Made of Honor

Rated PG13 for sexual innuendo, homosexual jokes, and some language

Starring Patrick Dempsey

Getting married in September, I can't refuse seeing a movie about weddings. This one had potential - a playboy male being his best friend's maid of honor and tackling all the duties that a MoH has. However, they chose instead to make him fall for his best friend and try to break up the wedding from the inside so he can win her over. Hm... where have we seen this before? Oh yeah, back in the 90s with Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz in My Best Friend's Wedding.

Don't waste your time on this one and go rent the Roberts/Diaz version - you'll save money and it's a better version of the same story.

Doomsday

Rated R for violence, language, cannibalism, gore

Starring Rhona Mitra, Bob Haskins

In 2008, a virus, known as the Reaper virus, spread throughout Scotland, in causing Britian to put up a wall to keep all the infected in, as to not plague the rest of the UK. No one knows how it was started or why it chose to infect those it did - the virus just happened. Fast forward 27 years into the future, to the year 2035 and the virus is back, this time plaguing London. Turns out, the survilance that was set on the other side of the wall, has been picking up signs of surviors over the last 3 years. Could one of the skilled doctors left on the otherside of the wall have discovered the cure to the virus? The Dept of Domestic Security has 48 hrs to find the doctor and get the cure before the plague takes over the city.

This movie was sooo bad it was good!

It’s a little bit Escape from New York meets LOTR crossed with Gladiator and a trip to Medeval Times plus a visit from the Black Knight and cannablistic Scottish skinheads in the setting of an apocolypse movie. Think of cheesy bad 80s action movies with Frankie Goes to Hollywood in the background.

Aside from the cannibal scene, I’d have to say Doomsday and Bank Job are the 2 best movies of 2008, that I have seen, so far.

If you want a fun, action packed film and don’t mind a bit of over exaggerated gore, be sure to catch this one - I could easily see it becoming a cult classic much in the same fashion of as Army of Darkness.

Horton Hears a Who

Rated G

Starring Jim Carrey, Steve Carell

It’s been a long time since I read or watched the original Dr. Seuss story of Horton the elephant and the tiny speck he finds, in which Whoville is located, but I must say, I enjoyed this one much better than I enjoyed the Grinch remake (note - How the Grinch Stole Christmas was one of my favorite Christmas shows growing up and I hated how much they changed the simple story in the big screen adaption).

Jim Carrey as the voice of Horton really makes this film, as he plays the role so well. The anime-type scene in the middle was woot as well.

This definitely a good one to take the family to, as it’s geared towards kids (and kids at heart) of all ages.

Step Up 2: The Streets

Rated PG13 for teen sexuality

Like "Save the Last Dance" we're introduced to Andie who's mom died when she was a kid. Before she died she told Andie to be true to herself. Dancing was something that she used to be into with her mom, so she joined a street crew named the 4-1-0 to dance like the dancers her and mom used to watch back in the day on the streets. After a prank her crew pulls in a city subway, her foster parent (mom's best friend) gets fed up, as the news declares dancing to be dangerous (oh noes!) and threatens to ship her off to Texas to live with her aunt. As her last chance to change, Andie gets into the Maryland School of the Arts, but being a good student hinders her time with crew. Whatever will she do when they turn on her? Can she still compete and win The Streets competition?

Some of the dance scenes were kind of cool to watch - mainly the big dance off competition at the end and the subway prank they do at the very beginning - it reminded me of the Happenings/Fluxes movements that artists did in the 70s where they knew what they were doing, but the audience had no clue that they were part of the performance.

The rest of the movie... totally cliche. A typical high school teenybopper film.

The Bank Job

Rated R for language, violence, nudity, sexuality

Starring Jason Statham, Safron Burrows

Based on London's "Walkie Talkie Robbery" of 1971, this is probably the first really good movie of the 2008, if you can get past the first 20 minutes. And no, it's not just because I think Jason Statham is f'ing hot.

Before the opening credits, I felt like I was watching a porno at the amount of sex and nudity that were being shown, and then after the credits, there's quite a bit of T&A in a scene that takes place in a bar for a bachelor party and another scene that takes place with gov't officials in a whorehouse. But once you get past the 20 min, the rest of the film was great, as you make sense of everything you had seen prior.

Michael X is a black activist with a dirty record of his own. After assaulting some guy of importance and being taken to court for it, they decide to try and press him on drug charges as well. However, as leverage, he claims to have some steamy photos of someone in the royal family on vacation, and he plans to use them to keep out of jail. In order to make sure these photos don't see the light of day, London's MI-5 comes up with a plot to pass info onto a group of former thieves that the vault which the photos are stored in will have its alarm disable for 1 weekend only, in hopes that their mole can get the photos for them.

Although the heist itself is done by the first half to 2/3rds of the movie, the aftermath of the the heist is where things really start to pick up, as the vault they broke into and stole items from stored even more pictures of public officials in compromisable situations, as well as information on crooked cops. Now the unknowning police aren't the only ones after our band of thieves!

