My Best Friend's Girl

Originally I thought about taking my Good Luck Chuck review, copying and pasting it and changing every mention of Jessica Alba to Kate Hudson. I mean, the movies looked to be essentially the same thing right? Dane Cook does something with women that helps them find love and he falls sometimes. The trailers show the star girl stripping to her underwear cut with scenes of Cook mugging for the camera and then falling. One has to wonder if every September will bring a new Dane Cook "Romantic comedy" in his version of the Sandler summer. Of course, I kid. I mean these movies promise to be very different. The problem is that while I find his stand up comic routine quite hilarious, Cook has only been good in one movie, and it wasn't even a funny one!

Tank(Cook) is your average every day guy. He sells air purifiers for a living, he has a best friend and he dates. What makes him different is that he "tanks" dates for money. Guys pay him to take out their exes so the girls will come running back realizing what they are missing. The movie opens on such a date. Tank plays a vulgar song on his stereo, talks on his phone to a pretend ex of his. He says he didn't know it was a girl friend's sister he nailed because it was dark. We get the joke. Dusty(Jason Biggs) is Tank's cousin and best friend and he has a problem. The girl he loves, Alexis(Hudson), broke up with him because he proclaimed his love far too quickly. Dusty hires Tank. Tank sets up a meet/cute, playing off the romantic comedy cliche. Alexis and Tank set up a date. Enter problem number 1, Alexis has been convinced by her whoreish roommate that she needs to loosen up and bang Tank. Alexis starts the date off drunk, so she is immune to Tank's usual tricks. She invites him up, but he leaves. However, Alexis doesn't go back to Dusty so Dusty sets up Tank and Alexis to go out again. This time Tank cannot control himself and sex occurs. Dusty decides it is better to be friends with Alexis than nothing at all and soon he realizes she is seeing someone. Of course, Tank is that person. Alexis and Tank are not exactly dating though, they are just bed buddies. Tank wants more. Problem 2: Dusty show sup one night while Tank and Alexis is fooling around. Tank convinces Alexis to go ona real date. They become a couple. Problem 3: Alexis takes Tank to her sister's wedding and the sister is the girl from the beginning of the movie that Tank went out with. Tank believes he is holding Alexis back so he has to tank the wedding. Will they work it out? Who knows?!

This is the first movie where Cook shows what makes him a great on stage performer. Here is a movie where his "Tank" persona is quite like his stage persona and in the two scenes where he is tanking dates, the movie is quite funny. The wedding scene in particular has some great very funny moments. They are also the moments that make the movie rated R, in the trend of R Rated comedies. Tank is a fast talker and Cook is in his wheel house there. If this movie had been made 5 years ago it probably would have starred Vince Vaughn, but Vaughn comes off a lot more likable than Cook does, which kind of is a problem for Cook's good guy ploys. Yes, the prom scene is genuinely sweet and charming, but other than that, the movie misses its mark by a long shot. Most of the comedy is supposed to be mined by shock value, but it isn't all that shocking. Jason Biggs as a masturbation addict, how so very Nineties of them! Biggs has made a career of being addicted to porn. Kate Hudson, who is somehow considered an A-list star, continues to evade me. I do not get Kate Hudson. She is cute enough, I guess, but she isn't really funny, which would be a good thing to be, in a comedy. Am I nitpicking for wanting a comedy to be funny? I do not think so.

I am not even sure the general public is going to find much of this stuff funny. I saw the movie four days ago and I am already missing giant chunks of it. I do know there are no less than 2 montages where a male character has a messy house. I do know that the sex is strictly pg-13. The script is surely a piece of crap considering the only funny moments in the movie existed when Cook was improvising. The wedding scene was straight out of the Dane Cook playbook and that is why they worked. I am not sure I believe Cook to be a comedy leading man or a romantic leading man, but I will say I would rather watch him on screen than Matthew Maconaghey. I know that is not exactly saying much, but it is what it is.

Also, the movie is called My Best Friend's Girl and The Cars once wrote a song called "My Best Friend's Girl." It makes sense to feature such a song in this movie. The director realizes this so he decides he should put it in the movie 4 damn times! The worst offense being putting it in the final scene, then dropping it for the 2 minute coda and then re-starting the damn song for the credits. WE GET IT! It is a little on the nose don't you think? Never mind the fact that the girl is only his best friend's for the first 10 minutes of the movie. There are better places to get your Dane Cook fix, if you so desire it. I can not in good faith ever tell anyone to watch this. I am sure Tank's ten steps for ruining a date will be on Youtube in a few months and you can watch the only moment worth watching for free.

