A Very Short Engagement

Holiday Engagement

Director: Jim Fall

Cast: Bonnie Somerville, Shelley Long, Haylie Duff

Aired: November 28, 2011

I can't help myself; I'm addicted to these TV Christmas movies that can be found on Netflix. I've actually watched more movies than I will be reviewing. Some are just okay in that they aren't even that great (or that bad!) to deserve a review. They're just middle of the road holiday movies. There have been a couple I've started then stopped watching after ten minutes because I didn't want to waste the time on them.

Holiday Engagement is entertaining and it's also kind of bad at the same time which makes it a perfect movie to review! It's also the first one I've watched that takes places during Thanksgiving rather than Christmas as you may have noticed by the air date. Although there are several mentions of Christmas. This TV movie aired on the Hallmark Channel, but wasn't as schmaltzy as one may think. 

Hilary (Bonnie Somerville) is going to her parents' home for Thanksgiving. She is suppose to be bringing her fiance, Jason, who her family hasn't met yet. They've been dating seven months and got engaged a month ago. (Okay, if you get engaged within less than a year of dating, I feel like that's a warning sign!) Hilary lives in L.A. and I'm not sure where her folks live, but it can't be too far away since she drove there. Hilary's fiance is a lawyer and therefore a workaholic and he's not sure if he can make it and she tells him he has to because she needs to prove to her family that he's real! Apparently her mother, Meredith (Shelley Long) thinks that Bonnie has made him up! 

A few days before they are to arrive at her parents', Jason breaks up with Hilary, telling her that she's been a "mistake." Ouch! He tells her they are not compatible and he has plans to move across the country for his work and she has reservations about leaving California. She tells her friend that she cannot face her family without bring her fiance and her friend gives her the idea of getting a guy through Mate.com (I think that's what it was called) and bribe him with the two tickets she won to Mexico on a radio show she gave the right answer to to a trivia question. Naturally, Hilary is appalled by this idea and does not want to bring a potential murdered home to her family but when her mom leaves her a message for her, telling her how she hopes she's not disappointed "this time", Hilary posts an ad for a fake fiance.

Now earlier in the movie there had been some foreshadowing as Hilary, a writer, and her friend (the same one who came up with the idea for the ad), a photographer are interviewing people about their jobs...or something, I really don't remember. They interview a guy who's dressed as a cell phone trying to get people to come to the store that sells them. He told them he was an actor. Well, it doesn't take an idiot to figure out he's going to come back into play here and will be the one to answer the ad. Especially when the audience sees how attractive he is once he takes off his headpiece. He is David and David is the one to answer the ad and Hilary hires him since she already met him and he's the most normal out of all the weirdos that applied for the job.

They manage to con her family although there are awkward moments when Hilary's dad is asking "Jason" for some legal advice and David is not too familiar that aspect of his new identity. I think there was something shady going on with her dad cause he be asking some shady questions! 

Hilary's mom, who is pushing for all her daughters to be married (one is and the other two are engaged) asks her if she and Jason have set a date and feeling the pressure, Hilary tells her they are getting married on December 21st and this makes her mother over the moon happy. Obviously she panicked, but WTF? Why not tell her that they have set the date for Christmas of NEXT year so you don't have to worry about getting fake married in less than three weeks? What an idiot! Also, if I were David, I would be very afraid that some strange woman wants to fake marry me. 

Hilary's mom is the worst. She's one of those who think woman need to get married and not only that, marry a guy who has a good job so that he can support her daughters. She set up her youngest daughter with a foot doctor even though she was in love with a waiter, but I guess she broke up her daughter and the waiter and got her to start dating the doctor who she says is a nice guy, but she's not in love with him. Of course, Meredith is happy that Hilary is getting married to a lawyer. But when it looks like Jason has bailed on her, Meredith gets angry with Hilary and tells her that she has nothing to show for herself. Sheesh, what a bitch! But Jason comes back...I forget why he left in the first place, obviously this movie didn't stay with me that long! 

If you think that Hilary and David fall in love over the course of this Thanksgiving weekend, you would be...correct! (Gee, who didn't see that coming?) And then the REAL Jason comes to apologize to Hilary (I had totally called that one), but Hilary dumps him to be with David. She also patches things up with her mom who apologizes for the way she acted. And the kicker is that she and David actually get married on the December 21st date they set up. Really? Like, you couldn't date for a year, then getting married...like normal people? 

A Christmas Crap

A Christmas Kiss

Director: John Stimpson

Cast: Elisabeth Rohm and the rest are people you don't know

Aired: December 11, 2011

This movie wasn't as good or as charming as the other two I reviewed and I think I know why. Unlike the other two, which were from ABC Family, this TV Christmas movie was from the ION channel which I had never heard of. It wasn't very good, so I don't recommend this one. In this one, some unknown brunette actress plays Wendy who is the assistant to the Bitch Boss from Hell, Priscilla (Elisabeth Rohm) who runs an interior designing company. 

We first meet Wendy as she is getting ready to go out on the town with her two friends. One is an aspiring actress and the other is an aspiring makeup artist. The makeup artist is putting makeup on Wendy and good God, has she ever heard the motto, "Less is more?" No, because she puts on GOBS of silver eyeshadow and glitter on Wendy. She looks completely ridiculous. Wendy's boss calls her and wants her to run to her apartment and turn on the heat and the lights so it will be ready when Priscilla gets back from her vacation. After she does that, she's on the elevator when a handsome stranger enters and they share a romantic kiss that later Wendy will describe to her friends "as the most memorable kiss she's ever have in her entire life!!!" Ugh. Apparently, the elevator broke and they both thought they were going to die so they shared a passionate kiss, I don't know. It was really forced if you ask me. 

But wouldn't you know it, the next day Wendy is called to Priscilla's apartment to help her again with something and Priscilla says she needs to get out before her boyfriend arrives, only her boyfriend has arrived early...and it's the guy Wendy kissed in the elevator!! But the guy, Andrew, doesn't even recognize her because she's wearing glasses! :::GASP::: What is it with people being completely transformed when they're wearing glasses (or not wearing them?) But to be fair, she also wasn't wearing the GOBS and HEAPS and MOUNDS of glittery eye shadow. You would think Wendy would be concerned that this man randomly kissed her in the elevator when he's dating another woman, but no! She thinks this is true love and she and Andrew are destined to be together and she tells her friends who also agree. The only thing is, Andrew is planning to propose to Priscilla! Oh, no!!  

Andrew has asked Priscilla to help decorate his home in Boston for a Christmas event he's putting on where he's invited all the Boston theater production people to help raise money for underprivileged children....or something. I'm not totally sure. To be honest, I wasn't always paying attention to this movie as I was also folding my laundry and wrapping Christmas presents. Priscilla tells Wendy that this is their number one priority and they're not even going to worry about their other clients because a lot of  important people from Boston will be from this party. She has found an engagement ring in Andrew's coat pocket and also knows that he is going to propose to her at this event.

Priscilla is such a huge bitch that it's almost comical what a big bitch she is. Take this great example: Wendy comes over to show Priscilla these drawings she's done for the Christmas designs which she think Andrew will like. He's a fan of A Christmas Carol, so she has this idea to have three Christmas trees: one representing Christmas past, one for Christmas present, and one for Christmas future. And the children from the homeless youth foundation can make the ornaments for the future tree because children are our future. Oh, how precious. Who does she thinks she is, Whitney Houston? So Bitch Boss is like, "OMG, those are the most terrible and horrific drawings I've ever seen! Andrew will hate them! You are such an imbecile! I hate children! Ugh!" Then Andrew comes in and Priscilla shows him her drawings which he says are great, but he was thinking of something more tradtional, so what does she do??? You guessed it: she hands him Wendy's drawings with WENDY SITTING RIGHT THERE and tells him that she had a second choice for him "just in case" and of course he loves them. She even tells him that the children can make the ornaments for the future tree. Oh, no, she did not! Oh, snap!  Rightly, Wendy is furious about this and blows up at Bitch Boss when Andrew leaves but Priscilla tells her that since Wendy works for her, then they are HER designs as well. What a beey-otch.

