The premise of the movie is fun – Vaughn and Witherspoon are in a long-term relationship, but not married. They habitually avoid visiting their respective families during the Christmas season because they’d rather not share their family stories with each other. Why is the movie called “four” Christmases? Well, it turns out that both of their sets of parents are divorced. In other words, in order to visit their families on Christmas, Vaughn and Witherspoon have to hit four different locations in one day.

For Vaughn, he’s got an alcoholic father and two brothers who are obsessed with ultimate fighting. In fact, they’re so obsessed that they beat the hell out of his each time he comes home. Further, they mock the fact that he pursued a higher education and resent him for his increased income. The funniest part of the movie for me was when Vaughn was being bodyslammed by his brothers and his nephews come into the family room to beat him up, too. I don’t know why, but I got a kick out of that.

Vaughn’s mother left the alcoholic father to run off with someone who just wants to be friends with Vaughn again. Ahem…again. That’s right, Vaughn’s mother ran off with one of his long-time friends! The Director, Seth Gordon, does a great job of making these scenes extra awkward.

As for Witherspoon, her mother has a few sisters who are eager to jump on Vaughn when he enters the house. They’re also not shy about sharing some of Witherspoon’s more embarrassing moments from growing up including her stint at fat camp and the fact that her best friend growing up was a butch lesbian!

Witherspoon’s father, on the other hand, reports that he’s been divorced “multiple” times, but his introduction into the movie also serves to set the stage for the climax. I won’t share the outcome of the movie with you, but suffice to say that the good guys always win in the end and that holds true for this movie, too.

The bottom line is that if you’re into Christmas movies, but are more into the Bad Santa type rather than the Miracle on 34th Street type, then you’ll enjoy this movie. Given the craptastic economy, though, I suggest that you wait until this is available as a cheap rental and not an expensive trip to the movie theater.

The movie starts off like any other Christmas movie – a family with its unique ups and downs, a wide-eyed child looking for something more, a parental figure who is too busy to notice some things, etc. You know the drill. Seriously, some of these haphazardly thrown together Christmas movies stick WAY too close to the generic script, but I digress. So there is the standard family that you’ll find in any Christmas movie. Michael Keaton plays the father and does a pretty good job with the role that he’s given: he’s not quite an arrogant jerk, but not quite ready to be the father figure that he needs to be…and eventually he’s the voice of a snowman. Joseph Cross plays the son and I thought he did an exceptional job, as did Kelly Preston in playing the mother.

Again, the movie starts like any other and then Keaton’s band gets a big break and he needs to be somewhere important on Christmas day. Cross gets pissed off, gives him back a magical harmonica (yep), and then Keaton dies trying to rush back to his family before Christmas.

A year goes by, life is miserable for the young kid, he builds a snowman to remind him of the one he and his Dad built a year before, he blows on the magical harmonica, the snowman is infused with his Dad’s spirit. Simple story, right? Cross finds out the snowman is his Dad and he spends the rest of the movie trying to hide this fact from the world – including his mother who now thinks that her son is nuts. If your kid was walking around talking to snowmen, you may think the same thing!

The folks who put this one together attempted to include a bunch of touching scenes throughout the movie, but most of them come off as just awkward. Even through the final scene of the movie (which I won’t be wretched enough to share here) this viewer received more of an awkward feeling than anything else. There is even one moment towards the end of the movie where the bully antagonist (because these awkwardly thrown together Christmas movies always have a bully antagonist) and the young, bright-minded protagonist become friends. Awww… I almost threw up.

If you’re a freak for Christmas and Christmas movies, then you can go ahead and watch this one, but everyone else should run away from this movie.

First of all, this is actually a documentary so calling it a movie is really not correct. And as a documentary I found it more alarmist than anything else. The visuals used to augment the information that the speakers are giving the viewers are skewed to show situations that frighten and alarm. I was sad to see this because instead of showing the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when talking about global warming, I think showing more shots of melting mountain tops and glaciers breaking up would be more effective. The bulk of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina came from a bungled local and state government response as well as the levies breaking. But hey – I guess if you’re trying to sell your position you have to use the visuals that work.

Most of the information in the documentary is nothing new. Everyone knows that the human race has had an impact on the planet and that our waste products are negative to the environment. Thankfully, more people have become aware of this fact and are working voraciously to lower their personal imprints on the planet either through recycling more, using sustainable items, and working to conserve their use of resources. That’s all and great. But documentaries like The 11th Hour work against these positive trends by yelling that the sky is falling.

