The Harry Potter book series (spoilers like WOAH)

After years and years to rejecting everyone who offered up their copy of the Harry Potter series(We will call it HP from this point on) I finally gave in. Sometimes it is just impossible to say no to a beautiful charming girl. The reason I fought it for so long was due to the fact that when I tried to read it years ago, I got roughly 60 pages into the first book and loathed it. Armed with a new perspective thanks to Erik telling me to read the first book like a Roald Dahl book, I ventured into it.

I have been trying to figure out how to best write my experience with this much beloved series and I am still unsure if this is going to go exactly how I want, but I really wanted to go through my feelings on the series as a whole. Going book by book would not really do the series justice because J.K Rowling managed to be pretty brilliant in her weaving the stories together. Yet, HP is so massive, I had to figure out how to best attack it. For those of you who follow my twitter (@KyleHadley) some of this will be familiar, but in 140 characters, I could not fully realize major thoughts. This will probably not follow any sort of chronological order, nor will it follow the normal "things I like" followed by "Things I do not like" order of my typical reviews. None of those worked when I went to write them. What is most likely to follow is a free flowing sense of ideas or thoughts. It is probably going to be messy and long, but I think ultimately if you can make your way through it, we will come to a satisfying end of this HP adventure.

One of the main things I could not get a handle on in twitter was Voldemort. The beginning of book 4 is when we really see Voldemort as a character not an abstract idea or concept. For three books he is really mostly just "he who must not be named", but in book 4 and then through the rest of the series, he becomes more tangible, more knowable. He has a personality and I think that works to the disadvantage of the series. Voldemort is scarier as an abstract. Part of the power of that character is his mystique. He is cloaked in this unknowable and when he is "knowable" he loses the dark magic. Now, if someone wants to argue that it was part of Rowling's plan for Voldemort to get less scary to us as he gets less scary to Harry, I will listen to that argument in earnest because I can see that point, but I think she worked so hard to create this legendary villain and then destroyed it. I enjoyed the Tom Riddle back story, so that was not my problem. In fact, I think the Riddle back story makes Voldemort that much scarier, but when he starts talking to his Death Eaters he is less scary. He becomes too much of a character and not this mysterious creature lurking in the darkest corners of Harry's mind.

My biggest issue with the series also ties to the idea of Voldemort as a non scary character. It is Rowling's way of writing death. I was first bothered by it in book 4 when Cedric Diggery got such an unceremonious death. However this trend continued with pretty much every character death in the series right down to Voldemort. You are telling me the scariest, most bad ass villain alive dies at the hands of his own curse rebounding??? He does not even get to have an epic wizard fight with "The Boy who Lived"?? Death scenes are hard to write. Fight scenes are tough to get a grasp on, but Rowling clearly had action sequences down by the time Voldemort died. The Battle for Hogwarts is one of the most exciting action scenes I have come across and it weaves all kinds of complex stories into the backdrop of this fight, however Rowling decides to side step death scenes by writing quick deaths that rob the readers of the emotional pull of a death. She redeems herself for Cedric and Dumbledore by giving moving tributes in the form of a eulogy, but that is such an easy way out. Sirius never gets that proper due and he is such an important character for Harry.

Through it all though, there is this foundation of Harry, Ron and Hermione. This trio of friends, I think, represents why these books are so well loved among all generations. The theme of friendship that is the glue for HP is something to which everyone can relate. Every time the series starts to lose focus, or get long winded, Rowling could rely on this rock to get her and us through it. However, not everything is always perfect in this trio and that is what makes it that much better. In life friends go through issues and this series gives them to us, but it always raises the stakes by throwing life and death at us. What made Buffy, The Vampire Slayer so great was the idea that teenagers were going through typical teenage stuff on top of saving the world from demons and vampires. In HP we get a lot of the same stuff. Ron is jealous of his best friend's school popularity, but he also has to help save the world. Hermione has image issues and jealousy issues and Harry cannot speak to girls. And on top of all of that, he is constantly nearly being killed. However, in the end, it is always Harry, Ron and Hermione. Yes, Harry is the chosen one, but without Ron and Hermione he never could have done any of it. This friendship and the perseverance of it reduced me to tears a few times and is the main reason I read through some of the stuff I hated.

This wizardering world Rowling created is certainly something to be admired. She clearly did exhaustive writing and thinking to create a fully realized world full of nuance, but this attention to detail falters her when the stories get too long winded. A few of these books could have been shorter and there are entire plots that I could have done without. The biggest shining example of too much "world" was Hermione's obsession with house elves. Yes, they turn out to be incredibly important to the world of HP, but so much of book 4 was spent dealing with these creatures and in all honesty, they did nothing to fully advance the story. We needed 3 of them and I understand the character of Hermione fights causes, but I knew that without so much time being spent on the idea of freeing house elves. Rowling also bends the will or personality of her characters to fit what she wants them to do. She is the opposite of the narrator in The Scarlett Letter who cannot control his characters. She has infinite control of them, even if it means having them do something out of character. My biggest example of this is the truly awful fifth book. Most people do not like it because of the angsty Harry, but my issue is why he is angsty. In order to get him angsty, Rowling decides to totally change Dumbledore's personality, just for this book. But worse than that was her easy way of getting out of it, by just having Dumbledore say he made a mistake. Everything he did was way out of the character Rowling had built for 4 books prior and I am just supposed to accept "Oh, well, I am old and some times I do it wrong." No thank you! How am I supposed to trust anything Dumbledore says in book 6 after that?

What this series boils down to is hype vs expectations. I understand why people love it and having read it once does not in any way make me an expert and perhaps some of the problems I have with this series exist because I am not in love with the world. I am distanced so I look at it in a critical sense and not with the sort of reckless abandon most do. I love that people have a true fire and sense of burning love for these books. A burning love for literature is beyond great and to be honest these books have such rich themes about good vs. evil and how love is the greatest magic of all that I would feel comfortable teaching this book to my children and having them find stuff for themselves. There is a certain childlike innocence people get when they start talking about the first time they picked up HP and THAT is more important than anything I have said today. When a book makes you feel something like that, it goes beyond criticism. I may never pick up the series again and yes, I was underwhelmed as a whole, but to be perfectly honest, when I think about these books in the future I am going to remember just all out WEEPING when book 6 came to an end. I am going to remember cheering when Neville stepped up, or feeling comforted knowing Harry was always going to have Hermione and Ron to help him when he needed them. Even as I type this now, I get goosebumps thinking of that feeling I had so many times when Harry and his friends conquered every challenge together, or how Hermione stuck with Harry even after Ron ran out, or how Ron came back knowing what could ultimately happen. Or even better, how Harry truly believed he had to sacrifice himself for the good of the whole world. How many 17 year old boys or girls would be willing to sacrifice a weekend to help people and Harry is being asked to sacrifice his life to save everyone else? And he does it with the calm and understanding of someone at least twice his age!

I think writing this out actually just changed my perspective on the series as a whole. As I sit here with my own words, I find myself warmed to the core by the love people have for these characters and how wonderful I felt reading sections. There is a power the written has always had over me, but here my own words have changed my opinion. This is why writing and reading are so important, but that is a whole other post for a whole other day!

I want to end with just some random thoughts that are mostly twitter style thoughts:

Luna Lovegood makes me happy.

Severus Snape is onomatopoetically perfect.

The predictability of Draco and Harry's conversations got old early on

I want to be a part of Dumbledore's Army

The way she wrote Harry and Ginny together was perfection

The plural of Patronus should be Patroni not Patronuses.

I bet Ron and Hermione's angry sex is amazing.

Dumbledore is, in my opinion, one of the best literary creations in years.

Quidditch did not really do anything for me. I did not miss it one bit when it was gone.

Most of the humor fell flat for me. However, George and Fred were constantly hilarious.

I could have done without Hagrid. I am not sure the Hagrid pay off was worth all the amount of time spent with him.

Lastly, I would have expected Rowling to create Wizard Holidays instead of using existing ones.

Top 10 list: Movie Soundtracks

I am ready for this to be a bit controversial of a list, but here we go. Also, movie musicals were left off of this list.

10. The Wedding Singer: I almost did not include this because it has some movie musical like properties, but ultimately decided on it. It has great 80s songs, first of all, but each song also serves a nice purpose in the film, especially when Sandler sings them. When you throw in the two great Sandler original songs, it really takes shape. There are actually two volumes of this soundtrack and both have stellar songs from this decade that gets mocked so often.

9. Garden State: I feel this soundtrack was a precursor to all of these indie movies with pretentious soundtracks. Of course, I like a certain amount of pretension, so it works for me. The soundtrack is a perfect mood setter for this moody, melancholy movie. It gives the film atmosphere and when you listen to the songs you can actually remember in what scene they appeared. It is a wonderful meshing of sound and picture.

8. Do The Right Thing: First of all, this soundtrack features the brilliant Public Enemy song "Fight the Power" and it does not need to have any other song on it to be amazing because that is just how amazing that song is. However, it also has a ton of other great songs that have deep meaning for a powerful movie. The movie integrates these songs in exceptional ways, which is really the true testament to a good movie soundtrack and Spike Lee loved Public Enemy so much he let them do the entire soundtrack to a movie later in his career.

7. Romeo and Juliet: To be honest, I am not sure this is a soundtrack featuring music I would normally find appealing, but in the context of the film and with the idea of the film in my head, it totally works. I almost feel like I have to take this soundtrack as 1 big piece of work instead of individual songs. I know there was a second volume of this one released as well, which is just how popular the music of this film became. The movie, which was a daring version of a classic story is helped out by this weird, eclectic soundtrack.

