Jennifer Anniston plays a working woman who finds her biological clock shifting into overdrive.  She hasn’t found that perfect man yet, but decides that he is not needed in order for her to have a child.  So she sets in motion the process of having a baby as a single mother, all on her own.  This is where the twist occurs when her best friend Bateman inadvertently injects his own input into the birthing plan, and life takes an interesting twist.

Bateman is a successful businessman who has more neurotic issues than most average everyday citizens.  From humming while he eats, to convincing himself he has almost every sickness known to mankind, he just can’t quite get his personal life on track.  The poor guy can’t even figure out he is in love with Jennifer for thirteen years.  He really does define the definition of slow.  So Anniston gets pregnant but before the baby is born, decides to move back to her small Midwest home in order to be close to family.  Seven years pass and she ends up moving back to New York City, but this time she has a six year old boy in tow.

Anniston and Bateman reconnect as old friends do, and at long last start to realize they might have feelings beyond just friendship, and then of course the third wheel comes into the picture and messes things up.  This part of the story was a little weak for me.  The triangle formed by Bateman, Anniston and the other guy never seemed real or believable.  It was awkward and almost distracted you from the overwhelming draw that inadvertently consumed your attention, which was the interaction between Bateman and Robinson.

There are so many wonderful moments between father and son as they both grow to understand and acknowledge one another, that it almost seemed more of a movie about them than anything else.  Thomas Robison was perfectly cast as the quirky neurotic six year old, and his one liners had me laughing out loud.  Who knows a little boy that wants to have his birthday party at a last call animal shelter, and the lice scene for anyone who has a child was too funny.  Bateman looked at home wearing his plastic shower cap.

So I absolutely enjoyed the movie overall but if you see it expecting a typical romantic cookie cutter comedy you will most likely be disappointed.  The romance was flawed at best, but the movie was saved by the neurosis of Bateman who was fantastic in his journey to maturity, albeit a slow one that at times had to drag him forward under severe protest.

I started this book with a blank agenda, no preset plan or ideas on what it would tell me.  My fiancé is a school psychologist and we are very open in our relationship.  About twenty five percent of the way through my reading, she asked me what I thought, and my response was this.  The overriding theme of the book is simple.  It is the father’s fault.  The irony is, I am not sure there was even a question in the book, but throughout every chapter there is only one thing in common, it is the father’s fault.  I laughed when I told her, but since I wasn’t finished yet, I felt I should give the book the benefit of the doubt and see how it evolved.  Sadly, at least for me, nothing changed.

From men who cared very little about getting involved, to men who lived off of their wives income, all the way to men who basically told their new wives to mind their own business in regards to the children, these fathers all seemed more like horrible people than actual fathers in a new marriage.  Other than a couple of passages where Dr. Wednesday Martin gives a few small accolades to some involved fathers, the men referenced in her book were a sad lot.  My advice to the small sample she used for reference would be, forget about your issues with step-parenting and figure out how to pick out a decent husband.  You might need a good dating service versus parental guidance because the guy you are with now, sounds like a loser.

Sadly it seems that Dr. Martin used a pretty small sample size of white middle class American woman.  She apparently attempted to gather some minority data, but that data was used from secondary sources.  It just didn’t seem like the book was an actual depiction of broader based American families, or if it was, there are some serious issues with the parenting and partnership skills of a lot of men in the world.  This is not even mentioning chapter two of the book, “She’s such a Witch”, which tries to show how society historical has tortured and murdered stepmothers by using a real life example of a murder trial.  The father wasn’t even tried.  I guess because we allow men to murder freely and only try mothers of step children.  I couldn’t really figure out why this chapter was even in the book.

Speaking of, why was it in the book, the entire section on sociobiology was nothing more than the regurgitation of other studies.  It didn’t seem to be in the book to prove any of Dr. Martin’s theories, but more filler to round out the book’s size than anything else.  As a father of three girls who is living with his fiancé, I feel the need to open up a dating service and do my best to help single women find a decent partner.  Chapter after chapter, I truly felt sorry for the women in this book who were surveyed.

OK, now that I have used up all of my negative energy, and I am sure lost most of the women audience, let me say that I think the book is absolutely worth reading.  It does give several examples of actual situations that a person might find themselves in, even if it also gives a huge amount of exaggerated examples that I hope to god are not common.  A specific one rang very true with me and my fiancé.

My fiancé had expressed the displeasure with my eight year old pushing her out of the way.  I discounted her theory, saying that I just didn’t see it.  I read a passage in “Stepmonster” where it describes this activity and discounted this as well, since everything else in the book did nothing but trash fathers.  Seconds after setting down the book, I walked downstairs where my fiancé stood by the sink.  I stood next to her, talking to her for about 30 seconds, when my eight year old came into the kitchen, pushed her way between us, edging my fiancé to the side.  I smiled, told her that was not acceptable and apologized to my fiancé.  Damn, nobody is perfect huh, and yes the book was correct.

So “Stepmonster” absolutely does have some helpful information.  I would only caution readers that in reality a household is filled with many personalities and everyone should work together to ensure each individuals concerns are met and dealt with.  In the end there are two people, a husband and a wife.  They are the ones who set the standards and both have to communicate and support each other above and beyond anything else.  Failure to do that will cause issues and as all parents know, children will sense this and definitely take advantage.

