These Role Models needed role models

In this comedy, Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott play two men who are hardly model citizens. But their bad behavior puts them in trouble with the law, and soon the men must act as mentors as a part of their community service. Christopher Mintz-Plasse (McLovin of Superbad fame), costars in Role Models.

Danny (Rudd) and Wheeler (Scott) work for energy-drink company Minotaur, driving a novelty monster truck to schools where they -- Wheeler costumed as hairy "Minotaur Man" -- plug their legal-high product via "Just say no to drugs!" slogans. It's a no-brainer job that suits Wheeler fine, leaving him free to obsess 24/7 over his only real interest, which is getting laid. Danny, however, thinks he's wasting his life. Feeling a need for change, he impulsively proposes to longtime girlfriend Beth (Elizabeth Banks), but she's so fed up with his sourpuss attitude that she dumps him outright. An already horrible day ends in a tow-truck altercation that leaves the two boy-men facing 30 days in jail on various charges. Beth, a lawyer, manages to cut them a deal for 150 community service hours instead. They're handed over to Sturdy Wings, a big-brother-type mentoring program run by Gayle Sweeney, played by Jane Lynch as a one-woman Molotov cocktail, equal parts perky, stern and lunatic. Wheeler gets assigned Ronnie (Bobb'e J. Thompson), a fatherless 10-year-old with a vile temper and filthier mouth. Sarcastic Danny gets Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) a teenage dork with no friends outside the realm of his ultra-dweeby live-action medieval fantasy role-playing game. Needless to say, these forced pairings do not start well, though with equal predictability, bonding does eventually occur -- if not always in the most age-appropriate ways. There's also no great surprise to the adult blunders that nearly wreck these intergenerational relationships, or to the big, climactic setpiece in which the guilty parties make sacrifices that prove they care after all. Although, it was overly predictable, it still worked on all levels. Rudd and Scott work well together as friends (or not as Danny repeatedly tells Wheeler) who are polar opposites. Throw in a couple kids, one who is so foul mouthed you'd think that you were talking to "Child's Plays" Chucky, and another who is so nerdy that you'd think he'd feel a lot better all alone in his room (Mintz-Plasse gets another ride out of his "Superbad" persona, endearing in his devotion to a hopelessly dorky hobby but more self-aware and less manic than Fogell was.) Rudd's weary cynicism serves him as well as ever, though one wonders if the actor (who co-wrote the screenplay) isn't enjoying it as much as he appeared to in earlier outings like "Knocked Up. Although supporting players earn their keep. Banks' role is too straight to allow her to get any laughs, but Jane Lynch (as a reformed druggie in charge of the kids) plays up some repeated jokes to good effect. The real scene-stealer is the rock band KISS: They don't appear in the film, but a couple of the biggest laughs rely on them. Role Models is one that will be remembered as one of the funniest comedies of the year right beside "Tropic Thunder". A laugh out loud 4 on my "Go See" scale.

This western holds true to its novel counterpart

The Western genre continues its resurgence with this drama from actor-director Ed Harris. Based on Robert B. Parker's novel, APPALOOSA follows a pair of lawmen (played by Harris and Viggo Mortensen) who must unite over their town's crisis as they're divided over their mutual love of a woman (Renée Zellweger).

Dialogue, much of it lifted straight from Parker’s novel, proves mostly engaging, especially as it relates to Virgil’s dedication to improving his vocabulary. He tries to drop impressive, polysyllabic words into his speech whenever he thinks of them; some attempts are more successful than others, but are invariably comic. When the well-spoken Bragg inhabits the cell right next to his desk, he’s put at a distinct linguistic disadvantage. Harris and Viggo Mortensen (who were electric together in "A History of Violence") play a pair of lawmen for hire in 1882 New Mexico. They speak in the kind of funny, staccato conversational rhythms that only people utterly used to each other can find. Virgil (Harris) is the leader of the pair, but Everett (Mortensen) often fills in his words for him. The two are comfortable in silence, keeping the peace in the town of Appaloosa by waiting together for trouble and, when necessary, shooting troublemakers. "It's what we do," says Everett. "It is, ain't it?" says Virgil.

