Reviews by lotr23

Kirk (Jay Baruchel) is the not-so-good-looking hero we root for in SHE'S OUT OF MY LEAGUE. Sadly for Kirk, his friends have helpfully informed him that he's only a 5 out of 10 in the attractiveness scale. Interestingly enough, the same rating is appropriate as far as the film's quality is concerned (though I would argue that Baruchel is more in the 6-7 range). This is an undeniably sweet movie, but the laughs are intermittent at best.

The importance of Kirk being a "5" for purposes of the plot is that, for apparently inexplicable reasons, Molly (Alice Eve) shows an interest in him. According to Kirk's friends, Molly is the type of ultra-hot girl who gets a perfect 10/10 score on the attractiveness scale, and for those of us in the audience who can't tell, our introduction to Molly is a montage in which dozens of men of all ages turn their heads as she walks past them.

Much of the film's problems stem from the poor casting of the supporting characters, particularly Kirk's three buddies. Baruchel and Eve would've been able to exhibit far more chemistry if they had a better supporting cast and a sharper script. SHE'S OUT OF MY LEAGUE has moments during which it teeters on cleverness, but then chooses to be safe and immature instead. The best example I can think of that illustrates this is one of the scenes that is meant to be one of the movie's highlights (if so many sex-oriented comedies hadn't covered territory like this before). Kirk and Molly are getting into their first heavy make-out/groping session, and it seems like the session will go even further than that, but of course, Kirk has a, um, "premature accident." Now, the clever part of this scene is the fact that the noise of a jet engine is inserted into the proceedings (which fits perfectly, especially because Kirk works as a TSA employee), but a few seconds later, an unnecessary and borderline disgusting gag with a dog essentially ruins it all. There's also a brilliantly funny moment in which Kirk is on a date with Molly at a restaurant and he's wearing a a red blazer, which makes a long string of people at the restaurant confuse him for a waiter. Sadly, smart moments like that are bogged down with a gross instance of testicle shaving and an unnecessarily childish final chase sequence at the airport.

Jay Baruchel has played some very quirky supporting characters in the past. Unfortunately, in this film, his character is informed in the first scene that his personality type is that of a "moodle" (man poodle), and perhaps following the instructions given to him by the film's director, Baruchel proceeds to act like a "moodle" throughout most of the film, often making googly eyes and not exploiting his comedic chops as much as he could've. However, if you have doubts about whether or not he can carry a movie, I suggest watching I'M REED FISH (which I enjoyed more than a lot of other people did). Alice Eve is asked to embody the persona of your average Miss USA pageant queen, with the constant smile and posture. (Oh, and could they have been a LITTLE more creative in terms of the twist of Molly's big "defect"?)

This is the kind of film that could've accomplished two things at once: it could've been wickedly funny, and it could've explored that mystery that some of us wonder about as to why sometimes people who aren't so attractive end up with a total babe/stud. The film only takes a superficial look at Molly's insecurities but gets scared to go too far, even though it had the potential to go to very interesting places. The plot line of Molly telling half-lies to her parents (pretending to study for the bar exam while actually working as a party planner) is hardly explored, and this gives one the feeling that the film hardly explored some of the potential it had. Deduct five points.

I vaguely recall an article I read back in the fall of 2006, shortly before the release of Martin Scorsese's THE DEPARTED. The article mentioned that some of that film's studio execs said, "No, no, THE DEPARTED isn't intended as an 'Oscar season' movie; it's intended as mere mainstream entertainment." As it ultimately turned out, it looks like the film was actually intended as both, and it succeeded immensely as both. But perhaps the SHUTTER ISLAND studio execs should've issued that warning for Scorsese's latest film, as that may have calmed down the spree of people who are scratching their heads as to why the renowned director didn't give us yet another masterpiece here. It's very obvious that that simply wasn't the intention. SHUTTER ISLAND is psychologically stimulating and intriguing, without necessarily being psychologically haunting: it doesn't aspire to be anything more than just a good movie, and that's perfectly fine. This explains why it was moved from being released during "awards season" to February. To be honest, I'm delighted that something as intelligent and engaging as SHUTTER ISLAND is getting released at this point in the year, because it's a reprieve from the dross that normally occupies multiplexes right now.

With that said, though, there IS a reason why high expectations for SHUTTER ISLAND weren't necessarily unwarranted: the film is based on a novel by Dennis Lehane, who also wrote two novels that became fantastic film adaptations: MYSTIC RIVER and GONE BABY GONE. However, as SHUTTER ISLAND gets underway, it becomes fairly obvious that we're dealing with different material here, and really, a different genre altogether. Rather than being a restrained, dialogue-driven drama, it's more of a frenetic psychological thriller. One thing they do have in common, though, is the presence of a "twist" ending of sorts.

SHUTTER ISLAND doesn't necessarily reveal its twist at the beginning, but it sure as heck points us in the direction of it very heavily. The first few scenes feature too many instances of federal marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) staring around curiously with a face that screams "Hmmm, I've seen this before," and if there's people who don't find that obvious enough, there's an actual LINE in those early scenes that makes it even clearer. Perhaps it's a good idea, though, because it lets the audience know pretty much from the beginning that we shouldn't necessarily "trust" the perspective of our protagonist. We see everything from his point of view... but something's obviously not right.

