Charlie's Angels

Personal biases to get out of the way: 1) This is a movie based on a 1970s television show, and that rarely, if ever, pans out well. 2) Sarah has an intense dislike for Cameron Diaz.



Directed By: McG (Terminator Salvation, We Are Marshall)
Starring: Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu and Cameron Diaz
Plot Summary: "If some girl is telling you she learned all about bombs from the Internet, maybe you should rethink your relationship."

Dylan, Alex, and Natalie (Barrymore, Liu, and Diaz, respectively) are Charlie's Angels, an elite trio of secret agents. They work for a mysterious, unseen benefactor who delivers their assignments through his right-hand-man, Bosley (an adorable Bill Murray), via a speaker in Bosley's apartment. The Angels have been tasked with recovering Eric Knox (Sam Rockwell), a kidnapped software engineer whose technology would end privacy and international security as we know it. BUT WAIT! Knox and his partner, Vivian (Kelly Lynch), aren't the victims at all! In a surprisingly well-thought out plot, they (with the help of their personal assassin, Creepy Thin Man, "played" by Crispin Glover) are just using the Angels to gain access to a another company's tracking software. Knox also thinks Charlie killed his father when they were in Vietnam, so guess who he's trying to trace?

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"Aww, remember when she was with Tom Green?" / "Remember how Tom Green had ball surgery on MTV?"
--"Who is this She-Hulk woman who sounds like a man?" / "Looks like a man, too. S***, that's a severe face."
--"Oh, this is back when palm pilots were a thing."
--"Really? 'Independent Women' playing over a scene featuring fast food and Lucy's ass?" / "Are they independent because they can afford fast food? I ate a burger off the dollar menu today and I'm broke as s***."
--"Crispin Glover will never not be creepy. Has he said anything in this movie, or just laughed and screamed?"
--"I always forget Luke Wilson's face." / "But how can you forget that jaw?"
--"TAKE A SHOT WHENEVER AN ANGEL FLIPS HER HAIR!"
--"Yes, send the efficient Asian to be the dominatrix stand-in."
--"God damn, I love Sam Rockwell."
--"Bosley, check for a penis!"
--"Okay, I've seen at least three movies where a crowd of black people screams, 'Go, white girl!' or 'Go, white boy!' at someone, and I can tell you, that does NOT happen."
--"YOU CAN'T THROW A DOOR LIKE THAT!"
--"I assure you, those wires would not be labeled 'Primary Flight Control Circuits.'"

"I have to say, men look like idiots in this movie, and I'm enjoying that. Because you KNOW this s*** would work. I've done it."

About 98% of action movies feature some piece of female eye candy who closes her eyes and shrieks when she's supposed to be aiming and shooting a gun. If she accomplishes anything, the hero's still got to save her at the last minute from the bad guy using her as collateral. In a refreshing take, Charlie's Angels celebrates the fact that our heroines are women as they take out clueless man after clueless man. At several points throughout the movie, the Angels use their feminine assets to get undercover: a geisha-like masseuse renders an executive unconscious in order to get an important key from his belongings. Belly dancers distract security personnel in an exotic bar while another dancer steals his fingerprints. An absurdly flirty pit-stop worker keeps a driver preoccupied in his own car, while another breaks into the trunk to plant a bug.

Sometimes, the Angels physically beat men like they stole something. (Sarah loves the trio's first, high-octane fight with Creepy Thin Man, and I love when Natalie kicks the absolute s*** out of a hitman who attacks her in a bathroom.) Other times require the soft approach, and they're owning it in either case. People say that if you want to deal with a man, you've got to meet him on his level, but what does that really mean? Fight like a man because being a woman isn't worth anything? Bitch, please. "Fighting fire with fire" has never made any sense. When's the last time you saw a firefighter run into a burning building with a flamethrower?

That being said, while the Angels are very clever and good at what they do, it's irritating that they're at their most efficient when manipulating men with sex. Personally, I think that fact raises a question more insulting to the location of men's brains than it is to women, but it's still something to think about. They are far more than beautiful women who look good in skintight clothing, so does this cheapen their other abilities? Plus, Jason (Matt LeBlanc), Alex's boyfriend, spends most of the movie thinking she's a bikini waxer, of all things, which is already a sexually-connotated occupation. She couldn't have said she was anything else? His disappointment at discovering that she's not a bikini waxer is not because she lied to him, but because he had thought it was so hot. That says a lot.

The Best Part: Crispin Glover, the eternal freakshow, is perfect in his rather memorable role as Creepy Thin Man. No, the character does not have a name. The Angels call him Creepy Thin Man, so Creepy Thin Man it is, and giving him a name would not have made him any less of a skinny creeper. Glover has made his career being weird -- not "Who's that girl? It's Jess!" weird, but "I've been a storyline on on Criminal Minds" weird -- and this is no exception. After ripping out some of Dylan's hair during their first encounter, he holds onto it, then runs the keepsake over his face and smells it a couple times. The same thing happens in their final meeting, when Alex is the one to lose a lock. What else could they have called him, anyway? Rape-Face McGee?

The Worst Part: The opening, a classic Bond-movie intro in its complete non-relation to the rest of the plot, is totally ridiculous. LL Cool J pulling off his own face to reveal that he's a disguise for Drew Barrymore is jarring, to put it lightly. The movie walks a fine line of self-referential, early 2000s camp, but that crosses it.

