Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, dir. Terry Gilliam (1998)

P2, dir. Franck Khalfoun (2007)

NIKKI says:
Girl gets chased around parking garage for 90 minutes. I'm pretty much ready to give that ago based solely on those few words. This one also has the name Alexandre Aja attached, he of the horrendous High Tension and the not-so-awful Hills Have Eyes remake. So, good premise plus reasonable pedigree equals potentially good horror/thriller.

Well, it was okay. There were some major scares, and the lead actress, Rachel Nichols, was very good. I felt for her all the way through. She pulled off the woman-in-distress thing really well. I jumped when she stabbed Wes Bentley with a fork, and then when hit him over the head, and in the end when she gets her final grrl-power revenge on him.

But when she wasn't on screen, I didn't so much care. Wes Bentley's garage attendant psycho was straight out of a Psych 101 textbook. "You're not a slut," he tells Rachel, over and over. And tells her that he's "doing all this for her". But we don't really know what he expects to happen when the sun comes up and its a brand new day. He's left bloody corpses about, destroyed an elevator, turned his office into a crime scene -- did he think he and Rachel were just going to live in the garage forever? Was he planning to kill her?

It's a bit up in the air. And Bentley's screaming signify his mental state was so over the top it became distracting. I like psychos who quietly go about their psycho-ness. This guy was screaming so loud you could barely understand what he was saying. I expected more tension, more thrills. But really, it was just a matter of holding on 'til the 75 mark when you knew it was time for Rachel to fight back and kick ass, which she does very well.

Some good horror scenes involving a flooded elevator, a wall-ramming, and some axe-wielding. But bad horror scenes involving a second wall-ramming, the old fingernail snapping backwards, and the brutal slaughter of a dog.

All in all... 2.5/5

Be Kind Rewind, dir. Michel Gondry (2008)

NIKKI says:
I liked it, but I should have loved it. Michel Gondry is an amazing mind, and a brilliant artist, and I thought his crazy stamp on a film that involves Jack Black and Mos Def remaking Ghostbusters would just be awesome. But it's a bunch of ideas hobbled together to create a film about the bonds of community. I don't know if that needed to be the ultimate message in a film that posits human ingenuity and artistry as the rightful successors to big-business and technology. But maybe I missed the point -- there seemed to be a lot of them.

The video/pawn shop versus the big DVD retailer -- that's the movie I thought I was seeing. Then again, that's the movie I thought I was seeing after the movie about communities embracing their history, which was before the movie about the magnestised weirdo erasing all the films and the silly pair who think remaking the movies and putting them back on the shelves will be sufficient to keep their boss happy. Now that last bit, that's funny. But all the other stuff pops in and pops out depending on convenience, and it becomes somewhat of a goopy mess. Can the movie be about ALL those things? It can, but here, it's kind of not -- the silly pair from the beginning are different guys at the end, but I don't really know why. I could have my mind changed should a DVD commentary inform me of just what Gondry thought he was doing specifically.

Still, I laughed a lot. I loved the film recreation scenes, particularly The Lion King, and I laughed as ever at Jack Black doing his shtick, which I know should be old-hat to me now, but just seems to get funnier.

I expected majestic masterpiece, and got sporadically great film with no real thread. I think I was disappointed, but I'm so thrilled Gondry is in this world that I struggle to be impartial here. I should be annoyed that it was messy. Instead, I'm rather blind to its issues because that montage of film remaking was just so fucking great.

(Edited to add: I've just learned that the Fats Waller connection here is to do with Waller's part in old-school rent parties in which musicians would jam for neighbourhood friends in order to raise money for rent. Gondry appears to have Jack and Mos doing the same thing, only with movies. That's interesting, only it might be yet another piece of the puzzle that doesn't really fit.)

3/5

STEVE says:

This became a case of Too Much Hype for Too Little Substance.

The premise hinges on the audience believing there's still a video shop out there that hasn't embraced DVD - in an age where even that technology is being asked to step aside for the shiny new Blu-Ray - and it just didn't sit well with me. It was hard to really get into it from the very beginning. 

