Milk

When the Oscars took place this past year, I was a little miffed that Mickey Rourke got looked over for Best Actor to Sean Penn for his protrayal of Harvey Milk. After watching Milk last night, Sean Penn was the obvious winner!

This movie was correctly casted! You don't realize that until you see the ending of the film! I thought Sean Penn did a wonderful job as Gay Activist Harvey Milk. Having never heard the story of Harvey Milk, I wasn't aware of how he died, with the exception that I knew he was assassinated. It was interesting to see what the chain of events were that led to his death. As a side note, earlier in the day, TBS was running the first Airplane movie and we hear Leslie Neilson make reference to Anita Bryant. Little did I know that Anita Bryant played a major part as oppostion to Harvey Milk. I will say that in the beginning of the movie, I was bored! As the film progress, I got more into it.

This movie is very topical in todays world. I found that while we have grown to accept the gay community, although there are people out there who still feel threaten by it. While the talk of gay marriage, gays adopting kids, and religious groups who picket funerals of gay people, this will always be a hot button for the world to grasp. Harvey Milk was one of those figures in American history who tried to break down the barriers for the gay community. Sean Penn did a wonderful job in this film!

Marley & Me

For our second straight Jennifer Aniston movie, we checked out Marley & Me. For those who don't know, this is a film based on a book. A book that Howard Stern himself has claimed that made him cry. After a few months of Dakota having "dog issues", we decided to make it an evening movie for the family, granted Cadence bailed out after the first hour of the movie.

The beginning kinda dragged for me a bit, but picked up nicely after the dog got older. The movie picked up some speed as the kids were born and Marley got sicker. The movie had a few funny parts, but nothing that made us laugh out loud. Of course, everyone, including me, cried at the end of the movie!

Kids might have a problem watching this film do to the sex talk between Aniston and Wilson. Plus, some kids might not be able to handle the ending of the movie. I don't know how this movie compares to the book, but this movie was alright to watch. If you get a chance, check out this film.

Management

Every review I've read says that this movie sucks! I am here to tell them that they were wrong! This movie surprised me! First off, it's hard to see Jennifer Aniston and not see Rachel from Friends. In the beginning, that was a problem for me. As the movie progressed and as you felt bad for Steve Zahn, who was head over heels for Jennifer Aniston, the Rachel character seemed to disappear. Steve Zahn, who I don't think had that great of range as an actor, pulled this one off! He was a creepy, albeit sad individual who follows his heart to chase after the girl of his dreams, or at least the first girl that put out for him. Woody Harrelson is in the movie as Jennifer's on again-off again boyfriend. Woody has come a long way since his days of tending bar at Cheers. All in all, this movie blew me away. It was a sweet story, mixed in with a little creepiness. The laughs were all in the right spots and the story didn't bore me. After you find a Blockbuster that hadn't closed yet, give this movie a shot!

Almost Famous

After owning this movie for over eight years and never watching it, Melissa and I decided to give it a shot. I remember back in 2000, this movie was the buzz around Hollywood. Goldie Hawn's daughter, Kate Hudson, was given "the role of a lifetime". Anytime I hear "the role of lifetime", I'm reminded of Robin Williams getting the same hype for The Fisher King, and that movie sucked! As far as the movie itself, it's bark was bigger than it's bite.

Let me state first that the movie is alright. The story moved along nicely. There were moments in the movie that made me laugh. Here is where I had a problem with this movie. The "role of a lifetime" by Kate Hudson wasn't what I would consider a break out performance. Her story had nothing to do with the movie itself, yet her face is all over the movie poster. Another complaint I have about this critically acclaimed film is the ending. After watching one hour and fifty eight minutes of this movie, the last two minutes of the film almost killed the movie for me. I just feel that it left an emptiness in the movie.

Like I said earlier, this movie doesn't suck, but it didn't live up to the hype for me. The heartbreaking part about all of this is that I might only get $2 for it at Movie Trading Company.

Duplicity

This movie sucked! Either this is one of those movies that only makes sense after the movie ends, or there was no point to the story what so ever! I'll go with the latter. After the first ten minutes of this movie, I was lost! I get that both Clive Owen and Julia Roberts are secret agents, but they're going after a hair solution? Really? I got really tired of the director finishing a scene, put the ending in a box, and watch it escape the screen. It's like he was photoshopping the movie. Try photoshopping a story! Is it me or does Julia Roberts disengage from the person she's talking to, and tries not to stare at the camera? As for Paul Giamatti, while I loved him in Private Parts, Cinderella Man, and Man on the Moon, my wife mentioned that he tends to overact in most of his movies. I didn't think so until I saw this piece of garbage. I wish I could comment more about this film, however, I dozed off towards the end of the movie. If you haven't slept well, go check this out! If you're a Julia Roberts fan and must see everything she does, trust me, avoid this at all cost.

