Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 - (2008) - Sanaa Hamri

Wow, didn't realize it has been three years since the last one but I suppose it was. Ok so usually sequels are kind of scary- you just don't know what to expect right? It seems they are rarely good, but thankfully this one was one of the exceptions. I have a few very small complaints, but overall, I was impressed and surprised, expecting a disaster.

So in case you don't know this is based on a series of books, which sadly, I have not read the 2nd, 3rd or 4th in the series. Apparently this movie is based on the 4th book, but I cannot verify if the details of that book were accurately presented in the film. Sorry. There's only so many hours in the day. But I can tell you that they do sort of smoothly tuck in the major events of the 2nd and 3rd books to bring you up to speed to where the girls are now, which is the summer after their first year of college, all at separate schools. They kind of lose touch and I think it's very similar to what really happens- you keep in touch w/ some people more, you have to hear about things from other people, lots of e-mailing, but certain events bring them back together and they do have some arguments too.

Anyway, I think the two movies were lucky to have these actresses, I personally think they all do a really great job, especially America Ferrera. What else... oh the director was different with this film but I had no idea until after I saw it so it blended nicely with the first film.

Minor complaints- sometimes I questioned the wardrobe choices but afterwards I started thinking, that's how life is, you grow up, you mature. I mean I don't dress 100% exactly the same as I did when I was in high school so I guess I understand the changes. My other little complaint is that everybody was having a boyfriend/girlfriend problem and then it worked out in the end except for w/ Bridget which I thought for sure she'd hook up w/ that guy from the first movie- you know, hold true to that promise, but I don't know maybe it all happened like it did in the books.

So yeah I liked it a lot, but I was also really just in the mood for that kind of thing, but I think if you like the first one, this one is definitely worth seeing.

The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight
Director: Christopher Nolan
Release Date: July 18, 2008

Heath Ledger
Christian Bale
Morgan Freeman
Aaron Eckhart
Michael Caine
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Gary Oldman

Sequel to Batman Begins, without a doubt best movie of 2008 (at the very least), best comic book based movie, yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah......

Heath Ledger. Dark Knight would have been great if Heath Ledger wasn't part of the cast, but he was what made Dark Knight more than great, more than amazing. Heath Ledger didn't play the Joker, he is the Joker. There is no doubt in my mind that Heath Ledger's performance is the best acting I have ever seen in my life, and I do doubt that we will be seeing anything of this caliber for a long time. I don't see how anyone could even ask "who did better Jack Nicholson or Heath Ledger" - Jack Nicholson is a fine actor but Ledger completely spanked the shit out of Nicholson's ass.... really.

Pineapple Express

Pineapple Express - (2008) - David Gordon Green

Boy, it felt like I waited years for this movie to come out. I could not wait! I first heard about it when I bought the Superbad DVD and it had an exclusive scene for Pineapple Express in the special features. The excitement just kept building from there and I have to say it did not disappoint!

Seth Rogen plays Dale Denton. Dale is a process server which has to be one of the funniest jobs I'd never heard of. Dale is a pothead and recently started getting his weed from Saul (James Franco) and obtained some really good stuff called Pineapple Express. It is extremeely rare and Saul is the only dealer in the city with it. After getting the weed Dale has to go "serve" Ted who just happens to be a drug lord and as he arrives at Ted's house. Dale witnesses Ted and a policewoman murdering a Chinese man. Dale panics and tosses his roach out the window and Ted sees a car speeding off down the street. Ted and the policewoman head down to the street to find Dale's roach laying in the road and Ted knows the only place you can get the Pineapple Express... So the whole movie is pretty much Ted's guys (which includes Craig Robinson!) trying to hunt down Saul and some random guy they just know as Dale Denton. It is so funny you guys!

Seth Rogen is great in this movie, but James Franco is really what makes it awesome. Definitely my favorite character. My second favorite character is Red (Danny McBride). Red gets shot/should die several times throughout the movie but never dies! It's sooo funny. He's especially great at the end. I thought the end was good- I can see how some might think it's stupid or easy. It definitely ties everything up though. I was happy with it.

