Fun Times with Movie Review-edness

Madea's Family Reunion

2009-02-05T10:46:00.000-08:00

Madea's Family Reunion (2006)

--Written, Directed, and Produced by Tyler Perry

Sorry I haven't posted in a longgggg time. I've seen a lot of movies but I don't know when I'm going to find the time to review them anytime soon. Maybe I'll get some done today?

Anyway, I've been watching a lot of Tyler Perry movies lately. For those that might not know, Perry is the first (hopefully not the last!) African American to own their own studio. He got started doing theater and is currently (mostly) converting his plays into films. This isn't the first one I've seen, and it would probably make more sense to do some that came before this one first since they kind of feed into one another, but I just saw this one, so it's gettin' done to-day!

The first thing you need to know about this film is that it is nottttttt at all like some of the previews! The previews usually feature the character Madea who is more about physical slapstick comedy, which can make people think that that is what this film is all about, when it's actually about sexual violence and Madea plays a small role, as does that actual literal family reunion, it's more about three women reuniting as a family--or trying to--or not actually do that... it's about a lot of things. So the main characters are three women (and Madea)--two sisters and the mother. One of the sisters is being pushed by her mother to marry a very rich man even though he beats her. The other is trying to overcome her past experiences with relationships (and rape) while falling in love with a new guy. And the mother is just kind of horrible. She's basically portrayed as the catalyst for all of the negative in her daughters' lives. She knows her daughter is getting beat, but forces her into the relationship anyway, and she just outright rejects the other daughter because she blames her father (versus her other daughter's father) for abandoning her. And yeah, there is a family reunion! And guess who's in their family? Maya Angelou (she's awesome, seriously). Madea is a character who is both accepting and very abusive. She opens her home up to anyone in need, in this film that includes a 13-yr-old in foster care and one of the sisters and her two kids. But she is also very physical violent, which is complemented with her brother's sexual and verbal abuse (her brother lives with her two, both of them are played by Perry).

Ughg it's so complicated I don't even know where to begin. Perry's films are really complicated, especially because it's really awesome that he is a black man who employs other black people in his films and who is in control of the portrayal of other black people, instead of how films in hollywood are usually written/directed/produced/acted/employing white people and our views of people of color are all channeled through this hollywood version of color. That said, I also have to say that Perry is very into masculinity, "traditional" gender roles, heterosexism, and negatively stereotyping women. It's beautiful that he has created this voice for African-American-ness in film, but it's horrible that he then uses this voice to try to (sometimes very violent) control men and women's behavior.

Violence in his films is a real problem for me. I like that he isn't afraid to say that violence against women is a real problem. I don't like that he seems to be saying that violence is an appropriate and sometimes necessary response. Case one: Madea beats the 13 yr-old a couple of times to get her what she wants her to do. One time after she didn't go to school, Madea bends her over and swats her with I think a belt. And... eventually she does what Madea wants and is "reformed". Apparently Perry is saying that it's okay to beat your children because that is how you teach them valuable life lessons. I'm sorry, but no child deserves to be physically violated. How I usually look at it is that children cannot pick which family they end up in (in the sense that they are born to parents, adopted, bought, acquired, however you want to say, they don't really get to decide where they end up), so how is it fair that some children will end up with parents who are not physically abusive (e.g. don't spank and such) while some with inadvertently end up with parents who think that physical abuse in an appropriate response to transgressions? It's not fair and no one, NO ONE, deserves to be physically abused. The other cases will be discussed in other film reviews, but you should know that all Perry's films include some sort of violence that is "justified" within the reality of the film.

Okay, now to stereotyping of women/masculinity of men. Tyler Perry is very into making men into the monolithic patriarchic figures that jives well with how white men also like to be portrayed. The Perry man is the head of the family, the woman's savior, the breadwinner, the rock, etc. The women are consistently broken in some way (especially in this film), and there are usually dichotomies between the woman as whore (who is irredeemable in most of his films, and apparently it's okay to verbally abuse these women) and the celibate Christian woman--who is the ideal. Does this sound familiar to anyone? It's only the basic tenants of white heterosexual patriarchy and it is deeply ingrained in American society. Thanks for helping (white people) to shame black people into submitting to these ideals too. He also seems to believe that women are very jealous of other women and are consistently fighting with other women (which is a general stereotype in our society). There are some exceptions to this in various films, in this one the two sisters have a bond and there are bonds between older women (who are nostalgic for "the way things were"). This bond between sisters doesn't exist in all of his films though. Sometimes he'll show a tight-knit group of female friends, but they are still juxtaposed with the "whore" characters that are in "their man's" life ("Why Did I Get Married?"). Anyway, he likes grouping women into two categories and then letting his "good" characters bash the "whore" character/s.

Okay, those are my main issues with Perry's films (that I can think of anyway). But... I still find them enjoyable? Is that weird? Maybe it's because I don't have to sit and say "hey, why are all of these people white?" or maybe it's because they at least address physical sexual emotional violence. Or maybe it's because they try and blend comedy and drama (this film is crazzzy emotional, trust me, but Madea serves as comic relief, though in this film she's also pretty insightful). Or maybe I just like them, cause we can't always point to reasons for liking certain film right? Anyway, I enjoy the complexity of his films and I hope that someday he'll get over some of his issues about positive violence (this isn't it, ya'll) and hating on women, and I hope that his films pave the way for greater interest in films by African Americans.

