Revisiting: Rat Race

The last time I saw this movie was probably shortly after it came out on DVD. DVD was still in its infancy then, and I clearly remember this being one of the very very first movies my family ever rented on the new format once we got our first new fangled DVD played. Not the first movie we rented, that was "The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea" naturally, but this movie might have been rented that same trip to the video store.

And back then I remembering LOVING "Rat Race" like it was the funniest thing that ever happened in the whole world. I even watched it twice that weekend because I couldn't get enough of it. I thought the situations were ridiculously awesome. Imagine - a billionaire sets up a crazy race for $2 million dollars and gives the keys to like seven or eight people - then all these crazy things happen to those people as they race for the money and the billionaire and his friends just sit back and watch and laugh. Nothing could ever EVER top the very Jewish Jon Lovitz mistaking the barbie museum to be about Barbies and not Nazis, as it actually was and then stealing Hitler's car! Or how about that scene where Seth Green and some no namey actor that went nowhere with his career went up the side of the tower at the airport - wait for it - in their truck! It was just too funny and since then I've thought this was one of the funniest movies I've ever seen and has remained on the short list of movies I think of when I think of "comedy."

Well I don't know what could've happened in the nine years that I've last seen this but when I got the chance to record this on my DVR, and excitedly sat down with some popcorn to laugh I found myself utterly bored. And not just bored, I found this movie to have not held up well in the last nine years either. Maybe because a lot of movies have done the same sort of slapstick ridiculousness, or maybe because this was the tale of end of movies doing that, but I was sorely disappointed in the laughs I didn't laugh that I remembered laughing the first time. The bus headed for the "I Love Lucy" convention filled with Lucy's who would act just like Lucille Ball still amused me the most, but as time has gone on, and movies like "Boat Trip" and "Snow Dogs" have happened, I think Cuba Gooding Jr. has lost a lot of the mojo he had going into "Rat Race" and I found him almost unbearable to watch in this.

And poor Breckin Meyers and Amy Smart. Whatever happened to them? I think the 00's swallowed up a bunch of young actors that were supposed to be the next big thing and then spit them out somewhere far from Hollywood. They actually weren't awful to watch, but I had a lot of pity on their careers. And though I won't ruin the ending with who wins the race and the money or what happens to everybody, I will say these two words that happen at the end, two words that may have meant something back in 2001, but today make me wince: Smash. Mouth. Smash Mouth. The entire movie heads up Smash Mouth singing "All Star." Woooooooffffff.

Some parts of this movie, like the "I Love Lucy" bits or Rowan Atkinson's narcolepsy still make laugh, but even the killer line Jon Lovitz's daughter exclaims when she has to poop "I'm prairie dogging it!" - which I have sinced adopted into my own vocabulary - didn't have as much as a punch as it did the first time I saw the movie. Sigh. I wish I loved it as much as I did back then, but maybe I should've relied on those false memories of "Rat Race" instead of rewatching it now and spoiling the romance.


Patrick Approval Rating: 2001 Patrick - 10/10; 2010 Patrick - 5/10


"Rat Race" @ imdb

Revisiting: Jesus Christ Superstar (DVD)

I have some lame traditions I do every year such as my not so scary Halloween movies in October or my Christmas-y movies during December and "The Nightmare Before Christmas" smushed somewhere in between the two as I still can't figure out what holiday it correlates best with. But one of the easiest traditions, as it doesn't require a full month of dedicating to movies, is watching "Jesus Christ Superstar" at Easter as I can't think of a better way to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus than with a dated rock opera composed by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Which is not to say I don't love this movie. And maybe I don't love the movie as much as I love the music. Despite being written in the very early 70s (the movie came out in 1973) I think the score holds up very well today - and it's one I know almost all of the words too. So if you're looking for a one man production of "JCS," look no further, I'm your man. I think the first time I was exposed to the show was in middle school in music class where we watched this movie. What makes that all the more intriguing was that I went to a Catholic middle school - so I'm surprised this was allowed seeing how it does take some liberties with the Biblical story, but then again, the school's choir would sing songs from "Sister Act" during masses, so maybe it shouldn't be all that surprising. Well what I'm trying to say is that I love the score from this show,  it's one of my favorites, and so that's why I watch this movie every year during the time of year that Christians celebrate the story.

