GREEN ZONE

“GREEN ZONE” (Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear, Brendan Gleeson & Amy Ryan)
Taking your plot from ‘real life’ & making your own fictitious story around it is tricky business - it worked to perfection in “The Last King Of Scotland” – & they make it work here. “Green Zone” centers around Matt Damon’s Chief Roy Miller & his battalions’ fruitless searches for WMD’s in Iraq. “All they want to do is find something they can hold up on CNN.” But all Miller’s men find are toilet parts & pigeon poop.
What I liked about this movie is that it was easy to follow because it was based on a recent historical event – We all know there were no WMD’s, so it was easy to concentrate on the characters & the ‘cover up’. If someone were to complain that it might be a bit TOO simple, I wouldn’t argue with them.
Greg Kinnear plays Clark Poundstone, Washington D.C.’s head of ‘Intel’ in Iraq – he controls the ‘SF’(Special Forces) who blindly follow orders though knowing that what they’re doing is wrong. Poundstone continues to defend his source, the mysterious ‘Magellan’, & blames the military for being unable to follow directions to the WMD sites.
Brendan Gleeson plays C.I.A. agent Martin Brown; Poundstone’s main antagonist, who is constantly attempting to undermine Poundstone’s authority.
When Chief Miller is approached by a one legged citizen named Freddy who witnessed one of Hussein’s chief advisors, General Al Rawi, entering a home just a few blocks away, Miller risks walking into a booby trap & follows Freddy.
I had to chuckle every time Al Rawi was shown, as he immediately scampers away like a frightened pussycat as soon as gunfire is heard, proving that when the going gets tough, the Generals run away to safety.
Speaking of which, ‘Green Zone’ refers to the ‘safety zone’ where the strategists can be pampered in luxury while the ‘real men’ are left to scurry about the filthy streets knowing that a sniper’s bullet could end their lives at any second.
Freddy proves to be valuable to Miller as a translator, though the Iraqi citizen is clearly uncomfortable with the job. He tells Miller, “It is not for you to decide what happens here.” Freddy knows Miller is one of the rare good guys so his quote was meant toward the U.S. Government...
When Miller hooks up with Agent Brown, they plot to bring in Al Rawi to find out what he knows as the U.S. attempts to bring in an outsider to take over the country.
The last thing Poundstone wants is for the truth to come out, so Intel shuts down the CIA & Miller is left to act on his own.
‘Green Zone’ is intelligent, well acted (forgot to mention Amy Ryan – very believable as Wall Street Journal reporter Laurie Dayne) & probably closer to the truth than the Republican party would want you to believe... Which leads me to another complaint – why do they call them ‘parties’ – nobody in politics is having any fun... well, except for the horndogs who are cheating on their spouses.

DATE NIGHT

“DATE NIGHT” (Steve Carrell & Tina Fey)

I like these two actors (but not their TV shows) so I went into this ‘Out-Of-Towners’ rip-off with hopeful expectations.
Carrell & Fey play Phil & Claire Foster, parents of two young children who lead very boring lives. The problem with setting up a story about two very boring people is that the film has to start off by being very boring as well. But it does pick up eventually.
Claire puts on a cleavage revealing dress & suddenly Phil wants to take her someplace special for their weekly date night. They arrive at a posh Manhattan seafood restaurant without a reservation & hope to catch a break & get a table. While waiting in the crowded bar, the hostess calls out for the Triplehorns to be seated & Phil decides to steal the reservation by pretending to be the Triplehorns.
As the couple dine they are approached by two seedy looking men who escort them into the back alley & demand the flashdrive they stole from mobster Tony Moletti (Ray Liotta)
This is where ‘Date Night’ turns into ‘The Out Of Towners’ as Phil & Claire race thru New York while being pursued by the mob bosses’ hit men. & yes, my least favorite item, the elongated car chase scene, is included.
Mark Wahlberg plays an ex-client of Claire’s who helps them in so many ways its ridiculous, but his constant bare-chested appearance does set up Carrell to utter one of the movies’ funnier lines.
Things finally get humorous when The Fosters manage to track down the actual Triplehorns (James Franco & Mila Kunis who steal the film) but when the Triplehorns leave the screen, the movie lapses back into being boring & predictable.
This movie wasn’t scoring very high on my laugh-o-meter until the blooper reel that played with the closing credits – some people left early & missed them. The 4 best laughs of the movie are in the bloopers, so if you still want to go see this, don’t cheat yourself out of some genuinely funny moments by leaving too soon.
I don’t know if it was due to the fact that this old trick of trying to salvage some laughs from mundane material hadn’t been used for awhile, or if the fact that I wanted to laugh at this film but couldn’t find any reason to until the blooper reel rolled, but it boggled my mind that the best lines in the movie were left on the cutting room floor. Thankfully someone was smart enough to sweep them up & tack them onto the end of this mildly disappointing film.

