(4 People gave this 3.00 out of 5)

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“The only thing stronger than fear is hope.” – President Coriolanus Snow

Swift shot: Suspenseful, thought-provoking, primal, saga that will have no end, and I am dying to know more about the beginning. Not since 1977′s Star Wars has a saga captivated me in this way, where I wanted to know everything that led up to the small chapter that I just watched.  The Hunger Games is exactly like that, and when the film reveals how many “happy hunger games” there have been – my imagination was overloaded by the possibilities.  I knew almost nothing about this series other than it was set in the future and that districts would send children to fight to the death for some reason.  Once I heard that much, I put a moratorium on my friends from mentioning anything that might spoil the slightest essence of why this series is so popular.  And while the target audience is teenagers, unlike Twilight – this film was nothing short of EPIC!  Pay attention, or be the first martyred for your district.

Suzanne Collins came up with the idea for The Hunger Games, because she was fascinated with the Greek myth of Theseus and also noted the rampant up-rise of our reality TV and war coverage, wondering where the end might come, having found none, she created Katniss Everdeen. Most good writers put themselves in their protagonist’s shoes, and I can imagine she envisioned herself, or her daughter, as Katniss, pitted in a brutal lethal game for survival and penance.  And much like the boys and girls, sent every nine years, to fight the hideous Minotaur, her Tributes faced mortality for the amusement of others.

Jennifer Lawrence is going to have a problem, she is going to forever be Katniss Everdeen – she will go on to do other things, she will excel, because she is beyond incredible, all of 22 now though, her future is marked.  Maybe she will turn to Carrie Fisher for some advice, because she managed to avoid type-casting, but still, she will always be Princess Leia.  The casting department deserves to be, forgive the obvious nod, placed on a pedestal for recognizing Lawrence as the perfect fit for Katniss.  She damned near simply reprises her role from Winter’s Bone, where she plays the poor, destitute, starving care-giver for her siblings.  Katniss is no different, she sacrifices her life to protect her sister, Primrose, whom she lovingly calls little duck.  She is also handy enough with a bow that her family doesn’t starve, despite their coal mining district’s low place.  Apparently, the higher your number, the lower your status in Panem.  With 12 districts, and Katniss being from the 12th, she is the ultimate under-dog.

But, thankfully, each district is allowed two tributes, and her partner, chosen in a surreal lottery, known as Reaping Day, is Peeta Mellark who is played by Josh Hutcherson, oddly enough, he was in a little movie called Zathura: A Space Adventure, where a game approaches lethal risks.  So, casting Josh as Peeta was another no-brainer for the film-makers.  Josh impressed me, because he always had this air of attitude about him on screen that I never quite appreciated before.  He seemed to wear it as Peeta, but it wasn’t as overt and in your face, and he managed to add a real empathy to his character that I wasn’t expecting.  I am not sure if he will forever be labelled as Peeta, like Lawrence as Katniss, but I know he has a huge teen-scene following that is sure to endure.

The real show stealer has to be Amandla Stenberg, who takes so little screen time and creates a wonderful character, on screen, in District 11′s Rue – and in one touching scene, we see the world through her little eyes, a very powerful moment that Director Gary Ross handled beautifully.  Finally, Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickerman, Woody Harrelson as Haymitch Abernathy and Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket all come to life because of Oscar-nominated costume designer Judianna Makovsky who magnificently captured the various conflict of society with her brilliant costume work.  Each district had a personality, a conflict could be immediately surmised and a comparison, felt, in a manner that hits you right in the gut.

The cinematography was stylized and balanced well to create the future – I didn’t notice any cartoonish effects either, even when what I am calling the Man-Bear-Pigs make their appearance, they felt very real!  The violence was brutal, but mostly takes place off screen, but you don’t have to use much imagination to know how people are dispatched.

