Mamma Mia!

Director: Phyllida Lloyd
Writer: Catherine Johnson
Released: 2008
Cast: Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, Christine Baranski, Amanda Seyfried

Teen Wolf

Director: Rod Daniel
Writers: Jeph Loeb, Matthew Weisman
Released: 1985
Cast: Michael J. Fox, James Hampton, Susan Ursitti, Jerry Levine,

St. Elmo's Fire

Director: Joel Schumacher
Writers: Joel Schumacher, Carl Kurlander
Released: 1985
Cast: Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Mare Winningham

High School Musical 3: Senior Year

Director: Kenny Ortega
Writer: Peter Barsocchini
Released: 2008
Cast: Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Lucas Grabeel, Corbin Bleu, Monique Coleman

NIKKI says:
Why was I so excited for this? I may have gone mad, but I just could not wait to see a High School Musical movie on the big screen. My excitement was all held over from the rush I got when we saw the preview ages ago before Wall-E. The curtain, the sparkles, the basketball, stepping noises... Wildcats WOOH!

I am so lame.

So, it was okay. Actually, it was huge fun and I loved it. However, I did have some issues with it. Many, of course, are the same issues I have with all these movies. I was hoping some of them would have been fixed this time around but no such luck. Here now are my top four Problems With High School Musical 3:

4. Sharpay's redemption
Or lack thereof. Sharpay spends the whole movie being an utter cunt to everyone that threatens her dreams of starring in the final East High Super-Mega-Show. She, like Natalie Sands (bitch!) before her will stop at nothing to make sure poor Gabriella misses the final show allowing Sharpay to step in and be the star. Well, she sabotages Gabriella's role, and almost ruins her relationship with Troy and completely overrides and shits on all her East High friends.

BUT! At the end of the movie, at graduation, who should be sitting next to Gabriella, both smiling at each other, but Sharpay! I didn't see them make up. I didn't see anyone spill red wine on Sharpay's expensive white dress as comeuppance. I saw no redemption whatsoever for bitchy Sharpay. Not good enough!

3. Gabriella's icky sweetness that makes me want to punch her
Can we get this girl some edge? Can't someone dig up some cell phone pics of her dancing around with an ex-boyfriend from her old school? Can we find out SOMETHING about her that doesn't make me think she's as soft as jelly? Ugh.

2. Gabriella's utter lack of character development
So, she goes to pre-college or whatever it is and decides a few days later to leave Troy and not come home for prom or the big final show. Umm... how did she come to this conclusion? These movies have this awful guy-centric thing, or Troy-centric, maybe, that utterly discounts the women. Look at Sharpay -- between these two protags, you'd think the writers here know only of two kinds of girls: sweet-natured Gidgets or bitch-ass beauty queens. This, of course, is so not the case. I was hoping to see Gabriella in her own "Bet On It" moment, getting out her aggression somehow -- throwing candy canes? horseback riding? -- but, alas. It was not to be.

1. The look in Troy's eyes that is supposed to say "I love you, sweet Gabriella" but really says "Man, can we just FUCK already?!"
Was it just me, or did Troy have raging hormones where his eyes should have been? Watch him every time he dances with Gabriella. He is flat out screaming with his face: "I want you!" And, of course, the little tease denies him, which just made me want to take him home all the more to put him out of his freakin' misery.

Phew.

Still, it was the best of the series with some great songs and some big cool dance numbers. I loved "Scream" and "The Boys are Back". It was just bigger and better as far as production goes. Pity they couldn't have ironed out some of my niggly issues. If only they were doing a fourth one...

3/5

Step Brothers

Director: Adam McKay
Writers: Will Ferrell, Adam McKay
Released: 2008
Cast: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Mary Steenburgen, Richard Jenkins

Assassins

Director: Richard Donner
Writer: The Wachowski Brothers, Brian Helgeland
Released: 1995
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Antonio Banderas, Julianne Moore

Fallen

Director: Gregory Hoblit
Writer: Nicholas Kazan
Released: 1998
Cast: Denzel Washington, John Goodman, Donald Sutherland, Embeth Davidtz, James Gandolfini, Elias Koteas

About Last Night...

Director: Edward Zwick
Writers: Tim Kazurinsky, Denise DeClue
Released: 1986
Cast: Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, James Belushi, Elizabeth Perkins

How She Move, dir. Ian Igbal Rashid (2008)

NIKKI says:
And here we are again. Steve goes out for the night, and I sit down with a dance movie. They're everywhere lately. I'm barely keeping up.

So, this one has exactly the same story as all the others -- girl has something to prove to herself, her family, and those around her because of the struggles she's endured and continues to endure. And how best to do it? By dancing her ass off. If only life were so simple.

This stands apart, however, for two reasons. First, the dancing is hardcore stepping, which I don't think I've seen in one of these before. Maybe Stomp the Yard? But, still, this dancing looked and felt different. Whereas in Stomp the Yard it was about creating unity, here is seemed to be about releasing aggression. Dunno, a subtle difference? Not that I know the first thing about the intricacies of step dancing... anyway, that's how it felt to me.

Secondly, this one dealt with some fairly hefty issues like heroin abuse, and the family breakdown surrounding that. I felt early on in the film that it had something personal to say. It felt like more than a standard build to a big step-freak-out at the end. I mean, it was that, but it tried to be something else, too. I got right into Rayanne's struggle for acceptance. It might have had much to do with the lead actress being so good, and seeming so much deeper than the usual perky Step Up girls.

