1 Aug - "The supermodels, Willy? That's all they are. Bottled promise."

Beautiful Girls (1996)

dir. Ted Demme (The Ref, 1994)

CAST
Matt Dillon (There's Something About Mary, 1998)
Noah Emmerich (The Truman Show, 1998)
Annabeth Gish (Mystic Pizza, 1988)
Lauren Holly (Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, 1993)
Timothy Hutton (Serious Moonlight, 2009)
Rosie O'Donnell (A League of Their Own, 1992)
Max Perlich (Ferris Bueller's Day Off, 1986)
Martha Plimpton (The Goonies, 1985)
Natalie Portman (The Professional, 1994)
Michael Rapaport (True Romance, 1993)
Mira Sorvino (Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, 1997)
Uma Thurman (Les Miserables, 1998)
Pruitt Taylor Vince (JFK, 1991)
Sam Robards (American Beauty, 1999)
David Arquette (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 1992)
Adam LeFevre (Jungle 2 Jungle, 1997)
John Carroll Lynch (Fargo, 1996)

Beautiful Girls is one of those movies about High School friends being unable to cope with the reality of adulthood. You can put it on the shelf next to The Big Chill and St. Elmo's Fire. Uniting the friends is an inability to manage their romantic relationships. There are two rational, self-aware characters in this movie, one is Vera, the bartender's cousin from Chicago, played by Uma Thurman. The other is the sassy friend, played by Rosie O'Donnell. The men seem to excuse their own inability to commit to their respective womenfolk by the fact they haven't yet found "the perfect woman" the sassy friend scolds them for chasing a fantasy, and says that they would get bored of their imaginary supermodels even if they ever managed to find them. That's true enough, their girls may dress like New Englanders in the '90s, but they're all played by very attractive actresses. Uma Thurman's characters I guess is supposed to represent the perfect woman made real. but she's unattainable because she has a boyfriend back in Chicago that is mentioned all of twice. She's cool, does he own thing, and her friendly gestures are always misinterpreted as permission for a romantic advancement. She turns all the guys down.

So what's the point? It would seem that based on this movie, men are children and women are adults that must put up with their ridiculous behavior. That's a silly idea.

2 April - "You are the epitome of everything I have ever looked for in another human being."

Chasing Amy (1997)

dir. Kevin Smith -Mallrats (1995)

CAST
Ethan Suplee - Desert Blue (1998)
Ben Affleck - Dazed and Confused (1993)
Casey Affleck - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)
Jason Lee - Dogma (1999)
Dwight Ewell - Party Girl (1995)
Joey Lauren Adams - Mallrats (1995)
Guinevere Turner - American Psycho (2000)
Carmen Llywelyn - Never Been Kissed (1999)
Matt Damon - Mystic Pizza (1988)
Welker White - Dead Poets Society (1989)
Ernest O'Donnell - Clerks. (1994)
Brian O'Halloran - Clerks II (2006)

I'm almost positive that this is my second-favorite Kevin Smith movie (Clerks - obviously). It's about comic book artist Holden (Ben Affleck) who falls in love with fellow comic book artist Alyssa and is undetered by the fact that she is homosexual. With perseverance, he succeeds in winning her heart, surprise! The catch comes when he learns more about the sexual misdeeds of her past, and is unable to accept her for her past. The irony is not lost on the supporting characters, who altogether scold Holden for rejecting the woman he loved because he couldn't condone the person she had been, even though she had completely changed herself to be with him.

The difficult question that always sticks with me after I watch this movie is whether Holden is supposed to be a villain or not. Of course you could say that in true Kevin Smith form there aren't any real villains (except in Dogma) but only these schlubby man-children trying to establish a coherent purpose as they bumble through their mundane lives punctuated only by comic book references and the recollections of women they've banged in the past (but rarely turn up in the course of the movie-story itself). But I repeat the question: is Holden an unlikely hero for winning Alyssa's heart and then tragically losing it, or is he a villain for discarding her hard-won affection?

26 March - "Fancy me a heroine"

The African Queen (1951)

dir. John Huston (The Unforgiven, 1960)

CAST
Humphrey Bogart - The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Katharine Hepburn - Little Women (1933)
Peter Bull - Dr. Dolittle (1967)

The African Queen is set in Africa during WW1. When Germans take over a village where a missionary and his sister are staying, the missionary dies of fever and despair and his sister, Rose, is left on her own to find a way to survive and get home. She teams up with Bogart's lowbrow character Charlie Allnut, but this odd couple ends up having more in common than they thought when Rose develops some spunk and decides that the pair of them need to take their little steamboat (the title character!) to liberate Lake Victoria from a German warship blocking English ships from entering the interior.

