JURASSIC PARK

QUICK FACTS
Made in 1993, this movie was meant to scare the shit out of little kids. And it did.
Both the director, Steven Spielberg, and writer, Michael Crichton, were well established when they decided to make Crichton's book into a movie. Although, they left parts out, ie. the dinosaur eating a baby's skull...
It is said that in the original screenplay, Dr. Grant operated a marionette version of the giant T-Rex skeleton in the front lobby to crush the raptors, but this was discarded in rewrites...

Girl's raving review...

I loved this movie, and was terrified of this movie, as a child. The opening scene had me cringing into my parents' arms and crying before the first 15 minutes was over. It was the first movie that actually had me doing this. Before I had watched It and Jaws and been scared, but never cried... Until the wee hours of the night when I was worried there was a clown under my bed. Fuck you, Stephen King.

Although some of the animatronics and child acting is hard to handle, this movie stood among the greatest of the true Blockbuster age. It held it's own and then some, until Titanic swatted it out of the sky, but no big deal considering Jurassic Park doesn't have the scorn or distaste attached to it that some people can have for Leo's "King of the World" speech.

Girl's Rating: If you did not see this movie, you lived in a cave. If you did not like this movie, you can go live in a cave.

P.S. I'm so glad that Ariana Richards, the punk who played Lex the Annoying Girl, went on to make such movies as Tremors 3: Back to Perfection.

Guy's review is once again coming, when he gets his cute but lazy butt into gear!

PROOF OF LIFE

QUICK FACTS
This movie was made in 2000.
Taylor Hackford had directed 12 movies before this one, including An Officer and a Gentleman and The Devil's Advocate.
Proof of Life was nominated for five awards, but did not win a thing.
Harrison Ford was offered Crowe's role, but said no.

Girl's first review in a while...

This movie has many elements that appeal to me. Jungle warfare, flinch-worthy kills (cutting out the throat) and great suspense. I mean, I wasn't on the edge of my seat the entire movie, but David Morse plays the hostile, helpless hostage quite well. Maybe it's my infatuation with Crowe (in his earlier days, mind), but there is something about him with a gun, his native accent, and wearing a suit for a large portion of the movie that turns me on to this action flick. It might also be the reason why I thought the sexual tension between Ryan and Crowe was hot, and kept drawing me back to this movie time and time again, hoping she would be less of a prude. But... It's Meg. She's a bit of a prude.

Girl's Rating: Great lazy-night action movie that can be watched year after year.

Guy's review? He has been a bit busy lately (lazy, bastard), and will comment on this film as soon as he stops pulling a Girl move and commits.

CLASH OF THE TITANS

Girl’s OL: Sam Worthington is a hunk, but I definitely didn’t finish watching this.

Guy’s Jesus!... I mean Zeus!

Greek mythology has always been a source of good stories and stuff. One of my favorite video-games are the “God of War” series. Those games are a perfect example how to make the stories from the old greek scriptures fresh and a lot of fun. The original “Clash of the Titans” have become somewhat of a cult classic. I can see how but I was never a fan of this film, I was more into “Jason and the Argonauts”.

Now they’ve taken the hottest actor around (Sam Worthington) and thrown home straight in with the giant Kraken, some flying beasts, giant scorpions and a black pegasus. I think the movie did fine at the box office but it would not surprise me if it was a total bomb. I mean the movie is awful, very awful. I have no idea how they got Liam Neeson to play Zeus and I’m dumbfounded why Ralph Fiennes agreed to be Hades. Did they want to recreate “Schindler’s List” or something. They could have asked Ben Kingsley to play Poseidon, I bet he would have said yes. He seems to be making a lot of money driven choices lately.

This movie is barely good enough to watch just for the action sequences or the animation. The only half decent thing about this movie was the fight against Medusa. I think it’s like an hour into the movie so just skip the first couple of chapters. So to end this rant I want to say to everybody that is thinking about doing a greek mythology movie out there to think fresh. Do something new, even the Percy Jackson movie was better than this and that’s saying something.

Guy’s Rating: Awful, but I still feel that Sam Worthington will be a great action star in the future.

SAINT JOHN OF LAS VEGAS

Girl’s OL: From what I watched and can remember (I must have been drunk when Guy was watching some of these, since I seem to not remember much), this movie was unique, interesting, and starred my favorite asteroid terrorist, Steve Buscemi.

