New Year's Eve

From the same people who brought you Valentine's Day, just in case you couldn't tell, Gerry Marshall takes another holiday that is always completely blown out of proportion, slaps together a bunch of A-listers, and creates as many shallow characters with inconsequential plot lines as possible and calls it New Year's Eve. It is the exact same movie.

Want any more proof that this is the exact same movie; they cast some of the same actors and just gave them different names. That's right we are led to believe that in this universe where everyone is three degrees away from everyone else on holidays there are two people who look exactly like Ashton Kutcher and Jessica Biel on both sides of the country. Didn't you learn your lesson from the first movie; I know you didn't do it for the money because Chuck Lorre and CBS are literally throwing money at Ashton to keep their sitcom alive. Maybe it is just a fun movie to do and I assume the schedule is super flexible because they only need you for like two weeks of shooting.

We could go over all of the plot lines but added up I doubt any story gets more than twenty minutes of screen time so there is no way to make any kind of connection to the story which is probably for the better. All of the clichés you can imagine make it into the movie people get stuck in an elevator, running into an ex, first kisses, bucket lists and obviously the New Year’s Ball breaks and there is concern it may not drop on time. It doesn't really matter who stars in which role as you can just throw in any actor to be any character, as they did with Hallie Berry, it is that nondescript. Some of the more ridiculous moments feature a dying Robert De Niro trying to get to the roof of the hospital and Hilary Swank talking on National News about being nicer to people or some shit.

The movie studio involved is Warner Brothers who take a laughable amount of screen time to pimp out their next movie Sherlock Holmes which comes out next week. This movie is also brought to you by the fine people of Nivea. Nivea: Touch and Be Touched. As you can see their product placing skills even made it into my review, well done.

The best part of the movie was the ending, not only because you could finally leave but because there are some actually genuine moments in the outtakes where the actors were allowed to have a little fun on screen. This is the attitude and style the movie should have been made in, not whatever was happening on the screen.

There really is no reason to see this movie, for those of you that saw the first one in theaters you should still be shaking your head at that decision. At its absolute best the movie is hokey and at its worst it is laughably trite. I would say it is a bigger let down than the actual holiday but there was no way the expectations were all that high. F

Sex and the City 2

I usually try and do my reviews for the movies I see the next day, but I thought that wouldn't be fair to this particular movie. I am not the movie's target audience. This movie is made for women and gay men who loved the series. So I thought it would only be fair to get the opinions of the audience it was intended for as well before sitting down to write the review.

There were two differing viewpoints I received. One group liked seeing all four characters back together that was enough for them to enjoy the movie and one group thought the movie was garbage. Whew, now I won't feel as bad for roasting this movie.

The show used to mean something, it used to be edgy. The women would have honest conversations about life, the problems they face in society, and the difficulties in their romantic life. They would do it in high fashion but at least the content could still connect with the show's audience. It is clear that the characters and writers have lost touch with their audience. Though I do find it impressive that a movie that runs two and a half hours long (that's right, two and a half hours!) still has nothing to say.

It has been two years since we last saw the ladies all together and three of the ladies are going through some legitimate problems. Miranda deals with the difficulties of a hostile work environment; Charlotte finds motherhood to be more difficult than originally anticipated, even with a full time nanny; and Samantha is going through menopause. Rather than having frank and honest discussions about their issues the four friends, who seem to be trapped in the ninties, instead exchange awful zingers with one another.

And then there is Carrie, she has written another book, has a fabulous new apartment, and has married the love of her life. What's her biggest problem, she doesn't hit the town as often as she used to. At some point you wish Mr. Big wasn't a one dimensional character and tell her to stop bitching for the sake of filling time.

Not only are there puns that would make the James Bond cringe and unflattering plot lines, but there is an awful lot of pandering in this movie. I think the writers knew that the only way to guarantee applause in this movie would be to throw a shout out to all the moms out there who don't have a nanny or to engage in a karaoke version of a women's empowerment songs.

Has it ever bothered anyone else that these women and the people around them never seem to be affected by the economic crisis happening all around them. Half way through the movie they are flown across the world to a hotel costing more money a night then I am sure to make this year. Any mention or chance of an honest conversation on the issue is quickly cut to more shopping or another Cosmo.

And shopping was key as these women are in new dresses every 1o minutes or so. How do I know, it is clear the lighting director is more concerned about the fashion then they the actors. Maybe that's for the better as these women once in their twenties have finally been caught by father time, except Kristin Davis who still has a couple years left in there.

This review will not stop the three or four female readers I have from falling in that first group of women I talked to once the credits rolled. Let me just say this isn't a movie you should drag your boyfriend to, this is a movie to go to with the girls. And then afterwards apologize to you girlfriends for having dragged them to a movie that tried desperately to grab hold of its nineties relevance only to come up with a shabby overused plotline about an exotic vacation. F