106 - Small Apartments

Connection To MONSTERS UNIVERSITY - Billy Crystal.

You know I ended up liking this movie more then I thought I would I think I might have entered it with a little bit of prejudice, maybe because I'd heard the word quirky being mentioned (see Ghost World for me talking about quirky) and the film gradually got more enjoyable as the film went on.

While the beginning - the aftermath of what looks like a murder - is not really as intriguing, I wasn't wondering what had happened - Matt Lucas with the dead body of his landlord and Lucas is clearly not running on all cylinders, and over this we meet a series of characters, which is where the more time we spend with them the better it gets.

We have residents of the apartment block played by James Caan, Johnny Knoxville and Juno Temple among others and I chose them three particularly because they stood out the most for me - there is also none resident roles for Dolph Lundgren and James Marsden who I won't spoil their roles too much but are enjoyable. The film however belongs to none-resident Billy Crystal and a fire chief detective investigating the murder (makes sense in the context of the film), which to me proves Crystal is still capable of great work if the material is right.

Overall it's probably a film I may never watch again but it did creep up on me, by the end I had forgot about not been interested in the beginning but I would say watch it, like me you might end up liking it.

58 - Santa's Slay

Connection To CARRIE - Emilie de Ravin.

For me it's impossible for me to hate a film like Santa's Slay - it knows it's premise is ridiculous and it just goes out there and as much fun as it can, on for me it was a very fun film

The opening scene is a case of dead star walking - 4 famous (or famous enough) faces gets slaughtered by Santa Claus (Bill Goldberg) - they are Rebecca Gayheart, Chris Kattan, Fran Drescher and James Caan, all of these are Jewish as is Goldberg - and is an extremely enjoyable opening scene seeing these horrible people die (the characters not the actors, I've not met any of them so can't speak on that).

Watching Santa's Slay just breezes by, well it only really comes in at about 80 minutes - there's a lot of Christmas related deaths - exploding presents, drowning in the eggnog that make the film always entertaining. We even get an animated scene in the vein of Frosty The Snowman which helps tell the back-story of Santa being the son of Satan.

Of the two leads I'd certainly say the very pretty Emilie de Ravin leaves more of an impression on the screen then Douglas Smith, who doesn't really leave that much of an impression. There is other great support from Saul Rubinek and Robert Culp, who overall gave the film a cast better then the type of film seems to attract.

Overall, the movie is just a lot of fun, kind of wish I got the chance to see this for the first time around Christmas time, but that's not really a complaint to do with a film just my timing.