Half Summer Review!

Instead of posting extended reviews for movies I've seen this summer, I figured I'd save myself some time and just do brief reviews to catch everyone up on the wonderful pieces this summer they may have missed.

The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D - This film is an action packed adventure in 3-D which will leave audiences breathless. For anyone under the age of 5 they will enjoy the wonderful action scenes and blatant catering to the fact the film is using 3-D technology. To anyone above 5, they will be left in amazement that someone like Robert Rodriguez could direct something like Sin City and then create a heaping pile of shit such as this film. Someone needs to explain to Mr. Rodriguez that just because he creates something to entertain kids, he doesn't need to market it to mass audiences and make hordes of parents sit through this trash. The highlight of the film is Sharkboy singing a song to put Max to sleep, I recommend everyone see this segment so we can sign a petition asking Robbie "The Orson Welles of 3-D Cinema" Rodriguez to create a full length musical. I nominate this film for one of the worst titles in cinematic history.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - Laugh. Cry. Share the pants. Surprisingly, not nearly as awful as I thought it would be. This film revolves around four 16-17 year old friends who met while their mothers where pregnant with them, without further explanation of how they met once their mothers weren't in lamaze class or why they're still friends. What the hell was Alexis Bledel thinking? I guess she blew all her money from "Gilmour Girls" on hookers and blow because she looked ashamed to be in this film. She spent the majority of the film talking through her teeth which basically left me confused as to what she was saying the whole time, which probably was why I liked her scenes left, I didn't need to listen to the horrendous dialogue. Carmen is played by the latina slut from Lords of Dogtown. She spends all her time hating her father, hating the suburbs, and in general raging against whitey. Some 17 year old blonde girl played Bridget in the film. Bridget is some kind of nymphomaniac bent on humping her college age soccer coach even though the coach is off limits. Nearly all her scenes are her in skimpy clothing running around and trying to get in the guy's pants, which supported my idea that the director, Ken Kwapis, is a dirty old man that just wanted to film a bunch of young girls. They made the only actor that was under 18 into the sex object of the film, good work Ken! The girl from "Joan of Arcadia" plays the angsty, rebellious filmmaker Tibby. Tibby befriends a girl after hearing the girl piss herself and pass out in the store where she works. They then spend the majority of their time filming an Asian kid playing video games. Hooray for stereotypes. This film is a modern day retelling of the Wizard of Oz for teenyboppers, Lena is the lion who gets her courage, Bridget is the tin man who goes from being a slut to growing a heart, Carmen overcomes her fear of white people, and Tibby is Dorothy because that's all that is left.

Madagascar - Pretty funny animated film focused around four friends, Alex (Ben Stiller), Marty (Chris Rock), Melman (David Schwimmer), and Gloria (Jada Pinkett-Smith). The four friends try to bring Marty back to the zoo because on his birthday he decides to escape. They then engage in all sorts of wacky hijinks and the like. By far the most entertaining parts of this film are the scenes involving the four genius penguins and the scenes involving Julian (Ali G), the "robot king of the monkey things." David Schwimmer was perfectly cast since his character should've killed off immediately, much like he should have been in real life, however, it continues to live.

Mr. And Mrs. Smith - Two strangers meet, fall in love and get married without any real knowledge of the other. They end up being hitman and their next targets are each other. People bitched about Gigli because a real life celebrity couple (Ben Affleck and J.Lo) were in the film together and everyone was sick of them. Besides that, no one really likes Ben Affleck or J.Lo. Pile that on to complete shit writing, directing, and overall a horrible film and of course it's going to bomb. In this film, we have another current celebrity couple, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, however, this film is not Gigli. Brad Pitt is a pretty likeable guy, most girls find him one hunky stud and most guys find him pretty entertaining as a pimp daddy. No one really likes anything Angelina Jolie has done post-Hackers, but she's perdy to look at. Anyway, the scenes establishing these two as a bored married couple in the film actually feel somewhat natural, and have plenty of jokes for people to chuckle at. Then once all hell breaks loose, everyone action scene is incredibly entertaining since there hasn't been a good non-sci fi flick with two people getting into shoot outs with entire armies of people. So you've got the humor breaking up these incredibly ridiculous action scenes creating a film which I actually enjoyed quite a bit more than either of the Bourne flicks.

Batman Begins - I was thoroughly expecting to be let down by this film since I heard of it's inception. Then I heard Christian Bale was cast and started to gain some of my confidence back. Anyway, this film is one of the few prequels I've ever seen made that actually added to the story, gave general audiences more information, and more importantly, was...well, it was good. Liam Neeson is awesome regardless of how shitty a movie he's put in, but in this film you can tell he really enjoyed the role he landed. Michael Caine was great as Alfred. I always found Alfred to be a really interesting character and wished there was more regarding his connection with Bruce Wayne and the Wayne family in general, and finally in this film you get to see why he doesn't find it odd his master decides to build a giant fucking hole under the house and invest millions of dollars into armor and weapons. This film gives the filmgoer more insight into why Bruce Wayne decided becoming Batman was a good idea. I don't like Katie Holmes, but she was surprisingly tolerable in this movie. Cillian Murphy did a great job as well, but I wished there had been more of him. I really enjoyed the updated version of Gotham in this film, however, for me it took away from some of the really dark mood of the original film, but meh. If they can keep the same cast and crew on board for a few sequels I'd be a happy little clam.