This film, and this series, no doubt, will be dissected politically for years.  It is part Running Man, Logan’s Run, and The Lottery all with one rather disgusting twist, it’s the kids who must be sacrificed, and what is their crime?  Nothing, many, many years before they were born, their ancestors fomented some kind of revolution.  As a cruel reminder, the victorious controlling government, led now by President Snow (Sutherland) selects two 12-18 year old citizens from each of 12 districts to compete in a viscous battle where only one will survive.  One of the better lines of the film comes when Snow reminds his game-master Seneca Crane (the always creepy, Wes Bentley) that a little hope is why they allow a winner, but a lot of hope is dangerous.  This series is a political scientist professor’s wet-dream.  Power, control, sacrifice, revolution, penance, all the makings of a great debate!

What I find incredible about the film, and the novels (apparently) is that much like a Rorschach test, people are seeing different messages – yet they are all raising the same banner of appreciation.  Oddly enough, the Tea Party sees the fear of big government, whilst the Occupy Movement finds the disparaging juxtaposition between The Capitol and the Districts as reminders of the class struggle they so desperately want to maintain.  To true Patriots, might the subtle mention of 13 districts be a calling to revolution to battle tyranny, like the original 13 colonies?  Hell, even teenagers will take from it the perils of blind-obedience . . . to parents that would serve them up to slaughter.  This is why I give the film my patented Swift Six Stars, if you leave the theater and aren’t thinking all day and night about The Hunger Games – newsflash, you would be the first to die when they raise the pedestals, because everyone else is thinking about it.  I have even seen people on Pinterest posting work-out motivational images saying, “I don’t want to be the first to die in The Hunger Games!”

Better yet, listen to what another popular “young-adult” author Stephanie Myer had to say, “The story kept me up for several nights in a row, because even after I was finished, I just lay in bed wide awake thinking about it.”   That’s pretty much how I felt when I left the theater too, and while this was purported to be sci-fi, much like Star Wars, that wasn’t what interested me at all, it is the entire universe, the characters, the plight of the heroines and heroes, the mythology and wanting to know EVERYTHING about this fascinating saga – which is exactly how I felt in 1977.  I have to go now, I need to add The Hunger Games to my eBooks – you know, so I can sleep!

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Try saying that five times fast!

The H-Bomb:  Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) calls her sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson), out of the blue after two years of no contact.  Martha’s story is that she’s been living in the Catskills with some boyfriend all this time.  Lucy agrees to take her in for the time being and brings her to the gorgeous, lakefront vacation house in Connecticut that she shares with her husband, Ted (Hugh Dancy).

As glad as Lucy may be to have her younger sister back in her life, she and Ted both can’t help but notice that Martha’s behavior is a little… peculiar.  Martha’s quirks start out as strange but minor annoyances; saying inappropriate things (“Is it true that married people never fuck?”), doing inappropriate things (skinny dipping in the lake in broad daylight with people about), but it’s all nothing they can’t just shrug off and ignore.  However, Martha’s bizarre behavior soon escalates, with Lucy and Ted being especially disconcerted when Martha sneaks into their room and jumps into bed with them while they’re having sex, and from there they watch in alarm as she becomes increasingly erratic, confrontational, and even fearful that someone might be after her.

But why would anyone be after Martha?  Well, as we the viewers are already fully aware of, Martha has spent the last two years in the Catskills, but not with just some boyfriend…  she had fallen in with a cult.  A commune-like cult, of about twenty or so, run out of a farmhouse, and led by the charismatic, but quietly intimidating Patrick (John Hawkes).  We never really find out much about this cult, other than it takes in society’s young strays, teens and twenty-somethings, “cleanses” them, and gives them each a job on the farm.  For the women, it’s usually cooking, cleaning, working in the garden, or taking care of the many infants Patrick has fathered, all of whom, creepily, are boys.  It’s a patriarchal cult, with the men in charge of the women, and Patrick in charge of them all.  He even gives them all new names when they join his flock (in Martha‘s case, Marcy May), as one of his ways of asserting ownership of them.

At first Martha is happy here, but over time she sees things that make her disillusioned with her “new family,” and once she finally realizes how dangerous they and Patrick really are, she splits.  Now, living not so happily with her sister and brother-in-law, she has reason to believe that the cult members have found out where she is and are coming to get her…  or are they?

