Christmas With the Kranks (2004) Review

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(More customer reviews)Being a big fan of Christmas-themed movies and having read the John Grisham novel on which this was based, I was definitely looking forward to this movie. Therefore, despite Ebert's bad review, I convinced my family to see it after our Thanksgiving dinner. With two kids in college now, there aren't many chances for us to all go to a movie together. And maybe there's another reason for that----generational gap in taste. My husband and I enjoyed this alot, while our two offspring agreed it was probably the worst movie they had ever seen. There you have it, mixed reviews.
While it's true there is no earth-shaking revelation in this one (unless you count a reaffirmation of the true meaning of Christmas), no high-tech wizardry, no spectacular chase scenes, no lusty sex or mind-numbing profanity, I found this a most enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. What it did have was a look at the importance of family, friends, and community. What it did have was honest laughter and the realization that only an idiot would try to forego the most important holiday of all. The fact that the neighborhood looked more like one from 1954 instead of 2004 only added to the enjoyment for me. After all, nostalgia is a large part of the holiday, right?
For those unfamiliar with the story, Luther Krank (Tim Allen) is upset to realize that the cost of Christmas is about $6,000. A bit sad since his only child is now in the Peace Corps and will not be home for Christmas, he convinces his wife Nora (Jamie Lee Curtis) that it would be foolish to spend all that money on decorations, donations, gifts, and their annual Christmas Eve bash. For less money, they could take a Caribbean cruise and enjoy life in the islands. Skipping Christmas sounds, at first, like a brilliant idea. But the neighbors won't allow it. Led by neighborhood watchdog Vic Frohmeyer (Dan Aykroyd), they insist on upholding traditions (like putting a giant Frosty on every rooftop) and do not take at all kindly to the Kranks' breaking with the wishes of the neighborhood. The twist comes at the last minute when the daughter decides she can't miss the Christmas celebrations she has always loved and flies in from Peru with her fiance. How will the Kranks explain the darkened house, no tree, no Frosty, and the fact they are sailing at noon?
While it is not the greatest Christmas movie I've ever seen, I did enjoy this one and recommend it for those not jaded by recent Hollywood offerings. If you like good clean movies that leave you smiling, this one's for you.

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When their only daughter Blair leaves the family nest, Luther and Nora Krank (Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis) decide to book an island cruise to beat the yuletide blues and just skip the holidays. But their decision to boycott tradition has the whole neighborhood in an uproar, and when Blair callson Christmas Eve to announce a surprise visit with her new fiancée, the Kranks have just twelve hours to perform a miracle and pull themselves and their neighbors together to throw the best celebration ever.

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Soul Plane (Unrated Mile High Edition) (2004) Review

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(More customer reviews)Soul Plane does not make any sense. It's an Airplane wannabe with a ghetto twist and half the laughs. It's stirred controversy in the black community by being called 'racist' and an insult to black people. But it's still a pretty fun ride, and not very racist at all. While the humor is crass and edgy, I think it was all played for laughs and not meant to be taken seriously. And while the film was stupid and idiotic, it managed to entertain. It's 90 minutes of silly entertainment, not to be given much thought to. Rather, it's a chance to suspend disbelief, relax, and escape into the zaniness. People are taking this film a little too seriously. It's not meant for that, it's meant to be a light, fluffy, and zany comedy with some crude homor thrown in. For that, it succeeds. I won't remember this film tomorrow, but I enjoyed it while it lasted.

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Why just fly when you can soar with soul! An all-star cast, including Tom Arnold, Kevin Hart and hip-hop superstars Method Man and Snoop Dogg, takes to the skies in this "relentlessly raunchy" (The New York Times) comedy about a full-service airline complete with sexy stewardesses, a mack casino and the hottest dance club at 30,000 feet. Departing on its maiden voyage from the all-new Terminal X in Los Angeles, Soul Plane is a raucous ride that gives "fly" a whole new meaning!

