Contest: My Biggest Giveway Ever!

Contest: My Biggest Giveway Ever!

Posted on September 18, 2009 at 9:23 am

I have got some spectacular goodies to give away! Only one DVD per family, first-come, first-win.
Spongebob-Squarepants-To-Squarepants-or-Not-to-Squarepants-2009-DVDRip.jpgOh, no! Spongebob shrunk his last pair of square pants! Without his signature trousers, will anyone know who he is? This and seven other delightful undersea adventures make this one of our square yellow friend’s all-time classics. Send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with Spongebob in the subject line, and the first three will win!
Singing_Sensation_Backyardigans_DVD.jpg The adorable Backyardigans love to sing and this collection includes their best, from “You Gotta Have Pirattitude” to “The Yeti Stomp.” Crank it up and sing along! Send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with Backyardigans in the subject line and if you’re one of the first three it will be on its way!
olivia.jpg The adorable little pig Olivia is on DVD for the first time with a DVD-only premiere episode. Olivia plays the piano, trains her cat, and looks for a place with no little brothers along with other adventures that kids will identify with and laugh with, too. The first three readers to send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with Olivia! in the subject line will win a DVD!
More giveaways coming soon, so stay tuned.

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Contests and Giveaways
Happy Birthday, Lauren Bacall

Happy Birthday, Lauren Bacall

Posted on September 16, 2009 at 3:59 pm

Has there ever been a better movie entrance line than “Anybody got a match?” delivered by 19-year-old Lauren Bacall to 40-something Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not? Bacall said her iconic look, head tilted a little downward, glancing upward, came from her nervousness. She was so terrified that her head was shaking, and that was the only way to hold it steady. But it was dubbed “The Look” and it made her a star.
Director Howard Hawks nicknamed Bacall’s character “Slim” after his wife who discovered Bacall on a magazine cover. Hawks told Bogart he was going to do something that had not been tried before. “We are going to try an interesting thing,” he told his star. “You are about the most insolent man on the screen and I’m going to make a girl a little more insolent than you are.”
Bacall played a woman who knew enough to teach Bogart a few things, including how to whistle. She won her co-star’s heart in this film, on and off-screen, and how could he resist? Happy birthday, Ms. Bacall!

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Actors

Next Day Air

Posted on September 16, 2009 at 8:00 am

I was plenty offended by “Next Day Air’s” contempt for its characters. But the racism and sexism of this vile movie about dumb crooks and dumber would-be crooks and even dumber people who get mixed up with the first two groups is not as offensive as its contempt for its audience. It isn’t just insulting; it is boring. The ten zillionth time someone on screen said “Know what I’m sayin'” or “That’s what I’m sayin'” I wanted to stand up and yell, “No one has said anything!” Richard Pryor and David Mamet can make profanity into poetry, transforming a few simple explicatives into infinite varieties of expression. But the script here is slack and listless, throwing four-letter words, shotgun blasts, “what is he/she doing in this movie” moments, bad judgment, insults, and drugs around as if they are all inherently funny. Trust me, if you ever thought that might be true, this movie will prove once and for all that it is not.
Leo (“Scrubs'” Donald Faison) is a pot-smoking deliveryman for an overnight package service who has messed up so many times that his manager — who is also his mother — says he just one more complaint and he will be fired. So he immediately tokes up again and delivers a package to the wrong apartment. It should go to Jesus (Cisco Reyes) — who prefers to have his name pronounced the English way — and his girlfriend Chita (Yasmin Deliz). Instead, it is delivered to three failed bank robbers across the hall, one who sleeps through almost all of the movie, and his roommates, Brody (Mike Epps) and Guch (Wood Harris). They think they’ve hit the jackpot when they open it up to discover — guess what! drugs! So they call in Brody’s cousin Shavoo (Omari Hardwick) and his no-name sidekick to monetize their new asset. Meanwhile, big old meanie drug lord Bodega (Emilio Rivera) is very interested in getting his product back and every bit as interested in hurting anyone who might be in the way of achieving that goal. Mayhem ensues, and it feels like it takes forever.
Every single character is a grotesque stereotype, from the Latina spitfire who does the salsa as she cooks and calls her boyfriend Papi to the evil drug dealer, the dopey crooks who think they’re all that, and the shiftless package delivery guy and his angry black woman mother. Watching it is an excruciating experience. And then, to add insult to injury, the mindless comedy turns into a mindless shoot ’em up. Mark this package delivery refused.

(more…)

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Comedy Crime

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Posted on September 15, 2009 at 8:00 am

Sometimes the mystery is better than the solution. This is one of those times.

Marvel Comics’ X-Men movie trilogy was about a group of mostly young people with special “mutant” powers who were either victimized by or exploited by “regular” humans. These powers were first presented in most cases when the unsuspecting mutants became teenagers. It was effective as fantasy and more effective as metaphor for the changes of adolescence. One of the few grown-up characters is Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), a cigar-chomping tough guy with indestructible claws that slide out from between his knuckles and the power to heal all wounds almost instantly — and large pieces of his memory missing, which is the source of some intrigue.

Now Wolverine gets his own spin-off and it is an “origin” story, which anthropologists and comic fans know is a prequel, an up close and personal look at the superhero’s backstory to give us some insights into what made Logan into his Wolverine-y bad self and a chance to feel knowledgeable when we see the experiences that led to the characteristics and events we already know. Aha, so that’s where the name comes from! And who was behind that operation? And when do we get to see that always indispensable origin moment — Wolverine primal screaming up into the indifferent sky?

The movie’s version of adamantium, that super-strong metal alloy that gives Wolverine the super-powerful skeletal structure and shooting claws, is its three leads, all superb actors as well as action heroes. Liev Schreiber plays Victor, Logan’s similarly-powered brother, and Ryan Reynolds is a motor-mouthed swordsman named Wade Wilson. The evil military man who presides over the hideous medical experiments is Danny Houston and Logan’s romantic interest is the criminally underused Lynn Collins. There are some striking fight scenes, I love the way Wolverine races toward battle, and it has the usual intriguing murkiness about who is on which side that energizes the X-Men stories. But it never taps into the deeper themes of mutantcy as metaphor and the reveals are not especially revelatory.

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Action/Adventure Comic book/Comic Strip/Graphic Novel Fantasy Superhero
Tribute: Patrick Swayze

Tribute: Patrick Swayze

Posted on September 14, 2009 at 10:43 pm

Patrick Swayze died today as he lived and performed, with class and grace.

Swayze’s association with iconic appearances in Dirty Dancing, Road House, Point Break, and Ghost
are so towering that we forget sometimes what range and skill he showed as an elegant drag queen in To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar, as a motivational speaker with a dark side in Donnie Darko, and as an eager finalist for a job as a Chippendale’s dancer on “Saturday Night Live.” No one could say that line about putting Baby in the corner and make us believe it like Swayze. He was a superb performer and a class act. He handled his illness with dignity and courage. I wish there was a psychic like the one Whoopi Goldberg played in “Ghost” who could bring him back for just one more dance.

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Actors Tribute
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