Yesterday, Dawne and I popped in the “Baby Mama” cd in hopes that it would increase the chances of cheering me up. It did the trick. If you haven’t heard about this movie (have you been living in a bubble?), it stars Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, both from Saturday Night Live. Tina Fey is a successful, business woman in her late 30’s who decides to have a baby on her own. She is unable to, so she enlists the help of Poehler to carry her egg for her.

The beginning of the movie didn’t make me laugh. I think it’s cause I saw so many parts of it in the previews, so the jokes had already been worn out. In the middle of the movie, I began cracking up. Fey and Poehler are a great team, and they bounce off one another. Fey played her character well: an over rigid, control freak, health conscious, slightly neurotic woman who had neglected her personal life. Poehler’s character was the opposite of Fey: a free spirit who lived every day as though it was her last. There were surprise actors, like Steve Martin and Greg Kinnear. Steven Martin, as always was hysterical as the overly earthy, green boss who would use that to his advantage. Kinnear was adorable as Fey’s love interest. Overall, I thought it was a cute movie until the messy ending.

I am not going to reveal any spoilers, but I was disappointed on how it ended. It finished in a way that was super unrealistic and it attempted to be overly cute. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. It was such a great movie until that point, and I couldn’t help but wonder if the Writers had run out of time at the end.

Overall, it’s a good film to watch with your girlfriends to get a few laughs. However, don’t hold your breath for the ending.

Off-topic, but about Fey and Poehler: If you haven’t seen the Palin parodies, I have added the links below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdDqSvJ6aHc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-Rfk-XnFK8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cf9NqaZ4fw

Finished watching the 3 Extremes that are three short stories from Asian horror masters Fruit Chen, Takashi Miike, and Chan-Wook Park.

Fruit Chen directed the first segment called “Dumplings.” I found out later that this was created into a full-length film. It’s about an aging starlet who goes to a woman who is rumored to help recover youth using mysterious dumplings. This was my favorite one and probably why it was the first one. It had an eeriness about it that the other two failed to match. The movie had some truth to it on the price that women will pay to retain their youth. It’s a frightening concept because they will try and do anything, even if it’s dangerous. The acting and plot were great, and I wish that I would have seen the full-length feature.

Chan-Wook Park, who directed the Vengeance trilogy, directed “Cut.” It’s about a director, who is a good, right man, whose wife and him are taken by a crazy movie extra. I found this story boring, and I had to fast forward. It was suppose to be more of a psychological horror, but it failed to deliver. The only person who shined was Park. It’s like the character says in the beginning, “You don’t want to be in a movie where the director is the star.” I felt that this was probably a little bit of foreshadowing.

Takashi Miike, who also directed “Ichi the Killer” and “One Missed Call,” created the last one called “Box.” It’s about a girl who has a recurring dream of being buried in a box. I understand Miike is known for his bizzare storylines, but this one failed short. It was interesting how it delved into dreams, but I still didn’t care for it. I’m not much of a fan of Miike so it might be why.

Overall, i would recommend people to watch this who love Asian cinema and want to see the different style of a Hong Kong director, Japanese, director, and Korean director.

One anime that I am dying to get into is “Death Note.” I saw one or two episodes on Adult Swim (before it started eliminating animes from their lineup), and I was intrigued. After watching the endings of other animes, I decided to start on this one. I popped over to my Netflix, and I was flabbergasted to find out that there is a movie that was made, so I added it to my account.

This past weekend I popped the movie in the DVD player and sat down to watch it. The movie was made by Shusuke Kaneko in 2006. He did segment #2, “The Cold,” in H.P. Lovecraft’s Necronomicon, Book of the Dead. It stars Tatsuya Fujiwara, who starred in one of my favorite films of all time “Battle Royale.”If you haven’t seen that movie, stop what you are doing and watch it first.

The story is about a high school boy, Light Yagami, who finds a mysterious notebook labeled “Death Note” on the street that has the ability to kill whoever’s name Light writes in it. Light becomes a vigilante who kills all criminals, and L becomes the detective who is trying to find out who he is and stop him.

The characters mirrored the ones in the anime series. They had the same eccentric personalities and physical features. The acting was on point and didn’t make me think twice that they were the characters. The Shinigami Ryuk looks exactly like in the anime. The people who were in charge of the special effects should get applauded for making Ryuk look real and not phony like the special effects seem to look like nowadays.

The plot seems to coincide with what happened in the anime and didn’t deviate like some other renditions seem to do. I was captivated the entire time and was desperately waiting to see what would occur next. It definitely made me move the anime in the top position, and I am excited to watch all of the episodes. I also want to see the two sequels of this.

Definitely watch it if you haven’t.

Noir is an anime about female assassins and a higher fate that only two out of the three can reach. The series started off slowly. I thought it was going to be a long, drawn out anime that I would want to stop watching. However, I kept watching and glad that I did. Kirika was my favorite character. Maybe because she was a tormented, skilled assassin who just wanted to figure out who she was (me minus the skilled assassin part). You watch her trials and tribulations into becoming one of the members of Noir. She kind of reminded me of Rei of “Neon Genesis Evangelion.” The same features, except different coloring, and her voice was soft without expression like Rei. I wonder if Rei was the inspiration for this character. It might explain why I love Kirika’s character so much.

