127 Hours

127 Hours is the motivational film of the year that proves nature is unforgiving and shows the powerful strength in human determination. Even with the storyline being very basic, it is still captivating enough to not only keep your attention but also make it memorable. James Franco gives it his all with his performance, setting off well deserved Oscar buzz.Aron Ralston (James Franco) is an avid thrill seeker that decides to go hiking into the canyons of Utah. He briefly runs into a couple lost female hikers that are lost. He jokes with them and shows them some amazing swimming areas before departing with them. Little does he know, it is the last time he comes in contact with a person for the next 127 hours.As he is climbing around the canyons, a large rock falls down and pins his arm between canyon walls. He has a very limited amount of supplies for survival including; a water bottle, a little food, rope and a multi-tool. He even had a video camera he brought with, although He immediately begins to try chipping away at the rock to free his arm, but with no success. To make matters worse, he realizes that he told no one where is was going, thus nobody will be looking for him.

It is impossible not to feel empathetic for him. Since he is trapped, he is forced to think about his mistakes he has made in the past. How he is sorry that he did not return his mom’s phone calls and how he wishes he would have brought more liquids to drink. He even creates a faux talk show with himself with the video camera, which is both comical and depressing.

Everything around him is draining; his battery in his camera, the water supply and most importantly his hope of survival. Even the movie poster is shaped like an hour glass as if it were a countdown to his likely death. At one point, he states that his whole life he was drawing him closer and closer to the rock that would eventually trap him in. After 5 days he decides the only way out is for him to cut his own arm off to free him from the large rock.

Undoubtedly, part of what makes 127 Hours so interesting is that it is a true story and how accurate the film is to was actually happened. The real footage of Aron Ralston stuck in the canyon has been restricted to close friends and family members, however, before shooting began, James Franco and Danny Boyle were allowed to watch the footage in order to portray the events in the film accurately.

The most difficult scene to watch in the film was when Ralston has to amputate his own arm. To summon the courage to do that, even in his situation, given the amount of excruciating pain to do so, I feel most people would be unable to do it. The special effects are incredibly realistic and detailed, making it almost hard to watch. Interestingly enough, the scene was done in one take using multiple cameras because they only created one prosthetic arm.

James Franco is simply amazing, working in a very tight space for nearly the entire film by himself. Since there were virtually no supporting roles, he is given the difficult task of carrying on a film alone and does it masterfully. There has not been a role since Tom Hanks in Castaway that done it better. It is a performance that will put him as a serious contender for an Oscar and should win Best Male Lead at the Independent Spirit Awards this year.

Because the film completely straightforward, to keep the audience engaged throughout is a task not easily achieved. Not only was the acting brilliant being is such a confined space with no supporting actors but Danny Boyle gets creative with the camera and special effects to keep it entertaining. 127 Hours is a powerful survival story that ends up being an inspirational statement about choosing to live through willpower.

Grown Ups

After their revered high school basketball coach passes away, Adam Sandler and his four childhood buddies decide to recapture the carefree past by spending some quality time together in an old lakeside house, brimming over with happy memories.

They descend on the desolate countryside resort with their respective families -- hyper-active wives and a bunch of kids bred on playstations and social networks -- and hope to re-connect, like never before. But can the odd, dysfunctional bunch actually survive the weekend under one roof?

Movie Review: Fun while it lasts, Grown Ups is a harmless little picnic film that celebrates friendship, even as it has something important to say. Get back to the outdoors, kids! it exclaims, urging today's tweens and teens to look beyond their playstation screens and FB friends for some real, hard-balled frolic and fun. How about some rock climbing, tree swinging, stone-pelting, roller-coasting, somersaulting, huh?

At least that's what the grown up boys indulge in, with intense merriment and mirth. The re-union for the five friends is filled with moments of boyish fun, which even includes a basketball game, as in the days of yore. Of course, there's a lot of adult teasing and tearing each other apart too, with the wives trying their best to adjust to each other's peculiar habits. Quite a difficult task, specially when you have a high-society diva like Salma Hayek, all set to go to Milan for a fashion show, forced to exchange pleasantries with a homely haus frau, an unambitious mother-to-be and a mother who chooses to breast-feed her four-year-old in public view. The mercury rises further when Rob Schneider's oomphy daughters land up to re-bond with a dad who has a yen for older women, unlike the rest of his friends who like them young and hot.

Savour the Sandler brand of humour with Grown Ups, a film that once again celebrates the spirit of childhood, like most of his comedies.

