Rental Reviews: Shattered Glass, Miami Vice and Knocked Up

Where have all the good movies gone? They don't seem to be in my Netflix queue, that's for sure. You know the state of the film industry is bad when I enjoyed watching the Entourage Season 3 discs way more than I liked any of the following movies...

Shattered Glass

I always am interested in films that are based on true stories, and was kept entertained by this one - which followed the career of Stephen Glass, a journalist for the political magazine The New Republic. You may remember this one from the news - he ended up getting fired when it was uncovered that he made up a great deal of his stories - but not until after he had tricked some of the most prestigious publications out there into running his pieces. The problem with the movie, which had a wonderful supporting cast, was Hayden Christensen. He sucked as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader and he wasn't much better as Stephen Glass. I think the way he talks is what bugs me - he has a strange accent that seems forced - Long Island mixed with Canadian - I don't know how to describe it. It was way worse in this movie than in the Star Wars movies. The interesting thing about the DVD, however, was that it included a 60 Minutes interview with the real kid, who still appears to be quite sketchy. If you are intrigued with "how in the hell did he/she get away with that?"-type of stories and can deal with Hayden's weird voice and fairly crappy acting skills, then you may actually like this movie.


Miami Vice

I swear to you, I thought I had read great reviews of this movie somewhere - that's the only reason why I recently moved Miami Vice up to the top of our Netflix queue. But good God, this movie was awful. It was AWFUL. I am ashamed that I watched it. There was absolutely nothing redeeming about it. Colin Farrell wasn't even cute in it. He was chubby and had the worst hair EVER, possibly even beating his bad wig in Alexander, which is saying something. He really puzzled me in this movie because I know he is not a bad actor, yet he delivered his lines like he was going for Worst Performance of All Time. Very stilted dialogue and awkward movements. I don't remember the "real" Sonny Crockett being like that, so I chalk it up to bad directing. Anyway, everything was bad. My husband and I had basically no idea what was going on for most of the film. We were also incredibly mad that they didn't use the original theme song from the TV series, NOR did they use Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight." HOW COULD THEY NOT USE THAT SONG?!?!? Instead they put in a God-awful remake by some metal band called Nonpoint. I'm getting all bitter again just thinking about it. Do not see this movie.

One good thing did come from me suffering through two hours of Colin's mullet, however. I was looking up "In the Air Tonight," and just learned that that song isn't about Phil Collins seeing some dude drown. That is an urban legend - the song is about nothing. Urban legends die hard!

Knocked Up

I had no desire to see this movie when it was a big hit in theaters this summer because I: 1) don't like Seth Rogen, 2) don't like Katherine Heigl/don't watch Grey's Anatomy, 3) am already scared enough as it is by childbirth, and 4) knew that Seth and his friends were a bunch of stoners, and that kind of comedy is not funny to me. But, I was willing to give it a try in the comfort of my own home, as I could always turn it off or leave my husband to watch it alone if I wasn't into it. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised... but only because I had extremely low expectations. It was not as funny as I figured it would be - it was actually much more serious than the trailers and reviews had let on. Perhaps that was the reason why I thought it was OK... because the "funny" parts were actually my least favorite segments of the film, but there was more substance to the rest of the story than I would've ever expected in a summer hit. I still don't like Seth Rogen, but I can tolerate Katherine Heigl a little bit more now. I guess the bottom line here is that I do not regret watching this movie.

With all the crap on the big screen and the small screen this fall, I really need to get going on my big stack of books and magazines, because I'm getting too depressed.

- e