fact that maybe another Shrek movie wasn't needed, I still had a pretty good time. It's good entertainment even when it's not up to the standard, and let's face it, the Shrek franchise has set a pretty high standard.

The Lake House

2010-06-01T22:46:00.005-04:00

This movie is one of my personal favorites, and one of my guiltiest pleasures. Since I love it, I find it only fitting to make fun of it, as I do with all the things I love. It's so romantic, so emotional, and so damn confusing. I've seen it about four or five times now, and still it takes me about an hour to figure out what's what. You see, Sandra Bullock's character, Kate, lives in 2006. Keanu Reeves's character, Alex, lives in 2004. Their romance revolves around a magic mailbox, which is situated at the lake house that they both used to live in (at different times, of course). They write letters to each other through time, and fall in love that way. I mean it sounds retarded but it's actually quite beautiful. And might I add, really hard to wrap your head around. The whole movie goes back and forth through time between 2004 and 2006, with absolutely no helpful year-indicator-subtitle to clear things up. So this is what I did to help me out next time I decide to watch this film and I don't want to bother with thinking:

There we go! In case you can't see it, those are notes in the DVD case. I highly recommend it. They let me know "what the fuck".

So anyway, there are aspects of this movie that make it awesomely bad, but that I like to pretend aren't there in order to fully enjoy it. One thing that bugged me: the characters sometimes refer to other characters as "my little brother" or "my father" to indicate to the audience the nature of their relationship. It happens a lot in film. I notice it now because they made fun of it on "Family Guy". It kind of drives me mad. Give me some freakin' context clues, I'm not an invalid. I can figure this shit out on my own. Seriously, Alex's father says the phrase "your father" so many times that Alex actually asked him why he kept referring to himself in the third person. It made me laugh. And it wasn't a very funny scene.

Also, let me talk about Mr. Keanu Reeves. I know I've reviewed him before. In case you forgot him, here is my favorite photo of him, which I stole from The Best Page in the Universe (<----funny bastard right there):

(This is him starring in "The Matrix".) Now it's always nice to see a handsome man in a romantic film, even if the actor is a sub-par wooden plank. Of course I find the more I watch this movie the harder it is to take the bastard seriously. I mean he was certainly worlds more lovable than he was in "The Day the Earth Stood Still", but I wasn't quite feeling the make out scene between him and Kate. I kind of had to look away. Honestly I was pretending he was someone else. (Who? That's for me to know.)

But you know what, when the story is good (once you figure it out, that is), even Keanu Reeves can't ruin a film. The story is pretty good, too - it's like Jane Austen's "Persuasion", only with a less shitty ending. I haven't read that book, but they mention it in the film, and since I now know the ending blows (thanks a lot, movie), I will not be reading it. "Persuasion" is really about two people who have to wait to be together, because the timing isn't right, or something like that. And it parallels this movie because Alex has to wait like, four years just to meet Kate. It's magical, trust me. I wept like a child the first time I saw it. This was totally my reaction (and still is):
That's what I call a stamp of approval.

Avatar

2010-05-23T21:36:00.004-04:00

Holy shit! I have never in all my life witnessed such beauty. Now I know what all the fuss is about. This right here is the good kind of good cinema. It's wonderfully made - a masterpiece, a work of art in motion - it's entertaining, it's moving, it's inspirational, it's epic - and they didn't even need unicorns to do it! Really if I had been alone I would have wept like a child over the sheer majesty of it all. It's one of those movies that makes your own life look like dog shit in comparison.

The planet of Pandora is a wonder in itself. It's so creative. So majestic. I so want to live there. It's basically a hippie commune of lanky blue people. They worship their deity Eywa and are one with nature. But the humans from Earth show up and, as is our nature, try to destroy the place. The Earthlings are very selfish and want to get their hands on a made-up element (there's always one!) called unobtainium. Not a very creative name but I'm willing to look past that. Apparently it's super valuable. Trouble is, the blue people are living right on top of what I can only assume is all the unobtainium on Pandora, otherwise the humans would just try somewhere else.

Our human hero is a ruggedly handsome cripple marine named Jake. He and Sigourney Weaver use blue people versions of themselves (they call them "avatars", hence the title) to learn more about the blue people's culture and eventually to tell them to get the hell out of there or else they will be blown to smithereens. It's basically "Pocahontas", but with blue people instead of Native Americans. Jake meets a blue girl named Nateeri (I kept calling her "Smurfette"), and she teaches him how to sing with all the voices of the mountains and paint with all the colors of the wind, and well, not to spoil it, but they fall in love. Oh come on, you knew it was gonna happen. Besides, who the hell hasn't seen this movie yet?

So now Jake, Sigourney Weaver, and the blue people have to defend Pandora from the humans, even though the humans have enormous spaceships and guns and bombs while the blue people have some pterodactyl-looking things and a few arrows. And you don't think they're even going to make so much as dent, but those skinny bastards put up one hell of a fight!

I was on the edge of my seat. I can't do it justice. It's absolutely glorious. It'll tempt you to don a loin cloth and leave civilization behind to become one with nature and make friends with plants and do really gay shit like that, until you realize that the woods get cold and dangerous at night (unless you're Bear Grylls of course), and that there are many yucky insects crawling all over everything and getting into your junk. Anyway, go buy this and throw all your money at James Cameron, because he deserves it.

The Three Caballeros (1944)

2010-05-17T15:50:00.003-04:00

This movie is freakin' old. I saw it many years ago in my youth, and I barely remembered any of it, if that's any indication of its quality. I've read in multiple places on the internet that it's considered strange even by Disney's standards. Also, according to IMDB, this movie was made so that America would stop hating Mexicans. I think they need to try again, or at least show this movie in Arizona. (Oh snap!)

It's Donald Duck's birthday, and his friends in Latin America have sent him a rather large package with three gifts inside. I didn't know Donald Duck had friends! In Latin America no less! I guess no one in the United States wants to hang out with him...or send him birthday gifts. It makes sense, he's kind of pissy.

This is where the normal stuff ends. The first package is from god-knows-who, they don't say, and it's a video camera - an old-fashioned one with analog film strips (see my logo). So he fires it up and what follows is a documentary on Latin American birds. Zzzzz....Gawd Disney, were you just killing time until Alan Mencken came along? There are a couple of short stories in there. One is about a penguin named Pablo who longs for a tropical climate, so he goes to extraordinary lengths to sail north. Pablo is kind of a dumb ass, though, because his boat is made out of ice. That thing would have melted long before he even made it to Chile. The next story is about a flying donkey, which they call a "burrito". Haha, burrito. I know, it means "little donkey". Still, this thing isn't full of beans and cheesy goodness. What pissed me off is the story-teller, throwing in random Spanish words left and right. I had no idea what he was talking about. In fact, during the whole movie the characters seem to come in and out of English, so as far as I knew they could have been saying anything!

Once that is over, Donald opens the next package. And I'm thinking, it's got to better than the last one! No, it's even weirder. It contains a pop-up book, in which a green parrot from Brazil is living. His name is José, and I knew he was Brazilian because he sounded just like the guys who work at the local Dunkin Donuts. José has a huge man crush on a place called Baia, which I looked up. It's a commune in Romania. The one the parrot is talking about is in Brazil, though. According to him, it's got some wild nightlife and hot ladies and sweet music. The guys at Dunkin Donuts failed to mention this, so I'm certain the parrot is trippin'. José asks Donald several times, in song of course, if he's ever been to Baia. Donald always says no, and José replies, "Well, let's go!" Turns out José has never been to Baia either. Or maybe he got really wasted there one time and just forgot. Anyway they go, and Donald and José chase after a hot Brazilian woman who sells bread (and perhaps sexual favors). She walks around town flirting with the men, and there's singing and dancing. I don't know, I don't think Baia is all that great.

Moving on, the third gift is the rooster. He's Mexican, and his name is Panchito. The three of them sing the title song, which goes like this:

"We're three caballeros, three gay caballeros, they say we are birds of a feather!"

It's basically a song about their (gay) love. In the 1940s this wasn't hilarious. Also, a caballero is a knight in Spanish. So it pretty much has nothing to do with birds. Anyway Panchito takes Donald to the beach where he chases after hot women again. Gawd, who knew Donald Duck was so horny all the time? It's insane.

The end is one big acid trip. Tons of weird, random, colorful Mexican shit happens. There are ladies dancing, cacti dancing, guitars, Donald is floating around looking like he's high while a voice whispers "pretty girls, pretty girls...", and the pretty girls laugh...I'm not making this up. It's pure nonsense. Disney must have realized that no one was paying attention at this point anyway. I know I had usually fallen asleep by now, so I hardly remember it. Watching it now, I was just hoping it would end soon so I could watch something else. Disney has done far better.

Surf Ninjas

2010-05-07T23:38:00.004-04:00

Don't worry, this is totally worth going back in time to 1993. It’s so bad it’s hilarious. I saw the trailer for this on my "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" video cassette back in the early nineties (oh boy, that's old school, dude. Speaking of which, go watch the Ninja Turtle movies. They're awesome. Well at least the sequels are…). I remember as a child thinking this movie looked stupid. I mean I was totally right, but that's what makes it so damn good.

Rob Schneider is in it, and he’s actually being funny - and playing a white guy! - for once. Apparently he can hold his own without Adam Sandler around - who knew?! He was one of the first names listed in the opening credits. I was worried because whenever they list Rob so high up, you know bad things are about to happen. He's a teenager in this film and it’s kind of weird. Also he’s the comic relief character, so you know he isn’t going to get any and everyone is going to make fun of him. I can relate.

Leslie Nielsen is the villain. I was not threatened by him at all. I love Leslie Nielsen - he’s a comedic genius, his timing and delivery are impeccable - but he’s not scary. He’s a bumbling idiot (I mean that in a good way). He doesn’t even make for a good inept villain. I was watching “The Naked Gun” the other day, and I couldn’t believe how he can make even slapstick funny. But a villain just doesn’t fit him. Village idiot, sure. Also, his name is Colonel Chi, and his character is from an Asian nation, but he’s as white as morning snow.

The hero is the guy from one of the Ninja Turtle movies (I want to say the second one, I can’t be bothered to look it up). He played Keno the pizza delivery guy who just happened to know karate. He just happened to know karate in this movie, too. It sort of just came out of him magically and knocked a bunch of people over, like gas. (Sorry about the fart joke, they‘re usually not funny.) His name was Johnny, although it sounded like the Asians were calling him Yanni, which frightened me. I was unimpressed until he took his shirt off. You wouldn’t expect such a fantastic man-chest to be hiding behind a pair of baggy overalls and a lime green T-shirt, but there you go.

Johnny’s little brother is Adam, an 11 year old who can see the future with his portable Sega game. It’s pretty much awesome. Too bad it couldn’t see that Sega would become obsolete and get its ass kicked by Nintendo…and every other console I suppose. Oh the pixilation! It’s a wonder that boy could even tell what the future was! Unfortunately Adam never said anything funny and didn’t add much to the story. Maybe I just don't like children.

Johnny and Adam live in LA with their white father, which they wait until you’re confused to explain. The boys, and their friend Iggy (Rob Schneider), go about their daily life, which includes a lot of surfing, and something called “motor surfing”, or standing while driving, or, as I like to call it, being a jackass. While they go to school and go about their silly little business, inept ninjas in blue camouflage are chasing them around, but their attempts are thwarted by a dude dressed like a homeless person. This homeless-looking fellow is named Zatch, and I had a good laugh because my hearing isn’t so good and I heard “Snatch”. If only. I’m calling him that anyway, it’s funnier.

So good old Snatch fights off the ninjas, but fails, and they end up kidnapping the white father. Snatch tells the boys they’re adopted (duh) and are really princes of a country he just made up called Patu San. Patu San is like China a thousand years ago, only gay. There’s even a Little Patu San in Los Angeles, so it basically is China. When I first saw Patu San, I rolled over and laughed until I cried. It isn’t often that happens. If the Chinese were fond of pink feathers, fruity hats, and gay dress-up, they would be Patu San. Even their weapons have poofy pink things on them. One of the first shots of the village was a scrawny old guy with a huge pink poofy hat, colorful clothing, and a shit-eating toothless grin. I must say, I was in stitches.

As it turns out, Leslie Nielsen attacked Patu San about a decade ago for no adequately explored reason and killed all its inhabitants, except the two princes, who got away. (You have that "Two Princes" song in your head now, don't you? Sorry.) So now the boys have to return to their homeland and save it from Leslie Nielsen, which is kind of silly. I mean, he killed everyone, and yet there are still Patu Sanis living there. I’m not going to question it. The really funny part is that during the attack, Colonel Chi was stepped on by an elephant, and now he thinks he’s Darth Vadar. He wears a very similar hat and is part machine, so he can’t get wet ever. So he can’t ever go out in the rain. Or shower. Makes me wonder if Darth had the same problem.

Anyway I was wondering at this point if Patu San was actually real, or if it was like that realm in "Mortal Kombat" that wasn‘t acutally part of Earth. I remarked to my sister that perhaps you get to Patu San by running around a patch of mushrooms three or four times until you are magically transported there. (Well, she laughed.) Actually they hop aboard an oil rig for some reason and sail to Patu San. This part is hilarious. They show a map with a tiny boat (it looks like a Monopoly piece) that travels from America to Europe down to Central America and across the Pacific to Asia, where someone pasted a yellow spot in the China Sea and labeled it Patu San. Remember they live in LA, so that was one hell of a detour. I can only imagine that trip took several months.

The boys arrive, and Johnny is told that he’s betrothed to a foxy chick named Ro-May (played by Kelly Hu - she actually has a career now, I‘ve seen her in a bunch of things). She joins them on their quest and kicks some ass and makes out with Johnny to keep morale up. Then there’s some karate, with Beethoven’s 9th Symphony blasting in the background. (You know that one, it’s “Ode to Joy”.) Not exactly ass kicking music. The rest of the soundtrack is pretty much the opposite, but just as glorious - cheesy 90s rock/metal. That also had me weeping with laughter.

In the end, Johnny pushes Colonel Chi into the water, and Chi gets electrocuted, and that’s that. All that building up and not much of a payoff. I haven’t been that disappointed by a climax since…well never mind. Let’s just say it was over kind of fast. But on the up, everyone broke out into song and danced to “Barbara Ann”. See, I told you they were fruity. You can’t go wrong ending a movie with an epic musical number. All the more reason to see it and shit your pants laughing.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel

2010-05-06T19:45:00.004-04:00

You know, if it weren't for the Chipettes, this film would be completely unnecessary. I mean, who doesn't love the Chipettes? As a child of the 80s, I was looking forward to seeing them in 3D form. I just wish they would have had an adventure like in the old days, instead of just showing us how all of them became pop stars. That wasn't what the cartoon was about. Not the one I watched anyway.

But yeah, as with all squeakquels, this wasn't as great as the first one. First off, there was far less Jason Lee. I remember seeing him in first and noticing that he's attractive without that Earl beard. It was kind of nice. But no, this time they catapulted him (literally) right out of the film. Or most of it. Dave had an unfortunate accident and had to phone in his performance (literally, ahaha!). Luckily they replaced him. Dave has a great-aunt, played by the old bat from the Fiber One commercials and Desperate Housewives, who obviously wanted nothing to do with this film either, and catapulted herself down some stairs. She was supposed to watch the chipmunks, but when she wound up in the hospital too, her grandson Toby had to do it. I guess you would call him Dave's cousin. I don't know. Either way, Toby is precious. He's one of those guys that plays video games all day and fails at life, so naturally I loved him.

The Chipettes enter the film in a FedEx package. Seems they mailed themselves to the record studio because they wanted to cash in on the singing rodent trend. Oh, and they really want to hang out with the chipmunks. They’re obviously attracted to them. I mean the human girls are too, for some sick reason, so you know the chipettes want some of that hot rodent lovin'.

Meanwhile, the boy chipmunks are going to high school, which is odd and highly unlikely. It’s a wonder nobody stepped on them. Not much happens there. All the girls fawn over them because they’re adorable, and the guys are general douche bags, you know, because they’re high school boys. The part I didn’t buy is when they decide to put Alvin on the football team. The handsome football player with the overly-styled hair thought it would be a good idea, so you know it’s a very dumb idea. Come on now, Alvin is smaller than the football. It's absurd.

The rest of the plot focuses on the boys trying to save the school by entering a music contest, where the prize is $25,000. It’s not entirely fair, though. It’s like having the Jonas Brothers at your school (except unlike the Jonas Brothers, I understand the chipmunk's fame). While this is happening the Chipettes are meeting with the Chipmunk's old douche bag manager, Ian (David Cross, you’d know him if you saw him…), who is now poor and living in a dumpster. Ian enrolls the Chipettes in high school too, which in movie land seems to be as easy as just showing up. Ian thinks the only way to get the Chipettes famous is if they compete in this high school music competition. You know, it’s kind of like “Glee”, with rodents.