So bottom line is three stars, but read with a grain of salt.  If you start pointing a finger to stringently in one direction your anger and animosity might lead to the demise of the very thing you were trying to fix in the first place.  Ok ladies, I am ready for my lashing now, but when you tire of beating me, and if your man resembles any of the men used as examples in this book, I do know a couple of wonderful single guys with kids who are amazing, compassionate, giving individuals.  And I promise you they will communicate with you as a partner, while listening to your needs, ensuring you approach things as a team.  Not with one party or the other pointing their finger and blaming.

Luke Wilson plays Jack Harris, an all around fix it man.  If you have a problem with your business, you call Jack and he will fix it for you.  Giovanni Ribisi and Gabriel Macht are two guys that own a business, and they are doing a fantastic job of screwing it up.  You see the internet is just getting off of the ground and nobody has any idea how to capitalize from it.  These two brilliant idiots figure out how to charge credit cards online for viewers who want to watch a little porn.  Not a bad business plan as we know all too well today.

There first problem is how to get the porn.  So they enlist the Russian mob to help them out.  The Russian mob happens to own a strip club and they are all about broadcasting nudity over the web, as long as they get a very large cut of the funds.  Our two heroes start out well, but they get a little to intrigued stuffing drugs up their noses and the next thing they know, the mob is threatening to kill them.  Are you following along?  Somehow a very very very old looking James Caan hooks them up with Luke Wilson and he rides in to save their asses.

Unfortunately Luke pisses off James Caan by cutting him out of the deal, accidently pisses off the Russian mafia by snuffing a guy out, and generally has his hands full with the two idiots who started the business to begin with.  Throw in the fact that he is made of flesh and blood and gets a little too caught up in the smoking hot women side of things, and you have a melting pot that is ready to explode, it is just a matter of time.

The story is intriguing and it has more naked breasts than any movie I can think of in a long time (not that this is my barometer for a good movie), but it was just too much on the slow and boring side.  It seems I might be in the minority but when I looked around the theater, very few people were sitting up in their seats.  Most of them were fighting to keep their eyes open.

I would give it a mediocre rating, three stars at best.  If you wait to watch it on DVD you would be better served than seeing this one in the theater.  Just don’t drink too much wine before viewing it; you might wake up to see the credits rolling by having slept through the main feature.

Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg play two down and out cops?  Mr. Ferrell seems to be stuck in his rut by his own choice and since I don’t want to give anything away, let’s just say that Mark Wahlberg made a colossal mistake to have found his way down to the lower levels of hell.  Luckily the two of them are partners.  Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson are the heroes of New York City but do to some unforeseen circumstances, they quickly relinquish their title.  Wanting to seize the opportunity of the new opening for a hero, our two bumbling cops attempt to solve a very big case. 

Apparently some guy has been constructing some buildings without getting a scaffolding permit.  Are you kidding me?  The two losers meander down to arrest him and fall into a very large case of fraud and an attempted robbery, of a very large nature.  I am trying very hard not to give away any of the punch lines in this film but admittedly it is difficult to write this review without doing so, since I was laughing the entire movie.  From driving the Prius into a bucket full of cocaine, all the way to being disgusted about the four homeless guys using it as a sex toy, I was laughing continually. 

Have I said yet it was too damn funny, and this is coming from the guy who only a few months ago said Will Ferrell was washed up.  Talk about eating your words.  Even Eva Mendes was fabulous as the homely housewife of Will Ferrell that Mark Wahlberg couldn’t seem to stop ogling. 

With some movies you see all the laughs crammed into the two minute commercial and when you see the full length feature there is nothing left.  With this movie the commercial is only the tip of the iceberg.  The explosion scene was funny but trust me, if you liked the commercials, you will flat out love the movie.  Everyone in the theater was holding their stomachs from beginning to end. 

This is a must see movie.  It was absolutely incredible.

David is a young boy whose mother has died, and he sadly had a front row seat for several months while she lay in agony.  In addition to his agonizing personal situation, the story is set in England during the beginning of Germany’s bombing campaign, while war raged all around the ravaged city.  As if this wasn’t enough for a young boy to handle, his father gets a girl pregnant not long after his mother passed away and they then uproot their life to go and live with her in the country.  David gets placed in a room, filled with books, that was occupied by a long lost former relative who went missing when he was a child, never to be seen again.

Does this sound like a lot to handle for a 12 year old boy?  After a rather hard day with the stepmother, David wanders out to the garden late at night only to find himself whisked away to a magical land of bizarre creatures and warped agendas.  As an example, Little Red Riding Hood actually hooks up with a wolf, they have babies and low and behold a hybrid being is born who is now threatening to take over the kingdom.  Dude, I thought my imagination ran wild, but I am not sure I would have thought of mixing up the classics in quite that way.

David’s initial quest is to find his mother, her voice was the one that led him to this land beyond time.  After a while he begins to focus on staying alive long enough to return home, and the rumor has it the king is the only guy in the land who can help him out.  His trek through the land confronts him with several trials which eventually find David maturing quickly beyond his years.  I think if I met a wolf man who was the offspring of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, I might have to grow up quickly as well.

