Grown Ups: aptly titled :)

the Poster:

the Trailer:


the Plot:
In 1978, five childhood friends won their junior high basketball championship. During the celebration at a rented lake house, their coach "Buzzer" (Blake Clark) encourages them to live their lives in a similar way to how they played the game.

Thirty years later, the five friends, who had remained close companions up until their graduation, have since separated.

Lenny "Hollywood" Feder (Adam Sandler) is a high-powered Hollywood talent agent who is married to Roxanne Chase (Salma Hayek), a fashion designer, and has three children. His two sons, Greg and Keithie (Jake Goldberg and Cameron Boyce) have become very spoiled, much to his annoyance. His daughter, Becky (Alexys Nycole Sanchez) on the other hand is a sweet angel.

Eric Lamonsoff (Kevin James) claims he is now a co-owner of a lawn furniture company, is married to Sally (Maria Bello) and has two children, Donna (Ada-Nicole Sanger) and Bean (Frank and Morgan Gingerich).

Kurt McKenzie (Chris Rock) is a stay-at-home father who is married to Deanne (Maya Rudolph), the primary breadwinner of the family and has two kids. Deanne is pregnant with another child and her mother (Ebony Jo-Ann) also lives with the family.

Rob Hilliard (Rob Schneider) has been divorced three times and has three daughters Jasmine, Amber, and Bridget (Madison Riley, Jamie Chung, and Ashley Loren) from those marriages. His wife, Gloria (Joyce Van Patten), is 30 years older than him.

Marcus Higgins (David Spade) is a lazy womanizer/bum and unmarried.

All five of them regularly harass each other in comedic fashion throughout the film: Lenny for being rich, Eric for being overweight, Kurt for being skinny and not being more useful, Rob for his way of saying "Hey!" and for having a much older wife, and Marcus for being a slacker.

During a 4th of July weekend, they reconvened to the lake house and spent some times reconnecting along with their families and meeting some old adversaries.

the Riviu:
i really enjoyed this movie. it was maturely written, superb casting and laden-filled with good family values :) Give it a spin and you'll fall in love with Adam Sandler's Feder (^^,)v

5 friends enjoying the lake house

the ladies

the kids

Rob's daughters

the guys in action

Sucker Punch is a delight!

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.