Charlie's Angels gets a solid B. If nothing else, it's a fun action movie with women who don't suck and have a sense of humor, and it raised a really great feminism debate between Sarah and I.

We'll leave you with the terrible video for Destiny's Child's "Independent Women, Part 1," the movie's promotional theme song. Enjoy!



Jasmyn: "I remember when this song came out. All us 11-year-olds singing, 'All the women who independent!' Cut to: 'MOM, CAN I HAVE $20 DOLLARS?!'"

300

That's the entire story.



Directed By: Zack Snyder (Watchmen, Sucker Punch)
Starring: Gerard Butler, Lena Headey and David Wenham
Plot Summary: "I can't believe how long this movie is. It clearly doesn't have enough story for two hours."

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"Are we pretending this weird, slightly Asian-looking kid grows up to look like Gerard Butler?" / "This motherf***er looks like the Last Airbender."
--"Did they just quote Galaxy Quest?"
--"I don't think Hollywood filmmakers have a grasp of what Persia was."
--"Who's narrating?" / "Faramir."
--"Gerard, I like you so much better with your real accent. Because that is auditory sex."
--"Geography and physics are lost on whoever made this movie." / "Psh, Zack Snyder doesn't do physics."
--"Why do all these dudes have herpes of the face?"
--"Wait a f***ing minute, MICHAEL FASSBENDER'S IN THIS MOVIE?!"
--"Whatever effects they used on her boobs make them look like part of a novelty t-shirt."
--"Was that goat playing the guitar?"
--"I wish Orlando Bloom was in this movie." / "Oh my God, yes! That's what this needs! Orlando Bloom staring at nothing!"

"These battles are either like a lame video game or a really weird dream."

If anyone expected this movie to be historically accurate, we'd venture a guess that they were disappointed. Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette would even win that argument. However, since it's easy to forget about logic, physics, geography and history in a Zack Snyder movie, we might be able to let that slide. Snyder's got a death grip on how to heighten reality to the point that "reality" becomes a loose term (for reference, please see: ANY OF HIS OTHER MOVIES). All the shirtless men had their abs digitally enhanced, which is one of the more ridiculous uses of CGI we've seen in awhile. Have Butler and Fassbender ever needed help in the ripped-and-sexy department? Does Lena Headey's cleavage need contouring? If your answer to either of those questions is, "Why not?" then let us know when you want us to review whatever horrendous movie you just wrote.

That's the big question at work here: "Why not?" Why not transform Xerxes into a ten-foot-tall transvestite with some sort of thyroid disorder? Why not throw Persian orgies with fauns? Why not make the Spartan traitor a deformed hunchback? (People with birth defects are rage-filled invalids who can't be trusted, right?) Why not depict the bad guys as Africans and other darker-skinned people than the Spartans, yet again, since that's how Hollywood copes with evildoers? Why not send Leonidas into a suicide battle against an army THIRTY-THREE times larger than his own for no reason other than being remembered?

Oh? What's that? Being slaughtered mercilessly so people can make incomprehensible movies about you doesn't win the war? YOU DON'T F***ING SAY?

The Best Part: Queen Gorgo, played by Lena Headey, was strong and intelligent, and although the Spartan society around her saw her the same way they'd see any individual with two X chromosomes, she commanded respect. Her relationship with Leonidas, who treated her as his equal, was easily the best dynamic. Plus, visually-speaking, this movie is gorgeous.

The Worst Part: This "death for glory" bulls*** is not enough motive to drive a real-life fight, let alone a two-hour movie. It's just not.

We give 300 a C. It's not as bad as either of us remembered it, but it still failed to be enjoyable in any particular way.

Fun Fact: Most of the swords and shields used in this movie were recycled from the sets of Troy and Alexander. Explains a lot about this production, doesn't it?

(Poster and trailer © Warner Bros. Entertainment)

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1

I don't think Sarah and I have ever been at such a loss. We watched this over a week ago and couldn't figure out what to say until yesterday. We still aren't sure what happened here.

(Here are our thoughts on the original seed, the ugly middle child no one wanted, and the drug-addled brother no one mentions at family gatherings.)



Directed By: Bill Condon (Kinsey, Dreamgirls)
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner
Plot Summary: "Oh, she thinks she threw up because of the chicken? Ha. No, Bella, it's not the chicken. You f***ing WISH it was the chicken."

Watch the trailer. That's all you need to know at this point.

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"Did she just say, 'Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies?'" / "She must not have read Bridge to Terabithia."
--"Come on, Edward, you can't hunt in a crowded theater during Nosferatu. That's just mean." / "Or brilliant."
--"Damn, this is a pretty wedding."
--"STEPHENIE F***ING MEYER! I SEE YOU, YOU HORRID BITCH!"
--"I don't think Jacob made it to the ceremony. We would've noticed the lone shirtless man standing in the back, flexing for no reason."
--"This is surreal, even for Twilight. Seriously, this feels crazy."
--"I don't understand how so many people are concerned for her life when she clearly isn't."
--"Wait, was that all?! I thought it was supposed to be on the verge of an R rating for that scene!"
--"Why don't they just have sex in the water if they're doing all this swimming? He won't hurt her like that, will he?"
--"Here's where Stephenie Meyer would like to discuss Planned Parenthood."
--"Why do the wolves talk like Thor?"
--"Bella looks like she's been doing some serious smack." / "Is there such a thing as non-serious smack?"
--"That was the worst thing that's ever happened in a Twilight movie."
--"Did Carlisle just buy a gynecology office to put in his house?"
--"Ha, they think 'Renesmee' is bad? Ask Albus Severus Potter about that one."
--"WHAT THE F***?!"
--"Seriously, Edward, is this faster than a knife?"

