So, yeah....

Why not. I'll blog. I figure, if nothing else, it'll help me kill some time during the work day. And this way I can keep you updated on my very important thoughts on such things as.....

MOVIE REVIEWS!

OK, so yesteday, I saw two. First off, Wedding Crashers. As I was watching this movie, I found myself thinking of Animal House. Not because Wedding Crashers was even remotely on the same level, but specifically because it wasn't. Let me back up for a minute though, because I don't mean to lambast a movie because it's not Animal House. But what I found myself thinking about was how the nature of a type of movie changes as time passes. In this case: the comedy. Wedding Crashers is the latest in the current crop of a "raunchy" or "edgy" comedy. But when I compare it to the simialr vibed comedies I grew up with---a la an Animal House, Bachelor Party, Porky's---in the 80's, Wedding Crashers and the current ilk come off feeling kind of tame.

That's not to take away from the current batch of comedic fare---the Wedding Crashers, the Old Schools, the American Pies, the There's Something About Marys---because these movies definitely have merit of their own. But the difference is heart and balls. The comedies of nowadays, for all their raunch and swagger, invariably end up having heart. By the end of the movie, typically, the main character(s) have undergone some kind of journey, have grown as people, have become better people. Point in case, by the end of Wedding Crashers, the two main characters, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn (in full, overblown throwback to his breakthrough Trent from Swingers character) have gone from wedding crashing, skirt-chasing scoundrels to one (Vaughn) who's happily married himself (albiet grown from an attraction to some kinky sexual quirks, including some sweaty sock including midnight rape), and the other (Wilson) winning the girl of his dreams from her neanderthal boyfriend (an intensely over-the-top Bradley Cooper that I found especially amusing since I only really know him as the sensetive Will from Alias.) There's even an impassioned speech full of, you guessed it: heart.

But let's go back...back with VH1...back to the 80s for a moment. Back to my original example: Animal House. What wasthe journey this band of merry misfits undertook? What growth? The resolution to this classic was a trashing of a college parade that can only be described as epic. Sure, Bluto did get the girl, but he was dressed up as a pirate at the time and abducted her, driving off into the open road in a stolen convertible. This from a movie that also featured a devil and angel arguing over whether a character shoudl absically date-rape his passed out date, theft, cheating, destruction, horse-i-cide (yeah, I made that one up), revenge and the most memorable phallic big screen cucumber to date. And all without a glimmer of remorse or shame. That's balls.

But I digress. Wedding Crashers was an acceptable entry into the genre. It had it's laughs. It had all hallmarks of a modern comedy: including the obligatory Will Ferrel cameo and Christopher Walken. The cheap laughs in the form of the gutter mouth granny. Owen Wilson was Owen Wilson. Vince Vaughn was Vince Vaughn. Which is to say neither particularly good now particularly bad, just there. We're not taking any risks or challenging any boundaries here.

But let me tell you who did stand out for me. The women of this movie. In particular Rachel McAdams and Isla Fisher, playing two night and day sisters. First off, McAdams. She plays Owen Wilson's love interest, and plays it well. The quintessential girl next door type, if the girl next door was a super-model. She plays, largely, the aforementioned "heart" of the movie. In a realtionshop of 3+ years with a boyfriend she is unsure about, she meets Wilson at her older sister's wedding, which is being unknowingly crashed. She plays her uncertainty about her current relationship well as the movie progresses, and does a very good job of portraying affection for Wilson and the losing of her luster for her boyfriend, Sack Lodge (Cooper.) She's at times caring, funny, personable, vulnerable, and always beautiful. The type of girl you'd take home to mom.

Isla Fisher, who plays her younger sister in the movie? Well, let's just say mom might not be ready to meet her just yet. Never in my life did I want more to be Vince Vaughn as when he woke up in the middle of the night tied to his bed, being mounted by a naked Isla. Aside from the sweaty sock duct taped into his mouth, this sounds life a perfectly acceptable wake up call to me. Fisher gleefully plays the quite possibly insane and sexually adventerous sister, who's willing to get to it on the beach, in the bathroom, or at the dinner table, and who's idea of taking a relationship to the next level is to invite another girl into it. Basically the wet dream of Maxim's collective readership.

The dichotomy of the two sisters, although they share little to no screen time together, was probably the strongest part of the movie, but to say that would make it seem like I'm really thinking way too much about Wedding Crashers. Let's just dumb it down to: decent laughs, hot chicks.

A movie that does warrant a little more thought, (although it will get far less words, since this blog is getting very novel-esque in length), was the one I watched later at home. The Motorcycle Diaries. Based upon the journals of Che Guevara, the leader of the Cuban Revolution, it details the travels of himself and friend Alberto Granado, as young 20-somethings on a trip across South America for a medical residency at a leper colony.

Let me state for the record I know almost nothing about Ernesto "Che" Guevara other than I've seen the t-shirts. My knowledge of the Cuban Revolution is similarly in that "slim-to-none" range, leaning heavily towards none. In a summary written on IMDB, someone writes: The two best friends start off with the same goals and aspirations, but by the time the film is over, it's clear what each man's destiny has become. Here's where I disagree.

Granado, it is much clearer for him. He is to be a doctor. That is very clear by the end of the movie. Guevara, however, his future is not so clear. I didn't finish the movie thinking, "Oh, yeah, revolution is definitely in this man's future." Now, as I've stated, I know nothing about the Cuban Revolution, so I'm aware I'm forming my opinion from a position of ignorance. Not the most solid footing. However, Guevara (played by Gael Garcia Bernal) himself says near the end of the movie something along the lines of: "I have much that I need to think about for a long time."

What I did get from the movie was this. The two start upon their journey as two happy-go-lucky youngsters out to see the world (in a South America sense of the term), meet some girls, and have some good times in a motorcycle trip across the continent ont he way to their residency. It's very much a buddy movie for a decent amount of the time. What I get from doing a bit of reading about the movie, was that Guevera used this experience to form some opinions about inequality that led him to the man he became. However, I don't feel that the Motorcycle Diaries gets to that context until they reach the leper colony, at which point it's very noticeable, but also, it's at the end of the movie, which for me, means it didn't leave a strong enough impression.

Don't get the idea, however, that I'm down on the movie. In fact, quite the opposite. I thought it was an excellent film in many aspects. The cinematograph of South America was frequently breathtaking, and the relationship between Guevara and Granado was really the driving force of the film. For me, this film was very much about two lives running parallel for a while, which is what Guevara calls their journey at the end of the film. There lies the resonance of the Motorcycle Diaries for me.

OK, enough is enough. Way too long of a blog. There's no way in hell I'm going back and spell checking this.