First time director Noam Murro delivers this new comedy (Smart People) that has had my attention ever since I first saw the trailer for it. It has an absolutely fantastic cast and the feel of the film from the marketing seemed like a cross between Juno and Sideways (ironically enough the stars of both those films, Ellen Page and Thomas Haden Church are in this film), and since I loved both those films (Juno was the best film of 2007) I’ve found myself anxiously awaiting Smart People. Did it live up to my hopes. YES! It even exceeded them!

THE GENERAL IDEA

The synopsis for Smart People looks like this: “Professor Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) might be imperiously brilliant, monumentally self-possessed and an intellectual giant — but when it comes to solving the conundrums of love and family, he’s as downright flummoxed as the next guy. His teenaged daughter (Ellen Page) is an acid-tongued overachiever who follows all too closely in dad’s misery-loving footsteps, and his adopted, preposterously ne’er-do-well brother (Thomas Haden Chuch) has perfected the art of freeloading. A widower who can’t seem to find passion in anything anymore, not even the Victorian Literature in which he’s an expert, it seems Lawrence is sleepwalking through a very stunted middle age. When his brother shows up unexpectedly for an extended stay at just about the same time as he accidentally encounters his former student Janet (Sarah Jessica Parker), the circumstances cause him to stir from his deep, deep freeze, with often comical, sometimes heartbreaking, consequences for himself and everyone around him.”

THE GOOD

Where the hell do I start? A sure sign that I LOVED a movie is when I walk out of the movie theater and I instantly start thinking about, or talking about (if I’m with someone) my own life in terms of the themes explored in the film. When a film so resonates with me and draws me into a state of self-reflection, then it’s done something very rare and very right. You see, some people will (and have already) mistaken “Smart People” for some sort of romantic comedy, and on the surface you can understand why they would. But really, the movie is about a group of people, who each for their own reasons live in a crippling sense of pain that functionally paralyses them from getting on with, and truly living their lives. The profound truth of the film, is that the only thing keeping each of them captive to their pain, is their own fear of what may lay outside that pain. Live with it long enough, and even pain becomes comfortable. Sometimes it feels like it’s all we’ve ever known, and the prospect of taking any sort of risk that could lead to more failure or pain becomes inconceivable.

Dennis Quaid’s pain is the loss of his wife several years earlier that he’s never dealt with or even tried to move on from

Thomas Haden Church (Quaid’s brother) faces the pain of his stage of life with nothing really to show for it. A lifetime of failure.

Ellen Page’s (Quaid’s daughter) pain stems from the death of her mother that leaves her without a strong sense of her own identity. Early on she latched onto her father’s identity and becomes even more like him that he is but with her own set of struggles and confussion. Not knowing who she really is, never having really lived… and the idea of discovering life and who she is terrifies her.

Ashton Holmes (Quaid’s son) is in a world all his own without a sense of belonging. His perceived lack of approval from his father drives him to a place of just being bitter and angry.

The ironic thing about all these characters and the pain that unique defines each of them, is that the only thing holding them captive to their pain is themselves. Each of them refuses to give that pain up since that pain to one degree or another now defines who they are, and if you remove that hurt, they simply don’t know who it is that will be looking at them back in the mirror. None of this is ever explicitly dialoged about in the film, but it’s always there just an inch below the surface.

THE MOVIE IS FUNNY. Dealing with the issues that Smart People does can become bleak and wear you out if it’s not counter balanced. Humor is the counter balance in this film and it’s brilliant. The relationship between Ellen Page and Thomas Haden Church consistently makes you grin and often laughing out loud. Why Thomas Haden Church is not a HUGE star by now is totally beyond me. I’m not quite sure what else this guy has to do.

The performances by all the family cast were wonderful. Dennis Quaid never ceases to amaze me by his diversity and what he’s able to pull off. The shear range of thoughts and emotions this guy is able to effectively communicate on screen without using a word is staggering. I’ve already mentioned Ellen Page (who proves her Oscar nomination was no fluke) and Thomas Haden Church.

THE BAD

The one weakness of this film is the Sara Jessica Parker character. The character is needed and does serve an important function in the story (being the love interest for Dennis Quaid and ultimately the one who starts to pull him out of his very hard shell), but I found her character and her relationship with Quaid to be forced and didn’t feel “natural” or had any flow to it. Not a major complaint, but it was a negative.

OVERALL

Sometimes you see a movie that you love that you think other people are crazy for not loving too. Smart People however is one of those films where I can totally understand why some critics and people may not like it. It’s not for everyone. It won’t resonate with everyone and certain things I saw as strengths in the film others may see as weaknesses and that’s totally fair. However, the film DID resonate with me, it captured me, it drew me in and it made me just fall in love with it. Smart People is now my favorite film of 2008 so far and will be one I see in the theaters multiple times. I loved this movie. Maybe you will to, maybe you won’t… but I think those people that Smart People does appeal to, will cherish this film.

