Twilight

Before I begin let me say a few things. First off, I am not against romantic dramas. The time I sat through The Notebook I was affected by the love story. Also, ask Erik and he will confirm my Moulin Rouge obsession. Secondly, I love vampire stories and I love vampire stories involving falling in love with human beings, (Hello, Buffy!). Lastly, no matter what I think about the movie, I am glad it is successful. Independent film companies are suffering and Twilight is from such a company. Plus it has a woman director and women directors never get a shot at big money pictures.

Bella(Kristen Stewart), the only pale person to ever come out of Arizona has just moved to the Pacific Northwest to live her with dad because her mom and her mom's boyfriend are going to Jacksonville for Spring Training for Baseball. (On a side note, it makes no sense for a minor league baseball player to live in Arizona if he is not playing for an Arizona Spring Training baseball team.) Bella and her dad have an odd relationship and in her new hometown, of only 3,000 people, Bella is big news for the school. She adjusts well and makes friends very quickly, even if she doesn't seem to enjoy their company much, which is a nice change for these types of movies. Her first day she is paired with Edward Cullen(Robert Pattinson) and Cullen is apparently repulsed by her scent and goes missing. He comes back, eventually and they engage in perfectly awkward conversation. Bella is then almost hit by a car and Edward comes from nowhere and stops the car and saves her life. Now Bella needs to know who Edward is. Well, Edward is supposedly a vampire. I say supposedly because he is missing vampire qualities. He does not seem to grow fangs, he has a reflection and the biggest vampire departure, the sun does not burn him alive. No, the sun makes him glisten like a diamond. Edward comes from a family of Vampires who are "vegetarians" meaning the don't drink human blood, only animal blood. Bella is so taken by Edward his confessions of murder, animal murder and his constant desire to drink her does not scare her. She trusts him, when he does not trust himself. Bad vampires come into town and they want Bella. Bella has a special scent. I like to call it "Le vampire." Vampires all want to drink her more than anyone else. Bella is like chocolate for vampires. Bad vampires and good vampires fight and through it all Bella and Edward fall more and more in love or eternal lust.

When a movie is super entertaining small bad details can be overlooked, when a movie sucks those minor details enhance the suck. Twilight is not at all nearly entertaining enough to take my mind off of the minor things that were so bad. First off, the idea of vampires able to live in sunlight is a hard one for me to swallow. I understand that vampire legends have all kinds of different myths, but vampires cannot go into the sun. Also, in a town of 3,000 people, some of which live on an Indian reservation and do not go to the actual high school, how did the town get such a huge high school and why? Are class sizes like 15 people? Are there just a bunch of empty classrooms? Where are all the adults, if everyone of the 3000 people are high school students to warrant such a large school? Is it love when you feel that strongly because your ultimate desire is to murder that person? Do I love T-Pain secretly because I want to kill him and maybe even taste his blood? The Cullens are full of teenagers, so in theory they have to move often. And I know there was a one-off joke put in about high schools, but if the Cullen teens are not meant to socialize with humans, which it seems they are not, then at some point don't the "parents" just tell people they are home schooling the teens? High schools can only teach so much, and it would make sense to let the kids learn on their own.

The effects are very Smallville like, meaning Twilightplays more like the two hour premiere of a new show than a movie. I get the small budget and the small studio, but the trailing effect of the vampires to show speed, is a television thing, not a movie thing. With the exception of two or three scenes the dialog is clunky and way too heavy on exposition considering the story is such a classic Romeo and Juliet affair. Robert Pattinson oozes a smarmy charm and a danger that I like, but Edward is only interesting in scenes where he is having fun and smiling. Edward as a tortured monster would only work, if we had some flashbacks to see the monster inside of him. Without a point of reference for the monster, Edward just seems like a guy who is tortured because girls like tortured guys. He certainly looks the part, although his eye brows were just too perfect for me. I think he has a bright future, but I also thought that of Hayden Christianson at one point. Kristen Stewart does a good job with Bella. There is never a moment when you don't believe she believes she is in love. The two are gorgeous together and the heat in the one moment of passion burned brightly enough. However, with a name like Bella Swan, it is kind of hard to like her. That name is just too on the nose for this kind of story. It makes me think the author spent months writing variations of names and crossing them off until she found the "right" one.

There were some things I did like though. I like the crossing of genres found in the scene where Bella meets the Cullen family. Being a teenager meeting the family of your boyfriend is awkward enough as it is, but then throw in the fact that they are all vampires and it makes for a great moment. That scene is played perfectly in its awkwardness and comedy. However, why doesn't Bella fall in love with the entire family, since they are all suppressing their overwhelming urges to drink her like Gatorade? Also, the baseball scene, while a clear rip-off of Harry Potter's Quidich obsession, has a nice charm to it. It is played for laughs and thrills and the effects actually almost work in that moment.

