Everybody should go out and see Grown Ups while it’s still in theaters, but be careful of who you sit next to. With that out of the way, let’s get into just how hilarious Grown Ups really is.

The plot for the movie is that the five main stars (Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James, David Spade, Rob Schneider) are all childhood friends who played on the school basketball team together. They were also very fond of their Coach, who praised them when they won a major game, and gave them some life lessons. Sadly Coach dies, and all of the friends who have gone their separate ways get a phone call, informing them of his passing.

Adam Sandler’s character is a big shot in Hollywood as an Agent. He has three children, lives in a palatial home, and is married to a top fashion designer, portrayed by the gorgeous Salma Hayek. Chris Rock is a stay-at-home father who spends his days cleaning, cooking, and trying to keep his pregnant wife, Maya Rudolph, happy along with their two children and highly opinionated Mother In-Law. Kevin James is also married, to Maria Bello, with two children, and while we don’t get too much of a back story in the beginning, we do as the movie goes on. David Spade is unmarried, no children, and is living the life of an irresponsible lush – a character he does very well. Rob Schneiders character was one of my favorites. He was this little oompa loompa hippie who had a wife who’s old enough to be my grandmother, and his flopping hairpiece provided many laughs. Oddly enough he ends up having a couple of hot daughters, but that isn’t until much later in the film.

The writers did a good job of letting us know just who each character is, and we were able to get a good feel for their personalities. It’s very obvious that the guys all get along, and you can easily tell that they had a blast making the movie together, so watching them interact is very natural, and it makes for a great film. There were times though, where I thought the movie was about to end, but it kept on going, and while some people in the theater were complaining on when it was going to end, I never once thought that.

Some of my favorite moments were when the guys started to laugh at Rob’s performance at Coach’s funeral, arrow roulette, the dog with the turkey barks, Spade getting sloshed and put in the closet, and almost the entire section where they go to the water park. If you are still skeptical about seeing this movie, hear me out…especially if you’re a Salma Hayek fan.

At the water park, she wears a pretty hot bathing suit, but towards the end is the good stuff. Fans of Dogma will remember her (NSFW!!!) stripper scene where she donned a school girl outfit with pigtails. In Grown Ups we are treated to her running in slow-motion, wearing this tight, semi-revealing cheerleader costume, and she is rockin’ the pigtails again! Yeeaaaah baby! I loved seeing Colin Quinn in the flick, even though his character was a bit of a dick (oh, I rhymed!), and Steve Buscemi was pretty funny too, but wow is he incredibly pale, and getting old too! It’s been years since I’ve seen Tim Meadows in anything, and although it was brief, it was better than nothing.

If you are a fan of Sandler’s movies, then you will love Grown Ups. It is a light-hearted film that focuses on family, how people from our childhood can impact the rest of our lives, and friendships. I’d recommend it to anybody who needs a laugh, or for the simple fact that it’s a great movie. Grown Ups is definitely a title I’d like to get once it comes out on DVD, but don’t bother waiting through the credits hoping for deleted scenes or anything like that. There is nothing there.

- Me

Today I finally have no doubt in my mind that Pixar sold their souls to the devil in exchange for exceptional talent. The studio has constantly put out great movie after great movie with even their weakest film (Cars) being above many of the animated films out there. Now they venture back into the toy box to the one that started it all.

Toy Story now enters a truly rare territory. A second sequel that is on par if not above the first two. The third one usually never is too great. Sometimes you get Ewoks or a crap load of endings. Toy Story 3 is a beautiful & fitting end to the series.

Eleven years have passed since Toy Story 2 & Andy Davis is now 17 years old and getting ready to depart for college. His surviving toys (not saying who, but many have come & gone) have been put away in a trunk in his room for many years now. As his departure date gets closer, his mother leaves him with the choice to either throw them away, put them in the attic, or donate them to a daycare. Andy decides for the attic but has chosen to take Woody with him to college. After a series of incidents that almost landed them in the back of the garbage truck, they decided they’d rather find a new home in daycare. Daycare sounds like it would be heaven for the toys right? Well, to keep this as spoiler free as possible,things quickly go sour & the toys now must find a way to escape & get back to Andy before he leaves.

The film is certainly much darker than the first two & much more intense. It’s also the most emotional & heartwarming of the three. In the end though,Toy Story 3 hits all the right buttons and instead of being an unnecessary sequel,it is a welcome return and fitting goodbye. I dare you to not leave the theater smiling. I dare you.