That all being said, I think the movie is sometimes chilling and beautiful to look at, as it was all filmed on location in Israel, which lends the movie some authenticity that the staged remake from 2000 that was all shot on a soundstage lost - but the original has wayyy too much 1973 in its DNA, which makes the movie very dated. I think the concept of a modern troupe of actors telling the story with a modern rock score in the ancient Middle East and shot on ruins of temples and such is awesome, but the modern in that sense, is the modern from almost 40 years ago. Bright fakey colors, outrageous costumes, and old school special effects (including, but not limited to: too much use of slow motion, freeze framing, and overlapping fades) give the movie a very 1970s quality. Not to mention the song "Could We Start Again Please?" which is shot on a mountain side and looks a lot like the "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke" commercial from the same era. But I love it all so, and if you take the movie for what it's for, and take in the powerful performances from some great singers it's a good, fun movie and a tradition I'll be keeping for some time.

Happy Easter!


Patrick Approval Rating: 7/10


"Jesus Christ Superstar" @ imdb

Revisiting: Mamma Mia! (DVD)

I figured it was aboot time I reviewed a musical on here. And I say aboot in honor of the Olympics, which ended last night, and consumed much of my last two weeks' time. I'm sad they're done because I'm so obsessed with anything Olympical and I feel like something momentous is happening while they occur, and then a sense of emptiness when they're gone. Another year and half until the next ones. And maybe I'll be attending them? We'll see.

TANGENT OVER. I don't know why I went there, but I did, and now I'm going to revisit "Mamma Mia!" one of the products of the recent movie musical resurgence. Thanks "Moulin Rouge!" I do own this movie on DVD, thanks to my brother getting it for me this past Christmas. I've collected all major movie musicals on DVD since "Moulin Rouge!" because I do love them all, even the bad ones in their own way.  So it was only natural I got "Mamma Mia!" for my movie musical collection.

I'm kind of embarrassed to say I saw this movie twice in theaters. Yep. The first time I thought it was AWFUL. It was a campy piece of dreck. I thought it started out with potential, and then during the song "Money Money Money" when Meryl Streep rises from her seat at the table into the path of a wind machine and fantasizes herself singing the rest of the song in slow motion on a boat, it lost me. 4 realz. I was like, OK, this movie just jumped the shark ten minutes in and my attitude for the rest of the film was spoiled.

Then I saw it again, knowing how campy and bad it was, and accepted it, and let go of the bad, and then, from somewhere deep inside my soul, a gay little sparkle of enjoyment sparkled its sparkly dance and I started to have fun. Watching Meryl Streep let completely loose is such a thrill to watch, and even though some of the singing (and not so much the actual singing as the lipsynching to the bad singing) of Pierce Brosnan is horrendous, I can get through the entire movie and have fun. I've subsequently seen the film two more times after I watched it in theaters, and it grows on me more and more.

By no means is it perfect. The first time film director, Phyllida Lloyd, who also directed the stage incarnation, tries her best to direct a movie, but she is obviously a first timer, and fails to do a lot of things good directors should do. Just certain shots bothered me and seemed amateur-ish and there is way too much slow motion, which actually made me guffaw a couple of times because when the slow motion is used to make something dramatic it actually makes the actors look a little...slow. And not in the speedy sense of the word.

So it's a movie to watch, to not take seriously, and thus to enjoy. Plus the music of ABBA is so darn infectious and catchy you'll be your own "Dancing Queen" for the rest of the day.

Patrick Approval Rating: 6/10

"Mamma Mia!" @ imdb

Revisiting: The Princess Diaries and The Princess Diaries 2

Remember how I told y'all about when I need to fall asleep at night I watch comforting movies to help lure to me sleepy-land. Well here's one of my biggest guilty pleasures that I tend to watch on a yearly basis to help me go to sleep at night: "The Princess Diaries."

I very clearly remember seeing this movie way back in 2001. Woof. This movie is nine years old! Anne Hathaway, look at you now! My grandmother took me and my brothers and though I thought the movie looked funny from the trailers, I thought it was HEH-larious in the theaters. Even though it's wicked schlock-y and Gary Marshall directs all his movies like they're a bad sitcom from the 1950s with awkward gags, Anne Hathaway gives the role of Princess Mia Thermopolis her all and makes it work! Some of her stupid pratfalls and ridiculous comments still hold up today. But the rest of the movie kind of falls flat and feels very 2001. Erik Von Detten? What have you done since this came out? Celebrity Mole? I thought so. Mandy Moore, stop being all bratty and stupid and singing a ridiculous uber-pop "Stupid Cupid" on a beach. Nobody cares about you. Nevermind one of the most awkward to look at actresses to star in TV and film, Heather Matarazzo.

Terrifying.

The saving grace of these movies is Dame Julie Andrews. Sidenote: Is she a dame? If not, she should be. She grants us the gift of her presence in both "The Princess Diaries" and "The Princess Diaries 2: A Royal Engagement" (the second being released in 2004) and does her best to muddle though the schlock, making the movies watchable and rewatchable. For every awful scene with Mandy Moore (in #1) or Raven (in #2) there is an excellent scene with Julie Andrews and that makes it all better. She makes every movie she's in practically perfect and these are no exceptions.

