Reviews

Poor Gossip Girl. She's been called everything from "a less classy OC" to "an advent for teen drinking." At any rate, the combination of scandal, booze, and pretty teenage boys has proved to be a dynamic formula. On the surface, sure, it smells like an OC clone-- but in truth, Gossip Girl doesn't deserve to be degraded into another 90210 knock-off. The show is genuinely entertaining.

Yes, it delves into the ubiquitous 'teendramaangst' genre that my male friends have a tendency to point fingers and laugh at. And yes, the show enters one of those outwardly realms where ugly people do not exist. However, Gossip Girl can be quite sharp when it wants to be. There's enough angst in it to drown a screaming, mascara-ridden Jared Leto—but it is in no way a terrible show. (If you want to see terrible, go watch 'Cavemen'—I dare you.) It's sleek, it's polished, and there are times where the dialog is smart enough to remind me a slightly sassier version of the late Gilmore Girls.

Based on a book series of the same name marketed toward teenage girls, the show follows a group of privileged teenagers. Their pinkie-manicures cost more than my car, I'm sure, but the characters are likable enough—excluding a particular few, of course. Blair is played to sardonic perfection by the lovely Leighton Meester— the CW's answer to Alexis Bledel. (Angelfaced brunettes of high-societal lines of pompous blood are quite popular amongst the network.) Serena, played by Blake Lively, is charismatic enough for the audience not to completely dislike her—even if she did sleep with her best friend's boyfriend.

Thus, I am somewhere between proud/reluctant to declare 'Gossip Girl' as Guilty Pleasure #142, just two spaces away from sleeveless turtlenecks and jelly pens (tied at guilty pleasure #140.) In many ways, Gossip Girl is the perfect metaphoric depiction of the jelly pen trend. Lovely to look at, arresting in all its sparkly, glittering glory-- but a bit ridiculous from a larger scale. If you want to watch Gossip Girl, you have to be in a certain state of mind—the same state of mind people are in when they blow $300 on one of those teeny-tiny name brand purses.

At any rate, if you don't like shows about scandal-driven teenagers (you know who you are) then don't kid yourself by watching this show for no reason. Gossip Girl's core audience is not meant to be critical middle-aged geniuses with PhDs.

There have been many vapid, watery attempts at an appealing comedy show in the past, and I'll sure there will be plenty more to come in the fall.

Luckily, this particular show is among the good batch. The humor is very consistent, and there's never a dramatic moment without a comical follow-up to compensate. It says to you 'Hm, even though it's obligatory that we must have these touching moments of overwrought sentiment, we can make up for that by immediately trailing this with an insanely witty bit, most likely to be delivered by the neurotic husband.'

It's clever, it's witty, and it possesses an pleasantly engaging title that screams for folks to give the name a double-glance, frown iffy-ly, say "Why, what is this 'Underbelly' you speak of?" and eventually (hopefully) succumb to their meddling curiosity and watch this show.

My first thought when I heard they were making a television series out of Animorphs? "How the *beep* are they going to that?" Well, apparently I am a primordial gizmo-challenged dinosaur. Nowadays, there is a wonderful shitload of what folks call "Special Effects." Or, "SpEff," if you will.

With Speff, we have managed to create one of the most horrendously adapted small-screen projects ever.

No, I am not a book snob. But really, the only benefit I got from watching this television series was a newfound understanding of the pronunciation of Tobias' name, and an urge to bash open my skull and gouge out every lasting morsel of respect I had for the books.

I had never noticed this before, but the thought-speak is ridiculous! It's like Doctor Dolittle gone Spandex! One day, when the 'Speff' and creative teams for television are better, perhaps they will try again-- with slightly better results.

Till then... 4/10

The average creepy movie addict would not be pleased. The film attempts to meld the horror genre along with a spoonful of comedy, a formula that kind of kills it before it even gets a chance to really show it's potential. You know that a horror movie isn't going to work when there are more laughs than screams.

The plot line is rather discombobulating. The concept is simple, at first. A filthy rich kleptomaniac dies and leaves his house to his freshly widowed nephew. The house happens to contain a sinister implement of Satan in the basement, where in addition to the devil-spawned machine, holds several dead, but undead souls as well.

From there the plot line gets a little knotted, and unfortunately, it never really untangles.

The transition between scenes does not run as smoothly as one might like. The scenes with the ghosts are done in frequent flashes from one character to another-- and the end result looks a little flaky.

The ghosts themselves reminded me of homicidal clowns-- though more comical, than scary. (big, exaggerated steps, lots of growling, snarling, exposing canine teeth) The ghost's costumes, while supposed to be frightening, are as over-the-top as their acting. Did anybody else wonder why the little boy had an arrow sticking through his head? It made him appear more like a sideshow than a evil force to be reckoned with.

So as I said before, hard-core scary movie watchers should stay away. But those looking for moderate entertainment are encouraged to give it a shot. You might enjoy it, but the chances of actually liking it are less than 20, maybe 12%.

Sex is Zero centers about the development of an awkward college student and his unrequited love for a beautiful girl out of his league, successively delivering the usual dose of masturbation jokes and penis cracks along the way. On the surface, it's a debauched concoction of raunch and libido, blending together to give frat boys another way to find hilarity in promiscuity.

However, at the same time, it cleverly meshes smut and sincerity to form a surprisingly charismatic outcome. A sex comedy --with depth, at that. Something that American Pie and other films in it's genre lacks.

While the film explores the sexual exploits of the surrounding characters, it also digs into the plausible outcomes of the loose lifestyles they exude. There are times where it drops it's crude humor long enough to give the film a weighty, sedate factor as well-- making the overall outcome a memorably genuine movie, worthwhile for horny frat boys and curious onlookers alike.

