VH Corner

Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays a former tennis pro who befriends a very rich guy, woos his sister while starting an affair with his friend’s fiance, Scarlett Johansson.

You would never know this movie was directed by Woody Allen if someone didn’t tell you. It isn’t set in New York, like all his other movies, but London. The main character isn’t Woody Allen nor does he inhabit Woody Allen’s extremely annoying personality traits. I’ve only watched a few Woody Allen films, and liked the earlier ones (Annie Hall, Manhattan), but have not been fond of anything I have seen lately. They all seemed to turn into Woody Allen hitting on much younger women (Mighty Aphrodite). To have this movie not have any of those traits is great. The character do love to talk at times, but I think the London setting and the British characters doing most of the talking, really sets it apart from his other movies.

Continue reading “Match Point”

Will Ferrell does not exactly fit in with the rest of the normal-sized elves at the North Pole. He is sent to New York to reunite with his biological father.

I was disappointed with this movie. I knew it was a kid’s movie, but I thought it would be more entertaining and funny. It had all the makings of being funny, but in all the spots that should have been funny, just fell flat.

Continue reading “Elf”

The back story behind the feud between werewolves and vampires are revealed, plus Kate Beckinsale is still wearing a lot of leather.

I was not a fan of the first movie, mostly because the vampire named Craven was a horrible actor. He annoyed me throughout the movie and I kept hoping he would die. I didn’t remember enough about it, so I thought he did. Watching the beginning of this movie, I saw he was still alive, and that made me sad. Then he didn’t last long, so that made me happy. No real spoiler there since everyone can see he is going to get what is coming to him. He does die in a fun way. I just wished it happened in the first movie. That would have been a satisfying ending.

In case you never saw the first movie, or forgot what happened like I did, then there is a little recap throughout the beginning of the movie. This movie also has one major plot point that it liked to beat into your skull. It starts with scrolling text, like Star Wars, telling you the how the first vampire and werewolf came to be, and how the feud started. Then we get to see how the feud started with a flashback to the 14th century (or some old time like that). That isn’t the end of it though! Oh no. Selene (Kate Beckinsale) shares with an audience in a voice over how the first vampire and werewolf started and how the feud began. I hope everyone was paying attention since there will be a quiz at the end.

In the first movie, you didn’t believe that Selene and Michael fell in love. They do have a sexual chemistry in this movie, which I don’t remember too much from the first one, but I still don’t buy the love thing. They seem to have a slight liking for one another but I didn’t buy that they cared for each other ever. Selene does have a powerful voice though. She mentioned in the beginning of the movie that since Michael is a hybrid, his powers could be limitless. Nothing much comes of that until the very end. Other vampires and werewolves that Michael fought off were difficult, but in the very end, her voiceover reminded him (and us) that he had these limitless powers. That suddenly makes him super strength guy.

And now to finish up with all the other things that Marci and I noticed while watching this movie that made no sense:

• When they are at the castle, and parts of it are blowing up, the “rocks” are floating in the water. Those are some pretty light rocks.
• Selene keeps lighting things up when she is in the dark. Can’t vampires see in the dark?
• Michael jumps onto a car while running away from police. He dents the hell out of the roof. Seconds later, the police get out of the car and there is magically no dent.
• I personally wondered how anyone would get near Selene when she wears that one very tight leather outfit while running around sweating, having sex, and swimming in who knows what kind of water. She had to smell pretty rank, yet she always looked fabulous.

With all of that being said, I still thought it was a pretty good, bad movie. I didn’t hate it as much as the first one. It was fun to watch it with Marci since we talked the entire time, making fun of it and that always makes a movie more fun. Also, Scott Speedman did look pretty hot since he wasn’t wearing a shirt most of the movie and he has a swimmer’s body.

Rating: C

Is there anything funnier than flying balls?

Looking at my synopsis I wrote when this movie came out, I see it leaves much to be desired, but I guess it also sums up that no matter what the plot is, you are basically laughing at balls hitting people over and over again.That was the only time that I really laughed outloud at the movie was when people were getting pummeled. Jeremy really hated the cheerleader kid in the movie so he would laugh hysterically every single time he got hit. He never got tired of watching that. I would then end up laughing at Jeremy laughing at this kid getting hit, since he took so much joy in his pain.

I would also giggle at all the cameos in the movie that I didn’t know would be there, like David Hasselhoff or Jason Bateman. I was having more fun seeing who else would pop up in the movie than the actual movie itself.

I didn’t have high expectations for the movie, so it seemed to be exactly what I thought it would be. It would have been nice if it was funnier, but it was only mildly amusing. If Ben Stiller annoys you, which he does annoy me at times, then he will annoy you in this movie. He really only ever plays two characters: asshole guy and wussy guy. He’s in full asshole role in this movie. I only thought it was funny when he was playing opposite his real-life wife Christine Taylor. When he was up in her face yelling, I knew they had to be cracking up while filming that scene. By looking at the gag reel, they did.

Speaking of the gag reel, we watched it on DVD and I recommend watching the gag reel since there is a part with David Hasselhoff they should have kept in the movie. It would have fit in with the silliness of it. There is also an alternate ending that I don’t know why they even bothered with it. I watched it and thought, “Is that it? Why?”

