Christina Reviews *Stand By Me*

         There’s a rumor going around about a dead body that was found, but the police haven’t been notified yet.  Four friends decide to hunt down the corpse of the young boy and inform the cops so that they can be seen as heroes.  They go on a day-long trek and emerge as shattered versions of themselves.  It is a defining moment in their lives and perhaps the last time they were ever really a single unit.  At the end of the movie, the narrator/protagonist goes on to say that he never again had friends like he did when he was twelve years old.

       This is, by far, my favorite of all the Stephen King adaptations.  The young actors are fantastic, and there is a depth to River Phoenix’s performance.  You could say that he’s a river that runs deep.  Corey Feldman is also quite the character.  This is probably the only role of his I ever cared for, but it was such a great role for him. 

      The four friends fit certain stereotypical archetypes.  It’s kind of like The Lord of the Flies.  There’s the fat kid, the outlaw, the good kid and the troublemaker.    You see this set-up again and again in stories about young boys.  There was a similar dynamic in Mystic River, for example.

Christina Reviews the *Sleepaway Camp* Series

Sleepaway Camp  *** 

The first Sleepaway Camp is a twisted little slasher film, easily forgotten amongst the more popular slasher movies of its time.  That being said, I kind of liked it.

The story is about a young girl named Angela who goes to camp for the first time with her cousin.  At camp, everyone makes fun of her because she’s quiet and keeps to herself.  It’s a slasher movie, so of course there’s more to it than just mean kids picking on shy Angela.  The bodies start piling up as campers are picked off one by one.  There‘s a surprise twist at the end.  You’ll probably guess the killer early on, but there’s more to the ending than that.

Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers  *** 1/2

Bruce Springsteen’s sister Pamela Springsteen plays a summer camp counselor from hell.  The campers are named after 80’s brat packers, which is charming, seeing as how most of them die horrible deaths.  This one’s got a little bit of humor to it.  Springsteen’s character is basically just a mouthpiece for the traditional values that horror movies often spout.  And, you know, in this crazy world, is nice to know that some things never change.  The killer is always going to hack up the promiscuous, drug addicts first.  You can depend on that.

Sleepaway Camp 3: Teenage Wasteland  **

The third installment is really not much different than Sleepaway Camp 2.  Angela (Springsteen) is back, only this time she’s pretending to be a camper.  Lots of blood and carnage follow.  This one’s OK, but it’s not as funny as the second one.  The best thing about this movie is the title.

Christina Reviews *Shaun of the Dead*

          Shaun of the Dead is somewhat of an unconventional zombie movie.  It takes place in England.  Simon Pegg plays Shaun, a lazy drunkard surrounded by other lazy drunkards.  When the city becomes invested with zombies, it is hard to tell the difference between the undead and the inebriated.

         This is the best kind of zombie movie of all.  It’s a zombie movie that makes you think about life and the ways in which we all have a little bit of zombie within us.  We learn that there isn't an " 'I' in team" as Shaun and his friends band together to outsmart evil.

          Oh yeah, and it’s funny as hell.

          Five stars.

Christina Reviews *Shattered Glass*

         This is the true story of Stephen Glass, a man who was hired as a journalist and then abused the opportunity by making up false stories. 

        This movie is outrageous.  It’s unbelievable how brazen this guy was.  Hayden Christensen does a great job playing the jerk.

         Four out of five stars.

Christina Reviews *Serial Mom*

         Kathleen Turner stars as Beverly Sutphin---model mother by day and psycho killer by night.  To put it another way, she’s June Cleaver in more than just name.

        This is a quirky little serial killer movie with plenty of humor mixed in with the blood and gore.  Ricki Lake plays daughter Misty Sutphin, and Matthew Lillard plays Beverly's son.

Christina Reviews *The Secret Garden* (1987)

             ****
         Most everyone knows the basic premise of The Secret Garden, but I just want to take a moment to extol the virtues of the Hallmark version.  Usually I don’t much care for Hallmark movies, but this was the way in which I was introduced to Frances Hodgson Burnett’s story of little spoiled girls, hypochondriacs, boys who talk to animals and secret gardens, so it will remain a fond memory for me. 

         Gennie James was really good at playing a contrary brat, and there was something sad and haunting about Derek Jacobi’s performance.  Jacobi plays the aloof Mr. Craven.  I have heard that Mr. Craven is not Mary’s uncle in this version, and the reasoning, I suppose, is that this way Mary and Colin are not cousins and can, therefore, marry in the end.

