Ramblings of a Crazy, Native Chick

Up in the Air

2010-02-28T19:41:00.005-07:00

I saw Up in the Air at a Stars & Strollers screening a few weeks ago and am just now getting around to writing about it. I had to give in to the award buzz and see if it was any good. I was pleasantly surprised.

Written and directed by Jason Reitman, the film stars George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a "termination specialist" and aspiring motivational speaker. Ryan travels the country for work and loves his life constantly flying from place to place to fire the people working for the company that hires Ryan's firm. The film doesn't quite fall into just one genre. As with one of Reitman's other directorial films, Juno, the film is a comedic drama with a little bit of romance.

As with most every narrative film, the story begins when the protagonist's life is thrown out of balance by the inciting incident. The inciting incident being that Ryan is called into head office with the news that with the help of a new, young go-getter, Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), the termination specialists will be working from the main office with the help of new technology. This panicks Ryan as he considers the airports, airplane cabins and hotels that he frequents home. He convinces the head boss to let him take Natalie on the road to show her why they can't fire people via webcam. Ryan also meets a woman named Alex (Vera Farmiga) who lives his jet setting lifestyle as well and begins a casual affair. Ryan has always liked his solitary life, sees no value in being tied down to the usual familial obligations and responsibilities and has based his motivational speaking philosophy on this. While attending his sister's wedding and with his affair with Alex becoming a little more than casual, Ryan begins to question his choice of lifestyle. One that Natalie deems a "cocoon of self-banishment".

I really like this film a lot not just because of the great writing, but because George Clooney is awesome and shows a side that I've never seen before, a vulnerable one. Also, the cast is great with Clooney, Farmiga and Kendrick all nominated for Golden Globes, Oscars and numerous other awards for their roles in this movie. There are a lot of great actors who appear even for a short amount of time that add so much to the film, like Jason Bateman as Ryan's quick witted, sarcastic boss, J.K. Simmons, Sam Elliot, Danny McBride and more. The character transformation with Ryan was subtle and well done. Reitman did a great job directing and illustrating Ryan's life up in the air while making his story a touching one. I highly recommend this one. Ending with a quote from Ryan's "motivational" talk about the amount of things in your figurative backpack when you add more relationships......

"Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks. "

More ramblings to come.......

Rifftrax!

2010-02-25T01:07:00.004-07:00

I have been a super nerdy fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 since I first laid eyes on it on the Sci Fi network sooo many years ago. I'm always really impressed when people can make great, funny things on a small budget and really pull it off. This was one of those shows. Mike Nelson, and his robot friends Tom Servo and Crow are forced to watch crappy Sci Fi movies. So in order to keep their sanity, they crack jokes and make smartass comments thoughout the whole movie. Created by the original crew member, Joel Hodgson, I actually caught this show later in its run, so I was only familiar with Mike Nelson. I couldn't miss this show when it was on Saturday afternoons or Talk Soup when it was hosted by hilarious cheesemeister John Henson. I was able to watch some of my favourites on YouTube, and I discovered through a friend last year that the guys were still at it with RiffTrax. They're downloadable mp3 tracks of the guys riffing the movie to play at the same time as the DVD. You can also download the rifftrax player, so you put the DVD in the computer and they automatically play together. Although it's not quite the same as MST3K, I'll take what I can get! If you watch tv shows or flicks on the pute, I would recommend a few of my favourite episodes, such as Time Chasers, Hobgoblins, The Final Sacrifice and Space Mutiny. They've helped make some crappy movies watch-able and given us a lot of laughs on a Friday night. These guys are too freaking funny. Enjoy......

More ramblings to come.....

Valentine's Schmalentine's

2010-02-14T14:22:00.009-07:00

So for the Valentine's Day post, I thought, do I try to pick from a billion crappy rom coms to write about? I decided against that and thought for a change I'll make a post about Winter Olympic themed flicks. It being Winter Olympics time and whatnot, especially since it's taking place this year in my lovely country. Sooo, happy Olympics, everybody!

Blades of Glory
I really like this one a lot. Cheesy comedy? Yes. Guilty Pleasure? Most definitely. Will Ferrell and Jon Heder star as two rival men's skating champions who get banned for life from skating. Ferrell is Chazz Michael Michaels, the bad boy of skating while Heder is Jimmy MacElroy, a wholesome, picture-on-the-Wheaties-box type champion. They discover they can still compete if they team up and skate as a pair, much to their reluctance. Odd Couple hijinks ensue. Also starring Will Arnett and Amy Poehler as their pairs skating nemeses, plus many more great comedic talents.

Cool Runnings
This film is a comedic story about the real life challenges of the Jamaican Bobsled Team that competed at the winter Olympics in Calgary in '88. Starring the late, great John Candy as a disgraced, former bobsled coach who reluctantly takes on the four men who wish to go to the Olympics as Jamaica's first bobsled team. Classic underdog story, as well as fish out of water story, being that well, there's no snow in Jamaica (duh). Very funny and another reminder that we lost John Candy much too soon.

The Cutting Edge
I admit I saw this once a longgg time ago and remember it vaguely, but hey, it fits. Moira Kelly stars as a temperamental pairs figure skating champion in need of a partner after a bad fall. After trying out several partners who are unable to deal with her attitude, her coach and her father stumble onto an ex hockey player (played by D.B. Sweeney) with no figure skating experience that may be a possibility. Classic rom com with a figure skating twist. Kate (Kelly) and Doug (Sweeney) are oil and water who often butt heads, but somehow end up having feelings for each other.

Better Off Dead
Okay, so this one might be reaching a little bit. Although not Olympic themed, it involves alpine skiing, so give me a break! In all honesty this one is a favourite winter movie of mine. John Cusack stars as Lane Meyer, a high school guy who gets dumped by his girlfriend, Beth. Lane decides that the only way to get Beth back is to beat the captain of the high school alpine ski team on the slopes, since he was the one who stole her away. Lane gets help training for the race from the French foreign exchange student hottie who's staying across the street and from his hilarious friend, Charles de Mar (Curtis Armstrong) who has one of the most classic lines in this flick. "Lane, I've been going to this high school for seven and a half years. I'm no dummy!"

So if you'd rather hit yourself in the head with a big chocolate heart over and over again than watch another predictable romantic comedy on Valentine's Day, curl up with one of these instead. Can't make it to Blockbuster or can't find it at the video store? Here's Cool Runnings and The Cutting Edge both in full on YouTube. Enjoy!

Happy Valentine's Day, dear readers........more ramblings to come........

The Lovely Bones

2010-01-17T22:20:00.009-07:00

So, my friend Rox calls me and asks me to go with her to see The Lovely Bones. Why, why, why, WHY did I agree to go see this movie?? It's not that it was bad, but it's every parent's worst nightmare and something you don't ever want to think about happening to your own child.

Directed by Peter Jackson, the film is based on the novel by Alice Sebold. Starring Saoirse Ryan as Susie Salmon, the main character in the story. Also starring Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz as Susie's parents, Jack and Abigail, and Stanley Tucci as you've never seen him and will never want to see him again as Susie's murderer, George Harvey.

The film begins with an introduction to Susie and the Salmon household. She comes from a small, tight family with her loving parents, her older sister and younger brother. Susie is interested in photography and wants to be a wildlife photographer when she grows up. The only problem is that she also has a creepy, older neighbour who watches her.

If you've seen the trailers going into this movie, you know she's going to die. The first line in the trailer is "I was 14 years old....when I was murdered." This does not make it any easier to watch, though. The other thing about the trailer is that it is a bit misleading. It makes it seem as though the story is about Susie helping her family solve her murder from the other side and that's not really the case. Susie is in the "in between" place, which means she is not quite in heaven yet, but has already left her earthly body. Susie narrates while she makes her way in the after life and watches over her family and her murderer.

I have to admit that I have not read the book, but from reading the IMDB boards for this film I can tell that fans of the book are NOT happy with this adaptation. I agree with them in the way that the film seems conflicted with itself. One of their gripes is that there's too much CGI flashery to illustrate the afterlife. I agree there and some of it may have been visual metaphors, but I didn't get them. The other criticism is that it watered down the story lines and arcs of the characters who are mourning Susie's death. The scene right before her murder is very uncomfortable to watch and apparently, the book is much more graphic with her brutal rape and murder. In the movie they didn't even hint that she had been brutally raped before being murdered and in a big way, I'm glad that part wasn't graphic. It felt like they tried to balance too many things like the CGI special effects, the grieving family, and Susie's struggle with accepting her death to do a really good job on any one of them. Also, as much as I LOVE Susan Sarandon's sassy, chain smoking, hard drinking Grandma Lynn who comes to help the family after Susie's death, the comic relief her character brought seemed awkward and out of place. It was interesting, but didn't go deep enough to really explore the emotions that all of the parties felt going through their own experiences, but also, the biggest message being that sometimes life isn't fair and there is no justice. How depressing.

More ramblings to come......

Happy New Year!!!

2009-12-31T20:23:00.006-07:00

Wishing my dear readers (all five of them) a safe, happy, healthy and prosperous 2010! My party days are long behind me, so the LAST place I want to be on New Year's Eve is an overly crowded, drunken mess. Our New Year's tradition usually includes board games, comedy specials and staying safe and warm (it's a balmy -42C with the windchill this evening). So as a Happy New Year to you, here's one of my favourite comedy specials featuring that hot piece Daryn Jones. You might know him from MTV Live on MTV Canada, but I know him from Buzz with Mista Mo, one of my favourite low budget, late night shows back when I used to live in Calgary ten years ago. Below is the first of five parts from Jones' Comedy Now special. Funny ass shit!! Enjoy.....

More ramblings to come......

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!

2009-12-24T11:10:00.007-07:00

Another year come and gone, holy moly! I haven't been keeping up with this thing much and now that I'm done all my holiday stuff I can take a few minutes to sit and post. This time of year is crazy for everybody, trying to get all the baking done, trying to get the shopping done, trying to get the packages shipped out in time, Christmas concerts, etc. So if you can, relax and take a breather with your eggnog and enjoy some good holiday flicks. I don't mean watch Christmas Vacation or A Christmas Story or A Charlie Brown Christmas for the hundred and tenth time. This year I've compiled a list of great holiday flicks to watch that are not for the whole family, but ones for the adults to sit and watch alone that they haven't already seen a million times. Here goes.....

Love Actually
I love this flick. A great British ensemble film written and directed by Richard Curtis featuring Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Emma Thompson, Keira Knightley, Alan Rickman, Laura Linney, hot ass Rodrigo Santoro and many more. This Christmas film is part romantic comedy, part drama with a number of intertwining stories. Very entertaining and highly recommended.

The Holiday
Written and directed by Nancy Meyers, this holiday film is more of a chick flick. Starring Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet as two women unlucky in love and looking to get away from their lives. They meet over a holiday home exchange website and decide to live each other's lives for two weeks over the holiday season, mostly because they are far apart (L.A. and just outside London). I found this very entertaining and it wasn't just about two women getting away and finding possible romantic interests, but also finding parts of themselves again. Also starring Jude Law, Jack Black and Eli Wallach.

The Family Stone
This film is a family drama written and directed by Thomas Bezucha. Starring Diane Keaton, Craig T. Nelson, Rachel McAdams, Dermot Mulroney, Luke Wilson, Claire Danes, Sarah Jessica Parker and more as a family meeting the son's girlfriend (Parker) for the first time at Christmas. It's a more offbeat and quirky holiday film and I love that the deaf gay character isn't made a novelty and how much of the dialogue among the family members is said also in sign language, even when not directly spoken to the deaf character. They said in the 'making of' featurette that they went through the script together line by line to decide which ones should also be in sign language. A different holiday film to watch to escape the usual standbys.

Grumpy Old Men
I like watching this one at Christmas, although not marketed as a Christmas film, I consider it one with all the snow and it taking place in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Plus it's a nice, light comedy to watch with the adult folks in the house, but also suitable to watch if you've got kids running around. Starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau as two old neighbours and rivals fighting for the affection of the new town hottie, played by Ann-Margret. A very funny film.

Have a safe and happy holiday season!! More ramblings to come......

Dear Santa......

2009-12-24T10:11:00.000-07:00

I've decided that as my gift to you I'd track down one of my very inappropriate holiday favourites from the Trailer Park Boys. This wasn't a part of the regular series, but filmed as a separate prequel. Language, language, language, so do not watch with any young ones. Here it is, the lost Christmas special titled "Dear Santa, Go Fuck Yourself".......so, pour a little dark, spiced rum into your eggnog, sit back and enjoy.....

Happy Thanksgiving, Canada!

2009-10-12T13:54:00.014-06:00

I know it's been a gazillion years since my last post, but I really didn't see many films this summer and nothing really inspired me enough to write. However, the kids decided to break out the seasonal dvds we love watching this time of the year. I bet everybody has their movie and television traditions when it comes to Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. So for this post I decided to list a few of our favourite Thanksgiving traditions as well as shows I wish I could see again.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Written and directed by the late, great John Hughes, the film stars Steve Martin and the also late, great John Candy as an oddball couple thrown together by circumstances beyond their control where everything that can go wrong does. Neal Page (Martin) is an uptight marketing executive visiting NYC for a meeting and is trying to get home to Chicago for Thanksgiving with his family. Neal meets Del Griffith (Candy), a floundering shower curtain ring salesman who gets by on his charm and likeable nature. Through a series of travel related mishaps (delays, having to land in a different city due to weather, rental car difficulties, etc), Neal and Del are thrown together and Del makes it his mission to help Neal get back home for Thanksgiving, much to Neal's dismay. Despite the very dated music (think 80's Casio keyboard type stuff), it is very humorous and has held up well. A Turkey Day favourite for us.

Ellen
I love Ellen's television series so much that I've got almost all of the seasons on dvd and have written about it in more detail here. We broke out the season four box set to watch the Thanksgiving episode. In this episode, Ellen volunteers at a soup kitchen and invites a fellow volunteer to join her and her friends for Thanksgiving dinner. Paige has the Four Seasons cater the dinner to impress Spence's mother. Ellen and her friends discover during dinner that Perry, the volunteer that Ellen invited to join them, is actually homeless. Awkward hijinks ensue. Guest starring the very talented and funny Joe Flaherty as Perry.

Cheers
When thinking about Thanksgiving shows, this one has always stuck out in my memory. You know the one. The one where everybody, not able to be with their loved ones, goes to Carla's house for Thanksgiving with the infamous Thanksgiving dinner food fight with Diane dressed in a ridiculous pilgrim costume. I hadn't seen it in ages, though, but was able to track it down on youtube. Enjoy.

WKRP in Cincinatti
Another television show that immediately comes to mind when thinking about Thanksgiving is the episode of this show when Mr. Carlson, who owns the radio station, decides to give a whole lotta turkeys away to listeners.....by dropping them out of a helicopter. I was unable to find the episode in its entirety, but I did find this small clip of the Turkey Drop.....

WKRP in Cincinnati: Thanksgiving Turkey Bomb! @ Yahoo! Video

Garfield's Thanksgiving
This is one we have on dvd and watch every year. We actually have the dvd with the Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas specials on it. Garfield looks forward to a big Thanksgiving dinner. Jon attempts to make his own dinner for his crush, Liz, Garfield and Odie's veterinarian. Grandma has to bail Jon out of a turkey dinner disaster. I was able to find the episode on youtube, but the video has embedding disabled, so you'll just have to click here to watch the special on youtube.

Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
We broke out the season 1 box set to watch the Thanksgiving episode where Will's mother visits from Philly for Thanksgiving. In order to prove to Will's mother, Vi, that the children aren't spoiled, Aunt Vivian orders Will, Ashley, Carlton and Hilary to make the Thanksgiving dinner for the family and Will and Carlton's English teacher with disastrously humorous results.

Enjoy your turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed taters n gravy, punkin pie and all that other fun stuff. I will end with a quote from Garfield's Thanksgiving special with Garfield explaining to Odie the reason for Thanksgiving:

Garfield: Thanksgiving is the day we celebrate food by eating as much of it as possible!

More ramblings to come.......

Quickie Reviews

2009-07-11T23:03:00.009-06:00

Public Enemies
So Rox and I had to pick a movie last Saturday and we chose the Johnny Depp as John Dillinger biopic, Public Enemies. Johnny was great, Christian Bale was great and Marion Cotillard was great. The picture as a whole is an interesting story, although I am not raving about it. It was entertaining enough and painted a bit of a picture of John Dillinger's life, but some of the criticism I have read is that it's not historically accurate and I cannot be specific without giving away some spoilers. I'd wait until it came out on DVD.

Year One
My boy and I went to check this out yesterday afternoon. We were the only ones in the theater. The trailers for this comedy written and directed by Harold Ramis made it look hilarious, however I would call it adequately funny. The film as a whole didn't quite flow the same way the trailer did and seemed a little choppy. I love Michael Cera and the rest of the cast was great featuring Jack Black, David Cross, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, the gorgeous Olivia Wilde, Vinnie Jones and many more. There were some laughs, but generally nothing to write home about.

I Love You, Man
Written and directed by John Hamburg, this "bro-mance" is hilarious. Starring Paul Rudd and Jason Segel in a film about a man named Peter (Rudd) getting married and realizing that he has no close male friends. He sets out on a mission to find a friend to add to his wedding party and meets Sydney (Segel). Platonic sparks fly and hilarity ensues. I really liked this film a lot. Rudd is adorably awkward as Peter and I've loved Segel since Freaks and Geeks. It was also nice to see Rashida Jones in a more major role than usual since I've always liked her. I recommend this one as I liked it a lot.

Up
I LOVED this movie. The kids and I saw it in 3D a few weeks ago and these new 3D movies are really cool. I loved the opening sequence that told a very beautiful story with little dialogue. Starring Edward Asner as Carl, this Disney Pixar flick was sweet, cute and touching. I highly recommend it. I really don't want to say too much more about the film so I don't give anything away.

More ramblings to come........

John Caparulo Rocks

2009-06-24T15:32:00.003-06:00

I caught this today on a re-run of Just for Laughs on the Comedy Network. You might recognize John Caparulo as a regular round table panelist on Chelsea Lately. This vid is from Caparulo's appearance at the 2006 Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal. Funny ass shit. Enjoy....

Departures

2009-06-21T17:28:00.014-06:00

Until recently, I've never been much of a television watcher. I normally buy DVD sets of shows that I like and enjoy them over and over. My boy wanted me to watch an episode of Mantracker on the Outdoor Life Network (OLN). I thought the show was cool and following Mantracker I happened to catch an episode of Departures and became HOOKED.

I haven't fallen head over heels in love with a television show in a long ass time. The premise is this, two Canadian guys travel the world with their cameraman friend. Simple, yet the show is soooo much more than that. The travelers are Scott Wilson, Justin Lukach and their cinematographer is Andre Dupuis. The show has two seasons airing on OLN in Canada, as well as the National Geographic Adventure channel in other countries with the third season in production.

Departures is a travel show with some of the most amazing cinematography you will ever see on T.V. Also, Justin and Scott are very entertaining no matter what they are doing. What makes the travel show different than others is the combination of experiences of the team and the infusion of Justin and Scott's personality into it. They do the well known landmarks like the Taj Mahal (Correction: the Taj Mahal scene was deleted from the ep, but can be seen on Youtube or in the special features section of the DVD) and the streets of Tokyo, but we also get to go along with them when they live in a tipi and live the experience of a tribe of native people in Mongolia. So the mixture of exploring the city streets, as well as the out of the way places and truly experiencing other cultures, and experiencing the local nightlife, all make it great. The audience gets to tag along on the busy streets of India to hiking and camping in New Zealand to partying with a group of friends in Tokyo.

Scott would be the tour guide of the group often giving the history of the place that they are visiting or explaining local customs with Justin being the class clown of the group. The addition of their personal experiences to the show also makes it great. We see Justin going through homesickness and inner turmoil at the end of his relationship while they are on Ascension Island and Scott's dilemma about whether to continue with traveling for the show or go home so as not to lose clients for work while they are in the Cook Islands. I also love that they include real life travel difficulties such as when they show up at the Cook Islands but their luggage does not, or while they are on Ascension Island they eat a lot of spaghetti because the grocery store is too expensive given their remote location or Justin getting sick while having trouble acclimating to the altitude while in South America.

Technically the show is so well done. I have already mentioned the amazing camera work of Andre, and the show has won a Gemini (like the Canadian Emmys) to back this up. The editing is also top notch with the music being such a big part of the show that the website for Departures includes cue sheets for each episode because of the many requests for the songs. I love the use of the animated map as each of their location changes. I love Justin and Scott (the fact that they are hot does not hurt), their interactions and the occasional peek of Andre (many forums and comments I've read have fans of the show requesting "more Andre!"). I love watching them try weird foods, get stuck in the desert with their broken down ATV's, hang glide in Brazil and get drunk in the Yukon. In the Chile episode, the guys visit a very strange museum run by a very spiritual man who gives some advice in Spanish and it is so beautiful that I have to include it:

"Live life to the fullest. It's the best way. Live every moment intensely. Because life is too short, and the moment comes when we're going to die, and we'd have wished to do so many things we didn't. That's why we have to enjoy every moment. One must enjoy life. Try not to acquire so many things, but instead have experiences. Accomplish everything you want to do, no matter the effort that it deserves. Life is too short and one must relish it."