While the sense of paranoia is constant here, some of the film's scenes work better than others. There's a slightly off-putting sequence that features a "dream within a dream," but doesn't quite work as effectively as it should because the first dream is remarkably longer than the second one, thus making the second one feel almost like an insignificant afterthought. The weather is used much more often than it should be, and there's no doubt that the rainstorms become repetitive after a while. The film is far better at conveying fear during its interior scenes during which the dark, gothic atmosphere is constantly palpable. The VERY BEST scene in the movie takes place in a cave that's right next to a shore. All I'll say about it is that it's Patricia Clarkson's one scene in the film and that she is spectacular in it, and that the dialogue during the scene is expertly rendered - if anyone wasn't intrigued by the film at this point, they surely will be after this scene.

As is often the case in movies with a twist ending, the final scenes get way too caught up in explaining everything away. We've seen it before, but it's a little more disheartening to see it involve actors of the caliber of Leonardo DiCaprio and Ben Kingsley. I have more things to say about the resolution, but I'll reserve them for the "spoilers" section at the end of the review.

There's no doubt that the film's purpose is to screw with your mind. If you love that, then you'll delight heartily in SHUTTER ISLAND, and you'll then want to see it again to try to see if there are plot holes in light of the climax's revelations. I don't think there are plot holes, though some may argue that there are things that some characters "did" in early scenes that don't make sense, but for any instance in which someone argues something like that, there'll surely be another viewer who will be able to come up with a reasonable explanation in light of the film's events. Any film that is capable of creating that kind of discussion and of being so engrossing and mentally stimulating, particularly at this time of the year, is more than welcome in my mind, regardless of whether or not it was made by a director from whom we've come to expect near perfection.

*SPOILER WARNING*

A discussion of SHUTTER ISLAND doesn't feel complete without at least commenting on its revelatory final act. When Teddy discovers that, not only is that not his real name and that he is not a visiting federal marshal, but that he's actually been a patient in SHUTTER ISLAND for the last two years, I was telling myself, "Pleeeease, let this not be for sure." Given the fact that, right before this revelation comes, we were under the assumption that Teddy really was a federal marshal and that he was just being drugged and manipulated, I was hoping that perhaps there was a chance that they were simply drugging and manipulating him INTO thinking that he'd been a patient there for the last two years, and that the movie would simply end without us knowing for sure. However, too many things happen after the revelation that seem to make it obvious that the revelation is actually true, the most notable being Mark Ruffalo's character shaking his head "no" at the end (which may be one of the few, if not the only, moment in the film in which the audience does NOT see something from the perspective of DiCaprio's character). I still appreciate the fact that the ending is complex (and emotionally devastating, at some moments), but I guess that sometimes I prefer not being given the answer so deliberately, especially by a movie that thrived so much during its first two thirds in confounding the viewer, and did so well at it.

I'm gonna be in the minority here, and part of me was close to giving this a 6/10, but as I sat down and started writing this review, I realized I couldn't do it. FISH TANK has a decent amount of virtues, but it's undone by too many problems that overshadow them, as much as I hate giving the "thumbs down" to a movie that is obviously so well-intentioned and committed to portraying a home life with so much grit and authenticity.

The first 45 minutes or so of FISH TANK are fantastic, absolutely worthy of the recognition received by the overall film at Cannes. We can tell immediately that Mia (Katie Jarvis) is a totally unruly teenager, but not in the sense that she's evil or anything. She's just very troubled, which we get to understand even better when she gets home and we see the disdain she receives from her younger sister and her mother (who looks like she must've been extremely young when she gave birth to Mia). One morning, while at her kitchen, Mia meets her mother's new boyfriend, Connor (Michael Fassbender), who is incredibly hot. He walks in casually with no shirt and his pants not quite as adjusted as they should be, thus already cluing us into the fact that there'll be sexual tension between these two later (though it comes a lot later in the film than you may expect).

The initial scenes during which we get to see Mia's struggle to cope with her mother's poor treatment of her in contrast to Connor's perhaps TOO good treatment of her are great. Unfortunately, there comes a point in which the movie seems to run out of things to say. I read that director Andrea Arnold actually won an Oscar a few years ago for directing a short film, and one suspects that FISH TANK may have been more effective as that rather than as a full-length feature film. There's an instance during the last act during which a "kidnapping" of sorts takes place, and while the sequence is well-directed and performed it's difficult to understand how this fits with the motivations of our protagonist... and it'll be even harder to understand the consequence of this event, an awkwardly-staged scene that takes place in the dark and features one character slapping another in the face. This gives one the impression that the film wasn't sure which direction to go in, and decided to go for subtlety so that viewers could make up their own interpretations, but the approach doesn't work here because we don't really have all the pieces to connect the dots.

In addition, there are two important points that the plot hinges on that are made (unfortunately) way too obvious during the early scenes. When Connor says that his tattoo is of an ex-girlfriend, and when he later says that he was talking to his mother on the phone, we know exactly what the truth is (and it's too early for the film to give us that information). Similarly, when Mia picks up an ad for "Female Dancers," we know exactly what she's getting into, oblivious as she may be, but when Mia discovers it, the movie seems to treat it as though it should also be a revelatory surprise for the audience, which it certainly isn't.