Cruel Intentions 2

Teenagers belonging to a seemingly uptight educational institution who connive and conspire against each other to survive in an affluent, quasi-political high school dynamic. That sums up Cruel Intentions

 in a nutshell. If wisecracks and cruel pranks give you the jollies, this teenage flick promises to tickle your funny bone with a vengeance. In an entertainment industry cashing in on slapstick, American Pie inspired themes to lure a younger and admittedly less discerning audience, Cruel Intentions adds an interesting twist to the proverbial teenage angst.

Before I go any further, let me add that this review is on part 2 of Cruel Intentions. Since part 2 was not listed under a separate topic, I took the liberty of using the generic Cruel Intentions review title to post this review. My apologies if I was remiss in my judgement.

Cruel Intentions 2 which is a prequel to the first part has a cast of relatively unknown actors. However the actors handle their parts with aplomb and even though part 2 was not as well received as part 1, primarily due to the lack of high profile celebrity backing, I would definitely not dismiss it as a stereotype washout.

The venue is the Manchester Prep school in Manhattan. A prestigious school for the Upper East Side teenage elite. A backdrop for scandalous relationships, sex and betrayal. Sebastian Valmont is a teenage kid who moves in with his father - a promiscuous but rather daft sort who is married to a wealthy Manhattan socialite. They live in a fashionably large mansion - (a little too Victorian) complete with a butler, a cook, a chauffeur and other domestic help. Sebastian’s biggest stumbling block is his new step-sister Katherine, the most popular girl in Manchester High who stops at absolutely nothing to get her way (including seducing the school’s assistant headmaster and blackmailing him for favors.)

Unwilling to succumb to his step-sister’s powermonger attitude, Sebastian retaliates and a unique sibling rivalry develops between the two. Sebastian takes pleasure in shooting Katherine down every chance he gets. Katherine, in turn, is determined to make Sebastian yield to her dominance in the school. In the meanwhile, Sebastian meets Danielle, the headmaster’s daughter. Danielle is the proverbial goody-two-shoes with a reclusive, coy demeanor that is the complete antithesis of Manchester’s smutty, self-indulgent posse of students. She is also purportedly the school’s ONLY virgin. Sebastian develops an infatuation for her and pursues her relentlessly despite her attempts to evade his more than subtle advances.

Katherine, who is the official student representative at the school also runs secret meetings at an undisclosed location with a like-minded clique of students who determine the fate of anyone in the school. In one of their little meetings, Katherine finds out about Cheri - a very rich but completely naive girl and decides to take her under her wing to turn her into the school’s biggest slut. (Cruel intention there huh). She tries to hook Cheri up with a guy in a nightclub but Cheri gets disgusted when the guy tries to kiss her and throws up all over him. Finally when there is no hope in sight, a little horse-riding lesson does the trick. In the words of Cheri.. no wonder they say women are good with horses.

Built around each of these sub-plots is the movie’s main theme - Cruel Intentions. Sebastian Valmont is looking to survive in this politically driven school environment, but his step-sister seems to thwart his every attempt to belong. At the same time he tries to woo Danielle, who straitjackets his every advance. Finally when Sebastian seems to have gotten his act together and everything seems in place, the plot thickens when Sebastian’s step sister finds out that he forged his transfer documents and transcripts to get admitted into Manchester... and threatens to expose him unless he is willing to - in the words of Katherine - ’’keep it in the family’’ . Sebastian yields - well almost - until his conscience overtakes him and he pulls away and sprints over to Danielle’s determined to tell her the truth about himself. But when he finally meets her, in a rather cruel but delectable turn of events, Sebastian finds out the surprising truth about Danielle.. (which you can find out for yourself if you’re still interested in renting this movie and watching it).

Lights Out

When part 1 came out in 1999, everyone raved about Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillipe and Reese Witherspoon’s performances. But even though the story in part 2 is a bit cliched and maybe a little unimaginative (compared to the first part), you will still find yourself getting entertained by the repertoire of wisecracks and sex and drama that this flick has to offer. It might not meet the expectations of those of you who have seen part One..but will certainly entertain those of you who have not.