The show is available for order on DVD at their website. My only complaint is that I ordered the season 1 set two weeks ago and my order has yet to be processed. (EDIT: I have since received my DVD box set and was well worth the wait, love the audio commentaries by the guys.) Here's the intro to season 2, but you have to, I repeat, HAVE TO click on HQ to watch it in High Quality. See this show if you can, you will not be disappointed.

Special bonus: deleted scene from the Thailand episode (again, must watch in HQ):

More ramblings to come......

UPDATE: The show's soundtrack for season 1 is available at the itunes store here.

The Hangover

2009-06-20T23:14:00.001-06:00

I actually saw this at a matinee a few weeks ago the weekend it came out. However, it being movie night with the girls, we had to pick one to go see. I had been wanting to see Year One because the trailer made it look hilarious. However, after perusing the movie review section of my paper, it seemed like a whole lotta people thought it sucked, plus my friend, Rox, dismissed it with a "it looks dumb". I'd rather see a good movie twice than a sucky one once. So to The Hangover we went.

The film is produced and directed by Todd Phillips (writer/director of Old School) and co-written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. The premise of the film is hilarious. A group of friends go to Las Vegas to celebrate their friend Doug's upcoming wedding. They wake up the next day hungover, not remembering a thing, and without their friend Doug. They must find Doug because the wedding is the next day. Hilarity ensues.

I don't want to give away too much else of the plot, because the events that unfold are great and even funnier if you discover them along with the characters. Starring the hot ass Bradley Cooper as Phil, Doug's handsome and carefree schoolteacher friend, Ed Helms as Stu, Doug's conservative, uptight dentist friend, Zach Galifianakis as Alan, Doug's strange and soon to be brother-in-law and Justin Bartha as the groom to be, Doug. Also featuring Heather Graham, Jeffrey Tambor and Mike Epps.

I loved this film. It was extremely funny and made me want to go back to Vegas. The humour is super raunchy, though, with some unexpected nudity (male nudity), so it might not be for everybody. However, our theater was laughing almost the entire time. I also love the way everything unfolded and how we didn't see what happened that night, we get to discover it along with the characters after the fact. Everybody was very well cast, especially Galifianakis as Alan, who was the funniest of the bunch. I highly recommend it, especially if your humour is on the raunchy and low brow side. Every other funny quote I can think of to add is a bit of a spoiler as to what happens in the film, so I will leave you with a quote from Alan's toast at the beginning of Doug's bachelor party, which he reads from a handwritten note on foolscap......

Alan: How bout that ride in? I guess that's why they call it Sin City... ha ha ha... You guys might not know this but I consider myself a bit of a loner. I tend to think of myself as a one man wolfpack. But when my sister brought Doug home I knew he was one of my own. And my wolfpack, it grew by one. So were there... there were two of us in the wolfpack. I was... I was alone in the wolfpack, and then Doug joined in later. And 6 months ago, when Doug introduced me to you guys, I thought, "wait a second could it be?" And now I know for sure, I just added two more guys to my wolfpack. Four of us wolves, running around the desert together in Las Vegas. Looking for strippers and cocaine.

More ramblings to come.......

Earth

2009-06-17T12:10:00.009-06:00

My map on the side has just archived itself, so I lost all my pretty dots. So I figure I better start posting again so I can get some more! Plus, I've been, you know, neglecting this thing. It's pretty sucky of me, too, considering I've seen quite a few movies in the last few months, some of them even pretty good. So I had a free afternoon and checking over the listings playing at the Rainbow, decided to check out the nature documentary Earth.

Any of you that know me or read my blog know that I'm a big fan of documentaries, so I was looking forward to seeing this. Apparently, this film is a feature length version of the television nature documentary series, "Planet Earth", according to IMDB. Released by Disney, the film is written and directed by Alistair Fothergill and Mark Linfield and follows the migration path of four animal families.

After looking at the IMDB for the film, I was wondering if I saw a different movie. The 7.9/10 rating, the user comment proclaiming it a "masterpiece!" and I just can't agree. I read that the film production lasted 4, 000 days and had a $40 million dollar budget. It was somewhat depressing at times and I know that the film crew is just there to document, but there were times I wanted to yell at the screen, "for God's sakes, put down the camera and help the baby elephant!!"

The film was sometimes educational but to me, it seemed to drag on too long. I had a hard time making it through the whole film and so did other people in my theater. A man left halfway through and even the two little, old, blue-haired ladies in front of me left before it was done. The biggest gripe would probably be the ever present, sometimes cheesy voice over narration by James Earl Jones. Sometimes it would have been nicer to just enjoy the visuals. Overall a bit of a disappointment.

More ramblings to come.......

Confessions of a Shopaholic

2009-02-15T18:42:00.006-07:00

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

2009-02-11T21:15:00.004-07:00

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

2009-02-04T12:11:00.001-07:00

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......

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

2008-10-06T00:00:00.003-06:00

Well, my good readers, I know I haven't been posting much lately. As I stated in my last post, I've been prone to depression all my life and feel one settling in lately. Depression can be a mutha fuckah, so Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist was just what I needed to help my funk today. I've been looking forward to seeing it since I saw the trailers because it looked cute.

Directed by Peter Sollett, the film is written by Lorene Scafaria and based on a novel by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. Starring Michael Cera as Nick and Kat Dennings as Norah. It's sort of a romantic comedy for the young hipster set and I've read a few people on the IMDB boards say that this is like Before Sunset for this generation. Not entirely sure I agree with that one.

Basically, Nick is dumped by his superficial girlfriend of six months, Tris (Alexis Dziena). Nick has been making song mixes on CD for Tris in an attempt to win her back. Tris doesn't like them and has been throwing them away, only to be taken out of the trash by Norah, who loves them. Nick, being in a funk, doesn't want to go out, but his friends and band members, Dev (Rafi Gavron) and Thom (Aaron Yoo) drag him out with them for a gig anyway. Nick and Norah meet by chance and end up spending a crazy evening together. Nick's friends decide they like Norah a lot better than his ex and create an opportunity for them to be alone, while they babysit Norah's drunk friend, Caroline (Ari Graynor). The only problem is....they lose Caroline. Madcap hijinks ensue.

I thought it was a cute movie. I like it when you don't always know exactly what's going to happen and when there are a few surprises. Nick and Norah were definitely cute together and Cera and Dennings have good chemistry. A little bit formulaic, but I somewhat expected that. I enjoyed it regardless. Nick's friends and band mates added some extra humour and Tris made a good nemesis to Norah. Although I did notice quite a few people on the IMDB boards asking, "what does such a sweet kid like Nick see in such a superficial, bitchy monster like Tris?". I really liked it and it helped my mood on this rainy, crappy day. Good if you're in the mood for a little pick me up, but I probably wouldn't buy the DVD when it came out. From the part where Dev is explaining to Nick why the Beatles were so popular.....

Dev: "Other bands, it's about sex, or pain, or some fantasy. But The Beatles, they knew what they were doing. You know the reason The Beatles made it so big?"
Nick: "What?"
Dev: "'I Wanna Hold Your Hand.' First single. Fucking brilliant. Perhaps the most fucking brilliant song ever written, because they nailed it. That's what everyone wants. Not 24/7 hot wet sex. Not a marriage that lasts a hundred years. Not a Porsche or a blow job or a million-dollar crib. No. They wanna hold your hand. They have such a feeling that they can't hide. Every single successful song of the past fifty years can be traced back to 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand.' And every single successful love story has those unbearable and unbearably exciting moments of hand-holding. Trust me. I've thought a lot about this."

More ramblings to come.......

Autism: The Musical

2008-10-05T20:14:00.003-06:00

I love, love, love a good documentary. I am also raising a daughter who has been diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder. So imagine my complete and utter delight when I heard about a documentary on kids with the disorder called Autism: The Musical (thanks, Johnny, for highly recommending it). I managed to track down a copy on eBay and got it for roughly 17 bucks, including shipping....only to find out it's a fucking screener copy in a paper sleeve. I feel so ripped off!

Anyhoo, directed by Tricia Regan, the film follows five different children and their families who are involved in the pioneer "Miracle Project" directed by Elaine Hall, one of the children's mothers. The project involves performing a play with a group of autistic kids who help to write the songs and dialogue of the play and rehearse the play over the course of six months. The children include Elaine's son, Neal, an eleven year old boy who is diagnosed with autism who she adopted from a Russian orphanage. Wyatt, is a very talkative young boy who is also diagnosed with autism. Wyatt is frustrated that he is higher functioning than the other kids in his special education class and that he is the target of a bully. He wishes that he could be in a regular class and not be seen as disabled. Adam is another young boy who has been diagnosed with autism. Adam plays the cello, loves girls with long hair and has a one on one teacher with him in his regular inclusion classes. Henry is a young boy diagnosed with Aspberger's Syndrome, which many think of as high functioning autism. Henry is extremely knowledgeable about the zoology of dinosaurs and reptiles. Lexi is a fourteen year old girl who is diagnosed with autism and has a beautiful singing voice.

I really, really liked this film a lot and having a child with autism myself made it especially personal. For those of you who may not be aware, autism is a neurological disorder that affects the way a person processes information. Their brains are wired differently than everybody else's. In 1980, one in ten thousand children were diagnosed as autistic, today that number is one in a hundred and fifty children. Boys are four times more likely to be affected than girls. I could see in the kids a lot of the characteristics and behavior that my daughter has. For example, when Wyatt, Adam or Henry cover their ears, my daughter does that a LOT. She is hyper sensitive when it comes to sound. The other thing is the impulsivity of some of the kids, my daughter also has that. She doesn't like big crowds, so it's more difficult out at a busy shopping mall with her. She also has some of the tantrum like behavior of some of the other kids and I think part of that is frustration of not being able to communicate what she'd like. She is like Lexi in the way that she's echolalic (repeats a lot of what she hears) but doesn't generate a lot of original speech. Although we don't really think of her as disabled, I think of her as differently abled. She's a tech whiz with a special interest in music. She can put together a puzzle faster than anybody else.

I really liked the realism of not just the children and their behavior and different struggles, but the struggles of the families. They showed how autism had created stress in marriages and relationships with one marriage breaking up during the filming of the documentary. Another family saw the husband have an affair, with the wife attributing it to the denial of their son's autism. I guess if I had a beef with the realism of the portrayals of the families, it would be the lack of monetary struggles. You see, Adam's parents include a former actress and model with a father who's company shared the Nobel Peace Prize. Henry's father is Stephen Stills from Crosy, Stills, Nash and Young. Elaine, Neal's mother is a well known drama coach who works on Hollywood films. The only thing regarding money struggles was when Wyatt's parents visit a lawyer to see about fighting to get Wyatt into regular classes. They are told it would cost between twenty five and a hundred grand. When my daughter first started seeing specialists, we had just left my now ex husband. Sometimes we didn't even have money to take the bus to get to her appointments. If there was one gripe about the film, it would be that it never touched on having issues like this, but it was good all the same. Just one more minor gripe is when the one on one teacher of Adam talks about his issues and says, "just imagine if he didn't have autism....the possibilities". I happen to disagree with this because I could imagine if I was seven feet tall what a good basketball player I'd be. It's my own personal opinion that my daughter is the way she was meant to be and she's perfect just the way she is. It's challenging yes, but as someone else pointed out, parenting children in general is never easy. She's taught me patience. Another thing I appreciated was the inclusion of Lexi's mother's depression. I don't know if this is a common thing with parents of autistic kids, but having been prone to depression all my life, it certainly didn't help to be going through a divorce and the initial diagnosis of my daughter's autism at the same time. I highly recommend this film to everbody whether you have a special interest in autism or not. It's a very compelling portrait of a disorder and the many different ways it affects an individual and their families. See it! I normally end off with a memorable quote from the film, but I'd like to end with a quote from an interview with Tricia Regan, the director.....

"In this movie the kids are struggling, trying to make their way in a world that doesn't understand or accept them and that they don't understand and accept. And the parents are struggling in a world where their lives have taken a left turn they never could have predicted. "

More ramblings to come......

Igor

2008-09-29T00:26:00.005-06:00

Holy crap, you'd think with the spare time I have now that I'd be posting more. My apologies to the remaining three readers left. I also haven't been going to the theater more often like I thought I would be. One minor rant to start this post off....all summer there was really only one kids/family movie that came out which was WALL-E and that was at the beginning of July. Igor is the first family to come out since then, besides the limited release of Space Chimps.

Anyhow, I saw this was coming out and decided to check it out knowing virtually nothing about it. Written by Chris McKenna and directed by Anthony Leondis, the animated film is a fairy tale of sorts taking place in an evil kingdom called Malaria. Starring the voices of John Cusack, John Cleese, Steve Buscemi, Sean Hayes, Jennifer Coolidge, Jay Leno, Molly Shannon and more.

I thought the film was kind of cute and humorous. It is a bit darker than most animated films aimed at families. The film centers around Igor, a hunchback evil scientists assistant who longs to become a famous evil scientist himself and be seen as more than just "an Igor". He has a knack for invention and is more gifted than the man he assists, except he discovers he's not really that evil. The big evil monster he creates is not only not evil, she wants to be an actress. Igor's nemisis is the not so gifted evil scientist, Dr. Schaudenfraude, and also his biggest competition at the annual evil science fair.

I left the theater thinking it was pretty cute, but now a week later, I can't remember a lot of great stand out parts. It is a bit darker in terms of humour and the fact that one of Igor's inventions is a suicidal bunny who is constantly trying to off himself. As long as you keep that in mind and you think the kids can handle it, you might find it okay. There was a lot of great talent in this and the voice acting was good, but something didn't quite work for me. Interesting premise and concepts, but it fell a bit short. Although, with the lack of family movies out in the theater at this point, I'd recommend checking it out anyway for lack of anything else out. Get on the ball, Hollywood.

More ramblings to come....

Back to School

2008-09-06T20:33:00.008-06:00

This last week was the first week back at school for the university students and the first full week back for the elementary and high school kids. I know for my friends south of the border they go back a bit earlier. Sometimes we have movie theme nights or even weekends in our house. We decided to have a "back to school" weekend on our DVD player, even though it is my first year not returning to school.

Mean Girls
First up was one of my faves written by the kickass Tina Fey. It is a perfect back to school movie because it's Cady Herron (Lindsay Lohan)'s first day at a regular high school after years of home schooling. She becomes educated about the ways of "girl world" by the school's popular clique of girls called "the Plastics". A very humourous look at the social dynamics of high school and the way high school girls relate to each other. I have written about it in more detail in the past here.

Clueless
This is another perfect back to school movie. Written and directed by the uber talented Amy Heckerling, the story was meant to be a retelling of Jane Austen's Emma, only in modern day southern California at a Beverly Hills high school with Cher Horowitz (Silverstone) playing matchmaker with everybody around her at school. Extremely well written, it is both a hilarious and entertaining look at high school. The film launched the careers of Alicia Silverstone, Brittany Murphy, Paul Rudd, Donald Faison, and Breckin Meyer. A definite must see!

Freaks and Geeks
I never did catch the series when it was on television, but I picked up the first and only season on DVD earlier this year and fell in love with it. I picked it up for two reasons, the first because I saw trailers for it on the My So-Called Life dvd box set and figured if it was anything even remotely close to MSCL, I'd love it, the other reason because I love Judd Apatow's films and knew he produced the show and wrote and directed some of the episodes. A great television show which portrayed the less glamorous and more realistic side of high school from the point of view of the misfits and the geeks. Great casting as well with the show starring Linda Cardellini, James Franco, Jason Segel, Busy Philipps, and Seth Rogen before their careers blew up huge. Why do all the really great shows only have one frickin' season?

Sixteen Candles
Blast from the past! A classic John Hughes teen flick starring Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall. Ringwald is Samantha Baker, a teenage girl who gets forgotten on her sixteenth birthday due to her perfect, older sister Jenny's wedding. She has a monster crush on the school's senior hunk, Jake Ryan. The only problem is his perfect, beautiful girlfriend who everybody in the school worships. I loved this film when I was younger (the film came out in 1984), and I got it on DVD last year and rewatched it. I have to say it's quite dated now, but still classic.

More ramblings to come....

Hamlet 2

2008-09-04T20:40:00.007-06:00

I had been wanting to see Hamlet 2 since I first saw the trailers a few months ago. I know when something is in limited release because it will go to the Southland Cineplex theater (across town from me) instead the Galaxy, which is right near by and has better popcorn. Lesser popcorn be darned, I went across town to see this at the Stars and Strollers screening, no less. Since it is now the end of the summer, the weekday matinees at the first run theaters have come to a close, and the only matinee is on Tuesdays at 1pm called the Stars and Strollers screening, in which people with their babies can enjoy a movie with other baby people who will understand when they make noise and stuff. Of course other people are welcome, you just can't bitch about crying babies.

Written and directed by Andrew Fleming, the film is a comedy starring the hilarious Steve Coogan as Dana Marschz, a failed actor and high school drama teacher in Tucson, Arizona. He rollerskates to school everyday and lives with his wife, Brie (Catherine Keener). The drama class is very small with only two students, Rand (Skylar Astin) and Epiphany (Phoebe Strole) who always star in the school plays, which Mr. Marschz always bases on films. Even though there are only two students in the class, Dana is very passionate about theater and teaching his students about the craft of acting, despite his experience being limited to informercials and humiliating commercials.

Another high school in Tucson has many of their programs cut, so a sudden influx of hispanic students join the class, much to Mr. Marschz's delight, which gives him more students and lets him feel like MIchelle Pfeiffer's character in Dangerous Minds. Dana is also told that budget cuts have affected their high school as well and it will be the last semester with a drama class. He comes up with a brilliant plan to stage a controversial play of his own that will give attention and help raise money to keep the drama program going. His play is Hamlet 2, a sequel to William Shakespeare's Hamlet, which features an appearance by Jesus Christ. Of course there is a lot of opposition from parents, school administration, etc, because what would a story be without obstacles? Dana also has trouble at home and the actors start clashing. He receives help in the form of a small spitfire lawyer, named Cricket Feldstein (Amy Poehler), who helps him put on the play despite orders from the court to shut it down.

I liked this film. It was very amusing and humorous, and Steve Coogan is totally awesome as the beleaguered drama teacher. The film will also have people asking "why the hell isn't Elisabeth Shue working more?" The students were well cast and did a great job, but I felt that their characters could have been more developed and their little arcs could have been flushed out more. I found the end a little anti-climactic though. It was a cute story but it didn't quite feel like the stakes were high enough. If you are able to check it out, I'd say go for it. I am now officially a Steve Coogan fan. Ending with the part where Dana shows Brie his freshly finished script of Hamlet 2 and she calls him crazy ("Um, didn't everybody die at the end of the first one?").....

Dana: Any person will tell you, sometimes you gotta go a little crazy to make great fuckin' art.

Amen....more ramblings to come......

Tropic Thunder

2008-08-31T16:49:00.010-06:00

So now that things are starting to slow down for me, I decided to catch a matinee on this rainy day. I was torn between The House Bunny (hey, don't judge, I love Anna Faris), Death Race, or Tropic Thunder. I chose Tropic Thunder, even though I really wanted to see Hamlet 2, but since it is a limited release (how come? the trailers look hilarous!), it wasn't playing at the theater near me. I will get to see it later this week.

Written by, directed by and starring Ben Stiller, the film is a comedy about a group of spoiled actors making a war film. The film is also co-written and executive produced by the wickedly awesome Justin Theroux (who knew they were even friends?), which brings me to ask...why the hell wasn't he in it?? Also starring Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black, Jay Baruchel (Knocked Up), Brandon T. Jackson, Steve Coogan, Danny McBride (Pineapple Express), Nick Nolte, Tom Cruise, Matthew McConaughey, Bill Hader (Superbad) and more.

The film starts out on the set of the troubled production of Tropic Thunder, a war movie based on a Vietnam veteran's book on his time in Vietnam. It is already behind schedule and way over budget, not to mention the director can't control his actors who are more concerned with their entourages, their tivo clauses in their contracts, and what awards they might win rather than acting. The scary and crazy studio head, Les Grossman (Cruise) puts his foot down and gets the overwhelmed, first time director, Damien Cockburn (Coogan) to deal with his actors so they can finish making the film.

The actors are dropped off in the middle of the jungle and due to some unforeseen events, are stranded and dealing with the real elements. The group of actors include Tugg Speedman (Stiller), a waning action star, Kirk Lazarus (Downey Jr.), an award winning actor who is overly serious about his craft, Jeff Portnoy (Black), a comedic actor who usually does fart joke movies and has a serious addiction to coke and heroin, Alpa Chino (Jackson), a young rapper type who hocks energy drinks, and Kevin Sandusky (Baruchel), a young, level headed actor who is the most together of the bunch. Wacky hijinks ensue.