I had high hopes for this movie, but now that I look back on the reasons why, I can only come up with one: Adrien Brody. I’ve always really loved watching Adrien Brody onscreen, the gangly awkwardness of his body, the birdlike point of his nose, his voice as he mumbles his lines through an almost timid lip-biting. I’m not quite sure what the appeal is there, but there is appeal nonetheless. Furthermore, I suppose I had high hopes because I’ve not found one good modern scary movie in quite awhile. Granted, I love Eli Roth films and the entire concepts of Cabin Fever and Hostel are terrifying, but outside of Eli Roth’s fun gore movies and the occasional foreign film, where is the horror?  Come on, America. Cater to the uninformed masses and ultimately displease the rest? I digress…

So, in an attempt to find that new horror and with high hopes due to casting, my friend and I embarked to the incredibly and outrageously priced local cinema to see ‘Splice’ (and The Last Exorcism trailer, which looks very good by the way, mostly with Eli Roth’s name attached as ‘producer’). The opening of the movie wasn’t anything special. Nothing about it grabbed my attention and forced me to hang onto every word of the script. One particular scene with a brief appearance of an electronic song made me nod my head in approval a bit, but nothing so good as to keep me wanting to watch. I assumed the plot would be slow; a lot of build up for an incredible conclusion. As the night dragged on I began to realize… This is not going to get any better. And as sure as I thought that, it happened. If you’re familiar with the term ‘beastiality’ then I am sure if I associate it with this movie, your thoughts will have your nose crinkled in disgust. I couldn’t believe what I saw, and the whole audience (There were probably less than ten of us on the second night of it’s opening) gasped and hollered and cursed. It was shocking, but in a way the highlight of the experience because at least it stirred some horrific emotion. I’m trying to be as vague as possible with this just in case some poor soul still decides to venture out and see it. I think the concept of the film may have been an interesting one, but the horror wasn’t there. The thrill wasn’t there. And the script wasn’t there. As far as effects go, I can say “Meh”. I’ve never been that into computerized effects. I much prefer inventive ways to portray something realistically to make the “creature” believable. I will say that regardless of my anti-computerized beliefs, the visual representation of the “creature” (a.k.a. Dren) was quite beautiful. The movie may have a small message on ethics, but that is a small thing to consider in the great scheme of awfulness.

In conclusion, curse you Adrien Brody and the fact that your name cost my friend and I collectively $17.50.

~Ashley~

Earlier today, Chris and I went with my daughter to see the recent, and final, installment to the popular DreamWorks Shrek franchise, Shrek Forever After.

The original Shrek movie was fantastic, and the sequel wasn’t too bad, but the third Shrek movie was just too much, and it made me wonder how enjoyable Shrek Forever After would be. I was pleasantly surprised.

It all starts out with a male voice reading from a book about how Princess Fiona was cursed, how she needed to be saved, and then it cut to the King and Queen of Far Far Away going to this really shady part of the country. There were witches everywhere, and they were discussing how they wanted Fiona to be cured but at what cost. They were on their way to meet with Rumpelstiltskin, who is voiced by Walt Dohrn, and their goal was to sign a deal with him, curing Fiona. The major stipulation was that in order to get something, you have to give up something. In their case, it was relinquishing the entire kingdom to Rumpelstiltskin.

Fortunately for Far Far Away, the King was interrupted right before signing the deal by a guard of his, who informed him that Princess Fiona had been rescued. If you’ve seen the previous Shrek films, you’d know that it was Shrek who rescued Fiona from the tower.

After that intro, we see Shrek go through the daily motions of life. Get woken up by the kids, feed them, change them, have no time for yourself, and because he is no longer feared, he must endure daily Hollywood-style tour bus visits to his house. For parents, the life Shrek has seems incredibly familiar, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that he starts to wear down.

His major breaking point is on the triplets 1st birthday, at their party, in front of a crowd of guests. Everything starts to overwhelm him, and he snaps. Shrek goes outside, quickly followed by Fiona, and Shrek really screws up by saying how he wished life was back to the way it used to be, when people feared him, and when he had the freedom to do whatever he wanted, when he wanted. Fiona, being obviously hurt by his words, basically asked him if he meant the way things were before he rescued her from the tower, and Shrek, being an idiot, said “yes.” Fiona then told him how he has three wonderful children, a wife who loves him, and tons of friends who adore him, so it was a pity that he couldn’t see that he has everything he could ever want.