6. Friday: With a perfect blend of contemporary hip-hop cuts and classic funk/soul jams, Friday is the perfect soundtrack for a day of smoking weed and longing in the hood. What more can you ask for from a movie about smoking weed and lounging in the hood? You get Rick James, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre and The Isley brothers, but you also get Cypress Hill and 2 Live Crew providing music for this stoner comedy. Because the movie gets violent, it is good to have some harder hitting music, but it is also to have those grooved out songs during the weed smoking sections of the movie.

5. Superfly: Curtis Mayfield did the entire soundtrack and while the movie spends a lot of time glorifying the drug trade, Mayfields gorgeous songs often counteract that. I found the film to be mostly forgettable when I saw it, but the music stays with you, man does it stay with you. With insane grooves, smooth vocals and socially aware lyrics, Mayfield soars over the exploitation trappings of the film this soundtrack serves.

4. The Graduate: This is one of those obvious choices when it comes to movie soundtracks, but what are you going to do? It is a great soundtrack. It is a great album, and it is a great way to service a great movie. I cannot say anything else about this soundtrack that has not been said on any list like this, but damn, whether you are watching the movie or just listening to it, you undoubtedly feel something.

3. (500) Days of Summer: You may question this choice, or at least how high it is, but this is my list and not yours. First of all, it services the movie exquisitely. From there, it just has insanely great music. A lot stuff from artists I had never heard of, but such great songs. What makes a great soundtrack may be different to different people, but I think this list makes it clear that the way a song is used in a movie helps elevate a soundtrack and is there a more perfectly placed song that Hall and Oates' "You Make my Dreams"? I think not. This is album I can listen to and let it transport right back to this movie.

2. 8 Mile: This might be the most controversial choice on my list, but if you know me, it should make perfect sense. There are two different soundtracks to this film, 1 with contemporary songs, many dealing with issues talked about in the movie and of course the soundtrack of songs used in the film. My choice is the one used in the film because this movie features the most brilliant collection of 1990s hip hop music. It hits on every level. It works as background music to a wonderfully 1990s hip-hop story, but it also hits hard as a compilation of hip-hop's golden era. It almost acts as a hip-hop starter kit.

1. Reservoir Dogs: Honestly, this spot could just be reserved for any Tarantino film because no one puts together songs the way he does. He is an artist at it, but it is not just his song choice, it is knowing exactly at what moment to cue up the song. I went with this one because, well the music is directly mentioned repeatedly and called to because of Steven Wright's wonderful deadpan DJing. You get the classic "Little Green Bag" moment, the perfect use of "Stuck in the Middle with you" and of course, my favorite, "Hooked on a feeling." Movie Soundtracks just do not come any better than this right here.

Feel free to leave some of your favorites in the comments and feel free to trash any of my selections as well.

I do want to make it known, I clearly went with soundtracks of songs, not just movies with a score, or orchestra music. It was a personal choice I made. Also, I decided O Brother Where Art Thou was too much of a movie Musical to be included, otherwise it would have been very high on my list.

Paranormal Activity 2

The Hollywood cash grab annoys me. It is the reason the Saw movies keep getting produced, or why there are so many sequels, remakes, spin offs and other vanity projects. Paranormal Activity was the biggest surprise of last year and it possibly may have been the biggest surprise in movie history. If that sounds like hyperbole, go run a check on how much it cost to make and how much it ended up raking in. The movie just kept gaining attention and gaining a fan base and when it went to a wide release, the movie just exploded. Naturally, Hollywood wanted to cash in and got a sequel into production as soon as possible. The director of the original stayed on as a producer only and the franchise was handed to the director of Door in the Floor, which was not a horror movie. My interest in Paranormal Activity 2 (PA2) was minimal, but I found myself there at a midnight screening nonetheless.

After coming home to a house that looks like it got broken into, the family of Kristi, Dan, Ali, Hunter, Martine(the housekeeper) and Abby(The German Shepard) decide to install surveillance cameras. Strange spooky stuff starts going on and Kristi gets a bit rattled. Doors slowly open, gusts of wind where there is not wind, doors slamming shut, pots and pans rattling and other sorts of shenanigans start to spook out Ali as well. martine believes the house is cursed with demons but Dan does not believe her and fires her. There is something in the house though, something that drags Hunter(a newborn) out of his crib and down the stairs. Something causes the Ouija board to spell out Hunter's name. Clearly something is wrong. Kristi has a chat with her sister, Katie(From Paranormal Activity)about the freaky things and the sisters both remember things from their youth like this, but Katie reminds Kristi that whatever it is feeds off of attention and it needs your fear to thrive. Kristi and her family then try to ignore it until it goes away.

The thing that made Paranormal Activity such a fun movie going experience was the tension it built. There are people out there who complain about the lack of pay off and there is something legitimate in that complaint, but no one could complain about the slow building tension brought more dramatic by the slow bass sound every time it was about to get ugly. In PA2 the tension is just a bit lackluster, but the pay off, oh the sweet scary pay off is too delicious. I should say pay offs because this movie delivers nice big juicy jumps over and over again. Your eyes still dart all over the screen looking for the faintest of movements of anything. The movie is made creepier by adding a baby to the mix and for making the baby the prime target for the demon. There are pay offs in broad daylight (my favorite one) and there are a variety of pay offs in the final 15 minutes that more than make up for the lack of tension built.

The film takes place roughly 2 months before the first film. yes, this is prequel and we also get a bit of mythology built into PA2. I liked it. I liked that the writers appeared to be doing more than just grabbing cash, they were building a franchise to grab cash. I do typically love franchises if they have interesting mythologies and this one does. Even though the budget was massively larger in this movie, the movie does not feel any bigger and that is a plus when it comes to these Cinema Verite style movies. There is certainly going to be a third movie and most likely a 4th and 5th to follow if they keep making the kind of money the first one made and this one is currently making. Horror movies are cheap to produce and the return on the investment can be astronomical and so far, this budding franchise is absolutely worth it. The hype is delivered on and a great time is had!

PA2 works in a different way than PA, but like the original the acting is pretty bad and there are times when you wonder why they keep running around with a camera, but on the flip side, the hand held camera idea makes the basement scene so damn freaky that most people were watching it crouched down trying to find relief before we even saw or heard what we were scared of. If the movie fails to built tension throughout, it gets it right in the basement. If you enjoyed PA there is a great chance you will also enjoy PA2, but if you thought PA was ridiculous, this movie will not change your mind. They created this film with the audience in mind and kudos to them for understanding their fans.

Final Grade: B

it's Kind of a Funny Story

it has always been my belief that stand up comics can make great dramatic actors if they are given the chance to play characters that tap into the stand up comedians inherent issues, because all comics have issues. Zach Galifinakis is what one might call an "it" guy in comedy right now. he has tremendous heat from The Hangover, he has great on-line buzz with his weirdly perfect mock talk show Between two Ferns and Due Date is one of the most buzzworthy movies of the upcoming fall. He has comedy in his clutches, so what better way to try and expand than a comedy with some serious tints to it. And what better way to make that happen than playing a man in a psych ward of a hospital. It honestly felt like the best possible career move for a guy with as unlikely a career as Mr. Galifinakis.

Stressed out from a life that is far more complicated than it should be for a teenager, Craig(Keir Gilchrist) starts to have suicidal dreams. What is more is he wants to kill himself. He chickens out and rides his bike to the hospital instead. He thinks he can just be given a quick pill or something and be on his way, but he talks himself into getting committed to the psych ward. Craig is not sure how he is going to last five days in the hospital because he needs to get to school, but he is told he has to be there a minimum of 5 days. His family is as supportive as possible and he finds support from the outside in the form of his best friend's girlfriend. But, mostly he has to just live with the people in the hospital. He meets a damaged, but adorable girl, Noelle(Emma Roberts) and a few other eccentric patients, but he forges his closest bond with Bobby(Galifinakis). Bobby is a very depressed man who sees no real way out for himself, but in their talks, he helps shape Craig and helps Craig to try and work through his issues. The main issues for Craig are feelings of not being good enough. He is constantly stressed about school because his father puts pressure on him and Craig never relaxes. He believes he is a loser. Through art, music and just learning to relax, the psych ward helps Craig to realize what is and what is not important.

Told with a nice blend of sweetness, humor and a certain level of crazy, It's kind of a Funny Story is a nice movie with a more interesting movie somewhere inside of it. As far as psych ward movies go, it is by far the most tame and far too calm to elicit any hardcore reaction, but it is a genuinely sweet, moving picture with depth of character and it has some great laughs and the message is wonderful. I think I just hoped it would get just a bit darker, or delve just a bit deeper into the twisted side of the characters. it comes off as just a bit too safe, like it was trying hard to not offend any one's sensibilities. I do not inherently think a PG-13 movie has to be safe (See The Social Network), but this one is hindered by the rating, or it hindered itself to get the rating.

