VH Corner

Stranger Than Fiction
Directed: Marc Forster

Will Ferrell plays a man who realizes his life is being narrated (literally in his head) by Emma Thompson since he’s a character in her book and she’s planning on killing him off.

I wanted to see this movie since I read a little snippet about it in Entertainment Weekly. I can’t remember if it was previewing things coming out in 2006 or if it was the It issue. It might have been the latter since it focused on the screenplay. I read the scene about when Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) realized someone was narrating his life and he could hear it. I thought it was hilarious and had to see it.

The movie is very cute. It could almost be too cute for some people. If you are amused at the trailer at all then I think you will enjoy it. If you weren’t overly thrilled with it, I would think you would find the movie too cute. I don’t think it would win over anyone that didn’t find the concept funny.

I did find the concept funny so I enjoyed the movie. Harold realizes a woman is narrating his life and plans on killing him. That woman is played by Emma Thompson who is writing a book after having writer’s block for ten years. She is trying to figure out how to kill the main character of her book, Harold Crick, since that’s how she ends all her books. Her publishers think she isn’t going to ever visit so they send Queen Latifah to be her assistant. Her role was unnecessary and I have no idea why she was even in the movie. She really didn’t do much except be there as someone Emma could talk to, but she could have talked to herself. I think it would have fit the character fine.

Will Ferrell isn’t his typical Will Ferrell-type. he’s very believable as an IRS agent. The movie is funny, but he’s playing a straight-man. He doesn’t have much of a personality, at least at the beginning. Then he meets Maggie Gyllenhaal who he has to audit. They end up starting a romance, and are actually believable which amazed me since no one would be attracted to Harold Crick. They had chemistry so I bought it!

It was a goofy and sweet story. It had a goofy and sweet ending to it too, but I didn’t mind.

Finally, it had an excellent soundtrack. Britt Daniels, lead singer from Spoon, was in charge of it. All the instrumentals in the movie were Spoon songs and the song over the credit was a new Spoon song. The other songs in the movie were also good too. I was just happy everytime I was hearing Spoon. Yeah!

Rating: B

Marie Antoinette
Directed: Sofia Coppola

Kirsten Dunst is the much adored and hated queen of France with a punk-rock style and New Wave soundtrack.

I really don’t know much about Marie Antoinette beyond the cake quote and she was beheaded. I have no idea how much of this movie was true, but I just watched it for what it was, which was a girl married off and made queen way too young. The movie does make mention of the cake quote in quite a clever way.

Marie was a rich girl in Austria when she was married off to the prince of France. She had to leave everything behind when she went to France. She couldn’t even take her little purse dog with her. She had a whole new set of fancy clothes and had to get all new friends. She knew it was important for Austria and France that she was a good wife and future queen so she did the best she could, even though she was only fifteen.

There were issues with her new husband not touching her in bed, no matter how hard she tried to get him interested and excited. Everyone blamed her for not being pregnant and giving him an heir to the throne. It wouldn’t have been proper for her to say what was really going on, so she had to deal with all the gossip about being frigid and it pretty much being her fault for not bearing a child.

There were also issues with money. There were a few mentions about gambling being a bit of a problem for her. Tons of scenes were shown of Marie spending tons of money on clothes, sweets and parties while the French people were starving. France kept sending their money and troops to help the Americans fight the Revolution since they hated the British instead of helping their own people. This did not make the King and Queen very liked by their people.

Those were the major plot points of the movie, but while watching it, it didn’t seem like a lot happened. Sophia Coppola directed the movie very much like she directed Lost in Translation. There were many instances of just watching what people were doing while listening to awesome music. You had to figure out what the characters were thinking instead of them verbalizing what they were thinking. You had to get lost in it. If this movie is watched while doing something else, then some of the movie magic will be lost. It needs to be watched without distractions to take it all in.

Something else I liked about the direction, besides the long scenes of no dialogue was the feeling that we were peeking in on their life. It didn’t seem staged. At times, characters were talking while the camera panned through or stayed at a distance. The audience came into the middle of gossipy conversations, stayed for a bit and moved on. It all added to the general feel of the movie.

