Last night, after hearing many a good thing about it, I went to see “Bridesmaids”. It didn’t take me long to realize that I’d made a mistake. Before digging in too far, let me say that there have been a number of popular movies I couldn’t get into. “American Pie”, “Knocked Up”, “The Hangover”, etc. That’s just not the sort of humour that appeals to me.

“Bridesmaids” felt to me like any of the other films that rely almost exclusively on crass and puerile jokes to tickle the audience. It might have been funnier had I not gotten over the giggles that dick and fart jokes used to instill in me when I was a kid. (Granted, there is a good one now and again, but this wasn’t it.) It felt like yet another comedy movie that was trying to push the limits, but felt that this time it should be even funnier because it’s women engaging in the behaviour. Not to give anything away, but there was an entire sequence that involved a group of women throwing up and crapping themselves. I wish I was making that up.

The story itself is rather vanilla and all of the supporting characters were very one-dimensional caricatures. Even the characters with any sense of depth weren’t that engaging. Normally I adore watching Kristin Wiig, but even she couldn’t save the film for me. (Despite also having co-written it.) Overall the jokes seemed forced and entirely over the top. There was no middle ground. The few meaningful moments in the film were quickly overshadowed by another juvenile joke.

This movie wasn’t female empowering or a representation of “girl power”. It was more like a statement that women can engage in potty jokes too. Then again, I have a feeling I’m going to be in the minority on this one as I was the only woman out of seven I saw it with that thought it was a terrible film. In this instance, I don’t mind being the odd-woman out. “Bridesmaids” was definitely not for me.

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Gasp! Why did I make this movie?

YES. THERE ARE SPOILERS, BUT LET’S BE HONEST, THERE ISN’T MUCH TO SPOIL.

There have been many an evening where I have willingly gone to a movie I knew would be terrible, solely for the fact that there was a werewolf in it. “Red Riding Hood” was one of those. However, here’s the difference between “Red Riding Hood” and some of the other films: the other ones were at least laugh worthy.

The plot, such as it was, came down to a small village being terrorized monthly by a werewolf. Head strong girl is betrothed to the dude she doesn’t like because she’s in love with the village bad boy. Wolf attacks start getting worse and a werewolf hunting expert is called in to handle the problem. Blah, blah, blah. Teen angst. Predictability.

There was nothing I took away from “Red Riding Hood” except that it was an obvious, opportunistic jab at cashing in on the “Twilight” crowd. It’s sloppy, the acting is bad, the script is bad, the effects are “meh” and the set design earned a “WTF”. (Seriously, there were giant spikes/thorns growing out of the trees in the forest.)

I’m not really sure what era we were supposed to be in. Edward the male lead had either prematurely invented hair gel, or he had worked up such a level of funk in his hair as to mimic the effect. Whatever it was, it must have impressed Valerie (she’s the “Red” of this story), because his plank-of-wood personality certainly wasn’t the cause.

The part I was most excited for was the inclusion of Gary Oldman, but he was wasted on this film. From the level of his performance, he knew it too. His character suffered from a sever case of cliche-itis.

The real hook of this movie is that you’re not supposed to know who the werewolf is. The issue is that to try and throw you off the trail, the movie slaps you in the face repeatedly with red herrings. Is it the douchey love interest? The other douchey love interest? Grandma? The mentally retarded kid? (I’m not making this up.) It quickly because obvious that it was none of these, and when the werewolf started communicating telepathically to Valerie (still not making this up), all I could think is that it must be someone related to her. Damned if I wasn’t right as it turned out to be good ol’ dad. The ONE main character they drew the least attention to.

So, what about the actual wolf? Nothing special. Essentially a lankier version of the wolves in the Twilight series. Big. Freaking. Shock. Of course, lest we forget, the director also directed the first installment of the Twilight Saga.

My advice is to pass on “Red Riding Hood” at all costs, unless you’re really wasted…no, wait…still pass on it.

This movies earns 1 out of 5 Red Herrings.

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“Black Swan” is a movie I almost didn’t want to write a review for. I wasn’t really sure how to go about it. It’s not the sort of movie that you can really say you enjoyed. It’s something you have to say you experienced. It’s about how it made you feel. The feeling I experienced? Panic.

“Black Swan” is an anxiety roller coaster. There are some drops, some lifts and even a couple of loops. Now, let’s also say that you’re also riding that roller coaster in the dark and can’t see the track in front of you. It is intense. You’re never quite sure of what’s going on, and you’re not even positive that you want to know.

Natalie Portman turned in an amazing performance, as did the rest of the cast. I think that’s part of what made the whole thing so frightening. As fantastic as it got at points, it was still so believable. It’s not often that I am so unsettled by a movie.

What few effects are in the movie were seamlessly done. There was nothing to distract from the believability of what I was seeing. In some places, it was like having a nightmare while I was awake.

