Beauty Shop (2005) | Google Drive


You thought you’d heard it all in the barbershop, but you haven’t heard anything yet – the women get their own chance to shampoo, shine, and speak their minds in Beauty Shop.
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Gina works at a salon but her dream is to own a beauty shop. She quits her job and sets up her own business. It soon becomes the best place to get great haircuts and have heart-to-heart conversations.

Director: Bille Woodruff
Actors: Alfre Woodard, Alicia Silverstone, Andie MacDowell, Golden Brooks, LisaRaye McCoy, Mena Suvari, Queen Latifah
Country: USA

This was Booty Shop more than Beauty Shop, and a spin off with a strong cast and a lot of potential was buried in silliness. The Barbarshop films were successful because they were feel good, fun and had a sense of victory for the hardworking father.

This time, we have the exact same sentiments in reverse - mother instead of father, all women stylists except the one guy, all black except the one white girl - except instead of having a white guy who is trying to be a boy from the hood from the outset, we have a girl who forgoes her personality in favour of becoming a black wannabe. So the message from that perspective is that in order to fit in and be accepted one must conform to be just like everyone else. Good for a few laughs, but loses something in the translation.

The standouts here are Kevin Bacon who is outstanding and hilarious as Jorge the not- quite-Austrian salon owner, and Djimon Hounsou, who is charming and catches you with the kindest face in film.

The rest of the cast are average, each actor and actress playing themselves and bringing nothing special to the table.

On the whole, this film is just a shadow of the Barbershop films, basically trying to emulate them frame by frame, except for one important aspect: this film has no plot. No story. it's just a bunch of scenes strung together by the overall premise of a beauty shop owner trying to make it in this crazy world. No story and no Cedric the entertainer and a ton of excessively vulgar booty humour equals a poor (wo)man's Barbershop. I'd save your tenner and wait for the DVD - or better yet, rent the Barbershop films. They're the better bet, as the originals usually are when compared with the clones. 5/10.






 

A Haunted House 2 | Google Drive




A Haunted House 2 is a 2014 American found footage horror comedy film directed by Michael Tiddes and starring Marlon Wayans. The film is the sequel to the 2013 film A Haunted House. Produced by IM Global Octane and distributed by Open Road Films, the film was released on March 28, 2014.[3] Like its predecessor, the film received negative reviews from critics, and earned over $25 million at the box office.

Malcolm Johnson and his cousin Ray-Ray are driving Malcolm's possessed girlfriend Kisha to the hospital after he beat her senseless for trying to attack him. Kisha starts making a fuss and fights Malcolm, then breathes into Ray's face. He passes out at the wheel and collides with a truck. Somehow, everybody is okay, but Malcolm and Ray leave an unconscious Kisha in the backseat and run away. A year later, Malcolm moves in with his girlfriend Megan, an insecure woman with two kids, her bratty and promiscuous teenage daughter Becky and effeminate son Wyatt, who has a stereotypically black imaginary friend named Tony. The family moves into a new home with their dog, Shiloh Jr. After the movers hang a safe next to the lawn, an invisible force unties the rope tied to a support beam, causing the safe to fall on the dog and crush him. Malcolm dramatically cries all the way to when they bury the dog. Megan then puts a creepy looking doll named Abigail on a chair by their bed. Malcolm messes around with it until he starts having sex with it. Malcolm carries his camera around to record everything he sees. He meets the neighbor, Miguel, who jumps at every chance he gets to call Malcolm racist whenever he comments on something related to a Mexican stereotype, though all of it is in jest. Weird things start happening again. Malcolm records himself having sex with Megan and notices the Abigail doll turning its head. He also finds old videotapes with a demonic being in it trying to kill a family of three by hanging them from a tree. He fails when the rope breaks and he never actually gets to hang them.

Additionally, Becky finds an old box and develops an attachment to it, and Wyatt continues to hang out with his imaginary friend. Malcolm seeks help from a paranormal psychologist named Professor Wilde. He deduces that Malcolm must have had a previous encounter with a demonic force. Malcolm thinks it has to do with Kisha. Wilde then proceeds to cook meth with some prostitutes, but then gets arrested by the police. Malcolm finds himself being terrorized and taunted by Abigail, as he is getting sent crude photos from her to his phone. She also ends up burning his clothes. Later, Malcolm sees a box moving in the dark and begins to attack it in every possible way he can. Megan and the kids run downstairs and tell Malcolm that what was in the box was supposed to be a surprise for him to make up for Shiloh Jr. Malcolm reaches into the box and pulls out a horribly mangled dog. He then takes a shotgun and blows its head off to put it out of its misery.