And when a woman (Zellweger) comes between them, you're suddenly struck by how much more comfortable these two friends are with each other than with her (gay undertones perhaps? Brokeback Mountain, anyone?). She is the elegantly dressed Allison French, a mysterious widow who plays the piano (none too well), and who arrives in town with only a dollar to her name. Allie, as she likes to be called, sets her sights on Virgil, but she's hardly exclusive. Poor Virgil is so tickled by her he doesn't know what to think (Harris' goofily moonstruck grin is a masterpiece) and soon she's planning their home together, with Virgil and Everett looking comically mystified by curtain swatches (where she soon tries to seduce Everett). In the scene, Allie tries to kiss Everett, but is rebuffed. "You're with Virgil," he tells her simply. "So am I." But this movie is a Western, even as it disguises itself as a period comedy, so there's of course a ruthless rancher (Jeremy Irons, eyebrows raised) and his band of outlaws who ride into town half-obscured by the dust on the road. As Virgil and Everett try to bring them to justice, their stories and Allie's intertwine in a tale of shifting loyalties, murder and revenge.

Harris, in only his second film as director (his first was the 2000 artist biopic "Pollock"), displays a quiet, unshowy confidence and a genuine fondness for the genre, capturing the horses and guns and saloon glasses in a soft, almost-sundown light. Though "Appaloosa" doesn't have the excitement of "3:10 to Yuma" (the best of the recent Westerns), it's an appealing movie that gets under your skin, in its low-key way. Notice how, by the end of the movie, we know everybody in the town; even the characters with barely any lines (like an Irish hotel maid) seem to have etched their own stories. And there's a real joy in watching Harris and Mortensen connect, in the way their characters' friendship is conveyed by tiny nods (there's one at the end, from Everett, that speaks volumes) and sentences as spare and unadorned as the town's dirt roads. This inticing western gets a 4 on my "Go See" scale, with a "Yee-Haw!" on the end.

Towelhead is worth another look

TOWELHEAD examines a young girl's sexual awakening in an extremely dysfunctional family--and community. Summer Bishil stars as Jasira, a 13-year-old girl being shuttled between her mother's (Maria Bello as Gail) home in Syracuse and her father's (Peter Macdissi as Rifat) in a suburban Houston cul-de-sac. Rifat, a Lebanese American, is overprotective of his daughter, who makes extra money by baby-sitting for neighbor Zack (Chase Ellison). But when Zack's father, Travis (Aaron Eckhart), a National Guardsmen waiting to be called to serve in Iraq, begins taking an unhealthy interest in Jasira, another neighbor, Melina (Toni Collette), becomes suspicious and befriends Jasira, who is suddenly trapped in a grown-up world she might not understand as well as she might think. Bishil, who was 18 at the time the film was shot, is excellent as Jasira, playing the complex character with both charm and trepidation; her scenes with Macdissi and Eckhart are filled with different kinds of tension that never let up. Alan Ball's script, based on the novel by Alicia Erian, takes on racism, bigotry, underage sex, patriotism, suburbia, adolescence, terrorism, first love, and, most of all, the meaning of family in an ever-changing world.

Jasira is the daughter of divorced parents who can barely tolerate each other. When her American mother, Gail (Maria Bello), discovers that her boyfriend Barry (Chris Messina) has been getting too cozy with Jasira, she sends the girl packing to her much stricter Lebanese father, Rifat (Peter Macdissi), a NASA employee who is clearly torn between two cultures. Sometimes abusive, occasionally affectionate and protective toward his daughter, he's the most compelling character in the book and the film. Macdissi gives a rich, revealing performance as a man whose daughter comes to represent everything about American culture that drives him wild. Yet he has far more in common with his Houston neighbors than he will admit, including his Christian faith and his contempt for Saddam Hussein. Other intriguing characters keep popping up, though Toni Collette and Matt Letscher are not given quite enough screen time as an apparently enlightened neighbor couple. The same goes for Eugene Jones as Jasira's boyfriend and Carrie Preston as Vuoso's clueless wife. It becomes particularly unnerving when the predatory adult, Mr. Vuoso (superbly played by Aaron Eckhart), takes the self-possessed Jasira (talented 18-year-old Summer Bishil) out to dinner, and she startles him by drinking a margarita prepared for him. "I'm not your daughter; I'm your girlfriend," she informs him. Ball takes great care to show how his subsequent behavior toward Jasira, as heinous as it is, comes from a place he confuses as genuine love. And the girl, starved of any real emotional connections and bewildered by this new aspect of life she has encountered, mistakes sexual abuse for something deeper and more profound. Also in the mix is another neighbor (Collette), a very pregnant woman who suspects something untoward is happening (indeed, it's called statutory rape) and invites Jasira to visit in her home and gives her a copy of a book resembling Our Bodies, Ourselves.

The story builds to a feverish pitch and then never reaches a satisfactory conclusion. But while it’s onscreen, the film moves, incites, and jabs, all while reminding us how difficult it is to grow up female and sane in this world. This one was rather intriguing and deserves another look. A strong 4 on my "Go See" scale.

