Sexy Cineplexy: Reviews

The Bucket List

(Directed by Rob Reiner, 2007)

*throws hands in the air* I don't know what to say!

Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman are dying. They wind up in a hospital room together and are eventually told that they have a few months to live. Jack's a rich guy who owns a hospital, Morgan's a not-so-rich guy who spent his whole life as a mechanic, fixin' up cars.

Remember when I reviewed Last Holiday, the Queen Latifah movie? This is basically the same sort of movie, except Queen's death diagnosis turned out to be false. Not the case with Jack and Morgan. Using Jack's money, the two set off on the adventure of a lifetime. They skydive (with the help of CGI), they visit the pyramids, they take a trip to Hong Kong, they breeze through the wilderness of Africa - they do it all! They fly to the North Pole... and, after all is said and done, they go kaput.

Is there anything worth a merit or two for this film? Not really. I expected something thought provoking, heart wrenching, tear jerking, positively moving... nope. Just a lot of trips around the world and worries about what family members are thinking. Since Morgan's off adventuring with Jack, his wife is jealous and mad at him for leaving. At a time like this, how could you blame her? Meanwhile, ol' Jackie boy has a daughter he hasn't seen in awhile, since he sent some men to beat up her abusive boyfriend.

Sean Hayes has a silly role as Jack's assistant and there were times when I wanted Karen Walker from Will & Grace to just walk in and steal a scene. What is Karen Walker's opinion about what to do with your remains? Burial or cremation?

Sometimes death stories can teach us important lessons. For example, I loved Tuesdays with Morrie (though I can't really remember its important lessons at the moment), the book by Mitch Albom. What did I learn from The Bucket List? I learned that coffee is sometimes laced with cat urine.

Mrs. Doubtfire
(DIRECTED BY Chris Columbus, 1993)


A completely random review to kill some time.

I watched it again not too long ago (on a new "Behind The Seams" DVD release, also on Blu-Ray). It never gets old.

Robin Williams throws his son a madcap birthday party, complete with farm animals that wreck the house, and this turns out to be a big mistake. Sally Field divorces him and takes almost full custody of the kids. When she puts an ad in the paper looking for a housesitter, this leads to Robin turning to his gay makeup artist brother into turning him into Mrs. Doubtfire, a hip old granny from England who can cook, clean, read bedtime stories and make sure the kids get their homework done. Of course, Sally Field, and her new beau, played by Pierce Brosnan, aren't supposed to know that Mrs. Doubtfire is really Robin in disguise.

Set in the luscious San Francisco, Mrs. Doubtfire is full of life and includes plenty of timeless scenes, such as Robin Williams trying to quickly change back and forth between his male character, Daniel Hilliard, and his faux female character, Mrs. Doubtfire, when the old social worker who's checking up on him comes to visit. There is a pie in the face and another face that ends up on a road, where it is flattened.

Yes, it is one of those movies where a man dresses up as a woman, which there are plenty of. I bet Eddie Murphy was pretty pissed that he missed the opportunity of acquiring the rights of Alias Madame Doubtfire, the book by Anne Fine which Mrs. Doubtfire is based off. But this is one of the better crossdressing movies, I think, and it's a shame that there aren't any midnight screenings of Mrs. Doubtfire, just like The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Imagine all of the Mrs. Doubtfires going to that. AND THINK OF THE THINGS THEY COULD THROW!! Pots and pans, a broom, hot jambalaya, dusters, FRUIT!!! "It was a run by fruiting!" And everybody could throw a pie in their face and shout, "HELLLLLLLOOOOOOOO!!!!"

I think we should organize a Mrs. Doubtfire midnight screening like that! It would be fun! WHO'S WITH ME???

SAW V


OMG why is everything looking so HTMLy as I'm trying to make this post... not happy about that...

Happy about Saw V though. It was better than Saw IV.

....... what is going on with this HTML in my post.... I never saw that before...

Um, okay, back on track. Jigsaw is back... even though he's still dead... he died in Saw III.... (!!!!!).... but the games are still going on. More people are being tested and there is a new bad guy. His name is Hoffman and the actor that plays him is sexy. I think his name is Costas Mandylor or something.

The film's twist at the end was a little disappointing again, though it was somewhat different, I guess. Despite the film's flaws, it left me more excited about the next sequel, which is supposed to be the last one. Saw IV didn't do that for me as much.

The Saw series is an ongoing Halloween soap opera. It's very disappointing to have to wait an entire year to see what happens next, but whatever.

Supposedly the Saw series ends next year. This is no doubt the horror series of the decade.

I'm still going to give The Bucket List a try. Especially since you rated Saw V so high.

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i love Mrs. Doubtfire. it never gets old.

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letterboxd

Synecdoche, New York

Written and Directed by Charlie Kaufman


Oh, dear....

The people in that picture look just as confused as I do.

First of all, I still haven't figured out how to say Synecdoche correctly. Second, WTF was this movie about?!

2002's Adaptation, written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze, is one of my FAVORITE movies ever. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was OK, but could have been better (and btw, I totally want that procedure right now). Being John Malkovich and Human Nature were also good.

