The Long Kiss Goodnight

"Chefs do that."
Samantha Caine doesn't know who she is. She knows she's a teacher and has a daughter and a fiance, but she doesn't remember anything about her life before eight years ago.
That is until a private detective she hired finds a lead that none of the other private detectives she hired managed to dig up. They go on a journey to find out who she really is.
The previews for The Long Kiss Goodnight gave away Sam's true identity but I'm not going to because ... well, because I don't feel like it. But it is an action movie, so that should give you a clue.
Much like Cutthroat Island, this movie seems mainly to have been made so Renny Harlin could turn Geena Davis into an action star. Unlike Cutthroat Island, this movie kicks ass! It's funny, the action is really fun, the plot is interesting and I just think Geena Davis is cool.
It is a little too long, though, and the movie does lose something with Sam recovers her memory and gives herself a Honey Whitlock makeover. It takes a turn into full on action movie and there's a lot less humor and, I never thought this would be something I'd complain about, less characterization.
Usually if I want to watch an action movie, things like plot and characterization annoy me. They get in the way of explosions. "Stop talking and blow some shit up!" But in The Long Kiss Goodnight's case, I was really enjoying the characterization, watching Samantha Caine slowly put the pieces of her memory together and teetering between her life now and her life before. It was cool.
But eventually the movie gave up on the slow transition and, while it was still a really entertaining movie, I just wasn't as interested in what happened after Charlie Baltimore completely resurfaced.
Still, I'm really glad I saw it and I can't believe it took me this long to get around to doing so.

End of line.
-Sally

The Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch

First of all, there are a quite a few very funny moments in this movie.
The problem is they're hidden among reruns. Most of the movie seems like an excuse to show unused footage from filming the first Rutles movie (The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash, which is brilliant if you haven't seen it. Which you have. Hi, Mom!) and quite a bit of it feels like Eric Idle really wanted to visit a bunch of different cities and used making a second Rutles movie as an excuse.
It's not that it wasn't good, exactly; it just ... wasn't all that good. I liked some of the interviews. Conan O'Brien and Billy Connelly specifically were quite funny. Tom Hanks should never have a mustache. But there were a couple of bits that felt borrowed from Monty Python, a lot of bits that were recycled from the first Rutles movie and a few scenes with Jimmy Fallon that were not at all funny (but had a good payoff, I'll give them that).
And, weirdly for a movie about The Rutles, I felt like not much of the movie had anything to do with The Rutles. It was all about the host of the documentary. There was much more of him standing around explaining "well, not on this spot exactly, but over there" and him being in the wrong cities to talk to the people he wants to talk to.
I don't know. It was funny, but it wasn't nearly as good as the first one.

End of line.
-Sally