Eternal Sunshine is always going to stand out among my Top 10, and there were flashes of that sort of brilliance here. The in-camera montage is beyond description, but that's about it. The rest of the movie is only so-so.

2.5/5

The Walker, dir. Paul Schrader (2007)

NIKKI says:
"Hell, I even thought that the people elected the president." So says Carter Page III, son of a popular political figure who now "walks" rich wives from place to place, including a regular canasta game. He's well-bred and runs in all the right circles, but he's aware of the truthlessness of Washington, DC, and the games played to get the movers and shakers what they want.

So, Carter is tested when he becomes involved in a cover-up. He chooses to lie to help a friend escape scandal. Kristin Scott Thomas finds a friend dead in his apartment, and to avoid the political fall-out from embroilment in such an event, Carter decides to tell the authorities that he found the body thus becoming a suspect in the murder itself.

Carter must use his ingenuity, influence, and intelligence to solve the crime and get himself out of deep water. The film has him do that very slowly, with very little intrigue. I just didn't find myself caring all that much about these rich folks in peril. And anyone who doesn't guess that the wives are not all on the level would be horribly naive. It's not new to tell me, either, that Washington is corrupt and sexist. It's not particularly enthralling to watch the ultra-rich complaining about the very thing that gives them their power. I understand, for the most part, what Paul Schrader was doing with the Page character as the centrepiece here, but I found the film too slow to really get into it.

It is a lazy portrait of wall furnishings, more than it is a charged story about people and environment. Woody Harrelson, however, is brilliant, and evermore proves himself one of the most versatile actors in Hollywood.

2.5/5

STEVE says:

I'm watching this, and I get this weird deja vu thing going on. I know I haven't seen it before, but there's a feeling I can't shake, a feeling like I'm treading very familiar water.

And then it hits me. I'ts American Gigolo. Here's the synopsis from the back of the DVD:

"Julian Kay is on the prowl and looking for someone to please. Boyish and sensual, he speaks five or six languages, and is equally comfortable as a chauffeur for a wealthy middle-aged matron, and as a translator/companion for the lonely wife of an executive. He is the American Gigolo. But Julian's love-for-sale lifestyle turns deadly when a client is murdered and Julian becomes the prime suspect."

Now here's the synopsis for The Walker:

"Set in Washington, D.C., The Walker follows Carter Page, a popular socialite who serves as confident companion and card partner on the brink of a scandal, he covers for her. Suddenly, he finds himself the chief suspect in a criminal investigation, and this well-connected man-about-town becomes an outcast, hounded by the police and forced to hunt down the true culprit in order to clear his name."

I know it's all part of the Candide archetype, with some Achilles and Circe thrown in, and it probably wouldn't have struck me if Paul Schrader hadn't written and directed them both.

I'm left wondering if I'd have enjoyed The Walker more if that had been the case.

2/5

The Bucket List, dir. Rob Reiner (2007)

STEVE says:
So Lyndall says to me, she says, "Please don't do something so cliched as to review Independence Day tonight -- did I just spoil your idea?"

Now I'm about as patriotic as I am religious (six-of-one, in my opinion), and, no, I hadn't considered watching Independence Day (I shudder to think), but she got me thinking about watching something not necessarily patriotic, but something representative of America.

Easy Rider leaped to mind. What better represents the US than a couple of redneck Texans blasting Captain America to hell?

But we had The Bucket List at the house and it was due back -- overdue, likely -- so we decided to have a look at that instead.

Not a bad choice. Nicholson and Freeman are both reliable actors, if not great -- only because they seem be the same guy every time you see them, but they do it well so I'm not complaining. I expected the movie to be a little more saccharine than it was, actually, and the fact that it wasn't boosts it an extra half-point. The idea of two guys, both dying of cancer, going around the world in a last-ditch effort to do all the things they never got to do is the kind of thing that usually sends me right into a diabetic coma. But Nicholson and Freeman made the premise easier to swallow (or distracted me from it, I'm not sure which), and I found myself enjoying the movie in spite of myself.

