Talking Pictures

Rich’s Quickie: Don’t let your artsy-fartsy side keep you from enjoying this one!

Day: I’m pretty sick of vampires and I’m seriously looking forward to the new WOLFMAN movie, even if it stinks.  THAT’S how sick of vampires I am… and STILL a B- for a low-budget vampire flick?  You bet!  I howled with delight a few times during this, what could have been directed by Sam Raimi if it didn’t take itself so seriously most of the time.  I enjoyed a slightly different take on a worn subject, while bringing back some of the underbelly of vampirism – being a vamp is downright icky, again – yay!  You won’t see any lame guys standing around navel-gazing in puffy shirts; or worse, beautifully sparkling in the sun.  These vamps sizzle in sunlight, explode from wooden stakes, and rip your throat out to get to your blood. Sam Neil and Ethan Hawke deliver in what might have been terribly embarrassing roles. Willem Dafoe not so much, although he’s saddled with some dialogue that almost anyone would have a tough time delivering.  Still, DAYBREAKERS feels like a serious version of the movies I loved as a kid; self-contained stories like “They Live”, “The Hidden” or even “Robocop”; flawed here and there, but fun.

Night: Written and Directed by relative newbies Michael and Peter Spierig (or, “The Spierig Brothers” as they bill themselves), DAYBREAKERS is not without its share of problems.  Some plot points are only explained barely (the sunlight cure), some of the effects are good while others illicit a giggle, and the Spierig Brothers also enjoy the cheap-shot “surprise shock” a bit too much.  But even with all of that, I’d rather sit through DAYBREAKERS again than other movies of its ilk anytime.

Movie Grade: B-

MPAA: Rated R for strong bloody violence, language and brief nudity. Runtime: 105 min

Director: Michael Spierig & Peter Spierig

Writers Michael Spierig & Peter Spierig

Up front I need to say every “chick flick” is a formula, but it is how that formula is used that can make or break a romantic film.

Last year Sandra Bullock starred in two – “The Proposal,” which was widely acclaimed and “All About Steve” which was widely panned.

In the new film “Leap Year” we find Amy Adams lathering about how her boyfriend of 4 years hasn’t proposed. So now she’s going to Ireland, where he’s at a medical convention, to pop the question herself. It seems in Ireland, a woman can propose marriage on February 29^th (Leap Year).

Ok that’s the set up and now comes the hook. Due to bad weather Adams is forced to take a cab ride to Dublin from some rural city. Her cabbie is a young, carefree, individualist who is rough around the edges, etc, etc, etc.

And that’s the story. Unfortunately, the story is told in such a bland and flat manner that the audience simply doesn’t care. The humor is strained, the dialogue isn’t fresh and zany comedy just isn’t zany enough.

Leap Year just isn’t good enough for the cast, especially Amy Adams who is a marvelous actress (check out Sunshine Cleaning). She almost looks as if she’s in pain as she gallivants around the Emerald Isle trading silly barbs with Matthew Goode (who looks like a young Hugh Jackman) on her way to propose to her boyfriend.

Leap Year ends up a convoluted and pedestrian mess. It deserves a D and is rated PG for sensuality and language.

Rich’s Quickie: Oh, if movies like this only DID come along once every four years…

I said LEAP, maggot! This stew has a lot going for it; Amy Adams in a fine actress, and even Matthew Goode shows promise on occasion. Supporting actor Adam Scott is likable, and John Lithgow has shown us repeatedly what an asset he can be in any role. Meanwhile, the story of a young woman proposing to her boyfriend of 4 years on February 29^th in scenic Ireland is safe enough, and has been created by writers Deborah Kaplan & Harry Elfont, who have had some experience writing romantic comedies such as “Made of Honor” and “Surviving Christmas”, and..

Uh-oh.

