TOOTH FAIRY (2010)

Yes, well...I find myself having quite the thing for Dwayne Johnson. The dude can carry a movie. I follow him on Twitter and his tweets are about 2 things: grabbing life by the balls & working out. Both of which suit me fine.

Tooth Fairy sat on the table for about 2 weeks, having arrived from Netflix unexpectedly. OC and I kept saying we were gonna watch it, but it just sat there. I, for one, wanted to like it but was afraid it was gonna suck. Finally we relented...and were pleasantly surprised at just how CUTE it all was.

The biggest reason to watch the film, from my gay perspective, is Dwayne Johnson. He's funny. He's charming. He's shirtless at the very beginning. He's HOT! Dwayne Johnson's got the whitest teeth I've ever seen. I would NEVER, EVER replace Bruce Willis as the man at the top of my short list of actors who can get my ass into a chair to watch a movie, no matter how craptacular it might be, just because he's in it...BUT IF I DID REPLACE BRUCE, it would be with Dwayne Johnson. Like I said, the guy can carry a movie. Plus, in Tooth Fairy he wears this pink fairy dress for a good 20 minutes. And the fairy wings. Did I mention the wings? Precious.

Tooth Fairy also has an impressive cast: Ashley Judd, Billy Crystal, Julie Andrews (yes! Julie Andrews!). For a movie starring Dwayne Johnson, Tooth Fairy is downright gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that! Its gayness is just there and no one points to it or comments on it. It's so subtle that really the only people who will pick up on it as gay are the gays. And maybe it isn't even gay, maybe I'm projecting...have we actually come to this point of assimilation? Oh please, it's a movie about FAIRIES. It's gay. However, there is absolutely no homophobia in this film as far as I can tell, and let's face it, it does tend to crop up in these things, even if it's coded. What's refreshing about Tooth Fairy is that when Dwayne's up in Fairy Land, you see all of these moments where anyone could have just dropped in one homophobic joke after another...AND THEY DIDN'T. It's pretty cool! Dwayne Johnson's comic timing is spot on, if a little over the top at moments, but he's obviously having fun with the role and he's INTO it. He's not condescending at all, and I love that.

Another thing I really like about this movie is The Lesson: that having dreams is important, and killing the dreams of others is repulsive and evil. This movie actually goes to a pretty dark place when we realize that underneath Dwayne's happy-go-lucky minor league hockey player exterior is a bitter, angry bitch who resents the fact that he gave up on his dreams a long time ago. He's a nasty troll at a few points and you just want to knock his block off. I don't know why critical reception to the movie was so bad, really. I mean, it's a KIDS movie for heaven's sake. It obviously had a good budget, an A-list cast...what's the problem, I wonder? Yes it's lightweight, but so what? Does everything need to be heavy?  

The comedy in Tooth Fairy is light but sharp, with a lot of adult humor thrown in between the slapstick bits.  And by "adult" I don't mean sexual or scatty, just...adult. You'll see. It could very well have been a comedy from the 1960s starring Doris Day as Ashley Judd, Rock Hudson as Dwayne Johnson, Tony Randall as the fairy case worker who is assigned to Dwayne, and Julie Andrews as, well...Julie Andrews. Overall it was a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours on a weekend, and I'm pretty sure I'll watch it again because, you know...the tights; that bod; those teeth. The dude can carry a movie.

HEREAFTER (2010)

This is the first post on my new film blog. My old film blog is still out there, but I changed the name to protect the innocent, having a crisis of conscience and all that. This first post is also in a category that will come to be known as Friday Night Quickies. It's Friday night. I've got a slight beer buzz going. I'm not in the mood to do a full-fledged post, but i'm feeling chatty in the blog sense of the word.

Hereafter has a lot going for it. It's directed by Clint Eastwood, who is a master of the medium. It's got Matt Damon, who is aging fabulously. It's got amazing special effects. And it explores some deep spiritual issues that Americans are too busy being capitalist whores to really spend much time focusing on.

Having said that, it's got some negatives as well. Such as really bad writing at certain moments that just completely pulls you out of your suspension of disbelief and makes you go: Really? That's the best line they could come up with? And why didn't Matt refuse to say that God awful line until they wrote a better one? (The answer, of course, is that you don't argue with Mr. Eastwood.) But bad dialogue is never good when you're watching a movie that's aiming for heavy emotional impact. Another negative is that the structure of the film (3 seemingly unrelated stories that come together toward the end when the characters' paths finally cross) has become a cliché. I'm not saying it can't be effective, it's just tired at this point. The film's languid pace is not a negative in itself, but unfortunately in this case it only serves to underline the film's flaws. Finally, while depicting a tsunami and a terrorist subway bombing may be an accurate take on the human experience of the last decade, it's a bit of a stretch to have us believe that these two catastrophes affect the trio of characters in such a short period of time. Small gripe.

On the positive side: the tsunami scene at the beginning of the film is worth the price of admission. It's BRILLIANT! The way you get swept up in it will take your breath away. Filmmaking at it's absolute best. Also, like I said before, there's the presence of MATT DAMON. Filling out as he ages, and quite nicely I might add. His broad shoulders are to die for, and he's completely self-assured without being arrogant, which is something I respect in a man. The French actor who plays the tsunami lady's boyfriend: H.O.T.! French men always appear to be so hot at first, don't they? That is, until you get to know them and they turn out to be disgusting pigs with fancy accents. But enjoy him while he's hot, he's worth it! He's fit in a way that American men should be but are not (too much KFC and couch jockeying, IMHO).

Overall: I couldn't decide if I wanted to compare this film favorably to Hitchcock, or unfavorably to Shamalyan. I still haven't made up my mind. But it's definitely WORTH A LOOK! The tsunami scene alone makes it a worthy rental, and it's at the very beginning, so if you get bored you can always just watch the beginning again. Trust me, you'll want to. Hereafter is pretty emotional if you respond to that type of thing; the characters are dealing with heavy life-changing moments, and you're viewing these moments and how the characters react. Pretty heavy stuff at times. The acting is superb, even if not all the scenes work. You'll probably start to fall asleep before the movie is over, but then the horrid dialogue will wake you right up in time for the explosion, and that will keep you awake almost until the end, when you start to nod off, and miss the ending, which I can't remember anyway.