Best new phrase: BFFF: Best Fuckin' Friends Forever

USE IT

Side note: If you are in love with James Franco like I am now, go to FunnyorDie.com and watch James Franco's acting lessons. You will not be sorry you did! Also watch the scene he recreated from the Hills with Mila Kunis. He does a spot-on Justin Bobby! GO HERE

UPDATE: James Franco will be hosting SNL next weekend, Saturday, Sept. 20th. You know it's gonna be good!

Blonde Ambition

Blonde Ambition - (2007) - Scott Marshall

Ugh. I was at my dad's one night and he was busy and so his girlfriend and I were sitting on the couch and she was like let's order a movie and so I was like yeah ok! And so we start looking through them and she was like what do you want to see? So I made the mistake of saying "I don't care, I'll be content with anything." Yeah... worst mistake of my life.

This is a case where the movie is not as bad as it looks, IT IS WORSE. Jessica Simpson plays Katie. Katie is a girl from a small town in Oklahoma who travels to New York to try to get back with her boyfriend but he's a cheater so that doesn't work out so Katie wants to stay in NY though cuz it's like so amazing! So she pretty much becomes successful on accident. It is soooo dumb. Jessica Simpson should not act. Luke Wilson's in this which is so unfortunate. I like him, but somehow he ends up in some pretty horrible movies.

Um yeah, I think Jessica Simpson's dad produced this soooo pretty much he was just trying to make more money off of his daughter, but I'm guessing they lost money on this one. Woops.

Father Goose

Father Goose - (1964) - Ralph Nelson

Sorry, it's been a long time since I saw this, but I'll give this a try.

I guess I should say that this movie takes place during WWII in the South Pacific.So Cary Grant is in this (yay!). He plays Walter Eckland and he has been assigned to spy on Japanese planes and he's pretty much a drunk. Umm I can't remember exactly but I think he goes to find this one guy and, but he finds this teacher, a French woman played by Leslie Caron and seven students (girls) and the French lady tells him that the guy was killed in an air-raid SO they're kind of stranded for a while and Walter is annoyed by all the girls and the woman, but then he gradually gets used to them and he eventually falls in love with the teacher. It's a pretty cute and funny movie. This was another one my dad forced us to watch and I thought oh no, another WWII movie, no thanks, but I surprisingly enjoyed it a lot! I would definitely recommend watching it.

I should also mention that it won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay!

Mother, Jugs & Speed

Mother, Jugs & Speed - (1976) - Peter Yates

Yeah probably never would have seen this if it weren't for my dad. This movie came out the year he graduated high school so it was something he liked kind of when he was my age. He realllllly likes to share those things with us which sometimes is good, sometimes not so good. This movie was somewhere in between.

Um, the whole setting of this movie was interesting to me. I never knew that there used to be like different ambulance companies (maybe there still is? anyone know?). That just seems really bizarre to me. So this movie is kind of about two independent ambulance companies competing to be the one big company for L.A. So when there's trouble they have to try to get to the scene before the other company if they want to make the big bucks- but it's funny sometimes they don't want certain jobs once they get there- they're like shit I don't want to do this one, yuck. So you're wondering about the title- those are characters' names. "Mother" is Bill Cosby- this is a really different role for him, he's young and you just don't hear "fuck" or any dirty words from his mouth nowadays. Speed is another guy who works for the company and Jugs is the dispatch secretary. She receives the calls about where they need to go and I'm guessing you can tell by her "name" that she is sexually harassed a lot (which actually made me sick) and she hates the guys but really also just wants to be one of them. She wants to be a driver, but it's the 70s sooo that's not gonna happen (but eventually it does).

So yeah, it's a funny movie, but I don't know that I would recommend it. Didn't hate it, didn't love it so you be the judge. If it sounds fun to you, go for it. If not, you're not missing out in life.

King of California

King of California (2007)

--Mike Cahill

Ahh, another film I can hardly remember the plot of! Except I kind of can and, further, I can remember that this was a very good film. Evan Rachel Wood's character basically has to deal with taking care of herself both emotionally and financially while her father (Michael Douglas), who I believe has been in prison, goes around trying to search for treasure that he ultimately believes is buried under a cosco. Wood's character eventually starts going along with her father's ideas (and maybe even starts to believe in them a little herself?) and to help him find the treasure.

