Magic Mike

2012 stripper movie

Rating: 8/20 (Jen: 8/20)

Plot: The titular stripper takes a young pup under his hunky wing and teaches him the profession. Adam's extracurricular activities threaten to get Mike in some trouble and ruin his chances of opening up a furniture-making business.

I completely forgot that I watched this movie with Jen a few weeks ago. She was in the mood for something with "bunches of male stripping," "barely a story at all," and "lots of Matthew McConaughey." I suggested this because I thought it would also have some magic, but unfortunately, there wasn't anything magical at all. This isn't too far from Showgirls in terms of quality. The biggest difference is that it's not unintentionally hilarious. What I'm wondering is what Steven Soderbergh is doing this for? Shouldn't he be hard at work on a sequel to Schizopolis or something? That's a rhetorical question, so please don't answer it. McConaughey is his usual charismatic self and gets to say, "Alright, alright, alright!" enough to satisfy fans of Matthew McConaughey saying, "Alright." And if you're a fan of naked men, this has more than enough of that, too. There were so many stripping scenes here, and although they were all well choreographed and the actors (not professional strippers?) did a fine job, they just felt extraneous halfway through the movie. What this doesn't have is enough of a plot to last for the nearly two hour length of the motion picture or characters that are the least bit interesting. I guess I was supposed to care for Channing Tatum's Magic Mike because he made furniture, but I just couldn't do it. Tatum's not a very good actor either although he seems to be getting a lot of work. For this, it's apparently that he was hired as the lead only because he's pretty. The worst acting in this and quite possibly in anything else is Cody Horn's as Tatum's sister. She must be a Scientologist or something because she showed absolutely no emotion whatsoever in this movie and read all of her lines like she was behind a table reading lines for other actors during auditions. She didn't seem like she wanted to be in the movie at all. I might not be the audience for this movie even though I am a big fan of Matthew McConaughey and male strippers, but I found this really really boring. This is the last time I let Jen pick a movie for a long time!

A Christmas Story

1983 Christmas movie

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 15/20; Becky: 18/20; Dylan: 12/20; Emma: 13/10; Abbey: 15/20)

Plot: Ralphie wants a B.B. gun, but his parents, his teacher, and a department store Santa Claus all tell him that he'll shoot his eye out with it. Meanwhile, his father wins a major award.

This nearly plotless series of memories that almost-but-not-quite feels like you're watching somebody else's home movies has really grown on me through the years. I laugh more now than I ever did when I watched this as a kid or a younger adult. I appreciate nostalgia a lot more these days, even if it's not anything I can personally connect with because it's before my time. Perhaps it's just the mention of Terre Haute, Indiana, that works for me. Whatever it is, this movie almost gets funnier the more you see it, and it's rewatchability is great. Actually, I'm surprised that some cable channel hasn't decided to play a 24-hour marathon of this movie every Christmas. This is already on the blog somewhere. Actually, I just looked and it's on the blog 2 1/2 times, and I've bumped it up a point every time.

I've seen A Christmas Story memorabilia around lately--replica leg lamps, figurines, snowglobes. Honestly, I'm not sure if I've seen a snowglobe or not, but you're not going to fact-check me or anything, so I can probably get away with it. I'm not sure how I feel about people being able to buy leg lamps. Part of the beauty of those scenes is that the lamp is so completely ridiculous. Now that I can see them in people's windows almost taints it. I even saw one in a window right above a nativity scene the other day. Of course, I could be making that up, but again, nobody's going to fact-check.

This was my mother-in-law's first time seeing this movie. Next time she's here in December, I'll show her Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

Libeled Lady

1936 romantic comedy

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: 17/20)

Plot: An engaged newspaper man has to postpone his wedding yet again when the titular socialite threatens to sue after the paper publishes a story about her extracurricular activities with married men. He calls former co-worker Bill Chandler to come in and save the day, and the pair devise a plan to turn the story into reality.

It was back in '93, and I went on a date with Jen to see Denace the Menace because going to see movies at the dollar theater was pretty much our thing. It was the first time I ever heard her use the word "cute" to describe a movie. That was the reason she liked it. "It was cute." Later, we saw Son in Law with the great Pauly Shore. I--of course--hated it. She described it as, you guessed it, "cute." So when this little movie that she snuck onto the Netflix queue herself when I wasn't looking finished up and she did that little laugh of hers that I love so much and said, "I liked that. It was cute," it really made me wonder if I liked it at all.

Here's some quick Son in Law trivia, by the way, since I'll more than likely never review that movie on this blog unless I watch every other movie that exists and am left with nothing but Son in Law: Pauly Shore might have been the reason I could not perform sexually when my wife and I tried to give it a go. I've never told Jen that I blame Son in Law for my penis's stage fright, but I'm fairly positive the movie had something to do with it. That was not a problem after Libeled Lady, however, so I had to give this a bonus point. Or, more accurately, a boner point.

