Becky and I took the kids to see the new movie Parental Guidance at the AMC theaters in Castle Rock, CO.  The MovieFone website at Parental Guidance describes the movie as follows…

“Old school grandfather Artie (Billy Crystal), who is accustomed to calling the shots, meets his match when he and his eager-to-please wife Diane (Bette Midler) agree to babysit their three grandkids when their type-A helicopter parents (Marisa Tomei), (Tom Everett Scott) go away for work. But when 21st century problems collide with Artie and Diane’s old school methods of tough rules, lots of love and old-fashioned games, it’s learning to bend – and not holding your ground – that binds a family together…”

The Review: Parental Guidance is one of those films that I thought wouldn’t be very good after watching the Previews.  It was better than I expected with a good message on parenting, family dynamics and relationships.

We all liked this story and it was pretty funny.  It dealt with some of the sub-cultures of our modern American society and how we’ve become extremely over protective of our children in some areas.  It did it in a funny way and illustrates the difference between “Old School” and “New School” parenting.

The acting was good, the humor was light-hearted and the message about family was great too.  We all liked it and thought it was Worth The Trip.  I have to say that this surprised me because our kids really didn’t want to see it, but they liked it too.  It’s a good Holiday movie for the entire family.

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

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

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Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant and owner of CoolCarGuy.com 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 or consign your vehicle – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter@coolcarguy

Becky and I went to see the new flick The Guilt Trip last week at the AMC theaters in Castle Rock, CO.  The MovieFone website at The Guilt Trip describes the movie as follows…

“Andy Brewster is about to embark on the road trip of a lifetime, and who better to accompany him than his overbearing mother Joyce. After deciding to start his adventure with a quick visit at mom’s, Andy is guilted into bringing her along for the ride. Across 3,000 miles of ever-changing landscape, he is constantly aggravated by her antics, but over time he comes to realize that their lives have more in common than he originally thought. His mother’s advice might end up being exactly what he needs...”

The Review: The Guilt Trip is a quirky film about a guy and his Mom who have relationship issues and goofy expectations of each other, but decide to go on a road trip together across country.  I could actually identify with this film because I did this with my Mom when I was about 19 years old.  We took a road trip in my Mitsubishi Mighty Max pickup truck and this movie resonated with that experience for me.  It was pretty hilarious at times, just like in this movie.

The story is well done and the characters are funny, driving each other crazy.  They end up getting on each other’s nerves as you would expect and words fly at times, but the situations are definitely funny.  The Mom is pretty clueless at times, but she understands people and relationships much better than her son, who is too scientific, while trying to become a salesman.  I thought that was funny since I’ve met many salespeople over the years, who are like this guy in the film.  If you like a light hearted comedy you should like this movie.

Becky and I both liked it, but we didn’t like it enough to say it was a Don’t Miss It.  It’s between a Rental and being Worth The Trip, so I’ll give it the Rental nod and Becky will go with Worth The Trip.

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

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________________________________________________________________

Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant and owner of CoolCarGuy.com 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 or consign your vehicle – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter@coolcarguy

Becky and I went to see the new flick This Is 40 last night at the AMC theaters in Castle Rock, CO with our friends Chris & Hope.  The MovieFone website at This Is 40 describes the movie as follows…

“Five years after writer/director Judd Apatow introduced us to Pete and Debbie in ‘Knocked Up’, Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann reprise their roles as a husband and wife both approaching a milestone meltdown in ‘This Is 40’, an unfiltered, comedic look inside the life of an American family.

After years of marriage, Pete lives in a house of all females: wife Debbie and their two daughters, eight-year-old Charlotte (Iris Apatow) and 13-year-old Sadie (Maude Apatow). As he struggles to keep his record label afloat, he and Debbie must figure out how to forgive, forget and enjoy the rest of their lives…before they kill each other…”

The Review: This Is 40 is almost like a sequel to the movie Knocked Up, which I liked better than this movie, but this film is funny.  If you have children and are over forty, you will find something you can relate to in this film.  There are some very funny parts of this movie, but they gave away far too may of the laughs in the Previews.

The story is very well done since it deals with the struggles of a family trying to juggle their relationship with work, exercise, children and each other.  Where the movie falls down in my opinion is that it’s over-the-top with the language and adult situations, which at times are funny, but also disturbing.  The teenager cusses out her Mom for example and the language is crazy.

