He Wished That He Had all Of The Answers

The Answer Man is like a great big breath of fresh air on the first nice day of spring. It is a story with characters who feel real, as they try to find real answers to real problems. Yes, occasionally there is a brief moment that feels slightly sitcom-ish, but even those bits didn't spoil the fun for me, because somehow they felt in keeping with the weird, unpredictable, quirky nature of life. Writer/director John Hindman has managed to create a comedy/drama about faith in a chaotic world that manages to stay grounded rather than going over the top philosophically. The approach befits his idea that the true "answers" in life are not written on flashing neon signs; indeed, they are usually much more subtle. Jeff Daniels plays writer Arlen Faber who, twenty years ago, penned a massively influential book called "Me and God," in which he claimed the Lord spoke to him and provided him with answers to life's big questions. The impact of his work was so immense that it scared Arlen, and when we first meet him, he's a bitter, angry recluse who continues to hide from his own admirers. His editor (Nora Dunn) attempts to lure him out of hiding to help promote the 20th anniversary of his book, but he refuses to cooperate in any way.

Arlen's life is changed when he meets two people. The first is Elizabeth Danson (Lauren Graham), a single mother/chiropractor who just opened her own business and treats him for a back injury. Arlen, against all odds, is smitten with her. Elizabeth initially does not know who he is, but when she finds out, he is more than happy to play the role of sage, as he figures it will impress her. The other person is Kris (Lou Taylor Pucci), a young used bookstore owner who is just out of rehab and trying to save his shop while maintaining sobriety. Kris's father is also an alcoholic, which breeds a certain type of resentment he doesn't know how to deal with. After meeting Arlen in his store, Kris makes a deal that allows him to ask questions about Life, which the writer does his best to answer. Or, at least, he fudges it. The Answer Man doesn't have a lot of major "stuff" happening in it; instead, this is the kind of movie where the pleasure comes from watching the characters bounce off one another. Thankfully, these characters bounce in very interesting ways. Why is it that Arlen starts to tear down his walls for these two? With Kris, it has to do with some level of identification. He recognizes another lost soul. This is not to say that he always treats the guy well. Arlen fights his newfound sense of burgeoning compassion, for reasons that become clear near the film's end. Elizabeth manages to have a similar effect, but for different reasons. For the first time in a long time, Arlen discovers that he actually wants some sort of companionship. That he can directly shape her image of him - rather than her having preconceived notions of his "gift" - is enticing. In her own way, Elizabeth has a lot of questions too. She's pushing a healthy lifestyle on her young son that she herself does not lead, and she is unable to figure out how to tell him that his absentee father is never coming back. You get the sense that all these characters are trying to figure themselves out, and somehow understand that the others can help in that process, even when the ways that might happen are unclear. Arlen doesn't really pull the old softie switch that we might expect; he's a miserable S.O.B. for much of the picture, yet Elizabeth and Kris are as drawn to him as he is to them.

What I liked most about The Answer Man is that the characters do not learn big life lessons; instead, they learn small truths that have wide-ranging repercussions. Human emotional and spiritual growth seldom (if ever) comes in tidal waves, but rather in a series of small ripples. The movie knows that, and suggests that people often look directly to God for answers when, in truth, He gave us each other to funnel His answers through. It's interesting how Hindman has crafted such a religious movie that doesn't necessarily feel like one. There's no preaching and no proselytizing, just acute observation. Jeff Daniels is one of the great actors of our time, although he too rarely gets credit for it. His performance as Arlen is one of his finest. Daniels doesn't shy away from the ornery, mean side of the character, yet possesses enough inherent likeability that we side with him, even when he's being an ass. I think a lot of actors would have been tempted to over-dramatize Arlen's spiritual crisis. Daniels avoids that, giving us a more honest portrait of a guy who knows nothing, except for the fact that he knows nothing. The supporting actors are just as good. Lauren Graham specializes in capturing the domestic dramas of everyday women. She gives us an Elizabeth who is confident in what she wants for her kid, and less so in what she wants for herself. Lou Taylor Pucci is currently one of the "It" poster boys for independent film, and for good reason. He makes all of Kris' angst authentic without ever turning mopey or annoying. Olivia Thirlby and Kat Dennings also appear, playing Elizabeth's assistant and Kris' co-worker. Both make an impression in smaller roles, as does Tony Hale, who portrays one of Arlen's most fervent devotees. The Answer Man has moments that made me laugh out loud, moments that touched me, and things I identified with. There's a real charm to the picture, in that it locates great meaning in the little things: the ways people listen to each other, the tiny bits of healing that lead to more later on, the knowledge that love and friendship are powerful antidotes to sorrow and heartbreak. The Answer Man is an indie that may not get a very wide release. Be on the lookout for it, or remember the title for when it comes to DVD. A lot of movies - especially ones that deal with any kind of weighty subject - try to bludgeon you with profundity. It's nice to see a terrific little film that's confident enough to just give us simplicity and truth. This gets a 3 on my "Go See" scale.

He's The Man With The Answers To Life's Mysteries

Hollywood has been willing to take a chance with unknown directors, some have been successful while others make direct to video trash. Now first time director John Hindman brings a rare gem to the silver screen, a small market independent movie that is touching as well as entertaining. "The Answer Man" is a movie that gives its heart and soul and asks for nothing in return. There are only a few movies that can make you laugh and move you at the same time, this movie may well be one of them. The movie doesn't push religion or anything else, it just asks you to believe in it's message and take it for what it implies, that no one man has the answers to life great mysteries.

Arlen Faber (Jeff Daniels) is the self imposed reclusive author of Me and God, a book that has redefined spirituality for several generations, and his follow up books have all been translated into hundreds of languages. On the eve of the 20th anniversary of his still wildly popular book, Anyone who reads it thinks that Arlen has all the answers to life's problems, but these days the author barely ventures outside of the house. Arlen is still sought after as the man who has all the answers, but he of course doesn't want to be bothered. Arlen suffers from an ailment that reduces him to crawling across town to a doctors office for treatment, the doctor, Elizabeth (Lauren Graham), is a single mother struggling to raise her seven-year-old son, and Arlen is taken with her simple way of making life magical. Arlen also runs into another man, Kris (Lou Taylor Pucci), fresh out of rehab, he is still wondering why he bothers with everything, Kris has a father who is also an alcoholic. He owns a used book store that Arlen comes into to try to sell some books, when Kris can't buy them Arlen tries to just leave them on the shelves.

Elizabeth has done such a great job on fixing Arlen's problem that he keeps going back, when he works up enough courage he asks her if she would like to go for a walk with him, she agrees and they walk around, ending up back at Arlen's house he shows her his collection of monster memorabilia, she tells him to spread it around the house instead of keeping it locked away in a small cabinet. When Kris feels his life has hit rock bottom he confronts Arlen and tells him he will take a couple of books if Arlen can answer his questions. Arlen agrees reluctantly, Kris comes back everyday with another question, and Arlen gives him the books when he is done. Arlen takes Elizabeth out several times and even meets her son Alex (Max Antisell) this one kid exudes charm and charisma where no other character does, his performance is one of the best in the film.

Arlen understands what it is like for Alex, Arlen has just lost his father, and Alex's father has walked out on them, when Alex asks him how long two weeks is, you heart will ache for him. Elizabeth is with Arlen when Kris comes over, he has just suffered a loss of his own and he doesn't know how to react to it. Arlen can't find the words, so it is up to Elizabeth to help Kris in his time of need. Elizabeth sees Arlen for what he is, she tells him she has to leave, Arlen realizes what he has done and when Elizabeth calls him to go pick up Alex he is more than willing, but when she comes to thank him, Arlen once again just confronts her with his idea of what she should be doing for Alex. Elizabeth doesn't want his advice and walks out.

Arlen comes to his senses and remedies the situation, he asks forgiveness of the people he cares about and by doing this he opens himself up to exposure. He makes the first public appearance in his life. His fans show up but when Arlen tells them he don't have the answers, everyone is heartbroken, Elizabeth leaves the store but is followed by Arlen. Of course the ending is the sugary sweet happy ending that Hollywood thinks we all want to see. Maybe we would like to see the truth reflected once in a while, life isn't easy, the answers are not always there and happy endings, if they come, are as rare as four leaf clovers.

I give The Answer Man a 3 and on my avoidance scale a 1, this movie is light on emotion and heart but it has depth, some of the characters are introduced and we never see their real potential, it's like here I am and nothing more, Arlen is the heart of the movie but his character is the weakest by far. This is still a good movie to watch, it doesn't require you to do any thinking, it leads you from point to point and requires nothing from you.

The Answer Man is rated R for Language

Running time is 1 hr. 35 mins.

The Little Band That Could

When gifted singer-songwriter Charlotte Banks (Aly Michalka) asks new kid in town Will Burton (Gaelan Connell) to manage her fledgling rock band, she appears to have just one goal in mind: go head-to-head against her egotistical musician ex-boyfriend, Ben(Scott Porter), at the biggest event of the year, a battle of the bands. Against all odds, their band develops a sound all its own with a real shot at success in the contest. Meanwhile, romance brews between Will and Sa5m(Vanessa Hudgens), who plays a mean guitar and has a voice to die for. When disaster strikes, it's time for the band to make a choice: Do they admit defeat, or face the music and stand up for what they believe in in Bandslam.

A pleasant surprise on several levels, the film tells the story of Will (Connell), a geeky kid with an unpleasant life in Ohio. How unpleasant? He jumps up and down with delight when he finds out that his mother has a new job and they're moving to Lodi. Nothing against Lodi, mind you -- home of the Misfits and the Bada Bing. But when was the last time you saw a Hollywood movie in which someone was excited about moving to Jersey? As I said, "Bandslam" is a pleasant surprise. Not just for Garden State boosters, either. For one thing, the plot, in which Will helps the school's prettiest girl (Michalka) start a band while being simultaneously drawn to the school's quirkiest girl, Sa5m (Hudgens), is nicely skewed. Basically, it's the standard teen picture -- girl torn between bad boy and nice guy -- with a gender switch.) For another, the film itself is clean without being cloying. Authority figures aren't predictable simpletons (Will's mom, played by Lisa Kudrow, is funny, but not foolish), and the high school romances are limited to a few awkward kisses. There are no four-letter words, drugs or bathroom jokes. Perhaps that isn't such a shock; the movie is from Walden Media, a company that specializes in family fare like the "Narnia" series. Yet it's done so skillfully that even jaded teens may have too much fun to realize they're watching a PG movie. Admittedly, some of the film doesn't work. Parts could be funnier, or faster; a crucial dating mistake that Will makes seems more a product of the screenplay than his character.

But the movie gets a lot right. For starters, it cast real muscians (Connell and Michalka are both professioanlly involved with music), rather than actors who'd look foolish bursting into song. And that cast is effective. Connell is sympathetic as the geeky Will; Michalka is dangerously pretty as the school's Queen Bee. And the overexposed Hudgens is pleasant in a change-of-pace emo-girl role. But the most valuable player in Bandslam is Kudrow. Playing Will's concerned, overprotective, but still good-humored mother, she brightens up every scene. She's the definition of a great supporting actor. Bandslam is hardly the definition of a great movie, but it is pleasant and bright and doesn't insult its audience's intelligence. And that's as rare and welcome as a well-crafted three-minute pop song. This isn't just for the teens. I'm sure grownups will find something to cheer about in this movie as well. Very well put together musical dramedy. This gets a 3 on my "Go See" scale.

Bandslam Turns Misfits Into Overnight Sensations

Every so often Hollywood releases a movie that is kind of an inspirational story for teenagers, the stories all center around a teen with some tragedy in their past, and then the showcase a means that this person uses to overcome that tragedy and make friends and become popular. In the newest teen inspiration movie, "Bandslam" one such teen uses his knowledge of music to help form a misfit ragtag group of high school seniors into one of the most popular bands.

Will Burton (Gaelan Connell) is a misfit, he just doesn't fit in with any other group of kids at his high school, his mom Karen (Lisa Kudrow) asks him what would make him happy, he jokingly tells her to let him leave the school he is at and enroll in another school, she tells him that she has been offered a new job in New Jersey, so yes he will be enrolling in another school. Will is happy to be getting a new chance but then he realizes that he will be the same Will wherever he goes to school. When he gets to his new high school, Will notices that the kids are nearly the same here, they have almost the same clicks and groups that his last school had. Except here the students rally around an event called Bandslam, where student formed bands compete for a record contract. Will is in awe that the students are so rapt up in this contest, everyone except for Sa5m (Vanessa Hudgens) she tells Will that the contest isn't her thing. Will is immediately taken by her lack of enthusiasm, later that day in one of the classes the two share they are given a project where they have to describe who the other person is.

Will meets another girl, Charlotte Banks (Alyson Michalka) and Will isn't sure why this perfect girl would pay attention to him, but he doesn't object to her friendship, Will helps her out in a school daycare program and the two become friends. Karen of course doesn't like the fact that Will is now spending so much time with his new friends, Charlotte finds out that Will knows alot about music and asks him to come listen to her and some friends during a rehearsal in her garage. When Will gets there he finds the band in full swing, Charlotte and her two friends, Bug (Charlie Saxton) and Omar (Tim Jo). Will tells them that they could be good if they didn't try to out duel each other. Will tells Charlotte that she sings great. When Ben Wheatley (Scott Porter) comes and to where Charlotte works she tells them that she and her friends are going to compete against him at Bandslam this year.

Will tells Charlotte that if they want to win they have to form a new band, they look at other students in the school and they convince Kim (Lisa Chung) to play keyboards, Basher Martin (Ryan Donowho) to play drums, Irene Lerman (Elvy Yost) to play Cello and a host of others to play sax, trombone, and trumpet. Together they form a new band calling them I can't go on I'll go on. When the day draws near for Bandslam, tragedy strikes Charlotte family and Sa5m, who Will has been spending alot of time with and has grown closer to decides she will take over the lead vocals for the group. When the group gets to Bandslam, Charlotte comes to wish them luck, it seems that her new character and the reason she was friends with Will is a selfish one. Another near tragedy occurs when Ben Wheatley and his band perform the same song that Will's band was going to do. Of course the band regroups and comes up with an alternative song to sing. Whether the band wins or not isn't the moral of the movie, it's that kids of all types can join together and become not just friends but be support and help to overcome any obstacle, Sa5m tells Will to do what scares you the most, and at Bandslam Will confronts a personal issue that he has been trying to hide almost his entire life.

I give Bandslam a 3 and on my avoidance scale a 0, this is a very good movie to take the entire family to see, there isn't anything remotely offensive in this movie, it is the type of feel good movie that parents can go to and not worry about foul language or sexual themes. There is a sad aspect that comes is a part of the story line, that may not fully be understood by young children, but it is something that parents can explain and use as a means to ask how something like this makes them feel.

Bandslam is rated PG for some Thematic Elements and Mild Language

Running time is 1 hr. 51 mins.

A New Kind Of Bromance

It’s been a decade since Ben and Andrew were the bad boys of their college campus. Ben has settled down and found a job, wife, and home. Andrew took the alternate route as a vagabond artist, skipping the globe from Chiapas to Cambodia. When Andrew shows up, unannounced, on Ben’s doorstep, they easily fall back into their old dynamic of heterosexual one-upmanship. After a night of perfunctory carousing, the two find themselves locked in a mutual dare: to enter an amateur porn contest. But what kind of boundary-breaking porn can two dudes make? After the booze and “big talk” run out, only one idea remains—they will have sex together…on camera. It’s not gay; it’s beyond gay. It’s not porn; it’s an art project. But how will it work? And more importantly, who will tell Anna, Ben’s wife? "Humpday" is a buddy movie gone wild. Shelton expertly mines this clever construct for every possible comedic and irreverent moment in Humpday.

