Don Jon

Comedy, Raunchy
4.5 stars
Oh my God so funny; dating from a guy's point of view - with an addiction to porn and much emphasis on masturbation, so it's pretty crude but so funny! Go see it!  Starring Joseph Gordon Levitt (500 Days of Summer and Looper), along with Scarlett Jonhasson as his love interest.  Julianne Moore co-stars.  Loved it!  Go see it now! 

Prisoners

Drama
4.5 stars
Very dark, very intense, very long (2.5 hours).  Hugh Jackman holds captive and tortures the man he believes has kidnapped his and his friends' daughters. Great cast: Jake Gyllenhall as the cop investigating the case, Maria Bello as Jackman's wife, as well as Terrence Howard and Viola Davis as their friends and parents of the other kidnapped girl. Really good and very clever at how all the seemingly meaningless pieces all tie in together.

The Family

Violent Comedy
3 stars
Extremely violent.  Robert DeNiro and Michelle Pfeiffer are in witness protection in small-town France with their 2 teenage kids.  The previews make it seem like a light comedy.  I liked this movie, but the comic turns weren't funny at all.  It's more like Good Fellas with a lame attempt at humor.  Like I said, I liked it, but don't in thinking it's a comedy.

Pacific Rim

Sci-Fi, Action
4 stars
Fun!  Giant Godzilla-like creatures emerge from the sea to wreak havoc, while the earthlings created mega-sized Ironmen to combat them – how fun is that?!?!  Add in some eye candy – pilot Charlie Hunnam,  officer Idris Elba, among others - as well as comic relief – scientists Charlie Day (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) & Burn Gorman (TV’s Revenge) and you have a hit!  Also Ron Perlman (Hellboy) has a plum role as a shifty character.  Funny, because at first I wasn’t interested in this film until I saw the Godzilla-type monsters and then I was sold.  Fun action flick for nerds like me.

 

I’m So Excited

Foreign, Comedy-Raunchy
3 stars
Funny but raunchy film from Spain (with English subtitles) taking place on a doomed flight.  The landing gear is malfunctioning so the flamboyant crew tries to make the best of it by entertaining the business class – coach class has been drugged to sleep though the flight.  They entertain themselves by drinking, taking drugs and having sex as well as a great dance number to the Pointer Sisters hit song.  It’s cute, but not as funny as I’d hoped.

White House Down

Action
3.5 stars
Yet a third film this year showing a White House takeover.  This time, Channing Tatum saves the day and Jamie Foxx is miscast as the president.  Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Woods star as trusted Secret Service, and the talented Jason Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty, Lawless, Great Gatsby) plays one of the bad guys.  Also, Joey King (Crazy, Supid, Love) plays Tatum’s little girl who is also endangered in the takeover.   This film is pretty similar, but not as well done as Olympus Has Fallen but it sure beats G.I. Joe: Retaliation as far as White House takeovers.  Some fun, mindless violence and action.

Despicable Me, 2

Animation, Comedy
3 stars
Cute, but I liked the first film better.  Gru (Steve Carell) is back, now fully domesticated and proud father of three girls, though tempted to work for the Anti-Villain League (Sorry, but the “AVL” here just reminded me of the Tru Blood organization with the same abbreviation).  Lots of minion antics including a beach scene that didn’t seem to belong in the film at all, aside from just being cute.  I liked the first film where we saw the villain Gru slowly melt over the three little girls, and the minions were something new and original.  This film just feels like more of the same.  But it is cute.

 

The Way, Way Back

Indie, Comedy
5 stars
Loved it!  A wry coming of age story starring Toni Colette as a single mom to 14 year old Liam James who are both joining her jerk boyfriend Steve Carell, at his Hampton home for a summer vacation.  Allison Janney is tons of fun as an obnoxious neighbor, Sam Rockwell plays the owner of a water park, and Amanda Peet and Rob Corddry play friends of Carell.  If you liked films like Little Miss Sunshine and Away We Go, then this film is a must. 

Lone Ranger

Comedy, Action
3.5 stars
Good. Johnny Depp steals the show as a wise but slightly crazy Tonto who guides the not so smart Army Hammer into his role as the Lone Ranger.  Jim and I are both fans of Depp and we both enjoyed his antics.  To the naysayers: it’s just a silly comedy!  Get over it!  Fun movie, not to be taken seriously.

The Heat

Comedy
3 stars
Cute.  Straitlaced FBI agent Sandra Bullock and foul-mouthed Boston cop Melissa McCarthy reluctantly team up to take down bad guys.  It’s cute with much of the humor you’d expect from these actresses, but nothing really new here.  Good for a few laughs.

Much Ado About Nothing (2012)

Indie, Comedy
5 stars
Loved it.  A modern take on the classic tale spoken in original Shakespearian prose.  Artfully filmed in black and white, an assortment of affluent folks staying together in an estate use manipulation to get people to fall in love as well as suspect infidelity.  Includes many familiar faces such as Clark Gregg (West Wing, New Adventures of Old Christine), Nathan Fillian (Castle), Amy Acker (Person of Interest), and more.  Very well done.