That being said, Galifinakis is remarkable. He is hilarious, twisted, and unafraid to let himself "go there." Bobby tries so hard to come off as a guy okay with his crazy, but the more we learn and the longer we see Bobby on the screen, the more we realize, this is a deeply tortured man. His breakdown is beautifully raw and Galifinakis goes all in. His chemistry with Gilchrist works throughout the whole picture and you really believe Bobby wants to help someone else because he believes he is beyond the ability to help himself. For his part, Gilchrist plays the tortured teenager pretty well. I wish he had a bit more chemistry with Zoe Kravitz who played the seriously sexy girlfriend of the best friend, but he and Emma Roberts are totally charming together in some tortured way. Roberts is probably a star in the making and she is very winning as Noelle. We never do find out what she is so tortured over, but it kind of makes their relationship feel more real, more tangible.

The film utilizes a few nice tricks, such as animation and dream sequences, most of which are pretty effective. In the scene where Craig has to sing lead during music time, the entire scene becomes a wonderfully charming and funny rock show with Craig singing. The song choice, Queen and David Bowie's "Under Pressure" is what you would call "too on the nose" but it is done in such a fun way it avoids being an eye roll moment. During art time, Craig creates these complex and gorgeous brain maps. It relaxes him completely and they show the art being drawn as animation and it is effective as it gives us an idea of how Craig sees the world. He narrates sections of the movie and at times flashes back at moments that led him to this very moment. These sort of narrative tricks, or gimmicks can be obnoxious, but in this film they mostly work. A few of the flashbacks did nothing for me and honestly, anytime the film jumped to his out of the psych ward friends, I lost all interest.

Even though It's Kind of a Funny Story is too safe to be totally effective, it is definitely worth viewing. Galifinakis is the most unlikely Hollywood star, but he is making all of the right moves and in this movie he exudes a sort of Robin Williams in The Fisher King persona. He does not have to completely lose his Galifinakisness, but he stretches himself and makes the movie more than it would have been, I think. The overly tame, or white-washing of the psych ward in undoubtedly rub people the wrong way, as it did me, but there is enough in the cast to make the movie good.

Final Grade: C+

Red

Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren in the same movie lends itself to a lot of jokes about retirement homes, or at the very least bad old person jokes. The fact of the matter is, all four of these actors have a lot left in the tank, and honestly, Malkovich seems to just be having more fun as he gets older. While, I am not familiar with the source material, it is tailor made for Bruce Willis. If ever there was an old man who we had to believe could still beat people up while keeping his wits about him, it is Willis. If you want an all out action dude, go to Stallone, but if you need an old dude to kick ass, crack wise and be smart, Bruce Willis is your man. You need Freeman because he does the wily veteran thing so well and since every movie needs eye candy, we have Helen Mirren, sexy sexy Helen Mirren.

Frank Moses(Willis) has a secret. He is getting his social security checks, but he is ripping them up so he can call the office and tell the lady he is not getting them. He does this because he has a crush on the call operator, Sarah Ross(Mary Louise Parker) and he does not know how else to talk to her. Now that is not really his big secret, his big secret is that he used to be an American spy and now someone is coming after him with murderous intent. In order to find out how, Moses enlists the help of his old friends, Joe(Freeman), Marvin(Malkovich) and Victoria(Mirren). Joe is good with plans, Marvin has information and Victoria is a weapons goddess. Moses is not sure what is happening, but soon he is put in touch with the notes of a recently killed reporter and learns that in the 1980s the vice president went crazy with killing in the army and Moses and his crew may have been privy to that information. However, these old timers also have a ruthless Secret Service agent on their tail. William Cooper(the wonderful Karl Urban) is smart, savvy and brutal, but he also has ethics and to him, Moses is the man behind a bunch of serious crimes.

This year has seen more than its fair share of action comedies and a majority of them have failed more than they have succeeded. Red succeeds more than it fails, but not by the best of margins. The pacing is totally wonky, the constant freeze frames that are "wink wink, nudge nudge" moments of "HEY THIS IS A COMIC BOOK MOVIE" but it is also so much fun and the action is very much top notch. Willis and Co are clearly having a blast as the old people still shooting guns, punching people out and running from the bad guys. Malkovich has perfected this crazy guy routine that Christopher Walken used to have on lock, Willis looks more invested in a movie than he has in years, Freeman cannot wipe the giant smile off of his face and no one has ever looked like they were having more fun shooting a Gatling Gun than Helen Mirren. Mary Louise Parker is merely along for the ride but even she is having a blast playing this girl who is in for the ride of her life and finds herself very turned on by a guy in action.

the script has some nice jokes and a few great gags, but I think, on the page it probably is a bit lackluster. It is one of those movies fully brought out by the cast and because they have all bought into the movie, the movie gets a nice boost. Red starts strong, and finishes incredibly strong, but it lags big time in the middle. I think the film was hoping introducing the crazy Malkovich character half way through would allow them to slow the movie down without losing the punch, but it nearly derails the movie, not because Malkovich does not work, but because they put it all on him and do not keep the forward momentum going. As the group tries to figure out the plot, the movie lingers in this limbo between action and comedy, but neither gets much to do. I did enjoy the little action sequence at the airport, including the absolutely ridiculous climax to that scene, but other than that, the movie loses its way.

Luckily Red gets back on track and in a major way. The climatic action sequence is absolutely phenomenal. It gives us wonderful stunts, seriously awesome gun play, a little emotion, sexy Helen Mirren and then, while the twist is not much of a twist, it gives us a satisfying conclusion. It is a well paced, well thought out and excellently executed conclusion to an up and down film. It is such a good action sequence that it pushed the movie into that realm of succeeding more than failing. Red does not set the genre on fire, nor will I really remember much of it in a few months, but it was an entertaining distraction and it is fun to watch a group of people having such a good damn time at work.

Final Grade: C+

Life as We know it

There is no good reason for me wanting to see this movie, but I want to. There was something in the trailer that made me think, maybe, just maybe, this would not be exactly what you think it is going to be. There is something about a movie that has a character pushing a baby down that makes you wonder what else might be in there. I am not opposed to Katherine Heigl or her movies, even if they all look the same and the director, Greg Berlanti, has done some great stuff on television. My biggest concern was that this movie would bring out my desire to be a father. I call it the Definitely, Maybe syndrome. I see a movie where the father child relationship is totally adorable and it fills me with the desire to be a father. it makes me fall in love with the movie for no good reason and leaves me feeling all sentimental and gushy. Who wants that??

Holly(Heigl) and Messer(Josh Duhamel)went on one blind date 5 years ago and it was a disaster. They were so incompatible that they did not even make it to dinner. Holly hoped they would never see each other again, but seeing as they were set up by a couple who happened to be the best friend of both Holly and Messer, that was never going to happen. Holly was the maid of honor and Messer was the best man at this couple's wedding and, yes they turn out to be the God Parents of this couple's baby girl, Sophie. After a car accident claims Sophie's parents, Holly and Messer are left Sophie to raise as their kid. Holly, of course, wants a family at some point, but never imagined it this way and Messer is stuck in frat boy mode, hence going by Messer. The arrangement goes Holly and Messer live in this couple's house and raise Sophie together, but since they hate each other, they maintain their single life, by taking days off and alternating weekends off. This arrangement will only be full time if they can pull it off and get a pass from Child Protective Services which will stop by at, of course, the most inopportune times for check ups.

I am not sure exactly how many of her movies begin with her getting ready for a date, but Katherine Heigl must choose movies based on whether or not the movie begins with her dressing for, or getting ready to go on a first date. Also, she excels in playing women who succeed in business, but are uptight, clumsy and in desperate need of a night of great sex. Duhamel is going to be constantly playing guys who were awesome in college and never want to grow up. So, it makes to put these two actors in this movie where they can play perfectly within their comfort zone and even without the trailer or the poster, or having nay knowledge of what the movie was about, you knew from the first frame these two would eventually sleep together. There movies where everything goes exactly the way you expect/want and it feels comforting. That is the reason romantic comedies are so popular, they deliver on everything you hope it will and you will be left feeling warm and fuzzy in the end. In some ways Life as We know it is exactly that movie, except, I was hoping it would not be. I was hoping the baby pushing scene would be indicative of the whole tone of this movie, not just a funny moment in a muddled mess of cliches.

There are some nice moments in the movie to be sure. I enjoyed a lot of the baby stuff, even if it is not entirely original and I thought that Heigl and Dumahel were great with the baby stuff and their chemistry towards each other was pretty good. Their first kiss is pretty hot for a PG-13 movie and even though it led to exactly what I knew it would, I thought they kept the tension at a reasonable level for a while. There is some great comedy, but it all comes within the first hour or so of the movie as this ridiculous non-couple goes through trying to figure out how to raise a baby. The movie peppers scenes with wacky neighbors, like the gay couple who pretends to like sports, the liar neighbor with the hot wife, the gossipy lady with a ton of kids, those generic types of movie neighbors.

Life as We Know it, I think, does what it set out to do, I just wish it had set out to be a bit more ambitious. I feel like at some point the script had more bite to it. I think somewhere in that film is a stronger, more subversive movie that just got its teeth knocked out by a studio, or a producer or something. I could be wrong, but it feels like something got lost in this movie. There are these great, sort of biting moments that made me perk up, but they were so short lived that the script felt like a cut and paste job from a few different writers. I cannot really back this opinion with too much evidence, it is just a feeling I have from watching so many movies. Somewhere in the world is a script with this title that is better than the one that ended up on the screen.