14 Dec - "I was just hoping for more of an old-fashioned Christmas"

A Christmas Kiss (TV 2011)

dir. John Stimson


CAST
Elisabeth Rohm (Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, 2005)
Brendan Fehr (Final Destination, 2000)

I missed the first few minutes of this Christmas TV movie, and from what I gathered from the subsequent dialogue, they were the most important part of the movie. You see, Wendy is an aspiring interior decorator working with the bitchy socialite Priscilla Hall (as in, 'deck the...' Sometime during the beginning of the movie, Wendy kisses a strange man in the elevator for some reason, but UH OH! It's actually Priscilla's fiance (but he doesn't recognize Wendy later?), but she doesn't really love him, she just thinks they are a good match in social status, and also SHE HATES CHRISTMAS!!!

Because Wendy is in charge of designing the Christmas party at Adam's house, she spends an awful lot of time there with him alone, and eventually they bond over their mutual love of Christmas and holiday spirit. Unfortunately, Adam is the thickest male love interest ever, and he takes forever to figure out that Priscilla had nothing to do with the design plans for the Christmas party, and basically just does whatever she says. Wendy is a worse protagonist than Fanny from Mansfield Park , all she does is whine about how scared she is of losing her job with Priscilla and how she's too scared to tell Adam that she's the one he kissed in the elevator and it's so obvious that they're meant to be together. Ultimately, she takes no assertive action to secure her own happy ending.

3 Dec - "Being prepared for matrimony by a hatred of home, by the misery of disappointed affection"

Mansfield Park (1999)

dir. Patricia Rozema

CAST
Lindsay Duncan (Alice in Wonderland, 2010)
James Purefoy (Resident Evil, 2002)
Frances O'Connor (Piccadilly Jim, 2006)
Embeth Davidtz (Thir13en Ghosts, 2001)
Alessandro Nivola (Face/Off, 1997)
Anna Popplewell (Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, 2010)
Sophia Myles (Underworld: Evolution, 2006)
Jonny Lee Miller

I don't know why I watched another Jane Austen movie. I guess there's just a dearth of good romance films and so I'm dredging up the oft-ignored corners of my Netflix recommendations. At least I liked Mansfield Park a little better than Emma.

The main character is Fanny Price, who leaves home at a young age to live with the rich side of her family, but they aren't super-nice to her. There are some marriages and some love triangles, a few misunderstandings, but it works out in the end. What's notable is that Fanny isn't a heroine in the same league as Emma or Elizabeth Bennett. She's much less adventurous and outspoken. She's timid and idealistic without actually taking action. Very passive. It works out for her, too, though, but only because cousin Edmund finally gets over the flashy lady he was really into.

1 Dec - "I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control"

Emma (1996)

dir. Douglas McGrath


CAST
Gwyneth Paltrow (Iron Man 2, 2010)
James Cosmo (Braveheart, 1995)
Alan Cumming (Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, 1997)
Jeremy Northam (Amistad, 1997)
Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense, 1999)
Kathleen Byron (Saving Private Ryan, 1998)
Ewan McGregor (The Men Who Stare at Goats, 2009)
Juliet Stevenson (Bend it Like Beckham, 2002)

The problem with having seen Clueless so many times is that it totally ruins Emma for me. I kept trying to figure out which old-time English socialite characters were analogous to which preppy teenager characters and getting distracted from the nuances of the plot. I guess the story's gimmick is that, despite all of her conniving ways, Emma totally sucks at trying to pair off her less cool friend and is kind of lousy at trying to pair herself off too. Other than that, the story was kind of uninteresting. I've never been into the Jane Austen stuff, but seriously, what's the big deal? I sort of get Pride and Prejudice, because there's class struggle going on there too, and family expectations. But the worst thing that ever happens to Emma is that Mr. Nightly is disappointed in her manners, but he quickly forgives her, anyway.

21 Nov - "It's too bad you don't have any bad habits"

Piccadilly Jim (2006)

dir. John McKay

CAST
Sam Rockwell (Iron Man 2, 2010)
Frances O'Connor (Timeline, 2003)
Tom Wilkinson (The Last Kiss, 2006)
Brenda Blethy (Atonement, 2007)
Allison Janney (Away We Go, 2009)
Austin Pendleton (Uptown Girls, 2003)
Tom Hollander (Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, 2007)
Pam Ferris (Children of Men, 2006)
Kevin Eldon (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, 2005)

I thought this romantic comedy starring Sam Rockwell would be cute, but it actually sort of sucked despite having a super amusing premise. Piccadilly Jim is the playboy son of a wealthy socialite who falls in love with his step-cousin. Despite having never met Jim, she hates him for his roguish reputation, so to win her heart, Jim pretends to be someone else. The funny part is that in order to gain the trust of her family, Jim incognito has to pretend to impersonate himself - leading to an endless series of amusing misunderstandings.

Unfortunately something about this movie fell flat, lacked excitement, was unconvincing. Perhaps there was a lack of chemistry between the leads or too many undeveloped side characters. I wanted to like this movie, I really did. Parts of it were clever, but it still sucked, sorry.

