March 16, 2004

50 FIRST DATES vs CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN

We watched two movies, one after the other: Pao, Kem, John, and me. It’s been ages since we last got to hang out with Paolo and I’m glad we were able to this time. Sadly, Jenni had to go to Manila so she wasn’t able to watch with us. We watched “50 First Dates” with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrimore, seating in the upper part of the cinema. After that, we watched “Cheaper by the Dozen” with Steve Martin and that girl from some movie somewhere along with Tom Welling, Hillary Duff, and Piper Parabo (?), we bought tickets for the lower part and yet sat at the upper part and nobody questioned us.

Cheaper by the Dozen was a slight disappointment. It was predictable, obvious, and because of the number of actors and actresses, the audience wasn’t really able to connect with any of them, really. Unless you count the parents. And there was a part there were it was annoying because no matter how many kids you have, if they all are disciplined and cooperate and all that, it wouldn’t really be that hard. Still, even though it was predictable and all that, it was fun to watch. Lots of comedy, some touching scenes… I kind of thought they’d stick with the book but I’m not sure if they did. I know I read the first page (or chapter??) of the book a few years back but from what I read, they showed something different. Oh well, I think I’ll go see if I can read the book. It should be interesting.

Movie rating? 2 stars :)

“50 First Dates” is a movie with another pairing of Drew Barrimore and Adam Sandler. And as we all saw in “The Wedding Singer”, those two have good chemistry. Their latest movie is no exception. It’s funny, it’s very touching because what Adam’s character (Harry Roth) did was very noble. I suppose the story would appeal to us would-be doctors because in it, Lucy (Drew Barrimore) had a terrible car accident and her temporal lobe got all whacked up and she can’t form new memories. It’s kind of like what we discussed in our integration activity. Anyway, Harry was patient and he won her over day after day after day (because every time Lucy sleeps, then wakes up, she forgets everything and instead believes that it’s October 13/16? – the day she had her accident). They even end up having a daughter. Like I said, it’s so very touching and noble.

The comedy aspect, for me at least, was watching LOTR’s Sean Astin (Samwise Gamgee) act like a jerk on steroids. I found that hysterical. Add to the fact that he sported a exceptional lisp and wore the most ‘loser-brawner’ outfits possible. Oh yeah. It’s funny, I didn’t realize just how used I was to seeing all the LOTR characters/actors because I took one look at Sean Astin and said, “OMG! It’s Sean Astin!” and all my friends were all, “Who?” and I’m all, “It’s Sam! From Lord of the Rings” then they all went, “aaah. Oo nga noh.” Heh. That’s fun.

I also liked Harry’s profession – vet in Ocean Park or something like that. They were in Hawaii and it was really nice. Rob Schneider was there and he was, as usual, histerical. Pao said that some of Adam Sandler’s best buddies were in the film, but since I don’t know who his best buddies is, I’m not sure what roles they took on.

Ten-Second Tom was very funny. It was delightful to be able to understand all sorts of medical stuff that they were saying there. I kind of feel the same way when I watch “CSI”, they blab on and on about medicine and science and it delights me to admit that I totally understand all that they say. Cool!

Anyway, the movie is very nice and I highly recommend it. I give it 5 stars :)