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jeffspilger
Reviews
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (2005)
What is Welfare?
When most people think of welfare, they think of a 20-year-old single unemployed mother trying to get by on basically nothing, even after she goes to the government for help.
After viewing "Walmart - The High Cost of Low Price," I have a much different idea of welfare. How about those subsidies in the millions of dollars that municipalities give to the world's largest retailer so they can set up shop and put all the mom and pop stores on Main Street out of business. I guarantee that many more of your tax dollars are going to Wal-mart and other billion-dollar corporations, than to unemployed people.
The stories about Esry's grocery and the hardware store at the beginning of the movie being driven out by Walmart just made my blood boil. Esry's grocery, for example, paid their workers good wages and full benefits, and they had a Christmas party every year. Stores like this do much more for the local economy and quality of life in a small town than a Walmart ever could. Red Esry never got a dime from the government, but Walmart got 1.2 million dollars when they moved into town (I can't remember if that figure is correct). Walmart is going to pay their workers much less than Red Esry, and they won't be treated with respect and dignity. All of Walmart's profits just go back to a few rich snobs in Bentonville, not back to the local community.
One former Walmart employee interviewed in the movie, when talking about how Walmart encourages their employees seek government assistance says the best quote of the movie "You talk about using the system, look at how Walmart is using the system."
If I ever meet Lee Scott, I'm going to shout at him, "HOW THE %#$@ DO YOU SLEEP AT NIGHT?"
National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)
One of My All-Time Favourites
I hadn't seen this movie for a while before I bought the 20th anniversary DVD about three months ago. This movie came out in 1983, which was the year that I started Kindergarten. I was about 10 or 11 the first time I saw the movie (it's rated 'R').
The Wagon Queen Family Truckster looked goofy in the 80's, and looks even more goofy today. Driving such a Medusa car across the country is just one of many things that made this movie hilarious.
This movie reminds me of vacations I took with my family when I was a kid. Fortunately, none of them turned out to be as disastrous as the Griswold's vacations. We never had old, cranky relatives in the back seat who died on the way to their destinations, our car being vandalized in the ghetto, jumping our car off the road in the middle of nowhere (that was a cool stunt by Dick Ziker), blonde girls driving Ferraris, and our destination being closed when we got there.
My Dad got a speeding ticket on the way home from the cottage one time. That was the closest he came to dragging a dog to its death. (That part was a bit sad, actually).
This movie brings back great memories for me.
Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure (2003)
You Have to be Dumber than a Monkey to Like This One
I rented the DVD, mostly because I wanted to see what Dana Barron looks like today - she's quite hot! I had not seen her in a movie since the first Vacation.
Other than that, this movie definitely indicated that the Vacation series has seen much better days. That was already apparent in Vegas Vacation. What makes this movie even worse is that Eddie (Randy Quaid) is the main character, and not Clark (Chevy Chase). While Eddie's character helped add valuable humour to previous Vacation movies, his character is just not strong enough to be a main character.
It was obvious to me that this movie would be a complete stinker when they showed Eddie sitting next to the monkey in the lab hooked up to the machine.
It's sad that what was once a great series of movies has stooped to this level.
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)
Unnecessary Crudeness
The story of this movie was good - an egotistical male news anchor in the 70's, a time when women were just starting to break into this business, who gets upstaged by an attractive female anchor whom his station just hired. This storyline had potential for a successful comedy movie.
Unfortunately the movie contained all sorts of crude and juvenile dialogue, that really didn't need to be in the movie to tell the story. It only made the movie appealing to 12-year-olds learning about the birds and the bees. Anyone with a brain stem knows that San Diego is not a German name, and that it doesn't mean a certain part of a whale's anatomy.
In short, this good story could have worked, but the crudeness made it a waste of time and money, and an insult to intelligence.
The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005)
Stereotyping
What I hated most about this movie was the stereotyping of what a grown man who's never done it before would be like. Steve Carrol looks like a 10-year-old kid on the front cover of this movie. In the movie, it's no doubt that he's nerdy, and socially backward. There is absolutely no correlation between virginity and being a socially backward klutz.
I would have liked this movie better if the 40-year-old virgin would have been a doctor who runs a successful practice (having to answer patient's sexually-related questions would have been humorous!) He lives in a classy condo that looks like something that a 40-year-old professional would live in (without action figure toys and posters all over the place), and he drives a BMW or a Mercedes to work, rather than a bike. Everything's going well in his life, except for one thing - he's never had sex.
The Delicate Art of Parking (2003)
Entertaining and Funny despite bad acting and directing
I loved the idea for this movie - someone who has racked up almost $3000 worth of unpaid parking tickets and decides to make a documentary movie about it. The brilliant idea for this movie comes from the fact that everyone hates getting parking tickets and most of us think that these parking by-laws just exist as a cash cow.
I always watched with interest whenever they showed one of the officers ticketing a vehicle, then the owner would show up and shout obscenities, or use physical violence, like that delivery truck driver did. They didn't show the part where Murray, the parking officer's supervisor, was run over by an irate motorist whom he ticketed, leaving Murray in a coma. After this incident, the film director asked people on the street what they thought of this, and one guy smugly said "good." A few others felt sorry for him because he was just doing his job.
Although I tend to think that parking bylaws are a cash grab to some extent, I highly respect anyone who chooses to do such a thankless job for a living.
Overall this movie was entertaining and thought provoking, but it definitely showed the work of an amateur filmmaker on a low budget.
There's Something About Mary (1998)
Crude and Offensive
I can't believe how popular this movie was and that a lot of people found it so funny. I rented it because everyone was saying that it's just hilarious.
While I didn't mind Mary (played by Cameron Diaz), I thought movie was downright crude with bathroom humour and fart jokes that would appeal to ten-year olds. However, I was most offended and disturbed at the humour towards mentally-challenged people. The part that bothered me most was at the beginning of the movie where two guys at the high school get Warren (Mary's mentally-challenged brother) to go up to an attractive girl who was with her boyfriend and ask "Have you seen my wiener?" That prompted the boyfriend to beat up Warren. I remember a joke like this being played on a special needs student when I was in school. The real retards are the guys who pulled this joke - and the Farrelly brothers for writing this garbage as humour.