Just Go with It

Director: Dennis Dugan

Writers: Allan Loeb (screenplay), Timothy Dowling (screenplay)

Stars: Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston and Brooklyn Decker

** SPOILERS** This review is for Just Go With It starring Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston, Nicole Kidman, Nick Swardson, and the body (Brooklyn Decker). The movie is offensive, obnoxious, annoying, demining, and just not funny.

The basic premise of the plot is that Danny (Adam Sandler) wears a wedding band from a previous engagement to trick immature women into sleeping with him. On one faithful night he is not wearing the ring, he has a magical night with Palmer (Brooklyn Decker). She then finds the ring in his pocket and thinks he is married. He lies and says yes, but his divorce is almost final. Lie, lie, and lie. He is married to Jennifer Aniston, cliché, cliché, cliché Jennifer Aniston kids bond with him, cliché, cliché, cliché; Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston end up together. If you did not see that coming I apologize, but 15 minutes into this film you can predict the entire outcome.

Now a romantic comedy being cliché, with a cast unable to conceive an independent thought, is fine. But this film lacks the core of a semi successful romantic comedy; it just wasn’t amusing to watch. The cast runs around half naked performing the jokes that no one fully explained to them. It’s as if no one told them this wasn’t a Quentin Tarantino Joint. You are not talking just for the sack of talking, these are jokes people!

As for the cast they are all pretty bad with some bright spots. I thought Jennifer Aniston and Nicole Kidman brought everything they could to the roles. Brooklyn Decker, who is a beautiful model, can’t act to save her soul. It was worse than watching a high school performance of Hamlet, watching her make a pouty faces when she was disappointed, or a sad faces when she was sad. Tell her acting coach that the AOL emoticons are not guidelines for people’s emotions. She was used because Adam Sandler thought she was attractive.

The man of the hour, Adam Sandler, has lost his touch with comedy. After Happy Gilmore his comedic timing has come down to blatantly stupid satires (Don’t Mess with the Zohan) or mocking baby voices. Someone needs to remind him that even when a child hits the age of 4 this no longer become amusing.

I don’t really know what to say about this film. It’s a tried and true story that has been better told almost anywhere else. It’s a comedy without the comedy. If this sounds like a good time, then by all means go out and buy this film. I would rather keep my $25.00 dollars and rewatch Happy Gilmore.

 

-Crimson R. 

Dinner for Schmucks

Director: Jay Roach

Writers:  David Guion (screenplay), Michael Handelman (screenplay)

Stars: Steve Carell, Paul Rudd and Stephanie Szostak

Steve Carell. Paul Rudd. How can you go wrong? Oh when there is a will there is a way.

The basis of the movie is Tim (Rudd), a flourishing analyst, is invited to a dinner party by his superiors. The catch is that the executives at the party all have to bring an idiot to dinner, and Tim happens to meet Barry (Carell), the ideal guest. The movie is written by David Guion and Michael Handelman the masterminds behind The Ex. Remember that film? Don’t feel bad if you don’t. It sucked too.

Dinner for Schmucks has no laughs, none. I do not even think I cracked a smile during the film. We are supposed to laugh at Barry a bucked toothed, socially inept, walking disaster of a human being. Instead, Steve Carell portrayal is so touching and genuine you fell sorry for him through the film, making some of the scenes just unbearably heart wrenching to watch. Barry is a simple man, who in real life may have Asperger's, who has had the world fall on his simple mind and enormous spirit. So hey, let’s hit him with a car. Have an aggressive ex lover throw wine bottles at him. Laugh at him for his hobbies. What an ass he is for trying to help Tim. Ha ha ha. As you can tell, I did not like the humor is this film.

Paul Rudd is flat in this movie; his usually comedic timing is gone, not because he had a bad performance, because the material isn’t there. Both him and Steve Carell are wasted on this tripe. I can not even pinpoint a single joke or scenario where Paul Rudd was supposed to be clever or comical. He was the straight man to Barry’s zany attempts at friendship. The film does not honor its source material.

