Categotry Archives: Movie Reviews

i’m sorry but this movie–it kind of sucked.

there were points when i was either cringing at the acting or stifling my giggling at the acting. there were points when i wanted to shoot him myself just to make it end. ok it wasn’t that bad. and colin farrell is hot. but it was pretty bad. pretty damn bad.

“it’s speed. in a phone booth.”

-ellie

she has a good point. only possibly we should change that to “speed 2: cruise control” since i LIKED speed. but phone booth and speed 2 have a lot more in common shitty shitty acting and plot wise.

i probably should have known what i was getting myself into when the movie started with an infomercial narrated by what’s his name 24 guy (kiefer sutherland) about PHONE USAGE. plus the little pop up video windows everytime the man was on the goddamm phone….oooooooooggggghhhh frantic hair messing. it was bad. i am so glad i paid matinee price.

p.s. forrest whittaker and radha mitchell in particular sucked major ass.

you like ‘sex, lies, and videotape’? than most likely you will like laurel canyon. that is the best comparison i can give it.

most of you, i am betting , have never even heard of this movie. i will give you a very short plot synopsis (i will not give away critical information).

sam (played by christian bale) and his girlfriend/fianc�e, alex (played by kate beckinsale) move to california. He’s doing this medical internship where he meets Sara (played by natascha mcelhone) and Alex is going to work on her PhD thesis. they move into his mother’s (played by a young and hot-looking frances mcdormand) house in laurel canyon (north of LA a little). she’s supposed to be gone, but is still there working on a record (she’s a record producer) of her newest group (fronted by alessandro nivola). what ensues is a loss of innocence, a crumbling/rebuilding of the family structure, and a couple of pool parties.

this movie follows some of the dogma95 rules. the sound quality is often broken up by exterior noise. the lighting is relatively natural. the acting is so good that it’s not like they’re trying it’s more like they’re just BEING. case in point this scene between Alex and Jane (mcdormand) in the kitchen. Jane is trying to convince alex to come listen to the record and jane is flustered and trying to be polite while getting out of it. and the thing is that it was obvious that kate beckinsale for some reason had moved beyond trying to act like she was uncomfortable and unsure and was just actually being timorous.

the movie is also all dialogue. nothing else goes on. it’s just them talking, having relationships, evolving, which is sort of refreshing when you’re normally surrounded by action blockbusters! horror shymalan! ditzy teenagers!

christian bale’s eyebrows were funny looking, a small complaint but there all the same. alessandro looked amazing and could actually sing pretty well. admittedly the lyrics to the second song were atrocious (ellie attempted puking on them), but he didn’t suck. kate beckinsale looked gorgeous as ever. and frances mcdormand was a fucking revelation. i always thought of her, ‘eh, not that attractive.’ but holy sweet jesus she looked incredibly hot in this movie. and natascha mcelhone, she was good. i don’t know, she wasn’t as striking as the rest of them because she was pretty calm and not as psychologically fucked.

some favorite lines (speaking of which, the writing was great.):

“he’s a puritan. he quotes proust and wears tweed.” -said by alex about her dad

“i don’t need a green nightie to cover up my supple skin and eking soul in this barren wasteland.” -said by a completely naked girl in the psych ward

don’t laugh. i really did go see this. what can i say? i’m a sucker for 16 year olds. sadly the ratio of retards in that theatre to actual 16 year olds was excessively weighted.

this movie. i don’t know what it is about frankie muniz. but i think the problem could be that he’s not aging well. i mean, on malcom in the middle, he was cute, right? but now he looks like they’re plastering him with orangish tan matte purifying makeup and he looks kind of dirty and….bad most of the time. this could be in some small part due to the fact that he is constantly actually getting dirty while doing spy activities in this movie. and beaten up. but still.

they had lots of absurd gadgets. not as many as spy kids. but there were these stand up scooters things that everyone in the CIA rolled around on at the headquarters. adults, mind you. it was like saying, “children become CIA agents at this training summer camp in order to grow up and be CIA agents so they can remain children and play with toys.” valuable lesson learned about the state of our secret society of protectors. good job, guys.

his “handler”/partner angie harmon was hot. and jeez were they ever stuffing her bra. it was amazing.

