Scribblerchick's Movie Dish

Walking Out of Movies

In a completely non-scientific poll, I asked my 535 Facebook friends to comment and tell me the names of movies they've seen that they totally HATE. Like, hate so much they left the theater, or grabbed the DVD out of the player.

I'm talking about movies that suck so big you get ANGRY.

One of my cousins, Norm, named The Cars That Eat People [so obscure I couldn't find it on IMDB]. That sounds like a definite clunker.

I got this idea because in 1999, my brother and I went to see a movie called End of Days. "At the end of the century, Satan visits New York in search of a bride. It's up to an ex-cop who now runs an elite security outfit to stop him." ACK. As we were walking to the car after the film I said "I hated that so much I wanted to get up and walk out, but I figured you were enjoying it." My brother glared at me. "I wanted to walk out but I thought YOU wanted to see it." Epic communications fail.

I also walked out on Batman Returns. That was one where Michael Keaton played Batman. Wrong bat actor, bad bat movie. Just dreadful.

There's no accounting for taste though. I bet some of you out there loved End of Days and Batman Returns. I loved Silver Linings Playbook, and my friend Judy hated it and walked out. Go figure.

Another person said she hated The Color Purple, which is one of my all-time fave movies.

Norm's wife hated Contact, another movie I love.

Sometimes the reasons we hate a movie are entirely subjective. My dad loved war movies, and dragged me to a lot of them when I was a kid, but he HATED Braveheart. He had forgotten his hearing aid the day we saw it, and he had cancer and felt crappy a lot of the time. He also complained about there being "too much blood and gore." [yep, bullets are a lot cleaner than broadswords]

See, I look at movie blood and wonder "how many gallons of syrup did it take to get that effect?!" - because I was a theater major at Georgia and I had a friend who did effects for low-budget horror films. He used to explain to me in detail how gory effects were done, which was awesome because "horror" movies ceased to bother me after that. Once you view them clinically, you realize horror movies are just the cinematic equivalent of Red Bull - all jolt, no food value.

A couple of people named Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. I started watching that on TV in a hotel room when we were in the mountains some years ago, and I was so disgusted we turned it off. Michael was really miffed too - that's his birth country. Making fun of an entire nation is just lowbrow, crass, tasteless crap, IMHO. However, having said that, the Kazakh guy who translated for me when I was in Petropavlovsk for Michael's adoption had seen Borat and thought it was hysterical.

The movie The Master got some Oscar nominations but my friend Lindsey wanted to walk out of it. Just the trailer looked weird and boring, to me.

When I was at UGA, I was a member of the University Union, the group responsible for showing movies on campus. I started the Bad Film Festival, in honor of classic terrible movies like Glen or Glenda, and Plan 9 From Outer Space - movies so bad they were inadvertent comedies.

Ah, the salad days of being a college film geek...

One man on Facebook said he hated the Terence Malick movie The Thin Red Line, a movie I've always thought might be interesting. Movies that critics love don't always interest me, though. I was explaining to Michael this morning that when  The Blues Brothers came out, critics hated it. I loved it and it made millions at the box office.

You want to see something fun? Watch the scene below from The Blues Brother, featuring the great Ray Charles. Besides some great music, you get to learn how to do the Watusi and The Jerk...

 

 

Movies Everyone Needs to See

There are certain movies that every mouth-breathing human on planet earth SHOULD SEE. Well, particularly if you are American. If not, I guess I shouldn't presume to tell you what to see. There are certain foreign films I'm quite fond of, like Amelie and Local Hero, but very few.

Am I biased in favor of American movies?

Yep. Guilty as charged.

What got me started on this gravy train of thought? Well, Dooce said she would tell a young lady in L.A. who clearly doesn't know much about movies to see The Good the Bad and the Ugly and Apocalypse Now. I totally disagree. Never seen TGTBATU, and was forced to see Apocalypse Now and just wanted to slap everyone in it [I prefer Miss Piggy's version, "Porklips now"].

See, right now I am hearing in my head the droning nasal Minnesota accent of my college film professor, Dr. Eidsvik, talking about great films like The Rules of the Game, and Bicycle Thieves. I used to wonder how he could take something as interesting as movies and make them seem boring. I had to drink coffee to be able to sit through most of the "classic" films he showed in class. They were just.that.boring. [Either that or I was just too young to appreciate them...food for thought, there.]

