Love and Other Drugs

Movie: Love and Other Drugs
Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Oliver Platt, Hank Azaria, Judy Greer
Genre: Romantic comedy
I saw it on: November 25 and December 9, 2010
Synopsis: Jake Gyllenhaal plays an underachiever starting his new job as a pharmaceutical sales rep.  He falls in love with a 26-year-old girl (Anne Hathaway) suffering from Parkinson’s Disease. Oliver Platt as Jake's boss and Hank Azaria has an over-worked overly-horny doctor.  A side story deals with marketing a newly discovered drug called Viagra.

My Two Cents:
I have seen this movie twice now - once by myself and once with my movie group.  Livening up the mix is
I really enjoyed this movie.  There is a fair amount of nudity, but it is well done and not gratuitous.  I found the scenes that had nudity handled the displays of skin in a much more realistic fashion than most movies.  There are a lot of laughs and a lot of tender scenes between the two main characters.

The second time I saw this movie, I focused more on the performances.  I don't claim to know a lot about Parkinson's, but it sure seemed that Anne Hathaway did a great job of nailing her character's illness and the myriad of difficulties it presents.  There is a hilarious scene in which sufferers of Parkinson's make jokes of the symptoms of their disease and the.  The humor was mixed with some discomfort on my part when Irealize what they deal with on a day-to-day basis.

Bottom line - I really loved this movie and heartily recommend it.  I will be surprised if Anne Hathaway does not get an Oscar nomination for this.

Spike & Mike's Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation 2010

Movie: Spike & Mike's Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation 2010
I saw it on: December 6, 2010
Synopsis: A collection of animated shorts.

My two cents: Well, I said it takes a lot for me to actively dislike a movie - and this had enough.  I like to think I am pretty open-minded and don't shock too easily - but this collection of animated shorts was just too much.  There were a few gems, but most of them were just flat out disturbing, to be charitable.  I have to wonder about the minds behind some of these.  Even in Junior High, I like to think I had enough sophistication to find many of these to be more disgusting than amusing.  I am curious if "Spike and Mike" deliberately go after the most disgusting, gross and psychotic shorts - or if that is simply what is being produced.  I would be embarrassed to associate my name with most of these.

Bottom line: I know the title includes the words “Sick and Twisted”, so a reasonable question is “what did I expect?”.  My answer – not this twisted and not this sick.  Maybe there is some point to all this that I am missing, but I don't know a single person that I think would enjoy this film. 

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs 3D

Movie: Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs 3D

I saw it on: July 1, 2009

Voices:

Genres: animated comedy

Synopsis: The mammals from the previous “Ice Age” movies discover the scary world of dinosaurs.  Sid adopts some dinosaur eggs.

My two cents: Some interesting new characters are in this installment.  Some of the scenes are a bit intense for younger kids – for example, at one point a dinosaur tries to feed some of the mammals to her baby dinosaurs.  Some of the chase scenes might be a bit scary for children also.  That said, a friend took her 4-year-old grandson to see it and he loved it.

What saved this movie for me and made it worth seeing was the introduction of Scratte.. She is the  love interest of my old favorite, Scratte – the sabre-toothed squirrel.

I saw it in 3D, but I did not think the 3D effects were worth the extra money.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Movie: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

I saw it on: July 2, 2009

Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fix, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson John Turturro

Genres: Action, SciFi

Synopsis: This is the 2^nd Transformers installment.  Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf ) is off to college where he is soon drawn back into the Decepticon vs. Transformers and the rest of humanity.

My two cents: Shia always fun to watch.  The actions sequences were pretty good.  Here comes the big old BUT.

I had two major complaints:

1) The length of the movie.  They wasted a lot of time on stuff that did little or nothing to contribute to the movie.  The movie could easily have been edited down to under two hours without losing anything of significance.

2) Without giving away anything  – the ending was visually OK, but when the credits rolled; all I could thinks is “wait a minute, who made all this stuff” (you have to see it to know what I mean by “stuff”.  Virtually NOTHING is explained.  I am willing to take a lot of things on faith, but the movie makes almost no attempt to explain the ending – and who or what made the devices that made it possible to almost destroy, but then save, the world.  It would have been easier for me to accept if “Q” from Star Trek: The Next Generation had suddenly appeared as the power behind everything.  It was as if the screenplay writer had some ideas for some really great gimmicks – but just had them appear out of thin air and forgot to get around to explaining where they came from.  Without wanting to beat a dead horse . . . think of Harry Potter and his magic wand – but no one bothers to tell you that it is a magic wand or that Harry is a magician.  All you see is some guy pointing a stick and weird things happening.

The Hurt Locker

Movie: The Hurt Locker

I saw it on: July 12 and August 6, 2009

Cast: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Nrian Geraghty, Guy Pearce, Ralph Fiennes, David Morse, Evangeline Lilly

Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Genre: War Drama

Synopsis: In Iraq, the U.S. Army uses three-man teams as Emergency Ordinance Disposal units.  These units are called in whenever unexploded bombs are found.  One of them gets to do the actual disabling of the bomb while the others stand guard to keep civilians away – but also to watch for insurgents who might be trying to trigger the bomb.  Staff Sergeant Williams (Jeremy Renner) is the replacement disposal expert (with 700+ de-fused bombs to his credit) is brought in to replace a now-dead former team member.

The movie follows the unit for the last 39 days of its deployment.  To say that their job is stressful is like saying that Mount Everest is a big hill.  Defusing these bombs would be incredibly stressful by itself, but this guy has to war a full bomb suit – and it gets rather hot in Baghdad – and has to be constantly worrying about people running up and setting of the bomb he is working on.

My two cents: The only place I have seen Jeremy Renner was on the all-too-quickly-cancelled TV series The Unusuals.  I liked him in that and I really liked him in this movie.  His character is definitely the focus of the movie.  I was afraid that this was going to be an overly bloody  movie.  While there is violence and blood, I thought it was a reasonable amount and not over-done

I saw this movie twice and loved it both times.  I think that it is important for people to see movies like this every year or two to reinforce just what kind of hell our troops are living in over in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Regardless of your politics, this movie can’t help but give you some appreciation for the conditions our troops work in.  I am in awe that they are able to get through s single tour with their sanity intact, much less multiple tours of duty.

(500) Days of Summer

(500) Days of Summer

U.S. Release Date:

I saw it on:      July 19 and September 3, 2009

Cast: Zooey Deschanel, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Clark Gregg, Minka Kelly, Matthew Gray Gubler

Director: Marc Webb

Genres: Romantic Comedy, Comedy

Runtime:1 hr. 35 min.

Rating: PG-13 (sexual material and language)

Synopsis: Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), greeting-card writer and hopeless romantic, is caught completely off-guard when his girlfriend, Summer (Zooey Deschanel), suddenly dumps him. He reflects back on their 500 days together to try to figure out where their love affair went sour, and in so doing, Tom rediscovers his true passions in life.

My two cents: I absolutely loved this movie.  It was one of the funniest movies I have seen this year.  There is a production song and dance routine that is to die for.  And the ending of the movie was perfect.

Funny People

Movie: Funny People

I saw it on: August 1, 2009

Cast: Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann

Genres: Comedy Drama

Synopsis: Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen and Leslie Mann star in the story of a famous comedian who has a near-death experience... and what he does with a second chance. Director Judd Apatow addresses a question that hasn't before been touched with such trademark bluntness: If you had the chance to start all over again, would you be the same jerk you always were?

My two cents: I usually enjoy seeing comedians play dramatic roles.  I thought Adam Sandler was great in Spanglish.  While he was good in this, I did not enjoy it as much as Spanglish.