Ed's Review Dot Com

Greentrees Films, Sun-Lite Pictures (II), Trimark Pictures

Mariel Hemingway, Mike Binder, Renée Humphrey, Taylor Nichols, Missy Crider, Christopher Lawford, Joanna Heimbold, Kevin Pollak, Stephen Baldwin, Anita Barone

Marty (Mike Binder) is a building contractor who is working on a huge project, but looking for an investor to bring the project to fruition. But he’s a bit concerned that things in the bedroom is getting a bit boring. When he hears a story about one of the hot ladies in the office and her “experimentation” he becomes obsessed with the idea of having a three some with his wife and another woman. He tries to convince her that it would be a big improvement to their lives. But sometimes when you open Pandora’s box, you can’t close it again, and before he knows it, his wife has turned into a “Sex Monster” who seduces or is seduced by nearly every woman in sight. This, it turns out, makes Marty pretty sad, as he is unable to keep up.

This is one of those little hidden gems, that is available on NetFlix “Watch Instantly” and through a lot of other “free” or very low cost sources. It’s from 1999, but it sounded kind of unique, and I chose it probably due to the primary actors, Mariel Hemmingway, and Mike Binder. They have both been in some very good films. This is a funny little romantic comedy had is very clever, but is not at all graphic. This one of those films that promotes the global concept that all Americans have sex fully clothed! 🙂

This film has some graphic language, hence the R rating, but visually it is pretty much PG-13. That’s good because the actors are pretty good, and the story is really funny. Mike Binder plays the Alfalfa type guy as good as any, with the idea of trying to do the right thing, but nothing ever turns out the way he intended it. Right until the last scene where he’s still trying to pitch his idea in a ridiculous situation! It’s a very funny ending to a funny film. Stephen Baldwin is here too in a very small dose, which is a benefit. Too much Stephen has wrecked a lot of films! 🙂

There is nothing epic here, nor is it more than a funny little rom-com, but it’s humor is on target. There are some really funny situations that happen one after another, so it’s always tickling your funny bone. It’s an enjoyable adult comedy.

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Regency Enterprises, New Regency Pictures, Contrafilm,

Anna Faris, Chris Evans, Ari Graynor, Blythe Danner, Ed Begley Jr., Joel McHale, Chris Pratt, Zachary Quinto, Andy Samberg, Thomas Lennon

Ally Darling (Anna Faris) is a “twenty-something” who reads an article about the average number of sexual partners and she realizes that she has a lot of ex-boyfriends that all turned out to be losers. She feels like there must be a Mr. Right in there somewhere if she just looks closer, so she takes a vow to not sleep with any other partners and to find her soul mate among her exes. But when she finds it hard to find them, she recruits her neighbor, Colin Shea (Chris Evens) to help her locate them by offering him permission to user her apartment to hide out. He has a new girl every night, but likes to sneak out in the morning to avoid talking to them.

This is a clever romantic comedy. It’s not extremely original, as most of the jokes in here have been used before, but it is upbeat and pretty funny most of the time. Chis Evans’ character is quite interesting. He’s a nice guy living a life that isn’t fulfilling because he doesn’t seem to know any better. Anna Faris is typical Anna Faris. She is flaky and scatterbrained as she always is. But there’s some character of desperation here, and disappointment, that makes it a decent story. There’s some really good chuckles here, and this film is well worth it if you’re in the mood for a simple romantic-comedy to kill some time. After you get to know the Darling family, you’ll see why Ally turned out the way she did! 🙂 Life can be a challenge sometimes. Let’s hope Ally finds the right Mr. Right after all.

