Review: Run Fatboy Run (2007)

I'm going through a little Simon Pegg phase at the moment (really?! you wouldn't guess from our draft list!! haha!) after getting my other half to watch Shaun of the Dead for the first time. I forgot how much I loved his films and I hadn't seen Run Fatboy Run since it came out in the cinema 7 years ago, so it was about time I re-visited it!

On his wedding day, Dennis (Simon Pegg) panicked and ran away from his future wife who was pregnant with their first child. Five years later, his ex-fiancée Libby (Thandie Newton) has moved on and leads a successful life with their son Jake and her boyfriend Whit (Hank Azaria). Dennis is determined to win her back and so enters a marathon to prove himself.

If you've ever seen one of my favourite Christmas films Jingle All the Way, the theme is familiar. Bad Dad must better himself and right the wrongs he did in the past. Admittedly, what Dennis did 5 years ago was truly awful and certainly can't be solved by running a marathon, but that's all I'll say without spoiling the ending for you.  That's what I could never get my head around when I watched this film, how does running a marathon fix anything?!

You can expect the same kind of humour as Simon Pegg's other films. Swear words dotted about, funny faces and the middle finger, and subtle moments where if you blink you might just miss them. Also, as an un-fit person trying to get fit, this film is hilarious. We've all looked like Simon Pegg above during our first spin class, right? I think I can do outdoor running just as well as he can too, although I'm slightly better dressed.  That is EXACTLY what I looked like in the ONE spin class I ever attended!

I love the Simon Pegg film humour, its typically British (see my At Worlds End vs This is the End post coming soon...) and I have to say although it made me want to vomit a little bit the blister scene had me in stitches.  I did kind of miss Nick Frost after Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz but I suppose that can be forgiven!

Hank Azaria makes a great sort-of bad guy, but the supporting characters are fantastic too, mainly Dennis' best friend Gordon (Dylan Moran) who only spurs Dennis on because he has a huge bet on him completing the marathon, and Dennis' landlord Mr Goshdashtidar (yes, I checked my spelling) who declares himself Dennis' assistant coach and slaps him with a spatula every 5 minutes.

For me Mr Goshdashtidar (I copied and pastes Allie's from above ha!) was the highlight, which is surprising as a fan of Simon Pegg but he stole ever scene he was in.  It wasn't as funny as Shaun of the Dead, but then it was more predictable so you sort of saw the jokes coming, whereas in SotD you literally had no idea what was going to happen next!  They took the rom-com and turned it on it's head (albeit kept the predictable bits) and limited rom bit and focused on the com bit.

I really do love this film. I cried a little at the ending, but then it doesn't take much to set me off. Run Fatboy Run is my ideal film when it comes to comedy, and I love how it doesn't have to have a Hollywood hunk to be a great rom-com either. I have to mark it down for Dennis' actions at the very start of the film though, as I image to some it would make his character come across as very unlike-able. 

 

I will also recommend a Simon Pegg film (except How to lose friends and alienate people...) because I love his sense of humour and difference his films have to other comedies out there.  If you haven't seen it, see it, if you have, see it again.

Currently Watching...3rd Rock from the Sun

It's not possible to buy this on DVD in the UK yet (I think this is a travesty!) so imagine how excited I was when I woke up the morning after getting back off holiday and finding two episodes playing back to back on Channel 4. 

Sorry, totally butting in here but is that the Trinity Killer?!

I couldn't resist checking and yes, there is was, every day 2 whole episodes... this was my face...

So what is so special about 3rd Rock from the Sun?  I never watched it properly when it was first on, I was a bit too young I think and not yet fully addicted to TV series as I am now!  But what's not to love... John Lithgow, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and this guy....

This show is so ridiculous it's brilliant, the jokes (that I probably didn't get as a kid) have me in stitches and as it's on first thing in the morning I have destroyed my make on numerous occasions laughing and crying.

