“It’s bloody bossa nova!”

Laurie in a non-Blackadder pre-House role as a banker stuck in a dreary dead-end job, discovering in the worst way that his wife’s run away with his boss. Mere minutes into the movie and I like it quite a bit already. Found it as I went on a Laurie jag last night, trying on a few Fry & Laurie sketches, decided against getting more into that (or Blackadder, for that matter). Laughed mao at last year’s SNL Christmas episode which Laurie hosted, good stuff. Maybe I will dip into Blackadder …but for now, samba!

“Slappa the bass!” and other awkward, wince-inducing scenes make for a snicker every five minutes or so. It’s a buddy flick, sure, something easily dismissed by most – but I Love You, Man is your weekend matinee nothing else on the tube kinda movie. It goes down easy. You can find it while channel surfing (“There’s nothing on!”), watch the last 20 minutes and still get something out of it, or fall asleep, no worries. What does bother me is the sneaking suspicion that this is a chick flick (in buddy flick’s clothing) and what my girlfriend will say when she sees it.

Sydney’s character is great. Who doesn’t want a weird, cool pal who has a dog named after Anwar Sadat (“because he looks exactly like him”) and has a jerk off station? Well, that and the man-Uggs and the yuppie scooter. Whoops.

Three things about The Last House on the Left 2009 remake:

1. It was ok. Two and a half out of five stars -ok.
2. Made me realise I miss The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
3. Nearly excellent final scene.

Not to be taken seriously at all, a chick-flick comedy meant to be viewed as a companion flick to The Boat That Rocked. Some faces will be instantly recognisable to viewers of recent Brit cinema, that’s about half the fun that this one’s going to be, the where did I see her in lately.

Ensemble cast of Brits (plus the token American) – where have I seen that lately, oh yeah, Love Actually! – and this one’s just as great, if you’re in the mood for a comedy that jumps at you. Big, big energy. Massive tunes (not a few have clamored for the soundtrack, it’s that good). All together well put, except for something I can’t quite put my finger on. Maybe I’ll know better once I finish screening this bright shiny happy gem.

EDIT: Now that! was quite something. Go screen this one if you haven’t yet. Plus, of course, what a killer soundtrack.

This:

“As it turns out, the movie is a strikingly downbeat look at the lives of the homeless, anchored in scary, dismal, and frequently moving scenes at a local shelter. The setup promises redemption and triumph, and the movie delivers, in a way. But it also looks honestly at the intractable problems of dealing with the mentally ill who roam our streets.”

...Is what caused me to cave in and screen The Soloist. Good thing too – trailers of it on the small screen (idiot box, whatever you’d like to call it) made me think of your usual feel-good buddy-buddy flick, cue barf foley here. What I got instead was a genuinely moving, not saccharine, well-acted sliver of realism. 8.5 out of 10. And now I’m looking to get the book, see if it’s just as good.

(Review snippet from http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/the-soloist/Film?oid=978012). Thank you J.R. Jones.

Big, big hype for GL, who some consider a B-List character – this dtv (direct to video) saved me hours of reading, I love comics though – and get caught up on the sprawling GL mythos. Did you know that there’s a power ring for all the colors on the rainbow? That sounded shallow. Don’t get me wrong though. I’m excited about Blackest Night and the upcoming live-action movie. But for right now this one, Batman: Gotham Knight, and Wonder Woman should get you started on a DC comic-video marathon, and just in time for the weekend.

Reaction to his books range from surprise (I didn’t think it’d be that good) to outright pleasure (That was excellent!), but somewhere between book to big screen something doesn’t go right for just about everything that’s been adapted – with the exception of American Psycho, of course – and that’s what’s sad for Bret Easton Ellis. It’s almost like he’s partying too hard to notice. The movie version of The Informers is a hollow, lightweight, direct-to-video doppelganger of the book. Dtv… What does that say?

To anyone who’s read the work the near-Roman level of debauchery might not surprise (and might actually delight), but where the movie has to resort to “Amber Heard, who has more nude scenes than lines of dialogue” – you’ll wonder what BEE (who wrote the screenplay) had to do to get this stuff to a theater near you.

http://www3.timeoutny.com/newyork/theframeup/2009/04/we-like-to-watch-tonys-weekend-picks-4/
http://nachofoto.com/gallery/Amber_Heard_Nude_in_Movie_The_Informers-1

Oh this was very, very good.

Preachy, corny, but oh em gee -inducing visual effects. Waitasec. Aren’t all movies post-Matrix supposed to have OMG-inducing vfx?! The movie lost all the soul the book had. Still, today’s generation can’t be bothered to thumb through pages …even if it’s a comic book we’re talking about. That said, isn’t Rorschach one little bad ass? (: