December Lambeth

Hitch, even though predictable and somewhat cookie cutter, is funny, sensitive and an easy watch. Will Smith keeps the audience tickled and well entertained in this romantic romp. What else could we expect from the director of Fools Rush In, Ever After, and Sweet Home Alabama, but yet another funny romantic comedy, Andy Tennant’s girlfriend/wife is one lucky lady.

Hitch
3 Stars

Alex ‘Hitch’ Hitchens (Will Smith) plays a hip and suave “Date Doctor”, he helps not so lucky guys get the women of their dreams in only 3-dates. Using little quips of advice, similar to a guy’s version of The Rules book, Alex instructs like a coach getting a player ready for the big game. He instructs his clients to look for the signs when on a date; for example, when she is fidgeting with her keys, that means she wants a goodnight kiss or don’t go all the way for that kiss make her follow up the last 10%. Hitch instructs them in the ways of love and confidence; all a woman needs to fall in love is a man with loads of confidence.

Released on DVD June 14

His latest client, Albert Brennaman (Kevin James), an overweight nerdy accountant with a massive crush on a beautiful client, society heiress Allegra Cole (Amber Valletta), proves to be quite a challenge. The funny thing is, is that Allegra is just as geeky as Albert and they are a perfect match for each other, but Albert needs Hitch to give him the confidence to move forward and approach her. While assisting his biggest challenge, Hitch runs into another challenge, more like an uphill climb, he falls for a gossip columnist, Sara Melas (Eva Mendes)

At first Sara tries to play all-coy not acting too interested and really making Hitch put out a great deal of effort to court her. Finally succumbing to his charms, she agrees to go on a date, Hitch turns out to be a babbling idiot under her powers. He spends more time tripping over himself and stammering, Sara only finds this to be more attractive and powerless under his charms.

Of course there is a hiccup, it’s set up in the romantic comedy formula. Guy meets girl or girl meets guy, one likes the other but the other doesn’t, then after a period of acting like primates they fall in love, after the love comes hardship and then love again. Well in the case of Hitch, Sara runs into a guy that Hitch would not help, but he sets Hitch up for a fall. The guy she runs into has hurt her best friend and totally pushes it off onto Hitch’s advice, she gets even by slandering him in her gossip column. In the process of trying to get even with Hitch, Sara ends up hurting Albert and Allegra’s relationship. Albert is heart broken at first, but realizes he truly has the confidence to fix this one on his own and goes after Allegra and wins her back. Hitch, on the other hand, wallows in self-pity for a while quits his business and sets up to leave town. Right before he hits the door he is hit with a little bit of truth serum and runs out to beg for forgiveness from Sara. Honestly, I feel Sara owes him a big sorry, for all the junk she stirred up, but Hitch does the apologizing and wins Sara back. The End.

Hitch is an awesome date movie, good for an evening at home with some candle light, pizza and “the love doctor”. It will make you and your “special” someone laugh and giggle, Hitch is a real treat for a light evening.

Available on UMD Mini For PSP. It’s cool seeing Will Smith really tiny, but Hitch isn’t a film that should be seen in that small of a format. PSP owners might not be the type who goes around watching films like Hitch by themselves and if they do, they don’t admit to it.

Director and writer, Anders Thomas Jensen makes a poke at dark humor with this Danish film, The Green Butchers. The leads make the effort to rescue a too humanizing and sentimental ending script and a beginning script that is a little too dry and not quite dark enough to keep the audience intrigued.

The Green Butchers (Grønne slagtere, De)
1 & 1/2 Stars

Released on DVD May 17

Director and writer, Anders Thomas Jensen makes a poke at dark humor with this Danish film, The Green Butchers. The leads make the effort to rescue a too humanizing and sentimental ending script and a beginning script that is a little too dry and not quite dark enough to keep the audience intrigued.

A tasty recipe for human flesh makes to small time butchers a huge hit in a small Danish town. Sven (Mads Mikkelsen) and Bjarne (Nikola lie Kaas) open up a butcher shop and start their sales off with a misfortunate electrician who ended up dead in their freezer. Both men are quite a mess and have huge issues, Sven has an anxiety disorder and Bjarne is a major pothead, but somehow they figure out how to get themselves out of or rather into quite a mess with serving up this electrician. This special meat dish they serve up to the community gets them all kinds of attention and turns them into big stars, but little does anybody know that they are eating away at the towns electricians toes or fingers. Bjarne falls in love with undertaker’s daughter and starts to have issues with what they must do to stay on top. Enjoying their success and getting even more successful means more and more misfortunate souls must find their ways into the freezer. Ironically The Green Butchers end up with some pretty positive messages and nice characters for such a cannibalistic script and dark humored film.

