Brothers: B-

"Brothers" is a good film that I sadly worry may have a hard time finding its audience. It's a surprisingly stark and real story of a Marine (Tobey Maquire) with a wife and two kids who heads off to fight in afghanistan.

He has a ne're do well brother who's just out of prison played by Jake Gyllenhaal.
I'm usually not much of a fan of Gyllenhaal. He has about as much emotion as a dead fish for me most of the time, but he suprised me here. He dug in deep beneath his character's superficial roughness to portray the soul of a man dealing with disappointment and trying to live up to the lofty reputation of his brother and the high expectations of his military veteran father.

And Natalie Portman gives one of the best performances of her career as Maguire's wife.

When his military helicopter crashes, he's presumed dead. And the film nicely intercuts between his family back at home, and his predicament after he's captured by afghanistan rebels.

Director Jim Sheridan, who did the truly wonderful "In America" a few years back, has just the right touch with the material. Whenever it threatens to go off the rails into melodrama he knows just how to put the brakes on and bring it back down to earth. And his work with the two children in this movie is pretty remarkable too. These aren't your typical movie star kids, they seem like just normal girls reacting how normal girls would react in the situation. None of that winking look, or carefully rehearsed crying.

All in all, it's no feel good crowd pleaser, but good performances make it worth seeing

Brothers: B-

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Fantastic Mr. Fox: A

Some films simply set themselves apart and win you over. Wes Anderson's charmingly animated tale "Fantastic Mr. Fox" is just such a film. It appeals to your head with its technical craftsmanship and intelligence, but it appeals to the heart by highlighting real universal themes that will strike a chord with adults and children. That said this isn't a film that will appeal to everyone. It is obstinately a creature all its own, and it stubbornly celebrates its quirks and idiosyncracies.

Based on a somewhat obscure story by Roald Dahl, "Fantastic Mr. Fox" follows a family of foxes led by a somewhat irasciable patriarch voiced by George Clooney.
Mister Fox is a chicken thief. In his specialized world of hen thievery, Mister Fox knows no equal. But when his wife announces she's pregnant, she urges him to find a less dangerous line of work so he can provide for their family. Naturally he becomes a newspaper columnist for his little corner of the animal kingdom.

Mister Fox is not content to raise his son in the family foxhole for long. He longs for a walk back on the wild side. And he plans one last big score by hitting the big three- three huge mean mega farmers just over the valley.
But that decision puts his entire family in jeopardy.

The stop motion animation is a thing of beauty. In a world where cgi is used to solve everything, this painstaking process is a real joy to watch and provides plenty of great gags. It also does the near impossible, it makes Latin actually seem like fun.

Anderson relies on many of his usual cast of characters who turn up in small roles, including Jason Schwartzman as Fox's son who has trouble living in his larger than life dad's shadow, Bill Murray as a badger lawyer, Owen Wilson as the school's coach for a game that looks like some form of cricket, and Wilem Dafoe as a hilariously evil finger snapping french rat

I loved everything about this film. From the opening scene, with the snappily dressed mister fox in dress slacks and a shirt doing warm ups to the terrific soundtrack and joyful conclusion, this film won me over heart and soul.
and I laughed more in the first five minutes of this wonderful movie
than I did in the entire running time of some other films

Fantastic Mr. Fox: A

Old Dogs: D

There's good news and bad news about the new comedy "Old Dogs." But let's start with the good news. Robin Williams and John Travolta make a surprisingly good comedy team. There's a friendly comraderie that comes off on screen, and makes them appealing to watch even if what they're saying or doing isn't particularly funny.

But now the bad news: Old Dogs isn't particularly funny. I watched this film in a theater full of families and I counted exactly 6 chuckles from the whole crowd. And more than half of those are in the trailer. The rest of the time everyone watched in bored silence as yet another film aimed at kids devolved into a string of shots to the crotch and poop jokes, and not particularly funny ones either.

The whole joke about Williams and Travolta being mistaken for grandparents was kind of amusing the first time. But the 7th? Not so much.
These Old Dogs need to get sent back to the pound.

Old Dogs: D

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Twilight: New Moon C

Twilight: New Moon is a glacially paced teen romance that will give its devoted fans a few moments to scream with delight and its critics even more ammunition to shake their heads and scrunch up their noses with scorn.
Harry Potter seems like Masterpiece Theater compared to this overwraught fantasy that is sadly devoid of tension. And every time the film threatens to gain some momentum it grinds to a screeching halt so Bella and Edward can gaze longingly at each other and recite some groan inducing romantic dialogue that will be music to the ears of a 12 year old, but should inspire shudders from adults who know better.

The big addition this time around is the werewolves. For reasons entirely unclear, they all dress like the biggest douchebags at a party school frat party. Shirtless meatheads clad in matching jean shorts wearing the same look of empty headed constipation.

The film has elements that should have been more of a payoff. The budding love triangle with Bella caught between a vampire and a werewolf, the war between the vampires and the new pack of werewolves. But the werewolves are done in by some actually pretty shoddy looking cgi effects.

