Movie Review: Our Idiot Brother

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Our Idiot Brother is one of those movies that you watch with your mouth open and think, "can this be real?" You find it very hard to suspend disbelief, but not in a fantasy kind of way. You have a set of characters in what appears to be the real world acting the way that most people do, except for maybe one person. That person would be the brother in question, Ned played by Paul Rudd.

Ned is calm, collected, very at easy and loves his dog named Willie Nelson. He looks like Jesus with the long hair and beard, is living on a farm and selling fruits, vegetables and weed. Well, he really didn't want to sell the weed to the cop, he just wanted to help out someone who was having a tough week, he was going to give it to the cop, but because he took the money that the cop offered he got busted and went to the joint for eight months although, he got off four months early for being the most cooperative prisoner. The way he acts and dresses you expect someone to come up to him and say "Dude, the 1960s called and it wants all its hippies and flower children back!"

After his release from the big house, he can't go back to the farm so he end up spending time living with his mom and sisters Miranda (Elizabeth Banks), Natalie (Zooey Deschanel), and Liz (Emily Mortimer). Miranda is a tightly wound wanna be reporter for Vanity Fair. Natalie is a care free spirit living with five other people including her girlfriend Cindy. Sister Liz is the dutiful wife to a documentary film maker Dylan (Steve Coogan) and mother of two.

With each stay Ned screws up something. Ned doesn't have a mean bone in his body, but he also doesn't have any filters and doesn't try to read any negativity into what he has been told or sees. That's why you sit there with your mouth wide open. Could you believe there is someone who wouldn't try to impose a darker or screwed up or judgmental meaning on what they have seen or heard? When he is given a lame excuse for a situation, Ned just accepts it as is, no questions asked. It's there where the suspension of disbelief becomes really hard to do. But on the other side of the coin, if Ned started to question and then accepted further lies you'd think differently of him. Then you'd really think he was stupid for not discerning the deceit instead of just having the blind faith to think the best of people and hope that they will give the same back to him. He even goes as far as praising his parole officer for the job the officer is doing. How's that for thinking well of people?

There were a couple of slow points in the movie and a little bit more risque comments and sights in the movie than I expected going in. It was rated R for sexual content including nudity, and for language throughout. It was also one of those comedy movies where the trailer shows you scenes or jokes that don't make it into the final 90 minute cut released to theaters. While maybe not worth the price of a movie ticket, it might be worth the DVD or Blu-ray rental because there was a bit of a lesson in there about one way to view life. When you watch, make sure you stay for the credits as a number of bloopers and out takes pass the time while the words scroll up on the side. I would think a future rental would probably have more of a blooper reel than what was included in the feature presentation.

The Movie Monkey

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Movie Review: Bridesmaids

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Bridesmaids has been getting a lot of build up and positive buzz. I was excited to see it based on all that positive buzz. After watching the movie, I felt like I was stuck at the children's table at the reception. The movie fell flat on its face breaking its nose and I couldn't wait for it to be over.

The title of the movie is Bridesmaids. I'm expecting the focus to be on the antics of the group of bridesmaids for a wedding. Based on the trailers, both of them, I'm expecting a female version of The Hangover. The title was plural. I was sold a bill of goods. The main focus of the movie was on Annie (Kristen Wiig), the Maid of Honor for Lilian's (Maya Rudolph) upcoming nuptials. If they called it Maid of Honor or as one character said Maid of Dishonor it would have better represented what the movie was about. The group was window dressing for Annie's story.

Annie is having a hard time in life. She's being used as a toy by a guy (an uncredited Jon Hamm) as boy friend would not be an appropriate term to use to describe him. Her cake business has gone under due to the economy. She's in a job that she doesn't like. Her roommates are just all out weird. Her car couldn't pass a safety test. She's not having an easy time when Lilian asked her to be her Maid of Honor. Lilian knows this and that it's going to take extra finances to fulfill the role but she saddles the burden on Annie anyway. Where they talked about the economy in the opening scenes, it annoyed me that the bride wasn't thinking of the well being of her life long best friend but was caught up in herself.

As Annie meets the other bridesmaids there are personalities that get set up for the comedy and for clashing. It's obvious that there are two people who are going to have major issues with each other. Lilian has her new friend Helen (Rose Byrne) as part of the bridal party. Helen is her fiance's boss' wife and has money to boot! During the first meeting when Annie and Helen try to outdo each other with toasts to the bride, Lilian didn't step up and women up to straighten out things and set the expectations between the two women.

There were some moments of laughter. I don't mind toilet humor when dealing with bodily functions. After having lunch at a Brazilian churrascaria (a place where roasted meat is sliced off of a skewer right onto your plate) the bridal party heads to a super posh dress fitting where they start to develop symptoms of food poisoning. Stomach rumbling, belching and passing gas culminating with multiple people all dashing for the single toilet is the result while the hostess is yelling at them about the dresses and trying to get them to go use a restroom across the street. While you laughed at bodily functions the attitude of hostess and Helen had my stomach rumbling.

At one point Annie meets Officer Rhodes (Chris O'Dowd in a heavy Irish brogue) and a small relationship starts to develop. Annie is at such a low point in her life that she doesn't want to accept the friendship and encouragement that he offers to her. If this was an art house movie, great, wonderful. But this was supposed to be a comedy.

Lastly was the bachelorette party. Helen manipulates the ladies to have her way and hold the event in Las Vegas. It's the plane trip from hell for Annie. She doesn't like to fly and can't afford the trip in the first place, but Lilian seems ok with putting her best friend in such a bad position. Watching what Helen does overtly and as passive aggressive to Annie would earn her a spot in the Bad Girl's Club. Mixing drugs and alcohol on a plane is not a funny matter with current affairs.

I sat there for the two hours and five minutes of this R rated comedy for some strong sexuality, and language throughout cringing, upset and hoping it would be over soon. Many of the scenes shown in the trailers did not show up in the movie. While this happens quite frequently, especially with Will Ferrell movies, I don't think I've even seen as many scenes not make it into the final film as happened in this movie. If the shots had not been left on the cutting room floor, it maybe would have fared better as a comedy.

The script written by Wigg and Annie Mumolo who appears as Annie's seat mate on the plane could have given us much better work. The idea of Annie's downward plunge and hitting bottom then working herself back up or a more raucous comedy could have been developed from this script. It could evolved into two very different and workable scripts. What we got was a combination that instead of being funny or thoughtful was sad and at times self absorbed and mean spirited.

On a side note, this weekend I was able to try the jalapeno poppers at my local Regal theater. I ordered and they came out relatively quickly. Although the signage showed six poppers and no quantity with the description and price I received five pieces for the $4.50 price plus Ken's Steak House ranch dressing for dipping sauce. They also offered a discount coupon through Facebook that got a small soda for a buck. I upgraded to a large and for $6.50 I got what you see in the picture.

Back to the movie, make sure you stay through the beginning of the credits. There is some additional footage that is pretty funny. Finally, for me the star of the movie was Melissa McCarthy who played Megan. She's played Dena in Samatha Who? and plays the title roll of Molly in CBS' Mike and Molly. She's heavy set and tom boyish in the role. She's loud and somewhat uncouth but she showed more heart in her character than the rest of the bridesmaids combined. If anything, it would be interesting to see if Wiig could come up with a script for Annie and Megan to reprise their roles on the silver screen or maybe even a direct to DVD release.

The Movie Monkey

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Movie Review: Madea's Big Happy Family

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Three new movies this weekend. Water for Elephants has Robert Pattinson, Edward of Twilight fame, in a drama. Didn't see much in the way of previews so it was a pass. The next was African Cats the Disney documentary about the big cats of Africa. Although I love Disney, I'm a dog person. Next! So that left Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family. Annnnd...I bought a ticket.

People either seem to love Perry's work or they hate it. There doesn't seem to be many in the middle ground. I lean toward the love side of his work, especially when it includes Madea, Perry's female alter ego. Playing such a loud, boisterous and as I was taught at my first job a PB that's pushy broad in case you're scratching your head, Perry gets to do things that normally people would find unacceptable. But, when Madea does it we laugh and laugh hard.

