Movie Review: 18 YEAR OLD VIRGIN

18 YEAR OLD VIRGIN

2009
Unrated


You can watch the trailer here

Sometimes too much raunchiness is just too much. It's not that 18 Year Old Virgin was the worst movie that I've ever seen. It's just that this typical raunch-com couldn't find a way to make me laugh.

The film, which was directed by Tamara Olson, opens on Katie Powers (Olivia Alaina May), runner up to valedictorian, on the morning of her last day of high school. Convinced by her best friend Rose (Lauren Walsh) to attend a year-end party, Katie goes with the thought that she can win the love of her life, Ryan Lambert (Dustin Harnish). When he tells her that he won't sleep with a virgin, Katie spends the rest of the night on a quest to give it up, much to the chagrine of her secret admirer Spencer (Todd Leigh).

Story-wise, we've basically got a standard (read: predictable) romantic comedy on our hands. We can see from the opening sequence that Katie and Spencer are going to end up together at the end of the movie. I'm sorry if that "spoils" the movie for you, but if you can't figure that out after the first five minutes, you have no idea how romantic comedies work. All of the in-between just works towards that inevitable end, with some situations pushing Katie and Spencer farther apart, while others bring them even closer. In other rom-coms, we actually may get a bit of a story arc, and there may be legitimate conflict in that in-between stage; in 18 Year Old Virgin, however, all of our in-between involves Katie's failed sexual exploits, and it gets old pretty quick.

The acting isn't the worst I've ever seen, but it definitely leaves something to be desired. Aside from our lead, every other character either appears as a high school cliché or as an entirely unbelievable character inserted into the film for purely comedic effect. To be fair, it's not as though there's much characterization needed for a film like this, but I would have liked to have been able to relate to someone at some level.

The only thing this movie really has going for it is its soundtrack. I probably couldn't tell you what any of the songs were, but I found myself enjoying the background melodies more than the actual film itself. I'm not sure whether that's good or bad for the film.

All in all, you can't really judge 18 Year Old Virgin too harshly. It was a straight-to-DVD film that I found on Instant Watch in NetFlix after having it be suggested by my friend Katie. For once, NetFlix's prediction of my rating was right on par: one star out of five.

Movie Review Summary:
Grade: F
Current All-Time Rank: Worst - #95
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Movie Review: DELICATESSEN

DELICATESSEN

1992
R


You can watch the trailer here

(This review is going to be short, solely based on the fact that I'm utterly exhausted.)

Apparently not every foreign film that makes it to the U.S. market is a good one. Maybe I've been spoiling myself a little bit, taking some of the foreign films that have been nominated for Academy Awards. When two of the best French films you've ever seen are Amélie and The 400 Blows, you'll be hard pressed to find another French film to add to that group.

Acting isn't the issue here. Our two leads (Dominique Pinon and Marie-Laure Dougnac) perform well, even if the supporting roles are a little ridiculous. I blame that more on the screenplay than the actors' ability. It's convoluted and confusing, and I really didn't have much of an idea of what was going on.

However, the biggest issue I had with the film is that I didn't react the way the filmmakers wanted me to. It was promoted as a horror-comedy, but I wasn't scared, and I definitely wasn't laughing. If anything, I was just bored throughout. This is a huge hit against the screenplay and the direction of Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. I couldn't get into it, and that drastically hurt it's ability to entertain me. It was just a waste of one hundred minutes for me.

Movie Review Summary:
Grade: D+
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Movie Review: FRACTURE

FRACTURE

2007
R


You can watch the trailer here

In football, you always hear announcers, players and coaches say how important it is to play all four quarters. The same goes for basketball just as it goes for the nine innings in baseball. If you don't compete at a high level for the game's entirety, you run the risk of losing the game in the end. I would argue that the same principle holds true for film: you can have two great acts, but if your third act doesn't deliver, the entire movie will crumble before the audience's eyes. Sadly, Fracture made this mistake and suffered the consequences.

The film, which was directed by Gregory Hoblit, opens on Ted Crawford (Anthony Hopkins) spying on his wife and her secret lover. Arriving home earlier than normal, he essentially ambushes his wife and shoots her. The police come, and Ted is arrested, apparently pleading guilty to attempted murder as his wife did not die. Enter D.A. Prosecutor William Beachum (Ryan Gosling), known for his high rate of success in trials. He has one foot in the door of a renowned law firm but decides to stay on for one last case when Crawford shows interest in matching wits with him. As the trial plays out, it appears that Crawford may actually have the leg up on Beachum, and the film turns into a struggle for Beachum to find the necessary evidence in order to put Crawford away.