The film remains skillfully ambiguous about that, right up until the final frame, and that is part of what makes Martha Marcy May Marlene, a psychological drama from feature debuting writer/director Sean Durkin, so damn effective.  Maybe they’re really after her, maybe it’s all just in her head…  who knows?  The story is structured in a way that it’s constantly cutting back and forth between what’s happening with Martha at her sister’s house in the present, and glimpses of her time with Patrick’s cult.  Often times, it’s something Martha says or does in the present that triggers memories of the past.  And the more she remembers of what went on at that farmhouse, the more frightened and unhinged she becomes.

What really helps to elevate this understated thriller is the surprisingly incredible turn by Olsen, the younger sister of the Olsen Twins, and apparently sole heir to any acting talent in that family, as the title character (and many titles she does have).  She makes Martha (Marcy May Marlene) endearingly shy and awkward, and gives her a sense of paranoia that intensifies throughout.  This is a star making performance if I ever saw one, despite the film being a modest indie, and I can say with confidence that Olsen definitely has great things coming her way in the not so distant future.

Also delivering a knockout performance is veteran character actor Hawkes (Winter’s Bone), who is downright chilling as Patrick.  On the surface he’s calm and friendly, but almost immediately one can sense something much, much darker underneath that welcoming smile of his.  We see this when he “cleanses” the new women who come under his wing, by drugging them and then… doing something else.  He will scold his followers, should they step out of line, and get them to bow to his will, all the while never even raising his voice.  Hawkes makes it all look so damn easy, turning Patrick into one of the scarier movie characters I’ve seen in a while.

Paulson and Dancy are also terrific as the put upon sister and brother-in-law, Lucy and Ted.  They want to do the right thing by helping Martha, as they know that something has happened to her, but she’s not saying what, and they’re both gradually driven to the end of their patience by her crazy antics.  They do a fantastic job of conveying the couple’s feelings of helplessness and frustration.  Kudos to them both.

If there’s anything to put people off from seeing Martha Marcy May Marlene, it’s that it’s deliberately slow paced and quiet in it’s approach.  It’s a film, that while a thriller, prefers subtly disturbing the audience with suggestion over showing anything explicit.  In fact, there’s only one act of graphic violence, and even that is over very quickly.  In terms of being low key, it makes Drive look like a Michael Bay movie by comparison.  And much like Drive, Martha Marcy May Marlene is another terrific film that, despite some rave reviews, not very many people have seen.  I’d hate to fall back on this old cliché, but if Drive was the best film of 2011 that you didn’t see, then Martha Marcy May Marlene is most definitely the second best.  And now that it’s out on DVD, I’d say that now is the time to see it.

(2 People gave this 4.00 out of 5)

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Note:  I don’t remember watching the TV series “21 Jump Street”, so this review is based on the movie.

The year is 2007.  Schmidt (Jonah Hill) is a smart, yet unpopular, Eminem wannabe who has no luck with the ladies (his attempt to score a date for the prom fails miserably).  Jenko (Channing Tatum) is the opposite, a dumb popular jock.  Both have typical high school angst (bad grades, no prom dates, etc).

Fast forward to 2012.  Schmidt and Jenko are both in the police academy.  Schmidt knows his stuff but physically he has problems.  On the other hand, Jenko is physically fit but he doesn’t know the Miranda Rights.  While on bike patrol at a local park, the partners see a drug deal happening and they chase the drug dealers, but all does not go according to plan and the dealers get away.

After their miserable attempt at a drug bust in the park, the boys are sent to Aroma of Christ Church, headquarters of the Jump Street Division.  Their assignment:  go undercover at a local high school to discover the distributor and the creator of a new drug that the students are taking.  Their new boss, Captain Dickinson (Ice Cube) orders them to “Teenage the F ‘up”.  Their cover is that they are brothers and they move into Schmidt’s parent’s house and share Schmidt’s old bedroom.  Jenko is enrolled in easy classes, including drama, while Schmidt is enrolled in AP chemistry.  Their covers get switched; however, and Jenko ends up in the advanced chemistry class, while Schmidt is in drama class, where they are auditioning for “Peter Pan.”

While undercover, Schmidt becomes friendly with the popular kids in school, including Eric (James Franco) and Molly (Brie Larson), and Jenko ends up hanging out with the other students in his AP chemistry class.  So basically, it’s the opposite of how it was when our heroes were in high school, which makes for some crazy situations.

