Charlie Wilson's War

Charlie Wilson's War - (2007) - Mike Nichols

What? Wait, what even happened in this movie? I'm pretty sure I was surfing the internet and chatting online with y'all through this whole movie... obviously bored to tears. It's too bad because you'd think hey, Tom Hanks + Julia Roberts = recipe for success right? I don't know, maybe I just wasn't in the mood. Also, I'm not a fan of fake Southern accents with a touch of wealthy douche in them.

Coming someday to a blog near you...

The Ex
The Brothers Solomon
Horton Hears A Who!
Sicko
Let's Go To Prison
Persepolis
Weekend at Bernie's
Leatherheads
Enchanted
La misma luna
Midway
No Country for Old Men
Baby Mama
21
Quinceanera
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Made of Honor
What Happens in Vegas
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Kung Fu Panda
Lars and the Real Girl
Y tu mamá también
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
Get Smart
Becoming Jane
Step Brothers
Mamma Mia!
The Jane Austen Book Club
Smart People

Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (2008)

http://www.drhorrible.com/

Okay, so this is really apparently a tv show, but it's never been on television and I, personally, watched all three parts at once, so it was more like a short film to me. This was thought up by Joss Whedon (Buffy creator, shhhh) and a couple of his brothers during the writer's strike and it's so gooood. Neil Patrick Harris, so awesome, plays Dr Horrible, who is trying to get accepted into Bad Horse's evil league and also to win the heart of (or talk to) this girl he sees at the laundromat all of the time, while battling his supposedly "good" nemesis Captain Hammer, played by Nathan Fillion, who is also awesome. Anyway, Captain Hammer is a douche. Sorry, but he is. There's also singing. Yes, Neil Patrick Harris sings... well, too. So, yeah, I don't really want to give any part of it away! It's forty minutes of fun, yo! Yeah, and there's a "controversial" ending, I liked it though, I'm so excited to see what happens in part four (that is apparently going to be made, someday).

Also, there are a bunch of cameo's from former Buffy writers and such, so if you're into that, I guess you should watch this?

And, another also, this was Joss Whedon's way of kind of trying to set up the basis for a new way to release media. You know, the internets? So that's kinda the idea behind this production, but that idea doesn't really manifest in the narrative or anything (so you don't really have to worry about it, it's just kind of for your information-y).

Reasons to watch right now:

• It's funny.
• There's singing.
• It's awesome.
• "The Hammer is my penis"
• You want to make Elizabeth really happy.
• It's so funny!
• Really nice production for so short a filming time and so few people....

Reasons to not watch:

• You suck.
  

There it is, go watch!

Hancock

Hancock (2008)

--Peter Berg

Mmm, I love Will Smith. Maybe I've said that before? Well, everyone needs to hear it again! I would watch anything with Will Smith, he's just awesome. So, obviously, seeing this film was not a hard decision for me... Anyway, it's about this superhero, Hancock, who is a lazy, destructive drunk hated by everyone. He has pissed off so many people and caused so much destruction that the city wants to arrest him. Yeah, one day he saves this PR guy (Jason Bateman), who starts trying to clean up Hancock's image. First, he sends Hancock to jail, telling him that when the city gets overrun with criminals they will beg for his release... Yay. Anyway, there's a twist. Maybe you've already heard about it? Maybe you haven't. Anyway, it's there and it kind of changes the direction of the film. Yeah, this is a lame plot summary. Whatever, it's a superhero movie! Make up the plot summary in your head and I'm sure you'll get it correct.

So, this move was pretty good. Like I said, I like Will Smith and he is in this, so that equals happiness for me. I was also okay with the "twist" part. It was kind of lame though when some of the people who Hancock sent to prison banded together and busted out to try and defeat him. I think maybe what this film was lacking was a supervillian. I mean, it's kind of lame when the superhero is just running around beating up/killing average people (average people with guns, but still). I hope they make a sequel though, and maybe explore that. And I'm just going to tell you, there is a lady superhero that shows up sometime too, but she never fights! If there is a sequel I would like her to do some superhero-y stuff too (more about her in a minute) or at least it should be explained why she isn't doing anything, since her powers are, according to her, stronger than Hancock's.

