GREEN ZONE: 3 STARS

“Green Zone” starts with a bang. Or more rightly stated, a series of bangs. Set in Bagdad on the first night of the shock and awe campaign, the opening minutes are a harrowing portrait of what it must be like to be under massive fire. It’s a frenetic beginning, shot in a wild cinema verite style, which will leave many in the audience wishing someone would buy director Paul Greengrass a tripod. 

Matt Damon, reuniting with Greengrass after two Jason Bourne thrillers, is Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller. He’s a good soldier who allows creeping doubt about the existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction to force him to go rouge. Breaking ranks from the Pentagon he aligns himself with a CIA Middle East expert (Brendan Gleeson) to try and ferret out the complicated truth. At odds with Miller is Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear), a freshly scrubbed Penatgon appointee who won’t let the soldier’s misgivings get in the way of his mission to bring democracy to Iraq. 

Nobody shoots action like Greengrass. He breathed new life into the spy genre with the Bourne films, using handheld camera to put the viewer in the action. Shooting where most action directors fear to tread—in tight, claustrophobic spaces for example—he brings a breathless documentary feel to his films that has redefined how we watch action on screen. That’s mostly a good thing, but for all the excitement that his whiplash camera style creates it occasionally leaves me hungry for an image or two that doesn’t look as though the camera was attached to a yoyo. His gritty style works for the gritty material in “Green Zone” but despite the masterful editing I found Greengrass’s propulsive approach overshadowed the story.

The action scenes are tense, but when the action stops, (which, frankly, isn’t very often) even the dialogue scenes move with the velocity of a bullet shot from a gun. It’s pedal to metal all the way with little regard to the nuances of storytelling.

Inspired by—it takes too many liberties with the text to be called “based on”—Rajiv Chandrasekaran's book "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" it is a straightforward story that dumbs down the story of Bush era Iraq policies to the level of a cut rate James Bond flick. The added political intrigue elevates things a tad but the addition of several characters right out of central casting makes one long for the days before every CIA operative character had a weary smile and a jaded heart.

Damon is comfortable mixing the game faced soldier with an earnest side and acquits himself well, particularly when in the actions scenes. By this time he and Greengrass must have a shorthand on set that allows them to blend character and action, and here it works.

The same can’t be said for Brendan Gleeson as CIA veteran Martin Brown. Gleeson, a fine actor, doesn’t have any action scenes, and seems to be an afterthought to the director who places such hoary old clichés as, “Don’t be so naive,” in his mouth. Ditto Amy Ryan as a Wall Street Journal writer. It seems if the characters aren’t shooting a gun or in constant motion than Greengrass doesn’t know exactly what to do with them.

There is no question that “Green Zone” is an adrenalized action film. Unfortunately it oversteps its reach when it tries to go highbrow with the political intrigue.

REMEMBER ME: 3 STARS

“Remember Me” is teen heartthrob Robert Pattison’s first adult role. This, despite the fact that his best known character “Twilight’s” Edward Cullen, is well over 100 years old. Here he sinks his teeth into the part of a troubled twenty-one year old with daddy issues, a dead brother and a girlfriend he began dating on a dare.

When we first meet Tyler (Pattison), he’s slumming it in NYC in a crappy apartment with a wrench for a doorknob and a job restocking shelves at The Strand bookstore. “I’m undecided,” he says, “about everything.” His father his wealthy, but since the suicide of his brother Michael their relationship has soured. One night after a bar brawl he is beaten and arrested by Neil Craig (Chris Cooper). In a strange twist of fate Craig’s daughter is in one of Tyler’s classes. They begin to date, at first based on his need to get back at the cop who beat him up, but soon he develops real feelings for her. Their relationship is complicated by Tyler’s issues with his father, his issues with his rage and generally, his issues with everything. Then, just when everything seems to be on the upswing for the young couple, tragedy strikes.

Two “Twilights” worth of brooding lessons has been good training for Pattison, who has brooding down to a science in “Remember Me.” As the tortured Tyler he’s equal parts James Dean, alternative school attitude and thunder, but he does show more range here than he has in the “Twilight” movies. He is thoroughly credible for two thirds of the film, up until the film’s closing moments when his angry young man schtick starts to get a little old. Until then, however, he displays enough chops to suggest he may have a career once he throws off the shackles of Edward Cullen and is allowed to grow as an actor.

His best work comes in the scenes opposite his younger sister Caroline (“Nurse Jackie’s” Ruby Jerins). Jerins is a good natural performer—there’s not an ounce of pretense in her—and their on screen time is filled with warmth and (occasionally) some badly needed levity.

“Remember Me” is a serious movie that begins with a murder and ends with a startling conclusion. In between there is the above mentioned brooding and some dramatic family dynamics at play, but it feels like there is a bit too much story for any one plot thread to be given the film’s full attention. As a result it wanders more than it needs to. A little red pencil action on this script could have easily simplified the story for the better.

Not that any of that will matter. There are a couple of love scenes and a romantic story to keep the Robsessed Twihards interested and if only if only one tenth of his fan base shells out to see it, “Remember Me” will still be a hit.

SHE’S OUT OF MY LEAGUE: 2 STARS PLUS ½ STAR BECAUSE HE’S SO NICE AND ½ STAR BECAUSE HE’S SO FUNNY
TOTAL: 3 STARS

“She’s Out of My League,” the new romantic comedy starring Jay Baruchel as a 5 dating a 10, exists in a fictional movie universe where men lose the ability to speak in the presence of a beautiful woman and airport security guards are friendly and helpful.

Baruchel, a Canadian actor best known for his roles in “Tropic Thunder” and “Knocked Up,” plays Kirk, a moodle—that’s a man poodle—who lets women walk all over him. Single for two years, he still pines for his ex-girlfriend even though she has long since moved on. When Molly (Alice Eve), a pretty blonde party planner, leaves her i-phone at his security check point she is thoroughly charmed when he goes out of his way to return it and despite their differences they begin seeing one another. He’s not the kind of guy she usually ends up with, but she responds to his sense of humor and honesty, until his insecurities drive a wedge between them.

The structure of “She’s Out of My League” is pure rom com formula. Unlikely couple meets, falls in love, has conflict, cut to happily ever after. It’s Lyle Lovett and Julia Roberts or King Kong and Naomi Watts, only without the happily ever after part. The rom com recipe only really cooks, however, when the cast is interesting and luckily “She’s Out of My League” has charm to burn.

Alice Eve is genetically blessed enough to play the traditional blonde knock out Molly, but brings more to the role than curves and flowing hair. She takes a character that could have been smug and makes her likeable; bringing a sweetness that keeps the audience on side even when her relationship with Kirk gets rocky. If Amy Adams, normally a very likeable actress, had half the charm Eve oozes here then maybe her rom com, “Leap Year” from earlier this winter, wouldn’t have been such a disaster.

Most of the heavy lifting, however, is left to unlikely leading man Baruchel. Baruchel, an Ottawa native, has been lurking around the edges of Hollywood success for the last few years. Memorable roles in big films like “Million Dollar Baby” and some frat pack comedies and lead roles in some cool Canadian films (like the upcoming “The Trotsky”) have prepped him for his first lead in a studio picture. His low key charm and deadpan wit carry every scene he’s in—and he’s in almost every frame if the film. He’s believable as slacker Kirk, sweet Kirk and boyfriend Kirk.

Not that “She’s Out of My League” is all sweetness and light though. There are some crude jokes from the Apatow school of bathroom humor, some silly “guy” talk about relationships and a climax that goes on a bit too long, but any movie that uses Branson, Missouri as a metaphor for mediocrity and twists the rom com formula in such sweet ways is worth a look.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND: 3 STARS

I wonder if Tim Burton has a monkey butler at home. I ask this because I think anyone who can come up with the kind of flights of fancy he puts on screen probably has a monkey butler and other strange and wonderful things kicking around the house to feed his imagination. His latest film, a retelling of “Alice in Wonderland,” benefits from his rich visual style.

Using the original Lewis Carroll stories as a stepping stone, in this reimagined version of the classic tale Alice Kingsley (Mia Wasikowska) is 19 years old. She’s a dreamer in a world of pragmatists who, on the advice of her late father, tries to imagine six impossible things before breakfast each day. This sets her at odds with almost everyone, including her family who think marrying her off to the churlish and haughty Lord Hamish will settle her down. At their engagement party she flees his very public proposal, disappearing into the garden and falling down a rabbit hole into Underland. It’s her second trip to the place she calls Wonderland. Ten years previous she been there but has no memory of it. On this visit she meets an odd assortment of characters including the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry), the White Rabbit (Michael Sheen), Absolem, the Caterpillar (Alan Rickman) and the strangest one of all, the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp). They convince her she needs to help them overthrow the evil Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) by slaying the terrifying Jabberwock (Christopher Lee).  

Burton has always made films about outsiders—think Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood Jr. and Willy Wonka—and in Alice he has found another one to focus his camera on. As a headstrong young woman who doesn’t quite fit the mold of Victorian England she a perfect character for Burton. Like his most famous characters she lives in a world of dreams but unlike his best realized characters she isn’t nearly as interesting. As a result, despite the beautiful visuals and the eye popping 3-D, “Alice in Wonderland” is a bit of a flat line.

Sadly much of the problem lies with Wasikowska. She is delicately beautiful in a way that would very likely leave Lewis Carroll weak in the knees and after her stint on the television show “In Treatment,” we know she can act, but she rarely looks really engaged with the character. Perhaps it is that she spent the entire time acting against a green screen and didn’t get to actually interact with her co-stars very often, but she’s a little too low key to be at the center of a large, fanciful film.

It’s not a complete wash, however. Burton overloads the screen with eccentric and interesting visuals and has succeeded in creating a dream-like version of “Alice in Wonderland.” Unfortunately, like most dreams, when it’s over it’s quickly forgotten.

THE GHOST WRITER: 4 STARS

Given director Roman Polanski’s recent legal troubles it’s hard not to infer some deeper meaning into the plight of “The Ghost Writer’s” ex-Prime Minister (Pierce Brosnan) accused of war crimes. In a moment of art imitating life Adam Lang’s lawyer says, “I strongly advise you not to travel to any country with extradition policies.” If Polanski had listened to that advice he might not have had to finish editing this movie from a jail in Switzerland.

Within Lang there are echoes of Tony Blair. He’s a popular, if controversial ex-Prime Minister—“He wasn’t a politician,” says the ghost writer, “he was a craze.”—with a ten million dollar book deal and a dead co-writer. The late journalist was found washed up on shore near Lang’s remote Cape Cod beach house under very mysterious circumstances. Pitch hitting for the late writer is Ewan McGregor’s character—he doesn’t have a name in the film—a professional ghost writer whose biggest hit was a biography of a magician called “He Came, He Sawed, He Conquered.”  His job is to turn “incoherent rambling into a book.” Soon, however, his job is complicated when Lang is accused of war crimes by a former colleague. Untangling facts that may (or may not) place his own life in danger he turns from writer-for-hire to investigative journalist.

There is so much to like in “The Ghost Writer” that the few lapses in credulity are easy to forgive. I mean, are we really to believe that a massive conspiracy could be figured out using google? What’s next? Sherlock Holmes using Ask Jeeves? Apart from that bit of silliness Polanski has crafted a film that can comfortably sit beside “Three Days of the Condor” and “The Parallax View” for political intrigue.

The pacing is deliberate, not slow, but deliberate. Clues are doled out carefully, keeping red herrings to a minimum and allowing suspense to build with each new nugget of information. Tension and paranoia build with every scene. This is the man who made “Repulsion” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” so he knows how to make the mundane sinister. Ringing phones and loud raps on doors create an ominous atmosphere where danger is around every corner.

Add to that some interesting work to show the futility of the writer’s job. Watch in the background, the director places a gardener endlessly sweeping up dead leaves from the compound’s many patios, only to have them blow out of his wheel barrel every time he makes any progress. It’s a clever metaphor for the writer’s Sisyphean search for the truth. As he gets in over his head, trying to unravel years of twisted political strategy, I wanted to paraphrase Polanski’s most famous movie, “Chinatown.” “Forget it, writer. It’s politics.”        

McGregor, who has played a writer twice before in “Moulin Rouge,” later in “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” is convincing but really shines when he is working opposite Pierce Brosnan. I’m willing to overlook Brosnan’s recent turn as a half man / half horse in “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” when he can be this good. He looks like a politician, like he was made for photo ops in front of private jets, waving to his constituents, but it is in the cat-and-mouse dialogue between Lang and the writer that he does his best work.

“The Ghost Writer” is Polanski’s first film in five years, and for those willing to judge the art, not the artist, it is as satisfying a thriller as we’ll see this year.

BROOKLYN’S FINEST: 2 STARS

As soon as I saw the name of director Antoine Fuqua in the opening credits I sensed that “Brooklyn’s Finest” probably wasn’t going to celebrate the up side of policing in the NY borough. The “Training Day” director is a specialist when it comes to portraying dirty cops on screen, and here he showcases the “finest” policemen in Brooklyn’s 65th precinct, that is, if by “finest” you mean alcoholic, angsty, murderous and suicidal.

Mixing three stories Fuqua introduces Sal (Ethan Hawke), Eddie (Richard Gere) and Tango (Don Cheadle), three cops at different stages of their careers. The only thing that connects them is a station house in the 65th Precinct and severe dysfunction. Sal is a narco cop, tormented by the things he must do to support his growing family. Eddie is a burn out who clearly hasn’t taken his own advice of “not taking the job home” after work and Tango is an undercover cop who is close to being consumed by the job. The three struggle both personally and professionally until a fateful night when they end up in the same apartment block.

The bad cop drama became popular in the seventies and with only a few tweaks story wise has persevered to this day. Fuqua focuses on three characters straight out of Central Casting—the cop with nothing to live for, who is just days away from retirement, the policeman who turns bad to make extra money to help his family and the undercover officer who gets too close to the criminals he is supposed to arrest.

Clichés one and all, but the bad cop genre is one big gun toting cliché, and like romantic comedies, another formula based species, the trick is to make the characters as interesting as possible to disguise the banalities of their story arcs. On this score “Brooklyn’s Finest” is two thirds successful.

First, the good. Don Cheadle takes a hackneyed character—the angry street cop—and gives him some fire; a cliché, yes, but an unpredictable one. Cheadle deserves better material than this but he makes the best of it.

Ditto Ethan Hawke who can do desperate on-screen as well as any actor working today.

The weakest of the three is Gere’s Eddie. Gere isn’t an exactly magnetic actor at the best of times but here he simply isn’t believable as a man who wakes up, has a shot of scotch with a gun barrel chaser. The early morning drinking and pseudo suicide attempts are meant to give us insight into the character but come off as tired images recycled from better movies.

“Brooklyn’s Finest” is not a return to form for Fuqua after the career high of “Training Day” nine years ago and the professional sink hole he’s been in ever since.

COP OUT: 2 ½ STARS

It is a generally accepted fact that the law of diminishing returns applies to movie sequels. The further away you get from the source the weaker the film. Now, of course “Cop Out,” the new buddy cop movie from Kevin Smith, isn’t a sequel. It only feels like one. One with the number 3 or 4 in the title. It is, more correctly stated, an homage to the buddy cop movies of the 1980s like “48 Hrs.” and “Lethal Weapon.” But it begs the question: When does a movie stop being an homage and start being simply a rehash?

Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan play Jimmy and Paul, veteran NYPD cops. They are the typical wildcard movie cops who cause as much carnage as they prevent. After a drug bust gone wrong they are both suspended for thirty days without pay. The without pay part is a tough pill to swallow for Jimmy, whose daughter is about to be married. To come up with $48,000 he needs to foot the bill for her ceremony he decides to sell his prized possession—a rare, mint condition baseball card. When it is stolen before he is able to sell it he and Paul begin their own investigation, which leads them to an obnoxious drugged out thief (Seann William Scott) and a violent drug lord named after a Louisiana sandwich, Poh Boy (Guillermo Díaz).

“Cop Out” is Kevin Smith's first studio film and marks the first time in fifteen years that indie overlords Harvey and Bob Weinstein haven’t been calling the shots. Not that it seems to have made much difference. Smith’s trademarked vulgar humor is firmly in place—although in smaller doses than usual and without the sweet edge that Judd Apatow brings to this type of comedy—so fans of bodily function jokes will not be disappointed. No, all the marks of classic Smith are here and the only real difference between “Cop Out” and Smith's low budget work is the addition of more crane shots, bigger stars and higher production value. The only thing missing is a cameo from Silent Bob… and the action and laughs you’d expect from this kind of comedy.

Smith, it must be said, isn’t an action director. His ham fisted way with the climatic shootout scenes (that’s not a spoiler, you HAD to know this would end up in a shootout) is clumsy and sucks the fun out of the film’s latter moments. Worse, it’s not nearly funny enough. Smith seems to find the characters much funnier than they actually are, allowing scene after scene to drag on past their breaking point.
There are some laughs, mostly courtesy of Morgan, who, although he is essentially playing his “30 Rock” character, brings an unhinged energy to every scene he’s in.

His unpredictability, however, is the only unpredictable thing about the movie. It rehashes (there’s that word again) every cliché from the buddy cop genre, including stereotyped bad guys who make Tony Montana look subdued.

According to answers.com the meaning of cop out is “a failure to fulfill a commitment or responsibility,” and I can’t help but think that the movie’s title squares with this definition. Kevin Smith may have been committed to the project, but he failed to fulfill the responsibility of making a good movie.   

THE CRAZIES: 2 ½ STARS

Welcome to Ogden Marsh, Iowa, population 1260, the friendliest place on earth. Friendliest place, that is, until a mysterious virus rips through town turning the quaint townsfolk into homicidal maniacs. A remake of George A. Romero’s 1973 movie of the same name, “The Crazies” is a classic tale of “us” versus “them”, with an extra “them” thrown in for good measure.  

The town is picture perfect, the kind of Norman Rockwell community where the first baseball game of the year is a big event that attracts everyone in town. The season opener, however, turns into a nightmare when Rory, a local farmer, wanders onto the field with a shotgun, a blank expression and bad intentions. Gunned down by town sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) Rory is just the first victim of the upcoming hillbilly holocaust caused by a government biochemical weapon in the town’s water supply. Soon, after several strange murders and a block on all landlines, internet and cell phones in town Dutton uses his Holmesian powers of deduction to determine that “something’s really wrong.” Think of it as “28 Days Later” without the English accents.

“The Crazies” is a dark little movie, and I don’t just mean subject wise. It’s dark as though it was shot through a long sooty chimney. The murky darkness is meant to build atmosphere, and by and large it works. Director Breck Eisner creates tension, using darkness and shadows, only occasionally showing the gory stuff and even when the screen does go red, the chills are low-fi. Probably just as well, I don’t think we need close-ups of Ben, the former high school principal, now a thoroughly koo-koo bananas crazy killer repeatedly stabbing people with a pitchfork. Blood drips and there are lotsa squibs but this is more about tension and Romero’s original intention—setting up a comparison between the mania created by the virus and the martial law actions of the government when they try to contain the outbreak. It’s Dutton versus the crazies and the government versus everybody and that dynamic is the most interesting part of the movie.          

The horror doesn’t hold up particularly well. This is one of those “everyone we know is dead” movies. A story where the hero husband says to his wife, “You wait here and don’t go anywhere,” while proceeding to leave her vulnerable and open to attack. She, of course responds, “Stop pretending everything is going to be OK!” It’s the clichéd dialogue of every couples-in-peril movie and could use a facelift.

“The Crazies” isn’t as off-the-wall crazy as the title would suggest. It gets the tone right—the atmosphere and tension are well done—but could have used a script that expanded on the government’s role in the epidemic and went a little lighter on some of the clichés and added some depth to the theme of the collapse of social order.

THE MESSENGER: 4 STARS

Taking its lead from “The Hurt Locker,” another Iraq war film that isn’t about the war as much as it is about the effect of war on the individual, “The Messenger” focuses on two very different soldiers doing one very difficult job.

With only three months left on his tour of duty Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) is stateside after being wounded in Iraq. A bum leg and an eye injury sustained in combat will keep him on US soil, but his new assignment takes as much guts as staring down the enemy in battle. Paired with Capt. Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson) he becomes half of a causality notification team, the messengers who deliver the bad news to the families of fallen soldiers.

“The Messenger” is first and foremost a human drama about how people deal with anguish and a war movie second. In fact there are no battle scenes but the emotional violence is just as jarring as the explosions in “The Hurt Locker” or the wild gunplay of “The Kingdom.” This is the least violent war movie ever. It’s a study of various kinds of grief from rage to acceptance to denial. More interestingly it examines the toll delivering the bad news takes on Montgomery and Stone. “There’s no such thing as a satisfied customer” in their business says Stone.

Stone, with his ever present toothpick, is pure military, obsessed with protocol—in his world next of kin are referred to as NOK and he has a strict set of rules he will not deviate from. Harrelson gives him an unpredictable edge, filling him with the tics of an unstated and probably troubled history.

It’s a commanding performance that suggests that Woody Harrelson is one of the best and most underrated actors working today. I don't know what happened on his six year hiatus from the screen but he emerged on the other end of it a better actor. He can be charming, funny, dramatic, but most of all, believable whether he’s playing a disturbed man who thinks he’s a superhero (“Defendor”) or the leader of the “Angels of Death Squadron” in a serious drama.

Playing opposite him is Ben Foster, an actor who up until now I have always associated with by-the-numbers psycho roles in “Alpha Dog,” “3:10 to Yuma” and “30 Days of Darkness.” I wrote him off as a slightly more kinetic Bruce Dern type, all bulging eyes and volatile energy, but his performance here is a revelation that should help him escape the typecasting hell he been trapped in. Foster brings a tortured vibe of someone who has just come back from a hellish situation but his character deepens when he begins to look beyond the NOKs as simply being part of the protocol of his job and recognizes them as people.

Harrelson and Foster have many great moments together but a wonderfully low key scene in a kitchen between Foster and Samantha Morton, a war widow he falls for, could be taught in film schools. In one long uninterrupted shot it’s a marvel of understated acting that carefully uses words and, more importantly, silences to portray their delicate, complicated relationship.

Outside of the three leads “The Messenger” is filled to bursting with good performances—look for a powerful cameo by Steve Buscemi and good work from Jena Malone—and only occasionally dips into melodrama. A monologue about the smell of “rage and fear” should perhaps have been rethought, but more often than not it is pitch perfect.

SHUTTER ISLAND: 3 ½ STARS

The last time Martin Scorsese went to Boston he had the biggest mainstream hit of his career and won an Oscar as Best Director. “The Departed’s” change of scenery seemed to do him good so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that his latest film is also set in the New England city, this time however, he isn’t telling a tale of gangsters, but a story of the criminally insane—“the bugsies” they call them—on an piece of land in Boston harbor called Shutter Island.

Returning for his fourth outing with Scorsese Leonardo DiCaprio headlines the all star cast, playing Teddy Daniels, a US Marshall assigned to investigate the disappearance of a patient on the isolated Shutter Island asylum. Working with Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), his new partner, he must keep a close grip on his own sanity. Is he insane or is he being driven insane?

I’ve kept the synopsis deliberately vague because there is so much going on in “Shutter Island,” it is such a house of cards that revealing one detail too many could bring the whole thing down and spoil the experience of seeing it through fresh eyes. This will be a no spoiler zone, but that means being light on the details.

“Shutter Island” (adapted from a Dennis Lehane novel) is likely the most enigmatic movie Scorsese has ever made. It’s a bold, risk-taking film, ripe with dramatic music, sweeping photography and unapologetically strange storytelling. It’s a story of paranoia, a deeply psychological thriller that pays homage to Hitchcock films like “Vertigo” and “North By Northwest.” Throw in a dollop of “The Snake Pit” and some Mario Bava you get an idea of the tone of the film.

He uses flashbacks, odd and deliberate lapses in continuity, weird camera tricks—he runs the film backwards in one scene so it looks like smoke is flowing into, rather than out of DiCaprio’s cigarette—to create an atmosphere of creeping dread, one in which the viewer, and perhaps even the characters don’t know what is real and what is not. Where many of his earlier films like “Raging Bull” and “Goodfellas” are about a state of existence, “Shutter Island” is all about a state of mind.

Anchoring the film is a fantastic performance from DiCaprio who by times seems to be channeling Jimmy Stewart. Not the “Philadelphia Story” Stewart but the edgy, post war Stewart of “Rope” and “Vertigo.” His performance seems artificial, as though he has spent too much time watching film noirs, but watch for the subtleties, the way he suggests his character’s hidden depths with interesting line readings and reactions. It’s a brave performance and one that doesn’t reveal itself entirely until the film’s final moments, but it’s one that will hold up to multiple viewings.

The movie, for all its boldness, however, may not. It is perhaps a bit too enigmatic for its own good, its twist ending is unconvincing and a bit of a letdown, (for once I was wishing for a little M. Night Shyamalan influence), but even Scorsese’s missteps have more interesting filmmaking than most other films at the multiplex. 
         
“Shutter Island” is a difficult movie that demands more than most audiences are probably willing to give these days. It’s an art film disguised as a police drama and will probably leave the crowds who loved “The Departed” scratching their heads.
 
DEFENDOR: 4 STARS

In “Defendor” Woody Harrelson plays a man whose rich inner life spills out into his real life. By day he is dead-end-job-Arthur but by night he is Defendor, a masked superhero do-gooder. His task? To clean up the streets of Hamilton, Ontario. It sounds like the kind of thing we’ve seen before but Canadian actor turned director Peter Stebbings puts a unique spin on Arthur’s story.

Speaking in comic book clichés—“Look out termites,” he says, “it’s squishin’ time!”—and with a duct tape “D” on his chest Defendor and his homemade arsenal of weapons patrols the streets looking for crime to prevent. He’s a bit delusional, but his heart is in the right place.

“Who writes your dialogue?” asks a bad guy, “Spiderman?”

“No, I do it myself,” he answers innocently, before opening a can of whoop-ass on the guy.

His goal is to infiltrate the lair of Captain Industry, the crime king-pin Defendor believes to be responsible for all of Hamilton’s civic woes. On his journey he befriends a drug addict with a heart of gold and battles a corrupt cop (Elias Koteas).

Gritty and very funny, this is a hard one to categorize. It’s not exactly a comedy, nor is it a crime drama. It’s somewhere in between. I’m not sure if that indefinable quality will make this a harder sell at the box office or not—people like to pigeonhole their movies—but for those willing to be go along for the ride the movie is an enjoyably genre busting good time.

On paper Woody Harrelson’s role looks unpromising. He’s the disillusioned man with mental health issues who sinks into a fantasy world to help him deal with the pain of a troubled past. We’ve seen this before, but Harrelson’s mix of sincerity and pathos in his reading of the character breathes life into a role that could easily have fallen into cliché. He’s aided by a script—written by the film’s director Peter Stebbings—that gives him room to firmly establish the character, both as a superhero who believes guns are for cowards and as a real person who is tormented by his mother’s descent into a world of prostitution and drug abuse. It’s a solid performance that provides an anchor for the entire movie.

Also very strong is Kat Dennings, best know for her turn as a 13-year-old girl who hires Samantha to handle publicity for her bat mitzvah on an episode of “Sex and the City” and “The House Bunny.” Here she is the drug addicted hooker who doesn’t exactly have the proverbial heart-of-gold, but does discover the goodness in herself.

Like its main character “Defendor” is a bit delusional—it’s a low budget superhero flick going up against the Spidermans and Iron Men of the world—but like its main character I like its spunk.

THE WOLFMAN: 3 STARS

Like its star Benicio Del Toro, “The Wolfman” is a little wonky but strangely appealing. The film, which has more to do with the atmospherics of Hammer horror than, say, the theatrics of the lame “Underworld” series, is a perplexing beast that mixes some fairly good shocks with a lifeless lead performance.

Del Toro is Lawrence Talbot, a Victorian-era actor who returns to his ancestral home outside London after his brother is attacked and killed by... something.  Awaiting him at the dusty old country house is his estranged (and just plain strange) father Sir John (Anthony Hopkins) and his brother’s fiancée, Gwen Conliffe (Emily Blunt). Determined to find out who or what mauled his brother, he launches an investigation that leads to a gypsy encampment on a full moon. Guess what? He gets bitten by a werewolf and every full moon transforms into the thing he hates most.

Director Joe Johnston, (the helmer behind “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” and “Hidalgo”) proves he has a knack for old school horror atmosphere—the film is all cobwebs, shadows and candlelight—and action scenes but absolutely none for dealing with the heart and soul of the film—the characters. The Talbots and Gwen dominate the movie but are more sketches of horror movie characters than fully drawn individuals. Hopkins (who gets the movie’s best intentional laughs playing the Worst. Father. Ever.) and Blunt squeak by on acting chops alone, but Del Toro, who is in nearly every scene, isn’t so lucky.

Perhaps he was poorly cast or perhaps he isn’t really trying, it’s hard to tell. He doesn’t have a natural flair for the courtly dialogue that seems to roll off the British tongues so easily, but then again, the dialogue doesn’t exactly sparkle. When your most memorable line is, “I will kill all of you,” (repeated twice for emphasis) you know more time was spent on the set decoration (which is great) and the transformation scenes than the words.    

Despite lots of dramatic moments—long stares, meaningful glances—there is little actual drama. The story is pure B-movie horror and exists solely as a vessel to keep things afloat until we get to the action scenes and the Holy Grail of every wolfman movie, the all important man to beast transformation.

On that score the movie entertains. Blood squirts, a disembodied hand shoots a gun and more blood squirts. It’s a gory little flick that takes off after a slow start with some decent jolts (once it gets over using loud sounds to create tension) and two great transformation scenes courtesy of special effects wiz Rick Baker.

“The Wolfman” isn’t going to do for werewolves what “Twilight” and “True Blood” have done for vampires—werewolves are too hairy to be sexy—but despite its flaws is a howlingly fun Saturday afternoon matinee movie.

PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTENING THIEF: 3 STARS

With the Harry Potter franchise winding to a close along comes the new kid on the block, Percy Jackson. Despite the protests of director Chris Columbus (who helmed the first two Potter movies and produced the third)—“It's nothing like Harry Potter,” he said, “Harry Potter is about wizardry and this is Greek mythology.”— Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief plays like the boy wizard’s long lost cousin.

Percy (Zac Efron look-a-like Logan Lerman) is an awkward teenager with problems in school, an unhappy home life and a lout of a step father who smells like Limberger cheese. On a school trip he is attacked by a winged daughter of the night who accuses him of stealing Zeus’s lightening bolt, the most powerful weapon ever created. Thus begins his Poseidon adventure. He is swept away to a mysterious training camp by his mother Sally (Catherine Keener) and Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) his best friend / satyr protector. There he learns about his true heritage; that his mother had an affair with Poseidon (Kevin McKidd) and he is a demi-god—the son of a human and a god. He’s told the world is full of such half gods, some whose names cannot be divulged, he’s told are famous, “like White House famous.” To set things right and avoid a war of the gods which would likely destroy earth he must find the lightening bolt, return it to Zeus (Sean Bean) and rescue his mother from Hades (Steve Coogan), god of the underworld.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief is its own movie, but there are unmistakable comparisons to Harry Potter. Percy may or may not have stolen Zeus’s lightening but he certainly steals some of Harry’s thunder. The lead character is half human, half supernatural; he goes to Hogwarts… er, I mean, Camp Half Blood to fine tune his powers; he chums around with Hermione and Ron types called Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) and Grover and there’s even a mid-air Quidditch match… er, I mean battle scene. Yes it may be derivative, but its mish mash of Potter and Jason and the Argonauts is really fun and should appeal to tweens who will get caught up in the action / adventure.

The action is fun—there are battles with a Minotaur, a run-in with Medusa (Uma Thurman) and enough eight headed hydras to make Ray Harryhausen proud—but this is a much more straightforward movie than any of the Harry Potter films. The lore doesn’t run as deep, the dialogue is much more pedestrian and it is traditionally structured. But Chris Columbus hits all the rights notes for a kid’s movie, although it would have been interesting (and probably much cooler) to see what a director like Terry Gilliam could have done to stretch the fantasy elements of the story.   

