Confessions of a Shopaholic

Early Sunday matinees are usually my favourites to catch because there is the smallest crowd, no lines for popcorn and it's done early enough to get some shopping done afterwards (they roll up the streets in Regina at 6pm on Sundays). However, having slept wayyy in I had to catch the late afternoon showing. I was really looking forward to seeing this film and happened to have a free afternoon, so I decided to catch Confessions of a Shopaholic.

Based on the best selling novel by Sophie Kinsella, the film is about a young woman named Rebecca Bloomwood (Isla Fisher), a budding journalist who aspires to write for the fashion magazine, Alette. The film is directed by P.J. Hogan and also stars Hugh Dancy, Krysten Ritter, Joan Cusack, John Goodman, and a slew of other very talented people.


The story begins when the gardening magazine that Rebecca works for goes under, forcing her to look for other work. She decides to go to Alette magazine to find work, but is told by the front desk guy that the job has been filled. He tells her that if she really wants to work for Alette, she should try to get the opening at Successful Saving magazine because the company is so nepotistic. Rebecca gets the job. The only problem is that she's a shopaholic in thousands and thousands of dollars of debt due to her addiction. Hilarity ensues.

I loved this film and thought it was a lot of fun. Isla Fisher is so adorable and my crush on her just keeps getting bigger with each film (see my Definitely, Maybe post). I also loved Ritter as Rebecca's best friend, Suze. I would say it's definitely more of a chick flick, with the prototypical developing romantic relationship and of course, all the fashion stuff. I loved seeing so many great actors in one film like John Lithgow, Kristen Scott Thomas, Julie Hagerty (Airplane!), Wendie Malick and Clea Lewis (Audrey from Ellen). One of the things that I loved most about this film was that all of these great women actors had lines on their faces! Loved it and hope to God none of these beautiful and talented ladies resorts to plastic surgery to get rid of them. I prefer to see my movies with people who are able to express emotions and not look like plastic robots.


I have to admit that I have never read the book and one of the users on IMDB who wrote a comment says the movie isn't as good as the book. Another critique that I've read is that a movie about a shopaholic during a recession doesn't work. I find it rather timely though given that overspending and debt is catching up to most people about now and people are looking for ways to save and curb spending. I loved it, but I also went in expecting a cute, fun chick flick. I wouldn't go in expecting anything else.

More ramblings to come.....

Quickie Reviews

I've seen some movies in the last few months but just never got around to posting about them. Here's a brief recap....

Yes Man
I caught this shortly after it came out and I enjoyed it. Starring Jim Carrey as Carl, a divorced man stuck in a boring bank job and is known to his friends as a hermit who avoids their calls. Carl gets dragged to a seminar by an ex co-worker which features a self help guru who encourages people to say YES to everything. Carl skeptically tries it out and gets some surprising results. I really liked the premise of someone challenged to break out of their shell and found it adequately funny. Also starring Zooey Deschanel and Bradley Cooper.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop
My boy really wanted to see this and the trailers looked funny, so we checked it out. I have talked to people who really liked it. I liked it okay, but found it quite formulaic and one of those movies where the funny parts were all included in the trailer. Although, I do have to admit that Kevin James is quite likable and did a good job. It probably didn't help that I couldn't get into the movie because my girl was bored and needed to leave the theater a few times. On the other hand, if you're an eleven year old boy, you'll love it.

Role Models
After I took a look at the full cast and crew credit list for this film on the IMDB page, I was shocked to see that Judd Apatow was not one of the producers. I say that because it appears that they have recycled the cast from all of the previous Apatow produced films such as The 40 Year Old Virgin (Paul Rudd, who stars and co-wrote the film, Jane Lynch, who plays a similar, tough, sarcastic character, and Elizabeth Banks), Superbad and Pineapple Express. I have to say that they are all great talents and it was a funny story and premise, but I just could not get lost in it because I kept wondering, "Aren't there any other actors in Hollywood?". It's not that they aren't good, it's that they all keep appearing together in all these movies. Find some new talent and shake things up a bit. Just a suggestion.

