The Incredible Hulk

Much has been made of Marvel's odd decision to reboot the Hulk franchise after the 2003 film tanked critically and at the box office (It experienced a 75% drop from weekend 1 to weekend 2, which is unheard of). When Marvel started its own studio, "Hulk was something they really wanted to do and when they cast Edward Norton, it seemed like they were heading in the right direction. A supporting cast including William Hurt and Tim Roth also made it seem like they were doing it right this time. In trying to erase the 2003 version out of the minds of viewers, they went with a much more action oriented director, Louis Leterrier (Transporter 1 & 2), but things went badly. Norton wanted to rewrite and reedit the movie like crazy and eventually the studio won with a shorter more action packed version leaving Norton's cut on the cutting room floor. However, an action packed movie is what we wanted, right?

The opening credits of The Incredible Hulk accomplish what it took the 2003 version to do in over an hour. With a frenetic editing pace and crazy music, we see The Hulk's origin in a few minutes and then pick up the story with Bruce Banner(Norton) hiding in Brazil working some hourly job in a soda factory. We get a visual cue on screen that lets us know it has been over 100 days without "incident." Banner is working hard at keeping his heart rate under 200, because, well getting Banner angry has serious ramifications. General Ross (Hurt) of the United States Army is still searching for Banner whom he believes is a weapon and is property of the U.S.A. After a freak accident in the plant and the obligatory Stan Lee cameo, the Army finds Banner and the chase is on. Banner is trying to find a cure and is in communication with a Mr. Blue, but in order for Mr. Blue to help, he needs more data; Banner has to go back to the scene of the crime. Meanwhile, Ross has found a super soldier, essentially in Emil Blonsky(Roth), whom he injects with a super serum. In a dazzling, loud and violent scene, the Army "traps" Banner on a college campus, and Hulk is unleashed. Sonic Cannons are unleashed and fanboys go crazy! When Banner does his Hyde thing, he has no control, but the one person who can help him control, who can bring him back to reality is Betty Ross (Liv Tyler). Betty is trying to help Banner find the cure. All the while, Blonsky needs more power, craves more. He needs to be stronger, faster and meaner. The trailer let us know that an epic battle between Hulk and "The Abomination" was going to take place and with Harlem as a background, they fight. Boy do they ever fight.

The Incredible Hulk is often too loud, but it never fails to entertain. I am sure with some of the missing 70 minutes there would be more character story and maybe even an arc, but this is an action movie and it is not short on the thrills. The first action sequence with The Hulk captured in only the edges of the camera frame, hiding in steam and ducking behind corners reminded me of many monster movies and really sets a nice tone for the movie. Hulk is shorter this time around, but he is a lot meaner. The look of Hulk is rough and jagged. His green is darker and his yell is gnarly. He uses the thunderclap and he is not above tearing a car in half and destroying tanks. Leterrier knows exactly how to pace the action scenes and he doesn't edit them too crazy so we can't see what is going on. The final showdown is amazing and worth the price of admission on its own. The little references to Captain America, The Leader and of course the Tony Stark cameo really help to make Marvel Studios a studio to be reckoned with. They want to achieve in movies what they have done with comics- create an entire world that is interconnected. Norton does a very good job as Banner, but his scenes with Tyler seem to be missing something. I don't know if they lack chemistry really, but something is missing, maybe I just needed more time with them together.

This Hulk did not have the highest of expectations as it only had to be better than the 2003 version and it is better than that. Whereas the 2003 version tried too hard to be a serious film and almost philosophize the character of Hulk, the 2008 version does exactly what I needed it to do; it just wrecks shit. Whenever Hulk is on screen, I knew I was going to be satisfied. Tim Roth makes a seriously excellent Emil Blonsky. He is cocksure and mean and believable as a super soldier. We believe Blonsky really will go as far as possible to win. He simply will not lose. The effects of The Abomination are out of this world good and detailed beyond belief. I was not sure about any of this in the teaser trailer, but my fears were put to rest when actually watching the movie. I enjoyed the chase aspect and the Lou Ferrigno cameo was perfectly placed. It does get a bit boring in places and the script is lacking in terms of punch. It lacks a light touch. Most comic book movies should have a somewhat lighthearted tone in places and Hulk lacks it until Mr. Blue A.K.A Samuel Sterns A.K.A The Leader (Tim Blake Nelson) is on screen. Nelson's manic energy really adds the comic touch to the movie as well as sets up the possible sequel nicely.

What I needed Hulk to do, he did. I cannot complain too much. This is certainly not in the truly upper echelon of comic book movies, but it is highest among the second tier. The Hulk is an awesome force and the movie goes along way to show that. It is a loud, action packed two hours featuring a few dazzling sequences and in the middle of summer when I desire to be entertained first, The Incredible Hulk certainly delivers. By the time the green monster gets around to saying "Hulk Smash" I just sat there and said, "Yes you certainly do." Awesome.

Final Grade: B

The Fall

I don't have a paragraph of backstory or anything for this movie, so I am just going to jump right in here.

Alexandria(Catinka Untaru) is a little girl in the hospital with a broken arm in the 1930s; the beginning of cinema. Roy Walker(Lee Pace)is a Hollywood Stuntman in the hospital with a broken spine. One day fate chances them to meet. Alexandria is a precocious little girl with chubby cheeks, a deep desire to hear stories, a dark past and the wit of a girl above her years and she is drawn to Roy's stories. Roy is a very depressed young man who desperately wants to kill himself, but he has a vivid imagination. Together they team up to pass the time with a wild story. Roy tells Alexandria the story of 5 men out to kill an evil ruler. They all have their own reasons for wanting the ruler dead, but the main hero, a masked hero, finds love along the way. Back in real life, Roy is manipulating Alexandria to get her to get him drugs. Alexandria wants to hear the end of the story, so she does his bidding, wondering all the while if it is a good thing she is doing.

Directed by Tarsem (yes he goes by one name) The Fall is a luscious bore. To be fair, calling it luscious may be giving it too much credit. The fantasy world Roy weaves features a few stunning visuals that look jacked from M.C Esher artwork, but little else pops. The colors are rich to be sure, the richness of colors does not a movie make. The story in the fantasy takes forever to really get going and the real world is far more interesting, but it keeps getting interupted by the fantasy story. Pace is excellent in the role, but when he starts to double as the masked hero, I lost interest. Pace is not a super suave guy, and that role demands it. In the real world, Pace does an excellent job with Roy. In her first and to this date only movie role, the little romanian Untaru is perfect. We believe her when she is scared and revel in her small joys and brief happiness. The friendship they form is the heart of the movie, but it keeps getting bogged down in fantasy land.

Also, The Fall is relentlessly depressing right up until the very end. I am all for movies that challenge the ideals of the happy ending, but this was almost joyful in its depression. I understood the point of making the fantasy story get so depressing, because it makes the swift change in tone that much more emphatic in the end, but there was no let up throughout. Watching Alexandria get manipulated by Roy is tough to stomach at first, but it just goes downhill from there. Tarsem also directed The Cell which in itself was pretty relentlessly depressing, but at least the visuals in that one made the whole thing look pretty. Here, the depressing story doesn't get to hide behind those stunning visuals. Tarsem is trying to be incredibly visual here, but he fails. he fails badly and he fails often. It would have ben a better movie if he had pointed the camera at the oddly paired friends and let them talk through the movie.

Final Grade: D

You Don't Mess with the Zohan

Every summer brings with it a few surprises, but for the most part we know what we are getting in every summer movie season- Superheroes, Sequels and Sandler. The 3 S's of summer are like clockwork. This summer, we have Ironman and Hulk; The Mummy 3, Indiana Jones 4 and "Zohan." There was a time when I was the key demographic for Adam Sandler flicks but that day has long since passed. Yet, I still find myself sitting through his movies, almost out of duty than enjoyment. This movie had that all important seal of approval from Judd Apatow, but further digging seemed to show that his involvement ended a few years ago when the script was first written, so who knows. Well, I saw Ironman and I saw Indy 4, so now it was time to get my fill of the third summer S.

The Zohan(Sandler) is an Isreali counter terrorist on vacation. he loves to hackey sack it up and cook in the nude. He is dancing with some very sexy bikini clad girls until his services are needed. Palestinian terrorist "The Phantom"(A depressingly unfunny John Turturro) is on the loose and The Zohan has to capture him again. The problem is The Zohan is sick and tired of war. He is dying to cut and style hair. He even has a 1980s Paul Mitchell hair design book. He wants to leave the army and go to America to cut the hair. He fakes his own death and reemerges in New York with an 80s hair cut, cut off jeans and bad shirts, ready to cut hair. He finds it difficult to get a job, but he is extra confident and sticks with it until he finds work at a Palestinian hair salon. The owner, though, Dalia(Emmanuelle Chriqui) will not let him cut hair until one of her stylists quits and he is the only one left. The next 35 to 40 minutes is one bad montage after another. Zohan takes an older woman, cuts her hair in a very sexual way and then takes her in back and nails her. Oh and The Zohan has a giant cod piece. You won't miss it because it is the punchline to no less than 50 jokes in the near 2 hours of this movie. What follows is a story about Israeli's and Palestinians trying to get along, a big business man trying to put the little hair salon out of business and a lot of shirtless Adam Sandler gyrating in front of, on top of, and behind old women.

Somewhere in You Don't Mess with The Zohan is a funny movie. Somewhere inside the nearly 2 hours are sprinkled laughs. Somewhere between the old person sex stuff and the overuse of hummus are funny scenes involving hackey sacking a cat or some zany over the top action. In the first 25 minutes there are actually a lot of laughs. The laughs are due to the audacity of the action, the balls to the wall nonsense of Adam Sandler as a superhuman soldier. When the story moves to New York and we get bombarded with old person sex, the movie loses that. Instead we get Nick Swardson and Rob Schneider doing the same thing they always do- sucking. There are cameos galore- Chris Rock, Henry Winkler, Kevin James, John McEnroe and Mariah Carey- but the movie loses the funny. Sure there is still this over the top zaniness, but it isn't fun zaniness, it is repulsive. The Zohan is a parody movie of a movie that doesn't exist. Instead of a movie it is a string of sight gags strung together loosely by hair cuts. With the amount of time Sandler spends shirtless and with all his talk of being good at sex, this comes off as a vanity project. This is Sandler's version of Kevin Costner's The Postman. I can't say I hated it, but I can't say I loved it either.

