Dear Jodie - Z is for Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Dear Jodie,

There was a baseball umpire named Dutch Rudder . . . uhhh . . . that would be Dutch Rennert.

Never mind.

If Zack and Miri Make a Porno was LESS raunchy, disgusting, and perverse it would have been offensive.

Writer/director Kevin Smith evidently believes in the old adage, "If you're going to fall off the ladder, it might as well be the top rung."

He's on the top rung, Jodie, but he doesn't fall.  Take those three adjectives, raunchy, disgusting, and perverse and add charming, sweet, and sentimental to them and you have Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

I've never been a big Seth Rogan fan, but he knocks this one out of the park. (Does that work for cricket as well as baseball?) And I just love Elizabeth Banks in this one, too!  Both go for it with gusto and make it work.

I can't quote any real dialogue or it would look like this...

"I'm going to (blank) my (blank) in your (blank) and (blank) your (blanking) (blank) off."

I suppose I could say that Seth Rogan's (Zack) comment "Oh, I use Ex-Lax" was a helluva setup line for . . . ugh!  Followed just a bit later by Deacon's line, "I'll tell you what just happened in there!  That chick frosted me like I was a (bleeping) cake" is about as close as I can . . . come (sp?).

I laughed so hard at times I didn't know whether I could catch my breath. And I rooted for Zack and Miri to get beyond the porno until tears rolled down my face.

What I loved about Seth Rogan in this movie is that he is the average Joe who gets the beautiful girl, and the beautiful girl doesn't see him as the average Joe.  Being an average Joe myself (or a little below average), I like that.  I can certainly dream, even at my age.

Ultimately this movie is about two best friends taking it to the level they were meant to.

Kevin Smith goes for it in his movies.  Love him or hate him, he holds nothing back.  I mean here is a writer/director who cast Alanis Morissette as God (Dogma).

I loved this one.  I shouldn't have but I did.

I'll definitely watch this one again!

And I would be remiss if I didn't post the link to my favorite song in the whole movie, the one that really punctuated Zack and Miri risking it all.

You can find it here.  From this page, you will be able to link to a version with some highlights from the movie.  I just can't post it here.  :-)

8 out of 10.

What did you think, Jodie?  I'm really curious, because this is one you put on the list!  :-)

And let me publicly thank you for reviewing these movies with me this month.  I've had a great time! Back to our regular review routine in May!

Read Jodie's review here.

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Dear Jodie - Y is for You're the One

Dear Jodie,

You’re the One was the first movie selected while compiling our list for the A-Z challenge. For that reason, it is the one I’ve looked forward to seeing the most.

You chose it.

What about this movie compelled you to suggest this one immediately, before any other suggestions?

I have seen it now . . . several parts twice . . . and I don’t know if we saw the same things, but if I had to choose a single word to describe it, the word would be haunting.

From the opening shot of the car driving through the rain on a deserted back road, windshield wipers clack-clacking away, to the final kite-flying scene with Orfeo and Juanito, and the scene with the tears running down Julia’s cheek as she drives home, less depressed, ready to start writing again, the movie just pulled me in and held me.

I love that the director José Luis Garci shot this movie in black and white.  It contributed so much to the mood, and set the film firmly in the late 1940’s.

I want to mention two scenes that particularly drew me in. The first had no dialogue at all during the first part. Juanito watches as Julia gazes out the window listening to opera. The back and forth of the camera showed the fascination the boy had for Julia, a boy who has an affinity for the arts juxtaposed to Julia's reacting to her own feelings through the music.

The attraction is strong.

The second comes late in the movie and is a two-shot of Orfeo and Julia talking at the table, while Orfeo tries to summon the courage to speak more deeply to Julia about his feelings for her and how Julia finds the courage to let him down in such a gentle way.

Most of this scene takes place in a single take giving each of the actors a chance to react to and play off each other.  It also plays in profile respecting the privacy of the characters and creating an added level of intimacy.

Garci knew what he was doing both with the script and the shots. Rare is the director who can make good use of black and white anymore. He did so beautifully.

That I watched it in its native Spanish with English subtitles only enhanced the experience for me.