This is all well and good, but I didn’t think the chipmunks interacted with each other enough. The best part about the old cartoon was the banter between Alvin and Brittany. There was some, but not enough.

There was some pop music, but it didn’t annoy me. I mean it was Beyoncé, so obviously. Also, the Chipmunks have been covering pop music since the 1950s, and it must be a good thing or they wouldn't bother. Plus they're really charming. But seriously, don't go out and pet real chipmunks. They have unpleasant diseases. If you see them singing Beyoncé, then it's probably just the drugs.

Clash of the Titans (The new one. Sorry.)

2010-04-21T17:43:00.004-04:00

*Contains Spoilers. And Peanuts. Be careful.*

I like the old one better. I mean seriously, just compare the movie posters. Which one would you rather see? This one is much darker, and I don't mean in the metaphorical sense. It's the colors. For example, they made the Pegasus black, so now he looks like a hell-beast instead of an enchanting magical creature. And how come in epic fantasies everyone has to be covered in filth? I know they never bathed, but come on. Where are the bright colors from the first movie? When I imagine Greek myths in my head, this isn't how I imagine them. I imagine happy, bright colors. Maybe that's Disney's fault...

Now there are some metaphorically dark plot points here, but still - it's not that dark of a story. The movie doesn't capture the charm of Greek mythology. Come on, this is a story about a guy on a flying horse rescuing a damsel from a sea monster. There's no need to over-serious it and make it look like "300". They took out all the fun, the romance, the whimsy, the humor. I guess they don't make movies like they used to. What was awesome in the 80s is now considered cheesy and hilarious. I mean it totally is cheesy and hilarious -I want more of it!

Neither movie follows the original Greek myth, which I looked up - this one even less so. Hell it hardly follows the original movie. Okay, if you're not going to follow the original plot, don't call it a remake. You're putting it in the dryer with some red stuff and messing up your cheesy Greek myth-laundry. (That sentence makes more sense in my head, I promise.)

Perseus doesn't feel like a hero here. He was just another dirty guy flinging a sword around. He's on a similar mission this time, minus a few of the old plot points. To switch things up, this time Hades is the one who demands Andromeda be sacrificed, and he only gives the town of Argos - not Joppa! - ten days as opposed to thirty. (Hades is played by Ralph Fiennes. You know him as Lord Voldemort. He's brilliant anywhere.)

So Perseus goes forth, with a lot more supporting characters, battling the forces of CGI (instead of stop-motion) animation. I thought the supporting men were going to give me comic relief, but they failed, and I didn't care when they died. There's also this Io chick following the men around, because she's the narrator and has been watching Perseus since he was born. She was "cursed" by Zeus to never age (don't you mean "blessed", movie?). The funny part is, in real Greek mythology, Zeus turned Io into a cow.

Calibos makes an appearance. He's still ugly, but he's a different guy, just with the same name and similar curse. They took out the whole suitor and riddle thing, which I liked in the original. I know, let's substitute an interesting plot concept with more battle scenes and really large scorpion monsters who are not Titans! The scorpions belong to a group of "people" that reminded me of the sand people from Star Wars. These guys were more helpful, though. I'm still not sure what their purpose was. Transportation, we'll say.

Medusa was back, and in the Underworld again, which is apparently still a place you can get to on Earth. Presumably you can visit dead people just by paying the ferryman. I wonder what that ferry bastard does with all those coins? Does he make a hill that he sits on when he isn't driving the boat? Does he swim in them like Scrooge McDuck? I mean it's not like there's anything to buy down there. And what happens if you visit the Underworld alive, like Perseus did, and you die there, as some of his comrades did? I guess it's convenient, you're already where you need to be! Short trip! Anyway Medusa is looking better, and we get her back story, which was nice. She left her Cerberus at home this time, though. I guess he would have gotten in the way of the ass-kicking.

So yeah, I'm gonna give away the ending, because it annoyed me. Perseus ends up with Io instead of marrying Andromeda. WTF?! What happened to all that "I have found my destiny!" silliness? Way to suck out all the romance and leave me with a half-ass downplayed romance that I didn't invest in because I thought they were going to follow the original and have him fall in love with Andromeda. Wrong!

Anyway, Perseus defeats the Kraken and saves Andromeda, but of course tells her he doesn't want to marry her. First he goes and kills Hades, because everyone seemed to hate the gods in this movie. All the god-scorn comes from the fact that the Greek gods shat on their people and still demanded endless worship. Perseus wants to kill the gods, but he only "kills" Hades, which only sends Hades to the Underworld, where he lives anyway. Ooh, I sent you back home, asshole! This is just like Parcheesi!

All the other gods survived, so I call that a fail. And there were plenty of gods, but like in the old movie, there were NO TITANS. Gawd, it should have been called "Clash of That Guy From 'Avatar' and a Bunch of Really Big CGI Monsters". I mean really. Disney's "Hercules" had more freakin' Titans!

Okay now I'll say something positive. Bubo the mechanical owl made a brief cameo. That's all that's coming to me right now...

I don't know, this movie isn't all that bad on its own, if you're into that sort of thing. It was just too hard to live up to the 1981 majesty. One can't help but compare.

Catwoman

2010-04-19T16:36:00.005-04:00

Once I learned that this movie was nominated for 7 Razzies and won 4 (including Worst Picture and Worst Screenplay), I knew I had to see it. Now I like Halle Berry, but I think this movie was just an excuse to put her in leather, as men tend to find her attractive. I can understand that, she's a foxy lady. The fact is, she looked like a dominatrix, with a whip and everything.

Anyway it was pretty stupid. It was like they wrote only one draft of the script and said, "Okay, this is good enough." Those Razzie guys know what they're talking about, it seems. I would have given the movie a Razzie for Worst Soundtrack as well, though. The whole thing was some uninteresting R&B-type beat underneath some wailing chick who wants to be Mariah Carey singing "hey...ohhh....wooo...yeah...". Ugh, it was terrible. It's like you think a song is going to start, but it never does. Thumbs down!

The whole movie concept made me laugh. Halle Berry plays an artist named Patience Phillips who works for an advertising agency and leads a pretty unremarkable life. Things get a lot better, though, when she attempts to rescue a stray cat on the ledge of her building, only to be rescued by the ever-handsome Benjamin Bratt. Oh, how jealous I was! I know if I tried to rescue my dumb cat from my window ledge, all I would get is laughter from the trashy neighborhood children. Especially since I'm on the first floor.

Benjamin Bratt plays a cop, and now that I think about it, I've only ever seen him play a cop. I guess when you're that hot it's okay to not be diverse. Anywho, once Patience starts dating the cop, you know exactly what's going to become of it. He's gonna have to find out that she's Catwoman and there'll be tension and stuff. I mean it's kind of romantic...I guess. Would have been better if the ending wasn't lame...

Moving on, Patience becomes Catwoman by being flushed down the toilet and having a cat breathe in her face. This makes her cat-like. I had a good laugh when I thought of it. I just imagined her using a litter box and rolling around on the floor waiting for someone to pet her. You know if I got powers that mimicked my cat Georgia, then all I would do is eat, sleep, and scratch my furniture while ignoring the perfectly unused scratching post my mother spent money on. I certainly wouldn't be inclined to vanquish my enemies! (That's precisely why all the neighborhood children still live...Georgia's a terrible watch-cat.)

Instead, Catwoman struts around the city kicking ass and jumping around with cat-like agility. (Also, she uses the words "purr-fect" and "meow" with a straight face. It's embarrassing.) She wants revenge on the man who flushed her down the pipes. I should explain that more. She was flushed down some very large waste pipes because she overheard some guys talking about how the beauty product they sell actually ruins people's skin. She knew too much, and down she went. Apparently that killed her, but the stray cat gave her the tuna breath of life, so to speak. Now she lives as Catwoman! The owner of the life-giving cat tells Patience that there have been many ass-kicking "cat women" over time. Ha, yeah.

This is what real "cat women" look like:

And you won't see any leather in my closet. Except maybe a belt or two.

The thing I didn't get about Catwoman is that she's kind of schizo. When she's Patience, she's timid. When she's Catwoman, she's a pissed off Beyoncé (or she tries to be...). I guess it's nice to have a kick-ass female protagonist who doesn't want to live in a cage (cat carrier), but she's a bit over the top. It was like she had two different personalities. The cat one was kind of a bitch. What are you trying to say, movie?

So yeah, if you like seeing Halle Berry scantily-clad, then you might like it. Other than that, it's pretty poor. Benjamin Bratt takes his shirt off, so that helps a bit.

Over Her Dead Body

2010-04-09T17:55:00.002-04:00

I only rented this because I knew how awful it would be. And I like a good supernatural romance, but this is just plain stupid. How appropriate for my 50th movie review.

I've liked everything I've seen Paul Rudd in to date, but now he has finally failed me. To be fair, he isn't the problem here. He's just as charming and cute as usual. The trouble is the red-headed harpie they paired him with. Ugh, she was nauseating.

What happens is, Paul Rudd, or Henry, as he's called here, is about to marry Kate (Eva Longoria-Parker), when she dies on her wedding day. Bit of a downer for a "romantic comedy", I thought. Kate dies by being crushed to death by an ice sculpture, which is both highly unlikely and a poor attempt at lightening up the situation.

Cut to a year later - Henry goes to a psychic to see if he can talk to Kate, and because his prying sister told him to. The psychic is the red-headed harpie, named Ashley. And since I read the description on the Netflix envelope, I know this bitch is his new love interest. Kate and I don't approve. Ashley is extremely unlikable. She says dumb things, her face is man-ish, and she's a bullshit artist. And obviously I'm rooting for the overly-jealous dead woman who can't move on. I mean, I want to see Paul Rudd be happy as much as Kate does, but not with this hosebag. I prefer to have a female lead that I can relate to.

Ashley gets information from Kate's diary, which Henry's sister gave her, and relays it to Henry to earn his trust. Apparently being lied to helps people grieve. Then Kate gets pissed off, for good reason, and starts in on Ashley, who is a pretty shitty psychic, as it turns out. Think Whoopi Goldberg in "Ghost". Exact same thing. Kate follows Ashley around and bugs her much like Patrick Swayze did to Whoopi, only that movie was touching and brilliant, whereas this is total crap.

Ashley and Henry start dating, even with Kate tricking Ashley every five minutes and making her life hell. In one scene, Ashley is in the gym shower, and Kate pretends to be on the intercom and tells everyone to evacuate because of a gas leak. At the time Ashley was singing (horribly!) in the shower and was covered in soap. She's an idiot, you see, and didn't think that maybe it was Kate tricking her again. Duh. You know there's a ghost out to get you, pay attention! She ends up running into the gym naked and soapy, and all the sweaty guys out there stare at her like she's crazy. Ha ha, moron!

Tired of Kate's antics, Ashley goes to see a Catholic priest. (They always do!) And you know that shit isn't going to work, because it never works. In the world of movies, priests are generally useless. He scolded her for working with the occult and told her to come to church more and give up talking to dead people (ha ha yeah right). Maybe she was being desperate, but I don't see a psychic confiding in a Catholic priest. It didn't make any sense, and I thought the whole thing was dumb.

It gets worse. Ashley has a delightful gay friend played by Jason Biggs (love him!), who works with her as a caterer. (She has a second job as a caterer because being a psychic is bullshit and doesn't pay very well.) Once Henry dumps Ashley for tricking him, her gay friend comes out of the straight closet and professes his love for her. And she has the audacity to be pissed at him! Are you serious? This is every woman's dream come true! So now they've given me this false hope that Jason Biggs will find happiness with this harpie, and Henry will find a decent woman. But no, Kate sees that Henry is depressed without Ashley, so she gets them back together, leaving poor Jason Biggs alone. They tried to fix things by pairing him with Henry's sister, but that was stupid. He was in love with this woman for five years! You don't get over that in five minutes! Such a disappointment.

The whole thing left me angry and unsatisfied. It's a waste of Paul Rudd and Eva Longoria-Parker's talent. So really, don't bother. It's like someone watered down the movie "Ghost" with their own urine.

Planet 51

2010-04-05T16:50:00.006-04:00

Why do I love children's movies so much? I think I forgot to grow up. Oh well.

This is a cute little film about an American (obviously) astronaut named Chuck who travels into distant space and lands on a planet where everyone looks like sea monkeys and nobody has any genitals. Seriously, I spent the entire film wondering where all the genitals were, and how they reproduce. The ladies had boobs, but that's about it. I knew they laid eggs, but I couldn't figure out where the eggs came out. Nobody wore any pants so of course it was always right in my face - like a movie full of Ken dolls. But I guess it's not that important.

Anyway our American friend Chuck is voiced by good old Dwayne Johnson. You wouldn't expect an ex-wrestler to be so successful in such lighthearted cinema, but there he is. Chuck lands on this unnamed planet and sticks his American flag into somebody's front lawn. I'm not sure what he was expecting, but once he sees he isn't alone, he runs off and hides. Go America!

Luckily this new planet is exactly like Earth is in every way. Conveniently enough, everything is like Earth circa 1950; the planet is about the same distance from its sun; the days, nights, and hours are identical in length; there's the same amount of oxygen in the atmosphere so that Chuck can breathe, and all the aliens speak perfect English. I know, I know, "kid's movie". I really shouldn't complain because the 1950s were pretty damn charming.

Our green alien hero is a teenage boy named Lem, who is in fact Justin Long. You know him, he does the Mac commercials. I'm sad he does so much voice work, as he's adorable. Lem works in a planetarium and helps Chuck get back to his ship. It's hard though, because the green people have an army much like the humans on Earth do (okay, exactly like the humans on Earth do...) and they sort of get in the way. Gary Oldman voiced one of the army guys. His accent wasn't invited, but it tried to poke through anyhow.

Sean William Scott plays Lem's best friend. I've never seen him (or not seen him, I guess) in an animation film before. It was interesting. He was trying to sound different, but he can't fool me. Unlike in "Cop Out", he wasn't irritating here, and I enjoyed him as I usually do.

So, what I found interesting about this little adventure is that the green people think the universe is only 500 miles long and that there are only 1000 or so stars. Granted they are a bit behind Earth's technology, but still. Because they're a bit "behind",we'll say, they get scared of Chuck because he's a scary alien like the ones in the movies. It's like all those corny alien movies from long ago, just reversed. I don't know, it fascinated me. (Doesn't take much.) The grand lesson was that you shouldn't fear the unknown. The unknown can be nice, and a beautiful thing. Mmm! I like it!

They did a fairly good job with this one, for an animation company I've never even heard of. It was made by a company called "Ilion", and according to Wikipedia, this is their only feature film. I have to give them credit. They're almost as good as Dreamworks. Almost. Keep 'em coming.

Cop Out

2010-03-30T20:20:00.002-04:00

I actually didn't really like it. I know, you're surprised. I was excited for this and everything, but perhaps I expected too much. Granted I did laugh on occasion - there were some great lines, like Tracy Morgan calling a stuffed bear a "mother fucker", and when Tracy was doing movie quotes while interrogating a suspect. My favorite line was, "These are not the droids you're looking for." Oh, Star Wars references.

For the first half hour I felt like I was watching every other cop movie I've ever seen. There's a white guy and a street-smart black guy. They screw up a case. Their boss gets pissed at them. They get suspended. Their two white lame-ass coworkers make fun of them. The black guy and the white guy discuss their marital and personal problems. There are some laughs. Despite being suspended, they continue doing police work and save the day. They get promoted. Happy ending.

I have just described the plot to Lethal Weapon 4 - and this movie. The only difference is, I liked Lethal Weapon 4 better. I sort of missed Mel Gibson, which is a stretch because nobody misses him. But even Danny Glover and Mel Gibson were more charming as a pair than these two. Tracy Morgan I especially expect more from. It's weird - I love him, but I have yet to see him in anything good. (I don't really watch 30 Rock, so that doesn't count.) He actually made me miss Chris Tucker (the "Rush Hour" guy). You know if "Rush Hour" is superior, then there's a problem. Perhaps I expect too much of Tracy. He made me laugh when I saw him on "The Daily Show". Maybe I just haven't yet forgiven him for "G-Force"...

Come to think of it, they should put Chris Tucker in a movie with Mel Gibson. Hmm, that's either the worst idea ever or the best idea ever. I can't decide.

Sean William Scott was in this, too. I usually enjoy him thoroughly, but here he was kind of irritating, and I didn't really feel like he was necessary. Sure he's hot, but he hardly did anything to advance the plot. That's all I have to say about him.

There was a lot of action and gun shooting, which is all well and good, - this is a cop movie - but I couldn't make myself care. The plot wasn't all that riveting, either. I mean, I guess it's a comedy so it doesn't have to be too complicated, but still. Our main villains are these devoutly Christian Hispanic guys who have no problem shooting others (in church, no less). They seem to think it's okay as long as they ask Jesus for forgiveness before offing a guy. But they have ambition - they want to expand their drug dealing operation out of Brooklyn and into the entire east coast. I guess Jesus loved cocaine, too.

