FILM PREVIEWS

February 5th

Across The Universe (Sony Pictures)

This is the same kind of freaky hallucination that landed Grease’s Jeff Conaway on Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew. The idea, creating a movie-musical based on the songs of The Beatles, seemed ingenious. Signing Julie Taymor, the woman who brought The Lion King to magical and vivid life on Broadway, to direct seemed logical and, yes, ingenious as well. But the finished product is as messy as a baby’s diaper. It’s as if the screenwriters, Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, laid all the songs from the Beatles catalog out on a table and then loosely connected them with underdeveloped and, in some instances, irritating characters and weak plot points. Seriously, I scratched my head so much during this movie, the people around me started to wonder if I had lice. GRADE: D

February 5th

Feast Of Love (MGM)

Morgan Freeman and Greg Kinnear headline the latest effort from three-time Academy Award winning writer/director Robert Benton (Kramer Vs. Kramer, Places In The Heart). Predictably, Freeman narrates and tells us a story of Greek gods who, to cure their boredom, invented human beings. They were still bored (because they didn’t have reality television) so they invented love. After inventing love, the gods tried out the swooning for themselves, then invented laughter so they could stand it. Though the movie tends to lapse into melodrama, I still relate to portions of it. In fact, I believe that anyone who partakes in this Feast will see him or herself in at least one of the characters. Benton recognizes that love is work and sometimes just isn’t a helluva lot of fun. But Freeman, as college professor Harry, puts it all into perspective for us. Greg Kinnear, whose greatest talent is playing “broken-hearted”(see As Good As It Gets), skillfully demonstrates why his character, who is cursed by love, keeps going back for more. GRADE: B- 

February 12th

No Reservations (Warner Brothers)

Kate (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is one of Manhattan’s top chefs. But her seemingly delicious life will become a pineapple upside down cake when her sister Christine (played by Arija Bareikis. Say that three times really fast. Or, hell, say it once!) is killed in a tragic car crash and Kate becomes the legal guardian of her niece, Zoe (Abigail Breslin). Normally, I wouldn’t write so insensitively about a car crash, but Kate, curiously enough, never reacts to it. At all! But I suppose that’s to be expected in a movie with designs on being conflict-free. Let’s not forget! No Reservations is a romantic comedy with Aaron Eckhart cast as the sous chef love interest. There’s no time to deal with the drama of Christine’s car crash! Kate needs a booty call. GRADE: C+ 

February 12th

Into the Wild (Paramount Vantage)

If you read my “Beauties and Beasts” column last month, you know that I called Sean Penn’s critically-acclaimed drama one of “the most overrated films of the year.” That said, I still recommend it because of an impeccable performance by veteran actor Hal Holbrook. He shows up two hours into the film and, quite frankly, gives it the heart it needs. I actually remember the story of Christopher McCandless, a privileged kid who gave up his chance to go to Harvard Law, ran away from everyone he knew, burned his Social Security card to assume a new identity (Alexander Supertramp), took up residence in a “magic bus” in the Alaskan wilderness, then died. I hoped, going into this film, that actor Emile Hirsch would give me some insight into McCandless and answer my primary question. How can anyone this charmed be this self-destructive? To me, Christopher McCandless just seems liked a crazy, spoiled rotten brat who took everything and everyone in his life for granted. Sure, he went Into The Wild, but for what? GRADE: B-

February 12th

Things We Lost In The Fire (Paramount)

Danish director Susanne Bier makes her Hollywood debut and actually manages to elicit a decent performance from Halle Berry, who stars as Audrey Burke, a mother-of-two tragically widowed when her husband Brian (David Duchovny) is murdered near a Cold Stone Creamery during a domestic dispute between some random couple. In her time of grief, Audrey turns to the man she always resented . . . Brian’s childhood best friend Jerry (Benicio Del Toro), who’s a raging heroine addict. Like Berry, Del Toro is solid and turns in a fine performance. The problem here is that characters in this movie make choices these characters would never make. Brian is successful with a beautiful wife and kids. Is he really visiting Jerry in the crack houses? Widowed after a bizarre murder, is Audrey really letting the junkie move into the garage? And where is that Cold Stone Creamery? They repeatedly show the strip mall where Brian was killed and I never saw an ice cream store. I know he was at Cold Stone because he was carrying Cold Stone ice cream when he was killed. Where’s the freaking store? Do I have to MapQuest the mother? GRADE: C+