Bewitched - Will Ferrell always walks a line between incredibly funny, incredibly annoying, and incredibly unfunny. In this film, he plunges head first into incredibly unfunny. Will Ferrell's films, regardless of plot or cast, always focus on his own brand of humor which is "Look at me, I'm Will Ferrell, I'm so zany!" which I admit I occasionally find pretty damn funny. In this film, however, he tries to be a real comedian and act, however, he's really, really uncharismatic, has horrible timing, and in general should've stuck to what worked. Nora Ephron should've stopped making films many, many moons ago. Nicole Kidman is in this movie. The film just dragged on until the last 15 minutes or so which made less sense to me than the end of Spongebob Squarepants: The Movie. The only part that made me actually chuckle in this film is the last 10 seconds because I knew it was almost over, and also the fact it was blatantly thrown into the film solely as a nod to fans of the original show "Bewitched."The only thing that kept me going through this movie was Bryan Goggins constantly make jokes about how Will Ferrell thought he was Jim Carrey and spouting Jim Carrey quotes. Probably the worst film I've seen since Little Black Book.

Herbie: Fully Loaded - Why would you remake this? Why would you keep the same car in the film so many years later? Why would you put Lindsay Lohan in this? Why wasn't there more Breckin Meyer in this film? He was so wonderful in Garfield! What the hell were you thinking Michael Keaton?! Questions that constantly floated through my mind but were never answered as I watched this film. Horrible CGI, terribly unfunny, and in general just a bad movie. Another example of a company cashing in on what is now thought of as a "classic." I did laugh at this article about Lindsay Lohan though.

Star Wars: Episode 3 - Revenge of the Sith - I could go on and on for page after page about this film, but chances are you've seen the film and read other people's comments. I think all 3 of the people I linked over yonder on the right have written some posts about this. I'll say this, it was the best out of the recent 3, but that isn't saying much. The only point in the film I thought was pretty damn entertaining is when Anakin walked into the room full of children, whips out his lightsabre, then the film cuts away. Hayden Christensen is a whiny bitch who isn't nearly as likeable as a main character, was horrible at playing evil, cocky, powerful, or any of the things we see in the original Vader. Natalie Portman's role is essentially pointless, and the completely random little nods to the original set of characters made me roll my eyes. I still wish I could erase all knowledge and existence of these three from my memory.

The Perfect Man - I was wrong, this is the worst film I've seen since Little Black Book. Fuck this movie.

The Longest Yard - Another remake. At least Burt Reynolds was in this remake, because hey, who doesn't like Burt Reynolds? I guess Adam Sandler decided he wanted to make The Waterboy 2: Electric Boogaloo so the studio approached him with this to appease him. I admit, however, this film was fairly entertaining and there were actually multiple jokes and gags that I laughed at. Also this film has Nelly in it. Nelly. NELLY! Chris Rock continues his usual jokes of "You white people, you so crazy!" so if you like Chris Rock you'll like his jokes, and I do, so I liked his jokes. I actually enjoyed the fact it wasn't a shot for shot remake, it was more of a different person's vision of the same story, which is what I would prefer remakes to be. If I wanted to watch the original, I'd watch the original. I feel the same way about remakes as I do with cover songs, you're supposed to take the original and put your own spin on it, which is what this film did. Good on you, Pete Segal, Adam Sandler, Burt Reynolds, Chris Rock, and NELLY!

Cinderella Man - Ron Howard creates another film about a wonderful American underdog. He really does know how to tug at the last few heart strings that are left of his target audience, the bored 80 year olds that hate these young whippersnappers with their films about monsters and space and boobs. I really dislike Renee Zellwegger, she always looks like her face is about to implode which makes it hard to discern whether she's happy and smiling or sad and crying. If you liked The Aviator or Seabiscuit this film follows the same formula so you'll probably like this. You'll probably love this film if you're in a nursing home and don't know what the hell the internet is.

War of the Worlds - I already wrote about this earlier, so scroll down if you want my opinion. I wish I could just loop the few segments of aliens kicking the crap out of stuff for an hour and 45 minutes and watch that.


So there you have it, if I forgot anything let me know. This is by far one of the worst summers for movies, ever. Anyway, I've caught up on everything and will continue to update with more superb reviews as I see the films and maybe start posting some album reviews because everyone likes music. Except for deaf people, they don't. Up next should be Rebound, which is sure to be a barrel full of jollies.