7 Word Weekend Movie Review: Scream 4, The Conspirator, and I shrug off Atlas.

New Movie Releases Reviewed in 7 Words Each

Atlas Shrugged Part 1 - Good gosh, even the trailer is boring.

The Conspirator - I think it's worth spending five bucks.

Rio - I hate this on so many levels.

Scream 4 - Grudgingly, I admit I want to watch.

I read Atlas Shrugged when I was younger. It was a birthday present to and I always try to read the books I'm given. Mostly I found it boring. At its heart it might not be so bad of a story. I generally eat up dystopian tales. I just think it's way too long, with huge passages in particular that run on forever. So it's one instance where I thought it might not be such a bad idea for an adaptation. Trim a few hundred pages here and there and you might condense it down into something worthwhile. But of course, that's not what's happening. It's being produced in parts. Here is the trailer for part one, which fails to draw me in:

Blame the recession for this one as when the economy started to take a downturn a few years back, Atlas jumped back up the best seller list. And to those of you who loved the book, whether you consider yourself an objectivist or not, let's agree to disagree and not have a drawn out discussion about it.

So, there's another Scream out. Woo? Woo. When they first started talking about making another one, I was a little less than thrilled. I loved the first, thought the second was okay and absolutely hated the third one. Still I have to admit, seeing the trailers has gotten me hyped to see it. Well, on video. I could go on about it, but as I don't intend to see it in theater, and as I have 3 resident horror reviewers here, I figure why not let them tackle it. So on Saturday, you can expect a non-review from the Shrunken Heads (because happily it tied in with the alphabet challenge. Victory!).

I could write something long about The Conspirator but instead, if you haven't heard of it, check out the trailer.

Oh yeah, it looks good.

On the staying in front, I have an odd sort of recommendation this week. I recently watched Ping Pong Playa, which is every bit as good as the title implies. The film stars Jimmy Tsai who also co-wrote the movie about a slacker, basketball star wannabe, who must step into the family business when his mother gets hurt in a car accident. The family business of course being Ping Pong classes and supplies. The film has a silly premise, and isn't shamed of it. In the middle of it though, the central theme is of growing up and accepting responsibility.

There are a lot of the obvious jokes you'd expect but there are also a lot of more subtle gags throughout. The film is rated PG-13, but I have no idea why. There is profanity in it, but it's cleverly bleeped out with the sound of a basketball bouncing. It's not perfect by any means, but it is a fun, quirky movie that deserves to be seen. Plus it's available to stream on Netflix, so there's that. 7 out of 10

More A to Z challenge coming...
Have a great weekend everyone!