Mireille is the other main protagonist. Her story is very endearing, and she also had her own obstacles that she had to overcome. Her skills were no match for Kirika’s or the other Noir candidate Chloe, so I am kind of shocked that she could have become Noir. Maybe it’s due to her family getting killed when she was younger, and her not having the proper training that Kirika and Chloe had, but I still kind of didn’t think she should have been in the running.

If you loved “Neon Genesis Evangelion,” “Gunslinger Girl,” and love strong female characters, then you will really love Noir.

I had to see the sequel to one of my favorite films The Spanish Apartment. It was recommended to me by a friend who was an intern with me at this think thank, and I loved it. The sequel Russian Dolls finds him as a thirty-year old and the problems that plague people of that age. It’s a cute film, but it doesn’t compare to the first. The pace is very slow, and I found myself pressing the Display button on the DVD remote control to see how much longer.

The movie was a little long, but it was a great animation on the changes that Iran as a country and its people have gone through in such a short amount of time. You are able to fully grasp how families were affected by the different changes in government and thinking. If you haven’t seen it, definitely watch it as soon as possible.

I am obsessed with horror movies, so when I saw the IMDB’s 453 Board Favorites, I decided to make it a personal goal to watch all of the ones on the list. The first one that I hadn’t seen was the “The Innocents,” so I decided to add that to my Netflix. Last night, I popped it in the DVD player and was ready for a masterpiece. Come on, it beat 403 other movies. Disappointment doesn’t even describe what I am feeling.

It stars Deborah Kerr, who is an amazing actress and you probably saw her in a little movie called “An Affair to Remember.” The director was Jack Clayton, who directed “The Great Gatsby,” which was one of my favorite movies of all time. With these two people and it being 50 on the list, I was extremely excited.

The movie is about a Governess who comes to take care of two children in a mansion that is haunted by two spirits. The spirits are trying to possess the children, and Kerr decides to protect the children from these malicious ghosts.

Reading the plot, you probably think the same thing I thought. This sounds amazing. I’ve realized that some times things sound better on paper than actually seeing it on screen. In old horror films, you knew there was a clue, when the music would change. Every time it did it in the movie, I had to rewind it five times to see what the big deal was in the scene or dialogue. More often that not, there was nothing that should have caused such a change of music.

After awhile, I had to watch it fast forward. The longer it progressed, the worse the movie got. I can’t believe that this voted #50 on the IMDB Horror List. I wonder now if all the other movies I haven’t seen deserve to be there. Definitely more of a miss than a hit.

I am surprised that Daniel Day Lewis acted in this movie. His acting, as always, was almost flawless, but I wish I could say the same for the movie. It was too long, boring, and just blah. The director tried to make this an epic, but it felt way short to be one that will be remembered in years to come.

An intermission was needed for the length of the film. It’s something that films nowadays seem to lack, and I don’t understand why. This movie especially needed it with how dull it was.

I wish I could say more, but I will just be repeating myself about the boredom I felt.

“Shutter” is a remake of a Thai horror film that concerns a couple who start seeing the ghostly image of a young woman. My friend told me that the American version was better than the original. After watching the movie, I have to disagree. As usual, it was dumb-down significantly compared to the Thai version. The story was rearranged, so it was more A-B-C. It’s like they couldn’t make it jump here or there because it was going to confuse the American audience or something. It wasn’t as bad as other remakes, but it could have been better.

“An American Crime” was a disturbing movie about the evil within all of us. The most horrific part is that a group of people could have performed such torture to an innocent human being because they were following the commands of an imbalanced woman. It was directed by Tommy O’Haver, who also directed “Ella Enchanted.” You wouldn’t be able to tell by watching this film. It was a rendition of a shocking true story that occurred in the 1960’s where a suburban mother tortured and murdered a 16-year old girl. It stars Ellen Page (“Juno,” “X-Men) and Catherine Keener (“Being John Malkovich”, “The 40 Year Old Virgin”) as the main characters.

The actors did an amazing job in bringing to light this crime that is horrifying even in today’s standards. Page was believable as the ill-fated Sylvia Likens. She was very innocent and likable, and this is coming from someone who usually can’t stand her acting. When she was being tortured, I believed in the pain and suffering that the real Likens probably endured. Keener played Gertrude Baniszewski with such precision that it was eerie to watch. I researched the crime, and saw the real pictures of the two women, and they were perfectly cast.

It is disgusting that humans are so easily swayed to cause such destruction to one human being. Baniszewski’s children didn’t bother me because they were brainwashed by this sick woman. The neighborhood children are the ones that shocked me the most. They were evil to come to this house every day to torture this girl. You have to wonder how they were raised to have committed such an act. Maybe it’s true that all of us have a bit of good and evil inside us. Caging and torturing another being is probably the most evil thing that someone can do, and maybe this brought out that side out of them. It makes me even sadder that her sister didn’t do anything to stop the crime. She says she was frightened. However, seeing your sister hurt in that way didn’t prompt you to talk to you one of your teachers or another adult about what was going on?

In the real story, she did talk to an older sister of hers about what was going on. The older sister contacted Child Protective Services. Nevertheless, when they arrived, they were told that Sylvia had runaway, and her sister verified the story. I have never been put in that position, but I would never allow someone to harm my two sisters in any way.

I still can’t stop thinking about this movie a day after watching it. It’s definitely a movie to watch. I don’t think I could watch it again because it was too disturbing, but I’m glad that I watched it.