Reviews by lotr23

Observe and Report has about four or five truly funny moments in its short 86-minute running time. Now, if the scenes in between those four or five moments weren't so terribly off in terms of tone and coherence, I'd gladly give the film a positive review, citing those four or five amusing instances as well worth paying to go see the film. This is a film that tries way too hard to have its humor be as black as possible, and in doing so, it fails considerably, never even coming close to Borat-caliber satire (though the upside to this is that the general mediocrity of Observe and Report makes me look forward to Bruno even more - I doubt Sacha Baron Cohen will let us down).

Seth Rogen deserves credit for holding his own despite the fact that the script gives him a thoroughly unlikable protagonist to work with, and it'd be hard to argue that the reason why he comes off unscathed isn't because he's proven himself to be an excellent comedic actor in so many other projects. The remainder of the cast isn't so lucky: Anna Faris is usually very effective with her over-the-top shtick, but she can't do much to save the truly detestable character she plays, and supporting performances by Ray Liotta and Michael Pena are equally unimpressive.

What's worse is that those four or five amusing moments that the film does have are all pretty much scattered within the first half of the film, which means that we're forced to deal with a yawn-inducing second half in which the film makes its worst misstep: it tries to mock action/superhero films in which the main character suddenly becomes really badass and we start hearing determined voiceovers ("I know what I must become," yada-yada-yada) by having Rogen's character do the same sort of thing, yet it's handled very poorly, not managing to elicit a single chuckle. I think that the problem is that, ultimately, when you're going to satirize something, you need to have a really clear approach and your arrows have to be pretty sharp, so a movie that has such a weird tone, that is so awkwardly paced, and that never makes it very clear who or what is being satirized, is bound to fail in this department. Unfortunately, there's not much comedic quality to report here.

Though it doesn't happen very often, every once in a while a delightfully great movie shows up in multiplexes at a surprisingly early moment in the year (in this case, the usually mediocre month of April). Adventureland defies all of the expectations one has of the average "summer romance" movie, and in doing so, gives its audience an incredible gift: a sharp, honest and realistic drama of the highest caliber, backed by pitch-perfect performances across the board. Two years ago, director Greg Mottola achieved comedic greatness with Superbad, and surprise of surprises, he's now achieved equal greatness in the genre of drama (which is, indeed, the label that applies to Adventureland, regardless of what the trailers lead you to believe, but more on that later). This is a supremely deft exploration of the doldrums of post-college life, and at the same time, it's a wonderfully insightful look at the cracks that often fracture romantic relationships.

It's a few hours after he's finished a pivotal stage of his life: James (Jesse Eisenberg) just got out of his college graduation, and he's enjoying a celebration lunch with his parents. His scholastic range is far from limited. Though it's obvious that the written word is what he's most passionate about, seeing as he majored in Comparative Literature/Renaissance Studies and aspires to be a travel essayist, we also learn that he got a 770 in the Math section of his SATs, and that he's meticulously calculated the costs of the trip to Europe that he plans to enjoy as his graduation present. Too bad that his father just got demoted and that not only will he be unable to afford the trip, but he'll have to stay home for the summer and get a job before heading to graduate school in Columbia in the fall. When his parents break this news to him, the absent-minded James doesn't initially "get" the concept that he won't be able to do what he had planned for so long, but he soon finds himself having to accept the situation. The film moves through these early scenes quickly, and soon has James getting a job at the titular amusement park, thus marking the beginning of an unforgettable summer for him, an experience that is every bit as surprisingly exciting and heart-wrenching for him as it is for the viewer to watch.

The main focus of Adventureland is on the flaws that tend to afflict relationships, the aspects that can make them unhealthy, and ultimately, the glimmers of hope that they may be able to work in spite of everything not being 100% cutesy and perfect. The film works enormously well because of its ability to portray this through a cliche-free approach that doesn't feel the need to wrap everything up into a neat little package. James meets fellow Adventureland employee Em (Kristen Stewart), and we sense immediate chemistry and a clear attraction on both parts. The awkwardness of their initial courtship is handled flawlessly, from their very first conversation to the first time they kiss. But there are obstacles here. James is a virgin, and his over-educated self refers to the act of sex as "intercourse," while Em seems to be quite experienced (and she uses the term "fucking" instead). Things get even more complicated when we discover that Em is having a worse-than-unhealthy, strictly carnal relationship with Connell (Ryan Reynolds), who is the maintenance guy at the park, and happens to be married. In addition to that, Adventureland's resident bombshell Lisa (Margarita Levieva) takes an interest in James: "I wouldn't mind dating a nice guy for a change," she says, and the other guys who work at the park tell James that he's an idiot if he doesn't go for it, even though it's quite clear where his heart is.

I know what you're thinking. The above description of the love triangle (or "love square," I guess) that unfolds throughout the movie makes it seem as though Adventureland is entirely conventional, and you probably think you know exactly what's going to happen. I admit that, as I was watching it, I was fearfully waiting for the first contrivance to emerge and for it to go downhill from there. As a more than pleasant surprise, not only does that never happen, but the movie goes in the opposite direction of what we'd normally expect. Everything about Adventureland sets it up to being vulnerable to fall into tons of traps that most films fall into, but Mottola never allows this to happen. The plot set-up would make one expect Em to get pissed at James as soon as she finds out about his involvement with Lisa, but in a masterfully written, truly great scene, where James goes to the house where Em and Connell have their encounters, the film takes a path that is so much more accurate in terms of portraying how these situations unfold in real life - it's a heart-breaking scene, to be sure, but at the same time, it's so refreshing to see something like this handled with oodles of honesty.

