Mad Money (2008)

Bridget Cardigan (Diane Keaton) suddenly finds herself out of money and upper class home when her husband Don (Ted Danson) gets downsized from his company. Unable to find a job, and out of desperation, she takes a job as a janitor at the Federal Reserve Bank, and as soon as she lays eyes on the vast fortune sitting around locked in plain sight, she starts hatching a plan to liberate some of it.

Her ingenious and simple plan requires the help of two other people, and soon she persuades the reluctant Nina Brewster (Queen Latifah) and the ditsy Jackie Truman (Katie Holmes) to aid and abet her scheme to steal worn out bills before they get shredded.

All together now:

And the money kept rolling in from every side

Jackie's pretty hands reached out and they reached wide

Now you may feel it should have

been a conscience-pricking scheme

But that's not the point my friends

When the money keeps rolling in, you don't ask how

Think of all the people guaranteed a good time now

Bridget called the needy to her, opened up the doors

Never been a fund like the Federal Reserve Bank plan*

After a while, there are thoughts of calling it a day, but Bridget pushes hard for milking it for all it's worth.

Short Attention Span Summary (SASS)

1. The lack of money is the root of all scheming

2. People who live with poor spouses shouldn't clean banks

3. A dollar saved is a dollar earned

4. Don't throw the money out with the trash paper

5. Money changes everything

6. Two things are certain theft and taxes

This is a light hearted comedy about three women from different backgrounds who come together to pull off an unlikely heist from a secure facility. Undeniably, there are more plot holes than plot, but who's counting? There are some funny moments, and some interesting twists, and even though the movie mostly misses the mark, Keaton and Latifah are as good as always. Wait for it on cable.

*Based on "And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out)" Andrew Lloyd Webber "Evita"

Amanda Richards, March 21, 2008

Mad Money a brainy scheme of 3 women Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes try to smuggle millions of worn out currency that is headed for the Federal Reserve shredder. This movie is full of laughs and excitement and most of all lots of Mad Money. This in my opinion is a must see. I enjoyed these 3 actresses who are my favorite so much I now own it.

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This is a rare movie, where some of our favorite actors are involved in less than desired activities, and yet we found ourselves rooting for them. The movie is about three women in difficult situations, needing money and a change of perspective for their families.

Ted Danson delivers a great performance as the unemployed husband of Bridget, who not only lost his highly paid executive job, but is now depressed and confronting reality for at his age, he no longer feels confident enough to start again.

The three women work at what looks like Fort Knox, where money is disposed off by banks because it becomes too old to circulate. They simply shred millions every day. To support her family, Bridget, played by Diane Keaton, comes up with a rather ingenious plot that is both fun and believable.

In order to be successful in her plan to steal lots of money, Bridget enlists others. Nina, played by Queen Latifah, and Jackie, superbly played by Katie Holmes, become the other two in this trio of thieves. We found ourselves laughing, enjoying the suspense, and hoping that they get away with their creative money recycling business.

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Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program I thought this was supposed to be a comedy. While the movie was good, I wasn't laughing much. It's full of excitment but no so much on the laughter.

MAIN STORYLINE : When her husband loses his job, Bridget (Keaton) need cash fast. When she lands a job as a jaintor at the Federal Reserve Bank, her plan : steal money going out of circulation. She enlists the help of 2 people : 1. The one who shreds the money (Latifah) and the woman who pushes the carts of money around (Holmes).

PROS

1. Overall, it's a great movie

2. great Casting

CONS

1. Not so comedic

2. Unoriginal storyline The movie is a remake of the British movie "Hot Money"

3. No Subtitles.

I just felt the movie could have been funnier and the dvd to have subtitles. I like to read what I am hearing. And while the movies gets a thumbs up, because I didn't laugh so much at this "comedy", it's not worth the whole 5 stars

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Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program Mad Money accomplishes its goal of treating a serious topic in such a light hearted way that you actually enjoy watching the film. The acting is extremely convincing and the plot moves along at a good pace. It held my attention every step of the way!

The action starts when Bridget Cardigan (Diane Keaton) finds out that she and her husband Don (Ted Danson) have finally gone broke after a year of his being unemployed after a "downsizing." Bridget tries in desperation to find work until her former maid gives her a tip that the Federal Reserve Bank is hiring--janitors. Bridget goes from being a wealthy suburbanite to a bank janitor very quickly as she attempts to save the house she has with her husband Don.

When she works at the bank, Bridget can't believe how much money she sees--and none of it, of course, is hers. They actually shred it! She soon concocts a plan to "recycle" some of the money and therefore steal it for herself and her husband. Yet Bridget knows she will need help; she can't do that big a job by herself. She eventually enlists "space cadet" Jackie Truman (Katie Holmes) who lives in a trailer with her husband Bob (Adam Rothenberg). She also gets help from an initially very reluctant Nina Brewster (Queen Latifah) who does the actual shredding of the money.

