So, ya, I’m a total fan girl.  I’ve read all the Twilight books.  So, of course, I was at the midnight showing of Twilight last night–all amped up and ready to be entertained.  Instead of entertainment, I got the most overwhelming feeling of disappointment ever experienced from a book-turned-movie.  What a disaster this movie was!  I don’t know how a movie could miss the mark on so many levels.  I left the theater in complete and utter disbelief.

I know there is usually some disappointment associated with seeing a movie made from your favorite book; but, that kind of disappointment is usually because they left out some of your favorite parts or just kinda had a character a bit off from how you imagined him or her.  But, this movie, it failed on EVERYTHING…the ultimate in failure.  I’m sorry, but I’m not exaggerating.

If you have not seen Twilight yet, please DO NOT see this movie!  Just read the book!  This movie literally played out like a made-for-TV special.  The dialogue was horrible, the music was atrocious, the photography was horrid, the effects were unrelentingly disappointing.  Sparkling vampire–ah, more like sweating vampire.  The sparkle effect probably had to be the most disappointing aspect of the not-so-special effects.

You know a movie is bad when you’re noticing the music and saying to yourself, ‘What is this?’ The music did not fit the feel of any of the scenes.  The filming/photography could only be defined as amateur at best–felt like a film student’s project, or like I said before, a made-for-TV movie.  BAD BAD BAD!

I know I might get a lot of criticism from other fan girls out there, but anyone who happened to be at The Bridge Theater in LA last night will know exactly what I’m talking about:  the crowd was all excited, screaming out, “Edward, I love you!” or “Team Jacob!”… even a dude shouted, “Team Bella!”  Then, as the movie plodded along, the excitement slowed, and slowed, and slowed…and then literally crawled to a pathetic ending with absolutely no response from the audience.

I’m telling you– I am (unfortunately) NOT exaggerating.  You know how if you see a Star Trek or Potter film, the crowd usually applauds and gets a little energized at the end?  All still excited to have been a part of the premiere movie-going excitement and energy?  This film?  Not one clap from the audience–it was almost as if we were all sitting there stunned;  just sat there in complete silence.  And not because it was an impactful ending or anything like that.  It was more like we were just sitting there thinking, ‘What? … Did the movie just end?’ — in that moment, I know, we were feeling so cheated.

The disappointment was like nothing I have ever seen in a movie theater before.  We just sat through 2 1/2 hours, at a midnight showing, of a really bad NBC or ABC Family Special and these horrible movie makers  really really duped us, trying to pass this off as a real movie.  Boy, were we dumb to get caught up in the Twilight movie frenzy.  And how awful were they to let us down so blatantly?  I think they knew it was this bad and that’s why they put so much effort and money into the marketing–get people to pre-buy their tix, cuz once the word is out on the steet, it’s gonna be bad.

It’s too late for me, but maybe not for you–if you haven’t read the book, please please please don’t see this movie–it’ll only turn you off.  And, if you have read the book, I know that you’ll likely still see the movie because you’re curiosity and hope will drive you to, but I’d be shocked if you actually reported back that you liked it.

It is undeniable that Quantum of Solace literally feels a bit small after the powerhouse of Casino Royale, and director Marc Forster has been criticized for a lack of uniqueness in his directing, and for relying too much on extreme camera movements and lightning-fast editing techniques in putting together his action sequences. But even though a lot of people complain that Quantum is not a true Bond film but just a regular run-of-the-mill action film, it is undeniably a solid entry in the new generation of 007 movies.

In some ways these complaints are justified. It’s true that the conclusion of the film is cut together at such a break-neck speed that the sheer number and speed of the cuts are a distraction from what’s actually happening, but I have to disagree with the idea that the entire movie only reveals the name of the evil organization and introduces a few new characters and so is really unnecessary. It takes place immediately after Casino Royale ended and gives a feeling that it’s tying up some loose ends, but if those ends were left untied and Casino Royale was not continued, we would certainly be missing a 007 film right now.

The movie starts out with a chase across rooftops that feels immediately uninspired, since we’ve seen it so many countless times before, but when we see one of the original action shots that was showcased in the trailer it turns into something much more. Like much of the rest of the movie, it has a sense of uncertainty, but ultimately proves itself.

Quantum of Solace continues the very sharp turn that Casino Royale took in the new direction of the Bond saga. We are now very firmly in the real world. Gone are the days of the super- villains that want to steal satellites and destroy continents and sink Silicon Valley and start their own personal societies at the bottom of the sea. Gone are the constant efforts to start World War III, the efforts to achieve some form of global destruction, the slow deaths at the hands of primitive laser beams and the villainous side-kicks with bizarre weapons like buzz- saw yo-yos and flying, razor-blade lined bowler hats.

Olga Kurylenko as Camille, a new breed of Bond girl...

Now, it’s all about economics and power, and to say that these are not some of the most important issues in the world society at this very moment would be quite a statement.

Casino Royale ended with Bond standing over an injured Mr. White, the man behind Vesper’s betrayal, and introducing himself. He is then the subject of the rooftop chase at the beginning of Quantum of Solace, and soon we learn the real meaning of “Quantum” itself. It seems that Daniel Craig’s hint that the title Quantum of Solace is actually meaningless might have been a strange marketing ploy, since it clearly is not true.

