DVD Review: Julie and Julia

Rated PG13 for brief language, brief sexuality

Starring Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci

In 2002, Julie Powell is an aspiring writer but works in a cubicle at a government office in New York taking calls to lend an ear for hurting 9/11 victims. All her friends having successful jobs though and as she reaches her 30th birthday, Julie feels miserable as if she hasn't really done anything with her life, and to make matters worse, her and her husband have just moved into a tiny apartment in Queens above a pizzeria to be closer to his job. After hearing a shallow friend of hers has begun writing a blog, Julie quips that she could write a blog too, afterall, she is a writer! But what to write about? Her husband points out that she enjoys cooking, so why not write a blog about cooking? Julie likes the idea and decides that she'll cook her way through Julia Child's cookbook "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in one year - 524 recipes in 365 days - and blog about her experiences.

As Julie goes about the year, her story is segmented with the story of Julia Child's time living in France and how she became the cook we all know her as.

In 1949, Julia and her husband Paul move to Paris for a government assignment of his, where they'll be living there for 4 years. Not wanting to work as a clerk at another government agency, Julia decides she should find a fun but useful way to spend her time. She tries hat-making and then an attempt at French lessons before she realizes that she loves to eat. Having a hard time finding a French cookbook in English, Julia decides to take up cooking and enroll in Le Cordon Bleu. She also meets a duo of like-minded women who are working on a French cookbook for Americans and teach cooking as well - Julia teams up with them, having to revise the entire book for publication and well, the rest is pretty much history.

As Julie cooks her way through the infamous book, she learns plenty of lessons along the way from Julia.

Based on true stories, Julie and Julia is a heartwarming and inspirational film. Meryl Streep is spot on as the famous cook with her mannerisms and quirkiness and I love the pairing of Streep and Tucci (previously together in The Devil Wears Prada). Jane Lynch also makes a brief appearance as Julia's sister Dorothy, and plays the part very believably as it's a nice change from the usual characters she plays.

If you're curious about the life of Julia Child or enjoy fun inspirational movies or food, don't miss this one!

DVD Review: Tron

Rated PG for adult themes, tense moments

Starring Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, Cindy Morgan, Dan Shor, David Warner

Video arcade owner Kevin Flynn is a former ENCOM software engineer who has created several video games that became popular after another ENCOM employee, Ed Dillinger, stole them from him. Knowing the files have his name on it, Flynn continues to hack into the ENCOM system and find them to prove he is the rightful creator of the games. After Flynn's most recent hack attempt, Dillinger and his Master Control Program (which has a mind of its own) decide to shut down access to the level group Flynn had access to, thus locking out fellow software engineer Alan Bradley who was working on a program called Tron which would serve as a watchdog program and keep even the Master Control Program in check.

Frustrated, Alan and Flynn come together, with the help of ENCOM employee Laura. They sneak Flynn into the building so he can distract the MCP and hack in long enough to grant them all level 6 access so Alan can get his Tron program up and running, which would help find the files proof that Flynn created the games and not Dillinger.

MCP does not like though and decides to physically trap Flynn into the the world of Bytes and Bits. Having to band together with other "user controlled" programs, including Tron, Flynn must fight for his survival and work with Tron to defeat the MCP from the inside in order to escape back to his world.

Released in 1982, I'm sure this sci-fi action adventure film was groundbreaking and in a lot of ways it reminded me of Bladerunner or The Running Man. Viewing it almost 20 years later though, it's extremely dated and the graphics and special effects are just laughable. We can only hope that the upcoming Tron: Legacy film has much better, updated graphics than the original.

I have to admit, while this is a Disney film and was marketed towards families, if I had watched this in the 80s as a little kid, I would have been extremely bored and confused as to what was going on. This is definitely not a movie meant for kids, as they most likely won't understand much of what's going on.

If you like classic sci-fi films from the 80s, this is one you might be interested in.

Hot Tub Time Machine

Rated R for language, drug use, slapstick violence, sexuality

Starring John Cusack, Rob Corrdry, Craig Robinson, Clark Duke, Chevy Chase, Crispin Glover, Lizzy Caplan, Lyndsy Fonseca

In present day LA Adam's girlfriend just left him while his geeky nephew Jacob lives in his basement preferring to spend his life in the virtual world than actually go out and do something; Nick works a dead end job taking care of dogs; Lou is a party guy but comes across as the lovable jerk of the group.

When Lou ends up in the hospital after passing out in his garage due to carbon monoxide poisoning, Adam and Nick get stuck monitoring Lou, as the doctors have placed him on suicide watch, and decide to take him and Jacob to their old favorite party hot spot - Kodiak Valley Ski Resort - for a little guy time.

However, the resort is now more like a ghosttown than the hot happening place they all remember it to be. Bored, they load up on alcohol and hop into their suite's hot tub. When they wake up the next morning though, things aren't how they should be - the resort is hopping and happening again, but everyone's wearing 80s retro clothes, 80s tunes are the only songs playing, and Michael Jackson is black!

With minimal guidance from a mysterious handy-man, the guys decide they must play it safe and relive the particular weekend just as they did back in '86. Of course they run into problems though and eventually learn lessons along the way.

While many say this movie pushes the limits of the R-rated comedy even further than Apatow and Smith have, I personally thought it was much of the same, but loved it, being a sucker for 80s nostalgia.

I figured this movie would be hit or miss - either really funny or really stupid. It blends the line perfectly though, as some of the situations the characters get in are a bit ridiculous, they're tackled in such a funny way that you can't help but laugh.