Whether or not Percy Jackson & the Olympians turns into some kind of Potter juggernaut is anyone’s guess. If nothing else it’s an imaginative fantasy for tweens and a crash course in Greek mythology to prep kids for Clash of the Titans coming later this year. 

FROM PARIS WITH LOVE: 2 STARS

Last year French cinematographer-turned-director Pierre Morel brought us “Taken” a violent little Euro-centric thriller about a father who would do anything—and I mean anything—to retrieve his daughter from some very bad men. It was a down-and-dirty little flick, classed up somewhat by the presence of Liam Neeson in the lead role, and it became an unexpected lightening-in-a-bottle hit. Morel is back behind the camera with a new actioner called “From Paris With Love.” Unfortunately lightening has not struck twice.   

Like “Taken” the story is simple and leaves the action to be the real selling point. Jonathan Rhys Meyers is James Reece an aide to the US Ambassador in Paris who moonlights on the side for the FBI. He is given the biggest assignment of his secret agent career when he is partnered with Charlie Wax (John Travolta), the typical unorthodox but effective undercover movie spy. Together they go on a rampage across the streets and embassies of Paris to put a stop to a terrorist attack. Carnage ensues.

“Taken” worked not just because the action sequences were out of control, but because audiences had some empathy for Liam Neeson’s character as he was kicking butt across Europe. It was a personal mission; he was trying to get his daughter back. Here, however, Meyers and Travolta are a shadowy part of the war on terror and seem to enjoy the bloodshed a little too much. This time it’s not personal, it’s psychotic and even the inclusion of a couple of “Royale with Cheese” “Pulp Fiction” call backs won’t make us identify with these two.     

“From Paris with Love” has some cool action scenes—a killing spree in a stairwell is tense and exciting—but the paper thin story, cardboard characters and silly red herrings suck much of the fun from the movie.

John Travolta is bordering on Nicolas Cage territory here. He seems to be trying his hand at Cage’s extreme acting style, working some over-the-top theatrics into his performance, but overall he’s simply not that convincing as a devil-may-care secret agent. He can do menacing. We saw it in “Pulp Fiction”, “Blowout” and more recently in “The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3” but here he seems to be trying a too hard.

But at least he’s trying, which is more than can be said for Jonathan Rhys Meyers who hands in one of the more wooden performances seen on film so far this year. My advice to him: Beware of woodpeckers.
This is only Morel’s third film as a director and already he has established a set of trademarks, for better and for worse. On the plus side, he knows how to stage an action sequence and has clearly watched more than a few John Woo movies. He also has an eye for shooting in urban spaces, but compared to “Taken” with its beauty shots of Paris, “From Paris with Love” looks like it could have been made almost anywhere. With the exception of the odd Eiffel Tower shot, location wise it’s rather generic, which it shouldn’t be when you are shooting in one of the most beautiful and interesting cities in the world.   

On the minus side he’s already becoming somewhat predictable. In his movies the dinner scene always seems to end poorly for the hostess.

Despite a huge body count and a screen littered with empty shell casings “From Paris with Love” isn’t as exciting or as interesting as “Taken.”

FROZEN: 3 ½ VERY TENSE STARS

The most surprising thing about “Frozen” a new horror film from “Hatchet” director Adam Green, is that it isn’t a Canadian movie. With its vast vistas of snow, wolf attacks, two Canadian leading men and body parts getting stuck to cold steel poles, “Frozen” has Great White North written all over it.

Set on a remote ski hill in Massachusetts “Frozen’s” story is very simple. Three snowboarders—Parker (Emma Bell), her boyfriend Dan (Kevin Zegers), and his best friend Lynch (Shawn Ashmore)—get stranded on a ski lift fifty feet in the air after the hill has shut down. The resort, only open on the weekends, won’t reopen for another five days and unless they can find a way to safely get off the lift they will freeze to death.

This is situational horror. There are no monsters, just bad timing and bad decisions that force the unlucky trio to face their darkest fears—the dark, the cold, heights and the worst foe of all, Mother Nature. Director Green subtly ups the ante every minute of the film’s running time, believably building horror, both physical and psychological. Not that much happens and the action is at a minimum but “Frozen” is an extremely tense movie.

Green makes good use of the stark surroundings and sound design. I’m not sure what they used to create the squishy sound that dominates one grisly scene, but it proves conclusively that sometimes what you hear is scarier than what you see.

On the downside, the barebones story doesn’t demand the full feature length treatment. In the early moments of the film, once the lift stops suddenly, it feels like the movie will movie along quickly. Once the action starts—or, more accurately stops—the fear and tension build a little too rapidly. The three friends fall apart in seconds, panicking too soon. Green let that bit of pacing get away from him, but soon has the real horror start and gives them a reason to be on edge.

Still, at ninety minutes “Frozen” feels padded, particularly during the, occasionally interminable small talk the friends makes to take their minds off their predicament. Too often it feels like filler and worse, frequently sounds like acting school monologues. The prattling gets tiresome as the movie nears its final moments and a bit of trimming here and there could have brought this down to a lean and mean eighty minutes.        
Green has pulled good performances out of the actors, particularly from newcomer Emma Bell, who avoids the usual pitfalls of being the only female presence in a horror film.

“Frozen’s” tense story of survival will, at the very least, make you think twice about that trip to Whistler next year. Maybe Myrtle Beach would be a better choice…

SAINT JOHN OF LAS VEGAS: 3 STARS

“Saint John of Las Vegas” is the sort of movie that exists solely to give quirky actors like Steve Buscemi a chance to strut his stuff as the lead actor, rather than playing second fiddle to more traditionally handsome actors in studio pictures. It’s the story of a man whose life didn’t turn out the way he planned and Busicemi, with his cartoony hang dog expression was born to play him.

Buscemi is John, a compulsive gambler whose luck left before his habit did. Fleeing Las Vegas he drove until he ran out of gas, landing in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Leaving the high life behind he finds work as a desk-bound insurance claims adjuster. When he asks his boss (Peter Dinklage) for a raise he is instead told to accompany Virgil, a hardnosed fraud investigator (Romany Malco) back to Vegas. Leaving behind his new love (and the boss’s ex-girlfriend), Jill (Sarah Silverman), John and Virgil they set out, encountering a surreal collection of people, including wheelchair bound lap dancer, a skittish park ranger, a human fireball sideshow performer and a mysterious man named Lou Cypher.

“Saint John of Las Vegas” isn’t exactly laugh-out-loud but it will raise a smile or two. Buscemi takes a thinly drawn character—we never really know much about him other than he has strange dreams and was once a high roller in Vegas—gives him pathos and makes him likeable and watchable, but it would have been nice to know a bit more of his back story.  

Buscemi is at the center of virtually every scene of the film which is a good thing when he’s sharing the screen with Silverman or Dinklage—those scenes have some real spark to them—but not always great when he’s opposite Malco.

Romany Malco is a talented actor—his credits include “The 40 Year Old Virgin”, “Weeds” and the title role in “Too Legit: The MC Hammer Story”, and anyone who could survive that and go on to have a career must have something going for him—but here he seems to be trying to out quirk Buscemi, which is a fool’s game. In some scenes, as when he beats up a stuffed happy face pillow at a fair ground, he seems to be performing simply to be noticed. His strange posturing in these scenes doesn’t add anything to his character or the movie and he would have been better served paying attention to how Buscemi can own the screen without resorting to cheap attention getting tricks.

“Saint John of Las Vegas” is a slight movie, both in running time—it clocks in around 75 minutes—and in content. Buscemi, Silverman (as the “happy face” loving girlfriend) and Dinklage keep things interesting but this may be more of a rental than a night out.   

THE EDGE OF DARKNESS: 3 ½ STARS

“The Edge of Darkness” may well turn out to be the most interesting films of the year for celebrity watchers. The exciting question is not “Will people respond to the story about a father who tries to avenge his daughter’s death”, but “Will people respond to Mel Gibson in his first lead role since 2002’s “Signs”?” Gibson was once one of the biggest movie stars in the world, but an anti-Semitic rant here, a child out of wedlock there has tarnished his reputation. By the end of the weekend we’ll know, to paraphrase Joan Jett, if audiences give a hoot about his bad reputation.  

Based on a 1985 British miniseries of the same name “The Edge of Darkness” sees Gibson playing Thomas Craven, a Boston cop whose 24-year-old daughter, Emma (Bojana Novakovic), is murdered in his home. Consumed by guilt—he thought the bullet that killed her was meant for him—he becomes determined to track down her killer. The resulting investigation, however, becomes more complex when he uncovers her secret life as a nuclear energy activist.

“The Edge of Darkness” plays like a low key version of “Taken” with more realistic action and without the happy ending. It features a classic movie actor playing a classic movie type—the father with nothing left to lose and on that score Gibson pulls it off. No one does fatherly rage like Mel—see “Ransom” from 1996—and with his deeply lined face he looks weathered enough to be capable of almost anything. As he transforms from Melancholy Mel to Dangerous Dad he shows why he was one of the leading stars of his day. He’s charismatic, can play the tender scenes with his daughter and is believable as the badass—he tells one victim, just before pulling the trigger, “You know, deep down, that you deserve this.”—but the Mel Factor hangs over this movie like a storm cloud.

Will audiences be able to put aside some of his loopy, offensive behavior and sit back and enjoy the film? If they can judge the art and not the artist they’ll find much to like here, but if not “The Edge of Darkness” will wither and die because Gibson is in virtually every scene.

Beyond Mel it’s a bit of a mixed bag. Danny Huston is playing his now trademarked oily rich guy. As the head of a big, evil conglomerate he has some fun with corporate doublespeak—“What’s worse, me doing it, if anything has been done, or…”—but occasionally dips deep into the melodramatic well. Ray Winstone is suitably heavy as the government fixer—think Winston 'The Wolf' Wolfe from “Pulp Fiction”—who asks a doctor after an eye exam, “Do you see a soul in there?” Both are interesting in their way, but both are simply supporting Gibson’s strong central performance.

For every moment that borders on cheese or melodrama there is, however, another really effective sequence. For instance, hours after his daughter died in his arms Thomas Craven, covered in her blood, washes the gore off his face and hands. It’s a standard scene, except that director Martin “Casino Royale” Campbell focuses on the blood swirling down the drain, and Craven’s reaction as he sees his little girl’s lifeblood literally draining away for the second time in one night. It’s a good moment and adds some emotional heft to what could have been a simple revenge film.

“The Edge of Darkness” is a well made, solid thriller with unexpected twists that takes advantage of its star’s reputation for unpredictability. As a film it is successful. Whether audiences will make it successful is anybody’s guess.  
WHEN IN ROME: 2 STARS

The good part of “When in Rome,” the new Kristen Bell film, is that it doesn’t follow the usual unlikely boy-meets-unlikely-girl romantic comedy set-up. The bad part is that just because it doesn’t follow the usual rom com rules doesn’t mean it isn’t predictable.   

Bell is Beth, a work obsessed curator at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC. After her last boyfriend “ripped out her heart and fed it to the pigeons in Central Park” she lost faith in romance but when her sister impulsively decides to get married in Italy Beth reluctantly takes a couple of days off, where she ends up drunk in the “fountain of love” plucking coins from the water. Little does she realize that an old legend declares that when you take coins from the fountain, you take the heart of the person who tossed the coin in the fountain in the first place. Soon she is being unwillingly courted by four men—an artist, a street magician, a sausage salesman, a model and willingly courted by Nick (Josh Duhamel), an ex football star. The question is, “Is the love for real or just a magic spell?”

“When in Rome” is as frothy as it gets. It’s a romantic fantasy with no foot in reality. In fact, the only fantasy here is that anybody thought this was a strong enough idea to carry a whole movie. There are a few laughs sprinkled throughout and the audience I saw this with laughed intermittently, but the jokes—like an Italian priest mispronouncing “lawfully wedded wife” as “awfully wedded wife” not once, but twice!—are more amusing than actually funny.

The movie does earn some legit laughs—a tiny European car gag is silly fun—from the more comic savvy members of the cast like Will Arnett, Danny DeVito and Dax Shepard, (Jon “Napoleon Dynamite” Heder continues his string of more annoying than funny performances), but when the attention shifts away from them to the leads “When in Rome” flat lines.

Bell’s idea of physical comedy is to smile with spinach in her teeth and while she’s an agreeable screen presence she isn’t really suited for this kind of comedy. Ditto Don Johnson who plays her father. The years have been kind to Johnson, but he doesn’t have a natural gift for comedy. As for Anjelica Huston as Beth’s testy Guggenheim head curator... well let’s just say I choose to remember her glory days in films like “The Grifters” and “Prizzi’s Honor.”

Josh Duhamel fares slightly better. He’s the charming (but slightly goofy) single guy with the perfect bachelor pad—complete with a barber’s chair, a pinball machine and neon cocktail sign—who can deliver a joke well enough but appears to me to be a modern day Tab Hunter; more male model than an interesting actor.

“When In Rome” is further proof that romantic comedy needs a shot in the arm. A few weeks ago, on the release of “Leap Year,” I suggested that someone like Quentin Tarantino should come in and completely reboot the genre. Seeing “When in Rome” didn’t change my mind.

EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES: 1 STAR

Movies like “Extraordinary Measures” are what happens when other films like “Lorenzo’s Oil” and “Patch Adams” sneak away for a dirty weekend. Starring former hunks Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser, this red-haired step child of a movie, born, probably, out of passion, is, however, destined to be ignored in favor of other, more legitimate films in the Ford / Fraser family.

Based on a true story “Extraordinary Measures” centers on John (Fraser) and Aileen (Keri Russell) Crowley, parents of three young children, two of which have a deadly form of muscular dystrophy called Pompe. Desperate to prolong the lives of their afflicted kids they seek out the help of Dr. Robert Stonehill (Harrison Ford), a researcher with a viable theory about enzyme treatment for the rare genetic disorder. Together the ego-centric scientist and the earnest, yet determined father go into business, first building a private lab in Nebraska, then merging with big pharma, to create a cure for the disease.  

We have “The Mummy” and “Indiana Jones” to thank (or not) for “Extraordinary Measures.” Without the success of those two franchises there is no way Ford and Fraser could have gotten this cliché ridden clunker off the ground. It’s also further proof that the world has gone crazy. How strange a place is our culture when someone can raise 30 million dollars to make a movie like this, but the real life Crowleys had trouble raising even seed money to find a cure for their kid’s disease? Seems like skewed priorities.

At its best “Extraordinary Measures” comes off as an overwrought TV movie-of-the-week. At its worst (which is most of the time) it plays like a parody of a “Disease-of-the-Week” television movie.

Ford skates through much of the muck unscathed—although there could be a drinking game involving how many times he unnecessarily mentions going to the bathroom—but Fraser really gets conked on the head by the Cliché-O-Tron.

It’s bad enough he has to say lines like, “I want to find a miracle as much as you do,” and “perform” the standard slumping-to-the-floor-in-uncontrollable-sobs scene, but the height of ridiculousness comes when director Tom Vaughan stages a scene where Fraser tries to get Ford’s attention by shimmying up a wall to bang on a small window even though there is a HUGE glass door located a few feet away.

“Extraordinary Measures” is a movie that was likely made with the best of intentions, but clearly no extraordinary measures were made to make the script coherent or the performances big-screen worthy.    

CREATION: 2 ½ STARS

For clarity “Creation” should have been subtitled, The Origin of The Origin of Species. Paul Bettany plays Charles Darwin, the English naturalist who revolutionized science with his theory that all species of life descended from common ancestors. We meet him in the years leading up to the publication of his groundbreaking work on natural selection, a work condemned by the church, and, closer to home, by Emma, his religious wife (Jennifer Connolly), who feared his ideas would separate them forever in the afterlife.

Based on the book “Annie’s Box” by Darwin’s great, great grandson, Randal Keynes “Creation” wipes away the popular image of Darwin as an old, bewhiskered scientist, bringing him to somewhat vivid life—he was plagued by sickness for much of his adult life—telling the story of the troubled evolution of his theory of evolution.

“Creation” is handsomely photographed, beautifully acted by real-life husband and wife Bettany and Connolly, wonderfully appointed with 1850s period details and just a bit dull. The story should be quite fascinating—between the death of his beloved daughter, his inner demons, his sicknesses and his scientific trailblazing Darwin’s life is not short of drama—but director Jon Amiel has a hard time balancing Darwin’s personal and professional lives. They are, of course, almost inextricably intertwined, but Amiel let’s the film get away from him in the middle section, placing too much emphasis on Darwin's neuroses and not enough on the story.

Keeping things compelling, however, is Bettany who does impressive work, artfully and subtly portraying Darwin’s complicated inner life, drawing whatever emotion there is to be had out of this austere and slowly paced script.   

Connolly, on the other hand, is as cold as ice as Darwin’s fiercely pious wife Emma. The expected warmth between the real-life couple is largely absent as Connolly completely disappears into the role of the hardnosed wife who put her religious values before her husband’s scientific beliefs.     

Also worth noting is newcomer Martha West as daughter Annie, the common link who binds Charles and Emma together. Without fail her scenes bring the film warmth and familial energy.

“Creation” picks up in its final minutes, giving us a glimpse of the intelligent, exciting movie it could have been, but it’s too little to late.

TOOTH FAIRY: 1 STAR

The film career of Dwayne Johnson a.k.a. The Rock is a bit of a mystery. He is charismatic, well known, talented but what he isn’t is a movie star. From his humble beginnings as an action wannabe in “The Mummy Returns” and “The Rundown” to his stab at mainstream success in “Be Cool” and art house cred in “Southland Tales” to his most recent incarnation as a children’s entertainer he always seems to be on the cusp of a real, sustainable a-list movie career, but never seems to be able to get over the final fame hurdle. His movies haven’t been consistent quality wise or commercially—“Southland Tales” cost 17 million and only made 273K at the b.o.—and, I don’t think his latest, “Tooth Fairy”, is going to do much to improve that situation.

Johnson is Derek Thompson, a former big league hockey star now playing for the Lansing, Michigan Ice Wolves. He’s the team’s enforcer, a hip checking bad boy knick named The Tooth Fairy for his habit of leaving his opponents with a mouth full of bloody Chiclets. After telling his girlfriend’s daughter that the tooth fairy doesn’t really exist he receives a summons from the Department of Dissemination of Disbelief and is sentenced to two weeks as a real tooth fairy as punishment for crushing kid’s dreams. Adapting to the wings and newfound special powers he comes to realize the importance of dreams and aspirations.

Originally titled “Sweet Tooth,” the script for “Tooth Fairy” has been kicking around Hollywood since the early nineties and was long rumored to be a vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger. The premise was slightly different, but the jokes would have been about the same: squeeze a large man into a pink tutu and let the hilarity begin. Except that there isn’t much hilarity to be had.

Old pros Billy Crystal and Julie Andrews—who plays the Fairy Godmother as a cross between Mary Poppins and Judge Judy—work the material for all it is worth, but aside from the odd giggle and Fairy pun—Fairy Krishna’s anyone?—this is a one joke movie that gets most of its mileage out of the image of a tough guy wrestler wearing gossamer wings.

It is, in many respects a sillier version of Dwayne Johnson’s biggest hit, “The Game Plan,” a movie about a sports star who learns to access his softer side, but “Tooth Fairy” is too soft. Johnson has become too kid friendly. He’s now just a big teddy bear, with a range of expression that wouldn’t be out of place in an English pantomime. I know kids enjoy bigger than life characters like Johnson. He’s kind of a real life super hero, but I’m not sure the acting career he imagined for himself when he was working with directors like F. Gary Gray and Richard Kelly would involve prancing about in a pink tutu for the delight of small kids.

It’s a living, but it’s not am a-list career. Somebody has to learn how to harness Johnson’s natural charisma and talent and finally put him in a good movie!

THE LOVELY BONES: 3 STARS

If the latest film from “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson is to be believed the afterlife looks a lot like a Pink Floyd album cover from the late 1970s. In “The Lovely Bones,” a loose adaptation of the bestselling book by Alice Sebold, he goes heavy on the computer generated imagery to create a slick looking world, which despite the best efforts of the cast, is almost bereft of emotion.

In case you’re not a member of Oprah’s book club, who chose “The Lovely Bones” and propelled it up the best seller charts like a rocket, it is the story of Susie Salmon (“like the fish”) a 14 year old girl murdered in suburban Pennsylvania in 1973. Susie, however, didn’t go quietly into the long goodnight. From a place somewhere between Heaven and Earth she watches over her distraught family and tries to guide them through their time of despair.

Some of the now controversial CGI—early trade reviews called the film indulgent and “evocative of “The Sound of Music” or “The Wizard of Oz” one moment, “The Little Prince” or “Teletubbies” the next”—is quite beautiful and some of it is overkill. When Susie is making her arrival in “her heaven” it is a beautiful representation of a spirit floating away. Hugh shots of her never-to-be boyfriend Ray, reflected in a body of water that separates them and Ray again on a gazebo, surrounded by an undulating landscape, are a bit heavy handed. Jackson is the real deal, a skilled filmmaker and visualist, but he has to learn to trust the story and not let the technology do the talking.

Performance wise Jackson has cast well and gets good, solid work from his actors, particularly Rachel Weisz     as the grieving mother, Susan Sarandon as the boozy grandmother and Rose McIver as the spunky sister Lindsey but it is the two central roles that the whole movie hinges on.

As the murderous Mr. Harvey Stanley Tucci is creepy; all twitchy movements and squeaky voiced. He’s Norman Bates without the overbearing Mom and wonderfully cast. Tucci, it appears can do anything. Earlier this year he played Julia Child’s loving diplomat husband in “Julie & Julia” and held his own opposite Meryl Streep. Now he’s the creepiest bad guy this year since Hans Landa drank a glass of milk with a French farmer in “Inglourious Basterds.”

At the heart of the film, however, is an arresting central performance by Saoirse Ronan as Susie, the little girl who never got to kiss a boy or see her fifteenth birthday. Her luminous presence gives the film whatever soul it has and her generous screen presence is a good tonic for the effects heavy scenes she plays in the “in between,” the blue horizon between heaven and earth.

“The Lovely Bones” should have been a better movie. It’s not terrible, mind you; it just doesn’t push the emotional buttons that a story about the murder of a young person should. Jackson is still in epic “LOTR” mode, taking a small, intimate movie and needlessly cluttering it up with bigger than life images that get in the way of the feeling of the piece.

CRAZY HEART: 3 STARS

In “Crazy Heart” Bad Blake, played by Jeff Bridges in what will likely become his fifth Oscar nomination, is Willie Nelson if the IRS had their way with him, or Kris Kristofferson if he hadn’t written “Me and Bobby McGee.” “I used to be somebody,” he sings at one point, “but now I’m somebody else.” That someone else is a broke, drunk country music has-been whose idea of a great gig is playing a bowling alley where he isn’t even allowed to run a bar tab.

In a story that echoes “The Wrestler” “Crazy Heart” follows the tail end of the career of a man who once had everything but threw it away. Bad Blake was a big country music star whose life seems ripped from the lyrics of a hurtin’ Hank Williams song. On the road he’s so lonely he could die, so he fills his time with groupies; women who follow him back to his seedy hotel room, remembering the star he once was and not the sweaty, drunk wreck he has become. His downward spiral is slowed when he meets Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a journalist and single mother who becomes his anchor.  

“Crazy Heart” is an average movie buoyed by a great central performance. We’ve seen stories like this before but Bridges’s performance and the film’s details make this a recommend.

First the details. As a general rule most movies about fictional musicians get the most basic thing wrong—the music. Forgettable songs have ruined many a music movie but “Crazy Heart” and composers T-Bone Burnett and Stephen Bruton (who died of cancer before the film was released) nail an authentic country sound. The songs sound Grand Ole Opry ready and once filtered through Bridges’s weathered vocal chords could be echoes from any small town honky tonk or dive bar. It’s hurtin’ music and is spot on.

Beyond the music there are the small details that add so much to the film. There are the nice shards of dialogue like Bad’s flirty remark to Jean as they do an interview in a dingy motel room, “I want to talk about how bad you make this room look” and the accurate portrayal of small town bars and bowling alleys.

It all helps to elevate the predictable story, but none of it would matter a whit if Jeff Bridges wasn’t firmly in control. His Bad Blake is pure outlaw country, a hard drinking and cigarette smoking poet who breathes the same air as Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggart. Bridges throws his vanity out the window, allowing his gut to peak out from behind his guitar and wrinkles to peer out from the sides of his aviators. More than that, however, he nails the troubled charm that made Bad a star and then brought him to his knees. It’s complex work but Bridges, with his smooth, relaxed way with a character makes it look easy. Don’t be fooled; this is the work of a master who is often underrated.

“Crazy Heart” has some major flaws but is worth a look for the performances from Bridges, Gyllenhaal (although she seems a tad young for the part) and Colin Farrell in a small un-credited part as Bad’s former protégé.   

THE BOOK OF ELI: 2 STARS

Eli (Denzel Washington) is a regular post apocalyptic man. He walks the Earth, heading west, stopping only occasionally to read his book, dine on a meal of hairless cat, try on some dead man’s shoes and reign bloody carnage down on anyone who tries to stop him from enjoying his simple pleasures.

Like “The Road,” another film about a man making his way through a dystopian world, in “The Book of Eli,” we never find out how the world ended. We’re told it’s been thirty years since “the flash” and since then everything has pretty much fallen apart. Rogue gangs roam the desolate landscape, cannibalism is rampant—you can tell the cannibals because their hands shake from eating too much human flesh—and there are only small pockets of life left. One such pocket is a town run by Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a despot desperate to lay his hands on Eli’s prize possession—a book.

As the title would suggest “The Book of Eli” is V-E-R-Y Old Testament. Call it Neo Christian Post Apocalyptic if you like, but like the good book that lies at the center of the story, the movie is full of prophets, morals and righteous smiting. This is a metaphysical story with a few action scenes (but only a few, the trailer implies this is an all-out action flick and that is simply not the case) about the power of religion to both inspire and control people’s hearts.

Eli uses the book (SPOILER: it’s the last copy of the bible) as comfort and a reason to stay alive. Perhaps he’s a prophet, perhaps not, but he is the keeper of the book and it is a responsibility he takes very seriously even if he doesn’t realize why.  

Carnegie, on the other hand, understands the power of the book’s words to, as he says, strike fear into the “heart of the weak and desperate.” For him it is the key to the complete control of the citizens of his town. He is, very likely, a Republican.

Bringing this world to, well, if not exactly vivid life—it is shot with a color palette that includes grey and various other shades of grey—is Washington and Oldman. Denzel is a bit too subdued to really sell the idea that he is a coiled spring of righteous  power but that’s OK because Gary Oldman keeps things lively, chewing the scenery every time he is on screen. He’s a Jim Jones character, equal parts charisma and menace and the film benefits from his presence.  

Unfortunately the same can’t be said for the female leads. As mother and daughter Jennifer Beals and Mila Kunis are the film’s acting Achilles heel. Kunis, in particular is miscast. Despite providing some visual interest, she is out of her depth here and brings little of the charm or magnetism she displayed in last year’s “Forgetting Sarah Marshal.”

Better is Tom Waits in an awesome cameo as a shop keeper who trades in contraband, like KFC wetnaps and old Zippo lighters. These items take on an increased value in this bleak world and Waits, with his craggily face and scorched vocal chords, brings increased value to his brief scenes.

“The Book of Eli” is a strange movie. It’s being sold as an actioner, but is actually a timely movie about how religion can be used for both good and evil. It may have been more effective with a bit more action and a tad less philosophy and without its series of false endings and while it may be filled with thought provoking ideas it doesn’t feel well enough thought out to work as a whole.

THE SPY NEXT DOOR: 0 STARS

In “The Spy Next Door” Jackie Chan does a Hannah Montana routine. By day he is Bob, a mild mannered pen salesman, at night, however—or whenever duty calls—he’s actually a Chinese secret agent working with the FBI. Like Hannah, whose father Billy Ray co-stars with Chan, Jackie leads a double life. Unlike Hannah he isn’t popular with kids. Or more precisely he isn’t popular with his girlfriend’s three precocious children who think he is a dweeb. He is, however, determined to win them over. “I’ve brought down dictators,” he says, “how tough can three kids be?”

The kids turn out to be just as tough as the Boris and Natasha wannabes (Magnús Scheving and Katherine Boecher) who are after Bob, thinking that he has downloaded a secret formula that turns oil into dust. That formula will make them rich and they desperately want it back.

Coming hot on the heels of one of the best years in kid’s entertainment I had hoped the bar would be raised somewhat. 2009 gave us “Up”, “Where the Wild Things Are”, “Coraline” and “The Fantastic Mr. Fox”, all of which are about as good as it gets in the line of cinematic amusement for teacup humans. Those movies treated kids like real, thinking people, engaging their imaginations, minds and emotions. Compared to those movies “The Spy Next Door” is a let down, as it connects with none of those elements. It’s a throwback to the kind of lame Saturday morning matinee action-adventure that passed for kid’s flicks in less adventuresome times.

It’s an old formula. Take a silly premise—undercover spy in love with a civilian—add some “heartwarming” moments—Chan lectures the oldest daughter on the importance of family—mix with one popular, yet unlikely star—Chan doing his take on the Vin Diesel role in “The Pacifier”—and the result is… a warmed over family movie that won’t appeal to adults and has little entertainment value for the kids.

The gags—like “He’s as gone as a rum cake at an AA meeting”—which I guess, are aimed at the adults in the audience, were old the first time they aired on “Hee Haw” and children may giggle when Chan answers the phone with the greeting, “Yo, it’s Ho,” but his earnest speeches about togetherness will likely send them to snores-ville.

Of course, Chan’s larger-than-life antics have always been popular with kids but there isn’t enough high flying action. There is way too much downtime between the kid friendly action sequences to keep little minds interested and even when the pace does pick up it never feels like it kicks in high gear.

Compared to the kind of kid’s films we’ve been treated to recently “The Spy Next Door” feels like a relic from a different time; a time before 2009 when the bar for this type of entertainment was raised very high.

LEAP YEAR: 1 STAR

“Leap Year”, a new opposites-attract-romantic-comedy, stars Amy Adams and Matthew Goode as the metaphoric oil and water. She’s a perfectionist, he isn’t. She pushy, he’s laid back. She doesn’t do quaint very well, he’s... well, quaint. It’s the standard rom com set up, but instead of the usual New York setting director Anand Tucker places the action in the picturesque Irish country side.

The action begins in Boston where uptight Anna (Adams) has become tired of waiting for her yuppie-scum cardiologist boyfriend of four years to propose.  Taking matter into her own hands and citing an obscure Irish tradition that declares it impossible for a man to refuse a woman’s proposal on Leap Day she decides to ambush him on February 29 while he is in Dublin on business. Delayed by bad weather she lands in a remote Irish village and begins the long road trip to Dublin accompanied by Declan (Goode), a rough hewn local who agrees to take her to the big city in return for enough money to save his failing pub.

Rom coms are predictable beasts. We know who is going to end up with who, because if we don’t, I guess it would be a romantic suspense movie and who would pay to see that? The trick to making an effective rom com is to keep the ride interesting all the up to the final, and inevitable, loving embrace between the two leads. At this “Leap Year” is only partially successful.

Adams and Goode have the lion’s share of screen time and while they are both charming, good actors, neither is doing their best work here. Where is the interesting Adams of “Sunshine Cleaning”? Or “Enchanted’s” lovable Adams? For that matter as a love interest Goode was far more effective with one-tenth of the screen time in “A Single Man, “ and generated way more heat as Charles Ryder in the generally restrained “Brideshead Revisited” from a couple of years ago. Both put up a good fight but are beaten by material that is beneath them. Amy Adams deserves better than to share a scene with a herd of unresponsive cows.

Worst of all, for actors of Adams and Goode’s stature, neither really makes the material her or his own. I could imagine any number of actors playing these parts and for this movie to really work I shouldn’t have been able to imagine that the movie would have pretty much the same if it had starred Renee Zellweger and Gerard Butler.  

“Leap Year” isn’t absolutely terrible, in fact for a January rom com it’s a step up from “New in Town” or “27 Dresses”, but it is really average; just another mildly amusing, predictable entry in a generally mindless genre that badly needs a shot in the arm. If only Quentin Tarantino would make a romantic comedy...
 
YOUTH IN REVOLT: 3 ½ STARS

Youth in Revolt is the new Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. It’s a film about the benefits of behaving badly and like the famous 1986 John Hughes movie it is headlined by an actor who brings charm and wit to the role of the rebel.  

Hoodie heartthrob Michael Cera plays fourteen-year-old Nick Twisp, a mild mannered collection of raging hormones and quirky personality traits. He loves Sinatra and foreign films. When his family relocates to a Christian trailer park he meets his dream girl, Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday), a similarly anachronistic teenager with a taste for anything French and a dream of being swept off her feet by a bad boy named Francois. When circumstance steps in to keep them apart he (with the help of an imaginary friend named Francois Dillinger) reverses his goody-two-shoes image and becomes a rebel with a cause—he wants to impress her.

Cera has a corner on the awkward by coming-of-age movie, and as Twisp he doesn’t do anything he didn’t do in Juno or Superbad, but he’s charming and easy to watch. His work takes on a different dimension, however, when he slips into alter ego mode. As the mustachioed Francois he’s a refugee from a Belmondo film, equipped with a cigarette, and too tight white trousers. It’s not often that an actor gets to show his range playing two characters in one film, but this is a step forward for Cera, who has been locked into the wisecracking virgin stereotype since he left the small screen’s Arrested Development, grew some peach fuzz and started chasing girls on the big screen. It’s not exactly his first adult part but it shows he can do something other than act like an awkward teen while delivering funny lines with pitch perfect timing.

The supporting cast, made up of reliable old pros like Jean Smart, M. Emmet Walsh, Fred Willard and Steve Buscemi, do good work, but the movie wouldn’t work if Sheeni wasn’t the kind of girl worth throwing your life away for, but in the excellently named Portia Doubleday Youth in Revolt finds a newcomer with charisma to burn.

Youth in Revolt is a funny, delightful movie but its main strengths are its actors—Cera who expands his range and Doubleday who debuts hers.

DAYBREAKERS: 3 ½ STARS

Like “True Blood” “Daybreakers” is set in a world where vampires live among humans, but unlike the popular HBO show these vampires don’t have a blood substitute to keep them alive and friendly. In fact, in the world created by the writer / director team of the Spierig Brothers (Michael and Peter) humans are on the verge of extinction having literally been sucked dry and now the vamps must come up with a new source of food to ensure their survival.

Hematologist Ethan Hawke is charged with creating the cure for vampire hunger by his bosses at Bromley Marks, the world’s leading blood handler and humans-as-food storage facility. Ethan can best be described as a reluctant vampire and knows that the “last breath of humanity in the vampires will disappear as soon as the blood does.” To that end he searches for a cure and when he meets a group of human rebels a different kind of solution to the problem may be at hand.

As has become popular on “True Blood” and in movies like “Twilight” in “Daybreakers” many old vampire myths have flown the coop. For example Ethan Hawke’s character smokes. Perhaps because he is eternal he doesn’t have to worry about lung cancer, but since he is already dead, were does he get the breath to inhale and exhale? You never saw Dracula with a smoke in his hand...

Luckily, when the movie isn’t playing fast and loose with vampire lore, it is an entertaining a vampire tale that plays up its b-movie thrills.

Ripe with cool lines—“Life’s a bitch,” says Hawke’s world weary vampire, “and then you don’t die”—cool new vampire mythology—vamps who feed on themselves become mutants—and cool ideas—blood becomes a commodity like oil—“Daybreakers” is the best night stalker film to come along since last year’s “Let the Right One In.” (Sorry Twi-Hards!)

Hawke, with his sunken cheeks and rough hewn good looks is well cast as Edward, the disinclined vampire, but his character becomes much more fun in the last half of the film (SPOILER ALERT) when he morphs into Ethan Hawke, Vampire Slayer.  

The film, for all its effective spooky vampiric atmosphere in the first hour, builds towards a bloody climax that can only be described as juicy. People (and vampires) don’t just die as much as they explode, spraying a cloud of moist viscera in every direction. This is one movie I was glad wasn’t in 3-D.

 “Daybreakers” doesn’t have enough bite to become a modern vampire classic like “Nosferatu the Vampyre” or “Let the Right One In,” it’s too down and dirty for that, but it is great b-movie fun in the tradition of “Innocent Blood” or “Near Dark.”

SHERLOCK HOLMES: 2 ½ STARS

Robert Downey Jr.’s entrance in the opening minute of “Sherlock Holmes”—he leaps off a buttress, effortlessly rolls down a set of stairs stopping just in time for the camera to catch his close-up—suggests that this isn’t your father’s—or your grandfather’s or mom’s or anybody else’s—Sherlock Holmes. The ensuing kung fu battle and satanic ritual confirms it.  
Set in 1891 the story centers on Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Watson (Jude Law), doctor, war veteran and best friend, getting to the bottom of a case involving the supernatural, an ex-flame (Rachel McAdams) of the great detective, The House of Lords and deadly cult leader named Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong). It plays like Holmes meets “The DaVinci Code.”

With “Sherlock Holmes” director Guy Ritchie has created the darkest movie of the Christmas season. Mimicking the depressing fog and industrial smoke that colored Victorian London, he’s made a drab and dreary looking movie that never met a shade of gray it didn’t like. That would be fine if the story or the performances added some color to the film, but unfortunately for Holmes (and for the audience) not only is “Sherlock Holmes’s” color palate a bit monochromatic but the whole film is a little on the dull side.     

The story is suitably convoluted for a Holmes story, there is plenty of intrigue, much deducing and loads of clues, trouble is, nothing much happens. The game may be a-foot but it feels more like a loose collection of action sequences bound together by some witty “Odd Couple” style banter between the leads and Downey’s quirky performance.

Downey plays Holmes like a cross between Robert Langdon and a Victorian street urchin. Apparently being brilliant means you don’t have to wash. Or tuck your shirt in. Or shave or clean your fingernails. Downey throws out the image of the debonair Basil Rathbone Holmes in a deerstalker hat for something much more bohemian. In fact, it’s closer to the description of the detective offered up in Conan Doyle's books and short stories. Downey plays the role with suitable gusto (and acceptable English accent), but is let down by a script that is a non-starter.

Downey has good chemistry with Jude Law but the same can’t be said for Rachel McAdams as his love interest. Guy Ritchie isn’t known for his way with female characters and “Sherlock Holmes” and she suffers for it. The movie wastes McAdams in a damsel in distress role that requires her to do little other than leer in Holmes’s general direction. She’s more a plot point than a character and it’s a shame to see McAdams wasted like that. She gets lost in the über-maleness of it all.

“Sherlock Holmes” gets the spirit of Holmes but doesn’t deliver the goods. Big budget action scenes are sprinkled throughout, but even the huge set pieces like the fight in the shipyard—which must have cost a fortune—contains no drama and the only real mystery here is how Guy Ritchie managed to take good elements—like Robert Downey Jr and Sherlock Holmes, one of the most popular characters of the last one hundred years—and make such a lackluster movie.

NINE: 3 ½ STARS

“Nine,” the latest Broadway to big screen outing from director Rob Marshall, is by turns breathtaking and frustrating. A cinematic remounting of the 1982 Tony award-winning musical (which was itself inspired by Federico Fellini's classic “8 ½”) about an Italian film director in the throws of a mid-life crisis is heavy on the glamour—Kate Hudson’s character tells the director that in his movies “every frame is like a postcard” and that is certainly true here as well—but not heavy enough with story.

When the movie starts world-famous filmmaker Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) is mentally blocked. His latest opus “Italia” is only ten days away from the beginning of production and he has yet to have an idea for the film, let alone write a line of dialogue. Edging ever closer to a nervous breakdown, his entanglements with a variety of women, including his mistress Carla (Penélope Cruz), wife Luisa (Marion Cotillard) and mother (Sophia Loren), only push him further down his self made rabbit hole.

The first question everyone has about “Nine” is, “Can Daniel Day Lewis sing?” The answer, in a word (actually a few words) is, no, not really. He speak-sings his two songs in a strange baritone that sounds more like a drunk uncle singing with the wedding band than a big-budget musical star, but I can forgive the singing because his brooding presence anchors every scene in the film. In a movie as cotton candy light as this you need something or someone to affix the story to and Day-Lewis is it.  

Marshall takes the movie’s thin premise and stretches it to feature length, keeping the eye interested with stylish camera work, scantily clad dancers and great 1960s Italian locations, fashions and period decoration, but he may have taken the words of one of his characters a bit too seriously. “Style is the new content,” coos Stephanie (Kate Hudson). If that is true then “Nine” is the most substantial movie of the year, meaning that it is great to look at, but somehow, the story doesn’t really connect.

If you are just going for the music however, you won’t be disappointed. Marshall has cut several of the tunes from the original score, added several others (by original Broadway composer Maury Yeston) and wallpapered the movie with memorable songs, set pieces and choreography. Highlights include Fergie’s ode to roaming hands, “Be Italian,” “Cinema Italiano” Kate Hudson’s exuberantly fluffy 60’s pop number and “A Call from the Vatican,” Penelope Cruz’s steamy phone sex song.  

“Nine’s” glossy veneer over powers whatever story there is but its panache and energy will keep your eye entertained.

IT’S COMPLICATED: 3 ½ STARS

Despite the title there’s nothing terribly complicated about “It’s Complicated,” the new slice of lifestyle porn from director Nancy Meyers that nicks its name from a facebook status. The pitch goes something like this: two men vie for the affection of one woman. Been there done that, but it becomes something a little more interesting when you attached the names Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, two dramatic actors who can do funny and Steve Martin, a funny actor who can do serious.

Jane (Meryl Streep) is a divorcee in Santa Barbara. Her last daughter is leaving the nest and now she wonders who she’ll watch “The Hills” with. She may not have to wonder for long. At her son’s graduation in New York she reconnects with her ex husband Jake (Alec Baldwin). They’ve been apart for ten years ever since he had an affair with Agness (Lake Bell), a much younger woman who is now his wife. The two unexpectedly hit it off, and now the roles are reversed—Jane becomes an ex-wife with benefits when she begins an affair with her former husband. The complication the title refers to is Adam (Steve Martin) an earnest architect hired to redesign Jane’s home but who instead falls in love with her.

It’s a standard setup for a screwball comedy and in the end not all that important. The important thing is whether or not you want to watch these people as they navigate the triangle that has become their love life. Luckily, Nancy Meyers has cast well, putting together a powerhouse front line cast that compensates for the story’s simplicity.

Meryl Steep is in “Mama Mia” mode here, having fun with the role of a restaurant owner who’s richer than the Dean in Dean & Deluca. She’s loose, funny and relaxed. Steve Martin has the least showy role as Adam, the lovesick architect, but his performance makes me wish he would aim a little higher and never again crack another “Pink Panther” script.   

Despite Meryl and Martin the movie belongs to Alec Baldwin who steals every scene he’s in. The easy way with a line that has earned him an Emmy or two for his work on “30 Rock” translates well here and his vanity free performance—Hairy! Fat! Nude!—is easy going fun. This trio works through the hackier material, even selling the prerequisite “parents getting high for the first time in twenty years” scene. It’s been done many times before but it’s worth it this time around to see Baldwin super toking and Streep, high off one puff, gaze into a mirror and ask, incredulously, “Is this what I look like?”

On the minus side Lake Bell, who was the only funny thing in “Over Her Dead Body,” a bad Eva Longoria comedy from a couple of years ago, is wasted, cast as a stereotype, but leave it to Nancy Meyers to turn conventional Hollywood wisdom on its head and downplay the young characters in favor of the older ones.

“It’s Complicated” is an enjoyable watch, it’s a fluffy diversion from the heavier drama that tends to come out during the holiday season. Go for the Nancy Meyers trademarks—beautiful rich people who don’t seem to have to work, nice houses and exotic sports cars—and stay for the agreeable charm of the cast.

THE IMAGINARIUM OF DR. PARNASSUS: 3 ½ STARS

As you may have guessed from the title “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” is an odd movie. Directed by Terry Gilliam, it is the strange tale of a mysterious immortal who complicates his life by making deals with the devil. Complicating Gilliam’s life during production was the unexpected death of his star Heath Ledger but, the show, as they say, must go on and here we are after the untimely January 2008 passing of the young actor, with a completed film. How did Gilliam finish the movie? A new credit, “A Film from Heath Ledger and Friends” tells the tale. Three of Ledger’s buddies, Johnny Depp (seen dancing on a leaf!), Colin Farrell and Jude Law, stepped in to play “through the looking glass” versions of the late actor.

Set in present day London the film begins with a look at Doctor Parnassus’s (Christopher Plummer) bizarre traveling show which offers people a chance to step through Dr.P’s magical mirror into an alternate reality. He’s selling imagination, but his gift of mind's eye manipulation came with a heavy price. Eons before he made a trade with the devil (Tom Waits)—remarkable power in exchange for his first born daughter on her sixteenth birthday. That anniversary is now days away but with the help of a mysterious stranger named Tony (played by Ledger, Depp Law and Farrell) and the magic mirror Dr. P just may be able to save her.
 
“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” is more a piece of surrealist art than a traditional movie. Imagine watching a Salvador Dali painting come to life and you’ll get the idea. Gilliam, who co-wrote the script as well as directed, has allowed his imagination to run riot. While the story meanders to and fro he fills the screen with unforgettable images; Old Nick dangling Dr. P from the end of a branch or a multi-eyed hot air balloon shaped like a man’s head or the ensemble of skirt wearing, dancing Bobbies. Visually it’ll make your eyeballs do the Watusi.

The story, however, may leave some a bit baffled, but so what if it warps the brain a bit? The film oozes Gilliam’s trademarked anarchic spirit—he might be the only filmmaker who could replace his leading man with three other actors and actually pull it off—and is the most original movie of the year.

AVATAR: 4 ½ STARS

In the gap between James “King of the World” Cameron’s last theatrical feature, “Titanic,” and his new film, “Avatar” (in theatres this weekend) Clint Eastwood directed 11 movies, Michael Bay made 6 and even Uwe Boll, a director so reviled there is an on–line petition to prevent him from making any more films, has made fifteen in the time it took Cameron to make just one, but it’s quite a movie.

“Avatar,” based on an original idea by Cameron, is set in the 22nd century on a small planet called Pandora. Under the lush terra firma is a valuable mineral much sought after by the Avatar program—a collaboration between industry and military. Since the climate and atmosphere aren’t hospitable to humans a substitute for homosapien invaders is required. That would be living, breathing avatars of the Pandorian natives, controlled by a human “driver” through a high tech link-up that connects the driver's mind to their Avatar body. The ten feet tall, blue skinned natives, called the Na'vi— although the humans dismissively call them “blue monkeys”—are deeply connected to their planet, sharing a connection with the land and all its creatures that defies human comprehension. Only one man comes close to understanding the Na'vi. He’s Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) a former marine who lost the use of his legs in combat. Brought on board the Avatar program he is initially used as a mole to infiltrate a Na'vi community to glean information that will make the harvesting of minerals easier, but what begins as simply completing his mission and using his legs again through the avatar soon becomes something else. He learns to love not only the Na'vi people, but one Na'vi in particular, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana).   

First let’s dispel some myths. 1.) You don’t need to take Gravol with you to the movie theatre. There were rumors on the net that “Avatar’s” mix of hand held camera and 3-D was literally stomach turning. Not true. 2.) It’s not “Dances with Wolves in Space” or “Fergully” with aliens. 3.) Sight unseen people were calling it Cameron’s Folly, a three hour waste of film and money (a reported $300 million). Not true. 4.) “The Na'vi are the new Jar Jar Binks,” bloggers screamed! Also not true.  

With “Avatar” Cameron has made a sprawling epic that lives up to the hype. It is something completely new, a movie that is not a sequel, a remake or based on an existing novel; a film that sprung from Cameron’s imagination and exists on its own plane. Brett Ratner, Michael Bay and all other Hollywood hacks, hang your heads in shame.  
Cameron starts from scratch creating a whole new world with language, customs, religion and crazy creatures but never forgets that this is an action movie and not an anthological study. To that he adds allusions to the Iraq war, shock and awe policies and the Native American genocide all bundled up in one giant sci fi romance action flick.

It’s not all perfect, the dialogue is frequently 1980’s-action-movie lame, filled with clichés; there are logic lapses and Saldana’s character shifts from Ripley (remember “Alien”?) to damsel in distress in the blink of an eye, but the film’s achievements outweigh any of these misgivings.   

Despite what the early word on the movie may have been Cameron—who at this rate won’t make another film until 2221—makes the audience feel compassion for obviously computer enhanced giant blue creatures, keep our interest for almost three hours and presents a dazzling climax that’ll leave you slack jawed.  

THE YOUNG VICTORIA: 4 STARS

Despite being shot by soft candle light for a glowing historical feel, “The Young Victoria” isn’t “Masterpiece Theatre.” Accents and petticoats aside, this is a modern movie, with a modern sensibility, that mixes history, politics, romance, castle etiquette and backroom dealing into one frilly, appealing package.   

Emily “Devil Wears Prada” Blunt is Queen Victoria, although when we first meet her she is just shy of coming of age to be Queen. She is a coddled young woman bound by the rules and manipulations of her mother the Duchess of Kent (Miranda Richardson) and her advisor Sir John Conroy (“RocknRolla’s” Mark Strong). Defying their wishes to make them co-Regents and share the throne, she becomes Queen in June 1837. She is a young woman enjoying the first blushes of freedom following years of repression but before she can be an effective leader, however, she must first learn the inner workings of the court, deal with a royal power-struggle and figure out her feelings for her first cousin, Prince Albert (Rupert Friend).

“The Young Victoria” has much in common with recent costume dramas like “Bleak House” and “Miss Potter.” There is sumptuous production value, well appointed period details and enough powdered wigs to cover a hundred bald heads, but it also has something the others don’t—Emily Blunt.

Blunt has received good notices for her work since her breakout in “The Devil Wears Prada,” but “The Young Victoria” may be the movie that really puts her on the map. She has shown her range before in everything from straight ahead roles in “Charlie Wilson's War” and “Dan in Real Life” to the quirkier “Sunshine Cleaning,” but never before has she carried an entire movie.

She creates a lovely human portrait of a woman often thought of as stuffy and a bit too stiff upper lipped. Her Victoria is coming of age in a difficult time, but someone who embraces the future; learning from the past but looking forward. It’s a strong performance that carries the whole movie.

Rupert Friend also impresses after his dismal showing in “Chéri” earlier this year. Ditto Mark Strong as the narcissistic Sir John Conroy. He follows his noteworthy work in “Body of Lies” with a wonderfully smarmy performance here.

“The Young Victoria” isn’t your father’s—or your mother’s or grand parent’s—costume drama. It’s a vital and romantic story that feels up to date even though the clothes and mannerisms are of another age.  

DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE MORGANS?: 0 STARS

Did you hear about the new predictable, laugh-free rom com from Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker? It’s called “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” and is the latest entry in a new genre of films—the Seatbelt Movie. They are films so unappealing, so without merit theatre seats should come equipped with a restraining device to keep audiences from walking out and demanding their money back.  

Grant and Parker are Paul and Meryl Morgan, Manhattanites with money, uptight assistants (Elisabeth Moss and Jesse Liebman) and a bad marriage. Three months previous he cheated, they separated and he has been desperately trying to win her back ever since. One night they witness a murder and became the target of a hired killer. For their safety they are placed in the Witness Protection Program and relocated to flyover territory in Ray, Wyoming, a one horse town in the Rockies. Under the watchful eye of local sheriff Clay Wheeler (Sam Elliott) and his Annie Oakley wannabe wife (Mary Steenburgen), the city folks rethink their relationship.

Movies like “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” raise the question: When you know how the movie is going to end before it even starts, do you have to stay until the end credits roll? The answer, for me anyway, is yes, of course. I’m professionally obligated to sit through every minute of this tripe (I Watch Bad Movies So You Don’t Have To, remember?) but be warned there is a strong sense of déjà vu that runs throughout this movie. There’s nothing here that we haven’t seen before and better.

Maybe ten years ago “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” might have worked with the same cast but now it feels as stale as Grant’s awkward Englishman routine and SJP’s dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker schtick. Steenburgen’s character seems to understand this. At one point she says, “I see you two laughing at your little inside New York City jokes. I don’t find them funny.”

Amen to that. Is there an older gag than the inevitable city girl milks a cow scene? Or the “hilarious” culture clash between the city slickers and the country rubes? “Do you hunt?” “Only for bargains!” “Green Acres” did jokes like these on television 40 years ago, and they were getting old then.

Grant and Parker are masters with this kind of material, both having found fame playing slight variations on Paul and Meryl, but here neither of them seem to be trying very hard. Elliott and Steenburgen fare a bit better than the leads and Wilford Brimley is perfectly cast as a cranky Republican cafe owner but poor Elizabeth Moss, so good on “Mad Men” is absolutely wasted in a thankless role.

Despite the legacy of its stars “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” is nothing more than a pale imitation of their best work.

THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG: 4 STARS

Walt Disney is back in the fairy tale business. After a long layoff from both hand-drawn animation and fairy princesses and the like, Disney offers up a film that not only reaffirms their status as the premier purveyors of classic animation, but will also have you humming the catchy songs as you leave the theatre. “The Princess and the Frog” is a welcome addition to Disney’s legacy, comfortably sitting alongside “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King.”     

Set in the French Quarter of New Orleans the action in this Broadway-style musical really takes off when a free-spirited Maldonian prince named Naveen (voice of Bruno Campos) is magically transformed into a frog by voodoo magician Dr. Facilier (voice of Keith David). To break Facilier’s evil spell the prince must convince a princess to kiss him. So far it’s a Big Easy take on the traditional Frog Prince story, but when Naveen hops into a costume party and mistakes a beautiful girl named Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) for a princess the story takes a different turn. Convincing her to kiss him, she puckers up, gives him a smack, but because she’s not really a princess—she’s just dressed like one—he doesn’t change, but she does, into a frog. Together they search for Mama Odie (Jenifer Lewis), a 197-year-old voodoo priestess who can turn them back to their human form.

Disney has scored a home run with “The Princess and the Frog.” Their first full-blown fairy tale since 1991’s “Beauty and the Beast” is a return to beautiful traditional animation. The artwork is stylish—particularly during two early musical numbers, the 1930s art deco inspired “Almost There” and the wild voodoo tune “My Friends on the Other Side”—and firmly in-line with classic 70s and 80s Disney. That means sophisticated drawings, dramatic camera moves and colorful backgrounds.

Complimenting the visuals is a score by Randy Newman that includes a variety of songs with a Louisiana flavor. Newman infuses the score with hints of zydeco, jazz and gospel call-and-response, creating a sonic landscape that perfectly compliments the film’s sultry bayou setting. 

As for the voice work, Disney keeps things fresh by not hiring recognizable a-list talent to voice the characters. Robin Williams brought a unique, manic energy to “Aladdin” that enhanced the film, but that’s a rare case. Too often the big names offer little other than recognizable voices, and that can work against the part they’re playing. Can you hear James Earl Jones as Mufasa without thinking of Darth Vader? Me neither, but here Disney is allowing the material to sell the show. Among the well cast voices are Keith David as Dr. Facilier, Anika Noni Rose as Tiana and Bruno Campos as Naveen. Good actors all, but hardly household names and that lack of familiarity allows the characters to live and breath, not simply be an extension of an already well-known celebrity persona.

“The Princess and the Frog” is a welcome return to form for Disney, but, as it also features their first ever African-American princess, a welcome step toward the future. 

INVICTUS: 3 STARS

After watching “Invictus” I’d vote for Morgan Freeman. He plays Nelson Mandela with an impressive mix of gravitas, intelligence and humanity, perfect for a mayor or even higher office, but just because I’d give him my vote doesn’t mean he’s made a good movie.

“Invictus,” Clint Eastwood’s thirty-first film as a director doesn’t feel as slap dash as “Gran Torino,” his exercise in first takes and weak performances from last year. It’s a more ambitious film, shot on location in South Africa, and featuring some flashy production design, but like his 2005 Oscar winner “Million Dollar Baby,” it is a human story set against a sports back drop. This isn’t a biography of Mandela or a study of race; it’s the story of the Springbok, a champion rugby team who became a unifying symbol of the new South Africa.

Freeman cuts an impressive figure as Mandela, capturing the man’s grace; unfortunately every line out of his mouth sounds like it should be engraved on an inspirational commemorative plate. It’s understandable to paint Mandela as a philosopher king, he is, after all one of the most impressive figures of our recent history, but according to “Invictus” he only speaks in platitudes. It doesn’t feel like a full portrait of the man, just an inspirational glimpse of a great man.

The other major character, Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon), captain of the Springboks, is similarly underdeveloped but made interesting by Damon’s performance. He’s becoming a great character actor who shows his versatility in roles as diverse as the bi-polar whistle blower in “The Informant” and the super spy character from the “Bourne” movies.

There is a good ninety minute movie hidden in the 133 minute running time. An underdeveloped subplot about Mandela’s strained relationship with his family doesn’t do much except slow the movie down and the important stuff—Mandela’s rise to power and the story of race reconciliation—is dispensed with in the sixty minutes, leaving us with over an hour to ramp up for the big game.  

Despite drawing out the final game—it drags on for half an hour when a highlight reel would have sufficed—there are some very effective sequences. The bits of the film that work best are the small moments that don’t involve Mandela’s inspirational chestnuts. It’s strongest when the Springbok team go to the townships to teach the kids rugby or Pienaar sizes up Mandela’s old cell, using his arms to  measure the width of the tiny enclosure. These are powerful moments and give the movie much of its oomph.

“Invictus” (it’s Latin for “invincible” and the title of an 1875 poem Mandela used as inspiration when things got rough during his 27 years in prison) takes a real story and filters it through a typical sports movie set up—the World Cup game in South Africa is a microcosm of the larger issues of acceptance—but misses most of the true drama inherent in the story.

A SINGLE MAN: 4 STARS

Tom Ford, ex-designer for Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, founder of his own eponymous menswear line, makes his debut as a director with “A Single Man,” an adaptation of the 1964 Christopher Isherwood novel of the same name, and, as you might have guessed given his pedigree, this is a great looking film. The former fashionista hasn’t art directed it with Joel Schumacher style bombast, but with elegant good taste. He has steeped the film in beautiful people, places and things. Even an off camera voice over is done by Jon Hamm, who “People” called one of the “sexiest men of the year.” But don’t think “A Single Man” is all style and no substance. Ford paid attention to the pictures, but like another film sensualist, Pedro Almodovar, he also got the emotion of the piece right.

Set in early-’60s Los Angeles, “A Single Man,” is a slice of gay English professor George’s (Colin Firth) life. “I’m having a serious day,” he says on a smoggy LA afternoon as he makes preparations for his suicide following the sudden death of his longtime partner Jim (Matthew Goode). As he meticulously tidies up the odds and ends of his life he takes time to have dinner with Charlotte (Julianne Moore), an old friend and chat with a curious student.      

“A Single Man” is a study of grief. Ford portrays the scale of George’s loss through carefully rendered flashbacks and dream sequences, alternating between a cold color pallet for the post-Jim scenes and vibrant, lively hues for when he was still alive. It’s an old trick, but the subdued look of George’s sad life packs an emotional wallop. This is a man who, after losing his love and not being allowed to go to the funeral—it’s for “family only” he’s told—has lost the will to live. “For the first time in my life,” he says, “I can’t see my future.” His outlook is as murky and grey as the film stock.

Firth oozes repression and sadness as George. He’s low key, a shadow of the man George was before Jim’s death, but Firth adds small details that add color to his character. When he spots a dog like the one he used to share with Jim the random sense memory catapults him back to a different place and time, a happier place and time. Firth and the film do a good job at portraying the small things that keep the memory of a lost loved one alive.

“A Single Man” isn’t a feel good movie, it’s an art house picture about loss and sadness, but as one character says, “Sometimes awful things have their own kind of beauty.”
  
ME AND ORSON WELLES: 3 STARS

The star of “Me and Orson Welles” should be Zac Efron, the “High School Musical” heartthrob who makes his non-singing-non-dancing debut here. His Disney good looks have made him a star and he’s an agreeable presence on screen but he is overshadowed by another actor playing a man who died many years before the core audience of this movie was even born. Newcomer Christian McKay plays Orson Welles with such panache that Efron becomes a supporting player in his own movie.

Efron is Richard Samuels, a teenager with dreams of being on stage. So far it doesn’t sound too different from “High School Musical,” I know, but in this case the year is 1937 and the stage in question happens to be at the Mercury Theatre on Broadway. After an impromptu audition—he plays drums and sings a Wheaties jingle on the street in front of the theatre—Richard is hired as a bit player for Orson Welles’s (Christian McKay) landmark production of “Julius Caesar.” He is given little rehearsal and only one piece of advice; don’t criticize Orson Welles, ever. It is, he’s told, a privilege to be “sprayed by Orson’s spit” on stage. When Richard falls for pretty production assistant Sonja Jones (Claire Danes), however, he puts himself in the cross hairs of the temperamental Welles.

“Orson Welles and Me” is set years before Hollywood beat the stuffing out of Welles. Here he’s still a boy wonder—a maverick (before Sarah Palin came along and ruined the word for everyone else) and womanizer who financed his theatre company with the money he made as a radio actor. McKay is pitch-perfect in a role that has defeated other good actors in movies like “The Cradle Will Rock” and “Fade to Black.” The British actor, who played Welles in a one man show before making the film, looks the part and really gets inside the head of this brilliant but difficult man. 

When McKay isn’t on-screen, however, the story tends to sag a little. Efron and Danes do some good work and director Richard Linklater dies a nice job of showing the chaotic week leading up to the opening night of “Caesar,” but when the story leaves the theatre it becomes much less interesting. The backstage machinations, on-stage work—we see a hefty chunk of the play during the film’s climax—and attention to period detail—people actually say “Yowza!”—elevate it beyond a typical coming-of-age story but it really only comes to life when MacKay is front and center.

BROTHERS: 4 STARS

Director Jim Sheridan may have figured out a way around the war-on-terror movie jinx that has kept everything from “Jar Head” to “In the Valley of Elah” and “Lions for Lambs” off the top ten box office list. He turns the volume way down, making a quiet movie that keeps the action to a minimum and lets the emotion of the piece to the talking. Oh, and he’s cast three appealing actors, Spiderman, Prince Dastan and Senator Padmé Amidala (that’s Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman to you) doing some of the best work of their collective careers.

For the purposes of the story Gyllenhaal and Maguire are Cain and Able, diametrically opposed brothers. Tommy (Gyllenhaal) is a bad seed, freshly released from prison after a bank robbery gone wrong. Sam (Maguire) is a captain in the Marines, a former high school football star, husband to Grace (Portman) and father to two adorable daughters (Bailee Madison and Taylor Geare). When Sam’s Black Hawk helicopter is shot down in Afghanistan’s Pamir Mountains he is presumed dead. Back home Tommy tries to fill the gap left by his brother, playing dad to the kids and platonically comforting Grace. The twist is that Sam is not dead; he’s been captured and tortured by Taliban fighters. When he is liberated and brought back to the States, his easy, warm smile is gone, replaced by paranoid volatility.    

“Brothers” is a slow burn of a movie. Dialogue driven, the action moves slowly, allowing us to get a good sense of who these people are and why they behave the way they do. Lots of biographical information is delivered, but much is left to our imaginations. Tommy, for instance, is just out of jail, but we never find out the details of his crime. Instead as Sam and Tommy drive past a bank Sam asks, “Are you ever gonna apologize to that woman?” and we get the whole picture.