At other times, it was a little too predictable for me.  The characters and acting is very well done though and I thought it was a borderline between a Rental and being Worth The Trip.  The language and situations were just a little too much for me, so I’m going with a Rental.  This is not a Rated R film that you want to let your teenagers see, so be forewarned.  Becky thought it was Worth The Trip, which surprised me since she tends to me more conservative than me.

Hope and Chris said after the movie that it was “Okay”.

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

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________________________________________________________________

Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant and owner of CoolCarGuy.com 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 or consign your vehicle – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter@coolcarguy

Becky and I went to see the new Tom Cruise flick Jack Reacher at the AMC theaters in Highlands Ranch, CO on the Friday night with our friends Mark & Maria and our son Conroy.  The MovieFone website at Jack Reacher describes the movie as follows…

“The Usual Suspects’ Christopher McQuarrie brings Lee Child’s Jack Reacher character to the big screen with this Paramount Pictures release starring Tom Cruise as the lone-wolf investigator on the hunt for a murderous sniper…”

The Review: Jack Reacher is one of those films that had a pretty good movie trailer with cool music and what looked like an interesting story.  We thought it would be a really good flick.  Unfortunately, it didn’t deliver and was a boring film.

The story wasn’t terrible, but it moved way too slow and was a bit too much like Tom Cruise was playing a modern day Sherlock Holmes trying to solve a murder mystery, rather than an action flick.  Tom Cruise is not very good at playing this kind of a crime detective character.  I’m sure the Jack Reacher books are much better than this movie.  I have to go with most of the critics on this one, that it’s not not worth the price of admission.

Robert Duvall was probably the best and most believable character in this movie.  He played the owner of a shooting range that the accused killer was doing his target practice at, before killing five random people.  Unfortunately, this movie still had the feel of a 1990’s action film and neither Robert nor Tom could save it.

Conroy really didn’t like this movie and rated it a Don’t Bother.  I didn’t think it was terrible and thought it was a Rental and Becky felt the same.

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

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________________________________________________________________

Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant and owner of CoolCarGuy.com 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 or consign your vehicle – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter@coolcarguy

I took our three kids Conroy, Corban and Bianca to see the new movie The Hobbit at the AMC theaters in Castle Rock, CO on the Midnight showing on opening night.  The MovieFone website at The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey describes the movie as follows…

“The adventure follows the journey of title character Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor from the fearsome dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior, Thorin Oakenshield. Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and Sorcerers. Although their goal lies to the East and the wastelands of the Lonely Mountain, first they must escape the goblin tunnels, where Bilbo meets the creature that will change his life forever…Gollum. Here, alone with Gollum, on the shores of an underground lake, the unassuming Bilbo Baggins not only discovers depths of ingenuity and courage that surprise even him, he also gains possession of Gollum’s “precious” ring that holds unexpected and useful qualities… A simple, gold ring that is tied to the fate of all Middle-earth in ways Bilbo cannot begin to know.”

The Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is the much anticipated Peter Jackson film based on the book The Hobbit and the beginning of The Lord of The Rings series.  The story is about Bilbo Baggins and his journey with a group of Dwarves in search of their homeland that was destroyed and taken over by a powerful dragon.

This movie is very well done and is much like The Lord of The Rings trilogy, so if you liked that film, you should really like this movie.  Conroy said he liked it better than The Lord of the Rings, which was his favorite movie series.  I thought it was great too!  I don’t know if I liked it better than the other three films, but definitely just as much and there are many of the same characters in this movie.  Corban and Bianca both thought it was great too.

If you have read the book or seen the other movies, you’ll like this film.  Peter Jackson has done such a great job on this movie and the same as the other Middle Earth movies.  It’s really simple to review this movie.  If you’re a fan of the previous movies, this is a Don’t Miss It.  If you’re not a fan of The Lord of the Rings, then you will want to skip this one.

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

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________________________________________________________________

Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant and owner of CoolCarGuy.com 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 or consign your vehicle – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter@coolcarguy

Becky and I went to see the new movie Hitchcock at the AMC Cinemas in Highlands Ranch, CO last night.  The MovieFone website at Hitchcock describes the movie as follows…

“‘Hitchcock’ is a love story about one of the most influential filmmakers of the last century, Alfred Hitchcock and his wife and partner Alma Reville. The film takes place during the making of Hitchcock’s seminal movie ‘Psycho’..”

The Review: Hitchcock is a strange film starring Anthony Hopkins as the famous Director Alfred Hitchcock, the brains behind Psycho, one of the most famous horror films of all time.  It’s not really about the movie, but about the making of the film and the relationship between Alfred and his wife Alma, along with the challenges they faced in trying to get Psycho produced.