DEAR JOHN / The LAST SONG

“The LAST SONG” / “DEAR JOHN”

The only movie out that I wanted to see, my wife didn’t (Repo Men) so I decided to give her Easter & knock off these two chick flicks that she wanted to see. It was, as expected, Eastertime in hell...
We started with the newer ‘Last Song’ for the early bird special & then glided over to East Valley for the $3 ‘Dear John’ ($18 for 4 tickets, from that aspect, I got off cheap) My wife asked me as we left the second film, ‘which one was better?’
I said, “This one.” “Why?” “Because I don’t remember what the first one was.”
It wasn’t a joke; I had to think for a moment to recall the movie we had seen just a few hours earlier. When I remembered, the answered held, “Dear John” is much better than ‘The Last Song” - & that’s not to say ‘Dear John’ won’t be a candidate for my Bottom 10.
I wasn’t aware until later that both films were based on books by the same author – who also wrote “The Notebook”, which I liked (up until that ridiculous ending)
These are chick flicks to the maximum – but Dear John has noticeably better acting and isn’t quite as sappy & cookie cutter as ‘Last Song’.
So I’ll start with the older film.
In ‘Dear John’, the perpetually mundane Channing Tatum plays ‘John’ / Amanda Seyfried plays the letter writing Savannah, a girl John meets two weeks before he is to be sent to Iraq (John’s an army man)
Richard Jenkins plays John’s distant father, though they live in the same house – Dad is overly occupied with his coin collection to the point of being obsessed. Savannah insults John by suggesting his father might have autism, but when John starts paying more attention to dad after the statement, he sees that she may be right.
Henry Thomas plays Tim, a friend of Savannah’s. Tim’s autistic son Alan takes an instant liking to John, which of course is ‘amazing’ because Alan doesn’t speak to anyone until he gets to know them. This is meant to make us believe that John is someone ‘special’, but yet the first chance he gets to lose his temper & exhibit ultra-violent behavior – John goes apes**t. He is, after all, a military man.
After their whirlwind romance, John goes overseas & the film sinks to the boring letter reading montage as John & Savannah exchange communiqués.
SPOILER ALERT! – This movie wasn’t exactly winning me over, but it wasn’t ‘stupid’ until John is forced to come home due to a situation arising with his father. He confronts Savannah with “Why didn’t you call me?” & she yells, “Is THAT why you came back here?”
He came back because of his dad, you thoughtless b*tch & you were so selfish you didn’t even care enough to stay in touch with the old man... That was my thought as this scene of heavy drama played out.
So by the end of the film, you really don’t have anyone to cheer for – You definitely don’t want John & Savannah to end up together because that would mean that John has no self respect, dignity or testicles. But due to the fact that it doesn’t have your conventional ‘chick flick’ sappy happy ending, I’d have to say ‘Dear John’ is a notch or two above the norm for the genre...
“The Last Song” is not. It is chick flick sickening from beginning to end with very little to recommend, & yet I don’t really feel like bashing it. I’ve never seen Miley Cyrus do anything before so all I know about her now is that she has no future in acting – Stick to whatever made you famous, sweetheart, or channel all your time & energy into acting lessons because you can’t make a career in movies by just being cute... What am I talking about, of course you can! & I will grant her that - she does have a certain likeability without displaying much talent (Probably why I don't feel like bashing her)
Miley plays Veronica (Ronnie) a musical protégé until dad divorces mom (Greg Kinnear & Kelly Preston) & she stops playing the piano & turns down an offer to attend Julliard.
As Mom prepares to re-marry, she sends Ronnie & her little brother Jonah off to spend the summer with dad at his beach house.
With Jonah, there is no happy medium, this kid is either overly enthusiastic or bawling his eyes out in sorrow – In other words, he doesn’t come across as a ‘real’ character. Do we blame the inexperienced kid for over-acting, or the script which called for him to be one or the other in every scene he’s in?
Here’s the first hour of the movie in a nutshell; Before the story starts there are 2 musical montages (from here on known as mm’s)
Kids arrive at dads - Ronnie goes for a walk along the beach (mm)
Ronnie gets knocked over by volleyball playing Will (mm)
Ronnie stops a raccoon from eating sea turtle eggs on the beach, stays up all night to protect them (mm)
Will shows up as a volunteer from the aquarium & sets up a protective net for the eggs (mm)
Will invites Ronnie to meet his parents (mm)
Will’s family is filthy rich, but with a dark cloud hanging over it (sad mm)
Ronnie is moved to show Will that she can play the piano – but first she must take 30 seconds to tie back her hair in slow motion – after all, you wouldn’t want her hair to get in the way while she plays, right? (mm)
Will gets into fight at his sister’s wedding (Oh no, he has a violent temper!)
The sap runs so thick in this film it should have been set in the forests of Vermont.
The screenplay simply jumps from one clichéd scene to the next with very little connections. To give you an idea how idiotic it is – Will’s best friend Scott was witness to a crime but he was also involved in it – When Will begs him to step forward so the real culprit pays for his deed, Scott is adamant about not taking a chance of ruining his future. A few scenes later, Will shows up at Scott’s workplace and says ‘Please’ & nothing else. Scott instantly changes his mind about his future & confesses... Huh? Oh, and (mm)
I didn’t realize until the credits rolled that Greg Kinnear’s character’s name was Steve Miller... Then why in the heck did we have to suffer thru all those cheesy teen pop mm’s when they could have used “Fly Like An Eagle”, “Rock’n Me” & “The Joker”?
But unfortunately, in the end, “The Last Song” was just a boring piece of background music... Literally.

