The BETTER “No Strings Attached”

Dylan (Justin Timberlake) writes an internet blog.  Jamie (Mila Kunis, who wears amazing yet very high heels throughout this movie…walking around New York City!!!  How does she do that??) is a headhunter who lives and works in New York City.  She meets Dylan when she is working for GQ to hire a new manager, and Dylan is perfect for the job.  When he takes the position and agrees to move to NYC, Dylan and Jamie become close friends.  They watch movies together, go out to lunch together, and have fun together, just like friends do.

Since Dylan and Jamie are both single now, while watching a movie one night (I can’t remember the name, but it was a typical annoying Hollywood romance, starring Jason Segel and Rashida Jones.  It was funny because it was set in NYC but filmed in Los Angeles and that was painfully obvious) and enjoying a few beers, they both decide that they miss sex.  So they decide to do it.  They swear on an iPad bible app that it won’t ruin their friendship, and that it will be just this one time.

When they make it to the bedroom, the dialogue is very untypical yet hilarious!!  Dylan admits that he is grossed out by feet, so he wears socks.  ALL THE TIME (yes, even in bed).   He also has a tattoo of a lightning bolt, because when he was younger he wanted to be a superhero, and he is also a fan of the Harry Potter books!!  Of course, just this one time turns into many more times, until Jamie decides she wants to start dating again for real.  So they go back to being friends.

Jamie meets Parker (Bryan Greenberg), a child oncologist who seems perfect, but of course he turns out to be a jerk.  And Dylan has one date with a woman who is just way too into sniffing his armpits (weird!!).  When Jamie gets dumped by both Parker and her mother on Fourth of July weekend, Dylan invites her to come with him to Los Angeles to visit his family.

While, there, Jamie learns about Dylan’s obsession with Kris Kross’s song “Jump” when he was younger which leads to a fun scene.  They also have an incident at the Hollywood sign which ends in someone being lifted away by a helicopter. Also while there, things take a turn for the worse as Jamie overhears Dylan saying some not-so-nice things about her to his sister.  She decides to head back to NYC early, and from there things get rocky between the friends, because Jamie has feelings for Dylan.

I won’t say what happens next, although it’s not too hard to figure out.

There is a lot of talk about the similarity of “Friends with Benefits” to “No Strings Attached”.  Yes, they both had similar plots; however “Friends with Benefits” was WAY better.  I’m not just saying that because I’m a borderline obsessive Justin Timberlake fan.  The acting was better, there was actual chemistry between the lead actors, the story flowed much better, and overall it was just a lot funnier.  One of the scenes near the beginning was very clever, and the fun didn’t stop there!!  Also, the supporting characters were more fun in “Friends with Benefits”.  Tommy (Woody Harrelson) was hilarious as the gay sports writer for GQ, who kept trying to get Dylan to go out trolling for men with him.

Dylan’s sister Annie (Jenna Elfman), her son Sam (Nolan Gould), an aspiring magician whose tricks never really went right, and Dylan’s father (Richard Jenkins) gave great performances.  It was sad to see Dylan’s father suffering from Alzheimer’s.  Annie and Dylan had to keep explaining to their father why their mother was no longer there (divorce) or why he couldn’t go out on his boat (they sold it), yet it was funny when he decided he didn’t like pants anymore so he took them off (at the airport).  Jamie’s mother, Lorna (Patricia Clarkson, who also starred with Justin Timberlake in the SNL Digital Short “Motherlover”) was flaky yet funny.  Although mother and daughter didn’t have the greatest relationship, they still got along ok overall.

Overall, “Friends with Benefits” is a raunchy, hilarious comedy that will make your stomach hurt from laughing so hard.  This was another excellent movie from Will Gluck, who also directed one of my favorite movies from last year, “Easy A”.  (Fun Fact:  Emma Stone, who played the lead in “Easy A” has a small part in this movie as Dylan’s ex-girlfriend).   Please leave the kids at home for this one!!

Literally, from the ‘pages’ of A. A. Milne . . .