Quantum is an extremely powerful organization that, as our team learns early in the film, “Has people everywhere.”

Quantum gives M more than enough reason to look concerned.

M is amazed to discover that, while people use phrases like that all the time, this guy actually meant it. Her sense of security is shattered when she learns that her personal bodyguard of eight years was an undercover Quantum agent, and she begins to realize the power of the enemy that MI6 is facing.

Quantum’s main agent is Dominic Greene, whose goal is to help an exiled Bolivian governor retain control of his country, in exchange for turning over to them a seemingly meaningless piece of land. The exiled governor is unaware that this tract of land would give Greene power over a tremendous quantity of all of South America’s water supply and, get this, Greene plans to seek exclusive utilities provider rights! How’s that for a Bond villain? He isn’t interested in starting global warfare, he wants to become South America’s PG&E!

Despite what the poster might have you believe, the lifelong 007 love of tiny, tiny handguns continues in Quantum of Solace.

A lot of people were unimpressed with Casino Royale and Daniel Craig in general. Personally I thought both were outstanding, but what I can tell you about Quantum of Solace is that, if you hated Casino Royale you’re probably not going to love Quantum Solace either. But if you loved or even at least enjoyed it, then you are almost certainly going to have a similar good time in this one.

I have heard rumors that Royale and Solace are the first two parts of a sort of trilogy within the 007 saga, and it makes sense because the two are very unique among the rest of the films and, most importantly, this one closes without many loose ends but with a definite feeling that there is another movie after it somewhere.

We may do well to keep in mind that Casino Royale was a prequel, so those of you wondering if and when the franchise will ever come to a conclusive end might look for ways in which the newer movies start to lead into the beginning of Dr. No, the oldest one.

Personally it looks to me like there is no end in sight, but I love the new direction that the films have taken, so I am happy to see them continue. They take themselves much more seriously now (whether or not you like Craig’s two films so far, you can’t deny that they are more serious than their predecessors), and they have certainly generated more interest in where the films will go in the future.

Daniel Craig is under contract to do four films as 007, and I predict that he will do two more prequels and that the next actor to portray Bond will take over where Die Another Day left off. Until then, Quantum is not the biggest and not the best Bond film, but it is certainly a solid entry in the revitalized series.

Roger Ebert (who is more famous but less talented than me), recently watched a movie called Tru Loved and wrote a scathing, one-star review of it. And when I say he watched the movie, I mean he watched the first eight minutes and then wrote a bickering review that rambled on with a lot of generic nonsense about movie ingredients, and then ended his review saying that he only watched eight minutes so “after that you’re on your own.”

Nice work!

Since posting the review, public backlash has inspired him to issue an apology, watch the movie all the way through, and write a full review.

I just have to say that, having a bit of film reviewing experience myself, sometimes the mood you’re in while you watch a movie can affect your opinion of it. Clearly, Roger was in a terrible mood, although he remains unimpressed with the movie.

Here’s something I found a little interesting, Ebert responded to public discontent by watching the full movie and then posting a whopping 1,800 word review (that’s six times the length of this article). Seems like just a little bit of over-compensation to me! If you’re interested, here’s the link to it.

I agree that it’s difficult to sit through a movie that you immediately know you’re going to hate, but when it’s your job these are sacrifices that you have to make. The work of a film critic is to separate the wheat from the chaff, to part foul cinematic waters to help lead other people to the films worth seeing, and help them stay away from the clunkers.

On his website he currently has posted the original review based on his abbreviated viewing, followed by his prodigious comment on the full film. Both are pretty negative. He ends his review with a note of congratulations to the indie film crew of Tru Loved for accomplishing the enormously difficult task of getting the film made and released, although I sort of wish he had instead just come right out and said, “Happy now?!”

On a personal note, I hereby promise that I will watch all of the movies that I review for you, even if I hate them from the first eight minutes!

For some reason, I really get a kick out of the HAHAHAHAH at the bottom. I've seen all five movies, so surely someone somewhere is laughing at me!

So the tagline for Saw V is “You won’t believe how it ends.” Yeah, whatever. More like, “you won’t believe that it ends.” And you shouldn’t believe it, either. The grisly series has been a dead horse for three movies by now, but if the rumors circulating the internet are true, there will be at least two more.

In the movie’s defense, there are times when the premise is interesting and creative, at least more than I had anticipated. Eyes will glaze over throughout the audience when the movie starts out with Jigsaw saying Hello so-and-so I want to play a game, but the story that the movie tells is a lot more ambitious than you might think. It’s better than part 3 and 4, but that’s not saying a lot.

The vicious, brutal death-traps remain the centerpiece of the movie, but this one gets extra points because it goes behind the scenes into Jigsaw’s world. The problem is that the movie tries to tell a bigger story than the material can sustain. There is a series of flashbacks that jumps back and forth between past and present (and more than one previous Saw sequel), making the movie convoluted and confusing. You may find yourself wondering why Jigsaw is masked and kidnapping people one moment, and lying in a hospital bed struggling for breath the next.

The Jigsaw Killer - feeling much better than in previous movies...

