Genre

“This family thinks they are better than us!”

If you think the wedding “rom com” has been done to death, Jumping the Broom won’t change your mind. It covers much the same ground you’ve seen again and again, but one cannot deny director T.D. Jakes has crafted a charming if clichéd film.

“The key to faking out the parents is the clammy hands. It's a good non-specific symptom; I'm a big believer in it. A lot of people will tell you that a good phony fever is a dead lock, but, uh... you get a nervous mother, you could wind up in a doctor's office. That's worse than school. You fake a stomach cramp, and when you're bent over, moaning and wailing, you lick your palms. It's a little childish and stupid, but then, so is high school.”

John Hughes was enjoying a creative peak in the 80s. He owned the teen coming-of-age genre with movies like Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and Uncle Buck. Hughes wrote Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in less than a week to avoid a writers’ strike. The film was shot for a budget of $6 million as a love letter to Chicago. It is arguably his finest movie.

Though others might not share my same vision, I have had my share of serious cop movies and television shows. Every time I turn on the television, it seems like everybody wants authentic police work in the form of crime scene investigation, special victims unit, and even a SWAT team or two. Even though this has spawned a few excellent shows like Flashpoint and the Shield, I wished for something lighter. Enter the direct to disc film, Tactical Force.

It is just another day in Los Angeles. We visit a grocery store where normal activity is occurring. All of the sudden, a clown, Bill Clinton, and Obama show up (masks of course). If that is not the setup for a joke, I don’t know what is. Anyway, they hold up the place. As people are gripped in fear, the police are called in to negotiate the safe return of the hostages. But there is only one team that can take care of this situation, and that is the SWAT team.

"This is me now. A man haunted by the sacrifices he's had to make. A man who ran and never looked back. I left my country to begin a new life, one where I could finally blend with those I was living amongst, become just another face in the crowd."

Well... anyone who has seen even one episode of HBO's half-hour comedy Eastbound & Down knows that isn't going to happen. Former major league pitcher Kenny Powers could no more easily blend into a crowd than Charlie Manson at a law enforcement convention.

"Welcome, Little Piggies, to The Task."

"You are now under quarantine."

Isn't technology grand? We live in a communication age that is unprecedented in human history. We carry devices, or at least most of us do, that provide the world at our fingertips on machines no larger than our palms. The internet allows us to have a world of information at those same fingertips. We do business over the net. You are reading a movie review over the net. But technology does have its problems. Cell phones mean distracted drivers and more accidents. Teen chat rooms mean that we can no longer guard our homes from the invasion of evil. Trust takes an intense look at just such an invasion and reminds parents just how powerless they are to protect their children. It's a sobering story that isn't presented here to entertain. Consider it fair warning.

Annie (Liberato) has just turned 16 and in all outside appearances she's a very typical 16-year-old girl. She has loving and engaged parents. Will (Owen), her father, is a big-time executive at an advertisement firm. Lynn (Keener), her mother, is a real estate seller. She has a brother Peter (Curnutt) who is about to leave for college. For her 16th birthday her parents bought her a new tricked-out laptop. This is her portal to the outside world and her chat friend Charley (Coffey). Charlie is a high school junior who gives her some great advice on making the volleyball team and on life in general. He seems to be the only one in the world we really understands her. So she's taken a little off-guard when he finally admits to being 20. Of course, the age begins to get older until they finally meet in secret at the mall. Now he's clearly in his mid-thirties but manages to convince her that he's still the same Charlie with whom she's shared so much. While she's a bit nervous, he wins her over and eventually up to a hotel room to model some sexy lingerie he's bought for her. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what's really going on here. Annie is in over her head, and Charlie takes full advantage of the situation.

"We are looking at an unexplained phenomenon. It appears to be a partially preserved severed head, maybe of a deformed person or a wild animal. Perhaps the metal base contained some sort of preservative presently unknown to us."

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I wised up at the altar of my first wedding and walked away. Sure, I would have been spared a terrible marriage and some financial woe but fate has a weird way of canceling out the good things in life too. How long would I have been single? Who would I end up with? Would I even know the love of my life, Sarah? Scary when you start thinking about it. Well, today I review A Guy Thing which explores a marriage to be that shouldn’t be. What will happen?

A pair of shots are poured. Jim (played by Shawn Hatosy) says there are three rings in a man’s life: the Engagement Ring, the Wedding Ring and suffering. *rim shot*. Heyooooooo. Jim is the best man for Paul Coleman (played by Jason Lee) who is set to be married in just a week’s time. The bachelor party is at the Hula Lounge and the bar is a hopping. But Paul just does not want to be recognized as the groom of this bachelor party.

Hockey is one of my favorite sports. Unfortunately, figure skating is not. This actually paints an interesting parallel. How can two sports that both share skating on the ice cause love on one side and distaste in the other? It most likely stems from upbringing and society's mainstream views on the two subjects. But what would happen if a hockey player came to the world of figure skating, would I feel different about the sport? Perhaps, but I would be more interested to see a film about it. Enter: The Cutting Edge.

The alarm sounds, Doug Dorsey (played by D.B. Sweeney) wakes up in a panic along side a girl with a heavy foreign accent named Lita or Rita or perhaps Anita (it is actually Gita, played by Nahanni Johnstone). Doug is #9 on the American Olympic Hockey team and is to be the next big thing in the NHL. However, at this point he is four hours late and must get dressed and off to the finals with the West Germans.