"AAAAAHHHH THERE IS BLOOD AND PLACENTA ON HIS FACE -- IN HIS MOUTH -- OH, GOD!!!"

If you ever want to scare a girl into not getting pregnant, make her watch this movie. It contains the most traumatic pregnancy and birth scenes either of us have ever watched. It was sheer horror.

That being said, there are a lot of pro-life/pro-choice debates being thrown around here, and Stephenie Meyer sidesteps the two by making it Bella's choice to endure the potentially-fatal pregnancy. Bella and Rosalie want the baby delivered at all costs -- the main cost being Bella's life, which Bella has been trying to throw away since day one. She's going to hold on as long as she can, then try to be saved at the last minute by Edward turning her. Edward, Alice and Jacob want the demon-fetus aborted immediately, because it's quickly killing Bella from the inside out, and Edward won't love it -- let alone accept it -- if it takes her away from him. He has stated numerous times that she's his "reason for existing," after all.

Carlisle notifies Bella that the venom probably won't be enough in the eleventh hour, and Bella just shrugs it off and tells Edward he has to accept life without her. (EXCUSE ME?! We've sat through at least six hours of you two proclaiming how you can't live without each other! In fact, two movies ago, EDWARD TRIED TO KILL HIMSELF because he thought you were dead! Maybe it's because neither Sarah nor I are mothers, but seriously, what is that bulls***?!) We respect Bella not wanting to kill her baby/demon-fetus, but there's also an argument for Edward's perspective here, which is that Bella's life is more important. Anyway, the movie quite obviously brings up a lot of sticky issues, but at least both sides are somewhat represented here, as opposed to the Mormon Values party Meyer's been staging the entire time.

The Best Part: Charlie Swan (Billy Burke) has been wrestling with Bella's relationship with Edward from the start, and his struggle to let her go makes us so sad for him. Especially when Bella gets pregnant and gives birth in the span of a month without Charlie knowing. Bella makes up some story about going to a treatment facility in Switzerland because she's been struck with some mysterious illness, but really, what were they planning on telling Bella's family once she was turned? As Jacob says (and this is probably the best thing Jacob's ever said because of the matter-of-fact way he says it), "Maybe they'll say she got hit by a car. Fell off a cliff."

The Worst Part: There is a segment where the wolf pack, all in wolf form, argues telepathically over what to do about Bella's and Edward's spawn, which they can't allow to exist. The scene itself is inexplicable. Why are they all speaking to each other as wolves when they're in an utterly secluded area? Why was the voice-over work for this so hilariously horrendous, causing them all to sound like steroid-ridden monsters at the top of somebody's beanstalk? Wouldn't it have been cheaper on the studio to just have them meet up as humans? Who let this leave the editing room?

We give Breaking Dawn: Part 1 a D. It was either a great modern horror movie, or a wretched social commentary about feminism and the pro-choice argument, but we don't think either of those outcomes was the intention.

Jasmyn: "See, Deathly Hallows decides to be two movies, and we get 2.5 hours of epic quality each. This s*** just went bonkers for an hour and a half, and then it's gonna do it again."

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(Poster and trailer © Summit Entertainment)

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

We had to keep going. We had to.

(To see where it all started, and then where it got worse, take a trip down memory lane with our reactions to Twilight and New Moon.)

We're going to give you both trailers, because they represent two very different movies that have been mashed into one:




Directed By: David Slade (Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night)
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner
Plot Summary: "Oh, it's just a fantastic battle of wits on top of Mt. Dumbass."

In case you're lucky enough to have never heard of Team Edward and Team Jacob, be aware that Bella Swan's stuck in the middle of the stupidest love triangle since a guitar and a turkey sub fought over Elvis Presley. Jacob, the obnoxious werewolf, loves Bella and wants her to choose him over Edward, her emo vampire boyfriend. "It's Edward. It's always been Edward," Bella told him in the last movie, but here he is, spraying the walls with testosterone and making idiotic macho comments as often as he can. Edward's pretty chill in this one, since New Moon's Italian Suicide Extravaganza didn't turn out well for anyone, and he can't really focus on Jacob at the moment. Edward's preoccupied with worry over the army that's coming to brutally revenge-murder his entire family, with Bella at the center of the carnage, for the killing of Crazy Victoria's mate from the first movie.

