THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE

Girl's Bana-swooned thoughts...

For all those who believe Eric Bana is an overrated actor, I will have to say that I like him. He is cute, funny, handsome and has fun with the movies he picks. I'm not so blinded by the Aussie accent that I can't tell when his acting skills are sorely lacking, but I am blinded enough to leave most of his movies with a sense of contentment and swooniness.

This particular movie was no different. It's a romantic comedy that pulls at the heart-strings within the first ten minutes. Any movie that makes me grab Guy and say "No! That's so sad!" that quickly is going to get a thumb's up from me. The goods about this movie are Eric Bana, Rachel McAdams and the whole love lost thing, which is a fail-safe plan to pulling in a Girl's interest. The bads about this movie were the stereotypical doctor character that didn't do anything at all, (spoiler alert) Erica Bana apparently getting shoot by his wife's dad (I think?), and the best friend characters who were put there for filler so obviously it hurt.

Of course, despite these script blunders, they had that love lost key to my heart and I grudgingly admit that I didn't mind the fact that Eric Bana was time travelling and developing a love relationship with a woman since she was 6 years old (he was 30 at the time...). My mother would not approve of this movie.

Girl's Rating: Watch it. Love it or hate it, I don't care, just don't judge me for enjoying the cheese.

Guy's look...

To all you guys out there thinking that this movie would be horrible to watch think again. If you have to watch any of the "chick flicks" out there this should be it, at least you'll get some resemblance to sci-fi. I know this might offend some women out there when I use the term "chick flick". So, I'm sorry.

In any movie that has time travel, I always try to poke holes in the story and timeline (because time travel is a sticky buisness). That's one of the things this movie has going for it, every time I had a question about how and why he had to be in certain times in the movie, Girl could explain it to me. Not like in "Terminator" where the baddies could have easily sent a robot back to the 1400's and killed John Connor's great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother. I guess that would kill a multimillion dollar franchise as well.

As for this movie the drama and the acting actually has you involved with the characters and I have to admit that I also felt sadness and sorrow at certain points. Eric Bana might have made some weird choices in his Hollywood career. Please forget about that cause the guy is clearly a good actor. Do it! Forget about "Troy" right now!

Guy's rating: Definitely the choice for guys that wanna watch a romantic comedy with their girlfriend and not have that creeping feeling of stabbing themselves in the eyes.

SORORITY ROW

Girl's review...

One new kill in this movie, but no new twists. Same cheesy one-liners, but more of them and at inappropriate times. The music, the drama, the over-the-top parties... Made you wish they all ended up dead in the end.

Alas, no, this did not happen. Instead, three "strong" women march away from a burning house in slow motion at the end of the movie, half-clad in PJs and knee highs. Did I say that Whiteout was worse than this? I guess the cliche stereotypical characters and chiseled abs did something for me, then.

The poster is ridiculous.

Girl's rating: Watch it, if only for a brief laugh. It'll quickly pass through your system and you'll have forgotten about it in no time, don't worry.

Guy on sorority girls...

Yes, the slasher genre will never die. This time we have a bunch of girls that play a prank on a guy that cheated on one of their sorority sisters. They fake a girls death that he happened to make out with, drive her out in the middle of nowhere and tell the guy to find sharp rocks to dissmember the body with. Shit goes wrong and the guy stabs the fake-dead girl with a tire-iron in the chest. Yes, he stabbed someone with a tire-iron. The gang covers up the killing and throws the body in a well.

You might think this is a great setup for a funny and exciting slasher. It is, but we've seen it before in "I Know What You Did Last Summer". The killer in this movie actually wears a cape that look very similar to the costume from "Scream".

Now you know what you're getting and there is no need for me to comment on plot, acting or the direction of the movie. I will instead comment on some of the kills. Let's start out with my favorite. One of the girls in the movie fucks her psychatrist for meds. The killer corners her there and shoves a wine bottle down her throat making her choke. After this he thrusts his now enhanced tire-iron/super-murderweapon in to her neck. This apparently made blood bubble into the bottle. A kill I haven't seen before which makes it good.

I'm not gonna tell you guys who the killer is. The reason for this is because you'll never figure it out. The story behind why the killer gets rid of the sorority gals is so thin that there was almost no need for him to go on his rampage. On the other hand you're suppose to get these guesses wrong but there has to be some sort of quality control.

Guy's Rating: Not even worth watching for the chicks in it. Yeah, yeah call me gay but I'd rather watch a good movie instead.

WHITEOUT

Guy first again...

Graphic novels are a popular thing to adapt into movies these days. Seems like if they've sold semi-well, then a studio will be interested in it. The time has come to "Whiteout", a graphic novel I've never heard about (not a big fan of those anyway). Maybe if I had read the original material before watching this I might have enjoyed it... but I doubt it.

