Sleepwalk with Me (2012)

Starring: Mike Birbiglia, Lauren Ambrose, Carol Kane, James Rebhorn, Cristin Milioti

Director: Mike Birbiglia

Genre: Comedy

Rating: A

"And that's what love is. It's this giant mound of pizza-flavoured ice cream and delusion."

I came across this movie by accident.  Actually, I came across this movie through Joss Whedon: he told me not to see it.  Except, the way he did it was the same tongue-in-cheek way that he told me to vote for Mitt Romney because he would create the perfect setting for a zombie apocalypse, so I took it as a sign that I should watch Sleepwalk with Me.  All I can say having watched it is that I'm really glad Joss Whedon told me not to.

Sleepwalk with Me follows aspiring comedian Matt Pandamiglio (Birbiglia) as he comes to terms with a series of denials: his girlfriend, his career, and his sleep disorder.  He's been with girlfriend Abby (Ambrose) for eight years now and things seem to be moving in the direction of marriage - but Matt isn't too sure about it, considering marriage to be something that should only be done when he's certain that nothing else good will happen in his life.  His career is going nowhere; while he calls himself a comedian he actually works as a bartender and has yet to accept the fact that his jokes really aren't funny.  And underneath it all is his sleep disorder; for reasons that he doesn't understand he's taken to acting out his dreams while still asleep.

The whole thing is based on Birbiglia's actual life, his rise to fame, his relationship problems, his sleep disorder.  While the names, places, etc, have been changed, the actual story is his story.  Instantly that makes it all so much more real, and when Matt tells you in the opening that he's going to tell you a story and it's real, he's being serious.  As such, the drama of the film is so much more real.  The fights feel real, the problems, etc.  The struggles of Matt and Abby and the fact that they're together when it's questionable whether or not they should be - and all the time hoping that Matt gets his shit together while also realizing that in reality, people don't always do that.  Life doesn't fit into the perfectly timed operations of a script, and that's what makes Sleepwalk with Me work.

This is a movie that's rather subtly funny.  I didn't really laugh out loud a lot, at least not until Matt's comedy started getting better, but I still enjoyed the humour to it. It was more one of those smile as you watch it and think about what's going on type of comedy than an actual laugh out loud type.  Even though it's actually billed as a comedy I found it to be a lot more of a drama, which worked for me - I tend to prefer dramas to comedies in general.  I also want to make note of the acting.  I love Lauren Ambrose and have since she was in Six Feet Under.  I think she's a great actress and I love how she totally sold me on why Abby was with Matt.  I also really liked Mike Birbiglia's performance.  I haven't seen him in anything before, not even his comedy, although I now want to see more of him.  I also totally want to give him props for the direction that he took this film in. He wrote it, he directed it, and he starred in it, and it all really worked.  So, yeah.  Unlike Joss Whedon, I'm not going to sarcastically tell you to boycott this film.  Instead I'm going to unsarcastically tell you to see this movie.  It's great and definitely worth your time.

Goon (2011)

Starring: Seann William Scott, Liev Schreiber, Jay Baruchel, Alison Pill

Director: Michael Dowse

Genre: Comedy

Rating: C+

So, in celebration of the NHL Lockout coming to an end and hockey being back, I've decided to review the hockey film Goon.  Inspired by the biography Goon: The True Story of an Unlikely Journey into Minor League Hockey by Adam Frattasio and Doug Smith, Goon follows Jewish dimwit Doug Glatt (Scott) in his rather accidental journey into minor league hockey.  Doug is the son of a stereotypical Jewish doctor who's long felt a bit ostracized in his family owing to the fact that he's not nearly as smart as his father (Eugene Levy) or brother (David Paetkau) - his brother, Ira, is also a doctor, and a gay one at that.  One day, Doug goes to a minor league hockey game with his friend, Pat (Baruchel), where he gets into a fight with one of the players who uses the word "fag."  This fight inspires the coach of Doug's home team to recruit him as an enforcer.  From there, Doug is called up to Canada to play for the Halifax Highlanders.  The Highlanders have a problem with their best player, Xavier Lalfamme (Marc-André Grondin); three years prior he was concussed by Ross "The Boss" Rhea (Schreiber).  Laflamme is now scared of being hit again, and is struggling, while Rhea has been demoted to the Minors again and is looking to go out with a bang. Oh! And there's a girl, Eva (Pill), who is a real puck bunny, who's charmed by Doug even though she has a boyfriend.

Um... okay, so this movie is kind of filled with stereotypes and archetypical characters.  No one seems to be really all that well developed and things tend to fall on the basic path of "good," "bad" or "good but in need of redemption" that one typically expects in a movie like this.  It's a fun movie, but there's no real depth to it, which is in itself a bit disappointing.  I also kind of found that there was no real suspense to it.  It doesn't take a genius to figure out the direction that the film is going in, or what the end result will be.  It's not hard to figure out.

That said, it is fun. In a way, it kind of reminds me of the old Slap Shot movies, just with a new cast.  It's pretty much everything you expect from a movie about hockey starring Seann William Scott.  I donno, I'm not sure what more to say.  It wasn't great, but it was good.

Knocked Up (2007)

Starring: Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl, Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Charlyne Yi, Jason Segel, Martin Starr

Director: Judd Apatow

Genre: Comedy

Rating: B-

After getting a promotion at work, career-minded Alison Scott (Heigl) has a one-night stand with stoner Ben Scott (Rogen). Alison very quickly begins to regret it, but when she finds out she's pregnant all hilarity ensues.  Alison and Ben must figure out if they want to make it work, and if they can make it work, and really how to do so.  Along for the ride are Ben's stoner friends and Alison's sister and brother-in-law.  By far the best part of the film is actually Alison's sister and brother-in-law, Debbie (Mann) and Pete (Rudd), and their children, played by Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann's real life children, Maud and Iris Apatow.  There's a reason that the sequel, This is 40, focused on Debbie and Pete and not on Ben and Alison.

Um, okay.  So, I liked the basic idea, but I disliked how it ended up basically being a stoner take on the romantic comedy.  I would have rather it gone a less typical route - yes the pregnancy bit is less typical, but the whole guy meets girl, things are awkward, guy and girl hook up, and they all live happily ever after (after that one massive fight where they almost break up) is a bit cliched at this point.