But Synecdoche, New York, Charlie Kaufman's first movie that he's written AND directed, is beyond me. Maybe it was the couple of alcoholic beverages I had consumed - I had also spiked my large Pepsi with Captain Morgan rum. But gee whiz, I was lost...

We begin with Phillip Seymour Hoffman living life as a theatre director with his wife and little daughter, who poops green poo. After the wife leaves him and some woman moves into a burning house and Phillip starts having seizures and all sorts of other strange plagues, the little girl who poops green is suddenly a very tattooed woman who strips and dances naked at a strip club for her father. Later on, she's in a hospital, having a conversation with Phillip Seymour Hoffman using hands free microphones.

Phillip (whose character name is Cayden?), ages and starts building a replica of Synecdoche, New York somewhere in, I think Germany? Next thing you know, he's casting people for parts of people he knows, and he even meets someone who's playing him. He gives everybody notes about what to do and it's sort of like he's God.

People die, people sleep with each other and then eventually it all fades to white.

I have no idea what it's about.... it was kinda boring.... I need a book to help explain it to me.... viewer, beware.

Other movie reviewers seemed to really like it.

I was just.... help, please.

"Sin-neck-duh-key", but really fast.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

That is definitly an intresting list. I like seeing Rambo up there.

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Stallone is my hero!

Oh boy ...

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Milk
(2008, directed by Gus Van Sant)



Oh, I love milk. Thank God for cows. You know what I especially like? Chocolate milk. I like it by itself. Screw the cookies, I don't need the excess weight.

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm supposed to be talking about Milk, the new Gus Van Sant movie starring Sean Penn and that walking orgasm, James Franco.

Well, Milk turned out to be a bit of an educational experience for me because I knew hardly anything about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected public office in California as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

I knew that Milk was eventually assassinated, but when and how I wasn't sure of, so his death scene in the movie caught me off guard. I treated the film like Clue, totally hoping for Anita Bryant in the voting booth with the lead pipe.

But, anyways, Milk is a gay rights movie about what went on in San Francisco back in the 1970's. Can you believe that San Francisco once wasn't so hospitable to gay people? Which brings me to an idea for Alien 5, where Ripley and a space team land on an inhabitable alien world, run for public office and eventually all of the aliens stop eating mankind. A great way to end the series - other world peace!

This is one of the better gay films I've seen in my life. Always nice to see a mainstream movie about homosexuals -- although, HOW mainstream is Milk, really? It's only playing in like two theatres around the DC area.

It was hot to watch Sean Penn make out with James Franco. BTW, male nudity lovers, you see James' bare buttocks on display as he swims across a pool, but that is all.

Some scenes caused my mind to wander... I naturally get bored with politics. Sometimes it was simply wandering because James Franco showed up and I fell down a well of Nirvana. A recent ex boyfriend of mine resembled James Franco in a way to me, especially when he had the curly hair in this film, so I was feeling both excited and murderous, which is a deadly combination. But, could Franco be the next Brad Pitt? Time will tell.

Overall, this movie left me feeling proud to be a homosexual. When I left, I took to the streets and marched all the way to a nearby gay bookstore, where I proudly purchased some gay porn.

On the way out, I wondered if the cashier had been a man or a woman.

Freedom is great.

Love your reviews Sexy, glad you are back doing them

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Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Buddha

Prayers For Bobby
(directed by Russell Mulcahy, 2009)



This is a movie that you won't find a movie theatre, but you will find it on the Lifetime Network (TELEVISION FOR WOMEN!) It had a "red carpet premiere" last night on Lifetime at 9 PM, then it replayed again at 11 PM, and it's sure to be on again and again, so look to Lifetime for the movie. A DVD will most likely be released eventually.

Sigourney Weaver, that magic, mystery actress who somehow has the ability to keep me watching this TV movie from beginning to end, plays Mary Griffith, the mother of Bobby Griffith, a teenage boy who realizes he's gay.

After Bobby confesses to being gay to his sexy older football player brother, Ed (Austin Nichols), the cool older bro tells mommy Sigourney, and she sends Bobby off to a blonde, dominatrix psychiatrist, who says "You just need to be around more girls!"

Mary is Christian, and she lives in fear that Bobby's homosexual "sin" is gonna keep the whole family from being together in the afterlife, cause from what she knows, Bobby will be burning away to ashes in HELL. For eternity. I've never understand how you could burn forever in hell. I guess your soul doesn't disintegrate, it remains intact and feels the painful heat for... for forever?

Anyway, this doesn't count as a spoiler since you see it happen first thing in the movie -- Bobby eventually commits suicide by jumping off a bridge and getting hit by a semi truck. Mary can't stand the thought of Bobby being gay, he runs off to San Francisco, starts dating a guy named David...

Now, I know I have no business judging these people (it is based on a true story), but Bobby does commit suicide right after seeing David exit a gay bar running around with a cute blonde boy... and David wasn't returning his phone calls. The movie, through flashbacks before he falls to his death, shows Bobby killing himself because his mom won't accept him being gay, but did they ever think that David had something to do with it? There is a scene where David appears after the funeral to shake Mary's hand that pissed me off.