It isn't long before the women successfully make their first robbery--they pull it off! They're just beginning to celebrate when Bridget's husband Don walks into the room and there's some pretty big explaining to do. Bridget, no matter what, eventually convinces everyone with her aggressive attacks that more heists are necessary for them to have "what they want."

Of course, from here the plot can go anywhere. What happens when a security guard finds out what these three women are doing--will he go along with them and join them or will he turn them in? What about Bridget's plans to spend the money--that doesn't sit well with Nina who wants it very inconspicuous that there's been any changes in their financial situations--will Bridget or Nina win the tug of war? What about the management of the bank and the people they call in as advisers about theft--will THEY catch on and find that these women are stealing? No plot spoilers here, folks--watch the movie and find out! The ending has a few plot twists that may surprise you!

The DVD comes with a commentary; and you can watch it in either widescreen or full screen mode. There's also a cute but very brief "making of" featurette.

Overall, while Mad Money is not exactly going to win best comedy of the year, it isn't bad either. I recommend this movie for a few light hearted laughs and the acting is splendid. People who like Queen Latifah, Diane Keaton, Katie Holmes and Ted Danson will enjoy this movie, too.

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Happy, Happy (2011)

Potpourri is a mix of stuff with little logical connection amongst the mix. This movie pot revolves around two married couples one of which has moved into a rental house (in isolated Norway) that is next door to it's owners also a married couple. An incongruous assemblage. The couple that moved in are highly educated with an adopted young African son. The owning couple, less educated, has a son who mercilessly torments the other boy because he's black and withdrawn most likely because he's suddenly with white parents in snowy white Norway. The two couples each have their secrets which, predictably, concerns sex and compassionate understanding thus the movie's tension. Resolution comes in some surreptitious sex (little is shown). There's no tele or radio but there is some wireless web access. They interact by a few shared dinners followed by awkward after-dinner guessing games. Singing in the nearby town's choir is the only activity we see outside of the homes but plays an important role.

What's weird, almost comical, is how each person comes to grips with their personal secret trust, sex, understanding, self-confidence. Even for the adopted boy reading for the first time about how slavery relates to him, then followed by the positive counterpoint of seeing President Obama on the web. Strange, but entertaining, are the frequent random scene breaks where a singing group that look like suited CIA/Matrix types belt out bluesy, gospel, rap songs in English; all the more strange in a Norwegian film.

I found HAPPY, HAPPY a bit of a quandary. It's a film that's not quite certain what it wants to be, except possibly to be labeled with the adjective "original," which it isn't all that much. Someone over at Film.com apparently found it "hilarious and incisive," which it really wasn't, either. Parts of the film clearly are intended to be humorous maybe quirkily charming in some foreign-ish, philandering way but it's entire leaps and bounds from either "hilarious" or "incisive." And someone at Variety apparently dubbed it "a winning comedy" ... but winning at what? Drama? Comedy? Melodrama? Contemporary marital horror nightmare? What?

At best, HAPPY, HAPPY is a character study in exaggeration, as none of these characters came off feeling all that legitimate to me. According to the film's press materials: "Family is the most important thing in the world to Kaja" ... yet, twenty minutes into the film, Kaja apparently believes performing oral sex on a near-total stranger in the room next to where her husband is waiting for her to come out of the bathroom is ok, so that kinda/sorta negates the whole premise of Kaja finding the concept of "family" all that important. Doesn't it? Not proof enough for ya? Well, forty minutes into the flick, Kaja is running naked through a frozen Winter countrywide all hot & bothered from having just given the near-total stranger another bout of oral madness while her son is walking up the drive. Of course, he sees mommy in the buff, frolicking as she is in the snow with someone who ain't dear ol' dad. Welcome to therapy, kid. Yeah, that whole concept of "family" sure ain't selling this picture!

Now, to be fair to the character of Kaja, family really ain't all that important to her. On that level family not mattering almost everything she does makes perfect sense to me, from the risky fellatio to the extramarital sex while her `closeted homo' husband is parking the car out front. Despite these proclivities I say "despite these proclivities!" Agnes Kittelsen imbues Kaja with a kind of small-town charm the forever mousey girl-next-door so much that you really can't dislike her. Maybe you can fault her, but it's hard to H-A-T-E her. See, Kaja doesn't find herself all that attractive; yet she has a small frame with delicate features and an infectious smile! For some reason, Kaja believes she's in a great marriage with some of its own little shortcomings like a husband who ignores her and a son who treats her poorly but, thankfully by the film's conclusion, she's come to grips with the reality. Her relationship is far from healthy, and it only took behaving like a child to turn her into an adult. While her unfaithful (and gay, don't forget) husband refuses to leave her, she'll leave him ... even though that essentially means that he'll be living in the cottage they keep out back.

???