Big Daddy

I can't believe this movie is ten years old! It feels like it was yesterday when I went to Cinemark in Plano to watch this movie. I remember how funny it was and how pissed I got when the power in the theater went off and we were given passes to catch the movie at a later time. I finally saw the rest of the movie back then, and I thought the movie was gold! Ten years later, my wife and I selected it as the movie of the night for us. I got to tell you, the film still holds up!

Big Daddy taught us a few things that we can carry with us. McDonalds stops serving breakfast after 10:30 am, spiking can goods in the supermarket can save you half off the price, and if you ever need to make fun of a place, Hooters is there for you! Adam Sandler was great as Sonny Koufax, a bright guy who's life is a mess, but he chooses to cover it up with newspapers. While I actually enjoyed Cole and Dylan Sprouce's performance as Julian, let me go on record and say what I think every other father of two girls wants to say: I hate Zack and Cody! I liked the pace of the movie as the story never stalled for me. Definately, this movie is one of Sandler's best!

Obsessed

As the second part of our Netflix double feature, we checked out Obsessed. After watching The Proposal last night, I wasn't sure if Obsessed could complete a successful double feature. This movie blew me away!

This movie reminded me of three different films, Disclosure, The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, and Fatal Attraction. What I liked most was that the guy, who is a victim in this movie, didn't have sex with the crazy bitch. In Disclosure, Michael Douglas did have sex with Demi Moore, and in Fatal Attraction, Michael Douglas had sex with Glenn Close. In this movie, Idris Elba plays a business man named Derek Charles, who is targeted by an office temp named Lisa Sheridan, played by Ali Larter. As Derek's life spins out of control, by no fault of his own, his wife, Sharon, played by Beyonce', has a hard time believing that Derek was faithful, since she used to be his secretary at his office who he hooked up with. The farther Derek and Sharon grow apart, the crazier Lisa gets.

It's been a while since I've seen a thriller where I was on the edge of my seat. This movie is a must rent.

The Proposal

In my first DVD rental from Netflix, Melissa and I got the Sandra Bullock movie, The Proposal. After the crap that we watched last night, my expectations were low! Lucky for us, this movie helped!

Melissa felt that Sandra Bullock was miscast in the role of a bitchy boss, feeling that it didn't fit her. I, however, thought she did a remarkable job! I thought the relationship with Andrew Paxton (Ryan Reynolds) character was great. It was nice to see how, in the beginning, she had control in the relationship and how towards the end, she completely lost it. Betty White is in the movie as Andrew's 90 year old grandmother, which led me to say, "She's in everything these days!" Either way, I loved her character.

After the middle of the movie, I started drawing comparisons to an earlier Sandra Bullock movie, While You Were Sleeping. I saw a few similarities, but it didn't detour my opinion of the movie. All in all, it's a good rental.

If Love Hadn't Left Me Lonely

Normally, I would start off with a long, huge backstory into how I ended up watching a certain movie. Quite frankley, this movie is so bad that the backstory is completly useless. In reviewing a bad movie, the interesting part is how you rip it apart. So here goes!

In almost nine minutes of the movie, the lead character (Mr. French) falls head over heels for a show dancer (not stripper) Lexie (Cindy Herron). From there, the cheesiness begins. How the phrase, "You must be exhausted because you've been running through my mind" didn't make it's way into the movie, I'll never know. We find out that Lexie is going through a divorce and can't get a foothold on her situation because her.....soon to be ex-husband's mother is demanding that she give her daughter over to her son. That's right, the mother of the soon to be ex-husband is making demands that apparently handicaps Lexie's situation. *Just a side note, we never see the over-bearing mother in the movie, which would have been a huge plus! Anyway, Mr. French writes a song about Lexie and then tries to get back into the music business by trying to be old-fashioned with his music. While Mr. French runs into some opposition into selling his music, Lexie, who had played hard to get throughout the first part, is now comfortable with him enough to sleep with him. Ten seconds later, she's back with her husband. I always hate it when ten seconds in a movie goes by and in the story it's been 3 weeks. I got a kick how they were going to promote a huge concert featuring old music and new music together. I was thinking the event would take place in a huge stadium or concert setting, instead we get a stage that the Addison Improv can squash. I suppose putting Ice-T and Gary Busey in the movie tried to lend some credibillity to the movie, while in reality, it didn't! Of course the biggest WTF moment for me was when David Alan Grier, who wasn't even in the movie, shows up in the credits. Melissa said, "Where was David Alan Grier?" One second later, he shows up being interviewed about Mr. French's music.

The ongoing joke between Melissa and I was we orginally thought this was a lifetime movie, due to the pauses in the movie that would signal a commerical interruption. Then we heard the F-word, and that put that to rest. In some scenes you couldn't hear Mr. French talking, while the person he was talking had a booming voice. From WTF moments to Mr. French fighting like William Shatner's Captain Kirk to noticing that the couch from Mr. French's house was the same couch in the studio, this movie was horrible!