Final Grade: C-

Buried

Movies with a specific gimmick intrigue me. I remember watching a movie that was split into four screens and the whole movie was showing the action from four different perspectives the entire time, or the hand-held camera gimmick, or a movie called Look which is shot in all security cameras. There are movies where the whole thing takes place in one room, or one set, or almost all one set. I love Phone Booth for that reason. I am also interested in movies that essentially ask us to watch 1 actor the entire time. Castaway is pretty much just us and Tom Hanks and to a certain extent, I am Legend is just us and Will Smith. It takes a pretty specific kind of actor to hold the screen without anyone else. When I first heard of Buried it was already cast. Ryan Reynolds buried alive in a casket and we see no one else. That was all I needed to be hooked into the idea. I have been a fan of Reynolds since Two Guys a girl and a Pizza Place, and am happy to see his recent success, but also happy he makes interesting project choices to feed his artistic soul along with the commercial projects.

Paul Conroy(Reynolds) wakes up in pitch black, completely unsure of where he is. He cannot move much, but he can get to his pockets and in his pocket is a lighter. He gets the lighter lit and realizes he has been buried alive. A phone rings. He does not get to it in time, but he has a phone and he calls his wife, and gets the machine. Next he tries to remember the special number he was given in case of emergency. The phone rings again and he answers. It is a man who says he wants 5 million dollars or Paul will be killed. Paul gets in touch with the F.B.I and tells him his name and that he is a civilian truck driver in Iraq. His pockets also have a pencil in them to write phone numbers on the inside of his coffin. The kidnapper wants him to make a hostage video with the phone and provides Paul with a script and lights. The man Paul is in contact with at the F.B.I thinks it is a bad idea, but Paul does not want to die and he wants to stall in hopes he will, somehow, he found.

Not only is Buried set in one location, the location is a coffin just a little bit longer, wider and deeper than Ryan Reynolds frame. In order to pull this off and not have it come off as just a gimmick or to even have it be a good movie, everyone involved has to be in top shape. Ridrigo Cortes directs and edits the movie from his own script and in his second feature length film, Cortes proves to be quite a talent. Buried is an intense thrill ride that manages to have twists and turns all without leaving a coffin. His script does a great job of giving the story an arc, but it really boils down to how the movie was made. It was very clever to give the audience different kinds of lights. It added this dimension to the film when we see the coffin lit at different times with a cell phone, the lighter, a flashlight that only occasionally worked and two of those neon green light sticks. Instead of needing to constantly edit and switch angles to keep things fresh, using these different lighting techniques really added that. Of course, the editing and camera angles and zooms in and out are important because, again, we are seeing a movie shot in basically a 7ft x 6ft x 5ft movie set.

Ryan Reynolds does a wonderful job as well. He clearly has no vanity in him as he is not afraid to totally lose his cool and go places that might come off as cheesy or over the top by an actor too afraid to fully commit, but he commits 100% and he rewards the audience with wonderfully claustrophobic performance that is all over the emotional map. He does not get to be too nuanced in the character, but he does get sympathy from the audience and there was never a time where I thought he was not literally trapped in a coffin. The voice acting from the various other people was all top notch as well and it really helped keep the tension moving to have the voices from these unseen people. Many movies would cut away to these other places, but because we only ever saw Reynolds reactions, it made the film seem smaller and that kind of feeling is absolutely necessary for this film to work.

Buried features the most intense scene involving a snake I have seen in a movie and that is saying something. it also left me exhausted, frustrated, tense and outright angry. It goes on longer than I thought it would, but it actually worked. I figured a movie with such a small scope should run about 80 minutes and if you take away the trailers, the movie still ran closer to 95 minutes. 15 minutes may not appear to be much, but trust me, many movies would be better if they shaved 15 minutes off. Yet this movie that should have felt bloated at 95 minutes, actually felt exactly right. Roger Ebert says a good movie can never be too long and a bad movie can never be too short and while I am not sure I agree with him, Buried makes every second of its run time count.

Final Grade: B+

Let me In

There is a part of me that thinks I need to create a post of Kyle Movie Rules, and link to it instead of restating certain things for any new potential reader. Let The Right One In, which is the foreign film on which this film is based, is an amazing drama about a young vampire girl. I feel like the movie is looked at as more amazing in this Twilight world because of how unsexy it is made to be. That is not to say the movie is not amazing, but I think it got elevated by being completely different. That being said, a Kyle Movie Rule is that you never base your opinion of a remake on your feeling towards the original. I hope to never once in a review say "The Original was better." It may seem like an impossible task, but I feel it is important not to judge a movie based on the source material. I believe it is a fundamental right of every movie to be viewed without those preconceived notions on what a movie is supposed to be. Matt Reeves, the director of the oft debated (in my social circle) Cloverfield, deserved me coming in fresh and I always want to deliver, so it was with fresh eyes that I viewed Let me In.

Owen(Kodi Smit-Mcphee) is a bullied young man without a great family life (his mother is never shown to us full faced). He loves to eat candy, but is not allowed to and he does not have a single friend. he also has dark dark fantasies of stabbing women to death while wearing a mask and he spies on his neighbors having sex or working out. When he gets new neighbors, he appears immediately intrigued by the young girl Abby(Chloe Moretz). When Owen and Abby meet, Abby tells him straight up that they cannot be friends, but the bond is formed regardless. Abby lives with a man with secrets who kills people and drains their blood. Why does he do that? Well, Abby is a vampire. She is a 12 year old vampire and the man is her...well we do not really know. Abby needs the blood to not look and smell like death. The bond between Owen and Abby grows exponentially quickly and Abby fears it is only a matter of time he find out. When the man has an accident during one of his hopeful kills, the cops start showing up and asking questions and Abby's life starts to unravel and her secret becomes clear to Owen.

This will be the only comparison I make between the original and the remake: Whereas Let the Right one In was a dramatic film with horror aspects, Let me In is a horror film with dramatic aspects. Let me In is a masterful American horror film. It takes the basic premise of Let the Right One In and gives it an American wash set to the tune of horror, or suspense. There is definitely enough gore to please those suffering from a need for bloodlust, but the movie is not drenched in gore. Matt Reeves, who did such a great job building suspense and tension surrounding the monster in Cloverfield, has done it again here. There are entire scenes where the tension builds so insanely that I felt like I was being suffocated. He delivers a whopper of a scene when the caretaker of Abby has his accident and the pay off after the tension is exactly perfect. I am very impressed by Matt Reeves and think he is going to have a lot of great work in the genre of horror for a long time. He understands where the place for gore is and he understands how, at times, what we do not see can be much more scary than what we do see. He plays with light and dark in a wonderfully frightful way.

The film really hinges on the two young performers and how they react to each other and the kids do solid work. I am not sure they had the kind of chemistry I would have liked, but they both sold the film and they were good enough together to buy the premise of the film. Mcphee is a nice young actor, but I am not sure if he can succeed in anything where he is not supposed to be sad. he just has the perfect look for this type of movie, but he does definitely act well enough to gain our sympathy from the beginning of the film and goes through enough of a transition to buy the drastic switch in the character in a particularly brutal moment. Moretz is a young, very gifted actress I hope has a long and healthy career. She fills Abby with such a heartbreaking sadness that I kept wondering what Abby had been through in all of her years as a vampire. I kept waiting for her to want to be staked or set on fire. For an actress who has done a few things where her characters are so full of life, it was quite jarring to see this. She has always played little girls with an edge, but this was just such a difference in tone.

Let me In kept my attention, had me gasping for air and delivered on every moment of tension in an interesting way. I still think maybe the relationship between the two leads could have been stronger and the tempo does get derailed momentarily in the middle, but it never gets too far off track. As far as American horror films go, this one is top notch. I was pleasantly surprised with the film in every way. Matt Reeves has officially put himself on the list of directors whose careers I will be watching closely. he took a risk by adapting such a well received film and by doing it only a few years later, but by changing the tone, he crafted this wonderful film that will hopefully be found by audiences some day.

Final Grade: B+

The Social Network

When Aaron Sorkin's name is attached to a project, you know I will be excited. It is just who I am. His hyper-literate self important characters speak to me and I want to be them. However, his name attached to a movie about Facebook was odd to me. To have it be directed by David Fincher, star Jesse Eisenberg, co-star Justin Timberlake and have the score done by Trent Renzor, looked off. On paper this is a movie that should not work. Then the teaser came out and I was hooked again. Then the full length trailer came out and it immediately became my must see fall movie. My expectations could not be managed or handled. I was setting myself to be disappointed because with every passing moment, I was getting more and more excited. I needed this movie in my life and that, as we all know, can be a problem. a little over a week before the release I got the chance to see it. Could it possibly live up to the expectations I set for it?

In Harvard in 2003 an awkward, yet arrogant young man, Mark Zuckerberg(Eisenberg) is being dumped by his girlfriend after he insulted her with his honesty. Drunk, depressed and lonely, Zuckerberg blogs. As he blogs, he creates a website where he puts the pictures of Harvard girls up and people can vote on which one is hotter. To do this, he has to hack into dorm websites and break a few other honor code laws, but in just over 2hrs, the site gets 22,000 hits and crashes the entire Harvard Internet server. This gets him in considerable trouble, but it also catches the attention of Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss(both played by Armie Hammer) who are trying to build a Harvard dating website and need a programmer. Zuckerberg takes the job because these two guys belong to the most exclusive club at Harvard and Zuckerberg wants in. At the same time Zuckerberg gets the idea to create an entire on-line networking site. He wants to take the entire college experience and put it on-line at Harvard. He approaches his best friend Eduardo Savarin(Andrew Garfield) with the idea, Savarin loves it and puts up the capital to start it. The site, The Facebook, is an instant smash. Zuckerberg gets sued by the Wilklevoss twins, but the site keeps growing until it catches the attention of Sean Parker(Justin Timerlake) who created Napster. Sean has ideas on how to really make money from Facebook that will make them all rich.

