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“Things aren’t nice anymore.”

The H-Bomb: In pursuing my ongoing quest to track down and watch all the Oscar contenders from last year (a quest I may never complete), I came upon this small film for which Nicole Kidman was nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award. Now, we all know I was a huge fan of “Black Swan” and that I strongly believed Natalie Portman deserved her Oscar win, but after seeing Kidman’s performance here… I still believe Natalie Portman deserved her Oscar. Which is not to take anything away from Kidman, who certainly does deliver not only one of the best performances of 2010, but one of the best of her entire career.

Kidman and Aaron Eckhart portray Becca and Howie, a married couple who lost their 4-year old son, Danny, in an accident some eight months earlier. Now I know what you’re thinking, the last time we went down this road, we had to deal with talking animal corpses and graphic genital mutilation. Well fear not, “Rabbit Hole” avoids the freakish “Antichrist” route in favor of being a more straightforward drama, showing how these two individuals try to cope with their loss in very different ways.

Becca’s approach to get over it is simply to not address it at all. Howie wants to go to group therapy, but she’d rather bury herself in baking or tending her garden. Howie likes to remember Danny by watching old videos of him. Becca, if she had her way, would get rid of every last reminder of him, including getting rid of his clothes, his pictures, and even selling their house. Neither one really blames the other for their son’s death, but there’s a tension between them. The kind that builds whenever they dodge the topic with small talk. The kind of tension that boils over when they finally collide over their opposed ways of dealing with the tragedy. It’s this failure to find a way to grieve together and put it behind them once and for all that threatens to destroy their once happy marriage completely.

It doesn’t help that Becca’s younger, wild child sister, Izzy (Tammy Blanchard) is now expecting her own baby, or that her mother (Dianne Wiest) is constantly comparing Becca’s loss to the death of her son, a 30-year old drug addict. Becca does, however, find solace in an awkward friendship she strikes up with a high school senior named Jason (Miles Teller). He’s a shy, quiet type, who himself is coping with something painful in the recent past. At first, Jason seems like some random kid that she met, but he isn’t. He and Becca do have a connection, but in the interest of spoilers, that‘s all I‘ll say.

Howie, meanwhile, finds himself becoming friendly with Gaby (Sandra Oh), a parent from the support group who lost her child some eight years ago. They start playing hookie from the group meetings in order to smoke weed in the parking lot instead, and, if you haven’t already guessed, the two find themselves attracted to each other. Will Howie remain faithful to a wife who has been steadily drifting away from him? And will their relationship ever recover?

“Rabbit Hole”, adapted by David Lindsay-Abaire from his own Pulitzer winning stage play, is ultimately about two people trying to come to terms with their great loss and move on. One would imagine that this would make for a very depressing watch, but it isn’t. Yes, it’s emotional. Yes, it’s moving. But unlike say, the thematically similar “21 Grams” (which is itself a good film), it never becomes overwrought or oppressively downbeat. There’s actually a good dose of humor sprinkled throughout the film that keeps it from becoming too heavy dramatically.

Being that this is a character driven piece, the acting is the most crucial element, and there are no slouches in that department. Kidman indeed delivers an award caliber performance, perhaps the best of her career. She had been slipping in recent years, appearing in questionable projects (what the hell was up with that useless “Invasion of the Body Snatchers“ remake), but here she is in fine form as a woman wracked with self guilt who is faced with constant reminders of her son no matter how hard she tries to put him out of mind. I feel she deserved an Oscar more for this film than she did for her overrated performance as Virginia Woolf in “The Hours”.

Eckhart, one of the most underrated actors out there, is equally terrific. Despite appearing upbeat on the surface, he is in just as much pain as his wife is on the inside, and is having just as difficult a time saying goodbye to his child. When the hell is the Academy going to give him the recognition he deserves? Young Teller, in his feature film debut, is excellent as the troubled teen, Jason. He holds his own opposite Kidman quite well, and I’m fairly certain we haven’t seen the last of him (he’ll be appearing in the upcoming “Footloose” remake).