On a side note, I must point out the scene where the two are riding pillion on a motorcycle, Nicholson behind Freeman, and I smiled silently to myself, thinking again of Easy Rider, specifically the scene where Nicholson is riding with Captain America. See, Morgan Freeman used to be on an educational TV show back in the day, called The Electric Company. On the show, he played a character named Easy Reader. So you see...

I'm giving The Bucket List a 3/5.

NIKKI says:
It just seemed like the perfect movie to cry to. Plus, while Steve feared the premise of two guys going about doing everything they want to do before they die, I crave such stories -- if one of them had've been a teacher with adoring students, I may have passed out from gleeful anticipation.

It was okay. Short and sweet were the words I think I used when it ended. It didn't pad out its premise, or overstay its welcome. It was quite simply about living a full life. There's nothing wrong with that. Steve's right that it held off on the sugar, which I think sets it apart from other movies like it. There's no big crying scenes, no watching the old guy get spottier as he loses consciousness. It didn't yank at the heart strings. I enjoyed that.

I also got into the discussions the guys were having. Morgan Freeman ever wise, and Jack ever wise-cracking. They were fun to watch. Were they any other actors, perhaps they wouldn't have been so endearing.

So, it was inoffensive fun, without the Tuesdays with Morrie melodrama.

3/5

Forgetting Sarah Marshall, dir. Nicholas Stoller (2008)

STEVE says:
Oh my God, it's the end-times! Here is a movie with Judd Apatow's name on it that I not only did not completely abhor, but managed to come away from liking. And not "kind of" liking, but liking in the way that I'll likely buy it, and definitely watch it again in the future.

This is right up there with those prophecies about the devil ice-skating to work, or ice being served in the drinks in the cocktail lounges of Hell. I never thought it was possible.

Someone once wrote of Pauly Shore's Bio-Dome, "bodily function jokes rescued from Jim Carrey's wastebasket masquerade as a script," and that's pretty much how I've felt about the Apatow-produced movies in the past. It seems, though, that someone in that camp has learned how to write, and that someone is Jason Segel. Rather than string a series of sketches together to serve a single-joke premise (Superbad, Knocked Up, Taledega Nights, Anchorman, etc.), Segel wisely uses his talents to tell a story. A bold move, and one I hope catches on.

I really did suspect I'd hate this movie, or at the very least find it "dumb but funny", which is just as irritating, but there was nothing to hate here. Each scene was built on the last; each joke helped build character (and even the "dumb" jokes were smarter than any of the shite that passes for humour in Superbad), and all the characters - including the cheating Sarah Marshall and her Eurotrash rocker boyfriend - were likable. If not for his name in the credits, I'd argue that Apatow had anything at all to do with this.

4/5

NIKKI says:
Do you know how long it's been since I watched the same movie twice in one day? The last time I think was back in 1998, when I saw Good Will Hunting back-to-back at the Capri. I think saw Go twice in one day, too.

Over ten years ago.

Well, today it happened with Forgetting Sarah Marshall of all movies. I finished it up, free of Steve, who was against watching it for reasons you read about above. I wasn't so against it, though I did expect to absolutely loathe the thing. I was drawn to it for two reasons: Because people I respected were saying how brilliant it was; and because I like to see as many films as I can before they arrive in the store -- I like to be informed (but I'm still not watching Fool's Gold). It started, and I started to hate it. Then it kept going, and I started to love it in ridiculous ways.

Where did this movie come from, and what gives it the right to be an Apatow Production and almost scare me away?

So many scenes I wanted Steve to see, so I risked doing that thing we hate where someone makes us check out little snippets of movies because it might make us like it... I showed him Billy Baldwin as David Caruso in a bad TV crime show. And the scene in which our hero confesses he wants to do a Dracula musical with puppets. If anything was going to get Steve interested, it was that.