Lynn Shelton's highly-buzzed Humpday is a very good dissection of friendship, sexuality, ego, domesticity, and our perceptions about who we are and how far we are willing to go to prove that we are not so easily-defined. We are all labeled on a nearly daily basis – "Husband," "Single," "Straight," "Gay" – and most of those labels do a horrible job of telling the whole story. Humpday is about two old friends who have gone in very different directions since college. One wanders the world, choosing where he's going to go and who he's going to bed on the spur of the moment. The other has a nice house, loving wife, and is trying to start a family. For one, sex has become random and, for the other, it has become determined by ovulation schedules. But the wanderer wants to prove that he can commit to something and the husband wants to prove that he isn't the "Mr. Picket Fence" that his old friend thinks he has become. How? By banging each other. Humpday may not be the single best movie I've seen so far this year—though it's certainly a contender for the title—but it's without doubt the most surprising. To listen to a description of the plot (two straight male friends somehow psych each other into collaborating on a gay porn film starring themselves), you'd think you knew exactly what kind of movie this is. The pitch meeting is drearily easy to imagine: Zack and Miri Make a Porno would be invoked, as would I Love You, Man, with the proper name Jonah Hill and the adjective Apatovian thrown in there somewhere. But Humpday exists in a realm blessedly apart from the mass-produced homosocial comedies of recent years. It's not even a response to, or a critique of, the Hollywood "bromance." It's a brainy, sparkling riff on friendship, marriage, sexual identity, and art. As the movie opens, Ben (Mark Duplass), a Seattle-based transportation engineer, lies in bed with his wife, Anna (Alycia Delmore). The two seem genuinely happy and in love, but there are the subtlest hints of marital ennui. Ben's wedding ring is just little too prominently foregrounded in the shot, and when the two agree that they're both too tired for sex, they're giddy with relief. As they're drifting off to sleep, the doorbell rings. It's Andrew (Joshua Leonard), Ben's best friend from college, a bohemian drifter who thinks nothing of showing up without calling at 2 a.m. Andrew beds down in the basement for a few days, his larger-than-life presence trying Anna's patience even as it puts Ben in touch with an earlier, edgier version of himself. Andrew drags Ben to a party hosted by a lesbian couple, where, after a few bong hits and glasses of wine, the conversation turns to Humpfest, an annual amateur porn-film festival hosted by the Seattle Stranger. (This event really exists, and you still have a few months to ready this year's submission.) Fueled by THC and sheer bravado, Ben and Andrew come up with a concept: They'll rent a hotel room, turn on a camera, and film themselves having sex. The resulting video will be "beyond gay," whatever that means, and for reasons that are never quite clear even to Ben and Andrew themselves, the experience of filming it will be both an act of creative expression and a character-building challenge.

As the clock ticks down toward Humpday, Ben and Andrew repeatedly talk themselves into and out of the project, tiptoeing all the while around the question of how to break the news to Anna. It's a talky movie, but the (partly improvised) talk is marvelously intricate and precise. Somehow the director, Lynn Shelton, manages to keep her high-concept premise afloat in a purely naturalistic setting. Ben's and Andrew's motives are at times comically self-serving and absurd, but their characters aren't set up as targets of satire. They're not clueless homophobes rigidly guarded against the possibility of real intimacy, nor are they the postmodern groovesters they'd like to believe they are. When the day of the big porn shoot finally arrives—I wouldn't dream of spoiling what happens physically between the two men, but I can say that it's accompanied by an epic, hilarious, and unpredictable conversation. Each hopes the other will back out of the idea, and they warily circle each other in the days and hours before the planned shoot. Ben, in particular, smarts against Andrew's condescension toward "the weird paradigm" in which he and Anna live. "You are not as Kerouac as you think you are," he tells Andrew in a moment of clarity, "and I'm not as white-picket-fence as you think I am." How do things work out? Well, I'm not going to tell you. Suffice to say that the talented Shelton gets honest, nuanced performances from her trio of actors; really, the most naked thing about the film is the way the cast bares the characters' souls. Their late-night conversations feel as natural as our own, with each pair within the trio (including a powerful scene between Anna and Andrew) creating their own intricate relationship. Though the film at times gets a little too talky, and the camerawork sometimes feels unnecessarily claustrophobic, Humpday surprises us from beginning to end. It's a fresh take on the familiar topic of friendship — and a wise one. A strong 4 on my "Go See" scale.

Humpday Gives Friendship A Whole New Meaning

Love stories come in all styles, throughout the ages we have seen just about every conceivable type of story, the "new" type is the male bromance movie, this year alone we have had several, the best of these was I Love You, Man, this movie dealt with every typical mans idea of friendship and the lengths we as men will go to keep that friendship. Now comes a different type of bromance movie that will push the boundaries of what most men think of friendship. In "Humpday" two friends make a drunken pledge that almost goes to far.

Ben (Mark Duplass) and Andrew (Joshua Leonard) have been friends since college, they don't really see each other that much, Ben has done the Man thing, he has grown up and even has gotten married, he and his wife, Anna (Alycia Delmore) are even trying to have a baby, they feel that they are now ready to have a complete family. While Andrew is off globe hopping. One night while in an airport in Mexico Andrew thinks why not drop in on an old friend, and he does so at two in the morning. The two men share a chemistry as friends who can take a step back and look at the other’s life with a touch of envy.

After hooking up with a polyamorous woman, Leonard tells Ben to come over to her house to pick him up, meanwhile Anna is at home cooking dinner for the three of them, and you can sense that when Ben gets to the house, it is going to be a long night. When Ben and Andrew start drinking, Ben has enough forethought to call Anna and tell her he is going to stay awhile. The party turns into an all night affair and Ben and Andrew get drunk, the group talks about an amateur film fest called humpday, where people enter homemade "artsy" porn films and are judged by the other contestants. The two are basically talked into making a film themselves.

The movie takes a turn here that most men would find creepy,how far are two friends expected to go for the sake of art? each man once the plot has been hatched is afraid of being the one to call it off, Ben doesn't want to be thought of as a straight laced family man and so he goads Andrew into sticking with the idea, even though he knows Anna won't approve. Once the game is set in motion the men think that it would be worse to back out, so their idea of two straight men having sex is about to become a reality for them.

Anna is of course upset with Ben, she doesn't understand why it is he thinks he has go through with what she thinks is a stupid idea, but after a confession of her own she tells Ben that if this is something that you feel committed to then he has to do it. When Ben gets to the motel room he has reserved for the taping, he has enough time to reconsider his options, when Andrew gets there the two decide that they will do it, but it takes some encouragement from each other to get started. The two start the tape rolling and explain what it is they are going to try to do. Things get off quickly and the two men decide that it may have been to quick, they sit on the bed and discuss what it is they are doing. In an interview with writer/director Lynn Shelton she claims that the two men were given Cart Blanche to do what ever they wanted, the ending of the film is all ad libbed, Lynn claims that even she didn't know what direction the two stars would take. These scenes in the motel room are some of the best on film today, the two men are so quick with their lines it is hard to fathom that they are ad libbed, these scenes also save the movie from being just another male bonding movie that we have seen over and over before.

I give Humpday a 3 and on my avoidance scale a 0, this is a small market film that may be able to compete for a major part of the market, it won't appeal to every one, it's theme is a little harsh for some people to sit through, but you should know, that there is no male frontal nudity and the worse thing the two men do is ...... Kiss.

Humpday is rated R for some Strong Sexual Content, Pervasive Language and a Scene of drug Use

Running time is 1 hr. 34 mins.

Big Things Come In Small Packages

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer brings his first 3-D film to the big screen with G-Force, a comedy adventure about the latest evolution of a covert government program to train animals to work in espionage. Armed with the latest high-tech spy equipment, these highly trained guinea pigs discover that the fate of the world is in their paws. Tapped for the G-Force are guinea pigs Darwin (voice of Sam Rockwell), the squad leader determined to succeed at all costs; Blaster (voice of Tracy Morgan), an outrageous weapons expert with tons of attitude and a love for all things extreme; and Juarez (voice of Penelope Cruz), a sexy martial arts pro; plus the literal fly-on-the-wall reconnaissance expert, Mooch, and a star-nosed mole, Speckles (voice of Nicolas Cage), the computer and information specialist.

There are five credited screenwriters on the kiddie action film G-Force, which sums up the frantic, suffocating thinking that ends up marring the picture. This is a team of super spy guinea pigs getting into all sorts of hijinks, there’s little need to add pathos or rigid character arcs. G-Force feels the urge to present audiences with a sympathetic portrayal of talking animals, when it’s clear that potential viewers, both young and old, would rather see these heroes in all stages of miniature combat and furry teamwork instead. Members of a top secret government spy squad, guinea pigs Darwin (Rockwell), Juarez (Cruz), Blaster (Morgan), and mole Speckles (Cage) make up the G-Force, guided by human agents Ben (Zach Galifianakis) and Marcie (Kelli Garner). On the hunt to uncover the insidious plan of global industrialist Saber (Bill Nighy), the team is unexpectedly shut down by a bureaucratic stooge (Will Arnett), retreating to a pet store to regroup and reassess the plan of attack. Meeting fellow cage inhabitants Hurley (Jon Favreau) and Bucky (Steve Buscemi), Darwin comes to learn his past might not have been as glamorous as originally thought, but his future and his country need his services to stop Saber from taking over the world through household appliances. I was taken with G-Force during the introductory sequences. The marriage of visual effects and distinctive voice work from the actors generates a special distraction of comedy and action, constructing a plucky matinee playground to enjoy. Boosted by 3-D imagery, G-Force has a unique personality, bountiful CG flair, and enough boomy, peppy Black Eyed Peas songs to keep the motor humming acceptably. Kids should be enthralled. 

G-Force is undeniably weird. It's not every day you see a coffee machine (Saber's plan involves appliances coming to life) attack a talking guinea pig in 3D. Kids like to see something new when they head to the theater, something they can talk about on the playground. "Remember when THAT happened?" And I really feel that G-Force delivers in that department. For the adults, the script isn't nearly as stupid as most of these types of films are. Yes, it's flawed. The villain could have been more than a two-line plot description and there could have been some more clever dialogue, but I never felt like my intelligence was being insulted and there are enough references aimed at the parents to keep them from regretting the family night at the movies. There's also an over-reliance on the "throwing things at the audience" angle of 3D although I don't feel like the kids in the audience will mind going "ooh" and "aah" every time they think a cute guinea pig is going to fall in their lap. There's a moment in G-Force that captured my imagination more than anything else I've seen in this summer's blockbuster movies. Certain nefarious activities in the film — which, by the way, is a genuinely enjoyable romp with talking guinea pigs working for U.S. intelligence — require a satellite circling our planet to make a mechanical adjustment of some sort. There's a cut to the satellite's position in space, similar to other shots of solo orbiters seen in action films. But the image in G-Force is different: While the essential satellite is in the foreground, we can see scores of others rounding Earth in varying directions and at different distances from the surface. One can't help but think, wow! This must be what it really looks like up there, with all those sedan-size machines crisscrossing the sky. The image lasts barely a second — G-Force never rests — but what lingers is the rarity of a fresh approach to an overly familiar idea and it works perfectly here. Go and see it with the little ones. You may just enjoy it as much as they do. This gets a 3 on my "Go See" scale.

Disney's Next Giants Are The G-Force Guinea Pigs?

In November of 1928 a man with a simple idea gave America what would later become a little giant, Mickey Mouse appeared in his first carton with sound. Since his introduction on the silver screen Walt Disney has shown us that if we just believe, we can see an elephant fly, and a lion become a king. Now comes Special Agent Guinea Pigs. "G-Force" is the newest creation from the studio behind the ears.

G-Force is a covert Government team of Guinea Pigs trained by Ben (Zach Galifianakis) comprised of three agents, Darwin (Sam Rockwell) is the squad leader, Blaster (Tracy Morgan) is the explosive expert with an adrenaline junky, Juarez (Penelope Cruz) and a mole Speckles (Nicolas Cage), who is the teams computer specialist. On the eve of a special over site meeting Ben tells the team that they need to prove themselves or they will be shut down, he sends the team on a covert mission to infiltrate the mansion of a diabolical billionaire, who plans to taking over the world with household appliances. Saber (Bill Nighy) has been secretly adding his own personal chip to his products and now he plans on turning them on.

The team is actually able to retrieve the information that they were sent to recover, unknown to Darwin though, at the time he downloaded the file he also captured a virus, the information once uploaded would look harmless. When Special Agent in Charge Kip Killian (Will Arnett) sees this he tells Ben that he is going to be shut down. The team is watching Ben get chewed out by Killian and they decide that to save the day they have to escape from the lab. The team escapes by getting onto a delivery truck that unfortunately takes them to a pet store, there they meet Hurley (Jon Favreau) and a hamster named Bucky (Steve Buscemi) who may or may not be part ferret. The team tries to get away but Blaster and Juarez are bought by Connor (Tyler Patrick Jones) and Penny (Piper Mackenzie Harris) while Speckles will pretend to be dead so he can be buried in the back yard and burrow his way to freedom. That plan goes awry from the start and he is tossed in a garbage truck. The G-Force team is chased by two Agents, Trigstad (Gabriel Casseus) and Carter (Jack Conley) they make these guys regret that as they regroup to save the day.

Bucky is the one who inadvertently frees Darwin and then pushes Hurley out as well, Darwin is not to happy that Hurley is now in the hunt for the right chip and Darwin reluctantly lets him tag along. When Darwin is attacked by one of Saber's machines he knows that they must get the info to Ben so that they can come up with an idea together. when he gets back to where Ben is he finds that Blaster and Juarez have escaped from the family that bought them. Ben tells the group that they are the last hope because no one else believes him, the team goes into action once again and decides they have to destroy the super chip by downloading it's own virus into its memory. The team that now includes Hurley springs into action, they meet the man behind Saber's quest for domination and it isn't who you would expect. The team saves the day with help from the one member they didn't think would be so desperately essential.

The G-Force team gets the recognition they wanted and some new friends join the flock, Bucky and three mice are now a part of the group, Darwin gives Hurley his own Rookie Agent badge and he celebrates with the rest of the team. This is the first 3-D movie produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, his touch of magic can be felt in the story, his tendency for loud action scenes even comes out here in a Disney movie. The voices all seem to fit the characters and Blaster seems to always be having the most fun. Darwin takes his leadership role to heart and when he learns he can relax and have fun, the rest of the team enjoys themselves right along with him.

I give G-Force a 3 and on my avoidance scale a 0, this is a movie that families will enjoy and parents can relax and not worry about language or more darker themes, this movie will be loved by children of most ages and dads you can sit back and have a great time with this movie as well, the 3-D effects seem to work the best if you sit to the right or left of the screen, they seem to jump right off and into your lap.

G-Force is rated PG for some Mild Action and Rude Humor

Running time is 1 hr. 28 mins.

Think Twice Before You Adopt

Devastated by the loss of their unborn baby, Kate (Vera Farmiga) and John (Peter Sarsgaard) decide to adopt a child. At the orphanage, both feel drawn to a little girl (Isabelle Fuhrman) named Esther, and soon the couple take their new daughter home. But when a dangerous series of events unfolds, Kate begins to suspect that there is something evil lurking behind the child's angelic exterior in Orphan.