However, I could spend an entire paragraph on Emmanuelle Chriqui. I won't but I will say that this girl may be flawlessly beautiful. The face, the body, the clothes, all of it is perfect. The accent, well, she is hot, what more do you want? Of course there is an inherent problem with the romance in the movie. Why would Dalia, a gorgeous and intelligent woman, ever give The Zohan a shot after the hundreds of 60-90 year old women he nailed in her back room? Is it because eventually he stops being able to get a hard on for anyone else? No, the script demands it so it happens. It is as simple as that. John Turturro on the other hand, could get a whole paragraph of negativity. John John John, what happened? What is it with really talented actors slumming in these crappy comedies? But not only is he slumming, he isn't even doing a good job of it here. He can be manic, crazy and hilarious (see Transformers) but here he is just sad.

Last summer Sandler tried his hand at tacking on a big social message on the end of the horrendous I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry, and it failed miserably, but when he does it here, he nearly succeeds. Denis Dugan, the director of both movies, gets away with it here, because this movie isn't mean spirited. There are stereotypes to be sure, but it isn't one constant stream of terrorist jokes. The moral being we are all the same. We all want the same things- the freedom to do what we love. Whether it is to cut hair, sell shoes, sell electronics, we deserve the ability to do it. The moral is wrapped up in a pretty nice climax involving some pretty funny jokes from Israelis and Palestinians, both and one more silly over the top action sequence to book end the movie nicely. Sandler is a talented actor and he proves that in the very few serious scenes, but he is without a challenge. he could do these kinds of movies forever it seems, but he needs another Punch Drunk Love. "Zohan" has laughs to be sure and actually it made me laugh more than I thought I would, but somewhere there is a better movie and not just extended SNL sketches.

Final Grade: C-

The Strangers

The first time I saw the trailer for this movie, I was sitting in a movie theater and girls all over the auditorium were screaming in fear. I knew I had to see this movie. Then rumors were swirling that it was going to be a tame pg-13 movie and then I heard it has been sitting on a shelf for over a year and I was worried I didn't want to see it. It came out rated R and it opened to a very impressive 20 million dollar opening, when studios were predicting 7 million. There must have been something in this small movie people wanted to see. Were they right?

Before we see anything, a dark voice opens the movie talking about how most of the violent acts committed to people are done by people they know, but some aren't. We are also told this is based on a true story, but it is more like a story based on many instances that may or may not be true. The movie opens on two little boys walking by a house that has been thrashed and we hear a 911 call. They see blood and a knife and then the movie goes back to the beginning of the story. James Hoyt (Scott Speedman) and Kristen McKay(Live Tyler) are driving silently in a car going to a summer home. They are clearly a couple in a fight. It is eerily quiet in the first 5 to 10 minutes of the movie as the couple get to the house, walk in, sit down and continue their lives. It is almost voyeuristic how mundane it all seems. James sits down looks at the engagement ring in his pocket and it is easy to see why the couple is at odds. James leaves a message to a friend that he will need a ride in the morning. The house is littered with roses, as James expected He and Kristen to be engaged by the time they reached the house. There is a knock at the door just after 2am. It is a loud, jarring knock and at the door is a teenage girl looking for her friend. We never see the face of the girl but there is something not right here. James leaves the house to go get Kristen cigarettes and then the proverbial shit hits the fan. There is another knock at the door; the girl is back, but then it is more than knocking. There is tapping at the window, Kristen's phone goes missing. Someone is in the house. James comes back, doesn't believe her, but soon the couple is in a living nightmare.

This is about the most simple story of a movie, ever. Stretching it to 90 minutes seemed like an impossible task and minus 2 hiccups, The Strangers offers some pretty serious scared and builds enough tension to make me forget I had a box of popcorn at my side. The quiet feel of the beginning really enhances just how loud the movie gets. There are 3 crazy people attacking the couple and they have everything planned out. This is not a chase movie as much as it is a movie where we watch and wait for the inevitable. Knowing the outcome at the start does not diminish the scares and does not make the agonizing situation any less intense. The masked vandals are extremely creepy, not only because they are masked, but because they revel in their brand of torture. They are not concerned with a quick kill, no they are going to enjoy it for 4 hours. 4 hours of breaking windows, writing on windows, banging on doors and walls. 4 hours of controlling the situation. The suspense left me with white knuckles and tension built up in my shoulders. The quiet moments were spent on edge wondering when the potato bag masked man would creep back into the picture and strike. Every inch of the screen is used and the camera angles and tight shots lend themselves to this overall creepy feeling.

The scares come from those nights you are alone and hear something off in the distance. Usually it is nothing but the wind, but what if it was a group of psychopaths who have no motive other than "you were home." The Strangers is a small, cabin fever inducing movie. When it is over you just want to run into a wide open space because being confined is no good. That being said, it is not without a few faults. First off, the minor flashback Kristen experiences is not at all needed for us to know anything about this couple. The mood set by the beginning, then the mood when the couple starts to get intimate (it is hot) tell us everything we need to know. Also, everything that happens after the climax seemed off to the mood of the rest of the movie. The last shot went for a cheap scare, when the rest of the movie avoided them. It does put a sour taste in your mouth for the end, but it doesn't diminish what the rest of the movie accomplished- scaring the crap out of me.

Diary of the Dead

There was a time in my life when I included George A. Romero on my list of heroes. I was 12 years old and had just been introduced to zombie movies. In that world, Romero is God. In 1968 he directed Night of the Living Dead, which is the zombie movie all other zombie movies wish to be. Since then he has directed a bevy of zombie movies included in what could be called a "dead" franchise- Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead and now Diary of the Dead. His movies have been known to be analogies like Dawn of the Dead is set in a mall because humans believe that everything we need to survive exists in a mall and of course, Romero deconstructs that ideal. Does the analogy in Diary of the Dead work? Is it an entertaining movie?

The first thing we see is a sly news report with a woman reporter talking about a man who killed his family and himself. In the background the bodies are brought out on stretchers, but suddenly without warning, the bodies reanimate and bite everyone around. We get a voice over of a young woman who says the news didn't show that: the cameraman uploaded it to youtube himself. It is the only way to get the truth out there. This is after all, a movie about the truth. This faceless woman tells us more information than is needed about how the movie she made and is showing us is brutal and unflinching in its search for the truth. Any edits made and all the music she added were only there to enhance what really happened. So what did really happen? A group of young college students are out in the woods making a horror movie. A mummy movie to be exact. I am not going to list names or actors here because it doesn't matter one bit. The director normally does documentaries but he wanted to make a horror movie. It turns out all of the kids are directors and this is for college credit. 95% of the footage for the rest of the movie will have been shot through his camera. Taking a break from shooting they catch news footage of an outbreak of something. They panic and drive back to college to pick up a girl. Once they are all strapped in, it is just them against the zombies. Along the way they run into a deaf Amish man with wicked scythe skills; a black ops Military group that is all black people and one random white guy; and many many zombies.

Like The Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield, Diary of the Dead is all shot first person, handheld style. However, unlike those two movies, the handheld movement of the camera is not very shaky at all. The people holding the cameras are film students after all; they know how to work a camera. The work is actually pretty engrossing as our view switches from the handheld, to a cell phone video, to surveillance and of course news footage. The main POV camera operator becomes obsessed with documenting the truth. Romero is adamant about this guy documenting life, not living life. He is detached, cool under pressure, unfeeling and obnoxious prying. The script fails him and his friends as he has to ask benign questions because Romero doesn't trust us to follow him. Everything has to be spelled out at every juncture. There are interesting things said and interesting things filmed, but at times, the entire project can be grating. With Dawn of the Dead, Romero was being more subtle about his disdain for malls; for that faux security the malls provide. We were zombies to the mall. With Diary of the Dead, subtly has gone away and replaced with a stark bluntness. Romero hates where the world is going. He is deconstructing our reliance on technology, but at the same time showing its uses. He is operating on a slippery slope.

As the friends start to get picked off by the zombies, the POV character gets colder, choosing documentation over life. He rationalizes it by saying the world has to see the truth. His movie is needed by the world. He even takes time to edit it and upload it onto Myspace and gets some 40,000 hits in 10 minutes. It sets itself up to jokes, but this stuff does happen. Videos are taken of tragedies every day and nothing is done about it. People do not help, they document. Romero is commenting on the absurdity of it, but defends it when a character says that when people see the zombies can be killed by shooting them in the head that can travel the world in seconds. It can save lives. What is more important- saving the lives of your friends, or documenting their downfall to maybe save thousands?

However, this is a zombie movie. It philosophizes, uses camera trickery and everything else, but at its core it is a movie about dead people who come back to life to bite human flesh. As a zombie movie it offers little int he way of gore, well little in comparison to most zombie movies. What gore there is is nice. It is gooey, oozes out and is satisfying, but Romero is economic with it. He doesn't want the gore to interfere with the story he is telling. The acting ranges from pretty good to flat out awful and you could spend hours pointing out flaws, but I respect an old dog learning and trying new tricks. Romero made his name in zombie movies and he remembers that, yet, he wants more and Diary of the Dead is a nice combination of the two. It isn't perfect to be sure, but it is a nice experiment.

Final Grade: C+

Trainspotting (cult Classic)

This is the third movie in the series of cult classic movies. Click the label to find the other two reviews.)


This is the first cult classic review of a movie I had scene before I watched it to do the review of it. Also, I watched it over the course of 3 days in class, so my perspective may be a little different. I have always believed Danny Boyle to be an overrated director. He has an interesting visual style and creates a few great shots, but as a story teller he is weak and lacks focus. He and Guy Ritchie have that in common. This was the movie that broke Boyle into the big time. It also launched the career of Ewan McGregor.

