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Sex Drive (2008)
6/10
Nothing special except for the donut costume
12 October 2008
Since this film was a comedy let's look at it in that light first. I saw this movie about a week ago and it had about two hilarious moments which I am having a hard time remembering. The rest of the film most of the audience sat there in silence, with sporadic giggles throughout. My friends whom I watched the pre-screening with said they were amused in general but didn't find the film very funny. This is probably because this film strongly uses clichés and old ideas that have just been reshuffled with relatively little originality.

The originality is this: The two main characters (the lead and his goofy friend) are in some sort of role reversal where their bodies and personalities are flipped and it's very hard to believe either can be themselves the way they are. The whole film I felt this way and and it was quite distracting, this may to some degree be attributed to the actors and Director failing to create believability and instead creating teen-comedy caricatures, but to the actors credit the three leads showed promise and could do better in a different movie.

The comedy itself has a lot of preteen raunchiness that appears so often and so strongly that if you were to see a naked old man showing his gonads like in the movie "Borat" you wouldn't be very shocked or surprised. Normally this would be funny, like in the scene in "American Pie" with the the pie; but since this film holds very little meaning below the obvious surface gags, the comedy punch doesn't land strongly if at all that often.

This film was also full of young beautiful actresses meant to portray the regular public as they cameo over and over again through most scenes. I don't recall one average looking young woman in the whole movie. This was slightly annoying because perhaps I was looking for something like "Dazed and Confused" and felt like was I was watching something a little better than "American Pie 3". What I mean is that this film is like "Superbad" where it's laden with raunchy teen comedy and some teen sexual angst. But unlike "Superbad" it doesn't have the deep underlying truths that elevate the script above boorish crude gags. If it weren't for those two hilarious scenes I failed to describe and perhaps the saving grace of the lead actors this film would be garbage. But it's not, and kudos to the Donut costume! If you are between the ages of 13-19 you'll probably like this film a bunch. Everybody else prepare to be mostly silently amused.

6/10
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10/10
A Masterpiece
27 November 2007
Warning: Spoilers
A masterpiece about modern times and fear of nuclear proliferation, degradation of society. All told through metaphor through the story of a knight who returns from the Crusades in the year 1000 in Medieval Europe who is infected with the plague and ...(read more)makes a deal with death that as long as he is winning in a chess game against him he will get to live. This film is still incredibly relevant to today's issues and also has great irony of depicting people's fear Y2k by showing the massive fear of apocalypse from the year 1000. Aside from political relevance it also has religious relevance through "Christ metaphor" inherent in some of the characters in the film. The imagery from the opening sequence and final sequence of the film are also unforgettable as well. Extremely thought provoking film and also proof that it doesn't take special effects or 100 million dollars to make an amazing movie.
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Dan in Real Life (I) (2007)
6/10
Predictable, formulaic, and yet charming.
26 November 2007
Predictable, formulaic, and yet charming. What's new about this film is that it doesn't try to be cinematic, instead it tries somewhat to capture realism and the comedy inherent in real life, hence the title. As a result of being "realisitic" it loses some of the magical elements a movie is able to posses, and the highs and lows become somewhat muffled. Much like Steve Carell's performance which sort of echoes that of his character in "Little Miss Sunshine", although once again he does hold his own well in this film. Juliette Binoche brings a unique dignity to her role that not many other actresses could with this film. Dane Cook in the film is forgettable unless you're a big Dane Cook fan.
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