Review of Trauma (2004) by Courtney W — 20 Aug 2005

[color=darkorange]Heh. My local paper proclaimed that [i]The 40-Year-Old Virgin [/i]was better and funnier than [i]The Wedding Crashers[/i]. That's a pretty high standard if you ask me. I could probably watch the latter over and over again and laugh just as much and if not more.[/color].

[color=#ff8c00]I mean, [i]The 40-Year-Old Virgin[/i] was funny--it was not [i]Wedding Crashers [/i]funny. Steve Carrell plays a loveable loser who has maintained his purity until middle age. He collects action figures and toys, he rides an old-school bicycle, plays video games and watches [i]Survivor [/i]with the elderly couple that lives upstairs from him. [/color].

[color=#ff8c00]Probably the funniest aspect for me is the retail enviroment in which Andy (Carrell) and his friends work. It kind of has that [i]Clerks [/i]and [i]Empire Records [/i]appeal about it. And of course I find that kind of stuff funny, because I work in retail myself. [/color].

[color=#ff8c00]It has all the raunch-bathroom-humor that you'd expect in an R-rated sex comedy. However, it has an oddly good message to it, too.[/color].

[color=#ff8c00]On saturday, we watched two movies. The first was [i]Beyond Borders [/i]with two of our faves Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen (hubba-hubba). It is a movie with a really eye-opening message about relief workers and those countries in need of relief. Sarah (Jolie) is an American married to a wealthy Brit, who gets inspired by Nick (Owen), a rather cavalier relief-worker who is ballsy, brooding and rough around the edges. [/color].

[color=#ff8c00]The story takes them through some of the saddest situations over a period of ten years. Beginning in Ethiopia, Cambodia and Chechnya. Then, of course is the rather sad, depressing romance that is backdropped by famine relief. The message in the work that the relief workers do is important and the movie was somewhat good but not great. [/color].

[color=#ff8c00]As for [i]Trauma[/i], it is one of those weird movies that we have never heard of that we felt compelled to rent. It stars Colin Firth as a wack-job and Mena Suvari as his "landlady." Usually, I can watch ANYTHING with Colin Firth, but this movie wanted too much to be an even more artsy version of [i]The Cell[/i]. It is a weird mish-mosh of quick edits, weird and dreamlike images, murder, a "dead" wife, obsession and [i]Charlotte's Web[/i]. There are ants, spiders, dead popstars and Colin Firth living in a converted hospital. [/color].

[color=#ff8c00]It doesn't make sense. I am not sure what happened. I got on the IMDB message board for the movie and it seems that not many people on there understood it either. It was too bizzare. Too much to handle. It made my brain hurt.[/color].

[color=#ff8c00]Will write back soon![/color].

[color=#ff8c00]Court.[/color].