Worst of the Worst

The Blair Witch Project (Bee)

2007-08-26T18:05:40Z

Title: The Blair Witch Project [Movie, R]

Directed by: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sanchez

Summary: Three college kids: Heather, Mike, and Josh from some town in Maryland, travel to the bigger Maryland town Burkittsville [once known as 'the Blair Township'] to shoot a documentary about the ever-popular Blair Witch legend. At first everything's fine, but then some creepy schnafe starts happening...

Rating: ***/*****

This fucking movie was pretty fucking decent compare to fucking some of the fucking other fucking horror movies I've seen recently. It fucking starts out as fucking Heather and her fucking friends are asking the fucking people in the fucking town if they've heard of the fucking Blair Witch. Everyone fucking says yes. The fucking Burkittsville townspeople fucking tell some fucking weird stories, like that the fucking Blair Witch legend goes all the fucking way back to the fucking 1700's, where they fucking used to fucking burn people they fucking suspected were fucking witches. After they fucking burned this fucking lady named Elly Kedward, she fucking haunted the fucking forests of fucking Burkittsfuckingville. She fucking apparantly made some fucking hermit who lived in the fucking woods fucking kidnap fucking kids and fucking teenagers and then fucking kill them in the fucking basement of his fucking house.

Then the fucking friends go see some fucking crazy lady that fucking lives on the fucking edge of the fucking woods, and the fucking crazy lady says that when she was fucking little, her and her fucking dad used to fucking go fishing in the fucking river and one fucking time she was fucking laying in the fucking grass and a fucking hairy lady fucking came up to her fucking and tried to fucking kill her fucking. But fucking crazy lady survived. Then she fucking tells them a bible story nobody fucking pays attention to, and fucking tells the fucking college kids not to fucking go in the woods.

But the fucking trio goes fucking ghosthunting in the fucking woods anyway, equipped with fucking cigarettes and fucking tent and enough fucking food to last them fucking three days, because that's the fucking longest they fucking wanted to stay fucking there. Heather brings a fucking map, and she fucking says she fucking knows where she's fucking going, even though she fucking doesn't. But fucking nobody cares and so they fucking start walking through the fucking woods.

For the fucking first two fucking days or so nothing fucking happens except fucking college kids fucking acting like fucking idiots, so they are fucking like "Oh there's fucking nothing here fucking," until this one fucking guy Mike fucking trips over one of the fucking seven fucking piles of fucking rocks. Heather fucking tries to fucking fix it, but you fucking know they're pretty fucking much fucking screwed for the fucking rest of the fucking movie.

That fucking next morning when they fucking wake up, there's three fucking piles of fucking rocks around their fucking tent. Nobody fucking cares. They just keep fucking walking and then fucking Heather tells this fucking story about how some fucking guys were fucking found on this one fucking rock all fucking stuck together at the fucking arms and fucking ankles and their fucking intestines were fucking ripped out. Then a fucking hour later there was fucking nobody there. Nobody really fucking cares.

Then Heather fucking loses the map and everyone's fucking like "where the fuck is the fucking map fucking?" and then Heather's fucking like "I fucking gave it to fucking Mike" and then it fucking turns out that fucking Mike kicked it into the fucking stream because he's fucking crazy. Everyone gets fucking mad. Oh fucking well. Then they fucking have no map so they fucking decide to get fucking back to the fucking car. Only they fucking don't know where the fucking car is, because they fucking don't have a fucking map anyfuckingmore. So they fucking walk in one fucking direction. Then fucking Mike finds fucking...

STICKMAN.

Fucking Stickman land is a fucking place where a bunch of fucking sticks are fucking stuck together fucking magically and fucking hung from fucking trees. This fucking scares everyone so then they fucking run away and fucking find out that they fucking went in a fucking circle. Everyone fucking blames fucking Heather and then later fucking Josh gets fucking lost and then fucking Heather and fucking Mike have to go on a fucking ten minute fucking journey to fucking find him. That's fucking all I'm going to fucking say because there's only like five fucking minutes of the fucking movie fucking left. Fucking.

Conclusion: I really like the concept of this movie, that the three filmmakers get lost and only their video footage is ever found again, and it was kind of clever how they made it into a documentary-style. But.. it was so DECEIVING. It kind of seemed real until it said who the writers were and how wikipedia tells me it's fake. The actors (who's names really were Heather, Josh, and Mike) would improvise a scene, and then if they liked what they had improvised, they would keep it into the movie. Some people may be wondering why I abused the word "fucking" in my review. That's because The Blair Witch Project abused the word during the whole movie. Seriously. The whole movie. At random and unnecessary times. Anyway, it wasn't TERRIBLE but it could have been so much better if it had been in an actual movie format and not a low-budget documentary style. The idea does work really well for, say, a fanfiction, however...

