Reviews of `Exorcism,' `Schmucks,' `Inception,' more...

`Last Exorcism' is simply phenomenal “The Last Exorcism” is a phenomenal movie. Horror and suspense are mixed perfectly in this faux doc throwback to the low budget roots of “The Blair Witch.” Directed with supreme skill by Daniel Stamm, “The Last Exorcism” is smart, funny, exciting and terrifying and features a lead performance by Patrick Fabian that is one of the best of the year. Reverend Cotton Marcus (Fabian) is suffering a crisis of faith. Having been a preacher since the age of 10, even going as far participating with his father, in exorcisms from that early age, Cotton now finds himself wondering if God exists. Hence why when Cotton is approached by a documentary crew led Iris (Iris Bahr) intending to debunk exorcisms Cotton agrees to help out. Despite having given up believing that exorcism and demonic possession were real afflictions, Cotton continues to perform exorcisms as a therapeutic treatment. His shyster-esque practice is to agree that exorcism is real, create the circumstance of a real possession through trickery and heal the afflicted by convincing them they have been released by their non-existent demon. This time the documentary crew will follow along and see how he creates an exorcism while also debunking the practice. The afflicted in this case is a 16 year old named Nell Sweetzer (Ashley Bell). Her father Louis (Louis Herthum) has been losing cattle, sheep and other farm animals, all of them gutted, while his daughter wakes up covered in blood and claiming not to know what happened. Her story is suspicious as are the actions of her older brother Caleb (Caleb Landry Jones) who first warns the preacher and the filmmakers to leave and proceeds to further, equally disturbing threats. Is Caleb the real troublemaker? Are Nell's father and his alcoholism the real culprit or is there something deeply, psychologically wrong with the seemingly innocent and unassuming Nell. The answers to each of the questions posed above in “The Last Exorcism” are offered with stunning effectiveness. Director Daniel Stamm and screenwriters Huck Botko and Andrew gurland have crafted a terrifically clever tale of horror that gets to the heart of the best of horror movies, the anticipation and build to horror. Using the faux documentary, shaky Cam, style popularized by “The Blair Witch,” the makers of “The Last Exorcism” crank the horror tension up to 11 by effectively keeping the horror at bay without teasing the audience with cheap thrills. Yes, there are shrieks in the music score and minor misdirection, but more often than not the typical horror movie scenes payoff with unexpected results. One of the ways “The Last Exorcism” shrewdly defies expectations is in the casting of TV veteran Patrick Fabian as Reverend Cotton Marcus. A handsome, charismatic actor with a carnival barker’s ability for B.S and actor’s ability to compel your attention, Fabian is the best bit misdirection in the movie, his compelling presence and handsome face draws your attention while the horror movie stuff unfolds around him to great effect. The rest of the small ensemble cast, including Ashley Bell, Caleb Landry Jones, Louis Herthum and Iris Bahr fit perfectly into the story acting with care and logic and playing perfectly into the suspense and the great con of the best horror movies, creating the belief that these characters are in real danger. No “Piranha 3D” garbage here, though Eli Roth is surprisingly a producer, “The Last Exorcism” puts the lie to movies like “Piranha” by placing believable, sympathetic characters in the way of great evil and allowing us to fear for and care for them. Never for a moment does Daniel Stamm prefer showing off his ability to scare us or appall us over the interests of his characters. The story is about how these characters react and attempt to counteract evil and because of that we are compelled; we are on the journey with them and not rooting for their bloody end. I could go on for pages about how clever, scary, suspenseful and ingenious “The Last Exorcism” is. A great cast, exceptionally well directed and working from a terrific script craft not just the year's best horror film but one of the best movies of the year of any genre. “The Last Exorcism” really is THAT good. Should `Dinner For Schmucks' be on your menu? Barry (Steve Carell) is a schmuck. He has no couth and is completely unaware of the feelings of others. He is not malicious, merely cluesless. Barry's hobby is dressing and posing dead stuffed mice in intricate dioramas and when he meets Tim (Paul Rudd) for the first time it's while retrieving another dead mouse from the middle of a busy street and bouncing off the hood of his car. That Barry is a schmuck is stipulated by the title Dinner for Schmucks but that Tim too is something of a schmuck is the over-arching point of the movie Dinner for Schmucks directed by Jay Roach whose talent lies in crafting intricate dioramas of schmucks being schmucks whether they are played by Paul Rudd or Ben Stiller or Mike Myers. Tim is a corporate climber looking to make a move to the corner office. When his opportunity arrives it comes with a caveat; Tim must find a loser to bring to a dinner at his boss's (Bruce Greenwood). The loser must be a real loser, one he and his fellow corporate VP's (Daily Show's Larry Wilmore and Office Space's Ron Livingston) can make fun of. This is an obviously jerky scenario, one that Tim is not comfortable with and when his girlfriend Julie (Stephanie Szostak) tells him not to go through with it that seems to settle things. Then, Tim hits Barry with his car and well, mice dioramas of The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa look like just the thing to win over the boss. The story is thin but it works as the perfect coat hanger of a plot on which to hang a number of big gags and wacky characters. Among the wackiest is Flight of the Conchords star Jemaine Clement as Kieran a mindblowingly odd artist. Though Schmuckish enough to be the perfect Dinner guest, he's actually an art client of Tim's girlfriend with designs on sleeping with her. Kieran's art involves paintings of himself as various animals, more often than not goats. Wait till you meet the rest of the dinner guests. But, that's not till the end of Dinner for Schmucks. On the way we get to know Barry as he goes about destroying Tim's relationship, apartment and job. And yet, somehow we don't mind. Steve Carell pulls off quite a trick in Dinner for Schmucks and gets us on Barry's side even as he is a catalyst for destruction. Steve Carell nails the role of nerdy, off-putting weirdo and yet manages to win us over. Believe it or not, by the end of Dinner for Schmucks you are ready to see this weirdo get a happily ever after, one fitting of his completely bizarre self. As for Mr. Rudd, as he was straight man to Jason Segal's oddball in I Love You Man he is an even better, funnier and more effective straight man to Mr. Carell. The strength of Dinner for Schmucks lies in big gags and bigger goofballs. Jemaine Clement, The Hangover's Zach Galifianakis, The I.T Crowd's Chris O'Dowd and pupper comic Jeff Dunham are just a sampling of the wackos who bring the laughs in Dinner for Schmucks. Each has maybe a scene or two but it's all they need to deliver their punchline and get out. The classic showbiz cliché always leave'em laughing is the heart of Dinner for Schmucks. The characters get in; get the laugh and get out; making way for the next set up and punchline and payoff. It may not pay off with a compelling story but the laughs more than make up for the lack of a hardy narrative. `Inception' is a mind-bender, and the best movie of the year “Inception” is the best movie of the year. Combining a mind melting metaphysical conceit with a wildly entertaining story, “Inception” from director Christopher Nolan is not merely some exercise in high minded, arty filmmaking, it's also a rollercoaster ride of emotion and action like little you have seen since the last Nolan blew your mind with “The Dark Knight.” ”Inception” stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Cobb a globetrotting con man whose milieu is not seedy bars or corporate boardrooms but the depths of the human psyche. Cobb can enter your mind through your dreams but unlike Freddy Krueger he's not here to kill but to rob you of your deepest, most well protected secrets. With his team, including Arthur (Joseph Gordon Levitt), Eames (Tom Hardy, Bronson), Ariadne (Ellen Page) and money man Mr. Saito (Ken Watanabe), Cobb sneaks into the subconscious of a corporate heir named Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy). This job however, is different than the team's usual theft of secrets, this time they are attempting an Inception, planting an idea in Fischer's mind in hopes of influencing his future. Complicated? It sure sounds complicated but under the skilled direction of Christopher Nolan and the guiding performance of Leonardo DiCaprio Inception is only rarely mystifying. The story is elaborate and exceptionally well put together and even at 2 hours and 40 minutes it floats by like a dream, one you can't help but remember. I am being intentionally vague as too much information could spoil the fun. I will tell you that Oscar nominee Marion Cotillard plays Cobb's wife and it's a performance that exceeds even the genius of her Oscar winning role in “La Vie En Rose.” The way her character, Mal, is woven into the plot will blow your mind in the most unexpected ways. ”Inception” is exceptionally well directed and intricately plotted and features career best performances from DiCaprio, Cotillard, Joseph Gordon Levitt and Ellen Page. Rounding out this cast are veterans Michael Caine, Pete Postlethwaite and Tom Berenger all of whom bring something unique and fascinating to this remarkable, epic dreamy adventure.“Inception” will require further examination and discussion but that can wait for the DVD release. For now, avoid the spoilers and experience “Inception” for yourself. We’ll talk more about it later. `Twilight: Eclipse' should please shrieking teen girls The Twilight movies are about sex. Sex is why the Cullen family, and indeed all Vampires are so damned Gap model attractive. Sex is why Taylor Lautner’s Jacob, and the rest of his Wolf pack are shirtless for most of the movie. The denial of sex from Edward to Bella, from Bella to Jacob, is the driving force of the plot of the latest Twilight chapter “Eclipse” and it makes for one exceptionally irritating tease. Not to mention one truly irresponsible and outdated morality play. As we rejoin the “Twilight Saga” a young man in Seattle is being menaced in the rain. He is soon bitten and will become a Vampire, the first in an army of newborn Vamps under the control of the evil redhead Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard). She is building an army to attack the Cullen Clan and especially Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), the love of Victoria's mortal enemy Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). Bella and Edward, reunited after Edward tried to runaway in “New Moon,” are now in the full blossom of love, as demonstrated by the two of them reading poetry in a flowery meadow. How else would you know they were in love? Bella is still pestering Edward about becoming a Vampire while Edward talks of marriage. Meanwhile, Bella has drama with her pal Jacob, yet another of Edward's sworn enemies, who happens to also be in love with Bella. Bella has feelings for Jacob and this love triangle is supposed to be a source of deathly, primal, tension that smolders off of the screen but as written and played it comes off much more like two boys fighting over a favored toy. Bella and Jacob haven't spoken in the months since she chose Edward over him but when Victoria returns to their tiny corner of Washington State, Jacob wants to know that she is protected and that he and his wolf pack are ready to do the protecting. Victoria’s army leads to a truce between the Cullen clan and the Wolf pack and some newborn vampire heads get crushed in the film’s best sequence. The battle scenes staged by director David Slade have a crisp, professional look that was desperately lacking in the first two Twilight movies. Slade's experience on the vampire flick “30 Days of Night” definitely pays off here even as he is restrained by a bloodless PG-13 rating. Did you know that Vampires are made of marble? I’m not kidding, freaking marble, like tabletops. Goofy as that sounds, the visual of marble crushed by Vampire fist and Werewolf teeth is pretty cool. As an action movie, this is certainly the best of the Twilight brand of action. But, “Twilight” is not about Vampires and Werewolves punching and biting one another in some CGI universe. No, “Twilight” is about sex, more to the point, about spreading a fear and loathing of sex. Stephanie Meyer has crafted a morality play in which Vampirism and the Werewolf version of eternal love known as ‘Imprinting’ are merely poorly veiled metaphors for sex. The pain of turning into a Vampire, the fear of Edward’s uncontrollable ‘blood’ lust and Jacob’s animal sexuality are Meyer’s way of making sex dangerous and foreboding. In the “Twilight” series sex is threatening, mystical and frightening unless you are married. It’s the Purity Ring of movie franchises, clinging desperately to an outdated idea of chastity as the only way to live. Teens are sexually active and the more society attempts to frighten them away from sexuality the more dangerous teen experimentation becomes. Instead of teaching teens the joy of safe, responsible sex, “Twilight” preaches abstinence through fear and encourages ignorance in the form of outdated moralism. If you must send this chastity/abstinence/purity message then at least do it better than this. In Eclipse, the message is delivered with Ms. Meyer and Ms. Rosenberg employing undercooked analogies, juvenile romantic fantasy and groan inducing monologue that run page after page apparently communicating what the writers felt could not be communicated by the cast through that talent known as acting. Disagree? Julia Roberts, Gwyneth Paltrow, Mark Ruffalo, Phillip Seymour Hoffman or many other of our finest actors can say more with a mere glance and an inflection than the characters of the Twilight franchise have said in endless pages of painfully overwrought dialogue in 3 movies. Like the first and second film in the saga, “Eclipse” is for fans only. Those who love the books are blind to the immature romance, the stolid monologues and the attempt to push an abstinence message in the guise of a Vampire movie. I’m sure if Twi-hards would pull their eyes away from Edward’s gleaming skin or Jacob’s rippling abs they would see this series for what it is; but trust me that is never going to happen. `Last Airbender' is for fans of the cartoon only “The Last Airbender” tells the story of a young boy named Aang (Noah Ringer) who is the reincarnation of the Avatar, the master of all the elements, Earth, Fire, Water and Air, and he who brings balance to the world dominated by the tribes of those who can master, or rather Bend, only one of the elements. Unfortunately for all involved, Aang is a petulant deity reincarnate and he runs off for more than a hundred years. Losing himself in a block of ice; Aang is rescued by a Waterbender named Katara (Nicola Peltz) and her warrior brother Sokka (Jackson). Together they journey across the world leading a rebellion against the evil Firebenders who in the Avatar's absence begun a take over of the world and have gone as far as to have wiped out the entirety of Aang's fellow Airbenders. The Firebenders are lead Fire Lord Ozai and his evil minion Commander Zhao (Aasif Mondvi). Also on the side of the Firebenders are Ozai's son Prince Zuko (Dev Patel) and his faithful uncle General Iroh (Shaun Taub) who have been cast out of the Firebender Kingdom after Zuko defied his father's leadership and lost a head to head fight with his even more evil sister Princess Yue. If however, Zuko can capture the Avatar he can reclaim his rightful place at his father's side. If this sounds at all intriguing then you have likely enjoyed the cartoon series “Avatar: The Last Airbender” which had a healthy run on Nickelodeon and in worldwide television syndication. If you haven't seen the series you are more than likely scratching your head over all of the portentous goofiness that this plot entails. Things grow only goofier under the direction of M. Night Shyamalan whose fall from golden boy status in just the last 6 years is one of the more remarkable failures in film history. Shyamalan was once considered alongside Steven Speilberg and George Lucas for his seemingly unfailing talent for wowing audiences. Then he made “The Village” and the drying of the fount of Shyamalan's genius for twisting, knotting plots. “Lady in the Water” and “The Happening” followed and seemed to come from a different director altogether as not only was Shyamalan's talent for twisty narrative gone so was his skill with a camera and even the basic smarts for telling a coherent story. ”The Last Airbender” is, at the very least, more coherent and intelligible than “Lady in the Water” and “The Happening.” Then again, that's not saying much. What it shares with those blisteringly awful films is a taste for inexplicably absurd visual flourish and wildly bizarre inversions of tone and logic. Sure, you can suss out a plot in “The Last Airbender” but it is quite a committed fight. Now, if you are a fan of the cartoon you begin with an advantage that lifts the burden the rest of the audience must carry throughout. In fact, if you are a fan you may actually find a way to enjoy the goofball nuttiness of Shyamalan's insane kiddie landscapes. It helps to have a taste and tolerance for this level of cockamy mumbo jumbo. Without the prior introduction and existing slavish devotion one can only observe “The Last Airbender” with jaws agape and mind slightly melted. “The Last Airbender” is so violently ludicrous in storytelling, dialogue, effects and just about every other aspect of filmmaking that one almost appreciates the opportunity to experience it as it is unlikely you will see it's like ever again. M. Night Shyamala is the single most daring bad director in the business. When Shyamalan fails he does so with epic intentions. No filmmaker has the courage to fail as spectacularly as Mr. Shyamalan has in his most recent films. “The Village” was a minor failure, a seeming blip after his wildly successful run of “Sixth Sense,” “Unbreakable” and “Signs.” ”Lady in the Water” however was such a bold and ballsy disaster that one cannot help but appreciate the nutzo spirit that went into creating it. “The Happening” ranks up their next to “Plan 9 From Outer Space” and Tommy Wiseau's “The Room,” in my estimation, for the sheer outlandish unintended