Missy (Kristen Wiig) and Ben (Jon Hamm), the newlyweds are so much into each other.
Leslie (Maya Rudolph) and Alex (Chris O'Dowd), the couple who was married and having kids earlier as compared to their friends.
Jason (Adam Scott) and Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt), college friends who can relate to each other on every level. they have the same sense of humor and similar take on life.
Leslie and Julie in the kitchen, preparing for birthday dinner at Maya and Alex's home. the topsy-turviness of Leslie and Alex's family life made Jason and Julie felt that marriage is too much with kids.
the options that Jason and Julie had pondered and agreed upon.
Missy and Ben with Leslie and Alex clearly thought that Friends with Kids arrangement surely will send their mutual friends, Jason and Julie into doom.
the life as Friends with Kids seems to augur well between Jason and Julie, much to the amazement and disbelief of their married friends.
...until Jason brought Mary Jane (Megan Fox) into the equation. Julie is most displeased, subconsciously.
so Julie brought Kurt (Edward Burns) into the mix. but she is holding a torch for someone else entirely. and during the dinner, Jason said something that certainly would toss my heart into limbo if he said it of me :)
which led to Julie celebrating her birthday by confessing to Jason that she loves him. TADA. a bomb just dropped :grins:
the Riviu:
as i said, the movie is charming. i enjoyed it from the start though at first i kinda lost the names of the rest of the Gang.
the scene where Jason and Julie attempted to conceive their kid is hilarious. the phrase "may i approach the Bench" stuck on my head and made me grin.
it was a whimsical story to me, i mean, it's not at all practical in my society. and what Julie felt for Jason is only normal. i mean, the guy is a gem, pandai jaga anak semua. sporting segala. wah, aku pun nak!
and the upheavals that Missy-Ben and Leslie-Alex endured once with kids are common enough. tempers are expected to erupt and cause uneasiness for childless couples, lest the unmarried singles.
i like the part where they depicted how Missy and Ben drifted apart from each other. whereas the Gang nurtured over Missy and accepted her new man, Ben got to hang out with the guys out of the circle. it's always going to be a choice when a pair of friends just broke up, don't you think so?
but i do feel that the ending was kinda rushed. the storyline should have given more time for Jason to realise that he's into Julie.
i'm sorry i took a long time in reviewing SP but i merely don't have the time to do this delightful Zack Snyder's piece a justice it truly deserves. besides, i'm true to this blog's name: Slow-Poke!
The Poster:
The Trailer:
The Plot:
based on Wiki, "Babydoll" (Emily Browning), is institutionalized by her stepfather (Gerard Plunkett) at the Lennox House for the Mentally Insane after she is blamed for the death of her younger sister. Blue Jones (Oscar Isaac), one of the asylum's orderlies, is bribed by Babydoll's stepfather into forging the signature of the asylum's psychiatrist, Dr. Vera Gorski (Carla Gugino), to have Babydoll lobotomized, so she cannot inform the authorities of the true circumstances leading to her sister's death.
In the seconds prior to being lobotomized, Babydoll retreats into a fantasy world in which she is newly arrived in a brothel owned by Blue, whom she envisions as a mobster. She befriends four other dancers – Amber (Jamie Chung), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), Rocket (Jena Malone), and Rocket's sister, Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish). Dr. Gorski is envisioned as the girls' dance instructor. Blue informs Babydoll that her virginity will be sold to a client known as "The High Roller" (Jon Hamm). The "High Roller" is actually the doctor scheduled to perform the lobotomy. After Babydoll saves Rocket from a rape attack from the Cook, Gorski encourages Babydoll to perform an erotic dance, during which Babydoll fantasizes she's in Feudal Japan, meeting the Wise Man (Scott Glenn). After she expresses her desire to "escape", the Wise Man presents Babydoll with weapons. He tells her that she would need to collect five items in order to escape: a map, fire, a knife, a key, and a fifth, unrevealed item that would require "a deep sacrifice". Before parting ways, she is confronted by three demonic samurai giants, which she defeats. As her fantasy ends, she finds herself back in the brothel, her dance impressing Blue and other onlookers.
The Review:
the most integral part of SP is that it doesn't have to show us how erotic the dances were, instead Babydoll and her friends were simply kicking ass in their tasks, as a metaphor of how good they were at dancing. i love this technique. it saves the time of catering to one's whim of how erotic the dance is and credits one's intelect of being able to accept the director's word for it. No rolling in the bed a la Hariz and Izzah of Ombak Rindu. No hacking people into pieces to show how violent you are (and somehow giving people ideas on how to be violent and hide the crime). i mean, the movie allows you to be creative, to give your imagination its free rein.
i enjoy this movie, truly. the opening score hooked me right in. and i was interested in the lobotomy proccess. how do they do it ?
anyhow, give this movie a spin ya. even though it performed so-so in financial earnings aspect, it is fast becoming a cult movie :)
i gave this one a 4 and half star, just because i was lost in the sequence. yup, i'm not that imaginative yet to piece things together, that is, to relate the real sequence with Babydoll's fantasies. but then that doesn't mar the movie at all. i love it just as it is and i hope you love it too.
