Eva Longoria

Dora and the Lost City of Gold

  • Title: Dora and the Lost City of Gold
  • IMDb: link

Dora and the Lost City of Gold movie reviewI wasn’t expecting too much from a live-action adaptation of Dora the Explorer, but I will admit that I was pleasantly surprised by what I found in Dora and the Lost City of Gold. Far from perfect, the film does have charm and enough brains to both celebrate and poke fun at the educational animated series which spawned it by having Dora (Isabela Moner) raised by her parents (Michael Peña and Eva Longoria) in the jungle helping to explain her quirks (such as talking to her backpack or making up songs about the most mundane things). Although ultimately not as successful, it’s tone and humor reminded me of 2007’s Nancy Drew.

In Moner the film’s producers chose wisely. She’s just sweet, honest, and precocious enough to make us buy this version of Dora who is forced to leave the jungle and stay with family while her parents go off on their latest adventure in search of a lost city. The film offers not one but two fish-out-of-water plots as happy-go-lucky Dora struggles in the city to fit in before she, her cousin Diego (Jeff Wahlberg), and two new friends (Madeleine Madden and Nicholas Coombe) are kidnapped back to the jungle by treasure hunters seeking the lost city.

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This Movie is So Bad…

  • Title: Over Her Dead Body
  • IMDB: link

“She was crushed by an angel, and, as sad as I am, I do appreciate the irony.”

Over Her Dead BodyHow bad is it?  The plot involves a psychic (Lake Bell) who lies to win the heart of a widower (Paul Rudd).  And she’s the nice one!

How bad is it?  The story begins with an annoying woman (Eva Longoria Parker) getting killed at her own wedding by a falling ice sculpture.  The funny part?  The ice sculpture might be an angel?  Yeah, didn’t sound funny to me either.

How bad is it?  The plot follows the brain-dead formula of your average romcom with forced craziness, cutesy dating, misunderstanding, and a lame resolution.  All performed with minimal effort and talent.

How bad is it?  Lindsay Sloane stars as Henry’s (Rudd) kleptomaniac pushy little sister whose antics we are supposed to find cute.

How bad is it?  The ghost of the dead woman decides to haunt the psychic to make sure her former fiance lives out eternity alone and hopeless because, wait for it, she loves him so much.

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Harsh Times at the Theater

  • Title: Harsh Times
  • IMDb: link

Imagine if Cheech and Chong cruised around South Central L.A. and Mexico, and one of them was a psychotic Rambo wannabe.  That’s the basic premise, actually the entire plot, of Harsh Times.  These characters have made each of their lives into a long, boring, pointless mess…kinda’ like this film.

Jim (Christian Bale) is an award winning screw-up and psycho.  He spends his days getting high and drunk with his friends in South Central L.A.  Despite his nature, his constant need for violence and total disregard for the law, and severe post-traumatic shock from his time as a soldier in Iraq, Jim wants to be a cop or maybe a Fed.

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The Sentinel

  • Title: The Sentinel
  • IMDb: link

Remember when it seemed like every other film was about the President of the United States?  What happened to that trend? Oh yeah, Clinton left office.  It’s telling when the only time Hollywood looks to the White House for material it’s either damning (see American Dreamz) or focusing on the underlings who make things run.  One would think that In the Line of Fire closed the book on Secret Service films, but apparently that was not to be.  Are we better off for having reopened the veiled windows of what goes on with the President’s bodyguards once more?  Let’s find out, shall we?

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