Schneider has to be the luckiest guy out there. He is such good friends with Adam Sandler that, every once in a while, Sander throws him a bone and lets him be a big boy movie star. (At least it wasn’t Bucky Larson or Strange Wilderness or Grandma’s Boy or, well, you get the point.) But what was Sandler thinking?

Schneider: Okay. You remember how I made that movie where I was an animal called The Animal last year?
Sandler: I do…
Schneider: What would you think if this time, instead of an animal, I’m a ‘hot chick’?
Sandler: Hm. What do you want to call it?
Scneider: I was thinking probably The Hot Chick.
Sandler: Love it.

Bam! Movie made. In the vein of classic body switching flicks such as this summer’s The Change-Up, the film…isn’t very good. Needless to say, it’s no Freaky Friday.

Here, magical earring from 50 B.C. switch the bodies of a ‘hot’ high school cheerleader and a Rob Schneider looking small time criminal. Great idea! Basically, he uses her body to get him money and things, while she uses his body to become and janitor and spy on her boyfriend. Don’t worry; her boyfriend’s faithful. C’mon, we’re all thinking it: Phew!

The best thing about The Hot Chick is that it launched the film career of Rachel McAdams a.k.a. the young-old girl in The Notebook, the mean girl in Mean Girls and Claire in Wedding Crashers. Good? Yeah, not bad.

When you parallel the filmographies of Sandler and Schneider, they appear very similar. There are two very big differences. Number one, Sandler usually plays the titular character (i.e. Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, the Zohan). Schneider often plays characters such as The Townie and Asian Minister, roles so artistically sculpted by Schneider no one else could do the parts justice. Number two, every time Sandler loses money on a bad Schneider movie, he makes it back ten fold by acting in and producing one of his own. Schneider bows his head in ignorantly blissful shame. I’m not saying that Sandler’s worst movies aren’t bad but Rob Schneider’s?

YOU’VE GO TO BE KIDDING ME!

Wait a second, now. Could this sequel potentially be the intellegent action film that we have all been waiting for (well, since Beverly Hills Cop)? God, I hope so. It seems that the trend nowadays is to have mindless action films (ahem, Shoot ‘Em Up), or thinking thrillers (if you can call them that) lacking the scenes of action we all know and crave, a la last summer’s Inception.

I am also happy to report that Rachel McAdams will be returning, because well, who doesn’t love her? Welcome additions also include the surely soon-to-be international movie star Noomi Rapace, who played Lisbeth Salander in the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, and funny man (no, really, an honest to God funny man) Stephen Fry, of A Bit Fry and Laurie– the sketch show he did with good friend and present-day Dr. House, Hugh Laurie– fame.

With Guy Ritchie back as director, I think we may have a sequel that betters the first! Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows is out December 16, 2011. Watch the newly released trailer below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I love romantic comedies.  Just love ‘em.  They’re always happy stories that I know will end well. Structure is almost always the same so the difference in the films is in the protagonist’s situation and the cast itself.

So here’s my problem with Morning Glory.  Didn’t we already see this protagonist? Katherine Heigl’s Abby Richter in The Ugly Truth is a TV executive with falling ratings and a star she couldn’t work with.  I loved The Ugly Truth so I’m content with the revamping of the character, but don’t go into the theatre expecting to see a character you’ve haven’t seen before – you’ll be disappointed.  Rachel McAdams does bring her own sparkle to the screen – a much more and endearing character than Heigl’s, but the similarity is still so striking that it cannot be escaped.

It is Harrison Ford, however, who saves the film.  His gravitas balances out the immense amount of comedy, grounding the film in a way that makes the laughs more brilliant and the seriousness even heavier.  Morning Glory is hysterical, there’s no denying it.  I laughed for almost the entire film.  From physical gags to inside jokes to “On Air” moments, the comedy part of the romantic comedy is definitely there.  The romance, on the other hand…

Patrick Wilson, while a talented actor, was both underused and unnecessary.  He was part of a romance that was not developed.  The couples problems were superficial and the scenes rather absurd at times.  The rest of the movie seems to have been written by another person.  That story is clever and fun, with actions and consequences that are motivated and are reasonable.  This story, of a young professional who falls in love, is a series of moments that have no driving force, no reason to occur.  McAdam’s Becky lives and breathes her work but a hot man asks her out and there we go! She jumps at the chance, despite her overeager protests at the beginning of the film.  She is either a massive hypocrite or someone along the way said there needed to be a love story and it was put in at the last minute and with great reluctance.

And now here’s my question.  What would be so bad about her not having a man? As a professional obsessed with her job, she proves over and over she doesn’t have time for a man.  Maybe at the end of the story, she’s changed enough to let a man in, but the film forces one on her too early – she hasn’t yet changed.  With the world changing the way it is, there are more and more women in executive positions, more women providing solely for their families and more women living alone.  Is it a duty for a romantic comedy to reflect the world or to paint a picture of a lonely woman’s ideal world?