Cruel Intentions 1

Sebastian Valmont (Ryan Phillippe) and Kathryn Merteuil (Sarah Michelle Gellar) are two devious step-sibling Manhattan socialites on their summer break before their senior year in an exclusive private school, who amuse themselves by playfully flirting with each other and bragging about their various sexual conquests. They are quickly growing bored, however, by the growing air of predictability in the games they play with potential love interests whom they care nothing for. When Kathryn is dumped by one of her boyfriends for the clumsy, childish 15-year-old virgin Cecile Caldwell (Selma Blair, star of "Zoe, Duncan, Jack and Jane"), she is outraged, and asks Sebastian for a favor: seduce Cecile and then spread rumors about her promiscuity, even though she has her eyes set on her black music teacher, Ronald (Sean Patrick Thomas). The stakes grow even higher between Sebastian and Kathryn when she makes a wager with him concerning if he can seduce Annette Hargrove (Reese Witherspoon), a young woman whose father is going to be the new headmaster of their school, and whom has recently written an article in "Seventeen" magazine where she professes her plans to wait until marriage to lose her virginity, before school starts. If he loses, she gets his vintage Porsche. And if he wins, he can enjoy Kathryn in any way he wants. "I'm the one person you can't have," Kathryn tells Sebastian, "and it kills you." Sebastian accepts, but while spend time with Annette, the unthinkable happens: he actually begins to form real, human feelings for her, despite initially only using her.

"Cruel Intentions" is a sleek and stylish comedy-drama that makes no compromises with its title: the two main characters in the film, and even some of the supporting ones, are extremely cruel and emotionally sick people who get their kicks out of using people. Because of this, the film is also certainly not your normal so-called "teenager" movie, and I could easily imagine adults also getting involved in the characters' plight, just like many have with "Dangerous Liasons."

Even if the characters aren't all likable, they are written with a richness you don't often see, and the dialogue between Sebastian and Kathryn is truly fetching and enjoyable, as they don't always say what they mean, or slyly use double entendres to stand for what they are saying. And as played by Phillippe and especially Gellar, the two actor are certainly up to the challenge. Gellar finally has proven with this film that she can very well be a wildly versatile actress that can play sweet with one role and be deceptive and hateful with the next, as she does here. Even if Phillippe isn't always up to her level, he is still well-cast in the role and plays several scenes with a brutal honesty (even if, in the film, he is supposed to be deceiving someone).

As the innocent, beautiful Annette, Witherspoon turns in yet another fine performance to add to her impressive resume (which includes outstanding turns in such films as 1991's "The Man in the Moon," 1996's "Freeway," and 1996's "Fear"), and in one vital dramatic sequence, she is able to transform a potentially cliched scene into something that is thoroughly poignant. Witherspoon also works very well with Phillippe, even if there aren't quite enough scenes between them to believe that they have fallen in love, and they make a quite charismatic pair (perhaps because they are a couple in real life, just recently engaged).

In the fourth and final central role is Blair (in her first starring film), who is a standout as the juvenile Cecile. That Blair is 26-years-old (about two to five years older than the other cast members, even though she plays someone two or three years younger) and is able to believably play a high school freshman only goes to show that she is also very talented, as well as has a firm comic sensibility, since many of her scenes rely on humor. All other actors in the film have relatively small roles who are used as pawns in Sebastian and Kathryn's scheme, including Thomas, as the music teacher; Eric Mabius, as a teenage football player and closeted homosexual; Joshua Jackson, as Sebastian's gay friend; and Christine Baranski as Cecile's aristocratic mother.

Although the story at hand is ultimately a tragic one, and includes a masterfully-done conclusion involving Gellar that rivals the one in "Dangerous Liasons" with Glenn Close, "Cruel Intentions" is also an often very funny comedy, particularly when dealing with small blink-and-you'll-miss details involving the characters, the always-amusing dialogue, and the infantile antics of Cecile. People can criticize "Cruel Intentions" all they want, but when it comes down to it, it is so very similar to 1988's Oscar-nominated "Dangerous Liasons" that it really is hard to nit-pick. The only major difference I can actually detect between the two, except for the obvious (such as the present-day time period and teenage characters), is that the characters in "Cruel Intentions" seem to jump more vibrantly to life. In retrospect, while watching "Dangerous Liasons" not long ago for the first time, despite the brilliant performances by Close, John Malcovich, and Michelle Pfeiffer, all I could really think about was telling the characters, "lighten up already!"

Hachiko: A Dog's Tale

HACHIKO: A DOG'S STORY is based on a 1987 Japanese movie, which in turn is based on a true story that took place in Tokyo in the 1920s: a professor found and adopted a dog, which was so faithful it always sat at the local train station, waiting for its master to come home from work. The dog kept on waiting even after the death of the professor, and when Hachiko the dog passed away, a bronze statue of him was erected at that train station.

    In Hallström's movie, the dog's still Japanese; in the beginning of the film, he's sent from Japan to the States, but the tag with the address falls off and the little puppy is skipping around at an idyllic train station in an idyllic town. Music professor Richard Gere finds the dog and takes it home, ignoring his wife Joan Allen's protests. The dog is named Hachi and he's very clever and very faithful, and yes, everyday, he walks to the train station to await Richard Gere coming home.