In Perry's movies, there are elements of relationships in all forms that get explored. Mothers and daughters, siblings, parental and general connections between people. What are issues spoken and unspoken, known and unknown, fresh and deep rooted that are part of the characters lives we see play out on the screen. Sometimes redemption is there, sometimes not. Elements of faith in God are always in play in his cinematic endeavors.

The theater was pretty full for the first show of the day on what for some is a long Easter weekend. The crowd reacted to the projected images. Many times the laughter was so loud and hard you couldn't hear the words. At other times there were gasps of shocked surprise. And at other times there was silence punctuated by people inhaling trying to hold back their noses from running.

Some of the dialogue, actions and situations were so over the top that you shook your head in laughter. But yet in many cases there were the elements of truth to each one. That's where he gets us. We drop our guard a little so that he can get in there with a message of love, truth, faith and of overcoming. On occasion he hits us with a situational 2X4 to either wake us up to what is around ourselves or for those that are aware, to be all the more thankful.

As to what happens in the 106 minute running time, here's the scoop. Madea's niece Shirley (Loretta Devine) needs to tell her three children about her health issues. Each child has their own intervening issues. Her son Byron (Bow Wow) is dealing with two high maintenance women, his baby's mamma and girlfriend while trying to overcome being recently released from jail. Oldest daughter Kimberly (Shannon Kane) is a cold non responsive wife to her husband Calvin (the Old Spice Guy Isaiah Mustafa). Middle daughter Tammy (Natalie Desselle) is the domineering emasculating wife with two disrespectful boys. One of the biggest laughs throughout was provided by weed smoking Aunty Bam (Cassi Davis).

There was a cute animation to start the movie and the blooper reel to finish it out while the credits ran making you want to stay until what I call the BSOR or blue screen of rating. With drug content (lots of weed due to Aunty Bam), language provided by an often bleeped out Madea (when you see why it was bleeped you're stomach will be hurting from laughter) and some mature thematic material (the aforementioned relationships and health issues) it received a PG-13 rating.

The Movie Monkey

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Movie Review: Arthur

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A few months shy of the 30th anniversary release date of the original, we get the remake of Arthur. The original starring Dudley Moore, Liza Minnelli and Sir John Gielgood went on to become an award winning American classic. The updated version has Russel Brand, Greta Gerwig and Helen Mirren taking on the same main roles. This time around, awards will probably not be given to this version. Does that mean that it's a bad movie? No, it just means that once again the original remains the better version.

Russel Brand as Arthur brings that drunken swagger that we've seen from him as Aldus Snow in Get Him to the Greek. There was a certain point in the wealthy man-boy where he flirted with being totally annoying as I find Will Ferrell when Ferrell does his version on man-boy, but Brand remained just far enough away in the first hour of the film's 110 minutes to make it bearable. The latter half of the movie as he makes the transition of boy to man is when he really settles into the role and became enjoyable to watch.

In the gender swapping role of Hobson, Mirren comes in to protect the man-boy from his partying playboy ways as the nanny. She delivers her lines well. The self-assuredness as she confronts one women to safeguard Arthur from both himself and her is spot on; but for me it was when she put on the Darth Vader mask and repeats a couple of statements from Arthur that got my biggest laugh.

Gerwig is the love interest of Naomi, an illegal tour guide whom Arthur runs into and starts to fall in love. Unfortunately, mommy has forced Arthur into an agreement to marry Susan (Jennifer Gardner) in order to protect the Bach family business and fortunes or by rejecting the arranged marriage to be cut off from a bank account that's just a tad shy of a billion dollars. That's a lot of cheese that Arthur just won't do without.

The one part of Arthur's lavish lifestyle that surprised me as they updated the film to make it more contemporary is that Arthur remained a womanizing drunk and not a womanizing drug addict. You would have thought in today's world that cocaine, meth or ecstasy would have shown up in the movie. They really didn't but it was rated PG-13 for alcohol use throughout, sexual content, language and some drug references.