3 Nov - "What's the point of being a teenager if you can't dress weird"

Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)

dir. Francis Ford Coppola (The Outsiders, 1983)

CAST
Kathleen Turner (Romancing the Stone, 1984)
Nicolas Cage (Kick-Ass, 2010)
Joan Allen (Face/Off, 1997)
Kevin J. O'Connor (There Will Be Blood, 2007)
Jim Carrey (Earth Girls are Easy, 1988)
Sofia Coppola (Star Wars: Episode One - The Phantom Menace, 1999)
Helen Hunt (Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, 1985)
Lisa Jane Persky (When Harry Met Sally, 1989)
Glenn Withrow (The Outsiders, 1983)
John Carradine (The Secret of Nimh (voice), 1982)
Sachi Parker (Scrooged, 1988)

It's fortuitous that I chose to watch this movie, which has been sitting on my "I need to watch this again" list for a while now, so recently after I watched Kick-Ass and after I read this blog post which reviewed several vampire movies including the 1989 Vampire's Kiss, because I totally had to step up and defend Nicolas Cage's honor the other day and I was totally loaded up with fuel for my righteous fire.

So this dude pulls out the totally tired shtick about how Nick is a poseable action figure who can't act and I'm all like, "excuse me? Have you ever seen Leaving Las Vegas? Raising Arizona? Valley Girl?"

and then he counters with a, "Sure, his early stuff..." he was already losing steam

So I say, "Yeah, but his early stuff was GREAT, and then there's Adaptation., Matchstick Men." I'll concede that he's not at his best when he does action films or thrillers, but all actors do shitty movies for money. Nick Cage is at his best when he's playing loony, breakable men who are hanging at the end of their rope.

And so this guy goes for the ace in the hole and that's where I got him

"What about Wicker Man?"

Wicker Man is AWESOME! People love to shit on that movie because it truly truly hits that so-bad-that-it's-good sweet spot. And who puts it there? Nicolas Cage. Anyone else in that role would have hammed it up and the whole debacle would have passed like a shadow in the night. But it stays with us and stands up to multiple and giggly rewatchings because Nicolas Cage decided to go 100% whackadoodle crazy and that's why he's awesome and always will be. Match point.

I'm also a big fan of Kathleen Turner.

8 Oct- "He's five-nine, which is kind of short, but he's read The Great Gatsby twice"

The Ugly Truth (2009)

dir. Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde, 2001)

CAST
Katherine Heigl (Knocked Up, 2007)
Gerard Butler (Timeline, 2003)
Bree Turner (Dunston Checks In, 1995)
Nick Searcy (Fried Green Tomatoes, 1991)
Jesse D. Goins (WarGames, 1983)
Cheryl Hines (Along Came Polly, 2004)
John Michael Higgins (Blade: Trinity, 2004)
Bonnie Somerville (Bedazzled, 2000)
Yvette Nicole Brown (The Island, 2005)
Nathan Corddry (The Invention of Lying, 2009)
Blake Robbins (The Bling Ring (TV), 2011)
Kevin Connolly (The Beverly Hillbillies, 1993)
Valente Rodriguez (Erin Brockovitch, 2000)
Jamison Yang (Transformers, 2007)

Cora made me watch this but she promised that next time I get to pick the movie and I already know that I'm either going to choose The Last of the Mohicans (Because she's never seen it!) or Beautiful Girls.

This is Judy Greer with a puppy

This movie had some funny lines, all these rom-coms do, but it was terribly predictable, even in the madcap zany scenes where everything goes wrong. The characters were awfully archetypal; she's a workaholic and overbearing and drives away all of her dates, he's lewd and uncaring. Except it's because he's had his heart broken, and she's pretty nice once you get to know her.

What distracted me the most, though, was something about how the assistant/friend played the same character that Judy Greer usually plays and they made her up to look a lot like Judy Greer too, and that was really distracting because I kept trying to confirm that it was not, in fact, Judy Greer.

This is Bree Turner, a younger and prettier Judy Greer?

I don't know what else to discuss here. The only thing that's remarkable about this movie is how unremarkable it was. This is the most straightforward romantic comedy I've ever seen, absolutely no new ground has been broken here. I'm pretty certain that every gag in it already occurred elsewhere.

But I'm trying to be more positive, so let's talk about
solutions, not problems. First of all, Katherine Heigl was way too attractive to play that character. Am I supposed to believe that menfolk will make NO accommodations for an obscenely pretty face? That's ridiculous. All of the other romantic movies I've seen have demonstrated that men will go to great lengths to win the favor of fair ladies, and the guy in this movie won't even tolerate Heigl picking out a restaurant for their first date. Ludicrous.