Wendy gets to spend more time with Andrew when Priscilla has to leave on an impromptu trip to NYC to see her plastic surgeon after she was smacked in the face by a decorative lamp post when Wendy and her makeup artist friend are helping Priscilla decorate Andrew's house. During this time alone, she goes on a carriage ride with Andrew, goes ice skating with Andrew, learns they share the same interest in literature and theater, and watches Christmas movies with Andrew where they fall asleep on his house only to have Priscilla find them the next day snuggled up with each other on the couch. Ooh, scandal! 

Can I just say that Elisabeth Rohm is a horrible actress? I call her Robotic Kate Hudson because she resembles Kate Hudson a bit, but she talks in this monotone voice. Haha, I used to listen to this podcast for the TV show, Angel, called Redemption Cast and she had a recurring role as "Kate" a police officer and love interest for the "vampire with a soul". Everyone on the podcast hated her and it was so hilarious.  They asked the one guy who had seen the show before, at the end of the season, if she comes back and he said no and they're all like, "Oh thank God!" 

Anyway, back to the crappy movie. Andrew eventually finds out what a bitch Prisilla is and doesn't propose to her and she throws a hissy fit and fires Wendy, but  Wendy ends up okay as Andrew starts dating her and they eventually get married. Gag! Skip this one! 

ABC Family and Cinematic Sara Presents

12 Dates of Christmas
Director: James Hayman
Cast: Amy Smart, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, and all the rest are people you wouldn't know.
Aired: December 11, 2011

Even though this is a Christmas movie, this is not going to be my obligatory Christmas movie review because those are always saved for theatrical releases. And the movie I have in mind of reviewing should be arriving from Netflix any time. I did look to see if it was on Netflix Instant, but alas, it wasn't. However, they did have an array of other holiday movies and made for TV holiday movies to choose from, so I decided, why not, let's watch one of them. I've never watched any of those fluffy holiday movies that are usually on Lifetime, but this one was on ABC Family and premiered back in 2011.

Just looking at the title and not knowing anything else, I tried to guess what the movie would be about and the first thing that came to my mind was that it was about a woman who was trying to find true love for Christmas and went on a string of really bad dates until she found Mr. Right at #12. However, I was wrong and kind of glad because the movie is actually more interesting than what I thought even though it totally rips off Groundhog Day, only Kate's (Amy Smart) Groundhog Day is changed to Christmas Eve. I was totally expecting her to say a line like, "I'm just like Bill Murry in Groundhog Day, but only it's Christmas Eve!" but no such line is ever uttered. I thought the writers missed a good opportunity with that.

But perhaps I should back up a bit and set everything up. Kate wants go get back with her ex-boyfriend and has a very good feeling it's going to happen because he wants to meet her to talk about something so she's expecting a call from him. However, she's also been set up on a blind date with her stepmom's friend's son? I think? IDK...I forgot how Miles (MPG) knows Kate's stepmom, so Kate has agreed even though she has no interest in this guy she's never met.

They're suppose to meet at a bar and I was assuming Kate had at least seen a photo of him, but when she goes up to a sad-looking nerdy guy and asks him if he's Miles, he says no (and she looks very relieved! Ha!). That has got to be such an awkward situation...to go up to the wrong blind date! She sees Miles and is relieved that he is good looking. He's also very charming, but Kate has no time for that. When her phone rings, it's her ex and she says she'll meet him in 15 minutes and of course this makes Miles really angry that she's canceling the date to go meet up with her ex but she says she's just rearranging it and they'll see each other at the party her stepmom is throwing. So it turns out that her ex wants to see her because he brought over his dog that he wants her to watch while he and and his new girlfriend go up to his cabin. Ouch! Burn! Didn't see that one coming!

Oh! I forgot to mention a very pivotal moment of the movie: before Kate goes on her date, she was at the mall and gets spritzed in the face by a saleswoman holding a perfume bottle. For some reason, this makes Kate faint and pass out.

When Kate goes to bed that night, the clock strikes midnight and suddenly it rewinds time and we find we are back in the department store and Kate is getting up from having fainted. She is very confused and doesn't understand why this has happened to her again. Everyone around her is also confused and a shopper asks if this kind of thing happens to her all the time and she says it happened to her yesterday on Christmas Eve, and now today, on Christmas! But it's not Christmas! It's Christmas Eve! But how can that be when Christmas Eve was yesterday? Kate goes on her date again with Miles and asks if they've ever met and he says no.

And such the formula goes on and on. At first she is stuck on trying to get her ex back, but realizes he has moved on and is planning to propose to his new girlfriend (who was a high school sweetheart) and she realizes that Miles would be good for her and she really likes him. She also learns to be a better person and more patient. One of my favorite scenes involves her getting to know her neighbor, Margine, an elderly woman who loves to bake. For several of these "days" we see Margine bringing a fruitcake to Kate and wanting to talk, but Kate is either rude to her or just thanks her quickly and goes inside. Finally, on one "day" she takes the time to thank Margine and ask her for the recipe and Margine brings her into her HUGE apartment which is gorgeous and takes her into her kitchen where she learns how to bake. Remember in Groundhog Day when Bill Murray learned French and how to play the piano over the course of his days? Well, in this movie she learns to bake intricate cakes and cookies (and ends up with a gingerbread house).

Through her 12 days of Christmas Eve, she makes friends with a woman who is helping her boyfriend string up lights and learns she wants him to propose to her, so she tells the boyfriend to make lights that will spell out "Marry Me." She also sets up her neighbor with Jim, one of the shoppers who is always there to help her up from the floor every time a new "day" starts and she is back in the department store. And then there was a weird storyline I don't get: she thinks Toby, the guy she almost thought was her blind date knows what's happening to her but I don't know if he did or not. She befriends him too and gives him a makeover and takes off his glasses (supposedly it works on guys too if you take off their glasses and they're much better looking!  :::rollseyes:::: Personally, I didn't think it was his glasses, it was his stupid haircut!). She sets him up with her friend who can't keep a guy. Kate also bonds with her stepmom.

One thing that irked me about this movie was that Kate was so desperate not to be alone on Christmas and for the rest of her life that she needed to get back with her ex. In fact, we learned her ex broke up with her after her mom died (ouch!) because he said that she was more in love with being with someone than with him and she was so set on not being like her father who was going to be alone (even though he did eventually remarry). I just hate these movies when the woman has to have a man in her life. Jesus, grow a pair!