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The Ritz Review

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(More customer reviews)Chunky, quivering, middle-class ordinary Gaetano Proclo (Jack Weston) is 'married to the mob' in the form of wife Vivian (Kaye Ballard)--and his crazy brother-in-law Carmine (Jerry Stiller) hates him. Certain that Carmine is about to kill him, Gaetana hops a cab, tells the driver to take him to the last place any one would ever look for him... and suddenly finds himself hiding out from the mob in the middle of a gay bath house.
But this only the first ten or fifteen minutes of the film: there is much, much more to come, and all of it is over the top hilarious. Jack Weston, Jerry Stiller, and Kaye Ballard are perfectly cast in their roles, but would you believe F. Murray Abraham (Oscar winner for AMADEUS) as the screaming queen to end all screaming queens? How about Rita Moreno as a no-talent lounge singer who is busting a gut to become a bath-house star just like Bette Midler? Or Treat Williams as a P.I. with blonde hair and a squeaky voice? My own favorite of the bunch is Paul B. Price as Claude, a "chubby chaser" who takes one look at Jack Weston and falls in love at first sight--and then proceeds to make his life absolute hell by chasing him all over the bath house. Before it's all over you'll find people hiding under beds, thrown into swimming pools, impersonating the Andrews Sisters, and being pursued by unwanted lovers of the wrong persuasion, all to absolutely hilarious, incredibly giddy effect.
Like most farces, THE RITZ deals in stereotypes--but it is never mean spirited in its portraits, and the cast carries off the eccentric characters (both straight and gay) with considerable aplomb. Filmed long before the AIDS crisis, THE RITZ offers a comic look at a New York gay bath house and a way of life that would soon come to a grinding halt--a fact that gives the film a certain unintended poignancy for gay viewers. Even so, you don't need any specialized background to enjoy this laugh-out-loud movie, which is as much (and really more) for a straight audience as it is for a gay one. Highly, highly recommended... call over some friends, turn up the steam heat, break out some bath towels, and get ready for a true laugh riot.

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An all-male Manhatten bathouse becomes a hilarious hideout for a man from Cleveland ducking the mob. The fat, frisky film of the Broadway farce featuring original stars Jack Weston and Rita Moreno. Year: 1976

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Step Brothers (Single-Disc Unrated Edition) (2008) Review

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(More customer reviews)I don't understand how people didn't like this movie.... I take that back. I expect that people didn't like this movie because they expected something smarter. For the record, don't expect this to be an intelligent comedy. It's not. At the same time, I think it's absolutely hilarious. I'm a firm believer in setting our own expectations. If you expected Twister to be some amazing, epic film, then you were probably disappointed. If you expected it to be a movie about a tornado, you were most likely entertained. The same applies to this film. Don't go in expecting an artistic masterpiece. It's crude, rudimentary comedy, and it's nice to be spoon-fed ridiculously "insipid" humor from time to time. I. Loved. This. Film. It's ridiculous, just don't expect too much.

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Brennan Huff, a sporadically employed thirty-nine-year-old who lives with his mother, Nancy. Dale Doback, a terminally unemployed forty-year-old who lives with his father, Robert. When Robert and Nancy marry and move in together, Brennan and Dale are forced to live with each other as step brothers. As their narcissism and downright aggressive laziness threaten to tear the family apart, these two middle-aged, immature, overgrown boys will orchestrate an insane, elaborate plan to bring their parents back together. To pull it off, they must form an unlikely bond that maybe, just maybe, will finally get them out of the house.