The movie is ripe with such moments. When Grace confronts her dead husband’s closet for the first time it is played silently, but packs a wallop. Sheridan isn’t afraid to let the audience think for themselves, and imagine how they would react in similar situations. Call it “method watching” if you like, it demands the audience to fill in the blanks, and it is an effective way to tell an emotional story.

It’s an emotional story, but not a complicated one. Sheridan even has Grace say at one point, “I am such a cliché,” and she’s right. Many of the characters are by-the-book—there’s the bad boy who finds redemption through family, the hard-as-nails former military man—but these actors add shades of grey to otherwise black-and-white renderings. Gyllenhaal brings warmth to a character who shouldn’t have any, Portman has a strong veneer but there is sadness in her eyes and Maguire, despite a tendency to be a bit bug-eyed effectively portrays Sam’s confusion. “I can’t be there,” he says of his home. “They don’t understand me. Nobody understands me.”

The supporting cast is equally strong. Sam Sheppard still has a profile worthy of Mount Rushmore, but now has the beer belly to go with it and it gives his character some heft, literally and figuratively but it is Bailee Madison and Taylor Geare as daughters Isabelle and Elsie who really shine. They are remarkably endearing without giving the kind of precious performances that mar so many kid’s roles.

“Brothers” isn’t a war movie it’s a movie about what happens after war, and in its own quiet way shows the toll war takes on not only the people overseas but those who stay home as well.  

UP IN THE AIR: 4 ½ STARS

“Up in the Air,” the third film from director Jason Reitman, takes the best elements from his first two films, “Juno” and “Thank You for Smoking” and molds them into one seamless package.

George Clooney is Ryan Bingham, a high flying “termination engineer” who fires people for a living. Hired by independent companies, he flies from city to city doing the dirty work when it comes to mass lay offs. He’s perfectly suited to the job and with the recent global economic downturn, cousin, business is a boomin’. He’s a road warrior who loves the perks of the job, the air miles—his goal is to hit the 10,000,000 mile mark—the status cards and life in airports. On the road 322 days a year (“That leaves 43 miserable days at home,” he says.) he says all the stuff that people hate about traveling—the recycled air, the artificial light and warm sushi—are the things that remind him that he is home. Other than his job he’s commitment free, other than the odd woman he meets in an airport or hotel bar, like Alex (Vera Farmiga), a fellow road warrior who gets “turned on by Elite status.” His carefully constructed life may come crashing down, however, when his boos (Jason Bateman) hires Nathalie (Anna Kendrick), a know-it-all IT expert who has an idea that may ground him permanently.

It’s possible that George Clooney is the only actor working today who could make Ryan Bingham likeable. He uses every ounce of his considerable charm to make this man who treats commitment like a disease and fires people for a living bearable, much less likeable but he does. If he didn’t the movie wouldn’t work on the level it does, it would simply be a smug (and timely) social satire on how some people have found ways to benefit from the recent economic downturn. Instead it’s a heartfelt portrait of a man who tries his best to isolate himself from the pain and hurt of real life (and his job). Clooney, in what may be his strongest outing yet, combines bravado and vulnerability in one very appealing package.

Jason Reitman has found a balance in style between the heartfelt clarity of “Juno” and the biting satire of “Thank You for Smoking. He’s pitch perfect with the tone, mixing cynical with witty, creating one of the nerviest movies of the year. Opening a comedy about firing people when job market is on red alert takes some stones, but Reitman wisely attacks the subject head on, using vignettes of recently terminated people as a sad comment on the times we live in. Those scenes add some profound emotional heft to the story while Clooney and leading lady Vera Farmiga do the rest with a wonderfully acted relationship between two sharks that leads Bingham to an existential epiphany.

Clooney and Farmiga aren’t the only high fliers in the cast; Anna Kendrick, a young actress best known for her role in Twilight shines as the overly meticulous IT expert who has a thing or two to learn about people.   

It’s hard to believe that “Up in the Air” is only Reitman’s third film. It’s the feel bad feel good movie of the year, so self assured, so strong in style and performance that it should get much notice at awards time.    

THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE: 3 ½ STARS

The old maxim, “never judge a book by its cover” could have been coined to describe Pippa Lee. When we first meet her at age fifty she’s the very picture of composure, a well put together spouse to her much older husband. Of course, the journey to becoming Pippa Lee, trophy wife, is far more interesting than the well manicured facade she presents to friends, family, and even, most of the time, to herself. “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee,” the new film starring Robin Wright Penn in the title role, takes the viewer on the wild ride that is (and was) Pippa’s life.  
We first get to know the middle aged Pippa, devoted wife of Herb Lee (Alan Arkin). He’s thirty years her senior and in a move to make a “pre-emptive strike against decrepitude,” he and Pippa leave New York for a retirement home. There her life begins to fall apart, and in a series of flashbacks we learn about her mother—a hopped up Maria Bello—her drug tinged wild young life—as portrayed by Blake Lively—and even a kinky photo session with her aunt’s lover. As her life unwinds, she finds security in the most unlikely of places—with the troubled son of a neighbor (Keanu Reeves).

Based on a novel written by director Rebecca Miller, “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee” is a rambling look at a woman in the midst of “a very quiet nervous breakdown.” The quirky flashback structure shouldn’t work, but Miller teases us, keeping the story fresh by bit by bit doling out tantalizing moments from Pippa’s life. There are ups and downs, and the reckless Pippa often seems to zig when she should zag, but in the end the story is life affirming, but in a grown up way.

Despite the presence of teen dream queen Blake Lively, this isn’t a drama for kids. It’s a study of living life north of forty populated with believable, interesting characters.

Front and center is Robin Wright Penn in the lead role. She’s never made much of an impression on me, despite her great beauty, but here she glows, as if this is the role she has waited all these years to do. As the elder Pippa (Lively plays her as a young woman) Penn hits all the right notes, creating a fully formed person out of a collection of flashbacks and biographical notes.

She is supported by an engaging and able cast including Alan Arkin as her wrinkled husband, Winona Ryder as her teary-eyed friend and (ultimately) betrayer Sandra, Maria Bello as her pill popping Stepford Mom and Keanu Reeves as a love interest with a twist.

“The Private Lives of Pippa Lee” mixes and matches mid-life drama and humor, delivering some surprises and real emotional moments to create an interesting portrait of an interesting person.  

EVERYBODY’S FINE: 3 STARS

Despite the title of the new Robert DeNiro family dramedy, “Everybody’s Fine,” everybody is most certainly not fine. In fact, the kids in the Goode family have a variety of problems—some big, some small. The only thing that binds them is a desire not to worry their father with the details of their family woes.

DeNiro plays Frank Goode, a recent widower planning a family reunion—complete with “fancy wine and filet mignons” cooked on an expensive new BBQ—with his four adult kids. His plans are scuttled when, one by one, his kids cancel. It’s like a Harry Chapin song come to life. His late wife had kept the family in touch, but with her gone he’s missing the connection to his kids so he decides, instead of “spending more time in the garden” as his doctor suggests, to make a cross country trip to see his kids in person.

“Everybody’s Fine” is De Niro’s “About Schmidt.” He’s the man who spent his life trying to give his kids the best life he could but despite his best intentions (and high expectations) they turned out to be less than perfect. In other words, they’re human. This is a movie about expectations and the pressure of having to live up to them.

The road trip format offers up lots of opportunities to introduce new characters and give each of the kids their own unique space and situation. Director and screenwriter Kirk Jones makes full use of the medium, introducing Frank to people along the way—random people on a train, a dangerous homeless man in a bus station, Melissa Leo as a plain talking truck driver—and for the most part the movie makes the most of these opportunities. A visual metaphor involving telephone wires—Frank was a factory worker who coated “a million feet of wire” with PVC coating to get his kids “where they are today”—gets a little old and at one point storm clouds literally come rolling in when the going gets tough, but its heart is in the right place.

Unfortunately too much heart puts a damper on the ending of the story, wrapping things up in the kind of tidy bow that never exists in real life. It’s too bad Jones takes the easy path to wrapping the story up because up until the feel good ending (which follows a not-so-feel-good climax) the movie has been true to the emotional journey that many families take. Jones does a good job at showing the kind of little tensions that arise when families get together while exposing the white lies that people tell to spare the feelings of those close to them. It’s good work that is blunted by a corn-ball ending, but good work nonetheless.

At the heart of it all is De Niro. I don’t know how many people I’ve seen get shot, punched, stabbed or generally abused by him over the years—it’s a considerable number when you think back to all the bad guys he’s played—so it is amazing how quickly the image of Bad Bobby is replaced by Frank, a caring, if somewhat bumbling father. De Niro makes Frank an everyman, a totally relatable character that keeps the movie interesting even when it takes a turn for cheesy sentiment.

“Everybody’s Fine” isn’t as good a film as “About Schmidt” but it does get much right about the family dynamic.

FANTASTIC MR. FOX: 4 STARS

It's quite a year to be a talking fox in Hollywood. After a long absence these carnivorous mammals are coming back strong with a surreal cameo in “Antichrist” (“Chaos Reigns!”) and now a starring role in a charming new stop-motion animation from director Wes Anderson, “Fantastic Mr. Fox.”

Loosely based on a Roald “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” Dahl story of the same name, the story involves Mr. Fox (George Clooney) a smooth talking chicken thief who is part Danny Ocean, part John Robie (look it up!). When a chicken run goes wrong and he and Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep) get busted he tries to go straight, but after buying a tree house he can’t afford he decides to return to a life of crime for one last big job. He sets his sights on the area’s three biggest and baddest farmers: Boggis (Robin Hurlstone), Bunce (Hugo Guinness) and Bean (Michael Gambon).

This has been an extraordinary year for kid's filmed entertainment. “Up,” “Where the Wild Things Are” and “Coraline” are about as good as it gets when it comes to family films. They are movies that don’t talk down to their young audience; treat them with respect and give them a rollicking good time. You can add “Fantastic Mr. Fox” to that list.
 
Wes Anderson’s mix of deliberately old-school stop motion animation—you can see the fur moving where the animators have touched the puppet characters—gentle humor and action is unlike any other movie this year. In its pacing and style it is decidedly old fashioned, a throw back to the colorful Rankin and Bass animated Christmas specials, but without the schmaltz. I doubt you’d find an existential line like, “Now he’s just another dead rat in a dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant” in any other vintage stop motion film for kids and it is that edge that sets “Fantastic Mr. Fox” apart from the pap, like the recent “Astro Boy,” that passes for kid flicks.  

You can tell it’s a Wes Anderson film because it’s loaded with his trademark subjects—sibling rivalry and unusual parental figures abound—and it has his quirky sensibility stamped all over it—there’s a transcendentally meditating fox!—but it is the vocal performances that really bring it to life.

George Clooney brings charm, wit and warmth to Mr. Fox. He’s an unpredictable character, smooth one minute, a wild animal the next, and Clooney gives him a nice sense of mischievousness. Meryl Streep doesn’t have as much to do, but it’s worth the price of admission to hear this celebrated actress (15 Oscar nominations and 2 wins) say, “Am I being flirted with by a psychotic rat?” The deliberate, naturalistic dialogue also comes easily to supporting cast members Bill Murray, Michael Gambon and Eric Anderson (brother of Wes) who makes his debut as Kristofferson, the athletic cousin.

Its stylish looks, engaging story and over-all wonky feel made me very happy. There are few kid’s films as fantastic as “Mr. Fox.”

THE ROAD: 2 STARS

Imagine a world where “each day is greyer than the day before” and cannibalism is a person’s worst fear. Nope, it’s not the latest George A. Romero film—there isn’t a zombie in sight—it’s “The Road,” the new film from the writer Cormac McCarthy. It’s so bleak, so unrelentingly dour it makes the last film adapted from his work, the Coen Brothers’s “No Country for Old Men,” seem positively lighthearted by comparison.

The story is simple. A man and his son (Viggo Mortenson and Kodi Smit-McPhee) are trying to survive in a dystopian world. Everything they knew is gone. In flashbacks we see a wife (Charlize Theron) who cracked under the pressure to survive; killing herself after setting father and son on their journey to “the coast” in an attempt to escape the harsh post apocalyptic weather. Armed with only a gun and two bullets they must scavenge for food amid the ruins and protect themselves from cannibals who roam the desolate land. There’s no Hope (or Crosby) on this road. Their raison d'etre is to maintain their humanity and survive in a world no longer able to support life. 

“The Road” doesn’t mimic the dystopian world we’ve seen in bigger budget action movies. For better and for worse this is a movie based on small moments set against a big backdrop. No parent will be able to forget the stark image of a father teaching his son how to commit suicide or seeing a young boy who doesn’t know what a can of Coke is. Equally memorable is the Man visiting his now dilapidated childhood home. There, the simple act of turning over a filthy seat cushion to reveal the clean flipside is a reminder of a life that is gone forever. These are effective moments; the kind of filmmaking that will never occur to Michael Bay.

But having said that, “The Road” could use a little Michael Bay. Bleak is one thing. I can do bleak, but I’d like a bit more entertainment value thrown in. In the 112 minute running time there is too much down time when nothing happens, or when opportunities are blown.

Take the Coke can sequence. The man offers his son a Coke he has found in an abandoned vending machine. For all he knows it could be the last can of soda in the world; a simple pleasure that means much in a world where simply staying alive is a luxury. The boy takes a sip, enjoys the foreign sensation of the bubbles against his tongue before insisting his dad have some. The Man takes a swig. We see a smile begin to form, a sign of the reverie of a familiar sensation in a harsh world. At least I think that’s what it is, but I’ll never know for sure because just as Mortenson begins to turn the scene into something special with the transformative look on his face the camera cuts away to the blank faced boy. In a movie where small things mean a lot, the look on Viggo’s visage could have been a showstopper, but instead is a non-moment.

“The Road” despite offering an unexpectedly touching final sequence is   probably too bleak to appeal to a mainstream audience. It’s the feel bad movie of the year.       

OLD DOGS: 2 ½ STARS

“Old Dogs,” the new comedy starring John Travolta and Robin Willliams as two middle aged men who discover the importance of family, clearly knows what its demographic is. With a boomer soundtrack heavy on hits from the 60s and 70s and a gaggle of incontinence jokes and prostate jokes it’s aimed directly at the crowd who can remember what they were doing when Kennedy was shot.

Williams and Travolta play Dan and Charlie, lifelong friends and business partners on the verge of their biggest deal ever. Dan is a business minded divorcee, who is “allergic to anything under four feet.” In other words no kids—doesn’t have them, doesn’t want them. Just as well, he doesn’t really need children when Charlie is around. He’s still a big kid with an ultramodern apartment full of toys and a habit of flirting with every woman he meets. Their carefully manicured lives are turned upside down when Vicki (Kelly Preston) re-enters Dan’s life. With her are her two kids, the result of a one night stand Dan had with Vicki in Miami seven years before. When Daddy Dan and Uncle Charlie take the kids for two weeks while Vicki serves a jail sentence for environmental activism (how au currant!) they learn that business doesn’t always come first.

“Old Dogs” is the broadest played comedy since “The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze.” It’s filled-to-bursting with funny faces, slapstick humor and not one, but two crotch shots. It’s mostly by-the-numbers—except for a strange “body puppet” sequence featuring the late Bernie Mac—that relies on Williams and Travolta to bring a little something extra to a script that may have been a laugh-free-zone in lesser hands. Williams wrings whatever laughs there are to be found in a spray tan catastrophe scene and Travolta finds the funny as an over medicated man at a bereavement pot luck.  Also packing a few laughs are Luis Guzmán as the hungry childproofing expert and Matt Dillon as the hard line camp leader.

“Old Dogs” works best when it is going for laughs, unfortunately the slapstick is interspersed with mushy moments that seem to come out of nowhere. One moment Dan has lost all depth perception and is playing the wildest game of golf since Adam Sandler and Bob Barker threw it down on the links in “Happy Gilmour,” the next Williams is using his earnest “Patch Adams” eyes, staring at the camera, fretting that he’s not cutting it as a dad. The sudden shifts are a bit jarring, but for every sentimental scene there are four sciatica jokes, or a grand-pa gag.

“Old Dogs” is a sequel in spirit to Travolta’s “Wild Hogs.” Call it boomer porn if you like—it showcases older successful men, their beautiful younger wives and interesting lives—but at its heart it’s just an old fashioned family comedy.  

NINJA ASSASSIN:
ACTION: 4 STARS
ACTING AND EVRYTHING ELSE: 2 STARS

If you are the type of person who would go see a movie called “Ninja Assassin” then you’ll probably enjoy “Ninja Assassin,” and judging by the audience I saw it with, ditto if you own a UFC jacket.

Like all great ninja movies “Ninja Assassin” (maybe the best movie title this year) is about revenge. Raised by the Ozunu Clan on a ninja farm run by the evil master (Shô Kosugi) Raizo (Korean pop star Rain) breaks free from his clan after the brutal murder of one of his fellow ninja disciples. He spends his days training and plotting revenge. Meanwhile in Berlin, Europol agent Mika Coretti (Naomie Harris) is tracking a series of ninja murders that seem to be linked to the Ozunu Clan. Together they may be able to take down the evil ninjas, exacting justice and revenge!

“Ninja Assassin” is an amplified version of the cheapo ninja films of the 1980s. It has all the earmarks of the classics of the genre like “Enter the Ninja” and “Pray for Death,” that is: stiff acting, loads of mysticism, slow motion fight scenes, a simplistic good vs. evil plot and buckets of blood. In fact the blood budget on “Ninja Assassin” could finance well, dozens of other, more worthwhile endeavors. The special effects are better than in the earlier films, but for all intents and purposes this could be a relic from the heyday of ninjitsu flicks. It even co-stars Shô Kosugi, the godfather of the modern ninja film.

The term slice-and-dice hardly does the carnage on display in “Ninja Assassin” justice.  There are more blades flying here than in that Slap Chop infomercial with the Shamwow guy. The first unbelievably bloody killing happens about three minutes in and is followed by a body count that would make Rambo envious.

Go for the action, which is pretty much state-of-the-ninja-art. There’s nothing here that rivals Quentin Tarantino’s House of the Blue Leaves sequence in “Kill Bill” for sheer manic fun, but when the throwing stars are flying and the blood is squirting, “Ninja Assassin” is a lot a hoot, it’s only when the characters start talking that things get dull. Partly it’s the wooden acting, but mostly it’s because the screenwriters feel they have to over-explain everything. When Raizo helps Mika escape from the marauding ninjas heading her way, he explains they can follow her scent. He tells her to undress, shower without soap and change into new clothes. It’s pretty clear what’s happening, but in the world of “Ninja Assassin” his obvious instructions lead her to ask, “This is for our scent, right?” Yes genius, it is. Everyone in the theatre knew and so should you.

It’s a dark movie—both in tone and visually—but there is the odd laugh here and there. There are visual ninja jokes—a car parked at a no-tell motel parking lot, riddled with dozens of throwing stars, is hilarious—and when a government official says of Raizo, “He doesn’t look like a killing machine to me, he looks like he belongs in a boy band,” it raises a laugh given star Rain’s background as a pop star. 
 
Despite some silly dialogue and low light action—ninjas exist in the shadows, we’re told, so all the fight scenes are shot in the dark and it is sometimes hard to tell what is going on—“Ninja Assassin” is bloody good fun, emphasis on the bloody.

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON: 2 STARS

I'm no sixteen year old girl. Never have been, never will be, which makes me unqualified to judge the appeal of the “Twilight” books and movies. These vampire love stories have hit a nerve with a certain demographic, made superstars out of its actors, the King and Queen of Mumbly Teen Angst, Robert Pattison and Kristen Stewart and made everyone connected with the series rich, but I don't really get it. I'm no sixteen year old female, but neither is director Chris Weitz who I’m not sure really gets it either. He’s taken a surefire hit and turned it into a plodding, dull movie that keeps the leading man hidden for half the film.

The story picks up where the original left off. Bella (Kristen Stewart) and vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) are happily enjoying a dead-undead romance, exchanging long stares and even the occasional kiss. When a paper cut and a drop of blood ruins Bella’s 18th birthday Edward realizes there is no place for a human in his world and breaks off their relationship before hightailing it to points unknown. In his absence Bella becomes an emotional wreck (nobody does tormented teen like Kristen Stewart). There are bad breakups—the kind where you mope and eat ice cream for breakfast—then there is the titanic meltdown that happens after Bella gets dumped by the bloodsucker.

Enter Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), Bella’s old friend and possible new love interest. By the time someone says to her, "you're OK with weird," the going truly has become bizarre. Jacob turns out to be a member of the mysterious Quileute tribe who carry a werewolf gene. As everybody knows, werewolves and vampires don’t get along, placing Bella in the awkward position of not only being involved in a vampire-werewolf-human love triangle, but also having the two men in her life be sworn enemies.  

“New Moon” is bound to make a fortune, but it isn’t an improvement on the first picture. It’s slightly more stylish than the original and there are a few more light moments but the story is all melodrama and no real drama. The characters, which original director Catherine Hardwicke treated as real people, giving them heart and soul (of course vampires don’t have heart or soul but you get the idea), here are simple stereotypes.

In Weitz’s world Bella and Edward are reduced to lovesick ennui twins, moping endlessly and mumbling their lines. There are attempts to create a feeling of romance—Edward even recites a passage from “Romeo and Juliet” from memory—but what felt like a sweeping, all consuming love in the first film feels more like an overblown teenage crush in the new film.

Unlike the television series “True Blood,” which manages to find a balance between the love story, the vampire action while throwing in a bit of social commentary, “New Moon” is content to present underdeveloped ideas about identity, racism and gay rights. All these concepts are buried in the script and if they weren’t pumping these “Twilight” movies out faster than AIG wastes its bailout money the screenwriters might be able to develop some of these ideas beyond simply paying lip service to them with an anguished monologue by a jittery teen.  

But what do I know? The audience I saw the film with cooed during all the right moments, laughed when Edward’s brother suggested it would be a good idea for Bella to become a vampire so he wouldn’t want to “kill her all the time” and gasped at the bombshell ending. “New Moon” will please the fans of the books and movies, but may leave non fang bangers cold.

THE BLIND SIDE: 3 ½ STARS

“The Blind Side” is Sandra Bullock’s third movie this year, following “The Proposal,” a fun rom com that became her biggest hit to date and “All About Steve,” a critical flop that nonetheless showed she can be charming despite a terrible script. This time around she brings a different set of acting chops to play Leigh Anne Tuohy, a big-hearted but tough-as-nails Memphis mom.

Based on a true story, “The Blind Side” centers on teenager Michael “Big Mike” Oher (Quinton Aaron), an inner city teen on his way to becoming a statistic. He’s been tossed around from foster home to foster home, forgotten about and neglected. After earning admission to a Christian private school based on his athletic ability, he still feels lost, a lone African-American in a sea of white faces. It isn’t until he is spotted by a guardian angel in the form of Leigh Anne Tuohy that his life takes a dramatic left turn. After a chance meeting she realizes that he has no where to live and invites him to her family’s home for the night. One night turns into a lifetime, as Michael becomes part of the family.

“The Blind Side” is a hokey movie. Most of the characters are stereotypes and the dramatic arc is so simple a five year old could see how this story is going to end up, but despite its Hallmark feel it’s also a crowd pleasing four Kleenex tear-jerker. It’s a mix-and-match assortment of themes and styles—there’s the fish-out-of-water story, the inspirational sports tale, a family drama and a study of race and class in America. Phew. There’s a lot going on but Bullock and newcomer Quinton Aaron are the glue that hold it all together.

Bullock has transformed herself here. The cute and cuddly edge of her rom coms is gone, replaced with a mane of blonde hair and a take no prisoners attitude. Even her voice has a harder edge to it than usual. It’s the kind of performance she’s been hinting at ever since her dramatic turn in “Crash” and one that could earn her awards in the coming months.  

As Big Mike Quinton Aaron not only brings an imposing physicality to the role but also a tender side. He’s a gentle giant with a warm smile who gets the audience on side with him from the get go. The whole story hinges on whether or not viewers care about Big Mike and will want to go on his life journey. Aaron wins us over early on and holds our attention in a quiet, understated performance.

“The Blind Side” isn’t a great movie, there’s too much emotional manipulation and huge problems seem to get solved a little too easily for it to be 100 percent believable, but it is an entertaining movie anchored by two very good, but very different actors.  

PRECIOUS: 4 ½ STARS

There is nothing precious about the movie “Precious”. Nothing twee or frivolous. If the word “heartbreaking” hadn’t already existed in the English language it might have been invented to describe the story of Clareece “Precious” Jones an inner city NYC kid with big problems.

“Precious” is about the power of the educational system to help lift a person up from adversity but it is much more than just an inspirational teacher movie. It’s a movie about victims—one who transcends and one who doesn’t. “To Sir with Love” this isn’t.

Set in 1987 Harlem it follows the progress of “Precious” Jones, a pregnant, overweight and illiterate sixteen year old. She lives with her welfare mother Mary (Mo'Nique) in a rundown apartment where she lives a life of constant mental, physical and sexual abuse. “I’ll be OK,” says Precious. “I’m always looking up… looking for a piano to fall. There’s always something in my way.”  

The only thing that keeps her on an even keel is her rich inner life, but even that is filled with self hate. When she looks in the mirror she imagines a skinny, pretty blonde girl staring back at her. Despite her big dreams she feels people regard her and her family as “black grease that needs to be wiped away.” The one bright spot in her life is Ms. Rain (Paula Patton) a supportive alternative school teacher. With her encouragement Precious may find a way out of her hellish situation.    

“Precious” is one of the most grueling movie experiences of the year. It transports the viewer to an uncomfortably down-and-dirty world were pain and anguish are the price of admission. Hope, for Precious, is a dim light at the end of a very long tunnel but director Lee Daniels keeps the movie from being an exercise in viewer self flagellation with pitch perfect (and unexpected) casting and a sure narrative hand.

Cast wise the most surprising element to “Precious” is a career making performance from comedian Mo'Nique in a decidedly non-comedic role. Best known for parts in low budget comedies like Soul Plane and Beerfest she shows a dramatic side here as Mary, a vicious mother and welfare scammer.
Who would have imagined her (potentially) Oscar worthy scene would be opposite Mariah Carey? Carey’s work as a tough-as-nails social worker should erase all the ill will her “performance” in “Glitter” earned, and who knows, maybe she’ll be able to add an acting prize to her Grammy shelf come awards time.         

At the center of it all is first timer Gabourey “Gabby” Sidibe in the title role. She pulls off a difficult portrayal, making it believable; giving Precious the dignity she needs to survive and shows some real backbone in a character who could easily have been a cliché.

“Precious” is filled with disturbing imagery—incest and abuse—although when the going gets tough, mercifully, the screen often fades to black, but not always, and that is one of the strengths of the film. It doesn’t back away from the real life horror of Precious’s life. It’s bleak yes, but compelling.    

PLANET 51: 2 STARS
 
“Planet 51” plays like it was written by a team of marketers. It is ripe with all the stuff adults think kids love. Cuddly aliens? Check. Slapstick humor? Check. A cute robot that kind of looks like WALL-E but not really? Check. Silly adult characters? Check. The only thing missing is a good story.
 
Set on an alien world where it rains rocks and the 1950s are in full bloom—imagine a high tech “Happy Days” and you get the idea of the look of the film—the story doesn’t really take flight until dimwitted astronaut Charles T. Barker (voice of The Rock) lands, thinking he is on an uninhabited planet. His plan is to plant an American flag, knock around some golf balls and return home a national hero. Instead he discovers a planet full of “sea monkeys dancing to the oldies.” Most of the green-skinned inhabitants of the planet don’t quite know what to make of him either. The only knowledge they have of life from other planets comes from their sci fi movies. They believe he’s a “humaniac” with two sets of teeth that has arrived on their planet to harvest their organs and turn the citizens of Planet 51 into zombies. Barker becomes Public Alien Number One, the most wanted extraterrestrial on the planet. Then he meets Lem (voice of Justin Long), a friendly young Planet 51 astronomer, who may be his only chance to get back to his ship before the autopilot kicks in and returns to Earth without him.  
 
“Planet 51” is aimed directly at ten-and-under crowd, who should enjoy the silly jokes and the colorful pictures, but parents beware, there’s not much here for you. There is the odd throw-a-way line intended for the adults in the audience—a suppository joke and a “What the duck!” double entendre—which may raise a giggle but seem a little out of place when butted up against the kid friendly humor that makes up most of the movie.  
 
The underlying message of tolerance, however, is a good one. It teaches kids that no matter how different we may be there is almost always some middle ground. As I say, good message, I just wish it were wrapped up in a better movie.    

BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS: 3 ½ STARS

By the time Nicolas Cage screeches, “Shoot him again! His soul is still dancing!” near the end of “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” his master class of extreme acting reaches its apex. This is the performance that Cage has been slowly working toward; a koo koo bananas performance that makes his demented work in “Knowing” look restrained. But you know what? It works.

Set in post Katrina New Orleans, Cage is Terence McDonagh a good, but wild cop who injures his back saving a drowning prisoner in a flooded jail. Soon he becomes addicted to pain killers, then coke, then anything that will ease his aching back. When he can no longer easily get drugs from the evidence room at work for him and his prostitute girlfriend (Eva Mendes) he goes off the deep end, falling into an abyss of sex, drugs and gambling. Throughout it all he works to solve the case of a family of murdered Senagalese immigrants. “Just because he likes to get high,” says Stevie Pruit (Val Kilmer), “doesn’t stop him being the po-lice.”     

“Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” doesn’t have the same operatic madness as Brian DePalma’s “Scarface,” it’s too down and dirty for that, but it does have an unhinged quality that makes it the most surprising film of the year. The police procedural portion of the story is fairly straightforward, but Cage’s acting—which is as big as the 44 Magnum he has permanently wedged in his belt—and director Werner Herzog’s surreal touches, like a hallucination scene complete with close-ups of iguanas, a Tom Jones soundtrack and a bug eyed Cage, make it a memorable experience.

Finding the tone of the film may be the most challenging part of finding enjoyment here. It’s gritty and silly, but unlike the film it is very loosely based on, Abel Ferarra’s cult classic “Bad Lieutenant,” it doesn’t take itself very seriously. That’s not apparent at first, but when Cage physically abuses an elderly woman, shrieking, “I’m trying to be courteous but I’m beginning to think that’s getting in the way of me being effective,” while coked out of his mind, it becomes obvious that this is a satire of bad cop movies like “Narc” or “Training Day.”

Seen as parody, the film’s richness and don’t-give-a-damn energy—even if the plot points don’t always add up—make it one of the more unusual and entertaining movies of the year.

2012: 2 ½ STARS

“It’s the end of the world as we know it… and I feel bored.” Nothing like a quick paraphrase of a classic R.E.M. song to sum up my feelings toward the latest end of the world CGI spectacular from Roland Emmerich. Unlike the 1970’s disaster genre, which tended to focus on one particular mishap, like a boat sinking or an office tower bursting into flames, “2012” is an all-purpose disaster movie. Emmerich lays it on thick, utilizing earthquakes, tsunamis and every other natural catastrophe in the Master of Disaster Handbook, to bring life as we know it to a screeching halt.

The film centers around a global doomsday event coinciding with the end of the Mayan Long Count Calendar's current cycle on December 21, 2012. In other words, four days before Christmas, 2012, the world goes boom. California falls into the sea, the South Pole ends up somewhere in Wisconsin and the Himalayas are submerged underwater. Staying one step ahead of the devastation is divorcée Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), who pulls out all the stops to get his ex-wife, kids and a handful of stragglers to a lifesaving Noah’s Arc in China called Genesis.

The fifteen year old boy in me enjoyed watching the world blow up real good; the adult in me, however, wanted characters I could believe in. Or at least care about a little bit. It’s not exactly the actor’s fault that I didn’t warm to / care about anyone on screen, they were simply doing their best with a script that had been run through the Cliché-O-Matic before filming began.