Told with Aaron Sorkin's trademark fractured narrative, The Social Network not only met my insane expectations, it surpassed them. The story is told to us through the two lawsuits involving Zuckerberg. The winklevoss twins' suit and Eduardo's suit against him for pushing him out of the company. In between the scenes of the depositions, we get filled in on what happened, from all of the different perspectives. The film does not point fingers with any confidence, it just presents the factually based story and allows the audience to make up their own minds as to what really happened. Sorkin's script is absolutely perfect. His dialogue blisters off of the screen when spoken by Eisenberg and company, but he also gets the stuff on the outskirts of the dialogue. Sorkin understands the pacing of this story and he knows how to create polarizing characters. he presents this story with biting commentary on the world in which we live, but he also allows the characters to find their voices.

The characters, as portrayed by the entire company are really something to watch. Eisenberg is a revelation as Zuckerberg. He plays him with insane arrogance, but he also plays the withdrawn, unsure side with just as much zest. Eisenberg is already adept at playing fast talking characters, but here is always speaking with purpose. He is a man with no filter and he knows he is the smartest person of any room, including his peers at Stanford. However, what really sold me on him was everything that happened after the Sean Parker character is introduced. Eisenberg's transformation from that moment is stunning. For his Timberlake sets the movie on fire. The manic glint in his as he tries to sell himself to the idea of being on the Facebook team is excellent and he handles the "Sean Parker is crazy" stuff with realism as well. He loses his Justin Timberlake-ness every time he comes on the screen and he leaves a trail of flames every time he exits the picture. Andrew Garfield (our new Spider Man) is remarkable as Edaurdo Savarin. He is kind of our hero in a way. He is the one we really feel bad for, but Garfield is not going for our sympathy, really. He plays Savarin as a man who is arrogant, and savvy, but also wounded and loyal. He believes in the friendship fully.

David Fincher took a risk with this picture, I think. Fincher has a distinct look in his films and The Social Network does not really fit that look. Fincher decides the story, the dialogue and the characters can tell this story and they just need someone to gently point them in the right direction. Fincher does the job exactly how he should. He does get to add his touch, with the colors, especially the way the movie transforms the color scheme when the action moves to Los Angeles. I also love the way he shot the Regatta race. I like that he included the Regatta race. I am not sure it is totally needed, but it added something to the Wilklevoss characters. It kind of makes you ache for them a bit. I love the way the camera or the way it was edited can totally change a moment and capture the tiniest moment from Zuckerberg. The score is also top notch. Reznor's moody, cynical hypnotic searing score adds so much to the entire mood of the film, especially in the scene where Zuckerberg has created the girl rating site and the student body is exploring it.

I cannot say enough amazing things about this movie and there are probably people out there who have been able to better articulate their thoughts, but here I am four days removed from the film and all I can think about is how excited I am to see it again. The opening scene's buzzing back and forth dialogue, to Justin Timberlake's excellently delivered "A million dollar's isn't cool. You know what's cool..A Billion dollars" and everything else is stunning. The movie not only features all of this technical jargon, that sounds pretty good actually, but it has these epic lines like "Every creation myth needs a devil." Aaron Sorkin is the star of this movie, but his performance in writing it enhancing everything else we see and hear. No one knows controlling like Sorkin and here is has crafted this perfectly complex character with Mark Zuckerberg and Eisenberg plays each of those complex layers in a way that you can, at times, feel for Zuckerberg. All he wanted was this girl and in the end his inability to connect to people in a real way was his downfall. He created this perfect tool for faking real connection, while allowing us to stay completely detached and perhaps that is the only thing Zuckerberg really knows.

It is a fast and funny movie as well. Do not get bogged down in the idea of law stuff, or computer geek stuff. The Social Network has everything you need. It comes armed with great jokes, very smartly written jokes at that. It has teenage awkwardness. It hints at sex, it has intrigue to go along with all of the bad ass dialogue. The Social Network will most likely end up as my favorite movie of the year and to be honest, it will probably end up as one of my all time favorite movies if subsequent viewings hold up, like I expect they will. It is a case of master craftsman coming together for one amazing project and hitting it in every beat, scene, word, sound, and frame. There is not a wasted moment to be found in the very tightly paced 2 hour movie and I truly cannot wait until Friday when I can see it again.

Final Grade: A+

P.S. If "You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies" is not the best tagline for a movie, show me what is?

Easy A

I remember first hearing about this movie thinking "A modern day, teenage version of The Scarlett Letter sounds painful!" When I read what the movie was actually going to be, I was a bit more interested and when they cast the lovely, charming and hilarious Emma Stone as the lead, I was very much more excited. Ever since Superbad, I have felt Emma Stone was a star in waiting. She outshone Anna Farris in House bunny and I have just been anticipating the moment she got the chance to break out. She is sexy, but in a way that hits you differently. She comes off as approachable, and whip smart, but sexy. She is a very version of Ellen Page and it is kind of fitting that this is her break out role, because in a lot of ways, Easy A comes off as a sexier version of Juno. And your enjoyment of this movie might depend on if you want a sexier, little more mainstream version of Juno.

Olive(Stone) is a girl telling us a story through a webcam. She lets the audience know "There are two sides to every story and this is mine, the right one." Olive was once par tof the faceless masses at her high school. She spent her weekends in her room lip-syncing to "Pocketful of Sunshine" and she gets straight A's and never causes a stir. She has a sexy, slutty best friend, Rhiannon(Aly Michalka) who bugs Olive to tell her the story of the date Olive said she had. Olive made the whole thing up, but soon the rumor went around that Olive was kind of slutty. She lived up the notoriety. She kind of gets off on the infamy. However, things start to spiral for her when she fake has sex with a gay guy to help his reputation. Soon she has losers of all types paying her in gift cards to fake have sex with her. The Christian group on campus, led by Marianne starts to make her life hell and instead of fessing up to the stuff, Olive decides to wear it proudly. As she is studying The Scarlett Letter in English class, Olive decides to stitch a giant red A on her entire new slutty wardrobe.

I am not sure I can do the movie justice in terms of the story, but I think I did a pretty good job. What matters most is that Easy A is flat out hilarious! Emma Stone is absolutely wonderful in every aspect of the film. She is funny, vulnerable and makes it sort of believable that this ridiculous story could happen. She is the entire movie, so it really hinges on her performances. She reacts well to her fellow students and to the adults that pepper the movie as well. Thomas Hayden Church as her English teacher, Lisa Kudrow as the counselor, Malcolm McDowell as the principal and the absolutely delightful couple of Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson as Olive's parents all offer something to better the film. Amanda Bynes does great work as the Christian leader and Penn Badgley shows up as the potential love interest for Olive and is not at all afraid to get goofy.

Easy A offers a lot to things that came before it. yes, it clearly is influenced by The Scarlett Letter, but as a work of post-modern film, it also owes worlds to the movies of John Hughes and it acknowledges it by explicitly referencing them and showing clips from them. In fact, the film is, at times, a Ferris Bueller style fairy tale, and it nods to Ferris Bueller with a shower scene Mohawk and later it shows a clip from the movie. Olive, as a narrator is interesting because she admits from the beginning there are two sides to the story and to be honest, the story is outrageous and if you stop to think about where the story goes you might forget to just sit back and enjoy the show.

Tucci and Clarkson, as these hippie style parents get the most laughs, and are clearly inspired by Juno. The film is also hyper literate and very very smart. The dialogue is quick witted, Olive talks like an adult and the film is very knowing in how unlike real life it is, but it also lovingly mocks 1980s movies, while giving us the closest thing to a John Hughes movie as we can probably get these days. Everything in this film is coated with a great sense of humor and self awareness that even when it spins out of control, and it does spin out of control, you can forgive it because it is so genuinely hilarious. I love the reference to Mark Twain's Huck Finn and the callback to it towards the end of the film and I love how smart it is in general.

I laughed my way through the whole movie and for a comedy that is all you really need, but I also think Emma Stone is going to break out in this movie, the way Reese Witherspoon did in Legally Blonde, or Lindsay Lohan did in Mean Girls. Comparisons to Mean Girls abound in reviews all over the place, but I actually think movie is funnier and even zanier than Mean Girls. It gets just as unrealistic, and they are both offering a different kind of commentary on high school but this does it better. The English teacher has a few great rants, especially one on Facebook and how teenagers think everything they say is the most important and pressing issue in the world. Yes, Easy A is having its cake and eating it too, but when it is this much fun, I am perfectly okay with it.

Final Grade: A-

The Town

It seems like only yesterday Ben Affleck was kryptonite for a movie. If you put him in your film, it would fail, but not only would it fail, it would be panned mercilessly. I always felt like he got a bad rap because of his relationship with Jennifer Lopez. He was the ultimate victim of this idea of celebrity overwhelming the work. Go back and watch some of those movies and you will see they are not the worst movies ever made. Affleck did a smart thing after that. he took a supporting role in HollywoodLand and then he co-wrote and directed the absolutely stunning Gone Baby Gone. His eye and ear for detail in the mean street of Boston coupled with this excellent story of moral ambiguity mixed with a wonderful set of performances revitalized Affleck's career and took it in a completely different direction. Of course the first questions asked about The Town, from inside my brain, were all about whether Gone Baby Gone was a fluke, a one off perfect storm that caused Affleck to succeed. Would The Town realize my fears, or brush them aside?