Twilight
I had not read the book, but went to see this flick with a friend who was a HUGE fan of the series by novelist Stephanie Meyer. I really enjoyed the film a lot. Starring Kristen Stewart as Bella and Robert Pattison as Edward. An unconventional love story between Bella, a newly transplanted high school student, and Edward, a vampire from a family of "socially conscious" vampires (they only eat animals, not humans). Obstacles appear in the form of a small, wandering group of vampires who get thrills from hunting down their human prey and from a mysterious family of local Native Americans who appear to know more about the vampire situation than they let on. I really liked the story and the stylish way it looked. I recommend seeing this one and look forward to checking out the sequel.

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
I thought that the first one was pretty cute with the kind of humour that hits adults as well, so I was happy to take the kids to see this when it first came out. It was just as enjoyable, if not more than the first one. The original cast of Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer and Jada Pinkett Smith returns. The film begins where the last one ended with the crew flying back to New York in an old plane being piloted by those shady, hilarious penguins. They crash land in Africa and get to know their roots and hang with their own kind with hilarious results while the penguins work on fixing the plane. Very funny and fun for the whole family.

More ramblings to come.....

Definitely, Maybe

I know it's been a bazillion years since my last post, but I haven't felt much inspired by anything I've seen enough to post about it. I'll work on a quickie reviews post of the flicks I've seen in the theater in the last few months. In any case, I had been wanting to check out Definitely, Maybe since it came out last year, mostly because of my monster crush on Ryan Reynolds. So when I saw it in the previously viewed section for $6.99, I snatched it up.

Written and directed by Adam Brooks, the film is a romantic comedy about a recently divorced man, Will Hayes (Reynolds), telling a story to his daughter, Maya (Abigail Breslin), about his past loves and in essence, his life. Also starring Elizabeth Banks, Isla Fisher and Rachel Weisz as the three women from Will's past.

The story begins when Will's daughter, Maya, has learned about sex in health class and wants to know about how her father and mother met and how many girlfriends he had before meeting her mother. Will makes a deal with her that he will tell her the story, but will change the names and some of the details and she will have to figure out which one in the story is her mother. The story takes place over a twelve year period of time beginning when Will has to leave Madison, Wisconsin, and his college sweetheart to go work for Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in New York City. Over the course of the story, told in flashback, we meet all three women, Emily, the college sweetheart (Banks), Summer, the sophisticated friend of Emily (Weisz), and April, the spunky co-worker (Fisher).


I really liked this film a lot. It was a very fresh take on the tired, romantic comedy formula. Reynolds dubbed it a "romantic who dunnit?" in his audio commentary with director, Adam Brooks and I like that assessment. One of the user comments on IMDB says this is predictable and formulaic, but I have to disagree. I honestly did not figure out who was Maya's mother until Maya did. I liked seeing the growth and progression of Will from a fresh faced, idealistic small town boy arriving in the big city to an unhappy, stuck in a rut, recently divorced man. I've always loved Ryan Reynolds but now I love Isla Fisher even more....sooo adorable! Everybody was well cast and Kevin Kline was a nice surprise as Hampton Roth, the well established, alcoholic novelist who sets up Will and Summer. Also good were Derek Luke as Russell, Will's roommate, co-worker and later on, business partner and Adam Ferrara as Gareth, Will's short-tempered supervisor on the Clinton campaign. I highly enjoyed it.

Ending with a quote from the part where Will is practicing proposing marriage to Emily on April.....

Will: Will you um, marry me?
April: What do you mean, 'Will you, um, marry me?' I haven't seen you in weeks! You don't look happy or excited about the prospect of our marriage! You're asking me to give up my - my freedom, my joie de vivre for an institution that fails as often as it succeeds? And why should I marry you anyway? I mean, why do you wanna marry me? Besides some bourgeois desire to fulfil an ideal that society embeds in us from an early age to promote a consumer capitalist agenda?

More to come......