Since I work closely with the film industry, I generally try not to do a lot of research about films prior to seeing them. There are so many movies I’ve been familiar with since the script stage because of my job, so it’s nice to be surprised now and again. I really had no idea what I was getting myself into, and apparently, neither did the other audience members. The discomfort in the theatre was nearly palpable, and at the end of the film I even heard someone apologizing for bringing their friend to see it.

“Black Swan” isn’t the kind of movie you can readily recommend. I’d be worried about the repercussions if I did. There’s really no way to give a fair warning to someone about what they’re about to see. I can see why this made the Oscar list, but I don’t know that I’d be able to sit through it again.

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"TRON: Legacy" title and cycle.

I already knew that recapturing the mystique of the 1982 original “TRON” would be a challenge, if not an impossible feat. After seeing “TRON: Legacy”, I feel I have been proven right. Now, “TRON: Legacy” isn’t a movie I would call bad per se. However, it is a movie with problems that were too numerous for me to ignore.

This is going to be another spoiler-iffic post, so you know the drill if you haven’t seen the movie or don’t want to know about major plot points.

That being said, here are the problems I had with the movie in no specific order:

• In the original film, Flynn is zapped onto the grid and essentially becomes a program. He is automatically dressed for the part. I’m good with that. In the new film, Sam is zapped in while still in his street clothes which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. It seems the whole point of that is so that we can have an unnecessary prep scene with sexy programs cutting off his clothes and suiting him up.

• So, Sam has been assigned to the game grid, all while being really confused and claiming he’s not a program. (Even the afore mentioned sexy programs say that “this one is different”.) Yet, the only way that anyone else figures out he is a user is because he gets cut and bleeds. That made no sense to me. By being zapped into the system, wouldn’t he be a program and not flesh and blood?

• When Sam and Quorra are escaping from the light cycle games, she says that they won’t be followed because the cycles can’t go off road. Hence, they are safe as Flynn’s zen pad. Yet, the bad guys certainly find them later and make it there just fine. I would think CLU would be more prepared to have given chase via some sort of flying vehicle, or would have located Flynn previously.

• My understanding of the shaky logic of the movie is that Quorra is an ISO, which is sort of like a self-occurring AI. She is, in fact, a program. This presents two issues to me. One, is how these ISOs were supposedly going to help mankind as Flynn keeps suggesting. Two, is how does she become what seems to be a real person at the end of the movie when they escape the grid? I’m alright with matter to energy ala the first movie, but the reverse is a little confounding. Quorra was never a real person to begin with.

• When Sam enters the grid, he enters through Flynn’s physical arcade and then a virtual one when he’s been zapped. Yet, the exit is all the way the hell across the system. The reasoning for this is that Flynn wanted to make sure no programs could get out, yet they also make it very clear that none of them could do that without having his identity disc. If Flynn is the only one coming and going, what’s the point of putting it so far away beyond using that solely to drive what was an already faltering plot?

• This is more of a minor gripe, but the set dressing in Flynn’s pad is really strange. He’s supposedly all zen now, and yet he has a crystal chandelier, a bowl of metal fruit and some other random stuff. Seemed like odd choices.

• While at Flynn’s pad, Flynn, Sam and Quorra all sit down to a meal. A meal? They’re f-ing digital. How does that even work? It seemed again like another needless thing added to the movie so that they could work through more exposition.

Overall, I think there were so many wasted opportunities with this film. The plot is basically CLU building an army to go out into the real world and make everything perfect. I think it would have been much more interesting as a chase movie where CLU was trying to hunt down the Flynn so that he could rule his virtual world as he saw fit.

As for the titular character, he was hardly in the damn thing and even then, you didn’t know it was TRON until pretty far into the flick. The title seemed to be kept mainly for branding purposes.

Another minor issue I had with the movie was the creepy Jeff Bridges CGI. We’re getting close to being able to create believable human CGI characters, but we’re not there yet. He just weirded me out.

Maybe I got some of the above wrong. (I did only see the movie once.) However, even upon one viewing, a movie goer should be able to understand how the world you’ve set up works. If they must see it multiple times to “get it”, then you’ve likely done something wrong unless it was the whole point of the movie. I have a feeling that wasn’t the point of “TRON: Legacy”.

This whole thing may come across as nit-picky, but I can only suspend disbelief for so long. Once you get such a conglomeration of things you’re just supposed to just accept unquestionably, it starts to eat into my enjoyment. If you’re going to create a world with its own rules, then you need to be consistent with those rules and at least offer some real explanation no matter how fantastical it might be. A good deal of the critics out there agree that the plot and logic of the film are failing and most have based a positive rating on the effects and music. I will take a good plot with shoddy effects over a terrible one with good effects any day.

“TRON: Legacy” is a mediocre film, with some cool special effects that can’t carry the weight of it. A lot of people really love it, and that’s fine by me. My guess is that there are also a lot of people enjoying it for nostalgia’s sake. I grew up with “TRON” myself, but even that couldn’t make me enjoy this movie to the level I would have liked.

End of line.

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Head over to ThinkLeet.com to check out my newest guest blog about the Green Lantern trailer.