Anyway, this movie is about a girl, Sophie, who goes with her fiance to Italy. As it turns out, her fiance ignores her the whole time, and she discovers a wall where women write letters to their lovers and stick them in this wall that inspired the famous balcony scene between Romeo and Juliet. (I think.) Well, the letters are collected at the end of each day by this group of ladies who call themselves the Secretaries of Juliet. Their mission is to respond to all the letters.

An aspiring writer, Sophie joins forces with these ladies while her fiance is off gallivanting across the countryside, sampling wine and cheeses. She has an opportunity to respond to a letter that is 50 years old that got lost in the wall. The woman who wrote the letter, now well into her 60s, comes down to Italy  to find her long lost lover, and she and Sophie, and the woman’s grandson embark on a journey across Italy to find this guy.

It really is a tender story. I like a lot of things about it. I like the Italian soundtrack, particularly “I’m a Believer” in Italian. I love the scenery. I like that it’s a movie you could see with your grandmother and not be embarrassed. It’s just a pure, good, chick flick. And Amanda Seyfried, who plays the part of Sophie, is beautiful. Although it is difficult to believe she’s older than 21 in this movie. She looks 14.

So I suppose that’s all I have to say about that. Clean – check. Chick flick – check. Beautiful Italian scenery – check. Not sure what bad could be said about this movie, except maybe had Helen Mirren play the part of the old lady. But Steve liked it anyway, so that’s bonus.

I liked this movie. It’s one of those good feeling be better than everyone thinks that you can be type of movies. Like stand and deliver but blacker.

I am going to shoot out a warning to all of you.  THIS MOVIE IS RACIST. The reason? The high school in the film, Eastside High, in 1967 was the best school in the state. They had maybe one black student but two black teachers. 20 years later the school had become the worst school in the state. They had maybe 10 white students.  Do you see what I mean now about it being racist? It would appear that they are insinuating that the ratio of black to white kids directly affects the academic performance of the school. I kindly disagree. I’m not racist and feel that race has nothing to do with how well a school will perform.

Moving on with the movie. So this school went from best to worst like I said and they decide to get a new principal, Morgan Freeman, who we will call crazy Joe for the remainder of the blog. He is B A. He take absolutely no crap from anyone and lays it out like it is. His job is to turn the school around and make sure that the students pass the basic skills test.

He cleans up the school and expels all of the problem students that are the bullies and drug dealers and such and goes to town on the remaining kids and tells them to be smarter or die. Well not die but be smarter or not have a cool school anymore.

He does his job and everyone goes home happy. Except this one mouthy beast woman who tries to get crazy Joe fired.

The acting  in this movie is really well done and I think it really showcases crazy Joe’s talent. He’s awesome and really awesome in this movie.

I recommend that everyone sees this movie prior to their imminent demise. It’s worth it. You can come over and watch it with us, we’d be happy to have you over.

Well I think that this is it for this post. If you read this post, please comment or at least like it so we know that we’re doing this for a reason other than to take up space on the internet. Please. Seriously, we need some validation here.

Thanks everyone… or thanks to you the one person that reads this. We love you.

So I hate to give it away, but my primary beef with this movie, although it is mostly good, is that Tom Cruise is in it. I think I can say, without going into extensive detail about the guy, that he’s a little bit nutty. So really the whole time I’m watching this, the nuttiness kind of manifests itself, making what should be a pretty decent war movie some sort of joke. The whole time I’m watching Tom Cruise train to be a mighty samurai, the song from Mulan, “I’ll Make a Man Out of You!” kept coming to my mind.

So the movie starts out as Tom Cruise’s character, Algren, has come home from war. Flashbacks tell us that his experiences in war are something that he is grossly ashamed of. He did some pretty disgraceful stuff. He’s contracted by the Japanese government to come and work for the emperor, training the Japanese armies in the ways of Western warfare.

Algren’s first assignment is to take a group of newbie Japanese soldiers to war against the samurais, who the emperor wants to kill because like, they don’t conform to his dream of a new, modern Japan, and stuff. It is during this first battle that Algren is captured by the samurais and forced to spend the winter up in Samurai land. You can guess the rest. Tom Cruise becomes a Samurai, gets the girl, mends the error of his ways, has a change of heart, saves the world, whatever.

