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Tag Archives: Chris

May 17, 2012

Movie Review ~ What to Expect When You’re Expecting

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by Joe Movie Review • Tags: Brooklyn, Chris, Decker, Dennis, Expect, Expecting, Jones, Kirk, logo, Pictures, Quaid, Rock, Studio, To, Touchstone, What, When, You're

The Facts:

Synopsis: A look at love through the eyes of five interconnected couples experiencing the thrills and surprises of having a baby, and ultimately coming to understand the universal truth that no matter what you plan for, life doesn’t always deliver what’s expected.

Stars: Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, Dennis Quaid, Elizabeth Banks, Brooklyn Decker, Chance Crawford, Chris Rock

Director: Kirk Jones

Rated: PG-13

Running Length: 110 minutes

TMMM Score: (3/10)

Review:  When it was announced that a film was being made of the best selling instructional book What to Expect When You’re Expecting (to be referred to now as WTEWYE) more than few eyebrows were raised…mostly because many wondered how a movie would be fashioned out of this source material.  What is arriving on screen now is more of a film that is inspired by the book rather than an adaptation but unfortunately it feels even more like textbook filmmaking.

I’m all about the ensemble movie…strong entries like pretty much any Altman film and Playing By Heart blended large casts with criss-crossing storylines.  Recent ensemble films like Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve have been pretty dreadful – being more about cramming as many stars into the frame as possible.  While not as shoddily made as these examples, WTEWYE still doesn’t quite know what to do with its large cast and judging from several performances, the actors don’t quite know what to do with themselves either.

Know going in that everyone you meet in the movie is connected somehow and not always in the most creative fashion.  One actor is identified near the end as the cousin of another character only because they have to have a reason to visit them in the hospital, right?  Riiiiiight.  The film was adapted/written by Heather Hach and Shauna Cross with a tin ear for realistic dialogue and nearly no character development.  Director Jones also doesn’t have a strong directorial voice…but it honestly doesn’t matter because the star wattage in the film more than outweighs this relatively inexperienced director.

In terms of star wattage WTEWYE runs the gamut from A List Oscar nominees to C list CW/FOX TV stars.  Heading up our A list is Diaz and Lopez, both miscast in their roles as, respectively, a celebrity trainer for a Biggest Loser-type TV show and a marine photographer unable to conceive herself.  Right away I recognized that Diaz and Lopez should have swapped roles.  I would buy Lopez as the trainer and Diaz as the photographer simply because they are so unconvincing in their given roles that any change would have been an improvement.

Our A- list actors are a misused Kendrick as a food truck owner who goes through her own pregnancy journey after a one night stand with a former flame (Crawford who seemed to have learned his lines phonetically).  Kendrick is better than this material but doesn’t seem to believe it so her budding big screen career takes a stumble here.

I’m reserving a new paragraph for Banks because she is an actress that I find myself growing to love with each role.  She caught my eye in Seabiscuit and has built up a great arsenal of characters ever since.  She scored earlier this year with a spot-on role in The Hunger Games and has another strong performance in June with People Like Us.  The smartest thing that WTEWYE does is sign her paycheck because she brings the right mix of exhaustion and energy to her stereotypically written role.  While I do question why her character owns a high end baby store without ever having had a child, when she and her husband (Falcone who doesn’t quite steal the scenes he did in Bridesmaids) do get pregnant their arc is the most consistently entertaining.

Another high point are the Mens Group scenes that the ads feature heavily.  Sad to say many of the funniest moments have been spoiled if you’ve seen the trailer but that doesn’t quite diminish the delight that you may take seeing Rock and the other pops wax ridiculous about their life in the dad lane.  Rock’s young son also nearly steals the show with no dialogue…trust me.

Rounding out the cast are fairly unmemorable performances from a cavalcade of unmemorable faces…it’s not worth mentioning more because they didn’t seem to care enough to do something with arguably weak material.

The worst thing about the movie is it looks so cheaply made…I know the producers probably drained their budget on the star salaries but it has the look of a Lifetime movie.  Your enjoyment of this is probably dependant on how much you expect from this expectant comedy.  Set your bar low and you may get something out of this but understand that it’s a movie that doesn’t need to be seen in the theaters and may work better on the small screen.  For summer counterprogramming, I can see why this may be a success with women but can’t see it inspiring a sequel.