I did really like the dynamic of Debbie and Pete and what they offered to the table.  I believe I said it in my review of This is 40, but I really like how the kids feel like real people here, like real kids.  I attribute this to the fact that they're actually Apatow's kids, but hey it works.  I think if you're going to write children in your movie (or book or TV show or whatever) then you need to have children in your life - a lot - otherwise it just seems fake.

Katherine Heigl criticized this film saying that it's sexist, saying that it "paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys."  I both agree and disagree with her here. While the women are shrewish at times and the men are goofy fun-loving guys, I kind of think that Knocked Up tries to show that both are essentially good.  Yes, Alison is a bit uptight, but she's the responsible one, the one who you should admire.  Ben is a freeloading stoner - as are all of his friends.  Debbie and Pete are both a lot more likeable, and both a lot more relatable.  The guys say at one point how great the women are and how they aren't deserving of them because they don't put enough into the relationship - and this is something that we see throughout the film.  I do kind of think Heigl's character is a bit humourless, but I also think that's a lot to do with the fact that she doesn't relate to Rogen's style of humour - which I can totally get.  Debbie, however, has a much better dynamic with Pete - something played out further in This is 40.  Oh, also, as far as Heigl is concerned, it's kind of bad form to badmouth a movie you're in.   Just going to toss that out there.  Also, one final note: I'm not really sure how to tag Knocked Up and This is 40 to show that they're related.  It's part of a series, but not part of a series? If anyone has any ideas, let me know!

This Is 40 (2012)

Starring: Leslie Mann, Paul Rudd, John Lithgow, Megan Fox, Albert Brooks, Maud Apatow, Iris Apatow

Director:  Judd Apatow

Genre: Comedy

Rating: B

Pete (Rudd) and Debbie (Mann) are a married couple who are both about to celebrate their 40th birthday; Debbie is extremely distressed about this, Pete less so.   Deciding that they need to improve their lives, Debbie sets out to change things: they need to exercise more and eat better; furthermore, Debbie wants them to change their relationships with their fathers: Pete needs to stop lending money to his dad, Larry (Brooks) and Debbie needs to reconnect with her dad, Oliver (Lithgow).  Their problems are exacerbated by the fact that Pete's record company is failing, although he's not told his wife, and someone's stealing money from Debbie's business.

There isn't really a plot to this movie, in a lot of ways it's more just a series of events that sometimes build upon each other, and in a way this film kind of feels more like real life than most movies.  The problems that Pete and Debbie face have a very unscripted feel to them - with few exceptions - and thus feel very real.  Their fights are about stupid things that blow up out of proportion - I love the major fight that happens midway through and leaves them both questioning why they ever got married and why they're still together.  At first I wasn't as big of a fan of the way that each of them interacted with their fathers - both seemed a bit stereotypical and played out - but as the movie continued and the fights continued, I really got into both of them.

I also really love the kids.  The two children in this movie, Sadie and Charlotte (Maude and Iris Apatow) are actually the children of Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann, and as such the dynamic between them really feels like a sibling dynamic, the lines that they say really feel like something that they would say, and so on.  I loved Sadie's obsession with Lost and, having seen the show, I was waiting for her to watch the end of it all and have a meltdown - and thought that the way they did that was absolutely perfect.

Finally, the thing that really made this movie was the secondary characters.  From the other Knocked Up cast members - Jason Segel, Charlyne Yi, and Tim Bagley all reprise their roles - to the new additions - Melissa McCarthy, Megan Fox, Albert Brooks, John Lithgow, Lena Dunham, and Chris O'Dowd.  It was all great.   None of them necessarily had to be in this movie, but they each brought something great and were hilarious.  I really enjoyed this movie.

Project X (2012)

Starring: Thomas Mann, Oliver Cooper, Jonathan Daniel Brown, Kirby Bliss Blanton, Alexis Knapp

Director: Nima Nourizadeh

Genre: Comedy

Rating: C

High school students Costa (Cooper) and J.B. (Brown) have decided to throw a party for friend Thomas (Mann)'s birthday.   Despite their status as, basically losers, they're determined that this is going to be the most epic party of all, and in a tradition of high school movies, they're all determined that they're going to get laid - which is why they invite Alexis (Knapp), the hottest girl in school, and Kirby (Blanton), Thomas' best (female) friend.  Then the party happens, and thanks to an add on Craigslist, it all goes to shit.

It should probably go without saying that this movie is horribly sexist and ridiculously immature.  While I enjoyed some of the stuff that happened - and I thought the friendship between Thomas and Kirby was cute, albeit rather predictable - a lot of the time I was watching it going "are you fucking serious?"  The sad thing is, that while the movie is completely over the top I could see at least some of if happening in real life.  A party that gets way too big and out of hand because some idiot posted it in a public announcement on Facebook or Craigslist? Yeah, I can see that happening - and in fact, since this movie's release, there have been attempts to recreate the film, which just goes to prove that high school students are idiots.

The one thing that I did actually really like about the film was the casting of complete unknowns.  Most of the core cast have had minimal acting experience before - of the four main guys, only one had ever been in a movie before, Thomas Mann, and that experience actually made it harder for him to get a role in this movie.  That being said, I was kind of surprised to hear that they're making a sequel out of this - although, I guess they'll make a sequel out of anything these days.

Men at Arms

Author: Terry Pratchett

Genre: Comedy, Fantasy

Rating: A

I think the City Watch books are, in all honesty, my favourite of the Discworld novels.   The characters are just great, possibly the best of the Discworld universe, although I'm sure I'll say differently next time I read a Witches or Rincewind book.

Murder is afoul at the great city of Ankh-Morpork and the City Watch is on the job - sort of.  Assassin Edward d'Eath, of the down-and-out noble d'Eath family, has become convinced that his family's humbling has been the result of the social change in the city, owing to the lack of a monarch on the throne.  It is his plan to restore the monarchy, and for this he needs the Disc's one and only firearm, the gonne.  The gonne, however, has a mind of its own and leaves behind it a trail of bodies.  Captain Vimes of the Night's Watch is on the case; investigating the disappearance of a mysterious item from the Assassin's Guild and a subsequent string of apparently unrelated but equally gruesome murders, all against the express orders of the city's Patrician, Havelock Vetinari.  Vimes' investigation is meant to be short lived, however, as he is due to retire with his impending nuptials to Lady Sybil Ramkin.  Also at hand is the rise in the Watch's ranks, as the Patrician has ordered that the Watch have ethnic recruits, in the form of a dwarf, troll, and female werewolf.

