Month: June 2012

So the first thing anyone would notice about the title is the N in Love N’ Dancing. What the heck is that shit? That better have significance to the story somehow, and not just some dumb way of doing ‘and’.

You will be disappointed.

Look at that. True love and shit. Maybe.

Turns out wikipedia doesn’t always do a good job of explaining the plot! Here is the full outline via wikipedia:

Love N’ Dancing is a 2009 dance film about a couple who take part in a dance competition.

Yeah, sounds a bit like a shitty book report from someone who didn’t read the book.

Jessica Donovan (Amy Smart) is a school teacher, kind of nerdy (glasses!) and is upset that the speaker about to talk seems to be ignoring her, and her fellow teacher (Caroline Rhea) just laughs at her. Why? Dude is deaf! Has hearing aids for something or another, but gets most of his speech through lip reading. It was a gradual deafness, so he can talk and everything correctly.

Jake Mitchell (Tom Malloy) used to be a professional dancer, mostly swing, with his partner Corinne Kennedy (Nicola Royston) . He thought too many people focused on his upcoming hearing loss and eventual deafness, and he was winning events unfairly because of it. So he has quit, put that behind him, now a motivational speaker about disabilities and runs a dance studio. Dance studio!?

Jessica wants to dance. Preferably at her wedding. She is getting married to super rich, always busy Kent Krandel (Billy Zane), and money is no option with this guy. Paying for lessons for their wedding? Sure, if he can ever make them. Obvisouly their relationship isn’t too good, but the one between Jake and Jessica is growing. He wants to enter her in a beginners dance tournament, where she’d dance with her trainer.

But after he gets jealous of his partner, he says fuck all that shit. He wants to try a real competition anyways, with Jessica even if she is a beginner. They might not be as talented, but what they have is that chemistry! So they do that sexy stuff (don’t worry, she already dumped Kent eventually) and go for the gold! Also there is a very strange side story involving the other (lesbian) trainer, Danielle (Leila Arcieri), and their secretary (Rachel Dratch).

See? Now that she has contacts, she can be free!

Gah. No one had a first or last name in this movie that began with an N! No reason at all. Booo you title, boo!

The acting in the movie is pretty bad. No one felt like they cared. Felt like the most effort was put into it by Zane, on trying to be a big asshole. Was still super stereotypical in the role as “guy always on the phone and not caring about loved ones”. Did have a weird scene later at another persons wedding, where he danced a lot, as part of a competition, and didn’t make much sense to me at all, based off his earlier reactions to dancing.

Also how deaf the main guy is seems to change throughout the film. No real standards are set. Also the dancing never swept me off my feet, always just seemed okay. Also blah.

I’m Reed Fish, bitch!

It’s hard to say the title of this movie without adding something behind it.

This is another movie I knew just nothing about before watching, so uhh yeah. Cool story, bro.

I’m Reed Fish and I just had a revelation about my life! Maybe.

This movie takes place in a small town, somewhere. We are waken up by the sound of a radio, and oh no, Reed Fish (Jay Baruchel) is late to the radio job! Which is in his shed in his yard so he makes it on time, and no big deal. He does the local news around the area, just a simple hour long show that everyone seems to listen to. Used to belong to his dad, before both his parents died, and he took over. Has the help of Maureen (Katey Sagal) and his friend Frank (Victor Rasuk).

He is also getting married soon, no big deal, to Kate (Alexis Bledel). Someone he met after high school. He is letting her handle all the planning, after all, he has a busy job in the community! But then his high school crush shows up in town again, Jill (Schuyler Fisk) back from College and running around the world. Well shit. Time for awkward feelings, Reed Fish.

Now he has to figure out what he truly wants in life. To continue marrying Kate? To see if he can make something work with Jill? (This is a really small town, ramifications man!) Chris Parnell and DJ Qualls also play minor character friends.

Oh yeah, and about 2/5 of the way through the movie, the sound stops and gets all weird. Turns out the movie we are watching is a movie made by Reed Fish about his life, and showing it to the town for a premier. What? So yes, most of the movie is a movie in the movie, technically. This leads to some twists at the end.