Dealing with these enormous issues hits home with me.  I am divorced, I have three children and I am currently engaged to be married again.  I felt for David on a personal level and John Connolly made it so easy, as he masterfully weaved a tale of life’s obstacles and how a child might view them from a four foot perspective.  The book keeps you thinking about so many really life aspects, while engaging you in a land of Trolls and deer with human heads.  Unlike most books surrounded in make believe, be warned that John does not hold back on the gruesome side of death and torture that can sometimes accompany a real world reality.

If you are going to read this to a younger child, I would suggest filtering out some of the more in your face passages.  My eight year old could probably handle the book in its entirety, but I don’t think I am quite ready for her to be exposed to a cold dead girl’s head rubbing blood up against a captive little boy.

I haven’t read a book that I enjoyed this much in a long time.  I can’t recommend it enough for anyone, of any age but again, be warned before letting a child peruse the passages on their own.  It really is a masterfully crafted work of art that should hold it’s allure for many years to come.

I think at times the movie struggled with an identity.  I am not sure the writers/directors had made their decision on what kind of experience to portray, and that left me feeling like it was lacking direction.  I will say that Cameron Diaz and even in a couple of sequences, Tom Cruise, had me rolling on the floor laughing.  The broken drugged dream sequences were pretty imaginative as well, although the ending seemed a little farfetched.  I guess that goes hand in hand with the motorcycle scenes which are now becoming a signature of the spy series.  They are just flat out ridiculously laughable.

Anyway, Tom Cruise is our every day spy, who yet again is battling the bad guys.  This time it appears that the bad guys are really the good guys and somebody in our government is trying to betray our local hero.  He manages to bump into Cameron Diaz on a plane ride home and her life never does get back to reality.  I have heard people compare this to “Mr. and Mrs. Smith which I think is pretty farfetched.  Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise in no way can compare to Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt on any level at this point in their careers.  I did say at this point in their careers people.

So Tom has a really juicy battery, and the guy that invented it, and he is trying to protect both from pretty much everyone on the planet.  I wish I could say there was more to the plot, but that is really about it.  The rest of the movie jumps from one location to the next with Tom and Cameron fighting and killing a whole lot of people.  I am sure I will get roasted for this review, but when Tom Cruise stops mid scene, during the heat of a gun battle to give Cameron a loving kiss hello, mostly to shut her up mind you, he somehow manages to avoid a few hundred bullets without even trying.  That really sums up the entire movie.

So if you are interested in a mindless movie that absolutely will make you laugh and some impossible to believe farfetched action sequences, then this is your movie.  I would highly suggest having a six pack of beers before flipping on the go switch though.  Everything looks a little better with a six pack and that might be just what this movie needs.  I wonder if theaters will at some point in time start passing out tequila shots with the 3D glasses.  Just think how much money they could save.  People would be seeing all kinds of affects, and the cost of the films would be drastically reduced.

Average film, but not a complete waste of time if you have already seen most of the other movies playing.

Go ahead, I can take it.  Start telling me how insane I am.

Amy Adams is a jet setting young socialite who stages houses for a living.  She does things like place a couch under a window, drop cookies in the oven, etc.  All in an effort to sell the next condo to that up and coming couple.  She is meticulous, has her life all planned out and is about to marry a doctor.  Nothing against doctors but what woman really wants to marry one.  They have horrible hours, are constantly on call, miss all the important family outings and rumor has it they tend to hook up with nurses.  Ok, I just made that last part up, but it sounds logical.  Nurses are pretty darn cute in those little white outfits.

So Amy gets tired of waiting for her perfect man to propose and since he is on a trip to Ireland gets the bright idea of asking the big question herself.  I guess there is some Irish tradition that allows the women to propose on the 29th of February.  Now I am all about equal opportunity, but don’t most women want the man to propose.  Isn’t it all about the romance and stuff.  Anyway, she follows him over to the island and, yes, you guessed it, things go all haywire and she ends up meeting Mathew Goode who embodies all that is not a doctor.

He runs a local bar/restaurant, is fighting to keep it from being repossessed and hangs out most of the day serving up alcohol to the old cronies.  Mathew gives his best effort in helping Amy get back to Dublin where her perfect man awaits and along the road, you guessed it, things go haywire.  I think the moral of all these romantic comedies is, to find happiness you must first have some crazy, yes even pretty hilarious things happen.  Without the bizarre antics you are just left with everyday life, and what fun is that.

I enjoyed “Leap Year”.  It wasn’t the best movie I have seen and I didn’t always feel a connection between Amy and Mathew but there were several funny scenes.  Let’s face facts as well.  Ireland is beautiful and Amy Grant lights up the screen with her smile and energetic fun filled personality.  If she isn’t this generations Meg Ryan then I have no idea which way is up.  Ok, not a good barometer since I am on my third glass of wine, but you get the point.

I have to admit I did find it hard to emotionally relate to the characters though.  Darcia’s writing style, at least in this novel, reminded me of a newspaper article stating the details without giving me the connection I needed to find myself lost in her words.  I kept thinking of the old version of “Dragnet” where the main line “Just the facts” rings true over and over again.  I think she would be better served tying her readers to the storyline by caging us in, much in the same way her crazy characters fantasize about death.  That being said, she is obviously very talented and the book kept me engaged throughout the roller coaster ride of insanity.