The ending of FISH TANK takes the easiest possible way out. In a matter of two minutes, it tries to award redemption to two characters, when there was little development that came before it to make us believe that this resolution was possible. To be honest, a large part of me believes the little sister's redemption. Yes, she essentially insulted Mia during the entire movie, but it's easier to attribute that to immaturity and to believe that she realized how much she loved her older sister at this point in the movie. However, the mother's redemption (considering everything we saw before the last act) needed far more than a sudden smile while dancing. I appreciate subtlety in dramas, but not when it's used to cut corners and to avoid fleshing the plot out as effectively as it should be. Credit goes to Jarvis for her strong performance, but she deserved a better film (or like I said, perhaps a shorter one).

Here's what's crazy: the only awards buzz that CRAZY HEART is getting is for Jeff Bridges' lead performance and for Best Original Song. Both are more than deserved, but this film deserves even more than that. CRAZY HEART is one of the year's most well-crafted and honest dramas. Anyone who "accuses" it of following an overly familiar plot is failing to note the expertise with which the conventional storyline is handled here, even breaking away at times from what we expect. It's not surprising that some have called it this year's THE WRESTLER. The parallelisms are obvious. However (and I'll probably get insults for this), CRAZY HEART is actually a better film. It's a notch more sincere, and in this case, the lead actor's performance IS mind-blowing and totally deserving of the statuette (sorry to Mickey Rourke lovers, but I felt that his "comeback performance" was a tad overhyped). What Jeff Bridges accomplishes in the role of Bad Blake is genuinely staggering, at times very funny, but more often than not heart-breaking.

For those who think that CRAZY HEART is just another story about a guy who used to be super successful and has now hit rock bottom and wants to reconcile himself with the son he abandoned, consider the many instances in which the film deviates from convention. During the first half hour of the film we hear Bad Blake express resentment towards Tommy Sweet, a young country singer whom he mentored and who now makes much more money than him and is loved by audiences, whereas Bad has been largely forgotten. Before Tommy even appeared on screen, I already knew that Colin Farrell was the one who played him, and all I could think was "Yep, yep, I can definitely see Farrell playing the smug, handsome asshole who will probably tell the old man to get lost, rather than appreciate everything he taught him." What a blind side we get when Tommy finally shows up and we get to hear what he has to say. Farrell perfectly conveys the dilemma that Tommy has between his high position in stardom and the evidently huge amount of affection that he's got for "the guy who taught me everything I know." There's no doubt that, despite the resentment we saw Bad convey earlier, the relationship between these two guys is a tender mentor-mentee one, and one can't help but suspect that Bad probably saw Tommy as the son he never got to raise. The difference between both men is hilariously pointed out through their preference in alcoholic beverages. Tommy prefers Southern Comfort, whereas Bad likes his McLures and says "That Southern Comfort is too sweet for me."

Sweetness and absolute delight is what ensues, however, when Bad meets Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal). She asks him about which country singers he listened to when he was a kid. He starts giving her the list, and she suddenly interrupts him with "Lefty Frizzell," and at that moment, Bad is totally enthralled by Jean. Here's yet another instance of flawless casting. Gyllenhaal is perfect for this role, with a spot-on southern accent, and that adorable smile she has, which she can so quickly and easily turn into concern and/or pain. The line that is spoken right before Bad and Jean first kiss is so good that I won't even transcribe it here. It's best experienced hearing Bridges utter it and Gyllenhaal react to it. Later in the film, there's a moment that will easily affect even the most stone-hearted viewer. Bad comforts Jean and says "I won't forget this moment, darlin', I promise," as he kisses her tears.

Some who won't have read the credits prior to watching the film will be surprised by Robert Duvall's sudden appearance in the film, as Wayne. The best to be said of his participation in CRAZY HEART comes from the conversation between Bad and Wayne about the pros and cons of calling your son after 20 years of not contacting him. One of them argues that it's "wrong" because the call should've taken place earlier, while the other says that it's "right" because, well, even if you were doing things wrong before, at least NOW you're doing it right. It's an interesting debate, which leads to the phone call between Bad and his son Steven (Brian Gleason). Here's yet another instance in which the film breaks convention: we see the same type of arguments that we normally witness in this sort of situation, but it's not with cliche lines like "You were never there for me!"

While CRAZY HEART is mostly steady in being an above-average drama, during the film's last few scenes we lose some of the fluidity that characterized what came before them. The movie jumps from (1) the fall-out between Bad and Jean, (2) to his attempts at detoxing, (3) to the film's final (mostly) positive note all too quickly. It may have been out of a desire to get to the end of the film more rapidly, and I'm not sure whether or not certain scenes were eliminated in the editing room, but nevertheless, it's a bit of a rushed ending that doesn't seem to correspond with the wonderful, leisurely pace that we had gotten used to before it. Aside from that, though, it's impossible to ignore the immense strength of the writing, the acting and even the singing (which may surprise some). The songs are original, but they sound so authentically country that one may even think of them as familiar. As Bad says at one point, "That's how it is. The good songs are always the ones you think you've heard before." CRAZY HEART may easily seem like something you've seen before, but it's impossible to deny the freshness of what it brings. Much like Clint Eastwood's MILLION DOLLAR BABY, it puts an interesting spin on a plot we've seen before. Couple that with a masterful lead performance, and you've got something that's truly special.