Em is a deeply flawed character, but so compelling and easy to like, and it's not hard to understand why James falls for her. Her mother passed away two years ago, and she now has a stepmother who wears what Em describes as "an unholy abomination" of a wig (I started loving Em as soon as she said this, and the scene towards the end involving the wig, despite its dramatic intensity, is hilarious). Though one may assume from the early scenes that James is this self-absorbed intellectual who'll be impossible to sympathize with, the movie does such an excellent job at portraying both his charms and his weaknesses, that it's impossible not to fall in love with him just as much. This is a wonderful, off-beat pair of lovebirds.

Restraint is crucial in films like Adventureland, and it's the lack of it that makes so many films of its ilk falter miserably, yet it's evident in literally every scene in this film. There are things that could have ruined the movie had they been overdone. There's a running joke involving James' childhood friend Frigo (Matt Bush) punching James in the balls whenever he gets the chance, and this had every opportunity to become a lame gag, but instead, the film employs it as a way of conveying the shittiness of the protagonist's situation. After an instance of it, Em asks "What the hell was that?" and a resigned James responds "It's just my life." Mottola goes even further in avoiding mediocrity, though: because of this running joke, Frigo seems to have the potential to be that lone annoying character who ruins an otherwise great film, but as the movie's events unfold, he becomes more of a charming jokester, and one we can actually like. Another example of the wise sense of restraint exhibited in the film involves the presence of Bobby and Paulette (Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig), the unorthodox employers of James, who could've easily been bothersome caricatures, but their comedic influence on the plot is handled in a perfectly subtle way that makes the characters never lose authenticity.

However, the best example of the amazing subtleness employed by Mottola comes across during the climax of Adventureland, which is nothing short of terrific. For all the greatness that came before it, if a single false note had been hit during the final minutes of the film, everything would've come crashing down, but this is a conclusion that is handled in a mind-blowingly expert way. Nothing is said or shown that we don't need to hear or see, and the film doesn't once falter from staying true to the personas of its two lead characters as it draws to a close, and the credits start rolling precisely when they need to. It's difficult to discuss this without going into spoiler territory, but suffice it to say that the ending is not only both delightfully rendered and entirely realistic in terms of the context of the plot, but it's also honest in terms of the way two normal 22-year-olds would act in a situation like this. There's nothing overly romantic or corny here, and the passion is searingly palpable without being overblown - it's simply brilliant.

There's no other way to put it: Jesse Eisenberg gives an astoundingly great performance in Adventureland. James could've so easily been an annoying intellectual or a generic, angst-filled twenty-something, yet Eisenberg avoids this at all costs. As good as he was in Roger Dodger and The Squid and the Whale, his work here is far superior. Watch every eye movement, particularly in the tougher, more awkward moments that James faces, and notice how dead-on he is. Kristen Stewart has never failed to impress, particularly in largely unseen films like Fierce People and In the Land of Women, and she managed the insurmountable task of holding her own and coming away unscathed from a project as mediocre as Twilight. She's clearly a master at portraying emotional weakness and vulnerability, and her turn in Adventureland is no exception. Kristen Wiig always cracks me up when she does her reticent, awkward shtick, which she happily brings to this film, and Bill Hader is particularly hilarious in a scene involving a baseball bat that needs to be enjoyed for its undeniable uproariousness. Margarita Levieva was great in the underrated The Invisible, and here, her acting matches the film's unconventional tone, as she avoids playing an empty, bitchy bombshell, and gives us an entirely three-dimensional character. The thing that worried me most about the cast, prior to watching the film, was the presence of Ryan Reynolds. Last year's Definitely, Maybe was good, but could've been great had he not been miscast as the lead. Put simply, his acting has always annoyed me... until now. I thought the film was in trouble because, based on who his character was, it seemed obvious that he was simply going to be a generic, annoying jerk, but of course, "generic" is clearly not a word we can use to describe Mottola's cinematic work. Surprising as it sounds, Reynolds is extremely good, as the over-confident (yet clearly troubled) Connell. Maybe he should stick to drama instead of comedy because his dramatic acting in Adventureland is indicative of heaps of potential.

I don't have a single bad thing to say about this miracle of a movie. But I do have something that I absolutely need to complain about. The advertising for Adventureland has been nothing short of atrocious. The trailer is terrible, terrible, terrible. It highlights certain moments to make the movie seem like this dumb, gag-filled comedy, and then they have the announcer say "From the director of Superbad..." As a result of this, the comment of "Eh, it wasn't as funny as Superbad" has been heard from several people who have seen it. This is a mistake. It's an understandable mistake because the trailers deceived them, but it is a mistake because Adventureland is NOT a comedy. It's a drama, and a truly great one. It is NOT comparable to Superbad because they fall into different genres, despite coming from the same director. Also, don't forget that, even though Mottola directed Superbad, the screenplay for that film was not written by him, but by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen (who then continued displaying their proficiency in comedic script-writing last year with Pineapple Express). In the case of Adventureland, though, Mottola both directed and wrote it. To be blunt, they were completely off-base in the advertising, and the strategy didn't give them any profitable results either, as Adventureland hasn't done well at all at the box office, unfortunately. Then again, this gem of a movie is probably the type that will appeal to a smaller group of people who will hopefully discover it when it comes out on DVD.

