Love Happens

... bull shit. I saw this movie and I don't remember a single moment when the actions on the screen could me misconstrued as "love".

There's a man and a woman. They're both very attractive, save for Aaron Eckhart's chin cave. But at no point did i believe anything other than the fact that she feels bad for him and he needed to get back in the game. There was never any kind of connection. At all. Soooooo... No, you should not see a movie that has a title that has nothing to do with the plot. No.

Away We Go

Yes.

Away We Go was released in theatres on 6/26/09 and on DVD and Blu-ray on 9/29/09.

I loved this movie. Away We Go is a heartwarming road-trip movie about two thirty-somethings trying to find their place in the world before the birth of their daughter.

As in other road trip movies, they encounter some quirky characters along the way and each stop helps them discover who they are and what kind of parents they want to be. Hey, I never said it was original... but the two main characters, portrayed by John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph, are so endearing and have such chemistry that you can't help but fall in love with them.

Away We Go is in my top 10 films this year and will probably stay there. It's definitely one of the year's best.

Fame

No.

Fame isn't a movie.

I don't think I've ever seen such a long piece of film with as little plot as this... I mean, there is LITERALLY no story. Fame is just a 2 hour montage.

I had a difficult time accepting the action in the film anyway. If they were trying to sell this as a musical, then they missed the boat because there weren't enough musical numbers. If not, then there were too many. Do you honestly believe for a second that just because you get a group of 50 musicians and dancers together, that the will be able to work together to improvise a perfectly constructed and choreographed musical number?

And, on a more serious note, it's time to stop releasing these sugar-coated teen dramas that, for example, resolve suicide attempts with a hug. This sort of dumbed-down attempt at appealing to the lowest common denominator is destroying society. If you want to make a movie that addresses some tough issues, then tackle them and stop being a pussy. You'll probably make a better movie for it and, oh my god, you may actually get some respect. It is possible to make a 'good' PG rated movie, but not if it's about PG-13 to R rated material. It sucks when you can tell, just by watching it, that a movie was made because they thought it would rake in some dough and had little to do with craft or the love of filmmaking.

Avoid Fame at all costs, it's not a good or coherent series of images and sounds... see? I really can't bring myself to call it a movie.

Surrogates

Yes.

There's nothing wrong with Surrogates. In fact, there's quite a bit right with it, the most important of which being the running time.

Surrogates has just the right ratio of action, sci-fi, drama, and mystery. The twist is very predictable, but to be fair, it's virtually impossible to surprise an audience in a post-Sixth Sense America. I don't expect to be fooled anymore, I do want them to make a reasonable effort, though. The dramatic element isn't as overbearing as in some recent action movies (Gamer) and it actually adds to the idea; helping us to understand why someone might want to use a surrogate. I mean it's not rocket science, but if they didn't include some sort of psychological reasoning behind it, it might have been harder to buy into.

Surrogates won't win any awards. You may actually forget you watched it a week after you see it, but if you're looking to escape for 90 minutes, this is a perfectly acceptable way to do it.

Jennifer's Body

No.

So, it seems like the Juno screenplay was a hoax, because while Diablo Cody's dialogue in both movies may be super clevs, dope dialogue does not a good screenplay make. The heart that Juno had is clearly missing from Jennifer's Body... and the bodies of all her victim's...

Julie & Julia

Yes.

If you have white hair and love to complain, you'll love Julie & Julia.

You can start your adventure by complaining that the senior price, that is by no means a law or a requirement of any kind, is too high. You have developed a sense of entitlement over time and have no problem telling the box office cashier how much other theatres charge just before you pay the ticket price anyway. Then you can make snide remarks about the cost of concession products... this is important because no one else knows that the prices are high. If you don't tell the 16 year old behind the counter that $5.00 for a small popcorn is "criminal" or "outrageous", than the prices will never go down.

Once you get to the theatre, be sure to stare only at your watch so that if the movie starts 30 seconds late, you can scoff and make a mental note to tell the manager that the movie started 15 minutes late. Because we hate that you can hear, the projectionist turned the volume up to unbearable levels and the manager turned the A/C on full blast because he want your extremities to freeze and fall off.

You could miss 5 minutes of the movie to let the theatre staff know about the volume and the temperature, but instead, you'll sit, miserable, through the whole movie and expect a refund afterwards, even though you watched the whole movie and enjoyed it.

The Informant!

No.

All The Informant has going for it, is the random, hysterically funny monologues that run through Matt Damon's mind thanks primarily to his mental disorder. Other than that, it's just an average movie that may be worth checking out on DVD, but not in theatres.

Gamer

No.

I felt like I was being attacked. I sacrificed my senses for you. Do NOT put yourself through this. Gamer is a horrible experience.

Sunshine Cleaning

Nah.

Sunshine Cleaning was released in theatres on 3/27/09 and on DVD and Blu-ray on 8/25/09.

Sunshine Cleaning is just as formulaic as a Hollywood blockbuster, but masquarades as a quircky indie flick. Not a romantic comedy... it could have been if the followed through on that sub-plot. It's just sort of implied that they get together, but never really fleshed out. It's really just another dysfunctional family movie set against a the backdrop of a strange situation. You kinda know how it's gonna end, but ultimately, you won't care by the time the end comes around. This review is just as pointless as the movie. I'm gonna stop writing.