(500) Days Of Summer

(500) Days Of Summer is best thought of as a series of isolated moments of greatness locked in a run of the mill indie quirkfest.

"3rd Rock from the Sun" castaway Joseph Gordon Levett stars as Tom. He's a greeting card writer and a sad sack hopeless romantic who's both simultaneously cooler than everyone else in his own mind and so painfuly shy he can't muster the courage to even talk to the object of his true love at first.

Zooey Deschanel is the quirky girl of his dreams who he falls in love with at first sight. She has her work cut out for her. When you're playing a girl this aggressively fetishized she needs to provide the audience with some clue into why she's loved the way she is. And Deschanel is happily up to the task.
And her charm goes beyond the scripts indie hallmarks; She likes The Smiths so she must be cool, and she sticks up for Ringo in The Beatles when few others will. Deschanel possesses a certain screen presence that may have you falling for Summer against your better judgement too.

The film's structure is primarily what sets this movie apart. It jumps all around and starts at the end first before jumping back and forth to joy, pain, and everything in between as we seem to be following Tom's mind as he tries to analyze what went wrong.

I particularly liked one sequence when after a breakup Tom and Summer reconnect and she invites him over to a party. The director Marc Webb uses a wonderful split screen to show what he expected to happen, and what actually does.

It's not quite the "Annie Hall" of the ipod generation as some other reviewers have raved.
But it does have enough wonderful and inventive sequences to make it worthwhile.

(500) Days of Summer: B

Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince

I must confess I've always had a bit of a blind spot when it comes to the little wizard Harry Potter. You can't be conscious and not know at least a little about him, but I can't say I ever actively sought out any information or made an effort to read the books. Once when I was stuck in a hotel on a trip in the middle of nowhere I actually watched most of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkeban and it was a little better than I anticipated.

But that's primarily it. So I'm a bit of a muggle when it comes to hogwarts and all.
But I have to say I found this sixth installment reasonably entertaining. It makes hogwarts a pretty cool spooky place with nefarious forces at work in its very halls.

I can't say I got every reference or enjoyed it as much as some devotees might, but it's a handsomely made film that's well paced and has enough suspense, tension, and comedy to keep even the uninitiated interested.

"Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince:" B

I Love You Beth Cooper

"I Love You Beth Cooper" has no reason to exist. It seems to be pieced together from a few half remembered sitcoms, and older better teen movies.

In begins with the high school geek, who also happens to be the class valedictorian, professing his love for the most popular girl in school during his graduation speech.
Now this may seem like a good idea to the shy geeky dreamers looking to break down the walls that separate them from their dreamgirls in one fell swoop.
But in reality they almost never work, and the gesture only cements the geeks geekiness in the eyes of the desired.

In this film, it makes her take notice and she agrees to stop by a party that he and his ambigiously gay best friend are throwing.
But she's not the perfect dream girl he thought she was, her crazy military ROTC boyfriend goes on a rampage, and teen movie hijinks ensue.

The geek at the center of it all ,Denis Cooverman, is only sketched out in the broadest terms. He's got a star wars poster in his room, and seems to quote whatever random facts the writer could find on google, but he never comes together as a character. It makes you long for the relatively subtle comedy of "Freaks and Geeks" or even "Big Bang Theory" instead.

I think this film is being pitched as a breakout role for "Heroes" star Hayden Panitierre. But she lacks the charisma, charm, and looks to make her standout.
And you end up wondering what the fuss is all about.

There isn't a genuine emotion in the whole film, not a single scene that rings true. And the whole enterprise is uninspired, unfunny, and waste of time.


"I Love You Beth Cooper" D

Bruno

"Bruno" is essentially a feature length testament to the chutzpah of Sascha Baron Cohen. Things are performed on screen in this film I never would have dreamed of, much less been able to sneak past the MPAA.
How this film got an "R" rating I'll never know.

But that said, Cohen once again pulls off some amazing things while incognito in the guise of "Bruno" a remarkably dumb gay austrian fashionista on a quest for fame at any cost.

I don't want to give anything away, but at one point he tries to make a sex tape with presidential candidate Ron Paul, asks Paula Abdul to eat sushi off a naked Mexican gardener, tries to solicit a terrorist to kidnap him.
The film contains more jaw dropping moments than any other movie this year.
But the emphasis is more on shock value this time.
Cohen's elaborate stunts are meant to both shock and expose hidden prejudices in the people he's mocking. But "Borat" had funnier jokes and a better character behind all the vulgar outlandishness.

As Cohen has become a bigger star he hasn't lost his ability to get a message across to a desensitized audience, but he's lost a little of his sense of humor in the process.

"Bruno:" B-

"Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs"

The "Ice Age" series is a bit like one of those long running sitcoms that stays on the air, even though you're hard pressed to find anyone who would admit to watching it much less liking it.

Well a series that was never really all that inspired to begin with doesn't get any better in "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs."
Ray Romano and Queen Latifah's family of wooly mammoths is about to have a baby.
And John Leguizamo's Sid the sloth is feeling a little left out so he adopts three seemingly abandoned dinosaur eggs.
The filmmakers get around the obvious historical incongruities simply by opening up a Jurassic park like world below the snow.

The animators do make some good use of the 3-D technology, and the action sequences will keep some non-discriminating kids amused.
But there's precious little for the adults stuck in the audience. And you could go extinct waiting for any laughs from labored, sub-sitcom level script.


"Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs:" C-