Letting the cat out of the proverbial bag.

You may remember a couple weeks ago that I hinted at something amazing. Something that wasn't just amazing, something amazing for February. Well, I guess that in lieu of anything to really talk about, I'm going to let you in on the secret I've been hiding from you for almost a month now.

Are you ready?

I, your humble blogger, dreamrot, am proud to announce the February 2007 will officially be the 7 Dollar Popcorn FILMuary Extravaganza: 28 Days of Movie Mayhem.

What does this mean for me, the writer? It means that I will endeavor to watch 28 movies in February. Not just that, but 28 movies that I have not already seen. Not just watch 28 new-to-me movies, but I am also going to make 28 entries here, at 7dp, about those 28 movies.

What does this mean for you the reader? Probably not much. Just that you'll be getting 28 things to read with the first one due on Thursday.

Then there's the last question... Why am I doing this? Well, I still feel bad about letting this go to the wayside in the second half of last year, so it's kind of a bit of restitution. Also, I've never done any sort of designated event, and it's always fun to try something new. Also, I hate myself, and figure making myself watch 28 movies that I'll be lucky to enjoy half of should be an interesting experiment.

So, I'll see you on Thursday for Day 1!

Tolkein based the Elves in Lord of the Rings on the Welsh

What is it about Sean Bean that makes me want to watch a movie just because he is in it? Is he that good of an actor? Does he play characters that are that interesting? No, not really.

Do you remember Silent Hill? Good. Take that story, replace Silent Hill with Annwyyn (Welsh heaven apparently). Replace Christabella and Pyramid Head with The Shepard. And replace Sean Bean with Sean Bean using an Irish accent. Then set the whole thing in Wales. At this point you will have a movie that is a lot like Silent Hill without being nearly as visually interesting or enjoyable.

I'm not kidding in how similar the two stories are, and I would say that The Dark was a blatant rip-off if not for the fact that it came out in 2005, before Silent Hill.

Daughter goes missing, mom crosses over into another world to find her. Dad meanwhile stays at home conducting a search based in "reality". There's a kid who looks like the missing daughter. Even the ending was similar to Silent Hill.

Look. JUST LIKE Silent Hill

The thing is, I really dug Silent Hill. I didn't much care for The Dark. It wasn't a bad movie, it just suffered from being too similar. I think that had I not seen Silent Hill, it might have been a much more enjoyable movie.

The Dark gets 4 sheep jumping off of a cliff out of 10.

Those shoes aren't red!

Sometimes, it's fun just to go to Best Buy and look at movies you've never heard of and try to find something good in that barren landscape of anonymity. Like finding a needle in a haystack. Sometimes you find something amazingly fun, like Kamikazee Girls the rest of the time, you pick up something like The Red Shoes.

The Red Shoes is a South Korean movie written and directed by Yong-gyun Kim. The only description that the back cover has is "Mysteriously abandoned on a subway platform lies a pair of red shoes... to die for" The front cover just has the title with the tag line "one size kills all" and a bloody shoe with a decomposing foot still in it. At this point, I'm thinking "wow, this looks pretty sweet."

So, I take it home, where I decide to watch it. The movie starts on a subway platform where a young lady see an abandoned pair of shoes. She goes to grab them and put them on, but another girl saw them too. And they fight for them. And the second girl wins and walks off, wearing the shoes. As she's walking away, the shoes eat her feet!

And at this point, I'm thinking "wow, this looks pretty sweet." I was so wrong. The movie didn't make any fucking sense. The mom finds the shoes next, and her husband is cheating on her, so she turns on the humidifier and goes to find a new apartment with her daughter. Then, apparently, she meets an interior designer/squatter who is designing an office. Then the mom and daughter are fighting over the shoes, and I mean FIGHTING. And then the mom falls in love with the designer or something. And then, her friend takes the shoes and has an "accident" and gets her feet cut off. And then...I don't know, man, this movie had holes Hannibal could lead his army though. The mom really did sum the whole thing up at one point...