Other notable characters in “21 Jump Street” include Mr. Walters (Rob Riggle) the gym teacher, Mr. Gordon (Chris Parnell) the drama teacher, Ms. Griggs (Ellie Kemper) the chemistry teacher, and Deputy Chief Hardy (Nick Offerman).

This is NOT a movie for kids.  There was liberal use of the F word as well as many sexual innuendos.  There is also excessive drug use (surprise).  I wasn’t really expecting much from this reboot but I was pleasantly surprised at how hilarious it was.  I was laughing through pretty much most of the movie.  There were a lot of crazy hijinks going on, and Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum were surprisingly well-matched.

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The “Signs” are everywhere . . .

I had seen literally no previews for this film, which is the way I like it, so I had no idea what to expect.  There was a bit of a delay getting the movie started, so I was listening to other conversations in the press section, and someone said this film was done by the same team that did Cyrus.  I hated Cyrus, I didn’t even post a review, because I felt like I had wasted enough time and energy, just watching that crap.  Now, I was worried, but my expectations were low – just don’t suck as bad as Cyrus, I thought, and I will be happy.  I was happy, in fact, I felt this film was better than you think it is going to be, but not the best it could be, but still pretty damned good . . . plus, it has Rae Dawn Chong!

It begins with a character, Jeff (Jason Segal), who lives at home with his widowed mother, Sharon (Susan Sarandon) who wants one simple thing from her thirty-something louse of a son . . . go to Home Depot, buy some wood glue and fix the one broken slat on their closet door.  She is hard at work, and wants him to aspire to more than smoking pot and other unmentionable things down in her basement.  Her other son, Pat (Ed Helms) is the quintessential douche bag.  Oh, he has gone places, he is married, has a modest home and a good job, but he is a complete asshole . . . and here Ed Helms steps away from his comfort zone a bit to play a completely unsympathetic character.

His wife, Linda (Judy Greer) just wants their marriage to work, she wants him to communicate, but mostly she just wants the love back.  But, back to Jeff, he has seen Signs more than six times, and is convinced that everything happens for a reason.  I will spare you his synopsis, but Segal delivers the Jeff character in an odd throwback version of the deluded Joaquin Phoenix.  In short, Jeff just REALLY ‘gets’ Signs, he thinks even the film was meant to plot out his own personal destiny.  So, when he gets a wrong number, hang up call from someone looking for Kevin, he decides this is it, this is his moment for destiny.  Did I mention he smokes A LOT of pot?

Now you just get to sit back and watch this adult idiot follow all the signs that lead up to his destiny.  But, as the film progresses, is it really his destiny, or is it his brother’s, or his mother’s?  Or is he just completely stoned off his ass and winds up in Sri Lanka selling souvenir cups to tourists at the duty-free shop?  I’m not spoiling that bit.

Jeff, Who Lives at Home is a nice visit to the theater, it is highly interactive and an enjoyable journey, that actually has a great message whilst seemingly having no message at all.  On a side note, Cyrus was also about a single mother dealing with an odd son – are the brothers Duplass dealing with some angst here?  But, where Cyrus went wrong, was the oomph factor, I kept waiting for it to just get a little bit better, and it never really did.  On the other hand, Jeff, Who Lives at Home has the same pulse throughout, and I found myself constantly chuckling, never laughing so hard it hurt mind you, and when Jeff realizes his destiny at the end, I would have made that scene more intense, but it would have changed the whole feeling of the film.  Go see, this little nothing film, hanging out the week before The Hunger Games, it will get you thinking and the script has enough color to keep you  chuckling to the end.

Oh, and Jeff, don’t get me started on Signs, these aliens travel across the universe to invade a planet COVERED in the one substance that is lethal to them . . . water, I mean, come on alien dudes, do some damned research!

(1 People gave this 3.00 out of 5)

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“The Hungry Rabbit . . .”