Is Trainspotting a movie glamorizing drugs or is it a cautionary tale in the same vein as Requiem for a Dream? Does it really matter? Are movies supposed to take sides on an issue? Sure they can, but is that the point of a movie- to take a side? Trainspotting follows the lives of a bunch of British Junkies. That is the basic idea of the story. McGregor plays Renton, a man who "chooses" heroin because it is easy. Addiction to heroin means you only have one worry- finding heroin. You are not worried about all the other little things in life. You just need to find money to get high. You rob stores if you have to, but you get the drugs. Renton tries to quit a few times, but he keeps the same friends and that spells disaster.

However, like any Danny Boyle movie it is not about plot, it is about the visuals. And in that department this movie definitely succeeds. It succeeds in grossing us out, tripping us out, scaring us and making us laugh. The use of quick cuts give us the impression of what it is like to be high while making us laugh at a scene where a heroin user is trying to get a real job. When Renton is going through withdrawals we get a very visually disorienting scene with a fake baby crawling on the ceiling and quick images of other characters. Boyle does an incredible job of creating a drugged out environment and all of the actors, especially McGregor play their roles within these visuals. They seem to know that Boyle is unsure of what to do with them but they trust he will make it up to them with editing and camera angles, especially the POV shot of Renton after he overdoses.

Trainspotting touches briefly on the HIV epidemic that flooded the drug scene in the Nineties as Tommy catches it. The interesting thing about Tommy is that he was the friend who did not do drugs or drink. He was a clean living guy until his girlfriend broke up with him. he heard Renton talk about how the high from heroin was like multiplying your best orgasm by 1,000 and you still weren't there. He believed him and got hooked. His "friends" kind of ditch him because as everyone knows, a druggie is not a reliable friend. This is a movie 100% about addiction. Everyone in the movie is addicted to something- drugs, alcohol, fighting, working out, sex. It seems to think we are all addicted to something. Life is nothing but an addiction and the time between addictions. In the words of Renton:

Now I'm cleaning up and I'm moving on, going straight and choosing life. I'm looking forward to it already. I'm gonna be just like you. The job, the family, the fucking big television. The washing machine, the car, the compact disc and electric tin opener, good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, mortgage, starter home, leisure wear, luggage, three piece suite, DIY, game shows, junk food, children, walks in the park, nine to five, good at golf, washing the car, choice of sweaters, family Christmas, indexed pension, tax exemption, clearing gutters, getting by, looking ahead to the day you die.

Final Grade: B+

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Like everyone else who loves movies, I have been waiting for a fourth Indiana Jones movie since The Last Crusade came out. They were fun romps and made every young boy want to seek out treasure. Time went on and on and everyone involved moved to other projects and I moved on. I moved on to smaller and darker movies. We tried to get our treasure hunting fix with the Mummy movies or those tedious National Treasure movies, but deep down we knew they weren't the same. We needed Indiana Jones. A few years ago The Powers that Be, started to look to revive the talk. And now the time is here. in 2008, 19 years later, Indiana Jones is back! We waited so long, but did all that waiting make it impossible for this movie not to disappoint?

Set in the post war 1950s, during the red scare, Indiana (Harrison Ford) has been kidnapped by Russians and brought to Area 51, a holding cell for Government and military secrets and he told to find a box. He knows what box and he finds it, but escapes in a thrilling opening scene. The FBI picks him up for helping KGB members and he is given a leave of absence from work due to it. He is going to go to Europe when a young man, Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf) finds Indiana and tells him his old friend Oxley (John Hurt) is in trouble. Here we get all the exposition we could ever need about how a Crystal skull was stolen from an ancient Mayan temple and he who returns it will get all of the powers of the skulls. Indy and Mutt head off to Peru to search for the skull and along the way have an awesome motorcycle chase, fend off some luchador looking things shooting poison darts, and of course, some dead people. When Indy and Mutt find the skull they are captured by the Russians who reunite Indy with Marion Ravenwood, Indy's long lost love and Mutt's mother. Hmmmm. Indy, Marion, Mutt and Oxley escape in a very fun, if a bit over the top chase sequence and it is a race to the kingdom of the crystal skull!

This is not a perfect movie, but if you really go back and watch the original trilogy, you will find they are not perfect either. Movie fans have romanced those movies, but they are all flawed, over the top fun movies. This movie falls directly in line with the previous movies. The 50s brought a lot of alien movies and this movie homages to those, much like the originals were homaging 1930s serials. Speilberg knows what he is doing and while the influence of George Lucas is certainly there, with a little too much CGI, the movie works. It is fun to see Indy crack the whip while wearing the hat as we hear John Williams' Indy theme underneath it. Say what you will, but that is what we have been waiting for. Sure, the dialog is pretty weak and maybe the jokes do not cackle the way they once did, but this is about a hat, a whip, some music and Harrison Ford's ruggedly handsome face getting in and out of trouble. That is what we want from Indiana Jones. Shia adds a fun sense of youth to the movie and actually helps keep Ford on his toes. Indy needed a sidekick and why not make him a young man to show the generation gap and Indy is worlds tougher than Mutt, even though Mutt pretends to be tough. It adds a nice sense of fun to the whole movie. The opening sequence is classic Indy and the car chase is the perfect mix of thrilling, over the top fun and silliness.

Was it worth the wait? Sure it was. It made me think about selling all of my possessions and heading down to South America myself. It brought back all those feelings of treasure hunting and what more could I ask for? A lot of people will be thrown by the final act, but go back and watch Raiders or The last Crusade and tell me those were not bizarre endings. Cate Blanchett adds an element of sexiness to her villainous Russian leader. Her accent is perfect and her thirst for knowledge and power is right in line with Indy villains from the past. I have often said that when a big fun summer movie is entertaining enough to forgive plot holes, then it is a success because let's face it, all summer movies are ridiculous. When they can make you forget that, they have accomplished their goal. I strongly believe Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull accomplishes that.

Final Grade: B+

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

While I read the books growing up, I was not a huge fan of them. I preferred things like The Lord of the Rings trilogy or my personal favorite book growing up- A Wrinkle in time. However, I do not believe you have to know/enjoy a book to enjoy the movies on which they are based. The first Narnia movie was boring, oddly paced and tried to make up for it with one single awesome battle at the end. Narnia 2 looked much much better, but looks are often deceiving.

Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy(William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Skandar Keynes,Georgie Henley) are called back to Narnia a year after they leave, but when they arrive they find desolation, ruins and Narnia almost non-existent. A year in Human time translates to a thousand years in Narnia and the Telmarines destroyed Narnia completely because they fear what they didn't know. Aslan is nowhere to be found and saying his name is almost a bad word these days. On the Telmarine front, the evil king finally has a son so he ordered his people to kill the young, handsome Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes), the rightful heir to the throne. Caspian runs into the forest and comes across a talking Badger and a dwarf(Warwick Davis). The four kids are met by another Dwarf, Trumpkin(Peter Dinklage) and he fills them in on what is happening. The evil King and his telmarines are building a massive army to conquer the rest of Narnia and the 4 young kids are tested to the max in their ability to lead, to fight and to have faith in Aslan and the cause of the Narnians.

I immediately wished I had re watched the first movie as Narnia 2 started. I was confused for about the first 25 minutes, but I kind of liked that. I kind of liked that the director assumed people would remember and therefore did not waste a bunch of time rehashing what had happened in Narnia 1. That being said, my confusion did not really hinder my ability to follow what was happening in this movie. There are still some pacing problems, especially in the first act, but once the movie gets going it is actually quite a fun ride. The four kids are still annoying but not nearly as much so this time out. Moseley is coming into his own as the the High King Peter and Popplewell, with her sexy pouty lips, does a pretty good job as Susan, but as with Narnia 1, Henley is the main focus and she mostly succeeds. As Caspian, Barnes is pretty with long flowing hair and an odd Spanish-ish accent, but he is wooden in his acting. This may be a star making turn, but he better keep playing these kinds of roles if he wants to not get his acting bashed. To me the acting stars of this movie are the two little people. First of all, the godfather of little person actors, Warwick Davis is such a great actor and brings a sense of gravity to his role. Peter Dinklage is the real true star of Narnia 2. He is an amazing actor and he plays Trumpkin's bravery and skepticism perfectly and when he is on screen your eyes go straight towards him.

There are two long sequences that make this movie ultimately work. Our four young heroes, Caspian and the Narnians believe they can pull a sneak attack and siege the castle of the telmarines and what follows is an exhilarating, thrilling, heart breaking, action packed, funny and intense scene. We get to see all of these mythical creatures in action led by a tiny mouse (voiced by Eddie Izzard) who is as brave as anyone, despite being a mouse. The scene is long, but wonderfully directed and the complexity of the plan is laid out simply enough for anyone to follow. It really gets you on the edge of your seat, even if only for a few minutes. The second scene is the extended climatic battle. It starts as a duel between Peter and the evil King and ends in a total melee. The duel is an awesome sword fight shot in a crystal clear filter of the camera surrounded by ruins, Peter and the King are jumping off rocks and hacking away at each other. Once the duel turns into a full on battle, there is a really cool effect of the ground falling and before long it turns into just a total battle scene. These two scenes make up for some of the slower moments and and take the sting off of the annoying young actors.

Of course, these books/movies are supposed to be about a deep routed spirituality and I think some of that message is lost in Narnia 2. I get that when Peter loses his faith in Aslan, he makes bad decisions and that the child, Lucy, is the one who believes the strongest, but I am not sure the message was as clear this time out. Aslan makes an appearance as we all knew he would as he attempts to save the day, by raising the Earth from the dead, but there was something missing. I cannot quite put my finger on it, but the spirituality of the first movie is hidden behind a little too much CGI. Overall Narnia 2 is a fun ride and a good way to spend a few hours, but I still think these movies are better suited for the December time slot.