And then I told him the whole situation with Apatow and Jason Segel (the writer/star here) was like Kevin Smith putting Affleck in his movies back in the day, and then Affleck writes a movie and wins an Oscar, while Smith's movies still reek with pretentiousness and problems. (We like them, but they suck.) Segel was a break-out writer, who could actually write.

Steve was skeptical, but watched it, and felt as I did. His review mirrors my exact feelings. This is just a really good movie. It's well-written, well-structured. It's funny, it makes sense, it's free of meaningless random gags, it's emotional, heartfelt, and realistic. And it has puppets. I adored it as much the second time as the first. And here's something cool -- I'd have no qualms watching it again.

4/5

The Prestige, dir. Christopher Nolan (2006)

Lipstick (aka. Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy), dir. Peter Werner (2006)

NIKKI says:
If Australian DVD makers had not altered this film's titles from the provocative and interesting Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy to the boring Lipstick, I wouldn't have waited so long to watch it. As it is, it looks like chick-lit on film -- I look at that picture of Sarah Chalke, view the title with the cityscape background and I think, "She's out to find a man. Oh yay."

But this is about a far from standard girlie fare as you can get. With its original title, everything is pretty much laid out -- someone's getting their breasts removed and they're not taking it lightly.

I cried a lot. Sarah Chalke plays real-life Geralyn Lucas, a writer for 20/20, who, at 27, finds out she has breast cancer. Her best chance of survival means a double mastectomy. The film opens with Lucas on her way to a strip club to perhaps ascertain some understanding of the lure of women's breasts and what it might mean for her to lose hers. The film carries on in a similar vain -- Lucas is looking for answers. Should she go ahead with the radical surgery or simply have a lumpectomy, which would mean keeping her breasts but risking a return of the cancer? Will she be altered by breast removal? Will her husband love her? Will her friend know her? Will she know herself?

The movie sends her through all kinds of emotions -- anger, bitterness, jealousy, as well as humour, loneliness, sadness, and eventual empowerment. This is not a sob-story, by any means. It's not a film that wants you to feel sorry for its protagonist. It's point is to realistically show what this woman went through, and how she came out the other side.

3.5/5

Steve did not view.

Unearthed, dir. Matthew Leutwyler (2007)

NIKKI says:
It's got to be one of the weirdest happenings in filmdom that Bros drummer Luke Goss is suddenly a movie star. When I saw him in Blade II, I thought someone had hit the nostalgia button and nabbed him for a movie purely because how hilarious would it be to have LUKE GOSS in our movie?! Now, I realise, I'm perhaps one of the few people who link Luke to his days as a new-wave boy-band pioneer. So, umm, he's actually, I realised, an actor now.

Well, maybe actor is too strong a word. Luke is popping up in movies that don't give him all that much of a chance to really act. He's about to star in the movie version of Tekken, which makes my point well. He's a muscular alien coat-hanger, really. Just standing about while evil things happen around him, that same disturbed and dangerous look in his eyes. One day, someone might give a him a real role.

In Unearthed, he skulks about as Kale, a scientist who assists in the accidental bringing-back-to-life of a 900-year-old evil that goes about killing people in a form almost identical to that of Alien's alien. The first half of the movie gets Those About to Be Killed to a gas station in Nowheresville, New Mexico and the second half is all run and chase and kill and die. I didn't care about anyone, I wasn't scared by the monster. I was frankly just bored.

The only worthy thing about this, apart from Luke Goss's facial tattoo, is the appearance of Wounded Knee '72 veteran Russell Means. Otherwise, it's lame. Go watch Tremors instead.

1/5

STEVE says:

Yeah, I'd have to agree with that. Part Tremors, part Alien, all stuff we've seen before. It wasn't bad bad, but it wasn't particularly memorable, either.

1.5/5

Fingerprints, dir. Harry Basil (2006)

NIKKI says:
So much potential! This is one of those horror movies that annoy you not because it's lame or because the kids are annoying or because the story is stupid -- yes, it has elements of all three of those things, but it's actually really, really close to actually being kind of okay. Just a script tweak or two and maybe we would have had something. As it is, it's yet another bad movie that tried.

I'm starting to think Bad Movie That Tried could become a new tag.

