Hello there!!!  We’re back!  I know it’s been a really long time since we reviewed anything.  Once we completed our initial go round with all of our DVDs we needed a much deserved break.  In that time off we got married and more importantly got Netflix :) 

This has changed the way we review.  We don’t buy DVDs like we used to because we have so many movies right at our fingertips.  After noticing that in our absence we gained a lot more followers we figured it was about time we start reviewing again.  We probably won’t be reviewing everyday anymore, but we’ll try and get one out at least once a week.  Here’s our new review:

Eric’s Review: At the risk of being unpopular, I think Nazis were just awful. They were bullies, but like murderous bullies. Imagine the biggest dick in your high school, then imagine him or her (but probably him) with a lot of guns and bully friends and they keep killing everybody. Plus, the principal is on their side and always screaming in German. That’s what it was like in Poland during Dub Dub Deuce.
This movie is equal parts great and brutal. It is a very moving portrayal of a Jewish man trying to hide out from the Nazis during Word War II. I know that no movie can ever come close to accurately portraying the horrors faced by the people targeted by the Nazis but if this movie is even a fraction of an indication, then it was the worst thing to happen to anybody maybe ever. This guy loses everything with the exception of his life. He starts out really nonchalant about the whole thing. I don’t really blame him. If you told me that a bunch of guys were going to come to my home and butcher me and everyone I know just because, I’d probably call bullshit too. Things get real for this guy in a hurry as he routinely sees casual executions and horrible beatings. He ends up being sparred mostly because of who he knows. A friend helps him get jobs for him and his family, another friend pulls him out of line when he’s on his way to a death camp, and a few other friends give him places to hide here and there. Then he is finally sparred by a Nazi after he plays the shit out of a piano in front of him. So what I learned from this is that it pays to be nice to everyone and to be amazing at at least one thing. It will save your life one day.
This movie is extremely hard to watch. Mostly because of all the innocent people being slaughtered. If I am grading this movie on how good i think it is ( which I am) it is going to get a pretty high mark. But it would get an even higher mark if I was giving it a point for every day I was sad after watching it. So far it is a 1 but I’m guessing that number may go as high as 20. Adrien Brody rightfully won an Oscar for this movie. It is his greatest work, followed closely by…I can’t think of an ending to that sentence. So if you want to see a well made movie about the holocaust, or are just feeling a little too happy and need to take it down a dozen notches, watch The Pianist and feel bad about complaining about anything for the rest of your life.

Eric’s Rating 7.9 out of 10

Michelle’s Review:  I’ve seen The Pianist before.  I remember very distinctly watching this for the first time.  I had a long break between classes in college and decided to watch this alone in my dorm in the middle of the afternoon. What a great idea that was.  All I remember about that afternoon was crying…a lot.  When Eric mentioned he hadn’t seen it before, I said you should watch it, but prepare yourself because it’s so unbelievably sad.  It’s been sitting on our Netflix que for quite some time because let’s face it, you have to be in a certain kind of mood to watch a two and half hour Holocaust movie that you know will rip your heart out.  Last night turned out to be that night.

The Pianist is an amazing movie.  It’s also terrifyingly graphic and is frequently difficult to watch.  It’s the story of a Jewish Pianist from Poland who spends most of the movie trying to hide from the Germans.  While his family gets whisked away on trains to concentration camps, he somehow manages to escape the same fate, and goes into hiding.  He survives.  By some strange miracle he survives. 

Throughout his journey of survival, he’s grows painfully thin and weak.  You watch Adrian Brody shrink down to barely anything, while his hair grows long and disheveled. I’m guessing this is why he’s starring in those shaver commercials with Andre 3000 now…the man has the ability to grow some serious facial hair.

No horror movie could ever compare to the gruesomeness of this film.  And this all really happened, which makes it all the more painful to watch.  A wheel chaired man tossed off a balcony, people being chased out of their homes only to get shot in the streets, a mother suffocating her baby so the screams wouldn’t alert Germans of where she was hiding; the kind of atrocities that you couldn’t imagine in your worst nightmares.  It’s an emotionally exhausting two and a half hours.  The performances are outstanding.  A very well deserved Oscar for Mr. Brody.  It’s a movie that is worth watching but prepare yourself, because you just won’t feel good after watching it.