Of course, the first movie is endlessly better than the second one and I almost wish the second one hadn't been made. The jokes are better in the first, the plot is wayy lame in the 2nd, and even though #2 features Chris Pine as a future Captain Kirk and a young thumb sucking Abigail Breslin (in one of the lamest parts of the movie as Princess Mia takes the stupid children from the orphanage and makes them walk in a parade with her) - the cast can't seem to get past the even worse jokes and gags and ridiculous plot devices and stupid characters that penetrate the humor of the movie.

So give me a good old "Princess Diaries" any day. I don't care. It cheers me up. It makes me happy. We're all entitled to those guilty pleasures. And so be it if I love Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews. I'm just glad they never made a third one.

Patrick Approval Rating:

The Princess Diaries: 7/10

The Princess Diaries 2- A Royal Engagement: 4/10

The Princess Diaries @ imdb

The Princess Diaries 2- A Royal Engagement @ imdb

Revisiting: Star Trek (DVD)

To preface this revisiting review I must explain how I end up watching many of my movies. You see, it takes me about forty-five minutes to an hour to fall asleep at night. And in the meantime, while I lay in my bed waiting to relax and pass out, I usually put on a movie. I have some criteria for what types of movies these should be. It should be one I've seen before so as I'm not so enthralled I need to know what happens next and end up watching the whole thing. It can't be scary or an intense thriller because I actually need to fall asleep and relax and not get all wired up and scared. And it should be a movie that's easy to watch, as in I can fall asleep to it one night and then pick right up the night after with no problem, then rinse and repeat that process. These movies tend to take a good three or fours nights to get through. But I wouldn't have it any other way. It's sort of a ritual.

So "Star Trek." It took me four nights with a weekend trip to Disney World stuck in the middle to get through this, so my review may be disjointed and not so much a review at all, but I've seen it before and enjoyed it very much the first time. The same goes for the second time around too!

Never did I thought I would like "Star Trek." I am and will forever be a "Star Wars" geek at heart and I didn't think one could love and appreciate both- that it was one or the other. But JJ Abrams, who I've been a fan of his work since "Alias," made "Star Trek" accessible to everybody. He brought it beyond the Trekkies, so that everybody could enjoy it. I thought the story was original enough to please old fans and different enough so that new fans wouldn't be lost or need any prior "Star Trek" knowledge. I also commend whoever decided to worked this prequel in with a time travelling bit, so that now anything goes in this parallel to the original "Star Trek" universe. It's a great idea and a great setup for future "Star Trek" projects. And, by George I can't believe I'm saying this, but I am looking forward to future "Star Trek" installments.

Patrick Approval Rating: 9/10

Star Trek @ imdb

Revisiting: Julie & Julia (DVD)

I first saw "Julie & Julia" (or "Julia & Julie" - whatever. It's basically the same both ways) in September with Mallori in Florida. I wanted to see it soley because of Ms. Meryl Streep, but figured it was a rent on DVD movie. Which it kind of is, but that's besides the point. I really liked it, thought it was memorable, and laughed quite a bit during the movie. I didn't even hate the Amy Adams parts as much as everybody else, but of course, I liked the Streep as Julia Child sequences much better. Almost makes me wish the whole movie was about her, but it's not so I digress.

Upon second viewing, I liked the Julia half even more and the Julie half even less. What an unsympathetic and selfish character Julie is. I almost don't care if she succeeds in cooking all of Julia's recipes in a year because she's such a bitch about it. But I love Amy Adams, and she does good with what she has, but compared with the other half of the movie, the Julie part sucks. Julia on the other hand is a completely charming and endearing character, how can anybody not love her?! Streep is hilarious as Julia and you can tell she had a blast playing this crazy character, which allows the audience to have fun watching her. I caught myself smiling almost every time she's on screen, speaking in that loopy falsetto, which I imitate quite often. "Bon appetit!"

Another thing that excited me much more this time around was the presence of Jane Lynch as Julia's sister. I had seen just one episode of "Glee" when I watched the movie the first time around, and I had an appreciation of Jane Lynch, but now I have a well deserved obsession with Sue Sylvester and how she "C's it and so I love her in this movie way more the second time around.

So rent it. It's a good movie to cozy up to at home with a nice warm blanket, and maybe some popcorn. Because if you don't have something to munch on, you certainly will want to shove your face with food after watching it being cooked on screen for two hours. "Bon appetit!"

Patrick Approval Rating: 6/10 for the whole movie, 9/10 for Julie half.

"Julie & Julia" @ imdb