Becky and I went to see new movie It’s Complicated on opening night a few weeks ago. I’m a bit behind on the movie reviews, so I apologize for that, but I’ve been slammed since getting back from Tucson, AZ. The Fandango website at It’s Complicated describes the movie as follows:

“Jane (Streep) is the mother of three grown kids, owns a thriving Santa Barbara bakery/restaurant and has—after a decade of divorce—an amicable relationship with her ex-husband, attorney Jake (Baldwin). But when Jane and Jake find themselves out of town for their son’s college graduation, things start to get complicated. An innocent meal together turns into the unimaginable—an affair. With Jake remarried to the much younger Agness (Lake Bell), Jane is now, of all things, the other woman…”

The Review
It’s Complicated is a comedy with some good Star Power, including Alec Baldwin, Meryl Streep and Steve Martin. The movie is funny, but it’s not as great as you would expect and I think part of the problem is that they gave away so much of this film with the previews that by the time you see the movie, you’re waiting for parts of the film to come up.

When Becky and I saw the first preview for this movie, we wanted to see the film, but by the time we saw the previews about twenty more times, it was as though we had already seen the movie. The story is cute and it’s about a man who has an affair after years of marriage, is remarried and now he’s realized that his new life is not all that it’s cracked up to be. He wants his old wife and life back, but he wants it on his terms and that’s what makes the movie funny. Alec Baldwin is great in this movie and so are the other actors, but Alec is particularly funny because he just lets it all hang out, literally.

The story is definitely complicated, so it has the right title and you end up really liking the characters. We definitely thought it was Worth The Trip, but couldn’t rate it a Don’t Miss It.

John – *** Worth The Trip
Becky – *** Worth The Trip
_________________________________________________________________________

Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant with his license at a car dealership in Denver, Colorado. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter @coolcarguy

Becky and I took the kids to see the new movie Planet 51 over the Christmas week at the Century theater while we were in Tucson, AZ. The Fandango website at Planet 51 describes the movie as follows:

“Planet 51 is a galactic sized animated alien adventure comedy revolving around America astronaut Captain Charles “Chuck” Baker, who lands on Planet 51 thinking he’s the first person to step foot on it. To his surprise, he finds that this planet is inhabited by little green people who are happily living in a white picket fence world reminiscent of a cheerfully innocent 1950s America, and those only fear is that it will be overrun by alien invaders…like Chuck! With the help of his robot companion “Rover” and his new friend Lem, Chuck must navigate his way through the dazzling, but bewildering, landscape of Planet 51 in order to escape becoming a permanent part of the Planet 51 Alien Invaders Space Museum…”

The Review
Planet 51 is a different kind of story about aliens arriving from another planet and landing in the backyard of a young boy. Only instead of the aliens coming to planet Earth, NASA has sent an astronaut to another planet, Planet 51, where there are other life forms, much like human beings.  The boy who’s backyard the alien landed in, is an alien.

The animation in this cartoon is great, being similar to Dreamworks and Pixar in quality and the idea for the movie was clever. It’s very predictable though and the aliens were supposed to be like humans back in the 1950’s, who haven’t “evolved”, which is probably why it’s called Planet 51. That was kind of clever, but it’s not a fantastic story and really kind of goofy, which is the biggest problem with Planet 51. The premise was cute with an astronaut landing on another planet with other life forms, but it was kind of boring.

Corban liked it the best of all of us, but the rest of it rated it a rental. We liked it, but not enough to say to spend the money seeing at the theaters.