Concerning Bruce Willis, he was not the bad ass he was in "Die Hard". Back then he was kicking ass. I remember in "Live Free or Die Hard" he drove a cop car into a helicopter, and then later shot himself in the shoulder just to hit the bad guy behind him. Talk about balls. Where did your balls go, Mr. Willis? His only motivation here was to find his stolen baseball card, so he could sell it in order to pay for his daughter's wedding. (He has a a daughter in every movie, I swear.) Apparently the Hispanic guys are as much into baseball as they are into Jesus. I got the impression Bruce didn't give a damn about the drugs - he just wanted the card back. But I guess he had noble intentions.

Now I know I'm the kind of lady who likes her fantasies and romantic comedies, but I'd like to make it clear that I have enjoyed a good action movie in the past. Unfortunately this one is just another cop movie trying to be every other cop movie ever made. The only problem is, it wasn't up to the standard.

Strictly Ballroom (1992)

2010-03-19T21:22:00.003-04:00

I love this movie. Here's another one I want to steal from Netflix and say the mailman took it. I almost forgot how good it is. I know, it's old, but it's also a classic. And I can't believe 1992 was almost twenty years ago. Good lord.

I first saw it on cable in the 90s, when I was young and impressionable. (Now I'm in my 20s and impressionable.) It's a lot like "Dirty Dancing", or even "My Fair Lady", but with dancing instead of English accents. This one takes place in Australia, a country which apparently has a Latin community like that in America. See, movies are always teaching me things. The leading lady on the movie poster is named Fran, and boy does she start out ugly. Her hair is frizzy, she wears huge glasses (even for the 90s), and she has excessive acne. The constant close-up shots this movie is so fond of don't really help the situation. Nor does it help that she's often in the presence of a sexy gentleman. You see, Fran takes dance lessons at a studio owned by the sexy gentleman's family. His name is Scott, and he's actually quite the professional - his dancing is as hot as he is. I mean, dancing is as gay as the Ice Capades (oh the sequins!), and yet somehow I still find it sexual. Even when every man, woman, and child is dressed like a drag queen, and does their make-up accordingly, I still think ballroom dancing is hot. Watch "Dancing With the Stars" - you'll see what I mean. If I reviewed television I would say I love that show.

Now, this Scott fellow is a typical leading man, in that he wants to do things his way. We first see him at a dance competition with his bitchy blonde partner. He insists on dancing his own moves and improvising, but apparently the dance community is made up of Nazis and doesn't allow that sort of thing. He loses the competition, his blonde drops him (not literally), and Scott is forced to find someone else to dance with. So in comes Fran looking all mousy and gross, and she asks if she can dance with Scott, because she likes the way he moves - obviously. Unfortunately she can't dance worth shit, but if she's like me she'll take any excuse to grope a hot sweaty man. (That is why people dance, right?)

Then ensues a beautiful montage of Scott teaching Fran to dance, all to the tune of Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time". I couldn't have written that better myself. The best part is, Fran gets less and less offensive to my eyes as the whole thing progresses. Really, a little make-up goes a long way on that girl.

The movie really gets charming when we're introduced to Fran's Latin (I think it's Latin...I don't know Spanish....) family, who seem abrasive at first but become nicer once they get dancing. It doesn't take long for Scott to earn their trust and acceptance through the majesty of dance. I loved her family - they're dirt poor, there's a lot of them, and they play music and dance in their shitty house by the railroad tracks. They're what I imagine gypsies to be like (awesome). I love all poor people that aren't angry and don't yell obscenities in the night and don't blow their cigarette smoke into my apartment.

Scott's family, on the other hand, is not so approving. They're obsessed with winning and are bordering on psychotic. They don't think Fran is professional enough, even when she gets foxy and learns how to move almost as good as Scott can. They come to their senses, though, once she dances - and owns the competition. The film ends in a "Dirty Dancing" fashion, with an impressive and epic dance number, after which everyone crowds the dance floor and joins the pros, and then Scott and Fran make out among the throng. It's pretty beautiful. I had the time of my life.

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

2010-03-12T14:25:00.004-05:00

All I heard before going into this thing was, "I was disappointed." Why, people?

If you're expecting a faithful adaptation of Lewis Carroll's books, then I suppose you'll be disappointed, because that's not what this movie is. I hadn't known that, but I have to say I really like what Mr. Tim Burton has done to the story. He's made it his own, as only he can. And I think he's as crazy as Lewis was, so that helps. I'll say it - this version is better than the 1951 cartoon. I'm going to make comparisons - I have to.

Essentially this movie is a sequel to what Lewis wrote. I didn't figure this out until later in the film, but I should have because Alice is not in fact a little girl - she's 19 now. All of her adventures in the Carroll books took place before this movie, back when she was little, and she thinks all that was just a dream (which in the books, it technically was). So you have all the characters recognizing her, while she doesn't quite remember them. It's kind of brilliant because that gives Tim Burton free reign to do whatever the hell he wants with the story. I'm so pleased he did.

I couldn't for the life of me remember what happened in the original - so I Wikipedia-ed it. It helps to know that sort of thing before seeing this. Turns out, in the cartoon, Alice figures out she was just dreaming and forces herself to wake up, deeming her a total wuss by me. Okay fine, she was just a little girl, but little girls aren't useless ("Golden Compass", anyone?). Now we have an older Alice, and the dreams she had as a child have made her a touch crazy, but in a good way. This dorky ginger guy named Hamish wants to marry her, but he is not "like ham" as his name would suggest (far less delicious and much more nauseating). Naturally, the strange white rabbit in the garden is more appealing to Alice than Hamish, so she chases the rabbit and falls into the rabbit hole again.

Down in Wonderland she runs into many of the original characters, but I think Tim omitted the ones that were even too crazy for him. Like the whole walrus and carpenter bit. (I had to YouTube that to jog my memory. All I remembered was a strange discussion about oysters.) There may have been more, but I don't care enough to sit through the original, nor have I ever read the books.

The characters are much better now. In the cartoon they were rude, unhelpful, and just plain unlikable, which only served to frustrate me. Now they've all decided to be less annoying and help Alice a bit, because the Red Queen is, as everyone knows, not a very good monarch, chopping people's heads off at will and such. So they have a common interest - to get rid of the old hag. The Red Queen is Helena Bonham Carter, who is in every Tim Burton movie ever, and is an expert at being insane. They also made her head unnaturally huge to reflect her large ego. Nice touch.

The Mad Hatter is Johnny Depp, who is also in every Tim Burton movie ever. I'm not complaining. He works insanity as well as Helena Bonham Carter. The March Hare is awesome, too, because he shakes a lot, laughs like a maniac, and throws fine china at people just for the hell of it - essentially he's a lovable cocaine addict. The Cheshire cat is so much cuter; he looks like my cat, if she were obese and smiled creepily at things. He was more helpful and less of a pain in the ass, too. The White Queen (Anne Hathaway) is sort of campy and airy, but I liked her. Tweedledum and Tweedledee were great because they never broke out into unnecessary song and weren't out to confuse me. And the best part - some of the generically-named characters got actual names. The Mad Hatter's real name is Tarrant, and the Red Queen is Iracebeth, for example. That makes it so much richer, I think.

Tim Burton weird is just a better kind of weird, and there's no clearer way to put that. It's dark, there's no unnecessary musical numbers, it's quirkier, and best of all it doesn't end with Alice realizing that logic and reason are more important than imagination. Imagination rules. That's why this movie is making any money at all. The story is better, too. Alice as a young adult was such a good way to go. It's not just about her being lost, trying to get home and being mopey all the time. She actually has to do something - defeat the Red Queen and the Jaberwocky instead of run away like a pansy. Really the moral here is that crazy people are awesome, and that you shouldn't do things just because people want you to - you do them because you want to. And I can get down with that.

G-Force

2010-03-01T14:46:00.002-05:00

G-Force. The "G" stands for Gawwwwd. Or perhaps, "Go listen to the Black Eyed Peas." Seriously, if you want to be rodents dancing to pop music, then be the Chipmunks, because they are awesome and a timeless classic, who I can never speak ill of.

I know, this movie isn't about music. I was just annoyed with the constant barrage of Top 40 dance hits being thrown at me. And I like those songs, too. But come on, how many scenes require the Black Eyed Peas (the same song!) in the background? To make it worse, it was "Boom Boom Pow", which is god-awful annoying, and if I may say, the Peas have done better.

But yeah, I guess I should talk about the movie plot or something. It's about special agent guinea pigs, so I didn't expect it to get too complicated. Stupid, I expected. Oh, and did those little fur-balls deliver. I don't want to be too mean, there were some amusing elements. Tracy Morgan is one of the guinea pigs, and I happen to think he's very funny. I'm also a fan of Steve Buschemi - he's a hamster (in the movie I mean...yeah). All the rodents were likable, I thought, though nothing to write home about. But for the most part the movie was kind of dumb, and not as funny as Disney can be. Dreamworks is kicking their asses right now.

Anyway, the plot involves some guinea pigs that some terribly sick man equipped with all sorts of gadgets that guinea pigs shouldn't be playing around with. They even have a thing that makes them able to talk to humans. Of course the audience understands them whether they wear this thing or not. Lucky us. The guinea pigs are supposed to be super advanced and highly intelligent, but they spend all day playing video games and listening to Lady Gaga. That's what I do all day - maybe I can be a special agent! You know they only do those silly things because it makes them relatable to children. But I'm an adult watching a children's movie, so I'm not buying into that. And here I thought I was enough of a 12 year old boy to be into this kind of thing. Guess not.

The supposed villain is a man who makes household appliances like coffee makers, except these appliances are made to turn against humanity and drive people out of their homes. (The real villain is another animal. You're not going to see it anyway, but still, I won't give it away.) There's also some crap about space junk, and somehow the appliances will force them all out of the sky and make them fall to Earth, forcing everyone underground. I'm not sure why that would force people underground, but I'm quite certain it's retarded. It's just too lame to be a good lame.

Towards the end the appliances come together (like Transformers) and make a huge robot thing, and the guinea pigs have to take that shit down. Not very creative. Even "Famliy Guy" has done this. This movie is just proof that you shouldn't give animals technology, because they could very well take over the world. Think about it. Those guinea pigs are tiny. They can infiltrate even the highest security locations with ease. So long as you don't give them video games and Lady Gaga.

Tooth Fairy

2010-02-26T21:45:00.003-05:00

I saw this only because someone told me that it would be a perfect movie for this blog. Oh boy, was that someone ever right. It's pretty freakin' stupid, if I may be so bold. It didn't make me vomit like "Jingle All the Way" did, but it's no "Stardust" (aka Greatest Movie Ever) either. I think Dwayne Johnson is only in movies nowadays because he has a large and impressive man chest, and because he's considered by many women to be sexy. Let's be real, his career was launched in a Brendan Fraser movie ("The Mummy Returns", which I loved, obviously). But perhaps I'm being too harsh - he is entertaining somehow.

As stupid as this movie was, I must admit I laughed in a lot of places. This is the perfect movie to watch with others and make fun of mercilessly. If you get nothing from it, at least you get to see Dwayne in a girly tutu. You know, large men in feminine attire are pretty funny. Anyway, let's move on and dissect this atrocity.

The first five minutes I wanted to hurl a bit. This is when Dwayne's character, Derek, is introduced, playing hockey and making lame tooth puns (see movie poster). He's a hockey player that they call "The Tooth Fairy". You know, because he knocks people's teeth out instead of actually scoring points. The fans enjoy him, as most people enjoy dentistry on ice. When Derek isn't playing hockey, he spends his downtime killing other people's dreams. Every child he meets, he crushes with infinite hopelessness, telling them that dreams are a waste of time. He's an asshole like this for a large portion of the film.

Then he goes and tells his girlfriend's six year-old daughter that the tooth fairy doesn't exist, and this displeases the Almighty Julie Andrews. Poor, poor, Julie Andrews. Reduced to wearing a cheap set of community theater wings. I like to believe that she in fact does have wings, and that she is really a magical creature, and when she enters a room she just floats on in from a bright white light. (I've seen this movie, so now I believe in magic and dreams. Wow. Life-changing stuff.) Julie Andrews is the head tooth fairy, and she summons Derek to what is called "Tooth Fairy Land", and forces him to be a tooth fairy for several weeks to make up for his jackass-ery.

The premise is pretty stupid, as I can't seem to stop saying, and there's only so many times I can watch this guy botch a tooth assignment, but there is hope! The Great and Hilarious Seth MacFarlane makes a cameo! (Family Guy...duh...). Oh how I love him! Oh how I would love to bear his children! He doesn't get a lot of screen time, but it's nice to see him. You hardly ever get to see him (and he's hot).

Another hilarious cameo is Billy Crystal. No, he's not dead. He is getting a little aged, though. Billy, like Seth, had a very small role as an inventor fairy. His role is sort of like the dude in the James Bond movies that makes Bond all those fun gadgets. He gives Derek some shrinking paste, invisibility dust, and stuff to scare away household pets. Unfortunately, he was fresh out of dignity (har har har). I jest, Billy had some pretty funny lines. I mean he's no Seth MacFarlane, but I laughed, and that's the important thing. The humor is the only surprising part of the movie.

So yeah, I don't even need to enter the plot further. It's pretty predictable. Derek learns a magical lesson about dreams while at the same time bonding with his girlfriend's children and regaining respect in his hockey career. No surprises here.

I'm kind of in the middle with this one. I cringed as much as I laughed. I actually might be willing to see it again. Maybe.

Clash of the Titans (The old one. Sorry.)

2010-02-26T16:50:00.003-05:00

I decided to give this one a go-through, seeing as how they're remaking it soon, and that promises to be just as epic. I do know that this new movie couldn't possibly compete with the old one's camp-ness. It's so epic and beautiful. This new one has a lot to live up to. I mean look at this poster! Damn. I want it on my wall!

Big plus in this movie is the sweaty shirtless men factor (it's really all I ask for in a film). I gotta say that right up front. Those ancient Greeks had the same reverence and appreciation for the naked man that I do. Just look at all their statues! (Another thing I want in my home...) The good news is the male lead, Perseus, is a svelte young man with a handsome face and not-hard-to-look-at man chest. He has a goofy 1981 haircut, but still.

Perseus is the product of one of Zeus's many one night stands. I guess if you're a god then it's okay to be a total whore. Anyway, Zeus favors Perseus, and saves his life as a baby. Then they show his mom's boobs for no particular reason, and Perseus grows up. Like most Greek stories, the plot is complicated and a lot of weird stuff happens in a short amount of time. I'll try to unravel it. Zeus cursed the Goddess Thetis's son Calibos with deformity, so now he can't marry the Princess Andromeda. And as everyone knows, ugly people aren't allowed to get married or be happy. And he's ugly - his skin has a strange tone to it and there's an excess of chest hair that is mind-boggling (Canadian tourist?). Now Calibos rules a swamp kingdom inhabited by people as ugly as he is.

Thetis (young Maggie Smith by the way - I know, I thought she was born old, too!) gets pissed off at Zeus for cursing her son, so she sends Perseus to Joppa, where Princess Andromeda is. I'm not sure how that's punishment, but I don't question it. Perseus runs into an old poet/playwright guy named Ammon. Ammon received my scorn for keeping cats in a barrel in his home, and for giving Perseus clothes. So Perseus sneaks into Andromeda's bedroom, because security in Joppa sucks, and declares, "I have found my destiny!" I think I'm gonna say that next time I meet a hot guy. It's hilarious. So instantly he's in love, and must win her hand in marriage! While he's watching her sleep like a pervert, her soul is abducted by a giant vulture that carries her off in a golden cage. That's right, a giant horrible special effect vulture. (I read in the credits that the vulture played himself. No really, it says that.) It takes her to the swamp land where Calibos is, and he provides her with riddles for her suitors to solve. You see, he doesn't want anyone else to marry her, so he has to give them this little challenge. Oh and if they don't solve it then they're burnt alive...

So Perseus solves the riddle, but Thetis gets pissed off again and says that Andromeda will have to be sacrificed to the Kraken and remain a virgin for 30 days! Being a virgin sucks. Not only are you not getting any, but everybody always wants to sacrifice you to their vengeful gods. It's tough. So since Johnny Depp wasn't famous enough yet, it was up to Perseus to stop the Kraken!

The rest of the movie is Perseus's quest to stop the Kraken and battle the forces of stop-motion animation. And like every Greek myth, there's a Pegasus! Actually, I saw a lot of familiar characters, like the three witches that bore a strange resemblance to the Fates from "Hercules", and the three-headed dog Cerberus, who in this movie had only two heads. Apparently the special effect guy was too lazy to stick on a third one. Oh well. The dog, as everyone knows, guards Hades, which in this movie was an island on Earth where Medusa hung out (whaa?). The River Styx was there and everything! This is back in the good old days when all you had to do to get to heaven was pay the guy driving the boat.

The bad effects are really what make this film so funny. My favorite was Athena's owl, Bubo, who is golden and mechanical and makes silly little hooting sounds. He fell over a lot, but by the gods that little bastard helped save the day. The best part is the ending, when Perseus rescues Andromeda from the Kraken. He busts up on the scene riding Pegasus and holding the severed head of Medusa (it's the movie poster, see?) and it's as epic as it gets. Then he falls off his horse, and I laughed. Anyway it all ends pretty well, and I can only hope the new film is just as spectacular. It's a shame that the Kraken is a Scandinavian myth and not actually a Titan. In fact, there are no Titans in this movie, much like there were no trolls in "Troll 2". Enjoy.

The Wolfman

2010-02-18T18:55:00.002-05:00

I saw this movie on a recent trip to New York City, in a giant theater in Times Square. I was in the second row, practically in the action, so that only added to the intensity (and neck pain). I found the whole film gory, horrifying, and....oddly sexual. No really, I had no idea Benicio Del Toro was attractive. In truth I wasn't even sure who the hell he was before this. I think I'm just attracted to men who turn into mythical creatures and kill people.

And boy does he ever kill people. One guy even tried to shoot himself in the head (in the movie, not the theater...) so that he wouldn't have to endure being ripped into several pieces and possibly decapitated by the werewolf. Ah, but the poor bastard ran out of bullets and then bade farewell to his head. Seriously, there are at least two decapitations in this movie. Blood and guts everywhere! I had to look away at times. I was genuinely afraid, and that had nothing to do with my irrational fear of being in tall buildings in Manhattan.

Benicio plays a man named Lawrence (unfortunately un-sexy name) who returns to his father's house somewhere in England because his sister-in-law, Gwen, has informed him of his brother's untimely death. Apparently the brother was torn apart viciously by something, but I really couldn't venture a guess as to what. Neither Lawrence nor his father, Anthony "you-know-he's-bat-shit-crazy" Hopkins seem to really give a damn. Still, Lawrence vows to his sister-in-law (and new-found love interest) that he will figure out how his brother was killed.

Lawrence does what anyone would do when you need to find out information on mythical creatures - he asks the gypsies. I love gypsies, but these ones don't seem all that smart. They camp outdoors, as is the gypsy way, even though they know there's a murderous monster out there tearing people apart. And Lawrence isn't any better; he goes to visit them on the night of the full moon, after Anthony Hopkins told him that wasn't such a good idea. I think you know how that turns out. That's right, the wolf bites him, and now Lawrence is a werewolf, too. When he wakes up covered (and I mean covered!) in blood in the woods along with several viciously slaughtered bodies laying around, everyone just assumes he's an insane serial killer.

So poor Lawrence ends up in the nuthouse, all the while trying to warn the people containing him that he's a werewolf and that once the full moon comes, he will in fact ruin their shit. The full moon comes, and the bloodbath begins again. Oh, the entrails! The horror! He's running through London cutting people open at will, Hugo Weaving's (I know, I love him!) shooting silver bullets at him, but it doesn't seem like he can be stopped. At this point Gwen has fallen in love with him, because she likes men who kill people as much as I do. Of course in real life, loving serial killers is actually quite stupid, as they will likely kill you, but we're in a movie with a man who turns into a wolf, so it's perfectly acceptable. Besides, Gwen figures it really isn't his fault. The gypsies tell her only she can save him, because she loves him and all, so she makes a brave attempt at trying to reason with him. I'm not going to tell you how that works out, but my god, that is a lovely concept. Not only do you have an attractive man covered in entrails, but there's romance, too! I'm thankful for that. I'm also thankful that I wasn't eating spaghetti at the time.

I've heard that some people did not care for this film, and I have to wonder if they saw the same film I saw. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I hope to see it again, on an empty stomach of course. It'll be better a second time because then I'll know when to look away!

Monsters Vs. Aliens

2010-02-01T14:08:00.003-05:00

I like it. I admit, I thought it would be dumb, as it is technically a kid's movie. But I found it to be a good time. As you may have gathered, it's about a really tall lady and a group of monsters who have to save the Earth from sheer destruction from an evil and funny looking squid alien. God, science fiction is awesome.

This is a Dreamworks film, and they made "Shrek", so you know it can't be too awful. Dreamworks is really good at making things look real, especially the textures. I want to touch everything. The humans are still a little bit cartoon-y, but I'm sure that's just for the sake of whimsy. I'll accept it. Another thing Dreamworks (and like, everyone else) enjoys is using really popular actors to do the voices. I don't mind that, I delight in the familiar, it's just a pain when I have to pause the movie and go to Internet Movie Database and figure out who is who, otherwise it'll drive me crazy.

If I'm being honest, I only grabbed this from the Redbox because I heard that Stephen Colbert was in it. He plays the President of the United States, which just makes sense, and is as hilarious as it sounds. It's worth it just for him, and I'm quite sure he would agree with me.

So let's see...what happens? The lady in question, Susan (Reese Witherspoon), starts out a normal lady. On her wedding day she gets hit by a meteorite that contains an element called quantonium, which the writers obviously made up. But everyone knows you can't have a sci-fi movie without a made-up element. Anyway, this element makes her grow to be a giant, and then naturally the government comes and takes her away. Susan is now known as Ginormica, and wakes up in a super secret government containment center (prison, we'll call it) in a completely different outfit. The only thing on my mind was, how and why is she in a different outfit? Somebody actually had the job of dressing and undressing the giant woman. That's a little intrusive...

Upon waking, Susan meets an assortment of monster sidekicks with famous people voicing them. All of them look like something you'd see in a "Mystery Science Theater 3000" movie. You can probably guess that Seth Rogan is one of them, the blob named B.O.B, because Seth is in everything. There's also a giant insect that doesn't talk, as well as the Missing Link, who I always thought was an ape of some kind. Turns out he's a lizard type-thing. He looks like Swamp Thing if that helps. His voice is done by a guy I've only ever seen in Blades of Glory - he was the rival figure skater. But my personal favorite was a little mad scientist cockroach guy, who is none other than Mr. Hugh Laurie - OMG Dr. House! Except he's Dr. Cockroach this time. Lucky for my pal Hugh, he gets to keep his British charm here. It's actually a little weird sounding. I guess I'm not used to him being sophisticated and nice.

The aliens attack America, and even the newscaster (Ed Helms, oh my god the list never ends...) says something like, "Why do they always land in America?" My thoughts exactly, thank you. The aliens in question are really just one guy named Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson, he plays on "The Office") who cloned himself in true Star Wars fashion and now has quite the army of clones. I know, it's familiar, but unlike "Attack of the Clones", this film is funny and there's no Jar Jar Binks - win! Gallaxhar destroyed his home planet already and needs to "set up shop" somewhere else, and start a new civilization, where apparently everyone looks exactly like him. This is why he's a great villain, because that's such a stupid idea, and he's too self centered to realize it. He's just the right amount of inept.

So Stephen Colbert has no choice but to set the monsters free and let them handle it. And they do, they beat Gallaxhar's giant robot with minimal casualties (the Golden Gate bridge didn't make it, poor thing). After the victory, Susan makes a pit stop at the news channel where her fiancee works, because I guess she misses him after being confined for so long. He's a real douche bag about the whole thing and doesn't want to be with her anymore because she's huge. I was rather surprised she didn't squish his ass. I would. Then a beautiful thing happens - Susan realizes she deserves better, and she saved all of San Francisco (except the bridge) without his help. Really, nothing feels better than not needing a man. It's the same feeling I got when I realized the grocery store is for purchasing groceries.

At some point Susan gets captured and taken into the alien spaceship, where someone changed her clothes again. Of course this time you know it had to be Gallaxhar, the little squid pervert. Now she's in bedazzled leather. Really. So Dr. House, the lizard, and Seth Rogan all come to her aid, and they kick some clone ass with delightful banter and hilarity.

I grant this film my approval - it's really funny. I should have known. Dreamworks is always sticking in adult humor that the youngins won't get. Definitely worth a second viewing.

Howard the Duck

2010-01-31T18:35:00.003-05:00

Allow me to take you back to a long forgotten time of sub-par special effects, cheesy plot lines, cliche dialogue, and brightly colored laser beams. A time when everyone wore hot pink (even the men) and bestiality was perfectly acceptable. Oh the horror - it's the 1980s! Okay, it's not current, but this movie is stupid enough to justify me going back in time a little ways. It was made by George Lucas, and is proof that if it weren't for "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones", that man would be broker than I am.

I saw this atrocity long, long ago in my innocent youth, and as kid I was pretty impressed. (If you haven't seen it, it's about a talking alien duck sent to Earth who has to save the human race or some crap.) To a child, giant talking ducks aren't horrifying...for some reason. Now if it was the dreaded hooded merganser, then I probably would have run to my mother screaming:

Anyway I thought I'd give it a re-watch and see if it's as amazing as it was way back when. It's not. It so could have been amazing, though, because everyone loves sarcastic talking animals - they're fun! Howard of course is annoying, and I found him hard to look at. Now, I'm very superficial to begin with, but still. He's voiced by the guy who played the Baker in the musical "Into the Woods", and I enjoyed him there because he was cute and sang and stuff, but I can't stomach him as a duck midget. I wanted to cook him. I looked at him and saw delicious Thai food. This movie would have been so much better if there were no duck in it, making me hungry. What was even more horrifying was the naked duck lady in the beginning of the film singing to herself in the bathtub, and she had humanoid boobs and nipples. Is that supposed to turn people on or effectively sterilize them? All I know is, I haven't been that disturbed in a while.

Anyway Howard the Duck is sent to Earth through a bogus and totally radical laser beam that lands him in an alley in Cleveland. Wait, Cleveland? Not the top of the Statue of Liberty or the desert in Roswell, New Mexico? Well I guess if I have to accept a talking duck then I can accept this, too. Howard runs into a chick (aw that's a terrible pun) named Beverly (Lea Thompson) who sings in a punk rock band that I thought was decent at first but then became truly horrible as the film progressed. She provided him with a place to stay. Conveniently enough, the unnamed duck planet is exactly like Earth in every way, except for the duck thing. Howard knows what everything is without having to ask. The one exception is pizza. He's never seen pizza before, so I can only assume there's no Italy on Duck World. Instead they have feathery duck boobs.

Howard tries to assimilate into human society and fails because half the population screams at the sight of him and the other half just think he's a funny looking short guy, even though I know I've never seen a midget with a bill and duck feathers. This part was dumb for that very reason. Everyone should have been screaming in terror and running away. The true horror begins when Howard starts hitting on Beverly, and I had the feeling a sex scene was coming because I remembered one from when I saw it as a kid. Lucky for all of us they just kissed in the bed, and I used to think that's what sex was (last year), hence my confusion.

It got better when the Dark Lord of the Universe showed up, the same way Howard does. I love that generic evil-sounding name they gave him - so creative (hilarious). I liked the part where he was sitting in a diner saying cliche shit like "the end of the world is at hand" and "you will witness the destruction of the Earth" with a straight face. That's just my brand of stupid. On a side note, I remembered this diner as a Denny's, but it turned out it was just a Cajun Sushi (huh?) place that looked like a diner, and to me all diners were Denny's, I guess.

So the Dark Lord of the Universe has taken over the body of a scientist, one Dr. Jennings, and then the movie turns into "Men in Black" for a second. Remember though, that "Men in Black" is an exceptional cinematic achievement, whereas this is not. The alien is inside Edgar's, I mean Dr. Jenning's body and kidnaps Laurel the morgue lady, I mean Beverly the punk rocker, and it's up to Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, I mean Howard and Tim Robbins, to save her. Of course the Dark Lord of the Universe isn't trying to feed his baby roaches, he just needs a human body to put the other Dark Lords in. I guess you can fit multiple dark lords inside one Lea Thompson, even though these aliens are huge. They drool a lot and have teeth and look like vaginae (that is the proper plural, look it up) with eyes and scorpion legs. So I don't know. At any rate this was my favorite part because it got all 80s-tastic with fake looking explosions and lame monster effects.

But it got lame again mighty quick. Howard decides to stay on Earth because he's found love with Beverly, which is gross, disturbing, and I don't want to think about it. I wouldn't bang a duck. It's like banging a stuffed animal, which is something only sexually confused 12 year-olds do when there are no prepubescent boys around.

The movie ends on a low note with a horrible original song that would never be a hit outside of a cheesy 1980s sci-fi movie (or in one for that matter). Beverly's band is singing the atrocity, called "Howard the Duck", in honor of Howard, who has agreed to be the new band manager. It's all kinds of bad. The duck is on stage playing a tiny guitar, the crowd's cheering, and all I could think was she'd rather hit that than have a tall sexy man? Come on! Oh well, I guess the more pretty chicks mate with mutant ducks, the more men will be left for me. I like to see the sunny side.

I think I'll wait another fifteen years to watch this again. We'll see if it's any better then. (My guess is no.)

All About Steve

2010-01-08T18:13:00.003-05:00

Aw, this one hits home.

"All About Steve" was sweet, but made me a little sad. Because I'm a stalker too, and I felt for Sandra Bullock. Apparently stalking isn't the way to a man's heart. Wait, what? Hunting down your prey like an animal won't get you anywhere? Holy crap! Yeah, thanks for that, movie. But I suppose I can accept the fact...with time.

Mary Horowitz makes crossword puzzles for a living (fascinating!), lives with her parents, and thinks those red boots look okay with her bad dye job. She's awkward, no one takes her seriously, and she talks incessantly about nothing. Mary is set up on a blind date because she has trouble getting men, but according to her, she has in fact had some "liaisons". I don't believe her. Even I've had more liaisons. Anyway, this Steve fellow is a handsome man with frosted hair, who makes a living as a cameraman for a news station. Mary can't resist his styled hair and youthful good looks, so she pounces on him like a cat (understandable). Steve isn't into it because she talks too much and is well, insane, to put it nicely. As the movie progresses we find out just how insane she actually is. Personally I think lots of people can relate to a woman like this. Who hasn't obsessed over a man after one meeting? (That's sarcasm. I give it at least two meetings...)

Mary starts her journey of insanity by making a crossword that, as the movie title suggests, is all about Steve. To advance the plot, her boss fires her, and now she is free to roam the country following news stories, where Steve will inevitably be. Sure, it's far fetched. I know I like to keep my stalking in the same county, if not in the same town. Steve must be one hell of a man for her to want to cross state lines, especially only after one very short date. Phew, maybe I'm not so nuts after all!

Steve works for a reporter named Hartman Hughes, who is pure ham. Hartman encourages Mary because he's a guy and wants to give Steve a hard time. I guess that's how men show their affection to one another - by being dicks. It's basically Hartman's fault that Mary always knows exactly where Steve is headed, much to poor Steve's dismay. Mary uses flawed logic, seeing signs that her and Steve are meant to be together, when really she's just being delusional and can't take a hint. The writers must have studied the mind of a stalker, because that's pretty much dead on.

Mary hitches a ride with a couple of weird people and follows Steve all the way to Colorado, where she falls in a mineshaft in pursuit of her prey. Steve and Hartman feel sort of guilty at this point, and it's sweet because they were kind of douche-y up until now. Steve realizes that Mary is not in fact a psychopath who wants to chop him into pieces, but that she's really just an intelligent, sweet person, albeit with bad taste in footwear. Still not someone he would date though... Ah, whatever!

Mary has some time to think down in the mineshaft and realizes a few things, notably that chasing after something very pretty doesn't always lead to good things (mineshaft, possible death), much like a moth and a bug zapper. I suppose I should be glad I saw this - it's only a matter of time before I myself end up in a mineshaft.

All in all, it was sweet at times, though not as good as I was expecting. Mary sort of irritated me - I guess I thought she was going to be more like me. I mean she totally is, but Christ, I know when to quit (not), and I'm not annoying. I was sort of hoping for more romance, but they went and stuck to reality. While reality usually receives my scorn, I suppose in this case it's for the best. Let's be honest, if the ending was too good, I'd have just been jealous.

Inkheart

2010-01-04T23:12:00.002-05:00

I know, it's another Brendan Fraser movie. I can't seem to keep away from him. The hilarious part is that the German lady who wrote the book this movie is based off of insisted on Brendan Fraser, and even wrote her story with him in mind. In fact the producers totally wanted someone better, but she had to have him! She must have only ever seen "The Mummy", which I think is his greatest cinematic achievement. She's obviously equally as crazy as I am. Or maybe he's just the German George Clooney.

I like this retarded little film. Apparently it was in theaters, but I don't remember seeing any sort of trailer or advertisement. Hollywood likes to keep Brendan Fraser on the down low I guess. Anyway it was a book first, but I didn't bother reading it. I didn't bother reading "Stardust" or "Lord of the Rings" either and I'm perfectly okay with that. Reading takes weeks, movies take hours. Committing to a story for that long is hard! Speaking of "Lord of the Rings", Gollum is in this movie! No really, he's the villain! (Not really Gollum, okay, it's the dude who played him). If your eyesight is better than mine (and chances are it is) then you can see him at the top of the movie poster, leering down at you. I think he looks like Mr. Bean.

