For the past 17 years, I had been under the impression that The Shawshank Redemption was a movie about the Holocaust. Apparently, because Shindler's List and The Shawshank Redeption both came out about the same year and I was only 9 at the time, I've been confused my entire life. How I was never corrected is incredible, but I must've always been with other ingrates who had never seen the movie either. Fortunately, I recently corrected the error of my ways.
There are some movies that are "classics" that I make a point to watch and are ultimately disappointed. Citizen Kane is probably the best example of this. Maybe I'm not cultured enough or don't understand cinematography, but I literally fell asleep watching Citizen Kane and the only reason I watched it in the first place is because I never understood what the hell my dad was talking about when he always said "Rosebud". (SPOILER ALERT: It's a freaking sled.)That being said, I was a bit reluctant to watch The Shawshank Redemption because most things that people constantly say are awesome aren't actually that awesome, they just don't want to be an outcast and say it sucks.
Luckily, The Shawshank Redemption IS that awesome and my belief in "classics" is restored!
So, this movie, it turns out, takes place in a prison. Not Nazi Germany. And the premise is that a successful banker is incorrectly accused of killing his cheating wife and he is sent to prison. All of the normal prison movie things that you think would happen, do happen. However, this is one of the few movies out there where things actually go the way you want them to go. It's awesome. Bad guys get beat downs and good guys get beer. I'm assuming I'm the only person left in America who had never seen this movie, so I won't bore you with the details.
I will just say that if you haven't seen The Shawshank Redemption (one of the 1% of Americans left), go find one of those old fashioned "movie stores" and rent it. Like now. (To those of you who don't know what a "movie store" is, it's this place where people used to go to borrow VHS(tapes) movies for certain period of time. You had to leave your couch to get movies and sometimes they were out of whatever it was you went to get! It was horrible!) You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll love Morgan Freeman even more than you already do(should).
Friday, October 7, 2011
Monday, October 3, 2011
What's Your Number?: Ana Faris, yet again, singlehandedly saves a movie
If you love Ana Faris like I love Ana Faris, you will love "What's Your Number?" When previews first started showing about this one, I was skeptical. Then I re-watched "The House Bunny" and remembered that Ana Faris can singlehandedly carry a very average movie and decided to give her newest one a shot. And I was not let down.
For the ladies: Ana Faris combines the difficult task of being hilarious and being a girl. She doesn't take herself too seriously and seems like someone I would actually want to hang out with (unlike some actresses *cough*Gwyneth Paltrow*cough*JenniferAniston*Cough*). This attitude carries over wonderfully into every character she portrays and keeps even dull movies interesting. And, for the slutty ladies, she'll make you feel like you're not that big of a whore.
For the guys: She's in her underwear for a good portion of the movie.
The premise of this movie is based on a "study" done on how your number of sexual partners relates to your ability to get married. According to the "study" if you've slept with 20 or more guys, you have a 96% chance of never getting married and dying a lonely, slutty cat lady. They don't exactly say the cat lady thing, but we all know if you end up alone, you end up a crazy cat lady. Ally (Ana Faris's character) realizes she's slept with 19 guys and has to keep her legs shut until she finds the man of her dreams, number 20, so she can ensure he's the guy she'll marry and she doesn't go over the magic number.
Unfortunately, tequila is involved and the pact with herself (and everyone else in the bar) doesn't last long. Joel McHale (of The Soup fame) makes a quick appearance in the movie as Ally's boss and nails it. You'll never look at someone smelling their hand the same again!
Once hitting that magic 20, Ally decides she has to go back and revisit every guy she's slept with so she can ensure she'll still get hitched some day. As you can imagine, there are hilarious scenes with her former lovers that will literally make you LOL. Can you imagine if you went back through all of yours??? Exactly. Her perfect comedic timing and unforgettable facial expressions truly made this movie. Colin (played by the ever sexy Chris Evans, who happens to be shirtless often in this film) is Ally's slutty male neighbor helping her along in her quest. You pretty much figure out what's going to happen in the first 25 minutes of the movie, but it's funny enough to keep you guessing and Ana Faris shows her butt enough that guys will stay entertained as well.