There are three main stories going on in the movie. Five apparent strangers are forced to perform violent tests in order to get a door to open before it locks forever, and during each test, one person will be, ah, voted off the island. The whole scenario is remarkably similar to Cube, a far more interesting movie.

The other story is a detective named Mark Hoffman who is involved with Jigsaw as sort of an unwilling accomplice, and then there is an Agent Strahm that is investigating the killings from outside Jigsaw’s world, trying to figure out what’s going on while the five strangers are killed off one by one.

By this point in the series, hardcore Saw fans (which I am guessing make up about 90% of the remaining audience) will probably be mostly interested in the new torture devices, but the movie spends a huge amount of it’s relative short running time jumping around in flashbacks and side stories, including one about Jigsaw’s daughter, who has inherited a mysterious box, the contents of which Jigsaw explains are “of grave importance.”

Agent Strahm, early in the film, escapes a trap that was not meant to test him but to kill him, and he begins to suspect a copycat killer or that Jigsaw had an accomplice. Hoffman has a unique involvement in Jigsaw’s killings, and is forced to try to cover his tracks while at the same time overseeing the deadly game involving the five supposed strangers, while they themselves try to get to know each other enough to figure out why they were put there together in the first place.

As before, Jigsaw once again is taking on the laughable mission of trying to clean up where America’s shoddy legal system screws up. The movie opens with a stomach-turning scene involving a guy who slipped through the cracks, serving only five years of a 25-year sentence because of a technicality. I appreciate the effort of the movie trying to make a comment of the shortcomings of the American legal system, but it’s pretty hard to take it seriously when it tries to present the Jigsaw Killer as doing the Lord’s good work. He’s like a Boondock Saint with a violent imagination and a lot more time on his hands.

Detective Hoffman tries to remember what happened when he saw this on "CSI: Las Vegas."

The performances are passable, given the movie that they’re in (which doesn’t really ask much of an actor except screaming), although there are a few moments of remarkably awful acting. Tobin Bell once again lends his creepy voice to a nice synthesizer and then to that creepy doll, but the look of the movie is pretty thoroughly boring. It’s totally lightless from beginning to end, a cheap horror technique that gets real old real quick.

Not much effort is put into having a good twist at the end of the movie, although the closing scene does have the element of surprise and, like mostly all of the movies before it, is pretty painful to watch. This is not the worst Saw film that they have sprung on us so far, but there is definitely nothing in it to make me look forward to any more sequels.

Max Payne lives up to his name within the first few seconds of the movie, where he reveals to us, “I don’t believe in heaven. I believe in pain. I believe in fear. I believe in death.” Nice to meet you, too! The whole movie never breaks away from this mood, it’s dark and depressing and angry throughout, so at least there is some consistency. But on the other hand, when the entire movie is dark blue and green from start to finish, it might start to bring you down a little bit, too.

Mark Wahlberg stars as Max Payne, an NYPD homicide detective who started working exclusively on cold case files since his wife and infant child were killed. He has become obsessed with finding their killer, as is to be expected, putting him in the perfect situation to become a one man army out for justice, as Steven Seagal might say. All of his leads go nowhere, until finally he finds a good one in the form of a vicious female assassin named Mona Sax.

It seems that Mona’s sister has also been killed, and after a few tense confrontations they learn that they may be looking for the same person.

Isn't there something ironic about this?

They form a tenuous partnership and are also joined by a couple of other allies, including BB, Max’s father’s former partner, and an Internal Affairs cops named Jim Bravura, played by Chris Bridges. Yeah, it’s true, Ludacris is playing a cop. Stranger things have happened, but I can’t really think of any right now.

Complicating matters is the fact that Bravura is mostly investigating Max’s involvement in some questionable deaths, and there is also the issue of a massive government conspiracy (which is too big for the rest of the movie to really handle right) involving, get this, a highly addictive drug that fills soldiers with peace instead of fear and provides a feeling of invincibility and superhuman abilities and is therefore an essential part of the war on terror. Anyone else thinking of RoboCop 2?

But here’s the catch. It only works on a small percentage of subjects, and all the rest suffer horrible hallucinations and debilitating side effects. But hey man, freedom isn’t free, right?

By the way, it should be noted that Max Payne is based on a video game, so don’t expect any exploration of the moral or political paradoxes that spring to mind when you think about drugging soldiers to make them feel good as they rush into battle. Can you imagine the talk radio firestorm that would cause? That would probably make for a more exciting movie!

I won’t reveal how, but late in the movie we learn that in Norse mythology, the only way to get to heaven is to die in violence. What a belief system, right? If you die in your sleep you go to hell! Isn’t that a little harsh? Yeah, but it makes for a good story catalyst for a mindless action movie.

The most interesting part of the movie is also left largely unexplored as well. Several times we see the world through the eyes of people who are on this drug, and it’s a dark, scary world inhabited by some huge, scary bird-like creatures. I don’t know the video game myself, but I imagine that this is one of the major adversaries. Unfortunately, in the movie version, it looks either out of place or too often out of sight.

Amaury Nolasco (Sucre from “Prison Break”) also has a significant role in the movie as one of the, ah, ‘casualties’ of this expermiental drug, and his performance is brooding and sluggish. Mostly all he is given to do is look scary with tattoos all over his face.