Race to Witch Mountain

During my first day of retirement (or between jobs), the wife and I decided that whatever movie I grab at Blockbuster tonight, it had to be kid friendly. After going around the store a few times, I had five titles in my hand to choose from. I called Melissa and read off the titles, and we all agreed to watch Race to Witch Mountain.

After watching The Rock vs. Space Invaders.....I mean, Race to Witch Mountain, I came away with a few thoughts on the movie. For someone who has been taken hostage by aliens, Jack Bruno (Dwayne Johnson) really seemed to go along just fine with everything. The special effects looked cheaply made (possibly feeling that if Disney doesn't shell out a lot for the movie, they can keep the cost of the movie down and possibly make a profit on the movie). The movie did seem predictable for me, for instance, knowing that when a car is on a train track, it's only a matter of time before a train starts coming towards the car.

The story is very kid friendly. Both of my kids were able to sit through the movie and stay somewhat interested it. At the end of the day, if your kids watch this movie, it shouldn't warp their little minds and wish they had a power rifle and a tower to shoot from!

Mr. Deeds

As part of a double header for me one night, feeling in a light-hearted mood, I put on Mr. Deeds. Adam Sandler has really made of career of playing the soft spoken, down to earth guy, and Mr. Deeds is just another one of those movies.

Adam Sandler plays Longfellow Deeds, who finds out that his uncle left him 40 billion dollars after his death. Along the way he meets the woman of his dreams, who apparently isn't what she protrays to be. The movie keeps a pretty good pace to itself and plays out well for a typical Sandler movie.

Wedding Crashers

I remember going to see this in the movie theaters with my buddy, Bo. Everytime we saw a movie that featured two leading actors, Bo would turn to me and ask, "Okay, which one's you?" For this one, I chose to be Owen Wilson's character. At about the half point mark of the movie, Bo turned to me and said, "Come on, dude, switch with me!" Vince Vaughn's character went through hell in movie, which provided great comedy for me. Years later, out on the road with my mother, I put the movie on again so my mother could see it for the first time. The movie holds up, for sure.

The story of how two guys who do horrible things at weddings, to only later, try to play it straight, had me laughing throughout the entire movie. Owen Wilson's character, John, starts to see how sleazy he's been over time and starts questioning his morality. Vince Vaughn's character, Jeremy, lives and dies by the rules of wedding crashing and, in a small twist of fate, finds a girl who is more f'ed up than he is. Rachel McAdams plays Clara, the girl who John was orginally trying to trick into sleeping with him, to apparently falling in love with. The irony is that Clara starts falling for John, but is committed to someone else. The twist and turns of this movie kept me on the edge of my seat.

Biloxi Blues

As a kid, I remember sitting in the living room and watching Biloxi Blues with my parents. I remember liking it a lot back then, and I even used a few of the scenes in the movie in my theater arts class in high school. But that was 1991! Here in 2009, Biloxi Blues is not as great as I remembered it.

While Matthew Brodrick was the main figure in the movie, the main star of the film was Christopher Walken. The way he played Sgt. Toomey in the movie as a nice guy who can flip the switch at any time was great! I loved it when he'd pick on Brodrick's character, Eugene Jerome, just to ensure discipline in his troop. As for Brodrick's role, I see it more as a stage character, not a movie character. Granted this movie is a stage play, but you would think they can Hollywood it up a little. While the beginning of the movie helped set the movie the right direction, the movie changes right after Eugene and a the guy head to a whore house. The ending itself was a little anti-climatic as it ends how it started, with everyone on the train and Eugene's dialogue finishing up the movie.

Don't get me wrong, the movie is watchable, but it is wierd to love a movie when you're a kid and then later on watch it and go, "When is this going to end?"

Rocky IV

A couple of nights ago, I got to one of our terminals in Lebanon, TN, and inside the break room, the channel was on the Spike network. Getting ready to start was an 80's classic for me, Stallone's fourth installment of the Rocky series. Even though I have seen the movie a billion times and could probably quote all of the movie, I feel that I should give my crtique of the movie.

Story wise, the movie is pretty stellar! You have the obivious hero in Rocky, the low-key heavyweight champion. You have the villian, Ivan Drago, the massive Russian who is ready to try his hand in professional boxing. You have the best friend, Apollo Creed, who thinks that he can beat the unknown Russian, but as we all know, dies in the ring. The choregraphy in the boxing matches are great, even if every punch sounds like a shotgun blast. As far as dialogue, obviously Stallone didn't work all that hard what was being said. From Apollo's lame excuse to get back into the ring, to Rocky's lame speech after he defeated the Russian, you just want to shake your head and laugh. Unlike the other Rocky movies, Burt Young's character, Paulie, is a non-factor in this movie, which is a bad thing. Talia Shire's character, Adrian, is not the driving force for Rocky as she was in previous movies.

In the end, all that matters is that Rocky wins in the end and the fight makes up for a really bad script.