Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days

As many kids movies are these days, this one is based on a series of books as well as the third of a series of films.  The main character is a put-upon boy comically fighting the growing pains of, well, growing up.

In this installment, the main set of characters are still being played by the same actors, giving continuity to the series. Pre-teen Greg (Zachary Gordon) is now looking forward to summer break between 7th and 8th grades, where he plans to zone out by playing video games all summer. His dad (Steve Zahn) though wants him doing something more constructive, such as joining the local scouting troup, or doing some reading of classic novels as his mother (Rachael Harris) suggests. Dad even thinks a new dog might help get Greg to doing outdoor things instead of vegetating indoors.

When Greg sees that his secret crush Holly (Peyton List) belongs to the country club, he enlists his best friend, the goofy and conservative Rowley (Robert Capron) to bring him as his +1 guest, and lies to his dad that he has a job there, to prevent his dad from bothering him further about getting a summer job (as well as avoid military school). Complicating his lie is that his older bullying brother Rodrick (Devon Bostick) lusts after Holly's vain sister and threatens in his big brother way to expose Greg's lie if he doesn't help him get near her.

Blind Date

Stanely Tucci directed and co-wrote this film. It is a remake of a Dutch film (whose director Theo van Gogh, a relation to the famous artist, was killed but had planned on English language remakes of several of his films).

The story takes place in a European style cabaret (with a scene in an attached ballroom and two in the cabaret's bathroom). Don (Tucci) is trying to repair his marriage after he and his wife Janna (Patricia Clarkson) have been unable to move past the grief of the death of their little daughter, which they probably blame themselves for (due to a car accident).

Don and Janna pretend to play new personas as strangers as they take out personal ads for each other, working out their grief with sadness, anger, confusion, blame.

Past seven days

Ooh, a really slow week for me!  Was away this weekend and only managed to squeeze in two films during the week.  Also have been watching some TV shows, Star Trek: Enterprise among them.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days
Jiro Dreams of Sushi

Step Up Revolution

This is part of a group of movies called Step Up which has dancing as part of its plot; this is the fourth one and I have not seen any of the others.  The movies often follow a basic formula: the dancers come from urban backgrounds, there is a romantic couple that is divided by the plot of the story, there is some other urban issue, but there is always a happy ending.  And of course, lots of dancing!

In Revolution, the most central character is Sean (Ryan Guzman) whose dayjob is as a waiter at an upscale Miami hotel owned by real estate mogul Bill Anderson (Peter Gallagher). Sean and his friends, which include a few who work with him at the hotel, have an underground flash mob dance group called The Mob. They currently remain anonymous and are trying to win an internet contest by getting the most viewer hits on their videos.

Sean sees a pretty girl at the beach, Emily Anderson (Kathryn McCormick), neither at first knowing their respective connections to Bill Anderson. When Sean learns who her father is, he keeps that fact from his friends, especially when Anderson fires Sean's friend Eddie for being late and Eddie becomes resentful and in a dance segment attacks Anderson as being a fatcat.

Later the friends learn that Anderson is buying up riverside property to develop more hotels, which currently house small businesses by local citizens. The Mob decides to move their target from winning a contest to making a statement, and try to draw attention to the needs of the small business owners and local residents, and sabotage Anderson's meetings about his real estate development.

Fat Kid Rules the World

This is based on a young adult novel. The marketing of the movie makes a big deal that it is directed by actor Matthew Lillard (last widely seen probably as the husband who was cheating with George Clooney's wife in The Descendants; he's also well known for playing Shaggy in the Scooby Doo movies and in the movie Scream).

The film focuses on an out of shape teen, Troy (Jacob Wysocki, who played Terri in the film of the same name which costarred John C. Reilly as the school principal). We see he doesn't like his life much as he fantasizes about the sexy girls at school as well as tries committing suicide, this last effort ended up him being pushed out of the way of a bus by the homeless dropout dope addict Marcus (Matt O'Leary). Marcus tries to cadge money off Troy for saving his life, then cons Troy to be the drummer of his non-existent punk band. It seems Marcus has talent but due to his personality and addiction he got kicked out of his old band. His mother also has remarried so Marcus doesn't live at home with her either.

Troy, who really has no legitimate interest in Marcus or punk music, nevertheless is taken with Marcus' open offer of faux friendship, even if it is kind of parasitic. Troy opens his personality up a little and starts to misbehave or do illegal things with Marcus. Troy's father (Billy Campbell) can see Marcus' bad influence, but he holds his tongue and lets Troy explore this for a time, because the family has gone through the death of Troy's mother and Troy's father has the "at least he's getting out of the house" mentality. Eventually Troy offers Marcus a real friendship and tries to help him clean up his act.