I wish Rachel would get Ram Slammed by a Slumdog

Its Chrismakwanzika and my gift to all of you are these words.

Its raining and 50 degrees here in LA, so those of you who think its always sunny and 75 can eat shit.

I made it a point to go to target to buy things that had nothing to do with the holidays or presents - air fresheners and fuel treatment for the car - just to be in the way. It was fun.

I don't find a great deal of things amazing, but this I have to show anyone who will watch.



I have been a little lax with my reviews as of late, but I have a few that i would like to get out there.

First is The Tales of the Beetle Bard by JK Rowling. If you enjoyed Harry Potter - you're a liar if you didn't or illiterate - then you should read this companion. The tales themselves aren't amazing, but the notes from Dumbledore are a great insight into the character and his mind. Like most I don't want Potterverse books just for the sake of it, and this is worth the hour or so most adults will need to spend reading this book.

Now here's something I didn't like, Rachel Getting Married. I don't know how this movie got made, but I blame Jonathan Demme because he has directed some good movies in the past - Philadelphia, Silence of the Lambs. The story goes nowhere, no one learns anything, and people act like selfish douche bags - thanks for helping me escape reality for a couple hours. Seriously, this is written by Sidney Lumet's daughter - Jenny Lumet - and you'd think that she had learned that there should be an act to a character's journey, but that isn't the case. Oh, there's plenty of conflict, "Oh my God, I should be your Bridesmaid even though I was in jail and you didn't know they were going to let me out in time for the wedding, whaaaaa!" Holy God this movie was bad. And Josh Blue seems to have gotten into shooting melodrama - and everyone thought Cloverfield was nauseating.

Now, I'm gonna go on record here and say Slumdog Millionaire was my second favorite movie of the year. If I had my way, The Dark Knight would win the Oscar for Best Picture - I like comics, fuck off - but Slumdog Millionaire deserves it more than any of the other 'contenders'. Every performance was amazing, the music was perfect, the visuals were breathtaking and the story was beautiful. Sadly, this movie was marketed horribly. Its made to look like, "That foreign movie with dark skinned people doing weird things on one of our game shows," that only people who enjoy french new wave would understand. But there's as much action in this film as there is in The Dark Knight and its as deep and sweet as Wall-E. If you are going to go see any of the 'Oscar Contenders' go see this one.

Everyone knows I have a 'Man crush' on Brad Pitt. Fight Club, 12 Monkeys and Seven are some of my favorite movies. However, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is not on that list. The movie is visually beautiful except in the war scenes were it looks like the guy who made the original King Kong was resurrected just to make a really lame Sea Battle. The F. Scott Fitzgerald short this is based on doesn't give a lot to work with, but what David Fincher, Eric Roth and Robin Swicord came up with paints Bejamin as a douche bag just to serve the twist of the story. Sadly, it removes you from the movie early - I figured it out all too easily - and they focus too much on Button/Pitt as an old looking boy/young man just to show off visual effects. The other thing this film does have is multiple great performances. The best being Taraji P. Henson who plays Queenie, the care taker/mama of Benjamin Button. She is fantastic. Second being Cate Blanchett. She's just very good in everything. Sadly, this movie isn't very good and is easily an hour too long for the amount of story they actually present. Rent it.

Quantum of Solace was stupid. Everyone else who watched it with me fell asleep.

The Wrestler suffers from a similar lack of story arc as Rachel Getting Married, but at least we're given some good performances. I didn't get it till I watched the movie, but a few people I know who saw it prefaced their review with, "Were you into the WWF when you were a kid?" If you didn't at one point enjoy wrestling even in the slightest bit, then this movie isn't worth it. Mickey Rourke can never do anything ever again. He might as well join the WWE and live the life Randy 'The Ram' Robinson didn't get as a young man. You get to see Marisa Tomei's boobs. Not a selling point for many, but it helped break up the excruciatingly long, staged wrestling scenes. I say rent this along with the next Wrestlemania. You'll enjoy both much more.

As you may notice, if you care about links, that I did not link the movie titles to their page on IMDB. This is because when I looked at the IMBD page for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, F. Scott Fitzgerald is not mentioned as the writer of the original material. That has annoyed me, as it should anyone who has a pulse.