I liked the film a lot and at times was more of a dark comedy. It wasn't very predictable and I love any behind the scenes film or a film within a film. It was very funny tongue in cheek poke at the whole process actors go through for a role and at film production in general. There's been a lot of talk about the "blackface" of Robert Downey Jr.'s character, but it's really not as controversial as people are making it out to be. I didn't think it was racist so much as a satirical look at how some actors are overly serious about taking on their roles and the lengths they will go to in researching a role. I also loved that there were so many great comedic actors in this one. I found myself watching thinking "oh cool, he's in it, too?" I wouldn't rave that it's the comedy of the year or anything, but I'd recommend taking a look see, even if you don't like Stiller (I've talked to a lot of people who don't), because it's a humorous send up of the whole movie biz. From the part earlier on in the film where Tyra Banks interviews Tugg Speedman on her show......

Tyra Banks: You have no real family, you're on the wrong side of 40, childless and alone. Somebody close to you said: "One more flop, and it's over."
Tugg Speedman: [pause] Somebody said they were close to me?

More ramblings to come....

Quickie Reviews

2008-08-24T13:25:00.009-06:00

Holy freakin' crap, it's been almost a month. Sorry I haven't posted in a dog's age, but I've been stupid busy this summer. I have three videos to finish still, a website to get up, and for FUN (in my spare time), I'm making a short film. Therefore, I have not made it to the theater as much as I wanted to and not only that, there wasn't very much that I actually wanted to see. Some in theater, some on DVD, others on TV, here they are.....

Pineapple Express
I was soooo looking forward to this one because I almost always enjoy Apatow's films, not to mention love Seth Rogen and James Franco together (Freaks and Geeks rocked!). There were a lot of funny parts, but it was a weird mix of stoner buddy comedy and violent crime thriller, with each part taking away from the other, not to mention the implausibility of the ending. Overall, fairly enjoyable, but it's no 40 Year Old Virgin.

Journey to the Center of the Earth
My boy had been wanting to see this and we got a chance to catch it at a matinee earlier this month. He really liked it a lot, and it's sort of fantastical. It's the adventure of a geology professor, Trevor Anderson (Brendan Fraser) and his nephew, Sean (Josh Hutcherson) and their guide, Hannah (Anita Briem), while they research the writings of Hannah's late father and Trevor's late brother. They were both Vernions, a group of people who believe that Jules Verne's fictional books were true. It wasn't bad, but it seemed like there was a short set up and boom, the action raced to the finish. Not bad, though, but not great, either.

No Country for Old Men
I went over to hang out with my friend, Rox, and we ended up catching this on television. I had been wanting to see it, because of the whole Oscar sweep thing (winning Best Picture of the Year, Best Director, Best Writer awards and a Best Supporting Actor award for Javier Bardem). I found it incredibly suspenseful and engaging, even though pretty violent. Technically well done and super great acting by the whole cast, particularly Bardem, Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones and Woody Harrelson. I enjoyed it and recommend it. I just want someone to explain to me what the hell the ending means.

Waitress
Written and directed by the late, kick ass Adrienne Shelly (RIP), the film is about Jenna (Keri Russell), a waitress at a pie shop who happens to be married to a very jealous and controlling husband. Jenna makes the best pies ever and wishes she could run away from her husband and open her own pie shop. The only kink in her plan is that she gets pregnant. A cute story about love, happiness and infidelity, it's not a typical chick flick rom com, but also not like a heavy handed Lifetime movie of the week (which it very well could have been given Jenna's abusive marriage). A beautiful swan song from Adrienne Shelly, who was incredibly talented and could have given us so many more great stories if not for her tragic murder shortly before the release of this film. You can find recipes for Jenna's pies here.

I am shooting my film this coming week along with finishing up my contracts for the summer, so I will more than likely not be posting much this week, but hope to get back to doing it regularly very soon.

More ramblings to come.....

Dark Knight

2008-07-19T00:18:00.010-06:00

So our office got this Friday off and I decided to go check out this Dark Knight I've been hearing so much about. Usually matinees aren't too busy, but I went with the second of the 12:00 screenings because it was sooo busy. Also, when we got out of our showing, there was already a line going outside the theater for the 3:30 showing.

I have no doubt that you, my good readers, are familiar with Batman and the origins of the character. Directed by Chris Nolan, the film stars Christian Bale reprising his Batman/Bruce Wayne character from Batman Begins. The film starts a year after the events of Batman Begins with Michael Caine returning as Alfred, Gary Oldman returning as Lt. Jim Gordon, Morgan Freeman returning as Lucius Fox, Maggie Gyllenhaal replacing Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes (apparently Katie couldn't get a permission slip from Tommy boy to do the film) and Aaron Eckhart as newly appointed district attorney Harvey Dent. You are also no doubt aware that this is one of Heath Ledger's final roles as The Joker.

I'm hesitant to talk a lot about the plot because I love the way things unfold. The Joker approaches the crime organizations of the city about working together to get rid of Batman. After the departure of Gotham's district attorney, Harvey Dent replaces him. Dent is also dating Rachel Dawes, the good friend/ex girl friend of Bruce Wayne. Batman works together with Lt. Gordon and Dent to try to catch The Joker. Gotham is soon plunged into chaos created by The Joker and it becomes harder for the trio to save the city.

I LOVED this movie. I had a discussion last night with someone who really didn't like Batman Begins and prefers the older Batman films. If you like Batman Begins, you'll love this one, too. I really like that Bruce Wayne isn't soooo tormented about his alter ego like Spiderman is in the Spiderman trilogy. He actually seems to really like being Batman, so the film is more about the story and action and much less about his inner conflict. Christian Bale was awesome again as Bruce Wayne and Batman. Everybody else was great again in their returning roles, Gyllenhaal made a good Rachel Dawes and Eckhart was great as Harvey Dent. I cannot say enough about how impressed I was with Heath Ledger, and he was absolutely riveting as The Joker. As The Joker, he was completely unrecognizable and totally sadistic.

There was a lot of action and it was great, but it wasn't the same brainless, shoot em up, bang bang kind of action in most action films. There was a method and a madness behind it and at times I was chewing on my nails wondering what was going to happen next. It will no doubt break box office records and all that, and even at 152 minutes, the film won't feel that long. It's just a really great movie with a great story and really great characters. Closing with a quote from Batman talking about the crime organizations crossing the line in their attacks on Gotham.....

Alfred: You crossed the line first, sir. You hammered them. And in their desperation they turned to a man they didn't fully understand. Some men aren't looking for anything logical. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

More ramblings to come.....

Funny.Ass.Shit.

2008-07-13T02:38:00.005-06:00

I'm currently in pre-production for a new project, so I am doing a lot of research. I came across this short film while surfing youtube and it's tooooo funny. Warning: It's very raunchy with a lot of vulgar and sexually explicit dialogue, so, NSFW and wear headphones around the little ones. I love it and it's so well done. Screened this year at the 2008 South by Southwest film festival, the short was directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson and features Evan & Gareth, the hilarious and talented duo who will no doubt become superstars very soon. Remember...very vulgar, so just don't click if that isn't your thing......

Love Guru

2008-07-12T11:28:00.006-06:00

It was a slow Friday in the office, so we all decided to duck out early to start the weekend. I decided to go see the The Love Guru at the cheap theater. It was either that or You Don't Mess with the Zohan, and I'm kind of Adam Sandlered out.

Directed by Marco Schnabel, the film is co-written by Mike Myers. Myers also stars as the Guru Pitka, who was raised with Deepak Chopra in the same ashram. The Guru Pitka feels he's in Chopra's shadow and longs to be the world's most well known Guru, although he is known as the Love Guru. He has an ever present (and quite attractive) assistant named Rajneesh (Manu Narayan) and a business manager named Dick Pants (the Daily Show's John Oliver).

The story begins when beleaguered Maple Leafs hockey team owner Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba) hires Guru Pitka to reunite her star hockey player, Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco) with his estranged wife, Prudence (Meagan Good). Prudence left Darren for one of his rivals, french Canadian goalie, Jaques "le Coq" Grande (Justin Timberlake), and Darren has since lost his game.

I've seen this touted as "Mike Myers' first original character since Austin Powers". I believe this was meant to be another hit like Austin Powers with the possibility of sequels to follow, however, I think Myers has been off the radar too long. Also, the juvenile and bathroom gross out humour just didn't hit with me. There were a lot of funny parts, lots of cameos and lots of great talent in this, but on the whole, it didn't come together. I did get more into it halfway into the film, but there were too many things going on to keep me there the entire time. Overall disappointing given how much great comedic talent was in this.

More ramblings to come......

Baby Mama

2008-07-06T15:50:00.004-06:00

Last week, shortly after I had gotten the kids off for the weekend with their father, I immediately looked at the movie listings. I had been meaning to see Baby Mama, which was playing at the cheap theater, mostly because I LOVE Tina Fey.

Written and directed by Michael McCullers, the film is a comedy about a woman's wish to have a baby via surrogate mother. Kate Holbrook (Tina Fey) really wants to be a mother, but is told by her doctor that she has a one in a million chance of conceiving. She turns to an agency to find a surrogate mother to carry her child. Through the agency, she meets a young woman named Angie (Amy Poehler) and her boyfriend Carl (Dax Shepard), who are what some folks might call "white trash". Angie and Kate make a deal and Angie has the procedure done to carry Kate's baby.

However, obstacles do happen, because what kind of a story would it be without obstacles? Angie leaves Carl and shows up on Kate's doorstep hoping to move in. Of course Kate lets her and the Odd Couple-esque hilarity ensues. Kate struggles trying to get Angie to eat nutritiously and treat her furniture with respect (Kate: Did you just put gum under my coffee table? Angie: I don't know. Kate: What do you mean you don't know??") Kate is an executive with an organic foods supermart with a hippy dippy new age-y guy as her boss, played beautifully by the love of my life and future baby daddy, Steve Martin. Kate also develops a crush on Rob (Greg Kinnear), who runs the local smoothie place (which is NOT like Jamba Juice!). There are a few twists and turns in the plot, so I will leave it at that.

I love, LOVE Tina Fey. I also really like Amy Poehler, Dax Shepard, and of course I love my sweetie, Steve Martin. Romany Malco was also great and hilarious as Kate's doorman who is friends with the women and tries to help them out. They were funny, there were a lot of funny moments, however the movie on the whole was not funny. I didn't get totally immersed in it and it felt like something was not quite right. I didn't really like how they wrapped the story up, but you'd have to see the film to know what I mean. In summary, it was "okay", but you might want to check it out if you're a big Tina Fey fan like me. Closing with a quote from when Angie is in the hospital in labour....

Angie: AHHH, it feels like I'm shitting a knife!! Why won't you bitches help me!?!

More ramblings to come......

WALL-E

2008-07-04T19:09:00.004-06:00

My boy wanted to check out WALL-E, so we went to see it. I knew very little about it going in, other than it was #1 at the box office this weekend and that it was a Pixar flick. Incidentally, paying almost four dollars for a box of Reese's Pieces is craziness! Anyhoo...

The film was written and directed by Andrew Stanton, the brains behind such Pixar hits as Finding Nemo and A Bug's Life. The film is about WALL-E, a small robot on Earth, who's purpose is to compact and stack the garbage left on the planet. He is the only thing living on earth, besides his pet cockroach. He lives a lonely life spending his day stacking the garbage into building-like structures and collects trinkets he finds from the piles of wreckage. He is also fixated with an old tape of Hello, Dolly!, particularly the love connection of two of the characters.

WALL-E has been alone on Earth for many years until one day, a giant space craft leaves an egg shaped robot before taking off. The robot is Eve, who was left on the planet to determine toxicity levels and whether Earth is livable again. WALL-E falls for Eve immediately (hey, robots need love, too) and begins teaching her about life on earth. The day they find a lonely, little plant Eve becomes inactive until the space ship comes back for her. WALL-E follows them until they reach a mega huge space ship and luxury liner carrying the survivors from earth. I won't give away much more of the plot so as not to ruin it, suffice it to say, the lives of the survivors of earth are extremely sedentary. They are all morbidly obese sitting in chairs that carry them wherever they want to go while a screen of television and communication tools sits about a foot in front of their face and having every meal delivered in a cup keeps them from having to get up.

I really liked it a lot. The film was a very cute love story between two little robots. It was also a startling commentary on the direction of the planet and our lifestyles if things don't change. I was most impressed that they were able to do that with very little dialogue. WALL-E spends his days stacking garbage into skyscrapers and it's never ending. When Eve's space ship leaves, it must break through a big wall of satellites orbiting earth. Also, the screens that the humans are attached to 24/7 have them living life vicariously through it with the screen doing activities for them without them having to get up at all, a la video games. I like it when films can make commentary like that and not be heavy handed like serious apocalyptic films that are downers. This was more or less a gentle nudge on how things will be if we don't change things now. The film is aimed at a younger, family oriented audience, but I'd recommend it for anybody, really. Closing with a quote from the human captain of the ship.....

Captain: I don't want to survive. I want to live.

More ramblings to come........

Wanted

2008-06-29T20:55:00.009-06:00

It's been awhile since I took in a Sunday afternoon matinee, so I decided to check out Wanted. I knew very little about it going in, other that what I saw in trailers.

Directed by Timur Bekmambetov and based on a comic book written by Mark Millar, the film is about Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy), a young man very bored with his uneventful life. Wesley finds out that his father, who abandoned him as a baby, was really an assassin and part of a fraternity of assassins who was just murdered by another fraternity member.

Wesley is recruited into the fraternity by Fox (Angelina Jolie), who worked with his father. The head of the fraternity, Sloan (Morgan Freeman), schools Wesley on the ins and outs of the assassin game and his special ability that he always confused with anxiety attacks. The motto of the fraternity is "kill one, save a thousand", and feel that they get their orders from fate itself.

I enjoyed the film and thought it was very action packed and chock full of highly implausible feats. The crowds on the IMDB boards seem to identify it as being a cross between The Matrix and Fight Club. I wasn't familiar with the comic book or novel beforehand, but I thought the story was great with some unexpected twists and turns. I have to say that I hadn't expected to see McAvoy in a summer action blockbuster, given the hype for his turn in the Oscar winning Atonement. I thought Wesley's transformation was really good as he didn't start out good and cocky like most films where the "chosen one" has to be trained to fulfill their destiny. I also was reticent to see this because of Angelina Jolie.

Sometimes an actor will have their professional life eclipsed by tabloid press and none as much as the whole Aniston/Pitt/Jolie fiasco. I didn't want to see any of her movies since then because I couldn't seem to see her as anything else but that homewrecking hussy, and this is coming from someone who had a mad girl crush on Jolie until then. I saw it anyway and have to say I enjoyed her thoroughly. She did what she does best and should stick to roles like this where she smolders, looks sexy and is badass and stop trying so hard to be artsy and serious. The only thing I would have to add regarding Miss Jolie is this....damn girl, eat a sammich! Everybody else was awesome, too.

Highly enjoyable if you aren't expecting anything more than a pure, total and complete escapist popcorn flick.

More ramblings to come.....

Hookers

2008-06-25T22:05:00.004-06:00

My handsome and talented friend, Marcel Petit, is premiering his documentary, Hookers, in Saskatoon this coming weekend. The film is a documentary about how former street workers transitioned from the sex trade to go on to school and other careers. Marcel has made the film partly as a tribute to his mother, one of the women featured, to honour her strength. Unforch, I don't think I will be able to make it up to Saskatoon to see it, but I will see it as soon as it makes it down to the Queen City. If you are in the Saskatoon area, definitely check it out, or catch it at a film festival near you.

Much love and happiness, Marcel!

More ramblings to come......

Quickie Reviews

2008-06-21T00:56:00.005-06:00

I know, I know...I totally suck. I always promise I'm back to posting regularly and then I don't. How can my three regular readers ever trust me again?! I promise I'll make it up to you....somehow. I have managed to make it to the theater and I'll give a short summary on what I've seen thus far.....

Sex and the City
My girlfriends and I were really looking forward to seeing this film long before it came out and so was every woman and gay man who was a big fan of the show. I personally loved it, despite it being almost two and a half hours. I do think you'd really have to be a fan of the show and familiar with the characters and plotlines to really grasp the gravity of some of the things that happen straight off the bat. Everybody who was a regular character came back and brought their men with them. Cast was good, writing was good, it was all good. I especially liked the addition of Jennifer Hudson as Carrie's new kick ass assistant, Louise. Highly recommended, only if you are a fan of the show.

What Happens in Vegas
I had heard good word of mouth about this one and decided to check it out. I wasn't sure I'd like Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher together in a romantic comedy. It wasn't too formulaic and I thought they had some good chemistry. It wasn't too overly sappy or cornball. Basically, Diaz and Kutcher meet as strangers in Vegas and hit it off and spend the night partying together only to wake up and find out that they got married. They are court ordered to stay married after one of them wins a lot of money and they start fighting over it. Much humour is provided by their two sardonic friends (Rob Corddry and Lake Bell) who help them try to win the court battle in very sneaky ways. I went in not expecting much but was pleasantly surprised.

Kung Fu Panda
My kids were looking forward to this one, partially because they've been showing trailers of it for ages. I happen to enjoy Jack Black, animated or not, so I thought it would be okay. I thought it would be cute, but it was actually fairly entertaining, although a little formulaic. Black is Po, a panda who wants more than anything to join the elite group of kung fu animals trained by Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman). His father however, wants him to follow in his footsteps in the soup biz. Po's inner conflict commences. I wouldn't rate it as high as say, Horton Hears a Who, but it was amusing, tolerable and enjoyable.

More ramblings to come....(no, really)....

Smart People

2008-05-28T15:49:00.000-06:00

I decided to go check out of a flick while I get over this stupid cold and chose Smart People. I went knowing very little except that Sarah Jessica Parker was one of the stars. A good friend of mine likes to go into a movie knowing nothing about the plot. Me: "Hey, Rox, wanna go see ___?" Rox: "Who's in it?" Me: "So and So and that other guy from that T.V. show, and it's about..." Rox: "Don't tell me! Let's just go." I felt a little like her this afternoon.

Written by Mark Poirier and directed by Noam Murro. the film is about an aging widowed college professor named, Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) who is pretty unhappy in his life. He is a professor wishing to be the head of the department, but doesn't seem to enjoy teaching, doesn't remember any of his students and has a book rejected over and over by publishers. He lives alone with his overly responsible, Republican teenage daughter, Vanessa (Ellen Page).

After an accident which renders him unable to drive, Lawrence asks his irresponsible, unemployed loafer brother, Chuck (Thomas Haden Church), to live with him to help the family out. He also discovers an old student of his who had a huge crush on him, his doctor, Janet Hartigan (Sarah Jessica Parker). Chuck helps shakes things up in the Wetherhold household and even gets uptight Vanessa to loosen up a bit, since she has taken the role of the caretaker a little too seriously after her mother's death. Lawrence begins dating Janet, but is pretty rusty at dealing with women.

It wasn't a terrible film. I felt like it was sort of trying to be like Little Miss Sunshine with its quirky, depressed, low key characters and their transformation arcs. I couldn't get lost in it, though. I love Sarah Jessica Parker normally, being a big Sex and the City fan, but it seemed like she phoned this one in. I realize the atmosphere was supposed to be low key and slow moving, but...come on. Page, Haden Church and Quaid were good, though, in an otherwise boring film. In all honestly, I can't even find or remember a good quote from the film to leave you with, so I'll just say......

More ramblings to come.......

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2008-05-24T22:50:00.001-06:00

I have been looking forward to seeing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull for awhile now. If you're like me, you grew up watching Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (with the oft-parodied opening sequence), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. This Indiana Jones flick comes 19 years after the last one with a lot of hype to live up to.

Directed by Steven Spielberg and co-written by George Lucas, the film picks up with Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) during the early 1950s. Indy is brought back into action when he is persuaded by the Russian antagonists headed by head, bad KGB bitch, Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) to help them find a crystal skull. He is aided by a young man named Mutt (Shia LaBeouf) who asks for his help on behalf of an old, archaeologist friend. Karen Allen also reprises her role as Marion Ravenwood from the first Indy movie. I don't want to give away too much more of the plot.

This has a bit of a different feel than the other Indy movies, because the previous three took place during the 1930s with the Nazis being the antagonists, with the exception of Temple of Doom. This film takes place during the Cold War during the height of the arms race, so it still has the Indy feel with a bit more modernization. The other Indy movies also dealt with biblical type mythology and ancient tribal rituals with the sought after articles being the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant. The sought after article and material dealt with in the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is also new and different, but I won't say anything more so as not to spoil it.