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Mouse Hunt (1997) Review

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(More customer reviews)I think one of the most annoying things about movie critics is that they're supposed to know their stuff, but in the end they come across as just being college guys looking for something dirty to watch! Isn't it funny how they can't help but get down on a hilarious, old fashioned comedy like this and yet show them something like American Pie and it's great intellectual humor! A modern classic! Sickening! This movie was totally hilarious with hardly any sexual humor at all! Allright, just a hint here and there that wasn't necessary. Beyond that this movie was such a perfect comedy for everyone! I absolutely loved this movie! They used every cartoon trick in the book to try and stop that mouse! And wasn't Christopher Walken just incredible?!!! The casting in this was soooo great! It makes me so sad when movies like this come out and hardly get noticed by the public for whatever reason! Probably the lack of sex humor is evident and the previews and it keeps the movie goers away. Anyway I loved it! Do yourself a favor and pick it up! I've got it on VHS but hope to get the DVD eventually!

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Two bumbling brothers inherit a run-down house only to discover that its worth a fortune. But before they can cash in on their windfall they need to evict a stubborn tenant - one with a tail and a nose for comic revenge. Bonus features: stunt footage production notes cast and filmmaker bios and more.Studio: Paramount Home VideoRelease Date: 02/08/2005Starring: Nathan Lane Lee EvansRun time: 99 minutesRating: PgDirector: Gore Verbinski

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Black Dynamite (2009) Review

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(More customer reviews)I saw this during its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival - and was lucky enough to run into the director, Scott Sanders and the incredibly talented composer and editor Adrian Younge in line at another screening. This video combines moments from the trailer with bits from my conversation with the filmmakers - all captured on a handy Flip Mino Camcorder.
Back in the day, films like Shaft, Foxy Brown and Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song styled funkalicious jazzy soundtracks, tough black heroes and heroines and corrupt white cops and politicians. A new genre was born, both celebrating and exploiting black culture, targeting urban African-American audiences with its style and subject matter. Some of the best of these films have become cult favorites, and have influenced new filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino, whose Jackie Brown paid explicit homage to the genre he'd grown up on and loved. Shaft was recently remade in slick Hollywood style by John Singleton; but for the original low budget style and campy flair you had to go to the bargain bin dvd versions, until now.
Created by Scott Sanders and Michael Jai White, Black Dynamite tells the tale of a righteous brother, who's got kung fu skills and knows just how to please the ladies. What he can't do is what he promised his mother on her death bed: protect his brother from the drug lords that are destroying the inner city. Upon hearing that his brother was killed, he swears revenge and sets out on a quest to discover those responsible. It turns out this was no simple hit - his brother's assassination was part of a vast conspiracy to disempower blacks by hitting them where it hurts the worst, and the conspiracy goes all the way to the top: President Richard Nixon himself, who, it turns out, has some sweet kung fu moves all his own.
The film is hilarious, taking all of the absurd, campy, raunchy and cool elements of traditional 70's blaxploitation films like Superfly and Dolemite, and tying them together into an absurdly funny epic revenge and save-the-world flick.
Part of the appeal is that the film mimics the on-the-fly imperfection of the old B-movie style Blaxploitation. Boom mikes occasionally appear in the shot, distracting the actor; obvious continuity problems (a woman whose tear of sadness appears and then disappears and reappears as the camera cuts back and forth between her and the big BD; an actor is suddenly replaced by a stand-in mid-scuffle, after he is obviously injured by a punch) add to the overall lightheartedness of the endeavor.
What impressed me, though, was that the film was not mocking blaxploitation, but rather paying homage. The filmmakers clearly know and love these films. Best of all, though, is Michael Jai White's absolute immersion in character as a tough-as-nails crusader whose soft heart and shy demeanor only occasionally surfaces. I haven't laughed out loud this much during a film in a very long time. Highly recommended, but not for the timid.

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An all-star cast led by Michael Jai White is featured in this 1970's-style blaxploitation action fiilm about the legendary super crime fighter "Black Dynamite." The Man killed his brother, pumped heroin into local orphanages, and flooded the ghetto with adulterated malt liquor. Black Dynamite was the one hero willing to fight The Man all the way from the blood-soaked city streets to the hallowed halls of the Honky House

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