Constantly suspenseful, at times downright scary, and hardly ever boring, DAYBREAKERS is the film for those who've been craving a REAL vampire movie. It's not fair to say that DAYBREAKERS is hurt by the current overload of blood-sucking creatures in both the big and small screen, because the truth is that a lot of the other material out there can't really be classified as "a vampire flick". The CIRQUE DU FREAK movie? TWILIGHT? Did those movies really follow the rules of what a vampire does and doesn't do, and of how a vampire dies or doesn't die? DAYBREAKERS is refreshing precisely because it follows those rules. Vampires need blood to survive, and while they can sustain themselves on animal blood, human blood is much better for them. Oh, and they do die if they're exposed to sunlight.

What's awesome about DAYBREAKERS is that, in addition to following the rules about vampires that we're so familiar with, it brings a few twists and turns to those rules that often make the film even more interesting. Even better, in this film, the line between heroes and villains isn't quite clear. Sure, it's humans vs. vampires and it's difficult for the audience not to root for the humans, but there's this constant sense that the vampires are just like any other race trying to survive, and this is conveyed so well because the film chooses not to portray them as stereotypical monsters, but as actual characters with thoughts and emotions.

As I said, the film brings a few twists to the "vampire rules" to make the film more creative and interesting, and the attempt is mostly successful, but towards the end things start entering convoluted territory. Certain things are "bended" in order to ensure the happy resolution. There's also a few too many instances of people turning on each other and having changes of heart that don't quite make all of the characters' motivations as compelling as they had been during the first few scenes of the film. In spite of all that, considering the fact that DAYBREAKERS is a January release and that it's been bunched up with all these other "not-quite-vampire movies," the movie's got a lot of bite, and it's worth seeing for those who are looking for something that's dark, suspenseful and interesting.

Multiplexes tend to get swamped with overly conventional movies almost all the time. Finding something edgy, different and intelligent in cinema isn't an easy task. Then again, recently I've started to feel like it's better that way. It makes the experience of encountering a gem like A SERIOUS MAN that much more delightful. However, it's not like this film's delicious unconventionality is a completely random surprise: it was directed by the master duo of brothers Ethan and Joel Coen. A SERIOUS MAN is an incredibly profound and observant motion picture, and at the same time, it has a dark humor that is nothing short of constantly uproarious. If some people thought that NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN was weird and had an unorthodox ending that turned them off, their best bet is to stay away from A SERIOUS MAN. In fact, it's very likely that this time the Coens won't enjoy the Oscar glory that they did with NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, given the fact that A SERIOUS MAN is even more "inaccessible" to mainstream moviegoers. But that doesn't mean I can't relish the sheer brilliance of their latest cinematic offering, and if it were up to me, several Oscar nominations would go its way.

Larry (Michael Stuhlbarg) is a college physics professor who seems like a nice enough guy who enjoys his work and cares about his family. Suddenly, though, he starts having unnaturally bad luck. One of his students got an F on his midterm and leaves an envelope with money on Larry's desk. The money is meant as a bribe to get Larry to give him a passing grade. The scene in which the student speaks to Larry about the envelope is perfectly staged and hilarious ("hush hush exam"), and things get even better (and funnier) when the student's father goes to visit Larry at his own house (I nearly fell of my chair after "accept mystery"). But that's not even the worst of it. Larry's wife Judith (Sari Lennick) nonchalantly tells him that she wants a divorce, and as it turns out, she wants to leave Larry so that she can marry one of Larry's friends, Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed). The situation becomes even more hysterically pathetic when Sy speaks to Larry in a consoling way, as if he were a friend who is there for him in this tragic situation, rather than the weasel who's stolen his wife. To make matters even more dire for Larry, he discovers that someone is sending letters to the university telling the administration that Larry's a terrible person who should not be able to get tenure.

A similar stroke of bad luck afflicts Larry's son, Danny (Aaron Wolff). Danny smokes pot, which he obtains from this big kid at school, Fagle (John Kaminski). One day, Danny has the money ready to pay Fagle, and he puts the money in his radio, but the radio gets confiscated in a classroom. Therefore, he no longer has the money to pay Fagle, and the worst part is that, every day when Danny is coming home from school, Fagle chases after him, so Danny has to run quickly to his house. In addition, Danny's got the pressure of having to prepare for his bar mitzvah, which is coming up in a few weeks. One of the biggest sources of hilarity to be found in the film comes from Danny's pot-smoking buddy (Benjy Portnoe) whose repetition of the word "fucker" and its variations is a total hoot, and the scene on the bus in which the phrase "way up his asshole" is reiterated deserves to be seen more than once for repeat laughs.