6 Aug - "You're altogether a human being, Jane"

Jane Eyre (2011)
dir. Cary Fukunaga

CAST

Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland, 2010)

Michael Fassbender (300, 2006)

Judi Dench (Chocolat, 2000)

Jamie Bell (King Kong, 2005)

Tamzin Merchant (Pride and Prejudice, 2005)

Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky, 2008)

Jayne Wisener (Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, 2007)

Simon McBurney (The Last King of Scotland, 2006)

Imogen Poots (28 Weeks Later, 2007)

This was a good pick to watch last night with my Mom (Kiefer was hanging out too, but I think he spent most of the time playing some Clone Wars game on his PSP). I never read Jane Eyre, generally because eschew novels of that period where most drama consisted of Lord So-and-so being impeded by good etiquette in his courtship of Lady Such-and-such who is rightly engaged to Lord Whatshisname and awaiting the transfer of her rich dowry and I can't really bear it. Maybe I should try harder because I liked the gothic heinousness of Lord Rochester keeping his mad wife locked in a secret room. I liked the scene in the beginning where the evil aunt locks Jane in a haunted room that has no apparent bearing on the rest of the story other than maybe to make you think that there's a ghost in the Rochester estate rather than a crazy lady.

I've just moved into a new apartment with my 17 year old cat, Patton, and he's not coping well with the change of venue. I barricaded him into a little area in the back and walks around in there - it reminds me of crazy old Mrs. Rochester locked up in the attic. So I guess that makes me Mr. Rochester, which begs the question, who would like to be my Jane?

31 July - "the first week of summer, a strange and breathless time"

Tuck Everlasting (2002)

dir. Jay Russell (Ladder 49, 2004)

CAST

Alexis Bledel (Sin City, 2005)

William Hurt (The Big Chill, 1983)

Sissy Spacek (Carrie, 1976)

Jonathan Jackson

Scott Bairstow

Ben Kingsley (Species, 1995)

Amy Irving (Carrie, 1976)

Victor Garber (Sleepless in Seattle, 1993)

Elisabeth Shue (Leaving Las Vegas, 1995)

This movie definitely tends towards the sweet and sentimental. I might pop it on the shelf next to A Little Princess and The Secret Garden, but of course this can't really approach the special place I've got in my heart for those two treasured classics. I never read read the book, but I think I might like too. The plot is endearingly simple. The main character, Winnie, runs away from her strict parents and discovers the fountain of youth in the forest and a family of immortals. Winnie has dual conflicts, first to protect the Tuck's secret, and second to decide whether or not she should drink from the fountain and join them.

There is also a very sinister villain known only as the Man in a Yellow Suit. I think I would have liked to know more about him. There's one scene where he's sitting in a graveyard, perhaps contemplating his own mortality, and the priest comes by to say hi or something and the man in the yellow suit starts talking like what would you pay to live forever and the priest says, "You speak blasphemy," and the man in the yellow says, "fluently." I would like to know what makes that guy's heart so dark, and it was clever to make him wear such a lively colored outfit.

The immortality trope begins to wear thin, though. I mean in other movies like those ones about vampires or whatever and the people are always complaining about what a drag it is. But there's that awesome element to it as well, like, all the benefits. So what it there was a magical fountain that would allow you to live for, say, 500 years? or 1000? Would the negative aspects of immortality be tolerable if you knew there was an expiration date? Because the benefits seem pretty sweet. Not that I'm trying to provoke a Faustian deal or anything. Maybe I had better stop talking about it.

But the Bible talks about lifespans that were many times greater than we have here in reality. Methusalah, Noah, those types lives like 300 or 400 years or something. I guess they had to live that long to get about the business of populating the earth. Which reminds me of something else that been bothering me and has nothing to do whatsoever with Tuck Everlasting (which is an entirely compelling movie but I think I've grown bored with the topic and so I'm going to talk about the Young Earth Creationism instead). I met a gentleman a few months ago who told me that he did not believe the Earth to be much older than 6000 years. I don't have a problem with that standpoint but I do have a problem with the underlying logic. Archbishop Ussher was the first guy (I say that, but he was probably preceded by some lesser known Hebrew scholars) to calculate the age of the Earth to be about 6000 years old (he proposed the exact date of creation to be Sunday, the 23rd of October, 4004 BC). He did this by very carefully reading through the Old Testament and calculating the passage of time by the number of generations, because the Bible is really specific about who begat who and suchlike.

But if the Bible says that Noah died when he was 950, then obviously we can't be throwing around assumptions about the length of generational time. Ussher was throwing a crap shoot. And I read that the reason that all those ages are so big is because the Sumerian number system wasn't translated correctly into Greek, so Ussher wasn't even working with accurate sums!

So I say that it's cool if you're into literal Biblical interpretation and want to believe that fossils are red herrings buried underground by Satan to test your faith and that the uniform growth rates of coral reefs are something that you just ignore. But I don't think that the Young Earth Hypothesis, as based upon 17th century mathematical data, has any grounding in accurate Biblical interpretation whatsoever, and so the support of such data should in no way be considered the duty of any good Christian.

That chick was in Gilmore Girls.

