Review: Semi-Pro

God help me I loved it! I’m sure this means that there’s something wrong with me but I laughed more during Semi-Pro than Anchorman (impossible!) plus it’s about BASKETBALL!!!

Review: Hurlyburly

So I’d heard about this movie for the last decade but I’d been putting off seeing it because I assumed it was going to just annoy me. Last week, though, I decided to buckle down and bring home a bunch of the movies that I’d been putting off seeing and Hurlyburly was first on my list. It irritated me. Just as I suspected, it was a movie about horrible Los Angeles industry types being horrible to eachother. The thing is, I can understand why the film maker probably made it - it must SUCK having to be surrounded by those people all the time and, since film is a form of creative expression, making a movie is a way to explain how they feel about having to live in that kind of aweful environment. However, I don’t see any reason why anyone ELSE who isn’t in the entertainment industry would possibly need or want to watch it; it’s a movie about a bunch of immature, narcissistic, producers who take advantage of the insecure, desperate women that enter their lives and then need to talk about their feelings in depth. Great. They did a great job of making a movie that accurately portrays how awful people can really be. My problem is this: since people are already like that, how did it benefit me having even more awfulness suddenly injected into my life? But then I probably just need to grow up.

Review: Be Kind, Rewind

I loved it. Be Kind, Rewind was weird and clever and surprising and funny and beautiful. Of course, I have a soft spot for independent video stores…

Review: Charlie Bartlett

I can’t tell if this movie was some jaded industry type’s method for capitalizing on the rebellious desires of multiple generations of paying customers or if the writers were just really really lazy. Whatever the personal failings of the people involved, it was awful. And the problem is that it had potential. I mean the cast was pretty cool and there were some moments. But the overall effect of of being so completely ripped off and offended by them blatantly using some of the best moments from other brilliant movies like Harold and Maude and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and then finished it all off with a cheesy ending that made our audience of two gag. If I had to personally PAY for this crap I’d be PISSED.

Review: In Bruges

I don’t really know what I was expecting but, well, I guess I wasn’t disappointed. It didn’t have much of a story and I didn’t really care about the characters but it was well acted and the the cinematography was just gorgeous. I mean, I’ve never had any desire to go to Belgium but now I can see how it might be appealing: canals, mist, spires, cobblestones. Basically pretty romantic. I don’t know. In Bruges had its moments. I will probably never watch it again however.

Review: The New Adventures of Old Christine

So, there are many many things working against The New Adventures of Old Christine - the format is the awful sitcom formula of boring lighting, limited camera work, and laugh tracks - and I know that these things will be hard for many of my friends to overcome. I believe, however, that the cast (Julia Louis-Dreyfus was made for this role) and the writing (most of it) more than makes up for the format. I don’t even notice it, really. All I’m paying attention to is how weird Christine’s brother is and how brutally uncomfortable I get when she decides to be proactive and how refreshing it is that she has a realistic relationship with her ex-husband (they have trouble establishing boundaries after being together for so long, they both contributed to the demise of their marriage, they’re both actually ok people and they both love their son). I love how irrational, mean and spastic she gets when it comes to her ex-husbands new girlfriend, “new” Christine, but how, when she’s had time to think about it she tries to do the right thing. And then is always mean in the end. Her brother knows all of these horrendously embarrassing details about her sex life which illicit the best, most horrified looks from the actor who plays him - as if he’s tried his entire life to block out these memories but she just keeps piling on the reasons for therapy. She makes lots of mistakes, is constantly embarassing herself and desperately tries to control everything which only leads to her looking like an idiot. Basically, it’s the ultimate show for making women feel better about themselves. The thing is, I think, if the guys would give it a chance, they might find a lot to like about it themselves. It isn’t man hating. In fact, the men are generally the most calm and reasonable people in the show. And their reactions to her are always totally true - they don’t let her get away with anything - they call her on her craziness in a way that men don’t generally get to do. This is probably because I got made fun of for watching this show TWICE yesterday but, seriously, I think it deserves a try. But not the pilot. It’s not as good as the rest. The episodes with Andy Richter in particular are brutally excellent. Oh and Wanda Sykes is a comic genius though in season one, at least, she didn’t get as many lines as I would have liked to have seen.

Review: C.S.I. - Miami

I think I died a little inside when I heard my pop say the words “We’re watching a lot of CSI lately - only the Miami one, though. That’s our favorite”. The thing is that there have been or currently are cast members who I really like - Emily Proctor was awesome on the West Wing as a smart, southern Republican attorney, Adam Rodriguez is better than I had initially thought he was and Rory Cochrane is just awesome - but the writing is slightly more mediocre than the other shows in the franchise and this is only exacerbated by the terrible acting. The most spectacular example is, of course, Davis Caruso who’s now notorious for his stupid sun glasses and squinting. I have to do a lot of explaining when I remind people that he used to be good - NYPD Blue was made a success initially because of him. He USED to actually act. Now it’s just a lot of squinting and talking really slowly. He’s turning into William Shatner or something. And it might all be a little easier to take if the cast wasn’t so unnecessarily sexy - who walks through the sand in heels? I don’t know, it doesn’t have any of the grit that the other two have. Like, is there no dark side to Miami? Do they have no homeless people? I want a few urine stains every once in a while in a city if I’m going to take it seriously. I will say that the older episodes are way better but still I can’t understand what my parents are smoking down there in So Cal to think that this show is an OK way to spend their time.