-B.M.

I Now Pronounce You: Chuck and Larry (Bee)

2007-07-21T18:00:38Z

Title: I Now Pronounce You: Chuck and Larry [Movie, PG-13]

Directed by: Dennis Dugan. Released July 20th, 2007.

Summary: Adam Sandler and Kevin James star in this controversial comedy. The two are firefighters but after a firefighting accident, windowed Larry (James) wonders how long he has to live, and who will protect his kids when he's gone. The solution is to pretend to marry his best friend and fellow firefighter, Chuck (Sandler): Mr. February and a major whore among the girls. People get suspicious, and investigation of the law begins.

Rating: *****/*****

Forget what the critics have said. Forget what was said on Best Week Ever last night. Forget everything you've heard about Chuck and Larry, and GO SEE IT. I'm serious. This movie is the best movie I've seen since April's Disturbia, and possibly my favorite comedy I've seen my entire life.

I admit, this movie didn't look promising. I have a loathing for Adam Sandler and his stupidity (which was showcased in this movie), and the commericials looked homophobic and offensive.

It's not.

To the plot! As stated in the summary, Chuck and Larry are firefighters: The best in New York, and they're best friends. Larry's wife died two years before from an unstated cause, and after Chuck's involved in an accident in the remains of a burned building, Larry saves his life, though they both end up in the hospital. When his kids come to visit him in the hospital, Larry realizes that if he had died, there would be nobody to take care of his kids.

Chuck is ever grateful to Larry, says that he saved his life and he owes him anything he wants. Well, Larry takes up that offer in asking Chuck to be his domestic partner. Not because they're gay, but so if anything happened to Larry, Chuck would be the one in charge of his kids. Chuck didn't want to at first, since Larry thought of this idea at 4 in the morning while he was busy with his whores. But he eventually caved. Obviously.

They hire a lawyer (Jessica Biel) to help them with their marriage, since nobody believes they're in a legitimate relationship. They lie to her and say they're actually gay, and she's relieved to hear this since a few years earlier, two men pretended to be married to receive pension benefits. This makes Chuck and Larry nervous, since that's exactly what they're doing, and they didn't know how much trouble it could turn into. Alex (the lawyer) states that to prove to people they're actually in love, they should drive up to Canada and get married. And so... they do. They get married and have a honeymoon and their lie gets thicker and thicker.

One of the more controversial moments in the movie is at Kevin's (Alex's brother) costume party, at a club where homosexuals can congregate and party and have a fun time. Alex invited Chuck and Larry, and Chuck willingly came. He was missing his whores. And he developed a crush on Alex. But Chuck and Larry had to dance with each other and pretend they were gay. However, after the party as they were leaving the building, a riot had formed outside with homophobic signs and a minister with a bullhorn, telling them they were wrong and chanting "Gay is not the way." Chuck goes up to the minister and basically calls him a jackass. The response is "faggot." Chuck used to use that word a lot, but once he sees the expressions on people's faces once they're called that name, he sees that it actually hurts them. And they feel ashamed to be gay when people call them that.

So he punches him in the face.

Chuck and Larry make newspaper headlines: Firefighters come out of the closet, etc. Eventually everyone in town knows that they're "married," and everyone treats them differently. Their best friends at the firehouse don't want to play basketball with them anymore. People who they thought were their friends now want nothing to do with them. And though this seems mean, it's true. Everything in this movie is so realistic to what actually happens to the gay community. And it's sad.

But some people are still suspicious... especially the New York government. They don't want to be ripped off, if Chuck and Larry aren't really a couple. Chuck and Larry are required to go to a hearing, where they lie about everything. They lie and lie and lie and they do a pretty good job of it, until...

Nope, I'm not going to spoil it since I know you're going to see this movie.

Conclusion: Brilliant. It perfectly depicts the abuse homosexuals endure for no reason at all. This movie is not a slur at homosexuals, but more like a way of showing how putting people down for a stupid reason is wrong. I laughed a lot at this movie, and though it probably should have been rated R for all of the sexual content and nudity, I found it inspirational. I found it wonderful. I was searching for everything that might be offensive while I was watching, and all I found were gay jokes that were spread across the entire movie. But they weren't to make gay people uncomfortable: They were to prove a point. That for some reason, gay people are the target of humiliation, and that they're targeted every day. Everywhere. I feel that it should be required by law for every homophobe or homo-hater to see this movie. If this movie doesn't change a homophobe's mind about their actions, nothing ever will.