Michelle’s Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Hello all of you faithful followers!  We are thrilled to announce that we have completed our initial movie list, A-Z, with a total of 329 movies/reviews.  It hasn’t been easy and considering we started this challenge in October of 2009, we slowed down considerably with getting our reviews out on time, but we did what we set out to do, which is watch everything we’ve got in alphabetical order.

So here’s the best part.  One rule we had was that we only watched movies in order, and if we purchased one that didn’t fall in order we couldn’t review it.  So naturally, because we love movies, we’ve bought quite a few in the past two years that fall into that, “we can’t review it” category.  So we’re making a list of all the movies that we didn’t get a chance to review and a small handful of flicks that we accidentally skipped over, and we’ll be watching and reviewing them at random.  I’d say it’s a list of about 30 movies, so we’ll still be posting reviews within the next few months, in no particular order.

This challenge has been a great opportunity to experience the vast range of our movie collection, and to watch some movies that usually sit dormant on our very large shelf.

Thanks so much for sticking with us, and we hope you enjoy reading our reviews!

Michelle & Eric

Eric’s Review: And we come to the end of our initial list of movies with what many moms describe as “Oooooh such a good movie!” You’re not alone moms, I like it too. The romantic comedy genre has yielded some of the all time stinkers in movie history. Many times good stories are wasted on actors with little chemistry. Sometimes these actors are even romantically linked in real life and have their names squished together to indicate they are power couples, like Benniffer Lopleck. Other times, decent actors are hindered by cheesy predictable plots, which leave you not caring how the movie ends, just as long as it ends soon. Then, every once in a while it all comes together and you get to see a romantic comedy that is both romantic and a comedy. This movie falls in that last category. You’ve Got Mail pairs up the unfairly charming Tom Hanks with the up until recently adorable Meg Ryan, in a movie that proves that the Internet is much more than porn, cat videos, and mediocre movie blogs. Hanks and Ryan fall for one another on an AOL chat room and are completely unaware that they are business enemies in the cut throat industry of book selling. Meg runs a little book store and Hanks owns a giant chain that comes into town and threatens to eliminate the little shop that has been there forever. All the while, these two are building up a cyber-relationship and decide to meet. Hanks realizes Meg is is mystery girl and tries to get on her good side before he reveals himself as the mystery e-mailer. Hanks is so damn charming that he ruins the business that her mother left her, stands her up on their first scheduled meeting, and still gets her in the end. And i don’t consider that a spoiler because any movie where Hanks doesn’t get the girl is just unrealistic. That’s right, in a movie where a guy survives a horrible plane crash, lives on an island for years with no survival training at all, performs his own dental work, and sails home on a boat made of garbage, the most unrealistic part is that he doesn’t get the girl in the end. Luckily, this movie doesn’t make that mistake.
Eric’s Rating: 7.0 out of 10
Michelle’s Review:  Put Tom Hanks in anything and I’m a happy camper.  Put Tom Hanks in a romantic comedy and I’ll purr like a kitten.  Put Tom Hanks in a romantic comedy with Meg Ryan and I’ll start pooping rainbows.  You’ve Got Mail is the second remake of the old classic Shop Around the Corner.  It’s first remake was the musical “In the Good Old Summertime” which we reviewed a long time ago. Its about two people who have never met, who exchange correspondence with each to other, not realizing that they actually know each other in real life, and hate each other. This version is cleverly updated to be modern and hip, by using the interweb instead of letters like in the older versions.  As you can tell by the already dated title, it revolves around the famous phrase made so famous by AOL many years ago.  Hanks and Ryan, two strangers, exchange emails and IMs back and forth not realizing that they already no each other.  They both run bookstores, and Hanks’ big bad chain bookstore is about to put Ryan’s indepently owned children’s bookshop out of business.  When the two online friends decide they should finally meet, Hanks discovers who this mysterious woman is but chooses not to tell her.  They eventually become friends and Hanks ends up falling for her, and in the end, Ryan discovers who Hanks really is and they live happily ever after.  It’s all set in New York City’s upscale upper west side, which paints an awfully cozy picture of New York City life.  It’s the kind of movie that made me want to live in New York City when I was younger.  Lovely brownstone buildings, shopping at Zabars, adorable little book shops and coffee houses…how sweet it is. News flash, they left out the annoying tourists, hideous traffic, disgusting smells, crazy homeless people and cockroaches the size of cats.  Oh well, that’s movies for ya!  Ryan and Hanks, as usual, have wonderful chemistry, and the humor flows smoothly throughout.  I like to think of this movie as being incredibly charming.  It’s the kind of movie you can watch all the time, and it’s still really enjoyable.  It has a great cast, a classic story, and just enough rom to balance out the com.  While it’s no Sleepless in Seattle, it’s still a pretty great 90s flick.