Many miraculous things await you in St. Anna

Miracle at St. Anna chronicles the story of four black American soldiers who are members of the US Army as part of the all-black 92nd “Buffalo Soldier” Division stationed in Tuscany, Italy during World War II. They experience the tragedy and triumph of the war as they find themselves trapped behind enemy lines and separated from their unit after one of them risks his life to save an Italian boy.

Directed by Spike Lee from a screenplay written by James McBride, the author of the acclaimed novel of the same name, the film explores a deeply inspiring, powerful story drawn from true history, that transcends national boundaries, race, and class to touch the goodness within us all.

There's a very important, but largely untold, story happening in Spike Lee's gripping WWII epic The Miracle at St. Anna. While Lee's film, adapted for the screen by James McBride from his own novel of the same name, focuses on four particular soldiers who find themselves trapped behind German lines in the Tuscany region of Italy during WWII, the significance here comes from the fact that this is the first Hollywood film to feature the all-black 92nd Division Buffalo Soldiers who experienced the same tragedies and triumphs as their white brethren on the battlefields of Europe. But more than being a war film and all that that implies, Miracle at St. Anna tells a story of friendship and of getting beyond race and prejudices... about helping one another in the midst of war. Another of the film's achievements is that it marks one of the few instances where Lee's controversial leanings take a back seat to the story being told. Sure, racism is at the heart of the story, but Lee pulls back on the reins of his typical heavy-handedness. The film is bookended by a framing device set in the 80s when a postal worker named Hector Negron goes, well... postal, shooting a customer in the chest with a German Luger. While searching Negron's apartment, the police uncover the head of a marble statue that once adorned a Florentine bridge bombed by the Nazis. Flash back to a platoon of Buffalo Soldiers tramping through a war-ravaged Italian countryside. In one of the film's most harrowing action sequences, the soldiers quickly come under friendly fire due to the careless acts of a racist platoon commander (Omari Hardwick). A particularly close-knit foursome soon finds itself behind enemy lines and cut off from help. Festooning the accoutrements of one soldier is the aforementioned piece of statuary. It becomes a good luck charm of sorts as its wearer, the gigantic PFC Sam Train (Omar Benson Miller), seems to gain courage and a bit of magical invincibility while in possession of the piece of stonework. He rescues a young boy (Matteo Sciabordi) from a bombed out building and the two become closely attached. Despite their language differences, the pair soon finds an effective way to communicate via a sequence of taps. Miller and Sciabordi are wonderful together, and the film finds some of its most heartfelt moments when the two are sharing a scene. The group's staff sergeant Aubrey Stamps (Derek Luke) is the leader of the bunch. He's a college graduate torn by the irony of feeling more freedom in his enemy's country than in his own. His opposite persona, careless and even a bit selfish, is sergeant Bishop Cummings (Michael Ealy) a slick-talking ladies man. Rounding out the group is radioman Negron, whose ability to speak Spanish provides a means of communication with their Italian hosts.

It's not a simple action-packed war drama with mile-a-minute explosions and acts of super-human heroism. The Buffalo Soldiers deserve better than that. Lee shows us that their devotion to a country that didn't want them is heroic enough. They represented dignity in the face of adversity, so their story needed to be told with sophistication and significance. Miracle at St. Anna is a rewarding achievement that we should all feel honored to experience if for no other reason than to learn about the Buffalo Soldiers. A hefty 4 on my "Go See" scale.

This Eagle wasn't hard to look in the Eye

Eagle Eye is a race-against-time thriller starring Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan, Rosario Dawson, Anthony Mackie,Billy Bob Thornton and Michael Chiklis. Jerry Shaw (LaBeouf) and Rachel Holloman (Monaghan) are two strangers thrown together by a mysterious phone call from a woman they have never met. Threatening their lives and family, she pushes Jerry and Rachel into a series of increasingly dangerous situations – using the technology of everyday life to track and control their every move. As the situation escalates, these two ordinary people become the country's most wanted fugitives, who must work together to discover what is really happening – and more importantly, why.

