burlesque

yes, we're still playing catch up with our reviews, i apologize. next up: burlesque!

Ali (Christina Aguilera) is a small town girl with a big dream. she loves singing and dancing, and so she takes off for the big city (LA) too see if she can follow her dreams. she ends up at a bar/neo-burlesque club and is immediately mesmerized by the dancing. Tess (Cher) is the club owner, and Ali asks her how she can make it to the stage. Tess brushes her off, but Ali is determined.

does any of this sound familiar? cyote ugly, anyone? this movie is literally just a cyote ugly remake... from the apartment break-in/stolen money stash to the tricky boy interest.

i don't even have to worry about giving too much away, because you can all guess what the ending is going to be. Ali becomes a star, she gets the boy, and she saves the club from being lost to the bank.

this movie is...entertaining. it made us laugh a couple times, and its kind of fun to watch the dancing and to hear christina sing like she did in her glory days; but it isn't a movie i would buy or even watch again probably. it was completely predictable, had only semi-good acting, and a semi-annoying story line. let's just say that cyote ugly did it better. if you only wanted to watch it for the singing/dancing, you might think it's pretty decent. otherwise... the grade?

C

Easy A

in this movie olive (emma stone) is "anonymous" in her high school. she has one good friend, who is sort of unbelievably...crazy? weird? i'm not really sure how to describe it, but she was a bit of a stretch if you're going for a high school girl. anyways, the fact that olive was anonymous was one of the things josh and i found to be another bit of a stretch. emma stone is super pretty, so honestly...how would she be anonymous? oh well...

so one day olive told her weird friend that she had a hot date with a college boy, to sort of get her off her back about what she did that weekend. olive talked up this little fake date and then her friends' imagination went wild. she accused her of sleeping with him, and olive didn't deny anything. of course her loud-mouthed friend started spreading it around that olive lost her virginity, and instantly she became the most talked about girl in school.

olive kind of liked the attention for a bit, and used it to a friends advantage (as you've seen from the previews, her friend is gay and was getting a lot of crap at school about it. so they hatched the plan to make it seem like they did the dirty). so then olive became even more talked about at school. in english class they were learning about the scarlet letter, and olive felt like she had a special connection with the book. she started wearing lingerie-influenced tops with a bright red A sewed on. in the less-popular-crowds, it got out what olive had done for her gay friend. she became a little entrepreneur, and started accepting gift cards so people could say they hooked up with the school hottie/harlot.

eventually her reputation got a little bit too much to handle, and she was put in some sketchy situations. she was blamed for things she didn't do, and lost her best friend in the process. the rest of the movie is how she deals with that, and this ultimately ties in to how the movie is presented.

i really liked how the movie was laid out, and how it all tied together in the end. olive makes some references to wanting life to be like an 80s movie (say anything, 16 candles, etc) in the movie, and this also ties in to the movie in its entirety. it's almost like they made an 80s movie, set in modern times. i loved it. [sorry that's hard to explain, but if you see it you will get what i mean]

besides the few unbelievable character traits (weird/crazy best friend; hottie being anonymous; religious freak amanda bynes not being as good as religious freak mandy moore in saved, etc), it was a good movie. enjoyable to watch, laugh out loud funny, and endearing. we definitely recommend this movie. the grade?

B

TiMER

hello, jess here! so, random fact about me. i like watching random movies sometimes. like indie films or smaller known movies. before netflix i would just walk around blockbuster and look at almost every new release, especially if i hadn't heard about them before. sometimes this just results in watching duds, and other times you find some quality randoms (gigantic, love and other disasters, pheobe in wonderland, lars and the real girl, factory girl, etc). now that i have netflix i get to do this online and it's so much easier. so the other day i strolled upon the movie TiMER. it had an interesting concept so i watched it:

there is this company that produces a product/service that you get installed in your arm and it will tell you down to the day that you will meet your one true love. there's all this scientific stuff that proves that it always finds your soulmate. when you get your timer, if your "one" doesn't have a timer yet then your timer will be blank and it will be the waiting game. if your "one" does have a timer, it will tell you how long you have until you will meet them. and when you do cross paths, your timers beep. so you know.

so the main character Oona, Emma Caulfield, is turning 30 soon and is stressing that her timer is still blank. every guy she dates and feels like it could be serious: she brings to get them a timer. obviously, it always turns out that he's not the "one." her quirky step-sister (and best friend) has the attitude of dating anyone for fun, regardless of what their timer says. after a rough day oona is at the grocery store and gets hit on by a cute younger guy, and decides to take a walk on the wild side. the rest of the movie is how she deals with the problems of falling in love with someone who isn't the "one," finding the "one," and worrying how much faith she really should put in the timer. it's pretty interesting, and even delves into some ethical dilemmas and interesting social situations.

the ending is kind of abrupt, and doesn't answer every question (which some people hate), but i don't really mind that so much. i would recommend it if you want to watch an interesting and fun comedy/romance/drama. the grade?

