Just Friends (R)

Sigh. Thank gawd for Flushed Away because otherwise my movie week sucked.

A good friend told me Just Friends (Ryan Reynolds, Amy Smart; fat kid with crush on best [girl]friend gets thin ten years after a humilating high school experience and gets her back [No, I didn't give anything away. Duh. Of course he gets her back.] with the usual bumbling idiocy along the way) was All Laughs All The Time and I desperately needed All Laughs All The Time after six days spent mostly on or near the toilet. There were a few laughs early on but then it quickly took a sharp right turn into stupid -- and not stupid-funny but stupid-didn't-crack-a-smile-past-the-20-minute-mark.

1 fat suit out of 5.

Happy Feet (R)

Sucks.

Don't believe the hype (i.e. marketing).

2 random, over-the-kids'-heads, too-mishmashed-for-the-adults'-heads storylines out of 5. No, make it 1 and a six-pack ring.

Casino Royale -A

So I am not a huge James Bond fan but am not against going to see the movie if hubby wants to go, so we went. I heard good things so went into this thinking I was going to enjoy the Bond ride, and I did! I first saw Daniel Craig (the new Bond) in a movie called Layer Cake (definately worth a rental) and now have a new crush! He has the perfect body for clothes, they just fit perfectly. And then came the naked scene, thank you to whomever added that! I do not go for the blonde hair, blue eyed guys but he does it for me alrightly, very debonair as Bond should be. They picked a good Bond girl too, I had seen her in an artsy Bertolucchi film called The Sleepers (a very different kind of film, not sure if I liked it or not) and liked her. She is way more beautiful without make up then with it. Good twists in the plot, mostly hand to hand combat compared to all the gadgets, clever how they make fun of the whole Bond character. I give this 4 neekked Danial Craigs out of 5!

Fever Pitch (1997) (R)

We continued our trip down British comedy lane with Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch, an homage to English soccer with a bit of a love story thrown in. Again, I understood about 85% of it (I don't always understand rapid-fire humor of the British or football variety) but, again, the brit was chuckling away on the couch next to me. The love story was mostly about Arsenal's winning 1998 (I think) season and a boy's lifelong love affair with them. There was a bit of a non-soccer love affair thrown in there, too -- a bit.

Memorable quotation
"I can't tell you how long it's been since I heard someone say, "Shit, fuck, bollocks!" --The brit

Fun film, usual Hornby boy humor (think High Fidelity) kept true to the author's native country rather than Hollywood-ized.

4 super blunt ('cuz they're English) "So are you pregnant?"s out of 5

Aeon Flux (J)

I expected to hate this. Sci-Fi is not my bag and Charlize Theron used to be one of my favorite actors but then it turns out that she is a screaming bitch in real life so I try not to like her.

Actually, not bad. A pretty complex story with twists and meaning and really cool special effects.

I had heard really bad reviews on this so I sat down to watch it with a Christmas Cookie magazine and never did get through the magazine. The story line was complex enough that when I did read my magazine, I ended up having to have Josh explain what was happening so I finally stopped with the recipes.

Surprisingly, I'm going to give this 4 hands-where-feet-should-be out of 5.

Flushed Away (Theater!) (R)

All three of us headed over to the Cedar Hills mall yesterday to see Flushed Away, one of two animated movies we plan to see this holiday week. It's funny! Soren was a little scared of some of the sewer chase scenes, but the brit laughed his ass off through the entire thing. (I think he might have even peed a little.) I found it 85% as funny as he did, mostly, I think, because the humor was pretty darn British and some of it went over my head.

4.5 flushes out of 5!

Where the Truth Lies -A

Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth. Starts in the 50's, they are a comedy team, girl ends up dead in their hotel room and the comedy team disbands. Enter the 70's and a snoopy female reporter who wants to know what really happened in that room that the girl ended up dead and no one was chareged with the murder. Slow, dragging plot that I finally didn't care what in the hell happened in the hotel room. And throw in all the girl on girl or guy on girl sex scenes, it didn't help. Oh, and that twist at the end, not really a good twist!! 1 dead girl out of 5

Lord of War or Lord of SNORE (J)

Hated it. Boring unless you are a gun collector/lover. I did not even watch the whole thing. Nick Cage was just ok.

0 spent cartridge cases out of 5

Ed Wood (J)

Man! I love me some Johnny Depp. Not like, I love him and want him to see me naked (verrrrrry few people I would want to see me naked right now) but more like, I love his acting. He is so FANTASTIC! Tim Burton is always good but I really feel that he would not be where he is today if he hadn't made some sort of soul-selling deal with Johnny Depp.

One of the best and worst parts of this movie was Sarah Jessica Parker.
Worst=I hate her and her ugly witch mole on her chin. I think she is whiny and can only whine in any of her roles.
Best=There is a part at the beginning of the movie where she is reading a review from a critic who said she has a horse face and she has to say, "Do I really have a horse face?" The answer?? Yes, yes you do. Now go find something better to wear. You aren't really that girl that you played on Sex in the City.

I really liked this movie even though it seemed to drag in parts. I love movies that find real life characters like Ed Wood and document their life and interests. You couldn't make this guy up. Now, I want to find some Ed Wood films and watch them.

4 out of 5 angora sweaters.

"Half Light" or for the downers of the group, "Half Dark" (J)

Half Light with Demi Moore. Neither Josh or I remember adding this to our Netflix but yet, there it was on our doorstep so we popped it in. Now that I am typing this, I realized that we watched this movie in the living room on our puny 32" TV instead of the 46" home theatre experience that is our bedroom. We are dumb.

