The Night Everything Changes..."Sleepover"

 

The most important rule is don't leave the house...

The Story:

Getting ready to start high school is tough.  Doing it when your best friend (Mika Boorem) is about to move away forever...world-changing.  So Julie (Alexa Vega) has a sleepover at her house.  Her mom (Jane Lynch) is still treating her like a little girl while her dad (Jeff Garlin) remains clueless about everything.  However, when the popular rival (Sara Paxton) challenges Julie's crew to a scavenger hunt... the winner gets to sit at the "popular kids" spot in high school for lunch while the others have to sit near the dumpsters...  Some rules are meant to be broken.

If you have daughters, this is a good film for them to watch.

On second thought, since they disobey the parents, maybe not! : )

Okay, ignoring the bad parenting advice, it's a fun, mostly harmless movie.  The trouble they get into is nothing that bad, and it's a movie with the hi-jinks that won't hopefully bother the parents I you're watching along with your children.

Sam Huntington provides some amusement as the put-upon brother who tries to cover his sister's shenanigans by pretending to be an all-female slumber party by himself.

Thrown also into the mix is Steve Carrell as a rent-a-cop for a few silly moments as well.

This one came out in 2004, right after his breakout performances in Bruce Almighty and Anchorman.  Nothing quite that funny for him in this role, but here you can catch him before he shot to fame the next year as a star.

Final Grade: B-

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: I wouldn't go out of my way to buy it or stop everything that I'm doing if it came on, but it's a harmless bit of fun that if it was on, I would likely stop flipping channels.

Bruce Willis Did Not Save the Day... "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World"

Ah Steve Carrell.

He's a funny guy, but likes to stretch his dramatic muscles from time to time.

So here he goes again, in an offbeat romantic drama about the end of the world...

The Plot:

There is an asteroid heading to earth.  The shuttle that was sent to destroy it failed.  Earth has 3 weeks left before all of humanity is wiped out.

What would YOU do?


This is an interesting movie to review.  It's a drama that makes you laugh.  It's comedic in the absurdity of the whole situation with the world literally coming to an end, and the ways people react to it.  Then you add a love story that is literally too little, too late for the stars.

It's sweet, a little sad, and there is no happy ending...

Or is there?

That is primarily left to the viewer.  Could one asteroid destroy the world?  Hard to say.  The finale of the movie is simply the easiest way for the story to end, and it works.

The romance between Keira Knightly and Steve Carrell is natural and not-forced.  You watch them grow and care for one another as the clock literally counts down to their, and all of humanity's, end.

In fact, it's both poignant and touching as the last act unfurls and the decisions that they both make to ensure they are ready for the end.

Again, it's a quirky little film.  Worth a viewing, but I can totally see people not enjoying the film as it simply is an odd story.

This is one of those movies to me that is good/great... but I'll never likely want to watch it again.  The rewatchability factor is huge for me with movies.

Give it a try sometime, you might surprise yourself.