Movie Review: Valentine's Day

It is not often I completely disregard every movie review and go see a movie anyway. But I was in the need this weekend for a light and fluffy movie so I emailed my friend and off we went to see Valentine's Day. Now I did want to say that we did agree to go to the Camera 7 theatre's because they recently announced that if you show a San Jose Library card you get a $3 discount off your movie tickets. So the three of us went off to the movies feeling good that we'd already gotten a discount.

Valentine's Day the movie is pure fluff. The interconnected stories of a wide array of pretty people are presented. Bradley Cooper and Julia Roberts meet on a plane; Jennifer Garner(a teacher) and Aston Kutcher(a florist) are best friends each involved in relationships with other people. A small boy is intent on getting his gift of flowers to a special someone. And dozens of others.

I am not sure if any other movie in years has had this many underutilized Oscar winners. Jamie Foxx as a cranky sportcaster forced to report on V-Day; Shirley Maclaine as an ex movie star grandmother; Julia Roberts, a soldier coming home from Iraq; and Kathy Bates in a blink and you'll miss her minor part as a news show producer.

However, the movie did make me smile throughout - Taylor Lautner and Taylor Swift are perfectly adorable as the embodiment of airheaded teens in love; Eric Dane really should spend all movies just wrapped in a towel; pink, red and white flowers really do make pretty arrangements. And the ending did have two really great twists that Marina and I failed to see coming. One twist in fact elicited a shout from the guy behind us that just cracked us up.

So if you want a light fluffy movie that is almost impossible to describe go see Valentine's Day. Going in with low expectations would be a good thing.

Movie Review: Did you hear about the Morgans?

I'm a little behind - I've seen 8 movies in the last two weeks and only done 2 reviews. But I'll try and be a bit faster and get though the other 6 in the next few days. The first of these is Did You Hear About the Morgans - a very light comedy with Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant. The basic premise is separated New York City couple witness a murder and are sent into the witness protection program in Ray, Wyoming. There is nothing in this movie that is at all surprising. Hugh Grant is cute and charming, SJP is a little bit too shrill as the wife who's very angry that her husband cheated on her. He spends the movie wooing her, adopting to country life and being deathly afraid of bears.

Sam Elliott and Mary Steenburgen play the country Marshall and his wife who are protecting the Morgans. Though for people who are supposed to be protecting they spend an awful lot of time leaving our couple on their own and unprotected.

Is it worth the price? For a matinee probably, especially if you are a fan of Hugh Grant and miss the days when he made films like 4 Weddings and a Funeral. The ending was satisfying if a little predictable. All in all, wait for this to be out on Netflix - which shouldn't be too long. Or wait for Sex and the City 2 when SJP will be in all her Carrie Bradshaw splendor.

Movie Review: It's Complicated

I have seen a lot of movies in the last two weeks and one of my favorites is It's Complicated. The story is very simple - divorced couple are reunited at the graduation of their youngest son, have a fling and hilarity ensues. And the movie is hilarious. Alec Baldwin and Meryl Streep are the couple and are beautifully matched. Alec Baldwin has just the right amount of lawyer sleaziness that the audience never truly trusts him, and neither does Meryl. Her character is also being cautiously courted by her architect, Steve Martin.

I highly recommend this movie. It is definitely a chick flick - I saw it twice - first with my friend and her mom and then again on New Year's eve with my friends. We all laughed at the jokes, and sighed enviously at Meryl Streep's gorgeous house, bakery and vegetable garden. The woman seriously has the life we all dream about. As my one friend said, Did you see the size of those cabbages? And we all sighed in agreement. This type of movie is occasionally called food porn and justifiably so, the chocolate croissant baking scene was positively erotic, and all the food gleamed and glistened to the point that after the movie we were all starving.

So go see It's Complicated - take your friends, take your mom and just go. Then plan to eat someplace fabulous afterwards.

Movie Review: Avatar

Thought I would squeeze in a movie review before dinner. Avatar is an amazing film. We were lucky enough to see it in IMAX and 3-D together. This created the most amazing visual experience I have ever had in a theatre. I strongly recommend you see this movie in 3D at least and Imax if you possibly can.

The basic story is very simple - on a distant moon, Pandora, a corporation is attempting to mine a valuable mineral (20 million dollars a kilogram). A crew has just arrived, including ex-Marine and now paralyzed Jake Sully. Jake is going to be working with the native tribe the Na'vi while inhabiting the body of an Avatar. The Avatar's are necessary because the humans cannot breathe the air on the planet. Jake adapts to his avatar incredibly well and he soon meets the leader of the Na'vi's daughter who teaches him the ways of her people. I won't tell you much more, anyone who has seen the trailer knows that things eventually do go wrong.

The story is great, and the digital effects are fantastic. You come out of the movie exhausted - the 3D effects are so real you feel that you've been running, jumping, and flying through the movie yourself. James Cameron has re-invented the way people will be experiencing movies. Sigourney Weaver is a wonderful addition to the cast - she has added yet another strong woman character to her repetoire and I loved seeing her in this movie.

So do go see Avatar. A great way to ring in the new year.

