17 Again (2009) Film Review - Zac Efron

Plot Summary - Fantasy-comedy about Mike (Matthew Perry), a thirty-something father of two teens who feels disappointed with his life - going nowhere in his job in pharmaceutical sales (they promote a bimbo - working there only two months - instead of him, a 16 year employee!) and on the brink of divorcing the wife he married after getting her pregnant his senior year in high school. Oddly, he is given a second chance when he visits his old school, encounters a strange janitor, and soon has fallen off a bridge and into something pretty weird - his body has become seventeen again (you knew that was coming!), but inside he's still the same man. Okay, now a teenager, Mike (Zac Efron), decides that this is his chance to try and do his life over - he decides to "go back to high school". Living with his longtime pal Ned, a sci-fi/fantasy geek to the core (you should see this guy's house!), he recruits Ned to pose as his "dad" and sign him up for school. Ned falls for the attractive female principal and Mike hopes to gain the success he once missed out on by joining the basketball team. But here's the twist - Mike's two teenage kids, Alex and Maggie, attend the same high school and he finds himself getting to know the kids he never really knew - and helping them out with their problems. Alex is being taunted by a bully, Maggie happens to be dating said bully (a real jerk). And meanwhile, Mike comes over to his new "friend" Alex's house and meets his mom (Leslie Mann), Mike's soon to be ex-wife, and he begins to see a side of her he had forgotten. Thing is, she thinks he's a teen!

Review - Okay, I thought this film was quite good, funny - very entertaining. I do always enjoy these sort of films - Freaky Friday, Big, etc. - body switching, age changing fantasy, that sort. This features lots of comic scenes involving Mike acting towards his children like a father - but they think he's just another kid at school, creating weird situations. Same with his relationship with the mom, he acts more like her husband than her son's friend. Mix-ups, confusion, it's all amusing. The film also features comedy in the form of an older man trying to think, dress, and act like a teenager. Rating - 9/10 stars

Love on the Run (1936) Film Review - Clark Gable

Plot Summary - MGM romantic comedy about a reporter on the trail of a runaway bride (hm- doesn't that sound familiar?!). Mike Anthony (Clark Gable), reporter for the New York Chronicle, is in London to cover the story of debutante Sally Parker (Joan Crawford) and her wedding to a Russian prince named Igor. But running into her as she's running away on her wedding day, Mike enters her hotel room, comforts her in her tears, and offers his help - the two run off together, disguised as a Baron and Baroness, steal their small plane and oddly manage to fly all the way to France though, apparently, Mike has never flown a plane before! Now Mike is after getting "the biggest exclusive story of the year" for his newspaper, as the two are on the run. Barney (Franchot Tone), a rival reporter and semi-chum of Mike's, is chasing after the two like a bloodhound to get his own story - and also in hot pursuit to catch them is the Baron and Baroness, actually phonies, spies who are after this map that was found by Mike and Sally in the plane. At one point, Mike and Sally end up hiding away spending the night in a huge palace run by a crazy caretaker who thinks they are ghosts (and actually has a pet invisible dog friend). Mike and Sally's obviously approaching romance sparks here, but when Sally finds out he is a reporter, she leaves him. More troubles to come as they are soon at the end of the guns of the evil Baron/Baroness couple (better known as Mr. and Mrs. Frankenstein).

Review - Okay, this film is sort of so-so with lots of stuff that doesn't really make that much sense - why is Mike so mean to rival reporter Barney, yet they are bunking together in the same hotel room at the beginning of the film? Why does Sally not even scream or wonder that much at a strange man entering her hotel room, even if he does look like Clark Gable? Of course, the plane flying sequence is pretty absurd - they can barely get the plane off the ground without killing a whole crowd of people but manage to fly to France, fearlessly, I might add! What is good in the film is three great stars of the golden age in one film - all doing a pretty good job of it too. Of course, Franchot Tone is one of my personal favorite actors from that era, though I would rather have seen him in the romantic lead than this sort of thankless role as Mike's object of tricks to get rid of him (locking him in the back of a truck, leaving him in the lurch with the bill unpaid in a French restaurant, tying and gagging him with the enemy in the next room, stuff like that). Saw this one before, but it just wasn't memorable enough for me to realize until halfway through the film. Similarities to "It Happened One Night (1934)". Rating - 6.5 to 7/10 stars

Forsaking All Others (1934) Film Review

Plot Summary - Three friends since childhood in a love triangle - Mary (Joan Crawford) has been in love with Dillon (Robert Montgomery) since they were kids, Jeff (Clark Gable) has been in love with Mary since they were kids. Jeff arrives back in town from Spain with plans to ask Mary to marry him, until he finds out it's the day before Mary's wedding to Dillon! Mary seems to see Jeff as a sort of pal/uncle and asks him to "give her away" (she also sits on his lap, her "favorite seat in town" - okay, what's that all about?). Oddly, Dill runs off that night with former girlfriend Connie, a bitch who arrives to seduce him and he inexplicably bites, leaving Mary at the alter! Whoa. She runs off to stay with a friend (Billie Burke) in the Adirondacks and is soon quite the sports gal. Mary and Jeff are invited some weeks later by Connie to attend a party being thrown by herself and new hubby Dillon. Mary decides to go and spit in their eye sort of speak, as she means to look on her ex-fiance as "last year's hat". Well, that fails - married man Dillon keeps calling her and they finally get together for a fun day in the country with hamburgers, bicycles, and hi-jinks - still in love. They end up having to spend the night in the Adirondacks house, but no funny stuff (you know what I mean, this is the thirties). Jeff pretty much has backed off, as Dillon and Mary begin their romance again - what's next for these three?!

Review - This is a cute film, boosted up by three top stars of the thirties. I like the clip in the opening credits where the three walk towards the camera - her in bride dress, the two men dolls in top hat and tails. I did watch this to see favorite Robert Montgomery - woo, though his character is sort of a charming cad (don't really like to see him like that). Pretty good, fairly predictable, typical thirties light romantic comedy. Rating - 7.5 to 8/10 stars