I admire Leonardo DiCaprio, the documentary’s narrator, but he should continue to be in the business of helping out the underprivileged by using his notoriety and money in conjunction with already established organizations. Going out and producing this documentary did not do much to help “turn the tide” in the battle against pollution. In fact, it might have hurt the progressing trend of environmental sustainability in some areas. For example, one commentator refers to the human race as a sickness on the planet earth; he talks about how we are creating a crust or a shell on the actual earth itself and we are poisoning it. Yeah…THAT’s how you rally support.

Another commentator says that the biggest weapon of mass destruction is the huge power amassed by corporations. In other words, corporations are the biggest weapons of mass destruction on the planet. Not only is this intellectually insulting, but the underlying meaning will be lost on most of the public due to the outrage associated with the comment. An unfortunate way to go about the business of changing minds.

It’s not that I didn’t like this documentary, but I thought that it did much less to advance environmentally friendly ideas than Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. Plus, the documentary is more of a beginner’s guide to some of these issues than anything else. If you’re into alarmist documentaries or just looking into the whole environmentally sustainable issue, then you may want to look at this documentary if you have some time. If you don’t fall into one of those categories, don’t worry about seeing this one.

The movie makes great use of the latest CGI graphics, too. Both The Hulk and Abomination are fluid in on-screen movements and they are smooth to watch. One would almost think that these two creatures are real… Oh, and it’s also worth mentioning that Lou Ferrigno, the bodybuilder who played The Hulk on the old television series, has a cameo. Nothing big, but nice that they threw him a bone in the new movie.

Bruce Banner’s changing life is really the focus of this movie – especially his personal transformation after being injected with the “hulk” formula. He has to train himself to keep his blood pressure below a certain level or else he goes green. This means that he has to take the crap that people around him give him on a daily basis, but it also means that he can’t get as involved as he would like with a certain lady… Norton also does a good job of conveying how annoying (and exhausting) it is to have this problem from having your clothes be torn off of your body to completely losing your senses during the transformation.

Tim Roth also deserves a mention for playing The Hulk’s nemesis in the movie. He’s the type of bad guy that you love to hate. He even shoots Banner’s dog, the bastard!

I was a little bit confused by the last battle in the movie because I don’t see how the Hulk managed to all of a sudden defeat Abomination. The battle just sort of turned around and then the Hulk had him beaten on the ground. Weird.

For those of you who are fans of these superhero movies, I recommend going out and purchasing this DVD. The special features are probably really good (I don’t know), but the movie itself is worth having in your collection.

What I did see were great performances from Christian Bale (Batman), Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman (Commissioner Gordon), and Aaron Eckhart (Two-Face) among others. When you have an ensemble cast like this (including Morgan Freeman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Caine…even Tiny Lister had an appearance) you’re bound to get a good movie put together. The various synergies between these actors and their performances made for a great movie.

Batman undergoes a bit of maturing in the movie as he has to deal with loss and the realization that there can never be a world without Batman because there can never be a Batman who doesn’t have a vengeance for retribution. On the flip side, the forces for “good” in Gotham begin to realize that they have multiple opponents including spies in their own ranks, the Joker’s men, the fears of the people, the mob, common petty criminals, etc. Not a fun situation to be in.

The movie kept a good flow, though it might have been 15 – 20 minutes too long for my liking. However, there is no wasted time in the movie so you won’t be bored watching. In fact, there are a lot of good chase scenes and a few good fighting scenes (and I generally hate chase scenes, so that should tell you something). I also liked the way Alfred talked for a moment about his background as a guy who chased criminals (in this example, he was in Burma). His words of wisdom to Batman when fighting the Joker: “Because some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with – some men just want to watch the world burn.”

Another one of my favorite quotes from yet another legendary actor comes from Lucius Fox (played by Morgan Freeman). One of the auditors or financial guys for Wayne Enterprises uncovers a bunch of blueprints detailing how the company has been making weapons for Batman. He threatens Fox with a request for $10 million per year to keep his mouth shut. Fox replies, “Let me get this straight: You think that your client, one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the world, is secretly a vigilante who spends his nights beating criminals to a pulp with his bare hands. And your plan is to blackmail this person? Good luck.”

Ha!

If you get the opportunity, I’d rent this one (or possibly purchase it, depending on the price) as soon as it hits the stores. For those of you who are not hardcore fans of these superhero movies, I think that you’ll enjoy this one anyway.