For this film in particular, I couldn't help thinking that it might have been better were it done by a woman. Especially the emotionally and revealing scene between the three core female family members. I thought, whoa, this is intense, but, wait, how much better would it be if it were done from a woman's perspective? If you ever watch this one, maybe you'll think about that too.

There are a lot of other things I just realized I could talk about too, but, honestly, this review is getting kind of long, so I'm going to stop it here. And just add, once again, that Maya Angelou is beautiful. She reads a poem at one point in the film (another thing I liked about this one is that there was a lot of poetry in it and I thought that that was really interesting and thematically enriching) and it is one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard in my life. Truly. Worth it just to see her. She isn't just a poet in this film (and technically I don't think she's meant to play herself) she's also a member of the family and is pretty cool. Anyway, go watch it if you want to. It's probably not the best Perry film to watch first, since this one is kind of a sequel to "Dairy of a Mad Black Woman," but I thought this one was better than that one, so.

Bongwater

2008-12-31T14:32:00.000-08:00

Bongwater (1997)

--Richard Sears

I think Luke Wilson is hot, okay? Don't judge!

This film is about a guy who sells pot. And then some chick moves in with him and wants to exploit him for his art. And then she introduces him to someone who can do that, but she gets jealous that that person and the guy might be hooking up. So then she hooks up with some musician who she moves to New York with, but he's psycho and then she hooks up with some homeless guy, but then she's unhappy and still likes the drug dealer guy who has been hooking up with that chick who she thought he was hooking up with and also maybe some other chick who they are both friends with? If that sounds either like it doesn't make any sense or it's really stupid and weird, ummm, it's both.

Actually I feel asleep twice during this film. The first time I went back and made sure to rewatch the part I missed, the second time I just kinda let it go because it had gotten so stupid that I didn't care. This film from the beginning does not make any sense. I swear to god the plot is whack. IT JUST DIDN'T MAKE SENSE. I don't get how this chick just brings her friend who is overdosing into this guys house and then they become "roommates"? Or was that part where the chick is overdosing a joke and they actually really knew each other? And how long does she stay with him before she decides to exploit him for his art? Like five minutes? And yeah, if that plot summary made her sound crazy, well that's how she was in the film

And the chick who plays that chick could not act. Or maybe she can and was trying to portray the character as a liar who was faking her emotions and relationships? I don't know. To me, it seemed like the beginning of the film was really poorly acted. And the whole film was just stupid.
The only somewhat okayish almost characters are they two gay friends of the drug dealer (who apparently are only known as gay from like the second half of the film, it was like "surprise, we're a couple" except we were supposed to know that they were always a couple). And yeah, one of them is Andy Dick, and he's actually kind of okay in this film. I mean, why not?

But yeah, it's dumb, don't watch it. Thanks. Oh wait, Jack Black is in it too, I think he came in about the second time I started to fall asleep. So good for him?

The Women

2008-12-31T14:16:00.000-08:00

The Women (2008)

--Diane English

So this was a pretty bad film. I don't know why other people gave it bad reviews since my criticisms all have to do with the portrayal of women, which most people (especially most male film critics [and most are male]) probably don't really care about or think about or who actually believe.

So let's start with the plot. There's a group of really rich upper class women (which sort of goes unsaid but also is blatantly obvious) and one of them has a husband who is cheating on her. The others find out and then she finds out and they all run around trying to deal with it. I think that's the plot, nothing really happens, it's more about friendship and bonding and "coming into your own" and all that crap.

Okay, now with the various and multiple reasons why I didn't like this film.

