Beastly

Ok, I know this movie is a fantasy and all, but who in hell think Alex Pettyfer thinks he looks like he's in high school? What is he, 30? Give me a break. At least Vanessa Hudgens looks younger than she is. Plus I know this is missing the point of the movie and all, but does anyone else think the main character looks better after he turns into the beast? I happen to like tattoos and piercings, so I think he looks much better with them (and much better after he loses the hair he has at the beginning of the movie...dude, you look ten times better without it).

But like I said, this movie is a fantasy, and for all its glossy shallowness, it's still a fun watch. It's not trying to be realistic or anything (on what planet would Mary Kate Olson be the ugly girl in school?) And honestly, for a movie that seems to be trying to say that beauty is as much about what is inside as what is outside, it does like to contradict its own message all the time. When the "witch" Kendra turns Alex Pettyfer (Kyle) into the beast and he's supposed to be "as aggressively ugly on the outside as he is on the inside" I still don't think he looks bad (he looks better! Come on people, it can't just be me here). so yeah, "beauty is on the inside...look at all these ugly tattooed freaks omg!" It could be better if it stopped stepping on its own toes for five minutes, but it's not a bad way to kill two hours.

Anyway, after he disses the "ugly witch" in school, she turns him into a guy with major tattoos and piercings and his rich dad sends him off to live in an apartment in the city away from prying eyes, and he has a year to make someone fall in love with him. And that's when the movie is good. The developing love between the lead characters is actually sweet to watch. And the side characters, played by Lisa Gay Hamilton and Neil Patrick Harris, banter a lot and make the movie more fun. Also, usually in movies like this it's the girl who gives the speech about the end about how she loves the guy and when she's with him she feels beautiful, but in this movie, we get to see the guy make that speech, so it's a nice twist. Plus I always hate how these Beauty and the Beast stories seem to be saying that if you love someone, they'll change and be everything you want, which is shallow and annoying, but at least with this movie and the Disney movie version there are other people's lives at stake, other people affected by the curse too, so that adds an extra element that will benefit from the breaking of the curse. I don't know. This movie isn't perfect, but it was a fun watch, so I dug it.

Why did I Get Married too?

I heard a lot of bad things about this movie before I watched it (and not just from the same people who bash everything tyler Perry does, even fans of the original "Why did I Get Married" have a lot of problems with this one) so I was apprehensive about watching it. After watching it, I can definitely see why a lot of people don't like it. the first half hour to 45 minutes of this movie feels like we're all just standing around waiting for a plot to happen, because I don't really understand the reason for the movie. It's great to see all the characters again, but I didn't really understand what the movie was going to be about for a long time. I think it takes too long to get going and that lag in the first 45 minutes just feels kind of awkward.

Once things get going though, they hit with a BANG. Let me say that in the first movie, while I liked Patricia (Janet Jackson's character) she felt kind of cold and distant to me and I kind of wished she'd lose it a little and scream and yell and cry a bit. anything to break that wall she'd seemed to build around herself to keep her emotions locked inside. well, let me tell you, in this movie, she doesn't just lose it a little, she loses it a LOT. both she AND Gavin (who was kind of cold and distant himself) spend a lot of this movie yelling and screaming and breaking things, and while I know it's not the healthiest way to express yourself, I appreciated it because I know how harmful it can be to hold in your emotions because you think there's something wrong with expressing them (in fact, this movie might be a perfect example of WHY you shouldn't hold everything in until you explode and start breaking coffee tables with a golf club). In this movie, Gavin and Patricia are still struggling with grief over their son's death, and Gavin is reaching a breaking point over Patricia's refusal to let him in. For Patricia's part, the facade of successful therapist and author is starting to crumble around her, and when it cracks, it EXPLODES.

The other couples are going through tough times too, of course. Marcus and Angela are always fighting, but it seems that Angela's lack of trust is hitting a high point and Marcus is getting sick of always having to defend himself against her attacks. Dianne and Terry had the little boy that Terry always wanted, but Terry is starting to suspect that Dainne's recent happiness has more to do with another man than with he and the kids. Sheila and her new husband Troy are handling the stress of having a new baby, moving to a new state, and dealing with Troy's unemployment, as well as Mike's sudden interest in getting back into his ex wife's life. I have to say, Mike redeemed himself in this movie. I spent most of the first movie wanting to beat the shit out of him, but in this movie at one point I actually yelled at the screen "Oh my God, no one learned ANYTHING from the first movie except MIKE!" Mike starts off slow, but by the end of the movie, he seems like a genuinely good guy, and I can finally see what everyone saw in him being friends with him all those years.