This is a movie that moves with such speed and such excitement that it doesn’t matter whether the basic plot makes any sense or not. It is all in the chase and the outcome. And when the finale comes it is another tribute from actor Shia LaBeouf and director D.J. Caruso (“Disturbia”) to Alfred Hitchcock. The whole film takes on a Hitchcock like attitude as every day person Jerry Shaw (LaBeouf) is jarred out of his humdrum life into a mad world where he receives instructions via his cell phone and other mechanical instruments. He is framed by an unknown voice as a terrorist and finds himself in the hands of the FBI, namely Special Agent Thomas Morgan (Billy Bob Thornton). After he escapes from the FBI he is paired with Rachel Holliman (Michelle Monaghan). She too is being coerced by this “voice” into doing several acts she would never do in her ordinary life. Shaw and Holliman are on a mission to put into play an act that could throw the country into chaos. As they race towards their destination there are car chases and car wrecks galore. The audience barely gets a chance to catch its collected breath before another terrifying event is under way. The actors don’t have to act, they just have to react and react they do to one threat after another and to simultaneous close calls.

Director Caruso knows how to keep the adrenaline pumping and the thrills coming. He might have tried a little harder to give his actors a chance to shine but mainly he keeps them running and jumping. LaBeouf and Monaghan are totally effective in their roles because they do look like ordinary people. They interact well with each other and there is no time out for romance. This is not that kind of film. They are too busy staying alive, so any mutual attraction takes a back burner. Billy Bob Thornton is completely wasted in a role that requires him to do nothing more than look pissed off, order people around, and take a silly ride on a labyrinthine factory conveyor belt, in one lame Indiana Jones/Rube Goldberg-inspired sequence. And poor Rosario Dawson and Michael Chiklis (so good on TV’s “The Shield,” but unable to find an interesting movie role so far). Their roles are so underwritten, they could be anybody. The focus of the film is on LaBeouf and Monaghan as they race from one point to the next. Their plight might not make much sense but it sure is fun to watch. By the time they arrive at that “The Man Who Knew Too Much” moment the audience is completely worn out – but in a good way. So buckle yourself into your seat and prepare for takeoff. “Eagle Eye” is a race against the clock that will keep you entertained and out of breath.

*SPOILER ALERT*

The only real flaw I had with this aside from some of the poor acting,was the sappy ending. We all know that if someone went into a room where the president was and started shooting off a gun, the Secret Service Agents would have shot to kill. Not Wound! KILL.

A sad 3 on my "Go See" scale and thats being generous.

This Duchess just wasn't enough to REALLY hold my attention

THE DUCHESS is the story of an extraordinary woman who rose to fame by staying true to her passions in a world of protocol, gossip and social rules – and paid the price. Long before the concept existed, the Duchess of Devonshire, Georgiana Spencer (KEIRA KNIGHTLEY), was the original “It Girl.” Like her direct ancestor Princess Diana, she was ravishing, glamorous and adored by an entire country. Determined to be a player in the wider affairs of the world, she proved that she could out-gamble, out-drink and outwit most of the aristocratic men who surrounded her. She helped usher in sweeping changes to England as a leader of the forward-thinking Whig Party. But even as her power and popularity grew, she was haunted by the fact that the only man in England she seemingly could not seduce was her very own husband, the Duke (RALPH FIENNES). And when she tried to find her own way to be true to her heart and loyal to her duty, the resulting controversies and convoluted liaisons would leave all of London talking.

Knightley and Fiennes in a period piece … Is this a rerun? Sure feels like it. There is rarely a look at the outside world, and isn’t that one of the reasons we watch period pieces? We’ve been here. We’ve done this. Period. Are you the target audience for an acceptable, undistinguished Masterpiece Theater rehash about the oppression of women in 18th Century England? I am not. I was happy enough to sit through The Duchess, which is quite watchable and not without its small pleasures, but I can't recommend it to anyone without a particular affinity for this sort of thing. In the dead of September, you could certainly do worse -- but this isn't anything you haven't seen before. The film's story is indistinguishable from its message: in England, in the late 1700s, an intelligent young woman is driven into, and ultimately trapped in, a cruel, loveless marriage. Refusal or escape would mean ruin.

