Trading Holidays

Switchmas

Director: Sue Corcoran

Cast: Elliot Gould, David DeLuise, Angela DiMarco, Elijah Nelson, Justin Howell

Released: November 1, 2012

This is another Christmas gem I found on Netflix. It reminded me of a kids' version of The Holiday. Remember that movie where Kate Winslet lives in London and Cameron Diaz lives in L.A. and they decide to switch houses for the holidays? This wasn't a TV movie though, it was a small independent movie. I watched the trailer for it and it was called All I Want is Christmas. I guess that was an earlier name for it. That name is way too generic and Switchmas is much more clever and more memorable. 

In this film, 12 year old Ira Finklestein is a Jewish kid who lives in Hollywood with his movie producer dad and party planner mom. He loves Christmas and wants to do all the traditional things people who celebrate Christmas do around the holidays such as decorate a Christmas tree, sing Christmas carols, and look at Christmas lights. He is looking forward to a trip to Aspen for winter vacation because this will be the first time in his life he will see snow. However his dad gets an opportunity to make his big break as a director as he gets a big "name" to headline his weird sci-fi holiday movie. They have to cancel because Jennifer Cameo can only film during that time. Since both parents will be busy they decide to send Ira to Florida to visit his grandparents who he hasn't seen in a few years. 

Meanwhile, Mikey Amato is a kid the same age as Ira who lives in Chicago. He lives with his single mother and since she has to work over the holiday break, she's sending him to Washington where her sister lives with her family. Mikey hasn't seen his aunt, uncle, or three cousins for 5 years. His dad can't take him because he'll be with his new girlfriend. 

Ira has a stopover in Chicago and he meets Mikey in a room in the airport where both boys are wearing passes so the airline knows they are unaccompanied minors. They start chatting and Mikey says he wishes he could go somewhere warm and Ira gets jealous when Mikey tells him he's going to a town called Christmastown! What could be better for a kid enamoured with Christmas? Since both boys are the same age and both have dark hair, Ira gets the idea for them to switch jackets and passes and gives Mikey his glasses (luckily his mom gave him his extra pair). They also exchange phone numbers. It's off to Florida for Mikey and off to Christmastown for Ira.

Even though Ira's grandparents haven't seen him for a few years and Mikey's aunt, uncle, and cousins haven't seen him in a few years, I found it hard to believe that they didn't immediately know they had the wrong kid because you think they would get school photos each year or have Facebook. But both kids go with each family without question.

Christmastown is the kind of place Ira has dreamed about going to for years. There's snow, everything is decorated with lights, his "family" has a huge Christmas tree, and he gets to go to the Christmas carnival the next afternoon with his "cousins". I thought there was going to be an awkward moment when Ira gets a crush on his "cousin" Claire who's about his age, you know like a George Michael Bluth/Maebe Funke situation. He never gets a crush on her; if anything, Claire seems to have the crush on her "cousin" - and she really thinks he's her cousin! But she does find out his secret a few days before the cat's out of the bag and they're just really good friends.

Ira still celebrates Chanukah every night by creating a makeshift menorah. He bribes his oldest "cousin", Jessica, into taking him, Claire, and Kyle to the Christmas carnival by giving her $50, all of his spending money his parents gave him for the trip. He has a credit card his dad gave him that he's only suppose to use in emergencies and since all his spending money is gone and there are tons of shops to buy Christmas ornaments, trinkets, and goodies, he declares this an emergency. 

At one store that sells all holiday things, he buys a mini menorah. Claire comes into the store when the saleswoman is wising him a happy Chanukah and calling him Ira, the name on the card. Claire questions him about that and be says Ira is his dad's name even though Claire knows him as "Uncle Steve". After a bully, Jack the Jerk, trashes the items Ira bought and has his dog chase him (it was established earlier in the movie that Ira is afraid of dogs), he calls Mikey, telling him he wants to trade back, but Mikey is having a grand old time in sunny Florida with his "grandparents". 

After getting a pep talk and some inspiration from a Jewish Santa, Ira gets the idea to put on a holiday pageant show after Claire shows him her secret spot, an old rundown stage. This is when he reveals to her that he is not actually her cousin and he knows about productions because his dad is in the movie business. They began working on the script (Claire even writes her own song) and casting for the pageant. Everything is ruined, however, when Jack the Jerk and his bully friends have totally trashed the stage and all the props the day of the play. The night before, Ira and Claire were putting up fliers for it and happened to come across Jack's trailer park home where he lives with his mean father. Right away we figure out why Jack's such a bully. His father is threatening to take Killer, Jack's dog, back to the pound because he can't afford to feed another mouth. Feeling sorry for Jack, the two kids take Killer back to Claire's house so he doesn't have to go to the pound (and Ira finds out he's actually a very sweet dog). Jack, not realizing they were only trying to save his dog, thinks they kidnapped him even though he told him to run away. (He saw Killer walk off with Ira and Claire). This is why he trashes their stage play. But after Claire gives him a good lecture, he and his friends help out with the production.

Meanwhile in Florida, Mikey is pretending he knows the words to a Jewish song (he just inserts random words into the medley) and is enjoying his spare time at the pool, the beach, or the tennis courts with his "grandparents". He falls off a fence while climbing it and breaks his arm. His grandparents call the parents and they fly out to Florida where they eventually find out that their son is not there. They find out where Ira is and the parents, the grandparents, and Mikey all fly to Washington just in time for the play. It seems a little implausible that Ira's parents could fly from L.A. to Florida to Washington in one day what with having to go through airport security and driving to their locations and the airports and still making it in time for the play, but whatever. Mikey's mom is also there because her sister thought it would be nice to fly her out so she could spend the holidays with her son. Even though Ira has been found out, the play goes on and it's a big hit and his father is very proud of him.

This was a very cute, charming little Christmas (and Jewish!) film. The only thing I really didn't like was when they spent time with Ira's father and mother on the set of the movie with their difficult star. I found those scenes to be boring and wanted to get back to the kids, especially Ira's story. The tagline of the movie is "Jingle all the oh vey!" which cracks me up

They're singing Deck the Halls, but it's not like Christmas at all

The Mistle-Tones!