This film was good. Nice plot, very, very well acted. Interesting and poignant end. I highly recommend it and, unlike most films, I would totally re-watch this one, cause it was so good! It definitely also fits into that genre of films where the parents are really irresponsible and the kids end up being the adults, but even though Douglas's character is kinda crazy-ish, it might be sort of a touching family film as well. Maybe. The end at least. Very redeeming... And mysterious. So go watch it.

Ghosts of Abu Ghraib

Ghosts of Abu Ghraib (2007)

--Rory Kennedy

Documentary.

I saw this too long ago to really remember most of the details. It was, obviously, about the Abu Ghraib scandal that involved prison guards taking pictures will abusing inmates (pictures that I'm not going to post in this review because, honestly, I really, really don't want to ever look at them again). This film includes interviews with a few of the main people who did the actual picture-taking, wherein they explain the context and their supposed reasoning for doing what they did. A lot of other people who had insider knowledge (by this I mean who were there and/or who witnessed) were also interviewed. All I can really say is that this was a really good, informative film and that everyone should watch it.

Numb

Numb (2007)

--Harris Goldberg

Here is another one I should have just reviewed back in the day, since I remember very, very incredibly little about it. Okay Matthew Perry plays a guy who suddenly looses all connection with reality. It's really hard to explain his actual condition as it wasn't presented adequately in the film (which is one of my biggest criticisms of it). There were a couple scenes that attempted to show how he was feeling cinematically (if that makes sense) but those same techniques could also be used just to show that someone is drunk. Anyway, he says basically that he is "numb" to everything (I can't remember if that means he can't literally feel certain sensations or something as well, it's mostly a psychological perspective think though). He kind of like views himself and his life and his actions as if he is watching another person doing them (I think that's the basic idea). Anyway, obviously since it took me like a long paragraph to even describe this guys emotional state, the film left me confused on this point, since for the most part he seemed to interact with others kind of okay, which totally downplayed his situtuation. Most of his problems seemed to happen internally and only really affected him and not anyone else.

Okay, that was too long! Haha, that's all I really remember, except he meets some chick he kinda falls for and, you know, they run into problems or whatever, it's the basic plot to all romantic comedies except his lives in a disaffected state. Oh, and I think he has sex with his therapist, maybe that's a problem too. I can't really remember.

Anyway, this was kind of an okay film and it was nice to see Matthew Perry in something again. But, like I said, this film left me really confused as to what was actually going on with this guy and his condition and how this apparently was so damaging (since as I already stated he pretty much seems to be able to interact with others often in normal ways). Oh well, life's like that sometimes I guess.

Wedding Daze

Wedding Daze (2006)

[also: The Pleasure of your Company]

--Michael Ian Black

Okay, seriously, I watched this film too long ago. I need to actually do reviews after I see films or they kind of turn into lameness. Um... this is about a guy (Jason Biggs) who is dealing with the death of his fiancee and he randomly asks some chick to marry him (Isla Fisher) and she randomly agrees and then they have to deal with that. And eventually it turns into some sort of running from the law film? I don't know, it gets weird I guess.

Okay, luckily I took a couple of notes during this film. One is reminding me that the character Matador (who's like a gypsy or something) is freaking hilarious and I believe he says at one point "he's a turd... with a piece of candy in it..." which at the time I thought was the most hilarious thing ever. He was really random and hilarious though, I'd have to say that it's pretty much worth it to watch this film just for him.

And for one more thing... jew-nicorn! Hahhaha, the chick's stepfather makes jewnicorns. They are like jewish unicorn toys, I literally can't think of anything cooler. In life. Ever.

Oh yeah, this film is directed by Michael Ian Black and totally makes me think he had a really messed up childhood. It's a pretty "black" comedy (without any black people though *tears*) or whatever and it is really funny at times (hello, jewnicorns?) but overall it was kind of dumb. Probably worth it to watch it just for the incredible random funniness. It's very like a lot of Michael Ian Black-y things, hit-or-miss with the humor. Sometimes it's very on, but other times it's kinda not.

Jack and Jill vs. The World

Jack and Jill vs. The World (2007)

-- Vanessa Parise

Yeah, so I pretty much saw this on Lifetime, awk. I think it's a real movie though, not just a "oh god, my ex-husband stole our baby that we used an illegal surrogate to get, a surrogate who was killed, probably by my law officer ex-boyfriend who also helped me out after I decided to leave my parents house because they couldn't deal with the fact that my uncle molested me" kind of film.