This movie is based on a Texan urban legend about a bus and train collision that killed a bunch of school kids. The legend posits that if you drive up to the train tracks where the accident occurred and put your car in neutral, the ghosts of the dead children will push your car over the tracks to "safety". The filmmakers say in the DVD special features that this happens "every time" someone pulls their car over and while I find that ridiculously hard to believe, it's a decent enough starting point for a horror movie.

So, a new girl comes to town (fresh out of rehab and all) and sees one of the ghosts of the kids, follows her home, and begins to unearth a seedy mystery from the town's past. Why the girl chose our heroine isn't really defined, especially as the girl had been appearing to all and sundry for years. Anyway, we don't sweat the small stuff in movies like this, otherwise we'd have to question about three deaths in this one.

The heroine discovers that maybe there never was a crash after all, which makes that urban legend basis a bit meaningless, and that something else was happening down by the tracks. So, it's okay what eventually happens, but it's riddled with plot holes and random things that just don't make sense. And the twists don't really twist, and the turns, don't really turn. Nothing new is attempted.

It only succeeds because it's not completely awful. The kids are okay, the story starts out well, and some of the scares work. I spent much of the film weirded out by the fact that little Andy Lawrence has gone from this:


... to this:


... while I feel like I haven't aged at all since Brotherly Love. What happened?

Fingerprints didn't totally suck. But it came dangerously close.

2/5

STEVE says:
Fingerprints is a thrilling tale of supernatural suspense ripped whole-and-breathing from real life! If, that is, real life is an episode of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!

Even so, it was hard to hate this movie. Yes, the script was uneven, the pacing was off, the story contradicted itself at every turn... but everyone involved was just so earnest. I'd really like to see what they could have done with more of a budget and a tighter script.

No kidding, though, I truly expected Sally Kirkland, once unmasked, to exclaim the time-honoured line, "...and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids."

2/5

Already Dead, dir. Joe Otting (2007)

NIKKI says:
A nifty little thriller with an interesting premise. It's problem is that it feels like a low-budget TV thriller with its cheesy flashbacks to home videos, its plot-holes and predictability. The central idea, though, is good: that a company exists to alleviate the pain of grieving men by supplying them with criminals to torture and kill thus freeing them and society of bad people and bad feelings.

Obviously, it's not so cut and dried. Our hero here does not want to kill just any random criminal -- he wants the man that murdered his son. After torturing Til Schweiger for a short while, Ron Eldard realises (too long after we've already figured it out) that Til is not his man, and sets about freeing him to the dismay of the "company directors". A big chase ensues and eventually we discover the truth behind the company, which actually has some interesting theories about human suffering and the meaning of justice to the individual.

It just needed a bit more depth. I felt like it all hinged on this one idea, but it was an idea that had so much room to grow and develop. It doesn't, however. It boils down, then, to a good idea almost pulled off.

2.5/5

STEVE says:
What starts off looking like just another exercise in torture-porn eventually develops some interesting concepts about crime, punishment, retribution and absolution, then goes nowhere with them as it inevitably devolves into another game of run, run, run, chase, chase, chase.

It wasn't a bad movie, overall, and the first half was fairly intense - even though we were way ahead of it from the word 'go' - but I have to admit, I'm getting sick of lowering the bar for myself when it comes to this type of thriller. "We saw where it was going, but it was good nonetheless." Bullshit. If I can see where you're going within five minutes, if I'm even one step ahead of the plot, someone's not doing their job.

Are there worse ways to spend an evening? Sure. Hell, we could have been watching Norbit. But there were better ways to spend an evening, as well.

2.5

14 Going On 30, dir. Paul Schneider (1988)

NIKKI says:
Today turned out to be my little tribute to Paul Schneider, director of awesome body-swapping movies from the 1980s. When I chose this to watch after Willy/Milly, I had no idea they were made by the same guy. How hilarious. Watching them back to back, I started to get the feeling that 14 Going on 30 was Schneider's Disney-vision, while Willy/Milly was his anti-Disney, raunchified vision. In that one, he got to swear. In this, he sticks to Disney formula -- everything is nice, everyone is nice, and no-one ever alludes to the existence of anything remotely resembling sex.

