Tuesday

What Happens in Vegas

2008

A buttoned-up stockbroker gets dumped by her high-powered boyfriend while, across town in another movie, a slacker gets fired by his own dad. They both decide that Vegas  is the cure for what ails them. They meet in Vegas, hook-up, get married in a drunken haze, and regret it when they wake up in the morning. No problem, except that before they can get an annulment, they end up winning a three million dollar jackpot, and their marriage makes the money community property.

"That's not a premise for a film," you're thinking. "Split the money down the middle and give me back the nine bucks I paid to watch this."

You're right - up to a point - but the next development is a high concept premise that creates a movie (sort of): a weird judge decides that neither of them will get a penny unless they try six months of marriage, so they have to learn how to be better human beings ... and maybe, eventually, they will really fall in love.

Gee, d'ya think?

It's a formulaic romantic comedy. Boy meets girl, loses girl, goes through period of extreme stress, gets girl back, as well as his own soul. Everything transpires in front of wisecracking sidekicks. It's your basic Rob Lowe / Demi Moore movie from 1986 with a few twists and a younger cast. The Demi Moore connection is intact, however, since the male lead is none other than her boy-toy husband Ashton Kutcher. Cameron Diaz plays his foil, and the Jim Belushi and Elizabeth Perkins roles are played by Rob Corddry and a certain Lake Bell, who is apparently a female person and not a body of water. "Vegas" is not especially better or worse than the usual Hollywood fluff. In fact, it's probably a cut above the usual  McConaughey/Hudson material. The film's great weakness is that the comical sidekicks are not quite comical enough. OK. I admit it, I actually like James Belushi's "regular Chicago guy" character, and I think Belushi does the sardonic sidekick better than Rob Corddry. Of course, that's faint praise. Pauly Shore would probably be funnier than Corddry and maybe even more likeable. OK, maybe not the last part. The movie is not helped by the fact that Ashton Kutcher still needs those acting lessons which Cameron Crowe once offered him, but the audience comes to like and root for the main characters, and cheers for them to get together, so that makes the film work on its own rom-com terms, at least well enough to make it a mini-hit

Cameron Diaz film clips. There is no nudity, but there's a nice look at the bottom of her bum in skimpy underpants.

The clips are OK, but these samples stink because I have not yet loaded Photoshop on my new computer. I'll get there soon.

 

  • * Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe).

  • * White asterisk: expanded format.

  • * Blue asterisk: not mine.

  • No asterisk: it probably sucks.

OTHER CRAP:

Catch the deluxe version of Other Crap in real time, with all the bells and whistles, here.

 

 

 

 

 

 


Teenage Bride

1970

Today the seventies tour continues with part 2 of Teenage Bride:

Billed in the movie as Jane Louise but better known as Jane Tsentas, she gives it all up getting it on with our hapless dude. Caps and three clips with plenty of "Tool Time" action.


And look who's back again: Sharon Kelly ( I think she was in practically every movie made in the seventies ). Sharon takes on a couple of lucky guys in these Caps and eight clips. More "Tool Time" too.


 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes and collages

Lost Highway

1997

Patricia Arquette

 

ROK's notes:

When I watched this film in 1997, the plot seemed a gibberish of sex and violence; when I rewatched it a couple of days ago...AHA!!!...it's a gibberish of sex and violence...

Robert Blake's character seemed to be the core of the story...but who or what is he? Is this a parable about something or another? The story seems to be about evil, vengeance, lots of sex...and what?

 

 

 

 

 

Hasta el Viento Teine Miedo

(2007)

Marta Higareda pulled a Christian Bale for this film and starved herself down to 79 pounds to play an anorexic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wrestlemaniac

2006

Although it's a fairly typical B-horror flick, 2006's Wrestlemaniac has a very interesting and fairly long title sequence which shows vintage footage of real 1960's Mexican wrestlers doing their thing, and it's really neat. Aside from that we get a story that isn't special, but still produces a fairly fun-to-watch horror flick.

A group is taking a road trip to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico to film a porn film, and of course get lost. A local directs them down a dusty road that will lead to a highway, but warns them not to stop at La Sangre De Dios, a ghost town that is supposedly populated by the legendary (and insane) Mexican wrestler, El Mascardo (the Masked Man).
 

Naturally, the van breaks down very near the ghost town, which looks perfect to the crew as a place to film porn without attracting attention. Well, they do attract attention, of course, and it's from El Mascardo, so that pretty much tells you the rest of the story.

Enjoyable enough horror, with good action and gore and better-than-some acting, plus the aforementioned vintage film. Not a terrible night's entertainment.
 

Various

 

 

 

 

 

The Oxford Murders

2008

Leonor Watling

 

 

 

 

 

 

PICS

Virginie Ledoyen in the trailer for Mes amis mes amours (Release date: July 2, 2008)

Film Clips