If you approach HAPPY, HAPPY with a kind of lyrical `Bizarro World' mentality (up = down; down = up; HAPPY, HAPPY = SAD, SAD), the film makes vastly more sense, though it won't be for most people's tastes. It isn't irony so much as it is a study in opposites: the `perfect couple' that moves in next door is `far from perfect' as both of them give in to infidelity before and after we get to know them. It's this kind of idea the study of opposites that serves as a metaphor underlying the entire film. In fact, it gets so obvious that Kaja's boy (who is white) plays with the perfect couple's son (who is black while his "visible" parents are white, and it's never clearly established as to whether or not he's adopted or whether he's the result of the wife's established previous infidelity) ... and therein lies the principle problem when you're dealing with a study of opposites:

At which point has the world been set right? Do we know ... or will it always be this way?

It's never clear, or perhaps it's best to conclude that it's never clearly answered. However, you'll be glad to know that the `perfect couple' seemingly reconciles in what appears little more than a cookie-cutter "I miss you" moment that defies the logic (opposites) already established for the picture. (Shouldn't it have been "I don't miss you"?) They destroyed one another in their respective journeys to find one another ... or some other Hollywoodish nonsense that only appears in movies. At the end, everyone is HAPPY, HAPPY, so that's all that matters.

Also, the film has a disturbing subplot involving the two young boys which revolves around that never-ending source for comedy: slavery. In short, the little white boy gives the little black boy a book depicting the practices of slavery, and the two of them endure several supporting vignettes wandering about the house re-creating various stages of the slave/master relationship. See, that's all well and good ... right up until you see the little white boy whipping the little black boy ... and suddenly I'm left asking myself the questions of how so many film critics found the picture "beguiling ... hugely enjoyable" (according to the Star Tribune).

Maybe it's me, but I didn't see the title as being indicative of anything massively ironic in the story. I guess that I just find it hard to either feel sympathy or some hidden cinematic kinship for characters who make increasingly bad decisions one worse than the next where it involves the adult maturation of any relationship, much less the sanctity of marriage. Kaja's secretly unhappy; her husband's secretly unhappy; the perfect couple are secretly unhappy; the kids are secretly unhappy ... is this all there is to their (or our) shared experiences? I'd hope not.

To my surprise, HAPPY, HAPPY is not morose. Not in the slightest. These characters embrace their foibles, and, on that level they make it work as best as they can. In fact, I'd watch the luminous Agnes Kittelsen in anything based on her work here. She elevates it so much, and she breathes so much likeability into a character whose actions are everything but likeable that I couldn't look away any time she was on screen. The others here while they did exemplary work felt a little too safe, a little too predictable, felt way too similar to characters the audience has probably seen in hundreds of other feature films that dabbled closely with similar themes. But Ms. Kittelsen is all the rage here, and she's the only reason why I'd give this any recommendation. She seemingly inhabits Kaja, and, while you may not want to be her, you can appreciate her as a character despite the irony of her screen existence.

Methinks the good folks at Sundance (they awarded it the "Winner: World Cinema Jury Award") really need to come to grips with the fact that most people don't live their lives the way characters in movies do. Granted, life is never easy, and people around the world make the choices they do with the best available information they have at the time, and, somehow, I think that's lurking somewhere near the mildly depraved if not downright confused heart of HAPPY, HAPPY. "Believing you're happy" and "living as though you're happy" are two different realities, as Kaja comes to accept, and so should the people who dish out Sundance jury awards. Who knows? Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm the cynic here, and these characters though they bear no resemblance to anyone I know or have met are the norm. Maybe there is a fairy tale with a fairy tale ending, but most likely it won't be found anywhere near a bunch of snobby film elites in some Colorado ski town.

Recommended for fans of indie pictures only

In the interests of fairness, I'd like to thank the people of Magnolia Home Entertainment for providing me with a screener DVD for the purposes of completing this review.

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The pace of this film will be too slow for some people, but I found it to be interesting and engaging, and I wanted to see what would happen next (don't read too many reviews; there are unmarked spoilers among them!).

The main character, Kaja, sings "Amazing Grace" on Christmas Eve with her church choir near the end of the movie, and I found the symbolism of the lyrics to be particularly appropriate.

Though not all the issues are revolved (or even addressed) by the end of the film, and it's certainly not a neat and pat ending, it is, nevertheless, satisfying and hopeful. I'm a very harsh movie critic, so even though I've only given it three stars, to me, that means that it's a solidly watchable film.

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In backwoods Norway a young married couple with a son rent their adjoining house to another young family from the city. Everyone discovers something about themselves in this quirky independent entertaining film.

There are a lot of plots taking place at once.

The rural couple has an unhappy marriage and the perky wife Kaja is getting less perky and more horny.

The new couple have moved out to the country when the husband discovered his wife's affair and wanted a change of scenery. They have a black son, possibly adopted but it could also be the mother's from another man.

The rural white child is disturbed from the strained family dynamics and can be bullying and insulting.

The younger quiet black boy is just discovering what it means to be black in a white world.

The new couple and the perky wife join a church chorus as she has always wanted to sing but had been told she had a terrible voice.

There is a male quartet who does American standard musical interludes as a Greek chorus. (Are they connected with the church choir?)

The two couples interact over dinners and games and secrets and passions are revealed.

