Admission

Admission - Dir. Paul Weitz (2013)

After cutting her teeth as a performer and head writer for Saturday Night Live, Tina Fey went on to create her own sitcom in 30 Rock, which was inspired by her time on the venerable variety show. Though it was never a huge ratings grabber, 30 Rock garnered a loyal following, critical acclaim, and numerous awards. As Liz Lemon, Fey added her own twists to the tried and true archetype of the working female trying to balance her professional and personal lives. Unfortunately, Fey takes several steps back in the depressingly formulaic Admission.

Fey stars as Portia Nathan, an admissions officer at Princeton University. Her job is her life, even if it involves passing judgment on wave after wave of potential students. Things are thrown into turmoil when Portia's boyfriend, Mark (Martin Sheen), leaves her for another professor (a scholar of Virginia Woolf, no less) he accidentally impregnated. At the same time, Portia is asked to visit an alternative school in New Hampshire by its founder and former collegiate classmate, John Pressman (Paul Rudd). While visiting Pressman's Quest School, Portia meets a variety of unusual characters including Pressman's adopted son, Nelson (Travaris Spears), and a prodigy by the name of Jeremiah Balakian (Nat Wolff). Adopted by grocery store owners, Jeremiah did poorly in public school, but possesses remarkable intelligence and owns a ventriloquist dummy named after René Descartes. According to Pressman, there's a strong possibility that Jeremiah might be the son Portia gave up for adoption when she was a student.

The prospects look good for a comedy headlined by Tina Fey and Paul Rudd. You expect witty banter and some sharp, off-the-cuff one-liners. In other words, you expect a completely different movie. Admission is a dull affair that saps any personality away from the usually hilarious Fey and Rudd. The movie, based on a 2009 novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz with a screenplay by Karen Croner (who also adapted the Meryl Streep melodrama One True Thing), trades on the stale formula we've seen countless times in other romantic comedies. Fey is the type-A female professional with Rudd as the unconventional love interest. There's a healthy mix of slapstick tossed in for good measure such as an awkward encounter in a cramp car and a scene where the leads bond during the messy birth of a calf. The dialogue is blunt and it is clear neither Fey nor Rudd were able to spice it up with their own ad-libs. At times, the script veers into a satire about college admissions and the ridiculousness of distilling a young person's entire life into a standardized essay. Sadly, this satire lacks any bite and takes a backseat to rom-com conventions.

Admission was directed by Paul Weitz, who previously directed American Pie and About a Boy with his brother Chris. While his first film as a solo act, In Good Company, was a success, the rest of his work have been misfires like American Dreamz, The Vampire's Assistant, and Little Fockers. They can sit on the bottom rung alongside "Admission." One of the only memorable flourishes in the movie involves candidates appearing before the admissions board and dropping through a trap door when they are denied.

Admission is saved from being a complete dud by some of its supporting cast, such as Wallace Shawn playing the type of role you expect from Wallace Shawn. Lily Tomlin is terrific as Portia's mother, a radical feminist with her own unusual ideas about motherhood. Plus, Martin Sheen essentially reprises his role as the boorish Wesley Snipes from 30 Rock.

Despite conquering television, Tina Fey has yet to receive the one lead role that would cement her status as a bona fide movie star. Considering her best film yet is "Mean Girls," which she wrote, Fey is going to have to make it happen herself. Right now, Hollywood is just handing her bland comedies like Baby Mama, Date Night, and Admission. She deserves better.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

L!fe Happens

L!fe Happens - Dir. Kat Coiro (2012)

With her unconventional looks, actress Krysten Ritter has often been cast as the best friend. The fair-skinned beauty with the jet black hair has appeared in that role in films like Confessions of a Shopaholic and She's Out of My League. Sometimes you just have to take the initiative when it comes to scoring the lead. That's what we have here with Life Happens or as it is officially (and annoyingly) titled, L!fe Happens. Along with actor/director Kat Coiro, Ritter co-wrote the film, which mines the always hilarious topic of unplanned pregnancy.

Kim (Ritter) and her best friend, Deena (Kate Bosworth), are ready for a wild night of sex, but only have one condom between the two of them. Deena snatches the last prophylactic, leaving Kim to "raw dog" it with an Australian surfer (Rhys Coiro). A year later, Kim is a single mom with a son named Max and a job as the assistant to Francesca (Kristen Johnston), a wealthy socialite with an aversion to children. Kim tolerates Francesca's abrasive attitude in the hopes she will invest in her idea for a shopping mall catering exclusively to dogs. She also has a hard time meeting guys, who are all scared off by the mere sight of a baby.

While partaking in the trendy nightlife of L.A., Kim meets a handsome fellow named Nicolas (Geoff Stults). Afraid of losing another one, she tells him that Max is Deena's son. Now, Kim has to balance her professional life with motherhood and a personal life built around a seemingly harmless white lie.