I’m Reed Fish and I like to be in pictures as the meat in a two girl bread sandwich.

Those twists, which add nothing really to the movie for me. It is a very awkward story, this Reed Fish movie, because I wonder what the point of it all is.

Dude cheats on his wife, which pisses off his wife and the whole town. But that isn’t how it ends. Can he actually have a relationship with Jill without pissing off everyone further, or will he go back to Kate, just pissing off Jill? Man has 99 problems, and he is the Bitch in this situation I think. Starts fights with friends, etc.

I found the film dull and uninteresting. Could barely even tell twists happened at the end. I also don’t see why everyone cheered at the end of his movie. His movie ended stupidly, I think. They probably just liked seeing themselves on screen.

There is a good chance I would never have heard about the film Detachment, unless it wasn’t suggested to me by a reader. Well, I might have seen it on my own if I was stalking Christina Hendrick‘s imdb page and watching whatever she was in. But I doubt that would have happened either.

So hooray for people telling me about movies. You know, unless they suck. And all I was told about this movie was that it was a bit “sad”. Alright, I can handle sadness.

Oh, also potential sexy time with a clearly underage girl.

Substitute teaching. For people not good enough to be teachers? Or is it for people who are afraid of getting close to others, and want to move around a lot. Based on the title, you can probably guess about Henry Barthes (Adrien Brody). He is put into a shitty school in NYC that is losing money for bad test grades every year, and teachers who have stopped caring. One teacher goes on and quits, so Henry is brought in to sub the English class for a month before a permanent teacher is found.

Lots of teachers here with their own problems. The Principal (Marcia Gay Harden) pretty much knows she is done at the end of the year, the guidance counselor (Lucy Liu) is tired of kids not caring about their futures and throwing their lives away, one teacher has given up and feels invisible (Tim Blake Nelson). But there are some teachers that still manage to carry on, such as Mr. Seaboldt (James Caan) who uses his own form of comedy to get through and enjoy the day. Ms. Madison (Hendricks) seems like a competent teacher who believes, but might be a bit too rule nit picky.

Sorry for that awkward paragraph explaining most of the minor characters. Had to fit them in!

But also because I don’t want to give too much away. Over the three weeks, he changes the lives of a few students, including Meredith (Betty Kaye) who gets picked on for weight and from a rough home. He also befriends Erika (Sami Gayle), who isn’t a student, but a very young prostitute living on the street, who he lets into his home to help get her back on her feet. Definitely not sketch.

But that is all you get, damn it!

I was also told she was a twat in this movie.

So is this movie sad? No. It’s fucking depressing. I was shocked at how early on I was captivated by the film, wondering where it was going and what would happen to all the characters. About a half hour into it, I accidentally saw how much time was passed and assumed I had been watching the movie for at least an hour. I mean that in the best way since it could be taken bad.

Although I kind of saw what was going to happen with the ending before it did, it still left me with questions about the future of some members. I guess it ended on a little bit of a good note, but barely given the inevitableness of the plot.

This movie made it hard for me to look away and affected my emotions so well, it is either the result of great acting / directing, or just manipulative music. I am willing to bet the former. Definitely a great addition to a drama collection.

As promised, Mirror Mirror review slightly after Snow White And The Huntsman. I had to give myself time to fully digest the plot from my system. Because no one wants to see two similar movies so close together.

Unless you really really love Snow White based content, then I don’t know.

If you are that above person, check this shit out. It’s Snow White. Fuck yeah, right?

In this movie, Snow White’s (Lily Collins) mom died during child birth. Very sad. Her dad (Sean Bean) thought it would be good for her to have a mom, so he found a beautiful woman to call Queen (Julia Roberts). Many years after that, there is rumors of a Beast in the forest, to which the King goes to investigate but never returns! Ten years after that, hey look, Snow is turning 18.