Everybody was great, I thought. I know there was a lot of talk about the new Indy movie and jokes about him being in a walker and such, comparable to Robert Carradine in what my friend calls Kung Fu: The Arthritis Continues. I loved that they brought Karen Allen back rather than find the aging Indy a romantic interest 25 years younger like a lot of films do (Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones, anyone?). Shia LaBeouf was a great addition, too, and he is growing into one hot piece. He's gone from the dorky, but funny kid, Louis Stevens in the Disney series, Even Stevens, to the next up and coming big screen heart throb. His first appearance in the film has him looking like Marlon Brando in The Wild One. Cate Blanchett and Harrison Ford rocked as usual.

Overall, I enjoyed it. The special effects and stunts were awesome and it was action packed. I had a discussion about the film last week with someone who voiced their concerns about a "Star Wars level fuck up", in reference to what loyal Star Wars fans considered the immense let down of the highly anticipated Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace. I can't say for sure how rabid fans of the first three Indiana Jones movies will feel about this one, but overall I'm hearing from people, "It wasn't quite what I expected from an Indiana Jones movie, but I liked it". I concur.

From two different parts of the film when Mutt views Indiana Jones as a "teacher".....

Mutt: You know, for an old guy, you ain't too bad in a fight. What are you....80?
and again after some classic Indy stunt work....
Mutt: You're a teacher??
Indiana Jones: Part time.

More ramblings to come.....

Comic Relief: The Greatest...and the Latest

2008-05-18T11:44:00.009-06:00

I recently discovered that my contact email for my blog was on an account I had cancelled last September. Apologies if you've tried to contact me and gotten no response. So anyway, I was in Walmart last night not really looking to buy a new DVD, just browsing, when I came across the Comic Relief: The Greatest...and the Latest two disc DVD. I snatched it up immediately because I have fond memories of watching the first three Comic Reliefs with my family.

Disc 1 has a hodge podge of clips from the first Comic Relief in 1986 and other Comic Relief specials through the years. Remember when Arsenio still had a show? Remember when Bob Saget was still on T.V.? Remember when Elayne Boosler was funny? Ya, me neither. Just kidding, sorta, but if you do and if you're a comedy fan like moi, you'll enjoy lots of good earlier stuff from Dennis Miller, Richard Lewis, Penn and Teller, Paul Reiser, Rosie O'Donnell, Garry Shandling, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Kathy Griffin, and Dana Carvey's infamous "Chopping Broccoli" song.

The second disc is the Comic Relief 2006 special for Hurricane Katrina. Appearances by Ray Romano, Rosie O'Donnell, Susie Essman, D.L. Hughley, Dane Cook, Bill Maher, Sarah Silverman, Lewis Black and more. The special features on disc 2 contain very moving stories about the devastation created by Hurricane Katrina.

The DVD is a must have for the stand up lover. If you are a stand up freak like I am, you might find some of the material a little deja vu, like Chappelle's bit on black people being bad bargaining chips for terrorists and Ray Romano's Vegas bit for a few examples. I've seen and heard those done at least three other places. A word of warning though, there is a TON of f bombs and sexually inappropriate humour. I happen to really enjoy these things, but it's not for the whole family. Also, in the Katrina Relief special there is a lot of Bush and Republican bashing, so if you happen to be right wing or don't like that kind of humour, it might not be for you. I happen to love both discs.

It's hard to choose one quote with all the great one liners, but here it is, from Disc 1....Chris Rock on the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinski scandal......

Chris Rock: "He's a married man, he's supposed to lie under oath...what do you fear more; a God you can't see or a wife you can? God don't make you sleep on the couch. God don't hold back the pussy for fuckin' six months. We got a forgiving God, but wives don't forget shit."

More ramblings to come......

Quickie Reviews: Now Playing at the Cheap Theater

2008-05-13T00:25:00.011-06:00

The Bank Job
I saw this a few months ago when it first came out and really enjoyed it. Loosely based on actual events, the film is about the biggest bank heist in England's history. However, much more was going on behind the scenes than the bank robbers knew about. Starring that big slice of man hunk, Jason Statham and set in London in 1971, the film is an engaging drama/thriller with plenty of action and suspense.

Horton Hears a Who!
The kids really wanted to see this one when it first came out and I went expecting a cute, slightly amusing retelling of Dr. Seuss' classic story that would be more fun for the kids than the grownups. I was pleasantly surprised. Voiced by Jim Carrey, Steve Carrell, Carol Burnett, Will Arnett, Seth Rogen and more, the film is very funny to both children and adults alike. It is a better adapation of Seuss' stories than the big Hollywood productions that have come out in recent years. I would definitely see it again.

Run Fatboy Run
I got a chance to catch this at a matinee last week. Starring Simon Pegg, Thandie Newton and Hank Azaria, the film is also directed by David Schwimmer. Pegg is Dennis, a man who left his pregnant fiancee (Newton) at the altar. Fast forward five years later when she begins dating Whit (Azaria) and Dennis decides he's going to win her back by running a marathon. It wasn't bad, but I didn't really get into it until halfway into the film. I really enjoyed Pegg in Hot Fuzz and he's pretty cute as a doting father. All in all, not too bad.

Drillbit Taylor
Produced by Judd Apatow and gang, directed by Steven Brill and starring Owen Wilson, the film is about three young kids tormented by two older bullies. They enlist the help of Drillbit Taylor (Wilson) to learn how to deal with the bullies. I didn't enjoy this film very much and it was only slightly amusing at times. It was an interesting premise and I generally enjoy Wilson's work, but it just didn't come together for some reason. It was interesting seeing Josh Peck (from the Nickelodeon series, Drake & Josh) as one of the evil bullies, which is a complete 180 from the sweet goofball he was on Drake & Josh. I wouldn't rush out to see this one.

More ramblings to come......

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

2008-05-04T16:46:00.008-06:00

I've been wanting to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall since it came out and finally got a chance to last night. I also wanted to see Baby Mama, but my friend heard from other people that it sucked, so we went to see this instead. One of the reasons why I had wanted to see this was because I loved Jason Segel in Freaks and Geeks.

Produced by Judd Apatow (who, except for a couple of misses is pretty much Midas right now), the film is Nicholas Stoller's directorial debut and is written by the film's star Jason Segel. Segel is Peter Bretter, an unhappy, slacker t.v. show composer, who is dumped by his famous television star girlfriend Sarah Marshall (the lovely Kristen Bell). After wallowing at home for three weeks, he decides to go to Hawaii for a vacay hoping to take his mind off of her when he bumps into her and her new famous rock star boyfriend, Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) and finds they are both staying at the same resort.

Peter is still in his funk when the resort staff, hearing about his situation, befriend him and try to keep him busy and his mind off of Sarah. One of the people who helps him do that is the friendly, hospitable and drop dead gorgeous front desk clerk, Rachel Jansen (Mila Kunis). The other staff who helps Peter includes the burnt out surfing instructor, Chuck (Paul Rudd), the hilarious bartender, Dwayne (Davon McDonald) and Matthew, the waiter (Jonah Hill), who actually doesn't help Peter out so much as he does fawn all over Aldous.

I loved this movie and thought it was hilarious. I'm always up for a flick where someone has their heart shattered and has to navigate the waters while they are recovering. Segel is such a lovable loser and awfully brave for agreeing to the naked scenes. This movie will definitely have people asking, "why isn't Mila Kunis in more films?". I'm not familiar with Russell Brand, but apparently he is a comedian of some sort in England. I found him to be super funny as the male bimbo rock star Aldous. Paul Rudd was also hilarious, as well as the bartender, Dwayne, who I am shocked to see only has a few teeny credits on his imdb page, because he is sooo funny. Bill Hader was good as Peter's stepbrother/friend who tries to help him out at home and over the webcam and phone while he is in Hawaii.

There is a lot of sex and vulgar humour, so if that isn't your bag, you might want to skip it. I find with Apatow, he's a little hit or miss with me. I LOVED The 40 Year Old Virgin and Superbad, but didn't care so much for Knocked Up, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story or Drillbit Taylor. This was definitely a hit with me and wasn't totally predictable. I can also see it being on Budget Travel Magazine's Movie Quest list, the movies the magazine picks as most travel inspiring films. Hawaii is definitely a character in this film and makes me want to hop over there to check out the natural beauty and learn to surf. Sooo hard picking out a quote for this one because there were so many great one liners, but I will go with the part where Chuck is giving Peter a surfing lesson while they have a philosophical talk about life........

Chuck: When life gives you lemons, just say 'Fuck the lemons,' and bail.

More ramblings to come.....

A Princess Story

2008-04-30T12:05:00.002-06:00

Click to Play

This was my fourth year project for film school. I wrote the script in September and finished production in late April. This was a blast to do and I had a great cast and crew. I wrote a blog entry on the 'making of', which you can find here.

Final Project for Directing Actors class

2008-04-25T20:46:00.001-06:00

Click to Play

This is my final project for my Directing Actors class. Two scenes from Sex, Lies and Videotape. Directed by myself and Adam Williams and starring Lee Hanson and Sharon Warren. We had a lot of fun doing it.

Juno

2008-04-23T16:20:00.010-06:00

Since I was done all my finals and projects and FINALLY had some time to breathe, I decided to catch a matinee at my favourite cheap theater. I thought I would check out this Juno that I've been hearing so much about.

I'm sure you've heard and read all the hype as well, Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Actress (Ellen Page), Best Director and a win for Best Original Screenplay, yada, yada, yada. Written by Diablo Cody and directed by Jason Reitman. Juno is about a 16 year old girl named...Juno (Page) who gets pregnant by her friend who wants to be more, Bleeker (the dorkalicious Michael Cera). She has to tell her dad (J.K. Simmons) and stepmother (the awesome Alison Janney) and then decide what to do about the situation.

Deciding against an abortion, she considers giving it up for adoption and even meets with a wealthy, much too perfect couple who would like to adopt a child, Vanessa (Jennifer Garner) and Mark (Jason Bateman) Loring. Juno is also supported through it all by her friend Leah (Olivia Thirlby).

I have to say that at first, I thought the movie was trying to hard to be hip. The same way that I wrote that you could see how hard Walk Hard was trying to be funny at times, I felt aware that Juno was trying too hard to be indie and cool, especially with the dialogue. However, I found myself forgetting about it halfway in and got sucked into the film. All of the actors were very well cast and awesome in their performances, especially Ellen Page. I thought it was well written with great characters and it was hard to predict where things were going at times and it also avoided some of the traps that I expected in a movie like this (can't say too much about it without giving away some plot twists). Very enjoyable and different, however Best Picture is overshooting it. I picked the quote from after Juno meets with Mark and Vanessa about a possible adoption. She's just starting her second trimester (4th month).....

Vanessa: So you think you're really going to do this?
Juno: Yea, if I could just have the thing and give it to you now, I totally would. But I'm guessing it looks probably like a sea monkey right now and we should let it get a little cuter.

More ramblings to come........

My Fellini Class

2008-04-23T00:45:00.001-06:00

I am finally done! I finished my last day of finals, papers due and assignments due on Monday and now I finally have my degree! Convocation to happen in June. I took a directed studies class on the work of Federico Fellini. I wanted to see more Fellini films and asked one of my professors if I could do a class on his work and she said sure. She handed me a stack of DVDs to watch and a three hundred page book to read and said "I wish that I HAD to watch Fellini films". I was really looking forward to it. I will categorize them as I saw them.

Loved it...

La Dolce Vita (1960)
La Strada (1954)
I Vitellone (1953)
Nights of Cabiria (1957)
Amarcord (1973)

Liked it...

8 1/2 (1963)
The White Sheik (1952)
Ginger and Fred (1986)
And the Ship Sails On (1983)

Wasn't so crazy about...

Il Bidone (1955)
Juliet of the Spirits (1965)
Roma (1972)
Orchestral Rehearsal (1978)
City of Women (1980)

I suppose I should add that I warmed up to Juliet of the Spirits and 8 1/2 after watching it a few more times. I think I prefer his earlier work like I Vitelloni and Nights of Cabiria, but I also LOVE Amarcord. I love the imagery in Fellini's work. I love seeing his stories about provincial Italy. My prof thinks that he's a fatalist. We disagree about Nights of Cabiria. She thinks Cabiria will stay a victim forever and I think that the fact that she feels she deserves better is a good transformation.

My final paper was on Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of the carnivalesque and chronotope, and the grotesque characters in Fellini's films and how he uses them to parody himself and his hometown. For this thesis I looked at La Strada, 8 1/2, Amarcord and Ginger and Fred. I won't bore you with all ten pages. I'm happy I took the class and I'll post again on some of his films more in depth, but for now, I'm burned out on school and thinking and look forward to being able to go to the theaters again. I will write more in the next couple days.

More ramblings to come......

My So-Called Life

2008-01-27T21:36:00.001-07:00

I love....no, no, fucking LOVE My So-Called Life. I used to watch it religiously Thursday nights when it originally aired on ABC in 1994. At the time I was living in Banff, Alberta in my little suite in staff accommodation at the resort where I was working. I'd take my dinner out of the dining room, which we weren't actually allowed to do, so I could watch the show. So imagine my utter delight when I saw the DVD set of the first and only season.

Written and created by the uber talented Winnie Holzman, it was executive produced by Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, the powerhouse team behind thirtysomething. The series was a coming of age story of a teenage girl named Angela Chase (Claire Danes), but more than that, it was also a family drama for everybody. Angela lives at home with her mother Patty (Bess Armstrong), who runs the family printing press her father started, and her father Graham (Tom Irwin), who works for his wife, but is experiencing a mid-life crisis about what he wants to do. Angela is like most teenage girls living in middle class suburbian America, she does so so at school, prefers to spend time with her friends, is rebelling against her parents and her life revolves around her obsession with the boy she has a huge crush on.

Her best friends are Rayanne Graff (A.J. Langer), a funky, free-spirited girl with an addiction problem, and Ricky Vasquez (Wilson Cruz), a sensitive and stylish gay man with family problems. Also in and out of Angela's circle of friends are Sharon Cherski (Devon Odessa), her perky, school spirited friend since childhood, and Brian Krakow (Devon Gummersall), her honour student neighbour who has a huge crush on her. Both Sharon and Brian feel left behind by Angela's sudden change in attitude and friends at the beginning of the season. Angela's big crush is Jordan Catalano (Jared Leto), the gorgeous, but scholastically-impaired slacker.

The show was so perfectly cast and the characters were all so real, human and complex each with their own obstacles and story lines. I loved how the issues each character faced were something they struggled with throughout the series and everything wasn't solved by the end of the show, like Patty and Graham's marriage troubles, Rayanne's struggle with drinking and trying to stay sober and Ricky's living situation. The series is really only comprised of one 19 episode season. They left a cliffhanger, but unfortunately, the series was inexplicably cancelled. I loved this show and was heartbroken when it didn't come back and apparently there was even a movement of fans who tried to get it back on the air to no avail. However, with this box set it can be rediscovered by audiences again and the DVD box set has a ton of special features with writer and cast commentary on some episodes and interviews with most of the cast (pretty much everybody except Jared Leto). I've been asking around since I got the set and I'm surprised by how many of my friends have not seen it. I can't recommend it highly enough. One of the best written and acted shows ever on T.V., in my opinion. See it if you haven't!

Angela: "Sometimes it seems like we're all living in some kind of prison. And the crime is how much we hate ourselves. It's good to get really dressed up once in a while. And admit the truth: that when you really look closely? People are so strange and so complicated that they're actually... beautiful. Possibly even me."

More ramblings to come......

Atonement

2008-01-13T16:54:00.001-07:00

So again I gave myself the choice between Atonement and Juno for a Sunday afternoon matinee. I had heard about what a great, moving love story Atonement was and the good reviews, so once again I decided against Juno. I should also point out that Atonement won Best Picture at the Golden Globes tonight. Really?? Best Picture of the year?

Based on a novel by Ian McEwan, the film was directed by Joe Wright. Starring James McAvoy as Robbie Turner and Kiera Knightley as Cecilia Tallis. two young lovers who soon have their lives turn upside down as a result of Cecilia's young sister. Brioney (Saoirse Ronan), falsely accusing Robbie of something he didn't do.

I thought it was a good movie, but the raves and the Best Picture win baffle me. I didn't find myself sucked into Robbie and Cecilia's love story. I thought the jumping around in the timeline was a good device as it made the story more interesting. Honestly, I don't really have much more to say about it other than that. It was beautifully shot, I love the setting, but I didn't get sucked into the story. However, many seem to disagree with me.

More ramblings to come.....

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

2008-01-07T23:29:00.000-07:00

So, I had an afternoon to catch a matinee and I gave myself the choice between seeing Juno and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. I began kicking myself for choosing Walk Hard about ten minutes into it.

Directed and co-written by Jake Kasdan, the film was also co-written and produced by Judd Apatow. Judd Apatow is the reason why I had so much hope for this movie to be really funny given that he produced two of my favourite comedy movies in the last two years, The 40 Year Old Virgin and Superbad. The ever awesome John C. Reilly stars in the film which was another hope that it would be really good.

Basically, the film is a spoof of other music biopics like Walk the Line. Reilly stars as Dewey Cox, a musically gifted boy with a tragic childhood who becomes a music superstar like a Johnny Cash or Elvis Presley. The film follows his journey from childhood to old age and through his stages through the decades. Jenna Fischer stars as Darlene Madison, the June Carter to Dewey's Johnny Cash.

The rest of the cast was awesome as well, especially Tim Meadows, Chris Parnell and Matt Bresser as Dewey's band. The actors were all great, something just didn't click. There were a lot of funny moments, but there were many more moments were you could see the humour that just didn't quite come together. You could see how it could be funny, but you could also see how it was trying to be funny in a way that takes you out of it and makes you aware of the process in the same way that it takes you out of the story when you see the boom in the shot. Does that makes any sense at all?

However, John C. Reilly was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Performance in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy, so I may be in the minority on my opinion. It wasn't a subtle spoof like This is Spinal Tap or a very silly, obvious one like Naked Gun, it was a weird combination of being between. His performance was awesome, for me it was something in the direction. You may enjoy it, but I would describe it as ultra silly. That isn't to say there wasn't some parts that made me laugh. Here's one of them between Dewey and Tim Meadow's character, Sam. You have to picture Sam talking to Dewey in a tone that makes it seem as though he's trying to convince him NOT to do it.

Sam: [after Dewey accidentally barges in a room filled with smoke and groupies]
[coughs]
Sam: Get outta here, Dewey!
Dewey Cox: What are y'all doin' in here?
Sam: We're smoking reefer and you don't want no part of this shit.
Dewey Cox: You're smoking *reefers*?
Sam: Yeah, 'course we are; can't you smell it?
Dewey Cox: No, Sam. I can't.
Girl Groupie: Come on, Dewey! Join the party!
[takes a hit off a joint]
Sam: No, Dewey, you don't want this. Get outta here!
Dewey Cox: You know what, I don't want no hangover. I can't get no hangover.
Sam: It doesn't give you a hangover!
Dewey Cox: Wha-I get addicted to it or something?
Sam: It's not habit-forming!
Dewey Cox: Oh, okay... well, I don't know... I don't want to overdose on it.
Sam: You can't OD on it!
Dewey Cox: It's not gonna make me wanna have sex, is it?
Sam: It makes sex even better!
Dewey Cox: Sounds kind of expensive.
Sam: It's the cheapest drug there is.
Dewey Cox: [at a loss and out of excuses] Hmm.
Sam: You don't want it!
Dewey Cox: I think I kinda want it.
Sam: Okay, but just this once. Come on in.

More ramblings to come.....

Little Mosque on the Prairie

2008-01-05T01:09:00.001-07:00

Being that this show is filmed in my city and because I'm in film, I hear about what's going on in the biz around here, and I've heard the buzz about Little Mosque on the Prairie before it even aired. I've been meaning to check it out, but I'm really not much of a T.V. watcher. I buy T.V. shows on DVD to watch, but I don't watch cable very often. I was in Walmart trolling for new DVDs and thought I'd finally check it out.

Season 1 begins when Amaar (Zaib Shaikh), the new Imam from Toronto arrives in small town Mercy, Saskatchewan. The local Muslims have set up a Mosque in the Parish hall of the Anglican church. The show's main characters include the Hamoudi family, father Yasir (Carlo Rota), a building contractor who runs his office out of the Mosque, his western wife Sarah (Sheila McCarthy), and their beautiful daughter, Rayyan (Sitara Hewitt), the town doctor. Other members of the Mosque include Baber (Manoj Sood), a widowed, traditional Muslim man exasperated by his teenage daughter, Layla (Aliza Vellani), who is going through typical teenage rebellion doubled with her embarrassment of her religion being different than all her friends and her father (Baber: "Layla, turn off that hippity hop!"). Fatima (Arlene Duncan), a widowed African Muslim woman, runs the cafe in town, a popular meeting place for all the characters. The Anglican priest, Reverend Duncan McGee (Derek McGrath), has opened up the Parish Hall for the Muslim community to use as a Mosque, much to the dismay of several townspeople. He also begins a friendship with Amaar and becomes a mentor, giving him advice on leading a congregation of followers and the headaches that sometimes go along with it.