Mark Wahlberg and his forehead posed dramatically with a lot of guns for this movie.

Mark Wahlberg gives a satisfactory performance, although this kind of movie doesn’t ask much of an actor. His forehead does more acting than the rest of him, but that’s to be expected, right? I don’t know if you realize this, but one of the most important skills that an action movie star can do to be successful is wrinkle his forehead just right.

You thought Arnold Schwarzenegger became famous because of his muscles? Nope! It’s that square inch of valuable real estate right between his eyebrows. And Mark Wahlberg is blessed with the same natural gift as Arnold - the man just has a great action-movie-forehead.

There is nothing new or fresh in Max Payne, although it at least manages to play through without feeling entirely repetitive, so at least there’s that. It gives the feeling that Wahlberg is going through the motions because it’s essentially just a standard revenge movie. You might be better off just staying home and renting The Fugitive instead. It’s basically the same movie in color and without any bizarre winged creatures.

But, as the MPAA has ensured with it’s inexplicable PG-13 rating, kids age 13 and up are going to love every bloody, drug-induced minute of it.

If you have seen the previews for “Repo! The Genetic Opera”, then you know it’s not your average Paris Hilton movie, or even your average movie.  The film is a futuristic rock opera about a sheltered girl named Shilo, and GeneCo, company that helped solve a world-wide organ failure epidemic; but if someone fails to make a payment, the Repo Man comes to collect.  The movie is bloody, bizarre–and incredibly fascinating.

“Repo!” also features Alexa Vega (best known for her roles in the “Spy Kids” movies) as the Shilo, the Repo Man’s daughter; her performance is impressive, as are her vocal chords.  The Repo Man s played by Anthony Head (AKA Giles from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”), who gives a creepy, yet also compassionate performance.  Soprano singer Sarah Brightman plays Blind Mag, who receives incredible eyes from GeneCo that “do more than just see.”  Paris Hilton plays Amber Sweet, the spoiled daughter of GeneCo’s founder and owner, and a surgery addict.  The role of Grave Robber/Narrator is done by Terrance Zdunich, who also co-wrote/co-composed the show, as well as did the narrative comic sections.  

Although the film is directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, director of the first four “Saw” movies; this film is not a chilling horror film.  While there is plenty of gore and evisceration, there is nothing truly frightening about it.  It’s a difficult film to categorize; while has tones that are similar to “Rocky Horror Picture Show”, the director is quick to refrain from comparing the two shows.  The show is very gothic operatic; as Zdunich said during a Q&A, “it has a traditional mold with a modern finish.”  

The story is fascinating, and the songs are extremely catchy.  It is also said that this may be the movie with the largest amount of music; there are 57 tracks in all.  Sadly, the movie did not get the support it needed to be released nationally; there will be a limited release on November 7th in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, and Las Vegas.  If you don’t see the movie in one of these cities, you will have to wait for the DVD’s release in January.  If you aren’t squeamish, then I encourage you to see it; it’s a very entertaining movie!   For a list of the movie’s dates, click here.

So if you love Paris Hilton, this movie will let you see her sing, strut, and dazzle; if you hate her, you get to see her face fall off (seriously–aren’t you intrigued now?).  Either way, it’s a win-win situation.

To catch the trailer, see below:

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And just for fun, here are some fans who did their own version of the song “Zydrate Anatomy”:

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I’m guessing that we have running time restrictions to thank for British New York dentist Bertram Pincus being instantly irritated at the sight of the living dead, rather than ever showing the slightest hint of amazement or fear, as would be the assumed first reactions. But Ghost Town is such a clean switch from horror to romantic comedy using a standard horror theme that every last trace of scariness is cleanly and completely severed, often leaving a gaping hole in the logic of the plot.

The movie immediately presents itself as a shallow rip-off of what is now little more than a sound bite from The Sixth Sense, where Cole reveals his startling secret, but it’s another scene entirely that the movie extends from. Remember that scene where Cole finally decides to listen to the ghosts and see what they want from him, and that little girl gives him a videotape of her babysitter feeding her drain cleaner and making her sick? Ghost Town is that scene fleshed out into a full length romantic comedy with the curious addition of an angry British dentist thrown into the middle of it.

There are amusing moments and romantic moments, and even some emotional moments, but none as effective as you would think, given how tirelessly hilarious British aggravation is. There are twists and turns that have to do with the characters’ personalities rather than the plot, which is refreshing, but

It's comforting to think that our lost loved ones are still here with us, but not so much when other people's lost loved ones really ARE here with us.

the movie still leaves you with the feeling that it’s a lot of tired American themes with the arbitrary addition of a British dentist living in New York and desperately hating any kind of contact with any other human being.

It seems that during a routine surgical procedure, the unfortunately named Bertram Pincus (whose name itself sounds like something that needs to be surgically removed) actually “dies” for several minutes, leaving him with the ability to see and communicate with dead people.

We never really learn why he hates human contact so much, we only know that he lives his life in a perpetual state of annoyance directed toward other people, and the new ability to see dead people doesn’t make it any better. In fact, as soon as the dead realize that Pincus is a door through which they can communicate with the living, they converge on him, overwhelming him with a barrage of requests that range from delivering letters to killing people.