Occasionally the cheesy dialogue raises a smile. During a lover’s spat one character says to another, “I feel like something is pulling us apart,” as an earthquake splits the floor between them but more often than not each and every character is saddled with dialogue that would make Ed Wood Jr beam with pride. As all hell is breaking loose the president says to his daughter, “you look just like your mother when you get mad,” and everything is the “most important (insert event here) in the history of mankind!” A thousand monkeys banging away on a thousand typewriters for a week could probably write this script.

But clever wordplay is not why we go see movies like this. We go to revel in a make believe orgy of destruction. Nothing much happens in the first forty minutes however—we meet the large cast, but by the time George Segal shows up the cameo quotient begins to resemble an episode of “The Love Boat”—but when the earth’s crust begins to destabilize at the forty minute mark many spectacular scenes of world demolition follow. Hope you have a huge appetite for destruction because for the next two hours that’s pretty much all there is. “2012” becomes an end of the world spectacle to end all end of the world spectacles, which, works if a doom boom is all you’re interested in, but after a while the elaborate special effects becomes visual white noise.

Emmerich could have kept up interest by adding some real drama beyond timers counting down to zero or placing the hero in life or death situations that he is most certainly going to survive, or by shortening the running time—at a butt numbing 2 hours and 40 minutes “2012” feels like the end of the world is playing out in real time—but instead was content to fill the screen with flashy CGI and little else.

PIRATE RADIO: 2 STARS

“Pirate Radio” is about the indomitable never-say-die spirit of rock ‘n’ roll. It's about a group of DJs on a ship in the North Atlantic who spent the late Sixties bringing the music to millions of British kids. It's a good story, but maybe the fictitious story of Radio Rock would mean more today if the music meant more today. Popular music doesn't have the same rebel spirit it once did, and as such it's hard to imagine that once, many years ago people were willing to die for the music they loved.

The action begins when Carl (Tom Sturridge), a rebellious teenager recently expelled from school, arrives on the pirate radio ship. He’s been sent by his mother to stay with Quentin (Bill Nighy) his flamboyant godfather, in the hopes of straightening out his life. Fat chance. He’s surrounded by a group of rogue DJs—The Count (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Simon (Chris O'Dowd), Angus (Rhys Darby), Midnight Mark (Tom Wisdom), DJ Smooth Bob (Ralph Brown) and the decadent "king of the airwaves", Gavin (Rhys Ifans)—a less-than-wholesome group who are the collective voices of rebel rock. Life on the boat is a nonstop party until the creation of the Marine Offences Act, which aims to silence the rowdy DJs and their “rock ‘n’ roll pornography,” a failed marriage drives a wedge between the DJs and a blown engine threatens not only the existence of Radio Rock, but the lives of the DJs as well.  

The tone of “Pirate Radio” is pitched somewhere just slightly above reality, just below parody. Its version of the freewheelin' Sixties feels unreal, as if people back then were all colorfully dressed wild men and women without a care in the world. It’s obviously a highly idealized vision of the time that will appeal to boomers with rose colored memories of the time, but for the rest of us it will likely seem a bit naïve. The characters, as presented here by some very good actors, are caricatures from the Swinging Sixties and not fully developed people.

Philip Seymour Hoffman comes closest to creating a real character as a man who becomes racked with melancholy when he realizes he is likely “living the best years of his life” and his trip back to dry land will be downhill, but by and large reality gets lost in the feel-goodness of it all.       

It's a story about sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll with little of the former and lots of the latter. In fact, “Pirate Radio” may be the first movie in some time that is actually more fun to listen to than actually watch. It has a blazing soundtrack, rich with great Brit rock like The Easybeats’s “Friday on My Mind” and Arthur Brown’s “Fire” but the film itself plays like a series of events rather than a movie. There's just not enough story and a few too many dance numbers here to justify a two hour running time.

“Pirate Radio” has its heart in the right place and is an enjoyable piece of 60’s fluff, but I would have been happy to simply have the soundtrack and leave the movie behind.

BOONDOCK SAINTS 2: ALL SAINTS DAY: 1 STAR

Quentin Tarantino what have you wrought? Every now and again a movie comes around by one of Tarantino’s acolytes that tries to emulate the master, but, instead, slips into parody. “Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day” is such a movie. The only thing that prevents director Troy Duffy’s follow up to the original cult film from being an out-and-out send-up of Tarantino’s tough guy revenge genre pictures is the absence of Leslie Nielsen.   

Ten years after the first installment the pious but deadly MacManus brothers, Connor and Murphy (Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus) are back on American soil after a long exile in rural Ireland. They had been living a quiet life, tending sheep (I’m not kidding) and letting their hair grow to unruly lengths, but when their favorite Boston priest is killed they leave the sheep behind and return to their former lives as vigilante Mafioso killers. Joining them are new recruit Romeo (Clifton Collins Jr.), Southern belle and FBI special agent, Eunice Bloom (Julie Benz) and Poppa M (Billy Connolly). Bullets, bad accents and religious iconography abound as they bring their own brand of justice to the mean streets of Boston.

Duffy hasn’t made a movie since 1999 and it shows. “Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day” plays like a bloated 1990’s Mötley Crüe music video, complete with slow motion sequences and Julie Benz in FBI issue dominatrix heels. The only things missing are dry ice and a drum solo, and I’m pretty sure those will be in the director’s cut.

Story wise it has all the depth of a UFC match and is just about as well acted. Everyone from the above the title credits does their worst work here, and Peter Fonda actually hands in a career ending performance as The Roman, an enigmatic figure who appears at the end of the film. And when, exactly, did Billy Connolly become a Rompin’ Ronnie Hawkins impersonator? Even Clifton Collins Jr, a gifted actor who shone very brightly recently in “Sunshine Cleaning” doesn’t fare very well, although, to be fair, it’s hard to shine when you have to recite lines like, “This isn’t rocket surgery, you know.” Ouch. That line would make Ed Wood Jr. proud.

Maybe I have it wrong. Maybe Duffy meant to make a tough guy parody, but it doesn’t feel that way. It feels more like fourth rate Tarantino. All the trademarks are here. There’s the movie references—QT cites an exotic blend of kung fu movies, Goddard and 70s exploitation; Duffy references “Panic Room,” a middling 2002 Jody Foster thriller. Then there’s the “hip” soundtrack—Tarantino mines a deep well of soundtrack and pop music, Duffy doesn’t. It just all feels like warmed over leftovers.

In what may be the defining scene of “Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day” Judd Nelson, as mafia boss Concezio Yakavetta, reenacts the famous Al Capone baseball bat scene from “The Untouchables,” only this time, instead of a Louisville slugger he uses a salami to make his point. And that choice pretty much sums up the entire movie—ham-fisted and meat headed.

I HOPE THEY SERVE BEER IN HELL: MINUS INFINITY X 10

Leaving the theatre after seeing “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell” I felt as though I was leaving behind a crime scene—a crime against entertainment. This low budget adaptation of a best selling book of the same name by Tucker Max has all the appeal of watching an autopsy. And I don’t mean the safe and sanitary kind of autopsy seen on “CSI”, but the real deal where the medical examiner is covered in gore and noxious fumes fill the air.

As the opening credits say this story is “based on a true story… unfortunately.”  The unfortunately is meant to a self-knowing jab at the title character Tucker Max, a narcissistic young man who allows his self interest to affect the lives of everyone around him. It suggests that the screenwriter (whose life inspired the book and the movie) is acknowledging his bullish behavior and saying he has atoned for the events in the story that are about to unfold. If he really wanted to express regret for this story he’d apologize to the audience upfront, and perhaps do them the favor of suggesting they run to get their money back before sitting through anymore of this cheap rip off of The Hangover.

The story begins when Tucker Max (The Gilmour Girls’ Matt Czuchry) uses his “charm” to convince his soon-to-be married friend Dan (Geoff Stults) to lie to his fiancée (Traci Lords) and drive three hours to celebrate his bachelor party at a wild strip club that allows groping and down-and-dirty lap dances. Tagging along for the ride is their depressed friend Drew (Jesse Bradford), a Colin Farrell look-a-like who does little more than whine in a monotonous voice and alienate everyone unfortunate enough to come within a one mile radius. Dropping his friends to pursue a stripper, Tucker sets into motion a series of events that will see Dan thrown in jail on the eve of his wedding. His reckless behavior throws a wedge in their friendship and Tucker must find a way to think about someone other than himself and make amends.   

To say that there is a distinct lack of charm to “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell” would be an understatement along the lines of suggesting that Jay Leno stopped being funny as soon as he moved to 10 pm. For every line like “we’re gonna fail worse than a “Friends” spinoff” that may raise a smile there are a dozen other gags (literally) about rape, fetal alcohol syndrome and abortion. I know it’s supposed to be an edgy morality tale about the effects of egotism, but even Tucker’s big apology scene, his mea culpa for his self absorbed behavior, is all about him, proving once and for all that he is still a selfish man-child who does whatever he wants. It also means that the movie has no resolution and that the audience has spent ninety minutes in the company of these pathetic excuses for characters for no reason.

It’s all rather unconvincing, unrealistic and given its low production value, unwatchable. That’s to say nothing of the film’s unforgivable misogyny, sexism and a climax that rates among the most unpleasant ever filmed. Finish your popcorn before the bathroom scene… trust me. “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell” isn’t just a bad movie; it’s a slap in the face to anyone who pays money to see it.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL: 2 STARS

Before I saw the Jim Carrey version of “A Christmas Carol” I wondered why remake a story that has been done so often and so well in the past. I’ve seen it and I’m still wondering.

There have been at least 21 versions of the story made for the big screen and dozens more for television. Director Robert Zemeckis and his high tech bag of motion capture tricks don’t add anything to the story, in fact, occasionally his CGI actually gets in the way.

Zemeckis wisely hasn’t toyed around with the 166-year-old story. Ebenezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey) is a miserly bah humbugger who doesn’t believe in the spirit of Christmas until he is visited by three spirits—the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future—and finds salvation in their terrifying visions.   

“A Christmas Carol” is Zemeckis’s third attempt at creating a film using motion capture—filming the actors and using their motions as a template to create a computer generated film—following “Polar Express” and “Beowulf.” “Polar Express” was meant to be a heart warming Christmas tale but exposed the problem with Zemeckis’s technique—dead CGI eyes. The weirdly lifeless animation was creepy, akin to a Christmas story performed by zombies. “Beowulf” was an improvement but like “A Christmas Carol” there are still kinks to be worked out. Chief among them is: Why bother with this at all?

On the plus side the CGI allows for camera moves that would otherwise be impossible—endless dolly shots through a Dickensian cityscape for example—and the Ghost of Christmas Present death scene is a spectacular scene of gothic creepiness, and is actually enhanced by the use of computer animation. On the minus side the Ghost of Christmas Future, a stand-out in the 1951 Alastair Sim version, is reduced to a show-offy platform for Zemeckis’s 3-D CGI magic.

My main complaint though, is the medium itself. Much of the animation looks great—the texture of Scrooge’s leather chair for instance—but there are enough artificial looking things—the flame in the fireplace or the steam from people’s mouths—that remind us that we’re watching flashing binary code and little else. Some of the characters are well animated but the work is inconsistent, occasionally looking photo realistic, but often not. Unlike live action or even hand drawn animation, there’s nothing that feels organic about motion capture, so the moments that are supposed to strike an emotional chord—like young Ebenezer dancing with his beautiful bride to be, or old Scrooge watching Bob Cratchit’s family deal with the loss of Tiny Tim—have little resonance.  

Whatever impact the movie has, and it does have the occasional moment that engages not only the eye but the heart, could have just as easily achieved with a live action cast.     

Perhaps Zemeckis should have taken the lead from one of the more famous lines from the story, “Mankind was my business,” and made the movie’s business more about mankind and less about technology.

THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS: 3 1/2 STARS

“The Men Who Stare at Goats” is the best movie with the worst name that we’ll likely see this year.  Despite its silly title—which makes perfect sense in context of the movie, but will be a mystery to anyone unfamiliar with the story—this screwball George Clooney film has many serious points to make about the state of modern warfare, but does so with a healthy dose of satire.

Based on a story that is “more true than you think” it begins when journalist Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) uncovers a story about the New Earth Army, a secret psychic battalion of super soldiers sponsored by the US government in hopes of finding a new way to fight wars. The Pentagon wants to be the first super power to develop super powers. Teaming up with Lyn Cassidy (Clooney), a veteran psychic soldier, Wilton tracks down Cassidy’s mentor Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), an eccentric New Age shaman now working at a prison camp in Iraq run by Kevin Spacey’s character, Larry Hooper. Hooper is a former psychic soldier who lived in Cassidy’s shadow until he managed to subvert the original purpose of the New Earth’s Army and take control.  

Directed by hyphenate actor-turned-George Clooney’s best friend-turned-writer-turned-director Grant Heslov, the pen behind “Good Night and Good Luck” the movie has a wonky feel right from the get go. Its dizzying blend of slapstick, satire and drama is a hard thing to pull off, but Heslov with the help of his lead actors and a strong supporting cast including Coen Brothers regular Stephen Root, find just the right tone for the first hour.

In fact, the first sixty minutes of “The Men Who Stare Sat Goats” is giddy good fun; as fun a ride as there is in theatres this year. Its absurdist, filled with memorable images—Clooney staring down a goat, enlisted men doing the Watusi and a montage of Jeff Bridges embarking on a journey of enlightenment—and no joke is too broad. It’s as if Crosby and Hope had gone to Iraq instead of Singapore or Utopia. Then along comes Kevin Spacey who ruins all the fun.

It’s as if the filmmakers were afraid to stick to their guns and make a surreal free form movie so they added Spacey’s sniveling character to add in some conflict. It’s meant to up the drama of the piece but it’s the point at which the movie loses much of its zip. The conflict Spacey brings is simply not as interesting as the rest of the film. The final third of the film suffers for it, but it remains an unpredictable romp with some nice performances and pointed comments on the absurdity of war. I couldn’t help but think that if someone like Robert Altman had made this film in 1974 the message and the madness would have been intact without the spoiler of Spacey.       

GENTLEMEN BRONCOS: 2 STARS

“Gentlemen Broncos” is a coming-of-age, sci fi comedy about plagiarism. It’s also the latest film from “Napoleon Dynamite” director Jared Hess. That means it’s even more idiosyncratic than the description given in the first line of this review.

Written by Jared and (wife) Jerusha Hess “Gentlemen Broncos” tells the story of aspiring fantasy writer and home schooled teenage outcast Benjamin Purvis (Michael Angarano). He writes strange sci fi stories that lead people to ask if “some kind of weird surgery” inspired his work. After attending Cletus Fest, a fantasy convention where he hoped to pick up writing tips from his hero, writer Dr. Ronald Chevalier (Jemaine Clement), his creative life becomes complicated when his novel, “Yeast Lords,” is turned into an extremely low budget film, and plagiarized by Chevalier.

Up until now Hess’s films have been strange slices of life buoyed by strong comic performances and some good jokes. But what felt so fresh in “Napoleon Dynamite”—the oddball comic timing and unconventional American Grotesque casting—this time out feels gimmicky, as if Hess and company are masking a lack of original ideas with his tried and true and, by now, on his third film, somewhat tired trademarks. As a filmmaker he has a unique voice but, like the drunk guy at the party who speaks louder than everyone else to get his point across, Hess is stylistically shouting to cover a lack of jokes.   

Angarano, a talented young actor in the Michael Cera mode, is fine here but gets bowled over by a cast of curiosities. Jennifer Coolidge, as Benjamin’s mother rides the line between eccentric affectation and real life, raising a few laughs along the way, but Jemaine Clement, best known as half of “Flight of the Concords,” is nothing but eccentric affectation and hilariously so.

His take on the über pretentious novelist—who sounds like “Logan’s Run” era Michael York and signs off his speeches with the coda `May the glistening dome of the Borg queen shine her light on us all,”—is over-the-top and silly, but brings the funny.

In a tutorial to a class of aspiring writers he speaks of “the power of the suffix” when creating names for fantasy stories. Adding the suffix “onius,” “ainous” or “anous” he says, will yield the perfect name. For example, “bronco,” becomes “broncanous,” probably the best new word of the 21st century.

Unfortunately that’s the highlight, and that joke was given away in the trailer. “Gentleman Broncos” left me wanting more and less of Hess—more of the freshness he displayed in his earlier work, less of his clichéd trademarks.

THE FOURTH KIND: 2 STARS

There's a lot of hooey in “The Fourth Kind.” Alien abductions and junk science but the biggest nose stretcher occurs just under a minute into the film. Milla Jovovich intros the movie calling herself "actress Milla Jovovich." She's a lot of things—beautiful woman, check, talented model, check, nice to hang out with, probably—but after seeing “The Fourth Kind” I have a hard time understanding how she and, let's say Meryl Streep, can lay claim to the same job description.

Like “Paranormal Activity,” and “The Blair Witch Project” “The Fourth Kind” is a fictional story that uses alleged documentary footage as the basis for the story. In this case it is a therapist’s session tapes, police surveillance video and interview footage with psychotherapist Dr. Emily Taylor, that forms the backbone of the film’s case for the existence of alien abductions.

Set in modern-day Nome, Alaska, the movie stars Jovovich as Dr. Taylor, whose husband was murdered in their bed as she lay helplessly nearby. Despite her emotional trauma she elects to continue her practice, which involves hypnotherapy and repeatedly telling people to “Take a deep breath and calm down.” When one of her patients kills his family and then himself, and others complain of insomnia and seeing an evil owl—How do we know its evil? Why, ominous music plays whenever it is onscreen, that’s how!—she comes to the only conclusion a trained medical professional could reach—they’ve all been abducted by aliens and then returned to earth!

It seems Nome has a bit of a reputation as a hotbed of alleged ET activity, with dozens of people going missing there each year, never to be heard of again. Apparently even the FBI, after multiple investigations into the disappearances, hasn’t been able to pinpoint why so many people vanish from the area. I don’t know either, but I would guess Sarah Palin has something to do with it.  

If “The Fourth Kind” was made in the 1950s by Roger Corman it would have been called “Aliens in Alaska” (or maybe the punchier “Alaskan Aliens”) and it might not have taken itself so seriously. Also, Corman would have known that you can’t make an alien picture and NOT SHOW ANY ALIENS! It’s an unbreakable movie rule, like the one that says the first person to die in a slasher flick will always be the trashy prom queen. Also Corman might have been able to draw a performance out of Jovovich, who is completely out of her emotional depth here. If I was her agent I’d suggest sticking to the action flicks.  

In its favor “The Fourth Kind” (which is an even closer encounter than the third kind) has some nice structural work, inventively blending the “real” footage in with the dramatized scenes, but since the director never met a dolly or hand held shot he didn’t love, much of the film’s style gets lost in hectic camerawork.

“The Fourth Kind” isn’t as successful as its other “real life” cousins, “Paranormal Activity” and “The Blair Witch Project.” It does, however, take an inventive idea and push it toward camp by taking itself WAY too seriously. 

THE BOX: 0 STARS

I had a couple of questions after seeing “The Box,” a new existential thriller starring Cameron Diaz.

First: What the hell was that?

Second: Is it possible for a once promising director to completely forget how to make a movie?

Here’s the scoop. Diaz and James Marsden play Norma and Arthur Lewis. They’re a regular family; he wants to be an astronaut, she’s a teacher specializing in existential literature who lost four toes in a horrible X-Ray incident. One day, early in the morning, a mysterious box is delivered to their door. Inside the box is a device that looks like the “Deal or No Deal” buzzer along with a note that reads “Mr. Steward will call on you at 5 pm.” At precisely five the doorbell rings and the bringer of the box, Mr. Steward (Frank Langella) is at the door. He’s a nattily dressed charmer, but there’s something strange about him. For starters he has a facial disfigurement that makes Harvey “Two-Face” Dent look like a Fabio. But there’s more. He calmly explains that she has twenty-four hours to make a decision. If she presses the button she’ll be given one million tax free dollars. There’s a hitch though. Someone, somewhere will die. If she doesn’t press the button he’ll return in one day, collect the box and that will be that. From that point on it is a story of buttons, bloody noses and prosthetic feet. Oh yeah, it’s also about choices and consequences.

“The Box” wants to be a deep multi-layered horror fantasy about the human condition, the afterlife and fate but bites off more than it can chew. The button test is meant to reveal not only the essence of human nature but apparently, the very heart of what it is to be human, or something like that. I’m not exactly sure because by the time we got to that point in the story I was already thinking about what I wanted for lunch the next day. No thrills, no chills, just bored sighs.   

Cameron Diaz’s performance made me long for the days when she danced in her underwear in the first reel of all of her movies and Frank Langella is clearly slumming it for a paycheque here but “Donnie Darko” director Richard Kelly is the real problem. It’s looking more and more like “Darko,” the stylish sci fi mystery that rightfully earned Kelly a cult following, was a fluke. “The Box” is so painfully dull, so silly and overwrought it’s as if there was no director.
Like the movie suggests, there are consequences for every action. I wonder what the consequences will be for making a movie as bad as “The Box.”

THIS IS IT: 4 STARS

This week the world gets a look at the greatest concert that never was, the film of Michael Jackson’s rehearsals for his comeback tour. Is “This is It” a great film? No, but like the best concert films it works because it captures a time and performance that will never be duplicated.

Cobbled together from rehearsal footage taken as he prepared for a series of sold-out shows in London and destined for the singer’s private library, it presents an unvarnished look at the creative process leading up to opening night. It’s not a polished concert film like “Stop Making Sense” or “Woodstock.” It’s a document of a work in process. Because this footage was never meant to be seen by anyone other than Jackson’s inner circle it’s rough, with raw performances and uninspired, often shaky camerawork. It isn’t the usual slickly produced product we would expect from the Jackson camp, and as such has a ring of authenticity to it that you don’t get in other authorized music films.

It’s unlikely that MJ would have approved of the film’s vision. We get to see how meticulous a performer he was, from giving his band’s bass player a funky vocal interpretation of how he wanted a certain riff to sound, to the way he instructs director and choreographer Kenny Ortega on how to add more sizzle to the show’s set pieces but dance wise there’s nothing as awe inspiring as the unveiling of the moon walk on the “Motown Special.” He seems to be working at half speed, as though he was tired, or saving his energy for the audience or, as history shows us, perhaps not well. It’s rawer Jackson than we’re used to—it’s the work of a great artist who is finding his feet after a long absence from the stage.

There are some flashy moments. We see footage of MJ dropped into a montage of 40s era movies starring Rita Heyworth, Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney as an intro to “Smooth Criminal” and the 3-D “Thriller” intro is very cool, but for my money it’s the simpler stuff that really sells the show; the smile that grows on his face after a successful run through of “They Don’t Really Care About Us” or the way he guides the band during the “Human Nature” rehearsal. “Play it like you’re dragging yourself out of bed,” he says to the keyboard player Michael Bearden. Those are the small moments that because Jackson was such an outsized performer, were often missed in the past.  

Given the tabloid element that has always been part of Jackson’s legacy it’s impossible to watch “This is It” without noticing how painfully thin he is during much of the film, and reading some ominous foreshadowing into his opening statement: “I’ll be performing the songs my fans want to hear—this is the final curtain call.” Luckily the movie, like the best memorials isn’t about Jackson’s death, but his life and his talent.

It’s also a reminder of what was lost. On stage Jackson was a great performer. Life may have been difficult for him but under a spotlight he sparkled and it’s a shame that we’ll never see the finished “This is It” live shows. From what we see in the movie it looks like it would have been part rock concert, part Broadway show part Busby Berkley spectacle—Jackson says he wanted to take the audience “places they’ve never been before; show them talent they’ve never seen before. ” It’s a good movie, it would have been an incredible concert.

MORE THAN A GAME: 3 ½ STARS

“More Than a Game” is billed as the LeBron James movie but the superstar player is only part of the tale. The best story in this new documentary, six years in the making, is actually the life story of LeBron's childhood coach, the man who shaped LeBron not only into a superstar athlete, but ushered him and his teammates from boyhood to manhood.   

The film chronicles the rise and, well rise of James and his high school cohorts, the Fab 4 (later to become the Fab 5), a group of fearsomely talented b’ball players who dominated every basketball court they dribbled on from grade school to graduation. Along the way we learn of their struggles and the personal price they paid to become national champions.

Like all sports movies it adheres to the usual win some-lose some formula designed to build drama, but because the story is so recent—most of it happens in the 00s—there isn’t that much drama to be had. LeBron is a superstar and he didn’t get that way by slacking or losing lots of games.

Far more interesting than the rise to the top of the high school athletics heap is the story of the camaraderie, teaching and sacrifice that got LeBron and his teammates there. Like all good sports docs, it’s not really about the sports, it’s about the story behind the game.

That’s where Coach Dru Joyce’s story comes in. He taught these guys how to play the game, but he also gave them something much more important than that. He became a father figure for these young men, giving them more than dribbling advice. He gave them the tools they needed to survive on and off the court, He gave them a winning attitude and that is the heart of the film. He’s an inspiring character who left a career in corporate America to do something really important—be a mentor.

The rest of the film is slickly produced and well put together but suffers from a lack of in-depth reporting and repetition of already established facts. We know coach and players worked hard. We know Dru Senior and Little Dru (one of the Fab 5) had personal and professional problems but much of the meat of the doc is left only half explored. More revealing is the look on James’s face when he and his mother discuss his difficult upbringing. It underlines the early life of pain he’s overcome and is one of the true, raw moments in the film that doesn’t feel overly slick and manufactured.    

“More Than a Game” is more than just a sports documentary but could have benefited from less repetition and more good old fashioned reporting.   

THE COLLECTOR: 1 STAR

The best thing about “The Collector” is that it is not a remake of the creepy Oscar nominated Terence Stamp movie of the same name. Instead two alum of the “Saw” franchise, Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, have partnered up to make the kind of film you’d expect from the writers of “Saw IV,” “V” and “VI.” It’s a gory story about an ex-con turned day laborer (Josh Stewart) who, in an attempt to get some easy money to save his family, breaks into his employer’s house to steal a rare gem. Of course, also inside the house is a nasty surprise—a psychopathic “Collector” (Juan Fernandez) who sets a series of Rube Goldberg-esque booby traps to kill both the residing family and our burglar hero.

“The Collector’s” unholy mix of gorno and heist flick plays like a mash-up of “Saw” and “Home Alone” with extra gore and no jokes. In fact there isn’t much of anything here except for some stylish photography and an anxiety inducing soundtrack.   

There are, I guess, as many inventive ways to kill someone as there are people to kill, but the audience isn’t going to care about the ways and means if they don’t care about the characters, and that is “The Collectors” downfall. These characters are so cardboard the most humane thing to do with them would be to sort and recycle them.

Josh Stewart is trying hard here. He’s the kind of character that, if he didn’t have bad luck, as the song goes, wouldn’t have no luck at all. That’s about it for character development here, but in a movie where the characters are so thin, I’ll take it.

What I can’t accept, however, is the dull, repetitious plot. “The Collector,” however, does get a couple of things right—the soundtrack effectively creates a scary atmosphere, and it looks kinda cool—but it is marred by a silly ending that sets it up for a sequel.

It’s clearly being prepped to become the “Saw” of the next decade, a never ending franchise that has kept Dunstan and Melton busy for the last few years. The difference is “The Collector” is a pointless celebration of sadism, whereas the “Saw” movies, gory as they may be, at least have a twisted morality to them—the people in the traps are being punished for their sins. Let’s just hope “The Collector” doesn’t collect enough dollars at the box office to warrant a second installment.

AMELIA: 1 STAR
 
The best way to describe “Amelia”, the new Hilary Swank film about the highflying life of aviatrix Amelia Earhart, is to call it old fashioned. Set in the decade leading up to her fateful rendezvous with destiny in 1937 on her failed attempt to circumnavigate the globe, the movie seems to pay homage not only to Earhart but also to the films of that era.
 
The film lifts off with a meeting between publisher George Putnam (Richard Gere) and the then unknown Amelia (Swank). He’s looking for the next Lindberg, only this time a woman, to make a transatlantic flight and then reap the rewards of the fame that will follow. The first flight is a public relations success, but for Earhart, who didn’t actually fly the plane it’s a hollow victory. She becomes America’s Sweetheart of the Skies, famous for something she didn’t do—she didn’t actually pilot the plane—and becomes determined to stand up for female pilots and make the journey across the ocean again, solo. In time she makes the flight, becomes the world’s most famous woman and navigates not one, but two romances. The film ends with her doomed flight.
 
“Amelia” is a big, handsome picture with some great aerial photography and a couple of dramatic moments, but does little more than skim over the life of one of the more interesting characters of the twentieth century. Both personally and professionally Earhart was a rebel and a groundbreaker in a man’s world, but the film is content to serve up   clichéd motivational successories instead of real insight.
 
“Amelia” could have been many things. It could have been a study of the feminist ideal. It could have been a look at the beginnings of public relations and media celebrity. It could have been an exciting films about those magnificent women in their flying machines, but instead it a snoozy look at a woman forced to utter platitudes like, “I want to fly that beautiful bird as far as it will take me.”
 
This will not be Hilary Swank’s third Oscar win.
 
She’s working it here, putting on a clipped Kansas accent and trying to inhabit the character, but the script (and an unfortunate hairdo that makes her face look three feet long) aren’t doing here any favors. Her performance is a throwback to the kind of performances given by Rosalind Russell and Ginger Rogers in Amelia’s day. To use the vernacular of the time she’s “spunky.” Spunky, but not that interesting.
She’s playing opposite Richard Gere and honestly, is there a less interesting leading man working today? He rocks the 1930s clothes and doesn’t bump into the furniture but he and Swank have zero chemistry.
 
There is an interesting movie to be made from Amelia Earhart’s life. In fact a few interesting movies have already been made about her life, but “Amelia” isn’t one of them. It’s well made, reverential to it’s subject and perhaps, most excitingly, is possibly the best cure for insomnia since the discovery of St. John’s Wart.

ASTRO BOY: 0 STARS

It appears I have an Astro Boy sized hole in my pop culture knowledge. The character dates back to 1952 when Manga God Osamu Tezuka created the robot boy character in print before spinning him off to a successful Japanese television program in the 1960s. Since then he’s been featured in several more television shows, was listed on Empire magazine's 50 Greatest Comic Characters list and was named Japan's envoy for overseas safety. I didn’t know any of that, and after spending a grueling ninety minutes with the new Astro Boy film, I’m not interested in learning any more.

The new film is one of those dreaded North American reworkings of Asian pop culture. In it a brilliant scientist, Dr. Tenma (voiced by Nicolas Cage), loses his son to a tragic accident. Unable to cope with his loss he builds a robot in the image of his late son. Tenma doesn’t realize how creepy an idea this is until it is too late and the young robot feelings of his own. Unable to please his creator / father Astro Boy (Freddie Highmore)—complete with an astounding array of robot abilities—sets off to make his own mark on the world. Searching for acceptance he falls in with a crowd of teenage anti-robot mercenaries led by Cora (Kristen Bell), does battle with Ham Egg (Nathan Lane), a PT Barnum type who forces bots to battle one another, before returning home to save the day and hopefully earn the respect of his father.   

I was paid to watch Astro Boy and as such had to stay through to the end. If not, however, for the pay cheque and professional ethics it would have taken a seat belt to keep me in my chair through to the closing credits. Astro Boy’s deadly mix of bad writing, tepid action and uninspired voice work sinks the film despite the character’s long and storied history.

Voices for animated features are taped individually and then, through the magic of editing and sound design, spliced together to sound seamless—except in the case of Astro Boy. The voices seem like individual components and even when they do meld together there is no spark. Nicolas Cage, in particular, seems to be doing some pay cheque acting here, sounding as though he is reading from a telephone book and not a script.    

The visuals follow suit. Dull video game-esque renderings may amuse the eye of very young viewers, but anyone who laid eyeballs on Up, Kung Fu Panda or any of the other more recent interesting animated films will be under whelmed.

