Teen Critics Enjoys Four Christmases

Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn enjoy Four Christmases (New Line)

By Janeane White

Four Christmases (opens November 26 throughout San Diego) is an amazingly funny movie. It's about this couple -- Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) -- that has been dating for three years yet still don't know each other as well as they think they do. Every year they go on some vacation around the world for the holidays and make up some lame excuse to tell their families as to why. They claim they are helping children in third world countries make quilts or are helping vaccinate people on some island because you see "you can't spell families without lies," as brad and his family would say. Every year for every occasion there is a different excuse. This year they plan to go to Fiji but their flight gets cancelled due to weather problems. to make things worse they end up being filmed for the news about their cancelled flight. Their families see this footage and immediately start calling and arranging for them to come over and spend the holidays with them. This leads to them learning things about each that they thought they would never speak about again. Kate learns Brad's real name and Brad learns Kate isn't what she used to be.

I loved this movie! It was hilarious. The lines that were said and the things that these characters had to endure were great. Vaughn and Witherspoon made such a perfect couple too. They believed in the same views and they totally loved each other. They both agreed that marriage wasn't for them but through the movie you see a change in their point of view. I think that it's important for couples to know everything about their partner and sometimes it's necessary. This movie does a good job of showing how most people grow up in insane households and that everyone has some sort of embarrassing past. These two just take it to the extreme though. When most say their family is crazy, it's usually an overstatement. But in this case it is true.

I think that if you get a chance to see Four Christmases (rated PG-13 for some sexual humor and language) you definitely should. It was a great film and kept me laughing pretty much the whole time. I give this film a thumbs up!

--Janeane White is a senior at Mount Miguel High School. She enjoys movies and spends all her time at the theater. She is also interested in special effects makeup done in the movies. She is an honors student and is currently working towards early graduation. Some of her favorite movies include Queen of the Damned, Hellboy, The Descent, the Underworld series, and the Saw series.

Pride and Glory Delivers Mostly Formula for Teen Critic

Edward Norton plays a cop in Pride and Glory (New Line)

By Janeane White

Pride and Glory (currently in San Diego theaters) is another one of those films about good and bad cops fighting drug lords but then joining them. This particular story is about a family of cops. The father was in the NYPD, and has two sons that grow up to drive the black and whites. His daughter also married a man in a blue uniform. The son-in-law (Jimmy and played by Colin Farrell) is under the command of the oldest son. But Jimmy's dealing drugs and killing people behind his brother-in-law's back.

There is a lot of blood from cops beating people up but at least in the end there is justice. The truth about the corrupt cops is discovered, and the people take the problems into their own hands. I felt that the movie was long and drawn out. There weren't many fight scenes. Sometimes hardly anything was happening and I lost interest. I felt like I had seen this movie before in others that have come out in the last few years. And movies like Body of Lies and Max Payne that just recently came out in theaters. There are several more that have the same underlying plot about bad cops. Overall, I was not impressed. There was extremely foul language and every other word seemed to be the f bomb flying out. It became annoying and irritating. I eventually lost interest with the whole movie. I'm not a fan of the overuse of foul language. I understand that this movie is rated R but still, the bad language is just overdone. Another thing I didn't particularly care for is that how could the brothers not see what was going on with each other? How could the commanding officer not know that practically his entire unit was acting as if they were above the law? These cops wanted to run all this covert activity to get money and drugs. But for what? To lose their badge and their honor? These cops sold their pride and their glory of being a cop to the highest bidders. These guys loved nothing more then being cops but what is the point if they really aren't being cops, but bullies? I didn't like this movie because I have seen this movie, or at least the storyline, way too many times.

In my Film as Lit class we are watching movies within the film noir unit and I see even more of the same type of films made 20 to 40 years ago -- bad cops doing bad things to make a profit. This film is not one I would recommend people wasting their money on seeing. If you want to see the horrible justice system then go to Blockbuster or Hollywood Video and rent almost any other cop action movie and see the same thing.

--Janeane White is a senior at Mount Miguel High School. She enjoys movies and spends all her time at the theater. She is also interested in special effects makeup done in the movies. She is an honors student and is currently working towards early graduation. Some of her favorite movies include Queen of the Damned, Hellboy, The Descent, the Underworld series, and the Saw series.

Trio of Teen Critics Disappointed by Max Payne

Teen critics left wanting by Max's pain (Twentieth Century Fox)

By Nick Alva

Max Payne (opened October 17 throughout San Diego) is a film based off a video game sold for the PS2 in 2001 it is an action film. It is about a man trying to find the killers of his family, the film begins at the end of the story and transitions back to the beginning. After the murder of Max's family he transfers to the cold case section of the police station obsessed with trying to find the last person involved in the murder of his family. He continues living his life for the sole purpose of getting revenge. The movie is filled with action packed scenes and some of the special features in the video game are shown in the film as well. Features like Max's slow motion mode and him flying in the air still shooting his gun. The film mostly takes place in the snowy dark setting of New York. The storyline of the film is very different from the video game but both are driven by a revenge plotline.