The characters are bats**t crazy but that makes you love them even more.  Each episode has it's own storyline which means you can watch them in any order or if they just happen to be on TV (as with Friends) but it's worth watching the Pilot to know who the characters are and why they are on the 3rd rock.

The downside is, that because I'm watching them on the TV, I miss episodes and they are not necessarily in the right order (i.e. Joseph Gordon-Levitt aged about 6 years overnight last night!) this is why it needs to be released on Region 2 DVD NOW!!

If you've not seen this, you need to give it a go and if you hear any rumours of Region 2 DVD's let me know ;-)

Up until recently I thought 3rd Rock from the Sun and 30 Rock were the same show. Funnily enough I've just started watching 30 Rock so I may have to try this now! Like Jenna, I remember this show from when I was younger but had little interest in it back then.

Review: Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

This is the second film we saw in Los Angeles, mostly because there was nothing else on.  I kind of wish we'd stayed at home or got drunk instead if I'm brutally honest!!  I really enjoyed the very first Transformers films, but it all went downhill from there.  I had high hopes for Dark Side of the Moon because the idea for the story was really clever and then the rest of the film happened and I was disappointed, again!

I've only seen the first two Transformer films, and I was genuinely going to see this at the cinema, but then the reviews started to come in...I think I may have actually stayed home and got drunk instead ha!



Transformers: Age of Extinction is like a whole new trilogy as it's a whole new set of characters.  It follows down and out Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) as he buys a junk truck to the annoyance of his daughter Tessa (Nicola Peltz) who is in desperate need for money for college.  The truck however, turns out to be Optimus Prime in hiding from the CIA unit that are trying to destroy all Autobots.

This could have been a great film, but it's not.  The dialogue is painfully cheesy and awkward, the storyline is weak and questionable at best.  I didn't like the characters (as much as I like Mark Wahlberg), I was bored with the story and the actions scenes moved so quickly that you had no idea what was going on (and I didn't even watch it in 3D!)

I'm all up for mindless giant robot action scenes (hello there Pacific Rim!) but I don't think even I could bring myself to see this now...

The only thing I actually enjoyed about this was Stanley Tucci, who throughout the film goes from high powered, 'don't question me' executive to blithering, apologetic world saver in a matter of minutes, the downside is that it is a lot of minutes.  The film went on forever, it felt so long.  Everytime I thought it was over, there was another actions sequence that I had no idea what was going on. 

If I'm honest, I preferred the Witwicky's to the Yeager's (If only in the original movie), I felt like there were more real, the parents always had me in stitches, when they have a 50ft robot in their garden and they are worried about the flower beds! 

Bonus scene, Optimus Prime wielding a giant sword and riding a transformer dinosaur, only but that made me smile! Dude, Optimus Prime would look awesome no matter what he did! 

Honestly, don't bother.

I'll take your word on this one.



Thursday's Thought: Disney DVDs

Apologies in advance, as this is more of a Thursday Ramble than a thought. In fact, it could possibly be a Thursday Story That I Find Funny That Probably Isn't, but that just doesn't roll off the tongue as nicely. Nor do I want to make a new banner for that.

I promise there's a point to all of this, if you can make it to the end. The other day, I was feeling either unwell or grumpy, and all I wanted to do was watch my favourite Disney movie, Lilo & Stitch. I knew I must have it on DVD somewhere, but alas, whether it got lost in last year's move or whether it's still at my parents house (could it be old enough to have been on VHS?), it wasn't on my bookshelf. Great.

Cue a trip to our local shopping centre the next day, which is fairly large actually. Not quite as big as Birmingham's Bullring, but not far off. There were a good few shops I could check to find the DVD I was looking for. Well, HMV, a shop which specialises in films & music, didn't have it. Oh, they had Lilo & Stitch 2, some sort of Christmas Special and probably another 3 Lilo & Stitch variations which I'd never even heard of, but not the original.

I didn't even want to ask for fear of coming across as the crazy lady hunting down a children's film. It might have been better if I had a child with me, but all I had was a very bored fiancé. We tried another shop which only sells second hand copies of DVDs and CDs, and I hear a very excited shout of 'I've found it!' from across the room. He's found it, but it wasn't quite what I wanted. Thanks to the power of Google, this is what the case looked like:

See the spine? There's no number on it. All of my other DVDs have a number on, and eventually I would love to collect them all. It was only up until this point that I realised not every Disney DVD has the number on them. As you can imagine, I had a very disgruntled fiancé after I announced I couldn't buy this version. I had to give up.

Ironically enough, as soon as we got home, I put Netflix on to find that they had added a new film that day. Lilo & Stitch. Can you believe it? Well, at least I finally got to watch it! 

One week later, I was doing my food shopping at the local supermarket, and lo and behold, they were doing an offer on Disney DVDs. Two for £8.00, what a bargain! They even had Lilo & Stitch, and what was that I saw? It had the number! Queue lots of excitement, the throwing down of my basket, and a text to Jenna, because she absolutely had to know what I had just found.

Oh and yes, that's A Bugs Life in my basket too. I loved that film when I was younger.

So now here lies my point, sort of. Do you collect Disney DVDs too? And if you do, are you fussed by the numbers?

Sorry, I'll resume blogging with purpose tomorrow.

One Lovely Blogger Award

Imagine the smile on my face when I get a Whatsapp message off Allie to tell me that we have been nominated for ANOTHER award, this time the One Lovely Blog Award.  Allie kindly let me lead on this one as I was off gallivanting around the US when the last one came through.  Here is the link to the last one in case you missed it: http://goo.gl/rDHigj

I would like to thank Darren from Movie Reviews 101  for nominating us, it really is so great to know people are reading what we write.  If you have never read out 'About us' page, we used to write movie reviews and send them to each other via e-mail, we took the time to write them when only one other person was reading them.  So to know that so many other people are now reading what we write is amazing and makes me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside :-)  So thank you for nominating us Darren and also thank you to everyone who reads our ramblings!

Here are the rules for this award:

1. You must thank the person who nominated you and include a link to their blog. (See above)
2. You must list the rules and display the award.
3. You must add 7 facts about yourself.
4. You must nominate 15 other bloggers and comment on one of their posts to let them know they have been nominated.
5. You must display the award logo and follow the blogger who nominated you.

Let's see if we can find 15 other bloggers to nominate:

1001 Movies 1 (apparently) must see before I die
A Fistful of Films
A Space Blogyssey
And So it Begins...
Big Screen Small Words
Cinema Parrot Disco
Cinematic Corner
Feeling Fuzzier - A Film Blog
Film Grimoire
Films and Coke
Forgotten Films
Girl Meets Cinema
Hitchcocks World
Oh! That Film Blog
Rambling Film


7 facts about me (it didn't say they had to be interesting!):

1 - I love exploring the US and I have recently returned from a 3 week jaunt around California (with a bit of Arizona and Nevada thrown in!) and I'm already planning my next trip!

2 - I currently live with Dad, who also happens to love movies!  We spend a lot of time at our local cinema (although I usually have to find another willing victim to sit through the rom-coms and the NSFD films with me!!)

3 - I recently graduation from Open University with a BA (hons) in Business Studies and I'm still amazed to say that I got a First Class Honours!!

4 - I love fancy dress, I have dressed up for parties, weekends away, tribute videos, photoshoots and countless other reasons.  I even had a photobooth with various fancy dress items at my Graduation Party in July.

5 - A few years ago I did a 10,000ft Skydive with my best friend for Breakthrough Breast Cancer, we raised over £2,500 in sponsorship and had a the best day.

6 - I don't have any siblings, so no nieces or nephews but last year my best friend had a baby girl, Brogan Beau and she is by far my favourite person in the whole world.

7 - I am lucky enough to get to travel around the world for my job, so far I have been to Dubai, Qatar, Germany, France, Indonesia, South Africa, Italy, USA and Switzerland and list just keeps growing!