When Georgiana (Keira Knightley) is first informed that she is to marry the enoromously rich Duke of Devonshire (Ralph Fiennes), she's actually pleased, especially after her mother (Charlotte Rampling) assures her that "when one truly loves someone, one doesn't have to know them well to be sure; one knows, right away." But the Duke turns out to be an asshole, caring only about Georgiana's perceived inability to produce a male heir (she gives birth to two living girls and two stillborn sons), and prone to taking mistresses willy-nilly. When he shacks up with Georgiana's friend Bess (Hayley Atwell), who is apologetic but explains that sleeping with the Duke is her only chance of ever seeing her children again, the profoundly unhappy Georgiana desperately starts looking for a way out, only to be blocked at every turn. This story has been told enough times that we know it isn't inherently uninteresting, but The Duchess has no angle on it that's not effectively conveyed via the basic plot description. Women are stifled: when the Duke marvels at the complexity of female attire, Georgiana replies that clothes are the only way women have to express themselves (while men have so many). The Duke's treatment of Georgiana is exceptionally cruel; she suffers, and ultimately takes her mother's advice and resigns to her duty -- first to bear the duke a male heir, then to maintain his social status. It's depressing stuff, but the movie has no new insights. It's the most generic treatment of this subject you can imagine. The fun, to the extent that there is some, is in the character of the Duke, played by Ralph Fiennes with a sort of invidious pragmatism that's much more interesting before it turns into sneering villainy later in the film. The Duke and Duchess' wedding night isn't merely passionless, it's downright creepy, with Fiennes issuing polite, flat-affect directions ("Would you go to your bed?"); it's one of the movie's rare sparks of life. His half-assed attempt at an olive branch in the final minutes is also intriguing, though I wonder if it was meant as an attempt to humanize him; to me, it revealed the depth of his treachery. Not only has he caused unspeakable anguish, but he now has the gall to demand to be left in peace. The Duchess makes a misguided feint at an upbeat ending where there's nothing upbeat to be found. Without the dreaded title cards the final grace note maybe could have been read as chillingly ironic, but with them the movie just seems desperate not to be too much of a downer. As with most everything else, it finds a bland middle ground. I wouldn't call The Duchess boring; it held my attention. But if you came upon it while channel-surfing, you probably wouldn't stop. A steady 3 on my "Go See" scale.

Wishing someone had Choke(d) me so i wouldn't have had to see this

Actor-turned-director Clark Gregg shows he is as adept behind the camera as in front of it with Choke, a wickedly colorful dark comedy about mothers and sons, sexual compulsion, and the sordid underbelly of Colonial theme parks. Victor Mancini, a sex-addicted med-school dropout, keeps his increasingly deranged mother, Ida, in an expensive private mental hospital by working days as a historical reenactor. At night he runs a scam where he deliberately chokes in upscale restaurants to form parasitic relationships with the wealthy patrons who "save" him. When, in a rare lucid moment, Ida reveals that she has withheld the shocking truth of his father's identity, Victor must enlist the aid of his best friend, Denny, a recovering chronic masturbator, and his mother's beautiful attending physician, Dr. Paige Marshall, to solve this mystery before the truth of his possibly divine parentage is lost forever. Adapted from the acclaimed novel by Chuck Palahniuk, Choke tickles the funny bone as it dives into darker areas of human behavior. At the heart of the film is yet another staggering performance by Sam Rockwell as Victor. He fully inhabits the character and nails both the comedic and dramatic aspects with indelible timing and delivery. A delicious blend of fresh writing, juicy performances, and sharp directing, Choke is actually quite easy to swallow.

In his off hours, Victor attends 12-step meetings to cope with his sex addiction, although he's there mostly to meet women. He reserves most of his energy for a scam in which he chokes on food in the hopes of getting Heimliched by wealthy patrons on whom he can leech for a few months. The chatty narrative track assures us this con has worked in the past, although we never see real evidence of it in the film. The dramatic throughline of "Choke" follows Victor's actual emotional involvement with Paige Marshall (Kelly Macdonald)his mother's doctor and a bit of a hothouse flower herself. As touching as Macdonald is, most of the film's interest lies on the sidelines, in secondary characters such as the little old lady convinced Victor once touched her "woo-woo," or the theme park's lovelorn manager, played by the director himself. Great swatches of narration have been imported from book to screen, and while Rockwell delivers these with sardonic ease, the approach is still the opposite of cinema. Palahniuk fans will get what they came for and come away scratching their heads, because Gregg has mistaken the literal for the literary. He has fashioned an amiable Xerox that stubbornly refuses to shock like the real thing.

Choke is disappointing not for what it is but what it could have been. It's watchable enough and at times quite engaging, but that's the problem: A story about a sex addict who works as a colonial re-enactor when he's not feigning choking to death at expensive restaurants should be more than just watchable. It should be as transgressive as its hero. It should cut and it should bleed. It should hurt, in other words, as much as "Fight Club," the last movie made out of a Chuck Palahniuk novel. Where that film's director, David Fincher, is a born filmmaker, Clark Gregg, the actor-turned-director of "Choke," seems like a really nice guy. I'm not sure where nice guys finish in Palahniuk's dark universe, but it's probably not first. It was ok, but it just didn't seem to get to where it should've been. A weary 3 on my "Go See' scale.