        Oh, and the boy who played Colin was really good at playing a whiny nuisance.

Christina Reviews *School Ties*

         When David (Brendan Frasier) gets a scholarship to a school for gentiles, he decides that the best course of action would be to hide his Jewishness. It works at first. But when everyone finds out, boy, do they find out.

        This is a good discrimination movie. It strikes all the right nerves, but it’s funny at times too.

        There are some great scenes in this movie. There’s a scene where David and his new classmates sing “Smokey Joe’s Café” in a dorm room and cause a ruckus. There’s a dance scene where teachers go around putting balloons between the dancing couples and say, “Leave room for the holy spirit.” I watched this movie for this first time at a Catholic school. My classmates went on to misuse balloons in that same way every time there was a dance party at someone's house.  So obnoxious. This movie should not be shown to kids. It gives them bad ideas.

Christina Reviews *Ruthless People*

          Sam Stone (Danny De Vito) is the disgruntled husband of heiress Bette Midler. Sam has a nice stack of cash of his own, yet, like the greedy man he is, he wants more. And there is only one way to get it. Kill off his rich wife. He has it all planned out.

          Little does he know that there are two people out there who will inadvertently do him a favor by kidnapping his wife and, if he won't pay them the ransom, they'll kill her for him. So all Sam has to do now is sit back and wait.

         There is only one problem. These kidnappers, while they claim to be "ruthless people", are really a couple of softies who, when they see a bug in their house, will scoop it up and place it gently outside the door. When they threaten to kill Mrs. Stone, they hardly mean what they say. Half the fun of watching this movie is seeing the scenes where Sam is on the phone with the kidnappers, seething because they are willing to give him chance after chance to get them the money, even after several stubborn refusals.

       Bette Midler, as Sam Stone's wife, is very funny in her role as hostage, and Judge Reinhold and Helen Slater do a great job as her captors. But it is really Danny De Vito who ultimately makes this movie all it is.

Christina Reviews *The Royal Tenenbaums*

          I have heard people say that The Royal Tenenbaums is just a rip-off of Irving’s The Hotel New Hampshire.  And it’s true that there are some similarities. 

1. There's a hotel in both. 
2. The sister dates a black guy in both.
3. A brother and sister have an affair in both, only the brother and sister aren’t blood relatives in TRT.
4.  Both have a quirky sense of humor.  The humor in TRT is more dry, whereas THNH is more outrageous.
5. Someone dies in a plane crash in both, and in both plane crashes, there was a dog involved.  And then the dog was found miles away from the wreckage.

          That’s all I can think of.

         Did TRT rip-off THNH?  If anything, it paid homage to a crazy but compelling saga of a more than eccentric family.

         I didn’t really like TRT.  I’m not a big fan of Gwyneth Paltrow, and the humor was far too dry for me.  And really, the potential humor was all the movie had going for it.

        Basically, I don’t even know what the story is about because it’s one of those more “artistic” films where it’s not important to remember what you watched the minute the credits roll.  That way, you will be compelled to watch the movie again and again and again.  That’s how the art film makes its money.  Nor is it important for you to laugh out loud at the humor---so long as you laugh in your soul.

       Art film = A great many people will hate this movie.

Christina Reviews *Roger Dodger*

          Roger Dodger is a movie about a pickup artist who is outsmarted by a sixteen year old boy. Campbell Scott plays Roger---uncle to said sixteen year old and a self-proclaimed womanizer. When his nephew shows up at his office unannounced and states that he wants to learn all the tricks of the trade (the trade being women), Roger takes it upon himself to be the teacher. By the end of the movie, he finds that he is the one who needs to go back to school when, over the course of a long, drawn out night, his nephew repeatedly puts him to shame. Without even trying, nephew Nick catches the eyes of two much older women and Roger finds himself in the awkward position of being the fourth wheel when really it’s a tricycle ride that is in order.

         This movie has a quirky sense of humor to it. Jesse Eisenberg plays the 16 year old. He’s great.

         The movie’s about nothing I would be interested in, and yet I liked it. Funny how that works sometimes.

Christina Reviews *The Reflecting Skin*

           The Reflecting Skin is about a ten year old boy named Seth who idol worships his older brother Cameron (Viggo Mortenson).  When Seth's friends start getting kidnapped and murdered one by one and his older brother starts up an affair with a weird woman next door named Dolphin Blue, he becomes convinced that Dolphin is a vampire who is out to harm his beloved Cameron.

