Dell's Good, Bad & Ugly Movie Reviews

[dell71]

Hey Dell, thinking about checkin out Valkyrie, is it worth watching?

Haven't seen it myself, yet. I'll be sure to review it here when I do. It'll probably be a couple weeks though, as it sits behind the last 2 Best Pic noms I haven't watched yet, either (The Reader and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and also behind Taken which I hope to watch this weekend.

Dell, I watched a few movies over the past week.. Have you ever reviewed Catch Me If You Can, Collateral or Eastern Promises? All top notch if you ask me.

I really enjoyed both Catch Me If You Can and Collateral but never reviewed either (I may have done Collateral - have to check back through my own archives). Going off memory, I'd probably give Catch Me an 8.5 or 9 and a 7.5 or 8 for Collateral. Eastern Promises has so far eluded me. It just seems to be one of those I can't quite get to - everytime I think about watching it something else catches my eye.

[FirstTimer]

Hey Dell,

Review Ernest Scared Stupid.

K

Thnx

Bai

[dell71]

Just to repeat a little of my personal history before this particular review, I have a wife...



The Women
2008. Rated PG-13, 114 minutes.
Director: Diane English. Starring Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing.

Plot: When Mary (Ryan) finds out her husband is cheating on her with perfume sales clerk Crystal (Mendes), her friends and her mom try to guide her through the tough times. Remake of the 1939 film of the same name.

The Good: We have a cast of rom-com all stars giving it their melodramatic best. Each of the ladies makes the most of what their roles have to offer. The pacing and humor are major plusses. It's not fall-off-your-chair funny but it does elicit some laughs. Combine that with a script that pluckily pushes us along from one girl talk scene to the next and you get a fairly quick moving affair (I know, bad pun given the movie's premise). Also a number of recognizable, some even iconic, actresses turn up in bit parts including Cloris Leachman, Bette Midler, Candice Bergen, Carrie Fisher and Debi Mazar.

The Bad: What starts off as a daring artistic choice ends up gimmicky and frustrating. That choice is deciding to not have any males in the movie. In a movie centered around a crumbling marriage, its hard to come off as anything other than man-bashing when it refuses to even show a man. There aren't even any male extras (more on that in a moment). This is illuminated most when you think about Alex (Jada Pinkett Smith). Putting aside the reality that she comes off like a token black, we see she's also the surrogate man. She has what could be a man's name, she's a lesbian so she's obviously into women, a bit of a slacker who parties too much and is generally straight-forward with her views. She is every bit an attempt to give male viewers someone to relate to. And she also helps maintain the ladies only motif by taking our crew to an all-lesbian restaraunt. This scene and the street scenes are filled with beautiful female extras (told you I'd get back to this) and appear solely as an effort to hold guys' attention. The same seems true for the casting of Mendes who's part could've been played by any number of starlets. However, by not having any males at all to project onto we get a strange phenomena. Men in the audience feel attacked and female viewers can only unsatisfyingly beat up a faceless enemy. Well, in the end (spoiler?) there is one male character shown but it feels like a slap in the face. It's like the filmmakers telling us "This is all you get, now be happy with it."

The Ugly: This is completely different movie if our girls pick somewhere else to get their nails done.

Recommendation: This is pretty much for fans of rom-coms. Once you peel back the complicated layers you'll see its the same old stuff Ryan, Messing and the rest have been doing for years. The difference is that those other movies make men caricatures and have them follow the same developmental arc while this one dispenses with them completely and doesn't even pretend to care to give them a chance to put in their two cents. This is interesting at first, but wears thin about halfway through.

The Opposite View: Bob Bloom, Jounal and Courier (Lafayette, IN)

What the Internet Says: 4.8/10 on imdb.com (5/22/09), 13% on rottentomatoes.com, 27/100 on metacritic.com

MY SCORE: 5/10

[dell71]

Hey Dell,

Review Ernest Scared Stupid.

K

Thnx

Bai

Hmm...I'll respectfully deny that request. As a matter of fact, when my kids are with me in the video store I make to walk extra fast past any Ernest movies that may be lurking in the comedy section.

[Palooza]

You'll watch The Women but not Ernest Scared Stupid!?!!?

Shame shame I know your name!

[FirstTimer]

Hmm...I'll respectfully deny that request. As a matter of fact, when my kids are with me in the video store I make to walk extra fast past any Ernest movies that may be lurking in the comedy section.

You are a heartless humorless bastard.

[dell71]

You'll watch The Women but not Ernest Scared Stupid!?!!?

Shame shame I know your name!

Maybe...only maybe...if my wife suggests we watch an Ernest movie, but since I can't see that happening I think I'm safe.

You are a heartless humorless bastard.

Nah...I'll cop to loving the crap known as the Deuce Bigalow franchise.

[nflman2033]

And which one isn't?