I mentioned before the awesome music and it did fit in very well. It was just used as a soundtrack, not as the actual music of the day, but it was perfect. When the new wave music was used, it added to the scenes.

The only thing I didn’t really like about the movie was how it just ended. It seemed like it was leading up to the beheading or even something else, but then just stopped. It didn’t seem like a natural way to end of the movie.

Rating: B

Pan’s Labyrinth
Directed: Guillermo Del Toro

In 1944 Spain, where a young girl’s father does unspeakable things due to a fascist regime, and she retreats into a fairy tale world.

The movie takes place at the end of World War II, where some fascists don’t really like that the war has ended. They still want to control everything by rationing off food and medicine to the people of Spain while killing off the last of the resistance fighters. A Captain has holed himself up in the woods where he has receive reports there are still fighters around. He recently married and impregnated a woman so he can have an heir. She is very late into her pregnancy when he demands she come to the abandoned mill he has made his temporary home because his son should be born where his father resides. She brings along her eight-year-old daughter Ofelia.

Ofelia lives inside her books that are filled with fantasy and fairy tales. She seems a flying bug and calls it a fairy. When she arrives at the mill, she does not like the Captain, but loves the labyrinth next to it. The fairy that she saw comes to her and shows her the way to the heart of the labyrinth where she enters into a magical world filled with fauns and other magical creatures. They talk about how a princess once rules their world, but ran away forgetting her past. They are convinced that Ofelia is their princess ruler, but she must prove herself by completing three quests.

That is where the movie reminded me of EverQuest or World of Warcraft. The first quest was something that you would find in game and was hilarious to watch. I loved the parts of the movie when she was in her fairytale world since it was so beautiful and magical, even when she was in the gross roots of an ancient tree fighting with a giant toad. There is another monster who has no eyes on his face, but in the palms of his hands. It seems he can only see if he puts his palms up to his face and looks out. He was creepy, but also funny at the same time.

The other half of the movie dealt with the Captain and his brutality in fighting the resistance. He was extremely violent and he was extremely cruel. Most of his scenes were very disturbing. It made sense that his world was so very cruel to explain why Ofelia would want to escape it to the other, much prettier world, but I still wished more time had been spent in the pretty world compared to the ugly one. The fantasy part would make the movie rewatchable for me, but I’m not sure how many times I can rewatch it thinking about all the Captain scenes.

Rating: B+

Returning Shows

King of the Hill
Channel: FOX
Time: 8:30 ET/PT
Premieres: Sunday, January 28

Peggy is really getting into real estate, Bobby becomes a leader and Hank still loves propane.

New Shows

Top Design
Channel: Bravo
Time: 11 ET/PT
Premieres: Wednesday, January 31

It takes off of Project Runway by having interior-designers compete to become the top designer through various home-decorating challenges. The winner will receive a car, an editorial feature in Elle Decor magazine, and a chance to showcase their skills at Elle Decor’s Dining by Design.

Sources: TV Guide, AOL, Entertainment Weekly

Nationwide Releases

Smokin’ Aces
Directed: Joe Carnahan

A mob boss wants Jeremy Piven (playing a magician) killed before he turns state’s evidence against him. He hires two hit men, but then tons of other hit men want to get in on the action and the money, so they all try to kill him first.

RT Score: 27%
RT Consensus: A violent mess of a movie, Smokin’ Aces has some Quentin Tarantino’s style but not much of his wit or humor.

The sum feels significantly less than its parts … it’s hard to think of a decent payoff to the glorious chaos Carnahan whips up in the first two acts, short of the earth itself exploding.
- Andrew Wright
The Stranger (Seattle, WA)

Best consumed with pizza and lots of brewskis, Joe Carnahan’s Smokin’ Aces is shamelessly and unapologetically a guy movie.
- Peter Travers
Rolling Stone

You can’t take it seriously, but the movie is as lively as it is debased.
Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

The worst movie of 1998.
- Sean Burns
Philadelphia Weekly

Smokin’ Aces is Tarantino lite — a vague and unsuccessful attempt to bring together a bunch of offbeat, unrelated characters in a situation where a bloody resolution is inescapable.
- James Berardinelli
ReelViews

Narrative spunk ultimately tapers off to a series of slick but silly plot devices that drag the action over the finish line with a resounding and disappointing thud.
- Jeanne Aufmuth
Palo Alto Weekly

Catch and Release
Directed: Susannah Grant

Jennifer Gardner tries to get over her fiance’s death and move on with her life with the help of his friends.