I expected this movie to be bad, for obvious reasons, but I was pleased. Mr. Fraser often delivers, inexplicably. It's a story about a guy named Mo who, when he reads aloud, makes the story literally come to life. The book characters sort of end up in real world. The concept is an interesting one, since I came up with a similar story but never wrote it down, so naturally my ideas were stolen by a German woman. (I jest, my idea was slightly different. It had more hot guys.) As it turns out, Mo has a wife and a daughter, but he accidentally sends his wife into the book "Inkheart" while reading it to his daughter. Oops! You see, whenever a character comes into this world, someone from here has to go into the book. Of course three men came into this world when he did that, so damned if I know why only his wife was taken away instead of all of them. (It's called "equivalent exchange".) But I suppress logic when I watch Brendan Fraser. It's for the best.

In order to get his wifey back, Mo has to find a copy of "Inkheart" and read it out loud again so that she'll pop back out. I'm not entirely sure what happened to his original copy...if they mentioned it I wasn't paying attention. Turns out the book is out of print and obscure. One can only assume it was depressingly bad. It's really important that they find it though because one of the guys he read into this world is the villain (Smeagol) whose name is Capricorn. (I wonder what his sign is...). Capricorn really likes this world. He's got his own castle, and as he puts it, there are guns here! Oh yeah and he wants Mo to read the book aloud and bring an evil monster into this world to destroy people. Not sure why. The guy has no motive whatsoever. I'm just going to assume he wants to find "the precious" and kill stupid fat hobbits. Now that I think about it, Capricorn reminds me a lot of one of the Yu-Gi-Oh villains, but no one besides me watches that show so I won't get into it.

I like this film because of the brilliant concept, really. Imagine what you could do if you could bring characters to life? It makes me wonder if Mo ever read "Penthouse Forum" aloud. The possibilities are endless. Me, I'd be all over Harry Potter. Holy shit that would make my life. Then I could live my dream of marrying a Weasley. Either that or I would write my own story and turn my life into nothing but awesome. Zac Effron would be my love interest. I'd insist on it!

In closing, I just want to go read a book now. And then, naturally, watch the movie version of said book. And then, naturally, rant about it's inaccuracies here. Good night.

The Princess and the Frog

2010-01-04T20:39:00.003-05:00

Thank you Disney! Finally, they've returned to their ever-so successful and Amy-satisfying princess love story formula! That's not sarcasm. I love it! It's classic Disney, where the talking animals are just funny sidekicks. Okay if you want to get technical, the human characters spend much of the movie as frogs. But it's a start.

This movie is downright enchanting, as I knew it would be. It takes place in New Orleans in the 20s, when everything was awesome and there weren't drunken party girls running around showing their boobs for beads. Back then you didn't have to flash people to get beads. They just gave them out. And the music was awesome. I was almost inspired to dance. Come on, Louisiana in the 20s! Yes please!

The princess is question is in fact a waitress, who only dressed like a princess for a masquerade ball. On a side note, and I'm not sure if I've said this before, why don't people have masquerade balls anymore? I mean outside of gay bars. If I were in charge I'd insist on them! Moving on, the prince in question, Prince Naveen, is a pretty beautiful creature. He's from Maldonia (fake country!) and has a sexy Enrique Iglesias-like accent. (Let me be your hero...lol.) He's also kind of funny, and a bit dumb at times. My kind of man. The reason why I say he's kind of dumb is because he visits a creepy voodoo man, who is obviously up to no good, and after reading some tarot cards the voodoo man turns him into a frog. With the magic of song and dance, of course. I totally saw it coming. Now if Jafar from Aladdin mated with a California Raisin, the baby would be this voodoo man. That's the only way I know how to describe him. He's creepy. And sings.

Naveen mistakes Tiana (the waitress) for a real princess and she kisses him, but it only turns her into a frog too, since she isn't a princess. Now they're both frogs! The movie basically centers around the two of them on a quest through the bayou to figure out how to turn human again. And what makes it awesome is that they fall in love and meet a bunch of awesome talking animals/supporting characters. Notably, a trumpet playing alligator and a firefly who's in love with a star. The firefly was my personal favorite. His name is Ray, he's a touch crazy, and speaks in accented Cajun with some random French thrown in. I'm French Canadian myself, so I could understand him quite well. His Frenchness reminded me of my sassy older relatives, and it brought me joy.

So go see it. It's like the old Disney, and I heartily approve!

Stardust

2010-01-02T23:09:00.003-05:00

BEST. MOVIE. EVER.

No seriously. I rented this weeks ago and I never got around to watching it until now. It was worth the wait. This movie is phenomenal. It's got romance, a unicorn, pirates, witches, magic, a cheesy love song in the credits, comic relief, a parallel world, a ridiculously happy ending, a cute young grocery employee, AND a drag queen! OMG IT'S ALL MY FAVORITE THINGS IN ONE PLACE!!! You know I'm serious when I use all caps, because all caps just looks retarded unless you're serious. And I am. This is my new favorite movie. I was totally worried it would be stupid. But it's just crazy enough to work.

Our young hero is a boy named Tristan, who was born from a hot one night stand, and who won my love the moment I found out that he works in England for a grocer. It's basically a Hannaford, except 150 years ago. He is painfully adorable. Now he's crazy about this hosebag named Victoria who doesn't think much of him. Victoria visits him in the grocery store and gets him fired, so you know she's not a good person. I never got any grocery store boys fired. And still, Tristan wants to marry this broad, so he sets off to the magical city beyond the wall that surrounds their village to find a fallen star, because he plans on presenting Victoria with it, to impress her. You know that's not gonna work out because she isn't even on the movie poster.

Okay so it turns out the star is in fact Claire Danes. That's right, the star is a lady....named Yvaine. It's just ridiculous enough to be awesome. The plot's kind of complicated, but she fell from the sky because the king of Stormhold, the magic land, threw a big ass jewel in the air (and it hit her and knocked her down) so that one of his sons would find it and become the new king. I guess he couldn't decide who to pick to be king, so he decided to do it that way. Yvaine keeps the jewel around her neck, so now there are a bunch of angry princes after her, and Tristan, who wants to take her back to England. As the princes die (kill each other off), they come back as ghosts and observe their remaining brothers and provide me with amusement by making commentary. Also throw Michelle Pfeiffer into the mix and you've got a story. Michelle Pfeiffer is a witch who wants eternal youth, and the only way to do that is to cut out Yvaine's heart and eat it. Oh yes. It's that cool.

Tristan tries to use a magical candle to get them both home, but it backfired and they ended up in the clouds, only to be rescued by the cast of "The Deadliest Catch". That's who I thought they were at first anyway. But really they're lightning pirates, who catch lightning as opposed to king crab, and they're led by Robert DeNiro, a fruity guy named Captain Shakespeare who is hiding deep, deep in the closet. He likes to dress like a lady, but he doesn't tell his crew that because he wants them to take him seriously. Could this movie be any more awesome?!

Eventually Yvaine ends up in the hands of Michelle Pfeiffer, who's got on some really fake looking old lady make-up. But it all works out, and so freakin' well. Then the ending is just so happy and perfect that I won't even tell you about it. Go see that shit. It'll change your life. You know, if you happen to like all those wonderful things I listed in the first paragraph.

Sherlock Holmes

2009-12-27T22:50:00.002-05:00

Elementary, my dear Jude Law. I'm sorry, I had to.

Um, yeah, anyway...I liked it. It was badass. Okay I do have a major crush on Jude Law - I used to keep a picture of him right near my bed in my dorm room back in college. So obviously I enjoy his presence onscreen.

I hardly understood what the hell was going throughout most of the film, and I blame that solely on Robert Downey's Jr's thick British accent. And Robert isn't even British. I knew this, but I looked it up just in case - he is indeed from New York City. It's like Professor Henry Higgins got a hold of him. His English is too good. In fact, there was a scene in which he spoke French, and I found I could understand him better in French. He sounds like uopsldkfjouhwelfnsl quite ljhsah jollygood lkhafouho spot of tealfjfuf indeed safliwf yeeeesssss. I'm gonna rent this movie later on and stick on the subtitles. Then I can actually follow it.

Then you have Rachel McAdams, who plays a British lady but doesn't even bother with the accent. Normally that would annoy me, but in this case I was happy because I could actually tell what she was saying. As for Jude Law, he's hot, so I don't listen to what he's saying anyway.

But even if you're hard of hearing like myself, there's enough visual stimulation to satisfy. I'm not just talking about when Holmes was all sweaty and shirtless. (Actually, as far as man-chests go, his is just okay.) They do that thing where they speed up and slow down the tape so you feel like you're drunk and high at the same time, you know, to emphasize the action, and make sure you don't miss important shit. Because with Sherlock Holmes, it's all about the details, and god forbid you miss those...But yeah, lots of cool cinematography and explosions and things. There's fun stuff for both idiots and intelligent people.

And Holmes is a great character. He's bat shit crazy. A genius sort of crazy. He's Dr. House, but a bit less of an asshole. (Yes, I know Dr. House is based off of Holmes...) And him and Watson are basically in love. They spent much of the movie exchanging fast, witty British banter, and the audience would laugh and I'd just be sitting there like, "wait, what??". I'll have to listen more carefully next time.

There's also a great villain in it, too! It's not even Moriarty, as you'd expect. Okay it is, but you don't really see him. There's this other guy named Blackwood (he has "black" in his name, so you know he isn't a nice person) and he looks almost exactly like the guy who plays on Law & Order:SVU (Chris Meloni). Look it up, it's uncanny. But yeah, this douchebag resurrects himself in a most Jesus-like fashion and wants to use black magic to make England into a huge empire that will take over the world or something. (Really.) Truthfully I don't see England ever succeeding at something like that. I mean come on. It's England. They are just too nice. Anyway Holmes has to stop him by figuring out his ingenious plan, and it's really impressive. He picked up on shit that any normal person would never have noticed. And then at the end he explains all of it to Blackwood, and the audience is effectively both enlightened and super impressed by his mad skills. All the ladies in the theater wanted to do him, including me. (I know because I went through and surveyed everyone during the awesome visually-stunning credit sequence.)

So if you're fluent in British, go see it. Awe in Holmes' brilliance.

Jingle All The Way

2009-12-08T17:10:00.003-05:00

Worst Christmas movie I've ever seen. Quite possibly the worst any kind of movie I've ever seen. My sister's friend Michelle requested it, so I put myself through the hour and a half of agony to please my fanbase. I hope you're happy. It took all my strength not to shut it off. Oh, how I wanted to shut it off! Delight in the endless ways I can describe its suckage!

It's not even "good bad", it's "bad bad". It makes "White Chicks" look like a grand cinematic acheivement. It makes Brendan Fraser look like Morgan Freeman. I'd almost rather watch "Epic Movie". (Almost.) I'd like to do Netflix a favor and destroy the DVD so that no other human will have to endure such misery. Alright, enough, let me tell you why I hate this movie.

It's everything you hate about Christmas on full display. Seriously, all it is...is a guy trying to get his kid a toy on Christmas Eve. Doesn't it just make you want to hurl? It gets worse. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays the father who doesn't spend enough time with his son and is always missing important milestones in his son's life because he's too busy working for a living and making sure the ungrateful little shit eats every day. Blah, blah, blah, we've seen this a hundred times. Let's not forget the annoying little boy in "The Santa Clause" (who lucky for me grows up to be hot in the sequel). That movie was actually good, because of Tim Allen's hilarious one-liners. Arnold has no one-liners. He isn't a comedian. This entire movie was slapstick. People falling down, running into things, shit falling over, chaos! Are there people that exist that actually think slapstick is funny? Because it's not. That's why "America's Funniest Home Videos" is so lame. Slapstick is lame. Leave it to the Three Stooges and be done with it I say.

If I laughed in this movie, it was only once or twice. Sinbad was in it. See, Sinbad was in it and I didn't like it! I love Sinbad, the poor bastard. He was nothing to write home about here. If you're going to be an idiotic black sterotype, then be Chris Tucker, because he's awesome.

Moving forward with the shit festival, Arnold sucks at parenting and gets the third degree from his little boy because he missed some karate thing he was doing. But Arnold tried, by God. This kid is lucky he even has a father. What if his mother was single and had to collect food stamps? Then you really wouldn't get your precious TurboMan for Christmas. Anyway, Arnold promises to make it up to his son by buying him a TurboMan action figure, the Tickle Me Elmo of its day. On a side note, the son is played by the kid who was Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels (the young one, not the hot one who can't act).

Most of the movie consists of Arnold going to great (stupid) lengths to find a TurboMan at the last minute, because he's a jackass and didn't listen to his wife when she told him to get one weeks ago. In the process he runs into Sinbad, who's looking for one as well, and they fall over and bump into things as though they were cats with socks over their heads. I assume the audience was supposed to think that was funny. There was even a bomb gag. The thing explodes, and I assume like a sane person that everyone present has met with an unfortunate end. But no, in true Looney Tunes fashion, everyone is a-okay and just had their hair messed up a bit and got black ash on their faces. Ha ha ha, I've never seen that joke before! It's so original! You must be Jerry freakin' Seinfeld! Gawd.

Act 3 is basically a Christmas parade that Arnold promised his son he would go to (you'd think he'd have learned by now not to make promises), but Arnold is too busy looking for a TurboMan. I would have given up after three stores, tops. But Arnold is resilient. Somehow he ends up in the parade dressed up as TurboMan and saves his son from Sinbad using a built-in jet pack. I don't even want to explain this, it's not worth it. I just wanted to make the point that the boy didn't recognize his own father in the TurboMan suit, even though he has a distinctly thick Austrian accent. Duh!

In conclusion, this movie is stupid. Even if I was watching it drunk, high, and while having sex I still would not enjoy it. It made my dinner jingle all the way back up my throat. If you like stupid unfunny gags set to Christmas music, then by all means see it.

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus

2009-12-07T22:51:00.003-05:00

Since it's the Christmas season, I thought I'd go ahead and review my all time favorite Christmas movie/special. This one's got fairies, sexual innuendo, creepy claymation, characters that look like John Denver, and no sign of Jesus. It's a shame hardly anyone has heard of it. It's just so beautiful. Rankin and Bass must have done a lot of drugs, to have produced so much majesty (in all their films, really). In fact, I recommend you watch this high, if at all possible. I haven't watched it high myself, but I'm sure I would only be met with confusion.

This version of the story of Santa Claus is more like a fairy tale, which is badass in its own way. I'm going to spoil it for you so you don't have to watch it. But you should anyway. We start off in the magical forest of Burzee, where only immortal creatures like nymphs and such live, where "no human has yet penetrated". (There's your sexual innuendo. It gets better. So much better.) Already you know this story is going to be awesome, because there are fairies in it. The immortals are led by a tall man known only as "The Great Ak", who has these epic moose-like antlers he likes to wear as a hat. He calls together all the other immortal leaders for a council meeting to decide whether or not they want to make Santa Claus immortal like them or not. Some of these leaders include the Commander of the Wind Demons (nightmare fuel), Queen Zurline (who I assume leads the nymphs), and Peter Nook. Peter Nook leads the nooks, a race of fairy creatures that resembles two foot tall, discolored, hunched over versions of John Denver. I wish I had a picture. They're funny little things.

So we go way back in time to when Santa Claus was a wee baby. I guess he was abandoned in the Forest of Burzee. In winter. So the Great Ak does the only sensible thing and leaves the baby with a lioness named Shiegra (spelling?). He instructs the lioness to give the baby its milk and not do the natural thing and have it for dinner. I don't know, if someone dropped a ham on my doorstep and told me to love and nurture it like a child, I'm pretty sure I would break after a few hours and roast the thing. Anyway, along comes a nymph named Necille, who has green hair and baby fever. She sees the baby and sings a song about how she wishes she could have a child. I break out into a similar ditty every time I check up on old friends on Facebook, only to find out they're all pregnant.

Necille steals the baby and names him Claus, and raises him with the nymphs and the fairies. He's pretty much the luckiest child in the world. When he gets to be old enough to reason but still too young for me to be attracted to, the Great Ak decides to show him the world...in about an hour. This was a long time ago, there wasn't as much to see. To travel to these distant lands, they have to fly. One of the funniest lines in the movie is when the Great Ak says to Claus, "Hold tightly to my belt, Claus". And then they fly away with Claus's face in the Great Ak's junk. I'm immature, that makes me giggle.

On this grand journey they visit about five places, all in which mortals like Claus are being assholes to each other and living in poverty and misery. Being mortal sucks. Claus feels sorry for the poor children and dedicates his life to bringing them joy. To do this, he packs his shit and leaves his perfect existence in the Forest and heads for a mortal dwelling known as "The Laughing Valley of Ho Ha Ho". For real. In this valley it is always winter, for no adequately explored reason. I don't think that's anything to laugh about. The wind makes a "ho ha ho" sound too, so it's just plain creepy. But Claus is enchanted by the name, and the snow too, because he doesn't have to shovel it.