Leitman interviews women wrestling legends like The Fabulous Moolah and Johnny Mae Young. Current wrestling fans are sure to recognize those two WWE Hall of Famers, but I found myself most intrigued during the documentary by the women like Gladys “Kill ’em” Gillem. Gillem was, in today’s terms, a jobber – or a wrestler whose “job” it is to lose and make their opponent look great in the process. Also, the bitterness that some of the older women wrestlers have towards Moolah is interesting. As one of the women wrestlers put it, “Moolah loves money. That’s the perfect name for her.”

I certainly wouldn’t begrudge anyone from making money at their chosen profession, but some of these women are definitely bitter about Moolah’s long-term success. The women wrestlers commented on how Moolah and Young’s presence in WWE in the early 2000’s in actual wrestling matches takes away from the accomplishments of the women’s wrestling movement. I don’t know if I necessarily agree (especially when groups like TNA are bringing back real women’s wrestling). By the way, Moolah passed away last year so some of these topics are a moot point now.

Fans will enjoy hearing the stories about one of the original promoters of “girl wrestling” and how he manipulated the sport so that his wife could retain the title. Moolah talks at length about her disgust for this guy and how she was glad to take the title from his wife and then put him out of business. At that time, Moolah became the number one trainer, promoter, and booker of women wrestlers in the world.

I have to recommend this DVD to any wrestling fan who thinks more of the sport than just a generic set of moves leading to a generic ending to a generic match. This is a DVD that follows around these women wrestlers and talks about the many hardships that they had to endure during the early years of their business. If you enjoy knowing more about the wrestling business than just what you see on Monday, Thursday, or Friday nights, then you’ll enjoy this DVD.

Nicholas Cage is back as treasure hunter Ben Gates and this time around he’s looking to clear the name of an ancestor who was recently accused of helping to plan the Lincoln Assassination. This is certainly an interesting storyline which is only helped by adding larger parts for his father Patrick Gates, played by Jon Voight, and former fling Abigail, played by Diane Kruger. The addition of Helen Mirren as Professor Emily Appleton – Ben’s Mom and Patrick’s ex-wife – was a good decision on the part of the writers. She adds a great deal to the movie and another level of complexity in the family drama that is the Gates clan.

What I didn’t like about this movie was the villain storyline. Don’t misunderstand me, though. Ed Harris played Mitch Wilkinson – a descendant of one of Lincoln’s assassins – perfectly. In fact, he played the part so well that I almost overlooked the fact that the “bad guy” part of this movie was aggravating to the larger storyline. In other words, if you watched the first movie, then you already saw a similar scenario play out: Ben looks for treasure, a bad guy is after him, good guys win in the end. It’s just so repetitive and boring that I think the movie is hurt by it in the long-run.

Although on the one hand, one has to wonder what else is possible in terms of a storyline when you’re dealing with treasure hunters. Since the movie ends with the possibility of a third movie (the folks at CinemaBlend.com report a third movie is on the way), I hope that the writing for the next installment of this franchise is more creative.

In the end, though, this is still a fun movie to watch and absolutely worthy of a fan’s DVD collection. If you’re not into buying the DVDs, then I would recommend renting this one for a boring night during the week. It’s a fun movie with lots of “intelligence puzzles” scattered throughout. However, if you’re looking for something that is a step-up from the first movie, then you may have to wait until the third installment is released.

Been-there-done-that, awkward, Harry Potter, brilliant graphics, so-so story, great story, horrible, poor camera views, abysmal acting, tired, old, fun to watch, good (though darker) family movie, pretty much what I expected, Lord of the Rings, random

And it’s that last adjective – random – that I think carries throughout the entire movie. For example, the four siblings are randomly drawn back into Narnia after Prince Caspian blows a magical horn. We get about 2 minutes of the family in the real world before they are sucked into a Harry Potter-like train scene where they wind up in their fantasy land after the train goes away.

Skip FAR ahead to the end of the movie. You have Susan running up to Prince Caspian and giving him one of the most awkward kisses in movie history. It was out of place and inappropriate for the scene and really took away from the storyline where Susan and Peter will never be coming back to Narnia. I don’t know why they tried to wedge the love story in there, but I guess that’s how movies are these days.

A little bit before the end of the movie you have two more random scenes. The first is Aslan randomly appearing in the forest to save Lucy. Yeah, I paid attention and I know what was going on here in terms of the siblings needing to prove themselves to Aslan in order to have him come back. Frankly, this aspect of the story sucked. It had a poor setup (due in part to the horrible acting by Georgie Henley as Lucy) and it had a random and awkward payoff (Aslan comes in and saves the day – boring). The few minutes where the White Witch almost made a comeback was MUCH more intriguing than the poor storyline that was Aslan in this movie.