Loose Feet

Footloose (1984)
Director: Herbert Ross
Cast: Kevin Bacon, Lori Singer, John Lithgow, Chris Penn, Sarah Jessica Parker
Released: February 17, 1984

Oscar nominations:
Best Song - "Footloose"
Best Song - "Let's Hear it For the Boy" (lost to "I Just Called to Say I Love You" from The Woman in Red)

Footloose (2011)
Director: Craig Brewer
Cast: Kenny Wormald, Julianne Hough, Dennis Quaid, Andie MacDonnell
Released: October 14, 2011

The last time I reviewed two movies where one was a remake of another was The Karate Kid. Now the remake of that movie wasn't a total clone of the original; it just had a similar story. The characters didn't have the same names, the remake took place in another country, there were a few changes to update it, etc. Now with the update of Footloose, while they have made it more current (characters listen to iPods instead of tape decks; the clothes aren't badly dated, etc.), the movie is pretty much an exact clone of the original. Same names, same scenes, same lines. It's almost an exact clone...almost. There are a few differences. One of the biggest is that they don't have Ariel (Singer and Hough) in the remake doing that stunt where she has one foot in her friend's car and another in her boyfriend's car while both cars are driving next to each other. They probably didn't have that scene because kids are dumb and would have probably tried to emulate it. Instead, in the 2011 movie, they showed Ariel as a badass when she rides in her boyfriend's race car. Ooh, you're a rebel, Ariel!

That said, even though they're both playing the same character, I found 2011 Ariel to be a lot more tolerable than 1984 Ariel. She is rebellious in both movies because her father (Lithgow and Quaid) is a preacher, so she doesn't want to seem like a goody two-shoes, and also, her brother died in a car accident, which is one of the reasons there's no dancing in her hometown of Beaumont. In the remake, we're immediately introduced to her brother when he and three friends are driving home from a party. They're singing "Footloose" (and really, what teen in 2011 would even know that song?) and aren't paying attention when an oncoming truck crashes into them. In the original, we don't hear about his accident until the middle of the movie and for awhile I was wondering if it was something new they had added to the remake. (I saw the remake before the original, but I had seen the original about twelve years ago).

Even though Ariel is a pain in the ass, Hough plays her much more likable while Singer is just irritating. She befriends the new kid in town, Ren (Bacon and Wormald) who is shocked to find out that dancing is outlawed in this town. The only difference between the character in the two movies is that 1984 Ren listens to a Walkman and 2011 Ren listens to an iPod. Oh, and it's established that 2011 Ren is a gymnast whereas 1984 Ren just can randomly do flips. The "anger vent dance" he does in both movies is one of the stupidest scenes I have ever seen in my entire life. Besides, everyone knows the best dance scene in a movie is from Center Stage where they ride motorcycles on the stage and dance to Michael Jackson's "The Way You Make Me Feel!"

"Footloose" is not a great movie to begin with, but if you had to watch it, I would recommend skipping the original and watching the remake because the original makes the remake look like an Oscar winner.

'Justin' Time

In Time
Director: Andrew Niccol
Cast: Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Olivia Wilde, Cillian Murphy
Released: October 28, 2011

This movie has a pretty interesting premise. It takes place in the future and I can't remember if we're ever given an actual year, but according to Wikipedia, it takes place in 2161...which means I will be....dead. I think we all will! In this future, nobody ages past 25, so no matter how old you actually are, everyone looks like they are in their mid-20s. Once you hit your 25th birthday, a digital clock appears on your forearm where you have one year to accumulate as much time as you can and once that time runs out, you drop dead. Time is used as money in this future. A coffee costs 4 minutes. A nice car costs 50 years. A person can live millions of years if they have accumulated that much time. Obviously the more time you have accumulated, the more affluent you are. There are time banks and people are allowed to give other people time.

Justin Timberlake plays Will, who is 28 years old (what's the point of asking people's ages if everyone looks the same age? You wouldn't know if somebody was 25 or 125 because they would both look the same age!) He always manages to at least have a day's worth of time every day and tries to manage it as best as he can. His mom is played by Olivia Wilde (fun fact: she is younger than JT in real life) who has just turned 50 which is pretty remarkable somebody who isn't that prosperous lasted that long.

One night, Will meets the best-looking 105 year old played by Matt Bomer. He has over a century accumulated  and he asks Will if he had all time in the world, what would he do with it and Will responds with something profound. The old man in a young man's body transfers his time to Will while Will is sleeping and dies, so now Will finds himself with 116 years worth of time. Will knows he has to keep this a secret and he only tells his best friend who he gives ten years to.

Meanwhile, Will is suppose to meet his mother at the bus station after she comes home from work. The bus, which usually costs an hour to ride, has now gone up to two hours and Will's mom only has an hour and a half. She has to run the rest of the way and when Will realizes what has happened, he starts running to see if he can find her, and in dramatic effect just as they reach each other, her time has run out...literally.

With his new wealth, Will decides to cross the "time zones" (each one you pass, you have to pay a toll -  the more affluent neighborhood you enter, the more you have to pay). There he goes to New Greenwich where all the rich people. There he meets an extremely rich man who has eons of years available to him. There's an amusing scene where he introduces Will to his daughter, wife, and mother, and of course they're all attractive 25 year olds!

Amanda Seyfriend plays Sylvia, Will's love interest, and she has to wear this HORRIBLE red wig with blunt bangs. Ugh, it looks horrible on her. I guess it does give her a futuristic look, but she is so much prettier with her natural curly blonde hair.

There's bad guys after Will because they found out he has a lot of time and they escape back to Will's grounds. The movie turns a bit into Bonnie and Clyde and Robin Hood when Will and Sylvia start holding up banks and stealing time capsules from banks and gives them to the "poor". There's this really stupid scene towards the end of the movie where both Will and Sylvia is running low on time and they both see a source to get more time and are running to it. Sylvia is wearing these five inch high heels. Uh....take off your shoes, you idiot! I was impressed she could actually run in those shoes, but she could probably go a little faster if she wasn't wearing them.

I liked the movie; I found it interesting. I wouldn't mind a sequel. It would be cool to look like you were 25 forever, (you could lie about your age all the time!) but I wouldn't want to depend on my time as money.

Adventures with the Baby-Sitter

The Sitter

Director: David Gordon Green
Cast: Jonah Hill, Max Records, Sam Rockwell
Released: December 9, 2011

I can't compare a movie about a baby-sitter having a crazy night with their charges without also mentioning one of my favorite movies from the '80s, Adventures in Baby-Sitting which I already wrote a review, but for the purpose of this review I will be comparing the two movies.

In The Sitter, we have college student Noah (Jonah Hill) who lives at home with his single mom and has a "girlfriend", Marisa. I say girlfriend lightly because their relationship is very one-sided. She only wants to be around him when it's beneficial for her and doesn't care about what he wants, but he doesn't seem to care that she's just using him and thinks things will be better. In Adventures in Baby-Sitting, we have high school senior Chris Parker (Elisabeth Shue) who is dating a popular, but douchey guy named Mike (played by a pre-Josh Lyman Bradley Whitford).

Both Noah and Chris have plans that do not involve baby-sitting, but somehow get suckered into it at the last minute. They don't belong to the Baby-Sitters Club where they meet every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and clients can call them on those days from 5:30-6 to set up baby-sitting appointments! (Did you ever notice in those books NOBODY ever needed them to baby-sit when they were having their meetings? Huh...how convenient!) Noah has plans to watch some documentary on TV he's interested in and Chris has plans to go out with Mike. (Noah is not as popular as Chris!) Noah's mom is supposed to go out but gets a call from the Pedullas needing someone to watch their three kids. Noah doesn't want to, but knows if he doesn't, then his mom will and she will miss her social function which she has been looking forward to, so he agrees to baby-sit. Mike cancels on Chris when he tells her he can't go out because his younger sister is sick and he has to watch her. The Andersons call later needing a baby-sitter for their daughter.

Noah's charges include the Pedullas' two biological kids, Slater (Max Records...he was the kid in Where the Wild Things Are), a thirteen-year-old who is very neurotic and thinks everybody is after him and needs his medication to keep him calm and Blithe, who is six or seven and likes to wear tons of make up and talk about how "hot" everything and everybody is and always has "hot gossip" to share. There's also their adopted son from Guatemala, Rodrigo, who is twelve or thirteen and likes to destroy things and set cherry bombs in public bathrooms. He's kinda useless to the movie and only comes in as a plot device for one scene.