She has been shut inside, the Queen making everyone thinks she is afraid of the outside, in order to make her a bad ruler, while she taxes the kingdom to poorness for rich parties. Boo. Well, the Baker Margaret (Mare Winningham) is Snow’s biggest supporter, and lets her know that shit is going bad and she wants to investigate. Well it sucks. Eventually she wanders the forest where she finds Prince Alcott (Armie Hammer) and his assistant, tied up, attacked by giants! Or at least dwarves dressed up as giants. They go to the castle and thank the girl.

Oh shit she is a Princess, they find out later, and the Prince likes her a lot. Pisses off the Queen, who demands her death, but instead, she escapes to the forest and finds the dwarves. Queen banished them from the kingdom and they are forced to live alone! And they are all midgets. Like Jordan Prentice and Ronald Lee Clark.

They agree to let her join and train her to fight and steal, and increase her wit so they can steal from the queen the taxes and return them to the city! She is even able to fend off an attack from the Prince and a group (partially under spell). Once the Queen uses more magic to have a wedding, the group steal the Prince and attempt to break the spell. But will the beast that lives in the forest come a knocking? Why does the Queen waste her precious magic on turning her assistant (Nathan Lane) into a Cockroach for a bit, instead of like, some torture.

The fact that she gets trained and is more than one fight makes her arguably more of a warrior than the Snow White in that other movie.

Alright, so that the films are a bit different, Mirror Mirror ended up being the “comedy one” instead of the “Serious one” (which there has been numerous of both in the past). If I judged the latter poorly on being a bad serious movie, then I would have to judge this based on its comedic value. Well, not much was too funny. I thought Julia Roberts was pretty bad in this movie as a Queen. Charlize Theron blows her out of the water (“Just review this movie, damn it! Stop comparing!” – Reader. “Fine” – Me”).

But I felt this was an overall more complete feeling movie, with a bit better plot. Cheesy as all heck, but everyone likes Cheese. The visuals were vivid as shit, because this is done by the same guy who gave us the Immortals, which focused more on visuals than a decent and coherent story. (Alright alright, no more other movie talk). The ending also, out of no where, featured a weird Bollywood number, which I enjoyed, but uh, the lyrics/singing weren’t good.

I think overall the beginning was a bit too slow, but it picked up once Snow White was “killed” and left the castle. Dwarves were sweet, Prince was amusing, and Snow White was more bad ass in this film than the other (Hah! Still did it anyways. Neener neener). But still weak in other parts. Oh well.

When I saw the (countless) previews for Brave I was never wildly impressed with them, and didn’t really care if I saw it or not. Well, I knew I would see it but when is the better question.

I also learned recently that there is a rather large subset of people who believe that Pixar can do no wrong, all of their movies are amazing, and judge new movies based off everything they’ve ever done. That sucks for Pixar. Good for money, but still, kind of a weird position to be in.

Either way, what bugged me about the previews is they were all super vague. For some reason a girl wants to change her fate and has to go at great lengths to do it. But from the previews it makes it seem like the fate she wants to avoid is just a marriage? Hmm, weird.

Oh and she likes to shoot things, of course.

Merida (Kelly Macdonald) is a Scottish “princesS”. Her father Fergus (Billy Connolly) lost his leg in a fight with the deadliest bear ever, of all time, and helped lead the other three tribes to fight off invaders. So they made him king. However, they agreed that to strengthen the tribes, the daughter (once she gets a certain age) must marry the first born son of one of the other chieftains. Ugh, marriage!

Her mom Elinor (Emma Thompson) is the voice of reason in the house, and has been grooming her daughter to be a proper lady and suitable Queen should the time come. Her dad gave her a bow and arrow, and taught her to ride and be adventurous and hunt! Doesn’t help when the the tribes come to town, the three suitors are all “undesirable” (seemingly based on outward appearance only, for shame Merida). Lord Dingwall (Robbie Coltrane), Lord MacGuffin (Kevin McKidd) and Lord Macintosh (Craig Ferguson) are all willing to fight over it, so she has an archery competition to decide!