Adventureland is a treasure. It's fantastically endearing, insightful and quirky, and at the same time, it's entirely fearless in its rejection of standard romantic movie conventions. As a result of that, it's a thousand times more reflective of actual life than most of the fluffy and/or contrived junk that gets dumped in multiplexes, particularly at this time of the year. Some may argue that they don't go to the movie theater to witness real life, but rather, to escape from it. My answer to that is that, as understandable as that feeling is, and as much as I often feel that way as well, what's more refreshing is to get an authentic slice of life that also happens to be deeply moving and even reminiscent of things one has actually experienced, even if some of those things bring painful memories. It's because of its huge success at that, and because of its magnificent script and stellar performances, that Adventureland represents a great movie-watching experience that I can't wait to enjoy a second time.

Initially, this looks like something we've seen before. The set-up of Donkey Punch indicates that this is gonna be a standard DTM (which is short for "Dead Teenager Movie," a very convenient term that was coined by Roger Ebert, and that I'll happily steal for use in this review, even though the characters are in their 20s). Three girls are on holiday and they meet three guys who ask them to come away with them and join them on their boat. All six of them are very attractive, almost disgustingly so. Of the three girls, two are pretty wild and seem to want to go with the flow of things, while the third one is more guarded, less slutty, and seems somewhat skeptical of the idea of just getting on a boat with these guys. Right here, those of us who've seen too many of these movies will predict that this will be the final surviving girl, and that everyone else will get picked off by a psychotic murderer in intensely gory scenes. To be fair, this prediction partly holds true for what happens in Donkey Punch, but a great deal of the film is surprisingly unconventional, with well-developed characters and a highly commendable restraint when it comes to the blood/gore aspect that so many of these films overdo.

Those who look up the meaning of the film's title will probably either be perversely curious to see the movie, or they'll want to stay away from it, fearing that it'll be a disgustingly exploitative cinematic experience. Thankfully, I didn't look it up prior to watching it, and had no idea what a donkey punch was until a character first defines it in one of the early scenes. I won't define it here, but I'd just like to say that it really shouldn't be something that dissuades people from watching the film. The titular act is simply one event in the early parts of the film that propels this solid, intriguing and entertaining thriller into everything that follows that event.

Donkey Punch isn't about a psychotic killer who picks off each of these characters, and thank God it isn't. In fact, the film itself doesn't even have an actual villain. These characters make huge mistakes (often fatal ones, to be sure), but they act out of desperation and in protection of their survival. No, one of the guys doesn't have a secret plan to drug the girls and then rape and kill them. The reason why things take a turn for the worse is because one character does something haphazardly, without thinking, in a moment of euphoria, and that act immediately brings calamitous results. The many glimmers of brilliance in Donkey Punch come after someone has committed a heinous act and he/she tries to justify that what he/she did wasn't wrong. None of these characters is evil; they're just in a desperate situation that has gone out of their control, and this makes it easier for us to feel for these people, who are not caricatures, as is so often the case in the DTM.

To make things even better, in addition to this level of complexity offered by Donkey Punch that so many films of the genre lack, the deaths are staged in a nicely unconventional way (there's more than one instance in which something happens suddenly, and a reaction by viewers of "What?! I didn't expect that to happen" is certainly not unwarranted). But even better is the filmmakers' decision to not spill buckets of blood and guts; we see just the right amount of it. Heck, there's a scene that involves some torturous knife-twisting action that I thought would probably lead to us having to see loads of blood everywhere, but instead, the scene focuses on the dialogue and the action between the characters involved in that scene, which features a brilliant moment (reminiscent of Tantalus' story) in which a character tempts another by placing the desired item close to him and then taking it away. If only most thrillers weren't so intellectually-challenged and had the wits to give us more stuff like this.

Many will argue that Josh (Julian Morris) is the unquestionable villain because of his participation in the initial event that propels everything else that happens and because of several other things he does throughout the film, but that's looking at things too simply. All of these characters do something evil at some point as a result of the panic they're in. Julian Morris happens to have the toughest role in the movie, and he manages to be both wickedly calculating and desperately traumatized, depending on the situation his character faces. He's devilishly awesome when explaining why they'll be better off in international waters because they won't be prosecuted, just as he's easy to sympathize with when we realize that he's actually just a good, shy guy who's gotten himself into a terrible mess (it should also be noted that Morris is like a cross between actors Bryan Greenberg and Matthew Goode, except he's actually hotter than both of them, which is a plus). The other noteworthy performance is given by Nichola Burley, as Tammi, the girl who initially seems like the goody two-shoes who will survive till the end, though as it turns out, she's not more good nor more evil than any of the other characters in the film. Tom Burke, on the other hand, is a bit too cartoonish in portraying the "tough guy" persona of his character, who has the odd name Bluey. The rest of the cast is relatively okay.

I should warn that I watched the unrated version of Donkey Punch (because it's the one that was available at the video store), which is why I actually expected it to possibly be even more gory than whatever people saw in theaters, and was pleasantly surprised to witness the restraint that was used. I've yet to mention the orgy scene, which is, as you'll probably predict, the scene in which everything ends up going terribly wrong. The actors here are pretty fearless, and director Oliver Blackburn deserves credit for not making this scene feel like a bit of soft-core porn; instead, it looks just about as real as something like this can be depicted on a film, even if there are some awkward editing transitions (especially leading up to the, um, big moment).