On HBO there is a show called True Blood, which is based on a series of novels dealing with vampires. It is in to be a vampire these days. I bring this up because of one similarity between the two. In True blood, the main character, Sookie, can read the minds of everyone, until she meets a vampire named Bill. She falls in love with him. In Twilight, Edward can read everyone's mind except Bella's and he falls in love with her. The reasoning for it is not explained in Twilight, so it just comes off as very easy and unconvincing plot device. It seems in Twilight, neither of the young lovers falls in love because they have come to know and love the other. They are in love because the writer has decided they are going to be in love and the readers accept it because they think that is how love is supposed to be. Love is supposed to be all consuming and the ultimate act of love is staying with someone even though every thought in your head wants to devour that person whole and drain her like bath water from the tub. I cannot accept that.

I have heard many people coming out of the movie with a world full of complaints but saying they loved it. I wish that would stop. They did not love the movie if they have complaints about just about every aspect. What they loved was seeing the characters from the books on the screen. What they loved was experiencing the event that was Twilight. They loved the theater full of like minded people. Loving a movie and loving the experience of a movie are two different things. I first experienced that with X-Men 3. I came out thinking I loved it after the midnight show, but I did not love the movie, I loved the experience of watching it at midnight with people who were cheering and loving the experience as well.

Final Grade: D

Quantum of Solace

I was never a big James Bond guy. I prefer my spy movies to be more brutal. I did not really enjoy the light hearted realm of James Bond movies. I enjoyed the girls, the stunts and a few of the gadgets, but for the most part, I just was not terribly interested in them. That changed with Casino Royale. I enjoyed Bond with the Jason Bourne aesthetic. I loved the muted colors, the up close fights and the awkward close ups. I enjoyed a Bond with vengeance on his mind and I loved me some Daniel Craig as Bond. Craig is a real man (no disrespect to Sean Connery). Craig could take charge and he was cold. I like cold. I like intense thrillers and Casino Royalegave that to me. Plus, that card game. Holy Crap what a game! The stakes were intense and it was played perfectly. needless to say, the stakes were high for this 22nd installment into the 007 canon.

If ever the phrase "hits the ground running" were to be fitting for a movie, this movie epitomizes that phrase. Right from the word "Go!" Bond is in the middle of a high speed chase, with loud cars roaring and quick cut editing the scene is dizzying, loud and effective. Bullets fly and pierce car doors, but sound like they are whizzing by your head. Only mere minutes after the car chase, Bond is on foot chasing a traitor who almost killed M(the fabulous Judi Dench). The foot race is again, fast and loud and while it does not quite live up to the best foot race ever, of Casino Royale, it ends in a doozy of a fight, with tricked out rope work stunts and a great shot of Bond shooting a gun. the pace dials down for another little while before Bond is attacked by another guy and throws him through a window and kills him. next up is the beautiful Bond girl Camille(Olga Kurylenko). She is about to be killed at sea, when Bond saves her and we are off on a boat chase, now. yes in the first 30 minutes we have a car chase, a foot chase, a fist fight and a boat chase. Then the movie slows down to give us plot. The problem is, the plot sucks. Do the bad guys want the oil, the diamonds or the water of Bolivia and who is good and who is bad? I am not entirely sure, but did you hear me say the first 30 minutes contains a car, foot and boat chase??

James Bond is out for vengeance and he is not afraid of killing. He is smart though. There is a great sequence of events set against the back drop of this epic Opera that not only shows Bond's intelligence, it leads to a nice chase and it gives director Marc Forster his indie roots. The Opera get to serve as the sound track to more death and more stunts and more action, but since in the Opera itself there is a gun death, it seems to be symbolic of beauty in gun deaths. Cool stuff, man. Well Bond does not sleep with Camille but he does sleep with agent Strawberry Fields. She is sexy and had sex with Bond, so she dies. I wanted more time with her, but such is the way of James Bond. Bond bickers with M like they are mother and son, but she trusts Bond because Bond gets things done. Eventually Bond and Camille are in a plane, where a nice plane chase/fight/crash takes place and Bond and Camille lament fallen pasts and they wonder what happens when you get the vengeance you seek.

Then in a finale featuring a set piece so gorgeous it is a shame it was built just to be blown to pieces, Camille gets her revenge and Bond struggles to get all as this gorgeous glass building is exploding an catching fire. The stunts in that scene are immaculate and Craig shines again as the brutally stoic Bond. For her part, Olga is undeniably sexy, so much so you want the two of them to exchange in hot sexy and sweaty sex, instead of just discussing what life means after vengeance is won.