The acting is great as is the photography. There is a great soundtrack. It almost becomes a quirky comedy but it also almost becomes a darker more unhappy film and this tension continues to the end. There is a lot of love and finding yourself in this movie and most importantly it treats the audience as well as the screen couples as grown-ups. The story is about problems but they might yet work out as life moves on.

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happy, happy:

Photography, excellent!

Music, lyrics, entertaining!

Plot, quirky but intriguing.

Subtitles easy to follow.

Interesting look into the perplexing world of human relationships.

I recommend this movie. Wear headphones for the music! I'd purchase

a happy, happy cd for the soundtrack.

Enjoy!

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Deadball (2011)

Dead Ball is a madcap comedy with a goofy eye for humor. Bathroom jokes, midget jokes, bad jokes, awful jokes, honestly fun jokes, you have to take the good with the bad with this one. CGI gore mixed with real gore gags, this baseball game of destruction is highly enjoyable if you're its target audience.

Regular Joes: 3/5

Japanese cinema fans/5/5

Don't like Spoofy Comedies: 3/5

The Comedy is make or break. If you don't like juvenile, stupid humor, then avoid. But the gore is good, and the movie is fun. End of story.

Director Yudai Yamaguchi definitely knows what fans of splatter (like me) want to see on-screen. Blood geysers, decapitations, amputations...Yamaguchi knows how to deliver. DEADBALL is the famed director's most recent release, and it is a perfect addition to his canon of work. Although the film doesn't showcase much of anything new, it is vastly entertaining and certainly worth checking out.

I've been a fan of Yamaguchi's work for a while now, ever since I reviewed his film YAKUZA WEAPON a while back (unfortunately, the review is no longer available on my site since it crashed in December of last year). The director's over-the-top style combined with a panache for gore gives audiences a jolt of hyper-violence they will not soon forget. And his films are simply so much fun to watch.

DEADBALL is shot well and the acting is pretty good overall. I especially enjoy seeing Tak Sakaguchi onscreen; he is an exceptional talent and I always like to see what he does next. In this performance, his role as the sullen Jubeh, who always seems to find a cigarette in every seen, is exceptional. He personifies the bad-but-misunderstood hero.

What truly stands out for me in this film is, as expected, the gore. Director Yamaguchi goes above and beyond when it comes to special effects, and he showcases that talent in this film. DEADBALL contains some truly excellent gore and, as per his stye, it is presented in all of its zany, beyond-tasteless glory.

Although the premise might seem a bit far-fetched, you should never go into a Yamaguchi film with a serious mindset. If you do, you're bound for disappointment. But if you go into these movies with the right frame of mind, then you're in for a real treat. I recommend giving DEADBALL a look...just make sure you don't eat while you're watching it. Doing so might cause you to lose your lunch.

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This one was wow I really cant understand where they come up with the sheer craziness of this one. It takes the original and adds crazy by 100. But I think it goes tooo far sometimes with some of the stuff. The original had charm, this one seems more shallow and lets be really crazy/wierd just to be weird. Still its a really cool movie just for Tak and his badassedness in most anything he plays in. So if youre a fan of the original Id recommend it, theres even a few nods to it in this which I enjoyed. This was a riot to watch with friends so Id recommend that setting watching these types of movies anyway.

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Comedy is the most difficult film to cross international waters. This isn't because different folks require different laughs; rather, it's because effective comedy what makes the jokes work requires an intrinsic understanding of that people's culture and/or societal norms. Comedy in its primal form pokes fun at those standards, so in order to understand the anticipated punchline one must understand the culture at some basic level. In other words, let's assume Japanese people hate clowns but Americans don't; all of the jokes pointed at a society's fear are likely to pass over the heads of an American audience unless they're constructed broadly enough that any person an everyman can make perfect sense of it. Usually, that isn't the case. Usually, humor is closely aligned with one's particular civilization, leaving many bits and pieces of a film like DEAD BALL sadly lost in translation.

(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and characters. If you're the kind of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I'd encourage you to skip down to the last two paragraphs for my final assessment. If, however, you're accepting of a few modest hints at `things to come,' then read on ...)

Poor little Jubeh. Jubeh Yakyu (played by Tak Sakaguchi) was just a boy with boyhood dreams of playing professional baseball, the great American pastime. However, turning your father's brain to jelly with a fastball he couldn't control put poor little Jubeh on a much different course. Swearing never to pitch again, he abandons caring for his younger brother Musashi and enters a life of crime, one which eventually leads him to Pterodactyl Juvenile Reformatory. There, Headmistress Ishihara gives him an ultimatum: either play ball again, or she'll murder his cellmate in cold blood.

As is often the case with splatter movies, don't go into this one expecting it to make much sense, much less perfect sense. It doesn't.