The tragic loss of their unborn child has devastated Kate and John, taking a toll on both their marriage and Kate’s fragile psyche as she is plagued by nightmares and haunted by demons from her past. Struggling to regain some semblance of normalcy in their lives, the couple decides to adopt another child. At the local orphanage, both John and Kate find themselves strangely drawn to a young girl named Esther. Almost as soon as they welcome Esther into their home, however, an alarming series of events begins to unfold, leading Kate to believe that there’s something wrong with Esther—this seemingly angelic little girl is not what she appears to be. Concerned for the safety of her family, Kate tries to get John and others to see past Esther’s sweet facade. But her warnings go unheeded until it may be too late…for everyone. Farmiga and Sarsgaard play Kate and John Coleman, a composer and an architect who we meet after a series of tragedies. They recently suffered the unbearable pain of a stillborn child that they named Jessica, past infidelity on John's part is implied, and Kate is dealing with alcoholism that nearly caused a horrible accident with her other children, the precocious Daniel and the deaf Maxine. Seems like the perfect time to adopt a foreign pre-teen! Supposedly to deal with their grief about Jessica, the Colemans adopt a child who they feel they can give all the love that they've been denied the ability to give their deceased baby girl. So they adopt Esther (Fuhrman). Bad, bad idea. Esther is purportedly a Russian child whose family died in a random fire. (Hint: If a possible new member of your family has a mysterious past that includes death and potential arson, do some research before you sign the papers.) At first, Esther is well-spoken, interesting, and the kind of unique personality that Kate and John like to encourage. She wears dresses to school and ribbons around her neck and wrists. The fact that she NEVER takes the ribbons off and screams if you come near them might be a red flag to most normal people. Not the Colemans. Things start to go all "Bad Seed" when Esther has a run-in with a girl she doesn't like at the playground. She pushes her backwards off the slide and the girl breaks her ankle. There's a bit of "she said, she said" that would probably have blown over, but when the nun (CCH Pounder) who handled the adoption comes to check on Esther, the girl panics and thinks that she's being taken away. She kills the poor woman and the cover-up only leads to bigger problems. When an insane nine-year-old Russian girl turns to her younger deaf sister and signs for her to help dispose of a body, the over-the-top ridiculousness of it all is hard not to laugh at. 

Due largely to the excellent work by Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard, Jaume Collet-Serra's Orphan is a surprisingly effective thriller that should deliver exactly what audiences expect from it. Bucking the trend of being just another "demon kid" movie, Orphan features a clever mix of honest emotion and ridiculous, over-the-top, Mommie Dearest-esque insanity. Are the moments of insanity – mostly involving kid-on-kid crime – MEANT to be funny? I'm not sure that it matters. Movies are enjoyable for what they are, not for what they mean to be. And I have to admit to mostly enjoying Orphan. It runs way too long and features a few plot twists that stretch credulity but it is a genuinely intriguing and entertaining summer adult thriller. We haven't seen too many of those in recent years.  Farmiga and Sarsgaard do everything they can to ground their characters in reality, but the script by David Johnson does them a few disservices. Of course, Esther's plan is to turn her new parents against each other and John seems to go along with it way too easily. Sure, his wife had drinking problems, but would he really trust the new kid over her so easily? I like when directors go for atmosphere over breakneck pacing and it's refreshing to see two lead characters that are way more fleshed out than the cardboard cut-outs that we usually see in the genre, but over two hours is ridiculous for a film like this one. Ultimately, Orphan is a rarely seen mixed bag of styles – the realism of Farmiga and Sarsgaard combined with the lunacy of the story they're involved in – but that's why I like it. Nine times out of ten, the actors in a film like Orphan let the jump-cuts, action scenes, and twist ending do all the heavy lifting, but these two, especially the always-great Farmiga, fully commit. Horror story, thriller, cautionary tale about shoddy adoption practices, funnier comedy than Matthew McConaughey has made in years – Orphan is one of the weirdest major studio summer movies in a long time. It's the kid at the summer movie school that no one wants to play with because he's more than a little odd. I always liked kids like that. Maybe they should've adopted one that was a little younger and avoided all the tragedy of dealing with a nine year old. This is one to see. A definite 4 on my "Go See" scale.

This Orphan(age) Should Be Shut Down

Horror movies have taken on many guises, the slimy Alien in space, the dream killer, the serial killer and even killer babies. So now we get a young child who has developed her own taste for murder. This seems like an idea out of some twisted fairy tale. The sad thing about it is this move may be the beginning of the next trend in scary movies. "Orphan" is more of a suspense movie than horror but the previews and commercials sell it as a horror story.

The movie starts with every expecting parents nightmare, the loss of their infant child. This not only devastates them but almost breaks their marriage. Kate (Vera Farmiga) and John (Peter Sarsgaard) Coleman struggle each day with this loss, Kate seems to struggle the most, she has nightmares and turns to alcohol as a solution, this only makes the marriage weaker. One day while drunk, Kate has their younger child out on the water, the ice breaks and if it wasn't for John turning up when he did the families horror may have included the lose of their other daughter Max (Aryana Engineer). Struggling to regain some semblance of normalcy in their lives, the couple decides to adopt another child, turning to a local orphanage run by Sister Abigail (CCH Pounder), the couple take a tour of the facility and there John comes across a child alone in her room painting, John is immediately taken by Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman). Kate comes into the room and begins a conversation with the young girl and is also swayed by the child.

Almost as soon as they welcome Esther into their home, however, an alarming series of events begins to unfold, a young girl who has picked on Esther in school is pushed from a slide and breaks an ankle, Max witnesses Esther push her but because Esther pays so much attention to Max and has even learned sign language to communicate with her, Max tells her parents that she saw Brenda (Jamie Young) slip. The Coleman's oldest child Daniel (Jimmy Bennett) wants nothing to do with Esther, he says his friends make fun of him in school because of her. Things take a decidedly worse turn, when Sister Abigail come to the house and mentions the fact that she has been looking into Esther's past, she says she has found several odd things, and she also mentions the fact that Esther's last adopted family was all killed in an arson fire, Esther just barely made it out alive.

This information leads Kate to believe that there's something wrong with Esther, the sweet little facade is just a ruse, if she knew that at the same time Esther and Max were out on the road planning on stopping Sister Abigail Kate would have never believed how far Esther was willing to go to keep her secret. Esther pushes Max into the road when Sister Abigail is passing by, this cause her to swerve her car, using this Esther sneaks up on Sister Abigail and kills her, Max is so scared that she will be next she helps Esther hide the body. No longer trying to pretend to be anything but cold and calculating in front of Max, Esther tells Max that she will shoot mommy if Max tells. Seeing the two girls come out of his tree house Daniel tries to hide but is seen by Esther, that night while he is asleep, Esther comes into his room and holds a carpenter blade to his neck, she asks him what it was he saw in the woods, Daniel tries to tell her he just saw the two coming from the tree house. Esther holds the blade to Daniels privates and tells him if he mentions anything she will cut it off before he even knows what its used for. This so intimidates Daniel that he refuses to even talk about her after that.

Esther tries to break down the relationship between Kate and John, she keeps telling John that mommy doesn't love me, John tells her to do something nice for mommy, Esther picks the roses that Kate has planted in memory of their daughter Jessica. This breaks Kate's heart and in an act of true madness Esther puts her arm in a vise and breaks it, telling John it was Kate. Esther also sets the family cars gear shifts in reverse while Max is still in the car. The car narrowly escapes an accident. When Daniel is able to get alone with Max he asks her what happened in the car, Max points out some of her drawings and Daniel figures out what Esther was doing in the tree house, of course Esther hears Daniel talking to Max, when Daniel goes to the tree house he is surprised by Esther and she proceeds to lock him in as she sets it on fire. Later at the hospital she tries to finish the job of killing Daniel, she is stopped only because Max isn't willing to let her go that far.

By now Kate has contacted an agency in Russia and the information she gets is shocking, it seems the institute where Esther was is not an adoption agency but a mental hospital. The child has a long history of trouble following her. By the time Kate is able to make it to the house Esther has taken control of the situation there, John is getting drunk and Esther is making her move. Telling Esther that she is wrong and that they have to do something about this situation John seals his fate. The ending give us the expected confrontation between Kate and the real Esther, in the one place that the movie makes obvious from the beginning. Marketed as a horror movie, Orphan fails to entertain, as a thriller though this movie has it's moments, the psychological horror is there and it makes this movie tolerable, still all in all, I still can't find anything here worth a recommendation.

I give The Orphan a 1 and on my avoidance scale I give it a 1 again, wait a few weeks and this one can be watched in the comfort of your own home. One thing I can say for this movie, they never give us the scene where someone closes a medicine cabinet and standing behind them is the "bad" guy we do get such a scene but the person in the background is just John. There isn't any thing in this movie that will make your pulse race, not even the expected conclusion.

The Orphan is rated R for Disturbing Violent Content, Some Sexuality and Language

Running time is 2 hrs. 03 mins.

The Truth Isn't Always Ugly

In The Ugly Truth, Abby Richter (Katherine Heigl) is a lovelorn TV producer who, despite a long and arduous search for the perfect mate, is hopelessly single. The battle of the sexes heats up when her employers team her up with Mike Chadway (Gerard Butler), an opinionated TV celebrity who plans to put Abby through the wringer to prove his own theories about what makes men and women tick.

In the past year, movies aimed primarily at women -- including "Sex and the City," "He's Just Not That Into You" and "The Proposal" -- have scored at the boxoffice, demonstrating the potency of an underserved audience as well as the value of counterprogramming. The latest chick flick, "The Ugly Truth," may not scale the boxoffice heights achieved by some of these films. But with clever appeal to the guys as well as the girls, it seems likely to become a medium-size hit for Columbia. Robert Luketic directed two other successful female-oriented comedies, "Legally Blonde" and "Monster-in-Law," and while this film is unfortunately closer in quality to the latter than the former, it has just enough laughs to squeak by. "Truth" hopes to add a raunchier spin to the Doris Day/Rock Hudson comedies, such as "Pillow Talk" and "Lover Come Back," which focused on two professional rivals who hate each other at first sight and only gradually recognize the attraction simmering beneath their hostility. Katherine Heigl plays Abby, the producer of a morning TV show in Sacramento that is struggling in the ratings. The station manager decides to add a new face to the mix -- Mike (Butler), a late-night cable TV personality who has won notoriety for his blunt commentaries on why lovesick women don't understand men's animal needs. Abby detests everything that the macho Mike represents, but she is forced to work with him when his segment called "The Ugly Truth" becomes a hit with viewers. Along the way, she realizes that her own love life could use some improvement, and maybe Mike's insights into the male psyche can help her to land the handsome doctor (Eric Winter) who lives next door. It takes a while for her to perceive that her true soulmate is sitting right across the TV console. 

The script by Nicole Eastman, Karen McCullah Lutz, and Kirsten Smith is wildly uneven. The best scenes are those in which Mike coaches Abby on how to inflame the doctor's interest, and she grudgingly comes to appreciate his savvy intuitions. On the other hand, the TV broadcasts are way too crude; even in a time of relaxed standards, it's hard to believe that Mike's sexually explicit rants would ever make it onto a network newscast. The big gross-out scene, in which Abby wrestles with a vibrator, also reeks of desperation. The movie wastes an excellent supporting cast. John Michael Higgins and Cheryl Hines have promising roles as the married, perpetually squabbling anchors, but they don't get enough opportunity to demonstrate their comic chops. Kevin Connolly has a too-brief scene as one of Abby's hapless blind dates. Only Bree Turner as Abby's ever-patient assistant gets a chance to shine. A romantic comedy depends, of course, on the chemistry between the leads, and here the film is more successful. Both Heigl and Butler find the appeal in very flawed characters. It has been said that every memorable romantic movie requires a scene where the lovers dance together, and Luketic has staged an effervescent dance for the stars. Unfortunately, the director fails to do much with the setting. Sacramento is a pallid presence, indistinguishable from Peoria or Toledo. Even though the picture sputters and stumbles, it arrives at the ending that audiences crave. Heigl and Butler are both bright, likeable and funny. The film, while thin and tacky, is well paced and graced with a modern peppy sound track. Despite the ages of the leads, the film plays to younger audiences, goes for the Judd Apatow crowd. Aside from the last minute resolution which subtracts both cinematically and thematically, the film moves along well enough and provides plenty of not-so-innocent laughs. The two leads work well together and it's what made this one work for me. It gets a 3 on my "Go See" scale.

A Mans Facts Of Life Are A Womens Ugly Truth

Hollywood has been giving us romantic pictures since the very beginning, we have seen every conceivable type of story that has ever been thought of. Most of these stories are told from the women's perspective and are considered "chick" flicks by most men. Now Hollywood has turned the tables and has given us "The Ugly Truth" this is a rare movie, in the fact that it tells its tale from the man's perspective, and in this case the truth will turn match making on its head.

Abby (Katherine Heigl), is an idealistic, producer of a Sacramento morning news show with sagging ratings, her one problem in life is that she is a total control freak, she has everything planned out in advance she even has emergency plans to deal with the emergencies that pop up at work. She even has an assistant, Joy (Bree Turner) who does background checks on potential boyfriends. One night after one such date, one that fails to live up to what Abby expected, she is in her bedroom and happens across a cable access show called, "The Ugly Truth". The shows host, Mike (Gerard Butler) is the one man that bucks everything that Abby believes a man should be, Mike gives advice to men that Abby finds so offensive that she is compelled to call in and tell him. Of course she gets through and after being insulted and called almost every name Mike can think of he hangs up on her. The next evening, after returning home from work Abby has to chase her cat, climbing into a nearby tree Abby happens upon her new neighbor, Colin (Eric Winter) when the limb breaks and Abby falls she is rescued by Colin who is wearing just a towel that Abby in her fright rips off him. She thinks that things may be looking up, Colin is a doctor and had helped bandage Abby's ankle, he also gave her his card with his home number on it.

When Abby gets to work she is walking on air, of course this wont last, her boss Stuart (Nick Searcy) has just informed the team that he has hired Mike to be an on air personality. Abby and the rest of the team are offended and make this point known, Stuart has failed to mention that Mike has already been hired and is in the building. Abby and Mike are like oil and vinegar they just don't mix, but in true Hollywood cliche fashion we already know that they will end up together, this time though its fun to watch as it slowly happens. Abby is against working with Mike so much so that she hides in her closet, Stuart comes in and tells her that the shows ratings have doubled in just one show, and that they are going to give Mike even more time on air, Mike shares that slot with the stations on air talent, husband and wife anchors, Larry (John Michael Higgins) and Georgia, (Cheryl Hines) Mike tells them that they need to make love more, this immediately makes them his friends.