February 19th

30 Days Of Night (Sony Pictures)

One of the worst movies of 2007. Quick! Get a Jawbreaker, swallow it whole, then pay special attention to the sounds you make when you try to cough it back up. That’s exactly how the vampires sound when they speak in this movie. And, honestly, that’s how I sound when I see the name “Josh Hartnett.” Hartnett stars as Eben (and no that’s not a typo . . . his name really is that unfortunate), the Barrow, Alaska sheriff who must defend his sun-challenged town when a legion of blood-sucking vampires shows up to feed for 30 Days Of Night. Eben, his wife Stella, and various nondescript townspeople hide in an attic to protect themselves from the hungry army. Does this ring a bell? It rang my bell so hard it chafed. As absurd as it seems, I really do believe that director David Slade (Hard Candy) wanted Barrow, Alaska to serve as a parallel for Nazi Germany and his film to serve as a horror movie interpretation of The Diary of Anne Frank. All I can say about a mission that preposterous is “Bring on the garlic and the wooden stakes!” GRADE: F

FILM PREVIEWS

February 1st

The Eye (Lionsgate)

I have two eyes and there is a strong possibility that I will soon be pulling an Equus and stabbing them out! Jessica Alba stars as blind concert violinist Sydney Wells, who finally gets the chance to see the world thanks to a double corneal transplant. However, when the bandages come off, Sydney begins to see and become haunted by terrifying images. I mean, sure, when you see Flavor Flav for the first time, it probably does scare you sh*tless. The Eye is a remake of a 1994 foreign film called Jian Gui, a movie that has already been Americanized once. Madeline Stowe and Aidan Quinn joined forces for Blink, a surprisingly taut thriller that was anchored by strong lead performances. Don’t expect a strong lead performance from Jessica Alba. That’s like expecting Britney Spears to wear panties or be sober.

February 8th

Fool’s Gold (Warner Brothers)

In 2003, Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey teamed up for How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days and, to no one’s surprise, I lost my mind in 10 minutes. So imagine how much my loins are tingling knowing the two have joined forces again! Adding insult to a bleeding, oozing, gaping injury is this statement heard at the beginning of the movie’s trailer, “From the director of Hitch!” Ooh!! Two prizes in one box of Cracker Jacks! McConaughey stars as “Finn” Finnegan, a surfer-turned treasure hunter who’s obsessed with finding the Queen’s Dowry, which was lost at sea in 1715. Hudson is his estranged wife who has grown tired of his treasure-seeking antics. Well, slap my bare bottom! She and I have something in common. I have grown tired of Matthew McConaughey too. But I’ve also grown tired of Kate Hudson. There is not a box of Calgon in this world that could take me as far away from this as I need to be.

February 14th

Jumper (20^th Century Fox)

Director Doug Liman has a fantastic film on his resume. Before Paul Greengrass took hold of the Bourne franchise, Liman set the benchmark for it with The Bourne Identity. Of course, in that movie Liman got an assist from the great actor Matt Damon. Here, he’s saddled with Hayden Christensen (Awake, Star Wars: Episode II and III), who stars as Davey, a genetic wonder ... a “Jumper” . . . who can teleport himself anywhere on Earth. Davey finds himself locked in a centuries-old battle between “Jumpers” and those hell-bent on eradicating them (I‘m guessing they‘re called “Walkers” or “The Club-Footed”). The movie has an interesting premise, albeit ripped off from television (Quantum Leap or The Voyagers), but the presence of Samuel L. Jackson gives me pause. Show me a Samuel L. Jackson action film (Snakes On A Plane, Deep Blue Sea, XXX or The Long Kiss Goodnight) and I’ll show you the same, tired Samuel L. Jackson performance. Jackson always seems to sleepwalk through movies like this. Given the fact that Christensen can’t help but do anything except sleepwalk, we may be “jumping” into trouble. 

February 14th

The Spiderwick Chronicles (Paramount)

February 22nd

Vantage Point (Sony Pictures)

The film’s tagline pretty much sums it up. “8 Strangers. 8 Points of View. 1 Truth.” Sounds like a night I had at the drive-in! Oops! I forgot other people are reading this. Damn. Academy-Award winner William Hurt stars as President Ashton, who suffers an assassination attempt shortly after arriving in Spain for a summit on the global war on terror. I guess there was a sourpuss in the crowd who didn’t enjoy the theme of the party! The crime is witnessed by hundreds and the film follows the vastly different accounts of a handful of those witnesses. Lending additional star support are Academy-Award winner Forest Whitaker, three-time Academy-Award nominee Sigourney Weaver and others. With this much star power it’s easy to assume that there was something beyond a paycheck that was attractive about this project. The trailer indeed caught my attention, but it seems to leak a major plot point (that the President isn’t really dead). I hope that, like David Copperfield or Heidi Fleiss, the movie has more tricks up its sleeve.

February 29th

The Other Boleyn Girl (Sony Pictures)