Shimotsuma monogatari (2004)

[English Title = Kamikaze Girls]

This movie, based on a light novel and comic in Japan, both of which I haven't read, is about a girl named Momoko (Kyoko Fukada) who grows up in a small town in Japan. She is into sweet lolita (not to be confused with gothic lolita) fashion characterized by cute elaborate dresses even though the town she lives in all buys their clothes from a Wal-Mart type megastore. She comes from a heritage of a Yakuza (japanese mafia) father and alcoholic mother. When she was a kid, her mom left to marry another guy but she chose to live with her dad. He made money selling bootleg Versace clothing and eventually got busted so the two move in with his mother in the small town of Shimotsuma.

Momoka then tried to make some money to support her dress buying habit by trying to sell the leftover bootleg clothing online. This is how she meets Ichiko (Anna Tsuchiya), a member of a local all girl biker gang. Since she's in a biker gang, she dresses like a yankii (the Japanese term for a thug) and has bad manners. The movie follows the unlikely friendship of these two opposite personalities. Ichiko has Momoko embroider a tribute to the gang leader onto her gang jacket and it turns out Momoko is pretty awesome at it. This leads to Momoko getting a job embroidering dresses at the stor she gets all her sweet lolita dresses from. Though it also leads to her having to decide whether to finish the job or help her friend Ichiko.

Ultimately, this is a chick movie but it's done it such a stylized way that it's not too sappy and sentimental way. The film is full of vivid colors and some trippy hallucinations and animation inserts. The music very fitting with good opening and closing songs by pop-rock artist Tommy February6 and varying soothing to upbeat to guitar riff filled background music provided by Yoko Kano, famous for providing music to mecha (giant robot) anime. For someone not knowledgeable about Japanese culture, this is a nice look into a fashion trends among other cultural aspects. I think the acting is done well enough, I man I could see Momoko as a princess and Ichiko being believable punk. They also did a good job of showing how their friendship developed. I don't think this movie is for everyone. It's probably for girls, people into Japanese culture, or people just looking for something different from the norm. I did 0 watch checks, most likely because I was captivated by the colors in the movie and I had to read subtitles the whole time. This is not a love story in any way, I just used the improbable hook-up tag referring to their seemingly mis-matched friendship.

Knocked Up (2007)

This is another comedy brought to us by the same people that gave us Superbad and 40 Year Old Virgin. As one can surmise form the title, it's about some broad getting preggers. It stars Seth Rogen, who's been in a lot of things of late, and the hot blonde from Gray's Anatomy.

So yeah, plot goes as such: hot blonde meets not so attractive yet funny jewish guy at a club, both get drunk, they hook up and then she is now Knocked Up (2007). The movie follows them as they come together for the abortion of the baby. I kid, I kid. She keeps it, and he's there for her and a series of mildly funny events happy with witty remarks on the side.

To me, this movie was a funny ha ha and not an "oh, my side" comedy. To me, it's like it tries to be a season 3-4 Simpsons episode where there's an event that carries along the comedy, for the most part, and then it ends with like some sort of moral or feel good moment. Overall, I'd say 40 Year Old Virgin is better. This movie is a nice 2 hour diversion if you got that sorta time. I didn't check my watch at least. But I did turn away at one shot taht was completely not needed. I'm gonna be a doctor and really didn't think they needed to show it. Anyway, here's to not hot looking funny guys getting hot chicks.