The movie is good, but a little messed up. There are about two lines of humor in  it, one which I’ve included above, and the other one when the Japanese baby pulls at his ears and says something cute in Japanese. So basically, if you’re looking for funny, this ain’t it. But if you’re looking for something cool to watch that will shed a little light on the awesomeness of samurai warrior debauchery, then yeah, go ahead and watch it.

So it’s a good movie, but there is the Tom Cruise thing. There’s also the thing about how Tom Cruise’s character kills this dude in battle and then to make matters worse, steals off with his war victim’s woman. And his armor. Ouch. Oh, and also, there are a lot of people losing their heads in this movie, so if you’re weird about fake head rolling… this probably won’t be your first choice for your next movie night.

And that’s that. Steve gets to do the honors of reviewing Lean On Me next. So stay tuned. Morgan Freeman is off the heezie. And yes, I did just say that.

I love this movie. It’s one of my favorites and I’ll tell you why in a minute. FIrst off I’m going to give a shout out to this blog’s sponsor. DISNEYLAND!! (they did not and do not sponsor us) We just got back from there and I wanted to make mention of them and also make known that we’ve been home for 4 hours and instead of taking a nice road trip nap, I’m writing a blog. GO BLOG!!

This movie is surprisingly heart warming. I had to put that in there for Brittany’s piece of mind. All silliness aside, it really is. When I heard about it the first time I thought that it could get really dirty very easily but seriously, I almost cried at a couple of points.

It’s about Lars, played by pretty Ryan Gosling (I don’t think he’s pretty but every female ever apparently does), a mild-mannered feller who has some… isms. He doesn’t interact with people very well. and doesn’t like people touching him.

One day he walks into work and this pig that he works with shows him this web site where you can order anatomically correct sex dolls. Red flag right? Wrong. He appears to think nothing of it. Next thing you know there’s an over-sized package being delivered to his house.

He doesn’t use it for its intended purpose per say. He does use it as a girlfriend but he doesn’t… “do” it. His brain created an entire background for her. when people bring up that it’s a doll and not a real person he ignores it like they didn’t even say anything. His sister-in-law is really supportive and goes along with it. In fact the whole town does because Lars is such a nice fellah.

Her name is Bianca and she makes a huge impact on the town. She gets a job as a mannequin, gets elected to the PTA and volunteers at church and stuff. She’s a real go-getter kind of girl.

Ryan Gosling has my respect for this role. He could have made it really goofy really easily but he took the part of Lars and made him super lovable. He’s nice, kind, gentlemanly and has a heart of pure gold. He’s also awkward around people. Some traumatic thing, I can’t remember specifically what, happened to him when he was a kid and he gets super standoffish. Ryan has everything down on this character, the mannerisms, the way he talks and how he interacts with Bianca.

I would recommend this movie to anyone and everyone. Seriously. Everyone should see this because aside from being a serious movie, it has its funny moments. This old lady at church at the beginning of the movie gives him a flower and tells him to give it to someone special and right after that the quirky cute, nerdy girl from the office he works at is standing right there. She says something to draw his attention and instead of giving her the flower he hucks it to the side and hurriedly says Hi. She says something else and he hurriedly says Okay bye.

It really is good. Watch it and love it. I did and look at me now! I can do all sorts of stuff all by myself!

Tune in next time for Brittany’s review of awesomeness! See you later whoever decides to read this.

This movie is a blast from my past like no other. When we were kids we would watch this all the time. I love it. I really do.

When we were kids we would sped the day after school with my grandma while my mom would work later shifts. This was not the most awesome situation but I know that it was one of the man sacrifices that my mom made because she loves us. While at grandma’s house we would always watch movies to pass the time. it made it easier on my grammers and made me gain a love for film that would never be satisfied. I will always love movies for this reason. one of the cinematic staples was this movie.

Jim Henson has had a huge impact on my life. Pretty much all of his films. Everything from the Muppets take Manhattan to the Muppets movie that just came out. They’re just good. family oriented and fun. This one was in what I think was his experimental phase. It’s a little bit (a lot a bit) dark and bizarre. I think that those oare a couple of the reasons that I like it as much as I do.

