Spike Lee vs. Tyler Perry! Place Your Bets!

I never knew that Spike Lee really disliked Tyler Perry's films. We all know that Mr. Perry has all control over his stage productions and films, despite him trying to force the messages of God in our brains, the formula of doing so with stereotypical African-Americans. While folks like Korey have admitted that Perry's humor has gotten sharper in his latest flick, Madea's Big Happy Family, than his others of the past, I will never disrespect the man but won't see any of his films. There might be more Madea but I'm just keeping my distance. Spike Lee, on the other hand, need to create some better films than, what was the hated one? The one that was made just because he felt director/actor Clint Eastwood didn't show his interpretation of African-Americans in his war film Flags of Our Fathers? Check out the audio, while it's still available, to understand why there's the hate between these two men.

http://bit.ly/eOzMzw

Article about the same story found here: http://bit.ly/etRyt0

Spill.com audio review of Madea's Big Happy Family.

Ya'll Going to 'Flip' Over This

I was never into the Flip camcorder. If I recall, this little device was supposed to handle with having 1 gigabyte's worth of video and photos. While the device was also a bit expensive, I wonder how fast they'll be off store shelves because of the news. Had I bought one, it would have been used to get some great interviews with anime convention attendees as well as some of the panels and skits performed in the annual Masquerade shows. Oh well, business is business.

Rest of the story found here: http://yhoo.it/ffkuvT

Glee's a Bit Overstuffed

I've realized that I'm definitely in the minority who doesn't care to watch Glee whether on DVD, iTunes, Hulu, or Tuesday evenings at home. Oh sure, I',ll check it out every once in a while, but with this 90 minute episode in the works later this month, it's best for me to stay away. For those people who are interested, the new 90-episode, possible ratings-hit, is all about accepting who we are through the music of Lady gaga. Why haven't she been covered recently? How should I know? All I'm trying to figure out is why would Fox want this episode to be 90 minutes rather than the original one-hour format (pretty much 45+ minutes without commercials).

Is the network desperate for more attention? It's been getting quite enough with this cash cow. My complaints about the show have been as follows:

1) Not enough original songs (which was, then, fixed recently with songs such as 'Loser Like Me' which sounds like more creativity might have been used for the lyrics than both the lyrics AND the song titles).

2) I could care less about the story especially when the show continued to deal with Kurt coming out of the closet which dragged on more than Riley's coming out and rejection of being gay in Degrassi.

Would you watch the 90-minuted 'Lady Gaga' themed episode? Comment below and tell me what you think. 

If anyone interested in reading more about the plot synopsis, check it out here.

This 'Sister' Has 'Soul'

 

I saw one of the four new films released this coming Friday, Soul Surfer, this evening and couldn’t think of anything bad about it other than wondering about why Carrie Underwood was in this when the Hamilton Family (with Helen Hunt and Dennis Quaid as the parents), Alana (Lorraine Nicholson), fan letters, and the country of Thailand providing more hope and inspiration for Bethany Hamilton (Annasophia Robb) to continue on pushing to reach her dream of being a pro surfer. Robb amazed me with her performance and triumphs all of hers from the past including that of her last film Race to Witch Mountain. If you don’t cry through the film, I recommend you to check out Bethany’s time in Thailand where we were presented with the sweetest and sentimental scenes that make you forget about how the film didn’t try to make you cry before….well after seeing what happens to our heroine.
If your daughters are looking for an inspirational film, look no further unless you still believe that Sucker Punch is the best women’s empowerment film of the year.

Note: I liked Sucker Punch. The majority of the movie attending world doesn’t.

With little to complain about the film, I give it four gnarly waves out of four.

Longer review below:

When I was looking through rottentomatoes.com's percentage rating for the film, the quote mentioned in its Tomatometer made me think back to Tuesday night when the film, while I felt that the film wasn't bogged down by these things stated after the quote, I could see why people would be turned off by them.

"There's an amazing true story at the heart of Soul Surfer -- and unfortunately, it's drowned by waves of Hollywood cheese."

1) The dialogue is hit-and-miss. Often, you'll hear quotes from the Bible or lines that you've heard in other films. For example: "I can do all things through Him that gives me strength." For me, it's been one of the pieces of information from my home church that have stayed in my mind for years. For those people who may not be into God, He's mentioned a few times, but through the rest of the film, the determination comes from Bethany herself along with her parents. Another example comes at the very end of the film where I felt that it connected with what has been going on with the Bethany in the real world, it came off as a "heard/read it all before" moment. If you can guess what line I'm thinking about, I'll think of a prize to give you. I'll even help you get started:

"The end..." Figure out the rest.

2) Wasted Cameos: While I may not know anything about the surfing pros who were in the film, seeing 90's live-action Hercules (you know there's only one) and Mr. Incredible in this film was quite the surprise. I guess they were brought to tears when reading the original source material for the film and wanted to take part. Maybe they wanted to say, 'Hey, we may not have done a lot of films but our careers haven't died and neither have we.' They don't really do much, even though one of them is the father of Bethany's best friend (who is absolutely stunning beauty-wise), and don't really add much to the plot. Without them, the movie wouldn't have been hurt. How about Carrie Underwood? You could tell that she was brought up in a very religious family and plays the role of the youth minister perfectly, but anyone could have played the role. One thing I noticed was when she cried, she did it beautifully. In short, I didn't see not one drip of mascara in a heart-to-heart talk with Annasophia which didn't have enough impact. I mean I really felt the pain from Robb but with Underwood, there were some sniffles but other than that, Underwood wasn't used to her full potential.

3) The Rivalry: It made me think about the film Cars with Chick Hicks trying to give Lightning McQueen a run for his money. Then, I remembered the rival of the title characters of the original and remake of the first Karate Kid when they were complete jerks then gave respect to them at the end of the films. This is the same with Bethany and her rival Malina (Sonya Balmores) who, unlike Chick Hicks, was more like the Karate Kid rivals/bullies and didn't feel like much of a threat. Maybe she was like that in real life or the rivalry was written to give Bethany a foil character but it did give her more determination to be the best and ride the waves without thinking about her missing limb.

Other than these mentioned points,.I don't want to talk bad about the film because I liked it even if I don't see myself getting the DVD, but it's good enough for a rental if you end up missing it in theaters. For the young girls of any age, again, you can't do wrong with this. If you check out any of the other films this week, that's fine. Soul Surfer is one that will catch you by surprise.