Review-a-palooza!

Thanks to school, its been a while since I posted a blog. Never fear though, in the time I've been away I've seen five movies that need reviewing. And, I'm proud to say, I have just one semester left to finally be done with college. It has been a long journey, but once I'm done with my last two classes in the Fall I'll have more time to see movies (I hope). Anyway, let's get on with the reviews!

























"Adventureland"
Seen: April 27, 2009
At: UA Berkeley 7
With: Myself

I have to say this was not the movie I was expecting. The commercials and previews made me think this was going to be another teenage comedy kind of along the lines of an American Pie or something. If you go into the movie with that idea you will be wrong, just as I was. But hopefully, also like me, you'll be pleasantly surprised. I really enjoyed Adventureland. It was more of a drama than a comedy and kind of a weird, round about love story. Which I guess kind of makes it a chick flick. I like Kristen Stewart and her seeming awkwardness which is on display here. I also love Bill Hader. I enjoy Ryan Reynolds, though he plays a total sleazeball in this. You root for the underdog kid, played by Jesse Eisenberg. Especially since he ends up being in competition with the sleazeball. I imagine this is what working at a place like this would be like. You have your popular crowd and your more dorky crowd. They coexist, but you can tell they aren't really friends and intermingling isn't really accepted. Oh the kid in this that is from the AT & T commercials annoyed the hell out of me, which I think was the point of his character. So, even though this movie was not what I had expected from it when I walked into the theater, I really enjoyed it.

























"The Taking of Pelham 123"
Seen: June 14, 2009
At: San Mateo Century 12
With: Ol' Uncle Montie

I would have to say while this movie did go beyond my expectations, it was just ok. I say this mostly because I went into the movie with no real expectations. It was not on my list of movies I needed to see, but it was one of two Chris and I got the ok to see from Rachelle. And being as it was planning closest to when we got to the theater it won. I would've rather seen Drag Me to Hell. Travolta as always makes a great villain. He could truly be evil, I don't really know. Denzel plays a pretty typical Denzel character. It is a crime/drama movie. I think the true sign of what kind of movie it is, is the fact that just two weeks after watching it I already can't remember how it ended. Needless to say it didn't leave a lasting impression on me. Good actors mediocre story. I'm not real sure why the studio felt the need to remake this film.

























"Away We Go"
Seen: June 25, 2009
At: San Francisco Centre Century 9
With: My cousin Brian

I really didn't know anything about this movie until my cousin called me a couple weeks ago to see if I wanted to see it with him. I looked it up and saw that John Krasinski (The Office's Jim) was in it and thought it could be worth a look. I'm glad I decided that. It was definitely worth a look. Maya Rudolph typically annoys me. While I would've loved to see Krasinski's Office love interest Jenna Fischer make an appearance here in Rudolph's place, Rudolph made it work. The two play an expectant couple in their thirties trying to figure out their place in the world. I could kind of relate to their plight which may have contributed to my liking the film. Allison Janney and Maggie Gyllenhaal play women that are both crazy in completely different ways. Gyllenhaal's craziness leads to one of the film's best scenes involving a McLaren stroller. It absolutely killed me. This movie is definitely a feel good movie and has some pretty funny moments. I don't think it has a real wide release but if you want to see it (which I really think you should) you should be able to find it somewhere.

























"Year One"
Seen: June 27, 2009
At: San Mateo Century 12
With: Myself

The "with" heading there really should read "With: Myself and five other unfortunate souls that paid to be in the theater at the same time as me." I thought this movie was awful. I love Michael Cera and his awkwardness is the only redeeming thing this movie has going for it. The plot sucks. The pair of Black and Cera get bannished from their village then have to save the girls they love after the village is raided by the "mountain people." The movie really has no point. While I did laugh a couple of times, the movie was mostly unfunny. I think the hardest I laughed was when Jack Black farted during the outtakes in the credits at the end of the movie. Olivia Wilde is still hot but neither her screen time nor her costumes do her much justice here. At least I caught the first showing of the day for this garbage which means I only lost out on $6, also know as the "Early Bird." I expected more from Vinnie Jones and Paul Rudd.

























