Céline, dir. Jeff Woolnough (2008)

NIKKI says:
Another one of those Canadian TV movies about prominent women that is smarter than your average TV biopic but still very much a glossing over of events. This one spans Celine's life from the time her family discovered her talent as a pre-teen, right on through to her performance of the Titanic song at the Oscars. That's about 25 years crunched into 90 minutes. With the kind of life Celine has had, including the controversial relationship with her much older manager, Rene Angelil, it's difficult to really get to know the woman in this short time, to understand her decisions, motives, and reactions to everything from the tabloids to her success.

The movie tries its best, though. It is written reasonably well, and the actors are well-meaning and easy to like. I really enjoyed hearing all the old songs again, too. Some of them I haven't heard in ages. I did miss, though, the reaction after "The Power of Love" hit -- I was waiting for that to be the moment Celine finally cracked the business worldwide, but they went straight from "If You Asked Me To" to "Because You Loved Me". So, yeah, a lot was skipped. I did, though, get a real sense of a connection between Rene and Celine, and it was tragic to see just how the two struggled with things.

Not a bad movie, by any means, but really just the quality TV-movie equivalent of a greatest hits package.

2.5/5

Steve did not view.

The Empire Strikes Back, dir. Irvin Kershner (1980)

Shania: A Life in Eight Albums, dir. Jerry Ciccoritti (2005)

NIKKI says:
This kept me interested pretty much because I knew absolutely nothing about Shania Twain's life before watching. I've never thought she had the greatest singing voice, and I haven't connected with her the same way I have with Reba and Trisha Yearwood and Martina McBride, and others. I think I turned away from Shania, too, because I'd been listening to country music forever and then suddenly Shania hit and everyone was into her, and I just resented the fact that this flash in the pan had come along and erupted while the GOOD singers, Trisha and Reba et al were overlooked (in Australia, at least.)

So, I cared not for this woman. I could dance to her songs at parties and clubs, but to this day I do not own any of her records. I may reconsider now, thanks to Canadian TV and their insistence on bringing to the world stories of their successes. Shania, I have to admit, deserves her fame and fortune. If this movie is anything to go by, she certainly put in the hard yards as far as her development and persistence. I had no idea she was in a rock band, I had no idea of her Native American heritage, I had no idea she lost both her parents in a car accident, and I especially did not know songwriting was her major focus. I really shouldn't rush to judge pretty faces in tiger-print pantsuits.

I do think the movie glossed slightly over the fact that any man who showed interest in her and looked able to help her with her career ended up in bed with her. What was that about? And then when she'd had enough, off she went. Hasn't she now split with her starmaker, Mutt Lange? See?! No, wait -- I'm judging again.

This was a thorough look at Shania's life up until that first phone call from Lange, and it was certainly interesting.

2.5/5

Steve did not view.

Hey! Hey! It's Esther Blueberger, dir. Cathy Randall (2008)

NIKKI says:
This was a case of bad reviews drawing me to a film. If I'd not read the scathing bitch-slaps this one received in the papers, I probably would have passed it by. But, man, the hating was major on this. I had to see what all the fuss was about.

And so I was slightly prepared for something out of the ordinary. This is a very weird little movie about girls growing up in Australia and how status affects us and changes us. Esther is bullied at her swank private school and so, upon meeting the ultra-cool Sunni, decides to secretly enroll in Sunni's public school where she is respected as one of the weirdos. Soon, though, she changes to suit her environment in outrageous an offensive ways. Suddenly, even Sunni is wondering what happened to her funny little friend.

But there's a lot of aggression in Esther, and Sunni's group gives her an outlet. She goes over the top, so far over the top that she finds it hard to pull back. When the private school bitches discover her secret, she tells them she's a spy and is only acting out a mission at the public school. Suddenly, the bitchy girls love her, and Esther is suddenly torn between groups. Who is she and why? She neglects Sunni and her weirdo friends, and then tragedy strikes. Esther must patch her problems and find her way as this horrible event consumes Sunni. Suddenly, the pressures of school bullies and new raincoats becomes remarkably unimportant.

I don't know what the critics were on about. It is a difficult movie to enjoy. It's very strange, and Esther is not an easy character to relate to. But if you've ever been an unhappy, awkward teenage girl, you might have a better understanding of the events here. There's a fantastic element to the movie, too, so I think much of its oddness is over the top on purpose. I think the movie is very brave in tackling some of the things it does. It doesn't trivialise the lives of these girls, instead very much digging at the root causes of self-hatred, the effects of bad parenting, and the backwards structuring of the new education system to seems to want to quash creative impulses.