Anyway, Demi (a novelist) has a son who drowns and spins her off the less-than-shallow-but-not-really-deep end so she must retreat to a cabin next to the sea in Scotland to finish her book. Spooky things happen and then some more spooky things and a few things that make you just about crap the couch (but not the bed because we forgot about the life-sized people we could watch on the bedroom TV) and then sweet resolution. I don't remember a lot about Seven Signs or Seventh Seal or whatever that scary movie was that Demi did when I was in high school but I remember it scared me and so I was expecting a lot from this film. I liked it but didn't love it. I like that they didn't try to make a huge thing out of her son drowning because I cannot handle shit like that. And I liked the psychic parts but feel they could have and maybe should have done more with that. But maybe that would have given away the twist at the end. I give it 3 lighthouses and a half of a Scottish language we aren't supposed to understand out of 5.

Late comment re: Monster House (R)

We rented it and watched about 10 minutes of it before Soren decided he wasn't interested. But that line about the ball costing $28 dollars and asking mom for a dollar 26 times? It cracked me up. It struck me as so familiar that I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out how I knew it.

Then I remembered the chick blog!

A Prairie Home Companion (R)

Um, I'm not sure.

I enjoyed seeing GK, Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Woody Harrelson & and John C. Reilly (think that's his name -- the fellow who was PHENOMENAL in Chicago) do their thing. I enjoyed the music and the gag songs. I wanted to like it but barely achieved that and certainly didn't love it. Guy Noir didn't work for me and the lady in white -- eh. And Lindsay Lohan? Waste of space.

No, probably not.

The Break-Up -A

So I am already a Vince Vaughn fan and I don't hate Jennifer Aniston. I liked this movie! I wanted a chick filck, was in the mood for a chick flick, and this delivered. Not trying to be too funny or too serious. It kept me watching to see how it ends, I don't want to give anything away so I need to stop. I give it 3 Chicago Cubs out of 5

Date Movie (unrated) -A

This was painful. So painful we did not watch the whole movie. We thought this was done by the same people who did the Scary Movie movies, which at least are clever in how they rip off the horror films. It sucked! This was chick flick rip offs and considering there are a million chick flicks out there there should be plenty of material. It sucked! Any humor was gross, uncreative, and NOT funny. It sucked! The cat pooping was funny but when isn't toilet humor funnny. This on the other hand sucked! 0 bad, unfunny jokes out of 5

Thank You for Smoking - A

No, thank you to whoever thought this movie up and got it produced and released! The movie follows one main character and his job as a lobbyist for the tobacco industry. It is clever and witty and smart and sneaky. Man, the old boys running these tobacco companies had to hate this movie, I am guess probably even tried to get it blocked from release. Loved this movie, satirical and fun. 4 Marlboros out of 5. I couldn't give it 5 because Katie Holmes was in it, not for long but enough to effect the rating.

Running with Scissors (R)

I didn't get this book. My sister and brother both handed me Augesten Burroughs's book a couple of years ago and told me I had to read it. I did and wasn't impressed. Burrows had a traumatic childhood, no doubt. He encountered crazy characters -- including his mother -- and had insane experiences. But does that make him a good writer? Not in my opinion. Does the craziness give his story redeeming literary qualities? If so, I still don't see them.

So Emily dragged me to the movie (blah blah It's my birthday blah blah) and it was pretty disappointing. Take my thoughts on the book and add to it a movie full of choppy scenes, overly dramatic moments, and disappointing performances (what happened, Gwenyth?) and you had our group of six rolling our eyes and waiting for it to end. Emily wished it had stayed more true to the book but I'm not sure I would have liked that either.

Annette Bening's performance, though, I gotta say, was impressive as Augusten's nutty mother.

Good for Burrows for dealing with his memories but I think I'll skip his next books and movies.

Red Eye (R)

I was still in the mood for a thriller after Halloween week so I picked up one from 2005. Rachel MacAdams and a sorta-creepy-sorta-too-much-like-Clay-Aiken "Jackson Rippner" have it out on the red eye between Dallas and Miami and then the suspense continues in Miami. It's good. Better character development than most scary films and 2-3 big jumps.

3.5 surprize tracheotomies out of 5.

An American Haunting - A

We were hoping to watch this on Halloween but there was a long wait for it. Stars are Sissy Spacek and Donald Sutherland. Based on true events, takes place in 1818. They refer to 'it' as an entity and it is haunting the hell out of this family, especially the daughter Betsy. I really liked it!! Why? You never see the entity so a lot is to imagination and they tie the story together at the end. There are a few empty holes in the story where you are yelling at the screen to tell the characters what to do and they don't do it but I have watched a lot of movies like that. I give this 3.5 broken face dollies out of 5. Jamie and Robin, I think this movie would would freak you out.

In the Mouth of Madness -A

Again with the Sam Neil, I didn't know he was into the scary movies. This was made in the mid 90's and I LOVED the premise! It is all about a author that writes scary books and is the Sam Neil character a character in his book or is he going crazy?? I would love to see a remake with good actors. Like I said, love the premise but the movie was OK. There were a couple of unanswered questions but nothing to keep you awake at night. 3 straight jackets out of 5

The Changeling (1980) (R)

This movie scared the living bejeezus out of me when I was 10 and it didn't disappoint last night when I watched for the first time in probably 15 years. It may be 26 years old but The Changeling, in my opinion (and others') is one of the scariest movies ever.

Who wants to borrow my copy?