Weekend In Reviews

Even though I mostly spent my 4 day weekend painting at Jay and Mike's new house, I did manage to watch a few movies.

Post Grad - Alexis Bledel is one of those straight-A, everything comes easily for her kind of girls right up until she graduates from college - she doesn't get the dream job, or any job; she has to move back in with her crazy parents; she is constantly humiliated by or in front of her college rival.

Do you feel sorry for her yet? Well stop because she also has the world's most awesome best friend who takes the form of Zach Gilford. Zach is smart, funny, kind, attractive, and while deeply in love with her, is perfectly content to be just friends. She also has a hot Brazilian neighbor who totally wants her. Poor Alexis.

Fortunately Alexis is a likable actress because otherwise, you'd kind of want to smack her throughout the movie. There's just a lot of pouting and self pitying.

It wasn't a bad movie, to be honest, I couldn't care enough about it to dislike it. It was just a forgettable movie. If you like one of the actors in it, you might want to go out of your way to watch it, but more likely, you'll be content to wait for this to fall in your lap some day when you can contentedly wile away 90 minutes and then go about your business not remembering a thing about it except that Alexis's pants were entirely too long for her.

Perfect Getaway - The premise here is that there is a murderous couple on the loose in Hawaii. They've killed a honeymooning couple on Oahu and now the authorities believe they've moved to Kauai. Meanwhile, three separate couples - Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich, Timothy Olyphant and Kiele Sanchez, and Chris Hemsworth and Marley Shelton - are all hanging on the remote hiking trails and beaches of Kauai and their paths continue to cross.

In the end, one of those three couples are the murderers, one couple is framed for the killings, and one couple is nearly killed but ultimately takes the crazies down.

Most of the elements are there for a decent thriller but somehow the movie manages to suck anyway. The "twist" is ok but the flashback explanation of the twist is stupid and poorly incorporated. The movie tries so hard to trick you that it actually goes against it's own plot in a couple of places which cheapens the twist completely.

What I will say is that the casting was fantastic. There is some VERY good eye candy happening in this picture. Both Chris Hemsworth and Tim Olyphant are as dreamy as can be, though I actually thought Hemsworth should have had more screen time.

For the visual appeal alone, I'd say this is worth watching on cable. If you're in the market for a good thriller, skip this altogether.

17 Again - Holy crap was this movie good! I'm as shocked as anyone to find out that I actually loved this movie because I really didn't expect to. Zac Efron people! How could it really be good when it rests on the shoulders of the kid from High School Musical? But it was, I swear.

Ok so here's the story - Matthew Perry is that guy who blames everything that he wants but doesn't have in his life on the fact that he got married to his high school sweetheart and had kids right after high school instead of going to college. He dwells on what he considers the short-comings of his life instead of focusing on what is good in his life, like his wife and his kids. So naturally his wife kicks his ungrateful ass out and files for divorce and his kids really want nothing to do with him. Because people know when you blame them for what you perceive to be a crappy life and they do not appreciate it.

That's when he runs into a strange old man who works some magical mojo and turns him back into the 17-year-old version of himself, which is Zac Efron. Zach attends high school and takes this opportunity to get to know his kids and help them the way he should have helped them when he was their dad as opposed to their classmate. He also manages to be incredibly inappropriately flirty with their mom which is vaguely disturbing because he is only 17 but at the same time he is her husband and, as she acknowledges, he looks just like her husband did when they met and fell in love.

The movie is funny and charming and sweet and ridiculous and silly in the best way. I rented this but I think I will go out and buy the DVD very soon because it was a ton of fun and I can't wait to watch it again.