"The Hangover"
Seen: June 27, 2009
At: San Mateo Century 12
With: Myself

Thank god I made the decision to see Year One first and follow it up with this film. If I had reversed the order I would've been mad. "The Hangover" saved the day. It looked funny from the previews but I thought it was hilarious. I love Ed Helms and Zack Galifianakis. They're both hilarious in this. There really are too many ridiculous things in this flick for me to list. Suffice it to say, I laughed a lot. Bradley Cooper does annoy me a little bit. And I have to say I figured out where "Doug" was fairly early on in the movie. But that didn't make the movie any less funny. It was more about the journey and discovering what went on the night before than actually finding him. You knew they had to find him in the end. Check it out if you're looking to laugh.

Slumdog

"Slumdog Millionaire"
Seen: February 20, 2009
At: San Mateo Century 12
With: Myself

I'd been wanting to see this for a while, but it wasn't playing close to campus so I hadn't gotten a chance. My parents went to Mendocino this weekend and as such I got Friday off of work. So, I finally got a chance to go see Slumdog at 10 Friday morning. First off, seeing the first showing of the day in San Mateo is awesome because it apparently only costs $6. Second, this movie has a great story. I didn't realize going into it that is was really a love story but it is. For those that don't know, the basics of the story are that this kid who is a "slumdog" is one question away from winning India's version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?. He is arrested the night between shows and accused of cheating. Throughout the night we get both the story of his life and the questions he has answered. From his life story we learn how he knew the answers to his questions. It really is a great story. My only issue with it is that I felt that some of the background story during Jamal's childhood dragged on. It gives you a sense of where he's been, but I think it could've been done differently, but then, that's probably why I haven't made an Oscar nominated film, among other reasons. It also bugged me how trusting Jamal was of people, especially his brother Salim and the Millionaire host. Again though, it was part of the story. If I was part of the voting for the Best Picture Oscar, I really wouldn't know how to choose between this film and Milk. My guess though is that Slumdog Millionaire wins the Oscar. If you haven't seen it yet, you should.

Taken

"Taken"
Seen: February 11, 2009
At: UA Berkeley 7
With: Myself

This was one of the better action movies I've seen in a while. Liam Neeson is a badass in it for sure. The whole movie I was trying to figure out what I had seen the actress that plays the daughter in before. I figured out when I got home that she was Shannon on LOST, but she had brown hair in the movie which threw me off. So basically, girl goes to Europe with a friend, they get kidnapped, girl's father is a former CIA who tracks down his daughter and her kidnappers. It was full of action and I laughed at the ridiculousness of some of the scenes, but I really did enjoy the movie. Some of the scenes were also fairly jumpy which got annoying as you kind of missed stuff when that happened. Famke Jansen's character was a mix of dumb, cocky, and annoying. I didn't like her. If you like action, go see it in the theater, its worth it. Otherwise, at least rent it. Two funny things: One, my cousin saw this right before she went to Italy to study for 3 months. She said that was a bad idea. Two, after seeing the movie, Collin said his daughters will never go to Europe by themselves. I agree.

I was gonna go see Slumdog Millionaire Friday night but it took me to long to make and eat dinner. Being that I have a midterm and paper due on Thursday and no class Monday, I probably won't see any movies this week. Or if I do it will be on the weekend.

He's Just Not That Into You

"He's Just Not That Into You"
Seen: February 9, 2009
At: Shattuck Cinemas
With: Myself

