Reviews and More

Since the Bears weren’t playing today, my husband and I decided to head out to the theater to catch a matinée. We didn’t have a particular movie in mind; we just agreed to see whatever was starting within 10 minutes of our arrival. That turned out to be Enchanted, the romantic comedy from Disney and the top box-office earner for the past two weeks. This wasn’t a movie that I was interested in seeing based on the promos, but it turned out to be pretty decent.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): The film opens in an animated land called Andalasia, where a beautiful young woman named Giselle (played by Amy Adams) does the sort of things you’d expect from a typical Disney fairy tale character. She sings, converses with animals, and of course dreams of meeting a Prince someday so they can fall in love and live happily ever after.

That day comes when Giselle crosses paths with Prince Edward (James Marsden), who manages to rescue Giselle from an ugly ogre. The two fall in love instantly, and make plans for an immediate wedding. However, things go wrong when Prince Edward’s mother, Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon), disguises herself as an old woman and pushes Giselle through a magic portal that takes her to a place far away from Andalasia. Giselle then emerges through a manhole cover — in the middle of New York City! She is now in human form, but retains the clothes, mannerisms, and speaking style of her animated self.

Giselle has no clue where she is, so she starts looking around for Prince Edward’s castle. She sees a picture of a castle on a billboard, and climbs up to it to try to enter. At this point, she’s spotted by a little girl named Morgan (Rachel Covey), who’s riding in a cab with her father Robert (Patrick Dempsey). Morgan jumps out of the cab to go see the princess, and Robert bolts out behind her to make sure his daughter stays safe. After hearing Giselle’s explanation of what she’s doing up there, Robert thinks she’s a bit loopy, and is reluctant to leave her alone so he brings her back to his apartment.

The rest of the film then becomes a typical fish-out-of-water story that shows how Giselle just doesn’t fit in with modern life in New York City. We see Prince Edward’s attempts to rescue Giselle to bring her back to Andalasia, as well as a blossoming romance between Giselle and Robert. Plus, we get the “happily ever after” ending that you’d expect from a film like this.

My Reaction: I was surprised at how entertained I was by Enchanted. This is certainly not the type of movie that I generally like, so I was a bit skeptical about how well I would receive it. But the story was interesting, the plot moved along at a decent pace, and the crowd in the theater was enthusiastic, which greatly enhanced my viewing experience. It’s hard not to get swept up in a movie when everyone else around you is laughing at the jokes.

It was also a lot of fun picking out the various Disney references that were placed (or voiced) throughout the film. This is the kind of thing that could get annoying after a while, but since there wasn’t a whole lot of attention called to the references, I found them tolerable.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Amy Adams in anything before, but thought she was wonderful as Giselle here. This was obviously a critical role, and a bad casting decision could very easily have ruined the film. But Adams was extremely likable, so it was fun rooting for her.

Patrick Dempsey, on the other hand, seemed to be a poor choice for the leading man. I watch him on Grey’s Anatomy every week, and think he’s fine for a TV show, but he just doesn’t have the acting chops to be a lead on the big screen. Plus, I don’t find him very attractive at all, so I didn’t swoon over the whole “true love’s first kiss” thing like I was supposed to. Ugh.

Overall, I thought Enchanted was a fun film that was nice to see during this holiday season. I give it 7.0 stars out of 10, and recommend that you catch it while it’s still in theaters!

While I don’t go out of my way to watch musicals, I do have a couple of favorites, including the Lerner & Loewe production of My Fair Lady. That 1964 film stars Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison in two of the most memorable performances of their careers, and still holds up today as one of the best musicals around.

The story is based on George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion, and focuses on the lives of two very different people. One is Professor Henry Higgins, a well-to-do linguist who pays more attention to the finer points of speech than to his personal life. He’s been a lifelong bachelor, and seems to have only one friend, the much more sympathetic and understanding Col. Pickering.

The second main character is Eliza Doolittle, a poor young woman who sells flowers for a living. I don’t mean that she has a real store or sells wholesale flowers in bulk; I mean she more or less picks flowers on her own and pushes around a little cart in the hopes of selling to passersby. Eliza has the speech patterns of the lower class, and, after a chance meeting with Henry Higgins, takes him up on his half-facetious offer to turn her into a lady.

I have this movie on DVD, and like to watch it every now and again. I rarely sit through the whole thing anymore, so I end up just checking out my favorite scenes, which invariably involve the musical numbers. I love them all, especially “On the Street Where You Live”, and never get tired of hearing them. I even have the soundtrack, which I play over and over again when I’m in the mood for showtunes!

I didn’t get a chance to watch Thursday night’s new episode of CSI until yesterday, so I’m a little behind schedule here. I don’t read spoilers for the show and didn’t know that there was a guest director for episode 8×09. It was William Friedkin, probably best known for his work in The Exorcist. Anyway, I have to say that I didn’t like the way this episode, called “Cockroaches” looked or felt. This certainly wasn’t the same CSI that I’ve been watching for the past 8 years — and that’s not a compliment.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): I could tell something was different right from the beginning of this episode. The opening felt much longer than usual, and the show just seemed darker right off the bat. The extended sequence showed an out of control garbage truck on the loose in Vegas. It’s careening around leaving a big trail of junk behind it, so some patrol cops chase it down. The driver jumps out and starts running, only to be hit (and killed) by a speeding Lincoln Continental.

Katherine, Gil, and Greg arrive on the scene. They learn that there are actually two bodies involved: the driver, and a dead body wrapped up in the back of the garbage truck. They start processing the crime scene, while Gil wonders where Warrick is.

We then see Warrick pulling up in his car while arguing with someone on the phone. It’s Tina, his soon-to-be ex-wife, who apparently is already pregnant with another man’s baby. The argument puts Warrick in a pissy mood, so he pops some pills before getting out to apologize to Grissom..

After gathering the evidence and identifying the bodies, the CSIs start putting together a likely scenario of what happened. The wrapped-up body was that of a young man named Jason Crews who was a club owner known for getting A-list celebrities to patronize his businesses. Apparently, Jason crossed another club owner named Lou Gedda, telling Gedda that he won’t be bringing celebs into Gedda’s clubs anymore. This move cost Gedda a lot of money, so he had Jason executed by one of his henchmen (the driver from the opening sequence).

Unfortunately, the CSIs can’t get the judge to issue a warrant for Gedda’s arrest. Warrick thinks it’s because the judge is taking payoffs from Gedda, so he decides to go to Gedda’s club himself to see what he can learn. He ends up getting drunk (and possibly drugged), and hooking up with one of Gedda’s strippers in a hotel room. Later on, Warrick discovers the stripper’s dead body in his car — only he has no idea how she got there.

My Reaction: I have to say that this was one of the worst CSI episodes I have ever seen! I didn’t like it at all, and could have done without the image of Warren and that stripper getting it on at the hotel!

I don’t know if this was a result of the directing or what, but I thought the acting in this episode was horrible. That scene in the lab where Nick confronts Warrick about his pills was so badly handled that I just had to laugh at how cheesy it looked. George Eads and Gary Dourdan are usually very capable in their roles on this show, so I have to believe their effort in this ep was a total anomaly.

And don’t even get me started about the weird lighting, strange camera angles, and crazy cuts throughout the ep. I had a slight headache after watching this one.

I don’t know when the next new ep will air, but hopefully it will be directed by a series regular!