At the station, Hachi befriends the people working there and nearby; the butcher, the nice hot dog vendor, the woman in the book shop and her cat, and the man who's selling tickets to the train. The latter is played by Jason Alexander (from THE BURNING) of all people. He doesn't have very much to do in this movie and I sat there waiting for him to introduce himself as Art Vanderlay and claiming he works with import and export.

    Richard Gere has a beautiful daughter who marries a nice young man and the daughter gets pregnant, and since we already know the story behind the movie, we known that Gere is about to die all of a sudden (Hachi is so clever he knows what day!), which he does, so that the dog can keep on walking to the train station and wait - for ten years.

    Some people will call this movie "heartwarming". And one of my colleagues, a woman in her 60s, and who was sitting behind me at the press screening, was sobbing every now and then. And I heard more people sobbing in the theatre. I may sound like a cold-hearted son of a bitch, but I found this movie rather ... silly. Because it's so calculating: a cute and clever dog with big eyes, Richard Gere (who's the co-producer), total idyll, friendship beyond death, and sugar coated piano music.

One weird thing about HACHIKO is that I've never heard of it before. Lasse Hallström's movies are usually announced several months in advance, like the upcoming DEAR JOHN. But in this case, things get stranger:

    HACHIKO is produced by Stage 6, a company I believe belongs to Sony. Stage 6 usually produces movies like PISTOL WHIPPED with Steven Seagal, THE SHEPHERD with Van Damme, and DVD sequels like BOOGEYMAN 3 and VACANCY 2. HACHIKO is shot in regular 16X9 ratio and the cinematography is rather restrained. It's a small movie which feels adapted for a small format. And as a matter of fact: much to Hallström's disappointment, and despite starring Richard Gere, HACHIKO will go straight to DVD in the U.S.A. in March 2010, retitled HACHI: A DOG'S TALE. I guess the only reason this movie opened theatrically in Sweden, is because of Hallström. It was, however, a theatrical success in Japan and a few other countries.

    Although a movie about a dog, this sure is no new MY LIFE AS A DOG. HACHIKO feels like an old, anonymous TV movie from the 1970s. I've no idea what audience will appreciate Hallström's run of the mill and banal, albeit sympathetic and well-acted movie. Besides older women. And maybe young girls who love animals.

Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch is an action-packed film opening this weekend that features plenty of girl power, including Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone and Vanessa Hudgens.
Directed by Zach Snyder (Watchmen, 300), Sucker Punch looks like a mix of Girl, Interrupted meets Lara Croft meets Charlie's Angels.

Sucker Punch stars Emily Browning (The Uninvited) who plays Baby Doll, a girl who is taken to the mental asylum by her mean stepfather. Faced with the knowledge that she will undergo a lobotomy in a week, she and four other inmates, played by Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens and Jamie Chung, retreat to a fantasy world in her imagination where they plan their escape.

There has not been a single movie released so far this year that looks as fantastic as this movie does and be utterly pointless and flawed in almost every aspect. I find it depressing that this is the same director that brought us the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake and the big screen adaptation of WATCHMEN. Honestly, SUCKER PUNCH is an orgy for the eyes but torture on all the other senses. I’m still trying to wrap my brain on how a movie featuring chicks with swords, ninja statues, Nazi zombies, dragons and robots could be so dreadful instead of five different levels of awesome.

Here’s the plot, at least as far as I can tell; a young girl, Baby Doll (Emily Browning), is forced into a mental institution after attacking her step father and accused of murdering her little sister. While in the institution she enters into a fantasy world that pins her and her fellow crazies as prostitutes/dancers in a brothel and concocts a plan to escape using her seductive dancing as a means to distract the guards. Once the dancing starts she envisions herself in a variety of fantasy worlds to obtain all the different objects she’ll need to escape the facility.

I honestly believe SUCKER PUNCH was just an excuse for Zack Snyder to spend a lot of time on a set with scantily clad and half naked girls. The very first action scene is shameless exploitation of how many different ways you can show Emily Browning spinning and spreading her legs open in slow motion. Snyder has made a name for himself with the liberal use of slow motion and it’s never been more evident here and this is the worst it’s ever been used. The entire opening sequence is nothing but a music video for the song “Sweet Dreams” as directed by Zack Snyder; there’s no dialogue, just set up for the relationship between Baby Doll and her step father and how she ended up in a mental institution. There are several scenes that feel like nothing but extended music videos and set ups for a really bad porno.