In the The Dinner Game Paul Rudd’s character is a despicable human being, who has wealth beyond measure, a mistress, and looks forward to the ridiculing “extraordinary” people at dinner. In this film, we are supposed to sympathize with Tim, whose girlfriend won’t accept his marriage proposal, has a stalker, and can not seem to move forward in his career. So let’s degraded another human being at dinner party! That should really impress your girlfriend. Hey, on the way home let’s go kill that stalker. It’s a double win, she will leave you alone and your boss will have to give you that promotion!

The whole movies builds up to the party for extraordinary people where we see all these “schmucks” Someone who communicates with the dead, a ventriloquist, a mind controller, a blind fencer who won a Olympic medal. Let just say the events of the dinner were inconsequential and end in more slap stick garbage.

The best part of this film is actually the set design used to display the taxidermy work on mice. It is sad when the best parts of your film are the dead rodent displays.

-Crimson R.

Black Swan

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Writers: Mark Heyman (screenplay), Andres Heinz (screenplay),

Stars: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis and Vincent Cassel

Black Swan is unique look at the pressure people put themselves under to accomplish the impossible, perfection.

Black Swan follows Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) an up and coming dancer in New York City. Thru years of training, possibly not by choice, she gets casts as the lead in Swan Lake, where she must dance the parts of the innocent White Swan,and the lustful Black Swan. Nina is flawless as portraying the White Swan, but cannot capture the sexual nature of the Black Swan. Her instructor (Vincent Cassel) demands that she lose herself and become one with the character, and we watch as she pushes herself to madness as she becomes “Black Swan.”

Black Swan is a sexual, beautiful, disturbing, deliberate, and focused character study. There are no fleshed outside stories, no monologues or meaningless character conversations to explain Nina Sayers thought process. It is up the audience to decipher what has happened. Darren Aronofsky treats the audience like intelligent adults, and that is a rarity that one can appreciate. The entirety of film is about Nina’s performance, and we follow her as the pressure grows. Fragmenting her psyche as we build toward the crescendo.

Natalie Portman’s performance is mesmerizing, taking control of the screen while staying aloof and subdued. While the supporting cast also gives a strong performance, except Winnoa Ryder, I do not think it is important to get into it. Natalie Portman is who you came to see. Natalie Portman needs to be commended for her dramatic physical transformation for Black Swan. Her weight loss and physical training for the dance sequences have the devotion of a Christian Bale in The Machinist, or Robert DeNiro in Raging Bull. She has come a long way since Queen Amidala in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menaceas her dance with grace to some of the best music heard in a film last year.  

The music in this film is simply amazing. Clint Mansell spin on the classics and the implementation of the sound into certain scenes sets the ambiance of pure tension and madness. No other movie in recent memory has conveyed such compositions as Black Swan. Even if you do not see the movie, go and buy the Official Soundtrack to support another successful collaboration between Clint Mansell and director Darren Aronofsky.

Black Swan confirms Darren Aronofsky as a master of the modern cinema. He is able to capture the true nature of a story in his camera and make the audience experience the events on a personal level with disturbing imagery, subtle juxtapositions, and fantastic cinematography. We saw the raw brutality and depravity in The Wrestler, the trappings and surreal qualities of addiction in Requiem for a Dream, and now we see the madness of perfection in Black Swan.  

- Crimson R.

 

Twilight: Eclipse

Director: David Slade
Writers: Melissa Rosenberg (screenplay), Stephenie Meyer (novel)
Stars: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner


What is the weight of a cloud? What is that smell? If I got up and screamed right now would anyone notice? How much did I just spend on this ticket? These are some of the things that ran through my mind as I sat down to watch the new addition to the “long” running teenage soap opera that is the Twilight series.


For all of you that do not know, the Twilight movies revolve around a girl named Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) who is caught in a love triangle between a vampire, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and a werewolf, Jacob (Taylor Lautner). In Eclipse, a bunch of unsolved killings have popped up in Forks, Seattle, and Bella is forced to choose between her friendship with Jacob and love for Edward. It is a gripping tale of intrigue, betrayal, love, hate and jealousy…on paper.


The main problem with this movie is not the way the vampires are portray as if they are made out of diamonds, looking as if they rub their faces in rhinestones before each outing. Or that the when people transform into werewolves there clothing doesn’t rip of, it instead evaporates and then is back on when they transform back, except for their shirts. No the main problem with the film is plain old bad acting.


