Brothers

Tobey Maguire has some serious acting chops. Natalie Portman can act when she has a better script than Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace. I think the last Jake Gyllenhaal film I saw was The Day After Tomorrow, so I wasn’t too sure about him. But I expected to see some stellar acting in this movie, and I wasn’t disappointed. Portman’s understated expression of a wife and mother grieving was masterful, and Maguire and Gyllenhaal embodied the desire for redemption with haunted gazes and agitated movements. But in the end they were all out-acted by a ten-year-old! Bailee Madison stole every scene she was in, squeezing raw emotions past her chubby, childlike features.

The movie is shot in a washed-out sort of style that conveys the coldness of a Midwestern winter even as it aids the stark portrayal of the characters’ emotions. This movie somehow manages not to be a “downer” even as it deals with serious issues. More than anything, I felt it was a brief window of time letting us see into a real family’s life.

Brothers won’t set any box office records, nor does it push the envelope of originality or epic drama. Yet with its spot-on acting and its powerful themes of familial love, familial dysfunction, infidelity, redemption, war, aggression, and love, this movie is worthwhile for those of you who are interested in psychology, character studies, or family relationships.

NOTE: Brothers is not a “chick flick.” Both guys and girls will like it.

Planet 51

The makers of the animated flick Planet 51 could have aimed for thoughtful social commentary (Wall-E), groundbreaking animation styles (Finding Nemo), or parent-pandering jokes (The Incredibles). On second thought, maybe they did aim for all three of those. However, they fell far short, landing on mediocre entertainment instead. Adults won’t be bored, but they won’t be wowed either.

As the preview showed us, the film focuses on an astronaut who lands on a planet full of –gasp—aliens! Things quickly go haywire from there. Captain Chuck Baker, the astronaut, is not the true protagonist of the story; instead the storyline follows the suddenly interrupted life of Lem, a teenage “sci fi” geek. The setting is reminiscent of Back to the Future and the animation style reminded me of Toy Story.

The bottom line is, if you have kids, go ahead and take them because there are few truly family-friendly movies any more. They will enjoy the dog-like antics of a certain little robot. Or better yet, pull these old animated movies out of the closet. They still rank #1 and 2 on my list of best cartoons of all time, for their soaring scores, mature, heartbreaking themes, and memorable characters: Lion King and The Land Before Time.

New Moon

“Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There’s too much fraternizing with the enemy.” –Henry Kissinger

This quote came to mind as I sat in the theater for the opening night of New Moon. I had never heard of a male reading the Twilight series or watching the movie Twilight, not even my male friends who are obsessed with The O.C. or Gossip Girl. Yet here I was, surrounded by an audience that was at least 1/3 male. Poor guys, they had no idea what they were in for. I heard one clueless individual say to his girlfriend, “So is this movie a sequel to something?” Yet, in spite of their next two hours of utter shock, I’ll bet they got in some good kissing and cuddling on the way home.

Most of you are familiar with Twilight mania unless you have been living under a rock for the past couple of years. This movie will delight all the fans. It is romantic and engaging with beautiful settings. The actors have matured and their delivery is slightly better, but from my point of view they aren’t given much to work with. For me, it was a cringe-worthy moment when they first showed Edward (the vampire hero/Romeo), striding along with the unnatural wind blowing back his long locks. Poor Robert Pattinson. He is a talented, handsome young actor with an amazing knack for landing roles in multi-billion dollar grossing movies. Yet he is being exposed to the most fawning and lustful side of human nature.

Ah, well. Don’t expect too much from this movie and you will truly enjoy it.

P.S. If you want to get more of Robert Pattinson, read his new quarter-centimeter-thick biography. As my roommate said, “You’d think a 109-year-old vampire would have more to say about his life.”

2012

2012 is a visual masterpiece, attentive to small details with a huge special effects budget. Go see it while it’s on the big screen. The only disadvantage to that is that you won’t be able to mute it. After seeing the entire thing, I concluded that you wouldn’t miss a thing by having it on mute the whole time, i.e. the dialogue was written by the same monkeys typing endlessly that everyone says could rewrite Shakespeare.

Besides its visual inventiveness, the best thing going for this movie is that it takes the phrase “defensive driving” to a whole new level. It may even have topped the little known but best car-chase scene of all time, from 1998’s Ronin.

But if you’re looking for those bits of human interest, humor, and, well, humanity that make these blockbusters memorable, this is not the movie for you. Sorry, John Cusack, but Tom Cruise did it better in War of the Worlds, naked emotion displayed in his eyes during his portrayal of a father fighting for what he loves.

I was hoping that with a topic that’s been explored in movie after movie, director Roland Emmerich would have added something new to the epic theme. There is so much to say about eternity, vulnerability, forgiveness, and love. But maybe I was looking for an end-of-the-world chick flick.

Go see this 2 hour, 38 minute movie if you love crazy driving, flying, and stand-alone visual effects. Otherwise, rent War of the Worlds.

The Box

What??????

That is what you will be thinking at every moment during this movie, including when you’re walking out of the theatre. Sometimes it will be from fascination or being spooked, sometimes it will be from cheesiness or just plain badness.

Whatever you think this movie is about, that’s not what it is.

I really can’t say much without giving anything away, but just a word on accents: Cameron Diaz sounds just plain fake, and her son, played by Sam Oz Stone, wasn’t a bad actor, but his Southern accent just made me long for scene-stealing, street savy, precocious Brad Renfro from The Client.