While Chris is only supposed to baby-sit for Sarah, an eight-year-old who idolizes Thor (and for the longest time...well up until the recent Thor movie came out, I had no idea that Thor was a real character...I thought he was made up for the movie! And no, I am not joking, I actually thought that. I don't care about comic books, obviously!) Sarah's older brother, Brad, a freshman in high school has a huge crush on Chris and when he finds out she's baby-sitting Sarah, he decides to stay home even though he was suppose to spend the night at his friend's Darryl's house.

Both Noah and Chris aren't at their charges' homes very long before they both receive calls that will change their entire nights. Noah gets a call from Marisa who's at a party (even though she told him earlier that day she had gotten food poisoning and was too sick to do anything!) and asks him to stop by at a guy she knows to get some drugs and drop them off at the party. She promises him that if he does her this favor, she will have sex with him. Chris gets a call from her best friend, Brenda, who has decided to run away from home because her stepmom is driving her crazy. She spent all her money taking a taxi downtown to the bus station where she is now stuck with a bunch of unstable people and wants Chris to come and get her. Two very different situations and Noah comes across as the worst baby-sitter in this situation because he doesn't even hesitate about going - he just grabs the kids and off they go on their adventure. Even though Chris's situation is more dire (hmmm....help your best friend who is in serious trouble or score drugs for a girl who treats you like crap....no contest!), she has hesitations about going and tells Brad to watch Sarah while she's gone but they tell her if they do that they'll tell her parents so she's forced to take them with her along with Darryl who happens to stop by at that time.

Both head out with the kids and their evenings turn into complete nightmares. Let's see if I can remember all the mishap they get into: Noah has to make a stop at a department store to get new underwear and pants for Blithe after she has an accident (why they didn't just go back home, I don't know) and one of the workers and customers, who also happens to be an old classmate from high school, find it suspicious that a grown man is hanging out around little girls' underwear and when the worker asks Blithe if she knows him, she replies with, "I only just met him" and there's a conversation that puts him in a bad light. When they return to the car, they find out that Rodrigo has ran away, but with a tracking device, Noah finds him at a fancy restaurant where he's planted a cherry bomb in the bathroom and a toilet explodes. He manages to get drugs and while he's there, Rodrigo comes in saying he has to use the bathroom. When Noah leaves, he notices that Rodrigo has a huge egg-shaped item that he said he took. Noah tries to grab it from him, it breaks and cocaine spills all over him and the car. The druglord finds him and tells him he owns him 10 grand. Noah gets an idea to go to a bar mitzvah for twin girls in Slater's class who have invited him. They'll attend the party and he'll steal all the checks people have written for the twins. While he's there, he meets a girl working as a waitress who used to go to high school with him and it turns out she likes him and had a crush on him back then (and she is much prettier than his current "girlfriend"...hmm, dude...get a clue!). More shenanigans transpire including a huge fight, Noah breaking into his father's jewelry store to steal diamonds, getting arrested, stealing a car, getting held by gunpoint...I don't think those are in chronological order, but you get the idea!

I remember the events of Adventures because I've seen that movie many more times (as opposed to the one time I watched The Sitter). Their car breaks down and a tow truck stops and offers to take them to a garage. I would not have gotten in the car with that guy...he was creepy, and not just because he had a hook for a hand. No, it was the way he kept laughing manically. They never make it to the garage because the truck driver gets in a gun fight with some guy and Chris and the kids make a run for it and end up in a stolen car that is driven to a huge warehouse where they are taken upstairs to a room to be dealt with later. They manage to escape by crossing a beam across the ceiling and climbing out a broken window. Of course nobody happens to look up except for the one "good" car thief. The bad guys discover the kids are gone and start chasing them. The kids end up in a blues bar where nobody is allowed to leave until they sing the blues - that place looked pretty crowded too; it must take a long time for all those people to sing the blues and leave. Anyway, that's one of the most memorable scenes of the movies but while watching it this time, it made me wonder why all these people were laughing and cheering about this seventeen year old singing about how her best friend is probably dead and her car broke down and there's these bad guys after them...I mean, you think one of these people would think, "Hmm, these young kids are in heaps of trobule - maybe I should contact the authorities?" Uh, no! They end up on a subway while running away from the bad guys, again, and discover they are sitting in a car between two gangs who are about to kill each other. Chris tries to stop them, but one of the guys calls her a bitch and Brad gets mad and tries to stand up for her resulting in a knife being thrown in his foot. This scene gives us the best line of the movie when Chris says, "Don't **** with the baby-sitter!" You would never hear one of the girls from the BSC say that! They take Brad to the hospital, they find themselves at a college party where Chris meets a nice guy who hits on her and lends her the money, they get their car back from a Thor look-a-like, and everything seems to be going well and they can finally pick up Brenda until they pass the French restaurant where Chris was suppose to have dinner with Mike and sees that Mike's car is parked out front so he obviously went there without her...what a jerk!

She goes in there to confront him where she finds him having dinner with another girl who has a piggish face. The same thing happens in the other movie when Slater is at the baz mitzvah and sees his best friend there with another friend who had previously told him that he couldn't hang out because he was sick and it turned out he just didn't want to hang out with Slater...what a jerk! Back to Adventures where Darryl kicks Mike into another table and they leave all happy that they taught that jerk a lesson. But, oh no! Sarah is missing! Thinking that she went to a toy store nearby, they run over and check, but she's not there. Brad notices the building his dad works in and where he and the Misses is tonight. The building is nowhere near their location and they decide to run there, not go back to their car and drive there like any normal person would do. What idiots! So they get to the building and there's evidence that Sarah is there too. She's being chased by two bad guys and she goes all the way to the top floor and when she sees one of them has followed her, she decides to climb out of a broken window with a rope. I think this little girl had a suicidal wish: when she was in the truck and there were bullets flying past her, she was laughing and clapping her hands and when she was in the subway and the two gangs took out their pocket knifes, her eyes lit up. And now she's climbing out of a fifty-story building. The best part is when she's right outside these huge windows where the party her parents are at is being held (just two stories below where she climbed out) and even though the party is full of people, NOBODY notices her except for the other bad guy and Chris who has disguised herself with a large fur coat. Yeah, right! I call shenanigans!

Both movies end similarly. Once everything is situated, both Noah and Chris have to race back to their charges' homes before the parents arrive back. They both do this and tidy up the home with just minutes to spare. The only slight difference is in The Sitter where all three kids are watching TV with Noah when the parents get back at one in the morning, where in Adventures, Chris had the common sense to tell them all to get upstairs to bed. When Chris leaves, she runs into the guy she met at the frat party and they kiss with the kids looking out the window. And when Noah is leaving he runs into the girl he met at the bar mitzvah (there was a whole other storyline involving her) and kisses her while the kids are watching from the window, it was a shoutout!

I would say The Sitter is slightly (only slightly) a little more realistic than Adventures in Baby-Sitting, but I have to say Adventures is the better movie. Yes, I've seen it many times and I love it, so I may be a little biased!

MTV Movie Award Nominations

I discuss the movies nominated for the MTV Movie Awards:

Read my The Help review here
Read my Bridesmaids review here
Read my Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 review here
Read my The Hunger Games review here
View my Breaking Dawn Part 1 video review with my comical co-host companion Cameron here (Yes, I love alliteration!)