There are so many elements to this novel, all of which are great.  There's the obligatory Death appearance, awesome as always, and the Patrician, who might be my second favourite character in the series - behind Death, of course.  I love the way that the Patrician's mind works, the way he rules his City, and the way he interacts with others - especially Vimes.  I love Vimes too, and Carrot, and the way that they're both simple and complex at the same time.  The whole "Carrot is the true heir to the throne" thing is absolutely great and I enjoy seeing how it plays out.  I also enjoyed seeing the way that the relationship between Carrot and the new werewolf recruit, Angua, has begun to play out.  It's another element to Carrot, and I love their being more elements to Carrot.

The great theme of the book is the idea that "guns don't kill people, people kill people," and the fact that in the Discworld it is the gun, or gonne, that is behind the killings - to an extent.  While I'm not really a believer of the whole "guns kill people" I like the way that Pratchette worked this theme.  It might not work as well here, in the Roundworld, where guns do not have the ability to think and shoot people of their own accord, but it does work well in Discworld where that is far from being the weirdest thing to occur.  I really liked the way that it played out here.

Friends with Kids (2011)

Starring: Adam Scott, Jennifer Westfeldt, Jon Hamm, Kristen Wigg, Maya Rudolph, Chris O'Dowd, Megan Fox, Edward Burns

Director: Jennifer Westfeldt

Genre: Comedy

Rating: B+

What do you do when you know you want kids, and the significant other, and all that comes with it, but see how miserable all of that has made your closest friends?  This is the problem that two best friends, Jason (Scott) and Julie (Westfeldt) come across.  In their mid-30s they've always been somewhat unsuccessful at dating and have watched as their married friends - the placid Alex (O'Dowd) and Lesliee (Rudolph) and the sex-obsessed Ben (Hamm) and Missy (Wigg) - settle down, have kids, and then appear to become completely miserable.  So Jason and Julie come to a conclusion - the trick is to first have a baby, then find love, and decide that they should have a child.

What I think really helps make this movie so great is the fact that the cast are all friends - or more - and thus the chemistry between the group is really easy and fun - even when the shit is hitting the fan.  The film feels real, although I could have done without the mentioning of Jason and Julie's parents as that awkwardness didn't really add anything (still felt real, just didn't feel necessary).  I actually really loved how none of the characters seem to really have it together, even when they think they do, and each set of couples goes through a point when they think that they're better than their friends - and consequently find out that no, they really aren't.  The one thing that I would have wanted from this film in terms of the cast is a bit more development into the two not-core couples; the dynamics between Rudolph and O'Dowd and Hamm and Wigg are great, and you just kind of want more of them at times.  I also didn't really think that Edward Burns' character needed to be so perfect, it kind of made him out to be a bit of a Mary Sue which was disappointing given how great the rest of the cast was.

I do have to admit, though, that I wasn't a huge fan of the ending.  To me, it kind of felt as though this film was trying to do something different - which I loved - but in the end caved into pressure and went the route that you expected.  It was kind of a cop out, which was just disappointing.  It's not that the ending was bad, per say, just that it wasn't what fit with the tone of the rest of the movie.

Bachelorette (2012)

Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Isla Fisher, Lizzy Caplan, James Marsden, Kyle Bornheimer, Rebel Wilson, Adam Scott

Director: Leslye Headland

Genre: Comedy

Rating: B

What do you do when your "fat friend" gets married before you?  This is the problem presented in Bachelorette, as three friends, Regan (Dunst), Gena (Caplan), and Katie (Fisher) come to terms with the impending marriage of their "fat friend," Becky (Wilson).  Regan, the maid of honour, has always thought that she would be the first to marry, and is particularly devastated.  Gena, is insecure in her life, possibly addicted to drugs, and not yet over her ex-boyfriend, Clyde (Scott), who will be at the wedding.  Gena, really, is just a bitch.  After a fight with the bride the night before the wedding the trio get drunk and do cocaine, lament about their lives and the wedding, and decide to play with the wedding dres.  This all goes horribly wrong when they manage to rip the dress in two, and the night is spent in a mad scramble to try to fix it.

Going into this, I wasn't particularly sure about the film.  The three leads aren't exactly likeable, and I found the humour to be more offensive than funny.  Then the dress rips and the mad scramble starts and things really start to fall into place.  I really enjoyed the mad scramble and I found that with a goal in mind the characters all really seemed to become more likeable.  I never really wanted to embrace Isla Fisher's Gena - at the end, she was still really just a bitch, although I must say I didn't outright hate her or anything.  I loved Lizzy Caplan, though.  At the start she was the only character who I thought I might like, then I didn't, then I absolutely loved her.  Hers was the journey that made the most sense and was the most fun - but then, anything that includes "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by The Proclaimers is awesome.  In the end, though, I found Dunst's character to be the most intriguing. It's really your typical story of a girl who appears to have everything, but really has nothing, but I still like what they did with it.

This movie gets a lot of comparison to The Hangover and Bridesmaids.  In my opinion it's a far better female equivalent of The Hangover than Bridesmaids ever was.  Where Bridesmaids is about women hating each other and fighting over whose the best bridesmaid, The Hangover series is about guys getting drunk and having an adventure before a wedding, with hilarious results - while Bachelorette does have a good amount of infighting among the bridesmaids and with the bride, the key element here is the pre-wedding adventure, with hilarious results.  It's a movie centred around a wedding, but also not centred around the wedding, and that's really why I enjoyed it.  It was fun.

Love Actually (2003)

Starring: Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Keira Knightley, Martine McCutcheon, Bill Nighy, Rowan Atkinson, Lúcia Moniz, Thomas Sangster, Gregor Fisher, Andrew Lincoln, Kris Marshall, Heike Makatsch, Martin Freeman, Joanna Page

Director: Richard Curtis

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Rating: A

"Let's go get the shit kicked out of us by love"

Love is all around.  That is, very literally, the message of the 2003 film Love Actually.  The thing is, however, that this film isn't just about romantic love, although that does feature rather heavily, as it looks at the love between lovers, friends, and family.  There's even the loss of love and unrequited love and the whole shebang.  Love is all around.