Overall I give Smart People a 9 out of 10.

Unless the film has the word “Matrix” in it someplace, long gone are the days when putting the name “Keanu Reeves” on the poster gets even the slightest amount of interest or excitement from me (if those days ever existed at all now that I think about it). Still, I’m a sucker for gritty cop movies, I think Chris Evans has a lot of potential and when was the last time Forest Whitaker turned in anything less than a solid effort? So despite the name “Keanu Reeves” being at the head of the poster, I’ve got to admit that Street Kings has had my attention. Was that attention warranted? Meh, not completely.

THE GENERAL IDEA

Keanu Reeves plays a tough street smart cop (don’t they always) who works with an elite unit in the Los Angeles Police Department (headed by Forest Whitaker) that quietly is willing to work outside the law in order to get things done, and then cover up their improper methods to make everything look legit. However, when one of the former members of this unit (and Reeves’ former partner) decides that what the unit is doing is wrong, he starts to rat the unit out to internal affairs and then is latter shot to death in an apparent store robbery, Reeves is driven to seek revenge against the criminals who killed his former partner by any means necessary. As he investigates the killing, he realizes the murder was more than just a simple hold up gone wrong. Together, he and an internal affairs agent played by Chris Evans begin following the clues, busting some heads and breaking some rules trying to find out just what the hell is going on.

THE GOOD

I know it’s predictable and almost cliche to say great things about Forest Whitaker’s performance in just about any film he’s in… but it’s the truth so I’ve got to do what is cliche and predictable. Whitaker has an ability to take just about any material that is handed to him and add so much character, passion (when called for) and power to it, that even if the movie or script is bad, he’ll FORCE his part to be something valuable and worthwhile in the film. Whenever the film feels like it’s starting to drag a bit, Forest Whitaker shows up on screen an instantly grabs your attention again. Easily his performance was the best part of the film.

If you’re going to attempt to make a “gritty cop film”, then you simply MUST have an intense and gritty feel (seems obvious I know, but how many times have we’ve seen these types of films flat out fail at this part?). Right from the opening credits of Street Kings the director David Ayer (who also directed Harsh Times and wrote the screenplays for films like Training Day, Dark Blue, Fast and the Furious and U571) does a solid jobs of creating that tense atmosphere throughout the film. It never feels too glossy which is a good thing.

The film is FAR from a comedy, but there were several moments and one liners in the film that had me laughing out loud (in a good way). I don’t have a lot of respect for Keanu Reeves as a performer, but I will admit that dry, sort of monotone cluelessness he brings to just about every single one of his characters does work pretty well in an environment like Street Kings when he drops funny lines.

THE BAD

If you’re going to make a film (be it a comedy, cop film, legal drama or sci-fi adventure) that has a mystery to be solved at its core, you absolutely can NOT let the resolution to that mystery be so completely obvious that 90% of the audience has the whole thing figured out by the time you hit the 20 minute mark of the movie. The air of the unknown makes every revelation and discovery throughout the film a hook that keeps the audience coming along with the movie for the ride… but when the outcome is so plainly and painfully obvious, those revelations and discoveries become nothing more than time filler between them and the end credits. The answer to the “mystery” in Street Kings is so transparent that I have a very hard time believing anyone in that theater didn’t have the whole thing figured out by the time they where half way through their popcorn (I’m usually done mine 10 minutes into the movie). As a matter of fact, I found myself internally screaming at Reeves’ character for being such an idiot and not figuring the whole thing out himself by the end of the first act.

The first half of the movie sets up the story fairly well, but from that point on so many of the situations and scenarios are so completely forced and ask the audience to stretch their imaginations and limits of believability so far that you just find yourself losing interest because apparently common sense means nothing in the Street Kings world.

Some of the dialog is horrendous. I just can’t say much more than that.

This one kills me, and ultimately totally killed the movie for me. When the “bad guys” are so “bad” and so evil and so debase that you feel like you’re watching an 80’s cartoon show. Films like Street Kings work when their characters are more realistic, and in the real world, even the “bad guys” have some areas of moral grey, some sense of struggle and some sense of conflict. Good people can do the worst things… bad people nightmarish unthinkable things… but they’re still human and not 1 dimensional cartoon characters who twirl their mustaches while titling their heads back laughing “MMuuuhahahahaha! Now I shall rape the babies in the hospital, kick pregnant teens in the uterus and cancel Christmas! MUUUHAHAHAHA!” Street Kings was already starting to lose me for all the above mentioned transgressions, but this is the one that made me close the book on the movie.