This movie isn't perfect. It kind of feels like a truncated season of a TV show rather than a movie, so it feels like a lot is left out, but there's enough good here that I enjoyed the movie, cried a little, laughed a little, and actually wouldn't mind seeing a third installment if tyler Perry is inclined to make one. I can definitely see why people didn't like this movie, and the awkwardness is a bit much to handle, but it has enough good that I enjoyed watching it and wouldn't mind adding it to my collection as well.

Why did I Get Married?

I always get a lot of crap for liking Tyler Perry movies. I don't know what this man did, but whatever it was, it was bad enough to make some people rabidly hate him and bash everything he makes. If you don't like his movies, fine, but I happen to like them, so leave me the hell alone. not only that, but I think his movies keep getting better and better. this movie is a case in point. I didn't think it would be possible for me to love one of his movies more than "I Can Do Bad all by Myself," but I think "Why Did I Get Married?" might be even better than that, which is a feat I never thought he'd achieve.

This movie introduces us to four couples who meet every year for a week long marriage retreat, to re-evaluate why they love each other so much and why they want to stay married. Marcus and Angela are always fighting, loudly and everywhere about anything and everything. Dianne and terry love each other, but Dianne's job keeps her away from home most nights, and they don't seem to see eye to eye about having another baby. Gavin and Patricia are the core of the group. Patricia is a successful author and therapist who wrote the book detailing the principles the couples use to evaluate their marriages during the retreat. They love each other, but they've recently suffered a devastating loss, and they don't seem to know how to relate and reconnect anymore. And then there's Sheila and Mike. Sheila is overweight (a fact that Mike harps on all the time during his constant put-downs) is harried and at her wit's end trying to figure out how to save her marriage. Mike is emotionally and verbally abusive, constantly bashing everything Sheila is and does and making cracks about her appearance every chance he gets. he seems to have no interest in saving his marriage, even bringing along another woman to the marriage retreat (who is supposed to be a friend of Sheila's but doesn't act very friendly toward her, instead choosing to be friendly toward Mike).

Each of these couples have problems, but it is Mike and Sheila's marriage that caught my interest the most. I'll admit it, I spent most of the movie wanting to jump through the screen and beat Mike in the face. He is such a jerk to his wife, always putting her down, so much so that she often does it herself, without his help, even when other people compliment her or her looks. It's heartbreaking to see her reach out to Mike over and over again in an attempt to reconnect, only to have him beat her down again. the other couples aren't faring well either, finding that the things that are driving them apart are getting stronger than their attempts to hold everything together. during a climactic dinner party scene, all the secrets come out, and the fallout from that dinner party will take a lot to repair...if repair is even possible.

I really liked all these couples (well, except for Mike) so I was rooting for them to get their acts together (again, except for Mike...the only thing I wanted him to get together was a long fall off a cliff). The movie really touched me. I spent most of it crying, and laughing, and crying. angela is responsible for most of the laughs here. I loved seeing her take everyone to task and stand up for her friends. Because of the scenes with Mike putting Sheila down, the movie is often hard to watch, but I definitely think it's worthwhile.

Rabbit Hole

I tend to have the attention spam of a flea these days, as I've said before, so when I first started this movie I had no idea what was going on and I had to turn it off after about 20 minutes and come back to it later to give it another chance. I really like Nicole Kidman, so I wasn't about to pass the movie by without giving her a chance, and it turns out that this is really a good movie, though it's very subtle and quiet in its storytelling, so I really had to pay attention to fully appreciate what was going on.

The plot of the movie is that this couple has recently lost their young son to an accident, and they're trying to work through their grief and put their lives back together while everything seems to be falling apart around them. they try to go to a grief counseling group, but that just seems to be awkward and not much help (and the parents who say losing a child is "all part of God's plan" really piss them off, which I don't blame them for). Family and friends don't really know what to say to help, and they don't know what to say to each other, so they sort of float through life in this trancelike state, wondering if things are ever going to get better.