The biggest negative to be pointed out about Donkey Punch is something that nearly ruined the experience for me, and it's the way the final few minutes are handled, in particular the last two deaths that occur. The first of these two is a solid attempt by the filmmakers to portray the consequences of shock and guilt, but the way it unfolds isn't particularly believable. Even less believable, though, is the very last death, which happens way too easily, and seems almost like a way of cheating in order to rush and have the credits roll. Disappointing a conclusion as this is, it's impossible to ignore the surprisingly nuanced and unconventional way in which so much that came before it was handled. As thrillers and DTMs go, Donkey Punch is above the mostly mediocre fare that those genres give us, and it looks like a sign of good things to come from Blackburn, who made his directorial debut here. He's given us a gripping and surprisingly intelligent movie.

One of the first scenes of The Escapist shows us the group of inmates who are about to break out of the prison they're being held in, and it then pauses with a shot on each of these inmates to reveal the length of the sentence each of them is serving. This scene is deceptive because it promises a few things that aren't delivered over the course of the film's running time. It promises solid character development for each of these individuals, and it also promises a set of suspenseful break-out scenes.

The first segment of The Escapist is handled poorly, with bad editing transitions from one character to another without enough exposition in terms of who each person is. Thankfully, we soon get enough development on our main character, Frank Perry (Brian Cox) and on his cell mate, Lacey (Dominic Cooper), so that's a credit to the film, even if it still doesn't develop the other supporting characters decently enough.

The film intercuts between scenes of the break-out and scenes of these characters lives while imprisoned and of their plan to escape. The curious thing here is that the latter scenes are far more interesting than the former ones. The break-out scenes are lacking in suspense and don't really gain any momentum until the very end of the film, so all they do is distract from the scenes that depict the day-to-day life in jail, which are handled very well and are also surprisingly realistic.

Frank has decided he needs to escape from prison because he has found out that his daughter is a junkie who recently had an overdose episode which was nearly fatal. This is a nice twist in the sense that it will make the audience sympathize with the main character, as he's not your average prisoner who wants to escape merely for selfish reasons. However, the fatal flaw here is that the topic of Franks' concern for his daughter is hardly fleshed-out during the film, and it's not until the climax begins that we're reminded of it, in the film's most dramatically effective scene (which features a prison visit in which no words are exchanged because they're simply not necessary). As great as this scene is, it seems wrong that the filmmakers waited so long to have this issue resurface. This is also the point at which the intensity of the break-out scenes finally picks up (with a suspenseful sequence involving a train), but this also feels like too little too late.

Throughout the movie, one of the things I was worried about was that, in choosing to intercut the break-out scenes with everything that happened prior to the break-out, the filmmakers let us know which inmates made it out and which ones didn't. This is particularly problematic in the fact that there's a moment that we think Frank's roommate Lacey will be killed by top bad guy Rizza (Damian Lewis), but then we remember that Lacey is one of the guys in the group that's escaping, so it reveals from the very beginning that he couldn't have been killed. Of course, the film's big twist at the end puts a spin on this, as it's one of those twists that turns everything on its head. As much as the surprise element that this brings is effective, the filmmakers choose to go for the much overused technique of running through several scenes we had seen throughout the film and explaining what was real and what was imagined. This is a technique that is hardly ever performed effectively when it's employed in movies, and The Escapist definitely doesn't represent one of the few exceptions in terms of this.

Brian Cox is a great veteran actor with a heck of a lot of range. He can go from playing the deliciously evil Agamemnon in Troy to a thoroughly magnanimous character in Match Point. He does what he can with his title role in The Escapist, even though he doesn't get nearly as much room to shine as an actor of his caliber should. The strongest performance is given by the handsome Dominic Cooper who's a perfect embodiment of fear and trauma, thanks to the fact that his character is the one with the strongest arc in the film. Last year, I was somewhat disappointed with Cooper, who got a thankless role in the terrible Mamma Mia! and an underdeveloped character in The Duchess, but here, we're able to get a much better gander of his talent. Another noteworthy performance is that of Steven Mackintosh as Tony, an awesomely slimy villain, and a great representation of how ruinous life in prison can be.

The final twist will be hailed by many as a brilliant way of blindsiding the audience and as an ingenious way of providing a double meaning to the film's ostensibly simple title. But that's giving too much credit to a movie that is really more deceptive for the sake of being deceptive rather than to impart some sort of emotional insight in its final moments. The break-out scenes are too dull and generic to make the movie feel like a simple-minded, fun caper, and the dramatic moments aren't strong enough at all to make this comparable to something like The Shawshank Redemption, which is a vastly superior film.

Joe Wright's Atonement caught me completely off guard. Even though I had high expectations for this, I wasn't necessarily expecting to be surprised by anything, because I felt like the trailer was very telling of what was gonna happen in this film. It SEEMED like we would get a SHORT first part in which the events that led to the arrest of Robbie (James McAvoy) would unfold quickly, and that the movie would then focus largely on the war scenes - I really thought this was just gonna be one of those standard, Oscar-bait war love stories. I don't mean to suggest that the movie isn't Oscar bait, because it certainly is and everyone knows it, but it's far different than what I thought. Instead of focusing on those conventions, Atonement stays devoted to its title by focusing strictly on Briony's desire to redeem herself for what she did. Although Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai and Vanessa Redgrave are getting supporting billing for their work, Briony becomes the center of the tale told in this cinematic masterpiece.