If I was saying this to a room full of people, it would be the exact type of situation that I'd want my own trombonist who followed me around and played a little Price Is Right-ish few notes whenever I said something hilarious. My son plays the trombone, but there's something wrong with him and he wouldn't be able to handle the job. I mean, a teenage boy who doesn't find the word "boner" funny? That's not normal.

Of course, I remember exactly where I was when I first heard the word "boner" just like all of you do. I was in the 2nd grade. It was April 23rd at exactly 12:15. I was on the kickball field. Vernon's the one who said "boner," and for several years afterward, he was like a folk hero or something. In fact, I think they might have a statue by the kickball field behind Staunton Elementary. If not, they should erect (no pun intended) one. That or get themselves an obelisk.

So to make a long story short, I liked this movie despite Jennifer thinking it was cute.

My Week with Marilyn

2011 movie

Rating: 14/20 (Jen: 16/20)

Plot: Colin Clark really wants to work with movies and gets his chance with Sir Laurence Olivier as he films The Prince and the Showgirl with the titular hussy. Clark forms a friendship with Monroe despite warnings that she'll break his heart. Meanwhile, Monroe's habitual tardiness and inability to remember her lines begins to annoy Olivier.

If you don't mind a movie about Marilyn Monroe where the actress playing Marilyn Monroe is outshone by actor Kenneth Branagh playing Olivier, then you might not mind this so much. Michelle Williams is a fine Marilyn Monroe. When she's playing the real Monroe, the vulnerable one away from the public eye, she lacks the charisma of the real Marilyn Monroe, but I suppose that's the point. Williams nails the public persona, the flashy and flirtatious matinee idol/sex symbol. That sparkle is almost there, and that might be the best compliment I can give a person playing this role. Eddie Redmayne as Clark was the least interesting thing about this movie. I like the story here just fine with all the constant warnings this guy got but how he didn't care because he understood what the experience was all about. The movie is very much a movie, a fairly bland telling of the story, but I'm probably not going to complain because I did, after all, get to see a butt.

Sleepless in Seattle

1993 romantic comedy

Rating: 14/20 (Jen: 17/20)

Plot: After hearing a widower who was tricked into calling a radio psychologist talk show by his young son, engaged Annie Reed decides loses interest in her fiance whose only crime is being a little dull in order to be a full-time stalker. Sam's son helps feed her obsession, building to a startling climax.

Meg Ryan. She hasn't done anything notable in years as far as I know. Maybe she's been involved in a bunch of underground independent films that I just haven't heard anything about. Anyway, if you're reading this, Meg Ryan, I have a movie idea for you--Sleepless in Seattle II: A Time to Die. Wait a second, Meg Ryan. Hear me out. You play both yourself and Annie Reed and, in archive footage, the younger Annie Reed from this movie. It's twenty years later. Annie Reed and Sam Reed or whatever the hell his name is are living in the middle of their happily-ever-after. They have three children, two of them twins (I'm picturing the Olson twins, but I usually picture the Olson twins), and Jonah has become a private detective, still suffering from the unelaborated-upon mental disorder that he had in the first movie. The film opens with Annie Reed and Sam Reed at a waterpark or doing something else that white people do. There will more than likely not be any black people in this movie, by the way. Well, unless we can get Mike Tyson involved somehow. Anyway, after a montage where we see how happy Annie and Sam are, it flashes to you, the real Meg Ryan. You're sitting naked in a beanbag chair eating peanut butter directly out of a jar. I hope you feel OK as a nearly-50-year-old woman with a nude scene because I'm not willing to compromise here. And guess what comes on the television, Meg Ryan? That's right. Sleepless in Seattle. And you're sick to death of Sleepless in Seattle. You're almost more tired of this movie than you are having to watch your fake orgasm in When Harry Met Sally. You shut the movie off and decide right then and there that you are going to find and kill the characters from that movie. Hell, you might even eat them. That peanut butter wasn't doing much for you, and you've always secretly wondered what Tom Hanks' forehead would taste like anyway. So you get your hands on a machete and clumsily take a few swings at your television. Eventually, you realize that is silly, so you put some clothes on and find a scientist who can help you transport yourself from the real world to the movie world where Annie and Sam are living happily ever after. Honestly, I haven't thought this part of the movie out all that well. I'm thinking Nicolas Cage for the scientist character though. And Peter Stormare is going to be in this, too, probably like the character who teaches you how to kill with a machete. No, forget machetes. That's been done before. Meg Ryan wouldn't kill with a machete anyway, would she? You can just use your hands. Anyway, I think you know exactly where I'm going with this. You end up in the adult movie world of Sleepless in Seattle, only twenty years after the movie ended, where you try to kill Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan while private detective son Jonah does his best to stop you. I think you'll agree that this sets up all kinds of interesting possibilities, the most interesting for me being the arousing action of a Meg Ryan vs. Meg Ryan catfight. I haven't even started the screenplay yet, but I'm a little like M. Night Shyamalan (people have told me that my writing has become increasingly lame) and think a neat final twist would be that you never entered the world of the movie at all, that you imagined Peter Stormare, and that you and Nicolas Cage just murdered Tom Hanks and ate him before you took your own life. In a final scene, you'd be stumbling along the observation deck of the Empire State Building with Tom Hanks' blood and little pieces of his forehead all over you while screaming, "Nicolas Cage! What have we done?"