Enter Greg Kinnear, who plays Frank Herlihy, a recently deceased man who’s death opens the movie and is one of the film’s best and most cleverly orchestrated scenes.

An unfortunately dead Frank Herlihy watches helplessly as his wife passes before someone else's eyes.

By methods whose description is limited to “I’ll talk to them,” Frank promises to forever relieve Pincus of his harassment by the dead if he’ll do one little thing for him - his own widow is about to marry someone that Frank can’t stand, and he wants Pincus to prevent the wedding.

See what I mean about tired American themes? But what complicates matters is that Frank is not the greatest guy in the world himself, and his widow’s fiance, despite coming off as a massive tool, might not be the terrible person that we all expect our ex’s to date after we break up. And strangely, this is where the movie becomes highly predictable but also goes in new directions. It’s nice to see the expected personalities reversed, but the rest of the movie is still the same character transformation from a grumpy grinch into a singing ray of sunshine that we’ve seen a thousand times since The Christmas Carol.

Tea Leoni plays Gwen, the widow, and what a life she’s had. She lost her husband in a violent accident, fell in love and became engaged to someone else, and then became interested in someone else before the wedding. It’s a strange little detail that she is romantically involved, at various levels, with every male lead in the movie.

I kid you not, Gwen is showing Pincus a reportedly enormous 5,000-year-old mummified penis in this particular scene.

But what makes the movie frustrating is that they make Pincus such an effectively unlikeable guy - particularly in one of his first scenes, where he stares with shocked irritation at a co-worker who has the nerve to invite him to celebrate the expectancy of his first child - that it becomes impossible to understand or respect Gwen’s almost immediate romantic interest in him, after the obligatory acknowledgement and then dismissal of his spotless record of being a total ass to her.

And then there’s the comedy, which is wildly inconsistent. There are a few laugh out loud moments (including one where Pincus talks about the Chinese people being the odd ones out in the world because they name their kids things like Kwok and Pong and Wang, although I’ve lived in China for the last year and a half and have yet to run into a Kwok or a Pong), but others that fall completely flat and still go on and on and on with no end in sight. There’s a scene where Pincus and his doctor try to talk but keep interrupting each other that is so over-extended that it looks like a series of outtakes.

In an effort to learn about extracting information from captives, social butterfly Bertram Pincus politely asks a co-worker if he's from "one of those scary countries."

All of the necessary ingredients are here for a cute and clever romantic comedy, but a lot of people will be disappointed that the movie follows such a clear formula and never approaches topics dealing with Pincus’s character change that go beyond a simple ability to interact with other people. In a movie about salvation and the afterlife, I’m surprised that these are the deepest issues dealt with. The tear-jerking in the film’s conclusion almost becomes too cheesy, but it may very well get you choked up, too.

Incidentally, I’m not sure what this implies about Ghost Town’s target or potential audiences, but when I saw it today, I looked around the mostly empty theater and noticed that there were five other guys in the theater besides myself who were there to see it alone. Usually I’m the only one!

Last week was not a big week in DVDs, but this week there is a little more to choose from. In a conspicuous marketing coincidence, the theatrical release of the disappointing Al Pacino/Robert DeNiro thriller Righteous Kill is accompanied by the DVD release of last year’s disappointing Al Pacino thriller 88 Minutes, both of which were directed by Jon Avnet, who I am starting to think might be well advised to try a different genre. The Wachowski Brothers have adapted an old tv cartoon and Mike Meyers has teamed up again with Mini-Me for another 90-minutes of disappointment. George Clooney heads up this week’s new releases with Leatherheads, along with the Sex and the City movie and another comedy from the star of Shaun of the Dead.

LEATHERHEADS (2008), Comedy/Drama/Romance/Sport, PG-13, 114 mins.

George Clooney is back in the director’s chair for this sports comedy about the football scene of the 1920s, where college teams got all the fame and glory while the pro football players were all but ignored. Clooney stars as a veteran grunt trying to build up pro football into something big, and he recruits Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski), a war hero and college star to help him.

Renee Zellweger stars as a reporter who comes into the picture snooping around for a good story, but ends up becoming the center of the romantic subplot of the movie, which involves a love triangle that complicates the job of earning sports fans.

The movie didn’t find much of an audience when it was released in theaters in April but was not poorly received. Sports/Clooney fans are sure to be pleased.

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SEX AND THE CITY (2008), Comedy/Drama/Romance, R, 148 mins.

I have a small confession to make - Sex and the City is just not my thing. I don’t think I ever saw a single frame of a single episode of the tv show, and at a whopping two and a half hours, I am pretty sure I’m never going to see a single frame of this prodigious screen adaptation. But for the rest of you, here’s what you need to know -

After moving in together in an impossibly beautiful New York apartment, Carrie Bradshaw and Mr. Big make a rather arbitrary decision to get married. The wedding itself proves to be anything but a hasty affair–the guest list quickly blooms from 75 to 200 guests, and Carrie’s simple, label-less wedding gown gives way to an enormous creation that makes her look like a gigantic cream puff. An upcoming photo spread in Vogue puts the event–which will take place at the New York Public Library–squarely in the public eye. Meanwhile, Carrie’s girlfriends–Samantha, the sexpot; Charlotte, the sweet naïf; and Miranda, the rigid perfectionist–could not be happier. At least, they couldn’t be happier for Carrie. Charlotte still has the unrealized hope of getting pregnant. Samantha is finding a loving, committed relationship more grueling than she could have imagined. Miranda unwittingly lets her own unhappiness–created when Steve admits to cheating on her just once–spoil Carrie’s. After a heated encounter with Steve, she happens to spot Mr. Big and tells him he’s crazy to get married. She’s really only thinking of her own marriage. But her angry remark gets Mr. Big to thinking.