Anyway, I should have reviewed this a long time ago! haha! It's basically about some guy in the ad world who meets this chick and they fall for each other maybe (okay, I so can't remember the plot of this film). It's something like that. But the chick has cystic fibrosis, so she's always disappearing and when she tells him the stereotypical movie thing happens. Think about that for a minute.

Anyway, Freddie looks like he has gained some weight? So basically he looks like a real human being! Good for him. He also has a more pronounced "New York" accent in this film, which is interesting.


I also liked the discussion on Fair Trade coffee, but would have been cool if they had gotten into what it was a little more. And then there was the fabulous line "Ask a hippie, they'll tell ya" haha. So maybe I should go do that then? No.


There was also a narrator in the beginning of the film that disappeared until the end, which was awk. And there was a montage. Just going to leave it at that.


Two things I randomly liked: stupid stickers (it's a funny part) and the part where Freddie's character said his father raised him by books. He was kind of bitter about it, but I think that that would have been awesome. It also got me to read "Love in the Time of Cholera" (since I had already read the other two he mentioned) and it was so good! I totally recommend that book, I don't really get how it would have taught him about anatomy though... Oh, and a third thing I liked, the part where Fred is all like "time is a construct". He kind of brushes that off eventually, but the truth of that statement is just the part that I like. Since time is a construct, as is virtually everything in the human world.



And, finally, the best part about reviewing a film about some guy who comes up with ads for a living is getting to discuss commercials and advertising. Fred's character says it best, by the way, when he comments that "we know happiness is bad for sales". It is, by the way, selling products/capitalism is not designed to make people/consumers happy. There is also an interesting tie-in with a part in the film about the "stupid"ness of a tampon commercial that comes right after an actual ad for tampons. Whoo hoo. Also, this gives me an opportunity to "review" an ad, that I hate, and that occurred a few times during breaks in the film. It's the pepto bismal commercial where they are like having "auditions" or whatever that includes "immigrants" singing the pepto bismal song and doing the dance. Yeah, you all know that that is a really racist commercial right? It's playing on the humor of people who don't speak american english natively, speaking accented english and also it makes fun of how they look (they are all like dark skinned men, some overweight). So, I hate that commercial. It's not funny. I don't make fun of peoples' inability to speak perfect american accented english when they didn't grow up speaking it. I don't think it's funny, it's just sick and exploitative.


Oh, I guess the movie was okay though. It was kind of bland, especially toward the end, it was getting a little dumb. But it was okay.

Model Behavior

Model Behavior (2000)

--Mark Rosman

This is an old Disney film, kind of along the same lines as "Lifesize", that I pretty much just watched because I remembered it from my childhood. And I have to say, that it's sad when you rewatch a movie that you remember as being good and come away thinking it was kind of lame. This is about a regular girl and a model who switch places to see how the other is living and they both learn lessons and enrich their own lives, blah blah blah. Anyway, Justin Timberlake is in it! He does act very well, but he is in it and so cute! Also Daniel Clark is in it as a really annoying younger brother who inevitably comes threw in the end (and he was in Degrassi! yay!).

I think one of the biggest problems I had with this film is that the main actress who plays both characters is kind of annoying. I just didn't enjoy her acting. And I guess the plot is not executed as well as it could have been, there were dumb moments that shouldn't have been in there. And Kathie Lee Gifford is in it, which just reminds me about my love for "Regis and Kelly". So I should probably stop watching old Disney films like this since that they'll just ruin my memories of their awesomeness, but I probably won't... hehe...

Drillbit Taylor

Drillbit Taylor (2008)

--Steven Brill

Whoa, I also can't believe that I haven't reviewed this one! Damn.... This is about a homeless dude (Wilson) who hires himself out to a group of kids as a bodyguard, even though he secretly doesn't like using violence.

Yeah, I can't remember much about this film either, but I think I thought it was pretty funny. I mean, the only problem I had with it was that there was a lot of violent physical humor that sometimes involved the kids Wilson's character was working for and it was a little bit awkward. Cause, yeah, there is a lot of awkward violence in this film. But other than that I'm pretty sure I laughed outloud at various points and I like Owen Wilson, so... (that's it, that's all I can remember! awk!)

