It really is a gorgeous mustache.

Killers

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.

Yeah, help Knievel set up for his next jump!

The Italian Job is okay. As a general rule, I don’t like action-type movies and try to avoid them. They make me feel bored. I’m as far away from being an adrenaline junky that one person can possibly be. But The Italian Job is pretty good.

The movie starts out with a highly specialized team of criminals (funny criminals, this movie being in the same vein of Ocean’s Eleven) who steal some gold from a guy in Venice. On their way home, spoils in hand, one of the team members (Ed Norton’s hotness) betrays them all and steals all the gold for himself. The rest of the movie is about the team stealing their stolen stolen gold back from Ed Norton and his hotness.

I don’t have a lot to say about this movie. A lot of it was actiony, which doesn’t do it for me, so I’m going to put “too actiony” on the cons list of this movie.

On the pros list, we have Ed Norton, who is remarkably good looking, and is pretty good at being remarkably good looking. I have never paid attention to whether Ed Norton can act, because I just assume ahead of time that he’s awesome at everything he does. At any rate, more pros include the Mini Coopers. I love movies that are supposed to be full of BA-ness that have one major detail in them that would otherwise take away from the BA nature of the film. For instance, in Ocean’s Eleven, Debussy’s Clair de Lune is playing in the background. In The A-Team, it was the bunny. In The Italian Job, it was the Mini Cooper. They drove these little cars around, one each in different colors, trying to look BA and honestly, kind of succeeding. It’s pretty good stuff.

Other than that, I’m not sure what else to say. I’m pretty excited about next time, when Steve gets to review one of my favorite movies of all time: It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Did you see the way he went sailing right out there?

I’m prepared to lose a few with you?

Ironman

So this movie was www.thebomb.com/incredible. I loved it for a ton of reasons and we’ll go over those in a bit.

Ironman is placed as a preamble to a series of movies leading up to another movie which will also be awesome. The movies in this series goes in this order: Ironman, The Incredible Hulk, Ironman II, The Mighty Thor and Captain America. The movie that they are introducing is The Avengers.I now own all but 2 of these films. The second installment of Ironman and Capitan America are on my purchase before The Avengers comes out list. I tell you this not to boast but as a way to inform you of my nerdiness. This review will make me sound like I’ve lived in my parent’s basement my entire life, have never conversed with a member of the opposite gender consensually and call my room the fortress of solitude.

There’s this guy named Tony Stark. To put in terms that you not comic book loving people can understand he’s like the marvel version of Bruce Wayne. He’s insanely rich, crazy smart and fights crime and evil as a hobby. The difference is that Tony isn’t a pedophile that had a boy in a spandex jumpsuit following him around. Tony is the owner of a weapons design and manufacturing company called Stark Industries. He does what he wants when he wants without worrying about the consequences.

Tony also has his flaws mingled in with all of his external awesomeness. He has a drinking problem and is a womanizer as a hobby. This is why I think that Robert Downey Jr. was the absolutely ideal actor to play this role. Tony has a drinking problem, RDJ has a drug problem. Tony sleeps with as many women as will allow him to sleep with them, RDJ has used hookers in the past. Tony is arrogant, RDJ is too. I Really think that RDJ should change his name to Tony Stark and call it good. He really is the character incarnate.

Story Line!! Tony goes to sell missiles to the gov in the middle east. He gets kidnapped and placed in a cave. The kidnappers try to force him to make the missile that he was demonstrating. He decides to build a mechanical protective suit in order to escape. He escapes. He goes home and builds an even better model of the suit and plays around with ideas on how to make it even more awesome. He does. He goes and blows the guys that enslaved him to smithereenies. His Old business partner turns on him and tries to kill him. Ending of the movie happens. Roll credits. I know that the break down was really vague and all but trust me, it is a LOT more awesome than  what I wrote down here.

The reasons why I love it. It is the beginning of an era of awesome movies that all lead up to a movie that will be even more awesome than any other movie ever. The casting was PERFECT, the effects were breath taking Paul Betany is the voice of his super computer named Jarvis.

I would go into more detail on each of those topics individually but I am crazy tired and need to finish this book that I’ve been reading. I hope that you do go buy this movie and enjoy at the very least half as much as I did because it is one of my top 10 movies of all time.

Tune in next time for The Italian Job reviewed by hot sauce Mcgee. Pas afuera!

She really will come up here if we don’t go down.

High school “freaking” musical 3

I tried to go into this with the thought that “It might not be all that bad, you were in musicals in high school, what could go wrong? Right?” Well in posing my own conundrum I found my own answer. A lot.

Brittany might read this and say “You know that deep down inside you really liked it!” And she might be right but I don’t think that I go deep enough to find that part of me that did.

Things that were tolerable:

The singing was well performed except for the latin temptress smarty pants during one song. her tone went a little bit too bright and under-developed. I know they were trying to go for child-like innocence but it came off as really unprofessional and poorly rehearsed in my point of view. Mr pretty Efron, I hate to admit, has a very excellent singing voice. His tone was very appropriate for the role and it came off very well. The effeminate choreographer boy also has a set of pipes worthy of praise.