Which she enters herself, pissing off her mom, embarrassing the tribes, and then she runs away. Hey whats that? A witch (Julie Walters)? A potion to change her fate by changing her mom? That is a vague as crap potion wish, I am sure it won’t come back to haunt her or do anything too drastic. AND THEN I REALIZED WHY THE PLOT WAS SO SECRETIVE.

It just feels ludicrous to even explain what happens in the second half, and spoils a lot of things. So uhh, rather you find out on your own.

Her unkempt hair shows her free spirit.

Alright, first off I don’t care that the main character is a woman and that she can shoot a bow. Movies that go against stereotypes just to do that shouldn’t matter, cause I don’t care if a lead is male or female, animated or actually existing. Turns out the fact that she can shoot a bow really good adds…very little to the story. Its whole purpose to give her a “non girly” thing to do and surprise people with.

But outside of that, I think the the writers walked a pretty nice line in terms of avoiding women stereotypes, if that was their goal. Don’t be fooled though, this movie is mostly stereotypes. I mean, kilts, Scottish people, just asking for it. Most of the humor is slapstick in nature as well. But the mom? Not mean, just caring. Merida? Not really brave, but kind of reckless and childish. The witch? Not at all mean, just kind of a plot point to teach people lesson/morals.

The actual “bad guy” in the movie also turns out to not even be that bad. A film with everyone being a decent person (eventually).

You might be confused. “Wait? Merida not that Brave?” Sure, she does some stuff, takes some courage. But the bravest character in the movie is in fact the mom character. I think it should have been more from her point of view, but that is harder to sell. So when I looked back on the film, I imagined it as her story and liked it a lot better. Because like I said, Merida is just way more typical child, leaping before looking, overreacting, refusing to talk things out, reckless, than brave. But hey, whatever.

I also felt that some instances could have been vastly improved, story telling wise. But then it would have probably made it a PG-13 movie instead. Oh well.

Most likely, every time someone heard of the movie Hamlet 2 they did a quick double take, and possibly throw in a “da fuq?” Presumably most of you knew what happened in Hamlet as well, because it helps.

A sequel to Hamlet doesn’t make any sense. And when you find out the movie isn’t even a straight sequel to Hamlet you got even more confused. A high school class putting on a production called Hamlet 2, and involving time travel and bad language? Well uhh.

Then you probably got curious, saw a zany trailer, and got turned off from watching it. I also assume most of you are identical to me, obviously.

HOW DO I TEEECH THEESE KEEEEEDS?

Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan) is a going no where drama teacher. He tried to be an actor, but sucked, and is now a recovering alcoholic. But hey, he has a wife! (Catherine Keener) and they have a shitty income, so they take in a person to pay some rent too (David Arquette).

Despite all this, he continues to make shitty plays for the school which tend to be adaptions of Hollywood movies. Marschz finds out from the Principal (Marshall Bell) that at the end of the year, the drama department will be budget cut as well and his job gone. Well fuck that, he sets off to make the most original play he can possible. So why not a Hamlet 2, with time travel to save the characters, and Jesus and other historical figures? Why not?

Well for starters he only has two people who actually care about acting in the class, and they might be racist. Rand (Skylar Astin) and Epiphany (Phoebe Strole) are stoked about it, but how does he get the rest of the class to care? Turns out not too hard with the content material. Ivonne (Melanie Diaz) jumps on board right away, but when Octavio (Joseph Julian Soria) finally gets involved, he even gets to take over the main part.

This pisses off Rand, who takes the script the Principal who immediately tries to shut it down. This causes a big free speech uproar, and Marschz even gets represented by the ACLU (Amy Poehler). But despite all this publicity and uproar, is there even a chance that the play is even good? Also, Elisabeth Shue plays herself, as someone also living in Tuscon, where her dreams went to die.

I haven’t even made a reference to how I would describe Jesus in the play.

So uhh, the play was kind of awesome as shit. Which I didn’t see coming. The musical numbers were good, both directly involved in the play and from the helping choir, the plot was a bit touching, and no one really got offended too badly.