P.S. I Love You

P.S. I Love You (2007)

--Richard LeGravenese

I can't believe that I haven't review this one yet, since I've thought about it a lot, I think I've already written this one, but more in my head than in reality. So, yeah, a women (Swank) tries to get over her husband's death with the help of instructive letters he leaves her. That's all you're getting, plot-wise.

I really didn't enjoy this film. It was just horrible and boring and kind of dumb. I can't remember why it was any of these things, but it was, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I've heard the book is better, so maybe go that route if you are interested in it. This film, apparently, is also a good portrayal of realistic fights between couples. That's pretty much all it is, fighting. Swank's character is kindaaaa, you know, like that. She's whiny and fighty and not really interesting or relatable at all. The film had some big names too, but they didn't really seem big, most of them just short of blending into the background of badness. Especially Lisa Kudrow, she seriously didn't leave much of an impression whatsoever, in relation to her performance.

So, basically (this is going to be random) if you're a James Marsters fan, don't watch this! Because you'll be wishing that he were in it more, since he only has a couple of lame scenes, which made me sad.

So don't watch this film, it made me sad about life since it was that bad and stupid.

Love and Other Disasters

Love and Other Disasters (2006)

--Alek Keshishian

So this is a British romantic comedy and I'm just going to say, up front, that it was pretty good and I both enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone who is feeling icky after watching the current box-office-y american romantic comedies, because this is different from them. It's been awhile since I watched this and the plot is kind of complicated so bear with me. An american, Jacks (Brittany Murphy) in working at a fashion magazine and dealing with her love-life. She's in a relationship with someone she keeps breaking up with but who she can't stop seeing for some reason. Her gay best friend (Matthew Rhys) is also have problems with loveee, but his is more that he nitpicks and finds problems with pretty much anyone he's ever interested in. Then there's another friend (Catherine Tate--yay!) who is pretty much drunk the whole time and I can't remember what she does other than show up and drink at random times. So, yeah, Jacks meets some Spanish photographer and thinks he's gay but he's not and they start falling for each other. Even though the plot is kind of complicated, it's also pretty straight-forward and there's not much innovation.

I thought it was interesting that Brittany Murphy was in this film, since it's British and I'm pretty sure she isn't, though pretty much everyone else is. Also, I think it's interesting that even though she's an American she doesn't seem like and her accent pretty much shows that she's been in London for awhile and I think it was even said that she was originally born there anyway. It kind of made me wonder if Murphy is living in England or something? Since I haven't really seen her in any American movies lately and lots of actors like London, but whatever.

I really liked Matthew Rhys in this (and everything else, "Brothers and Sisters" = yay!). It's great that I didn't know that he was english until I saw him in this film and I'm like, wow, he has a pretty believable accent and then I looked it up and now I have to amend that and say, wow, he has a really believable american accent! Cause he does. And his character was awesome in this film. He pretty much lived in a fantasy word and at times we got to see his fantasies so it was great. Especially the therapist scene with the farting. It was something about the stages of farting and one's comfortableness with farting in front of your partner and the relation to stages of love. It was pretty cool and kind of made sense, so you can see the movie just for that part if you want. Go for it.

I also like Catherine Tate. I can't really explain that, I blame Graham Norton and "Dr. Who". So, she's always cool in like everything and I think that everyone should check out her work because she's really funny!

Okay, I kinda watched this one awhile ago and that's pretty much all I remember. Murphy's character is kind of annoying sometimes and that poor actress always looks tragically anorexic nowadays, but other than that this film has some fun parts. Roll with them. Oh, crap, I forgot that Orlando Bloom's sister is also in this film and he makes a cameo, along with Gwyneth Paltrow.

Footlight Parade

Footlight Parade (1933)

--Lloyd Bacon

This is another film that Busby Berkeley did choreography on and that also features Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler (see my other reviews or you might be confused? since I'm going to reference them). Anyway, there is a producer of musicals who finds that he can't get his numbers produced anymore because the film industry is killing the business. But, they have these things like little musical numbers before or in the middle of showing a film in movie theaters, so he decides to get into doing those and mass producing them so it makes more money for everybody. That's basically it.