The brief treatment of one of the character's apparent homosexuality. Jada Pinkett Smith's character has a girlfriend at the beginning of the film. I actually really liked her in the film and even her character, but she was really really muted. Also one of her so-called friends made somewhat disparaging remarks about her sexuality, which Pinkett Smith somewhat replied to, but not in a way to really deny them. It was an odd moment where I was hoping she was going to say "I'm a lesbian. I love women. I was born that way. Deal with it," but she didn't really say that? It was awkward and her sexuality really wasn't referenced after that. And her character just kinda hangs around and shows up in various scenes but isn't really allowed to add too much.
The same things happens with Debra Messing's character a little bit. You get one scene with the chaos of her having kids and a short scene where she gives birth, but other than those really small parts, she also just kinda hangs around. Her character I didn't really mind either and I think she should have had a bigger role.
Hair and Clothes. Once again, women are defined by their hairstyles and their clothes and their personalities also have to be reflected in hair/clothes. This is most evident in Meg Ryan's character (who the movie is mostly about) who starts off with "messy" hair (that to me really looks like someone spent 2 hours on it) and sort of loose, baggy, comfortable clothes. After she goes through her transition to caring/thinking more about herself, she has sleek, long straightened hair (which also looks like it takes hours to do) and more stylish business-women clothes. It just so tired. Women HAVE TO WEAR their hair and their clothes to reflect their unique (yet incredibly similar) personality. This can be seen in all of the other characters too, but mostly with Meg Ryan's. Now, I'm not really trying to say that this is all that unrealistic. We (men/women) are taught to dress our personalities and such, but it's rarely this complete and rarely this stereotypical and that sort of leads me into my next point...
I have never met anyone like any of these women. It's called "the women" therefore suggesting that it is reflecting some sort of general overall encompassing realities of female experience. Yeah, there is one, twoish people of color in this film. And all the rest are white women. The main characters are all rich. They all shop at Saks (what is this place? it just looks like some hellish department store to me?). The fact that one of the main characters has two white servants who do everything (well one of them does, the other kind of just is there) is really weird. Ummm, white servants, really? Is that how it goes? Let's do an informal poll of all the uber-rich people with servants and see how many of them have an American white woman and a Danish white woman serving them. There is maybe one character who has a nanny who is a person of color, but she shows up for one second and I couldn't really tell and I really don't think they wanted to enter that into the narrative, so... Anyway, I don't know any of these women. They don't reflect any of my life experience. I don't go to salon's to get a manicure or get my hair straightened or whatever. And I'm not really even sure what Saks is. So thanks for making "the women" once again into the upper-class white women and the heavily muted almost homosexual rich woman of color.
Yeah, this is already a really long post so I'm not even going to go further into how every single character was just a dumb stereotype.
Bette Midler's character was random and dumb. They would have cut the scene out (because it was stupid) if it had been someone they weren't using to lure more of an audience.

What I liked about the film:

Jada Pinkett Smith! And to a less degree Debra Messing
Men are not in this film. I really enjoy that (especially given that there have been films where there are no women). I think that there should be more sans-men films, but I'm sad that this one wasn't any good because the films that didn't have any women are classics (12 Angry Men is what I'm thinking about, but most of the "classic films" generally have strong male leads and stereotyped/weak female leads--you may disagree, I have my own system of thought about this).
The talk with the ten year old about women in magazines being unrealistic and stuff like that. It was sort of a good talk for awhile and I'm glad they brought it up, since Pinkett Smith's character is dating a model, Meg Ryan's character designs clothes (which get shown on runways) and that other chick (hahah, I'm not sure who she is) works for a fashion (?) magazine.

There's another part I really didn't like that I didn't put with the above because I wanted to mention something I liked first. I really didn't like the gendering of Meg Ryan's character's daughter. It was disgusting. The "girl" was sucked into the middle of some sexist "cat fight" between Meg Ryan and her husband's "mistress" and how is she going to think about relationships later in life? They force her to be part of their relationship "games" where both of them are trying to hurt one another over some stupid asshole. They just fucked up that "girl's" whole thinking about relationships. Not only are they heavily heavily gendering her, but they are also normatizing her to repeat their weird upper-class power-play bullshit. It's really gross.

Okay, this review is really long, right? Sorry, but it's a movie that can inspire a lot of criticism from me. And I have more! But I won't burden ya'll with them. Hehe. This film did make me want to kind of see the 30's film, just because I have no idea how it would have translated back then. I just can't imagine that 30's film from seeing this version. So I might have to get on that. I can probably safely assert that there were no people of color as the main characters (but really, are there any in this one? It's mostly about the relationships between two white women) and probably no one was homosexual, and if they were than it would be negative. But I really doubt that that is in there.

The Witches

2008-12-12T10:18:00.000-08:00

The Witches (1990)

--Nicolas Roeg

So, this is what I got stuck with for halloween, instead of "Hocus Pocus". Actually it was the day after halloween, but that was okay.

Ummm, this may have been the worst film I've ever seen. It's about a group of witches who sometimes eat/kill/something children and they have a conference at a hotel to talk about how to turn all the children in London (I'm pretty sure it's London) into mice. So there's this kid who's parents maybe were killed or something and he's living with his grandma who is familiar with these witches. His grandma has to take a break for health reasons, so they end up at the same hotel as this conference and the kid ends up in the same room with the witches. Then he and this other kid get turned into mice and the escape the witches who are trying to kill them. They run to the kid's grandma and form a plan to turn all of the witches into mice by putting their mice-transformation serum into some food that they will be eating.

Yeah, I don't know what it is about this film. Maybe it was the grotesqueness of the costumes of the witches. This film is rated PG, but that scene was really scary. I can imagine a small child freaking out over the witches tearing off their skin and mutating into monsters. I think after that scene the movie just died for me. I just didn't like it, thought it was gross, obviously I already came in knowing about the usual stereotypical portrayal of witches but I'm able to overlook that most films and just accept that they are portrayed as ugly evil creatures.

I'm also just not interested in a story about a mouse-child-thing running around with his grandmother doing crap. That just sounds like a film that I would never want to watch. It may have been better for me had the kid not spent the majority of the film as a mouse, I don't really enjoy those kinds of films most of the time. Now if he were turned into a nice little kitty... I still wouldn't want to watch over and hour of that crap.

