The premise of the movie is simple: The year is 1950-something. A young couple moves to suburbia and experiences social awkwardness, outrageous fights, crying fits, and 3-hump-sex-scenes.

That’s right. 3-hump sex scenes: the 1950’s version of a 1-minute-man.

Okay, Okay. It’s a very serious drama. Won awards and everything. Yes. I’ll get to that in a second. The sex scenes need to be addressed! Revolutionary Road almost has as many sex scenes as Marley & Me, except there are no tasteful pan outs or scene cuts. The entirety of each sex scene consists of three thrusts.

Every time.

And after the third thrust the man was always completely worn out. I guess endurance was invented in the 1960’s…

It was a running joke throughout the movie. Hilarium.

Ahem, aside from the 3-thrusts, Revolutionary Road is excellent. A central theme of the movie is frustrated ambition – CUE THE BLAKE QUOTE!

“Sooner strangle an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.” – William Blake

Oh yes I did! I have a BA in English Literature. The only useful part of an English major is the ability to smack Blake quotes into blog posts. (And that makes the $34k/year tuition totally worth it.)

And not to ruin the movie for anyone… but I think the screen writer had my Blake quote mind… just sayin’…

On the drive home I told Jamie that I’m glad I moved to Minneapolis. If I stayed in Miami my life would be a fashionable, (and humid) version of Revolutionary Road.

Yes. I’d be the only guy in Miami wondering “If I only I had moved to Minneapolis!!! WOE IS ME!”

I settled for undergrad, and I’m so grateful that I did not make that same mistake for law school.

Well, I’m still going to do some handwringing, but I’d rather worry about loans (for a great school) than trying to market a tier 3 JD.
Ahem. And now back to a very neglected boyfriend… (he actually asked if I was going to start blogging when we got home…I don’t think Blake can help me with this one…)

Manager: “Can I help you?”
Me: “What happened to the three cops you had stationed in theater 10? It’s ridiculous in there. People are screaming at each other and running through the isles.”
Manager: “Sorry about that. There’s only so much we can do. I’ll send the cops back in. Talk to me after the movie and I’ll get you some comp tickets.”

Jamie and I saw The Unborn tonight. The theater was full of Bebe’s Kids. There were three fully armed cops (vests, pistols) cursing out tweens throughout the movie. Ghettotastic. The second the officers left the theater erupted in chaos.

Got two free movie tickets out of it though!

Oh, and the movie? B-horror movie at best. Stupid premise, gratuitous cameltoe, and a poor man’s Megan Fox.

Via MovieWeb … those hanes leave no breathing room…

Don’t believe me? Compare Megan Fox with Unborn star Odette Yustman. Yep.

Via MovieWeb – Look what I can do!

The graphics in the movie weren’t bad, but the timing was so horrible that the scares had little effect. It’s like watching a surgery on Grey’s Anatomy – “Oh, that’s sort of gross. Heh. Oh look a carpet commercial…” My advice? Skip it.

And yes, Meagan Good, our favorite horror Diva is in this one too, but even Meagan can’t save this shitfest.

Via MovieWeb – “Sleazy B-Horror movie? Well, it supposed to be cold outside but let me show as much cleavage as possible. I’m an Aerie model yo…”

“Honey, is it going to be that bad?” “Heh…you have no idea…”

We meet the bullish mother, silent father, angry brother, and the brother’s ditzy/chatty (and pregnant!) girlfriend.

“BE MY FRIEND!”
The wife is an art dealer. So we have the kooky semi-autistic artist who paints bloody civil war scenes and, uh, penises.

“It’s so deep!”

He also speaks in riddles and gives constant impromptu sermons….

Two problems with this movie – there are a lot of unnecessary sex scenes that add nothing to the plot or character development, and there are a lot of lingering shots of empty rooms ala botched arthouse style.

The biggest problem with the “meet the parents” genre is that the married couples never seem to have had the “so, where are you from?” conversation. They might as well have married a serial killer…which might make for a more interesting story…

The cast?

• Anne Hathaway as the Junkie


Via MovieWeb

• The bitter sister (who’s getting married)
• cold mother
• effeminate annoying dad who is constantly screaming with gitty, gitty glee
• dad’s new wife
• sister’s fiancé (who looks like Kanye West’s body double)


Via MovieWeb – Sister and Kanye West fiance…

• sister’s annoying friend
• fiance’s suave, junkie best friend

And, and and…

There’s screaming, drama, and drawn out, painfully awkward moments.

It’s a good movie, but there are several scenes at the end (about 20 minutes worth) that are just dancing at the wedding party, and could have been cut – otherwise it’s a good movie.

The synopsis from Movieweb:

Los Angeles, 1928: On a Saturday morning in a working-class suburb, Christine said goodbye to her son, Walter, and left for work. When she came home, she discovered he had vanished. A fruitless search ensues, and months later, a boy claiming to be the nine-year-old is returned. Dazed by the swirl of cops, reporters and her conflicted emotions, Christine allows him to stay overnight. But in her heart, she knows he is not Walter.

As she pushes authorities to keep looking, she learns that in Prohibition-era L.A., women don’t challenge the system and live to tell their story. Slandered as delusional and unfit, Christine finds an ally in activist Reverend Briegleb (Malkovich), who helps her fight the city to look for her missing boy. Based on the actual incident that rocked California’s legal system, “Changeling” tells the shocking tale of a mother’s quest to find her son, and those who won’t stop until they silence her.