Yeah, what are you talking about? What the hell is going on here? The most interesting thing about this is that it feels like there's a whole Lord of the Rings thing going on. The shoes are the One Ring. The mom is Frodo, the daughter is...well, not Sam, maybe Boromir? The designer could be Sam though. And the subway is Mount Doom. In that regard, it's kinda interesting. It's like this epic quest to destroy a pair of shoes. Except, no one is looking to destroy them.

The movie wasn't very good. And, the shoes weren't even red! They were pink. All in all, I'd say it's something like 3 lone sneakers on the side of the road out of 10.

Duralast commercials are dumb.

I have a problem in my life. Well, like anyone else, I have MANY problems, but lets focus on just the one right now...

See, my problem is that I will watch almost anything if you tell me that Bruce Campbell is in it. Yes, I know he did Alien Apocolypse. Yes, I know he was in McHale's Navy. Yes, I know he's doing Old Spice commercials now... But goddammit, he was Ash. Ash! Do you understand that? Of course you do.

So, it is with Bruce Campbell's name on the cover that I picked up The Woods. A movie that starts innocently enough out in the woods...with a little girl starting a fire. A forest fire. A forest fire that YOU didn't prevent. Smokey would be so disappointed in you.

Heather is being enrolled in an "academy." A boarding school. Heather is also, apparently a bit of a firebug. She nearly burnt her house down over a disagreement with her mom! In back of the school are "the woods". They are potentially "haunted" by some witches. It's the basic kind of spook story told to new students, or around a campfire. Or is it?

From there students start going "missing" and then one kills herself. By hanging herself. In the lunchroom. It must have been salisbury steak day. Heather starts to discover what's going on after this. Well, after this and a car accident that kills her mother.

It's a surprisingly enjoyable movie though. I was expecting something a movie that was almost unwatchable, but The Woods is well worth the five bucks or so that I paid for the dvd. Bruce Campbell wasn't Ash, but he wasn't bad. He didn't have a ton of lines, and it was a pretty small role, but he did a great job. And besides, not many actors have as much "experience" with movies where trees attack as Campbell does. The rest of the characters suffer from "inconsistent personality disorder" for some unknown reason or a lack of personality.

If nothing else, The Woods is worth checking out, there's something fun about it. The dialouge is pretty sharp at times, and it's kinda fun trying to figure out what exactly is going on. Best of all, most of the characters seem human. As opposed to characters I guess. The Woods easily gets 7 1/2 gallons of weed killer out of 10.

Look! I can see!

What if you were born blind, and then, through the miricle of modern surgery, you were given new, working, eyes? What would you do? Stare at everything? Look at yourself in the mirror like the vain asshole you are? What if you found out that you were the ugliest motherfucker in a three county radius? Would you gouge your eyes out with a spoon?

None of these questions are really asked in the Pang Brothers' 2002 movie, The Eye. Instead, they focus on a woman who, after receiving an eye transplant is able to see into the spooky world of Chinese ghosts. Ghosts, it would seem, are naturally kind of hazy.

It's like every so often looking into a sort of pseudo-reality. A place where Death wears a tight black turtleneck and where's mime makeup. And of course, eventually, people start to notice that you're talking to people that aren't there.

Oh, and there's a cancer kid hanging around.

And a ghost who needs to find his report card.

There is something about a good ghost story that really gets under my skin and just creeps me out. That's why I watch them. Zombies, vampires. They don't do that to me. Ghost stories do. It's funny. I don't believe in ghosts, but they scare the hell out of me. I can't understand that.

The Eye had a lot going for it. A great look. Good cast. Good acting. Great concept. The problem is the story. Typically a movie is Character A can do this, Character B needs this, Characters A and B get together to accomplish Thing. The problem here is that the movie is nearly over by the time you realize what needs to happen. For that matter, before you realize that something has to happen.

It was good though. I really dug it. It was one of those movies I've been meaning to watch for just about ever and I'm glad now that I've finally seen it. Overall, I'll give it 7 Deaths Dressed As Steve Jobs out of 10.

Sometimes an idea is so fucking brilliant you just have to run with it

Dear Sci Fi Channel,

I saw that you have a new movie coming up next weekend, Gryphon. I have to admit it looks...well, like a Sci Fi Original. I got to thinking, you have a fairly illustrious history of low budget man/monster movies. Chupacabra, Frankenfish, and my favorite, Mansquito. So, I thought maybe I could pass on an idea of my own.

Picture a scientist in a lab, or maybe an explorer in a jungle, it doesn't matter, but he gets bitten by some unknown species of ant. He ends up getting some of the ant's abilities. You know, enhanced strength, tunneling, diabetes, that sort of thing. But, unlike that guy who was bitten by the spider, this dude goes on a rampage and it's up to a rag-tag group of exterminators to wipe him out. One of them is the kid who "isn't even supposed to be here today," another is a Vietnam vet who takes the whole thing too seriously, the third is mad as a hatter from all the poisons (think Christopher Lloyd in Taxi), maybe Christopher Lloyd would be available for that one.

And you can call the movie Mant. See what I did there? Man + ant = Mant. Pretty good, huh?

I'll admit, I don't have a story, let alone a script. But I have a title, and at least 2 people who would want to watch it, and I think that's a pretty good start.

If you decide to run with it, let me know and I'll give you an address to send the royalty checks to.

Your humble blogger at $7 Popcorn,
dreamrot

I'm gonna keep it short today

Prior to the Final Girl Film Club choice of The Descent, I had never heard of the movie Dog Soldiers, Neil Marhsall's first movie. Since then, however, it's come up a few times, and everyone talked about how good it was. So, having lamented the lack of good werewolf movies the other day, I decided to head out and try to find it.

I went to Best Buy last night, and they didn't have it. In fact they didn't have a good selection of DVDs at all. This, naturally, led me to wonder, where the hell do you go to look for movies besides Best Buy. It used to be Media Play, but they're gone now. So, where do you go? I decided to try Circuit City. Their selection isn't always great, and they're poorly organized, but let's give it a shot.

And what do you know, they had it.

Dog Soldiers is about a squad of 6 soldiers who have to fend off a family of werewolves. That really kind of sums it up. It was really good though. Marshall does a great job of not showing a cheesy transformation by just not showing an actual transformation. The wolf costumes don't look bad, especially for the budget of the film. And it manages to really make you sympathize with all the characters, except for Captain Ryan, who is a big old bastard.

At this point, if you told me a movie was directed by Neil Marshall, I would watch it. I've enjoyed his work enough at this point that his name as director would get me to watch it.

I'll give Dog Soldiers 8 chew toys out of 10.

Look at me, I left my apartment. And I stayed sober!

If you were to say to me, "There's this movie. It's a fairy tale. It has some mythological motifs. And everyone says it's awesome." I'd respond by saying, "Oh really, do tell me more."

"It's directed by the dude who directed Hellboy."

"Hmm..." I would stroke my goatee and think to myself "Hellboy wasn't GREAT, but it had a great look to it."

You'd go on to say, "It's entirely in Spanish with English subtitles."

To which I would exclaim, "I'm in!" Because, apparently I get over excited sometimes.

My decision to go see Pan's Labyrinth, however, was NOTHING like that. Except for the parts that were. But go I did. To a theater. See, I do go out sometimes. Ha!

It started with a prologue to fill you in on the back story (kinda like Lord of the Rings, but shorter). Apparently, the princess of the underworld snuck off into the human world and became mortal. Her father, the King of the underworld, then set up some portals so that one day, she could return.

We then flash to Spain, 1944. Carmen and her daughter Ofelia are off to live with Carmen's new husband, Captain Vidal. Carmen is very pregnant, and Ofelia is really into fairy tales. Along the rad, Carmen begins to feel sick, so they pull the car over. Ofelia gets out and finds a rock with an eye on it. She puts the rock into a statue and a crazy giant bug comes out. Then, Ofelia rejoins her mother and they go back to their trip.