Thank you for suggesting this one.  Its take on loneliness and loss and love will haunt me for a while.

9 out of 10

Tell me Jodie, why about this movie moved you so much.

Read Jodie's review here.

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Dear Jodie - X is for Xanadu

Dear Jodie,

I once read a review of Xanadu where the critic apologized for liking it because so many of his colleagues didn't.

I don't get it.  It's like apologizing for liking fruitcake.

Okay, I'm not the biggest fan of fruitcake.

But I did like Xanadu.

I understand why critics panned it.  Michael Beck isn't the best of actors, but it's only about him to the extent that his Sonny Malone is the love interest for Kira (Olivia Newton-John) and the business partner of Danny McGuire (Gene Kelly).

Okay, fine.  It's not Citizen Kane.

Critics who go into this movie expecting anything more than entertainment will walk out and pan it.

Xanadu is entertainment.  Period. 

It is fun. 

Citizen Kane it is not, but I didn't like Citizen Kane.  Do people really get jazzed about some dude trying to figure out why his boss's last word was "Rosebud?"

Xanadu had Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton-John and that was more than enough for me. What a great dance number the two of them had together.  I had to rewind a couple of times for this one!  And Gene Kelly was 68, and still hoofing it so elegantly!

And, I was one of the few dudes who could admit that he had a crush on Olivia Newton-John . . . gotta LOVE the accent!

Not a bad way to spend an evening, huh?

My sister spend about $50 on the video tape copy of this movie in the early 80's, and asked me to watch it with her.

I had a good time watching it way back in the day.

Unlike my sister, I would not include this on my top 10 movies, but that's fine.

When you suggested this one, Jodie, and after my experience with Notting Hill, I wondered what would I think after all this time.

Well, I watched it again, and I'm not going to apologize for liking it.

As a reviewer I would give it 5 out of 10.

Add two because of Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton-John.  We're at 7 out of 10.

Add another point because of my sister's genuine love for the movie and we're at . . .

8 out of 10.

OH!  I forgot to mention the music of Jeff Lynne and ELO.  Fabulous!

What did you think, Jodie?

Read Jodie's review here.

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Dear Jodie - W is for Whale Rider

Dear Jodie,

One of the most tender, heartbreaking scenes I've ever watched in any movie in any year at any time came in Whale Rider.

I cannot sit through this scene without weeping.  Fortunately, I've never watched it with anyone, and at least five times alone.

I'm just going to state up front that this movie is a 10 out of 10.  It would easily make my top 20 list.

Now that we have that out of the way, let me explain why a middle-aged American male can so deeply love the story of a twelve-year old Maori girl, Paikea Apirana (Pai), on the far side of the world in New Zealand who strives to be Chief.

Because for me the movie is about desperately clinging to tradition, rejecting and coming to terms with progress, and the human condition both the good and the not-so-good.  I get all three of those.  The cultural details I can learn or get from context . . . and do.

Pai's boy-twin died at birth along with her mother.

I see a grandfather, a Chief, who rejects his own granddaughter at birth, relents on a human level over time, but still blames her for the problems in the tribe, resents that she . . . being a girl . . . wants to learn the ancient ways. He ignores that his granddaughter has all of the qualities he wants and needs in the future Chief . . . except a penis.

Damn was I rooting for Pai, yes, a 12 year-old Maori girl from the far side of the world.

I rooted so hard for her beloved grandfather's eyes to open, to finally see what he was not raised to see.

Pai has a surprise for her grandfather at a concert featuring Maori chants.  She wanted to honor him, and presents a speech for which she won a regional contest, unbeknownst to any in her family.  She wanted to let her grandfather know then how special he was to her and to present the chant of a Chief and express her desire to be that leader.

Watching Pai, beautifully portrayed by Keisha Castle-Hughes (who deservedly was nominated for an Oscar), fight to maintain control as she delivers the speech, alternately winning and loosing the battle, while she stares at the empty seat that was for him just stole my heart.

Had this been a lesser movie, we would have seen the grandfather, Koro, depressed and unforgiving refusing to go . . . or dressing up to the nines and showing up at the last second.

This is NOT a lesser movie. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the ending!

Perfect!  And believable! And magical!

