Love Happens

Michelle's Review


It has been a few days since we watched this movie, so my review is probably going to be a little rusty.  This movie didn't receive very high reviews, but I did not think it was bad as every review made it out to be.  This was your typical romantic comedy though, so it is not very original.  The acting was also so-so, but the story line was kind of unique.  If you like a love story, this is a movie for you!

Originality: 3 stars

Acting: 3.5 stars

Message: 2 stars (It was an odd story line, not necessarily a bad one, but odd)

Cleanliness: 4 stars (Like I said before, it has been a few days so I might be forgetting some things, but I don't remember it being that bad)

Entertainment: 3.5 stars

Overall: 3.2 stars

Greg's Review

Going into this one I thought that it was going to be lame because it had a very low rating online.  However, I have noticed that quite often I like movies that have been given low reviews.  Maybe it means that my taste doesn't quite coincide with what is mainstream?  If so, that is ok with me.  I liked this movie.  It wasn't all that original but it had a good story line and was entertaining.  To the review:

Entertainment:  3.7 stars

Originality:  1.5 stars

Message:  4 stars
(It dealt with tragedy and being able to move on and forgive yourself)

Cleanliness:  4.5 stars
(At least I think...I don't recall any bad parts.)

Acting:  3 stars

Overall:  3.3 stars 

How to Train Your Dragon

Michelle's Review

Greg did not see this one with me, but my mom and I went to this yesterday for something to do and loved it! It had received really high reviews on "Rotten Tomatoes," so we were anticipating it to be good and it was!  Deagan stayed into the movie the whole time.  The best part about it was that is was in 3D.  I normally don't like watching movies in 3D, but this really was the best way to watch it.  There weren't any big name actors in it which made it almost refreshing.  I would recommend this movie to people of all ages!

Originality: 5 stars

Acting: 5 stars

Cleanliness: 5 stars

Message: 5 stars

Entertainment: 5 stars

Overall: 5 stars!

New Baby + March Madness = Less Movie Viewing

So, a week and a half ago Michelle gave birth to our second son Kayden. It has made for a very busy time lately. In addition, we have been engulfed in March Madness and, consequently, we haven't spent a lot of time watching movies. I just wanted to let everybody know so that people did not start getting too antsy. We watched a new movie over the weekend and you should expect a new review shortly.

No Impact Man

Greg's Review

It has been awhile since we saw a documentary.  Over the summer we watched a bunch of them and we really enjoyed watching them.  I think we got a little burnt out with the limited selection of traditional movies that are out there (especially since there seems to be very few movie that are not R rated).  Anyway, I liked this documentary even though I am not an environmentalist by any means.  I think it did make me think a little bit more about how much energy we consume and the small ways that we could reduce our carbon footprint.  The method that this guy pursued to make a point was very extreme, which he outright claims, but I like the way that he (and his family) went about it.  He treated it as a research experiment, which really hits home for me right now given everything I am doing.  With that, to the scores:

Entertainment:  5 stars

Acting:  N/A
(its a documentary)

Originality:  5 stars

Message:  5 stars

Cleanliness:  4 stars 
(a few F bombs)

Overall:  5 stars

Remember Me

Michelle's Review

Last night, Greg and I had what could be our last date before our baby is born.  We aren't really creative on what we do on our dates.  It is either dinner or a movie.  Either way, we love going to movies together, obviously and love going on dates even more!

Neither of us had really looked into this movie much before we went to it, so I had no idea what to expect.  This movie is not for the faint of heart or for someone in the mood for a perfect love story.  From the very beginning, the movies starts off very intense and honestly leaves you in shock at the end.  Thankfully, some characters do find peace or forgiveness along the way, so I did leave feeling better about most of the characters.  But as a warning, the ending is not a happy one though, so beware.

I have never really liked Rob Pattison as an actor, even in the "Twilight" saga.  He just doesn't seem to fit that part very well to me, but I thought he was EXCELLENT in this movie.  Honestly, his best role yet.

The story line keeps you constantly guessing and wanting to know what will happen next, which really makes for a great movie.  While we both left the movie stunned, we really liked how it was written, directed, etc.  However, this movie will not receive a high rating for cleanliness at all.  Lots of language and sex scenes.  We closed our eyes several times unfortunately.

Entertainment: 5 stars

Originality: 4.5 stars

Message: 3 stars

Cleanliness: .5 stars

Acting: 4.5 stars

Overall: 3.5 stars

Greg's Review

I had no idea what this movie was about going into it and I was really surprised perhaps because of that reason.  I thought that the acting was good and the entire movie was very engaging and intense.  The opening scene was heart wrenching and likewise was the ending.  The downside was that there was a lot of bad language and sexual content.  It seems like you can't escape that type of thing unless you watch G rated movies all the time.  Anyway, to the review:
 
Entertainment:  4.5 stars

Acting:  4.5 stars

Originality:  4 stars
(It was pretty unpredictable)

Message:  3.5 stars
(Perhaps, although life gives you lemons you can make lemonade?)