Swift shot:  Look, I am not heartless, despite what some may think, and I was hoping this would revive the inner toddler within me.  I took my toddler to this screening, first time since the failed attempt with the Igor screening where I had to remove him from the theater several times.  So, I was anxious about this one; the film earned one glowing mark of praise, my three year old loved it – it kept his attention throughout and he was never bored. Having said that, I think 3-5 is the ideal age to view this classic tale, retold in our modern, go go, now now era.  Any younger and you are gonna have a restless squirmer on your hands, any older and you are gonna have an incredibly bored six year old to contend with in a, somewhat, crowded theater.

I have always loved the Winnie the Pooh characters, and Disney always does a great job with everything they touch – save a few exceptions, of course.  But, what I really loved about this film was how the story was told, it is subtle that the story is actually a fiction based on some stuffed animals in a child’s room.  Then we see an aged storybook, with Milne’s name on the front and John Cleese’s voice takes us to the Hundred Acre Wood, where we are introduced to a slumbering Pooh bear.  How Cleese wakes him was imaginative and, dare I say, had a modern “touch” that I can see being tied into some merchandising gold soon.

From there we meet the rest of the gang one by one residing in the Hundred Acre Wood, with all the wonderful characters we have grown to enjoy since the mid-twenties.  I was shocked to see that no less than eleven writers are credited on this film, including Milne, of course.  Each character managed to add something unique to the story, and they were genuinely portrayed as I remember them.  Eeyore was always my favorite, but the first runner up has to go to Owl, voiced by Craig Ferguson – the know-it-all who really knows nothing at all, not much of a stretch for him, really.

Because of a very simple misunderstanding, the kind a very small child might make, the friends all find themselves on an adventure which starts out by trying to find Eeyore’s missing tael.  But as Christopher Robin soon goes missing, the gang is convinced there is a terrible monster lurking in the Wood that has captured him.  I won’t spoil anything, because you need to go into this one knowing nothing to keep your adult mind entertained.

What I really enjoyed was how the story was being told as if it were a story book world, as the image above displays, the letters from the story are actually incorporated into the film, a rather novel concept, wouldn’t you agree?  Oh, bother; I can’t avoid puns anymore than Pooh can avoid honey.

After seeing this film, you MUST stay seated after the incredibly colorful end credits, there is a predictable yet wonderfully handled coda. If you miss it the first time, I am sure you will see it when you are back soon.  I hope Disney will keep up their quality work and keep making these kinds of films, to paraphrase a line from my favorite film, to let us be little again.

And, the short about Loch Ness before the film – - – the less said about that, the better.  I didn’t care for it, and while the message was clearly that it was ok to cry, I felt there was another anti big business, even theme park, theme strewn throughout.  Disney needs to tread gently there, wouldn’t you agree?  Still, for a child of three to five, this is a winner, and if you come out of this one NOT craving Huny, or Hunny, or Honney, or any variation of the wonderful golden goo – I’d call you a big fibber.  And, if you do get some honey, won’t you please share it with your favorite, willy, nilly, silly old bear?

“Hobo Stops Begging, Demands Change!”

The H-Bomb: Do I really even have to say anything, here? The title says it all, people. It’s about a Hobo who goes on a blood thirsty, berserker rampage with… a shotgun. The end.

Okay, there actually is a little more to it than that- and by that I mean a LITTLE more. It’s about a bum named… Hobo (Rutger Hauer), who arrives in Hope City, a literal Hell-on-Earth that is over ridden with crime and ruled by the vicious gangster, Drake (Brian Downey) and his two psycho sons, Slick (Gregory Smith), and Ivan (Nick Bateman). All the poor Hobo wants to do is start his own lawn mowing business, but fate has other ideas. After being cut up by Drake‘s sons, and witnessing all the chaos and violence around him, the Hobo is finally pushed over the edge. He’s fed up, pissed off, mad as a bull, and decides to clean up the streets himself… with a shotgun.

From there our vigilante vagrant goes around dispensing his brand of buckshot justice to any and all evildoers; robbers, pimps, pedophile Santy Clauses. Even “Bumfight” video makers aren’t above his wrath. You do the crime, you will be sucking on the business end of this Hobo’s shotgun in no time. Before too long, the gun toting bum sets his sights on Drake, and the corrupt Police Captain who protects him, but not before Drake dispatches a couple of demon knights in black armor to take out the Hobo first. Will our hero with the bad B.O. prevail…?

