Movies : May 2006

29 May 2006

Over the Hedge

Over the Hedge is a comic strip which I’ve found in the other local free tabloid, and it seems to follow a trio of characters who would normally make their home in the woods but whose habitat has been overtaken by the spread of suburbia and they are making do. This adaptation amps everything up by adding an origins story, additional characters, propane-fueled chases and explosions, so the effect is less droll and more goofy, but still plenty funny. It’s now a commonplace for characters to reflect the personality of the voice talent, yet William Shatner as a hammy opossum who lives to play dead works.

82 minutes.

12 May 2006

Just My Luck

As promised, a Manhattan setting, injury humor, and a red-headed starlet, but Lindsay Lohan is slathered in makeup most of the time, perhaps to disguise the half a decade’s worth and more of age difference with her co-stars, and the characters are blithe to a fault. Ashley’s life is charmed as she accepts good fortune at every turn. Her resourcefulness (curiously unseen) in landing a major account at the public relations firm where she’s supposed to be low on the totem pole leads to a party for the record label mogul who’s being pursued by Jake (Chris Pine) seeking an audience for a band called McFly. When they kiss, Jake, normally so unlucky his backpack contains antidotes for most of life’s ills, has his fortune improve immediately and Ashley’s spirals downward out of control. Oh, is this your floor, too? This part has its bust out laughing moments (injury always works) and there is nothing dishonorable in how she approaches her next job: handyman at the bowling alley where Jake and the band practice.

103 minutes.

10 May 2006

La Mujer de mi Hermano

The publicity kit says that Zoë (Bárbara Mori) and Ignacio (Christian Meier) have been married almost 10 years. Did they get married when she was 16? (That would fit Mori’s age.) Besides, as the movie begins, they still haven’t settled on a church. Ignacio, burdened with unspecified managerial responsibilities at an inherited factory, may have given more thought to what his wife looked like than what they would do together. While the younger brother Gonzalo (Manolo Cardona) paints and accepts handouts between gallery showings, refusing any commitment to long-time girlfriend Laura (Gaby Espino), mother Crìstina (Angélica Aragón) is increasingly impatient with the absence of a grandchild. Refusing Ignacio’s suggestion of adoption, Zoë sees another path to having her own flesh and blood. Mmm, that path would be the one with the scarlet A in its name. Secrets will, however, make themselves known before the melancholy conclusion. Mori’s every moment on screen is electric despite the obvious symbolism of a husband’s cold feet. Beauty intoxication will out.

90 minutes.

Entries subject to editing at any time. Last edited on: 31-May-2006