Cleanliness:  1 star

Overall:  3.5 stars 

2012

Michelle's Review

This was your typical dooms-day/end of the world film with a hero that miraculously defeats all odds. That is my biggest complaint with this movie; there was nothing in it that hasn't been done before in other films like this.  Also, it was absolutely amazing to me that the main characters managed to escape certain death every single time something horrible was happening.  They were always just one step ahead! Not that I was hoping or wishing any ill harm to any of the characters, but way too predictable!  If by chance anything bad did happen to one of the characters, I did not buy any real genuine emotion from any of the other actors.  Come on, if my boyfriend were crushed in a giant gear I think I would cry.  Obviously, I was not a huge fan but did enjoy a nice date night with my hubby:)

Acting: 2 stars

Entertainment: 3.5 stars (It was predictable, but the special effects were pretty entertaining to watch)

Message: 3 stars

Originality: 1 star

Cleanliness: 4.5 stars

Overall: 2.8 stars

Greg's Review

So I thought this movie looked pretty lame from the previews but thought that it might have been a bit better that I expected.  I was completely right!  This movie was horrible!  It was very predictable and so unrealistic.  It was so far out there that everytime there was an action sequence I started to cringe and hope that the horror would end.  I made it through the end and thought to myself, "why did I waste two hours of my time on that?"  With these uplifting comments, here are the marks:

Entertainment:  1.5 stars

Acting:  1 star

Originality:  1 star

Message:  1.5 stars

Cleanliness:  4.5 stars
(I have to give it that.)

Overall:  1.9 stars 

Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar

G

Michelle's Review

I couldn't watch this movie for some reason, so I can not give an honest review here:)


Greg's Review

As some of you may know, I am studying South Asian studies right now and I love to watch movies that serve two purposes:  entertain and educate.  I think that the first point could be debated as to whether or not films like this are entertaining but, to me they are.  This movie was superb as far as content goes, especially because it gives you a different point of view into Indian politics than you would not normally get.  Dr. Ambedkar was an "Untouchable", which for those of you that know about how the caste system works in India that means he was part of the lowest caste.  He was one of the few that was able to be educated and lead a movement to abolish human right violations against Untouchables.  He lived during the time of Ghandi and interestingly enough Ghandi was opposed to his position.  Anyway to the review:

Entertainment:  3 stars
(to others this could be 0 stars)

Originality:  2 stars

Acting:  2 stars
(the quality was not great but it was about presenting the content in movie format instead of a documentary)

Cleanliness:  5 stars

Message:  5 stars

Overall:  3.4 stars

Surrogates

Greg's Review

So as I promised, this movie is not a romantic comedy. To tell you the truth I looked through all the movies in the Redbox kiosk and decided that I had no other options because everything else was either a chick flick or rated "R". Therefore, this was basically a last resort movie since I had seen previews for it and it looked pretty lame especially since recent films with Bruce Willis have been a letdown. However, I was very surprised. I really liked the movie and thought that the idea was relevant to recent technologies such as "Second Life". I also loved that it was so short (89 minutes), which seems very difficult to find nowadays. So to the breakdown:

Entertainment: 4.5 stars

Originality: 4 stars
(the plot was not very predictable and kept you guessing)

Acting: 3.5 stars
(Bruce Willis isn't the greatest actor and let's be honest how great can the acting be in a sci-fi movie like this?)

Message: 4 stars
(Basically the idea was that over dependence on technology can really rob us of the real experiences of life.)

Cleanliness: 3 stars
(Better than I was anticipating)

Overall: 3.8 stars

Michelle's Review

Yesterday morning we were in the car on the way home from somewhere, and we heard a segment on NPR about how addicting "Second Life" is and that type of technology. It was ironic to me when Greg brought this movie home because of that. I was really surprised at this movie, and I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. I am not a big Bruce Willis fan, so I had that hanging over my head while I as watching it. I honestly didn't make it through the entire movie either though, so maybe I missed the bad parts:) We started watching this movie really late, and I am pretty much useless after midnight. But I did make it through most of it, and feel that I saw enough to make a review about it.

Entertainment: 4.5 stars

Originality: 4 stars
(This movie kind of reminded me of "Minority Report" because of the futuristic factor, so I didn't feel it was TOTALLY original. However, it was pretty unique.)

Acting: 3 stars

Message: 4 stars
(I really does make you stop and think how dependent we are on technology and how much more we could become in the future.)

Cleanliness: 3.5 stars
(I can't really remember there being a whole lot of horrible parts, but there were a few parts that were risque and bad language)

Overall: 3 stars
(It is worth the watch!)