If I seem ambiguous here, make no mistake, I loved Quantum of Solace, but I loved it less than I had hoped. The Bourne aesthetic only works with a sure handed director and so the shaky camera and the quick jumps and edits are not always effective here. The movie doe snot make much sense because the story is never as engaging as Casino Royale. We are never sure exactly who the bad guys are and what they want. But, we do Bond kicks ass and they lay that on thick. As an action movie is thrills, it is just Casino Royale was more than just an action movie. Quantum is bogged down a bit by clunky exposition and a plot that seems unsure of itself, but every time you think you have had it they dazzle you with a chase or a fight. I still believe Jason Bourne as the number spy, but James Bond proves he is up to the challenge. Thank god they got rid of the invisible car!

Final Grade: B

Soul Men

I have never counted Bernie Mac as a favorite stand up comedian of mine and I never will. Don't get me wrong he was hilarious, but he was not a favorite of mine. Having said that, there was a reason he went last on The Original Kings of Comedy tour. he was less famous than Cedric, Steve Harvey and D.L Hughley, but he went last. He is the one you would remember, he was the one you would quote and he was the one who made you feel the happiest. Bernie Mac always had that in his stand up and even in some of his movies. he was a verbal giant with a great voice. the most expressive face and the mind and mouth to turn the F word into art. He seemed to have a genuine love of life, which is not shared by many comedians. He was a master at turning his life into jokes. His movies never fully got to get his entire personality on camera and they never took full advantage of his perfectly fine tuned F word bomb dropping skills. Then he teamed up with Samuel L. Jackson, another skilled F bomb dropper and it was to be comic gold. Sadly, Bernie Mac never got to see it. And now we will never know what else he could have been capable of.

Back in the day, Louis(Jackson) and Floyd(Mac) were back up singers for Marcus Hooks(John legend). hooks went solo and became a massive star, and Louis and Floyd, or "The Real Deal" had one major hit and then broke up. Here it is 3 decades later and Floyd is moving into a retirement home. He spent years and years as a rich and successful business owner and now he has given the business over to his nephew. Louis on the other hand has been in and out of jail and lives in a hole. When Marcus Hicks dies on stage, VH-1 puts together a big funeral celebration and want "The Real Deal" to perform again. Floyd is all about it, but Louis wants to be left alone until Floyd promises they can split the money they will be paid 60-40. So they set off on an adventure. We find out they broke up over a woman and that they still bicker, but they still both love the music. On their road trip from Los Angeles to New York, they play some small gigs to get themselves in shape and they start to remember why they liked the road so much to begin with. When they start to run out of money, they show up at the door of the woman who broke them up to find her dead and to find her with a 20something year old daughter, Cleo(Sharon Leal). Floyd believes the daughter to be his and Floyd and Louis take her on the road with them. As with the typical road movie, shenanigans abound and lessons must be learned.

My biggest complaint with Soul Men is that I was hoping for more music. The music, mostly funk and soul, really feeds the movie a nice rhythm and pace, but I guess I was hoping for some more of it. Jackson and Mac are furiously funny in their amazing bickering. I am sure much of it was done improv like with these two F bomb geniuses just working off of each other. They have amazing chemistry and are both in great comedic shape. Jackson shows a great comic flair that I have not seen from him really and Mac looks like he was just realizing how great film could be to mine his talents. He even gets some serious moments that show a deeper talent hidden in nonsense movies of the past. They look like they are having a blast on screen and they make you wish you could transport there and enjoy the time with them. It isn't all a hit though. There is a side plot involving Cleo's gangsta rapper wanna-be boy friend that does not work as much as the movie think sit does, as they come back to it 3 times instead of just having it be a solo scene, set aside for a bad black comedian.

The story is predictable sure, but it is funny. It seems like there isn't a real conflict, but bunch of small easy to overcome conflicts, which may make it a bit of a slow movie for some. I can understand that, but these two guys really light up the screen. Jackson with his choice of crazy hair, gets high marks for not being too crazy with the hair in this movie. I believe both men were playing a bit older than they actually are, or maybe Jackson just usually plays younger than he really is, and they both do it well. Sharon Leal exudes a nice calm energy, to counteract the loud manic energy of the two men with whom she shares the screen. The performance scenes are entertaining and the two men do their own singing. Both have passable, nice distinct vocals. Voices that do not soar, but are not bad. They are believable as back up singers who got one big hit and the finale is a nice little ditty.

