Christina Reviews *Yes Man*

         Yes Man is essentially Liar Liar.  Only, instead of having to tell the truth all the time, Jim Carrey’s character goes to some kind of weird seminar and is told that he is now obligated to say “Yes” to everything, from giving a homeless person a lift home to sleeping with an unattractive older woman.  As you can see, the things he is required to do get progressively worse.  Sleeping with the unattractive older woman is, I think, the only thing he says no to.  And boy does he ever suffer for his disobedience!

        Anyway, what can I say?  I like Jim Carrey.  I like Zooey Deschanel.  She looks like Kate Perry, who I don't really like, but that's beside the point.

        
        Three and a half stars.

Christina Reviews *While You Were Sleeping*

         This is a silly little Sandra Bullock movie about a woman who falls in love with a complete stranger and then finds herself in the middle of an hilarious misunderstanding. 

          One day, the stranger gets beaten up and left for unconscious on the train tracks where Sandra’s character works.  She saves his life.

        A little while later, he’s in the hospital, and a nurse asks Sandra’s character if she is related to the man.  Sandra’s character mutters under her breath how he’s only the man she’s going to marry.  Now, in the real world, the nurse would call the police and have Sandra’s character arrested for being weird and talking to herself.  In the movie, the nurse jumps to the conclusion that Sandra’s character must be the man’s fiancee.

       When the comatose man’s family hears about his new fiancee, they are overjoyed.  Sandra’s character can’t bring herself to dash their hopes.

        And this is the basic premise of the story.  The situation is made complicated (or made simple---take your pick) by the fact that the comatose man has a brother played by Bill Pullman….

        Oh.  I’m sorry.  I thought you would all take the hint.  You see, I say “Bill Pullman,”  and you’re supposed to conjure up the image of two sweat-drenched lovers rolling around in the sack together  (or at least fantasizing about doing so since cheating on a comatose stranger is absolutely unforgivable, or didn’t you know?)  I guess Bill Pullman doesn’t inspire those kinds of fantasies after all.  Damn it to hell!

        I won’t give away the ending, but suffice it to say, it’s predictable.

        In the European version of this movie, the characters would all sit around in a hospital room, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee and bemoaning the vagaries of life.  It would be incredibly depressing.  And the man in the coma would inevitably die. And it would be an exercise in tedium and monotonous navel-gazing.  But at least it would be somewhat honest.

       While You Were Sleeping, on the other hand, is as American as it gets.  Nora Ephron could have written the script.  Wait, did she?

      No wonder the other countries hate us.  It’s not because we take them to war.  It’s because of movies like this.

Christina Reviews *Welcome to the Dollhouse*

           Dawn Wiener is the nerdy 12 year old you know you were in sixth grade, only a helluva lot nerdier.  She’s stuck in the middle, between a brainy older brother and a pretty princess of a little sister.  Her parents dote on her little sister Missy.  Her brother tolerates her to a degree, but he’s more interested in his band and the new lead singer---a bad boy senior who has slept with just about everything that moves, including girls Dawn’s own age.

          Dawn falls in love with the bad boy senior, but he rejects her as most people do.  All her classmates call her weiner dog.  The girls call her a lesbian.  Only the bully in her class who threatens to rape her after school seems to be the least bit interested in her.

          This is a scary movie because it hits close to home.  I've always felt awkward, and when I was eleven, everyone called me the “Spandex Queen”. 

         Todd Solondz is great at showing the twisted secret life of suburban families.  There should be a TV show called “The Secret Lives of Todd Solondz Teenagers.”  It wouldn’t be a hit because he attracts a certain kind of viewer, but it would be real.

Christina Reviews *The Watcher in the Woods*

          Ellie and Jan move into a mansion with their mother and father.  There’s a weird woman next door played by Bette Davis.  Soon after they move into the mansion, weird things begin to occur.  Ellie begins to hear voices.  At times, she seems possessed.  Jan sees a blindfolded girl in the mirror.  When they find out about the weird woman’s missing daughter Karen, the mystery slowly begins to unravel until we reach the really bizarre ending.

         I saw this movie for the first time when I was a kid.  It’s creepy.  The most memorable scene in this movie for me is the scene where the younger sister writes Karen backwards on a fogged up window and then says that that will be her dog’s name ---Nerak.

Christina Reviews *The Virgin Spring*

         The Virgin Spring is about a man who unwittingly invites the men who raped and murdered his young daughter into his home. When he finds out who they are, he gets revenge by killing them one by one.
    
        Ingmar Bergman’s "touching" revenge fable was “remade” as The Last House on the Left in the 1970’s by Wes Craven and again in the new millennium by some unknown. The Last House on the Left is sexploitation along the lines of I Spit On Your Grave and, to a lesser degree, The Hills Have Eyes. The Virgin Spring isn’t as offensive, but it is disturbing.

Christina Reviews *Valentine's Day*

         Valentine's Day is a rip-off of Love, Actually.  The interconnected vignette film is a great gimmick because you don't need to worry about a cohesive, compelling storyline.  You can throw a bunch of big name actors together in one movie and watch the money roll in.

         This movie has no plot.  I know it's a romantic comedy, and so a plot would just get in the way of the sexy times, but come on.  I still don't know what the point of Taylor Swift's character was.  I'll tell you this.  I wanted to give that girl a swift kick in the pants.

        This is an OK movie to watch if you’re bored and can’t be bothered too much with character development.  When you're dealing with interconnected stories, all you've really got to work with are the characters, and the viewer is not going to give much of a damn for the characters if they don't really get to spend much time with them before they're moving on to the next batch of people they probably won't care about either.

         Maybe I'm being too harsh.  The movie obviously achieved what it set out to.  It set out to be feel-good fluff, and that it was. 

