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 ***

ARTHUR (2011 remake) (a review)

ARTHUR (2011 remake) (a review)

This is a remake of the classic Dudley Moore movie about a constantly drunk millionaire who is forced to choose between his money (and marrying a woman he doesn't love) or the woman he loves. This version stars Russell Brand in I believe his 1st starring role in a big American film after having small roles in movies like FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL and hosting the MTV awards and marrying Katy Perry.

The story: Arthur (Brand) is a child-like billionaire, who avoids work and responsibility and anything remotely not-silly or un-childlike. His mother wants the family to continue running their company and clearly he is incompetant for it, so she wants him to marry some corporate woman who will be able to take over. Arthur doesn't want to -- he doesn't like the woman although I believe he has already slept with her before -- but his mother threatens to cut him off financially so he agrees. And then he meets a woman he actually connects to and falls in love with her. That starts the central question -- love or money -- who will Arthur marry?

Was it good?

No. The biggest problem was Brand as Arthur. The weird silly child thing combined with the playboy sex addict just wasn't interested. And it just wasn't funny. I'm too tired to write more. There really just wasn't anything that worked for me here. There's this idea (I think) that some childhood trauma made him now reject the grown-up world and pursue childhood fantasy...except he doesn't really do that in any real way. He is childlike and they want to make it seem like he has more going on, but really he's just kind of a selfish dick. I mean, with his money -- if he wanted to pursue the childlike sense of wonder -- he could be entertaining children or doing children's theater or running a play group. In fact, a story where he is running an elementary school that emphasizes play and imagination but his mom wants him to take over the company would have been much more interested. Here, he's just a brat. And really not even love redeemed him of that.

*** AVOID ***

GREEN LANTERN (2011) (a review)

GREEN LANTERN (2011) (a review)

This is the big budget ($200M+) comic book adaptation. It's the first big superhero movie by DC that wasn't Superman or Batman. It starts Ryan Reynolds with Blake Lively as the girlfriend. Directed by Martin Campbell who directed Mask of Zorro and the sequel...which I never even knew existed before I just looked it up.

The story: Hal Jordan (Reynolds) is a test pilot who finds a crashed alien ship. Inside the ship, the alien gives him the Green Lantern ring which gives him the power to create anything he can imagine. However, he needs training so he goes off into space to learn about the Green Lantern Corps, a whole bunch of Green Lanterns from around the universe who fight evil, and to learn to not be afraid. Back on Earth, this other guy has been infected by a bad space alien and he has mutated into this weird dude and taken Jordan's girl hostage so he has to save him, but then an even bigger space alien appears and now Jordan has to fight this final alien that could destroy the world, and he has to do it without the help of the Green Lantern Corps who are worried that they will lose.

Was it good?

No.

It wasn't horrible-horrible, and I'm sure kids would like it, but as a movie that might also appeal to adults the way the Batman or Spider-Man or Iron Man or X-Men or even Thor did, it's really bad.

First, I didn't like Reynolds as the superhero. Reynolds, for me, is basically a smart ass. Which is fine for a comedy like THE PROPOSAL or his role in SCRUBS, but for this movie, where he occasionally has to give dramatic superhero lines at key moments...well, none of them worked for me.

Then there are a lot of things that didn't connect. Like Hal Jordan is a fearless fighter pilot. Then he gets the ring and suddenly he is afraid? How does that make sense? Or the whole idea of the Green Lanterns is to not give in to fear, but the reason why the Lanterns won't help Hal fight the big bad evil is because they are afraid of what will happen if they lose. Huh? Aren't they supposed to be the ones without fear?

I also didn't get the love story. I mean, they know each other and maybe used to be an item, but then aren't and why? Then he's a superhero so they are a couple again? Really? That's all there is to it?

The Marvel movies work when they take a person with an interesting problem (can't get the girl, manufacturing weapons, etc) and then find a way to externalize it into a superhero story. Here, I don't know what the story of Hal Jordan was supposed to be. It wasn't about not being afraid -- he wasn't afraid before! It's not about the girl. It's not about anything.

It's part of the reason why the movie, for all the action and special effects feels so hollow.

It's a shame. I was hoping to like this. I was hoping that DC had figured out how to make movies out of their characters so we could get a Flash movie and Wonder Woman and all the other cool DC characters. Instead, this looks like a huge step back for them.

Still, for kids it's good enough to see. For adults, if you are interested then you can wait until it's out in dvd.

**** RENTAL ****