86 - The House Bunny

Connection To THE HELP - Emma Stone

So sue me - The House Bunny - is the sort of film I enjoy - funny, light, pretty (and likable) ladies - so easy to watch, it stars three women I particularly enjoy watching - Anna Faris, Emma Stone and Kat Dennings and is does have a good energy going for it (and no-way where's out it's welcome).

I have honestly seen The House Bunny about 4 times now - more times then I've seen Schindler's List (which I've seen 3 times), obviously List is a classic, which brings me to the reason I brought it up... it seems a lot of people can tend to ignore the virtues of a movie just existing to entertain and thus a film like The House Bunny is not meant to be brought up in the same breath as Schindler's List, it's just after a crap day and I just want to relax and there the only 2 films I could watch, The House Bunny is going to get chosen 9 out of the 10 times.

I think one of the appeals of The House Bunny (besides the three actresses I mentioned) is that it sort of takes the piss out of the whole make-over thing - I think most of the girls of this unpopular sorority more just need to get some confidence in themselves, the makeovers work from them because somebody finally believes in them, Emma Stone's character just is not comfortable in front of boys and it's never in doubt she's pretty to the audience (how many have films have pretty much told us the clearly pretty girl is meant to be ugly) and all the girls including Faris' ex-Playboy bunny all learn from each other.

Now like I said I'm not here to pretend it's high art, and it's not necessarily out original - it seems every college films involving sororities or whatever after have an underdog and an evil counterpart - of course when men, and other people start giving the girls attention they start becoming more like the other sororities until they can find the right balance.

Casting wise the girls all deliver likable performances including those I haven't mentioned like Rumer Willis and Katherine McPhee and Hugh Hefner plays himself and doesn't really do too bad, I would complain the Colin Hanks as Faris' love interest though as very little do - so much that he might as well have not featured in the movie at all.

Overall, a movie that I will probably see multiple times more and still like it as much, if you want some dumb but with a heart (much like Faris' tittle character) then this is the movie for you.

6 - Leave It To Beaver

Connection To THE RICH MAN'S WIFE - Shooter McGavin Christopher McDonald.

I remember watching Leave It To Beaver on the original Comedy Channel in the UK in the early 90's, it left such an impression on me that I don't really remember it besides the name - and enough of an impact then that in Scrooged - the Father Loves Beaver bit, I thought was just a reference to this and this alone, my kiddie mind didn't make the other connection.

So maybe choosing a movie version of a sit-com I barely remember might not the same memories for me if I watched the movies based on The Addams Family or The Brady Bunch for example, they where shows I remember very well (and love the films too boot).

The first question I have to ask myself about this film is what decade is this movie set? This is of course a rhetorical question with it's references to Brad Pitt and Gameboy it's obviously set in the decade it was made - the 90's, but the characters all act like, well... a sit-com from the 1950's.

I'm not sure that's where the problem lies, but it feels like say the opposite to The Brady Bunch movies, it doesn't want to make fun (even in a loving way) of the original show and it's conventions and seems more like a 50's sit-com script updated to the 90's with a few minor changes.

The jokes mostly miss the spot, really because they are so gentle - you wouldn't even say they are unfunny, I think they just aspire to be safe and soft. I thought most of the child actors where pretty poor - not quite as bad as most of the kids from the 94 Little Rascals movie but there just on the weak side, I hate having a go at kids performances but just it's noticeable when a cast is top-heavy with younger performers

Overall, the film just falls flat, mainly because other TV updates have just done it better. Maybe if I loved the original show I might have viewed differently - to be honest though I don't really think that would be the case

5 - The Rich Man's Wife

Connection To PERMANENT MIDNIGHT - Peter Greene.

Halle Berry - it seems to me many, many years from now she still will go down as an Oscar Winner - the first black woman to win Best Actress - that will never get took away from her, I just think her whole career will go down as a bit meh, I'm not saying she's had a bad career, it's just it's a career more Gothika, B*A*P*S, Catwoman, Perfect Stranger etc. and I'm not saying somebody should be completely blamed on their worst movies it's just whenever she's, besides an odd few the films are far from classic.

That above paragraph is not me saying I dislike Halle Berry and I was trying to be polite about it, that's me saying, hey if a film says it stars Halle Berry and it's on the shelf in a shop I'll think twice (or thrice) about picking it up to watch.

The Rich Man's Wife is from 1996 and is from before she started being considered an A-List actress, she was known there just wasn't a bonafide hit or critically acclaimed film with her name on it and it would be 4-5 years before that really changed in my opinion.

The Rich Man's Wife is something I've never seen before, I recall it being on the satellite movie channels but I just never settled on it and to be honest I could have gone the rest of my life without seeing it, the best possible thing I can say about it that's a run-of-the-mill thriller.

Halle Berry stupidly mentions that she is sometimes fantasizes about her husband's death to Peter Greene, who she doesn't really know which is pretty stupid since it's evident Greene is a bit on the crazy side, he "shockingly" ends up becoming aggressive when she spurns his advances, the passage of time happens and Berry and her husband (whose played by Shooter McGavin, I should have mentioned earlier) start to mend the relationship, but Greene ends up killing him and demands $30,000 off Berry for the silence.

For a thriller it's certainly... thrill-less, you can't really critique Greene's performance, he is decent as the psychopath, it's just not a great film with weak-ass motivations, Clea Lewis who has a couple of scenes should also be signaled out for how enjoyable she is. I should also say Clive Owen is in this, I had no idea he was making a film in America this early - for most of the movie he really doesn't have much to work with though.

I can't really hate on Halle Berry's performance because it's not fair to call it bad - it's a film of obvious twists and turns (I knew a character would be involved from their first scene) and the police that it keeps cutting back to just sort of seem ineffectual and they don't really have much bearing on anything related to the main plot.

Overall, I just don't think there is not enough to recommend of this movie, it feels like a been there, done it, seen it all before sort of thriller, this is the sort of thing that will end up becoming a distant memory even in weeks to come.