Christina Reviews *True Crime*

          Mary Giordano (Alicia Silverstone) is an amateur sleuth.  When a classmate’s 14 year old sister, Kathleen Donlevy, is murdered by a serial killer, Mary keeps all the newspaper clippings and embarks on an investigation of her own, much to the chagrin of the local detectives. 

          While investigating the case, she meets a cop named Tony Campbell (Kevin Dillon).  At first she believes that Tony is the killer, but then, when she finds out he’s a cop, she rules him out and enlists his help.  They quickly become more than partners.  I won’t say anymore because it would ruin the ending.

        There was something about this movie that was genuinely creepy, and it's not just because young women were getting sliced up left and right.  The music was creepy. And the 14 year old girl is abducted from a carnival.  Carnivals are creepy.  Mary has some weird-a** dreams.  Weird-a** dreams are creepy.  Marla Sokoloff plays Mary's little sister.   Marla Sokoloff is creepy. 

         I would rate this three and a half stars.  It’s a decent thriller.

Christina Reviews *Through a Glass Darkly*

          This is one of Ingmar Bergman’s masterpieces about an insane woman who imagines that God is incarnated in the body of a spider. 

          This is a weird little foreign movie.  I don’t remember much about it accept for its claustrophobic feel (there’s only about four characters in the whole movie) and the spider-god. I once wrote a paper on connection and disconnection in short stories, and I think that's kind of what this movie is about----connection and disconnection as opposed to conflict.  The family members are disconnected from each other.  The main character, Karin, is disconnected from reality.  You get the picture.  Foreign movies seem to be about connection and disconnection more often that not, because c/d is more artsy fartsy than conflict.

       I suppose I shouldn't review a movie I barely understood, but hey.  I'm broadening your horizons here.  Maybe you'll watch it and like it better than I did.

Christina Reviews *Three O'Clock High*

         Three O’Clock High is one of those forgotten 80’s movies that you just can’t find anywhere.  And yet, if my dad had his say, it would be held up as a classic.

        Jerry is no ordinary kid.  He's hypoglycemic.  He has a best female friend who believes in benevolent spirit guides named Toby.  He dries his clothes by sticking them in the microwave.  And now he's about to earn himself a reputation as the boy who was challenged to an after school fight by the one, the only Buddy Revell.

       The whole school has gotten a whiff of blood, and it's worked them up into a frenzy. 

        Will Jerry win?  Will he be pummeled to a pulp?   I guess you’ll just have to watch the movie to find out.

      There’s something about this movie that's a lot like Ferris Bueller, only with a different plot.

       Four out of five stars.

Christina Reviews *Three Men And A Little Lady* (and Her Axe Murderess Mother)

           When Sylvia (So I Married an Axe Murderer actress) decides to uproot her child by marrying a bloody British bloke and moving to England, little Mary’s three fathers decide to intervene, The Graduate-style.

          How could anyone NOT want to see a movie where Tom Selleck, Ted Danson and Steve Guttenberg live together and raise a child together?

         I know that Three Men and a Baby came first.  The sequel is not really all that culturally significant if you think about it.  Full House was already well on its way to becoming a hit program when this movie came out.  Three Men and a Baby had been done.  It's not like this movie invented the "Mary has Three Daddies" scenario.  And furthermore,  it was either Three Men and a Baby or Police Academy that had the dubious honor of making Steve Guttenberg a star (so much for it being the Stonecutters). 

        Then again, who’s keeping track? 

         I prefer the sequel for no other reason than a five year old is more fun than a bald, gender-ambiguous, personality-ambiguous baby.  I have to say, though, for a five year old, Mary comes off as more of a trained seal than a child.  She’s still kinda cute.


      By the way, while doing some research for this review, I discovered that Three Men and a Bride will probably be coming out in 2012, probably right around the time the world ends...
       

Christina Reviews *This is Spinal Tap*

        "I do not think the problem was that the band was "down". I think the problem was that there was a Stonehenge monument on stage that was in danger of being crushed...by a dwarf!"
                                                             David St. Hubbins

       This Christopher Guest film could be referred to as a mock rockumentary.   It was made in the early eighties, and it actually features Fran Drescher---before she became annoying. 

        Spinal Tap is a band comprised of three British "musicians"---Nigel Tufnel, David St. Hubbins and Derek Smalls.

        When they first started out, they wrote Beatlesesque songs, but as they got older, they became more of a rock band, but in the vein of Queen, Styx, Aerosmith, etc.  Their history is one of intrigue.  For instance, you would never believe how they lost one of their drummers.  He spontaneously combusted!

        They take their music very seriously, and the things they say are sometimes so outrageous, but the actors play it straight, and it’s hilarious.  The commentary on the DVD is also great.  The actors stay in character as they comment on each scene in the film.  The commentary is almost like a whole new movie.

       Christopher Guest also did Best In Show.  The mockumentary is a theme for him.

       This is one of my favorite comedies.  It’s extremely crude, but it’s also extremely funny.

Christina's Dad Reviews *Super 8*

         Christina's dad says:  "Spielberg brilliantly weaves the best elements of E.T., Jurassic Park, Close Encounters and The Goonies with a touch of Stand By Me and Romeo & Juliet.  A totally captivating story and outstanding performances by the young group of actors.  5 out of 5."

Christina Reviews *The Stepford Wives*

          Both the original and the remake are about a woman who moves to Stepford, CT and finds that the wives in town are all perfect little homemakers.  The reason for this is really quite sinister.  It’s one of those Orwellian type scenarios, I guess you could say.

          I have nothing good to say about the remake.  The original was an interesting concept, and I liked the uncompromising ending.  The ending of the remake was a complete and utter cop-out.