Final Grade: B

Redbelt

David Mamet is back! If you do not know who Mamet is, go rent anything in his collection of movies. He has written some of the best scripts and directed some great movies and you should at the very least check out Glengarry Glenross, State and Main, The Heist and The Edge. While Mamet writes in every genre the two things his movies always feature are great scripts and awesome twists. For the last 4 or 5 years Mamet has been studying Jiu-Jitsu and so he wrote a movie about it. He mixed in the Mixed Martial arts world as well because it is coming into its own as a sport these days.

Mike Terry(The constantly amazing Chiwetel Ejiofor)is a man of principal and honor. He teaches Jui-Jitsu but he refuses to fight in Mixed Martial arts because competition weakens a fighter. He teaches his students that there is always an escape and that you use the your competitor's strength against him. He emphasises being clam, breathing and keeping the outside world outside of the ring. His wife, Sondra(Alice Braga), loves him but she knows they are in debt and wants him to get a loan from her brother who runs a Mixed Martial Arts company. Terry refuses but he is low on money. One fateful night, Laura Black(Emily Mortimor) comes into his work building and in a weird turn of events, Laura shoots out a window. That same night Terry saves big actor Chet Frank(Tim Allen) from a big bar brawl and is rewarded with a $20,000.00 watch and a possible job on Frank's new movie as a fight producer. Terry teaches a method of Jui-Jitsu where he puts three marbles, 2 white and 1 black, in a cup and if a competitor picks the black marble he will have a handicap like having one arm tied to his body for the fight. Terry sees that his methods have been stolen by the Mixed Martial arts company for the upcoming fight. Double dealing happens; a loan shark gets involved and ultimately Terry has to fight for survival.

If you don't like David Mamet movies chances are this one will not change your mind. However, it is the most accessible Mamet movie I have ever watched. There is nothing too complex and complicated and even the back stabbing is pretty well made obvious. This disappointed me a bit, only because when I see a Mamet movie I expect to be challenged. Redbelt is still an awesome movie, it just isn't a super awesome movie. Mamet really helped himself out this time around by casting Chiwetel Ejiofor in the lead role. Every time I see him in a movie I know he will bring something important to it and here be brings an amazing sense of levity to a role that doesn't have a whole lot of dialog. He nails every aspect of the character of Mike Terry. He is subtle when needed and intense when needed. He delivers Mamet's distinct dialog with ease, establishing himself as one of the best in the game right now. Everyone else does a great job, but they are all in the background of this movie. Mortimer continues to impress me and she really should be winning awards very soon. Of course, the real brilliance in a Mamet movie is David Mamet himself. As a director he really lets the movie speak for itself. He is confident in his dialog and he is confident in the performances and he is just there to set the pacing. The one major fight scene is paced beautifully and shot beautifully as well.

Redbelt is a movie about honor and survival; it is about staying focused being a good person. Bad things happen to Mike Terry, but it is up to him to overcome them, and it is up to him to defend the honor of Jui-Jitsu. Redbelt accomplishes all of its goals and does so briskly. I cannot find quotes to show how good Mamet is but the thing with Mamet dialog is that it sounds effortless. It sounds real, even though it is complex. Unlike someone like Aaron Sorkin or the new princess of writing Diablo Cody, you can actually hear yourself using Mamet's words. The beauty is in the simplicity of it. Mamet has scored yet again. It is a shame this movie has got an early May release. GO SEE IT!

Final Grade: A-

Speed Racer

Nostalgia is very big in movies right now. Transformers started the trend and right now a G.I Joe movie is in production and Masters of the Universe is not far behind. Speed Racer did seem like an odd choice though. Basing a live action movie on a Japanese cartoon from the 60s/90s didn't seem like a sure thing. But, when the makers of The Matrix chose this as their follow up, there was excitement about it. The Wachowski Brothers have a knack for revolutionizing special effects and when I heard that the movie was going to be shot almost entirely in deep focus, I was more intrigued. The trailers were fun, but as the movie got closer, it started to look less and less like a sure thing.

Speed Racer(Emile Hirsch) only cares about one thing: racing. He is a race car driver and he lives to be on the track. His parents Mom and Pop Racer (Susan Sarandon and John Goodman) raised him in a racing environment and his older brother Rex(Scott Porter) taught everything he knew about racing. Speed is on the track when the movie opens and in a very long opening scene we get all of the exposition we could ever need. Rex died years ago in a bad race car accident, but before he died Rex' name had been totally desecrated. he was called a cheater and a low life. Speed is racing to forget all of that. With his little brother Spritle(Paulie Litt), girlfriend Trixie(Christina Ricci) and the rest of his family watching, Speed wins the race and catches the eye of Mr. Royalton. Royalton wants to make Speed a member of his big corporate racing team, but Speed is not sure he wants to do it. When Speed says no, Royalton goes into a crazy long and excruciatingly boring speech about what will happen to Speed now. He will lose the next race, not qualify for the championship and his name will be desecrated. After all of that comes true, Speed is forced to race outside of the track. He and a mysterious racer named Racer X(Matthew Fox) join forces with another racer to win this elaborate cross state race in hopes of getting the other racer to turn on Royalton. Plans fail, double crosses happen and Speed somehow finds himself in the Grand Prix race.

Will Speed win? What really happened to Rex? Just who is the mysterious Racer X? Oh gives a crap! By the time this movie gets to the damn final race about 2 hours of nonsense prior to it have obliterated any passing interest I once had. Visually Speed Racer plays like a live action cartoon without a sense of subtly, humor or good taste. Even the most fabulous Gay guy is going to wish it wasn't so colorful. This is an unbelievable pile of crap. The Wachowski's have bombed yet again and it appears maybe the first Matrix was merely a fluke in an otherwise awful career. The acting all around is just terrible, which is saying something because they are all talented people. There is way to much time spent with the annoying younger brother and his stupid monkey. This movie is obviously aimed at children, but it is too long and boring for them and while the colors are pretty for a while, at some point you just become immune to them and want a cohesive story. If I may use an analogy, Speed Racer is very much like a really pretty girl who is an idiot. For a while you don't even realize she is an idiot because of how pretty she is. Then when you realize it, you forgive her because she is so pretty, but at some point her stupidity overrides her hotness. Speed Racer starts as a gorgeous piece of moving art, but at some point the fact that it sucks overrides the moving artiness of the picture.

I don't want to be subtle in my review so how I can plainly put this? Here it is: I would rather be locked in a room with Will Ferrell while I am on a StairMaster listening to Garth Brooks and looking at naked pictures of Rosie O'Donnell than ever watch this movie again. How is that for hyperbole?!?! Speaking of hyperbole, Speed Racer uses the transitional aspect of the cartoon, but over uses so much, they start high lighting mundane activities and by using that transitional method they attempt to make them greater than they really are. Even the music in Speed sucks. Michael Giacchino usually creates brilliantly lavish scores of action adventure, heightening the sense of danger or mystery, but here he reuses the old Speed Racer theme song every 5 minutes to create the most obnoxious score I can ever remember hearing in a movie.

The one thing that could have saved this movie was the big final race. If it had been awesomely awesome, all else could have been forgiven. Yet, instead of ramping up the action for the big finale, the movie SLOWS DOWN!! During the race, the movie keeps cutting back to scenes from earlier so we can see what Racer is racing for. Inf act, if you just watched the 15 minutes of the movie you would get everything that happened and you would save yourself from the two hours prior! I cannot in good faith recommend this to anyone, not even my biggest enemy, if I had one. No one in the right minds should watch it and if you were to tell me you loved it I might have to question your sanity. I am not only dumber for watching this, I am angrier at kids, monkeys, The Wachowskis and racing. Speed Racer commits the worst sin in movies: It was supposed to be awesome and it sucked. There is nothing worse than thinking something will be awesome only to have it suck. This belongs in a group with Pirates 2 and Van Helsing.

Final Grade: F

What happens in Vegas (spoilers, I guess)

A movie like this makes one wonder what other commercial slogans will eventually make their ways into the world of movie plots. How long until "I just saved a bunch of money on car insurance" becomes a movie? How long until "Can you hear me now?" makes its way onto the big screen? Of course Las Vegas has provided movies with a locale for years and it often surrounds either gambling or marriage. This movie falls into the marriage category. Of course, hardly any of this movie takes place in Las Vegas.

Joy McNally(Cameron Diaz) has just been dumped by her fiance just as she is about to throw him a surprise party and Jack Fuller(Ashton Kutcher) has just been fired by his dad; so to wash their troubles away these two New Yorkers head off to Las Vegas. McNally is armed with best friend Tipper(Lake Bell) and Fuller arrives with best friend/lawyer Hater(Rob Corddry). Due to a hotel mix up the two twosomes end up in the same room, setting up an unfunny introduction. After they fix the mix up Fuller convinces the two girls to have a drink with the two guys. One drink turns into an entire night of alcohol, gambling, dancing, falling and eventually sex. Oh and marriage. The morning after brings bickering and eventually Fuller puts a quarter in a slot and wins $3,000,000.00 half of which is NcNally's. Upon returning to New York a cranky judge (Dennis Miller) hates young people and orders them to spend 60 days as a married couple and if they do it, they will split the winnings. The two "lovers" hate each other and both figure if they can get the other one to end the marriage early, they will get the full amount. This brings on about 35 minutes of throwing things at Ashton's balls and Cameron falling in the toilet and all sorts of stupidity. As the 60 days draws to a close, do they really fall in love? DO the not? Oh no, who knows what will happen?

Ashton is pretty and charming and Cameron is pretty and charming and when you put them together, you might think it is a no brainer, right? Well it is not. It is not to say there aren't moments of comedy to be found in this movie because there are. In fact, there are some moments that are flat out hilarious, but those moments are overshadowed by stupidity all around and of course, taking the best joke, Ashton stealing the toilet cover, and putting it in the trailer. Ashton and Cameron have obvious chemistry and they handle the physical comedy pretty well, especially Ashton, but the fact of the matter is that it just isn't very good material. Ashton has even made this movie before when it was called Just Married. The two people never seem genuine in their meanness to make the movie work because they are trying too hard to continue to look pretty. In a movie like this you have to be willing to go all in and not be afraid and neither Ashton, Cameron or the director is willing to do that. Then when you add Rob Corddry, the most annoying actor out right now, to the mix, you just have a recipe for a kind of mess.

