Trailer Hitch

By Eric Hughes

March 17, 2010

How could you say that the twist ending of Remember Me is trite and manipulative?

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But back to Shrek. The green ogre was hilarious in his debut, and even funnier in Shrek 2. Every once in a long while the sequel is better than the original, and I could make that case for the Shrek franchise. But whatever the case, we all detested Shrek the Third (I actually couldn't stomach the whole thing). And several years later, the bad taste it left in my mouth seems to still be there, making me anticipate another Shrek chapter as much as I would a dentist appointment.

Am I biased, or is the trailer to Shrek Forever After simply unfunny? There comes a point when enough is enough, and I think Shrek has reached that point. In the new movie, an overworked Shrek makes a deal with Rumpelstiltskin to exchange any day in his life for a day off to relax. Turns out Rumpy chooses to remove the day Shrek was born, leaving Shrek struggling to exist in a world where Donkey and Fiona et al. have no idea who he is. Lord Farquaad is still alive and Puss in Boots is a lazy fat cat. (So, Garfield?).

Props to DreamWorks for shaking up the Shrek formula. But I, at least, have had enough.

Grade: D

Please Give – Opens April 30th

In Please Give, Catherine Keener fills in for a role she was designed to play. That of a loving mother and wife who must contend with a number of important issues in her life: her business is a shame (buy furniture on the cheap and mark it up at her trendy store), her daughter is too materialistic, her husband (Oliver Platt) is beginning to doubt her (and fall for a woman played by Amanda Peet) and her neighbors are considerably less than pleasant. Then there's the homelessness and poverty going on right outside her door. Just don't do as Keener does in the trailer by offering a man money who is simply waiting to get into a restaurant.




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Please Give has a quirky-fun feel to it, and appears to tread around the issues surrounding Keener's character without being too heavy handy with some of the movie's preachier subjects. I doubt you need to see something like Please Give in theaters. It instead has a nice Saturday afternoon rental quality to it.

Grade: B-

Just Wright – Opens May 14th

In Just Wright, Queen Latifah stars as a physical therapist who lands the client of a lifetime in a big-time NBA player (Common). Latifah, who enjoys her work and performs it with dignity, finds herself in an unexpected tug-of-war when she realizes she's falling for the baller.

It sure is nice to see Queen acting again, even if it's in your standard Hollywood romcom. She shines in the scenes she's in and adds an unmistakable brightness to her movies. Save for some voice work in Ice Age 3, Queen took a break in 2009 to pursue other interests. Earlier this year, she was one of the seemingly hundreds of celebs in February's Valentine's Day, a Love Actually-esque movie that didn't sit so well with critics.

Grade: C-


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