Mike becomes the biggest thing at the station, company CEO's fly in to take him to dinner, he is given free reign to discuss what ever he wants to talk about. As Mike and Abby reluctantly get closer Mike tells Abby he will help her make Colin her bitch or if he fails he will quit the program, Abby agrees and the ensuing mischief is some of the funniest scenes in the movie, Abby and Colin make a trip to the ballgame and they end up on the jumbotron as she is cleaning an area of his pants best left to privacy. As Abby and Colin get closer Mike notices Abby for the person she can be and begins to take an interest in her. The two grow closer and when Abby tells Mike she and Colin are going to Lake Tahoe Mike knows he is not good enough for her. Mike gets a guest spot on the Late Late show and Stuart hears he is going to sign a contract with a rival program, he sends Abby along with Mike to try to get him to turn that offer down, the two spend some quiet time alone on the dance floor that leads to even more closer time in the elevator. When Abby gets to her hotel suite Colin's knocks on the door, he is hoping to spend some time with Abby alone, meanwhile Mike has worked himself up after the kiss in the elevator and decides he is going to tell Abby that he has fallen in love with her, when he knocks on the door, Colin answers it and Mike thinking that Abby and he have planned this decides to walk away, Abby follows Mike and offers to tell Colin to leave, Mike tells her that she doesn't have to do that.

Returning back to Sacramento Abby finds out from Stuart that Mike has quit and gone to another station, Abby tells Stuart that she will find a replacement for the show and finds one that she thinks will be perfect. Jack Magnum (Adam Harrington) turns out to be a bust and when Abby climbs into a hot air balloon to do the rest of the story she begins by saying that all men are just jerks, Mike is watching and gets upset and goes to tell her she is wrong, the two end up on the balloon as it is taking off, unaware that they are still on television and they argue about how they other has made them feel. Mike tells Abby that he loves her and Abby tells Mike that she has dumped Colin, this is one of the more sappiest make ups in picture history but the movie is so good that it doesn't matter.

Heigl and Butler play so well together that they seem as if they have been doing it for sometime, their slapstick is spot on and the jokes are as funny as most you would expect in a family movie. There is nothing vulgar or offensive in this movie, a little foul language but it's something that we have all heard before. Guys you wont be disappointed if you take your date to this movie and they will laugh right along with you.

I give The Ugly Truth a 3 and on my avoidance scale a 0, this is a movie aimed at the older viewer but most younger people will find it amusing, also Gerard Butler is very cute, but I for one can't wait to see him in another action role, he has the body meant for the scenes where his shirt gets torn away.

The Ugly Truth is rated R for Sexual Content and Language

Running time is 1 hr. 35 mins.

Blood...Just As Entertaining As Its Animated Counterpart

In Blood: The Last Vampire, Saya (Gianna Jun) boasts beauty-queen looks and samurai-level sword skills, and her talent as a vampire hunter is unrivaled. But Saya is herself half-vampire, thanks to her bloodsucking mother and human father. This live-action update of the anime favorite finds Saya on the hunt for Onigen (Koyuki), the mother of all vampires.

Blood: The Last Vampire is as good as any Hollywood movie, which is to say it’s got lousy visual effects and generic dialogue. Since we’re already forgiving that anyway, there’s enough engaging action to make it plenty fun and entertaining. Saya (Gianna) is half human, half vampire (though the movie says demon). Since she still looks like a teenager at 400 years old, she can go undercover as a schoolgirl on a military base. Taking place in Post WWII period, vampire hunter Saya is appointed to the local army base to infiltrate a school teeming with vampires under the guise of the living. Gianna Jun is a lion as the vicious but silent Saya who is given the task of being the only living being able to bring down vampires and demons for the US government and this taxes her to the degree where she finds she's (much to her surprise) pretty much outnumbered. If you've seen the original my description sounds pretty closely based on the original except that Saya is more closely characterized with intimate moments between she and her relatives and how she got her start working as a vampire hunter. When the general’s daughter Alice (Allison Miller) catches her chopping up school bullies, she unintentionally gets involved with Saya’s hunt for the evil Onigen. The film looks shiny and polished, so that compares favorably to the big blockbusters. There are unknown faces playing the familiar genre types and they are not as reliable. The crotchety general (Larry Lamb) really hams it up. Lamb can’t even play a bad parent believably. Generic guys in suits say lines that they’ve heard in other movies as exposition. Racist teen bitches are more The Hills than Mean Girls but it sure is fun to see them slaughtered. Giana is quick and strong, and silent, which equals badass as Saya. Who doesn’t like a kick-ass schoolgirl? Miller is actually quite good as the human sidekick. She has a Rachel McAdams quality and feels sincere and sympathetic, even though it’s the standard outsider discovering this magical realm with family issues role. 

The fights are relentless, which makes them cool even though the effects are bad. Fighting off a horde of vampires while protecting Alice simultaneously is cool multitasking. They utilize some familiar wire moves but throw in some clever kills. They use speed ramping or jump cutting to make Saya super fast, and since I can’t pinpoint the technique on my own, it sold me. The monsters are laughable, but the ideas are worth forgiving. A bat vamp chasing after a plane is much cooler than the Twilight vampire jumping on trees, which didn’t look any better anyway. They attempt a Spielberg sequence with a truck falling down a chasm. Good effort. Saya’s sword kick is a good signature move. Sometimes the villains just line up for a slaughter, but they still deliver good kills. All of the blood splatters are CGI, which look ridiculous. The benefit is that without having to worry about squibs, the choreographer could do whatever wild action he wanted. The downside is we have to look at fake blood sprays. That’s Hollywood though, so can’t blame the little guys if the big guys don’t do it any better. I may watch Blood: The Last Vampire again, despite its flaws. It had enough memorable action, and I’ve certainly praised movies with more exposition. Blood: The Last Vampire earns its keep by doing a lot with a little. As quickie exploitation films go, it fails to rise above decidedly lowered expectations, and anyone hoping for the second coming of Crouching Tiger is in for a big disappointment. The presence of a non-English director (Chris Nahon) does little to improve the less-than-stellar dialogue, and its special effects won't make anyone sit up and cheer. Yet it retains a certain inventiveness when blocking its copious action scenes, and succeeds in delivering some basic thrills in an energetic and quick-paced manner. We've reached the time of year when that's all that really matters. Blood: The Last Vampire works as a dual layered film that adapts the anime while expanding on the mythos of the original in spite of the paper thin plot. Newcomers need apply for this pretty raucous action horror. If anything watch it for the cool vamps and powerful performance from star Jun. Not GREAT, but good for what it is; highly entertaining. This gets a 3 on my "Go See" scale.

Manga Blood Makes The Last Vampire A Must See

Hollywood has given us their versions of many Foreign movies, some were great in it's original language, "Trust No One" was fantastic in French, "Let The Right One In" was superb in its original Swedish. Hollywood loves to either remake or to dupe Japanese movies and release them in America. Few of these hold it's original tension or beauty. The latest Foreign movie to get an American flavor is "Blood: The Last Vampire" a story of blood lust and revenge, a story of Vampires and their power to destroy and their lust for blood.

On the surface, Saya (Gianna Jun) is a stunning 16-year-old, but that youthful exterior hides the tormented soul of a 400-year-old half human half vampire, her sworn duty is to revenge her grand-father's murder at the hand of the vile creature she calls Onigen (Koyuki). Saya tracks down and kills the bottom feeders as they travel throughout the city, she wields her sword and kills these creature before they can turn into the creatures that their human form hides. Saya works for a mysterious Government Agency that supplies her with bottles of blood, so she won't have to hunt humans for her own energy source.

After tracking and killing such a creature Saya is told that a nearby military base is being used for a food source by vampires and that she is going to be placed into the bases school to try to find and destroy these creatures. Her first day at school is like every males idea of a Japanese school girl, she shows up in a short skirt knee high socks and a pixie look with pigtails. Using her superhuman strength and her sword, she begins to rid the base of its evil infestation in a series of spectacular and elaborate showdowns between her and these creatures. Making friends is hard for her, she doesn't want to trust anyone, but when she saves the life of Alice Mckee (Allison Miller) she is sworn to now protect this girl. Alice wants to help rid the base of these creatures, she has influence of course because her father is the bases commanding officer.

When Saya and Onigen have their fated run in, Saya is saddened to find out that the connection between the two is blood deep, it isn't just Saya's need for revenge that is developed here, it is a close bond that Saya must except before she is able to slay Onigen. The battle sequence looks more like a dream state than reality, Alice tries to help Saya, but is unable to, this is a fight only Saya can win, the blood lust is given into and Saya is able to emerge victorious.

The martial arts action is something the movie has in abundance, the plot is weak but is saved by the action that most of this manga's fan will love. The plot line moves right along so hold on tight, Blood has a lot to tell in a short time, this is one movie that doesn't slow down to take a deep breath. It goes and never stops until the credits roll. To make up for the lack of martial arts training of the movies stars, director Chris Nahon decided to spice things up a bit through extremely fast cuts, close ups, and a dash of time-lapse or slow motion here and there. Stylistically it may look gorgeous, but you become well aware that these were employed to mask short-comings in the action sequences, and this alone may be the one thing you remember, after all fans of this type of movie have seen it all before.

I give Blood: The Last Vampire a 3 and on my avoidance scale a 0, this is the movie that you can escape to and not regret it, it has action breaking out of the seams, plus it has plot and is plenty graphic. This is a movie that younger teens will enjoy as well as fanboys.

Blood: The Last Vampire is rated R for Strong Bloody Stylized Violence Running time is 1 hr. 29 mins.

Big Dollars Control This Food Inc.

One way the smaller movie company tries to compete with their big brother type studio is to release a documentary, some of these are fascinating while others are meant to wake the viewer up. One such documentary is "Food, Inc." this movie is not just meant to wake you up, but enlighten you to just what it is you are eating today. Food, Inc. is an unflattering look inside America's corporate controlled food industry, the giants that run this number one money making industry don't want the people that they supple a product for, to get inside and see for themselves just what kind of conditions the product is prepared under.

Food, Inc., directed by Robert Kenner, gives America the chance to see just how their dinner is prepared, packaged and delivered to their grocery store. Kenner is an advocate for greater food safety and the film with commentary by Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma). Attempts to convince the public of the shortsightedness of the mega-corporations that dominate the food industry and their method of increasing profits often at the expense of public safety. Representatives from food-producing giants such as Monsanto, Smithfield, Tyson and Perdue that control our food supply were invited to be interviewed for the film but declined.

Interviewing farmers and ranchers, Kenner learned that they are mostly at the mercy of mega-corporations like Monsanto which have increased their share of the soybean market from 2% to 98% in the last decade. Monsanto developed and patented their own custom gene for soybeans and now threaten their customers with lawsuits for patent infringement if they save their own seeds to use the next year. The film observes that part of the reason why the food industry is so hard to regulate is that many of the government officials currently assigned to watchdog roles were once employed by the companies they now monitor and notes that FDA food inspections have plummeted from 50,000 in 1972 to 9,200 in 2006. Other subjects covered are the treatment of cows that are forced to eat corn instead of grass, and this diet of corn causes the cows to become infected with the E. Coli bacteria. The dreadful conditions of chickens that are kept in darkened houses (pens) designed to raise them, this has helped to develop chickens that grow bigger, faster and with more breast meat, before they are slaughtered. On that subject, Kenner interviews Carole Morrison who was unwilling to jam her chickens into these house without any sunlight and, as a result, had her contract canceled by a giant chicken conglomerate (Perdue) who refused to have any further business dealings with her. Also discussed are the growing rates of diabetes in young people, the soaring incidence of obesity, and the use of low paying illegal immigrants to work in the food processing industry.

In spite of the horror stories, however, Food, Inc. is not depressing and Kenner seems more interested in educating the public than frightening them. He shows that people can make a difference, he mentions the strangle hold the tobacco industry once had, as well as the efforts of an entrepreneur from Stonyfield Farms who sold his line of organic products to Wal-Mart and a Virginia farmer who insists on raising animals with dignity and respect.

It's hard to keep a balance in such a documentary, the story of one Hispanic family is important, everyday people must make choices of eating healthy or just eating. The one voice that will stick with me the longest is Barbara Kowalcyk, who works in Washington with her mother as an advocate for stricter laws. Her 2 1/2-year-old son Kevin died in 12 days from a virulent form of E. Coli after eating a hamburger while the family was on vacation. She doesn't want your sympathy, she is looking for a means to control an indifferent industry.

Seeing these big food conglomerates penning up animals hoof deep in their own excrement, chickens packed to the point of suffocation and force fed vitamins and antibiotics so they can be slaughtered in a shorter period of time will continue to stay with me, the one point I hope everyone takes from this film is why does my hamburger need to be mixed with Clorox to be safe for me to eat it?

I give Food, Inc. a 3 and on my avoidance scale I give it a 0, this is something that everyone should be talking about, see this movie and then demand that your elected officials make some hard laws for these companies to live up to, it's not just your health at risk, but theirs as well. We must make these companies conform to a higher standard in the preparation of our food.

Food, Inc. is rated PG for some Thematic Material and Disturbing Images

Running time is 1 hr. 34 mins.

See The World In A New Way With Adam

Romance can be risky, perplexing and filled with the perils of miscommunication -- and that's if you aren't Adam, for whom life itself is this way. In this heartfelt romantic comedy, Hugh Dancy stars as Adam, a handsome but intriguing young man who has all his life led a sheltered existence - until he meets his new neighbor, Beth (Rose Byrne), a beautiful, cosmopolitan young woman who pulls him into the outside world, with funny, touching and entirely unexpected results. Their implausible and enigmatic relationship reveals just how far two people from different realities can stretch in search of an extraordinary connection.

Adam has a very specific way of living. He has his clothes lined out and he eats the same meal all the time. He follows a very specific pattern which is threatened after the death of his father. Specifically, Adam has Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of high functioning autism that makes his ability to connect with others nearly impossible. And once a new neighbor named Beth arrives, she begins to see Adam as someone unique and possibly even attractive. As the two continue to see each other, a romance begins, yet one that is a little more difficult than your average rom-com. Romantic comedies are like any other genre. There is a formula to follow and everything that follows fits exactly where it should. Yes, they can be a little more challenging or sometimes as far from it as you can get, but they generally have the same recipe. With Adam, the specific guidelines are followed pretty closely as a woman falls in love with an unusual man, but somehow the two grow to love each other. Yet what makes Adam unique is the fact that the title character has Aspergers Syndrome. It is a form of autism that can leave those diagnosed severely troubled when it comes to social situations, among other issues that come with the diagnosis. There are no two people with Aspergers that are alike, and therefore, they are very unique in whatever else comes with the disorder. With Adam (Dancy), he has an obsessive love for the universe and all the stars and planets that light up the nighttime sky. He eats the same meal and wears the same type of outfit, and with his father’s help, he has managed to find a job where he helps design toys. This is an absolutely unlikely romantic lead as he is scarcely able to understand society, and why what they say is almost always different than what they mean. Up until now, he always had his father to take care of him, but after his father’s death, he is left alone. That is, until a new girl moves into the building and shows interest in her quirky neighbor. The girl, Beth Buchwald (Rose Byrne) finds Adam’s behavior a bit odd, yet still seems to notice a sweet natured human being underneath it all. What is utterly refreshing is that most films use the “special needs” character as either a joke or a way to grab the audiences sympathy, Adam uses it to make a surprisingly touching love story. Both he and Beth are given some very human dilemma’s as they try to co-exist with each other. While the young man can barely give you a hello without really thinking about it, he can surely tell you everything you need to know (and much more) about the universe. And Beth, a teacher who has a patient and nurturing soul is both intrigued by him and possibly even in love with him. But sometimes, she is completely in the dark about who he is. 