They get to the fort, and we meet Captain Vidal. He's unhappy because they're 15 minutes late. The bug Ofelia saw earlier seems to have followed them, and she chases after it, into the woods. Into a labyrinth, where she meant a faun.

The faun tells Ofelia that SHE is the missing princess and must complete three tasks to return to her kingdom. He gives her a book, and tells her that the book will tell her what the tasks will be.

First, she has to feed rocks to a grumpy toad and retrieve a key. In doing this, she gets very dirty.

But she has the key. Mission Completed. Key or not, mom is pissed at how dirty she got her new dress. Mom, however is getting sick, and Ofelia can't concentrate on her tasks. The faun is none to happy about that. Regardless, she must move on to the next mission. Take this chalk and draw a door. Use the key to retrieve something and hurry back. Oh, by the way, no matter how good the food looks...keep your grubby little mitts off of it. Of course, she doesn't listen and eats two grapes. Her punishment? This dude:

Who bites the heads off of fairies and apparently eats little kids. The faun gets PISSED because Ofelia disobeyed and tells her she must remain mortal now.

This whole story is set against the Spanish Civil War. You have the military, headed by Captain Vidal, versus the rebels in a guerrilla war. And what's amazing is that of all of the creatures that we see, none of them are nearly as evil as Captain Vidal. Vidal is simply one of the LEAST sympathetic characters I've ever seen in a movie.

I'll stop the play by play here so there's enough suspense left for you when you go see the movie.

Pan's Labyrinth was written and directed by Guillermo del Toro. And del Toro has certainly crafted an amazing film here. It's easy to see why it's won so many awards. The visuals are great, the characters are interesting, the acting is great. There are very few flaws in this movie. It's biggest shortcoming may well be it's pacing. The side story involving the war, while serving to show how horrible a person Vidal is, drags on a bit and much of it felt unneeded. The only other real problem is that Ofelia's tasks almost seem too simple. It may just be me though. None of this really hurts the film though. In the end I give it 8 drops of blood from an innocent out of 10.

I like flying because I actually manage to watch movies when I fly.

There are 2 things in this world that I love. 1) Peanut butter. Creamy. Sometimes on toast, sometimes on a bagel, in hummus, in anything. Hell I'll eat peanut butter by the spoonful! Yum! 2) Pants fresh from the dryer. Especially on a cold day in mid January.

There are two other things I love. 1) Radio. 2) Japanese movies about ghosts.

Of those two groupings, only one of them is well represented by 2005's The Booth.

The Booth starts off with some grainy footage of an older man hosting a call in show. A woman calls who wants to talk about a suicide pact that she entered into with someone when their parents didn't want them to get hitched. Homeboy, rockin the mic, asks her a bit about it and she says that it was 30 years ago! And the dude...LIVED. He let her kill herself and then moved on with his life. Apparently, he went on to host a radio talk show, because the announcer stood up and hung himself in the studio.

Studio 6.

Fast forward to present day Tokyo. You can tell it's modern because there's all sorts of bright lights and the director isn't using that grainy effect anymore. Shingo is a rocking late night radio host, or "jock" (as in disc JOCKey. That's an industry term for you), who hosts a show called Love Lines. A show about, you guessed it, people's love problems (that's a terrible sentence, isn't it? Ugh). Watch out Dr. Drew Pinsky.

Shingo is an asshole, or "jock." Well, maybe that's being overly judgmental. If you do a lot of shitty things to people, does that mean you're a shitty person? Scholars and philosophers have been trying to figure that out for years. And it's a discussion best left to the likes of them.

We've all done things that we regret. Or regret things we've failed to do. Ever joke with someone about their breath being fouler than...we'll something really foul? And that's what The Booth prey's on. What if it turned out that all of these transgressions came back to haunt you. The paranoia of everything coming back and biting you in the ass.