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Overbrook Entertainment, Robert Simonds Company, The, Robert Simonds Productions,

Reese Witherspoon, Chris Pine, Tom Hardy, Til Schweiger, Angela Bassett, Chelsea Handler, Laura Vandervoort, Rosemary Harris, Warren Christie, Natassia Malthe, Abigail Spencer, George Touliatos, Leela Savasta, Clint Carleton, John Paul Ruttan

Two CIA agents are best buds. They are not your regular desk jockey CIA guys, these are the front lines, secret assassin type CIA agents, but they’re in a bit of a jam, as their last job didn’t go quite as quietly as it was supposed to, so now FDR (Chris Pine) and Tuck (Tom Hardy) are riding a desk and bored out of their minds. But when they both meet stunning product tester Lauren (Reese Witherspoon) who is tired of being alone and looking for Mr. Right, they decide to make a gentleman’s agreement, and let her decide. But both want to win, and pull all the resources of the agency to get any advantage on the other.

This spring’s romantic comedy is heavily sided toward the comedy side. It’s really got some funny situations in it. They also are involved in some heavy action scenes. Let’s face it, this is not a groundbreaking film, as this has been done over and over again, but this one is very fresh on the gimmicks. When you see FDR’s apartment, you’re going to see something that I’m sure you’ll want for yourself for the rest of your natural life! The action is lighthearted and is more humorous than suspenseful, but it is enough decent action car-chases and smash-up, with stunts to please the guy you’re going to drag to see this. So the good news is that Reese is so darn cute, and with Chelsea Handler as Trish, her mentor, you know she’s bound to get some really BAD advice.

So it’s got plenty of girl stuff with the guys competing for her, and Reese having to pick the one she really wants. At the same time, it’s got lots of guy stuff too. So if you’re looking for something that both the guys and girls can watch together, this is pretty good at it. This could be a date night movie, for sure. Not bad at all. Like I said, nothing groundbreaking, but a nice light film that you can watch together.

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Angel & Bear Productions, Capitol Motion Pictures, 8th Wonder Entertainment,

Kip Pardue, James Brolin, Napakpapha Nakprasitte, Spencer Garrett, Kalorin Supaluck Neemayothin, Laura Sorenson, Akara Amarttayakul, Pakkaramai Potranan

Brian Chandler (Kip Pardue) is an employee of a coffee company. His boss, Calvert Jenkins (James Brolin) sends him to Thailand to look for a great new brand of coffee, but for more than just a supplier, but to investigate the possibility of investing in the company and building a plant there. Brian is engaged, but finds himself attracted to the daughter of the family from the coffee plantation who is an executive in her own right, Ticha (Napakpapha Nakprasitte). But when Brian finds out his boss is not serious, and just playing with him, he has to re-evaluate his whole life.

This is a cute romantic film, about love and business. One of the greatest features of this film, is that it’s like a foreign film, and an American film all in one. All of the actors in Thai are locals, and much of the film is on location in Thailand. Much of the dialog is in the Thai language with English subtitles. So it give so much insight into life and love, and business in Thailand. And the scenery is beautiful. The actors are fresh and convincing, and it’s a really good little film. It’s interesting all the way through, and the relationships between everyone keeps the story moving forward, but the best part is the experience of being in such a strange land and what we learn from the culture there. This is one of those quirky films, way out of the mainstream, that was a pleasure to watch. Available as an instant download on NetFlix, it’s easy to access, and well worth the time enjoying this Bitter/Sweet story. Just watch for the title. The year is 2009 and there is a slash (/) between Bitter and Sweet. There are a lot of other titles that are very similar, so it’s hard to find the right one.

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Summit Entertainment, Sunswept Entertainment, TSBD Canada Productions,

Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Peter Facinelli, Ashley Greene, Kellan Lutz, Jackson Rathbone, Elizabeth Reaser, Nikki Reed, Billy Burke, Maggie Grace, Jamie Campbell Bower, Michael Sheen, Anna Kendrick

Bella (Kristin Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) get married, and take off to a private island where the Cullins family has a resort, vacation home. Bella becomes pregnant, but immediately the baby is bad for her, as she is still human. This also alerts the Quileutes of the danger this baby is to them. They set out to destroy this baby and possibly the whole town of Forks.