Bound: All of these fine ingredients did not make for satisfying cinema stew.  What unfolds onscreen is the story of a single-but-taken, successful and presumably independent woman named Anna (Adams), who is also shallow and spoiled – an “arrogant American” as she is later referred to in Ireland. Her father Jack (a wasted and possibly unnecessary Lithgow), apparently constantly tells her the old wives’ tale of how every Leap Year, a woman can ask a man to marry them in Ireland (how very modern). After an application interview for entrance to a posh, exclusive apartment complex is behind them, her successful cardiologist live-in boyfriend Jeremy (Scott), travels to Ireland for a medical convention.  Before he leaves, instead of giving her a big fat diamond ring, he presents her with… big fat diamond earrings – awwwwwwww!  Tough break.  Anna then remembers her dad’s Leap Year tale (and YOU don’t, he retells you AGAIN in a silly voice over), so she plans a surprise trip to Ireland just in time for February 29^th so she can pop him the question.  Hilarity was to ensue.

What awaits her is nothing short of every stereotypical depiction of Ireland you’ve seen before along with a blatant rip-off of every romantic comedy you’ve ever seen – even ones released just months ago — “The Proposal” comes most quickly to mind.  Anna gets help to Dublin by Declan (Goode), your typical scruffy, non-communicative and emotionally wounded barkeep that girls just go nuts for – especially ones who have apparently fallen for quite the opposite kind of man, already.  Add some ham-fisted dialogue about Anna’s desire to control everything and not believing luck (of the Irish?), and you know where this is gong as surely as you did when you bought your ticket.  Add some typically bad weather that forces our to-be couple off their desired path and into the next Irish set piece (an old bed and breakfast, castle ruins, a charming church – complete with wedding!), and this thing nearly writes itself!  Take scenes directly from other movies – people asking the supposedly married couple (makes it easier on the travel arrangements to Dublin) to kiss… seeing each other somewhat nekkid around shower time, having to share a bed (Again – “The Proposal” anyone?), and the outcome is never in doubt, even with the failed attempts at curveballs near the scripts’ end. Yes, after 4 days with said scruffy Irish guy, Anna is questioning whether or not to marry the man she’s known for 4 years.  But unlike say, in “The Titanic”, wherein girl leaves rich-but-unloving successful jerk for poor-but-affectionate unsuccessful stranger who actually cares for her, Scott’s Jeremy is a successful nice guy who seems genuinely interested in Anna – or at least as interested in her as she is in him; they BOTH talk to each other while texting, they BOTH have busy careers that take up much of their time, they BOTH are slaves to their Blackberrys, they BOTH want the same trappings, and on and on.  But somehow Scruffy Irish Guy who didn’t really treat her well most of the time has stolen her heart (just cook together, apparently), and although she goes through with the engagement to Jeremy, it’s not without some hesitation…

…until back home in the states she discovers through a laughable scene that he may be just as shallow as she is, and runs back to Ireland to Mr. McScruff, whom she is convinced feels the same way about her as she does about him.

Add a dash of slapstick (Anna sliding down a wet hill in the rain!  Anna’s $300 show flying off during those crazy Irish weddings and hitting the bride in the face!  Anna spilling her drink said bride during her apology for the flying $300 shoe!), some action (McScruff finally acting like a man and defending Anna’s honor in a barroom brawl!) all set to an Irish jig – I swear!  Apparently ANYTHING is fun when set to Irish jig background music!  And you’ve got yourself a stew!  Or at least a recipe for disaster; yet another romantic comedy that is neither very romantic nor funny that sets the women’s movement back by a decade or so.

Leap – don’t walk – to the next theater.

Movie Grade: D

MPAA: Rated PG for sensuality and language

Runtime: 97 min

Director: Anand Tucker

Writers: Deborah Kaplan Harry Elfont

It’s Complicated is a throw-back to those 1940’s and 1950’s “adult-situation” comedies.

In this new comedy Meryl Streep is Jane who is divorced from Jake, played by Alec Baldwin. Baldwin has remarried a younger and fiercely competitive woman who is wearing him out. At a family event, Jane and Jake hook-up and Jane, the ex-wife, becomes the other woman in this romantic sex farce.

Streep gracefully exercises her comedy muscles in this well-paced film, while Baldwin (The funniest reason to watch 30 Rock) gives us one of his best performances in years as a man who knows he’s made the biggest mistake of his life.

It’s Complicated is one of the best comedies this year. It gets a B and is rated R for drug content and sexuality.

Did You Hear About the Morgans is another vapid fish-out-water story. This time starring Hugh Grant and Sara Jessica Parker as an estranged New York City couple relocated to Wyoming as part of a witness-protection program.

