Prom

Q: What’s the movie about?

A: The most uninteresting and unoriginal problems that an ensemble of teens in an imaginary high school might encounter around going to Prom.

Q: Who’s in the movie?

A: Aimee Teegarden, Thomas McDonell, DeVaughn Nixon, Danielle Campbell, Yin Chang, Jared Kusnitz, Nolan Sotillo, Cameron Monaghan, Kylie Bunbury, Joe Adler, Janelle Ortiz, Jonathan Keltz, Nicholas Braun, Raini Rodriguez, Christine Elise McCarthy, Dean Norris, Faith Ford, Jere Burns

Q: Is this movie worth the price of admission?

A: Stop! This movie makes me so angry. It has cliché dialogue and storylines, no energy whatsoever, and adds absolutely nothing to the teen movie genre. The best way to describe it is completely unnecessary.

Q: Will this movie make me laugh?

A: The only thing that made me laugh was the animalistic squealing of two thirteen year old girl across the row, who could hardly contain their teen angst every time the pulchritudinous Thomas McDonell strutted into frame. And when I say he strutted into frame every time, I am neither joking, nor exaggerating.

Q: Will this movie make me cry?

A: Oh, I'm crying alright! I have written three great teen comedies, all of which actually have plots-- I know, crazy-- and all of which have premises-- i.e. concepts that add something new to the teen comedy genre. My movies have been well received by Hollywood execs who have wanted to make them, but couldn't pass them up the ladder because, "Teen movies aren't making money, right now, so nobody's making them, and I have nowhere to sell this." I was really counting on this movie to bring the whole genre back into vogue. But this movie is so awful, it makes me never want to see another teen movie again. And in case you weren't paying attention, I've written 3 of them!

Q: Will this movie be up for any awards?

A: Most Well Behaved Teenagers of the New Millenium. What makes this group so special? In the whole movie, I didn't see one of them talk on a cell phone, text, or tweet. And here I thought that was an impossibility... But I guess not when you have a modern day high school movie where the filmmakers forgot that it's no longer 1983.

Q: How is the Acting?

A: Let me describe the depth of characters to you. There's the blond peppy girl, the tall nerdy guy, the sweet underclassmen, the jock who cheats (and looks about 35), the popular girl who's confident even when things go bad, and the guy who looks like a young Johnny Depp and drives a motorcycle because he's a bad boy. I defy anyone to find more to any of those characters than I've put down here.

Q: How is the Directing?

A: Joe Nussbaum has directed both straight to video movies, and theatrical movies that nobody saw until they came out on video. His work here should continue nicely in that direction.

Q: How is the story/script?

A: I read in The Hollywood Reporter last week that Katie Wech, who wrote this movie, has already been hired to write another movie for Disney that may be a sequel to Prom. Having seen this movie, I have come to the conclusion that the "news" article I read was only given to the press to create false buzz, by pretending that Prom would be worthy of a sequel, which clearly it's not.

Q: Is there anything else worth mentioning about the movie?

A: Rich Ross was recently appointed the new Chairman of Disney, and this movie is the first to come out that was developed by his regime. Ever since he's become the head, no one in Hollywood seems to be able to figure out what Disney wants to be. But if this is it, I have a stock tip for you: SELL!

Q: Where can I see the trailer?

A: Prom Trailer

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My Sister's Keeper

Q: What’s the movie about?

A: An 11-year-old girl (Abigail Breslin), who was genetically created to be an organ donor for her cancer-ridden sister (Sofia Vassilieva), takes her parents (Cameron Diaz & Jason Patric) to court for the rights to her own body.

Q: Who’s in the movie?

A: Abigail Breslin, Cameron Diaz, Sofia Vassilieva, Jason Patric, Alec Baldwin, Evan Ellingson, Heather Wahlquist, Joan Cusack, Thomas Dekker, David Thornton, Emily Deschanel

Q: Is this movie worth the price of admission?

A: Proceed with Caution. What an incredible moral dilemma! Protect your own long future or save your sister's life, over and over again as she quickly approaches certain death? And to put that in the hands of an 11-year-old! I was so excited to sit in the theater as I watched it unfold, not sure whose side to take... And then suddenly, about half way through, the filmmakers completely forget what their premise is, drop the lawsuit storyline, and start meandering off on a melodramatic tangent about how hard life is for the 15-year-old cancer victim.

Q: Will this movie make me laugh?

A: Alec Baldwin is in the film, so he squeezes a little humor out of his parts.

Q: Will this movie make me cry?

A: Almost the whole way through... For the first half. And then you sit there, wondering where the great movie you were watching went.

Q: Will this movie be up for any awards?

A: It seems like Cameron Diaz is angling for one. But I think it'll take a lot more than this film to get the Academy to notice her.

Q: How is the Acting?

A: Excellent, on everyone's part. They all regularly have to cry on cue, and none of them have any difficulty being right there with it.

Q: How is the Directing?

A: It stops too frequently for beautiful collages set to sad songs. Cut, cut, cut!

Q: How is the story/script?

A: It starts off with this interesting voice over that floats from one character to another. But before long, that becomes nothing more than a device used to throw in random scenes that the writer doesn't have to think of clever transitions for, creating a movie that is episodic instead of fluid. And I hate to see a good dilemma get ignored.

Q: Is there anything else worth mentioning about the movie?

A: Whoever was in charge of creating the art that both the cancer victim and her brother lay claim to in the film, is talented.

Q: Where can I see the trailer?

A: http://www.moviefone.com/movie/my-sisters-keeper/32323/trailers

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High School Musical 3: Senior Year

Q: What’s the movie about?

A: The High School Musical gang is in their senior year, so they're playing their last basketball game, performing their last musical, and trying to figure out how they will deal with their broken hearts as they leave each other to go off to college.

Q: Who’s in the movie?

A: Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Lucas Grabeel, Corbin Bleu, Monique Coleman, Bart Johnson, Alyson Reed, Olesya Rulin, Chris Warren Jr., Ryne Sanborn, KayCee Stroh, Matt Prokop, Justin Martin, Jemma McKenzie-Brown

Q: Is this movie worth the price of admission?

A: Proceed with Caution... Unless you're under 8 years old, in which case congratulations on finding and reading this incredibly mature blog.

Q: Will this movie make me laugh?

A: Mostly at yourself, for being there.

Q: Will this movie make me cry?

A: If you grew up watching good musical and dancing movies about high schoolers, like Grease and Footloose, it makes you sad to notice that not only is the depth of teenage music, life and angst only scratching the surface here, but bizarrely, as real life teenagers get more and more wild, the depiction of them in movies gets more and more tame. What's that trying to prove?

Q: Will this movie be up for any awards?

A: Craziest phenomenon of the new millennium.

Q: How is the Acting?

A: Zac Efron is dreamy. Which is the only reason I can think of that justifies how this series caught on. As far as the rest of the cast goes, you find yourself wondering where they will be 5 years from now. My guess is The Surreal Life.

Q: How is the Directing?

A: It's like watching The Disney Channel on a really big screen.

Q: How is the story/script?

A: If you're going to this movie for the story, you don't know anything about High School Musical. And if you don't know anything about High School Musical, you're living under a rock. And if you're living under a rock, you've got bigger problems to worry about than how lame this story is.

Q: Is there anything else worth mentioning about the movie?

A: You should probably take my in-depth analysis with a grain of salt on this one, because while I did see the first High School Musical, I missed the second one, so I might have missed some of the important hidden innuendo in the third.

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