Maria Bello

Guilty Pleasure – Coyote Ugly

  • Title: Coyote Ugly
  • IMDb: link

Coyote Ugly DVD reviewThrowback Thursday takes us back to… wait, has it really been 19 years? Piper Perabo stars in 2000’s Coyote Ugly as aspiring songwriter Violet Sanford who leaves the comfort of her sleepy New Jersey suburb to move to New York City and become a singing barmaid at a trendy bar known for its attractive waitresses dancing on the bar.

While not what one would call objectively good (sappy and predictable are both apt descriptions), the movie does work as a guilty pleasure mostly for Perabo’s lead performance, the high energy from her often scantily-clad co-stars (Izabella Miko, Bridget Moynahan, Tyra Banks), and the film’s soundtrack sporting four songs written by Diane Warren (which proved more successful than the film itself).

The larger supporting cast includes Maria Bello as the bar’s gruff owner with a heart of gold, Adam Garcia as Violet’s love interest (who is thrown together with Violet in a sickeningly-sweet meet-cute), and John Goodman as Violet’s disapproving father, both of her move to New York and how she spends her nights.

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A History of Violence

  • Title: A History of Violence
  • IMDb: link

a-history-of-violence

A History of Violence is only 96 minutes long and everything you need to know about the film can be found in that amount of time.  It’s a streamlined and stripped down story that doesn’t waste a single frame or a single performance.  And for its short running time it is amazingly effective, disturbing, distressing, and haunting.

Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) and his wife Edie (Mario Bello) own a diner in a sleepy little town of Millbrook, Indiana.  They are raising a son (Ashton Holmes) who is tortured by bullies but has been taught to turn the other cheek, and a young daughter (Heidi Hayes).  Their life seems idyllic until a pair of thugs attempt to rob the diner and kill the witnesses.  Tom kills both men with brutal efficiency that is unusual in a diner owner of a sleepy town.

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