         This is a great movie about the loss of innocence.  It's a freaky little independent film, and I often like freaky independent films.

         The tagline reads, "Sometimes terrible things happen quite naturally." 
      

Christina Reviews *Ran*

         This is Kirosawa’s Japanese version of King Lear.  I saw this in high school and, again, years later. 

         In this version, King Lear has three sons instead of three daughters.  It seems that the play King Lear has inspired more than a few knock-offs, but I guess that’s true for most Shakespeare plays.  In fact, now that I think of it, I can only remember two King Lear adaptations that took liberties with the main plot.  A Thousand Acres was easily the worst one.  A Thousand Acres could, more accurately, be called The Incestuous Undertones of King Lear. 

        But I digress.

        The most memorable scene in Ran is one in which one of the wives gets her head cut off.  She was pure evil, and most definitely had it coming.

         Four stars

Christina Reviews *The Quick and the Dead*

      A stranger rides into town right before the yearly Quick Draw contest.  But this is no ordinary stranger.  This stranger is a lady.  She's cold.  She's heartless.  She's fast.  And she's got a vendetta against the town sheriff.   I liked the way her secret is slowly revealed in striptease fashion, through a progression of flashbacks.  That's the way flashbacks should be used in film. 

      I first saw this movie when I was 15.  I was nearing the end of my Leonardo DiCaprio obsession.  After watching The Quick and the Dead, I was instantly enamored with Sharon Stone.  I am not gay.  But at 15/16, I would have *gone* gay for Sharon Stone.

      I guess The Quick and the Dead would be considered a send up of the Spaghetti Western.  It's not really all that funny, but it is quite tongue in cheek.  There's a scene where a man is shot in the head and you can see light shining through the bullet hole.  It's stuff like that which make this movie truly surreal.

       Leonardo DiCaprio was OK.  Russell Crowe was decent.   Gene Hackman was his usual bad self.  And Sharon Stone...

       Well, let's just leave it at that.

       Five stars

Christina Reviews *Purple Noon (Plein Soleil)*

          
         Purple Noon is the French version of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley. Years and years later, it would be remade into the version we all know starring Matt Damon and Jude Law. The French version stars this really hot French guy named Alain Delon.

       I don’t really know what to say about it, other than the fact that Alain Delon was hot.  This is why I should never be hired to critigue serious movies starring good-looking guys.  And I liked the fact that the title was arbitrarily changed to something completely pretentious.

       The main premise is that the devious Tom Ripley kills a man named Philippe Greenleaf and then assumes his identity.  Alain Delon does a really good job being devious.  He's the kind of good-looking guy you'd never suspect.  The movie ends with a great shot.  But I promise, this review will remain spoiler free.

         Three stars.  It's OK.  Nothing spectacular.  I think the main appeal is Alain Delon and the fact that it's in French.




         *Edited on 6/19/11*

Christina Reviews *The Producers*

          This is a great movie about two men who decide to make a theatrical flop for a change.  That way if it doesn’t make a profit, they won’t have to pay anything back.  They figure that titling their play “Springtime for Hitler” is sure to keep the crowds at bay.  Little do they know that their play will end up being the highlight of the season.

         Great comedy.  It’s the concept that’s hilarious.

Christina Reviews *Problem Child* and *Problem Child 2*

Problem Child ***1/2

Mr. and Mrs. Healy have their work cut out for them when they adopt demonic Junior---an 8 year old boy from hell.  Lots of hilarity ensues as Junior ruins a little girl’s birthday party, causes mayhem at a little league game and drives a car through his grandfather’s store.  So it should come as no shock when he decides that going for a joy ride with "The Bow-Tie Killer" might be a fun way to spend an afternoon.

Best line of the movie is when some kids on a camping trip decide to ignore Junior’s shenanigans, and he responds with, “Ignore this.”  And then he pees into the campfire.

Problem Child 2  ***

In the sequel, a newly single Mr. Healy (John Ritter) is back on the market.  The only thing is that Junior doesn’t like the idea of his father dating because it means less father-son bonding time. 

Meanwhile, Junior has a rivalry going with Trixie---his female counterpart.  The sequel is basically just one outrageous *gag* after another, all leading up to the part in the movie where a bunch of kids blow chunks on a carnival ride.  And then there’s Gilbert Godfried, as hilarious as ever.