I will give The Box these three things: 1) It is stylistic 2) It is hard to predict what’s going to happen next and 3) you will laugh during this movie (but not because they wanted you to). It wasn’t necessarily a bad movie, just an odd one. I’m not going to say anything else because I don’t want to give anything away.

I recommend that most of you give this one a skip. Go see it for yourself if you can handle any kind of movie. If you only like crowd-pleasers, don’t bother.

For those of you looking for more movies like this, you’re on your own. I’ve never seen one.

Where the Wild Things Are

Where the Wild Things Are is an adaptation of the long-beloved children’s book by Maurice Sendak. But although children will enjoy the gentle good humor and moments of well-done slapstick, this movie is made to touch the hearts of adults. Its treatment of loneliness, despair, and interpersonal relationships is incredibly well-done considering its main characters could be performing on the stage at Chuck E. Cheese.

The sets and the cinematography are unique and enjoyable. In an era of precocious, worldly young actors like Jeremy Sumpter (Peter Pan), Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense), and Dakota Fanning (everything else), Max Records stands out as a fresh, unaffected young actor. Everything he does seems to come from inside him, as though he just went on the set and played and formed real relationships, instead of being coached on Method acting.

Still, this film is not for everyone. It’s no chick flick or epic drama, no blockbuster or Harry Potter fantasy. It is a beautiful adventure that requires your imagination to stretch but rewards that stretching by delineating the most human of emotions on a whimsical stage.

For those of you looking for more childhood/coming of age adventures with unaffected young actors, I recommend My Girl with a pre-Party Monster Macauley Culkin or Bridge to Terabithia, an adaptation of the Newberry Medal-winning book.

Surrogates

It’s fall, traditionally the season for thoughtful movies like Finding Forrester (or as I like to call it, Good Will Hunting II) and A Beautiful Mind. So what am I in the mood for? A good shoot `em up, explosive summer blockbuster. I want it to be short and sweet, containing at least one scene where a man rescues a woman while an exploding car rockets through the air behind them, and end in the quiet, gold-backlit scene of relief where we realize the man and the woman who have just met will now be in love forever.

I thought Surrogates would fit the bill, being a 90-minute thriller with Bruce Willis. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a sci-fi thriller, long on plot and VERY short on dialogue and depth. Willis’ acting didn’t disappoint, but it was clearly a big budget /big star/big fat B movie. It would not have been so bad if they hadn’t taken themselves so seriously, or if Willis had been allowed his trademark dry one-liners.

The one thing that surprised me was the originality of the romance. Willis and his costar, Rosamund Pike (Jane from Pride and Prejudice), had great chemistry despite their difference in age. Their relationship embodied the adult feeling of painful, tender, hard-fought intimacy rather than the hot-to-trot lust portrayed in many movies. However, it wasn’t enough to make the 90 minutes time well-spent.

See Surrogates only if you want to ask yourself this question: “I wonder if there’s anything else they could possibly have done to make this movie worse?”

For a good shoot `em up flick with depth, rent 310 to Yuma. For an adrenaline-packed, explosive show, I recommend Live Free or Die Hard, or one of my personal favorites, Eagle Eye.

Couples Retreat

Some slightly mediocre movies are worth going to just because of the set, or the location. I’m talking about the icebound, gothic castles of Van Helsing, the soaring shots of the Pacific Northwest from Twilight, or the sun-soaked Greek isles of fall release Mama Mia. And now that I’ve alienated both men and women, let me say that setting was my major motivation for going to see Couples Retreat. Who wouldn’t enjoy spending a couple hours seeing how the richer half lives at a Tahitian resort most of us will only ever dream of?

The movie lived up to my expectations of pure escapism, without many original things to say. The most inspiring moment of the night was when I learned, during the Screenvision program that runs before the movie, that there are 3 versions of the Mona Lisa under the original one, as they’ve proven by X-ray technology. Guess the 4th time’s the charm, and I shouldn’t give up so quickly.

Couples Retreat was a breath of fresh air in a heavily post-modern society that tries to avoid any semblance of a happy ending. Instead of ugly caricatures of unhappy people tearing one another apart with caustic sarcasm, the movie portrayed busy, lonely, kind adults who were willing to put in the work but worn down by life. It’s also laugh-out-loud funny, as Vince Vaughn and Jason Bateman deliver their signature character humor peppered with one-liners. Its main downsides were moments of cheesiness, a few bawdy scenes that added little humor and could have been avoided, and several characters in the resort staff that were drawn as two-dimensionally as a comic strip.

Truly, the best part of the movie for me was seeing Vince Vaughn get to be funny while portraying a mature, happy character. Mature, and happy…two characteristics that often coincide after the “Breakups” and “Four Christmases” of your twenties.

Don’t go to see Couples Retreat if you’re in the mood for something deep or original. Do go if you’re in the mood to laugh or if you simply need to be warmed up.

FAME

I give Fame an 8 out of 10 as far as dance movies go. Because that’s what it is, a dance movie. It aims to capture the broad, American-dreamy audience of "American Idol," but only succeeds in picking up the same girls who watch Dirty Dancing (10 out of 10), Center Stage (9), Step Up (6) and Save the Last Dance (-2). It was entertaining and beautiful, giving me goosebumps at several points, but ultimately unmemorable. A movie called “Fame” should, of all things, be memorable.

Any movie attempting to cover an ensemble cast over four years of their lives has its work cut out for it. The scenes lacked the deep emotional appeal they could have had, if any scene had been given more than 4 minutes to play itself out (at least, that’s what it felt like).

Fame is still worth watching, most notably for its stand-alone performances and the rollicking, adrenaline-soaked lunchroom jam session at the performing arts school.