-B.M.

So Lyrical (Dee)

2007-07-13T22:02:12Z

Title: So Lyrical ["book"]

Author: Trish Cook

Summary: Trace (short for Tracey, because two syllables are too many for the average reader) insert last name here is the daughter of a former groupie and who she can only assume was her mother's last rockstar-related one night stand. This is Trace's journey to discover who her father was, while having the world's most shallow, one-dimensional friends and relatives, and being almost as shallow and 1D herself! How fascinating.

Rating: */*****

Review: Under the cut, as usual.

Wow. There are words for how terrible So Lyrical is, but we try to keep PatentxPending at a moderate PG-13 rating, so I can't use them. Where do I even begin? Wow. Total suckfest. It tries to be funny, but fails so miserably it's almost funny, but the irony is smothered by the general lack of humor. Every character- every single character is a superficial, one-dimensional stereotype. I had no fun reading this. It wasn't even fun making fun of it. It's that bad. Reading this is more like a thankless chore for the author's sake than anything actually enjoyable.

Okay, I should probably just give you a summary and get it over with, because the plot is so stupid, flat, and far-fetched I could hardly get to the end of the novel. Ugh. Anyway, it starts with introducing Trace. Tracey, evidently, is too long a name for the average reader. She doesn't know her father, so she keeps a list of famous eighties rockers that could possibly be her dad, because her mom (who she calls Bebe) was a groupie whore. But nobody's paying attention to that at the beginning, because Trace's best friend Brina, who is by far the most shallow, one-dimensional, and pointless character I've ever read about, received a LOVE NOTE, from some guy named SLP, who doesn't know he's in "love" with a girl who has no personality whatsoever and is there to create a minor diversion to the main plot. Wow. Run-on sentence.

So, from there, we are introduced to Bebe. Bebe is Trace's mom, who is automatically cool because she's "young," she used to be a groupie, and she lets her underage daughter drink with a fake ID. But Trace hates her because she won't tell her who her dad is, even though nobody cares either way.

From that moment on, and for the entire book, Trace continues to whine and disrespect her mom, Brina continues to whine about how SLP better be hot or else she won't date him/her (in the words of Shaant, she's SHALLOW AS A SHOWER), and Bebe continues to be an awful mother. Oh, joy. After a while, however, the author decides to introduce the equally cliche Gary Stu that is Zander. Trace meets him while they're both running for no reason, and he's amazing at singing and hawt with no flaws. Um, yay. He invites Trace to see his band in concert. She does, and we never hear about that band again. Wow.

It goes on like that for a while- oh wait, I just rambled about that. Well, there's no character development whatsoever. They're all crappy characters and they don't change. DAMMIT. Trace continues to date her boyfriend, disrespect her mom, and whine with her best friend about SLP while Trace secretly whines about how ~jealous she is of Brina in the background. Um, okay. She also makes out with her boyfriend in his hot tub. Their parents catch them, but they don't get in trouble. It's not even funny. It just... happens. It's so boring and cliche it made me want to tear my eyes out- but I didn't until Trace visited her grandparents.

God. That was terrible. They just LET her drag along Brina and Zander FOR NO REASON, just to fill a plot hole. They go there because Trace is trying to find out who her dad is, and Trace used to live with her parents. Um, they seem to think that Bebe left behind a giant neon sign that says "HEY THERE I HAVE THIS GUY'S BABY" or something. But that's not the bad part. Oh, no. The bad part was Trace's grandparents trying to talk gangsta so "the younger generation" thinks they're cool. IT'S SO BAD. It's one of the worst scenes in the history of crappy YA fiction, I swear. And it just drags on. Gah! I don't even want to talk about it. Ew. Anyway, Trace and Brina go on TRL and say "IF YOU'RE MY DADDY CALL ME PLEASE KTHNX," basically.

And that's the start of the FIND TRACE'S DAD MOVEMENT that goes on for a while. Even after they find a picture of Bebe and Bruce Springsteen looking at each other. OH WOW THEY MUST BE LOVERS. LOOKING AT EACH OTHER WOW. Anyway, it's the other guy in the picture that they didn't notice, who is a loser from a cover band. Yay.

While this all happens, Trace goes to California and cheats on her boyfriend, then decides to go to some really crappy college somewhere nobody cares about. And SLP turns out to be Brina's brother's friend, but nobody cares about her so I failed to mention that. But nobody even cares about these things- they just distract you from the point of the story: finding Trace's dad, even though that's so stupid nobody cares about it. In the end, Trace and Zander get back together, she's fine with her mom, she knows who her dad is, and everyone's happy. But it's still a crappy ending to a crappy book.