RT Score: 21%
RT Consensus: A romantic dramedy with boring, stock characters and contrived situations.

Kevin Smith has a commanding, affable presence that hints his acting career may surpass his considerable directorial successes. it’s a performance that would land an Oscar nomination, if only the film it came from weren’t so weak.
- Phil Villarreal
Arizona Daily Star

Screenwriter Susannah Grant makes her directing debut with a romance that wants to respect the mess of love and loss but winds up smoothing all its rough edges with a Hollywood pumice stone.
- Peter Travers
Rolling Stone

I just don’t know any chick who will make sense of this flick — it’s that blitheringly out of touch with present psychosexual (never mind feminist) time and space.
- Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly

it’s such a bland example of its genre, it may as well have been titled A Romantic Drama Starring Jennifer Garner.
- Ethan Alter
Premiere Magazine

A romantic comedy-drama with little comedy, no drama and less romance than your average YouTube video.
- Michael Booth
Denver Post

 

Epic Movie
Directed: Jason Friedberg

Making fun of a bunch of recent blockbusters, not all of them epic.

RT Score: 3%
RT Consensus: A crude comedy with nothing new or insightful to say about the subjects it satirizes.

Despite all the scatological high jinks on display, most of the satire is affectionate rather than merciless.
- Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

It s generally considered bad form for a critic to advocate the kidnap and torture of specific filmmakers, but I ll tell you this: If you did it, and you confessed to me, no way would I turn you in.
- Jeremy C. Fox
Pajiba

Can a picture really be considered a parody if it merely parrots rather than satirizes its source material?
- Kam Williams
NewsBlaze

Because nothing in the universe is funnier than watching Jack Sparrow or Willy Wonka break out into hip-hop gyrations.
- Scott Weinberg
Cinematical

too simple, too vulgar and too obvious to be Funny Movie. it’s not even Chuckle Movie or Giggle Movie. it’s in your face, with most humor centered around taking characters you recognize and just making them dumber.
- Willie Waffle
WaffleMovies.com

How can you make fun of such self-aware subjects as Borat or Johnny Depp’s winkingly fey Jack Sparrow? Who hasn’t already noticed Tom Hanks’ bad Da Vinci Code hair? And really, is there anything left to say about Samuel L. Jackson and those snakes?
- Elizabeth Weitzman
New York Daily News

An amateur-hour game of Spot That Reference, intended for people who crack up simply at the mention of anything topical.
- Jim Ridley
L.A. Weekly

Blood and Chocolate
Directed: Katja Von Garnier

A young woman in Bucharest is a werewolf, but falls in love with a visiting American artist. She wants to be with him, but her werewolf clan won’t allow it. Oh, the young teen angst.

RT Score: 8%
RT Consensus: Cheap CG effects and laughable dialogue make Blood and Chocolate worse than the usual werewolf flick.

Occasionally there’s some unintended comedy, such as the part in which a werewolf actually says grace before he’s about to chomp into a man’s neck. Ironic for a movie that doesn’t have a prayer.
- Phil Villarreal
Arizona Daily Star

The more we see of these werewolves, the more we notice that they come in two flavors: conflicted moping (played by Agnes Bruckner) and fey Eurotrash (played by everyone else).
- Jesse Hassenger
filmcritic.com

This is the kind of werewolf flick that seems to have used up its entire special-effects budget on canine contact lenses.
- Kyle Smith
New York Post

A romantic triangle between werewolves and humans doesn’t sound dull, but director Katja von Garnier seems to determined to drain the life out of it.
- Keith Phipps
Onion AV Club

Hot Topic: The Movie.
- Brian Orndorf
OhmyNews.com

Limited Releases

Seraphim Falls
Directed: David Von Ancken

During the Civil War, Pierce Brosnan did something very bad to Liam Neeson. Now that the war is over, Liam is on a manhunt for Pierce.