Mary eventually comes to learn that being gay won't send you to hell, thanks to a gay friendly church, and she eventually joins PFLAG (Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians and Gays), leading up to the final scenes of her giving an emotional speech in a court room and then marching with PFLAG to support her dead gay son.

The storyline is very well known, very "been there, done that".... AT LEAST FOR ME. I know that I have already conquered coming out of the closet, but there are still lots of other gay kids out there, in small towns all over the USA, with religious families. Maybe Prayers For Bobby will do some good.

It is a strong, powerful vehicle for Sigourney Weaver, who has always been sort of a gay icon anyway (especially for lesbians, lesbians really like Ripley...). I was sorta hoping that every now and then in the film she'd stop, turn around, notice an alien sneaking up behind her, shoot it dead, then return to her bible.

I'm honestly surprised at the fact that it's directed by the man who directed Highlander.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

Yeah, that kind of freaked me out too because Mulcahy was as frenetic as all-get-out in Highlander and Ricochet, and here he is making a Lifetime movie!

I saw the advertisement for Prayers For Bobby when I was flipping channels last week and thought it looked interesting... but forgot to watch for it... anyway, thanks for sharing your thoughts on it Sexy...

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Thanks Sexy it sounds like a sad story

To me, Casino Royale was a masterpiece, unlike any Bond film made.

Fanboys
(directed by Kyle Newman, 2008)


For all I know, this is the first period piece about movie geeks -- it's set in 1998 and follows the cross country road trip of four Star Wars fanatics who are on their way to George Lucas' ranch house in California to steal a print of Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.

I am officially old again. Watching a party scene set in 1998 with Chumbawamba's Tubthumping ("I get knocked down, but I get up again, You're never gonna keep me down") took me back. Has it really been ten years since Episode 1 came out?? The 20-something year old geeks, played by Sam Huntington (Eric), Chris Marquette (Linus), Dan Fogler (Hutch) and Jay Baruchel (Windows), have a countdown to the release of Episode 1 on their little calculator-like thing....

But oh no'z! Problems start to arise when Linus is diagnosed with some kind of terminal cancer and probably won't live to see Episode 1. Also, Eric's dad, some big used car salesman honcho, wants Eric to take over the business, which means wearing a cowboy hat. To escape their problems, they all take off in Hutch's Star Wars van and head to California.

There's a fight scene between the Star Wars geeks and a bunch of Star Trek Trekkies -- don't blink, Sam Huntington pulls down his pants and moons them. Straight guys and lesbians, the lovely Kristen Bell, as Zoe, moons them later. She also wears a sexy Princess Leia outfit later on.

There's prostitutes, Harry Knowles, Jay & Silent Bob, William Shatner, gay Indians, Six Days, Seven Nights billboards... alright, that's all I'm gonna reveal.

I really liked it. I didn't laugh much -- a chuckle here and there, but the audience laughed up a storm. I'm harder to please. The film isn't playing in many theatres, which I thought was a shame. I knew absolutely nothing about it going in and I'm glad that I didn't leave to sneak into Friday the 13th.

Look to see if it's playing near you. Sexy recommends it. If you're a Star Wars fan, an absolute must.

BTW, Yoda, you're in it too -- as an elevator.

You think ten years goes by quick? Just wait until another ten boogies on by and then you realize that the original Star Wars is almost 50! Where does the time go? It's a trip how it flies by when we're busy living.

Thanks for another fun review.

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We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

Two Lovers
(directed by James Gray, 2008)



Supposedly, this is Joaquin Phoenix's final film before he takes off with his mega successful hip hop music career that will be revolutionary and make you forget he even starred in a few films early in his life.

Here he is with Gweneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw, his two lovers. He's a nice Jewish son, depressed, suicidal, cuts himself, tries to drown himself. He's back living at home again because his fiancee left him - something to do with both of them having a gene that would kill their babies off early in life. He works for a dry cleaning business and there's about to be a merger with another couple, and wouldn't ya know it, the owner has a daughter (Vinessa Shaw), a nice Jewish girl that has a crush on Joaquin.

But across the building in a window that looks directly into Joaquin's room is the blonde, slutty, drug addicted Gweneth Paltrow, who lives in an apartment paid for by her married boyfriend. She is the one that makes Joaquin turn into a horny, love starved dog, while Vinessa Shaw is just the one his parents want him to marry.

What will happen?

I thought it was great. If it's true that Joaquin's movie career is over, well, . Hopefully there will be more David Letterman appearances. (or non-appearances...)

Joaquin certainly has something special about him and Two Lovers proves it, although sometimes I had trouble understanding what he was saying. It moves at a comfortable, enjoyable pace - it's 108 minutes long.

It's apparently on In Demand cable, which is scary - what is a movie that's out in theatres doing on cable? Is this going to become the norm??? It is happening already?! I saw it in a theatre (big, sexy rebel I am). But if it's not playing around you, I heartily recommend paying the small price to rent the movie through your In Demand pay-per-view service. Make it a Joaquin night!