The Nanny Diaries – DVD Movie Review
This movie was on the list because I knew Jen would want to see it. Plus, it has Scarlett Johansson, so I was game no matter what. It was ok. I never saw The Devil Wears Prada but I imagine that this could be an unofficial sequel and/or prequel.
Laura Linney plays the stereotypical Upper East Side Manhattan mother with a super rich husband, played perfectly by Paul Giamatti. Annie (Jahansson) plays a nanny to Linney’s kid. Wackiness and meanness ensue.
A few things. First, it was really gimmicky. The characters weren’t given actual names until they came to be decent people. So throughout the movie the parents of the child were Mr. and Mrs. X. The boy who she liked was “The Harvard Hottie.” And please don’t start lecturing me about why it makes sense. I know. I know. I just don’t care. I found it distracting and unnecessary. Secondly, if you have Paul Giamatti in your cast, don’t allow his character to run off to Chicago on business for half the flick. I don’t care what the book was about, the father could have been a more prominent part of the storyline. Thirdly, can we please stop casting musicians as actors? I just found the whole Alicia Keys experiment distracting. And trust me, it isn’t a racial thing. I can’t stand seeing Justin Timberlake show up in bit parts either.
After all my criticisms, you might think I didn’t like the movie. Over all, I really did, though. It was entertaining, had some decent lines here and there, and it starred Scarlett Johansson. So, it couldn’t have been all bad.
Hannibal Rising – DVD Movie Review
I love Hannibal Lecter movies. Silence of the Lambs, Manhunter, Red Dragon (Manhunter remake), Hannibal and now Hannibal Rising were all pretty good, even in their worst moments. Sure, it has a lot to do with Anthony Hopkins, but it also has a lot to do with the sociopathic nature of a guy who not only kills people, but eats them too, while being as smart and wily as any human being in the history of the world. That combination of brutality and supreme intelligence is what makes Lecter such a great character.
Hannibal Rising did justice to that character once more by showing us exactly where Lecter comes from. The movie wasn’t as fluid as some of its predecessors and the acting was more amateurish than any performance that Anthony Hopkins has ever delivered, but the storyline of Hannibal seeking revenge on those who harmed his family during WWII was phenomenal. The twist at the end wasn’t as mind-bending as they hoped it would be, but it was chilling just the same. If you like the Hannibal Lecter character, I don’t think this movie will disappoint you.
Next – DVD Movie Review
I wanted to see this movie because of the cast. Mostly because I could spend two hours watching Jessica Biel even if she was being filmed watching paint dry. Yes. I would watch Jessica Biel watching paint dry. Also, I used to have kind of a “thing” for Julianne Moore. So, I picked up Next starring Nic Cage. Now this is the theory I have come up with.
Nicolas Cage is a bad actor. He is almost a parody of himself. There are certain roles which make him seem slightly less bad than he is at other times, but mostly he is just bad. The problem is that he has a great eye for movies and he ends up picking really interesting projects. At the end of the day, you end up watching a sub-par performance by a leading actor in some pretty good scripts.
Such is the case with Next. It is about a guy (Cage) who can see two minutes into his own future at all times. What you end up with is a time-bending action movie with an intriguing storyline, that was completely entertaining despite Nic Cage doing that same weird parody of himself that he seems to do in all his films. If you can watch this movie with that filter, then you will enjoy it.
Ratatouille – Movie Review
Sorry to all those kids out there who want to read a good review of Ratatouille. It was just OK. And maybe this review has less to do with the actual quality of the movie Ratatouille as it does with the fact that Brad Bird is WASTING HIS and MY time with movies like this when he had the chance to create the greatest cartoon franchise in the history of cartoons if he would have just kept pumping out sequels to The Incredibles. The Incredibles was so far beyond any of the other cartoon movies that I have ever seen that it seems such a shame not to revisit it.
Ratatouille was entertaining, but it didn’t have any “wow” factor.
Superbad Movie Review
I finally saw Superbad recently and I have to say that this is probably the funniest high school movie since American Pie came out. I won’t drop any of the cliches that you have already been peppered with, but I will say if nothing else, check out the first 20 minutes. The first 20 minutes are so chock full of jokes and funny lines that you can’t help but laugh.
It is brought to you by the same people who brought you Knocked Up.
Small Town Gay Bar – DVD Movie Review
A note to my East coast friends: If you think that this county is a progressive, liberal place, you really have no concept for what certain parts of the country are like. Imagine what it must be like to be a gay person in Mississippi. That is the concept for this documentary by Kevin Smith’s friend Malcolm Ingram. Ingram, a gay man, takes us through the south to show us the story of a few different gay bars, the gay people who frequent them and the many detractors who hate them. The real bravery of this film are the southern gay people who were willing to talk on camera.
This movie wasn’t preachy, and held true to the documentary format. Ingram went to talk to Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church and didn’t editorialize at all. He let Phelps talk his “gospel” and let the viewers decide for themselves.
Cashback – DVD Movie Review
Cashback is an indie movie about an insomniac art student who decides to fill up sleepless nights working in a grocery store. It may or may not be about time travel and pausing the world. It doesn’t matter really. The movie was interesting, decent to look at, and had tons of beautiful naked women in it. Somehow it managed to maintain some artistic qualities to it.
I found it strange, but I felt like I could point at the screen and say that this is exactly what it is like when a young boy figures out that women are exciting in a “climbing the rope in gym class” kind of way. Somehow the movie takes what should be gratuitous nudity and seems to maintain some kind of innocence about it. I don’t know. Maybe it is just me. I liked it.
Transformers – DVD Movie Review
I was looking forward to Transformers because I had some of the toys growing up and I watched the cartoons. Does anyone remember the mini-battle that went on between Transformers and their less popular copycat friends the GoBots? Anyway, I liked both toys, but I definitely liked Transformers better.
The movie, which came out about 20 years after the toys was just OK. The graphics and action scenes were amazing. I give them a 10 out of 10. The storyline? Kind of fragmented and a little bit boring. I give that a 6. Still, this movie franchise has a chance to become ok. Although after about two movies I am already completely tired of Shia LaBeouf.
They Live – DVD Movie Review
They Live is considered a cult classic horror movie by John Carpenter. Unfortunately, I am not in the cult. This movie had an awesome premise, and while I love Rowdy Roddy Piper as much as the next guy, it just couldn’t deliver in the end. It was too slow and plodding and the completely overdone fight scene in the middle was completely laughable. That could be a good thing, except I felt like I was laughing at the movie instead of with the movie.
Wrong Turn and Wrong Turn 2
If you are in the mood for solid low-budget horror then watch these two movies. The first one stars Eliza Dushku and is really a very solid horror flick about a mutant family of cannibals in the West Virginia mountains. The second one was also pretty decent starring Henry Rollins doing his best Rambo impression as the host of a reality show about surviving in the woods. Of course the West Virginian mutants make surviving in the woods that much more difficult. Anyway, the acting isn’t good, but it doesn’t matter. It is low-budget horror and I liked both of these.
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