UglyToesPete Reviews

Le grand départ (2008)

Either you must see, or will want to!

[8/10 · 23 May 2010]

Hello out there! Advanced middle age Quebecois (that's in Canada), male doctor falls for much younger woman.

Married life with a wife of 28 years and two teen-aged children practising medicine in the 'burbs has drained the man. Starting a new life with a new (and much younger) woman is irresistible and he goes for it....

Cliché to the Nth degree so far, granted. But the film is anything but! This is a French film (OMG!), like sub-titles!! But waaaay worth it.

The entire movie is well done...just like you would like your steak to be This is a family drama with stereotypes so flagrant and imposed it actually makes it easier for the viewer to understand the dominoes that start to fall when someone utters the word "divorce"! As a father, I would WANT my family to see this....13+. This is a "big" film for Québec, not that many show up, do bother with this one if you can.

As drama unfolds, you sympathize with all the characters...and most assuredly, this is the ultimate charm of this movie. All the characters have on screen time to develop their story, then there is drama (for all), and lol, there is a "fin" for all which will leave you with the afterglow of having sipped a fine brandy.

40% mind you.

As far as I can tell, sound, camera, sets, costumes were so realistic and well set....you never notice....it's point exactly here as this is a current "live" family drama unfolding. I even stared at the screens of TV's and computers as they appeared to see if the screens were flickering...nah, they got that right too.

It manages to be quite funny as well with all the predicaments family members and loved ones only can impose on you.

This movie draws you in with a documentary style on human relationships and when the narrator reaches the human male at 40 (in his human nature narrative)....the story slowly unfolds with our main protagonist, the middle aged doctor yearning for a deeper meaning to his existence....and the remaining 1-2 decades of autonomy he has left to enjoy......

Real food for your mind and soul.......fin.

UglyToesPete

No Reservations (2007)

Caesar is due what Caesar owns.....

[5/10 · 31 December 2007]

Hi all.

First. I must admit that the 2007 remake of the 2001 "Bella Martha" is amiss. Seriously amiss. Despite Catherine Zeta-Jones's beauty and Aaron Eckhart's natural charm, the couple remains unconvincing.

Certainly, if you have never seen "Mostly Martha" (Bella Martha) in it's original German tone with subtitles...with sublime performances from Martina Gedeck (as Martha) and Sergio Castellitto (as Mario), the 2007 remake of Bella Martha as per Hollywood may be satisfying.

As satisfying as it may be, get your grubby hands on the real movie. Subtitles and all, you'll thank me.

Hey Aaron and Catherine, please don't take this as a criticism, more as a wish, I wish you could recreate the 2001 version. So sorry you could not.

Appreciate the cutesy effort though.

UTP in Montréal.

:)

Mr. Fix It (2006)

A worthy view!

[6/10 · 9 January 2007]

Hi all, This was a cute, good little flick. The leading man Lance Valenteen (actor David Boreanaz...the one all the girls are ga-ga about) plays a fiendish Mr. Fix It who hires out his services to seduce the ex-girlfriends of his jilted clients. To seduce them, he gets priviliged information from his clients, then assaults the young lady in question with lots of charm and devasting good looks. Inevitably, they all fall hard for this whirlwind Romeo with chiseled pecs.

Just when he's sure they've fallen for him, he springs on them a shower of their worst fears and displeasure coming from your boyfriend and trusted person status. Upon such devastation of their yearn for love and sex, each girl automatically calls on thieir ex-boyfriends for solace and friendship. Et voila, another fee earned for Lance.

Lance however, is having doubts about his career just when he must tackle not only his biggest race event as a driver, but as Mr. Fix It too. Sophia (Alana De La Garza) is the haughty ex-girlfriend of Lance's desperate new client. Va va voom can best describe her. With talent, a beautiful flawless face, and a depth to her eye, not to mention someone ALSO thought of giving the girl a script to work for, she makes Lance fall for her! That wasn't a spoiler, what else did you expect from this flic? This is a busy film. The sequence of events actually make sense, this is not usual in a romcom, and you feel engaged. Surprisingly, this movie also attempts to say something about life and relationships and leaves the floor open for you to think what you wish.

I'm a Alana De La Garza fan now.

And here is the spoiler:

Watch out for the last 5 minutes of the film though. This is the war of the sexes....with women usually winning these days. The lead actor's masculinity is castrated in the last five minutes.

Apart from that excess, it was a fun smart flic.

Cheers from Montréal.

Annyeong! UFO (2004)

Sweet romcom from South Korea.