Guy’s Review

I had no preconceived thoughts coming in to this movie. This is usually a good thing. This is this directors feature debut which also is interesting and a strong one I might add. The movie is about a former gambling addict (Steve Buscemi) that is struggling with is need for thrill that it gives him. He has scaled his gambling down to scratch ticket and is now working as an insurance agent. An opportunity arises where he can climb the ladder at his firm. He is paired up with an insurance agent (Romany Malco) to investigate a rear ending near the city of Las Vegas.

I have to say that the chemistry between Malco and Buscemi is amazing. They are really funny together and maybe, maybe Malco will move past his role in “The 40 Year Old Virgin”. The very funny Sarah Silverman also appears as Buscemi’s love interest who is obsessed with everything smiley face.

This is a road trip movie so the encounters are the most important thing here. We will meet a bunch of naked crazies wielding guns in the desert. A dude that has a fire suit on that will not stop burning for a couple of days. A stripper performing a lap-dance in a wheelchair and many other funny people.

I liked this movie. The directing was great, the writing was funny and the acting was spot on. I’m always happy when new directors find their voice straight away and I can see that this guy will make even more hilarious movies in the future.

Guy’s Rating: Finally a new comedy that actually made me laugh over and over again.

THE KARATE KID

Girl’s OL: I love Jackie Chan, his movies, his stunts and even his stuntmen, but I think Mr. Smith Jr. over there should run from his parents and film and never look back.

Guy’s Review

I grew up in the 80’s so the original “Karate Kid” was one of the movies that everybody had to watch. I love that movie and always stop and watch if it’s on when I’m zapping through the channels. Now the time has come for this classic to be remade and ruined as many others before it.

So this time it’s about a boy (Jayden Smith) who has to movie to China because his mother has found herself a new job there. Once there he finds a girl, gets beaten up by some kung fu kids and then finds his sensei (Jackie Chan). Jackie teaches the boy the secrets of Kung Fu. The boy, who also is called ShaiDre grows as a person and as a fighter. In teaching the little boy Jackie also grows and comes to terms with the death of his family.

All this sounds great but it isn’t. The reason that the old movies worked is because Daniel-san was an awkward teenager. There was a lot of angst there that a ten year old kid has no idea how to comprehend. Also the training in the old films with the “wax on, wax off” seemed somewhat organic and plausible. Here Jackie has developed something similar but with a jacket that just comes off as lame and boring. We all know that Jackie is a great fighter and stuntman as well. Mr Miyagi just looked like a old man that couldn’t harm a fly if he tried.

I could probably go on and on about why the original worked better but I won’t. I guess this movie makes this story more accessible for todays youth but I doubt that it will. It’s just annoying to see two ten year old date. Also it boring to see kids fight for that matter. There wasn’t even anything close to that epic crane-kick to talk about here either. I mean the last kick in this movie just looked ridiculous. Some weird over the head spin around hanging in wires special kick that no kid can try to mimic. Yes! I tried the crane-kick and so did all of my friends. It might not have looked cool but I felt pretty awesome.

Guy Rating: You gotta stick with the original here.

COP OUT

Guy’s Review...

I’d like to start this review off with saying that I’m actually a big fan of Kevin Smith the writer and speaker. His directing might not be his strong suit but his movies have made me laugh over and over again. So the first mistake in making this movie was that he didn’t write it himself. It just didn’t feel or look like a Smith movie. It felt lazy and the cast felt like they didn’t have any fun doing this film. In his previous works you can actually feel that they are good friends and are having a good time together.

I remember watching one of the “Evening with Kevin Smith” lectures where he was talking about doing a movie with Bruce Willis. The thought of that when he told it was very exciting to me even if it would have turned out that Bruce would have played Silent Bob’s uncle. The first mistake they did was making him a cop again. We’ve seen this before but in a serious matter. Doing it in a comedic way is just a big mistake when he has characters like John McClain in his past.

The chemistry wasn’t there at all. Tracy Morgan might be one of the funniest stand-ups and interviews out there. His performance in this film however was not very funny at all. He had a small cameo in Smith’s “Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back” where he was hilarious. I’m just sad that it didn’t work out here as well.

Guy’s Rating: I’m sad to say that you should not watch this movie.

Girl’s OL: Don’t even bother, and I’m allowed to say that, Kevin Smith, even though I did not pay to watch your movie.

THE A-TEAM

Guy’s Review...

So we went to the theaters to get a much needed action injection. I watched The A-Team as a kid. It was part of a great line up of shows when I was a kid. It was MacGuyver, Airwolf, Knightrider and The A-Team. I loved all of those shows and couldn’t wait for the next episode. So the wait for this film was kinda long. I have to say that with age my love for this show had cooled a little bit.

