Dinner for Schmucks is a comedy starring Paul Rudd and Steve Carell.  It is about a man climbing the corporate ladder and his chance encounter with a man who dresses and arranges stuffed dead mice portraying famous scenes.

This movie was cliché-filled waste of time.  A schmuck is the left over skin after a circumcision, and that is exactly what this movie is.  It is the left over skin cut from a much funnier penis of a film.  I may have laughed once the entire film.  It was so boring and overdone.  I did not enjoy Carell as the torturer nor did I enjoy Rudd as the victim.  Old jokes that weren’t funny the first time usually aren’t going to be funny the next go around.  Tired.

“You may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not.”

3/10

Bridget Jones’s Diary is an English romantic comedy starring Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth, and Hugh Grant.  Bridget’s life is an unhappy mess and she is resolved to turn things around fo herself.  Unfortunately, for every step she takes forward, circumstances knock her back one or two.

This was an entertaining movie.  I have no idea how Renee Zellweger was cast in this role, but she pulls it off.  I can’t stand her serious stuff, but she does pretty well in comedies.  As far as romantic comedies goes, this is not bad.  I really dread watching things from this genre because it is so full of trash and this one certainly had annoying and cheesy pieces, but it also had some witty and clever comedy.  It wasn’t much, and it doesn‘t stray far from the formulas, but it was much more than I expected it to be.

“It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that when one part of your life starts going okay, another falls spectacularly to pieces.”

5/10

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a Woody Allen movie about relationships.  Vicky and Cristina are visiting Barcelona for the summer where their opposite views on love and dating come to the forefront.

This movie really did not do anything for me.  The American characters are ridiculously flat and uninteresting.  The Spanish duo at least has passion, but is also flat.  The dialogue was unentertaining and bored.  I agreed with the viewpoint of love projected through Juan Antonio but that was all I had out of this one.  The characters were all so stereotypical and it was very aggravating.  Their were some interesting points of dialogue, but the film was too cliché-ridden.  Riding classic bikes in Europe, what a novel idea!  Type A’s are stiff as a board and uncomfortable with their own sexuality.  Type B’s are well, sluts.  Luckily, there were tiny bits of good acting and writing to save this thing from completely bottoming out.

“She put a knife into me.”

4/10

The Invention of Lying is a Ricky Gervais film set in a world where everyone tells the truth every time.  One guy comes up with the idea of lying to try and better his life, but it ends up snowballing ridiculously as these things often do.

Not really that great of a movie.  I appreciated the dig on religion, but that was about the only thing I enjoyed from the movie as it was one cliché after another wrapped in a silly and repetitive formula.  I really can’t believe this movie was as popular as it was given its viewpoint on religion.  The premise was somewhat original but everything else was as old as dirt including, maybe the most tired movie cliché ever, a wedding halted at the altar.  Ricky Gervais is really hit or miss with me.  I think the British Office gives him the perfect stage for his comedic style, but outside of that, I tend to not like him.  The bad movie joke count was just too damn high for the movie to have a good impact.

“The world is going to end unless we have sex right now.”
“Do we have time to get to a motel?”

4/10

Welcome to the Dollhouse is a film by Todd Solonz.  It is about a socially awkward middle schooler who just can’t catch a break in any aspect of her life.

This movie was so-so.  It was not emotional enough to be dramatic and not funny enough to be an effective comedy.  It was just a middle of the road movie.  The costumes and sets were done well and had a good retro effect.  I liked how it showed us the bane of the middle child’s existence.  They are completely overlooked and misunderstood.  It felt to me that the movie lost a theme in its quirkiness and lack of story.

“You think you’re hot shit, but you’re really just cold diarrhea.”

5/10

Happy-Go-Lucky is a British film about the relationships of care free teacher who wants desperately for everyone to be as happy as she is.