This film wasn't for me. If you like stereotypical satan-worshipping witches, grandmother/grandson plots, and kids getting turned into mice, then you'll like this. I really thought the movie was going to go in a different direction, the first part of the film was definitely interesting. The grandmother's story about the kid that she knew that had been taken by witches and then ended up in a family portrait where her family could watch her age and then die like a regular human, really intrigued me and I wanted to know more. But after they went to the hotel, the plot went to crap. I didn't like it at all. It was both grotesque and horrific and too childish all at the same time. And the ending was really random. I didn't see it going that way at all. For awhile I was convinced that the grandmother was going to turn out to be a witch, which might have redeemed the film somewhat for me, but instead she was apparently just a normal woman, oh well.

Anyway, I don't recommend this film. I personally thought it was really horrible, but then again sometimes I like really stupid films that are objectively pretty crappy. Maybe this was a genious film and I just didn't get it. But hey, it was available to be rented on halloween (the only halloween-related film, not tv, available for rent at that time so maybe I'm not the only one?).

Hocus Pocus

2008-12-12T09:55:00.000-08:00

Hocus Pocus (1993)

--Kenny Ortega

Pretty much every year I try to rent a Halloween-themed movie from netflix and pretty much every year hundreds, thousands, whatever, a lot of other people have the same idea and I can never get anything close to what I want. Obviously, this is one of the ones that is always! at somebody else's house and not mine. Instead I got stuck with "The Witches," I'm not sure if I reviewed that one yet, but if I haven't then I will after this one. Anyway, this is the first one on my list of movies that I would like to watch on Halloween. But since I can never get it, I decided just to rent it anyway on a non-halloween occasion so I could see it again.

Ya'll have seen this one right. An unbeliever (Omri Katz, who like dropped out of the celebrity universe after this!), his little sister, and a girl he likes go to on old house on halloween night that was apparently the home of three notorious witches from back in the day, the Sanderson sisters (Bette Midler, SJ Parker, Kathy Najimy). He lights a candle and they come back to life. A magical talking kitty (so cute!) tells him to steal their magical book and that forces the sisters to chase them around all night trying to kill them and get the book back. Yes, fun times.

I liked it. I will always like it. I'm fated to always think of this as the best--the absolute best!--halloween film ever made (that isn't a horror film and I don't include old b&w Dracula and Frankenstein and all that as horror films, I mean slasher horror films where most/many of the characters are brutally, obsessively hunted down and murdered by someone/something that just won't die). Next halloween, this film will still be at the top of my queue, in hope that I am the lucky one who gets picked (that is as long as I get to see Mister Lonely in the next nine months).

What a beautiful film. It's just someone immortalized in my childhood memory. And another example of how disney used to actually make worthwhile films. It's sweet, it's funny, it's moderately scary at times or at least suspenseful, it's sexy (hey, why not?). Can you believe that disney actually allowed a character dressed as madonna (pointy bra and all) and a character who is pretty much almost a nymphomaniac into one of their films? Oh, old disney, what happened? Why did you change? Why why why? If disney came out with a film like this now, I guarantee you it would not be PG and it would never play on the disney channel and there would be a huge controversy over SJP's character. Oh well.

Watch it. Now. So good. I don't really even have anything to say about it, other than I'm sure I will watch it again someday.

Wish Upon a Star

2008-12-12T09:32:00.000-08:00

Wish Upon a Star (1996)

--Blair Treu

This is an old disney movie (back when disney channel was kinda good sometimes) that I just had to watch again. Thank you netflix for helping me to relive my childhood through film and tv, I really appreciate it.

The film is one of those "Freaky Friday" movies. Two sisters are in high school. One is older, "prettier," popular, and wants to go to a certain college but doesn't really have the grades to do so (played by Katherine Heigl). The other is younger, very smart, admires her older sisters popularity and is into grunge. One night they both see a shooting star and make a wish that they could be the other sister. Then they wake up in each other's body the next morning. At first they are more concerned with mitigating the damage that this could potentially cause and then they try to all-out ruin the other's reputation, which pretty fun times. The younger sister in her older sister's body has to deal with running for winter dance queen, dealing with creepy superficial friends, and a boyfriend that her friends are pressuring her to dumb. The older sister in her younger sister's body has to deal with a science test, a science fair project (about turning bio waste--like old fruits and veggies--into energy), and being pretty unpopular. Yeah, obviously this is disney and I don't want to give anything away, but... they work it out and learn from each other. It's beautiful really.

Like "The Craft," this is another one of those films that when I go back and watch now I can sort of see how impacted by it I was. Especially through the beginning of the film, it was literally like looking back on my past dreams and wishes and fears, it was really interesting. I just connected with this film and these characters so much when I was younger, which is kinda scary I guess, but it's nice that I got to watch it again. Also, the whole vibe of this film seems very mid-nineties, from the hair, make-up, and dress of the characters to the way that they talk, "smell much?" Ohhh, early Buffy years, how I miss thee.

The music in this film is horrible! Seriously, except for one song that the band at the dance played, it's really hard to listen to. I think it's supposed to reflect the older sister's taste in music. I'm not really sure what to call it. Just lame rock music I guess? And I'm actually aging as I say this, all of the instruments just sort of blend together in a cacophony of rockishness. I didn't like it so much.