OVERALL

With a solid cast and an decent (if not original) premise, Street Kings had the potential to be a worth while film. A good opening and some witty dialog gets your hopes up for the first part of the film, only to have the massive failures of the movie start to become more and more conspicuous as the movie progresses. A painfully obvious resolution to the “mystery”, some horrible dialog and laughable villains end up making Street Kings not worth your $10.

Overall I give Street Kings a 3.5 out of 10.

The General Idea

Plot outline from IMDB: Donnas senior prom is supposed to be the best night of her life, one of magic, beauty, and love. Surrounded by her best friends, she should be safe from the horrors of her past. But when the night turns from magic to murder there is only one man who could be responsible, the man she thought was gone forever. Now, Donna and her friends must find a way to escape the sadistic rampage of an obsessed killer, and survive their Prom Night.

The Good

The villain was very off-putting (you could hear people in the audience mentioning this to one another). He was usually stone faced, but was able to just creep you out with his stare; this is a good quality for a movie killer to have. With a better script and more true to type slasher film, Johnathon Schaech would make a great killer; here his ability was underutilized and his “creepiness” went to waste.

The Bad

The kill scenes in this film were far too convenient. The killer was able to destroy anyone he wanted to at will; and usually without a hitch. This killed suspense; you knew no one was getting away and that the killer would have no obstacles until the end of the film. The complete lack of surprise overall was a shame, everyone knew how this one was going to play out, and was sad it did just that.

You don’t see any of the slash action and there is next to no blood. I am not kidding - people are lying dead with slit throats and you see a few drops of blood. It was like the corpses were already drained of their juice by giant leeches (I wish that was the case). It appears that in order to lessen the rating of this film they deliberately closed the tap on the blood and gore. Slasher films need blood like comedies need jokes.

This film seemed very long at 88 minutes, I am guessing it was due to its repetitive nature. We would have a dance scene at the prom, a scene with the friends talking about their future and/or relationship problems, a shot of the cops in the hotel - and then the killer would stab somebody. Rinse and repeat until the end.

Overall

I don’t think PG 13 horror films are the greatest idea unless you have incredible vision and the talent to pull it off. This was a forgettable and lackluster movie. Watching my cat give birth (just 2 days ago) was a more macabre experience. I would suggest you skip this one and out of 10, I would give it a 3.

I’ve got to admit right up front that when I first saw the marketing for “The Ruins”, I shock my head and didn’t have much hope for it. You can’t blame me really. The last 2 years have been filled with utterly forgetable tripe in the horror world. So much just seems to be a shameless knock off of the film that just came out 2 weeks ago, that was itself a shameless knock off of something else from last month… and so on and so on. Some movies off the top of my head like Bug, Skinwalkers and Captivity all fit into this category, and to be frank, The Ruins looked like just another throw away horror movie. Thankfully, it’s not… and actually ends up entertaining you a little.

THE GENERAL IDEA

The idea for The Ruins goes something like this: Two young female best friends and their respective boyfriends (one of which is a medical student) are off on a resort holiday in Mexico enjoying themselves. For their whole trip they’ve pretty much just stayed at the resort and haven’t done any adventuring. On their second last day they meet a German tourist who tells them about an ancient ruins site that isn’t on the tourist maps that his brother is currently at doing some excavating with an archeologist and he is going to go see it himself “tomorrow” since he has a map. The group agrees to go him. Once they arrive they find that people from a local village refuse to let them leave or get off the ruins at all. They don’t know why they’re being kept there, but slowly start to understand, and realize they aren’t really alone! DUN DUN DUN!!!

THE GOOD

Just as I always say that comedies must make you laugh in order to really work, horror movies have to legitimately make you feel scared or at least creeped out in order for it to really work. On this level, The Ruins doesn’t disappoint in my books. As the 5 friends start to understand and realize the horror that inhabits the ruins they are being isolated on, I found myself sharing a sense of dread that the characters must have been feeling. There are several solid “money shots” in the film that successfully disturb you, others that scare you. There is one shot in particular involving some pretty red flowers that gave me a serious “HOLY SHIT” moment.

You know what, for a lower budget horror film in this vein of genre, the acting was surprisingly good, especially the scenes where you’re supposed to believe the characters are horrified out of their wits. Trust me, you believe it.

The Ruins does a nice job of avoiding some seriously overused horror cliches. There are a few parts in the movie where you THINK you know what’s going to happen (because it looks like another cliche about to be employed) only to realize the director steers away from it. It was refreshing to see (although the film is not totally devoid of its share of cliches)

THE BAD

The funny thing is that there aren’t really any glaring or obvious weaknesses to The Ruins for me to talk about here. The biggest sin in the film is mediocrity. While the basic story is fine, the acting is pretty good, the effects were decent… nothing was “exceptional” with the film and far too many things are left on a shallow note for us as an audience to just wonder about and never know. I’m cool with films not spelling everything out to us… but to give us basically NOTHING is a bit frustrating, and without at least some back knowledge of a story it’s difficult to get too interested or invested in what’s going on. The movie works as a horror, but it remains bland in just about every other aspect. The characters aren’t compelling, there is no back story to speak of and aside from one or two little semi-surprises the whole movie is just these characters in the same situation for the entire duration of the film without much else to push the story along… if there was more story to be pushed on to.