Director: Paul Hoen

Cast: Tia Mowry, Tori Spelling, Reginald VelJohnson

Aired: December 9, 2012

This is another ABC Family and Cinematic Sara presents. I couldn't resist; I had to watch and review another ABC Family TV Christmas movie! This time it was a movie that took advantage of the popularity of Pitch Perfect which was released earlier in 2012. All I knew about it was that Tia Mowry's character is a singer who forms a group and challenges her rival for the chance to sing at the mall on Christmas Eve. My first thought was, Her rival is going to be played by Tamara Mowry and she's going to find out she has a long lost twin!!! Just like in Sister, Sister! Remember that show from the '90s? Was that part of the TGIF lineup? Was it even on ABC? I don't even remember. Didn't the more laid-back, don't give a crap attitude twin live with the strict, uptight adoptive father (Tim Reid) and the more studious, organized, and rational twin live with the ditzy, unorganized, and fly by the seat of her pants adoptive mother? (Played by national treasure, Jackee (Jac-kay!)) But like I said, I haven't seen that show in years! But alas, Tia's sister (sister!) isn't in this movie.

So Tia plays Holly (oh, movie, you did not give our main character a very Christmas-themed name!) who is looking forward to trying out for a group called the Snow Belles who sing at the mall's annual Deck the Mall show every Christmas Eve. This means a lot to Holly because her mom was a Snow Belle and she has since passed. I can't even remember if they addressed how or why her mom died. She barely makes it to the audition on time and the head Snow Belle, Marcy (played by Tori Spelling...you should have heard me squeal when I saw her name in the credits...I am always overjoyed to see any of my BH 90210 alums in anything! It also made me laugh because I have a longstanding joke with my brother about her because he cannot stand her!) doesn't want her to audition even though she still has ten minutes left and belts out "O Holy Night" anyway. I am very impressed with Tia Mowry's voice unless they dubbed in someone else's, but I assume it's her. I mean, she's no Adele (but who is?), but it's obvious she should easily make it into the group. 

However, Marcy calls her the next day to tell her she did not make it in and they decided to go with another girl. This is because Marcy wants to be the best singer in the group and letting in Holly would change that fact! Holly goes to the mall and asks the manager (who is also doing double duty as the mall Santa...they must be really short of help!) and gives him the idea of instead of having the Snow Belles sing, they should have a competition where different groups can sing the week before Christmas Eve and the one who wins will get the honor to perform at the real show. Holly realizes she needs to get a group, so she quickly gets some people from her work: her goofball friend and cool dude AJ; the chubby Asian, Larry who everyone thinks is gay but is surprised to learn he's married to a woman...a tall, thin, and beautiful woman, no less!;  and Bernie, the nerdy redhead in HR who has the "voice of an angel". 

Marcy, who has a spy and knows that Holly has talked to the manager about letting different groups try out for Deck the Mall, goes to him when he's once again playing Santa and threatens him when he has a little girl on his lap. It is hilarious because we see through the POV of the young girl as "Santa" covers her ears and we hear a long muffled string of expletives come from Marcy. 

We see a montage of the Snow Belles and Holly's new group singing and dancing to "The 12 Days of Christmas" and I did not like the way it was arranged! They just totally butchered the way it is usually sung and why mess with something that doesn't need to be fixed? My favorite version of that song is sung by Ray Conniff and random females singers. It's a very festive song. Their voices are decent (but it was hard to tell since I hated the arrangement so much!), but their choreography is way off and they can never stay in sync.

One evening Holly crashes her car into a snowdrift and goes into a bar where they're having karaoke that night ("Yule love it!" proclaims the sign) while she waits for help to arrive. An announcer tells everyone it's time for the "King of Karaoke" and we hear a guy with a great voice start singing "Burnin' Love" and we don't see him until Holly looks up. Right away I KNEW it was her boss, Nick. He's a young and attractive guy, but he's a hard-ass with no sense of fun. He's dressed in jeans and a leather jacket and going around the bar singing to all the women. Holly's "Oh. My. God!" reaction is hilarious. Seeing him in this kind of environment is completely foreign to her. She confronts him afterwards and he is totally embarrassed and she blackmails him into helping her group because she has taken a video of the whole performance and threatens to publish it on the Internet and since he doesn't want anyone to see this fun side of him, he grudgingly agrees. He tells the group they need a name and after a few lame names like "Sled Leppin", "The Backstreet Joys", and "Snow Time" (it's like Show Time, but it's Snow Time!), Holly comes up with the Mistle-Tones, which wasn't a huge reveal since it's the name of the movie! 

A romance blossoms between Holly and Nick (and who didn't see that one coming? I wasn't born yesterday, ABC Family!) as they start to spend more time with each other. She eventually deletes the karaoke video (I at least hoped she saved it onto her computer!). Holly goes to sign up for the Christmas Duel at the mall and there are already five pages with about twenty groups on each page. Good thing we only see snippets of each group because that would take forever! (We actually only see three groups before The Mistle-Tones and The Snow Belles perform.) I was hoping for a Battle of the Groups sing-off ala Pitch Perfect where each group has to come up with a Christmas song on the whim and perform it in a certain style. That would have been amazing! But that might have been a little difficult if there were 100 groups trying out! Well, the mall manager says there's only 20 groups trying out, but judging from those five pages, it looked like a lot more! We see the Chest Notes, a group with five buff guys who are shirtless and only wearing jeans and Santa Hats and bowties swaying their butts and flexing their pecs..it's like they walked out of Magic Mike and into an ABC Family movie! Then we see a white skinny guy who calls himself Ludi-Chris Kringle and he raps "Away in a Manger" and it's like, no. Then we see some tweens perform an awful rendition of "O Christmas Tree." 

The Mistle-Tones are up next and are waiting for Nick, but he isn't there. Why? Because last night he was offered a job to oversee the overseas department in Asia...or something, I don't know, but the workaholic chose the job over Holly and staying in...whatever town they live in. But still the show must go on and they sing "Winter Wonderland" which was also the song Holly sang with Nick last night at the Office Christmas Party. AJ had brought in a karaoke machine and Nick decided it was time to share his special talent with the people he works with. 

However, even though they did a fine job, they weren't good enough to beat The Snow Belles singing "All I Want For Christmas Is You." How much residual money do you think Mariah Carey has gotten from that one song alone? Obviously the most famous example it's used in is Love, Actually but there are so many Christmas TV movies out there and I'm sure this isn't the only movie that uses that song. She probably has a summer home in the Bahamas that she bought just with "All I Want For Christmas is You" money alone. 