Actually, DEAD BALL rolls ever onward, and the more it rolls the more wheels come off its wagon. There's a story here as demonstrated by the synopsis above, but the narrative wanders around so much one might suspect they were shooting and somebody lost the script. The first hour while the picture maintains a loopy, goofy, mainstream comic quality is quite entertaining in much the same way a Mel Brooks film or a Zucker Brothers comedy can be. However, the second hour succumbs to splatterific nonsense, wherein the audience learns (out of nowhere) that our heroes (and I use that word lightly) find themselves trapped in the midst of a kill-or-be-killed baseball event, much of which defies any measure of logic. To make matters worse, the final fifteen minutes the film actually tries to throw audiences yet another curve ball (get it?) when somehow someway it becomes a bit of an all-out farce. Suddenly, our heroes are apparently gifted with time travel skills and the ability to rise from the dead if only for a few scenes in order to underscore just how far off the rails this train has run.

To his credit, adaptor/director Yudai Yamaguchi revels in his own excesses, never dialing back the craziness; but, to his detriment, he's delivered a wildly uneven picture. Some of the material such as Ishihara's affiliation with the Nazi Party and Jubeh's curious ability to pluck a cigarette out of the air any time he feels like it are broad enough that they work fine all on their own ... but the rest? It teeters on `absurdism' consistently, possibly even when it isn't supposed to. Is it legitimate splatter? The first hour would imply not as it's mostly conventional laughs, albeit in a Three Stooges kinda/sorta way. The second half is when true splatter begins, but, at that point, methinks splatter fans may've turned it off by now due to the lack of bloodspray in the first half. For the record, the traditional comedy was the way to go with this mess; it appeared as if everyone was having a grand old time ... and then a splatter film broke out.

Kudos to all involved, though, for embracing the zaniness inherent in telling this story. I'm just disappointed it didn't add up to more sense.

DEAD BALL (aka DEADBALL) is produced by Nikkatsu (as Sushi Typhoon) and Pipeline. DVD distribution is being handled through Well Go USA. For those needing it spelled out perfectly, this is a Japanese spoken language film with English subtitles available (no English dubbing). As for the technical specifications, it all looks and sounds very solid, though be prepared at some laughable special effects (I'm certain that's by design). There's a handful of special features, including a spinoff short, a making-of compilation, cast interviews, and trailers for additional titles available from Sushi Typhoon.

MODESTLY RECOMMENDED, mostly for fans of the unique art form. You like splatter? You may like half of DEAD BALL ... the second half, that is. While the first half has a handful of splatter moments, it's more of a traditional comedy that works quite well on its own. The second half will be more to your liking. There are all kinds of bloody deaths in the most bizarre baseball throwdown you'll ever experience. I've tried to caution all: don't expect this to make sense. This is much more technique than it is message.

In the interests of fairness, I'm pleased to disclose that the fine folks at Well Go USA provided me with an advance DVD copy of DEAD BALL for the expressed purposes of completing this review.

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"Deadball" may be the first sports splatter comedy. Baseball prodigy Jubeh Yakyu (Tak Sakaguchi) is the most feared and dangerous juvenile delinquent in Japan. After accidentally causing the death of his father with a super-powered, deadly fireball pitch, Jubeh swore off baseball and turned to crime and now, at 17, has been sent to a reformatory for hardened criminals.

Headmistress Ishihara, the granddaughter of a World War II Nazi collaborator, runs the institution with an iron fist and the enthusiastic help of sadistic assistant, Ilsa. Shortly after arriving, Jubeh learns that his younger brother had done time there and died mysteriously. Jubeh is presented with an ultimatum by the governor: join the reformatory team in the national tournament for juvenile inmates, or witness the death of his innocent cellmate. Knowing that the death of his brother is in some way connected to the team, Jubeh agrees.

"Deadball" is an outrageously over-the-top movie filled with impossible situations, killer baseballs, grisly gore, and cartoonish, Amazon-like women. It intentionally attempts to offend practically every race, ethnicity, gender, and institution imaginable as it barrels along.

Bonus features on the Blu-ray release include a making-of featurette, cast interviews, spinoff short, and theatrical trailers.

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Idle Hands (1999)

First of all, this movie is not to be taken seriously. I saw some bad reviews and it is like some people tried too hard to get it. There is really nothing to get. It is just a good horror/comedy perfect for watching with some friends on Halloween. It is funny, gory, sexy and at many points in the film it is down right stupid but that is exactly what it is meant to be. The movie is meant to be just a Halloween laugh and I guarantee you will enjoy it if you just don't expect much to begin with. Try it....the price is right.

I fully agree with the Amazon reviewer's opinion that the movie is just an excuse to string together silly gags and gross-out gore. I'm not sure that makes it a horrible film. Hey, Dead Alive and Evil Dead, classics of the genre, are built from the same formula. They do it smarter and funnier, but Idle Hands is not without its charms.

You've got the Seth Green factor (I'd watch Spiceworld II: The wrath of Ginger if he was in it), the Dexter from Offspring getting slaughtered factor, the giant-fan-as-teen-blender factor, the Vivica Fox as martial arts demon hunting babe factor, the scantily clad Jessica Alba factor.