The film follows a collection of people, all intricately connected to one another.  David (Grant) is the newly elected Prime Minister of Great Britain, and develops an attraction for a new junior member of his staff, Natalie (McCutcheon).  David's sister, Karen (Thompson), is having problems in her marriage - although she's not entirely aware of it yet - as her husband, Harry (Rickman) is enticed by his flirtatious new secretary Mia (Makatsch).  Also working for Harry is Sarah (Linney) and Karl (Rodrigo Santoro).  Sarah is in love with Karl and has been since she started working at the company, although neither she nor Karl have made any moves yet.  Karen's friend Daniel (Neeson) is newly widowed and unsure of how to help his stepson Sam (Sangster), who has fallen in love with classmate Joanna (Olivia Olson).  Sarah's friend Jamie (Firth) has discovered that his girlfriend is sleeping with his brother and in order to deal he retires to his French cottage, where he meets Aurélia (Moniz), who only speaks Portuguese.  Jamie and Sarah both attended the wedding of Juliet (Knightley) and Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor).  Juliet has long thought that Peter's best friend Mark (Lincoln) hated her, when in actuality he's been in love with her this whole time.  Also at the wedding is Colin (Marshall), a British man who has decided to go to America where his accent will instantly make him a hit with the ladies.  His friend Tony (Abdul Salis) doesn't believe this is the best idea.  Tony is the production assistant of a film where John (Freeman) and Judy (Page) are body doubles for a sex scene.  Overseeing it all is rock and roll legend Billy Mack (Nighy)'s attempt to have a #1 Christmas hit, a variation of The Troggs' "Love is all Around".  Billy Mack's one friend is his longtime manager Joe (Fisher).  Oh, also, there's minor character Rufus (Atkinson) who provides a couple antics and was initially supposed to be a Christmas angel before being dropped as such - I still like to think of him as one.

This is the kind of film that movies like New Years Eve, Valentine's Day, and What to Expect When You're Expecting all try to be.  Centred around one common theme it tells the story of a bunch of different people who are all connected but at the same time unrelated.  There's the perfect amount of characters here, with the story focusing heavily on some and not so heavily on others.  There are no real twists, you can see the endings that end up happening coming for miles, but it's not really a movie that needs twists.  Each of the storylines is absolutely awesome and each of the characters is great.  Even John and Judy, who get the briefest of scenes, have the feel of being these thoroughly developed characters.  You know that they exist outside of the sex acts that they're miming.

The other thing that I really like about the film is that while you can see the endings coming, some of them aren't necessarily the ones that you want to see happen.  I always feel a but guilty as I watch the Mark/Juliet/Peter triangle, because no matter how much I know Juliet and Peter are in love and even though I think Peter's a great guy, I want Juliet to leave him and hook up with Mark.  At the same time, I want Harry to smarten up and be with his wife.  I don't care so much about some plots - like the Colin one, which I think was just for laughs, or the Sam one, which I think is a bit cliched - but Love Actually is more than just the sum of its parts.  It's just sheer awesomeness.

In addition to being a story about love, this is also a comedy, to which it does so rather nicely.  The amount of comedy is different in each plot, and to an extent so is the style, but somehow it works here.  Even with their differences, they all seem to work well together, they mesh like a really good collage - like a puzzle depicting a picture of Mickey made out of a bunch of smaller images of scenes from Disney movies.  The one-liners keep on coming in this one, as do the little scenes that are just hilarious.  If you haven't seen this movie yet, I recommend you at least look up the image of Hugh Grant dancing to "Jump (For My Love" by The pointer Sisters.

Sons of Anarchy (Season 3)

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Katey Sagal, Mark Boone Junior, Kim Coates, Tommy Flanagan, Maggie Siff, Ron Perlman, Ryan Hurst, William Lucking, Theo Rossi, Dayton Callie
Creator: Kurt Sutter 

Genre: Crime, Drama, Action, Comedy
Rating: A-

Have I mentioned yet how much I love the music in Sons of Anarchy?  I don’t think that I have.  A lot of the series’ music is stuff from lesser known, newer artists with a traditional rock and roll tone to it, although a few artists who are more established are also briefly used.  There’s also a lot from series composer Bob Thiele’s band The Forest Rangers, often featuring a vocal accompaniment by another artist.  There are also frequent covers, done in a way that feels different but at the same time totally fits with the tone of the show.  If you haven’t already, you should definitely check out the soundtracks.

I think the third season of Sons of Anarchy managed to both improve on the previous seasons and lose some of the charm.  The plot continues to grow in direction and become less overly complicated, but I think some of the elements of it were a bit rushed and I found at some points I really needed to suspend my disbelief.  I really liked the note that the season ended on and the implications that it had for the next season, but some of the journey was a bit bumpy.

Season three picks up a bit after where season two left off: Gemma (Sagal) has fled from Charming and is in hiding with Tig (Coates) and SOA members from another charter guarding her while the other Sons are searching for Cameron (Jamie McShane) and Abel.  The search is not going well, however, as Cameron flees to Belfast, Northern Ireland, where he seeks help from his cousins Maureen Ashby (Paula Malcomson) and Father Kellan Ashby (James Cosmo), the latter whom acts as an intermediary between Jimmy O’Phelan (Titus Welliver) and the Real IRA.  Rather than simply hand Abel over to the Sons, Father Ashby and the IRA begin to weave their own intricate plot in which the Sons of Anarchy are just pawns.  Meanwhile in town all the violence is beginning to catch up to the Sons and following a drive-by shooting at Half-Sack’s wake the townsfolk begin to turn against the club and those associated with it.  In order to maintain their standing the club has to restore order, but they’re being opposed by Jacob Hale, Jr (Jeff Kober), who is now running for mayor and is even more determined to remove SAMCRO from Charming.  Gemma, meanwhile, is longing for her family and, unable to return to Charming, goes to visit her newly widowed father, Nate (Hal Holbrook), who suffers from dementia.  I kind of love how I just wrote a summary of the season’s events while only mentioning two of the series’ stars by name.  The creepiest moment by far, however, is the guest appearance of Stephen King, who plays a man named Bachman.  That man is just… yeah.