Skye Summers is a common hairstylist, working in a local salon in a small town.  She knows most of her clientele, and can’t even escape to the park without running into people she has some form of connection with through her occupation.  She is married to a hunk of a man, who spends an ample amount of time pleasing her, and deals with the ups and downs of a child he had before they became a couple.  I can relate to the insanity of ex-wives and had no problems understanding the issues they bring to the table.

All of the stress begins to wear on Skye and she finds herself fantasizing about chopping up her customers as she is cutting their hair.  Lopping off an ear lobe, or slicing and dicing their skulls, all while she is meticulously coloring some poor middle aged woman’s flowing mop.  The ins and outs of the customers gives us an intriguing view of how crazy it is for a hairdresser to keep all of the multiple personalities straight.  I have no idea if Darcia Helle was a stylist in a previous life, but she easily paints a realistic picture of what the life might actually be like.

As Skye falls deeper into her fantasy of murder, the reality of death opens up as a real life serial killer begins stalking their small community.  Instead of finding herself appalled, Skye on some level commiserates with the murderer as she also harbors feelings of butchering many of the women she deals with every single day.  When fantasy and reality come together Skye finds herself confronted with her imagination, and the real life serial killer hits home in her personal life in ways she never imagined.  The real question is how Skye will react when given the opportunity to live out her wildest dreams.

I don’t want to give away too much of the books climactic ending, but I again have to emphasize how much I enjoyed the parallel of fiction versus fantasy.  We all have dark thoughts but when it comes down to the final minute, how many of us are really capable of living out the insanity that flitters through our minds.  Most of us will never know the answer to that question, but for better or worse, Skye will have to make her choice.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/e/9780982811900/?itm=1&USRI=learning+to+cry

The bond between a father and daughter is strong enough to weather the most violent storms, but it can also bring savage heartache. From the moment Melissa enters this world in a flurry of chaos and happiness, she holds and manipulates her father’s love.  There is no way to predict the roller-coaster ride they face.

Almost overnight, Melissa’s father loses his sweet, little girl. Left in her place is an erratic, unstable, deeply unhappy teenager who is hell-bent on obliterating boundaries and pushing her father, as well as her mother and sisters, to the breaking point. Caught in the middle of her parents’ divorce, she doesn’t hide her disdain for the rules. But she goes to great lengths to keep her father ignorant of just how far into trouble she falls or how she’s trapped by three “friends” from whom there is no escape.

Overwhelmed by the stress his crumbling marriage causes, Melissa’s father struggles to keep his own life together while trying to save his daughter from the point of no return. He finds himself, alone, bound by his own four walls, drowning in loneliness and tears. Melissa’s father, it seems, will have to lose it all to bring her back from the brink.  

One person dies or is injured in an alcohol-related accident on an American road every minute. Thousands of teenagers die every year because they either drive drunk or they get in the car with someone who’s had too many. It’s a mistake that changes lives forever.

Wild-child Melissa is a teenager who experiments with drugs and alcohol to dangerous degrees. She lives for the next party, the next opportunity to sneak out of the house, the next chance to get high in a friends’ room after their parents go to bed. But, that all changes the night she gets into a car after those three margaritas.

Gone are the wild parties, gone are the nights spent with friends, gone are her years of rebellion. That life is cut short, leaving her father, who stoically watched her downward spiral, to learn how to cry. 

Jennifer (Megan Fox) is a high school cheerleader and by far the hottest girl in school, now this doesn’t take a stretch to believe.  She hangs out with her best friend Amanda Seyfried and the two lean towards lesbianism, even though Amanda has a long term boyfriend.  Sorry, but I might have to watch the movie again based on the above sentence alone.  I do have to throw a snapshot in here as well about the kissing scene.  It might be one of the all time best girl on girl kissing scenes in any movie to date.  OK, now back on track.  Jennifer and Amanda head to a bar for a night out, and that is where all hell breaks loose.

It appears that the band worships the devil and they need a virgin to sacrifice in order to push their career over the edge.  They choose Megan Fox; now how they thought she was a virgin is beyond me.  With her already having experienced sexual relations, in several different ways according to her monologue, the sacrifice goes badly and our darling Megan turns into a flesh eating demon.  How can you fault her for getting a little carried away with her dietary supplements?  She is Megan Fox after all.  Let her feast on as much flesh as she would like.

So things start going a little whacky when half eaten bodies begin to show up, and in the end it really begins to piss Amanda off.  She might be the nice book worm side arm to the smoking hot Megan Fox, but even she has her limits.  Once Megan threatens Amanda’s boyfriend the war commences and the girls start to battle.  I guess that long drawn out passionate kiss they shared did little to heal the animosity a demon can stir up in the loins.  So crazy girl Amanda does her best and without giving away the ending, if that matters, you do get to see a little blood spilled before the finally curtain call.

Again, not an Oscar level movie, but not a bad showing for what the movie was intended to be.  I do think the writers and director should have made it a little more clear cut on whether it was a comedy or an all out horror flick.  It really did seem to flip too suddenly and the comedic undertone almost seemed unintentional.  It is worth taking a look at if you get bored one evening.  Don’t expect anything ground breaking but you will be entertained for a couple of hours if you like seeing smoking hot girls, lots of blood and listening to one liners like Megan saying, “My tit” and Amanda responding, “No your heart” when she stabbed her in the chest with a box cutter from Home Depot.