[8/10 · 26 August 2006]

While some yearn for passionate or instant relationships, simple-minded bus driver Sang-hyon (Lee Bum-soo) is overly shy and merely manages to peek at the blind woman passenger he falls for. Working the night shift in a rural area of Seoul, unpretentious Sang-hyon enjoys fiddling around with rock oldies and mixing them in his leisure time to play them on his bus. But as he runs into Kyong-wu (Lee Eun-joo), a young blind lady on his bus who gets away from a heart-breaking relationship, the sentiment rolls in, stirring in the two strangers.

Romantic comedy "Hello! U.F.O" stars protagonists Lee Bum-soo from last year's comedic hit "Oh! Brothers" and Lee Eun-joo from "Unborn But Forgotten." Plunge into the gentle, genuine romance that comes off in a small town.

Dirt (2001)

Dumber than......what again?

[21 June 2006]

Dirt. Dumb. Dumber.

The three dastardly D's.

A masterpiece.

Only the shallow would view inbreeding, rape, beatings, gun toting alchoholics as less than pure entertainment. With today's hypocritical political correctness brought to the extreme edge of what can be swallowed, this is a refreshing breath of foul air.

If inbred country beer-swilling southern Americans well armed that just lost their mommy looking for the perfect whore-cook-mommy-nanny not make you run home with this video then I give up.

I would stand in line (like I do for a Céline Dion concert) for a week if need be to watch this one more time.

Utopia on screen.

Run.

UTP in Montréal.

Modern Men (2006)

OK, I saw the first ten minutes. Verdict time.

[18 March 2006]

Hey all, Saw it.

If "Modern Men" is supposed to mean sniveling weaklings that scamper around to fulfill the latest request or social phenomena of the "Modern Woman", then I suppose, this show meets the requirements.

If your a real man, view this at your risk. It will offend. If your a woman, than by all means enjoy. This made for women sitcom is full of male insecurities etc. This will bolster your feminist idea of the modern woman and yourself by exposing what men have turned out to be....useless appendages to society that have been replaced by a sperm bank.

And if your a guy on this show and you want some relationship domineering smart woman to tell you what to do to perhaps "get some", follow the instructions if you can.

Women rule. Gay's rule, Bush rules......heck everything but SWM rules. Welcome to the new world order where having a penis is a disadvantage.

Hollywood political correctness swings so far that 50% of humanity is reduced to a punch line.

Quite funny for the other 50%.

Aren't we all get along nicely then?

Love on the Side (2004)

Canadian cinema is evolving....

[12 March 2006]

The movie centres around Eve, a waitress in a small-town diner who has pined for the local football star for years while he barely notices her. She worries about her weight and wonders if anyone will ever really love her. Enter Linda, a leggy blonde from the big city who puts things in motion.

A recap from another commentator.

It used to be you had to have lumberjacks working in the background, or at least arriving from "lumbercamp" in a rusty pickup or lots of snow and ice...or french Canadians swearing in french to English Canadians for you to be sure it was a Canadian film.

Well, I'm here to report that this is no longer so. Canadian cinema has matured and no longer relies on tired clichés to prove it isn't American.

Plus, apart from one British Columbia licence plate, there were no overt displays of Canadianism. Didn't see one Canadian flag, no swearing french Canadians etc.

So, to the Grade 7 students of Squamish High School I say BRAVO! I'm truly impressed with the calibre of a romantic comedy set in rural BC that they have managed to produce together as a class. The love's story climax in New York City must've really strained the budget.

Thanks must also go to the Prime Minister of Canada (former Paul Martin) to have also sanctioned this project. The filming in New York City and the male lead's black Mustang were made possible by his decree that every possible level of federal, provincial, municipal levels of authority and government were there to assist the inexperienced and financially limited immature yet enthusiastic 13 year olds in achieving their goal. I think the US ambassador to Canada must've chipped in too....wow, New York! Regrettably though, moral leadership and mature advice was witheld from the young High School students to ensure the movie was representative of small town life in Canada and an honest portrayal of what's coursing through the Canadian teen mind.

As such, the "leggy blond" who visits this backwater heaven is actually a lesbian always on the lookout for new adventures. The main heroine is a naive lovelorn thing and gets crosseyed for the lesbian leggy blonde. From beer swilling jock to suave sincere Casanova....I've never seen a male lead undergo such a transformation. Evidently, the heterosexual grade 7 girls got it right, you can't really expect your female lead to really fall for a beer swilling, unemployed "I only shave once a week", belching, selfish oaf who really needs both hands to be able to count to 10. That may be reality, but it won't do for the silver screen! So, he was remade. At the end, he is (shaved, yes) warm, sincere, intelligent...or much improved anyways, in love of course..and ready to drop his life to join our crosseyed naive waitress studying in New York.