Astro Boy is a disappointment. It may entertain tots but older fans of the character—and fans of good animated films—beware.

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE: 4 STARS

This adaptation of the classic Maurice Sendak 1963 children’s book “Where the Wild Things Are” isn’t a movie for kids as much as it is a movie about being a kid. The story of Max, a lonely kid who goes to where the wild things are, is a work of profound vision from director Spike Jonze.

The story, based on a book of only nine sentences, couldn’t be simpler. A high-spirited but lonely boy named Max (Max Records) throws a tantrum when his mother (Catherine Keener), invites her boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo) over. When she tries to send him to his room he bites her, flees the house and sails to an imaginary island populated by Ira (voice of Forest Whitaker), Carol (James Gandolfini), KW (Lauren Ambrose), Judith (Catherine O'Hara), The Bull (Michael Berry Jr.), Douglas (Chris Cooper) and Alexander (Paul Dano), seven make-believe giants who crown him king of the Wild Things. For the most part life is easy on the island but soon Max becomes homesick and sets out for his real home.

The end.

This is the kind of movie the Hollywood studios don’t make anymore, a slow moving simple film about deep feelings. It’s not a slick, brightly coloured kid’s film with a connect-the-dots plot and an easily digested moral.

Not much happens. There are some very arresting images. Max and Carol rolling down a sand dune, a “wild rumpus” and a dirt fight, but it’s not about the action, it’s about primal feelings, things that are either not usually touched on or glossed over in most kid’s films—sorrow, loneliness and the difficulty of growing up.

Jonze has made a beautifully emotional and simple movie, both in message and style. The dialogue is basic, almost incidental to the story, as if it was written by a kid; or at least someone who understands how kid’s think and speak. It’s uncomplicated but the cast, both human and monster, brings depth to the plain spoken script.
 
Max Records, in his first major film role, is understated and instinctive, holding the film together with a compelling performance. The look of the beasts has been accurately adapted from the book. They essentially look like huge Muppets with very expressive eyes. Their furry faces combined with very naturalistic voice work from Gandolfini and company bring their search for acceptance and love to life in some very unexpected ways.

“Where the Wild Things Are” is a magical film that will please the arthouse crowd but likely will leave less adventurous viewers a little perplexed. The dark, melancholy tone isn’t typical of children’s entertainment, but since this isn’t really a kid’s film that shouldn’t matter.

LAW ABIDING CITIZEN: 1 ½ STARS

Director F. Gary Gray doesn’t waste any precious time getting to “Law Abiding Citizen’s” action. About thirty seconds into the movie there is a scene of striking ultra-violence that sets up the revenge story which is to follow. It’s just too bad that he allows the pace to go downhill after the opening scene. It’s a thriller without many thrills.

Gerard Butler and his finely carved abdominal muscles play Clyde Shelton the law abiding citizen referred to in the title. His life is changed forever after a home invasion leaves his wife and small child dead. When Assistant DA Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), a slick up-and-coming lawyer at the DA’s office, makes a deal with one of the killers to testify against his partner in return for a reduced sentence it doesn’t sit well with Clyde. Cut to ten years later. Bad things start happening to everyone involved in the case, starting with the bad guys who both perish in excruciating ways. Clyde is arrested and confesses. That should be the end of it, but very bad things continue to happen. By the time Nick figures out how Clyde is doling out his own form of cruel and unusual punishment from jail it may be too late to save his own life.

There are a lot of words that could be used to describe “Law Abiding Citizen.” Here are some of them: goofy, implausible, ludicrous, inane, far-fetched, daft, nonsensical, illogical, preposterous, outlandish… I could go on, but you get the point. The story is a little silly, but that’s OK. It’s a revenge flick and if it was loaded with wall-to-wall action and some fun dialogue I could deal with the silliness. Look at “Taken” from earlier this year. Silly, silly, silly but fun in a check your brain at the door kind of way.

Unfortunately “Law Abiding Citizen” doesn’t have that kind of verve. There’s too much lag time between the big action set pieces. Every time the movie works up a head of steam the momentum evaporates into talky and mostly badly written dialogue sequences.

A red pencil could have made this script much more palatable but it’s likely that if you removed every line where a characters states the obvious and mundane there’s be very little left, dialogue wise. It’s the kind of movie that shows you a bomb with a cell phone trigger. Comments on it and then, for good measure, has another character say something like, “Do you mean to tell me that if that cell phone rings the bomb will go off?” Anyone who’s ever watched “Mission Impossible” or any other thriller involving bad guys and bombs knows that yes, if the cell phone rings the bomb will go off. It’s movie watching 101. You know it just like you know that the guy in the red shirt will always be the first to die on any given episode of “Star Trek.”

When the characters aren’t speaking in clichés they’re trying to comment on the state of a broken justice system that could let a child killer off with a light sentence. It’s an interesting premise for a revenge film, but again, Wimmer overplays his hand, putting sentences like, “I’m going to bring the whole diseased, corrupt temple down on your head! It’s going to be biblical” into Butler’s mouth.

Too bad the action isn’t as over-the-top as the dialogue. If so “Law Abiding Citizen” might have had a chance to be a great bad movie, as it is, it’s just a bad movie.

A SERIOUS MAN: 3 STARS

“A Serious Man,” though being billed as a comedy, may be the bleakest film the Coen Brothers have ever made. And remember these are the guys who once stuffed someone in a wood chipper on film. The story of a man who thought he did everything right, only to be jabbed in the eye by the fickle finger of fate is a tragiomedy that shows how ruthless real life can be.

This loosely plotted slice of life involves two very bad weeks in the life of physics professor Larry Gopnick (stage actor Michael Stuhlbarg). In an escalating series of events his life is turned upside down. His neighbor is unfriendly, his son complains nonstop about the poor TV reception, his wife announces she’s leaving him for another man and the committee who decides if he will get tenure at his university has been receiving uncomplimentary letters about him. As if that wasn’t enough, his deeply depressed brother is sleeping on the couch.

Set in 1967 Minnesota “A Serious Man” is apparently a thinly veiled look at the early life of the Coens, and if this is true, they deserve the designation of tortured artists. This film is darkly funny, but a celebration of life it ain’t.

Stuhlbarg does award level work turning Larry’s misery into a compelling and fully formed portrayal of a man in torment and the film is beautifully made but this is one of the quirkier efforts—example: there’s an old Rabbi who spouts Jefferson Airplane lyrics—from the filmmaking brothers. Plotting is virtually nonexistent and the abrupt ending makes “No Country Fore Old Men’s” unexpected finale seem wordy and drawn out.

Gopnick is portrayed as a good man, someone who has always done the right thing for his family and faith but reaped none of the benefits. His kids are indifferent to him, his wife openly contemptuous and he doesn’t appear to be on the fast track at work and that’s what makes “A Serious Man” so bleak. Nobody said life was fair but Larry Gopnick never gets a break, which, I suppose is the point of the film, but the futility of life message, while thought provoking, is a serious downer.

GOOD HAIR: 3 ½ STARS

On the surface Good Hair sounds like the thinnest idea for a movie since Andy Warhol documented 24 hours in the life of the Empire State Building using only one static shot. Comedian Chris Rock’s look at the African-American hair industry could have been a bit on the gimmicky side but he and director Jeff Stilson wring every ounce of interest from the subject.

Inspired by his young daughter asking, “Daddy, how come I don't have good hair?,” Rock uses gentle humor to examine the relationship black women have with their hair. He interviews everyone from teen star Raven-Symoné to author Maya Angelou to decipher why and how African-American women go to such lengths to modify their hair. They discuss weaves—hair extensions described as “the graduation of the wig”—and relaxer, a potion used to straighten hair for a more “European look” that several women refer to as “creamy crack” because of their dependence on the toxic balm.

It’s all rather light and breezy and would be kind of inconsequential if Rock and company hadn’t broadened the film to examine how hair care in the African-American community became a billion dollar industry and why more of the businesses that feed this industry aren’t black owned. “There’s something wrong when we can’t control something as basic as the hair on our heads,” says Al Sharpton (called the “Dalai Lama of Relaxer”).

Good Hair works because it cleverly uses a study of African-American hair culture as the gateway to examine larger issues of race without ever sounding preachy or pedantic. Is it perfect? No, a hair competition that bookends the film could easily have been shortened or cut altogether, but it’s worth the price of admission to watch Rock talk hair—male and female—with the folks at a barbershop or hear Ice-T talking about getting a mug shot taken while wearing curlers.
 
Ultimately Good Hair’s most important message is summed up by Al Sharpton who says, “The stuff on top of their heads isn’t as important as the stuff inside their heads.”

COUPLES RETREAT: 1 STAR

The guys from “Swingers” have finally grown up. Thirteen years after their break out hit Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau are teamed up again but this time around the zoot suits have been left in storage and the hipster lingo is a thing of the past. In “Couples Retreat” (sic) the boys are old hipsters with wives, kids, martial dysfunction and a group of friends teetering on the cusp of major mid life crisis. They’re no longer “money,” to use the “Swingers” lingo, but they’re in for some major change.

The story focuses on four couples Dave and Ronnie (Vince Vaughn and Malin Akerman), Shane and Trudy (Faizon Love and Kali Hawk), Jason and Cynthia (Jason Bateman and Kristen Bell), and Joey and Lucy (Jon Favreau and Kristin Davis) who go to an island resort called Eden West. This isn’t Sandals or Hedonism, however, couples at Eden West are expected to follow a rigorous relationship building course, that is equal parts Tai Chi, couples therapy and Art of War, taught by Marcel (Jean Reno). Participation is not optional, and of course, each of the couples learns something new about themselves and their bond.  

“Couples Retreat” annoyed me for many reasons. First off, when did it become OK for Hollywood to completely ignore the lowly apostrophe? The title should be “Couple’s Retreat,” but apparently no one at Universal (or Vaughn or Favreau) owns a copy of “The Elements of Style.” Punctuation, however, is just the beginning of the problems with "Couple Retreat."

The movie starts promisingly. The cast is likeable enough—Vaughn, Favreau, Jason Bateman, Faison Love, Malin Ackerman and the two Kristens, Davis and Bell—and the opening half-an-hour pleases in a low-fi way. As a set up to the main action—the trip to the Bora Bora—we’re treated to a mostly well written and interesting introduction to the characters. And Vaughn and Ackerman’s youngest son is hilarious.  As I say, it’s mostly good stuff that sets up the relationship comedy that is to follow, except that once they hit the island at 40ish minute mark the movie slows to a slow grind. A grating slow grind.   

What is it about comedies set on islands Remember “Club Paradise”? “Club Dread”? Sunshine and sky blue water seem to be comedy killers (except for “Gilligan’s Island” of course!). It’s certainly the case here. The post island scenes are only intermittently amusing, slowed by therapy scenes that don’t deliver big laughs and predictable relationship “development” that should be heartfelt but feels forced.

High points include Carlos Ponce as the randy yoga instructor Salvadore and the scenes with the kids that bookend the film. Low points include every minute the usually reliable Jean Reno is on screen and the beyond shameless product placement for Applebee’s and Guitar Hero.

“Couples Retreat” feels like a movie of missed opportunities. It’s not funny enough to be called a comedy and when the best relationship advice on offer is about finding the right person to take to Applebee’s, it can’t be called insightful either.   

WHIP IT: 2 STARS

There’s nothing groundbreaking about Whip It, the directorial debut of American sweetheart Drew Barrymore. It’s the dance movie where the hero or heroine learns about life through ballet or hip hop. Or it’s the Spelling Bee movie where the main character learns self confidence at the Scripps National competition. In this case the back drop is the wild and wacky world of women’s Roller Derby, but the story is very familiar.  

Based on the Shauna Cross novel Derby Girl Ellen Page plays Bliss Cavendar an unhappy teenager from small town Texas who suffers from adolescent ennui. She’s Juno without the pregnancy or the sharp tongue. She’s tired of beauty pageants, her over protective mother and being seventeen. When she stumbles across a flyer for a female Roller Derby league in nearby Austin she sees a way out of her mundane life. Turns out she has a natural ability as a derby demon, and an equally natural ability at attracting skinny guitar players. Soon enough, though, she realizes that skinny guitar players aren’t always the best dates and just because she’s found a new family at the roller rink she can’t throw her old family away.

The world of female roller derby is a colorful, eccentric world that should really lend itself to a rollicking big screen treatment. Unfortunately Whip It doesn’t do it justice. First time director Drew Barrymore gets some of the details right—the women all have fun, campy names like Bloody Holly, Smashly Simpson and Babe Ruthless, and play for teams with names like the Hurl Scouts—but the Roller Derby sequences don’t have the over-the-top rock ‘n’ roll feel they should have. The game scenes are too genteel by half and could have used a bit more rough and tumble energy. It is worth noting however, that the actors seem to be doing their own stunts and some of their falls look quite realistic and quite painful but it isn’t enough to make it feel like authentic down and dirty roller derby.

The feminist aspect of the story—roller derby is often associated with third wave feminism—is blunted because the game is more a plot device than the focus of the story. There is camaraderie among the women on the team and their journey is quite interesting but the film too often detours from the roller rink to Bliss’s love life or struggle with her family.

Barrymore does some good work here. She does a nice job at wordlessly showing Bliss’s alienation in the scene where she takes a bus to her roller derby audition. As she physically leaves the town she has come to hate you get the sense that in her mind she had really left years before. It’s a nicely handled bit of business as is a touching “please don‘t judge me” sequence late in the film between Bliss and her parents (Marcia Gay Harden and Daniel Stern). There’s also some very funny moments and a show stopping performance from Eulala Scheel (Harden’s real life daughter) as Bliss’s younger sister.

But for all the well handled moments there are still the bungled derby scenes which should have added real punch to the story, but instead don’t make much of an impression. If you want to see the real deal derby check out Hell On Wheels, a documentary about the creation of the all-female roller derby league in Austin, Texas in 2001.

CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY: 3 ½ STARS

The release of “Capitalism: A Love Story” will be met with the usual hoopla that surrounds all Michael Moore exposés. Fox News will challenge his facts and call him un-American for having the temerity to suggest that one of the threads of the good old red, white and blue, capitalism, is a flawed and outdated system. Fifty years ago Moore’s habit of sticking up for the little guy, the average American who’s just been foreclosed on or had their pension disappear, would have made him a Roy Rogers type folk hero. But in today’s climate where dissent is seen as disloyalty Moore is painted as a villain, a naysayer determined to undermine the very fabric of American life. Perhaps the name callers should actually try watching one of his films, or at least stay through to the end of “Capitalism,” where, after a look at how the America he loves is in tatters, he announces, “I refuse to live in a country like this… and I’m not leaving.” It’s his “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” moment and a powerful end to an information packed, if somewhat rambling movie.

Moore doesn’t waste time getting to the point. He kicks things off with a mix of archival and recent footage that compares modern culture to the fall of the Roman Empire. From there he walks us through the beginnings of capitalism—which he describes as a system of giving and taking, mostly taking—through to the Regan years when, he says, it all started to go wrong. The story of capitalism unleashed continues through several more administrations until, for reasons far too complicated to detail here, the bottom falls out and we’re left with a system that instead of creating products for people to enjoy has been co-opted by banks who specialize in schemes that make money in ways that actually harm Main Street America. Along the way we meet the profiteers, companies who take insurance on their employees and benefit from their deaths—it’s called Dead Peasant insurance—and a poor family paid to clean out their own house; a house the bank had just repossessed.

Moore narrates the entire movie in his best Uncle Mikey voice, a calm reassuring tone with just a hint of outrage. It’s become his trademark, and even when he spews unsubstantiated “facts” like “Japanese and German cars hardly ever break down” he sounds convincing. It’s Fox News in reverse. Where they rely on raised voices and hyperbole to make their point Moore keeps the volume on low, but uses masterfully chosen images and music to drive home his outrage.

A sequence describing how Regan reduced taxes on the rich is scored with demonic “Omen” style chanting to reinforce the idea of the evil that was being perpetrated. Other sections are illustrated with a mix of archival and new imagery and, as always, Moore chooses provocative pictures to create emotion. Only the hardest hearted would be unmoved by the joy on a woman’s face as Obama is named president or the tears shed by someone who has just lost their home.  

Moore’s greatest skill is creating great propaganda. He can string together info and images like no one else. It’s not documentary filmmaking in the strictest sense, he’s too agenda minded to be a purest to the form, but he knows how to entertain while slamming home his point.

“Capitalism: A Love Story” feels a bit more unfocussed than his previous films, but the ideas contained within, that capitalism has been perverted into a system that enriches the few at the expense of the many, may make this his most important film to date.

THE INVENTION OF LYING: 3 ½ STARS

Imagine living in a world where there’s no such thing as flattery, deceit or fiction. I’ll tell you one thing for sure, Hollywood wouldn’t exist and politics would be way less interesting. Retirement homes are called A Sad Place for Hopeless Old People and Pepsi’s advertising slogan might read: “Pepsi, For When You Don’t Have Coke.” This is the world British comedian Ricky Gervais created as the setting for his directorial debut, a strange romantic comedy called “The Invention of Lying.”

The story is quite simple even if the ideas that lie just beneath the surface aren’t. The film is set in an alternate reality, a Norman Rockwell world where no one has ever told a lie. People speak their minds because they are incapable of fibbing. A waiter might say, “I took a sip of your drink,” as he drops a Margarita at your table. Gervais is Mark Bellison a screenwriter who specializes in transcribing 13th century history—remember, there’s no fiction—for films. After unconsciously telling the first lie and inadvertently inventing religion he becomes a celebrity, but will this strange power be enough to win the heart of Jennifer (Jennifer Garner)?   

The Invention of Lying sounds like a one joke wonder, and on some levels it is, but it’s a good joke and Gervais as co-writer, director and star brings enough subtext to the story to keep up interest.

Nestled away under the obvious jokes is a healthy dollop of social commentary. Gervais uses the premise of total honesty all the time to shoot satirical arrows at religion (his version of God is “The Man in the Sky”), advertising and social niceties. The satire is sharp, particularly in the first half hour as we get to know the characters. The balance of the film has many laughs and makes some pointed observations before becoming ever so slightly bogged down by the romance and the beyond blatant product placement.

Who knew a Pizza Hut box could stand-in for one of the Ten Commandment tablets? That scene is the most shameless bit of product placement seen on screen, maybe ever.

On the plus side Gervais has assembled not only a strong leading cast—Jennifer Garner sparkles and Louis C.K. is very funny—but also a laundry list of unexpected cameos. I won’t spoil the fun, but look for a Sarah Palin look-a-like and a mustachioed bit-part from an actor not known for his sense of humor.
 
“The Invention of Lying” could have used a little less product placement but by and large Gervais has created a pleasant and surprising rom com that’ll make you think about all those little white lies you tell every day.

ZOMBIELAND: 4 STARS

Making a horror comedy is tricky business. Do it right and you get a classic like “Sean of the Dead,” a movie whose body count is offset by just the right amount of laughs. Do it wrong and you’ll wind up with “Repossessed,” a movie that is neither funny nor scary, just dull. “Zombieland” director Ruben Fleischer (whose next movie is to be called Psycho Funky Chimp) understands that horror comedies are neither fish nor fowl—they are both. For every decapitation you have to have a giggle and “Zombieland” delivers on both counts.  

This post-apocalyptic zom com stars Jesse Eisenberg as a teenage curmudgeon who has survived a fast acting viral plague that turned his neighbors (and everybody else) into ferocious flesh eating zombies. Mad cow became mad person which became mad zombie disease! It should be a paradise for this videogame playing hermit—no facebook status updates!—but a life spent killing ravenous zombies has left him starving for human contact. When he meets zombie killer Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), and two dishonest sisters, Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), he realizes for better or worse, they must stick together to survive.

“Zombieland” has the same over-the-top silly vibe that makes movies like “Killer Klowns from Outer Space” such guilty pleasures. It’s gross-out funny with plenty of action and zombie kills for the hardcores, but underneath the absurdity is a message about humanity. At the end of the movie Eisenberg’s character realizes that his solitary life was turning him into the thing he feared most. “Without other people,” he says, “you might as well be a zombie.” The sentiment may not be as powerful as George A. Romero’s zombie metaphors but it puts a nice little bow on this coming of age story.     

Also strong is the casting. Eisenberg, a young actor second only to Michael Cera in playing awkward teens on film, is an unlikely action movie hero, but here he plays to his strengths—playing the witty self-conscious teen—and expands his range to include zombie serial killer.

Equally fun is Woody Harrelson as the Twinkie loving zombie hunter Tallahassee. Harrelson brings a swagger and some unexpected twists to the character and delivers many of the film’s funniest lines.

Both are ably supported by Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin who don’t have as have much to do as the boys, but do a great deal to keep the story moving forward.
The showiest role in the film, however, belongs to a Hollywood superstar who has one of the most surreal cameos in recent memory. I’m not going to tell you who it is (it’s funnier if you don’t know) but his wild scenes alone are worth the price of admission.  

“Zombieland” breathes a bit of new life into the sometimes stale zombie genre.

THE WIZARD OF OZ 70th ANNIVERSARY ULTIMATE COLLECTOR’S EDITION: 4 ½ STARS

Aside from the occasional rep theatre run The Wizard of Oz has been relegated to the small screen. Most of us have only seen Dorothy’s trip to “the wonderful world of Oz” on broadcast television or on one of the 17 varieties of home video the movie has appeared on. While it’s been great to have access to the classic movie it’s never looked as good as I imagine it did when it was first projected on a screen in 1939. Well, you can toss out the old Betas and LaserDiscs now that Warner Home Video has released The Wizard of Oz: 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition on Blu Ray. The original has been lovingly restored—apparently at a cost of over one million dollars; that’s more than a third of what the original cost to make!—and is the sharpest look at the film anyone’s had since it was shot and processed at MGM 70 years ago. Dorothy’s Ruby Slippers have never looked rubier.

It unlikely anyone needs a synopsis of the film—my favorite is Rick Polito’s of the Marin Independent Journal, he wrote, “Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.”— but just in case you haven’t read a book or magazine or gone on-line or snapped on your TV in the last seventy years, here goes: Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland) and her dog Toto are swept away from black and white Kansas by a tornado that lands them in a Technicolor world of wonder called Oz. Realizing that there is no place like home Dot sets off on the Yellow Brick Road in search of the powerful Wizard of Oz who can help her return home. Along the path she hooks up with some unusual new friends—a Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), a Tin Woodman (Jack Haley) and Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr)—and makes one enemy, the Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton) who badly wants Dorothy’s bedazzled Ruby Slippers. Hope I didn’t spoil it for you.

I’m happy to report that like Batman, another 1939 pop culture icon celebrating his 70th birthday this year, “The Wizard of Oz” is still as vital and enchanting now as it was when Nylon stockings went on sale for the first time (another 1939 landmark!). Its themes of good and evil, finding a place to belong and even Dorothy’s feminism—she’s the strongest, most resourceful character in the movie—are still relevant and as lively as the day they were shot. Add to that marvelous leading performances from Judy Garland (in the role that made her a star), Ray Bolger, Jack Haley and Bert Lahr and you have a movie that is as fresh and heartfelt today as it was in 1939.  

Extras vary from package to package—there are three reissues at various price points—but Warners has added truckloads of extra stuff including outtakes, audio sequences, composer Harold Arlen's backstage movies and interviews.

We live in a cynical age, but occasionally a movie comes around that cuts through the cynicism. The Wizard of Oz is one of those movies.

THE BOYS ARE BACK: 3 ½ STARS

For the first time in recent memory Clive Owen isn’t relying on his physical side to carry a movie. He doesn’t kick, punch or shoot his way through “The Boys Are Back.” The only pain he inflicts here is emotional.

Based on a true story, Clive Owen plays Joe Warr a top sportswriter with a perfect life. He travels the world covering sporting events, has a beautiful wife and a young child. When his wife (Laura Fraser) is diagnosed with cancer and succumbs to the disease after a short fight Joe’s life is turned upside down. The existence he knew disappears, replaced by a new reality which only makes the longing for his late wife all the more acute. When a son from his first marriage arrives he must learn how to be a father to two kids he barely knows. “Shouldn’t the state intervene to make sure a woman looks after children?” he says. On a more mundane level, the housework comes as a shock, even though, as he says, “I’ve watched so much of it over the years.”    

“The Boys Are Back” shows a side of Owen we haven’t seen for a while. He’s spent the last few years on the action tip, making movies like “Shoot ‘Em Up” and “Sin City,” violent films that relied on cartoon theatrics. They’re entertaining but “The Boys Are Back” is something different. It showcases Owen’s intensity but the theatrics have been packed away with the weapons and what’s left is an emotionally raw study of a man who learns that “life is a journey that must be traveled no matter how bad the road.”

The gravitas he brings to his action roles works well here as his character shifts from light hearted father to widowed single guardian of two. He shows his versatility, breaking fee of the typecasting that has kept him in action movies, and hands in his best performance since 2006’s “Children of Men.”  

Equally impressive is Nicholas McAnulty as the six-year-old recipient of Joe’s questionable parenting skills. In his acting debut McAnulty gives a completely natural performance. Rupert Grint look-a-like George MacKay also fares well as a teen rebel who just wants to get to know his dad.   

“The Boys Are Back” does a good job at showing what it is like to lose someone and have that person remain in your life even when they aren’t physically present. It is a study of grief and how to best deal with a sudden profound loss, but at the end of the day it is the performances that recommend the movie.

TRAILER PARK BOYS: COUNTDOWN TO LIQUOR DAY: 2 STARS

Canada is known for its comedy teams. I grew up watching the Wayne and Shuster specials on television. Bob and Doug MacKenzie, with their own movie and hit song, was the hoser offshoot from the brilliant SCTV show. The Kids In the Hall were the hip, brainy alternative to The Royal Canadian Air Farce who continue to amuse despite having a combined age of nearly 1000 years. The rudest and crudest addition to this list is Ricky, Julian and Bubbles, The Trailer Park Boys.

They are the residents of Dartmouth’s Sunnyvale Trailer Park and the stars of the now defunct television show that chronicled their lives, loves and jail terms. For six seasons they cussed, drank and smoked their way into the collective consciousness of Canadians who made them cult heroes. Their 2006 movie should have been the icing on the TPB’s cake; a nice send-off to the troublesome trio as they headed off for the big trailer park in the sky.

Instead they’re back for another kick at the can with “TPB: Countdown to Liquor Day,” a mostly unfunny continuation of their story that picks up where “Say Goodnight to the Bad Guys,” the final TPB television special that ended the series, left off. Ricky, Julian and Bubbles are just out of jail, looking forward to a bright future, but once again their nemesis Jim Lahey (John Dunsworth) gets in their way. In their absence he’s torn down the old trailer park, replacing it with a brand-spanking-new development. The only problem is he has to run sewer lines under Julian’s property, and Julian doesn’t want to sell.  

Their silver-screen adventures don’t differ too much from the action on the television show. Director and co-writer Mike Clattenberg has decided against tarting-up the movie, avoiding guest stars or really slick production value. Its vintage TPB except it’s not nearly as funny as the TV show. All the puzzle pieces are intact—Ricky, the ringleader, still lives in his car and spends his days planning the the ultimate get rich quick scheme; his pals, the coke-bottle-bottom glasses wearing Bubbles and Julian, with his ever-present rum-and-coke respectively, are there for support, even if it means getting thrown in jail—but the laughs are fewer and further between.
But despite the bad language and even worse behavior there is a certain sweetness to the characters. Underneath his pompadour that would make Elvis envious, Ricky is essentially a decent guy who wants what everybody wants, an April Wine Great Hits 8-track, good friends, love and a warm place to pee. Ditto the other guys.

As Julian once said, “If you strip away the guns and the dope [the Trailer Park Boys] are about family.” And that, I think, is the appeal of TPB. Like many great sitcom characters before them, they inhabit a very specific world and have a strong sense of themselves and their surroundings. Just as Fred Sandford loved his junkyard and Jack Tripper was happy to work at the Regal Beagle, Ricky, Julian and Bubbles are proud to live in the trailer park, to be part of that community of people. It is their home and they don’t aspire to moving on up to the east side or anywhere else. It’s a nice touch that amid the hoser-humor there is a real sense that these guys belong together, no matter how dysfunctional their thrown-together family may be.

I just wish it was funnier.

COCO AVANT CHANEL: 3 ½ STARS

If Coco Chanel was a superhero, “Coco Avant Chanel” would be called her origin story. Here we learn about the how the superstar designer went from orphan to unhappily kept woman to finding her secret weapon—the little black dress. Of course she’d never wear something as gaudy as a logo on her chest, she exemplified understated class, but she was a wonder woman who created an empire in a business primarily run by men.

As the title suggests this is the story of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel before the fame. When we first meet her she is being shunted off to an orphanage by an uncaring father. Raised in austerity she becomes a seamstress who moonlights as a nightclub singer. While working at the club she enters into a long affair with an older playboy aristocrat named Étienne Balsan (Benoît Poelvoorde). He provides for her and elevates her social status ever so slightly—mistresses were tolerated in turn-of-the-century French society, but not celebrated—but their relationship falls apart when she meets a young English businessman who would become the love of her life, Arthur ‘Boy’ Capel (Alessandro Nivola).

Like “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” or “Iron Man” this movie gives us the background we need to fully understand how she went from zero to hero except that the hero part is barely examined. We follow Chanel just up to the point at which she becomes a major fashion force. Director Anne Fontaine is more interested in the events that drove the designer to revolutionize the fashion industry rather than the revolution itself.

Audrey Tautou, the waifish French star of “Amélie” and “The DaVinci Code,” is an inspired choice to play the iron willed designer. She’s been criticized for looking dour throughout much of the film, but I prefer to see her look as one of steely determination as she navigates the turbulent waters of Chanel’s private life. The charismatic Tautou—who bears an uncanny resemblance to the designer—slowly develops the character, showing the struggle Chanel faced to enter society, to be accepted and have her work taken seriously. It’s nicely rounded performance that breathes life into a person who, despite placing on Time Magazine's 100 most influential people of the 20th century, is a mystery to the average viewer.
      
“Coco Avant Chanel” works both as a bio pic (which could easily be followed by a sequel detailing her life at the top of the fashion field) and a romantic melodrama. Anchored by a terrific performance from Tautou and luscious production design it’s an inspiring rags to riches tale.

JENNIFER’S BODY: 3 STARS

The pitch for “Jennifer’s Body” is certainly attention-grabbing. Mix “Transfomer’s” sexpot Megan Fox and “Juno” screenwriter and all round “it’ girl Diablo Cody and the result should be pure gold. Well, pure gore splattered gold in this case. “Jennifer’s Body” leaves behind the world of giant robots and pregnant teens for a bloody story about demonic transference and a cheerleading succubus who feeds on the intestines of teenage boys.

Despite its name the town of Devil’s Kettle, Minnesota is not a demonic hot spot. Not at least until a rock band named Low Shoulder plays at a local bar. At the concert are Jennifer Check (Fox) and Needy Lesnicky (Amanda Seyfried). Best friends since they were kids the underage girls are there to check out the band, and in Jennifer’s case, specifically the lead singer. When a fire breaks out in the bar, chaos ensues and as most of the concert goers are trapped inside, Jennifer and Needy make it out, but something is isn’t right. Jennifer is glassy eyed and unresponsive, and when Needy last sees her, in the band’s van. Later, when Jennifer comes back to visit Needy she isn’t so pretty anymore—unless blood covered, tar vomiting girls turn you on. Something has happened to Jennifer, but what? When boys from school start to go missing Needy thinks she might know…

“Jennifer’s Body” breathes the same air as the great Canadian horror film “Ginger Snaps.” Both are inventive takes on established horror mythology—in Ginger’s case it was the werewolf legend here it is demonic possession—both feature humor and lots of blood and guts. But—you had to know there was a “but” coming—where “Ginger Snaps” had effortless dialogue that sounded like real teenagers talking to one another, “Jennifer’s Body” is weighed down by the overly cute pen of Diablo Cody.