Charlestown, Ma, a small blue collar town just outside of Boston is the bank heist capital of the United States. They are big on car jacking and muggings as well. it is a place for people with no real future and who are doing anything to scratch out a living. Doug(Affleck) and James(Jeremy Renner) are life long best friends who were raised on these mean streets and they run a four man crew of bank robbers. On one of their jobs, James gets out of hand and they briefly take a hostage, Claire(Rebecca Hall) and worried that she will cause problems, James wants her offed. Doug does not want murder on his hands, so he says he will watch her, but he does more than watch her. He falls for her. With the F.B.I, led by Agent Frawley, on their heels, Doug wants to take some time before their next project, but James is a hot head and Doug owes him, but when things go terribly wrong, Doug wants out. He wants Claire to go with him and he wants to find a way to start fresh away from the old neighborhood. Agent Frawley will do anything he can to put a stop to as much of this serial bank robbery as possible, but can he catch these guys?

The Town is a tight, intense and raw film starting to solidify Ben Affleck's career as a big time director. His acting is good, serviceable, if a little lackluster when compared to Jeremy Renner, but the pacing of the film is excellent and his confidence as a director shines through. He is not afraid to establish the world in which we are immersed. If the characters are a bit flat and the relationships a bit rushed, it can be forgiven because he establishes the world with these great B-roll shots of a broken, beaten little offshoot of Boston. The dialogue is incredibly blue-collar and filthy and the accents are all very hard. Everyone is just a bit dirty and there is a whole layer of filth covering everything. We understand the world from the on-screen text, but Affleck does not let the text do all fo the work, he works hard for us to understand why these characters feel trapped the way they do.

Aside from that work, Affleck gets great performances out of everybody, including Blake Lively, who has limited screen time, but makes the most of it. She is believable, makes interesting choices and overall made an impression on me. She is probably capable of more than just playing rich snobby girls on The CW. Jon Hamm has the thankless task of playing the "cop" role. It is a role that is so often thrown away in films like this, but Hamm is a presence! He has real star power and he delivers Ferocious lines with juicy intensity, including the most hardened line in the screenplay that will leave you in between a giggle and shock. However, Jeremy Renner is the star of this show. In The Hurt Locker, Renner had a tightly wound intensity, but here he lets loose and goes for it. His accent, line delivery, mannerisms and just the way he carries himself, you never once question whether or not he will go crazy, it is just a matter of when.

One of the most brilliant moments in this film comes at a cafe. It starts as a fairly innocent scene, an almost cute scene and by injecting Renner's character into it, the entire scene flips and Affleck brilliantly handles the scene shift and the pacing of the scene and the editing of the scene all change at exactly the right time. Of course, this scene is not what everyone is going to be talking about, but it was this scene that made me a full believer in the picture. That is not to say the big action sequences are not great because they are. The opening bank heist is a wonderful introduction into what kind of movie we are watching. Full of quick cuts, striking violence and this gritty realism Affleck exudes, the opening Heist really captures the audience, but if the rest of the film had been mishandled, it would not have been so impressive.

To say The Town borrows from Michael Mann's Heat may be obvious, but Affleck does not just copy it, he makes it his own. Yes, he was clearly influenced by it, but I have seen many movies with big shoot outs clearly inspired by Michael Mann, including other Michael Mann movies, that were not successful. The final shoot out in this, though, is incredibly successful. The bullets sounds like they are whizzing by your head and they pop with such violence that you cringe and bullets fly like the world is running out of them and they all need to be shot off to save the world. When you think the shoot out is over and then it spills out into the world, then it gets even more intense for a few seconds. You actually wonder who will live and who will die and I like when a movie can do that.

Really great intense movies do not come around all that often and The Town does the job. It is intense, for sure, but it also entertains. It is an edge of your seat cops and robbers story, where you are not entirely sure you know what you want to have happen to the characters. Affleck's attention to detail as a director overshadows his own performances and the love story might feel a bit shoe-horned and rushed, but there is so much to love about the movie that it can be forgiven. It is worth seeing for Renner's performance alone, but there is so much more to enjoy. From beginning to end, The Town succeeds!

Final Grade: A-

P.S. one of the best things about bank heist movies is seeing the masks and the masks in this one do not disappoint.

The American

From people on The Facebook I have heard nothing but how boring this movie was. I have heard from critics I read that the movie was smart, slow and ultimately rewarding. George Clooney is a strange animal. He has this old school movie star charm, but he often makes movies not for the general public consumption. He is not afraid to remove his natural charm to make a movie. He has always chased movies/roles that interest him, even if he has to fight hard for them. He is never content just being Clooney and doing that Ocean's 11 thing in every film. For every Ocean's he does a Michael Clayton and so on. The American, from the trailers, looked like Clooney's foray into the action movie, his Jason Bourne style role, but those reviews I mentioned at the top had me believing the trailers were quite misleading.

Jack(Clooney) is a man of few words and in those words most of them are lies. He is a killer, but "cold blooded" does not really describe him. he is certainly a man who has seen too much and done too much to ever really find peace and when he finds a girl, he has to kill her. This is the beginning of the movie. He is being chased by people from Sweden, so he hides in a little town near Rome. He wants to do one more job and then get out. He meets a hooker, he meets a priest and he tries to keep his head down. If this sounds a bit straight forward it is. Jack wants out of the game and he wants to take his hooker away and try and find some peace. That is pretty much it.

The American is a very slow, deliberate, quiet movie. It might be the first arthouse assassin movie. It opens with this quick burst of violence, has 1 or 2 more quick bursts of violence, including a quick car chase, but other than that, it is a very moody, atmospheric film. It has a minimalistic score, but every time you start to hear the score, you pay close attention because the film gets tense in those moments. The cinematography is gorgeous and we get a lot of wide shots of sunsets, bodies of water and bodies of water. There are long stretches in the movie where we hear almost nothing because nothing is being said. We are just watching Clooney quietly try and live his life. Can it be boring? Yes, there are times when I was wondering what the hell the point of it all was.

Clooney has excelled in playing these guys who are lonely, but they are lonely because of what they do, or that they prefer it that way. In this movie, it is clear the character does not want to be lonely any longer. He finds this knock out hooker and while it starts as just him paying for sex, it moves into something much more. There is a fair amount of female nudity and there is a sex scene that could be considered awkward because it is not set to gorgeous music and you just see the girl the whole time. There is break from it. It certainly turned on the couple seated to my right. Of course, the movie may have just been boring them.

The direction is nice, if a little on the lacking side. Both of the on-foot chases look exactly the same, which is never a good sign for an action scene. The blocking could have been a little less bland, but the set up the camera and shoot thing kind of works. I mean there is toying with close ups and such, but often the movie is shot from this semi wide angle and we just kind of see what is in camera.

Also, it is the kind of movie where you know exactly how it is going to end and you spend most of the movie hoping it does not end that way. For whatever reason, because of the subject matter, the star, the tone, or pacing, you just know exactly where the movie is going and that is not a bad thing necessarily, but I did spend the final 40 minutes hoping to be thrown for a loop.

There is not a lot to recommend about the movie and there is not a lot to talk about, either. The movie is this pseudo navel gazing arthouse movie starring one of the biggest A-listers in the game. There are no other known American actors, the director is not well known, the guy who did the score is a German musician and the story does not appear to be something that interests American audiences. I am sure there are plenty of people who feel like you did not get the movie if you did not like it, but I am not that person. I enjoyed the film, but have no trouble believing people out there will find it dull and awfully slow.

Final Grade: C

Machete

I will never understand how this movie got made. I will never understand how Robert Rodriguez was able to con a studio into giving him the money to make a full length Grindhouse style movie from a fake trailer Rodriguez made to put in front of the under performing Grindhouse. Then, how he got Robert De Niro to agree to be in it with Steven Segal, Jessica Alba and Lindsay Lohan is a whole other story. Regardless of what Rodriguez had to agree to do, or how he worked his trickery, he did it. He got this movie made. They released a Cinco De Mayo trailer and took some jabs at the Arizona racial profiling bill, which is somewhat factored into the story. So going into the movie my main thought was "How did they get this movie made?" and my question coming out of the movie was "How did they get this movie made?"

Machete(Danny Trejo) is one bad ass Federali. By his nickname you can guess his weapon of choice and he uses it to hack off various body parts and basically clean shop, but the man was betrayed by the chief and a naked girl, who pulls a cell phone out of her vagina after stabbing Machete. Cut to a few years later and Machete is just another illegal alien in the United State looking for work. He makes friends with Luz(Michelle Rodriguez) and is being watched by Sartana(Jessica Alba), who works for Immigration. Machete is approached by Booth(Jeff Fahey) to kill Senator McLaughlin(De Niro), but it was a set up and soon all of Texas is looking for Machete. McLaughlin is courting the hardcore Conservative vote by wanting to build a protective fence to keep illegals out and this shooting has him rising in the polls. All the while Luz has set up an underground army of Mexicans ready to fight for the right to be in The USA.