Elliot Tiber (Demetri Martin) is a young Jewish guy trying to do the right thing and help his parents save the family motel business.  He moves back home, forgoes his dreams of heading to California, and ends up being the President of the local Chamber of Commerce.  Think of any small town in America with a couple thousand people and you get the idea of the farming community they called home.  His crazy mother is so out of control she has actually began charging extra for towels and clean sheets to the few guests that venture their way.

The roles of Elliot’s parents were played by Imelda Staunton and Henry Goodman and I have to say I am not sure there has ever been better performances on the screen than these two did in this movie.  They were phenomenal in their parts, making you both love and feel sorry for them as they rode through life pinching pennies, and fighting to keep the bank from foreclosing on everything they owned.  Having grown up in a small town of 1,600 people myself, I almost felt like I was back home while watching the perfectly adapted settings Ang Lee so magically brought to life.

In an attempt to bring business to the local community Elliot happens across a newspaper where the headlines focused on a concert permit being pulled for an event called Woodstock in a neighboring town.  Elliot has personally headed a local musical production each year in his own back yard, already has his approved permit, and gets the idea of coordinating the events together.  He calls the Woodstock executives and within a few days everyone is in full gear putting pegs into holes to make the event happen.  All it took was a phone call, a local farmer getting his pockets greased, and a bunch of people with wads of cash ready to listen to some music.

Elliot really does meander through most of the story which makes for a slow rhythmic flow that putters in the 45 mile per hour speed zone.  Don’t expect any high paced action.  Once you connect with the pace of the film you can focus on the underlying tone which deals with the “hippie” generation and what people were attempting to discover.  Themselves.  Elliot doesn’t know who he is or what he has the potential to become.  He finds himself trying marijuana, acid, experimenting with homosexuality and the free spirit of sex in general, not to mention some really awesome music.

In the end “Woodstock” forever changed the way a nation would view “hippies” and as we saw within the movie it also drastically changed the way a family looked at itself.  Elliot was shot down the path of finding himself and in the process discovered secrets about his mother and family that rocked the foundation he thought his life was built upon.  The movie really does an excellent job at providing the backdrop of a serene hippie generation, comfortable walking around naked, doing drugs all while being polite to everyone around them.  Once you get past that the growth of Elliot surrounded by the insanity of his family adds for a very compelling story.

Excellent movie, not perfect, but definitely worth viewing on a quiet evening if you have the need to relax and let things slow down a bit.

The movie begins with Percy living the life of an ordinary high school student.  He has no idea he is a demigod and the son of Poseidon.  During a trip to the museum he gets attacked by a creature from beyond and finds out the world as he knows it is not quite as it was.  His mother along with his protector (Brandon T. Jackson) attempt to take him to the safety of the school for the God’s offspring.  Mom then quickly gets abducted and shipped off to the God Hades.  Seems that before Percy even has a chance to digest his newfound status he immediately sets off on a quest.

His goal is to grab a few keys for the return trip home, but these are guarded by a few ugly looking creatures.  Medusa is played by Uma Thurman and all I can say is in context of the movie, oh how the mighty have fallen.  Uma attempted to reincarnate her “Kill Bill” persona, with a hair full of snakes, but sadly there was just something missing.  That seemed to ring true with most of the story.  Luckily Uma only graced the screen for a few minutes which led us to the overriding plot.  Poor Percy was accused of stealing Zeus’ lightning, and at some point he really needed to clear his name to avoid an all out war of the Gods.

In the end of course Percy saves the day and hands over the lightning, back to Zeus the rightful owner.  He rescues his mom and luckily she finally evicts the foul smelling step father.  Apparently he was only around to mask Percy’s aura anyway.  Damn, now what a mom will put up with for the sake of her god like son.  We never did get to see if Percy hooked up with Alexandra Daddario, but she was one of the truly refreshing aspects of the movie.  She played a hard core fighter with just enough of the soft side to keep all the young boys on their toes.

Keeping in mind this was a movie geared toward the younger generation, it was ok.  It seemed like it could have been so much better but just never quite figured out whether it was an adventure film or a comedic spoof.  The lame jokes were buttered a little too heavily for me to tolerate in an all out epic quest flick.  I would be have been a little saddened to have paid money to watch this film, but on the flip side it would have most likely been substantially better if I had seen the movie on a screen larger than six inches while sipping Champagne.

If you are a 12 year old boy or younger you will most likely enjoy the film, if you are anything older than 12 you will probably walk away wondering why you watched it.  Still, if you are flying coast to coast, and you have nothing else to do, flip on the headphones and lay back.  It will make the time go by faster than watching the clouds below.

Sandra Bullock holds down a job as a cross word puzzle constructor.  I will say the movie does not paint this occupation in a good light.  Are all the people who hold down this job really that quirky?  She is an extremely intelligent person, and we could call her unique as well.  Damn, if I am straight with you, she reminded me of a couple creepy girls from college.  One girl actually tracked me down at my house after one date.  I still don’t know how she found out where I lived.