DECEPTION (2008), Drama/Romance/Thriller, R, 90 mins.

Ewan McGregor stars as an accountant enticed into an underground sex club and then later implicated in a heist and a woman’s disappearance. The movie is not hurting for star power, with McGregor starring opposite Hugh Jackman, but unfortunately, it does nothing new for the genre, mostly rehashing the tired themes of the seedy late-night thrillers that my mom used to never let me watch when I was a kid but did anyway. I was fascinated at the time because women were always running around in their underwear, but now it’s clear to me that this is going on so much because there’s not much else to the movie. It’s essentially another one of the type of thriller where smart people are doing unbelievably stupid things, and screwing up their lives in the process. We’re meant to be entertained by how far they go in creating problems for themselves and digging deeper while trying to escape from the holes in which they now find themselves, but no luck. The movie is just as stale and generic as this poster.

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RUN FATBOY RUN (2007), Comedy/Romance, PG-13, 100 mins.

Simon Pegg, of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz fame, is directed by David Schwimmer in his directing debut in Run Fatboy Run. Pegg palys Dennis Doyle, a slacker who tries to win back the respect of his fiance five years after leaving her standing at the altar pregnant. He discovers that she’s really his one true love when he finds out that she’s dating someone else, someone more responsible and respectable than himself, so he vows to prove to her that he is the one for her.

She doesn’t believe him, because of his tendency to start things and never finish them, so he sets out to prove himself to her, by starting something that he intends to finish. That thing, however, is a Nike River-run in London, in which her obnoxious new man (Hank Azaria), a skilled and practiced runner, is also participating.

I had high expectations for the movie because Shaun of the Dead was so good, but it’s essentially the exact same character as he was in that movie, a loser struggling to get his girlfriend back, without zombies or Nick Frost, both of which are significant losses. Cute date movie, but not the best work from anyone involved.

88 MINUTES (2008), Action/Crime/Thriller, R, 108 mins (not what you thought, but good guess, though).

Al Pacino plays Jack Gramm, a forensic psychiatrist who receives a threat that he has 88 minutes to live, saddling him with the task of analyzing a murder in advance. Complicating matters is the fact that he is also a college professor (like me!) with disgruntled students, he recently helped put a man on death row whose execution is approaching, he has a jilted lover holding a grudge (after a one night stand), and there is a copycat killer on the loose perpetuating the murderous modus operandi of the man Gramm has put behind bars. Needless to say, he’s gonna have his hands full to find out who it is that’s threatening his life.

I’m reminded of that Johnny Depp movie Nick of Time, remember that one? Depp plays this guy named Gene Watson who is in LA with his daughter to go to his wife’s funeral. His daughter is kidnapped and he is given a person’s itinerary and a note explaining that if he doesn’t kill that person within 75 minutes his daughter is going to be killed. What makes it more interesting is that it’s shot in real time, which could have been a good gimmick for 88 Minutes as well.

THE LOVE GURU (2008), Comedy, PG-13, 87 mins.

An American is raised by gurus in an ashram in India, until he finally returns to his home country to seek fame and fortune in the world of self-help and spirituality. His first task is to settle a marital dispute between a star professional hockey player Darren Roanoke and his estranged wife, who has begun dating L.A. Kings star Jaques Grande (Justin Timberlake). This new relationship creates havoc in Roanoke’s professional life, to the dismay of the team’s owner, Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba) and Roanoke’s coach, Coach Cherkov (Verne “Mini-me” Troyer). Oh, and if you don’t get the joke of the coach’s name, try reading it out loud.

The previews look like there are some laugh out loud moments, but I still can’t shake the feeling that the movie is the product of a lot of disjointed ideas that were swept up and tossed en masse into the same movie, making them fit in whatever way possible. It’s a sad follow-up to his success as Austin Powers…

MADE OF HONOR (2008), Comedy/Romance,

Tom and Hannah have been platonic friends for ten years, Tom dating haphazardly and Hannah always looking for her true love but thus far without success. Eventually Tom begins to see Hannah in a way that he never had before, and just as he begins to think that they would be good together, she gets engaged to someone else.

In a true illustration of how close and genuinely platonic their relationship has been, she asks him to be her maid of honor, and he reluctantly agrees, mostly just so he can try to stop the wedding from the inside and woo her himself.

If the plot sounds vaguely familiar the most likely reason is because you’ve probably seen this exact story a dozen times before. But enjoy! It does make a good date movie, after all. If you’re into this stuff, I recommend The Wedding Planner, My Best Friend’s Wedding, The Bachelor (my favorite), Runaway Bride, 27 Dresses (note: don’t watch 27 Dresses. It sucked. Trust me), Maid in Manhattan, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

SPEED RACER (2008), Action/Family/Sport, PG, 135 mins (!!).

