Stick It (2006)

You know, with a title like that, you'd think there'd be an exclamation point on it. Anyway, sticking with my favorite genre of psuedo-athletic-beat-based-competitions, I decided to spend 103 minutes of my life watching this movie. Wow, no pun intended at the begining of that last sentence. Back to the subject, people who know me know how amused I am by movies like Bring It On (2000), You Got Served (2004), and Roll Bounce (2005). So with 2006, Hollywood does not let me down.

This is the story of Haley Graham (Missy Peregrym), a trouble-making rebel gymnast who is sentenced to attend a gymnastics academy run by has-been gymnastics coach Burt Vickerman (Jeff Bridges). Along the way, they both realize their true love of the sport and learn a little something about themselves along the way. Of course there are antagonists like pushy moms and stuck up gymnasts, but they too see the light, well... most of them do.

First off, this movie has a great soundtrack. Pretty much any movie that has the Apache Song on it get's my thumbs up. And great soundtracks are what make psuedo-athletic-beat-based-competition movies enjoyable. The choreagraphy of the routines is alright and the use of overlap to display simultaneous competitions made it seem like I was watching one of those old syncronized swimming routine movies from back in the day. The end wasn't so much a head to head competition, because gymnastics isn't so much like that, but man I wish it were. However, it was entertaining nonetheless, but could have been better sans the Fallout Boy.

I checked my watch zero times during the course of this. Mostly because how can i look at my watch with chicks doing gymnastics. I already thought the lead character was hot, but knowing gymnastics on top of that? Forget about it. And then there's Vanessa Lengies, who totally reminds me of a young Jenna Haze. Sadly, it's pretty obvious she doesn't do gymnastics herself, which is definitely a huge deduction in the spirit of this film.

Overall, unless you like the psuedo-athletic-beat-based-competition movie genre, you probably won't like this movie. But if you like endings that come with a life lesson about the importance of good clean competition, then this is the movie for you. I can't wait to see what 2007 brings in this movie genre. Please, PLEASE tell me it's tap. I long for the days of Fred Astaire. I kid you not.

300 (2007)

Madness?! This is my movie review! I had to do it. A review for a movie so filled with awesomely cheesey lines needs to use cheesey lines itself. That is not to say the scripting in 300 is bad. It's rather fitting for what the movie is. And what it is is a comic book adaptation.

The style of the movie may be an acquired taste. 90% of the film was made on blue/green screen and so the visuals are not what one would call realistic. But to me, they are beautiful since I grew up a comic book nerd and can appreciate such a unique presentation. Furthermore, like a comic book (similar to Sin City, another Frank Miller comic) there is a lot of voice over narration. But for some reason I didn't think it as overbearing as the voice overs in Sin City. It helped the story along nicely.

This movie isn't gonna win any oscars, but it's sure to be entertaining if you like graphic action movies. There are some wicked fight scenes which used slow motion creatively, if not a bit too much though. Overall thouogh, I thought it was a pleasing movie. At times it got a little too Gladiator/Troy like, but that couldn't be helped.

I rate this "two time checks". Though those occurred during the story building scenes. If you forgot what time checks means, at least know the less time checks the better. Because I only check the time (look at my watch) when I get bored. However the fight scenes and one-liners certainly made up for the time checks. And hell, anytime you walk out of an action movie with the overwhelming feeling that you can kick anyone's ass is always a good indicator that the movie did it's job.