I still love this movie. It's been a long time since I've watched it -- a LONG time. I don't think I've watched it since primary school, to be honest. My sister and I used to watch it as kids, and I still remembered a lot of the lines and gags. It's the Disney TV-movie version of Big, really, where a young guy becomes a 30-year-old and brings his kid sensibilities to the sticky adult world. In this case, he chooses to be made older so that his beloved Miss Noble sees the bad side of her fiance, Coach Jack-Jaw. Along the way, of course, they fall in love, and he wreaks havoc all over his high school where teachers have mistaken him for the new principal.

Does it get anymore Disney-awesome than that? It's all very cute and involves scenes of Danny (our boy-turned-man) trying to drive, to work, and to order food in a classy French restaurant. You know, all the classic embarrassing situations for any adult. And Steve Eckholdt is just ridiculously funny as older, fumbling Danny.

Not the greatest boy-swapping movie of all time, but I still love it, after all these years.

3/5

Steve did not view.

Willy/Milly, dir. Paul Schneider (1987)

NIKKI says:
Oh my god, I had no idea this movie was so rude! iIt's one my sister and I used to watch back when we were kids -- rented it from Magnum Video, if I remember correctly. We loved it. But then, we loved all the great body-swapping movies of the period -- 18 Again, 14 Going on 30, Freaky Friday, Vice Versa, and especially Student Exchange and Just One of the Guys, where characters didn't swap bodies, as such, but still became other people only to embarrassingly get discovered by all the cool kids.

Willy/Milly is about a tomboy who wants to be an astronomer. Her parents, though, tend to treat her too much like a delicate girl and won't let her stay up late to watch the stars from the non-safety of her roof. So, when she's offered the opportunity to wish on some magic powder (subtext!), she elects to turn into a boy -- because boys get to do everything they want.

Next morning, sure enough, Milly has a penis. And she shows it to her friend, her mum, and possibly even her dad. It's her... "surprise". Milly must then choose -- does she carry on living as a girl, just one with a penis, or does she cut her hair and go about life as Willy? She chooses the latter and begins to box and swear and trash-talk chicks until she loses her friends and her parents think she's gone a bit mental. Of course, when she falls in love with Eric Gurry, she realises that she's not supposed to be a boy and that all her trash-talk has only ever been for show. Up pops the magic fairy elf Seth Green to give her another chance at making the right decision.

Man, though, there's so much swearing and sex-talk in this movie that I'm a bit shocked my mum lets us watch it so freely. The words "asshole", "shit", "screw", "suck", and "pull" come up a lot.

But it's all harmless fun (I guess)... Pamela Segall is adorable as a boy and a girl, and John Glover and Patty Duke are heaps of fun as Willy/Milly's bewildered parents. It's very cute, very weird, and way too controversial for kid-flick. Man, I really miss the '80s.

3/5

Steve did not view.

Return of the Jedi, dir. Richard Marquand (1983)

Electric Dreams, dir. Steve Barron (1984)

NIKKI says:
So, I'd forgotten just how wonderful this movie is. I haven't seen it in a while, and had an inkling there might be some cheese to it. I thought my mega-movie marathon weekend was the perfect time for a secret revisit. Oh, how wrong I was, how mean I was to this movie! Cheese schneeze -- this is one of the most effective, intelligent, and genuinely spooky movies ever to come out of the whiz-bang, synthed-up 1980s.

Miles buys a new computer than the store clerk tells him will "make his coffee and keep his house secure". It does that, and then Miles spills stuff on it, and it comes alive. Then it falls in love with Miles's neighbor. And that's all I want to say lest I give any of its awesomeness away to Steve, who has yet to see it. (I KNOW!)

I may update this in a bit more detail when he has. It's just a great movie, that now goes back into my Top 10 of all time where it always belonged.

4.5/5

Steve did not view.

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