The movie is interesting.  It’s not an action film, but a well done drama that takes you partially through the real life story of the mass murderer that the film Psycho is made from and difficulty in getting the original film made.  It moves rather slow at times, but if you’re a movie fan and an Alfred Hitchcock fan than you should like the film.  We both liked it and thought it was a fascinating tale about an American movie icon.

I don’t know if I can rate the movie as being Worth The Trip, I would say it’s a very good Rental for sure.  Becky thought it was Worth The Trip, but it’s not going to appeal to everyone for sure.

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

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________________________________________________________________

Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant and owner of CoolCarGuy.com 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 or consign your vehicle – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter@coolcarguy

Becky and I went to see the new movie Playing For Keeps at the AMC Cinemas in Tucson, AZ last week when we were down running the Tucson Marathon.  The MovieFone website at Playing For Keeps describes the movie as follows…

“‘Gerard Butler, Jessica Biel, Uma Thurman, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Dennis Quaid star in ‘Playing For Keeps,’ a romantic comedy about a charming, down-on-his luck former soccer star (Butler) who returns home to put his life back together. Looking for a way to rebuild his relationship with his son, he gets roped into coaching the boy’s soccer team. But his attempts to finally become an “adult” are met with hilarious challenges from the attractive soccer moms who pursue him at every turn..”

The Review: Playing For Keeps is a love story starring Gerard Butler and Jessica Biel about a washed up famous soccer player who has former marriage problems, women problems and being an absentee Father.  He can’t seem to land a good job and his days of being a millionaire are long gone.  He can’t seem to get a break financially and then he decides to coach his son’s soccer game.

There are quite a few strange characters in this film, especially some of the “soccer Moms”, who are fascinated by this good looking former soccer star.  The story is pretty good, but it moves slow at times, while having some funny parts.  It does a good job of presenting how people’s priorities and chasing money can really get their lives out of whack.  The movie is really about the importance of having solid relationships with family.

I thought it was a pretty good film, it wasn’t great.  Becky and I both liked it because we have children, but it’s more of a rental than one to go see in the big screen.

John – ** Rental
Becky – ** Rental

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________________________________________________________________

Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant and owner of CoolCarGuy.com 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 or consign your vehicle – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter@coolcarguy

Becky and I went to see the new Brad Pitt movie Killing Them Softly at the Regal Cinemas in Englewood, CO last night.  The Fandango website at Killing Them Softly describes the movie as follows…

“When rival crook Johnny Amato (Vincent Curatola) hatches a plan to rob a card game run by mob lackey Markie (Ray Liotta), he picks a low-rent thug named Frankie (Scoot McNairy) to do the job. Frankie picks a less-than-ideal partner (Ben Mendelsohn) to help him, but despite their combined incompetence, they manage to make off with the mob’s money. In retaliation, Markie’s bosses hire Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt), a mob enforcer, to eradicate those responsible…”

The Review: Killing Them Softly is one of those films where the critics are saying it’s a good film and the rest of us are saying it’s terrible.  WARNING: Do not believe the critics!  This movie was terrible, quite possibly the worst movie of the year.  I now know why they called it “Killing Them Softly”, they were talking about the audience that had to endure this mess of a movie.

The only thing good about this film is that Brad Pitt is one of the lead actors, along with Ray Liotta, but there isn’t anyone in Hollywood that could save this flick.  Beyond that, the story is horrible, the dialogue is pathetic, the language is graphic, the Directing is terrible, the violence is disturbing and the 1 hour and 37 minutes of this movie was painful to watch from start to finish.

I’m not exaggerating about this movie in the least.  A number of people got up and left.  They just couldn’t take it anymore.  We went with our friends Mark and Maria, who afterward told us that they wanted to leave as well.  Truth be told, we did too, but I leaned over to Becky about two-thirds of the way through and said, “I want to leave, but I can’t now, I have too much invested and I have to see how it ends.”  That turned out to be a mistake, we should have left.

There really isn’t much to tell about the movie, other than that it is vulgar, violent, boring and a waste of time.  Save yourself some time and money and skip Killing Them Softly. Our advice is don’t bother with this one.