It stars a young and awkward Jennifer Connely. I know it’s hard to believe that Jennifer connely could have been awkward. She just seems to excreting grace and beauty wherever she goes. But it is true pubescent Jenny was not hot… or a good actress. She seriously sucked. David Bowie rounds out the cast as the villain, Jareth the goblin king. I liked him as a villain when I was a kid but now seeing it as an adult all I could see was uncomfortably form fitting pants. You can see everything in disgusting detail.

This is what it’s about. Jenny is a girl that is a brat and only has friends that can serve a purpose for her. If you’re useless then you can’t be her friend. She has to babysit her little baby brother and in her teenage angst she wishes for the goblin king to come take her bro away… right now.

Well he does take the baby. to the castle beyond the goblin city in the center of the labyrinth. She goes on her search to get him back. not because she loves him but because her dad will kill her if he comes home and the baby is gone.

She meets Hoggle. A dwarf with a bad attitude. Not to be confused with the one angry dwarf from the Ben Folds song. This fellah is just a terd. He shows her how to get into the labyrinth. She runs for a while and finds a worm that serves as a worthless GPS by sending her the wrong direction. She runs around and sees weird Jim Henson puppets and meets a large hairy beast named Ludo. He’s cool. He can’t speak in complete sentences but gets the point across.

Now things keep going on in this fashion for the whole movie until the end where she finally finds the Bowster in all of his tight panted glory and saves the day by saying 6 words. Who would’ve thought that that was all it took? She would have saved herself like 13 hours if she would have remembered those little words.

Anyway, it’s fun and I think that everyone whould watch it at least once before they die.

Next up is my review of Lars and the real Girl. yes it will be a different post. Deal with it!

And since it was a documentary, and since Steve said it didn’t count as a movie, and since there was no storyline to speak of, I’ll keep my synopsis brief: Larry Bird chops wood. Larry Bird has a molestache. Larry Bird has a mullet. Larry Bird is really good at passing. Larry Bird makes some three pointers. Larry Bird shoots from the top of the key. Larry Bird, despite all of his hard work, somehow doesn’t win every single game possible.

That’s right, folks. We watched and watched for several hours, it seems, with some guy telling us how awesome Larry Bird is. And then at the end of every sentence, after sitting through several bad basketball metaphors, the narrator of Larry Bird’s life says, “But the Celtics lost.” Or the statement of eternal sads: “That year, Indiana State won every game they played except one… But they did it without Larry Bird.”

What the crap, Narrator? If Larry Bird was so awesome, why even bother mentioning that he lost like, 90 percent of the games they played in? Why even bother mentioning that he spent several years of his life not in school, sweeping garbage out of the streets in French Lick, Indiana? Why get my hopes up at all? You have to know that of all the people in the world who care about basketball, Stephen and I don’t make the cut? Why get us to care, even fleetingly, about this man who was apparently the greatest basketball player to ever live, and then tell us about how he lost all the time?

Basically, I’m eternally disappointed in Larry Bird. Honestly. I was seriously impressed watching his moves. I witnessed with my own two eyeballs him making a shot from half court, while running, with two seconds left in the game. You’ve got impressive things like that on your resume, you better have a documentary about you with a narrator who lies. You better have a narrator who tells you that the Larry Bird molestache of the 80s inspired a new superbreed of humans or something. Anything less, you’re just going to disappoint your viewers.

So anyway, the movie was all about the games and championships that Larry Bird lost, while simultaneously showing a steady stream of awesome layups (yeah, I know what a layup is, jerk!), game-saving three pointers, and games that were really too close (76 to 74 against the Lakers in 86) for someone who has a documentary made about him, available on VHS through Freecycle (that’s how I got it, anyway).

So I guess I don’t understand the hype. His moves look choreographed. He makes basketball look easy, which is saying something, because I know it’s not. I was politely dismissed in my ninth grade P.E. class during our basketball section to not participate anymore. Something about slowing everyone else down. (I hit my stride when we got to–I kid you not–ping pong–and was allowed to rejoin the throng.)