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Review by Alyn Darnay

Directed by: Stephane & David Foenkinos

Cast: Audrey Tautou, François Damiens, Pio Marmaï

So if I wanted to make a lightweight, semi-comic, romantic film and I lived in France, the only actress I’d use is Audrey Tautou. You should remember her as that sweet fey faced beauty from Amélie (2001), The Da Vinci Code (2006), and Coco Before Chanel (2009). That’s exactly what brothers Stephane and David Foenkinos did to turn David’s runaway best selling French novel La Delicatesse into a movie, and as always she makes the film work. Or at least she and French comic star Francois Damiens, Heartbreaker (2010). Without them, I think it would have been a dull trip through the standard romantic universe.

As I understand it, in France there’s a controversy going on about the film. I know, I know, that’s not so unusual, there’s always a controversy going on in France, but this one is over the way the filmmakers approached their conversion from the written page to the screen. They took this beloved novel and “Oh My God” added scenes. (How dare they, even when the screenwriter is the person who wrote the novel.) It got thousands of fans of the book incensed. Not that they hated the film, which they didn’t, they just didn’t want the material played with like that. Besides, this stuff is great for conversation over espresso and a napoleon.

The story goes like this. Ms. Tautou plays Nathalie, a beautiful, happy, and successful Parisian business executive who meets, falls in love with and marries her true soul mate. After several years of blissful marriage, an accident leaves her a widow locked in the depths of despair. She throws herself into her work and for years lives a very solitary life, locking away her emotions, and disregarding everyone’s attempts to change that. Then, one day, for no apparent reason, Nathalie, possessed of a moment of madness kisses her co-worker, the odd Swedish employee Markus (Damiens). He, being the strange creature that he is, immediately falls head over heels in love with her, and begins the first pursuit of a woman in his life. I should say inept pursuit, which against all odds, she begins to warm to. But nobody thinks this romance should happen. Not family, not friends, not co-workers, I suppose not even the homeless guy in the street.

Delicacy comes off as a sweet romantic story about two people who are too scared to let loose their inner demons and love each other. Their relationship runs the gamut from uncomfortable to genuinely loving. It’s different from the run of the mill romances we usually get these days and tugs at your emotions a bit as you watch it. I had some problems with the progression of the story, some things develop too fast while others progress way too slowly, but as I said before, the performances save the whole thing. You should enjoy the film.

Time: 1 Hour 48 Minutes

(1 People gave this 1.00 out of 5)

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John Carter of Mars, actually.

The H-Bomb:  Because that sounds a lot better than John Carter of Earth, doesn’t it?  And just who is this John Carter (Taylor Kitsch)?  Well, he’s a decorated hero of the Civil War who, due to a tragedy in his past, has turned his back on his duty and his fellow man in favor of searching for a legendary cave of gold.  During this search, he comes upon a strange medallion that whisks him off to… a very, very strange place.

Soon after arriving in this strange desert place, John discovers that he can now jump abnormally high, as in hundreds of feet.  Unfortunately for him, before he can really enjoy his new found ability, he is attacked and captured by Tharks, a violent race of large, ugly green creatures with four arms and tusks growing out of their faces.  Most of the Tharks want to feed him to the big “white apes,” but their fearless leader, Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe), wants to hold him captive because… he really likes the way John can jump.

John, erstwhile, is just confused as hell, as he really has no clue where he is or how he got there.  Eventually, through the miracle of exposition, John comes to realize that he somehow transported to the planet Mars, or as the locals call it, Barsoom.  If that’s not bad enough, John finds out that the planet is in the middle of a war between the city states of Zodanga, a traveling city that has been conquering all the cities on the planet, and Helium, the last city that has been able to stand up to them.

In an effort to end the war, Tardos Mors (Ciaran Hinds), the leader of Helium, offers the leader of Zodanga, Sab Than (Dominic West), the hand of his daughter, Princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins), in marriage.  She, of course, objects to this idea, sensing it is just a ploy, and runs off to go join her fellow countrymen in battle.  One of these battles happens near the Thark hideout, and while the Tharks are all placing bets on who will win, John sees Dejah in danger, and since these Martians look human, he saves her life.