There are two kinds of romantic comedies- your traditional fall-in-love-but-and-things-happen kind and the kind where the two people hate each other supposedly. The latter kind, the anti-RomCom can work, but the only way to really make it work is to go for the atypical ending. Movies like How to Lose a guy in 10 days, Just Married and this one don't make any real sense because they tack on a happy ending when the characters and the audience do not deserve it. What makes a movie like The Break Up work so well is that they went for the ending you maybe did not see coming. But here, the button down hard working Diaz and the charming slacker Kutcher, of course seem like a perfect match once things get going. The only two who don't realize it are the two lovers. Shocking right? Look I know the audience wants its happy ending and if the couple had not ended up together people would be furious, but this movie also makes it seem like getting drunk in Vegas and marrying a random person is a good idea because it can lead to a perfectly happy life together with $3,000,000.00 to start that life.

Ironman

As a huge movie lover, there are two times of year I live for- summer and winter. I live for May-August and then November-January. I live for them for two different reasons of course, because summer brings big action movies and winter brings thought provoking Oscar bait. Each year summer comes earlier and earlier. In fact, it used to start on memorial day but with more summer releases every year, they had to push it forward. I feel like the first summer movie of the season sets the tone the rest of them. Last year Spiderman 3 set the tone for the rest of the threequels and this year it is up to Ironman to set the tone.

Tony Stark(Robert Downey Jr.) is a genius and he has used his genius to build an empire with weapons. He creates all kinds of new weapon technology for the Military. He is cocky, witty, womanizing and he loves his alcohol. When the film opens he is riding in a Military vehicle with some young military people. He is cracking jokes and taking pictures but soon one of the army vehicles is blown up and Stark is kidnapped. Then it cuts back 36 hours earlier and we find out all about Stark's life. When it cuts back to the present, Stark wakes up to see himself attached to a car battery. The shrapnel from a bomb has punctured his chest and the car battery is keeping the shrapnel from puncturing his heart. His kidnappers want him to somehow create his newest weapon, The Jericho, using makeshift tools. The man kidnapped with Stark, Yinsen(Shaun Taub) somehow convinces Stark to find a way to fight back. Stark creates a suit fights his way out and is rescued. He comes back a changed man, though. He vows to stop making the weapons and secretly he is hard at work to create a better version of that superhero suit to fight global terror. His assistant, Pepper Potts(Gwenyth Paltrow) is by his side no matter what. His best friend, Rhodes(Terrance Howard) knows he is up to something but stays away from Stark because Rhodes is a military man and Stark is not working with the military anymore. Obadiah Stane(Jeff Bridges) is the second in command at Stark Enterprises and he is resistant to the change Stark wants to make.

If this movie is really setting the tone for the rest of the summer, we are in for one hell of a summer. Who knew the guy who directed Swingers, and Elf-Jon Favreau- could create such a perfect superhero movie. If you look at the cast, you see they are all amazing actors and how the studio allowed the director to Cast Robert Downey Jr. is beyond me, but thank god they did. As Stark, RDJ finds every ounce of humor and humanity to the playboy. He is the most perfect casting for a superhero I have ever seen, yes that includes Bale as Batman. Paltrow looks liek she is having more fun than she has in years and really helps find the heart of the story and Howard, in a glorified cameo adds an element of fun to the relationship between Rhodes and Stark. Jeff Bridges is the one who nearly walks off with the movie though. He is brilliantly bad in the way Willem Dafoe was in Spiderman. He totally makes you forget he is "The Dude." The opening sequence is about as intense as a movie can be and I liked that Favreau opened with that and then went back to the back story. Also, the creation of the Ironman suit served about 3 or 4 purposes, if you are paying attention. First it is the creation of the super suit. Second, it shows how much of a genius Stark is, as opposed to just telling us. Third, the whole thing is hilarious. However, another very important purpose is that the entire time he is creating the suit, he is watching T.V and seeing what is going on in the world and with his company. Instead of having to pause the story to cut to some news story or something, we get the dual action and we see the news the same way Stark does. It helps keep the movie in this very tight and amazing rhythm.

Once the suit is up and functional, the movie takes a whole new turn, the way way Spiderman did when Peter embraced the Powers and was soaring through New York. I love that RDJ appears to be having the time of his life as he is soaring through the air in this gorgeous looking suit. The in-helmet camera was a great touch as well. The first time we see Stark use the new suit, we are witness to rockets shooting, flares snipering and Stark maneuvering awesomely between two military jets. Basically the fun does not ever stop. By the time we get to the big climatic battle, we have not only bought the transformation of Stark, we believe he is willing to die to save the world. The final battle between Ironan and Iron Monger is a dazzling mixture of special effects and fight choreography. Using cars as weapons the scene is brutal, fast, furious and action packed.

My lone complaint about the movie is that when the villain steps into the Iron Monger suit, he seems to be able to work everything right away. He is a pro the first time he uses it. It doesn't make sense since Stark struggled at first and he created the technology. However, that complaint is minor compared to how much awesome is to be found inside the movie. Ironman is an example of how Superhero movies should be made. There is an overwhelming energy that permeates throughout the entire picture and it is the kind of movie that looks like it was so much fun to be in, you wish you could have been in it yourself. With the announcement this morning that Ironman 2 has already been set and with Marvel having its own studio and announcing the release of no less than 4 more movies all revolving around the scene after the credits, I suggest staying after, really.

Final Grade: A

Young at Heart

When it comes to documentaries I feel like there are two kinds- those meant to incite anger or disgust and those meant to inspire. When done well, they do not only achieve their goal, but often times stay with me for days after. There was a time when I was bored by documentaries, but a few years ago I was shown the error of my ways by riveting documentaries like Spellbound, Bowling for Columbine, Wordplay and Super Size Me. Young at Heart plants its goal directly in the category that is meant to inspire us, but does it succeed?

Stephan Walker fell in love with the singing group Young at Heart the first time he heard them that he wanted to document them for television. After the success of it, he re cut his footage and turned it into a feature length film. Young at Heart is a choral group of senior citizens singing popular music, often punk rock. They sing songs from The Ramones, The Clash, Sonic Youth, James Brown, Outkast, Coldplay and others. If it sounds a lot gimmicky, give it time. Walker filmed for seven weeks as the group was getting ready for a new tour. Bob Cilman, the director of the chorus, started the group in the 1980s where the group sang old Vaudeville numbers, but the group has obviously changed its tune now. Cilman is a task master who does not treat the senior citizens with kid gloves and he is often expressing his disappointment, especially with the new songs- I feel Good, I can do it and Schizophrenia. For this particular tour, Cilman wants to bring back two former choir members, Fred and Bob, to sing a duet of Coldplay's "Fix You." Fred and Bob both had to leave the group due to health complications. In between the rehearsals we get to know some of the choir members and get invited into their homes. This is where the movie really gets it's heart because the old folks are some serious characters. The ones that really seem to love the camera are Eileen, a 92-year-old flirt; Lenard, a speed demon on the road; Steve, who still loves sex; and Joe, the star of the group. Spliced throughout the movie are music videos by the group to songs like I wanna be Sedated and Staying Alive.

Young at Heart is the kind of movie that will have you laughing one second and have you tearing up in the very next moment. Death is never too far away from the thoughts of the group and we even see death hit the group twice. However, this is not a sad movie; it is a movie that reinforces life. It is a movie that believes the power of music can make anyone feel young again and the members of the group truly believe they can go on as long as they have the music. It is a very touching story and while the director sometimes gets in his own way, the story never feels forced. I never felt like I was being manipulated into a specific emotion because the group members are so genuine it is hard not to want them to be your grandparents. Whether it is Fred's bad Rodney Dangerfield like jokes, Steve flexing in the mirror or the whole group dancing around to "I Feel Good." There is a life and a spirit in these senior citizens that made me embarrassed to feel the way I feel about life. As one guy says "Singing makes you forget the aches of the knees, the hips and the breathing." About death, Eileen said "I told them to go on without me because I will be sitting on my rainbow in the sky watching over them." It sounds cheesy, but as I sit here typing this remembering this adorable 92 year old saying it, I get choked up.

My only complaint about the movie is about the band director, Bob Cilman. This guy comes off often like a total tool. He seems narcissistic, like he is doing this just to get the glory. He performs in stage with them- taking solos, dancing, interrupting- and he is kind of annoying. However, he redeems himself mostly by the time the film ends. Moreover, while the group feels like an exploitation of old people, it is not. Trust me, people may have gone to watch this group as a carnival side show but were soon in love with the group. These group members have a real passion for singing and for life and it is clear that they are not being exploited. This is a sincere group of singers, dancers and life livers. Some of them can really sing well and listening to senior citizens sings lyrics like "If you say that you are mine/ I'll be here 'til the end of time" gives the words a whole new meaning. When the group sings "Nothing compares to you" as a tribute to a fallen friend and they do it at a prison where criminals are tearing up as well, just try and not shed tears. The climatic concert provides the joyous climax but it also provides the most touching, heart breaking moment. The duet of "Fix You" became a solo and while the song on its own is a heart wrenching song, Chris Martin's whiny singing voice gets in the way of the lyrics. Here, with a deep smooth baritone, Fred gets every ounce of sadness out of that gorgeously written song and it provides such an emotional out pouring on so many levels it made me want to call my estranged grandparents and hug them via phone.

Documentaries are not for everyone, but a movie like this should be. Maybe I am more emotional than others, but I really feel this movie is genuinely moving and am not surprised that the film has played to standing ovations. If you get the chance to check it out, I really recommend it.

