THE ROMANTICS (2010) (a review)

THE ROMANTICS (2010) (a review)

Based on the novel of the same name by the same guy who wrote the screenplay and directed the film. Kind of a modern day BIG CHILL but with a wedding at the center of it instead of a death. Stars: Anna Paquin, Katie Holmes, Josh Dumel, Adam Brody, Malin Akerman, Dianna Argon, Elijah Wood.

The story: a group of close friends (well, the girls are clase at least) gather for a wedding which is complicated by the groom and the maid-of-honor having been in love. After a rehersal dinner that goes badly, the bride to be goes to her bed and the rest of them get drunk. The groom goes missing and they pair off to find him. Lots of talking and some fun playing around.

Was it good?

Not really. It was pretty boring to be honest. These movies need one of two things -- shock or honesty and this movie didn't shock and the honesty just didn't work.

I can see why it would attact such a strong cast -- there was a lot of good to it. A great idea, lots of potentially funny set pieces, all the characters got to do interesting things, and it didn't have robots or anything stupid like that. And it did have some honest moments. The confrontation between the gilted maid of honor and the groom who gilted her and started dating her best friend had some nice stuff in it. So why didn't it work? Two reasons: the cast and the director.

The cast, up and down, is wrong. Everything seems forced for them. None of them have that real feeling, that live-and-breath connection to the charcters, so when they are trying to say those honest moments, those moments that are supposed to connect and just floor the audience...they come off as being meh. And it isn't that the cast isn't game for it, but that connection just isn't there.

Which brings us to the director, or in this case the writer, adaptor and director since he did all three. Clearly he has a lot of talent. Like I said there is a lot of good stuff here. But he just doesn't seem to get how to translate what works on a page into working in real life. There is a way we read and interpret things in our head when we are reading a book or script and it is just fundamentally different than the way we watch and listen when we are watching a movie. He picked the wrong cast (talented though they might be) and just didn't get them where they needed to to make the scenes that had to work work.

Still it wasn't horrible. There will be some people that connect to it and really like it. If I were younger I might even give it a borderline recommend (rental), but since I'm over 30, I'm going to have to...

**** AVOID ***

BLOODWORTH (2010) (a review)

BLOODWORTH (2010) (a review)

One of those slow, depressing character movies that is supposed to be powerful because it reaches some human truth you can't get in Transformers. Adapted from the novel PROVINCES OF NIGHT by William Gay. Stars: Hilary Duff, Val Kilmer, and Kris Kristopherson.

The story: EF Bloodworth returns home after forty years. The three sons he left behind are angry and bitter, but he forms a friendship with his grandson, a naive but handsome man who falls in love with the daughter of a whore (played by Hilary Duff). Unfortunately it turns out she is already pregnant and everything begins to fall apart.

Was it good?

No. At least not to me. I sometimes like quiet character pieces, but this one just did nothing for me. The only interesting part was the relationship between the grandson and the girl, but even that doesn't have any depth to it. They go out. He's a nice guy, but then she's pregnant and he has to figure out what to do. Meanwhile the grandfather is killed. Um...okay.

I'd guess the book gets to go into a lot more with the characters, the sons dealing with the pain of the father having left them, the grandson falling for the girl and all the trapped and painful feelings the characters have to work through. None of that really came through for me.

Probably the biggest bright spot was Hilary Duff. I know a lot of people rip on her for her acting (and no, she isn't great), but in a movie where every other character acts in the same grim manner, she was a natural bright spot that helped the movie from drowning in monotony. It reminded me some of Amy Adams in JUNEBUG (although not as good).

Unfortunately, that isn't enough for me to recommend the film.

*** AVOID ***

PLAYING HOUSE (2011) (a review)

PLAYING HOUSE (2011) (a review)

A thriller by writer/dictor Tom Vaughn. This appears to be his directoral debut.

The story: newlyweds struggling with their mortgage ask a friend to move in and pay rent. He begins a romance with a woman who then sets her sights on his married best friend and the house.

Was it good?

No. There are some good parts and some good elements but there are a lot of things that sabotage the movie, and unfortunately for the actors two of the biggies are the writing and the editing, two things totally out of their control.

First, the writing. What a mess. The idea is basic enough, but they never get beyond it giving the movie a very cardboard-n0t-making-sense feel to it. The big motivation seems to be that the femme fatale wants a house (not a condo) and when she finds a guy who owns a house she is willing to kill for it. Really? She's never met a man who owns a house before? Is that really that hard to do? I could understand if it was the middle of Manhatten, but they are off in the suburbs -- everyone owns a house!

Now it would be more understandable if she fell in love with that specific guy or if they made it clear that she wanted that house and no other houses...but they don't. Also, if she's so coco for a house then why did she start dating the houseless friend in the first place?

