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Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous , a review by Dragonfire

Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous Sandra Bullock returns as Special Agent Gracie Hart in a funny, fabulous Miss Congeniality follow-up. This time, she's the bureau's new celebrity face, making the rounds of talk shows (her heroics at the Miss United States Beauty Pageant made her too famous for field work). She also has a new partner (Regina King), an agent with anger-management issues and a dim opinion of pampered Gracie. But when Gracie's friends (returning stars Heather Burns and William Shatner) are kidnapped, nothing can keep Special Agent GS13 out of the action. Look out world. The cover girl is going back undercover! My Thoughts I decided to watch Miss Congeniality again a few days ago - I already wrote about the movie here.  Since I picked up the sequel a few months ago, I decided to watch it.  The movie is entertaining, but not as good as the first movie. The plot is somewhat simple, but it does work.  There is a reasonable explanation for why Gracie can't do field work and is sort of...pushed into being the public face of the FBI.  After doing that for almost a year, she has changed a bit and is more pampered and focused on appearance for a while.  That does cause conflict with her and her new partner.  That is probably intended to add some complication to the movie.  Most of what happens is predictable, though there are one or two small surprises.  There is humor in the movie, though it isn't as funny as the first movie.  Some of what is done to add humor is sillier.  I do think a few things don't work that well, but the movie manages to be entertaining overall.  A new character, Joel, is very over the top.  He really seems to be an attempt to replace Michael Caine's character from the first movie.  Joel is sort of entertaining at times, but he is too blatant in many scenes.  I do think that Sandra Bullock did a good job with the part. The movie has some issues and isn't as good as the first movie, but it is still entertaining overall.  Fans of the first movie might be disappointed with this one. I did post a review on Epinions after seeing the movie in the theater when it first came out. Miss Congenaility 2: Armed and Fabulous

(From Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous on September 20th, 2010)

Burn After Reading, a review by Rich

Burn After Reading



An all-star cast, including George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton and John Malkovich, come together in this outrageous spy comedy about murder, blackmail, sex addiction and physical fitness!

When a disc filled with some of the CIA's most irrelevant secrets gets in the hands of two determined, but dim-witted, gym employees, the duo are intent on exploiting their find. But since blackmail is a trade better left for the experts, events soon spiral out of everyone's and anyone's control, resulting in a non-stop series of hilarious encounters! From Joel and Ethan Coen, the Academy Award winning directors of No Country For Old Men and The Big Lebowski, comes this brilliantly clever and endlessly entertaining movie that critics are calling smart, funny, and original.

Quirky film, like Fargo you are engrossed all the way through and chuckling constantly, caught by surprises often, and look at each other afterwards and say 'WTF was that!'
Such a massive web of deceit, betrayal, infidelity and lies, it is hard to see for an hour how this will all fall together. It suffers from a very stodgy start, but after half an hour you daren't look away. The best comparison I can give is that BAF is a mix between Fargo violence and Big Lebowski humour. All of the actors shine, but Frances McDormand steals it for me as an exceptional performance.
This is a smart comedy, and potentially a cult film in the future. Very enjoyable  



(From Riches Random Reviews on January 29th, 2009)

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" Marathon, a review by DJ Doena

Synopsis: After being expelled from school, thrown out by her mother and having to kill Angel, Buffy has left Sunnydale and lives now in L.A. under her middle name "Anne". She's not the Slayer anymore, she's just a waitress in a diner. Meanwhile her friends try to fill her shoes and hunt Vampires at night. And Giles is looking in any place where rumours about a girl fighting Vampires exist.

My Opinion: What I really liked about this episode was that the decision was not forced upon her. She decided to help Lily and return to the fight she was born to fight. She had no contact with any kind of (obvious) demon until she decided to make it her business which then ultimately led to the decision to return home. But it was also funny to watch the attempts of the others to hunt Vampires on their own.

Synopsis: Buffy has returned to Sunnydale and while her mother and her friends are glad to have her back, nobody really wants to touch the subject of what happened in the last three months and in the final fight against Angelus. Additionally Buffy is still expelled from school. But everything (mostly) returns to "normal" when Joyce invites Buffy's friend to a Welcome Back party and a lot of (uninvited) Zombies also show up.

My Opinion: While I didn't care much for the "death mask" storyline I liked how the tension between all parties involved was building up during the course of the episode and how it erupted during the party. This air-cleaning storm was necessary and was nicely concluded by the fight against the invading Zombies. And I loved Xander's quote "Generally speaking, when scary things get scared, not good.".

Synopsis: There's a new Bad in town: Kakistos, a Vampire so old that his hands have formed into cloven and his associate Mr. Trick. There's also a new Slayer in town: Faith, successor of Kendra. But Faith is nothing like Kendra or Buffy. She's a free spirit, untamable. And she seems to take over Buffy's life. But she's also the reason why Kakistos is here and he wants her dead.

My Opinion: When I watched the show for the first time, I didn't really like or care for Faith. I can't really put a finger on the time when that has changed. Maybe when I watched her in Angel, maybe when I watched Eliza Dushku in Dollhouse. Anyway, when she appeared this time on screen I was delighted to see her again. And I liked it how Mr. Trick walked out on Kakistos with a comment on his lips that guys like Kakistos don't fit in this time anymore.

Synopsis: It's full moon again but Xander who was supposed to guard Oz slept the whole night and someone has let the window in Oz's "cell" open. As it so happens, a fellow student was mauled in the woods in that very night and Oz naturally fears that he might have done it. But something else happened, too: Someone rescued Angel from whatever hell dimension he was trapped in. But he's not really Angel, he's merely a wild animal.

My Opinion: While I don't mind that Angel is back I am a bit uncertain about this plot twist in general. It makes the concept of "death" a bit less irreversible. Many of the deaths in this show are great emotional moments and some of the dead remain that way but it gets a bit cheapened when you know that everyone can be brought back if the writers want it badly enough.
But still, I am glad that Angel is back because his return will make this season a lot more interesting.

(From "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" Marathon on June 20th, 2009)