They take one look at each other, and since he’s hot, and she’s hot, it’s love at first sight.  So now John must utilize his mad jumping skills to help the Princess defeat Zodanga once and for all, and find a way back to Earth.  But, aside from the obvious dangers, he will also have to be careful of the Thern, a shape shifting God-like race who “control things” on Mars, and who view John’s presence on the planet as a threat to the natural order of things.  Or something.

Adapted from the classic novel The Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Carter (of Mars) has apparently spent eight decades in development and finally comes to us via Disney with a jaw dropping budget of $250 million, making it one of the most expensive films ever made.  The influence of the novel has been far reaching and is quite evident in such films as Star Wars, Dune, Avatar, and even Stargate.  It’s that influence that causes John Carter to seem like too little, too late, as so much of what goes on is so familiar by now.

Also, if a film is going to cost $250 million to produce, then that film had better knock me on my ass and blow me away.  Sadly, this film does neither.  It has all the CGI money can buy, and a pretty epic look and feel to it, but as a whole, I found it all pretty underwhelming.  The battle scenes, as big as they tried to be, had little impact and just weren’t that exciting.  They were aided in no way by the 3D, which added absolutely nothing to the picture.  In fact, not only did the 3D not help to immerse me in the story, I found it to be distinctly flat and unimpressive.

The story often is bogged down by clunky exposition, explaining its convoluted Space Opera plot that, again, just seems old hat nowadays.  Not to mention it relies too heavily on convenient contrivances throughout, such as John drinking some kind of potion that magically makes him understand the Martian language (never read the book, don’t know if that was in there or not, but either way, it’s stupid).

When we first meet John, he is selfish and off-putting, and for the longest time, we don’t know why, and the few fleeting flashbacks of his dead family just don’t cut it.  I also didn’t get a clear reason why the bad guys wanted to take over every city on Mars, aside from that they’re bad guys and that’s what bad guys do.  Another thing, and I know that this book was written like a bagillion years ago and is supposed to be fantasy and whatnot, but the fact that the planet Mars looks absolutely nothing like this in reality kept nagging at me throughout.  The whole time I just couldn’t stop thinking, “Why the hell does Mars look so much like Utah?”

Okay, I’ve been beating up on John Carter pretty badly, so now I shall move on to one of its big positives: the cast.  Kitsch has a very strong screen presence and made for a very commanding lead.  He plays Carter with a sense of humor, even allowing himself to look foolish at times, which goes a long way in making him sympathetic, even when he’s being a dick, and keeps him from being just another “bland leading man.”  He’s well matched by Collins, who is not only a pretty convincing ass kicker in her own right, but also spends the bulk of the movie in skimpy, Princess Leia-style bikinis. That I do appreciate.

West is deliciously slimy (if a bit campy) as the villain, and Mark Strong is downright creepy as Matai Shang, the most prominent Thern.  He’s bald, evil, and scary… and that is why he is awesome.  My favorite of the entire cast would have to be Dafoe, as the voice of the Thark leader.  He gives this big, green ugly thing a sense of dignity and made me forget I was watching a special effect.  That takes talent.

Aside from making some very solid casting choices, director/co-writer Andrew Stanton (WALL-E) also helped by injecting a healthy dose of humor into the story, when appropriate, like the ridiculous game of charades that John plays with Tars when they first meet, or the loveable dog thing that follows John everywhere he goes.  Stanton also makes good use of the CGI, making creatures life like and environments eye catching (though again, the 3D did nothing to enhance it), as well as keeping the gigantic story moving at a fairly decent pace, so while I was never entirely engaged with it, I was never bored, either.

Overall, by the time John Carter (of Mars) ended, I was left with a film that I neither loved nor hated.  While I found it perfectly watchable, I just wasn’t that interested in its oh-so-ambitious narrative, nor was I all that invested in what was happening.  I take it this is meant to be the first of a possible franchise, but I must admit I’m not very curious to see where it goes from here.  Disney sure sank a crap-ton of money into this, I just wish they ended up with something more than this utterly generic epic.  Fans of the books may rate this higher, after all, they certainly did wait long enough for this movie, but I have the feeling that most will be as indifferent to it as I am.