But mostly, Soul Men is a movie to go and watch and appreciate a man who lived to make us laugh. it is a place to see Bernie Mac int he way he is meant to be watched- funny and foul. In the credits there is a very moving tribute to the man where he tells you what making us laugh meant to him. He was a warm man and a nice performer and it is nice that we have one last R rated comedy by which to remember him. I want to leave anyone who reads this with the best moment in The Original Kings of Comedy, but warn you they language is truly explicit:

When you're listening to one of our conversations you might here the word MOTHER FUCKER about 32 times. Don't be afraid of the word MOTHER FUCKER... Imma break it down to ya... If you're out there this afternoon and you see like 3 or 4 brothers talkin', you might hear a conversation and it goes like this: You seen that MOTHER FUCKIN' Bobby? That MOTHER FUCKER owes me 35 MOTHER FUCKEN dollars! He told me he gone pay my MOTHER FUCKEN money last MOTHER FUCKEN week. I aint seen this MOTHER FUCKER yet! I'm not gonna chase this MOTHER FUCKER for my 35 MOTHER FUCKEN dollars. I called the MOTHER FUCKER four MOTHER FUCKEN times... but the MOTHER FUCKER won't call me back. I called his momma the other MOTHER FUCKEN day... she gonna play like the MOTHER FUCKER wasn't in. I started to cuss her MOTHER FUCKEN ass out, but I don't want no MOTHER FUCKEN trouble. But I'll tell ya one MOTHER FUCKEN thang... the next MOTHER FUCKEN time I see this MOTHER FUCKER... and he ain't got my MOTHER FUCKEN money... I'm gonna bust - his - MOTHER FUCKEN head! And I'm OUT this MOTHA FUCKA!


R.I.P. Mr. Mac.

Final Grade: B-

Role Models

2008 has been a good year for comedies in my mind. Typically I only enjoy 3 or 4 in any given year. Yet this year there are at least 14 comedies that have receive at least a B- from me and a few of those are even true comic gems. As the year comes to a close, the movies tend to get more dramatic or more family oriented, so I feel like this, with Soul men, was the last shot to add to the list of good comedies. I tend to stay away from movies written and directed by David Wain because the entire Stella thing lacks any sort of, well, laughs. Then they went and let Paul Rudd re-write the script and I was interested. I enjoy the cast and it looked pretty funny, even if a bit of an Apatow wanna-be. Not that that is a bad thing, honestly.

Danny(Rudd) is a miserable human being. he is out to pick fights with everyone for the tiniest thing and one day he just cannot handle it anymore and his verbal vitriol embarrasses his girlfriend, Beth(Elizabeth Banks) and she ends it with him. Having a really bad day on top of having a miserable job, Danny loses it. At a high school, where he and his partner, Wheeler(Sean William Scott) are trying to tell kids to drink an energy drink instead of doing drugs, Danny tries to drive off in the monster truck and ends up damaging school property. Instead of jail, Danny and Wheeler are sentenced to 150hrs of community service at Sturdy Wings, a day camp for children. Danny is assigned Augie(Christopher Mintz-Plasse) and Wheeler is assigned Robbie(Bobbe J' Thompson). Augie is an ubernerd who practices LARPing- Live Action Role Playing. He has a whole universe in which he is not a nerd, but a valued member of a society. Danny hates it, but Augie is a sweet kid and Danny starts to try and befriend him. Wheeler and Robbie have an easier time together because they bond over breasts. Robbie is a truly foul mouthed little kid, but he has a good spirit and his mother is sweet. Wheeler and Danny are learning the values of not being so selfish and building relationships.

The opening 25 minutes of Role Models feature some seriously great verbal exchanges and the finale is a beautiful showing of physical comedy and in the middle are spattered a variety of funny lines, lines that don't work, hot girls and the most sexual innuendo jokes since Arrested Developmentwent off the air. Paul Rudd seems to revel in playing these kind of depressed directionless guys and he nails it here. He and William Scott have a great chemistry and the relationship between Rudd and mcLovin is perfect. In fact, Christopher Mintz-Plasse plays Augie with such conviction it is hard to laugh at him for being a dork because he really is a sweet kid. He is only occasionally made the butt of the joke, which is nice because dorks are usually picked on in these movies. For his part, Sean William Scott probably gives his most likable performance since American Pie. I hope we are about to experience a Sean William Scott revolution because I have always liked him. He is charming and has an easy likability. they are all outdone by Bobbe J' Thompson. Thompson is a young and talented kid with crazy verbal skills and he swears like a young Chris Rock. He is unbelievably funny and fast and vulgar but never mean spirited.