RT Score: 46%
RT Consensus: A brutal, slow-moving drama that unfolds among some great-looking scenery.

[Neeson] and Brosnan are supremely well-matched foils, though I do wish that the filmmaker, David Von Ancken, had lent his sparsely mythic tale just a twinge of something…new.
- Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

Decent old-fashioned western until it hits loony-land late in the late innings.
- Boo Allen
Denton Record Chronicle (TX)

For devotees of gonad cinema, there may not be a better time to be had at the movies right now than the first 20-ish minutes of Seraphim Falls.
- Andrew Wright
The Stranger (Seattle, WA)

After a roaring opening hour, Van Acken settles for a parched ending that’s the Old West equivalent to “can’t we all get along?”
- Thomas Delapa
Boulder Weekly

The most ridiculous character was Madame Louise (Anjelica Huston), who appears out of nowhere in the middle of the desert.
- Jeanne Kaplan
Kaplan vs. Kaplan

24 - FOX
6:00 AM - 10:00 AM

It took all week, but we finally finished watching the four-hour premiere of 24. Here are my random thoughts!

Bye Serious Cat
I love to make nicknames for people on this show, but I never had one for Curtis. Until now! The first time I saw him this season, he was serious cat. He has one facial expression and usually only has one emotion, and it usually looks just like this cat.

He finally had a nickname and it suited him so well. Then he went all freaky and ended up being dead. It didn’t happen because he hated Assad or Jack had to do what he had to do. It happened because Serious Cat ventured from his one emotion to crazy-eye guy. Once he had more than one emotion, it killed him. I’ll miss you Serious Cat.

Magic Mountain Done Blown Up
An actual nuclear bomb went off in the middle of a city instead of the middle of a desert where it just kills George a few seasons ago. As soon as they gave the address of Fayed’s location in Valencia, I thought, “he’s at Magic Mountain!” since it is located in Valencia. Then it blew up. I’ll miss Magic Mountain.

Jack, Chinese Fury, and Vampirism
Jack is all sorts of messed up after being tortured by the Chinese for twenty months. He must have learned some crazy Chinese Fury techniques that made him think terrorist neck’s are tasty. He didn’t only bite the guy’s neck, but bit a chunk out that he had to spit. Then he had blood dripping out of his mouth. Terrorists need to watch more vampire movies from the 80’s if they want to survive. “don’t ever invite a vampire into your house, you silly boy. It renders you powerless.”

When Did Kumar Turn Middle Eastern?
I laughed when I first saw Kumar and made many White Castle remarks. Then I laughed at him being portrayed as Middle Eastern, especially when he was yelling at Scott for not pronouncing his name correctly. I remarked that he was Indian and not Middle Eastern. I also started calling Scott, like how Sean Connery would say Scottish and tell Kumar that’s how you really said it. If only he could hear me!

My new year’s resolution last year didn’t last very long. I plan on bringing it back this year, but with a new twist. Each week, the songs will fit into a monthly theme. I’ll list the ideas I have so far, but please suggest a theme and I’ll see what I can do!

February: Love

March: Lusty

April: Fluffy (guilty pleasure dance songs)

May: Industrial

June: Numbers

Returning Shows

Masterpiece Theatre
Channel: PBS
Time: 9 ET/PT
Premieres: Sunday, January 21

Starts off its 37th season with an adaptation of Jane Eyre.

Battlestar Galactica
Channel: SCI
Time: 10 ET/PT
Premieres: Sunday, January 21

The series moves to Sundays in hopes of improving its ratings. Past issues come to the surface with flashbacks to Adam’s deceased wife and Starbuck’s troubled childhood. There is also a search for five Cylon models that haven’t been seen yet.

Heroes
Channel: NBC
Time: 9 ET/PT
Premieres: Monday, January 22

It returns after its hiatus with a new tagline, “Are you on the list?” There is also a new hero revealed, Claude played by Christopher Eccleston (Doctor Who).

