The Pacifier **½ Fair Disney Fare
I picked this up at the video rental store because it was a $1 and a recent release. We wanted something light and this seemed the ticket. Ben Diesel is a hardened Navy Seal. He is assigned to protect the children of an operative who was recently assassinated while their mom goes to Switzerland urgently to retrieve contents of a bank deposit box. The box may contain the secrets that dad died to protect. With only his military training to draw upon he is able instantly and successfully do what many parents struggle with on a daily basis... to control and motivate 5 children ages 1 to 15. There is the requisite diaper changing scene. And of course they are attacked one night and Ben is able to save them off without suffering so much as a scratch. There are mild teenage tantrums but the children are surprisingly unaffected by the sudden death of their dad. Okay, dad did travel extensively to foreign assignments but you would expect a bit more grief. That is the problem with the story, how to put tough macho Ben Diesel suddenly into a family of 5 children.
It is a similar problem with "the Upside of Anger," when dad is
suddenly gone and the children manage to just go on like nothing
happened. It is also difficult to put violence murder into a family oriented movie by treating it like a float in the Mainstreet light parade. I'm not against Disney movies and have seen some awesome Disney films in the past year, this just doesn't happen to be one of them. (I'm referring to "the Miracle" and "Mystery Alaska.") That said, Frank liked it more than I did, thought it as worth 3 stars, but he can voice that in his blog:) If you need to babysit for preteens then this is the movie for you. If you are older then 10, you may want to spend your 2hours on something else.
Deuce Bigelow, Male Gigolo ** - American Gigolo meets Dumb and Dumber.
It's faulty logic that led me to see this film. The sequel was coming out and I thought, hey, the 1st must have been better than I imagined, so let's have a look. We were in the mood for a comedy, and this did garner a couple belly laughs. Deuce, a full time aquarium technician, suddenly needs to earn a lot of money in a hurry. He has recently learned that men can make money "pleasuring" women, and with the encouragement of a pimp, launches his own career. As an unsophisticated rookie, he has to start at the bottom, dating women who are physically or socially handicapped. It is a job he accepts with genuine warmth, and learns he can "pleasure" his customers with acceptance and respect. There are a couple of good laughs in the 90minutes but also moments in the story that are uncomfortably stupid. At the end I felt like I do at the end of most of the Saturday Night Live broadcasts, like there should have been more.
The Upside of Anger ***½
It's debatable whether Kevin Costner can act, but this is a good story anyway. It's a quirky title for a film about a middle aged woman with 4 daughters whose husband leaves one day and never returns. She was "The sweetest woman in the world" explains her youngest daughter who helps us understand the story while she tries to understand anger herself via her school video project. Mom assumes her husband has abandoned her and the girls to go with his Swedish office assistant who had coincidentally quit her job and returned to Sweden. She responds to the crisis with seething anger which she numbs with generous amounts of Grey Goose Vodka. "I closed the credit cards, the bank accounts, he will do it without our money," she explains to Costner. He is their neighbor who shows up one morning (beer in hand) to continue a discussion on a proposed housing development in their adjoining property. He enjoys a beer for breakfast and seeing her at 10am in her nightgown drinking vodka suggests he may have found a drinking buddy. It puts the "FUN" back in "dysFUNctional."
All of her girls may not share the same opinion about mom as their little sister, but they are all intelligent, beautiful and goal oriented. Somebody must have been doing something right before dad left. They have a beautiful home, an ideal life by most standards, so what happened? This is a good film in spite of some moments of poor dialogue, and Kevin's "acting." I enjoyed it and think you will too.
Wedding Crashers ***
"What's our favorite season? WEDDING SEASON!!" Two lawyers who don't appear to have a social life, spend a decade as uninvited guests at strangers weddings... who thinks of this stuff? Anyway, if you can get past the premise, just like getting past the smell of Gorgonzola cheese, a good time can be had by all. To be successful at this sort of venture, you must be good at making balloon animals, dancing with old ladies, and have the kind of metabolism that can handle catered food and cake every weekend. Hopefully you won't fall in love yourself, because that could mean the end of a pretty sweet gig.
Yes, it is a silly premise but watching this film was more fun than going to a real wedding, (except my own).
Mr.and Mrs.Smith** Give me a divorce!!
Okay, I admit I wasn't enthusiastic about this film from the outset, having been influenced by reviews I had heard and all the "hype" generated by Brad and Angelina when the film was released. They do have a lot of screen chemistry so I was tempted to see more. They meet in Bogata, have a tequila drenched steamy affair (yes I am convinced I saw steam!) and then decide to marry. So far, so good. Then somehow they manage to keep the fact that they are both undercover operatives from each other for the next 6 years. That certainly suggests it's just a "physical" relationship, doesn't it?
I think it is a good paring, they have something going for them and perhaps it was the off screen stuff that was translating so well on screen, but half way through the action scenes and thin dialog I was thinking...."I'm done - I want a divorce."