Another person worth mentioning is Jane Lynch. This woman is a very sturdy comedic supporting actress. She killed it as the boss in The 40 year old virgin and in this movie she gets a lot of great laughs. She doesn't always hit, but she recovers so quickly you forget the bad jokes. Elizabeth Banks is solid as usual. She continues to do interesting roles that are diverse enough that will not allow her to be pigeon-holed as an actress. There are a few supporting players from various Judd Apatow produced movies that get their laughs within the world of Augie's real life role playing, but the main foursome don't allow the movie to be stolen from them. Speaking of the Live Action Role Playing, the climax of this movie is a complex, hilarious and actually touching battle royale sequence that sees Augie finding his calling as a leader. He is a great battle cry, and a stirring speech and it is all played straight down the middle, which keeps the movie from being too silly. The actual battle is full of laughs and even a few thrills.

In the end, Role Models carries a nice message about responsibility, love, friendship and doing what you love. Augie is a nerd and so he believes he is a nerd, but the second he is a leader in a town of LARPers, he excels and everyone around him sees that he is a good, level headed kid. Role Models is vulgar, yes, but who says vulgar cannot lead to something sweet. The main characters learn and teach and in the end, everyone truly is a winner. Where is the crime in that?

Final Grade: B+

Rachel Getting Married

I can remember from all of my acting classes in college my professors saying that an audience brings what ever happened to them that day into the theater. We were to believe that if a person had a real crappy day that maybe they would not enjoy the show, or whatever. I have never lived by that theory myself. As an audience member of movies or plays, whatever happened to me before the show goes out of the window. I have always only been able to get behind the theory if someone just lost a loved one and they think going to a funny movie can cheer them up. It is most likely not going to help. That being said, I saw Rachel Getting Married on Wed. November 5th 2008, which was the day Proposition 8 passed and right before I saw this, I had a very long and passionate discussion with someone about the subject of Prop 8. This movie is about marriage, so it is possible my opinion of the movie will have something to do with my cultural surroundings.

Kym(Anne Hathaway) has recently been released from Rehab to attend the wedding of her sister. Kym is in her late 20s and has been addicted to drugs of some sort for most of her life. In her interactions with people we know she has been on Cops, had an incident in a pet store and is generally thought of as a screw up. She is a brutally honest train wreck of a human being who chain smokes, grasping to that last addiction. She lies in rehab and does not seem terribly interested in actually rehabbing. Her sister, Rachel(Rosemarie Dewitt) and her father, Paul(Bill Irwin) are both excited and nervous to see her, and with good reason. This is a dysfunctional family of the highest degree. The movie takes place the day before and the day of the wedding and in all of the complexities of family and loved ones.

I believe I can say that Rachel Getting Married is my favorite movie of 2008 thus far. I came out of it thinking I had just witnessed a masterpiece of cinema. The performances all the way around are incredible, especially Hathaway and Irwin. Jonathon Demme has an amazing directorial vision. Yes, it is shot with that kind of shaky camera documentary style, but it works because the movie suffocates you in these lives. You are fully engulfed in the dark family tragedy that is boiling under the surface for the first half of the movie and then erupts like a volcano in consecutive scenes that ignites the screen and ignites these characters lives. There is no distance between us and the characters on the screen, which works for the movie in various ways. First off, we feel each stinging tragedy, but at the same time, we live every glorious moment of the actual wedding as well. We see the pure magic that weddings are and this wedding is among the most beautifully honest I have seen on screen. It moved me in a way movie weddings rarely do. It is a wedding that crosses cultures and traditions and mixes them with beautiful music, an abundance of love and people of all colors, shapes and sizes, and probably sexual orientation.

At the core, Anne Hathaway rips her way through it. With a hair cut that looks like it was cut with a razor and bags under her eyes, Hathaway shreds away her Disney princess sheen and delves deeply into a character who at one point states that she cannot believe in God because she does not think she deserves to believe in a God. Hathaway lives inside the broken Kym, a girl who needs the constant attention while saying she hates the constant attention. Her performance is raw, gutty and emotionally exhausting and we are witness to it all. We are right next to her during each tearful confession and during each fight with her sister who is just fed up by Kym's life and actions. They have a bizarre relationship in the most stark of movie revelations, they go at each other with such force and velocity it is hard to see how a make up will ever happen. On the edges of insanity, lives their father, played to perfection by Bill Irwin. There are some amazing supporting performances already this year, but this guy needs accolades and nominations so people will watch him in this. What a truly spectacular, engaging, heart felt, sad and winning performance. Here is a father trying his best to keep a positive outlook, while his two daughters are hell bent on destroying each other. He is a man always on edge of breaking down, but always finding a way to keep it together. Only in a few brief seconds do we see the man behind the act and wow, what sadness lives in this man's eyes.