Oh well.

Conclusion: Flat, shallow, stereotypical characters. A stupid, far-fetched plot with too many distractions disguised as subplots. Oh, and some romance that nobody cares about, that ends up TOTALLY FINE despite fatal flaws in the whole relationship. It's not funny or charming. It's just... bad. One star. Zero if I could. Blah.

-D.M.

I Am the Wallpaper (Dee)

2007-07-11T20:21:30Z

Title: I Am the Wallpaper [book]

Author: Mark Peter Hughes

Summary: Floey Packer, a thirteen year old ~~Sue~~girl from Rhode Island, has always felt invisible and un-extraordinary- especially next to her older sister, Lillian, who is spontaneous and popular and has a ferret named Frank Sinatra. But when Lillian gets married and goes on a month-long honeymoon with some guy named Helmut, Floey sees her chance to shine. She dyes her hair purple, becomes more daring, and takes up Zen Buddhism. Little does she know, her sudden popularity isn't the result of her random rebellion, but because her evil cousins have been posting her diary on the Internet! Oh noez! Whatever shall we do?

Rating: ***/*****

Review: Under the cut, as usual.

Yes. Debbie likes this book. It is, really, but somehow, it doesn't feel like your typical superficial teen romance/comedy. Maybe it's because, despite the fact that Floey is your typical misunderstood but completely lacking in flaws other than some social awkwardness Sue, she's amusing, and her diary entries are the most realistic part of the book. Even though she mostly just writes down a haiku and her "love"-related angst, but we'll get to that later.

Anyway, the book starts at her birthday party, where nobody pays attention to her because her sister Lillian shows up. She gets some random stuff that nobody cares about, and, most importantly, a training bra from her aunt. YES, THAT IS IMPORTANT. Everyone teases her for it, and later her friend Azra takes a picture of her posing in it. They laugh about it, then forget anything ever happened and discuss how boring they are. That was an exciting conversation. So the next day, Azra tells Floey she sent her aunt Sarah, giver of the training bra, a sarcastic thank you note with the picture enclosed.

DRAMA. Random fast forward to Lillian's wedding to some German guy named Helmut! Aunt Sarah is there, so Floey is hiding behind some weird-looking flowers slash some guy named Calvin. Calvin, it turns out, is the much younger brother of Helmut's stepmother, who is fifteen and therefore two years older than Floey, who I keep calling Chloe. Floey immediately forgets about Wen, her best friend slash love interest version 1.0, and decides she likes Calvin, because he's hawt and has a pin that supports Zen Buddhism. That is, until she ends up dancing with him, and they trip over each other and Floey ends up laying on top of Calvin with her hand pinned under his ass (oh snap).

Her aunt Sarah does find her and yells at her, by the way. And it turns out her kids, Tish (who might as well be made of cardboard for all her nonexistant personality adds to the story) and Richard (who is stupid, but not really). So Floey ends up locked outside the house, miserable. The next day she's like, "Screw this, Imma be exciting now!" She starts reading about Zen Buddhism, writes a few haiku[s], and sits around waiting for people to notice her. They don't. Even when she and her friends Wen and Azra run into some naked people on the beach, they mysteriously ignore them. Gasp.

So Floey goes on being ignored but thinking she's better than everyone else because she's pretending to be different now. But then, people start to notice her! Gasp! She's even been invited to a party by a brainless, self-centered, bass-playing pretty boy named ~~Pete Wentz~~Dean. All is good. Until her friend slash fake boyfriend Wen shows her floeysprivatelife.com. It turns out that, according to her cousin Tish, her cousin Richard has been putting her diary (oh, and the training-bra picture) on the Intarwebz the entire time, just so he could fit in with a one-dimensional walking stereotype named... actually, I forgot his name. But yeah. Floey starts writing fake stuff like "RICHARD PICKS HIS NOSE" in her diary, but none of it ends up online, so that was boring.

In the background while this all happens she gets fake-dumped by her fake-boyfriend Wen, stalks her Zen-loving poet of her sister's mother-in-law's brother, Wen, and gets her ass grabbed by that dumbass Dean. Basically, Floey is a whore. We forget about all her ~loves eventually, though, when she hatches a plot to take down Richard and his new friends- and ultimately end the stalking and invasion of privacy that is their website. I won't tell you how it ends, but it sucks, badly. I almost took off a star just for how terrible it was. Honestly. It just ended up feebly... stopping. Not really ending.