Final Grade: A

Deception

I am not sure when a movie goes through a name change every few months that it spells good things for the movie. At first this was called The Tourist then it became The List and about two months before the release they finally settled on the name Deception. Perhaps it is not indicative of how the movie will turn out, but it did not appear to be a good sign for me. What was a good sign was that Hugh Jackman liked the script so much he wanted to produce the movie and on the big screen he hadn't made a majorly bad movie since Van Helsing. I have a kind of affinity for bad erotic thrillers that dates back to my days of renting direct to video movies in hopes of finding something so awful and juicy that I could not help but love it.

Jonathon McQuarrey(Ewan McGregor) is a by the numbers accountant with a dull existence and no friends. One night while doing an audit for a big law firm, a big wig lawyer Wyatt Bose(Jackman) introduces himself, they smoke weed, chat and become fast friends. Bose is a funny, cocky and personable person; he is everything McQuarrey is not. An accidental phone switch by the two men right as Bose is heading to London, leaves McQuarrey with Bose's phone and suddenly a whole world opens up to him. He is fielding calls from women asking "Are you free tonight." Quickly he cannot resist taking the calls and finds himself in the middle of a sex club, or "The List." One night he meets a woman he actually like a and they don't have sex; they just talk. They meet again the next night and while McQuarrey leaves the hotel room to get ice, she goes missing and he gets knocked out. It does not take long before Bose is seen again and this time that fun loving person is gone and in his place is a crazy, money hungry nut job. He says he has the girl kidnapped and McQuarrey can get her back if he transfers 20 million dollars from some big bank. Who is who? What is what? Oh snap, who is dead, who is alive?

If you cannot figure out this movie within the first 15 minutes, I would suggest you never open a detective business. Whether you had plans to do so or not, just don't do it. Deception telegraphs every twist and turn to the point where you have it figured out so early. None of that would matter to me if the movie had been able to maintain a level of stimulating interest, but it did not. The script is weak, the performances are just as weak and it leaves me curious as to what Hugh Jackman saw in this to begin with. As erotic thrillers go this one is luke-warm, with only one even remotely hot scene, but it is just a tease and we spend the rest of the movie hoping for something to get hot again, only to be disappointed. It could have been salvaged by an interesting ending, but sadly, it goes exactly where you expect it to go. You hope to see Ewan's character finally nut up and make a bold decision but the decisions he makes start out bold, but never materialize into anything remotely interesting. There are 2 false endings and the actual ending seemed tacked on specifically because the director felt like the happy ending was what was needed in this mostly gloomy movie.

Final Grade: D-

Pre Summer movie bash!

Summer is here in less than a week for movie season!! Here are a few lists and thoughts about the upcoming summer season!

10 movies I am dying to see:

10. Speed Racer- I am not sure if this movie will be visually appealing or visually repulsive, but I know my eyes will be stimulated. The movie is essentially an animated movie shot totally in deep focus which is nuts and it promises to be a thrilling ride. The run time worries as it is over 2hrs long, but that can be forgiven if it is paced and edited well. I am not sure if I really see a franchise for it, but I know it will be the most visual movie I see all summer.

9. Get Smart- I remember the first teaser trailer I saw for this: I freaking loved it. The full trailer, out now, is very funny and action packed. Carrell looks in his element and I am always down for The Rock being funny. It looks sort of like Hot Fuzz from last summer where it will be hilarious and satirical but still pack some serious punches. I like the cast, including some of the bit players and I think this will be nice escapist entertainment.

8. Wanted- I think this is a sleeper pick for summer. I am sure it is nothing like the Graphic Novel on which it is based, but I am totally hooked. Every trailer or TV spot I see emphasizes the action and the sex appeal of Angelina Jolie which are both pluses. While Jolie's action resume is not excellent, she does have fun doing them and typically they are entertaining. It looks Matrix like, which could be a very good thing. Summer is a perfect place for a movie like this. I am not expecting anything super inventive, but I just want to see some kick ass action.

7. Hellboy: The Golden Army- My anticipation for this movie has risen in recent weeks with the new full length trailer available now. Also, I read a great article about it and how deep the mythology will be and just how much Pan's Labyrinth like fantasy will be involved. I really enjoyed the first one and the director promised he will not sell it out because it is a big summer movie. I believe him because he has not let me down yet. This is a fun franchise that is hopefully not on its last legs.

6. Wall*E- In recent years I have kind of wavered in my love for Pixar, but I am not wavering one bit on this adorable robot! From the first little teaser I was in love with this cute, clumsy, lonely curious little robot and I am dying to go on this adventure with him. I know almost nothing about it except Pixar churns out hits every time. Visually the computer images get more and more life like and this story just seems interesting to me. I have not been this excited for a pixar movie since Toy Story two.

5. Hancock- Until a week ago this movie was further down on this top 10 list. Then I saw the first look trailer and my mind totally changed. Holy crap I am stoked for this movie. It looks funny, action packed, awkward, biting and dramatic. Will Smith has certainly found a nice change of pace to the likable guys he typically plays. The story about a Superhero who winds up willingly going to Prison to clean up his image is very interesting and while it is not based on a comic book, it certainly has a comic book feel to it.

4. Ironman- I only have to wait a few more days before this one becomes a reality! Robert Downey Jr. looks like the most perfect Tony Stark I could have ever imagined and the action just looks better and better every time I see something about the movie. I have always enjoyed the Ironman character and the stories and I am curious as to if the director can get it right since he is not known for big budget movies. Ironman looks like an enjoyable 2 hours full of things getting blown up and funny one-liners. It looks like the perfect beginning of summer movie.

3. Pineapple Express- A pot movie in my top 3? It doesn't seem right does it? Well, it is right; it is so right. I am dying to watch this movie as it has the best trailer thus far this year. It comes from Camp Apatow and I am curious to see these guys do something with a story and action. I cannot wait to see James Franco as a dumb pot head and this just looks like the most epic weed movie, ever.

2. Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull- I grew up on Indiana Jones. I think Raiders of the Lost Ark is my mom's favorite movie, or at least up there. Spielberg is the greatest movie director ever, in my opinion and I am very interested in how this series rebooting goes. Add Shia to the mix and this is just golden. I love the idea of Kate Blanchett as a villain and I want to know if this is really about aliens, because that would be beyond awesome. The trailer features sick ass whip stunts and Harrison Ford's typical gruff one liners and this looks like it could be a movie for the ages.

1. The Dark Knight- This probably does not come as a surprise to anyone that a comic book movie would be number 1 on this list. While Batman is not even in my top 5 of favorite superheroes, Chris Nolan's vision of Gotham City and the Batman world is so amazing I am completely entranced by this movie. Heath Ledger looks to blow Jack Nicholson's overrated Joker performance out of the water with craziness and Aaron Eckhart is the absolute perfect Harvey Dent. Put them with the returning Christian Bale and, wow. Geez, I can barely even put into words how excited I am for this movie. The new poster might be the best movie poster I have seen in ages and it only heightens my anticipation.


5 Movies I don't really want to see but probably will anyway:

5. Sex and the City- At first, they decided to make this PG-13, but I think they changed it back to R, which is good for the fans. This doesn't really do anything for me, but having seen enough episodes to know the characters, I am interested somewhat.

4. Tropic Thunder- Ben Stiller and Jack Black on screen together spells trouble for me, but there might be enough in it to warrant me actually seeing. It is too bad the Tom Cruise cameo got spoiled

3. Don't mess with the Zohan- I keep meaning to give up on Sandler, but he is a summer staple and every so often he still entertains, plus Apatow has a writing credit on it, so it can't be too bad, right?

2. Kung Fu Panda- To be honest, I will probably only see this because my dad will want someone to go with him. I hate Jack Black and this doesn't seem funny, but who knows.

1. What happens in Vegas- The only real reason I will see this is because we are getting it and I can see it for free. Mike tells me it is funny, but it doesn't look like it, really.

The 1 Movie I can guarantee I will not be seeing this summer:

Step Brothers: Will Ferrell and John C. Riley as adults sharing a room as they become step brothers. Enough freaking said. SHOOT ME!

Random Thoughts:

The Happening might be rated R. Wow, that piques my interest, a lot.

Will anyone care about Mulder and Skully this time around?

The Mummy 3. Really? Why?

Will Mama Mia mark the end of fun summer movie musicals? It looks awful!

Can the team behind Legally Blonde strike gold again with House Bunny, or is Anna Farris just not Reese Witherspoon?

Isn't the Love Guru just a re-hash of Austin Powers jokes?

Finally, some under the radar-Indie movies I am excited about:

Redbelt, Son of Ranbow, Midnight Meat train, The Strangers, Hell Ride, Towelhead and Hamlet 2.

Harold and Kumar escape from Guantanamo Bay

There is a fine line between a dumb comedy that is entertaining and a dumb comedy that is just dumb; the first Harold and Kumar movie straddled that very fine line all the way through which led to a pretty funny, partially frustrating movie. Yet, I wasn't sure the movie really needed a sequel, but it found a nice audience on DVD and so they gave it one, 4 years later. Of course, my main reason to go watch was the return of Neil Patrick Harris playing a drugged out and over sexed version of himself.

4 years ago we watched Harold and Kumar make an epic journey to reach a White Castle burger joint and then come home so Harold could finally make his play for a girl. She is leaving for Amsterdam and Kumar suggests they should follow her. This movie picks up minutes after the first ended. Harold(John Cho) and Kumar(Kal Penn) are getting cleaned up and packing for the trip. In the airport, Kumar is subject to a "random" search, thus beginning a movie of stereotype debunking, kind of. Also at the airport, the two boys run into Vanessa(Daneel Harris) who dated Kumar a few years ago and her fiance, a Republican tool named Colton(Eric Winter). Throughout the movie we see flashbacks to when Kumar and Vanessa met and how she turned him into a pot head. Once on the plane, Kumar follows Harold into the bathroom and starts to spark some weed into a "smokeless bong." Someone on the plane thinks they hear and see a bomb and the two heroes are cuffed and questioned briefly before being put in Guantanamo Bay. There, they meet real terrorists who help Harold and Kumar escape. Government agent Ron Fox(The most obnoxious man alive Rob Cordry)thinks the two guys are serious terrorists and he questions their friends and parents in scenes that require the absence of a brain in order to laugh. Harold and Kumar make it back to the U.S.A and think if they can get to Texas and to Colton he can help them out. They trek from Miami to Texas in the deep south and run into a married couple who happens to be brother and sister who have a cyclops inbred freak for a son; they run into the KKK; scary black guys and of course Neil Patrick Harris! Oh and by the end of the movie they have smoked weed with the President (the actor is not a very good impressionist).