When I was waiting to watch this film I was filled with excitement because I liked the video game so much. But as soon as I started watching the film, I almost fell asleep, When I hear Max Payne I quickly think of killing criminals jumping off walls, and flying in the air while still killing people. But the film was the complete opposite with more talking than action, which was not what I expected in the Max Payne film. It reminded me more of the CSI TV show. Don't get me wrong, the few action scenes in the Max Payne movie were insane and had me jumping off my seat but there weren't enough. However, I believe that Mark Wahlberg does an excellent job in this film as the title character and he fit the role perfectly. Other than that, the film was a disappointment and didn't grab my attention. I suppose if you like the game you would like this film, but if you're the kind of person who likes to see good movies then I wouldn't recommend viewing this film, it would only disappoint you.

Rachel Getting Married

Anne Hathaway stars in Rachel Getting Married (Sony Pictures)

Recently, Jonathan Demme has seemed more interested in documentary than narrative film. Plus his documentaries (Jimmy Carter Man from Plains; Neil Young: Heart of Gold and especially The Agronomist) have been far better crafted and more compelling than his narrative films (The Manchurian Candidate, The Truth About Charlie). But with his latest film Rachel Getting Married (opening October 10 at Landmark's La Jolla Village and Hillcrest Cinemas) Demme returns to fine narrative form and finds some of the energy that made his early work so good.

Trailer Tuesday: The Tale of Despereaux

With a talking Chihuahua topping the box office this past weekend, I thought it would be appropriate to look to another talking animal film scheduled for holiday release. Rodents have always been a popular choice for animation -- besides the venerable Mickey we've had mice and rats in Ratatouille, Stuart Little, The Rescuers, The Secret of NIHM, Flushed Away and Charlotte's Web. Arriving this Christmas is a mouse described as too big for his small world, Despereaux (voiced by Matthew Broderick). Based on the award-winning Kate DiCamillo book, The Tale of Despereaux promises adventure as we follow the big-eared Despereaux who defies the mousy tradition of being scared of everything. As with Ratatouille, the film offers the pairing of a rodent and a chef. Also providing voice talent are Kevin Kline, Tracey Ullmann and Dustin Hoffman. And once again you will find multiple directors at the helm (I still don't know why animated films alsways seem to need multiple directors): Sam Fell, Rob Stevenhagen and writer Gary Ross are all credited as directors in the early press materials. Fell comes from Aardman Studios, which is a plus. The trailer is courtesy of Universal.

Religulous

Bill Maher interviews Christ at the Holy Land Experience in Religulous (Lionsgate)

With nearly a dozen films and two festival to cover this week, I'll get to as much as I can today. Top of my list, though, is the Bill Maher-Larry Charles documentary Religulous (opening October 3 at Landmark's Hillcrest and La Jolla Village Theaters). Maher describes himself as a non-believer and he sets out to ask believers why they believe. Now this is not designed as a comprehensive, balanced exploration of faith and religion. It is a very personal take on faith and religion, and on the role they both take in American culture, society, and politics. Think of it like a humorous op ed piece, and as the funniest film so far this year.

Sixth Annual San Diego Women’s Film Festival

Rachel Getting Married is the opening night feature for this year's San Diego Women's Film Festival (Sony Pictures Classics)

There's something of a festival bunch up this weekend as the San Diego Women's Film Festival and the San Diego Italian Film Festival (more on this later) compete for audiences this weekend. The San Diego Women's Film Festival kicks off its sixth season today with two youth outreach programs at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park. Then the festival goes into full swing tomorrow at the Reading Gaslamp Theaters downtown with the San Diego premiere of Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married starring Anne Hathaway and written by Sidney Lumet's daughter Jenny. The festival is Southern California's longest running women film festival and this year plays host to fifty films including five features. The goal of the Festival is to empower young women through positive film media and promote women filmmakers and their films. This year the festival also boasts a new curator, Citizen Video's Holly Jones. You can also listen to this morning's These Days discussion of this year's festival with Holly Jones and I.

WALL-E is Out of This World

Pixar scores another hit with WALL-E says our KPBS Teen Critic (Walt Disney)

By Vikram Bhoyrul

Over the last couple years Pixar has delivered some fantastic animated movies such as Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille. All of these films were entertaining for all age groups and were definitely re-watchable. So it goes without saying that WALL-E (opening June 27 throughout San Diego) had a lot to live up to. I was skeptical at first. The trailer wasn't anything spectacular and all in all it just seemed very childish. Now after watching WALL-E, I can honestly say that Pixar has given us another fantastic animated movie. It may have even topped its predecessors.