Final Grade: D

Lakeview Terrace

I am not sure if I am just dense or maybe I thought it would possible to have not have it be a big deal, but I was not expecting this movie to make such a big deal about the interracial coupling. I probably should have expected it, but I never did and it turns out to be the main focus of the movie overall. In fact, race is pretty much the only thing about the movie. I am sure there will be movies that exist where a black and white relationship can exist on screen without it being a main point of the story, but this is clearly not that movie. Lakeview Terrace is certainly out to show that we have not come as far as we would like to think as a country.

Chris(Patrick Wilson) and Lisa(Kerry Washington)are a young married couple who have just purchased their first house in an upper scale gated community. They seem very happy and progressive as Chris drives a Prius and they want to help the world. Their next door neighbor is a cop, Abel Turner(Samuel L. Jackson)and Turner has two kids. It is very obvious from opening moments that Abel is not what he seems. Within moments of realizing his new neighbors are an inter racial couple, Abel has decided to make their lives miserable. It starts off as only slightly menacing but before the movie is over, it has become a full fledged illegal harassment. We do spend a little time with Abel on his job, and it is clear he is an unstable man. At home he is not much different. He rules his two children with an iron fist, even slapping his 15 yr old daughter in the most chilling and uncomfortable scene in the movie. Chris, at first, tries to reason with Abel, then he defies him, then he tries to exact his revenge on him. Throughout the film, Lisa, thinks Chris is maybe stereotyping the black man. Lisa also wants a child and Chris isn't ready, but she takes matters into her own hand. Lisa's dad appears to hate Chris and while we never meet Chris' family, Lisa is sure they hate her. This disharmony starts to eat away at the once happy couple.

Lakeview Terrace is a movie that was mishandled at the promotional level. The previews make the movie out to be this over-the-top nonsense with fires and yelling and what-not, but it really is not that kind of movie, until the end. Set against a backdrop of a Southern California fire, Lakeview Terrace is an interesting movie for the first 75% before falling into the trap of revenge style flicks. It sets up the premise nicely and manages to be pretty engrossing, mostly due to Sam Jackson and Patrick Wilson. Both men are strong, although Wilson seems a bit over-matched, but who isn't next to Jackson as a bad ass. Director Neil Labute, known for more intimate character dramas, does a pretty good job of keeping the movie intimate even when the script calls for the movie to get out of control. He does lose control of the picture, but that is mostly a script issue. The first third plays a lot more light hearted, more mischievous than menacing, and then at a very specific moment the movie has a tonal shift that sends it straight into a very intense drama.

My biggest complaint, other than the out of control ending, is that Kerry Washington never gets the chance to confront her neighbor/tormentor. In a movie that is all about how hard it is for a white guy and a black girl to be together, it would have been nice if the black female got to stand up for herself to her black attacker. Washington is a strong actress and this part was just calling for her own big scene. Sadly, they never give it to her. Of course, there is the obvious symbol/metaphor of the big fire that seems to be closing in on Lakeview Terrace as the intensity ignites, until the climax is had as the fires are right on top of the terrace. It seems a little on the nose, but I guess it works. It is nice to have fires blazing behind Jackson as he plots on how to now kill his neighbors. I was disappointed in the ending as it left me with a big question and a concern for any children.

Movies will often try and humanize the villain and Lakeview Terrace tries and fails at it. They give Abel a wife who was killed in a car accident and leave him with 2 kids, but it isn't enough for me to feel sympathetic to him. He hates this couple for seemingly no logical reason and he seems to have no regard for the well being of his children, so why did they give him a dead wife? Why try to humanize a character that is going to spin so far out of control. Jackson was in another movie that had a similar idea, Changing Lanes. It was a movie about two good people who set each other off into a tail spin of revenge, but in that movie, both characters were sympathetic and you could see why they went where they went. Here, Jackson is evil just because he is supposed to be evil.

Lakeview Terrace offers up some interesting insights to race of all kinds and doesn't back off of making politically incorrect notions of race, but when it abandons that idea, it falters and leaves the audience with the wrong kinds of questions. The male performances are strong, but the female lead is left with little to do but be scared. I didn't expect anything out of the movie, so I was pleasantly surprised, but once they hooked me, I wish they did more to reel me in.

Final Grade: C+

Burn after Reading

I want to begin by saying, this is one of the most difficult reviews I have ever written.

The Coen Brothers are movie nerd idols. They have created amazing comedies and amazing dramas/thrillers. They won their first Oscar last year for the incredible No Country for Old Men and wasted no time getting back to work. Instead of trying to recapture the No Country for Old Men themes, they went as far away from it as possible. The trailers certainly showed that much. With Hollywood Heavyweights Brad Pitt and George Clooney at their disposal, the Coens wanted to go back to being goofy. But, are they able to do it? Do they recapture the goofiness so prevalent in their comedies?

