The Maiden Heist

In The Maiden Heist, Christopher Walken, Morgan Freeman, and William H. Macy star as three senior security guards at an art museum that have fallen in love with particular pieces of art over the years. However, their love turns to fear upon learning that a young punk curator will be moving their beloved pieces to a museum in Denmark. Distraught, they discover that one another has similar feelings and decide that they must do something to stop this travesty.

The three actors bring their best abilities to the screen, and their respective characters bring their own unique personality to the ultimate heist. Freeman is the calm and collected member, Macy the slightly psychotic former Marine, and Walken is the determined, straight guy.

The movie is not a rip-roaring comedy, but it does have a cuteness factor as we are now watching three of our favorite actors now as old men. Macy's character is definitely the funniest and he plays a similar character to most of his roles.

The Maiden Heist is rated PG-13 for language, violence, and some nudity. Do not get too excited as the nudity is not some hot young 24 year old girl.

Directed by Peter Hewitt, The Maiden Heist is 90 minutes long, the perfect length for this type of movie.

This movie that I got from Netflix was a good filler for a crammed week. I got a couple of good laughs and I didn't have to spend all night watching it. The plot is fairly thin and predictable, but that was okay. I give this movie 3 stars. After you've seen the other good movies that are out, you may get a fair kick out of this one.

Bart Got A Room

Bart Got A Room is one of those teen angst comedies in the vein of American Pie, The Breakfast Club, and Juno, though not of the callibur of any of those three. Without that disclaimer several of my John Hughes friends would be going off on me.

The movie stars Steven Kaplan as Danny Stein, a high school senior who needs to find a date for the prom. Danny, like most of us guys in high school, has that friend of the opposite sex who we really like as a friend, but have no desire for any romantic interaction. And for the prom we wanted that hot girl who would let us get under her dress, just like Danny. And for most of us it didn't work out that way. Just like Danny. And for Danny it's one comedic disaster after another.

The funny thing about the movie is that the title is about Bart and Bart is one of his friends who has a very minor role in the movie. But throughout the movie everyone keeps mentioning that "well, Bart got a room".

In addition to dealing with his own angst about finding a date for the prom, Danny must also deal with his divorced untrusting erratic Jewish parents played by William H. Macy and Cheryl Hines.

Bart Got A Room is rated PG-13 for some language and mild sexual content (like when his female sophomore car ride "friend" (Ashley Benson) gets changed in his car while they are driving (she's actually 20 yrs old, so don't get all bent out of shape). The movie is only 80 minutes long and was directed by Brian Hecker, who's only other movie on Netflix is Celebrating AFI, which is an unknown to me.

The movie is average funny, so I give his a whopping 3 stars.

Pleasantville

I finally watched Pleasantville for the first time in my life. I know, can you believe it? So many movies I haven't seen.

My main objective for watching the movie is to fulfill my fantasy of dating Reese Witherspoon. I figure if I see every movie she's ever been in and she learns about how obsessed I am, she'll like me. Sounds like a high school tragedy, doesn't it? (And by sheer coincidence, Tragedy by the Bee-Gee's is currently on the radio as I write this.)

As I mentioned, the movie stars Reese Witherspoon, in addition to Spiderman, I mean Tobey Maguire, as her brother, William H. Macy as their father, and Joan Allen as their mother.

Tobey is obsessed with an old T.V. show called Pleasantville, sort of a spoof on late 1950's, early 1960's T.V. shows like Leave It To Beaver and My Three Sons. His sister Jennifer, on the other hand, likes to get around. A lot.

On the day of the big Pleasantville marathon, Jennifer plans to have her boyfriend over, but Tobey plans on watching the marathon. They get into a fight over the remote and it breaks. But not to worry, Barney Fife the T.V. repairman mysteriously shows up at the door with a new magical remote. Unbeknownst to Tobey and Reese, the remote sends them into the T.V. show - black and white and all. As my son would say, this is a gray T.V. show. They then spend the rest of the movie trying to figure out how to, so to speak, 'get back to the future', only this version is funny.

The presence of the 2 kids in town changes the balance of harmony and things start to fall apart. Then colors start appearing and people start to freak out. What's going on? Will the town tolerate these new changes? I mean, some people have color and some don't. The funniest thing in the movie was a sign in the window that read, "No Coloreds", alluding to segregation in the early to mid-1900's, though the reference is to people in technicolor. In fact, I don't think there were any African-Americans in the movie at all, or black people.

This movie is clever and funny. I'm disappointed that it took me this long in life to see the movie. If you haven't seen it, then you need to knock it off of your list. Because after you see it, "Fire! Fire! Fire!.......Dog in a tree!" will have a lot more meaning to you.

The movie is rated PG-13 for language and sexuality. And Jeff Daniels painted a naked picture of Joan Allen on the window of the diner. It's not a bad picture either. And her in the tub...quite a visualization.

I gave this movie 4 stars, and that's without the Reese bias.