Now, Adam is not a perfect film by all means. The biggest problem I had is a sad one indeed. As much as I was thrilled to see Amy Irving on the back on the big screen as Beth’s mother, I felt that the SAY ANYTHING… relationship between Beth and her parents was unnecessary and took a little bit of the heart away for my liking. Her father played by Peter Gallagher is the guy who may or may not be doing something illegal in the company he works for, but he also feels that Adam is certainly no match for his lovely daughter. After all, this is Adam’s story and the focus needed to remain on him and the challenge he and Beth faced trying to keep a blossoming romance. Again, that really is the life blood that flows within the film. It is touching and sincere and it may even frustrate audiences at the difficulty of these two just being together. I found a lot to like in Adam. While the film does have a few flaws with where the story goes, it is a brave new world to see a love story that presents a bigger challenge then infidelity or selfishness or whatever. There is a warm and charming tone that is brought to life by writer/director Max Mayer, but the key really lies with the strong and beautiful performances. Add to that a very sweet and fitting collection of songs that are used incredibly well throughout the film. They are eclectic and sweet, yet not overtly so, in fact, the soundtrack is much like the quirky romance it inhabits, just plain warm and charismatic. Adam is a sweet lil movie that is a definite must see. 4 on my "Go See" scale.

When Your This Adam Love Can Be Hard To Understand

Hollywood has a habit to over explain situations or diseases to the viewing audience, sometimes it's important and sometimes, well it makes sense only to be used as an plot explanation of sorts. Take "Adam" for example, there is a character in the movie whose sole purpose for being there, is to explain what it is that is wrong with one of the main characters in the movie, and of course they just happen to have a book that deals with this infliction handy. After this one scene that character is never seen or mentioned again, once their role is finished the story moves on. This little tendency of most Hollywood studio's usually ruins a movie for me, but Adam is such a well acted movie, that I can overlook what must be the studios fear that I won't like the movie if I don't understand what it is Adam is dealing with.

Adam Raki (Hugh Dancy) is a single man dealing with Asperger's Syndrome, a form of Autism that is characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. Adam's father has just passed away and his life seems to crash around him, his everyday simple chores are written out for him so he won't forget to do them. One day he meets the new tenant, Beth Buchwald (Rose Byrne) who has just ended a bad relationship and wants away from everything that would remind her . When she meets Adam she at first seems at a loss for his behaviour, she is of course unaware of what it is Adam is dealing with.

Adam has a very close friend, Harlan (Frankie Faison), who was in the service with Adam's father and knows how to help Adam when he is having a bad time. One such case is when the fathers will is being read, Adam, who helped designs toys has just been fired, and with no income the lawyer suggests Adam sell his apartment, being the only home Adam has ever known he of course freaks out at the idea of selling. So Harlan tells Adam he has to get a job, and along with the help of Beth, who by now Adam has befriended, he studies for the interview process, and when the friendship between the two turn into a more serious relationship it is Beth's father, Marty Buchwald (Peter Gallagher) who has the biggest problem with it. Marty is under investigation because he has hidden a few things for a client and the FCC has found out, Beth is in shock, she was under the assumption that her daddy was above reproach.

When Adam meets Marty he doesn't fully understand that when he asks if Marty will be going to jail, that the question is inappropriate and Beth gets mad at him. Adam doesn't really understand what it is he has done wrong, Beth leaves Adam alone on the sidewalk, a few days later Beth brings him a box of chocolates and Adam says "I'm not Forrest Gump you know". When the day comes for the trial to start both Beth and Rebecca Buchwald (Amy Irving) are in the court room, when Marty admits to having an affair with the daughter of the client he is being investigated for, the news shocks Beth. She refuses to go back in the court room and when Rebecca calls looking for Beth Adam answers, finding a book with some notes in it that the dinner where Adam met her family was staged Adam gets upset that Beth lied to him, and starts to throw things.

Adams actions scare Beth so bad that she agrees to go home with her parents, the trial is over and Marty has been sentenced, Harlan tells Adam not to make a mistake, at least talk to Beth give her a chance, Adam goes to where Beth is to ask her to go to California with him, one of the jobs he applied for panned out and he was offered a job. Standard Hollywood cliche would have Beth and Adam living happily ever after, but here director Max Mayer throws a little bit of the unexpected at the viewers. This only increases the likability of this picture. Hugh Dancy should be applauded for his efforts to bring Adam to life, all his tendencies and action seem real and not faked, that is a hard thing to pull off, usually only dedicated actors are willing to make that much effort.

I give Adam a 3 and on my avoidance scale a 0, this is a touching movie that unlike My Sisters Keeper, won't make you cry. You will enjoy watching as Adam grows before your eyes and you will cheer for his every success. Adam is touching and funny, it will make you care about what happens and you will share his every disappointment with him, and rejoice as he finally obtains the one element he is at home in.

Adam is rated PG-13 for Thematic Material, Sexual Content and Language

Running time is 1 hr. 37 mins.

A Very Serious Side To Funny People

In Funny People, George (Adam Sandler) is a very successful stand up comedian who learns that he has an untreatable blood disorder and is given less than a year to live. Ira (Seth Rogen) is a struggling up-and-coming stand up comedian who works at a deli and has yet to figure out his onstage persona. One night, these two perform at the same club and George takes notice of Ira. George hires Ira to be his semi-personal assistant as well as his friend.

Over the past few years, writer/director Judd Apatow has shown that nothing, not even losing your virginity or the miracle of childbirth is sacred. About his third film behind the camera, he says, "I'm trying to make a very serious movie that is twice as funny as my other movies. Wish me luck!" Apatow directs Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen and Leslie Mann in Funny People, the story of a famous comedian who has a near-death experience. Funny People is about individuals -- mostly young, physically unprepossessing, Jewish, horndoggy guys -- who try to make a living being funny. The film is outstanding at observing the interplay and competitiveness among three roommates: Leo (Jonah Hill), a tubby and belligerent performer and writer; Mark (Jason Schwartzman), the painfully self-serious star of a lame TV comedy; and Ira (a now entirely slimmed-down Seth Rogen), an aspiring standup whose life and career take major turns when he starts writing material for George. Like their mostly below-the-belt stage monologues, the guys' conversation is largely rude and crude. Ira, who takes no end of abuse from George about the fact that he changed his last name from Weiner, never gets anyone in the sack and becomes irate when an offbeat scenester girl he likes, Daisy (Aubrey Plaza), casually gets it on with Mark. George lives in an extraordinary mansion above the Pacific and invites Ira into his life up to a point. Frank about the perks of stardom where women are concerned, he is similarly blunt about other aspects of his life. "I used to be excited," he confesses, a mountain of unread scripts piled on his countertop, later adding that someone like him has plenty of people to hang out with but no real friends. The picture bobs along very nicely for 85 minutes or so, engaging smiles and interest with its behind-the-scenes looks at the comedy club culture, the bull sessions that produce new material, the way comics test themselves and each other, their sensitivities and jealousies. When George gets some unexpectedly positive medical news, he celebrates with pals at the Palm, occasioning some amusing cameos from Paul Reiser, Sarah Silverman, Ray Romano and Eminem, among others. But there's still nearly an hour to go, most of which leaves the L.A. comedy scene behind in favor of the Marin County manse of George's old flame Laura (Leslie Mann), a former starlet now married with two daughters. In San Francisco for a shared gig with Ira, George allows what was intended as a social call to develop into something more and ultimately becomes embroiled not only with Laura's daughters (Apatow and Mann's very cute lil girls, Maude and Iris) but with her volatile Australian husband, Clarke (Eric Bana). While it has its moments, this long latter stretch drains the picture of what little momentum it had and switches the focus to Laura and her own marital problems, which are annoying and not entirely convincing. Beset with persistent disappointment over a thwarted career while living in paradise with lovely kids and a hunky, if errant, mate, she's just not an interesting or even very tolerable character, her behavior stemming entirely from confusion, panic and emotional impulse. Mann hits all the surface notes, but never reveals anything beneath the manic surface.

While the film ends up as a grab bag of impressions rather than a fully realized work, there's plenty to savor, beginning with Sandler's performance. Pic opens with some homemade videos Apatow took of his former roommate making prank calls when they were both aspiring unknowns, and samplings of Sandler's subsequent early standup work and parodies of the star's lowbrow comedies both honor and poke fun at the performer's achievements. But the many insights into everything from the man's arrogance to his self-derision make you feel you're getting something real here, and Sandler's gruff, offhand manner combines with his comic alertness to very good effect. Playing a frustrated fellow who never knows if his boss is going to praise him or bite his head off, Rogen makes for a fine foil in a performance that, like most of the film, avoids easy shtick. The comic thesps are completely at home in the milieu, while the generally hidden Australian in Bana is exuberantly unleashed here. Judd Apatow's previous movies have been laugh out loud funny. I'm not saying that this isn't, but it has the right balance of hilarity as well as character driven drama. Sandler is known for his over the top comedy, but he has done very few dramatic roles and here he seems to fit right at home almost seemingly playing himself in Funny People. Amusing and engaging yet lacking in snap and cohesion, this insider's look at the world of standup comics in contempo Los Angeles rings true in its view of the variously warped, stunted and narrow lives of its mostly male denizens. Adam Sandler's central performance as some version of himself is notable for its revelation of callowness and ambivalent self-regard, which will fascinate some fans and turn off others. Curiosity should spur a healthy opening, with likely widely divergent reactions suggesting questionable staying power. Although Apatow's name seems to have been on the majority of the comedies made in the past four years, Universal is pushing the auteur angle by stressing that this is just his third film as a director. After the raunchy antics of "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up," he's gone half-serious here, serving up Sandler's fictional equivalent, George Simmons, as a 40ish comic superstar who learns he has a rare and possibly fatal disease. The good thing about Apatow is that he continues to demonstrate that as a genre comedy can deal with the most serious and sacred taboos in society, such as middle-aged male virginity ("40-Year-Old Virgin") unwanted pregnancy from a female POV ("Knocked-Up"), and now the traumatic experience of illness and death (or near-death) and their impact on changing lives in radical mode. It's the execution, or putting these ideas to practice in film that is comedic in format, which is problematic. At the end of this overlong picture, which gets disappointingly and increasingly more sentimental, we are left with the questions of was the director too close to his material, too enamored of the jokes to cut some of them out, too interested in writing a substantial part for his wife, whose sequences are the weakest, and the least funny in the picture. Funny People strikes me as a movie that was more fun to make, due to the improvs and chemistry between top-notch actors (all eccentric), than to watch as spectators. It's a movie in which the process must have been more interesting than the end result. This gets a 3 on my "Go See" scale.

Sandler Takes An Intense And Serious Look At Funny People

Judd Apatow has become the King Midas of Hollywood, any project he puts his hands on becomes a huge hit, like magic. He has Given us a 40 Year Old Virgin, a Knocked Up obsessed television personality, and now he has sets his sights on standup comedy. In "Funny People" Apatow brings us an inside look at just the sort of life our super stars of entertainment really have.

George Simmons (Adam Sandler) learns he has a terminal, inoperable health condition, and takes a closer look at his life, he has all the money he will ever need, he has so many staff members working at his house he hardly notices them, nor do they pay much attention to him. George realizes that he is missing two very important things, the one woman he has loved his entire life, Laura (Leslie Mann) and a best friend. One night George decides to go back to a comedy club, he wants to get back to his roots, he wants to do more standup instead of the mindless movies his agent has gotten for him. When he gets on stage his routine is so dark and different that no one applauds and when he leaves the stage the next comedian goes up. Ira Wright (Seth Rogen) is an aspiring comedian and his standup is a little awkward to say the least, George listens to a little of his routine and then leaves, when Ira is leaving the club, George is in the parking lot, and tells Ira that his act was funny. The next day while Ira is at his apartment - one that he shares with two friends, Mark Taylor Jackson (Jason Schwartzman) and Leo (Jonah Hill) - George calls and offers him a job writing some jokes for him for a standup act that myspace has hired George to do. Ira accepts right away, but doesn't share the news that George has also offered the job to Leo, his chubby friend.

After the standup act George offers Ira a regular job as his assistant for fifteen hundred dollars a week, as a struggling performer Ira gladly accepts this as well. What he doesn't understand at first is that George expects him to be his best friend as well as his assistant. George is cool to work for at first, but when things for George don't go as he wants George gets cranky and takes it out on Ira. George does give Ira a chance at more standup, Ira opens for George as well as writes most of his jokes. Mark meanwhile is getting famous in his own right, he has a hit show "Yo Teach" and no one understands why, it is really a dumb show, but it's doing so well that Mark is able to get Leo a job on the show. When Leo finds out that George wanted him to write his jokes as well as Ira, their friendship is strained to the breaking point. George finds out from his doctor, Dr. Lars (Torsten Voge) that some of the experimental medicine from Canada he had been taking has set his disease in remission.

George decides to contact Laura and tell her about his fight, the two meet and she invites both George and Ira to her home for dinner, when they arrive Laura introduces them to her two daughters, Ingrid (Iris Apatow) and Mable (Maude Apatow), these two girls are so cute they steal every scene they are in. When Laura tells George she is tired of her husbands lies you know bad things are coming. Clarke (Eric Bana) travels to China so often that he is seldom at home and has had more than one affair, so it is inevitable that Laura and George will end up in bed again, and when it does happen, Laura decides she has had enough of Clarke and his lies. She decides she is going to confront him and tell him not to come home, Ira tries to stop her, more afraid to be killed then the fact Laura may be making a mistake, what Ira does, convinces Clarke something is going on with Laura and George more than anything else. The two men confront each other and Clarke at first is rather mad and beats George up. He does calm down and decides that he can't take his anger out on anyone else, he can only be mad at himself. George is of course mad at Ira for getting involved and fires him. Ira returns to the job he had before his shot at stardom, and George visits him one day and offers him some jokes he wrote.

Funny people is a more sober look at comedy by one of the new superstar directors, this is also the first time Sandler played straight to another mans goofiness and it works. The jokes are kind of raunchy but tasteful, the many cameos are by some of today's funniest people, along with some music stars. Its hard to find any major faults in this movie, so I won't try. It is funny and sad, but as tasteful as grown men talking about farts and penises can be. Don't let this stop you from going to see some of the brightest comedians in one film, Funny People is funny stuff.

I give Funny People a 3 and on my avoidance scale a 0, this is a movie that you can enjoy with your friends or with your family, there is no nudity and the jokes are not of the Bruno type. So enjoy this movie it showcases talents old and new. It also gives us a look at how hearing bad news effects people, George decides that he wants to amend his past mistakes, the sad thing is that he only does this after he thinks he is dying.

Funny People is rated R for Language, and Crude Sexual Humor Throughout and Some Sexuality

Running time is 1 hr. 56 mins.

Get Blown Away By A Powerful Story (Hurt Locker)

The Hurt Locker is a riveting, suspenseful portrait of the courage under fire of the military’s most unrecognized heroes: the technicians of the bomb squad, who volunteer to challenge the odds and save lives in one of the world’s most dangerous places. Three members of the Army’s elite Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) squad battle insurgents and each other as they seek out and disarm a wave of roadside bombs on the streets of Baghdad -- in order to try and make the city a safer place for Iraqis and Americans alike. Their mission is clear - protect and save - but it’s anything but easy, for the margin of error on a war-zone bomb is zero. A thrilling and heart-thumping look at the effects of combat and danger on the human psyche, The Hurt Lockeris based on the first-hand observations of journalist and screenwriter Mark Boal, who was embedded with a special bomb unit in Iraq.

