7 Word Weekend Movie Review: Nowhere Boy, Life As We Know It and some stupid horse

New Movie Releases Reviewed in 7 Words Each

I Spit On Your Grave (limited) - New to the Halloween season, a remake!

It's a Wonderful Afterlife (limited) - After careful consideration I've decided it's not.

Life As We Know It - The most original movie ever. Period. <--Irony.

My Soul to Take - No thanks, I've already got two now.

Nowhere Boy (limited) - It's about time they released it here!

Secretariat - I saw Seabiscuit and that was enough.

It's October so naturally horror is going to reign for the next few weeks. Well, in numbers anyways. More people will still end up going to see Secretariat or Life As We Know It. But I guess you can call it a weekend of safe bets. Life As We Know It is a mish-mash of familiar plot lines that will make for a comfortable date night film. Secretariat is a safe family movie that may not hold the interest of every child but will still provide a distraction for the weekend. Diane Lane is an everybody actress with an easy draw.

Then of course My Soul To Take is the safe horror movie. Wes Craven may have at one time created some terrifying images but that was done with some time ago. And whereas once upon a time he was able to nicely balance the humor out with the horror, the balance really started shifting after the first Scream. Anymore his films are glossy pop magazine horror. Not necessarily a bad thing mind you. He just switched to a niche of movies that are easily digested and forgotten just as quick. A lot like Halloween candy except it won't show up on the scale later.

The head scratcher this weekend goes to It's a Wonderful Afterlife which tries to play off the Capra Christmas Classic (say that ten times fast). Interestingly though, while it bases it's name off of It's a Wonderful Life, the plot slightly skews closer to another Frank Capra film, Arsenic and Old Lace. It's directed by Gurinder Chadha who also directed Bend it Like Beckham (a good film) and Bride & Prejudice (a truly awful film). From what I've seen and heard, the dark comedy about a mother poisoning people in an attempt to find her daughter a husband, largely falls flat. I might still give it a look when it hits video but it'll have to be when I'm in a weird mood.

And a big final-frickin'-ly to Nowhere Boy being released. I have no idea if it'll be playing anywhere around here, but if I have to, I'll catch it on video. In short it's the story of John Lennon's childhood. Word on it has been incredibly mixed and I fully expect a lot of the facts to be exaggerated (See: Fiction) but that hasn't quelled my interest. If I didn't watch biopics because facts weren't necessarily true, I'd never watch any of them.

On the staying in front, Iron Man 2 is out. Need I say more? Oh I do? Alright...

Also out is Letters To Juliet, the Amanda Seyfried romance vehicle. I watched it... sort of. It was on in the background while I was writing. You know my feelings about Seyfried, so I was biased to begin with. Even with only half my attention on the film I was able to pick it apart. First of all, while I was pleased to see Gael Garcia Bernal (The Science of Sleep), his character was a waste and merely just a MacGuffin to get the plot rolling. Just a few minutes into the film and you're already asking yourself, 'why would he and Seyfried be together in the first place?' as his unhealthy obsession with food creates an obvious detachment from reality.

The plot itself isn't necessarily bad. Women for ages have been writing to a small town in Italy where as the title suggests, they expect it to be read by Juliet. Or in this case a group of women who have traditionally taken it upon themselves to answer these letters. Seyfried aspiring to be a journalist sees this as a fantastic story and ends up writing a response to a letter that had gone unseen for many years. This in turn sparks a quest by an old woman and her grandson to tour the country looking for her old flame. Naturally Seyfried feels it's her duty to tag along.

That's the setup that theoretically is supposed to weave a love story into a blossoming romance between the old woman's grandson and Seyfried. Little chemistry exists between the two and by the time it's supposed to roll around to their moment, I wasn't buying it. The locations should have inspired at the least some beautiful shots, but it just feels like stock footage throughout most of it. It's hard to think of anything redeeming for the film. Well, it did provide me opportunity to crack a lot of jokes while watching it. For that alone I give it 3 out of 10

Like I said, Iron Man 2 is out.

Have a great weekend everybody!