Michelle’s Rating: 7.8 out of 10

Eric’s Review: This film is highly regarded as a comedy classic. Now, while this may discredit me as powerful movie critic who is literally read by tens and tens of people, I fell that it is a tad overrated. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s a very funny movie, and a good representation of Mel Brooks’ comedy style, I just don’t think it quite belongs in a conversation about the greatest comedies of all time. It still gets me laughing, but a lot of the gags haven’t quite held up over time. But also keep in mind that a decent Mel Brooks movie is still funnier than most other movies. Gene Wilder does a good job channeling the over the top insanity of early cinema mad scientists. I would cast him in this part based on his hair alone. While some of his  zany stuff falls a little flat with me, he also is responsible for my favorite moment in the movie when he tries in vain to restart his performance of “Puttin’ on the Ritz” with the monster, after he is startled by a malfunctioning light. As in many of Mel Brooks’ movies, there are a good amount of puns, and a lot of references to the genre that is being spoofed. The standouts in this movie are Marty Feldman, who plays the vaudvillian hunchback Igor, and Peter Boyle as the monster. Boyle obviously has few lines but his high pitched groan in the aforementioned “Puttin’ on the Ritz” is classic. Again, not my favorite Mel Brooks movie, but definitely worth having in your collection.

Eric’s Review: This is an oft forgotten movie from my youth. It’s claim to fame is that it introduced the world to Super Mario Bros. 3, which to this day is one of the best video games ever made. The plot of the movie, in short, is this: A kid named Jimmy suffers from some sort of post traumatic stress disorder after the death of his twin sister, he is put in a home, but is broken out by his brother, Fred Savage. Fred and Jimmy go on the lamb and in the process start hanging out with the lead singer of Rilo Kiley. They find out that Jimmy is like Rain Man except instead of being super good at math and counting toothpicks, he is out of control good at video games. They decide to make their way to sunny California to compete at a conveniently held video game tournament at Universal Studios. They overcome some obstacles, including this wiener guy who was hired to find them, and this hotshot punk who is the current king of prepubescent gamers. They make it to the contest, play some Mario 3, and bring the family back together much to the delight of Beau Bridges and Christian Slater. The movie is essentially about video game battles, but attempts to get really deep, dealing with a lot of family issues, repairing broken relationships and such. At times there is too much drama, and not enough Battletoads, but I think the same can be said about a lot of things. There are some pretty obvious questions that are raised during the final show down where three kids play Mario 3 for the first time ever. The glaring question is how the hell did Jimmy know how to get that magic flute in the first castle in level one? There is no way he would know that having never seen the game before. It’s really tucked away and you have to have the flying aspect down pretty well and know that you can run by those skeleton Koopa Troopas after you stomp on them without getting hurt. You figure this stuff out quickly, but the kids only had ten minutes to play the game. Come on bro! Plus, if you want to get even dorkier you can point out that the championship was based on how many points the kids had, and warping to level four doesn’t all the sudden shower you with points, it just moves you ahead in the game and don’t have to deal with that big fish in level 3 that has an insatiable appetite for Italian flesh. In fact, since level four is harder, he wouldn’t get as many points as someone raking in all the easy points in level one. Of coarse, you can make the argument that he is a wizard and was rocking so damn hard that level 4-1 felt more like level 1-5 to him. Can you imagine?! Anyway, you could spend a lot of time picking apart the movie but that’s no fun. The simple fact is that Nintendo can cure certain types of mental ailments. Dr. Mario has done more for me than any other Doctor I can think of.