Unfortunately, the first season only contains eight episodes. I have to admit, my knowledge of Islam is limited to the two weeks that we studied it in my Religious Studies 100 class. I enjoy the show for that reason. It's interesting to see the Saskatchewan experience through the eyes of a Muslim. Our small towns are not exactly known for their tolerance and understanding of different religions, sexual orientations, races, etc. Don't get me wrong, I love Saskatchewan, but I have had my fair share of racism growing up Native Canadian in this province. One character that addresses this is Fred Tupper (Neil Crone), the town's radio talk show host who spews ignorant rants about women, Muslims, homosexuals and anything different on his show. However, off air, he is slightly more tolerant spending a lot of time at Fatima's cafe (some on the IMDB boards speculate that he actually has a crush on her). Speaking of crushes, it is clear there is also some tension between the beautiful Rayyan and the hunky Amaar.

I consider the show fresh, enjoy the humour and look forward to season 2 when it comes out on DVD. I get a big kick out of Baber and his interactions with his daughter, especially. I also like the interactions between Amaar and Duncan. We briefly discussed the show in my producing class last year. The instructor, who is a writer and producer, has a barometer of whether a show is a success or not. "Is it embarrassing?" If the answer is no, then it's a success. So, his assessment of the show was "it wasn't embarrassing". In any case, it's worth checking out and airs on CBC. I chose to end with a quote from the episode where the Mosque gets a convert who is a little too uh, exuberant about his new faith for everybody's taste.

Marlon (the convert): You'd make an obedient wife. Perhaps we could meet for coffee?
Rayyan: I don't meet men for coffee.
Marlon: Forgive me, I meant with a chaperone.
Rayyan: My chaperone....has to wash her hair.

More ramblings to come.....

Quickie Reviews

2008-01-02T00:34:00.000-07:00

For whatever reason, I sometimes don't always get a chance to write about what I get to see at the movies. This is a short summary of those that I have seen, but have yet to write a full post about.

I am Legend
Starring Will Smith as Robert Neville, a scientist who is the only survivor left in Manhattan after a virus wiped out much of humanity. He works on finding a cure for the remaining virus infected "humans" who have turned into some kind of aggressive, animalistic vampire-like creatures. My sister insisted I see this because it had such a great message and made it sound uplifting. It was action packed, and suspenseful, but I missed the uplifting part. It was okay overall, but I'd wait until it came out on DVD.

The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep
My son really wanted to see this movie over Christmas break, so we took it in a few nights ago. Directed by Jay Russell, the film is about the origin of the Loch Ness Monster and the infamous photo taken. It is set in Scotland during WWII and stars Ben Chaplin and Emily Watson. When I see films with the kids, it's for them and often when I see films with them, I'm distracted with making sure my daughter is cool. She has autism and loves going to the movies, but she is over sensitive to sound. We bring headphones for her to use when it gets too much, but this film was especially loud. It's being marketed as a family film and for the kids, but I would say it'd be better for the older kids. I thought it was okay, but being distracted, couldn't get lost in the story. However, my ten year old son loved it and thought it was good.

August Rush
I had seen trailers of this film and it looked good. So when my friend Rox said "let's go see it", I said okay. A young orphan is convinced his parents want him and that he'll find them if he follows the music. Starring Freddie Highmore as the young orphan and Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys Meyers as his parents. I found it very moving. You knew how it was going to end and that it was too perfect to be true, but still went along for the ride. Also, the passion all the main characters had for music was inspiring. When you have a passion for something so strongly that you need it like you need to eat and breathe, that's a blessing. Also starring Terrence Howard and Robin Williams.

More ramblings to come.....

P.S. I Love You

2007-12-30T11:52:00.003-07:00

When I asked my friend, Roxane, if she wanted to go see P.S. I Love You, she said...."somebody I know wants to see that, but I can't remember who." I said, "That would be me." Since every time the trailer came on before the movie, or the commercial came on T.V., I'd tell anyone listening, "I want to see that", whether they cared or not. It looked like a cute story.

Written and directed by Richard LaGravenese, the film stars Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler as Holly and Jerry Kennedy in an unusual romantic comedy. Holly and Jerry are married. They are madly in love. Jerry dies because of a brain tumour. Holly falls into depression and doesn't leave the house. Her mother, Patricia (Kathy Bates), and friends Denise (Lisa Kudrow) and Sharon (Gina Gershon) arrive to get her out of the house to celebrate her 30th birthday. Also arriving that night, the first of ten letters from her deceased husband, with specific instructions on what he wants her to do to help her move on.

The film follows Holly as she tries to cope with Jerry's death and attempts to find herself and where she wants to go, while also remembering her time with Jerry. One of the reasons that I wanted to see this film was because it stars Harry Connick Jr. as Daniel, who works for Holly's mother at her pub. I fucking LOVE Harry Connick Jr. and he's so cute as the budding romantic interest who has a big crush on Holly and tends to blurt out whatever comes into his head.

I really liked this film. The story was sweet and was able to take you some place else. Even though it was clear that Jerry was going to die early on, the trailers made that clear, it was still sad when Jerry died and when he made an appearance in the flashbacks. I don't know what it's like to have the person you love pass away, but I do know what it's like to have love end and have to deal with moving on. That's why I could relate to Holly's depression and confusion at figuring out what she really wants to do with her life now that she is on her own. Everybody was great and I especially got a kick out of Daniel and Holly's friends, Sharon and Denise, the comic relief. I recommend it if you like romantic comedies or are in the mood for a good cry. From fairly early on in the film when Holly tells Gerry something about life....
Holly: All I know is, if you don't figure out this something, you'll just stay ordinary, and it doesn't matter if its a work of art or a taco, or a pair of socks! Just create something... new, and there it is, and its you, out in the world, out side of you and you can look at it, or hear it, or read it, or feel it... and you know a little more about... you. A little bit more than anyone else does... Does that make any sense at all?
Gerry: Yeah... you're saying you want to paint socks.
Holly: [ecstatic] Maybe!

More ramblings to come.....

This Christmas

2007-12-21T00:04:00.000-07:00

I decided to catch another flick today, just because I can, and decided to go cheesy with a Christmas flick. I saw This Christmas at the Rainbow. Like most Christmas films, I'd have to say it was okay, but not great.

Written and directed by Preston Whitmore, the film is about the Whitfield family getting together for Christmas for the first time in four years. Starring an ensemble cast including Delroy Lindo, Loretta Devine, Columbus Short, Regina King, Mekhi Phifer, Idris Elba, Sharon Leal, Lauren London, and Chris Brown.

The film is a family drama with many different little plot lines. Ma'Dere (Devine) is the matriarch of the family who lives with her long term boyfriend, Joe (Lindo). The visiting family includes daughter Lisa (King) and her adulterous, controlling husband and two kids, daughter Kelli (Leal), a model in New York, daughter Mel (London), a professional student and her new boyfriend, son Claude (Short), a soldier in the Army who brought a big surprise with him, son Quentin (Elba), a musician who rarely makes it home, and the only child still living at home, son Michael (Brown), an aspiring singer who everyone calls "Baby".

It's a little hard to get into the plot since there are so many subplots. Basically, Lisa's skeezy husband is trying to get Lisa to get the rest of the family to convince Ma'Dere to sell the family drycleaning business to get money. Kelli and Lisa don't get along because Kelli hates Lisa's husband, Lisa feels Kelli is selfish for deserting the family business for her own career, and Kelli feels Lisa tries to make the rest of the family feel bad for not doing enough. Quentin and Joe don't get along because Quentin feels Joe is trying to take his daddy's place. Claude is hiding a woman at a hotel nearby for reasons later discovered and Baby just wants to sing, but is afraid to tell his mother because she feels she lost her husband and her son to music (the patriarch of the family left to pursue a musical career many years ago). Got all that?

One thing I absolutely hate about the IMDB message boards is that whenever there is a movie with an all black cast, there is always the inevitable "Why do all black movies suck?" thread that is just filled with racist comments back and forth with sweeping, generalized comments. I don't believe this is a bad movie, I feel it is an okay movie with great characters that gets lost in the different stories. One user comment on IMDB had said that it starts out slow and then seems to race to the finish. I would have to agree with that. In the beginning you're trying to figure out who everybody is and how they fit and what their character and situation is, then all the plotlines seem to be going at once pretty quickly. It all ties up nicely, but it takes a little while to get things straight.

All in all, the actors were all great and it was nicely shot. It was heartwarming at times, a teensy bit cheesy in others, in terms of how quickly all the family squabbles get resolved in a matter of a few days. As a holiday movie, it was okay. Not great, but still better than Deck the Halls.

More ramblings to come.....

Lars and the Real Girl

2007-12-19T00:09:00.001-07:00

You know it's been a long time since your last post when you notice it was at Halloween and you've got your Christmas tree up and your shopping done. Oi. So I've finished this semester and finally got an afternoon to take in a matinee at my favourite cheap theater. I got a chance to see Lars and the Real Girl, which I had been wanting to see. I wasn't disappointed.

Directed by Craig Gillespie and written by Nancy Oliver, the film stars Ryan Gosling as Lars Lindstrom, a socially challenged young man living in the garage of his brother and sister-in-law's house. Lars spends most of his time sequestered in the garage by himself, cut off from the rest of world, when he isn't at work or at church. When he is at work or church, he still keeps to himself as much as possible, even with everybody else around him trying to bring him out of his shell.

This all changes one day when the Real Doll that he purchased online arrives at the garage. In case you didn't know, a Real Doll is a very life-like, anatomically correct sex doll that customers are able to customize to their preferences. Lars tells his brother and sister-in-law that he will be bringing a date to dinner. Delighted that he finally wants to join them for dinner and is actually socializing, his brother, Gus (Paul Schneider), and his brother's wife, Karin (Emily Mortimer), become horrified when Lars arrives with the sex doll and talks to her and about her as though she were a real person. They suggest that he take his new doll friend, Bianca, to see the town doctor, Dagmar (Patricia Clarkson), who is also a psychologist ("Up this far north, you have to be"). Dagmar suggests to Gus and Karin that they play along with Lars and his delusion that Bianca is real and that she will go away when he no longer needs her.

I really liked this movie a lot. A little slow moving at first, it slowly eases you into the characters and plot, while it establishes what a lonely life Lars leads. If there were Hollywood It Boys, like there are Hollywood It Girls, Gosling would definitely be an It Boy. He was superb as Lars, as throughout the film you got to discover the layers beneath Lars' shy, anti-social exterior. Emily Mortimer was also excellent as Karin, Lars' pregnant sister-in-law, who goes very far out of her way to try to include Lars in their daily life. Paul Schneider also gave a great performance as Lars' brother, Gus, who is very reluctant to go along with Lars' delusion and ashamed of his brother's behavior, as the whole town begins to meet Bianca.

Amusing to watch and at times, very touching, Lars and the Real Girl is very well-written. I especially like how it avoided the obligatory scenes in movies like this, where small-minded buttheads have to confront what they don't understand. Patricia Clarkson and Kelli Garner were also great as Dagmar, the therapist, and Margo, the girl at work who has a crush on Lars. I highly recommend it as a departure from the big budget fluff that usually infiltrates the theaters at this time of year. I'm torn on the quote, so I will post two. The first one from Dagmar, the therapist, when she assures Lars in one of their sessions that he isn't the only one who gets lonely. The second, from Gus, his answer to Lars when he asks what makes a man a man. Enjoy....

Dagmar: Sometimes I get so lonely I forget what day it is, and how to spell my name.

Gus: Well, it's not like you're one thing or the other, okay? There's still a kid inside but you grow up when you decide to do right, okay, and not what's right for you, what's right for everybody, even when it hurts.
Lars: Okay, like what?
Gus: Like, you know, like, you don't jerk people around, you know, and you don't cheat on your woman, and you take care of your family, you know, and you admit when you're wrong, or you try to, anyways. That's all I can think of, you know - it sounds like it's easy and for some reason it's not.

More ramblings to come......

Happy Halloween!

2007-10-29T15:48:00.000-06:00

It's that time of year again. Pumpkins, caramel apples, candy corn, horror movies and scary costumes. I have decided to dedicate this post to Halloween movies and DVDs for those who have kids or who just aren't into the usual Halloween "I Know You Did Last Summer When You Screamed on Elm Street" type fare.

Roseanne: Halloween Edition
I picked this DVD up at Walmart last Halloween for roughly 13 bucks. If you ever watched the series Roseanne, you'd remember how nuts the Connor family is about Halloween. This DVD features 9 classic Halloween episodes from the show. Great for the sitcom lover and suitable for the whole family.

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
Another Halloween classic from way back. The Peanuts gang celebrates Halloween and Linus convinces Sally that the Great Pumpkin will make an appearance if they just wait in the pumpkin patch long enough. A little bit dated, but still enjoyable.

Ghost Busters
This is a great Halloween movie for the comedy lover that's okay for the whole family, too. Starring Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson as a team of ghost busters acting as ghost exterminators. Also starring Sigourney Weaver as Murray's love interest, Rick Moranis as Weaver's neighbour who becomes possessed and Annie Potts as the Ghost Busters overworked and underpaid secretary. Very funny and okay for the older kids.

Scooby Doo
This Hanna Barbera cartoon about a great Dane and his crime solving friends is a classic. I think it's Teletoon that has a Scooby Doo marathon on a Saturday every year around Halloween time. It's a perfect way to kill a rainy afternoon and appropriate for Halloween because they're always chasing ghosts or monsters at some spooky abandoned amusement park or abandoned gold mine or museum. You can find Scooby Doo tv series DVDs in the Walmart bargain bin for cheap or the two live action Scooby Doo films are a good bet, too, with my preference being for the sequel Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. Fun for the whole family.

Scary Movie
This is the DVD I always pop in Halloween night after the kids are in bed. Great Halloween movie for the low brow, parody lover who isn't into scary, gory flicks. Essentially, the film is a parody of Scream, which is a satire of teen slasher flicks. Written by and starring the Wayans brothers, the film lampoons other slasher flicks like I Know What You Did Last Summer with humour, some of it more juvenile and gross out, but some of it really funny. This one is just for the adults.

Stay safe on Halloween night and indulge in some halloweenie chocolate bars.....enjoy!

More ramblings to come......

Dan in Real Life

2007-10-28T15:05:00.000-06:00

I FINALLY got a chance to catch a Sunday matinee for the first time in months. I chose Dan in Real Life with Steve Carell. Written and directed by Peter Hedges (writer/director of Pieces of April) the film is an unconventional, quirky romantic comedy with more personality.

Steve Carell stars as Dan Burns, a newspaper columnist who has a weekly column giving advice to families about their problems. Dan is also a single father raising his three daughters after his wife's death. Dan and his three daughters are about to join the rest of the family for their annual get together at the family cabin by the lake. Unfortunately for Dan, his two teenage daughters are not very happy with him.

After they arrive at the cabin to meet the rest of the family, Dan is sent into town to the local bookstore for two reasons, to give him and his daughters some space and because he needs to pick up the papers. He meets a woman named Marie (Juliette Binoche) in the bookstore who he begins talking to and he opens up while they share one long conversation. She realizes she's very late for something and leaves rather quickly. He returns to the cabin very happy that he's met someone he's hit it off with, considering he's been alone for four years.

Unfortunately for Dan, he finds soon after arriving back at the cabin, that Marie is his brother, Mitch's (played by Dane Cook) new girlfriend. The next few days are spent with Dan and Marie alternating between flirting with each other and enjoying their chemistry and trying to stay the hell away from each other to avoid hurting Mitch. Dan continues his tenuous relationship with his daughters and finds out during his trip that his column is being considered for syndication.

The film is wonderfully cast with Carell and Binoche good choices with good chemistry as the leads. Cook does a great job as Dan's brother, Mitch, who is clueless that his girlfriend and brother are falling in love. Dianne Wiest and John Mahoney make the perfect matriarch and patriarch of this Rhode Island family who are wise to what's going on between Dan and Marie. The rest of the family are good, too. One thing I appreciate about this film is that they avoid the "perfect family" touches found in most romantic comedies. The families are usually too nice, too perfect and often break out into song, with scenes of the family singing "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" into cooking utensils and dancing around, just to prove they're fun and kooky. The annual family talent show night came very close, though, but for the most part they came across as a real family who grew up together, are still close and are too much into each other's business.

Overall it was a pleasant way to spend a few hours on Sunday. Carell gave another great performance as a widowed father who loves his girls and has a good job, but who is also a little lonely for company and struggling to relate to his teenage daughters. The film is a lot more subtle and layered and better than most romantic comedies without the cheese factor.

Dan in Real Life
7/10
Recommended: If you are in the mood for an unconventional romantic comedy, if you like Steve Carell, or if you prefer your rom coms a little darker.
Favourite quote: Marty: Love is not a feeling, it's an ability.

More ramblings to come.......

I'm Baaack. No, seriously.

2007-10-22T18:30:00.000-06:00

So my friend Dave says to me the other day, "I want to see a new entry from you in your blog. And don't give me this 'I'm too busy' shit." I'm here, I'm here. I really have been very busy, though. I'm still working on two documentaries and doing some freelance radio work and whatever else gets thrown at me. It's so fun that it actually doesn't even feel like work. I love what I'm doing and I'm grateful I get to do it every day with people who are amazing and supportive. The fact that I get paid is just the icing on the cake.

So I will write some about movies, but mostly just writing to get my writing mojo back. I have a twenty page essay due in a month and a bit. I also have to write this documentary that is near and dear to me, but due to creative blockages has languished on the shelf for the last month and a bit. I know the film spirits will be good to me. Seriously, one of my production profs talked of believing in film spirits. So basically this is just a short note to say, yes, I'm still around, yes I will be writing again. Thanks for the comment, Mad. Good to hear from you. Due to a stalkerish experience with an ex from wayyyy back, I had to delete my myspace profile. Gotta love the internet.

More ramblings to come.....(I swear!)...

Sicko

2007-07-08T21:27:00.001-06:00

I got a chance to catch Michael Moore's Sicko. I highly recommend that everybody see this film.

Moore takes on the corrupt health care system in the U.S. in his latest venture. It's not that different from other Moore films, in that he takes on a cause talking to the little people affected by the situation like he does in his other films (unemployed auto workers in Flint, Michigan, in Roger and Me, people affected by gun violence in Bowling for Columbine). Moore asked people to send them their HMO horror stories, and in one week he got over 25, 000 stories. Some of these stories are heart wrenching, like the 22 year old woman who was denied by her health insurance company the necessary treatments needed to treat her cervical cancer, because she was too young to have cancer. Or the older couple who has to move in with their daughter because the hospital/health care bill to deal with both of their illnesses put them in so much debt, they had to sell their house. There are so many more stories, because the health care system in America is set up to profit from denying people the care they need.

Just like in his other films, Moore blends stories from the little people, stories about how the system came about because of the corrupt politicians and insurance companies, mixing the right combination of humour and emotion designed to entertain, provoke thoughts and outrage the audience.

Moore takes a look at the system in America and compares it to the health care systems around in the world, in Canada, Britain, France and Cuba. It seems that even in Cuba, with the little resources they have, they have a better health care system than in the U.S. God bless Tommy Douglas. Even though our system is not perfect, at least we don't have a mountain of debt after a hospital visit for necessary care. France has us all beat with free health care, free post secondary education, around the clock doctors who make house calls for free, lots of paid vacation time, and even free government issued nannies to new mothers a few hours a day. The interesting point one of the interview subjects makes is that France has such a great system because they are marching all the time for their rights and the government is afraid of the public, so they work to appease them. In the States, it's the opposite with everybody afraid of the government, so they let the government screw them over.

I won't give away some of the more touching moments involving three 9/11 volunteer rescue workers who were denied care by their health care insurance and the 9/11 funds. I also won't give away a rather humorous story about Moore's good Samaritan act towards one of his biggest critics. I will just say, see the movie.

More ramblings to come.....

Awesome Short Films by Aboriginal Filmmakers

2007-07-03T01:51:00.000-06:00

Holy crap, I really suck at keeping up with this blog thing lately. I've been super busy with the kids' finishing school for the year, two projects that I'm working on with other people and my first radio story on CBC, which was pretty darn cool to do. I have seen a bunch of movies, mostly at the cheap theaters and on DVD, but I can't write about them right now, for some reason. So I will write other things, for a change.

I have a few ideas for my next project. One with the working title, "Happy Birthday", which stems from a story I told a friend about my crappy birthday date a few years ago. She thought it was very funny, and that had me thinking that maybe other people could laugh at my crappy date, too. This is a short comedy and I will begin writing the script very soon. There will be two main characters, male and female, and I already have an idea for who I want as the male. I'm taking that crappy date and adding more elements to make it more comedic. This project will be done by the end of December. I won't give much away, but it's already written in my head.