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May 7, 2012

Movie Review ~ The Avengers

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by Joe Movie Review • Tags: Avengers, Chris, Downey, Evans, Fury, Hemsworth, Hul, Hulk, Jackson, Joss, logo, Paramount, Renner, Scarlet, Studio, THor, Whedon

The Facts:

Synopsis: Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. brings together a team of super humans to form The Avengers to help save the Earth from Loki and his army.

Stars: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner

Director: Joss Whedon

Rated: PG-13

Running Length: 142 minutes

Random Crew Highlight:  Gangboss ~ Richard Crain

TMMM Score: (9.5/10)

Review:  With so many movies to see this summer I have to admit that The Avengers wasn’t high on my radar for rabid Must See status.  I knew that based on the cast, history, and behind the scenes players that it was absolutely going to be an important kick off to the summer movie season…but I wasn’t prepared for a movie that transcends its own genre and establishes itself as one of the best superhero movies to grace the silver screen.  Is it the “Best Movie Ever!” as I’ve seen several people proclaim on Facebook…well, no.  Is it one of the better comic-to-movie adaptations to come along….yes.  Will you be entertained even if you aren’t well versed in the Marvel Comic world of The Avengers…absolutely.

What makes The Avengers work so well is that they started with a great script by director Joss Whedon.  Building on that strong script, a strong cast was assembled.  Most of the cast has had time to explore their characters in their own summer blockbusters – Downey Jr. in the two Iron Mans, Hemsworth in Thor, and Evans in Captain America: The First Avenger.  Renner’s Hawkeye had a uncredited cameo in Thor and Black Widown Johanssen joined up for Iron Man 2.  Only Ruffalo is the newbie of the group…and he winds up nearly stealing the show (well, the Hulk does the smashing/stealing but more on that later).  So with that great script and great cast all the behind the scenes people needed to do was make a great movie.  And that they did.

It’s an amazing feat to have all these players from previous movies in place and deliver a movie that doesn’t feel like a sequel or origin story.  This is a full bodied, well conceived thrill ride that has more than enough moments for each star to shine.  Whedon is smart enough to know what audiences want to see and he delivers again and again with each development and danger our Avengers face.  Whether it’s a large action sequence or quiet conversation there is never a dull moment in the perfectly paced story.

Plot wise, it may be a little thin if I’m being totally honest.  After all, aliens wanting to destroy earth are nothing new and will be played out in several movies opening this summer.  The Avengers makes the movie more about our heroes and heroines than it does about huge explosions and effects…a smart move.

Speaking of explosions and effects, there is no shortage of these in this here movie and all are executed to near perfection.  It’s hard to see what Whedon and company have created here and not shake your finger at Michael Bay’s brain-dead Transformers series for selling us a bad bill of goods.  The Avengers is better than all three Transformers movies and any of the other similarly themed event movies of the last decade.  It makes them all look like bargain basement SyFy Channel wannabees.

Whedon works well with all of the actors in his tether and doesn’t restrain himself when letting the ones with bigger personalities hijack their own special moments.  Downey Jr. has Tony Stark/Iron Man down pat and still managers to give him a few interesting wrinkles, further breathing life into a role that could easily be off-putting.  Hemsworth works best as a supporting hero and fares better than he did in last summer’s underwhelming Thor.  I personally found Captain America: The First Avenger to be the best of all the Marvel adaptations and Evans establishes the Captain as a true-blue American hero that just so happens to walk tall and carry a big shield.  Renner and Johanassen haven’t had their own movies to explore their characters but I would be on board with pairing them in their own adventure when the time is right.  Jackson and Gregg have been the constant in all of the previous films and they move easily into the spotlight as supporting players rather than end of the credit cameos.

The best thing that happened with The Avengers was replacing Ed Norton with Mark Ruffalo.  Norton was an ill-advised choice to play Bruce Banner/Hulk in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk and he was thankfully given his walking papers for this outing.  Ruffalo finally gives us the perfect Dr. Banner as a man more concerned with peace than anger.  His conflict is relatable and tangible because of his layered performance.  When the Hulk does appear, the effects team makes him wholly realistic and Whedon graces him with several of the more crowd pleasing moments.