Rachel Getting Married has interesting visuals, a great ethnically diverse cast, beautiful music throughout and tremendous performances. It is a movie I have been thinking about almost nonstop since I saw it. It is such a small slice of life, but it is an incredibly powerful story of how family works and how love can help people change and how stressful moments can act as catharsis in moments of brutal honesty. It has long scenes and long camera shots, but it is never boring. There is a scene that is based around how to fill a dish washer that turns into a fast paced, funny, engaging and ultimately sad moment that sums up everything about how I feel about this movie.

Yes, maybe I was tearing up thinking of all my gay brothers and sisters who cannot experience how magical a legal wedding can be, but it was more than that. Rachel Getting Married made me believe in the power of music and singing when just telling someone something is not enough. I came away from the movie full of hope in my heart for a better tomorrow. It made me appreciate the family I have and the loved ones that surround me. Rachel Getting Married is the kind of movie that reminds me why I love movies so much and how something like a movie can be more than just entertainment.

Final Grade: A+

High School Musical 3

Troy(Zac Efron), Gabriella(Vanessa Hudegens) Sharpay(Ashely Tisdale) Ryan(Lucas Grabeel), Chad(Corbin Bleu) and the rest of the bunch are all back, this time it is senior year. The Wildcats have just won their second straight state basketball championship (The rousing opening number Now or never) and now Gabriella has just kind of forced the entire gang into the Spring Musical. Being that they have a girl at school who writes musicals they decide to do an original musical that will be entitled Senior Year and will include things like Prom and other senior year activities. Issues arise when Gabriella gets an early admission to Stanford and leaves the Wildcats behind. Troy is unsure of what he wants from his future with pressure coming from everywhere to go to the local college to play basketball. Also, Julliard has extended a full ride scholarship to one of the students, but received 4 applications and will be coming to the musical to make their decision. Sharpay is still annoying and whiny and wants to be the girl who gets the scholarship and will go to great lengths to get it. A few younger students are introduced to perhaps carry on the HSM legacy. People sing and dance in the rain, Troy and Gabriella finally kiss and Troy gets his serious angst on. Pretty typical HSM stuff.

Here is the part where I review things and by reviewing this movie I am supposed to talk about how stupid it is and all of that. I want to, trust me. I do. But something is holding me back. I know, I am a 28 year old straight male who has somewhat high standards for movies and I am quick to tear stupid kid movies apart and do not tell anyone this but, I kind of enjoyed it! Is it corny? Well, duh of course it is. I could sit and talk about how this is some weird fantasy world and how childish these high school kids are, but we all know that about these movies. Musical comedies are not grounded in reality. They are absurd by just existing and is it so wrong that here is a musical that kids can enjoy. The drama teacher in the movie says that "The stage can be a great help on the road to self discovery" and is that such a bad thing to say? For a decade the stage was where I made myself into the person I am today. So what if the music is too pop heavy and the voices aided by computers. Does anyone really care? Look these movies speak to a very specific demographic, I get that. However, I was tapping my toes right along with them. There is something to be said for the team of song writers to write such catchy music.

There are a few wonderfully produced numbers, "I want it all", "The Boys are back" and the finale "High School musical" and the cast performs them with the kind of energy any director directing any musical would kill to have. It is not all great though as the slower numbers falter because there is not as much energy surrounding them. Efron and Hudgens make a very winning couple on screen as they both look amazing and have a very safe sexual spark. Zac Efron is the one of this group who appears to have break-out success potential. Many people do not like him in these movies because they see him as a wrong fit for the character. He does seem to have some trouble with all of the angst because, well he is Zac Efron and life as him is not very angsty. However, his solo emo number "scream", while unintentionally comical at times, provides a nice outlet for his Footloose like potential. He commands the screen nicely and while his look of sadness is kind of funny looking, he does the job he is supposed to do.

There is something comforting about a world where a team of high school kids wins a championship and it is celebrated with a big family cook-out and not the drinking and general debauchery that is typical and more realistic. High School Musical looks like something out of Pleasantville, yes, but who cares. In high school so many people went through the same issues. When presented with a choice of where to go to college, I buckled under expectations and have regretted it ever since. I admire the ideals of Troy Bolton choosing the school outside of what was expected. High School Musical 3 takes what worked in the first two movies and made better use of the bigger budgets with neat camera tricks and big production values. It doesn't come off as forced the way HSM 2 did and maybe it does not have all of that lightening in a bottle Disney magic of the first one, but it is an earnest, honest, non-ironic look at a fantasy universe where the mother of the brainiac likes that she is dating the big man on campus. Do not think the movie is completely void of knowing that the girls love Efron. The movie opens on a shot of his eyes and sweaty face and he does strip his shirt off, but that is about as PG as it gets. High School Musical exists in a world of the un-ironic. It does not wink at itself or get meta. It believes in everything it says, dances and sings. It is kind of refreshing, to be honest.