I wasn’t really amused with this.  There were certainly funny parts, but I just felt the movie to be quite empty.  It made matters worse that the main character rubbed me the wrong way.  I liked her at the start but was glad to be done with her at the finish.  The other people in the film were just odd caricatures and had no depth at all.  Her relationship with the driving instructor was completely awkward and useless.  I think the movie was trying too hard to be cute and could have done with more realness or grit.

“Enraha” I still sometimes think of that when I drive.

4/10

I’m Still Here stars Joaquin Phoenix and is directed by Casey Affleck.  It is a film about a self-centered movie star that wants to pursue a hip-hop career.

This film was experimental to say the least.  Joaquin Phoenix was pretty damn fearless.  All the shots were set up around himself even though he is playing a character when he makes public appearances.  He basically dragged his own name around by as he became a really stupid character. I did not enjoy the movie despite chuckling several times and finding the awkwardness of several scenes intriguing.  The Diddy scene where he thinks JP is joking was pretty solid and I also liked the contrast at the end of the film where it shows us how far from nature we have strayed concluding with a Joaquin Phoenix baptism of sorts.  The movie as a whole, made me feel like Zach Galifianakis was being ripped off. .  It was beyond my understanding why the movie was done the way it was.  I just could not get a grasp for the main character.  It is obviously a middle finger to celebrity, but why did it have to be so low brow?  Because that sucked all of the pleasure out for me and I was left asking “Is it over yet?”.  That question ran through my head about a million times.

“Compli-fucking-cation, compli-fucking-cation, compli-fucking-cation, compli-fucking-cation, compli-motherfucking-cation, compli-fucking-cation, compli-motherfucking-cation, compli-motherfucking-cation, compli-fucking-cated.  It’s so fucking complicated that my mind can’t even say it.”

3/10

The Informant! is a film by Steven Soderbergh starring Matt Damon.  The movie was inspired by true events.  It is the story of a man with an enormous ego ratting out his own company.

There were some laughs in this one and it is just so unbelievable that this is an actual true story, but it was a little dull in too many spots.  Matt Damon did a fine job as a dimwitted Midwesterner.  Unfortunately, the movie took on the same theme.  Flat, boring, and expecting too much.  It is just not possible to get excited about anything in the movie, yet I was entertained with how a simple and boring guy could be so utterly deranged and egotistical.  Sad to say the preview outdid the work again with this one.

“I read this study in Time magazine when I was at Cornell, which is an Ivy League school, and there were people, including my mother, who never believed I would make it into an Ivy League school.”

4/10

The Breakfast Club is a Brat Pack film by John Hughes.  It centers around high school morning detention.  There are five students and each one is from their own clique within the school itself.

This movie was pretty average.  There were some overall positive messages, but the film came off as a little too cheesy, and much like morning detention, usually forced.  I thought it was silly that they paired up as they did.  It seemed unrealistic, but then again it may have been saying that you could leave any number of teenagers in a room long enough and pairs will undoubtedly emerge.  It happens in the TV series The Real World all the time right.  Their bonding was funny and I did appreciate weed being the catalyst for it all.  I did not like the film’s over the top styling and in your face after school special preaching.  It seemed to dampen what could have been dramatic.  I liked a lot of the commentary, but just did not care for the style.

“We’re all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that’s all.”

5/10

Zombieland is a comedy starring Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Abigail Breslin, and Emma Stone.  A zombie infestation occurs and a select few struggle to survive.

This movie started out pretty strong for me.  It felt like a fresh take on a classic story.  The filming seemed interesting and the story was quirky.  Unfortunately, the first fifteen minutes and the five minutes of Bill Murray were the only bits I liked.  It went from original to hackjob in about 3 seconds.  Jesse Eisenberg is one of my least favorite actors around.  In this movie, his Michael Cera wannabe shtick was terribly irritating.  I wish I had just turned it off after fifteen minutes.  Not enjoyable.

“Just played nine holes on the Riviera. Just walked on.”  That part had me laughing pretty well.

3/10