Tag: Shannyn Sossamon

A Knight’s Tale

MPAA Rated – PG-13
It’s 1:42 Long
A Review by:
– The Dude on the Right

A Knight’s Tale
Movie Stats & Links
Starring: Heath Ledger, Mark Addy, Rufus Sewell, Paul Bettany, Shannyn Sossamon, Alan Tudyk
MPAA Rated: PG-13
Released By: Columbia Pictures
Kiddie Movie: It’s cute but the jousting is a little violent.
Date Movie: She might find Heath dreamy.
Gratuitous Sex: A scene with some perky nipples.
Gratuitous Violence: The jousting gets pretty good.
Action: Just the fighting scenes.
Laughs: Chuckles here and there and the speeches by Chaucer are usually pretty funny.
Memorable Scene: Nothing really.
Memorable Quote: Nah.
Directed By: Brian Helgeland
Produced By: Todd Black, Tim Van Rellim

Leaving the theater, a couple of girls in their early teens were in front of me. Their simple comments: “That movie was great.” “He was soooo cute.” And those comments really sum up “A Knight’s Tale.” Don’t get me wrong, I did like the movie, even with things that had no place being in the movie, but it was a cute film, had some nice action, a story that you could figure out from a mile away, and I laughed a couple of times. So, let’s get to the story.

William (Heath Ledger) grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, or at least on the wrong side of town. It’s the medieval times and he wants to compete in the jousting and sword tournaments. Bad news for him – he’s not a man with a royal family line. Then, as the story would have it, his master, a jouster, dies. Seeing his chance to change his fate he dons the old man’s armor, nearly gets his head taken off in the joust, but still wins. William decides that he can compete, his companions, Roland (Mark Addy) and Wat (Alan Tudyk), aren’t so sure but go along for the ride, and they run into Jeffrey Chaucer (Paul Bettany), naked as a jaybird, who can forge some papers saying William is of royal lineage.

Well, William starts to compete, keeps winning, mostly because his best competition is off fighting a war, and falls in love with Jocelyn (Shannyn Sossamon). The climactic finish comes at the jousting championships in London where William is exposed as a fraud, his past coming to haunt him yet his fights coming back to save him, and all’s well that ends well.

Most things in this movie are of the normal cookie-cutter variety. You’ve got the love story which you know how it will end; You’ve got the tournament side which you know how it will end; and You’ve got the foreshadowing point which you know will save our hero. Mix into all of that a rock soundtrack that seems strangely out of place yet still works and well, you get “A Knight’s Tale.”

In the end “A Knight’s Tale” was stupid yet cute, and if it wasn’t for the humorous orations of Jeffrey Chaucer, well, “A Knight’s Tale” would have fallen flat on its face. If you’re looking for an intriguing story, suspenseful action, and a movie that makes you think, well, “A Knight’s Tale” won’t be for you. But, if you just want to see a generic movie with some action, a nice love story, and some humorous ramblings, well, you’ll probably like it.

I’m giving “A Knight’s Tale” 3 ½ stars out of 5 because it is exactly what you would expect it to be.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

40 Days and 40 Nights

MPAA Rated – R
It’s 1:34 Long
A Review by:
– The Dude on the Right

40 Days and 40 Nights
Movie Stats & Links
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Shannyn Sossamon, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Keegan Connor Tracy, Emmanuelle Vaugier
MPAA Rated: R
Released By: Mirimax
Kiddie Movie: Leave them at home, please.
Date Movie: She might think it’s cute, or be afraid she might lose her edge.
Gratuitous Sex: Lots of it, and lots of boobs.
Gratuitous Violence: Nah.
Action: Nah.
Laughs: Quite a few.
Memorable Scene: I think it was day 38, or maybe 39. I couldn’t keep track of that nor how many boobs they showed.
Memorable Quote: “Did she just Xerox her ass?”
Directed By: Michael Lehmann
Produced By: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Michael London

Okay, I like the movie. Yes, I’ll say it again, I like the movie. The movie is “40 Days and 40 Nights,” and I’ll give you that the story has its faults, but hey, it does show that it is sometimes just as hard for a guy to get over a girl, even if he has turned into a bit of a sex-crazed stud, as the other way around. And maybe, just maybe, a guy needs to prove to himself that he can stay in control, even when the girl of his dreams tempts him to break his promise to himself. Alright, here we go…

In “40 Days and 40 Nights” Matt (Josh Hartnett) gets dumped by his too-hot-for-him girlfriend, Nicole (Vinessa Shaw), mostly because she seems to get sick of Matt videotaping them everywhere they are. In the meantime, Matt keeps his sexual activities at their peak, the only problem is that he keeps getting hallucinations just as things are about to spurt. His brother, the priest in training, doesn’t really have any advice for him, and then in a quick conversation with the Pastor of the parish, well, Matt decides that it is sex that is keeping him from giving up Nicole, so along with Lent, well, Matt goes for 40 days and 40 nights without sex. And not just sex. We’re talking about any physical contact, including self-gratification. Ask any guy – it’s not that easy.

Well, as Matt begins his journey, tossing out the porn, and now building model cars and doing a lot of laundry, well, it is at the laundromat that Matt meets Erica (Shannyn Sossamon). Matt does his best to ignore her and not have any real conversation, but there is an attraction he can’t deny. Long story short, Matt thinks Erica might be the girl of his dreams, Erica doesn’t understand why Matt doesn’t try to sleep with her, and then she finds out his Lenten plans. She doesn’t get it at first, especially since Matt’s friends and colleagues have set up a betting pool on the internet about when Matt will cave to his sexual urges, but she lets Matt grow. Hooray!

So we have Matt trying to convince Erica this is something he really needs to do, if at least for his own pride; we have lots of hot girls coming on to Matt trying to get him to break his vow; we have various people in the betting pool trying their darndest, using porn, Viagra, and any other means possible, to get Matt to cave in so they can win the money, and we have a movie with a lot of cheap laughs, some things you don’t really want to see (like Matt with a boner at an inopportune time), and a scene most every guy can enjoy as Matt gets to his final days and all he can see anymore are women with no clothes on (that means a lot of boobies).

Yes, “40 Days and 40 Nights” is pretty dorky because most every guy I know would have caved by, well, it only took Kramer a few minutes in the “Seinfeld” episode that dealt with the same subject, but the prospect of 40 days and nights without any touching, that’s a challenge for any man. And in a cute scene where some of the women seem hell-bent on getting Matt to cave, well, their reason isn’t for the money, it’s because one of the last strongholds a woman has over a man is denying him sex, and if Matt can overcome this, then other men will be able to as well, and women will have lost their edge.

On a movie scale, I give “40 Days and 40 Nights” 3 ½ stars as long as you don’t take things too seriously. And I was going to leave the rating at that except I haven’t seen that much gratuitous and beautiful use of boobs in a movie in a long time. That in itself is enough for another star. It’s 4 ½ stars out of 5 for “40 Days and 40 Nights.” Hey, I’m a guy.

That’s it for this review! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!