The basic story line remains with a couple of gender role twists. But at the core of the movie is that it's supposed to be a romantic comedy. Does it deliver in that space? For the most part yes. It was also fun to see how a super rich person would squander some of their money with the gaudy and garish apartment fixtures like a operating solar system model night light or a floating magnetic bed. Or what about buying that sweet ride and its accessories. Many fan boys would love to have the most memorable of the Batman suits, you know, the one Val Kilmer wore in Batman Forever and the accompanying Batmobile. Or what about customized PEZ dispensers. For some people that would be right up there with lavish expenditures! We can dream can't we!

Back in 1981, Christopher Cross co-wrote and sung Arthur's Theme (The Best That You Can Do) which won the Academy Award for Best Music - Original Song. It is reprised in the new version of the film by Fitz and the Tantrums playing over a fun to watch closing credits. If you go in with tempered expectations, you'll come out with a smile on your face.

The Movie Monkey

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Movie Review: Paul

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Are you the type that believes in conspiracy theories? Do you listen to Art Bell and George Noory late night on Coast to Coast AM? Do you have different colors and styles of tin hats as part of your permanent clothing collection? Have you even remotely thought of trying the Klingon dish gagh, going to Comic-Con, or chuckling at Galaxy Quest? If so, then Paul is the movie for you!

Just as Galaxy Quest pokes fun at the fans of Star Trek writers Nick Frost and Simon Pegg poke fun of both people who believe and don't believe in extraterrestrial life. Frost and Pegg also take the lead roles as science fiction writer Clive Gollings and illustrator Graeme Willy. The blokes are best friends from the UK who have come to America to be part of the greatest geek fest going on planet Earth, Comic-Con. For any red blooded geek male they had to have the shots of a group of ladies dressed up as slave Princess Leia. Be still my foolish heart!

Where were we? Oh yeah...So Comic-Con was the first part of the big journey. The next part was renting a mobile home RV and doing a road trip to hot spots of alien folklore like the Extraterrestrial Highway, Groom lake and the Black Mailbox , Little A'Le'Inn, Area 51 and of course, Roswell, New Mexico. Something that surprised me was two guys from England driving this big vehicle sitting in the left side and heading down the highway in the right side lane. They seemed to pick that up pretty easily!

Of course the story wouldn't be funny if the total believers in aliens don't come across a real alien. All of a sudden they now really have to believe in aliens. This one is named of all things, Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen). Turns out the government has known about him since 1947 and he's been helping them thinking that he was their guest. He made a run for it when he discovered he was not a visitor getting the star treatment, but a prisoner who is now trying to escape and get back to his mother ship. He enlists the two nerds to help him out and they agree.

What worked is that Rogen didn't play the part over the top vocally. What the animation of Paul did with his behaviors was a bit over the edge. Between his need for food, sleep and smoking pot Paul is just one of the guys. The movie parodies and skews so many parts of the alien genre you can get in a few good laughs. Crash landings, mother ships, body probes, mind melds, healing abilities, snacks, men in black, cover ups....it's all there. There are numerous references to all sorts of movies within the genre. See if you can pick them out. There is even one special scene where Paul is talking to a certain someone (wink) on the phone. Turns out that someone (wink) was actually on the other end of the line.

The one part of the movie I didn't like was the language, it went over the top for no reason. It seemed like they were trying to have a swearfest to see who could come up with the most nonsensical combination of words to try to describe things. That just didn't work. It became a distraction rather than an addition to the movie. For the language including sexual references, and some drug use the movie received an R rating.

The ending was not what I was expecting. The actresses selected for two pivotal (well, as pivotal as you can get for a parody movie) were great choices. The 104 minutes passed quickly. Don't leave the theater before the credits start to roll, once they do then go ahead and leave. While I might need to wash out my ears with soap, there was a smile on my face as I walked out of the dark into the light. Between the movie and the free small popcorn that Regal made available via a coupon on their Facebook page, it was a good movie day!

The Movie Monkey

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Movie Review: Hall Pass

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To continue with last weeks weather analogy, we got hit by a big arctic cold front passing through. Was hoping for better but....no such luck. Previews for Drive Angry and just the name alone didn't seem appealing. So, maybe the Farrelly brothers' film Hall Pass would be OK and I might see a glimpse of scenes from back home in New England as they base a lot of their works out of Rhode Island. There works are not known as the thinking mans film, but hopefully good for a few laughs. A few laughs is right...very few laughs.