Final Grade: B-

RocknRolla

There was a time when Guy Ritchie was a stud in the movie world. Lock, Stock and two smoking Barrels and Snatch are widely held as terrific post modern films. He has always managed to capture a unique visual flair that fit the crazy version of the world he was creating. Then he married Madonna and made Swept away, which was terrible and then did not do anything for a few years. last year he returned to the crazy world of drugs, power and money with Revolver, but it was a massive misfire. Well the public divorce of the once power couple, has brought Guy Ritchie back with another movie in the world of mobs, power, drugs and... a painting?

I will attempt to do my best in recapping the movie, but I do not have an ability to take notes, so I may get lost. Mr. One,Two(Gerard Butler) and Mumbles(Idris Elba) lost money received from a loan Shark, Lenny Cole(Tom Wilkinson) in a real estate scam and need to get it back to him. Lenny believes he owns London's underworld and real estate scamming business and the Russians want in bed with Lenny. As a show of faith, the head Russian gives Lenny his lucky painting. The Russian calls his accountant to get 7 million Euros. The accountant, Stella(Thandie Newton), in turn tells Mr. One,Two where to find the 7 million Euros. One,Two and Mumbles jack the money and pay back Lenny, but now the Russians cannot complete their deal with Lenny. While all of this is going on, the painting is stolen. Lenny believes his step-son, Johnny stole it and now he has sent his second in command, Archie(Mark Strong) to look for it. Archie muslces Roman and Mickey(Ludacris and Jeremy Piven) to find it. Johnny then loses the painting himself. One,Two and Mumbles get a chance to jack another 7 million Euro exchange, but this time it is not as easy. On the side there are also plots involving a police informant and even a brief homosexual side plot.

If that seems like an awful lot to take in. It is. However, RocknRolla is also incredibly entertaining and uniquely made. Guy Ritchie uses all kinds of neat tricks to tell this story including subtitles (while two people talk over music) nice lighting effects, great musical cues, nonsensical flashbacks and all kinds of varying degrees of extreme closeups and other camera tricks, including some great use of the shaky camera. Ritchie obviously decided to throw it all in the mix to see what he could create and it is all very effective. I may not have explained the movie very well, but when it is over it all becomes pretty damn clear. Ritchie stages a wonderful climax with all of the main and supporting characters that features some great gun play and wonderful dialog. Every single actor plays their individual roles perfectly, but a few stand outs are Tom Wilkinson, Gerard Butler, Thandie Newton and Mark Strong. Wilkinson is often in deeply dramatic films and he is obviously having a blast as a deep cockney accented wannabe gangster. Mark Strong continues to impress me and he looks fantastic in his sharp suits. Newton and Butler have a smolderingly sexy chemistry and Newton so scorching I was waiting for the screen to catch fire.

Ritchie's use of the voice-over narration is very effective because it is Strong's Archie who is doing it. He is connected to all of the stories, but not the main focus of them all, so we trust him because we do not think he has any reason to lie to us. Then in the movie there are a few monologues, one bordering on brilliant as Johnny attempts to explain his obsession with the painting while he plays the piano as that visual is cross cut with the visual of a man being beaten. Then there is a monologue from a totally side character about Johnny's drug habit that is very effective as it slows everything down, halting the action but pointing out how alluring and traumatizing drugs can be.

The term RocknRolla is summed up in the movie as someone who wants "The Whole fucking lot." Being a RocknRolla is not about drugs or sex or money, or power. It is about having a bit of all of it. A real RocknRolla is cultured and appreciates art. he is articulate, but vicious. He drinks tea while he tortures you and he looks damn good doing it. Ritchie finds his footing again in this crazy version of London. He has a hyper-visual style that matches the frenetically paced action sequences (the extended second robbery scene is a flash of genius, if you ask me) and the whole movie is wrapped in this coating of sexual fun, without it actually being very sexual at all. It is a movie that makes you wish you could be that much of a RocknRolla. The kinetic energy bursts off of the screen with its fits of comedy and violence and I wish to hell I could look as good in a suit as Mark Strong.