hillary duff sucks. apparently she also sings though. cause there was this preview for this movie coming out soon with her and an italian boy and being a famous european pop singing duo. it looks incredibly dumb. i’ll probably see it.

this was amusing. and not half bad. watching the kid do martial arts was fun. and arnold vosloo the mummy in the BEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME, the mummy and the mummy returns, wandering around being evil in shiny, silver, velvet jogging suits was fun.

so admittedly this movie was not good. the jokes were generally gross. the romance angle was pathetic. the value system was skewed. but you know what? luke wilson is fucking good to look at. and vince vaughn is a comedic timing genius of a god. the man throws his lines out there with this serious expression even when it’s just telling his kid, “earmuffs” so he can swear. that poor kid.

the thing is though that i laughed a whole bunch in this movie. serious amusing laughter. i have no fucking clue now what the hell i was laughing at because the whole thing was such utter fluff that it was pretty forgettable. but it must have been funny because i laughed and enjoyed it.

plus it was a matinee. so cheap. except for how i paid for my brother too. making it less cheap.

the blue lagoon

naked brooke sheilds. like the whole movie. holy shit. i mean you see pubic hair. and penises. you see those too.

furthermore they’re COUSINS. and they have a baby. which, you know, is fine. whatever. it’s just that is seems a little odd for a movie of the late 20th century. but whatever. i’m fine with cousins having sex. i’m even fine with them having a baby as long as thier children don’t have babies together. but it’s just a little risque of a topic, one would think, for hollywood. and the director of grease no less.

at the end they get found in thier little dinghy by the father/uncle and are taken back to civilization.

return to the blue lagoon

milla jovovich naked. only not completely naked. she’s always got bottoms on. very small bottoms. but still. and the guy from charmed. the angel/husband/father one. ha ha ha! so young. although really not the 14/17 year olds they’re pretending to be.

at the beginning of this one: the two from the first one are found by a random ship and are already dead, but the kid is still alive. and then he and the girl and her mom get re-shipwrecked on the same island (only it’s really not the same island cause they filmed somewhere else.) mind you the dead guys are also not cousins in this one.

and this one ends with them staying on the island and away from civilization and its “guns.”

furthermore the tagline in the preview (special features) was “out of innocence comes the most sensual love of all.” oh good lord.

they also have a wonderful sex talk thing where the mom takes out a mango and a zucchini looking thing and a knife and it looks like she’s going to hollow out the mango and demonstrate with the zucchini. but then she just says they lie very close together and that’s it. cop out.

thoughts

what does it say that in 1980 there was a conclusion that returning to civilization was good. and in 1991 civilization was bad? does it reflect world events? or were the moviemaker in charge people just being facetious? heh. either way, other than starting at how gorgeous milla is and how naked they are constantly in the first one, these movies are terrible.

i saw signs again recently when i was sick and i have to say that upon second viewing my faith in m night shymalan has actually been restored. all of the issues i had before were blown away by the sheer amazing writing (not that it’s good and not that it’s bad but because it’s so ORDINARY which is AMAZING), directing, and cinematography. sure the alien still looks stupid, but whatever i can get past that. and most importantly the huge gripe that we all had with it became as flax in the breeze because the whole aliens coming to take over our planet and its resources WASN’T WHY THEY CAME AT ALL. that’s one of the theories mentioned in the middle of the movie but at the end it comes out that really the aliens only came to earth to harvest some humans and take them away again. so the whole, “what the hell this is dumb why would aliens take over a planet made up of mostly a liquid which kills them?” detraction is kind of moot. my point is: try watching it again and you might really appreciate the understated elegance of it all. or you could agree with ian and still think it sucked ass. i’m almost tempted to watch unbreakable again which i DESPISED because maybe it’s better on a second viewing too.

horrible! and it went on FOREVER. i don’t know what possessed me to see this movie. but it was a very bad idea. some of the racing was all right if you like adrenaline fueled competition. everything else was awful. the random plot twist that really the kid is the king of cali’s son and not slick will’s was DUMB. and the end was stupid. and kid rock was in it. kid fucking rock. uuuurrrrrrgh.

i like the z on the end. and brenden fehr (was on roswell) and that i saw it in an almost empty theatre with only two other people–both female–and some old dood who walked in about 1.5 hours into it and watched the end. and i was in concord no less. concord.