And since I just mentioned it, Georgie Henley was not good in this movie at all. AT ALL. She has got to be one of the worst child actors out there right now. I understand Disney’s need to keep all of the same characters and even I would say that I’d rather see her playing Lucy than someone else, but damn – someone give the girl some acting lessons.

The second random scene at the end of the movie was the water man who came and destroyed all of the Telmarines. In the Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship of the Ring, Eowyn talks about how the power of her people will protect the Hobbits if they can only cross the river. Then she says a little magic diddy after she crosses the river and the water rises to destroy the Nazgul chasers. It seems to me that Director Andrew Adamson must have watched this scene way too much because the battle-ending scene at the end of Narnia was far too similar. Again, I go back to my list of adjectives and been-there-done-that.

Then you have the use of killer trees (again, a la the Lord of the Rings). While I didn’t really want to see this in Narnia (I already saw Lord of the Rings, which is a much better movie, many times), I admit that I don’t have too much of a problem with it. For those of you that don’t know, CS Lewis (author of The Chronicles of Narnia) and JRR Tolkien (author of The Lord of the Rings) were friends and a sort of pen pals. They were both disgusted at the post-industrial society that the Western world had created where the environment was trampled on a daily basis. This is why you see a reliance on the strength of nature in both of their novel series.

It looks like this movie is being written off as a stinker already, too. As the folks at The-Numbers.com suggest, “Weekend Estimates: Caspian Second Disappointment of Summer.” It looks like Caspian has made $56.5 million so far while Ironman is up around $222 million. None of this matters, though, as Indiana Jones is going to house the entire box office.

And yet after all of this criticism, I don’t think that Narnia was a bad movie…I just don’t think it was a good movie. I guess if you have young ones and you want to keep them busy for two hours (two and a half – commercials at the beginning of the movie), then you should go out and see this at a matinee (no need to spend the extra money to go any later). However, if you’re a fan of the novels – and God bless you if you could get through Prince Caspian as a novel – I suggest going at a time of the day when you’re not going to spend a lot to see the movie or just waiting for it to come out on DVD.

My buddy told me that this was a sitcom about 4 (and eventually 5) people who are just bad people – I think that’s the perfect description. I especially like the character played by Rob McElhenney who is just an arrogant, selfish jerk. It’s actually hilarious when you watch the show. And Charlie Day (who plays a character named…Charlie) does a great job at acting as the downtrodden, constantly looked over friend in the group.

There are so many great side performances in this show that it would be hard to put them all in a concise blog article. I think the McPoyle Brothers are absolutely hilarious – the best description of them would be two grown-up, extremely creepy guys (and an equally creepy family) who gross out everyone around them. They walk around in bathrobes! And then you have outlandish performances such as the character named Artemis (played by Artemis Pebdani). Artemis is an actress, but an overly dramatic actress. It plays in perfectly to the craziness that is this show.

If you can rent this box set or if you can find it at a good price, I suggest purchasing it. If you’re interested, you can watch some full episodes of this show at Hulu.com. I think there are some commercials mixed in at Hulu, but it’s still free! Anyway, I recommend this irreverent comedy to anyone looking for something different from their television shows.

On a different level, Gwyneth Paltrow also turns in a great performance as Pepper Potts – Stark’s assistant. There is the obligatory love story underneath the larger story of the movie, but hey, the filmmakers had to find a way to bring the women into the theaters! I commented to my roommate that the reason I liked Paltrow in this role is that it was a change from the generic, ditzy chick flick role that she sometimes gets cast in. Chick flicks – ugh.

And it is completely unfair to talk about this movie without mentioning the great performance turned in by Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane and later as the Iron Monger. Excellent – just excellent. The opening sequence in the movie really sets the stage for the close relationship that the audience believes exists between Obadiah and Stark. The opening sequence alone was worth the trip to the movie theater as was the ending battle between these two characters. Did anyone else feel like Jeff Bridges was channeling Jesse Ventura in this role? I did!

All in all, this was a brilliant movie with great performances. The use of the Afghanistan locale and the prisoner of war scenario was also a good move (and for those of you that may not know, that is pretty much the same Ironman story from the comic books). In today’s society, pitting an American against a terrorist cell is sure to make movie goers happy. I liked the added intrigue of the terrorists using Stark’s own weapons in their fight against the Americans and the innocents of Afghanistan. More good writing!

If you have an opportunity to go see this movie, then I highly recommend you check it out. Great performances, great story, great movie.