The film attempts to be a parody of other inspirational teaching movies, and makes reference to quite a few. Except the teachers are never as inept as the one in this movie, who acts way over the top and makes it quite obvious why no one takes him seriously. The kids all also don’t really want to act at first, and it is almost as if having controversy make them care more about the play, just to fight the bad press.

I really didn’t enjoy the first half of the movie. A lot of the jokes felt forced, even if it was a parody or satire or something. Just wasn’t amusing. The second half was a lot better though, which wheels were in motion and the play occured. Its like the intentionally didn’t improve the quality of the movie until the characters cared more about their own play. Is that clever film making? Or just a coincidence?

But seriously, I loved the play it self and made it worth it to see.

When you hear about Greenberg, you will notice a few things. One is that Ben Stiller is involved. Ben Stiller seems to be a very polarizing actor, in that some people think he is okay, yet some people hate him with ever fiber of their being. I don’t know why those are the two options, but there you go. Definitely never seen a Ben Stiller fan boy though.

Second thing you will notice is that it looks serious, and Ben Stiller + Serious is scary.

Yeah, Stiller’s face is all up in this movie.

Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller, but you knew that) is a 40ish year old male carpenter, who was living in NYC and had a nervous breakdown. Sure he was in a mental hospital for awhile, but hey, no one is perfect. He is invited to come down to LA to stay for a few weeks, where he used to live, to take care of his brother Phil’s (Chris Messina) dog for him while he is away. Simple enough! The dog does have some problems though, so his brother’s assistant, Florence (Greta Gerwig) also helps.

Both of them are kind of awkward, and going through some rough times, so a relationship starts to build. Kind of. Through Greenberg’s mental disorders, he seems incredibly narcissistic and mean, and blunt. So hey, not many friends. He used to be in a band but quit when they were about to sign to a label, being super cynical. He still has one old friend at least, Ivan (Rhys Ifans), who helps him with Florence, but other friends doesn’t forgive him for killing their dreams (Mark Duplass). Oh, and Florence is a main character too, and has her own friends for weird support (Merritt Wever).

Whoa, yeah that was easy to describe. Mentally unstable guy goes to LA, maybe starts a relationship, wants to fit in.

And maybe a clearly amazing birthday party too.

When the Greenberg character first appeared, I imagined him like an older version of a lot of Jesse Eisenberg characters. He acted very similar to a few of them, which was surprising, until I found out the director who did this also did The Squid and the Whale, starring Eisenberg as a character similar to this. So yeah, guess that wasn’t hard to figure out.

I then noticed that Greta Gerwig was in it, and she was just in a review I did for Baghead. And holy crap, she apparently gets naked in lots of movies.

After those two not at all related to the movie thoughts, I watched the movie, and well, it was okay. Stiller did a good job acting I thought, and was a big ass too. Disorders are big problems, especially when those don’t realize that you can’t filter your own information before yelling it, or just speaking your mind. Stiller shows the frustration greatly, and it builds up and leads him to more destructive habits.

But I also thought it was a bit slow, and lacked any real character development. I think more things should have happened than everyonce in awhile his character yelling at another. But that was just me.

I’ve known about the epicly long movie Australia for awhile now, but not as long as it took to make this movie. Holy crap, delays, research, and 9 months of shoots.

I have now determined that Baz Luhrmann is insane. Or some sort of crazy genius at least. Dude is Australian and proud of it, and wants to showcase a lot of it. Understandable, but the last film I saw that was just a love song to Australia wasn’t the best experience.

What I knew about this film in advance was that it was pretty as heck (so I had to watch it on Blu-Ray) and super long. Sounds good to me.

For an epic movie, I am only allowed to use wallpaper pictures.

Obviously this takes place in Australia. But first, Britain! Also pre WW2. Lady Sarah (Nicole Kidman) is being all rich like, when she heads to Australia to force her husband into selling the cattle farm down there, which is losing buckets of money. She gets there and her husband has a Drover (Hugh Jackman) give her a ride to the ranch, with the help of his two aborigine friends. She doesn’t like him.