Claus has a pretty sweet bachelor pad with his nymph boyfriend Tingler (who is annoying because he has to say everything in eight different languages), the lioness Shiegra, and his cat Blinky. Claus meets a useless orpahn named Weekum, who's a total puss. Claus feels sorry for him and carves him a wooden cat that looks exactly like Blinky. (I want one of my cat!). Weekum is so pleased he goes and shows all his orphan friends and they break out into a song called "I Wanna Wake Up To A Big Surprise". Well don't we all....They're singing about the cat, saying "a pretty little cat with a tongue that's red/a pretty little toy we can take to bed". I guess I'm just a pervert, but I crack up every time.

So Claus becomes a toy maker, because stuff makes people happy. And as he puts it, "there is nothing so beautiful as a happy child." Really? I can think of a few things...
Oh, but things really get screwy when the Awgwas show up. They're like bad fairies - their sole purpose in life is to make children do bad things. Since Claus makes children happy, the Awgwas want to ruin his shit. Luckily the Great Ak shows up and with his army of nymphs, and they waste the Awgwas by throwing tree branches at them.

Now Santa Claus can deliver toys to the children again without fear of late night muggings/rapings! Hurray! So there's this one "mantle of immortality" waiting to be bestowed upon one lucky mortal, and the fairy council chooses Claus. Of course now he's all old and obese. They should have given him immortality back when he was young and thin and resembled Keith Urban. Oh well. That's the story of Santa Claus. I accept it as fact.

New Moon

2009-11-25T13:50:00.004-05:00

This movie is as sappy and emo as the book (though far less annoying), and I obviously ate that shit up like a bowl of instant mashed potatoes. I've often said this entire series is much like eating a pound of chocolate all by yourself. It's really sweet at first...but kind of makes you sick.

For some reason I enjoyed the film more than the book, which doesn't often happen. Maybe it's because the 200 or so emo pages of hanging-out-with-Jacob filler was shortened to less than half an hour, and was much easier to swallow. Also Taylor Lautner, god bless him, somehow actually made Jacob's character likable, which was a stretch because Jacob consistently pissed me off in the book. Of course my new found fondness of him is probably due to the fact that he's half naked for a large portion of the film. That's not to say I'm "Team Edward" either. (Christ I hate that phrase.) First of all, and I know I'm gonna piss off all the fan girls when I say this, but he looks like a heroin addict. Seriously. There is way too much white powder on this boy. And I think the red lipstick was terribly unnecessary. (Come on, no man's lips are naturally that red. I study these things...from afar.) He looks like a clown. On heroin. Because he's scrawny. But in his defense it's hard not to look scrawny with all that impressive werewolf man-chest running around.

No, I'm Team This Guy:

This poor bastard is Mike Newton, and he doesn't have a prayer, because he's just not a mythical creature. But I sort of love him. He's realistically handsome, he styles his hair and is slightly dumb, so...obviously.

Moving on, the first part of the movie focuses on Edward ditching Bella and leaving town, and Bella handling the situation with all the grace of a mental patient. God this chick is mopey. Yeah, yeah, you're in love. Do what everyone else does when a man abandons you - purchase a pint of ice cream, weep like a child in the fetal position, stalk him relentlessly, and then hide when you actually see him in public. Bella never even weeps like a child. She sure does scream a whole hell of a lot though. I've never screamed over a man, except in my head. In my head I screamed and threw fine china. It was fun.

So enter Jacob to save the day! In the book I was irritated because he was totally trying to get with Bella even though she has a boyfriend who is ridiculously obsessed with her, and she with him. Come on dude, she's 18 and totally in love! Gawd! So yeah, Jacob tries to mark his territory (ha ha dog joke) by hanging out with Bella and trying to make her feel better. You know life is really hard when you're a total fox and every guy in your school wants to do you, and you have to fight them off with sticks. I was lucky enough to be homely and overweight in high school, so naturally I was always really happy and never on Zoloft.

Eventually Bella heads to Italy, where Edward is, because Edward thinks Bella's dead and now he wants to kill himself. So they reunite and it's really epic and dramatic and beautiful and yes, overly sappy (and this is coming from me!). Then they talk to some old Italian vampires that think Edward has some mad vampire skills they want to exploit. All these old vampires are pale and effeminate, like all the other ones in the series. Not quite the "Gary Oldman and his harem of blood sucking lesbian concubines" kind of vampires. My favorite though was a guy named Aro, who in the book was forgettable and uninteresting. The guy that plays him looks like Martin Short, and is equally as camp. I sort of loved him, even though he wasn't very nice.

Anyway for all the crap I give this series, I still love it. I'm no screaming fan girl, but it has my approval, even though Bella and Edward's love is bordering on obsessive and Bella has no damn sense of humor and twitches a lot.

Year One

2009-11-02T13:43:00.002-05:00

I knew I would like this one simply because it has Jack Black and that cute little guy (Michael Cera) from "Superbad" in it. I mean it wasn't totally amazing, but I have to say it took me a while to pull myself away for a cake break, since I didn't want to look away.

I feel a bit misled, though. I thought this was going to be a movie about cavemen. I guess I didn't pay enough attention when I saw the trailer - perhaps I was too busy raving about how happy Jack Black movies make me. It was less about cavemen, and more like the Bible. (Yeah, they took that road.) But unlike the Bible, it's funny and entertaining. We start out with cavemen of course. Then the movie sort of leaps around through time until we're as far advanced as what looks like the early Roman Empire (it looks like it, I don't know shit about history). I know, right? Jack Black is a hairy fat man named Zed, whose adorable little buddy is a guy named Oh. Zed is a hunter, though not a good one, and Oh is a gatherer, a job that they seem to let both men and women do because it isn't that hard. So Oh's kind of a wuss. The trouble starts (because there's always trouble!) when Zed eats the shiny fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, you know, just like Eve did in the Bible. So obviously we're not following the Bible exactly or else Jack Black would start to bleed from his vagina every month and experience painful childbirth, and for centuries man would persecute hairy fat men instead of constantly picking on women. Plus, and thankfully, he wasn't naked when he ate it, so there was no realization of such a thing. What does happen is Zed gets banished from his village, which I'm not committed to believing is in fact Eden, it's just some place, so he takes Oh with him and they journey to what they think is the end of the Earth (cavemen are so dumb!). Now Zed thinks he's super intelligent and important because he ate the Forbidden Fruit, but in reality he's still the same idiot.

After they realize there is no end of the Earth, they keep going because Zed has this belief that there's more to life than hunting and such. On the way they run into all sorts of famous Biblical characters. Now I don't like to mix religion with my movies, but this came out interesting, since they took a few liberties (I'm pretty sure Abraham didn't live at the same time Cain and Abel did, but whatever). It's cool because you never see these characters in anything funny or nonreligious, so I was pleased. I guess if you've never read Genesis it wouldn't mean shit to you, but I got a kick out of it. (Yeah I read Genesis...zzzzz...)

Then there was talk of Sodom and Gomorrah. For those who don't know, these cities were known in the Bible for their copious amounts of gay sex, fornication, and other debauchery (fun stuff). Once Zed and Oh realized that Sodom was in fact a really fun town, they decide to go there, despite Abraham's warning. Plus, Abraham wanted to circumcise them, and that kind of thing is supposed to hurt.

I fully expected Sodom to be a huge gay stereotype, with fabulous men prancing around and putting things in each other's bums left and right, but they didn't take that road. It's probably better that way. Instead, the gayness was subtle. One exception was Oliver Platt, who was well dressed and wore lots of make-up and wanted nothing more than to have young men rub hot oil on his body (that's understandable!).

Anyway I liked it. It's nice to see the Bible be funny, even though it wasn't technically biblically (I made that word up) accurate. I do think people will forget about this film in a short time, unfortunately. It's like Mall Cop. In fact, Jack Black even lands himself a hot skinny chick that would never touch him in real life, in true Kevin James fashion. You never see a fat chick end up with a hot guy, do you? (Except "Hairspray" I suppose...) Oh well, doesn't matter, this film is a good time.

Mamma Mia!

2009-10-27T15:08:00.003-04:00

I do enjoy a good musical. It is hard to top "Phantom of the Opera" or "Les Miserables", but it was good nonetheless. I liked it. The songs of ABBA are very uplifting and entertaining. And there's a wedding in it! Joy! In truth, I have a love-hate relationship with weddings, because I want one and don't have one. Oh well.

Unfortunately I don't feel like I have anything funny to say about it, because it wasn't depressingly bad, it didn't insult other cultures, and it didn't contain Brendan Fraser or Keanu Reeves. I'll review it anyway. The young bride is a lady named Sophie, who is in fact 20 years old. Holy shit, is it the fifties? Ah who am I kidding? I'm just a jealous old spinster. :D (Emoticon!) Sophie's mother is Meryl Streep, who was quite the minx in her heyday. Not only did she sing ABBA songs in a cheesy girl group, she also had lots of random sex. High five Meryl Streep! So basically nobody knows who fathered Sophie, but we've narrowed it down to three men - Sam, Harry, and Bill. It's like a musical version of the Maury Povich Show! Okay not really. At least Maury let's you in on who the father is eventually. Here they've left it up to the viewer. I can't decide, none of them look like her! Anyway Sophie just went ahead and invited all three of them to her wedding, in hopes that she would figure it out once she met them, and if all else failed they could just sing it out. That's what I like about musicals, if you have a problem the best way of solving it is to sing it out. Sometimes I do that when I'm feeling down. As long as there isn't a huge drawn out dance number that lasts for twenty minutes and involves dancing showgirls coming out of nowhere, and you're just like, "okay...can we wrap this shit up?" No, I didn't feel the need to tell Meryl Streep to "wrap this shit up". In fact, everybody kept it to the point for the most part. Although the songs were pretty good so it might not have been too much of a crime if they did drag it out unnecessarily. Hell, I sang along.

Random thought - the ladies in Meryl Streep's singing girl group were the chick from "Cybil" (Christine Baranski) and the woman who played Molly Weasley in the Harry Potter movies (Julie Walters, didn't recognize her!). I wanted to point them out because at one point Christine Baranski sings a little song to a large group of 20ish young men, as a way of informing them of their youth and inexperience, and how she's still kind of turned on by it. Or something. At any rate it pleased me. I hope in my forties I'm breaking out into song and teasing 20-somethings in a similar fashion. (Christ knows no one will marry me! Hahahaha just kidding.)

Moving on, most of the cast could sing fairly well. I know they're actors, not singers, and I think they pulled it off. The one exception was perhaps Mr. Pierce Brosnan. Some may disagree, but I wasn't feeling him. He is no songstress. I kind of pitied him. He was probably cast for his I'm-growing-old-but-I'm-still-as-distinguished-as-Sean-Connery-ness (I just made up that very long word!). He's an "older man handsome". Not my thing but Meryl Streep seemed to be digging it. The other potential fathers were Colin Firth, who I enjoy, and the guy who played Bootstrap Bill in "Pirates of the Caribbean". Last time I saw him he had barnacles all over his face, so this was a nice change.

Well I don't have much else to add, except maybe that I approve of this film's existence. Perhaps one day I can afford to see it on Broadway (hahahaha fat chance...).

Fly Me To The Moon

2009-10-24T23:58:00.003-04:00

Oh boy. I had low expectations for this one. I sort of forgot it existed. I'm sure a lot of people did - it kind of slipped under the radar...I think that's for the best - it's surprisingly offensive. This film would be cute as well as educational (hey, it's a kid's movie) and I wouldn't have had a major problem with it, but here's the thing: The main villain in this movie...is Russia. Yeah.... Come on guys, I know this is set in the 60s and all, but aren't we past this hating Russia thing? I know we were competing with them back then, but this is ridiculous. It's one thing to make fun of Russia for their fur-wearing and vodka-drinking, if it's all in good fun, but this...oh boy. I feel like apologizing to the Russian people for this movie. It didn't need a villain, you could have made a film about a bunch of flies going to the moon without a villain. It would make much more sense to have the humans be the villains, but you know that would mean making Neil Armstrong and the other astronauts look bad, which isn't nice. They are Americans after all. Instead, they shit on Russia. Russian flies, to be exact. According to this movie, Russian flies speak in heavily accented English with each other in lieu of their native language, because God forbid our children read subtitles, and they are all ugly and mean. Well, to be fair, there was one nice Russian fly - she was a lady and sided with the American flies. Because Russian women are hot, and Russian men are evil and want to kill American children. Seriously, they totally went there.

Alright, aside from the blatant and unnecessary xenophobia, it wasn't so bad. It's the story of three little fly children who decide to hitch a ride on Apollo 11 (good thing they didn't take Apollo 13, huh?... Too soon? Sorry.) So obviously it takes place in 1969. If this movie is historically accurate, it could be very educational. At first I was thinking maybe they could show this in schools. (I changed my mind.) I doubt the accuracy though, and well, I'm far too lazy to check into it. Research sucks. I'm sure the writers of this movie thought the same thing. I checked the credits, though, and they did in fact use Neil Armstrong's actual voice from the archive...sometimes. I wasn't listening hard enough to distinguish the real Neil from the fake Neil (who was a woman, I think...the name was Sandy...), so it didn't bother me any. It was kind of cool to see the story of the moon landing from a fly's perspective.

The three flies, named Nat, I.Q., and Scooter, are voiced by actual children. Children are slightly annoying, and one of them had a hard-to-understand lisp, but I got over it eventually. The kids are all stereotypical - Nat is a walking pun (gnat, get it? har har har), I.Q. is a nerd with glasses (obviously), and Scooter is fat kid that constantly talks about how much he loves food. In fact food almost gets him killed. Now I'm not fat like I used to be, but the fat jokes were still a bit overkill. It's no wonder children are so cruel to each other. I don't know, the more I think about it the more it pisses me off.

So our heroes hitch a ride on Apollo 11, like I said, and when the gravity runs out, to no one's surprise, the Blue Danube Waltz by Johann Strauss (look it up) plays in the background. You'd know this classical piece if you heard it, believe me. It plays every single time someone experiences zero gravity and floats around in wonder. Of course as flies, you'd assume they'd be used to floating, but no, they are still rather fascinated. I guess for a fly it's not much different, they just wouldn't have to use their wings. The equivalent of a human using an escalator. Hell, I'm not a scientist.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, the boy's mothers are all worried about them. So is Nat's grandfather, who rode in the airplane with Amelia Earhart apparently. The grandfather is voiced by Christpher Lloyd (I was surprised he was still working), but his character looked a lot like George Carlin for some reason. Over in Russia (here it comes), the Russian flies are pissed because they weren't the first flies on the moon, so they decide to kill the children once they land back on Earth (?!). Tim Curry is pretty much the guy in charge of killing the children, because Tim is incapable of playing a nice person. He even puts on a fake Russian accent. (Really, not a word of Russian was spoken this entire time). He has a scar on his face and an eye patch, because that is synonymous with evil. I wonder, does anyone ever lose their eye doing something benevolent, like saving orphans? Why do scars and missing body parts always occur when doing bad things? You know the Tim Curry fly was doing bad things, because he's a filthy Russian. There is a lady Russian fly, who had a rendez-vous with Nat's grandfather in the 50s, which I can only assume was of a sexual nature. She goes to America (how?) to see him again, after noticing Nat on television. I guess she recognized Nat's last name, which is McFly. I feel like that would be a popular name in the American fly community. How she knew it was the same McFly is beyond me. I also wonder why that's Nat's last name, since it's his maternal grandfather. I guess that makes Nat a bastard. Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, Nat's family and the Russian lady are all down on Earth trying to stop Tim Curry and his band of thugs from killing the children. You see the Russian lady was kind enough to warn the family how awful her country is, and of their fondness of infanticide.

And you know, that entire side plot was just plain unnecessary. I really hope Russia doesn't see it. You know, we just got past the Cold War. Come on. I love making fun of other cultures as much as anyone else, but there's a difference between saying "ha ha Russian people drink vodka and talk funny" and "Russians like to kill children". It would have been so much nicer if it was just about the flies going into space. I know you need a villain of some sort to keep things interesting, but I really think they could have found someone else. Anything's better than xenophobia.

The icing on the cake was, at the very end of movie, just before the credits roll, the real life Buzz Aldrin comes onto the screen, in live action, and informs the audience that there were never any flies on Apollo 11, nor is it even a remote possibility. He pretty much said (and I'm paraphrasing), "Nothing you just saw really happened, or could ever happen...ever." Gee thanks, Buzz. Way to ruin the movie...more.

So in closing, sorry Russia. Please forgive us.

The Proposal

2009-10-23T20:15:00.002-04:00

Ryan Reynolds is adooooorable!

There, now that that's out of my system - this movie is really sweet. I do love a good Sandra Bullock romantic comedy. I have seen most of them, as I am a huge sap. I knew I would love it - I enjoy Sandra Bullock, Ryan Reynolds is fine as hell, and Betty White is in it! Instant success! Seriously, Betty White is like the big ass flower atop my birthday cake.