Spending too much time trying to get past the grotesque subject matter kept me from enjoying what could have been a simple and interesting film. The Green Butchers didn’t work for me, but may intrigue the Danish. Who knows, maybe the Danish since of humor is a great deal more dry and different than in the U.S. I just can’t find humor in cannibalism. Luckily, The Green Butchers does add discreetness and no gore to such a subject matter. It’s the idea of the story being implanted in the back of my brain that keeps feeding forward to cause disturbance in my well-being. It truly is visual non-offensive, but mentally sticks to your teeth.

Elmore Leonard’s Be Cool is a novel turned to film full of odd funny characters who have a small habit for getting caught up with gangsters, the Russian mafia, small-time wanna b’s and an eclectic mix of peculiars. Be Cool is part 2 that showcases Chili Palmer (John Travolta), a cool ex-loan shark who has adorned a big-time movie producer persona and finds yet another interest in being an even bigger music producer.

Cool
2 & 1/2 Stars

Elmore Leonard’s Be Cool is a novel turned to film full of odd funny characters who have a small habit for getting caught up with gangsters, the Russian mafia, small-time wanna b’s and an eclectic mix of peculiars. Be Cool is part 2 that showcases Chili Palmer (John Travolta), a cool ex-loan shark who has adorned a big-time movie producer persona and finds yet another interest in being an even bigger music producer.

Released on DVD June 28

In the sequel Chili Palmer wants to give up the movie business and finds an interest in the music industry. Chili gets his motivation from Tommy Athens (James Wood), a music producer who tries to pitch Chili on a new movie, he has always had an interest in Tommy’s wife Edie (Uma Therman) and Tommy has been shot down in cold blood so what better time than now to get into Tommy’s business and his spot next to Edie in bed. Thanks to Tommy’s lead with Linda Moon (Christina Milian), a stellar R&B artist, Chili moves forward with stealing her from Raji (Vince Vaughn), the wanna be music producer and his boss Nick Carr (Harvey Keitel). Of course, Chili does nothing by the books or by the rules, he walks in and says her contract is over and now she works for me. Needless to say Nick isn’t too happy with this situation and tries to have Chili knocked off and the Russians who killed Tommy is after him too. Chili, trying to avoid death and casualy running things with Edie, moves forward with a hit and a little help from Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler. I almost left out Sin LaSalle (Cedric the Entertainer) and Dabu (Andre 3000) producer and rapper for the posse DubMD’s, Tommy owed them money too and Chili is trying to avoid their hit list also. After dodging all those bullets and hit men, Chili produces the perfect album with a little help from Sin Lasalle and Edie. Everybody gets what’s coming to them in the end and all ends well that didn’t start too well.

John Travolta as Chili Palmer, he’s just to cool for words. Be Cool is a far cry from it’s predecessor Get Shorty, but it stands on it’s own. Travolta and Thurman are heating up the dance floor once again, o-yeah! The Rock is awesome, he really has some acting chops and Vince Vaughn is a laugh-out-loud riot. Can’t forget Cedric the Entertainer, playing a high class well educated gangster producer, what a cast. Based on the novel, Be Cool, is a load more fun to watch than to read. Parts are pretty cheesy, but if you can get past that then it’s smooth sailing from there. Chili is awesome; sorry couldn’t come up with a better word. I could see where this character could go in many directions, but if they did that it would be lame. No one wants to see Be Cool or Get Shorty part 20. Stopping with where they are at should work out just fine. There are too many parts to explain how funny this movie truly is. How can anybody go wrong; there is an actor for everybody’s taste, there’s hot, sexy, talented, short, hairy, tall, strong, weak, funny, ugly, Russian, straight, gay, gangster, mafia, music, bad movies, and even a picture of Tom Hanks. The list literally goes on and on. Don’t take my word for it, be cool and rent it for yourself.