Number Four 2007

4. Because I Said So 1/2

Mandy Moore has found herself a disappointing niche in the movies, playing young women with parental, or parental-figure issues. I am only a little bit embarrassed to admit that I really like Mandy Moore; I think she's charming, pretty and talented, not necessarily, but probably, in that order. So I'm sad to see that, according to IMDB, she has no upcoming projects. I hope she can find work after her disastrous 2007,which saw the release of Because I Said So, License To Wed, and Southland Tales.

The basic plot of this movie is; Diane Keaton doesn't like the guys daughter Mandy Moore is dating, so she sets her up with a guy she approves, then everyone gets mad at each other and Diane Keaton (spoiler!) ends up marrying the dad from 7th Heaven. Along the way Mandy Moore dates both Tom Everett Scott and a really hot guy with a kid, she has a threeway phone conversation with her sisters, in which one of the sisters receives "oral pleasure" from her husband, Diane Keaton acts ridiculous, and Mandy Moore and Diane Keaton rearrange Mandy's apartment.

The only good thing I have to say about this movie, aside from the aforementioned hot dad Mandy Moore ends up with, is that Mandy Moore is a small business owner (which is also becoming a trend for her in her roles; see also License to Wed), which is cool, but the business is some sort of baking/catering company, because all women are good for is cooking and being klutzy on a Hilary Duff-esque level.

I wish Diane Keaton would make a really good movie. We all know she can do it, and there's really no excuse for her not to; the last two years have shown that people are writing amazing roles for women "of a certain age." I mean, I liked The Family Stone just fine, and I am still kind of interested in seeing Mad Money, but come on. This is Annie Hall we're talking about. She can do so much better.

mel

Number Three 2007

3. Dreamgirls **

Dreamgirls is the first movie on this list to bring up a problem I found myself having throughout the year as I was trying to rate all these movies. I am generally of the school of thought that if I liked a movie, it's good, I try not to get myself bogged down in details like, say, craft. And that works both ways; if I am bored by a movies it doesn't matter how masterfully it's directed or whatever: it's bad. I enjoyed Dreamgirls a good deal; I love musicals and it had a few really good songs and the movie was very visually interesting, it was fast paced and the story was satisfying throughout. I have, in fact, watched Dreamgirls (or parts of it) on TV several times. BUT...I can't bring myself to say it was good. There's too much about this movie that really bothers me; mainly that the majority of the songs are really corny, even for Broadway, the character development generally falls short and Jennifer Hudson is good but not as good as she might be. Also, I was really bothered by some of the shots in the big climax scene where J.Hud sings her big song; it looks really cheap sometimes, and I guess I can appreciate that you're trying to show that she's just letting it all hang out here, but the angles used are beyond unflattering to her. It's just not a three star movie. I am maybe also still kind of bitter that the director's Chicago won the Oscar for Best Picture because that movie really really stunk. So, two stars.

mel

Number Two 2007

2. Smokin' Aces *

Gosh this movie really stunk. I'm not sure why I wanted to see this one, or how it is that I actually ended up seeing it...I think Steve wanted to see it as well, because he loves magic. I think I wanted to see this because there was a point in my life where I was a bit of a Jeremy Piven fan, around the same time that I was a big John Cusack fan and was watching Comedy Central all the time and they were constantly showing PCU. Which, in less words, would be when I was in high school. Jeremy Piven now...I don't know. I just hear about him being really gross and sleazy, and he is on Entourage which is a show that I pretty much hate. That is all beyond the point though, because I did see this movie and it was one big clusterfuck of crappiness. Oh, I just remembered that Ben Affleck is in this movie! For like, maybe 5 minutes all together! And that he is probably the best part! Well, him or Jason Bateman. I'm undecided about Mr. Bateman in this movie, I'm not sure if his part was genius and hilarious or just...gross like the rest of the movie. To conclude, this movie was more than tolerable at times, it had it's moments where it was actually entertaining, and some of the large assemblage of talent was surprisingly enjoyable (I was unexpectedly charmed by Alicia Keyes and Common). BUT it was too long, some of the characters were totally unpalatable, and the plot was just to deeply steeped in ridiculousness.