Ok. Here I go making enemies of all the die hard Twilight fans. I’ve never read the books, and I’m not invested in the story where it rules my life. I have stayed up with the tale since the beginning, but I’m not one of those who camps out for 3 days outside the theater to be the first in line to see the movie, obviously, since I waited till it was out on DVD. I truly feel the films have been getting weaker and weaker as the series moves on, and this one was rather pathetic as adventure movies go. There is nothing happening here that makes much sense. Bella gets pregnant, as a human, by a vampire. Now, according to the story, this is supposed to be impossible. Well I guess so. Vampires are dead. They’re cold, and they have no heartbeat, and I guess no blood or other bodily fluids, yet she’s able to get pregnant. Then, of course, because of the superhuman powers of the vampire, a perfectly looking human baby is fully developed and born in one month, cutting the standard time of gestation 9 times. Now this is a fantasy, so we have to suspend the normal laws of science, I understand. There really aren’t sparkly people. But if we do that, then how are we supposed to get involved in the drama of the difficulties of this miraculous pregnancy anyway? And there’s not much action here either. Yeah, the Wolf people are a bit ticked off, but nothing really happens. Besides, as tough as the wolves are, it’s hard to believe that they’re much of a threat to vampire people with ultra human strength (If a wolf tries to bite you, you’re not going to bleed, and you can just thrown them into the next county! And if all else fails, you climb the highest tree in five tenths of a second anyway, and wolves don’t climb trees. All in all I found this to be by far the weakest story of all, and though I know many people are truly invested in the beautiful wedding and love story between Bella and Edward, I didn’t find that worthy enough of a huge blockbuster film like this.

I guess that the film maker had a tough call, as they could probably have made the story better by compressing part one and part two into a single film and cutting out the fluff, but there are two major reasons not to do that. First, the Twi-hards are going to be extremely pissed off if they skip any of the canoodling between Edward and Bella as they’ve been waiting for that forever, and secondly, mega-$$$$$$$$$.

Then another thing I just didn’t get? What was with the horrible music in the soundtrack? I made the mistake of turning on captioning, so I got to see the words to these strange pieces of music. What they hell was that?

For example, this is the lovely lyrics to the beautiful wedding scene:

I was a quick wet boy, diving too deep for coins
All of your street light eyes wide on my plastic toys
Then when the cops closed the fair, I cut my long baby hair
Stole me a dog-eared map and called for you everywhere

Have I found you
Flightless bird, jealous, weeping or lost you, american mouth
Big pill looming

[ From: http://www.metrolyrics.com/flightless-bird-american-mouth-lyrics-iron-wine.html ]
Now I’m a fat house cat
Nursing my sore blunt tongue
Watching the warm poison rats curl through the wide fence cracks
Pissing on magazine photos
Those fishing lures thrown in the cold
And clean blood of Christ mountain stream

Have I found you
Flightless bird, grounded, bleeding or lost you, american mouth
Big pill stuck going down

Now if I were getting married, this would certainly not be a prime choice for the wedding dance. 🙂

Some other great musical moments:
And if I was you
I’d use the loo
Before the long drive
We compliment each other
Just like Satan and Christ
I wear my hair fizzy
I don’t copy no style
Cause kissin and a scrubbin
Has consequences
You’re on the bus again
Past big ben
With your rip off oyster card
Tell your A.S.B.O. friend
To sling his hook and “go make your girl smile”

Then one last complaint, and then I’ll shut up. I was shocked at the closing credits. In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, one of the great jokes is how the people who created the credits have been sacked, and the people who were responsible for sacking the people who created the credit have also been sacked. What we’re left with is crappy put together credits that look like any 5 year old could have put them together. This is what the closing credits looked like to me. It was like they spent 3 dollars on creating these red and yellow text flash cards. It was like one of the old 1960’s spaghetti western credits which were done in English to overlay the original Italian credits or something. I thought it really weird.

So basically I’m going to stop and open the gates for the people who love Twilight to attack me for not getting this, and I probably deserve it, but I have to admit that I was really sorely disappointed after watching the last two Potter films to see this as the end of Twilight. I could have skipped it and not missed anything worthwhile. Sorry.

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