i love you, man

the guys and i actually went to go see this on the day of my bachelor party- perfect timing! the film itself is about a guy who is getting married but doesnt have any guy friends that he can ask to stand up for him or be his best man in the ceremony. he goes on a quest to find some guy friends, and perhaps even find himself that elusive 'best friend'.
when we went to see it we totally loved it! i am totally bias though. first, i have a man crush on paul rudd, and one of my favorite shows is 'how i met your mother', so i already love jason segel too! we had a great time watching the movie and then quoting it the rest of the night during the bachelor party (slappin' da bass!). the film does a great job of balancing humor and heart. the interactions between the two guys are really funny and paul rudd does a great job of being a guy who doesnt quite know how to hang out with other guys.
this is definitely one that i would like to add to my dvd collection- it will be watched and quoted regularly!

watchmen

i loved the comic book, and i was really eager to see this film. i guess it had been too long since i read the comic book because i didn't remember much of the storyline at all! the film was decent, but i would really like to revisit the comic book and see this movie again when it comes out on dvd.
how about i'll do that, and then get back to you about the film. sound good?

chaos theory

it was cheap, it has ryan reynolds in it, that means its worth a shot, right? for a movie that went straight to dvd (usually that means it was too bad to actually be released in the theaters) it wasnt terrible. its a bit of a chick flick, and unfortunately follows the most basic of all chick flick criteria: the problems that cause everything to go wrong could have been avoided by just having the two people sit down and talk it out.
here's the set up: reynolds goes to give a time management seminar and is late, thus throwing his speech and day into trouble. he makes some poor decisions, but makes it home safe and faithful. his wife goes ballistic because she gets some bad information, she gets kicked out of the house and so he rebels against his time management life and lives a life of chaos. will his wife welcome him back? will he even want to go back?
reynolds does a great job with playing a guy who goes to extremes and tries to make sense of it all, but i couldn't get past the fact that all of the chaos, frustration, and life destroying choices could have been avoided with a five minute conversation between the husband and wife. argh.

chaos

i wasn't sure what to expect with this one. the cast made me think it would be great- its got jason statham and wesley snipes?!? awesome! but the fact that this one went straight to dvd had me worried.
turns out both responses were valid. the basic story follows a statham as a disgraced cop who is called back into service to help with a bank robbery lead by snipes. the rest of the film is a chasing game between the two. the cast is great, we see these two guys try and one-up each other every chance they can get. they dont have very many scenes together, which leads to the unfortunate news that we dont ever get to see a stath/snipes fight. and there is the unfortunate fact that it also has ryan phillippe in it. he is about as good of an actor as a stalk of brocolli... there are some nice twists and turns through out the film, but when all is said and done, it becomes appearant why this one was sent straight to dvd. the story is weak and offers nothing new. its pretty well done, and if it had been made about 1o or 15 years earlier, it probably would have been quite a hit. its just kind of over done and feels more like an extended episode of a cop show than an actual movie. sure, its in my dvd collection, but it was only four bucks (only about fifty cents more than actually renting it...) so i dont feel so bad.

my best friend's girl

i saw this one when the guys were over and we had a great time watching it. i cant say it was really that great, but there were enough good parts that we had a ball! the story is this: jason biggs really likes kate hudson but she doesn't feel very strongly about him, so biggs hires his roommate, played by dane cook to fix things. cook plays a guy who is hired by guys who have just been dumped to go out on a date with their exes and be a complete jerk, the goal is to get the women to realize just how good they had it with their old boyfriends and come crawling back to them. there are a couple examples of him doing this and they are hilarious! cook does such a good job at being a total jerk. all the best parts of the movie are from the intentionally bad dates he takes these women on. well, he tries to get hudson back with biggs, but ends up falling for her himself when she sees through all his jerky tricks and plays along with them.
as the movie goes on it does fall into a couple of the 'chick flick' cliches, but does a very funny job of avoiding most of them. at one point the couple find themselves at a high school prom. cook sits next to the fat kid who is too timid to dance with a girl, he tries to encourage him. we, the audience, wait for the sappy feel good moment that always comes from these cliches, but they twist this one on its head and it becomes a really funny bit instead!
over all its a pretty funny movie, and worth watching just for the wedding date!

dead like me: life after death

jeffry lee was really excited to see this one. a few years ago there was a show on showtime called 'dead like me' and jeff loved it. in fact, he actually bought both seasons, which he never does. over the past year or two he has let me borrow them and i have watched most of the episodes. the premise is a pretty good one: each of the main characters are dead, but havent moved on to the afterlife yet. instead, they have been recruited to do the grim reaper's dirty work. each morning they meet and get their target for the day and must go and reap the soul of someone the moment before they die. the series dealt with what it means to be a reaper and the importance of the job they do. if they don't take the souls before the person dies the death might be avoided, but it just means they will end up dying a grizzlier death soon after. these reapers try to make peace with what they do and with the fact that they are no longer who they were. the main character that we follow through out the show was recently deceased and still wants to be with her family but must deal with all of these things.
this direct to dvd movie is set soon after the second season ends. the guy who gives them their target for the day doesnt show up one morning and they have to figure out what to do next. again it deals with fulfilling the job they were given and what that means for them and their targets. it was fun to see all these characters back together again doing their thing, but im not entirely sure that it was necessary. the whole plot only slightly develops the characters as they struggle with the same decisions that they faced in every episode of the show. not much was added, and it felt like there really was no reason to revisit this world. it was all done well, but it felt kind of ho hum.