There was one scene that springs to mind now when I'm writing this. Beckinsale is out in the snow without gloves. She's being chased by a dude with an ice axe. To get away she needs to go through a door. She puts her gloveless hand on the handle that was made of metal. In letting go her skin rips from her hands. When I saw this scene I have to admit that I cringed. Sadly this was the only memorable scene in the movie.

When I saw the trailer for this the first time I actually looked forward to this movie a little bit. This again proves that you can't judge a movie by its trailer.

Beckinsale is great and she was more than qualified to carry the vampire action movie "Underworld". So now directors and producers seem to think that she's a go to girl when it comes to thrillers and suspense. In this film however she seems bored and just out of it.

There was some stupid flashbacks in the movie as well that I could have lived without.

Guy's Rating: Don't bother.

Girl's last again...

So it comes out - Kate Beckinsale is just a hot woman with no range (sorry Guy). She should have stuck with Fantasy movies, where nerds wouldn't care that her face is frozen in the same position: eyebrows knotted together, teeth showing, anger looking like fright looking like sad looking like frustration. I have yet to see her smile... and not look like it is hurting her.

Besides that little revelation, the movie gave me nothing else. It was boring, the plot was convoluted without substance, which means the writer was grasping at straws after coming up with the "First murder in Antarctica" log line, and least of all, I didn't give a shit about any of the characters. Sorority Row was a better thriller than this... Yup, I just wrote that.

Girl's Rating: I liked the poster, but Kate should get back in that leather cat suit where she belongs.

THE LOVELY BONES

Guy's thinkings...

This is gonna be a hard one for me and I'll explain why. Long before I watched this movie, I discussed it with some friends. Already here I had doomed this movie to fail. I actually said that it was going to be awful. This is the truth... it wasn't awful. I think the reason this movie didn't do as well as projected was because of crappy trailers and the fact that the book was really bleak.

People don't wanna go to a $100,000,000 movie and leave super sad. Yes, super sad. This movie has no hope from the start. We get told that the cute girl in the lead will get brutally murdered and nobody wants that. Well, after the actual killing we get to spend a lot of time with her killer and we find out more and more that he is way worse than he already is.

The casting was alright but something with the dialogue in the script made the actors come off as stale and almost over played. The reason for this may also be because of Peter Jackson's love for fairly tales and the obscure. He might not pick up oddities like that.

So what did I think about the movie? I liked it even though Girl sat next to me and was getting more depressed by the second. It is unfair to say that this is one of the worst movies of the year because it's not. Peter Jackson is great at building tension and will have you on the edge of the seat for a couple of scenes. He is also good at building fantasy worlds. So when we visit "the in-between" it's actually quite breathtaking.

Guy's Rating: Not the greatest Peter Jackson movie, nor the worst. I guess you can borrow the DVD from a friend or something.

Girl's review...

Peter Jackson... He must have lost his mind with his fat. To spend that much money on a murder/rape story and expect it not to be a loss at the box office is pure madness. Someone get him a dozen burgers and a bucket of gravy - this man needs his brain back.

I did not like this movie, even though it was a very good story, looked fantastic, and had some great acting moments in it. I did not like this movie because it made me feel sick and sad and mad at Peter Jackson, the man who gave me my beloved Middle Earth incarnate... Bad, Peter, bad.

Girl's Rating: See this movie if only so Peter can make his money back and make better, happier movies. Once done viewing this movie, smack your head against a wall until you don't remember it. The mental image of a 14 year old's raped, dead body, chopped into little pieces, put into a sack and locked in a safe that sinks to the bottom of a dirty hole is not worth remembering.

(500) DAYS OF SUMMER

Guy's teary-eyed comments...

Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (two hard to remember names by the way) are two actors who've been climbing the acting ladder quite quickly of late. Now we get to see them in a movie together. Zooey plays the same character that she always plays and she does it well, the sweet girl next door that every guy will fall in love with. Joseph plays the guy falling in love and if you've followed his career you'll know that he has range.

This movie has a great structure and will jump back and forward in time without you loosing the plot. (500) Days of Summer, more than a lot of romantic movies, shows a real side to the world of falling in love. Here we get to see the beautiful and sweet side of love, and they even show Joseph's happiness with a little dance number (which I thought was great!).

One of my favorite scenes in this movie was when we got to see Joseph go to Zooey's house to try to win her back. We get to see the scene played out in spilt realities: On the right side we get to see his expectations on the left we saw what actually happened. Mirroring these two worlds was both sweet and very sad. Just a great way to show how the human mind works (you'll get it when you watch it).

A buddy of mine said that he loved this movie more than he has loved any woman. Myself loves Girl more than this movie for sure, but i enjoyed the film a lot. It will make you smile and think twice about the love you've found or the love you're waiting for.