mel

Number One 2007

1. Curse of the Golden Flower **1/2So this was the movie with which I started out 2007, the year of 200 movies. I'm not sure now why I gave this movie two and a half stars. I think that at that point I wasn't totally comfortable with scoring movies. I had never done a starring system before, and I probably didn't think about it as thoroughly as I do now. I would just say, "oh, that was, mm, a two star movie." Now I've determined that my four star system is structured like this:
0 stars - absolutely horrible movie
* -pretty poor, but not unwatchable
** -an average film.
*** -really good, but not great
**** -destined to be one of my all time favorites, in my top ten for the year, i was able to watch this movie the whole way through without wanting to check my (nonexistant) watch.
So, I'm not sure I would have given this movie two and a half stars if I were to watch it for the first time today. It would garner maybe one and half or two stars.
I'm not saying I didn't enjoy this movie. I did, it was very interesting visually, lots of lush colors and, towards the end, lots of blood. The story was pleasantly soapy and, again, towards the end it got very bloody. A review I read compared it to Shakespeare, and there are Shakespearean elements to be sure. It's just kind of a tired story. But maybe I'm just missing the point, because I guess all these Chinese movies are supposed to be government propaganda or something. I don't know, I think that's what Steve said. Anyway, this is a good enough movie if you are super into Chinese movies. There's not a whole lot of that flying around stuff, if that's what you're looking for, there's some, but the film is mostly set in the palace.

mel

New Year's Resolution; Fright Night, Terminator 2: Judgement Day

Hello again. For 2008 my New Year's Resolution is to not let this blog die! I will be attempting to post regularly. First of all, I did indeed reach my goal of 200 movies last year. I will be posting writeups of last year's movies, starting from the beginning of the year, hopefully once a day. At the same time, I will be posting reviews of movies from this year as I watch them. So far, I do not have a goal regarding my movie watching this year. I haven't yet decided if I want to try for 200 again, especially since I've so far seen only four movies. I will keep you updated. So, without further ado, 2 reviews from this year.

1. Fright Night - **

2. Terminator 2: Judgement Day - *1/2So, I didn't particularly like either of these movies, but I think I enjoyed Fright Night more because I was expecting much less and ended up not hating it as much as I thought I might. The most awesome thing about Fright Night was, of course, Chris Sarandon's wardrobe. So much 80s awesomeness. And I liked Roddy McDowall, he was pretty adorable and I really liked his fake white hair. I did not like the freaky kid, I can't remember what his name was in the movie but that it was something weird. Let's see here, IMDB says, oh yes, "Evil" Ed. His character was annoying and kind of pointless really. Steve told me that that actor was well respected for a second in the 80s and that he came to the Bridge Theater when they played Fright Night at Midnite Mass and that he was really messed up and it was kind of sad. So...I feel kind of bad for hating him so much in the movie. Anyway, back to the movie, it was fine, I guess, except that it was lame and all the sexy stuff was creepy and gross, especially when the girl from Married...With Children looks like she's going to blow Chris Sarandon in that weird dance club they run into for whatever reason...yeah.

Terminator 2 I was much more disappointed in, and I was especially disappointed in Arnold's performance. Geez, he was so lackadaisical. I was expecting more excitement, but everybody was so dull. Also, I had never realized how gross Linda Hamilton is, maybe because I'm not sure that I've ever seen any of her movies before this one. (I guess I should mention that I'd never seen any of the Terminator movies before this) Anyway, yeah, Linda Hamilton is yuck. Her grossing me out so much really took away from any joy I may have found watching this film. Two things that were neat about this movie were, 1. Budnick from Salute Your Shorts plays little Eddie Furlong's friend in the beginning, and 2. the woman who plays "Gwen, Night Nurse." Steve and I both commented that her voice was really familiar, so I looked her up on good ol' IMDB and discovered that she played Susan Leffert's mom in LA Confidential (Susan Lefferts is the gal who gets killed at the Night Owl). The really interesting thing about this actress, whose name happens to be Gwenda Deacon, is that she has appeared in 3 movies; Terminator 2, released in 1991, LA Confidential, released in 1997, and Joy Ride, released in 2001. I haven't seen Joy Ride, but IMDB tells me she played a character named "Truck Stop Waitress." She has no bio on IMDB and no wikipedia page. A google search reveals nothing. Who is this woman? She has to be some gaffer's mom or something, right? It just seems so strange, 3 teensy roles in 3 fairly big movies with an average of 5 years between each role? If anyone has any info on her, I'm dying to know what the deal is.

To wrap it up, if I had to watch an Arnold movie, I'd rather watch Total Recall, because it is not lame, and Edward Furlong isn't in it.

mel

134 &135

134. Closing Escrow(2007) *

Sorry, no poster for this one....good sign, no?