It's harrowing stuff, and without giving anything away, I can say that this movie doesn't offer easy resolutions or pat answers, and there are scenes that are hard to watch because the movie refuses to sugar coat the awkward, heart-wrenching feeling of not knowing how to pick up the pieces after a tragedy. I'm impressed that this movie was willing to go there and stay there, even when its hard to watch. Definitely worth checking out, though it's not always easy to watch.

Colin

The funny thing about this movie is that a few months ago, I hadn't even heard of it. Around the time the October horror movie challenge was going on, I heard a few people mention that they'd seen it and that it was a decent independent horror flick, and so I added it to my blockbuster queue based solely upon that recommendation. I knew nothing about this movie, didn't even know what it was about, and I couldn't really tell from the cover picture (is that kid a vampire or a zombie?) So I got this movie in the mail and I let it sit around my house for about a week, and then one day I'm tired and bored so I decide to watch the movies I got from Blockbuster, but I don't know if I'm in the mood to watch "Colin," so I decide that if I'm too tired after watching the first two movies, I'll just return it without watching it. I watch the other two movies and I figure I'll give "Colin" a shot, too, so I put it in, and then proceed to spend the next two hours glued to the screen, transfixed. I LOVED this movie, and it cracks me up not how a movie went from being one I wasn't even interested in watching to being one of the best horror movies I've seen this year.

"Colin" is a zombie movie (not a vampire movie, just to clear that up) and it's unlike any other zombie movie I've ever seen. Most of those movies feature people running from the zombies and the suspense comes from wondering if they will escape the zombies or not. In this movie, the main character, Colin, becomes a zombie in the first few minutes of the movie, and the rest of the movie is spent watching life from his perspective. that might sound boring (I know I sure as hell wouldn't have given the movie a chance if I'd known that this was the premise, because who wants to see a zombie lurch around for two hours?) but somehow, it works. Colin isn't a typical brain-dead member of some flesh eating horde. He clearly has some consciousness left, and it's sad to watch him stagger around, not really fitting into the zombie world any better than he fit into the human world. It's sad to see Colin's family react to him as well, since they obviously want to find some way to cure him but it doesn't seem to be possible, though this doesn't stop them from loving him and being sad that he's gone (even while he's technically still alive). That drama is handled well and adds to the overall sad feeling of the movie.

The special effects aren't anything spectacular, but I was impressed as hell with how real they looked (especially considering that this movie was supposedly made for about 70 US dollars...this makes me want to go out and make my own movie, if a movie this good can be made that cheaply). I was seriously blown away by this movie. every time I started to think "Ok, this is getting kind of long, it can end now" the movie would toss some other plot twist at me and get me hooked all over again. It's such an impressive movie that I want to run out and buy a copy (and buy copies for all my friends). Well worth checking out. Tell all your friends.

Somebody Help Me

You know, I watched "Somebody Help Me" after I watched a movie that many consider to be a "cult classic" and an "underrated cinematic gem" and blah blah blah blah blah, so I probably had a better experience than I would have had otherwise, but I really enjoyed the hell out of this movie. I like slashers to begin with, so I'm always up for a movie about a group of friends going to a secluded location and getting picked off one by one by a sadistic killer. I've wanted to see this movie since it first came out, and I'm kind of glad I waited, because getting to see it (a movie that of course gets no respect from anyone) after seeing a movie that everyone slathers with praise highlighted for me the reason why I like this movie and why I have great amounts of disdain for the other one. That movie, to be sure, had some scenes that were brilliant, but hey were buried under piles of boring crap. This movie, while never approaching anything "genius" or "brilliant" nevertheless was a TON more fun to watch than the other one, because this movie was consistently entertaining, whereas that other movie had flashed of brilliance that were lost in a sea of pointless crap that had me wanting to gouge my own eyes out from sheer boredom.

This movie has a premise we've probably all heard before. A group of college students goes to spend a weekend partying in a secluded cabin. There's a sadistic madman on the loose, and when their friends start disappearing one by one, these characters must try to put a stop to the killer before it's too late. I definitely enjoyed how the movie's tagline that there are things worse than death plays out in the movie. seeing some of what this madman does to his victims is pretty freaky, and the worst part is imagining being kept alive praying for rescue, waiting for help that doesn't come. It's nothing I haven't seen before, but the movie did well with its premise.