In Cody’s world teens talk as though they have Hollywood screenwriters feeding them lines. Oh wait! They do. They drop sparkling bon mots as easily as Dorothy Parker after her fifth martini in the Oak Room. Cody’s characters don’t get jealous, they get “jello;” they don’t feel ill they feel “boo hoo,” and when they curse they say things like “cheese and fries.” I’m all for inventive language but much of the dialogue here seems to be trying a bit too hard.     

Cudos to Cody though for coming up with an inventive story and peppering the script with laughs. When she describes one of the creature’s victims resembling “lasgna with teeth,” when they found him it’s funny. It’s dark humor reminiscent of the horror comedies of the 1980s like “An American Werewolf in London” and “The Toxic Avenger” that covered the laughs with lots of red stuff.

At the heart of “Jennifer’s Body”—or should that be soul?—is Megan Fox. As the victim of a botched satanic ritual—they apparently don’t work if the sacrifice isn’t a virgin—she seems to be having more fun here than in either of the “Transformers” movies, but despite being this year’s Zeitgeist grabber she’s upstaged by Amanda Seyfried. Only in a movie like this could Seyfried be portrayed as the “dorky, plain girl.” I guess it’s because she wears glasses, but there is nothing dorky or plain about Seyfried or her character.

“Jennifer’s Body” is bound to grab a teenage audience—the gratuitous kissing scene between Fox and Seyfried alone is bound to sell tickets to many a seventeen-year-old boy—but despite being an enjoyable bit of fun, likely won’t have the same impact as Cody’s attention grabbing work on “Juno.”   

THE INFORMANT!: 3 ½ STARS

“The Informant!” sees director Steven Soderbergh merge the broad appeal of his “Ocean’s 11” series with some of the quirkier aspects of his art house inspired work. He’s always straddled the line between caustic and commercial, making one experimental film for every box office bonanza but this time he’s crafted a movie that should satisfy both film critics who want more of the obtuse “Schizopolis” era Soderbergh and audiences simply looking to be entertained. Call it high end-low brow.

Based on Kurt Eichenwald's book, “The Informant” is the mostly true tale of Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon), a highly paid executive turned whistle blower at Archer Daniels Midland in the early 1990s. Co-operating with the F.B.I. he helped uncover a price fixing policy which landed several executives (including himself) in jail. While the Ivy Leaguer, who suffers from bi-polar disorder, gathered hundreds of hours of incriminating video and audio tapes, he unwittingly exposed his involvement in another, unrelated corporate scam. As he tries to dig himself out he instead gets buried by his mounting lies.

Ninety percent of Soderbergh’s job on “The Informant!,” where you have a lead character who is meant to be likeable but is actually revealed to be a liar and a thief, was to cast the right people. It can be a tricky balancing act to find an actor who can keep the audience on- board through a tale of corporate malfeasance and personal greed but Matt Damon is the guy. Years ago this role might have been played by Paul Newman, another actor who could span the gap between hero and anti-hero and leave viewers satisfied.

Like Leonardo DiCaprio in “Catch Me If You Can,” another movie about a likeable bad guy, Damon’s history of playing heroes brings with it built in audience acceptance. The casting is quite inspired and allowing Damon to gain a few pounds, rounding out his usually chiseled face and torso, even more so. He becomes the everyman, not the handsome but more unrelatable “Bourne Identity” star.          

Damon may head up the cast, but he is ably supported by good work from “Talk Soup’s” Joel McHale and Scott Bakula (why isn’t he in more movies?) as FBI Special Agent Brian Shepard.

The tone of the film is deliberate as Soderbergh walks us through the price fixing set up, layering the story with glib narration from Damon about the minutia of his life. It’s a risky thing and the kind of element the Coens excel at—relating the small details to the larger picture—but Soderbergh’s sure and steady hand guarantees that Damon’s constant and seemingly unconnected stream-of-consciousness voice over enhances the film.

“The Informant!” isn’t Soderbergh’s next “Erin Brockovich.” It’s skewed a tad too far to the art house side of his brain for that, but Damon’s presence keeps this story of accounting, paperwork and avarice interesting.

9: 3 ½ STARS

For those who thought last year’s “WALL-E” was the last word in animated post apocalyptic entertainment along comes a dark fable about a war ravaged world populated by brave burlap dolls (numbered 1 through 9) and terrifying machines. Call it Sock Puppets Save the World if you like, but despite the kid-friendly lead characters, “9” isn’t as cute and cuddly as “WALL-E.”

Set ten years after the war to end all wars actually ended everything, “9” really picks up when the title character mistakenly awakens a terrifying machine with the ability to create other machines of destruction. As 9 and the other dolls fight the evil machines they discover the very essence of their existence; that they were created by a scientist who knew the end of life as he knew it was near. Rather than see all life disappear he created these limited edition rag dolls, each with a special skill, to continue life.

The basic idea behind “9” is something we’ve seen before—technology goes wild and machines turn on humans—but what makes this film unique is, bless their little burlap hearts, the rag dolls. Each has a well defined personality and while the voice work isn’t terribly strong—save for Christopher Plummer as 1, the king doll—they all bring something interesting to the story.

Jennifer Connolly voices 7, a kind of ninja beanie baby character. She’s a strong female presence in a genre that often lacks interesting roles for women. Other voices in this eclectic cast include Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Crispin Glover and Martin Landau.

“9” isn’t so much a story as it is a series of action set pieces bound together by ideas. The narrative is simple—man has been destroyed and now these little saviors must defeat the big bad machines or they too will be crushed—and little effort is spent developing the story past a certain point. Lots of effort, however, has been put into creating the elaborate action scenes that make up the bulk of the film.

The wild scenes—mainly of demonic looking machines trying to kill the little dolls—may be too intense for young kids. Ten and eleven year olds should be fine with the imagery—human skulls attached to winged metal skeletons and the like—but anyone younger than that might have trouble sleeping after these frenetic, violent sequences.       

Of course, there is an environmental message attached to the story; this is, after all a movie aimed at the young. It’s not heavy handed, but lines like “This world is ours now… it’s what we make of it” subtly push kids to think about their surroundings.

“9” is cool sci fi for kids with imaginative characters and lots of action that doesn’t talk down to its audience.

ALL ABOUT STEVE: 3 STARS

In “All About Steve” Sandra Bullock is Mary a nerdy cruciverbalist—that’s crosswords constructor to you and me—for a local newspaper in Sacramento. She’s socially awkward, lives at home with her parents, and has an editor who tells her to try and “be normal.” In addition, she’s terminally single and has poor impulse control but, hey, she looks like Sandra Bullock so life isn’t all bad.

Her parents, in a bid to one day have grandchildren, set her up on a blind date with Mark (Bradley Cooper), a cameraman with CCN. She says as long as he isn’t “expressly hideous” she’ll give it a go. Turns out something about Steve brings out the animal in Mary but when she says “I’m going to eat you like a mountain lion” four minutes into their first date he ditches her, saying that he has to leave town for work. She’s smitten—some would say obsessed—and goes off the deep end, handing in a crossword to the paper with the title All About Steve. Sample clue: What do Steve’s lips taste like? Answer: Mint Explosion. She gets fired from her job, which of course, gives her the time to hit the road and follow Steve from town to town as he covers news stories in Texas and Oklahoma. His feelings about her change—he realizes there IS something about Mary—however, when she becomes a news story.

“All About Steve” is kind of a light hearted “Fatal Attraction”—without the boiling rabbit. It’s a screwball comedy where the action is kick started by a misunderstanding. To that list of genres road trip flick and social commentary and you begin to maybe get the idea that this movie covers a lot of ground. Thematically it’s all over the place, but the one element that holds it together is its star Sandra Bullock.

Bullock isn’t playing her usual rom com character here; instead she builds a broad caricature of a chatterbox intellectual, which in the wrong hands could have been really annoying. It’s the kind of role Renee Zellweger would have rendered unwatchable, but Bullock, though sheer charm, pulls it off.

She’s cute. When she tries to slide down a banister, fresh out of the shower, still wrapped in a towel, with predictable results, it’s not a great gag, but she sells it, just like she sells every other silly moment in this kind of inconsequential but entertaining movie.  

It’s all a bit harebrained—from the crossword metaphors and the “just accept people for what they are” moral—but a little charm goes a long way and Bullock is nothing if not charming.

The film also takes an unexpected—and not entirely believable—dramatic turn near the end that brings up echoes of Billy Wilder’s “Ace in the Hole,” and points an accusatory finger at the 24 hour news cycle that turns stories into sensationalism. It’s a bit heavy handed but since the rest of the film is feather light it balances out.

EXTRACT: 3 STARS

Director Mike Judge understands crappy jobs. “Office Space,” his 1998 cult comedy, is not only a very funny look into minimum wage but an insightful one as well. Ditto his new work place comedy “Extract,” except for the funny part. It nails the workplace dynamic but unfortunately it isn't nearly as laugh out loud as you would expect from the creator of “Beavis and Butthead.”
 
“Extract” stars Jason Bateman as Joel, the owner of Reynolds’s Extract Company. He’s an unhappy, sexually frustrated former bartender and chemistry major obsessed with flavor extracts; pure, mostly colorless, concentrated flavors used in baking. Looking for a way out of his business and marriage complicates his life. Taking bad advice from his friend Dean (Ben Affleck), a bartender and self proclaimed spiritualist and healer he hires a dimwitted gigolo to test his wife’s fidelity, tries to stave off a lawsuit from an injured employee and falls for Cindy (Mila Kunis) a beautiful kleptomaniac who almost costs him everything.   

“Extract” has some funny moments. David Koechner as the neighbor from hell is as amusing a character as we're likely to see this year and there is a bong scene that gives Cheech and Chong a run for their money, but by and large it’s a great example of the trailer giving away all the best moments. The film is a bit of a comedy flat line but you'd never know it from the trailer which showcases at least four solid laughs. Too bad the movie only has six or seven in total.

Having said that, “Extract” is a likeable movie. The story plays well enough without nonstop laughs and the main and supporting casts are interesting.

Jason Bateman brings a low key charm to Joel. As his life spins out of control Bateman slowly ratchets up the anxiety level and even though the situation is unbelievable—I can’t imagine too many men hiring a gigolo to tempt their better half—he grounds the role in realism. The beauty of the performance is that the viewer feels for him even though he’s making every mistake in the book.

Mila Kunis smolders as Cindy the manipulative con woman and Ben Affleck continues his career rehabilitation with a supporting role that plays against the leading man type roles that nearly sunk him a few years ago.

When the movie shifts away from the main characters the casting is just as strong. The odd cast of losers, loners and nonconformists that populate the factory are a colorful addition to a film already ripe with strong characters.  

“Extract” is billing itself as a comedy which does it a disservice. It isn’t funny enough to compete against “The Hangovers” and the “Brunos” of the summer season, but it does succeed as an engaging character study.

TAKING WOODSTOCK: 3 STARS

Just in time for the fortieth anniversary of the Woodstock festival comes a movie that outlines how a music and arts fair named for one small upstate New York town ended up in a completely different location. Taking Woodstock, from Brokeback Mountain director Ang Lee, is based on the much disputed memoir of Elliot Tiber, a young Catskills motel manager. In it he tells of how an article in the newspaper and a carton of the “best chocolate milk in New York” helped find the history-making festival a home.

When we first meet Elliot (Demetri Martin) he’s a closeted gay man closing his decorating business in Greenwich Village to return to his humble roots as the part-time manager of his parent’s seedy Catskills motel. He has big plans for the place—renaming it a resort is just the first step—but business has been bad and they are on the verge of defaulting on their mortgage. After reading an article about a music festival’s location woes he senses an opportunity to lease out some of his own land and maybe rent a few rooms. Turns out his land is too swampy but dairy farmer Max Yasgur (Eugene Levy) steps in and suddenly the festival has a home and Elliot’s run down motel becomes the headquarters of what would become the biggest concert of the 1960s.      

In Taking Woodstock Ang Lee had the chance to make a large scale film about a pivotal cultural event, but for better and for worse, has instead focused on Elliot’s personal journey. The story has many possibilities—it could have explored the small town attitude toward the hippie kids who invaded the Catskills (“Meshugana, barefoot, hairy people” says Elliot’s mom) or the racism encountered by Elliot and his Jewish immigrant family or the logistics of building a concert arena in a farmer’s field or Elliot’s traditional family’s feelings about his homosexuality. Lee touches on all these subjects, but only lightly grazes them. In their place we get a mildly interesting coming-of-age story with some good laughs, some dubious history and a feel-good vibe.

The film’s central theme, that Woodstock’s peace and love aura had a transformative effect on everyone present that weekend, is quite sweet, if a little naïve. Lee piles it on thick, and perhaps errs on the side of sentimentality a bit too often to allow the film to taken as anything other than a look back through rose colored glasses at an event that makes boomers nostalgic.

Another sticking point is the music, or rather the lack thereof. We only ever see the Woodstock stage from a distance—the bands look and sound, as one high character says, “like ants making thunder”—and the rest of the soundtrack is a random (and uninspired) collection of boomer faves from the late Sixties.   

Having said all that, Taking Woodstock is enjoyable enough, although a tad long at two hours (a long, trippy acid sequence could easily have been shortened or clipped altogether). Lee has meticulously recreated the era, effectively mimics the concert movie’s split screen and has drawn solid performances from his cast (it must be hard to pull off the script’s large amount of “far outs” and “groovys” with a straight face), but I wish the movie actually stood for something. The Sixties were all about standing up and being heard, but Taking Woodstock is content to speak in a whisper.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS: 4 ¾ STARS

The last words of “Inglourious Basterds”, the new film from director Quentin Tarantino, are “I think this just might be my masterpiece.” The words aren’t spoken by Tarantino (I’m not going to give away anything and tell you who says them), but they did flow from his pen and it isn’t hard to imagine him claiming them as a comment on his own work. After all he did spend more than a decade working on the script, so long, in fact that “The Irish Times” wrote that the film “has been predicted more often than the second coming of the Lord.” It’s meant to be the director’s magnum opus; a sprawling film that has been gestating inside him for years. I’d like to be able to report that it is his masterpiece, but it’s not, that’s the impossible to better “Pulp Fiction”, but it is as combustible a movie as will be released this year.

Borrowing the title from a little seen 1978 Enzo Castellari film, (the second word is spelled differently, inserting an “e” where the “a” usually sits), Tarantino has created a violent WWII fantasy that rewrites history.

The Basterds are a group of Jewish-American Allied soldiers led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt). Think of them as the Dirty Half Dozen. Their mission is to hunt down, kill and scalp at least one hundred Nazis. The rare Nazi who escapes a nasty death at their hands—left alive to tell others of the Basterd’s ruthless tactics—is marked for life by a swastika carved deep into his forehead. Running parallel is a story thread about movie theatre proprietor Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent), a young Jewish woman, aching for revenge against SS colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) A.K.A. the Jew Hunter. In Tarantino’s bloodthirsty world it’s inevitable that Raine’s band of brothers, Shosanna and Col. Landa will cross paths.

The films of Quentin Tarantino deeply polarize people. For every person who quivers at the thought of a new film from the “Reservoir Dogs” director there is another who thinks his movies are too long, too self indulgent and too derivative. Despite those criticisms, fair or not, there is almost no argument that of all the brand name directors working today, Tarantino is the most audacious. His films are a singular vision and “Inglorious Basterds” is no exception.

It opens with an almost unbelievably tense scene, spanning the first twenty five minutes of the movie. It is a tour de force of razor’s edge filmmaking, sadistic and twisted, all without a drop of blood or a raised voice on display. It’s pure cinema, and as a set piece is the best filmmaking I’ve seen this year.

The opening sets a high standard and Tarantino does his best to live up to it, taking his time unfurling the story in chapter form. Unlike bombastic directors like Michael Bay, Tarantino understands the ebb and flow of the storyline. His movies don’t clobber you over the head with every frame, instead he calibrates the story to include deliberately paced scenes which create a sense of anticipation for the next crescendo of violence or plot.

The movie is, as I said, deliberately paced, but never feels slow. Tarantino weaves together the disparate storylines, and styles—everything from spaghetti westerns to 70’s exploitation and über violence—into one seamless package.

The bow on top of the package has to be the performance of the Austrian-born Christoph Waltz. As SS colonel Hans Landa he is pure evil; a slimy villain for the ages.

“Inglourious Basterds” won’t be for everyone, it’s too extreme for casual viewers, but the film lover in me is tickled that the heroine is a cinema owner who literally uses film to bring down the Third Reich. Love him or not, you can never accuse Tarantino of being boring.

SHORTS: 3 STARS

Robert Rodriguez is possibly the most two-faced filmmaker working today. For every one of the movies on his resume like the hard R rated “Sin City” or “Planet Terror” that splatter the screen with blood and guts there is a kid friendly title that the whole family can enjoy. He’s half grindhouse director, half low budget Walt Disney. His new film “Shorts” follows in the same footsteps as his other Saturday matinee movies “Spy Kids” and “Shark Boy and Lava Girl.”

The movie is set in the community of Black Falls, a small company town where everybody works for the same business, the “all-in-one gadget” makers Black Box Industries. When a freak thunderstorm deposits the mysterious Rainbow Rock in the neighborhood, which grants wishes to anyone who finds it, the area transforms from suburban to strange overnight. As the strange rock passes from person to person it becomes clear that you really have to be careful what you wish for because you might just get it.

That’s the condensed version. Because the Rainbow Rock throws the town into such chaos, the story is told in a series of nonlinear episodes or shorts. Think of this as “Pulp Fiction” for tots.

There’s a hint of 1960s Saturday matinee charm to “Shorts.” It’s a clearly low budget—Rodriguez famously made his first movie for $7000 and then wrote a book about filmmaking on a shoe string budget—but despite looking like it cost a $1.25 to make, it has a hip action adventure feel that kids should be drawn to. This isn’t slick Disney style kid’s entertainment—I doubt that any of Walt’s movies would feature a character named The Booger Monster—it’s a little more down and dirty than that, a little more like the way kids really think and act.      

Coupled with the movie’s anarchic spirit are the usual messages for kids about the dangers of bullying, the advantages of teamwork and saving the environment. Also prominent is the less seen (on screen at least) lesson about not eating boogers.  

“Shorts” is an entertaining blast from an inventive filmmaker who seems to understand what kids want to see on screen. I’m not sure that parents will have much interest in the film, but 10 and 11 year olds will likely enjoy.

POST GRAD: 1 ½ STARS

Ryden Malby’s (Alexis Bledel) story has a ripped-from-the-headlines feel to it in these recessionary times. Despite being an A student in high school and earning a scholarship to the right university, her goal of finding the next great American novel at Los Angeles’s biggest publisher Happerman and Browning, didn’t quite work out.

Just the opposite in fact.  

Instead of living the dream at H&B the career minded Ryden is forced to move back home with her not ready for prime time family; quirky mom and dad (Jane Lynch and Michael Keaton), grandmother (Carol Burnett) and little brother (Bobby Coleman). “This whole post graduation thing isn’t turning out how I planned,” she says as she takes a part time job at her dad’s luggage shop.

When she isn’t planning her next career move she hangs out with her lovesick childhood friend Adam (Zach Gilford) and David Santiago (Rodrigo Santoro), a charming infomercial director, cat enthusiast and possible love interest who offers her a job.        
“Post Grad” is almost instantaneously forgettable. Apart from a few grin worthy moments sprinkled throughout the movie is an unwieldy mix of earnest teen drama and slapstick. Neither work particularly well although old pros Michael Keaton, Jane Lynch and Carol Burnett (who gets the movie’s biggest laugh) manage to wring some laughs out of the underwritten script.

The humour is a bit darker than you’d expect, mostly of the funeral for a dead cat gone horribly wrong type, but there are a couple of good one liners. “The Office’s” Craig Robinson, who is making habit of being funny in bad movies (ie: “The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard”), pops up here as a smarmy coffin salesman who uses the pitch line, “What do I have to do to put you in one of our caskets today?” It’s a good line; I just wish there had been more of them peppered through the script.   

Once the jokes are exhausted, in the end there is the inevitable message that Ryden must stop obsessing about the future and live in the here and now. It is typical happily-ever-after fare, inoffensive, but not very interesting. “Post Grad’s” story of job woe may sound ripped-from-the-headlines, but the movie is yesterday’s news.

THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE: 2 STARS

The Time Traveler’s Wife is part of a rare genre: romantic science fiction. But just because one of the characters flits through time and space doesn’t mean this is like an episode of Star Trek. Nope. The Time Traveler’s Wife is a romance first and sci fi second. Based on a best selling novel the story is equal parts Back to the Future, Benjamin Button and The Notebook. It’s a story about love with no boundaries and how romance can transcend everything, even death. Sounds like a three Kleenex kind of movie, doesn’t it?

Eric Bana is Henry DeTamble, a Chicago librarian with a genetic disorder known as Chrono-Displacement that causes him to involuntarily travel through time. Clare Abshire (Rachel McAdams) is an artist. From the outset their relationship is a strange one. When they first meet she has known him since she was six years old, but because his syndrome flips him to random times in his life on an ever shifting timeline he is meeting her for the first time. Confused? Not as confused as Clare who tries to build a life with Henry even though his ailment keep them apart.

Once you get past the twisty-turny time travel story device, I'm sorry to say there isn't much left. The Time Traveler’s Wife is at its core a very old fashioned romance about the enduring qualities of true love tarted up with a sci fi twist that only serves to muddle the story. (On film at least, I haven't read the book.) It's theme of love conquering all is well played out, but the flat performance from leading man Eric Bana casts a pall over the whole movie.
 
Bana has been in my bad books for some time now, although he redeemed himself recently with a star turn as the bad guy in Star Trek. Unfortunately The Time Traveler's Wife was shot before Star Trek gave him a boost on the old charisma meter. His work here is understated to the point of indifference. Henry should be one of the wonders of the world, a man who can jump from year to year, but instead is played as a mope; a sad sack crippled by his remarkable ability.
 
Rachel McAdams, on the other hand, underplays the role of Clare, but instead of disappearing into the fabric of the film as Bana does, brings subtlety and grace to the character. When she tells her friend about Henry's condition, adding, with rueful understatement, "It's a problem," she shows us a vulnerable side to Clare, the side that realizes her life will never be normal, but also the side that knows she is powerless to change her situation. It's a nice, quiet performance that conveys the power of her love for Henry and the frustration of the predetermination of her fate.
 
But it takes two to tango and unfortunately no matter how lovely McAdams's performance is, she's twirling around an empty dance floor. The themes from the book are firmly in place but there is no real spark between the actors.

Don't bother with the Kleenex for this one.

DISTRICT 9: 4 ½ STARS

District 9 announces itself as a total fanboy geek out in its opening seconds with four small words: Presented by Peter Jackson. Jackson, the director of Lord of the Rings, didn’t helm District 9, but his involvement as producer is enough to guarantee an exciting ride, and the movie doesn’t disappoint.

Based on a six minute short film called Alive in Joburg by South African director Neill Blomkamp, District 9 is a mockumentary that examines themes of apartheid in a sci fi context. The story begins with an alien invasion in Johannesburg, but instead of a “take me to your leader” situation these aliens are refugees, looking for a place to live. While world governments argue over how best to deal with the ETs they are housed in District 9, a makeshift township near the core of the city. As time passes tensions arise between the aliens and the locals. To quell a civil war between the human and alien population a private company, Multi-National United (MNU), is brought in to relocate the extraterrestrials. When a bumbling MNU agent contracts a mysterious virus that changes his DNA—transforming him into an alien being—the corporation’s interests shift from relocation to alien weaponry.

District 9 straddles the line between sci fi and horror. For sci fi fans there is an interesting speculative story about alien invasion and assimilation. For horror fans there’s cool creatures and blood and guts galore. It’s a wild ride, relentlessly paced, that mixes together the standard genre standbys—aliens, killer robots, spaceships against a Blade Runner-ish backdrop—with surprising twists involving African gangs, corporate greed, voo doo and cannibalism. Despite its now old hat mockumentary form, District 9 packs enough new exciting ideas into its running time to make this seem totally fresh and unique.

Like the best sci fi District 9 has roots in reality. The alien township is based on the real life District 6, Cape Town, South Africa’s former inner-city residential area. In the 1970s over 60,000 people were forcibly removed and relocated by the apartheid regime. Using gritty film stock mixed with surveillance camera footage, television images and lots of wobbly camera work District 9 conveys the intensity of human (or alien) rights being violated, and it is powerful imagery.

Couple that with the derisive nickname humans have for the aliens—they’re called “Prawns” because they sorta-kinda resemble giant shrimp—and it isn’t hard to imagine that simply inserting another racial slur and changing up the cast of characters could transform this story into a look back at apartheid or the Warsaw Ghetto.

District 9 is intelligent sci fi with a message but is also great fun. The first hour moves faster than a Romulan warrior on a Red Bull binge and the shoot-em-up climax would make Jerry Bruckheimer envious. Highly recommended.

BANDSLAM: 3 STARS

Bandslam is three-quarters of an entertaining movie. It’s too long and has three too many dead spots, but given the low expectations I had going in to see a rock and roll high school fable headlined by two Disney stars, I was pleasantly surprised. It’s not a complete waste of time and the Bowie songs on the soundtrack rock.

At the beginning of the film Will Burton (Gaelan Connell) is a loner with a David Bowie fixation. His high school career has been spent either being bullied or ignored by his classmates and his long e-mails to Bowie’s fan site are the only thing that keeps him on an even keel. When he moves to a new school in a new state it looks like it will be same old until he meets Charlotte Banks (Aly Michalka) and romantic interest Sa5m (Vanessa Hudgens), two classmates who recognize that he has something to offer. Charlotte asks him to manage the band she wants to enter in Bandslam, the annual battle of the bands. How popular is the event? “It’s like Texas High School Football big,” says one character. Charlotte is determined to beat her ex-boyfriend’s band and Will is the kind of Phil Spector musical wiz kid that might be able to give her the edge.

Bandslam is part Disney show, part Monkees, part music video and part Mickey and Judy. There’s a lot going on here, and not all of it is good, but the stuff that is good is worth a peek.
First the bad. Bandslam is half-an-hour too long. Some montage chopping would have worked wonders to bring down the occasionally bordering-on-torturous hour and fifty minute running time. The end could have been tightened up considerably. The battle of the bands sequence drags on and on and not only does it feel extended, the bands look far too old and far too slick to be high school students.

Next is the music. Early on the soundtrack rocks; nicely selected cuts by Bowie, The Velvet Underground and Nick Drake are unexpected and ear friendly, and even one of the fictional band’s tunes called Amphetamine tunes it up to eleven, but as time wears on the music begins to sound a bit too Tin Pan Alley for a rock flick.   

There is also a tone problem and I don’t mean as in pitch. The movie can’t seem to decide whether it wants to be a Disney movie or a teen indie flick with a good soundtrack. It often has the attitude and look of an indie but careens into Disney land when it over sentimentalizes the kiddie romance. The mushy stuff is a little too Mickey Mouse, not enough Bowie.

Having said all that I have to point out that most times when the movie begins to slip into cliché and cheese it rights itself with a snappy line or an unexpected plot twist.

Add to that a very appealing performance by newcomer Gaelan Connell as outcast Will and you have a movie that I was determined to hate but couldn’t. Bandslam is a surprisingly fun little music movie that is just a couple of notes away from being completely in tune.

JULIE & JULIA: 4 STARS

Julie & Julia isn’t a typical book adaptation, although it is based around two books. The story takes its lead from two very different tomes, one a blog inspired book by a self confessed “government drone by day, renegade foodie by night,” the other a classic by chef Julia Child. Bringing together the stories of Julie Powell, who made a name for herself on-line by blogging about her 2002 attempt to make all 536 recipes from Mastering the Art of French Cooking in just 365 days, and Julia Child’s coming of age in France in the 1950s seems like it shouldn’t work, but the mix and match of the two stories has resulted in one of the most delightful films of the year so far.

The contemporary story begins with Julie Powell (Amy Adams), a frustrated writer working as a temp at a government agency. Looking for a way to make her mark she hits on the idea of cooking her way through the seminal Julia Child cookbook on French food in one year, blogging as she goes. Turning the dial back fifty years we are then introduced to Julia Child (Meryl Streep) and her foreign diplomat husband Paul (Stanley Tucci) at the beginning of their life in France. “French people eat French food everyday,” a delighted Julia says on arrival. The stories mix and mingle, following the lives of these two women as they search for something to enhance their lives and find it in food.  

Directed by Nora Ephron, a filmmaker who is occasionally pitch perfect—Sleepless in Seattle—and occasionally not—Bewitched—the movie has an awkward structure, but after a rocky start rights itself as the two, seemingly disparate stories come together thematically. As similarities emerge—both women are bored government workers with doting husbands who are looking for something to fulfill them—the movie’s flashback structure starts to make sense.

Either of these narratives could have carried the film on their own—although I found the Julia Child storyline more compelling—but bringing them together gives the story a depth I’m not sure the Julie Powell story could have achieved on its own.

At the forefront here is the performance of Meryl Streep as the indomitable Julia Childs. Standing 6’ 2” Childs, with her distinctive voice and formidable stature, is an easy target for mimicry. Dan Aykroyd’s bloody Saturday Night Live take-off on Julia is a classic—and one that she herself enjoyed, keeping a copy of it to show guests—so the trick for any actor playing her is to reach past the parody and find a real character. Streep does this, playing Childs with gusto, bringing out the real person beneath the character’s affectations. It’s the kind of performance the Academy loves, so look for it to be nominated at awards time.

Amy Adams is a bit more of a slow burn. Her mousy character gets bowled over in the early part of the film by Streep’s zesty performance, but manages to establish an interesting character by the time the credits roll.  

Julie & Julia is an unexpectedly touching, uplifting story, unconventionally told, that will leave you feeling better when you leave the theater than you did when you went in.

ADAM: 3 ½ STARS

Near the end of Adam the titular character (Hugh Dancy) says, “I’m not Forrest Gump you know.” True enough. Adam may have Asperger's Syndrome, but director / screenwriter Max Mayer has avoided most of the sentimental pitfalls that make the Tom Hanks movie an exercise in how not to make a movie about someone who is not “neurotypical.” Most, but not all.

The story begins just as Adam’s father has passed away. His lonely life of routine—he eats the same thing everyday and has a phobia of change—is shaken when a pretty young woman named Beth (Rose Byrne) becomes his upstairs neighbor. The two begin a romance, even though Adam, because of his Asperger's Syndrome, is unable to express his feelings. Nonetheless they create a connection; a fragile bond that stressed by her family and his job woes.

Adam had the potential to be a maudlin movie about a doomed romance but instead is a smart story about obstacles that get in the way of fulfilling relationships. To convincingly drive the story home Mayer has cast two very appealing actors in the lead roles.

Dancy has the showier part, but where he could have played Adam as simply deadpan he instead manages to bring the character to life, taking a role that could have been a collection of obsessions and awkward social interactions and molding it into a real character the audience cares about.

Dancy may have the flashier role, but Byrne brings heart to the film. Her take on Beth is simple and sweet. In a raw, but understated performance she plays a woman who is searching for truth in her life. After a complicated romantic relationship and difficulties with her father she finds Adam’s honesty—it’s a trait of his Asperger's—refreshing. His bluntness can be difficult at times, but one of the pleasures of the movie is watching the way she learns to communicate with Adam, becoming skilled at saying exactly what she means with no room for interpretation. It’s a complicated dance between the two, but one that is played for real and with little sentimentality.

Little sentiment, that is, until the end. Mayer breaks some of the rules of the usual made in Manhattan romantic film, but chooses to close with a sequence that undermines the tone established in the rest of the film. It’s not a deal breaker, the rest of the movie is too good to be ruined by a schmaltzy ending, but I would have preferred a coda that was more in line with the film’s first ninety minutes.     