For me, this was a cut above as far these movies go, and while I don't understand stepping at all, I loved watching these bodies just flick and flip and pulse. How do they do that? WHY do they do that? It doesn't look like dancing. Sometimes it looks like self-exorcism. Which may just be what it is. That's where the release ideas comes in, I guess. It's most apparent when the dancers work alone, but in groups, when they're all doing the same pulsing, pumping moves, they look fucking sensational. The cheoreographers are amazing, and the dancers are just -- I can't even describe it. The timing, the discipline, the body-control -- stepping should be in the Olympics.

So, yeah... let's see if Feel the Noise can top this in a few weeks.

3/5

Steve did not view.

Semi-Pro, dir. Kent Alterman (2008)

NIKKI says:

I know it's wrong and it goes against every single artistic philosophy I have ever adopted in my entire life, but I love when Will Ferrell shouts swears. It's the funniest thing ever.

But... this movie was way dumb. One of the worst Will Ferrell movies ever. It's just some stupid reason to get him in a wig and make him sing. But it was so fucking funny because he just kept saying things in that voice that just cracks me the hell up. Some samples:

"I, Jackie Moon, will wrestle a bear."

"Well, we are going to light firecrackers."

"The free throw is probably the best facet of my game."

"I just got back from an orgy. I'm exhausted. I mean, my weiner say to me: Jackie, I've had enough ... of this orgy. Put me back in your underwear."

You know none of that is in the script. It's just Will Ferrell making shit up. I couldn't help it, though. I just laughed. I laughed every single time the song played and Will Ferrell sang the line, "Are you ready to lick me sexy". I tried so hard not to.

Is there some kind of support group I can go to?

2/5

Steve did not view.

Union Square, dir. Stephen Szklarski (2003)

NIKKI says:

Not the happiest way to spend a Wednesday morning. I sat down to watch this because I've had it hanging around for so long, but I kept putting it off because a film about strung out users in NYC is something you really need to be in the mood for, and when is that ever likely to happen? So, I just went for it.

I was enlightened briefly about how users score, how they survive on the streets, the various things they go through. The details within that information is what really did it for me, though. I felt I was really getting to the meat of the matter when Cheyenne talked about the woman who gave her $60 and her daughter, or watching Danny run out of a family member's apartment with books and CDs that he stole to sell. I also felt very fly-on-the-wall between Mike and Cheyenne as their relationship took a turn. Those moments, the insights that came not from stories of addiction or panhandling or abuse, but from these real people. That was good. Otherwise, I felt the film generalised a lot, and attempted to show this downside of street life and addiction rather than focusing on these people and their individual experiences.

It tried to do that -- you can hear the interviewer asking more probing questions, but it's just not as interesting to hear how James got away with a drug conviction when a bag fell out of his pocket than it is to hear him talk about why he's on drugs, how he made the choices he did, and what he plans to do about it. I only came to know James in the special features, listening to his mum talk about finding out he was on the street.

So, perhaps the film was supposed to be more about the street and what it sees rather than what the people on it really go through. I learned about the people, but I felt I could have learned so much more. So Ron goes up to a guy's apartment and receives oral sex for money -- he tells us that matter-of-factly and I'm wondering if I'm supposed to be shocked or appalled? I was just wondering how he felt in those times, really and truly felt? Because everyone's got shit in their lives, everyone makes sacrifices and compromises, and non-users have some pretty horrendous stories of survival, too. What makes Ron's story, that it's based around heroine addiction, any different? I wanted the film to make those connections and I don't feel it did.

I did feel a lot for Cheyenne, and I was thrilled to see her clean and reunited with her daughter in the follow-up film in the special features. When she talked about Mike and how she just wanted to be taken care of, the way she put it was really interesting. She said it was time she was taken care of, and I really felt for her then.

Overall, an interesting look inside this world; a courageous film, a necessary film. But not nearly as introspective as I had hoped.

2.5/5

Steve did not view.

Smother, dir. Vince Di Meglio (2007)

NIKKI says:
What is it with Diane Keaton and her new career as a meddling mum? How is it that there's become a "meddling mum" genre at all? The Family Stone, Because I Said So, Mama's Boy ... and now this. I liked Diane when she was funny and vital and used her talents for good instead of banal. Smother is apparently so bad, no one in America wants to release it.

Well, it wasn't that bad. It was pretty bad, but I'd recommend it over Because I Said So. Dax plays a guy who loses his job right when his wife, played by Liv Tyler, wants to start trying for a baby. At the same time, Liv's writer cousin comes to stay, as does Dax's mother, who is convinced Dax's dad is having an affair. Shenanigans ensues and mum ends up getting a job with Dax, ruining his relationship, getting drunk at a bar, and vomiting on the floor all in the space of a few days. And then, of course, she starts to feel sorry for herself and she and Dax begin to see each other's points of view and its all happily families at the end when mum drives off with the writer cousin.

But, it's all so very weak. The jokes are lame, the smothering mother angle has been done to death, as has the baby-wanting wife scenario, and no matter how much effort Dax gives his performance, everyone involved just looks they want to be somewhere else. More over, the final scenes take place at a funeral where Diane and Dax make a mockery of a woman's death with their petty fighting and we're not supposed to care because the dead women was so insufferable. So -- dead old hag jokes, that's about where we're at with this one.

Sorry Diane, but you're losing me.

Had the movie played up its dramatic storyline involving a 60 year old woman losing her husband to infidelity after so many years, maybe we would've had something. But it only briefly touches on that, which is most disappointing.

2/5

Steve did not view.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.