L!fe Happens labors its way through a story riddled with clichés and strained attempts at humor. The movie tries way too hard to earn its R-rating with raunchy humor in an effort to copy the lucrative Apatow formula. One sequence sees Kim lactating on Nicolas during intercourse while the dialogue leaves us with gems like "douche-nozzle," although, they earn bonus points for making a reference to The Night Porter. There's hardly any chemistry between Ritter and Stults, plus there is a distinct lack of wit to their banter. The filmmakers also shoehorn in a third roommate played by Rachel Bilson. She's one of those indie characters who is quirky for quirky's sake. Bilson is a proud virgin forced to work humiliating jobs as a lingerie wearing valet or a human sushi platter. The rest of the screen time is filled out with a B-story involving the smart, feminist Deena romancing one of Nicolas's idiot friends. Never mind that the entire movie is nullified by the simple act of stopping by a 24-hour CVS.

The only time I managed to perk up during L!fe Happens was a random appearance by Seymour Cassel in the very minor role of Kim's grandfather.

If you're wondering how L!fe Happens stacks up against Knocked Up, Juno, or even Baby Mama, the answer is not very well. L!fe Happens lacks the humor and the heart of those pictures.

Rating: * (*****)

Larry Crowne

Larry Crowne - Dir. Tom Hanks (2011)

Tom Hanks has earned his reputation as an all-around nice guy and one of the most likeable actors in Hollywood. Hanks brings every ounce of that likeability for Larry Crowne, which marks his second film as a director following his debut behind the camera with 1996's That Thing You Do!

Hanks stars as the titular Larry Crowne, a mid-level employee for U-Mart, a big-box retailer resembling Target. Larry enlisted in the Navy straight out of high school and never went to college. This lack of higher education is cited as the primary reason for his lack of promotion into upper management. Since he can no longer advance any further, U-Mart executives decide to fire him despite years of exemplar service.

Larry finds himself in an all too familiar situation as a divorced, middle-aged man who is now unemployed and saddled with a mortgage he can no longer afford. Left with few options, Larry decides to enroll in community college. Thus begins a series of life-changing events for our affable protagonist.

First, he trades in his gas-guzzling SUV for a sporty scooter and befriends the cute and free-spirited Talia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), who renames him "Lance Corona" and recruits him into her scooter gang. She even gives Larry a makeover, giving him a new hairdo and ditching his dorky polo shirts for a hip leather jacket. Next, Larry signs up for a morning class on informal speaking taught by the disillusioned Mercedes Tainot (Julia Roberts). Not only has she lost her passion for academia, but she also deals with a husband (Bryan Cranston), who considers posting on internet message boards as creating a beachhead in new media. He also surfs for porn, but since this is a PG-13 movie, the women are fully clothed.

In addition to directing, producing, and starring in Larry Crowne, Tom Hanks co-wrote the script with Nia Vardalos, whose My Big Fat Greek Wedding was championed by Hanks and wife Rita Wilson. Vardalos has yet to recapture the same success and the middling response to the clichéd Larry Crowne won't change that. The way in which the film offers sitcom solutions to complex issues borders on condescension. Is a degree from a community college really going to protect someone from the economic downturn? I know people with Master's degrees who are still having a rough time in the job market. How does Larry Crowne still manage to stay afloat in Los Angeles while working as a part-time short order cook? Sometimes Crowne comes off more as a man going through a mid-life crisis when he's wearing a leather jacket and wallet chain.

Larry Crowne was released the same weekend as Transformers: Dark of the Moon. It certainly serves its purpose as counter-programming to the hordes of loud, effects heavy blockbusters. Hanks and Roberts (who gets more beautiful with age) have a winning chemistry together and there are some fun performances from Taraji P. Henson and Rami Malek as an annoyingly dim classmate. Without a doubt, the best thing in the movie is George Takei as an eccentric economics professor. The boisterous Takei steals every one of his scenes. I wouldn't want to see Larry Crowne 2, but I'd readily shell out twelve bucks to see a spin-off starring the former Mr. Sulu.

It's obvious Larry Crowne was meant as a soothing salve on the gaping wounds caused by the financial collapse with Hanks serving as a modern day Frank Capra or Preston Sturges. Sadly, Hanks is unable to capture the heart and wit of those cinematic masters. It is simply populist pabulum with a tone as affable and easy-going as its leading man.

Rating: ** (*****)

No Strings Attached

No Strings Attached - Dir. Ivan Reitman (2011)

After unfurling the majority of their high profile releases for the holidays and awards season, studios slowly trickle out the leftovers in the first few months of the new year. You can rest assured that a crappy romantic comedy will always be among the bunch to kick things off on a sour note. In 2009, it was 27 Dresses and Leap Year in 2010. The torrent of bad rom-coms in 2011 opens with No Strings Attached, the flipside to When Harry Met Sally. While Rob Reiner's film posited the question of whether men and women could be friends without sex being involved, No Strings Attached is all about men and women having sex without emotional attachment.

Natalie Portman is Emma, a medical resident working 80 hours a week. Ashton Kutcher is Adam, a production assistant on a Glee-esque TV show. A prologue opens the movie showing how Emma and Adam first met at summer camp and how they would bump into each other every few years. It's a blunt way to tell the audience that these two were destined to be together. One day, Adam gets dumped by his girlfriend for his father (Kevin Kline), an aging sitcom star. In response, Adam gets drunk and somehow wakes up naked in Emma's apartment. They quickly have sex and Emma decides to use Adam on a purely carnal level. He eventually desired a more meaningful relationship, while she is reticent for anything long-term.