On National Aboriginal Day, I went to see the Mispon screenings of some comedy shorts from Manitoba at a Sask filmpool screening at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum. They were very good and inspired me to want to get more projects done. Pookums by Shane A. Belcourt was very well done and cute. It was about a young woman who gets a job dogsitting a very finicky dog with a very finicky owner when things go awry and wacky hijinks ensue. I also really liked Rezurrection by Keesic Douglas. It was a reality TV spoof about a young, aboriginal yuppie new age-y type couple wants to redecorate their home. They hire a pair of guys who push them out of their house Trading Spaces style and bring in a team to "rez up" their place. Funny, funny shit. See these two films if you can.

I also really got into the First Stories: Saskatchewan films. I got the pleasure of getting to know all four filmmakers, Cory Generoux (The Power of a Horse), Janine Windolph (Life Givers: Honouring our Elders and Children), P.J. Swiderski (O Mother Where Art Thou) and Tessa Desnomie (ati-wîhcasin). They had a screening on CBC that night (June 21) and on SCN right after. I highly recommend seeing this program when it runs on SCN, if you can. I love that our voices are getting out there more and more. It's all work that makes you proud to be Aboriginal, too. Of the four I could identify with Swiderski's "Oh Mother Where Art Thou" the most. He completely nailed that feeling of every kid that has been "adopted out" (interracially adopted). You love your family so much and wouldn't have changed a thing in your life, but didn't quite feel like you totally belonged. You knew they loved you as their own and it didn't matter to them that you were brown, but you were fully aware that you were different. I loved the shot of his family photo where it begins with him and zooms out to reveal he's the dark one among a sea of smiling pale faces with fair hair. I could TOTALLY relate to that. Great job and congrats to all four filmmakers. They are all people you will be hearing a lot from in the future.

First Stories will be run again on SCN and the show also includes the Manitoba First Stories, which are also excellent. I loved Lorne Olsen's Apples and Indians, a hilarious look at one aboriginal man's struggle with identity, and also Ervin Chartrand's Patrick Ross, a beautifully shot film about a young ex con's art and musings while he creates that art. See the above films if you can, I highly recommend them.

More ramblings to come......

Away from Her

2007-06-19T20:07:00.001-06:00

I've been hearing rave reviews about this flick, so I went to check it out at this afternoon's Stars & Strollers screening, which is the showing where women can attempt to enjoy a movie with their crying babies. Hey, I have kids, I can tune it out. Written and directed by Sarah Polley, Away from Her is based on a short story by Alice Munro.

Gordon Pinsent stars as Grant, a man who is home caring for his wife. Julie Christie is Fiona, Grant's beautiful wife who is slowly slipping further into Alzheimer's disease. Fiona insists she needs to be put into a permanent care home, but Grant is in denial about her condition and is hesitant to live apart from her. Fiona gets her way and she soon develops a closeness to a fellow resident, a wheelchair bound mute named Aubrey (Michael Murphy). Grant watches helplessly as Fiona forgets who he is and spends more and more time caring for Aubrey. Grant gets some kind words of comfort from a nurse on Fiona's ward named Kristy (Kristen Thomson). Grant also strikes up a friendship with Aubrey's wife, Marian (Olympia Dukakis) based on mutual understanding.

This film is great. I was surprised when I came home and read on the IMDB page that Sarah Polley had directed it, given her young age. The film is so subtle, nuanced with a plot that is winding. The timeline jumps around a bit, but it all makes sense in the end. It's a beautiful portrait of the trials and tribulations of being a spouse taking care of their life partner suffering with Alzheimer's. It's clearly harder on the spouse. What would be worse, losing your memory and having your cognitive thoughts fade away while having your body in proper working order, or being of clear mind and having your mobility and body go? This film made me wonder about that.

The buzz about the film is Julie Christie's Oscar nom in the bag, but I have to say that although she was excellent and beautiful, as always, it was Gordon Pinsent that blew me away. He was heartbreaking to watch as he stayed a devoted, attentive husband while watching his wife fall in love with another man. Even as the audience, you find out that their marriage wasn't always so perfect, you still feel for him. This was a beautiful, moving film and highly recommended. Words of wisdom from the nurse Kristy:
" It's never too late to become what you might have been."

More ramblings to come......

Knocked Up

2007-06-17T16:52:00.000-06:00

I decided I hadn't been to the theater in awhile and saw Knocked Up. I loved The 40 Year Old Virgin so much that I was anxious to see the Judd Apatow/Seth Rogen team in action again.

Written and directed by Judd Apatow, the film is about a one night stand that ends up in an unwanted pregnancy. Katherine Heigl stars as Alison Scott, a young woman who works at E! and desires to be an on-air personality. She gets her wish and is out celebrating her recent promotion when she meets Ben Stone (Rogen). They have a wild, drunken night that ends in Ben spending the night at Alison's place. She realizes in the morning what a loser he is and cuts and runs. They had fun, but Alison is focused on her career and Ben is a perpetual stoner who's career goal consists of starting a pornographic website.

Fast forward 8 weeks later when Alison pukes while interviewing James Franco on the air. She realizes she's late and begins panicking. Alison discovers that she's pregnant and decides to tell Ben. They arrange to meet with Ben assuming she wants another piece of him. They decide they want to keep it and that they will try to get to know each other and see what happens.

The humour is kind of hit or miss. The film has some of the same humour from The 40 Year Old Virgin, but it doesn't work as well. There was an elderly couple sitting in my row and I wondered what they thought about all the jokes about balls and pot and being gay. The best comedy came from the relationship issues that arose between Alison and Ben, and also between Alison's sister Debbie (Leslie Mann) and her husband, Pete (Paul Rudd). The same sex bonding time between Alison and Debbie and Ben and Pete was also very funny. Ben's friends were also meant to bring comic relief, but there was five of them, which seemed too many and didn't allow the viewer to really connect with them as an ensemble, also the humour somehow seemed out of place. Although it was still funny at times.

I really liked it, but it didn't quite hit the bullseye the same way The 40 Year Old Virgin did. It was a very humorous look at the emotional rollercoaster that a couple shares when they are expecting a child and trying to get to know each other. The two couples were great. The group of Ben's friends did a good job with their characters,but it just didn't seem to work the way it was meant to. I chose two quotes, both from Pete, one humourous look at marriage and one more profound look at why he feels there are problems in his marriage. Enjoy....

Pete: Marriage is like a tense, unfunny version of Everybody Loves Raymond, only it doesn't last 22 minutes. It lasts forever.

Pete: Do you ever wonder how somebody could even like you? The biggest problem in our marriage is that she wants me around. And I can't even accept that? I don't think I can accept pure love.

More ramblings to come.....

Before Sunrise

2007-06-14T00:06:00.001-06:00

I loved Before Sunset so much that I decided to see the first movie. Written and directed by Richard Linklater, Before Sunrise was filmed 9 years before the sequel, Before Sunset.

Ethan Hawke stars as Jesse, a young American traveling through Europe alone. He meets a pretty, young French woman named Celine (Julie Delpy) on a train. They share an attraction and strike up a conversation. He convinces her to get off the train with him in Vienna to spend the night with him until he has to fly back to America the next day.

I liked this film, but I do like the sequel even better. Filmed during the tail end of the "grunge era", the fashions are grunge-y and Jesse and Celine have to do all the crazy things young students do when they are traveling in a strange country. They do "cool and edgy" things like have a deep conversation walking through a cemetery, sit in a listening booth together in a record store and drink wine in a park at night. They share the same carefree experiences that all young, twenty somethings wandering aimlessly, trying to find their way through life have.

The sexual tension between Celine and Jesse is palpable. It takes a little bit for them to let their guard down. Celine is quiet at first and optimistic about things. She's very pretty, but seems to do that "I'll rely on my youth and beauty and act quiet and pouty because it's sexy" thing instead of just being herself. Which is why I like her better in the sequel. She has come into her own and is more fiery. Jesse is more pessimistic and cynical about life. They both have transformations in their characters between the original and the sequel.

Linklater wrote this based on a night he had wandering around Philadelphia with a woman named Amy. Jesse and Celine embody that brief love affair that you never forget. They idealize and romanticize each other and interestingly enough, Jesse discusses what I had wondered in my last post. He stated that if two people who idealize each other so much spent more time together doing mundane, everyday life things, they probably wouldn't see them in the same romantic way. I found that Before Sunrise is more about the experiences Jesse and Celine have and Before Sunset is more about their deep, soulful connection. Both are good, but the sequel is better.

One last thing before the quote.....when did Ethan Hawke have the hotness sucked out of him? He was so hot in Before Sunrise, not so much in Before Sunset. From the part where Jesse rants about breakups......

Jesse: You know what's the worst thing about somebody breaking up with you? Is when you remember how little you thought about the people you broke up with and you realize that is how little they're thinking of you. You know, you'd like to think you're both in all this pain but they're just like 'Hey, I'm glad you're gone'.

More ramblings to come......

Before Sunset

2007-06-11T00:20:00.001-06:00

I have had at least three friends and/or readers recommend this movie to me. I finally got around to seeing it and I'm glad I did. The same people who recommended Before Sunset, the sequel to Before Sunrise, said they saw the sequel before the first movie and liked the sequel better. I still have to see Before Sunrise to see if I agree.

Written and directed by Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused), this sequel picks up 9 years later where Before Sunrise left off. In Before Sunrise, two strangers (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) spend a day in Vienna connecting over a long conversation and pledge to meet up again six months later. In Before Sunset, they meet nine years later in Paris and re-connect over another long conversation.

Jesse (Hawke) is an American author who wrote a book based on his experience in Vienna with Celine, a French environmental activist. They meet again when Jesse is in Paris for a book signing at Celine's favourite bookstore. They have one long conversation about everything in their lives. They reminisce about the night they spent in Vienna and talk about their lives now and what happened in between. They also discover that they've both thought a lot about each other.

I loved this film because it's one long conversation, but it's done so smoothly that you don't think about the fact that they do not stop talking for the entire film. It's shot pretty much in real time. It feels European in that way and feels like you are on the journey with them. It was shot in 15 days and Hawke and Delpy helped to write the film.

The characters are also so real and human. It's also cool that they connect so well. They spend such a short amount of time together, yet the conversation winds its way around so many different subjects and levels of intimacy. They laugh a lot, but also disagree on things. I think the two movies went over so well with audiences because it presents that "what if?" dilemma that a lot of people must have. I'm sure everybody has someone that they connected so well with, but it just didn't happen and you're left wondering "what would have happened if things went differently?" The films give people a chance to experience that.

I won't give away the end, but both films end ambiguously. I do wonder though if they were together all the time if that would change things. Could they continue their long, deep conversations all the time? Would that connection still be there after a few years? I didn't want the film to end so soon and I wanted more. Also, how much did fate play a part? I had my palms read recently and the palmist (is that their title?) said I was supposed to have gotten married sometime between 24 and 26, but that it wasn't meant to last. I was 24 when I got married...and it didn't last. I think it's the same case as in Les Enfants du Paradis in that fate is the one that does the betraying. I'm going to try to get Before Sunrise this week so I can watch the original. Apparently a lot of people saw the two films backwards (sequel before the original). I love this quote....

Celine: "Memory's a wonderful thing if you don't have to deal with the past."

More ramblings to come....(I swear)....

I'm Still Alive and Well....

2007-06-11T00:12:00.000-06:00

I've had a few emails concerned about my whereabouts and I swear I didn't forget about my blog. I've been taking a journalism course for the last five weeks, heading into the last week and it kept me SUPER busy. Also, I felt like I was learning to think differently and had to turn off that filmmaker part of my brain. I was too busy and tired to go see movies, and I just didn't feel any like getting any inspiration from movies. For some reason, when I did get a chance to watch anything, it was action movies. I was in the mood for lots of explosions and no substance and it's hard to write about stuff that doesn't get your brain thinking about things.

Also, I know people don't usually read a total strangers rambling thoughts, but I've gotta get my creative brain working again. My project that I finished in April and that I'm proud of started as one of my first blog entries. I have a few ideas for my next project, I just have to flush them out. Anyhoo, I saw something that inspired me to start thinking and it will be posted above this one. I just wanted to reassure any readers still checking into this thing that I am alive and well and will attempt to get back up on the blog horse.

In the Land of Women

2007-05-06T17:27:00.000-06:00

I got a chance to see In the Land of Women last Sunday. I was in a bit of a strange mood and it was just the thing I needed. I enjoyed it very much.

Written and directed by Jon Kasdan and starring cute as a button Adam Brody (The O.C.), the film is about a young man recently dumped by his movie star girlfriend, Sofia (Elena Anaya). Upset and depressed, Carter (Brody), an L.A. script writer, decides to go stay with his elderly, slightly off kilter grandmother (Olympia Dukakis) in surburban Detroit. He soon meets his grandmother's neighbour across the street, Sarah (Meg Ryan). They begin taking walks together where they open up about things they don't discuss with other people in their lives. Carter opens up about his recent breakup and Sarah talks about her fears, medical problems and her husband's infidelity. Carter looks forward to his time with Sarah and feels an attraction to her. Sarah encourages her teenage daughter, Lucy (Kristen Stewart), to spend time with Carter to get him out of his grandmother's house once in awhile.

The poster and trailer are a little misleading, but I won't go into a lot of detail about that so as not to spoil the film. I also won't go much else into plot because the plot wasn't the interesting thing for me. It was the relationships between the characters and what they did for each other. Carter brought some fire back to Sarah that she had thought she'd lost upon domestication. Sarah made Carter see the beauty in life and brought him out of his funk. Carter made Lucy see her mother differently than she had before and he also became closer to his grandmother. By the end of the film, all of the characters have had some transformation. One thing I will give away is that Carter writes Sarah a sweet letter, the kind she says she always wished she got, but never did. He thanks her for some things (which I will not give away). This spoke to me.

The film was better than I expected, but I didn't know what to expect, I just wanted to see a film and it was between this one and Kickin It Old Skool. I was pleasantly surprised and hope to hear/see more from Jon Kasdan. There were some really great quotes, but since I saw this a week ago and it's not fresh in my memory, can't remember them word for word. The memorable quote section for this movie is also lacking, so I will put one that is there that got some giggles in the trailer. I will post a different one if I remember or they put more up on the IMDB page.

Carter: I pride myself on being this great listener, but whenever I meet somebody new I find I'm doing all the talking.
Sarah: Maybe you're not really such a great listener.
Carter: Hmm?
Sarah: Maybe you're not such a great listener.
Carter: No that's not it, I'm a great listener.

More ramblings to come......

DVD Quote of the Day: Ellen

2007-05-06T11:06:00.001-06:00

I re-discovered this show last week. I bought the Season 1 DVD of Ellen (last year? year before?), and we recently pulled it out last week. I ended up getting the Season 3 DVD after that and haven't stopped watching it. Season 1 wasn't as good because the characters hadn't been developed and the cast was a little bit different.

Ellen Degeneres is Ellen Morgan, a bookstore owner in L.A. The rest of the ensemble are her friends. Arye Gross is Adam in season 1, 2 and part of season 3, Ellen's roommate and photographer friend. I'm not sure why Adam left the show, but he was gone after about four episodes into the third season. The hotness that is Jeremy Piven rocks as Ellen's cousin from N.Y.C., who moves in to get his life sorted out after getting kicked out of his doctor residency. Joely Fisher came on after the first season as Paige Clark, Ellen's sort of selfish, sort of promiscuous "producer wanna be" friend. David Anthony Higgins was a more minor character in season one, but became one of the main characters between season 1 and 3. His character, Joe, is the sarcastic coffee master who works in Ellen's bookstore, and is actually from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan (about forty minutes from me). I forgot Joe was from Canada, so it's funny to hear him say "Back in Moose Jaw...". Clea Lewis is Audrey, who made an appearance in season 1, and returned as a regular and different person. Audrey in season 1 wore dark clothes and was complaining and pessimistic, but in season 3 she's annoyingly sunny, perky and perpetually in pink. Excellent ensemble cast.

I forgot how much I loved this show. It's hilarious and Ellen is often compared to Lucille Ball, for good reason. Ellen's over eagerness to please people and concern for other people's feelings often have her getting involved in other people's business, making the situation worse. Her easygoing attitude is nicely juxtaposed with Paige and Spence's high strung neuroticism. For me, it's a good show if you get sucked into the environment and feel like you're there with them while you're watching. Also, if the characters and situations are interesting and fun enough that you wish you were there is another sign of a great show.

Some other people who have made guest appearances on Season 3 include Martha Stewart as herself, Carrie Fisher (Joely Fisher's sister) as herself shooting Paige's movie at Ellen's bookstore, Mary Tyler Moore as herself who comes to Ellen's aid over lobster rights, Ron Palillo (Welcome Back, Kotter's Horschak) as himself who starts dating Audrey, Janeane Garofalo as a fellow patient in a waiting room that Ellen wants to befriend, and Jamie Kennedy as Tad, the guy who rents Adam's apartment after he moves out.

Season 3 starts with an earthquake, the destruction of Ellen's bookstore and the arrival of Ellen's cousin, Spence (Piven). The first two episodes have Ellen feeling unsure about her future because of the bookstore in the earthquake's aftermath. I really like these two episodes because I think Ellen represents every person who goes through that indecision and doubt about their future and whether or not they are traveling the right path. At one point, she gets on a bus to search her feelings and think about whether she should rebuild the bookstore or not. She comes to a very strange store/museum with a strange man running the place and talks a bit about her search to him. I really like what he says to her. Here it is.....

Jake: The way I see it, if you get up every morning and you like where you go and who you see there.....then maybe, you've found your dream.

More ramblings to come.....

The Making of 'A Princess Story'

2007-05-04T09:32:00.002-06:00

Alright, it's about time I posted something new. Yes, Mad, I'm okay, thanks for the concern. As some of you may know, I just finished the semester. I've been finding it hard the last few weeks to find the energy to write something. I've seen a few good movies I will be posting about soon, but for some reason just couldn't muster the energy to form my thoughts into coherent sentences. So instead of discussing a movie I've seen, I will talk about one that I made.

The process began last September when we had to begin writing scripts and forming pre-production plans. I had an idea in my head of something I wanted to do for about a year. I even saw a scene in my head, so it was very easy to write the script. I wanted to do some type of commentary on how women, especially, think of marriage as 'the event where my life really begins'. I am divorced, so obviously that didn't go so well for me. I'm still friends with my ex, as we share two children, but it really was hell. Don't get me wrong, the first uh, two to four months were okay.....it was just the other five years that really sucked. One of the editors who watched my project described it as a cautionary tale, and a lot of my projects are. I'm the oldie in my class and I feel some sort of obligation to warn other women not to jump into marriage or put aside their hopes, dreams and careers because of a man, because if it doesn't work out you have to start all over from scratch. And if he's anything like my ex, he won't give two shits that you have nothing. I see too many great women making the same mistake that I did.

As for the fairy tale element, I came up with that because my daughter LOVES the Disney Princess 'crap' (I call it crap). I believe those old Disney cartoon fairy tales (Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty) teach women to believe that life doesn't begin to get happy until they get Prince Charming to marry them. I also noticed that none of these princesses had any female friends. They were mostly left alone in the forest talking to their little bird and mousie friends. I believe these fairy tales also pit women against each other because the only other women in the princesses' lives are their step mothers who try to get rid of them because they are jealous of their beauty. Which is pretty screwed up, no? So it was basically killing two birds with one stone, warning women of the danger of depending on marriage to make them happy and pointing out the toxicity of those old fairy tale stories.

Script was done and I began casting. I had the woman I cast as Sleeping Beauty in my head as the idea was forming and asked Brittany to play her before I even began writing the script. She is naturally very comedic and Sleeping Beauty had all the best lines. I told her in rehearsal to be sort of like Sam from Sex and the City, only not SO Sam. I ended up casting another woman from one of my classes. I studied Jemma in cinematography class for a few weeks before I approached her to play Cinderella. She was hesitant at first, but I explained to her that she embodied the qualities I saw in Cinderella's character. She's naturally bubbly, naturally friendly and I saw Cinderella as the welcome wagon of the group. Prince Charming was next. As I was discussing my project with other people on a different shoot I was working on, about three people said the same thing..."Mike Selinger would be perfect for that part." However, Mike and I played telephone tag and couldn't coordinate a time to meet, so I cast him just based on what other people had told me and on his headshot. Snow White was more difficult. I couldn't find the right person until Lana, my cinematographer, sent me Jamie Stephenson's headshot and resume and said I think she might be right for Snow White. I just had to take one look at her headshot and that was it, I had my Snow White. Fortunately for me, she loved the script and made time in her busy schedule to shoot this. That just left Rapunzel. I saw her as Sleeping Beauty's sidekick and she was the counterpoint to Sleeping Beauty's anti-marriage stance (just because I wanted to show that I'm not 'anti-marriage', just anti-marriage with jerky, selfish men). It was kind of superficial actually. I had three brunettes and needed a blonde. I was in art class wondering where I was going to find Rapunzel and saw her sitting three rows in front me. I approached her and asked her if she wanted to act in a student film, and despite having no previous experience, she agreed to be in it. She had a great look and looked like a princess to me. Good thing she worked out.

