Random Thoughts on the Movie “Beastly”

We saw the movie “Beastly” this weekend, and I went into it without much thought. A co-worker of mine suggested it, based off of the book, but she said that the movie seemed like a big departure from the book, so no big expectations. The premise: beautiful rich boy Kyle (Alex Pettyfer – also from I Am Number Four) is way too cocky and pisses off the wrong person Kendra (Mary-Kate Olsen). She casts a spell on him that transforms him into an ugly beast so that he appreciates his life more. The contingency of the curse is that he has to find love within 12 months or be this beast forever. While Kyle’s dad is also firmly based on beauty, he ships him out of the city and puts him in a house where he is out of the way and out of sight of everyone. He gets a tutor for him, Will (Neil Patrick Harris), who’s blind so that he can’t see the horror that is his son. While he is in a “woe-is-me” state of mind, his clock is ticking by and he hasn’t come close to finding someone to say “I love you” to him to break the spell, until he starts stalking (Vanessa Hudgens), and realizes that her home-life is less than perfect with a junkie father who has had a run-in with a gang. He offers to take her in to protect her and now she feels like his prisoner. After many angsty weeks of him trying to buy her affection, they manage to strike a friendship once he realizes that she’s “not that kind of girl” and when he finally reveals his face to her, she isn’t surprised at all by what she sees. They become friends very quickly and he falls in love with her, but she is only interested in him as a friend (typical, right). He takes this very hard, but in the end it all works out. It’s kind of a twist on “Beauty and the Beast,” but not really. What I didn’t understand is that in today’s society, the way he looked wasn’t really that bad, there are people who take body modification to new levels and with piercings and tattoos, he could have been much, MUCH worse! If you’re in the mood to see a romantic movie with the significant other, I’d definitely recommend this one for you and your sweetie to settle down with a bowl of popcorn! I give it 3 out of 5 stars total.

Random Thoughts on Dear John

Yes, I know, another chick flick, but @DarrellSykes and I went to see “Dear John” today. It was actually a very good movie. It had Channing Tatum (as John) in it, which I’m not a huge fan of his acting, but it also had Amanda Seyfried (as Savannah), whom I love (from two of my favorite movies: Mean Girls and Mamma Mia!), so I thought I’d give it a shot. From the beginning I really liked the characters, and I felt the chemistry between them. Young, new love. It’s magical, and they made me feel it with them. Then there were some bumps in their newly formed relationship and we got to experience some of the military life of John. There were some slow moving scenes in that part of the movie, but in the end it all worked out for the best of the story. During the military stint, September 11th happens, and he re-enlists in the Army. His extended absence creates even more relationship issues between John and Savannah. During this whole thing, there are actually two other mini-storylines that are going on and are intermingled with the main story.

I’ve gone way too far into a synopsis, which I promised I’d never do. Ugh. Well, there are a LOT of twists and turns in this movie, it reminded me a lot of The Notebook, which was an excellent movie. In the end, I left the theatre in tears. Were they happy or sad? You should go see the movie, then you’ll know.

I can recommend this movie for a very romantic date night.

Here is the trailer:

 

Random Thoughts on “When In Rome”

  The other day Darrell and I went to see another chick flick, “When In Rome.”  This one stars Kristen Bell (you’ve seen her in Heroes as Elle Bishop) and Josh Duhamel (the hottie from Transformers). Again, I’m not going to re-write a perfectly good IMDB synopsis, so hit the link for that.

This movie was extremely cute. There was some decent music in the soundtrack and the scenery was gorgeous. There was a brief art history lesson, too! A lot of the story was kind of silly, but overall, it ended up being a really good movie. Again, it was a complete chick flick, but we saw it during the week as a matinee, and apparently that’s when all the straight dudes get their romantic comedies on. There were at least two single guys there (the looked straight anyway), and there were a few couples. Overall, the guy-to-girl ratio was pretty even in the theatre, but I digress.

There was a twist at the end that I didn’t see coming, probably because I wasn’t looking for a twist, and there were definitely a LOT of laughs! I whole-heartedly recommend you get with your other half and go see this one!

 

Here goes the preview. Check it out! (In case you’re wondering, the song playing is called “Starstrukk” by 3OH!3 ft. Katy Perry. Watch it here)

 

Random Movie Reviews

Hello everyone! I'm sorry I haven't written in a while, but with work and life being what it is, I haven't made time to blog. Sorry! I've seen a couple of new movies recently and wanted to jot down a few thoughts on them.

I'll start with "Leap Year." It was a feel good chick flick to the core, and I predict it will be a staple of your chick flick collection within a couple of years. It will be synonymous with "Steel Magnolias," "Pretty Woman," and other non-Julia Roberts movies I can't think of at the moment. It was a bit predictable, but most movies in this genre are, but there were a lot of moments that made this movie an original, and I genuinely liked it. SO, if you like romantic comedies/dramas, and want to see a great movie (perfect for date night or a girls movie night out), then this one is for you. I will say that in the theatre where I saw the movie, there were a total of about 10 guys, and the rest were girls. All of the guys were there obviously at their girlfriend/wife's request (except for me and Darrell, the only gay couple at this particular showing), so if you're a macho guy, you might want to sit this one out until it comes out on DVD, or get your girl to go see it with you. She'll appreciate the sentiment!

The second movie I wanted to talk about was "Legion." Ok, this one had the potential to be an awesome movie, but fell short for me. It kind of upset me in the end, because I felt like it was one of those M. Night Shyamalan bait-and-switch religious movies. Granted, I KNEW it had angles in it, but it seemed to draw several parallels to the birth of Jesus. Maybe I was reading more into it than I should, but it seemed more interlaced with biblical mythos than I was comfortable with outside of church. It did have some action scenes, and honestly, you saw the best ones in the previews. Some of the fight sequences seemed silly to me. I think I might have actually giggled when Gabriel wrapped his wings around him and started spinning and they were deflecting bullets. I mean, come on. Obviously I recommend waiting until this one is out on Netflix before you see it.

In case you were wondering, I don't plan on going into storyline detail on anything I review. I don't do this on purpose. One reason is because I don't want to spoil it for you if you want to see the movie, read the book or play the game, the other reason is because synopsyses (I don't know what the plural for synopsis is, so if you do, help me out!) have been written over and over again for literally anything that has a story, so if you don't want to experience the story for yourself, hit up IMDB.

That's it for now. Let me know what you think in the comments, and stay tuned for the next installment!