= Such Stupid Things =

A couple people have asked me if I saw any good movies over winter break. The answer is a resounding "no", but I thought it might be fun to write up a few months-late movie reviews of the flicks I actually did see:

*** Beerfest. I downloaded this one of the first nights I was home. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but the movie was a big letdown. Sure, sure, drinking is funny - drinking games hilarious, yet once again Broken Lizard left me wondering, this is all it takes to call yourself a comedy troupe? I feel like I could have written this movie, which isn't saying much. A character gets too drunk and sleeps with a fat woman? In a movie about drinking? Is that the best you've got?

Aside: it seems like it should be a slam-dunk, but making drunk talk funny is, actually, quite difficult. The one success that stands out in my mind is when intoxicated Milhouse puts his arm around Bart and says, "This guy... he's the guy."

*** High School Musical. (Spoilers ahead!) The phenomenon! It's not really in our age group's wheelhouse, but I guarantee you've heard songs from this made-for-tv movie and just didn't know/care where they came from. It's ostensibly a high-school movie, but is clearly geared more towards the younger, tweener crowd. Case in point, my 10-year-old sister insisting we watch it. As you can probably guess, it's not very entertaining. The songs are boring, the plot saccharine, and Zac Efron totally wants to be Justin Timberlake but isn't. Plus, the musical they're producing at East High already seems fraught with directorial missteps. I mean, the piano phenom girl is the only person in school who has any idea what the plot of this musical is supposed to be. Wouldn't the safer move be to go with something from Broadway? Something people can relate to and sing along with? And why relegate Sharpay - clealry the second best singer in school - to being an understudy? Isn't there, like, another female role should could play? I'm not holding out much hope. (It reminds me somehow of the time my own high school drama production of Much Ado About Nothing was mysteriously re-set in colonial Virginia. Only, none of the characters' names were changed to reflect that. And they didn't even change the lines where they say the word "Italy") The one thing I'll say for this movie, is that it reminded me of how good of a job Joss Whedon did.

*** The DaVinci Code. See here. The sound of my mom snoring was, kind of, an improvement.