I found some great locations in the city at the old University buildings, the Conservatory and Darke Hall and in the grand, palacial looking Hotel Saskatchewan. All my locations were very good at letting me shoot there, even despite having to shell out a hundred bucks for the meeting room at Hotel Saskatchewan (hey, at least I didn't have to dress the place or buy props). We had only two days of shooting. The first day went off without a hitch and we actually finished at the time I said we'd be done and that almost never happens. The women gave me a lot of gold that I didn't even end up using, as they improvised a ton of stuff not in the script for me. The second day was more problematic as there was a ton of traffic and three vending machines we were unable to unplug (we unplugged as many as we could). Also, I wasn't anticipating as many lighting set ups as we had, so we went about three hours past when I said we'd be done. Thank you Mike and Jamie for staying that long.

Lana and Chris were my crew, because I've worked with them on a project last year and they rock. Lana pointed out that it's better to have laid back, cool people you get along with on set as it makes it much easier. It was fun to shoot and I spent a lot of time editing. I'm not fan of last minute, marathon sessions, so I spent three months picking away at it, little by little. It helped getting feedback from other people in class about what to change, because other people can see your stuff with a fresh eye and without favoritism. We also had editors Heather Malek and Wanda Schmockel watch our stuff and give us feedback.

The screening went very well. People responded very well to it and I was surprised at the stuff that did get laughs and the stuff that didn't get laughs. So from the beginning of September to the end of April was a very long road. I feel weird that it's over, because I've lived with this project for so long. I'm so worn out now, but I'm already thinking about what I'm going to do next. One of my instructors once said that film is the most masochistic art form there is. I would have to heartily agree. But, there isn't anything else in the world I'd rather be doing.

More ramblings to come....promise!

Essays, Projects and Pitches....oh my!

2007-04-05T19:07:00.000-06:00

Apologies as there won't be a new post until next week. I have too much to do and not enough time to do it. Lectures end next week and I have four big assignments due. I am heading down the home stretch in regards to my project and will post it somewhere on this world wide web when I'm done.

Happy Easter!.....More ramblings to come.....

The Queen

2007-03-30T21:49:00.000-06:00

So in the next two weeks I have two papers due, eight pages of writing, my project pitch and one sheet and my finished project due. So of course I spent the afternoon at a matinee. I've been looking forward to seeing The Queen because of all the hype during awards season.

So if you were living under a rock around the time of the Golden Globes and the Oscars, Helen Mirren was getting mad props for her role as Queen Elizabeth. Everybody predicted she'd win both awards for Best Actress, and she did. Directed by Stephen Frears and written by Peter Morgan, the film is about how the English monarchy and the Prime Minister dealt with the death of Princess Diana. From the trivia section of the film's IMDB page..."The writer Peter Morgan reconstructed the events of the week after the death of Princess Diana through extensive interviews with many unnamed sources close to the Prime Minister and the royal family. Many of these sources were able to corroborate the accounts of others, giving Morgan enough information to imagine intervening scenes."

"Do you remember what you were doing when Princess Diana died?" is this generation's "Do you remember where you were when President Kennedy was shot?". I was watching the television at my in laws when they interrupted SNL or whatever we were watching on Saturday night to announce her death. I remember exchanging shocked looks with my (now ex) husband and looking at the time, it was around 9:30pm Calgary time. I felt a great amount of sadness, and stayed up really late the night of her funeral to watch it. I cried and felt the same outrage towards the Royal Family that the rest of the world felt. This film examines what happened inside the palace during this time day by day from her death until her funeral and why they may have responded the way they did.

Helen Mirren deserves all her props for her portrayal as the Queen. She humanized an international figure and in the end, made her sympathetic. Michael Sheen also deserves some props for his portrayal of newly appointed Prime Minister Tony Blair. Blair is confused at the Palace's lack of public response to Diana's death and was instrumental in persuading them to go against tradition to appease the public. A compelling story seen from a different point of view.

More ramblings to come......

DVD Quote of the Day: Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner

2007-03-30T20:30:00.000-06:00

I picked this up last week at Walmart. As some of you may know, I love the dirty, raunchy, smutty humour of a good roast because I'm low brow like that. This is the extended & uncensored Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner. Roasters include Greg Giraldo, Betty White, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, Kevin Pollack, Farrah Fawcett, Patton Oswalt, Artie Lange, Fred Willard, Andy Dick, and of course, it wouldn't be a roast without Jeffrey Ross and Lisa Lampanelli. Also featuring filmed roasts from Sandra Bullock, Ben Stiller, Jimmy Kimmel, Sarah Silverman and hosted by Jason Alexander. George Takei killed, he's actually a pretty good comedian. Some of the best lines of the night.....

Jeffrey Ross: But seriously, this is such a huge honor for me to be roasting the spokesman for Priceline.com. Who are we roasting next year, the Travelocity gnome? What happened we couldn't get the lizard from Geico up in this mother fuckah?

Lisa Lampanelli: Andy Dick is so gay, his chapstick is cock-flavored.

Betty White: ...because let's face it, we all know Shatner's nuts. But George (Takei) has actually tasted them.

More ramblings to come......

300

2007-03-25T00:26:00.000-06:00

I picked the movie last week, so my friend Amber got to pick it this week. She chose 300. All I knew going into it was that it's been #1 at the box office for a few weeks, it was shot all on green screen and that it is gory as hell. I guess it being based on a Frank Miller novel would be why.

I really enjoyed it. I didn't know what to expect, but was warned about the blood and gore. Directed by Zack Snyder, the film is also written by Snyder and Kurt Johnstad. I'm going to be a lazy ass and copy-paste this right from the IMDB page of the movie. "Based on Frank Miller's graphic novel, "300" concerns the 480 B.C. Battle of Thermopylae, where the King of Sparta led his army against the advancing Persians; the battle is said to have inspired all of Greece to band together against the Persians, and helped usher in the world's first democracy."

The film opens with a sequence showing how Spartan men are raised and trained with one purpose, which is to be warriors. Starring Gerald Butler as King Leonidas, King of the Spartans and Lena Headey, who is absolutely gorgeous, as his wife, Queen Gorgo. King Leonidas is approached by a Persian messenger sent by the Persian King Xerxes (played by Rodrigo Santoro, who is also Karl, the hot ass engineer Laura Linney's character crushes on in Love Actually). They are warned by the messenger that Persia wishes to take over Greece and they can surrender peacefully now or go to War. Leonidas consults with the Oracle, who advises him not to go to war because they won't win. Leonidas decides he has no choice and gathers 300 of his best men to march out to keep the Persians from advancing. So begins the bloody war.

This is based on a real battle but is obviously not meant to be a true to life re-enactment. Certain aspects are added for dramatic effect like the immortal soldiers, strange, killing hippo creatures, and the fact that King Xerxes is half man, half God and a giant. I loved the rockin' soundtrack that would come in from time to time, which was a nice touch. The cinematography was great, too, and I loved the visuals and the fast/slow motion shots during the battle scenes. I can tell whether I've found a movie good or not by the conversation I have with Amber when we leave the theater. If the conversation is about what didn't quite work or what was annoying, it was bad. If the conversation is about the parts we liked and what was cool, it was good. I really liked it, but when I asked Amber what she thought of it, she said, "Eh." She wondered why the Persian King was a great, big drag queen and asked, "After that one battle scene, where the hell did the apple come from?" (that King Leonidas was eating). So, you may like it or you may wonder why Xerxes is a great, big drag queen.

300
7.5/10
Recommended: If you like a good action movie and don't mind a lot of blood, if you like good eye candy (male or female) or if you like war movies.

Leonidas: "We Spartans have descended from Hercules himself. Taught never to retreat, never to surrender. Taught that death in the battlefield is the greatest glory he could achieve in his life. Spartans: the finest soldiers the world has ever known. "

More ramblings to come......

Stomp the Yard

2007-03-23T22:33:00.000-06:00

I caught Stomp the Yard in a matinee today at my favourite cheap theater. I had been interested in seeing this when it first came out, but didn't get a chance. I guess now that I've seen it, I'm glad I didn't spend ten bucks to see it.

Columbus Short stars as DJ, a young man who enjoys battle dancing with his group, until he suffers a tragedy. He gets sent to college to keep out of trouble, enrolling in the predominantly black Truth University in Atlanta, Georgia. He immediately falls for one of the campus hotties April (Meagan Good, who was kickass as Max in D.E.B.S.). Of course April has a boyfriend and of course he becomes DJ's rival. DJ finds himself in between two rival fraternities who catch some of his dance moves. They each want him on their team to help win the national step competition. I don't think I even need to keep on with plot details as you've seen this movie many times in previous incarnations.

The movie began with a Baz Luhrmann type battle dance sequence. You know what I mean, those trippy, frenetic, seizure-inducing jerky visuals from Moulin Rouge! and Romeo + Juliet. This went on during most of the intense dancing scenes, which was too bad because I wanted to see what the dancing looked like without them. Columbus Short was good as DJ. Other than that, it was very predictable and formulaic. I still rooted for his team in the end, but from about fifteen minutes in you could see the plot coming a mile away. The dancing was cool, but I feel I would enjoy a documentary on step dancing more than Stomp the Yard.

More ramblings to come.........

Shopgirl

2007-03-20T00:59:00.001-06:00

A friend of mine asked me recently, "What's up with you and Steve Martin lately?" I love watching his work, that's all....and maybe I'd have a few of his babies. It's also been awesome watching the progression of his work from The Jerk and the Wild and Crazy Guy to L.A. Story to Shopgirl and everything in between.

I picked up the Shopgirl DVD over the weekend and really enjoyed it. Based on a novella by Steve Martin of the same name, Martin based the story on personal experience, stories from friends and anecdotes heard along the way. He wrote the script and Anand Tucker directed. Martin made the comment in the special features that Tucker, being from England, brought a great look to the film because he was able to see Los Angeles from an outsider's point of view and put that on the screen. Just like Mick Jackson (another Brit) had done in L.A. Story.

The story is about Mirabelle Buttersfield (Claire Danes), a young and lonely woman who works at Saks Fifth Avenue behind the counter in the glove department and is a part time artist. Mirabelle meets Jeremy (Jason Schwartzman), a slovenly slacker, in a laundromat and they go on a date. Mirabelle isn't impressed by Jeremy, but seems to hang out with him out of loneliness. Mirabelle also meets Ray Porter (Martin) shortly after her date with Jeremy when he buys a pair of gloves from her and begins to pursue her. Their age difference is vast, but Mirabelle is impressed with his sophistication and wealth. He knows who he is and is cultured and successful, unlike Jeremy.

Ray and Mirabelle begin a relationship with a misunderstanding. Ray tells Mirabelle they should keep their options open and that it's only a temporary arrangement. Mirabelle hears something different and believes they have a future. They begin to spend more and more time together. Complications arise in their relationship in the form of Mirabelle's depression and Ray's infidelity. In the meantime, Jeremy is on the road with a rock band and begins a journey of self improvement. Ultimately, Mirabelle feels she has been given a choice on whether to hurt now or later.

The film is very nuanced and subtle. It's a little reminiscent of Lost in Translation with the May-December relationship and slow moving action. The visual aesthetic reminds me a little of Amelie, with the colours, but not as oversaturated as Amelie. The film has a beautiful aesthetic look to it and gets more beautiful and colourful with Mirabelle's arc and sensual awakening with Ray. Great compositions. The performances are all great and everybody is perfectly cast. Claire Danes gives a depth and intelligence to Mirabelle that not many actresses her age could.

Instead of ending with a quote from the movie, I will quote from the IMDB message board of Shopgirl. There is an interesting thread where people have debated about whether Mirabelle should have chosen to hurt now or later. From the user named cindic8....

"You always need to consider how the other person makes you feel about yourself. If you have a healthy self-image, you won't stay with someone who doesn't behave in a way that indicates that they feel damn lucky to be with you." Word.

More ramblings to come........

I Think I Love My Wife

2007-03-17T22:55:00.000-06:00

Movie night and it was a choice between I Think I Love My Wife and Premonition. We went with I Think I Love My Wife. Written and directed by and starring Chris Rock, the film is about Richard Cooper (Rock) finding himself bored with his marriage.

Richard is an investment banker at a medium sized firm. He lives in the suburbs with his lovely schoolteacher wife, Brenda (Gina Torres). They have two children and have their routine pretty much down pat. SUV, chicken for dinner, Saturday afternoons shopping with the kids, and the occasional dinner with their other married friends. They seem a solid married couple on the outside, but see a marriage counsellor and have stopped having sex for quite some time. The inciting incident begins when Richard is visited at work by an old friend's ex flame, Nikki (played by the gorgeous Kerry Washington). Nikki is flirtatious, seductive and spontaneous. They begin a friendship on the sly with her only contacting him at work. Richard knows he's just tempting himself by getting closer and closer to Nikki. Richard's marriage starts unraveling the more time he spends with Nikki and begins to neglect his work. Ultimately, Richard has a decision to make.

I love Chris Rock's other work, but this film didn't quite work for me. It was interesting to see the story from his point of view. However, I have a problem with the way Nikki is portrayed as predatory and manipulating while Richard is merely the innocent, clueless victim of her charms. This seems to say that women are always crafty and after the married man and he has no mind or will of his own when he sees cleavage or the back of her thong over her jeans. Richard's moment of clarity with his inner conflict is pretty unrealistic as well. Something didn't quite click and I wasn't pulled into the story. There were a few laughs, but for the most part, our theater was pretty quiet. Basically if you were to ask me "How was it?" I'd have to answer with one of those head nods to the side, "It was...okay."

I Think I Love My Wife
5.5/10
Recommended: Not really, unless you're a huge Chris Rock fan.

More ramblings to come.......

DVD Quote of the Day: The 40 Year Old Virgin

2007-03-15T22:16:00.001-06:00

Last weekend I talked with a friend of mine who has not seen The 40 Year Old Virgin. That's right, someone who has NOT seen The 40 Year Old Virgin. What's up with that?

Quick run down: Andy Stitzer (Steve Carell, love, love, love him) is a 40 year old virgin who works at Smart Tech as the store's stock supervisor. His life is mundane without any social activities other than watching Survivor with his elderly neighbours. His co-workers David (Paul Rudd), Jay (Romany Malco) and Cal (Seth Rogen) invite him to play poker with them one night and discover that Andy's a virgin. They decide to make it their mission to get Andy laid. After a few of their disastrous attempts, Andy meets Trish (Catherine Keener), a single mother, who piques his interest. They begin dating and Andy feels the pressure to have sex mounting.

It's an excellent movie that's part raunchy buddy comedy, part sweet romantic comedy, which works. Directed and written by Judd Apatow (Freaks and Geeks), the humour is extremely raunchy but great with the running "pussy on a pedestal" joke, the whole "you know how I know you're gay?" improv scene and the infamous waxing scene. Apatow shares the writing credit with Carell, but a lot of the movie was improvised. Strong performances from all of the cast.

I remember the theatrical version very well. The timing, the flow, the performances and the jokes were all perfect. The DVD is the Unrated version with 17 extra minutes. Although those 17 minutes are still funny, they interrupt the flow that the theatrical version had. The DVD commentary is hilarious with director/writer Judd Apatow, Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen (also one of the producers), Romany Malco, Leslie Mann (who plays the drunk girl and is married to Apatow), Jane Lynch (hilarious as store manager, Paula), Gerry Bednob (hilarious as Mooj), Shelley Malil (Haziz) and Jonah Hill (who plays the eBay store customer) all getting drunk while reflecting on the making of the film. The DVD also features the obligatory deleted scenes, with or without a commentary, blooper reel and dinner with a porn star.

Extremely quotable with too many choices for just one quote of the day. So I'm giving a couple....first from when Cal advises Andy to tell Trish he's a virgin to test her....

Cal: Here, tell me, this is how it's gonna go.
Andy: I'm a virgin.
Cal: Sweet! I like that, because you don't have... chlamydia....and I *know* that....and that shit is everywhere.

The part when David, the bitter dumpee still getting over a four month relationship two years later, tells Andy about love.....

Andy: It sounds horrible.
David: Of course it's horrible. It's suffering and it's pain and it's....you know, you lose weight, then you put back on weight, and then you, you know call them a bunch of times, and you try to email and then they move or they change their email. But that's just love.

The part where Andy is drunk and about to go home with Beth and has to tell her he doesn't drive....

Andy: I hope you've got a big trunk, because I'm putting my bike in it.
Beth: (misunderstanding his meaning) Oh, ho, ho, ho....Hello!

Steve, see the damn movie! More ramblings to come......

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

2007-03-10T01:09:00.001-07:00

I watched Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, the sequel, before I watched Bridget Jones's Diary, because I'm a dumbass who can't read the outside of a freakin' DVD case.

The sequel picks up six weeks after the original's end. Bridget Jones (Renee Zellweger) is happy in her new relationship with Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). The inciting incident happens when when an attractive, younger woman (Rebecca Gilles, played by the beautiful Jacinda Barrett) begins working with Mark, causing Bridget to doubt her new relationship. Of course, more obstacles arise with the return of Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant) when he starts working with Bridget again.

I neglected to discuss the other characters in the post on the first movie. The whole ensemble was great with Bridget's three bitchy yet supportive friends, Tom (James Callis), Jude (Shirley Henderson, Moaning Myrtle from the Harry Potter movies) and Shazzer (Sally Phillips). Bridget's vulgar, too-much-information giving Mum (the fabulous Gemma Jones) and her charmingly pessimistic Dad (Jim Broadbent) are also comical and complement each other.

I have read the comments section for this film on the IMDB page and it seems a lot of people were disappointed by the sequel. I guess not having seen either, the sequel was new stuff to me, so I enjoyed it. Another criticism was about the outlandishness of some of the situations like the mushroom trip, skiing and prison scenes. I actually found those the most humorous because they were over the top. More criticism at a twist in the plot at the end that is different in the book. I won't give it away, but I actually really like this twist for a few reasons. The biggest one being that I hate it when obstacles are presented to make another woman seem predatory and out to get the heroine's man. There are already way too many stories pitting women against each other over men. The other reason is that it shows that Bridget made up some of this conflict in her head. I think it's fairly common but usually the conflicts in these types of movies are external.

On the flipside, the cons include the fact that Bridget is a little TOO much into her head and comes off as more insecure and unsure than in the original. Another factor about why the audiences may not have been as happy with this one is that the great ensemble cast of the first movie were not as prominent in the sequel because of the time spent in Thailand and the prison. I did still enjoy it, in particular, the scene where Bridget is trying to buy a pregnancy test in a language she does not know with the pharmacist and the other customers trying to guess what she wants.

Bridget: Look...I'm a girl who met a boy....frauleine and I met frau...boy and now, possibly meet bebe." (I think it's all in the delivery)

More ramblings to come.......

Bridget Jones's Diary

2007-03-09T02:43:00.001-07:00

Yes, I know...I suck. This is the first new post in a week. I hadn't seen this movie until recently because I always thought, "Ewww, chick flick". I received Bridget Jones's Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason for my birthday because my friend was insistent that I had to see them (Thank you, Amber!). Anyhoo, I really, really like both of them.

Directed by Sharon Maguire, this film is based on Helen Fielding's popular novel of the same name. Renee Zellweger stars as Bridget Jones, a single thirty something woman living in Britain, who is looking for love and ways to improve herself. Bridget feels she's one of the only 30's something single women in a world full of couples. Her parents are attempting to fix her up with a neighbour's son, a human rights lawyer names Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). However, they don't really hit it off. She soon falls for her boss, the charming, womanizing Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant) when they begin an inter-office affair.

It's a fairly straightforward romantic comedy. Everybody is well cast and there is a lot of great humour, mostly in Bridget's internal dialogue. She's refreshing because most rom coms have a lead character that is charmingly clutzy (Debra Messing, Wedding Date) or adorably neurotic (Meg Ryan, When Harry Met Sally) so that the average woman can sympathize with them and they will be likable. However, even when they show their "faults" they're still disgustingly cute (Kate Hudson, How To Lose a Guy in Ten Days). Bridget really, truly embarrasses herself. Not only that, she's not a size 6. Everybody made such a big deal because she gained 25 lbs for this role. Ooooh, so she was what.....125lbs? Anyhoo, it was easy to root for her.