PAPER HEART: 3 ½ STARS

Charlyne Yi was born a year after Foreigner had a huge hit with the song I Wanna Know What Love Is but I think hearing the power ballad in utero had a long lasting effect on her, which must have directly lead to the making of the pseudo documentary Paper Heart.

In the film Yi, a musician and comedian best known for small roles in Knocked Up and Semi Pro, sets out to discover the true meaning of love. She says she’s never been in love and isn’t sure if she’s capable, so to avoid becoming “a lonely old spinster” she hits the road, interviewing everyone from her famous friends (like Seth Rogen) to a Las Vegas Elvis who says he once married a couple even though he knew the groom didn’t know the bride’s last name. She talks to divorcees about the true meaning of love; scientists explain the chemistry of love; a biker describes the feeling as “thirty minutes on the back of a Harley” and a couple of now elderly childhood sweethearts say she’ll know when she’s in love because it’s like a lightening bolt. Along the way Yi meets someone she might be able to fall in love with, but will she feel that lightening bolt or not?

Paper Heart is a mix of real interviews—the man-on-the-street stuff is genuine—mixed with improv from Yi, Jake Johnson (who plays the on-screen version of the real life director of the film Nicolas Jasenovec) and love interest Michael Cera. That blend gives the movie an authentically spontaneous feel but even at a slight 88 minutes the story feels padded and occasionally too quirky for it’s own good, but, despite its shortcomings, it is a film that can laugh at itself. At one point Cera describes the film-within-a-film as “quirky” and then adds sarcastically, “That’s just what America needs.” It’s fun to see the star of the idiosyncratic Juno and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist having fun at his own expense.

As for Yi her awkward, geeky charm is an acquired taste and she her acting range spans A to A, but she and Cera are quite sweet together and their chemistry, especially as their relationship starts to bloom and then wilt, is the thing that makes the film compelling.

There are some very funny moments contained within—a little girl describing true love as “taking someone to Applebees for hot wings” is priceless in a Kids Say the Darndest Things kind of way—but the film really shines when it focuses on the nitty-gritty of the heart. When Yi admits to being afraid she’ll lose her identity if she becomes too involved with someone else the film thankfully loses some of its schticky edge and comes crashing down to earth, in a good way.

Couple that with some wonderfully evocative animation used to illustrate the real-life love stories from the real-life interview subjects and you end up with a film that (eventually) cuts the quirky in favor of real feelings.

FUNNY PEOPLE: 3 ½ STARS

Allegedly loosely based on the life and hard times of Larry Sander’s Show star Garry Shandling Funny People is a look at the life of a very successful comedian. This kind of thing has be done before; Richard Pryor’s Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling was a thinly veiled autobiographical look at the comedian’s drug abuse and womanizing and Punchline saw Tom Hanks delve into the dark side of the comedy business but Funny People, featuring a host of real stand-up comics may be the most truthful and respectful movie about stand-up comedy yet.  

Adam Sandler is George Simmons, an a-list comedian in the vein of, well Adam Sandler. He’s at the top of his game, pumping out silly movies like MerMan and My best Friend is a Robot (co-starring Owen Wilson) until he learns that he has an incurable blood disorder and is given less than a year to live. Enter Ira Wright (Seth Rogen) a semi-pro comedian struggling to define his on stage persona. George takes Ira under his wing, hiring him as a personal assistant, joke writer and opening act. Their relationship deepens when George tells Ira he’s dying. The two become close friends as George helps Ira with his act and Ira helps George in his final days. Except that they aren’t his final days. George beats his disease and, with a new appreciation for life—“I got a peek at something most people only see once,” he says— attempts to find the one thing he doesn’t have, love.  

Funny People is the third film directed by Judd Apatow (following The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up) and will likely go down in history as the beginning of his James L. Brooks phase. By that I mean he inserts serious moments between the vulgar stuff. His trademark sexual and bathroom humor is very much on display (fans of fart jokes will definitely not be disappointed) but the silly stuff tempered with keen insights into the competitive nature of comedians, the nature of friendship and the world of fame. For example minutes after George has been handed his death sentence by the doctor he is accosted by fans in the lobby of the clinic. To avoid a TMZ worthy moment he poses for photos with the grinning fans, even though his world has just come crashing down. It’s a quick scene but one that displays the extent to which celebrities and public figures have to be “on” while in public, despite the circumstances. Lindsay Lohan, take note.

Adam Sandler plays his evil tempered doppelganger. George is self centered, friendless and easy to anger and Sandler pulls it off, melding his usual onscreen persona with the more interesting parts of George’s personality. He even has a bit of fun at his own expense. When Ira says he loves MerMen George responds, “you and five year olds.” Substitute Happy Gilmour for MerMen and the joke would still work.  

Despite all the good stuff Funny People isn’t a great movie—it’s too long, too uneven—but it is an entertaining one. It’s not quite the epic character study Apatow probably had in mind, but Sandler and Seth Rogen each have an easy charm that helps sell the material and their work picks the movie every time it starts to lag.

50 DEAD MEN WALKING: 3 ½ STARS

Earlier this year a movie called Hunger took us inside Ireland’s brutal Long Kesh prison to illustrate how IRA volunteer Bobby Sands had starved himself to death for the right to be declared a prisoner of war rather than a criminal. It was an artful, yet fierce film set against the backdrop of the Northern Ireland Troubles. More conventional, but equally as effective is 50 Dead Men Walking, a true story based on the life of Martin McGartland, a twenty-two-year-old recruited by the British police to infiltrate and spy on the IRA.

Set in late 80’s Belfast, as the story begins Martin (Jim Sturgess) is a two-bit hustler, selling stolen goods from door to door. He’s a charming apolitical rogue who’ll do anything to make a quick and easy buck. When a friend becomes the victim of violent IRA intimidation Martin becomes a person of interest to both the IRA and the British police. Siding with the police Martin takes on the job of double agent, joining the IRA, gaining their trust and reporting on their every move. Despite the constant danger of being found out and subsequently tortured and killed, Martin hands over information that saves the lives of at least 50 people. When his position is compromised, however, he must make the most difficult decision of his life.

Once you get past the heavy Irish accents—they’re as thick and rich as a pint of well-poured Guinness—the story unfolds in standard bio pic fashion, but never fails to maintain interest. The movie’s desaturated, grainy look gives the story a naturalistic, gritty feel and Canadian director Kari Skogland shows a steady hand at moving the story along while keeping it believable.

The film’s ferocious pace is slowed only by a love story that feels tagged on. The romance adds dashes of melodrama that marginally intensifies the film’s climax but adding a girlfriend and child and dwelling on the consequences they may suffer as the result of his actions doesn’t add much to the overall story.  

At the center of it all is Jim Sturgess, a young British actor who is turning into one of the most versatile actors going, handing in solid work in everything from Julie Taymor’s frou-frou musical Across the Universe to period work in The Other Boleyn Girl and a convincing American turn in the big studio picture 21. Here he’s playing in an indie feature, one that relies on integrity and performance and he pulls it off. As the heat turns up on his character his sweaty veneer looks real and not spritzed on by an overly attentive make-up artist. It’s good work from an interesting new actor.

50 Dead Men Walking has been described as a Belfast Donnie Brasco, and while the two may share a similar storyline they are different beasts. Brasco is a crime drama, and an entertaining one, but 50 Dead Men Walking is something deeper. It offers up a slice of our recent, troubled history and is buoyed by good performances from Sturgess and co-star Ben Kingsley (unfortunate wig excluded) coupled with a provocative, powerful story.     

SHRINK: 2 STARS

It’s no secret that the ratio of neurotic, narcissistic people to regular folks is higher in Los Angeles than almost anywhere else on earth. Tune into Entertainment Tonight or Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew if you need proof. In fact, there’s more than enough proof of that city’s deep vein of self-importance all around us on television, in literature and in the movies which makes the mere existence of Shrink, a new film starring Kevin Spacey, all the more baffling.

Spacey plays an LA based shrink to the stars and bestselling author. His practice is thriving, his book is on the best seller charts but his life a mess since the suicide of his wife. He wanders aimlessly through life, self medicating with powerful weed as his scruffy beard grows scruffier and the bags under his eyes look like they could be charged as oversized should he ever decide to fly with Air Canada. He’s at the center of Shrink, the hub of a universe of characters who also includes a litany of Tinsel Town stereotypes like the aggressive agent, a sex addicted, alcoholic older star, an aging actress, drugged out Irish movie star (if I was Colin Farrell I’d be calling my lawyer right about now), a struggling screenwriter and a troubled inner city teen. The story lines mix and mingle, inevitably weaving all the disparate stories into one, frankly, unbelievable conclusion.

Like the recent flop Crossing Over and so many other ambitious films that attempt to unveil the human condition with a multi-character narrative, Shrink has trouble blending the stories into one cohesive whole. The storytelling is choppy and some characters ultimately get the short end of the stick. Robin Williams’s character adds nothing but a bit of star power to this small indie, although in one of the film’s better exchanges Keke Palmer’s character tells him, “You should make better movies.” Amen to that. Eliminating several of the peripheral characters would have streamlined the story and focused the storytelling where it counts, on the Spacey character.

As Henry Carter Spacey revisits the ennui of his breakout role in American Beauty. He anchors the film with a good performance that only occasionally slips into his now regular master thespian moments. When he underplays—as he does in a nicely calibrated scene in which he reads a patient’s mother’s suicide note— he shines, but sometimes the big moments get the best of him.

He’s not helped by a script that seems to try too hard. Like the pace of the film the script is choppy and inconsistent. The film is best when it trusts the actors and allows them to do their work without burdening them with artificial sounding dialogue. The super agent scenes, for example, are overwritten and, by comparison to Entourage’s Ari Gold, feel derivative; ditto Robin William’s scenes, which appear to have been written by a David Mamet wannabe. Couple that with a thoroughly unbelievable and unsatisfactory conclusion that relies on amazing coincidences and you’re left with a film that over reached its grasp. 

Over written and occasionally over acted Shrink tries to pack too much into its 110 minute running time.

G-FORCE: 1 STAR

Popular culture has frequently paid homage to the lowly rodent. The Captain and Tennille scored a hit with Muskrat Love, their ode to arvicoline amour and Michael Jackson rode to the top of the charts on rat back with the tune Ben, possibly the only love song to a rat ever released.

Ben, of course, was the theme song to the 1972 movie of the same name. It was the sequel to Willard, the original “revolución de las ratas” flick. Ben and Willard, along with Stuart Little, Mr. Gopher, the burrowing terror from Caddyshack, Rizzo the Rat, Despereaux Tilling, Fievel Mousekewitz, the gang from Once Upon a Forest and of course, the biggest rodent star of all, Mickey Mouse, have left their mark in movie theatres. This weekend a new set of rodents that go by the collective name G-Force hope to do for guinea pigs what March of the Penguins did for tuxedo clad furry birds.

This mix of live action and animation from hotshot producer Jerry Bruckheimer centers on a team of trained secret agent guinea pigs. There’s team Leader Darwin (voiced by Sam Rockwell), Juarez (Penélope Cruz), Blaster (30 Rock’s Tracy Morgan) and mole Speckles (1996 Best Actor Nicolas Cage). In the midst of their biggest US government assignment ever—stopping evil billionaire Leonard Saber (Bill Nighy), from destroying the world with household appliances—they are shut down and sent to a pet shop. There they go rogue, hooking up with Hurley (Jon Favreau) and hamster Bucky (Steve Buscemi) and get back to the business of saving the world.

On the cute scale the G-Force members are somewhere between Ratatouille and Stuart Little, which is to say they are quite adorable. Pet stores should brace themselves for a run on guinea pigs but I couldn’t help but think that the rodents are less characters than prototypes for action figures and other toys. As is so often the case with bad kid’s films, more thought seems to have been given to the spin off toys kids will want after they leave the theatre than what is actually up on the screen.

The story is silly, but really, what did you expect from a film about crime fighting guinea pigs? It’s not the story that brings G-Force down, but the flat, bored performances.

The live actors aren’t the focus of the movie, but Wil Arnett and Bill Nighy do little more than simply show up and Zach Galifanikis blows whatever street cred he built up after his bizarre breakout performance in The Hangover.

The voice cast includes not one, but two Oscar winners, which may be an indication that the recession has finally taken root in Hollywood. When the best gig Penelope Cruz can get involves saying lines like “Oh, I have to save his fur again?” you know times are tight for a-listers.

Voice work wise only Nicolas Cage seems to be putting in much effort, doing a kind of Pee Wee Herman impression as the brianiac mole Speckles and Steve Buscemi has a naturally good cartoon voice but the other actors blow through their lines as if they had something better to do elsewhere.

The 3-D is sharp but other than a few fun stereoscopic gags it adds nothing to the movie except $3 to the price of the ticket.

G-Force has some good messages for kids about believing in yourself and the importance of family, but they are wrapped in a frenetic and cynical excuse for a movie that ends by setting itself up for a sequel which, if there is a patron saint of film critics, will never happen.

ORPHAN:
AS A HORROR FILM: 2 STARS
AS A COMEDY: 3 ½ STARS

There are a couple of lines necessary for the success of every Creepy Kid movie. Chief among them: “I have a surprise for you, Mommy!” Why is the line so successful? Because the surprise is never good. A close second is the old, “I don't think Mommy likes me very much” gag. These lines work because of the juxtaposition of innocence against a malevolent backdrop. In other words, evil children are scary. Orphan, starring Vera Farmiga and    Peter Sarsgaard is the latest Creepy Kid movie to hit the big screen, but is it as disturbing as the classics of the genre like The Omen or Village of the Damned?   

The story begins with a heartbreaking loss. John and Kate Coleman (Sarsgaard and Farmiga) are reeling after a miscarriage. The loss has taken a toll on their marriage, which seems about as stable as the bond between that other Jon and Kate we’ve been hearing so much about lately. In an attempt to right their awful situation they decide to adopt a child from a local orphanage. Finding themselves drawn to Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) they welcome the young girl into their home, but as soon as they do strange things start happening. Certain that something is wrong—really, really wrong—with her new daughter Kate tries to convince John that Esther isn’t the little bundle of joy they bargained for. He doesn’t heed her warnings until it is too late.  

Orphan has echoes of many creepy kid movies but sets itself apart with (a probably unintentional) sense of camp that permeates its later scenes. It’s the kind of over-the-top dramatics that turned Mommy Dearest from bio pic into giggle fest. Its sense of hysterical fun makes it a good Friday night late show kind of movie with the right audience.

Orphan bills itself as a horror film, and it starts with a bang—well, more of a spurt or a gush, really—but many of the scares aren’t so much scares as they are jolts caused by loud audio cues and red herrings. I call them “booyas,” little unexpected shocks that snap you to attention. It’s a cheap way to get a rise out of people but it does create a bit of tension.

Modigliani beauty Vera Farmiga is effective as the woman on the edge of a breakdown. Peter Sarsgaard wins the Least. Supportive. Husband. Ever. Award and has one insane, cringe worthy scene near the end of the movie that I assume he didn’t read before he agreed to take the part. It’s a ridiculous bit of overacting but fits the camp feel established by director Jaume Collet-Serra.

The parents are the foundation that holds everything together but the kids are the stars. As younger sister Max Aryana Engineer has mastered the art of the terrified face and Jimmy Bennett as brother Danny has bored teenage boy down to a science but it is Isabelle Fuhrman as evil Esther who steals the show.

She’s a particularly good Creepy Kid, just other-worldly looking enough to be freaky but able to turn on the charm when she needs to. Her facility with Hieronymus Bosch-style paintings and claw hammers are definite signs that something’s not right with the little girl John and Kate invite into their home, but what can you expect when you spend less time deciding to adopt Esther than most people spend deciding on which kind of ice cream to buy.

Esther is a stern mistress who I could see inspiring a drinking game. How about a shot of Jäger every time she gives someone the creepy kid stink eye? You’d be on your butt before the forty minute mark.

Orphan isn’t great but it does provide a few campy laughs and a couple of squirmy scenes.

THE UGLY TRUTH: 1 STAR

Kathryn Heigl is gorgeous. She’s a blonde bombshell in the tradition of Jean Harlow, a collection of curves, fiery lips and bundled blonde hair that looks as though she just slithered out of a 1950s film noir. She’s also smart, produces her own films and is out spoken about all the right causes. She should be the total package, but the trouble is, on screen, I find her cold. She emanates ice, and not in the classic Alfred Hitchcock cool blonde way. That coldness could work for her in some roles but it is a little hard to swallow in the rom coms she makes between seasons of Grey’s Anatomy.

Her new film, The Ugly Truth, feels like an updated Doris Day / Rock Hudson battle of the sexes; a look at how men and women perceive one another. Heigl is Abby Richter, the terminally single producer of a morning television show. In an effort to boost sagging ratings the station manager hires controversial correspondent Mike Chadway (Gerard Butler). “He is everything that is wrong with television and society,” says Abby. His proudly male chauvinist schtick about how women don’t understand what men want—he’s equal parts Dr. Ruth, Dr. Phil and Hugh Hefner—despite Abbey’s disdain, connects with her audience. They are, in the grand tradition of romantic comedies, oil and water, but despite their differences Abby turns to Mike for hints on how to connect with Colin (Eric Winter), the proverbial good looking doctor next door. Maybe, just maybe, though, love is closer than either of them think…

Movies like The Ugly Truth live or die based on the charm of their stars. Butler can pull off the charismatic rogue role but Heigl grates. It would have been interesting to see Reese Witherspoon or maybe a 1980s vintage Meg Ryan in the same role to judge whether their appeal could rescue this otherwise sad excuse for a rom com.

It’s not just that it is predictable. Originality isn’t a trademark of the genre, so the set up and pay off are expected before the opening credits roll. This one has a few more four letter words than usual but plays out pretty much how you might imagine.

So, if it isn’t the inevitable happy ever after story line that drags The Ugly Truth down, what is it? Well, how about the Three’s Company level dialogue? The lame jokes, writing style and battle of the sexes subject seem to harken back to a different time. Like when Jack, Janet and Crissy were still roommates and bell bottoms were considered cool at the disco. The jokes have been given a makeover but the underlying themes seem twenty years or more of date.  

There are a few laughs sprinkled throughout however—the women in the audience I saw this with seemed to find some of Mike’s observations like “For men self improvement stops with toilet training,” hilarious—but if there were any fewer laughs this would simply be a romance, not a romantic comedy. Another scene involving vibrating underwear and a restaurant got some laughs but I thought it was funnier the first time I saw it in When Harry Met Sally.

The Ugly Truth is neither ugly—Heigl and Butler see to that—or truthful—the hackneyed take on relationships sees to that.

HUMPDAY: 3 STARS

Humpday is the mumblecore version of You, Me and Dupree with a surprising twist.

If that doesn’t make sense to you, allow me to break it down. Unless you’ve been hanging around the Slamdance Film Festival “mumblecore” is likely a bit of a mystery. It is, by definition, true independent film; shot in sequence on digital video cameras with improvised dialogue and a do-it-yourself philosophy. Most feature twenty-something nonprofessional actors and a production value that makes the Dogme 95 films look like slick Michael Bay movies.

You, Me and Dupree is an awful Kate Hudson comedy about a houseguest that throws her and her new husband’s life into disarray.  

Still in the dark. OK. Here’s the lowdown. Ben and Anna are happy newlyweds, anticipating the (eventual) arrival of their first child. One night, at 2 am Andrew, an old school chum of Ben’s arrives, looking for a place to stay. Andrew is a free spirited artist who is in Seattle to raise money to complete an art project in Mexico. His presence immediately upsets Ben and Anna’s comfortable routine, but when he and Ben concoct a scheme to make an amateur porno to prove their brotherly love—it would be “beyond gay” they say—it pushes everyone to reexamine their motives.

Mumblecore is about intimate relationships and Humpday does a nice job of framing Ben’s interactions with Anna and Andrew. His relations with both seem natural and real, but like real life it’s not always very exciting. Humpday’s use of natural conversation is easy on the ears, but could have used a dialogue editor. Discussions drone on and on and more than once I felt myself thinking, “OK, we get the point. Move on!”  

It’s nothing that some tight editing couldn’t fix, and I wish someone would take the scissors to Humpday because other than that it is an effective study of people’s perceptions. As Ben and Andrew learn about themselves and where their boundaries lay the only thing that gets in their way is the incessant talk.

HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE:
FOR HARRY’S FANS: 4 ½ STARS
FOR EVERYONE ELSE: 3 STARS

Full disclosure: I am not a Potter Head.

While everyone else on the planet was busy getting sucked into Potter’s world of wizardry I missed the boat. I read the first book and have seen all the movies but never really understood what all the fuss was about. The books are phenomenally popular—they’ve made J. K. Rowling the first billionaire author—and the movies have made a fortune—they are among the highest grossing film series of all time—but it wasn’t until the release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, the sixth entry in the series, that I began to understand the allure.

I don’t usually review the audience I see a film with, or even how they react to the film—the only criteria I use is how I feel about the movie’s quality—but in this case I have to remark on the connection Harry’s fans have with these characters. I saw the movie in a screening room with about twelve other people. Directly in front of me were three twenty-something women who cooed during the romantic scenes, gasped during the adventure sequences and laughed when the silly stuff happened. Normally their amount of distracting interaction with the movie would have ticked me off, but in this case it actually enhanced my appreciation of the film. People have tried to explain the appeal of Potter to me but it wasn’t until I became aware of this trio that I finally began to understand what a deep connection people have to these characters.

Filmmakers often try to make audiences care about the characters in their films, but Rowling, the actors and the franchise’s succession of directors have actually made it happen. Having spent hundreds of hours reading the books, seeing the characters grow up, fall in-and-out of love and inch closer to ending Lord Voldemort’s reign of terror, readers and viewers feel real empathy for Harry, Ron and Hermione.   

That’s all well and good, but is The Half Blood Prince a good movie?

Yes, mostly. This is a pacer installment, a place holder which sets up the next chapters and like the others it has high production values, imaginative special effects that will make your eyeballs dance; a talented cast all of whom prance about on beautifully designed sets in spectacular costumes but, “Merlin’s beard!”, as with every film since the first one (the only book I have read) I was occasionally left in the dark as to some of the story’s finer points.

Harry Potterland is a singular place with its own particular customs, history and culture and for those familiar with its trappings the movies are magical things that bring that world to life. For the rest of us all this talk of potions, half blood princes and horcruxes might be a bit head scratching, unless of course, you’re sitting just behind the trio that made the screening of The Half Blood Prince so enjoyable for me.   

Official plot summary from Warner Bros.:

“Emboldened by the return of Lord Voldemort, the Death Eaters are wreaking havoc in both the Muggle and wizarding worlds and Hogwarts is no longer the safe haven it once was. Harry suspects that new dangers may lie within the castle, but Dumbledore is more intent upon preparing him for the final battle that he knows is fast approaching. He needs Harry to help him uncover a vital key to unlocking Voldemort's defenses critical information known only to Hogwarts' former Potions Professor, Horace Slughorn. With that in mind, Dumbledore manipulates his old colleague into returning to his previous post with promises of more money, a bigger office and the chance to teach the famous Harry Potter.

“Meanwhile, the students are under attack from a very different adversary as teenage hormones rage across the ramparts. Harry's long friendship with Ginny Weasley is growing into something deeper, but standing in the way is Ginny's boyfriend, Dean Thomas, not to mention her big brother Ron. But Ron's got romantic entanglements of his own to worry about, with Lavender Brown lavishing her affections on him, leaving Hermione simmering with jealousy yet determined not to show her feelings. And then a box of love potion-laced chocolates ends up in the wrong hands and changes everything. As romance blossoms, one student remains aloof with far more important matters on his mind. He is determined to make his mark, albeit a dark one. Love is in the air, but tragedy lies ahead and Hogwarts may never be the same again.”

BRUNO: 3 STARS

It’s impossible to review Sacha Baron Cohen’s films—Ali G Indahouse, Borat and now, Brüno—without first describing his trademarked brand of humor. His wild style of social commentary rides the thin line between bad taste and very bad taste. It’s also frequently very funny in a squirm-inducing way. The set-up is simple. In character he elicits embarrassing, often racist or downright inane reactions from people not in on the joke, and as un-pc as the results of these interviews are, he is simply using irreverent, ambush comedy to hold a mirror up to society.

His guerilla modus operandi is guaranteed to ruffle a few feathers—he’s been sued by some of his unwitting subjects for everything from libel to slander, invasion of privacy, fraud, negligent misrepresentation, negligent infliction of emotional distress and more—but I guess that’s the price he’s pays for exposing human foibles.

Brüno is another exposé. Where Borat gave us an inside look at bigotry and Western hypocrisy, the ulterior motive lurking just beneath the fake eyelashes and chaps of Brüno is an unveiling of homophobia.

Like Borat the set-up for Bruno involves a television reporter coming to America. In this case it’s Bruno (Sacha Baron Cohen), a campy fame-seeking fashionista who wants to be “the biggest Austrian superstar since Hitler.” When his Austrian TV show is axed (“For the second time the world had turned its back on Austria’s most famous man.”) he goes on an outrageous quest for fame that sees him try to negotiate peace in the Middle East, make a sex tape with Presidential hopeful Ron Paul, get involved with a charity which “doesn’t require much effort” and adopt an African baby. When those labors lead nowhere he has an epiphany; reasoning that all the greatest stars in Hollywood are straight, he opts for gay “deprogramming.” Along the way he meets a martial arts teacher who compares gays to terrorists, a wild group of swingers and others until he takes one last shot at fame as Straight Dave, host of a Man Slammin’ Max Out Ultimate Fighting and “Straight Pride” television show based in Arkansas.

For those fearing that fame may have dulled Baron Cohen’s edge, I can tell you it hasn’t. Bruno is chock-a-block with OMG!! moments—by that I mean those “Oh my God I can’t believe he just did that” moments—but as funny as the movie is there are more cringe worthy gags than actual funny jokes. His jab about finding the next Darfur, “maybe Dar-five” is smart and funny, but his long conversation about it with the two emptiest headed publicists ever, isn’t. Other gags have a been-there-done-that feel. The Velcro suit and Dallas talk show stunts are funny but ruined by over exposure in trailers and ads.

That’s not to day there isn’t lots to laugh at—Baron Cohen is the most fearless comics working today or maybe ever—but Bruno is ultimately less satisfying than Borat. It feels more episodic, more mean spirited and more staged than its successful cousin.
 
Bruno will amuse most, enrage some—one man stormed out of the screening I was at yelling, “This is the stupidest thing ever!”—and offend many, often all at the same time, but despite some advance press the gay community has little to fear.  

The gay stereotypes presented in the film are so over-the-top it is hard to imagine anyone taking them seriously and even though this extremely silly movie has a serious mission—to expose homophobia—the last thing it wants is to be taken seriously.  

I LOVE YOU BETH COOPER: 1 STAR

There’s no shortage of teen coming of age stories based on nerdy guys head-over-heels with the hottest girl in school; think American Pie, The Girl Next Door, Fanboys along with dozens of others. There’s even a reality show called Beauty and the Geek that pairs up models with self-confessed nerds, among them a Rubik's Cube Record Holder and Karl, who listed his profession as Dungeon Master. A new film, I Love You Beth Cooper, based on a novel by author / screenwriter Larry Doyle, mines this territory pairing up a high school valedictorian with the most popular and wildest, girl in school.

Nerdy Buffalo Grove High School valedictorian Denis Cooverman (Paul Rust) chose an unusual moment to declare his love for Beth Cooper (Hayden Panettiere). “The one thing I will regret if I never say it is I love you Beth Cooper,” he announces on-stage during his high school graduation, “I never told you because we never spoke.” Beth is one third of “the trinity,” the three hottest girls in school; a cheerleader who never gave Denis a second look. Never gave him a second look, that is, until after he publicly declared his love for her. That night, after the fateful graduation speech, when Denis, Beth and their friends hit the town it becomes the best night of his life despite Beth’s psycho chiseled-jawed ex-boyfriend. “All my memories from high school are from tonight,” he says.

I Love You Beth Cooper starts off promisingly. The first five minutes is funny, touching and sets up what could have been a good coming-of-age movie. Unfortunately the remaining hour and forty minutes is flat, flat, flat.

Director Christopher Columbus is no stranger to comedy, having helmed the Home Alone movies; no stranger to romance, as he proved with Only the Lonely and no stranger to teen fare, having made the first two Harry Potter movies, but here his usual deft touch is too heavy handed. Call it You Bore Me Beth Cooper. The bones of the movie are quite good; it’s well cast (with one glaring exception), the idea is cute, but any movie that relies on flashbacks that simply don’t work, the old champagne cork to the face gag, a lame soundtrack and lessons like “you’re not alive unless you’re living,” is bound for failure.

When the movie sticks to the sweet mushy stuff, exploring teen loneliness and love, it works reasonably well. When it swerves into its more slapsticky moments it becomes run-of the-mill. Played too broadly to be poignant it loses the touching x-factor that made it promising in its opening minutes.

Add to that a badly cast Hayden Panettiere in the titular role and I Love You Beth Cooper becomes a miss from a usually reliable filmmaker.

THE HURT LOCKER: 4 STARS

In the last couple of years a number of movies about the Iraq War have come and gone, barely making an impact with audiences. Well intentioned, but earnest movies like Lions for Lambs, Redacted and In the Valley of Elah were box office poison to a public inundated by images of the war on television. That downward spiral may be stopped by a movie from action director Kathryn Bigelow, a character study placed against the backdrop of the Iraq War called The Hurt Locker.

Set in 2004 Baghdad, The Hurt Locker follows a series of missions with the Bravo Troop as they dismantle IEDs (improvised explosive devices) on the last 38 days of their rotation in Iraq.

What emerges is more a wartime character study than a war movie. There are shoot outs and terrifically tense moments, but the action is, by and large, low key and realistic. Bigelow stages effective action scenes but they don’t have the over-the-top bluster we’re used to in modern war movies, instead they rely on intensity and the shocking randomness of wartime violence to make them memorable.

At the center of the action is Staff Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) an adrenaline addicted bomb diffuser who revels in risk taking. His team members, Sgt. J.T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Spc. Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty), still rocked by the sudden passing of their previous team leader, see James as a reckless troublemaker who may kill himself, or worse, get them killed. The tension in the film comes from their relationship with the showboating bomb expert as much as the battle scenes.      

The film is episodic; not so much a story as it is a series of events, but as the clock ticks down toward the end of their stay in Iraq and the end of the movie it becomes clear that Bigelow is letting the pictures tell a bigger story. The relationship of the men is the main thrust but her use of “show me don’t tell me” shots of life in Iraq in the midst of the unrest tell us a broader tale. The wordless way life in the background plays out shows us the uneasy relationship between the soldiers and the locals. It’s subtle, evocative filmmaking that binds the whole thing together.

The Hurt Locker isn’t a typical Iraq War film and that’s probably a good thing. By focusing on the people fighting the war and the effect of soldiering Kathryn Bigelow has made the most effective and most harrowing movie about the consequences of the war since Coming Home.

VALENTINO: THE LAST EMPEROR: 4 STARS

The most cinematic moment of the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival didn’t happen on the big screen. After the showing of Valentino: The Last Emperor—a documentary spanning the period between the designer’s seventieth birthday and his final couture show—the man himself stood in a box seat high above the cheering crowd. A single tear ran down his face. It was a muted, stirring moment for one of the world’s greatest living couturiers—and not one famed for his restraint. (He is, after all, given to pronouncements like “an evening dress that reveals a woman’s ankles while walking is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen.”)

The film, on the other hand, is fashion fantasy on full blast. Director Matt Tyrnauer captures the air-kissing excesses of the fashion world, including Valentino’s Sunkist tan, over-the-top mega-mansions and preposterously pampered pets—one of his five pugs even wears diamond earrings! But then, just as the doc begins to resemble Project Runway gone mad, it dips into a deeper look at the ever-evolving luxury biz. This, coupled with a tender peek into Valentino’s forty-five-year relationship with life and business partner Giancarlo Giammetti, make for a humanizing look at a complicated man. By the end, you just may shed a tear or two as well.