Little one liners are peppered throughout (my personal favorite: "He has terrible taste in fonts" I mean, seriously, wtf does that even mean?) to make you chuckle.
I have to point out that Rotten Tomatoes says this movie is terrible. Luckily, they've gotten it terribly wrong. The movie is funny, engaging, and cute. Great movie for a girls night out with some cocktails before (and after, who are we kidding) or for a date night with that special guy you're trying to convince you have good taste in movies.
For the ladies: Ana Faris combines the difficult task of being hilarious and being a girl. She doesn't take herself too seriously and seems like someone I would actually want to hang out with (unlike some actresses *cough*Gwyneth Paltrow*cough*JenniferAniston*Cough*). This attitude carries over wonderfully into every character she portrays and keeps even dull movies interesting. And, for the slutty ladies, she'll make you feel like you're not that big of a whore.
For the guys: She's in her underwear for a good portion of the movie.
The premise of this movie is based on a "study" done on how your number of sexual partners relates to your ability to get married. According to the "study" if you've slept with 20 or more guys, you have a 96% chance of never getting married and dying a lonely, slutty cat lady. They don't exactly say the cat lady thing, but we all know if you end up alone, you end up a crazy cat lady. Ally (Ana Faris's character) realizes she's slept with 19 guys and has to keep her legs shut until she finds the man of her dreams, number 20, so she can ensure he's the guy she'll marry and she doesn't go over the magic number.
Unfortunately, tequila is involved and the pact with herself (and everyone else in the bar) doesn't last long. Joel McHale (of The Soup fame) makes a quick appearance in the movie as Ally's boss and nails it. You'll never look at someone smelling their hand the same again!
Once hitting that magic 20, Ally decides she has to go back and revisit every guy she's slept with so she can ensure she'll still get hitched some day. As you can imagine, there are hilarious scenes with her former lovers that will literally make you LOL. Can you imagine if you went back through all of yours??? Exactly. Her perfect comedic timing and unforgettable facial expressions truly made this movie. Colin (played by the ever sexy Chris Evans, who happens to be shirtless often in this film) is Ally's slutty male neighbor helping her along in her quest. You pretty much figure out what's going to happen in the first 25 minutes of the movie, but it's funny enough to keep you guessing and Ana Faris shows her butt enough that guys will stay entertained as well.
Little one liners are peppered throughout (my personal favorite: "He has terrible taste in fonts" I mean, seriously, wtf does that even mean?) to make you chuckle.
I have to point out that Rotten Tomatoes says this movie is terrible. Luckily, they've gotten it terribly wrong. The movie is funny, engaging, and cute. Great movie for a girls night out with some cocktails before (and after, who are we kidding) or for a date night with that special guy you're trying to convince you have good taste in movies.
The Lost Boys: A review from the perspective of someone who saw this movie for the first time as an adult
As the title suggests, I recently saw "The Lost Boys" for the first time. I noted to The Boyfriend that I was in the mood to watch a scary movie since it's finally October. We had just gotten a new Logitech Revue that allows you to stream movies straight to your TV (we'd been linking the Mac up until now, due to our lack of video game consoles, and it was a mess) and I was antsy to try it out! After striking out with Netflix, we turned to Crackle.com with whom the Revue has an agreement and were able to choose from a few totally free options. "The Lost Boys" won as The Boyfriend expressed his disgust that I had not yet seen it. I was assured that this movie was plenty scary and I would love it as much as everyone else does.
Now, I'm a lover of classic 80's movies as much as the next guy and really had high hopes for this one; I was surprisingly disappointed.
I have a feeling most people already know how the movie goes, so I'll keep the synopsis short. A family (mom and two sons) move to California to live with the kooky old grandpa who is fond of taxidermied animals and the ladies. On their way into town, the boys see "Murder Capital of America" grafittied on the back of a billboard. Scary, right!? They pretty much immediately head to the boardwalk to meet some ladies and check out the scene. Mike, the big brother, sees some broad with a perm and decides to stalk her. He ends up getting mixed up with the wrong crowd, eats some maggots, drinks some blood, and becomes a vampire. The movie progresses at a decent pace from here, but with little character development and lots of vampire type activities. At the end of the movie, you find out who the Head Vamp is and yada, yada, yada, everyone is happy.
