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The Skinny:
Leo DiCaprio, with the help of Russell Crowe (via cell phone), try and bring down terrorists in Jordan.

The Good:
As I was entering the theater, I was excited to see this movie.

The Bad:
As I left the theater, I contemplated walking into Beverly Hills Chihuahua just to passive agressively get my $9 back. Ok, now I could go into all the plot holes and problems that Body of Lies is plaqued with, but let me keep my anger under control by just sharing my main gripes:

First of all, I will never ever ever McNever believe Leo in a “tough guy” role. And no, his gooshy soft performance in Titanic is not the reason - not the whole reason anyway. My reason for disbelieving Leo’s manliness is what I like to call the Tom Cruise Factor, which states “The harder and harder a film tries to make Tom Cruise look manly, the less I believe it.” They could give Tom a full beard, ripped abs, and put him in a movie where all he does is run around and cut people’s heads off while screaming and eating raw meat, and I still wouldn’t buy it. The same is true for Leo. In Body of Lies, he’s got a scruffy beard, scraggly clothes, and a constant grimace on his face as he shoots guns and over-enunciates every word he speaks. He even does this move when he’s on his cell phone where he brings the phone right in front of his mouth - apparently to really make his point load and clear! But I didn’t believe any of it…I just sat back, shrugged, and mouthed “I don’t believe you ” every few minutes.

Speaking of cell phones, that brings me to my second complaint. Russell Crowe, whose character used to have Leo’s old job (I think), calls most of the shots during Leo’s attempts to capture terrorists, and so he’s on his cell phone with Leo or other operatives all the time. I think perhaps someone involved with the film tried to make Russ’ character more interesting by having him gain a bunch of weight, but really, all the character does is talk on the phone. In fact, if I remember correctly, I don’t think he’s ever not on the phone. In fact, I just checked, and Russell’s character name is actually Fat Guy on Cell Phone that Annoys Leo. To be fair, there is a little character development for Russell - we learn that his cell phone habit puts a strain on his family life. Whoopee.

Finally, my last whine is that this movie is boring. It’s like they shot a bunch of tiny scenes that weren’t related to each other, then pasted them together and made a story out of it. Seriously, it’s like one minute we’re shown a time/date slide on the screen, Leo appears and walks across the street to order a drink, and then suddenly we’re whisked away to another location. And I definitely was hoping I’d magically get whisked away out of the theater and appear at McDonalds Playland, but that never happened.

The Ugly:
Ha! I just noticed from Internet pictures of this film that they even put brown contact lenses on Leo to make him look less boyish. Sorry Leo, I still just want to pat you on the head and put you back on the Titanic.

The Bottom Line:
Leo’s wardrobe, makeup and acting are the real body of lies here. You can’t put lipstick on a pig, and…oh wait, I don’t want to use that quote anymore. Umm…you can’t put eyeshadow on a dog, so…errr…in other words, don’t see this movie!

Score:

Technorati tags: Body of Lies, movie reviews

We recently got a very lifelike Elmo that sings, dances, tells jokes and just freaks me out in general. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’ve had a nightmare or two about Elmo springing to life with no batteries and trying to strangle me, like in Child’s Play. Anyway, on a lighter note, Cam seems to have taken to this Elmo well enough, but appears to be just a little bit too pleased with himself when Elmo has fallen and can’t get up.

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Well, I have to be fair and file this word mistake post under my name. I was quite disheartened today to learn that I’ve been misquoting a phrase I’m sure I’ve used several dozen times in my life:

“For all intents and purposes.”

As I write those words, I feel like an even bigger idiot. I thought the phrase was “for all intensive purposes!” Anyone with me, or am I all alone on idiocy island?

The Skinny:
Some masked strangers harass a young couple who are staying in a cabin in the middle of nowhere.

The Good:
I have been excited to see this movie for a long time - ever since the creepy trailer where Liv Tyler is heard asking, “Why are you doing this?” to which an unknown female voice answers, “Because you were home.”

The Bad:
Warning: mild spoilers (sorry, but my discussion of why this film is so lame is not possible without discussing some plot points)
In an earlier draft of this post I started detailing all the things that don’t work about this story, but let me instead just boil my whine down to a few specific complaints:

First, I’m growing a little weary of movies like this where one of the main characters involved thinks that, for some reason, it’s not that big of a deal to hear scary noises and/or have scary visitors in the middle of the night. I think in real life, we’d all be hitting our cell phones faster than you can say “strangers” and getting the police there pronto. I know that doesn’t make for an interesting movie, but the writers have to be smarter about how the characters get into peril and why they can’t just take an easy out.

The second big gripe is that as the strangers descend upon the victims, the film turns into a cat and mouse game that is so lame, I’d much rather have been watching a real cat chase a real mouse around. It’s like the strangers know where the main characters are at all times, and don’t close in on them because…well…just because, I guess. I kept an eye on the clock, and I need to tell you that out of a 90 minute movie, the run-and-chase portion takes up about 65 minutes. Now at that point, I was still along for the ride, because I figured that once the main characters were trapped, there would be an interesting reveal of who the strangers were, or why they were doing this.

And that leads me to my final complaint. The ending is not good, not bad, not cheap, not disappointing…it’s just the kind of nothing ending you expect from a movie that has nothing to offer.

The Ugly:
Some mildly uncomfortable slicing and dicing, which I believe Liv Tyler said some audience members thought was real (these were probably the same audience members who thought The Blair Witch Project was real too).

Oh, on that note, the movie opens with some blah-blah to add a real-life spooky touch to the story:

What you are about to see is inspired by true events. According to the F.B.I. there are an estimated 1.4 million violent crimes in America each year. On the night of February 11, 2005 Kristen McKay and James Hoyt went to a friend’s wedding reception and then returned to the Hoyt family’s summer home. The brutal events that took place there are still not entirely known.

And if you head to The Strangers Wikipedia page, you will see that the “true events” this film is based on are not quite so frightening:

According to production notes, the film was inspired by an event from director Bryan Bertino’s childhood: a stranger came to his home asking for someone who was not there, and Bertino later found out that empty homes in the neighborhood had been broken into that night.

Whoa, as anticlimactic as that inspiration is, it would’ve made for a more interesting movie than the movie Bertino decided to shoot.

The Bottom Line:
That little dialogue “tagline” I mentioned earlier is the scariest thing about the movie. And if you enjoyed the preview for this film like I did, that’s great. Walk away and call yourself a winner. There is no need to watch the whole movie.

Score:

Technorati tags: The Strangers, movie reviews

If you’re a Windows Vista user you might be happy to know that our friends at Norton have developed an alternative UAC to the regular built-in, super irritating one from Microsoft. You can get it here.

After trying Norton’s Bloated Piggy Oink-Oink Resource Hog Antivirus (a.k.a. Norton 360) I swore to never again let a Norton product near me or the people I love. But their UAC product seems to be a step towards redemption in my eyes. Plus, it has a cute little icon and is free (at least at the time of this writing)! I’m particularly excited about what Norton says the endgame is for this utility:

The goal of this tool is eventually build a white-list (as well as black-list) database on various administrative actions, and to enable users to make smart decisions without unnecessary prompts, using prompts only as a last resort.

To have the security of UAC without the nag-tastic pop-ups might just make me want to use my Vista machine for more than a booster seat for Cam.