Movie Review: She’s the Man (2006)

Tagline: Everybody has a secret…

Duke wants Olivia who likes Sebastian who is really Viola whose brother is dating Monique so she hates Olivia who’s with Duke to make Sebastian jealous who is really Viola who’s crushing on Duke who thinks she’s a guy…

Imagine Channing Tatum without a shirt. Oh wait, you don’t have to because he doesn’t have a shirt on for half the movie! There are a number of hunks in this movie. Yum! =9

Robert Hoffman as Justin

Summary: Ok, before it gets all hot and sweaty, here’s the lowdown on the story: Viola’s girl soccer team gets cut from her school Cornwall Academy. In order to prove herself she joins the rival school Illyria disguised as her twin brother Sebastian and joins their soccer team. Where’s Sebastian? He ran away to play in London.  The divorced parents think the kids are at each other’s houses. Perfect plan…right?

The plot is very loosely based on Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.”  Mostly character and place names and the story of mistaken identities. A classic wonder twins causing confusion plot. But Shakespeare writes more about the love aspect. “She’s the Man” is about soccer…errr, football. Errr. where exactly is this taking place?

The movie gets its humor from teenage antics, jokes regarding gender misperceptions and Amanda Bynes playing the worst boy ever. I loved her as an actress ever since All That and The Amanda Show. But how can you not tell she’s a girl?? She looks nothing like her brother, and they were originally going to cast Jesse McCartney for the part. It would’ve worked!

Instead we have James Kirk (no relation to Star Trek).  But her acting like a boy is so bad that she does a hilarious job. I found myself cringing and drooling over the possibility of a homo-erotic relationship with Duke.

Queer Factor: Aside from all the half-naked guys playing soccer, isn’t it every gay guy’s dream to walk into their dorm room to see this:

Channing Tatum as Duke Orsino

Oh jeez, kill me now!!! There are a number of subtle gay jokes aimed at the Viola-being-a-guy and Duke relationship. Just your typical heterosexual reactions to gay occurrences.

Gay Characters:

Paul, Viola’s cute and helpful friend who gives her the Sebastian look. His hair reminds me of Jude Law. *swoon* Although he doesn’t explicitly say he’s gay, he’s a stylist, and there’s a hint of him having the hots for the character Andrew.

Jonathan Sadowski as Paul

Principal Horatio Gold is also someone that doesn’t say he is, but subtle jabs at coming out of the closet and instances of walking in high heels? David Cross is one of my favorite comedic actors!

David Cross as Principal Horatio Gold

Gaming cameo: Typical boy’s dorm room with a massive amount of video games! Which one is this? It’s some sort of racing one, which I’m not familiar with. But yay!

Clifton MaCabe Murray as Andrew

Rating: “…Do you like cheese?” Most definitely a chick flick. If you like teenage catty girl humor, don’t mind being weirded out at a boyish girl, and if seeing these pictures was enough to get your hormones raging, then it’s the movie for you!

Trailer:

Photos from: collegelifestyles.org, me watching the DVD
Video from: Youtube – divastar69

Movie Review: 3 Ninjas (1992)

Tagline: “Crosses Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Home Alone!”

Really? Because then I would expect Shredder entering the turtles’ sewers and instead of using weapons, the turtles use pizza boxes to construct sophisticated traps, leading to his incarceration. But I guess it would be like Kevin from Home Alone had training in karate.

Summary: We have three kids (Rocky, Colt, and Tum-Tum) who are 1/4 Japanese and learn karate and some weaponry (which they don’t use) from their Japanese grandpa, a former FBI operative. The villain, Snyder, who happens to be the grandpa’s ex-partner, decides to hold them hostage because their father is leading the FBI investigation to crack his illegal operations. Yeah, it would be so cool if my grandpa taught me the art of assassination. It’s more of a martial arts comedy, like a kid version of Jackie Chan films.

Apparently, there’s an international version of the film featuring uncut scenes. Wow, I’d love to see what kind of violence they’d put in a kid’s movie! But for this, I watched the American version.

I remember watching this as a kid and having goals to become a great karate master one day. Tum Tum’s my favorite: always has some sort of comfort food without getting any fatter. The grandpa is the weirdest, yet coolest character. It’s a shame he doesn’t do any of the karate moves during the fight scenes. It’s a painfully obvious stunt double.

Minus all the plot goofs, cheesy kid humor,  and overuse of wacky sound effects, it’s still a fun, beat-em-up, childhood movie to watch. But why the hell do the ninjas wear goggles??

Afraid to get something in your eye? YOU’RE NINJAS!!! They were all white and they carry guns too. WTF?!

The three idiots who speak “surf” brought out the most comedy in the film.

I did notice one thing I haven’t before:

Tum Tum’s playing Super Mario Bros. 3!! OMG!! And if you notice, every time they cut to it, he’s in radically different levels. So he must be a super mastermind of the game. Or they had to redo this take 100 times.

Queer Factor: Sorry, there aren’t any attractive looking guys in this movie. Nobody who shows off a 6-pack either. It’s a bunch of kids! And no, I’m not a pedophile. =P Well, there’s a weird instance of a ninja licking a sword. (O_O)

Rating: Watch on a lazy day or if you’re feel like you didn’t do anything cool during your childhood.

Trailer:

Photos from: Amazon.com, me watching the DVD

Video from: MoviesIveSeen08