Also, the actress who played the younger sister did really well. Even though she looked more what would correspond to someone unpopular and grungy, etc, she totally acted better as the catty (meow), slightly arrogant, older sister. I'm sort of sad that she's pretty much only big in horror films now (especially compared to where Heigl is now), I think she could do better, but maybe she's happy with that, so I'll be happy for her happiness. Ahh, I just read on imdb that she dated Omri Katz back in the day. The dude from "Eerie, Indiana" and "Hocus Pocus" (that I'm about to review!). Awesome. Best couple ever? So sad they aren't together now. Haha.

That's it. Kinda cute film. Much better than the crap being made today (don't I always say that though?), especially with the dumbing down of disney (no, that alliteration wasn't planned! it just came out so naturally, thank you). So, if like me you saw this back in the day, it's definitely worth another look.

Standard Operating Procedure

2008-12-08T13:43:00.000-08:00

Standard Operating Procedure (2008)

--Errol Morris

Documentary.

Okay, I'm a fan of Errol Morris, which I think I've made clear from my other reviews, but I really don't know whether I understand why he even made this film after "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib." I can kind of in a perfectionist sense, but at the same time this film retreads much of what had already been said, probably because they interviewed a lot of the same people. I'm not sure which one is better though, Morris' film is much more in-depth, they go through and explain the situations behind the pictures in detail, which "Ghosts" didn't do. Also, this film interviews one of the people in charge of getting confessions that I don't think the other film interviewed and I'm not sure but I don't think "Ghosts" got an interview with Lynndie England (but maybe they did and I've just forgotten, but I really don't think so). Lynndie England was the one who gave the thumbs up in all of her photos, so obviously she was an integral part of what happened.

But what I usually like about Morris' films, didn't work for me in this one. His films are heavilyyyyyyyy stylized (which is why "The Thin Blue Line," which some people think is the best documentary ever [including me? sometimes...] was barred from oscar contention when it came out) and he does lots of things with flashback scenes. Somehow those flashback scenes just didn't seem right in this film, maybe it's because they already had so many images from when it happened in the thousands of pictures that were taken of many of the incidents. All I could think about when watching those scenes was how they faked torturing people and how they got people to put themselves into those positions (the flashbacks were all really abstract, so there were no full-on recreations of any scenes).

The interview with one of the guys who was actually in charge of extracting confessions was one of the good parts of the film. He seemed like a sane, rational guy who made it known that he didn't believe that torture could attain useful confessions and that they didn't get anyyyyyyy intel from any of the people tortured at Abu Ghraib. Also, Morris interviewed the guy (or one of the guys?) who had been in charge of figuring out where the photographs came from and what they were of exactly and making a timeline of events. He explained how they decided what was a criminal act and what was "standard operating procedure." At one point he actually went through some of the photographs and said which fell into which category. It was appalling to see what was considered "standard operating procedure." Mostly it was stripping prisoners, putting underwear on their heads, putting them in "mild" (what is that though?) stress positions. There was also this one photograph that was taken of a man who they had told to stand on a box with electrodes attached to his hands and if he got off he'd be electrocuted, but in reality they just attached random wires or something and he wouldn't have literally been electrocuted. That was considered "standard operating procedure." Niceeeeee, America! Seriously, after watching this how can anyone argue "why" we get attacked?

So yeah, this film was okay. Stylized but interesting. See this and "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib" and compare for yourself!

Sydney White

2008-12-08T13:19:00.000-08:00

Sydney White (2007)

--Joe Nussbaum

This film is supposed to be like an updated version of the Snow White fairy tale. Sydney (Amanda Bynes) goes to university and wants to pledge at the sorority that her now-dead mother did back in the day, but runs into trouble from the head of the sorority who is jealous that Sydney has gotten some attention from the head of a male fraternity. Yeah, so Sydney doesn't make it into the sorority because of this, instead she moves into "The Vortex," a run-down housing unit for outcasts. Hey, guess how many dudes live there? 7! Get it? Sydney decides that the greek system must go down because they have been running everything on campus for too long and the other groups need some financial attention as well. So she gets the 7 guys to run for student council (though this kind of disappears and only one of them ever is mentioned as actually running) in order to take down the president who is also the head of the sorority that she didn't get into.

Okay, maybe that was way too long of a plot summary for a movie that probably none of you will ever see. This isn't a very good film. It has an interesting idea, but mostly that's because it relies on our shared cultural knowledge of fairy tales. This "update" is pretty dumb though. There is nothing remotely interesting or intriguing and it makes me wonder who ever thought that this was a good idea in this form? I also found myself getting really sad at the realization that this film took up many hours of hundred's of peoples' lives and it turned out to be such crap. Isn't that weird? Films receive so much attention and so many people contribute money and skillz to getting them produced and finished, but the majority are just bad.