Going back to my opening H-Bomb, “Hobo with a Shotgun”, for better or worse, is exactly the kind of movie you would expect it to be. It’s a shamelessly over-the-top, blood-caked, completely un-P.C., and hysterically fun exploitation homage that we’ve been seeing a lot of, lately. Point of fact, this was actually one of the fake trailers shown on the Canadian release of Tarantino/Rodriguez experiment “Grindhouse”, and it gained so much popularity via YouTube hits that it was expanded into the feature film it is today.

If you’re a lover of this kind of 70’s styled, ballsy, B-movie trash flick, then you will get more than what you bargained for out of this. This thing doesn’t just spill blood by the buckets, it literally sprays it out in geysers, with some death scenes that are gory, grisly, grotesque, and awesomely inventive. Wanna see what a baseball bat covered with razorblades can do to a stomach, watch this movie. Wanna see a foot explode when a mallet hits it, watch this movie. Wanna see one of the most creative decapitations ever… watch this fuckin’ movie! Yeah, the effects are kind of shoddy looking in places, but who gives an ass‘s rat? It’s all part of the fucked up charm.

Fans of grindhouse cinema will also find little nods to past movies throughout, such as a John Carpenter-esque music score in places, and, what many should love, another music score at the beginning that’s inappropriately harmonious and deliberately similar to the theme of “Cannibal Holocaust”- I laugh whenever I think of the CH theme, because it is so fucking inappropriate for that movie.

The main reason to see “Hobo with a Shotgun” is to watch Rutger Hauer’s deliriously deranged take on the title character. With his weird accent and crazy-eyed stare, he is absolutely batshit fucking bonkers, but incredibly sympathetic at the same time. He is a maniac with a heart of gold, a nut job with a conscience, and I just loved him. And it’s not that he’s just totally off the wall, the movie actually gives him a chance to shine and show off some real chops, like the monologue he delivers to a bunch of newborn infants in a hospital… priceless.

Now, this flick definitely is not for everyone. Even though it’s obvious to me how a movie like this should be taken, there are some dense-headed dingbats out there in idiotville who just don’t get it. “The effects suck! The acting sucks! The story doesn’t make sense! This is offensive!” *Sigh* I can’t argue with people like that. If they don’t get it, they don’t get it, and frankly, prudes like them can’t be reached. Some will be offended by the violence, like the scene where a busload of school children are torched alive. Just remember, it’s not meant to be taken seriously and react accordingly, if you can.

My point being, if you hated movies like “Grindhouse” and “Drive Angry”, then why would you even consider watching one called “Hobo with a Shotgun”? The title should be a big tip off that it ain’t gonna be Merchant-Ivory material, and that you’ll hands down fucking despise it. So the only smart move on your part would be to avoid this one entirely.

For those of you who can jive with this latter day drive-in pic’s wacky and wild vibe, then this is one you must definitely not pass up. It’s not high art, nor does it pretend to be. It’s purely mindless fun for the macabre at heart. Junk food for the soul. Shit, that’s why I liked it, at least. It makes for a perfect double-bill with “Drive Angry”, and is an absolute must own for the gorehound set.

I’ve said it before and I’m not afraid to say it again – Hollywood has pretty much run out of ideas.  Most films that are released are either sequels or remakes or book adaptations or hybrids of other movies.  I’m going to say that “Monte Carlo” is a mix of “Big Business” and “White Chicks”.  I’ve seen comparisons between “Monte Carlo” and “Model Behavior” but I disagree because the switcheroo in “Model Behavior” was intentional, while in “Monte Carlo” it was accidental.  (Don’t know what “Model Behavior” is??  Check it out on imdb, here)

Grace (Selena Gomez) has just graduated from high school.  She’s been saving money for her dream trip to Paris for the past four years.  Now she is about to take her fabulous vacation with her best friend Emma (Katie Cassidy), a 20-year old waitress who wears “hoochie heels” and is dating local boy Owen (Cory Monteith from “Glee”).  Too bad Grace’s stepfather is insisting that Grace’s stepsister Meg (Leighton Meester, who was much less scary in this movie than in “The Roommate” thank goodness!!) join the girls on their vacation.  Grace and Meg aren’t very sisterly towards each other, and Grace and Emma pretty much resent Meg’s intrusion into their trip.

