Movie Reviews

Baby Mama

  • Title: Baby Mama
  • IMDB: link

“I just don’t like your uterus.”

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Kate Holbrook (Tina Fey) is a career businesswoman and a Vice President of a successful line of health food stores.  Her life, however, is incomplete.

Informed by her doctor (John Hodgman) of her inability to conceive, and unable to wait for adoption, Kate decides to go in a different direction.  She enlists the help of Chaffe Bicknell (Sigourney Weaver) who offers the service of uniting women wanting children with surrogate mothers.

Kate shells out $100,000 and finds white trash Angie (Amy Poehler) and her deadbeat common law husband Carl (Dax Shepard) on her doorstep.  Angie agrees to carry Kate’s baby to term and before you can say shenanigans things get crazy.

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High On Laughs

  • Title: Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay
  • IMDB: link

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A movie as blissfully non-sensical as Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle isn’t the easiest act to follow up.  With random events like a raccoon attack, a cheetah ride and, what must be one of the greatest all-time film cameos, Neil Patrick Harris; White Castle was not just random but also one of the few comedies that is consistently funny.  Is it possible that a sequel could be just as random, clever and hilarious?  Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay is proof that yes, yes it is possible.

No one saw the first Harold & Kumar for its plot, and there’s not much of a reason to see the second one for its story either.  But the set-up for Guantanamo Bay goes like this: our heroes are flying to Amsterdam for pot and poon when the ever wise Kumar, too eager to wait a few more hours, decides to light up on the plane.  But when a passenger mistakes his bong for a bomb, Kumar and Roldy are sent to the controversial prison named in the film’s title as terrorists.  But despite what said title may infer, the two are only incarcerated for a few minutes before they miraculously escape and set out on a journey to have their names cleared.

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Deception

  • Title: Deception
  • IMDB: link

“Not lies Jonathan.  That was foreplay; now you’re fucked!”

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Jonathan McQuarry (Ewan McGregor) is an accountant.  Like all accountants in movies his life has no purpose outside his job, which involves auditing the books of large corporations.

At work one day Jonathan bumps into Wyatt Bose (Hugh Jackman) who strikes up a friendship with our guy.  Through an “accident” Jonathan finds himself lost in Wyatt’s world of an underground sex club known simply as The List.  He has anonymous sexual encounters with many women before falling for a one of the girls (Michelle Williams) who he once saw on the subway.

Here’s where things get dicey.  Wyatt, whose name isn’t Wyatt, kidnaps the young woman and forces Jonathan to steal money from the next company he is scheduled to audit.

The movie’s plot relies on coincidence and unlikely twists.  For Wyatt’s scam to work he has to be seen in the company Jonathan is auditing, talking with people, and never getting noticed as an intruder.  Good thing large companies don’t have security, right?

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‘Forgetting’ Funny But Flawed

  • Title: Forgetting Sarah Marshall
  • IMDB: link

I think the only thing more invincible than Judd Apatow’s reputation at this point is Jesus with a bazooka gun.  The er’ talked about mega-producer has put out the most important comedies of the last few years, with Talladega Nights and Superbad just barely scraping the surface of his résumé.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall, like its subject matter, is broken up.  Everything going on in front of the camera is light, funny and likable; but the shots being called behind it is just the opposite – artificial and irritating.  This lack of chemistry between the elements, despite being an enjoyable picture, drags it all down.

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The Forbidden Kingdom

  • Title: The Forbidden Kingdom
  • IMDb: link

“I’ll kill you witch!”
“Not if I kill you first orphan bitch!”

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Based on one of the four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, Journey to the West, this new adaptation tells the story of a Jason (Michael Angarano) a young boy from Boston who finds himself thrust into a magical world and charged with returning the golden staff to the Monkey King (Jet Li) thus freeing him from his stone prison and freeing the land from the tyranny of the man who turned him into a statue, the Jade Warlord (Collin Chou).

Along the way to seek the wizard, um, I mean Warlord, Jason encounters companions who journey with him to help him on his quest including a drunken master (Jackie Chan), a beautiful girl hell-bent on revenge (Yifei Liu), and a monk (Jet Li). Together this small band of rebels travels through forests and deserts across the yellow brick road to reach the fortress, take on the Jade Army, led by the Warlord’s assassin (Li Bing Bing), and defeat Cobra Kai, um, I mean release the Monkey King.

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