In my soul I think that every young girl and, maybe especially, every young boy should watch this movie!

Scratch that.  EVERYONE should watch this movie.

Certainly Koro understood in the end that his twelve year-old granddaughter Pai had surpassed him as a Chief and earned the family name of Paikea.  A young girl brought the whole family line back together by . . .

Yes, riding the whale as her ancestor had done.

What do you think, Jodie?

Read Jodie's review here.

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Dear Jodie - V is for Viva Las Vegas

Dear Jodie,

I've mentioned it to you once or a thousand times that Elvis Presley once held me in his arms.

When I was a baby, of course.

So, I have to love Elvis's music and movies, right?

YES! And not only because of that  Elvis was the only exception to my father's belief that Rock and Roll was the music of the devil, and a complete breakdown of the moral integrity of America.

So there!

My father often said that Elvis was one of the most polite men he had ever met.

Firm handshake.  "Son, he was a 'yes, sir, yes, ma'am' kind of young man."

My mother called him "bashful."

Others have more transcendent thoughts of The King.  How about Martin Sheen ...

See what he says about Elvis and his music here.

Robert Plant of Led Zepplin has a little to say, too, here.

Wayne Newton ...

James Brown ...

Elvis Presley almost single-handedly changed the musical landscape of the world.

Elvis movies usually teamed him with a female lead and surrounded them with a hint of a plot on their way to lifetime bliss.

Essentially they are Elvis concerts with a lovely guest star.  These movies, I think, are the genesis of the music video!

MTV.

Viva Las Vegas is no exception.

What makes this one special is Ann-Margret.

Whoa!  What a pairing!  So good, and so believable. 

She and Elvis were an item for more than a year.

And in Viva Las Vegas, she more than held her own with The King.

Elvis plays a race car driver trying to buy an engine to race.

In one of the most outlandish meet cutes in the history of film, Rusty (Ann-Margret) has a whistle in her engine and instead of the neighborhood mechanic, heads into the garages of the first annual Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Ah, but here come the songs!

A song near and dear to the hearts of Texans, "The Yellow Rose of Texas."

The cute duet with Elvis and Ann-Margret, "The Lady Loves Me."

Rusty's ginormous, dance number.

"C'mon Everybody," which is my favorite in the movie.  Well, that and "What'd I Say."

Anyway, once the songs are over we have a plot to finish, so Elvis gets the engine, gets Ann-Margret (on and off screen) and there it is.

And the times I didn't have my eyes on Elvis was when Ann-Margret lit up the screen.  Like here in "C'mon Everybody."

Damn, there is a second there when Ann-Margret struts up to the stage, flips her hair back, shakes and, oh-my-God, glances at Elvis with these "I'm gonna F**k you to within an inch of your live tonight" eyes and smile . . . THAT was so doggone erotic!  Ann-Margret was erotic in this movie!

Even as I'm posting this, I've watched this number five (maybe ten) times on YouTube. DAMN!!

Most of my life, I've heard moanings that men age gracefully and women don't.  Here is a picture of Ann-Margret on her 72nd birthday, and, if she wasn't happily married, I would totally ask this woman out!

Guys . . .  wouldn't you?

Oh, by the way, Elvis (Lucky Jackson) won the race.

Hey, it's Elvis!

8 out of 10.

What did you think, Jodie?

Read Jodie's review here.

Check out and "Like" our Facebook page Dear RockyDear Jodie: The Actor and The Psychologist At The Movies.  We really would appreciate!  We are looking to rival David and Margaret, you see.

And also, check out Ann-Margret's interview thirty years later in 1994about Elvis, here!

 

Dear Jodie - U is for Up

Dear Jodie,

Up really got to me.

It hooked me in the silence, as we followed Carl and Ellie's journey through life. The director Pete Docter understood the old saying, "A picture is work a thousand words."  We don't need more than a few minutes of pictures to understand that Carl and Ellie had a beautiful marriage of ups and downs, the biggest down being their inability to have children.  Yet, even that didn't matter because they had each other.

Our plot begins after Ellie dies.

Somehow, if the movie started with a curmudgeonly old man mad at everyone and everything, I wouldn't care.  There would be no movie.