Okay, more about the superhero chick.... ummm.... that character had really sexist characterization. Apparently one of her powers is literally calling up stormy weather when she gets angry (which is also really reminiscent of X-Men, but not as cool). So, for the men who wrote this, they apparently thought it would be a funny idea if they took the stereotypes that they had of their wives (you know, whiny, nagging, always wanting a fight) and physically manifested them in superhero powers (oh, and I have no doubt that none of the writers is gay, by the way, keep that one in mind?). Yeah, so that was a really stupid part of the film in my mind, especially combined with the fact that she didn't actually fight any crime. Yay, her? Way to make a really weak, stereotyped superhero people. Let's work on that one, shall we?

Final thought: I don't like Charlize Theron. I just don't. Deal with it. I was kinda hoping that her character would get killed, but she didn't. Oh well. It was an enjoyable film. Funny sometimes. Lots of Will Smith = yay. I didn't really like the disfiguring of the moon at the end, because I'm a big fan and that just hurt me. I kind of couldn't get the environmental impact of that out of my mind at the end, but whatever.

Definitely, Maybe

Definitely, Maybe (2008)

--Adam Brooks

So, maybe ya'll know what this one is about? Some dude is telling his daughter how he came to meet her mother and also make her guess out of three core male-female relationships he's had, which woman is actually her future mother. Anyway, there's Emily who was his college sweetheart, Summer who is a journalist and is kinda crazy, and there's April (Isla Fisher) who's a little mixed up sometimes or something like that. Most of the film is flashbacks from when that dude used to work on political campaigns (I think he does ads or something in the present?). Yay, that's the whole summary.

Okay, I'm going to make a list now, because they are fun. These will be things I liked or things I didn't like. You decide which is which (hehe).

• He ends up with the one that I want him to be with. Yay.
• Isla Fisher is really cute, does anyone else think this?
• Before this film, I hadn't actually seen Kevin Kline in anything for a long time (my fault? his fault? who knows), so it was nice to see him, cause he's kinda cute.
• Adam Reynolds is hot, but if he doesn't check himself he's going to become really annoyingggg.

List is done. Wait, those were all positive things. Haha. Joke. Okay, I do have one large criticism, but I didn't want to put it in the list, it needs to be emphasized a little more than that.

This film is a great example of childhood socialization. One can already seen the imprints of a very two-gendered, sexist, misogynistic society on the young girl in the film, who I think is supposed to be like 9 or 10. Anyway, there were two specific instances where she used negative language that she recognized as gendered exclusively feminine. Slut and Bitch. In the film's defense, the slut one was when she asked her father what "the boy word for slut is". Honey, it's just slut. A slut is not a woman, in my vocabulary, but this 9-year-old already recognizes that slut only pertains to women in society and that commenting on women's sexuality negatively is acceptable in society, whereas there's not even an appropriate word with which to criticize male sexuality. Then at one point she does refer to a woman in her father's story as a "bitch" for something that she's apparently done to him. That's really scary. I'm sorry, but teaching little girls female gendered language with which they can criticize other women is freaky to me. This film is so male-centered it's weird. The women in it are kind of secondary to the central dude.

Anyway, on a lighter note, there is a point where the kid is like "if that [one woman] is my mother, I'm gonna move to Canada", which is awesome, because it's on that list of what white people like to say or whatever, and the chick is white, sooooo.... Have fun with that! Oh, I thought that the film was overall enjoyable compared to most of the trash being put out for mass consumption. So, if you're in the mood for a romantic comedy, go for it.

Transformers

Transformers (2007)

--Michael Bay

Yeah, I did watch this film. And I totally liked it? I'm starting to think that my movie standards are lowering somehow. Yeah, this film is about like robots with DNA who are from another planet? There's bad robot aliens, destructicons (?) or something, who want to get their hands on this cube that does something or other that I can't remember. And the good alien robots want to stop them. Oh, wait, the bad robot aliens want to take over the universe with the cube. That's it. And the good robot aliens want to give "all sentient beings" a chance to live, so they are trying to stop the other dudes. Anyway, then there is Shia LaBeouf's character whose grandfather (great-grandfather or something) went to the arctic circle (or antarctica? crap...) and discovered one of the bad robot aliens frozen there (except you don't know that until the middle of the film....). Anyway, LaBeouf's dude has artifacts from that time that will tell the robot aliens where the cube is (but he doesn't know it). Oh, and the bad robot aliens are messing with the government too. Like accessing their data systems and trying to plant viruses in their hard drives and killing a bunch of people. There's that too.