Sandra lives at home with her parents and she talks a lot.  I mean she talks all of the time.  I live in a house with my girlfriend and three daughters and all of them combined do not talk that much.  Well, maybe all of the combined.  Despite all of Sandra’s social issues, she has a good heart, but just hasn’t found the right guy yet.  Her mother sets her up on a blind date, with Bradley Cooper of all people and she likes him so much she tries to do him in the back of his SUV, right outside of her parent’s house.  The sentimental occasion gets broken up by his job calling, but he inadvertently suggests he might enjoy seeing her on the road at his next assignment.  He is the cameraman for a news team.

Crazy Sandra takes this to heart and starts stalking, I mean following him like a groupie.  At one point he really starts freaking out about the whole thing.  I loved Thomas Haden Church’s character and how he encouraged her to keep up her unnatural pursuits.  Church was absolutely hilarious, even if he played his typical dry sense of humor character he has honed to a science.  As with all good romantic comedies, we find out Sandra might be crazy, but she is a truly good person, and her endearing qualities win over the crowd, if not the boy of her dreams.

I should make a note here.  It is getting extremely hard to watch a movie with Bradley Cooper in my house.  If I have to hear how hot he is from my girlfriend one more time. I might jump out of our first floor window.  Hey, I might find it annoying, but I don’t want to hurt myself over it.  The girlfriend’s friend was over a few nights ago, and we had her watch “The Hangover”.  She had not seen it.  OMG, it was nonstop drooling over the guy.  Anyway, back to our main story.

I enjoyed the movie.  It wasn’t a stellar theatrical production, but it holds its own and you have several laughs in the process as well.  I still have no idea what movie some of the major critics were watching.  But from my humble perspective, you could do far worse than sitting on the couch with a bowl of popcorn watching Sandra Bullock drive Bradley Cooper absolutely bonkers with her hilariously funny, if not sometimes crazy, antics.  Damn, I almost forgot.  I love those red boots.

Cusack, Craig Robinson and Rob Corddry are three friends in the middle of a mid life crisis.  They are meandering their way through misery as Cusack’s girlfriend has left him, Craig Robinson’s wife is cheating on him and Rob Corddry is attempting to kill himself.  In an attempt to rekindle old passion and keep an eye on Corddry, who is denying being suicidal, the three head up to their old stopping ground for a weekend of skiing.  Clark Duke tags along as the nephew of Cusack, and seems to add sanity to the three adult lost souls.

What they find is a dilapidated remnant of their youth in a town that mirrors the wasted life the three men seem to be wallowing in.  The only remedy seems to be stripping naked and jumping in the hot tub while consuming huge amounts of alcohol.  Bam, one thing leads to another and when they wake up, still in the hot tub mind you, they find themselves transported back to the eighties.  My favorite line of the movie is when Craig Robinson asks some random girl what color Michael Jackson is.  He freaks out when she says he is black of course.

I think you have to be middle aged to appreciate the truly scary clothes that we seemed to have worn in the eighties.  What in the hell were we thinking.  The four guys try to relive their weekend in the resort as they did when they were young to keep from distorting the time warp continuum, but like all of us, there are just some things that a person would enjoy changing.  I mean if you could go back in time, would you really want things to end up exactly like they are today.

There is a lot of sex, drugs, cursing and yes, even a spewing vomit scene.  I actually think there are two vomiting episodes but one is pretty drawn out.  I laughed out loud on several occasions and spent many moments wondering why I was watching the movie.  It seems to be filled with several ups and downs for us as viewers.  If the writing had been a little better and the directing slightly more on cue the movie had the potential to be a very good comedy.  As it stands I came away thinking it was mediocre but worth watching OnDemand, after having a few beers and lying on the couch.  I would suggest watching it without your girlfriend though.  I don’t think mine appreciated it that much.

Bottom line, average movie with a few laughs, but I wouldn’t let me kids watch it.  The R rating is well deserved.  As far as John Cusack movies go, this one would be near the bottom, but everyone deserves a mulligan now and then.  Even if you have to venture back to the eighties to figure out how to find your fame, fortune and happiness.  Google founders beware.

Adam Sandler is a big time Hollywood agent who has lost any form of connection with his kids.  They sit around all day playing play station while ordering their nanny around.  Not that I condone physical violence, but if I were the nanny and a kid complained about the specific type of chocolate I used in his drink, I might drag him out to the front yard by his ear and do a little ping pong on his back side.  Dude, if you want to wonder why your kids are abusing the nanny, then you might want to stop teaching them how to text her instructions/orders.  First step, stop doing it yourself.

Adam Sandler, David Spade, Kevin James, Chris Rock and Rob Schneider were the starting five of the only championship team ever to be coached in their small hometown.  Sadly, the coach has died and everyone is heading home to the funereal.  We all have had those moments/influences in our childhood and “the coach” was impactful on these five boys and their future lives.  So they all head home with their families in tow, and the rumpus re-living of long lost youth begins.

For me this is where the story could have gone two directions.  It could have been a thoughtfully laid out plot, with several comedic scenes.  When you have all of these stars in one movie, you expect some laughs.  Instead it went the easy route, and we spend the next hour watching David Spade and Rob Schneider getting smacked in the face several times while avoiding falling arrows plummeting from the sky.  I am not a huge Rob Schneider fan, but watching him interact with his wife, who exceeds him in age by 25 years or so, led to me laughing uncontrollably on several occasions.  For the record, I said the show was all slapstick.  I never said that I didn’t enjoy some of the knock down humor at times.