As I said, I expected the first act of Atonement to be shorter. The trailer simply made me think that Robbie's arrest was something that they took care of quickly in order to move the plot along. Thank God that wasn't the case, because if it had been I might have felt a lot differently about Atonement. This first act is... for some reason, "delicious" is the only word that comes to mind. Deliciously engrossing, with perfect acting, amazing scenery, a relentlessly great score (who would've known that the often boring and perhaps even annoying sound of a typewriter could be so effective cinematically?). This is a first act that, handled even SLIGHTLY differently, could've gone TERRIBLY wrong because there's actually a lot of room here for things to feel contrived: 1) Briony's misinterpretation of what happens in front of the fountain, 2) Robbie leaving his room with the wrong letter, 3) Briony catching Robbie and Cecilia (Keira Knightley) in the study, 4) Briony discovering Lola (Juno Temple) being raped, enabling her to falsely accuse Robbie of that crime. It all seems too convenient and movie-contrived, doesn't it? It is all handled SO well, though, that it is more than believable, and you'll understand why when you see it.

The only argument I could see someone making against Atonement is that the second act isn't as amazingly great as the first one, but that's definitely NOT to say that it isn't masterful filmmaking, because it still is. I mentioned this before, but I'll note again the fact that the film doesn't focus that much on the war aspects, or at least not as much as the trailer leads you to believe. I find no reason for people to object to this, though - seriously, how many movies have depicted events of World War II? Did you really need this one to show you more of what you've already seen handled masterfully in other films? Atonement isn't about World War II; it's about Briony's efforts to atone (and the title should be enough to help people understand that). Even with THAT said, though, the images of the war that Atonement DOES give us are nothing short of amazing. There is a long tracking shot that a lot of people are already talking about, and that I can imagine will be talked about even more as more people see the movie. I'll say nothing about it, because it's plain and simply something you have to see to witness its greatness, but I'll just state that it is easily the best collaboration of acting, camerawork and directing we've seen in a single shot all year. In addition to that, despite its efforts to not focus largely on the war, Atonement is damn relentless in portraying the bloody, gruesome face of battle. There is an astoundingly heartbreaking scene in which Robbie is standing and the camera begins zooming out to reveal a massive amount of dead children. Also, when Briony is working as a nurse and wounded soldiers arrive, we are exposed to some severely gut-wrenching images that'll make many want to look away.

After the two acts comes the epilogue, which I will obviously say very little about. In a lot of cases, a final payoff or climax can help a movie that would've just been very good turn into a great film. Atonement wasn't in need of something amazing at the end to keep its status as a perfect piece of cinema, but it gives it to us, anyway. The epilogue reveals even more about Briony's demons and what she dealt with throughout her life as a result of her actions. If the Academy was willing to give William Hurt a Best Supporting Actor nomination for appearing in the final few minutes of A History of Violence, I don't see why Vanessa Redgrave shouldn't be recognized for what she does here. The avalanche of emotions that comes as a result of everything that is said in the epilogue of Atonement is almost too much to take, sure to make most people in the audience cry, as it did in the theater I sat in.

Thank God that Briony is handled so perfectly by the three actresses who play her. Yes, it's a love story, and yes, it's a war story, and both of those aspects of the film ARE handled perfectly, but as I said, they take secondary importance, as it truly is all about Briony, and that's exactly what makes Atonement different from AND superior to even many of the great love/war films we've seen to date. I feel like I should've mentioned this before, but I'd like to say now that, not only do James McAvoy and Keira Knightley give relentlessly perfect performances, but they also make for an extremely appealing pair of ill-fated lovers, and I'm not simply referring to their looks - I'm talking about the flair between them, in the early scenes when their physical and emotional attraction blossoms so genuinely, and then when they meet again 5 years later, and both display their angst and want for each other despite the time that's passed, and it's all done so candidly that, for a moment, it made me become intensely irritated at the realization of the absolute garbage that most movies bring us in depicting love. Cecilia and Robbie radiate incessant and palpable chemistry.

The thing I'm most intrigued by, in terms of people debating this movie, will be what is said about how people feel about Briony. Try to picture yourself at 13, and REALLY think about whether or not this isn't something you COULD have done, horrible a thing as it was. So many things are warped at that age in one's mind, and you don't have many complications in your life (especially if you're upper-class like the Tallis family), and when you have a crush on someone at that age, it can consume your thoughts. Just think back to middle school/high school. There is a scene in Atonement in which a reference is made to the fact that, since only five years passed between the two acts, it might be unreasonable for Briony to feel like she was "too young" and for her to now ask for forgiveness. The question is posed bluntly (even though I'm paraphrasing here): "Back then you didn't know what was right, but now you do?! How old do you have to be to differentiate between right and wrong?!" There's far more to this scene than initially meets the eye, so I won't reveal more about it, but I thought it was something worthy of pointing out. Can she really be blamed? I'd say definitely yes, but is it something that vile that you could never forgive, especially since at her age she couldn't have known that what she did would have the bitter effect it had on the future of three people, including hers?

I never exaggerate when it comes to movies, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that Atonement is monumentally amazing.

When it comes to spy thrillers, there's a divide among moviegoers: some prefer the action-packed, guns-a-blazin', brainless movie (which we see a lot of, probably because this is the kind most people prefer, hence more box office money), and then you have the usually smarter, dialogue-based movie, in which the twists and turns come more as a result of characters bluffing and double-bluffing one another, and the weapons used are words rather than guns. I can easily deal with watching the former type of film as long as it doesn't insult my brain, but my preference decisively falls towards the latter choice, which is why I heartily welcome something as fun and complex as Duplicity.