Rare is the romantic comedy that is rated R. The script, written by Liz Meriwether, originally began as a raunchy female buddy comedy entitled Fuck Buddies. The screenplay managed to make Hollywood's Black List (a compendium of hot, unproduced scripts) in 2008. However, committee filmmaking rears its ugly head. You can tell the story was rewritten and rewritten to make it more palpable to mainstream audiences. The original version featured the female protagonist describing a sojourn to Napa Valley as a "dick tasting trip." The final film contains just enough of an edge so that the males in the audience aren't too embarrassed about seeing an Ashton Kutcher movie without the words "Dude" and "Where's My Car?" in the title.

Portman has generally avoided these types of films, but seems like she's looking to shed the good girl persona with her recent performances here and in Black Swan. While she brings a bubbly personality and a winning smile to the role, the novelty of a horny, foul-mouthed Portman wears thin because the material isn't particularly funny or genuine. Kutcher is bland through and through, doing nothing memorable whatsoever. Where the leads fail, the supporting cast shines. The movie really belongs to the secondary characters, including Olivia Thirlby as Emma's younger sister and Greta Gerwig and Mindy Kaling from The Office as two of Emma's friends and roommates. Gerwig gets the most substantial role and it's great to see the former matron of the mumblecore movement receiving more high-profile work. Let's hope she isn't forever cast as the kooky best friend (i.e. Judy Greer). Also good is Lake Bell, who displays deft comic timing as a nerdy and talkative co-worker of Adam's.

Hmm…there's an idea for a picture, a story revolving around the tertiary characters in a standard rom-com plot. It would do to romantic comedies what The Other Guys did to the buddy cop movie.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

How Do You Know

How Do You Know - Dir. James L. Brooks (2010)

In How Do You Know, James L. Brooks attempts to answer the question of how do you know when you're in love. Instead, Brooks' latest picture answered the question of how do you know when Hollywood spending is out of control – when you've spent over $100 million to make a romantic comedy. Nearly half of that budget went to the inflated salaries of the principal players. Reese Witherspoon received $15 million while Jack Nicholson was paid $12 million for what is essentially a minor supporting role. Brooks and Owen Wilson both received $10 million, but poor Paul Rudd got the shaft. Despite being the lead actor, Rudd only walked away with $3 million. After all the dust settled and the checks cashed, How Do You Know limped away from opening weekend with just under $7.5 million.

Witherspoon plays Lisa Jorgensen, a softball player who has just been cut from the U.S. Olympic team. Having turned 31, the coach feels she's past her prime. With little else going on in her life, Lisa finds comfort in a simple, undemanding relationship with Major League Baseball pitcher, Matty Reynolds (Owen Wilson). At first blush, Matty seems to be the typical, all-star athlete. He's got a multi-million dollar contract, an immaculate penthouse apartment, and women crawling all over him. He even has a closet full of pink track suits to give to his lady friends the morning after. Yes, he's a little self-centered and chauvinistic, but Matty is so obliviously sweet-natured that it's hard to hate the guy.

Paul Rudd is George Madison, a businessman working at some nebulous firm run by his father, Charles (Nicholson). His life crumbles suddenly when he faces federal charges of securities fraud. At least, that's what I think it was. Whatever George did or didn't do isn't very clear. In fact, it's never clear what he does at the firm or what the firm even does. George's and Lisa's paths cross after an aborted blind date. When they finally meet, George finds Lisa is just what he needs while Lisa struggles with which guy to pick.

After watching How Do You Know, you'll wonder how in the Hell this dreadful movie could have come from the same filmmaker do wrote and directed Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News, and As Good As It Gets. Not to mention a man who has been a producer and driving force behind The Simpsons. The story is filled with contrivances and feels like some terrible, unfunny pilot for some awful sitcom, except this won't die after half an hour. The usually dependable Rudd can't elicit even a modicum of chuckles. He's forced to play the bland, nice guy that usually gets dumped at the end of every crappy romantic comedy. The whole subplot involving George's legal situation comes off as some half-assed commentary on the current financial crisis. It goes nowhere and you wonder if Brooks did any sort of research at all into that world. Nicholson just sleepwalks through a role that was originally offered to Bill Murray who wisely declined. Tony Shalhoub is utterly wasted in a one scene cameo as a therapist.

I will give kudos to Brooks for digging up Mark Linn-Baker to play the firm's company lawyer. Baker will probably forever be remembered as the other guy on Perfect Strangers, the one who wasn't Balki. Hey, how do you know a movie is bad? When you'd rather talk about Perfect Strangers.