Christina Reviews *Pay It Forward*

         Haley Joel Osment and Kevin Spacey star in this movie about changing the world three people at a time. 

       The concept of this movie is a good one. A young boy comes up with this theory that if one person goes out of his way to help three other people under the condition that those three people help three other people as a way to “pay it forward” as opposed to “pay it back,” then the world will be a better place.

         It’s a warm and fuzzy idea but it doesn’t translate well to the screen. The movie is melodramatic at times and outrageous at others. The opening scene where a man just gives away his expensive car to a complete stranger (even if that stranger was in need of a ride) is completely unbelievable.  And a bit excessive, if you ask me.  And the ending was manipulative in its cunning attempt to make me cry. FYI, it didn’t work.

       But it’s a good film to watch if you’re in the mood for touchy feely and don’t much care about feely smarty.

Christina Reviews *Parenthood*

           Parenthood is the best of both worlds.  It’s both funny and touching.  It’s got a quiet humor to it at times.  And the acting is fantastic.  It’s an ensemble piece and so there are many different stories going on, all dealing with the highs and lows of raising children.  Steve Martin is the star but everyone works together to make this the movie that it is.  And though it deals with some melodramatic material that could spiral downward into indulgence, it remains honest and funny. 

         It’s got some classic moments.  I’m not going to list them all but one particularly memorable scene is the one where Steve Martin appears as Cowboy Gil at his son’s birthday party.  The characters are memorable as well.  I love them all but a few really stand out to me.  Of course, Steve Martin is great.  He often is.  Nathan is brilliant at the dad who expects too much of his 3 year old daughter.  Ivy Ann Schwann is very cute as his precocious three year old.   Keanu Reeves does well with his role of the airhead with a heart.  The things he says, at times, are very insightful.  And then there’s Tom Hulce as the n’er do well younger brother of Gil (Martin).  A young Joaquin Phoenix (as Leaf Phoenix) plays Gil’s nephew.

        I will say that the very ending seems a bit contrived and sentimental but, overall, it’s a very good movie.

Christina Reviews *Palindromes*

          Palindromes is a semi-sequel to the Todd Solondz independent cult classic Welcome to the Dollhouse.  The movie opens with Dawn Wiener's funeral.  She committed suicide.  For those who aren't in the know, Dawn Wiener is the awkward 12 year old outcast from Welcome to the Dollhouse. 

        After the funeral, we are introduced to Dawn's younger cousin Aviva.  Aviva is a peculiar thirteen-year-old child. Her ultimate dream is to become a mother.  She is so excited to become a mother that she decides she doesn't want to wait until she's a little older.  She has sex and gets pregnant.  Her mother forces her to have an abortion, and Aviva runs away.  The rest of the movie is about her physical and emotional journey and how she inevitably ends up back to where she began.

        Aviva is played by multiple actresses throughout the movie, and she is even played by a young male actor and a grown Jennifer Jason Leigh.  Who knows what point Todd Solondz was trying to make, other than the fact that it was clearly a very artistic one.  Regardless of the race, sex or age of the actor playing Aviva, the story is the same.  It's the same frontwards and backwards.  And that is what palindromes are all about.

        I liked the satirical elements to the movie.  Todd Solondz is one of my favorite directors.  His movies are always very twisted.  They're a portrait of the darker side of surburbia.

Christina Reviews *The Other Sister*

         The Other Sister is about a woman (Diane Keaton) who smothers her mentally handicapped daughter.  The daughter, Carla (Juliette Lewis), is about 18 years old and she has just returned home from school.  She’s ready for some “independence” and to be treated with “dignity.”  The problem is that Mrs. Tate does not much like the idea of her daughter having dignity and independence and this causes conflict between the two of them.
         When Carla meets a young man (Giovanni Ribisi) who is a lot like her, the two fall in love.  So this is also a treacly love story with the message that no matter who you are, there’s the perfect person out there waiting for you.  As soon as Carla and Daniel fall in love, there’s no obstacle big enough to get them down for long.

        I have this theory that Juliette Lewis was so impressed by Leonardo DiCaprio’s acting in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape that she thought to herself, I can do that.