WALL-E is far more entertaining and deep than the trailer lets on. What looks like a good kid's movie full of slapstick humor is in fact a phenomenal movie with a love story slipped in. When you feel happy for a two-foot, trash collecting robot you know that there is something special about the movie. WALL-E starts off hundreds of years in the future when mankind has finally exhausted all of Earth's natural resources and filled the world up with too much junk, making Earth unsustainable for life. Conditions have become so bad that all of the humans have left Earth to live on luxury space cruises where their every need is catered to by robots. They become so dependent on technology that they do absolutely nothing and after 700 years have become morbidly obese. I saw this as a nice commentary on man's current mistreatment of the environment and the obesity epidemic that has hit America.

After all the humans leave Earth, all that is left behind are clean-up robots that pile trash thousands of feet high in order to clean up the planet. The last of the robots left is the main character WALL-E. WALL-E suffers from loneliness and although he has the world literally to himself all he wants is someone to hold his hand. Although the movie may have started off a little slow by the time the female robot was introduced into the story, things really picked up and so began WALL-E's incredible adventure through the final frontier in his search for love.

WALL-E (rated G for all audiences) was very entertaining and is a great movie for all ages.

Vikram Bhoyrul is a senior at The Bishop's School in La Jolla. For years film has been a passion of his. Besides Star Wars, his favorite movies are Children of Men, Cinderella Man. Life of Brian, and without question The Lion King. He would also like to become a journalist when he grows up. His goal is to become an influential network anchor. In his free time he likes running, singing, watching Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and cooking. At high school, he is the editor of his own school newspaper, and in college he wishes to major in journalism.

Teen Critic Says Kung Fu Panda is a Good Time for All

Fun for all in Kung Fu Panda (Dreamworks)

By Vikram Bhoyrul

If I had a quarter for every time a panda has entertained me so much than I would have exactly 25 cents. Kung Fu Panda (opened June 6 throughout San Diego) is unique and incredibly entertaining, making for a great family movie. It has a well-known cast consisting of people like Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, and the panda himself, Jack Black. For the younger crowd there is an abundance of slapstick humor accompanied by Jack Black's lovable personality. For the rest of us, the movie actually contains some deeper messages.

In the tradition of most Disney classics, this Dreamworks animation promotes this whole "if you believe than you can achieve" idea and although clichéd, it is tastefully done in Kung Fu Panda. The message that I found to be the most interesting is that there are no accidents. The wise turtle kung fu master constantly repeats this message. He stresses that there is a reason for everything happening the way it does, and with time we are all destined to blossom. Similar to Batman or even Ironman, Kung Fu Panda emphasizes that no matter who you are, you don't need supernatural abilities to make a difference. You need determination and courage and the rest will fall into place.

True to Jack Black, the panda finds the strength to do the impossible through food. This gives the message that we are all fine the way we are and it is with our imperfections that we are in fact perfect. Kung Fu Panda was also nice in that it had some memorable lines and scenes that could be talked about afterwards such as "skidoosh" or "don't tell monkey!"

Overall Kung Fu Panda (rated PG for scenes of martial arts action) was clearly targeted towards the younger audience but with its underlying messages and Jack Black's humor, Kung Fu Panda is a good time for all ages.

Vikram Bhoyrul is a senior at The Bishop's School in La Jolla. For years film has been a passion of his. Besides Star Wars, his favorite movies are Children of Men, Cinderella Man. Life of Brian, and without question The Lion King. He would also like to become a journalist when he grows up. His goal is to become an influential network anchor. In his free time he likes running, singing, watching Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and cooking. At high school, he is the editor of his own school newspaper, and in college he wishes to major in journalism.

Surfwise

The Paskowitz Family in Surfwise (family photo)

With more kids than either The Brady Bunch or The Partridge Family, the real life Paskowitz clan could field their own baseball team without tapping into outside talent. But with legendary surfer Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz as the patriarch, the kids were more likely to hit the waves than a sandlot. Paskowitz gained notoriety for chucking his life as a successful doctor and packing up his wife and kids in a 24-foot camper and heading off on the open road. The new documentary Surfwise (opening May 30 at Landmark's Ken Cinema) tracks down the nine Paskowitz kids as well as the now 85-year-old Doc to explore what the repercussions were and are for having lived a maverick lifestyle. One of the sons, Jonathan, serves as one of the producers on the film and helps to bring an insider's perspective to the story.