In the end, I can only offer How Do You Know two meager compliments: Janusz Kaminski's cinematography is excellent, effectively capturing slick, big city life and Reese Witherspoon is the best she's ever looked.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

Love and Other Drugs

Love and Other Drugs - Dir. Edward Zwick (2010)

Sometimes I just don't understand the strange decisions made by Hollywood executives. Love and Other Drugs had all the makings of an interesting film centered on a very timely concept. The film was based on the non-fiction book, Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman, written by Jamie Reidy, a former pharmaceutical salesman. With health care being a hot button topic, it seems like the perfect time for an inside look at the pharmaceutical industry. Instead, the studio plays it safe and whitewashes the story into yet another banal romantic comedy.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Jamie Randall, a med school dropout who has just been fired from his job in retail electronics after boning the boss's girlfriend in the stock room. Jamie quickly gets a job shilling medication with the corporate juggernaut known as Pfizer. In the pharmaceutical game, medical knowledge is hardly a necessity, but good looks and a winning personality are everything. A dizzying montage shows candidates memorizing sales pitches and dancing the Macarena at a garish orientation. Jamie aspires for the bigger market of Chicago, but gets the accounts in Iowa instead. There, he's to push Zoloft, an anti-depressant that is a distant second in sales to the more renowned Prozac. He shamelessly flirts with the receptionists to get his foot in the door and offers bribes to various doctors. Fortunes rise (pun slightly intended) with the creation of Viagra and Jamie leaps at the opportunity, "Who can sell a dick drug better than me?"

While pretending to be an intern, he meets Maggie Murdock (Anne Hathaway), a patient suffering from stage one Parkinson's disease. Jamie inadvertently glimpses her breast and gets pummeled in the parking lot when Maggie finds out he's a drug rep. Only in the movies does this ignite a star-crossed romance. At first, both parties are only interested in empty sex, but true feelings develop to complicate their relationship. Jamie worries about how he'll care for Maggie when her condition inevitably deteriorates while Maggie is concerned about holding Jamie's career back.

Love and Other Drugs feels like four or five different movies stitched together in a haphazard manner. The film starts off strong with an engaging first act that serves as a satire of the pharmaceutical industry. Once Maggie is introduced the story veers into the territory of a standard romantic comedy. When the Parkinson's subplot is emphasized, Other Drugs becomes a weepy melodrama similar to the all-time cheesy classic Love Story. The sentimental portion does provide one of the few genuine moments of the picture when Maggie leaves a medical convention for a support group for those afflicted with Parkinson's. Topping it all off is a heavy element of raunchiness straight out of the Apatow comedy playbook. The film's stars get naked frequently and there are the requisite boner jokes involving Viagra. They've also brought in Josh Gad, who acts like the love child of Jonah Hill and Jack Black, as Jamie's lazy brother. Every word out of his mouth is an annoying and horribly unfunny attempt at lowbrow humor. On the other hand, Gyllenhaal and his Brokeback Mountain beard Anne Hathaway are both good in the lead roles as is Gabriel Macht as a rival salesman. However, Judy Greer is underutilized as are George Segal and the late-Jill Clayburgh, who only appear in one scene as Jamie's parents.

Love and Other Drugs is a different kind of film from director Edward Zwick, who helmed Glory and The Last Samurai, but it fits right in with thirtysomething, the sappy and soapy television series he produced back in the early-90's. This is a completely disjointed affair that fails to find any semblance of balance between light comedy and heavy drama.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

Life as We Know It

Life as We Know It - Dir. Greg Berlanti (2010)

Katherine Heigl doesn't seem to have a problem biting the hand that feeds her. She made digs at the writing staff of Grey's Anatomy and lambasted Knocked Up for its sexist themes, despite the fact that the film made her a movie star. Ironically, Heigl would participate in features that were far more misogynistic and insipid. She's frequently cast as the shrill and vapid control freak in a continuing stream of empty-headed romantic comedies. Life as We Know It isn't any different as Heigl once again plays an uptight professional woman who is thrust into motherhood with an emotionally immature man-child.

Heigl is Holly Berenson, the owner of a bakery and catering service, who is best friends with Alison Novak (Christina Hendricks). Josh Duhamel is the subtly named Eric Messer, a technical director for the Atlanta Hawks, who is best friends with Alison's husband, Peter (Hayes MacArthur). The Novaks figure their long-time buddies would make the perfect couple and set them up on what turns out to be a disastrous blind date. Holly wears a slinky cocktail dress. Messer is dressed in a leather jacket and tattered baseball cap. She drives a Smart Car. He rides a motorcycle. Oh, how will it ever work out? Well, it doesn't at first.

Two years later, Peter and Alison are killed in a car accident. They leave custody of their 1-year old daughter, Sophia, to the bewildered Holly and Messer. The newfound parents have a difficult time balancing their work and social lives with raising a baby. Holly and Messer may smart and successful people, but one dirty diaper later, they're suddenly bumbling idiots. One montage later though and suddenly they've turned things around and slowly realize just how much they match up as a family.

Life as We Know It is on the level of a bad sitcom. It's like a pilot for a throwback to the TGIF line-up. The film is full of stock characters that get into stock situations that are easily solved as sappy music plays in the background. Life is stepped in rom-com clichés with Holly romancing a good-looking pediatrician (Josh Lucas) who acts as the third wheel in the relationship. He's the nice, bland guy who gets dumped for the leading man. There's an extremely forced, second act complication that breaks the couple apart just so they can have another idiotic scene where one character rushes to the airport to catch the other before it's too late. The humor is equally inane with scenes of Heigl getting poop on her face and watching The Wiggles while stoned.