It's different -- and I wonder why oddball movies like Welcome to the Dollhouse receive great praises while this one is made to feel like a mess for going similar places? I love that an Aussie filmmaker has gone this way. It's something fresh.

3/5

Steve did not view.

Star Wars, dir. George Lucas (1977)

National Lampoon's Pucked, dir. Arthur Hiller (2006)

NIKKI says:
You know, I say it after every movie I watch in which Jon Bon Jovi appears -- he is a really good actor who needs a really juicy role to prove himself. Even stuck in the middle of this lame National Lampoon's comedy, he sticks out. He is genial, relaxed, interesting, and way above his co-stars as far as his natural talent. I know that sounds like the ravings of a mad fan, but it's absolutely true. Hes a great, natural actor. And he's fucking loaded. So, WHY is over hrere making shit like this?

JBJ -- PLEASE pay someone to write you a good movie!

You know, though, for a National Lampoon's piece, this one wasn't that bad. I'm saying that a lot this week, aren't I? As if "not being that bad" is the new "good". Sometimes, it feel like the best you can expect. Anyway... this is about a guy who accidentally gets sent a lot of credit cards and decided to start a women's hockey league. He believes it will make him lots of money so he can pay back the credit card companies and his sister who has been looking after him for years.

He's also a former lawyer, so when the card companies come looing for their cash, he can effectively defend his character.

And that's about the gist of it. Add a sort-of love story, a weird David Faustino, and a rich drunk who lives in the hockey rink, and you've got a recipe for a strangely not-annoying movie to watch while you finish your Chinese food.

I like to think JBJ took this role on because he found out the movie was to be directed by Arthur Hiller. I know, right?! What?! The guy who made Love Story, Author! Author!, Plaza Suite, Teachers, The Lonely Guy... is directing Booger Armstrong. Weird.

2.5/5

Steve did not view.

Blonde Ambition, dir. Scott Marshall (2007)

NIKKI says:
I thought she was adorable. I know it's de rigeur to heap abuse on the big-haired, big-boobed, poorly-educated Ms. Simpson, but she held her own here. I thought she was cute, and that's really all the movie needed her to be.

This is supposed to be an update of Working Girl. It's got a similar premise -- small-town girl makes good in the big city and overthrows her manipulative bosses while finding love. But it's so bubblegum, it's less an update of that movie and more a dumbing down.

Which doesn't mean it's not somewhat enjoyable. Luke Wilson is cute, too, so is Rachael Leigh Cook (though I fear for her self-esteem now that she's found herself playing second fiddle in cheap rom-coms to Jessica Simpson). I didn't like the big-black-secretary jukes, and I could have done without Andy Dick falling about the place. But it was alright for a rainy afternoon alone on the couch.

A really funny cameo from Penny Marshall who gets the flame of hate in her eyes when Penelope Ann Miller dares bag out Milwaukee.

2.5/5

Steve did not view.

The Tracey Fragments, dir. Bruce McDonald (2007)

NIKKI says:
It's been a long time since I've hated a film so much. This one put in a Harmony Korine frame of mind -- the old self-important picture that says nothing about reality but thinks it indeed comments on the evil world at large. Look at this girl who is forced to take her panties off for the big mean man! Look at her as she is consistently beaten and battered by those around her. Look at her as I take her as far into the hell of teendom as I possibly can without any redemption, without any discerning meaning, or intelligence.

Am I wrong? Is there any reason for this picture beyond its 24-like split-screen gimmick? Why am I supposed to care about this girl who turns her brother into a barking dog and them loses him and has the gall to shout at her parents who are afraid for their missing son? No MOM, my teen ansgt is WAY more important than your missing SON who I turned into a barking DOG!

Tracey tries to find the little boy in the city, and we watch her as she prowls the slums calling his name. She thinks she sees him, she follows him, all the while telling us about a boy who loves her, who she loves. The movie attempts cleverness through weird editing, colour choices, and even a little TV-show opening starring Tracey and her boyfriend Billy-Zero. God, I was bored. Anyway, so eventually we learn that Billy-Zero is not all Tracey makes him out to be (don't you love movies that pull the rug out from under you without warning or, um, plot development?), and we discover his part in the brother's disappearance.

The revelation didn't make me sympathise with Tracey, but just hate her more. Believe me, too, that's saying something. Remember how bad the dialogue was in Juno? Well, get a load of these Tracey-quotes:

"I kinda like to ride a different bus every night depending on my mood. Like, if I'm depressed, I enjoy being around other depressed people. And happy people, they frickin depress me! You know?"