The fantasy world Baby Doll chooses to live her escape in is a brothel, where the girls dance in order to turn on some horny dudes then take them back into a room where they finish them off. I half expected each subsequent fantasy to go a step farther and the girls are asking their cable guy to take his pants off. The fantasy worlds for the most part look pretty awesome; they all have some shaky CGI going on, but the visuals all have a very cool aesthetic.

The soundtrack is actually pretty decent; too bad the script requires that bland and lifeless characters that inhabit SUCKER PUNCH to speak over the top of it. The dialogue throughout is pretty awful and laughably bad at times. Every single time the Wise Man, played by Scott Glen, opened his mouth and said the words “oh and one more thing” the sentence immediately after induced an uncontrollable facepalm. The script has some of the worst and cheesiest cliché lines in the history of the English language; it literally uses the line of “don’t write a check that your ass can’t cash,” it’s like Snyder used Google search to come up with every cliché in the script.

Zack Snyder has always garnered points for style with films like 300 and WATCHMEN, but I can’t possibly make that concession here. Despite how good the action and special effects look, the film is completely devoid of anything involving real emotion or profound characterization. The action scenes have no stakes because you know everything takes place in a fantasy world while she’s doing a stripper dance for her employers. You never even see this dancing that hypnotizes everyone; Baby Doll just moves back and forth a couple times, closes her eyes and we are back in fantasy land.

For all the implied sex, half naked girls and violence on display you’d think this was an explicit hard R raunch-fest. Sucker Punch is decidedly PG-13 for reasons I’ll never understand; it’s so disappointing to see Synder going from awesome zombie carnage in DAWN OF THE DEAD to girls slaying Nazi zombies. That last statement is disappointing for the fact that these zombies don’t spill blood and that’s because Snyder has scripted in that the Nazi’s developed a way for their dead to function as soldiers by powering them with nothing other than steam, so when these poor saps die they don’t squirt blood, they spill out pockets of hot air.

All the money on screen here appears to be entirely on the special effects. The cast looks and acts like Snyder was walking through the set of a porno and grabbed any girl that wasn’t busy and said “do you have a second,” filmed their scenes and tossed them away like a used condom. I might be giving anyone who had a hand in the script too much credit because I’ve seen porns that have way more passion on display than any second of footage in SUCKER PUNCH. The writers of this garbage must have already suffered severe carpal tunnel just thinking of all the girls in spandex and the rest of the chicken scratch had to be translated through beer goggles.

Zack Snyder’s WATCHMEN flirted with a three hour runtime and I was ready for more by the time it was over. SUCKER PUNCH rings in at two hours and if it was a second longer I might have caused serious physical harm to the nearest living soul left in the theater. If I found any enjoyment in the film at all it was the moment it was over and realized I would never have to watch it again. The film is sort of like one long lobotomy, in that, when it was over I had no memory of why I ever wanted to subject myself to it. SUCKER PUNCH is aptly titled as anyone buying a ticket has already succumbed to what the title suggests. We only have ourselves to blame as the title is also a warning because you can’t get passed the first syllable of the title without spelling SUCK.

Red Ridinghood

Updating a classic is difficult. Effectively bringing to life a seven-century-old fairy tale is almost impossible. There are some distinct changes from the original tale, as well as the iconic Grimm fairy tale version. For one, in Red Riding Hood, the wolf here is a werewolf and its human form is determined to be a resident of a small, isolated village in the mountains.

After a few grizzly deaths, an authoritative man of God arrives (Gary Oldman), espousing to know how to rid the village of this frightful creature. As inhabited by Oldman, he is every bit as morally vague as you can imagine. But unfortunately, the script or direction fails him. There are more questions than answers.

Yes, Amanda Seyfried scores as Valerie (Red Riding Hood) with her wide-eyed performance but neither of her love interests, Shiloh Fernandez or Max Irons, turns in a terribly good performance. Again, it is probably not completely their fault. Perhaps the words failed them or even more likely -- and it pains us to say this because we love her -- maybe it’s their director. Perhaps it’s just a simple swing and a miss.

Director Catherine Hardwicke has assembled a solid cast with Seyfried, Oldman, Twilight’s Billy Burke, Oscar nominee Virginia Madsen and Oscar winner Julie Christie. But, Red Riding Hood fails to ignite.

The romance of Red Riding Hood also simmers when it should boil. Irons, Fernandez and Seyfried are in a love triangle with a werewolf on the loose. Yet, there’s no drama. Seyfried’s Valerie is set to marry Henry in an arranged marriage while she is truly in love with Fernandez’s Peter. Henry is wealthy and Peter is poor, but that is no matter. Seyfried only has eyes for Peter. In between werewolf attacks, the three move about more going through the motions than solidifying a strong trio.