What the Coen brothers give us here is a brilliant interpretation of The Book of Job. We get to witness what two characters who appear to be pretty harmless people do facing extremely stressful situations in which so many things are out of their control. There's a constant feeling that Larry doesn't deserve all the things that are happening to him, yet guilty as one may feel about it, it's impossible not to laugh constantly, because the Coens have infused their script with brilliant dark comedy, and often with hilarious plays on words (note what they do with the sentence "Mere surmise, sir," and the perfect timing of the confusion that ensues). Those of us who are hardcore fans of their work will recognize small details such as the mention of a law firm named Tuchman Marsh, which is the same law firm that was the subject a very funny exchange of dialogue in last year's wonderful BURN AFTER READING.

Is there a point to all of it? Of course there is. Some won't get it, some won't care, and some will both understand and love it. Those who thought that the magnificent and perfect ending of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN was weird and disconcerting will be even more perplexed by how this film ends. *SPOILER WARNING* Larry and Danny each take what you'd call an evil or immoral path, and as soon as they do, a clearly random event that seems to put each of their lives in danger is ABOUT to take place... and then... end credits. *END SPOILERS* It's the sort of "frustrating" ending that pisses audience members off... but as Sy Ableman would say, it makes eminent sense! The Coens aren't going to make it that easy for us and give us a straight answer. Do Larry and Danny deserve to suffer a tragic fate because of the decisions they make at the end? Are their wayward actions more easily justifiable because of the bad luck they had been experiencing? There's a scene earlier in the movie that perfectly exemplifies this approach of presenting a parable of sorts without giving a straight answer: Larry goes to a rabbi for help with his troubles, and the rabbi tells him a very interesting story about a discovery made by a dentist (and I won't say anything about the story here, because it's a sequence that truly deserves to be seen unpoiled), but the rabbi stops narrating right when he seems to be about to give Larry the resolution, and when an impatient Larry asks for it, the rabbi asks: "Is it relevant?" It's a very good question to ask yourself when pondering the denouement of A SERIOUS MAN. Is it really that important to get the answer? Usually, I feel that movies are about the journey, and not so much about where they lead, unless the ending totally sticks out as being a bad one. And it's a lot more fun to have your own interpretation of what happened afterwards, rather than being told by the film.

The performances in A SERIOUS MAN are terrific. The Coens don't have their cast go quite as over-the-top as they did in BURN AFTER READING, but there's a hint of over-the-top, which is perfectly appropriate in this case. What astounds me is how well the entire cast, even the most seemingly unimportant supporting players, fare at balancing that hint of over-the-top with effective emotional performances and with humorous line deliveries. However, there are two people in particular who need to be mentioned for their bravura work. The first one is Michael Stuhlbarg. I would cheer in delight if his name is called on Oscar morning in the Best Actor category. His status as relatively unknown and the fact that this film won't appeal to everyone makes it unlikely, but I'd love to see it happen. Stuhlbarg conveys happiness, frustration, desperation, confusion at all the right times, and never misses a beat. Larry may be one of the toughest performances that any actor has had to deal with this year, and Stuhlbarg is perfect. The other person who has to be mentioned (and who is even less likely to be recognized by the Academy) is Aaron Wolff. This is an incredible performance, especially for a child actor. There's not a moment in which Danny's reactions are anything short of thoroughly authentic and even his voice inflections at particular points in the film are spot-on. His performance while he's high on pot during a religious service is astounding: one doesn't know whether to laugh or cringe at the situation, but it doesn't make his work any less excellent. These are two of the year's best performances.

In making what many have called their "most personal" film to date, the Coens have given us a film with a few elements, events and words that may be more easily understood by the Jewish community than by us gentiles. However, it doesn't go quite as far as making it inaccessible to those of us who know nothing of Judaism. To be honest, as I already mentioned, the movie is already inaccessible (because of its subject matter and unorthodox sense of humor) to the mainstream audience that prefers toilet humor and romcom cliches, but those who want something that's both delightful and thought-provoking will love A SERIOUS MAN (even if the script contains a bunch of Hebrew words that they don't understand). This film may not reach the level of perfection accomplished by NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, let alone the masterpiece status of FARGO (which is still the Coens' best film), but it's yet further evidence of their amazing craft as both directors and screenwriters.

YOUTH IN REVOLT is an opportunity for Michael Cera to say "Screw you!" to all of those who have accused him of being a one-note comedic performer, and to prove them wrong. He succeeds. Although he plays the film's main character in the same way that he's played his characters in the past, he also plays an alter ego here who is a total asshole, and his performance is spot-on, with a perfect change in tone of voice, great facial expressions and an expertly deadpan line delivery. Unfortunately, there are two problems. First, Cera's rendition of his alter ego is far funnier than most of the other not-so-funny material that the film has to offer. Second, the alter ego is featured in a lot less scenes than he should be. If we had seen more of the banter between good guy Nick and the devilish Francois, this film would've been a total riot.

This film isn't without its strong points. As the protagonist, Nick may be the "hero," but it doesn't stop him from going on a spree of lies on two occasions during the film, both of which are funny. During the first one, Nick makes up the story of a girlfriend who doesn't exist, and during the second one, he's talking to a girl in a bathroom and comes up with a total fabrication about his enemy, Trent (Jonathan Wright). As alter ego Francois, Cera gives us the funniest lines in the film during the scene in which he is trying to get into bed with his love interest, Sheeni (Portia Doubleday).

