favorite movie #112 - holiday edition: last holiday

Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #112 - Last Holiday (2006) - Queen Latifah has such charm that she can make any movie work, von this improbable but fun holiday romance. After seeing a test result that suggests she only has a few weeks to live, she decides to live it up, and sets off for a foreign holiday spa vacation. Her nothing to lose attitude endears everyone she meets. While there she finds out she isn't sick, manages to connect with her longtime crush (LL Cool J) and befriend the wacky hotel chef (Gérard Depardieu), who inspires her to pursue her dreams of opening a restaurant. It's a fun holiday fantasy film.

favorite movie #77 - halloween edition: the bone collector

Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #77 - The Bone Collector (1999) - This movie is billed more as a crime thriller, but for me The Bone Collector is pure horror. It's got lots wrong with it — an ultimately unsatisfying bad guy and some gratuitous deaths that weren't even in the original book by Jeffrey Deaver — but what sells this film for me and why I have watched it a few times is:

1. The undeniably hot hot hot chemistry between Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie 
2. The Ye Olde New York City crimes and locations based on turn of the century detective novels and magazines (the movie is more of a book-related puzzle to be solved than an action movie) 
3. The great supporting cast, including Queen Latifah, Luis Guzmán, Bobby Cannavale, Ed O'Neill, etc. 

Angelina and Denzel are so great together — they really need to consider teaming up again.

Hey, I guess it's technically a holiday film, too.

ice age: continental drift

Why didn't someone tell me that Peter Dinklage was one of the voices in this movie? I was going anyway, as the kid has been brainwashed, I mean, eager, to see Ice Age: Continental Drift since she saw the first preview for it months ago. But it was an extra-special treat to have one of my favorite actors playing Captain Gutt, a very mean pirate captain that the main trio of heroes, Manny (Ray Romano), Diego (Denis Leary), and Sid (John Leguizamo) encounter when they are cast adrift on an iceberg from their friends and family when the earth starts to break apart and form the continents. Another bonus: an opening Simpsons short, The Longest Daycare, featuring baby Maggie and her heroic adventures at Springfield's Ayn Rand daycare.

Diego, Sid, and Manny are adrift on the ocean as the continents divide

Granny steals the show

Scrat chases an elusive acorn

As fabulous as Dinklage was, it would be remiss of me not to mention Wanda Sykes, who truly steals the movie from everyone, as Sid's crazy-like-a-fox grandma, Granny. It's hard to believe that this is the fourth movie in this series. I remember when Queen Latifah entered the scene as Ellie the mammoth and became Manny's partner, but I have no recall of the third film. This movie, besides some of the fun characters, is entertaining, but not the best animated film we've seen this summer. Madagascar and Brave both had more to offer. Ice Age introduces some new characters and complications in Manny and Ellie's teenage daughter Peaches (Nicki Minaj) and a female sabertooth partner for Diego (Jennifer Lopez) who were frankly a yawn. The movie and series is always at its best when it centers on the dysfunctional friendship of Manny, Diego, and Sid and their adventures, as well as the gravity-defying lengths that squirrel Scrat (Chris Wedge) will go to in order to get his precious acorn.

Ice Age: Continental Drift throws its heroes into a pirate plot, as well as have them team up with some cute lovable rodents that may have wandered off an Alvin and the Chipmunks movie and overpopulated. They also encounter some pretty clever Sirens. But Scrat still has the best moments — an opening sequence where he manages to get the continents to drifting, and a visit to an ancient squirrel society headed by Ariscratle (Patrick Stewart!) It's all incredibly silly, but admittedly fun.

joyful noise

What is it about Queen Latifah? She has such a warm, pleasant screen presence. She plays against that natural glow a bit in Joyful Noise, as she plays a harried and cranky single mother, Vi Rose — single by circumstance, as her husband (Jesse L. Martin) has re-upped in the Army to escape a bad economy and his own guilty feelings at not being able to provide for his family.

Queen Latifah shines

Most of the internet chatter about this movie has been of the guilty pleasure variety. Critics have claimed to not want to like it. The plot is predictable, but then they admit to being swept away by the great music. And the movie is 75% music. Joyful Noise may be predictable, but most underdog movies are. Whether they are about high school football or basketball teams (The Replacements, Hoosiers), cheerleading squads (Bring It On), or church choirs — the protagonists will either win their competition or not. Either way lessons will be learned and romances will bloom.

My major hesitation in seeing this movie was Dolly Parton, who has been fighting gravity and age and anything resembling reality for a long time. But Dolly and the scriptwriters seemed well aware of such hesitations, and even worked it into her character, G.G., who is the only one in the choir who has her robes tailored to fit her voluptuous figure, and wears mile-high wigs and more make-up than the entire combined county population. She jokes about it herself, "Who cares if I've had a few little nips and tucks? God didn't make plastic surgeons so they could starve!" G.G. (and Dolly) may have had their faces lifted too many times to remember, but that's part of who they are, and they do it with such verve and humor it's hard to protest for long. Dolly did seem a little disconnected onscreen when she was in a scene where she was just one of the members of the chorus, but when she was the featured singer, her voice is as beautiful and affecting as ever.

Dolly Parton and Kris Kristofferson

Beneath all the crazy Dolly glitz and sentiment (a scene featuring a waltz with her deceased husband Kris Kristofferson was equal parts sweet and weird) there is, not surprisingly, a lot of heart and some great music. The pop tunes chosen for a much-needed update to the staid choir's repertoire are still appropriately inspirational (Michael Jackson's Man in the Mirror and Sly and the Family Stone's I Want to Take You Higher). Both Dolly and Queen Latifah are in magnificent voice, as are the supporting players. There is young romance provided by Vi Rose's daughter Olivia (Keke Palmer) and Dolly's nephew Randy (Jeremy Jordan). The pre-requisitely quirky choir members also each get moments to shine.

The movie's characters seem a little more real than we are used to seeing in movies. Besides Dolly, the make-up is appropriately subdued for small-town folk. The town where they live, like towns where many of us live, have a lot of closed and bankrupt businesses. Vi Rose's son Walter (Dexter Darden) has Asperger's syndrome. Nothing gets too heavy, because it's main purpose is fun, and it's all about the music. But Joyful Noise does seem less crass than its cinematic predecessor (which is also an enjoyable guilty pleasure) Sister Act.


By the time the last note is sung it is impossible not to smile. Joyful Noise is just that. You may not have been a fan of gospel or church music when you walked into the theater, but Queen Latifah and company will surely have you tapping and humming along to the music on the way out.