Also, Amanda Bynes is known for her quirkiness and her comedy, especially the physical kind, but that was noticeably absent in this film. There were a few times you could see her trying to bring some of that into the film, but it failed and I think the film would have been a lot better if more of that had been written into it, instead of trying to make it into some sappy romantic comedy. And she didn't look like her stylist really had a grip on how to make her look good, which is sad I guess?

Anyway, there is one good thing about this film (besides Sydney's love interest being kinda cute), Danny Strong who played Jonathan on Buffy is in it! He plays grumpy and he's just so awesome. Especially because he played someone who was supposed to be lame and weak and geeky in Buffy. Well, he still plays someone geeky in this film, but I love the misanthropic bent. I guess some of the other "dwarf" characters (no, they are not played by little people, sorry) are kinda funny too. There's this African exchange student who just sleeps all the time. Guess which dwarf he is. And the character of dopey is kinda funny too, though I don't think the character "Spanky" was really all that "happy," unless by happy they meant horny. And maybe they did.

I guess maybe another part wasn't that bad. At the very beginning, when Sydney meets the person she's rooming with, who's named Dinky, she kinda just seems like a "dumb blonde" character, but I'm glad they didn't really follow-through with that representation. It was nice to see a more realistic portrayal of friendship amidst superficiality and social pressure. So yay for that. The movie was still overall bad though.

Roger and Me

2008-11-22T14:59:00.000-08:00

Roger and Me (1989)

--Michael Moore

Documentary.

I know that Michael Moore is widely hated-ish by both "liberals" and "conservatives," and I also am somewhat sceptical about him as I am with everyone who has such strong convictions (even myself, you should hear the various voices arguing within my head sometimes, it's scary haha), but I still don't really know exactly what is factually incorrect with his films or how they aren't reflective of the truth or at least subjective truth as seen through the eyes of Moore himself. And since I haven't really seen anyone prove him wrong (because he isn't?) I'm just going to assume that he's more or less a good guy who happens to make awesome documentaries about stuff that I actually, *shock* *shock*, really care about and think that others need to care about too (yeah, I said it, you should care about what Michael Moore cares about). I'm sorry that maybe he's overweight and loud and in-your-face about things, but I don't really have a problem with that. And while it's become obvious that I could just go on and on with this, I'm going to end the disclaimer and move to the review.

This film is from the '80's! I didn't actually even notice that till I saw what everyone was wearing and how Moore had a mullet and I was like "what is up with the fashion?" Hahaha, you'll see what I mean if you see this film. It's great just for that. Okay, it's basically about the auto industry, specifically the place of GM as the heart of industry in Moore's hometown Flint, Michigan. GM gets a new CEO, the "Roger" in the title, who shuts down a bunch of plants and lays off a bunch of people, and Flint is hit really hard by this since, as is shown in the film, basically everyone worked there. So Moore would like to interview Roger about this and ask him "hey, what's up?" but he's turned down again and again, so he gets to interview everyone and their crazy rabbit-killing second cousins instead! Seriously, there's rabbit killing in this film, I was really shocked and didn't understand what was happening--why is that woman hitting her rabbit over the head with that pipe? Ohhhhhhhhhh, crappppp. Just be aware of that, I guess.

Anyway, Moore interviews a lot of other people, like a lobbyist, Bob Eubanks, other celebrities (a cheap celebrity theater is opened at discounted prices for all of the people who get laid off), and my favourite, the tourism director for Flint, Michigan. Wow, he was dumb. Anyway, no one who has any money really cares about what happens in Flint and crime keeps rising and people keep moving because there are no jobs! This movie is probably especially pertinent now that three US automakers are all like "crap, we've wasted our money on private jets and billion-dollar CEO bonus and now we don't have any left for cars". Yeah, if they all fail there are going to be a lot more Flint-like towns out there. He also spends awhile following around someone who evicts people and it's really sad. Yeah, lots of foreclosed homes in Flint too.

That's pretty much all I have to say about this film. It was good, it was informative, down with corporations, they are not people, people are the only people, let's all start socialist farming communes!

Encounters at the End of the World

2008-11-22T14:36:00.000-08:00

Encounters at the End of the World (2007)
--Werner Herzog

Documentary.

So I guess my assertion that my "Shortbus" review was going to be the only one for November was a little short-sighted? Haha. I'm glad it won't be alone in this month!

Anyway, "Encounters at the End of the World" is Herzog's documentary on Antarctica. Mostly he goes around interviewing the various people who work there, some study seals, some do cold-looking underwater diving (which has some of the most beautiful film footage ever and is part of why Herzog made this documentary in the first place), some work in the base at McMurdo--which is like a small town/complex where pretty much everyone there lives, some work with penguins (at the beginning of the film he says he will not be making a film about fluffy penguins... and then he goes off to film them... hahaha).

Anyway, it's really interesting because probably a lot of people don't know about the town that is on Antarctica. I mean, Antarctica is barely even on our maps, it's pushed down to the vary edge and its size is not represented correctly (it's pretty big, ya'll). By the way, that was sort of a side note by me, it wasn't really addressed like that in the film. Herzog does however link the current reality of Antarctica to the mythical fantasies of it that people have had through the ages, and that some people still do have? The people who he interviews are portrayed as dreamers, which is a recurrent theme in Herzog's films, so there are some pretty interesting people that he is talking to, many who say that Antarctica is just a place where a certain kind of people end up.

