Ed's Review Dot Com

Summit Entertainment, Touchstone Pictures, Offspring Entertainment

Rick Malambri, Adam G Sevani, Sharni Vinson, Alyson Stoner, Keith Stallworth, Kendra Andrews, Stephen Boss, Martin Lombard, Facundo Lombard, Oren Michaeli, Joe Slaughter

The new gangs I guess are street dancers.  The Pirates including Luke (Malambri) and Natalie (Vinson) team up with a kid the see dancing on the street named Moose (Sevani) and try to take on the number one champion hip hop dancers in New York in contest.  They need the money, and they need the respect.  The showdown of the century “The First Annual World Dance Jam” is destined to change their lives forever.

Yeah, right!  I hated this film.  I don’t get the modern street dancing anyway.  I’m much too old to enjoy seeing people flip-flopping around on the floor like a fish out of water or a chicken with his head cut off.  Then the dialog in this film is enough to make me choke!  “One move, can make you believe there’s something more.  One move, can set a whole generation free.”  Gak.

I did not see this in 3D.  I understand the 3D process added a lot to dance fans and I watched it on DVD.  But I was bored to death.  Practice-battle-fight-battle-practice-battle-battle-battle-done.   There was no story at all, just a bunch of kids who live and practice in a big building and do dance battles at every time they meet somebody.  There was just nothing going on here at all.  I was horribly bored with the whole thing, and the climax was about as boring as the rest of the film.  The Pirates got their butts kicked 900 ways to Sunday and then the judges without any question just name the Pirates the winners.  Like there wasn’t really any real contest to begin with.  And the commentary by the announcer was really lame!   On and on with stunning insight like “Did you see that?” “Ooh, that’s old school” “Say what?”
This was a waste of my time!

Note: My better half is a big fan of “So You Think You Can Dance”. At least one of the stars of this movie is from that show. She was thrilled to recognize someone from the show, then promptly fell asleep. The next day we tried to watch it again, but she was as bored with it as I was.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Cold Spring Pictures, DW Studios, Handsomecharlie Films

Natalie Portman, Justin Kutcher, Kevin Kline, Cary Elwes, Greta Gerwig, Lake Bell, Olivia Thirlby, Jake M. Johnson, Mindy Kaling, Ophelia Lovibond

Emma (Portman) is a doctor and a loner. Her Mom and Sister worry about her because she’s all alone. Adam (Kutcher) is the son of a famous actor who works in production of a teen high school musical type TV show. He’s having a bad streak after losing at love so many times, but he and his roommates keep trying. In a series of serendipity experiences, Adam and Emma bump into each other but never connect. Now Emma just moved to LA and the meet. Neither is involved, so they setup a deal where they are friends with benefits. But the deal is that if either feels anything more for each other they will quit. They’re keeping it strictly physical. Of course that’s never going to work out, and no matter the promises of no fighting, no jealousy, and no caring about it each other, both of them start to feel for each other. Really Adams wants to get closer, but Emma is scared to get close to anyone. But as her sister’s wedding comes up, the whole house of cards comes falling down.

Of course this is not anything new, but it is not nearly as bad as all the critics would have you believe. Portman isn’t so bad as the girl who is afraid of feeling anything. Kutcher is just Kutcher, so you get what you get, but some of the side characters are really funny. The whole back story with Adam and his Dad (Kevin Kline) is pretty funny and though he’s not a big part of the story, he manages to steal several scenes. Ludicrous is one of the gang of friends Kutcher hangs around with, but the whole bunch of them are pretty funny. By the time the ending rolls around, you know what’s going to happen, but it’s pretty decently played, so it’s not boring, at least. There are parts that are pretty racy, so this thing has earned it’s R rating for sure, and some of the language is pretty descriptive! Also there’s a pretty close inspection of Mr. Kutcher’s posterior. So it’s a bit raunchy and worth a few pretty good laughs, so if this is the thing you like, don’t let the professional reviewers scare you away. It’s not brainy, but it worth a shot.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Movie Rentals Releasing Tuesday Jan 25, 2011

• Red
• Secretariat
• Saw: The Final Chapter
• The Girl Who Kicked Over the Hornet’s Nest (Scandinavian)
• Stone
• Nowhere Boy
• Like Dandelion Dust
• Machete

To Blu-Ray or Not to Blue-Ray, that is the question. Prices on Blu-Ray have been dropping and dropping. Currently Blu-Ray players are in the same price range as traditional DVD players. Blu-Ray disks are a couple dollars more, if that, than standard DVD’s. Also many Blu-Ray titles come with a regular DVD packaged together. So do I want Blu-Ray or not?