It is hard to say what it is about Red Riding Hood that is so wrong. It could be that the actual trip to grandmother’s house was a little more silly than scary. What can be said in a movie review when the actors show up to play but the story, script and pacing leave their performances feeling flat and the film feeling far less interesting than it could have been?

Taken

Of all the words to describe this movie, endearing would have to be somewhere near the top. Taken explores the underground world of human trafficking and brings it a little bit closer to home, perhaps more so than one would want. Liam Neeson plays Brian Mills,  a retired CIA agent that gave up his career to make up for lost time with his daughter Kim, portrayed by actress Maggie Grace.
The plot takes the viewer from California to Europe where apparently kidnapping is a frequent occurence. What may seem like an innocent encounter with a charming local, quickly turns into a deadly experience feared by many parents. Brian’s daughter Kim goes on a trip to Paris with her friend, but instead of visiting sights like the Eiffel Tower or the Musee du Louvre, she is kidnapped to be auctioned off to the highest bidder in an undergound auction. Being a retired CIA agent, Brian quickly makes the most of the time he has and tracks down those responsible while undercovering a human trafficking ring.
What makes this movie stand out a bit more then the typical action film is that it has some truth in it. Tourists are kidnapped and go missing at an alarming rate. Taken is an example of a father going to extreme measures to ensure his daughters safety. Perhaps if all fathers were retired CIA agents then the kidnapping rate could possibly drop due to this movie. From hot-wiring cars, to breaking and entering an upscale party; Taken delivers like a James Bond film with a Die Hard attitude.  A no holds barred story about a father’s love for his daughter and the ends he would go to for her. All men would wish to be like Brian Mills after watching this movie. Having the peace of mind to rationally control one’s emotion and putting pieces of a puzzle together, and at the same time formulating a plan to rescue back your flesh and blood.
I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It gave me a sense of realism and urgency through the eyes of a father. The drive and desire to get your daughter back and the boundaries you would push to get there. Of course, much like other action films, a brain check would be needed before entering as it seems as though officers of the law are few and scarce in these movies. Also, parents should want to see this movie with their son or daughter, if not for some bonding time in between gun fights, then for the purpose of displaying what a parents love would drive someone to do for their offspring…however extreme it may be.

Mean Girls 2

If you loved the first one, you will like the 2nd one!

In this made for ABC family original movie, Jo (Meaghan Martin) is the new girl in town, and she has an edge to her that everyone seems to like.  Abby (Jennifer Stone) is the welcoming committee, and she sits with Jo at lunch.  This is where we learn that the head of the plastics, Mandi (Maiara Walsh) hates Abby because she has always had more than her.  Jo sticks up for Abby and takes her home when her car gets ruined.  Abby’s dad talks to Jo and asks her to become Abby’s friend and he will pay for her college tuition. Jo resists at first, but then starts to hang out with Abby more and more, and finds out that she really likes her.  Abby and Jo also start to team up against the plastics, and Jo even starts dating Mandi’s brother Tyler (Diego Gonzalez Boneta).

Like any other teen drama, we see the hijinks get out of control, and of course everyone turns against Jo because they find out that she was paid to be Abby’s friend and she was also framed for stealing the Homecoming fundraiser movie.  Will Jo be able to explain her way out of this one?  Will Abby and Jo ever be friends again? And will Tyler ever forgive her for making these choices and becoming one of the “mean girls”?

I thought it was a very cute made for TV movie.  I really like the movies that have been made for ABC family.  As much as I loved the original Mean Girls, I think this one was a good sequel.  It had the same bullying concept, but different characters and a different type of plot.  I think that everyone who enjoys ABC family will like this film!