Based on the trailer and the brief synopsis I just provided, it may seem as though we've got all the ingredients necessary for success (and the film did do relatively well with critics). Add in the fact that we've got three Oscar nominees on board with Hopkins, Gosling and David Strathairn, and Fracture should have knocked it out of the park. However, the plot structure did have a few issues that proved a little annoying. As I said earlier, the film's set-up is fantastic: seeing Hopkins and Gosling spar back and forth is a delight, and the screenplay was actually relatively intelligent. Sadly, the film's finale leaves a lot to be desired. After spending almost two hours being dazzled by Crawford's seeming intelligence, a logistical technicality does him in. For how well he had played this entire game the whole way through, it just seemed a little too implausible that he would have completely overlooked this one little detail.

I can't really take anything away from the acting in the film. Everyone does their part, especially our two leads whose presence constantly demand the screen. Strathairn and Rosamund Pike also have a few very good scenes. There's really no issues with the acting. It's not going to blow you away, but it's definitely good enough to keep your attention.

If you're going to watch Fracture, watch it for the performances rather than the actual screenplay. Perhaps you can get into a little more than I could, but the ending just found a way to spoil it for me. Maybe you won't have the same reaction.

Movie Review Summary:
Grade: C+
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Movie Review: ANACONDA

ANACONDA

1997
PG-13


You can watch the trailer here

It's amazing how many big-name celebrities can fit into a pile of (insert necessary term here).

Usually when a movie is this bad, I like to start with the things that went wrong and end with the things that went right, so as to salvage some of the movie's respect. Unfortunately for Anaconda, there didn't seem to be much positive anywhere I looked. For starters, we've got a screenplay that's essentially Jaws in the Amazon. The only difference is that Jaws was actually compelling, with interesting characters and a real sense of thrill. Anaconda was just flat. Bad job, director Luis Llosa.

Oh, and the acting was impeccable! (Read: sarcasm). We're given a string of some big-named individuals: Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Jon Voight, Owen Wilson, Jonathan Hyde, and even a cameo from a young Danny Trejo. It's not that the acting was horrendous; most of the actors were just playing their normal character, so it wasn't much of a stretch for any of them. However, Voight, our villain aside from the giant friggin' snake swimming around, was absolutely horrendous. He had an accent that I couldn't even come close to placing, and his timing of speech made it sound like he had to call for his line every five seconds. I couldn't help but laugh every time he said a word because it was just too ridiculous.

To top it all off, we have to look at the titular creature itself. The anaconda doesn't even remotely resemble anything actually living. At least, when it wasn't in CGI. The computer-generation was actually pretty good, especially when it showed the snakes in full rather than just the head. They got the movement down just right, I think. However, the puppet-type anacondas that interact directly with the people on-screen looked so fake that I just couldn't take them seriously.

Overall, this movie is a complete train wreck. There's nothing truly redeeming about it. It's boring, and at best, you're going to laugh where they wanted you to be scared. You'll get more of a thrill searching real anaconda videos on YouTube.

Movie Review Summary:
Grade: F
Current All-Time Rank: Worst - #77
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Movie Review: SAW 3D

SAW 3D

2010
R


You can watch the trailer here

I don't think I've ever been so pleased with such a bad movie.

Let me get this out of the way: Saw 3D is not a good movie by any means. In relation to the rest of the films in the Saw series, I've definitely given it the lowest grade, although Saw V was pretty damn terrible. Despite this, I probably rank this latest (and supposedly final) installment, which was directed by Kevin Greutert, in the series in the top three in terms of satisfaction. Allow me to explain.

If I wanted to go into detail about everything that's wrong with this movie, I could talk for hours. Instead, I'll skim over the main pieces that cause total and utter mayhem. To start, the story is extremely convoluted, much like the two previous installments in the franchise. Characters that we've never seen are introduced, and it's as though the writers wanted us just to accept that they were there and had probably always been there. In a way, it's fitting - so many people (especially cops) are killed in each movie that there needs to be a constant carousel of newer and supposedly more experienced lawmen stalking the Jigsaw killer. Still, I never thought I'd actually be wishing to have Donnie Wahlberg back (see: Saw II, originally).

People see the Saw movies for one of two reasons: either they're going for the story and the twists (like myself), or they're going for the gore. While Saw 3D does dish out the gore readily, I just felt as though it wasn't quite as exciting as it has been. Maybe seven years of these movies have desensitized me, but none of the traps truly seemed all that edgy. Save for one nostalgic death late in the film, I wasn't impressed with the visual effects. If this is going to be the final movie, they should have gone big.

Now, none of the movies in the movie had terribly great acting, but this may hit a new low. I just couldn't believe that any of the characters were actually real people. Everything just seemed so forced. I had a little bit of hopes here with the addition of Sean Patrick Flanery into the ensemble, but he was arguably one of the worst to grace the screen. Just a very low effort all-around here.