In other words, you've got your funny, you've got your bloody, and you've got your sexy, all in one cheesy package. If the ending wasn't so horrifically bad, I'd give this one five stars (Some DVDs have the original ending, which I haven't seen). It ain't Citizen Kane, but you know that already. If you're a fan of the genre -B comedy-horror flicks -this is a worthwhile entry.

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When this movie hit theaters it happened to coincide with the Columbine high school tragedy back in '99. Some critics have already pointed this out and blamed the public's poor reaction to this film on the events of April 20th, 1999. Others disagree, saying the film lacked a target audience ang genuine humor.

Maybe its just me but I love this film. I watch it at least once a year guaranteed. Not that this review matters or anything (not like its going to make popular a film that has been widely ignored upon release and long since forgotten since then) but I just wanted to throw in my two cents. Great film, very funny.

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This movie was funny! If your looking for deep meaningful content, watch something from the drama section. A classic B movie has a thin plot, unrealistic villians, lots of gore, cheap sex and is meant to be watched while drinking beer. This movie is all of the above and more. If you are going to be tormented by the souls of the undead, Seth Green and his pal are the ones you would want because at least they would bring chips and a cooler of beer. Because, "Hey, your dead for a long time!"

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I love this movie, its just one of those movies you can watch over and again, and you will find something different to make you laugh at (in a good way though). If you havent seen this movie then see it now. Actually don't even see it jjust buy it.

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Norbit (2007)

I thought this was a really good funny movie! Eddie Murphy is back doing what he does best! He plays Norbit Rice, and his mistreating obese wife, Rasputia. In the middle of the movie, Norbit's childhood girlfriend, Kate comes back to town, hoping to buy the orphanage that she and Norbit grew up in. Kate's fiance and Rasputia's brothers try to stop Kate so they can open a strip club. Later, Norbit finally gets courage with the help of some friendly pimps, and Mr. Wong to tell Kate the truth and win her love. If you love comedies, and Eddie Murphy, you'll love NORBIT!!!!

Eddie Murphy is a comic actor genius! How many actors can play three different characters and make each character perform perfect in their respective roles??? This movie was a riot. I watched it three times in the same day. I am not an Eddie Murphy fan but this movie proves that he belongs among the greatest comedians in Hollywood's history.

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People who compare this role to the role Eddie played in Dreamgirls are silly, these are 2 totally different movies. Norbit is crude humor at it's best, if you are easily offended or looking for a serious drama, don't purchase or rent this movie and the nutty professor, it is not! Eddie plays multiple roles excellently as we know, the film also stars Cuba Goodin Jr.,Thandie Newton and a hilarious cameo from Marlon Wayans, not much substance as far as a plot is concerned , not a love story -just a raunchy, crude performance by Eddie Murphy but hilarious nonetheless and funny is actually and understatement.

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my kids and i laughed so hard to this movie it was great and eddie murphy just makes me laugh

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I was anticipating this movie. I had seen "Dreamgirls" and was thrilled with Eddie Murphy's performance. I had been hoping for an Eddie Murphy revival for sometime and thought "Norbit" would be the second installment.

Well, this movie did not install correctly. The friend I went with was offended by many of the things this movie had to offer. The main thing to offend me was the ENTIRE thing because it was AWFUL.

What made it A-W-F-U-L? It tried to hard. It included every comedy ingredient and multiplied it by 35. It was too much.

I will add that it had some "sneak me" funny moments, but the film as a whole was not worth the paper my money was printed on.

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Wild Child

This film is full of cheesy goodness. If you are looking for a young chick flick with with a dash of romance, this one is a great choice.

This movie has been done before... A LOT. What sets this film apart is the stellar cast. It is the last movie made by Natasha Richardson and casting Alex Pettyfer as the love interest doesn't hurt. The lead is played by Emma Roberts (the daughter of actor Eric Roberts and Julia Robert's niece), who obviously has taken some pointers from family members. She shines in this role as a snotty rich kid who transforms into the young woman she was meant to be. She got caught up in the fast lane of California living after her mother passed and when her dad has had enough, she gets carted off to her mom's old boarding school in England! There is an obvious clash of cultures as she has to find her way in a foreign school with it's own caste system. Enter the mean girls and a handsome son of a headmistress and there's your plot. You know how it ends but getting there is pure fun!

We all know what is going to happen but isn't that half the reason we watch this kind of movie? As a viewer, you are not looking at this dvd as an option and thinking -I want to watch award winning cinema! You know you are getting a lighthearted teen romp. You'll discover a young woman finding herself, real friends and love as she searches for meaning in her life. The belief that anyone can be transformed is a powerful message even if it is told in silly ways. So sit back, grab a bowl of popcorn with extra butter and enjoy a fun movie.

I saw this movie when I was in Britain last summer. Emma's character wasn't as wild as the title may suggest but there were a lot unexpected twists in this movie that made it more than your regular romcom. I highly recommend this movie and I will definitely buy this.

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I first rented this movie to see what it was all about and right after I watched it I knew that I had to own it. It is entertaining from the very first scene!

