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Reviews
Invitation to Happiness (1939)
A screenwriter's review
Invitation to Happiness, my first evening flick. I was eight and already a sports fan and, during an earlier matinée preview, Invitation to Happiness flashed on - a prizefight movie.
Fifteen or twenty seconds of solid slam-bang action were shown. I had to see it. It was only playing for two nights in the middle of the week and I understood the importance of school the next day. But I knew I had to go. Problem: I couldn't go alone. I launched a campaign of such ferocity that my parents gave in. Grudgingly, we trooped off to Invitation to Happiness- -and it wasn't a prizefight movie, it was a kissing movie. All they did was kiss, the hero and the lady. Those precious fifteen seconds of slam-bang action were there, all right, but that was the sum total of prizefighting. I never dreamed a preview would snooker you that way.
The kisses went on and on. I began to groan. Then I started counting. Eleven kisses. Now a quick buss on the nose, but that counted. Twelve. On and on they went, and by now I was counting out loud.
There were twenty-three kisses in Invitation to Happiness and I hated every one.
-- from William Goldman's Adventures in Screen Trade
Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
the best sci-fi musical - Spoiler
I love campy sci-fi musicals and this is the best of them. Audrey II is definitely the best musical villain of all time!
It gets a bigger role here than in the Broadway musical this film was based on, getting a second song "Mean Green Mother from Outer Space." Wise decision - the monster is always the most interesting character in a horror movie.
Too bad they had to give it a happy ending in this version.
Hulk (2003)
too self-conscious for its own good
Everybody rips the CGI, but I thought it looked very good. The bad part of the movie is the first half - we only see Hulk 40 minutes into the film, and before that it's all pretentious talk, talk, talk, building up to an "I'm your father, Luke" type of revelation. That movie was out 20 years ago already, we've all seen it, no need to rehash. Likewise, there was not need to pile up melodrama about Fathers and Sons, that book came out a century and a half ago, we've all read the Cliff's notes when we had to pass World Lit in our sophomore year of college, no need to rehash.
Loved the comic-book style transitions. Original, adds intensity.
Too bad there probably won't be a sequel - now that they got the origin story out of the way, the next would have more wall-to-wall action and would mean a better movie.
Less Banner angst! More Hulk smash!
Yeopgijeogin geunyeo (2001)
glorifying abusive relationships
I was under impression that in a romantic comedy the viewer is supposed to like the leads. But both of the main characters are so unsympathetic they made me want to puke (the only part of the movie I could emphasize with). The man is a snivelling piece of snot, and the female character is basically defined by her obnoxiousness, which we are supposed to excuse because she's so cute. Just imagine a movie in which the gender roles where reversed, and the boy kept slapping and abusing his girlfriend? How would you expect that movie to end? Not with a loving reconciliation, that's for certain - more probably with the woman shooting her abuser - just look at the recent "battered wife" movies like "Enough" and "High Crimes".
The only audience that should find Sassy Girl appealing are S&M enthusiasts.