A few quick movie reviews from some films I’ve seen the past few days, two of which I highly recommend. I actually plan to buy them.

Penelope is a movie starring Christina Ricci as a girl born with a pig snout and ears, thanks to a curse put on her family five generations ago. To break the curse she must find the love of one of her own kind . . . ie rich upper class blue blood. The moral of the story is completely predictable, but there is a very neat twist to the movie you don’t see coming (the best kinds of twists, since most have been done nowadays). The movie features an amazing cast, including Katherine O’Hara, James McAvoy and Reese Witherspoon. Absolutely a cute, adorable and touching movie. Two thumbs up. Rent this one, it’s one your whole family will love (well maybe not little boys).

The Curiosity of Chance was a movie I rented because there was nothing else to rent, and it had the words “In the spirit of John Hughes 80’s films” and “befriends a drag queen” on the back cover. I didn’t realize that this was actually a gay movie till I started it up (I guess I didn’t real the cover well enough). Set in the 80s, this movie is about the new gay student at an overseas high school (his dad is military) trying to fit in. It’s a total 80s cliche movie, just the gay 80s movie that was never made. It features an almost unknown cast, aside from the father who I recognized from an old Lifetime show I used to watch (the one with Mary Joe from “Designing Women”). Wonderfully acted and a high quality film that could have shown in any mainstream theater, this one is a winner. Tons of laugh out loud moments and throwbacks to those old 80s movies you grew up with. I honestly wasn’t sure I’d like this and wasn’t totally into it until they hit the club scene and I heard “Send Me An Angel” being played. This has a great message that anyone, straight or gay, can enjoy. Oh and of course a rockin musical number for the finale!

Finally I rented Lost Boys: The Tribe, which you can probably guess is my “why’d they bother?” Ironically one of the lead actors in this film played the gay lead in the previous one I just reviewed! In this film “Chance” and his sister (Autumn Reeser, Taylor of “The O.C.”) move to some California town where they encounter a surf board riding vampire (Angus Sutherland, Keifer’s brother) and his gang. “Taylor” gets turned and her brother, with the help of Corey Feldman (as Edward Frog) has to save her. The movie was acted well, the special effects were amazing and the story was good. So what’s the problem? The problem is the story is good . . . . because it’s the same as the original “Lost Boys” with a few minor changes! Make no mistake, this is no sequel. This is almost a word for word, scene by scene in many cases remake of the original, just not as good. Everything Edward says about Vampires, having learned from comics, is from the original. Everything the Vampire says about never growing old and never dying, is from the original film. Party scenes, the lair, even the late night scene where the vampires kill the people around the campfire are directly from the original film. It quickly becomes a “why’d they even bother, just watch the original” movie. Rent it . . . better yet, unless you have some kind of Netflix or Blockbuster program . . . wait for cable. If you never saw the original, do rent it.