The basic premise is this: What would two couples do in one week's time when one spouse gives the other a "hall pass" from their marriage. Do what ever you want and there will be no consequences. The first pass is given by Maggie (Jenna Fischer) to her husband Rick (Owen Wilson). The other pass is wanted by and then given to Fred(Jason Sudeikis) by Grace (Christina Applegate). The couples are long time best friends. The ladies are upset with their husbands for looking at other women and the constant need the guys have. The idea is given to the wives by their psychologist friend Dr Lucy (Joy Behar) who says it will give the guys a way to clear up the "what if" in their lives. "What if" they didn't have wives, would they still be able to be the chick magnets they think they are? Sort of a variation of It's a Wonderful Life where everyone still knows who everyone else is but without Christmas, cold snow or crotchety old Mr Potter.

You know right off the bat they are not going to be getting as much as they thought they would. The guys and their friends debate which would be a better place to pick up women, Applebee's or Olive Garden. Really, Applelee's or Olive Garden? I wonder how much those restaurants paid for movie product placement. As a side note, neither of these restaurants have locations in Hawaii. As each day passes, the Law and Order card sting written by Mike Post, you know the sound, the doink doink, is used as a segue to clue us in that time has passed.

At the end of the week what do we get? We have all the usual suspects of a Farrelly movie. We have language, we have odd sexual innuendos, fetishes, both male and female frontal nudity, off color jokes and tons of embarrassing situations. Unfortunately this did not live up to the level of a There's Something About Mary or Dumb and Dumber. The set up for some of the jokes seemed high and ambitious but were left flopping around on the floor like Jell-o after falling off the kitchen table. Not a pretty sight.

Maybe the reason for the problems is while being set in the Northeast it was actually Georgia posing as New England and couldn't quite pull it off. The movie was rated R for crude and sexual humor throughout, language, some graphic nudity and drug use and ran for 105 minutes. If you go, stay to the end of the credits for some extra scenes.

The Movie Monkey

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Movie Review: Going the Distance

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Labor Day weekend, the unofficial end of summer. Long weekend. Hopefully a weekend to cap off the summer nicely. Wanting to laugh, I chose the romantic comedy with Drew Barrymore and Justin Long playing two lovers who were trying to make a bi-coastal relationship work. By the time the 109 minutes had passed, I felt like I was Going the Distance just to make it through the movie.

Garrett (Long) has just been dumped by his girlfriend. To get over the sorrow, his roommate Dan (Charlie Day) and friend Box (Jason Sudeikis of SNL fame) take him to a bar where he meets and immediately bonds with Erin (Barrymore) over a game of Centipede and bar trivia. Instant sparks between the two! Both come to the conclusion that they would like to continue to see each other but it comes with a caveat. She's leaving in six weeks to go back to San Francisco at the end of an internship at a New York city newspaper.

Predictably they get along famously and when her departure time arrives, they decide they want to try to make it work via a long distance relationship. E-mails, video chats, texting and phone calls are tools in the arsenal to keep and grow the connection between them. It's not like the old days where you'd have to wait for the post office to deliver a letter or run up huge long distance bills. With laptop cameras standard today, "seeing" each other is a very simple process outside of dealing with time zones. They might not be able to go to the movies together, but they can watch the same YouTube video simultaneously via the web.

Eventually they are going to have to make a decision. Who is willing to compromise and make the move. Erin's living in a room in her sister's and brother in law's house. She's got it pretty comfy. Garret has his awesome job with a record label that allows him to live with Dan in an apartment constructed of paper thin walls which provides for a running joke throughout the movie. What to do, what to do?

Following the formula: boy finds girl, boy looses girl, boy regains girl, the first is covered adequately. This happens for about half the movie. The second and third parts of the movie are not as strong as they should be. The conflicts that you would expect to happen, don't really happen and for the ones that do, they seem to overcome them like a knife cutting through room temperature butter. It didn't come through like the obstacles they faced were particularly tough to defeat.