John – ** Rental
Becky – ** Rental

Conroy – ** Rental
Corban – *** Worth The Trip
Bianca – ** Rental
_________________________________________________________________________

Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant with his license at a car dealership in Denver, Colorado. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter @coolcarguy

Becky and I took the kids to see the new movie The Princess and the Frog last week at the Century theater while we were in Tucson, AZ. The Fandango website at The Prince and the Frog describes the movie as follows:

“Walt Disney Animation Studios presents a musical set in the greatest city of them all, New Orleans. “The Princess and the Frog” marks Disney’s return to the warmth and grandeur of hand drawn animation. The film teams Ron Clements and John Musker , creators of “The Little Mermaid” and “Aladdin” with Oscar winning composer Randy Newman. From the heart of Louisiana’s mystical bayouts and the banks of the mighty Mississippi comes an unforgetable tale of love, enchantment and discovery with a trumpet playing alligator, a love sick Cajun firefly, and a host of other charming characters at every turn…”

The Review
The Princess and the Frog was a surprisingly great story!   It’s a really quality Disney cartoon with a good message about the importance of believing in your dreams, but also working hard and not giving up on people.  It also warns of the hidden dangers of taking short-cuts in life or trying to make a deal with the Devil and not thinking there will be a consequence for your decision.

I didn’t think I was going to like it and we didn’t have great expectations going into it, especially with all the great animation from Pixar and Dreamworks these days. The animation seemed more old school, like Bambi, but that didn’t matter because this movie really delivered and was a great quality film.

In fact, we went to see Planet 51 after seeing this movie and the animation in Planet 51 was great, but The Prince and the Frog was better.

John – **** Don’t Miss It
Becky – **** Don’t Miss It

Conroy – **** Don’t Miss It
Corban – **** Don’t Miss It
Bianca – **** Don’t Miss It
_________________________________________________________________________

Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant with JFR & Associates in Denver, Colorado. Find his consignments at CoolCarGuy.com. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com

Follow The Cool Car Guy on Twitter – @coolcarguy or Facebook.

Becky and I took the kids to see the new movie Avatar in 3D today at the Century theater in Tucson, AZ. The Fandango website at Avatar describes the movie as follows:

“AVATAR takes us to a spectacular world beyond imagination, where a reluctant hero embarks on an epic adventure, ultimately fighting to save the alien world he has learned to call home. James Cameron, the Oscar-winning director of “Titanic,” first conceived the film 15 years ago, when the means to realize his vision did not exist yet. Now, after four years of production, AVATAR, a live action film with a new generation of special effects, delivers a fully immersive cinematic experience of a new kind, where the revolutionary technology invented to make the film disappears into the emotion of the characters and the sweep of the story…”

The Review
Avatar is the giant blockbuster that hit the theaters this week after millions of dollars in advertising and hundreds of millions in production costs. We went into this film with great expectations and even spent the extra money for the 3D experience. What a let down. Okay, it was cool for about 20 minutes with the great special effects and then Avatar just got painfully boring with goofy Star Wars type characters, the character learning new skills and a pretty lame story.

To sum up this movie, “Man is bad, but giant blue aliens are good”. It was as simple to follow along as a Geico commercial, only there weren’t any cave men in this movie. Men are descending on planet Pandora to take over the high-priced minerals and they will wipe out these wonderful alien creatures without a second thought for profit. The hero is a Marine who’s lost his legs and takes over an Avatar creature to infiltrate the village of superior aliens, and then he falls in love. The story just wasn’t that great even though the special effects were phenomenal. However, it’s like going on a roller-coaster eight times in a row, after a while it gets a bit boring.

Corban hated this movie and so did Bianca. In fairness, they were probably too little for this film. Conroy rated it a rental and Becky thought it was a Don’t Bother for sure. The word she used, “that movie was stupid.”, so not everyone liked this one. I probably liked it more than anyone in our family. They lost me though, with the lead character cursing all the time and taking God’s name in vain, while embracing the alien god Eway or whatever her name was, who was “Mother Pandora” since we all killed “Mother Earth”. It was just a bit too political and New Age for my liking. No matter how good the special effects and characters are in this move, the story pretty much sucked and had been done too many times before.

I know I’m in the minority here, but only a few people applauded in our movie. I didn’t hear everyone saying how great it was after the movie. Quite few people thought it was “painful”, as long as it was and with such a goofy story.