Once in Paris, the girls join a tour that truly is “whirlwind tour” of Paris.  They move through the Louvre so fast, I’m amazed they saw anything at all!!  (Anyone who’s been to the Louvre knows that you need a long time to really see everything there).  And as it always happens in the movies, the accommodations are not what they seem, as their room is dirty and small and ugly.  But hey, they do have their own bathroom (unlike the Griswolds).  On the second day of their tour the girls are left behind, stranded at the Eiffel Tower, unable to make it back to the tour or their crappy hotel room.  They then get in a tiff about the tour bus leaving and Grace feels terrible because she was the one who planned the whole trip and now it’s all ruined.  At this point, I got a little annoyed, because there are always tons of taxis near the Eiffel Tower, so I’m not sure why they didn’t just get in a taxi to rejoin the tour group, but they didn’t.  They ended up traipsing through the sudden rainstorm and popping into the lobby of a fancy hotel to dry off.

Also at the fancy hotel is Cordelia Winthrop Scott (Selena Gomez again), a spoiled British heiress who is a tabloid favorite due to her outrageous behavior.  She is angry because she is supposed to fly to Monte Carlo to do a charity event but she would rather go off and party.  While the girls are drying off in the bathroom, Cordelia enters and Emma and Meg are stunned by her striking resemblance to Grace (Grace is crying in a bathroom stall at the time and didn’t see Cordelia).  Once Cordelia is gone, the hotel workers mistake Grace for Cordelia and show her to her lavish suite, complete with a multitude of suitcases containing all kinds of fancy clothing, jewelry, and makeup galore.  So they decide to lie down on the posh bed and rest for a few minutes.  Next thing they know, it’s morning and they attempt to sneak out of the hotel, until the hotel employees inform “Cordelia” that her plane is ready to take her to Monte Carlo.  The girls decide to go along with it, and a case of mistaken identity has now become impersonation, as Grace now takes Cordelia’s place at the charity event in Monte Carlo.

Cordelia’s escort is Theo (Pierre Boulanger), whose father is in charge of the charity that is holding the event (the charity raises money to build schools for needy children).  At first Theo is unhappy that Cordelia is supposed to be there but then she grows on him (of course, because she is really Grace!!).  The girls thought they would only be in Monte Carlo briefly, but they discover they will be there for a few days, until the big charity auction, to which Cordelia is donating a multi-million dollar necklace (it was gorgeous and sparkly, all diamonds and sapphires!!).

Along the way, the three girls grow up and learn more about themselves and their relationships with each other and with the boys in their lives.  Since Emma did not leave Owen on such good terms, he decides to fly to Paris to surprise her.  And that’s where the “White Chicks” comparison comes in, as he sees the girls in the newspaper at the charity event (just like how the Wilson sisters discovered they were being impersonated) and knows where they are.  And since they’re in the newspaper, someone else spots the picture and discovers what is really going on.

My complaints about this movie were that the girls never appeared to return to their original crappy hotel to retrieve their belongings (wouldn’t they want their stuff??) and the lack of consistency in the character’s accents.  Emma’s Texas accent faded in and out, and when Grace was impersonating Cordelia her British accent faded in and out as well (although I’m not sure if that was intentional or not).  Oh, and they also kind of glorified identity theft, but they didn’t do it on purpose (not really) and they tried to help a charity, and they did come clean in the end.

Overall, “Monte Carlo” was a fun, fluffy, fantasy confection (not a dirty fantasy, but a happy, fairy-tale fantasy).  I probably would have done what those girls did if given the chance.  Who wouldn’t want to live like the rich and famous, even for only a few days??

How far will one teacher go to land a man??

Elizabeth Halsey (Cameron Diaz) just finished the school year at John Adams Middle School (JAMS for short, it took me most of the movie to realize what JAMS stood for so I’m putting that out there up front).  Her fellow faculty members give her a lovely good-bye party and she heads home to her sugar daddy/fiance Mark (Nat Faxon).  Unfortunately, Mark ends the engagement and Elizabeth has no choice but to move into an apartment with a man she met on Craig’s List and resume teaching at JAMS.