"When things happen to people, they radiate a light. Because they have a picture caught inside them. Because they were there and you weren't. And because you only got a piece. And because all you can do is shrink and blow up that one tiny piece."

"How do you know what's real and what's not when the whole world is inside your head?"

"Look, I'm not what you think. I'm not junk, I'm not a dink. I'm not garbage flowers you leave to rot and stink, and smell, and curl up all dry and papery so they crumble as crusty as the flowers on this fucked up shower curtain."

And my favourite:

"I don't cry over spilt milk. I don't even drink milk, because I’m lactose intolerant."

.5/5

Steve did not view.

Moving McAllister, dir. Andrew Black (2007)

NIKKI says:
You know, more and more I find myself telling customers at work that something was "cute". It really has become my word for inoffensive comedies that make me laugh but never really resonate.

Moving McAllister was exactly that sort of movie -- I liked everyone in it, I laughed a few times, I don't think I'll ever watch it again, and I wouldn't have died never having seen it. It is, in a word, cute.

The lead guy, who also wrote the script, was cute. Mila Kunis, though very annoying in the beginning, turned out to also be cute. And even Jon Heder who gets a pimple squished and wears his undies a lot, is cute, too. The story is cute -- Ben Gourney must drive Kunis across the state to California to impress his boss. Along the way they pick up a weird hitchhiker who believes he swapped bodies at birth with an American Indian. Mila doesn't not want to make Ben's journey easy and they end up having to escape from Billy Drago who stole their truck. Among other things.

It's a road movie, a romance, a comedy. And it's cute.

2.5/5

Steve did not view.

Kings of South Beach, dir. Tim Hunter (2007)

NIKKI says:
When a movie's blurb tells me me it's written by Nicholas Pileggi and directed by Tim Hunter, I'm there. I was looking forward to this one for those very reasons, and, a bit, because Donnie Wahlberg stars. It was good, but not great. It told me a story I was unfamiliar with -- the rise and fall of Miami club owner Chris Troiano -- but it was so very TV movie that it lacked any real grit of Pileggi's Goodfellas or Hunter's Saint of Fort Washington.

The story goes that Andy Burnett spent years infiltrating the Miami club scene, acting as a newbie who wants nothing more than to cozy up to the big players. He gets in the good graces of Troiano, who makes him somewhat of a protege. At the same time, Troiano is facing bankruptcy and is doing some illegal dealings on the side. Burnett wants to take him down, but he's also quite into the lifestyle Troiano offers him.

It tries to offer two sides of a complex relationship, but time restrictions meant that what could have been an explosive clash like that in American Gangster is really just a Law and Order-lite bust.

Good attempt, interesting story, great performances -- not enough meat, though, for such a story.

2.5/5

The Cottage, dir. Paul Andrew Williams (2008)

NIKKI says:
What a crazy little movie! Two-thirds in and I thought it had been packaged incorrectly. The blurb promised a horror movie in the Severance style, and yet here we were in a kidnap situation with crime bosses and ransoms.

And then it all changed. What was a movie about brothers trying to improve their lives through an impossibly crazy criminal act suddenly flipped into a Hills Have Eyes kinda thing where characters started losing heads via shovels.

They call it a horror comedy, but you won't laugh because there are jokes. You laugh because it makes you so damned uncomfortable. It's an absurd sort of funny, and you'll watch in near disbelief as the twists and turns play out. I'm wondering if the writer didn't get halfway through his kidnap script, get writer's block, and go, "fuck it, I'll just cut someone's head off".

It's good, it's creepy, it's scary, it's got bucket-loads of gore. I loved it. I especially enjoyed the finale. How fucking twisted?!

3/5

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, dir. Michel Gondry (2004)

The Invasion dir. Oliver Hirschbiegel (2007)

NIKKI says:
I'd heard a lot about this movie's ups and downs on its way to release -- that the studio refused to show it to critics, that scenes were recut and re-edited, the Wachowskis were brought in to shoot some scenes. In my head, it was a MST3k-moment waiting to happen. It actually wasn't that bad. And any time I can say that about a movie starring Nicole Kidman, you best take my word for it.

Nicole was her usual sticky self. The woman is perfect for a movie like this -- my favourite part of the trailer is when someone tells Nicole to "try not to show emotion". She doesn't have to try very hard, you know? She is such a cold actress. I don't relate to her at all. I just think she's a woman who reads lines. She did that here, so it was hard to really get behind her character's fear. I also find myself wondering, whenever I watch her, just what her co-stars think of her weird lips and face.