Please let me know if this sounds like something you might want to do. And if you talk to Tom Hanks, see if he'll be involved. He's not won an Academy Award for a long time, so he's probably desperate. Tell him that he will not have a nude scene in this.

The Help

2011 movie

Rating: 11/20 (Jen: 15/20)

Plot: A woman who wants to be a writer but apparently has nothing at all to write about gets a housekeeping advice column gig at a small-town newspaper. She has a maid write the column for her. That gives her a brilliant idea--collect a bunch of maids, have them share their scatological stories, and then make that into a book. She waffles, thinking maybe it's a better idea to go with her original plan and just copy The Old Man and the Sea word-for-word and put her name on it, but eventually decides to have the maids do her work for her. Oh, I get it. They help her! The Help!

I don't imagine that I'm the audience for this movie. No, this movie is made for white women who have a whopping two hours and twenty minutes to spare, probably a white woman with a maid because white women without maids aren't going to have the time to watch the thing. This is the sort of bloated Hollywood thing made to win some awards and jerk some tears, and everything is just right about the thing. The actresses (The Help trivia: The total amount of time male characters appear on screen for this is a record low one minute and thirty-seven seconds.) act just like their supposed to, the 1960's segregated South looks just like it's supposed to, and the music sounds just like it's supposed to. And the movie takes no chances, fails to challenge, and has almost no depth, just like it's probably supposed to. You don't need substance when you're just there to provide light amusement for housewives, right? Just throw a few "raggedy asses" into the script and a poop joke that would also appeal to most fourth grade boys even though they wouldn't watch this movie on account of all the cooties. They also force-feed the audience a cutesy little catch phrase, something you can put on all the posters maybe (The Help trivia: If you cut out all times a character says "You is kind. You is smart. You is important.", the movie would actually only be forty-three minutes long.), but it just made me want to correct grammar. This is just the type of movie that people will say moved them because it was artificially constructed to do just that. I was just bored out of my mind for way too long and will likely remember nothing about this movie in a few months other than it had a lot of black people in it.

Jen let me know repeatedly that a lot of these scenes "ain't never was in no raggedy-ass book," and I think the dulcet tones of her voice kept me awake.

Date Night

2010 comedy

Rating: 8/20 (Jennifer: 11/20)

Plot: A couple a little bored with their married life have a night of adventure when they take another person's reservation on their titular night, a simple act which sets off a chain of events that involve them being chased by some punks searching for a computer file.

Not a single laugh to be had here. I like both Steve Carell and Tina Fey just fine, but somebody forgot to give them a script. There's probably a clever idea for a comedy here, something with enough action for the dudes and romance for the ladies, but this couldn't survive as just a clever idea. That's the problem with these contemporary comedies. It's like they just go through the motions. Oh well. At least you get to see Marky Mark's nips for extended periods of time.

Sherlock Holmes

2009 action movie/bastardized lit

Rating: 13/20 (Jen: 11/20)

Plot: Slobbish detective Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Dr. Watson attempt to solve the mystery of who is trying to terrorize Londoners. Turns out that it's a dead guy! Oh, snap!