John Cameron Mitchell, who in the past directed more avant-garde fair like “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and “Shortbus”, makes his most audience friendly movie to date and does a commendable job in taking the story’s stage origins and making it cinematic. Often times, when a play is adapted into the film, it’s glaringly obvious. For example, scenes of dialogue will be overly talky and go on for an eternity, and there will be few characters and even fewer locations, which creates a closed off, isolated feeling. That is not the case here. This has the flow and the openness of a film, and many of the characters’ emotions are conveyed through looks and facial expressions, instead of spoken words. Mitchell’s direction is subtle and straightforward, and he draws some effective performances out of his first rate cast.

“Rabbit Hole” is a damn fine film that almost no one has seen. It’s an impeccably acted piece about loss, recovery, and reconciliation. It’s not particularly groundbreaking, movies about grieving parents are nothing new, but this film approaches the subject in an intelligent, believable way that doesn’t feel clichéd or dramatically cheap. It may have received an Oscar nomination for Kidman’s performance, but it deserved several more.

When I first heard about “Bridesmaids”, I thought “Great!!  A movie I’ll definitely be able to relate to!!”.  Having been a bridesmaid thrice, with two more tours of duty coming up soon, this was perfect for me.  Well let me just say, thankfully I was not subjected to the insanity that these bridesmaids went through!!

Annie (Kristen Wiig) works for a jewelry store, because the cake shop business that she opened a few years ago failed.  She is single, but she has a “bang buddy” who doesn’t treat her very well.  She shares her apartment with an albino-looking set of siblings who happen to be British, and are not very nice to her.  As her mother (Jill Clayburgh) says, she’s hit rock bottom.

Annie and Lillian (Maya Rudolph) have been best friends forever.  When Lillian becomes engaged, she asks Annie to be her maid of honor.  Annie accepts, and then the “fun” begins.  Also in the bridal party are:  Megan (Melissa McCarthy), who is the groom’s sister, Rita (Wendi McLendon-Covey), who is married with a few sons and is tired of her husband, Becca (Ellie Kemper) a newlywed, and Helen (Rose Byrne), who is Lillian’s fiance’s boss’s wife.  Things are starting to look up for Annie, especially when she catches the eye of a cop, Rhodes (Chris O’Dowd).

Too bad for Annie, from the beginning, Helen tries to out-do everything Annie does.  From the toast at the engagement party, to the fancy wedding dress shop she gets the girls into (which unfortunately they visit after lunch that does not sit well with the ladies, if you catch my drift), to the lavish bridal shower she throws (after stealing Annie’s theme idea), she pretty much takes over the maid of honor duties and eventually becomes maid of honor (by sabotaging Annie on the way to the bachelorette party in Vegas – what follows is hilarious yet unfortunate as they do not make it to Vegas because they get thrown off the plane).   She does it in such a way that it’s subtle but it really chaps Annie’s hide.  Like Annie doesn’t have enough to deal with!!

With a running time of just over two hours, “Bridesmaids” was jam-packed with outrageous moments, and it really took its time with character development.  Nothing felt rushed, they really let this one breathe and it made it even better.

I had doubts about Kristen Wiig leading the film, but she exceeded my expectations.  She really did a fantastic job with “Bridesmaids”.  Although, I felt that a bit of her “SNL” character Penelope (the perpetual exaggerator and one-upper) was peeking through, Annie wasn’t nearly as obnoxious as Penelope.  I found myself relating to her character in more than one way.  And anyone who has participated in wedding planning, while being single, broke, and borderline depressed will also!!  I really thought Melissa McCarthy stole every scene she was in, especially on the airplane ride to Vegas.

Warning:  not for the kids!!  There was liberal use of the F word as well as inappropriate content.  Fine for us adults but not for the kiddies!!