One aspect of the movie that detracted from the overall tone and plot was the language. I recently heard that a freelance writer makes three cents per word in their stories. If that's the case, writer Geoff LaTulippe made about $67.35 with the swear words in this movie. It was rated R for sexual content including dialogue, language throughout, some drug use and brief nudity. That didn't bother me, not trying to be a prude or anything. The drugs and the language were in there and they didn't add to the story. It was fluff filler and didn't give any more depth to the characters or move the story forward. I think they were using it to try to distract you from realizing the weak writing that permeated this film.

A few of the scenes were funny. Barrymore has shown that she can do an awesome job. Look at Whip It. Oh wait, she starred in and directed that one! Maybe she should have directed this one too. So much more could have come from this movie in both the comedy and romance. Grease Sing-A-Long, I'm hoping that you'll give me a good end to the summer movie season because Going the Distance didn't go the distance for me.

The Movie Monkey

To subscribe to the audio podcast of the reviews via iTunes click here. Audio versions are released the following Wednesday.

Movie Review: Date Night

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Tina Fey and Steve Carell star as Claire and Phil Foster in Date Night, a movie that would be good for a date night. Two powerhouses of comedy are together in this one film and it could be overpowering. Between Steve and Tina, they found the right combination so that they moved the story forward providing lots of laughs but didn't go over the top making for a fun film that any couple on their own date night would have fun sitting in the darkened theater enjoying their own popcorn and soda.

Phil and Claire are a suburban family with two kids and they've gotten into a rut. He's a tax lawyer and she's a real estate agent. They have the sitter come over to take care of the kids and they go out on their weekly date night. They go to the same restaurant where the waiter knows them by name and what they like and don't like. To help pass the time while eating one of them will select a couple in the restaurant and they role play what they think is going on inside that couple's conversation. It got some good laughs inside the theater.

Phil and Claire change their relationship perspective when confronted by a dramatic situation. A close long time couple announce they are going to get divorced. Basically they were bored with each other and decided that they were the best of roommates rather than husband and wife. Claire and Steve looked dumbfounded and questioned whether they were headed down the street called Ho-Hum in their own relationship.

To change things up Claire dresses up for date night and Phil decides to take her into the city, to New York City from New Jersey to a swanky restaurant without reservations when they decide to pose as another couple, the Tripplehorns, and take over a table they wouldn't have otherwise had. I mean really, who would do that? While they're sitting enjoying their risotto and Cabernet two men (Jimmi Stewart and Common) approach the table and ask Phil and Claire to come along with them. Armstrong and Collins who are not restaurant managers,but thugs try to get "the Tripplehorns" to turn over a flash drive. Through a series of circumstances Phil and Claire get away and run to a former client of Claire's, Grant Holbrooke (Mark Wahlberg) for help. Turns out he is Security Consultant who likes lounging around in his place with his shirt off. While Claire might like this, it makes Phil uncomfortable.

In the process of trying to get a resolution for the case of mistaken identity with Holbrooke's help Phil and Claire track down the real Tripplehorns (James Franco and Mila Kunis), fire guns, deal with cops (Tariji P Henson), the DA (William Fichtner), the mob (Ray Liotta) and have one of the most inventive chase scenes involving a stressed out NY cabbie (JB Smoove) that's come along in a while.

For 88 minutes, this movie passed time quickly. The humor was smart and you could tell there was some improvisation going on. It was enjoyable to watch. Some of the scenes you'd say to yourself, "No way that could happen" but other times there were some real truths about couples who have been together for a while were expressed. It got pointed, but I don't think that they ever got personally nasty during the relationship discussions. Some of the pratfalls were classic but you still found yourself laughing out loud or going "oooohh" because you could feel the pain yourself.