Also, the acting was WAAAAYYYYYY better than a lot of what we see in movies like this. the two main actors, Marques Houston and Omarion, interact and exchange dialogue that makes it easy to believe they are friends. Sometimes the dialogue in movies like this can be painful to watch, but it was fun watching these two onscreen because they sounded like actual friends talking, not two guys who sound like they're reciting their lines. I appreciated the effort, and it made me like their characters more.

The plot isn't really original, but it had some touches that added to the suspense. Little kids always up the creep factor in movies like this, and this one was no exception. The characters also fight for their lives instead of standing around waiting to be picked off, which made me root for them, and they actually have a halfway intelligent reason for staying at the house instead of running away once people start disappearing, which always helps. all in all, this movie isn't anything groundbreaking, but it made this slasher fan happy, and that's all I asked for.

Seconds

Here's the thing about John Frankenheimer, the director of this movie, and I have to get this out of the way before I say anything else. Everyone goes on and on about what a genius he is, and it frustrates me and makes me want to pull all the hair out of my head. Not because I don't think Frankenheimer is a genius, but because he IS. If he weren't, if he were a two-bit hack who should never be allowed near a camera for any reason, then I would be fine with his movies. I would probably even love them, because the moments when his movies transcend their medium and become not just films but ART, those moments would shine if he weren't a very good director. I would be impressed and I'd probably fall all over myself to praise him too. Because he rose above my expectations and created something great.

Here's the thing, though. Because John Frankenheimer IS a great director, because I KNOW he's capable of creating art, and BECAUSE his movies are full of genuinely great moments, I can't just sit here and praise him. I can't give him a pass when over half an hour of this movie is blathering, plodding, slow, boring, mind-numbingly pointless, and insulting to my intelligence. BECAUSE John Frankenheimer knows better, and because he is capable of creating some of the GREAT scenes on display in this movie, I have to take him to task for wasting my time with over half an hour of useless footage that bogs this movie down when it could have been an hour long and been a BRILLIANT film. It would have made a great movie if he'd cut all the pointless stuff that we don't need to see, all the repetitive garbage that's supposed to make us feel disoriented and send us into a dreamlike state, but is more likely to send us into an ACTUAL dream state when we fall asleep out of pure boredom. THIS is what pisses me off about John Frankenheimer. He ALWAYS does this crap. He did it in his OTHER movie I saw, called "Prophecy" (not to be confused with "THE Prophecy" with a creepy christopher Walken) and it makes me want to track him down and smack him in the face for not only wasting my time but for ruining a movie that would have been great if he'd gotten out of his own goddamn way and learned when to shut the fuck up and leave well enough alone.

The premise of this movie is intriguing, and like any good episode of The Twilight Zone, the movie keeps it enough under wraps to disorient us while keeping us intrigued and wanting to know more. Basically, a man who is dissatisfied with his life encounters an organization that offers him a chance to start his life anew. Plastic surgery gives him an all-new appearance, he gets a new job and a new place to live and a new life. It's a dream come true...or is it? The thing is, since it took like, two sentences for me to explain this premise to you and I'm sure you understood it, there's no need for Frankenheimer to try and beat the idea into our heads that this guy is uncomfortable in this new life, that things aren't perfect, and that he's not happy. We get that point. we got it BEFORE we started the movie, so to spend over a half hour of useless, boring, repetitive, redundant, bullshit footage to drive home the point we already understood before we even watched the movie? THAT is the kind of thing that makes me want to track Frankenheimer down and smack him in the face. Seriously, there's a scene involving grapes and wine that drove me into a homicidal rage because it was so repetitive and pointless. I'm also sure that an audience who was used to seeing Rock Hudson laughing it up with Doris Day was freaked out at the thought that someone wouldn't want to live Rock Hudson's life. The idea that even "beautiful, successful people" can have horrible lives probably added to the shock value for this movie back when it was released. I honestly wish this movie was better, because there are so many positive things going for it that it's really infuriating to see Frankenheimer systematically ruin them one by one. Sure, the ending was powerful, but did I really have to wade through so much shit to get there? If I could edit out the pointless bullshit scenes and make this movie into the hour long masterpiece it's begging to be, I would, but as it stands, it's a great idea buried under a pile of shit that is worth a watch for sure, but is infuriating because it could have been so much more if Frankenheimer had known when to shut the fuck up and leave well enough alone.