What I eventually had to just accept was the fact that I am not intellectual and sophisticated enough to understand "film." See, I like MOVIES. I like to be entertained and/or thrilled. I like to cry in movies. I like to be astonished. I like to hear clever dialogue, and interesting ideas. Occasionally, I like to see things blow up.

I do NOT like to have to sit there and figure out what on earth is going on. That's why I avoid The Lord of the Rings movies and Mission Impossible. Too many plot details. Can't keep up. Hate it when I am confused in a movie. Didn't care much for Inception for that reason, needless to say.

Dr. Eidsvik was, I think, astonished that I could even begin to comprehend what he was teaching but I always pulled out good grades in his classes. I could bluff my way through. He later wrote me a recommendation letter for grad school, much to my surprise.

So here's my list of the 25 movies EVERYONE should see before, say, age 30. They are comprehensible. They are touching. Some are considered "classics," some not. That's such a subjective word. I put a few comments about each movie.

Singing in the Rain -- it's just fun. there's no crime in that...

Good Will Hunting -- how do humans function after they've had brutal childhoods? searing stuff. robin williams and matt damon are brilliant.

Saving Private Ryan -- if you want to understand anything about World War II you need to see this. [even though my brother says some of the military stuff is inaccurate]

As Good As It Gets -- watching a non-functional human being try to get better just kills me every time. broken people brilliantly portrayed by Nicholson and Hunt.

The Color Purple -- makes me cry every time. it's about the importance of family.

Gone With the Wind -- sentimental, dated, not politically correct, yes yes I know, but it's close to my heart.

The Godfather [1 & 2 only] -- you just have to know this story of Americans and how to assimilate, or not. it's part of our culture.

Bringing up Baby -- just funny, funny, funny stuff.

Harold and Maude -- how do you deal with becoming an adult?! classic question we all face.

Highlander -- ok, laugh at the 80's MTV video style but it's still thought-provoking and freddie mercury's music is just amazing and heartbreaking.

The Princess Bride -- turns fairytales on their ears and it's just plain funny.

The Shawshank Redemption -- character study extraordinaire

The Great Escape -- Steve McQueen just fascinates me every time I see this.

The Right Stuff -- why America went into space, and the incredible people who took us there.

Raiders of the Lost Ark -- heart-stopping adventure and unforgettable characters. what's not to love?

My Fair Lady -- it's all about class baby, but I love the music.

The Sound of Music -- laugh if you like. it's still wonderful. i always want to live in that house...

Love and Death -- just flat-out funny stuff. woody's best, IMHO.

Ordinary People -- how do you handle grief and guilt?? we all need to learn.

About a Boy -- really honest look at how it feels to be a kid. all kids can relate.

Casablanca -- it has to be seen. nothing else compares to it.

Local Hero -- lovely little film about Scotland, and all of us choosing between greed and human connections. very subtle humor.

ET -- seen it many times. still makes me cry every.single.time.

The DaVinci Code -- IDEAS are so important. even if you disagree.

 

What would be YOUR choices for 25 movies we all need to see?!

I found this trailer for Local Hero on YouTube and if you've never seen the film, you should see this...

 

Hangover II

There's a school of thought in Hollyweird that says if you make one huge blockbuster movie, you need to rush a sequel into the theaters as quickly as possible. The first weekend, all the people who LOVED the first film will flock to the sequel, before they read the reviews. I read the very lukewarm reviews and went to see Hangover II anyway.

Here's my excuse: Thor 3-D was not playing at the time we wanted to go to the movies.

We couldn't talk Michael into seeing Super 8.

My daughter also wanted to see Hangover II. I could tell this by the way she squealed when we were talking about movie choices.

My son had already seen it and wanted to see it again. I thought what the heck, it's playing at the cheap theater.

Next time that same sequence of events happen, instead of seeing a movie I am pretty sure is going to be bad, I will simply grab a board and hit myself in the head repeatedly. Why? Because that will be more fun than sitting through such a godawful BAD movie.

Hangover I was bad, but it was fun. Hangover II is just bad. I think I laughed twice during the whole film.

Here are the main differences between this and the first movie. Ready?

Instead of Doug getting married, Stu is getting married.

Instead of las Vegas, they are in Bangkok.

Instead of carrying around a baby, they carry around a capuchin monkey.

Instead of losing a tooth, Stu gets a face tattoo.

Instead of having a horrible, witchy fiance, Stu has a horrible, mean future father-in-law.