Speed Racer has come along from that strangely animated old television cartoon that I never really got interested in. This live action adaptation is directed by the Wachowski Brothers, directors of the Matrix trilogy (and the underrated 1996 sex thriller Bound), and produced by legendary Hollywood producer Joel Silver, whose list of production credits is far too long to do justice to here. He has been involved in everything from 80s classics like Commando, Weird Science, and Predator to the whole Lethal Weapon series and the Matrix films.

The story seems a bit of a backdrop to the novelty of the film itself, but it’s about a young kid named Speed Racer who grows into the sport and ultimately finds himself in a moral position to save the integrity of the sport itself from becoming a cheap game wheeled by corporate interests who fix rig races for profit. Speed lost his older brother Rex to racing, and along the way he gets support from the rest of his family as he battles the corporate interests eager to get rid of his meddling with their wheeling and dealing as well as his opponents on the track.

YOUNG AT HEART (2007), Musical Documentary, PG, 109 mins.

Young at Heart tells the story of the Young at Heart Chorus, a choir of chaotic senior citizens who must battle various health problems and aging issues in order to prepare for a show that will include performances of songs by groups ranging from James Brown to Coldplay.

Their tireless musical coach leads the group through a series of charming and hilarious reheasals, showing us a whole new side of making music. They are more watchable than you would expect because they are a highly experienced team of singers, but the documentary focuses on the new challenges of learning new songs, many of which are made for a much, much younger generation.

It’s an inspiring story about life and music and their affects on each other, and culminates in a heartwarming finale that will leave you cheering. See this one.

“FRIDAY THE 13TH” (series, 1987-1990), 60 min/episode.

Related quite literally deliberately to the classic slasher film series, the “Friday the 13th” television series aired for three years from 1987-1990 and had nothing whatsoever to do with with the movies. In fact, Frankie Mancuso deliberately named the series “Friday the 13th” for no other reason than to call attention to it and make it stick out from the rest of the new shows coming out in 1987.

Each episode tells a different story about a young man and woman who have inherited a mysterious antiques dealership from their uncle, who had made a pact with the Devil to sell cursed antiques. The show tells of their adventures in trying to recover the already purchased antiques from customers before they can do any harm.

At first glance this seems like a safe one to avoid, but I’ve heard nothing but good things about it. The show has tons of fans, so may be worth checking out at least a few episodes. Season 1 is released this week…

Other than the immediate appeal of seeing Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino on screen together for the first time since Heat in 1995, there is very little special or interesting about Righteous Kill. And it’s too bad because there are elements of the movie that are so good and so fitting for each of them (like DeNiro grinning and threatening a child molester on his way out of the courtroom on a technicality) that it’s clear that the movie has a lot of what it takes to be a much better thriller.

DeNiro and Pacino play two veteran NYPD detectives who have been friends and partners for about as long as either of them can remember. Their latest case is lifted right out of The Boondock Saints - a vigilante killer who is systematically killing off violent criminals who have fallen through the cracks of the judicial system. This is, of course, a highly appealing premise - there are few things quite as satisfying as seeing a murderer or rapist or child molester getting shot at point blank range and then a four-line poem tossed onto their chest rhyming out the justification for their death. Well, it’s satisfying to see in a movie anyway. To be perfectly honest, I’m not all that into seeing anyone get shot in real life, poem or not.

But sadly, the movie falls completely flat in its handling of the mystery of who the real killer is. There is a strong implication early in the movie (from the first frame, as it were) that the killer is one of the two main detectives, and there are two other detectives, played by Donnie Wahlberg and John Leguizamo, who are also working the case and increasingly develop the same suspicions.

But there is a cheap method of maintaining tension and dramatic tension that lower level thrillers and mystery movies use, which is to plainly and deliberately lead the audience in the wrong direction before wildly swinging the plot around like a carnival ride near the end. Righteous Kill gives us clues that seem so obvious that they appear to be storytelling techniques rather than plot points, but it’s no use here to try to figure out the mystery, just try to enjoy the ride. Clever moviegoers will see through the constant misdirection like grandma’s underpants, as Bart Simpson would say, but any predictability is based on seeing through cheap film techniques, not figuring out an intricate story.

Al Pacino tries to calm Robert DeNiro down from the shock of realizing that 50 Cent is this much bigger than him.

And most of the ride is enjoyable. There’s more talk than I like in an action thriller starring two of the biggest badasses in movie history, but the story never drags despite being so thin on substance. Curtis Jackson gives a pretty good performance as basically himself, a recording artist/nightclub owner/designer drug dealer (hopefully that last part is fiction) who becomes the focus of Detectives Turk and Rooster’s (DeNiro and Pacino) latest case.

But there are two conflicting stories going on here - there is the story of the two detectives trying to figure out who this killer is that’s killing off the people that the judicial system is too dumb to catch, and the story of us trying to figure out where the plot is going, because the movie presents itself as though it hands us the answer at the beginning and we have to figure something else out. There is some tension generated by other detectives getting closer to what we think is the truth, but don’t go assuming you know all the answers just because you’re told at the start of the film.