So I know it’s a little disjointed, but when has our blog been anything but? The point is, I think there are a whole lot of other people who should have documentaries done about them. People who won more basketball games than Larry Bird did, for example. I’m just saying, if you’re going to praise the guy for an hour straight, don’t let me down by following it up with, “And then Larry Bird got old, started hurting his knee every game, and died.”

Kidding. I know Larry Bird can’t die.

Anyway, you can all pretty much guess where I’m going with this. Dumb movies are equal to or greater than good. So I kind of love this movie. But the kind of love that I have for Disneyland. Where I can just see it once every five years, and that’s probably sufficient. How then does it happen that this is the second time I’ve watched it in the past year?

The one-liners. They just get me. There are so many, and they are so good. See, the whole movie is about this guy, The Chosen One, whose family is all killed by the evil Betty. As a result, The Chosen One is raised by desert rodents and later goes on a mission to avenge his family’s death. (“He took everything from me! A family I never knew!”)

Along the way, a bunch of really indiscernible things happen, and none of it–and I mean none of it–makes a lick of sense.  It’s just funny because it is dubbed over an old 70s kung fu flick, with Steve Oedekerk dubbed in and voice overs redoing the whole thing. It’s really, really great.

But again, only once every few years. Don’t get crazy and think you can watch this twice in a year and still like it. But ultimately, if you are a fan of classic one-liners, ridiculous voice overs, and ancient special effects… this might be the movie choice for you.

Now who wants to come over and watch Labyrinth for me? That movie freaks me out and I hate it.

I like this movie. Brittany doesn’t so much. I think it’s hilarious. It’s a good kids movie that has some appeal to adults without being total potty humor.

The panda kind of reminds me of me a little bit. Not because I’m fat but because when I was a young cub I wasn’t too fond of who I was. I got picked on a bit because I was short, chubby and like choir and theater and such. It wasn’t the cool stuff to like. I didn’t feel accepted in a lot of social circles. But then came one day when I said “you know what? I’m going to do what makes me happy! You all can just go be miserable people who can only feel joy by making others feel weak!” Yeah I was bitter. Po was similarly distraught.his dad (a goose) was obsessed with Po one day being in charge of their family noodle restaurant but all Po wanted was to learn Kung Fu.

Now it didn’t end up happening in quite the manner in which he intended. It goes a little something like this. There is this place close to where they live called the Jade Palace. There reside some of China’s greatest Kung Fu warriors. of them is a Turtle who is ancient and basically unraveled the mysteries of the universe. Long ago He had a revelation to make this thing called the Dragon Scroll. On it was written the information that would make one warrior the most powerful fighter in all of fightingdom.

On this particular day the Turtle says “Hey, we need to decide who will be the Dragon Warrior.” So they hold this ceremony and everyone in the entire village goes so they can see who it’ll be. Naturally Po wants to go to this. He hits the trail, while taking a noodle cart upon his father’s request, but he can’t make it up the stairs. He finally ditches the cart and lumbers his girth up all of the way just  to arrive right when the gates close. He frantically thinks of a way to get in so he can satiate his nerdy desires.

He fashions a chair with fire works with the hope of shooting himself over the walls. He does but just in time to land right in front of the Turtle while he’s selecting the Dragon Warrior. You guessed it, it’s him. Po the mighty panda Dragon Warrior.

The teacher which is some animal that I have no idea what is but Brittany tells me that he’s some hybrid bear racoon, thinks that this panda thing is a big ole fatty mistake. He tried everything in his power to get Po to quit but the fool just kept asking for more punishment.

Disaster strikes. The uber villain Tai-lung (why a tai lung? I don’t know. I would’ve at least been consistent and said Chinese-lung or something) escapes from his inescapable prison. He makes his way to the jade palace to take the dragon scroll for his own selfish desires. The thing with him is that master Shifu (coonbear thingy) trained him from a baby. He was practically his son. He thought that he would be the Dragon Warrior but it turns out that Turtle saw something that Coonbear did not see. He had the evil in him.

So things happen, Po Learns Kung Fu and the day is saved.

It’s got a lot more to it than that but it should be seen in order to be appreciated. Go rent it, or buy it, or jump your young cousin and steal it form only to turn around and give it back to him. you won’t regret it, I promise.