11 '11 quick movie reviews

1. The Rise of the Planet of the Apes - This is the first Planet of the Apes movie I've seen. I've never seen the original movie or that God-awful Tim Burton one from 2001. But this one was getting good word-of-mouth and thought I would check it out when it was available on Netflix. It stars James Franco who's been testing a drug on chimps to try to cure Alzheimer's which is what his dad (John Lithgow) has. They have to shut down the facility because one of the apes goes balistic and they have to shoot her. Turns out she had a baby and was only protecting him, so Franco ends up taking it home and caring for it. The chimp is named Ceasar and is super smart from the drug. He can solve puzzles and communicate with sign language. However, after he attacks the neighbor (because he is being a bully to Lithgow) he is taken by animal control and sent to a primate shelter where all the primates are being abused by the owner and one of his slimy little workers, Tom Felton, who of course everyone knows as Draco Malfoy. All the apes are created by computers because obviously there's no way they could have used real primates...that would have been a little difficult to have them do what's done in the film by the CGI ones. I have to be honest...while somebody has mad skills with the computers, all the apes still looked exactly like that...like computer apes. The main ape is played by Andy Serkis in the same vein as he played Gollum in Lord of the Rings. The orangutang was my favorite...he was really cute! The gorilla scared me the most, probably because I had a horrifying experience with a gorilla when I was little. Not a real gorilla, but an animatronic one. I used to go to this kiddie place called ShowBiz Pizza (kinda like Chuck E Cheese...do they even still have those around?) and they had a stage where a band of different animals (some animatronic, some people in costume) would play different instruments. You had your cute little bunny or doggie or friendly lion or whatever, and they you had this HUGE gorilla. He was taller and wider than all the other animals, so he was very intimidating and it scared me so much! The gorilla in the movie is much bigger and more aggressive than the other primates and has to be kept in a special cage when all the other primates are playing together. Of course, he's the one who ends up sacrificing his life for Caesar. There's a little teaser at the end of the movie that hints that there may be a sequel...or maybe not because it shows that a virus has spread around the world and is killing people in droves...kinda like Contagion.

2. Beginners - The beginners in question are Christopher Plummer and Ewan McGregor who play father and son in this coming-of-age film. After Plummer's wife dies, he admits to his son, that, at the age of 75 he is gay and wants to live the remainder of his life as who he really is and has a relationship with a much younger man played by Goran Visnjic. Plummer's scenes are told in flashbacks because he has already died of cancer in the film's "real time" which focuses on McGregor and his relationship with a woman played by Melanie Laurent. It was a sweet little movie with a cute little dog to boot.

3. Friends With Benefits - Dear God in heaven, what idiot came up with the bright idea to have Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis star in a movie where they're naked most of the time?! God, they are so hideous! Calm down, people, I'm just joking. If anything, this movie will make you feel even more insecure about yourself because both actors are ridiculously gorgeous and have the added benefit of being rich so they can afford a trainer. Oh, and I'm sure the airbrushing department helped too.  They're not really friends in the movie, though. They've just met through work so they're more like co-workers who decide to have casual sex with no strings attached (hey, the name of that other movie with the same plot!) so it should have been called Co-Workers With Benefits, but that would have been weird. Kudos to this movie for reminding the world what an awesome song "Closing Time" is. (By Semisonic, NOT by Third Eye Blind :-))

4. Kung Fu Panda 2 - I thought the first Kung Fu Panda was really cute and charming and this one is no different. When it comes to Pixar vs. Dreamworks, I am always Team Pixar; the only animated movies from Dreamworks I've ever enjoyed are the Kung Fu Panda movies and How to Train Your Dragon. In the sequel, we are once again introduced to Po the panda (Jack Black) and his team of fighting animals: the tiger (Angelina Jolie), the monkey (Jackie Chan), the snake (Lucy Liu), the praying mantis who is so strong that he can hold a panda back (Seth Rogan), and a crane (David Cross). Po finds out that he was adopted (pretty obvious since he was raised by a goose) and wants to find out who he really is and where he came from. The villain in this film is a peacock voiced by Gary Oldman. And just like a real peacock, he was also strutting around and acting vain. By the looks of how the movie ended, they definitely have a third movie set up. (It turns out Po's father - his real biological panda father - is still alive).

5. 30 Minutes or Less - Jesse Eisenberg plays a pizza delivery boy who finds himself in a situation where these two idiots who need money have knocked him out and strapped a bomb to him and tell him if he doesn't get them $100,000, he's going to be blown to smithereens. Aziz Azari plays his friend who tries to help him rob a bank. There were a few funny moments (like him speeding to the houses so nobody gets a free pizza), but for the most part the movie is filled with stupid racial and homophobic jokes.  Okay, I did laugh when one of the idiots calls Aziz's sister "Slumdog".  Only see this one if you can see it for free.

6. Crazy, Stupid Love - I didn't love this movie as much as all the critics did, but it was an enjoyable watch. Steve Carrell and Julianne Moore play a couple who split up after he finds out that she's had an affair with someone she works with. Carrell, who plays a bit of a doofus, spends some time at a bar to try to pick up women and gets some help from Ryan Gosling who is a certified smooth-talking ladies' man. Carrell soon starts picking up women and starts a relationship with Marisa Tomei, who turns out to be his son's middle school teacher. Meanwhile, Ryan Gosling makes the moves on Emma Stone who's already in a lackluster relationship with Josh Groban (in what I believe is his first movie role). Carrell's son is in love with his baby-sitter, who in turn, is in love with Steve Carrell. I didn't buy that at all because what teenage girl would have the hots for some goofy older guy? There's a little twist at the end that I won't spoil.

7. Cowboys and Aliens - You think a western/sci fimovie with Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig (Indiana Jones and James Bond, for God's sake) would be awesome, but no, it was just as bad as all the critics said it was. The concept was cool, but they just couldn't get there. Skip this one, folks.


8. The Hangover 2 - Everyone was right when they said this is an exact replica of the first one, only it takes place in Bangkok instead of Vegas and there's a monkey instead of a tiger. This time the gang is in Thailand for Stu's (Ed Helms) wedding and once again he, Phil (Bradley Cooper), and Alan (Zach Galafanakis) get drugged and spend a wild night and forget everything they did when they wake up the next morning. Stu's fiance's little brother was with them and he's the one they lose and need to find. (Of course they check the roof first since that's where they found Doug in the first movie). There were some funny lines, but you'd be better off watching the first movie. I really don't understand how you could be so stupid that you get that s***-faced twice! And now I heard they're making a third one. God, please, no!

9. Our Idiot Brother - Paul Rudd plays Ned, the "idiot brother", his three sisters are played by Zooey Deschanel, Elizabeth Banks, and Emily Mortimer. After Ned sells weed to a cop (in uniform!) he loses his job and his girlfriend kicks him out of their house after he returns from jail. To make matters worse, she has a new boyfriend and is keeping Ned's dog, Willie Nelson. Ned seeks help from his family, but only makes matters worse. He finds out one of his sister's husband is cheating on her, accidently tells another sister's girlfriend that she cheated on her with a guy and is pregnant, and messes up the friendship of the third sister with this guy she knows. Of course his intentions are good, but he doesn't know that he's not always helping. The scene that made me laugh the most was when he was on the subway and is counting a big chunk of money while everyone is staring at him. He drops his bag and gives the guy next to him the money to hold while he picks up the things from his bag. The guy is just looking dumbfounded at everyone and it looks like he wants to bolt, but he doesn't.