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"He is rather pretty when he sparkles... Let's call him Sunshine Sparkle. No, wait, is that a My Little Pony?"
--"Jacob gets really rapey in this movie."
--"Is the divorce rate lower between vampire/human couples because they just kill the human if they want a divorce?"
--"Edward looks psychotic in this scene. Real f***ing crazy."
--"I'm still wondering how the hell Charlie let her go out with Edward again. I mean, I realize nothing would've stopped her, if he'd said she couldn't date Edward. But... wow, Charlie. He's a cop, where's his goddamn authority?"
--"Emmett needs to calm down. Or die, I don't care either way."
--"Seriously, Jacob, put some clothes on, you are being indecent!"
--"I wish Wolverine would just come in and end this."
--"What is this Evian water bottle scenery?"
--"Bulls***, Jacob didn't make that charm for her, he bought it at the casino." / "...Okay, we're gonna pretend that insane racism didn't just happen."
--"BELLA, YOU ARE CLUMSY AND STUPID AND HAVE NO PURPOSE IN A FIGHT AMONG MYTHICAL CREATURES!"
--"Yes, Jacob, you do make her nervous. Because rapists make people nervous. You are not special."
--"To Bella, 'Edward is old-school' means, 'I'm horny as f*** all the time, but my vampire boyfriend is a vegetarian so he won't put meat in my taco.'"

"Okay, this is weird, but I think vampire fangs are attractive. I wish Edward had them, but that's also because I wish he were more frightening as a vampire."

Oddly enough, three movies in, we've never addressed the problem of Edward's physicality. He's so delicate-looking. In the words of Robert Pattinson himself, "How scary could ths guy be? He's got lipstick and a little bouffant... He rolls up in a Volvo in his customized peacoat... Never trust a guy who waxes his eyebrows." Bella's more butch than Edward is, frankly, but since her fragility is the center of this entire saga, she won't be of any use. And wasn't that the point of the first two movies? That Bella was in danger because she was around Edward, because Edward couldn't quite control himself around her? That he could kill her at any moment if he slipped up? Wasn't that why this whole "forbidden love" thing was supposed to be interesting? Wasn't that why Jacob was supposed to be a viable alternative? Edward's lack of menace means there's less at stake than there's supposed to be, and although we're now past that point, story-wise, it would've made the whole series better. We didn't see him try to kill his girlfriend nearly as much as we should have, and we're not just saying that because we can't stand Bella.

We have to admit: We refuse to bother with the rest of the series, but we did read Midnight Sun, Stephenie Meyer's fanfiction alternate version of the first book, written from Edward's point of view. It contains a very long internal monologue where Edward plots, in graphic detail, how to murder Bella and everyone else in their biology classroom because he's completely overcome with the scent of her blood. It's pure, violent insanity (though normal for a vampire), and as odd as it sounds, that dynamic has always been the best part of this whole clusterf***. It's no different here: as noted in the second trailer, above, everything comes to a head with a battle during the final act of the movie. The brawl between the newborn vampire army and the Cullens/Quilieutes -- plus, Edward's final showdown with Victoria -- finally lends some action to this bad romance. Without it, it's just more angst and obsession all over again.

The Best Part: Jasper and Rosalie, Edward's adoptive siblings, who tried to kill Bella over a papercut and generally dislike her, respectively, finally tell their pre-Cullen backstories. Jasper, a Confederate soldier in the Civil War, was turned into a vampire by a manipulative woman much like Victoria, and used as a bloodthirsty killing machine until Alice found him. Rosalie was gang-raped by her fiance and his friends and left to die; Dr. Cullen found her and turned her in order to save her life. Then Rosalie, who has always hated being a vampire, threw a homicide party until every one of her attackers was dead, saving her fiance for last so he'd know she was coming. This context for each of their characters was quite welcome. Jasper's always been the most dangerous Cullen (his desire to bite Bella's face off has been noted, then demonstrated, in the past two movies), and although we agree with Rosalie's dislike of Bella, it was good to hear why: Rosalie, who has always wanted children and a family to grow old with, envies Bella's humanity, and she can't believe Bella would choose to be a monster, frozen in time and never moving forward with life.

The Worst Part: (Obviously, the continuing love triangle, AKA what the entire story is about, but that goes without saying at this point.) Kristen Stewart cut and dyed her hair to play Joan Jett in The Runaways, but for some reason, no one seemed to put decent wigs in the movie budget for Eclipse. You'd think they'd learn from Taylor Lautner's wretched wigs in the first 1.5 movies, or from Jackson Rathbone's (Jasper's) poodle-esque hair failures up until this point. Actually, scratch that. Nearly EVERYONE who is not wearing their natural hair in these movies has had to endure some kind of mousse-crazy lacefront hairline fiasco. Here are the two worst victims, K. Stew and Peter Facinelli (Dr. Cullen), with their real hair from the first movie and the dead possums glued to their heads for Eclipse:

(Guuuuuuuuurrrrl...)

(Come on, y'all, Carlisle has been a wealthy doctor for centuries.
Stop making him look like he's being groomed in a drive-thru window at Supercuts.)

Overall, Eclipse is not that bad. The action half does a good job evening out the romantic angst, and even those parts are kind of hilarious this time around. (Especially the scene where Edward flips a s*** after Bella breaks her hand punching Jacob in the face, because Jacob missed "No Means No" Day in health class and force-kissed her.) We give it a B+.

PS: Is anyone sure they didn't just take Jacob's old wig and recycle it?

(Poster and trailer © Summit Entertainment)

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Good lord. This one is... just... ugh. (Check out our thoughts on the original Twilight here.)



Directed By: Chris Weitz (About a Boy, The Golden Compass)
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, and Robert Pattinson
Plot Summary: "They're trying to trick people into thinking that there's a plot. Or that Edward's there for more than twelve minutes."