But we know Carl (wonderfully voiced by Ed Asner) to be a loving man who lost half of himself and didn't know what to do with the other half . . . until!

"Cross your heart!"

He is sentenced to a "retirement home" which in my childhood people called an "old folk's home."  It's the same thing, really . . . a place for the elderly to die. And that was the meaning here.

"Cross your heart!"

But Carl had made Ellie a promise, to follow the journeys of their childhood hero the explorer Charles F. Muntz (voiced by the amazing Christopher Plummer) to Paradise Falls in South America.

So by attaching umteen thousand helium balloons to his house in danger of being absorbed into the commercial property, he begins the journey in a house hot-air balloon.

So cool!

Just as the events of life kept Carl and Ellie from getting to Paradise Falls, so too, does an accidental stowaway. A Boy Scout named Russell.

I like Russell.  He's chubby.  He's eager to please.  He's chubby.  He's eager to learn.  He's chubby.  He's eager for adventure.

Did I mention that he's chubby and eager? And thank heavens he is not smarter than the adults in the movie . . . but will be in his adult years.

I loved how Carl slowly rediscovers life and humanity and love through not only Russell, but a colorful giant of a bird named Kevin, and an eager dog Dug, able to speak thanks to a special collar.

I love how Russell receives his final merit badge for "helping the elderly," to become a senior scout and OH, how he helped the elderly.

Up for me is a story of redemption.  For Carl.  For Russell.  For the beauty of dreams and to never give up on them

I love how Carl kept his promise to his beloved Ellie, and became a father figure to Russell, whose own father had not been so great.

Oh, Jodie.  I love this movie.

Cross my heart!

8 out of 10.

What did you think?

Read Jodie's review here.

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Dear Jodie - T is for Twilight

Dear Jodie,

Why would a middle-aged man enjoy a movie about which my favorite critic Roger Ebert wrote, "Twilight' will mesmerize its target audience, 16-year-old girls and their grandmothers?"

Why, indeed?

Because from the time I was wee lad in grade school, I thought vampires were neat (cool). A wretched, wonderful gothic soap opera introduced a vampire into the mix in about 1967 named Barnabas Collins. The show?

Dark Shadows!

Barnabas Collins carried such a tragic demeanor about him.  He could only feed from the blood of humans, sometimes killing them, sometimes make more vampires.

Fascinating!  So much so that when my little brother (a HUGE Barnabas Collins fan) was five years old, he asked Santa Claus for a coffin for Christmas.

You should have seen the look on that poor man's face!

So why then do I get into this movie?

It reminded me of my childhood summers, mostly spent alone with little but my imagination to play with. As a vampire, I had power in my own mind.  I could bite the bully who beat me to a pulp in front of the girl I had a crush on.

I even went so far as to bite my glass of cherry Hi-C fruit juice drink pretending it was the blood of my victim!

So?

Except for her compulsion for Edward (my preference would be Alice), I completely relate to Bella Swan.

I was a misfit in school, as many were, and desperately searched for a world into which I belonged naturally and completely.

I never penetrated any world closer than the fringe, except the one I've created for myself.

I know that Kristen Stewart isn't the best actor on the planet, nor is Robert Pattinson, though he does have a darker brooding quality like Heathcliff on the Moors in Wuthering Heights.

That still begs the question ...

Why do I like this movie?

Because a misfit finds her world and risks it all . . .  ALL . . . to become part of it. That radiates with me.

So, I ask myself, why do you love all five of the Twilight movies.

Because I love them.  I love the story they tell.

And I'm mystically drawn to vampire stories.

As a reviewer, I would give the first Twilight 5 out of 10.

Throw in two and a half more points for the personal factor.

7 1/2 out of 10.

Oops, give it another half point because Alice can bite me any time she wants!

8 out of 10.

I do like the Harry Potter books and movies far more, but if a friend came over in the morning, and said "Let's make this a Twilight festival day" I'd be all over that like flies on a hot cow patty.

I should say that my late aunt LOVED the Twilight movies she saw . . . the first three.  I'm sorry she didn't live long enough to see them all.  We had such fun talking about them!

Read Jodie's review here.

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