SEX IN THE CITY

Here's another quickie.

This thing is SUPER-GIRLY. It's the Barbie Malibu Dreamhouse for grown women, no joke.

Ladies, do your men a favor and DO NOT drag them along to see this. The three poor saps who were dragged to my theater, packed with women as it was, looked like they were in line for the electric chair. This one's for ladies, gay men, and that rarest of beasts, straight male Sex in the City fans, only.

Without giving anything away, it drags a lot longer than it should, but it's cute. The appeal of the show does carry over to the movie. Though, I ended up hating one of them and loving another more, after the movie was over.

On J-Hud... I have to say, I could tell they tried to avoid the helpful Magical Negress thing by giving the woman her own storyline, played in montage form, but that just just came off patronizing. I'd rather they'd just left her out, completely.

People tell their own stories because those are the ones they know. I understand, but a true effort to reach out beyond that leads to a fuller, wiser, life for all. That half-assed thing they did here?? ...That's called a limp-handshake.

I laughed. I 'aww'ed. I 'woot'ed at yummy man-parts and 'squee'd at the fashion. I identified. I had fun. So, this gets the thumbs-up from me, despite the need to be shortened and my J-Hud issues.

Ladies, make it a night. Take your friends, dress up, and have some drinks.

This gets a , but only for fans.

PARENTS: This is the first movie I've seen in a long time that didn't have kids, inappropriately present in the audience. ...Funny, that. ;)

THE STRANGERS

The Strangers sucked so badly, I saw it at a free screening and I still want my money back.

Here's the problem with this and so many other terrible horror movies. If the protagonists are stupid, I don't give a crap what happens to them. If I don't give a crap what happens to them, that's right...Say it with me now, IT'S. NOT. SCARY. It's just frustrating and dumb.

Such is the case here. From investigating multiple crazies alone just because you have a penis to not believing your loved one about the severity of the situation, when they are covered in the sweat of adrenalin and BLEEDING.

And because it's so awful, I'm going to save you time and sum up the plot. Two people who should've called the police when a creepy person knocked on their door acting crazy at 4am in the morning, get stabbed to death.

THE END.

There, I saved you 10 bucks. Avoid this shitastic movie, at all costs.

Won't somebody step up to the plate and create a horror movie where the smart people get it? Please? FOR ONCE? It can't be that hard.



Parents: No one should see this.

P.S. The Onion is WRONG. I love that little paper, but how they could give this an A- is beyond me. Stylishly filmed? Yeah. But the protagonists still have rocks where their brains should be.

P.P.S. And don't read their review of The Fall. They spoil the plot.

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

I'm feeling a bit lazy, so excuse the brevity/casualness of this review.

I'd say Crystal Skull is alright. I dug the middle. The beginning and the end, however?? ...Not so much. Both were overstuffed with nothing really memorable.

Cate Blanchett's Russian commie-dom disappointed me. I didn't really feel her character's motivations and she didn't push the smarm far enough to make as big of an impression as I had hoped. "Knowledge is power!" is for Schoolhouse Rock, people.

There are no "omgwtf-nunchucks?!! oh, it's a fancy hanger whew!" moments nor memorably ambiguous accents...



And because I really am perplexed, here...



China? Russia? Germany? Won't somebody please tell me??

I say damn the MPAA!! There are scenes that are reminiscent of previous films in the series, but not NEARLY as badass. Someone answer me this. Why does Raiders have more blood, gore, delicious ick factor, as a PG rated movie than this as a PG-13 movie??

Isn't the point of PG-13 to make sure scenes like the ones in Raiders when God goes all "I-know-you-nazis-did-not-just-open- dis-ARK!!" are age-appropriate?

There are a couple of set-pieces I liked. The chase/sword/ant thing comes to mind and uh....That's the only part that I remember. So, I amend that. I just liked that one.

And I'm tired of indigenous folks NOT SPEAKING even in their own tongue, being disposable, and swinging like super-animals or some shit. Not cool. Hey, movie-makers, making them MORE human, not less makes them scarier....I'm just saying.