I also thought the movie missed a bet by taking the famous Body Snatchers pods out. Why would they do that? Did they fear making a horror movie? Is this supposed to be a comment on drones in society? Well, the pods are important in this story. It's like remaking A Nightmare on Elm Street and giving Freddy a gun instead. Or something like that. They changed the pod-thing to a face-barfing thing, and it gave the film an unintentional slapstick quality.

To its credit, I was interested until the end (though I hated the ambiguous final scene). I thought it looked great. I found it chock-full of atmosphere. But, thinking about it, it's a movie that wants to be full of political allegory, but it doesn't hold up. Should we look at the zombifying of human as a good thing so we don't fight and go to war? Meh. Characters just talked about this, while war images played on TV. Boring. It wasn't terrible, it just wasn't anywhere near as smart as it needed to be.

2/5

I Could Never Be Your Woman, dir. Amy Heckerling (2007)

NIKKI says:
It was exactly as we'd expected (and hoped) -- cute. Overly cute. Too cute for words. But it wasn't the great meditation on age and romance as perhaps Amy Heckerling was going for. And it tripped over itself many times towards the end when our lead old girl couldn't decide whether or not to trust her younger and always trustworthy new man.

So, Paul Rudd is still the funniest cool actor around, and pairing him with shameless and funny Michelle Pfeiffer was a stroke of genius. It was also necessary to get a woman for this movie in her 40s who looks surgery-free. It's hard to do that, lately, with actresses in their 30s. So, the casting was great.

The story was funny, and I really liked all the stuff with Michelle and her budding-teen daughter who's about to give up the Barbies just as mom decides she wants to go back to them. The sitcom-writer stuff made for some funny in-joking, and it was great to see Rudd and Dash together again 15-odd years after Clueless.

So, yeah, a great popcorn movie. I do think Amy Heckerling should have nixed the Mother Nature aspect of the piece, given Michelle's character a best friend and just been done with it. The age-thing was too heavy-handed here. It could have been just a sweet love story. Instead, it felt like Heckerling was forcing this notion of fit-and-40 down our throats. But we're not at this sort of movie for the subtext -- we're here to see classy, gorgeous Michelle Pfeiffer jumping on the bed and getting silly-string in her mouth.

3/5

Alien, dir. Ridley Scott (1979)

Vantage Point, dir. Pete Travis (2008)

NIKKI says:
It's ambitious, I'll give it that. But this movie may have had too many oars in the water, because by the third use of the rewind-and-start-over technique, I was too busy searching for my perpetrators than engaging in these stories of vacationing kids and dads and doubled-up presidents, bitchy news producers and skitty operatives.

And, yes, I guessed our turncoat in maybe the second flashback. But you might, too, because it's so obvious. Don't filmmakers realise that you can't build suspense in a Clue-type story when a handful of your suspects are famous TV personalities and bit-part actors? As if it's not going to be one of them! Here we get to choose from a large list of potentials:

Matthew Fox
James Le Gros
Forest Whitaker
Bruce McGill
Richard T. Jones
Leonardo Nam
William Hurt
Sigourney Weaver

We can cut out Nam and Jones as, though prolific, they're just not famous enough. We can cut out Weaver, Whitaker, and Hurt -- they're too famous; they have other reasons to be here. So that leaves McGill, Le Gros, and Fox. Now, we're talking -- given the time, current cultural touchstones and the like, he sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb does he?

Anyway, it doesn't hurt the story too much to discover who's behind what. The problem here is that the movie is supposed to be one event as seen from the points of view of various people involved. Only it's never the full points of view. On Quaid's POV, he sees TWO key things occurring and reacts to both. But we don't get to see those things. So, how is it rightly his point of view?

The second issue is the film's final half. After taking us through several POVs, the movie suddenly drops that gimmick when it's time to bring everything together. Ultimately, I wondered at the necessity of the gimmick in the first place. With some time-jigging, it could have been told linearly. But then, it would have just seemed like an overwrought episode of 24.

No, it didn't work for me. It was very same-old in the political terror-movie stakes. It was all about the gimmick and very light on smarts. As a popcorn action thriller, it's not an horrific way to spend an evening, but it won't leave you reeling in a Rendition sort of way.