The fear of suddenly having everyone you know out to get you. All of a sudden, your phone screener with the stinky breath is giving you "weirdos" to talk to. Your board operator is "accidentally" leaving your mike open when you bad mouth a client. Your writer "is looking" for some new headphones for you. Your now ex-girlfriend shows up for work with that "scar" on her face from when you dragged her across the gravel parking lot.

All of this set against the backdrop of the "haunted" Studio 6.

And Shingo does exactly what you would do. He pisses himself. Twice.

And then he does that thing he does at the end.

I hate giving away the ending of a movie.

The Booth was written and directed by Yoshihiro Nakamura, who also wrote the screenplay for the original, Japanese, version of Dark Water. Itself an adaptation of a short story by Koji Suzuki who wrote Ringu, or the original version of The Ring. Somehow everything always comes back to Ringu.

At 74 minutes, it's a pretty short movie, and that's probably to it's benefit. It's a clever spin on the Japanese ghost movie, and if it had been much longer it may have tried to get too clever. As it is, the end of the movie was already a bit of a let down. At the same time, it was a pretty good ending for the movie. Does that make any sense? Well, watch the movie. Let me know how you would describe it.

Overall, it was enjoyable. I dug it. I'd been looking forward to it since I heard about it a year ago. So, I'll give it 7 presets on my car stereo out of ten.

In which I take care of my moral obligations.

It has recently been brought to my attention that I have some sort of a duty as a blogger to "help mold film making."

Here I've spent the past year assuming my obligation as a blogger was to foam at the mouth and write mildy witty comments about the movies I watch. I mean hell, I started doing this as a way to talk shit about movies.

But if someone in this world thinks that entitles me to influence Hollywood (I'm looking at MoviesOnline.ca), then goddammit, I'm gonna try!

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Hollywood,

Hey there! How ya been? It's been along time since we talked last! I know, I made new friends, those wacky foreigner and their crazy ghost stories. I guess I got a little too caught up in that new circle that we lost touch. It was kind of cute at first when you tried imitating them to win me back, what with your own wacky ghost stories.

What was it, 1998? Remember that summer? We spent so much time together, going to the beach, hitting Cedar Point. You were there when my girlfriend dumped me. I tried to warn you that getting involved with Jerry Springer was bad news. You were so full of dreams though back then. Between saving your Army friend Pvt. Ryan, and saving the world from an asteroid (twice!), you introduced us to your friend Mary and your Japanese friend Godzilla. Remember him? You gave him that makeover for his big introduction.

I've been wondering about him lately, too. Or, I should say, her. She did lay all those eggs! What ever became of them? You know, I had an idea. Maybe it's time you bring Godzilla back across the Pacific, I hear he's retired now, but maybe you can talk him into one more romp through the city. Bring his friends, too, he's going to need them!

See here's my idea, take a city like Seattle, and it's overrun with zombies. Yeah. See, you like zombies. So, all these zombies taking over the city, nothing can stop them, and then, here comes Godzilla. To save the day! But in the process, Godzilla turns into a zombie. And then turns all his monster buddies into monster zombies! Monster zombies with an insatiable lust for human flesh!

Now, I know there's a lot left to that story, and I'll leave that up to you. You're the one with the creative writers. I'm only trying to create a mold for you. A basic shape. It's up to you to fill it.

Let me know what you think. It'd be great to hear back from you regardless, you know, just to catch up. And I hop I get to see Godzilla Vs The Zombies on the schedule for Memorial Weekend 2009!

Sincerely,
dreamrot
Your humble blogger at $7 Popcorn

PS: You can change the title if you want. I'm just throwing it out there.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank god that's done. I never realized being a blogger meant I had so much responsibility.

Where I ramble on and on a bit.

Well, I'll be damned... sometime last week, 7 Dollar Popcorn turned a year old. And I missed it. Son of a bitch. I would have liked to send a card, or do something special. But, no, I forgot all about it.

In my defense though, 7dp never even HINTED at it. No subtle gift suggestions. No cute little reminders. Nothing. It's no excuse though. I shouldn't need those things.

