todd.tokubo.com

Had to quickly hop a flight to Asia.

The way over:

Hairspray- Remake of the movie adaptation (with Ricky Lake) of the Broadway musical. A bit of 60s swing with some good old American political unrest is still a good story. Worth the price of admission: waiting for Christopher Walken to break out the moves (if you remember the Fatboy Slim video). Loaded with star power: Travolta, Pfeiffer, Queen Latifa, Amanda Bynes, Zac Efron and James Marsen cover just about every potential viewer and age group from Grease to High School Musical and X-Men. (6/10 - Less for being a remake)

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - Quite dark and political for a Harry Potter film. With not so subtle hints to No Child Left Behind and the seemingly ever growing control of the Homeland Defense, the movie had a much more mature tone than previous movies. I wonder if they’ll ever make a Harry Potter book series? The usual fantastic special effects are used. (7/10)

I Now Pronouce you Chuck and Larry - Adam Sandler and the guy from King of Queens. The whole plot revolves around a guy who forgot to change this HMO options, so he fakes marrying his friend to enroll. Predictable to say the least. Sandler is much better in things like Happy Gilmore… (4/10)

The way back:

Evan Almighty - The sequel to Jim Carrey’s Bruce Almighty. It takes the anchor from the first movie and advances the story a bit. We have Steve Carrell as the guy that God turns into a neo-Moses. Pairs of animals start to show up on his lawn. The story always seems stretched, where as Bruce Almighty seemed to have a way to touch everyday life. Standard Carrell humor. If you don’t like Steve Carrell, avoid this one. (6/10)

Sicko - Let me say, I’m not a huge Michael Moore fan. SiCKO was definitely written for Middle America. If you don’t have a good job, if you aren’t financially savvy, if you’re not well travelled, SiCKO makes America look like the ass-end of health care. Moore’s film does what it intends to: make you think. Nothing more. The target this time of Moore’s microscope is the American Health Care system. Which most of us widely acknowledge as being broken. He compares it to other places like France and Cuba and shows that if the government truly cared about taking care of its citizens then socialized health care is the way to go. However, socialist has been a dirty word in America since the 1940s… Anyway, I digress. The story is touching, but as usual, those who are well-educated and well-traveled feel like the film is being quite sensationalist. In usual Moore style, it only shows how other health care systems have evolved, not how to solve the problem here in the states, but he shows you what doesn’t work. Health care as a business has it’s faults. It does make you think… How would you fix health care… (7.5/10)

The Simpsons Movie - It’s an almost 2 hour version of the TV show. Homer messes up (again). Lisa is too smart for her own good (again). Bart skateboards naked and had a split second of FFN. If you like the TV series, you’ll like the movie. (7/10)

Transformers - As a child of the 80s, I was both waiting for this movie and dreading it. Steven Spielberg on-board: Yes! Michael Bay: we’ll see… Bumblebee as a Camaro - sacrilege. Optimus Prime as a Peterbuilt - AARRGH. The whole GM sponsorship of the movie really left a bad taste in my mouth. The movie jumped from typical Michael Bay action to campy, cheesy kiddy lines. There were enough little bits for fanboys to keep themselves busy, but the change of the robots to more complex organic looking vs. the clean four-color robots of yesteryear was a bit much. The complex design of the robots made it tough to watch. The movie flowed like the first episode of a longer set. Even with lowered expectations, it was still tough to watch. (6/10 because I actually loved the original TV show)