Now more than ever, Miss Halsey just doesn’t care.  Instead of teaching, she shows school-related movies in class, including:  “Lean on Me”, “Dangerous Minds” and even “Scream” (hey it takes place in a school!!).  She drinks and sleeps during class and she smokes pot on the school grounds.  When she grades papers, she writes comments such as “Stupid”, “Wrong”, “So Stupid”, you get the gist.  Unfortunately, her classroom is right across the hall from Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch) who is kind of obnoxious, annoying, a real Little-Miss-Perfect.  Miss Squirrel is always pointing out Miss Halsey’s flaws and really, who likes that kind of person anyways??  (She also had an incident back in 2008 which I don’t think was ever fully explained but it seemed like some kind of meltdown).

When Miss Halsey meets Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake), the new school substitute, she thinks she sees her ticket out of JAMS.  Scott is rich and Elizabeth wants him to be her new sugar daddy.  Add gym teacher Russell Gettis (Jason Segel) into the mix and we have ourselves a love trapezoid (it’s a school movie, just go with it).  Both Miss Halsey and Miss Squirrel have the hots for Scott, but Russell only has eyes for Elizabeth.

When Elizabeth sees a picture of Scott’s ex, she thinks the best way to get him to notice her is to get a boob job.  So she begins collecting money for the procedure.  When fellow teacher Lynn tells her about a bonus that she can earn if her class scores the highest on the state exam, it’s game on for Miss Halsey!!  That’s when she becomes like a real teacher, because she has to beat Miss Squirrel (who usually wins the bonus) and get the money for her new boobs!!

The stand-outs in this movie were Kirk (Eric Stonestreet from”Modern Family”) and Lynn (Phyllis Smith from “The Office”).  It was funny to see Eric Stonestreet playing a butch, scooter-riding, school-official threatening character, a complete 180 from his character Cameron on “Modern Family”.  And I adored Phyllis Smith, she was so straight-laced it was cute to see her opposite Cameron Diaz’s ruthlessness in this movie.  I also liked John Michael Higgins as the earnest Principal Snur.  And of course, Thomas Lennon was awesome as always as the keeper of the statewide test.

I liked this movie because it didn’t sugar-coat anything.  In movies, we often see characters go through some life-changing event and they miraculously morph into some wonderful person.  Is real life like that??  Not really!!  SPOILER ALERT:  Elizabeth didn’t have an epiphany and donate all her hard-earned money to starving children in China.  Yes Miss Halsey was a little over-the-top, but so what?  She was funny and in the end, she got what she deserved (and so did Miss Squirrel).  We all know she is a bad teacher, but was she necessarily a bad person??  I don’t think so.

This movie is rated R for a reason.  This one is NOT for the kids.  Some examples of the adult content are:  many bare boobies, a scene where two characters dry hump each other, and bad language galore.

“I, Hal Jordan, do pledge allegiance to a lantern that I got from a dying purple alien in a swamp.”

The Berggren Bottom Line: This movie is the kind of ‘green’ movement I’m in to. No touchy-feely tree-hugging-hybrid-Subaru-driving here. Just muscle car and jet fighter energy vanquishing an easy-to-hate mega villain.

When I was growing up, Green Lantern was my second favorite superhero. I’m not sure what the Lantern had that I liked that made him second only to Superman, but I even learned how to fold a dollar bill into a ring that resembled his own. Now, I’m not totally versed in GL mythology. I only had about eight comic books that I amassed between 11 and 12, but then it happened. I started to like girls, so my Green Lantern interest faded. But I’ve always liked the Green Lantern.

Ironically, the Green Lantern movie had many reminders of the original Superman movie circa 1978 starring Christopher Reeve. I’m not sure if that was purposeful, but it worked. In the opening scenes, like Superman, Green Lantern opens up with visuals of outer space accompanied by narration. This was tactful and smart. It teed up the whole story for the novice and Dragon Con nerd fan alike. In addition, much of the background music had echoes of the Superman soundtrack. It was eerie—but fine by me.