10. Abduction - This movie did not make any sense. I was confused throughout the whole thing. It stars Taylor Launter, who is a horrible actor but does have some charisma, I'll give him that, as a high school senior, who, while doing a project for a class, finds out he is in the database for missing children. Jason Isaacs and Maria Bello, his "fake" parents are killed off by the bad guys who are alerted when Launter accesses the missing children database. In a plot I don't fully understand, Launter's mom was attacked and killed in Paris when he was a toddler because....uh.....I don't remember. I honestly don't know why. Well his dad is still alive and he has some list that the bad guys want...IDK. This movie was so effing stupid! I thought it might be good because it was directed by John Singleton and it has Jason Isaacs in it! Alas, he does not last long in this movie.... Lily Collins (I believe she's Phil's daughter) plays Launter's love interest and she's always with this other guy who is fighting with her and giving Launter the evil eye, but she tells him that he's not her boyfriend and there's this weird history between her and Launter where they used to be childhood friends, but then they drifted apart. They're also neighbors...sounds like Drive Me Crazy! She really has no use for the movie other than to be arm candy for Launter (and let's face it...he's the prettier one between them!) Sigourney Weaver (another cool person wasted in a crappy film) was right when she tells him that he should get rid of her. The movie was confusing because I was really never sure where they were. It takes place in Pittsburgh, but they (Lautner and Collins) find themselves in Virginia, but then I see Lautner's friend and I'm wondering how the hell he got to Virginia, but they were back in Pittsburgh...uh....HUH? And that happens twice! Stupid movie.

11. Rango - This won the best animated Oscar this year. Johnny Depp voices a lizard who finds himself in a town full of interesting characters that included mice, cats, birds, and snakes. (Still not sure what exactly Beans, his love interest, was suppose to be). He had been used to being alone his entire life and always wanted to be somebody and now gets the chance when he is put in a situation where he has to find out what's happening to the town's water supply.

Weekly Movie #10

A Separation
Director: Asghar Farhadi
Cast: Peyman Moadi, Leila Hatami, Sareh Bayet, Sarina Farhadi
Released: December 30, 2011
Viewed in theaters: March 2, 2012

Oscar nominations:
Best Foreign Film (won)
Best Original Screenplay - Asghar Farhadi (lost to Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris)

While looking for my next weekly movie to watch, I was glad that I saw one of my nearby theaters was playing the winner of the foreign film Oscar. There were still a couple options I would consider, though most likely they would be rentals for me. I hope some better movies will be coming out in the near future!

I haven't seen many foreign-language movies, but I've probably seen more than your average movie viewer. Of course I've seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Life is Beautiful, but I have seen others. I should post my ten favorite foreign-language movies sometime. I know some people are adversed to reading words on screen, but I don't mind - I'm a pretty fast reader!

A Separation is an Iranian film and the movie opens up with married couple Nader and Simin sitting in front of a judge with Simin asking him for permission to divorce her husband because she wants to move to another country so their eleven year old daughter, Termeh, can have a better life. She needs a divorce because her husband refuses to go with her because he has to take care of his father who has Alzheimer's. The judge does not grant her the divorce because her husband is a good man and has never done anything to harm her and he tells her to go on and live her life.

Simin goes to live with her mother for awhile because she is still determined to get a divorce and leave the country. While she is away, a young pregnant woman named Razieh comes to take care of Nader's father while he is at work and Termeh is at school. Simin found her through a friend and needing the money, Razieh soon finds out that the job wasn't exactly what she had in mind. She thought she would just have to watch the old man, but when he soils himself she begins to panic because she was told he always said when he had to use the restroom and she was worried it might be against her religion if she changed him. When Nader returns home, she tells him that she doesn't think she can do the job and tells him that she'll tell her husband and can Nader interview him tomorrow? Nader agrees to this and interviews Razieh's husband (who didn't know that Razieh had been working for him). Due to conflict, he isn't able to show up to work the next day, so Razieh takes his place and tells Nader that her husband will be able to work in a couple of days.

Things go to hell when Nader and his daughter come early one afternoon to find the door locked and nobody is answering the door. When they enter their apartment, they find Nader's father has fallen out of bed and has his hand tied to the bedpost with a scarf. When Razieh and her young daughter who she always brought with her return back, Nader, for good reason, is furious at her. She explains that she had to go out and do something and since his father usually slept at this time, she thought it would be okay and had tied him to the bed so he wouldn't get up and hurt himself. Nader accuses her of stealing money because he found money missing from a drawer but she claims she didn't. He doesn't believe her and forces her out the door. She comes back again and this time he pushes her out. She ends up falling and has a miscarriage and Nader is charged with manslaughter, but he says he had no idea that she was pregnant or otherwise he would have never been rough with her, although he says he never pushed her.

Basically the rest of the movie deals with this feud between the two couples. It's very intense and keeps you interested in how this is going to play out. I thought the young girl who played Razieh's daughter was really cute, but I thought it was really unprofessional of her to bring her daughter to her work! Maybe they couldn't afford a daycare, but even though the little girl didn't mean any harm, she would mess with the old man's oxygen tank and when her mother asked her to take out the trash she got trash and food all over the steps. Of course this does have a big part in the movie.... which I highly recommend!

Oscar Fashion Review with Cameron!

Breaking Dawn Part 1 Video Review

2012 Post-Oscar Thoughts!

Once again I kept a notes while I watched the Oscars. Yes, I live in the Stone Age!

I had to work on Sunday and I got home like literally seconds before the show started, so I was very happy I didn't miss any of it (although towards the middle, I started to check my Facebook and Twitter and my computer is in my room, so for awhile I was listening, rather than watching, the Oscars.)

I liked the opening with Billy Crystal inserted in the different clips from the nominated movies. It's a shtick he always does, but I always think it's fun. I thought the transition from The Help where he's just eaten that special pie to Bridesmaids where he enters the restroom and warns them not to eat the pie was funny and clever.

It was hard to hear what Billy Crystal was singing about the nine nominated movies because the music was so loud.

Have you noticed they always show the same movies during these movie montages? Did they include Twilight in that montage? WTF? I think there should be a rule that only movies that have been nominated for Oscars can be included in these montages. Leave Twilight for the MTV Awards....god knows they already dominate those!

I HATED Jennifer Lopez's dress. Ewwwwww. She and Cameron Diaz were so stupid with their let's turn around routine. What morons!

Sandra Bullock was funny and charming as always and I was impressed by her Mandarin, but her dress is a little on the boring side.

It's weird that Girl with the Dragon Tattoo won Best Editing because that usually goes to a movie that's nominated for Best Picture.

Cirque du Soleil was impressive, but what did it have to do with movies?

Robert Downey Jr's and Gwyneth Paltrow's "documentary" intro was funny at first, but perhaps went on a little too long.

I thought Emma Stone was hilarious, how she was acting all ditzy. Wasn't crazy about her dress and that huge bow growing out of the side of her neck. That's gotta be annoying!

LOL - Angelina Jolie looked like a proud mom when Christopher Plummer won. He is only two years younger than the Oscars! He is now the oldest Oscar winner at 82; I wonder who was the oldest before him?

Awwww - Uggie in the audience wearing a bowtie was the cutest thing I have ever seen at the Oscars. Maybe even the cutest thing I've ever seen in my life! (For those of you who don't know, Uggie is the dog from The Artist).

Penelope Cruz always looks pretty.

I loved Will Ferrel and Zach Galifanakis with the cymbals. Why can't they host? I think the best laugh of the night came when Zach said his name like jibber jabber hahahahahahahahahahahaha that was soooo funny. Then I loved how Will said they were going to announce the winner for Best Song and "how it would join the ranking of (names a bunch of classic songs everyone knows and loves) and "It's Hard Out There For a Pimp." LOL! I still think they should have nominated "Life's a Happy Song" - that was the best song from The Muppets!