George Lopez
Channel: ABC
Time: 8 ET/PT
Premieres: Wednesday, January 24

Returns for its sixth season with the usual family wackiness.

New Shows

The Dresden Files
Channel: SCI
Time: 9 ET/PT
Premieres: Sunday, January 21

Based on a mystery novel series about Harry Dresden, a Chicago detective who is also a wizard.

 

Sources: TV Guide, AOL, Entertainment Weekly

Nationwide Releases

The Hitcher
Directed: Dave Meyers

Remake with the same message: picking up hitchhikers are a bad idea.

RT Score: 21%
RT Consensus: Sean Bean tries giving motive and emotion to the hitcher, but director Dave Meyers is more interested in cheap shocks, and gratuitious gore and torture.

Bigger, louder and far bloodier than the original, but devoid of all the delicious ambiguity that made it so fascinating.
- Frank Swietek
One Guy’s Opinion

A long slow freeway drive to nowhere, marked by non-events that should be a lot more frightening than they are.
- Rob Vaux
Flipside Movie Emporium

So blandly forgettable that it almost makes one miss the original’s C. Thomas Howell…if, that is, it were humanely possible to miss C. Thomas Howell.
- Nick Schager
Slant Magazine

Probably the nerviest move on filmmaker Dave Meyers’ part was to include a clip from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, well demonstrating just how far we’ve descended when it comes to cinematic suspense.
- Frank Scheck
Hollywood Reporter

The screenplay disastrously rewrites the original’s climax, turning Bush’s college waif into an indestructible female Terminator who can unerringly fire a police-issue riot gun and kick a steel paddy-wagon door off its hinges.
- Colin Covert
Minneapolis Star Tribune

Limited Releases

The Italian
Directed: Andrey Kravchuk

An Italian family wants to adopt a six-year-old abandoned Russian boy, but he escapes to search for his mother.

RT Score: 81%
RT Consensus: The Italian stands out from other European tearjerkers with its gritty cinematography and amazing, poised performance from the lead child actor.

The hardships and setbacks are just grim enough to be effective without plunging the viewer into Russian despair.
- Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly

The picture captures with a piercing sympathy the ambiguous state of post-Glasnost Russia.
- Kevin Courrier
Boxoffice Magazine

A gorgeous, heartbreaking modern fairy tale that felt so real my cynical heart melted, then immediately froze in fear that it was all too real.
- Gina Carbone
Seacoast Newspapers (NH/Maine)

For all its sly appraisals, grouty surfaces and hard-luck situations, The Italian is underneath it all a fairy-tale.
- Carina Chocano
Los Angeles Times

… a nice little movie, it is also as wispy and insubstantial as cotton candy, but not quite as sweet.
- Andy Klein
Los Angeles CityBeat

Alone With Her
Directed: Eric Nicholas

A stalker decides to hides camera’s all over himself so he can film every moment with the girl of his dreams.

RT Score: 64%

A Blair Witch Project for the new, surveillance-obsessed millennium.
- Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly

Through Hanks’ and Talancon’s subtle, naturalistic performance [writer-director Eric Nicholas] cultivates a human dimension often missing from thrillers.
- Maitland McDonagh
TV Guide’s Movie Guide

A relentlessly-disturbing, cautionary tale about how easy it might be for a deranged maniac to worm his way into your good graces.
- Kam Williams
BlackFilm.com

A B-picture waiting to cut loose in its final 15 minutes, when it devolves into generic stalker-thriller theatrics of the Julia-Roberts-in-distress kind.
- Jan Stuart
Newsday

For all its technological ingenuity, however, the film is ultimately a fairly routine stalker thriller that soon becomes repetitive in its contrivances. And the footage, necessarily shot on digital video, is not particularly easy to watch.
- Frank Scheck
Hollywood Reporter

So some have fallen out our our “do” list and it might because they haven’t really aged well.

If they were still young and hot:

1. Clint Eastwood

2. Arnold Schwarzenegger

3. Sean Connery

4. Rick Springfield

5. Harrison Ford

Now realistically I would like still keep a few of these near the top 10 because even in the older age they are pretty hot!