I started reading comic books at the age of seven. Twenty five years later I sold the last of my comic book collection. Among my collection was a large run of “The Mighty Thor” comics. I even had a few of the early appearances in Journey into Mystery. Thor was never one of my favorite superheroes, mostly due to all the “thee’s” and “thou’s” in his speech.  In the 1980’s writer/artist Walt Simonson took over the Thor title at Marvel and pretty much remade the character. He lost his hammer (Mjolnir) for awhile and he lost his alter ego.  This is the character that most represents the Thor we see in the movie.

So if you are hoping to see the original origin story from the 1960’s you can forget it. But there is an homage to that origin, which I will not spoil for you. Anyway, on to the movie…

I liked “Thor”. I will not say I liked it as much as “Iron Man”, but it was better than “Iron Man 2″. Chris Hemsworth did a very decent job as the Norse god of thunder, with the right amount of humor and arrogance readers of the comic book can appreciate.  Anthony Hopkins, as Odin, was also very good in his limited role. The weakest link in the movie is the Jane Foster character played by Natalie Portman. I guess ever since “Spider-Man” grossed over 400 million dollars domestically, Marvel has decided that all their superhero movies need a love story. I think as far as “Spider-Man” goes, it was crucial to the story, as it is in the comic book. But for “Thor”, this was mostly a waste of screen time.

Natalie Portman is a great actress and I have loved her in most of the roles I have seen her in going back to “Leon: The Professional”. But she is completely miscast in this role. I guess it didn’t help that Kat Dennings, who plays her assistant Darcy in the movie, stole every scene they were in together. I would rather have seen Kat Dennings as Jane Foster. But that is not a huge mark against the movie.  This was also one of my favorite Stan Lee cameos since they started making Marvel Comic book movies.

Most of the movie takes place in Asgard, which is the home to the Norse gods, for all you uninitiated.  The realm of the gods did look spectacular, and I especially liked the Rainbow Bridge and Heimdall. The movie should appeal to anyone that loves Norse mythology even if they never read a Thor comic book in their lives, as so much of the movie takes place in that world. Tom Hiddleston did a good job as Thor’s nemesis Loki, although I did not like how they messed with his origin. Loki is the god of mischief in Norse mythology, and in the comic book he is always butting heads with Thor.

So what is missing from this movie? Why is it not as good as “Iron Man”? I think what made “Iron Man” a great movie was the personality that Robert Downey Jr. brought to Tony Stark. Chris Hemsworth played the role well, and he did have some funny lines, but I guess the problem I have with “Thor” is the same problem I have with Superman: just too damn powerful. There was not really a moment in the movie where I felt the character was in any real peril. And of course when your father is Odin, you have a pretty good backup there, don’t you?

But the movie overall was enjoyable and is just another prelude to “The Avengers” movie due out in 2012. Speaking of the Avengers, one of my favorite parts of the movie was the cameo of another Avenger. Look for it; it was pretty cool.

PS: Make sure you stay past the credits for another Avengers teaser.

The vibrant film inspires viewers to fly and be free!

Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) is a rare breed of macaw that is adopted at a young age by a little girl, Linda after being kidnapped from his birth place Rio de Janeiro. Because he was domesticated in the small town of Moose Lake, Minnesota, Blu never learned to fly. Blu and Linda spend their days in Linda’s book shop and lead a pretty simple life, until one day a bird expert, Tulio from Rio de Janeiro visits seeking the rare macaw male in hopes to breed him with the only known existing female of their kind. Blu is less than thrilled to make the journey, as he is perfectly happy in his cozy home. Linda takes the trip to Brazil with Blu and he is introduced to the only female blue macaw, Jewel (Anne Hathaway). Jewel is attractive, sassy, and independent. She is too busy trying to escape the sanctuary when Blu meets her, and is desperately attempting to get away from the cage she lives in which makes Blu ponder if there’s a lot more to life.

Their escape, however, immediately leads to capture by greedy poachers. The story then follows their journey to free themselves from the chains that tie them together. Along the way they meet other helpful birds Rafael the Tucan (George Lopez), Pedro (Will.i.Am), Nico (Jamie Foxx), and a slobbering bull dog (Tracy Morgan) who all bring variety and comedy to the film. The adventure is wildly entertaining as the animation is visually spectacular, with vibrant colors and a villainous cockatoo named Nigel (Jermaine Clement). I loved all of the characters, but Blu and Jewel were the starring favorites. Linda and Tulio were quirky love birds (pun intended) who added a nice element to the picture.