John – ** Rental
Becky – * Don’t Bother

Conroy – ** Rental
Corban – * Don’t Bother
Bianca – * Don’t Bother
_________________________________________________________________________

Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant with JFR & Associates in Denver, Colorado. Find his consignments at CoolCarGuy.com. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com

Follow The Cool Car Guy on Twitter – @coolcarguy or Facebook.

Becky and I went to see new movie Did You Hear About The Morgans last Friday at the new Hollywood theaters in Southglenn. The Fandango website at Did You Hear About The Morgans describes the movie as follows:

“New Yorkers Paul (Hugh Grant) and Meryl (Sarah Jessica Parker) Morgan seem to have it all — except for the fact that their marriage is crumbling around them. But their romantic woes are small compared to the world of trouble they find themselves in after they witness a murder. To protect them from an assassin, federal agents whisk Paul and Meryl away to small-town Wyoming, where their marriage will either finally crash and burn, or their passion will re-ignite…”

The Review
Did You Hear About The Morgans is a quirky chick flick about a couple from New York who are having marriage trouble, only to end up in the Witness Protection Program and living together on a ranch in Wyoming. The movie centers around their marriage problems and living on this ranch out in the middle of nowhere. It’s very predictable and not that funny.

Did You Hear About The Morgans is not a very funny movie. I think that they cast it wrong for starters. Hugh Grant just isn’t that funny as a comedian with the one-liner’s they kept having him say throughout the film. Sarah Jessica Parker was kind of annoying. She’s definitely a New Yorker, but you didn’t really get emotionally attached to either of these characters. In fact, we liked the older couple they were staying with in Wyoming, played by Sam Elliot and Mary Steenburgen, much better than the lead characters. They were actually pretty funny and didn’t annoy you.

The movie kind of reminded me of “City Slickers” with Billy Crystal as a guy from the city going out into the Wild West and being out of his element. However, Billy could deliver on the lines that made it really funny, but this was a film that was too long at 1hr 43 minutes because you wanted it to be over. We would wait for the rental on this one.

John – ** Rental
Becky- ** Rental
_________________________________________________________________________

Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant with JFR & Associates in Denver, Colorado. Find his consignments at CoolCarGuy.com. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com

Follow The Cool Car Guy on Twitter – @coolcarguy or Facebook.

Becky and I went to see new movie Invictus last week at the AMC theaters in Highlands Ranch, CO. The Fandango website at Invictus describes the movie as follows:

“With the fall of apartheid in South Africa, Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) tries to unite his countrymen and bring peace by bringing the Rugby World Cup to his country…”

The Review
Invictus is a very powerful movie starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. I’m not as big of a Matt Damon fan, as I used to be, after he tried to convince all of us that he had a brain politically during the last election with his Sarah Palin bashing. Even if he was right, which I don’t think he was, there is an old saying, “A wise man keeps a closed mouth.” and that’s what I liked about this film.

This movie was about “character” in politics, overcoming obstacles through faith and having grace under pressure. It demonstrated how Nelson Mandela was able to forgive his former evil doers and change their hearts to bring the country together. The story was fantastic and the only shortfall really was the Directing because the movie was about thirty minutes too long. No offense to the Director, Clint Eastwood, because I am a Clint Eastwood fan and really love the old flicks that made him famous, but his movies are so slow.

That’s the only complaint we have with this movie and why we would recommend waiting for the rental. It’s just so long and moves to slow, but the acting, the message and the story are great, so make sure you see it. Morgan Freeman rocks in this movie and so does Matt Damon. It’s Worth The Trip, but be prepared to sit and suffer from some boredom as you wait for it to keep moving.

John – *** Worth The Trip
Becky- ** Rental
_________________________________________________________________________

Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant with JFR & Associates in Denver, Colorado. Find his consignments at CoolCarGuy.com. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com

Follow The Cool Car Guy on Twitter – @coolcarguy or Facebook.