Charlie Bartlett

Charlie Bartlett is an enigmatic youth. He has just been kicked out of another private school, this time for selling fake ids, causing his mother (Hope Davis, The Matador, American Splendor), to enroll him into public school. Things for Charlie (Anton Yelchin, Alpha Dog, Hearts in Atlantis) do not go smoothly, however, for Charlie on his first day at his new school. To start, he is repeatedly mistaken for a teacher due to choice of wearing a private school blazer and to carry a satchel. As a result, the school bully, Murphey Bivens (Tyler Hilton, Walk the Line, One Tree Hill), decides to beat up Charlie. Despite this, Charlie is anxious to fit in and he even tries out for the school play on his first day. His somewhat bizarre behavior, including reciting a scene from the Vagina Monologues for his tryout, catches the eye of Susan Gardner (Kat Dennings, 40 Year Old Virgin, Raise Your Voice).
Charlie, being the young enterpriser that he is, figures out a way to make lemonade from his lemons. Rather than shirking away in fear from Murphey, Charlie partners up with him and together they sell some of Charlie’s prescription meds to the students at a dance, with fantastic results. The next day, Charlie begins offering anonymous psychiatric help through the stalls of the boy’s bathroom. Charlie offers suggestions and even hands out prescriptions from his ridiculous stash due to his overzealous team of psychiatrists trying to medicate him through his life. Soon, Charlie transitions from school nobody to the big man on campus. He is asked to help lead the revolt against they tyrannical school board and principal, Principal Gardner (Robert Downey Jr., A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), Susan’s father.
Charlie Bartlett is a delight to watch. Robert Downey Jr. is amazing as the tormented principal who is trying to be both an authority figure to a school of teenagers and also a father for Susan. Anton Yelchin shines as Charlie Bartlett, a kid who hides behind his comedy and a veil of caring to avoid dealing with his own problems, an absent father and a medically absent mother. Charlie Bartlett is going to launch Anton’s acting career into the cosmos. Tyler Hilton and Kat Dannings are tremendous as well.
Charlie Bartlett is a film with heart and soul. It accurately depicts the difficulties of being a teenager these days and takes on the readiness of professionals to medicate kids to make them easier to deal with. It would be nice if everyone had a little more Charlie Bartlett in them.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist is a high school fantasy for indie rock nerds.
Imagine if back when you were 17, instead of playing CDs in your bedroom and dreaming about getting up the nerve to talk to a girl or guy, you played bass in a punk band that performed gigs in New York City. After your show, you hopped around the Lower East Side with a cute girl who knew all your favorite I-liked-'em-first bands, and who could get you into any club in town. You and she and your buddies partied until dawn with nary a care for the consequences, the law, or your parents.

That's Nick & Norah. Sadly, it's not as much fun as it looks.

When we meet Nick (Michael Cera) he is nursing the emotional wounds from a savage break-up with the monstrous Tris (Alexis Dziena). For therapy, he skips school and withdraws to his bedroom for ritualistic burning of mix CDs. Nick is also the only straight member of a queer-core band temporarily called The Jerk-Offs, who somehow find good gigs even though they're backed by a toy drum machine.

Norah (Kat Dennings) is the frumpy daughter of a music industry legend, who's conflicted about her privilege, but still gladly exploits it to skip the line at her favorite rock clubs. She and her party-girl pal Caroline train over to NYC to see The Jerk-Offs open for the awesome, awesome Bishop Allen.

After the show, Nick and Norah soon discover their mutual love for the (fictional) indie legends Where's Fluffy and go off to find their secret late-nite show. But Nick's not the only one with issues - Norah's got an intermittent relationship with another musician.

Meanwhile, Tris traipses around town with her new college boyfriend, but her jealousy at seeing Nick vibe with Norah - who Tris sees as a frigid nobody - inspires her to recapture Nick. Meanwhile, Nick, Norah, and the other Jerk-Offs drive around town searching for Caroline, who is lost, broke, and foolishly drunk.

You couldn't have asked for more winning leads for this semi-wild night than Cera and Dennings. As he previously demonstrated in 2007's left-right combo of Superbad and Juno, Cera is Gen Y's John Cusack. He is blessed with quiet understatement, masterful comic timing, and an earnestness that's impossible not to love.

Dennings also feels marvelously legit. They could have gotten another hot chick with glasses to play Norah, but Dennings wears her oddball quirk like she owns it. And her chemistry with Cera reminds us why movies are usually better than real life.

But Nick & Norah's movie-real-life nexus is tenuous at best. These characters are, after all, ostensibly in high school. But after you've watched a group of 20-something actors routinely drink and party in hipster clubs, navigate the Lower East Side like it's the mall in Paramus, prattle about three-year relationships, and rock out 'til dawn, it's a little jarring to hear the occasional reference to college admissions. Unlike Superbad, which hysterically celebrated the tensions and failures of underage merriment, Nick & Norah more or less ignores the lifestyle differences between ages 17 and 23.

That sucks a lot of the potential fun out of the story, and the vomit gags, slapstick, and wacky cameos fail to substitute. Most disappointingly, for all their charms, Cera and Dennings are denied the conflict required to make their budding relationship interesting. From frame one, it's obvious that these two characters have everything in common and destiny awaits their union.It's the title of the movie.

Megamind

What to say? It was Despicable Me all over again. Well, yeah. It was. But the ending was very much entertaining. I didn’t even expected the little twist at the end. And the dancing and music was totally hip. And oh, I love me some Tina Fey. So this was still quite good afterall.