The choreography was alright except for a couple of parts that it was a little bit weird but for the most part it was well executed and the entertainment value definitely struck gold with it’s target audience.

The story line was a bit far fetched at times. Their graduation would never culminate with the execution of the drama club’s musical. Seriously. No school in history… no normal school would do that. There is the exception of the performing arts high school in New York that would probably do that but they are an exception only because that’s what they go there to do. Realistically, in Alberquerque NM there would not exist a school in which the pretty boy jock would dance and sing for the adolescent masses. It just doesn’t happen.

At the end of the show when the Julliard reps came to watch the musical they would not, I repeat, would not condone the raucous behavior demonstrated by the audience at the mere mention of the school’s basketball team. I’m confident that they would have viewed the unprofessional-ism as a blatant disregard for theater etiquette and left prior to the curtain’s descent. That’s all I have to say about that.

The story is thus. The basketball team wins the state championship. The school decides to have  musical. Main boy has to choose between going to school close to the object of his hormonal distress or satiating the desire of his familial leadership. thy have a musical. Lust… I mean… Love prevails and kid chooses girl over family. Drop curtain. Roll credits.

It really didn’t think it was as bad as my testosterone levels would like you to think. I liked that there was the occasional burst into song and dance musical numbers. I use to long for that in  high school. I always thought it would be hilarious. I like that they made the theater kids cool instead of the weirdies that they (to be read we) kind of are.

In the need I give a thumb up. Just one but it is elevated without vigor. If you watch all 3 you might like it.

Tune in next time fro the cinematic wonderment of our next film. The title eludes me at this time but I don’t remember dreading it so really set the little blog reader thing to notify you of our next post. It’ll be worth it.

Scene.

Saffron was tagged in this because when I hear the Effron’s name it reminds me of it.

Hello Jerome.

Gattaca

Cool movie.

I like the movie for a few reasons. I’m a fan of “What the wha?” type movies. This is a “what the wha?” type. I, surprisingly enough, think the acting was pretty good. I also like the old timey Avanti cars  that everybody drives. They are cool and I am a car guy.

To define the “What the wha?” type movie I use a very specific formula. If I feel that the story is convoluted enough then, it is deemed worthy of this title. Let’s go into how I decide this. I imagine myself watching this with my sister. She’s a movie talker (we don’t like movie talkers. Unless they’re family, then, we tolerate them). If in my imaginary movie viewing scenario I am battered by a barrage  of questions about what’s going on, who that guy is, why is he doing that, or if she abandons all hope all together and starts talking about how she cooked something and it actually tasted good, the movie then becomes a “What the wha?”. If she laughs and looks over at me every 10 seconds or asks if I understand what’s going on then we’re watching Disney. I understand Disney but if she does, then she hopes that I don’t so that she can explain something. If she looks at the television all comatose like then we’re watching something that I like alot and she has no desire to watch but has a desire to bother me. This hasn’t happened for quite some time but this is what used to happen. So the moral of the story is that I like movies where you have to think and are all like “what the wha?!” at the end.

The acting was really accurate to what they were going for in the film. Very non empathetic, pretty, genetically superior people who almost don’t emote. I think that they studied the standard acting of the actors of the film: e.g. Uma Thurman. She can’t act and really isn’t that hot. Unless you’re into lanky women with man hands. Don’t doubt me. She has them, I’ve seen them and they are gross. She also has really big nostrils. Not attractive. Now, as a straight man, I make the next 2 statements with all confidence in my sexual orientation. Ethan Hawke is a good-lookin’ fella. Same with Jude Law. With Jude I don’t know if it’s his accent or if he’s really that good-lookin’ but he’s good-lookin’ none the less.

Cars. I like cars. I especially like old cars. I really like the idea of outfitting old cars with the latest technology e.g. electric car. I think it’s so cool that they took old Avantis and turned them all futurey. I mean for their era they looked all futurey anyway. I think that is the reason that they didn’t really take off. I mean their design was edgy and not too many people were ready for their shape and format. Thus they work perfectly for this particular movie.

I didn’t however like the ending. Jude could have lived even though he admitted having not been in an “accident” and actually been in an “on purpose” because he desired to take his life. The really good ending would have been him realizing how good life really is and gone on to finish it off like a good wholesome law-abiding citizen. But no. Let’s go for a ride in the incinerator and end it all. Dumby.

There you have it. My review. tune in next time for Gentlemen Broncos. We may have a guest blogger and we may not have one depending on whether he has the available time. We’ll see. Tune in regardless!

disco-dancing, Oscar Wilde reading, Streisand ticket-holding friend of Dorothy

Stephen loves me. Oh, but how do you know for sure, Brittany? You may ask. I will tell you. We watched Clueless last night and despite the late hour, his nodding head and droopy eyes, my fiance watched the whole movie with me, only trying to initiate make-out diversions two, three, maybe six times. We should give him a round of applause.

