Movie Review: ***Surf's Up (2007)

This is a movie about penguins surfing, but more importantly about reaching for your dream.  It features two penguins geared for a surf competition, Cody Maverick (Shia LeBeouf) and Tank Evans (Diedrich Bader).  Tank is the current champion.  We also have a girl interest, Lani Aliikai (Zooey Deschanel.) and her uncle, the old surfing sage, Zeke Topanga (Jef Bridges) and a crazy chicken (Jon Heder).  Makes for a very wild ride.  The movie is often presented with a documentary type style, which I really didn't care for because it seems to get in the way of telling the story.

Christmas Movie Review: *** Elf

***Elf

I have always thought this was just a stupid setting to give Will Ferrell a platform to do stupid stuff.  I must admit, it has that element which kept me from really watching it.  I finally did this year, and the story is really cute.  Bob Newhart is his Elf father and James Caan his birth father.  My favorite character is the fellow elf at the store, Jovey played by Zooey Deschanel.  She adds a touch of beauty and class to the show.

Movie Reviews: **^Failure to Launch

"Failure to Launch" is Paramount Pictures, 2006.  It is about a bachelor, Tripp, who lives at home, and would consider himself a lady’s man.  He would take his girlfriends home, to be discovered by his parents, and in that way he chases his girlfriends away when they are too close.  This is the classic romantic comedy with a few twists.  It stars Mathew McConaughey, Sarah Jessica Parker, Terry Bradshaw, Kathy Bates, and Zooey Deschanel (Bones’ sister.)  The plot goes that a marriage interventionist, Paula, whose job it is to have the main character fall in love with her, and thereby get him out of the house, and then she moves on.  Of course this movie ends how we expect, everything goes awry, and then comes back together.  In the meantime Tripp’s best friends, and Paula’s best friend, find themselves together.  This movie is entertaining and good for a romantic date, but not all that earth shattering.