Rating: C

This movie is about an boxer trainer, Frankie (Clint Eastwood), an ex boxer, Scrap (Morgan Freeman) and a girl who wants to become a boxer, Maggie. (Hilary Swank) Maggie is from a dysfunctional lower class family and finds herself in Frankie’s gym to start training. Over time, Frankie finally gives in and starts training Maggie. The movie takes you through her training and her quick rise to the top and how it all comes to an end.

I liked that they developed the characters without over doing it. You hate her mom just enough - you are saddened by Frankie’s daughter just enough. You know how Scrap ended his boxing career.

I knew it was going to be sad but no one told me just how. I wasn’t ever going to watch the movie but it was on HBO last night. I thought it a gripping story and what I would have given for a happy ending.

Sam Mendes directs Jake Gyllenhaal as a marine trying to survive boredom during the 1991 Desert Storm Gulf War.

I wanted to see this movie because of the actors involved and I have liked Sam Mendes’ movies, especially American Beauty. I like Jake Gyllenhaal as an actor, and he also was super hot when he was all buffed up for the movie. There were also other good actors in it too: Peter Sarsgaard (excellent in Garden State and Shattered Glass), Jaime Foxx and Chris Cooper (fabulous in American Beauty and Adaptation).

Continue reading “Jarhead”

George Clooney directs a docudrama about Edward R. Murrow taking on Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his communist hearings during the mid-1950’s.

The entire movie is in black-and-white, which makes it very pretty to view. It also makes a nice effect with the massive amount of smoking that happens to the newsroom. Almost all of the movie takes place in the CBS newsroom. It is very fast-paced when they are not live on the air with the news show. When it comes to Edward R. Murrow giving his comments on his See It Now show, everything stops and focuses on his face with the smoke billowing up behind him. A good portion of the movie is listening to him talk, yet it isn’t boring. The actor playing Murrow, David Strathairn, is very compelling when he is talking.

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Steve Carell is the virgin and his friends try to help him fix that problem once they find out.

At first glance, this movie looks like your typical frat boy rated-R sex comedy. I had higher hopes for this movie because it was written and directed by Judd Apatow who created Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared. It also stars Steve Carell, who is hilarious.

This movie started out pretty slow with a few giggles here and there, but picked up steam about half way through it. I know during the last half of the movie, I was laughing so bad that my cheeks were hurting. We had to stop and rewind the DVD many times to figure out what we missed from laughing too loudly.

I thought Steve Carell did a good job in making his character sweet, but not completely clueless. He wasn’t the stereotypical guy that wouldn’t have ever had sex. He knew some things, but just had bad luck so many times that he gave up. I agree with Jim that Paul Rudd was awesome. At first, he was very whiny, and I was confused as why Jim liked him so much, but then I understood as the movie went along. I also loved his ex-girlfriend who plays Kelly on The Office. She’s hilarious.

Finally, I really liked what seemed like throwaway lines in the movie. It seemed from watching some behind the scenes stuff that much of the movie was improvised. I think it was those lines that were the funniest since they were unexpected. It wasn’t written like a standard comedy. It was just like a fun night where you are hanging out with your friends and making each other laugh all night long.

Rating: A-

Tags: 40 year old virgin, steve carell

Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal are two cowboys who fall in love in 1963, but can’t really share that with the rest of the world.

Damn Heath Ledger! He made me cry three times while watching this movie. I haven’t ever been a big fan of his. I thought A Knight’s Tale was pretty annoying as a movie, so associated that with him. He was fine in The Brothers Grimm, but he never stood out.

He’s awesome in this movie. He plays the quiet, reserved cowboy of the two, named Ennis, who is just trying to make enough money to live. He’s grown up broke and doesn’t really aspire to much more than what he needs. Jack is the more outgoing one who dreams of a lot of money from riding in the rodeo. They meet when they are herding sheep throughout Wyoming as a summer job. They need to sleep out with the sheep to make sure no coyotes eat them at night. It is during these many months of just the two of them hanging out that they cuddle together for warmth during a freezing night in a tent and then…oops!…man love.

The movie starts out a tad slow, but it is also building up this relationship and showing that these guys didn’t plan for this to happen and it never happened to either one before the scene. I think that the beginning of the movie, everyone is waiting for them to sleep together since you know it is going to happen. Once that is out of the way, then it can focus on the rest of the story.

Heath does an awesome job with his cowboy guy. His character doesn’t talk much and doesn’t show much emotion, yet he still portrays what he is thinking. Jake is also good, but when he was frustrated with the situation, it didn’t break my heart as much as it did when Heath’s character was feeling the same way. They both end up married with kids since that is what society expects them to do, but they still get together through the year for fishing trips where no fishing ever happens. It’s the only time they are ever happy. Jack hates having to hide, but Ennis fears what will happen to them if anyone finds out.

The entire movie is heartbreaking, but it’s awesome love story. It doesn’t focus on the sex besides the first time, and even then not really. It focuses on two people that fell in love, but can’t be together. It follows them for over 20 years in the movie and it is towards the en,d when Ennis actually breaks down and cries, that I lost it too. It’s very sad, but in a good way. I actually want to watch the movie again. It’s really that good.

Rating: A