Told with complete tongue in cheek violence, cheesy B-movie dialog and acting, Machete hits and misses, but ultimately falls flat. Danny Trejo is an invaluable character actor in so many roles, but as the leading man, he just does not have enough presence. Rodriguez wisely gives him minimal dialogue, but he just cannot carry the movie. Because of this, Rodriguez has assembled an impressive roster of actors both A list and C list. Jeff Fahey is a wonderful talent and does great work in this movie and his subplot involving his dirty thoughts towards his daughter, Lindsay Lohan, provides the one subplot I actually liked. De Niro is clearly having a blast hamming it up and both Alba and Michelle Rodriguez are bad ass enough, but the characters really should have been condensed into one character to save us about 10 minutes. Michelle is sexy as hell in the climax and Alba does get to kick some nice ass using the heel of a stiletto as a weapon.

The action is such a mixed bag. The movie starts off incredibly strong with this twisted, gory action sequence and it ends with a huge bang in terms of action, but the few action sequences in the middle of the movie are not as impressive. Robert Rodriguez seems a little gun shy at times to really let loose on the movie. he understands how not to take himself or the material seriously, but something is just missing with this one. A part of it is the material just does not warrant a feature length movie. It feels stretched way beyond what it should be. We get these side characters played by people like Don Johnson that do not serve enough of a function to make an impact on the screen or on the story.

Steven Seagal being the main villain was absolutely a big draw for me. I know that sounds stupid, but I grew up watching his movies on television. I loved his 1980s persona as a quiet, effective anti-hero who could not be killed. To see him as the full on villain was a treat and he did not disappoint. While he certainly does not move the way he used to, I had a total blast watching him squint and angrily whisper his way through the movie.

Machete does not lose the sense of ridiculousness as Lindsay Lohan is seen in a Nun's uniform shooting De Niro with a shot gun and for some that is worth the price of admission, but I cannot say I that I had as good a time as I had hoped. I loved Grindhouse, both halves, but this is almost Grindhouse light. Rodriguez had the actors and they were clearly game for whatever he was going to throw at them, but he squandered the opportunity, which is too bad because I was really hoping to just sit back and have one hell of a ride.

Final Grade: C-

The State Theater

I imagine anyone reading this blog came to it because they know me. I doubt too many people who check this blog out are randoms, and if they are, it should be evident I love movies. Movies have always been a huge part of my life. My family sees a movie every Thanksgiving and Christmas, but that is merely the tip of the iceberg. My dad and mom still go rent movies almost every weekend and when I lived at home and was not in a show, I would sit on the couch with my parents and watch a dvd with them. I can barely remember a time when movies were not a huge part of who I am. I was 13, though, when I fell in love with movies. I am not going to delve into that here, maybe another time, but my love of movies extends beyond just movies. I love movie theaters.

Everyone has some way of coping with a bad day: retail therapy, drinking, whatever it is...I go to a movie theater and watch a movie. I love the entire experience and I like being to just sit in a dark theater, turn off the world and get sucked in. If movie theaters act an escape to me, The State Theater was like my fortress. Before I was old enough to work there, I would spend entire days of my summer watching all 3 movies the theater had to offer. It is a glorious old movie house, rich in history and full of secrets. Opening in 1937, The State theater was built specifically as a movie house. It was a single auditorium seating over 800 people and in the 1980s it expanded to include 2 much smaller auditoriums.

By the time I started to frequent the place in the early 1990s, some of the luster or polish had been knocked off, but it was still special to me. When I was old enough to work, I just wanted to work there and luckily for me, I got the chance. It was the dream high school job. There was enough downtime to do whatever school work/line learning I had and there were all the free movies, soda and popcorn. But it was more than that. For the most part, I was with like minded people. My managers and I would spend hours discussing movies, coming up with promotions and just reveling in the fact that this was our job. I spent my summers loving my job and I could often be found working on projects like a giant paper mache spaceship to promote Men In Black.

Towards the end of my senior year, the business was sold and when the new regime came in, we all quit, but after two years, I could not help but go back to watching movies there. Quickly, I started to chat up the new manager every time I went in and for years I looked forward to learning insider movie stuff from him. When I decided to go back to college and get my degree, I had to quit my full time job and find something part time. Fate struck again as I went in to watch Grindhouse. The manager, Mike, asked me if I happened to be looking for work. I jumped at the chance to work there again! So, for the last 3 plus years I worked there again.

The State Theater was always more than a job to me. I liked the paycheck sure, but on a bad day, I could go in on my day off and just hang out. I loved the people, I loved the regular customers, and I loved the atmosphere. That building is so rich in personal history and movie history. It is the place I suffered my first concussion, I watched a man get caught cheating by his wife on New Year's Eve there. I celebrated 4 or 5 birthdays there. There are countless other memories tied to that place. When I worked there the second time, the other employees became a second family to me. I still talk to hang out with most of them. School and work meant my participation in Community Theater had to be put on pause, and I did not mind it because for so long working at the theater was so much fun.

I do not want to over-romanticize my time there in any way because most of my close friends know my last few months there were extremely rough on me, but even after I quit, I kept going back, both to watch movies and to hang out. As recently as 3 weeks ago, when I was having a soul crushingly bad night, I got in my car, and drove right to the theater, just to hang out and to see my second family.

In a year where I got my heart broken, lost two extremely valuable friendships, saw my family move and saw the house I called my home for 21 years get put on the market, The closing of The State Theater came as a true blow to me. I saw the warning signs starting last November, and even when Mike told me it was probably going to happen back in July, I did not want to believe it. How could this place close down? How could this big gorgeous building that housed movies not succeed any longer? I know the answers but they are not important. On Tuesday of this week when I went into the theater to pick up my last check, it killed me. From the time I was 13, this place was my escape and now it is gone and even if it comes back, which I pray to God it does, will it really be the same? It does seem fitting that the ties I have to Woodland get less and less as I try to go away from it, but The State Theater and Mike running it felt timeless.

A part of me will always be sad to have lost this place. I kind of thought it would be the kind of place I would take my family to and show them around, and take them on a tour to see all of the random doors and rooms. I was thinking I could take my kids behind the screen in State 1 and show them the projectors and how the movies work. I know the building looks old now and I know it was starting to get too rundown, and I know that is what people saw, but it is never what I saw. I always saw the movie magic of a place like that. I always wondered the stories the walls had from the 1940s and 1950s.

I always said if I had the money, I would buy that place, fix it up and help it become what it once was. I think The State Theater could still be the catalyst to help revitalize the Downtown Woodland area and I know many other people in the town feel the same way. While Woodland is looking more and more like a big box town, there is a rich history in the town that needs to not be forgotten and I truly believe The State Theater symbolizes that. Even as I sit here typing this, I am reminded of all of the memories I made there and how I hope other people get the opportunity to make such memories for themselves.

Going the Distance

I cannot really put my finger on why I wanted to see this movie, but I really wanted to see it. I felt like there was a chance it would be surprisingly funny, or genuinely sweet or something. It was like there was something beneath the trailer that was pulling me into the film. I am not particularly fond of Drew Barrymore and buying Justin Long as a romantic lead proved difficult in He's Just not that into you, so I really have no idea why I being drawn to it. A friend saw it and loved it, so that kind of solidified my need to check this flick out. With the summer movie season coming to an end and no real great comedies birthed out of the season, would this movie give me the kind of laughs I had craved? Or at least the warm romantic side of my being satisfied?

Erin(Barrymore) is a 31yr old summer intern in a dying field(newspaper reporting) She is in New York for the summer, but Stanford's Grad program awaits her. Garrett is a man unable to truly commit to a girl and is also working in a dying field(music A&R). The two meet one night, get incredibly drunk and have a great time together. They have such a good time, they decide to spend the rest of summer, 6 weeks, together, with the knowledge whatever they are doing will end when Erin goes back west. At the end of the 6 weeks, neither wants it to end, so they decide to give a long distance relationship a try. Both people have relatively non-supportive friends and family, and the time difference and expensive plane tickets complicate matters, but they really love each other. Erin tries to find Newspaper work in New York and Garrett tries to find music work in San Francisco, but when Erin gets a job opportunity at a paper in San Francisco, tough decisions have to be made.

If I were to tell you that Going the Distance is the funniest movie I have seen all year, you probably would think I was kidding, right? Well I am not kidding, it is flat out the funniest movie I have seen all year. It is raunchy, hilarious, kind of sweet and just flat out a great movie. The trailers are misleading like crazy. I did not know this was rated R, but it is a hard R with great dirty jokes that are clearly inspired from the Judd Apatow school of film making, but here the girls ge to play as well. Barrymore and Christina Applegate, as Barrymore's sister, have this great conversation about how they hate when a guy looks up while going down on a girl, which Barrymore acts out, to surprisingly hilarious results. Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day play Garrett's best friends and every time either one is on screen, hilarity will ensue. Day has great subtle comic timing and Sudeikis's loud bold humor blends perfectly with that. There are moments where the guys are just sitting at a bar having these hilarious conversations or asking ridiculous questions, or discussing how Day never sees baby pigeons anywhere.

Aside from the great conversations, there are entire scenes where funny things keep building. In the trailer you get a glimpse of the scene where Justin Long is fake tanning, but that scene builds a lot more into the next scene where there is table sex going on, which you also get a glimpse of in the trailer, but the scene keeps going and getting more absurd and bleeds into more scenes and just keeps getting funnier. Jim Gaffigan provides Gaffigan style humor to Erin's brother-in-law and that is always appreciated. Long and Barrymore are no slouches in the comedy department either. While they are the "straight man" roles, they get plenty of funny stuff to do.