      Can Lewis play mentally challenged?  She certainly can.  She’s been doing it for her entire career in one way or another.  And usually she manages to do it well.  But in The Other Sister, it didn't come across as character acting.  It came across as a bit insensitive and patronizing to those like Carla.  I felt bad laughing at the funny parts because I couldn’t help but feel that they were at the characters’ expense.  There was this one montage to the song “She Drives Me Crazy” that pretty much sets the tone for the entire film.  That’s what this movie is all about, didn’t you know?  Carla drives everyone crazy, but they just can’t help themselves.  The world just wouldn’t be the same if Carla wasn’t around to make a scene.

        I want to add that the mother also has a lesbian daughter.  The lesbian daughter has a partner, but you would hardly know since “Michelle” is given such little screen time.  All we see of her is her bra-strapped back as the two are lying in bed.  The mother, by her own account, is very generous toward gay causes, but she inexplicably cannot tolerate her daughter’s sexual preference.  And it isn’t even as if there’s some nuanced reason given for her ill will.  Maybe we’re just not supposed to like the mother. Maybe there’s no reason for her behavior other than that.


        I admire the fact that there are people out there who want to tell the world what it’s like for those who are different.  But this is not the right movie to do that.

Christina Reviews *Olivier, Olivier*

          Olivier, Olivier is a French movie about a 9 year old boy who disappears while riding his bike in the countryside. Six years later, the police come across a 15 year old hustler named Sebastian who they think may be the missing boy. He wears a similar red cap. They take the boy in for questioning, and the boy admits to being the missing Olivier.

         When he returns home, his parents are ecstatic. His older sister Nadine, though, is skeptical. So the question lingering in the back of the viewer’s head for the remainder of the movie is whether or not the hustler is really Olivier. There’s also a subplot involving the sister’s telekinetic abilities.

         This is an interesting story. I love foreign films. They’re always so nuanced and twisted.

Christina Reviews Mike Judge's *Office Space*

           Peter is sick of his 9-5.  All he does is sit in his cubicle all day listening to people talk down to him. So after a therapy session where his therapist drops dead, he decides that he’s going to live his life to the fullest.  And that means staying home, doing nothing.  Peter has high aspirations, but he just so happens to have a plan to make this work.  Or not work, as the case may be.

          This is one of the funniest comedies ever about a guy with a “case of the Mondays”, the Tuesdays, the Wednesdays, the Thursdays and the Fridays.  Occasionally his boss has him work extra hours, so there are times when he has a case of the weekends as well.

         Buy this movie today, but make sure to pass it around so that everyone can see it.

Christina Reviews *Now and Then*

            Now and Then is basically a rip-off of Stand By Me.  I suppose it’s only fair.  Why should boys be the only ones to get their buddy bonding movie.

            The only problem is that Now and Then sucks.

            OK, maybe that's a bit harsh.  It was watchable.  I would rate it three stars because I have good memories from middle school.

           The movie begins with narrator Samantha (aka Gordy) returning home to visit with her friends after learning that Chrissy (the chubby outcast friend, aka Vern) is having her first baby.  The friends get together and reminisce about the summer when they were 12. That was “the” summer of their childhood lives.  During that summer they not only managed to save up enough money to buy a treehouse, but Sam’s parents got divorced, Roberta got her first kiss, Teeny watched her friend nearly drown to death in a sewer and Chrissy learned that sex is when a man waters a woman’s garden.  Oh yeah, and it was the summer they resurrected a dead boy from the grave.
           Brendan Frasier makes a brief appearance as a Vietnam soldier.   He’s talking with the girls, and one of the girls mentions how you can’t seem to depend on anyone.  And Frasier’s character says something along the lines of, “You can depend on yourself.  If you’re lucky.”  I loved that quote.

           And it’s always emotionally affecting to watch a girl nearly drown in a sewer while her best friend screams for help with mournful music playing in the background.  And then the town outcast comes along to save the day.  Brilliant.

           The childhood scenes were decent.  But the scenes where they're all grown up were obnoxious. 

Christina Reviews *No Strings Attached*

          This seems to be the year of the “friends with benefits” movie.  Maybe because 2011 was supposed to be the end of the world and no one wants to get attached?  I don't know.  The reasoning is probably much simpler.  Hollywood is probably just plain out of ideas.  It's like when you're hungry and all you have in the pantry is a box of pasta.  You have to make do.  Back in the old days people could buy some flour for $1, live off of that for a week and never eat the same thing twice.  But I'm digressing.

         Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher star in No Strings Attached.  Portman’s Black Swan co-star (and Ashton Kutcher’s That 70’s Show co-star) Mila Kunis stars with Justin Timberlake (co-star of no one) in the upcoming movie.

        There were some things I liked about NSA.  Ashton Kutcher does cute really well.  I liked that Emma had some deep-seated problems that caused her intimacy issues.  So the movie had a little bit of a heart.  And there were some funny parts here and there.

        It’s still just an excuse to get Portman and Kutcher in bed together.

        Three stars.

Christina Reviews The *A Nightmare on Elm Street* Series

A Nightmare on Elm Street   ****

Robert Englund plays child killer Freddy Krueger.  Krueger was burned alive years before but now he’s back to kill teenagers in their dreams.  When you die in Freddy's dreams, it means you’re really dead.

Heather Langenkamp plays Nancy---a teenager who has been having bad dreams as of late.  Johnny Depp plays her boyfriend.  I think this was Johnny Depp’s first movie.  Fans of Johnny Depp won’t want to miss his infamous blood geyser scene near the end of the movie.  Or maybe, if you’re a Johnny Depp fan, you will want to miss it.  I won’t say anymore.

A Nightmare on Elm Street is a good addition to the list of slasher movie classics.  It’s got a memorable score, passable acting that doesn’t get in the way of the plot and a decent story.  And I like wise-cracking Freddy.  I have to admit, though, that Freddy was scarier in the remake.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge  **½

When a teen boy moves into Nancy’s old house, he begins to have the same nightmares that she did.  I don’t remember this sequel as having much of a plot.  All I really remember of it was the boy and his girlfriend running for their lives while a late night pool party is going on nearby.  There was the added twist of Freddy inhabiting the body of the boy so that he could act out his evil plots in disguise.  So maybe the movie did have a point after all.  I just always forget the point because it wasn’t memorable.


A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors  ***

This was a halfway decent sequel.  Patricia Arquette plays a young girl named Kristen who is placed in a mental institution because she tried to kill herself.  In reality, it was Freddy who tried to kill her in her dreams. 

All the kids at the institution have the same kind of problem.  They are all afraid of going to sleep because they all dream about the same boogeyman.

Heather Langenkamp’s Nancy makes a reappearance.  She is the only one who believes the kids when they speak of their nightmares.  There’s an interesting segment near the end of the movie where the kids join forces by entering a dream together.  While dreaming, they have super powers that come in handy.  

In this movie, the mental patients are the ones who know what's going on, while the men and women in white coats remain clueless.  It's reverse psychology!


A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master   ***

Alice is special.  She has been given the gift of bringing people into her dreams by her brother Ricky’s girlfriend Kristen.  Remember Kristen?  She was played by Patricia Arquette in the third movie.  Well, Kristen is played by an unknown in this fourth installment. So the movie opens with a question.  Why didn’t Patricia Arquette come back?

By the end of the movie, I honestly haven’t figured out the answer to that question because the movie was OK.  It was nothing dreadful, though I may be in the minority with this opinion.  Yeah, it was campy 80’s sequel fodder, but it was campy 80’s sequel fodder at its best.  The Arquettes don’t strike me as the kind of actors who are crippled by what those outside of Hollywood call “standards,” so maybe she was too busy making the movie Far North instead, about a man who plots to kill the horse who put him in the hospital.

Anyway, I liked this sequel.  Ricky was cool, and I was sad that things didn’t work out for him.  But there was a great dream sequence where Alice envisions faces on the meatballs of a pizza.  Freddy stabs a finger into one that looks uncannily like Alice’s brother and says, “Ricky, you little meatball.”  I’m going to have to use that line some time.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child  *

This is a boring sequel where Alice gets pregnant by her boyfriend.  Freddy wants to be born again through the child, or some such nonsense like that.  I’m not sure if it’s this movie or the fourth movie where we find out that Freddy’s mother was Amanda Krueger and that she got pregnant with Freddy after being raped by a 1,000 mental patients in the hospital where she worked.  Interesting backstory.  I guess Freddy couldn’t help but be evil.

Freddy’s Dead:  The Final Nightmare  ***

All the kids of Elm Street are gone.  There’s only one left.   It was bound to happen eventually.  Freddy is running out of people to kill, but that’s OK.  If there’s one thing that Freddy is not it’s discriminatory. 
When killing people, he’s all about death equality!