Make sure that you remain all the way to the end of the movie. The credits have some funny scenes including out takes and different improve sessions. The movie is rated PG-13 for some sexual and crude content throughout, drug reference, and some language and violence. I'm wondering what sort of people were attracted to this movie as I watched the final credits part of the audience filed out and not one, but TWO people on separate sides of the theater pulled out LED flashlights to light their way. They safely navigated down the steps without falling. Now, if I could just get those people who walk down my aisle and decide to stop in front of me while I'm watching the credits to move out onto the stairs to make a decision about what to do next, that would be greatly appreciated!

BTW, over at the Skurvy Monkeys, I was christened by Design and Proud Monkey with the moniker Movie Monkey. Today, April 9, 2010 I was presented with my own Skurvy Monkey character portrait.

I understand the directors cap but wonder why it doesn't say "I heart POP corn" after all theaters don't serve buttered corn on the cob, but hot dang, everyone is snapping up those big bags of bushed out corn kernels! In any case I'm excited, kinda like Steve Martin in The Jerk when he says "The new phone book's here! The new phone book's here! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity I need! My name in print! That really makes somebody! Things are going to start happening to me now. " Well, I got my monkey portrait and with this kind of spontaneous publicity things are going to start happening to me now! Thanks Design!

To subscribe to the audio podcast of the reviews via iTunes click here. Audio versions are released the following Wednesday.

Movie Review: Our Family Wedding

This weeks rom-com is Our Family Wedding starring America Ferrera and Lance Gross from Ugly Betty and House of Payne. After finishing the movie I went up to the refreshment counter to get a refill of my large soda before heading out to the bus stop. I was asked by the person behind the counter what movie I saw and what I thought of it. Speaking to the concession person I told her it was good, not worth the price of a full ticket but maybe a matinee price. While sitting on the bus and taking the ride from the Dole Cannery where I usually see my movies to Downtown Honolulu I had a chance to reflect on what I had seen.

Then I got distracted. As the bus was passing by I'olani Palace and the Kamehameha the Great statue there were all sorts of vehicles parked along Mililani Street and around Ali'i 0 Hale indicating that some sort of filming was going on. I got off at the stop and poked for a moment. Turns out the remake of Hawaii Five-O was there doing filming. I took a picture of some trailers and posted up to my Twitter, Flickr and Facebook accounts.

The trailers were for "Danny Williams", "Chin Ho Kelly", "Steve McGarrett" and "Mary McGarrett". I then got back on the bus to complete the ride home. In case you're wondering, if you have one of the new state quarters, the Hawaii quarter has the statue on the back of the quarter and Iolani Palace is the location used for the Five-O office in the original series. On the bus I pulled myself back into thought and as I reviewed the movie in my mind realized this movie was neither romantic or a comedy, it's really a tragedy.

Ferrera plays Lucia who is in love with Marcus (Gross) but neither has told their parents the game plan to get married. The two families get together for dinner where Lucia's Mexican family gets to meet Marcus's African-American father. The two dads, Lucia's dad Miguel (Carlos Mencia) and Marcus' dad Brad (Forest Whitaker) immediately start to clash for various reasons. Even in a posh restaurant the two dads start throwing around stereotypes raising voices and embarrassing everyone. Have we seen this before? Yes we have. Take part of Guess Who and My Big Fat Greek Wedding, try to fix them into the formulaic rom-com but don't develop character depth or put in comedy and go light on the romance and you end up with this flick.

I really like Ferrera and hopefully once Ugly Betty ends, she'll have more time to pick roles better than what the role of Lucia offered her. The character didn't get enough development for us to care about her decision and why she thought standing by Marcus was a good decision.

As I watched Gross, I really didn't see much apart from what he's done as Calvin Payne. He had a lot of help around him. Taye Diggs makes a cameo. Charlie Murphy in his role talks about being a whipped husband. Warren Sapp has a moment of screen time. Ultimately, it was Calvin Payne on the screen and not a fully formed Marcus.

Mencia was not inspired at all. Every time he was on the screen I was hoping he'd soon get off the screen. Enough said about him.

Whitaker's character didn't seem realistic. As a DJ, would he really make that kind of money to support the life style that was shown. Highly doubtful.

The set up and premises were not in any way believable. From the police department to the modern bathroom to how to combine traditions the plot didn't flow. But like most romance stories, Act One thru Three: boy finds girl, boy loses girl, boy regains girl were followed.