Anyways. Floey isn't altogether that interesting of a character, but she's likeable enough. Her mother, her cousins, her friends, and her love interests- they're one-dimensional, but who cares about them? The romance switches characters too much for me to care who ended up with who, so blah. The plot went along smoothly and was pretty original, until the end, when it sucked. Dialogue is laughably bad, but oh well. It's charming and well-written enough.

Conclusion: It has a nice, original plot, until the very end, when some plot holes the size of yo momma show up. Every character is a one-dimensional stereotype, but I like the main character, Floey. In fact, the only really bad thing is the very end, and the dialogue. The only really good thing was... er. Nothing. But that's okay. Three stars.

-D.M.

License To Wed (Bee)

2007-07-11T18:45:09Z

Title: License to Wed [Movie, PG-13]

Directed by: Ken Kwapis. Released July 3rd, 2007.

Summary: Sadie (HEY! THAT'S MY DOG'S NAME!) Jones is a naive Sue who is in love with Ben, a Stu, but also a dork. Even though Ben wants to get married in the Carribean, Sadie wants a wedding in her family church. However, there's a creepy reverand in charge of the church that says in order for them to get married in three weeks, they must first pass his marriage school! Oh noez!

Rating: *.5/*****

As mentioned before, Sadie Jones is a Mary Sue. She has a nice business as a florist, is always organized and prepared, and because she is played by Mandy Moore, she's pretty. Since she's pretty, she has a superficial Gary Stu boyfriend named Ben Murphy, who is a... they never do say what his job is. He probably doesn't have one, defying the stereotypical sexist-ness of society today.

Ben Murphy, played by I Don't Know UPDATE: HE IS FROM 'THE OFFICE'? OH WELL Edit (by Dee): John Krasinski. He's awesome, yo., is a... guy. He likes Sue. And... every time he tries to do something cute it ends up not turning out the way he wanted it to, but Sue still thinks it's cute anyway. Of course she does. He proposes to her at her parent's 30th wedding anniversary (sp?). Yayy. She says yes, obviously, or this movie would have no point. Oh wait... it already doesn't.

Stu wants to get married in the Carribean, because they're rich. But Sue wants to get married in her family's church. So, she gets what she wants, and they go to Reverand Frank the next day. At first Rev is like "0MG SORRY BUT CHU 2 CAN'T GET MARRIED TIL 2 YEARS FROM NOW" and Sue+Stu is all like "WTF??!??!?!?!?!" so Rev and his fat 12-year-old assistent, Unnamed Kid, look through the schedule book thingy and find that there was a cancellation for three weeks from tomorrow. Tomorrow in the movie, I mean, not tomorrow tomorrow. Because that may be different for me than it is for you. So the couple is like "K" and they decide to get married then. In three weeks, I mean.

Next Rev. tells them that he wrote a course for people ~~foolishly~~ getting married! Stu doesn't want to but it's mandatory. And Sue loves Rev. Not lyke that lolzzz! But she does whatever he wants. So they have to do it. The rules include:

1. Write yo wedding vows in a silly book!
2. None of teh sex before teh honeymoon!
3. Learn how to fight like a husband and wife (wtf??)
And Commandment 11: Never be late~!

Then they have to attend some stupid classes in which a fat bald guy obsesses over potato skins! lolz. While they're attending the lesson, Unnamed Kid bugs Sue+Stu's apartment so that him and Revy can sit outside their apartment and listen to what they talk about! Also, he can hear if they're having teh sex, and then barge in. One time that happened and there was this really gross scene where the OLD NASTY CREEPY REVERAND was discussing sex moves and other PG-13 rated things with Sue. IT WAS CREEPY, I TELL YOU.

One time they had to take care of two fake babies (to teach parenting), and they're friend's kids, RIGHT at the time they had to go to Macy's to pick out some stuff for the wedding. So they have four kids all running around Macy's. Then there was this really scary part in which Stu gets really mad because Unnamed Kid made one of the babies like fart and barf and cry and yell so Stu takes the baby and starts SHAKING it like a dumbass. Umm, idiot, ever heard of SHAKEN BABY SYNDROM?

"Controversy
One reviewer found the scenes of simulated babies being shaken to be "monumentally offensive" — contending that Shaken Baby Syndrome should not be played for humor."

^^From wikipedia.

Then Stu hates Revy and ends up thinking Revy never wanted them to get married. Sue calls the wedding off. OH NOEZZZ???? WHAT CHEESILY "ROMANTIC" THING WILL STU DO TO WIN HER BACK WITHIN THE TEN MINUTES THE MOVIE HAS LEFT?