2.5/5

Rabid, dir. David Cronenberg (1977)

NIKKI says:
So, I see now where those movies about rage viruses ripped their ideas from. If you can think of a movie in which frothy-mouthed zombie-things scream and run at unwitting victims to gnaw at their necks, then you pretty much know the sorts of movies I'm talking about. Rabid, who knew, started quite a trend.

I was into looking at this for a few reasons -- mainly, though, because Steve said he was in the mood for zombies. I really like Cronenberg's old stuff, too, like The Brood and Scanners. His movies unsettle me, which I think has something to do with the biological and evolutionary themes that always seem to be going on. Horror zombies give me no worries -- zombies in surrounds provided by white-walled hospitals and drip-bags make my skin crawl. So, old Cronenberg is always good for a scare.

This one was good, but not great. I enjoyed the story. The horror was excellent and GROSS. The main characters were relatively intriguing. I did think it could have done with some tightening. I got a bit over Marilyn Chambers seeking out prey in new and different ways. She traverses the streets and heads into a porn theatre where we watch a sleazy guy sleaze on to her. She sleazes back, kills him, and she's off to find someone else. I might have been more into reasons and explanations for the disease and its control of her than for her killing again and again, and then writhing about on the floor.

Still, I wasn't bored. I was really sad at her eventual disposal. It was quite the downer ending. I felt for Marilyn. It wasn't her fault she needed blood to live! It was the doctor's fault! But he didn't get any real comeuppance because he was zombified early on in the piece. Hardly any real penance, that!

Good movie, a necessary part of my horror movie education, but maybe not one worth multiple watches like The Brood.

3/5

The Ruins, dir. Carter Smith (2008)

NIKKI says:
I read about three pages of the Scott Smith book last year and decided to wait for the mass-market paperback. I just have to be in the mood for trade-sized lately. Right now, I'm reading a 500-page hardcover and it's not fun, let me tell you.

So, Steve read it instead. Listening to him describe the best and worst elements of the story made me feel like I'd read it myself. I got a Stephen King vibe from Steve's descriptions, and figured my reactions would be similar to his.

Now that I've seen the movie, I'm kinda glad I didn't read the book. I know -- blasphemy, right? Well, Steve said the movie was better, and the way it had me jumping and screaming all the way through meant that NOT knowing the movie's twist and turns just made it that much more fun.

I really liked it. I was scared for most of it, horrified by the high gore-levels, and genuinely shocked when certain things began happening. I thought it was extremely well-paced. The scares came at exactly the right moments, and because it was so well-structured and tight, there was never a moment to really relax and take a breath. It just powered on, until its gruesome conclusion.

The characters, too, were all thankfully likable. The movie gets extra stars for having normal, inoffensive young people as is heroes. See, Film World, it can be done! The story was good -- the kids embark on a journey to a Mayan ruin and on arrival are freaked out by some natives who appear to be warning them against going up on the ancient pyramid-type thing that's covered in lush green vines. They go anyway, thinking their friends are on top of the ruin, and the crap hits the fan from there. There is no one to to be found atop the ruin ... no one alive anyway.

They soon discover that the natives will not let them leave the ruin, and so are stuck on it until help arrives. But help doesn't seem to be coming, and then vines start acting weird...

Ughghg... it's so horrifying. I loved it. I'm shocked that a big-budget horror film got it so right. And surprising, too, was the fact that I actually started to like Jenna Malone. Wonders will never cease. I thought the actors here were all excellent.

Just a great horror movie.

3.5/5

The Ten, dir. David Wain (2007)

NIKKI says:
Steve and I had both heard how this movie was trashed by critics. The poster over there has some positive notes on it, so it would appear not everyone hated it. Something, though, made me think it was supposed to be one of the worst stinkers in history. Still, we thought we'd give it a go because Paul Rudd is in it, and because we'll watch anything with religious satire.

Well, what do you know? This was probably the most guffaw-inducing movie we'll watch this year, second only to Hot Rod. And if you liked the random, weird humour in that movie, you might just love this, too. It really is 90 minutes of silliness tied to a central theme -- that of the Ten Commandments. Paul Rudd introduces ten stories, each featuring a commandment, as he sorts out his own rule-breaking involving infidelity.

The stories are each about seven or eight minutes jam-packed with the weirdest stuff you're ever likely to see. The first one, for instance, is about a guy who sky-dives without his parachute and ends up stuck in the ground where he landed. He becomes a celebrity, with his own catchphrases, a TV show, multitudes of girls chasing him. All from his position as a head poking out from the dirt. Thou shalt not, we learn through the guy's rise to fame and fall to shame, worship false idols.