Omaha got a shoutout at the Oscars when Alexander Payne won for Best Adapted Screenplay and mentioned his mom from Omaha was in the audience. Whoo!

I liked Colin Firth reminiscing about Mama Mia with Meryl Streep.

There really weren't any surprises with the acting winners, but I really thought Viola Davis would win Best Actress. I know it's been 30 years since Meryl won her last (and second) Oscar, and you can't help but like her. I still have no desire to see The Iron Lady and I don't know, but there's something about that role that screams GIVE ME AN OSCAR!!! Sometimes I like the showy performances, but most times I prefer the understated roles like the one Davis played in The Help...ah, well I'm sure she'll win a makeup Supporting Oscar in a few years.... Maybe this means Meryl will finally stop getting nominated for everything? We can only hope.

Now it's time for fashion!

Best dressed: Milla Jovovich

Worst dressed: Jennifer Lopez

2012 Pre-Oscars Post! Rankings! Predix!

The Oscars are this Sunday, so I'm cutting it close with my predictions and ranking of the nine films that were nominated. I just saw the ninth movie tonight so I am ready to rank all the movies nominated for a Best Picture Oscar from my favorite to least favorite:

1. The Help - It was hard to rank the first three movies because I probably liked them all about the same and they all had really great casts and they all kept me entertained. But I'll give the #1 spot to The Help because I also loved the book it's adapted from and it was pretty cool to see all those amazing actresses in one movie and it's nice to know that a movie with a mostly female cast can make lots of money and not just be about shopping, relationships, fashion, and other frivolous stupid things Hollywood seems to think women like in their movies. This movie made me both laugh and cry and I am still wondering to this day (and this has actually been brought up in a couple of conversations I've had with people): how the hell did Minnie make that pie and Hilly not even notice what she put in it? I mean, she kept eating it! How could she not taste THAT? I mean you think you would be able to taste that even if there was also chocolate in there...

2. Midnight in Paris - What a delightful, charming movie! I can see why it was nominated for an Oscar. You know, this is only the third Wood Allen movie I've seen (Annie Hall and Match Point being the other two) because he is such a prolific director that I guess I just assume his movies can't be that good because he makes so many of them...plus I can't keep up with them, but now I will have to check out his higher-rated movies. It stars Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams as a couple about to get married joining McAdam's parents on a trip to Paris. Wilson plays a screenwriter who is struggling to write a novel. While they're there, they run into an old male friend of McAdam's who she used to have a crush on and who Wilson calls a "pseudo-intellect" because he's obnoxious the way he's always sprouting out facts and acts like a know-it-all all the time. One evening, at midnight, while Wilson is walking around the city to get inspiration, an old-fashioned car from the 1920s with a bunch of laughing and smoking people come up to him and pick him up to take him to a party where he meets people such as the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Pablo Picasso and realizes he's time traveled back to the 1920s and does this every night at midnight where he gives his manuscript to Gertrude Stein to read. He goes back and fourth from the 1920s and present day and falls in love with a free-spirited French woman (Marion Cotillard) while he and his bride-to-be are having problems back in the present day. I can see why this is Allen's highest-grossing movie to date. It won't win Best Picture but I think it has a very good chance of winning Best Original Screenplay.

3. The Artist - A black and white silent movie made in 2011? Call me crazy, but I actually thought it was pretty good! There were scenes that made me smile like the one where Peppy Miller is getting close to George Valentine's coat. And Uggie has to be the cutest dog onscreen since Verdell from As Good as it Gets.

4. Moneyball - I hate sports and I hate math, so I was all prepared to hate this movie which is all about baseball and trading players and money and statistics and other fun things with numbers that should have bored me to tears, but the script did a good job of explaining things and kept everything interesting. Brad Pitt as Oakland A's manager Billy Beane is good as is Jonah Hill, the young kid from Yale  he hires who has a method for choosing players. I just saw this movie tonight so maybe I'm feeling charitable placing it so high. If I'm being honest, numbers 4-6 I probably liked about the same.

5. Hugo - I hate 3-D, but this movie does it well and the entire look of the film is absolutely gorgeous. It is a lovely tribute to the Golden Age of cinema even though it does get a little eye roll inducing at times. A fine movie, but I thought The Artist was the better "love letter" to old cinema.

6. The Descendants - Like I mentioned in my review for it, this is my favorite Alexander Payne movie and George Clooney is great in it and if he won the Oscar for Best Actor, it would be fully deserved. It may seem a little low to rank it at #6, but I guess that means I liked most of the movies that were nominated for Oscars because I thought this was a pretty good movie....just liked five others a little better!

7. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - I probably like this one and War Horse about the same. They weren't bad, but there were some problems. This one, for instance, I didn't understand why this kid went all over the city to talk to people to find out about this mystery key he found in his dad's closet after his dad died on 9/11. It was stated earlier that the kid had a hard time talking to strangers and now he's just talking to so many people a day and then all he had to do....well I don't want to spoil the ending, but it made me go, "Really?" Well, there were things I did like about this movie and I thought it was touching and it made me cry so it did touch me.

8. War Horse - Pretty movie and it made me cry (I cry at pretty much every movie, so that really doesn't mean anything!) Not Speilberg's best and dragged a bit at times. Still, a decent enough movie.

9. Tree of Life - Oh, God. Okay. I know a lot of critics and people (mostly those who are huge movie buffs) LOVED this movie and are all talking about how it changed their life. I can respect that if you are one of those people. However, I could not get into this movie. At all. I like the occasional movie that makes me think and would like to think I am a philosophical person - you would be surprised at some of the things I have pondered, but I do not think I am spiritual enough to "get" this movie. I think another thing it had going against it was that it had Terrance Malick as its director. Dear God, I have never been able to get through one of his movies...this is the first one of his I've watched all the way through. His films just bore me. I don't mind movies that aren't always in the traditional linear storyline, but this one just seemed to be all over the place. There's this whole segment about the creation of earth that's put in towards the beginning of the movie. If I wanted to see how the earth was created, I would watch a documentary about it on the Discovery Channel and hopefully it would be narrated (by Morgan Freeman with any luck) so I would know what was going on and learn something. There are dinosaurs in this movie. It was cool to see dinosaurs but I couldn't help thinking that they were probably thinking, "Uh, we ain't  in Jurassic Park!" Yes, I know computer animations don't think; that's how bored I was! The main plot revolves around a family in Texas with Brad Pitt as the stern father to three young boys; one of whom grows up to be Sean Penn who is in a few scenes. Even Sean Penn has said he doesn't know what this movie is about and he's one of the most pretentious douches in Hollywood! My DVD came with a message before the movie started saying that I should have my volume all the way up to get the maximum effect or something like that. I didn't do that, but I kind of understood why they had that. There's barely any dialogue in the movie and when there is, it's almost like you're being dropped into the middle of a conversation and sometimes the person's voice is really low or a whisper, so it's hard to hear. There is no soundtrack to this movie...when music is played, it's usually a record or a piano that the characters are also hearing, but other than that you just hear the sounds of nature in the background. The ending was just a big WTF. Like, it did not end at all. I really can't blame people for walking out of this, but at the same time, they should have educated themselves and have seen what the movie was going to be like before they went to it. I know some people don't like watching trailers or reading reviews because they might be spoiled, but I always make sure I know what a movie is going to be like before I go see it. It doesn't always mean I'll love it, but I only have myself to blame if I don't like it. My parents saw this movie when it came out in the theaters and I was shocked when my mom told me this because I, being the educated film nerd (haha) knew the response this movie was getting and how critics loved it, but it was polarizing for audiences. My parents aren't huge movie nerds so I have no idea what possessed them to see this one. She said she and my dad were either going to see this one or Midnight in Paris, which is way more up their alley. Needless to say they thought the movie was weird and didn't like it that much. I told them the next time they're not sure about a movie, they need to call me and I can tell them a little about it and probably predict if they will like it or not! If there's anything positive I can say about this movie it's that it did have some beautiful images and it does provoke discussion!