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I had my doubts about this movie, but I knew I had to buy it after watching only 20 minutes. I found the portrayal of American California girls very interesting. I am from Indiana, and I admit, several things that Poppy (the main character) and her friends did line up with prejudices that I've developed through American media. So, seeing that was amusing, but made me wonder if Europeans thought all Americans acted that way (because we do not). I know not all Californians do, either.

I could not stop laughing, and these were laughs, not chuckles. I LOVED seeing Poppy's hand sanitizer. I had bought my own bottle a few days before watching the movie.

There was not a single character that I did not like. Though, Alex Pettyfer's hair could be improved. ;) I like his style in "I Am Number 4" better, but I digress. The actors were beyond amazing, and consequently, I loved the characters. I loved their hair, accents, clothes, facial expressions, everything. The movie was a true delight, and I'm planning to watch it with my Mom. ^_^

ALSO: I am a Christian, and I personally loved the way the headmistress handled Poppy's case. Too many times in Church we encounter wild child Poppys, and we condemn them. We yell at them, order them to clean their act up, show disgust to them, etcetera. Then, we usually chase them out of the Church because they're just too wild. I think Christians should watch this movie because of the valuable lesson in it: Call out the good in people.

Poppy acted the way she did because she was hurting inside. She missed her mother. Many times in real life, people commit negative, hurtful deeds because they are hurting inside. As Christians, we are called to do what Christ did, which was HEAL them and NEVER condemn them. If you heal the wound, the behavior changes automatically. But if you try to "fix" behavior without healing the wound, well, that is as silly as trying to "fix" the speakers without turning the radio to an actual radio station. The behavior is not the problem. It's the manifestation of the problem.

NDN

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I loved the movie but as far as watching it I kept having to refresh it because it kept getting stuck.

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Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy) (1948)

Hello All

I was just wandering through amazon and came upon this section and was just delighted to find "A&C meet Frankenstein" getting such nice compliments.

I would like to let you all know that my father Robert Lees and his writing partner and an old family friend, Freddy Rinaldo, wrote this film.

Freddy is no longer with us but my father is still, all of 92 years old, and is thrilled that after all these years you all like the film.

A little addenda:

You all must remember that A&C were essentially radio comedians,

and it was from his training in radio that Costello had the bad habit of coming unglued if he didn't consistantly get laughs from the crew for each gag each take, no matter how many takes were involved in getting a scene right.. For him the crew was a live audience, so if he didn't take the house down, he would put in another piece of business and reinvent the scene on the spot until he did and he was very inventive! I don't know how successfull they were, but they tried to take him aside and explain how important it was to actually follow the script!! Dad said that Lugosi enjoyed this aspect of Costello very much although I'm not so sure whether the director did, or the writers either for that matter.

Both Dad and Fred respected the "horror/terror" genre in literature very much noting to me when I was younger how complex and interesting the form had become in the hands of writers like Dunsynane Tolstoy Lovecraft Saki,or Poe to name a few.

Tolstoy wrote some strange and luminous things in this old form, once a short story about a Vampyre.

But in those days and by the time Universal Studios got through exploiting it all, "The Wolfman meets Dracula, meets Frankenstein,meets the Mummy, meets the Andrews Sisters" well, lets just say that the bloom was well off the rose.....

And so the object for them was not to parody the genre (at least the serious part) but to parody what Universal Studios had by this time done to the genre....

One of my favorite parts in the film is that sublimely dysfunctional chase scene at the end.

And its true, they had a blast writing the movie.

Lou Costello was always the master of strangulated, speechless terror, so putting Abbott & Costello in a movie with the Wolfman, Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster was inspired. Getting Lon Chaney, Jr., Bela Lugosi and Glenn Strange to play the Terror Trio was just icing on the cake. This time around Bud and Lou play Chick Young and Wilbur Gray, a pair of railroad baggage clerks in LaMiranda, Florida, who have to deliver two large crates to MacDougal's House of Horrors. Inside are Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster, but of course they escape. To make things worse, Wilbur's beautiful girlfriend, Sandra Mornay (Lenore Aubert), is really a mad scientist who wants to put Wilbur's brain in the Monster. Fortunately, Lawrence Talbot (Chaney) has arrived from Europe on the trail of the monsters.

It is rather amazing how long this film goes with Wilbur being the only one to spot the monsters. The comedy in this movie is something of a departure for the comedy team, because it relies more on situational humor and not as much on the "Who's On First" word play. The scene pantomime scene with Lou on the Monster's lap is great, as is the final chase scene with the boys encountering one monster after another. "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" is the first and the best of the boy's comic team-ups, which does not deserve the reputation it has in some quarters for having made the Universal monsters creatures of ridicule. That might be true of later Abbott & Costello monster comedies, but the charge would be truer of "House of Dracula" than this film, which has the same respect for the monsters as does "Young Frankentstein." Trivia Note: While filming the scene where the Monster throws Sandra through the lab window, Strange was knocked over and broke his ankle. Chaney, who had played the Monster in "Ghost of Frankenstein," volunteered to step in and once again don the makeup and he is the one who re-shot the scene that appears in the movie.