Over a year ago we bought a Blu-ray player. I switched my queue from Netflix from DVD to Blu-Ray. Movies started arriving in Blu-Ray format. I watched a couple on HDTV on my Blu-Ray player and was blown away by the video and sound, awesome! But then I noticed two trends. Blu-Ray disks were sitting on my dresser waiting for a time to go down to the living room, kick someone off the TV to watch them. The disks sat there for a long time, often two weeks or more. Then I went into my queue and started changing the Blu-Ray entries to DVD so that I could get them and watch them quicker without waiting for Blu-Ray. I noticed that I was changing all the films in my queue from Blu-ray to DVD because of something on Blu-Ray that I didn’t want to send back without watching. I thought to myself, why am I paying higher fees for Blu-Ray when everything I’m ordering is on standard DVD, so I switched my account back to normal. I also noticed that a lot of the “short wait, long wait, and very long waits” were Available NOW in standard DVD.

Hmm. I realize that I love the flexibility of DVD even though the quality is not quite as great. I enjoy the content not the quality so much. I think any DVD that I felt strongly enough to purchase would be a Blu-Ray, but I’m a renter. (I have an unopened copy of Toy Story 3 in front of me on Blu-Ray), but as a renter I love the flexibility of popping it in my laptop and watching it while I’m paying bills or cooking dinner or just relaxing in the backyard. (If I had a newer laptop with Blu-Ray that might be different, hunh?)

You may have noticed a link to Amazon on every review page. I generally choose the Blu-Ray version of the film for the link to Amazon because I feel that if I wanted a movie enough to purchase it, I would definitely want Blu-Ray. If you read a review on EdsReview and absolutely want to buy a copy (maybe to see those stupid special features that they don’t give us on the rental copies anymore 🙁 ), I think the Blu-Ray is the best way to go. If you want to purchase a standard version of the DVD (or anything else at all from Amazon) it’s easy to get to from the DVD link for the Blu-Ray edition, and we appreciate you using our link! I’d like to hear from you. If you’d rather I put the standard DVD link (or both the standard and Blu-Ray links) let me know and I can modify the procedure. As it is, I try to put the best deal for the best video in the link as the default. Let me know if you’d like me to change it. And for those who have clicked the link and shopped Amazon, thanks!

Happy Viewing! –Ed

Warner Bros. Pictures, Sunswept Entertainment, De Line Pictures

Dan Akroyd, Justin Timberlake, Anna Faris, Tom Cavanaugh, T.J. Miller, Nathan Corddry, Andrew Daly, Josh Robert Thompson

Good old Jellystone Park is celebrating it’s 100th Anniversary, but things are not looking good. Attendance is down, and the park cannot cover it’s budget. Plus Mayor Brown (Andrew Daly) is planning a run for Governor, and needs to make money fast, and the logging companies have had their eyes on Jellystone for quite a while. Rachel (Anna Faris) is a budding filmmaker who wants to shoot a documentary about Yogi (Akroyd) and Boo-Boo (Timberlake), and we know Yogi is “smarter than the average bear”! As one last gasp, Rangers Smith (Tom Cavanagh) and Jones (T.J.Miller) make a last ditch effort to save the park by having a 100th anniversary extravaganza complete with water show and fireworks. We know that’s not going to turn out well with a little “help” from Yogi.