awfulness. Few films have committed such professional effort to such a misguided endeavor as “The Happening.” Now comes “The Last Airbender” a far more benign failure; one with the possibility of entertaining more than a few people. Those people however, are a fan cult devoted to the material in ways only Twi-Hards and Star Wars geeks can truly appreciate. “The Last Airbender” fan cult is vast and devoted and without seeing an inch of film have been defending the film from people such as myself who find the movie “The Last Airbender” an impenetrable and ungodly mess of a feature film. `Grown Ups' is what you'd expect Critics, like me, can decry the Adam Sandler brand of comedy all day. We do, we will, I will. But, we cannot deny its continuing success. Sandler is, arguably, the safest business bet in all of Hollywood. Even at his worst in garbage like “Bedtime Stories,” the worst film of 2008, bar none, Sandler still turns out his fans and returns on studio investments. That will not change with the release of “Grown Ups.” This thin excuse for Sandler to get his oldest friends together for a lakeside working vacation is exceptionally typical of the Sandler brand: dog doo, passing gas and copious pratfalls. It's not filmic poetry but fans of the brand do not care. In “Grown Ups” Adam Sandler is Lenny a 40 something Hollywood Agent married to a sexy fashion designer (Salma Hayek) and raising three spoiled kids who text their nanny to bring them things ,and spend most of their time in front of a flat screen TV. Lenny laments his children's lack of imagination but does little to change them. That is until Lenny is shocked out of his rich boy Hollywood idyll by the death of his childhood mentor and basketball coach, Coach Buzzer (Comic and Sandler crony Blake Clark). Gathering up his wife and brats, Lenny is headed home to a lakeside retreat to meet his old pals and former teammates. There's Eric (Kevin James), the chubby one, whose wife (Maria Bello) is still breastfeeding their 4 year old son. Kurt (Chris Rock) a henpecked house husband under the thumb of his pregnant wife (Maya Rudolf). There is Marcus (David Spade), the single and loving it ladies man. And finally there is a Rob a dopey thrice divorced vegan spiritualist married to a much, much, much older woman (Joyce Van Patten). Beyond these minor character quirks there really is nothing to any of these characters. In the course of “Grown Ups” none of these characters evolve, deepen or expand our understanding of them. Sure, each is given an issue to play, like Sandler and his tech-obsessed brats, but each of these issues is resolved with little if any dramatic effort. Like most Adam Sandler comedies, “Grown Ups” is an idea in search of a story or unifying theme that settles for being a series of occasionally funny gags and one liners. Sandler and his company Happy Madison don't so much develop screenplays really. Rather, they come up with ideas, grab a camera and hope that something will come together in editing. Nothing much comes together in “Grown Ups”. David Spade gets in a few good jabs. Kevin James falls down funny once or twice. Rob Schneider has a bit with an arrow that earns a chuckle but the good gags are few and far between. More often you get a lot of dead space in which the gang riffs in search of a punch line, often never finding it and allowing a scene to simply end awkwardly and unfunny. None of my criticism of “Grown Ups” will matter to the Sandler cult. There is poo, there are multiple farts and the chubby guy, James, falls down funny. That's all the Sandler fan asks for and that is all that “Grown Ups delivers.” Success, it seems, is a highly subjective concept. `Toy Story 3' the first masterpiece of 2010 I find it hard to believe that non-Pixar animation still thrives in this day and age. Sure, the “Shrek” movies, the “Ice Age” movies, “How to Train Your Dragon,” all have their charms but they are dog food compared to the extraordinary work of the crew at Pixar. No animated films, indeed few live action films, can match the extraordinary melding of image and emotion crafted by the artists at Pixar. If you think I am being hyperbolic, you likely haven't seen a Pixar movie. Just last year Pixar's “Up” told a story about an old man, a little boy, a floating house and a talking dog. It sounds like the recipe for a wacky adventure and there is plenty of fun to be had. But, “Up” also contains a 10 minute sequence at the beginning of the film that is the most uplifting, emotional and eventually heartbreaking moment on a movie screen in the last year. That is the power of Pixar. Unending attention to character detail meets an eye for picture detail unmatched by some of our finest live action auteurs. With the release of “Toy Story 3” Pixar has done it again; authoring a third masterpiece in the film series that began the company's unmatched winning streak. We rejoin our friends Buzz (Tom Hanks) and Woody (Tim Allen) and their family of toys as they make a vain attempt to get their kid Andy's attention. Andy is now 18 years old and preparing to leave for college. It's been several years since Andy has played with his toys but they hold out hope that one day he might pick them up again. If not, there is always the attic where they can wait for Andy to start a family and pass them on to his kids. Things go awry however when Andy's mom mistakes the toys, sans Woody who Andy decides to take with him to college, stuffed into a garbage bag intended by Andy for the attic, for trash. This begins one terrifically suspenseful action scene as Woody risks everything to get to the curb and save his friends while Buzz attempts to save the day from inside the bag. Thinking that Andy had abandoned them, the toys duck into a box of toys to be donated to a local day care center. Woody joins them, attempting to get them to go back to Andy. The day care meanwhile seems like a dream, a retirement home for toys where they can get played with by new kids for years to come. There is however, a sinister undercurrent; a suspiciously too friendly stuffed bear named Lotso (Ned Beatty) seems to have a place for the new arrivals but ends up dooming them to the Butterfly room where kids too young to properly care for toys end up playing with them in the most painstaking fashion. Juxtaposed with this story is Woody's journey to get back to Andy and his very real internal conflict between his loyalty to Andy and his loyalty to his family of toys. It's remarkable the ways in which director Lee Unkrich along with Toy Story creators John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton cause us to invest so deeply, emotionally in these toy characters. We feel for these characters as deeply as any human character we've ever seen on screen. Just as remarkable is how this deep emotional connection is forged with joy and laughter. Toy Story 3 racks up big laughs through out its feature length even at the most dramatic and heart rending moments. Unkrich, Lasseter and Stanton know that the best way to deliver a hard lesson is to follow it with a big laugh and no scene demonstrates this quite as well as the landfill conveyor scene, a scene filled with danger, sadness and eventually a big laugh. This is some of the finest writing and voice acting we've seen in any Pixar feature and some of the most eye popping, remarkable animation as well. Pixar has advanced this art form to such lengths that it's hard to find superlatives that haven't already been overly ascribed to the artists at Pixar. ”Toy Story 3” is the first masterpiece of 2010. A remarkable emotional, action packed, breathtakingly beautiful movie. The characters that we came to know from Pixar's early days have only grown warmer hearted, funny and vulnerable over the years and our emotional investment in them has somehow deepened. What a remarkable feeling it is to be moved so deeply by non-human characters. Moved and yet also gleefully, joyfully entertained. `Knight and Day' shows off Cruise star power Despite repeated bashings in the media, Tom Cruise remains one of the biggest stars in the world. While his image took hits due to what some called bizarre behavior (couch jumping) his appeal to audiences hasn't seen much of an effect. It would be easy to point to his time as an United Artists movie executive and the modest flop Lions For Lambs as symbols of Cruise's slipping star power. For that narrative to fit however you have to ignore his next film Valkyrie, a real dog of a movie that Cruised past 200 million dollars at the worldwide box office. The fact is, as much as so many in the media seem to want to right him off, Tom Cruise remains one of the last true movie stars and his new movie Knight and Day co-starring Cameron Diaz and directed by James Mangold is ready to prove it once again. In Knight and Day Tom Cruise plays Ray Miller a super spy on the run with a much sought after item. What this item is doesn't really matter. What matters is that he has it and others want it. Ray needs to catch a flight for Boston and aware that he's being followed he takes advantage of a fellow Boston traveler, June Havens. Stashing his hidden item in her bags and then recollecting it after slipping through security, Ray had hoped he'd seen the last of this beautiful but innocent woman. No such luck however. The bad guys assume she's with Roy and soon she too must go on the run with Ray and the McGuffin. For the uninitiated, the McGuffin is a Hitchcock creation; it's a plot device motivating characters from one scene to the next with their desire to capture the coveted McGuffin. In Knight and Day it's some all-powerful battery, in Casablanca it was letters of transit, in Pulp Fiction a suitcase filled with gold. You get the point the McGuffin doesn't really matter. What does matter? Setting up two clever, charming, attractive characters and allowing them to be clever charming and attractive as stuff blows up real good all around them. Director James Mangold is well aware of the formula and sets about staging massive chase scenes and explosions while relying on Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz to charm the audience into not caring about the obvious lack of originality and invention. Knight and Day is nothing more than a very typical summer action movie but it gets past the been there, done that factor thanks to a pair of leads who know how to push an audiences buttons. Cruise is all smiles and splendid, comical calm amidst the chaos of Knight and Day while Cameron Diaz is gorgeously goofy delivering her magical combination beauty and gangly slapstick. Both Cruise and Diaz are all charm and Knight and Day succeeds as both an action movie and a comedy because of the clever ways each star holds the screen by reminding us how much we've always liked them. Who cares about how much of Knight and Day is derivative of other action comedies; those movies didn't have Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. Haters be damned, Tom Cruise remains one of the biggest stars in the world and Knight and Day is only the latest example. `A-Team' gets a solid A It seems like such an awful idea. Another cheesy TV show getting a big screen treatment? Ugh. But, then the makers of The A-Team made some very sly moves. First they hired writer-director Joe Carnahan (Narc) to rewrite the script and direct. Then they brought in Liam Neeson, just off of his badass turn in Taken, and Bradley Cooper, hot off his star-making role in The Hangover. Even better, the producers nabbed Sharlto Copley hot off of surprise Oscar nominee District 9 and plucked UFC star Rampage Jackson from the hottest sport in the country to take on the iconic role made famous by Mr. T. Each move was spot on and the final product, while not great cinema, is a near perfect summer movie, a smart blend of action, star power and over the top fun. Hannibal Smith (Liam Neeson) is a longtime Colonel with the elite Army Rangers. With his team, including Lt. Templeton 'Faceman' Peck (Cooper), Captain H.M 'Howling Mad' Murdoch (Copley) and Corporal Bosco 'B.A' Baraccus, Colonel Smith has run successful missions around the globe. The latest mission takes the so-called 'A-Team' to Iraq where stolen mint plates could allow bad guys to print unlimited amounts of American currency. The A-Team must retrieve the plates and the money from an armored transport crawling with armed insurgents. This task turns out to be the easy part. The hard part comes when Smith and his team are double-crossed by American mercenaries for hire who kill the General who sent the A-Team on their mission, steal the plates and leave the A-Team to take the blame. Under arrest and court martial from the military, Hannibal Smith and his team will need to escape if they want to clear their names and seek revenge against those that set them up. On opposite ends of this conspiracy are CIA Agent Lynch (Patrick Wilson) and Department of Justice Investigator Charisa Sosa (Jessica Biel). Lynch was there when Smith was given the assignment to retrieve the plates and turns up to help the team escape prison. Sosa was the one who warned Face not to take the assignment, ended up arresting the team and leading the search to recapture them. She, of course, also has a history with Face. The plot is a mere litany of set up, big explosion, brief aftermath and repeat. It's all very easy to follow and never intrudes on the true intent of The A-Team, which is to provide goofball, over the top, summer movie action and fun. Though not entirely brain free, The A-Team will not be mistaken for great cinema, it exists and succeeds on a different path, as a well-crafted nostalgia product. Director Joe Carnahan is a master of clever carnage, setting his stage for big explosions and surrounding the massive special effects with lighthearted character scenes, aided greatly by a game cast. Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper and Sharlto Copley have endless fun with these goofy, charming characters. UFC fighter Rampage Jackson is fun as well but his strain as an actor, especially opposite such natural performers, is quite noticeable. The smartest aspect of The A-Team is never attempting to be more than it is. This is a goofy Summer Blockbuster that aspires to nothing more than thrilling special effects and clever, funny action and character bits. The best of the bunch has the team escaping a crashing plane inside a tank with parachutes and using the tank's gun to aim the falling tank toward a lake for a safe landing all while defending themselves from attacking drone aircraft. The A-Team will leave you shaking your head at how completely off the charts goofy it is, but you will be smiling the whole time. The terrific cast seems to be having as much fun playing these goofy scenes as we have watching them and director Joe Carnahan corrals all of the charm and chaos of The A-Team into one terrific summer blockbuster. `Karate Kid' has no kick Remakes are a bad idea. They exist purely to leech off of the success of the original and have almost no artistic spirit of their own. Remakes are, generally, a lazy yet hasty rehash of the past meant to financially capitalize on idle nostalgia. Thus there was little reason to assume the re-makers of the 80's favorite “The Karate Kid” would be any different. Fair to say, in many ways “The Karate Kid” is no different from the litany of bad remakes from Hollywood but in the most wonderful ways it has innovated. Yes, there is a touch of originality and even thoughtful attempts at more than the mere re-enactment of the past, thanks mostly to two exceptionally well cast leads and a well chosen change in location. Dre Parker (Smith) is moving to China. His mom Sherry (Taraji P. Henson) has taken a job in Beijing and the move from Detroit seems permanent. Stranger in a strange land, Dre has not so smartly avoided learning much of the language leaving him even more of an outsider. Lucky for him a few nice folks speak indulge his ignorance including the pretty violin prodigy Meiying (Wenwen Hong) who attends Dre's school. Also helpfully speaking English is Mr. Han, the maintenance man in Dre's apartment building. Mr. Han is even more helpful because he also knows kung fu, a handy bit of expertise that Dre can use when a group of kung fu wielding bullies target Dre for being friends with Meiying. Mr. Han would prefer to talk out the bullies troubles with their sensei at a major league kung fu dojo but when talking fails, Mr. Han decides to enter Dre in a kung fu tournament where hopefully he can win the bullies respect through skill, determination and most of all, beating them up in a legally sanctioned fight. From there we get a series of training scenes interrupted briefly by a surprising sweet and subtle romance between Dre and Meiying that includes one of the cutest first kisses we've seen on screen since Macauley Culkin and Anna Chlumsky in My Girl. The romance is wonderfully tame and perfectly suited to the age of the actors -both are 12 as of the film's shooting- something that is far too often overlooked in modern movies. Director Harald Zwart does what he can to screw up “The Karate Kid.” The director of such awful movies as “Pink Panther 2” and “One Night at McCool's” drives scenes into the ground by repeating the same action from different angles ad nauseum. For instance, the start of training has Dre repeatedly taking off his jacket, hanging up his jacket, putting the jacket back on, dropping the jacket on the ground and picking it back up. The scene pays off, quite like Mr. Miyagi's Wax on Wax off does for Daniel San in the original, but payoff or not it's still a kid repeatedly playing with his jacket. There aren't enough angles or pop music scoring that can make this interesting over the 15 to 20 minutes of screen time devoted to it. That said Jaden Smith is such a wonderful young actor with so much of his dad Will's charm that you can tolerate even the extended jacket related scenes. Jaden and co-star Jackie Chan make a great team and when they are not tied down by that damn jacket they are a lot fun to watch. Surprisingly, Chan does quiet and cantankerous geezer almost as well as he does flip kicks and open hand punches. Smith and Chan are great but they share top billing with China which despite Communism and a lack of personal freedoms is beautiful on screen. The Forbidden City and The Great Wall are indeed well worn tourist traps on the big screen but they are unbelievably gorgeous tourist traps and you won't mind yet another movie featuring them. Is it at all plausible that Dre could run unencumbered on an empty great wall or practice atop its spires? No, but it makes for a couple of fantastic visuals. When the scene moves to the hills of China and some gorgeous mountainside locations you will have to catch your breath at the beauty. The scenery in China lends an epic feel to the production and makes “The Karate