Change Your Image
choat2000
Reviews
Eat Pray Love (2010)
A meaningful true story...made out into a sappy Hollywood movie.
I never read Liz Gilbert's book, but her story is very interesting and shows that sometimes you have to go places to truly find yourself.
Unfortunately, it had to have a Hollywood makeover. Just...why? This is based on real people, but instead I see characters. Being portrayed as a scripted story, it's not enjoyable. The New York bit is depressing, the Italy section is over-excessive, the India section is just depressing as hell, and by the time you get to the Bali part, you're just waiting for it to be over.
Don't get me wrong, I definitely have respect for the story. I just hate how it was...movie-ized!!
Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (2005)
This is just bad...it's BLAND.
While the first Cheaper By The Dozen was a nightmare, it was at least interesting plotwise. The characters were often pushed to their limits and it had a plot that you enjoyed the buildup throughout and made it manageble to sit through once.
While I didn't see this one in it's entirety, I saw enough to know that this was just a bunch of lame slapstick crap that you'd be lucky if you could make it through the first ten minutes. First of all, it's the dumb vacation storyline---the crappy vacation that, of course, brings everyone together in the end and ends with some sort of fun sporting event. Ugh, as if "Summer Rental" didn't teach us how much we didn't need that.
On top of that, EVERYONE, and I mean, EVERYONE, outside of the fourteen family members (fifteen, if you count the stupid dog they had to overuse again) is gone. Yep, you read right. No Shake, no Hank, no Dylan and his parents, none of the school bullies (as if they had the decency to actually resolve the storyline with Tom Welling's character from the first film here), and hardly ANY continuity nods. No mention of their old home, no mention of Mark being "Fedex" in the first movie (he's practically WALLPAPER here!) or of Beans (SERIOUSLY! they don't mention the frog that died!), or even of their jobs. Hell, they don't even mention any of the characters from the first movie. They don't even show the house except for a few brief minutes at the beginning!!
On top of that, none of the characters seem interesting anymore. I already mentioned in my review for the first movie that I hated Clark, but at least I had a reason to loathe him because he was so moody and he had some purpose being antagonized by Sam Winchester. Here, he's just...funny. And just the silly kind of funny. That I felt Hank was in the first movie, when he wasn't being treated as an antagonist.
And oh yeah...Hank is replaced with some silly guy. But since he's not an antagonist, he's not interesting.
This is not a sequel. The first movie was horrid, but at least the kind of horrid that made for an interesting first viewing. This is just crap reusing 14 of the cast members from the first film.
Cheaper by the Dozen (2003)
Really bad
I have next to no love for this movie. It's just a sappy load of...ugh. They try to fit so many characters in and it's just an ugly, overwhelming piece of work. One of my least favorite characters is Tom Welling's character. I just find him angry and annoying. I guess I can chalk it up to bad casting (not that Tom Welling's acting is bad, but because he was simply too old for the part).
The storyline is at least interesting in how much conflict there is, but it wraps up really poorly with them staying at a house they hate.
If I were you, I'd stay away from this movie. It's one of my least favorite movies on this planet.
Get Set for Life (2000)
I really loved this as a kid!!
This was such a fun programming block! I remember it started in January of 2000---after CBC Playground ended, and lasted for nearly four awesome years, finally ending at the end of summer 2003. But while it was on, it was really fun.
Our hosts were Alyson Court---Loonette from "The Big Comfy Couch"!!---and Michael Clark. They would hang out in Alyson's attic and break fourth wall by talking to the viewers. They would usually at some point go into Alyson's "Space Case", which would be this weird cartoon/CGI room! These scenes would frame the shows---Rolie Polie Olie, Arthur, etc.---that made up the Get Set For Life! block.
The block had it's own theme song, and would always start with Alyson greeting the viewers and running to get her slippers. It was very fun and the hosts were very likable and it was too bad it had to end, although the new hosts on the Kids CBC block (fall 2003 to Christmas 2005) and CBC Garden (Christmas 2005-end of summer 2007) were nearly as great, and Alyson and Michael still appeared for a while. Sadly, fall 2007 saw Kids Canada, where all that remained was Patty from Kids CBC.
It's really too bad that "Get Set for Life!" had to end and I'm glad I was lucky enough to grow up with it. I still have some old episodes on tape; to my surprise, none are on youtube yet! Well, I'm sure in a matter of years they will be. After all, how else is the world going to see it again?