our idiot movie

oh paul rudd. why do you torment me? you don't have lead roles coming out the ass so when you do star in a movie i'm generally excited. when i first saw the trailer for our idiot brother i was only slightly interested. i should have listened to my gut and saved my money.

first off... why would you cover your beautiful face with that mangy beard? WHY?! second... not a big fan of two of the starring females. (i won't name names in fear of alienating what might be the one person who will read this.) thirdly... simpletons are not attractive. i don't care how good looking or charming you are... simple/oblivious people frustrate me to no end. ok here's my unfortunate review of the unfortunate movie...

i will not qualify anything here as a spoiler since this movie is SO FRIGGIN' predictable its not even funny. i'm pretty sure that a feral human living in the backwoods of north dakota who's never even encountered another human could outline the plot and subsequent outcomes for you. read on if you want to be bored to tears.

ned. simple simple ned. we first meet him selling pot to cop. in uniform. at a farmers market. can you guess what happens next? he's arrested and goes to jail! UNBELIEVABLE, right?! flash forward a few months, ned gets out on good behavior and goes back to the farm he and his girlfriend lived on, only the find that she has moved on (to a new simpleton!). she's a total douche bag to him and kicks him out... and keeps his dog, willie nelson. cold.

so he moves in with his (simpleton of a) mother and we meet his 3 sisters. liz, miranda and natalie. for whatever reason he doesn't want to live with his mom and moves in with each of his sisters and upon first glance seems to fuck up each of their lives. he catches liz's husband cheating, refuses to back miranda in a scandalizing magazine article and rats out natalie's pregnancy to her lesbian partner. guess what... they all get pissed at HIM! this is where i got a little miffed. the movie makes every female character seem over reactive and irrational. except the mom... she's just an old wino. yes women can be crazy and emotional but the events here just make it seem like all women are just delusional, lying, cheating, petty or some violent combination of all four. it's not misogynistic per se... but it is pretty unfair. i'm not saying what they did or how they reacted was right or wrong but it was overgeneralizing.

of course ned then tells his parole officer that he smoked pot with the kid across the street and gets... put back in jail. his sisters see the "error in their ways" and try and bail him out. except he won't accept their bail because he's a simple man and has been convinced that he was the reason for his family's' unhappiness. so instead of throwing in the towel the family comes to the obvious (?) realization that by stealing his dog from his douche bag ex, he will accept their money and apologies and come home! and it works. of course. everyone is happy in the end. oh and ned meets what the audience assumes to be his soul mate because she has a dog named dolly parton. AWWWWW. *rolls eyes* the end. credits roll.

interestingly enough the credits have a blooper reel that are actually kind of funny. presumably the people involved in the film realized the movie was a complete turd and decided to give a little something that says "hey... thanks for sticking this one out guys. we really appreciate your $13."

our idiot brother :: d

leap over this one

ouch. this one was pretty bad. i try not to grade a movie before it's over but leap year graded itself within the first 20 minutes. i never had any expectations for the film (it's a cut and dry click flick, after all) but not only was the script pretty dismal but the things that usually make a chick flick bearable for me were also pretty rough. these things being the soundtrack/score, the cinematography and the likability of the characters. roll up your sleeves... this one's gonna get messy...

the script. oh god the script. nothing about it was interesting, funny or smart. i swear the only thing i heard coming out of amy adams' mouth was the noise of the teacher from charlie brown. waw waw waw waw waw. you know that cringy feeling you get when you hear a bad pun or corny pick up line? yea... that was the feeling i had for the entire 90+ minutes of dialogue. there were even parts where i swear there was a thought bubble above the actors' heads that read "really? really?! i can't believe i'm actually saying this." it was that bad, people.

the soundtrack was beyond forgettable. it didn't even register in my mind. i honestly can't tell you the name of any song that played during the film, which is alarming since chick flicks are usually packed full of predictable pop songs of the moment. the score was just as bad. i may be slightly bias since i'm not a fan of irish folk/pop music to begin with but it seemed juvenile and almost mocking at times. i don't even care enough to look up who was in charge of the music.

the cinematography and over all plot of the movie was jerky, disjointed, forced and amateurish. there were at least 3 fade to black scenes and at least 5 slowly fade out and then into the next scenes... you know where the heroines' face is superimposed over the picturesque landscape or her forlorn lovers' face? yea that's a no-no in my book.


finally the characters... the glue that holds chick flicks together. watery at best here. i wanted to punch amy adams [character] in the face so many times. i couldn't find myself to give two shits about who she ended up with or what misfortunes befell her. her longtime boyfriend seemed fine until the unsurprising end. even matthew goodes' character was one dimensional. there was not a drop of chemistry found between any of the actors and all lines were delivered as if the recipient was a brick wall. this was an "i need the money to pay my bills" movie if i've ever seen one.

leap year :: d

this movie has no grey matter

ugh. i don't know why i torture myself by watching heather graham movies. i have never seen her in a movie i liked, with the exception of swingers, in which she only had like 15 minutes screen time. gray matters is a movie in which a sister, gray, tries to, and successfully, hook up her brother, sam, with a girl, charlie. she does this, supposedly, in order to stop people thinking that they, brother and sister, have some sort of incestuous relationship, because they are so close and do everything together.

long story short, gray and charlie get drunk and make out on the eve of charlie and sam's wedding. in vegas. gray has never heard the saying what happens in vegas, stays in vegas, and decides that she is now a lesbian.

unfortunately, charlie doesn't remember a thing and gets married to sam. gray is left feeling confused and hopeful that charlie will realize that she really does love gray and not sam. oh the drama! the rest of the movie is even worse and doesn't deserve the effort it takes for me to write about it. come to think of it, none of the movie deserves the [minimal] energy i've put into writing this post.

molly shannon is the only comic relief in the film. but unfortunately her greatness can't prop up the film.

sissy spacek is one of the worst therapists ever on screen. and deserves a punch in the mouth for being so.

grade: d

starring ben still-lame as the stupid asshole. again.

not a big fan of ben stiller. i really don't think he's made anything worth seeing since meet the parents.... or zoolander. which ever came first. i feel like all of the movies he's in/characters he's played recently are the same. they are all chick flicks but butched up. no really. it's like photoshopping a dick onto a woman's body. literally. still got the boobs. still got the estrogen. still got the xx chromosomes. hell, its still even got a vag (cuz you only covered that with a penis). you are just altering the appearance, only slightly and badly i might add, but the foundation is still the same.

i'm not going to spend a lot of time on this. its not worth it.

ben stiller is a douche and a moron in the movie.

i have no idea who the actresses (who played the love interests) were. i guess the script is so bad that no well known actress would agree to sign on.

the movie was about 20 minutes too long. that 20 minutes was full of jokes that have been in all other stiller movies, and even some that had already been in this one! just in case you didn't get them the first time.

they had to throw in the gratuitous boob and kitty shot for male enjoyment. and a sex scene. and a pot smoking session. and the word... panties. ugh. what a horrible word.

rob cordery is the only funny/believable character. there aren't even any good cameos.

i've already spent to much time on this. i'd really only recommend this movie in a few circumstances: a) you are a ben stiller fan. b) you have 2 hours to kill and have nothing better to do. c) you want to scare your boyfriend even more about "married" life. d) it's either this or titanic.

you pick.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

the heartbreak kid - d

-t