Entertainment To Me!

Over Thanxgiving holiday, lots of family and lots of food abounded. And lots of movie watching. Oldest sis and hubby came down to PA from Long Island, and as usual, at holiday time, we all–with our respective others/friends–went to see a movie in our local Cinemark theatre.

BOLT–Everyone else went to see the new comedy, “Four Christmases,”, while my husband and myself opted to see “Bolt,” the new computer animated movie starring the voice talents of John Travolta and singer/actress Miley Cyrus. Movie started at 5:35pm, and after credits, and all was said and done–was ended at about  7:25pm. Of course there were about 4 previews (all for computer animated coming attractions), and so on and so forth, but the movie was still long for a computer animated one. But all the time was used wonderfully!

I loved “Bolt”, and would most definitely see it again! In fact, it was one of the best, if not the, computer cartoon I’ve ever seen! I loved it!! While it wasn’t totally as funny as say, “Finding Nemo”–Disney did a great job with this one. John Travolta plays the little white dog who thinks he has superpowers, perfectly. And Miley Cyrus, while she’s not an outstanding character in the movie, added to its memorability with her addition of the ending song (which she and John T. sing together).

The secondary characters–the cat named Mittens and a fat hampster named Rhino–are great. The hampster made my husband laugh like crazy, and me too. Bolt is a beautiful dog, and the hampster is adorable as comedic relief. Mittens is really thin and odd looking, but she’s a cool cat, so it’s all good.

“Bolt” is beautiful, the animation is amazing, the characters are FUNNY (especially the first set of NY pigeons!!LOL), the backrounds are well done, and it is overall a great adventure for family, friends, and everyone of any age. Highly recommended!

HANCOCK–Will Smith is great, really and truly. I usually enjoy watching him. Even “I Am Legend”–which wasn’t the greatest movie, was made better by him. But when I finally sat down to watch “Hancock” this holiday season, on DVD, I was glad I hadn’t paid money to see it in the theatre. The preview people had seen a zillion times tells nothing of Charlize Theron’s pointless sister-superhero-type-character, or of the fact that the movie isn’t funny at all, it’s merely a drama about a drunk, and a guy who tries to be a good man in a crappy world. It was an alright movie, if you have time, and don’t bore easily. Don’t get me wrong, Will is still a great actor, but this movie wasn’t really worth the time. It had nothing extra special. And they took a great super hero theme and screwed it up pretty bad, making a drama. Oy vey.

TROPIC THUNDER (unrated version)–Ok, this movie, starring Jack Black, Ben Stiller, and Robert Downy Jr., was extremely funny. Made so by Matthew McConaughey and Tom Cruise sub-characters, especially! Tom Cruise has a scene where he is just swearing like crazy, and everyone is looking at him like he’s crazy, which his character is–and it’s worth cracking up over.

Jack Black isn’t as funny or prominent, but Ben Stiller and Robert Downy Jr. are great hysterics, and the character R.D. Jr. plays is impressive.

We watched the unrated version, which has tonz of cursing, and lots of perverted humor, which I could’ve done without, but other than that stuff, it would’ve been a GREAT comedy. So it’s good, but be careful if you’ve got kids around. It was fun to watch with the guys and hubby.

I understand that everyone has individual tastes, but after some recent rentals/library borrows/discoveries of movies that, in my humble opinion miss the mark for a good let’s-cozy-up-on-the-couch-with-a-blanket,-some-good-friends-and-a-huge-bag-of-extra-butter-popcorn-movie, I felt I had no choice but to share my opinions, and thereby perhaps preventing you from making the same mistake I did and, well, watching them.

They are not all new releases. But they all fell into that category when I watched them–the “How in the world did they actually find funding to make this crap?”/”What kind of people actually sit through this entire waste of time?” category.

Here are just a few…I am sure I shall have more to rant upon in the near future…

>:-)

1. Meet The Spartans–This was another one of those “spoof” movies that abounds today. It was supposed to be hysterical, and to make fun of all sorts of crazy infamous movies as well as stars. But by the time I actually got to see the mock-Brittney Spears shaving her head, and attempting to sing, and finally getting kicked over into the death pit in the movie–it was no longer funny, due to having been overdone a zillion times in every preview and advertisement for the movie. Talk about overkill! Oy vey…
Not to mention that the movie wasn’t very funny at all. It had a couple of chuckle scenes, but most of the acting wasn’t done with enough humor, the plots were completely detached, and the jokes were old, and in bad taste. The whole film has a homosexual undertone, thereby making most of the jokes along those lines, thereby killing the movie, really.

2. Soylent Green–Ok, I admit THIS was my husband’s doing. And this was also a movie I’d never even heard of before. More shocking (apparently), is that I’d missed that SNL skit where Phil H. makes fun of Charlton Heston’s character, screaming “Soylent Green is PEOPLE!”  My husband couldn’t believe I didn’t know the skit, or the movie. And thus spoiling the ending/punchline for me, I finally rented it, hearing it was a “classic.” Wow.  No.
I really think if this movie was re-made today, it could be, well, interesting–even if people did know the punchline. But at the time, it was obviously made with no budget, no plot, no creativity, and oh yeah, no idea what kind of genre picture they were trying to create. Most of the movie, if you can stay awake through it, has nothing to do with anything, and the ending of the “Soylent Green is PEOPLE!”, fame is ruined by climaxing music that leads to nothing. I mean, you expect something ala Sweeney Todd to happen–but no. Either that, or the one I watched skipped an entire scene. Personally, if I’d seen what Heston did in that movie, I wouldn’t have been able to logically come to the same conclusion, I mean–they don’t even show the people being made into the ridiculous pointless Soylent Green!
Not to mention, the movie is boring as sin…which, incidentally–isn’t.

3. Seed of Chucky–This one was my own fault. And I saw it coming, and expected no less. Hence why I didn’t actually spend any money on the film to see it, but borrowed it through our local library loan system.
I watched the Bride of Chucky not too long ago, and loved it mainly because I thought Jennifer Tilly did a great job as Tiffany, and her doll version was beautiful!!  I also find the Child’s Play movies in general to be a hoot. I mean, c’mon–it’s a doll. Albeit, a voodoo, murdering doll, but still…It’s a doll. Like, a stand-on-top-a-table-and-it-can’t-reach-you-doll! But anyway…I realized Bride of Chucky was getting a bit ridiculous–ok, more than “a bit”–but I had no idea how bad it could get. I mean, what kind of genre does the movie Seed of Chucky fall under? Certainly not horror, or even horror comedy. In fact, there isn’t any horror at all. A couple of deaths, sure, but they’re terrible, and look completely fake, and un-frightening. Besides, most of the movie is about family drama, and the dolls screwed up child that oddly enough, even though it’s voiced by a male, can’t seem to tell if it’s female or male or what. It even reverts to this Southern Belle, killer-wanna-be, ugly-as-sin version of its mother (I think), which lasts for about 5 minutes, and is neither scary nor funny. It was really sad. The earlier Chucky would roll over in his grave! The last movie version of himself is a total failure, wuss, and pathetically fatter.
Jennifer Tilly was also a complete disappointment in this movie. They played off of her actual name, and she plays an actual actress, and it all makes no sense. The doll and woman can’t co-exist, can they??! Plus, the doll version in this movie isn’t nearly as pretty/sexy/powerful as the last one. She’s a baby-boomer version, with way too much hair spray and no passion.
I could go on and on, but will save you any more distress. Ugh.