War may be hell, but watching war movies can also be hell, especially when they don't get to the point. Often gripping at a straight thriller level, but increasingly weakened by its fuzzy (and hardly original) psychology, Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker, centered on an elite U.S. bomb squad in Baghdad, doesn't bring anything new to the table of grunts-in-the-firing-line movies. Modest biz looks likeliest. The major problem with the script by journalist Mark Boal, who was embedded with a bomb squad in Baghdad four years ago, is that it's unclear where the drama in "Locker" really lies. It's emphatically not a "cut the red wire!" countdown thriller -- these guys get by on old-fashioned guts and instinct rather than sissy hardware -- but it's not a pure men-under-stress drama either. In fact, Boal's script stirs a little of everything into the pot, which boils down into seven setpieces divided by brief intervals of camaraderie/conflict among the three protags. Three of the setpieces don't even involve defusing bombs, and are basically there to broaden the action and deepen the characters. But whether it's the adrenaline rush, a death wish, macho posturing or just "doin' a job" that drives these men is little clearer by the end than it is at the beginning. After an opening quotation that "war is a drug," pic jumps straight into the action as an Explosive Ordinance Disposal team, led by iron-jawed Sgt. Matt Thompson (Guy Pearce), is called in to examine a suspicious pile of rubble. When the robotic hardware goes on the fritz, Thompson "suits up" in protective clothing and does the job by hand -- recklessly, as it proves. Attention-grabbing opening reel -- with handheld, slightly grainy lensing, nervous cutting and one sound effect that will test any theater's woofers -- sets the tone, and much of the content, of the next two hours. When Staff Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) arrives to take Thompson's place as head of the three-man unit, it's clear he's even more of a cowboy than his predecessor. Conflict between him and his deputy, by-the-book Sgt. J.T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), comes to a head early on. Meanwhile, cornball Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty), is taking voluntary counseling with a Bravo Company colonel, Cambridge (Christian Camargo). Unlike many men-in-war movies, "Locker" concentrates on a small number of characters that are clearly identifiable from the start. Even in the setpieces involving considerable military backup, the dramatic focus is kept tight on the three protags. Especially in their first two assignments, this works very well, with James the guy on the ground while Sanborn rat-a-tats orders as he and Eldridge scan the surrounding buildings for snipers or trigger men.

It's when the movie starts to fan out at the 45-minute mark -- with a developing friendship between James and a jive-talkin' Arab kid, "Beckham" (Christopher Sayegh) -- that the script starts to show signs of artificially straining for character depth. As the end of Bravo Company's rotation approaches, James threatens to go off the rails in some highly manufactured (and not especially enlightening) ways. Flip-flop final reel is limp. After a couple wobbly entries, it's good to see Bigelow again flexing her gift for sheer physicality. Even when the men are mouthing commonplace dialogue or male-bonding cliches, there's a real feel for them on a flesh-and-blood level. Helmer's ability to create a sense of ever-present menace, seen in her early pictures, pumps up scenes in which the trio is silently "observed" by hostile/curious Arab bystanders. Film steers clear of questioning the U.S. presence in Iraq and, with a couple brief exceptions, treats its entire Arab cast as either faceless cannon fodder or potential threats. This may sit uneasily with some viewers, even though it's clear early on that this is more a dramatic choice than a political one. Renner is fine as James, especially in his freewheeling early scenes played off against his suspicious colleagues. It's basically Renner's film: Mackie and Geraghty are just OK, and other roles are bits. Ralph Fiennes pops up briefly as a Brit mercenary, and David Morse contributes a memorable thumbnail of a complete military psychopath. This was a powerful story, no doubt. With a few scenes that were a little hard for me to sit through. The story and intensity grabs a hold of you and doesn't let go and for me that was a bit too much. With that said, this gets a 3 on my "Go See" scale.

Bigelow's Trip To The Hurt Locker Is A Taut Experience

Many directors in Hollywood today have tried to give us gripping movies about mans ability to destroy each other and mans ability to put themselves in harms way to protect others. The sad thing is that many of these movies are just not good. Now Kathryn Bigelow brings us a movie about the occupation of United States Forces in Iraq. "The Hurt Locker" based on the writings of Journalist Mark Boal who embedded himself amongst a troop of EOD soldiers. The film is about a bomb disposal expert, Staff Sgt. William James that depends on character, dialogue and situation to develop almost unbearable suspense. It contains a few explosions, though the suspense comes in hoping that no explosions will occur.

Staff Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) is the newest hot shot in Bravo Company, their last commanding officer, Sergeant Matt Thompson (Guy Pearce) has just gotten himself blown up, the other two members of this team are Sergeant JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty). Staff Sgt. James has defused over 800 IED's and considers himself above danger. Bigelow stays away from being drawn into showcasing the people of Iraq's story, she does give us their story, but on the periphery of the main story. Hurt Locker is told from the perspective of the three Bravo Company troopers, day after day we are given a more indepth look at what it is that drives Staff Sgt. James, deep down inside he is just as afraid as the next man is, he is just addicted to the rush of the moment.

Time after time Staff Sgt. James puts his fellow troop members in harms way, he refuses to acknowledge Sergeant Sanborn's repeated radio calls, he places not only himself but Specialist Eldridge in the line of fire, time after time. Specialist Eldridge fears that each day will be his last. he visits a camp councilor after every outing. The men find IED's on the side of the road, in cars, in building and even in a dead body. Staff Sgt. James thinks he knows the kid whose body they have used to place this bomb, and one night he forces one of the bases merchants to drive him to the home of the young child. James walks back to the base when he is forced to leave the house he had journeyed to. While out on tour one afternoon the three men come across a group of men in the road with weapons, not sure if they are friendlies or combatants they approach with caution. When they find out that they are basically American mercenaries out to capture America's Most Wanted fugitives the men begin a friendship that is short lived. The contractor team leader (Ralph Fiennes) is one of the men killed by a sniper in an ambush.

After this incident the three men become closer as friends, and one night while they are out looking at a suicide bomb site Staff Sgt. James tells the others that he is tired of these insurgents just blowing things up and getting away with it, he tells Sanborn and Eldridge that they are going to hunt them down and get rid of them once and for all. During the hunt Eldridge is captured and wounded, he is rescued by Sanborn and James but his days In Country are over. The day comes when Staff Sgt. James tour is over and he goes home, but as they said war is a drug, and all he can talk about at home is one adventure after the other, his wife listens with patients because she has been through this before. Staff Sgt. James is lost at home he has that far away look in his eyes, and he can't even decide what he wants to eat when he has a choice. He has gotten so used to taking whats there.

The ending of this movie is very touching, Staff Sgt. James goes back, the call of danger is greater than his call to his family. He is addicted to the rush, to the adventure, to the danger. This is a very touching movie and is pretty close to realistic as it can get. There were a few things that just wouldn't have happened, but they are to few to ruin this almost perfect movie. Any one who has done a tour over there, will notice these right away, most IED's were blown up in the ground not disarmed, also why would the troopers leave the little protection of the HUMVEE to stand outside and make targets of themselves for the snipers. If these little things are the only things wrong with this movie I for one say Bravo to Kathryn Bigelow for taking the chance she took in order to make this movie.

I give The Hurt Locker a 3 and on my avoidance scale I give it a 0, anyone who has family or friends who are currently serving their Country, should go see this movie. Heck everyone should see this movie. It is captivating and emotional, it will make you cry and cheer, you feel the tension of the moment and that is hard to do on film, even when you have great stars, Kathryn Bigelow does it with relatively unknowns and again I say BRAVO.

The Hurt Locker is rated R for War Violence and Language

Running time is 2 hrs. 10 min.

The Chosen One Prepares For Battle

In Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Voldemort is tightening his grip on both the Muggle and wizarding worlds and Hogwarts is no longer the safe haven it once was. Harry (Daniel Radcliffe)  suspects that dangers may even lie within the castle, but Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) is more intent upon preparing him for the final battle that he knows is fast approaching. Together they work to find the key to unlock Voldemort’s defenses and, to this end, Dumbledore recruits his old friend and colleague, the well-connected and unsuspecting bon vivant Professor Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent), whom he believes holds crucial information. Meanwhile, the students are under attack from a very different adversary as teenage hormones rage across the ramparts. Harry finds himself more and more drawn to Ginny (Bonnie Wright), but so is Dean Thomas (Alfie Enoch). And Lavender Brown (Jessie cave) has decided that Ron is the one for her, only she hadn't counted on Romilda Vane's (Anna Shaffer) chocolates! And then there's Hermione (Emma Watson), simpering with jealously but determined not to show her feelings. As romance blossoms, one student remains aloof. He is determined to make his mark, albeit a dark one. Love is in the air, but tragedy lies ahead and Hogwarts may never be the same again.

Let's just get this out of the way: there will never be a great film based on a Harry Potter books. The series by J.K. Rowling is too dense with characters, packed with references, suffused with a bookishness that no amount of CGI can replicate. Once we realize this, and accept that the increasingly enjoyable series of Harry Potter movies will never reach the rousing heights of the source material, going into the latest wizarding adventure gets a lot more pleasant. And Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, despite a few narrative threads and character arcs left dangling in the transfer, is by far one of the best of the series, and absolutely the funniest and most human. The last film that will be set largely at Hogwarts, Half-Blood Prince leaves room for its characters and the world they inhabit to breathe, returning to things like Quidditch and Christmas parties and the "frivolous" things that makes Rowling's writing such a joy. Aided by some stellar supporting players, including the tremendous Jim Broadbent as bombastic new professor Horace Slughorn, the film earns big laughs where earlier films felt more morose than magical. It's not a light film by any means, but Half-Blood Prince feels less hellbent on plot development, and therefore a lot more fun. Harry Potter (Radcliffe) is in his sixth year at Hogwarts, a year in which a war of wizards is raging around him - a war in which he must eventually either win or die.  Harry is convinced, as ever, that nemesis Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) is up to no good. But this time he's right-- Malfoy has been given a mysterious directive from Voldemort himself, and Professor Snape (Alan Rickman) has vowed to help him. As Malfoy completes a mysterious task in a hidden corner of the castle, Dumbledore (Gambon) takes it upon himself to show Harry an incomplete history of ex Hogwart student then known as Tom Riddle and in doing so discloses the secret to the Dark Lord's immortality. On the other hand, there are equally important things to consider, like Hermione's growing feelings for the dopey Ron, who has gotten caught up in a lovey-dovey relationship with Lavender Brown. Harry, for his part, can't stop staring at Ron's little sister Ginny. Evanna Lynch is also back as the wondrous space cadet Luna Lovegood, and Freddie Stroma is funny as the egomaniacal Cormac McLaggen, a challenger for Ron's spot on the Quidditch team and for Hermione's affections. Meanwhile, Harry has discovered a battered potions textbook, filled with the notes of a wizard calling himself the 'Half-Blood Prince'. Against Hermione's (Watson) warnings, he begins to rely on the book, and the spells in it... The war goes on as Dumbledore and Harry make a journey to try and find a way to stop the Dark Lord; but the battle explodes onto the home front with tragic results. The beginning of the end has come. The book boasted very little action, and a new scene is stupidly added midway through the movie as a replacement for a climactic final battle that is cut entirely. But the book's best and most terrifying scene, in which Harry and Dumbledore explore a cave that holds one of Voldemort's treasures, is executed perfectly. Dumbledore has previously always been an aloof and benevolent figure, beloved but distant, but when he and Harry embark on their multiple adventures, he becomes much more like a partner. Packed as it is with Quidditch and Christmas parties and the occasional dark magic, Half-Blood Prince does manage to drag in parts, mostly the serious ones in which plot development apparently requires long pauses to become clear. But the comic scenes are so light and enjoyable in contrast that the pace keeps up despite itself. For the most part all the cuts made from the book are good ones, trimming the fat and such, but the presence of characters like Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter) at the end doesn't make any sense with the final battle missing.

This 6th instalment of the Harry Potter franchise is dark and brooding while the intricate detail of this fantasy world is as extraordinary as ever. Memories and dark magic make up the mainstay of the story, while infatuation and love's keen sting leaves its mark both sweetly and comically. However, the film is definitely not for young kids with its dark themes and complex plots. In many ways, it is as though the latest adventure is intended for an older audience: the fans that have grown up alongside Harry, Ron and Hermione. It needs patience to keep abreast of the complicated storyline (and the 153 minute running time) and at times I wondered whether we really need yet another game of Quidditch. But the film, under the directing wizard wand of David Yates looks fabulous with superb production design, wondrous visual effects and moody lighting. There is less differentiation between the real world and that of Hogwarts this time, and screenwriter Steve Kloves, who wrote five of the six screenplays, deftly marries the realities with the ease that the characters flit from one to the other. We are reminded of Hogwarts' defining dining hall with its distinguishing floating candles, the photo frames with the images that move within as well as the familiar characters, like Michael Gambon's Dumbledore and Alan Rickman's memorable Professor Severus Snape, who seems to spit out his words as if they are snakes. Jim Broadbent's Professor Horace Slughorn (who we first meet disguised as an armchair) is marvellous as the new potions teacher: Broadbent allows his facial expressions to convey boyish enthusiasm and worldly despair all at once. Helena Bonham Carter is a knockout as the wild-haired Bellatrix Lestrange, who is very strange indeed. Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson have grown with their roles and here, each of their characters suffers the pangs of infatuation. The scene when Harry and Ron are sharing confidences as they lie in bed at night, is quite endearing (as though it is girls' skin that is the first thing infatuated teens notice about an attractive girl). Hermione is smitten by Ron, but of course Ron has eyes for Lavender (Cave), and Harry has a thing for Ron's sister Ginny (Wright)... Ah the games of love. There are more serious things however, when Snape takes an unbreakable vow to protect Tom Felton's Malfoy. Harry is given greater responsibility by Dumbledore and the scene involving water, fire and skeletons is the film's most spectacular. Less spectacular is the ending, which will disappoint many. It would be difficult for anyone new to the Potter film series to keep up with everything, but for the die-hard fans, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince will no doubt be a princely addition. As a Potter fan it's easy to nitpick-- Snape's final scene is a letdown, Ginny is turned into a total snore-- but that's not the point of the films. It's a chance to marvel at the visuals of Hogwarts, seeing Professor Slughorn turn into an armchair and Hermione attack Ron with a flock of birds. The fact that there's a heart behind all the digital wizardry is a testament to how far the series has come, and how well Yates knows the world that, in the end, he will have helped create as much as Rowling. We'd love Harry's newest adventure no matter what, but thankfully, this one earns our devotion. This one gets a hearty 4 on my "Go See" scale.

Potter And The Half Blood Prince Fail To Entertain

One of the longest running series in Motion Pictures is based on the books by J.K. Rowling about a boy wizard. Harry Potter has grown before our eyes into a Juggernaut cash king. In Potter's latest adventure, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", things have gone from bad to worse. Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) and his friends Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermoine Grainger (Emma Watson), are all back for another year at Hogwarts, this time they find more than just evil wizards to deal with.

Voldemort is tightening his grip on both the Muggle and wizarding worlds with the help of the Death Eaters who are wreaking havoc in the wizard world and the outside world, and Hogwarts is no longer the safe haven it once was. Suspecting that danger may lie within the castle walls, Harry works with Professor Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) to find the key to unlock Voldemort's defenses. The duo attempt to find their solution first through a collection of stored memories in Dumbledore's office and perhaps in the memory of the well-connected and unsuspecting Professor Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent), Dumbledore's old friend and colleague who may hold crucial information about the Dark Lord.