And so it goes. Coveting thy neighbour's goods sees Leiv Schreiber purchasing more and more cat-scan machines to beat the number his neighbour has; honouring thy mother and father has two black kids worshiping Oliver Platt as their Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonator dad; thou shalt not steal sees Winona Ryder forging a perverse relationship with a ventriloquist's dummy. And thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife takes place in a maximum security prison ... think about it.

Oh my god, it's just so WEIRD. Steve and I just kept looking at each other with freaked out looks on our faces. Really, did they really do that? Did they really go there? Yes, they do and they did, and they refuse to stop GOING THERE. And it's funnier than it should be, too, because these are well-known people doing these bizarre things. Paul Rudd marries Dianne Wiest. Bobby Cannavale nudes up, Oliver Platt does the "ice cream" bit from Delirious, Winona Ryder fucks a dummy, Adam Brody channels Joey Lawrence, Justin Theroux plays Jesus, Liev Schreiber sings. It's mental.

Ultimately rather pointless, but damn funny.

3/5

August Rush, dir. Kirsten Sheridan (2007)

NIKKI says:
Perhaps I built it up too much? I was expecting to be blown away by this movie. I'd been listening to the music for a little while, and enjoyed all the songs, so I expected, even more, to love the movie. And it's written by Nick Castle, who wrote one of my all-time favourites, The Boy Who Could Fly. Sadly, August Rush was a bit of a let down, only because I think it tried to do too much. A rewrite or two and maybe it would have worked.

As it is, I enjoyed it, I got wrapped up in bits and pieces of it, but, ultimately, it lost me a bit because everything just seemed so perfectly timed. Everyone was where they needed to be at exactly the right time, and this really removed the magic. How does a kid navigate New York City so skilfully? That's just one of the questions you'll find yourself asking. And how coincidental was it that August meets Mr. Jeffries and leaves the boys' home at the exact same time Lyla's father decides to reveal his ghastly secret that sets her on her mission to find her son? All this at the same time Louis meets up with an old bandmate and decides to go to Chicago to finally track Lyla.

I don't know. It was too much after a while. Yes, the music was great, and the fairytale aspect of the thing worked on some level. But when you examine it closely, the plotholes mount. Steve was right -- if Lyla's baby died at birth, who buried it? Why did Louis only now decide to seek out Lyla? Where was August living during his stint at Julliard? Why did no one try to stop the Wizard from taking him away from the school when he'd been there so long father-free? That's a child services issue right there.

Loose ends everywhere. I said, too, that the Wizard character would have worked a bit better had he been a good guy. An evil Machiavelli trying to make money off August did not work as the man who also stood up for the street way of learning music, caning Julliard for its text books and teachings. The music is out there! And August should be teaching you! ... it all falls on deaf ears when that same character turns his back on August to exploit his natural gifts.

So close, yet so far. I wanted to love it. At most, I just liked it.

2.5/5

Futurama: The Beast With a Billion Backs, dir. Peter Avanzino (2008)

NIKKI says:
I didn't enjoy it as much as Bender's Big Score, but it was funny nonetheless. I am really happy we get to see more Futurama. As technology advances, it's fun to see how the show responds. In this movie, someone checked a published version of the Wikipedia for an explanation -- only Futurama can make those kinds of jokes. I hope these movies go on and on.

3/5

STEVE says:
And I enjoyed it more than Bender's Big Score. Go figure.

I thought Score was very funny, of course, and the story of Fry going back in time to better himself in order to woo Leela was handled with just the right mix of bizarre and touching that I'm used to from Futurama. But the pacing was off and it dragged in the middle. Maybe Beast's story wasn't on par with Score, but it beat the snot out of it as far as pacing, so it felt like a better movie because my mind wasn't wandering halfway through. As far as the jokes went, it was as wrong as it ever was.

Example: Amy Wong ("of the Mars Wongs") is grieving the death of her husband Kif. Bender walks in and says, "What's her problem? Somebody die or somethin'?" Leela tells him that Kif is dead and instead of responding with sympathy, which would have been out of character for Bender, anyway, or even indifference, which would have been more Bender's style, he pumps his fist in the air and cries, "Nailed it!"

Up next: Bender's Game. And if I even have to tell you why that's funny, you probably don't watch Futurama anyway.

3/5

Lake Dead, dir. George Bessudo (2007)

STEVE says:
I'd have sworn there were Zombies in this movie. Go watch the trailer and see if you too aren't convinced it's a Zombie movie. I was thinking Zombie Lake, Oasis of the Zombies, Shock Waves, that sort of thing. Instead of Zombies, though, we were treated to a not-so-interesting tale of murder and incest that was strung together about as tightly as those candy bracelets you used to eat as a kid.