To me, it was amazing that people had been tolerating vampires for years in this community and no one, until Corey Haim, thought to seek out the Head Vamp and kill him/her. Or maybe they had thought of it, but nobody actually did it. Seeing this movie for the first time as an adult is a terrible idea. I'm sure everyone has wonderful memories of this movie, but it just didn't do it for adult me.
Maybe it's the recent vampire obsession, maybe it's the fact that I read the "info" on the movie before we watched it, or maybe it's because the movie isn't that well written, but I pretty much figured out the plot within the first 10 minutes of the movie. According to The Boyfriend, I wasn't supposed to know that they were vampires and I wasn't supposed to realize so soon that the brother "Mike" was turning into one. Unfortunately, living in 2011 pretty much ruined the surprise.
After all the hype surrounding this movie, I was really expecting something great that would stand the test of time. I'm sure that as a child, which most people I know were when this movie came out, it was very
scary. I'm also sure that if I had been 11, I would've thought Corey Haim was the cats pajamas. Sadly, I know how "The Corey Haim Story" ends and saw him on "Celebrity Rehab", so any illusions were dismissed at the door.
If you watched this movie as a kid, and haven't seen it since, don't watch it again! It will ruin your wonderful memories. If you're presently an adult and haven't ever seen it, only watch it if you have young children you want to scare. You're bound to re-evaluate everyone's opinion about everything who has told you it's awesome. Sorry, but it's not. The only awesome thing was the dog.
Now, I'm a lover of classic 80's movies as much as the next guy and really had high hopes for this one; I was surprisingly disappointed.
I have a feeling most people already know how the movie goes, so I'll keep the synopsis short. A family (mom and two sons) move to California to live with the kooky old grandpa who is fond of taxidermied animals and the ladies. On their way into town, the boys see "Murder Capital of America" grafittied on the back of a billboard. Scary, right!? They pretty much immediately head to the boardwalk to meet some ladies and check out the scene. Mike, the big brother, sees some broad with a perm and decides to stalk her. He ends up getting mixed up with the wrong crowd, eats some maggots, drinks some blood, and becomes a vampire. The movie progresses at a decent pace from here, but with little character development and lots of vampire type activities. At the end of the movie, you find out who the Head Vamp is and yada, yada, yada, everyone is happy.
To me, it was amazing that people had been tolerating vampires for years in this community and no one, until Corey Haim, thought to seek out the Head Vamp and kill him/her. Or maybe they had thought of it, but nobody actually did it. Seeing this movie for the first time as an adult is a terrible idea. I'm sure everyone has wonderful memories of this movie, but it just didn't do it for adult me.
Maybe it's the recent vampire obsession, maybe it's the fact that I read the "info" on the movie before we watched it, or maybe it's because the movie isn't that well written, but I pretty much figured out the plot within the first 10 minutes of the movie. According to The Boyfriend, I wasn't supposed to know that they were vampires and I wasn't supposed to realize so soon that the brother "Mike" was turning into one. Unfortunately, living in 2011 pretty much ruined the surprise.
After all the hype surrounding this movie, I was really expecting something great that would stand the test of time. I'm sure that as a child, which most people I know were when this movie came out, it was very
scary. I'm also sure that if I had been 11, I would've thought Corey Haim was the cats pajamas. Sadly, I know how "The Corey Haim Story" ends and saw him on "Celebrity Rehab", so any illusions were dismissed at the door.
If you watched this movie as a kid, and haven't seen it since, don't watch it again! It will ruin your wonderful memories. If you're presently an adult and haven't ever seen it, only watch it if you have young children you want to scare. You're bound to re-evaluate everyone's opinion about everything who has told you it's awesome. Sorry, but it's not. The only awesome thing was the dog.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)