So, I'm going to look at this season in two different lights; on the one hand you have the plot with Gemma in the US, and on the other hand you have the plot with the search for Abel in Ireland.  I loved the plot with Gemma and the way that we got to see her relationship with people beyond the Sons.  We got to see a bit of who she was before she became an Old Lady.  I also really love the development of her relationship with the Sons who aren't Jax (Hunnam) and Clay (Perlman).  We really get to see that she is as much a part of the club as the members; we see that she is as loved as any of the men in it, possibly more so.  I really get the feeling that if Clay wasn't around, any one of the older men in the club would make a try for her, even Tig who's sexuality is a reoccurring joke on the show.  I also love that the issues that Gemma is trying to overcome here bring up cause to develop the relationship between her and Tara (Siff).  That's a really great relationship, and I like seeing where it goes.

So, yeah.  While I loved the plot with Gemma, I kind of question the Abel plot.  There were great elements of it, but in the end it was a bit much.  I can really see how this whole thing is going to end up completely screwing the Sons over, especially Jax.  Sometimes, I think the show is being set up for a massive kill-them-all ending - a thought that is only reinforced by the Shakespearean themes to it - and the whole thing with the Irish was one of those moments.  Can't you see the show ending like that, with everyone dead?  I do.

Partysaurus Rex (2012)

Starring: Wallace Shawn, Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Corey Burton

Director: Mark A. Walsh

Genre: Animation, Short, Comedy

Rating: B

Rex (Shawn) is a party pooper, always disrupting the toys when they're playing because he's over thinking the consequences.  That is until one day Bonnie (Emily Hahn) picks him to join her in the bath and leaves him behind in the tub.  There he learns that the bath toys would like to continue playing but can't without water - and none of them can turn on the water, because they lack arms.  Fortunately, Rex has arms and he can start the party again - and thus prove that he is Partysaurus Rex not Party-Pooper Rex.

I'm not really sure how I felt about this one.  Ben Kendrick said that it  is "easily the most enjoyable franchise spin-off to date," which I can see.  Franchise spin-off shorts tend to be less than great, and Partysaurus Rex is definitely fun.  It just doesn't really convey the emotion or, really story, that a lot of the other shorts have.  It was enjoyable, but didn't set me up as emotionally as a lot of other shorts have done.

Paperman (2012)

 Starring: John Kahrs, Kari Wahlgren, Jeff Turley

Director: John Kahrs

Genre: Animation, Short, Comedy

Rating: A

George (Kahrs), sees Meg (Wahlgren) at the subway and falls for her, but their meeting is short lived - after a brief meet cute, they're swept in different directions by the trains.  Cut to his work, where he comes to the realization that the girl is just across the street from him and if he can throw the perfect airplane he can get her attention.

I really liked this short.  The emotion that it succeeds in conveying without words is just awesome.  You totally get the feeling of love and despair that George has, and are rooting for him the entire time.  Every time he throws a paper plane you find yourself holding your breath, hoping it goes into the right window.  The short is cheesy and a bit ridiculous, and definitely set in a dream world, but it's still fun and enjoyable.  In a lot of ways it really reminded me of shorts like Geri's Game or For the Birds, just because of the pure emotion.

Bunheads (Season 1)

Starring: Sutton Foster, Kaitlyn Jenkins, Julia Goldani Telles, Bailey Buntain, Emma Dumont, Kelly Bishop

Creator: Amy Sherman-Palladino

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Rating: B

Michelle Simms (Foster) has fallen in life.  While she used to be a ballerina somehow her life has slipped past her, to the point that she's now a dancer in Vegas - although she is not yet a stripper.  Finally, at an all time low as she comes to the conclusion that her career, and by extension her life, is at an end, Michelle decides to take up the offer of longtime, and persistent, admirer, Hubbell Flowers (Alan Ruck).  The two get married and she moves with him to his sleepy coastal town of Paradise.  Life, however, is not as pleasant as Hubbell promised, particularly after Hubbell dies in a car accident just one day after their marriage.  Now Michelle must decide what to do with her life, figure out how to adjust to Paradise, and come to terms with her mother-in-law, Fanny (Bishop).  Like her, Fanny is also a former dancer, and in Paradise Fanny runs a ballet school, the Paradise Dance Academy, where Michelle very slowly begins to find a new life.

You can really tell that this show comes from the mind of Amy Sherman-Palladino.  The relationship between Michelle and Fanny is very reminiscent of the one between Lorelai and Emily in Gilmore Girls, despite the fact that Fanny is nothing like Emily - asides from being portrayed by the same actress.  There is no Rory here, but you can really see a relationship growing between Michelle and the dance students that is also reminiscent of that.  The other thing that is reminiscent of Gilmore Girls is the small town and the oddballs that come with it.  At times they appear to be a bit much, but I know that with time each one of them is going to really grow on us.  I particularly liked the fact that we got to see some of the old cast members from Gilmore Girls too - it'll help with the attachment to these surreal people.

The plot in itself is a bit questionable, but I like the basic idea.  You can really tell that the marriage is just a tool to get Michelle to Paradise, and I suspect it could have been done without, but it Sherman-Palladino makes it work.  This really feels like a show that is going to grow with time, and looking back at Gilmore Girls again I remember how that grew as well.  There is a lot that I'd like to see happen with Michelle - namely her getting a good friend in Paradise who can support her - and I'm looking forward to seeing how the show plays out.  There's an episode when Michelle's best friend comes to town and I thought it was one of the best episodes of the season - I'd like to see more like that.  Oh, one last thing that I really liked, there are a lot of really random pop culture references here, and they don't simply cover things that are current.  That was one of my favourite features of Gilmore Girls and I'm glad it's being continued here.

3,2,1... Frankie Go Boom (2012)

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Chris O'Dowd, Lizzy Caplan, Nora Dunn, Whitney Cummings, Ron Perlman, Chris Noth, Sam Anderson

Director: Jordan Roberts

Genre: Comedy

Rating: B

Frankie (Hunnam) has always been the focus of two things: his brother's pranks and his brother's films.  These pranks have lead to some disastrous results, notably when he became a Youtube sensation following a disastrous incident at what was supposed to be his wedding.  Wedding called off, Frankie withdrew to the desert and did his best to cut off all ties with his family.  That is, until his brother, Bruce (O'Dowd), is released from rehab and his parents (Dunn and Anderson) insist that Frankie come to the reunion.  Bruce has decided that he wants to become a director, and his favourite person to focus on is his brother.  Frankie wants no part in it, but when he finds out that Bruce secretly filmed an encounter that Frankie had with Lassie (Caplan), Frankie must embark on a journey to regain his dignity.