The other source of humor in YOUTH IN REVOLT comes from the character of Vijay (Adhir Kalyan), who gets in cahoots with Nick. It's such a shame that the part of the film that features their road trip is so brief and that Vijay doesn't have more screen time because that would've certainly helped the proceedings. Unfortunately, we see more (too much more) of the rest of the supporting cast. Zach Galifianakis, Steve Buscemi and Ray Liotta have all seen better days in comedy, and it's hard to understand why they don't do much more than mug for the camera in this movie. The worst, though, comes from Justin Long, and it's not because the guy isn't funny, but because in the scenes he takes part in, he's forced to behave in a ridiculously subdued way that is meant to be indirectly funny, but doesn't manage a giggle. The first scene in which Long appears features him telling Cera's character that they "met in another life," but the way the moment is played, it makes little to no sense, and even worse, it's not funny at all. It's all downhill from there. There are instances in YOUTH IN REVOLT during which it feels like there's an attempt at the dry/serious humor that so many enjoyed in NAPOLEON DYNAMITE (though I didn't), and the problem is that not much of it works. Portia Doubleday is a fine romantic match for Cera, but neither of the two leads can escape the fact that this script lacks wit more often than not.

In my recent reviews of films that Michael Cera has starred in, I've defended him and said that, although he certainly does play a similar character in every film, that's not a BAD thing as long as the actor does a good job at playing the same character in every film, and Cera certainly does that. In YOUTH IN REVOLT, he's every bit as endearing and warmly funny in the role of the hero as we're used to seeing him, but he's also surprisingly hilarious as the anti-hero. If anything, this is evidence that his range really does go further than what we had gotten used to seeing, and it's a shame that we didn't get to see more of it. It'd be nice if this meant that we're going to see him play more jerks in the future, but with SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD as his next project, we may have to wait.

I wish I had better things to say about the first 2010 film that I'm reviewing, but the truth is that YOUTH IN REVOLT would've been better off giving us more of Nick's "revolting" and less of the lackluster dialogue and the generally limp work done by the secondary cast.

It's not enough to call THE LOVELY BONES a disappointment. This is a cinematic failure of monumental proportions. Some may assume that my expectations were too high because Peter Jackson is responsible for The Lord of the Rings trilogy (which is my #1 all-time favorite film). Certainly ONE of the reasons why this film SHOULD have been at least GOOD is the fact that Jackson did such a flawless job translating LOTR to film. But it's more than that. There's the fact that 15 years ago Jackson gave us a masterpiece in HEAVENLY CREATURES, which (much like THE LOVELY BONES) makes an attempt to meld the beautiful images of an ethereal world with the harsh emotional reality of the physical world. The difference between both films in terms of their success at that attempt could not be any bigger: THE LOVELY BONES is nothing but a set of "pretty" images that don't always connect effectively with the film's emotional component, and even when they do, you just don't care, because the emotional component of the film is handled so poorly. This is even harder to believe in light of the truly magnificent source material that Jackson had to work with here. As hard as it may seem to believe, the book is not only much more effective in how it evokes images, but it's also a thousand times more successful in its development of the plot and characters.

Wrong notes start being hit right off the bat in THE LOVELY BONES, so much that there are even inconsistencies in the dialogue. Susie (Saoirse Ronan) is at the mall with her grandmother (Susan Sarandon), and Susie is mesmerized as she watches Ray (Reece Ritchie), a cute boy who goes to her school. The grandmother immediately notices that Susie's attracted to him, but Susie tells her that Ray doesn't even know she exists. A few seconds later, the grandmother asks Susie whether or not they have kissed yet - why would the script have her ask this question, if Susie had already told her that the two of them haven't even spoken? If this were the only flaw in THE LOVELY BONES, it'd be an insignificant quibble, but unfortunately, it's only the beginning. The eventual "romance" that SUPPOSEDLY develops between Susie and Ray is based on one half-assed, shockingly short scene in which Susie asks Ray what they have in common, and he responds "Don't you know?" After this question is asked and a kiss ALMOST occurs, we're supposed to believe that these two are in love, and that Susie's death will have a massive emotional impact on him. Where is the development? That one scene does NOTHING to establish a connection between Susie and Ray, and it renders the relationship between Ray and Susie's spirit completely artificial and impossible to feel sympathy for. The character of Ray is handled terrifically in Alice Sebold's book. Here, the scenes that he takes part in are completely flat, and the fact that the awesome character of his mother was totally excluded from the film is completely ridiculous.

If the scenes involving Susie's family were any better, the film would still have hope for some level of success, but the thud of failure in these scenes is every bit as resounding. After Susie is murdered, a few scenes ensue, and suddenly, one character states that it's been 11 months since Susie disappeared. My eyes widened at that point, and the question I asked myself was: "Where is the grief and the desperation from the family? We've hardly seen any of it since she disappeared." Then I realized what had been happening. The scenes after Susie's murder eschewed showing the family's efforts to find her and the devastating effects of their failure to find any clues, and instead decided to show us an unnecessary amount of images of Susie's spirit prancing around the grassy fields of the "world" she has now entered in her afterlife. It's not that I have a problem with the film's exploration of where Susie's soul goes after she dies. That's an integral part of the story. What I do have a problem with is that the film fails so miserably at balancing that side of the story with the emotional turmoils experienced by her family members.