One scene that I found difficult to take in was during the boy loses girl act. In my head, I have a heard time wrapping my brain around a dad trying to sooth his own problems with alcohol and when the son shows up with his problems the dad offers the son alcohol so they both could try to wash away their troubles with 100 proof on the rocks. Just because their personal lives are on the rocks doesn't mean you should use the same metaphor while drinking.

Was it 100% bad. No, but there was way more bad than good. The ending of the movie showing the blending of the traditions between the two cultures seemed forced. The one scene that I thought was really good was in the planning of who sits where at the reception. They had a peg board of sorts that represented the layout of tables. Using pegs to represent people and the "What if?" scenarios did get some of the biggest laughs from me and other people in the theater.

The movie ran 90 minutes and rated PG-13 for some language and some sexual content. From what I understand, Red Box on the mainland rents for a dollar a movie. That price seems about right for this instead of the price of a matinee.

Movie Review: Transylmania

Well, it was bound to happen. With vampires showing up in both the movies and on TV, someone was bound to make a spoof movie. Transylmania is that movie. I was expecting something along the lines of the Scary Movie franchise. Turns out they were trying to take themselves a little more seriously having a legitimate plot and some legitimate laughs. Neither were very consistent.

The basic premise of the movie is that Rusty (Oren Skoog) has met Draguta (Irena Hoffman), a hot looking Romanian chick on the Internet. He decides to study abroad in Romania in order to hook up with her. In the processes he has managed to convince a number of his friends to go with him. As they travel over they find out that the school, Razvan U, is located in a castle that has a vampire history in a book written about the school by one of the school's professors, a vampire slayer, Teodora van Sloan (Musetta Vander). Skoog gets double duty playing Radu, the head vampire.

So initially the movie starts of as a road trip, then a buddy movie with LOTS of buddies. Usually buddy movies are two friends, or maybe four with couple pairings; this movie had ten. Two of the students are stoners. There is the vampire lore set up at by the telling of the castle history and several love stories both with human and vampires included. Add in some of the physical and visual "humor" of a Scary Movie and mix well. Unfortunately, when the cupcaskets come out of this oven, some are topped very nicely and others are half baked.

The stoners are Pete (Patrick Cavanaugh) and Wang (Paul Hansen Kim) who are always looking for the good buzz. They add the Harold and Kumar element to this movie. Funny thing is Wang's hair is a tribute to Bride of Frankenstein. They were the funniest thing about this movie.

As the vampire slayer van Sloan, Vander does an OK job. Although watching her where she is out trying to kill Radu or teaching her students about self defense reminded me of Catherine Zeta Jones in The Legend of Zorro. Very feisty and sexy dressed up in all the leather. They just needed to add the soft light filter. Grrrr.

The cornerstone of the movie was about Radu and his love Stephania and a music box. This sets up all the conflict for the movie as Radu searches for the music box in order to get Stephania back. This by itself as the plot for a regular not satiric vampire movie would have worked on it's own. Vampire finds sorceress, vampire looses sorceress, vampire works to get sorceress back, a tale as old as time. The majority of the rest of the plot seems to be taken from recycled Scooby Doo scripts. "I would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for those dang kids!"

With the castle, I'm not sure how much was stage and how much was real. In the credits they did thank various Romanian agencies. There were a number of scenes both inside and outside the castle where you could see the actor's breath. For this movie, I have to believe it was real. I couldn't see them visually adding this as a special effect especially since no one was complaining that the place was cold or uncomfortable that way. Think Jack and Rose as they became ice cubes, that was an added visual.

The movie has fart jokes (sorry, but do they ever get old? and a small tip of the hat to Young Frankenstein), getting stoned, buddy misunderstandings, good guy/bad guy look a likes, weird sex positions, bared breasts and vomiting that all earn this one hour thirty two minute movie its R rating.

Should you go see this? Well, if you have some loose change at the bottom of you pocket that adds up to the price of the matinee ticket and you really, really have to do something with it, eh, why not. If you're tastes are a little bit higher, I think Planet 51 is still playing.