Eric’s Rating: 5.9 out of 10
Michelle’s Review:  The Wizard is one of those movies that I had fond memories of from my youth. It’s a deliciously dated film that revolves around the almighty original Nintendo system.  A time when Nintendo was cutting edge, there were 97 games available for it, and you could call a hot-line for help when you got stuck on a certain level of a game.  While the film is a shameless plug for all things Nintendo, there is also a strange story line about a little boy (with what appears to be some form of autism or post traumatic stress disorder), who is super awesome at video games, but doesn’t talk other than saying California over and over again.  His twin sister died a couple years earlier and he hasn’t spoken since.  After his mother and step father decide to put him in a home, his half brother (Fred Savage) decides to bust him out and run away with him to California. On the road they meet a spirited ginger girl, who goes off with them on their runaway road trip.  Along the way, they discover his amazing video game “Wizardness” and decide to enter him into this event called Video Armageddon, at Universal Studios Hollywood.  All the while, they are being chased by an asshole who’s job it is to find runaway kids.  And then their father (Beau Bridges) and other brother (Christian Slater) are also out on the road looking for them.  While on the road, they go from arcade to arcade, prepping the little guy to do battle.  Their main competition is this douchey, mullet clad kid named Lucas, who has the holy grail of Nintendo gadgets….THE POWER GLOVE!  He keeps it in special suitcase with his name on it, which just makes it all the more cool.  Clearly this kid is going to be tough to beat.  The Video Armageddon doesn’t seem to be the most well organized event, but somehow the little guy makes it to the final 3, that also includes Lucas and some nerdy girl with braids.  What they aren’t prepared for is the biggest mind blow in the history of video games, they must play a NEW game, the premier of Super Mario Brothers 3!!!!  I can’t even imagine how amped people must have been when that game first came out.  Somehow all three kids know exactly how to play this new game that no one has ever played before.  In the end, little Jimmy wins the whole thing, and we discover the reason the kid screams California so often.  Throughout the film he carries a little yellow lunch box, that turns out to be filled with mementos of his dead sister.  He wants to leave the lunch box in California at this place with giant Dinosaurs, which is where he and his family used to go on their vacations.  Man, if he had only said that from the beginning!  When I was kid, I dug this movie because of all the super cool video games, and glimpses of Universal Studios.  As an adult, not much has changed.  The story is pretty darn weak, and it really is just a giant advertisement for Nintendo, but I’m a sucker for nostalgia so it doesn’t bother me all that much.  The cast is actually pretty good considering the kind of movie it is, but no one is particularly very good in it.  Seeing old Nintendo in all of it’s former glory is pretty neat, and hearing New Kids on the Block in the background will keep me appeased for an hour and 40 minutes.  It’s by no means a good movie, but if you were a kid in the 80s or early 90s I think you’ll appreciate it for what it is.