This journey is what makes this film absolutely awesome, as Frankie comes up repeatedly against the not exactly sane people that inhabit his brother's world - notably rather deranged actor Jack (Noth), and the transsexual Phiyllis (Perlman).  Each character in this film is really a character - most of them you suspect might be mentally unstable and a good portion of them who you really hope aren't supposed to be realistic depictions of people, even if some of them do kind of remind you of people you know - and their actions are both hilarious and infuriating at the same time.  It's very easy to relate with Hunnam's character because the events that happen to him are in a way so clear cut that it's hard not to be mad at Bruce.  At the same time, however, once you write Bruce off as not all there mentally it becomes easier to try to make allowances for his behaviour, even when he crosses the line - which he does multiple times.

The thing that I really liked about 3,2,1... Frankie Go Boom was just how unconventional it is.  It addresses issues that, while you might see addressed normally, don't get touched on to the great length that Frankie touches on them.  I mean, it's a movie that combines the power of the internet and viral videos with hidden sex tapes and erectile dysfunction.  And on top of all that it also has this great love story underneath it.  You never really care about most of the characters in this film - you aren't rooting for Bruce or Jack or Phiyllis - but there isn't any addition to it that could have been done away with.  You are rooting for Frankie and Lassie, and they need Bruce, Jack, and Phiyllis in order to make their story work.  Plus, you can't go wrong with Ron Perlman as a transsexual.

Sons of Anarchy (Season 5)

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Katey Sagal, Mark Boone Junior, Kim Coates, Tommy Flanagan, Maggie Siff, Ron Perlman, Ryan Hurst, Theo Rossi, Dayton Callie
Creator: Kurt Sutter 

Genre: Crime, Drama, Action, Comedy
Rating: A-

Holy shit.  That's all I can say after having watched this season of Sons of Anarchy. Holy shit.  Season five shows us what happens to the MC following Jax's rise to power.  Jax's sovereignty is shaky from the start; Tig (Coates)'s actions in season four have pitted SAMCRO against the crew of Damon Pope (Harold Perrineau), a man who has a lot more power and in many ways is a lot scarier than Jax.   A series of home invasions have begun to rock Charming, with the police looking to blame SAMCRO at least in part for them.  Jax must also find a way to get rid of Clay (Perlman) once and for all, while Clay is trying to figure out how to regain his power.  Gemma (Sagal), meanwhile, is on a path to hitting rock bottom as she begins drinking and smoking heavier than before, and ends up in the bed of a pimp, Nero (Jimmy Smits), who uses his relationship with Gemma to forge a relationship with Jax and the club.  Tara (Siff) closes herself off to Gemma once again, and is still looking to get her and her family away from the club, while also using her doctoring services in an attempt to get closer to Otto (Sutter).  Oh, and Opie (Hurst) is beginning to question the club even more, and his future within it.

Every episode this season had me starring at the screen going "what the fuck".  I was never really sure just what was about to happen, and every twist that came shocked me.  I laughed, I cried, I got angry, I cried some more.  Even though it's only just ended, I'm already eager for the next season to start up so that I can find out what happens next.  I think I am now more convinced than ever that by series end everyone will be dead - I also think that by the end of it all, Otto will have no more body parts, at least on his face.

This season was a bit jumpy at points, and at times the direction was a bit confusing.  Things seemed to happen not necessarily because they made sense but because they had to happen and it's TV.  I also spent a lot of time watching what was happening with Jax and really questioning the decisions that he was making.  This season is about the descent of Jax and his transition into the kind of man that Clay is.  There's also a lot of fighting between Gemma and Tara, and I can't help but feel that the show is setting things up for one of their departures from things as well, if not both of them.  Once again, everyone's going to die, that's my prediction.

If you've seen this series, or at least the first few episodes, I really recommend watching this video released by EW - clicking it has some very strongly implied spoilers, though, so don't do so unless you already know what happens or don't mind figuring it out.

Sons of Anarchy (Season 2)

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Katey Sagal, Mark Boone Junior, Kim Coates, Tommy Flanagan, Maggie Siff, Ron Perlman, Ryan Hurst, William Lucking, Theo Rossi, Dayton Callie, Johnny Lewis
Creator: Kurt Sutter 

Genre: Crime, Drama, Action, Comedy
Rating: A

The second season of Sons of Anarchy nicely takes the set up that was the first season and expands on it.  This season is far better than the first, with a more concise and clearer plot and a higher degree of threat to the club.  The issues surrounding the first season are still at force here, especially the threat of ATF and the way that Tara (Siff) fits into Jax (Hunnam)’s world, but there are also whole new threats to the world of Sam Crow and the issues between Clay (Perlman) and Jax begin to really come into the light.  Jax, meanwhile, learns that Donna’s death was at the hands of a club member on the order of Clay and begins to use this as a means of challenging Clay, although never so severely so as to outright challenge Clay’s continued leadership.  Rounding things out is the club’s involvement in the pornography studio run by Big Otto (Sutter)’s wife, Luanne (Dendrie Taylor), who is being threatened by another studio run by Georgie Caruso (Tom Arnold), and the reparation of the relationship between SAMCRO and the Real IRA when its head Jimmy O’Phelan (Titus Welliver) comes stateside.

The big threat of the season is the new-to-Charming white separatists group, the League of American Nationalists (LOAN), who quickly begin to try to drive the Sons out of Charming – early on in the series, this results in the kidnapping and gang rape of Gemma Morrow (Sagal).  Gemma hides the rape from Clay, Jax, and other SAMCRO members, telling only Unster (Callie) and Tara, who try to help her deal with the attack throughout the season.  Tara, meanwhile is trying to figure out just what her role is as Jax’s Old Lady, and how to reconcile it with her role as a doctor at the hospital. 

I think, so far, my favourite moment of this series has to be when Gemma and Tara finally bonded. Over guns. In the parking lot behind a porn film studio run in part by the club. The whole idea of Gemma being this over protective bitchy mother who spends a lot of time trying to control how her son lives his life got old really fast. Really, really fast. I love how this season Gemma seems to have decided to accept Tara and the role that she now plays in Jax’s life and has set out to help Tara adjust to life as an “old lady.” There are a lot of moments that really showed this transition, but my favourite was definitely when Gemma re-armed Tara and taught her how to shoot – and provided her with a way to take out some of her stress and assert her dominance. It was an interesting development and I think really showed just how Gemma went from being a girl not unlike Tara to the matriarch that she is now, as well as suggesting that with time Tara will fill in the role of matriarch herself.