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Click here for our Trump Hotel sit-down with Jennifer Westfeldt

Friends with Kids is the latest film from Jennifer Westfeldt (Kissing Jessica Stein) which shows the lives of six close friends and how relationships change when children are introduced. Shot with an incredibly comedic cast that doesn’t disappoint – you get the expected laughs galore and more. While the laughs flow freely, there is underlying drama that comes to the surface which adds a new dimension making it more than a typical comedy. The cast does a great job in their roles, and credit deserves to be given to Ms. Westfeldt for writing, producing, starring, and directing Friends with Kids.

Two best friends, Jason (Adam Scott) and Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt), are chatting on the phone with each other late one night. They both live in the same building and have someone lying in bed next to them. This shows us the beginning of what is yet to come. Next we are introduced to their best friends Leslie (Maya Rudolph) and Alex (Chris O’Dowd). After some brief banter, the group is joined by their other best friends, Missy (Kristin Wiig) and Ben (Jon Hamm). The humorous banter comes fast and furious until the group hears a screaming child in the background of a fancy restaurant. Jason and Julie are quick with comments about how bad it is that people subject others to the shrieks, just as Leslie and Alex announce they are expecting.  With comedy and life, timing is everything.

Then we hit the fast forward button four years and now Julie and Jason are talking as they arrive at Leslie and Alex’s apartment. They quickly realize that the friends have changed and they longer share many things in common. Then Missy and Ben arrive with a baby of their own. Dinner is awkward as the friends talk and compares notes. The movie really captures how relationships evolve as singles become couples and then, the ultimate insanity . . . parents.  This leads us to the point where the movie really takes off; Julie and Jason decide to have a baby. When the friends find out about the decision, conversations unfold and it is agreed how this might not be the best decision for Julie and Jason.

Now nine more months pass, and we are in the delivery room as Julie is having the baby. Comedy ensues during the birth scene, and most may not think of child birth being funny, but the characters deliver pinpoint dialogue that brings a humorous note to the whole situation. Many questions arise, will Julie and Jason live to the expectations of failure that their friends have dreaded, or will they live as a happily unmarried couple with a baby? That question is quickly answered as Julie and Jason, much to the surprise of their friends, seem to have their lives together and great ideas of sharing responsibilities.

The friends compare notes again and question the reality of the situation; finally, everything seems to be working, but how long can it last?  We see Jason doing his fatherly duty of taking his son out for the day, when he comes upon an attractive young woman, Mary Jane (Megan Fox). Mary Jane quickly calls Jason out on using his son to garner her attention, and also as a cheap way to attempt to pick a girl up in the park; alas it does work.

Mary Jane and Jason quickly hit it off, but how does Julie feel about this? Julie starts to show, through expressions, that she has developed feelings for Jason. She can’t let him know how she feels, so she enlists Leslie to help her find a new man. Leslie introduces Julie to a man, Kurt (Edward Burns), that she knows from school functions for her oldest child. Julie quickly hits it off with Kurt, as the two share common interests and an attraction for each other as well. This is the beginning of the underlying tension and drama that has been set aside. The way Jason reacts to the news of Julie having a new relationship doesn’t come into question, yet.

It all changes in New Hampshire where the friends annually take a New Year’s Day ski trip. This is where all the drama that has been festering amongst other members begins to surface. Loyalty and love is quickly brought to the table in a scene that makes the viewer quickly forget the comedy that led to this part. Everyone holds their own in this dramatic scene and it really builds nicely with some great acting. In the live-free-or-die state, we see how relationships are built, but over time, relationships also falter.

More questions arise and NOTHING is left hidden amongst the group. As secrets are revealed, the whole group is taken aback, and it seems that they may have lost something they all once shared, a genuine camaraderie.

The movie progresses forward and there are a few twists that add more to the dramatic elements of the film. Really, this movie can be seen as two films in one, a comedy in the first half and drama in the second; but that doesn’t really do the movie justice. You get laughs galore, but there are introspective moments where the viewer has to look inside and question certain things as well. The fast pace and quick cuts in time take away from some of the overall feeling of the movie, just never knowing when something really is happening, and takes away from the fluidity of the story. This is a movie that pulls no punches with the language, but its rated R for a reason! The cast delivers on ALL levels, and it was an enjoyable experience. I suggest not going in expecting to laugh the WHOLE time; you won’t, but enjoy the laughs that the movie will surely give you.