It's okay though. I'll make up for it. I have something AMAZING planned for next month. Something that I'm not ready to divulge just yet. Let's just say I'm not calling it MOVIE-uary for nothing!

Ok, I'm not really going to call it that. It sounded better in my head. MOVE-uary sounds better...but it doesn't say movie, now does it? It's okay though. I still have two weeks to figure it out.

On a side note...

Have you seen any of the previews for Pan's Labyrinth?




It looks pretty sweet. I think I'm going to try to go see it this weekend. That's right, I MAY LEAVE MY APARTMENT! Amazing, I know. I'm not always the recluse I seem to be.

What about Blood and Chocolate?



When was the last time someone made a good werewolf movie? Underworld? It HAD werewolves, but I'm not sure it was a werewolf movie.

FGFC: Killing with a garden claw...I never thought of that.

It will inevitably be asked at some point, what I did this weekend. Well, let me tell you.

I rocked out.

You see, I'm something of a "hero" when it comes to playing the "guitar" or, gee-tar as you may know it. I have a Gibson SG that I like to refer to as The Terror of Tokyo due to it's custom Godzilla design. Friday night, I jammed with my friend, covering some hot Cheap Trick and Nirvana tracks. On Saturday, I just sort of played with myself (not like that), practicing some Deep Purple and White Zombie covers. It was sounding pretty awesome, at first...amps at 11, adding a little extra whammy bar flair to Iron Man. But then I upped the difficulty to medium and I just couldn't hit the blue notes.

So, I decided I needed to stop rocking out. I did not, however, stop my normal post show ritual. However, due to a lack of groupies in my apartment, I could only get drunk. And drunk I was as my friend and I popped this month's Final Girl Film Club movie into my DVD player. That movie being the 1984, Daphne Zuniga classic, The Initiation.

I did, desperately try to take notes, but I gave up only a half hour or so into the movie. I have no excuse. So, bear with me as I try to recall what I saw through my post-rock-out hangover.

After the worlds longest and least interesting credit intro (okay, it was only two and a half minutes, but wow was it dull. Even for credits!) it all starts off with a kind fast asleep. She wakes up to walk down a hallway, to appropriately creepy music. A child wandering through the house to her parents bedroom where there be some fuckin goin on. So, she stabs dad and then, someone else comes in and seems none to happy and ends up on fire in the fireplace.

Oh! It was a dream! Okay. Kelly wakes up to a bunch of lingerie clad ladies singing "Delta Rho Ki never will die", which as songs go, has a good beat, but the lyrics lack originality. Kelly is apparently pledging a sorority run by someone's mother. I'm sorry, but this Megan lady just seems too old to be in college. Regardless, she's come up with a prank that involves breaking into Kelly's dad's mall to steal the uniform from the night watchman. That's hot. Apparently Megan wants someone to go be a whore or something.

We then go over to a loony bin...full of loonies! And a gardener. A BURN VICTIM gardener. Foreshadowing! Apparently no one is interested in locking doors in this place.. As the Nurse Ratched wannabe walks to her car, all the loonies are out of their bin playing ring around the rosie in the parking lot. She gets to her care where she's carefully stabbed with a garden claw. By carefully I mean without enough real force to puncture the chest plate, but it's a movie and we'll suspend our disbelief for now.

Which brings up to the one thing we at 7dp industries couldn't stop laughing at.

Look behind him...on the chalkboard...it says anal! Ha! We laugh at fart jokes too.

This is sort of where my notes end...that's right, less than a third of the way into the movie. I'd like to say that it was because I was so ENTHRALLED by the movie, but let's be honest for a change. The reality is that it took me almost 20 minutes to lose interest. This is a movie who's own box advertises that it "delivers the goods with gratuitous nudity, carved-up co-eds and a truly wicked climactic twist." Of which, it actually delivered none. While there was some nudity, it could hardly be called gratuitous, which is a shame because that's my favorite kind. I would hardly call anyone "carved-up", it was more like "punctured with gardening tools" and the so called twist is...well, twisty and possibly unexpected unless you read the chapter titles before watching the movie (which I did). I will say this about the shocking conclusion, they did a fairly good job of leading you away from that possibility. The filmmakers did include, however, some rather unfortunate clothing choices, large belt buckles, and a guy in a penis costume.