As with all plot lacking movies, the ending was all too cheesy as the director suddenly decided to teach us a life lesson instead of continuing with the mindless humor.  In my book this is always what differentiates the great comedies from the mediocre ones.  If you are building up your audience for an hour plus on thoughtless humor, don’t try ending the movie with anything more than thoughtless humor.  It really does insult our intelligence.  So with their rivals in place the five take another stab at beating their basketball rivals in a big basketball finale, which falls about as short as they do in their forty year old middle aged bodies.

I again think we as the audience should be able to pick up on the clues commercials give us and make educated decisions.  I went into this movie thinking it would be nothing more than exactly what it was.  Not that I am not surprised both positively and negatively at times, but this movie was pretty clear on what you were getting and with that I think it delivered.  I had several laughs, some of them pretty darn loud, and I didn’t have to think at all, for even a single second.  Since I watched it after downing several glasses of wine after a fantastic dinner that was the end of a very nice evening.

Maybe that is the key to mindless humor.  Enter the theater slightly inebriated and the jokes are just a little funnier.  I enjoyed the movie in general but wouldn’t recommend it to any of my “intellectual” friends.  They just wouldn’t get it.

Sure, a lot of us have had our fair share of alcohol before 21 (we all will remember high school), but we did not drink legally. The law states that teenagers of the age of 16, can drive a car that can kill a person in an accident, at 18, civilians can vote for the president of the U.S.A., go to basic training and learn how to use weapon machinery, go to war and experience life altering and life threatening experiences before you can have a drink of alcohol legally.  That is just ridiculous.  

The U.S. causalities in Iraq are the ages between 20 and 22, meaning people can go to war and die before having a drink of alcohol legally. Has anyone ever thought if someone is responsible enough to go to college, live on their own, drive, vote, make mature and life altering decisions, maybe they are old enough and wise enough to handle alcohol? Just a thought….

Has anyone ever thought High School parties would be more enjoyable if the host and people at the party didn’t have to worry about the police busting them?  I don’t have anything against police, I know they enforce the law, however what if there is a certain law that is just blasphemy.

If the drinking age was lowered, it would give people time to learn how to drink responsibly, to know when enough is enough.  About a year ago, I went to France for one month.  I remember going into pubs and seeing many teens, between the ages of 14-17 enjoying a glass of beer, and guess what? I didn’t see one that was passed out on the ground.

They all drank maturely, which is different from what people normally would see in the US.  People on their 21st birthday go ballistic, because they can finally drink legally. Why must people go through that kind of torture? I’m not necessarily saying drinking is the most important thing.  The thought however, of having a bottle of beer without having to worry about a person of higher authority ruining somebody’s casual relaxation and fun, is rather nice.

Belly dance and rock music? Can the two really be combined without looking silly?
After “Rock-A-Belly”, the answer is a definite ‘yes’!
It’s easier to belly dance to rock music than you’d think. Everything is in an eight count, and the guitar solos are really just rock and roll versions of a taxeem. And the drums! Great way to get your shimmy on. And frankly, let’s admit it, there’s a reason so many strippers grind and get down to rock music; rock is sexy and fun and makes you want to dance! There’s a wild abandon that comes with rock music, which is so unlike the strict traditionalism that can come with classic styles of belly dance music.

I certainly let loose with wild abandon at the show. We opened with a belly dance set (sans bands), and all four dancers- Rasa Vitalia, Leah, Alodiah, and myself- had the crowd entranced by our own, unique styles. Yes, belly dance is diverse! It’s not all coin belts and sequins and bad Middle Eastern pop music. Especially in San Francisco.

I had only booked three bands for the night, but we somehow ended up with five. Deeva opened, but shared their set with Art in Heaven. Castles and Spain rocked the middle set. Ironically, there were no belly dancers in their set, and yet they were the only band that night who had a history of including belly dancers at their shows.

Our headliner was Electric Sister. Really sweet guys. So respectful to Alodiah and me during the rehearsals we went to. No sleaziness whatsoever. Until they got onstage. I knew they sometimes described their music as “LA stripper metal”, but I didn’t quite put two and two together. And really, it’s quite the challenge to belly dance to that kind of music, with the band guys acting like sleazy rock stars, while trying to maintain some sense of class.

Don’t get me wrong. I love, love, love sleazy rock and roll. And Electric Sister is great at what they do. It’s just a challenge to belly dance with them and not look like a stripper. Just one eight count of sloppy technique and I knew I’d be doomed!

Thank god, Alodiah and I had spent hours rehearsing our choreography. We could put those moves to any kind of music- rock, Middle Eastern, or otherwise- and we’d still look like professional belly dancers. Which was what I was going for: to show that belly dance is classy all on its own, regardless of what kind of music you put it to.

The night ended with a great surprise. One of my favorite bands, Triple Cobra, showed up to play a secret set after Electric Sister. Triple Cobra has a bit of a cult following, and their glam rock, make-up, and sparkles fit right in with the belly dance theme. Despite the differences between belly dance and rock culture, I’m glad to say that we can at least all get away with wearing sparkles on our faces.

