The Green Hornet doesn't sting

   Let me first say, I grew up watching the Green Hornet (on Nick At Nite people, I'm not THAT old!), so I went in, expecting a fresh coat of paint on an old classic.  The film stars Seth Rogen (Knocked Up), Jay Chou (an Asian pop sensation), Cameron Diaz (Knight and Day), and Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) with cameos from Tom Wilkinson and Edward James Olmos. 
  Rogen plays spoiled rich kid, Britt Reid, whose father neglected him, so he has turned to a life of partying and drunkeness.  When his father is killed, Reid inherits his father's estate and his business, as well as his coffee maker, Kato (Chou).  He has no idea how to run the business, a newspaper company, so he hires Lenore Case (Diaz) to take care of it and leaves Mike Axford (Olmos) in charge.  Meanwhile, there is an evil creepy dude, Chudnofsky (Waltz) who wants to be the crime boss in town. 
  Kato and Reid begin a rocky friendship and Kato shows Reid some cool things that Reid's father had Kato build.  We never find out why he had them built or how Kato knows how to build these, but they are pretty kickbutt cool.  One night, they see a girl getting beaten, so Reid decides to step in and help.  He doesn't do much good, but Kato pulls out some sweet martial arts moves and kicks the crap out of the guys.  This gives Reid the idea that he and Kato will act like bad guys to trick the bad guys, so they will actually be good guys.  Are you still with me?  :)  The Green Hornet is born.  Meanwhile, Chudnofsky begins to feel like the Hornet is moving in on him, so the fight begins. 
  The movie boasts some very cool fight scenes, and the gadgets are fun.  (The gas gun lends one of the funniest moments in the film.)  Unfortunately, it offers little else.  Rogen needs to stick to comedy, he really can't pull off being a superhero and his chemistry with Chou felt forced.  Also, his relationship with Kato is completely different from the original, I mean we're talking not even close.  The romantic side is like watching a couple of 12 year olds, it's immature and not fun or believable, just akward and odd.   Sadly, all Diaz does in this movie is yell at them and be eye candy, her talent was wasted here.  Along with that, the big fight scene at the end was ridiculous.  I love a good "Hero" action ending with everyone taking shots and punching each other without any apparent damage (c'mon, I loved the Expendables!), but this was pitiful.  There is one big scene involving an elevator that was so stupid, I laughed out loud.  SPOILER ALERT**** A car is cut in half and still drives... yeah... um... thinking about the fact the the gas is in the back, being delivered through a fuel line that is cut, that's not gonna work! SPOILER ALERT****  In any case, this movie is one hot mess. 
  And for those that are worried about content, this movie has a shocking amount of swearing.  The violence is your typical action hero violence, but the language is pervasive.  I've heard less in R rated films before.  Nothing else to really worry about, but this movie sucks. 
  In keeping with our "Wizard of Oz theme" drop a house on the craptastic Green Hornet.  1 out of 4 stars.

Massive update

Hey all,
My apologies for not having read your emails, but someone hacked into our account and we can't access it anymore. :(  We are going to be changing our email to something else, preferably something less stupid sounding than moviesheshe. :)  Without further ado, let's get to some film talk shall we?  Jon is still the only one doing film talk whilest, I, Suzy, while be compiling my list of our top 10 fav and top 5 hated films list for next month.  Jon will be reviewing Season of the Witch, The Green Hornet, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and Buried.  We have a special guest reviewer weighing in on Country Strong as well.  Enjoy!

Devil: M Night Shymalan returns

Devil stars Chris Messina (Julie and Julia), Jacob Vargas (Death Race) Logan Marshall-Green (TV's Dark Blue), Jenny O'Hara (TV's Big Love), Bojana Novakovic (Edge of Darkness), Bokeem Woodbine (TV's Saving Grace), and Geoffrey Arend (500 Days of Summer).  The film was written by M. Night, but for once, he didn't act in or direct the film.
  The story is about a group of five people trapped on an elevator in a hotel and the detective (Chris Messina) trying to free them.  As the story starts, our narrator (Jacob Vargas) tells the tale is grandmother used to of how the prince of evil himself will come down to claim a certain amount of people occasionally.  Normally only those who have done heinous acts.  It will always start with a suicide.  So, our movie begins with a suicide.  The people all get on the elevator and when it shuts down, they wait for it to start up again.  Nothing seems to work and the 5 will get more and more stressed as time goes on.  Soon, the lights go out for a moment.  When they come back on, one of the 5 is dead.  All of them believe one of them killed the man.  Each time the lights go out, it is lights out for one character.  One of them is the devil, but who is it?
  Let me first say, this film is M. Night's return to what made The Sixth Sense so good.  It is well acted, and very creepy.  I was on the edge of my seat from start to finish.  I can't say anything without giving the story away, but there are plenty of twists.  Again, M. Night doesn't rely on gore, but the story and the setting make for quite a creepy story and the violence is kept tame.  It's not as good as Unbreakable or The Sixth Sense, but it comes close.  My only complaint was that it does seem to have a few convenient things that interrupt the flow of the film near the end, but other than that, it's pretty good.
  This is rated PG13 and quite deservedly so as there are some gruesome moments and a little language.  GD is used once unfortunately, but otherwise, a good spooky film and one that is quite respectful of religion.  3 out of 4 stars for Devil. 