Yeah, that was a long plot summary, and we didn't really get to anywhere that we needed to be, but whatever. Anyway, I can't believe I liked this film, since it was really action-y and there was special effects being vomited all over the screen, but I did. Maybe it was LaBeouf? For some reason I kind of like his acting? The film was also kind of funny. LaBeouf's character has a chihuahua, yay! I can tell you for a fact that I did not, however, enjoy Megan Fox's crappy acting (see picture). Yeah, she was bad, luckily her role didn't require that much intense dialogue (it's so true though...). I was also expecting a little more of Josh Duhamel's character, since I seem to remember that he was used a lot to advertise for the film. I expect more of him in the next one. Oh and Tyrese was hot. Yay Tyrese. And, bonus!, Tom Lenk (from Buffy!) made a brief appearance! So far he isn't listed in the cast for the next one, tears.

This film definitely was made to have a sequel, fyi. It doesn't feel slow or anything, but it does
feel as if a solid groundwork was being made from which to launch a sequel/franchise. I'm hoping that more is done with this group of "kids" who were working with the government on trying to figure what had attacked them originally (bring Tom backkkkkk!). And I'm also hoping that Megan Fox took some acting classes and isn't treated as just "eye candy."

This film also dealt a lot with the government and, unfortunately, I'm not a fan, but maybe the film was? At times the film seemed to be critical of the gov't, especially with the whole secret government branch and the lack of knowledge of the gov't (showing them as rigid and unable to adapt to change quick enough). But, in the end, I think this film reinforced gov't dominance, especially with Duhamel/Tyrese and their gang and the "soldier" language the permeates the film (even in the talk of the good robot aliens). So, that's kinda scary for me, that this film seems to be pro-military. There are a lot of guns, by the way. A lotttttttt.

Anyway, that's really all I have to say. I enjoy this film, even though I thought it had a couple of problems, and I am looking forward to the next one (which is just sad).

Swing Vote

Swing Vote - (2008) - Joshua Michael Stern

So I kept seeing the trailer for this movie and I kept thinking oh that song sounds cool, I wonder what it is, this movie looks extremely mediocre. Well, it was and I'm still wondering what that song was.

Bud Johnson (Kevin Costner) is this single dad/drunk/clueless hick living in Texico, New Mexico, a very small town and his daughter pretty much takes care of him and is wayyyy toooo mature (this is a very annoying thing about the movie) and so his daughter is like really ambitious and smart and she's probably like 8 years old and apparently takes an interest in politics which is just weird and she registers her dad to vote through the mail and he misses voting day because he got drunk because he lost his job. So his daughter sneaks into the voting booth just before they close it down and votes in his place (this is a stupid scene) and the machine accidentally gets unplugged and there is an error with the vote and this one vote happens to leave the votes in an exact tie so his vote must break the tie. So blah blah blah he has to re-vote in ten days so the two candidates (played by Kelsey Grammer and Dennis Hopper) have to personally persuade him to vote for them. So it's pretty much exactly what you'd think. The candidates do whatever they can do get his vote even if they don't really believe in it which just kind of makes you sick but the movie does do an ok job of expressing the importance of an individual vote and seriously considering who you vote for, which is good.

This movie was reallllly long and feels long which is not good. Don't torture yourself.

Best thing was George Lopez had a little part in it and some funny lines and he's one of my new favorite people ever so I enjoyed that.

Eagle vs. Shark

Eagle vs. Shark - (2007) - Taika Waititi

This was a fun movie. Um if you want a plot summary read Elizabeth's again. While Elizabeth called it "very Flight of the Conchords-y," I'm going to call it "extremely Napoleon Dynamite-ish." I see why she called it Flight of the Conchords-y and it's easy to say that because Jemaine's in it but I seriously could not stop thinking Napoleon Dynamite when watching this. I mean everything from personalities, the way people talked, characters' hobbies, the sets, even certain shots just SCREAMED Napoleon Dynamite to me. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I enjoy that kind of thing. It almost felt like there's this alternate Napoleon Dynamite world and this was a snapshot of New Zealand in that world. It was a very fun movie. I would definitely reccommend it, especially if you like Napoleon Dynamite or you like Jemaine or you like New Zealand accents which I happened to love all three so it was a great time for me.

Elizabeth, I watched the credits and Jemaine did not do the little claymation bits for this movie. Sad huh?

Good movie. Sorry for the review. haha...

