movie reviews..

wow, been some time since I had anything to write about. I guess I could go on about the 'interesting' people that I get to ride with on the bus when I go out with the Mrs on her walkabouts. Like the one teen I heard say to the other teen "you know, I heard if you take your 'urine' and 'pooh' ***NOT in those terms were they mentioned but you get the idea*** and put them in a jar, put a tight lid on it for a week and then sniff it you will get one wicked buzz". Personally, all I can say to that is if you have hit that point in your life where you have to smell your own bio-waste to get high, time to check in at re-hab.

I could also mention the few people that hit me up for money when I walk home from work at 3am. Of course I have spare change that I would love to give to you. Now put your cell phone in your pocket and take your iPod ear plugs out of your ears and so that I can give you my hard earned money.

I might also mention the idiots that ride around in cabs. Like when the Mrs and I went to Rocky Horror Picture Show and we managed to flag down a cab at 3:10am (after standing outside in the cold for nearly 45 minutes) and other drunks were screaming at us for getting a cab. To top it all off that evening the cabbie stopped to pick up two other people and since they were going down town like us, the cabbie was more than happy to have them ride with us. Guess it kind of got me a bit unnerved when we were dropped off first and had to pay the full $15 fare from Whyte Ave to our place and then wondered how much the two that he picked up had to pay for the other '...just 4 blocks down the road from here, thanks'.

There was also the time when one of my co-workers was giving me a ride home at 3am and we went down Jasper by Oil City during closing time on Halloween night. It amazes me how these drunken idiots seem to think that any car on the road is a taxi and that we should stop for them and pick them up and drive them where they need to go. Full credit to them for not driving there and then driving home drunk but I don't think we honestly needed the finger and a 'screw you' as we didn't stop for them. I did think it was great of my co-worker who actually swerved out of the way when the idiots walked right into traffic and in front of the car. Apparently in their mind they seem to think that cab drivers don't actually see anyone standing on the sidewalk waving them down so you have to step right in front of them to get their attention. Personally I would have loved to drive straight and taken out a few hips, toes or legs but with the way the legal system is these days they would have gotten away with it as innocent since they were a) drunk and b) pedestrians whereas as the drive I would have been hit criminally and civilly because I was a) sober and b) a sane normal person obeying all rules and regulations of society and the road.

However, I will just mention the one movie in particular that sticks out in my mind that I have seen recently that I have to mention. Due Date (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1231583/ ) with Robert Downey, Jr and Zach Galifianakis. If you are going to go and see one movie at all this week, if you are going to go and see one movie this month, if you are going to go and see one movie this year...in fact, if you are going to go and see one movie at all in your life time....do NOT go to this one! I mean, steer clear of this one like you would a leperous beggar on the street who has at least 25 STDs that wants to give you a kiss and shake your hand. Granted, I might not know comedy, I might not know humour, and I might not know the new development of entertainment in this new day and age and the 'next generation' of movie entertainment. Personally I enjoyed the original of this movie that was called Trains, Planes and Automobiles (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093748/ ) starring Steve Martin and John Candy.

Let's compare them. They both involve two men forced to travel across country together for extremely special and pressing occasions (DD: the birth of the first born child, PT&A: thanksgiving with the family) where one of them is an uptight, serious and stressed out individual and the other is a rather difficult person to travel with. During their travels, in both of the movies, the serious person is tested and bugged by the others quirky behaviours but in due course of the movie, a friendship develops between the two travellers.

How are they different? PT&A difficult character (Del Griffith played by John Candy) is a friendly and loveable guy who does mean to do right in his eyes but somehow manages to screw up from time to time that doesn't really cause any lasting damage to the other but just slows him down and creates somewhat of a difficult situation. DD difficult character (Ethan Tremblay played by Zach Galifianakis) is nothing short of a time bomb that manages to screw up constantly due to his immature and social inept ways that causes major lasting damage to the other character and not only slows him down but throws him back a few feet in the process. Whereas I found myself slowly beginning to like Del Griffith and wanting to see the two characters become friends, I found myself watching Tremblay wondering how long until the other guys snaps and either kills him and bury him in the desert or walk away and find other modes of transportation to get home (which I would have done about 15 minutes into the movie after having been shot by the air marshal with a rubber bullet because the other guy started a rather stupid situation).

The humour in DD is more in the form of the 'pull my finger' type of gross humour more than that funny 'ha ha' kind of humour. I found myself laughing once or twice in the movie and then realized I wasn't laughing at it because I found it amusing and funny but I was laughing the same way there is that dark side of people that laugh at other people's misfortune in the pleasure that they know it isn't them going through that sort of thing. However, if your type of humour is a masturbating dog, a burnt out 20-something idiot smoking dope and causing stupid mayhem and destruction (falling asleep at the wheel and driving a car off a bridge, shooting someone accidentally in the leg with a hand gun because he was handling it carelessly) then perhaps this movie would be right up your alley. For me, not so much....

I guess if I had to give it a rating I would give it 3 unpopped kernels of popcorn out of 5 popped kernels of popcorn. On a number scale that would be on a scale of 0 to 5 I give it a -3. Normally I would say wait until someone rents it and then borrow it to watch it but even then that would be nearly 100 minutes of your life you would never get back again.

It is funny but I found myself wondering if this is what it is like to get old with the next generation of humour. I wonder if my parents went through this where they would put on their classic comedy stars and my brother and I would look at them and go "that is so lame" and then we would watch some of the new comedy of our generation and we would laugh and laugh and they just would shake their head and say "that is just sick and gross, that isn't funny". Granted, I don't think that Robin Williams, Abbot and Costello, John Candy and Dan Ackroyd movies could ever be considered gross, 'pull my finger' type humour and not funny. Those guys, as well as countless others, were amazingly funny comedians and actors.

oh well, guess I will just have to keep thinking of what else I could write about if I am not writing about movies or the idiots that walk amongst us on the street. Which, by the way, movies do and DONT on my list are:

DO: Mega-mind, RED and Easy A.
DON'T: Paranormal Activity 2, Life as We Know It, Due Date.