Tron Legacy, or why a film should not get a sequel long after we stopped caring

Tron Legacy is the long anticipated sequel to the 1982 Disney classic Tron.  This stars Jeff Bridges (True Grit, The Big Lebowski), Garret Hedlund (Georgia Rule, Eragon), Olivia Wilde (TV's House) with appearances from Bruce Boxleitner (TV's Babylon 5), and Michael Sheen (Alice in Wonderland, Underworld). 
  Tron Legacy begins showing us a young boy listening to his father tell him of his adventures in "The Grid".  The man leaves for work, and is never heard from again.  This is all in 1989.  Fast forward to the present and the young man has inherited the lion's share of his stock in his father's company.  He is rich and not very interested in the business, so he leaves it in the hands of others.  His father's old business partner, Alan  Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner) receives a page from the boy's father.  The boy is Sam Flynn (Garret Hedlund) and his father is the Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges).  Sam decides to go check out his father's business and shows up at an old arcade store (I think, that wasn't really explained) and while checking it, is sucked into the computer that his father went into in the original.  Important note:  Programs in this film look like humans for the most part, or are at least humanoid.  
  That is where this movie gets weird.  I saw the original years ago when I was very young, maybe 6 and I don't remember much of it, this film expects you to remember what happened.  I suppose I should have rented the first, but I'm still not sure that would have helped.  I remember the bad guy being some Master Control program, this film throws that out the window and makes the heroes of the first film now become bad guys.  What?  Let me explain.  When Sam lands, he is immediately taken to meet Clu which was a program created his father in the first one to create a perfect world.  He and Alan had created Clu and Tron.  Clu rebelled and made a crazy world where any imperfections are destroyed.  Tron inexplicable shows up as a bad guy, no explanation is ever given, he just is bad.  It's odd. 
  Sam will meet his real father and he will have a girl with him who is an oddity herself.  She is part of a set of computer programs that just showed up one day.  They are different because they have some human DNA, though how is never explained.
  Together, this threesome will band together to try to take down the evil Clu and turn Tron good again. 
  I must say, I love a good scifi film.  This was not it.  I did not have high expectations for this, but I truly thought it would at least be fun.  It wasn't.  Why?  Well, as any person who appreciates a film can tell you, special effects do not equal a good film.  You have to have a story! And preferably one that tries to make sense.  I was lost most of the way through this mess of a film.  We never find out why Tron is bad.  Oh, and why is this movie called Tron?  We see him a few times near the end, that's it.  We don't get given a reason why we should care either.  Again, I understand it's a sequel, but with so many years since the first, we should at least be given a refresher and we don't get one. 
  Second, while Olivia Wilde is easy on the eyes, her character comes out of nowhere.  She wasn't in the first one, and her showing up is explained by Kevin Flynn as "a miracle".  Like the audience is going to say, "ok, we can buy that, it all makes sense now."  It doesn't!  It's stupid! 
  So, sure, I loved the effects, they were great.  Jeff Bridges is a great actor as always.  Garrett Hedlund was not.  He doesn't show surprise when he lands in Tronland and never conveys any emotion.  He's a terribel actor.  Also, he suddenly can fight, though where he acquires those skills isn't explained.  This was a patchwork film with pretty lights and some decent fight scenes.  The best work and the only thing that saved this film from me dropping a house on it are the bike scene in Tronland and the ending in the ship.  The rest was weird and confusing. 
  It is rated PG for fight scenes and one mild swear word.  There is nothing offense here.  The only thing this movie will offend is your intelligence.  1 1/2 star for the weak Tron: Legacy.  Skip it.