There's a few things that bother me about romantic comedies. One is how seemingly easy it is for the characters to fall in love. It seems like the general rule of thumb is that the two main characters have to be annoyed as hell by the other one until they realize that they love each other. They don't only have to be annoyed and bicker with each other, but they have to run to that person the second they realize they really love them to give them that big "this is how I feel about you, even though you annoy the hell out of me" speech. But the stakes have to be high, that other person has to be either boarding a plane to Timbuktu or walking down the aisle to get married to someone else when they give their big speech. But in Must Love Dogs, Diane Lane's character can't wait one more second to tell John Cusack's character how she feels, and can't even wait until he docks his canoe. She jumps into the lake and swims to his boat. In rom com land, these gestures are considered romantic and touching instead of psychotic and needy like they would be if they happened in real life. It's still a good movie, but mostly escapism.

From the part of the film after the man she really loves leaves and her friends try to cheer her up........

Shazzer: Exactly. I mean there's been all these bloody hints and stuff, but has he ever actually stuck his fucking tongue down your fucking throat?
Bridget: No. Not once!

More ramblings to come.......

The Lonely Guy

2007-03-01T00:33:00.000-07:00

As mentioned a few posts below, I got the Steve Martin: The Wild and Crazy Comedy Collection DVD box set. I watched The Lonely Guy because I hadn't seen it before and it's sitting here. Based on a Neil Simon play, the film stars Steve Martin as Larry Hubbard, a man who goes home one day to his girlfriend to find her in bed with her lover, Raoul, and informs him that he will be moving out, just as soon as he takes out the garbage. Larry becomes a "lonely guy".

Also starring a young and barely recognizable Charles Grodin as Warren, an oft-times 'lonely guy' who becomes Larry's guide and mentor to the life of a 'lonely guy'. The lonely guy is a sort of code for a secret club of lonely men. There are certain rules to the club and things all lonely men learn. Warren teaches Larry things like how to eat alone in a restaurant without arousing suspicion from other patrons that you are a lonely guy (pretend you are a restaurant critic). He also teaches him about the lonely guy must haves (a fern plant, dog) and some of the lonely guy hangouts (the best bridge to jump from, The Lonely Guy store on 81st and Lex). Larry meets Iris (Judith Ivey), a flaky, friendly, interesting woman who immediately identifies Larry as a lonely guy. Iris piques Larry's interest and he soon begins chasing her. The film's narrative follows the normal plot outline rules with obstacles to him finding Iris and "getting the girl" and a small subplot with his friend Warren.

This film is funny, but unfortunately suffers from a lack of identity. It doesn't quite work. The film has a voice over narration at the beginning of the film from Larry introducing himself and his situation to the audience. Fine. A little bit into the film, now Larry is directly addressing the camera and looking right into it. Okay. Then other times the voice over and Larry directly addressing the camera are glaringly obviously missing. Think of the voice over narration part of Clueless, then think of the part of Annie Hall when Alvy (Woody Allen) talks right to the camera, then think of any other movie where a character is walking through the park in a long shot with no dialogue or music. Now think of them all in the same movie. All three can be good and effective apart, but not so much when they are all are used together. The humour is very funny and surreal-like (like when Larry is being seated at a busy restaurant and the whole restaurant stares at him in silence while the room darkens and a blue spotlight follows him to his table) and Martin and Grodin both give good performances (like when they sit in the park discussing why bums always have a lot hair). The soundtrack is pretty outdated. Yes, I realize that it was released in 1984, that would be why, but it's not even dated in a "it's so bad it's good" kind of way.

In spite of all that it's okay and would be worth checking out if you're a Steve Martin fan and have never seen it. From the part of the film where Iris tells Larry it would never work because they're perfect for each other......

Iris: I need someone who I don't care a damn about. Someone mean and unfeeling and rotten.
Larry: I could be that! Just give me a day or two to work on it......I mean sure we have a few problems like not having sex, but we don't have to have sex, there's plenty of other things we can do. We can go to motels and listen to other people have sex!"

More ramblings to come........

R.I.P. Lylas Filson

2007-02-25T18:02:00.000-07:00

Today at approximately 5:15 p.m., my beloved grandmother Lylas Filson passed away. She had gotten sick about a week and a half prior. The doctors are still not sure what her illness originally was, as she had decided after two days of tests, medications, MRI's, etc, and the onset of pneumonia, that she wanted to go. She went on her terms and I'm grateful for that. I was able to spend time with her in her last days and let her know that I love her and said good-bye. I also asked her to give my father a hug and a kiss for me and tell him I love him when she saw him (he passed when I was 12) and she said she would.

My grandmother was the all-powerful matriarch of the Filson family survived by my grandfather, Russ, my aunt Andrea, my uncles Brett, Geoff and Neil and a whole bunch of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. My grandparents had celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary last summer receiving letters of congratulations from the Queen, the Prime Minister, the Governor-General and a whole schwack of other people. My grandparents had lived in Regina for many, many years and are well-known and liked in the community. We couldn't go anywhere in town without them bumping into at least a few people they knew. Active within her church and the curling community, she will be greatly missed by many.

I have so many great memories with her and my habit of taking in matinees started with her. In the summer when I was younger, she used to take me to see a movie in the afternoon and then out for gelato afterwards. She was also very supportive of my academic and artistic pursuits. I love her dearly and will miss her very much. I am also grateful that she was able to go on her terms and that she is no longer in pain.

Apologies because there may not be a new post until later on in the week as I will be busy with other stuff.

DVD Quote of the Day: The Jerk

2007-02-21T23:17:00.000-07:00

One of my fellow cinephiles has informed me that I'm a jerk because I've never seen The Jerk. So, I picked up the Steven Martin: The Wild and Crazy Comedy Collection box set from Walmart, which includes The Jerk, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid and The Lonely Guy. I think I've just fallen in love all over again with Steve Martin (L.A. Story has always been one of my faves).

Directed by Carl Reiner, Steve Martin (who also co-wrote the story) stars as Navin R. Johnson, a kind of imbecile adopted and raised by a black family ("I was born a poor, black child"). Navin has never felt like he really fits in with the rest of the family and decides to see the world, starting with St. Louis. He gets a job there at a gas station working for Mr. Hartounian (Jackie Mason), then moves on to become a carny where he discovers what his "special purpose" is for. There, he meets and falls in love with Marie (Bernadette Peters, who's actually a hot little disco dancer). He also finds out he's a sudden millionaire. Hilarity ensues.

Steve Martin is quite the hottie in this film. It is very, very funny and unlike most comedies, the humour is unexpected and you can't see the joke and plot coming a mile away. I have no clue how I haven't seen it before now, but I'm sure glad I did. It's embarrassing for a Steve Martin fan to admit. Unfortunately, the DVD special features are minimal with a small "learn how to play 'You belong to me' on the ukelele" featurette (which may be fun if you actually own a ukelele) and a few minutes of an extended "atrocities" that the Father has shown Navin on film. There are sooooo many funny quotes that it's hard to settle on just one. From the part where Navin sends a letter home after losing his virginity......

Grandma: (reading letter) My dear family, guess what. Today I found out what my special purpose is for. Gosh what a great time I had. I wish the whole family could have been here with me. Maybe some other time as I intend to do this a lot. Every chance I get. I think next week I'll be able to send some more money as I may have extra work. My friend Patty promised me a blow job. Your loving son, Navin. (stops reading) And he's got the kisses here.
Father: That Patty must be a sweet girl.
Mother: God bless her.

So I've seen the movie and I'm no longer a jerk (happy now?)

More ramblings to come.....

Music and Lyrics

2007-02-18T17:13:00.000-07:00

I got a chance to see Music and Lyrics this afternoon. I've been looking forward to this because of my girl Drew. What a cute movie.

Written and directed by Marc Lawrence (writer of Miss Congeniality and writer/director of Two Weeks Notice), the film is about washed up 80's pop star Alex Fletcher (Hugh Grant) still coasting on his old pop star glory while his partner went on to become a big solo star (think Andrew Ridgeley from Wham while George Micheal went on to become....well, George Michael). He plays the nostalgia circuit at state fairs, amusement parks and has been offered a spot on a new show called "Battle of the 80's Has-Beens". Current pop star Cora Corman (Haley Bennett), who is kind of a Shakira/Britney character, is auditioning has-been pop stars to write her a new song. Alex is thrilled at getting a chance to become relevant again, the only problem being that Alex can write music, but isn't so good at lyrics. Enter Sophie Fisher (Drew Barrymore) who is filling in for Alex's regular plant-waterer. Sophie inadvertently blurts out some lyrics to music Alex is composing, causing Alex to chase her and convince her to help him write the song.

In the process of composing and writing songs, Alex and Sophie get to know each other better and discover they have both been stuck and afraid to do the things they want to do. They also develop feelings for each other and help push the other one to do better. It's a typical romantic comedy that follows the same map as other rom coms, boy meets girl, boy and girl start to like each other, boy does something stupid to fuck it up, boy has to win girl back before she moves away. It is a typical rom com, but an entertaining one. Grant and Barrymore are so cute together, especially when they bicker. Of course, as in other films of this genre, the ones close to the main characters add flavour and humour to the film. In this case it's Alex's manager, Chris (Brad Garrett) and Sophie's big sister, Rhonda (Kristen Johnston, who is hilarious in this film). I would have liked to have seen the conflict that keeps Alex and Sophie apart a little more drawn out.

The 80's video for Pop!'s "Pop Goes My Heart" song is the funniest part of the film, and they sure had the look and moves down. I was surprised to see that this is the first and only credit on Haley Bennett's IMDB page, as she is really, really good as the ditzy pop star. The songs in the film are also very catchy and still in my head. Overall, it's a very cute movie and worth checking out.

Music and Lyrics
7/10
Recommended:....if you like romantic comedies, Hugh Grant, Drew Barrymore, or are in the mood for a light comedy.
Best line: Sophie (On discussing the difference between music and lyrics): The melody is like the initial attraction, like sex. But the lyrics are their story.

More ramblings to come......

Happy Singles Awareness Day

2007-02-14T22:21:00.000-07:00

To celebrate Valentine's Day (ugh), I decided to dedicate a post to anti-Valentines flicks. You know, good movies to watch after a break up or when you just want to gag from all the heart and flowers crap and sappy chick flick displays clogging up the aisles at your favourite stores. Below are my list of recommendations for anti-Valentine's flicks. This is for you, Dave....

Swingers

I discovered this film last week. I believe movies, like people, are meant to come into your life at a certain point for whatever reason. Jon Favreau (writer and stars as Mikey) wrote this film based on his experience moving from NY to LA after a break up and his struggle to get over it. Directed by Doug Liman, Doug wanted to cast Favreau and his friends Vince Vaughn and Ron Livingston, but the studios wouldn't fund it. They financed it independently. It was rejected from Sundance, so they held a screening for distributors and it took off from there. The film launched the careers of Vince Vaughn, Ron Livingston, Jon Favreau and Doug Liman.

This is a great anti-V-Day movie because it focuses on Mike (Favreau) and his depression six months after his long term relationship ends. She has moved on with someone else and he is getting used to a new city, feeling down and having trouble moving forward. There are a few great scenes between Mike and his friend Rob (Livingston), who has gotten over the slump Mike is in now. His friend Trent (Vaughn) tries to cheer him up by taking him to Vegas and when they go back to LA, they hit the neo-lounge scene with their friends Sue (Patrick Van Horn), Rob and Charles (Alex Desert). The guys all try to encourage Mike to meet women and get back into the dating scene. Mikey, after a few false starts, finally meets a girl who he connects with and finds they share some things in common. I don't think the couple formation at the end is solid or the important part of the movie. It's that yes, things are crappy for awhile, but they will get better....and probably when you least expect it. Keep hope alive.

Best exchange in the movie between Rob and Mikey, when Mikey is asking Rob how long it will take to get over the pain......

Mikey: How did you get over it? I mean, how long did it take?
Rob: I don't know. Sometimes it still hurts. You know how it is, man, it's like, you wake up every day and it hurts a little bit less and then you wake up one day and it doesn't hurt at all. And the funny thing is, this is kinda weird, it's like, it's like you almost miss that pain.
Mikey: You miss the pain?
Rob: Ya, for the same reason that you miss her. Because you, you lived with it for so long.

High Fidelity

I loves me some John Cusack. Based on a novel by Nick Hornby, this flick is another great anti-V-Day movie because Rob Gordon (John Cusack), a music geek, is going through a break up with his girlfriend. Rob, a chronic list maker, recounts his top five worst break ups, then confronts those women to find out why it didn't work. His misery is excellent and is amped by his two socially inept employees Barry (Jack Black) and Dick (Todd Louiso). He still wants to make it work with Laura (Iben Hjejle). Rob is forced to look at his past and behavior find out why he can't seem to make his relationships work. To be honest, I haven't seen it in awhile, but may revisit it in the near future. Lots of great lines, but I will go with this one......

Rob: I can see now I never really committed to Laura. I always had one foot out the door, and that prevented me from doing a lot of things, like thinking about my future and... I guess it made more sense to commit to nothing, keep my options open. And that's suicide. By tiny, tiny increments.

Under the Tuscan Sun

This is a great break up/anti-VDay movie for women. Starring the beautiful Diane Lane as Frances, a fiction writer and critic who discovers her husband is cheating on her and wants a divorce. Based on a novel by Audrey Wells, Frances goes to Tuscany for a vacation to get her mind off her divorce (at the insistence of her friends). She decides quite spontaneously to buy a villa in Tuscany and live there. She starts over in a new country all on her own. What's great about this movie is that it doesn't feed into that whole "he was a jerk, here comes a great, charming too good to be true guy to show that great woman there are great guys out there" crap usually found in those movies. As a matter of fact, there are some false leads in this film regarding romantic interests. What's even greater is that as she is still hurting from her divorce, makes a small list of things she would like and thinks she has to meet a man before she can get them. One of her friends, later on, points out to her that she has them all, and didn't need a man to make it complete. It's a great movie that makes me want to go on a gay tour of Tuscany. One of the best exchanges in the film......

Frances: Do you know the most surprising thing about divorce? It doesn't actually kill you. Like a bullet to the heart or a head-on car wreck. It should. When someone you've promised to cherish till death do you part says "I never loved you," it should kill you instantly. You shouldn't have to wake up day after day after that, trying to understand how in the world you didn't know. The light just never went on, you know. I must have known, of course, but I was too scared to see the truth. Then fear just makes you so stupid.
Martini: No, it's not stupid, Signora Mayes. L'amore e cieco.
Frances: Oh, love is blind. Yeah, we have that saying too.
Martini: Everybody has that saying because it's true everywhere.

Sliding Doors

This is a great movie and one I intended to purchase for Valentine's Day. Starring Gwyneth Paltrow as Helen Quilley, a woman who is involved in a long term relationship with a free-loading, cheating boyfriend, Gerry (John Lynch). This film is unique in that we see two parallel stories involving Helen. One story happens when Helen gets fired and catches the train home early to catch Gerry mid-tryst with Lydia (Jeanne Tripplehorn). She leaves Gerry and moves in with her kick ass friend, Anna (Zara Turner) and begins to build a new life for herself. The other story is what happens when Helen gets fired and doesn't catch the train home early. She just misses Lydia and doesn't know Gerry is fooling around on her, although she suspects something is up. John Hannah is the ultra charming and righteous James that Helen meets in the first story. The two stories jump back and forth and Peter Howitt (writer and director) does a great job in making clear which story is which and seeing what is happening in each story at any given time.

What's great about this movie and what makes it a good break up movie, is that it clearly demonstrates that it's better to be alone, hurt and slowly recovering from the pain than in a relationship with mistrust, suspicion, fighting and unhappiness. I normally hate the couple formation in these movies (I truly believe you need time alone before moving on), but James is too fucking cute, charming and funny. Yes, walking in on Jerry with another woman hurt, but is it better not to know and always suspect, never really being sure whether something is going on and thinking you may be crazy, or to get really hurt and know for sure and start moving ahead? Did that last sentence make any sense at all? In any case, I recommend it if you haven't seen it.

Helen: (flipping through the paper) Bollocks to him. I'm over him.
Anna: (skeptically) Oh. You're over him.
Helen: Yes. Totally and utterly and completely over him.
Anna: No you're not.
Helen: I am.
Anna: You're not.
Helen: Anna, I'm over him! What do you mean I'm not? How do you know I'm not?
Anna: Well, two things really. One, you're still counting how long you've been apart in days - and probably hours and minutes - but the big-flashing-red-light way of telling you're not really over someone is when you're still reading their horoscope in the hope that they're going to get wiped out in some freak napalming incident.

Upon googling "break up movies", I stumbled across this page on www.eFilmCritic.com with even more suggestions for good break up movies.....I'll have to check some of those out....

Happy Valentine's Day.....more ramblings to come......

Quickie Reviews

2007-02-11T09:03:00.000-07:00

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

I'm probably one of twelve people who didn't see this in its original theatrical release. I assumed it was juvenile bathroom type humour, so wasn't much interested in seeing it. However, it was nominated for a Best Comedy or Musical Golden Globe and is nominated for a Best Writing-Adapted Screenplay Academy Award, so I thought there must be more to it. It is hilarious and embarrassing to watch at the same time. Sascha Baron Cohen writes and stars as Borat, a character he created for his Da Ali G Show.

The premise is Borat is Kazakhstan's representative to discover and document America's culture to bring back to Kazakhstan to civilize their culture. While Borat is in America, meeting with various cultural experts (humour coaches, etiquette experts), he discovers Baywatch and falls in love with Pamela Anderson. He decides to travel across the country from New York City to California to marry Pamela. Along the way Borat meets many people like angry New Yorkers, southern sophisticates, drunken frat boys, rodeo cowboys, and many more. It is embarrassing to watch because Borat is able to draw out the ignorance in people and make it funny. There are some lawsuits because of it, because apparently, those people don't like their ignorance shown to the rest of the world. The trivia section of this movie on IMDB says that the police were called 91 times on Sascha Baron Cohen during the filming of this movie. Funny stuff.

Stranger than Fiction

I got a chance to see this at a matinee last week. I usually love Will Ferrell's work. He was good and so was Emma Thompson, as well as Dustin Hoffman. However, I just couldn't get lost in it, which should have been easy considering there was only one other person in the theater. Ferrell stars as Harold Crick who begins to hear a woman's voice (Thompson) in his head narrating his life. He panics after he hears her say he would die and tries to find the author to convince her not to kill him. Harold is an IRS auditor who meets and falls for one of his auditees, Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal). It's a cute story with some funny moments, but it was just okay. Ever see a movie where it was alright, but it just didn't quite click for you, but you can't put your finger on what didn't work? This is one of those.

More ramblings to come.....

Pan's Labyrinth

2007-02-03T21:28:00.000-07:00

I got a chance to take in Pan's Labyrinth tonight. Written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, this is Mexico's Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award nomination. I have been hearing rave reviews about it and have been looking forward to seeing it.

The film is a strange mix of historical drama and fantasy, with some family drama thrown in, but somehow, it all works. The film begins with a voice over narration, and since I will never be able to do it justice, I shall quote straight from the film...."A long time ago, in the underground realm, where there are no lies or pain, there lived a Princess who dreamed of the human world. She dreamed of blue skies, soft breeze, and sunshine. One day, eluding her keepers, the Princess escaped. Once outside, the brightness blinded her and erased every trace of the past from her memory. She forgot who she was and where she came from. Her body suffered cold, sickness, and pain. Eventually, she died. However, her father, the King, always knew that the Princess' soul would return, perhaps in another body, in another place, at another time. And he would wait for her, until he drew his last breath, until the world stopped turning... " The next scene is in northern Spain in 1944, shortly after Franco's victory. A young girl named Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) travels with her pregnant mother, Carmen (Ariadna Gil) to meet her mother's new husband, the facist Capitan Vidal (Sergi Lopez). Ofelia tells fantastical fairy tales to her unborn brother to calm him down. Ofelia is not very happy in her new home. Her stepfather is a vicious, ruthless killer and ruler, and her mother has fallen ill and is confined to bed rest.

Ofelia is visited by a fairy who beckons her to follow to a labyrinth on the grounds of her new home. She follows the fairy and meets a faun (Doug Jones) who tells her she is a princess from the underworld and he is to help her get back home. She is given a book and told that she has three tasks to perform before the next full moon in order to open the portal to the underworld.

The historical drama part of the film has Ofelia befriending Mercedes (Maribel Verdu), the head of the domestic duties of the household. Mercedes works for the Capitan, but she is also helping the Resistance soldiers on the sly. She is aided by Dr. Ferreiro (Alex Angulo), who is staying at the house to help Carmen. They are encouraged hearing reports that Allied forces are closing in.

I really don't want to give too much away, as the film is so compelling to watch. The two genres of historical drama and fantasy work very well together and seamlessly go back and forth without any jarring disbelief in either plot. A film hasn't drawn me in like this one in a long while. However, it can be rather graphically violent in parts, so be warned that it is disturbing at times. I hesitate to say all that I have, as it might be better to go in knowing as little as possible.

Pan's Labyrinth
8.5/10
Highly Recommended....especially if you love fantasy movies and are sick of the films Hollywood's been churning out lately.
Best line.....can't give it away or I'd ruin an important plot point.

More ramblings to come......