I won't bother to recount the plot, as I'd rather forget this whole exercise anyway. I'll say only that it wasn't as hilariously bad as Garden of Love, but it wasn't as boring and predictable as Prom Night, either. Somewhere in between lies Lake Dead.

Incidentally, this is from the After Dark Horrorfest of 2007. Most of the After Dark films we've seen have left us with the same impression: Nice effort, but way below the bar. It's like the Masters of Horror for beginners. I think we'll give them a miss after this.

1.5/5

NIKKI says:
Wow, what a let down. The trailer made this look like a genuinely scary movie reminiscent of classic slashers I Spit on Your Grave and Last House on the Left -- people getting ruthlessly tortured, while they shriek and cry in overgrown weeds.

It ended up just another bullshit knock-off that tried to take the horror that extra gruesome step, but ended up resorting to boring old hangings and gunshots for its kills. In a movie this silly, the kills need to be top-notch to keep me remotely interested. Garden of Love upped the ante with each kill, so did Mandy Lane. Here, though, right at the start, a girl gets hogtied -- a hollow metal tube inserted through her ankles which is then chained to a huge stone. After that, it all just gets boring. So boring, in fact, that some of the gunshots even have CGI blood-sprays.

As Steve might say: They just didn't care.

So... high points? The kids weren't all bad. The main couple was actually rather likable. Um... it was short -- that's a plus. The set-up was alright -- kids inherit a hotel from a grandfather they've never met. Their supposedly unloving father warns them against going to collect their inheritance, but they are feisty babes and will do whatever they like. So, that was okay.

Low points, though, were many -- aside form the boring kills, the suspense was terrible. The scene in which one character drops his wallet in the lake had the potential to be really scary -- he drops it right near the hogtied girl, now floating at the bottom -- but it's over quickly, and we have very little time to get even small goosebumps.

Then there are the baddies -- so cartoon, so stupid. There's a pair of raging twins going around offing everyone and they look like a couple of wrestlers wearing Fabio masks. Just horrid, with hair dangling in their faces presumably to hide the bad make-up.

And the plot veers off, beginning to make no kind of sense. How did this hotel exist out here for so long? Why did the grandfather decide to change his ways? What made them this way? Why is Fabio about to kill those kids at the end? Was it about the bloodline, or just a raging kill-need? I have no idea. But then, I was so bored I could barely pay attention after about halfway.

So, yeah -- the After Dark movies are nothing to scream about. This seemed to be a wannabe horror movie by a filmmaker who may only have watched horror movies made post-Cabin Fever. Boring, CGI-infused, all about the kills without tight plotting or subtext.

1/5

Margot at the Wedding, dir. Noah Baumbach (2007)

NIKKI says:
What has happened to Noah Baumbach? He used to be clever and insightful. He used to make movies about human beings, believable ones with foibles and idiosyncrasies you could relate to. He used to create characters just like you, and you laughed with them because you'd been there: Young, crazy, insecure, jealous, in love.

Now he just makes movies about reprehensible people who talk and act in ways I've never encountered. Perhaps I'm from the wrong side of Brooklyn, but I just don't know these people.

So, I understand there are crackpots out there. I also understand there are damaged men and women floating on this planet that crave destruction, of themselves or those around them, that thrive on the devastation they create. I also know there are people out there who remains utterly blind to the machinations of others, or who choose to ignore it because the pain of confrontation is just so great. I get that. What I don't get is why I'm supposed to find a story about those people that never seeks to explain them, explore them, or redeem them anything but a waste of my time.

Further, why do I want to watch a movie about these people with no discernible plot, with no beginning, middle, or end? So we open with Margot on the bus, and we leave with her on the bus. In the middle, we just get bunches of random, unexplained activities that do very little to enhance the story or its characters. It just smacked of that much pretension. Watching Margot climb the tree was embarrassing. Watching her do just about anything was embarrassing. I was forced to question how she'd ever succeeded at anything in her life. She was so horribly abusing her son with her esteem-destroying comments that I wondered how they'd even managed to co-exist together for any length of time. Why did her husband care for her? She was never presented to us as anything but a monster. How and why did anyone care enough to give her the time of day?

Is abuse in her past supposed to explain her? Make us feel sorry for her? That part of the story was alluded to and dismissed -- if the movie didn't care to go into it, did it even matter?