Coming soon!

We are working on coming back! Really!  Tonight, Jonathan saw Tron Legacy and he will be watching the new Nicholas Cage movie, Season of the Witch tomorrow.  We are going to be developing a facebook page as well, so be ready for that!  With one click you will be able to be our fan.  We have delayed the podcast, but keep your eyes open!

Show me how you Burlesque...

So, now that we are back, we started off the holiday season by going to see Burlesque, starring Cher, Stanley Tucci, and Christina Aguilara. Movie is rated PG-13, but made me wonder if there should be a rating between PG-13 and R. There is a lot of sex, nudity, implied sex and nudity, and swearing in this movie. It is not a fun, family musical, so do NOT take the kiddos to this one. The plot is paint by numbers, almost straight out of the 50's and you can see each plot point coming from about 1000 miles away. I didn't care. The music is hot, Cher and Christina are HOT, and the whole predictible thing is well lit, well shot, and well acted. I didn't leave the theater, so much as I boogied out of it, and was thinking the whole way to the car about when I could afford to see it again, and deciding to get the soundtrack come pay day.

Bottom line, if you want some fun, some silliness, some bright spangly glamour, and to crawl all over your honey as soon as you get home, go see Burlesque. And tell the sitter, not to wait up. 3 out of 4 yellow bricks, docked only for being obvious.

We are back!

After a long hiatus in which I got settled in my new job and Suzy finished moving, we are back.  I'm going to try to change things up a bit here and we are going to be adding some new features on here.  Since we've been gone, we were still watching films, so I have a few capsule reviews here based on those films:
In no particular order:
  Gamer:  Rated R for language, pervasive violence, and sexual content.  Our rating:  Drop a House on it (in keeping with our Wizard of Oz basis).  This movie was terrible.  From start to finish it never made sense and there were constantly things popping up that had absolutely nothing to do with the film.  The fact that Gerard Butler, Anthony Michael Hall, and Kyra Sedgewick wasted their time in this confuses me.  Why?  Did you not read the script?  The film left me scratching my head and mad that I had lost 1 1/2 hrs of my life.  0 out of 4 for what is one of the worst movies I've ever seen.
  Red:  Rated PG 13 for language and violence.  We loved this fun and fast paced action comedy.  Bruce Willis shows he can still kick butt and John Malkovich has never been sillier.  Helen Mirren still sizzles and Mary Louis Parker still looks like she's in her late 20s, wow.  Morgan Freeman is not in this film for long, but he is a laugh riot when he is on screen, love that guy.  Together they form, Retired, Extremely Dangerous.  Someone wants them dead, they don't wanna die.  Bullets fly as fast as one liners in this fun, frenetic film.  Our only complaint is that they introduce a subplot that does change the tone of the film a little, but we still loved it.  3 out of 4 stars for RED.
  Life As We Know It:  Rated PG 13 for brief language and sexual humor.  Katherine Heigl is back in another paint by numbers comedy, but like all of hers, watchable because she is just so darn good at them!  She reminds me of a young Katherine Hepburn, able to make me smile, no matter how ridiculous the film premise is, and this one is no different.  The beautiful Ms Hiegl is single, and so her friends set her up with Josh Duhamel.  Things go bad quickly, and they end up hating each other.  Meanwhile, their best friends have a baby.  When tragedy strikes and their friends die in a car accident, they discover that they are joint guardians of their friends one year old daughter.  This of course, can't happen in real life as far as I know.  You all know what's going to happen, but this is still one heckuva a good time.  Sweet and stupid, we were suckers for it.  2 1/2 out of 4 stars for Life As We Know It. 
  The Owls of Ga'Houle:  Rated PG for violence.  This is the most majestic animated film we've seen ever.  The 3D animation alone is worth the ticket.  That being said, the story unfortunately doesn't hold up.  First off, who is the audience supposed to be?  It's not for children, there is very little humor and it's extremely violent for a cartoon.  Second, what teen wants to go see a movie about talking owls?  What adult does for that matter?  (Critics excluded, it's our job!)  The story is one we have all seen before, two brothers, one chooses good, one chooses evil.  The one trains to be a warrior and returns to try to save his evil brother and take down the evil king.  The fights are frenetic and vicious and again amazing due to the CGI, but that is not enough to save this.  Better writing would have helped this.  Leave animation to Pixar!  2 out of 4 stars for The Owls.