The MacGuffin

Dora-Heita is a traditional Japanese film about a new magistrate (basically a mayor) in a small town. The magistrate has begun to spread rumors about himself in order to make people think he’s lecherous and mean and nasty. He’s only done this to make his life easier since the people aren’t likely to accept him with open arms anyway. He’s been appointed to do some major clean-up in a seedy part of town. The other magistrates aren’t a fan of cleaning it up since it’s bringing in money (mainly illegally).

Red Riding Hood – I generally have good luck with recommendations from Amazon.com regarding movies I should purchased because I also purchased some other random movie. The key word is generally. I don’t even remember why they recommended it, sadly. The film is about a 12-year old girl living in Rome. Her mother has abandoned her and left her with unlimited money in a bank account. The girl has done well taking care of herself, except for catching… the crazy.

I’ll give a quick review of Predators, since Jeremy already laid it down really well for you all. Predators is the newest edition of the long-running Predator saga. I know people keep complaining about these when they come out, but enough people are going to see them that they keep making more. So, I’m assuming people want to see more explosions and guns and fire and aliens than we are led to believe. It will never be as good as the original (that goes without saying, but I said it anyway), but it ended up far better than I thought.

***CAUTION SPOILERS AHEAD***

Smash Cut starts with an old timey intro (meaning with an old man talking) giving viewers a warning about what they’re about to see. The film starts in a movie theater where people are watching a bad movie about a clown killing people – called Terror Toy. Everyone complains, yells, and leaves, but there is a guy standing near the exit with sad clown face painting. Cut to a strip club. This is how every movie should start.

Julie and Julia is a cute little film about Julia Child, the famous cook played here by Meryl Streep, before she became famous and modern Julie, played by Amy Adams, who is kind of a non-famous writer. Julie has a bunch of rich and important (read: snooty) friends who have no idea what she’s going through because they can’t relate. Julie decides, with the recommendation of her boyfriend, to go through Julia Child’s entire cookbook and blog about the experience. She does so (with some difficulty), but gets quite a following of friends and readers she doesn’t know.

I had mixed feelings going into Get Him To The Greek, but based on the previews I thought I had better at least give it a shot (especially since someone else was paying). It’s about a record company kid (Jonah Hill) trying to make a splash in the business by pitching an idea to his boss (played by P.Diddy) to have a just-past-peaked rock star (Russell Brand) play a show at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. The trick is getting this drug- and drink-consuming machine to the theater in the first place.

My new boss suggested I check out It’s Complicated during a conference call two weeks back. If I had declined, the rest of the people would think I was a jerk (they’ll find out soon enough anyway), so I told her I would. I moved it to the top of the Netflix list to try and suck up. I now realize my boss and I will have to disagree on which movies we like.

[And yes, I know John already posted a review – I’m just reinforcing his thoughts on it, since I read his after I wrote mine up. John’s is actually a better review, damn him! Haha]

Here is what I knew about MacGruber before going to see this film: MacGruber is a character from an SNL skit (I haven’t seen SNL in more than 15 years) and MacGruber is a spoof of MacGyver (I haven’t seen MacGyver in more than 15 years). I wasn’t familiar with the skit and I hadn’t even seen a preview, I’d only heard people say “it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.” Where I come from, that’s usually means I should see this film.

The first time I saw a preview for The Losers, I thought I wanted to see it. Then the more reviews I read about this film, the less I wanted to see it. The previews made this seem like an awesome film – so mission accomplished, trailer-people. Sadly, the rest-of-the-movie people didn’t come through. When I read it was a bad adaptation of the A-Team, I was intrigued. Sadly, those reviews were pretty spot on.

Kunoichi: Lady Ninja opens with bad guys storming a sanctuary for women (known as a convent). Heads (and eye balls) roll – literally. Then the daughter of the original owner of the convent comes back and scares away the bad guys. The convent hires the help of paid assassins to defend the convent against further attack. Meanwhile, the remaining women train to be ninjas.