This movie, despite being by and large the most ludicrous movie ever created, is near and dear to my heart. I was an almost 13-year-old lass when it came out and a group of my friends were going to the movie. Because I still lived under my parents’ roof and could not and would not drive illegally (as Cher, Alicia Silverstone’s character, does in the movie), I timidly went to my Dad to ask permission to see the PG-13 movie as a 12-year-old. I was, as expected, “brutally rebuffed” (in Cher’s words).

I seriously cannot tell you just how devastated I was. I remember bawling my eyes out for the rest of the afternoon and late into the night. I had used every argument I could think of, the most significant of which was it was a PG-13 movie and I was so close to 13. How can you argue with that rock solid logic? I still don’t know. I whined that all my friends were going, to which my dad threw out the old standby, “If everyone else was jumping off a bridge, would you do it too?” I think I must have looked at him like he was crazy. I was 12 (almost 13). Of course I would.

I eventually did see the movie, but I think I was 14 or 15. We were on a family vacation to Deer Valley ski resort. I think my parents must have come to terms with the idea of having one of their eighty (eight–I mean eight) children content to be chubby and averse to sports, because while the rest of the family was out skiing, I sat in bed watching HBO. In an act of what I see clearly now as a sign of divine providence, Clueless came on.

I rapidly and without warning became enraptured. I wanted to be Cher, who has a computer pick out her outfits every morning, a rotating closet, drives a jeep, and has a black best friend. Yes, those were seriously the things I envied most about her. Plus, she wore those knee socks that were up and coming at the time, and I always thought those were super cute.

I mentioned in my last review that I fell in love for the first time when I saw Christopher Walken dance on YouTube. That is not true. The first time I fell in love was when I saw Clueless and Paul Rudd reached from that little TV screen in the dead of winter and held my heart in his capable hands. And if you promise not to make fun of me, I will tell you a dirty little secret: When Cher and Josh (Paul Rudd’s character) kiss at the top of the stairs, I cried. So much. I couldn’t bear the thought of Paul–my Paul–kissing another woman.

I was that jealous. And that pathetic. His next movie after Clueless that I remember was Object of My Affection. I heard once that his character was gay. I was more than devastated, and I never saw it because I didn’t want to taint the perfect picture of Paul that I had in my mind. And it was rated R. But even now, when I see Paul Rudd (his character on I Love You, Man is a particular favorite), I ache a little inside. We could really have been something.

Overall, I have to give this movie twenty thumbs up. (I may need to borrow some.) Each time I watch it, I am shot back into my teen years and I remember just what it was like to be constantly swelling with teen angst. I remember that feeling that every teenage girl has that every thought they have, their every feeling, is earth shatteringly significant. And I miss it. I miss feeling that brand of unadulterated self-absorption. This movie encompasses every ounce of teen girlness that still remains within its viewers and hugs the crap out of it. And that, my friends, is what love feels like.

Punch me Guido! Punch me in the face!

I love Cars. I remember babysitting for a friend once and her just-barely-a-toddler son kept yelling, “Ka-CHOW!” every two seconds. I hadn’t seen the movie yet so I thought the baby might be… special. He toddled over to me with this movie in his hands. We watched it together. And then I realized that my friend’s baby wasn’t… special. He was just learning to talk from animated movies! Relief.

I think even more than watching this movie with a small impressionable child, I enjoyed watching this with Stephen, who is a car addict and kept identifying all the cars. During the whole movie it was, “Oh, Chick Hicks, he’s a Monte Carlo. Lightning McQueen is a Corvette. The King is…” (I can’t remember what he said the King was. Fiancee fail.) I nearly reminded him that none of the cars are anything because they’re animated, but I’m a good person and I love the Bear, so I sat quietly.

I think this movie is especially genius on Pixar’s part. That’s saying something, because I pretty much idolize everything that Pixar has done. Ever. Ever. (My favorite movie, possibly of all time, is Toy Story.) I am always impressed with all the details that Pixar pays such close attention to and think Monsters, Inc. should probably be declared, officially, as the eighth wonder of the world for doing such a good job with all of that fur. The detail in Cars was of a different sort.

You don’t have to pay a lot of attention to see that all of the characters in that movie are cars. The bugs are VW bugs. The NASCAR-obsessed hicks are trailers. I don’t know why, but I think that’s superbly clever. Also, when Sally and Lightning are driving together through the desert, Stephen pointed out that all the natural rock formations shown in the background are in the form of carburetors, transmissions, car engines, or the front or back ends of cars. Totally genius.

It made me think of the type of personality my own car would have. My first car was Rachmaninoff, and he was a green Subaru Legacy that I loved more than anything in the whole world. When he was traded in, I didn’t know if I was ever going to love again. I really was absolutely devastated. It was depressing how I reacted watching him being driven away.

Now I have my silver Mazda 3 Hatchback and his name is Baby Sebastian. I am not exaggerating, sadly enough, when I say that Baby Sebastian is my BFF. And watching Cars last night filled me with great longing to be out behind Bash’s wheel cruising O-Town. Sigh.

I love this movie. I love Pixar. But please go and watch this movie when you get a minute. I never got to say goodbye to Rachmaninoff. So tell your car you love them because you never know when you’ll lose that opportunity.