I'll just tell you now so you don't have to waste 6 bucks on a movie ticket: He stalks her.

'Kay, so, this movie was ALMOST as bad as Around the World in 80 Days, which I don't even care to review since I fast forwarded through nearly all of it. Had I been watching this movie on DVD, I would have fastforwarded it too. I would have given this movie a pathetic 0 out of 5 stars, but since it was funny like THREE TIMES I decided I'd might as well give it 1 STAR.

Conclusion: Don't waste your money! It was a terrible use of 1.5 hours that I'll never get back of my life. I should have walked out when I saw that there were probably only 6 other people in the theater we were viewing at. We invited a BOY to come see it with us too and I was like "Oh, a boy wouldn't wanna see it, it's a girl movie," but it's not even a girl movie! It's a suckfest. I was texting my friend who was sitting right next to me during the whole thing because it was that damn boring. Since I was texting the whole time, I had to look at Wikipedia and ask people who were with me what happened while I was writing this review. Just... don't. Don't see License to Wed. Don't even rent it when it comes out. Just... don't.

-B.M.

Ratatouille (Dee)

2007-07-02T18:28:36Z

Title: Ratatouille [movie]

Directed by: Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava. Released June 29th, 2007

Summary: From Yahoo! Movies: A rat named Remy dreams of becoming a great French chef despite his family's wishes and the obvious problem of being a rat in a decidedly rodent-phobic profession. When fate places Remy in the sewers of Paris, he finds himself ideally situated beneath a restaurant made famous by his culinary hero, Auguste Gusteau. Despite the apparent dangers of being an unlikely - and certainly unwanted - visitor in the kitchen of a fine French restaurant, Remy's passion for cooking soon sets into motion a hilarious and exciting rat race that turns the culinary world of Paris upside down.

Rating: ***.5/*****

Review: Under the cut, as usual.

I don't normally like kiddie movies. Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for every seven-year-old in the theater, Ratatouille isn't really a kids' movie. It's long and boring, with a lot of themes the average 35-year-old suburban mom would deem far too "mature." However, both the fact that the movie is animated and the (slightly overwhelming) moral of following your dreams make the movie seem more childish than it should, and the maturity and occasional sadness in the movie seem out of place.

So, the movie starts with a rat named Remy (no, it's not Ratatouille) living with his extended family in the attic of an old lady's house. Remy's advanced sense of smell allow him to detect poison in whatever food the rats can find, but he knows he's destined for something more: cooking. He has a talent for combining tastes to their best potential, and has an interest in "human food" moreso than garbage (rat food). In fact, in the end, he got seperated from his family when he was more interested in saving a cookbook than staying with his own family, and he ends up under the streets of Paris while they're... under some other street in Paris. Whatever.

MEANWHILE, some garbage guy named Linguini starts his job at Gusteau's, formerly owned by some currently dead guy named Gusteau, who Remy would watch on TV when he lived at the old lady's house, and who wrote the cookbook that caused Remy to lose his family. Linguini can't cook, but when an imaginary apparation of Gusteau tells Remy that he can, and Remy does- but Linguini gets credit for it, while Remy is caught and taken to be killed by Linguini. But Linguini isn't (that) stupid, and he knows Remy is an excellent cook, so instead of killing him, he takes him to the kitchen the next day- after they discovered that, against the rules of human anatomy, Remy can control Linguini's arm movements, leading him to the correct ingredients, just by pulling on his hair.

And... it goes on. A lot of things happen in the background- important things, actually, but everyone forgot about them as soon as they happen (the new chef who took over after Gusteau almost discovers Remy plenty of times, and once kidnaps him; Remy is reunited with his family and steals food for him; Linguini is stuck when Remy doesn't show up... etc.). The characters are dragged in and out of a lot of sticky situations, all leading up to Linguini and Remy being reunited at the very end, with the only chef at Gusteau's with any depth, personality-wise, right beside them. They're cooking for a tough food critic who indirectly killed Gusteau himself (by taking a star off their rating, supposedly).

They make Ratatoille, hence the name of the movie. It's a French dish made of vegetables, but not rats. The ending is a bit of a surprise, but it's still happy, even though something is lost.

I liked the movie, for the most part. The animation, as you might have heard, is amazing. The people don't look quite as realistic as they could have, and they tried to make the rats more cute than rats should be to begin with, but everything else is completely perfect- every little detail making the whole scene more realistic. The voice actors fit their characters well, but they aren't spectacular- and speaking of the characters, they're mostly one-dimensional. Linguini is a bit annoying and cliche, but not too bad; Colette is my favorite character, and the most realistic, even though she does have many random changes of heart. Remy is the most realistic character of all, and he's a rat.

