American Dreamz/Stick It » DVDs Worth Watching

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American Dreamz/Stick It

April 30, 2006

I haven’t been out to the movies in months, so today, we decided to see two. What can I say, lately whatever I’ve been doing I’ve been OVERdoing.

American Dreamz — Not as great as I’d hoped, unfortunately, but still funny. I liked that the characters were obviously identifiable but more three-dimensional than mere impersonations, and Hugh Grant and Dennis Quaid did terrific jobs. I was particularly impressed by how good an actress Mandy Moore is turning out to be. It’ll be really interesting to see how this movie is received in ten years or so, because it’s an amazing time capsule.

Stick It — We enjoyed Bring It On much more than we expected to, so we went to see this gymnastic movie by the same writer. I was pleasantly surprised to see that, beyond the expected competition storyline, it had a really savage point of view about the sport that I could get behind. Thumbs up.

5 Responses

Ed Sizemore writes:

April 30, 2006 at 9:04 pm

Johanna, I’m amazed you didn’t go see Akeelah and the Bee. I saw it today and it’s great. It has several wonderful messages. One of which, is the power and beauty of language and words. Plus the quote from MLK Jr is incredibly powerful and moving.

David Welsh writes:

May 1, 2006 at 5:11 am

Speaking of Mandy Moore, have you seen “Saved”? I thought that was a really terrific movie and that Moore was great in it.

And Ed, have you seen the documentary “Spellbound”? It’s a wonderful non-fiction treatment of the same subject.

Dave Carter writes:

May 1, 2006 at 1:54 pm

Moore was terrific in Saved!, as for that matter was the rest of the cast. A really good movie, that.

Good to hear that Stick It maintains much of the attitude of Bring It On–I’ll have to stick it in teh Netflix queue (hah, a pun!)

Johanna writes:

May 1, 2006 at 7:28 pm

I’m glad Akeelah is out there, and I’m sure it’s excellent, but I don’t feel like I’d gain anything from seeing the film that I haven’t already figured out from the ads. I don’t often go see message movies, anyway — I’m looking for escapist entertainment when I venture out to the theater.

I enjoyed Saved! as well.

Ed Sizemore writes:

May 2, 2006 at 5:36 am

David, I will have to rent Spellbound. I haven’t seen it.

I, too, enjoyed Saved!. As an evangelical Christian, I thought they did a good job at pointing out some of our excesses. It was painful at times, because the humor was very accurate.