And where were the corpses anyway? Half a dozen people are killed, yet only 1 dead body is really ever found.

Wait. I'm sorry. There were 2.

And wouldn't THIS just fuck your shit up?

The Initiation is not a great movie. Hell, I'm not sure that is was even a good movie. It reminds me of the stuff my brother and I used to watch on USA Up All Night with Rhonda Shear. This was of course, back when cable tv was a veritable wasteland after 11pm, littered with b-movies and infomercials. Now it's all Law & Order repeats.

In the end, I give The Initiation...let's go with almost 5 garden weasels out of the shed...I mean out of ten.

And now, they want my band Seratonin to do an encore. I think we're gonna do War Pigs. After that, we're going to go play a new venue. I'm so excited.

Edit: I've changed my "rating" of this movie three times now. In it's original form it was 3, then 4. Now it's a 5. Why do I keep changing you you ask? Well, the more I talk about it and the more I think about the movie the more I like it. And besides, it's entirely subjective and I CAN change my rating. I can't imagine going above a 5 for it, and it's a soft 5 to begin with, it was an average movie. It was a good movie to get drunk to, and that counts for something.

Predictions coming true.

Remember how much I liked Pulse? The Kairo remake staring Kristen Bell?

No? Let me refresh your memory then. I saw it opening night and it was complete crap. It wasn't scary and it wasn't interesting. And I hated it.

Why does this matter, well, I bought it on DVD. I bought a movie that I had seen and knew that I didn't like. I bought it anyways. And it wasn't something where I was at the store and it was a really good price, or part of some weird two-pack with something I liked. No, I deliberately went to Amazon.com with the sole intention of buying it.

*sigh*

What the hell is wrong with me?

Coming next fall on the CW

There are movies that you can really sit down with the guys, have a few beers and enjoy. Normally, you look at amovie with Vince Vaughn and think, "This is going to be one of those movies! Call the afore mentioned guys. Grab some so called "cold ones"!" Then you realize that this particular Vince Vaughn movie is The Break-Up, which, while it does have Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau, this is not going to be Swingers Part Deux, You're So Money Again. That's okay though, you know that it's not going to be something great, you don't expect it to be. Hell, it's a DVD that your fucking bank sent you for using your debit card so much. They just sent it as a thank you. And you thought to yourself, "Well, it's got Vince Vaughn, how bad could it be. And besides, it's got that once chick from Friends, she's kinda hot..."

How bad could it be?

Bad.

Really bad.

Boring bad.

Not funny bad.

And that was it's biggest flaw, it was movie filled with jokes that didn't work. Clichés that were...well, old clichés. It was predictable from beginning to end. The only thing missing was the scene where they paint a line down the middle of the condo. This was an episode of a sitcom stretched out into a feature length movie.

Rather than two 30-something adults, this should have been about 2 late-teen kids. I mean, if this is how adults are supposed to resolve their disputes, than I'll be a toys-r-us kid forever!

Here's the deal, Brooke and Gary meet at a Cubs game. They date, fall in love and move into a condo together, time goes by. Brooke gets mad at Gary and breaks up with him. Want to know why she breaks up with him? To make him appreciate her more! How do you intend to bring someone closer by pushing them away? What kind of fucked up chick logic is that?? So, Brooke goes about trying to win him back by getting him kicked off the bowling team, having her brother sing to piss him off and then dating a couple other guys, all while arguing over who should keep the condo!

By any standards, this was just NOT a fun movie. I know that drunk old dreamrot isn't the target audience for this movie, but shit, who would be? That people actually paid to see this is amazing. You want to see a movie about a dispute over their living space? Watch 2ldk, now there was a movie that took the concept to new levels.

As for The Break-Up...I guess it was worth what I paid for it (since I got it for free), but only just.