Yeah, McMurdo looks like an apocalyptic landscape to me. But maybe that's just me?

Haha, pretty much everyone should see this film for the beautiful undersea footage. Trust me, it's like nothing you've ever seen, unless you've seen "The Wild Blue Yonder," which also has a lot (and a lot more) Antarctica underwater scenes. I recommend both! I actually fell asleep during "The Wild Blue Yonder," but I think I was really tired, haha. That film was more "fictional," where the premise was that an alien was telling about his experiences (I'm pretty sure I also reviewed it awhile ago, so if you're interested, go for it). Anyway, if you want to see some awesome/beautiful footage, go watch this film and that film.

Oh yeah, and it's narrated by Herzog, though he doesn't directly ever appear onscreen, just in a few passing shots, which is sad. But his voice is awesome... Just saying... Here's a link to the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MImYM87jOtU. It shows some of the awesomeness. It also reminded me that there is a point where the people who are studying seals talk about the otherworldliness of the noises that the seals make and you get to hear those noises, so it's pretty cool (seriously, they sound weird). And how Herzog chooses to film that scene is reminiscent of "Bells from the Deep," which is about "faith and superstition in Russia". And now that I think about it, I might not have reviewed "The Wild Blue Yonder" and I don't think I did "Bells of the Deep" either. Oh well. Life goes on.

WALL-E

2008-11-20T11:41:00.001-08:00

WALL-E - (2008) - Andrew Stanton

Yay! WALL-E!!! Isn't he so cute? If you can't tell, I'll decide for you, yeah, he's cute! So freakin' what if he looks sort of like Johnny 5 from Short Circuit! Johnny 5 was pretty cute too. WALL-E is cuter though. So now that you understand my opinion of WALL-E's physical appearance, let's talk about the movie...

Ok, so, WALL-E stands for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class. Pretty much he's a little machine that rolls around crushing and organizing our garbage 700 years in the future. One day, while WALL-E is just doin' his thang, another robot comes down to earth and her name is EVE (Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) which WALL-E pronounces EV-A and it's so freaking adorable. EVE is sent from outerspace by the humans who have been living there to find plant life to evaluate whether or not Earth is inhabitable again. She does find a plant and once she does, she shuts down and she must be taken back to the humans and WALL-E who is in love with her has to follow...

This movie is really great and funny and sweet and I totally think everybody needs to see it. It's very interesting- pretty much the first half of the movie there is no dialogue (WALL-E and EVE can only say each other's names). And it's really scary to think what life could be like 700 years from now... trash piled to the sky, robots left behind to clean it up, every single person obese floating around on personal hovercraft on a spaceship, machines and computers rule. It's creepy because it's not completely unbelievable that that could happen. Let's try to make sure it doesn't okay? It wasn't very pretty.

Evening

2008-11-20T11:01:00.000-08:00

Evening - (2007) - Lajos Koltai

Ok people, what is this movie about? Seriously. Because I don't know and I just watched it. I was reading some reviews and from what I can tell, they didn't get it either. I'm not going to try very hard to tell you what the plot was, aside from the fact that it's too confusing, but it doesn't matter because I'm not recommending it anyway!

Ugh. What is Evening saying? I have no idea what the point of the movie was. Was I supposed to be thinking oh what a sad, unfulfilling love story or oh that's sad she never lived her dream to be a singer? What was I supposed to take from the dying lady's children? I just didn't get it!! WHAT is it about? Not who are the people and what are they doing, but is it about love? friendship? family? death? regret? grief? Just look at some of these quotes from reviews of this movie. I am so glad I was not the only one feeling so lost watching this movie- in more ways than one.

On the upside, I still like Claire Danes. I think she's a good actress, but it's just sad she had to be in a lame movie. She did great though. And there were a lot of other pretty big actors in this movie, but still, there were so many, none of them got a chance to shine and I honestly didn't really care about them.

Shortbus

2008-11-17T09:11:00.000-08:00

Shortbus (2006)

--John Cameron Mitchell

So I'm taking a break from not doing reviews to do what will possibility, probably be November's only movie review. Hey, let's try to get back on that train for December, okay kids? Anyway, I just really want to review this film now and I have to say upfront that I think this film should be shown every Christmas. Along with "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington".

Um, I should probably say that the movie contains graphic, graphic depictions of not-fake sex, but I didn't really get the feeling that it was pornographic (sorry for all ya'll who think all full nudity is). And yeah, there's a lot of gay sex, which I'm fine with. Just sort of saying this as a disclaimer. Also the director of this film directed "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," one of my favourite films, so I should probably say that I'm predisposed to liking whatever else he comes up with.