This is the movie where we find out that Freddy has a daughter.  The daughter is played by Billy Zane’s sister.  The movie wasn’t anything special, but it was watchable. 

This is referred to as “The Final Nightmare.”  In slasher movie speak, that means that the saga isn’t done quite yet.

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare  **½

To be fair, the series really did kind of end with the sixth movie.  WCNN takes the story in a completely different direction.

Heather Langenkamp plays herself.  She is married with a child.  The child is played by the dark-haired brat who was friends with Michelle Tanner in Full House.  He’s the one who always picked on Uncle Jesse.  So maybe he deserves a scare or two for that.

Heather thought that A Nightmare on Elm Street was just a movie she acted in a long time ago, but she soon finds out that Freddy Krueger isn’t make-believe after all because her son is dreaming about him right now. 

This is the kind of movie that you make when a series is done and you have to stick one final nail into the coffin before you can be at peace.  It’s a bit unnecessary.  Those who are familiar with the terms “the fourth wall” and “suspension of disbelief” know that the point of a movie is to pretend that something fictional is real anyway.  So Wes Craven’s New Nightmare is like putting chocolate icing on a cake that already has chocolate icing on it. 

This movie is good if you like your cakes with two layers of chocolate icing!

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)  ****

Jackie Earle Haley plays Freddy Krueger.  The Freddy Krueger in the remake is a lot scarier than the Freddy Krueger of the eighties because he doesn’t make jokes.  And his face scars aren’t nearly as comical.

The remake changes things up a bit.  Freddy is no longer a child killer and possible child rapist.  He is a child molestor with a vendetta.  I actually think that the movie works more on a symbolic level than a literal level because 1. Child molestors don’t come back from the dead to kill teenagers in their dreams 2. If pedophile Freddy was the kind of guy who killed kids, he would have done so while he was alive, not after he was dead.

It was a fairly good remake.  My dad liked it better than the original.  But it takes itself a little too seriously considering the above two points I made.

Christina Reviews *The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking*

          **
          Pippi befriends two little kids named Annika and Tommy.   The kids appreciate her “Do What I Want” attitude.  It’s not long before they must join forces against the evil adults who unfairly seek to take self-reliant Pippi out of her house and place her in a home for orphan children. 

        
          I loved this movie when I was a kid.  I watched it again in my 20’s and wondered what the heck I was thinking.  The movie had this treacly tone that annoyed me.  The songs are moronic and verging on offensive.
        Everyone but obsessive five-year-old Pippi fans should be aware.

Christina Reviews *Music & Lyrics*

***½

         Is anyone funnier than Hugh Grant?  Is there any other British actor who stirs such intense sexual longing within women (and within those men who happen to have been born gay?).  If so, I have yet to find him.

        Hugh Grant plays aging pop star Alex Fletcher who saw his best days in the 80’s.  Drew Barrymore plays a younger woman who has never heard of him.  Barrymore’s character Sophie has been hired to water Grant’s plants.  While watering the plants, she overhears Alex trying to come up with a new song and she offers some words of advice.  He decides that it might not be a bad idea to have her be his lyricist since he’s better at writing melodies.  The two of them are asked to write a song for singing phenom/Britney Spears knock-off Cora Corman.  Cora is a big fan of Alex, even though she probably wasn’t even born yet when he was famous.

         This is a funny movie for those who are familiar with 80’s pop sensations such as Wham! and Duran Duran and can get the references.  For those who don’t know Madonna from Debbie Gibson, I would still recommend this movie because the music is catchy.

Christina Reviews *The Monster* (*Il Mostro*)

           *****

           The Monster, or Il Mostro as it is called in Italian, is about a man named Loris who is by no means a decent human being. He steals, he lies, he cheats his landlord out of potential buyers of his apartment (yet he won't pay the rent). He places supermarket items on other shoppers at the local grocery as a way to make the alarm systems go crazy, so that he can easily get away with a coat full of stolen goods. At the same time that Loris is doing all of these illegal things, another man is going around raping and killing off the female population. Due to some hilarious misunderstanding, Loris is focused in on as being the main suspect. After watching a tape that the police have made of Loris on a "normal day," it is easy to understand why. In order to catch Loris "with his hand in the cookie jar", a policewoman named Jessica is assigned as bait.
        
          I recommend this movie to Italians, fans of Benigni and any one else with a sense of humor.