Life as We Know It is overly sentimental drivel, but it's harmless, sentimental drivel and that's the nicest, backhanded compliment I can pay it.

Rating: * (*****)

She's Out of My League

She's Out of My League - Dir. Jim Field Smith (2010)

You kinda wonder what went on in the lives of Sean Anders and John Morris when they wrote the screenplay for She's Out of My League. A schlubby guy falls for a smoking hot chick, winning her over from her alpha male boyfriend while humiliating his bitchy ex-girlfriend. It's pure nerd wish fulfillment.

Jay Baruchel is cast as the same guy he always plays, the stammering, gawky geek. Here, he's Kirk Kettner, a security officer at the Pittsburgh International Airport. He's still trying to get over being dumped by his ex, Marnie (Lindsay Sloane). To heap humiliation upon humiliation, Marnie and her new boyfriend, Ron (Hayes MacArthur), remain close to Kirk's parents and they are all planning a family vacation to that faraway land known as Branson, MO. Kirk hits it off with Molly (Alice Eve), a successful event planner, after returning her missing iPhone. Kirk's insecurities over their drastic differences in looks and social class threaten to end their unlikely romance. Not even his circle of ribald friends (Mike Vogel, TJ Miller, Nate Torrence) give him a chance in Hell. She's a 10 and he's a 5. How will it ever work out? Kirk also has to deal with Molly's former fighter pilot boyfriend, an insanely jealous Marnie, and his embarrassing family.

She's Out of My League plays like a Knocked Up knock-off. It's the type of film someone makes after watching the entire oeuvres of Judd Apatow and the Farrelly Brothers. League is littered with lowbrow gags that include nut shots, gay jokes, and a sequence that involves Baruchel getting his pubic hair shaved. Another scene revolves around Kirk ejaculating into his pants and trying to stop the dog from licking it. Just as the movie never moves beyond juvenile humor, the cast never moves beyond broad caricatures. For example, Debra Jo Rupp is cast as Kirk's mother, but she's basically reprising her role as the mom from That 70's Show. Baruchel is the same stammering beanpole he has in other pictures like Tropic Thunder. He isn't given the opportunity to imbue enough charm to his character in order to make the audience root for him.

Rating: * ½

Going the Distance

Going the Distance - Dir. Nanette Burstein (2010)

Is there a genre more asinine than the modern romantic comedy? I don't have anything against the rom-com in general; I just have an aversion to the copious amounts of crap churned out by studio execs and filmmakers who seem to construct from a stock set of elements. Going the Distance attempts to change up the staid formula while still incorporating frequent clichés with an Apatow-style sense of lowbrow humor.

Justin Long is Garrett, a low-level talent scout for a rinky dink record label in New York City. He's just been dumped by his girlfriend (Leighton Meester) and decides to go out on the town with his buddies Box (Jason Sudeikis) and Dan (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's Charlie Day). He meets Erin (Drew Barrymore), an aspiring journalist, over a game of Centipede. She wants to keep the relationship light because she's only in the city temporarily as a summer intern for the fictional New York Sentinel. However, Garrett doesn’t want to end things so quickly even after Erin has takes a job in San Francisco. The young lovers attempt to make it work long distance via text messages, Skype, and a very awkward session of phone sex. The usual insecurities and frustrations begin creeping in to threaten their relationship.

Going the Distance is the first produced script by Geoff LaTulippe who wrote it after learning of producer Dave Neustadter's own long distance relationship. LaTulippe tries to address the poor economy with Erin and Garrett unable to scrap the funds to fly out to see each other while working in dying industries. The film also marks the first narrative picture from documentarian Nanette Burstein who directed The Kid Stays in the Picture and American Teen. For the most part, Burstein's direction is perfectly pedestrian though it didn't need to be anything more. Some shots during a dating montage do have a documentary feel turning the audience into mere observers.

Some think that real-life couples don't translate well to the screen, but Long and Barrymore have good chemistry together. Both play characters that are merely extensions of themselves and their previous characters, Long as the wise-cracking geek and Barrymore as the free-spirit. Christina Applegate brings the funny as Erin's overprotective sister with the understated and dry wit of Jim Gaffigan as her husband.

At the very least, Going the Distance avoids the usual contrivances that come up as setbacks. One's uptight, one's spontaneous. How will it ever work out? Yet, the movie is still cluttered with the ubiquitous detritus that comes with your average romantic comedy. There's the obligatory airport scene where the man rushes through the terminal to catch his lady love although, this one takes place at the end of the first act rather than the climax. Sudeikis and Day fulfill the roles of the protagonist's wacky best friends. The humor fails to elicit anything as slight as a chuckle or a smirk. There's a labored slapstick sequence involving Long at a tanning salon, a gag that was already done on Friends years ago. The film gets worse with a scene where Applegate picks pubic hair off her dining room table after a late-night session of sex by Erin & Garrett. Just when you think they couldn't sink any lower, here comes the Hitler joke.

Going the Distance is leaps and bounds above god-awful atrocities like The Ugly Truth and Did You Hear About the Morgans? thanks to a pair of likeable leads. But, it fails to place them in anything that is remotely interesting or humorous.

Rating: * ½

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day - Dir. Garry Marshall (2010)


As I wrote in my review for New York, I Love You, anthology films can be a mixed bag filled with hits and misses. That isn’t the case with Valentine’s Day, it is a complete and utter miss.

An American knockoff of Love Actually, Valentine’s Day was written by Katherine Fugate (creator of the Lifetime soap Army Wives) and directed by Garry Marshall (Pretty Woman). The film stars a litany of well known actors in a series of storylines set in L.A. and revolving around the titular holiday. The whole thing feels like someone threw together a bunch of half-formed ideas from the cookie cutter bin of rom-com concepts because they couldn’t flesh them out into feature length.

Ashton Kutcher is the central character, a florist who gets dumped by his fiancée, Jessica Alba. His best friend, Jennifer Garner, is dating a doctor (Patrick Dempsey), who turns out to be married. Jessica Biel is a sports agent who bonds with Jamie Foxx, a news reporter, over their mutual distaste for Valentine’s Day. Topher Grace works as a mail room clerk in Biel’s office and begins dating the receptionist, Anne Hathaway, who secretly doubles as a phone sex operator. Julia Roberts is an Army captain who shares a plane seat with Bradley Cooper.

The over bloated cast also includes: Julia’s niece Emma, Hector Elizondo, Shirley MacLaine, Queen Latifah, Eric Dane, Kathy Bates, and Joe Mantegna.

The Taylors, Lautner and Swift, also appear as a couple of high schoolers in love. They’re good-looking, bubbly, and empty headed. That pretty much sums up the entire movie. Everybody in the movie is hot, rich, and somehow keep managing to bump into each other. The interconnected contrivances are a lot like Crash, except with romance instead of racism. They all live in some fantasy world version of Los Angeles completely lacking in traffic, crime, or racial diversity. In Valentine’s Day, the only Mexican in L.A. is George Lopez.

Rating: *

(500) Days of Summer

(500) Days of Summer - Dir. Marc Webb (2009)


(500) Days of Summer is the breath of fresh air sorely needed in the stagnant world of the romantic comedy. The booming voice of an omniscient narrator states, ”This is not a love story,” before we are taken on a fractured journey through the highs and lows of a whirlwind relationship.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Tom, a button-downed hipster who aspired to be an architect, but now writes sappy greeting cards to pay the bills. He falls for Zooey Deschanel’s Summer Finn, the office’s new assistant. She’s infuriatingly free-spirited and does not believe in love or soul mates, much to the dismay of Tom, the old-fashioned romantic. As the prototypical “manic pixie dream girl,” Deschanel’s character isn’t far removed from her previous roles in Yes Man or Gigantic.

The film unfolds in non-chronological fashion as the 500 day courtship of Tom and Summer is revealed. The narrative jumps from the budding moments of the relationship to its slow disintegration. We watch the young lovers bonding over karaoke where JGL croons “Here Comes Your Man” by The Pixies and Deschanel covers Nancy Sinatra’s “Sugar Town.” Tom lists all the tiny features he loves about Summer, then lists those very same features as what he hates about her the most. Director Marc Webb, working off a script by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, juxtaposes the couple’s happier moments with a sullen post-breakup Tom. From time to time, Tom seeks advice from his nerdy roommates (Matthew Gray Gubler and Geoffrey Arend) or his exceedingly wise younger sister (Hit-Girl herself Chloe Moretz).

Throughout the film, they utilize inventive ways to play out the highs and lows of their love affair. After consummating their relationship, Tom engages in an elaborate dance number to Hall & Oates. Staring at his reflection, he only sees a dashing Han Solo wink back at him. A split-screen sequence shows us the heartbreaking gap between Tom’s hopeful expectations to the crashing reality. A gag involving a tired spoof of Godard and Bergman falls flat.

(500) Days of Summer breathes new life into a familiar story through visually inventing means.

Rating: ***

The Bounty Hunter

The Bounty Hunter - Dir. Andy Tennant (2010)


If there was ever a genre that needed serious reinvention, it is the modern romantic comedy. Aside from (500) Days of Summer, the rom-com has been a squalid and stagnant cesspool not unlike the putrid sump in Kurosawa’s Drunken Angel (pardon the film geek reference). While I’m all for change, I don’t think the sudden emergence of the rom-com/action movie hybrid is the way to go. This summer we’ll see Knight and Day (with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz) and Killers (with Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl), both of which feature a ‘girl meets boy, boy turns out to be highly trained assassin’ plots. April sees the release of Date Night this complete failure of a film, The Bounty Hunter.

Jennifer Aniston is Nicole Hurley, a newspaper reporter, and Gerard Butler is Milo Boyd, a former cop turned bounty hunter following their messy divorce. They hate each other so much that it takes them about an hour and a half to realize how much they really love each other. Sorry, did I forget to mention spoiler alert?

Anyways, Nicole is working on a riveting story about parking tickets. Through a series of contrived events this leads her onto the trail of dirty cops and stolen evidence. She winds up skipping a court date for a traffic violation. Milo gleefully accepts the job and their romance is rekindled while the bad guys shoot at them. The paper thin story is filled out by a few subplots involving Jason Sudeikis as an overly amorous co-worker of Nicole’s, Milo’s gambling addiction, and the loan sharks he owes.