That's not to say that there aren't any bad movies in the realm of the cerebral film. For instance, both Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen were fairly mediocre; neither was saved by its great starpower, and neither could match the awesomely crisp sense of fun that we got from the first film in that franchise. The reason why they weren't good is because they were much more complicated than they needed to be and the way the scenes were edited was annoying as all heck. Duplicity is getting similar criticism, but I don't feel it's warranted. I didn't find it hard to follow at all; it's simply the type of movie that rewards people who pay attention (which, then again, anyone with a short attention span shouldn't be watching it in the first place). The flashback sequences don't really confound the plot or distract from the action; instead, they slowly reveal a good deal of background on our two main characters, and the editors have incorporated them well into the rest of the picture.

Duplicity is one of those rare experiences: a movie that is over 2 hours long that held my attention for its entire running time. The banter here is just too good. While one can complain that the movie does have plot holes, and that Tom Wilkinson isn't used nearly as well as he was in Tony Gilroy's last film (Michael Clayton), there's no denying that there's much entertainment to be found here for those who prefer this type of film. And if this isn't your cup of tea, then just go watch 12 Rounds, I guess. Oh, and...


*SPOILER WARNING*


I have to admit I really liked the twist ending. Sure, I sort of predicted that Wilkinson's character wasn't as clueless as he seemed about what was going on, because of the fact that we didn't see as much of him in private talks with others as we saw of his corporate-arch rival, but overall, I thought the denouement was unexpected, especially because the film seemed to be setting things up so that one of the two main characters would pull the rug from underneath the other at the end. Instead, they were both played jointly, making for a great final zoom-out scene, with Clive Owen and Julia Roberts looking thoroughly perplexed, yet fascinated, which is pretty much the way many will probably feel about the film as a whole.

And I thought they would never be able to come up with more above-average "bromantic" comedies after last year's Pineapple Express.

While Judd Apatow's name is nowhere to be found on the list of credits for I Love You, Man, many will recognize the fact that John Hamburg is clearly aiming for a similar brand of comedy in his latest cinematic offering, which features a seamless mix of sweetness and raunchiness. The only difference, which many will appreciate, is that I Love You, Man stays well under the 2-hour mark. However, since this film is pretty much laugh-out-loud funny from beginning to end, the extra 20 minutes probably wouldn't have hurt it in the least bit (in fact, the short bits of the wedding reception that we see while the credits are rolling make us wish we had actually gotten to see more of it, and that's nothing but a compliment to this wonderfully amusing movie).

Peter (Paul Rudd) is a real estate agent who doesn't have any guy friends at all, and has recently focused most of his social life on his girlfriend Zooey (Rashida Jones). Peter's seemingly strange social life isn't really that unorthodox or a contrivance on the film's part; plenty of guys out there have similar situations, and don't have a "group of dudes" that they hang out with. Upon getting engaged to Zooey, Peter finds that he needs a best man, and he becomes even more aware of this as he secretly listens in on a girls' conversation between Zooey and her group of friends, in which they talk about his lack of male friends (a great scene, with perfect comedic timing and dead-on awkwardness). So, in an effort to remedy this, Peter goes on a series of man-dates, all of which are every bit as disastrously bad and embarrassing for Peter as they are delightfully hilarious for the audience to watch. Having no success, Peter has a chance encounter with Sydney (Jason Segel), while trying to sell the house of real-life actor Lou Ferigno (who actually plays himself in the film, and has more than just a cameo). Sydney appears to be both sweet and creepy at the same time (something that few actors, Jason Segel obviously being one of them, can pull off so well), but the two guys hit it off, and yes, this marks the start of their, um, "bromantic" relationship.

The fact that I Love You, Man is very good is entirely due to Paul Rudd and Jason Segel. One thing I was very scared of prior to watching it was that the movie would simply take standard conventions from other romantic comedies we've seen and simply apply them to this movie with the twist of it being two guy friends instead of a male/female relationship, which would've felt uninventive, but this is far from the case, thanks to the absolute hilarity of the dialogue these two share. The very funniest moments of the film are whenever Sydney says something that is clearly witty/cool and then Peter tries to reply with an equally witty/cool remark and fumbles miserably. There's no doubt that the filmmakers recognized what a strong comedic point this is because there are tons and tons of instances of it, and not for a second does it get old. This is largely thanks to the fact that this is Rudd's best comedic performance to date: he's uproariously funny. When Peter gets into awkward moments, we die laughing, but we also cringe because we care about him - that's what great humorous acting should achieve. Segel isn't far behind, and he's clearly on a roll after last year's equally funny Forgetting Sarah Marshall. The average mediocre comedy would render Sydney an annoying character whose sole purpose in the movie is to put a strain on the main character's relationship with his girlfriend, but this isn't the case with the great way in which Segel plays him, which recalls the actor's excellent comedic work years ago on the TV show Freaks & Geeks.

I guess another (unfortunate) difference between what we normally get from Apatow's movies and the material in I Love You, Man is that while Apatow's films normally boast a great supporting cast that is often even better than the leads (as was the case in Knocked Up), this film's supporting cast does little to buttress the comedy. Zooey's two main friends, Hailey and Denise, are played by Sarah Burns and Jaime Pressly respectively, and neither does much for the movie. They seem to try for a subplot involving Hailey and Sydney getting together, which doesn't go anywhere, but nothing much that's funny happens in the attempt to go somewhere, and as for Denise, the film does have a subplot involving her relationship with husband Barry (Jon Favreau), which is that of a bitter couple who fight all the time and then apparently have wild make-up sex, but neither of the two gives a performance that makes their scenes anything special (Favreau, in particular, simply goes for playing an angry, gruff guy, and doesn't get many laughs out of it). What disappointed me more in terms of the supporting cast, though, is that the considerable comedic talents of Andy Samberg and J.K. Simmons (both of whom have had us on the floor laughing in other productions they've been in) are underused in the film, especially J.K. Simmons, who has very little screen time (which both surprised and saddened me). Comedies need at least two or three effective supporting characters who can elicit a solid amount of laughs, and despite the high caliber of Rudd and Segel's work, this is the lacking that keeps I Love You, Man from the realm of greatness.