I heard from people that saw this movie before me that it was way too much and over the top. I agree that it was ridiculous and the action was way, way over the top. I liked that, many of the action films I saw as a kid where made this way and I didn’t complain then and I’m not gonna start now. This was over the top in a good way. For the chemistry of the cast I liked that as well. Everyone was very funny even the sometimes dry Liam Neeson.

Highlight of the movie for me was probably the attempt to fly a tank hanging from on weak little parachute. I know this sounds like a ridiculous but the makers of this movie knew that as well and pointed it out in the dialogue.

I heard that Mr. T came out in the press against this movie cause people got killed and there where some sexual content in this film. The movie is still PG-13 and the violence is not gross or gory in any way. And I can’t remember any sexiness going on at any point in the film, just some kissing.

Guy’s Rating: If you love action than you’ll definitely get your fix here.

Girl’s OL: If you’ve seen the trailer and not had an itch to watch this movie, you’re probably either a dick or a loser.

THE GOOD GUY

Girl’s OL: We are actually reviewing this movie...?

Guy’s The Bad Review...

Stockbrokers that cheat, good guys that don’t, the girl from “Gilmore Girls” as the girl that got cheated on (yes the sentence is suppose to look that way). To be honest, I didn’t really watch that much of this movie. I think that I got the gist of it as you can see above. It’s like they tried to turn “The Hills” into a feature by stealing some pages from the “Wall Street” script.

I mean, this movie really sucks. We know who’s the bad guy, which by the way doesn’t get punished by the end of the movie. He cheats on a bunch of women but still, STILL ends up with a gorgeous woman in the end. Does that make sense, am I suppose to feel for this dude? Come on! He even got a better ending than the girl that got betrayed. Her last scene is with the “good guy” talking about hot air balloons. I don’t care that I’ve added a bunch of spoilers for I don’t want you to make the same mistake as me by watching this movie.

Guy’s Rating: If I haven’t made myself perfectly clear by now then I’ll repeat myself, don’t watch it!

THE GOOD GUY

Girl’s OL: We are actually reviewing this movie...?

Guy’s The Bad Review...

Stockbrokers that cheat, good guys that don’t, the girl from “Gilmore Girls” as the girl that got cheated on (yes the sentence is suppose to look that way). To be honest, I didn’t really watch that much of this movie. I think that I got the gist of it as you can see above. It’s like they tried to turn “The Hills” into a feature by stealing some pages from the “Wall Street” script.

I mean, this movie really sucks. We know who’s the bad guy, which by the way doesn’t get punished by the end of the movie. He cheats on a bunch of women but still, STILL ends up with a gorgeous woman in the end. Does that make sense, am I suppose to feel for this dude? Come on! He even got a better ending than the girl that got betrayed. Her last scene is with the “good guy” talking about hot air balloons. I don’t care that I’ve added a bunch of spoilers for I don’t want you to make the same mistake as me by watching this movie.

Guy’s Rating: If I haven’t made myself perfectly clear by now then I’ll repeat myself, don’t watch it!

CENCOROLL

Girl’s OL: Oh yes, this was pretty fantastic.

Guy’s Review...

This was a short little animated movie where a guy that controls a shapeshifting potato like being. At the start of the film another one of these creatures shows up and and the guy has to prepare for a fight. A young girl meets the boy and his Cenco (the creature) and she unwillingly gets involved in the battle. The battle starts and a lot of funniness ensues.

The most impressive thing about this film is that it’s almost all done by one artist. It might only be 25 minutes long but imagine how many days, weeks and even months of drawing, coloring and all the other things that goes into a cartoon it took. I, for one enjoyed this movie even though I don’t really know what it was all about.

Guy’s Rating: Perfect length and something you have never seen before.

WINTER PASSING

Guy’s Review...

Zooey, Zooey... You where suppose to be the happy shining light in every movie you’re in. The girl that every guy falls in love with, the girl that they are willing to change their ways for. Now here in this little film you kill kittens, do drugs, try to fuck Will Ferrell and is just an all over negative person. What’s up with that?

Zooey Deschanel plays an actress that are just getting started in an off Broadway play. She works nights as a bartender and juggles boyfriends like no other. One night a woman approaches her. The woman is a publisher she offers Zooey a 100.000 dollars for a collection of letters that her father, a famous writer wrote to her mother when she was only a little kid. She accepts the offer and goes back home to retrieve the letters.

At home she meets a man and a woman that has moved in to her childhood home. Her father now lives in the garage like a hermit. Instead of getting the letters she’s forced to come to terms with her childhood and reconnect with her father.