Speaking of people with money, the Snow Belles must have a lot of it because they wear these beautiful red intricate gowns at the duel, but then at the actual Deck the Mall performance, they are all wearing green beaded dresses! Feeling low that she's not able to sing (she really wanted to sing the closing song her mom would always end with: "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)". But as she's walking through the streets with her family and co-workers, a float comes by and it's Nick singing...you guessed it, "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)." He's singing the U2 version. I like that song just fine, but honestly, I like the Mariah Carey version better. I love "All I Want For Christmas is You" as much as the next person, but it drives me crazy that she has so many other great Christmas songs that are never played and this one is a great example. Nick has decided to come back to this town he lives in because he realized he didn't want the job after all and he wants to stay here and be with Holly so Holly joins him and sings with him and everyone is gathered around their float and even the SnowBelles (minus Marcy cuz she's a huge bitch!) come out to watch the fun and festivities. 

Wave of Destruction

The Impossible
Director: J.A. Bayona
Cast: Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, Tom Holland
Released: December 21, 2012

Oscar nominations:
Best Actress - Naomi Watts (lost to Jennifer Lawrence for Silver Lining's Playbook)

This is a true story about a European family vacationing in Thailand for Christmas when they were struck by the 2004 tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands of people. I remember this tsunami and that it killed many people, but what I hadn't realize was how massive it was and how many countries it hit. I thought that Thailand, Indonesia, India, and other countries in that area were hit, but there were also countries on the east coast of Africa that were also hit like Somalia, Madagascar, Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa! Not only are some of those countries not that close to each other, but they are nowhere near Thailand and Indonesia! They didn't suffer as much damage or as many casualties as the Southeast Asian countries that were hit, but that still shocked me. And I had also thought that the tsunami had hit every place at once, but it hadn't. It first hit Indonesia, which had the most casualties, then it hit Thailand and India two hours later and the African countries even later.

The family the movie is centered around - a couple, Maria and Henry (portrayed by Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor) with three young boys (the oldest is no more than 12; the youngest around 5) is British, but the real-life family that went through this awful ordeal were actually Spanish. I don't mind that they changed the nationality of the family. True, they could have easily cast Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas and three young Spanish boys as the family, but then you would have to have the movie in Spanish and I'm guessing the filmmakers thought it would be better for it to be in English to get a bigger audience. I should mention that the director, producer, and writer are all Spanish and they collaborated with Maria Belon, the woman who Naomi Watts plays, so if all of them are okay with a real-life Spanish family being portrayed by a non-Spanish family, then it shouldn't be that big of a deal. And what country they are from really shouldn't matter...their nationality and what language they speak is not important in the grand scheme of things.

The Bennett family has gone to Thailand for a family vacation over the Christmas holiday. Apparently there were a lot of Europeans who were there on holiday when this tragedy occurred. I don't know if this is a common thing for Europeans to take family vacations to other continents, but to me, that idea is just foreign. I have never been, nor do I know anybody who has taken a family vacation to an entirely different country, let alone continent. Now the family is very well off as the mother is a doctor and the father works in business, but why not just go to the many beaches that Europe has to offer? They don't have family in Thailand and it's their first time there so I'm not really sure why they chose to go there, but where they are staying is a very nice resort for people with money.

We see them having a great time, playing on the beach and swimming in the ocean and the pool (why do you need a pool when you are already on the beach?) and enjoying their Christmas together. The day after Christmas they are all out by the pool when suddenly strange things start happening. The wind picks up. Birds are rapidly flying away from the ocean. A small lizard quickly hides underground. One of Maria's pages from her book rips away and lands on a glass wall. When she walks over to pick it up, we see the reflection behind her and she looks at it in horror as she sees the disturbing sight of an 80-foot palm tree just disappear as though it's easily been toppled over, and then sees more trees disappear. That was a really scary and effective image. Before anyone has time to react (Maria quickly yells at her husband who is in the pool with the two youngest boys), this huge wave appears and engulfs the resort.

The effects are very impressive and it's horrifying to think that this actually happened and this family went through this. But as I was watching, I couldn't help thinking why nobody was warned about this and why they weren't trying to evacuate the place. I watched a documentary on the tsunami and found out why this was. There are about 80 censors in the Pacific Ocean that alert a tsunami detection center in Hawaii if there is a change in the ocean that could cause a tsunami and then they can alert other countries that could be affected by this and give people plenty of time to evacuate beaches and get to safety. At the time of the 2004 tsunami, such a system did not exist in the Indian Ocean and there was only time to alert the nations of Africa when the tsunami struck.

Maria and Lucas, the oldest son, are separated from Henry and the two younger boys, Simon and Thomas. When watching this movie, I wasn't familiar with this family's story and had no idea if they all survived or not. I figured at least one of the adults had survived to be able to tell their story, but it you watch the trailer (which I did after I watched the movie), you already know that everyone survives the initial impact of the wave. Surprisingly everyone gets out unscathed aside from a few bruises and scratches. Maria gets the worse of the injuries. She is poked in the stomach by branches while the water is rushing all around her and when she and Lucas are walking to find a tree to climb up, there is a huge piece of skin hanging off the back of her leg and you see a huge chunk of her muscle. (The make-up artists did a great job.) Surprisingly, Maria never really cried out in pain (except when she's climbing the tree) and I figured that it had to be due to shock and the will to survive. The huge chunk of missing skin is not the most graphic part of the movie. No, that would be the scene where Maria is in the hospital and throws up. It was so graphic that I thought she was throwing up her intestines (I know, I know), but later found out it was branches and leaves she had swallowed.

The film focuses on Maria and Lucas quite a lot during the first third, but then turns its attention to the others. I thought they were going to show the tsunami through their POV, but instead we find out what happened to them through a quick narrative: Henry was scared when he couldn't find his sons, but was quickly relieved when he saw them in a tree. How these two young boys managed to get out with barely a scrape and quickly found a way out of harm's way, (with presumably no help), I'll never know, but the movie doesn't think it's important to show us how they survived, but that they just did. Henry sends his two children on a bus that is going to the mountains and asks a woman to look after them so he can continue his search for his wife and eldest son. I understand that he wanted to continue to look for them in case they needed help, but I thought he should have stayed with the children he already knew were alive so they would at least still have one live parent left. The best scenario would be that someone had already found Maria and Lucas and was helping them (which was what happened). The worst scenario would be that they are both dead and there would be nothing he could do about it anyway.

This movie made me cry several times so I'm glad I watched it alone in the privacy of my apartment. While Thomas is in the hospital he helps family members be reunited and tries to help find others' loved one. One Swedish father and son are reunited and I bawled. I bawled when Henry called family members back home to tell them he was okay but didn't know the fate of his wife and Lucas yet. And I bawled when they were all reunited, though, I have to wonder how accurate their reunion was. It seemed awfully convenient that Henry ended up at the hospital his wife and son were at, plus the two young boys were there too. I have to imagine that this did not happen in real life, but it was more cinematic and dramatic this way. It still amazes me that this actually happened to this family and they are all very lucky to be alive!