28 July - "Why must you wear a blue hat?"

Gnomeo & Juliet (2011)
dir. Kelly Asbury (Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron)

VOICES

James McAvoy (The Last King of Scotland, 2006)

Emily Blunt (The Wolfman, 2010)

Ashley Jensen (How to Train Your Dragon (voice), 2010)

Michael Caine (Zulu, 1964)

Matt Lucas (Shaun of the Dead, 2004)

Dolly Parton (Steel Magnolias, 1999)

Maggie Smith (The Secret Garden, 1993)

Jason Statham (Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, 1998)

Ozzy Osbourne (Moulin Rouge! (voice), 2001)

Stephen Merchant (The Invention of Lying, 2009)

Patrick Stewart (The Plague Dogs (voice), 1982)

Hulk Hogan

Jim Cummings (Castle in the Sky (voice: Disney English version), 1986)
Julie Walters (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, 2010)

Another pick by Kiefer! You can probably imagine the plot setup, red gnomes v. blue gnomes, and, no, there isn't a tragic ending. There are some cute one-liners and I liked the pink lawn flamingo. The take home message was that feuding is wholly unproductive, on the other hand, there was absolutely nothing creative about this movie, and nothing was accomplished by its existence. I wish the entertainment industry would get its act together and stop shoving bullshit down children's throats, because movies like this, while they are a little bit funny and have a transparent moral and lots of bright colors, aren't teaching them anything and are utterly uninspirational.

I think maybe it could have been saved if the Romeo and Juliet thing was less literal. We love the forbidden love theme. We loved West Side Story. Instead someone barfed out the sparknotes version of Shakespeare and tacked on a happy ending instead.

However, they did manage to make a movie that Kiefer liked. So I decided to interview him about it.

P: Kiefer, what did you think of Gnomeo and Juliet?

K: It's the same thing except there's red and blues and they're gnomes. Except they don't die at the end. I think it was pretty good. I don't know why it's good. I just seem to sort of like it.

P: What do you know about Romeo and Juliet?

K: I don't really know exactly because it's hard to remember all of it. At the Renaissance Fair the tale was told, but that was a week ago. I don't really remember. All I know is that at the end Romeo think Juliet is dead and so he sacrifices himself and then it was just a drink that made her go to sleep and so she killed herself.

P: Do you like happy endings or sad endings

K: No, I like both.

P: Why?

K: Why? Because no matter what ending it is. If it's a sad or it's a happy ending, it either turns out to be one thing or the other.

P: That's the truth. Having seen Gnomeo and Juliet, are you more interested in reading Shakespearean literature?

K: Well, it doesn't really make me interested because I don't really have the time. Because I'm reading a book right now in a series I really like, Percy Jackson series, and then I have to start the Redwall books. I might, but I'll probably take a little more time. I might get interested when I'm older if I get history class.

P: What did you learn

K: I just wanted to watch it. I didn't really learn anything because I heard the tale at renaissance camp. I just heard a different version, with gnomes. They just turned the Montague blue and the Capulet red. It's just kind of confusing to have different things like red, blue, Montague and Capulet because there's four different things, red, blue, Montague and Capulet. In the gnome movie they only have one Montague and one Capulet. In the real version they have a whole family of Montagues and Capulets. It turns out to be almost the same in a more gnomeo version.

P: But what about how fighting tears people apart, and the importance of forgiveness?

K: Well if you just understand it won't turn into violence, but then if it gets a little bit rough violence will turn into more violence. But it could just lead to being more ashamed of your own self.

P: From the mouths of babes...

June 24 - "But the universe is designed to break your heart, right?"

Must Love Dogs (2005)

dir. Gary David Goldberg

CAST

Diane Lane - The Outsiders (1983)

John Cusack - Serendipity (2001)

Elizabeth Perkins - Finding Nemo,voice (2003)

Christopher Plummer - The New World (2005)

Stockard Channing - Where the Heart is (2000)

Dermot Mulroney - Burn After Reading (2008)

Julie Gonzalo - Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004)

Glenn Howerton - Serenity (2005)
Patrick Fabian
Victor Webster - Bringing Down the House (2003)

I picked this movie tonight because it was one of seven that aren't on my external hard drive, which I have to stand up and plug into the laptop if I want to use. I also picked this because the others are action movies like Kiss of the Dragon or thinky movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey (Check back for reviews on those movies next month, kids!), which normally I like but earlier today I got a little bit teary-eyed at work when one document seemed too similar to another document and I asked one of the other guys if one was supposed to be a more recent draft of the other and he didn't understand because they have different titles but I was like, look! The introductions are NEARLY VERBATIM and then I felt overwhelmed. So I've decided that I'm hormonal and decided to indulge my monthly surge of femininity by painting my toenails pink (even though I've been wearing hiking books every day for the past month) and watching John Cusack fall in love with Diane Lane.

It makes me feel a wistful because I don't have anyone to pine over at the moment.

Well, no one who deserves it, and anyway, I wouldn't call it pining.

So I've decided to start adding screenshots to my posts, because I learned how to do screenshots. Also, if anyone wants to give me a prezzie, how about some picture editing software, because I have to copy/paste into microsoft paint and then "save as" a .jpeg. It's a little tedious. This is how I add flair to my blog: sad looking John Cusack with puppy:

I heard that pictures of dogs will get you more hits on search engines. Check out that West Highland Terrier! ANYWAY. As far as romantic comedies go, this one didn't really bring anything new to the table, but I wasn't really annoyed by it either, so that's something. John Cusack played that same quirky, philosophical, snarky character who is bummed out because some chick isn't into him, as he always does, but that was okay. In a nutshell, Lane is a divorced woman looking for a new beau, and so she has this back-and-forth between the dad of one of her students and a guy she meets online, and the guy who's on the movie poster is the one she ends up with. There are some misunderstandings in the middle, but for some reason no one thinks to just explain what's really going on (they never do...) and so we have "conflict."

I was curious where Cusack's character was supposed to be getting his money from. He was supposed to be making sculls out of wood, but he hadn't sold any yet and he didn't have another job. Nobody explained that.

It was a pleasant movie. It's banal. I like Someone like You better. I like Clueless even better than that. I guess sometimes you've just feel like watching a movie which doesn't require any thinking. This was good for that. But sometimes I want to pull my brains through my ear with chopsticks because so little thought was put into the creation of this so-called "entertainment" and for that reason I would do well to remember to stop watching movies like this.

2 June - "Don't expect to be making any friends"

Elizabethtown (2005)
dir. Cameron Crowe (Say Anything..., 1989)

CAST

Orlando Bloom (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, 2003)

Kirsten Dunst (Marie Antoinette, 2006)

Susan Sarandon (The Witches of Eastwick, 1987)

Alec Baldwin (It's Complicated, 2009)

Judy Greer (Love and Other Drugs, 2010)

Bruce McGill (Collateral, 2004)

Jessica Biel (Valentine's Day, 2010)

Paul Schneider (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, 2007)

Loudon Wainwright III (Knocked Up, 2007)

Paula Deen

Ted Manson (Fried Green Tomatoes, 1991)

Drew Baylor (Bloom) gets fired from his job and attempts suicide, only to have his sister (Greer) call at the last moment and tell him that their father has died and that he must go to Elizabethtown (title drop!), Kentucky to see to the funeral arrangements. En route Drew meets stewardess Claire (Dunst) and then later they have a phone call and fall in love. Things work out well with the folksy southern family and Drew decides that life is worth living after all.

While there's nothing I could precisely pinpoint as unpleasant in this movie, it still fails to stand out in any enjoyable way. I expect that in a week or so I'll have forgotten the storyline altogether, except that the romance between Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom was very, very contrived. It was certainly a charming movie, with quaint characters, but it neither stood out as a romantic comedy, although it certainly elements of such, nor as a narrative of self-actualization, a young man coming into his own, which is certainly a common and always poignant theme in cinema (Like Big Fish, or the always relevant Star Wars). I could not enjoy it as a dark comedy nor as a family drama (Such as in The Squid and the Whale, which succeeded as both.

Instead, Elizabethtown seems to hesitate between two ends of the emotional spectrum, and in so doing fails to make an impact on either front. To emphasize a belabored point, the two highlights of the movie were the interaction between Drew and Chuck, the perceptively wasted groom getting married in the same hotel, and the flashback scenes to Drew's childhood memories of his father as he is beginning his drive back to Oregon (something about saturated photography and child-parent nostalgia always makes me teary).

It's obvious to me now why this movie receded into the background almost immediately after it's release. If you're hearing about this for the first time right now, just let it slide by you. If you're a big Orlando Bloom fan, maybe watch it if you're really curious, but honestly, he's hotter as Legolas.

2 April - "This is your one shot, so make it count"

Timer (2009)

dir. Jac Schaeffer

starring

Emma Caulfield

Michelle Borth

John Patrick Amedori (Unbreakable, 2000)

JoBeth Williams (The Big Chill, 1983)

I think I've proven a few times over that there are high-quality and worthwhile "chick flicks" and "rom coms" out there. You just never find because the marketing types would rather shove Jennifer Lopez or Kate Hudson mincing gimicks and making cheap pop-culture referencing jokes into your face for forty seconds than spend the money on making a movie worth watching. Instead, here you've got that chick who played Xander's girlfriend on Buffy trying to communicate something insightful.

The premise is silly, I guess you could call it Sci-fi, but that's not the point. You've got this technology called a "TiMER" and they implant it in your wrist and it starts a countdown for the day you meet your soul mate, or true love, and it's different for everyone. The main character, Oona, has a problem wherein her timer hasn't started ticking yet, which means whoever her true love is, he hasn't gotten a TiMER of his own. Her younger brother gets his implanted on his fourteenth birthday, and he learns he's going to meet his soul mate in three days, while Oona's sister, Steph, who I guess is in her 20s or something, isn't going to meet her's until she's forty-something. And there's a lot of other characters who have their own quirky variations on the theme and I guess the moral is supposed to be something like that life (or love, I guess) is not a race to the finish line, but the important parts are the detours you take along the way, the mistakes you make and whatnot.