It's like the screenwriters took the first film and did a mark-thru of the first script's nouns and replaced them with new nouns. I'm sure someone then said well, this isn't great. Let's up the ante. Let's get really shocking. Let's cut off someone's finger. Let's have lot of male frontal nudity.

Oh yeah, and let's get Mike Tyson back for another cameo! And let's let him sing again!

I will hear Tyson's singing in my nightmares for the rest of my life. It was so off-key it was painful.

And the crazy little Asian guy, Mr. Chow - let's have him pop out of an ice machine instead of a car trunk!

And just let me say a word about Zach Galifianakis. I have now seen him in several movies. He is a horrible actor. He plays himself in all his movies, basically. Don't believe me? Rent Due Date, or Dinner for Schmucks. Terrible films, both of them. Zach plays pretty much the same character in everything.

I want to slap him, very hard. Then I want other people to slap him. Finally, I want to send him to prison so he can never be in another movie, ever again. Ever. I despise him that much.

It was interesting seeing Bangkok, I will admit that. Looking at Bradley Cooper is fairly pleasant, except he looked like he had BO through the whole movie.

If you still think maybe you might want to see this huge waste of time, check out this site, where you can see clips from the movie.

Watch the clips. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Laughing? Then go see it, by all means. Looking puzzled and disgusted? Then skip it.

Or go hit yourself in the head repeatedly with a heavy board. That will be more fun.

The Way Back

I became a fan of director Peter Weir years ago after seeing The Year of Living Dangerously - a terrific film made in the glorious days before Mel Gibson had lost his mind. Weir has an amazing ability to make you feel like you are inside a movie. I also loved his films Green Card and Witness.

Weir takes you into a world and compels you to stay there.

The Way Back is a different sort of movie, and yet it's not. There's no romance. It starts out in Poland in 1940, surely a harrowing time. A young man is sent to a Soviet prison in Siberia, for political prisoners. There he meets Ed Harris and Colin Farrell and various other assorted folks. Weir draws you into that world brilliantly, with a look, a tiny gesture, a tidbit of dialogue. (As I was watching those prison scenes, I kept thinking wow, it's cold in here. Ironic, since I live with my mom and we keep the air downstairs on 78-80 all summer.)

I must confess right now, Ed Harris is one of my all-time fave actors. He is amazing. I would sit in a theater and watch him read the newspaper for two hours, even if he only read 2 articles aloud! He would NOT be boring!

If Ed were not already married I would have to track him down one day and ask him to go out to dinner. Even with a goofy bow tie on he's adorable.

Anyway, I digressed.

Ed, Colin, and particularly Jim Sturges, are compelling to watch. The men escape and walk across Siberia, eventually getting to Mongolia, and China, and finally into India. I was able to discuss Russian geography, Chinese politics, and several other interesting factoids with my son, who was captivated by the movie.

Since I have been to Siberia and Kazakhstan, the movie was particularly riveting to me. Now, as in the early 1940's, that part of the world has vast stretches that are completely uninhabited. No roads. No phones, No villages for hundreds of miles. I spent a day in 2004 flying over it in a rickety old plane, looking down, and you go for HOURS without seeing so much as a telephone pole. It's truly the back end of nowhere. I cannot imagine trying to walk through there.

You should see The Way Back. The story is told without sentimentality, and yet by the end of the movie you care about the characters as much as they care about each other. It's another incredible journey into a different world, courtesy of Peter Weir. Brilliant movie.

 

I Hate Quentin Tarantino

The kids and I were watching Inglorious Basterds last night and I was reminded why I don't like Quentin Tarantino's movies. They are all talk and flash and no substance.

I only ordered Basterds from Netflix last week because I thought it might amuse my older brother to watch it while he was here. I had taken the kids to the movie one Saturday last year when I had nothing better to do and there were no decent movies out. I figured Bro hadn't seen it but I was wrong. 

So when my brother got here I simply said "Have you seen Inglorious Basterds?" and I was unprepared for the resulting tirade. "Yes. Well, I went to the theater, and I walked out after half an hour, it was so bad. It had NOTHING to do with reality. What a bunch of crap. That is the WORST movie ever." [He actually said a lot more than that but my eyes glazed over after a minute]

I thought OK, well, I'm not going to suggest we watch it then...

I remember seeing Pulp Fiction years ago and hating it. I walked out of the theater thinking "I hope NOBODY else ever goes to that film. It's horrible. I think Tarantino had to have been using drugs when he wrote it because it's so inane and stupid."