The film itself is pretty fast-paced, which parallels the action of the producer guy who runs around trying to take care of all the problems and come up with ideas for new numbers. So it's interesting in that way. As far as a Busby Berkeley film, however, this one falls short. As with most of the films he works on, you only see his work in the final like 10 or 20 minutes of the film. The numbers are eventually really good and fun to watch, but the buildup to them is devoid of anything interesting in terms of choreography, which I didn't like. Seriously, when you get to the actual musical numbers in the water it's weird because it doesn't resemble anything they practiced during the whole film. Not to mention that most of it was in the water, which made me wonder where they practiced, because there wasn't a pool inside for most of the film. This also contributes to my previous comments during Berkeley films about the unreality of the numbers in relation to their supposed filmic audience. I did mean it about the awesomeness of the choreographed scenes at the end though, there's so fun times with synchronized swimming, if I were you, I would try to find clips of it and watch it, cause it's cool.

This film was also interesting in that my comments about Powell and Keeler's acting will be reversed. I thought in relation to Powell that this was a really lack-luster performance and that he was so much better in other films. But for Keeler it gave her a chance to break out of her dumb, innocent girl stereotype and I loved her as an office assistant/manager or whatever at the beginning and I was really sad when she gave that up to be a dancer and a singer. Oh well, for a few minutes it was really cool.

That being said, there were a lot of racist and sexist problems with this film. For one, women were always being referred to as "girls" and "children" (full grown women by the way), and they were made to act accordingly as can be seen when the producer locks everybody in the building and they "children/girls" are called for meals with bells and shouts and they all scramble like... children... and girls... it was really weird. But there were even more race-related problems. Like a lot.

First, the producer guy gets an idea for some chick about slave women and decides to make a musical number (that ohmygod thankfully we never see!) about women (here meaning white women, but since they are the neutral, unmarked in this film, it's just "women") as african slaves in black face where white men capture them. That's not even a joke. This is the guy's idea. Usually I don't say this, but this is totally a reason to be glad that I was born post-Civil Rights. How sickening. He also gets an idea for a prologue (that's what the musical numbers are called) from poor black kids playing in the street with a fire hydrant. He translates this (literally, since he says it aloud) as fountain water splashing over "beautiful white bodies". So, basically, this film presents a nice little portrait of white appropriation of black life. Have fun with that.

There's also one musical number that's entirely racist. It's called "Shanghai Lil" (do you see where this is going?). Shanghai Lil is a prostitute that some guy in the army met and now he's looking for her everywhere. She is referred to throughout the song as oriental, heathen, butterfly, prostitute, and "little devil". And she speaks in stereotypically broken asian prostitute stereotypes like "i miss you very much a long time". Didn't anyone have a problems with this? No. Honestly, this could probably be made as a musical number today and still work because the majority of white americans wouldn't see any problem with this. They'd be like "but it's true! Asian prostitutes!" And why do you think that kind of prostitution exists? Anyway, it's insulting to Asians, women, and prostitutes. Yay life.

That whole number eventually turns into some creepy ode to the military/government (I really don't differentiate between the two, let's be honest). People become a large flag, there's patriotic marching in form, it's just odd. Like, after seeing the subversiveness of the depression-related films of the '30's, it's just odd to see something so in-line with the media agenda. But maybe it had something to do with hope for better times through the military, I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore because it was only the early '30's and people didn't like WWI, so... I really don't know what this number was about. It was so awkward. It would be like watching some modern movie that just morphed into some pro-Bush material. Awk.

So yeah, I'm all for watching Berkeley's awesome choreography (Shanghai Lil being the exception, there was nothing awesome about that number), but this film had a lot of obvious problems, especially with race, that seem to go even beyond a lot of the problems regular race/gender/sexuality problems with films from this era. That's my final judgment.

What Happens in Vegas

What Happens in Vegas (2008)

--Tom Vaughan

Probably ya'll already know the plot of this one. Two people (Diaz, Kutcher) go to Vegas and party, get married drunk, win money, go to get a divorce, but the judge sentences them to live as a married couple for six months instead and they both try to prove that they are doing so, but that the other person is doing something for which they could get a divorce and end up with the money simultaneously, but then they end up actually falling for each other. Rob Corddry is also in it. As is Jason Sudeikis, Queen Latifah, and Dennis Miller, briefly.