It does have its flaws, but strangely, it all works out. I'd suggest this movie to older kids- 6-year-olds will get bored- and people who don't mind seeing a lot of an animated movie taking place with a rat cooking.

Conclusion: It's very... mature for an animated movie from Pixar, but it still feels like a kids' movie. The animation is amazing, the voice actors are okay, and the story jumps around randomly with the characters shoved in and out of difficult positons far too frequently. Overall, it's good... but its flaws do take a star and a half off the total. (And I'd write more, but I have to get ready for the Fall Out Boy concert).

-D.M.

1408 (Bee)

2007-07-01T20:25:11Z

Title: 1408 (movie)

Directed by: Mikael Hafstrom. Released June 22nd, 2007.

Summary: Mediocre author Michael Enslin spends a night in a haunted hotel room, ever the skeptic. What he finds, however, is bad room service and a broken air conditioner! Oh yeah, and a tragic past that comes to life once again in room 1408.

Rating: ***/*****

Ahh, Stephen King. The "master of horror," the author of 500 bazillion books that all have no plot. "1408," however, is based off of a 40-page story written by said author. How this story created a 94-minute movie starring a man that my mother loves (John Cusack) and a dude who was recently seen in theaters saying the line "I've had it with these mother fucking snakes on this mother fucking plane," (Samuel L. Jackson), I have no idea. How this 94-minute movie made "between 12-20 million [dollars]" (wikipedia) on it's first day, I also have no. fucking. idea. Though I did contribute 5 dollars to the opening day gross by seeing it the day it came out.

To the plot of the movie! ...or lack thereof. Mike Enslin is an emo and lonely dude who has a tragic past that he escapes from by traveling to what are said to be haunted locations around America, and writing mediocre books about them. After a surfing accident that has seemingly nothing to do with the plot, and the publication of his most recent book, Ten Nights in Haunted Hotel Rooms, he receives a postcard from a New York hotel that says:

Don't enter 1408.

(1+4+0+8=13. LOLZ.)

Of course, since Mike Enslin is a crazy bastard and if he didn't this movie would have no point, he researches a tad about said Dolphin Hotel and flies away from his quaint Los Angeles apartment to the city of New York. Once he gets there Samuel L. Jackson is all pissed and stuff and after a quarrel long enough to make an entire movie about, Enslin finally gets the key to 1408.

Yes, Sam says the word "fucking" in this movie also.

1408 is a crazy place. 56 people have died there, and nobody recently has survived an hour alone in the hotel room. Sam so kindly tells Enslin that they clean it every month though, with the door always open and the maids traveling in pairs. Sam leaves Enslin and then the crazy guy goes into room 1408.

Nothing is wrong with the room for a few hours, until strange things keep happening, i.e. the radio keeps turning on, the once ripped toilet paper roll is now folded, and chocolates appear on Mike's pillow. That part was funny. Then Mike started getting freaked out and seeing things and destroying the hotel room while haunting memories... well... haunt him.

That's as far as I'm going to go to avoid spoiling the entire movie.

All I can say is that I was disappointed at this movie. The commercial looked better, and from what I've heard, the short story was much better. I thought it'd be more realistic, but seriously, how could a room randomly start SNOWING? How could a room that was once overlooking a busy New York street suddenly have brick walls surrounding it? How did his tape recorder record the voice of his dead daughter when it was nowhere to be seen during that scene? There's a ton of things that made no sense in this movie. Especially since there were like three different endings within fifteen minutes.

Conclusion: There weren't enough details to make the plot clever or plausible in real life, but it was okay, and at times it was scary. But only when things jumped out randomly and you could laugh for being startled by it minutes later. It was a good movie to point out everything wrong with it, like those mentioned earlier. However, if you enjoy watching a man destroy hotel rooms, suffer from weather conditions indoors, and drive himself mentally insane all in 94 minutes, this movie is for you!

-B.M.

Oh My Goth (Dee)

2007-07-01T20:12:44Z

Title: Oh My Goth (book)

Author: Gena Showalter

Summary: Two girls- the gothic, individualist Jade and a stereotypically shallow girl named Mercedes- get trapped in a virtual reality world where their roles are switched dramatically. Goth becomes the norm for the entire world, making Jade the trendy popular girl, and putting Mercedes in a position where she's different, a "freak" like Jade is in the real world. Jade and Mercedes must forget their differences and work together to get back to their world. Oh, and Jade likes some Mysterious New Guy, of course- this is YA.

