1.5 Razors

The Women

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Women
  • IMDB: link

“The spritzer girl?!”

For ten years Diane Enlgish has been trying to get this remake of the 1939 film off the ground.  Maybe she should have waited another decade or two.  Here’s a chick flick’s chick flick (with nary a man to be seen).  Despite having talent to spare there’s very little sign of life as the film comes in D.O.A.

The movie centers around do-it-all gal Mary Haines (Meg Ryan) who has time to work for numerous charities, raise her daughter (India Ennenga), and hang out with her best friends (Annette Bening, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett Smith), but is the last to discover that her husband is having an affair with a “spritzer girl” (Eva Mendes).

From here the film follows the drama of Mary’s struggle to come to terms with the situation mixed in with “humorous” moments.  Sadly however, aside from a short initial appearance by Candice Bergan as Mary’s mother, the film shows almost no signs of life whatsoever.

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My Other Best Friend’s Wedding

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Made of Honor
  • IMDB: link

“I want you to be my maid of honor.”
 
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After realizing he loves his best friend, Tom (Patrick Dempsey) decides to pledge his love.  The only trouble is Hannah (Michelle Monaghan) has just gotten engaged to a Scottish noble (Kevin McKidd) and has asked Tom to be her maid of honor.  Of course he accepts (leading to mayhem) and tries to win her for himself (leading to mischief).

What follows is exactly what you’d expect.  Tom struggles with his duties as maid of honor and his inability to stop the wedding and tell Hannah his true feelings.

Although the film isn’t awful, it lacks any spark or reason for us to care about these people.  Hannah doesn’t seem better off with Tom or Colin than she would be on her own.  And Tom’s sudden need to express his feelings reeks more of desperation than true love.

Monaghan and Dempsey are fine in the leads, but they come off more as good friends than characters who the audience should be rooting to get together.

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Deception

/ / Movie Reviews
  • 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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Wake Up!

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Sleepwalking
  • IMDB: link

“I’m pretending not to hate my life.”
 

sleepwalking-poster

Joleen (Charlize Theron) is a mess.  She can’t raise her daughter Tara (AnnaSophia Robb) and has just been evicted.  Unable to deal with the harsh realities of her life, she pawns off her daughter on her only slightly more stable brother James (Nick Stahl), and takes off (for most of the film’s running time), without saying goodbye, with promises to return after she hits it big.

Trouble is James is almost as big a screw-up as his sister and promptly loses both his apartment and his job.  Tara is shipped off to Social Services and James goes off to live in a friend’s (Woody Harrelson) basement.

By this point your obviously wondering what the point of the film is.  I was too.  In fact after watching the entire thing I’m still unsure.

Unable to abandon Tara as her mother did James kidnaps her and takes her on a road trip back home to the farm where he and Joleen were raised.  There Tara meets her grandfather (Dennis Hopper) who, let’s just say doesn’t stand a good chance at winning grandfather of the year.

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Sydney White on DVD

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Sydney White
  • IMDB: link

“Does anyone know another word for douchebagery?  I don’t want to repeat it a third time.”

sydney-white-dvdAmanda Bynes stars as a Sydney White, a girl raised by her plumber father (John Schneider) who goes away to college and has a hard time fitting in as she pledges her mother’s sorority.  The movie follows a basic structure of Snow White with the young girl fighting off a witch (Sara Paxton), meeting a Prince (Matt Long), and eventually moving in with seven odd fellows.  For more on the basic plot of the film check out the original review.

You sort of want to like Sydney White.  It’s filled with nice people, it’s sweet and goofy, but it’s as appetizing as a year-old rice cake.  If you are a 7 to 13 year-old girl you might find some fun here.  From script to DVD Sydney White comes off as a cute girl trying to get through life on her looks alone and unwilling to put in anything more than the bare minimum token effort on anything else.

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