Up to this point Harry and his friends have only had to deal with angry wizards and trying to learn spells, now a new light has dawned in their lives and it is as powerful as Voldemort is. This new adversary is their raging teen hormones. This aspect of life seems to take up the majority of this movie, if you are expecting a confrontation between Harry and Voldemort, you will be disappointed. There is a very nice sequence where Professor Dumbledore and Harry try to recover an artifact once belonging to Lord Voldemort, and they are attacked by dead souls, leaving a weakened Professor Dumbledore to save them.

Harry has found a Potions book which used to belong to the very mysterious Half-Blood Prince. Harry finds that the Half-Blood Prince's ancient scribbles are written along the margins of almost every page, giving Harry advice on how to greatly improve on his Potions work, and also teaching him a few helpful albeit dangerous spells along the way. Harry becomes suspicious of the actions of Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), who has been sneaking around the school doing, Voldemort's bidding. Harry quickly becomes determined, and slightly obsessed, to find out exactly what Malfoy has been up to and putting an end to it. The ending has a major character dying, it will have severe consequences on the life of Harry and his friends as they prepare to face Lord Voldemort.

David Yates is a very talented director, but here he seems to have clipped away at this film until the story has no foundation, his work on The Order of the Phoenix proved to be impressive, but in Half-Blood Prince he seems rushed and the lackadaisical handling of the conclusion tended to bring to a halt the action sequences altogether. Not entirely his fault though, the screenplay adaptation by Steve Kloves keeps enough of the novel's darkness and impending danger, but he lessens the story's overall tone by upping the comedic and romantic aspects. A better balance of menace and romance could have really elevated the movie's dramatic tension and payoff quite a bit.

I Give Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince a 2 and on my avoidance scale a 0, I understand that this movie will be huge, and that even if I tell you it adds nothing to what you already know about Harry Potter, the majority of this blogs readers will still go see the movie. This chapter is not as dark or ominous as the previous chapters in this story and I for one found that disappointing.

Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince is rated PG for Scary Images, Some Violence, Language and Mild Sensuality

Running time is 2 hrs. 33mins.

Beth Cooper, How I Love Thee..

Nerdy teenager Denis Cooverman (Paul Rust) harbors a secret crush on Beth Cooper (Hayden Panettiere), the hottest girl in high school. During his graduation speech, Denis lets the cat out of the bag and declares his love for Beth, who, instead of dissing Denis, shows up at his house later that day and promises to show him the time of his life in I Love You, Beth Cooper. 

Supremely dorky high-school valedictorian Dennis (Rust) decides to tell it like it is in his commencement address, trashing bullies by name and declaring his love for head cheerleader Beth Cooper (Panettiere). We've seen nerds pine for less-unattainable-than-expected hotties before, but rarely does it feel this real...and funny. Rust is no hunky actor pretending to be nebbish under glasses and a bad hairdo—he is genuinely strange-looking, and his Dennis is so realistically awkward and askew that you can understand why people might not want to hang out with him. As is his best friend Rich (Jack Carpenter), a possibly closeted movie geek who thinks Jack Nicholson impersonations are the height of hilarity. So when Dennis decides to talk smack in front of the whole school, seizing his final opportunity to say everything he was always afraid to utter, he might as well be painting a target on his head, especially in the eyes of Beth's psychotic, Terminator-built military boyfriend Kevin (Shawn Roberts). After she confronts him after graduation, he invites her and gal pals to his graduation party. Intrigued, they take him up on the offer, not knowing that the "party" consists only of himself and his equally goofy sidekick. Oh, and also showing up: Beth's jealous and possessive boyfriend, who crashes the party to beat Denis to a pulp. The kids flee, setting in motion a night of violence, drinking, debauchery and law-breaking shenanigans: In other words, a dream evening for a couple of geeky virgins who have lived at the bottom of the school's food chain. Beth takes enough pity on her sad-sack suitor that she saves him and Rich from a massive beatdown, and along with her sidekicks—plainspoken Cammy (Lauren London) and nymphomaniac Treece (Lauren Storm)—they spend the evening crashing parties while fleeing not just from Kevin's posse, but also the numerous other aggrieved parties from graduation, all while avoiding the parents (one even played by former Ferris Bueller BFF Alan Ruck). Some sweet moments emerge as Denis learns that not all is as it seems: that Beth, unlike him, is not on the fast track to college, and that her high school career is most likely the highlight of her life. Denis, ever the gentleman, reminds her that life is there for the taking, if you only are brave enough. And if that's all we learn in high school, it's enough.

I Love You, Beth Cooper pushes the limits of PG-13, with some very frank sex talk and even brief nudity. Yet that isn't the main reason it feels so honest: The secret weapon here is Panettiere, who may lure in the boys with her looks, but who is also a genuinely formidable actress who renders in Beth a complex soul. Panettiere is enjoyable as the object of overwhelming desire and Carpenter, as Denis' best friend, is delightful as the flamboyant kid who spouts famous movie lines. Impressionable kids should probably be kept away, as the movie's teen heroes break multiple laws, wreak massive havoc and aren't even remotely punished; their experiences prove almost entirely rewarding. If you like morals to your movies, this ain't the one. It's a cute lil teen movie that has it's moments. This gets a 3 on my "Go See" scale.

You Can Love Beth Cooper But Why?

Hollywood has give nus coming of age movies in the past, they have given us the brat pack, and Ferris Bueller. Do we really need another air head character the likes we have seen over and over again? Change the time line, change the names, change the sexes and we can remake this movie over and over again, but why? Because unfortunately it sells. We have had the nerd who in the end gets the smart pretty girl, we have had the uncoordinated kid who gets the pretty cheerleader and now we have Denis Cooverman and Beth Cooper. In yet another mindless teen comedy called "I Love You, Beth Cooper"

Denis Cooverman (Paul Rust) is his graduating high school valedictorian, a little bit on the geeky side who during his commencement speech tells Beth Cooper (Hayden Panettiere) that he loves her from behind. He has always sat behind her in every single class they have shared in school. Of course he doesn't stop there, he goes on to speak about others, that they shouldn't just stay around the school like a loser, here his implication is about Beth's much older military boyfriend Kevin (Shawn Roberts) who is not pleased to be called out by the class geek. But Denis doesn't stop there he calls out the most stuck up girl in the class, Valli Wooley (Marie Avgeropoulos) the class bully Greg Saloga (Josh Emerson) and even his best friend Rich Munsch (Jack Carpenter) telling him its o.k. to be gay.

No one is happy about being called out during this speech and Kevin is the first to grab Denis, he tells him he is dead, Denis is saved by the schools Principal, she tells Kevin that she can't just let him kill Denis on school grounds. Kevin leaves and Denis and Greg invite Beth to a party at Denis' house. Neither of the two expect her to show up but when she does trailing her two best friends, Cammy (Lauren London) and Treece (Lauren Storm) the nights fun is about to start. Denis' parents (Alan Ruck) and (Cynthia Stevenson) are going out to have a party of their own, little does anyone know but the party is about to take a turn for the worse.

Kevin and his army buddies show up at the house and threaten to beat both Denis and Greg up, running from the house, Beth her two friends and Denis and Greg all pile into the one car. Running away from the house they decide to go to a party thrown by Valli Wooley, of course Kevin is there and wants to finish beating Denis up, Beth saves him by driving Kevin's Humvee into the front of the house. Next stop is of course back to the high school to go swimming, and of course Kevin and his buddies used LOJAK to find his Humvee that Beth had driven off. Greg has dealt with one gay accusation after another all night but it is his heroics that save Denis this time.

Going to a cabin owned by Beth's father the group split up, Greg goes to bed with both Cammy and Treece, more to prove to himself that he isn't gay than to prove it to the girls. Denis goes outside and sits with Beth to watch the sun come up. Denis has learned the hard way that the girl of his dreams isn't the girl he has spent the night with. Beth it seems is more shallow then Denis thought, she is loud, rude and crass. Denis thinks that the real Beth is nowhere near the girl he saw in his fantasy.

The end comes finally and Greg admits his sexuality, Denis is alone, His parents have come home and found the house a mess thanks to Kevin and his buddies. Beth drives away and Greg and Denis think of ways that Denis can still get Beth. The jokes are tasteless and dumb, the plot is weak and unoriginal, there is nothing new or exciting in this film, you wait for the payoff and it is slow to come and when it does it is such a disappointment that you should be angry.

I give I Love You, Beth Cooper a 1 and on my avoidance scale a 2, this is one of those lazy Friday night cable movies that the whole family can watch, it's light on the humor and sex and even the little that is in this movie is over quickly. The idea behind this plot is right out of the cliche mill of Hollywood, if you miss this movie wait a few months one just like it will be out.

I Love You, Beth Cooper is rated PG-13 for Crude and Sexual Content, Language, some Teen Drinking and Drug Reference and Brief Violence

Running time is 1 hr. 42 mins.

2 Women, 1 Book, A Terrific Journey

In Julie & Julia, a frustrated temp secretary (Amy Adams) embarks on a year-long culinary quest to cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She chronicles her trials and tribulations in a blog that catches on with the food crowd. The film also covers the years Julia Child (Meryl Streep) and her husband Paul (Stanley Tucci) spent in Paris during the 1940s and 1950s, when he was a foreign diplomat who was eventually investigated by Sen. Joseph McCarthy for alleged communist ties.

Nora Ephron adapts Julie Powell's autobiographical book Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen with this Columbia Pictures production starring Amy Adams as an amateur chef who decides to cook every recipe in a cookbook from acclaimed celebrity chef Julia Child (played by Meryl Streep) in order to chronicle it in a blog over the course of a year. Streep's Devil Wears Prada co-star Stanley Tucci re-teams with the actress as Child's husband. Certain movies are impossible to imagine without a particular actor. Star Wars without Harrison Ford’s cynical Han Solo? Pretty Woman minus Julia Roberts? Now Meryl Streep as Julia Child? Camera tricks allow Streep to tower over just about everybody in the Julia parts of the movie, including her character’s adoring husband, Paul (Stanley Tucci, suave and dry as fine French wine), a cultural affairs attaché stationed in Paris after World War II. Streep perfectly captures Child’s exuberant, big-boned sensuality, mischievous humor, and comically hooty voice. The couple met in wartime while working for the forerunner of the CIA, but in Paris, where the movie opens, Julia is just another State Department wife. “I need to dooo something,” she flutes mournfully before enrolling in an allmale class at the revered Cordon Bleu school. Mastering the Art of French Cooking, the classic 1961 cookbook that emerged from that experience, not only helped lay the foundation for generations of American foodies, but 40 years later freed another frustrated wife to follow her bliss. Powell (Adams), stuck in a dead-end job and unhappily relocated to Queens by her husband, Eric (Chris Messina), decides to cook all 524 recipes in a year and blog about it for Salon.com. Besides making you lust for a nice bifteck sauté béarnaise, the obstacles and mishaps the two J’s encounter are a ready source of hilarity. Finding Julia hacking away behind a mountain of sliced onions until she can chop as fast as her classmates, Paul covers his watering eyes and murmurs, “You’re being a little overcompetitive, don’t you think?” And a low-angle shot of Julie’s clowning response to a failed attempt at one of her role model’s recipes transcends the specific and achieves the universal: Supine on her kitchen floor, she is everywoman, felled by domesticity. But Julie & Julia is also a portrait of two relationships, and one fares better on-screen than the other. In their more serious scenes, Adams and Messina have no chemistry. Eric comes off as a bit of a bully, with Julie repeatedly deferring to his greater wisdom. And never mind that she’s serving him daily feasts; once her project takes off he becomes incensed by what he sees as her self-absorption. This could be interesting, except that Ephron’s intention is oddly unclear. Is he being a jerk? Is Julie? Would I like to see her dump a hot soufflé on his head? (Yes.) But would Ephron? Or are we meant to regard this as the inevitable push and pull of marriage?

In the end, it hardly matters. Ephron, whose most lauded screenplay until now was 1989’s When Harry Met Sally, is in her element with Julia and Paul. Their relationship is one of the movie’s joys. When Julia’s book is rejected by the original publisher or when Paul gets worked over by Cold War witch hunters in Washington, each comes home to a partner who not only understands and consoles, but also matters more than anything or anyone else in the world. Buoyed by humor and deliciously sexual, the Childs’ decades-long love affair feels utterly convincing, not least because Tucci and Streep capture the most elusive chemistry—that of people who are deeply intimate yet never lose their capacity to surprise each other. And all this plays out with a much more compelling realism than the romances in two of Ephron’s biggest hits, Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail. Julie & Julia isn’t perfect, but it’s the Ephron movie that I’ve been waiting for—one as smart and vigorously alive as those legendary essays that put her on the map. This lovely movie gets a 4 on my "Go See" scale.

The Joys Of Cooking With Julie & Julia

Nora Ephron adapts two bestselling memoirs, one by Julie Powell called "Julie & Julia" and the other by Julia Child "My Life in France", written with Child's grand nephew Alex Prud'homme. Based on these two true stories, "Julie & Julia" entertains and enlightens us at the same time. The audience gets a front row seat as we see the struggles and joys of trying to conquer a task that most of us take for granted. Cooking.

Paul (Stanley Tucci) and Julia Child (Meryl Streep) have just moved to Paris, Paul is the Ambassador and they both feel that their time in Paris will be wonderful. While Eric (Chris Messina) and Julie Powell (Amy Adams) have just made a move of their own. Julie works for a Government department herself, she answers phone calls for post 9-11 survivors. Though many years separate the two women, one will influence the other so deeply that it will change the course of her life. Julia struggles on a daily basis in Paris, she is an American in a country that doesn't cater to her every whim. Julie struggles as well, she is still under the thumb of her mother, her boss and her friends, Julie is looking for the one thing that she can finish. Julie decides to go through the Julia Child bible, Child's cookbook is the ideal thing for Julie, she loves to cook so she decides with the help of Eric to cook all of the recipes in the book in one year and write a blog about her attempt.

Days pass and dinners are cooked Julie celebrates a birthday with friends, Sarah (Mary Lynn Rajskub) is one of Julie's best friends and she is supportive of what Julie is trying to do, the ordeals that Julie goes through are nothing compared to what Julia goes through just trying to get the book published. In the beginning Julia found life in Paris to be fun, but as time crawled past, she got bored, she tried her hand at hat making and found it dull, she tried playing bridge and found that dull, so she enlists in one of the most prestigious cooking schools in France. Julia is placed in a beginners class and finds that to be insulting, she asks to be placed in a more advanced class, she is placed in one of the best classes and at first is overwhelmed by the teacher and other students, but she won't quit. Both women are determined to succeed, Julie does find out that sometimes food just won't come out right, attempt after attempt is made, when the inevitable happens Julie just crashes, this causes conflict with Eric and he walks out.

When Paul is transferred away from Paris Julia is in the midst of writing a cookbook for Americans in Paris, two women that have befriended Julia have asked her to help them get their cookbook published, Simone Beck (Linda Emond) and Louisette Bertholle (Helen Carey) are all set to get this book going, but one thing or another always comes up. Louisette is always leaving for one reason or another and is doing little to help the others get the book going. Simone and Julia are working day and night redoing the book, when a publisher in Boston wants to publish the book, they want the two women to shorten the book, they don't want volumes of recipes, they want something cute and quick. When the book is finally published Julia reacts with so much joy that it is contagious, we laugh with her. When Julie gets to the last recipe in the book her little blog has become so huge that people are now sending her food to help her cook. Oh the joys of cooking, the sweet taste of success couldn't be better for both women and it's a joy to watch as it comes to pass.

