Monday, November 10, 2003

Groundhog Day (1993)

Oh, this movie was *fun*! Just fun, fun, fun all the way through! Most comedies, the gag gets old real fast and you have to either keep working on pounding the humor into the audience's head, or find new ways to play with it and make it interesting all the way through. In most recent comedies, making it interesting all the way through is too much work and they just decide, "Aw, this was funny the first time, it'll be funny the eightieth time." However, this was genuinely delightful from beginning to end, filled with quotable quotes ("What if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today!") and hilarious characters. This one I would love to get cleaned up on DVD and own. It's that good. 4 stars.

Freaky Friday (2003)

This shares almost no plot points with the book. The title is the same, and the concept of mother and daughter switching bodies is the same. Everything else has been changed. But somehow the atmosphere is still the same. The goofiness of the novel is still found in this movie. Very few other movies can do that- keep the atmosphere of the book. (Check out my review for Holes, the only other movie that I've found that accomplished this so perfectly.) Quite watchable, even watchable a few times. PLUS I have a soft spot for punk. A movie with so much emphasis on punk music is rare. Yay punk! :-) 3.5 stars.

Duck Soup (1933)

It's a Marx brothers movie. Is there a whole lot to say about it? These videos are good, just because of their ultimate zaniness, but watching a movie like this over and over takes a lot of the fun out of it. So when my siblings watched this movie about 12 times in a row, I got quite sick of it. The mirror scene, for example, is fantastic, but loses its humor when played multiple times. It's still good, though, I'm just tired of it. Heh. This is sometimes lauded as the best of the Marx Brothers movies... I'd definitely argue for Animal Crackers or A Night at the Opera over this one. 3 stars.