A neat film trailing the event that inspired a classic. Following the crash of the giant whaling boat and it's surviving crew members, you witness what unfolds when reality and the recognition of potential demise sets in.

Despite what the title reads, this film centers mainly around the captain and crew occupying the ship. After a brief introductory to the practice of whaling, passages recorded from the actual crew members acquaint us with a wavery, waffling captain and a strong-headed first mate. The documentary, complete with great animations reenacting the events, soon takes us to the climacteric scene where 'Moby Dick' makes his first appearance, durably altering the course of the seaman's' lives and triggering the event that eventually launched a thousand novels.

But the massive whale's part is a brief one, and it's the events and struggles that transpire afterwards that's most likely to stick in your mind. Maybe it's the way the crew fears of steering for a plausible island for refuge in the possibly of cannibals, only to realize on a later time that irony is a ceaseless domineer. Or perhaps it's how a shipmate is forced to take the life of the friend he'd known since adolescence in order to salvage he and the crews' own biting starvation.

On the other hand, it's not unimaginable that you could just as easily find this film painfully arid. That's why I don't recommend it for folks who can't sit through a program on the History Channel without falling asleep. But it's suggested for anyone else with an open mind and roughly one and a half hours to spare.

I'm sorry, but this is not a very good show. The dialogue is bland, the events are predictable, and it feels like we've seen the insignificant plot lines a million times before.

The characters are extremely one-dimensional and over-dramatic to the point where it's annoying and/or frustrating to watch them interact. But this itself wouldn't be much of a problem if not for the fact that their 'interacting' is difficult to swallow and the script could use a hell of a lot more work.

Also, the chemistry between a lot of the characters is zero. This is a pretty bad thing considering much of the show centers around their relationships. Skip this show if you tend to dislike chick flicks. Because this is basically just a really bad chick flick disguised as a television series.

For a DVD that sells 3.99 at Walgreens, this movie was a lot better than I expected. Yes, seeing Jack Nicholson pre-Schmidt days is a fun concept. But that amusement was short-lived, and I eventually found myself actually intrigued with the entire plot-line going on.

Jack is an officer of some sort, and he gets stranded on a seluded island of some sort with this witch of some sort, her boy of some sort and this weird girl of some sort. Turmoil unravels when he finds himself curiously (or not so curiously, considering there was the whole cleavage thing going on) attracted to the weird girl.

Vague, yes. But this is kind of the type of movie whereas if I say anything more, it would be considered a spoiler. Everything/everyone will link together in the end. There is also a killer crow that is quite amusing and scary at times.

Ignoring the fact I could barely hear the dialogue despite I had the volume turned up on 10, the oldness of the film was actually fitting. It adds to the whole vintage horror flick persona, supported by a young Jack Nicholson, dramatic music, and fuzzy-staticky screen. So don't be discouraged if it appears to be a little washed out. It's satisfying, and leaves you feeling disturbed. 3.99 was well spent.

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll mostly laugh. And the crying will be due to the fact you're laughing so hard.

The god-to-honest truth is I borrowed this from the library, which as I can imagine had stocked up on it for the same reason, for some ill-hearted humor. The very thought that someone let Mariah Carey make a movie was enough to kill off any shred of conviction I had left for mankind, but I figured I might as well get some laughs off it. Just for my personal enjoyment.

But to tell you the truth, this movie wasn't half bad.

Okay scratch that, it was a little more than half bad. Actually it was really bad. But let me just say, this is not the worst movie I've ever watched in my entire life. Which is kind of sad, once you think about it.

But just for the record, it still makes Britney's Crossroads look like crap. So if you want to finish up the movie and leave your television stand with ANY respect for Mariah Carey at all, my advice is to pop in a good hour of Crossroads before going forth the ever-so-arduous task of sitting through Glitter. Nothing ever seems so atrocious after Britney's Crossroads except for Britney's Crossroads.

But if you're like me and think Mariah Carey's a complete disgrace and setback to society to begin with, feel free to pop in that tape and settle back for a nice hour or two of watching Mariah Carey be a complete disgrace and setback to society.

Edgy, moving, and strangely inspiring, Lord of War is probably in my opinion, one of the best movies I've watched this year. Nicholas Cage's dreary persona compliments Yuri's discreet character very well. And though it's hard to imagine Jared Leto (who's come a long way since My So-Called Life) as Nicholas Cages' brother, both actors do an extraordinary job in their portrayal.

The story lines spins out from Yuri's sudden discovery in the fact that he'd been blind to see what could make him a powerful cash crop was right in front of his face. Living in a neighborhood in which the obituaries should be fives pages long, Yuri set out with his capricious flighty brother to sell illegal firearms to foreign countries. At this point, it's hard to tell whether he's oblivious or just plain uncaring to the fact he's assisting in the murder of thousands of people this way.

Enter the alluring Ava Fontaine, or Yuri's 'dream girl' as he had previously named her in his days of admiring from afar. But after stocking up on enough cash and guts to double-deal his way into her affection, those days are clearly over. Bridget Moynahan's chemistry with Cage could be/should be better, but she does an exceptional job in playing out the anguished trophy wife Eventually, Yuri find himself pulled deeper into his baneful role as the supplier of lethal weaponry, or as third world country tyrant Andre Sr. dubs him, "Lord of War." And it's not long before he realizes that he's dug himself into a hole deeper than he could climb out of.

On a slightly different note, if you're easily disheartened or distressed by volatile images or situations, this movie is not for you.