Reviews

First of all, everybody knew that Lord of the Rings would, and I am really glad that it did. It is one of the greatest fantasy/action/adventure films of our time. But there were other good events that happened on that evening at the Oscars.

Charlize Theron won her Oscar for her brilliant performance in the powerful film Monster. Plus, as a bonus, Sean Penn, Renee Zellwigger and Tim Robbins finally had won Oscars of their own. Plus, Peter Jackson finally won his first Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture. He even said at the podium that he feels that the Academy Awards had completely snubbed his old films, Meet the Feebles and Bad Taste. That was a classic quote.

My favorite moments of the evening were Billy Crystal's comedy sketches where he digitally inserted himself into clips of the years nominated films. He was, by far, the best host for the show ever.

Another cool event was the production number of the song Belleville Rendezvous for the amazing animated film, The Triplets of Belleville! The woman who sang the song with three amazingly choreographed dancing girls behind her was terrific. But I do somewhat wish that the song's original artist, -M-, had actually sang it. The other musical segments were pretty good too.

One of the best highlights of the evening was Sofia Coppola, daughter of the Oscar winning director, Francis Ford Coppola, winning the Oscar for her great screenplay for her outstanding film, Lost in Translation.

Overall, despite a pretty predictable Best Picture winner, the events leading up to it were decent enough.

Eli Roth, the director and writer, has talent. His movies Cabin Fever and Hostel part 1 were creative and fun. Hostel was, for me at the time, was the most gruesomest movie I ever saw. When I wanted to see Hostel 2, I had heard lots of mixed reviews. some said that it was better then the first. Others said that it was a real flop. IT even received a few Razzie awards.

When I first saw it, I tried to like it because I really thought that the first one, despite it's flaws, was one of the best horror movies around. But as the movie progressed, I was asking myself 'what were they thinking writing this?' It had none of the imagination of the first.

It started off with Paxton, the only survivor of the first. He is living with his girlfriend while recovering from what happened to him at the hostel/Elite Hunting. For some stupid reason, he refuses to tell anybody about what happened to his murdered friend Josh. He feels that the people that were customers of the Elite Hunting will track him down if he reports them because apparently, they are linked to everybody. The next morning, Paxton is found decapitated.

Meanwhile, in Europe, three young girls are vacationing. Soon, a strange girl named Axelle (Vera Jordanova) meets up with them and offers them a chance for relaxation at a hostel/spa in Slovakia. Oddly enough, the three girls accept Axelle's offer and head of to Slovakia. When they get there, each of the girls are acquainted with the fun and pleasures that the spa offers. But soon, their relaxation suddenly turns into their worst nightmare.

As the movie goes on, each girl gets picked on one by one. Lorna (Heather Matarazzo), the dopey idiot, is lured to her bloody fate by some stranger she meets who she falls in love with. She's hacked to death, while being hung upside down naked, by a scythe a woman with bathing in her blood. Whitney, the 'brat' of the group, almost escapes after biting off the nose of the make-up artist that was trying to prepare her for her ultimate doom with a customer, she is taken into full custody and decapitated off-screen, by Roger Bart.

Then it all comes down to Beth (Lauren German), who is obviously the first choice of the audience to be the survivor of the movie. Apparently, and for some odd reason she didn't see this coming; There's a scene where Beth is saved from a beating by the street children by Axelle. Then Axelle takes her to her house, asks her to sleep in her bed, and then Axelle gives her to the owners of the hostel, where she is taken away to be murdered. Before She is tortured to death by her crazy friend, Stuart (Roger Bart), he forces her into having sex on the floor of the torture chamber But luckily, she kicks him in his shins and chains him to the chair. After the owners of the hostel come into the torture chamber, they see that Beth has Stuart chained while threatening to castrate him with scissors. The owner of the murderous hostel says that she can live, but she has to buy her way out. Beth, apparently, had a huge sum of money left to her by distant family members. The owner agrees, Beth castrates Stuart, she is given the tattoo symbol which proves her as a Elite Hunting member, and she kills Axelle as revenge. The movie ends with the hope of a third installment.

While watching this movie, I couldn't help but wonder what was going through Eli Roth's head as he wrote this. The characters were pathetic , especially Stuart, who agrees to go to the hostel, but chickens out before ultimately becoming one of the main villains of the movie. In my opinion, I wish they didn't kill off Paxton. Throughout the first movie, I was glad that he made it through. Plus, there were so many lousy scenes in this movie, like the girls accepting an offer for a spa from a girl they hardly know, Paxton not reporting the police about the hostel (which actually would've been cool to see), Beth being the only survivor of the group because she was the only one that had enough money to pay her way out of the hostel, Stuart asking his sadistic friend Todd if what they are doing is sick, and the part when Todd, who is through out the first half of the movie intrigued with killing somebody, chickens out because he saws off half of Whitney's face. The acting is okay. But the script should've just been recycled.

I'll admit that there were parts of the movie that made it sort of an improvement over the first. In one scene, we see Whitney tied up in a cell with a bunch of prisoners bond and gaged for their untimely death. It was good to see from the killers point of view. Whitney's first attempt at escaping was good. Plus, it was, I guess, good to see Beth get back at her torturer and save herself from her death.

My advice for Eli Roth would be to go back and remake this. It could be sort of like when the makers of the Exorcist the Beginning remade that movie into the descent Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist.

My overall rating; C+

This is one of the most stupidest movies ever. Everyone in this movie is so beautiful and nice. This is far from what high school is in real life. Zac Efron I wish would quit acting. Nobody in this movie even acts at all.

The music is good, I guess. But take the songs out of the movie and what have you got?...a movie that shows how shallow Disney is.

One of the stupidest scenes in the movie, I think, is when Vanessa Anne Hudgens character is singing in the girls bathroom and Ashley Tisdale's nasty, and forgettable, character hears her from outside the bathroom and goes into the bathroom to see her singing. Apparently, Ashely's character tries to be so popular and tough that, when Vannessa's character hides in one of the bathroom stalls, Ashely's character kicks a door to one of the toilet stalls open with her foot...what idiot put that in the script? This is one of the biggest overrated movies of all time.

Through out the whole show, CatDog have always faced bad luck. Almost every episode ended in a negative way. But when this movie came out, people who watched the show had their chances to see the more positive ending to the show. Thank God, too.

(Warning: contains spoilers) In this movie, after being completely stray from their origins and family, CatDog decide to set out to find their long-lost parents. During the trip, they face a few odd ball characters like aliens, a giant lake monster, and a bunch of hillbillies. During their visit with the aliens, the audience is given what seems like a history of where CatDog might have come from. In the mothership of the aliens that CatDog go into (to find their parents), there are a bunch of exotic creatures on the ship that seems to be mixed together with other exotic creatures.

Then at the end, CatDog end up finding their parents and soon discover that their mother is a giant Bigfoot, and their dad, who's voiced by Academy Award nominee Billy Bob Thornton, is small, lowbrow frog.

I'd say this was a good way to end the series. CatDog find their family and the bad guys of the show, the Greaser Dogs, get beaten in end.