His Movie Reviews

The funny thing about having a movie review blog is that a lot of people get you movie related gifts for Christmas.  When in doubt, get a theater gift card I suppose.   So with gift card in hand, we went to see the newest incarnation of the romantic comedy, Leap Year.  Amy Adams and Matthew Goode star in this film about a woman that hashes out this plan to propose to her boyfriend on February 29th in Ireland.  Of course nothing goes as planned and seeing that the other main star of the film is not her boyfriend, you can pretty much figure out the rest. Leap Year produces no clever advances or accomplishments to the romantic comedy genre, instead it is a straight by the book. In fact, just by watching the preview you get the whole movie in a nutshell. And with that being said, it makes this movie almost feel like a straight to DVD release.  Amy Adams is cute, but seems a bit weak in parts as conflict arises.  For example, when someone steals her bag, she rushes in then quickly turns timid and awkward.  Matthew Goode does an alright job but don’t expect an award winning performance.  Overall it is a simple love story that has been seen a million times before, and if you like romantic comedies, you’ll probably enjoy this.  The biggest flaw in this movie however is the horrible green screen.  Throughout the film, it is easily seen that they have been pasted into the beautiful landscape of Ireland and makes me wonder if they were ever there in the first place.  I mean seriously, I just paid $18 dollars for us to see this movie, at least make it look like they are actually there.  There are parts in the film where the green screen is about as good as what I can achieve with the fake iChat backgrounds on my Mac.  This one problem does a huge disservice to the film and especially Ireland.  I would say skip this movie, or just watch the trailer below – it’ll save you time and money.

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So another Blockbuster run results in another small indie movie.  This time we ended up with, Paper Heart, a documentary / romantic comedy starring Michael Cera and Charlyne Yi. Actually, I am not even sure what this movie really is, a documentary, a romantic comedy, a drama?  It is definitely filmed documentary style, yet with half of the movie being a fictional story, for me it loses its documentary cred.  Basically the story of the film revolves around Charlyne Yi and her inability to fall in love.  So from this, they decide to film her life and go on adventures to figure out what love is and if she is in fact capable of it.  Interspersed throughout the film are small stories from people around the United States of how they fell in love or what they thought love was.  They are small anecdotes to how they first met or their favorite memories.   And for me, this is the real charm of the film, the real-life wonders that love creates for us – our memories and adventures through life. This should have been the film’s focus. But, they overshadow these bits with an awkward and fictional love story between Charlyne and Michael Cera.  I mean, come on, can’t they find an actual person Charlyne might be interested in, not some fake romance?  They play it off as this bit of trying to capture the protagonists first discovery of love, yet with no real chemistry between the two of them, it comes off cheap and stupid.  Granted, I know before going into the film that this ‘love story’ was fake and created only for the film…I would hate to find out out later and learn you were duped. This whole fake documentary part made me feel like this was the Blair Witch Project of romantic comedies.  They really want you to believe it’s real, yet it’s all a lie. The only good part of the fictional story and an important aspect of love that I think the film should have focused on is the love of friends and how this film crew really worked together as a family to accomplish this film.  There are some wonderful heartfelt moments between the director and Charlyne that made me believe they were truly good friends.  They cared about each other, and that in itself, is a great type of love. However, they stayed true to their story and follwed their fictional story to the end.  Overall, this movie was kind of a disappoint for me.  The goal of the movie was huge, and trying to get a grasp on what love really is seems insurmountable to me – doomed to fail from the beginning.

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Gigantic was a completely random pick off the shelves of Blockbuster with a bright and colorful cover-box (best way to pick a movie eh?). I had never heard of this movie beforehand, but after the initial attraction, it had some decent people in it so we picked it up and gave it a whirl.  Gigantic is a a romantic comedy about a a kid that works in a mattress store whose life is thrown upside-down after meeting Happy, the quirky daughter of one of his customers.  And upon viewing, I am still wondering why it’s called Gigantic.  Perhaps its the final result of great confusion and questions that you are left with – the gigantic pile of what the hell just happened? There are just random things that just don’t really make any sense.  Why does a bum keep beating him up?  Is this some Fight Club reference?  Why is he adopting a Chinese baby, it’s a noble thing and all, but what? Maybe it’s some higher meaning things that just flew by me.  And maybe I am trying to read too much into the film. But seriously, if someone watches this movie, can you explain the bum to me.  This part really threw off the whole movie for me.