That’s what this movie is…a genuine crowd pleaser… a movie that you can’t help spontaneously cheering for or reacting to because it draws you in so well.  It’s more than just a comic book movie…it’s a honest-to-goodness superhero movie that Hollywood had simply forgotten how to make.  Whedon has showed us all that it is possible to make a movie with multiple people to root for with one sequence near the end managing to capture each Avenger in action with one incredible tracking shot.  With its huge opening numbers and critical praise expect this to be the first of many Avengers films…and deservedly so.

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April 30, 2012

Movie Review ~ The Five-Year Engagement

by Joe Movie Review • Tags: Alison, Blunt, Brie, Chris, Chriss, Emily, Engagement, Fiver, Jacki, Jason, logo, Nicolas, Pratt, Segel, Stoller, Studio, Universal, Weaver, Year

The Facts:

Synopsis: One year after meeting, Tom proposes to his girlfriend, Violet, but unexpected events keep tripping them up as they look to walk down the aisle together.

Stars: Jason Segal, Emily Blunt, Alison Brie, Chris Pratt, Jacki Weaver

Director: Nicholas Stoller

Rated: R

Running Length: 124 minutes

TMMM Score: (6.5/10)

Review:  Last May, Universal Studios struck gold with Bridesmaids.  A witty and versatile comedy, it broke box office records and landed on many award shortlists by the end of the year.  It’s clear from the marketing of The Five-Year Engagement that Universal was hoping they’d be headed to the bank again but alas, this engagement will not have the longevity the brides had.  Now that’s not to say this isn’t a perfectly decent movie…it is.  It just comes up short in several categories that are crucial to a successful comedy.

Cast wise, Blunt and Segal as Violet and Tom are well matched actors as the couple the film centers around.  It would have been easy to make the movie about how MISmatched as a couple they are but that angle has been done to death with barely a laugh left to milk.  Instead, Blunt and Segal create (mostly) real people that find themselves at several crossroads during the span of their half decade of engaged not-so-bliss. 

Segal co-wrote the script with director Stoller after previously collaborating on Forgetting Sarah Marshall and The Muppets.  I find that the Segal/Stoller team has a nice knack for dialogue but a poor utilization of an editors ear.  The film is simply too full of people, ideas, and half-jokes — so in the end nothing feels like it received the attention it probably deserved.  Numerous characters are introduced to never be heard/seen from again unless they are needed to move the story along.  Weaver, playing Violet’s snippy mother, seems to be nearly an afterthought which leads me to believe much of her work was left on the cutting room floor.

Aside from the two leads there are the “B” couple…Tom’s best friend (Pratt) and Violet’s sister  (scene-stealing Brie) who just so happen to have a shotgun wedding due to a dalliance at Tom and Violet’s engagement party.  It’s clear that this B couple has been created to give Tom and Violet a glimpse into married life and as an excuse for Pratt to perfect his Jack Black-wish oaf schtick and for Brie to nail her UK accent.  Both actors do good for the movie as a whole…especially Brie who has a great scene with Blunt involving the voices of Cookie Monster and Elmo. 

Blunt continues to be a fascinating actress to watch.  She has a great ability to make clunky dialogue work and far-fetched situations seem like everyday life.  She works hard to smooth out the scenarios Segal and Stoller have created for her and usually comes out on top.  Of course, since this is a Judd Apatow production that means that the comedy has a price…severed toes/fingers, an arrow to the thigh, and dead deer figure prominently (as well as the worst and most wasteful use of Sriracha sauce ever).  Plus Segel takes another opportunity to be nude/semi-nude at multiple points throughout the film though thankfully not as graphically as in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

The problem with these extra full movies is that they overstay their welcome halfway through.  The film is so heavy in the middle that there’s no real way it can fully recover by the end credits.  When you feel the movie should be ending you realize that there’s still 40 minutes left – and it doesn’t help that the five-year time frame plays by its own rules when communicating a passage of time.  Time just moves whenever the actors feel like it – I would have liked to see the film be more episodic and broken up by years, seasons, moon cycles, etc. 

Even if the movie does huff and puff toward its finish line when that line comes it’s with an unexpected bit of whimsy that I would have most definitely liked to participate in.  It’s a solid but unspectacular effort from people that have been all-around better in previous work.  Not a total miss but one that is easily passed on until the second run theaters or DVD/Blu-Ray.

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