BUT OH SHIT. The husband is dead, and his death is blamed on King George (David Gulpilil), an aborigine who lives in the desert. That’s weird. Why would he? No one knows, but the claims come from a neighboring ranch, lead by King Carney (Bryan Brown) and his drover associates Neil Fletcher (David Wenham). I’m sure they have no reason to lie.

Well, Lady Sarah finds out that Fletcher when working for them to move their horses has been letting a few cross the river into Carney’s territory. That thievery is unacceptable, so he is fired, but she is in a predicament. She wants to sell all the horses (preferably to the government, easier), but has no way to get the horses to them! If she sells them to Carney, he will gain a monopoly on Horses, and the government will be forced to pay outrageous fees. So why not hire Dover and his two friends?

What? Three people cant lead 1500 horses on a long trek across Europe? Well, Lady Sarah can ride a horse, and so can her house assistant. And so can Nullah (Brandon Walters), the half aborigine kid. And so can her accountant, Kipling Flynn (Jack Thompson) as long as he puts down the booze.

Great, they just need to cross a very unforgiving Australia, with hot deserts, and potentially people trying to sabotage their mission. Can they make it to Administrator Allsop (Barry Otto) in time?!

Wait. Turns out that plot doesn’t last 165 minutes. That is still only half the movie. The second half is years later, dealing with the Stolen Generation of Aborigine kids, in lieu of efforts during World War II, and other war stuff going on. Holy shit.

So much shit is going on in this movie.

Alright so, yeah, 165 minute movie. And it definitely felt like two movies to me. Once the first plot ended about halfway through, I was confused. I first thought time went by super quick, but nope, movie 2 began.

I was a bit taken aback by it too, and it took me awhile to adjust to the change of plot and time frame that eventually occurred. So a review of film 1? I loved it. The scenery, the campiness, the adventure. I was taking it all in, and it was fantastic. Movie 2? Didn’t find it as good. Felt a lot more modern, obviously with some war and guns and what not. The campiness and level of scenery were still high, just didn’t find it as interesting. Was a lot less more adventure feeling, and more dramatic/actiony. Yes, the tones change greatly.

But hey, people die. It did remind me of his last big movie, Moulin Rouge! except for a bit less craziness. But in terms of camera work, it was all definitely a Baz style.

I would recommend this movie if you have tons of time, want to go on a journey unlike any reality you know, and have a nice TV/Blu-Ray. Get that DVD/20 inch screen out of here. Won’t be as good.

Normally when I do a review intro, I might say a small quip about what I think the movie was about before watching. Most of the time that is a made up dumb joke, just to show that I tend to try and watch a lot movies without knowing what they are about.

But this one is true. Baghead? The cover is the picture below, four people with bags on their heads. Well, I figured that Baghead sounds a lot like Baghdad. This is probably a comedy (the front says comedy) that has a fictionalized place named Baghead, where instead of turbans, they just have bags on their heads, and people assuming they are all terrorists. A satire or something. This is actually what I determined from the cover and word comedy. But man was I way wrong.

Oh man, oh man what is the movie about?!

Dead wrong!

This indie movie is about four people wanting to make a movie. The group of them are seen at a film festival, and seem to be critiquing to themselves how bad a movie is that everyone else seemed to love. That director, Jett Garner, said he made the movie on a small budget by doing scenes with some real people who thought the events were all real and hidden cameras. Alright, cool. But they do get inspired. They should make a movie! Don’t know what kind, but the four are going to a cabin in the woods to figure that shit out.

We have the would be director Matt (Ross Partridge), his ex girlfriend Catherine (Elise Muller), his best friend Chad (Steve Zissis) and a girl that Chad likes, Michelle (Greta Gerwig).

But first, party time. Michelle has a dream that some guy with a bag on his head was stalking around the woods and trying to kill him. Matt says that is PERFECT for a movie, a dude with a bag on his head is scary, and proceeds to prove that point by scaring them. Of course the level of fear is more based on their reaction to a surprise than the fact that a bag is on his head, but still.