I digress.  This movie is not designed to inspire you to question and reevaluate your life.  But that’s not why you go to see a romantic comedy.  You go to watch a happy story with well-known actors and fun, yet predictable, ending.  And this film definitely succeeds in that.

See It.

I want to start off this article correcting something on my previous post “Gary Ross Saves Untitled ‘Venom’ Project + Spiderman 4 News” from October 8^th. I would just like to say that I was wrong about Spider-Man 3 being a good superhero movie. I rented the film again this weekend and found that I did not like it as much as I thought I had. I apologize.

Last week, bombshell Rachel McAdams was rumored by Mania that she had met with producers of the Marvel sequel Spider-Man 4 to play Black Cat, the girl who meets Spidey while trying to break her father out of jail. But later the same day this rumor was started, Slash Film posted a response saying that a reader had sent them a link that stated that some of that story was true: that Sam Raimi is already casting for the movie and they’re looking for a female lead. But it’s not confirmed, however, that the said lead will be Black Cat. According to The Observer, British actress Romola Garai, whose roles have been minimal in barely-a-blip-on-the-radar movies Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, Amazing Grace and The Other Man has also auditioned. Slash Film also notes that she’s only a few years younger than McAdams, predicting that she could in turn play Tobey Maguire’s character’s upcoming love interest.

Although November 16^th, in a statement to Entertainment Weekly, Rachel McAdams has squashed the rumor that she would play Black Cat.

“That’s a total rumor, I have to say,” the actress, who will next be seen in the Dec. 25 action-adventure tentpole Sherlock Holmes, tells EW. “I was hanging out in Toronto the other day and someone came up to me and said, ‘I just heard you’re doing Spider-Man 4.‘ And I said, ‘Really? No one told me!’ It’s not true.” A rep for Sony Pictures concurs: “It’s an Internet rumor, as so many things are these days.”

Sources with Hey U Guys say that Black Cat is indeed in the screenplay for Spider-Man 4, but her role is being changed to the daughter of the new boss at the Daily Bugle and, get this, now one of Spider-Man’s villains. It’s also being said now that both Sony and McAdams are lying to us, and that since Garai is so similar in age with McAdams, that she was originally in talks for the role.

This is ridiculous. For one thing, the screenplay sounds like garbage if it doesn’t stick to its original comic book origin. And wasn’t Bruce Campbell supposed to play The Lizard in the next Spidey installment? Something’s not right here. Like I said about Depp’s involvement in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, someone who plays a much bigger part in production of Spider-Man 4 needs to step in and clear things up for us.

Our good friend Blake Risp caught “The Time Traveler’s Wife” in the theaters this weekend.  She wanted to share her thoughts on the film. Check out her review below.

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Blake says…

“Having not read the book, I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into except what the reviews I had read stated or that tear-jerking picture used in their ads. This was a love story AND a story about love, making me Ms. Waterworks for the majority of the movie.

Seeing the movie with two people who had read the book prior to seeing the movie, I was anticipating their thoughts on the parallels and similarities to the book and movie. This was a seemingly hard task due to the popularity of the book as well as the length of the book. They both noted parts that were missing from the movie, however both liked how the movie was adapted from the book.

This love story is based on the progression of the romantic relationship of Claire and Henry, played by Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana. The premise of the movie is focused on the uncontrollable time traveling capabilities Henry was born with due to a genetic disease. The film did not go into the logistics of his time traveling, which would have drastically changed the feel of the movie, but did perfectly execute Henry’s disappearances.

Rachel McAdams flawlessly portrayed Claire, a woman so hopelessly in love that she waits around for Henry to return every time. She also develops as a character that deals with the trials and tribulations of relationships, marriage, and having children. And Eric Bana performed an emotional, powerful and sentimental character, whose interaction with Claire and his daughter both in the past and present touches and moves every viewer. Henry wholeheartedly loved Claire, from the time she was a little girl to the woman he ended up marrying.

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Along side Bana and McAdams, the movie was sprinkled with great cast mates including Ron Livingston who plays a close friend to the couple, Brooklyn Proulx who plays Claire at a young age, and Hailey McMann who plays Henry and Claire’s adorable daughter.”

I found this movie to be powerful and emotional while I was watching the story unravel. We all left the theater teary-eyed and emotional. So if hadn’t read the book, plan on doing so. However, my friends and I did realize that after seeing the movie and discussing it, it did not stick with us or made us think in the way “500 Days of Summer” did.

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I will continue to recommend this movie to anyone who has read the book or is interested in seeing an emotional romantic story. Just make sure you bring some extra tissues.”

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Thanks for the good words Blake

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