No woman, ever, has been able to resist a guy who is good at air hockey. True story. (Reviews of Movies I'll Never See.)

Today's Review of Movies I'll Never See: 

  Playing For Keeps, starring Uma Thurman and other people.

The Plot:  The guy who had sex in an outhouse at that hippie music festival is a broken-down, washed-up, ne'er-do-well ex soccer player, (because that is a thing that exists in America)... or is he?  After never marrying Jessica Biel because she was not in love with him even though he was super in love with her... wait, that's real life... after not marrying Jessica Biel because he was too devoted to being superawesome at soccer and also being from Australia, Guy With Shaggy Hair finds time to put his son in danger while also somehow supporting himself working as a suburban soccer coach, a career that puts him in contact with a near-psychotic Dennis Quaid, who is obviously just looking for a reason to take a swing at Guy.

Luckily for 300, the particular suburb he has picked is also chock-full of ex-ESPN broadcasters, and ESPN for some reason is looking to increase its soccer coverage despite the fact that nobody cares about soccer.  ESPN has never heard about Guy Who Kidnapped Jennifer Aniston, though, because ESPN does not keep track of prominent athletes in the sports it covers, so it is up to Catherine Zeta Jones to get him an audition.

When Guy I've Run Out Of Nicknames For nails the audition, and nails Catherine Zeta Jones, he must make the hardest choice of his life: should he keep having sex with really hot women and take a job that pays him at least moderately well (ESPN sportscasters start at $42,000 or so), or should he somehow convince Jessica Biel that his decision to give up on any kind of real career makes him the kind of husband she really wants?

And if he chooses the latter, should he make air hockey and no doubt a bar-room confrontation with Psychotic Dennis Quaid the centerpieces of his attempts to win her back?


REVIEW:  The most baffling part of this movie was why Uma Thurman is in the trailer.  She is shown laughing on a bed... twice, if I recall... and then at a soccer game.  Is Uma Thurman's presence in a by-the-book romantic comedy a selling point?  The last work Uma Thurman had of any particular note was in 2008's The Accidental Husband, a movie I recall existing, but don't recall very clearly because I was pretty sure it was that movie that starred Anthony Hopkins as an African-American college professor who has an affair with Nicole Kidman.  But it wasn't.  That movie, the Anthony Hopkins movie, was The Human Stain.

Speaking of Anthony Hopkins, did you know that he once went on a date with Martha Stewart but she wouldn't ask him out again because she couldn't stop thinking of him as Hannibal Lecter? That's a true story.

In closing, Jessica Biel could probably do better than What's-His-Name:

Have you signed up for...

READERS: watch for your favorite blogs to feature the above badge; any blog with that badge will at some point between 11/23 and 12/24 be giving you a free (e)book from the author -- sometimes on more than one day!

WRITERS!  The Merry Christmas, etc., Of Doom, begins on 11/23, and all the details are here.  If you're not already signed up, leave a comment as to what days you'd like, after reviewing the details (Which are: post about holiday stuff, have the badge up, give away one of your books.)

All the best movies end with a dance-off. Just look at my treatment for "Avatar II, Electric Boogaloo": (Movie Reviews For Movies I'll Never See)

In Movie Reviews For Movies I'll Never See, I watch the trailer and review what I expect the movie to be about.  This is the first-ever attempt at this.

Today: The Lucky One.

The Plot:  In The Lucky One, That Guy From High School Musical,  (who probably hates being called That Guy From High School Musical but what else has he done? Was he in Twilight? I think he was in Twilight) lies about his age and gets into the army, and is immediately sent to fight in the desert.  The war is an anonymous war that is there just to make sure you know that Guy, who is sensitive enough to notice pictures on the ground in the middle of a battlefield and also to therefore be many steps behind the rest of his fellow soldiers as they actually do their jobs, will have some major troubles to deal with.

To deal with those major troubles, Guy takes the picture of the woman he finds, and searches for the lighthouse she lives at.  All the best women live at lighthouses, even ones who appear to be 15 years older than the soldiers who stalk them.  Once Guy finds Older Woman, he is recognized as a Tool of Fate by Mischievous, Knowing Grandma, who sees something in Guy.

Guy then begins at his job washing dogs and eating jambalaya, which is a thing people in the movies cook, and things would be fine except for Cruel Dad, who with the help of Cruel Law Enforcement decides that the best possible way to show Older Woman he loves her is to scare her and rough up Guy, which serves only to make Guy sexier to Older Woman, who has had her eyes opened by domestic chores and not-at-all creepy lingering from Knowing Grandma.

In the end, and here I am making a supposition based on clues in the trailer, Guy and Cruel Dad have a dance off but Cruel Dad cheats by pepper-spraying Guy just prior to the competition.  Guy wins anyway when he remembers that the dog-bathing kit he always carries with him has a solution to neutralize pepper spray.  Guy gets carried off on the shoulders of the townsfolk and vows to fix the lighthouse and run it for the rest of his life.

REVIEW: I liked The Lucky One because at just over 2:30 it manages to keep its storyline moving and doesn't get bogged down in details like "Why doesn't Guy's beard ever grow any longer?" or "Why do Cruel Dads always have an in with the local police force?"  Also, the romance is very good in that it combines scenes of women washing dishes with scenes of women about to have sex in sparsely-furnished rooms, an erotic combination that is underutilized in "today's" "Hollywood."

I thought that the decision to use the Grandma from Meet The Parents was a daring choice, in that it hinted at something more beneath the surface of this trailer, and hopefully, in The Lucky One II we will see a return of Robert De Niro's character from that movie, and we can then all look forward to a Christmas, 2014 release of Lucky Focker Goes To War which will feature Ben Stiller's triumphant return to getting his privates hit with stuff and/or falling down.