The BOUNTY HUNTER

“The BOUNTY HUNTER” (Jennifer Aniston & Gerard Butler)

Sooner or later, I’m going to reach the point where I tell my wife, “Unless Jennifer does a nude scene, I’m not going to anymore of her movies.”
So there are your choices, Jen; either start picking better projects, or strip...
This piece of crap wants to be everything; a romantic comedy, a thrill ride buddy flick & a gritty police drama... it fails at every level. Other than the obvious blame going to Sarah Thorp, the writer of the bombastically stupid screenplay, an equal amount of blame must be heaped upon Butler. He wants to become another Hugh Jackman but he’s clearly in the Matthew McConaughey zone of bad actor that picks dumb roles.
Butler has developed the annoying habit of speaking out of the side of his mouth (It seems to happen every time he adopts an ‘American’ accent) which, I believe he thinks makes him appear to be ‘macho’... which is synonymous with ‘a jerk’.
Here, Butler’s Milo, an Ex-Cop turned Bounty Hunter is such an a**hole that you don’t buy for a second that a character as sweet as Aniston’s Nicole, complete with tanned legs & cleavage, would ever fall for him in the first place. But that’s what we’re expected to believe as ex-spouses, Milo & ‘Nic’ are thrown together when Aniston’s reporter character becomes a wanton criminal after missing one court date. She is a respectable news reporter with no criminal activity in her past – they are not going to put out an APB or send a bounty hunter out to ‘bring ‘er in at any cost’ like this dumbass film’s premise expects us to believe.
And although I slammed her in the opening of this review, Jennifer is actually the only tolerable part of this horrid film. It is Butler who needs to have his acting license revoked.
The premise is; news reporter Nicole gets a traffic ticket for ‘brushing’ a policeman while driving recklessly to cover the story of an apparent suicide victim who clearly didn’t commit suicide. While heading to court for her appearance she receives a call from her ‘snitch’ who wants to meet her immediately (the proverbial matter of life & death) so Nicole blows off her courtroom appearance & heads to the meeting place where she finds the snitch’s abandoned car with the driver’s side window busted out.
Within minutes of missing her court appearance, Nicole’s name shows up as a bail jumper & her ex-husband Milo is assigned the case – from there hilarity ensues... if your definition of hilarity is an hour & a half of idiotic set ups & humorless dialogue.
In the fairly crowded theatre in which I viewed The Bounty Hunter, I’d say the crowd laughed twice, chuckled twice & yawned too many times to count. I’m guessing word of mouth is going to sink this film in its second week & it will fade very quickly.
Just to give you an idea as to how moronic this movie is – there’s a scene where Milo & Nic are trying to get into a posh country club. Milo, dressed in a checkered ‘discount store sale’ shirt, well worn jeans & tennis shoes, pretends to be a U.S. Senator. The receptionist asked from which state and Milo says “Oklahoma” while Nic says “Kansas”
Then Milo changes his answer to “Kansas” while Nic says, “Okla...homa.”
That scene was so funny & original I thought I’d wet myself from doubling over with laughter – I’ve never witnessed anything like that before in my life, it was just... so...
I mean, who in the **** do they think they’re entertaining with lame s**t like this?
Then, as seen in the preview, Nicole offers up that she ‘used to be a model’. The receptionist wonders aloud, “How long ago was THAT?” Like she’s buying that unshaven, dressed like a skateboarder Milo IS actually a Senator, but an adorable cutie like Jennifer Aniston isn’t believable as a former model? The saddest part is that this scene was responsible for one of the 2 laughs I heard from the crowd...
Though Jennifer is still attractive, even with the appearance of wrinkles crinkling onto her over-tanned cleavage, she is not enough to make this junk pile watchable – Avoid this Bounty Hunter like he was one of the ex-wrasslin’ freaks you’d find on a Bravo network reality show – it is NOT an pleasurable experience.

