BACK AT LAST. . .

The triumphant return of One Minute Movie Reviews. . .because I just HAVE to let you know what I thought of The Back Up Plan. I've been slacking on the one-minute movie reviews big time, like really big time. I've watched a lot of movies since I last posted One-Minute Movie reviews. What I've done is take some of the more memorable (or not-so-memorable) and current movies from that span and write the one-minute review of them. So here we go . . . in no particular order.

Clash of the Titans
CGI COTT, you are not as cool as the seminal Ray Harryhausen version from 1981. Maybe it's because I was a kid when it came out and watched it over and over. Maybe it's because in the 1981 version you got to see Andromeda's boobs. In any case, it deviated greatly from the classic Greek myth of Perseus. That bugged me. The CGI effects were cool, but so are all CGI effects, so in my eyes they don't compare to Harryhausen's Greatest Hits (original COTT, Jason and the Argonauts, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger <-- SPOILER ALERT: Sinbad kicks Apollo Creed's ass). I did like Medusa a lot, so I give COTT props for that. And I like Liam Neeson in everything. I thought Ralph Fiennes was a little over the top as Hades/Voldemort 2. All-in-all, a very average action flick.

Step Brothers
Yeah, I know this isn't new, but I've watched it like a dozen times on Encore the past couple months. One night I got up around 2:00 AM to feed Allie, found it on, and watched nearly the entire thing. I've enjoyed watching it so much that I've named my fantasy football ball team this year Prestige Worldwide. Actually, I just named it that because The Most Interesting Team in the World and Are You Smarter Than Antonio Cromartie? were too long.

Kick-Ass
Hmmm...Not so much. The problem I had with Kick-Ass is that everyone assumed I would be all geeked up about it and get all gaga about how awesome it is. The truth is I bought the comics and didn't really like them. The movie was OK, but pretty plain. That being said, Hit Girl lived up to the title. I also liked McLovin as a bad guy. The other stuff was a little cheesy, especially the ending. I liked parts of it, but overall I wasn't that crazy about it. Watching a kid get beat up all the time isn't that entertaining to me.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
This movie was kind of the opposite of Kick-Ass for me. I hadn't read the comics before I saw the movie. I knew OF them, and the basic premise of the plot, but I hadn't purchased and read them. I liked this movie a lot. My wife and son voted it, "Stupidest Looking Movie of the Summer" but I didn't let that stop me. It's very funny at times, and there's a little bit of Scott Pilgrim in all of us. . . I think. But the best part is that, like its titular character, I didn't have much in the way of expectations for this movie. It pleasantly surprised me by living up to those expectations. I'll own this on DVD when it comes out. And the critics who say it's a summer flop can bite me.

Date Night
I didn't get to see this in the theaters, and then it was in my Netflix queue for like four months before it got released on DVD. After seeing it, all I can say is, "When will Tina Fey make a truly great movie." I liked it, but I didn't love it. I thought Steve Carell and Tina Fey were good, but not great. Steve Carell has been in some great movies, but Tina Fey hasn't seemed to be able to find the right vehicle. There were parts where I laughed hysterically, but most of it I just found myself chuckling at. I did enjoy Marky Mark Wahlberg. I was told by a friend who saw it in the theater that it was, "just as funny as the Hangover." It wasn't. And it was only like 80 minutes long. WTH?

Get Him To The Greek
Now this movie actually was as funny as the Hangover. Russell Brand recreates his character of British rocker Aldous Snow, first introduced in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. This time, He gets to take the hard partying Aldous over the top into Outrageous-land. I also like Jonah Hill, who went against type as his usual awkward nerdy fat teen character. I was also pleasantly surprised that amongst the horrifying antics and immoral behavior of the characters, they slip ins some very touching scenes to give the characters just a little hint at redemption. If I have one complaint about the movie, it's P. Diddy. This was supposed to be his Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder moment, but it isn't. If anything, he tries too hard to be Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder, so it doesn't hit it big. The added bonus is that Aldous is shown performing several times, and while the songs are supposed to be stupid and inane, they're actually funny and catchy.

The Wolfman
Here's a movie that sat int he ol' Netflix queue forever, and then suddenly appeared in our mail. The first thing that I thought while watching it was, "Benicio del Toro, where have you been lately?" The second thought I had was that while this movie was in the theaters, I never read a good review of it. But I never really read a bad review of it either. I was pleasantly surprised by it. Even though i figured out the "surprise twist" about 1/3 of the way into the movie, I still found it enjoyable. I liked how they made the Wolfman like the classic Lon Chaney version, not some present-day shirtless teen version (it's OK Team Jacob, I'm still on your side!). I think that over time, this will be one of those movies we end up saying, "That's a decent movie, I wonder why it didn't get much buzz."

The Back-Up Plan
I love my wife. I love my wife so much that I watched this entire movie with her. She waited weeks to finally get it at the video store and was so excited to watch it. And then she actually had to watch it. I will say this about The Back-Up Plan: I would rather watch Hannah Montana: The Movie, than sit through this piece of drivel again. About halfway through all the schlocky, cliche "I'm pregnant" jokes and stereotypes, I looked over at my wife and said, "This is pretty stupid." To which she replied, "Yeah it is." LAMENESS ALERT! (this is the opposite of a spoiler alert and is intended to prevent you from seeing this movie) Jennifer Lopez's character owns a pet store that she bought because she bought her dog from a pet store that sold puppy mill dogs and now her little dog is confined to a doggy wheelchair. Yeah, I am not making this up. And since I am going off on this anyway, her love interest owns an organic goat cheese farm/company and aspires to open his own shop in which he will only sell products produced locally within a 3o mile radius of his place in NYC, even though he can't pass macro-economics at night school. I am going to end there, because any further discussion of this movie will cause me to use language that my mother (one of the five readers of this blog -- we've grown! Thanks, Chris) does not appreciate. Suffice it to say that I would rather watch The Bounty Hunter again, rather than this movie.