So, for the Indy heads in answer to your questions:

-No, Shia isn't too annoying
-It's at the same level as Temple, but maybe less fun (no maharajahs dubbed by english girls, here)
-YES that twist you heard about is in the movie and YES it's stupid

And Karen Allen returning makes this movie, forreal. Always. The BEST. IndyGirl. EVA!!

Check a matinée, people.

PARENTS: If your kids have seen Raiders and not had traumatizing nightmares about God melting their faces or exploding their heads, then they should be good-to-go on this.

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN

Well, it's not bad...It's not amazing either. It's Chinese take-out Summer entertainment. Yeah, it's good and filling, but it's not exactly the best and it's gone an hour later. There isn't much in the way of character development, except the surface-level character-types you'd expect in this type of film. It has similar faults to the first one.

Here, Peter Dinklage takes over James MacAvoy's sympathetic forest-creature role. Like his predecessor, he did his best to ring out as much character as he could from the little they gave him to work with.

Caspian suffers a bit from Lord of the Rings-itis. Man, that movie changed the game for fantasy directors. New fantasy films have got to stay away from any images reminiscent of LOTR, if they want to stand out. Here, there were way too many scenes, that had me going..."Didn't Arwen do that?"

This movie is really made for preteen girls. Forget the swordplay. I could actually hear the sighs of the young girls (and some old ones too) swooning over Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes). He truly is yumilicious. He reminds me of a prettier, older version of Atrayu from The Neverending Story.

...Look, I was in sixth grade when I was digging that kid. ...I'm just saying.

And of course, there's the angsty, slashy, conflict between him and Peter (William Moseley).

Still, this is better than the first one. It moves much quicker and there are even a few laughs. Just don't expect an outstanding film or anything heavier than National Treasure 2.

I recommend it as a matinée, especially for families with girls. Seriously, the pretty on that Ben Barnes kid completely fades the memory of Orlando Bloom as Legolas. There are big bloodless battles for the boys, too.

I also really like that the oldest girl, Susan was played by a gorgeous average-sized girl (Anna Popplewell) who still attracted male attention. Nope, I didn't hear the clackity-clack of knobby bones knocking on her. That's another step away from the singular ideal, we've got going for feminine beauty in this country.



PARENTS: Take your little girls! Unless you want to hold off on them discovering how pretty men can be.

P.S. I kept giggling every time the camera went to the Narnian minority, some random black centaur. For some reason, the camera kept focusing on him, even though he had maybe, one line.

P.P.S. I just looked Prince Caspian up. He's very legal at 27. That's O.K. to lust after, ladies.

SPEED RACER

Considering all the negative reviews I've seen for this, this wasn't nearly as bad, as I thought it would be.

Now, that doesn't mean you should rush out to see it, but I do believe the Wachowskis achieved their intended goal. It's yet another live-action, anime-flick. This one is as lovingly stupid as the cartoon was. The poses, the staccato declarations, the monkey Chim-Chim, and even the tricks on the Mach 5, are all very true to source.

It looks like a high-budget Skittles' commercial...Two hours of it.

I was prepared for that, though. The biggest issues I had were with heavy-handed hyperbole (complete with annoyingly intrusive flashbacks), the unnecessarily long-winded plot-lines, and the just exhaustive length of this thing.

I fell asleep on it for around twenty minutes, ya'll...And I could care less. It was a nice little nap and I didn't feel like I'd missed a thing.

There was just too much going on for me too care about any of it and on top of that, all of it was presented in this very shallow, heavy-handed way. I was being beaten over the head with the most trite "words of wisdom" I've ever heard.

I didn't go in with huge expectations. I figured it would suck, but I thought it would at least have some interesting visuals. ...And some of them were.

...But here's the thing. When you put in a cool visual and add whole bunch of other distracting elements, or repeat that same cool visual two dozen times, the way the car backslides around turns for example, it nullifies the impact. The coolest visual you can imagine, will end up looking as boring, as Ben Stein's voice sounds.