The more this went on (and on and on), the more I actually ended up liking it. Unfortunately, it was never enough to completely save the movie. This is one of those movies that seems like it was written by eight different people. They all started out in same conference room around a massive oval table, a picture of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in front of an empty chair to give them inspiration. Maybe they all smoked opium, listened to violin music, and wore deerstalker hats to get in the right mood. In fact, I'm sure they all must have been smoking opium. They had trouble agreeing on much, just as you'd expect from a gaggle of writers, and decided to split up, write portions of the plot on their own, and reassemble later to paste it all together. So Guy #1 ran off with his head full of all these supernatural elements because he digs vampire movies; Guy #2, the traditionalist of the bunch, left with his convoluted explanations to show off Holmes' deductive knack and powers of observation; Guy #3, lover of action movies that he was, decided to storyboard a few ultra-modern fight scenes; Guy #4, lover of romantic comedies that he was, figured a little romance on the side wouldn't hurt anything; Guy #5 figured it was about time to put all that research he'd done on Masonry back in graduate school to use, also remembering the popularity of that Da Vinci Code movie; Guy #6, awakened from yet another terrorism-fueled nightmare, decided to put his irrational fears to use and include biological weapons; Guy #7 had writer's block and failed to contribute anything at all; and Guy #8, a chemist without any friends at all, decided to Bill-Nye-the-Science-Guy is up and add a bunch of stuff that nobody but he and the friends he would have had if he had had any would understand. They reconvened and threw all their ideas on that big oval table. But some dastardly foe, likely from a rival movie studio although that's yet to be proven, set the table on fire! The writers panicked, rapidly assembling the most coherent story they possibly can before their hard work perished in the flames. Sure the final result was a complete mess, but they decided that modern audiences won't mind if there's some nifty special effects to go along with it. I was a little annoyed by the slow-mo modern fisticuffs and Guy Ritchie's flashy direction. It's all stylistically interesting but very distracting. The story was also frustratingly complex, and after a while, I was so confused that I just gave up trying to figure out what was going on. Yes, it does all come together in the end, but it wasn't enough to make up for the previous 110 minutes of frustration. I don't easily forgive when something or somebody makes me feel so stupid for so long. The special effects team did create some cool settings (love moody London here), and as readers of my blog know, I always like Robert Downey Jr. He and Jude Law have fine chemistry. Rachel McAdams also provides some eye candy. I suppose there are enough nods to the original source material to appease some Holmes-aphiles while the purists will likely turn up their noses and pooh-pooh the whole thing. I'm somewhat in the middle. I'm not in a hurry to see this again even though it's the type of thing that repeated viewing could help, but I wouldn't mind renting the sequel when it comes out.

True Grit

2010 Western

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: 19/20)

Plot: The guy in that one Coen Brothers' movie killed another guy, one we never see but who was more than likely in at least one Coen Brothers' movie. His daughter wants vengeance. She wants it bad! So she finds a tough guy with an eyepatch, the guy who was in that one Coen Brothers' movie, and hires him to take care of business. A guy who has never been in a Coen Brothers' movie but who was in another movie with a guy who was in a Coen Brothers' movie tags along because he's been looking for the guy who was in the one Coen Brothers' movie for a very long time. A guy who looks like a bear shows up later.

Nice traditional, old-school Wild West action here, shaded with the Brothers' dark humor, offbeat characters, and stylized ultraviolence. Cause nobody just gets stabbed in the chest or shot in the head in a Coen Brothers' movie. They create big moments whenever their characters get theirs, moments that are oft-graphic, sometimes blackly humorous, and almost always thrilling. There's almost a coldness to their death scenes, and the poor characters pass to the next world without dignity. That's not a criticism, by the way. And the next worlds that most of these characters will inhabit probably aren't going to be a very nice one, like where the Care Bears live. No, most of these characters are going to end up in some dusty purgatory where their scars will itch. Being a Coen Brothers' movie, there are certain things you can just expect walking in: a great meaty script with lots of humorous things for the characters to say, stunning visual storytelling, and a few moments you'll want to talk about later. You know, like guys being shoved into wood chippers. And you get all that, as well as some terrific character acting. Mattie's played by somebody named Hailee Steinfeld, and although she's good, this really isn't her movie. This belongs to Lebowski, and every word he speaks is drenched in tobacco juice and whiskey and broken glass and filth. Bridges' Rooster is that type of character who is very funny without making any effort at all to be funny. You have to love Bridges' versatility. Matt Damon and Josh Brolin are also good, and the rest of the supporting cast, sometimes only on the screen for a few odd moments, help color in the Coens' askew vision of the Wild West. What I didn't expect walking into a Coen Brothers' movie: a heavy-handed Hollywoody score (I'll have to hear it again actually; Jen says it's a nod to the classics of the genre, and I think it could help with the myth making.) and such a traditional, simple story. The latter was no problem. What bugged me was the end where simple was thrown out of the saloon to make way for a goofy and unlikely denouement where a few too many things happen. As with all Coen Brothers' movies, I look forward to seeing this again.

Jen and I made a rare trip to the theater to see this one. We saw previews for a movie that must be based on the old Rockin' Robots toy and a movie about Neil Armstrong finding Transformers on the moon. Jen leaned over during both and (too loudly) said, "I am all over that! Booyah!"

