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Semi-Pro

No. But I really hope you're not to surprised to hear that.

I mean, we've already seen this movie with Soccer, Car Racing, and Figure Skating. That's not even bringing up movies not staring Will Ferrell, like The Comebacks, Dodgeball, and Balls of Fury.

Now don't get me wrong, with the exception of Balls of Fury, all of the movies listed above have at least one funny line/gag in the movie. I even chuckled once or twice during this one, but should you waste two hours of your life to get a cheap laugh? NO.

The worst part is, towards the end I couldn't tell if the movie was starting to take itself seriously or not. The coach gives an uplifting pep talk in the locker room and there isn't a single fart, burp or sexual innuendo during the whole thing. Was this a spoof of this kind of scene from a "real" sports movie? Maybe... but it wasn't funny.

For those of you who insist on seeing this even though I'm urging you not to, I have four words for you to remember: "Jive Turkey" and "Patti Labelle". These will be the only two scenes that make you laugh out loud. The rest of it just drags on for way too long.

Vantage Point

No.

Sigourney Weaver plays a producer for "GNN" a 24-hour news channel covering a global war on terror summit. If the name of the network she works for isn't enough to steer you away, what happens in the first 10 minutes should be. While covering the summit in Spain, Weaver and her crew spot a familiar face working in the secret service. "Why didn't we know about this?!? Is anyone else reporting this story?!?" She then urgently orders her subordinate to "pull the archives." When the archives have been "pulled", she insists on seeing them played on screen 2.

The archives in question happen to be footage of Dennis Quaid's character thwarting an assassination of the president by diving between him and the assailant, taking the bullet. The man who pulled the archive then asks if they are going to run it as part of the story that they are currently covering. Weaver shoots him down as if it were the most irresponsible thing in the world, "No, that's in the past. That's not our story. The summit is our story" Well then, and please excuse my language, WHY THE FUCK DID SHE HAVE HIM PULL THE GODDAMN ARCHIVES AT ALL?!?!?!?!? To give us, the viewer, back story? No, because 10 minutes after that, we see Dennis Quaid's character having a reflective moment of the same exact event (which we see, again, through flashback). The actual reason she plays the archive on her screen is so that when Quaid bursts into the GNN trailer to review footage of the events that make up the plot, he sees an image of himself wincing in pain after he saved the president's life years ago. Even still, I don't know why that needed to happen. Other than to show us that he notices the paused image on the screen, Quaids character doesn't miss a beat, he barely acknowledges it.

Why do I bring this up? It's really just an example of how pointless this movie is. The 90 minute runtime needs to be filled with unnecessary fluff stories like the frustrated journalist fed up with being censored, the unwilling accomplice who is only helping the terrorists in order to rescue his brother who is being held hostage. And let's not forget Forrest Whitaker, who is on vacation alone because his marriage is failing. I DON'T CARE. He's allowed to be on vacation by himself, the movie doesn't need to make excuses for him. His personal life has nothing to do with the plot of the film or his motivation for getting involved with whats happening.

All but one of the twists are revealed in the trailer for the movie. I won't say what it is, but not only was I not surprised, I really didn't care. Something that is never revealed is what the terrorists plan actually is. The leader of the terrorists insists that the U.S. President not be killed, but never explains why.

The gimmick of showing the events from eight different points of view in order to give us different clues as to what's going on, would have been a clever one if they had actually given us any clues at all. Instead they show us one persons vantage point right up until just before they reveal the whole shebang. Then they very dramatically slow everything down, stop, and then rewind the events back to the beginning of the movie and start showing someone else's vantage point. They did, however, leave out one crucial POV. They neglected to show the events from the vantage point of the audience who were all having flashbacks to that crucial point in their lives when they decided to go see this redundant dreck.

Definitely, Maybe

Definitely. (ech)

If romantic comedies must exist, this is the only acceptable kind. There's no unnecessary slapstick humor, no unbelievable, amazing coincidences. There are no tangled webs of lies or uncomfortable love triangles.

I just lied, actually. Some of the things above are in the movie, but they are so subtle that you can simply sit back and enjoy their presence instead of being slapped across the face with them. Definitely, Maybe never needs to resort to typical romantic comedy dredge, like animals looking away in embarrassment, mistaken identities that go on for far too long, or that combination of poor time management skills and cowardice that lead to the main character being forced to be on two dates at the same time in the same restaurant (ugh). There's also never an ironic conversation between the characters who ultimately end up together, about fate and how two people who are destined to be together blah blah blah.

The trailer made this movie look corny and predictable, but the performances are understated and the dialogue is sharp. In the tradition of romantic comedies whose titles are two words separated by a comma, Definitely, Maybe is definitely worth a look. Maybe.

Charlie Bartlett

No. I wanted, so much, for the answer to be yes... but No.

When I saw the first trailer for this movie (almost a year ago), I thought this looked like Ferris Bueller for a new generation. It's release date was set for August 2007 and I had every intention of seeing it. But it never came out. I kind of forgot about it and half expected to see a direct-to-video release date for it.

Well I guess the studios panicked when the writer's strike went on for so long because here it is, seven months after its original release date, and now we can all see why it was pushed back/almost not released. This movie doesn't know what kind of movie it wants to be. It's a dark comedy, then it turns into a raunchy teen comedy, at some point it tries (unsuccessfully) to be Dead Poets Society...

For an R rated movie it really has absolutely NO balls. There's implied sex. A suicide attempt that is resolved sit-com style (within three scenes). A kid falls in a pool from a second story deck, hits his head on a diving board and needs to be rescued from the bottom of the pool... and then goes to the high school play. There are naked girls running through the school that you only see from behind for (literally) a split second.

The acting is fine, I guess, but who cares. The screenplay, the direction and the editing are all way to shotty to recommend this confused, inaccurate, and reserved piece of garbage.

In Bruges

Yes.

In Bruges is more of a drama than a comedy. When it's funny, it's laugh out loud funny. When it's not... it's gravely serious, so serious in fact that I can hardly call it a dark comedy (which is how it's being advertised).

Colin Farrell is very good at delivering the funny and the not so funny, his character is well written and believable. Brendan Gleeson is a weathered hitman dealing with a newbie who has royally screwed up his first hit and is desperately in need of a vacation. He runs the gambit of emotion with subtelty and finesse.

In Bruges is a diamond in the rough. With choices like Fool's Gold, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, and Step Up 2 the Streets (to be fair, I haven't seen any of those), it's amazing to me that In Bruges isn't selling out shows on 3,000 screens.

The Spiderwick Chronicles

Yes... but not in theatres... if you have to pay.

There is nothing wrong with this movie per se. It's a second rate fantasy kids movie with second rate special effects and second rate acting. "Second rate", however, is about the best you're gonna get from almost any movie that's released in January or February. Does that make it OK? No, but if you go in expecting crap, you won't be too disappointed when you leave. The screenplay is mediocre at best; constantly reiterating the rules of the world that the author never really finished creating (or the film makers weren't capable of conveying on screen).

This is by no means a good movie, but if you leave your brain at the door and accept what you are seeing, you'll probably have a good time.

The Eye

NO.

End of story.

I know this is a pretty poor first post, but seriously... did you honestly think for a minute that this was going to be entertaining or even remotely scary? C'mon.