When New Moon begins, it's Bella's 18th birthday, and she's having a crisis about turning one year older because Edward refuses to turn her. You'd think her obsession with her far-older, half-dead man would render this irrelevant, but Bella's freaking out because she wants to be frozen at the same point Edward is, at age 17. Ignoring Bella's pleas to not remind her that she's aging, Edward's sister Alice puts together a birthday party at the Cullens' house. There's a completely overblown accident with some wrapping paper, and Edward's brother/Alice's boyfriend Jasper tries to kill Bella when he gets a whiff of her blood dripping from her finger. Edward flips a s*** and the Cullens leave town, plunging Bella into a wretched depression and allowing Jacob to stroll in and pick up the pieces.

Let's take a moment to really lay out the depression situation in this movie. Bella sits around and doesn't speak to her dad, Charlie, or her friends, for at least three months, as the Spinning Camera Montage of Despair tells us. She has nightmares that cause her to scream like a goat being skinned alive (seriously, we can't figure out what on Earth she could've been seeing to make those noises). Every single day, she writes emails to Alice, and each of those emails gets sent back with that "undeliverable; return to sender" tag, since the Cullens have completely disappeared.

After awhile, Bella starts hanging out with Jacob, fixing motorcycles, and eating lunch with her friends at school again. She says it helps, but eventually this leads to Bella becoming an adrenaline junkie. How? Well, every time Bella engages in a near-death experience, she sees Edward telling her to be safe and not do anything stupid, as he made her promise when he left her. These visions of Edward are strangely responsive to each particular NDE for some reason, but whatever. The point is that Bella catapults off a motorcycle, hitting her head in the process, and jumps off a cliff and nearly drowns, just so she can see Edward again. Bella is so pathetic that it's downright disgusting, but meanwhile, Romeo & Juliet-obsessed Edward is starving himself to death in Brazil because he's away from her, so if anyone deserves each other, it's these two.

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"He's a 109-year-old virgin, no wonder he breaks everything when they finally do it."
--"Jacob Black is a butterface."
--"You'd think vampires would be more careful about saying 'humans' the way we'd say 'pets.'"
--"Who the f*** gets a papercut that goes that deep?" / "And from WRAPPING PAPER?"
--"This bitch is crazy."
--"I'm completely against banning books, but I don't think I'd let my kids read Twilight."
--"The screaming is my favorite."
--"Sarah? Sarah! Wake up! ...Did you fall asleep and I'm sitting here watching this?! SARAH, THIS IS TREASON!"

"Oh, this storyline makes sense. Because all vaguely-ethnic friends are mechanics."

For anyone who doesn't know, Edward Cullen is absent from 80% of this movie. The rest is about Bella missing Edward while Jacob tries and fails to convince her that he's the right boy for her. (This is half the plot of the next movie, too, except Edward's present the entire time.) Taylor Lautner gets to shed that vomitacious wig, and since he buffed up in order to not lose his job when they wanted to recast him for someone older, he spends a fair chunk of his screen time shirtless. He's so shirtless that his Barbie doll comes shirtless too.

(Certainly an improvement, but that doesn't save Jacob from being obnoxious.)

Anyway, since Jacob's Native American tribe, the Quileutes, are "descended from wolves," Jacob discovers his identity as a massive werewolf and is forced into a pack of other short-haired, shirtless Quileute boys. He also becomes an obsessive, raging protector of Bella, like a trigger-happy Rottweiler. When Alice returns and Edward calls Bella's house, fearing Bella's death (because Alice has visions of the future and she saw Bella jump off that cliff ), Jacob tells Edward -- in true Balthasar style -- that Bella is dead. Granted, Balthasar thought Juliet was really dead, and Jacob did it out of spite, but in any case, Edward decides it's time to die. He did, after all, tell Bella at her birthday party, "You're my only reason to stay alive, if that's what I am." Edward's plan is to make the Volturi, the vampire elders, kill him for revealing himself to a crowd of humans, which would violate vampire law. Alice sees his plan, she and Bella immediately fly to Italy and steal a Ferrari (WTF?), and Bella stops Edward in the nick of time. Yay, now this crapfest can continue for another three movies!

The Best Part: In an inexplicable casting coup, the producers somehow got Michael Sheen involved as the Volturi leader, Aro, who can read every thought a person has ever had, just by touching them. He slinks around with a smile that somehow manages to be innocent while simultaneously predatory. Then, he instructs one of his vampires, Jane (Dakota Fanning, as glacial as she could possibly get), to torture Edward and Bella with her power, which is Stephenie Meyer's equivalent of the Cruciatus curse. Bella is apparently immune to supernatural manipulation, as neither Edward nor Aro can read her mind, and Jane fails to cause her physical pain. (Plot Hole Alert: Earlier in the movie, Bella responds to Jasper's power to manipulate emotions when she agrees to have that ill-fated birthday party.) Anyway, Aro's dumbfounded-yet-fascinated reaction when he realizes that he can't read anything from Bella is the sort of twisted, fantastic moment that can occur when seasoned thespians show up in Twilight movies. It's also the same sort of spark that happens during Anna Kendrick's scenes as Jessica, Bella's hilariously insecure, sarcastic classmate.