There's such a thing as an exaggerated amount of symbolism, and this becomes more of a problem when there's little need or sense to be found in said symbolism. There's no doubt that this is one of the many issues to be had with THE LOVELY BONES. There are too many scenes in which it's impossible to escape the feeling that random images are being thrown our way for the sake of making the film seem technically striking and more meaningful than it actually is. There's a particularly bothersome sequence in which we're forced several times to watch the same image of Susie riding her bicycle in front of her parents, saying "Hey, dad, look at me!" It's the sort of thing that makes you want to yell "Okay, I get it already!" to the screen. The character of Susie's little brother Buckley (Christian Thomas Ashdale) hardly gets any screen time, but he does pop up at one point to conveniently announce that "Susie's in the in-between." Where he got this feeling from is impossible to know because the film doesn't tell us, because it's too busy showing us images of prairies. A scene towards the end in which Susie starts discovering the other victims of her killer is a TOTAL mess and feels absolutely misplaced - there's NO comparison to how well this is handled in Sebold's book.

There are two intense high points in this story that are supposed to hit the toughest emotional blows. The first one is, of course, Susie's death at the hands of her neighbor, George Harvey (Stanley Tucci). What does the film do with this sequence? Nothing. Jackson makes the unacceptable mistake of toning this down to ensure a PG-13 rating, and this is easily the most significant error committed in this film. The story may be about a 14-year-old girl, but there's no doubt that this is an adult tale. This film is NOT supposed to be aimed at the same audience that gets in line to see the TWILIGHT films. Ironically, THE LOVELY BONES is such a bad movie that, as it turns out, this year's entry to the TWILIGHT franchise (NEW MOON) is actually a better film. If you had told me at this point last year that that would be my opinion, I would've laughed incredibly hard. The second high point of the story comes towards the end, a brilliant moment in which Susie and Ray are able to consummate their love for one another despite the fact that Susie is no longer a living human. Once again, the desire to keep things PG-13 gets in the way here... then again, as I mentioned, the subplot of Susie and Ray's romance is handled so poorly from the very beginning that it probably wouldn't have worked, anyway.

Saoirse Ronan's performance is fine, but leagues below the stunning work she did in 2007's ATONEMENT. Even worse, in her voiceover, Jackson apparently forced her to deliver her lines with a constant sense of wonder that is ONLY appropriate for the Heaven scenes, and not AT ALL appropriate for the scenes in which she watches her family (if anyone had doubts that the film really does give too much weight to the scenes in the afterlife and too little to the human, emotional component, here's all the evidence you need). The only remarkable performance to be found in the film is that of Rachel Weisz, as Susie's mother; unfortunately, she gets too little screen time, so we don't get the reprieve that her acting could've given us from the sheer mediocrity of everything else. As Susie's father, Mark Wahlberg gives a lot of bewildered stares, and um... that's about it. A sequence in which his character calls the detective to start giving off a list of names of possible suspects who may have killed Susie feels rushed and dumb, rather than giving off the sense of desperation that needs to be conveyed at that point of the film.

But the biggest disappointments in terms of acting come from the two actors who could've very easily given Oscar-worthy performances. The first is Susan Sarandon, as Grandma Lynn, who, in the book, is a delightfully wacky character, but in this film, Sarandon's facial expressions are largely blank, and much like Weisz's character, her screen time is awfully limited. Grandma Lynn should've been the comedic relief of this movie. But again, no relief at all. The second disappointment comes from Stanley Tucci. This is the kind of role that the Best Supporting Actor Oscar was made for. I have no idea why Tucci decided to portray George Harvey as a ridiculous, bumbling idiot. There's a scene in the film that had a lot of potential to be very suspenseful. The scene is well-showcased in the trailer: Susie's sister Lindsey (Rose McIver) breaks into the killer's house to try to find evidence that it was indeed him who killed her sister. It's beyond me why Tucci decides to have this gruff look on his face during this scene that renders him silly rather than menacing (there's also an ill-advised shot in which it seems that Tucci himself is carrying the camera as he runs around the house). George Harvey should be the opposite of your conventional movie villain, but that's exactly what we get here.

THE LOVELY BONES is a colossal misfire. There are those who will argue that certain novels are "unfilmable," and that's something I strongly disagree with. A piece of literature may be HARD to turn into cinema, but if that's the case, all you need to do is make certain modifications that will make for a smooth transition to the screen. It might piss off people who loved the source material, but it's the responsible thing to do in order to make a film adaptation that can stand on its own. That's exactly what Jackson accomplished with LOTR, and the result was a staggering masterpiece. I'll never understand how he came up with this dud. And actually, even if there ARE novels out there that could be "unfilmable," THE LOVELY BONES is certainly not one of them. All this film had to do was establish a better balance between the scenes in the physical world and the scenes in the afterlife. How could anyone think that plot and character development should be sacrificed for images of a heaven that was, quite frankly, pretty dull and unimpressive (not really the place I'd want to go to when I die)? Oh, and the other thing the film needed to do was be rated R. I'd hate to find out that the sole reason why some of the novel's most emotionally searing moments were eschewed from the script was simply out of a desire for better box office results. And if it was, then that's further proof that money corrupts; in this case, it corrupted a wonderful story by turning it into a shockingly underwhelming, at times even aggravating, piece of filmmaking.

