Movie #25 – Oldboy (Candice’s Review)

A great movie with a great twist despite the fact it’s a foreign film.  We watched the first scene dubbed in English and it was terrible!  I recommend turning the settings to Korean and just having English subtitles.  Once we did that it was much better, and I’m not even a fan of subtitles.  A couple times the cheesy 70’s porno-like music distracted me from what was going on but overall I was able to stay focused and keep up with it.  In fact, I was paying attention so well, I had to explain a couple things to Ryan!  This is unusual as he is typically the one who catches all the subtleties.  Oh-Dae-Su is kidnapped one drunken night, and imprisoned for 15 years with no clue as to why.  During his imprisonment he is gassed, hypnotized, and given sodium barbiturate at regular intervals.  One day, he wakes up to find he’s free, wearing a suit, given money and a cell phone.  He meets a young woman, Mi-do, who takes pity on him and his situation, and joins him in the journey to find out who his captor was and why he was imprisoned.  As the story went on, I became more and more interested at how this was going to play out.  The twist at the end threw me completely by surprise, and in fact, made me enjoy the movie even more because of it’s unexpectedness.  This is a good example of how my boyfriend and this movie project have expanded my tastes.

Movie #24 – Ed Wood (Candice’s Review)

I was excited to see this movie, I love Johnny Depp and I have never seen Sarah Jessica Parker in any other movies aside from Sex and the City.  Sigh…another disappointment…  This makes 3 movies in a row that have failed to keep me interested or even keep me awake!!  Yes, I did fall asleep about an hour into it.  However, since I did watch the first hour, I feel I can adequately review this movie and therefore say it sucks.  It was in black and white, it was weird and the plot jumped around a lot.  I looked it up and this movie has gotten a lot of good reviews, but I guess I’ll always be a sucker for cheap laughs and over-the-top action shots.  Only 2 bolts for this one.

Movie #23 – For Your Consideration (Candice’s Review)

Unfortunately, my review is going to be short.  Here it is:  It was boring, so I fell asleep.  It wasn’t funny, which helped put me to sleep.  That about covers it.  I enjoyed my nap far more than I think I would’ve enjoyed that movie.

Movie #22 – Grindhouse: Planet Terror (Candice’s Review)

Of course, one would assume from the title that this movie was NOT my pick, and that assumption would be CORRECT.  Ugh…where do I begin…  So there’s this nerve gas that gets out in the air and turns humans into…wait for it….flesh-eating zombies!!  Oh the horror!!!!!  Of course, there are some people that are strangely immune to the gas, therefore they must band together to not only save themselves, but save the world!  (If you haven’t noticed my sarcasm yet, keep reading.)  Thankfully, those included in this group of heroes includes a stripper named Cherry Darling, her ex-boyfriend mechanic named Wray, and the local sheriff that is obsessed with the perfect BBQ recipe.  In case you’re worried they don’t have a hide-out to stay in while the sheriff makes them all deputies and while they plan their attack, they do.  It’s in a local restaurant called the “Bone Shack”.  How fitting.  I was on the edge of my seat when I thought Cherry was dead but then found out she was alive but just missing a leg…  OH NO!  How will she escape the zombies with only one leg?  I was able to stop panicking when, thankfully, Wray came up with the plan to attach a table leg for her to hobble on, and then a machine gun leg for later on…when she’s riding on the back of a motorcycle so she can stick her leg out and shoot all the zombies trying to follow them.  If you’ve ever wanted to see a guy’s testicles sag to the ground and then get melted off, this is the movie for you!!  As for me, one bolt oughta do it.

Movie #21 – An Affair To Remember (Candice’s Review)

This is an older movie, from 1957 starring Cary Grant.  I’ve thrown a few old movies (“classics”) into my list, to Ryan’s dismay (little does he know this isn’t even the oldest of my picks).  I have to admit, I was a little disappointed when we read the back cover, and description sounded painfully familiar to “Before Sunrise”, which was one of my picks earlier.  However, while the overall plot was the same, I felt the movie was SO much better than “Before Sunrise”.  Cary Grant is, indeed, an attractive gentleman and I can see why all the ladies swooned after him back in the day.  And hey – the movie had a redhead…which everybody knows is all that’s needed to make a good movie.  I needed a tissue at the end and I said, “Awwww…”, so I’m giving this movie 4 bolts.

Movie #20 – Zack and Miri Make a Porno (Candice’s Review)

This movie is not for anyone prudish!  Chalk-full of sex jokes, sex scenes, and sexual phrases I hadn’t heard of before (Dutch Rudder), I would say I thought this movie was OK.  It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t gut-busting hilarious either.  Zach and Miri are friends/roommates that are in some serious financial distress.  In order to solve their money problems, (and get their water and power turned back on), they decide to make a porno staring themselves and a small group of misfits willing to bare it all for the camera.    In making the porno, Zack and Miri find they have more feelings for each other than they thought and thus begins the “romantic comedy” portion of the plot.  The ending was funny, though predictable (except for the full frontal male nudity…wasn’t expecting that).  Overall, not bad, but not a movie I feel compelled to buy.