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

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________________________________________________________________

Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant and owner of CoolCarGuy.com 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 or consign your vehicle – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter@coolcarguy

Becky and I went to see the new movie Life of Pi at the AMC Cinemas in Castle Rock, CO this past weekend.  The Fandango website at Life of Pi describes the movie as follows…

“After deciding to sell their zoo in India and move to Canada, Santosh and Gita Patel board a freighter with their sons and a few remaining animals. Tragedy strikes when a terrible storm sinks the ship, leaving the Patels’ teenage son, Pi (Suraj Sharma), as the only human survivor. However, Pi is not alone; a fearsome Bengal tiger has also found refuge aboard the lifeboat. As days turn into weeks and weeks drag into months, Pi and the tiger must learn to trust each other if both are to survive…”

The Review: Life of Pi is getting great reviews by most of the film critics and I’ve talked with a number of people who have seen it with mixed opinions about it.  I think it’s one of those movies that you’re either going to really love or really dislike.

It’s about this man who tells a whale of a tale about how he grew up in India and how his father owned a Zoo with a variety of wild animals.  He’s shipwrecked with his family on a journey to start a new life and he is found alone on a boat with several of the wild animals from his Father’s Zoo and one animal in particular – a wild tiger.

The man is telling his story about how he survived with the tiger to another man who is listening to the story and the moral of the story is that all roads lead to God.  The story has nothing to do with God, but with the boy and the tiger, but in the end you discover that the story is not even true, but an entertaining fable of what really happened on his little boat.  He’s presented it for two hours as an option for you to decide, which story you choose to believe.  At the end is the final climatic statement that tells us that you want to believe the nice story, the one about the tiger and not the truth and so it goes with God.  Which is totally ridiculous because all roads do not lead to God.  There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.  Sometimes the end is not only death, but also murder for choosing the wrong way, just like in this film.  His conclusion is therefore fundamentally flawed that you can just choose what you want to believe and that fantasy will trump the facts, if you just believe.  It sounds good, but it’s not reality.

The film was visually stunning and very well done for its cinematography, but it is boring, the story is lame and the ending made us really feel like we had wasted our time.  It is getting rave reviews, so you may like it.  Maybe it’s better to watch in 3D, but it wasn’t any good in 2D. There is no way I could sit through this film and watch it again.  As you can tell, Becky and I didn’t like this movie, but Becky rated it a Rental and I rated it a Don’t Bother.  I disliked the movie and felt like I had attended a lecture from Deepak Chopra on God.  I half expected him to show up at the end and give us a synopsis of what we just watched.  This is definitely not a film I would recommend and I should have listened to our two boys who said, “That movie looks stupid.” and decided not to go.  They were right.

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

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________________________________________________________________

Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant and owner of CoolCarGuy.com 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 or consign your vehicle – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter@coolcarguy

Last night Becky and I went to see the new movie Red Dawn at the AMC Theaters in Highlands Ranch, CO.  The Fandango website at Red Dawn describes the movie as follows…

“A city in Washington state awakens to the surreal sight of foreign paratroopers dropping from the sky – shockingly, the U.S. has been invaded and their hometown is the initial target. Quickly and without warning, the citizens find themselves prisoners and their town under enemy occupation. Determined to fight back, a group of young patriots seek refuge in the surrounding woods, training and reorganizing themselves into a guerilla group of fighters. Taking inspiration from their high school mascot, they call themselves the Wolverines, banding together to protect one another, liberate their town from its captors, and take back their freedom…”

The Review: Red Dawn is a remake of a pretty bad movie that was done about 20 years ago when America was still at odds with Russia.  It wasn’t very good the first time and it was just as bad this time around.  The first time around it was about a group of teenagers who took on the Russians when they showed up to take over America, hence the name Red Dawn.  This time around it’s the Koreans who arrive with help from the Russians and it’s not really teenagers, but more of a army of misfits from a local town.

We didn’t go into this film with very high expectations and it delivered.  We went to see it because our kids wanted to go see Pitch Perfect and we had already seen that movie and everything else at the theater.  Yeah, I know – that’s pretty crazy.  Anyway, this movie is not very good for several reasons.  The story is lame, the characters are weak, the acting is not very good and you never really get emotionally attached to any of these characters.  They even mention during the movie that it’s like they are playing Call of Duty for real, which that’s what it pretty much seemed like.  I felt like I was watching kids play a video game, which if you’ve ever done is not very exciting for very long.

I wouldn’t say it’s a total don’t bother, but it’s pretty close.  Becky rated it a Don’t Bother, but I’m going to give it a Rental.  it’s definitely not worth the price of admission.

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

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Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant and owner of CoolCarGuy.com 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 or consign your vehicle – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter@coolcarguy