22 Jump Street

Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill have made Jump Street a lucrative franchise. The sequel made $20 million dollars more domestically in its opening weekend than 21 Jump Street. Always poking fun at itself for being a sequel, the movie is very self aware, even more so than the first flick was for making a movie out of an old tv show. 22 follows sequel conventions like doing the same thing as the original, but with a twist, bringing back even minor characters and aiming to go bigger than the first movie.

From the box office results and the opinions of other viewers, the sequel has been very well liked. 22 Jump Street has a 85% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an 8/10 on imdb. Personally, I was underwhelmed. While I appreciate the nods to Hollywood's predictability at turning out sequels and unoriginal material, there was a non-related long running joke that did not relent and it just got old. Next time I will have to give myself my "manage expectations" pep talk right as the movie starts (seems to work best on comedies). Of course, watching some Channing Tatum is always better than not watching some Channing Tatum.

The movie seems to indicate that there will not be a 23 Jump Street. However, I couldn't help but wonder, would a third Jump Street be like part three of the Hangover trilogy or Oceans 13? Redeeming? Interestingly, those franchises' third entries shared a return to their original locations, in Vegas. To take from the sequel debate in the second Scream movie, the third movies in a film franchise tend to be better and the seconds weaker. Hollywood can not seem to resist milking a concept until it no longer generates a profit, so maybe in the Summer of 2016 there will be a 23 Jump Street: Medical School.

21 Jump Street

Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are hilarious together in the movie version of the late 80s/early 90s tv show about young cops working undercover as students in high school. The filmmakers made the wise decision to go for humor in their take on the premise. The afterschool special tone of the tv show would not have translated well into a contemporary movie. There are several episodes of the show available on imdb and hulu if you are interested, there are funny moments in the show. Jonah Hill was quoted as saying that they were attempting to make "a R-rated, insane, Bad Boys-meets-John Hughes-type movie." I think their efforts were successful.

I laughed out loud many times and that is the purpose of an all out comedy like 21 Jump Street. The movie knows what it is, it even pokes fun at itself. Things went a bit too far for me to maintain my suspended disbelief, but the chemistry of Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum more than made up for it. I want to see these two together again, it was a blast to watch them.

And on DVD...
The Outsiders

I have been reading Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe and after reading about his experiences filming Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of SE Hinton's novel, I wanted to see the movie which I had never seen before. A librarian, Jo Ellen Misakian, at Lone Star Elementary School in Fresno, California, and her students requested that Coppola make the movie. Filmed in 1982 and debuting in March of 1983, the movie has not aged well. The best thing that can be said for the film is the careers it launched and that it contains the early work of not only Lowe, but also Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, C Thomas Howell, Patrick Swayze, Tom Cruise, Emilio Estevez, and Diane Lane. Tying the two movies together, Rob Lowe crossed paths with Holly Robinson Peete early in his career; she was in both the tv show and movie 21 Jump Street. For what it's worth, I enjoyed reading about the making of the movie more than I did watching it.

The Vow

Emily scored passes to an early screening of the Vow starring Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum. The movie opens on Valentine's Day and is about a couple dealing with the wife's memory loss after a car accident. The movie is based on true events and you even get to read about the actual couple in the end credits.

The film's marketing points out that Channing Tatum was in Dear John and Rachel McAdams was in the Notebook. Both movies the actors were in previously were based on Nicholas Sparks novels, though the Vow is not based on a Sparks book. Nicholas Sparks based flicks are the most consistently tear-jerking of movies, I made sure that I had tissues in my purse. I did not cry as much as I had predicted I would but I certainly did shed some tears. The story unfolds less predictably than the trailer led me to believe and there were more complicated details involved in the characters' lives.

All in all, not a movie I need to own but it was entertaining and enjoyable. I would watch it again when it makes its way to DVD.