Movie #19 – Darkman (Candice’s Review)

Quite frankly, this was a silly movie.  Liam Neeson stars as a scientist who is trying to make synthetic skin, only….the skin won’t stay intact for more than 99 minutes.  Oh no!!  He gets attached by the local gangsters, his lab burned to a crisp, and is left for dead.  Of course he lives, finds an abandoned warehouse, somehow magically finds all the equipment needed to start making the skin again, and uses this synthetic skin on his own body to exact his revenge on the men who have now made his life miserable.  That is…only for 99 minutes at a time.  Then he runs away screaming like a girl and covering his face.  He tortures the girl he’s dating by having her think he’s dead and attending his funeral, then reappearing with his face perfectly intact but only to spend 99 minutes at a time with her, and then in the end telling her ‘nevermind’, I’m going to become “Darkman”.  Silly movie, silly acting, silly plot.

Movie #18 – Slumdog Millionaire (Candice’s Review)

I had heard this movie won an award or two, but as I don’t usually watch award shows and I am often out-of-touch with the movie world, I am embarrassed to say I didn’t have a single clue what this film was about.  From the title, I assumed I would be watching a movie about gangsters in some inner city area of Chicago or a similar location.  While I was half right about there being gangsters, I was overall entirely wrong in my assumption about the movie.  A teenager from Mumbai becomes a contestant on India ’s version of “Who Wants To Be A Millionare?”.  He continues to get question after question correct, raising suspicion from the local police and the show host.  After being tortured to try and reveal his cheating secrets, he discloses how he knew every answer.  Jamal grew up in the slums of Mumbai, orphaned as a little boy with his brother and a little girl named Latika.  Over the years he and his brother share adventures and travels that shape each of their lives in very different ways.  Through each question that is asked to him on the game show, he is able to summon from his memory an encounter or undertaking in his unrelenting youth that supplied each correct answer, astonishing all of India that this “slumdog” could be so smart.  All the while, each memory shows his determination to reunite with Latika, the girl he’s grown to love.  This film completely surpassed my expectations, and I am happy to declare that it gets my first 5-bolt rating.

Movie #17 – eXistenZ (Candice’s Review)

When Ryan was allowed 20 sci-fi and/or horror films for this movie project of ours, THIS was the sci-fi I was envisioning.  Complete with gameports inserted into your spine, living game pods made from animal parts and have the appearance of white Silly Putty, organic guns that shoot human teeth at a deadly speed, and a “trout farm” with mutated amphibians for your eating pleasure.  When it comes to the quality of filming, Ryan summed it up best as I snickered at a five second close-up of a woman’s hand creepily feeling up cement – “It looks like it was filmed by high schoolers!”  He’s absolutely right.  The characters, the filming, the plot – it was all very amateur and uninteresting.  Only one lightening bolt for this movie, which sucked an hour and a half of my night away.  Kicking Ryan’s butt at Rummy would have been a more preferable way to spend my time.

Movie #15 – The King of Kong (Candice’s Review)

I was skeptical before watching this movie.  I mean, come on – a documentary about beating the world record of Donkey Kong?!?  Seriously?  After Ryan’s last train wreck, The Aristocrats, I prepared myself for a massive yawn-fest once again.  Here’s the surprise of the century – I LIKED IT!!!  It was engaging, it was funny, it even provoked feelings of sadness and anger in me.  I know, we’re talking about Donkey Kong here.  This film was produced with a superhero plot to it.  Classic good guy vs. bad guy.  You’ll love to hate the bad guy – a long haired weasel of a guy who makes hot sauce for a living and loves to talk about himself.  He’s got dirty tricks up his sleeve and nonsense coming out of his mouth.  Our good guy is a likeable science teacher with kids and a down-to-earth wife.  He’s not in it for the glory, but it’s simply something he enjoys to do.  He ends up beating the bad guy’s score (the first time), while you hear his little boy in the background telling his dad he needs help wiping his butt.  Am I tugging at your heart strings yet?  But alas, as with all superhero movies, there’s always a twist.  The judges are corrupt!  Of course.  So it’s up to our good guy to prove his skills to the game playing world, repair his soiled reputation, and somehow still have time to be a decent husband and father.  Along the journey, you’ll meet some interesting people that had to have come from the lands of Nerdom and Dorkshire.  I recommended this movie to my coworkers and I got a few eye rolls, but hey, I did the same thing at first.  Just try it.  You’ll like it.