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.....