This is a cute movie but I have a hard time to decide if it’s good or bad. the film was an hour and thirty minutes long but it felt like three hours. This is not a good thing at all. Even if the movie felt draggy I didn’t stop watching and that has to count for something, right?

Guy’s Rating: I haven’t decided yet. You just have to watch and decide for yourselves.

Girl’s OL: I agree as I’m so confused by this movie that I will recommend watching it, also, but with a warning sign for confusion.

THE RUNAWAYS

Guy’s Review...

I was never a big fan of The Runaways or even Joan Jett when she left the group to start up her solo career. Maybe the reason for this is because I wasn’t born at the time when all of this took place. I highly doubt that young Dakota Fanning or even Kristen Stewart knew much about the group before they agreed to play these parts. I gotta give it to them though, they actually look the part.

Otherwise this movie doesn’t have anything new if you compare it to other rock biopics. You get sex, drugs and rock & roll. There was still something that kept me tuned in. I think it was because I was worried about poor Dakota. She was the go to daughter in all mayor blockbusters. Now she just looks confused and weird. I hope that she keeps her career going into her twenties. If not she’s gonna be a huge train-wreck (stay away from Natalie Portman).

In general this movie is not that much to rave about. I guess my review is not that much to go on considering that I’m not a fan of their music. So if you’re a fan then maybe you need to watch this. Report back to me if it’s any good.

Guy’s Rating: Meh, not my cup of tea.

Girl’s OL: I hate Kristen Stewart, and now thanks to her, I also hate Dakota Fanning.

POSSESSION

Girl’s OL: Omitted due to disgust.

Guy’s Review...

This might have been one of the shittiest movies in a long, long time. Sarah Michelle Gellar (SMG) plays regular working woman married to the man of her life. The only problem in their life is that her husbands loser brother is living in the same house as them. The brother is irrational and envies the life SMG and his older brother is living. One night both the brothers are out doing errands. A fog falls over the town where they live, a thick fog. Thanks to the fog the brother smash their cars together in a head on collision. They both end up in a coma. The bad brother wakes up, but wait... He is not himself anymore. He is actually the other brother trapped in the younger brothers body... at least that is what we are led to believe.

Not only is the script bad here but also the idea, concept, actors, direction and more than anything else the fricking score. Every minute is like putting a drill to your ear while watching this shitty, shitty movie.

Guy’s Rating: I would be surprised if anyone sees this movie and remembers it.

ONDINE

Guy’s Review...

So, Colin Farrell plays a fisherman with a daughter that suffers from sort of kidney failure. One day on one of his fishing trips he catches a young woman in his net. She tells him that her name is Ondine. She sings a couple of weird song and convinces both Collin and his daughter that she some sort of mermaid. A very nice and believable story right? Well, things are not always like what they seem. Ondine has a darker past that we are led to believe.

Neil Jordan who directed this film has a really good eye. The movie is completely stunning and the locations are beautiful. The acting is nothing to brag about and neither is the script. I guess Neil Jordan has done enough good films that he can get away with one or two vanity projects by now.

Guy’s Rating: I don’t think so. Way too slow for my taste.

Girl’s OL: I thought Farrell had been locked away somewhere after Alexander, but here he is... “making” movies still.

(I needed this ridiculous cover I found in here)

HAPPY TEARS

Guy’s Review...

Parker Posey plays a woman that has to move back to her childhood home to help her sister (Demi Moore) to take care of their father (Rip Torn). This is one of those dysfunctional family movies. There’s a slew of these out there and it just feels like they a trying to out do each other. This one is not as extreme as “Running with Scissors” or “The Squid and the Whale” but is still pretty weird.

All the actors are as good as they can be with the material that they have to work with. There’s also some trippy dream sequences here that gives the movie a little bit of extra flare. Other than that this movie is just a straight up drama.

This doesn’t sound like I liked it very much but for some weird reason I did. Maybe I have something for Parker Posey to Rip Torn. Just maybe the tone of this movie was the thing that did it for me. I found myself laughing without knowing why. That has to be good right?

Guy’s Rating: I guess I recommend this. I still don’t know why but I do.

Girl’s OL: I feel like I’d been waiting for this movie for a while when I saw it, even though I’d never heard of it before - it was love at first sight.

THE BOYS ARE BACK

Guy’s Review...

Had no thoughts about this movie what so ever when I turned it on. I usually think that’s a good thing but sometimes it’s just really bad. This time it was a great thing. Finally Clive Owen gets a part that is challenging. Here he plays a father that has recently lost his wife to cancer. Now he’s alone with his young son in a house in the outbacks of Australia. He says that he won’t say no to his son anymore and just let him do what he wants. This will bring them closer together. Things are not that easy and Clive has to learn how to juggle his work as a journalist and the life with his son. Clive also has another son that he left at a young age. He invites him to stay with him and his younger son so they can reconnect again.