So, I've realized that in trying to possibly become a movie critic/reviewer at some point in time, I have to see movies that I may not always really want to see. I'm trying to work my way into this idea, so I decided to try it out with a chick flick. Admittedly, I tend to like chick flicks. So, this looked decent. And it had a good cast going for it. I came out of the movie thinking it was okay with some fairly funny moments. Although it was cheesy in typical chick flick fashion, I really enjoyed the movie. Here's the funny thing with the ways men and women were portrayed in this movie, I found myself trying to decide while I was watching it, if it was in fact a chick flick. This was stupid on my part. After the movie as I thought about it, I realized it was in fact a chick flick. It had the cheesy ending and the victimized (not all of them) women who are empowered in the end. I kind of felt like the movie was feeding us stereotypes of men and women throughout the movie and it seems like that was kind of the point of the movie. You get all these typical personalities, whose lives all seem to intermingle in some way or another. In the end, I think I liked Justin Long's character Alex the best of the male roles and Jennifer Aniston's, Beth the best of the female roles. Montie is gonna be mad about this, but I was also glad that Drew Barrymore didn't have a huge part. Guys, try to avoid seeing this in the theater. Ladies, go see it together and save your boyfriends/husbands from having to see it against their wills. On a final note, I feel like a title change to "Men Are Either Insecure Assholes or Gay, and Women Are Crazy" would've given the viewer a better idea of what the movie was about.

Beth - Let me know what you and T think of it, if you actually get around to seeing it this weekend.

I'm going to see Taken during my 7 hour break from class on Wednesday, so expect to see a review for it later in the week.

Return of the Reviews!

That's right, after a little over six months, the reviews are back. They were gone so long thanks to my school schedule and my lack of people to see movies with. Actually up until this week, during that time I had only seen like 4 movies in the theater. I'm not going to review those four in any great detail. The first was the Dark Knight, which I thought was one of the better Batman movies. And as far as I'm concerned, when I walked out of theater I thought Heath Ledger should at least get an Oscar nomination. I felt this way because if I hadn't known it was him playing the Joker, I would've had to sit through the credits to see who the actor was. I enjoyed the movie, grab the dvd if you haven't seen it yet. Next were Pineapple Express and Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Both were funny but I could've waited for the dvds. Pineapple Express is a stoner movie and pretty entertaining. Zack and Miri was funny, but if you see it with people, make sure you know them and their sense of humor fairly well as there are some things that could be pretty awkward in there. Last of the four was Seven Pounds. I actually liked it. It was a little odd and confusing, but not too bad for the most part. It was a pretty heavy movie, though I thought the concept behind was kind of uplifting in a weird way. Oddly enough, all of these movies were seen in Medford, Oregon.

So, on to the two movies I saw this week. First off, my class schedule this semester is much more accomodating to movie viewing. This is due to the fact that I only have two classes on Mondays and Wednesdays and they are separated by seven hours. As such I am hoping to see one or two movies a week depending on the demands of my schoolwork. This coming week, I may not see any as I don't have my early class Wednesday and I want to get the week's readings out of the way on Monday. So we'll see what happens. Anyway, on to the movies.

"Frost/Nixon"
Seen: January 26, 2009
At: Shattuck Cinemas
With: Myself

So I went into this movie knowing only that it was about an interview between some guy named David Frost and former President Richard Nixon. I didn't know much more than that, and I definitely didn't realize that the interview did what it did. Frost was a "journalist" in the loosest sense of the word. He was more a talk show than anything else. He set out to do an interview with Nixon during which he would get Nixon to admit guilt and wrongdoing in the Watergate scandal. This is the story of that interview and the struggles Frost and his team had to overcome to accomplish their goals. The story was very well told and I thought Michael Sheen, Sam Rockwell, and Frank Langella all did great jobs in their respective roles. Rockwell usually really irritates me, but I thought he was great in this part. Its worth seeing and I thought it was really good, but it wasn't the best movie I saw this week.

"Milk"
Seen: January 28, 2009
At: California Theatre
With: Myself

So, living in the Bay Area and growing up here I knew the general story behind Harvey Milk and what happened to him. Plus I had seen another movie, which may have been a documentary, a few years ago in a California Politics class I took. If you don't know the story, Harvey Milk was a gay man who moved to San Francisco and set up a camera shop in the Castro. He became an activist and eventually would be called "the Mayor of the Castro." Eventually he ran for a city council seat and on his third or fourth try he was elected as the first openly gay man to public office. Unfortunately, along with San Francisco mayor Moscone he would be assassinated shortly after by fellow city councilman, Dan White. This movie tells us Milk's story basically through his own eyes. Sean Penn is phenomenal as Harvey Milk and Josh Brolin does a great job as Dan White. James Franco plays Harvey's first boyfriend and I have to admit that while he also did a good job, the scenes with Franco and Penn kissing caught me a little off guard. I guess I should've seen them coming knowing the film's subject matter but I didn't. Also, I found the actor that played Milk's second boyfriend in the film to be really annoying. And despite my dislike for him, I thought Emile Hirsch did an excellent job in his role as Cleve Jones. I thoguht this was a better movie and Frost/Nixon and if I had a vote I would definitely vote for the Oscar as I would also vote for Penn over Langella. Go see it. It is definitely worth your time. And if any of you reading this live in California and happened to vote against gay marriage, you definitely need to go see this movie. Hopefully, it will open your eyes and help bring you into today's world.