B-

julie & julia

so, obviously this review is pretty late, considering it's been out for a while and all the hype has died down a bit. the thing is, we had NO desire to see this in theaters. and, since we aren't real movie critics, we dont get paid to see the movies. i honestly thought i would probably never see it. but the other day i was at work and decided to see what was streaming on netflix, and voila! the funny part is, after like 10 minutes i was bored and going to turn it off but then my coworker came in and said she liked it, so naturally i had to finish it.

as you may know, this movie is about julia child, and some random chick who was obsessed with julia child. i'm sorry, i mean blogged about cooking her recipes. the story of julia child was very interesting since i didnt really know much about her, and meryl streep was of course AMAZING. for a while i really thought i was watching julia childs, because she acted and sounded exactly like her.

so even though a few parts of julia's story were a little boring, it was nothing compared with julie's parts. i was disappointed because i actually like amy adams, but she acted horrible in a horrible role. it was like it was some lowly soap-opera-level-actress trying to be amy adams. julie is a modern day woman who is in a slump in her personal life and then out of nowhere decides that she's going to cook her way through the whole julia child's cookbook and blog about it. she gives herself a timeline for some bizarre reason, and starts immediately. as the story goes along she changes from "oh boohoo only my mom reads my blog" to "oh my goodness my readers NEED me!" and it's really quite annoying.

overall, the only reason i even remotely liked this movie was because of meryl streep. she is amazing, and really should have won some awards for it. the negatives are summarized as follows: the movie is extremely long (unnecessarily so!), slow in [a lot of] parts, annoying (julie's parts), and a bit boring. it will, however, make you want to cook and look into julia's cookbook.

the grade?
C+

Gigantic

as most people should know by now, i love zooey deschanel. i found this movie on netflix, and i decided to see how it was. paul dano (little miss sunshine) is the main character, and he works at a mattress store. one day an interesting man (John Goodman) comes into his store, and dano sells him a top of the line mattress. before he leaves, he says that "he'll send his girl over later to do financing," and then leaves as quickly as he came in.

later, "the girl" comes in, Happy, who is goodman's daughter (deschanel). her quirky charm intrigues dano, and they start to develop a relationship of sorts. things turn sort of awkward when it comes out that dano's goal his entire life has been to adopt a baby from china. he's been saving up and going through the application process for years, but when he starts dating deschanel, it gets put on the back burner.

the only thing i didnt really like in this movie is that they would randomly show this homeless guy that would come beat up dano and hurt him pretty bad. really, i think it is just trying to symbolize some sort of mental instability, or demons in his head, because there is no real homeless man who's mission in life is to kill dano. his injuries are real though, so somehow he is really just harming himself. this whole theme is pointless, and never is resolved in the movie. it never expounds upon it except for showing him get hurt a few times, and being stalked by the homeless man.

besides these weird dillusions that occur every so often, the movie really is excellent. funny, interesting, engaging, and just plain good. i wont give away anything, but i highly reccommend it.

the grade:
B+

(500) days of summer

we saw this movie yesterday. loved it.

tom hanson (joseph gordon-levitt) is working at a greeting card company, although he studied to be an architect. he meets his bosses new assistant, who is a beautiful girl named summer finn (zooey deschanel-love her!). they start off kind of awkward, but find out they have similar interests (like the same type of music, etc). becoming friends moves to unknown territory, in which a lovelike friends-with-benefits relationship unfolds.

summer is against labels, doesnt believe in love/fate/destiny, and does not want a boyfriend. tom wants to meet his soul mate. as the movie clearly states, this is not a love story.

the movie is really impressive; from the way that the story line is presented, to the acting, to the actual story. as the movie goes on, you will be irritated with summer and love tom.

relationships in this movie teach the characters new things that they needed to figure out. like what love is, and if fate or destiny is real. getting out of dead end jobs and following your dreams are also themes. although this paragraph i just wrote sounds mushy, it really is all presented into a wonderful story.

the movie does not end like you would like to think it would. but in a way, it ends better. this movie does not disappoint. everything is well done, pretty believable (although juji doesnt think there are really people like summer, which i disagree with), and compelling. go see it now!!!

the grade:
A-