The latest chick flick to hit the big screen is a romantic comedy starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. My opinion? ehhhh. It's about what you can expect. Maybe a little better... It's like a combination of The Devil Wears Prada, Miss Congeniality, and What Happens in Vegas. So you can guess that the plotline wasn't all that original and quite predictable.

I think what stood out to me the most was the awkward humor played out through many uncomfortable situations. I definitely had a few lol's. When two people who obviously don't like each other much are forced to publicly be in a "relationship" many things that would be normal to a regular couple are in fact quite awkward and thus hilarious.

Another thing I liked a lot was the pacing of the character development. I think it added a lot that the female character (Maragaret Tate played by Sandra Bullock) was the business power house and the male (Ryan Reynolds as Andrew Paxton) for once was the one working his butt off to get to the top under a witch of a female boss. They did a good job slowly revealing her character's human side and finally giving Reynold's character some balls. As the plot moved on, we can see how Andrew's life is full of desire to be a good editor despite the easy claim to wealth he would have if he took over his father's empire. He's truly motivated worker, much like many people moving out to "the big city" with big dreams, and the audience can sympathize with the way he is constantly shot down by Tate despite how good he is at his job.

Betty White was of course adorable as was Oscar Nunez (Oscar from "The Office") Coach (Craig T. Nelson) also makes an appearance as Andrew's father (receeding hairline and all, despite the long silver locks in the back...man I hope he never cuts that fabulous doo short!)

Overall there were some definite good things they did with this film, but I can't say that it will be all that memorable for me. At the end, it left me just as cynical and single as ever saying "oh great, two more hot people falling in love and living happily ever after..." Another thing that didn't work for me was Sandra Bullock in that role. The character is too mean in the beginning and personally I just find Bullock too likeable. She looks like a kidnergartner compared to Streep in TDWP. Technically she did everything right in terms of being a cold hearted witch, but she's just too branded as someone else to pull it off. I am however looking forward to seeing her play the head over heels in love dweeb in All About Steve with Bradley Cooper. Hopefully I won't be disapointed...

Like millions of other Americans, I went and saw the Hangover last week. I'm not going to write too much about it because frankly there isn't much to say...While it was definitely HILARIOUS, it lacked substance in my opinion. You can't really be surprised by that though. I think it's obvious that if you're easily offended, don't waste your money.

I will say that Warner Brothers did a good job with the trailer. They reeled you in with funny one-liners and didn't fail to deliver more during the actual film. The only thing I was disappointed in was the Mike Tyson bit...that they did give away before hand. It was actually at this point in the movie that the film seemed to really drag. Like I said, you can't really expect much plot wise, but the pacing was a bit off in some places. There were some obvious continuity bloops with blocking and costumes (i.e. sometimes Phil was very dirty during the scene where Mr. Chow escapes from the trunk and sometimes he wasn't so dirty...) but nothing too distracting.

A lot of things in the plot were pretty predictable, but I'll let it fly overall because of the humor. I think I'd like to see it again.. I'm pretty sure I didn't catch all of the jokes. I haven't decided though if I'm going to go and spend another $9 in theaters or if I'll wait til it comes on video. We shall see...there's so many other good movies coming out I may not have time! (By the way, today marks 3 weeks until the new HP!)

All in all, I'd say the above the line talent did a pretty good job. The writing was solid in terms of humor and the comedic timing captured by the director and the main characters was very good. However, we had to read their names FOREVER at the beginning...the opening credits were WAY too long. We've seen enough of the Vegas strip from all of the Ocean movies. Below the line...eh, nothing spectacular that stood out. Obviously this wasn't going to be an artsy film with spectacular lighting. The music was really good though...very fitting! (i.e. "Who Let the Dogs Out") Be on the lookout for the sequel. According to director Todd Phillips, it's definitely happening!

Last night I went with some friends to the Alamo Drafthouse here in Austin. (if for some odd reason you haven't gotten around to going, please make sure you do soon! Great movies, great atmosphere, great food, and great beer! Plus with a student ID admission is only like $6) Anyway, we went and saw Disney Pixar's UP. I have to admit, I was mainly going for the company. I'd heard it was good, but I just figured I'd wait til it came out on video. I'm a huge animated film fan, but for some reason it just didn't look that entertaining to me in the previews. We'll get back to this later. Well, wasn't I so surprised! Like I said, I'd heard it was really good, but often when people tell me that I don't believe them.

