Welcome back to my English only version of my film reviews. Once again, I didn't spend a lot of time watching films, but the ones I did watch were mostly comedies. Laughter being good for the soul and all. And the films that aren't comedies were all aired on network television. There were a few others I decided not to add because I didn't watch the entire film (even though I have seen them at some other time). I caught the last hour of "The Bourne Supremacy" which was shown the day after "The Bourne Ultimatum" was aired, on a different network no less. Caught part of "Ghost Ship" when I realized I had seen that before as well. I missed the first half-hour or so of "Memories of Tomorrow" starring Ken Watanabe about a man who is diagnosed with Alzheimer's. And the fourth installment of the made for television movie "Hadaka no Taisho" featuring Kumamoto this time around. I've been enjoying books more than movies but there are quite a few flicks I'm still looking forward to watching.
BE KIND, REWIND (2008) – What makes this film fun is the parodies of major Hollywood movies. It stars Jack Black, Mos Def and Danny Glover. Glover is the owner of a rental video store (that still rents VHS tapes) in a decrepit building that is on the verge of being condemned. Mos Def works at the video store and Jack Black is a master of doing nothing. Glover is going on a trip with some buds and leaves Mos Def to mind the store on the condition that he doesn’t let Black in (which doesn’t stop Black of course). On one of Black’s brilliantly stupid ideas, his body becomes magnetized he manages to erase all the tapes that the store stocks. When a regular customer, who seems to be one can short of a six-pack says there’s nothing on the tape and wants to rent a different one, Black and Mos Def film parodies versions on their own. The god-awful versions of “Ghostbusters”, “Robocop”, “Rush Hour 2”, “Driving Miss Daisy” are just hilarious. The story is absurd but it’s a lot of fun to watch.
FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL (2008) – Brought to you from the makers of “The 40 Year Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up”, a comedy that kept me laughing almost through the entire film. Peter’s girlfriend, popular television star Sarah Marshall has just dumped him and he doesn’t seem able to come to terms with it (you really want to smack the guy upside the head for being such a whiny baby), so his friend suggest taking a vacation to anywhere and chooses Hawaii. Imagine his shock when he finds that his ex-girlfriend is staying at the same resort with her new rock boyfriend (the rock star dude really takes the cake). I thoroughly enjoyed this flick. It would have been even better if I had a couple of cold ones while watching it though. Pure fun! 
KNOCKED UP (2007) – There’s just something about movies with Seth Rogan and Jonah Hill in them that just make them funny. Unfortunately, this wasn’t one of them. Seth plays Ben Stone and lives with his Canadian buddies and they just like to party. Alison Scott played by Katherine Heigl has just been promoted at her job so she goes out to celebrate with her married sister at a neighborhood bar where they meet Ben and his friend. Alison’s sister gets called home by her husband because their child seems to have come down with the chicken pox. Alison decides to hang out with Ben, they get drunk, she takes him home, they have a one-night stand, and eight weeks later Alison finds out she’s pregnant. Now Ben is a pot-smoking slacker who is trying to set up a dot.com business called fleshofthestars.com. But Ben and Alison decide to stick together to make things work which means Ben is going to have to grow up. More of a comedy-drama than pure comedy.
AVP: ALIEN VS. PREDATOR (2004) – Why? It was on television and thought it might be amusing. It was pretty bad – as bad as you can imagine. It’s as the title suggests, aliens vs. predators with humans just being in the way. The human portion of the story is that some salvage company has discovered some huge pyramid-like structure buried deep beneath the Antarctic, but they’re just there to be killed in grisly ways by the Predators and the Aliens. Most of the humans deserved to die anyway, you don’t feel any sympathy for them and might even find yourself rooting for the aliens.
隠し砦の三悪人 「KAKUSHI TORIDE NO SAN AKUNIN」English Title: THE LAST PRINCESS (2008) – A remake of Akira Kurosawa’s “The Hidden Fortress” which I unfortunately haven’t seen and stars Jun Matsumoto of popular boy idol band Arashi along with Masami Nagasawa. Also features Hiroshi Abe and Kippei Shiina. For those of you unfamiliar with the original story (which I looked up), two greedy peasants help a man and woman across enemy lines not knowing that they are a princess and her general. In this remake, the peasants find out early on and are tricked into helping the princess and her general.
THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM (2007) – The third and final book made into a film based on the trilogy by Robert Ludlum and starring Matt Damon. Jason Bourne attempts to solve the mystery of his existence by going to back to where things all began. Of course I’ve seen this before but it was being aired on network television and I couldn’t pass it up. Why the networks aired “The Bourne Supremacy” the following day is a mystery to me.Sad isn't it? At this pace, it looks like I'm watching one or two films a week. Crazy. Especially for a film buff like me. Oh well, I just finished reading "An Education" by Lynn Barber which was made into film and scripted by Nick Hornby (you readers of books will know who that is). Of course, the film expands one portion of Barber's story but I found her memoir to be quite fascinating as well.
Until next time!!
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