Kid” feel like something slightly more than just another cash grab remake. Is the new “Karate Kid” as charming as the original? No, but it could never be. The original is not necessarily a classic piece of cinema but it is a treasure of it's time period and Ralph Macchio's chemistry with Pat Morita and Morita's dignified, nuanced performance make the original something to be remembered. The remake honors the original by not stinking up the joint and finding a few notes of it's own to play. Everything rides on the strength of young Jaden Smith's budding star charisma and Jackie Chan's aging lovability and it is a magical teaming that helps you overlook the many issues that exist with this remake of “The Karate Kid”. `Marmaduke' is a real dog Despite his new friends, Marmaduke cannot resist wanting to be part of the popular pedigree crowd where the gorgeous Jezebel (Stacy 'Fergie' Ferguson) runs with the park's resident bad boy Bosco (Kiefer Sutherland). Naturally conflict ensues between Marmaduke and Bosco and the bonds of friendship, especially with Maizie, will be tested. Meanwhile Phil is ignoring his family, spending all his time working with his oddball new boss (William H. Macy, slumming for a paycheck) and only Marmaduke realizes how bad things are getting. These two stories coalesce boringly into one story by the end and don't be shocked when things end exactly as you predict. Marmaduke, directed by Tom Dey (Failure to Launch), was never meant to change the way we see kids movies. It was not meant to break boundaries or change the way kids see their world, it's a mindless bit of escapism with simpleminded morality at its center. The catchphrase for the film may as well be 'can't we all just get along,' it's literally that simple. There is nothing wrong with that but the best kid’s films, the Pixar films, have the ability to deliver the same message without being treacle and simpleminded in the ways Marmaduke is. Director Dey and screenwriters Vince De Meglio and Tim Rassmussen cut paste their plot from other, similar films like Garfield or the Chipmunks, add special effects and voila. The special effects used to animate the giant mutt are strong enough that you don't take to much notice of them. The hallmark of success when you don't have the budget or the skill to dazzle ala James Cameron is to make sure the effects aren't noticeable; Marmaduke easily achieves this modest task. I watched Marmaduke with a class of 2nd graders on a field trip. They laughed at the fart jokes and when Phil fell out of the bed and they squealed at the closing doggie dance sequence but for the most part they were silent and respectful. Some twitched in their seats a little but for the most part they were quiet, attentive and a little bored. Afterward, the kids talked about how much they loved dogs but by the time they were back on the bus the movie and its dull messages were long forgotten replaced by the want for ice cream and plans for the rest of the day, and a little bit of dozing here and there. Maybe this benign effect is all that can be expected of a movie like Marmaduke. For me, I wish more children's films had the ambition to engage the minds of children, to challenge them to find central ideas and morals and explore them with their imagination. The creators of Marmaduke have neither the ambition nor, seemingly, the talent to attempt such a thing. On that count, Marmaduke is a waste of screen time. Parents, take heart Toy Story 3 arrives soon. `Killers' another blow to Heigl's career I was a big Katherine Heigl fan. Stress WAS. Her graceless exit from Grey's Anatomy combined with the complete awfulness of The Ugly Truth has soured me on this once promising star. My opinion of Ms. Heigl drops even further with the release of Killers a spectacularly lame attempt to mix action and romantic comedy. In Killers Ms. Heigl plays Jen a single, sexless, 30-something on vacation in France with her parents (Tom Selleck and Katherine O'Hara) when she meets Spencer (Ashton Kutcher). Though he is vague about his private life and why he is on vacation alone in France, she is far too smitten with his rippling muscles to notice. Months later the two are married and cut to 3 years later they remain blissfully in love and living in suburbia. The suburban tranquility of course cannot last because what we know and Jen doesn't is that Spencer was once a CIA agent. When his old boss (Martin Mull in an odd cameo) contacts him Spencer is quick to see trouble ahead. What he hadn't counted on is finding his former boss dead and all of his neighbors, people he has known for a few years now trying to kill him. Jen too is quite surprised by all of this but unlike a normal human being who might have headed for the hills at the sight of so much danger, Jen is quick to leap into the fray and soon the couple is on the run from their killer neighbors. There is one more twist that Jen and Spencer cannot see coming but we sure can. I won't spoil the not so surprise 'twist' but let's just say the foreshadowing by director Robert Luketic is less subtle than a trainwreck/plane crash where in a plane crashes into two trains as the trains crash into one another. Killers is a skill free exercise in formula filmmaking. Director Luketic and his cast range through the apt clichés of both action movies and romantic comedies and fail to either thrill or tickle the audience for a moment. It is hard to fathom that Robert Luketic was the director of the wonderful comedy Legally Blonde a decade ago as since that movie he has turned out one terrifically awful film after another with Killers as the spoiled cherry on top of a moldering dessert. As for Ms. Heigl, Killers like The Ugly Truth focuses on her least attractive tendencies. Both film's fail to give her more than a sketch of a character and forced to improvise something with her talent, Ms. Heigl turns to shrill screeching and hyperventilating convey her character. To be fair to Ms. Heigl the character as given to her is a true bonehead. One might if confronted by a husband who is attempting to kill his best friend in their suburban living room call the police and not instead listen to her husband's call to retrieve a gun from their bedroom. Logically, one might be more than a little distressed about a husband who has after three years of marriage revealed himself to be a paid assassin for the US government and possibly put concerns about a weeks old pregnancy aside in favor of seeking safe haven with the authorities. Instead, Ms. Heigl's character attends to a Target Superstore to purchase a pregnancy test of every available title. If this scene sounds familiar, it should. Ms. Heigl played the same scene to more appropriate laughter in Knocked Up, a film she has subsequently disowned. Ms. Heigl’s Jen never acts appropriately, never reacts as a rational human being might to her situation. Ms. Heigl is at all times subject to the whims of the screenplay and never for a moment anything but a pawn pushed across the screen from one brain free set piece to the next. Another, more adventurous actress might have found a beat to play that might make you forget that the plot is nonsense. Angelina Jolie made wonderful camp farce of both Wanted and Mr. and Mrs. Smith using her sexuality as a comedic foil. Sandra Bullock played up her tomboy cuteness against the ludicrous backdrop of Speed. Ms. Heigl’s reaction to the ridiculousness of Killers is to amp up the shrill factor, screeching each line through clenched teeth or a tight, forced smile. Few actresses have ever seemed as terribly uncomfortable on screen as Ms. Heigl does in Killers. You've likely noticed that I have left Mr. Kutcher out of most of this review. The fact is he's not so horrible here. His character makes sense in the context of the film. He reacts appropriately to the situation before him and plays each beat sincerely. It makes his performance more passably forgettable than bad. Ms. Heigl should strive for forgettable in Killers. Sadly for her, Killers will likely linger long enough for the Razzies, those wonderful awards for the worst Hollywood has to offer year after year. This year the gracious Sandra Bullock accepted her Razzie for All About Steve in person the same weekend she won Best Actress for The Blind Side. Fair to guess, Ms. Heigl won't be that lucky or gracious. `Get Him To The Greek' The character Aldous Snow was created for the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall by producer, screenwriter and star Jason Segal. However, when the role went to British comedian Russell it became entirely his. No one could play the debauched rocker as well as Brand has and now playing Aldous Snow in a lead role in Get Him to the Greek, Brand further expands the character and his mastery of him. Rocker Aldous Snow has hit rock bottom. His latest record, African Child, has been unfavorably compared to famine and genocide while the ludicrous, highly pretentious music video is the subject of vast derision. Worse yet, his longtime, kind of, sort of, girlfriend Jackie Q (Rose Byrne), the mother of his son, has left him for a string of Hollywood bad boys. The loss leads Aldous back to his drugged out, debauched old self after 7 years of sobriety. It's also led to the near complete destruction of his career. Meanwhile in Los Angeles, Aldous's record company has an idea to give Aldous a comeback. A junior exec named Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) wants to bring Aldous to L.A and the Greek Theater where his live record became an instant rock classic a decade ago. Charged by his boss Sergio (Sean P. Diddy Combs) to bring Aldous to L.A in three days, Aaron finds himself navigating the rapids of sex, drugs and massive egos with one of the last real rock stars in the world. What's supposed to be a trip to L.A with a quick stop in New York for the Today Show, quickly turns into a drug fueled rampage from London to New York to Las Vegas and maybe Los Angeles. Whether Aldous Snow makes his big return to the Greek Theater stage is a moot point. It's all about the brilliantly funny journey and Russell Brand makes the journey constantly hysterical. Brand's style is a riffing, improvised style so off the cuff you will be hard pressed to figure what was in the script and what was in the moment. The style gives Get Him to the Greek a comic edge that few other actors could give it. Russell Brand brings an unexpected authenticity to Aldous Snow in both his rocker debauchery and his charming narcissism. Brand embodies the rock star image like few non-rock stars ever could. He is believable on stage singing oddball tunes like The Clap, Inside You and the completely brilliant Furry Walls and off stage with all the drugs, sex and privelege old school rock stars are known for. Jonah Hill hangs well with Brand and grounds the film in it's alternate universe reality. As the nebbishy Aaron, Hill is perfectly at home getting wasted with Aldous or sparking sweetly with Aaron's girlfriend played by Mad Men star Elizabeth Moss. While Russell Brand presses the limits of Aldous's likability, Hill's Aaron gives the film the human element it need for the outrageousness to build into bigger and bigger laughs. Russell Brand, Jonah Hill and the scene stealing, Sean Combs, pile one big laugh on top of another while also delivering characters we like and want to spend time with. Dramatic moments involving Aldous's drug problem and his ex-girlfriend are perfunctory and stop the movie cold for a few minutes but these scenes are brief and easily forgiven because what leads to and follows those scenes is so hysterically funny. Get Him to the Greek is easily the funniest film of 2010 so far and a good candidate to stay at the top for the rest of the year. Parents should be advised however that the film earns it's R-rating. Drugs, sex, brief violence and plenty of raw language make Get Him to the Greek adults only fare. `Furry Vengeance' is bizarrely bad Brenden Fraser is a terrific goofball. He's been one of Hollywood's best goofball's since his breakthrough role as the caveman teenager in "Encino Man." Guileless, earnest and most of all highly committed to whatever the role calls for. Whether he is tumbling down hills, getting punched in the face or chased by Mummies, Scorpions or Dinosaurs, Fraser's winning goofball-ness never seems to fail. Until now that is. On the surface, "Furry Vengeance" with its anthropomorphized animals and heavy reliance on slapstick would seem right up Fraser's alley. Surfaces can be quite deceiving. Even with Fraser giving his sincere best, "Furry Vengeance" is a bitterly ugly family comedy dedicated to bizarre innuendo and below the belt humor that even Mr. Fraser can't save with that goofy mug of his. In "Furry Vengeance" Brenden Fraser is Dan Sanders a family man from Chicago who has uprooted his family, wife Tammy (Brook Shields) and son Tyler (Matt Prokop), to the forest where he is to oversee the development of new suburban homes. Unfortunately for Dan, there are already residents in this neighborhood and they don't take kindly to strangers. These residents are a scrappy group of rodents and other woodland creatures who are sentient enough to know when they are being threatened and savvy enough to fight back. Soon, poor Dan is being kept up at night by birds and attacked during the day by skunks, all under the leadership of a crafty raccoon. In what is likely a nod to classic Looney Tunes shorts of the 50's, only Dan knows the animals are out to get him while everyone, wife and son included, just think he's going crazy. The allusion to Looney Tunes is the only humor to be wrung from Furry Vengeance. I managed to kill several minutes of this belligerent farce by going back in my mind to the classic cartoon frog who sang opera but only to one poor schmoe and never in front of a crowd. The poor guy would repeatedly hear the frog perform beautiful arias and then attempt to show others only to have the frog act like a typical frog. That anecdote has really nothing to do with "Furry Vengeance"; apparently just writing about this movie inspires me to seek distraction. Among the main oddities of "Furry Vengeance" is a propensity toward gags in the script that kids won't get or, depending on their age, should not get. The screenplay has an odd tendency toward sexual innuendo outside of a sexual situation. The credit sequence is easily the most jarring of the inappropriate humor in "Furry Vengeance" as the cast, kids included; sings along to a Kidz Bop-esque remix of Cypress Hill "Insane in the Brain." This is wrong on so many levels that I cannot begin to number them in this space. That said, allow me to address those who already typing their complaint; I know this is a kids movie and not meant for someone like me. I don't have kids. That said, I feel that if I had children, no matter how much they whine, I would not bring them to see "Furry Vengeance." Regardless of whether the film is pitched to the juvenile sense of humor, I demand something more mentally nutritious for my child. "Furry Vengeance" arrives at a time when the brilliant "How to Train Your Dragon" is still in theaters. Anyone who chooses "Furry Vengeance" over the thrills, chuckles and honest to goodness, wisdom of "How to Train Your Dragon" needs their head examined. `Oceans' one of the best of the year Some of the most astonishing sights ever brought to the big screen have nothing to do with CGI, 3D or Megan Fox. These magnificent sights were captured by the patient, dedicated artists at Disney Nature who in their latest Earth Day documentary “Oceans” may make the folks at the Discovery Channel jealous. French director Jaques Perrin helmed this awesome project that filmed in over 50 different places around the globe from the tip of South Africa to the farthest depths of the arctic to the beaches that inspired Charles Darwin and the warm waters of the Caribbean. Perrin and his crews spent more than 4 years filming with groundbreaking underwater cameras and capturing sights never before seen. Pierce Brosnan is the voice of “Oceans” and his relaxed brogue holds together this relatively short episodic feature that doesn't so much tell a story as it strings together a series of astonishing images that holds the audience enthralled by all the beauty and wonder on display. One will naturally assume that, despite the title, “Oceans” is a rather dry (get it?), scientific, educational and environmentally activist feature. That however, is a grand overstatement. The reality is that the images captured in “Oceans” are so strikingly, breathtakingly beautiful that the whole is as easily entertaining and engaging as it is activist or educational. Yes, time is spent on just how much damage we have done to our oceans. Most impacting is the sight from beneath a trail of garbage floating in an oddly direct line from a river directly into the Atlantic. The filmmakers smartly avoid too much shock imagery as they take us inside fishing nets off the coast of Alaska where we see from below a cloud of blood flowing from a rising net as fisherman go in for the kill. It’s not as impactful as the Oscar winning shock images from “The Cove” but images like the garbage and the blood are merely asides in “Oceans.” Jaques Perrin and his crew keeps the focus of “Oceans” on the astonishing glories of the beneath the seas and in doing so keeps the audience in raw wonder as we attempt to discern just how certain images could possibly have been captured, especially the speed racer like Dolphins who cover acres of ocean at unbelievable speeds. The dolphins are filmed from above with a low flying helicopter and from below in ways that are never explained but will leave you breathless. Disney's return to the world of nature documentaries, a field they left behind years ago after being pioneers of early nature films, is a glorious success. 