What good does it do me to involve myself with these people for an hour and a half? What am I supposed to get from this? A woman rolls into town and sets about destroying her sister's marriage, does that, then leaves. She leaves NOT KNOWING that her sister was about to rekindle the destroyed relationship. So, somehow everyone gets what they want, but no-one really ever comes to know why. Why did Margot have to destroy Pauline? What does it mean to her that it ultimately didn't work? How is Margot's derangement supposed to affect me when SHE WAS RIGHT from the outset that Malcolm wasn't perfect?

Why does Margot get to be right?

Ugh -- the whole thing just infuriated me. Kicking and Screaming remains an American classic. Mr. Jealousy will always be watchable and wonderful. Everything beyond that can go to hell.

1/5

STEVE says:
Noah Baumbach is dead to me.

Kicking and Screaming is and will always remain one of my favorite movies, but everything he's made afterwards has left me questioning whether he should be allowed continued access to film making equipment.

This is just revolting.

1/5

Rendition, dir. Gavin Hood (2007)

NIKKI says:
As depressing and harsh as it was -- I liked it. It's not an easy movie to watch. It's one of those two-hour experiences where all you're thinking about is how cruel the world is. Still, it's well done. It's visually impressive, the acting is first-rate, and the twisting plot is engrossing and suspenseful. It's not purely a film that reminds you how America abuses its power, it's also a thriller about the people who get caught up in that abuse.

Anwar El-Ibrahimi is a chemicals expert who is detained when deboarding a plane from South Africa. He is suspected of aiding a terrorist who killed an American operative. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Freeman, a CIA analyst who is instructed to oversee the interrogation of Anwar, and who comes to believe Anwar is telling the truth that he is not involved. Meanwhile, Anwar's wife pregnant Isabella is desperate to know where Anwar is, and enlists a Washington DC councilman to help her out.

So, from there it's all about uncovering the mystery of Anwar's disappearance and exposing the lies and cover-ups that go along with extraordinary rendition, the practice of moving terror suspects from one country to another without proper procedure for the purposes of interrogation.

I thought it was a good movie. It didn't seem to chest-thump as much as other movies like it, and that probably had something to do with it being about the people as much as the politics. You really felt for these characters, and what they were dealing with. And the movie did well to show the other side of the issue with an element of the plot told from the perspectives of the suicide bombers. I don't know how accurate it all was, or how truthful, but as a movie, it definitely entertained me.

I was really struck, too, by the scene in which Isabella's water breaks. She is walking through a big, glass building, and we see her in silhouette. The Capitol Building rises up along the horizon behind her. A brilliant shot, filled with purpose, but classy, I thought, rather than grandiose. Much like the film itself.

3.5/5

Lars and the Real Girl, dir. Craig Gillespie (2007)

NIKKI says:
Here I was thinking someone in Hollywood had finally had an original thought. Turns out this movie has been made before. Well, not exactly this movie but movies with guys who form complex relationships with human-sized dolls. One is Love Object from 1993; the other is Tamaño natural from 1974. And while the films aren't exactly the same, they're close enough in premise so that my initial adoration of Lars and the Real Girl for its originality has slightly dipped.

But that's okay. It's still a great movie. One of the best I've seen this year, in fact. One of the main reasons I liked it so much is because it is entirely free of cynicism. At so many points in the film, I expected Bianca (the doll) to get into some sort of trouble. I expected Lars to become the butt of a very elaborate joke. But this never comes to pass. The story has a goal -- to get Lars back to reality -- and it achieves that goal simply and beautifully.

Lars buys a doll off the Internet and tells everyone it's his girlfriend Bianca from Brazil. Lars is extremely lonely, unable to hold close relationships with people because of something awful from his past. He finds it hard to touch people, and to let them touch him. He solves this problem with Bianca. His doctor informs those around him that in order to bring Lars out of his psychosis, they should treat Bianca as real. So, everyone in town befriends her until Lars finally has a decision to make about whether or not to carry on their relationship.

I hate this word, but man is the whole thing just so uplifting. You can't help but feel good and warm inside whenever Bianca is out and about. The townsfolk come to adore Bianca, and embrace her, all because they know they are ultimately helping out Lars.

There are some really funny moments in the movie, some touching moments. Ryan Gosling is really good, as is Paul Schneider who plays his exasperated but just as caring brother Gus. I loved the setting, the photography, the stillness of the whole thing, the drained colour, and the snow. Just a great spirit-lifting Winter movie.

4/5