Prune juice.  Celery.  A candle.  And an old, angry woman with a vengeance.  After that, a massive explosion.  That’s what I remembered from a film I saw a long, long time ago.

Oh, and a boy named Diane. 

And a hit-man with a spear-shaped violin case.

Before the Scary Movie(s) and Epic Movie(s) and many other “movie” spoof, there was Airplane!, Hot Shots!, and apparently, Jane’ Austen’s Mafia!

(I would like to take a moment to state that Jim Abrahams is obsessed with exclamation points…!)

I had watched all/part of this movie on cable television in a small village in the Philippines when I was much younger, but I could not remember the movie’s name.  All  I had were scenes…scenes so funny that they had been permanently imprinted into my brain.

Years went by, the Internet was invented and rolled out to the masses, and in a fit of boredom, I entered “mafia, mafia spoof, mafia comedy” into Google.  There it was – Jane Austen’s Mafia!  Jane Austen has been a busy lady after her death…books, movies, etc.

Neflix graciously allowed me to watch this movie again after 10 long years, and it’s still as good as it was in that small village in the Philippines.  Where else can you watch gamblers in casinos playing Go Fish, Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, and “Last Red Cent” slot machines?  Spagetti en mass?  “Run, florist, run!”?  And most importantly – old, angry women with a vengeance?

If you’re looking for some hilarious takes on some famous movies of the 90s, then go see Mafia!  What have you got to lose?

I must confess that I am an avid X-Men fan, and by avid, I mean:

• I watched the cartoon as a kid,
• saw some knock-off TV series in Europe (so fringe, in fact, that the scenes I remember involved a stretchy mutant and a dancing manatee in a dream sequence),
• read some of the comic books
• and brushed up on my knowledge of the Marvel Universe through Wikipedia. 

I also saw the three movies preceding this one. 

Alright, so maybe I cannot be classified as “avid”, but I am definitely an X-Men enthusiast. I  love the characters (both good and bad) for their complexity, and I love reading how they deal with the situations they find themselves in.  Plus, superpowers are just cool.  More on that some other time; this post is about the latest movie…

So far, it has a 38% rating at Rottentomatoes from the critics, and a 64% from the RT Community.  In this case, I side with the community.  The movie itself is fun, and I think it is worth seeing.  If you are an avid fan of the comic books and hate any deviation from the series, then maybe stay at home on this one.

What I Liked:

• Hugh Jackman is superb as Wolverine.  So much fun to watch!  He really brings the human side of his character home.  After seeing his character in this movie, I must confess I felt renewed compassion for him.  Generally, I think of him as a jerk with cool claws and witty-ish one-liners.  Turns out he used to have a heart.
• Watching Liev Schreiber as Sabretooth was priceless.  I wish they could cut out the Sabretooth from movie 1 and put him in it.  Watching him run like a tiger made me so giddy, I would have squealed like a school girl and clapped my hands if it wouldn’t have mortified the entire theatre.
• The character’s humanity.  So far, each of the X-men movies have been over-the-top in action (if I am remembering correctly) to the point of being called “ridiculous”.  To that, I say, “It’s a superhero movie!  What do you expect?  Reality?!”  Well, this movie comes just a smidge closer to reality, even with the superpowers.  While it’s not an epic drama by any means, it was interesting to see each character’s emotional make-up and reaction to different situations.  They were engaging enough to pity or hate on a human level.
• Wolverine has not yet succumbed to his traditional yellow spandex.  Thank you, God!

What I Didn’t Like:

• Not very much.  Maybe I’m too easy to please, or maybe I’ve seen too many Sci-Fi Channel movies that the few cinematic/special effects blunders in this movie pale in comparison to those of Ice Spiders and the not-Sci-Fi-Channel but still horrible and should-be-banished-to-a-special-place-in-hell Recon: 2022 (I’m not even going to link to it).
• Okay, one thing I would have liked to have seen more of was the back story of Wolverine and Sabretooth’s father and mother.  The opening sequence was too brief, but that’s alright.
• My husband would have liked to have seen more of Gambit (I agree), but you’ll hear more about that sometime on our corporate blog.

Overall, I think 38% is a pitiful, unjustified rating; 55%-60% is more like it.