The film delights children of all ages- Harlan (our resident aged 6½ film critic) was giggling at the fumbling birds and was captivated the entire film. He simply loved it, and other children in the theater seemed to be happily entertained. The plot was family friendly and easy enough for the little ones to follow.

See Rio for a colorful pick me up!

There’s a Brand new “Arthur”

Swift shot: A delightful little comedy with a little bit of heart and panache, short on class, but come on, this is Arthur! This film, on its own, and not directly compared to the original is one of those feel-good comedies that you can see with someone close.  It isn’t a spectacular piece, and I doubt any Academy Awards will come out of this one.  Still, I am not jumping on the hater bandwagon and thumbing my nose at Brand.  He is not my favorite comedian, but I respect him, and his portrayal of the original NY icon is something worthy of praise.  Dudley is not looking down, or up, in disgust.  Enough time has passed that most of my fans didn’t even know this was a remake – yeah, I feel old now.

Arthur, for the unaware, is a film about a spoiled rich kid in an adult’s body – debauchery and drunkenness are his claim to fame.  But, he is so loaded, the figure given is staggering when you hear how much he is worth, I dare not say it here.  Because he is full to the rim with opulence and cash, he gets bored easily and his main goal in life, well, is to LIVE.  He never really gets close to anyone though, because most people are drawn to him solely for his wealth.  At least, that is how his nanny, Hobson, played by Academy Award winner, Helen Mirren, sees things.  She is so used to cleaning up, literally in some cases, Arthur’s mess of a life, that she has become too cynical and jaded when Arthur truly falls for someone who doesn’t want anything from him, just his love and attention.

Granted, when Arthur first meets Naomi (Greta Gerwig) she wants nothing from him, and in fact ends up giving him something – which I think was the spark that really wakes Arthur up – as he is so used to giving to freeloaders and false-friends.  Still, he is so drunk throughout the film, it becomes hard to nail down his earnest feelings in many scenes.  But, if you pay attention in two scenes, you are rewarded with why Arthur treats life as a playground, and for whom he is playing that role.

His play time is about to be furloughed though, when his mother demands he marry a woman under her employ, Susan (Jennifer Gardner) whose only designs are on Arthur’s Bach empire.  Susan’s father is played brilliantly, and brutally, by Nick Nolte – who it was nice to see make an appearance on the screen again.  His character will definitely get your attention!  Susan and Arthur’s mom essentially give Arthur a choice, marry her and keep your inheritance or refuse the marriage and be cut off from the vast Bach empire . . . forever.

The peripheral characters in Arthur place an exorbitant amount of outside pressure on his decisions, and at several turns you may find yourself agreeing with his philosophy of living life through binges and toys.  But, as you see his heart develop throughout the film, you really understand he is just a lost, little kid, scared and unprepared – or is there more to Arthur in the end?  You’ll laugh, you’ll hope, and you will be rooting for the most wealthy “sympathetic character” as you watch his decisions shape his life.

Director Jason Winer gets a lot out of his cast, and when everything plays out, the evolution of the plot is, dare I say, a story-book ending.  I wanted to come out with a snide grin on my face, telling the world that Brand couldn’t hold a warm cup of piss up to Moore, but I was soundly shut up as I found myself laughing my butt off . . . even at scenes I caught in the trailers.  Because this isn’t a big blockbuster action flick or anything where cinematography requires grandiose framing, you can wait until you can own this and watch it at home.  But, if you want to catch a really enjoyable theater film, Arthur should give you something to smile about and might just leave a spark of romance in your heart.