Meet Me in St. Louis

1944 piece of technicolor crap

Rating: 10/20 (Jen: 13/20)

Plot: Attorney Smith lives in St. Louis with his wife and four daughters, one of them who might be the devil. They spend most of their time singing and being carefree, but suddenly, Dad announces that they're going to move to New York City. Oh, snap! This depresses everybody!

Judy Garland is sort of homely and has a terrible voice. Shirley Temple should have played Esther in this movie. There really isn't enough story here to make an entire movie which is why, I guess, they have to stuff in a bunch of songs. This might have been the most excruciating movie experience of the year for me, mostly because of the disturbing and obnoxious performance of child actress Margaret O'Brien as "Tootie," the only character I've watched this year with this almost overwhelming desire to hit repeatedly with a shovel. Seriously, what the hell is going on with Tootie? She's psychologically disturbed! The Halloween scene in which she's burning furniture and throwing flour in people's faces for no good reason is bad enough, but when she talks openly about trying to murder people? Yikes! If I would have watched this movie seventeen years ago, this kid would have inspired me to castrate myself so that I wouldn't accidentally have children. In addition to children, this movie also made me hate the following:

--Music

--St. Louis, a city I've always loved

--Fairs

--Love

--Color

--The Wizard of Oz

--Frills

--My wife

--Snowmen

--Christmas

--Halloween

--Trolleys

--White people

--Square dancing

--Alec Baldwin

--1903

--America

--The Facts of Life

It's been a couple days, but Meet Me in St. Louis seems to have this ability to continue making me suffer long after it's ended. It's like a bad taste in my soul. How this movie didn't lead to murder-suicide must be some kind of Christmas miracle.

Kill it with a shovel:

Amelia

2009 biopic

Rating: 9/20 (Jen: 13/20)

Plot: Details the misadventures of the notoriously lousy pilot Amelia Earhart.

That poster almost makes me throw up. So did Hillary Swank's relentless smile in this movie. I'm not sure if Amelia Earhart is known historically for having a smile that made her appear as if she was about to bite your head off, but that's about the only thing I learned about Earhart in this movie. Well, that and the fact that she was such a whore. I didn't know that. Maybe it's because I have the mentality of your typical middle schooler, but I can't watch a Richard Gere movie without thinking of gerbils or Ewan McGregor without thinking of Ewan McGregor's junk. And now, I guess because of a guilt-by-association thing, I won't be able to watch a Hillary Swank movie without thinking about gerbils or Ewan McGregor's junk. And those would be just reasons number two and three for why I'd rather not watch another Hillary Swank movie. In Amelia, like in her other movies, she's Acting with that capital A, sinking her giant teeth into a role that's got Academy Award written all over it. Only she's not a great actress, and she makes Amelia Earhart seem like one of the most irritating women in history, a character I hoped to see eaten by cannibals (or Michael Oher) by the end of the movie. Eerily melodramatic and sickeningly sentimental, almost every aspect of this movie seems unnecessary. I would much rather just read a book about Amelia Earhart, and I don't even like reading.

The Blind Side

2009 big-screen after-school special

Rating: 11/20 (Jen: 15/20; Emma: 15/20; Abbey: 18/20)

Plot: The extraordinary true story of Michael Oher, a troubled black teen without a home or family who is transformed overnight into a student-athlete after the well-to-do Touly family takes him in and feeds him turkey.

Somebody made Dylan watch this at school, and he told me, after his class had almost finished the entire thing, that it was a great movie, one that he would rate an 18. That's three times what he rated Dr. Strangelove, by the way. So we watched it, actually finishing the movie before he got a chance to watch the rest. I told him he was going to feel let down by the ending because Oher ends up devouring the Touly son S.J. Sandra Bullock walks in and watches in horror as Oher gnaws the rest of S.J.'s flesh from what appears to be a bloody, tooth-marked femur, and screams, "Big Mike! What are you doing?" Oher looks at her with this demented look in his eyes, a string of cartilage dangling from his lips, and exclaims with a mouth full of S.J., "I told you not to call me Big Mike!" That would have made this a much, much better movie, but a much, much less extraordinary true story. Speaking of S.J., I don't see how anybody can watch Jae Head's performance, a slightly-more-obnoxious-than-normal child performance, and consider this as a Best Picture nominee. His first line ("It's girl's volleyball, mom. You didn't miss anything.") almost made me stop watching The Blind Side. Sandra Bullock's critically-acclaimed performance isn't much better though. I wasn't as impressed with her down-home accent and tough-cookie personality as most seemed to be. It seemed to me that she had only a single move that she used over and over in this movie--a sideways glance with slightly-parted lips that she'd use whenever another character in the movie said anything to her. It kind of made her character seem dumb a lot of the time. This alternates between bland, derivative, and overly sentimental, and although the story is a nice one, I don't get the hype. It's definitely not three times better than Dr. Strangelove.