The romantic part of the movie is nice as well. The 6 week montage is a little labored, but I believed the rest of it and I believed the challenges of the long distance thing, but also believed these two loved each other and wanted to make it work. I like that the movie did not take the easiest way out possible. I think the climax was inevitable and the resolving event also pretty inevitable, but they went about it in a different way than I was expecting, which is nice. I know Barrymore and Long are a couple in real life, and that is nice, but their on screen chemistry does, at times, come off as too friendly. This is not necessarily a bad thing because it really helps the first 25 minutes, but I guess I was hoping for a bit more heat.

Going the Distance is a surprisingly hilarious and at times, shocking movie that can easily enjoyed by both men and women. The first 25 minutes are absolutely laugh out loud funny and as the movie settles in it offers plenty of other funny moments. I was disappointed by a lot of the comedy thrown at me this summer, but this makes up for it in many ways. Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis deserve to enjoy the breakout success Zack Galifinakis enjoyed after The Hangover last year and I hope to see them in a lot more movies in the near future. Do yourself a favor and check it out!

Fall 2010 television (new shows)

This is mostly for Taylor, who has been asking for it, but also for anyone else who reads this thing and for whatever reason cares about my opinion.

The Fall 2010/Spring 2011 television season is going to be interesting for me because two of my favorite shows, 24 and Lost, are now gone. Granted they both aired in the Spring, but I feel a void has been left in my viewing habits, in terms of the serialized mystery and the action genres. The Fall season always offers a whole host of new shows, 3 or 4 of which I watch all the way through and another few I start off watching and eventually stop. I am not going to go through every new show, but go with the 6 or 7 I am definitely checking for and a few others I am going to at least give a shot.

The 5 I will definitely be watching:

6/7. Walking Dead/Boardwalk Empire- These shows are not on your regular channels, so I am going to lump them together. Walking Dead does not premiere until November anyway. Walking Dead is about, well, zombies. I am not sure how that will play every week, but it is created by Frank Darabont and the pedigree is insane. Boardwalk Empire is another show with a great pedigree, produced by Scorcese and the pilot was directed by him as well. I will have to download these shows to keep up, but they are both interesting to me.

5. Nikita- I think this show is going to fill the 24 void in terms of action. Maggie Q is sexy as hell and The few television critics I like say the pilot is great and should work. The fact that it is on the CW should worry me, but my favorite current show, Supernatual is on that channel. I know the CW believes strongly in the show and the action from the trailers make it look pretty awesome.

4. No ordinary Family- The Incredibles/Fantastic Four hybrid show, that looks like it has the sense of humor Heroes generally lacked. The cast is really strong, even if it might take a few episodes to see them in new roles. Chiklis as a good family man and not as a cop who killed people, is going to be tough. I am pretty excited for more superpower stuff on television, and the effects look pretty good. I guess the show could go either way, but I am optimistic for it.

3. Lone Star- I need a low down dirty soap in my life and this one fits the bill. Actually it seems this is the show people/critics are most intrigued by. The story looks interesting, steamy and sexy and Jon Voight was great in 24, so I am sure he will be great in this Dallas-esque show. I am not entirely sure what is going on, but I think the mystery is part of the hook. I am kind of following the lead of the critics on this one.

2. Undercover- J.J Abrams produced/created television will always be high on my to-watch list. This sexy spy show is not different. It looks a bit like Alias, which is not inherently a bad thing. I like spy shows, and I like watching sexy people do sexy spy things. Much has been made of the African American leads, but it will not matter if the show is not good. Abrams knows how to create tension and put people in awesome circumstances and the two leads are sexy as hell. The tension will carry this show for sure.

1. The Event- I do get sucked into these types of shows and they can reward me like Lost, or frustrate me by getting cancelled like FlashForward, or they can just burn out like Heroes.I am always willing to take the chance that one will capture me the way Lost did. A kidnapping, a hit on the President and other crimes are not the event but they lead up to the event. We do not know what the event is, but I want to know just based on what little I have seen. This show has the biggest potential to fail miserably, but I kind of like that as well. I like the risk factor, even if I can get my heart ripped out.

Some other potential shows:

Hawaii 5-0- I would not think this is a show I will like, but Scott Caan and Daniel Dae Kim being involved interests me a lot more. I am sure it is going to be a more raw show than the original and that could be cool, but as far a cop shows go, it is going to be hard for something to be more interesting than The Wire or The Shield. Still, I think I will check it out.

Running Wilde/Mike and Molly- A year after Modern Family and Cougar town made me think interesting sitcoms were making a comeback, nothing in that genre really does much for me. These two I am going to check out based mostly on the cast. Running Wilde has Keri Russell and Will Arnett, both of whom have great television credentials and Mike and Molly has Sookie from Gilmore Girls and is about fat people, of which I am one. Because they are only 22 minute long, they might work for me.

Detroit 1-8-7- I think this kind of looks like NYPD Blue, but in Detroit, which means it could be even more raw and gritty. I loved NYPD Blue, so I am going to give this show a few weeks to grow on me. It might end up being too procedural for my tastes, but it could end up being a really interesting cop show.

Guilty Pleasure television:

Hellcats: It is a show about sexy cheerleaders on The CW. I should not have to say much more. I am sure the show is awful, trashy and probably going to get cancelled after 1 season, but I am excited for the catfights, cheerleader skirts and sexy time!!

The last Exorcism

Cinema Verite is a style of film making that appears here to stay. It is the term for movies shot like a documentary but that are not documentaries. You know the style. The handheld, shaky cameras, the lack of too much score, weird focusing techniques, sometimes excruciating zooms in and out. Dialog that often sounds like it was made up on the spot and the use of mostly natural light. The idea is to put the audience directly into the action. In television it is being used for comic effect in The Office or Modern Family. But in film, it is almost always used for horror movies. Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, Quarantine, Diary of the Dead and last year's runaway smash hit Paranormal Activity are all films that have used this style to varying degrees of success. Along comes the latest entry into the human possession sub-genre of horror. I follow Eli Roth on The Twitter and he has been plugging this thing like crazy and the buzz on it was actually pretty good, so I thought I would be worth checking out. Plus, when done well, I really enjoy Cinema Verite.

Cotton Marcus(Patrick Fabian) is a man who was born to be a preacher. He is the son of a preacher first of all, but he is also a man of infinite poise and charm. He knows how to work a room and he understands the "show" of it all. He is also a man who has performed countless exorcisms. The problem is, he does not believe in possession and he understands it is a scam. He was okay with it until he read an article where a kid was choked to death during an exorcism. Now, he wants to shine a light on the ugly fakery the church has perpetrated for financial game. So, he is going to do one last exorcism and let cameras film him so they can see how fake it really is. Marcus picks a letter at random and they set off to find a teeenage girl possessed by the demon Abalam. Cotton does a convincing, but fake exorcism and all appears to be well until Nell(Ashley Bell), the possessed teen, shows up at his hotel room that night. From there, all kinds of crazy shit starts to happen. Nell slaughters animals, speaks Latin, lashes out at the camera crew, puts her body is crazy positions and draws pictures she does not remember drawing. Cotton does not believe she is possessed, but traumatized by her pregnancy. She has been shamed into pretending to be possessed to lash out at a father who keeps her chained up, who may have raped her. Or maybe her brother did? Perhaps it was the local pastor?

It is really tough to figure out how I feel about this movie. It is unsettling for sure. It never really made me jump, but it did get me on edge quite a few times. I enjoyed how the movie played up the satirical opening 40 minutes by splicing the exorcism footage with footage of Cotton showing how he makes the magic. Fabian is a very charismatic actor and he does a great job in the opening when we see Cotton preaching and there is a great bit involving banana bread that gets great laughs. When the movie switches from kind of comic into this weird is-she-or-isn't-she possessed movie, it loses a little bit of steam, but it still kept my interest because of intensity of the story and the great, intimidating score. The performances work better during this section of the film, but the Cinema Verite starts to lose steam a bit. The film is too dark, and we lose too much with the camera man running and I get that is the idea, but it just started to bother me.

Of course, the big thing with this movie is the ending. And it is not just the final scene, it is roughly the final 10 or 15 minutes. When Cotton confronts the girl and she asks if he wants a "blowing job" instead of a "blow job" he assumes she is not possessed and she spins a story. Movie ends, or does it? Cotton, for some weird reason checks out the story, it is not true. Cotton and film crew go back and then shit just gets weird. I am all for weird, random and rushed endings, when they seem to have a reason. I do not need everything in a movie spelled out for me, nor do I need to have a firm grasp on the ending. Plenty of great stories have indeterminate endings and that is wonderful. I like to feel like the stories are not finished. However, when a movie throws a bunch of seemingly unconnected shit at you in the span of a few minutes just for the fuck of it, I lose interest. It is possible to piece these incongruous images together to form some sort of ending narrative. People have been explaining it all weekend The Interwebs. But the movie works so hard to be small and intimate that ending just blows that all to shit. And in a way it ruins the entire movie going experience.

The Last exorcism builds up a lot of good will and I can tell that people will have different opinions on the end and when a movie sparks conversation/debate I consider that to be a great thing, but this just rubbed me the wrong way towards the end. Along with the usual problems of Cinema Verite, which involves there being a point where the person with the camera would just drop the camera and run for the hills. But that is one of those things you just have to accept in movies. I liked the idea and most of the execution of the film, so it is enough to recommend, but that ending will really determine what you think of the film as a whole.

Final Grade: C