I am not sure why “Daybreakers” has been downplayed every time I went digging for an opinion of it.  Even my closest friends insisted I skip it. The movie honestly didn’t initially interest me, the trailer’s presentation and everyone’s summary gave me one idea of the movie. There is an infection that turns people into vampires and there are a few humans trying to fight against the vampire as a last stand. Survival horror, with vampires? No thanks, 30 Days of Night was probably better .Well  I finally built the courage to watch it, and I am happy to say I could not have been lied to any more.

“Daybreakers” is an intelligent and logical (using the term loosely here) film that explores the possibilities of a legit human-to-vampire pandemic and the effects of it on civilization. Usually we see movies where “the event” begins in the movie. For example, the first signs of zombies in Dawn of the Dead happens in present time in the beginning of the movie. You don’t find the characters trained and armed to their hairline with weapons and ammo five months after the initial outbreak. “Daybreakers” is set seemingly years after the infection, way after the virus has settled down and the new breed of people living on the earth have adapted to their new forced lifestyle.

The vampire bio-formula in this one seems to be classic. They don’t glitter in the sun, they spontaneously combust. They can’t “resist the hunger”. Finally, if you slam a stake through their heart, these fuckers don’t just dust cloud on you, they fucking explode.  One thing to note about the new world population, like classic vampires they feed on blood. This is where the movie’s conflict comes into play. The vamps are getting desperate for blood. With humans constantly converting or being sold as stock (for their blood) the human population inhabits about five percent of the earth at this time. Since we are so hard to find, this creates a shortage of the human blood the vampires have been stocking up. For now, I’ll just say if vampires starve, they will go fucking bananas. Insane enough to feed on themselves but that’s a totally different gruesome story.

We begin with a few shots of newspapers, pamphlets, all either news about the infection and its progress and propaganda for the new vampire community. Enter Edward Dalton (I guess Edward is the choice vampire-y name for a handsome male lead…that is a vampire) lead Hematologist at [Humans being harvested] Inc.; A company that seems to be doing rather well due to their high amount of blood inventory and the shareholders that have invested on these stocks. However stockholders begin pulling out because of the human blood shortage and Charles Bromley, head of the company, prompts Edward to continue working on a perfect blood substitute. The current ones, in the simplest words, don’t seem to ever work out nicely, but you can get the details from the movie.

So Edward Dalton goes home for the morning. You may be wondering at this point, how they get about during the day so fast. To quell that curiosity, they developed a nifty “Sub-Walk” that should be self-explanatory and also, neat loopholes, for the whole exploding in sunlight syndrome. Including but not limited to automatic shutters on their car windows and an intricate camera interface for them to see during the day from the inside out. Please note that shutters are not bulletproof.

Technology aside, our hematologist finds himself suddenly in a pretty lethal looking car crash from him eating shit (That’s a phrase meaning: Not paying ANY KIND OF attention) in his car’s space ship looking dashboard.  Both vehicles make contact and spin out, crashing into the respective obstacles that halted them. Edward runs out to make sure the other passengers are ok. As he opens the door of the vehicle, he sees a crossbow pointed directly at him. I recall him being shot a few times but they were meant as a warning to back off. The person in possession of it seems to be the head of the small survivor squad. Here lies the fated meeting between Edward Dalton and I guess expert survivalist Audrey Bennett. Almost as if on cue, police sirens filled the recently silenced night.

Edward and Audrey both know they are heading to the scene of the accident. Both in panic, Edward manages to get Audrey and her “posse” to get into his car and stay out of sight. He gets the police on their way, and is thanked for his service as Audrey decides to disappear stupidly into the night. Later on, he is visited by his Vamp-Military (?) brother, Frankie Dalton. Frankie reveals he works for Charles Bromley. They go into one converting the other but honestly, I couldn’t follow who bit what where why. So, here Audrey sneaks in and says that she has someone who can help with the blood substitution. From there on I will leave it to your imagination what could possibly happen. I can say, if this movie has not been spoiled for you, and if you haven’t seen it obviously, you could not guess what follows.