The movie is about a widower who has two sons and two daughters, all of whom are in their late 20s and early 30s, and all of whom had a much better connection with their mother. So, now that she has passed away, Frank (Robert De Niro) is trying his best to reach out to his four "kids" and get back in touch with them, which will be even harder due to the fact that they all live in different hometowns. It turns out that all four of them are unable to come visit their dad at home, so Frank decides to get on a bus and go visit each of them individually. EVERYBODY'S FINE focuses on Frank's interaction with each of his sons and daughters as he visits each one, and we notice that all of them have been somewhat dishonest towards their father in terms of what they're doing with their lives. This is the perfect setup for a great dramedy. Why doesn't it work?

Ironically, the most important aspect of the story (which is the one that is supposed to exert the toughest emotional blow at the end) is what hurts the film the most. Frank's first visit is to his son David. Unfortunately, David is nowhere to be found, so Frank moves on to visit his other son, Robert (Sam Rockwell) and his two daughters, Amy (Kate Beckinsale) and Rosie (Drew Barrymore). As Frank starts visiting them, we hear telephone conversations between the three siblings in which we discover that David was arrested for drugs in Mexico, and the three siblings all tell each other that it's VERY important that they don't tell their dad about this. The reason why this is a flaw when it comes to the film's effectiveness is because it renders Frank's visits to each of these three characters WAY shorter than they should be. The FASCINATING thing about the scenes in which Frank visits each of the three of them is the way in which they all tell their father half-truths about what they've accomplished in life; what is NOT fascinating about these scenes is how the David issue feels like such an inserted contrivance that is meant to up the stakes. The David issue interrupts what had the potential to be GREAT, dramatic, dialogue-based scenes.

It would've been infinitely better for the film's SOLE focus to be on the struggles of Amy, Robert and Rosie in hiding certain aspects of their lives from their father, and for each of the visits to be far longer than they were. Each time that Frank left a hometown, I got this deflating feeling that things had only been explored superficially and that much more could've been done here. As Frank leaves each of the hometowns, it feels like such a disappointment that we didn't get to see more of Amy's at-home problems with her son and her husband, Robert's struggles with his musical aspirations, and Rosie's dubiously splendid apartment. The WORST thing about this is that the answers to all of these questions are then provided haphazardly towards the end of the film during an ostensible dream sequence in which the "child versions" of Amy, Robert and Rosie reveal everything to their dad, but this just feels like an awfully easy way for the film to tie everything up at the end, rather than having explored it on a deeper level during each of Frank's visits.

The fact that EVERYBODY'S FINE could've worked so well yet doesn't bothers me especially because this could've been a movie that I could've connected with very easily on a personal level. I'm sure a lot of other people have experienced this, but I, too, have felt compelled to tell half-truths to my parents on occasions, sometimes to give them peace of mind, other times perhaps to impress them more than I deserve. The half-truths I've told don't go quite as far as what these three characters tell their dad in this film, but there's no doubt that it's a plot that could've easily kept me very much engrossed. It's also a shame because the cast is fantastic, particularly Robert De Niro and Kate Beckinsale. The script's need to reiterate its title in the final line that is spoken before credits roll is totally manipulative and unnecessary, but perhaps it's good in the sense that the title's second word pretty much sums up the film's quality. It's just fine. And I wouldn't normally have a problem with that, except that this had the potential to be so much more than that.

Part of me feels like I could easily copy/paste some of the things from the review of CHANGELING that I wrote last year, because, unfortunately, once again, Clint Eastwood gives us a drama that may be reasonably involving but all too often hits the viewer over the head with the message it's trying to get across.

There are some great early scenes in which Morgan Freeman delivers some very well-written lines with much posture and confidence, but this can't make up for the last half hour of INVICTUS. I don't think I've ever witnessed such an overload of the slow-motion sequences in which people cheer in victory. It's way overdone here. It would also help if one didn't need to have a basic understanding of the rules of rugby to understand what is happening. Those of us unfamiliar with the sport will have a particularly hard time finding a reason to care about what transpires on screen. Sure, I understand that the inspirational story of how an entire nation came together here is supposed to be timeless and to be appreciated by people all over the world, but it doesn't help when the message is delivered with so little subtlety.

Perhaps the biggest question one can have after watching INVICTUS is why Clint Eastwood didn't take the opportunity to give us an actual biopic of protagonist Nelson Mandela, starting with his years in prison. There was certainly a lot of potential here to make for an entirely effective piece of dramatic filmmaking, and the fact that THIS is the route that was taken by such a great director (and with an actor who clearly fit the role so well) is simply confusing. Oh, and I have no idea why Matt Damon is getting recognition for his role here (if anything, he should be getting recognized for his work in THE INFORMANT! earlier this year).

I hate giving a negative rating to a film that is so clearly well-intentioned. It's a shame because there's no doubt that ALL the tools and players were available to make a memorable movie here, but the truth is that even if INVICTUS scores big at the Oscars, it's definitely not a film that will be remembered by many.