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Friday, January 02, 2004
Hey folks! Last week my fam rented Freaky Friday starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsey Lohan. In case you're wondering like I did if Lohan looks familiar, she does. She starred in the remake of The Parent Trap, playing the twins themselves. She's a bit older now and a better actor. Let's hope she stays a good actor and doesn't become a worship object like the Olsen twins.
What a cute flick! I actually read the book a million years ago and don't quite remember much of it so I won't do a book/movie comparison. The story consists of a mother (Curtis) and her independent teenage daughter (Lohan) getting involved in many communication issues. The mother, a psychologist, is about to get remarried after the father's death three years before. The teenager,  Anna, has typical high schooler issues like detention, a bratty kid brother, and trying to make it big with her garage band. One night at a Chinese restaurant, the two get into quite a conflict and a nosy old Chinese woman interferes by giving each a fortune cookie. As a result, in the morning they awake to find they have switched bodies. They find out they have to live out life as the other person until they can figure out a way to switch back. That very evening is the dress rehearsal for the wedding the next day, and a major act for Anna's garage band.
The result is a happy family flick that made me giggle quite a bit. Lohan delivers a stunning performance as a mother trapped inside the body of a fifteen year old. She's very believable. I could totally tell that Jamie Lee Curtis had a blast making this movie. She had funky outfits, special ear peircings, and even jams out on an electric guitar near the end. And somehow, even with the extreme potential for corny reconciliation at the end, they both manage to make it a very believable new understanding between mother and teenager. There was also the added bonus of having fun popish rock by teenage girls, and for teenage girls, it was pretty entertaining. According to my sister Mollie, Lohan herself actually sang, and it definitely wasn't vomitable like Hillary Duff.
So in a era of movies full of icky stuff, this flick delivered good clean fun. There was some pre-marital kissing, a couple of mild cuss words, and dancing. If you can handle that, this is a fun rental. It also has fun DVD features like some extra girl rock videos, behind the scenes with Lohan, and my sis Mollie enjoyed them a lot. So check it out!
Posted at 02:43 pm by Xiana
Sunday, December 28, 2003
Return of the King Favorite Characters
If you haven't seen the movie. . . Go away and don't come back. . .at least until you do!
Ok I'll start on a general topic, there really is soooo much to blab about I could make a whole site!
Everybody, who is your favorite character from Return of the King?
Mine, without a doubt, is Eowyn and Sam. Both had kinda pathetic roles in the other movies, but this one was their chance to just shine.
Eowyn, a warrior princess by all my definitions, first of all she picks the studliest man on the block to be in love with. It was a bad choice for her, just not meant to be, but she sure had good taste. He did keep looking at her and we all know how females overinterpret things. Aragorn was used to elven females, who might work differently, so maybe he didn't know how weird human girls are and how it's just not better to gaze at them with your manly unshaven face and mysterious blue eyes, then save her kingdom from certain death a few times, give her vague answers about the other chick you were supposedly attached to. Aragorn, if you do  these things to a girl, she just might like you! But anyway, he did eventually turn her down once and for all, and so she took it pretty well, and decided, like all good women do, not to take the emotions out anywhere but in the gym. But Eowyn didn't have a gym, so she decided to go save Minas Tirith. And Merry, short and unwanted, she knew how he felt (even though she's a lot prettier than Merry) so she had him suited up and ready to go, and thus they went at, as Gimli would say, to "impossible odds, no chance for survival, what are we waiting for?" She figured out how to hamstring a fifty-plus-foot high charging elephant, and then she saw her uncle go down and rode right up to show Mr. Death Rider what was what.
This is really where Eowyn became my hero. She faced the naked deformed bird thingy, chopped off its head, then faced off to the "apple of the Great Eye" himself. He looked about twice as tall as she was and had a mace about the size of Merry. But she got her sword (which I don't think they even named in the movies) and started battling with him. He almost got her but then Merry (don't the hobbits all have fantastic roles in ROTK?) sworded him right in the butt and that made him think twice.