Insert Coin

Wreck-It Ralph

Director: Rich Moore

Voice Talent: John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch, Alan Tudyk

Released: November 2, 2012

Oscar nominations:

Best Animated Movie (lost to Brave)

This movie and Brave were the only movies nominated for the animated feature Oscar I saw and while I liked both, I would have voted for Wreck-It Ralph to win. Even though I'm not a video game aficionado, I thought this was a cute and enjoyable movie. The only games I remember playing at the arcade are Pac Man, Super Mario Bros., and any race car game where I always managed to crash within a matter of seconds. I used to frequent the arcade at West Ridge Mall (Topeka, KS - holla!), but I cannot remember what it was called.  

Like in the world of Toy Story where the toys come to life after humans have left the room, these are characters in video games that come to life after the arcade closes. Not only do they live inside their arcade machine, but they live within the world of their game. Wreck-It Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly) is the villain of his '80s game, Fix-It Felix Jr. He's a big guy who goes on a rampage and smashes the windows and bricks of the Niceland Apartments until Fix-It Felix Jr. comes along with his magic hammer and makes everything as good as new again. Felix (voiced by 30 Rock's Jack McBrayer) and the other residents of Niceland live in the penthouse of the apartment while Ralph lives nearby at the dump. The characters can interact within other video game worlds and and they travel through the power cords and get to them through the Central Gaming Station. Once the arcade opens, they must be back in their own game ready to be played. 

Ralph has been going to a support group called Bad Anon where he and other villains of video games get together (at the Pac-Man game since it is hosted by one of the little ghosts that chase Pac-Man around) and discuss their feelings on being the villain of their games. Besides the Pac-Man villain, I only recognized the dragon from Super Mario Bros. and there were a lot of characters in that scene. Ralph reveals his feelings about how under appreciated he feels in his game and that he wasn't even invited to the 30th anniversary celebration of his own game (and Pac Man was!) He gets into an argument with the other characters from his game and one of them tells him when he gets his own medal (because Felix is always rewarded with a medal at the end of the game while Ralph is tossed off the building), he can live in the penthouse with everyone else. Ralph takes this seriously and sets off to find his own medal. This takes him to a modern first-person shooter type of game called Hero's Duty where he meets a Lara Croft-like character named Calhoun (voiced by Jane Lynch) who has my favorite line in the movie: "Armageddon and Doomsday just had a baby....and it is ugly!" The object of this game is to kill a bunch of bugs...and there are a lot of bugs. Through a mix up he ends up in a girly race car game called Sugar Rush. And if that game had really existed when I was younger, I would have so been all over that! There he meets and develops a friendship (an antagonizing one at times!) with Vaneloppe Von Schweetz, a character who has a glitch and is therefore forbidden to be picked by a gamer to play. She is voiced by Sarah Silverman who most people usually don't associate with animated children's films! King Candy (voiced by Alan Tudky) is the ruler of the land of Sugar Rush and is the villain of the film. There is a reason why he is making sure Vaneloppe never participates in the races, but telling would be spoiling! 

Sugar Rush! 

There are a few huh moments like why in a racing game there would be branches that disappear when you step on them and why you would need vines to get out of quicksand. They work for the the use of the characters, but as somebody playing the actual game, they don't make any sense. While Ralph is in Sugar Rush, Calhoun and Felix go in there together to get him out because if Ralph doesn't get back to his game, it will be defected and will be shut down forever. Lots of action in this film, just like you would find in a video game. I loved the ending credits where they pay homage to classic video game graphics. 

Video Review

My special guest star, Cameron, and I review Breaking Dawn: Part 2, the FINAL movie in the Twilight saga. 

12 '12 Reviews

1. Rock of Ages 
Director - Adam Shankman

This was a fun watch, a musical with all '80s songs. Being someone who was born in the '80s, it is in my nature to love the music from that decade. Most of the songs are great and '80s classics. I say "most" because I really hated the song, "I Wanna Rock", because those are the only words sung, more likely, screamed, during the song. But for the most part they had great songs: "Don't Stop Believing" (of course!), "Sister Christian", "Any Way You Want It" (Loved Mary J. Blige sining that - I would totally buy an album if she ever covered '80s songs...actually, I would just listen to them on Spotify for free!), "We're Not Going to Take It," and "We Built This City on Rock and Roll" to name just a few. "Paradise City" by Guns n Roses is the first song played and I must say the best rendition of that song in a movie is still from Can't Hardly Wait.  Tom Cruise was totally sleazy as Stacie Jaxx, the aging rock star. The reveal of Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand telling each other they had feelings for each other reminded me of that scene in Love, Actually with Bill Nighy and the rotund guy.

2. The Avengers 
Director - Joss Whedon

Oscar nominations:
Best Visual Effects (lost to Life of Pi)

I think I'm the only person in the world who didn't see this movie in the theaters. Of course, I'm also probably the only person who didn't see all the movies that led up to this one. I did see both Iron Man films before and I saw Captain America....after I saw The Avengers! I haven't seen Thor or Hulk. Of course, you have to keep in mind that for the longest time, I thought the character of Thor was invented for Adventure in Baby-Sitting. Wouldn't that be awesome if that were the case? I'm sure I would have seen this movie eventually, regardless, but I was super excited that Joss Whedon directed it because he's just about the coolest person on the earth. I mean, he created Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one of my favorite TV shows. The Avengers is a very fun and enjoyable movie, but I don't know if I would call it the best comic book movie ever...but it's probably the most fun.



3. Flight (viewed in theaters November 12, 2012)
Director - Robert Zmeckis

Oscar nominations:
Best Actor - Denzel Washington (lost to Daniel Day-Lewis for Lincoln)
Best Original Screenplay - John Gatins (lost to Quentin Tarantino for Django Unchained)

 This was one of the movies where I didn't really like it as I was watching it, but after thinking about it for a couple days, realized I did like it. It just got a little long-winded sometimes, but I would watch this movie again before I ever saw Les Miz or The Dark Knight Rises again. Denzel Washington's Best Actor Oscar nomination was very well-deserved. This is one of those movies where the acting is better than the movie. Denzel plays Whit Whitaker, an airline pilot who is also an alcoholic and a drug user. On a flight from Orlando to Atlanta, something terrible happens and the plane will crash if he doesn't do something. He turns the plane - a 747 - upside down and when he lands, only a few people are killed...if he hadn't done what he had done, most likely everyone would have died, so he is hailed a hero. Now I'm pretty sure it's near impossible to turn a giant airplane upside down, but those were some pretty spectacular visual effects! The NTSB is looking into the cause of the crash and Whitaker's attorney, played by Don Cheadle, tells him to get rid of all his alcohol and not do anything stupid, like drink while in public. There's a romance between Whit and a recovering female addict, but that just felt like filler to me. I won't spoil anything for those who haven't seen the movie, but there's a great, intense scene that involves a hotel room and a mini bar stocked with small bottles of whiskey, gin, and vodka and you're wondering if he's going to give in to temptation or not. You think the ending might go one way, but then they throw you a curveball and it goes into another way, unless you were already expecting it! This movie was directed by Robert Zmeckis of Forrest Gump and Back to the Future fame.