The film is nothing more than segmented jokes and one-liners about the big city vs. small town life with Parker and Grant going head to head against their hosts – a rural sheriff and his wife played by Sam Elliott and Mary Steenburgen.

Yes it’s guns against P.E.T.A and the nearly divorced against the married for life.

Did You Hear About the Morgans is a silly and unfulfilling mind-numbing film not worthy of any of its stars. By the way check out the same plot line in 1997’s “For Richer or Pooer” starring Tim Allen and Kirstie Alley, it was lame too.

Did You Hear About the Morgans? gets a D and is rated PG-13 for sexual references and violence.

James Cameron has been working on this movie for over 15 years. He has spent millions in developing the technology to bring his characters to life. And now Avatar is finally released to the big screen.

One must separate the hype of this film and focus on the final product.

Avatar stars Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana and Sigorney Weaver in a tale about humans invading a planet called Pandora, which is inhabited by a race of peaceful aliens called the Na’vi to get a rare element called “Unobtanium.”

To gain the Na’vi’s trust, the humans have developed a way of putting a human mind into a cloned body of a Na’vi. Except something goes wrong and a soldier inhabiting a cloned alien body begins to see the Na’vi as they truly are.

Avatar for all its technology and 3-D effects is basically 1992’s “FernGully” with a really big budget. That’s not to say you won’t enjoy the film, but I’m just saying the plot isn’t anything new.  What is new and exciting are the brilliant animation and motion-capture techniques Cameron and his staff have created for Avatar. In execution of those techniques and artistry, Avatar shines. Taking all that into consideration Avatar gets a B. It’s rated PG-13 for intense epic battle sequences and warfare, sensuality, language and smoking.

Invictus is the true tale about Nelson Mandela, played by Morgan Freeman, in his first term as the South African President. Mandela initiates a plan to unite the apartheid-torn land by enlisting the national rugby team on a mission to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup.

The film (directed by Clint Eastwood) is a slow-paced movie that is intelligent and thought provoking. It’s, after all is said and done, a sports film and to that end the film works well. Matt Damon plays Francois Pienaar, the captain of the rugby team who sees Mandela’s vision.

Invictus, as a film, marches to a different type of rhythm and because of that the audience may be shifting in their seats a bit, but let this film unfold for you.

Invictus gets a B- and is rated PG-13 for brief strong language.

Based on the best-selling novel, Peter Jackson takes into the lives of a family whose 14 year-old daughter is brutally murdered. However in this story we see most of the events through her eyes as she’s waiting to pass into heaven. This is a very strong film with excellent performances by the main cast.

But it is Stanley Tucci’s turn as the killer that makes this film chilling as it tries to be comforting. Tucci has for years been an unsung cinema hero of mine, a man who can play any role, and in this performance he is absolutely mesmerizing.

The Lovely Bones is not for everyone, it is a dark movie in places, but it well worth your time to see. It gets a B and is rated PG-13 for mature thematic material, disturbing violent content and language.

One of the problems I have with films boasting large casts is usually the director and screenwriter do not know what to do with all of them. This is the case with the new DeNiro film “Everybody’s Fine.”

It seems more like everybody’s lost in this family drama about re-connecting. DeNiro plays the patriarch of a family who has just lost his wife. It seems his wife was better at communicating with the kids and now as his loneliness creeps up on him, he wants to connect with his 4 children.

The film has a pretty good cast including Kate Beckinsale, Sam Rockwell and Drew Barrymoore but all of them get lost in the shuffle. In the end Everybody’s Fine might have made a better Hallmark movie than a big feature film. It gets a C and is rated PG-13 for thematic elements and language.

Just when everyone thinks Disney has resigned itself only to computer-generated animation, they toss us a real end of the year gift called The Princess and the Frog.

The Princess and the Frog uses hand-drawn animation to dazzle the viewer, but captures the viewer’s heart with a really tender and romantic story of a young hard-working woman in New Orleans during the Jazz era.

The film is replete with memorable characters and a terrific score by Randy Newman. The Princess and the Frog is an absolute delight and deserves an A.  It’s rated PG.