135. Superbad(2007) ****

It's been a while since I saw these two movies, but I wanted to see Superbad a second time before I wrote about it. First though, briefly about Closing Escrow; it sucked. It had some funny bits, the funniest of which I will now relate, because I know nobody will see this movie: they show a backyard pet cemetery, there are crosses and a tombstone with a star of David (get it? some of their pets were Christian, some were Jewish. Ha ha.). It gets a better score than Reno 911! because, while it was pretty boring, it was not aggressively unfunny. What was weird about it was that it spent a lot of time actually featuring aspects of homes that characters in the film were looking at. What's the point of that? It is neither funny nor does it advance the action.

Enough about that boring movie. Now I will try to be equally as brief about Superbad, because I'm sure everyone has heard enough about it. I want to start by saying that this is the movie that put me off Entertainment Weekly forever (not meaning that I will stop reading EW, it just means that I now officially do not respect it). Lisa Schwarzbaum has written her last terrible review that I will read. Lisa Schwarzbaum is dead to me now. She closes her B rated review with this line: "Superbad is cute if you like guys who aren't even remotely bad, in a coming-of-age tale so old-fashioned the girls might just as well be wearing bloomers." Cute? I'm not sure where she gets that adjective from. And maybe the film does retread a story that has been told before but, first, it puts an interesting twist on it by having such an intense relationship between two teenage boys and putting the emphasis on that friendship, and second, I'm pretty sure that hasn't bothered Ms. Schwarzbaum in the past. In another part of the review she wants to know why the underage and really looks like it actress who plays Becca doesn't take her bra off. Then she says the lack of development of female characters is "the movie's limitation." Uh, is it just me or is are those two viewpoints slightly contradictory? And why would it be necessary to elaborate on the two girls, Becca and Jules? Again, the boy/girl thing is not really the focus of the story, and isn't it pretty normal for teenagers to be totally infatuated with people they know little to nothing about? Is that misogynistic, as Ms. Schwarzbaum seems to be inferring, or is it just part of being in high school? Also, Ms. Schwarzbaum basically calls the movie puritanical; the raging party, with drugs, booze and sex is not wild enough for her, and she pokes fun at the fact that the two main characters do not have sex(saying she is "fascinated" by the movie's "righteousness" and "chastity"). So, again, the movie and its ilk are too mysogynistic, and, in her next breath, Lisa Schwarzbaum would like a drunk teenage boy to engage in what some would consider to be date rape. Hm.

Well, I think I've gone on long enough about that. For my part I really liked this movie. I thought it was extremely well done, and not just for a "raunchy" (a word I am really starting to hate) teen comedy, but for any movie. I thought it was nearly perfect. I felt there was no point where the movie lagged. As Steve said, it has a very high LPM; laughs per minute. I can't help comparing it to the Judd Apatow movies of the last two summers, Knocked Up and The 40-Year Old Virgin (and neither could Lisa Schwarzbaum, but her reasoning was to further perpetuate her misogyny line); I loved both of those movies, but I definitely noted that there were several scenes that fell flat. Those seemed to be scenes that were heavily improvised; perhaps they were funny at the time, maybe you had to be there? I was glad to see there were no such scenes in Superbad. Even though I am really into Michael Cera right now, I think I enjoyed the scenes with McLovin and the cops the most. I also appreciated the parallel theme of friendship, LISA SCHWARZBAUM, you dummy. Well, I didn't really mean for this to turn into a diatribe against Lisa Schwarzbaum, even though I HATE HER, I meant to have a more well thought out summary of the movie from my own point of view, but after I started, I just couldn't stop, and now I just feel lost. Next time will be better, promise.

PS - I also wanted to relate this; one of my coworkers said she didn't like Superbad because she felt it was "too vulgar," and I've been thinking about this a lot lately, what with the rise of the R-rated comedy, reading everywhere all these actors talking about how liberating the R is, how you can be funnier and more real with the R...then I heard Bob Saget. I heard him twice; a few days ago I watched the beginning of his HBO stand up special, then today I heard him on Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! on NPR. On HBO he was unbearable to watch, again, I'll use the term "aggressively unfunny," and not just that, but he was unintelligible and INSANE. On Wait Wait he was about ten billion gazillion times funnier. In fact, he was so much funnier, that he was actually mildly funny (yeah, that's how bad the stand up was). So....I just thought that was kind of interesting.