The Bounty Hunter is basically a poor man’s version of Midnight Run, except Butler is no Robert DeNiro and Jennifer Aniston is way hotter than Charles Grodin. But, that’s not nearly enough to elevate the film above it formulaic rom-com trappings. The action isn’t good enough to keep things interesting for the guys dragged to the theaters by their dates. Director Andy Tennant (Hitch) just doesn’t have a handle on how to shoot action sequences in a competent manner. The dialogue is purely functional meant to do nothing more than advance the plot and explain everything in great detail, as if the Byzantine screenplay by Sarah Thorp was too much for anyone of below average intelligence to grasp. The comedy consists mainly of Gerard Butler being tasered and punched in the balls.

There are absolutely no redeeming qualities about The Bounty Hunter.

Rating: DUD

When in Rome

When in Rome - Dir. Mark Steven Johnson (2010)


Was it too much to hope that When in Rome would bring something new to the table to the stagnant romantic comedy genre? Considering the film was written by the team behind Old Dogs, David Diamond and David Weissman, the answer is an emphatic yes.

Kristen Bell is the archetypal female lead, a Type-A career woman. In this case, she’s Beth Harper, a curator for the Guggenheim. Sadly, no twenty minute shootouts ala The International occur in this film. She flies off to Rome to attend her younger sister’s wedding. Beth is a cynic about love and doesn’t give much of a chance to her sibling’s impending nuptials. However, Beth hits it off with Nick Beamon (Josh Duhamel), a dashing sports writer whose football career was cut short after being struck by lightning. No, really…

When Beth sees Nick kissing another woman, she gets drunk and stumbles into a fountain and pulls out four coins and a poker chop, believing she is liberating those wishes. Instead, the men (glorified cartoon characters) who tossed them in originally fall madly in love with Beth due to the magic of the fountain. They include Dax Shephard as a narcissistic male model, Jon Heder as a Criss Angel-looking street magician, Will Arnett as an Italian artist, and Danny DeVito as a sausage magnate. Hmm…I wonder if he knows Abe Froman, the Sausage King of Chicago.

These suitors stalk Beth all the way back to New York City. Nick is also making an attempt to woo Beth, but the question remains whether or not his love is real. As if you didn’t already know the answer.

I’ll give When in Rome a single shred of credit for not following the paint-by-numbers formula that all rom-coms do nowadays. No, Rome is a screwball comedy all the day and I doubt anyone has been clamoring for its return. I loved the classics like His Girl Friday, but the genre was laid to rest by Peter Bogdanovich’s homage, What’s Up, Doc?, and, aside from perhaps A Fish Called Wanda, the genre has been flatlining ever since. Not even the Coens could resuscitate it with Intolerable Cruelty and its star George Clooney failed as well with Leatherheads.

When in Rome won’t be heading up a revival anytime soon. The film uses only the broadest strokes in its lame attempts at slapstick humor. Nick falls down holes and bumps into things. Not for any reason, he just bumps into things because that’s supposed to be funny. You know your movie is in trouble when the best gag you can come up with is having your lead characters drive around town in a ludicrously tiny car. Another scene finds Beth and Nick dining at a restaurant where the lights are turned out and the wait staff wears night vision goggles. I’m sure it sounded funnier on paper (actually, it doesn’t), but the sequence is such a mess that you wish they had just shot the whole damn movie in the dark. One of the staples of the screwball comedy was witty, rapid-fire dialogue. There is none of that in When in Rome. Nope, we get characters who say, “My bad,” which got annoying two seconds after the first time it was ever said.

Kristen Bell, who was so good in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, doesn’t have much of a presence in the lead role. Duhamel is so bland as the romantic interest, you probably could have stuck any generic pretty boy (Paul Walker, I’m looking at you) into the role and it wouldn’t have made any difference. Jon Heder is the saddest of the bunch, still desperately trying to milk whatever is left of his Napoleon Dynamite fame.

When in Rome was directed by Mark Steven Johnson who also helmed Daredevil and Ghost Rider. Let’s just say, his contributions here won’t ever be compared to Howard Hawks or Preston Sturges. I do hope Johnson makes more films like this. If he keeps making crappy romantic comedies, he won’t be able to make anymore crappy comic book movies.

Rating: * ½

Leap Year

Leap Year - Dir. Anand Tucker (2010)


If only films like Leap Year would come once every four years. Tell me if any of this sounds familiar. Amy Adams is Anna, a Type-A personality who “stages” apartments and homes on the market. She decorates them to optimize sale potential. She plans and schedules everything down to a tee. She’s been dating her bland, cardiologist boyfriend, Jeremy (Adam Scott), for the past four years, but he has yet to propose. She was hoping Jeremy would do so before a big medical conference in Dublin, but alas. During a quick visit with her dad (John Lithgow), she is reminded of an old Irish tradition where women propose to their men on Feb. 29. Oh, and in case you forgot all that, they helpfully remind you of it with a voice-over five minutes later.