Review: C.S.I. - New York

I knew this would happen - I would somehow get sucked into another CSI. I’m not saying it’s without flaws - Melina Kanakaredes just gets on my nerves no matter how hard I try to like her and Hill Harper is such a weird-o that I can’t decide if he’s a good actor or an awful actor - but the flaws can’t outweigh it’s good points. I mean Gary Sinise is just awesome and watching this show gives me the opportunity to watch him in an extended way that you don’t get watching a movie - he’s really a wonderful actor and he’s doing a lot more with the character than he had to for the paycheck. Plus it’s New York! It’s a great town! Who cares about Las Vegas? The main reason I found it interesting in the first place is that it could be basically anywhere in the southwest (except for the strip) so the creepiness could be superimposed on locations I know. But with this new show I get to see parts of New York that I’ve never seen before and that I might never see. And, yes, I know that the inside shots are done in L.A. - they use the Biltmore Hotel (where I went to prom) in L.A. for, like, every hotel lobby in existence and I recognized it in an episode as well as the GODDAMN North American wing of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County which (as well as the African wing) is my favorite part of the museum (assholes. I hate it that LA doesn’t actually lay claim to any of its buildings or monuments but, instead, puts them all up for rent as if they belong to other cities. Whatever. Go ahead and sell our identity). But the exciting part is the outside shots - inadvertently or maybe intentionally they’re giving a lesson each episode on the New York that you usually don’t get to see in the movies, giving New York and less one dimensional personality. I like it. Oh and I really like Carmine Giovinazzo (but I’ve always been a sucker for italians), Eddie Cahill, and Anna Belknap. I also really liked Vanessa Ferlito from season 1 but she had to leave to be fabulously bitchy in Death Proof.

Review: Shoot ‘Em Up

Now, I THOUGHT Shoot ‘Em Up was my type of movie. I mean, I like violence - I think it indicates an overabundance of testosterone or maybe it’s just me taking after Daddy. The last couple of movies I saw in the theater? No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, American Gangster, 3:10 to Yuma… Ok, so Juno was in there too but overall I liked the other ones better. This is all to say it’s not some dumb girly thing that made me stop this move after half an hour. It was just dumb. I couldn’t believe it. DUMB. Somehow Michael Davis took that monster awesome cast and gave them the dumbest script I’ve ever heard. It really takes a lot for me to not want to watch Paul Giamatti and Clive Owen do anything and Monica Bellucci is gorgeous - who wouldn’t mind looking at her? What a waste of time! And money! And talent! Paul Giamatti had the makings of a REALLY EVIL bad guy - I mean so evil that he’s evil-y sexy. And then everyone starts talking or moving and everything goes bad. I’ve been told that I have to watch the rest - that it’s “really good” - but I don’t know when I’m going to have the time to sit and grit my teeth for another hour.

Review: Eagle vs. Shark

So, I think this needs a preface. Like, ALL of my friends are guys. In bands. Guys in bands. Which means that all of my friends are, like, eight. I chose this life for myself and, don’t get me wrong, it has a lot of perks: guys don’t talk about themselves all the time like girls do, they don’t spend your time together moaning about their love lives, when they’re dumb you can just point it out instead of worrying about their feelings - the list of pros is long. However, there’s a downside. For instance, there are a million private jokes that I don’t get because they do nothing but screw around all day and I’m always at school. They get obsessed with things and then don’t understand why I’ve never heard of them. Like Flight of the Conchords. That goddamn show. It wasn’t bad enough that I had three bands practicing in my garage and I was living with two band guys, they had to start recommending tv shows to me (to ME!) and a show that I might have totally loved if I’d been allowed to find it on my own was immediately on my shit list. So when I was gleefully told that the guy from Flight of the Conchords was in a movie and I could get a free ticket to see it (one of the perks of my guys), I have to say I wasn’t that in to it. However, I went. With 5 of my guys. It was the perfect environment to see Eagle vs. Shark; I have never felt my situation was more completely understood before in my entire life. And don’t worry, I’ve since watched all of Flight of the Conchords and I’ll happily admit that it’s great. I just couldn’t handle watching a show about guys in a band and how funny they are as if the world revolves around guys in bands. I’ve come to realize that I’m, like, the only person that doesn’t think that the world revolves around guys in bands so I guess I shouldn’t be so bitchy about it at least to my guys - they can’t help it. They’re just band guys.