2009's “Earth” was a strong effort but “Oceans” is the equivalent of Toy Story, the first Pixar feature to demonstrate the awesome, artistic possibilities of CG Animation. “Oceans” expands the limits of what we might expect from Disney Nature. ”Oceans” is a glorious, eye popping experience and it doesn't even need 3D. I cannot wait until next year when Disney Nature takes us into the world of Jungle Cats. `Kick Ass' is its name, but does it? Few movie titles are as fitting as Kick Ass, Indeed the movie does kick ass, balls, teeth and anything else that can be kicked. Also stabbed, shot and variously eviscerated. Director Matthew Vaughn set out for comic book carnage and delivers big time and along the way he gives us character we like and come to care about even as they are greatly exaggerated, comic book versions of real people. Aaron Johnson stars in Kick Ass as Dave Lizewski a teenager who claims that his only superpower is being invisible to girls. Dave longs to be a costumed hero fighting crime and protecting the innocent. Since Dave is subject to harassment and even crime on a regular basis his feelings make sense. After being robbed by thugs Dave makes up his mind to give the superhero thing a shot. Thus, Dave buys a green and yellow wet suit and a pair of sticks wrapped green and begins his superhero career by getting stabbed and hit by a car. Several months of recovery later Dave does come away with a minor superpower, nerve damage that allows him to take a better beating. Get a beating he does but a cell phone video showing him getting knocked around but continuing to fight and defend a downed man makes him a star and eventually a target for a mob boss who mistakenly believes Kick Ass is disrupting his business. As it turns out, another pair of costumed heroes, Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and his daughter Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) have been targeting the mob boss and are killing his men. Where the story goes from there I will leave you to discover. I can tell you it's a fun, if slightly overlong, ride filled with ass kicking violence and some shocking laughs, mostly, and controversially, supplied by Chloe Moretz's ingenious Hit Girl. At a mere 11 years old when the film was made Moretz shocks and appalls with her language and taste for severe violence. Many of my fellow critics are terribly uncomfortable about Hit Girl. Her age and propensity for harsh, bloody vengeance gives them pause and many find it reprehensible. For me, the action fit the character and while I may take issue with such a young girl in amongst such brutally violent acts, I cannot say I wasn't entertained. Matthew Vaughn and his young star never flinch from the violence or the character's vulnerability. In the end, during the controversial final showdown, that vulnerability played against a comic book hero sense of invulnerability raises the stakes and gives the audience an extra jolt ahead of the killer finale. Should someone as young as Chloe Moretz play a character as morally compromised, violent and fetishized as Hit Girl? Maybe not, but try not to be entertained by how well she plays this character, it's impossible. This kid has so much talent that you cannot help wanting to forgive the movie it's many sins. As for the rest of the cast, Nicolas Cage delivers yet another of his wonderfully off-beat characters. Driven by a need for violent revenge, Cage's Big Daddy plays as a mixture of Cage's typically manic action movie characters with bits of the nerdier or dopier aspects of his comic characters. Aaron Johnson has a difficult task in playing Kick Ass as an action hero and as an overmatched kid in way over his head. Audiences want to see him in action but the character isn't necessarily up to it and that creates a clever twist on the comic book hero that Johnson plays well. Johnson is even better in the romantic subplot that has him pretending to be gay to get close to the girl of his dreams, Lyndsey Fonseca. Edgy has become a cliché but it seems an apt way to describe the delicate balance of offensiveness, humor and excitement that is Kick Ass. Campy yet violent, offensive yet shockingly entertaining, Kick Ass quite simply Kicks Ass. `Death at a Funeral' finds wacky fun at a funeral Director Neil Labute has a terrific eye for human behavior. It's a very particular and often quite dim view of humanity that lead to brutal yet insightful films like In the Company of Men and his magnum opus of anger and inhumanity Your Friends and Neighbors. Yet, there is also a brilliantly whimsical side to the director of the dark side of humanity. In Nurse Betty Neil Labute took the cute as a button Renee Zellweger and had her play a woman who falls in love with a soap opera character following a psychotic break brought on by witnessing the violent murder of her brutish husband. From there begins a road picture and a strangely romantic and wondrous performance from Morgan Freeman as the killer who falls for Betty from afar. The strange comic sensibilities of Nurse Betty were a turn off for many audiences but for me it was a remarkable insight into a filmmaker who is tuned to a very different wavelength than most other filmmakers or other human beings in general. It is this quality that makes Neil Labute perfect for the new comedy Death at a Funeral. What other director could find so much wacky fun at a funeral? Chris Rock stars in Death at a Funeral as Aaron the oldest son of a family that just lost its patriarch. Aaron is a tax attorney who longs to be a novelist and lives in the shadow of his slightly younger brother Ryan (Martin Lawrence) a successful writer of trashy novels. This however is the least of Aaron's troubles as he has his wife Michelle (Regina Hall) pushing to have a baby and his mother Cynthia (Loretta Devine) constantly on the verge of a meltdown. Oh and then there is the issue of the funeral home delivering the wrong body. Yikes! Among the funeral guests are Aaron's cousin Elaine (Zoe Saldana) and her boyfriend Oscar (James Marsden) who dreads seeing Elaine's father (Ron Glass) who has made it clear how much he hates Oscar. They are joined by Elaine's brother Jeff (Columbus Short) a minor drug dealer whose pill concoction is set to make trouble at the funeral. Family friend Norman (Tracey Morgan) and his pal Derek (Luke Wilson) each have a different purpose at the funeral. Norman is helping out by bringing cranky Uncle Russell (Danny Glover) to the funeral while Derek will be seeking out Elaine with whom he has a romantic past that he hopes to rekindle. And then there is a mystery guest. Peter Dinklage plays Frank, the same role he played in the original British version of Death at a Funeral in 2007. Frank holds the key to a major subplot that drives the middle portion of the film to a wild climax that though it comes up a little short by being too easy, does not fail so completely as to sink the whole film. Death at a Funeral brilliantly builds comic momentum from the opening scenes involving the wrong body in the casket to the reveal of Frank's secret to Oscar's wild drug infused ride to finally sitting everyone down for the actual funeral. It's remarkable how Labute keeps all of these comic plates spinning and pays off each set piece with a big, big laugh. The cast of Death at a Funeral is first rate with Marsden stealing scene after scene with his acid trip wackiness while Chris Rock grounds the film by bringing the craziness back to earth with exasperated truthfulness. Rock is used to driving the comedy by prodding the actors around him with his in your face style. Here, Rock is more relaxed than ever before and it suits him. He may not be pushing the edges but his punchlines are just as strong. Neil Labute worked from a script that is credited to original Death at a Funeral writer Dean Craig. Indeed the characters, set pieces and other aspects of the story are almost entirely unchanged from the 2007 film. What is different is the perspective Labute and his cast brings to the picture. There is more willingness by all involved to explore the black comedy side (not a racial observation) of a story that is after all a comedy set at a funeral. Especially interesting is the exploration of gay panic, something that in African American circles is an especially touchy subject. This part will contain spoilers so skip to the last paragraph if you hate spoilers, Rock and Lawrence in the film's main plot deftly balance horror, acceptance and humor at the prospect of their father's homosexuality. I would have like to see a little more attention paid to this subject, it's wrapped up a little too neatly in Rock's closing speech, but overall well handled and bold for merely being in the movie. Death at a Funeral is wacky and smart, slapsticky but with an eye for the laughs that don't involve bodies being dumped out of caskets. I could have done without the gross-out moments with Tracey Morgan and Danny Glover, which I will not detail here, but it's not so horrible that it ruins the film. Nor does the relatively comfy wrap up at the film’s end take away from the big laughs and wonderful discomfort of Death at a Funeral. `Date Night' Hits All The Right Notes As A Solid Comedy A couple of bored New Jersey-ites decide to mix up their routine with a trip to the big city and find themselves mixed up in a murderous plot involving gangsters, crooked cops and dirty politicians in the new comedy Date Night starring Tina Fey and Steve Carell and directed by mainstream machinist Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum 1 & 2). Shawn Levy has never been what anyone would call an auteur. Levy is, without a doubt, a craftsman but more along the lines of an amateur carpenter than a master builder, his films unfold with a solid plan in mind and end up as rickety, half completed disasters. To be fair, the half completed parts can be quite entertaining and have proven exceptionally popular. How nice then that Levy's latest rickety contraption, Date Night, actually shows the director becoming a better craftsman. Unlike the Night at the Museum movies, Date Night has a quick pace, oodles of charm and more than a few really big laughs. It helps to have a pair of very, very funny leads to carry the audience over the trouble spots. As Phil and Claire Foster, Steve Carell and Tina Fey do a remarkable job of portraying a marriage with a little dust on it. The routine of once a week dinners, lame book clubs and time spent with fellow dusty married couples is so well evoked that you can't wait for the expected wackiness to ensue. The wackiness arrives when Phil and Claire, frightened by the recently announced divorce of a longtime couple/friends, break from the routine for a night in New York City. They want to have dinner at a swanky new restaurant in Manhattan but they don't have a reservation. When another couple doesn't show, Phil boldly claims the reservation and the identity of the missing couple. That couple, unfortunately, happens to be the missing link between a mob boss (Ray Liotta) and some dirty cops (Jimmi Simpson and Common) and a shady politician. When the dirty cops come after the Foster's one wild night ensues as they evade the bad guys with the help of a hunky security expert played by a shirtless Mark Wahlberg. The plot is creaky and as well aged as Claire and Phil's marriage routine. The key to making it work lies with Carell and Fey's ability to sell the goofball, over the top gags and sell they do, Carell and Fey make a top notch comic duo. Scene after scene, whether Phil and Claire are sharing a quiet meal, poking quiet fun at fellow diners, or running from a hail of bullets or in a wild car chase, Carell and Fey make the most of their terrific comic chemistry to draw big laughs. If you like the Steve Carell and Tina Fey you know from TV then you will like Phil and Claire. Director Levy cleverly plays the story to the strengths of his stars and they reward him by taking thin characters and a well worn plot and making something surprisingly, hilariously more of it. With any other cast Date Night would crash and burn. With Steve Carell and Tina Fey Date Night becomes a fast paced, laugh out loud riot; stay for the credits which tack on a few more big laughs in Carell and Fey's blunders and ad libs. Shawn Levy may never be a great director but with the right cast and the right material he is an effective director and that is all that was needed for Date Night. `the Last Song': Hannah Montana Grows Up Miley 'Hannah Montana' Cyrus, Nicholas 'schmaltz-merchant' sparks and the family friendly folks at Disney are a combination that invites snark, that malicious form of discontent expressed in sometimes angry, often biting sarcasm. Each of these three properties has earned their fair share of derision with weak in the knees pandering to the most simplistic of audience expectations. That said, I will attempt to fight back the snarky beast waiting to strike the new Miley, Sparks, Disney movie The Last Song which, under the direction of newcomer Julie Ann Robinson, is not really deserving of the cannon fodder snark aimed in its direction. Ronnie Miller (Miley) is a recent High School grad forced to leave New York behind for her Dad Steve's (Greg Kinnear) beachhouse in Georgia for the summer before she goes off to, well, at the moment, nowhere. Though Ronnie has been accepted to Julliard she has no plans of going, she gave up music several years ago when her parents split. Ronnie's main goal will be to do her time at dads and get back to her friends and her mild rebellion in New York. Along for the ride is Ronnie's little brother Jonah (Bobby Coleman) who, lucky for dad, is much more enthusiastic about the summer sojourn. While avoiding her dad Ronnie encounters Will (Liam Hemsworth) and after some required tension the two begin a romance that begins to lead everyone to a better place. That is of course until the typical elements of a Nicholas Sparks melodrama emerge to submerge the story in hokum, predictability and a tragic passing. It wouldn't be Nicholas Sparks film if none of the principles weren't on the verge of croaksville. (Damn you snarkmonster!) Sparks's script, commissioned by Disney specifically as a vehicle for Ms. Cyrus, is the weakest element of what is otherwise a rather charming little melodrama. Sparks cannot resist applying his trite formula of teen angst, overblown dramatics and cancer to the story and that leaves director Julie Ann Robinson room only to navigate around the many potholes created by Sparks and co-screenwriter Jeff Van Wie. In a rather remarkable turn of events, for the first 2 acts of The Last Song Ms. Robinson actually pulls it off. The Last Song begins with a little mystery involving Dad's background, moves stiffly but effectively to Ronnie's unhappiness with the situation to her opening up to the surroundings, in the form of saving sea turtle eggs on the beach from predators and into her charming and effective romance with the too handsome Will. Through it all Ms. Cyrus pitches her performance at just the right level of teenage rebellion and little girl petulance. The final act sadly coheres to the typicality’s of the Nicholas Sparks brand of forced drama and earns the first of more than few groans. I should point out that on my patented Nicholas Sparks groan-meter The Last Song was a mere 6 groaner where his last effort, Dear John, was somewhere in the 30 to 35 range. So, that's quite an improvement really. (Snark!) Even with the dithering final act, The Last Song remains a charming little teenage romance that demonstrates that when under the guiding hand of a director who cares Miley Cyrus has the talent to deliver something more than her pop star persona. The performance here is genuine and enjoyable and where I was once skeptical and dubious of Miley's acting aspirations I now must admit she may just have a future in film yet. Take a dip in the `Hot Tub Time Machine' When The Hangover became the break out comedy of 2009 it was inevitable that movies about 4 overgrown juveniles getting drunk while on vacation for whatever reason would become a trend or even its own sub-genre. Just watch the DVD shelves, it's coming. The first of what may be perceived as a Hangover knockoff to arrive in theaters is Hot Tub Time Machine. John Cusack stars as Adam an a-hole insurance salesman who has clearly done something to make his girlfriend leave him; his house has been ravaged by her moving out. Adam's buddy Nick (Craig Robinson) has it worse, working as a dog groomer with a wife he knows is cheating on him. Even still, there pal Lou is in worse shape; he may or may not have tried to kill himself while rocking out to Motley Crue. As a way of cheering up Lou, Nick and Adam have planned a getaway to the ski resort where they spent many weekends in their hopeful youth. Tagging along is Adam's nephew Jacob (Clarke Duke) who has spent far too much time on his computer -his Second Life character is spending three years in prison- Adam figures he needs some human contact. The resort was once a hotspot but now it's a run down dump. On the bright side, after a call to the front desk, the hot tub starts working. It works so well in fact that it becomes a time machine and sends all four guys back to 1986. With the time space continuum at stake, and a physics lesson from the original Terminator movie, the guys agree they must not alter the past or else. Hot Tub Time Machine plays like The Hangover with time travel. Rob Corddry, best known as a correspondent on The Daily Show, plays the Zach Galifianakis character, replacing creepy childlike naiveté with creepy, intensity and slapstick. Cusack is the Bradley Cooper character all sharp angry humor and Robinson is the sheepish one waiting to break out ala Ed Helms. The characters don't match exactly; Clark Duke gets far more screen time than Justin Bartha did in The Hangover, but with the binge drinking and wild time schtick the films are certainly in the same vein. Where The Hangover played something of a comic mystery plot for big laughs, Hot Tub Time Machine relies on heavy doses of nostalgia and clever references. Cusack in and of himself as a reference to multiple 80's classics from Say Anything to Better off Dead to One Crazy Summer. None of those films get a direct name check but Cusack does ski in Hot Tub Time Machine, the black diamond, not the K-12 unfortunately, and listen close and you might hear someone shouting for their two dollars. Crispin Glover drops in as another self referential 80's joke; Glover was of course Marty's dad in Back to the Future, a film that earns a few laughs for Hot Tub Time Machine along with any comedy about skiing. And yet still another walking punch line, I mean that as a compliment, Chevy Chase pops up in a funny cameo as the Hot Tub Repairman/time travel guru. Hot Tub Time Machine then throws in one more fabulous 80's cameo that I don't want to spoil; I'll just say Cobra Kai and leave it at that. Hot Tub Time Machine bursts with aching nostalgia that will either delight or invite a nauseous sort of state as one is reminded just how old they truly are. Yes, Hot Tub Time Machine is easy to write off as a movie taking advantage of the well plowed path of The Hangover but that film didn't have time travel. That's certainly enough of a difference to allow you to forgive the many familiar elements. John Cusack is excellent as always while the rest of the cast brilliantly has his back. If I may add a cheesy critic’s one liner to close: Take a dip in the Hot Tub Time Machine. Ha! `Alice' is a pale remake The story of Alice in Wonderland is one of a teenage girl tripping down a rabbit hole into a magical land where adventure awaits. The sub-story however, is not onscreen but behind the scenes. It is an unfortunate story of a once promising filmmaker with the potential of a game changer but who sadly lost his way. In Alice in Wonderland Tim Burton demonstrates that the promise he showed as a filmmaker who deftly combined unique characters with fabulous visuals has now devolved into a style over substance approach better at aping other storytellers’ visions but lacking what made their stories lasting and memorable. The latest attempt to bring Lewis Carroll's wildest dreams to life stars newcomer Ali Wasikowska as Alice a teenage girl of privilege destined to marry a doofusy Lord (Tim Pigott Smith) and live out a sad existence as his concubine and servant. Naturally, Alice is non-plussed about this idea. As Lord doofus ahem Lord Ascot goes to one knee in front of everyone they both know Alice runs off. It's not merely that she is horrified about getting engaged to such a dope, she also happened to see a strange looking white rabbit who seemed to be trying to get her attention. Following the rabbit, Alice finds herself at a rabbit hole which she falls into and winds up in Underland. Underland is a magical, bizarre world of strange characters who act as if they know who she is, as if she'd been here before. Indeed she has but she doesn't quite remember it, even after being reintroduced to her friend the wild haired, hair-brain the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) who informs her of a particularly dangerous destiny ahead of her in in Underland. This is extraordinarily rich material for a visual artist like Tim Burton and he dives right in with broad strokes of CGI landscapes and eccentric makeup and costumes. As Burton did with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Sweeney Todd he takes his pal Johnny Depp dresses him in wacky costumes and hair and aims to set him loose in a crazy looking world. The formula unfortunately has lost its flavor in Alice in Wonderland. Both Burton and Johnny Depp seem to have made Alice on auto pilot relying on the things they have done before to carry this film to completion while bringing little new effort to bare. Alice in Wonderland is a lazy, laconic knockoff of what Burton and Depp have done before. The diminishing returns in the career of Tim Burton are one of the saddest stories to be told. After arriving with astonishing promise in the 1980's, Burton has spent the past decade repeating himself with less and less interest. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a movie I really liked but received much fair criticism. Sweeney Todd wasn't great but was at the least a bit daring in approach. Alice in Wonderland is simply bad. The filmmaking is lax from the cheap looking CGI to the strangely muted colors. The pace is almost non-existent, the movie crawls from scene to boring scene relying on our familiarity with Lewis Carroll's story to keep us involved. The 3D aspect of Alice in Wonderland is utterly unnecessary and only serves to bring forward unfortunate comparisons to James Cameron's Avatar which from a visual standpoint blows Alice out of the water, exposing the films sluggish CGI and weak 3D posing. It is clear now that the reason Tim Burton retreads so many famous stories isn't a wont to bring classic literature to the masses but mere laziness. Famous source material allows Burton to focus on creating fantastic new worlds visually or at least that's the theory. In Alice in Wonderland however, the famous source material gives Burton the opportunity to relax and recreate the things he's done in previous works with little invention on his part. The approach extends to his star pal Johnny Depp whose lacodaisical Mad Hatter is a visual representation of the laziness of the director and indeed the production as a whole. Alice in Wonderland is the first major disappointment of 2010, a lazy rehash of a well known story by a director resting on his reputation. It is heartbreaking to see what has become of the talent of Tim Burton. So much promise unfulfilled. We will always have Edward Scissorhands to remember him by but what of the future, duller, droopy remakes of other people's works with whatever existing tech best allows him to rest on his rep. It's just sad. `The Crazies' just might make you go crazy -- in a good way In a world of been there, done that, sometimes the best a filmmaker can do is improve upon the things that have been done before. That is exactly what director Breck Eisner does with the pseudo-zombie flick The Crazies. Eisner takes the elements we've seen before from movies like Resident Evil or 28 Days Later or George Romero's oeuvre and simply does the same thing better or at least with a neat twist. The result is a smart, atmospheric, fast paced horror flick that entertains from beginning to end with strong characters and a clever spin on expected scenes. Something strange is taking place in Ogden Marsh Iowa. In the midst of a High School baseball game a guy everyone in town knows wanders onto the field carrying a shotgun. The field is cleared and the man is confronted by the local sheriff, Dave Dutton (Timothy Olyphant). Dave is eventually forced to shoot and kill the man in front of most of the population of Ogden Marsh. Later, another fine, up-standing citizen of Ogden Marsh burns down his house with his wife and child inside and no indication of a motive. Sheriff Dave, being smarter than most movie versions of small town sheriffs, quickly surmises something beyond mere coincidence in these crimes. With his deputy Russell (Joe Anderson) and his wife Judy (Radha Mitchell), Sheriff Dave discovers the sinister origins of what eventual military invaders of the town call 'The Crazies.' To give away too much of the plot would spoil the fun of this clever, quirky and even humorous film. The humor is subjective and maybe unintentional, but I laughed a few times at the unique twists and turns of this exceptionally well made genre movie. Director Breck Eisner takes a highly familiar premise and jazzes it up with odd angles and nimble inversions of expectations. Timothy Olyphant is the perfect star for The Crazies. He's handsome with a relaxed, good ol' boy manner. His toughness was solidified by his role on HBO's beloved Cowboy series Deadwood and he has a classic John Wayne sort of swagger that makes him just the guy you want to be behind when the stuff hits the fan. Radha Mitchell is a slightly esoteric choice to play the sheriff's wife but she has a number of effective scenes, especially as the damsel in distress late in the film and one seriously butt kicking scene that will have audiences cheering. A hint about Mitchell's big scene: keep an eye on the three big redneck hunters who pop up at unexpected moments. The Crazies is a genre movie that embraces its genre-ness; takes the conventions head on and is effective for the minor twists on what is expected. You've seen this type of movie before but you don't often see it with this much visual wit, skill and savvy. The Crazies is, quite surprisingly, one of my early favorites of 2010. `Shutter Island' good, but not as great as its hype This is one of the most difficult reviews I have ever had to write. Martin Scorsese is, arguably, the finest filmmaker I have written about in my lifetime. I have an unending amount of respect and even awe for the man and his movies. Seeing one of his films is about as close as I come to a religious experience. So, seeing one of his films and feeling that film come up short of my expectations is not easy. It's not that Shutter Island is a bad movie but rather that I expect so much more from a filmmaker as great as Martin Scorsese. To watch as he steps into one of the biggest movie potholes in history is a little devastating for me. Shutter Island stars Scorsese's most frequent, recent collaborator Leonardo DiCaprio as a Federal Marshall named Teddy Daniels. Teddy with his new partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) has been dispatched to a place called Shutter Island, a mental institute for the criminally insane, where a patient/inmate has gone missing. There is no possible way that the patient, Rachel Solando (Emily Mortimer), actually escaped. Shutter Island is an actual island several chilly miles off the coast of Massachusetts. Installed on what used to be a Civil War base, Shutter Island is a forbidding structure that getting into is hard enough, getting out is unthinkable. And yet, Rachel Solando is missing and no one seems to know how she got out. Why a Federal Marshall is needed for this case is a question never asked. Rachel didn't get off the island and is dead if she did. The hospital has a staff of ex-military and police officers for security who are searching for Rachel when the Marshalls arrive. Teddy has a secret of his own related to the island but I will leave you to discover that. There are a number of nimble twists and turns to Scorsese's storytelling in Shutter Island. The screenplay was adapted by Laeta Kalogridis from a novel by Dennis Lehane whose novels Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone have previously been adapted into excellent movies. Ms. Kalogridis had an exceptionally daunting task in adapting Dennis Lehane's novel for a script by Martin Scorsese and that may be where the film's biggest problems lie. The cinematic touches of Shutter Island are remarkable. Scorsese's eye is perfectly intact as he and cinematographer Robert Richardson pay homage to Hitchcock, noir detective stories and The Twilight Zone. Especially effective are Teddy's artful nightmares which contain stirring and terrifying imagery. For the visuals alone I could recommend Shutter Island. The cast is solid as well as we continue to watch the evolution of Leonardo DiCaprio through the eyes of Martin Scorsese. In his non-Scorsese work DiCaprio's boyishness always seems to get played up. His pudgy cheeks and wet eyes were the central image of the failed Revolutionary Road. Scorsese pushes DiCaprio to be a man on screen and DiCaprio rises to each challenge. The rest of the cast is well populated with figures of menace and intrigue. Ben Kingsley and Max Von Sydow seem as if they have played the roles of the menacing doctor's at Shutter Island before. Mark Ruffalo perfectly balances insistent camaraderie with his new partner with enough skepticism to keep Teddy from suspecting him. Emily Mortimer and Patricia Clarkson play two halves of a whole character and could not be better at getting under DiCaprio's skin. Michelle Williams rounds out the cast as Teddy's late wife and the less said about her the better. It's a very strong performance but so key to the plot that I don't want to spoil it with detail. The final moments of Shutter Island are a massive disappointment. I cannot go into detail because you might see the movie and disagree with my assessment. I don't want to rob you of the chance to find the ending satisfying. I didn't find it satisfying, indeed I found it insulting, especially after the exhausting and exciting journey to get there. Honestly, I predicted Teddy's fate from the first trailer I saw for Shutter Island several months ago. I have not read Dennis Lehane's novel, choosing to avoid it and avoid spoiling the film. Yet, I was able to predict what would happen at the end of Shutter Island. I hoped Scorsese might find a way to surprise or come up with a way to get the same conclusion in a less predictable fashion. Instead, the structure of the plot makes the ending all the more painfully predictable and irritatingly unsatisfying when it comes.Shutter Island is exceptionally well crafted and everything that leads up to the final moments is spectacular in its cinematic detail. Sadly, the final moments are such a disappointment that recommending the film is difficult if not impossible. I guess I can’t say don’t see it; there is too much good work not to. Just be prepared for a disappointing end and the rare occasion of being disappointed by Martin Scorsese. Valentine's Day' is insipid crap Garry Marshall, how do I loathe thee, let me count the ways. I have loathed every inch of film you have ever cut and print. Every word on the page of one of your scripts has been like a dagger in my chest. Your magnum opus Pretty Woman is one of the most loathsome, irresponsible and despicable fantasies ever crafted. I still have nightmares of your attempt to make an S & M themed romantic comedy starring Dan Akroyd and Rosie O'Donnell. In all seriousness, which concentric circle of hell did you escape from? Mr. Marshall's latest bit of awfulness is arguably his most banal, rendered so by having so much star power you may be to blind to realize how you're being terrorized. Valentine's Day is ostensibly about love and its many complications played out over the hallmark crafted Holiday. 20 or some odd number of characters each has an interconnected part to play in this series of failed single romantic comedies wrapped into one massive failure. Among the glitterati to loan there sheen to Mr. Marshall's failed vision of comic romance are Ashton Kutcher as a flower shop owner and Jennifer Garner as, prepare for the surprising twist, the best friend he's always loved but didn't know it. He's just become engaged to Morley (Jessica Alba) who is carrying on an affair with her blackberry. Meanwhile the best friend is sleeping with a married man (Patrick Dempsey). Don't worry, like all despicable married men in romantic comedies, he's leaving his fabulously wealthy wife and children to be with his poor school teacher mistress. I must say, I did marvel at Mr. Marshall's ability to cram that many well wrung clichés into one storyline. There are several thousand other stars in Valentine's Day including Oscar winners (Julia Roberts, Shirley MacLaine), Oscar nominees (Anne Hathaway, Queen Latifah), TV stars (Eric Dane and Dempsey both from Grey's Anatomy, Kutcher and Topher Grace from That 70's Show) and even pop stars and Twilighters (Taylor Swift and Taylor Lautner as the most vapid characters in an entirely vapid movie). There are still countless other well known people in Valentine's Day but who really cares. At some point we in the audience belong to some weird version of Hollywood census takers, right down to the questions of demography as many characters are defined by their race in the most statistical of fashion. To count the ways that Valentine's Day is offensive would actually take longer than my list of reasons for hating director Garry Marshall. The film isn't merely a recycling dump of romantic clichés; it's also a garbage dump of racial and sexual stereotypes. Oh. And don't even ask about sex because despite the theme, sex is purely something that exists the night before Valentine's Day and not the day of. Ludicrously awful, Valentine's Day attempts to mask the odor of it's inanity with a traffic jam of celebrity. The pretty people wandering in and out of the 50 or so failed movies jammed into this one movie fails to distract from the sheer brainless insipidity of Valentine's Day. `Percy Jackson' not a bad Potter rip-off All Percy Jackson needs is a little forehead scar to complete the shadow of Harry Potter that lurks all throughout this unexceptional effort to craft another teen appeal sequel machine. Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, based on a popular series of novels from an author achingly jealous of the millions raked in by J.K Rowling, even goes so far as to hire former Potter director Chris Columbus just to make sure you don't miss the connection. Logan Lerman is the titular Percy Jackson a gap model good looking kid rendered a nerd for the purpose of making him relatable. As we join the story Percy and his pal Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) are sitting by the pool waiting for the plot to kick in. When it finally does, Percy finds out that he is a demi-god, the long abandoned son of the god Poseidon (Kevin McKidd from TV's Grey's Anatomy). This is revealed to Percy after one of his teacher’s morphs into a bat winged demon and tries to kill him for stealing Zeus's lightning bolt. Zeus is played by that master of stern blandness Sean Bean (Lord of the Rings). Zeus's bolt is the most powerful force in the universe and somehow he has allowed it to be stolen by a kid who can hardly pass a 10th grade lit class. This does not speak well of the Gods. The embarrassment and anger is likely to lead to a war of the gods unless Percy, Grover and Percy's assigned love interest, fellow demi-god Annabeth (Alexandria Deddario), can find the bolt and the thief and return them to Mt. Olympus which for tourism purposes is located in the Empire State Building. At least J.K Rowling had the inventiveness to create her own world from scratch in Harry Potter, Percy Jackson rips the work of hundreds of years for its remarkably dull characters. Drawing on centuries of stories about the gods and their offspring, the story of Percy Jackson as adapted by Craig Titley from Rick Riordan's unexceptional book series, manages to be dull about characters with unlimited powers and astonishing back stories. Then again, this is only the introduction. Percy Jackson is set to be a film series and thus all that is required here is a primer on Percy and the other lead characters including the aforementioned gods, best friend, love interest and Pierce Brosnan as, arguably, the most dignified half-man half horse in film history. Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on Percy Jackson, the olympians and the lightning thief. It is, like so many modern studio features, merely a sequel machine meant to pump out just enough plot for us to come back next time. Why should anyone really ask anymore from a film with such a limited goal? Sure, J.K Rowling and her film partners have taken her work and enhanced and enriched it onscreen with each subsequent film to the point where the film work is as grand as or even grander than it is on the page. But why should every movie have to have such aspiration, especially when modern audiences don't seem to require that much hard work. Ah, Percy; for a compromised rip-off teen friendly franchise you're not so bad. `Dear John' a great showcase for Channing Tatum's abs!!!!! Dear John is a romance starring actor Channing Tatum's abs and actress Amanda Seyfried's eyes. As he takes his shirt off to reveal his ripples her wide, deep eyes travel the lengths of his musculature and boom you have a movie. This will be enough to satisfy the depraved teenage girls whose eyes will also travel the full length of Mr. Tatum's tummy again and again. For the rest of us however, those not inclined to stare longingly at Mr. Tatum's Playgirl centerfold audition, Dear John is a dreary bore of romantic cliché and moony mawkishness. I already described the plot, he takes his shirt off, she stares, the end, but I am sure some of you would like a little more detail. After all, Dear John did not begin life as an adaptation of Jergen De Mey's bestseller The Action Hero Body but rather as an adaptation of one of Nicholas Sparks's astonishing series of simpleminded romance hits. Dear John tells the story of John, how inventive right. John is a soldier who while home on leave in early 2001 meets cute with Savannah (Seyfried) when she loses her purse in the ocean and he dives in to save it. She's with a boy when this happens but he has a shirt on, John doesn't and his glistening, rippling self is all it takes for that guy to go away, hell I can't even remember who he was. John joins Savannah for a party at her home and an introduction to the special needs child she spends time with seals their fate as lifetime lovers. The love birds spend the summer together, her appreciating his repeated shirtlessness, he staring longingly if emptily into her wide pool-like eyes. Things are said but nothing is more important than their respective beauty. Then John has to ship out and since this story is set in 2001 there is a pretty big twist coming up, wink wink. Yes, 9/11 is a plot point in this dopey romance and as the film manages to make sex, romance, mental illness, war and death trivial even the deadliest terror attack in American history can be rendered inferior when compared to the romance of two extraordinarily self important beautiful people. What is supposed to be dramatic and romantic is captured by director Lasse Hallstrom in his typically vacant, pretty postcard style. It's a style that is relatively well placed in a film about two pretty people being pretty and for those who watch with the sound off, the style may enhance the experience. This is not an option of course for most theatergoers who will have to endure dialogue so benign and simple you can hear the breeze emanating in the characters ears as they speak. Cheesy platitudes meet at the intersection exposition and bland pop music scoring to create a mind numbing throb of vapidity. An ode to the ab workout, Dear John succeeds in providing fantasy material for those inclined toward Channing Tatum's rippling-ness. Otherwise, the film is one massive bore that manages to trivialize war, sex, autism and yes even 9/11. It's really rather remarkable that a film could be so offensive in such a forgettable fashion. Dear John is so dull that I can hardly muster the bile to be offended by it. `The Wolfman' nothing to howl about Andrew Kevin Walker one of the most daring and dark screenwriters Hollywood has ever known. As famous as his script for Seven is, Walker may be known better as the most rewritten screenwriter in history. Rewrites of Walker screenplays include 8Mm, Sleepy Hollow and countless un-produced properties from Superman to X-Men. His work has been criticized for being too dark and violent for mainstream audiences, despite Seven having made more than 300 million dollars worldwide. It was with this in mind that Walker went to work on a remake of The Wolfman in 2007. Today, The Wolfman is ready for the big screen and, no surprise, Walker's work has once again been rewritten into a compromised, mainstream ready version. The Wolfman 2010 remixes Lon Chaney's classic creature with modern day special effects wizardry. It is directed by Jumanji and Jusassic Park 3 director Joe Johnston as a wild ride of techno factory dreariness. Benicio Del Toro takes the lead role of Lawrence Talbot an actor raised in America but born in Wales. Lawrence happens to be touring in England when his brother Ben is mauled to death by some unknown creature. Ben's fiancee Gwen (Emily Blunt) informs Lawrence of his brother's death and calls him back to his childhood home where Gwen is staying with Lawrence's estranged father Sir Jon Talbot (Sir Anthony Hopkins). Father and son parted ways when Lawrence was a child and witnessed the aftermath of his mother's suicide by cutting her own throat. Lawrence spent years in a mental health facility before going overseas. His return is warm enough for a father who put his son in a psych ward but the undercurrents of discord are resonant in their halting conversations. Lawrence gets on far better with Gwen whose grief rather quickly gives way to a sad flirtatiousness that Lawrence welcomes. Unfortunately, the romance has to be put on hold as Lawrence searches for the beast that murdered his brother. The townsfolk blame a dancing bear owned by local gypsies but Lawrence, visiting the gypsies, encounters a woman, Maleva (Geraldine Chaplin) who has a different and far more terrifying theory: a Werewolf did it. Lawrence has no time to be skeptical of Maleva as soon the camp is overrun by villagers and then the angry, ravenous beast himself. Lawrence chases the beast into the forest and is bitten. When his wounds heal startlingly fast there is only one conclusion, he will become a beast himself. While Lawrence ponders his fate, Inspector Abberline (Hugo Weaving) arrives and with suspicions cast on Lawrence he aims to keep a close eye on him. The plot puzzle that emerges in The Wolfman fits together well enough. Sadly, director Joe Johnston's hyper-kinetic style does not seem to fit a story that thrives on atmosphere and heightened emotions. Johnston cuts to quickly, whirls and tilts his camera and relies on too many cheeseball effects scenes for the gothic atmosphere to set in. Watch The Wolfman and you find that stars Benicio Del Toro and Sir Anthony Hopkins are making one movie while director Joe Johnston seems to be making another. Del Toro and Hopkins halt and suspect and busily feel each other out as fits a movie of a slower, more deliberate pace. There are important father/son issues they hope to seed into the story. Director Johnston leaves them no time for that however. Johnston's charge is to make a fast paced monster movie with modern tech and modern gore. Neither approach is wrong really but the two together are ill-fit and the film falters for a lack of a singular vision. That vision likely could have been writer Andrew Kevin Walker’s whose script the cast signed on for and then saw rewritten when director Johnston came on board by the more by the book writer David Self (The Haunting, Thirteen Days). The failure to meld two visions into one movie is the failure of The Wolfman and yet it is hard to call the whole film a disaster. Makeup and effects legend Rick Baker's work on Del Toro, what little we see of it in the final CGI heavy edit, is solid as is the work of Del Toro who cuts a strong figure as the titular Wolfman. It's unfortunate that once again Andrew Kevin Walker finds his work compromised into a by committee, safe for the simpleton mainstream crowd. Hollywood studios it seems are the first to underestimate the brains and taste of the majority of audiences and that is part of the downfall of The Wolfman. `From Paris' with explosions With so much butt kicking and bullets fired one still must marvel at the fact that what most people cannot get around in the new action flick From Paris with Love is John Travolta's bald dome. The shaven skull of Mr. Travolta is the big buzz topic when anyone talks about From Paris with Love. This despite the fact that it is the follow up from director Pierre Morel whose Taken was one of 2009's most popular films. Travolta's dome is indeed a bit of a distraction but thanks to a solid turn by Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Pierre Morel's furtive action movie direction; it's not too hard to get around John Travolta's ham and cheese performance and bullet head. James Reese (Meyers) is a handsome kid who seems like he should be more than just a glorified bureaucrat's secretary at the American Embassy in Paris. It turns out; he is more, though not much more. Reese is also a secret agent but his career thus far has been mostly the busywork, laying foundations for real spies. Reese gets his big break when a bombastic American spy, Charlie Wax (John Travolta), arrives in Paris. Though enlisted as Charlie's driver, James insinuates himself as Charlie's partner only to find himself desperately in over his head. Wax is a wildcard whose methods and motives are more than questionable. Soon Reese is a little high on some high end cocaine, as is Wax, and his long suffering girlfriend Caroline (Kasia Smutniak) is beginning to suspect something about his job that he's not telling her. She has an important secret of her own, one that director Pierre Morel writer Adi Hasek use to strong dramatic effect. From Paris with Love lacks the intensity and drive of director Pierre Morel’s Taken. Liam Neeson's frightening determination gave Taken an unpredictable and dangerous quality that kept audiences on the edge of their seats. From Paris with Love is much more of a classic, bombastic action film in the vein of the Rush Hour films, minus the intentional comic relief. Don't get me wrong, there is humor in From Paris with Love but only some of it seems intended. John Travolta chews the furniture, the scenery, his fellow actors, anything in his path in his most outlandish performance since Face/Off. Mostly, Travolta is entertaining. Occasionally, Travolta is so hammy and over the top it's embarrassing. It's a tough act to balance and when it doesn't work From Paris with Love doesn't work. Jonathan Rhys Meyers is well cast as the fish out of water wannabe spy. You have to love how game he is to follow Travolta and Morel's flights of bullet riddled fancy but his best work comes in giving From Paris with Love grounding in some sort of movie universe reality. When the film arrives at its dramatic conclusion it can only work with Meyers because Travolta lacks any pretense of believability in this universe or any universe. There is plenty of fun to be had in From Paris with Love, especially if you are a fan of Travolta at his most balls out goofy. If however, you are looking for action and suspense along the lines of Taken, a relationship that TV ads are eager to sew in your mind, you will find yourself disappointed. From Paris with Love just isn't in Taken's league. `Crazy Heart' good but not great Bridges Very often the Oscars turn into the Lifetime Achievement Awards. That will likely be the case with the Oscars this year as one of Hollywood's most loved actors Jeff Bridges is the frontrunner for Hollywood's biggest prize. I love Jeff Bridges; The Big Lebowski is my favorite film of all time. However, his work in Crazy Heart is solid but not spectacular. George Clooney is far more complex in Up in the Air while Jeremy Renner's intensity and focus would be a winner in any other year. Bridges is battered and genial but there is little depth to his drunken country singer Bad Blake in Crazy Heart. Bad Blake was once a pretty big star but alcohol and a lack of a good accountant have laid him low. These days ol' bad can be found playing rundown taverns and in an early scene, a bowling alley. There is still hope Bad but he will have to clean up and swallow his pride a little. Bad's former back up band member Tommy (Colin Ferrell) is now a huge star and he's willing to give Bad a break if he'll take it. While Bad's busy fending off Tommy and his second chance, a trip to New Mexico brings him into the life of Jean a wannabe music journalist. She wants and gets an interview that she hopes will be her big break. Bad is quickly smitten with the much younger and very beautiful writer. His music charms her into his bed and soon Bad is bonding with her very young son. Where the story goes from there is for you to discover. Jeff Bridges makes all the minor melodramatic turns affable and helps avoid most clichés. Director Scott Cooper doesn't reinvent the wheel with his dusty, slightly battered shooting style that does well to match Bad Blake's boozy and beat up lifestyle. The story of Crazy Heart is compelling because of Jeff Bridges warm, welcoming yet sad charisma. However, it will no doubt feel a little too familiar for the regular moviegoer. Just last year about this time Mickey Rourke played a Bad Blake like pro wrestler who's demons were as strong as his love for a younger women and his desire for redemption. The Wrestler is more tragic than Crazy Heart which strives for something more upbeat but the protagonists have the same banged up charm and self destructive streak. On the bright side, the music of Crazy Heart is top notch. This is classic country with an edgy, bluesy energy amidst the twang. The great T-Bone Burnett and newcomer Ryan Bingham create some authentic hits that you will believe could have been hits from country music's recent past. Jeff Bridges tops off his creaky charm with a surprisingly strong voice, yes that is him singing. Also shockingly good is Colin Ferrell who captures the modern slickness of pop country with a smooth confident voice that will remind many of today's top male country stars. The supporting cast of Crazy Heart, including Ferrell, Gyllenhaal and the legendary Robert Duvall, are good but their function in the film is merely to reflect the greatness of Jeff Bridges. That is a double edged sword as it reflects both the strength and weakness of the performance. Jeff Bridges has endless charm and remarkable ease on screen and that is definitely part of Bad Blake but the character lacks depth beyond his alcoholism. While one can believe that his talent alone would be enough to get the much younger woman into Bad’s bed, there is nothing to give the impression of why she falls in love with him. The one night stand is authentic; the aftermath is forced for dramatic purposes. Colin Ferrell and Robert Duvall merely exist to tell us how great Bad Blake was or is something we only glimpse in Bridges’ performance. In the end Crazy Heart has great music and some good work from one of our most beloved actors. Jeff Bridges is fabulously talented but his work here is merely charming and occasionally sad not the brilliant, Oscar worthy turn that some have sold you. Buy the soundtrack and see the movie only if you are a big Jeff Bridges fan or if you really want to be part of the Oscar conversation around the water cooler. `An Education' good, but not up to hype Wading through the “A Star is Born” hype surrounding Carey Mulligan in An Education is a bit of a chore. Coming to the movie late as I am (the film was a hit at Sundance 2009); research is filled with endless paeans to her brilliance and innumerable comparisons of Carey Mulligan to Audrey Hepburn. If I sound a little bitter it has nothing to do with Ms. Mulligan's actual performance. It's that I find it hard to move about the muck of repeated praise and find my own feelings. Carey Mulligan stars in An Education as Jenny a 16 year old with dreams of Oxford University and romantic sojourns to Paris with some lovely boy of her future. Jenny's parents, Jack and Marjorie (Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour), don't mind the daydreaming as long as it doesn't interfere with good grades and extra-curricular activities such as band. Jenny's first real distraction arrives in the form of a sports car and the charming cad inside. The cad is David (Peter Sarsgard) and while he feigns interest in keeping her Cello from getting wet in the rain, his real interest is apparent to everyone. Jenny is naive but not unaware. She accepts the ride home and is soon accepting much more. David offers Jenny the life she has daydreamed about; including that romantic Parisian adventure. Meanwhile, he charms her parents so thoroughly that he could have his way with Jenny in their home if he chose to. If 35 year old David's designs on 16 year old Jenny weren't troubling enough, he has even more sinister secrets waiting to be revealed. An Education was directed by Lone Scherfig a Danish director making her English language debut. Scherfig shows that a young girl coming of age is a relatively universal story no matter your country of origin. Many a beautiful young girl will find elements of their own lives reflected in Jenny's wide eyed willingness to be seduced. The script from Nick Hornby, only his second screenplay, the first not based on his own work, is bittersweet, intelligent and warm in its way. Jenny's life at home is not miserable or drab just realistically dull, as seen from the perspective of a 16 year old girl. Hornby does a terrific job of balancing the dull home life with the adventurous life with David, never making either seem overly hellish or overly romantic. Ms. Mulligan is a radiant presence who never overplays Jenny's youth or faux worldliness. Her talent with Jenny is capturing the moment and one in particular stands out. In a nightclub with David and his friends after a night at the symphony, Jenny smokes her first cigarette. Watch the way she balances Jenny's embarrassment with a desperate attempt to look like she belongs. It's a little detail but so knowing and a great instinctual acting moment. None of the other characters had taken notice, well aware of how young she really is, but Jenny knew and that's what Ms. Mulligan knew. Carey Mulligan adds these seemingly minor but brilliant touches throughout An Education. Her supporting cast is right there with her. Peter Sarsgard has not been this good since his degenerate performance in Zach Braff's Garden State. Alfred Molina deserved an Oscar nomination for his controlled doddering as Jenny's dad and Cara Seymour is the quiet soul of the film, supportive, frightened but stalwart and trusting. It's a fabulous cast and a very well told story. So what is holding back my appreciation? There is a musty quality to An Education. The film is set in the 60's so, of course, the filmmakers want to give a feel for the time, I get that. What I am talking about is content not quality, it's an exceptional re-creation of period. My issue is the values and ideas of the film that feel old and dated. The link that baby boomers have to Paris as the embodiment of sophistication and romantic adventure is severed for my generation. We are more likely to think of New York or even London before Paris. The idea makes the film feel old, even if it is true for the character and her time. Emma Thompson's cameo as an officious schoolmarm holds one of the film's other pitfalls. As she shoulders her way into the film as a representation of authority the film simply doesn't need, Ms. Thompson’s cameo sticks out and calls attention to her performance. Finally, in the third act, another actress is employed to force the ending back to an acceptable place for the simple audience. Olivia Williams plays a teacher with convenient sympathies and paves the way to a much easier ending than what may have been true for the situation. These are minor quibbles really. An Education is in so many ways a brilliant movie, maybe one of the best of the year. Just, be forewarned if you are approaching An Education based on the amazing hype you may come away as slightly disappointed as I am. `When In Rome,' don't go see this movie An explanation: In the past I have been accused of being too hard on kid’s movies while going easy on cheesy romantic comedies. This is not inconsistency or hypocrisy. The fact is that children with their still forming brains in desperate need of development in the area of critical thinking must be protected. Teens and adults, the audiences for cheesy romance, need no such protection. Fully aware of the dopey clichés of the romantic comedy, the teen and adult audience can safely view even the lamest examples of the genre with little damage. Occasionally, some of these overly familiar, simpleminded romances are so simple and so aware of their limitations that our lowered standards are appropriate and fair ways to judge them. Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel's When in Rome is a perfect example. Dull witted with terrible supporting characters, the film has charms for the forgiving audience. In When in Rome Kristen Bell stars as Beth a museum curator who is shocked when her little sister Joan (Alexis Dziena) shows up at her door engaged to be married. Joan is getting married to man she met on a plane and has known for about two weeks. He's from Rome and the wedding will be there forcing Beth to drop everything, including an important bit of work, to run off for two days. At the wedding Beth meets Nick (Josh Duhamel), the Best Man. The two have a couple of charming romantic and funny moments. With Beth flubbing a couple wedding traditions and Nick's penchant for stumbling about, these two bond quickly with each other and we with them. Naturally, it is too early in the film for them to be together. Thus, Director Mark Steven Johnson separates the two with a typical misunderstanding, this one leaving Beth drunkenly dancing in the Fountain De Amore, the Fountain of Love, where she steals some coins tossed by men searching for love. The coins are enchanted and the men will follow her back to New York to try to win her heart. So will Nick, but is one of the coins his? Yes, the plot is lame and worse yet, several of the supporting performances are abysmal. Jon Heder plays a terribly unfunny street magician. Will Arnett wears a ridiculous wig and an even more ridiculous Italian accent as a wannabe artist. Dax Shepard is an offensively self involved male model who though enchanted struggles to like Beth as much as he likes himself. Danny Devito is the only one among the group to salvage any dignity as a sausage magnate tries to impress Beth with gifts of meat. Devito gets a nice moment late in the film explaining the motivation behind his coin in the fountain; it's all that keeps him from being as humiliated as Heder, Arnett and Shepard. The supporting players are, aside from Devito, pretty terrible but thankfully not so bad that they sink the whole film. That is because Kristen Bell, in her first starring role, and Josh Duhamel have such great chemistry. The two former TV stars, she on Veronica Mars, he opposite James Caan on Las Vegas, are just so darn cute together. Bell has an edgy almost angry energy that is leavened by a great smile and ability to roll with the punches as the humiliations pile up. Duhamel undercuts his handsomeness with some good solid slapstick. Nick stumbles, walks into walls and drops down shafts and Duhamel plays the pain well. His back story as a former College Football star famous for one shocking moment on the field plays to his clumsiness. Do not be mistaken, When in Rome is far from great. The film requires a great deal of patience and willingness to suspend judgment but for the willing Bell and Duhamel make a charming and great looking pair. While she smiles and takes her many humiliations in stride, he just stumbles about and they never stop being likable. That was enough for me to recommend When in Rome. `Legion' brings out the devil in Sean When a movie's opening voiceover narration intones that God lost faith in humanity because 'he got tired of all the bullshit' you have to lower your expectations. Unfortunately, there just are not expectations low enough for a post-apocalyptic thriller as dopey as Legion. Paul Bettany, one of my favorite actors, stars in Legion as the archangel Michael, a General in God's Army. As God has lost faith in humanity, God sends Michael to earth with a mission. Michael however, is not going to obey orders. Seems God has ordered Michael to exterminate humanity. Instead Michael travels to a diner in the middle of nowhere New Mexico where a disparate group of people sits patiently waiting for the plot to kick in. Among them are the diner's owner Bob (Dennis Quaid), his son Jeep (Lucas Black), Bob's old army buddy Percy (Charles S. Dutton), A WASP couple (Jon Tenney and Kate Walsh) and their bitchy daughter (Willa Holland). Most important in this group is Charlie (Adrianne Palicki) who is with child from some anonymous hook up but by some luck happens to be the savior of all mankind. As Michael informs Charlie, and us, if the baby is born he will lead humanity out of the darkness. Before the baby comes they must fight off God's Army of Angels lead by Michael's long time friend and fellow Angel Gabriel (Kevin Durand). The Archangel Michael is mentioned only once in the Hebrew Bible. It is said that he will stand for the people of Israel at the end of days. Not that the movie Legion gives a crap about the biblical arcana from which its main character came from. Director and co-writer Scott Stewart merely uses Angels and Archangels as a device for apocalypse. Legion exists only to place Paul Bettany in fetish wear, long leather coat, bandoleer, and lots and lots of guns, and watch him shoot people. He and the cast pile up a few bodies and then die in a particular order until the screen time runs out. Nothing much of interest happens and certainly nothing you cannot anticipate without seeing the movie. Dennis Quaid continues a sad, pathetic career decline. It's hard to recall the last time Quaid was in a film worth watching. In Legion the most notable aspect of Quaid's performance is his dopey lopsided haircut. Yes, he gets a big moment near the end but by then you won't really care. Paul Bettany is not the typical idea of a lead in an action movie. He brings a different energy to the role than your average action movie star might but sadly little more than looking cool in a leather jacket holding two giant machine guns is required of him. We’ve seen him do more, we want him to do more and we just don’t get it in Legion. Little more than an idea, Legion drones and wheezes through a series of violent scenes briefly interrupted by mindless expository dialogue before reaching its violent and predictable end, Legion should be mindless fun but instead is just mindless. Remember the opening narration I mentioned about God giving up on humanity because God got tired of all the bullshit, I think I know how God might feel watching Legion. `Extraordinary Measures' proves Ford's still got `it' Harrison Ford reminds me of a great athlete in the late portion of a career. Not as embarrassing or sad as Joe Naimath with the Rams or Willie Mays with the Mets, but Joe Montana with the Chiefs is a good comparison. Like Montana in that late stage, Ford has lost a step but there are flashes of the old mastery of the game. Extraordinary Measures has moments when the Harrison Ford we love shines through. Sadly, Ford is shuffled off screen far too often in favor of a turgid family melodrama that would be more at home on the ABC Family Channel than on the big screen. Brenden Fraser is the star of Extraordinary Measures as John Crowley a father of 3 kids, 2 of whom were born with a rare genetic disorder known as Pompe. The disease will take the kids lives very young which presents John with a very difficult choice. John can spend as much time with his kids, alongside his wife Aileen (Keri Russell), or he can search for a miracle. The search will involve flying half way across the country to Nebraska where a scientist, Dr. Robert Stonehill (Harrison Ford) has a theory that could be a cure.. All that stands in there way is cash, a lot of cash, and Dr. Stonehill's cantankerous, off-putting nature. Can they raise the money, work together and cure the kids or has John made the wrong choice? If you cannot answer that question then clearly you don't see many movies. This isn't a spoiler, the movie is based on a true story. Reporter Geeta Anand wrote the extraordinary non-fiction book The Cure about the real John and Aileen Crowley who did indeed risk everything to save their kids and the historic medical breakthroughs that risk lead to. There was no Dr. Stonehill however; he is one of many dramatic contrivances made by director Scott Vaughan. Extraordinary Measures is a movie built on melodramatic contrivances from Dr. Stonehill being based on 2 or 3 different brilliant doctors to the odd choice to change the ages of John and Aileen Crowley's children from babies to precocious pre-tweens. In reality John and Aileen Crowley's children were 5 months and 17 months old respectively. In the film the kids are 7 and 9 and Megan Crowley, played by Mereditch Droeger, is a precocious little plot device used with saccharine glee to push and manipulate audiences with her cuteness. The story as written by Geeta Anand in The Cure did not need such melodramatic embellishment. The Cure is told with a journalistic urgency that is a rush to read. It's dramatic because the story is inherently dramatic, heart-rending and moving. The movie goes for a sappy movie-ness that compromises the urgent drama in favor of faux uplift and the jerking of tears. Brenden Fraser is an actor I have liked a lot over the years but he is all wrong in Extraordinary Measures. With his big wet eyes and doughy physique, Fraser seems to mistake his physicality for dramatic acting. Keri Russell is capable of far more than she is given to work with here. Shuffled aside for the male bonding of Fraser and Ford, Russell cries on cue, comforts the children and is supportive and that is the extent of the role. Harrison Ford is not great at playing second fiddle. Though he has aged he remains compelling and charismatic, more so than the younger Mr. Fraser. The scenes they share, Ford is the more interesting actor with the more complex and interesting character and Fraser suffers in comparison. Returning to my earlier point about Ford compared to a great athlete, there was a night in Joe Montana's final year when he threw for over 300 yards and won a game in overtime on Monday Night Football. It was Montana's last great game. Harrison Ford, I believe has that one last great game in him but Extraordinary Measures is not it. There are flashes here of the roguish, grumpy charmer that we came to love all those years ago from Star Wars to Indiana Jones to Working Girl and Regarding Henry. His late career has become something of a caricature, Ford barking a line or two and going through the motions. Extraordinary Measures is one of those performances but the flashes give you hope. That one big game is still out there for Ford. Let's hope it arrives soon. `Lovely Bones' is a lovely, well-made film I have a general detachment from emotion. It's a guard against a young child version of me who was too invested in his emotions and was known to burst into tears at unfortunate moments. Other kids reactions to my outbursts drove me inward to the man I am today. I am not cold hearted, just well controlled, guarded. Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones is the rare film that broke through my guards and tapped the well of that emotional young man I was. The story of Susie Salmon (Oscar nominee Saorise Ronan, Atonement) begins with her narration explaining first her name is Salmon, like the fish communicating her innocence, eager to please nature answering a question no one asked. She then stops you in your tracks with a matter of fact statement "I was 14 years old when I was murdered on December 6th 1973. From that moment on The Lovely Bones unfolds a story of murder, sadness and heartbreaking purity. After revealing her murderer as a neighbor named George Harvey (Stanley Tucci) Susie narrates her story from a place called The In-Between, a place between heaven and earth constructed from Susie's imagination. Peter Jackson animates Susie's heaven with artistry absent from even his Lord of the Rings movies. For the first time in his career Jackson makes use of film tech to deepen his subject, not merely to animate it. The stunning landscapes of Susie's In-Between are eye popping and reveal aspects of her nature, her innocence, her longings and unfulfilled desires. A crumbling gazebo holds a particular emotional attachment that I will leave you to discover. From her In-Between Susie watches how her death impacts her family. Her father Jack becomes so consumed with catching her killer that he barely notices his wife Abigail (Rachel Weisz) is drifting away. It's not until her cab leaves for the airport that Jack realizes she is gone. Susie also watches her killer, George Harvey. He has a past filled with other murders but for some reason Susie's murder has a particular hold on his conscience. He spends hours alone seeming to re-live each moment, moments thankfully unseen by us in the audience. The choice to leave the cruel details to our imagination is a controversial one; the book by Alice Sebold went into obsessive detail. For me, leaving Susie's suffering to the imagination was the right call; I doubt that I could have endured watching the effervescent Ms. Ronan suffering as described in the book. We are given enough detail to construct the horror for ourselves and that is more than enough. Transformed by makeup Stanley Tucci crafts a killer of remarkable repugnance. Today, George Harvey would be the poster boy for creepy. He looks like the picture of someone who murders children. A mumbling, ill at-ease creep, George Harvey sets off alarm bells for his simple lack of social skills. In the 1973 of the film however, he's just a slightly off shut-in, on the surface. Once he becomes suspect number one for for Jack and daughter Lindsey (Rose McIver) who joins her dad's obsessive crusade, the film takes on a pseudo murder mystery feel that enlivens the middle portion of the film. We know he did it, they think he did it and we become desperately involved in trying to will the characters to the clues we know are there. This clever bit of populist narrative is just one of Peter Jackson's wise choices. Jackson has made an art film crossed it with a thriller and topped it all with a deeply emotional story of coming of age. It's almost too much for one film to hold, changing scenes as this does from Susie's gorgeous art-scape to George Harvey's dark chambers to the Salmon house consumed by grief and the urgent search for justice. Only a director as bold and daring as Peter Jackson could pull off such a trick. His experience with the Lord of the Rings informs a good deal of The Lovely Bones. In LOTR Jackson used technology as a construction device. In The Lovely Bones that construction device becomes a painters brush and the technology melts into the subconscious aiding as much in storytelling as in craftsmanship. Unlike George Lucas or James Cameron for whom CGI remains a carpenters tool, Jackson see's technology in The Lovely Bones as something to be woven into the fabric of storytelling. Susie's In-Between is never merely a place; it's the state of her soul where her imagination and desires take a physical hold. Technology, story and character unite in The Lovely Bones to create a deeply emotional experience that transports you into the sadness of a little girl gone before her time. An examination of grief, unfulfilled desires, love and death, The Lovely Bones is one of the most daring and original works in years and one of the best films of the last year. `Leap Year' should be a favorite to feminists The women's liberation movement in the universe of film consists of empowering women economically; they all get fabulous jobs in fashion or real estate or owning uncommonly successful restaurants. The liberation stops however once they have found a man. Such is the case of the new romantic comedy Leap Year starring the plucky Amy Adams. Adams stars in Leap Year as Anna whose job is setting up apartments for sale. She doesn't sell the apartments; she merely dresses them for sale and makes fabulous amounts of money doing it. In a rare twist, Anna has already met a man, Jeremy (Adam Scott), who shares her love of status symbols and just the right apartment. Anna and Jeremy have been together four years and just before he leaves for Ireland on a business trip Anna gets in her head that he is finally going to propose to her, so convinced that she and a friend actually practice being surprised when he asks. No surprise to anyone whose seen the film's trailer, Jeremy doesn't ask and Anna is briefly devastated. After Jeremy's left a plan is hatched, Anna will fly to Ireland just in time for Leap Day, February 29th, a day in Irish tradition when a woman can ask a man to marry her. Now, the liberated woman of today might ask why a holiday is needed for a woman to ask a man to marry her. The makers of Leap Year ladies are unconcerned with such questions. The leap day thing is merely a device to propel Anna on a madcap dash to Dublin. First her plane is diverted to Scotland then she gets stranded in an Irish village called Dingle where she seeks a ride from one of the locals. The only driver available is also the local pub and hotelier, Declan (Matthew Goode). Surprise, surprise, Anna and Declan immediately choose to dislike each other. She's a shrewish, entitled bitch and he's easygoing, handsome charmer with a secret reason for not trusting women. If your eyes weren't rolling through the back of your head as you read that you have more self control than I. So, off they go on a trip across the Irish countryside arguing and uh-oh falling in love with all of the requisite dopey rom-com roadblocks checked off like a shopping list at a cliché outlet. No surprise then to learn, the script comes from the makers of Made of Honor and Josie and the Pussycats. We all know how this will end, anyone who’s seen the trailer for Leap Year knows how it will end. It's a romantic comedy and experience tells us that it is the journey and not the destination when it comes to the modern rom-com. Sadly, the journey in Leap Year is mostly tedious. I say mostly tedious because along the way, though all the predictable beats are there, somehow a few grace notes sneak in. A script polish by Oscar winner Simon Beaufoy likely brought the scene where Anna and Declan clash at a wedding and then share a romantic walk in Dublin before she meets up with Jeremy. These few good scenes however cannot make up for the inept series of clichés that precede them. Add to that the anti-feminist vibe of the whole thing. In the end, after all of the predictable crap plays out Anna throws everything away, the job she loved, the things she worked hard for just so that she can live the life of a doting wife. Yes, she's in love but why does that require her to give up all that she was. Leap