I do not have a problem with pot head movies being ambitious; in fact, I have high hopes for Pineapple Express being the first big budget action stoner movie. This movie, though, might have been just a bit too ambitious. First of all, they try and tackle issues about why weed is not legal, which is fine and even some of the issues of racial profiling are fine, but between scenes where Rob Cordry is pouring out grape soda to try and enrage a black man and Cordry pouring out change to enrage a few Jews, this movie is just stretching those lofty goals of stereotypes. The first Harold and Kumar movies was funny because it was never mean spirited. It was just a fun movie about two stoners looking for burgers. No one was really hurt or offended in the process and there was really limited scat humor. The sequel has fart jokes, poop jokes, semen stain jokes and all kinds of toilet humor. A lot of just felt rushed and for a sequel four years in the making, nothing should feel rushed. Add to that the movie is about 15 minutes too long and has a plot so full of holes about 40 minutes in I just threw my hands up and said "Well, whatever."

That is not to say there is not a lot of comedy in the movie because I laughed, a lot. Most of that is thanks to the two lead actors. John Cho and Kal Penn have such an easy chemistry and are so good natured you almost wish they were in a movie that was written better. the jokes are so mean spirited and uncreative but the two actors really do their best and still play these very likable pot heads. Plus, Neil Patrick Harris is an extended cameo brings all kinds of laughs. As a guy high on dozens of mushrooms seeing unicorns and wanting to brand his initials onto the asses of whores, Harris completely obliterates the wholesome image of his youth. I thought the movie would completely change his character since Harris has come out of the closet as being gay, but they kept the same horn dog, sniffing cocaine off a stripper's ass Harris from the first movie. Some of the side gags work like the cyclops freaky baby even if it is a very mean joke. The constant references to Sloth from The Goonies provides a lot of laughs for that scene and the KKK scene is actually kind of funny, made even funnier by Kumar's nonchalant way of dealing with everything.

It helps to have either seen the first movie dozens of times, or to have just watched it because there are many jokes that callback to the first movie. Luckily I had just watched the movie the night before so I got most of those jokes. Where the first one straddled the line between low brow and good taste, this movie weaves back and forth over that line like a drunk driver. The genuinely funny moments actually make the bad jokes more frustrating because it makes you feel this movie could have been made without Rob Cordry wiping his ass with the bill of rights and pulling it out to show the camera the shit stains that were formally on his ass. Actually, it makes you think this movie could have been made without Rob Cordry who is moving in on David Cross' turf as the most obnoxious bit player in comedies. I know I am not the target audience for these types of movies, but I wanted to like it and I almost did.

Final Grade: C

Glow in the Dark concert review

I have seen more concerts in my lifetime than I could ever begin to recall, and I have seen many huge rap concerts inside of Arco Arena, but I was extra excited to see this show that consisted of Lupe Fiasco, N.E.R.D, Rhianna and Kanye West. Until Friday night I had not seen a big arena sized concert in quite a few years and I was missing the big spectacle concert. And, I knew Kanye West was going to give me that spectacle. I mean, he has the biggest ego in the world, how could his show not be massive? All of this excitement came to a full explosion Friday night for one of the most entertaining concerts I have ever been to. On top of all of that, the concert only started 5 minutes late, which is unheard of in a rap concert!

Lupe Fiasco- At 7:05, The lights went dark and I hurried Liz and myself to our seats because I knew Lupe was first (Thanks for the Myspace Bulletin heads up Lupe!). No new rapper has completely won me over this much since Eminem did it in 1998. Lupe came out and performed "Hello Goodbye" which is probably his most surreal song. It sounds like the end of the world is coming and he is on acid. That is the best way I can describe the song. It is just Lupe and his D.J. and none of the monitors. He has a crazy energy and runs all over the stage managing to keep his breathing under control, which is imperative for a rapper who raps at the quick speeds like Lupe. He does 4 songs from the new album and then goes right into "Kick Push" and while the house was not full yet, the second he hit the opening lines of that song. the crowd was in full eruption. He went through 3 songs from album number 1 and then went into a very funny, Vegas style version of "Tokyo, Paris" while his back up singers got in place. My only problem with this song was the girl singing over sang her run at the end, but the crowd totally bought into it, so that was cool. Lupe did some banter with the audience but mostly he was there to set the tone for the night and when he wrapped up with the combination of "Superstar" and a dizzingly fast and hype version of Daydream, he sent the now full crowd into quite a huge frenzy. I would say Lupe did his job, but now I need to see him again as the a headliner in a smaller venue. I think his songs, dealing a lot in social ills, are kind of lost in the massive setting and with only a 30 minute set he didn't get as many songs in as I would have liked.

After Lupe, when the lights came on, I started to look around and I noticed a trend- Girls really like to dress slutty at concerts; It is like Halloween, but without the themes to the sluttiness. Of course, this is not a complaint for the most part. I mean half the girls looked amazing all slutified, but it is the other half that concerned me. This other half looked like rejects from Flavor of Love, Rock of Love or a Shot at love with Tila Tequila. The trick is to only look at the hot sluts. Luckily I have a lot of experiences determining between the two. After 30 minutes of slut watching and listening to that god awful Snoop Dogg, Sensual seduction song, N.E.R.D was ready.

N.E.R.D- These guys blasted onto the stage with a new song that was so drum heavy, I thought my ears were going to pop and start bleeding. The first time Pharrell was shown on the big screen the girls at the arena united for a giant orgasmic like scream and he seemed to revel in it, who wouldn't! The group did not waste a whole lot of time talking to the audience, but they were kind enough to let us know when they were going to play songs off the album coming out in June. The 3 new songs all sounded amazing and I cannot wait to pick up their new album. My favorite new song is called "Everybody nose" and I think it comes in at 120 beats per minute, which is insane live and I was totally rocking out to it. They played "Brain", "Rock Star" and a very kick ass version of "Lap Dance" but off the second album they only played "She Likes to Move". Towards the end of that song. it sounded like Pharrell's voice was giving out and the set ended rather abruptly, without anyone saying good night and it made me wonder if Pharrell did real damage to his vocal chords. Even with that abrupt ending, N.E.R.D put on a very rocking, rollicking show and I was impressed with how Pharrell is not afraid to blend into a group, even though he is actually a huge star in the world of hip-hop.

When the lights came back on, I went back to people watching and reflecting. The usual big rap show has a lot of weed; this show did not. Usually the rapper on stage are encouraging the lighting up int he theater, but none of the guys here were doing that. I was also noticing that I didn't see anyone who appeared to be over the age of 30 there. It was a diverse group, racially, but age wise everyone seemed to be within the 16-28 age group. I was also noticing that, for girls, shorts have become an acceptable form of dressing up. As long as you wear heels with them, it seems like they are perfectly acceptable as something other than just casual wear.

Rhianna- To be honest, this was the part of the night I was not entirely thrilled to watch, but I knew it was coming. Her set up was pretty basic except the glowing "R" in the middle of the stage, but the crowd response to her was awesome. She appeared on stage in a very sexy, black body suit outlined with hot pink and she had on hot pink gloves and looked incredibly sexy. But, I knew she would; it was the singing I was unsure of. However, as she tore through single after single, she held her own pretty well. She did kind of derail the energy of the show with 3 ballads, but the crowd did not seem to mind much. Half way through she changed outfits into this yellow and black number with a sexy hat, but the outfit blended too well with the back up dancers and back up singers for my taste. Rhianna was the most chatty of the bunch, telling us who wrote the songs she sang and what they meant to her. She is very playful on stage and while she is not the best dancer out there, she moves in a way that is pleasant to my eyes. Because she has an album chalk full of singles, she didn't need to worry about singing a song no one knew, and by the time she reached the climax with "Umbrella" the girls in the audience were screaming at decibels I thought would shatter windows.

I knew we were in for a long wait after Rhianna because I read a review of opening night and they said it was about 45 minutes between Rhianna and Kanye West. Liz and I chatted it up most of the time, but I did put in a call to work to find out the fate of Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It was my pick and I needed a win badly. That is my justification. That obnoxious Snoop song played again leading me to explain to Liz why new Snoop makes me sad because he used to be so good. Now he just sucks. If you like "Sensual Seduction (Which is really called sexual eruption)" don't bother defending it. Actually don't bother talking to me again. I was having trouble waiting because I was excited at the prospect of Kanye, Lupe and Pharrell holding down the stage together. The 3 have formed a group and in my head this was the perfect coming out party.

