Tag: Madeline Zima

Who would have thought that the little girl from The Nanny would become the most famous person on a movie cover?

Of course, Madeline Zima is no longer famous for that reason. It is for her bare all performance on the incredibly slow Californication. Regardless of why she is famous, she is now the reason I picked up Breaking The Girls to review today.

Also, the term “breaking” in the title has my imagination running wild.

Poor little old Sara (Agnes Brucker). She is a nice girl, she is. But because she pissed off the wrong classmate, Brooke (Shanna Collins), she is potentially getting expelled from class for doing something she didn’t do. But she has met Alex (Zima), and although she never fancied herself a lesbian, she apparently fell for her charm.

Next thing you know, they are living together. That sure did move fast. Alex is mad at her dad (John Stockwell), who is totally rich, but not letting her live her life the way she wants to. So drunkenly they decide to kill each other’s nemesis! They will both have alibis, and there is no way people could put them working together, if they live together! (Dumb).

Next thing you know, Alex actually goes through with the plan, much to the surprise of Sara. Alex also made it possible to blame Sara with the deed if she didn’t end up keeping her half of the bargain. Yep, you done messed with the wrong lady.

Also starring Shawn Ashmore…somehow, and Davenia McFadden as the main police person.

Oh, he is in the movie as guy who helps drunk ladies! That’s nice.

I was actually excited to watch this movie, and accept it as a thriller. I was ready for the twists and the turns. But the twists near the end didn’t make a whole lot of sense (When you compare them to actions earlier in the film), and the ending was pretty lame because of it.

The acting through out it was pretty poor, and really, I don’t why I keep talking. This part of the review is basically filler, because I have jack shit to say that’s really good about this movie. I guess it sort of had a Wild Things vibe going with it, so I am surprised it just isn’t another of its many bad sequels.

But by the time the movie is about to finish, they throw another twist your way. Unfortunately by that time, I stopped caring.

I remember seeing the cover for The Collector when I worked at a Blockbuster and thinking I would never touch it with a 10 ft pole. But then something else happened. I saw a trailer for The Collection, thought it seemed familiar, and thought it looked interesting, if not a bloody mess. Well, turns out it is a sequel to The Collector (shocking, I know). Too bad local theaters never got the sequel to show, so I am stuck waiting for the dvd release, which also means plenty of time to watch the original.

Which is now.

Hooray!

Well I guess that is a unique look for a bad guy. I guess.

Arkin (Josh Stewart) is a crook. He has crook friends too, but not a crook family. He just needs money to help them get by and survive! So he hears about this house that the family has left for vacation, and they got a pretty good jewel in their safe. He takes the one last job, steals the gem, makes bank, and boom, he can stop being a crook.

But who would have thought that this Collector (Juan Fernandez) would have turned it into his own house of horrors at the same time? Go figure. So a quick in and out thievery turns into a locked in the house, try to escape, avoid the plethora of traps and other currently being tortured individuals. Hooray! You know, while he is also actively looking for anyone who might have come to fuck up his strange torture plans.

Here are some other people I’ve seen before in this movie, Madeline Zima, Andrea Roth, and Michael Reilly Burke.

I won’t even do a dramatic question thing to end this plot, its pretty simple.

I was going to make a joke about his character from No Ordinary Family, but given its ratings, I know no one would get it.

But pretty simple can be a good thing. The beginning of The Collector was a little bit slow, but I think the build up was worth it. The traps seemed intelligent and well put together, no crazy Rube Goldberg contraption. We just have a stranger entering these traps when he is already set up and torturing some house people, that is all.

The traps however felt inconsistent. I am surprised his initial trip into the house / to the safe upstairs he found himself trap free, but after that, was surrounded by them in literally every room. Like they magically appeared. Really that is my biggest problem with the movie. Inconsistencies with traps. I know the Collector wasn’t just placing them still, maybe just a few resets. The Collector also had no problem running around the house avoiding his stuff. The ‘bear trap’ trap just came out of no where, despite the floor being covered with them.

There is some “torture porn” in here, but not much. Most of it is based on the trap aspect and a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. I did like that The Collector never said anything, had a mask on, yet still conveyed enough personality without going into a long and dumb back story. What I don’t understand is how (from the ending), the sequel makes any sense.

I try not to be too cryptic with my reviews. Because most of the time you just want to know if you should watch it and maybe what it is about. Well generally 3/4 is a definite watch, but technically 2 means hey, give it a go. Maybe. Just once.

Just to avoid any confusion, for My Own Love Song, I am suggesting you do not watch it.

This picture is a tad bit blurry. Let’s call that a metaphor.

Yeah. Well, here you are. Renee Zellweger is Jane, a paralyzed from the waste down folk or country singer. Her friend, Joey, Forest Whittaker likes angels or something. People might think he is crazy. Eventually he finds a note from her son, that for whatever reason she has had about zero contact with. So he convinces her to travel down to New Orleans, to see this other guy talk about Angels, but also so he can make her meet her son.

Road trip shenanigans happen like broken transportation and lost money. They also meet Madeline Zima who was married, but her husband “done R-U-N-N-O-F-T”. She also joins them. Nick Nolte is there for awhile, as another crazy guy who tries to help them get back their stolen car.

Eventually they get to the place. The conference isn’t as good as the guy had hoped. She finds her son and sings for him. All is well. Maybe they fall in love too. The end. Yeah, no spoilers tag on that one. Hah!

That’s what you get for trusting me, Forest.

This movie is incredibly boring, and has about 2 or 3 songs in it. The songs are slow. The scenes are slow. You never are really sure what the hell is up with Forest’s character. Who is he trying to bang? All the stuff that goes wrong also just seems annoying. Sure every road trip movie has events that go wrong, but generally at least people are at fault more than just random chance for all the events but one.

I’m not even sure what we are supposed to take from Forest’s little journey / angel fetish. It could be a slight against god or not. Really, no damn idea.

Pretty much my thoughts on the whole movie.

No damn idea.