Arthur

April 12.

I can’t imagine a world where if I was a poor woman scraping money together to pay for a one bedroom apartment in Queens where I lived with my sick father and a billionaire offered me a million dollars as a sorry I lied to you I wouldn’t take it. I know we’re all supposed to pretend we are above money and that integrity is more important, but come on.

This wasn’t the only false part of the Russell Brand reboot of Arthur, but I have to admit, I didn’t hate it like I thought I was going to. It is too sad to really be a comedy and too silly to really be a drama but I found Brand and his nanny, played by Helen Mirren, to be a great team and enjoyed his antics and seeing some beautiful New York scenery.

I saw the original Dudley Moore version but I was a kid and don’t really remember it, actually maybe I only saw part two. Either way, I did think a few times that Brand was trying to imitate Moore, but then I found out that they are from the same area of England. So maybe they just sound the same when they are pretending to be drunk.

Rating: Like

Cedar Rapids

March 5.

Ed Helms should never stop singing. I love all his nerdy songs. And in Cedar Rapids he belted out the perfect Christmas tune about insurance.

There were other really funny moments in this movie about a sheltered insurance salesman who goes to a conference in the big city - Cedar Rapids. He makes new friends including the bad boy of insurance, John C. Reilly, and a hooker played by Maybe from Arrested Development, which was weird.

Even though I did really like this movie, I laughed a lot, cared about the characters, and was interested the whole way through, I kind of expected more. It got such good reviews and won film fest awards. So I thought I was in for more than a solid comedy.

Rating: Like

If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium

February 19.

If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium isn't a great movie, but it made me laugh a few times. And I liked seeing familiar faces of the 60s and 70s traveling around Europe together on a bus.

The bus brought me back to the time I spent traveling around Europe  on the Plummet Coach. You haven't seen Europe until you've driven it on a bus. Although I never went as far as this group of Americans on a tour of nine countries in 18 days.

The group, led by a cute British tour guide (Ian McShane) starts in London and ends in Rome. All the annoying American stereotypes are there. Suzanne Pleshette (of Oh, God!) plays a single woman on one last jaunt before marrying a man she doesn't love, Norman Fell plays a married man whose wife accidentally gets on the wrong bus and is with a Japanese tour group for most of the trip, there's a bickering married couple, a single man who comes with empty suitcases an steals everything that isn't nailed down, and on and on.

The movie was filmed on location in 1968, and it's awesome to see Amsterdam, Brussels, London, Germany, Venice, and Rome, especially with all the late-60s garb. I visited almost every city the movie does 30 years later, and besides the mini skirts and bell bottoms everything looks exactly the same.

Rating: Like

Arsenic and Old Lace

February 15.

Arsenic and Old Lace. What a great quirky, silly, old movie. Cary Grant and his two old aunts run around this charming Frank Capra classic Three’s Company Style, and I love it.
On his wedding day, the theater critic (Cary) learns that his spinster aunts murder single, lonely men to put them out of their misery. Even though they’re murderers the aunts are still sweet and thoughtful. People who visit just have to make sure they don’t drink from the wrong bottle of wine. Cary discovers a body and starts putting together a story to get his aunts into a nut house to avoid jail. All this is happening while his uncle, who thinks he’s Teddy Roosevelt, is in the basement digging the Panama Canal.

I know this sounds crazy but it gets even messier from there and it’s still good. Somehow, maybe because Capra is a genius or because Cary is Cary, the movie kept me connected and interested and made the over-the-top story funny rather than stupid.

You should see it. It will make your crazy family seem a little less crazy.

Rating: Love

The Chateau

January 29.

Wow, bad movies really are painful.

The Chateau is a comedy about two American brothers (Yes, Paul Rudd and Romany Malco play brothers, and no not like brothas, they are brothers. (Malco is adopted.) A joke which they use about 1,000 times.) who inherit a chateau, along with its staff, in France.

They think they are going to get there, sell it, and pocket the cash but zaniness ensues. It's really not worth getting into what happens or why, honestly, it's not. There's thousands of great movies and there's no reason to watch this ridiculousness.

Rating: Hate

Ang tanging ina mo: Last na 'to!