Bling Ring, The

Indie, True Story
3 stars
Interesting to see the mindset of teens so obsessed with certain celebrities that they break into their homes and steal their clothes, shoes, etc.  Sofia Coppola directed and co-wrote the screenplay.  Emma Watson (Harry Potter) and Taissa Farmiga (American Horror Story) co-star as obsessed teens, but the main characters are played by Katy Chang as the ring leader and Israel Broussard as the new kid just happy to be included in gang.  It’s fun to watch them raid some homes – Paris Hilton has so much stuff she didn’t even noticed she’d been robbed something like 7 or 8 times!  After a while, it gets a little dull watching home after home get invaded.   I did watch interviews with the real perpetrators on a news program and I have to say Leslie Mann was spot-on as the dippy mom home schooling her juvenile delinquents.  Cute film.

World War Z

Sci-Fi, Action
3.5 stars
Fun zombie film.  Brad Pitt is recruited back into his secret UN job to save the world from zombies – or at least travel to parts of the world where the zombie virus is thought to have originated, in hopes this can lead to an antivirus.  I’ve seen a lot of bad reviews for this film and I say those critics need to chill!  It’s just a zombie film!  It’s not meant to be critically acclaimed!  This is more ambitious (and serious) than most zombie films, but I enjoyed it.  But if you’re looking for a zombie comedy, I recommend Warm Bodies and Zombieland.  Apparently, only for zombie lovers (like me).

Now You See Me

Drama, Magic
3 stars
Very flashy but with a frustrating ending that forces you to rethink the entire film.  Four talented magicians are recruited by a mystery mastermind to magically rob banks and drop the cash onto their audience members (Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, and Jesse Eisenberg as his usual arrogant self).  Other stars include Mark Ruffalo and Melanie Laurent as detectives investigating the burglaries, as well as Michael Cain and Morgan Freeman as more enigmatic characters.  It is fun and entertaining to watch, but it’s the sort of ending that drives me crazy because it seems designed to make you pay to watch the film a second time from a different perspective.  (On principle, I won’t).  Anyways, it’s still a fun film.

Before Midnight

Romance, Drama
3 stars
Good, but not as good as its predecessors, Before Sunrise and Before Sunset.  Ethan Hawk and Julie Delpy reprise their roles as lovers who met nearly 20 years ago, then finally got together in the second film; now, nine years after uniting, they are having marital woes.  The first two films were about falling in love, this one spends too much time on an endless argument that they frustratingly never resolve.  The solution to their problem that I had in my head (a bi-continental compromise) never even came up as an option.   There is the lovely backdrop of Greece, and I loved a long dinner conversation they had with three other couples.   Only for those fans of the first two films who feel invested enough to see the end of the trilogy.

Man of Steel

Sci-Fi, Action
3.5 stars
Good rendition of Superman, though I am still biased towards the Christopher Reeves films.  This film alters the original Superman story a little bit, but it was fun to see a different take on a story we’ve seen so many times before.  Henry Cavill is very easy on the eyes, Amy Adams, whom I normally love, seemed a bit too old to play Lois Lane.  Michael Shannon plays a great bad guy - I've loved him since his stand-out performance in Revolutionary Road.  Fun movie.

This is The End

Comedy
4.5 stars
Loved it.  It’s rude, crude, and completely ridiculous, yet I laughed through the entire thing.  James Franco holds an all-star party in LA when an earthquake occurs and total mayhem lets loose.  Franco, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, Craig Robinson and Danny McBride try to survive the unknown.  It starts out a little slow, but it just keeps picking up speed to hilarity, though I could have done with a few less ejaculation jokes.  There are no extra scenes once the credits begin, though it feels there should be.  Trust me, I waited till the bitter end with most of the audience.  Loved it.

The Internship

Comedy
3.5 stars
Cute film for those who enjoy Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson’s antics.  Vaughn and Wilson find themselves out of work and manage to get an internship at Google, despite having no programming experience whatsoever.  I found the story amusing, and of course predictable (hmm – do you think they can win people over with their charm???), but I only really laughed out loud once and that was just for a comment made about the Golden Snitch during a bizarre game of Quidditch.  It was still fun to watch the nerdy interns learn a thing or two from the “old guys”, and Vaughn and Wilson are always a fun team.  As I said, a good film for fans of Vaughn and Wilson.

The Hangover Part III

Comedy
3.5 stars
Good, but not as funny as the previous Hangover films.  The Wolfpack is back again, this time on a road trip to take Alan (Zack Galifianakis) to a clinic that goes, of course, horribly awry.  Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong, and others return as well as couple of newcomers including John Goodman.  I have to say, there was one scene involving sheets and a rooftop that had me laughing so hard I had to practically stifle myself to stop.  Too bad the rest wasn’t as funny.  Good for a few laughs.

   

 

 

Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf’s

Documentary, Fashion

3.5 stars
Interesting love letter to the elite Bergdorf Goodman store, including the history of the store, interviews with the entire who’s who in the fashion world who describe their first encounters there, and my favorite part, the window dressers.  Who knew their sales staff makes roughly a half mil a year?  A fun film for both fashionistas and those who can only dream of shopping in the world’s most elite department store.