The acting in the movie was good all across the board.  We had Ethan Hawke playing our lead, Hematologist Edward Dalton. Charles Bromley was played by the very epic, Sam Neill, who you may know as Dr. Alan Grant from the Jurassic Park franchise. The expert survivalist woman Audrey Bennett was executed flawlessly by Claudia Karvan, half a bitch the whole movie.  Michael Dorman was Edward’s brother Frankie Dalton.  There are also some characters/actors that I didn’t mention.  William Dafoe who plays Elvis, Audrey’s partner, adds a rather interesting twist to the cast.  Finally, there was Isabel Lucas portraying the human daughter of Charles Bromley. The interaction between these two is worth watching the movie alone.

There were also plenty of neat gadgets that helped out with vampire life and small consistencies that helped maintain the theme of the movie. For example, having adapted to drinking blood, their milk, or coffee, now can be up of a varying percentage of blood at coffee shops. Also, when vampires starve, which they obviously will in this situation, they start to diminish in a way. They begin to mutate slowly into these bat-like creatures that truly cannot tell the difference between food and enemy. Hell, they even eat themselves as they heal…gross.

The most prominent memory of the film is this one scene where one of the aforementioned characters is fucking devoured to a messy blood sprinkler of organs and skin. Best devouring scene I have ever seen in my entire life. So with that said, go ahead and see this film if you haven’t. It seems like a horror movie, but it really isn’t. I believe  that is the only reason why people consistently underrate “Daybreakers”

Sometimes the freedom to make choices traps the best of us

Swift shot: First, I screened this at a local Art and Culture Center, and I wasn’t sure what to expect, I had no studio notes, no actor’s bios, nor synopsis, I was completely void of any prior knowledge of this film.  I must say, I wasn’t expecting to be so moved by an independent film, shot locally with almost no budget – a REAL independent film, not something punched out by Hollywood from one of their cookie-cutter “indie” studios – this was the real deal, local guys and gals putting in late hours for no guarantee of a payoff and no comfy studio contract to keep them warm at night.  Yet, Quarterlifers is on par with a big-budget studio presentation, save for a few minor places for improvement which can be easily over-looked.

The characters grow on you, you identify with them or perhaps you know a few of them.  Either way, they were genuine and you either loved them or loathed them, I didn’t find myself apathetic to their circumstances once.  That credit goes to the whole crew, not just Writer/Director/Actor Adam Fortner who served as the almighty substance that kept everything together – without his loyal team, really delivering solid work, the whole thing would have come across as some kind of amateurish flop.  This was no flop!

Quarterlifers is on the surface a story of four mid-twenties friends [thus the title - for the cheap seats], who are each trying to figure out that simple, yet terrifying, question – what the hell do I want to do with my life?  The primary focus is on Riggs (Adam Fortner) who majored in Criminal Psychology, because hey, aren’t we all gonna be hunting serial killers for the FBI?  But reality soon sets in after college and he finds himself a skilled speech writer for a campaign team trying to get Matthew Gibson (Bobby Dodge) elected to Congress.

Riggs is flanked by his cast of loyalists: the stooge, Jason, played marvelously by Lincoln Potwin whose character provides both serious and incredibly funny moments throughout.  At one point I was thinking, hey, what about Jason, and voila, Fortner read my mind. Closely following Jason in my personal preference pecking order was Ryan (Roy Lynam) who actually does what a lot of us want to do after college but are too “responsible” – he buys his local billiards bar and tries to run it on a shoe-string budget, he was a character I certainly identified with for that reason alone.  Closing out the lead male cast is the more complex character of the three supporting roles, Derek, who (I am not spoiling anything here) you will find yourself hating in the beginning.  But, he just may surprise you.  Derek was played very effectively by Andrew Roth, who I was not surprised to learn has 30 notch-marks already in the industry.

Riggs is going through a soul-searching time as the film takes off, having just broken up with his steady girlfriend, who most of his family “really liked” – he is also trying to get Gibson elected while working for a stern, yet respectful task-master in campaign manager Michael whose casting I thought was superb, because Richard Haylor looked tough as nails but even in the short amount of screen-time, Fortner gives him the chance to really develop as a character through his dialog.  I really hope to see Haylor in more films, and I am sure Fortner would re-cast him, because the performance he gave was just genuine and incredibly believable.