Yeah, this film is kind of what you'd expect as far as romantic comedies go these days. Lots of dumb physical humor. I don't really like Ashton Kutcher by the way, but he was sometimes okay in this film. And for some reason I do like Cameron Diaz, but she was kinda bad in this one. I don't even really have anything to say about it, because it was kind of like all of those other romantic comedies, there was really not much to set it apart. It was just kind of blah and that's what is being channeled into this review right now.

I guess it was okay, but there are about a million other films I would recommend before this one. Rob Corddry was kinda funny sometimes I think. And I sorta liked Diaz's character's friend, she was likable to me. Oh wait, I do have something. I thought that the Vegas montage (and that's all it was) was really weird. It was like a big commercial for the city and that's probably where the film got a lot of funding. And it was basically full of every Vegas stereotype you can think of. There it is...

Nanny McPhee

Nanny McPhee (2005)

--Kirk Jones

I know, I know, you're probably wondering why I watched this in the first place. I like Emma Thompson and I used to like Colin Firth and sometimes I like little kid movies, shut up. Anyway, this is about a group of misbehaving children so have gone threw like 17 nannies since their mother died. Their father, meanwhile, has to contend with finding a wife by the end of the month so his grandmother-in-law (or mother-in-law? I'm not sure) doesn't cut off the allowance he gets every month to take care of the children. Since there are no more nannies and the family is kind of out of control, Nanny McPhee arrives. She is physically unattractive, but as the family learns the five lessons she has to teach, her appearance improves.

Anyway, this was kind of dumb movie. It wasn't even that interesting. It was okay at the beginning, but then when the father decides he has to marry this one chick, it kind of falls apart. And the ending is really bad. It's just dumb. But I still won't give it away, hehe.

Also, it was really disturbing that Nanny McPhee's physical imperfections disappeared every time they learned a lesson. Ummm, is that really a good thing to be teaching children? About physical beauty I mean. Like can't she still be beautiful but have warts and a large nose and messy hair and some weight? Apparently not. I didn't get that part, I thought it was uncalled for, and it kind of disturbed me in terms of what it might be teaching to children. By the way, the tagline is apparently "you'll learn to love her. warts and all". Ummm, apparently you don't have to, since they disappear half way through the film. So that's a really dumb and inaccurate tagline.

So I don't really recommend this film unless you are really into little kid movies and nanny things. Then if you're bored enough, I suppose you can watch it if you want....

Margot at the Wedding

Margot at the Wedding (2007)

--Noah Baumbach

Whoo hoo, Andrea already reviewed this one so I don't have to do a plot summary. I, personally, didn't find that this film made me feel weird, I thought the characters and situations were more indicative of real life. It also makes me wonder what kind of horrible childhood Baumbach had to write all of these films about overbearing parents and how they are subtly screwing over their children. I loved how lame it was that Kidman's character just throws around diagnoses of disorders and everyone in this film seems to correspond to one or more. I think that, in particular, is real-life like. You could pretty much diagnose anyone with some kind of disorder if you just watched a film of their behavior, which doesn't really show the complete story about them, obviously, and which is part of the reason that I deeply distrust diagnoses such as those.

I too thought that the acting was good and I was impressed with Black in the first part of the film. His performance kind of seemed to fall apart at the end though, when he was crying, which just made me think of his lame comedy work. But, overall, he injects a lot of comedy into the film that for some reason seems believable so I thank him for that. I also liked Jennifer Jason Leigh. I totally liked her acting and her character (though I don't know why). She was just so cute, like a cuddly kitten. I just wanted to squeeze her and say "oooooohhhhhhh so cuuute!" I can't rely explain or justify that impulse though. Ohhhhhhhh and I just realized that she was the chick in "The Hudsucker Proxy" and that movie has a special place in my heart so maybe that's why? I don't know, she was just good, deal with it.

I also have to comment on the dude who played Claude. I really can't believe that he is a boy. I'm sorry, he just looks like such a pretty girl. And I totally thought he was one until they called him "handsome" (and I was like, wow, most people don't say that to little girls) and "Claude". Then I was like, whaa? Yeah, I think this film would have been better for me, if Claude were an unconventionally dressed girl. Hahaha. It was okay, I'm still doubting his boy-ness, I want him to be in other things so I can make sure.... That's really bad! I can't believe I just said that! I'm stopping now.