Ah, KT, thanks for that.? As always, reading any review from you is like
actually being there.

I wasn't going to see the movie, but now I will.? You should get a cut from
Sandler for promoting the film!

Thanks for the review,


Portia







-----Original Message-----
From: KTL <fsktl@...>
To: whoosh@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sat, 3 Jan 2009 3:05 am
Subject: [Whoosh!] Bedtime stories review

























I remember when it was first announced that Lucy was going to be in an

Adam Sandler movie and some of us had reactions ranging from mild dismay

to horrified screaming high angst. Good news: it wasn't near as bad as I

thought it might be.



I haven't seen any reviews on it here, so I thought I'd hop in with one.



No real spoilers but a few details about some things so read at your own

risk.



We trundled off to the movie theater the day after Christmas. I went

with quite a bit of trepidation-as I've said before, I was horribly

traumatized by an Adam Sandler movie years ago. I was visiting my sister's

house and my young barely teen at the time nephew was totally in love with

"Happy Gilmore" and watched it night and day, as it endlessly regurgitated

on HBO. It was absolutely horrifying and I was indelibly warped forever,

dead set in total Sandleravoidance mode.



BUT Lucy's in it and I have never seen her on the big screen, and my

friend Cheryl advocated for it, so I gritted my teeth and went.



And was very glad I did. I laughed out loud at some of that movie-THAT

was totally unexpected. It's very funny at times.



Of course, for most of us fans, Lucy wasn't used enough. But she did a

fine job in her role-as she said, she looked on her character as a Disney

villainess and she was pitch perfect in catching their typical

unending malevolence and sheer joy in being mean to anything that

crawls into their view. She didn't have a lot of lines, but she never

stopped acting, no matter how far from the camera she was. And she has

such an expressive face that you know just what she's thinking as she

glares at people or when she receives satisfaction when they get in

trouble. Very nice job.



One of the joys of the movie was watching for her in the story

sequences. She's in most if not all of them at some point. And she's

usually just barely human-in terms of this is a fantasy story where

the divisions between humans and animals get blurred, and non-human

body parts are part of the make-up. There was one moment early on in a

long shot where Sandler's talking and I suddenly realized that a

creature near him was probably Luce. The camera chose that moment to

cut, but when they swung back to the same shot, in the split

nano-second that she was on screen again, I was convinced it was

her-there was something in the way she was moving that confirmed this

for me. While it was pure Lucy, it was also appropriate for the

persona she was made up as-if such a human/animal mix existed,

they'd move exactly that way if they were pissed off. So I was sure it

was her and was talking silently to myself, mentally affirming, "That IS

Lucy!" just as my sister-in-law hissed out, "Is that Lucy as that (leaving

this last noun blank to not spoil anyone)?" And I laughed and whispered

back, "Yup".



But while I went to the movie for Lucy, I enjoyed some of the other

actors very much. I thought that the kids did a great job-they're

really portrayed as kids, not like the more common slimy, mean,

smart-mouthed brats that are all over TV and in some movies.



Kerie Russell was good. Courtney Cox was good. I enjoyed their time on

screen. And both of their characters had little emotional development

arcs that they handled very well. And of course, it's always a

pleasure to see so many female characters in a movie.



But one HUGE pleasure (and the source of most of my laugh out loud

moments) was Russell Brand. He was hilarious. He totally captured my

attention whenever he was onscreen. He found a real human being in the

character he played.



He was child-like and yet sometimes wise. And did some unexpected

things with kind of unusual reactions that were way funny. Whenever he

appeared onscreen, I looked forward to seeing what he'd do this time.

He read his comic lines with real wit and also did well with the

slapstick bits. I really, REALLY enjoyed him. And I noticed that he

got the lion's share of the laughs from the audience.



AND I think he's hot. Even his normal hairdo doesn't dampen that

reaction from me. Hoooo!



The only actor I wasn't terribly impressed with was Guy Pierce. I've

never seen him in anything before but he was-I'm not sure what. He was

way more one-dimensional in a not this is just a farce piece way than any

of the other characters. It was like he couldn't quite find anything

at all in the character that made him seem human-there was no

awareness or vulnerability there, he had no fears, no emotional

connection, no engagement with other people. And without that, it's

not a pleasure to watch a character. It's hard to care about what he's

up to. I guessssss, yeah, it was that he didn't go into the character

at all to me.



Oh and Sandler wasn't that bad at all. I do remember laughing once at

him, when we first saw the guinea pig-it appears on screen with him

and it was unexpected and not where you might think it might be and it

made me laugh.



And my greatest fear wasn't realized. The movie wasn't the usual

disgusting SNL alumni gross out. While there was a scene featuring

huge animated malevolent snot, nothing even approached the drinking sh*t

scene in one Mike Myers movie-the first movie I ever walked out of the

theater on. (It was SO not my idea to go see it in the first place.)



The theater was filled with little kids and their

folks/family/babysitters. The kids were pretty well behaved-there wasn't a

lot of yakking or running around the theater, so I'm thinking they liked

it. The oddest but kind of heart warming thing was that at the end of the

movie, some of the audience applauded. I haven't heard audiences applaud a

movie in years. Or course, that could have been coerced attendant adults

happy that it had come to the end-but I don't think so.



Happy New Year everybody.



KT




















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