January 8.

I thought I was going to be alone watching Ang tanging ina mo: Last na 'to!, but, nope, it seems the entire Las Vegas Filipino expat population is here with me. It’s mostly old people looking at me wondering what I’m doing here. No one is speaking English and it’s weird to be in a place I’ve been hundreds of times and have it feel totally foreign.

Ang tanging ina mo: Last na 'to! is the third and final installment of a popular Filipino comedy series. I haven’t seen the first two but I read about them in preparation. In the first, the main character, Ina, becomes a single mother of 30 or 12 or some ungodly number of children and she has to figure out a way to raise them and earn a living. Sounds funny, right? Hmm. So in part two, Ina, having her life in order, becomes president of the Philippines. Yes, president of the Philippines. So that’s where part three begins, her kids are growing up and she’s president … of a country.

The movie starts with loud, annoying music followed by loud, annoying talking and it takes me a few seconds to realize there are no subtitles. What?! Umm. I don’t speak Tagalog, or whatever this language is. I have seen tons of foreign movies and it never occurred to me that there wouldn’t be subtitles. I have wondered in the past if I would be able to follow a foreign movie without subtitles and I now know the answer: sort of.

 The problem with this movie isn’t that I don’t understand what they are saying. I really think I would have thought this was stupid even if I understood. The real problem is that it’s so over-the-top, so loud, and so annoying. I can’t believe people are watching this or that it was entered into film festivals. I keep checking the time and it’s not going fast enough. A baby has been crying for nearly half of the movie and normally I’d be mad that the parents didn't take him outside but I am sort of glad for the distraction and I feel his pain.

Without knowing what is being said it’s hard to gauge when the end is coming, but the end does come, finally. 

Rating: Hate

Date Night

April 29.

A day of shopping at Town Square seemed like a great idea when LeSportsac arrived from the East Coast, but when the temperature went to 50 and the wind picked up the day turned into a take cover operation. So, after polishing off a pitcher of Sake Sangria at Kabuki, we ducked into Rave for "Date Night" with Steve Carell and Tina Fey.

Although, I love both actors separately I wasn't sure about this movie. These kind of comedies always seem forced and watered down. "Date Night" was a lot better than I expected but still fell on the ridiculous side of reality.

But, as long as you don't take it too seriously, it is fun and there are plenty of scenes with Marky Mark without a shirt.

Hot Tub Time Machine

April 4.

In an interview, John Cusack said while filming "Hot Tub Time Machine" anytime anyone suggested something really stupid they just went with it. I think it shows, but in a good way. This movie is completely dumb, but fun. As long as you don't take it too seriously, don't try to figure out how a hot tub mixed with Russian Red Bull could send you back in time, it's a solid comedy.

The cast, including Cusack, Clark Duke, Craig Robinson, Rob Corddry, Crispin Glover, and Chevy Chase, were perfect. Cusack in the 80s on a ski mountain takes me right back to "Better Off Dead," a perfect 80s movie!

And, this is definitely a flask movie.

The V.I.P.s

April 3.

I love how old movies don't need to fit into one genre or another. I'm sure "The V.I.P.s" is listed somewhere as a drama or a comedy or a romance, but it's really all three.

This classic was suggested to me by the Bushman, who has yet to steer me wrong, current rom-coms excluded. I added it to my Netflix queue without really checking it out and was intrigued by the list of stars in the cast. I had never seen an Elizabeth Taylor movie, or Richard Burton. Maggie Smith I know from "Harry Potter" and Orson Welles is, well, Orson Welles.

The film takes place during one night while a group of V.I.P travelers are stuck waiting for their flight from London to New York. There are so many great stories in the movie and each is well done. There aren't many movies that can successfully pull off intertwining story lines–yes, I'm talking to you "Valentine's Day."

Watching this movie, I'm reminded how much I love old movies. I've got to start watching more again. Thanks Bushman!

Buffalo '66

March 20.