I give Julie & Julia a 4 and on my avoidance scale I give it a 0, the stars of this movie work so hard to make this film work, Amy Adams is once again a joy to watch, she makes any character come to life and her smile is infectious. Meryl Streep catches Julia Child's accent perfectly and if you close your eyes you will believe that it is here you are watching. The cast carries this movie throughout and is a very entertaining movie to watch. Take your family and let them discover for themselves just what a joy it can be when you have mastered the one thing you love.

It Works...In A Way...

After a failed suicide attempt, brilliant New York misanthrope Boris Yellnikoff (Larry David) forsakes his posh upper-class existence for meager accommodations in Chinatown. He meets his exact opposite in Melodie (Evan Rachel Wood), a pageant queen from the Deep South who's long on sweetness but short on smarts. Surprisingly, Boris and Melody marry, but the sparks really fly when Melody's born-again Christian mother (Patricia Clarkson) arrives and finds liberation instead of damnation in Whatever Works.

Boris Yellnikoff (David), a classic version of the Allen protagonist, is a New York intellectual obsessed with his own mortality. Boris may be a string theorist whose genius almost snared him a Nobel Prize, but his true calling is as a professional neurotic. Boris often seems happier when he's miserable. Lord knows he tries to make lemons when life gives him lemonade. Boris dumps his rich, highly compatible wife and jumps out of a window intent to end it all. Since the universe has a twisted sense of humor, he survives and thus has something else to grumble about. Moving on, Boris finds contentment living alone and following his routines--or as much contentment as an agitated misanthrope can have--but his life gets upended when he meets Melodie St. Ann Celestine (Wood), a beauty pageant queen from Mississippi who has run away from home to make it in the Big Apple. With little more than a high school letterman's jacket to her name, Melodie needs a place to stay--temporarily, of course. He's resistant to having his space invaded but eventually agrees to let her crash for a night or two. Then a funny thing happens. Boris discovers that he doesn't mind having Melodie around. She listens with rapt attention to his rants about people and accepts his theories and cultured tastes as her own. Boris kvetches about stupid people a lot, but David's body language tends to reflect an attitude of humored indifference. Allen also eases up on coming off like a crank when it becomes clear that Boris' intolerance and ritual bound behavior, such as his hand washing, are just secular versions of the religious dogma he rejects. Boris may not be a big stretch for David to play, but he makes a consistently funny curmudgeon. Wood ends up being a better foil for David than expected and makes Melodie sufficiently convincing in the story, which is a pretty tall order. At first her airheaded, molasses-accented character seems like the worst of Allen's conception of non-New Yorkers, but Wood's bright-eyed, irony-free performance has charm and innocence to nicely offset the film's aged astringency. Allen continues to paint a target on his back by having another pretty young thing go gaga for an old man. The May/December romance in Whatever Works is pretty implausible. Thankfully it's the amusing collision of the brainy and the ditsy that matters more. Whatever Works takes a serious downturn in the second half when the focus drifts from Boris. Melodie's mother Marietta (Clarkson) turns up at his door looking for her daughter, and later on her father John (Ed Begley Jr.) appears too. Not only do the awakenings of these southern conservatives to New York liberalism feel like Allen at his laziest, but also their arcs are just not that funny, interesting, or developed. 

Boris is deplorable, abusing the children he tutors in chess, cruelly belittling his friends and the women in his life, nourished only by a hollow routine and a diet of gall, spite and rancor. In plotting right out of a screwball comedy, he stumbles one evening upon Melodie St. Ann Celestine, a new-fangled mixed-up Southern belle. Malleable and naïve, she begs a bite to eat and a couch to sleep on, and soon enough she enters and alters Boris's entire life and world. After a time, her mother Marietta joins the scene, and the permutations and metamorphoses expand comically, sensually, charmingly. The trio of central actors plays beautifully, even if they sometimes butt against material that's been written somewhat programmatically or telegraphically. David is fluent and caustic yet somehow approachable; Wood's ditzy sprite is played with wit and verve; and Clarkson is a ball of drollery and fire. I have to admit that I've never been a Woody Allen fan, but I enjoyed "Vicky, Christina, Barcelona" and this was just okay for me, but like Boris and the title says..."Whatever works." A 3 on my "Go See" scale.

Woody Allen's Search For Whatever Works Is Over

One of Hollywood's favorite Director's is Woody Allen, seldom does he not make a movie that he is not in, the ones that he decides to stay behind the camera are better then those that he makes a cameo in or is a star of. Match Point and Cassandra's Dream were good pictures, while Small Time Crooks was horrendous. Although it started out good it quickly went down the drain. Now Allen gives us "Whatever Works" and even though he isn't in the movie, his lead actor could be him, and all too often leaves you thinking that if you close your eyes it would be him.

Boris (Larry David) is a a bitter New York native, who rants all day long to the few friends he does have, even the few audience members that stuck around long enough for the movie to end. Movies that have the star talk directly to the audience routinely are as bad as they sound, Whatever Works finds itself by not taking itself to seriously. Once we get to meet Boris it seems as if the movie will drag itself right into the gutter, and speaking of gutters that's where Boris finds the best thing in this movie, naive Mississippi runaway, Melodie St. Ann Celestine (Evan Rachel Wood) who as the film goes on becomes not only a friend to Boris, but a disciple. Melodie starts to believe what Boris says and even changes her own opinion to match his. Several of Boris' friends can't believe he has taken in a runaway, they ask him if the sex is good. his reply is at first to them but soon Boris is just talking to the audience watching the movie. Joe (Michael McKean) is one of Boris' best friends but he is the first to tell him he is making a mistake.

Of course the inevitable happens and Boris begins to fall in love with Melodie and when her mother Marietta (Patricia Clarkson) finds her, she is of course offended by Boris and does everything she can to find Melodie a younger boyfriend, Randy James (Henry Cavill). Then of course she meets friends of Boris' and begins to change herself, she becomes freer, she sleeps with not one but two men, she begins to paint as well. This leads to of course the entrance of another character John (Ed Begley Jr.). John is Melodies father and is searching for Marietta. He of course has been the cause of Marietta's heartbreak, he ran off with another woman, but discovers later that he is gay. When Melodie tells Boris that she wants to be with Randy, Boris jumps out the window, for the second time. Boris lands on Helena (Jessica Hecht), breaking her leg, he nurses her back to health and the fall in love. The ending is typical Woody Allen, everyone is happy and together, Boris and Helena, Melodie and Randy, John and his new lover and Marietta and her new lovers, all happily together under one roof.

I give Whatever Works a 3 and on my avoidance scale a 1, this movie will be out on video so fast that it will be worth the short wait, the list of other movies to see right now is longer then the time this movie will spend in the theatres. The movie does grow on you though, even with Larry David talking to us as if we were a part of his diatribe.

Whatever Works is rated PG-13 for Sexual Situations including Dialogue, Brief Nude Images and Thematic Material

Running time is 1hr. 32 mins.

Brüno Vas Wunderbar!!

Brüno, who has no known surname, is a homosexual Austrian fashionista claiming to be a reporter from an Austrian television station. Sacha Baron Cohen who plays Brüno interviews unsuspecting guests about topics such as fashion, entertainment , celebrities and homosexuality, with an emphasis on the latter as each interview progresses in Brüno. 

In "Borat," Sacha Baron Cohen played an ignorant, anti-Semitic journalist from Kazakhstan who traveled to the U.S. to make a faux documentary. In Brüno, he's a flamboyantly gay Austrian 'fashionista' who's determined to be an American celebrity. In both provocative ventures, Cohen cajoles real, unsuspecting people into awkward situations - with hysterical consequences. This time, Cohen crassly exploits the attitudinal discomfort known as homophobia that's created when heterosexuals, particularly men, encounter aggressive homosexuality. The film's storyline - what there is of it - is merely a needle with which to thread together a series of outrageous stunts. Brüno is fired from his Austrian TV fashion show Funkyzeit after gatecrashing a catwalk show in Milan. Shunned by the superficial fashion world, he decides to do something more worthwhile with his life: go to LA and become a celebrity - "ze most famous Austrian since Hitler" no less. What Brüno lacks in plot, it makes up for in point, satirising homophobia and lampooning the vacuous pursuit of fame for fame's sake via the adoption of African babies and charitable causes. Brüno even goes to "Middle Earth" to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem and confound leaders on both sides by confusing Hamas with hummous. And in a stunt that could surely have gone badly wrong, he also attempts to get himself kidnapped by a terrorist organisation in Lebanon in order to see his hostage video go viral. In one scene, sex-crazed Brüno inveigles Representative Ron Paul into his hotel room and tries to seduce him on the pretext of interviewing him about economics; after maintaining his dignity as long as possible, the conservative Texas congressman exits the premises in disgust, muttering, "This guy's a queer. He's crazy!" In another, Brüno chats with Paula Abdul who's served hors d'ouvres off a naked Mexican. (A similar sequence with LaToya Jackson was cut after the untimely death of her brother Michael.) Then there's Bruno's 'adoption' of a baby in Africa, a thwarted kidnapping in Lebanon and various attempts to 'go straight' with martial arts instruction and religious conversion.

Perhaps the most scandalous gag is Brüno's casting session for glamorous 'baby' photo-shoot for which ambitious parents recklessly offer up their offspring. "Is your baby comfortable with bees, wasps and hornets?" he inquires. "Oh, yes, he's comfortable with everything," one mother assures him. "Dead or dying animals?" "Yes." In an even more appalling dialogue, another mother assures him that her 30-pound daughter could lose 10 pounds in one week, if necessary, adding "I'd have to do whatever I could." Over the years, British-born Sacha Baron Cohen has developed this rude if riotous alter-ego (Ali G, Borat, now Brüno) and he's become a cultural phenomenon, an original comic character, exploring radical and risky events, forcing people to challenge their own preconceptions and stereotypes. And director Larry Charles' choice of 'reaction shots' are priceless. It's essential - but hardly comfortable - viewing. You'll watch most of it through splayed fingers, and at times you'll need a spare hand to pick your jaw up off the cinema floor. Whether it's outrageously offensive or offensively outrageous, it's laugh-out-loud funny. This gets a 4 on my "Go See" scale, because even though it's offensive to just about EVERYONE, you won't be able to stop yourself from laughing. 

Vhat Is The Meaning Of Dis Brüno Nonsense?

A few years ago Hollywood gave America and the World one of its most memorable characters, Borat. The problem with this is that he was such a hit that Hollywood geared up its machine and spit out another like minded character. This one takes the low ground in offending just about every ones sensibilities. "Brüno" is one of the most offensive characters to come "out" in many years.

Brüno is to the fashion world what Hitler was to the half the world, a person of low morals. In the beginning of the film Brüno (Sacha Baron Cohen) is on top of the fashion world, he has a hit television show and shares his life with his lover. Diesel (Clifford Bañagale) is not just Brüno's assistant he is his committed partner. Brüno also has a second assistant Lutz, (Gustaf Hammarsten) who is there just to clean up. After Brüno makes a mockery of one of fashions biggest shows he is blacklisted at all the parties and shows, he can't even get in to a club anymore. Diesel tells Brüno they are done, and Brüno is forced to take Lutz to America with him. He wants to be a star, and thinks that Americans will accept him. Brüno finds an agent and does get some work on a television series but is escorted off the set, he interviews some celebrities and after Paula Abdul is interviewed, Brüno is blacklisted among the stars and no one will accept an offer to be interviewed by Brüno.

Brüno thinks that if he can find something to get behind he will become famous, he says sting has hunger and that Bono has aids, right who thinks that's funny? he goes to the Middle East thinking he can get himself kidnapped, Brüno is told to leave the country immediately. Coming back to America, Brüno stops off in Africa and "adopts" a baby, he gives it a traditional African name, O.J. again funny right? the audience thought so. Lutz is taken with Brüno, he does anything that he is told to do, and after Brüno goes on a television show in Dallas, O.J. is taken away from him, and Brüno ends up in an IHOP trying to eat himself to death. Lutz stops him and they end up in bed together, unable to reach the key to unlock the contraption the have put themselves in, they are forced to call room service to come unlock them, this showcases America homophobia, when the man who comes to their room sees them he calls for his boss.

Looking to rid himself of his homosexuality Brüno decides to go straight, he goes to a priest in Alabama that claims he can convert gay people, and make them straight, Brüno goes on a hunting trip with three other southern gentlemen and he also visits a swingers party. The priest also tells him to enlist in the National Guard, here I for one know he would have met much more resistance then he did in the movie. Once this little skit is over we are treated to one last bit of gay bashing with "Straight Dave" a host of a UFC television show, one that makes Brüno ultra famous in the south. When Brüno reveals his inner lusts to the crowd they go crazy, one is seen even crying. Brüno is insulting on many levels, this is the type of movie that shouldn't have been made, the fact that it has and that it got such a wide screening audience tells me that people just want to laugh at their own insecurities.

I give Brüno a 1 and on my avoidance scale a 3 this is one of those movies that should be seen at home, if you must see it at all. Or take all of your friends so that way when you laugh you won't be laughing alone. If you must see this movie be aware that it contains full frontal male nudity. There is even a scene with a talking penis, this gets plenty of laughs, if this is your type of humor, than Brüno has a ton more just for you.

Brüno is rated R for Pervasive Strong and Crude Sexual Content, Graphic Nudity and Language

Running time is 1 hr. 22 mins.

Summer Blockerbuster? Or Major Flop

The number of movies to be released by summers end is an astonishing figure. The one sure fire BLOCKBUSTER will be "Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen", it is this years "Dark Knight". Thanks to a reportedly "leaked" copy, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" flopped right out the gate. Summer is still young and now that it's the first day of July I thought I would supply the avid movie fan a list of the remaining summer movies.

July brings dinosaurs and gangsters, gay fashion designers and a boy wizard. Will any of these knock off the rampage of Autobots and Decepticons? I think not. Anyway here is a list of the movies slated to come to a theatre near you this July.

July 01st

Ice Age Dawn Of The dinosaurs

Public Enemies

July 10th

Bruno

Hump Day (Limited)

I Love You, Beth Cooper

July 15

Harry Potter And The Half - Blood Prince

July 17th

(500) Days Of Summer

July 24th

The Answer Man

G - Force

In The Loop

Orphan

Shrink

The Ugly Truth

July 29th

Adam (Limited)

July 31st

Aliens In The Attic

Funny People

Janky Promoters

August brings superheros and aliens, love stories and horror, bastards and yet more 3D. This month will be the last gasp effort to try to knock Transformers from its 400 million dollar throne. Again I think not. Here is a list of the movies scheduled to make a run at your pocket books in August.

August 07th

G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra

Julie & Julia

Shorts

August 14th

Bandslam

District 9

The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard

Paper Heart

A Perfect Getaway

Ponyo

Taking Woodstock

The Time Traveler's Wife

August 21st

Inglorious Bastards

Post Grad

August 28th

The Final Destination 3D

Halloween II

Few movies will make the cut this summer, a few more will flop out the gate, several smaller market, so called independent films will surprise a lot of people, "(500) Days Of Summer" is a very good movie, but will be skipped by most everyone. Bruno and Harry will be the giant hits of July, while August has no front runner for the crown, G.I. Joe may be the run away in August.

Summer brings out the kid in everyone, that's what movies are supposed to do anyway, after the Autobots and Decepticons whats left standing? Maybe just a small handful of movies will be called hits. The shameful thing is that looking at this list I see several movies that will be great, several that will be good and many more that will just be fodder for movie goers. What ever movie you choose to see, I hope you enjoy it.