Now it's time for my predictions!

Best Picture:
The Artist
The Descendants
Hugo
War Horse
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
Midnight in Paris
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The Help


I really wish the Academy would go back to five pictures instead of this new "at least five but no more than ten" non-sense. You know, it they had just nominated The Dark Knight back in 2009, none of this would have happened! It's kind of a pain having to watch all these movies! Anyway, I would be shocked if The Artist didn't win. It already won the Bafta and GG for Best Musical/Comedy and it's the clear frontrunner.

Best Director:
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Michael Hazanavicius, The Artist
Terrance Malick, The Tree of Life
Alexander Payne, The Descendants
Martin Scorses, Hugo


This reminds me of the category last year when you had a bunch of seasoned directors and one newcomer and the newbie won. Now here you have four seasoned directors and one (fairly) new director (Hazanavicius) and like with Tom Hooper winning for The King's Speech last year, Hazanavicius (I feel like I am always spelling his name wrong) will win this year. You can't deny the DGA he's already won; whoever wins that always wins Best Director Oscar. I can't even think of a time when that didn't happen. I am secretly rooting for fellow Omaha native Alexander Payne to take it though, but hopefully he can win a Best Screenplay Oscar!

Best Actor: 

George Clooney, The Descendants

Brad Pitt, Moneyball

Jean Dujardin, The Artist

Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Damian Bichir, A Better Life

It's hard to believe this is Gary Oldman's FIRST oscar nomination! I have not seen his or Bichir's movies. All signs point to Dujardin winning this - he's already won the Golden Globe (comedy), Bafta, and SAG. His Oscar win would be very deserving; however I wouldn't be totally surprised if George Clooney won. He may already have an (undeserved, IMO) Oscar for Best Supporting Oscar for Syriana back in 2006, but he is George Clooney and Hollywood likes to kiss ass. I'm going to predict Dujadin (because the Oscars are always predictable), but won't be totally surprised if Clooney sneaks in a win. I hope if Dujardin wins, he jumps all over the seats just like the last European man to win one of these!

Best Actress: 

Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs

Meryl Strep, The Iron Lady

Viola Davis, The Help

Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn

Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

You know, even if Meryl Streep was a sure thing to win the Oscar, I still wouldn't want to see The Iron Lady because that movie looks SO boring to me! I also haven't seen Albert Nobbs or My Week with Marilyn. I like Meryl Streep, but I feel like she is nominated for everything she's in. I have no doubt she's good as Margaret Thatcher, but should she really have been nominated for Julie and Julia? The Devil Wears Prada? The Music of Our Hearts or whatever that one was called? It's like stop already! Meryl may be 60 something but she's still got plenty of time to win another Oscar. Look at Christopher Plummer .... he's 82 and he's going to win his first Oscar tomorow! Why don't we wait ten or so more years before we give Meryl another Oscar, okay? Meryl may have won the Golden Globe (but she always wins those - she's Meryl freaking Streep!) and the Bafta (well they are the British Oscars and she did play a famous British person in her movie!), but I think (well, hope anyway) that Viola Davis (who won the SAG) will end up victorious this Sunday. As much as I love Octavia Spencer in that movie as well, if only one person could win an Oscar from that movie, I would want it to be Viola.

Best Supporting Actor:

Kenneth Branagh, My Week with Marilyn

Jonah Hill, Moneyball

Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Max Von Sydow, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Nick Nolte, Warrior

That nomination for Nick Nolte came out of nowhere, didn't it? Well, it doesn't matter because Christopher Plummer is winning this one. He's the one that's a sure bet. The supporting actor category is mostly reserved for elderly actors that the Academy want to recognize before they die. Of course there are exceptions. Poor Max von Sydow; I think he's the same age as Plummer, but Plummer has the edge because he's more well known and more beloved. I have seen his, Von Sydow's, and Hill's movies.

Best Supporting Actress:

Octavia Spencer, The Help

Jessica Chastain, The Help

Berenice Bejo, The Artist

Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs

Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids

The only nominee in this group I haven't seen is McTeer. I think everyone was really good and while it would be really cool for Melissa McCarthy to win - because you never see a comedic performance win an Oscar - it is going to be Octavia Spencer. Hey, she may not have done THAT in a sink, but she did make a very special pie! 

Weekly Movie #7

The Descendants
Director: Alexander Payne
Cast: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Matthew Lillard, Judy Greer
Released: December 9, 2011
Viewed in theaters: February 16, 2012

Oscar nominations:
Best Picture (lost to The Artist)
Best Director - Alexander Payne (lost to Michel Hazanavicus for The Artist)
Best Actor - George Clooney (lost to Jean Dujardin for The Artist)
Best Adapted Screenplay - Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, and Jim Rash (won)
Best Editing (lost to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)

Living in Omaha I know I should be a huge fan of Alexander Payne and while it's cool that some of his movies have been set in my - and his - hometown (like Election and About Schmidt), I'm not a really big fan of his movies. They're by no means awful, just not my particular cup of tea. However, I have to say I really liked The Descendants and can say with absolute certainty that it is my favorite Alexander Payne movie.

Instead of taking place in Nebraska, like most Payne movies, this place take in Hawaii and while they do show the beautiful (and required) shots of gorgeous sunsets and photographic beaches, they also show the everyday life of Hawaii and what probably most residents of the 50th (or is Alaska the 50th?...hmmm.....) state are accustomed to. Hawaiians: they're just like us! (Except they have palm trees and nicer weather!)

George Clooney plays Matt King, a father of two girls who describes himself as the "back up parent". His wife is the one who takes care of their daughters while he is busy with work. His family owns quite a big percentage of land and he has to decide if he's going to keep or sell it. When his wife is in a bad boating accident and is told she most likely won't wake up from her coma, he has to learn how to be a parent again to 17 year old Alexandra (Shailene Woodley - she played Felicity in one of those American Girl TV movies! I had the Felicity doll!) and her little sister, Scottie (some annoying actress). Alexandra has been living in a boarding school because she's had problems with drugs and little Scottie is just annoying and a brat.

Matt never had a good relationship with his wife to begin with, so it's not a total surprise to the audience when we find out - along with him - that his wife had been having an affair with some guy Alex saw her mom with. Haha, when I first saw the guy I was thinking how much he looked like Matthew Lillard and it turned out it was him, duh. No offense to Lillard, but if you were married to George Clooney, why would you be having an affair with Matthew Lillard. That just does not make any sense! Well, at any rate, Matt finds out who the guy is and where to find him and confronts him about how he knows but is discreet about it because the other guy is married with two young boys.

I think this movie's strongest contenders for winning an Oscar are Best Adapted Screenplay and possibly Best Actor. So far Jean Dujardin has been winning most of the awards, but I wouldn't be totally surprised if Clooney came away with a win. His performance in this is much better than when he won in 2005 for Best Supporting Actor for Syriana.  His Oscar would feel deserved and it wouldn't feel like they were giving it to him because he's George Clooney (which is what I felt when he won back then).

Stay tuned for my upcoming posts where I'll rank the nine Best Picture nominees and post my predictions for the Oscars!