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Abbott and Costello's best known and perhaps best film has them meeting Lon Chaney Jr. as the Wolfman, then Bela Lugosi as Dracula, then Glenn Strange as Frankenstein and then. . . . The plot revolves around the idea that the perfect new brain for the Monster should be a simple one -on that's easy to control. Lou Costello's is simple enough. The slapstick begins when Bud and Lou refuse to believe Larry Talbot (Lon) is the wolfman. The best non-monster bits are variations on what Bud and Lou did in the still funny, Hold That Ghost. You will note that Dracula can be seen in mirrors and that he would not have really died from a long fall (that's not being left out in the sun or getting a stake in the heart). But who cares, this is a silly, enjoyable slapstick that gives us both Lon Chaney Jr. and Bela Lugosi doing a wonderful job acting straight against the boy's antics. Glenn Strange is the Monster. Vincent Price does a cameo. (1948 Directed by Charles Barton).

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Universal's legendary, all-time classic comedy paired Abbott & Costello with a series of movie monsters, including Bela Lugosi essaying Dracula for only the second time on-screen, Lon Chaney, Jr. as Larry Talbot (aka the Wolfman), and Glenn Strange as Frankenstein (there's also a fun cameo by another Universal monster favorite at the very end). "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein" also revitalized A&C's film career for years to come (with the boys meeting everyone from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to "The Killer...Boris Karloff"), and still holds up tremendously well especially for any fan of the classic Universal monster movies. The comedy in Robert Lees, Frederic Rinaldo and John Grant's script deftly bridges A&C's antics with a basically respectful treatment of Dracula, Frankenstein and crew, allowing for the film to recreate the feel of the studio's Golden Age chillers in a hilarious setting that never ceases to entertain.

Universal's Blu-Ray presentation of the film, out next week, is terrific: the AVC encoded 1080p transfer is natural in appearance and allows the film, warts and all, to "breathe," so to speak, without any obvious filtering or excessive DNR. The DTS MA mono sound is acceptable, and extras carried over from the prior DVD include Gregory W. Mank's commentary and the David J. Skal-hosted DVD featurette "Abbott & Costello Meet the Monsters" (though, as with the recent Blu-Ray of "Jaws," this featurette is presented in a heavily compressed, terrible-looking standard-def encode). Two Universal 100 Years featurettes and the trailer are also included, plus the trailer, a DVD and digital copy.

EDIT Some users asked if the DVD contained this set is also remastered. IT IS NOT. In fact it's the same "Comedy Legends" older DVD pressing...so don't buy this set if you are not interested in the Blu-Ray.

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Regardless of whether you have ever seen Abbott & Costello or not, this is a DVD you simply cannot pass up. I highly recommend this film because not only is it excellent, Abbott and Costello are always winners! As usual, Abbott is sarcastic and Costello is loveable and charming.



Bud Abbott and Lou Costello star in this hilarious horror/comedy that has not only one but three of Universal's classic monsters: Frankenstein, Count Dracula and the Wolfman.



Abbott plays Chic Young and Costello is Wilbur Grey. Both men work as baggage handlers in Florida. After a brief meeting with Wilbur's beautiful girlfriend Sandra(Lenore Aubert), Wilbur takes a mysterious phone call from Lawrence Talbot (the wonderful Lon Chaney Jr.) about two crates to be delivered to the McDougal House of Horrors.



Thinking nothing of it, the eternally scared Wilbur goes about his business. When Chic and Wilbur get the crates for Mr. McDougal (Frank Ferguson) in a rather unusual manner, McDougal insists the men deliver them personally so the insurance company can inspect the deliveries.



After a hilarious delivery scene, Count Dracula (the immortal Bela Lugosi) and the Frankenstein monster (Glenn Strange) escape the House of Horrors and go to the home of Dr. Sandra Mornay! Dr. Mornay and Count Dracula want Wilbur's brain so they can revive the Frankenstein monster.



Added to the mix is a lovely insurance inspector, Joan Raymond (Jane Randolph) who is 'interested' in Wilbur for the purpose of her investigation. Chic simply cannot understand why so many beautiful women are in love with Wilbur!



I was very pleased to see the classic stars Lon Chaney Jr., Bela Lugosi and Glenn Strange in this film. All three men were just as splendid at comedy as they were in their horror roles. I also found this movie to have some very good special effects for its time. The scene where Dracula changes from a bat to a man is excellent. Vincent Price, a true master of horror himself, appears as the voice of the Invisible Man at the end of the film.



This film also has some great trivia. Lon Chaney Jr. worked as both the Wolfman and the Frankenstein monster on some scenes after Glenn Strange broke his ankle during filming. Boris Karloff also did some promotional work for the film. Check out the Internet Movie Database for more trivia!



Will Dracula and Sandra get Wilbur's brain? Will Wilbur get the girl? Will Chic ever give Wilbur the respect he deserves? Get the DVD and find out!

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