That's it for the reviews for now. Hopefully my next post won't be six months from now, but it will be at least a week.

Review Fest! Part Two!

Alright, after a short break, I'm back to finish off the review fest. Robin, I actually dropped my summer class as I was tired of leaving class everyday feeling like I had learned absolutely nothing. I'm still taking one online but it doesn't have a ton of work so I have some free time. Anyway, I guess back to the reviews.

"Wall-e"
Seen: July 9th, 2008
At: San Mateo Century 12
With: Myself

So I had heard mixed reviews going into this. My parents liked it. Beth had talked to some 6 year olds that didn't like it. I was not real excited going into it. So, not surprisingly, after a long day of watching movies, I fell asleep a couple times in the first half hour or so of the movie. The short before the movie was pretty good, but honestly I can't remember what it was about. Anyway, all in all, while Wall-e was a kind of cute love story between two weird little robots, it had another motive. In actuality, it was a really long public service announcement. I don't mind when movies are political if they're documentaries. But when they're disguised as animated kid's movies I have a problem with it. I also don't mind movies that are philosophical and make you think if it goes along with the movie or serves a purpose in the plot. But that wasn't the point of the philosophy in "Wall-e." I saw this movie as a psa by Pixar to get people to recycle and take care of our planet more. It wasn't very entertaining as a movie and it really just kind of annoyed me. It had some funny or cute parts but all in all, I wasn't real impressed. I enjoyed Pixar's previous efforts a lot more than this one.

"The Love Guru"
Seen: July 9th, 2008
At: Home in my room on my computer via the internet
With: Myself

I wasn't willing to pay money to go see this movie in the theater. It looked pretty dumb from the trailers. And really, it lived up to that expectation. It had some funny parts. It just seems like a round about way for Mike Myers to make a movie that's kind of about hockey since he's Canadian. Jessica Alba still pisses me off for some reason. Despite the fact that he's dating my lady, Justin Timberlake's character is pretty funny. Stephen Colbert and Jim Gaffigan are good as the hockey announcers. For some reason I really enjoyed the musical parts where Myers' character plays covers of songs we all know on the sitar. The story was pretty dumb though. Myers is the Love Guru who is hired by Alba's hockey team to fix their star black hockey play who can no longer play since his wife left him for a rival player (JT) who has a huge junk and is the opposing goalie in the Stanley Cup Finals. Pretty dumb but some funny moments. Wait for the DVD if you really want to see it.

That's it for the review fest. The next couple weeks have some movies I want to see coming out, so I'll have to find some time to go see them. I'll try to be more punctual when posting reviews too, so some of the movies are actually still in theaters when I post them.

Review Fest! Part One!

It has been over a month since I last reviewed a movie. Really that's because it was almost a month since I had seen a movie. But since last Monday, I've seen six. Four were in the theater, with three of them coming back to back in one day and two were in my room via the internet. So I'll review them in order now I suppose.

"Wanted"
Seen on: June 30th, 2008
At: San Mateo Century 12
With: Collin

This movie seemed very Matrix-esque. Which makes sense as I think it was made by the same guys. It was fun. It had a lot of action. It was fairly violent, with odd slow motion cuts during some of the violence. But, it was also funny in parts. You get to see Ms. Jolie's butt, which is always a bonus. There were also a couple of pretty good twists near the end of the movie. Really though, this one just falls in with the lasted Indy movie. It has parts that are just ridiculous. I know its a movie and is make believe, but some of the stuff they're putting in movies these days just is goofy. Basic run down. Loser kid finds out from hot Jolie that he is the son of the world's greatest assassin and that he has to kill his father's killer. Like I said there are some interesting twists. But it has some cool effects and chase scenes which were still fun. If you want to see it, its worth seeing in the theater because of the effects, but it isn't a must-see in the theaters. You can wait for the DVD. And I'd see it then at the very least. But then I like movies that are funny, action packed, ridiculous, and that show Angie's butt. I'm a guy after all.