Robert Pattinson portrayal of Edward Cullen is simply boring. Too many deep longing looks, drawn out pauses and dramatic stances make this film less like a worldwide release and more like something you would watch on the WB. When you are getting 12.5 million dollars to perform, you expect better than a high school student performance, and that is all we get from Pattinson. I know that Robert Pattinson can act. I loved him in Harry Potter: The Goblet of Fire. Wait, he did play a corpse in the film. Now it is all starting to make sense how he got this role.


Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson have zero chemistry together. Bella and Edward are supposed have intense burning love for one another. Where he is willing to go through pain and suffering. Willing to give up his life and her, if it means her safety. Then why is it that every time Edward looks at Bella it as if he is staring at a pine cone? Maybe he got distracted by Taylor Lautner’s rippling abs? Did I mention he has his shirt off in the movie? Or maybe it is not his fault. Maybe it is because Kristen Stewart’s performance is an abomination and he can not bring himself to make eye contact.


To say her performance is flat would be a compliment. It is non existent! She is just saying the lines, oh and she shivers at one point in a tent because she is cold. It is ok though, Jacob comes over with his glisten abs and strong arms to keep her warm throughout the night. Did I mention that he has his shirt off in the movie?


People have been saying that this is the best in the series so far. Thats like saying Gonorrhea is better Syphilis. It is not as severe, but it still burns when you pee. This is not a good film, not by a long shot. Is it worth seeing? No. It has no redeeming qualities unless you like pining over 16 year old boys. In this battle between vampires and werewolves, all I felt like was brain dead zombie watching this film.

- Crimson R.

Julie & Julia

Julie & Julia (2009)

Director: Nora Ephron

Writers: Nora Ephron (screenplay), Julie Powell

Stars: Amy Adams, Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci and Chris Messina

I would like to start out by saying that I went into this movie with high expectations, after just seeing Doubt. Its Amy Adams and Meryl Streeps first chance to perform together on the silver screen, and it created magic. It was subtle, moody, intriguing, dynamic, original, emotional, challenging, and brilliantly acted. Julie & Julia is not Doubt. It is a dreary, dull, monotonous, poorly acted movie with glimpses of brilliance. Even the great Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci can not save this bomb from falling into audience laps.

The movie is based of the book Julie & Julia, it follows Julie, a 30ish woman who works in a dead end job, lives in a run down apartment, has not completed a thing in her life, and her only saving grace is her love for food. So, with the encouragement of her husband Eric (Chris Messina) she decides to go thru Julia Childs' cook book the Joy of French Cooking and create all the recipes in one year’s time. Simultaneously throughout Julie’s story we see a biographical depiction of the life of Julia Childs (Meryl Streep) before she was a star, how she got her start with cooking, and her insatiable love of butter.  

Meryl Streep keeps here title as the best female actress of this generation. She embodies Julia Childs with her attention to detail and delivery being top notch. It can be difficult enough to portray a fictional character effectively, but when it comes to portraying a historical figure that had the personality and voice of Julia Childs the stakes are at there highest. Streep nails it and deserved her Oscar nomination for this role.The portrayal between Julia Childs and her husband (Stanley Tucci) are heart felt and feel genuine as well. These performances should not be missed.

The rest of the movie is a train wreck. Now I love Amy Adams, but she comes off as just a whiny, emotional disaster. It became difficult to watch her make the “My life is so hard” face during every scene. Her infatuation with Julia Childs is portrayed as smug at times and I feel the character is a bit to generic for the genre.   

Now Chris Messina, who plays Julie’s husband, is one of my most hated characters of all time. I know that a big part of this film is eating food, but the way he acts it out just made me want to walk out. Chris Messina shovels food into his orifice like a 3 month old that can not quite seem to find his mouth. If you truly savor something, you take it in bit by bit, not try to shove the entire meal into your mouth. 

Julie & Julia is half a fantastic bio pick that deserves all the credit in the world, and half sub-par romantic comedy that has a bunch of characters that you just do not like. I am going to say you should still see this movie, but skip the Julie parts.

-Crimson R.