Babies

2010 documentary

Rating: 11/20 (Jen: 20/20; Dylan: 4/20; Emma: 18/20; Abbey: 20/20)

Plot: A seemingly endless juxtaposition of home video footage of babies from Nambia, Japan, Mongolia, and America during the first year of their lives.

A baby who isn't yours is nothing more than an obnoxious flabby burdensome stupid thing who, according to my father, looks like a shrunken Winston Churchill. And to be completely honest, I'm not sure I would want to watch ninety minutes of home videos featuring my own children as babies, let alone these babies I've got no connection with at all. Purportedly, this is all about how different cultures raise their children, but there's very little focus, just pointless and annoyingly precious scenes strung together haphazardly and given a title that a baby might have been able to come up with. And despite the cultural differences, some subtle and some extreme, we all know that it's all going to end the same with the annoying babies eventually becoming dangerous adults. So even though it's all shot very well, it's really as pointless and trite as documentary filmmaking gets. I would rather change a crappy diaper than watch this one again, but it's the exact sort of thing that some people would find delightful. For whatever reason, I want to blame Oprah for this.

No Impact Man: The Documentary

2009 documentary

Rating: 12/20 (Jen: 16/20)

Plot: Colin Beamer (That's not his name, and I'm too lazy to look up his name. That's OK though because now when he Googles himself [it's likely that he frequently does], he won't get to my blog and have his feelings hurt by my comments on what is essentially an advertisement for himself.) decides to live one year without refrigerators, toilet paper, electricity, or anything else that makes an impact on our environment.

Colin Blorpin didn't direct this movie about himself, but I have no doubt that he rounded up the posse to have it made. I'm sure he really cares about the environment and hopes that his experiment will motivate others to do something. He nudges up against some good things here--buying locally and seasonally, knowing where your food is coming from, eliminating the amount we waste as Americans--but there's not nearly enough details about the hows and whys. So No Impact Man fails to make much of an impact at all, and it seems like less of an informational piece than a big publicity stunt. Which, I suppose, makes it effective. I now know all about the Bathworth family, especially about how much he wants to sell books.

Jen added this to the list during my streak of "man" movies, a streak which, by the way, might have just as much of an impact on the environment as this movie.

Note: I might just be in a terrible mood and taking it all out on this movie and this poor guy who might be completely genuine and who I am judging unfairly. I apologize to Colin Blipper if that's the case.

Food, Inc.

2008 horror movie

Rating: 15/20 (Jen: 19/20)

Plot: Troubling expose about how food production has changed. It's not good. Essentially, we're all going to die if we keep eating.

Scary stuff, people. There's not much that was really revolutionary here. Animals are being maltreated. A handful of corporations run everything. Corn is used too often. We eat things that are unfit for animals. The meat we eat is filled with hormones and fecal matter. The government doesn't really care about us. Corporations try to mislead consumers or keep them in the dark about what is in the food they eat. A waterfall of chickens, no matter what anybody else says, is really kind of funny. They're mostly lessons already learned and this is a ton of information to try to digest. It's a ninety minutes bursting at the seams, like the typical American threatening to break apart the fragile fabric of his action pants. It's presented very well, however, and the documentary is as entertaining as it is informative. Similarly to Al Gore's horror movie about how we're all going to drown (same producers actually), this spits out the problems but left me pessimistic. There was a flashy little list of tips before the credits, but most of the solution to our food production problems can't be solved by the average Joe Blow. And this particular Joe Blow is way too lazy to really do anything about all of this anyway.

I believe this was recommended by Oprah. I wouldn't want to eat her either.

Coraline

2009 animated feature

Rating: 18/20 (Jen: 17/20; Emma: 13/20; Abbey: 1/20)

Plot: The title character finds a tiny door in her new home, a pink apartment building. After she procures a key to the door, she's eventually able to enter a vaginal tunnel into an alternate universe where everything looks almost exactly the same but with improvements. She enjoys the new idealized world until she discovers that her alternate mother wants to take her eyes, replace them with buttons, and make her stay forever. Oh, snap!

As my faithful four-and-a-half readers have figured out, I'm a sucker for this sort of stop-animated stuff. Keep that in mind as you read below. You'll have to allow some gushing. However, winter rates and anonymous--you both need to grab this one!