Kanye West- When the curtain finally raised on Kanye West, it was almost exactly how I envisioned it. Kanye was in the middle of a raised stage, laying down taking in the screams from his adoring public. His show was sci-fi themed and very cinematic. The plot? Kanye is on a space ship that has crash landed on another planet and he is trying to find a way to get back to Earth. He opens with "Good Morning" which I find to be an odd choice because it is not the hype machine artists usually open with. Of course, Kanye West doesn't do anything usual. It takes a couple songs to get the audience fully behind him, but when he goes into "Through the Wire" he has all of us totally with him. Everyone was standing up and remained standing for the entire 85 minute set. And for the entire 85 minutes it was just us and Kanye. His drum heavy band stood in a pit below him and he did not share the stage with anyone. It is Kanye's night; it is Kanye's show and we are all just worshippers at the temple of West. The show hits monumental highs no less than 4 times- "Gold Digger", "Stronger", "Jesus Walks" and "The Good Life". The latter featured a very extended ending, where Kanye worked everyone into such a frenzy I feel like he extended it longer than he had planned because of how crazy the crowd was going for it. However, there was also something deeper going on and it came to a head when Kanye went into the incredibly touching new version of "Hey Mama" that he wrote after his mother passed last year. With a beautiful yet haunting Capella start singing this amazing line "Last night I saw you in my dreams, Now I can't wait to go to sleep" and ending similarly with "This life, is all a dream, an my real life starts when I go to sleep" Kanye delivered the entire song on one knee looking down and making me completely believing he was truly lost in himself at that moment. Next he let Journey's "Don't stop believing" while he sat off to the side thinking about his mother. However, he was not done. His spaceship just needed the brightest light, or the biggest shining star and of course that is Kanye Himself. After about a minute of cool visual effects and a lifted up stage, Kanye was back on Earth and ended the show with a rousing rendition of "Tocuh the Sky."

When the show was over I was immensely satisfied, but felt kind of cheated because I was dying to see Lupe, Kanye and Pharrell together, but I was not totally surprised it didn't happen. Kanye was not about to share the stage with anyone. For 85 minutes it was just him and his microphone. He danced, yelled, got hype and pumped the crowd up without ever really looking at us or talking to us. The show was tightly paced and Kanye was the ring master. A lot of people hate Kanye West because of his ego or how he whines at award shows, but his point is that the world need him. The world needs people who actually say what they feel. I may not buy that premise entirely, but in terms of rap music, we do need Kanye West. he, like Jay-Z, Bridges the gap of critical and chimerical success. People do not want to admit it, but rap music would be completely in the toilet without him. I truly believe that and he proved that tonight. Every single person in that arena loved the entire show. Everyone was out of breath, with sore legs the next day. I 100& spazzed out. It is not something anyone really sees from me these days, as I am a pretty reserved person, but if you ever want to see me just completely lose control, take me to a great rap show. it is euphoric for me and for nearly 5 hours on Friday night, I was in a state of absolute euphoria!

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

For those of you who not obsessive over the career of Jason Segal, allow me to explain why this movie is perfect for him. Well, besides the fact that he wrote it. Segal is a long time veteran of the Judd Apatow troupe of actors dating back to Freaks and Geeks on the television. However, where he really found his stride was on the second Apatow television show, Undeclared. There Segal perfected the guy who is not afraid to cry. He plays weak guys better than anyone, so it makes sense he would write a movie about a guy who cannot get over a break up. Also, know that I love Apatow movies and if you don't, just don't even bother reading this or watching this movie.

Peter Bretter is a man in love. He is in love with Sarah Marhsall( Kristen Bell), his girlfriend and star of a hit t.v show, for which Peter writes the score. He is a lazy man who has aspirations of writing a Dracula Rock Opera-with puppets- but he can't bring himself to actually finish it. He is mostly unhappy, and the one thing that makes him happy is Sarah. So when she breaks up with him, it sends him in a downward spiral of crying, drinking, bad one night stands and leaves his house a mess. His step brother Brian(The perfect Bill Hader) tells him to go on vacation and Peter mentions Sarah always told him Hawaii was great so off to Hawaii goes Peter. When he gets there he sees Sarah and spends his first few nights in Hawaii crying some more. Eventually he starts to get out and meet some pretty funny people in Hawaii and meets a very gorgeous, free living girl, Rachel Jansen(Mila Kunis), and they hit it off. Sarah, on the other hand, is now dating British rocker, Aldous Snow(Russell Brand) and is having a hard time seeing Peter start to be happy with someone else.

For my money, this movie is as funny as the other Apatow movies. In fact, I prefer this one to the 40-yr old virgin. And it is all thanks to Jason Segal. Segal wrote the script, which is funny, but it is his dedication to his craft that makes this movie such a winner. Much has been made of Segal going the Full Monty at the beginning, but that just indicitive of his whole performance. Segal is like Jim Carrey, Peter Sellars or Chris Farley as guys who go all in to their comedy. He leaves all of his inhibitions at the door and gives 100% to this movie. Every one gets to shine, of course, because it is an Apatow production, but Segal really makes the movie go. Paul Rudd gets some laughs as the perpetually stoned surf instructor, Jonah Hill is actually quite reserved, but hilarious as a waiter obsessed with Aldous Snow, Jack McBrayer(30 Rock) is very funny as a newly married man having trouble having sex with his wife because of how religious they are and the few Hotel employees we meet all have funny things to say, especially Davon McDonald who wants to go snorkeling to watch sea turtles have sex for 3 hours. As Aldous Snow, Russell Brand is a serious comic find. His hedonistic, cock sure performance is brilliantly comical, but more than that, he is a jerk of a character, but he is so self assured and knows exactly who he is that the more we get to know him, the more we actually like him. He is the coolest character because nothing gets to him. He is level headed, hilarious and dirty and we totally grow to like him. As Sarah Marshall, Kristen Bell does the best job she can trying to turn Sarah into a human and in the scene where She and Segal finally have a real conversation about the break up she actually makes us understand what happened in the relationship.

The jokes work, the physical comedy works, the budding love between Segal and Kunis works and the break up between Bell and Segal works. In fact, Mila Kunis might have got herself a nice little movie career from this movie, if the right people see it. She has transformed into a gorgeous woman, but more than that she is pretty damn talented as well. She handles the awkward comedy of the Apatow brand with ease, but also handles the charming love stuff easily as well. Of course, the awkward comedy is what makes this movie tick. Whether it is Segal being completely naked getting his heart broken, or the two new couples drinking and eating together, the awkward comedy is perfectly uncomfortable. Also, unlike Knocked Up and Superbad, there is some pretty hilarious graphic sex, that is not only funny, but it actually helps move the story along, especially the last one. The direction is a bit weak and the movie could use a little more focus towards the middle, but that is all forgotten as the funny lines come at you at hilarious speeds. On top of all of that there is a freaking genius parody of the t.v. show CSI, featuring a nice cameo from William Baldwin and a parody of bad television shows with a cameo by Jason Bateman. Also, a great conversation making fun of bad horror movies happens that is funnier when you remember Kristen Bell was in a bad horror movie with a similar premise.

The last thing I want to say is that there is a scene towards the end that is among the funniest scenes I have seen in a movie. It is up there with Jim Carrey writing with a blue pen in Liar, Liar. It is up there with Chris Farley in Tommy Boy trying to explain to a potential buyer why he should buy his brake pads. It ties up the whole movie in a perfect blend of awkwardness, comedy and love. Judd Apatow started the trend of romantic comedies that guys can enjoy, but Segal takes the idea of romance in these movies to a whole new level and maybe that will turn some people off who want more sitting around and talking and less actual romance, but it totally worked for me in every way. With the exception of maybe Pineapple Express, I doubt any other movie I see this year will make me laugh as often and as hard as Forgetting Sarah Marhsall.

Final Grade: A

88 minutes

Even when he is in bad movies, I get a kick out of watching Al Pacino. There is something about his over the top yelling and in your face over acting that gets me every time. So, as long as the movie has a few moments where Pacino gets to go all Pacino on every one in the movie, I am set. I also kind of enjoy time gimmicky entertainment. 24 is a favorite show of mine and things like Nick of Time are guilty pleasures of mine because I like how the real time gimmick manipulates my sense of urgency. 88 minutes features a time gimmick and Al Pacino, so I was all set for some film enjoyment, right?

Dr. Jack Gramm(Pacino) gives testimony that puts Jon Forster(Neil McDonough) behind bars for rape and murder. He claims Forster is a serial rapist/murderer, but Forster is only tried and convicted of one case, so Forster claims his innocence and gains legions of fans. The day Forster is to be capitally punished, Gramm gets a phone call that says he has 88 minutes to live. He ignores it at first to go about his day, which includes teaching at a Seattle college, but soon he can no longer ignore the threats because he is being set up for a few new murders that are set up just like the one he convicted Forster of. From here the movie spirals into introducing new characters, giving them ominous backgrounds/possible motives, and having Gramm doubt everything.

If you can not tell from the brief plot description, this movie is not good. I am not sure if they decided to have the whole thing be 88 minutes because that is how long it took the writer to come up with the story, write it and revise it, or if the 88 minutes is just entirely random like everything else in this movie. Fire trucks nearly crash into a crowd of people, we meet characters who will be important except we never see them again, and when the villain is revealed, it sheds light on the fact that most of the movie was unnecessary. 88 minutes spends so much time trying to cast a shadow of doubt on each and every damn character that almost nothing of merit actually happens because the writer and director spend so much time trying to fake us out. The problem is, by the time the end comes we no longer care and just want the movie to come to an end. There is gratuitous nudity, and a preposterous lesbian kiss, which leads me to believe the guy who wrote this script is about 16 years old, which would make sense considering the dialog. There are a lot of attractive people sitting on the sidelines of this movie who probably were dying to work with the great AL Pacino, but instead they were treated to Pacino picking up an easy pay check and sleep walking his way through the film. He doesn't even get to really let loose with some scenery chewing. I am sorry, but if you have Pacino in your movie you go back and write him a powerfully over the top monologue. It is the least you could do for the sake of your audience.

The editing is lax, the directing is weak and not at all self assured and the acting from everyone, most notably Alicia Witt playing a girl with a crush on Pacino, is unbelievably awful and they didn't even use the time gimmick to the best of its ability. Also, while the trivia on imdb says that once he is told he has 88 minutes to live that the movie runs in real time from then, I am not entirely sure I buy that. Granted, I was not checking my watch every time they mentioned the time, but with a running time of 108 minutes, I am not sure I buy it. My favorite thing about the movie though is during the first scene when the year is 1997. Not only do we see a headline of Princess Diana's death, we see a t.v. story, the two girls talk about it, the camera then zooms in on the date in case we didn't realize this was in the late nineties. But to cap it off, the girl just has to turn on N*Sync. Talk about not trusting your audience to figure out the date!

Overall Grade: D