Still, it's inevitable to rejoice in the fact that the on-screen chemistry of the film's two leads and the script's inventiveness make I Love You, Man the first remarkable movie of 2009, and its best comedy to date. While Pineapple Express remains at the "apex of the vortex" of what we're now calling the "bromantic" comedy, this film is a strong addition to the list. It's also a reminder that even though brainless hacks like Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg keep making "comedies" that somehow are greenlit by film studios, there are still filmmakers out there who know how to bring superb comedic material to the multiplex screen.

Initially, the way-too-nicely titled Sunshine Cleaning appears to be headed in the wrong direction. For its first half, the film doesn't seem to care to develop its characters very well and it seems more interested in moving the plot along, and that's a fatal mistake in most genres, but even moreso in "dramedies"... thankfully, we see a shift right around the halfway point, and the film's characters and their personalities converge decently well with the story to make for a solid remainder of the production's running time. My feeling has always been that if a movie doesn't start out too well but eventually finds its footing, it's a lot more possible that I'll end up liking it as a whole than if the opposite happens (in fact, bad endings have very often ruined what I would've thought would be great movies had they concluded differently).

As sisters Rose and Norah, Amy Adams and Emily Blunt are a fine on-screen pair of siblings who get to explore their relationship once they start working jointly as crime scene cleaners. And yes, the fact that they so randomly take a job like that sounds pretty ridiculous, but the film handles the logistics of how they start on the job and portrays their clumsiness so well (and amusingly) that we totally buy it. While Sunshine Cleaning doesn't represent the best performance given by either of the two (Adams has Junebug and Doubt, while Blunt has The Devil Wears Prada and My Summer of Love), they're still in top form, and it's a delight to watch them here. All you need to add to that is Alan Arkin's grandfatherly charm, which is exactly what we get (and it's foolish to think that this isn't something the filmmakers were thinking of in choosing the first word of the film's awfully alluring title).

The film features a pretty dark subplot with a lot of potential. It involves Norah's interactions with Lynn, who is played by Mary Lynn Rajskub (you might remember her as the pageant assistant in, gasp, Little Miss Sunshine). There's a nice sense of awkwardness in this relationship and there's never a real solid sense of what's going on, which is a good thing, but the problem is that it just ends with the predictable scene in which one of them discovers what the other was hiding and gets pissed off and leaves, and nothing more happens after that in terms of the two of them. Maybe the filmmakers preferred to leave it at that so that they could give us the, um, "sunshiny" conclusion that the film has. Though the film itself offers catharsis, that subplot doesn't, which made for a bit of dissatisfaction on my end, but this is really just a minor complaint.

While Sunshine Cleaning can't even come close to achieving the greatness of the other dramedy it may be trying to reference with its title, with the New Mexico location, and with Alan Arkin's grandfatherly presence, it's still a pleasant enough movie-watching experience, definitely one that should be more easily appreciated on the small screen.

The Great Buck Howard is a perfect example of how it actually is possible to do a good job handling lightweight fare that's aimed mostly at adults. Most films that attempt to do this sink themselves in staleness and predictability, but every once in a while we get a movie that is pleasant and refreshing without insulting its audience's intelligence, and that's exactly what we get here. While not a groundbreaking film, The Great Buck Howard is engrossing from start to finish, and it avoids the pitfalls of corniness and manipulation, which other films of its kind would normally fall into.

Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks and his real-life son Colin Hanks play father and son in the film, though the older actor is in the film for a only a short amount of time, while his son plays Troy Gable, the movie's protagonist. Troy is in law school because that's the path his father wants him to follow, but the poor guy is clearly unhappy; therefore, unlike most people, he decides to do something about it. He literally stands up in the middle of a class, says "I can't do this," and walks out. This leads to Troy finding himself in that frustrating funk that those of us who've just gotten out of school and start looking for a job are all so familiar with. But Troy's job-hunting expedition has a completely unexpected result for him: he goes to an interview for a job as the road manager of mentalist Buck Howard (John Malkovich). Although Buck is relatively well-known and has been on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson 61 times, Troy isn't sure he recognizes him at first, and then eventually he asks: "You're... a magician, right?" Troy is hired, thus marking the start of thoroughly entertaining, dramedy-like scenes that feature the young man's attempts at keeping up with a boss who is way beyond eccentric.

Just like the title character is surprisingly successful at pulling off unbelievable "magic tricks" during his shows, so is director Sean McGinly surprisingly successful at making such a lightweight movie into a solid cinematic offering, and this is mainly a result of the fact that there are two complex elements at work here. One of them comes from the voiceovers of Troy, who narrates throughout the film. The voiceovers aren't merely a storytelling device here, but rather a means for the main character to provide insight on what he learns as he faces the toilsome life-after-college years (my only problem with the voiceover is that Colin Hanks's inflections sometimes make it too obvious that he's narrating what I think should sound like a more realistically-spoken reflection by his character). The other element is that, at some point, we realize that, though the events of the movie focus on the fictional character Buck Howard, they are supposed to reflect the hindrances faced by B-list celebrities in general. As the film shows, the level of fame of those people can go up very easily, and it can just as easily go in the other direction.