4. Pitch Perfect
Director - Jason Moore

 This movie reminded me a lot of Bring It On, just replace Anna Kendrick with Kirsten Dunst and acapella singing with cheerleading. Anna Kedrick plays Becca, a new student at Bardem college. She wants to be a DJ, but her Dad disapproves and wants her to have a college eduction so she'll at least have other choices in her life. He tells her to join one school club and if she hates the experience after her first year at college, he'll pay for her to move to L.A. so she can peruse her DJ dream. She joins the Bardem Bellas, the female acapella singing group who have a rivalry with the male acapella group, The Treblemakers. They perform at the finals where Elizabeth Bank is a judge who used to be an acapella singer in her prime and was in a group called The Minstrel Cycles. Rebel Wilson steals the movie as "Fat Amy" (whose real name is Patricia!) For some reason, I assumed she was American and they had made her character Australian because it would be funny (Australians are funny!), but I learned she is actually an Aussie. So that makes her even cooler because Aussies are cool too! Some of the characters are very cartoonish, like this one girl who talked so softly you could barely hear her and when she did speak, she would say the creepiest/weirdest things like, "You guys wanna see a dead body?" and "I ate my twin in the womb." The latter made me laugh so hard and go "WTF??!?!?" The group leader is this really bitch girl who always insists on the group singing the same song - The Ace of Base classic, "The Sign" and gets angry at Becca when she suggests the group do mash-ups of more modern songs. There's a really cool mash up of Bruno Mar's "Just the Way You Are" and Nelly's "Just a Dream" which was my favorite song in the movie. Oh, and there's this whole thing where Becca's potential love interest is trying to make her watch The Breakfast Club (apparently she doesn't like movies...what kind of crazyness is that?) and it reminded me of how there was a Breakfast Club connection in Easy A, too. The only thing I didn't like about Pitch Perfect was that it got too cartoonish. It's fine to be silly. Bring It On was silly, but never got overly cartoonish like this movie did at times. Let's just say there's a scene involving vomit that in no way could ever be realistic in any world; it was just way too over the top. It did involve a really gross, but hilarious moment as a result of it, though. This movie is probably tied with Stand By Me for most disgusting vomit scene!


5.  The Guilt Trip (viewed in theaters January 6, 2013)
Director - Anne Fletcher

Slight spoilers

I saw this with my friend Cameron. This was the first movie (in the theater) we had seen of the New Year and we both realized we saw the first movie of last year together as well. (New Year's Eve...yes, we saw New Year's Eve on New Year's Day!) Barbara Streisand and Seth Rogan are a mother/son duo who go on a road trip together. Andy, the son, lives in L.A. and has flown to New York where Joyce, his mother, lives because he's trying to sell this cleaning product and has a trip scheduled with stops on the way of where he has meeting with clients. After he learns a revealing fact about his mother - before she met her husband, she was madly in love with with another guy, in fact she named her son after him. Deciding his mother would be happier if she had someone in her life (instead of always calling him and harping on him), he invites her to come on his roadtrip with him, without telling her the reason why. The movie is very formulaic and predictable (for instance, I knew Joyce was not going to end up with her ex-sweetheart, but instead with a Texan gentleman she meets on the roadtrip), but Streisand and Rogan have a nice chemistry as mother and son and are very charming together. There's one scene where they're at a restaurant in Texas and Joyce decides to see if she can eat this huge meal in an hour. If she does, they get their meal free. If not, she will have to pay $100. The meal consists of a four-ounce steak, a potato, a salad, a roll, and a shrimp cocktail. There's no way in hell anyone could have done that, especially a woman (not being sexist, but let's face it, guys can shovel in food better than girls!), but somehow she manages to do it!

6. Looper (viewed in theaters September 29, 2012)
Director - Rian Johnson

I love anything that has to do with time travel, so I was very interested in seeing this movie. Plus it doesn't hurt that the director has directed a couple episodes of my favorite TV show ever, Breaking Bad! This movie takes place about sixty years in the future and time travel has been discovered thirty years ago. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis play the same character, Joe. He works for a  mob-like group of killers who are called loopers. They kill people who are sent from the future. (It makes more sense how it's explained in the movie!) The catch is, there's a contract that the younger self must kill his older self at a certain age. Things get a little tricky when the older Joe,  is sent back to be killed by his younger self, but he tricks his younger self and escapes death and now there are two of the same person running around. The second act of the movie goes in a direction I was not expecting at all that includes Emily Blunt (who I did not recognize at all and was shocked when I found out she was in it!) and a creepy kid that has some kind of weird power. They are both connected to the time travel plotline, but it's best not to spoil anything about the movie. To make Joseph Gordon-Levitt look more like Bruce Willis, they changed his eyes and it was REALLY distracting. He just looks weird with Bruce Willis eyes!

7. Magic Mike
Director - Steven Soderbergh

I bet when Steven Soderbegh was making this movie, he was thinking, "KA-CHING!" You know he was thinking how much money he was going to make from all the ladies and gay men who would see this movie and buy the DVDs! Soderbergh came up with this movie with Channing Tatum, the star, who used to be a male stripper. He plays Mike, a male stripper, whose stage name is "Magic Mike". He is the star because he is by far the best dancer. That guy can dance like nobody's business! He does these sideways aerial somersaults/twists. What he does looks looks like it should defy gravity, but yet, somehow he manages to do it. Between this and 21 Jump Street, I must say I am becoming a fan of Channing Tatum. Matthew McConaughey runs the club and it's like if his character from Dazed and Confused grew up to run a strip club because he says "alright, alright" a lot in his Matthew McConaughey-ish way. Mike meets a young guy who gets involved in the show and Mike becomes like a mentor for him, but "The Kid" as Mike dubs him, keeps getting into trouble and is doing a lot of stupid stuff. There's a romantic plotline with Mike and The Kid's sister and the girl who plays her is just awful. She only has one look on her face throughout the movie and doesn't know how to emote. Supposedly Lindsay Lohan was suppose to have a role as a drug dealer, but never showed up and Soderberg didn't want to deal with her and got someone else for the part. It was always funny when the guys were dancing/stripping and the women in the audience would scream and go wild. Hee! Their first act is all the guys going out in trench coats and umbrellas and doing a dance to possibly the gayest song ever, It's Raining Men. I know a woman sings it but it really is, literally, the gayest song ever. There's a scene where Matthew McConaughey is wearing biker shorts and a tight yellow jersey and it's like, no, McConaughey, no. Just no.

8. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Director - John Madden

Spoilers ahoy!

Have you ever noticed that when there's a movie with a bunch of old British people, Maggie Smith is sure to be in the cast? It's true with this movie and it's true with a new movie I saw a preview for about a bunch of old British people in a home and they play violins. And let's not forget Gosford Park! Besides Maggie Smith, the for this movie also includes Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, and Bill Nighy. Judi Dench's Evelyn is the film's narrator and main character. A group of 7 British senior citizens fly to India to stay at The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (for the elderly and the beautiful) run by Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire himself). Evelyn's husband has died recently and she gets a job at a call center where she gives the staff helpful hints on how to talk to the elderly when they call them. Muriel (Smith) is going to India to get a hip replacement because it will be cheaper and she can get one sooner than if she stayed in England. Muriel is a little bit on the racist side, but soon comes to change her tune. Graham (Wilkinson) used to live in India for quite a long time when he was younger and wants to reconnect with a man he had a relationship with. He finds the man who is now married (to a woman) and they embrace for a long time and that made me shed a tear or two! Graham has a heart condition and dies while in India which was inevitable with so many old people in one movie! Douglas (Nighy) and his wife Jean are having marital problems. Jean hates India and becomes a nagging, bitter woman. She flies back to England alone and Douglas goes back to Evelyn who he's started having feelings for. The hotel is not in the best shape when they arrive, but by the end with a little help from Muriel, it starts to thrive again. This was a cute, charming movie, but not overly saccharine.

9. The Amazing Spider-Man
Director - Marc Webb

Even though the first installment of the previous Spider-Man films was only ten (and a half) years ago,  a reboot came out last summer. Instead of Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker/Spier-Man, it's Andrew Garfield who's best known in The Social Network. Sally Field and Martin Sheen play Aunt May and Uncle Ben and when I first saw Martin Sheen (I did not know he was in the movie), I shouted, "It's Bartlett!" (Luckily, I was watching the movie alone.) Emma Stone plays Gwen Stacy, his crush turned sort-of-girlfriend turned girl-he-can't-be-with-so-she-doesn't-become-in-harm's-way. Want to hear something crazy? In the previous Spider-Man movies, Bryce Dallas Howard plays Gwen Stacy and she and Emma Stone were both in The Help. I'm sure this has been pointed out repeatedly already, but I think it's humorous. I wished they had done something, like in a class, have the teacher ask a question, then we'd see a redheaded girl answer and the teacher say, "That's right, Mary Jane." You know, it would be cool if they gave a nod to the previous installment. Even though Gwen is only 17, somehow she works at some fancy science lab - not as an intern or anything, but she seems to be one of the best scientists as she's wearing a fancy white lab coat and giving a tour. At first I thought she was pulling a Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed and was actually a 25 year old posing as a high school student. How the hell does a 17 year old get a job like that?  It's been awhile since I've seen those Spider-Man movies, so I really can't say which one is better. I'd say there about the same. They're not the best movies ever, but they're not terrible. They're both fun, popcorn Friday night kinda movies. Out of the main super heroes (including Superman and Batman), Spiderman is my favorite because I like how he just swings through the city with his web and it's pretty cool how he can scale buildings. Can Superman and Batman do that? I don't think so! The Big Bad in this movie is some guy who turns himself into a lizard. There's a scene where he enters the high school and Peter has to fight him off and Gwen helps him. It reminded me of when the troll charges into Hogwarts in the first Harry Potter movie and Harry, Ron, and Hermione fight him. Then there's another scene where the Lizard Guy is chasing Gwen in the  science building and it's basically a ripoff of that one scene in Jurassic Park because not only does Lizard Guy kinda sound like a velociraptor, but Gwen scurries to hide in a tiny compartment like Lex did. Some things are a little different like Lizard Guy doesn't come charging after her when he sees her, but instead surprises her. It was an entertaining movie. I have no desire to see the next one on the big screen, but I will rent it.

10. Moonrise Kingdom
Director - Wes Anderson

Oscar nominations:
Best Original Screenplay - Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola (lost)

This film is set on a small New England island called New Penzance that is 16 miles wide and has no roads. (A narrator tells us various facts about the picturesque island). The movie revolves around two 12 year olds named Sam and Suzy and takes place in 1965. Sam reminded me of a younger Jason Schartzman from Rushmore and Suzy reminded me of a younger Gwyneth Paltrow from The Royal Tennebaums, both which also happen to be Wes Anderson movies! I don't think that's a coincidence! Sam belongs to the Khacki Scouts (like the Boy Scouts) and is spending the summer camping with them. Suzy is the privileged  oldest child and only girl of four kids and her parents (Bill Murray and Frances MacDormand) are lawyers and her mom is having an affair with the town's sherriff (Bruce Willis). Suzy and Sam met two years ago when his Scout troop saw her performing in a local play about Noah's Ark and he went backstage to talk to her. The two start exchanging letters which results in a cute little montage of them inwardly reading excerpts of the other's letters. Both of them are misunderstood and disliked by their peers and have no need for anybody else in the world except for themselves, so Sam devises a plan for the two of them to run away together after two years of corresponding with letters. It's pretty humorous seeing the contrast between the two of them: Sam in his Khacki Scout uniform and who has packed essential camping gear and then Suzy in her pink sweater and skirt and "Church shoes" (saddle shoes) who has brought her suitcases filled with books, a record player and records, her kitten, and a bunch of cans of cat food. The movie turns their relationship into a romantic one and I thought it would have been better if they were just friends. Watching twelve year olds make out and fondle each other is really creepy. If they had kissed in a My Girl style, that would have been fine and more believable. I could see Sam and Suzy being friends because they both have a lot in common, but I couldn't see where all of a sudden they're "in love" and want to get married. I'm going to sound very shallow for a moment, so please excuse me. I can understand Sam having a crush on Suzy because she is a pretty girl, but there is no way a pretty and rich girl like Suzy would ever like Sam more than a friend. He's not that cute and he's kind of an a-hole (as is she!), so I can see why the rest of his fellow troop members don't like him.  This movie gets pretty dark sometimes, especially with what happens with the dog and Sam piercing Suzy's ears with a fish hook as she screams bloody murder. The whole town is out searching for them and that's basically the premise of the movie.