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“We’re just having a little get-together…”

The H-Bomb:  Dorky high school kid Thomas is turning seventeen on the same weekend that his parents are going out of town for their anniversary.  So his best friend, Costa (a poor man’s Jonah Hill), sees the opportunity to throw a huge birthday party at Thomas’s house.  He plans on making it epic, the birthday party to end all birthday parties, even recruiting goth weirdo Dax, from the “Gay/V Club,” to videotape the whole thing.  Being that Costa is a deep and sensitive young man, his noble goal for this celebration is to get Thomas and himself laid by the hottest girls in school. [Swift note: shocking]

They’ll party all Friday night, spend the rest of the weekend cleaning up, and Thomas’s folks will be none the wiser.  Unfortunately for them, they did too good a job getting the word out, as practically every young person in Pasadena shows up (along with a creepy middle-aged guy), drinking and drugging and dry humping the night away.  Shit gets crazier and crazier as people jump off roofs, cars are driven into pools, and eventually the cops are called to the scene, followed by the news media, then the SWAT Team.  Finally, the roof is literally set on fire, and all Thomas and Costa can do is stand-by helplessly and watch the motherfucker burn, burn motherfucker, burn.

If you’re looking for any more story than that, then go see something else.  Take any teenage sex comedy you’ve ever seen, American Pie, Superbad, whatever, take the party scene from those movies, stretch it out to feature length, shoot it in “Found Footage/Faux-Doc” style, amp up the alcohol/drug use by about a million, then throw in a cute little dog, a guy with a flame thrower, a couple of overzealous twelve-year-old security guards, and a testicle punching midget (billed as “Angry Little Person”), and you have the sure to be modern masterpiece, the film that will most definitely sweep next years Oscars, and be studied by film students and scholars for generations to come…  Project X.

Okay, so Project X isn’t any kind of masterpiece, nor will it be studied by anyone (except as a “How to party” guide by socially challenged high schoolers).  When I first read the synopsis to this movie, I thought it sounded fucking terrible.  When I watched the trailer, I thought it looked fucking terrible.  I didn’t even like going to these kinds of parties when I was in high school, why in the hell would I want to watch a whole movie about one, especially one shot in that uber-cliched “Found Footage” style.  I really did drag my heels into the screening, fearing that this would be so Goddamn stupid that I would actually feel my brain cells die off as I watched it.

So, much to my own surprise, I have to say that Project X isn’t half bad.  Again, it’s no classic, but over the course of its eighty-something minutes, it actually won me over…  to an extent.  Yeah, the main characters are a couple of shallow idiots, and the story only barely qualifies as a story, but it did make me kind of like these characters (the not-Jonah Hill guy does grow on you, despite being an obnoxious douche), it did make me feel like I was in the middle of this shindig, and it did make me laugh with more than a few outrageous, what-the-fuck moments that kept me on my toes.  Of course, I won’t spoil them here, except to say the things they do to that poor little dog… oh, and the encounter with a psychotic drug dealer and his bird flippin’ garden gnome… hilarious!

Apparently, this is based on a true incident that happened in Australia, but I couldn’t tell you how much is actually based on fact, as it all does get pretty absurd towards the end.  I imagine, in real life, this party would have been broken up long before an entire army of cops had to roll in with full riot gear and tear gas.  Sorry, but by that point, where the film becomes somewhat serious and practically turns into Goddamn Die Hard, I really stopped believing in what I was seeing.  Also, if I were to nitpick, I would wonder why Thomas is so head over heels for the “school hottie,” whom he barely knows, when his best female friend, who is clearly interested in him, is equally as attractive.  Just sayin’.

I could go on with such nitpicks, but what’s the point.  This isn’t a movie for critics, this is a movie for the people who made things like Superbad and The Hangover the hits that they were.  Project X doesn’t quite have the charm, or the likeable characters, or even the quotable dialogue that those movies gave us, but it does supply the raunchiness in spades, and fans of that kind of un-PC, dick n’ fart toilet humor should definitely check it out.