Movie Time

Okay, so here are my weekend movie reviews:

Death at a Funeral - A British comedy about a man named Daniel who's is dealing with his wife, his life, and his crazy friends and family all during the funeral of his father. Somebody I was talking to said it wasn't a British comedy because Frank Oz directed it. Well, Frank Oz is British (who knew Miss Piggy was English bacon?) And the writer of the film is British and most of the cast is British. So it's a British comedy. I love British comedies but this one was just a bit over the top. The Brits love to throw together a whole circus full of crazy characters and have them do a whole bunch of zany things as a way of exposing their foibles and insecurities. Most of the times this works because they stop just short of utter ridiculousness. But DAAF takes it all the way over the top. We're talking toilet humor and naked people and midgets here. Makes me glad I'll die in the good old USA. I loved the cast (although what was up with Matthew MacFayden's hair? He was so cute as Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice and so pudding-faced and nebbishy here) and some of the setups were really pretty funny. But after a while you felt like crying "give me a break!" I loved the house in the film though, especially the picture gallery in the stairwell. If I ever have a country manor, I'm gonna do that in my house.


I Am Legend - Gosh darn it, Will Smith is a great actor. He was alone for huge chunks of this movie and he carried it off beautifully. I could read a huge range of emotions on his face and it was brilliant. There is a scene between Will and a female mannequin (yes, I said mannequin) in a video store late in the movie that will break your heart. Will is a doctor and seemingly the last alive after a virus destroys civilization. I fast forwarded through the 'zombie' scenes because I was afraid it was going to be some gory 'zombie' film but it wasn't and I could have watched them at regular speed. I liked the film and appreciated the fact that the not-so-distant future wasn't depicted as a horrible place so foreign to what we know. (Well, except for that whole "hey, we can cure cancer, whoops, maybe we actually just made a virus that if it doesn't kill you makes you a flesh eating zombie" thing - shame on you Emma Thompson, how could you do that to us?) See it for Will Smith, and check out the artwork in his post apocalyptic pad.


I also watched the MTV Movie Awards. Now normally I like these tongue-in-cheek awards for their clever movie send-ups and I was looking forward to Mike Meyers as host. But this show must have been written by scatologically-obsessed eleven year old boys. They were crude, gross and unfunny. (The greatest sin of all is unfunny.) Watching Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey do "Wayne's World" again was actually painful - and again, unfunny. The only good moment was Adam Sandler's receiving the MTV Generation Award (So named because giving a 'lifetime achievement award' to a guy who is in his early forties is just weird). It was funny and charming, although Tom Cruise's intro made me wonder if he's ever even met Adam Sandler before, plus he had way too much spray tan and seemed to be channeling John Edwards (the former presidential candidate, not the psychic) with his strange white shirt and blue sweater combo. Tom Cruise is rapidly becoming a freak right before my eyes and I never thought I'd say that about 'Maverick'. On the other hand, a clean shaven Johnny Depp must be preparing to remake "21 Jump Street" because he looked about nineteen years old. Gosh was he hot. Maybe it's just because I missed clean cut Johnny under all the weird makeup he's been wearing for a while but he looked ever so good last night. Now if he'd just move away from France...

Okay, I gotta go write some novel now, have a great day and I'll see you at the movies!