11. The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Director - Stephen Chbowsky

This movie is based on a young adult never that written by Stephen Chbowsky and he wrote the screenplay and directed the movie. I can't think of any other movie adapted from a book that was directed by its author. God, can you imagine if Stephenie Meyer directed the Twilight series? :::shudders:::: This is the only movie I've seen with one of the main Harry Potter kids being in a movie outside of Harry Potter. Emma Watson and her short haircut are in this and her American accent is fairly solid. At first all I could think was that it was Hermione with an American accent (and a short haircut), but her character, Sam, is very different from Hermione, so it was easy to quickly forget about her Harry Potter background. The main character, Charlie, is about to start high school. He's a quiet kid with no friends who likes to read and write. In fact, for awhile his only friend is his English teacher (played by Paul Rudd) who can sees he's a bright kid but is too afraid to raise his hand in class because he doesn't want the other kids to think he's the teacher's pet. Teacher Rudd gives him a bunch of books to read, so he kinda does turn into the teacher's pet, but it's just not as obvious to the other students. He becomes friends with Sam and Patrick, both seniors, who Charlie thinks are dating, but are actually stepsiblings. Charlie develops a crush on Sam but doesn't get the nerve to ask her out because he thinks she only likes him as a friend and she already has a boyfriend. He becomes a part of their circle of friends and starts dating a girl (played by Mae Whitman - she will always be the little girl from Independence Day to me). She asked him to the Sadie Hawkins dance and after that she assumed they were boyfriend/girlfriend just because they went to one dance together (huh?!) and he was too scared to tell her he didn't like her that way, so whenever she called him on the phone (everyday!), he would leave the phone off the receiver because she would talk nonstop and if he did try to cut in, she would say, "Charlie, don't interrupt me!" There is a big awkward moment when their group of friends is playing Truth or Dare and Patrick dares Charlie to kiss the prettiest girl in the room and he kisses Sam. Ouch. Needless to say, that was the end of that relationship! I should mention that this movie takes place in the '80s. They don't ever mention it and I kinda figured it was from the clothes and hairstyles, but by the time Charlie's sister gets a mixed tape (A MIXED TAPE!) from her boyfriend, I knew it was the '80s. Plus they listen to a lot of '80s songs. Charlie is played by Logan Lerman who I didn't know at first so when I checked out his IMDb page, I found out he plays Mel Gibson's youngest son, William in The Patriot. You probably wouldn't remember him because while the other six children have some sort of significance, (even if it's only being in the movie for half an hour to be killed by the protagonist, who let's not forget is played by Jason Isaacs who played Lucius in the Harry Potter films, so this kid has worked with both Mr. Malfoy and Hermione!), he's just there.

12. Ted
Director - Seth Macfarlane

Oscar nominations:
Best Original Song - "Everybody Needs a Best Friend" (lost to "Skyfall" from Skyfall)

There are some laughs in this movie, but for the most part it's your typical stupid Seth Macfarlane humor. (The kind of humor where you spout 100 jokes and out of those 100, only one is funny). I have to say one of the funniest things about the movie to me was the narrator at the very beginning and end of the film. The movie starts in 1985 with an 8-year-old friendless boy named John who gets a teddy bear for Christmas. The bear has a voicebox and can say, "I love you!" John wishes the bear could talk for real and his wish comes true. Since the movie takes place in Boston, Ted has a Bostonian accent. (And I should mention that Seth Macfarlane voices him). There's a pretty funny scene where John's parents see Ted move and talk for the first time and they freak out...which is what I would have done too. Soon, Ted becomes a national celebrity, appearing on Johnny Carson (I would love to know how they did that scene...movie magic, I guess) and how everybody has accepted that a talking, moving teddy bear lives among them. The narrator has a hilarious line about how his fame became obscure. Adult John is played by Mark Walberg (Marky Mark!) and he and Ted are still best buds. Ted is now a pot-smoking, foul-mouthed teddy bear and what's more shocking than that? Foul-mouthed children and foul-mouthed grandmas have already been done, so what's next? A teddy bear of course. Mila Kunis plays John's girlfriend and Giovani Ribisi plays the creepy guy who wants to buy Ted to give to his son. He ends up kidnapping Ted which resulted in one of the funniest moments when John calls the police and tells them, "My teddy bear has been stolen" and then you hear a dial tone. Ha! There's an ongoing gag that John and Ted are big Flash Gordon fans (have no idea who or won that is, but I know the Queen song) and John ditches a fancy party he's at with his girlfriend so he can go to a party at Ted's because the guy who played Flash Gordon is there. This results in a big party scene where Ted sings "I Only Wanna Be With You" in karaoke fashion. John and Ted have a huge fight at a motel room that I'm pretty sure will be nominated for Best Fight at the MTV Movie Awards. This was nominated for Best Song, but I don't remember a song in this movie .

Post-Oscar Thoughts and Fashion Fun

Well, if you watched my Oscar predictions video, you'll note that I only got half of the big six categories right, which is pretty bad for me as I normally get all six or just miss a couple. 

Okay, so Oscar thoughts:
-I'm not a huge fan of Family Guy, therefore I do not give a crap about Seth MacFarlane but I will admit he did have some funny lines and he was way better than when Anne Hathaway and James Franco hosted. (But to be fair, anybody would be). His skit with William Shatner went on a little too long, but I did like the bit with Sally Field and the sock puppets reenactment of Flight (which, if you've seen the movie is pretty darn accurate!) 

-I loved his line about Argo being so top secretive that the Academy didn't even know who directed it. Ha, nice zinger! 

-As I mentioned  in my video, I did not think Christoph Waltz would win so soon again. I'm glad he won because he was the best part of Django Unchained. He needs to have supporting roles in QT's movies because so far he's two for two! 

- I laughed so hard when Jennifer Lawrence tripped. That poor girl. She was so embarrased! But it was really endearing when she said, "You're all only standing up for me because I tripped and you don't want me to feel bad!" Awww.