It’s not that Gigantic is all that bad, just rather that it seemed like a garbled mess of story that tried to be some wonderful indie romantic comedy. But see, Zooey Deschanel already made that movie and its called 500 Days of Summer.  And after seeing that movie, you will see that Gigantic with its similar awkward love story really stands no chance.  I think the acting chops were all there, just the story didn’t live up to snuff.  I mean, the biggest saving grace of this film was defintely Ed Asner.  The man was hilarious – though his screen time is limited.  John Goodman has some funny moments as well, playing the weird and rich father to Happy (Zooey Deschanel). Deschanel of course plays the quirky love interest that she so often fits into wonderfully and has seemed to be typecast into lately. I love Zooey Deschanel and all, but watch her in 500 Days of Summer instead.  This movie just doesn’t seem to quite hit the mark.

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It seems like every year, a sports movie comes along that keeps us reaching for our dreams. I guess it’s because almost everyone enjoys these things.  It’s the underdog fighting for their chance, their dream.  Who can’t get behind something like that?  And so like every other year, 2009 didn’t disappoint.  This time it’s with the new Sandra Bullock movie, The Blind Side. And the best part of this “just another sports movie” is that this one is really good.  Of course every inspirational sports movie has to have a good story (that always seem to be extraordinarily true), so this one is no different, but its really the acting that make this movie shine.  Sandra Bullock is just great in this film.  She plays an upper-middle class housewife who takes it upon herself to take in a really big, homeless, African American child and raise him as her own. Through her nurturing and no back-talking sass, she raises the boy to be an NFL caliber football player.  It’s a heartwarming, family-friendly, all around decent film. And it provides a good mix of comedy and drama that keeps you crying (well not crying, I am a dude after all) and laughing.  Alongside Bullock comes Jae Head playing her younger son that milks every delivered line for all its cuteness.  Some Friday Night Light fans may remember him as Riggins wide-eyed, annoying neighbor that liked to give him two thumbs up (“Hey Tim Riggins!”).  And it seems like he hasn’t changed at all for this film, but damn does he play the part well.  You also have Kathy Bates, Lily Collins (Phil Collins daughter), and Tim Mcgraw that play their parts well and round out the cast. Finally there is Quinton Aaron, who plays the kindest, most polite kid from the wrong side of the tracks that you’ve ever seen.  You fall in love with him and of course get behind him like any good inspirational movie should do.  So like you’ve been suckered into the sports movies before, get suckered again, this one is worth it.

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Being sick this past week, has afforded me some time to sit back on the couch, throw in a DVD and enjoy.  But after getting through Year One, I can definitely say there was no enjoying going on. Year One stars Jack Black and Michael Cera as two cavemen that are kicked out of their village and then forced to travel to distant lands. The story follows their adventures while throwing in biblical references here and there as they make their way to the city of Sodom.  Now a movie starring Jack Black and Michael Cera seems like it would be funny, but the misguided plot and un-inventive comedy comes out as just plain stupid. No one could save this movie – though they did try.  They threw every semi-big named actor into this film and yet still nothing came out of it (Jack Black, Michael Cera, Vinnie Jones, The dude that played Mclovin, Oliver Platt, Hank Azaria, Olivia Wilde, Bill Hader, Paul Rudd, probably some more names that aren’t really that famous but you’ve heard of them). I mean seriously, when reading the script for this was anyone thinking this is crap. It seems like every time they would randomly get into a situation, the movie would cut to the next scene – never showing you how they escaped the previous dilemma.  Wait how did he get out of the entanglement of the snake?! The film is a haphazard mess of “how stupid can we make this scene and then move on to something else.” The funniest thing about this movie, isn’t even actually in the movie. There is a skit online with a lot of the people from the film parodying Leroy Jenkins.  I’ll save you the time, watch the skit here, and completely pass on Year One – don’t even bother renting it. Go watch Juno (if you like Michael Cera) or something that is actually a good movie.

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