I was in the family room one day a few years ago while Alesia watched Kill Bill on TV. There was such a complete lack of humanity in that, I remember thinking a good comic book would be more insightful. I can sum it up like this: a beautiful woman who looks sexy and is very violent. That's it.

Tarantino's movies are filled with meandering, meaningless dialogue.

His films are also filled with graphic violence. You almost wish for the violence after a while because it's at least something happening, as opposed to the idiotic dialogue which sounds like it was written by a stoned 12 year old.

His films are all about posing. In Basterds, there is a lot of dialogue about what one character thinks of another character. Reputation is everything.

The only good thing I can think of to say about Tarantino is that Pulp Fiction revived the career of John Travolta, and I like Travolta, despite the idiotic Scientology obsession.

Oh wait - there's one more good thing - he has no children. Let's hope that never happens because we don't need any little Tarantinos in the world.

I think the reason Basterds did so well at the box office is partly because there's a wonderful sense of psychic justice in seeing Jewish hit squads brutally killing Nazis. What a great marketing gimmick. What the movie fails to address is that by doing that, the Basterds are putting themselves on the same level as the Nazis, or maybe even lower - killing just for the sake of killing, not because of any particular philosophy or belief system, however warped.

I Googled Tarantino and spent some time reading about him. Apparently I am not the only one who cannot stand him. He is accused of ripping off other movies, and being racist. He publicly told Spike Lee to kiss his ass. Nice. What a role model.

If you look at the biographical information about Tarantino on imdb.com, which is a great movie resource site, you find a billion words describing him - it's the longest one I've ever read on there. It's like his press agent wrote it. What an egomaniac. What a poseur.

I am going to make a point to NEVER go see his movies again, and I will urge my kids not to watch them either.

The Sublime and the Ridiculous

I took my 14 year old son and his best friend to seethe new Harry Potter film about a week ago, and I was stupified by one of the trailers. I seriously thought it was a spoof, some crazy Will Ferrell nuttiness, or perhaps even a little film about turning off your cell phones in the theater.

The trailer featured Daniel Craig in the old west wearing a high tech wrist thingy.

[Harrison Ford played a mean old guy. After seeing Morning Glory I have come to the realization that he went from Hunk to Cantankerous Old Man very quickly. I missed the in-between movie.]

So the trailer for this space cowboy was for a new movie called Cowboys and Aliens. I can hear the pitch meeting now: "It's The Quick and the Dead meets Independence Day!"

When the trailer was over everyone in the theater laughed.

What really amazes me is that Steven Spielberg executive produced this thing, and it stars Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig. It also features some great character actors like Clancy Brown, Keith Carradine and Sam Rockwell. Did everyone involved with this drink the Kool-aid?!?

If you're an old fogey like me you remember Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty in Ishtar. That one had people walking out of the theaters in droves.

It looks that ridiculous. Craig and Ford are going to be cursing the day their agents talked them into that disaster, trust me on that.

THE SUBLIME

OTOH, I am afraid not enough folks will go see Morning Glory, a truly funny film. I loved it. It was comedy built around characters, and it was filled with whip-smart funny dialogue.

I do NOT like Rachel McAdams. I've never liked her. Despite that, I like Morning Glory.The situations were not formulaic. The story seemed plausible even though it was farcical. [I know that sounds contradictory but just go see the movie and judge for yourself.]

And yes, even though I griped about Harrison Ford, the character he played in Morning Glory was a Cantankerous Old Man with some depth of character. He seemed plausible. The bad guy in Cowboys and Aliens looks like a cartoon. [I hope they paid him a lot of money for that nonsense!]

Another film I saw recently was Red. Loved it. It's very smart and funny, and Bruce Willis takes his standard action guy hero and makes him seem fresh and interesting.

John Malkovitch plays crazy in a fresh new way.

Helen Mirren plays a sexy older woman who loves "wet work" - a/k/a killing folks for money.

Morgan Freeman plays a new character, Not God, clearly - a retired CIA guy.

Red doesn't try to tell us any great truths, but it's a fun ride. Even my brother [retired Army major] thought most of the weapons stuff was reasonably plausible, and he's usually highly critical.

So go see Red and Morning Glory, and if the Cowboys and Aliens trailer comes up, enjoy a good laugh and shake your head at the idiocy that is Hollyweird.