Michelle’s Rating: 5.8 out of 10

Michelle’s Review:  Mickey Rourke has a scary looking face, like it was chiseled out of stone, but not very well.  Luckily, this face came in handy for the role of beaten down wrestler, Ram Jam.  This is a sad story of a once famous wrestler, whose best days are far behind him.  He lives in a trailer, making money doing odd jobs and doing small local wrestling events.  His body has been beaten and bruised, and he uses steroids to keep his muscles and strength.  He frequents a strip club where he has befriended one of the girls there (the typical stripper with a heart of gold who has a kid she’s trying to support).  After a particularly brutal match, he has a heart attack, and is told that his wrestling days are over.  Wrestling is all he has, and he realizes that without it, he is all alone. After trying to reconnect with his daughter and pursue a real relationship with the stripper, he realizes that the only thing he has in this world are his fans, who love him no matter what.  I’ve learned a lot about wrestling in the past three and a half years (thanks to Eric), and found this movie to be pretty incredible.  For those who say it’s all fake, and I used to be one of them, this flick will give you a chance to see how things really work behind the scenes.  Matches are planned out right before they go on, and while it is obviously choreographed, there is still a lot of damage that can be done, and it definitely takes a toll on your body.  There are a few graphic scenes that show Ram Jam razor blading his forehead for an uber bloody effect, or when one of his opponents uses a staple gun on him.   This stuff is just plain scary, and you know that not one bit of it is fake.  I think that The Wrestler is a superbly told story, that is accessible to those who aren’t wrestling fans just as much as those who are. Mickey Rourke should have absolutely won the Oscar over Sean Penn. His performance IS the movie.  This is easily one of the best films to come out in recent years, and is absolutely worth watching.

Michelle’s Rating: 8.6 out of 10

Michelle’s Review:  Winter Passing is one of those easily forgetable, sleepy, indie movies that you don’t mind watching, but also don’t feel much of anything after you watch it.  It’s about an actress who is approached by a book publisher, asking her for a series of letters that her writer father and deceased mother exchanged to each other over the years.  The girl hasn’t been home in a long time, but wants the money to fuel her drug habit so she makes the trip back to Michigan to visit her father to look for these letters.  He’s not in great shape, and he’s living with two younger people who have taken on the role of his caregivers.  The cast is pretty solid, with Zooey Deschanel, Will Ferrell, and Ed Harris, but the story is just sort of meh.  It’s a dark, brooding film that tries to hard too be something that it’s not. With the drugs, sex, suicide, self abuse, and crazy people it certainly fits the dark indie film template.  The only things that stay with me from this movie are Deschanel slamming her hand into a drawer…cause that isn’t something you see everyday, and Ferrell wearing eye liner…which was supposed to be funny but wasn’t.  Ferrell was clearly trying to be more subdued and trying hard to show his dramatic chops, but this flick wasn’t a very good showcase of that.  It has its moments here and there but unless you’re a big fan of Ferrell or Deschanel this flick is one that’s okay to skip.