The Worst Part: Bella. Seriously, if you know that there are vampires and all sorts of things out there that want you dead, why wouldn't you learn to defend yourself instead of hoping one of your stalkers shows up at the right time? Why wouldn't you carry wooden stakes in your purse? She lives in the damn woods; it's not hard to get them. It's one thing to be at a disadvantage because you're dealing with vampires and werewolves, who could physically tear humans from limb to limb. It's another to insist upon being weak and helpless, which is exactly how Bella chooses to not handle her problems. Plus, generally speaking, the acting is still bad.

It's a D- for New Moon.

(Poster and trailer © Summit Entertainment)

Spider-Man 3

I (Jasmyn) have loved Spider-Man since I was four. Every day, I came home from kindergarten, dropped to the floor in front of the TV, and watched Spider-Man: The Animated Series on Fox Kids. Then, in middle school, when the first live-action movie was released, I saw it in theaters and was left exhilarated by how great it was. Yet, my most vivid memory of going to see Spider-Man 3 was the moment when, with the movie screen dark, I heard Robbie Coltrane growl, "It's changin' out there. There's a storm comin', Harry..." I slapped my hand over my friend Steven's mouth to halt whatever he was saying, hissed, "SHUT UP, it's Harry Potter!" and watched the trailer for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I remember nothing else of that movie experience.



Directed By: Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead, the first two Spider-Man movies)
Starring: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst and James Franco
Plot Summary: "So, if he's the main villain... why have we seen more of James Franco's anger?"

There is so much going on (and going wrong) in this movie that it's hard to begin. Spider-Man 3 picks up not long after the second movie left off, with Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson happily dating, while Peter continues his superhero duties with an ego the size of Texas and Mary Jane acts on stage. Harry Osborn, meanwhile, still stews in rage over his belief that Peter (who he discovered was Spider-Man in the last movie) killed his father. Plus, Flint Marko (Thomas Hayden Church), revealed to be Uncle Ben's true killer from the first movie, breaks out of prison and starts robbing banks so he can pay for medical treatments for his sickly daughter we're supposed to care about. Also, Peter's facing competition at the Daily Bugle in the form of cocky photographer Eddie Brock (Topher Grace, in one of the weirdest casting decisions since Tobey Maguire was cast as Spider-Man). And Eddie's "dating" Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard), who kinda-sorta serves as a love interest for Peter, which is odd because she's a HELL of a lot more important to the Spider-Man canon than she appears in this movie. Oh, and we nearly forgot to mention "the symbiote," a malevolent alien goo that latches onto Peter, brings out the worst in him, and later becomes Venom when it attaches itself to Eddie.

Got all that? Sam Raimi certainly didn't.

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"Why was Gwen Stacy even here?"
--"HE THINKS YOU KILLED HIS MUFASA!"
--"Ugh, Tobey... the faces he makes..."
--"Classic Superhero Science Accident... this is kinda what happened to Dr. Manhattan." / "What is a Dr. Manhattan? Is that a tasty drink?"
--"Okay, so, following logic, there is no reason for there to be two suits. Did everyone forget he was wearing his suit when the symbiote attached? And it melded with THAT suit? SO HOW ARE THERE TWO SUITS!? Who was in charge of this f***ing continuity?!"
--"Why can't MJ ever wear a bra, though?"
--"Wait, is he gonna forget that just happened?" / "I don't know, I blocked half of this movie out."
--"Stop making constipated noises and focus."
--"Oh, hey, Stan Lee. SHUT THE F*** UP AND GET OUT OF THE MOVIE!"
--"His sand hands are gonna make pleasuring his sand penis more difficult." / "Lots more friction, though."
--"Comic book Mary Jane would've broken a chair over that bitch's head."
--"There is no context in which this is cool."
--"I kinda wish Harry would've succeeded." / "In killing Peter?" / "...Yeah."
--"It has taken an hour for any major developments to happen. It's like it's Titanic or something."
--"Stop shooting the sand monster, you f**ktard!"
--"Again, we're just not worried about continuity here. I'm pretty sure Aunt May suspected he was Spider-Man in #2, but OF COURSE there's no reason to acknowledge that at least 50 people saw Peter's face in the Spidey suit in the last one, right? You mean to tell me not a single person whipped out their camera phone for that?"

"I just... I don't understand how Venom, one of the greatest Spider-Man villains, if not THE greatest Spider-Man villain, was boiled down to this."

Here's the thing about writer-directors: At some point, there needs to be a checks-and-balances system in place, or else the creative power gets completely out of control. Spider-Man and its sequel were marvelous, well-paced, focused films (directed by Raimi but written by others). Sure, they had their goofy moments, which came with the quippy nature of Spidey's character and Raimi's own bizarre sense of humor. But those moments were actually funny. The "Go, web, go!" and "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" scenes from those movies were clever, sincere and realistic, and we could laugh at the situations and understand what Peter was going through. But the disco-dancing, freestyle jazz tango s**tshow that goes down near the middle of Spider-Man 3 was inexcusable, over the top, and just made us cringe. Plus, are we supposed to believe that THAT'S what "Evil" Peter does? Stops washing his hair in favor of emo bangs to show his darkness, performs some kind of crotch-thrusting rooster strut from a rejected Saturday Night Fever choreographer, and then starts throwing chairs and s*** in jazz restaurants? Real sinister, Peter. His one truly dark moment is the goblin-bomb incident with Harry after he ends Peter's relationship with Mary Jane, and sadly, that moment has already been overshadowed by inappropriate disco f**kery, from which nothing can return.