Rumpelstiltskin, being the sneaky little bastard, overheard the entire conversation. Having a massive hatred for Shrek, he then came up with a plan to trick Shrek into signing one of his deals. Eventually Rumpelstiltskin gets to Shrek, and Shrek then signs a deal giving him a full 24 hours of being a true Ogre again, but in return Shrek had to lose a day.

Now, losing a day to gain a day where it’s everything you could ever dream of doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. Especially when the deal then includes that it’s a day from when you were a baby, a day you wouldn’t even remember. Shrek signs the deal, and he is transported to the alternate world where he is feared by all.

Everything seems great until he sees tons of ‘WANTED’ posters everywhere. At first he sees just his face and thinks it’s great, but then he sees Fiona on them and starts to worry. He goes to his swamp, where the house he used to have is just an empty mound of dirt, and before he can continue his hunt for Fiona, he is captured by a group of witches. Shrek is brought back to the castle, while on the way there he sees that Far Far Away is horribly dilapidated, and it’s obvious that Rumpelstiltskin is in control.

Rumpelstiltskin, upon seeing Shrek, makes a huge speech to the witches in the ballroom on how if it weren’t for Shrek, none of their successes would’ve been possible. Shrek, being obviously confused, is then told what happened. The King and Queen ended up signing the deal with Rumpelstiltskin, and even though they were told their worries would disappear, they never thought that it would be them who would fade away. As a result, Fiona was never rescued, so her curse hasn’t been broken. Shrek, incredibly determined to stop Rumpelstiltskin is then given crushing news – he only has until sunrise the following day to live.

When signing the deal with Rumpelstiltskin, it was only written that a day from his childhood would be taken away. Shrek probably didn’t even think that Rumpelstiltskin would be so wicked that he would take away the day he was born. In the original reality, Shrek doesn’t exist, which means his life with Fiona doesn’t exist, nor do his children. Visibly angered, Rumpelstiltskin tells him that there is nothing he can do to change it, and that when the sun rises, he will disappear.

The rest of the movie is dedicated to him finding Fiona, coming across his old friends who have no idea who he is, and then trying to find a way to defeat Rumpelstiltskin.

The interactions between him and Donkey are hilarious. At first, Donkey thinks that Shrek is insane, so Shrek has to try and convince Donkey that he is a dear friend of his. Fiona is also confused because Shrek goes on about how they are married, how they have children, and what not, but doesn’t properly explain what happened with the Rumpelstiltskin deal, so she is forced to think that he’s crazed in the head.

Two characters that stood out were the Gingerbread Man and Puss. Because Puss is no longer the swordsman he was, he has really let himself go. Being babied by Fiona surely didn’t help, but when he gets so out of breath from doing nothing, you can’t help but laugh. Gingy is forced to fight like a Gladiator against animal crackers in this mini arena, and eventually Puss and Gingy meet. I won’t say what happens between the two, but just know that I laughed.

Unlike other kids movies, Shrek presents adults with some serious questions. If you could give up a day of your life, just to have a solid 24 hours of how you’d like your life to be, would you do it? At what cost? How much are you willing to sacrifice just to have your old life? Surely Shrek never meant to not exist, to erase his children, and lose the love of Fiona, but he was blinded by his strong desires. It’s always hard making that transition from adolescent to adult, and equally hard finding your role as a parent and spouse, so DreamWorks really hit the nail on the head with that.

One of the best things about the movie was the credits. Staying true to the rest of the films, the ending credits were great. It originally was the same ending where everybody sings, dances, and interacts with each other, but when they did the proper movie credits, it was this beautiful timeline of the other three movies. Obviously we sat and stayed through them all, so if you like it when movies have unique credits, then be sure to hang out in your seats for a few more minutes.

All in all, I found it to be really enjoyable, and definitely worth seeing in theaters. We didn’t see it in 3-D, so I couldn’t tell you about that, and the decision was mainly due to 3-D giving headaches. We all didn’t feel like potentially ending up with migraines today.

If you can see Shrek in theaters, go and see it. If you can’t be sure to pick it up once it comes out on DVD. You won’t be disappointed.

- Me

Tony Stark is such a badass. When you think about it, he has everything people want. Fame, fortune, intelligence, good looks, a way with the ladies, and he is a fucking superhero.

I loved the original Iron Man movie, and while I was sure I’d love the sequel, I still had some reservations. Chris and I love going to midnight premieres, so it wasn’t even a question if we would be attending the one for Iron Man 2. Armed with our Iron Man and War Machine cups from 7-11, and my purse filled to the brim with bottled water and candy from Target, we waited in line for what felt like an eternity.