Michelle’s Review: 5.4 out of 10

Eric’s Review: This movie is pretty hardcore. It tells the tale of brothers who are brought together in their fight to free Ireland from the oppressive English, and then torn apart by a vicious civil war. It is the kind of movie you have to really be in the mood for in order to enjoy. It is an Irish movie so sometimes you have to pay close attention to understand the actors’ thick accents. The movie is brutal at times to help the viewer gain some perspective on how much of a struggle gaining independence was. People get tortured by having their finger nails ripped out, people are beaten, and friends are turned against each other. It is really interesting as an American to watch a movie like this because we forget that we aren’t the only country who had a war for independence and a civil war. Here’s a quick rundown. The Irish are tired of the Brits bossing them around all the time so they take up arms against them. The Brits try and squash it quickly but the Irish working together and kicking some ass. Lots of people are killed on both sides and finally the Brits are like, “Fine. You know what, you got it. You can be your own country, but we are gonna keep a little bit of it. Just the top, it’s not really a big deal, I wouldn’t worry about it.” Then some of the Irish were like “Okay, we’ll take it. The top is our least favorite part anyway.” But then some were like “No dice dickweed. We want the whole thing, and we’ll snatch that shit if we have to.” So then the Irish who were fine with the treaty fought the Irish who weren’t cool with it. Countrymen against countrymen. Brothers against brothers. Now the movie isn’t just a history lesson. It shows the personal struggles of a few Irishmen and women to help show the effects that these wars had on people. The acting is good for the most part, being led by the guy who plays The Scarecrow in the Christopher Nolan Batman movies. The movie is a lot like Braveheart, in the sense that a group of over-matched people fight for their freedom, their is a lot of violence, and the British come off as total dicks. Although it seems that there are a ton of movies where the British come off as total assholes. And for a country that ran the show for a long long time, their are a lot of movies about them getting them getting the crap beat out of them. It is quite possible that you haven’t seen this movie, as I had never heard of it until well after it came out, but it is a great movie that you should definitely check out if you have any interest in the subject matter. Even if you don’t, you may after you watch it.
Eric’s Rating: 8.2 out of 10
Michelle’s Review:  I appreciate a good war movie, but never find myself really in the mood to watch one. The first time I saw this was a few weeks before I went to Ireland for the first time. Eric had really enjoyed it when he saw it, so I figured what better way to learn a little bit of Irish history before heading over there. It comes as no surprise that like most war movies, this one is filled with lots of blood, violence, and misery.  It spans two wars, the Irish War for Independence, and the Irish Civil War. For the first half of the movie you follow a group of men who are trying to form a militia to fight back against the British who have been torturing, killing, and destroying the people of their communities and their homes.  The second half of the film is after the first war has ended and the civil war has begun in Ireland.  The group of men who were once a strong team have become divided, two of them brothers, fighting on opposing sides. This isn’t exactly the kind of movie I’d pull out for date night, but it’s a well-told, very gripping film with some really superb performances.  It’s hard to not be in awe of the sweeping green hills of Ireland, and that beautiful Irish music, even though guys are getting their finger nails ripped off with rusty pliers and girls are having their hair ripped and cut from their scalps.  Like any modern day war movie, they don’t hold back on the gruesomeness, so don’t watch while eating anything tomato based, mainly soups and sauces.  It’s also important to crank the volume and pay close attention, because the Irish accents are thick and it’s easy to lose important dialogue. If you’re looking to scope some Irish cinema or learn about Irish history this film is a great place to start.

Michelle’s Rating: 7.0 out of 10

Michelle’s Review:  It’s four o’clock on a Friday, and I’m sitting here at my desk at work, wishing more than anything I could be picking giant gummy bears from a tree and taking boat rides on chocolate rivers.  I wish I was watching little orange men with green hair doing cartwheels, and bratty girls falling down garbage shoots.  I would love to see my boss turn into a giant blueberry.  Nothing would please me more.  Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is one of those childhood defining movies.  I remember watching it as a kid and insisting on having candy whilst viewing.  Everyone loves candy and chocolate and crazy people and no movie combines those things better than this one does.  Willy Wonka has some serious issues.  While  the man can be gentle and kind, he can also take you on crazy boat trips where you see images of chicken’s getting their heads cut off and worms crawling on guys faces. That boat ride scene still haunts me to this day.  I don’t know how comfortable I’d feel letting my kids near a guy like this, but apparently poor people have no reservations about it. Old Grandpa Joe and Charlie seem to make it through the fun house unharmed, minus the whole almost getting chopped to bits in a ceiling fan after sneaking a sip of fizzy lifting drink.  This movie is so wonderfully executed, because everything is real.  Fuck CGI!  Fuck the new version of this movie with Johnny Depp throwing his dignity down the toilet.  What’s great about the original, is that it’s clear that everything about it is real, even if it doesn’t seem to be.  Kids turn into blueberries and get sucked up pipes and fall through trap doors, and all of that good stuff.  Sure, the script isn’t particularly faithful to the source material, but man oh man, is it a classic.  It’s one of those family films that’s been passed down generation after generation and will continue to be.  Even as an adult, you want to be in that world, and experience the factory, and all the craziness.  The kid actors are all fantastic, except for the kid who plays Charlie, who even when I was kid, always grossed me out a bit.  He just always looked dirty and made goofy faces.  The cast is brilliant, the sets and props are unreal, and the music is the great big bow on top of a pretty great package. This one will continue to stand the test of time.