This all might sound super cheesy. It isn’t, it’s actually very moving believe it or not. Owen has never been better and the outbacks look beautiful. The children in this movie makes it better, their performances are spot one. The only thing that I think I had a problem with was the dialogue that Owen had with his dead wife throughout the movie. Did we need that? I’m not sure anymore.

Guy’s Rating: Nicely done, some good and bad feeling got stirred up here.

Girl’s OL: Thoughtful, cute, with a hint of sadness and a dash of Owen’s delicious good looks.

THE TOOTH FAIRY

Guy’s Fuuuuuuck...

Why is there still a demand for this type of movie? Just throw in a action star in the corniest piece of crap you can ever imagine. Who do I blame? I’m sorry to say that it has to be Arnold. He started of as being an action good. Then he decided to do “Twins” (which is good if you compare it to the action star comedies of today) and another bunch of crappier comedies.

Here “The Rock” plays a hockey player that calls himself the tooth fairy because he tackles the teeth out of his opponents. One night he decides to steel the money from under his girlfriends daughters pillow. Well, the tooth fairies find out and he has to be one for two weeks.

The only kinda good thing about this movie was Stephen Merchant. Not because he was funny here, just the fact that I know that he has the ability to be that made this film better. What da fuck did Seth MacFarlane do in this movie. It might have only been for a minute but I thought that this movie stood for everything that he hated.

Guy’s Rating: Fuck no!

Girl’s OL: How does that saying go... Fuck you, Dwayne.

SHALLOW HAL

Guy’s Review...

With a lack of new good comedies I guess we sat down to watch a bunch of older once. Before putting this movie in I had recently seen the Farrelly brother on the interview show “The Dialogue”. A show where producer Mike De Luca interviews successful writers in the industry. Here they talk about “Shallow Hal” and how the audience where surprised that they where able to show heart in their movie.

The Farrellys are mostly known for their gross out and slapstick type humor. Sure, there are a bunch of that here in this film but mostly it focuses on the story. The story is very simple, you need to look beyond the exterior of people. Hal (Jack Black) gets a “curse” laid upon him so he can only see the inner beauty of people.

There’s a question here. Hal can see everyones ugliness or beauty. Except for one guy, his best friend played by Jason Alexander. Is his friend a bad or good person? Well, we never get to find out. All we know is that he has a tail (true Farrelly humor).

Guy’s Rating: Funny but far from the best in the Farrelly collection.

Girl’s OL: This is a favorite of my parents... and I can’t understand why.

OLD SCHOOL

Guy’s Review...

It’s been a while since I saw this movie. When I saw it the first time I thought it was super hilarious. I guess I went back to it considering the director of this comedy Todd Phillips recently directed “The Hangover” which turned out to be the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time.

Here in this movie we can really see that big things was gonna happen for Mr. Phillips. His comedy sticks out as something different and fresh. He uses comedians like Will Ferrell in a way that he has never been used before. This adds to the movie because it just feels different.

The whole high school comedy thing isn’t new at all but ant good writer can make it feel fresh if the jokes are there. Now this movie is a cult classic and will probably be around for some time. Frank the Tank is known all over and the scene where he streaks though town is probably one of the funniest ever.

Guy’s Rating: A must see comedy if you haven’t seen it yet.

Girl’s OL: This was over my tenth time watching Old School, and thinking back on the movie, I still can’t remember how it starts, or ends, or anything in between but Will Ferrell’s butt - why is that?

SE7EN

Guy’s Review...

First off, this is probably one of the most perfect scripts ever constructed. All the characters and locations are sculpted into perfection. As you are watching this film you’ll never find yourself bored and looking at your watch. Not even during the second or third viewing. Even then when you know the twist will you feel bored.

When people talk about Morgan Freeman they never bring this movie up as one of his best performances. This is clearly in his top three the same goes for the handsome Brad Pitt. The dynamic between these two actors is perfect.

David Fincher has had a hard time to rival this film in his later work (my opinion). The only on that comes close is “Fight Club”. Usually his films take a greenish color. Here however it feels yellow and dark. I love the way that he plays with color and darkness. This is one of his strongest visual sense. He as I have said about Luc Besson is a director that you can recognize by just looking at one of his frames.

Guy’s Rating: One of my favorite neo-noir films to date.

Girl’s OL: Hard to watch, but brilliant.