Bride Wars

Since we're in the cinematic graveyard portion of the year, I went to see Bride Wars. Surprise: it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be! From what I could tell, Bride Wars is the story of two lifelong friends who go to the same wedding planner. Once the wedding planner realizes that they are actually in love with each other and that their mens are just identical-looking props (my friend called them bad copies of Matt Damon), she books their weddings on the same day. She claims it was all a mix-up, but she's the best wedding planner in the world and she knows how to spot those closeted in-love lezes and gently coax them out of the closet. When both girls are too shy to take the initiative to suggest that, instead of two separate weddings, they just marry each other in one massive ceremony, feelings get hurt and suddenly they're not going for jogs together anymore. Kate Hudson stress-eats and Annie Hathaway reverts to her days as pole-dancing, sexually-confused college girl. Finally, when Anne sees how hot Kate looks in her wedding dress, she can take it no longer: she jumps on Kate and the two lay panting in the church aisle. The only thing missing is a post-coital cigarette. Anne finally dumps her man and then, in a big fuck-you to Proposition 8, these two women miraculously knock each other up. And you thought it was just another chick flick!

RATING: 56%

(Photo courtesy of awesome site I just discovered, dorothysurrenders.blogspot.com)

Milk

Milk is a movie about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in America. It is fine, but I think that everybody is giving it a lot more credit as a great movie because of its subject matter, what I like to refer to as Guess Who's Coming To Dinner syndrome. Sure, the GLBT movement needs as much support now as ever, but that doesn't automatically elevate this movie into the annals of film history. The acting is great from pretty much everybody involved, from Sean Pean to Emile Hirsch to Josh Brolin to James Franco, but it's chock full of cliches (Harvey Milk and his friends repeatedly joke about him NOT MAKING IT TO FIFTY foreshadowing get it), and it's often fakely sentimental. It's a good film about an important figure in American history, but I think it's a mistake to count it among the best films of 2008.

RATING: 67%

The Houston Pride Parade

This is the first pride parade I've ever been to (although I don't know how many there were in Lake City [yes I do, zero]), and I guess it was pretty fun. There were a hell of a lot of people being nice, a lot of diversity, and beads hitting me in the face all the time because I never pay attention when the people on the floats are throwing them. Anyway, the picture depicts my favorite float, some weird car thing somebody clearly built from scratch to look like a star. Also it depicts this mean cop who was yelling at people and dragged somebody away. There were cops with horses who kept running into people, too, but I can't draw a horse. Overall it was fun.

RATING: 80%