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moonvine27
Reviews
Man Stroke Woman (2005)
Good but uneven.
Brutally tragicomic and pretty good. Parts are hilarious and the performances are great but it's also uneven and falls flat well more than once. That said, I wish I was that funny. Also, the one thing I requested NOT to see prior to viewing this, namely Nick Frost's hairy moobies, were on display no less than three times in the first episode. I wouldn't mind SO much if the women were allowed to meet (meat?) the same standard. Since the standards of the IMDb review are not, shall we say, Hemingwayesque, (min 10 lines of text required) I'll mention in passing to interested parties that there is girl kissing in one of the sketches.
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
Completely overrated
Seriously, this movie is rating 7 right now? The plot is ludicrous, the acting is not compelling, and the writing is just blah. I mean, the stunts are nice and all, special effects are all dialed out, and we get some pretty travel shots but the plot is so over the top that we found ourselves giggling in parts that were clearly intended not to be funny. I did not expect verisimilitude and was prepared for a certain amount of suspension of belief (this, after all, is a "popcorn cruncher" sort of movie and that's what we expected) but let's not strangle Credulity and leave it corpse to cool out in a dumpster, OK?
I didn't find the acting too engaging, either, much as I usually like Simon Pegg. Certainly, this sort of movie does not require the entire gamut of emotions, just A to B, to paraphrase Dorothy Parker. Even so, I would have hoped for a little more chemistry, though I suppose considering the dialogue available to the actors they did what they could.
Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills (1989)
whip smart satire
One of the unsung gems of the 1980's, Scenes... features razor-sharp satire and outstanding performances from Arnetia Walker (how did she not get a ton of roles after this?)and Wallace Shawn. It's a delicious send-up of class warfare and the people in those classes. The writing is hilarious and the characters, while not subtle, are nuanced. And, sorry, but the Asian gangs (if you can call one Japanese guy extorting one of the other characters a "gang") were not put in for "sociological value" as another review implies they should been. The value here lies in what the movie is making fun of and in the sparklingly wicked way it does it. I found it creative, funny, and idiosyncratic.