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.

Hannah Montana the Movie

Before I give my review of this movie, let me first turn in my MAN CARD. For Cadence's 4th birthday, we decided to enter into the Blu Ray universe be getting her Hannah Montana the Movie. Honestly, not my first choice! I was hoping for Star Trek, Superman, or even Star Wars to kick it off. Instead, I get Hannah Montana. I suppose my saving grace is that we still don't own a Blu Ray player yet. When Melissa bought the movie, it came with a DVD version of the movie, which brings me to my review.

I was well aware of how campy the Disney show is, so I was expecting the same kind of campiness. To my surprise, the movie didn't go there, at least not enough to get me to roll my eyes and wish I had a gun to end it all. Sure there were a few moments where I would ask Melissa, "How can this happen?" For instance, while during a Mrs. Doubtfire moment, Miley is alternating between a governor's dinner and a date. During one of the switches, she returns after changing clothes and keeping the lobster bib on. Would that of been taken care of during her changing clothes? Another moment for me was when towards the end, Miley is on stage singing a song that she just wrote and was going to debut it in front of a live crowd. It was safe to assume that her band never heard of the song before, but apparently knew how it was going to go and performed it without any practice. Despite a few of the movie's inconsistencies, the storyline was pretty good. I enjoyed the fish out of water moments that Miley had going back to her grandmother's farm. As much as I can do without Billy Ray Cyrus, I thought his role was used enough to not completely hate him.

All in all, your kids will love the movie! I think it's safe to say that adults could tolerate the movie, even if they're sick of the Hannah Montana craze. The movie is safe, and so is the franchise.