Kristen Stewart as Bella is a vacuum of charisma. Her largely blank expression, and stuttering delivery add up to a big pile of blah. Looking bored doesn't make you look soul-full. Robert Pattinson at least tries to show some inner torment, but he too often just stands back looking hurt. Lautner wears a look of constipated discomfort throughout. The lack of charisma in the two leads becomes even more apparent in their one scene with British actor Michael Sheen. He plays the head of a vampire council and he gets more out of his brief screen time than they do in the whole film.

In the theater full of screaming 12 year old girls and their mothers that I saw this film in I heard roughly 3 gasps of delight. One at the title. A second at the instance when hunk of the moment Taylor Lautner takes off his shirt for the first time.
And a third at the final scene which contains a big reveal that I won't spoil for the unfortunate few who have doomed themselves to experiencing this vortex of suckitude for themselves.

The film contains a fangirl's dream scene when Bella hits her head after falling off a motorbike. Jacob runs over and takes off his shirt to wipe the blood off her brow. This film gives its fans exactly what they want and is likely to leave anyone who hasn't drunk this particular brand of kool-aid shaking their heads.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon C

"It doesn't make sense for you to love me." I know what she means.

Ninja Assasin: C

Ninja Assassin sets a pretty high bar for itself in its opening scene, where unseen ninjas disembowel their targets in one of the most inventive bloodbaths since Uma Thurman dispatched the Crazy 88 in Kill Bill.

But sadly, the filmmakers seem to have blown their wad in that one opening scene.
Almost every one of the endless fight scenes that follow try and fail to capture the energy and wind up recycling the same moves, the same visual effects, and the same bag of tricks.

The extremely bloody movie seems to be made by and for blood thirsty fan boys eager to see laughter drowned in blood.

The revenge story about a member of an elite team of ninja assassins who sets out to destroy the clan who created him after the woman he loves is killed is pretty by the book.
and it's not compelling enough to make us care about what happens between the fight sequences. This all leads up to a peculiarly pedestrian finale that will probably be forgotten by the time you even hit the aisle.

Ninja Assassin: C

The Blind Side: D+

"The Blind Side" is an excruciatingly wholesome inspirational drama that feels condescending, forced and fake from the get go. It's based on a true story, but these characters as rendered on screen show no resemblence to anyone in the real world.

Quinton Aaron is Michael Oher- a poor, borderline illiterate, and almost homeless. But he shows potential for football, so the coach at a tony Memphis Christian school gets him enrolled.
He soon attracts the attention of strong willed mom and interior decorator Sandra Bullock. Bullock's look is strictly overpriced, borderline tacky. She's dressed to the nines, but still restrained in by a southern notion of presentability that prevents her from going all the way into Sopranos housewife territory.

For reasons never quite explained, Bullock invites the big black kid to stay at their home for the night and then to live with them.
She helps him learn how to read, play football, get a college scholarship, and onward from there.

It's innately uncomfortable to watch Bullock sashay through the projects with her impeccible makeup, fancy clothes and expensive cars. And the message that African Americans need the attention of rich white america to help them achieve anything is almost impossible to ignore.

Some may find Bullock's character to be a kind and gentle soul, but she struck me as a bullying bitch. Aaron's character Michael Oher is less a person than a prop used to make Bullock feel better about herself.
I found it impossible to believe that a child with as many serious problems as him would be an angelic gentle giant who could calm his personal demons just by shutting his eyes.

The whole experience is like a particularly earnest edition of The Hallmark Hall Of Fame without the benefit of the fast forward button.

The Blind Side: D+

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Gentlemen Broncos: C

"Gentlemen Broncos" is unabashedly made by and for the type of people who write fan fiction at home and attend sci-fi/fantasy conventions.
From the family's geodescent dome house, to the old oldsmobile cutlass cierra with the "cutlass" nameplate missing- its ugly tacky thrift store milleau is exhaustingly complete. Since these characters essentially live in the hand scribbled pages of their notebooks, what they look like to everyone else doesn't much matter.

Benjamin is a home schooled teenager who attends a writers camp so he can hear the words of his child-hood hero, a fantasy novelist with more than a few breast issues played by "Flight of the Conchords" Jermaine Clement.
Ben decides to submit his original story, entitled "Yeast Lords" to a writing competition. But faced with a deadline and writers block Clement winds up stealing it and calling it his own.

Entire sequences of the film are devoted to watching the differing versions of Ben's book played out on screen with Sam Rockwell and some intentionally cheesy effects. They're kind of amusing, but not particularly funny. And everyone in this film has the slack jawed yokel expression of dazed constipation.

I didn't hate this film. But I can't really recommend it. I found it an agreeable time waster, but it's nothing I'd really want to see again.