Green Lantern was intense. The superhero genre lives somewhere between sci-fi and fantasy, and Lantern leaned toward the sci-fi. It even had slight hints of horror in how it depicted evil. It maintained vivid images of a dark and demonic-feeling throughout. In fact, I’d compare the darkness in it to that of the first Hellboy movie. The villain literally sucked the souls out of its victims feeding on their fear. And that’s what the story centered around.

So how do you kill a villain that feeds off fear? Don’t be afraid of course! Easy enough, right? That’s what Hal Jordan (Green Lantern) works to figure out: How to be fear free. Not an easy personal journey when dealing with personal demons as well. Defeating fear on the inside was the key to beating it on the outside.

All this combined in an effort to break away from your run-of-the-mill superhero movie. For me, it did it well enough to justify the price of theater admission. My main criticism is the pace. It started with action right away, but beyond that, it struggled to maintain a balance between sporadic action and drawn out character development. This drained the momentum. Sometimes it dragged on trying to develop too much, instead of giving a little more much-needed action.

I thought Ryan Reynolds did well as Green Lantern. I don’t know why, but there is something about him that I have liked since Blade 3. He’s rash, volatile, opinionated, and sarcastic, which made for a great Green Lantern discovering his responsibility. Although this is exactly the type of American attitude that my enlightened European family members love to hate, in the end those obnoxious Americans always save the day, right? So who can complain?

Lastly, I saw it in 3D. I’m not partial to 3D. About half way through my eyes start to get irritated. I personally don’t think it’s the future in movies. I just think it’s a quick, easy way for moviemakers to demand $12 a ticket. But the 3D didn’t bother me this time. It was fine and seemed to fit, like with Avatar. Oh yeah, don’t forget to stay past the credits for some sequel set-up.

So, in the words of my son who turned to me as soon Green Lantern ended, “That was awesome and loud!”

Parents: Like I said, this movie was intense. My son will be 9 in a month and I wondered if he would sleep okay that night. He did, but just a word of warning. There’s not too much bad language. Just really strong images of evil.

Be afraid of the dark. Be very, very afraid.

The H-Bomb: As it’s been well documented on this site, I am a (not so) closeted horror fanboy, and over the course of the last decade, one emerging genre director who’s really caught my eye is Brad Anderson. I rented his film “Session 9” years ago with no expectations for it, and wound up being genuinely impressed with its creepy little story about the strange things that happen to a HazMat team working in a gigantic, abandoned insane asylum. His next one, “The Machinist”, the one that Christian Bale famously lost about 100 pounds for, was yet another well crafted, psychological horror thriller. Then came “Transsiberian”, which was more of a mystery/suspense movie, but I ultimately came to enjoy it just as much as Anderson’s prior films.

So being a fan of this underrated director, I went into his new film, “Vanishing on 7th Street”, with anticipation, despite reading some rather negative reviews online. Having now seen it, I’ll agree that it’s not nearly as strong as his earlier work, but I don’t think that it deserves to be crapped on nearly as much as it has been. Like his previous movies, this is a slow-burner that is more about creating a spooky atmosphere and gradually creeping its way under the audience’s skin than it is about spraying blood and guts all over the place.

The film kicks off with a mysterious blackout in Detroit. All the power just goes dead, like an EMP attack. Except, most of the people vanished with the lights, and all that’s left of them is their clothing, watches, dentures, ect. (an element stolen directly from Stephen King’s “The Langoliers”). Among the very few left behind are Luke (Hayden Christensen), a local news reporter, Rosemary (Thandie Newton), a mother whose child vanished during the blackout, Paul (John Leguizamo), a movie theater projectionist/bookworm, and James (Jacob Latimore), a young kid whose mother went to a church for help and never came back.

These characters end up at a bar that has its own power generator and come to realize that it’s the darkness, the shadows themselves, that is the threat, and that the best way to stay alive is to stay near a light source and out of the dark. While they try to figure an escape from this seemingly inescapable situation, they argue amongst themselves about what is happening. Could it be aliens conducting an experiment? Or some freak natural occurrence? Or perhaps the Rapture itself (if you’re unfamiliar with what this is, consult your nearest Jesus freak)?