Some things will grate on you, especially if your Canadian. For mass market appeal (duh..the US), funny money (or Monopoly money)was not used. In a startling event (I almost fell off my chair), the leggy blonde lesbian, which is now a sensitive, thoughtful leggy blonde horny lesbian, discovers a secret cache of cash in a not so charming pig statuette. All American bills, (with a couple of loonies and twoonies thrown in for eye bauble value) Even if every bill was a 100, there's no way they could've bought what they did with it. There was at best 10K.. Canadian currency was a thumbs down probably because the producers didn't want to raise any alarms about the US being invaded by Canada.

Oh well, you get the point. Oh and by the way, if your young and straight, lol, don't move to Squamish B.C. Gays and lesbians abound, and they come from all over too to partake of the few who are not sure if they are.

On the positive side, Jennifer Tilly is in FINE form. The lead heroine's eyes are a charming misty grey/blue, and you can't tell the obligatory Parks Canada and Wildlife shots that include pristine lakes are full of acid rain and contain little if any fish.

Now, if I was gay or lesbian and American, apart from the licence plate thing and the government department credits at the end, I'd say it was middling to fair and the whole harping about homosexuals that I'm doing is old fashioned and passé. But you will feel a bit disoriented though when you see all those houses and buildings and car bumpers devoid of the American flag. AH HAH you'll say, that movie isn't American!

Boon chui yan gaan (2006)

Haven't seen it, but found this review....

[12 March 2006]

New movie Cocktail stars rising Hong Kong singers Candy Lo, Endy Chow, Race Wong (of 2R), Bobo Chan, etc. Lawrence Cheng, an all-rounder in the entertainment industry, and Eric Kot of former Soft Hard Kids, each take up a role. Cocktail, as the movie title suggests, evolves around a pub where people fall in love and break up with one another. It interweaves six love stories to explore the mixed tastes of people's bittersweet lives, just like cocktail mixing different liquors. Director Herman Yau has made over 70 movies in Hong Kong (such as Master Q 2001, The Untold Story), and in this refreshing title he offers a collage of episodes from urban youngsters' experiences.

Paul (Endy Chow) wants to know more about his alcoholic father (Lawrence Cheng) only after he has passed away. Having hated alcohol for almost twenty years, he surprisingly applies for a bartender job at Candy's pub, for drinking now seems the only way for Paul to connect with his late dad. Pub owner Candy (Candy Lo) is born to a rich family. She resorts to drinking when her father forbids her romance with her cousin (Eric Kot), and decides to run a pub so that she can turn her habit to a business. Paul soon has a crush on a customer, without knowing that his colleague Stella (Race Wong@2R) is deeply in love with him...

Daddy-Long-Legs (2005)

Chick flick turns into a stunning romance ride!

[8/10 · 9 March 2006]

A gem of a movie. To have the right to complain about viewing a foreign language movie with subtitles, you have to earn your stripes on complaining.

Earn your stripes here private. If (especially if your a General in subtitles) your heart isn't yet a compressed lump of coal by thrillers, war, horror and violence flicks, and a great love story can still warm your heart, then you'll be well served here.

Young-Mi (from what I gathered from the subtitles) is the name of the young woman that has a great love from her high school days to this very day. But the guy in question is not even aware of her. She has been "shadowing" him for the last few years and never has managed to approach him although her heart yearns for it.

Don't know why I can't remember the name of the charming male lead….

From there, you will go on a roller-coaster ride of charming anecdotes, funny scenes, totally beautiful young love blossoming and more.

If you miss this, you don't qualify for the human race any longer….hah ha.

I was dazzled by the end, and confused. This WAS a cookie cutter/chick flick and fluttered into a true love classic movie. From South-Korea no less. With a girl that has virtually no breasts, is demure yet bright as a button, polite yet independent, shy yet capable, therefore the exact opposite of what we live with here in the Americas, the silver screen I mean…and TV.

The love story ends surprisingly, with one of the couple being sick and in critical condition. True love is then declared on a hospital bed while one is sleeping (perhaps?) and the other steps forward and declares unconditional love.

My pants are on the floor.

They were charmed away!

Smiley

:)

The Truth About Love (2005)

Three redeeming points.

[2/10 · 2 September 2005]

Hiya folks,

Well, this movie sucks really. Think "Love Actually" in reverse. Nothing fits quite right, nothing is coherent, and certainly nothing makes you laugh. Love is rare in this film.

