Deception

Ewan McGregor as a nerdy introvert who inadvertently falls into a sex club (though he certainly enjoys himself – don’t worry, the sex scenes are fairly tame) and then gets blackmailed. I can’t say anymore without giving away too much. Also stars Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams. It’s another one of those movies with a carefully devised plan that leaves too much to chance yet still works out (almost) perfectly. I enjoyed the suspense of it, the not really knowing what will happen next. Some of it is easy to figure out, but you still won’t know how the all cards will be played. The only thing that bugged me was the ending – take the darn suitcase already! I liked it.

Leatherheads

Entertaining movie and fictional take about the inception of professional football in 1925. George Clooney as an aged football player with no other real job skills. When his small time football team starts going broke, he devises a plan to make football a professional sport with a rich backer, and uses a popular player / war hero (John Krasinski) as the main attraction. Enter Renee Zellweger as a smart mouthed, ambitious reporter who is sent to get the real dirt on the “war hero” status and tarnish his reputation. A love triangle ensues. My only question is that Clooney’s character wanted to make the sport professional to ensure himself some financial stability. It wasn’t really clear if he got anything. It’s all a fun romp with Clooney in his full, charming swagger, and Krasinski as the likable good guy. I enjoyed it.

88 Minutes

Exciting suspense movie. Al Pacino stars as a womanizing college professor who gets an ominous phone call that he has 88 minutes to live. The movie involves a serial killer, whom Al Pacino helped convict as an expert witness, who is about to be executed on the same day. The movie starts out like a standard slasher movie, and I was worried I had I had wandered into the wrong theater! But instead, the movie is simply demonstrating the talents of the serial killer. It was very exciting and all the characters, including Al Pacino, act suspicious, so anyone and everyone is a suspect. In fact, the characters don’t seem to react the way normal people would in the same given situation. I still liked the movie, despite the fact that once you learn who is causing all the chaos, it seems truly unlikely that this person could have orchestrated all the events in only 88 minutes.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

I wasn’t even intending to see this movie, but I was in need of a comedy… Guy gets dumped by girl, then winds up stuck in the same Hawaiian hotel with her and her new boyfriend. It stars Jason Segel (from How I Met Your Mother) and Kristen Bell (I have no idea why she is famous?), also Mila Kunis (from That 70’s Show). I did laugh out loud several times; I thought the hotel employees were lovable, and I thought the young newlywed couple (who had abstained from sex until their marriage) was hilarious. I think they tried too hard for laughs at times, especially with the weird rock star boyfriend, but the audience seemed to enjoy it. Jason Segel displays full frontal nudity several times for comic affect and it seemed to get a lot of laughs from the audience. The movie was good for a few laughs, but it’s not the best comedy I’ve seen.

Smart People

An arrogant, socially inept professor (Randy Quaid) tries dating a lonely MD (Sarah Jessica Parker), while his loser of a brother (Thomas Hayden Church) moves in with Randy and his daughter (Ellen Page). I was hoping this movie would be more of a comedy, like Juno or Sideways, but the rare moments of humor are very dry, and overall the movie is depressing. Ellen Page has pretty much the same personality as her Juno character, and the only bright spots in the movie are when Thomas Hayden Church is present. There was no chemistry between Randy and Sarah’s characters. They were two lonely people going about their lives on autopilot, but they didn’t have a good time when they were together either. I suppose you are supposed to use your imagination and believe that everything turns out to be hunky dory. I’d say skip it, and go rent Juno and Sideways instead.

Drillbit Taylor

An amusing tale of two nerds who hire a bodyguard (Owen Wilson) to protect them from school bullies. This wasn’t as funny as I’d hoped, but I did love the two kids. They were a younger and cleaner version of the crude nerds in Superbad. Some of the pranks the poor kids had to endure were a bit too much. I’ve always liked Owen Wilson, but he always plays the same sort of personality. I’d recommend waiting for this one to come out on DVD.