I dragged Jer to both Chicago and Rent in the same month. I don’t think we are allowed to see Broadway shows for another ten years though. Anyway, I loved the musical so I was excited when they started talking about making a movie version of it a few years back. I know it had people attached to it like Madonna and Goldie Hawn. eek! I think they made the right choices with Rene Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Everyone sang great and danced wonderfully.
They did an awesome job fitting the songs into the story without people breaking into song and dance in the middle of them talking. It would flash back and forth between someone talking about something and then that person singing and dancing about it at the same time. It really worked well. The songs were great, but I knew that already.
The only thing that confused me was Catherine Zeta-Jones getting an Oscar for it. I thought she was fine, but she wasn’t outstanding. I thought Rene Zellweger did an outstanding job. You forgot it was her when you were watching it. Her eyes weren’t squinty at all. I just know that when I saw the play, I liked the Velma character (Zeta-Jones) more than the Roxie character (Zellweger). In the movie, I liked the Roxie character more, and she isn’t a likeable character. I think that shows what a good job she did. I don’t think she should have received the Oscar over Nicole Kidman because she is awesome, but compared to Zeta-Jones, Zellweger did a much better job.
Tags: catherine zeta-jones, chicago, rene zellweger
Christina Ricci stars as a sorority girl that thinks she has it all. She is a senior with a really stupid boyfriend that is supposed to be hot but his hair is so greasy it scares me. Her sorority’s only goal is to win the best sorority of the year and they are a shoo-in with their charity they picked. They are all going to be mentors for developmentally challenged athletes.
Carolyn is not thrilled by this, but goes ahead and meets Pumpkin. She ends up falling for him which causes great havoc with her current boyfriend, her sorority, his mother, her family and anyone else they seem to run across.
This movie was okay. Sometimes it seemed to be trying too hard but for the most part it was enjoyable.
Rating: B-
Tags: christina ricci, pumpkin
Fed told us that we had to watch this movie and I must say that Fed has excellent taste. This movie was awesome. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a emotionally disturbed kid that has hallucinations of a six-foot tall bunny rabbit named Frank that tells him to do things. He’s in therapy because his parents are concerned about him. It is a very funny, involving story. It grabs your interest right away and keeps it there.
I was so enthralled by it that I watched all 20 deleted or extended scenes in the extra sections. The deleted scenes are usually there because there is a good reason for it, but they were good scenes that I thought would had added even more to the movie.
Rating: A
Tags: donnie darko, jake gyllenhaal
Covers the covert operation in Somalia in 1993 with Army Rangers and elite Delta Force.
I never had the urge to see this movie when it was out in theaters. A bunch of people at work talked about it before it came out and they couldn’t wait to see it. Then they saw it and talked about how intense it was. Some loved it, others just were worn down by the non-stop action. I still had no interest in it.
Then I found out that both Ewan McGregor and Orlando Bloom were in the movie. I had to see it then. Ewan McGregor does one messed up American accent. It just isn’t right and well, I like his accent. 
I can’t tell you if I liked the ending or not because Jer and I both became bored half way through. This is the most boring war movie I have ever seen in my life. First, you are introduced to about twenty people in the first 15-20 minutes of the movie. Then the fighting starts. You don’t really know anyone, let alone remember anything about their characters. The only way I could tell people apart was because I saw them in another movie or tv show before. Then someone would die and you wouldn’t care because you didn’t know anyone. Or you couldn’t care because there was so much dirt on their faces that you couldn’t tell who was shot.
We turned it off halfway with the slight intention of watching the rest later. Three days later, we just gave up and returned it. Now I have seen tons of war movies (Full Metal Jacket, Saving Private Ryan, Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Casualties of War, Hamburger Hill), but I usually don’t like watching them again and again because there is some part that disturbs me about it too much. Those were all more interesting than this movie.
Actually even though some of those movies were really good, the only one that I can watch again and again is Full Metal Jacket. Awesome movie. Saving Private Ryan is good, but I don’t know if I can watch it again. Too draining.
Rating: D
House of Leaves
Author: Mark Z. Danielewski
It’s a story of a tattoo-artist that finds a manuscript from a blind old man, who just died, talking about a non-existent documentary about a house that is bigger on the inside than on the outside.
It is freaky with crossed out passages and footnotes that can go for pages. The footnotes are also sometimes upside, backwards and sideways. Then there are the pages with only a paragraph, sentence or word on them. It’s quite an adventure to read. The author is the brother of the singer Poe and the remix of her song Hey Pretty has her brother reciting from one of the tattoo-artist’s footnotes in the book.
I enjoyed this book. They keep talking about a film that documents the crazy house that is bigger on the inside than the outside and talking about real life people’s opinions on it. There are times that you forget it is fiction and wonder if you can go find the film or the article that is mentioned in the footnotes. Then you remember this is all just craziness that is in the book.
I liked both parts of the book: (1) the decription of the documentary of the house and all the crazy parts involved there and (2) the tattoo artist guy telling his story in the footnotes about what going through the book is doing to him and his life.
I recommend it. It’s quite insane and crazy! Everyone should read a book that makes you turn it upside and sideways. It’s the thing to do.
Val Kilmer plays a man who doesn’t know what to do with his life after his wife is murdered. He hangs out with a bunch of druggies and Vincent D’Onfronio plays a guy with no nose.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy this movie or not, but I really liked it. It is messed up and very interesting. Then it has a twist that I didn’t expect because it didn’t seem like a plot twist movie. Jer also got to play the game of waking me up every minute that I would fall asleep for 10-20 seconds at a time. Fun times!
Rating: A-
Second to last film festival movie I watched this past week. German movie about a young family that aren’t really happy. Dad just got a promotion at work but that meant he was never home with his wife and kid. The promotion will mean even less time. The wife is trying to have her own life too but since dad is so unreliable she gives up everything for their son.
After their seventh wedding anniversary she has had enough when dad doesn’t pick up their son after kindergarten. She moves out of the house and takes the kid with her. She has his parental visitation rights taken away from him and files for divorce. He freaks out and kidnaps the kid.
Interesting but not the best movie in the world. I enjoyed it while I was watching it, but I have no desire to ever see it again. I don’t think I would recommend it to anyone, but it wasn’t awful either. It was just there.
Rating: C+
Tags: i'm the father