"Buffalo 66" begins as Billy (played by the writer-director Vincent Gallo) is released from prison and needs to pee. I think that sets the tone for the whole movie. It's weird and great. There are so many scenes worth repeating and re-watching.
The quirky movie follows Billy as he kidnaps a woman (Christina Ricci) to pose as his wife for his parents. It makes no sense why she goes along with him and I expected to learn more about her, but why ruin a good thing.
I don't know which character I liked best. Billy is crazy. The photo booth scene proves that. Ricci has an awesome tap dance scene in a bowling alley. Billy's parents are obsessed with the Buffalo Bills. His mother is still mad at her son for making her go into labor and miss the 1966 Super Bowl. And his father is kinda creepy and has another great scene where he sings to Ricci.
It's too bad Gallo hasn't made more movies, but there are a few I will have to see.

New York, I Love You

March 6.

You'd think with my love of New York and movies I would have seen "New York, I Love You" in the theater, but I didn't. I saw "Paris je t'aime," which is also made up of shorts set in the cities named in their respective titles. I loved "Paris" and intended to see "New York," so when Boba recommended it I bumped it on Netflix and got to it.

It was a little different than "Paris" because the people and scenes sometimes crossed but the fragmented stories, each with a glimpse into a moment of someone's life, was there. I, of course, liked some stories more than others. My favorite centered around an old, married couple played by Cloris Leachman and Eli Wallach. It was sweet, a bit sad, and funny.

Although overall I liked the movie it didn't feel as New York to me as "Paris je t'aime" felt French. Maybe that's because I've only been to Paris once and don't really know what it's like. Most of "New York" seemed dark and frenzied. And New York City may be the latter, but, in my experience, it can be bright and fun, too.

Cop Out

February 27.

My weekend of bad movies started with "Cop Out." I love Tracy Morgan and feel like I must have had some affection for something Bruce Willis did but can't really remember what. So, when my friend, Side Cap, wanted to see the cop-comedy I thought, OK. Plus I feel like I always see depressing dramas, mostly because most comedies look awful. And this one was.

I guess it played off a lot of older cop movies that I never saw. So, a lot of the references went over my head. There was a lot of gory, violence, which I don't ever remember seeing in the "Police Academy" movies. OK, I'm joking, I'm not saying it should have mimicked the PA movies, but this was supposed to be a light, funny movie.

The story wasn't very good either. The NYPD partners get suspended for a eight weeks for screwing up a drug bust, which puts a wrench in Willis' character's plans to pay for his daughter's dream wedding. (Do you see the holes yet? She hasn't paid for anything and the wedding is two months away? And he hasn't started saving yet?) So he plans to sell his rare baseball card, which gets stolen by a small-time crook who sells it to the same drug dealers that they were supposed to catch in the beginning. There's definitely something better to see out there.

Youth in Revolt

January 30.

I finally got to see "Youth in Revolt," which was everything I expected it to be and 100 times better than "Leap Year." It was funny, silly, and sweet. Michael Cera was perfect as romantically-challenged teen, Nick Twisp and laughable as his bad-boy alter ego Francois Dillinger. (The white pants were ridiculously perfect.)

It's really just a teen comedy but the characters are interesting and the cast is great. Jean Smart plays Nick's aging, trashy mother with a series of boyfriends Zach Galigianakis, and Ray Liotta. And I was pleasantly surprised to see Steve Buscemi as Nick's annoyed father. (I always love Buscemi.)

Although it doesn't seem like it will be the "American Pie" of the '10s(?have we decided how we're doing this yet?), I think it's a more interesting teen-sex comedy.

This is Spinal Tap

January 23.

Roger Ebert has a list on his website of his favorite movies of all time, and I decided I wanted to watch them. The list is vast and doesn't stick to any one genre, but is full of movies any movie fan should have seen. So, I thought it could be interesting, even though with 315 movies on the list so far it's going to take years to see them all and still keep up with new movies.

Ebert's list isn't in any order, so I added them all to my Netflix queue and somehow arranged it so "This is Spinal Tap" was my first. Although I knew a lot of the jokes - the 18" Stonehenge prop and the loudest amp with the dial that goes to 11, to name a few - I had never seen this movie, which came out when I was 5. I loved it just as much as other Christopher Guest mockumentaries. The absurdity of this rock band is hilarious. And I look forward to my next Roger Ebert selection, even though I know the dreaded SciFi and horror flicks are among them.