-I loved Daniel Day-Lewis's speech and how he was supposed to play Margaret Thatcher and Steven Speilberg had Meryl Streep first in mind to play Abraham Lincoln and how he said he agreed to play Lincoln as long as they didn't make it into a musical. Sounds like a jab at Nine, haha! 

-So Christoph Waltz, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Ang Lee all won Oscars and they all won Oscars 3, 5, and 7 years ago. The other people in their category had never won before or had won Oscars before them.

-I was very thrilled Ang Lee because I loved Life of Pi and he's two for two for me for winning Best Director Oscars for movies I love. (Brokeback Mountain, of course being the other). I do love that he and Anne Hathaway (who was in Brokeback Mountain as you may know) won Oscars on the same night! 

-Also this is the second time when Ang Lee won Best Director, but his movie didn't win Best Picture. While I love Life of Pi, I'm okay with Argo beating it because that was my #1 and Life of Pi was my #2 movie of 2012. However, I was livid when Crash won over Brokeback Mountain in 2006! 

-OMG, does Kristen Stewart not own a hairbrush? Good God, her hair looked awful! 

-The Jaws music was a bit odd. It was funny the first time they did it, but then it got annoying. Yes, I understand people never shut up but maybe we should cut out those filler performances and just let people add a couple minutes to their speeches? 

-No surprise, Jennifer Lawrence is the first person born in the '90s to have an Oscar (at least in the acting/directing categories...I never pay attention to the other categories) At 22 she is one of the youngest to win a Best Actress Oscar, but not the youngest. Marlee Matlin was 20 when she won hers for Children of a Lesser God in 1987. 

-Also, did you know that Anne Hathaway is the second person born in the '80s to receive an Oscar (at least in the acting/directing categories!) Natalie Portman was the first. 

-Did we really need to hear a song from Chicago and Dreamgirls? I thought the Les Mis number was a hot mess. 

-I could care less about the James Bond franchise so I tuned out during that. Actually all I was thinking was that Halle Berry's dress was probably my favorite of the night.

-When Michelle Obama was going to read the Best Picture winner, I was worried, thinking that since the First Lady was reading the Best Picture Winner, it was surely going to be the presidential Lincoln, so I was extremely happy when she announced Argo. I'm guessing this is the first time anybody from the White House has been involved with the Oscars. Maybe? 

-When Meryl Streep announced Daniel Day-Lewis as Best Actor, it looked as though she never even opened the envelop but she probably did while the clips were playing. It just cracked me up when she confidently said, "And the Oscar goes to Daniel Day-Lewis" like, "Bitch, please, I don't need to open this envelop to know who the winner is!"

-Daniel Day-Lewis is the winner of three Best Actor Oscars which has never happened before. Overall he's been nominated five times and has won 3 out of 5 times. That's more than half, so those are pretty good stats! 


THE FASHION!!!



Favorite dressed:
Halle Berry in Versace - My eye was drawn to the geometric shape of the dress and I just thought it was really cool, not to mention gorgeous. 


Jennifer Lawrence in Dior - Okay, so the dress was so huge that she tripped in it but it gave for a great moment and highlight of the Oscars. And it's the perfect "fairy tale" dress for winning an Oscar. 


Sandra Bullock in Ellie Saab - cool intricate detail.


Jennifer Garner in Gucci - the butt bow and ruffle may have been a tad overdone (how the hell did she sit in that dress?), but I love the color and I love that it's violet, as Violet is the name of her oldest daugheter! Aww! Okay, I may be a little biased because I love me some Sydney Bristow so she could be wearing a garbage bag and I would probably still have her on my dressed list. 


Jennifer Aniston in Valentino - beautiful color and nice to see her in something other than black! 


Amanda Seyfriend in Alexander McQueen - So Anne Hathaway's original dress was similar to this and that's why she wore that awful pink number with the weird fit. Shame too because her original dress was gorgeous and probably would have been my best dress of the night. One thing's for sure: Amanda was better dressed than Anne! 


Salma Hayek in Alexander McQueen - Ordinarily this would be a your basic boring black dress, but add the elaborate collar and you got a pretty striking gown! 



The oooh, so close:
Anne Hathaway in Prada - Apparently she was supposed to wear Valentino, but she went with this one because the dress she originally had was kinda similar to Amanda Seyfriend? It sounded really pretty and I wish she had gone with that one. This one had a weird fit. 


Reese Witherspoon in Louis Vuitton - I swear I've seen Reese in a dress like this before. I'm not really big on the color. Blue just seems so informal for the Oscars! 


Amy Adams in Oscar de la Renta - There's nothing particularly wrong with this gown (although I would have gone with a different color), but I feel like we've seen this kind of dress a million times before at an event like the Oscars. In fact I think Penelope Cruz wore a dress like this, only much more dramatic and in pink the year she won....or was nominated....or just attended. LOL who knows! 


Naomi Watts in Armani - would be a near perfect dress if not for the weird neckline. It looks like she could have a wardrobe malfunction at any time! 


Jessica Chastian in Armani Prive - Not crazy about the color and the top looks like it could easily provide an embarrassing moment, but I certainly don't hate this dress. Actually it has a Jessica Rabbit vibe to it and I'm wondering if this is on purpose since she has red hair and her name is, well, Jessica. 


Kerry Washington in Miu Miu - Like the color, don't like the top with the embellishments. It just doesn't seem to match the rest of the dress. 


Helen Hunt in H&M - Yes, H&M!! WTF? That reminds me of when Sharon Stone wore something from the Gap one year! For an H&M dress, it looks pretty nice. I've never shopped at H&M, so maybe they do have nice stuff, but not Oscar nice! Nice dress, but boring. 


What were they thinking?:
Renee Zellweger in Carolina Herrera - I usually a love a gold colored dress, but this might be too literal for the Oscars and it kinda reminds me of a trash bag. 


Helena Bonham Carter in Vivienne Westwood - HBC's hair always looks so disheveled; it drives me crazy! Also, it looks like she's wearing a short black dress over a longer white one. Weird. 


Jennifer Hudson in Roberto Cavalli - This girl has got to have the worst taste! I NEVER like anything she wears! I still have nightmares about that attrocial pink dress she wore during American Idol rounds!



Sally Field in Valentino - This dress looks really old-fashioned, like it's something Mary Todd Lincoln would wear to the Oscars if they had Oscars back then and maybe that's what Sally was going for, who knows. I hate the train on this dress and the color is kinda ugly.


Adele in Jenny Packham - Sorry, Adele, your hair and make up looked great, but this was a snoozefest of a dress. At least it was better than your Grammy dress!