We live in Fresno, California and for the most part it’s OK. For some reason, the freaks and assholes always tend to come out at midnight releases, and more often than not, it’s for a comic book movie. I’d bet every single one of my internal organs that over half of the people standing in line had no prior knowledge of Iron Man other than what they remembered from the previous film. A news crew was out there, filming the idiots of course, and I had to be next to this group of annoying teenagers who felt the need to sing loudly at random moments. It was when we got in to the theater where things started to really get juicy.

About 10 rows in front of us there was a very drunk Canadian man. How do I know he was Canadian? He said so, and I will take his word for it. Plus, I doubt America will want to claim that man as one of our own. Anyways, Drunkers was going through each and every row asking people for a high five, and for those who wouldn’t give it to him, he would point at them and loudly call them out as a “Debbie Downer.” Oh joy. So Chris, a huge germaphobe, and I, an introvert who would rather stay inside than have to deal with the morons that dominate our society, sat there dreading the moment when he would come to our row. When he did, he had to pass by this rather large Hispanic man, and that didn’t go over too well. The guy immediately stood up and got in Drunkers face, pressing his chest up to his like some angered cave man, and it ultimately ended with Drunkers getting shoved a little.

Next was us. Chris told him flat out he wasn’t touching his hand, and I didn’t even look at him although I did have it in me to flip him off. Drunkers would quickly find out that he was about to be engaged in a Round 2, but with a group of buff, highly aggressive black males. Every single one of them got in his face, and I don’t think Drunkers realized that he was in a poor location to fight – right on the stairs. Getting shoved for the second time, and it being much more forceful this time around, Drunkers stumbled backwards a few steps, but that was the end of it. **PHEW**

Once the actual movie started, we didn’t have to deal with many disturbances. The movie opened with Tony having to deal with the government telling him that he needs to hand over the “Iron Man weapon,” and if you know anything about Tony Stark, you know he won’t go down easily (That’s what she said! -Sneaky Edit from Chris). Without giving too much of the plot away, I will say that I enjoyed it. Robert Downey Jr. is Tony Stark, and he did another amazing job portraying him. Going into the movie, I was very skeptical about Don Cheadle playing James Rhodes aka War Machine, and I was pleasantly surprised. Not once did I think about Terrence Howard, or how he would’ve done a scene different. I did enjoy him in the original Iron Man, but I didn’t feel like his presence was missed this time around.

I was also worried about Mickey Rourke as Whiplash. Now, when I say that, it’s not because of Rourke and his capability as an actor because he is a very talented man. It’s because of what I had seen in the trailers. I don’t find a man with whips to be scary, but when I had the chance to find out more about him as a person in the film, it clicked. I loved how there were times you could see exactly what was going on in his head, his true motivation, and just how determined he was to take down Tony. Off the top of my head, the only thing I can say I felt was a bit of a let down was Nick Fury. I wanted Sammy L to bust out a line having ‘mother fucker’ peppered in, just once. JUST ONCE! Other than that, I thought he did a good job as Fury, and his performance was one I was looking forward to going in. I could talk about Scarlett Johansen, but all I have to say is this: boobs. BAM… done.

If somebody asked me what a favorite scene would be, I’d have to go with Tony during his birthday party. He has a huge bash at his house, and while going through a bit of a personal crisis, he decides to live it up. Incredibly drunk, and in the Iron Man suit, he does a little fake DJ bit (with the late DJ AM behind the turntables), and starts shaking his thing. I laughed so hard because I know that if it were my birthday, if I drank, and if I had an Iron Man suit, I would totally do the same thing! I bet you all would too! Mentioning that scene also makes me need to bring this up – the soundtrack. Iron Man 2 has such a kick ass soundtrack, and here is why: a couple of tunes by The Clash, Queen, 2pac & Dr Dre’s California Love, and Daft Punk’s Robot Rock. Obviously there are more songs in the movie, but the ones I listed are the only important ones

All in all, the movie was fantastic, and the special effects were top notch. I’d love to go and see it again, I think everybody should go and see it, and I’m so thankful for Jon Favreau because Iron Man is one of the rare comic book movies out there that isn’t shit. Favreau let it out in a recent interview that for the villain in Iron Man 3, he wants to do The Mandarin, and I can’t wait.

(btw… I highly suggest you stay for after the credits, and that’s all I am going to say)