One of the most basic fears of mankind is the fear of the dark. And why do we naturally fear the dark? Well, basically for the same reason we don’t fear a brightly lit room. Because we fear what we don’t know, or what we can’t see clearly. In the pitch dark, there’s always the possibility of some unknown, unseen threat that can get us. Many complained (POSSIBLE SPOILER) that the specific danger, or what exactly is going on in the shadows, is never definitively explained. But I think that’s the whole idea behind the film. First, the characters in this predicament would never get enough information to figure out for certain what is happening, and second, I think the film’s whole point is to play on the idea that the darkness itself, and the not knowing of what is there and the vague threat that it represents, is the real villain.

The film does make clear that whatever is in the darkness is of intelligent design, by constantly having horrible screams and sinister whispers coming from within it. The darkness will even lure victims in by imitating the voices of loved ones. All of this made the film effectively spooky. Spooky… but never truly scary, as the film does wear out this gimmick and becomes a bit tedious in the mid-section, where not a whole lot happens aside from flashbacks and the characters fighting amongst themselves about what‘s going on and what to do about it.

It doesn’t help that the acting isn’t as stellar as it was in Anderson’s previous films. Instead of Christian Bale, he’s saddled with Hayden Christiansen, a ho-hum actor at best, whose performance ranges from passable to giggle inducing (mostly when he has to show “big emotion”). The fact that his character is mostly an unlikable ass-hat is also a hindrance.  Thandie Newton fairs a little better as she is believably desperate in trying to find her son, however, she is a tad dull, and I didn’t really care much about her or what happened to her son (though this somewhat makes up for her embarrassing performance as Condi Rice in Oliver Stone’s “W”). The best turn comes from Leguizamo, who brings a sympathetic charisma to his role that everyone else lacks. He was the only one who seemed like an actual, fleshed out human being to me.

If there was one aspect I would fault the most, it would be the script by Anthony Jaswinski. As others have pointed out, the screenplay has a very “Twilight Zone”-ish feel to it, but lacks the irony and philosophical content of that show. Some have also likened this to the sort of thing that M. Night Shyamalan would write, and yeah, I definitely see some similarities, though I would counter that it‘s not nearly as pretentious or flat out stupid as the bulk of Shyamaladingdong’s scripts.

The CGI shadows are a mixed bag. Sometimes, when they’re creeping towards a person, it’s effective. Other times, it looks laughably hokey. CGI seems like a common complaint these days, but when it’s done badly, it just pulls me out of the film, therefore it deserves my reprimand. Either do it well, or don’t do it at all, damn it! But I digress…

When all is said and done, I definitely place this at the bottom of Anderson’s filmography (I never saw the two rom-coms he made before switching to horror), but it was enjoyable for the most part. It was a nicely eerie and fairly original horror flick that plays on one of our darkest fears (sorry). If you can forgive story lulls and Hayden Christensen’s more questionable moments, then I’d say give this a rent for sure… that is, as long as you’re not afraid of the dark.

When I first heard that the fourth installment of “Pirates of the Caribbean” is over two hours, I was non-plussed, having never really been a fan of the series and finding the movies average at best. However I found the 140 minute film to move rather quickly and was nonetheless entertained by the adventure, action, and comedy.

The film opens in Spain, where a man who has been pulled from a fishing net clutches a journal he claims contains a map to the Fountain of Youth. The British get wind of this discovery and immediately pull a crew together to recover it led by none other than Captain Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), Captain Jack Sparrow’s arch nemesis, now sporting a powdered wig, a wooden leg, and new digs.

Captain Jack Sparrow (Depp) is in London to hire a crew for a new expedition. But when he finds out that someone has usurped his name and reputation, he’s rather upset. It turns out to be a woman with a grudge from his past, Angelica (Penelope Cruz), the daughter of Blackbeard (Ian McShane), and Jack is forced to board the ship Queen Anne’s Revenge to help Blackbeard find the Fountain first to overturn a prophesy of Blackbeard’s early demise. Try as they might (and they did try) there is little chemistry between Cruz and Depp. The flirtatious banter between the two was disappointing, but Cruz easily replaced Kiera Knightley as the nautically minded female lead and also managed to make Jack Sparrow no longer sexually ambivalent. This was hardly a high seas adventure, as most of the film takes place on land.