Publicist Valerie Brennan (Emily Blunt) enters the film, as the character who handles press matters for Buck. While everyone will predict the romance that blooms between Troy and Valerie, the way that that segment of the plot unfolds isn't exactly what one might expect. Valerie tells Troy that she has a boyfriend, which is only part of the awkwardness that emerges as these two are intimate with each other. There's a particularly good scene in which they're lying in bed talking about where their lives may be headed, and Valerie reminds Troy that "he doesn't have to do anything," which is something that people generally forget all too often. The scene that depicts the climax of the romantic subplot is wonderful in that it doesn't give a definitive answer in terms of whether they'll stay together or not: it leaves room for possibilities, which I think is something that the film wants its audience members to believe in.

Over-the-top performances aren't normally my cup of tea, and there are definitely only a few actors who can pull them off brilliantly. Jack Nicholson and John Malkovich definitely fall into that small group, which is why it's so great that the latter actor is the one playing our title character here. Malkovich gives a wonderful performance, one that will likely be either forgotten or largely unseen, due to the film being so small. As in so many past occasions, he conveys anger, frustration and outrage perfectly, and manages to be both compelling and hilarious at the same time. The movie could've been pretty mediocre with someone without Malkovich's ability playing the mentalist. Colin Hanks has that quality of handsome dorkiness that is perfect for this sort of role, even though his acting is more on the so-so level (one suspects that, despite his looks, he has a long way before attaining a reputation as an actor that matches that of his father). The always good Emily Blunt not only voices a perfect American accent during the film, but she even has American mannerisms down.

I do have one question: why did the filmmakers decide to make it PG? The MPAA made the correct decision in assigning the rating because nothing "strong" enough happens to warrant a PG-13 rating, but what I'm wondering is why nothing "strong" enough happens to warrant it. By making the content PG, they've limited Buck's ability to curse much (which should be an integral element of a character who explodes as often as he does) and it also maintains the romance between Troy and Valerie at a somewhat tame level. I'd be fine with it if the film were aimed at kids, and you may think it's aimed at kids, since it's about a magician of sorts, but there's no doubt that this is an adult motion picture, even if it's a lightweight one. While its title adjective may not be an appropriate epithet for the film itself, The Great Buck Howard is good, thanks to a sense of fun that is bolstered by a decent amount of insight, and to John Malkovich's deliciously grandiose performance.

If one of your loved ones is physically wounded and possibly on the brink of death, and the people responsible for the horrible deed are next door, are you going to make every effort to save your loved one, or are you going to go on a vengeful rampage against those people next door? The answer is logically the former, though it's not the case for the characters in The Last House on the Left. It's up to you whether you want to accept that morally dubious contrivance or not.

The movie is divided into three parts, the first of which depicts the rape and apparent murder of Mari (Sara Paxton) by the film's villains. The second segment, which is definitely the strongest one of the movie, features those villains by chance taking refuge in the house of Mari's parents (Tony Goldwyn and Monica Potter), who initially have no idea of what's happened to their daughter. During the third and last segment, a moribund Mari returns home, and as soon as her parents discover what happened to her and find out that their guests are the ones responsible for it, they go to incredible lengths to exact revenge on the villains.

The worst decision made by the filmmakers is to have that third and final segment be the longest one of the three, as the segment is drenched in all the flaws that afflict most modern horror movies: dumb characters, poorly-realized chase sequences and an amount of blood that leaps and bounds exceeds the amount of scares. I would've liked it if the film's second segment had taken up the most screen time: the irony and the sense of awkwardness as Mari's parents take in their daughter's attackers as guests is palpable, and there's a solid amount of suspense in every moment that we think someone may discover what's going on. Sadly, these scenes occupy a very small amount of the film's running time.

One of the interesting things to note here is that the rape scene, which takes place during the movie's earlier moments, is being described by some as extremely disturbing. Obviously, this is a matter of opinion, and this may be a result of me being somewhat desensitized since I've seen so much worse in other movies, but I'd just like to say that if you think the rape scene in The Last House on the Left is disturbing, God help you if you should ever watch either Gaspar Noe's Irreversible or Tim Roth's The War Zone.

There's no avoiding the fact that as much as The Last House on the Left features a decent amount of suspense during its first segment (and the scene with Mari swimming while being shot at is expertly handled) and a glimmer of brilliance in the middle segment when the parents unwittingly take their daughter's attackers into their home, the film's awfully long climactic segment is worse than mediocre. A feeling of "please let it end already" is not unwarranted. It's quite clear that what the filmmakers were going for here was to elicit cheers from the audience every time that Mari's parents successfully killed off one of the evildoers, and I think that that could have been the case if the revenge-filled scenes were actually tense and showed some sense of creativity in terms of the deaths that take place, but that's not the case at all. Instead, we just get a terribly protacted set of cat-and-mouse sequences that unfold as predictably as possible.

As if these last scenes hadn't already covered every possible horror film cliche, the final moments of the film give us shots of all the dead bodies of those who've been slain during the movie. Every time this happens in a film, I can't help feeling like they're trying too hard, as if they want to remind people of all the awesome gore they saw, in case they forgot: "Oh yeah, wow, all those people got killed! This movie was so cool!" I suppose that must really be the reaction that a lot of audience members have when watching stuff like The Last House on the Left, seeing as films like these keep getting made.