But it's funny! The TiMER stores reminded me of nothing so much as an apple store. Emma Caulfield is very genuine to watch and she scrambles about trying to find the few rare men who haven't gotten TiMERs yet, and the sister has these scenes where she's working at a nursing home and, you know, crazy old-timers.

The interactions between Oona's mother and her housekeeper, Luz, are also hilarious, without giving too much away, Luz's family is invited to Thanksgiving dinner and they have no idea what is going on Oona's stepfather is mashing guacamole with a pestle and it's silly. It's all very silly.

Way to go, netflix recommendations.

13 March - "Maybe we can get a break from Jake's obsessive inner monologue"

Eclipse (2010)
dir. David Slade (Hard Candy, 2005)

CAST

Kristen Stewart (Adventureland, 2009)

Robert Pattinson (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, 2005)

Taylor Lautner (The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl, 2005)

Bryce Dallas Howard (Lady in the Water, 2006)

Dakota Fanning (War of the Worlds, 2005)

Billy Burke (Ladder 49, 2004)

Gil Birmingham (Twilight, 2008)
Jodelle Ferland (Good Luck Chuck, 2007)
Dawn Chubai (Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer, 2007)
Leah Gibson (Watchmen, 2009)

I'm going to pause for a moment so everyone can make fun of me.

Yes, very good.

So I decided to watch the third Twilight movie because I wanted to watch something corny and self-indulgent and eat brownies on the couch with my cat and paint my toenails and girl crap like that. But this shit was just, just terrible. Maybe, MAYBE you could call it delightfully dreadful but mostly I was just confused: how many people gave this movie the thumbs-up before it was released for mass-viewing. Isn't there any honor left in cinema? Why didn't anyone STOP IT FROM HAPPENING?

By "IT" I mean the heinous performance given by Kristen Stewart. I mean that, I've heard about her bad acting and I just say, 'well, as long as she's being an angsty and apathetic teenager she does okay' (which is generous, because 99% of everyone under the age 20 can pretty effectively act like an angsty and apathetic teenager). But here's little Kristen, playing the apotheosis of angsty teenager roles and I'm just not buying it. Audibly, I had to exclaim to the screen, "Okay Kristen, now try it again but pretend like you give a shit." Isn't she dating Robert Pattinson in real life? Can she use that somehow to act like she's in love?

And she's a mouth-breather.

I also didn't really understand the conflict, which I'll attribute to a poor adaptation of the book, which of course I didn't read. So, this vampire Victoria wanted to kill Bella because her BF died in the last movie (but Bella didn't kill him, Edward did), so she raises a modest army (maybe fifteen strong?) of vampires to attack the Cullen family + werewolf allies and then goes after Bella and Edward (her primary targets???) with just herself and one other guy.

That's a stupid plan. Bella acts mildly pleased once all the threats against her life have been eliminated.

5 March - "Are you just saying that because you're taped to a toilet?"

Serious Moonlight (2009)
dir. Cheryl Hines

CAST

Meg Ryan (Kate & Leopold, 2001)

Timothy Hutton (The Last Mimzey, 2007)

Justin Long (Dreamland, 2006)

Kristen Bell (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, 2008)

This movie was awful. I'm sorry to subject you all to even this vicarious cinematic experience. I'm especially sorry since last time I watched a bad movie too. I hate to be a negative Nancy.

Of course, I knew what I was getting into with a Meg Ryan movie, and the synopsis wasn't particularly exciting either just in case you're a Meg Ryan fan (I'll always have a soft spot for Sleepless in Seattle). In this movie she looked different somehow, maybe she got lip injections?

In a nutshell, Meg Ryan, playing the same character that Meg Ryan always plays, comes to home to learn that her husband is in love with another woman and about to jet off to Paris, and then just when you thought you were going to watch the rest of French Kiss, she knocks him unconscious and ties him to a chair. There's a twist ending, but I figured it out well before the end. 'Cause I'm the smartest.

22 Jan- "You know, I bring out the best in the men who fuck me"

 Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
dir. Mike Figgis

CAST
Nicolas Cage (The Wicker Man, 2006)
Elizabeth Shue (Back to the Future II, 1989)
Julian Sands (Arachnophobia, 1990)
Richard Lewis (Robin Hood: Men in Tights, 1993)
French Stewart (Stargate, 1994)
Mariska Hartigay (Lake Placid, 1999)
Laurie Metcalf (Toy Story 3 (voice), 2010)

Danny Huston (Children of Men, 2006)

I'd like to recommend this movie as one NOT to watch when you're feeling a little blue. I tried to watch The Exorcist for the first time last night. But I couldn't even get past the title menu - too spooky. The funny thing is that I'll bet it's not even THAT scary. I mean, it was made in the 70s and I think I've got at least a lot of that jadedness towards cinematic horror that the old folks are always complaining about. So I started Leaving Las Vegas and I finished the last forty minutes or so this morning and, damn, I think it's going to be one of those days where I stay in my pajamas and don't wash any of the dishes. It was depressing.