The Break-Up

The Break-Up - (2006) - Peyton Reed

So I pretty much saw this because I felt like Brad Pitt is to Mr. and Mrs. Smith as Jennifer Aniston is to this movie. I just thought I should see it, I dunno. Plus, I kind of like Vince Vaughn and I don't hate Jennifer Aniston. It was okay. I enjoyed it for the most part. It's one where it was fine to see it once, no need to see it again.

First off they set up the relationship between Gary (Vince Vaughn) and Brooke (Jennifer Aniston) really dumb and fast and show you a bunch of pictures during the credits that are supposed to make you believe they're totally in love. Then, the next thing you know it they're fighting and things go south. It's a believable fight, I'll give them that. The whole movie they are pretty much trying to show each other up because they want to make each other jealous because they actually love each other, but they take it too far and pretty much ruin any chance of fixing things. The end was kind of ho-hum, I just thought, ok, uh... whatever. I was expecting something different.

My fave part? Justin Long!! His character was da best!!! He's the receptionist at the gallery where Brooke works and he's just a treat. I couldn't wait for the next scene he'd be in.

One thing that bothered me a little was the fact that Gary and Brooke are one, not married and two, don't have the best jobs ever as far as I could tell and yet they owned this fabulous condo in Chicago...mmm hmmm

So in the end, if you're bored and just need an easy little comedy, it's fine. It's not the worst thing you could watch, but you could do better.

Fab Five: The Texas Cheerleader Scandal

Fab Five: The Texas Cheerleader Scandal

--Tom McLoughlin

This was another Lifetime film (okay, shut up), apparently based on a true story. There's this group of cheerleaders that basically go around do whatever they want because their parents are rich and nosey and one of the girls' parents in the principle. But then a new cheerleading coach is hired who doesn't really want to put up with their crap anymore and wants to integrate the cheerleading team (no, it's not a race thing, all of the people are, sadly, white) and get them to work together. But, the girls start doing more crap that's dumb and they beat people up and go around drinking and no one cares. Yeah, actually this film should be called "Fab Four" since they beat one of their friends up and then she's out of the group apparently.

Throughout this whole film, I was totally waiting for someone to be killed by these people. But they didn't kill anyone, which made me wonder why the film was made in the first place. The very worst thing they did was go into a porn shop while drunk with the high school uniforms on and then a video of it appeared on the internet. Seriously, and you make that into a movie? It was kind of boring. Nothing much happened. Just some chicks running around and not being held accountable for their actions, which was frustrating, but not necessarily film-worthy. And it's not like this is the first time or the last time that people will run around doing whatever they want and no one is willing or able to say no and stop them, it happens in every part of the western human society.

So, it was kind of boring, really didn't have a point, and I wouldn't really recommend it.

Mad Money

Mad Money (2008)

--Callie Khouri

This is mostly about a crazy woman (Keaton) who is $286, 000 in debt and takes a job as a janitor in a government facility where they destroy old money. She pretty much instantly gets the idea to steal the money (cause, hey, they're not doing anything with it anyway) and she inlists the help of a single mother (Latifah) and a crazy trailor trash chick (Holmes). Together, the come up with a plan to steal the money (they all do different jobs within the facility by the way). And they do. They steal money, but then one makes a mistake and they get caught. I didn't just give the ending away there, because it actually starts at that point where the main characters are telling their stories to various detectives. Ted Danson flushes money down the toilet and looks good doing it, by the way.

A truth from the film: "something about stuff... the way they've got it laid out... makes you want to buy it". That's so true! They actually purposefully arrange stuff in malls based on studies about what people buy and how they buy it.

There are two bad things about this film that I would like to address (in reality, there are so many that I sort of stopped writing them down). One, the head surveillance camera man guy/villian guy is reminiscent of the villian in bad movies for children. You know those people from kids movies, who spend the whole time trying to chase around the main characters and act like dicks. Yeah, that guy was in this film too! How? Why? Two, Katie Holmes is not good at playing a stupid girl, which is kinda funny. She was really bad in this film. But I don't think she's the worst actor ever, so....

Also, Diane Keaton really can't act. I've known this forever, she was even back way back

in "The Godfather," and she looked anorexic in that film too. Yeah, really she's just some crazy old woman who can't act, but is really good at being herself on screen. And, randomly, the security guard that hits and everybody and gets turned down all of the time in the film, is actually kinda hot. So really, why would people be turning him down?

