Two Words, One Answer.
Tracey Edmonds
 New In Town $9.99 What a great movie!!! A delightful romantic comedy! I watched it 3 times in a row and caught something different each time. Also thoroughly enjoyed to actor and director interviews on the Special Features after watching the movie. Just hearing how they had to endure those horrible below zero weather conditions while filming this movie was increadible and makes you want to watch the movie all over again. Harry Connick Jr was his usual wonderful self and as a sweet hometown like guy (similar to the charachter he played in Hope Floats) makes me wonder where all these nice hometown guys are and how come I can't find someone sweet like that!!! Renee Zellweger was fantastic too and played a very sweet and funny roll! And the way the hometown people pulled together makes you hope there is still that "we can do it" attitude and spirit still somewhere in America. Tapioca pudding, anyone???  Soul Food $2.99 This is a fantastic movie that shows one family's triumphs and losses. I found this movie quite engaging: it was at once funny, sad and meaningful. The writing is very genuine, and the cast does a superb job. It is so easy to care for these characters that after watching this movie, you will feel like you are one of the family.  Josie and the Pussycats $8.99 This is not the nimble, intellectual satire that the movie makers, and reviewers on Amazon, would like you to think it is. Beyond that, it is insulting, and may actually be a vehicle for the very product placement/power-of-suggestion marketing technique it claims to be skewering. The movie doesn't really know what it wants to be, and it manages to NOT be any of the movies it's trying to be: It's NOT a teen flick, it's NOT a comic book adaptation, it's NOT a clever social satire, it's NOT a comedy, biting or otherwise. One of the biggest issues I have with the movie is the product placement and subliminal messaging. If they really meant it to be seen as a comment on rampant commercialism, why didn't the movie makers use fake brands? Instead, the well-known brands and logos crammed into every corner of every frame in the film turn it into the commercial it claims to be railing against. Another reviewer felt this was downright deceptive, and I am inclined to agree. Aside from the product placement issue, the movie has no character development ( I KNOW they are cartoon characters, but even as cartoons they have some personality). The acting is, uh, limited: Rachel Leigh Cook mostly just expresses dull surprise, Rosario Dawson is given almost nothing to do, and Tara Reid can't even do ditzy with any conviction. Posey Parker and Alan Cummings are reasonably good, but with this script they've got to work awfully hard, and their characters still end up being flat, one-dimensional stereotypes. The plot could have been entertaining, in a goofy, cartoon way, but instead it just kind of lays there, waiting for someone to pick it up and run with it. And why was it necessary to toss in a bunch of juvenile, vulgar "humor"? Again, just insulting. Originally, I was hoping to find a fun, cute, light romp with Josie and the Pussycats. After reading comments from reviewers who not only liked it, but also indicated that it had some real depth, and a message to impart, I bought it thinking that it would be surprisingly meaty and meaningful. In the end, I got neither, and this DVD now resides in the garbage. |
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