This script should've been halted from the get-go. It quite obviously suffered from what we're calling Trilogy Syndrome, as demonstrated by the X-Men and Chronicles of Narnia franchises, among countless others: The first movie captures the spark, or why the franchise resonates. The second movie goes bigger while still maintaining what the series is about. And then the third undergoes a "change in management," stumbles and clusterf**ks all over the place, adds an absurd level of unnecessary characters to "expand the universe," and becomes more shallow and missable through sheer lack of focus, so that fans must forcibly ignore the fact that the third movie even happened. (Hey, Batman fans... you better hope Chris Nolan keeps his wits about him.) We must ask... why were three major villains in this movie? Sandman is supposed to be a big deal. New Goblin is supposed to be a big deal. And Venom, who only gets about fifteen minutes of screentime, seems to have been thrown in as a dessert when he should've been the main entree.

The Best Part: Harry Osborn was the only character we vaguely rooted for, and even though some wholly unnecessary amnesia thing was thrown in the middle of his storyline, his personal conflicts with Peter and vindication in the final act did more for the poster's tagline than anything else in this movie did. Peter was a super-awkward creeper, Mary Jane was just sad the whole time, and nobody else had a point. Harry gets MVP for this one.

The Worst Part: Everything was all over the place, and the "Dark Peter" situation was laughable. In a movie that was supposed to be about "the battle within," the filmmakers sure went out of their way to supply viewers with a million external battles and be as sentimental and non-psychological as they could. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix did it better.

We give Spider-Man 3 a hearty D-.

(Poster and trailer © Sony Pictures Entertainment)

The High School Musical trilogy

It seemed like the logical next step, after our Cheetah Girls excursion. Guys, get ready: this is a long one, but, as usual, we are attempting to entertain you where we mostly found despair.

Directed By: Kenny Ortega (Newsies, This Is It)
Starring: Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Lucas Grabeel, Corbin Bleu and Monique Coleman
Plot Summary: "Let your freak flag fly, Troy!"



The massive song-and-dance number above is the core conflict of High School Musical, and also, the synopsis for the first season of Glee. (Let's just acknowledge that right now and move on.) Albuquerque's East High is constricted by hierarchies and an alarmingly high frequency of personality disorders, resulting in a school full of students unable to accept change. When the balance is overthrown, s*** hits the fan. Our crew for this evening:

--Troy & Gabriella = The charismatic jock and the shy, brainiac new girl, who meet by chance and discover their mutual love of singing and shared desire to break out of their cliques
--Sharpay & Ryan = The theatrical queen bee and her gay-but-everyone's-ignoring-it-because-this-is-Disney twin brother, who conspire against Troy & Gabriella to keep Sharpay in power
--Chad & Taylor = Troy & Gabriella's respective BFFs, a fellow jock and brainiac, who don't appreciate their friends trying to do anything different and also conspire against them

In movie 1, the leads for the winter musical ("Twinkle Town," they're calling it) are totally on lock for Sharpay & Ryan. OR SO THEY THINK! If Troy & Gabriella win the roles at callbacks, Troy's top-dog influence as captain of the basketball team will combine with his relationship with Gabriella to create a world where athletes, mathletes and theatre kids can inter-mingle, and that is just UNACCEPTABLE if Sharpay is going to remain a star. Nevermind what her brother cares about, but we'll get to that later, because their strange relationship is going to be important.


(Brother and sister auditioning with a couple's duet to play romantic leads, folks.)

Chad & Taylor, who are the Chris Brown to Troy & Gabriella's Rihanna, are some of the worst friends in the history of the world. They go so far as to work in tandem with Sharpay & Ryan, just to break Troy & Gabriella apart and keep things in line. (This was actually a smart thing to do, script-wise, because the people who fight hardest to keep you down are rarely the obvious villains.) Taylor's hold on Gabriella isn't too difficult, since the girls have just met this year and their clique's more open to progress, but Troy is being held hostage by Chad, and Troy's own father, Coach Bolton. Their collective bullying has created a fragile boy so crippled by internal conflict that he has intense emotional breakdowns on the regular. (The severity of these freak-outs will get worse and worse as the movies go on.)

Of course, once their friends realize what they've done and stand behind them, Troy & Gabriella triumph at their callback.



In part 2, IT'S SUMMER! School's out, and everyone's constantly chattering about finding summer jobs to pay for college (even though all of these kids appear to be loaded to the point that scholarships shouldn't exist for them). Appropriately, Sharpay & Ryan, whose family owns an entire country club and some other stuff, are the only ones not talking about it, because that would just be silly and Sharpay's never worked a day in her life. She decides that what she wants this summer is Troy, so she gets him a job as a favor. Troy agrees, as long as all his friends can have jobs too, so the whole class starts working at the country club.

Sharpay's focused on her schemes and throws Ryan by the wayside, so he joins up with the rest of his classmates and becomes friends with them. Sharpay starts elevating Troy's status in the club and dangling college networking connections in front of him, so he gets blinded by riches. (We don't know why Troy needs help networking, since he's apparently got so much pull in Albuquerque that he got an entire class of highschoolers hired in a country club without applications or interviews.) His friends get pissed about him ignoring them, and Gabriella dumps him because nobody knows who he is anymore. And then Troy breaks down, and his crisis is so much harder than ever before that it results in -- for lack of a better descriptor, as we're struggling to see it any other way -- the gayest scene in the history of the Disney Channel. This is only unfortunate because half of Troy's freak-out is about his now-ex-girlfriend.