Movie Review: Up In The Air

Up in the Air is a must see movie for everyone, but especially for those of us who have lived the life of the road warrior. You know who you are - someone who has ever had a wallet full of gold and platinum frequent flyer cards, Hertz Gold Membership and knows at least one flight attendant by their first name. I have been a road warrior many times in my career - for one year at the phone company, as Corporate Manager of Learning and training, I went to all 52 of our subsidiary companies- many more than once - in 37 states (this included one crazy drive from Miami to Statesboro Georgia). I was gold on five airlines that year. And one year for 5 months I commuted weekly between Dallas and Atlanta, before I finally moved to Atlanta. Every Friday night I got on the same flight home to Dallas, where I was greeted by name by flight attendants who would, on occasion, upgrade me themselves to first class for the ride home. Yes, I was a road warrior.

George Clooney's Ryan Bingham is the ultimate road warrior - on the road some 300+ days per year he is an American Airlines/Hilton Hotels/ Hertz Gold club member. He is a corporate terminator, going from city and city to carry out layoffs. The use of real laid off people and their reactions in the film is touching and heartbreaking. Ryan's primary interactions in the movie are a fellow road warrior, a woman named Alex(Vera Farmiga) who he romances across the country in places as diverse as Miami, Vegas and Wisconsin. His other companion, a fellow terminator named Natalie played by Anna Kendrick, travels along as a woman who is seeking to automate and remove the personal touch from the layoff process.

This movie resonates in many ways. The reactions of the people who are laid off are devastating. Ryan's romance with Alex is captivating. Clooney and Farmiga have a wonderful chemistry. And the trio's experience at a conference resonated with me as someone who has been to my share of tradeshows. I've even been on the yacht ride in Miami Beach just like the one in the movie.I strongly recommend this movie, be prepared for the unexpected twists and turns and enjoy the frequent flyer miles.

Movie Review: The Informant

I was looking forward to the Informant - mostly because it was well reviewed and starring Matt Damon who rarely disappointments. However, I was disappointed. The movie is based on a true story of Vice President on a large corporation who decides to go to the FBI about price fixing. What's truly amazing is that the FBI goes along with him and works to gather evidence when in fact he is lying to them in almost every conversation, yet in fact the price fixing is happening. Its too hard to explain in a review but somehow the movie just lacks a spark, the thing that makes great movies. Am I sorry we paid full price, yes. Would I suggest Netflixing it? Maybe. All in all I say save your money and time.

Movie Review: Inglorious Basterds

First off let me say that I am a huge Pulp Fiction fan. Quentin Tarentino's other movies get mixed reviews - some are gory for the sake of being gory (see Kill Bill parts 1 and 2) but Pulp Fiction was the perfect blend of violence, plot, and stellar dialogue.

In Inglorious Basterds Tarentino once again mixes violence, plot and dialogue to make a riveting film. He introduces American audiences to a new star, Christoph Waltz who played the evil Hans Landa. Best villain since Darth Vader in my opinion. His character captures the audience from the very first "chapter" of the movie and every time he is on screen he is riveting. Compared to him Brad Pitt is just a pretty boy with a really strange southern accent.

Speaking of Mr. Pitt - he is the one thing I don't feel very sure of in the movie. The Basterds are a group of 8 Jewish American soldiers who's job it is to kill Nazi's and bring back scalps. I know that some scalping took place in the movie - however I didn't watch those parts at all - and I can assure you Marina did not either. Major yuck factor. The Basterds are terrific and even add to their forces as the movie progresses. But Brad Pitt is just not that good at accents - you can almost every time he speaks that he's thinking about his accent. And his effort to play a real man also seems forced. I found myself trying to cast the role of Aldo Raine in the movie and finally I came up with young Robert Mitchum - he would have been absolutely perfect in that role - he had the right mix of Southern Drawl (think Night of the Hunter) and real menace that would have made him perfect. Pitt becomes more a figure of humor every time he speaks, which is a relief during some of the more violent portions of the movie.

So do I recommend this movie - absolutely see it. Brad Pitt isn't in as much of it as you'd think from the commercials and the other characters are all fascinating. Be prepared for some violence - ok a lot of violence - but once you get through Chapter 1 you will see why I am voting Christoph Waltz for the Oscars. He literally blows you mind as he conducts the most civilized and horrifying of questioning in French, German and English.

Movie Review: Bruno

Ok, I'll admit it. I'm a fan of Sacha Baron Cohen's films. I liked Borat quite a bit -the scene at the rodeo brought back a lot of memories of my time in Dallas where I was a regular attendee at the Mesquite Rodeo. And I love seeing how Americans deal with his outrageous behavior - some as I would like them to and some not so much.

Bruno is a more extreme movie than Borat since it deals with a flamboyant gay character, Bruno, who comes from Austria to be a celebrity in the United States. I will point out - he comes to become a celebrity, not an actor. The movie ranges from the disgusting to the hysterical. My favorite parts are when he adopts a child in Africa, when he joins the military and when he becomes involved with a gay deprogrammer. As Mike said - I didn't know there were level 1 and level 2 deprogrammers - I wonder what the difference is?

Some parts of the movie obviously don't work - there are some things you just don't need to see- I'll leave it at that. But parts were amazing - and set a few stereotypes on their head. A segment where Bruno goes hunting with some "good old boys" could have been very ugly - instead the 4 hunters merely tolerate his bizarre behavior.

As a marketer my favorite scene was the focus group for Bruno's potential interview show. I've sat behind that glass wall and watched people turn six months of work to nothing but for me the focus group was hilarious. And Bruno did what every marketer dreams of doing - getting out of the glass booth to go explain to the focus group exactly why they are wrong.

So, my suggestion is rent Bruno, make sure the kids cannot possibly enter the room, and prepare to laugh and cringe. More reviews tomorrow - July was a very busy month movie wise.