If you're unfamiliar, it's about a man who travels to Las Vegas with the intention of drinking himself to death. He hires a prostitute to stay with him on his first night there, and they fall in love, but he makes her promise that she won't interfere with his agenda, which is to be drunk until he's dead.

It reminds me of a line by Kurt Vonnegut, from the preface of Welcome to the Monkey House, he says something to the effect that he smokes. and he thinks that may other people smoke for the same reason, because, "smoking is a fairly sure, fairly honorable form of suicide." Do you think that might count for drinking as well? Here's another line: "Death will be an awfully big adventure." That's Peter Pan. The whole time you're watching this movie it's like nothing matters. Because he's still going to die at the end, and nothing is going to change that and you sort of get mad at Elizabeth Shue's character for putting up with his ridiculousness, for not trying to stop him and not leaving him either, she just tolerates it and he's dying and she's not doing anything about it. And you know before it ends that the finale is going to be very sad.

Which makes me wonder if he really loved her all that much. Since he didn't love her enough to stop drinking. But I think I'm misinterpreting. I suppose the point is that two flawed individuals (she's engaged in her own willfully self-destructive profession) were able to accept each other for exactly what they were for a brief period of time. I guess the romance is that Elizabeth Shue was able to love Nicolas Cage even though she knew it was going to end in tragedy. Although the he was kind of a dick to her when she was heading out to work, and she kicks him out after he brings home another prostitute. They make up in the end though.

I always like movies about Las Vegas because they never fail to take advantage of that contrast between the falsity and opulence of the Strip and the beautiful starkness of the desert. A silly example I always think of Fools Rush In, with Matthew Perry and Salma Hayak. That movie could have been really good, but poor Matthew Perry always takes down the classiness a few notches. All the same: deserts. I should get out to one of those someday.

16 Jan - "But he's so cautious. He won't go into dark places"

Lust, Caution (2007)
dir. Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, 2005)

CAST
Wei Tang
Tony Leung Chiu Wai
Leehom Wang

This movie is set in WW2-era Shanghai, and it's about a college drama club in 1940s China who discover and attempt to murder a high-level traitor collaborating with enemy Japan. The youngest member of the club, Wong, ingratiates herself with the traitor Yee's household and quickly becomes his mistress. The club gets drawn into the REAL resistance movement and the conspiracy deepens. Wong delves deeper and deeper into her make-believe role, rejecting her own true love for the farce of romance with the sadistic Mr. Yee. All of the heroes die.

You guys, this movie was super-sad. The heroine gave up everything to become the perfect spy, only to fall for her own act, and betray the people she swore to protect and die for. There's one part where the gang realizes that in order to carry on their scam, Wong is going to have to sleep with Mr. Yee. And so one of the other club members, the only one with any experience, is elected to show Wong how it's done. That's the part where Wong becomes a real outsider in the group, and her commitment to her alter-ego begins to overpower her own true self.

I think this was marketed as an "espionage thriller," I don't think that's right at all. I guess it's a "wartime romance," but a really twisted one. Lots of explicit sex scenes in here, but that's pretty much the name of the game with these foreign films. Plus, I think I watched the uncut version (it was 2:40 long)

Jan 9 - "I get so cold. It's desert cold."

Good Dick (2008)
dir. Marianna Palka
starring
Marianna Palka
Jason Ritter (Joan of Arcadia (TV), 2003-2005)
Mark Webber (Broken Flowers, 2005)
Martin Starr (Adventureland, 2009)


Here's a sweet independant romance about an impossibly awkward girl fascinated by soft-core porn being courted by a homeless video store clerk with a past history of drug abuse. For serious.

This Marianna Palka girl seems AWESOME! She's from Scotland, and moved to New York to act in plays, and then all the sudden she decides she's going to make a movie (She wrote, directed, and starred in Good Dick) which gets accepted into the Sundance Film Festival! Good on you, girl! It's just a pity that she chose a title which prohibits ever bringing this up in casual conversation without a detailed explanation: No, this isn't a sex movie. There's no nudity and no sex scene, not even one that classily pans out the open window.

I really thought this was a good movie, even the side characters seem to have important stuff going on without overwhelming the central plot, which is concise but sincere and touching. My one unanswered questioned was about the guy's motivation for courting the girl. I mean, it's clear he's fallen in love by the end, but at the beginning it's possible he was just looking for a place to stay, because he was living in his car. Was he tricking her? Maybe he just found this lonely, socially inept girl and thought he'd manipulate her into letting him into her life. Because he goes to such great lengths to get into the apartment of this girl who doesn't even wash her hair until halfway through the movie, and then he starts sleeping on her couch, and then he tricks her into letting him sleep in the bed. I'm not positive that his motives were pure, that's all, because it seems like he puts up with a lot of abuse before the end of it, and if he didn't need a place to stay, I don't think he would have stuck around.

Probably no one knows what I'm talking about because no one else has seen this movie. But you should!