John Leguizamo and Donnie Wahlberg react to the news that they will not receive top billing.

Director John Avnet also directed a recent action thriller starring Al Pacino called 88 Minutes, which was something of a critical disaster, not the least reason for which was because of its highly disappointing ending. Similarly, he doesn’t seem to know how to end Righteous Kill, so he gives us a massive cliche, the good guy and the bad guy in an old abandoned warehouse pointing guns at each other in what I suppose is meant to be a tense standoff, except that there is never for a second the slightest doubt about how it will turn out.

Despite coming at the very end of the summer, this is one of the more anticipated late-summer releases, especially among action fans eager to see the two film legends finally on screen together again. Unfortunately, there is more effort put into overcoming all of what must be the massive complications involved in getting two guys like DeNiro and Pacino into a movie together than there is into making it a good movie beyond their presence. They inhabit their roles, as is to be expected, but the rest of the movie feels like it is hanging off of them like a wet paper bag. It’s more fun than a swift kick in the ass, but to say that we should expect better than this from them would be something of an understatement.

Wow, the Coen’s are really swinging for the fences with the profanity and the grisly celebrity deaths in Burn After Reading. One of the strange byproducts of their comedy style is that they are among the few filmmakers that can put the f-word in nearly every single line in the entire movie and still keep it funny. I have a theory that it remains funny because, given the sheer weirdness of their stories, when one character after another repeatedly exclaims, “What the f—-?” we’re quite often pondering the same question.

Burn After Reading is an actor’s film, which is one of my recent favorite styles. Some movies are powered by special effects or violence or action or nudity or basic, unfiltered star power, but the actor’s film is something entirely different. It’s a film where every role is played by a well-known actor and their performances are so taylor-made and so spot-on that they almost overshadow the story itself. Some of the better recent examples are movies like Closer and Sideways. Here, it’s like the Coen’s took a series of actors that they wanted to put in a movie and built a story around characters that would fit each of them perfectly.

The movie is centered around a tiny, accidental occurrence that starts a massive sandstorm of chaos for a handful of very, very different people. John Malkovich plays a CIA official named Osborne Cox who is suffering from some kind of mysterious professional persecution when one day his secretary leaves a CD of his work files at the gym, where it is discovered by the janitor and incredulously analyzed by the peculiar staff.

Chad and Linda enjoy a life-altering moment.

Brad Pitt is Chad Feldheimer, a gum-chewing, mentally dim personal trainer at Hardbodies Gym, who “masterminds” a scheme to blackmail Osborne Cox for the lost CD, which he believes to be full of top secret national security information. Like the Coen’s with the whole movie, Pitt has a blast with the character, almost as if the whole thing is just a good time for him. Francis MacDormand plays Linda Litzke, one of Chad’s co-workers who is struggling with her body and her social life. Due in no small part to her own staggering insecurities, she has been effectively squeezed out of society in terms of romance. In a surprising moment of frankness, she visits a plastic surgeon inquiring about several cosmetic procedures. “I’d get laughed out of Hollywood with this body!” She exclaims.

George Clooney plays Harry Pfarrer who, like Linda, is desperately looking for love and screwing up left and right. He’s in an adulterous relationship with Tilda Swinton’s Katie Cox who, you might notice, shares a last name with the CIA official with the lost data CD. She’s a vicious, overbearing wench, but also one of the only characters in the movie who understands their surroundings.

Okay, so let me see if I can remember this right. Osborne and Katie Cox are married, but Katie is having an affair with Harry, who is obedient of her demands but a little overwhelmed. Harry meets Linda soon before she and Chad come across the CD and hit it off pretty well (he brings her into his basement and shows her a device of his own creation, and when she is thrilled at the sight of it, we know they’re perfect for each other), neither realizing how powerfully the shady elements of their lives are about to collide. As David Rasche’s CIA agent notes, “Everyone seems to be sleeping with everyone else.” Oh, what a tangled web we weave…

Harry - "What the f---?!?"

If you’re confused, don’t worry, you’re supposed to be. The plot of Burn After Reading is a distant backdrop to the sheer pleasure of watching these wacky characters bounce off each other. Most notably, the dialogue in the movie is one of it’s best qualities. This might sound belittling, but for those of you who don’t know, believable dialogue is one of the most difficult things to accomplish in filmmaking (or writing). It’s amazing how something that looks flawless on paper just doesn’t come out right on the screen, and equally amazing how often the discrepancy is ignored and thrown into the final cut. Not in this movie, man. Simple conversation is done so perfectly here that it takes a few minutes to realize that the content is total insanity.

In true Coen brothers form, the movie blends genres so effectively that it’s difficult to say if it’s a comedy that plays like an espionage thriller (and gets a little too violent once or twice) or a Hitchcockian political thriller that just happens to be hilarious. If it’s about anything, it’s about what would happen if your typical, low-IQ paranoiac really was being followed by the CIA or assassins or top secret government spies or whatever.

It’s such a weird combination of highly trained government operatives, overbearing wives, and average morons that it’s difficult to believe it’s all written for the screen. The Coen brothers are some of the only people working in Hollywood these days talented to come up with some fiction that must surely be stranger than truth.

And by the way, this guy's 45 years old. What the hell.