Rating: **/*****

Review: Under the cut. Lyk zomg!

In the opening scene, and repeated throughout the length of the novel, it is established (and by "established," I mean "shoved down our throats") that Jade is gothic and everyone else is Exactly the Same with the exception of her friends. Jade's appearance causes her teachers to treat her poorly (okay, not really, but she thinks that; really, she back-talks and disrespects them for no reason) and her peers to tease her. Still, Jade clings to her so-called individuality; as we learn much later, her mother told her to be an original before she died. Jade promised she would, so she smears on some dark make-up, wears all black, and commits her heart and soul to a single stereotype. Yeah, that's original. You show them, Jade.

So, one day she goes too far with taunting one of her teachers, and she's sent to the principal's office. Here, we encounter the most cliched situation in all of YA history: Jade, waiting for her punishment, discovers a Tall, Dark, Mysterious New Boy[c] waiting for some papers or something, since he's new. I automatically know that he is le hawt and Jade will end up with him, because, believe me, the story so far is unoriginal; why should the author put a new twist on a ridiculously overused scene now?

In the end, Jade forgets she was ever in trouble and it's suddenly after school, so Jade runs around with her friends. They're a stereotypical, boring group of whiny goth kids: one thinks he's a vampire, one is obsessed with death (not really; she's a "cemetary goth," and therefore just shoved herself into a stereotype where she's focused on the idea of dying), and one thinks she's from the future or something along the lines of that. They hang out at a bar run by another deluded, but much older goth (he, too, thinks he's a vampire), look at some tarot cards, and whine about how the popular kids don't like them. (Oh, wah. Whine about something else, will you? They're shallow and annoying as well, but they just don't like us, waaah.)

As for the tarot cards? They predict something bad will happen. ORLY?

Ahem. So, next day, the principal takes Jade and Mercedes (who evidently was fighting over Mr. Tall Dark Mysterious New Guy with a friend) on a "field trip," where they are strapped down against their will and sedated (never fear, their parents agreed to this, nothing can go wrong!!one!!1!!1) When Jade wakes up, something's wrong. She can't really remember the day before, and she can't find where they stuck in the needle they used in the lab that fateful day. And, at school, she discovers that- gasp!- other people have gone goth! Oh noez! Not just that, but she's popular- put directly into Mercedes' role as the popular, shallow, much-loved girl- and everyone remembers everything Mercedes did and said to them as the exact same thing, but with Jade. Jade's friends are suddenly- gasp!- preppy, but still outcasts, and, like their real-life hatred of Mercedes, they completely despise their poor, suddenly-conformist friend.

Oh, and same with Mercedes, but she finds herself in the role of the unpopular girl, the freak. We can't focus on her, though, and neither can the author. Back to Jade. She's busy fussing over the fact that she's not an original anymore. (Of course, it's incredibly shocking. Who would've thought that a ridiculous trend would get so... trendy?) Because now, everyone is wearing black and has dyed hair and makeup. And... um... that's it. Poor Jade is so shallow, all she can think about is that everyone is exactly the same as her- despite the fact that all they've done is dress like her.

And so it goes on. I could explain it, but it's basically this, put into a couple hundred more pages: Jade angts. Mercedes whines at her. They try to find a way out, fail. Jade pines over new guy; Jade is treated like royalty while Mercedes is treated as an outcast. And Jade proves to us she couldn't care less about individuality- when she sticks to her gothic way of life despite the fact that everyone's doing it- yeah, then, she's just devoted to the goth scene, nothing more. And other than that... that's about it, actually. I won't give away the ending, even though it's obvious but that's the bulk of the entire book.

Maybe I wouldn't mind if it were interesting... at all. What I just explained? That's about it. And it's written so awkwardly, too- jumping randomly from scene to scene with some nice, extremely fake-sounded dialogue thrown in for good measure. When you've got your Dark Mysterious New Guy saying "You look pretty when you smile; I'm thinking about kissing you," you shouldn't be writing.

Well, it's flawed. I've gone over that already. But despite that, it's charming. Amusing. Somewhat addictive. I don't know why- the writing style annoys me, the plot is extremely flawed, and the characters are flat and stereotypical. I just can't stop reading it. So, at best, mediocre. But I'm going to read it again anyway.

Conclusion: Jade and Mercedes are shallow, one-dimensional characters based on stereotypes; Tall, Dark, Mysterious New Guy and background characters aren't much better. The plot is flawed and barely pokes beneath the surface at times. But it's still charming and it's not terrible, so two stars.

-D.M.