Easy A

2010

Director: Will Gluck

Cast: Emma Stone, Amanda Bynes and Penn Badgley

Plot: A clean-cut high school student relies on the school's rumor mill to advance her social and financial standing.

Emma Stone has been of interest since her first big break as Jonah Hill's witty love interest in Superbad. Her second big movie was Zombieland, and everything that wasn't Jesse Eisenberg in that movie was pretty good in comparison, so we'll let that one slide. Since funny beautiful young actresses seem few and far between I was excited to see that she got a big starring role in the high school comedy Easy A. Emma plays Olive Pendergast, an excessively witty teenager who lies to a friend and says she's lost her virginity. This news travels fast and Olive is the new slut at her high school. Pretty basic fare thus far, so before I continue I'd like to make a small diatribe concerning the writing for this movie. What is this weird Diablo Cody idea that all high schoolers are extremely witty and mature for their age, cracking dry sarcastic comedienne worthy remarks at every single possible opportunity? I don't get it and it fucking annoys me, because high schoolers can be genuinely funny, but its not because they sound like some fantasy person with a scriptwriter in leiu of their brain's speech center. Superbad was the perfect example, people were shocked at the language, but that profanity laden juvenile banter was so much more authentic and watchable to me than that bullshit that spewed out of Juno's mouth every five seconds. Easy A came close to really bothering me in this department, but luckily Emma Stone is genuinely funny and her character is at times very sophmoric, so she was a touch more relatable. There was a similar, too-funny vibe going on with Olive's oh-so-quirky family that at times worked and at times made me want to barf. This was once again probably saved by good acting, this time on the part of Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci.

Ok, so back to the story. After everyone thinks Olive is a slut, a gay friend asks if she'll pretend to have sex with him to get bullies off his back. She does, and things quickly get out of hand as it dawns on the male population that if a girl will say she's had sex with you, or not deny it when you say it, then you can have the reputation of a stud with none of the work or know-how. This is apparently something men want in spades, and Olive is inundated with fake suitors. What does she get in return? Gift cards to Target, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Home Depot. This was shameless advertising that occurred many times without me even realizing it until I just wrote the whole list down, but still pretty funny. It seemed like something high school boys might realistically offer up for the price of a girl's reputation. I particularly liked Emma Stone's indignation when one guy attempts to give her a 20% off coupon for Bath and Body Works for her services. Damn there was another product endorsement! Then things get complicated when Olive discovers that being called the school slut really isn't that fun, particularly when you think a guy might like you when really he just thinks you sleep with people for Home Depot gift cards. The movie then quickly resolves itself in a not too interesting or entertaining matter.

The whole thing really seemed like some popular teen novel or better yet, graphic novel, turned slightly-better-than-mediocre movie, but my researching only turns up that this movie was based on The Scarlett Letter, something that is bashed over our heads many times in the movie. We get it, it is sassy that she willingly brandishes an "A" on her clothing. And I was willing to play along, but the fact that all of Olive's problems are resolved once the guy of her dream asks her out was a dumbed-down solution for a movie pretending to be a little bit smarter.

Santa's Slay

2005

Director: David Steiman

Cast: Bill Goldberg, Douglas Smith and Emilie de Ravin

Plot: Santa Claus is actually a demon who lost a bet with an Angel, so he becomes the giver of toys and happiness. But when the bet is off, he returns to his evil ways.

Since I like watching horror movies year round, I often have trouble deciding which horror movies I'd like to watch on Halloween. I love cheesy holiday films of every genre, but surprisingly Halloween-themed horror movies are harder to find than you might imagine (this year I forced Mr. Moneybags to watch Trick 'r Treat with me, not horrible, but unlikely to make its way onto Anna Paquin's resume). At Christmas time I usually go with the flow and watch all those sappy xmas classics, little did I know that the Christmas/horror merge not only existed, but was rather prolific! I was delighted to find how many options I had to choose from, there were even well-researched lists online to direct me to the more choice movies in this genre. Unfortunately, when I took my list of Christmas horror movies to my video store, some ass clown had the same idea (and list) and had rented all the major Christmas horror movies, hence I had to wait until after Christmas to see some of the more interesting titles. We watched several movies, and we still have Gary Busey's The Gingerdead Man for tonight, but our favorite had to be Santa's Slay.

First and foremost its just superior in terms of film making to most of the other movies we watched. The whole pace of Santa's Slay felt natural and entertaining, and right around the midway lagging point we were rewarded with a pretty awesome snow mobile chase sequence! Really awesome, our main characters jumped cars, huge hills, basically any and everything that came into view on that snow mobile. In general the killing sequences were also pretty good, sort of similar to the Terminators opening sequence only instead of Arnold, its Santa walking around taking out groups of dumbfounded people in bars, strip clubs, etc. Then you have professional wrestler Bill Goldberg as Santa, which was compelling since he looked pretty scary. This is no trivial point, many Christmas horror movies have a real hard time making their Christmas-themed villians scary, for instance it was hard to feel spooked by the evil snowman in Jack Frost just because his eyebrows were pointed down menacingly. Luckily, Bill Goldberg's huge hulking form and exuberance make up for his cute Santa suit, and he still comes across as someone you wouldn't fuck around with.

Unfortunately, the storyline of Santa's Slay is not one of its strong points, so I won't go into explaining why Santa is actually the spawn of Satan or why he has got it out for our main protagonist. I will mention that the favorite Canadian pastime, curling, does feature heavily in the story, and that the main backstory is told in a claymation sequence, fun! One of my only other complaints is that Santa's Slay had the capacity to perhaps go a bit more serious and scary, but instead remained mostly comedic throughout. Overall it was a great little holiday gem, which is a lot more than I think I'll be able to say about The Gingerdead Man tonight.

White Men Can't Jump

1992
Director: Ron Shelton
Cast: Woody Harrelson, Wesley Snipes, and Rosie Perez

Plot: Black and white basketball hustlers join forces to double their chances.

It's Hard to Dunk When You're 5'10'' like Woody (and Wesley?)
by C. True

Woody Harrelson plays the doofy white chump (who played a little college ball) come to hustle black street basketball players in early 90’s LA. The basketball games are well filmed and play out as tense and serious games that are given enough screen time to make them exciting without making this a sport-driven movie. It’s also partly about the generic comedy of a doofy white chump teamed up with a fast-talking black man, but it’s really a little sweeter and less stereotypical than that may sound. The real selling point of the movie is the originality of the story line that bounces to unlikely places. Instead of one long con movie, the hustler movie allows for several cons and in this movie they avoid repetition as the viewer and main characters are often surprised by who is and who isn’t in on the con. On top of these there is a mobster/money conflict and a sweet and funny aside when Woody’s girlfriend, played by Rosie Perez, lives her dream by appearing on Jeopardy. Overall the movie works because it finds a nicer balance between well-written characters, plot, and comedy than most. And perhaps most impressive is that this movie really never strays into cheese. There’s nothing I hate more than the cheap ending of girl and boy getting back together for no better reason than two hours are over, and this movie decidedly misses clichés of this sort and comes off as a little more watchable.

And I feel like I shouldn't, but I just love Rosie Perez and she's great in this movie. It's not just that she's sassy, it's that she does sass better than anyone.