In order for the Fountain of Youth’s water to add years to one’s life, two silver chalices and a tear from a mermaid are needed. The quest for these items, and the location of the Fountain, make up the simple story. The film takes a rather awesome departure from the traditional view of mermaids, as these beauties turn out to be beastly sailor feasting creatures! Probably the coolest scene in the movie is when they attack and bring down an entire ship.

Keith Richards returns as Sparrow’s dad for a brief appearance, and the series is refreshed by new characters, a bible-wielding hunky priest (Sam Claflin), the captured mermaid Serena, and of course Blackbeard and Angelica. Depp is his usual mincing self, and Cruz is Spanish and feisty. The film has all the action, scheming and double crossing you would expect from a “Pirates” movie, and for the fourth in a series, it wasn’t disappointing . . . but it wasn’t exactly thrilling either.

Let the “Plame Games” begin…

The H-Bomb: Unless you’ve been living under a rock the last few years, you know the story: Valerie Plame (played in the film by Naomi Watts) was a CIA Agent who worked in various Middle Eastern counter-terrorist affairs until she was outed in the media by someone in the Bush White House, after her husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson (Sean Penn) wrote an op-ed piece calling out the Administration for altering his report about whether or not Saddam purchased uranium from Niger. The film essentially follows the couple before and during the leak of Plame’s identity, as well as the fallout afterwords and the effects it had on their professional lives, as well as their relationship.

I debated internally whether or not I really wanted to review this film, because to me, reviewing politically loaded movies such as this one always ends up on that slippery slope. Aside from my personal discomfort in openly discussing my own political views, I know I will inevitably piss off people, no matter which side of an “agenda movie” I come down on. So, for this review, I shall do my damnedest to keep whatever political baggage I may, or may not, have concerning the subject matter, at bay and judge the film objectively on it’s own dramatic merits.

That said, “Fair Game” (not to be confused with that God awful Billy Baldwin/Cindy Crawford movie from the 90′s), which just hit DVD this past week, is a very solid, impeccably acted film that intelligently covers a number of still topical and rather disturbing events from our recent history. Based on books by both Plame and Wilson, the film makes no bones that it is definitely in their corner, but it doesn’t really come across as being overly preachy or heavy-handed. Yeah, the Bush Administration is not exactly shown in a flattering light (Scooter Libby is depicted as a real mustache twirler), but the movie seems far more interested in showing how the characters cope with the chain of events than it does in beating us over the head with any kind of political message.

Again, both Watts and Penn, in their third film together (following “21 Grams” and “The Assassination of Richard Nixon”), are undeniably terrific. Watts plays Plame as a woman of quiet dignity, dedicated to both her job and her family. She comes across as a non-partisan professional committed to serving her country, and she makes us feel her astonishment and loss of faith when she learns that she was outed over something as petty as a political reprisal.

As her hubby Wilson, Penn plays Plame’s polar opposite. He’s hot-headed, opinionated, and has absolutely zero qualms about expressing his opinions, especially when he has a hefty dose of liquor in him. He also comes off as being far less saintly than Plame. Once the fit hits the shan with his wife, he seems just a little too eager to go out and soak up the spotlight, thus making himself look less like a virtuous whistle blower and more like an attention whoring blowhard. I honestly believe that both the leads delivered award caliber performances. To me, they both became the real life people they’re portraying… it’s just too bad they were completely over-looked this awards season.

The film was directed, as it’s been advertised, by “The Bourne Identity” director, Doug Liman. He gives the movie a quasi-documentary look and feel, and for the most part, it works. It’s a true life thinking man’s thriller along the same lines of… say, “All the President’s Men”, although I don’t feel it’s on the same level. While “Fair Game” held my attention, it never really gripped me. Maybe it’s that the events covered are only so compelling, maybe it’s that for the most part I felt like I was only being told one side of the story, I can’t quite say. I just know that I didn’t find it to be as engaging as I felt it could have been.

So, even though I think it could have been better, I do feel that it’s a fairly decent film; no more, no less. If you’re of the liberal persuasion, you’ll find many of your feelings on the topic reinforced. If you’re a conservative and believe that Plame and Wilson were just a couple of phonies playing victims, then I would suggest setting your politics aside and try to appreciate the human drama on display. Regardless of what your stance is, I do believe that “Fair Game” is worth two hours of your time.