Now, to give some credit, for a lot of the movie they make things interesting. The first half is less about house-crazy than about the relationship stuff. The friend seems to have a thing for the wife, the girl has a thing for the husband, the couple is fighting about stuff...will they won't they...there is a lot of entertainment to it. The problem is that many of those elements aren't well set up and there is almost no follow through for any of it, except for the girl wanting the husband, so you spend a lot of time bringing up questions (is the friend making a play for the wife, for instance) that just go nowhere and you realize were wastes of time.

Better (to me at least) would have been to pick exactly what the woman wants. Does she want that specific house? Does she want that specific husband? Maybe they both (the friend and the girl) want to switch (and go for the wife and the husband)? Either of those could have been a compelling movie if the story were really well structured around that concept. Instead we get bits and pieces of all three which are brought up and dropped at various places.

Of course, there are obvious comparisons to HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE and, unfortunately, this movie isn't in the same league. The story structure for that is head and shoulders above this one and one of the problems this movie has is that it feels like a poor man's rip off of a better movie. Just compare -- this movie has a woman who wants a man with a house and begins to seduce and kill for get him. HTRTC is about a woman whose husband commits suicide after being accused of sexually molesting a patient and then the women sets out to destroy the woman who made the accusation, taking away all the things she has lost -- her husband, her home, her baby.

The other thing that hurt the film was the editing. It was really bad. Where it's most noticable is in the arguement scenes. Normally a good editor will pre-roll or post-roll dialog to help tighten a scene and keep the tension up by eliminating a lot of the unnecessary pauses. This editor didn't do it. Because of it some of the scenes that are supposed to have the most tension become almost comic with these extra beats. It's may not seem like a huge thing (we're talking a fraction of a second), but in how a scene plays it ends up having a huge effect.

Still, for all the problems it wasn't a horrible film. If you feel like watching a poor-man's version of HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE, you could do worse. The real shame is that if they had just structured the movie better and gotten a better editor the movie might have been actually good instead of just not bad.

*** RENTAL ***

HORRIBLE BOSSES (2011) (a review)

HORRIBLE BOSSES (2011) (a review)

A black comedy starring Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx.

The story: three guys hate their bosses and make an agreement to kill each other bosses. However, after doing some recon, one of the bosses kills one of the other bosses and now they the chief suspects in a police investigation and while trying to get the killer boss to admit to what he did they he now is after them to knock them off as well.

Was it good?

Not really. The problem is that the central idea -- these three guys wanting to commit murder -- just wasn't funny. The best parts are when the bosses are being abusive. The three main characters were annoying. So I wasn't rooting for the main guys and I wanting rooting for the bad guys and that means I was just kind of there.

That said it wasn't horrible. If you get into the concept or are a fan of any of the actors maybe you'd be able to get into it more than I did. The movie keeps moving and they work in plenty of jokes. I just wasn't into it. So for me I can't recommend paying theatrical money, but would tell people that are interested to check it out on video.

*** RENTAL ***

BAD TEACHER (2011) (a review)

BAD TEACHER (2011) (a review)

An R-rated comedy starring Cameron Diaz, and co-starring Justin Timberlake and Jason Segal.

The story: Elizabeth (Diaz) is a bad teach. Doesn't care about the students or teaching or any of it. She is on the verge of quitting her teaching job so she can get married to a super-rich guy and be set for life, but gets busted that she's just marrying for his money and the wedding gets called off. She decides she needs money for breast implants so she can attact a rich guy. Then she meets the new substitute teacher (Timberlake) who is both cute and rich. Now she will pursue him while trying to raise the money for implant, however he is kind of a dork and instead she will become attacted to another teacher (Segal) who is just as much of a jerk as she is.

Was it good?

Yeah. It was good. Lots of funny parts and it was nice to see a woman in an outrageous comedy for a change. But there were also a lot of things that didn't work which stopped it from being in the same class as movies like FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL.

First, the story doesn't really make sense. She wants implants to attact a guy, but the guy she is going after doesn't seem to care if she has them or not. So the implants are to attact a guy like that one who doesn't care if she has implants or not??? Doesn't make a lot of sense.

And of course the second half loses its funny as she begins to realize the rich guy isn't for her and the other guy is the one she likes. Yawn. One of the things about these irreverent characters is that they are fun when they are bad and once they stop they become boring. Luckily that when the movie ends, but it's more of a limp-to-the-finish ending than a great rousing finale.

The best parts are when Diaz gets to be bad. Let her rip on some kids, be crazy, be sexy, be bad. That's the fun parts and those (along with some good lines by the supporting cast) are what make the movie worth watching.

*** RECOMMEND ***