 I also really like the journey that you can see each of the characters embarking on.  This season is a lot easier to follow than the first one, with things seeming to make a lot more sense and being a lot more cohesive.  I also really, really like the whole idea of Tara and Jax being together and dealing with that, instead of not being together and wanting to but pretending to not want to... yeah, that part got annoying really fast last season.  I know things aren't going to be all hunky dory for the lovers and their MC in the future, but somehow the fact that they at least have each other gives me hope.  That is, until you consider the fact that this is supposed to be inspired by Hamlet, where everyone dies horribly.

Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

Starring: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, John Ortiz, Anupam Kher, Julia Stiles, Chris Tucker

Director: David O. Russell

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Rating: A

Going into this movie I wasn't too sure about a lot of it.  It looked good, but I tend to be disappointed by Bradley Cooper movies, particularly this year.  I love Jennifer Lawrence, but I was really hesitant about seeing her pair off as a romantic partner for the much older Cooper - Lawrence is 22, Cooper 37.  But, it looked good, I like Lawrence, and I like David O. Russell, so I gave this film a shot.  And, by God, I'm glad I did.

Silver Linings Playbook follows Pat Solitano (Cooper), a man newly released from a mental health facility, into the care of his parents, Pat Sr. (De Niro) and Dolores (Weaver).  Following discovering that his wife Nikki (Brea Bree) was having an affair, Pat had a violent episode, leading to his incarceration and eventual diagnosis with bi-polar disorder. Now released, Pat is determined to prove to Nikki that he has changed and bettered himself, and eventually get back together with her - he's only hindered by the fact that there's a restraining order against him, preventing him from coming into contact with Nikki.  Even Pat's good friend, Ronnie (Oritz) and his wife Veronica (Stiles) refuses to contact Nikki on behalf of Pat, despite maintaining a friendship with her.  Then the recently widowed Tiffany Maxwell (Lawrence), Veronica's younger sister, bonds with Pat over their share neuroses and offers to deliver a letter to Nikki for him - if he participates in a dance competition with her.  Overlaying the whole thing is Pat Sr.'s obsession with football; after losing his job, Pat Sr. became a bookie in order to earn money to open a restaurant.  Pat Sr. is rather compulsive about his game-day superstitions, one of which requires Pat Jr.'s presence during games - something that Pat Jr. is not particularly eager in participating in.

I absolutely loved this story.  It's awkward and uncomfortable at moments, but in a way that completely makes sense in the film.  There are a lot of moments when I wanted to yell at Bradley Cooper's character for his actions - but his actions made sense given the nature of his character.  I felt similarly about Robert De Niro's character.  You spend so much of this movie wanting them to just calm down and be nice to each other, but that wouldn't work.  While Cooper's Pat is diagnosed with bi-polar it isn't hard to see that De Niro's Pat probably has it too.  The one problem that I had here was the fact that I really couldn't follow a lot of the football stuff and it wasn't until the first half of the movie or so was over that it began to make sense and really have a point, at least in my mind.

I both loved and hated Jennifer Lawrence's casting.  I think Lawrence played her character absolutely perfectly, and there was definite chemistry between her and Cooper, despite the age difference.  I went into this movie hoping that they didn't go the route of making her the love interest and midway through found myself really hoping that she would be the love interest just because of the chemistry between the two of them.  In a lot of ways, I found the character of Tiffany Maxwell to be a lot more intriguing than the one of Pat Solitano.  The one thing that I disliked here was that her age wasn't really established.  From my understanding of the book (which I haven't read), Tiffany is supposed to be older than Lawrence, but because the film doesn't really address this we're left thinking that this 22 year old - who looks younger - is a recovering sex addicted widow who is romantically interested in Bradley Cooper.  Relating to the overall Tiffany problems is the casting of Julia Stiles as her sister.  I like Julia Stiles overall, I just didn't really buy her as Jennifer Lawrence's sister - especially once we saw the actors playing their parents.  Casting is important, and I'm of the opinion that if you're casting two people to be siblings - especially when there's a good age gap - they should probably look a bit alike.

That having been said, though, this was a really good movie.  Really good.  Just to add into the general things that I liked about it, my favourite scene in the entire movie is early on when Pat has just finished reading Hemingway, has a "wait, that was the ending" moment, then throws the book out the window and goes on a rant about it, waking up his parents and flipping out, despite it being four in the morning.  I have wanted to react like this when reading books, and it was just so awesome to see someone actually do so.  The opening of the movie still had me a bit unsure about things, but this scene really cinched it for me.

Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

Starring: John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch

Director: Rich Moore

Genre: Animation, Comedy, Family

Rating: A+

Okay, so I'm just going to stick this out there: I was looking up the movie's cast list for this review when I saw that Alan Tudyk is in this as King Candy.  Nothing bad comes from having Alan Tudyk in your movie or TV show - hell, he was even great in Dollhouse, and Dollhouse wasn't all that great despite being from the mind of Joss Whedon.  He's not starring, but he should be because his role is significant and he's awesome.  Adding to this awesomeness is Jane Lynch, who is equally as awesome!  She is by far the best part of Glee, and I have to say I love watching old shows from the late 90s and early 00s, and seeing her randomly appear.

Wreck-It Ralph is about an old arcade game villain, Wreck-It Ralph (Reilly) who is tired of being the villain.  He is never appreciated for what he does and the essential role that he plays in the game, and wants to be appreciated in some way - to get the kind of recognition that his game's hero, Fix-It Felix, Jr. (McBrayer), gets. After an argument with one of the game's Nicelanders, Mayor Gene (Raymond S. Persi), Ralph decides to leave his game and go in search of one where he can win a medal, like the one that Felix gets daily.  He travels to the first-person shooter Hero's Duty, where he can win a medal for climbing a tower and killing bugs.  In between games, Ralph does just that - but in the process he accidentally hatches a Cy-Bug, which clings to him as he stumbles into an escape pod.  The bug and Ralph fly into the kart-racing game Sugar Rush.  Here Ralph meets game glitch Vanellope von Schweetz (Silverman), who dreams of becoming a racer, despite the hatred that the other citizens of Sugar Rush hold for her.  Meanwhile, Felix has also left Fix-It Felix, Jr, with the realization that if he doesn't find Ralph the game will be unplugged an everyone in it will be left homeless in Game Central Station.  Felix pairs up with Sergeant Tamora Jean Calhoun (Lynch), the hardened lead character of Hero's Duty, who realizes just how bad the escape of the Cy-Bug is.  The bug doesn't realize it's a video game character, and will set out to destroy any game that it's in - before moving on to Game Central Station and infesting other games.