Gentlemen Broncos: C

2012: B

John Cusack tries to outrun the apocolypse in 2012. Director Roland Emmerich is essentially our generation's Irwin Allen, and 2012 is pretty much his "Towering Inferno."
He uses just about every trick at his disposal to turn the great landmarks of the world into delightfully cheesy looking rubble.
If ever a movie was begging to be turned into a thrill ride at a theme park, this is it. Virtually no landmark goes unscathed- except of course Chicago- as the mayan prophesy about the end of the world comes true before our very eyes.
This time its solar eruptions getting all the blame for unleashing earthquakes, meteor showers, volcanos, and tidal waves on all of earth's continents.
You definitely have to be in the right kind of mood for a picture like this.
It's story is as cheesy as they come, and no disaster movie cliche is left to languish by the wayside. Millions die, but of course the dog dodges the bullet.
And I guess I was in the right kind of mood because I kind of liked it in a dopey way. It helps to have John Cusack in the role of the sympathetic everyman- a divorced dad and struggling writer just out to get his family out of harms way. He's eminently watchable and makes you forget about the ridiculous patter the script calls for.
If you're willing to check your brain at the door and take it on its own dumb terms, you're in for quite a ride.

2012: B

Pirates Shipwrecked: C-

Pirate Radio is shipwrecked in a sea of subplots. What could have been a nice interesting little movie if it had any interest whatsoever in what it was supposed to be about, turns into a bland middle of the road dramedy with no real drive, devotion, or drama.

And it's a real shame too because the immensely talented cast stacked with ringers like Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Emma Thompson, Kenneth Branagh and Ryhs Dharby from Flight of the Conchords, does its best. But none of them have much of a character to work with.
They're all just one almalgous glob of "crazy" disc jockeys on a boat broadcasting rock and roll. I wanted these characters to live and breathe the music they were playing. I wanted it to affect their dna in some way but instead it felt like they were essentially generic characters in a bland dramedy with an oldies station playing in the background.

For the first hour and a quarter nothing much really happens. At one point, writer director Richard Curtis, seeming increasingly desperate to create some artificial tension, stages a climbing race up the mast. When the uninteresting overarching plot about the BBC's efforts to shut them down finally gets going in the third act I didn't really care.
nAnd the entire third act involving a shipwreck in the north sea feels forced and fake.

Pirate Radio: C-

The Men Who Stare At Goats

George Clooney has a lot on his mind in the trippy but wildly uneven war comedy "The Men Who Stare At Goats."

Clooney is part of a secret group of elite soldiers trained to fight wars with mind powers. Clooney is in fine comic form, able to get laughs just by looking bug eyed at a cloud. And Jeff Bridges seems to be channeling "el duderino" in his role as the founder of the crack army team.

The Men Who Stare At Goats is often more clever than laugh out loud funny. It wrings a lot of smiles out of the audience when Clooney is trying to explain operation Jedi to a newspaper reporter played by Ewan McGregor (who knows a thing or two about jedis).
But it's essentially a one joke movie. Crazy elite soldiers are so devoted to their trippy philosophy that they don't notice what's right in front of them.
It's not as great as it could have been, but it's good enough.

The Men Who Stare At Goats: B

Christmas Carol Sings Familiar Tune

When I heard Jim Carrey was starring in a new version of a Christmas Carol, I feared the worst. His take on "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" was pretty unendurable from its very first frame, and I was worried he'd bring his manic schtick to the holiday chestnut.
But against all odds, I found Carrey surprisingly restrained in the role of that old miser Ebenezer Scrooge. And thankfully the film avoids the snarky tone and dumb jokes of recent animated fare in favor of a fairly straight forward re-telling of an old miser who learns the true meaning of Christmas.

Carrey fares far better with Scrooge than he does with the parts of the three ghosts. His scrooge is a delightful concoction of humbuggery without being too off the wall. But the three ghosts seem less like characters and more like props dreamed up as an excuse to show off whatever digital animation wizadry the filmmakers happen to be taken with that day. The ghost of Christmas Past is a floating candle (of all things,) and Carrey speaks in a ghostly whisper that becomes grating almost instantly.

The Ghost of Christmas Present is a more traditional image who waves his big flaming torch around for no reason.
But it does feature a cool, and pretty scary sequence where the ghost goes all "last crusade" on us and his flesh literally falls off as he disintegrates right before our eyes. The Ghost of Christmas Future is predictably menacing, but also a bit boring.

Director Robert Zemeckis seems to be the only one captivated by motion capture technology. He's back again with it here, and thankfully most of the animated characters have lost that evil dead eyed look they had in "The Polar Express." Scrooge is almost lifelike- a detailed landscape of wrinkles, imperfections, with a chin seemingly inspired by jay leno. And most of the time Bob Crachet looks remarkably like Gary Oldman. But every now and then the characters still seem like animatronic versions of themselves- believable only up to a point.

The 3-D sequences are actually pretty good. But the filmmakers indulge in too much "look at me" roller coaster flying sequences that seem out of sync with the rest of the film. Since Jim Carrey played it relatively straight, I guess the filmmakers decided to let the animators do the acting up instead.

Although It's not the best adaptation of the story that everyone with a pulse already knows by heart, It still warmed my heart with its Christmas cheer. And there's nothing wrong with that.

"A Christmas Carol:" B-