With most movies I pride myself on being able to predict the surprise twists or endings, but I have to admit, with this one I was totally shocked.  Leo is a freakishly tuned in investigator being sent to Shutter Island to investigate the disappearance of a psychiatric resident.  The island is a home for people who are not of sound mind.  The issue isn’t as much about the disappearance of a lost woman, as it focuses more on the questionable practices of the island hospital staff.  It seems they might be conducting some freakish Nazi type experiments on a few of the patients.  Can we say “water-boarding”?  Wait that is torture, anyway………

Leo teams up with his new partner Mark Ruffalo and the two of them start deciphering the clues left by former doctors and some of the unstable residents.  If there ever was a reason not to smoke a cigarette, other than the cancer thing of course, I have now discovered that doctors sometimes lace them with narcotics.  Never trust a German doctor who attempts to hide his accent.  Sadly we quickly discover that Leo has some ulterior motives for taking the case as well.  Apparently his wife was killed by an arsonist, who happens to be living in one of the cell blocks.

So the movie meanders along, finding clue after clue and just when you think you know what is happening, bam, somebody hits you in the stomach and throws the entire plot and story into a frenzy.  I admit again, I had no idea where the movie was headed.  The only issue I had with the movie was believing some of the staff really went that far to freak old Leo out.  It makes sense to go the extra mile but hiding out in a cave with the only access coming from the side of a cliff, might require me to be paid more than a little overtime.

Overall I really enjoyed the film, and I would highly recommend seeing it.  It was a pleasant surprise in more ways than one.  Set aside the believability issues and you have a fantastic movie.  Even when you add them back to the equation, you have a very entertaining flick that will keep you guessing.  Assuming you don’t already know the story of course.

So with the Cubs and Tigers sitting at home almost every fall, the one thing we would have loved to use to keep us warm and cozy would have been Haylee.  Too bad I didn’t know her back then.  Damn, good thing I know her now though.  At least I can spread the word to all of those other dudes in the Michigan area and give them hope that their fare city isn’t in as bad a demise as published.  I would warn you to ask permission before buying her a drink though, she isn’t a pushover.  The woman has a little bite to her and we might all do well to show some respect.

One thing the women in South Africa are lacking is respect and it appears that Dr Sonnette Ehlers is doing something about it.  According to an article in BBC.com she has invented an alligator condom that will attach itself to the male member, and it won’t let go.  South Africa is known for its insanely high rape occurrences and Dr. Sonnette has said she had enough.  She sold her house and her car to fund the project so any of the sick dudes out there who might take advantage of young women would be paying a higher price than anticipated.

I guess the condom has some teeth built in and once it latches on it doesn’t let go.  I wonder if she could invent a condom that would bite the damn thing off and be done with it.  Now that would be an invention.  When a woman says no, she means no damn it.  Any dude that doesn’t adhere to the social rules should pay as steep a price as possible.  Some guys are just sick, no doubt about.

Sometimes I feel like a nut and sometimes I appreciate the finer things in life.  Haylee, we love you and don’t get us wrong, you are awesome but…………….  If you ever want to watch some real sports, head on out to the bay area and I will take you to a game.  Not as a date though, just for the record.  Just as friends.  I don’t want to upset my girlfriend or I might get some firsthand experience with the alligator condom.  When you date an Italian woman you learn to play nice or at least how to duck, when she gets riled up.

Check out Duncan’s Diary: Birth of a Serial Killer on Amazon. It is a killer book.

You can find it on Kindle here  Duncan’s Dairy on Kindle

Kristen Bell plays a working woman who finds her job much more rewarding than any relationship she can find.  It doesn’t mean she isn’t sad nothing has worked out with the men in her life.  It just means that she can feel rewarded standing on her own two feet.  Hello, am I connecting with the female population yet?  She is a lead curator at the Guggenheim museum and just when she concedes to living a life of solitaire, her sister decides to get married and things go a little haywire.  So off to Rome she flies for a weekend of family hell.

While in the romantic city she picks a few coins out of a fountain and unknowingly captures the hearts of some lucky dudes who had previously dropped them in the mysterious fountain.  While the magic is working its way towards insanity she meets Josh Duhamel who happens to actually like her.  The two of them make a great pair.  As corny as the scene is with breaking the vase and short circuiting the electricity, it actually made me laugh.  Without giving too much away, the commercials do that all too well already, I will say that several scenes had me laughing pretty loud at times.  It really was a funny movie, even if it was a little trite and predictable.

In my book Dax Shepard was absolutely hilarious with his washboard stomach.  He spent most of the movie with his shirt off as he looked at himself almost as much as he sat admiring Kristen Bell.  How this guy is not cast in more movies is beyond me, but we can continue to enjoy his work next season in Parenthood.

Anyway, I enjoyed the movie.  If you go in expecting a nice romantic comedy with several funny scenes you will leave happy.  It isn’t anything ground breaking and there is no thought involved.  It is simply 91 minutes of mindless entertainment where everything works out in the end.  What more can you ask from a movie of this nature.  In my book it delivered, so have a few laughs and move on to the next one.  Hollywood has been making these since the moving picture was invented, and it will continue as long as people buy the tickets to see them.  I for one think it was adequately worth the price.