Hey folks, Harry here with a film that some of you have no interest in and others have interest... I love Reese Witherspoon movies even the comedies and girlie stuff, but she's just always cute as a button and has a wicked wit to her characters, the film may not be for you, but there will be an audience for it... you'll see....
Well, I never know who to send these things to, and when I choose one of you nothing ever seems to happen, so I send it to many of you...
I saw LEGALLY BLONDE tonight, and it was not as bad as I feared. I think Reese Witherspoon is developing into quite a good actress, and while the trailers looked fun, this movie had the potential to be one baaaaad movie. But it's not. Mind you, it's by no means a great movie. The writing isn't always top notch (the cute guy next to me and I exchanged one or two "What the fuh...? looks at the worst of them...), but the movie doesn't pretend to be anything it's not, and the crowd seemed to eat it up with a spoon. (So much so that I missed some of the jokes due to excessive laughter.)
I won't rehash the plot, especially because once it hits the trial of Ali Larter's character, the plot gets pretty predictable. (We all know who did it.) The cast is obviously having a good time, and for the most part do a good job. Reese is adorable, funny, charming, and basically carries the picture gracefully. Comedic character actress dujour Jennifer Coolidge is quite endearing as a manicurist with low self-esteem (it's fun to see her go from slapping the shit out of Pootie Tang to this in the course of a week...). Ali Larter does her best acting so far (which, granted, isn't saying much). Matthew Davis does what he can with the underwritten boy role. Jessica Cauffiel and Alana Ubach are fun as Reese's LA sorority sisters (even if Alana is a bit old for the role...). Meredith Scott Lynn has nothing to do, likewise with Luke Wilson. Holland Taylor, Raquel Welch, and Linda Cardellini make small cameo appearances. Victoer Garber phones in his role. And Selma Blair...gives another of her performances. We'll leave it at that.
But ultimately, it's Reese's movie, and it is she who makes this Clueless meets Private Benjamin at Harvard a winner. I cringe at the thought of what the movie would have been like had some other starlets been playing the role...
Ultimately, it's a silly little Hollywood movie. But since Hollywood seems to have forgotten how to make comedies without bodily function jokes, the movie seemed like a cool glass of pink lemonade in this summer of crap.
For the record, the only trailer was for MGM's other summer movie, Original Sin. Slightly recut (no more Angelina racing down a hall intercut with Antonio on a horse), but nevertheless the trailer drew hisses from the crowd.
I must say the trailer, which once was greeted with only bored silence, seems to draw a worse reaction with every month that it shows yet again. (It's seems like it's been YEARS that I've been wathcing that trailer...it's like Nightwatch all over again...)
Freakzilla Greens
And then there is this one....
Hey Harry, Ol Dirty Aztec here with my first film review for Legally Blonde. The theatre just had a sneak preview for it and I decided to add my two cents.
Oh, and since this is my first review...let me get some of the fundamentals out of the way
(circle letter of your choice)
THIS MOVIE WAS
A) MIND BLOWINGLY FUNNY!
B) A PLOTLESS PIECE OF SHIT!
C) A GREAT COMPLIMENT TO REESE WITHERSPOONS TIG OL BITTIES!
D) A FUNNY PIECE OF SHIT WITH TIG OL BITTIES!
I won't try to put any defined slant on whether people like it or not. But I do know what works and what doesn't. This is a film that was made for 12 year old girls who don't really remember the film Clueless. Everything they dream of is on the silver screen - rich men, dumb broads, nice cars, fancy clothes, soap operas, beauty solans, boyfriend/girlfriend drama...even chiuahas (sp?). If you're not a 12 year old girl you will be challenged to laugh.
The plot is fodder for the "12 year old girl mindset". Reese is in love with a rich man who thinks she is too dumb. He thinks she is even dumber than my vocabulary. She ends up dumped and feeling idiotic, so what better way to show this man up then to go to, um, I don't know...HARVARD! Along the way you'll laugh and sympathize with the decently rounded character. Watch her study, watch her cry, watch her get on a big legal case and tackle the elitist snobbery that is Harvard Law. She had a 4.0 in fashion design...she can take it! She can even help out a haggy salon owner and waste 25 minutes of comedy space.
Now here's where it gets interesting. With most comedies, you have to know what your strong point is. This film is drifting between making young people laugh (penis jokes, women in bikinis being stupid, insulting educational institutions, chihuahahaua love) to making middle aged people content to catch a movie on Friday night (heart pulling, love match subplot, determination to complete the case, overcoming Harvard).
This film doesn't know how much laughter it could have gotten if they did what worked! It's such a waste of talent and material! Witherspoon has come of age comedically and after you watch her stare out blindly into space you'll be hooked. The gags involving videotape, Law School Freshman ( I dewormed somalians) and Bruiser make it extremely watchable.
But the film can't get the Hollywood standard plotpoints out of it's three script revision ass and I was actually debating if Scary Movie 2 had progressed to Camel Toe point so I could go out and watch it. The older crowd enjoyed the funnier parts even better then the young crowd and you get the feeling that we don't really need to see Reese standing inside of a trailer park when she could be listening to her father spout off on ugly boring people. Such a pity that the sold out crowd had to force smiles at the end because they didn't know if they liked it or hated it. We all liked it watching law school associates taking double takes at Reese's bathing suit. We all cringed and checked our watches when she actually had something to do instead of make us laugh.
Me, I found it a bearable movie I'm glad I didn't pay for. If you're daughter's 12 and owned a Malibu Barbie playset, her and her friends have something to do on the weekend. If you thought Clueless wasn't really that funny and wished you had gone out drinking with friends instead of seeing it...avoid Legally Blonde.
Ol Dirty Aztec