"No man shall ever kill me!"
"I am no man!" pulls off that helmet to show those gorgeous golden locks and she sends the worst Nazgul into death!!!! Or something. I don't know what that would be for a Nazgul. But she plunges her sword right into the abyss of darkness that was his face(?) and he melts like the wicked witch of the west. She then smiles for her uncle (his last request, remember?) and we only get like one shot of her after that, but oh, I do love her so!
Sam, the servant dude, totally has enough character for both him and mopey Frodo. I don't really have anything against Frodo for a reason, but he's just depressing, "Angst incarnate" as one site called him. He smiles at the end and you're kinda shocked by it cuz you aren't used to seeing Frodo happy. And then you realize that it's a good thing he hasn't smiled in about six hours worth of movie because he looks absolutely goofy. Galadriel, who was my fave in the first movie, also smiles goofy. Sam looks better crying than Frodo looks smiling. Oh, speaking of crying, I think almost every character cried in some fashion or another.
But anyway back to Samwise Gamgee. Yeah, he just totally whooped up on the evilest spider I have ever seen. I am no arachnaphobe, but when I saw Shelob I got the willies, my friends. Oh, back up a little. This is after Sam's best friend in the universe trusts an evil ring-lusting creature (who talks in the third person as two different people and who kinda sounds like Donald Duck having and asthma attack and being used as a squeaky toy at the same time) over his many-times proven ally, Sam. Yeah, I know Frodo was possessed by the ring and all, but that doesn't make it any happier for Sam to be almost pushed down the mountain by Frodo.
Sam, who to that point was just a glorified pack mule (in the place of Bill the pony, anybody remember Bill the pony?) who gave hearty verbal encouragement to the ever-angsty ringbearer, suddenly decided he's had enough of being a second-rate character and he trounces back up the Stairs from Hell (I forget what they're really called but that sure fits) and finds the light of the star and a little black sword (how on earth do  you find a little black pointy stick amongst that maze of sticky web, dead creatures, and the biggest spider poop on earth? I dunno, ask Samwise the Brave) then without hestitation proceeds to attack the scariest creature he has ever laid eyes on. The battle with the spider is magnificent. At one point Sam is completely disarmed, back up against a wall, and just kicks Shelob right in her dripping poisonous jaws with his shoeless feet! Then he relentlessly attacks, finally regains his sword, and just hacks at the heinous she-monster. When he plunges his sword into her sac thingee and she shrinks away in pain, he doesn't give her a moment before he's back at her with Sting and the starlight. She backs away to die.
Sam then proceeds to see his (he thinks) dead best friend, and decides to take the ring, which he knows has the power to overwhelm him even more than Frodo, and then orcs come, take Frodo (by the way, he's alive). So then Sam decides to face a castle full of orcs (lucky for him, they were mostly dead) and he's definitely in the mood now. He kills four orcs in a row, finds Frodo, and helps the pathetic angsty "hero" back up on his feet. (oh in the book Frodo was completely naked there. I was hoping that wouldn't be the case in the movie, and I was right! Keep those pants on, Elijah Woods! All we saw is that Woods has an outie belly button. No wonder he's so angsty)
Then, at the end of the movie, Sam gives Frodo the last of the food, carries the ringbearer when he won't walk, and tries to comfort his friend at all times. In the face of death, outside surfin the lava on a rock with Frodo, he talks of Rosie Cottonwood (with ribbons in her hair! Almost too cute) and you see this dude doesn't want glory, or riches, or anything, he just wants a family and the taste of strawberries again. Then when the four get back to the Shire, Sam, (who is not afraid of anything after he's faced the world's most evil female, Shelob) walks right up to Rosie, they hook up and Sam is a family man. (and I think mayor too but not positive on that). And, obviously, an author too, cuz he finished up the rest of the story for Frodo. My friends, Sam is the studliest hobbit of them all.
Yeah. Eowyn and Samwise. They rock. And this post is done.
Posted at 11:33 pm by Xiana
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