(To be honest, if this choreography had been different, the song might've worked. But we just kept laughing. We can't figure out how they managed to shoot it seriously.)

In the end, Sharpay's put in her place and everyone forgives each other. (Yeah, yeah, we know.) The most important thing that happens in the second movie is that Ryan starts to forge his own identity, and here's where we discovered the greatest part of the entire trilogy. Since Gabriella's been who she is the entire time, Troy's still crying about the same things, and Sharpay's still as selfish as ever, Ryan's character gets the only arc from movie #1 to movie #3. He goes from his sister's bitch to a star in his own right. Plus, he's the only one who finally succeeds in uniting the cliques.


(Sarah: "Does Ryan know Chad can dance because HE CAN SEE HIM DANCING LIKE WE CAN?!")

In High School Musical 3: Senior Year, the crew's doing their usual, except Chad & Taylor have faded into the background a little, and Sharpay and Ryan now operate as fully separate entities. Impending Future Freak-Out is the big situation in this one. Troy's still trying to figure out what he wants to do. His dad's got him pegged for University of Albuquerque, for a basketball scholarship, but Troy also wants to go to other schools -- one of which is Juilliard, where he's a scholarship candidate as well. The rest of the plot isn't important, but we can't watch Troy be sad for two hours without other fluff to break it up. The point here is that Troy's inability to make decisions comes back in full force from the first movie. Sports or theatre? SPORTS OR THEATRE?! He loves playing basketball, but HE'S JUST GOTTA SING, DAMMIT!!!


(The theatre director finds him at the end of this number, but if she hadn't, we have a strong suspicion that the East High Wildcats would've come to school the next morning to find their leader hanging from the rafters in the auditorium.)

Troy decides to go to the University of California, Berkeley, because there, he can study theatre AND play basketball. We find it unfortunate that no one has the heart to tell him how intense college theatre is, and how all-encompassing college sports teams are, and that he won't have time to do both like he did in high school, which will surely lead to another breakdown when he has to make this decision again, mere months from now. (He will inevitably choose theatre, because what does he turn to when he's having a crisis and subsequent violent outburst? SINGING ABOUT IT, not playing a few games of H.O.R.S.E.)

(Several) Observations Made As We Watched All Three Movies:
--"This whole thing could be a coming-out speech."
--"SAY 'MUSICAL' CORRECTLY, YOU BATTY OLD C***!"
--"Basketballs must be awfully uncomfortable to masturbate with."
--"Come on now, Sharpay, what if someone had been changing her tampon? You can't kick open bathroom stalls like that."
--"Why is Chad acting like they're in a cult? Drinking the Kool-aid, planning the group suicide?"
--"OK, 'thunderclap' is OBVIOUSLY an STD."
--"This song woke [Sarah's dog] Oskar up." / "That's because Vanessa Hudgens is so goddamn pitchy."
--"This is like a wild Greek orgy. Who brought the vuvuzela?!"
--"That's where serial killers put the bodies."
--"I'm sorry, I just can't get the visual of blow job circles in the basketball locker room out of my head."
--"You a**hole, you are gonna get this girl fired because of your obsession with frolicking."
--"His dad must want him to know how much hookers cost, especially if he's going to have all this pent-up homosexual energy that he can't share with Gabriella."
--"OH, HI ZAC'S BARE TORSO, YOU LOOK NICE TODAY!"
--"Ryan almost teabagged Chad right there." / "Oh, good, you saw that too."
--"TROY, YOU ARE DRUNK ON SORROW!"
--"I can't think of anything that makes this scene more gay." / "Dancing dildos, maybe?"
--"See, my mom would be mad if my high school boyfriend had suddenly shown up in my room, because she would assume I was letting him f*** me senseless."
--"This is worse than a Hamlet soliloquy, because this won't end in murder... just more dancing."
--"I'm not an expert on basketball, but I don't think they're doing it right."
--"Troy is not gay! He just has so many feelings!" / "I disagree."

The Best Part: The journey of Ryan Evans. He's super-likeable and we cared to see him finally get what he wanted. (He ends up being a winner of that Juilliard scholarship, for choreography.)

The Worst Part: The music. It's musical-appropriate in the first movie, clearly written for the purpose of being sold as pop singles on iTunes in the second, and then irritating by the time we get to the third. Especially because the third movie mostly consists of three sentimental bulls*** songs that each get repeated one or two more times throughout, and a few others that don't contribute to anything.

The original movie is legitimately cute, and as such, it is now the first vindicated movie to make it through the blog! CONGRATS, WILDCATS! You made it through on the basis of being better than our formerly best-reviewed bad thing, Twilight!

However, High School Musical 2 and High School Musical 3: Senior Year both get Ds. The first one, which has such a different spirit from the second two, can't save the downhill nature of the rest of the trilogy. So, it's a C for the whole shebang.

Sarah: "Truthfully, I always want to watch Love Actually after every Camp or Crap? excursion, just to remind myself that there is hope in the world."
Me: "I just want to watch The Virgin Suicides."
Sarah: "We appear to have opposite reactions."

(Posters and video clips © Walt Disney Company)