First off, this isn't a movie for children. I should have done my research. The nightmare imagery squeezed its way into my dreams, which generally I don't even remember, and I know my daughters went to bed creeped out. This is an emo-folktale with the look of Selick's Nightmare before Christmas and with an Alice's Adventures in Wonderland vibe. Perhaps lumping it with any other work of art is unfair though because Coraline is a completely unique experience. I know I could watch a "making of" feature on the dvd (if there is one) to get my answers, but I'm not sure how portions of this are even animated. It's stop-animated like Nightmare or James and the Giant Peach (or the recent Tom Thumb movie I watched which the memory of, I'm sad to say, now looks like shit in comparison), but there are textures, movements, backgrounds, and shades that almost have to be CGI. Regardless, it's a mind-boggling feast for the eyeballs. There are scenes (a garden in the "other" world, a choreographed mice dance, etc.) where I couldn't believe what I was seeing. There are colors the animators use that don't actually exist anywhere outside of this movie. There are details (slightly wavering chandeliers, movements in snow globes) where you can see the amount of love that went into creating this world and these characters. There's such a complexity to the movements, several characters making a myriad of movements in the foregrounds and backgrounds, that really raise the bar with stop-animation. There's a richness or a depth to the settings that makes you want to rewind certain scenes to watch them again to make sure you've soaked it all in. Accuse me of hyperbolizing all you want, but this is one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen. The characters are crafted similarly those in Nightmare Before Christmas except they look more human and there's a lot less of that grotesque exaggeration, the Russian guy's tiny legs and the enormous bosoms of one of the actresses being exceptions. Where the puppetry outshines Nightmare and James and the Giant Peach is in the facial expressions. Although there is some choppiness (especially in the early scenes) when characters rapidly change their expressions, the sheer amount of expressions the characters have is amazing. They must have had thousands of puppet heads to use. The narrative, although at times derivative in one of those can't-quite-put-my-finger-on-it ways, stays fresh and unpredictable, and there's a tidy little life lesson for children even though they'll be too scared to figure out what it is. This is a dark and intelligent movie, a movie that doesn't feel the need to sprinkle in some humor or pop culture references to lighten the load which I think will help give this cult favorite status for a very long time. I didn't have high expectations for this even though I really like Nightmare Before Christmas (partially for reasons that have nothing to do with how good of a movie it is). The mediocre James and the Giant Peach and that Monkeybones movie and Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride had me anticipating something that wasn't going to be any more than OK. But unhinged, imaginative, and exhilarating, this is the most excited I've been while watching an animated movie since The Triplets of Belleville, and I'm looking forward to see it again soon. Hell, I might even buy it.

The Tale of Despereaux

2008 talking mouse movie

Rating: 9/20 (Jen: 13/20; Emma: 15/20; Abbey: 20/20)

Plot: During the kingdom's annual soup festival, soup aficionado Ratso Rizzo, a rat, sneaks into the queen's bowl and scares her to death. The soup festival is cancelled, indefinitely, and it no longer rains, incomprehensibly. Everybody's sad. Dumbo the Mouse, Ratso, a farm girl with Downs Syndrome, and a wacky vegetable man have to save the day. Too bad they couldn't save the movie!

I didn't like a single thing about this blander-than-bland movie. I didn't like the bland characters, walking and talking cliches, and the actors providing the voices did nothing to inject them with any personality. It's a Who's Who of People Who Got Paid a Lot to Do Voices in This Movie. I didn't like the bland music. I'm not a composer, but if there wasn't music in this movie, I'm pretty sure I could have hummed a more interesting score. I hated the bland animation, from the colorless settings to the expressionless characters. This was truly an ugly film. The action sequences were dull, and the intermittent humor was humorless. If you'd have told me that there was a character made from vegetables in this, I would have been excited, but that character seemed out of place and confused me more than anything else. Actually, a lot of this fairy tale cross-pollination mish-mash crap confused me. Maybe the problem was that I couldn't get past trying to imagine what it would look like if Despereaux and the princess "got it on" because even though a theme of this story is that you can change the world for the better no matter how small you are, I'm not sure we can extend that idea into the realm of erotic love. I don't think the princess could have ever been sexually satisfied by Despereaux. Oh, well. Maybe we'll find out in the sequel--Despereaux Gets Some Tail. I wasn't expecting much from this anyway (I couldn't even finish the fairly short book), but this extremely flat and personality-free movie ended up being worse than expected.

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

2007 family film

Rating: 11/20 (Emma: 17/20; Abbey: 19/20; Dylan: Missed 1st 20 minutes and stubbornly refused to rate)

Plot: Approaching 250 years of age and on his last pair of shoes, the title proprietor of a magical toy store is ready to leave the earth. He's passing his legacy to the store's manager, Natalie Portman. But will the departure of Magorium cause the store to lose its wonder? Can a little kid who collects hats and a workaholic accountant help save the store?