Final Grade: A

Zack and Miri make a Porno

Yes, I worship at the temple of Kevin Smith. I do not deny it. The man has a knack for clever dialog that captures the way people really have conversations. Yes, he writes in a way that probably more foul than most people speak, but he gets his point across. The man has tackled lesbians, malls, slackers, religion and Hollywood all with great wit and a considerable charm. Lately, a new comedy king has replaced Smith. The new King, Judd Apatow, also worshipped at the temple of Kevin Smith, as he has stated numerous times. Therefore, it makes perfect sense for Kevin Smith to recruit some Apatow players- Seth Rogen, Daryl Robinson and Elizabeth Banks- and put them in this movie. The title alone has raised eyebrows and caused quite a stir. It was originally slapped with an NC-17 rating and then changed to R, but what else is new with Kevin Smith. The man has been a thorn in the side of the MPAA for most of his career. But has he lost his touch? The first footage shown made it seem like, yes he had lost his touch, but the official trailers looked good and I was somewhat optimistic.

The title pretty much says it all, in the way Snakes on a Plane or The Hiest sum up their movies. Zack(Rogen) and Miri(Banks) are platonic best friends who live together and barely make ends meet. Their water is shut off on the night they are to go to their high school reunion but they go anyway because Miri hopes she can nail Bobby Long(Brandon Routh), on whom she had a crush in high school. At the reunion, Zack meets Brandon who is a gay porn star who gets all of his profits because he makes and distributes his own porn. Desperate for cash, Zack and Miri find themselves making a porno. At first they set out to make Star Whores, which is accompanied by a brutally hilarious montage, but things go wrong and they end up shooting a porno in the coffee house where Zack works. They shoot after hours and assemble a crack-pot team to help. Deleney(Robinson) is the producer and talent scout and he finds them a few good men and women. With the day of reckoning upon them, Zack and Miri make their porno debut as stars, but something happens during their scene that complicates everything. The two must confront deep hidden feelings they had for each other all along.

Much has been made of Seth Rogen getting impossibly hot women in his movies. Girls that look like Katherine Hiegl and Elizabeth Banks do not belong with overweight, sweaty, and hairy men. Whatever. These are male fantasy movies. Women have movies where disgustingly gorgeous men say and do all the right things all of the time. They have movies that exist in false realities where old lovers die in each other's arms after a life of shared passion. That is the fantasy women have. Men have the fantasy that they can get the hot girl. What is the difference, in reality, between The Notebook and Knocked up? They were hits based in fantasy. Zack and Miri is another one of those male fantasy movies, except, the way Elizabeth Banks plays Miri it is easy to see her and Rogen together. The woman is a comedic gem in this movie, which is saying something because typically women in Kevin Smith movies struggle to keep up. Banks is up for the challenge matching bad word for bad word. She is not afraid of looking foolish, which is good when her granny panties are a main subject for the film.

Is this movie for everyone, no, of course not. Kevin Smith knows his audience and he gives them what they like. He gives an insanely hilarious comedy, full of bad language, wit and that trademark charm. He also delivers on the porno promise using former porn star Traci Lords and current porn star Katie Morgan along with a few good men and they do not shy away from shooting that porno. That being said, the porn making delivers some great laughs on its own. When Jason Mewes(Going the full monty in the end) is giving it to Katie Morgan a drunken fool wanders in and wants coffee, totally not catching on that sex is going on. Kevin Smith begat an entire generation of young men with his movies and while he nods to the success of Judd Apatow, he is not ready to give up his crown as King Man-Child. What Zack and Miri lacks in class and tact, it makes up for with fast jokes that come so rapid fire, when one doesn't make you laugh, you do not even have time to register it before the next one does make you laugh.

Seth Rogen is a very funny guy, but what makes him more than just funny is that he is likable. He is relatable. He is not going to win any Oscars but he has found a nice niche in the movie industry and I know there are those who hate him, but I think he is a very funny man. He continues that in this movie. He has a great chemistry with all of the people involved and he also captures the pathetic nature of Zack. Smith and Rogen really crafted a nice character who is not just funny. he is very sad in the first twenty minutes and only when he gets motivated do we see why all of his friends like him so much. The supporting cast all do wonderfully, with Jeff Anderson and Jason Mewes stealing some of the better jokes and the one true moment of scat humor is set up so perfectly that it borders on genius and I typically hate scat humor.

Kevin Smith is a man loved by many and hated by just as many, but he is a man who has always made the movie he wanted to make. He is not afraid to tackle the tough issues in absurd way. There is a way to look at this movie as a look at things to come as more and more people are hit with financial trouble and it points out the absurdity of how mainstream pornography is. I am not saying it is a good thing, but Smith is there to show us how ridiculous the whole thing is. Zack and Miri is another hilarious comedy in a year already stacked with great comedies. I am waiting for Smith to branch out to another genre, but until he does, I will continue to welcome his writing and in this movie, even the direction. He utilizes slow motion to great success in two very poignant moments in the movie and he seems much more confident overall in his direction.

Final Grade: A-