Scoop

Where: Edgewater
When: Tuesday, August 1, 2006
With whom: Phipps
Go or no go: Definitely go, even if you are not of the Hebrew persuasion.

I must say, I was very very (see? Now that's two verys) pleasantly surprised with this movie! Mr. Allen delivered wonderful one-liners and his endearing stuttering was a perfect compliment to Ms Johannsen's seeming naivete. She even managed to tone down her sensuality...but only by a little, I could hear my friend Phipps salivating when she came out in that red one-piece swimsuit. But I can't blame him. I, too, found myself drooling, but over Hugh Jackman. Meow!

I don't remember the last time I laughed this much over Woody Allen's antics. This is just the kind of movie you'd want to see to get out of this scorching heat we're all in. It lightens you up, takes you away to beautiful English countrysides, and it reminds you that life really is very fragile, so make sure you know which side of the road you're supposed to be driving on.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Where: in town
When: Sunday, July 9, 2006
With whom: Norie and Mom
Go or no go: Go, toute de suite!

Is it Ca-ribbean? Or Cari-bbean?

When I figure it out, I'll have the review up. :-D

The Devil Wears Prada

Where: in town
When: Monday, July 3, 2006
With whom: Mom
Go or no go: You must go, dahling!

I actually enjoyed this movie. It's a simple enough plot, evil boss threatens to take over our heroine's soul in pursuit of the perfect job. Meryl Streep plays a mahvelous devil, and Ann Hathaway is wonderfully naive, yet fahbulously sexy.

I loved it.

Superman Returns - IMAX 3D

Where: Palisades Center, West Nyack, NY
When: Saturday, July 1, 2006
With whom: Meg, Mike and Mom
Go or no go: Definitely go

SPOILER ALERT!!!

I was surprisingly disappointed with this movie. Not that it was bad, far from it, but I was expecting the “wow” factor to get me up on my feet, applauding at the end of the movie, but it didn’t.

Here’s a few reasons why:

• Lois Lane is a skank. In that scene when Lois and Superman almost kissed, Lois pulled back and said, “Richard is a good man.” Oh, now you go all noble, but you didn’t hesitate to lie to Richard about the paternity of little Jason! Sure, in the interest of protecting Superman’s only son, she had to lie to Richard and everyone else…I can grant her that. But don’t make it look like you’re trying to do the right thing by not kissing the man you’re truly in-love with, you lying, skank! I never did like Lois Lane’s character. She was selfish, obnoxious and totally undeserving of Superman’s attentions.


• Anyway, this movie was sadly predictable. I knew from the beginning, when Martha said, “You may be the last one, but you’re not alone.” I knew Superman had a son. How could you not have seen that coming??


• Couldn’t they get John Williams to do the music for this movie? I mean, they used Superman’s theme so much and you could even hear strains of “Can you read my mind?” throughout the movie, they might as well have hired him to fill in between!


• This movie, while revering the 1978 original, was also kind of patronizing it. You know what this movie lacked? Fun. You remember everyone’s reaction when they first saw Superman? You were all sucked in to how amazing his rescue of Lois Lane was. You wanted to cheer but wasn’t sure to believe it or not. I think Margot Kidder’s line said it all for us: “You’ve got me? Who’s got you?!” This movie didn't have that moment for us.
  
  And Christopher Reeve was an adorable geek, you couldn’t help but love him, from the way he keeps stuttering and stumbling over things. Brandon Routh’s Clark Kent is just a big nerd who gets in everyone’s way.


• What scares me most about this movie is that it brings with is so much potential for several sequels. It is inevitable, I suppose. I mean, it happened with the original. They should have stopped making the movies after the second one, but nooooo, they had to go and make two very nonsensical movies after. Only the death of Superman can end this vicious cycle, and I DO NOT want that to happen.

Anyway, here are a few things I liked about the movie:

• “Reports are coming in from Metropolis, Houston, Gotham….”
  
  Hehe. I liked that, Superman’s muscling in on Batman’s territory eh?



• I loved that this movie was an homage to the original film and that it is dedicated to Christopher and Dana Reeves. Brandon Routh did a phenomenal job of portraying both characters just like Christopher Reeve did nearly 30 years ago. He even did the jaw clenching thing whenever Clark Kent disapproves of something. He even sounds a little like Christopher Reeve. It was just such a shame that they didn’t give him much dialogue and much personality.