A steady flow of superhero-movie conventions are given the wink-wink treatment in this hyperactive Dreamworks animation about Megamind, a blue, bulbous-headed scoundrel, voiced by Will Ferrell, who plunges into depression when he unexpectedly kills his rival, Metro Man (voiced by Brad Pitt), and finds himself short of anyone to foil his schemes. At a low ebb (and holding a torch for feisty, Jean Seberg-a-like reporter Roxanne Ritchi, voiced by Tina Fey) he entertains the notion of giving up evil altogether.

If this sounds a little like the recent ‘Despicable Me’, that’s because it rolls with a similar idea, albeit employing a more realistic animation style and a strain of reference-heavy humour aimed at a slightly more mature audience. But the film also pinches a few pages out of the ‘Kick-Ass’ rule book, notably in the way it dismantles the archetypal ‘masked crusader’ and delights in revealing the mundane chores of life as a full-time master of chaos: those jumbo-collared leather capes don’t just stitch themselves, you know.

Ferrell’s voice work is spot on. He even runs with an amusing speech impediment for which Metro City becomes Metrocity, and in one truly surreal moment he answers the telephone with ‘Olo?’, after which his minion (David Cross) reminds him, ‘It’s “hello”.’ Yet, for a film whose stock in trade are tongue-in-cheek reversals of comic-book cliché, it too often settles for trite audience-pleasing. We can only guess how long it took the guys in the soundtrack team to come up with ‘Bad to the Bone’ and Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad’. And when Jonah Hill’s bumbling cameraman is zapped with a superpower raygun and hastily ushered in as the enemy, the film jettisons its raison d’etre for a standard, if splendidly executed, city-wrecking finale.




movie review by Jesse. :)

Whip It!

I really didn’t like this at first because it was full of cliche. But the last few minutes were really good. I had to take back my words because that rarely happens in movies. Losing the game and the boyfriend? Suffice to say, I didn’t expect that. The mom thing strike home, actually.

Ellen Page, always the BAMF. What’s not to like about her? Also, the fact that Drew Barrymore directed this and played a very amusing character made the movie quite entertaining. So that’s it, the movie was pleasing, to say the least.

movie review by Jesse. :)

Clueless

Technically, I was only 2 years old when this was came out at the cinemas, So don’t blame if I’ve just seen this epic movie this morning. They were comparing it to Mean Girls and Easy A and those two rocked so I figured, why the hell not.

I loved this. Albeit, slow paced and predictable I still really enjoyed it. And holy mother effing shit, like seriously, I was all ‘GOD. WHY IS ALICIA SILVERSTONE SO GORGEOUS? WHY?’ Cheesus. And I was totally fangirling over her all the damn time. 

And I think that’s the best part of it all. LMAO

Cast: Alicia Silverstone (Batman & Robin), Stacey Dash (A View from the Top), Brittany Murphy (8 Mile), Twink Caplan (Loser), Donald Faison (TV's Scrubs), Breckin Meyers (Can't Hardly Wait), Dan Hedaya (Swimfan)

Plot: Meet Cher (Silverstone), she's a beautiful, wealthy and popular Beverly Hills teens. She's normal and does shopping every day. We visit a short time in her life as she tries to find romance for 2 teachers, gets robbed and sexually assaulted by a popular jock, realizes she's in love... but with who, has a crush on a new male classmate who turns out to be gay and look cute to go shopping with her best friend Deon (Dash) as well as transform the "new girl" Tye (Murphy) in a popular kid!

Review: I must admit I thought "Clueless' was going to be a dumb witted teen comedy that had no laughs and would probably be just plain boring- that is until I saw it. This film (released in 1995) had me laughing really hard and is a pleasure to watch. Everyone has seen "Clueless" and the critics enjoyed it because it was a laugh a minute comedy. Silverstone brings the character of Cher to life and uses her brains and smarts to really capture the audience. Her comedic performance was also wonderful and showed she would have a bright career. The supporting performances were hilarious also. The film combined real teen issues from sex, to first time drivers and added a little humor to lighten the situation. Many of the jokes used in the film can sometimes be offensive but in all fun its a movie that doesnt really intend to offend anyone. The film also however shows breakout performances by some of Hollywood's hot young faces before they made it big including Murphy and Faison.

movie review by Jesse

Movie Review Contributions

Hi Everyone!

Sorry i haven't updated my blog lately. Been busy with work. But now I'll be posting short movie reviews contributed/written  by a good friend of mine named Jesse. Hope you'd like it.


Frances