 

Holiday Movie Recap

I grew up in a weird family situation. Holidays were never filled with relatives. My dad's parents died before I was born. My mother had 2 brothers and Dad had 2 brothers. All 4 of my uncles spent every holiday with their wives' families. There were a few Thanksgivings with Mom's brothers, but that was it. I didn't realize quiet Christmas days were abnormal until I got old enough to watch Hallmark commercials.  

Sometime during my teen years, after Mother's parents were gone, we started seeing movies on Christmas day. It's a tradition I love. This year, being unemployed has meant I had more time to watch movies, and we have seen some good ones.

Sometime recently my son and I saw a movie called Surrogates, starring Bruce Willis. He played a cop who lived his life in a chair and operated a lifelike robot self who went out and did everything fun and/or dangerous. The robot had hair and looked like a soap opera actor. It was a creepy little film. Interesting, but not great. A definite wait for the rental disc. However, it amuses me that James Cameron's new film Avatar takes the exact same concept - a person with an imperfect body operating a new and improved body robot. In Avatar it's a wheelchair-bound marine who chooses to be a 10 foot tall blue guy. I don't know why Surrogates did so poorly at the box office, while Avatar is setting new records, but I suspect the answer includes the word "hype."

Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey Jr. was the Christmas day flick. I liked it a lot. It was like a thrill ride at Six Flags. I had two issues. One, why is all the action slow-mo? Two, I couldn't always understand the English accents. Next time I see it I will watch it close-captioned for the hearing impaired and Americans.

Invictus stars Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela. I admired the film on a lot of levels. I only wished I could pause it and run Google "rugby football" because I had no clue what on earth those guys were doing. It's very much a political film, but it's also a sports film. It has a lot of interesting messages about race, but it doesn't hit you over the head with them. Good film to discuss with kids, like my 13 year old.

Did You Hear About the Morgans? I didn't want to see this film, I'll be honest. Love Hugh Grant but Sarah Jessica Parker was looking scary in the previews. There were some funny moments. It was a pretty intelligent film. I liked it at first, but the more I think about it the more I realize that Sarah and Hugh have absolutely no chemistry as a couple, ever. Hugh played a whining, sniveling git. Jessica played a work-obsessed yuppie. [Warning - next sentences contain a spoiler!] What really incensed me, at the end, was the shot of them with an adorable Chinese baby they'd been able to adopt in less than 6 months. Oh puh-leeze!! It takes YEARS to adopt from China, unless you accept a special needs child which the baby clearly wasn't. It also showed Sarah's character pregnant, like hey, the perfect scenario, a cute little Chinese baby and a baby of their own. I italicized that last phrase because that's how most people view a bio baby. It infuriates me. Why couldn't the Chinese baby be good enough?! Grr....

Blindside is by far my favorite of all these holiday movies. I am an adoptive mother of two "older" children and this remarkable true story is wonderful. I wrote about it on my personal blog The Crab Chronicles here. I hope a lot of folks see it and it raises awareness of the many children in foster care who need homes and deserve loving parents. It's also just a great story, told honestly and simply.

Here's hoping early 2010 will bring some more good movies! 

Avatar [the funny review]

A few days ago, I took my son Mike and a couple of his friends to see the movie Avatar, the new film from director James Cameron. I had no preconceived ideas about it, except I've always like Cameron's films. I liked Titanic so much I bought it. [If you're a film snob and you just shuddered, screw you. Read something else.]

And, OK, I saw the lead actor on the Today show the other day and he is pretty hot.

I was impressed by the special effects. The 3-D experience was quite something. I am not a huge fan of 3-D movies, but I have to admit they have gotten really intense lately. I can't wait until I can take my grandchildren to 4-D movies - like Wii, plus a plot. Hmm...

However, there were a lot of political overtones to the film which made me uncomfortable. There is nothing overt, mind you. Mostly it's archetypal - the innocent natives against the evil invaders. Same plot as Disney's Pocahontas, Dances With Wolves, and countless other famous stories. However, Avatar shows military guys painted as arch villains which made me really uncomfortable, seeing as how my brother just got back from Iraq 6 months ago. I have a lot of respect for the military, especially for the sacrifices military families make.

Giovanni Ribisi, an actor I admire very much, was such a searingly villanous jerk that I wanted to repeatedly slam his face into the floor. That's fine acting there. I bet there's an executive at Halliburton who won't be seeing Avatar any time soon.

The "noble savages" in the movie are 10 foot tall, incredibly skinny people, who look rather "ethnic" in the loosest sense of the word. Why did they have to be so dang tall and skinny??! Do we really need to glorify tall and skinny people some more?! Why couldn't they be short and fat?! I imagine they will be on the cover of Vanity Fair soon, the mecca for all tall skinny people...

