Our Idiot Brother

Comedy

3.5 stars

Cute movie starring Paul Rudd as an affable, but naively honest, brother to three high-strung sisters: Zooey Deschanel, Elizabeth Banks and Emily Mortimer. After his girlfriend kicks him out, Rudd rooms with each of his sisters and disrupts each of their lives. Cute movie.

One Day

Chick Flick, Romance
3.5 stars
Decent portrayal of the best selling book. July 15 is the one day each year for 20 years that we check in on Dexter and Emma, a privileged cad and bohemian idealist respectively, whom the audience knows full well were meant for each other, if only they could figure it out for themselves. Jim Sturgess and Anne Hathaway star as friends since college graduation who are attracted to each other, but instead make bad decisions and waste many years seeking other options. I read the book and was frustrated with the years these two with so much potential had wasted. And the end of the book just pissed me off. Still, I’m a sucker for romance and wanted to see the big screen version which stayed true to the original story, and the few things that were omitted weren’t missed. To those who didn’t read the book it may feel choppy (the book was too) and they may feel slighted from some of the details that were glossed over. Good movie, albeit bittersweet.

Fright Night

Sci-Fi, Camp
3.5 stars
Loved it, but then I love vampires :). Colin Farrell swaggers as a sexy vampire who moves in next door to an inquisitive teen, Anton Yelchin (Star Trek 2009, Charlie Bartlett) in a small hamlet outside Las Vegas. The film starts out feeling like a spooky supernatural version of Disturbia, and then turns full on camp later on. By camp I mean funny in a good way. Christopher Mintz-Plasse, aka “McLovin”, has a great comical role as a nerdy teen and friend of Yelchin. Costars include Toni Collette as Yelchin’s Mom and the not so well known David Tennant as a magician and so-called “vampire expert”. Fun movie for lovers of supernatural camp.

The Guard

Indie, Dark Comedy
4 stars
Good Irish movie about a police investigation of an international drug ring. Brendon Gleeson (In Bruges, another good movie and Harry Potter) stars as a small town Irish cop in Connemara investigating a local murder when he learns he must work with American FBI agent Don Cheadle (Traitor, Hotel Rwanda, Crash). Lots of profanity and racist remarks - Gleeson puts it best by saying “I’m Irish. Being racist is part of my culture!”. Very good movie.

The Devil’s Double

Drama, True Story
4 stars
Disturbing true story based on the memoir written by Latif Yahia, Uday Suddam Hussein’s lookalike decoy/body double. Dominic Cooper brilliantly (Mama Mia, Captain America) stars as both Latif and Uday as we get an up close look at true evil. The volatile Uday sleeps with whomever he wants, whether it be a school girl or a bride on her wedding day. He kills whomever he wants and has others clean up his dirty work. This film has the same feel as The Last King of Scotland that had an up close view of Idi Amin – another good but horrible story I recommend. Very good movie on a disturbing topic.

30 Minutes Or Less

Comedy
3 stars
An OK movie with some raunchy language. Danny McBride (Pineapple Express) and Nick Swardson play two buffoons who force pizza delivery guy Jesse Eisenberg (Social Network) to steal $100,000 so they can hire a hit man to kill McBride’s Dad (Fred Ward). Along for the ride is Eisenberg’s snarky friend played by Aziz Ansari (TV’s “Parks and Recreation”). It wasn’t a bad movie, but none of the characters were likable enough to root for. They seemed to be trying really hard to make this film as good as Pineapple Express, but it just wasn’t. Good for a few laughs after a few beers.

The Help

Drama
4 stars
Very good. Based on the bestselling book (that I never got to read!), Emma Stone stars as a young white woman in 1963 Jackson Mississippi who wants to write a book from the perspective of the black women employed by her peers who cook, clean and raise their children for less than minimum wage. I guess I’d have to read the book to find out why these woman who are loved by the children they raise, are then treated so badly by those same children once they are grown? And were those debutantes really such superficial caricatures in real life? I can’t compare the movie to the book, but I can tell you that the people in my theater applauded after it finished. Bring tissues. I really liked this movie.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Drama
4 stars
Very good story of Caesar the ape: his upbringing and what went wrong. James Franco stars the scientist devising a cure for Alzheimer’s, motivated by his father who is suffering from the disease (John Lithgow). Mostly it is the story of Caesar the lab ape who neither fits into the human world nor the ape world because of his higher intelligence. I thought the story was well done, and the the apes themselves were very realistic. I liked it.

The Change Up

Comedy, Raunchy
3 stars
Good for a few laughs but has a ton of raunchy profanity. Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds play best buddies who swap bodies and lives. Reynolds plays the slacker and ladies man and Bateman plays a successful lawyer and family man married to Leslie Mann. I laughed out loud a few times, but the language was too crude for me.

Crazy, Stupid, Love.

Comedy, Romance
4 stars
Good movie. Steve Carrell becomes separated from his wife, Julianne Moore, and Ryan Gosling tutors him on how to pick up women. Emma Stone co-stars as Gosling’s love interest. It was really refreshing to see Gosling play a slick womanizer rather then his usual tormented, sad sack characters. I can’t help but compare this film to Friends With Benefits since both films highlight casual sex. Hands down, Benefits is the funnier film of the two, but Love has a more rounded-out story line with interesting characters and comical tangents, although the tone is more bittersweet, even somber at times, and I kept hoping the music would become more upbeat. Both are good movies, each with a different feel.