The GHOST WRITER

“The GHOST WRITER” (Ewan McGregor & Pierce Brosnan)

A nicely made political thriller reminiscent of a typical Alfred Hitchcock film.
McGregor plays a writer hired to ‘ghost write’ the memoirs of ex-British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Brosnan)
The movie begins with the body of McGregor’s predecessor being washed up onto a beach after his abandoned automobile is found on a ferry. The police come to the conclusion that the drowned writer got drunk and fell off the boat.
As McGregor’s character lands the job off taking over as the ghost writer, Lang’s reputation is being grilled by the news media as his link to the U.S. and backing all of a recent administrations abominations has him labeled a ‘War Criminal’.
Residing in the U.S. at the time of these allegations, Lang’s advisor’s (Timothy Hutton as his American lawyer, among others) tell him a return to England would be unwise.
Olivia Williams plays the Prime Minister’s wife, Ruth. During their first interview, Lang tells the ghost writer that Ruth was responsible for his going into politics in the first place. Ruth seems to have reached the point where she’s tired of politics, except to protect her husband from this onslaught of bad publicity. The fact that he’s clearly having an affair with Amelia, his ‘secretary/PR person/assistant’ (played by Kim Cattrall, finally in a role where I can watch & enjoy her again!) just seems to add to Ruth’s boredom factor.
The secrecy surrounding the manuscript that the drowned writer created isn’t revealed until the final scene, though McGregor searches thru the book for clues every time he’s allowed to view it.
Tom Wilkinson graces the screen with his formidable acting prowess as a prominent businessman with a link to Adam’s pre-political past. As the replacement ghost writer discovers Wilkinson’s Paul Emmett was the last person the original ghost writer met with before his untimely demise, he realizes his life is in danger without having much of a clue as to why...
“The Ghost Writer” builds its momentum slowly (Ala Hitchcock) to the point where every suspicious car on the road & every knock on a door has you wondering if McGregor’s writer will ever get out of this assignment alive.
If I had one thing to complain about with this film, it would be McGregor himself; he’s a somewhat blasé actor in my opinion – he is overwhelmed by Brosnan in almost every scene they appear in together - & no, it isn’t because Brosnan’s playing a bigger than life Prime Minister & McGregor a lowly ghost writer; Brosnan clearly has an onscreen presence (when not singing Abba songs) that McGregor lacks. Fortunately, the storyline and the way it develops are intriguing enough so that a weak actor doesn’t spoil the show.
The Ghost Writer joins Shutter Island & Edge Of Darkness as the clear cut 3 best films of 2010 so far.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND

“ALICE IN WONDERLAND” (Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter & Anne Hathaway)