Guy's Rating: Definitely worth a watch or two, and, guys, don't be afraid two shed a tear or two.

Girl's small review...

This movie unsettled me because it wasn't a love story, it was a break-up story, and those are awful to go through. But! I enjoyed it despite of the heart-twinges it caused me.

The guy from 3rd Rock from the Sun has really grown up. I haven't seen him since that old TV show, but I wouldn't mind seeing him in future movies now that this was released. He has a certain charm that is hard not to be captivated by.

The girl, Zooey, performed the same as she usually does - cute, witty and pretty. No surprises there.

Girl's Rating: Rent it for date night. Not the first date, though; not if you like the person and want them to stick around.

INVICTUS

The Guy's whatever...

I've talked about Clint and how much I adore him when I reviewed "Unforgiven" (which is probably one of his greatest works to date). Now at an older age he has turned to different types of dramas. This time he helps out his buddy Morgan Freeman with this Mandela project. This is probably, and I'm speculating here, the reason that the movie wasn't as good as his other later works. It wasn't his film - it was somebody else's. Sure, the story is interesting and everything, but it felt like it missed some heart.

I follow sports but I've never been that into rugby so this could also be a reason that this movie didn't speak to me. Don't get me wrong this movie isn't just about rugby, it's also about how a simple man got a split country to reunite... but mostly it feels like it's about rugby.

Freeman as Mandela, hmmm... If I can be honest and I can because this is my blog (and Girl's), he can only play himself - there was no Nelson Mandela aura coming through at all. This brought the movie down a little bit more. Then what brought it up? Well, Damon did, who seems to be getting better and better at his craft by the minute.

Clint might be getting old but he can still put together a great movie. I'm not saying by any means that he should retire. I'm saying that he should pick his own projects and keep away from people that ask him for favors (again, speculating).

Guy's Rating: I can't with a clear conscious recommend this movie to Eastwood fans out there.

Girl's view...

Pretty much ditto Guy's, but with more emphasis on the boring.

Morgan Freeman was cute, in his old-man way, but nothing spectacular came from his performance.

Matt Damon was fine as a South-African rugby star, but again, his character had nothing outside the conventional dramatic moments in any sport star's career - moments of norm, moments of failure and moments of inspiration/celebration.

I can't even remember any other characters of note.

This is a pretty sad collection of points for a story surrounding such a figure as Nelson Mandela. Hopefully, someone will make a better movie about him in the future.

Girl's Rating: Meh. Don't waste the money.

BROTHERS

The Girl...

This movie was good. It had a balance of great and terrible moments, so it ended up just as a good movie.

The terrible part? Definitely the soundtrack. The beginning song sounds like it was taken straight from the intro of an 80s horror film - all guitar and up-beat keyboard. Another instance where the music co-ordinator failed this movie was at the end. To show the duality between two important scenes, taking place in Afghanistan and then in Sam's (Tobey Maguire) front yard, they threw in a few notes from a Middle-eastern song at the climax... Very unnecessary. It was a strong scene from the actors, but when that song came in, it totally pulls you out of the moment. It definitely made me cringe.

The great parts were Tobey and Jake. They were both very strong in this movie, especially Tobey. It surprised me, but I'm not a huge fan of his. On the other hand, I'm a huge fan of Jake's, and although this wasn't nearly his best performance or his strongest, it was solid. Plus, he is damn sexy. Natalie Portman could have showed more soul in this movie, but I'm beginning to think she doesn't have one, so I guess she tried her best and definitely didn't let the audience down in the last moments with her acting skills. Still, Tobey took the stage, even losing so much weight, the change in his body was dramatic.

Girl's Rating: Worth renting, but make sure you don't pay any late fees.

The Guy...

I agree with Girl that the music in this movie was very misplaced. I would probably give this movie higher praises if someone else would have scored it.

This movie is a remake of a Danish movie and for the first time in a long while I've actually missed the original. Without seeing it, though, I have an inkling that it has to be better. The Danish are famous for how dark they can get in their movies. Sure, this movie goes there but it feels like it backs up when it gets a little bit too heavy.

Like Girl said, Tobey steals the stage, and even as a straight man I have to agree that Jake is a juicy piece of ass (writing this to annoy Girl). But, and I do say but, there was someone that even upstaged Tobey in this film. No, it was not Natalie Portman. It was Bailee Madison who played the oldest daughter, Isabelle Cahill. She had moments in the movie where she really got to me. So if anyone is getting nominated for this movie, it should be her.

Other things I enjoyed: All the bits that took place in the middle east were really great. It made you stomach everything that was happening on the homefront between Jake and Natalie, because you knew that you would get some thrilling scenes thrown your way with the scarier and skinnier Tobey.

Guy's Rating: Well worth watching but not something you need to waste a centimeter on your DVD shelf with.