Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Movie Review - Eat, Pray, Love

I DID like the cinematography, however.
I am actually ashamed at the caliber of films I have seen lately. Why did I see this glory of a Julia Roberts movie? Peer pressure, dammit. And James Franco. I am again ashamed of how easily I fall into the category of pathetic teenage girl. At least I don't like wolf/vampire Robert whatever his name is. (I actually do know what his name is but pretending I don't makes it seem more believable, although I haven't seen the movies or read the books so I am virtually in the dark, virtually).
When I heard it was called "Eat, Pray, Love" I thought to myself "Hey! I AM their demographic!" because I do 2/3 of the items in the title. However, I did not enjoy this movie all that much. Yes, I know, 2/2 of the movie reviews I have done on this blog have been negative, get over it.

The "love".
SPOILER ALERT. Julia Roberts is a lady in her 40's experiencing what can only be described as a mid life crisis (mm, sounds interesting, right?). She dates a guy far too young for her (but perfect for me. Enter, James Franco) after a semi nasty divorce from her hubby. So, after this relationship with this younger guy becomes tumultuous (oh, I really thought it was going to last!) she decides to take a trip to the places she's always wanted to go. She gets fat in Italy, meditates in India, and meets up with a medicine man in Bali and falls in love with some stranger. The Italy part was decent and made me hungry. The India part made me want to dive headfirst down the aisles of senior citizens with little regard for my life (it was senior citizen day in the theatre). That whole part is beyond boring. I understand that it's the "pray" portion of the conundrum but I would rather have seen "Eat and Love". I actually don't understand what went on other than the times she sat there and meditated. Have you ever watched someone meditate? You haven't? Well, you will have plenty of time doing that during this portion of the film. I understand it's supposed to be uplifting, but I would rather have uplifted my butt out of my chair and down the street.
The love part in Bali also confuses me. To put a long story short, she is riding her bike and a man almost crashes his car into her and then they fall in love. What?! Seriously? Also, he is some Brazilian guy or something that may have been attractive to the older women in the audience but, to be honest, I would have hightailed it on a plane to JFK back into the arms of James Franco. Whatever, they fall in love. She loses her fear over being in love. Bleh bleh bleh.
You be the judge. Maybe you'll relate with Julia Roberts and feel renewed and fulfilled by this film. I was not. I actually was repulsed that she would fly into the arms of some accented man that almost killed her, especially after she experienced all this independence in the countries she had been in.
Moral of the story: Keep eating, Julia, because the praying and the loving didn't do it for me.
I hope you all learned from this experience.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Movie Review - Charlie St. Cloud

One, why did I see this movie? Peer pressure .. and Zac Efron's blue eyes. Two, why did I continue watching this movie? .. Zac Efron's blue eyes. Three, what did I think? WELL. Just so you know, this will contain spoilers because I refuse to hold back. Pretty much the movie begins as you would expect, the cute younger brother is cute and you don't want him to die because that would be just so sad, wouldn't it? Well, since you obviously saw the trailer on your TV 45345 times a day, you know that he does indeed die (from a drunk driver). Zac (I forget his characters name... oh wait, Charlie St. Cloud) goes and sacrifices his future at Stanford *sigh* because he misses his brother and can't leave him. Aw, how cute. Five years after the accident, he oddly can see/talk with dead people. Unlike the Sixth Sense kid, he doesnt seem as perturbed. He plays catch every single day with his dead brother. Cause that makes sense.
Cute! He's playing catch with a dead kid!
Anyway, why do I bring up The Sixth Sense? Turns out, that girl in the trailer? Yeah, she's actually an apparition [like Bruce Willis]. She's dying because her boat crashed. She had been missing for three days. However, Zac doesn't know this and thinks shes real and has sex with her in a graveyard. Is Charlie St. Cloud a necrophiliac? Naw, she was only HALF dead! Zac discovers he'd been banging a half-dead ghost girl when he finds out her boat got wrecked. He's like "oh, better go find the real her before she actually dies". Dang, that Charlie kid had some serious problems. So, he finds her blah blah, magically she survives despite being unconscious and without food or water for three days.. Hey! I believe it! And, in the end, she half remembers their time in the graveyard, etc. and they fall in love. Charlie learns to let his brother go because "they'll always be brothers come hell or high water" *tear*. If I didn't mention, Zac cries in almost every scene.
Moral of the story - don't drive drunk. None of that stuff would've happened if that dang kid didn't die.
She's half-dead here.
Post sex in the graveyard.

As you can imagine, throughout the movie I mouthed "what the f" quite frequently. I am even more confused with this movie than I was with Inception. However, the song at the end credits was decent! I enjoyed that!

I hope you all learned something from this experience.