There are things I really wanted to like about this. Lots of potential. Unfortunately, it ended up looking like a strangely half-assed production, extremely predictable and trite. I'm most offended by the terrible puns and schmaltz, but there are also some special effects that were just embarrassing. The movie also jars you with whimsical but pointless dopiness butted up against forced poignancy and reflective bits of dialogue. The scene that typifies the movie? Natalie Portman's character laughs at Dustin Hoffman's character as he dances on bubble wrap for approximately twenty minutes. I'm not sure if I'm exaggerating or not, but exaggerating doesn't seem like something I ordinarily do. After that twenty minutes, different music starts up and they have a conversation about death. Then it's time for another scene, probably something involving a monkey, a giant ball, or something that is funny because it's moving around in a way that it shouldn't move around in. There's also a lack of character development that actually distorts the movie's central themes. Natalie Portman's character and the little kid don't grow; the accountant's character changes far too abruptly. I actually was optimistic about this one but it's another one of those films that is not as good as its opening credits. It really reminds me of Jumanji or, especially, the sort-of sequel Space Jumanji, and that is not even close to a good thing.

It's a Wonderful Life

1946 silly movie

Rating: 14/20 (Jen: 18/20)

Plot: The happiest-go-luckiest man on earth, George "People Shouldn't Have Had Me Run on Film Because I Can't Do It Naturally" Bailey was born, saved his brother's life, saved a pharmacist's job, saved his podunk town, got married, and had sexual intercourse at least four times. It's a wonderful life! None of that matters, however, because his staircase railing is broken and he isn't man enough to be able to fix it. Within minutes, he becomes drunken and suicidal. As he's about to end his life by jumping off a bridge into the icy waters below, his guardian angel Clarence jumps into the icy waters. So George jumps into the icy waters below to save his life. Clarence, working on earning his wings, needs to convince George that life is worth living and shows him what the lives of others would look like if George had never existed.

The following is a partial transcript from a meeting following a showing of It's a Wonderful Life, then called Untitled Frank Capra Communist Propaganda Film:

Film Producer #7: But why does he keep shouting at everybody?

Frank Capra: Because he's excited! He's got his life back.

FP7: No, I'm talking about the rest of the movie. He spends the entire movie shouting.

FC: He does?
Film Producer #3: He really does, Frank.

FC: Well, that's acting. That's how Jimmy Stewart acts.

FP7: Well, I don't like it at all. Something must be done.

FP3: Yeah, I'm not sure I like all the shouting either. Nobody's going to want to spend 17 hours watching the longest movie ever made with a protagonist who shouts at everybody for no reason.

FP7: What if we give him a reason?
FC: What do you mean, Film Producer Number Seven?

FP3: Yes! We could have George born with a condition of some kind where he shouts unnecessarily.

FP7: How about this? How about we write in a scene where he has some sort of childhood injury which causes him to lose his hearing in one of his ears?

FP3: Yeah! The right one!

FP7: No, the left one.

Film Producer #4: And then his "acting" (finger quotes--actually the first time finger quotes were ever used) would make a little more sense. The character won't know that he's shouting.

FP3: I think this might work. Back to the studio, Frank Capra!

Film Producer #2: Anybody else think the movie is too long?

FP7: (Scratches self)

FP2: I mean, do we really need to show George using the potty for the first time or trying meatloaf? We have the longest exposition in film history here. It takes so long to get to the real meat of the movie and audiences have fallen asleep during test screenings.

Film Producer #5: The real meatloaf of the movie!

FP7: Are you drunk again, Film Producer #5?

Quite possibly the most overrated movie ever made. Definitely seems like the longest although, admittedly, I'm not used to watching movies with commercial interruptions and that probably made it seem longer. It's a very average movie, a little too manipulative and old-timey to fully appreciate. I gave it an 11/20 the first time I watched it, so maybe by the forty-seventh time I see this, I'll develop a soul and think it's a classic like everybody else.

You've Got Mail

1998 romantic comedy

Rating: 11/20 (Jen: 17/20)

Plot: Joe Fox is the "son" of Fox & Son Books, a discount book store chain. Kathleen is the owner of a quaint store for children's books called Shop Around the Corner. Since the former's actions threaten to put the latter out of business, they should be enemies. However, without knowing it, they've been corresponding electronically, smitten with each other despite already being in relationships with douche bags. The relationship between their secret identities grows while their actual physical interactions cause them to hate each other more and more.

Completely harmless. Jen's reasons for wanting to see this also had to do with interior decorating. The movie's sweet enough, but it's simultaneously too long and suffers from a final half hour that seems too rushed and unbelievable. There are also some unforgivably cliched moments--most notably when she's closing up the shop and has some sort of acid flashback--and a soundtrack that is fairly obnoxious except for the Harry Nilsson. By the way, where the hell did Meg Ryan go? And why didn't Tom Hanks go with her?