I wasn’t planning on seeing this movie; I had little interest in yet another remake of a story that I never cared for in the first place. But we were in an area with only one theatre, the weather was lousy & the other choice was ‘Cop Out’. . . Enough said.
The only reason I decided to check out Tim Burton’s latest ‘fantasy’ flick was due to Grace Slick’s “White Rabbit” – I literally rolled the lyrics thru my mind as each character from the song was shown onscreen... There’s the hookah smoking caterpillar... There’s the dormouse – Wonder if she’s going to say “Feed your head”?... Okay, how did they get Helena Bonham Carter’s head to fit on that tiny body while interacting with ‘normal’ sized actors, that’s pretty impressive & woo-hoo, she said it, “Off with her head!”
So visually, it was fun to watch, but if it wasn’t for the song, I wouldn’t have thought much of the plot or the acting; Carter was clearly the ‘queen’ of the cast.
I’m sorry if this comes across as sexist, but Mia Wasikowska was a poor choice to play Alice because of her rather plain looks – she seemed much too ‘boyish’ to me. Even though I understood that this was Alice’s second trip to ‘Underland’, she seemed bored with everything that took place.
Sorry, Johnny Depp fans, but other than his large, hue changing eyes, Depp brought very little to the table from an acting standpoint. His Mad Hatter came across as a gay cartoon character as he hammed it up like a bad actor with a lisp.
Anne Hathaway’s White Queen was so badly over-acted, it was embarrassing to watch.
Carter, however, appeared to be having a ball playing the evil Red Queen – she is the lone savior among the ‘human’ cast members.
What made the film worth watching though were the creatures; the rabbits, dogs & cats, etc. It clearly would have been a better film if everyone except the Red Queen were created totally via computer graphics.
At times exceedingly childish and confusing (Let’s be honest, this world was created by someone who had taken more acid trips than all 4 Beatles combined) the ‘Alice In Wonderland’ saga has always been a little too far out in left field for me... Maybe it’s a ‘guy’ thing – I wouldn’t buy a boy taking on a giant dragon armed only with a shield & sword, why would I believe a girl could do it? So you already know the story & you know what happens – is there any real reason to sit thru another re-telling of this weird fairy tale? Only if, like me, you get a kick out of talking rabbits & dogs – otherwise, you’re only going to be cringing at the awful acting by 90% of the cast.

AN EDUCATION

“AN EDUCATION” (Carey Mulligan & Peter Sarsgaard)

This film made me think – What is acceptable pedophilia? The answer could be this movie because, despite the fact that it concerns a man well into his thirties seducing a 16 year old student, I wasn’t as disgusted by it as I expected I might. It helped that Jenny, the student, was played by actress Carey Mulligan; although she has a very youthful appearance, there were crinkles in her face and other signs that she wasn’t nearly as young as the character she was portraying.
Peter Sarsgaard plays David, the creepy older guy that charms Jenny’s father (Alfred Molina) into allowing him to date his teenaged daughter – Making ‘dad’ almost as creepy as David. I liked this film even though I found most of the characters to be rather bland; it is Mulligan’s performance that kept it interesting.
Jenny is an excellent student whose main drive is to be accepted into Oxford. She has a classmate, Graham, who is infatuated with her but exceptionally shy & much too ‘simple’ for Jenny to take seriously as boyfriend material. Being afflicted with acute shyness myself, I related to Graham – Yet at the same time, I knew he was way out of Jenny’s league & that he should have set his sights on one of Jenny’s girlfriends.
David spies Jenny waiting for a ride during a downpour & worms his way into becoming an acceptable stranger by offering to give her cello a ride, since she should never get into a car with a complete stranger. “How do I know you won’t drive off with my cello?” Jenny asks, so David gives her enough money to cover the cost of the instrument should he decide to dash off with it.
David offers to show Jenny a world she thought unattainable for a girl her age and is even successful into conning her parents into allowing to take her for an entire weekend. They make David a little less creepy by having him accept the fact that Jenny wants to remain a virgin until her 17th birthday (& when that day finally comes, he blows it by using the old ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ gag of the banana in the tailpipe routine)
Even though David is much more ‘worldly’ than Jenny, it is made clear that she is the more mature of the two – Another reason the ‘creepy’ aspect was palatable; she acted like someone much older than her age while he was somewhat immature (When he wants to use childish nicknames for one another, she tells him she’d rather not)
Her new lifestyle leads to her grades falling & her hopes of getting into Oxford dim.
So she faces the dilemma of ‘Do I need an education if David is going to take care of me for the rest of my life?’
Eventually Jenny turns to her favorite teacher, who is not without her ‘creepy’ side as you get the strong feeling that she also has a crush on her ex-student.
Despite having all these ‘older’ suitors (David’s best friend/business partner also undresses Jenny with his eyes) Jenny somehow manages to stay innocent enough to make you hope she comes through this ordeal unscathed. Normally I avoid Older man/much younger woman stories, but this one, along with the excellent “Crazy Heart” are making me re-think my position that they should be banned for promoting child abuse.
A nice little film, well acted (Sarsgaard displays a very subtle British accent that works, if you’ll pardon the expression, like a ‘charm’) but does it belong among the 10 best of the year? No, not when you consider the much more entertaining ‘Crazy Heart’ wasn’t nominated. Still, I’m glad I saw it so I can say that Carey Mulligan definitely deserved to be nominated for Best Actress.