OVERALL

The Ruins works because it succeeds at what horror movies must do… creep you out and scare you enough times. But it fails to get much more than a passing grade because it clearly decides to rest lazily on that fact and puts next to no effort into rounding it out as an overall movie to make something special. As a result, you still get an enjoyable little horror film that I think works, but nothing too special.

Overall I give The Ruins a 6.5 out of 10

It’s been said that George Clooney is the last true movie star. It’s hard to argue with that statement. Clooney embodies all the charisma, charm, swagger and glamour of the old time Hollywood movie stars. He is the face of what the industry needs more of. In a modern industry filled with one hit wonder, pretty face of the moment yet completely hollow personalities, George Clooney still brings that feeling of wonder back to the word “Hollywood” (which is a word more associated with being a heartless corporate industry). He embodies the IDEA of Hollywood, and maybe even the IDEAL of Hollywood.

Get a movie together with Clooney that happens to be a light comedy, add academy award winner Renee Zellweger, and a guy with a potentially very hot career, John Krasinski, to the mix and you’ve got something that will catch my attention if nothing else. So is Leatherheads worth your while? Sure, but not good enough to be something you’ll be thinking about next week.

THE GENERAL IDEA

The synopsis for Leatherheads looks like this: “A romantic comedy set against the backdrop of America’s nascent pro-football league in 1925. Dodge Connolly, a charming, brash football hero, is determined to guide his team from bar brawls to packed stadiums. But after the players lose their sponsor and the entire league faces certain collapse, Dodge convinces a college football star to join his ragtag ranks. The captain hopes his latest move will help the struggling sport finally capture the country’s attention. Welcome to the team Carter Rutherford, America’s favorite son. A golden-boy war hero who single-handedly forced multiple German soldiers to surrender in WWI, Carter has dashing good looks and unparalleled speed on the field. This new champ is almost too good to be true, and Lexie Littleton aims to prove that’s the case. A cub journalist playing in the big leagues, Lexie is a spitfire newswoman who suspects there are holes in Carter’s war story. But while she digs, the two teammates start to become serious off-field rivals for her fickle affections. As the new game of pro-football becomes less like the freewheeling sport he knew and loved, Dodge must both fight to keep his guys together and to get the girl of his dreams.”

THE GOOD

One of the things you can instantly tell the film was going for was not only to be set in the “old days”, to not only look like an old style Hollywood film… but they actually wrote and shot the film to feel like an old style Hollywood film. You feel like you could have been watching Jimmy Stewart, Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn up there instead of a modern day cast. The dialog and exchanges had that old Hollywood and classic feel to it that you just can’t help but be won over and charmed by.

I’m still not 100% sold on John Krasinski as a potential movie star, but I will say this… he adapted and fit in perfectly with both the style and substance of the film. It really looked like he must have spent several late nights at the bar with Clooney getting tips and instruction, because the man pulled his roll off. Never too serious and yet never allowing himself to spiral into slapstick either. He was much better than I thought he would be.

Renee Zellweger is one hell of an actress, and really, she was PERFECTLY cast for this film. I wouldn’t be surprised if she studied Katharine Hepburn in “Adam’s Rib” as she played a strong spitfire opposite Spencer Tracy. As a matter of fact Zellweger’s performance reminded me of a lot of Hepburn’s fiery roles and also fit the mood of the film perfectly.

George Clooney was… well… George Clooney. This is a perfect kind of film for him and he effortlessly caries the movie the whole run time.

THE BAD

There is one giant glaring weakness in Leatherheads that just can’t be ignored. The movie is a comedy in the old Hollywood style. Well, they pulled off the Old Hollywood Style part extremely well… unfortunately they did do as good of a job with the whole “comedy” part. Don’t get me wrong, the film didn’t come off as “stupid” as many miss comedies do… it’s just that the laughs weren’t there. Oh there were a good number of “grins” and a few decent chuckles along the way, but sorrily lacks enough laugh out loud moments that define solid comedies. The movie was cute, charming and all those other nice thigns, but as a comedy it failed at the most important thing… COMEDY.

OVERALL

In general, Leatherheads is a fine movie with a terrific feel that makes you reminisce about some of those old classic 50’s Hollywood movies you’ve seen. Both charming and entertaining, Leatherheads sadly misses the mark on the comedy aspect of its intended nature which leaves you feeling a bit wanting once the end credits start to roll. I still recomend this film and appreciated it for what it was… but it also fails to live up to its great potential. Overall I give Leatherheads a 7 out of 10.