A bit of a tear jerker…but compelling (to use a movie review cliché)… I also saw another movie this weekend: “House.” My advice? Skip House and go see The Changeling even if you love horror movies. Actually…the Changeling has a horror element in it…

House has every horror movie cliché you can think of. Seriously. There’s the creepy haunted house (of course), the 1800’s style ghost family with creepy son, leaking faucets, storms, random creaks, gross food, insects, “mysterious pasts”, demon worship, random masked killer, odd editing, shrill-tense music, flooded basements, non-reflecting mirrors… oh, and devil worship…(you thought I was kidding)

After the first 20 minutes I realized that the director was cheating – if you have to resort to a distorted montage then, erm. Fail.

And (of course) we have the stock characters: The blond bombshell, who is a country singer…. and her husband, who looks like he missed the audition for Coldplay…

Via MovieWeb

 The temptress. The Meat-head… who looks like someone from that other industry…

Via MovieWeb

The shady police officer. And the creepy kid ala Ricci as Wendy…

via MovieWeb

Apparently this House contains plenty of plum eye shadow…maybe there’s a drag queen hiding in the basement?

It was a typical SAW movie…you know, Hostel meets The Departed. And it’s not exactly scary… it’s basically a more gory, less-plot driven version of Thomas Harris story. It’s not a waste of money but not amazing either.

The best thing about the movie is that Meagan Good is in it.

If you want a scary movie then go see Quarantine.

I just saw the movie “Quarantine.” It was so scary that I think it ate a little bit of my soul…

The movie is about a camera crew that is embedded with a fire rescue unit. They respond to an emergency call in an apartment building where a rabies-like virus is turning everyone into flesh eating zombies.

And they, of course, are quarantined in said building.

The result is sheer terror.

“Hm…something is amiss in this here yonder…”

The woman exiting the theater in front of me summed it up perfectly:

Random woman (on her cell): “Girl, this is the scariest movie I’ve seen in my 29 years. I started crying. Seriously. I’m not playing! I’m never going to go to sleep again!”

The movie is shot in the Cloverfield style… think Cloverfield meets 28 Days Later. This movie does everything right. We have 20 minutes of character development so we care, then an interesting cast of characters (that aren’t the typical stock characters), and then, well, horror.

And the movie exploits the audience’s anticipation of events. Half the time I was dreading something, “OH NO, THE MONSTER IS GONNA GET UP! OH NO MAM! AHHH!!” and the other half of the time the terror just happened without warning. The pacing was great. Bla, bla, blasay, blablabla… the point is: terror. AH!

Now, (perhaps appropriately) I’m at the Freighthouse Café reading Torts…

The key here is brevity.

The most recent movie I saw is Hell Ride. Yes, Quentin came back with a Grindhouse follow-up.

Hell Ride is a biker gang story in this new 70’s B-movie homage/parody genre that we first saw in Grindhouse and the Devil’s Rejects.

I loved it although I spent half the time thinking about which tattoos I wanted. It’s not as funny as The Devil’s Rejects and the plot is clunky, but it’s still que badass.

Now, it’s not like a lot happens here… Hell Ride follows this format: shittalk, partyhardy, ride on road, shoot someone, shittalk, more partyhardy/corny sex scene, more riding, more shooting, etc, etc. repeat. But this is probably part of the whole B-movie parody bit. What makes the movie que badass is the attitude. It has a lot of that. Har har.

One thing that really grilled my cheese though was that the dates didn’t make sense.

What do I mean? SPOILER: Well, we have a “missing child/father/if it were only so obvious on Maury” plot, but the kid was supposedly 10 (or so) years old in 1976.

Now let’s do some math.

Our story is set in 2008.

The kid was 10 in 1976.

2008-1976 = 32 + 10 = 42.

So best case scenario this missing kid is 42 and the dad is in his mid sixties. Right? Am I missing something?

So why is the actor who plays the “missing kid” 25 at best? You know the mysterious young gunner in the Biker Gang is going to be the missing boy…this is how these things work…but it’s sort of impossible because he’s supposed to be middle aged by now. 

“Hi I’m 42.”

Unless that booze/sex/constant desert sun exposure lifestyle does wonders in preservation. Hm. Maybe we should tell Miss Taylor about this…

The movie is a long episode of the show, which focuses on the love lives of four middle aged women who live in New York City:

• Carrie Bradsaw (Sarah Jessica Parker): a columnist for Vogue who is about to be married to the filthy rich Mr. Big (Chris Noth)
• Samantha: the 50-year-old seductress (or tramp, depending on your morals…) who is dating the smokin’ hot Jason Lewis.
• Charlotte: The sweet one who is overly concerned with her body. She has an adopted daughter and a gay-ish husband who can’t get it up.
• Miranda: A lawyer, who resembles Ann Coulter (or Alex McCord). Miranda and her husband haven’t slept together in six months. Miranda also hasn’t trimmed her nah-nah zone in about a half year’s time too.

Seriously. There is an extended joke about Miranda’s lawless public hair.

And about Charlotte’s bowel problems.

Toilet humor aside, the movie has a tightly braided plot designed to maximize costume changes (seriously, they are wearing someone new every 3 minutes…it’s better than an awards show!)

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and didn’t feel lost because I don’t watch the show…although there are two marginal relationships (between the queeny designers, and Jennifer Hudson and her mute St. Louis boyfriend) that probably could have been cut. We are already following the four women…do we really need two more relationships to keep track of?

Hudson also plays the (stereotypical) role of big black nanny. She cleans up after Sarah Jessica Parker (as a “personal assistant”) while offering sassy “home grown” believe-in-yourself wisdom. She is rewarded for her loyalty with a purse.

Heh.