"You Don't Mess With the Zohan"
Seen: July 8th, 2008
At: Home in my room on my computer via the internet
With: Myself

I feel like Adam Sandler's movies have gone way down recently. I also saw Chuck and Larry on my computer. It almost seems to me like he's making movies now because he and his friends need money. He brings back both Rob Schneider and Nick Swarsden in this one. And Mr. Dave Matthews makes his second consecutive appearance in a Sandler vehicle. The interaction with Swarsden's character's mother is pretty entertaining. So is the foot thing that you see in the trailer. But really the movie is just okay in my opinion. I'm glad I didn't pay to see it in the theater. I laughed a couple times, but not too much really. Oh and no one would ever confuse an Israeli accent with an Australian accent. That's too much. I liked John Turturro as the terrorist, but thought Michael Buffer as the main bad guy was stupid. Dave was funny as a racist redneck though. I think Sandler likes giving him goofy roles. The quick plot of this one. Israel's top counter terrorist fakes his own death so he can go to America and pursue his dream of becoming a hair dresser. Yes, even the plot sounds retarded. Anyway, wait for the DVD if you have to see this one.

"Get Smart"
Seen: July 9th, 2008
At: San Mateo Century 12
With: Myself

Okay, first off, walking in to this movie, the old guy tearing tickets gave me a run down of the movie. Well it wasn't really a run down, but it was something to the effect of, "Get Smart. Funny remake the old TV series starring Steve Carell. Funny guy. Down at the end of the hall on your right." All of that was correct except that it was the last theater on the left, which I luckily figured out before walking into "Sex in the City." I would've had to walk back out and beat that nice old man to death if I hadn't figured that out. I was hesitant to go see this one. I figured it was one of those movies where they show you all the good parts in the trailers and commercials for it. Luckily, I was wrong. This movie was really funny and had some decent action too. There were at least two parts where I was cracking up laughing. One of them was a scene with Carell in the bathroom of an airplane. It isn't what you're thinking, but its really entertaining. I don't remember the other one though. Annie Hathaway is adorable as usual. The bit players are decent with Champ from "Anchorman" and Cheeseburger Eddie from "the Longest Yard" as well as Heroes Masa Oki playing various characters. Even Seinfeld's David Putty makes an appearance. Basically, Kaos finds out the identity of Control's agents except for Carell and Hathaway. They must then stop Kaos from making and using or selling a bunch of nuclear missiles. Fun is had by all. Go see it, its a good one.

"Hancock"
Seen: July 9th, 2008
At: San Mateo Century 12
With: Myself

This was another one I was hesitant to go see. I wasn't real sure of the premise, other than lazy, clumsy, black super hero guy. And while it is also that, there's also a twist that I think is a really cool idea for a movie and white public relations guy trying to help black super hero guy. This has some funny moments as well as some pretty good fight scenes. There are some ridiculous moments in this one too, but I think they work and are expected more in this than in a movie like Indiana Jones. Will Smith was good, but I think he has to try to not be good. Charlize Theron was way hot. Bateman did a good job as the nervous white pr guy too. And whoever the kid was, he was pretty funny. I've seen him in something before, but I'm not sure what it was. I'll have to look him up on imdb.com. So Smith's character is the only person like himself. Bateman tries to clean up his image. Someone knows Hancock's secret. Bad things happen. Its good and really not too long. I kind of thought they were going to drag it on a little long, but they didn't. Again, not a must see at the theater, but if you're looking for something light and fun, this works.

Okay, I need to take a break from this and eat some dinner. I'll be back a little later to wrap up the last two movies, which are Wall-e and the Love Guru.