Regardless, I didn't ask for your opinion.

lol

[NAHSTE]

Just got a Netflix queue going. I have a free 2 week trial but I'll prob just keep the account after the two weeks. Need some help with my queue. Right now I have Taken at the top because my girl wants to see it. After that I have Infernal Affairs and Oldboy, plus season 2 of the Tudors.

Let me know if there are any older or foreign movies I may have missed out on.

[Buzzman]

Just got a Netflix queue going. I have a free 2 week trial but I'll prob just keep the account after the two weeks. Need some help with my queue. Right now I have Taken at the top because my girl wants to see it. After that I have Infernal Affairs and Oldboy, plus season 2 of the Tudors.

Let me know if there are any older or foreign movies I may have missed out on.

under the instant watch, a movie called the Air I Breathe is on there. Its real good.

[ATL Jones Bro]

I saw Star Trek today and that movie is bad ass. If technology got that far and we interacted with aliens thats as about as relistic as a spaceship fight could get.

[nflman2033]

Just got a Netflix queue going. I have a free 2 week trial but I'll prob just keep the account after the two weeks. Need some help with my queue. Right now I have Taken at the top because my girl wants to see it. After that I have Infernal Affairs and Oldboy, plus season 2 of the Tudors.

Let me know if there are any older or foreign movies I may have missed out on.

wow, what a question.

Old or Foregin, I think i may need more direction.

Old
Anything with Humphrey Bogart
Citizen Kane
Metropolis
Anything by Alfred Hitchcock

Foreign
The lives of other
Amorres Perros
anything by Pedro Almodolvar
Festen
Downfall
City of God
Das Boot


Old and Foreign
anything by Ingmar Bergman
anything by Kurosawa
The Bicycle Theif
Humberto D.
M

[dell71]

Just got a Netflix queue going. I have a free 2 week trial but I'll prob just keep the account after the two weeks. Need some help with my queue. Right now I have Taken at the top because my girl wants to see it. After that I have Infernal Affairs and Oldboy, plus season 2 of the Tudors.

Let me know if there are any older or foreign movies I may have missed out on.

wow, what a question.

Old or Foregin, I think i may need more direction.

Old
Anything with Humphrey Bogart
Citizen Kane
Metropolis
Anything by Alfred Hitchcock

Foreign
The lives of other
Amorres Perros
anything by Pedro Almodolvar
Festen
Downfall
City of God
Das Boot


Old and Foreign
anything by Ingmar Bergman
anything by Kurosawa
The Bicycle Theif
Humberto D.
M

That's a great start.

Since old is a relative term, I have to ask how old do you mean? 10 years? 20 years? 50 plus years?

[dell71]

Taken
2009. Rated PG-13, 91 minutes.
Director: Pierre Morel. Starring Liam Neeson, Famke Janssen, Maggie Grace, Leland Orser.

Plot: After reluctantly letting his teenage daughter go on a trip to Paris with a friend, Bryan Mills' (Neeson) daughter Kim (Grace) is kidnapped on her first day abroad. Hunting "them" (those responsible) down, finding them and killing them ensues.

The Good: Action! After a few minutes of our hero stressing about building a relationship whit his daughter it transforms into an adrenaline junkies' fix. We get lots of car chases, fight scenes, shootouts and myriad other forms of badassness. Two other things aid the movie immensely. First, Neeson's performance is spot on. He stoically goes about his business and projects his voice so authoritatively you believe whatever he's spouting off. Second, the runtime is kept short. At a shade over 90 minutes, it doesn't have time for long, emotional scenes that break up the action. It's a tightly packed rush with the cute stuff serving as bookends to the carnage.

The Bad: Plot-wise, I've already seen this movie probably 500 to 1000 times without exaggeration. You probably have, too. Think about it: bad guys kidnap, kill or rape someone in the good guy's family (maybe even the entire family) without realizing that the good guy is/was some sort of special agent and won't be taking any of this BS too lightly. Basically, it's a Steven Segal movie without Steven Segal. And yes, it has many of the implausibilities and eye-rolling moments that come along with that.

The Ugly: How worthless of an individual must Amanda (Katie Cassidy) be that no one gives a crap about her?

Recommendation: I did, in fact, call this a Steven Segal movie. However, it's a very well done one. Therefore, if you're into action flicks at all turn your brain off, except for that miniscule portion that compels you to shovel popcorn into your mouth and suck back the beverage of your choice while your eyes delight in images of mayhem and you'll enjoy it. Scrutinize it even a little and you'll ruin it for yourself.

The Opposite View: Jeffrey Westhoff, Northwest Herald

What the Internet Says: 7.9/10 on imdb.com (5/26/09), 57% on rottentomatoes.com, 50/100 on metacritic.com

MY SCORE: 6.5/10

[dave]

Just a request from the peanut gallery - if you rent a movie Dell, you should give us your opinion of the DVD extras if possible.