Finally, Riggs’ “Dad”, the sage, wise patriarch of the entire band of merry men was portrayed by Rick Montgomery, Jr. What I liked about “Dad” was how he seemed equally comfortable at work as he was at home giving his son one of those amazing talks that only great dads really can deliver, all while failing miserably on XBox.

Notice a pattern yet?  Right, the review is a bit male-centric, well, the film was also heavy on the testosterone, but Fortner managed to give depth to the female characters while they might not have had much screen time to play with.  Riggs’ sister, Emily (Keri Maletto) provides a quirky reality to balance Riggs overtly serious tones, yet also serves as a true loving sister and has a pivotal scene later in the film that I really felt.

Jason’s girlfriend Angela (Carolina Insua) keeps your attention in every scene, the physicality of her performance was subtle yet incredibly effective, as she harasses Jason to seek more at work and from life.  Jennifer (Millie Capellan) performs admirably as Ryan’s wife who wants him to succeed but not at the cost of their marriage.  Riggs’ ex-girlfriend Claire (Miranda Khan) helps put things in Riggs’ life into focus as life delivers him a harsh scratch.  Finally, there is Riggs’ mother, played by Marilyn Carlisle who is always there for her children with a hot meal, even at 25, and a shoulder for whenever it is needed.

What happens in this film?  Is it all just a bunch of fluff and no circumstance with interesting characters who don’t face any real challenges other than the cliched why am I here, what should I be doing, etc etc etc?  I am not going to tell you what happens in the film, I will say this, the story will get to you, it is about life, the choices we make, the actions that define us, the words we choose and how they cast us in a mold to the world whether they be true or facades that we show to the world.  It is a film about friendship, loyalty, the truth about what defines love and loneliness.  It is a lighthearted punch in the gut – much like life!

Sometimes, the grass isn’t always greener…

When Rick (Owen Wilson) is given a “Hall Pass” from his wife Maggie (Jenna Fischer), he thinks he is the luckiest guy ever!!  Now he is free to live the life of a swinging bachelor for a whole week.  Maggie took the kids to her parent’s house, so no wife, no kids, and no responsibilities!!  He can go out and score with any chick he wants.

Let’s back up a bit, shall we??  Rick and Maggie are a (mostly) happily-married couple with three children.  They’ve been together forever, but sometimes relationships have unhappy patches, as theirs is in now.  Maggie feels taken for granted, and when she overhears Rick and his friends, including best friend Fred (Jason Sudeikis) debating how much they will pay for one “freebie” (a sexual encounter with someone other than their wives, and the wife is guaranteed to never find out), she later decides to let him have his freebie.

So Rick is free, and then Fred’s wife Grace (Christina Applegate, who is awesome by the way, I just realized this earlier as I watched “Don’t Tell Mom the Baby-sitter’s Dead” for about the 50th time) decides to give Fred a Hall Pass too.  She joins Maggie and her kids, and the men are free!!  However, things don’t always go as planned.  I don’t want to give too much away, but let’s just say on the first night of freedom the men were calling it a night at about 9:30.

Oh, and remember, a Hall Pass goes both ways, as Maggie and Grace soon realize.  So guys, you may be free but you wives are too!!!

There were definitely some zany situations in this movie, including: public masturbation, pot brownies consumed on a golf course (humorous complications ensue), explosive diarrhea, excessive sexual discussion (and hand gestures) when you think nobody is around but really EVERYONE in the house is watching and listening to you, and a good lesson -don’t fall asleep for hours in a hot tub, because your legs may go numb and you may need to be rescued by a naked man and his schlong may accidentally be in your face.

Overall this was a fun movie.  The story was good and so was the acting.  I was however distracted by the few characters that had majorly bad and obvious “fake bake” (aka fake tans).  I didn’t understand why they needed that.

Warning:  this one is NOT for the kids.  While there were some outrageously funny situations, there was also full-frontal male nudity, one topless woman, and very naughty language.