Chad really wants to do Michelle, but she wants to do Matt (who said he won’t go for it). Then a dude with a bag on his head enters Michelle’s bedroom, who she assumes is Matt. She is scared because he doesn’t do anything but rummage and leave. No one claims to be the one who went into her room. DUn dun dun..

What started out as a simple joke and a movie idea is turning into reality. Did she actually see him in a dream the first night, or was he in her room then? When everyone finds out that some dude is outside their house with a bag on his head, will they all freak out and panic, or you know, tell him to stop being a douche.

Are you scared?!

Alright well, yeah. It is a horror drama thing. Definitely didn’t find anything really comedic about the movie. I also saw what was coming a mile away, and it just bugged the shit out of me how boring I found the movie. Definitely more dramatic most of the time. Very slow. Realistic, sure, but man do I not care about any of these characters.

Really not much else to say. This movie was not a good purchase on my part.

From what you know about me, you might know I am not a religious man. I tend to rate religious movies lower, but never because of their content about religion, but more so they just end up being poorly made, bad acting, etc.

Despite this, I actually like Gospel Music. I have been to at least one Gospel Fest in my life (and I felt like the only white guy there). It’s just generally so happy and full of spirit, and fun to dance to. So what happens when we get a movie about Gospel music? Depends. I loved Sister Act (and even its sequel!), but can a more modern version in Joyful Noise make me happy as well?

Then again, it might just be some bullshit Diva off, like another bad movie.

What we have is a small town church in Georgia, that somehow has a bunch of good singers in it. Their choir director, Kris Kristofferson, dies! Well, shit. The church board (of this small town church, mind you) chooses Queen Latifah to run the group now. Dolly Parton is upset, she wants to lead it, she and Kris were close, and she is the main monetary benefactor to the church. Oh well. No big deal. Latifah also has a daughter, Olivia (Keke Palmer) and she is the main star of the choir (at least she is now!). She also has a son with Aspergers who is blind (Dexter Darden). No big deal, but he has problems adjusting.

Husband? Oh he is in the army again, couldn’t find work, so Jesse L. Martin got the job to pay for their life, but can’t ever be with them.

Dolly Parton has a rebellious grandson though. Randy (Jeremy Jordan) and he has come to mess things up. He is interested in Olivia, and gets into her life by agreeing to teach her blind brother how to play the piano, and sing! Eventually he even gets to join the Choir. Latifah doesn’t like him, bad influence, and he wants to do new fangled songs with the choir, not old safe boring ones. Oh yeah, they also are of course entered into a competition for gospel choirs, and they never win though. Others just are better. They just keep getting second. But this year? Could they win? Could they even go to a national competition in LA and win that too? They’d have to beat a choir of angelic preteen singers! Oh noes!

Oh yeah, also drama with the Church pastor (Courtney B. Vance), wanting the traditional stuff. One of their members having a lot of her potential suitors dying (Angela Grovey), more than one boy interested in Olivia, and a family torn apart by the military.

The main two singing stars ended up being these two people. These people aren’t Queen Latifah or Dolly Parton.

Did you read that plot outline? It goes a lot of places, and is pretty weak. The way they win their first competition is pretty bad, but it makes sense. The results of the national competition don’t make sense either (guess who wins!). It is one of those times when the winners clearly didn’t do as good as the other people. (I hate that a lot more than when one side clearly does worse and they still tie). A lot of overacting, and some weird actual fighting between characters. All in the name of Jesus.

BUT. The songs are pretty damn good. Some of the songs in the movie are just quick snippets, including I’m In Love With A Stripper. But besides that, they also go the Sister Act route and turn the melodies and tunes of normal songs and Jesusify them, so that everyone is happy. Instead of a theme, like Motwon songs, they take them from a span of decades and it is really fun to listen to.

What? My rating apparently is just based on that. That part was entertaining, but I liked the music. Won’t watch it again, but man, might download the CD. Maybe.