Now everyone knows Sandra Bullock is often awkwardly charming in most of her films (you know, the good ones), but here she starts out a bit different. She's a saucy businesswoman named Margaret, and all her underlings think she's a total bitch. She's the boss, you see. And she has a hot secretary named Andrew (Ryan Reynolds). God, I wish I was Margaret. Oh, to be a sexy businesswoman with a sexy younger man at my disposal. (I looked into it. Sandra is 45, Ryan is 33. Cougar! Another reason to love this film...)

So poor Margaret's visa was rejected, and in order to avoid deportation, she asks Andrew to marry her. Alright, she tells him. Now they have to go to Alaska and pretend to be engaged in front of Andrew's family. And Andrew's pretty much the luckiest man in the world because his grandmother is Betty White. Everyone loves Betty - she made me laugh in every scene she was in.

Long story short, much of the movie is Andrew and Margaret charming each other, with Andrew slowly realizing that Margaret isn't such a bitch after all, and Margaret slowly realizing that Andrew is much more than she thought he was (she becomes more awkward and does dumb things too, as is her nature). I can't tell you how many times I squealed "Aw that's so niiiice!!". At least a half a dozen times I promise you. Then Ryan Reynolds got all naked, and damn. That can't go without mentioning. (I'm not saying they had intercourse...everyone remembers the trailer with the both of them accidentally running into each other naked. You see a lot of Sandra too, gentlemen.) Call me shallow, but the man has a very nice body and I enjoy looking at it. So thank you movie.

Needless to say, this film was exactly my speed. Betty White is hilarious, too. It just made me feel so darn good inside, and that's exactly what an unemployed lady needs. You know, cause I'm bored. I loved it!

Hancock

2009-10-19T14:43:00.002-04:00

Is there anyone out there that doesn't love Will Smith? He's such a swell guy. I watched this one for him. I thought it might be a funny movie, like "Men in Black" or "Independence Day", but it didn't really turn out that way. It was still pretty cool, nonetheless.

Hancock is kind of a bum. With super powers. He's really strong, he's bulletproof, and he can fly. The movie presents us with this information right away. Hancock just isn't a very good superhero. He's kind of an asshole, he has no respect for public property, and generally does more harm than good. Naturally nobody likes him. Now most superhero movies I've seen will let you in on why the hero has these strange powers, and they even sometimes show you exactly how they became that way. Not so with Hancock. I had questions right up until the end. They only give you a piece at a time, which sucks because every time they answered one of my questions, I was just left with more questions. Like Hancock comes out and tells his PR agent that he doesn't remember anything besides waking up in a hospital eighty years ago. And I was like, "Oh, so he's immortal! ........But what the hell was he before he got amnesia?!" They didn't get to that until later. They present you with another character, a lady, that has the same powers as Hancock - not the plot twist I expected. There's an epic fight scene between them, which would have been more entertaining if I wasn't sitting there wishing they would talk it out instead and provide me with some much needed exposition. It's a brilliant way to make a movie though, because even though it was one in the morning and I was tired, I couldn't just shut it off. I had to know about Hancock's past! I simply had to!

Turns out Hancock has been around quite a while (immortals never seen to be born in this century). I won't spoil it, I spoil things far too often, but it's pretty damn fascinating, and really creative. I'm still not sure how he was born or anything, but that's probably for the best. It must be up to the viewer to decide. I assume he's like Jesus, in that he's a savior sent by some kind of deity, except nobody actually kills Hancock because he kicks an exceptional amount of ass. I hear talk of a sequel, so maybe they'll explain it then. Or not.

So Hancock acts like an asshole because he's lonely and doesn't know where he comes from, and it's been that way for eighty years. So he drinks and fails at life. One day he saves the life of a PR agent, who then wants to make it up to him by trying to improve his image. This means Hancock has to serve some time in jail, since he's destroyed many parts of the city in an attempt to fight crime, and it will appease the public if he goes to jail. All the guys in jail are in there because Hancock put them there, and they're all pissed off at him and try to start a fight, but that's just plain unintelligent because Hancock does in fact have the power to snap people in half. (He never actually snapped anyone in half in the movie, but I don't doubt that he could...) Hancock's thing is actually shoving a man's head up another man's ass, which is much more humorous. The humor in this movie was minimal, subtle if you will, but it was present and that made me glad. Really Will Smith's presence on the screen just brought me joy throughout, especially when he was partially naked (heehee).

Anyway I was intrigued. I couldn't tear myself away. I don't think there was one minute that I was bored. (Of course I've been watching some atrocious movies lately, none that I've reviewed, so I'm a little biased.) Still, thoroughly enjoyable, and I can't wait for the sequel!

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

2009-10-07T18:51:00.003-04:00

That's right, I saw this one. Between Matthew McConaughey's douche-iness and Jennifer Garner's horse face, I didn't think I'd like it. But by God it's romantic and cheesy so I had to see it!

I don't like these actors. As you may have noticed, I try to avoid Matthew as best I can. I mean, look at him in this picture. Most women think he's hot, but he never did it for me. I get the feeling he's this dumb in real life too. It doesn't help that he spent the first 3/4 of the movie acting like a chauvinistic asshole and talking about how love doesn't exist. I sort of wished Jennifer Garner would have kicked him with one of her hooves.

And Jennifer...looks like she's constantly making a fish face (look, she's doing it in the picture!). Her cheeks are all sunk in from lack of nutrition, her lips are all big, and her entire body is bony. Was there a caterer on this film set? Someone needs to feed her! I'm hard on Jennifer because I just rewatched "Daredevil", which was well, not the greatest thing I've ever seen.

So aside from my being slightly annoyed, I thought the movie was kind of sweet. Matthew McConaughey plays a photographer named Connor Mead who has sex with lots of women and never spoons after. He's like Casanova, only not likable...at all. People knew what Casanova was - they knew they were gonna get some great sex, perhaps a healthy obsession, but no love. And it was fine. But Connor Mead makes a lady fall in love with him, and then dumps her before he gets too close. You see he was raised by his Uncle Wayne (Michael Douglass!), who drank copious amounts of scotch and was quite the pimp himself. He taught Connor how to be an asshole to women.

Connor's brother is getting married (his brother is Breckin Meyer! Love him!), and he has to be the best man. So he spends the night with his family and the wedding party at Uncle Wayne's old mansion, and treats everyone like shit because deep down he's a lonely, broken man, who fills the void with vagina and booze. His dead Uncle Wayne comes to visit him and warns him that he'll be visited by three spirits, yeah yeah everyone knows how the Dickens novel goes. Apparently in the afterlife Uncle Wayne has learned the error of his ways. He doesn't actually say he's in hell or anything, but one can only assume. I'm glad they didn't mix religion with Matthew McConaughey. I can't imagine that's a pleasant combination.

The three ghosts show up, and show him a bunch of things to try to make him realize that he is quite the son of a bitch. At first he only admires his conquests, and reminisces about all the fine ladies he's had. It sort of turns around (thankfully!) when he sees how much he's hurt poor Jennifer Garner. And that made me sad. For her, I mean. You know, she wakes up the morning after doing him, and he isn't there - totally snuck out in the night. Obviously she was upset.

So he finally gets it. Yes, even Matthew McConaughey can be taught. He tells Jennifer Garner he loves her and everything works out splendidly. This had to have been written by a woman. Or a gay man at the very least. Maybe I'm a skeptic, but I don't think you can change a man that is that deeply chauvinistic. Even if you do scare the shit out of him. It's a film of wishful thinking, which I usually go for. This is almost reaching too far. Ah, but it's whimsical. Who cares?

My favorite part was the morning after all the ghostly visits, Matthew McConaughey opens up his window and shouts to a child below, "You there! What day is it? Is it Christmas Day?" or something to that effect. Taken right out of the Dickens novel. I thought it was hilarious.

Casanova

2009-10-02T21:43:00.014-04:00

How did I not know that this existed? (Thank you Netflix!) It's brilliant. I almost want to keep it and tell Netflix that I lost it in the mail. I never realized how handsome Heath Ledger is. I mean was. I'm kind of sad he's dead now. He's a delight. I mean was a delight.

Everyone knows about Casanova. He's a total pimp. A man-whore. He's ridiculously handsome, walks with a swagger, and seduces the ladies just by looking at them. They orgasm as he walks the streets of Venice. (I knew a guy like this once. Pompous ass...) But he gets knocked down a peg by a corset-burning feminist named Francesca. She writes about how much men suck, but she does it using a male pen name. (Whaaa...?) She also likes to dress in drag...but she's not a lesbian. Riiiiight.

What I love about this film is that its hilarious, and it's seemingly unintentional, yet intentional. The humor is witty, clever, and charming, much like myself. (Ah, but I jest.) I didn't even realize I was watching a comedy. I felt like I was laughing at a serious movie. It's hard to explain. Let me do it with pictures. We have a totally serious scene about some important higher-ups talking about how they want to capture Casanova because he's a "fornicator", and then out of nowhere this guy walks in:
Look at this guy! I had to pause the movie I was laughing so hard! I'm laughing right now. It's funny because people in 1753 often looked this ridiculous. They're all dead now so I can laugh at their expense. There's more, too. Poor Jeremy Irons, even before he sold his dignity to "Eragon", there was this:
Oh, it's rich! Have you shat your pants yet? He was in this exact shade of purple the entire film. I think it's because he's a clergyman of some sort. Real douchebag. But I guess all clergymen in the 1700s were douchebags. His hair looks like radiator pasta. (Check your local grocery store. It's there.)

Then there's Oliver Platt, who must have gained a bunch of weight for this role. He plays a fat guy who sells lard (really!) and who is engaged to Francesca. But Casanova wants Francesca to himself. She's pretty much the only woman who doesn't want what he's got. And you know how it goes, people always want what they can't have. So he kidnaps Oliver Platt in a way, and tells him that he can make him as much of a pimp as he is, so long as he stays in his house and does all this dumb stuff to make his fat ass look sexier (doesn't work). Oliver Platt knows he's a fatty and that the ladies don't like the fatties. Aw, but I like Oliver Platt. I found him oddly handsome in "The Three Musketeers". He had a swagger then. He was basically like, "Hey, I'm not as hot as Chris O'Donnell, but I'm still totally awesome." But I digress.

Francesca has a brother worth noting. He stares out the window all day at his foxy blond neighbor, who of course has the hots for Casanova. (I can't judge, I've been guilty of window stalking myself.) The blond lady ends up engaged to Casanova, because he really needs to settle and find himself a wife. It's the "respectable" thing to do. Good news is the brother turns into a total pimp in the end, so it all works out.

In fact, everything sort of works out really well, despite the fact that Casanova assumes like, eight different identities in the whole movie, and it gets confusing. People can't know he's Casanova because for some reason they hung people for fornication outside of marriage. (If that were true nowadays, I'd have a lot of dead friends...haha) Francesca gets pissed at Casanova for this confusion, but gets over it because the man is just that good.

And Oliver Platt is happy - turns out Francesca's mother is a bit of a chubby chaser and thinks he's a total fox. Everyone's happy. I like that. It was funny, and romantic, and things just worked out. I'm gonna have to buy this one, once I get some form of income.

The Librarian: Quest for the Spear

2009-09-28T21:14:00.003-04:00

If you've never heard of this one, consider yourself lucky. It was made for TV back in 2004, since no theater would pick this up. Let me save you the hour and forty-six minutes that I just lost - it's atrocious. My DVD player actually spat it back out (not making that up). And this is coming from a lady who once wrote a screenplay about pot-smoking squirrels. You should watch it though, if only to make fun of it. In fact, get a group of friends together and laugh at its expense. I recommend viewing it on an empty stomach though. I had it with dinner and it did not agree with me.

Noah Wyle, who apparently shot his career point-blank in the face, plays a really annoying guy named Flynn, who is in his thirties and lives with his mother, so from the get-go you know he's a real winner. Not only that, he's spent the last sixteen years of his life in college, earning twenty-two, that's right, 22 (I'll put it in numerical form for you as well) college degrees. My God, it took me six whole years just to get one of those damn things! So he pretty much knows, well, everything. And that's not even why he's annoying. (But it is a big part of it.) No, he's the type of guy who thinks he's funny and says dumb things, then when he finds out he's the only one laughing at these dumb things, he looks around awkwardly and says "oh". In short, he's extremely punchable.

The plot thickens (curdles, more like) when Flynn is forced to get a real job. He's lamenting in his bedroom with his books when a job offer magically appears before him. And I do mean magically. I wish I was making this up. A little flyer falls on his head, and the words manifest on the page, inviting him for an interview at the Metropolitan Library. I wish this would happen to me - I'm stuck looking on craigslist like everyone else. So he goes, and he waits in a line reminiscent of an American Idol audition (long wait!), and eventually he meets poor, poor Jane Curtin. She's kind of bitchy in this movie because, well, she's in this movie. Flynn then says something brilliant that his mother spouted the night before, and he gets the job. And then Bob Newhart magically appears! (Yeah, magically. Gawd.) Throughout the entire film, Bob Newhart looks like he's either in pain or incredibly depressed. His eyes seem to say, "I'm a legend, what the hell am I doing here? I want to go home!" I sort of pitied him.

So Flynn doesn't just become a librarian, he becomes the Librarian. Ooh, and we have an action movie - about a librarian. Yeah. Turns out this library is home to a lot of made up stuff from every legend contrived by man. They call them "ancient relics". What's in there you ask? The Holy Grail, Pandora's Box (uh-huh), a jet pack (why?), a unicorn (really), a flying carpet, the Ark of the Covenant, the Mona Lisa (this isn't the Louvre), the Golden Goose, and Excalibur. But the most important item (the title item) is the Spear of Destiny, which is supposedly the spear that they used to stab Jesus with when he was on the cross. So already we've assumed that both Greek mythology and Christianity are true at the same time, which is impossible. Are you laughing yet? It gets stupider.

Some assholes steal this super special magical spear of destiny, because supposedly if you have it, you can pretty much rule the world. So it was split into three pieces and scattered throughout the land. Hitler had only one of the pieces, so you can imagine what all three could get you. This is according to the movie, by the way. That's why it sounds like total horse shit. And so the quest to retrieve the lost spear begins.

Now if I wanted to watch a guy travel to distant lands and temples and solve logic driven puzzles to retrieve three missing pieces of a broken yet very significant artifact, I'd fire up the Nintendo and play "The Legend of Zelda", because that's exactly what this movie wishes it could be. That and "Indiana Jones"....and "National Treasure"....and "the Mummy". I sort of miss Brendan Fraser, now that I think of it. (Hell, I even miss Keanu Reeves!) Not even his movies have this many cliches - "Don't look down!", "up a creek without a paddle", "the fate of the world depends on you!". All that was missing was a "You'll pay for this!" and a "I think we need a bigger [insert noun]!".

Like every Brendan Fraser-esque action movie, there's a leading lady that serves as the love interest. Her name is Nicole, and she's just as nauseated by Flynn as I am. My favorite part was when she slapped him in the face. But eventually she warms up to him. I'm not sure why. That, out of all the totally unbelievable shit in this movie, is probably the most unbelievable. She even has sex with him! (And thank God they don't show it. I was ill enough.)

Our resident villian (power hungry guy who stole the spear, yeah, yeah) is none other than Kyle MacLachlan, who went from "Desperate Housewives" to just plain desperate. He really hams it up. There's another one I felt sorry for.

To summarize, this movie makes "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" look like "Citizen Kane". And there were no cute puppies to look at in this one. Noah Wyle hardly passes as eye candy due to the fact that he's far too annoying. There were plot points in here that even I couldn't believe. Even the appearance of a unicorn couldn't save it. And you know if I think a movie is stupid, then it's got to be pretty bad.

Love Potion #9

2009-09-24T19:36:00.003-04:00

If you've even heard of this one I invite you to give me a high five. It's from 1991. I was seven, so I couldn't watch it back then.

My initial reaction to this film?..........I want some. Oh, the endless possibilities. Actually, I think I could have a lot more harmless fun with Love Potion #8, which is the potion featured predominantly in this film. (I know, I know!) You take some of this shit and all you have to do is speak, and the gentleman are all up-ons. Like I said in my "Click" review, you make a movie based on something that everyone wants, and you get gold. (Well, my idea of gold that is. Could be crap to you.)

This movie is paced kind of strangely. It's almost like it's in parts. You'll get it in a minute. We start out with a dude named Paul who sucks at talking to women, which is odd because he's cute and smart and stuff...kind of looks like a chipmunk, which I like in a man. Paul, as the song "Love Potion #9" suggests, goes to see a crazy gypsy lady, who gives him Love Potion #8. (Hmm, wait a minute....) I couldn't help but wonder if these crazy gypsy women still exist, with their bandannas and long, colorful skirts. I love gypsies. They rule.