Anna heads off to Ireland, but is waylaid by bad weather and finds herself in the tiny town of Dingle. Luckily for her, the town bartender, Declan (Matthew Goode), is also the local taxi driver and hotelier. Declan is a scruffy, crude, blue-collar Joe. Their road trip together takes them across the picturesque Irish countryside where Amy steps in cow poop, flops around in the mud, and gets into a bar fight. They hate each other from the get-go. Anna is disgusted by Declan’s course demeanor while he laughs at the idea of marriage. Could they possibly ever wind up together? Well, yeah, they’re in the damn poster together.

Leap Year wishes it could do the mismatched couple on a wacky road trip as good as the classic It Happened One Night. Instead, Leap Year is more than content to play up every rancid element that festers the romantic comedy today. The female leads are shrill, superficial, or uptight and they are always in need of a roughneck man to knock them down a peg. Thankfully, Leap Year isn’t as rampantly misogynistic as The Ugly Truth, but it’s mind-bogging how women still flock to these movies.

So who can we blame for this mess? Not the actors. Amy Adams is perky and likeable and does her best to work with such a lousy role. Matthew Goode is decent enough even if the Brit’s Irish accent feels inauthentic. Not John Lithgow or It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Kaitlin Olson who pop in and out so quickly that you wonder why they even bothered to show up. You could blame director Anand Tucker who helmed the superior Shopgirl. Tucker doesn’t do anything wrong per se, but he doesn’t do anything particularly memorable. He and cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel do manage to capture the beautiful landscape of Ireland. However, if you want to see all that, buy a couple postcards. No, all the blame lies firmly at the feet of the writers, Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan, who also brought us The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, Surviving Christmas, and the equally stinky rom-com Made of Honor. The story is inane and predictable. The dialogue is flat and they desperately scrounge for comedy through lazy, unimaginative slapstick.

Made for a budget of $5 million, Duncan Jones’ Moon was a thoughtful sci-fi film and a healthy alternative to the expensive, special effects blow outs like Avatar and 2012. The same could be said of The Hurt Locker as an alternative to G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra. If you want an alternative to the drivel of Leap Year, then rent (500) Days of Summer.

Rating: *

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past - Dir. Mark Waters (2009)

Please understand I only saw this damn movie because I promised to take my sister to see it. I did not go to this fucking film of my own volition.

Matthew McConaughey showed promise once. He had a memorable turn as stoner David Wooderson in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused. He had another strong performance as a small town sheriff in John Sayles’ Lone Star. Since then, McConaughey has been content to coast on his good looks, insufferable smirk, and Southwestern drawl through one god-awful picture after another. His most recent efforts include the festering turds that were Fool’s Gold and Surfer, Dude. At least he seemed to have some fun with his image in Tropic Thunder as Ben Stiller’s agent, a role originally meant for Owen Wilson.

McConaughey headlines yet another romantic comedy, playing up the cocky man-whore character that studios seem to believe audiences will flock to. This time around he stars as Connor Mead, a superstar photographer, in this modern day take on Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. In the film’s opening moments, we immediately learn the depths of Mead’s douchebaggery. He strips a girl’s clothes off then has an archer shoot an apple off her head with a bow & arrow for a magazine cover, all without her consent. Mead STILL manages to worm his way into her panties even while he’s dumping three other girlfriends during a webcam conference call.

He returns home for his younger brother Paul’s (Breckin Meyer) wedding and is reunited with childhood friend Jenny Perotti (Jennifer Garner). There’s plenty of sexual tension between the two and an obvious flame carried by both, though neither would admit to it. After a few drinks, Mead spews some rhetoric condemning the concept of love and the institution of marriage. While taking a leak, he’s visited by the ghost of his late Uncle Walt, a loathsome lothario, played wonderfully by Michael Douglas as a cross between Hugh Hefner and Robert Evans. Uncle Walt is the Jacob Marley of the picture and warns Mead that he’ll be visited by three ghosts in order to save him from his loveless life of one-night stands. During one ghostly visit, we get a glimpse of the Walt Chamberlain level of boning Mead has devoted his life to as he sees every single woman he ever slept with. Taking into account the law of averages, it's a miracle he hasn't caught herpes, genital warts or even a bad case of the crabs.

Of course, Mead’s playboy image is a mask to hide his insecurities and fear of being hurt. We get the obligatory fight between the leads even though they’ll wind up in the end. It’s all so formulaic that I wonder if there were actual screenwriters typing this out or if they didn’t just cut and paste it from a bunch of other scripts. Looking at their credits on IMDB, writers Jon Lucas & Scott Moore were also involved in the stinkfest known as Four Christmases. So we have another cinematic abortion to blame them for.

Girlfriends Past isn’t a total loss. Jennifer Garner does her best even if her character is bogged down by uninventive and unconvincing displays of wit. Miss Garner does deserve better than to be trapped in the hell that is the female lead in every romantic comedy (AKA Meg Ryan). The film is saved by Douglas and another pair of funny supporting performances. The first from Emma Stone as the nerdy ghost of girlfriends past and the second by Robert Forster as a retired military man and father of the bride.

Rating: * 1/2