Year is yet another movie that affirms that all that really matters to women is getting married and adapting her life to the traditional role of the wife set forth by years of oppression. Choosing to be a wife and mother is as feminist as getting into the rat race but Anna giving up herself to adapt to what is expected of her is as anti-feminist a message as any movie of the past decades. I realize that I am not supposed to care. I get that the filmmakers don't want to talk about this but the ignorance of these facts is a plague that infects far too many modern so-called romances. Leap Year is just the latest symptom of said plague. `Daybreakers' starts off great, turns into huge disappointment It's such a disappointment. The first 70 minutes or so of Daybreakers is a quite compelling Vampire thriller. The last 20 minutes, give or take a few, are such a massive wrong turn that they make me wretch at the thought. I was set to recommend Daybreakers but the ending is such a poor decision, such a disastrous wrong turn that Daybreakers becomes an early worst of the year candidate. Ethan Hawke stars in Daybreakers as Vampire Hematologist Edward Dalton. Edward lives in a future, 2017, in which vampires are the majority and humans are hunted and farmed for blood. Unfortunately, the demand for blood is soon to exceed the supply. It is Edward's job, at the behest of his demanding boss (Sam Neill) is too invent a viable blood substitute. Elvis (Willem Dafoe) has a better idea, he has a cure. Through some remarkable accident Elvis has regained his humanity and he thinks that with Edward's help he can figure out exactly what cured him and begin to return the human race to dominance. Elvis and his partner Audrey (Claudia Karvan) kidnap Edward and he is more than willing to help. Unfortunately, he is being tracked by his brother Frankie (Michael Dorman) a member of the military human hunters. As Edward seeks the cure and his brother and boss come together to plot against him there is an effective thriller with strong stakes and strong characters. Approaching the finale the film has great momentum all it needs is a satisfying end to cap the whole thing and make a pretty terrific genre thriller. Sadly, all that co-directors Michael and Peter Spierig is a gore-laden, special effects finale that undermines Daybreakers' thriller tension in favor of splatter movie ugliness. I don't mind gore, early on in Daybreakers a minor character explodes and the scene is quite effective. The ending unfortunately takes the gore to far, using it as a means to finish the movie as if they just couldn't think of anything else. The bloody finale is a trapdoor, an easy escape for filmmakers without the imagination or talent to come up with something better. What a shame, there is a pretty solid thriller under all of the viscera in Daybreakers. `Nine' a middling attempt at Fellini The musical Nine, from what I have gleaned from a borrowed copy of the most recent cast recording starring Antonio Banderas, is a middling attempt to bring Federico Fellini to the masses. Italy's legendary surrealist director has, since his turn to surrealism after successfully defining Italian cinema and culture in the 1950's, been a mystery to most. Creative types have always felt they understood what the Italian master was after and Maury Yeston, who wrote the music for the Broadway production, was apparently one those creative types; so much so that he felt the need to water down Fellini with tired song and dance and a three act structure. Now, Yeston's watered down work becomes a slightly more sophisticated but still wrongheaded movie musical. Oscar winner Rob Marshall is the latest to see the need to explain Fellini's genius to the great unwashed and like Yeston, he is a fabulous failure. The story of Nine surrounds Italian director Guido Contini (Daniel Day Lewis) who, pushed by his producer, is about to begin production of his latest film Italia. This is despite the fact that he hasn't written a word of the script. Guido has lost his inspiration and calls upon the many muses of his past to bring a story to mind. These muses include his wife Luisa (Marion Cotillard), his mistress Carla (Penelope Cruz), his late mother (Sophia Loren) his long time star, Claudia (Nicole Kidman) and a prostitute (pop princess Fergie) who taught he and his friends a little of the birds and bee's decades ago. Meanwhile he seeks advice from his best friend and costume designer Lilli (Judi Dench) and a little ego stroke, among other things, from a journalist named Stephanie (Kate Hudson). Each of these women offer Guido a song or two, belting out their inner monologues, mostly about what a genius he is, save Luisa who calls him out for the bastard philanderer he truly is. If you have always held the impression that directors are self involved egotists, these songs, this film, will do little to disabuse you of that notion. Nine is a shambling disaster for most of its run time. We are informed from the first moment that Guido is a genius but he is never required to demonstrate any kind of genius. When Lewis gives him voice for the first time he might explain a little about Guido but it's hard to hear over the gales of laughter elicited when his Italian accented singing is compared, not so favorably, to Jason Segal's singing Dracula puppet in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. The rest of the cast are far stronger singers with Cotillard, naturally, the standout, she won an Oscar for her portrayal of Edith Piaf in La Vien Rose and proves again to be a natural singer. Kate Hudson is the surprise of the singers. Hudson has the film's one original song, Cinema Italiano, and it is the one really lively moment in the film, if not the most coherent or necessary. Rob Marshall dismisses narrative coherence for a series of Guido's masturbatory fantasies, interrupted from time to time by his wife and a little Catholic guilt. Every woman in the film is asked to bow to his brilliance and their bowing is treated as evidence of his genius. Yet, never once does Guido have to prove his brilliance. This might not be a problem if Daniel Day Lewis gave Guido any dimension beyond a tortured libido. Speaking of tortured, for a movie about Fellini, who’s fanciful work included clowns, strolling musicians and endless parades, Nine tends toward a dirge. From Day Lewis's tortured Guido's Song opener to the feature tune Be Italian, sung by Fergie, the songs of Nine are a slog. Be Italian sounded rather brilliant in the film's exceptional trailer but in the film it becomes not a celebration of Italian culture but a command from a taskmistress. Be Italian is a major misstep from Director Marshall who fumbles not just the song, staged a little too much like something from his far better musical Chicago, but the backstory. Fergie's prostitute is a turning point in the life of Guido Contini, a moment that shaped the way he treated women the rest of his life. Yet, do we see Fergie getting sexy and giving young Guido a truly formative memory? No, instead we cut from Marshall’s lame staged song to scenes of Fergie cavorting with child Guido and pals like a slightly creepy babysitter. `Did You Hear About The Morgans?' Did you hear they stink? Hugh Grant's usual charm combines with Sarah Jessica Parker doing a variation on her Sex and the City persona to craft an overly familiar romantic comedy in the uninspired “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” Directed by Marc Lawrence, this witless fish out of water story invites more scorn than it deserves as it limps to its conclusion. The Morgans, Meryl (Parker) and Paul (Hugh Grant), split up several months ago. Paul cheated while on a business trip and Meryl rightly gave him the boot. Paul, despite his one time indiscretion, wants desperately to get his wife back or, at the very least, have dinner with her. When Meryl finally relents the two have an exceptionally awkward dinner followed by a walk in the rain that seems only to divide them further. Unfortunately for both Morgans the walk ends with them witnessing a murder and, having got an up close look at the killer, they are now prime witnesses in a major murder case. How major? The feds want the Morgans in witness relocation. Over their repeated objections the Morgans are soon on a plane for Ray Wyoming a town that would comprise about two blocks of New York City. The Morgans are welcomed by their new protectors, the town Sheriff Clay (Sam Elliott) and his deputy and wife Emma (Mary Steenburgen). Let the fish out of water fun commence! If by fun you mean listening to Meryl complain about everything that is not New York and watching Paul attempt to charm a grizzly bear into not eating him. ”Did You Hear About the Morgans?” was a bad movie from the moment that writer-director Marc Lawrence chose the hoary conceit that is witness protection. The ‘been there-done that’ factor of witness protection comedies is off the chart. Only the least inventive of filmmakers would attempt to plumb these depths.. Then again, Marc Lawrence did write the script for both Miss Congeniality movies. I could sit here and take potshots at “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” all day, that would be easy. The fact is, however, that even with the ancient plot device the film is somewhat pleasant in tone and Hugh Grant can still bring it even in the weakest, most familiar of roles. Yes, he could play Paul in his sleep and launch the same self-deprecating jibes but you will laugh at them. You won't laugh loud, long or all that much but you will laugh and smile a few times during “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” Grant is a star whose ability to poke fun at himself seems an endless well of material. That said, the whole of “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” remains stale, predictable and not worth the price of a theater ticket. `Avatar': Phenomenal visuals but more than a little preachy New generation tech in service of a Bush era mindset, W or HW, Avatar is James Cameron advancing film tech to a place no one has seen before while also a response to American imperialism as Cameron envisions it. The tech is phenomenal, the politics are so 2003. The story of Avatar begins just as James Cameron was crowning himself the King of the World. After his Titanic effort to bring an ocean set romance to screen, James Cameron surveyed the landscape of movies and saw that the form, as it was, could not capture his vision of his project. So, the King of the World abdicated for several years, biding his time until movie technology caught up with his vision. After seeing Peter Jackson give life to Gollum in The Lord of the Rings Cameron finally saw something he could work with. Employing engineers and film geeks Cameron went to work advancing existing technology.. That was 2006. Just about 3 years later, more than a decade after its conception, Avatar has arrived. Sam Worthington stars in Avatar as Jake Sully a former Marine who was left in a wheelchair after a battle injury. Jake's troubles are increased with the death of his twin brother, a scientist who was to shove off for a very important mission. Since Jake has his brother's DNA he is capable of replacing him and does on a mission to a place called Pandora. On Pandora Jake's new life will have him taking over an Avatar, a human hybrid of the planet's alien population called Na'vi. Jake's mind is transferred somehow into the body of a 10 foot, blue skinned, Na'vi warrior. He will use his Avatar to interact with the natives and convince them to move to another home, opening the way for an industrialist (Giovanni Ribisi) to move in and strip the area of a mineral called, I kind you not, Unobtainium. Jake's mission goes off course when he meets a sultry Na'vi princess named Neytiri (Zoe Saldana). She brings him into the Na'vi inner circle after a sign from her god tells her Jake has an important role in the destiny of the Na'vi. Indeed he does; Jake will become a true warrior and a leader after he gives up his militaristic loyalty to his human masters. No points for guessing that Jake and Neytiri fall happily into cross-species love. The story is eerily similar to Dances with Wolves, minus Kevin Costner's ludicrous facial hair. A soldier in a strange land falls in with the natives and switches sides. I'm not spoiling anything unless you have managed to miss every trailer, commercial or review of Avatar. Even if you have been living under a rock James Cameron's exceptionally weak script does nothing to hide its twists and turns. The script mindlessly telegraphs its every plot machination and character choice. However, as every other critic in the world reminds us, the plot is meaningless when such wondrous visuals are offered. There is no doubt about it James Cameron's remarkable dedication to new film technology has rendered a mesmerizing digital landscape unlike any ever before on screen. The characters are stunningly realistic; the landscapes are marvelous and wait till you see the battles between flying gun ships and Na'vi on flying lizard-like creatures. Cameron has even rendered 3D in a way that isn't clunky and unnecessary. For many the visual delights of Avatar will be more than enough to sell them on the idea of Avatar as a great movie. And, I must admit, the tech is phenomenal. I, however, needed something more. The story told in Avatar is dopey, derivative and features dialogue so awful as to have Michael Bay look down his nose. Expository dialogue, sometimes necessary, is mind numbingly repeated throughout Avatar. Worse still are the awkward attempts at humor, most of which are dated to around the time Cameron conceived of Avatar. Even worse still is Mr. Cameron’s preachy, dated subtext about war and natives, 9/11 and terrorism. Cameron is not the first, merely the latest, to exploit 9/11 imagery in order to manipulate the audience. The visual reference to 9/11 is part of Cameron's throwback to the Bush era politique. It's a rather scattershot bit of commentary that regurgitates liberal complaints about a war for oil, in this case 'Unobtainium,' and an American policy of pre-emptive war that could fairly be called imperialism. All well and good except that these are the complaints of yesteryear. Is it Cameron's fault that the zeitgeist passed him by? No, but he has to take the lumps for being unable to adapt. He's made a criticism of a President who is gone in an era when a new President looks forward to ending the policies of the past. Whining about a war for oil (Unobtainium) is exceptionally passé. The soldier going native is even more dated. Dances With Wolves is over 20 years old now. The battle between the American government and American Indians has inspired far better and far less preachy defenses of a native people defending their way of life. Returning, however, to the main point of Avatar, the technology, you will see this movie because the tech is far too fabulous to be ignored. You really must see Avatar just to say that you have seen what everyone will be talking about in film culture until the next time Cameron revolutionizes the medium. Just be prepared to ignore everything other than the visual splendor. `Princess and Frog' great family entertainment Many of you are of the classic tale of The Princess and the Frog. For the uninitiated, it's about a Princess who meets a frog. They kiss, he magically transforms into a handsome prince and they live happily ever after. Disney's take on this story transfers the settings to eary 1900's New Orleans, and instead of having the frog turn into a prince, they turn a prince into a frog and then the princess as well. It's 1916 and Tiana dreams of living out the dreams of her late father. He wanted to open a restaurant and serve the best gumbo in Nawlins. Tiana has worked day and night for years and has saved enough to buy just the right space. When she is invited to cater her rich friend Charlotte's costume ball it should give Tiana all the money she needs to buy her restaurant. Also attending the party will be the selfish, self involved Prince Naveen. All the Prince wants is to dance, play jazz and meet pretty girls. Unfortunately for Naveen, he's broke. His parents have cut him off and if he cannot charm Charlotte into marrying him, he may have to do the unthinkable: Get a job. Before the Prince can get to the party he and his squirrelly assistant Lawrence are accosted by a voodoo witch doctor called Doctor Facilier. It is Facilier who places the frog curse on Naveen while replacing him with Lawrence in his guise. Naturally, Prince Naveen and Tiana's paths will cross and in trying to reenact the fairy tale, Naveen passes along his curse to her. What follows is a trip deep into the Louisiana bayou, an encounter with a friendly, trumpet playing crocodile, a brave Creole firefly and a visit to Mama Odie, a powerful voodoo priestess who may be able to reverse the curse. More important on this journey are a series of jazzy tunes courtesy of the legendary Randy Newman. The Princess and the Frog marks a return by Disney to classic hand drawn animation, a genre they abandoned nearly a decade ago. The ascendance of Pixar and Shrek had rendered hand drawn animation a dinosaur and Disney was right to place its bet on Pixar, it may pay off with a Best Picture nomination for Up, but that doesn't mean there isn't a place for the classic style. The Princess and the Frog makes a strong case for the warm, comforting lines and colors that hand drawn has always thrived on. Combined here in The Princess and the Frog with a welcoming story, wonderful characters and great tunes, we see the form revived. Princess and the Frog doesn't compare to say any of the Pixar movies, it lacks the story sophistication of those remarkable films. As a film specifically aimed at kids, this is the kind of movie you want your kids to enjoy, if there isn't a Pixar movie to watch. The Princess and the Frog is sweet and funny with characters of conscience, bravery and loyalty. I take issue with the anti-feminist aspects of the story (why can't a woman be happy and accomplished without a man around?) but that stuff will go over the head of kids. Race is another topic, on the fringe anyway, in The Princess and the Frog. The movie does not explicitly address race but it is notable that Tiana is the first African American Disney Princess. Beyond that, the film's main cultural ingredient is New Orleans with its unique mix of African American and French traditions. With great songs, terrific characters and some laughs, The Princess and the Frog is great family entertainment. For more of Sean Patrick's movie reviews, click here. copyright 2009 Sean Patrick

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Sean Patrick can be heard reviewing films and discussing the issues of the day every morning from 6 to 10 a.m. on WOC-AM1420. On the web: www.woc1420.com