Also, John Cusack was one of the producers on this film, so you know it's bound to be good, as he has yet to produce a bad film.

Another thing to note when watching - watch for references to previous Cusack films, as in the 80s, he wears clothes similar those of his character Lloyd Dobbler from the classic 80s film "Say Anything" and in one scene when they're in the hot tub, one of the characters yells out "I want my 2 dollars!" which is reference to another 80s Cusack film "Better Off Dead."

If you like R-rated comedies and the 80s, be sure to catch this one!

DVD Review: Shoot Em Up

Rated R for violence, language, some sexuality

Starring Clive Owen, Paul Giamatti, Monica Bellucci

Sitting at a bus stop on an empty street, munching on a carrot, a drifter only known as Smith sees a pregnant woman run past him. Moments later, a man with a gun comes chasing after her. Smith decides to get involved and takes out the guy, only to learn there's more - why are hitmen chasing a pregnant lady? While fighting off her attackers, Smith helps the woman deliver her child, as she goes into labor. Trying to get mother and child to safety though, the woman gets shot and killed. Unable to leave the newborn behind, Smith takes the child with him and visits a brothel mistress named Donna, known for her milk, in hopes that she can help him take care of the kid while he tries to figure out why people were trying to kill the mother and now the baby (which they call Oliver).

They are soon in the middle of a top secret arrangement, as Oliver's mother was one of several surrogates used to produce children with a politician dying of bone marrow cancer, in hopes that one of the children will be able to work as a suitable donor. Someone has found out about this though and doesn't want the politician to get better.

With tons of stylized shootout scenes that take place in non-ideal situations with sharp witty comments provided by Giamatti, Smith and Donna try to stay ahead of the bad of guys and keep baby Oliver safe.

Shoot Em Up lives up to its name, as it basically is just a movie with a lot of action and shootout scenes to a pounding, rockin' soundtrack. If you like that combination, you'll love this movie!

DVD Review: Jennifer's Body

Rated R for sexuality, partial nudity, violence and gore

Starring Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried, Adam Brody, Johnny Simmons

Anita (aka Needy) is your average high school girl. She wears glasses and works on the newspaper staff. She also dates a cute band geek named Chip. Jennifer on the other hand, is the typical hot cheerleader who has no concern for anyone but herself and is quite the tease. What do Jennifer and Needy have in common? Not much these days, but they've been friends since the sandbox days and despite being on different ends of the social circle they still remain best friends. That is, until Needy starts to think Jennifer is evil. "And not just high school evil." Needy clarifies.

Their demise all started one night when Jennifer insisted that Needy join her to see a hot Myspace promoted band perform at a local "niteclub." However the venue catches fire and Jennifer, mesmerized by the band, barely manages to escape with Needy. They run into the band's singer, who insists they join him in his band's van for safety. Needy protests, however the singer takes Jennifer by the arm and leads her way. Later that night, Jennifer shows up at Needy's home, covered in blood, growling and vomitting something "evil" all over Needy's kitchen floor before disappearing into the night. The next day at school however, Jennifer seems completely normal. But then, as the town is mourning the lives lost at the niteclub, the school's star athlete is found dead and dismembered in the nearby woods.

A few weeks later, Needy also has another strange encounter with Jennifer, as she's driving home and almost hits Jennifer, covered again in blood and not looking "human". Frightened, she high tails it home, but is startled by Jennifer in her room. The two share a brief sexual encounter before Jennifer tells Needy what she recalls of the night of the fire. Soon after she got in the van with the band, she noticed various books on witches and the occult laying around the floor ("They were like agents of Satan, but with awesome haircuts!") and the members begin asking if she is a virgin. Scared, she tells them yes ("I don't even know how to have sex!") and that they should let her go and find some girls that do know how to have sex. Soon they arrive at their destination and tie her up, preparing to sacrifice her to Satan for fame via a ritual they found online. She remembers them stabbing her repeatedly, but after that, all she knew was she was hungry, explaining that when she's not full, she feels weak. Scared, Needy tells her to leave.

At school, Needy does some research and learns about demonic transference and that if a virginal sacrifice ritual is performed on a non-virgin, then the demon gets stuck in the victim's body and has a hunger for the flesh. The only way to kill the demon is with a knife. Scared for Chip, she tells him it's not safe for them to go to the upcoming Spring formal - "It'll be a like an all-you-can-eat boy buffet!" she tells him.

Will Needy be able to put a stop to her man-eating best friend before it's too late?

To be completely honest, this movie is more Amanda Seyfried's than Megan Fox's as, despite being hot eye-candy, Fox can't carry a movie on her own. This is one of those types of movies that was intended to be a humorous B-movie (I hope) as you really can't take it too seriously. It would most likely be one of those movies that MST3K would be making fun of or our grandkids will be looking up clips of it on Youtube and laughing at how bad it is, as that's how dumb it was.

Now don't get me wrong, Diablo Cody (who also wrote Juno) has a way with words, as the dialogue in this film is pretty clever, witty and funny (after getting impaled by a giant metal rod, leaving a hole in her stomach, Jennifer asks Needy if she has a tampon she can use!) and Jennifer tends to tell it like it is in crash terms. But that doesn't make up for the ridiculiousness of the plot and the fact that Megan Fox can't act her way out of a paper bag. This film is solely Megan Fox eye-candy with witty dialogue and a stupid plot.

Do yourself a favor and unless you have someone to sit and watch a B-movie and make fun of it with, skip it. You're not really missing much.