Movie technology is a funny thing.

I remember when Star Wars came out in 1977, and how it was hailed as something totally new and exciting. Ditto for Tron in 1981. Avatar breaks new ground in CGI entertainment, no question of that. It's fun to watch. I predict in 10 years it will be largely viewed as a film oddity, though, a relic, with primitive technology. I've lived long enough to see technology advance exponentially.

Year One - Run, Hide, Avoid It At All Costs!

I usually try to write mostly about movies I really like. I like to tell people about hidden gems of movies I find, that I want everyone to see, like Local Hero, or Truly Madly Deeply. Year One is the opposite - a horrifying stinker of a movie.

Today, I have to warn you about a stinker of a movie, Year One. Jack Black and Michael Cera play ancient hunters running around in the forest, who run into Cain and Abel and every biblical cliche ever concocted by Cecil B. DeMille.

It's not a historic epic. It's not even a slapstick comedy, although that's its aim. It's more like two actors in silly costumes improving every scene in the most ludicrous, far-fetched way imaginable.

What really pisses me off about Year One is that it SHOULD be a terrific movie. It's written and directed by Harold Ramis, who was responsible for Stripes, Caddyshack, Groundhog Day, Analyze This, and on and on.

Year One stars Jack Black, an actor I love. I want to kidnap him and spend an evening feeding him lasagna and beer and urging him to tell me funny stories.

It also stars Oliver Platt and Hank Azaria, very gifted and funny character actors.   

The kids and I started watching this movie last night, and within 5 minutes I wanted to turn it OFF. Within 10 minutes I wanted to break the DVD, curse the heavens, let Coco chew the disc, and perform a ritual wherein all our memories of the horrible movie had been wiped clean.

Michael Cera was funny in Superbad, I admit. In Year One, he was awful. He wore a long blonde wig and looked and talked like a girl throughout the movie. He also spoke in a monotone 90% of the time. He has the same bone structure as a young Barbra Streisand and in the right wig and makeup he would be her twin. If he could get a personality surgically grafted on, he might have a decent career as a female impersonator.

I urge you, I beg you, if you see Year One at Blockbuster, or in the $5 movie bin at Walmart, pass it by. Do NOT waste nearly two hours of your life on it!!

 
 

17 Again

I was not enthusiastic about seeing this movie, but my 18 year old daughter was asking me to order it from Netflix for months. To my surprise, however, I really enjoyed it.

The premise of 17 Again is that Mike O'Donnell, a man in his 30's, who is on the verge of divorce, gets a chance to go back and be 17 again, figure out how he screwed up his life, and re-connect with his teenaged children. He had been forced to get married right after high school to his pregnant girlfriend, Scarlet.

There are a lot of echoes of It's a Wonderful Life, Peggy Sue Got Married, even Freaky Friday. The plot os really derivative, and tired. I knew that before I ordered it. I was not expecting much, as a result.

Casting Matthew Perry as the older version of Zac's character was not a great idea. They look nothing alike. Perry just seemed like a way more neurotic, unhappy version of Chandler Bing. To be fair, I'm not sure if he could've done much with the character as written. The older Mike was simply not much but a whiner.

Lesley Mann as the older Scarlet was terrific. She really inhabited her character, in a geniune, subtle performance.

I was pleasantly surprised, though, overall. I enjoyed the movie. It moved along briskly and had a lot of funny moments. Zac Efron did a very credible job.

I am not a big fan of Zac Efron. He looks like a girl, at least in the posters in my daughter's bedroom. However, in all fairness, I used to have a crush on David Cassidy, and he looked kinda girly, too. I'm sure there's some strange psychological reason teen girls are attracted to soft feminine looking boys but I don't really want to delve into that.

The writer Jason Filardi got a lot of things right. The scene where young Mike is sitting in his friend Ned's kitchen eating all the food in the house, made me and the kids howl with laughter. I have two teens. They are walking eating machines.

My favorite character in the film, by far, was the best friend character, Ned, played by Thomas Lennon. He is a multi-millionaire inventor who is a glassic geek, with obsessions over Lord of the Rings and Star Trek. He was a crackhead, slicker version of the 40 year old virgin. Without him, the movie would have had much less energy.

If you have kids, especially teenagers, you will enjoy this movie.

Young Mike and his friend Ned. Zac would look better in a dress...