Courtesy of IMDB.com, here are some interesting trivia from the movie:

"The last line of the fourth Superman movie (the one before "Returns") is Superman saying to Luthor, "See you in twenty." That scene was filmed in 1986. Eerily enough, twenty years later, in 2006, the next Superman movie was released."

I wouldn’t say it as eery, a huge coincidence maybe, but not eery. If anything, I thought that was really cool, and I am kicking myself for not picking up on that! Especially since I have been watching the first four movies on dvd all week! Darn!

"After Superman stops the airplane crash, he says to the passengers (including Lois Lane), "I hope this doesn't put any of you off flying. Statistically, it's still the safest way to travel." Superman said the same thing to Lois after rescuing her from the helicopter crash in the original 1978 Superman film."

I knew he was going to say that line in this movie. I just knew it!

I don’t usually agree to most movie critics, but I have to say, Roger Ebert’s critique of this movie, pretty much sums up why I was disappointed with this. And it nearly breaks my heart to agree with him.

BUT (and this is a pretty big but!), I do not want y’all to think I hated this movie, although it may sound like I do. I am one of this movie’s biggest fans. The fact that I can say bad things about it speaks for how I can look beyond my bias towards it. And I am biased towards this movie. Brandon Routh has won my heart for all his effort to try to live up to Christopher Reeve. After all, it’s not his fault that they didn’t give him much dialogue.

I will never get tired of watching this movie. I’ve already seen it twice this weekend, and maybe a few weeks from now, when all the hoopla has died down, I will see it again. Why not? I'm already seeing him in my dreams every night!

Nacho Libre

When you are a man, sometimes you wear stretchy pants in your room. Is for fun.

I saw this movie twice this weekend. The first time, I saw it with Nina, who was guffawing like crazy. To be quite frank, I enjoyed it but I wasn't all that impressed. The second time I saw it, I brought my Mom, who shrieked several times at some of the most hilarious scenes. Now that is impressive. Any movie that can do that to my Mom is a good sign.

The story's simple enough, a man of faith is torn between serving the Lord by devoting his time with the orphans and fulfilling a childhood dream of become a famous luchador.

What ensues is a series of nonsensical moments between Nacho and his partner "Esqueleto," who, quite frankly, was disturbingly ugly. There were definitely moments we could've done without, like Jack Black singing his song about Sister Encarnacion and the party scene that Nacho and Esqueleto snuck into, just to name a few.

But the final match that Nacho had to face was very moving (I loved the song they were playing, very appropriate for the movie). Hey, what did you expect from a Nickelodeon movie? The kiddies enjoyed it, and I have to say the little girl in me did also.

The Break-Up

They say that breaking up is hard to do. Now I know, I know that it's true.

The fact that they didn't squeeze this song into the soundtrack of the movie is probably the biggest reason why I liked this movie. Another reason? The fact that they stuck to the subject matter like crazy glue. This movie's sole purpose in life is to show you what a messy business breaking up is. What happened before and after the break-up was irrelevant. But with that in mind, it made me wonder, why the hell did I just pay $10 to see it?

The movie didn't try to be too clever, or too smart, or too dramatic. And frankly, for a movie with Vince Vaughn in it, it wasn't nearly as funny as I had expected. What struck me most about the movie was how real everything felt. I myself have never gone through a break-up that bad, but you feel like you can empathize with these characters because everything was believable.

Yeah, I can buy that a gorgeous woman who works a 9-5 job and has to come home to a slob who won't help around the house can suddenly get fed up with it. I can buy how someone in a relationship can feel unappreciated, and I can certainly relate to the pointlessness of putting so much effort to care for someone who clearly doesn't deserve it.

And I gotta give mad props to my girl, Brooke (Jennifer Aniston). After how stupid she acted, plotting pathetic jealousy mind games to try to win Gary (Vince Vaugn) back, I was beginnig to lose respect for her. Because why would you want to win him back when he is, very obviously, a jackass? But by the time Gary realizes he is a jackass, she had already had it. That was probably one of my favorite scenes, when she said that she had nothing left to give. I was like, "Oh, that-a-girl!" Cause no woman in her right mind could put up with so much shit and still love the man.

The only thing I didn't like is the ending. I thought it was disjointed. There was a time lapse of who knows how long where the two characters meet again, but that they're different now. So different in fact, that it was awkward to watch them make small talk. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like the way they ended it, cause the cliched way to end it would've been to have them back together, but instead, they showed you the possibility of them getting back together. It just felt so awkward, is all.

Xmen: The Last Stand

Will have the review soon. Stay tuned.

Thanks!