Osborne Cox(John Malkovich) has just been demoted by the CIA for his drinking problem; instead of accepting that he quits. He decides he is going to write a memoir and the disc including his notes is left at a gym where Chad(Brad Pitt) and Linda(Frances McDormand) find it and decide they want to get some money for returning it. They do think it is highly classified material after all. When the exchange goes horribly, and hilariously wrong, Chad and Linda take it to the Russians. Linda wants money for cosmetic surgery because she thinks she needs to be hotter for romantic reasons. She finds dates on-line and finds Harry(George Clooney). Harry is married and is sleeping with Katie Cox(The ice queen Tilda Swinton) who is Osborne's wife. He is now sleeping with Linda as well. He is a very unhappy guy, who seems to love his wife, but cannot control himself. He is also building something in his basement and the reveal of that is probably the most out loud you will laugh in the movie. Every so often, the CIA pops back up to kind of try and explain what is going on, but the story only gets more confusing from there. People die and double cross and in the end no one is really sure what happened, but isn't that the Coen way, really?

Burn after Reading is not the kind of movie I really can recommend even though I loved it. it is rarely a laugh out loud kind of movie, but it is a chuckle silently movie, but the chuckles are endless. Brad Pitt is funnier than he will probably ever be. It is a more supporting role than the trailers will lead you to believe, but every time he is on screen, I was chuckling. Everything he does or says is funny and I would like to see him used more in light hearted fare. Clonney is totally affable and funny, but he is at his best in the very last moment you see him. The look on his face and his line delivery right at the end offer up some of the biggest laughs you are likely to get. The star, though, is John Malkovich. Profanity spewing, alcohol swilling and shouting are the only things he really does, but everything about it is funny. He gives a very mannered performance, which would be annoying in a more serious movie, but in a outlandish and broad comedy like this, it works to a hilt. The women, Swinton and McDormand, are both excellent even if I spent the whole movie wondering if Tilda Swinton was sexy or not. I still cannot decide. She does play icy very well and McDormand, in a role completely lacking any sort of vanity adds a sense of sadness and realness to her character. It gives someone to root for, in an otherwise cast of self absorbed no-nothings.

The Coens knew they could never top No Country for Old Men, so they did not even bother trying. This movie is as far away from that one as possible in every aspect except the sudden violence. "Burn" has two flashes of violence and in true Coen fashion, they are sudden and shocking bursts of violent fits. They pace the movie perfectly and often times supply the laughs merely shooting someones feet as they walk down a squeaky hall. They wrote a pretty funny, if utter pointless, script full of great lines and they did it with hardly any of the kind of comedy that is in right now, which was cool. "Burn" comes off as an old 50s type of comedy, with much more profanity, much much more profanity. I would like to go back and count the amount of times the "F-bomb" is thrown around. I think people will be turned off by the randomness and pointlessness of the movie, but those are some of the best qualities in my opinion.

In a song Eminem once rapped an entire song about nothing and then in the very last line summed it up by saying "I just did a whole song and I didn't say shit." Who knows the why he did it, but my guess is that he did it because he could. He was mocking everyone who hated him and joking with those who loved him. His fans got it and his detractors hated it. In the very last scene of this movie, J.K Simmons- some of the best work anyone has done for only being in a movie for 5 minutes- has a scene with David Rasche where they are kind of reviewing what has happened and in the end they come to the conclusion that it is one big "cluster fuck" and they have no idea what just happened or why it just happened. Coen fans will get it, non Coen fans won't. That is just the way it goes. That scene left me laughing for a few minutes and I know people who felt it was mocking them for watching it. If you go to the movie, stay during the credits for a bit to hear one hilariously awful song. It is totally worth it.

Final Grade" B+

Righteous Kill

Who in their right mind could pass up an opportunity to watch De Niro and Pacino. I mean, seriously who could? These guys are gods among men in terms of acting. Both have no less than 5 performances each that define what being an actor is. Watching their 2 scenes together in Heat just made you want, no need, more from them. Here is that chance. At first, the movie was promoted as some sort of urban police thriller, using the name 50 Cent in the first trailers. Well the early reviews changed all of that. People were focusing only on De Niro and Pacino, so that is what the ad campaign changed to. So the time came to finally watch these two back in action.