Michelle’s Rating: 8.6 out of 10

Eric’s Review:  This is a brilliant movie. It takes place in a world where cartoons and people live together and everything is wacky. You wake up every morning knowing that most everything you do that day is going to be completely zany. Your toothbrush may sing to you, and elephant may ask you for spare change, or someone might drop a very real safe on you and make you dead. In the movie, 99.999% of the toons are friendly and wouldn’t hurt a fly, but in a real world where a portion of the population was nearly indestructible, life would be a nightmare for us normals, but that’s a whole other movie. One of the biggest toon celebs in this world is Roger Rabbit. He is the main suspect in a murder that he claims he did not commit. Right off the bat you believe him, because if the answer to the question “Who framed Roger Rabbit?” was “nobody” you’d feel a little gypped. You go into it thinking someone framed him and you won’t be disappointed. I won’t ruin it for you but it’s the guy who is clearly shown to be the villain right from the get go. You see him and you think, “Wow this guy is evil. Not like in Back to the Future where he plays Doc Brown, and is the coolest. Man Christopher Lloyd has range.” Christopher Lloyd frames him. He plays the judge. The judge frames Roger Rabbit. This idea for this movie is awesome and it is made way better by the fact that you get toons from Disney and Warner Brothers and miscellaneous partying together. You get to see Donald and Daffy Duck in a piano duel and Mickey skydiving with Bugs Bunny. You just get the feeling that nothing like this could happen nowadays. But back in the swinging 80’s they teamed up for the common good. The movie doesn’t just rely on famous cartoon characters, it builds a great story around them and makes a ton of great jokes. It was a movie I watched a lot as a child and I still like the jokes I liked back then and am able to appreciate a lot of jokes I didn’t get as a young innocent lad. It had been a while since I had seen this and I loved watching it again. I would love a sequel to this movie but I’m worried that they wouldn’t get all the cartoon characters in it and they would put someone like Josh Hartnett in it. I suppose it’s best to leave this classic alone.
Eric’s Rating: 8.6 out of 10
Michelle’s Review:  I don’t think we can be friends if you don’t like Who Framed Roger Rabbit.  I would really question your judgment, because this movie is just that great. Not only is it a brilliantly funny, smart comedy that goes beyond just an animated kids movie, but it is also a masterpiece in special effects.  While filmmakers have been combining animation and live action for decades, way back to when Walt Disney was making his early Alice In Wonderland silent films, none have ever brought the wow factor the way WFRR? does.  To see the way the cartoons and humans interact is incredible and you never once doubt that these two worlds are coexisting.  Combine this impressive feat, with a clever story that combines multiple generations’ favorite cartoon characters, and you have yourself a real gem. You wish you could live in a world where the penguins from Mary Poppins serve you drinks, and when you order your drink on the rocks, they give you a glass full of rocks. As the title implies, Roger Rabbit, a beloved toon from Maroon Studios, has been framed for murder and the movie is about trying to find out who framed him…hence…the title of the movie.  The bad guy is one of the spookiest villians in movie history…The Judge!  Christopher Lloyd has always been great at playing crazy, but with this role he takes it to a whole new level.  I remember as a kid being horrified by him in this movie, especially the end scene where he goes bonkers and his eyes bug out of his head…I get chills just thinking about it.  Who Framed Roger Rabbit also brings us one of the foxiest females of all time, both cartoon and human…Jessica Rabbit.  Her gravity defying curves and that pink sparkly dress, almost make you forget she’s a ginger. Movies like this just don’t exist anymore.  They still do the human/animated combos like Alvin and the Chipmunks and Garfield, but they’re not the same.  The magic and thought isn’t there, because everything is dumbed down for a generation of kids who don’t appreciate a movie unless the soundtrack is done by Katy Perry and the Black Eyed Peas or features one of those creepy kids from the Disney Channel. This is one of those films that gets better with age, because it’s designed to please a 40 year old just as much as a 4 year old. It’s one of the best films Disney has ever made and continues to be a smile inducing treat.

Michelle’s Rating: 8.8 out of 10