The premise is that there are people in New York who aren't getting the most out of their various sexual interactions. The central, central characters (there are a lot of fun random characters too) are "the two Jamies", one who is depressed (and starts going by James), the other who used to be a child actor. They are having... intimacy issues? And considering opening up their relationship. There's a guy who lives across from these two who watches them, well mostly James, and sort of starts following him around. There's Ceth (pronounced like it would be with an "s") who is "looking for his husband". There's a married couple, one of whom doesn't really make his problems known until the end of the film (which is awk) and the other who is a sex therapist who has never had an organism--and spends the whole film trying to get to the point. Then there's Severin, who is a paid dominatrix, but who really doesn't enjoy people all that much. So, yeah, they all convene at this place called "Shortbus" for the sexually challenged and gifted. Pretty much anything goes there, it's a safe place to explore and meditate on or engage in sex. Yeah, so really they just sort of going around trying to deal with their various issues.

Most of the actors are relatively unknown in the acting world, they were apparently picked in a contest the John Cameron Mitchell had to find the cast. And I guess they were also involved in the development of their characters for this film. And I thought they all did really well. I didn't think they were going to be that good, probably because the last film I can think of where most of the cast didn't really have acting experience was "Elephant" which had some horrrrrrrrrrrrible acting. So I was pleasantly surprised that it didn't turn out like crap.

I overall liked this film. Here is something that the director says about the graphic use of real, actual sex in the film: "Mitchell says: “In the old days, when you couldn't show sex on film, directors like Hitchcock had metaphors for sex (trains going into tunnels, etc). When you can show more realistic sex, the sex itself can be a metaphor for other parts of the character's lives. The way people express themselves sexually can tell you a lot about who they are. Some people ask me, 'Couldn't you have told the same story without the explicitness?'. They don't ask whether I could've done Hedwig without the songs. Why not be allowed to use every paint in the paintbox?" Enjoy the blue links to wikipedia, cause I totally stole that quote from them. But yeah, I just want to say that I agree with that. The sex isn't for pornographic purposes and it's used to discuss real issues in the character's lives. It is a little shocking at first, but you get used to it.

I also liked the... it's hard to explain... the cute little intersections of New York city animations (it's just moving around the cityscape). I thought those were really cool. Weird at first, but nice at the end. I also enjoyed the music. Hehe, and I'm now listening to Jay Brannan who played Ceth. He's a singer-songwriter and performs one of his songs in the film. Goood. And all of the random, but not random smaller characters in the film were awesome. A lot of them actually played themselves, but I wouldn't really know that, not being involved in the New York queer scene, soooo.... But they were awesome and they definitely added awesomeness to the film.

Mostly I just liked that all of these people come together and they make a community and they have a place where they can feel comfortable with each other and able to express parts of their personality that they wouldn't necessarily be able to otherwise. Shortbus just seemed like a nice place to be with a group of really nice people. Go them! I think it might have been based off a couple of real-life places so that's really nice. Yay community! That was my favourite part. I also liked the end. It was the best ending ever. Very fit for Christmas! Haha. So, maybe ya'll won't see this, but at least you'll have some knowledge about what it's about I guess. Go forth with that knowledge.

Can't Hardly Wait

2008-10-27T08:35:00.001-07:00

Can't Hardly Wait (1998)

--Harry Elfont & Deborah Kaplan

Hahaha, I just wanted to see this one again. Ya'll have seen this one right? It's about a high school graduation party. Basically every high school stereotype that you can think of is represented in this film, but in a funny way (trust me, not as bad as it is today). The main characters are Preston (Embry), who's decided that this is the night that he's going to tell Amanda (Hewitt) about his four-year crush on her; his best friend (who's name I can't remember, sorry Lauren Ambrose!) who is fully disillusioned with high school and ends up getting stuck in a bathroom his wannabe playa "special K" or Kenny (Green); a jock who just broke up with Amanda and is regretting it; and a nerd who is planning revenge on that jock for ruining his life in high school, but gets wrapped up in the festivities. Then there are a bunch of minor characters, that are awesome. Especially the dude who just pops up now and again to steal things. Hahaha, life. Fun times. So great.

Just have to say, that when I was watching it I noticed that there were six people in it who would later be in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But then I went on wikipedia and apparently it was nine people! I'll list them. For fun times.

Seth Green (Oz!), Amber Benson (Tara!), the dude who played Jesse in the first two episodes, Clea Duvall who played Marcie the invisible girl, the guy who was Owen in Never Kill a Boy on the First Date, and then a guy who was in a few episodes as someone who was mean to Xander (sadness). Those were all of the ones that I identified. Then they tell me that there was some chick who was practically an extra in one of the episodes, and this guy who I sorta can't remember being in the film was apparently there, and then, ohmygod, the chick who played Veruca was there! When I saw her in the film I was like, where have I seen her before? But I couldn't remember. She looks so different in Buffy! Yeah, okay, done with that. Hahaha.

Okay, I don't really have anything to say about this movie, other than I enjoyed it and it's pretty funny still. Oh, I like Ethan Embry. Just puttin' it out there. And I love Barry Manilow too, so yay to this movie.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2

2008-09-16T21:22:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-11T19:53:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-11T19:15:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-11T18:46:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-11T17:43:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-11T17:14:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-03T13:15:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-03T13:07:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-03T12:41:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-03T12:26:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-02T12:10:00.000-07:00

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.