Turk(De Niro) and Rooster(Pacino)-the real names are not used until the end for glaringly obvious reasons- are long time partners in the police force and long time best friends. They feed off of each other and they get each other's back, no matter what happens. A serial killer comes along and starts killing all the bad guys who got away from the law due to technicalities. Most of the guys being killed were arrested or questioned by Turk and Rooster. Two other detective, Perez(Jon Leguizamo) and Riley(Donnie Wahlberg) are also on the case as they picked up one of victims. The victims are marked by a poem that the killer leaves. As the cases move forward, it looks as if Turk may in fact be the killer and Perez and Riley firmly believe this. After all, Turk did once plant a gun on a man who was set free on a child murder charge, in order to get that man arrested for a different crime. He could conceivably murder someone right? Rooster, of course, doesn't believe a word of it, but works with Perez and Riley to get to the truth. On the side there are two plots- Turk is banging a forensic detective, Karen Collelli(Carla Cugino) who loves really rough and violent sex and Rooster and Turk are seeing the precinct shrink to decide if they are fit to be back on the job after a shooting. I cannot say anything more as the movie is a twist movie.

Righteous Killlives up to its billing as De Niro and Pacino in action together. They are on screen together most of the movie and their chemistry is ridiculous. The early scenes of them looking at crime scenes, or joking around together are fantastic to watch and as the movie gets deeper and they get more intense, there are fire works between them. However, the movie is a damn mess. First off, from the opening two minutes, there are only two ways the movie can possibly go. The rest of the film is spent pushing so hard the other way, that any intelligent person will know exactly what is coming in the end. I knew it right away, which kind of diminishes the movie, big time. The director, Jon Avnet, ruined a movie with Pacino in it earlier this year with the same nonsense. Avnet is working so hard to confuse or mislead the audience that he isn't creating a movie, he is creating a "Choose your own adventure" type thing. The Sixth Sense worked as a twist movie because the whole movie wasn't explicitly trying to mislead us. It was telling a story that ended in a twist. This movie exists purely for the twist and it fails miserably. Carla Cugino does offer some serious sex appeal, but watching her take it from behind with De Niro pumping away at her, is kind of gross to watch, even if it is brief and from a distance.

I wanted to like this movie so much and there are flashes of it. Anytime the director gets out of the way and lets the two actors work, the movie feels real. The climax is a true testament to the two guys, but they deserved a much better movie. They deserve a movie that is not ruined by 50 Cent's "acting" or Jon Avnet's stupid and silly stunts. How many times are we going to see what happens from the killer's eyes so we don't know who it is!? I am glad I saw it because of the two legends, but it would have probably been better to wait for DVD.

Final Grade: C-

4 mini reviews- Traitor, Hamlet 2, Babylon, Bangkok

I took a kind of break from the reviews to get everything in order for the new semester and I think too much time has passed to get in to full reviews of 4 movies I saw a few weeks ago, so instead I will do mini reviews of them.

Traitor- I really enjoyed the movie, even though I kind of had an idea as to what was going on. The trailer kind of blew the movie a bit, but the performances from Don Cheadle and Guy Pierce made it worthwhile. There is a ton of discussion about religion and fanaticism that is interesting, if not entirely original. It is really a thinking man's action/thriller. It is similar to the Bourne franchise in that aspect, but never reaches the intense heights of that franchise.

Hamlet 2- I think your love of this movie kind of hinges on whether you like the lead, Steve Coogan, or not. I admire his lack of vanity and his willingness to go balls out (Literally!) for the role. He has a Will Ferrell like quality in that way. Of course, we know I loathe Will Ferrell. I did not loathe this movie, but I was expecting more. I was expecting to be shocked in the way The South Park movie shocked (same writer). I was not shocked by the good white girl wanting a little taste of Mexican boy, or the endless flow of gay jokes. There are some very funny moments and the actual play they put on is quite hilarious. Also, "Rock me Sexy Jesus" is not the sacrilegious song it is cracked up to be. It is actually praising his clean morals as being hip or cool.

Babylon A.D- Here is a Vin Diesel movie that could have been very good, if the studio did not butcher it. Because the studio wanted a PG-13 action they cut this movie to shreds. As a result, the movie doesn't make a lick of sense. Things happen all to quickly and we are left without a clear explanation as to why. I enjoyed aspects, like the futuristic maps and the overall look and feel of the movie. Plus, there is a pretty bad ass shoot out towards the end, but I, along with everyone else, was left with a desire to see more, or to understand exactly what happened. The plot involves a religion trying to become the dominate religion, but it is all lost and just comes off looking unfinished.

Bangkok Dangerous- Another possible entry in the worst movies of the year list, here. I fell asleep for about 15 minutes but woke up having not missed anything. Everything about this movie is awful- the dialog, acting, direction, sound, set and everything else. I was actually happy for the moments with the deaf girl because it was a nice break from listening to dialog. Not even the all too brief action sequences make this piece of crap watchable.