Paul is a skeptic, but he comes around when his cat takes the potion, and every feline in a 30 mile radius comes to his house for the grandest of cat orgies. So he takes the potion to work with him (he's a nerd, I mean biochemist) and shows it to the dorky girl he works with (Sandra Bullock), whose name is Diane. And boy did they ugly up poor Sandra. Even gave her a convincing gap in the teeth and never-been-plucked eyebrows. So after much study, the two of them try to explain to the audience scientifically what happens when someone takes the potion. You know it's a bunch of malarkey, but you also know you're watching a Sandra Bullock film, so who the hell cares? The potion is "activated" by speaking (after you've taken it, duh), otherwise people would be dry-humping you wherever you went, and nobody wants that (or do you?). Paul and Diane each take some, but keep away from each other so as not to fall madly in love. The effect only lasts for four hours anyway (aww...). Oh yeah, and if you're gay, it's of no use to you. Apparently it's a very conservative love potion.

In the beginning of the movie Paul had hit on this very attractive young blond woman, who gloriously rejected him, and I mean gloriously. She was a total bitch about it. And I said, "Paul, you can do better than that hosebag anyway." Once he gets the potion, though, he walks up to this lady and gloriously rejects her, even though she's pretty much gyrating in his lap. Now, I can buy the whole magic love potion from a gypsy thing, but I do not for a second buy this. No man in his right mind would so readily turn down sex with a super hot woman, just for the sake of getting even with her. Hahahahaha. Makes me laugh. That's me laughing.

So Paul spends the first part of the movie man-whoring.

Diane, who is ever so homely, gets hit on by a rich, handsome, Italian man, and she's a bit hesitant about it at first. (If you won't, I will, dear.) But she charms him with the love potion, and he takes her to a party and she charms everyone there and then somehow ends up with the Prince of England. Again, I want this potion.

As it happens, Paul and Diane decide to hang out and fall in love in about five seconds (you know, the natural way, sans potion). Seriously it's like a thirty second montage, and boom! they're in love. But I guess that's how that happens in the real world. This is why the pacing feels weird to me because most romantic comedies spend the entire movie building a relationship. Still, I don't hate it.

Okay so long story short, Diane has this ex-boyfriend who is a grand douche bag. They had some sex in the beginning of the film, and he up and left the second, I mean the very second, it was over. He received nothing but my scorn throughout this entire film. But for some reason he wants Diane all to himself, and gets his hands on some of the love potion, making Diane obsess over him in a most Amy-like manner. So Paul of course has to win her back. And finally, in comes Love Potion #9! This potion is the serious stuff - to be used with utmost caution.

I'm not gonna tell you what happens. You'll have to sit through this one yourself. But I'm sure you can guess anyway. It's a sweet movie. Worth watching if only for the horrible early nineties fashions.

An Officer and A Gentleman

2009-09-23T22:01:00.004-04:00

Wow, Richard Gere is indeed an officer as well as a gentleman. That must be why they voted him "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1999. I never knew why, but after seeing this film I think I get it. He looked damn fine in '82 (less so in'99, but I am a cougar and his hair is indeed gray). Too bad I wasn't even born yet. Whoops.

When the movie starts, our hero is neither an officer nor a gentleman. So he joins the Navy in an effort to make the title make at least a little more sense. Now I did like this movie, but the opening scene received my scorn. Robert Loggia is in it, and the only reason I knew who this guy was is because they made a hilarious joke about him on "Family Guy". Well, Richard Gere wakes up to find Robert Loggia sleeping naked in bed with two nameless women. So I thought, "Oh I guess Richard Gere and his old friend have some pretty wild parties at their place." But no, Robert Loggia is in fact his father, come to find out. Color me disturbed. And frankly, I saw far too much of Mr. Loggia for my liking. He does put shorts on eventually, but they're the kind with the hole in the front, and if you're looking close enough, you can see both London and France. Ugh. This man is shameless - making conversation with Richard Gere as though this kind of thing isn't totally creepy and potentially traumatizing. Instead I tried my best to focus on the much-easier-on-the-eyes top half of Richard Gere. I prefer that sort of thing over old man balls.

Moving on, Richard Gere becomes an officer in the Navy. He's not much of a gentleman, but that comes later. We get to watch him go through basic training, asshole drill sergeant and all. Reminded me a bit of "Full Metal Jacket", except there was less horror and bloodshed and I was able to sleep after. It's movies like this that make me grateful I decided not to join the military, even though it might be totally sweet - the nation would shower me with love and affection, and I'd get to wear a saucy power suit (the women get skirts!). Still, I'm a total wuss.

Anyway, the drill sergeant warns his men about the women of ill-repute who have intentions of marrying Navy men. (These women are smart in my opinion. I usually settle for grocery store employees.) I'm not entirely sure why this drill sergeant gives a damn about the sex lives of his men. He doesn't seem to care about anything else they do. But Richard Gere is the rebellious-loner-Tom-Cruise-in-Top-Gun type (never saw Top Gun, but I did see Hot Shots, which is the same thing I imagine, just more entertaining), so of course he doesn't listen. Neither does his buddy, Worley. Worley is even less of a gentleman than Richard Gere, because he's messing around with a hot young blonde when apparently he has a lady friend waiting for him at home. (We call these men "douchebags".) So he received my scorn. Richard Gere finds himself a charming brunette named Paula. They get naked a lot, and she makes him scrambled eggs, then they're naked again, Worley's naked, and they don't show it but I can only assume Robert Loggia is naked somewhere too. If you find the human body disgusting and offensive, don't watch this film.

After all this, Worley's blonde mistress tells him she's pregnant. (Where's the birth control? I say if you're gonna live the whore lifestyle, get a Nuva Ring or a box of Trojans or a plastic bag or something.) Worley's a southern gentleman, so he proposes to her. I'm glad he redeemed himself and became a gentleman. Unfortunately he quit the Navy, so all he had to offer his blonde was a thrilling life in rural Oklahoma without any of the fabulous Navy benefits, to which she refused. So he hung himself. Naked, of course. (I think that's on my list of things not to do naked. Along with deep frying. He probably thought, "Well, if I'm gonna die I might as well kill my dignity with me.")

But the two hours of drama and nudity was worth it for this closing scene. Richard Gere is now both an officer and a gentleman, so he busts up into Paula's workplace and carries her away, with her mother and confused coworkers looking on and everything, as, I shit you not, "Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong" blasts in the background. That right there is how you end a film. Christ, women everywhere wish this would happen to them. I'm writing this at work right now, eating Easy Mac and watching the doors. Where are you Richard Gere?

This one has my stamp of approval. :D

Click

2009-09-20T22:13:00.004-04:00

I am pleasantly surprised. Just finished watching this film, and I was moved, yes moved, enough to compose my first blog entry in weeks. Adam Sandler. Good Lord, so much more than I expected. The man never ceases to amaze me. "Click" made me cry. I shit you not. I mean it wasn't the tear festival that was "The Notebook" (which I loved too much to ever put myself through it again), but my mascara ran all over the place nonetheless. And so many people I love seeing, wedged into the movie, making my heart sing. Like David Hassellhoff, Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin) in a red speedo out of nowhere, the chick who does the voice of Marge Simpson (Julie Kavner), Henry Winkler (who's been showing up in a lot of Adam's films in recent years) and a boy named Nick Swardson, who I've mentioned before. Google him. He's precious. The best part? Rob Schneider made only a very short cameo (short is best) and, as is his nature lately, he wasn't playing a white man. God, what the hell is wrong with Rob Schneider? He's not happy as a hairy white man? He has to be Asian, Arabic, female, part-animal, etc. Perhaps he's insecure and wants to be covered in make-up because he hates his own pale generic man-skin. Come on Rob, you're an everyman. Own that shit. Anyway, he brings a film down, poor guy. I think Adam figured that out and reduced him. Thanks for that.

Okay so everyone who reads this blog (both of you) knows that I enjoy the films of Adam Sandler. You should see my Netflix queue; it's like I'm on a subconscious quest to see every one. I saw "You Don't Mess With the Zohan" a few weeks ago. Funny, mindless humor. I liked it. That was for funsies. I didn't see much point in reviewing it. But "Click" was actually very good. Not just for an Adam Sandler movie either. I mean it was really good. Like I said a paragraph ago, I wept (no, not for Rob Schneider's "career"). Let me tell you about this journey I just took.

Adam plays a guy named Michael who, after an argument with his wife, goes to the Bed, Bath and Beyond in search of a universal remote, naturally. (His rich neighbor has one and he's totally jealous.) First of all, what you should know about Michael is, he's like every father in movie history - works too much, doesn't spend enough time with the wife and kids. So he ends up in the "Beyond" section of the store (Yes! I love it!), where he meets Christopher Walken, which is exactly the type of guy I'd expect to find in the "Beyond" section of the Bed, Bath and Beyond. I mean really. There's something odd about that man.

Christopher Walken sets him up with a little blue remote that pretty much controls everything. It can fast forward, pause, rewind, and mute your life, among other things. Who wouldn't want one of these?!! I ask you! My screenwriting teacher in college said the same thing about this film. It's a brilliant concept because everyone would want a remote than can control the events of your life, especially the rewind function (if only! Alas!). I thought he was nutty, using an Adam Sandler film as an example in a fancy college media class, and in a good way! Ah, but now I see. It is indeed...brilliant.

So Michael becomes quite fond of the fast forward function (hell, I'd be all over that shit, especially at work!). He zips right past arguments, traffic, and sicknesses, then skips ahead to when David Hassellhoff (his boss) gives him a promotion. But he goes too far, and it sends him a year ahead, when he only thought it would take a few months. Whoops! Then it turns out the remote has a feature that Christopher Walken didn't bother telling him about (silly Christopher Walken!). It remembers his preferences. So whenever Michael gets sick or fights with his wife, or wants a promotion, the remote automatically skips ahead. Pretty soon poor Michael has skipped huge chunks of his life. His children grow up (and boy does his son get hot!), his wife leaves him and remarries Samwise Gamgee, he eats too many Twinkies and has a heart attack, and his beloved father (Henry Winkler) dies without ever knowing how much Michael loved him. :(

But, he's a very successful businessman! He's rich and powerful! He has everything he ever thought he wanted. Turns out if you focus too much on your career and less on your family, only your career will advance. Everything else will turn to shit, and the people you love will go under-appreciated. See, this is deep.

The end of the movie comes around, and Michael's hot but freshly married son tells him that he's going to skip his honeymoon because something came up at work that he needs to take care of. And I was just like, "No cute-boy-that-looks-and-sounds-like-Adam-Sandler! You're turning into your father!" Michael tries to run to his son to tell him not to be like him, but he's old and weak at this point, and collapses in the hospital parking lot in the pouring rain. His family runs to him and, as Michael lay dying, he tells his son, "Family first." And I effectively lost it. I was done. Mascara ruined. (Good thing I wasn't going anywhere!) Surprisingly touching and sentimental moment there. I was so moved.

So of course he learns his lesson. Michael ends up young again. He wakes up on a mattress in the Bed, Bath and Beyond and races home to his family, who he has a new-found appreciation for. It's sweet. So, yeah, I think this one is worth seeing.

A+ Mr. Sandler. You've done it again.

The Phantom of the Opera (The 2004 Movie)

2009-08-27T21:44:00.007-04:00

This is my favorite musical of all time. Why? Because it's badass and sentimental all at the same time. It takes place in Paris in 1870 at the Opera Populaire, which is a damn cool place to set a film. Or musical. Whatever. Now usually when I see a musical I fast forward through the overture, because nobody cares about the overture - you're gonna hear all that shit in five minutes anyway. But this overture kicks the ass of all other overtures. It's not like in Rodger's & Hammerstein's Cinderella (which was low budget yet still freakin' awesome), where they played the overture and you got to look at their shitty ass castle matte painting for twenty minutes. Oh no! In POTO, we open with the theater in 1919, all old and decrepit and overrun with cobwebs. Then the music starts, and BOOM! all the cobwebs melt away and we're magically restored to 1870. It's so epic I can't even describe it properly. It's really the music that's so bad ass. I hope Andrew Lloyd Webber is filthy rich and enjoying booze and concubines to his heart's content, because he damn well deserves it. The man is a genius.

Anyway, there's this Phantom guy, who apparently has no name. From what I gathered, his mother was so disgusted with him she just didn't bother, and sold him to the circus. On the bright side, he grew up to be dead sexy. I know, I know, the Phantom is supposed to be hideously deformed and not make me think dirty thoughts, but sweet Jesus Gerard Butler is fine. Really, even when his mask and wig are off at the end of the movie, and all you can see is his discolored eye and red bumpy skin, he is somehow still hot. And he's a bad ass. Basically he lives in the opera, composes music, stalks the hot young soprano, and occasionally kills people that piss him off.

The Phantom falls in love with Christine, a 16 year old soprano that he's been tutoring without actually letting her see him. She just sort of hears his voice, and she's kind of stupid, so she thinks it's the voice of her dead father. Then one night she hears his voice and asks him to show himself, which he totally does. He takes her into a secret passage in her mirror (I gotta get me one of those trick mirrors!) and the title song busts out with awesomeness as she takes a ridiculously long trip down to his underground dwelling. Now the Phantom's underground dwelling is freakin' sweet. I want my apartment to look like this. He's got to have at least 800 candles down there. Huge fire hazard. There's a lake, too. And he's got his piano and stuff all hanging out on this stone island thing. God the Phantom is awesome.

But there's this other guy who wants what Christine's got. He's a total pussy, named Raoul. I've seen this movie several times and I still don't know what she sees in him. Next to the Phantom you're just like, "really?". He's a wuss. He doesn't even kill people! Christine of course would rather have the guy that doesn't kill people (?!), much to the dismay of the sexy Phantom.

But I liked the Phantom, even though he was evil and crazy and deformed. He had a really shitty life, and it wasn't his fault. I think if he just wore that mask around town he could get by just fine. I mean, there was nothing wrong with the rest of his body. (I was looking.)

I love this movie. It's romance set to awesome music. That's all I ask. It's so good I didn't even need a comic relief character. I'm alright with not laughing at things here. I just put on the subtitles and sing along. Good times. I do wish the Phantom got some, though. I like to imagine he ended up with one of the ballerinas or something. If I were a ballerina, I would. ;)

A+

17 Again

2009-08-11T20:02:00.002-04:00

Good Lord. Zac Efron. I have such a cougar crush on that boy. Which is why I enjoy any film that opens with him sweaty and shirtless. Sort of makes me want to be 17 again. Although when I was seventeen I was overweight and on Zoloft, that's besides the point. No I actually liked this film, even if there wasn't the sexiest piece of man candy I've ever laid my eyes on starring in it. Okay let's be real, I'm not entirely sure if this was even a good movie or not, I was too busy thinking about how I'd dip Zac Efron in chocolate. It's a good thing I don't have a heart condition or I'd be dead right now. I made the mistake of looking directly at him, and he did in fact take my soul. But enough ranting about his hotness. (Although we are in love. And it's only a matter of time before he drives up to my house on a white stallion and takes me away.)

Zac plays a guy named Mike who was a promising youth in the late 80s. He was young and ridiculously handsome and played basketball really well. (Why must he play basketball in every film? Yes I saw High School Musical, but for one reason only. I think you know.) Unfortunately Mike grows up to be Matthew Perry, who I think should be incredibly flattered to have such a beautiful creature cast as his younger self. I would. Since Mike impregnated his girlfriend Scarlett in high school (Oops!) he didn't get to go to college and fails at life. He sort of blames the girlfriend, who is now his wife, and they are preparing for divorce. And of course she stopped loving him because he went from looking like Zac Efron to Matthew Perry. Talk about letting yourself go. (Ah, I jest, Matthew's a sweet guy.)

Mike falls into a portal of sorts created by his spirit guide, who I guess is the janitor at the local high school, because as everyone knows, janitors are pretty much magical creatures. And behold, he is now 17. (And gorgeous.) Basically he spends the movie traipsing about the high school making the teenage girls act like animals and embarrassing his two children as only a father can. Eventually he learns his lessons about his own life and helps his kids with theirs, and it's a beautiful if a bit cheesy thing. The best part was he tried to put the moves on his wife as a 17 year old, but she informed him that she was not in fact a cougar. She is a stronger woman than I.

Despite the corniness and the unbelievability (which is all fine with me), this movie is actually pretty funny. Zac Efron makes me laugh, you know, when I'm listening to him speak. And it was sort of touching in parts. Zac did almost make me cry. I think my own father should magically turn into Zac Efron, and then he would certainly win back my mother.

Much of my laughter resulted from a man who I think should be nominated for Best Supporting Actor in an Eye Candy Film, Mr. Thomas Lennon, or as you know him, the guy from Reno 911 who wears the short shorts. He is an utter delight. Hilarious. His social awkwardness had me laughing in every scene.

This one has my approval. I was totally prepared to make fun of it, but I was pleasantly surprised. I give it an A.

(Zac Efron is hot.)