That's what happened here.

I did enjoy Chim-Chim, the monkey and Paul Litt as Spritle. His wide-eyed energy and charisma reminded me a little bit of Mickey Rooney.

And the Wachowskis' will always get love from me for color-aware casting. They did the same in the Matrix movies, craptastic though the sequels were. Indeed, the Skittles' analogy extends to the cast. Most shades from Desi to Korean get some shine here.

I know some of you are tired of me mentioning it, but you don't know how much it can mean for kids to be able to see an image reflective of themselves up there on the screen. It's no small thing, for non-defaults.

...And then there's Minx, played by Nayo Wallace. She's a black actor, who's on screen for less than two miraculously, weave-free(!) minutes. Short-haired, naturally-nappy, black female actors in a big-budget project are black unicorns. They aren't supposed to exist! And Grace Jones don't count, that woman is a separate mythological creature, unto herself.

I hope she gets more sans weave work, after this.

So, the movie ain't that bad, but don't waste money seeing it in the theater, unless you or yours are Speed Racer fans.

For those people who talk about being color-blind, that's probably because they've seen Speed Racer. Wait for a high-def home viewing, people.


PARENTS: There's some cheap potty humor, but no curse-words, no sex, and only a Disney-style death. The issue will be with the pacing of this. I think this will make a number of kids fidgety.

P.S. The staff at Regal Gallery Place get a big FAIL from me for bad projection. The entire movie showed off-alignment, (cut-off on the bottom). After I'd mentioned it politely, twice, nothing was done about it.

And to the lady who brought the screaming baby?? You deserved the heckling you got from the guy on my row "NEXT TIME GET A SITTER!!" and the subsequent chuckles from all twenty folks in the theater.

Having kids means you've opened up a world a loving self-sacrifice, before you...If you do it right. This woman? Wasn't doing it right. We do, after all, have dvds', TiVO, pay-per view, and yes, sitters too.

P.P.S. As soon as I got home, I had to play a little Amplitude on my PS-2.
Hmm, I wonder why??

IRON MAN

Iron Man did not disappoint.

It's taut, fast-paced, and he's probably the best embodied super-hero, in recent memory. That prize had previously gone to Tobey MacGuire, until Spidey 3. Then, I started imagining what Spidey would have been like with Topher Grace in the role.

Robert Downey Jr. easily became the alcoholic, ego-maniacal, billionaire, Tony Stark, down to the molester-mustache.

What separates this film from the glut of other Marvel-based movies, is topical relevance. There are political underpinnings, as well as one detail that I particularly loved. Here was the first superhero, that I can remember saving non-white foreigners. Yup, there's less xenophobia than usual, here people. Truly, he's for the good of the world and that is made of a special kind of awesome.

His character flaws and arc are also the most believable, next to Spidey. He's neither an alien from Krypton, nor an orphan seeking vengeance. He's just a rich asshole, who was inspired by necessity.

I only had one big issue with the movie. Gwyneth Paltrow. She came off stiff and uninteresting and had zero chemistry with Downey Jr. Lines that should have been delivered with a dry, but still likable wit, ended up sounding self-important or even dim. That put a big ding in this otherwise, fantastic film, because you're supposed to care when she's in peril. I was just annoyed.

I have to give the casting agents credit, however, for casting a thirty-something. There are no Kate Bosworth with a five year old, believability issues, here.

The rest of the movie was decent. I say decent and not great because well, while people were leaving the theater saying "That was good.", there were no clappers. As the credits rolled, I had a satisfied smile, but I wasn't completely blown away.

And today, after the fact, I don't really remember any major set-pieces. It's a fine, rewatchable, popcorn film, a home-run clearly made by a fan of the source material, but the game wasn't a complete shut-out, because of Paltrow.

...But it's well-worth the ticket-price. If you're a Marvel-fan, be sure to stay after the credits.



PARENTS: There is some sexual innuendo and bloodless violence, but it's very tame, by PG-13 standards.