VH Corner

Jack Black finds himself unemployed after his band kicks him out. He impersonates a substitute teacher and makes a new band with his fifth graders.

This was written by the same guy that wrote The Good Girl so I knew it was going to be a bit odd and it was, but in a good way. This movie was pretty funny.

Even if you aren't a fan of Jack Black (and I think a little of him goes a long way), you can enjoy this movie. He isn't too spazzy and plays off the kids well. The kids aren't annoying and there is no chance for anything sappy happening in this movie because Jack Black would never be in a sappy movie.

Fun movie. We saw it at the beer theater during the matinee so that's the one where the kids actually get to attend. Many kids were rocking out to the movie, but none of them were talking all the way through it like they do at the Harry Potter movies.

I should add this movie was entertaining enough for me to stay awake since we got there at 1pm and the movie started at 2:30pm and we drank some beer, Stoli & Coke, lemondrops and more beer before and during the movie. I had every opportunity to fall asleep while watching this movie, but I didn't.

Rating: B

Three women in different times are all affected by Virginia Woolf's works. Starring Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore and the one you don't recognize in the movie poster is Nicole Kidman.

Wow this movie is slow. I kept reading about how hard it was to make this book into a movie. They kept saying it couldn't be done. Well, I can see how it was difficult, but I think the screenwriter did the best he could do with the material. I really liked the way it went from one time period to another because it bounced from Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) in 1923 to Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) in 1951 to Clarissa Vaughn (Meryl Streep) in 19?? seemed like the 80's but I missed that date flash on the screen.

It was interesting how they were all tied in together with Virginia writing Mrs. Dalloway, Laura Brown reading it and Clarissa almost living like Mrs. Dalloway. There were other ways they all tied together too, but I don't want to spoil it for those that might see it. I think it would have been better to read than to watch though because some parts just dragged and dragged and I fell asleep multiple times.

Rating: B-

Billy Crudup tries to find out more about his dying father by figuring out what is the truth and what is just another one of his tall tales. His father is Albert Finney played by Ewan McGregor when he was younger. Directed by Tim Burton.

Rest assured that Ewan McGregor did not have funny hair in this movie. He did have some silly sideburns when he was supposed to be in the 70's but that's it. This was a cute, sweet movie. It was along the lines of Edward Scissorhands with a romantic story as the basis of the entire movie. It wasn't oustanding but I did get to watch Ewan McGregor for a couple hours.

We saw this as a Christmas movie. Jer's dad thought it was too long. I was waiting for more to happen. It just told little stories here and there and you could get the overlying theme of the movie, but it was kinda all over the place. The main character likes to tell stories so it was just one story after another.

The best part of the movie was the middle part. The beginning and end showed Albert Finney, but the middle part is when he told stories of when he was younger and it was Ewan McGregor. That was the best part.

Rating: B-

Frodo and Sam follow Gollum into Mount Doom to finally destroy the ring and they will encounter a big, nasty spider. Aragorn gathers all of Gondor together for big massive fights with all the baddies from Mordo fightin gfor Sauron.

This movie is awesome! I have no idea which one of the three I like best because they are all super cool. This one has some added stuff to it, such as a bit more back story about Gollum. I like the added bits. It does have some scenes taken out, such as the Saruman scene at Isengard, but I'm guessing that scene will be back in the extended version.

The burning of the Shire at the end is removed, but when they were getting near that point in the movie, I knew they wouldn't have time for it. That could easily been another 45 minutes to the movie. I don't mind that it wasn't there except for missing the Saruman part there too. That part of the book was cool for the hobbits, but it wasn't my favorite part of the book so I wasn't sad that it wasn't included.

I think there were good choices on what to cut and what to play up. The battles were awesome. Eowyn had a chance to be cool instead of just pining over Aragorn. Legolas had a very cool scene with an ollyphant. Samwise is a super hero, which is cool. You lose all sympathy for Gollum in this movie. I felt sorry for him in the books until the very end, but I didn't have any throughout this movie for him.

Shelob was very gross, but I was able to watch it no problem because in my mind she was bigger and much grosser. The imagination is always worse than the real thing. I actually was freaking out more before we saw the spider because I knew it was coming. I was jumping around and trying to hide but still watching at the same time. By the time she showed up, it was okay.

I laughed everytime they yelled "Retreat!" because it was just too close to "Run away!" from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I was the only one chuckling at that though. Then when the steward was about to kill Faramir because he's stupid and Pippen comes in yelling that he's not dead yet, the entire theater laughed. More Holy Grail lines! Very amusing.

I fell asleep at various points in both other movies in the theaters. It all came down to Liv Tyler on screen = sleepy time. She was hardly on screen and I stayed awake the entire time. Yeah!

My review is kinda all over the place and probably won't make sense to someone that hasn't read the books. I just need to compare them to the books. If you haven't read the books, then the ending will drag out for you because you will think it should end about five times so don't get up until you see "The End".

P.S. Random story about people at the theater. We were on the side of the theater on the aisle. A guy in front of us had jackets over two seats next to the aisle. Some lady with a newborn was asking if the seats were taken because she needed an aisle seat so she could get up and run if the baby cried. He said they were. Then she went off about how he wasn't allowed to hold seats and he needed to move and "she had a newborn" as if she was queen of the world for reproducing. All I was thinking was "Good job damaging your kid's hearing by taking a newborn to a movie with very loud sounds that their still developing ears can't handle yet." Instead I pointed out about 50 seats on the aisle for her and she went away. SMRT.

Rating: A++