Not one for the kiddies, but if you can sit through the first 20 min or so of random T&A (which it all makes sense in the aftermath of the heist), definately don't miss this one, as plot-wise, it really is the best film of the year so far.

And although Jason Statham does go a little bit Transporter at the end, he really does a good job actually getting to act in this film, rather than just beat bad guys senseless while looking-good.

Juno

Rated PG13 for teen sexuality, language

Starring Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, and JK Simmons

Juno (Page) is your typical high school teen - she plays guitar, hangs out with her best friends and has a hamburger phone. Bored while hanging out with her best guy pal (Cera) one afternoon, they decide to have sex. A little while later, she finds out shes pregnant. At first she decides she'll just get an abortion and be done with it, but once she gets to the clinic, she freaks out and decides that maybe an adoption would be better, as she's much too young to raise a kid.

It's a sweet light comedy about teenage pregnancy and adoption. Her parents, while shocked at first when she tells them the news (her dad retorts he had hoped the bad news was that she was failing school or on drugs) they are very supportive and understanding about the whole ordeal.

It's directed by Arrested Developement's Jason Bateman and the Oscar-nominated screenplay is a first by former stripper Diablo Cody who's blog was what got her noticed.

Cloverfield

Rated PG13 for violence, language

What would happen if a giant monster started destroying Manhattan out of nowhere?

Well in JJ Abrams' Cloverfield it pretty much gives you an account of what it could be like.

Think Blair Witch meets Godzilla.

We're introduced at the very beginning, a la home video style, to Beth and Rob. Then fast forward the tape to a month later and we learn that Rob is leaving for job in Japan and his brother Jason and Jason's girlfriend Lily are planning a huge surprise going away party for him. Lily tells Jason his job is to spend the night documenting the party and capturing people's goodbyes to Rob on video, sort of like they do at weddings. Jason doesn't want though and suckers Rob's best friend Hud into doing the job all night.

Drama ensues at the party and then all hell breaks lose after midnight. Scrambling to find out what's going on and escape the city together, Hud captures the entire night of chaos on film.

While it's an interesting way to film a godzilla-type movie, it does feel very realistic. The dialogue reminds me of some of my friends and how we would react in that type of situation, as well as it just makes you feel like you're there as it's happening with the first person point of view. Only thing nice is that you're not running out of breath or running for your life.

If you don't like 'shakey cam' or get motion sickness easily I'd suggest skipping this one - first time I saw it i was fine, but then the 2nd time I ate a bunch of nachos at the beginning and started to feel them a bit later on...

27 Dresses

Jane (Katherine Heigl) loves being a bridesmaid. She loves all the wedding planning and assistance that goes with the job of maid of honor and does everything she can to make sure the couple's day is the happiest. Jane is also madly in love with her boss, George. But when kid sister Tess starts seeing George under false pretenses and then they get engaged, it makes things ackward for Jane. Wanting to be there for her sister and fullfill her duties as the happy bridesmaid she's supposed to be, she has a hard time sitting back and watching Tess lie to the man she loves. On top of that, she has the newspaper Commitment's reporter (James Marsden) 'stalking' her.What's a girl to do?

Written by the same crew that did "Devil Wears Prada," it was a cute girly, wedding movie. Predicatible no doubt, but cute nonetheless.

Jumper

Rated PG13 for violence

Starring Hayden Christensen, Samuel L. Jackson

In this one, Hayden Christensen learns in his early jr high/high school years that he can 'jump' from one place to another, so long as he can visual the place he's 'jumping' to. Using this ability, he's able to travel the world. Lunch in Paris, surfing in Fiji, drinking in Ireland, relaxing in the sun in Egypt. And that's not even a full day! Turns out though, he's not the only one of his kind and there are those that don't think his kind should exist.

Apparently, there's an entire backstory/prequel that explains things a bit more in the books/graphic novels, than the movie let's you know. It was a fun action/adventure movie, but only if you take it at face value. Once you start including logic, you'll find a lot of unanswered questions and things that don't quite make sense the more you think about them. But was pretty clever for being just a fun entertaining film.

Definitely, Maybe

Rated PG13 for language, sexuality

Starring Ryan Reynolds, Abigail Breslin, Elizabeth Banks, Isla Fischer

Ryan Reynolds is William Hayes who finds himself being served divorce papers. Every week he spends several days with his pre-teen daughter Maya (Abigail Breslin, who's really starting to look like she's growing up). One night, she inquires as to how her dad and mom ended up together and what went wrong. In the process, we flashback to 1992, as Will relives his 3 serious love interests, although changing the names along the way, so Maya has to guess which one ended up being her mother: his college sweetheart "Emily", the smart seductive writer "Summer", and the loyal best friend through thick and thin "April".

It's the cute clever Valentine's Day movie for 2008. If it were 10-20 years ago, John Cusack would have been playing the main character. Personally, I thought it hit a bit too close to home, especially when it came to Will and April, as she's been the loyal friend wanting to be the girlfriend for so long, etc...