Tune in next post! This instruction is for our fan(I leave it singular because only one person ever comments or clicks the little like button. I’m talking about you Clint. We love you!). Read our opinion of Kung Pow: Enter the Fist! Brittany wrote it so it should be a delight.

Anyway, instead of ringing in the New Year like cool people, Steve and I rang in the New Year watching the incredibly long cinematic suppository known as The King and I. But I don’t give it enough credit, because I actually do like it okay. It’s got just the right amount of racism for my taste, and I love more than anything spontaneous musical numbers and dramatic solo dancing kings.

Besides, it reminds me of this song from The Drowsy Chaperone (sorry about the less-than-top-quality video, but it’s all I could find):

In case you were born yesterday, The King and I is a musical about the King of Siam and the relationship that develops between him and Anna Leonowens, the British schoolteacher sent to teach the King’s children and his wives about western science and shiz. Which she does. And the King’s shenanigans and the schoolteacher’s propriety often get entangled, resulting in funny-ish things happening.

But it is really long.

So basically, I have mixed feelings about this movie. I love it because I love musicals, and pretty much most ridiculous movies from the 50s, another particular favorite also starring Deborah Kerr, An Affair to Remember. Vertigo, Gigi, Singin’ in the Rain… the 50s was a good decade for film. But I am losing track of things.

The acting is awful, and the visual effects are awful, and I have never been to Thailand or anything, but it seems kind of racist to me. Looking at it objectively, it really is an awful movie by today’s standards. Which is precisely why I love it so much.

Basically, if you have very little else to do with your life, and feel the need to watch a movie that would be fun to watch in silence and make up your own words to… I would suggest The King and I.  Not saying that’s what we did, but just that I can imagine.

So next Friday night, prepare the popcorn, come prepared with some conversation topics to carry you through not only the overture and opening credits (which by themselves make up an hour of the movie), but also the intermission and the Siamese interpretation of Stowe’s classic novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (the interpretation which coincidentally provides the topic for today’s review), and ad lib away. You will not regret it.

I hadn’t seen this movie prior to the other night when Brittany and I watched it and I sadly wish that I would have. It was awesome. It was really funny, really witty, action packed and it had a Ferrari. What else could a guy ask for? How about Katherine Heigl?***  Well guess what fellahs. You got her.

So here’s the skinny. Ashton Kutcher… get it… he’s skinny… anyone… please be laughing at home. Anyway the story goes thusly. Ahem. The Heigs is a single gal who recently got dumped and goes to France with her parents in order to get away from real life. She bumps into a shirtless Ashter and awkwardly flirts with him. He asks her out to dinner, swims to a boat, puts a bomb on a helicopter, blows it up and meets her at the restaurant. They start dating instantly.

They have some uncomfortable moments and then a flash forwards happens. He asks Tom Selleck (her dad) for her hand in marriage. Tom acquiesces his request and goes along with it.

Ashter leaves behind the life of an assassin and starts leading a normal life as some constructiony type but on the office side of things. He gets contacted by his old boss and then the mess hits the fan. Killers come out from everywhere and start to try to kill him. One is his boss, one is the office slut and one is the super annoying friend of The Heigs. They’re just everywhere.

They avoid several killings and one thing leads to another and they find out who was the one behind the order to knock him off. I won’t tell you though because it’s something you need to see.

The Action sequences were neat and well choreographed. I liked them. The assassins were funny in the fact that they were just ordinary people before they went into destructo mode. There’s also a really hot Ferrari in the beginning of the film and that makes me all sorts of warm and fuzzy.

Overall I give it two enthusiastic thumbs up. I’d give it third one but I’m not currently in possession of a third thumb. Go rent it and watch it. You may only regret it if you have no taste in action cinema.

tune in next time for our next review. The King and I. I’m not too excited for it but who knows maybe I’ll zone out for the nine hours that it seems to last and it’ll go by like the blink of an eye. Paz afuera!

*** disclaimer: I think that she is an attractive woman but I think that my wife is hotter. My wife is a mormon that follows the teachings of her parents, unlike Katherine Heigl who is a mormon that doesn’t do those things.