It IS a total flop. As indicated however, there are three redeeming points about this mangled potential of a film.

A) With a star billing of Jennifer Love Hewitt, there will be hordes of guys who will submit with grace to viewing this just to catch a glimpse of the petite Hewitt with form fitting clothing. To tell you now guys....there are some promising scenes....but it's really weak eye candy. The "possibilities" here are watered down. Nevertheless, I watched the whole thing tempted by the next scene of you know what.....titillating!

B) The ending is romantic and positive. That it's contrary and "over the top" is relevant.....yet for me was still a positive point.

C) Dougray Scott plays an amourous friendly guy........REFRESHING! THANK YOU!

2/5, not worthy of your 10 or so dollars.

2/3's of the way through, I was convinced Jennifer Love Hewitt was becoming the next softcore legend. Although I'll take that back for now.....it hinges greatly on her next film.

Oh, and her sister is way stupid. Her husband is way stupid...and what the heck, she's way stupid.

Next time. can't wait for the next Love Actually with JLH!

Maman Last Call (2005)

No males were killed or maimed during filming.

[1/10 · 26 June 2005]

A Québecois modern femdom, uh, romcom.

It contains most of the elements of a romcom, a few funny scenes, a few touching scenes, sort of "a coming of age" movie for late 30 something couples yearning for sense in their lives and discovering that having put off commitment and founding a family is the magic bullet.

What left an unpleasant aftertaste in my mind is all the "girl power" or "female power" sprinkled equally through every subplot, character, and situation.

The female lead has been with her current boyfriend for 7 years, she (this was funny) parties one night with her friends, arrives home totally sloshed, and coerces her boyfriend to have sex. Becomes pregnant......and says to him when they are arguing/debating abortion or not that he has no rights, no influence, no claim on her having an abortion or not.

She decides to keep the child. At one point when discussing their future child, she says she sure hopes it will be a girl because she wants her to be smart and successful.

The poor sop who plays the lead actor was great actually, it's just the writing and direction who made him always clean up after her, calm her, help her, defend her, absorb her "venting" frustration frequently.

Of course, maybe I just hooked too hard on one "feminist" slur early in the movie...and then the rest of the slurs were amplified.

It's a movie about a spoiled woman, who is going through hell, who must endure many many hardships, just because her darn slave/boyfriend wanted to have the baby.

Surprisingly, at the end when she delivers (a boy), the director didn't insert somehow a sexist slur there.....

Not successful as a romcom, nor a "coming of age", nope drama, nada comedy.

It will however warm the heart of most women because the guy is soooo supportive, sooo understanding, sooo "carpetlike" Guys, cut a finger or something to get out of the house to (supposedly) go to the clinic with a 4 hour wait time, and hoist a few.

1 out 10 for the bad aftertaste. If it wasn't for that, 5 out of 10.

In July (2000)

A charming story with travels and fairytale scenarios. Plot spoilers only.

[9/10 · 29 October 2004]

Yeah, it's a chick flick, but a good one! It's in German with subtitles (if your lucky)..although reading the dialogue can be a chore and distracting....for a good movie you do get into the swing of things and soon enough you begin to appreciate the original language as tone, inflections, whispering is conveyed as it was meant to.

Moritz Bleibtreu is "Daniel Bannier" who is a young, sensitive, kind teacher in training in Hamburg, Germany. His greatest desire is to meet his soulmate. Unknown to him, Christiane Paul is "July" (Juli in German) who has already decided that he's her man. There are already a few problems...he doesn't even know her, she's to shy to introduce herself, and it would seem they have nothing in common.

And that's where the follies, accidents, charming scenes, mistaken identities, accidents begin. As in most fairy tales (recent and old) it's HOW you get there that's fun and endearing. Faith Akin wrote this.........superb!

If romantic comedies and fairy tales are up your alley, don't miss this one.

21 Grams (2003)

(Sarcasm) Now that's entertainment !

[2 April 2004]

Well, I got as far as 40 % or so of the movie before calling it quits. I'll admit it is well done, and the cast is fantastic (Charlotte Gainsbourg with a UK accent......cute).

I also glimpsed far enough the lesson's in life, the pain some people must go through...and the realism in emotions displayed.

However, to me, a movie is above all meant to entertain.....and this movie is nothing but pain.

Watch this if you have a need to get depressed or to flagellate yourself. Because of this nightmarish 40 % I have just seen I'm going to have to watch at least two fluffy romantic comedies to rinse my poisoned mind. Let's go for Chasing Liberty.....then perhaps Two Weeks Notice.

My condolences for those who sat the whole movie through.