Yeah, so this is a dumb, horrible, poorly acted film that is not at all enjoyable to watch. So don't watch it.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)

--David Yates

So, Bayle already reviewed this one (which we should all be amazed about since she's only done like three reviews! haha, jokes). And she pretty much said it was a horrible film, which I would have to agree with, but we maybe have different reasons to thinks so? I haven't read the books and this film didn't make much sense. I had no idea what was happening in the beginning of the film, which made me not want to watch the film at all, so basically I started watching it like 5 separate times before I could bring myself to follow through and finish watching it. Now that I've watched it, I still don't know what happened, especially in the beginning. Can someone explain this to me?


Also, it didn't seem to follow the structure of a normal narrative. To me, there was no real climax? Is that bad to say? The end just kind of happened and the "big battle" or whatever that was supposed to be was honestly not that big and endy. The end just sort of seemed to sneak up on me.


Also, I didn't like that one random blonde chick. Maybe that's how she was supposed to be, but she was just so random! I didn't know who she was or why she just suddenly showed up and she just really annoyed me.

Okay, that's it. I didn't understand the whole first part and I was disappointed by the end. Sadness.

The Heartbreak Kid

The Heartbreak Kid (2007)

--Bobby Farrelly & Peter Farrelly

Some dude (Stiller) meets this chick and after a short time marries her because he thinks she's going to have to move to Holland and he's tired of being harassed about being 40 and not married. On their honeymoon, he realizes that she's kind of a freak and he starts falling for some other chick.

Yeah, this is a really dumb film. I'm sorry, but it is. The Farrelly brothers are dumb writers and this is a dumb film. And a sexist film, but most films written by and for white people that are comedies staring famous white men are sexist. As Jerry Stiller's character says in the film "humor is a male gene" at least in Hollywood that's the idea anyway. There's also a lot of physical comedy (you know, people getting hurt and crap like that), but there's nothing new there. Yeah, again, the Farrellys only do stupid movies, but for some reason I persist in my like of Ben Stiller and that's what prompted me to watch this film. He has fun hair in this movie, so that's good. It's partly grey (he's supposed to be 40, so... [even though I think he's older than that?]).

Anyway, this movie is dumb. It's not funny. It's very stupid. It's not even interesting to watch and it goes on way too long (there was a consensus among the viewers in my house about this). So, that's it. It's dumb, go watch something else.

Sweet Land

Sweet Land (2005)

--Ali Selim

This is the story of a mail order bride for a Swedish man who turns out to be German... and it's right after WWI. It's sort of told from multiple times. There's the "present" (probably) where a man struggling with whether to sell his grandparent's land, the 60's or 70's where that grandson and his grandmother (Inge, the German chick, played by someone from "Grey's Anatomy") are dealing with the death of his grandfather/her husband (Olaf [ooh-lahf]), and then there's right after WWI, where this town of Swedish Americans are having to deal with the unexpected presence of a German woman, including her supposed husband-to-be. Mostly the film takes place after WWI though it is kind of hard to tell narratives apparent at the beginning of the film. Once you get it though, you pretty much get it, you know? It's all about familiarity and context. Wow, that was a bad plot summary. It's about being on farm, trying to fit into a new culture, and community.

Anyway, this is a really nicely shot film. Lots of pretty, vivid colors, meaning good cinematography. Liked it a lot. Made "Minnesota" (I don't know where it was really film... ohh Minnesota--good to know) look really pretty, romantic, idyllic (which is not necessarily a good thing, but pretty much unavoidable in these films of nostalgia).

Also, there's something with pies. I don't get it. I think it's supposed to be a metaphor for sex or something. But there are pies there, in the film, and people are eating them. And I was eating pie (literally, not metaphorically hahaha) during the beginning of the film too! Yay pie. I support films that have pie in them.

The best part of this film is at the end it sort of turns into a dialogue about socialism (yay), anti-marriage, and anti-formal burial. Whoo hoo. Pretty much it makes community and socialism look good at the end, during the auction scene. Also, it comes out that maybe the two main characters were never "actually" (i.e. legally) married, but that they both felt that "in their hearts" they were married. Which I'm into. Why bring the law and therefore the state into your relationship with another human being? (or special animal friend) Then there's the burying of people in on your own land. So cool, right? Alternative burial gets a thumbs up in my book.

In summation, this is a pretty good film. Very watchable. Sweet and occasionally funny.