Despite all of the evidence pointing to a horrible movie, I still found it very enjoyable for two reasons: the beginning and the ending. As fans of the franchise already know, every Saw movie (save the original) starts with a snippet of one or more of Jigsaw's victims caught in one his traps. The nature of the game this time around is irrelevant, but the picture above shows a little piece. The thing that I liked about the scene was that Jigsaw placed the trap in a public place, as you can see by the crowd in the background. Throughout the scene, the three people in the game scream outside for help while the masses just continue to watch. Camera phones appear, and the entire situation seems entirely voyeuristic. I got the sense that the writers were trying to send a message to the audience about watching gore for the sake of gore, but at the same time, I think it's making a statement about the lack of sensitivity in the world today. Yes, it's a reach, but it's just the vibe I got from the scene.

However, the reason I can call this movie a success is the ending. For the past few years, I've been hoping for a certain resolution when the final Saw film finally came around, and I am happy to say that the writers have completely delivered. I was so overjoyed with the final realization that I literally had goosebumps. Obviously, I don't want to give away this final twist, but I will say that I am always a fan of stories coming full circle. The twist may not save Saw 3D, but it definitely validates the Saw franchise as a whole.

Movie Review Summary:
Grade: F
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Movie Review: HOLY ROLLERS

HOLY ROLLERS

2010
R


You can watch the trailer here

If you read my review for When in Rome, you'll remember that I said that the romantic comedy has become much to cliché. It's basically the same-old story wrapped in a different type of paper, theoretically bringing something new. In a sense, that's exactly what Holy Rollers does with the drug-trade story.

Sure, the movies about the drug trade do tend to vary a little more than your average romantic comedy, but in all fairness, there are a few more variables to consider. First, you have to pick your drug, be it marijuana, heroine, cocaine, or as is the case with Holy Rollers, ecstasy. Second, you have to pick your drug lord, whose nationality is usually directly related to your choice for option one. Third, you have to find an offbeat, seemingly lawful guy who gets swept up in the trade, hits it big then crashes and spirals to the end of the film. Not to be too disheartening, however, you have to give us a little ray of hope at the end because it would be horrible to leave the audiences depressed.

That was essentially the storyline for Holy Rollers, which was directed by Kevin Asch. But for all intents and purposes, I could have easily been describing 2001's Blow. What makes Holy Rollers a little different is that we have Hasidic Jews diving into the ecstasy trade. It's supposedly inspired by a true story, but nowadays, what movie isn't supposedly true?

The acting is good, but it's really nothing to rave about. Jesse Eisenberg does well as our lead, and he actually has a few good scenes (see: the ending), but overall it's pretty par for the course. You're better off seeing him in The Social Network, also a movie about an extremely commonly-used and highly addictive drug called Facebook. Ari Graynor also has a few good scenes in limited screentime.

Overall, it's nothing I've never seen before. Sure, the twist is interesting, but it didn't do enough to captivate my interest. Sadly, Holy Rollers commits the worst atrocity a movie can commit: it's just flat-out boring.

Movie Review Summary:
Grade: D
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Movie Review: WAITING FOR "SUPERMAN"

WAITING FOR "SUPERMAN"

2010
PG


You can watch the trailer here

This review could either be very short or very long, depending on how much I want to diverge from the whole point of the review. I'll try to keep it short, however.

Essentially, we've got a documentary from the Academy Award-winning director of An Inconvenient Truth - Davis Guggenheim. This time around, he's tackling education and education reform in the United States. He partially follows five students from New York and California as they wait to see if their name will be called in a lottery, allowing them to attend a higher-end public school that will exponentially increase their chances of succeeding in the future in comparison to the education they would receive from their local public school. In the in-between segments, Guggenheim fills us in with the history of education reform (or lack thereof), giving the good and the bad and his reasons for why reform has yet to be truly successful.

The film is most compelling when it's following the five kids and their families. You can see and feel the difficulties of the public school system right alongside the parents, and you truly want the best for the kids. The final scene, composed of the various lotteries at different schools, is both crushing and heartwarming. It's simply too difficult not to get emotionally attached to these kids.

However, it loses some of its compelling storytelling in those in-between segments, and I felt like I was just thrown figure after figure. It was really hard for me to keep up with it all. When seen as a whole, I just didn't feel like I could relate. Yes, I'm not exactly the type of student they were portraying on-screen, most of which were poorer minorities from lower socioeconomic statuses than my own. Also, I didn't attend a public school until high school, and even in that case, I attended a magnet school designed to prepare me for college success. So, in a way, I probably just couldn't connect on a large scale.

Some of the interviewees were interesting, but even those got to be a little bogged down in technicalities. And there was a time or two where I immediately thought of a counter-argument to something proposed on-screen, and that's not very good for a documentary. I mean, if you think of a counter-argument a couple hours later while you're thinking about it, that's fine; but to think of it in immediate reaction? That's either not good film-making or not a good idea.

It's not to say the film is bad - all evidence to the contrary. I'm sure someone with more interest in the subject will find it incredibly telling, but for me personally, I just got a little bit bored with it as time went on.

Movie Review Summary:
Grade: B
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