Mel

132 & 133

132. Reno 911!: Miami(2007) 1/2















133. Doc Hollywood(1991) *

Ok, I really don't have much to say about these movies so, I'll just say this: I had high hopes for Reno 911! because, like Night at the Museum, it featured a denver boot early on, this time in the opening credits, and it was used for a satisfyingly funny gag, so I thought that was a good sign. But I was wrong. Doc Hollywood, all I really remember from it was that Michael J. Fox's haircut would really be better suited to a lady. And there was a scene where it was just a shot of him standing next to pig and he and the pig seemed to be about the same height.

mel

131

131. Night At the Museum(2006) **1/2
When this movie came out last year I really wanted to see it because Steve Coogan is in it! and I love Steve Coogan (he is very high up on my list of favorite Steves. And that is a real list). And Dick Van Dyke. Those two pretty much sold me. Oh, and that there was a dinosaur that comes to life. That about cinched it. The deal breaker? Yes, it was Robin Williams. So I never saw it in the theater.
Steve(not Coogan) and I watched it last night on DVD. In fact, it just occurred to me that we watched it on Blu-Ray. But let's not get into that now. I liked this movie, but it was for kids. It had some funny jokes, Ricky Gervais got a few good lines, but the whole being a hero for his son again story line was a bit of a yawn. The character of the son was too precocious (yuck) and the Mickey Rooney character was ... I'm at a loss for words when it comes to Mickey Rooney. However, the dinosaur did not disappoint.
So, this movie is for people who love Steve Coogan, dinosaurs, and Dick Van Dyke, or people who have children who want to watch a watered down version of a Ben Stiller/Owen Wilson comedy. If you do see this movie, do not miss Dick Van Dyke dancing in the closing credits. I think I seriously swooned.

PS - What gave this movie that extra half star was the opening scene. I am almost one hundred percent sure that this is the first movie I've ever seen with such a prominently featured denver boot. And in the very first scene! And I am definitely sure that I have never seen anyone try to kick a denver boot off their car. (I have a sort of sick fascination with denver boots. Sorry.)

mel

128 - 130

128 - When A Stranger Calls (2006) 1/2










129. Thank You For Smoking (2006) *1/2






I watched these two movies on HBO on sunday night, after getting back from a weekend in Bodega Bay. When A Stranger Calls was first, I think Steve picked it, he said he was in the mood for a "junkie movie," meaning, not a movie about people on heroin, but just a crappy movie. WASC was certainly that. That old horror movie device where they use scary music and long drawn out approaches to make you all nervous and then...it turns out it was just the cat making those scratching noises! Well, that went on for a full hour. The movie is only about 90 minutes long, so that means there was really only about 20 minutes of anything really scary happening. This movie could have been good I think, but it was just really boring. I guess it is a remake of late 60's movie with Carol Kane. That sounds way awesome-er.
Thank You For Smoking was fine. It wasn't great, but it was entertaining enough. I find myself getting bothered more and more by these movies that are really ambiguous about what they are trying to say. Especially when they do it in a kind of cocky way like this movie did. I kind of liked the kid who played his son, and I actually like Katie Holmes. She actually seemed like a real person in this movie, instead of Joey from Dawson's Creek.


130. Rocket Science(2007) ***


I saw this movie last night at the ECC. I didn't really know if I even wanted to see this movie. I didn't know anything about it except that it was directed by the guy who did Spellbound. I guess Spellbound was a pretty interesting movie, so I wanted to see what kind of scripted movie he would choose to follow that with. In the end, I'm glad I saw it because I really liked it. It was really funny, which I wasn't expecting. And it was pretty raunchy, which I guess is a kind of cliche thing to say these days, but, again, I really didn't expect it from the guy who directed a movie about a spelling bee. There were some elements I found problematic; the voice over narration seemed out of place (it was very sporadic, I generally do not like sporadic narration) and was kind of cheesy. But overall I liked it a lot.

One and one is four hundred?

That is wildly incorrect, except for here, where one is me, Mel, and one is Sarah, and four hundred is the number of new movies, collectively, it is our goal to watch this year. We figured, since that is a rather staggering number, that it would be nice of us to share our experiences and opinions with you. Perhaps it would also be interesting to see whether we can reach our goal, since we both have fairly busy schedules in the coming months.
The only rule when it comes to including a movie on our lists is that the movies have to be new to us, they do not have to be movies that were released this year (though many will be).
I realize, of course, that the year is already more than half over. I will be posting links to our lists so far soon, along with ratings. I rate my movies according to a four star system.
I hope if you have found your way to this blog you enjoy it and will come back to see how the quest is going.

mel