Day 2 TIFF

Three different films, all in the same theater. What are the odds?

First film is Love and Other Disasters. A chick flick, major chick flick. I don’t mind these movies at all, I actually enjoy quite a number of them. But this one is too light, even for a chick flick. The movie is like Emma meets Bridget Jones’ Diary with a touch of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Jacks (Brittany Murphy) works in a Vogue UK (though you never really see her at work), she is always busy trying to setup his gay roommate Peter for blind dates, meanwhile she keeps seeing James even though she doesn’t love him nor like him for that matter. One day, she meets Paulo, an assistant to a Vogue photographer, and she thinks he is gay so she wants to setup Paulo with Peter, but Paulo is secretly in love with her…

The movie is not unpleasant, and it has a lot of snappy dialogues. But that’s all it is, the movie is string together with snappy dialogues and sitcom situations. Maybe this is not my type of movie, or I would enjoy it better in a second viewing, but I am going thumbs down on this one (actually the ending almost saved the film). Grade C+

Rescue Dawn

This was not supposed to be a world premier, but due to a lot of production/editing/lap issues, this film was not shown in Tellrude, so here it’s. The story is about Deiter Dengler’s escape from a Vietnam POW camp back in 1965. Not only did Deiter has to escape the camp, but he also has to survive the jungle. This is simply a remarkable film.

The movie is half about escape, and half about men battling nature. Great performances from Steve Zahn, Jeremy Davies and Christian Bale. Bale in particular got the swagger of a man even though he is captured, has the wits and the courage to escape.

I haven’t watched the Documentry Little Dieter needs to Fly, directed by Werner Herzog, but I am going to seek it out. Simply put, Dieter is a fascinating character. Grade B+

All The Boys Love Mandy Lane

Everyone is school loves Mandy Lane, not just the boys. And what’s not to like, she is beautiful (I think she looks like Anna Kournikova), doesn’t do anything bad, and not acting like a bitch to the boys. Boys wants to have her, and girls wants to be friends with her. The boys want her so bad, they go to the extreme to impress her. One day, she decides to accept an invitation to go to a ranch with a bunch of people, and then, if you have seen Friday the 13^th, you know what’s going to happen.

The premise starts off pretty promising, but then it turns into another generic slasher movie where each character get killed off one by one. Didn't they see Friday the 13th, Scream, I know what you did last summer, and all other so called horror films? Grade C