I love the many dimensions to this movie.  There's a lot going on with the plot, but it never feels like it's too much.  The one thing that I didn't like, at least at first, were the many references to "going Turbo", which I felt could have been explained earlier.  To me, "turbo" is the power charge that you get in race type games, and so I had no clue what it meant in the video game land - something that they realize in Wreck-It Ralph, because they do set out to explain it after awhile, but in my mind not soon enough.  I understood why Ralph's disappearance was a threat, but not why they called Ralph's actions "Turbo."  It worked out in the end, but there was that momentary annoyance whenever they mentioned it.

Beyond that, however, there's a lot going on in this movie.  Each of the main characters, really, has their own plot and has to come to different realizations.  I love that, especially given as it's a children's movie.  While I've come to expect depth in a children's movie, I don't expect this much.  I loved it.  Including this, there's also a lot of really little details to this film.  Stuff like the way that Felix and the Nicelanders moved, as if they actually were pixelated creatures - I think it would have been really nice had this continued on to Ralph as well.  There are other things too - early on in the film Vanellope tells Ralph that double striped candy canes disappear when you grab them, and throughout the film you see double striped candy canes.

There's also the humour to this film.  The thing that I love about Disney is that it really nicely balances the juvenile and adult humour.  The relationship between Ralph and Vanellope is so cute and childish that you can't help but love it.  At the same time there are so many little things that bring a smile to your face and are completely for the adult viewer. I love the fact that this is a video game movie that makes references to an entire history of video games.  I loved it.

Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)

Starring: Diane Lane, Sandra Oh, Lindsay Duncan

Director: Audrey Wells

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Rating: C+

"I'll hire the muscular descendants of Roman gods to do the heavy lifting." 

Writer Frances Mayes (Lane) has had her seemingly perfect life shattered; following the discovery that her husband is cheating on her she goes through a quick divorce and emerges depressed and unable to write.  Enter her newly pregnant lesbian best friend, Patti (Oh), and Patti's partner, Grace (Kate Walsh), who decide to sent Frances on a gay tour of Tuscany.  There her tour group stops in the small town of Cortona where, after a meeting with eccentric British actress Katherine (Duncan) Frances decides to buy a dilapidated villa.  The film then focuses on the restoration of the villa, with the help of a crew of Polish immigrants, and Frances' attempts to pull her life together and once again find love and happiness.

This is one of those movies that has a lot wrong with it, but is still fun and enjoyable.  I think it's the type of movie that critics like to be hard on because of all the cliches and simplicity behind it.  It is in its very essence a chick flick and thus to a degree that makes it bad.  At the same time, however, it's a well done chick flick and that in my mind makes it good.  There's a lot of comedy to it, and a fair bit of romance.  Lane does a lot of chick flicks and she does them pretty well.  They might not become classics or must-see-films, but they're definitely the ones that you go to when you want a good cry or that uplifting feeling that you can get from a romance.

What I really like about Under the Tuscan Sun, however, isn't the romance in itself.  It's the lack of romance that makes this movie so good.  Frances is not learning to love life again because she falls in love, she's not finding her muse and happiness in another man.  She's finding it in life around her as a whole, and really realizing that there's more to life than just love - there's more to happiness than being with someone.  There's a point early on in the film where Frances makes a wish about the things that she would like to see happen in the house, and the ways in which they come true without being what Frances had thought.  The movie is a bit of a rarity for a chick flick largely in that it isn't about the chick getting the guy.  Maybe not the best film, but I definitely enjoyed it.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

Starring: Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Richard O'Brien, Patricia Quinn, Nell Campbell, Jonathan Adams, Peter Hinwood, Meat Loaf, Charles Gray

Director: Jim Sharman

Genre: Comedy, Musical

Rating: A+

If you somehow don't already know The Rocky Horror Picture Show my recommendation is to go and check it out now.  An update of the classic Frankenstein story, this one is one of the few to really take the idea and go in a completely different direction.  Here we have newly engaged, rather vanilla couple Brad (Bostwick) and Janet (Sarandon) are on their way to see Dr. Everett Scott (Adams) when their car breaks down, so they go to the nearest house looking for a phone (this is well before the advent of cell phones).  There they find the eccentric and mad Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Curry), a transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania, and his attendees, namely Riff Raff (O'Brien), Magenta (Quinn), and Columbia (Campbell).  Dr. Frank is a scientist who has made a man, Rocky Horror (Hinwood), although there is talk of another man, Eddie (Loaf).  Overseeing and narrating the whole thing is the Criminologist (Grey).

The thing I like most about this movie is the fact that every time you watch it you notice some other little thing about it.  While a total B-flick at best - or, really a parody of B-flicks - it's also horribly intricate and has all these little details to it.  There's something new to notice every time you watch it.  It's about more than just transvestites, aliens, cross-dressing, and songs - that's all very much in the foreground, but there is more going on.

Actually, that's a lie.  That's not my favourite part about this film, although it's up there.  My favourite part is the music.  The movie in general is fun, if not really weird and at times a bit confusing, and that's largely because of the music.  The soundtrack is just fun and there isn't a single song in it that doesn't serve a great purpose.  The best part here is the fact that the eclecticness of some of the music really embraces the eclecticness of the overall film.  It's really all over the place, but in Rocky Horror it somehow works.  The fact that this is meant to be a parody just makes things better.  It covers both the B-flicks and in a way life in general.  Looking at it - a movie about a singing transvestite who creates a man while basically holding two strangers hostage before things all go to shit - you wouldn't expect it to say anything really profound, but the more you watch it the more you start to see this kind of commentary.  There's a reason it's the longest-running release film in history.  It's something you want to see in theatres on the big screen, and not just because of the audience participation.