Beautiful Creatures

Do you all remember that time when Justin Bieber got pregnant and gave birth to a wonderful bunch of little girls known as the band One Direction?  Well, it seems like the same thing has happened to the Twilight Franchise, because when that series ended it gave birth to a butt load of other supernatural romance stories, and one of its offspring is the “Beautiful Creatures”.  And now, because vampires, witches, and werewolves have been used, the next supernatural love story will have to be between a high schooler and Bigfoot… but Hollywood will never produce that movie because it would look too much like a pedophile stalking a minor.  Now despite the fact that I’m not the movies target demographic (12-yr old girls and boys experiencing infatuation for the first time) I found this movie to be quite enjoyable.  It had a wonderful cast including Academy Award winner Jeremy Irons, who still sounds like he’s been smoking a regular 8-packs a day, and the two newcomers who play the lovebirds being twitter-pated with each other.  To be honest I don’t think that this movie will get a sequel or become the next twilight saga, based on how little I've heard of this book before the movie, but standing on its own it’s a pleasant experience that will play with the hearts of all 12-year old girls around the world.

3 out of 5

The Grey

Wolves!!!  At one point we thought they were cute when we saw them raise Mowgli in "Jungle Book", but this movie reveals them for what they really are, SPAWNS OF SATAN!  And with regards to Alaska, you'd think after seeing the movies "Into the Wild", "Alaska", "30 Days of Night", and "The Edge", that people would take a hint and NEVER go there.  Seriously it seems to me that anyone traveling to Alaska should be warned that their plane WILL crash, and they will either be chased by bears, wolves, or foreign vampires who have a strong case of G-I-N-G-I-V-I-T-I-S.    The story follows several oil workers whose plane crashes deep in the Alaskan wilderness (called it!), and not only do they have to find a way to keep warm, but they have to survive wolves the size of mini-coopers.  Luckily for them they have a hunter named Ottway (Neeson), who helps out the best he can.

The Good:
I always enjoy a good flick about a bunch of dudes surviving in some land that sucks the life out of you, like "Into the Wild", "The Edge", "Boys in the Hood", or any Zombie movie you can think of.  despite the fact that this movie is really intense, and has a lot of action in it, what I liked most is some of the heartfelt moments between Neeson and his friends when he's helping them with survival, or to cope with death.  Liam Neeson was such a tender-loving sweetheart in the movie, that one day I hope we're on a plane together, and that after it crashes we can recreate some of those lovely moments!  Before Liam Neeson became this HUGE action star, he was in Oscar-Winning films like "Schindler's list", and it's not like he was doing bad with himself.  All the sudden that changed, a few years ago he's become one of the most effective action stars out there.  The difference between Neeson's action films, and the action films of others is that he doesn't focus on how stylized the violence can be.  Liam Neeson's action flicks are blunt, realistic, and gritty, much like this film here.

The Bad:
Even though the trailer sells the movie like it's going to be one massive fight scene between Neeson and wolves, I just want to let you guys know that's not the case AT ALL.  There aren't really any fight scenes to begin with, unless you count wolves tearing helpless men to shreds as a fight;  So the advertising for this movie wasn't very accurate.  Maybe this stems from my utter hatred for pets, but it cracks me up when I see animals in movies have personality, I mean what is this, Twilight?  are these wolves really just a bunch of half-naked Natives running around, communicating their feelings to each other telepathically?  I'd like to think so, that'd be freaken awesome!  But seriously I'm sure all that's going through the wolves minds is a song that goes like "I'm chewing on this man, yum yum yum, he thought he could run, so dumb dumb dumb".

The Ugly:
Basically the Moral of this story is that planes are attracted to the ground when traveling over Alaska, which usually ends up in a crash, much like eating a king-size Toblerone only to realize that the fat is leasing out an apartment right in your love handles.  To me this is the king of all survival movies, and has to be one of the better DVD releases of the year, so if you're a fan of Alaska, Wolves, Neeson, and snow-covered beards, then this is the movie for you!

5 out of 5

One for the Money

Down on her luck and money, the sexy Kathrine Heigel has hit rock bottom when she literally fell on some rocks and hurt her bottom.  In this not so funny (and unofficial) sequel to the great flop that is "Bounty Hunter", our favorite hot person from "Grey's Anatomy" (which I've never seen) attempts to pick herself back up by becoming a bounty hunter.  To her misfortune the first person that she has to bring in is a man who looks like he's been applying "Mad Men" to his life, so you know that it's only a matter of time before she thinks to herself.  "dang he fine!  I'ma going to threaten him with this gun, and tell him he has the right to remain sexy."  I'm assuming that's what she would say if she was taking voice lessons from Tyler Perry.  The trouble is once she starts attempting to bring him in, she realizes that he's actually the victim of something crazy!

The Good:
Right alongside with Julia Robert's laugh, Jon Hamm's chizzled chin, or Amy Adams' chipmunk squeak, Katherine Heigl's face seems to suck in all the focus, making even the crappiest of movies half decent.  Imagine if you were to put all of those actor's attributes into one person!  Now that would definitely be Hollywood's greatest creation, and they're probably working on her right now.  Basically I'm saying that I wasn't too attached to the movie, but if it wasn't for Katherine's charming acting/face then I probably wouldn't have finished it in the first place;  I would have instead picked up one of the Twilight books with a bucket of mint-chocolate chip ice-cream in my hands.

The Bad:
What is this movie, a 13-year old High Schooler?!  It makes it hard for the viewer to watch a film, when even the film doesn't know what it wants to be.  When it started out, my wife and I were about as giddy as Slumdog Millionaire after he gets the girl, because we knew we were getting a Romantic Comedy we can both enjoy, but sadly that wasn't the case.  about 30 minutes into the film, it takes a major change and turns into a movie that tries to be a light-hearted version of "Taken".  The film was driving us crazy in our minds, because we didn't know how we should approach it!  So physically we looked relaxed on the couch, but internally we were shaking the TV while yelling "What do you want from me?!  Just take the money and leave us alone!!"

The Ugly:
Even though I find this flick remarkably similar to a person afflicted with D.I.D., it wasn't too bad; like I said we did finish it.  I'm just saying that unless you want to put your brain into a blender and push "Pulse", then you'll probably want to stay away from this, otherwise do what any respectable brother would do and start reading Twilight.

1 1/2 out of 5

Abduction

You know how some people say they "feel naked" if they're missing their shoes/belt/I-pod/bible/stained underwear?  Well for our muscular native Taylor Lautner it means the exact opposite, because he feels naked when he's wearing cloths as we've learned from him playing a poodle in "Twilight".  When starting this movie C and I gave it about two minutes before Jacob (Crap!), I mean taylor removes his shirt, making his abs completely exposed so that all the teenage girls in the audience are wooed into a coma.  Knowing that he just came from doing all the "Twilight" films, I must say that my expectations of this movie being "good" were not very high, as a matter of fact I predicted that picking my nose and watching Dora the Explorer would have been a better use of my time.  To my suprise the movie... still sucked, but effectively!  The storyline was crap, taylor was still wooing teenagers, his love interest had enormous eyebrows, and her eyebrows were a different color, making me wish that she was killed off in the movie.  What was good was the action (of course how could we expect any less from Jacob), the soundtrack, everything but that girl's eyebrows, and when the movie ended.  The movie was dumb, but the enjoyable kind of dumb like those "dumb dumb suckers"

2 out of 5