I'll give you a quick summary though I'm sure most of you already get the gist. A little lonely and grumpy old man named Carl Fredrickson loves his house and the memories it holds, and decides to fly away by attaching a large sum of helium-filled balloons to the fireplace. His destination is South America; a place that he thinks will hold happiness for him. Surprisingly, as he is journeying upward a wilderness scout named Russel who had been waiting on his porch upon liftoff, knocks on his door. He grudgingly lets him in and eventually they get to South America. What awaits them is a new adventure full of danger and excitement.
-We're going to go ahead and give the predictability 8/10. Most everything I could see coming. There was quite a bit of obvious foreshadowing as far as major plot points go, but this is really the only complaint I had. There are little one liners and funny things that happen throughout however, that you DO NOT see coming.

Let's just say the above the line people knew what they were doing! The writing was brilliant. (Bob Peterson did the screenwriting, co-directed, and was the voice of Dug) There were a lot of emotions invoked very cleverly: good timing of sad moments followed by quick, intelligent humor that still leaves you a little heart broken and wanting more. My adventurous side came out as well, which is what the whole movie is about: so Kudos to them for that. Seriously though people, the humor was amazing. The comedic timing and unexpected oddities took me by surprise multiple times and had me laughing out loud. While this blog is still new, I'll go ahead and remind you that I'm a pretty stoic audience member. I don't laugh out loud and I don't cry. It takes a lot to get me to that point. They didn't get my tears (but I can assure you they got a lot from other people!) but they definitely got the lol's. For example, the dogs in the movie can speak via a transcoding collar that looks like one of those 'no bark' collars. The leader of the pack, a big Doberman (I think...it was some intimidating breed) has a screwy translator and speaks in a high-pitched voice not true to what we expect. He sounded like one of the little aliens from Space Jam. High-larious.

Moving on... the lighting? Brilliant. There was something very striking about the way the inside of the house looked while they were floating up in the sky vs when they were planted on the earth. This was just one instance, I won't bore you with them all. The music was also fabulous. I'm not going to spend much time on this, I'm not really an auditory person myself so I won't pretend to know everything and I don't always notice it much (which really just means they're doing their job well, huh?) Although if it helps you get the picture a little bit better, the same guy (Michael Giacchino) did the music for Star Trek.

And then there were the credits. PRECIOUS. The credits tell the epilogue through a series of still photos after the main action has completed. However, each picture correlated with the credit. For example, for Production Manager there was also a picture of one of the characters trying to organize a bunch of the dogs. For Sound, the picture was of two characters listening through a "homemade" phone made of string and tin cans. There was a picture of two people holding hairdryers "accidentally" creating wind that was up at the same time as Visual Effects. And on and on for all the major crew members. Very clever.

Let's talk advertising/marketing. I haven't yet decided if Disney's strategy was crappy or brilliant. So if you're like me, you've been watching the same two minute trailer in theaters for what seems like forever. I was already bored with the movie and I hadn't even started watching it yet. With that said, I wasn't excited about spending a lot of money to see it on the big screen. I had heard it was good, but was it really that good and worth the hype of my frinds? Um, yes. They definitely were able to invoke the element of surprise. By the time you see half the big blockbusters out there nowadays, you've been so bamboozled by all of the advertising and marketing you're super hyped up and excited only to be incredibly let down. I went in with low expectations. Was that part of the reason I liked it so much? Yes. The only reason? Heck no. It's definitely legitimately great, but I think it was that much better when I wasn't expecting to be blown away. So Disney Pixar basically are relying on word of mouth in a "modest" approach. I think it was a little risky not revealing a little bit more of the humor/plot line in the trailer, but there you go.

So that's it for my first post! Up was definitely worth the money and was an all around good film: good writing, good directing, lighting, music...and on and on. Props to directors Pete Doctor and Bob Peterson! I'll definitely be purchasing it on DVD asap. I'll probably even shell out my money to go and see it again in 3D...

So I've decided to get on the blogging train for a couple of reasons. One, I think it's cathartic. Two, I really love movies and I think this will be a good way to not only spark some good conversations, but help myself remember what I liked/disliked about a particular film a few months down the road.

Does anyone else have that problem? I'll be standing around with a bunch of friends who are talking about that movie they saw last week. When it's my turn to chip in...well shoot if I saw it a year ago, I don't really remember all the fine details.

So with all that said, the point of this blog is just going to be to throw my opinions out there about why I liked or didn't like a particular film. They'll all be movies that I just watched recently. (whether they're actually new or old) I did this as an assignment for my advanced documentary class in college, and I think it made me grow a lot as an audience member to actively think and record observations about everything I saw.