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carlosgateleaper
Reviews
Jennifer's Body (2009)
Pretty darn good 80's-style teen horror flick! Diablo who?
I've been reading the comments here about this film and it seems like a lot of folks hate Diablo Cody and REALLY hate Megan Fox. For the record, I had no idea who Diablo Cody was before I saw this in a theater and when I was told she wrote the screenplay for Juno my reaction was "Yeah...who cares?". I never saw Juno and have no intention of seeing it. Doesn't look like my kind of movie anyway. Me? I like horror flicks which is why I made a point to see Jennifer's Body in the first place. Why would I be unnerved by some other screenplay Diablo Cody wrote for a film I could care less about. As for Megan Fox, I think had this film come out back in February of 2009 the box office would've been better. After having endured the "Summer Of Megan Fox", when her every move and utterance was breathlessly reported on and dissected on every blog and website, it was only natural that people would get sick of her and want to see her fail. This happens time and time again to young actresses. Build 'em up and then tear them down. Even her appearance on SNL to promote the film was ripped apart. It's interesting because she doesn't act any better or worse than she did several months ago, it just wasn't fashionable to try and destroy her at the time. This is a solid little teen horror film reminiscent of black comedy fare from the 80's. There are a few nice twists here and there (the career path the Indie rock band in the film chooses is hilarious) and the two female leads are certainly easy on the eyes. What prevents Jennifer's Body from being in the same league as it's 80's predecessors is that it wasn't exploitative enough! Frankly we could've used a little more Megan Fox in miniskirt, ruling the school and being the dreamgirl of every guy. I mean, if that's the whole premise of your film, wouldn't you have her looking as hot as she does in the film's poster? It seems like some of that material wound up in the trailer and not in the actual film itself (which is why I'm envisioning some sort of "Unrated" DVD release in the near future). With that said, Amanda Seyfried steals this movie and it's really a starring vehicle for her. The ending was a bit rushed and anti-climactic but I wasn't expecting Casablanca. As for the dialogue that seems to send some reviewers here into a frothing rage, it was no better or worse than any other teen Horror film I've seen this year. In fact, I've been hearing characters drop pop culture references in horror films since the early 90's so this is by no means an invention of Diablo Cody's. Why so many in the blogosphere are obsessed with this person I have no idea. Seems a bit silly to me. Relax. Check out Jennifer's Body when it comes out on DVD and have some gooey popcorn fun.
The Stepfather (2009)
Amber Heard in a bikini...oh yeah...and some other stuff.
I have to give this movie a favorable review only because it delivered something it didn't promise and that took me by surprise. The Stepfather, as I'm sure you all know, is a remake (reboot?) of the 80's slasher series that set the tone for every darn Lifetime movie starring Valerie Bertinelli or Nancy McKeon. A desperate divorcée falls for a mysterious guy who, despite telegraphing to the audience how evil he secretly is, manages to fool his fiancée and her family into thinking that he's a swell guy....that is, until the body count starts. The plot isn't worth discussing. There's nothing here that we haven't seen before. What IS worth discussing is the director's obvious decision to exploit Amber Heard's lovely figure in one long never ending cheesecake sequence. You could make the argument that the ONLY reason this film was even made in the first place was to launch Amber into the stratosphere of blogworthy sex symbols (not unlike what Michael Bay managed to do with Megan Fox). You'll see Amber in her underwear lounging in bed, Amber in her itsy bitsy teeny weeny bikini, gratuitous close-ups of her splendid anatomy, etc. This exploitation becomes so flagrant that it distracts from the story itself, which is probably a good thing. In a way the Stepfather 2009 comes off more like a 70's Drive-In flick; the kind teenagers would flock to in hopes of seeing a little skin. Maybe that was the point after all? I sure hope it was. The movie certainly doesn't deliver much else.