Ah, man, what a way to relive my childhood with Yogi and Boo-Boo. This is a fantastic nostalgia piece for those of us lucky enough to have been raised on Yogi, Boo-Boo, Quick Draw McGraw, Huckleberry Hound, Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy and the rest of the Hanna Barbera gang. This is a fanciful story with CGI Bears and Turtles and live action that looks and feels like a cartoon! What an excellent job of casting for Ranger Smith, Ranger Jones, and especially Mayor Brown and his “Yes Man” (Nathan Corddry). These folks are all great fun. It’s wonderful to see Anna Faris, a fine little comedienne, in something completely non-raunchy for a change. I loved this movie! I got to watch this all by myself in the front section of the theater with a free popcorn and a diet coke with my 3D glasses on! At the same time, I got to complete my AMC “Celebrate the Season with Us” promotion and got my $10.00 gift card from AMC. What a fine day! Imagine the glee when the first thing that pops up after the 27 previews and the “Turn off your cell phone, stupid” message, was a Road Runner/Wile E Coyote cartoon! Yep, a cartoon with a Segway theme where we’re not sure who the real villain is, the roadrunner, the train, truck, bus, car, that runs over him, or gravity itself! Or could it be the Segways were really out to get this poor guy? Wile E Coyote’s Segway stops on the tracks and he can’t get it going and he hears a train whistle, so he simply leaves it on the track and takes a step back to let the train pass. Atta-boy Wile E! I don’t have to tell you what happens next!

This was an excellent effort to bring Yogi into the 21st Century. Of course, most people won’t know Yogi from Adam, and it’ll probably lose money at the box office. View any movie reviews site to find the haters of this film, they’re everywhere. But please allow me to say, I enjoyed it immensely and thanks again for the cartoon up front. It’s easy to feel nostalgic for the old days, and somehow think the technology that was used in 1961 was better than today’s technology, but it wasn’t. TV Animations folks at H-B made cartoons that way because they had to. If they had the money and technology to make Yogi look like this back then, they certainly would have. Audiophiles find newer noise canceled recording of old songs. Not everyone listens to 78 RPM records on non electric wind up record players. The historical stuff is important to remember, but if it was better, P. Diddy would be dropping his latest found artist’s record on vinyl 78’s. But OK. I agree not to overdo it. I’m not quite ready for CGI Snagglepuss yet.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Note: For film buffs, a little bit of movie Trivia. Novelty Record King Sheb Wooley (and his alter ego country singer Ben Colder), best noted for “Flying Purple People Eater” used to be famous for dying in films among his other talents. Mostly he just did the sound effects. Legend has it that he recorded a scream for the 1951 Warner Bros. film Distant Drums for when a man got pulled under by an alligator in the everglades. This bit of audio was stored in the vault and was pulled out for one of the Star Wars films and became known as the “Wilhelm Scream”. Since then it has been used in over 150 films. It is an inside joke by sound men to include a Wilhelm Scream in your soundtrack. Yogi Bear has a Wilhelm Scream in it when a pine cone falls from a tree and hits Yogi in the eye. For more on the Wilhelm Scream just google it!

Columbia Pictures, Relativity Media, Di Bonaventura Pictures

Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, hiwetel Ejiofor, Daniel Olbrychski, August Diehl, Daniel Pearce, Hunt Block, Andre Braugher

Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) is a CIA agent and highly respected by all, including her boss, Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber). Out of nowhere, a Russian spy walks into the CIA office and claims that the President of Russia will be assassinated during his visit to the U.S. to attend a funeral of the recently deceased U.S. Vice President. He names the assassin as Evelyn Salt. Evelyn is concerned about the safety of her husband, who seems to be missing and she goes on the run. Ted does not believe she is a traitor or a double agent but the more she runs the more it raises doubts about her.

This DVD contains 3 versions, the original theatrical version, an unrated directors cut, and an unrated extended edition. I watched the extended edition. It certainly is a wild ride. Evelyn is unreadable. We learn a lot about her childhood, how her parents were killed in the USSR when she was a child and how she was raised to be a Russian plant and sent back to the US. After that’s its fuzzy. We’re not sure who she is or who she’s working for. It seems she’s working for everyone and nobody but herself at the same time. Angelina did a very good job as a spy, she was a good fit for the role. Liev Schreiber is also very good in his role. Salt is a bad ass. She’s harder to kill than James Bond. It’s a pretty good spy thriller and an adventure packed car crash frenzy that is spectacular, but you really have to pay attention to know what’s going on and to follow the twists and turns we make. It was a popular film, and reasonably so, but at the same time, some people may just get lost and not care about it. But if you like spy thrillers, and can pay attention to what’s going on, this is a really good film.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog