Happy Anniversary to us! The Austin Movie Show has officially been writing movie reviews for INsite for one year, and we’d like to thank INsite for taking a chance on an unknown show and making us part of the family.

This time last year we were a tiny TV show with one camera on a tripod, one person on master control, and two cohosts talking about movies. One year later, the Austin Movie Show is bigger and better than ever. Not only do we have a giant studio with four cameras and the most talented and amazing crew imaginable, but we’ve also got tons more skits and sketches and a full acting troupe. What a difference a year makes.

If you’re a loyal viewer of the Austin Movie Show, we’d love to know who you are and where you’re watching from. Just go to www.austinmovieshow. com and click on “Viewers’ List” to sign up. This information will actually help us pitch the show to other markets and maybe help us get on network TV. By letting us know that you’re out there, you’re truly supporting the show, and we sincerely appreciate it. Have you been keeping up with Film Tournament 3.0? Short films compete one-on-one for the most audience vote and the winner moves on to battle another film in the next round until there is one final winner. We play the short films during the show, and then you get to vote online for your favorite (vote under the “Viewers’ List” on our website).

Then the following night, Monday night, come out to Freddie’s Place (on South 1st St.) and watch the films with us on the big screen. Film Tournament Night at Freddie’s Place kicks off at 7:00pm, every Monday night, and you can expect live bands, drink specials, short films, and lots of free movie shwag. Come on out because we’d love to meet you.

And don’t forget to watch the Austin Movie Show, now at our new timeslot, 10:00pm to midnight, every Sunday night on PACT (Public Access Community Television), cable channel 16. And if you don’t have cable or missed the show, you can always download the Podcast at www.austinmovieshow. com. All right, that’s enough about us. Here are the movies…

the Lake House

Yes, you must be willing to suspend your disbelief to fully enjoy this cheesy-but-charming chick flick. No, I don’t believe in magical, time-traveling mailboxes, but I do believe in quantum physics, and one theory is that the past, present, and future are actually all happening simultaneously. In that respect, I’m sure that Stephen Hawking would love The Lake House.

To love this film, however, you must also be willing to overlook some unbearably cheesy moments, like when Kate warns Alex about a blizzard, and the very next second, he looks out the window and the snow starts falling. I was also annoyed with the stupid “let’s-go-on-a-walk-together” scene (you’ll know when you see it).

But ultimately, Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves are adorable on screen, and I dug the overall theme — in life, and especially in love, timing is everything, and the greatest things are worth waiting for.
–Leila

Damn it, I guess I must be a chick, because I really liked this movie. I am a sucker for love stories and especially ones that find charming ways to tell the same old story. I mean, lets be honest, it’s the whole, boy meets girl, boy likes girl, girl likes boy back, boy gets girl, and boy loses girl, blah blah blah.

BUT…throw a magical little mailbox in there that can connect two people over a two year span and you have found something special in which to tell the story. I loved this story, I love Reeves’ and Bullock’s chemistry, I love that this movie makes you think about someone else, if you have met them or not.

Yes, it took a magic mailbox to make you feel this way, but damn it, why can’t we all get magic mailboxes…DAMN YOU POSTAL SERVICE and your mailboxes that only connect us to people that are living in the same time as me…DAMN YOU!!!
–Jegar

The Lost City

Andy Garcia is one of my favorite actors. Let me just start off by saying that. I love how he takes on obscure topics within the Hispanic culture and writes, directs, and stars in these films that would otherwise not be made.

In The Lost City, he spent 16 years trying to tell a story of Cuba that no one wanted to be told. To me, that is filmmaking at its finest. The film was a little long at times and some parts and characters sort of existed without explanation, which dumbfounded me a bit. What I mean is, they didn’t really explain why they were there, but you still liked them nonetheless.

Overall, the music, story of Cuba will grab hold of you and appreciate a life you never had to endure yourself. –Jega

Remember that embarrassingly bad movie Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights? Thank God, The Lost City is nothing like that. Both are set in Havana, Cuba, in the late 1950s, but that’s all they share in common. The Lost City is more like The Godfather than anything else.

At the heart of the story is a wealthy Cuban family. Fico Fellove (Andy Garcia) is a successful nightclub owner who supports neither the corrupt government of President Batista nor the violent Communist revolutionaries lead by Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. Fico believes in family and free will above all else, but the Cuban Revolution destroys both for him.

Bill Murray is positively scene stealing as the unnamed comedian and writer whose witty one-liners keep you attentive when you doubt whether or not you’ll make it through this entire 138-minute saga. My favorite line of his: “Waitress, we’ll have two specials. And could you bring them quickly, we haven’t eaten since the revolution.”
–Leila

Nacho Libre

I was expecting to laugh. I wanted to laugh. I didn’t laugh. How could a movie written by Mike White (School of Rock), directed by Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite), and starring Jack Black (like you don’t know Jack Black) not be pure comic gold? Go see Nacho Libre and find out for yourself.

It’s a funny premise. Father Ignacio (“Nacho” for short) gets no respect (clearly the Rodney Dangerfield of the monastery) and secretly takes a night job as a wrestler to win money to buy better food for the orphans in the monastery. He and his wrestling partner, Esqueleto (Hector Jimenez) keep getting paid and keep getting asked to return, even though they keep loosing. That’s funny, right? Then why didn’t it make me laugh?

However, I respect Black’s bravery to wear those tights. Beyond that, I don’t have anything good to say about this film. But if you like midget wrestling, you won’t be disappointed.
–Leila

Nacho Libre must be Spanish for Napoleon Dynamite. Get rid of Jon Heder for Jack Black, have the quirky Hispanic sidekick, and then fill the movie with a slew of quotable moments that everyone and their dog will be saying for the next six months.

Look, I wanted to laugh! I came into the theater wanting to get my laugh ON! I was almost shocked by the fact that I laughed maybe once and smiled like four times.

It’s a movie that doesn’t challenge Jack Black and what you end up getting is the same Jack Black that we always see. I love Black; I am just a little bored with him right now. It was not a horrible movie, just not really funny at all. You will use this to take naps to when it airs on TNT down the road.
–Jegar

Fall to Grace

First time director Mari Marchbanks done did good. Known for her theater work and screenplay writing, she took on this project and knocked it out the park.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Marchbanks on the LIVE show and talk to her about her film and what impressed me most about her was her open mind to learn from others. That shows me that she understands people and you see that by the wonderful job her cast does in this film. With so many story lines and the seriousness of the topics being covered, it’s really easy for the acting to slip.

However, you love and hate these characters. She paints them as real people with pedals as well as thorns. Minus a scene that was left in there that felt out of place, which she explained to me as a casualty of the editing room, this movie makes me look forward to the future work of Ms. Mari Marchbanks.
–Jegar

A lot of characters are introduced very quickly at the beginning of Fall To Grace, but don’t let that intimidate you. Over time you will understand each one of them and how they are all connected. Ultimately, that’s what this film is about, connection.

None of the characters ever say the word “Austin,” but any Austinite can tell where this was filmed. The Hilton hotel in the background is a dead give-away. First-time director Mari Marchbanks picked a street in East Austin and literally built a story and characters out of the buildings she saw.

There’s the Eastern European immigrant family. They live across the street from Sarah (a spoiled high school girl), her father (the small business owner), and her mother (who cares about no one but herself). Sarah’s uncle is the neighborhood drug dealer and mob boss. They’re fighting poverty, drug addiction, and organized crime on a daily basis, but ultimately they find solace in each other.
–Leila

the Omen

The Omen, a remake of the 1976 film of the same name, is not scary. My theory is that people were just stupider thirty years ago, and therefore, easier to entertain. Sort of like cats who are amused with a piece of string. First of all, The Omen opens with a Vatican council saying that Hurricane Katrina, the tsunami of Southeast Asia, the Iraq War, and 9/11 are all signs of the apocalypse — lame!

I don’t know how such talented actors were cast in the first place (Liev Schreiber, Mia Farrow), and I don’t know how they kept a straight face during filming. Their characters’ situations and dialogue are appalling. I’m just grateful that Cameron Bright (that annoying kid with the blue eyes from Thank You For Smoking, Ultraviolet, and X-Men III) was not cast as the creepy child…for once. Uh-oh. Maybe the fact that Bright wasn’t cast as the creepy kid is the true sign of the apocalypse.
–Leila

Just how dumb does Hollywood think we are? Better yet, how much play-do and/or glue must one go through to become dumb enough to of liked this movie. I will start off with my first problem and most obvious, the trailer.

How are you going to take one of the biggest moments in the film and show it in your teaser? When the mother gets knocked off the third floor, that was a big moment, and it looked like the makers of this film were more like, “hey, hey, look at us, we did it just like it was done, but cooler!!!!”

My next point would take you to unrealistic pairs of people working together. The prime minister, husband, father to Damien gets a random call from a reporter that shouldn’t have his cell phone in the first place and suggests that he goes with him to a really creepy deserted spot…guess what…he goes!!!

Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb is all I can say about this. Go play in traffic before you sit through this.
–Jegar

One Perfect Day

Talk about making a book look fantastic by its cover. Go watch the trailer before you see this and understand what I am talking about. I saw the trailer and got excited to see this. I was thinking I would love this film.

HOWEVER, yet again, I was sadly disappointed. So disappointed that I had this major build up and a cold shower was the only thing that eased the pain. You have a major love hate relationship here. One moment will totally endear you to the film and just as you as getting there, you get bitch slapped with something completely stupid.

There are just too many of the great ideas mixed in with “I can’t believe that this is happening and I have to watch it” moments. You can see they were almost too concerned with making a platform to showoff their music and less about a story that could have been really an amazing movie to watch.
–Jegar

Some moments in One Perfect Day are total crap, while other moments are nothing short of mini-masterpieces. Let’s start with the crap. Tommy is a young Australian musician who’s so “cool” and “cutting edge” that he hears music in everything from trains to homeless people. There are incredibly cheesy and fabricated moments, like when Tommy records crickets chirping and then mixes that sound into a song. Lame!

But after Tommy’s sister dies of a drug overdose and he discovers the world of Australia’s club and trance music scene, One Perfect Day starts to get interesting. Yes, it’s full of predictable good guys and bad drug dealers, but the music is transcendental! When Tommy is DJ-ing at an all-night beach rave and his dead girlfriend is singing while he’s playing violin, the music is nothing short of ecstasy to the ear.

I honestly can’t decide if I love this film or hate it.
–Leila