It's time to fire up the old Script-O-Matic! It's the device every Hollywood studio apparently has, where they feed a bunch of old scripts into the machine at the same time, and a new one pops out. We already had a pretty good example of this kind of movie with Fame, but now we have Pandorum, which seems to be recycled from the bits and pieces of the scripts for the Alien movies after being fed through the Script-O-Matic.

If there's one movie genre I'm tired of, it's sci-fi horror movies built entirely around actors lurking around in the dark corners of a spaceship, while aliens or mutants wait in the shadows to leap in front of the camera and scream real loud. This type of movie has been played out, to the point that the only thing that changes anymore are the character names and their faces. For example, instead of Ripley from Alien, we have Bower (Ben Foster), who is forcefully awoken from hypersleep, and finds himself on an abandoned and seemingly deserted spaceship without a sign of life anywhere. He's soon joined by Lieutenant Peyton (Dennis Quaid), who awakens shortly afterward. Both men have been in hypersleep so long, they've lost most of their memories, even what their mission was supposed to be. As Bower beings to explore the bowels of the ship for an energy source to restore power, he soon finds dead bodies of fellow crew members, and ravenous mutants who kind of look like deformed albinos with fangs.

While there is some subtle creepiness during the early scenes, with the two men trying to find their way around and trying to remember what happened, Pandorum quickly turns into yet another "Boo Movie". Things jump out and say "boo", the characters run, have a small dialogue scene or two to move the bare bones plot along, and then get attacked by the lurking mutants once again. There are a few other survivors on the ship, who don't get any real personalities or even a genuine explanation as to how they've survived so long with the creatures. Bower is joined up with Nadia (Antje Traue) and Manh (Cung Le), who both seem very adept at fighting the creatures in hand-to-hand combat. (In one of the film's goofier moments, Manh is facing down one of the monsters, and the creature tosses him one of its weapons, just so they can have a martial arts battle with each other.) As the plot slowly unravels, so does the movie itself. With each revelation, I found myself less interested in what was happening.

And yet, the later moments hold the most visually interesting moments of the movie. Up until then, director Christian Alvart has focused on dark hallways, murky lighting, and actors who look like they're in desperate need of a shave and a shower. I understand the film's setting is on an abandoned spaceship, but there could have been some interesting touches here and there. The film's closing moments bring about some plot revelations, which I will not reveal, that bring us some interesting images. Too bad the movie's pretty much over as this starts to happen. This is a movie that thinks we'd prefer to watch shaky-cam footage of creatures waving their arms in front of the camera, then gives us something visually interesting in the last two minutes or so. The design of the creatures and the ship itself wasn't enough to hold my attention through the whole movie. Add to this that very little happens in the actual screenplay, and you have a very dull movie.
Pandorum left me feeling empty. Walking out the doors of the cinema, I knew I had just watched something, but didn't feel like anything had stuck with me. Considering what theaters are charging today, there's no excuse for a movie like that. Movies should make us feel at least something, or give us something to think about. All Pandorum does is make us think of things we should have done with the time we spent watching it.

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It's obvious that a lot of energy went into the making of Fame. The young cast is energetic, and can dance and sing quite well. Sure, a lot of their musical numbers would be more at home in an episode of American Idol, than a prestigious school for the Performing Arts, but you can tell their hearts are really into it. Did I believe some of them were actually high school students, who are supposed to be about 14 or 15 when the movie opens? Not for a minute, as some of them look well into their 20s. But I believed they had talent.

We meet them as hopeful youngsters who are trying to get into one of the best Performing Arts schools in New York. They all have big dreams, big fears, and parents who probably expect too much from them. As the opening scene cycled through the various auditions of the young future starlets, I began to notice that there were an awful lot of characters - More than any one movie would ever need. I began to worry that this was a warning I was in for a very overstuffed movie. I was right to worry. There are a lot of characters at the center of Fame, and not enough time to cover them all. Some get more attention than others, while a few pop up now and then, just to remind us they're in the movie, too. The characters that the movie does focus its attention on, unfortunately, are either not that interesting, or come across as walking cliches, so that we can predict their entire story arc before they even start Freshman year at the school.

Tell me if this cast of characters and their individual storylines doesn't sound like every backstage drama ever made. We start with shy Denise (Naturi Naughton), a girl who has practiced all her life to be a classical pianist, and is very good at what she does. But, wouldn't you know it, she has a secret desire to sing hip-hop, and her stuffy, up-tight parents just don't understand. That's why she has to hook up with two other students (Collins Pennie and Paul Iacono), who are producing an album that's caught the attention of a local record producer. Do you think her story is going to climax with her giving a rousing performance with her parents in the audience, who will disapprove at first, but eventually realise that hey, their daughter has talent outside of the piano, and will allow her to follow her dreams? I'm sure the answer will come as a complete surprise to anyone who has never watched a movie before.

Ah, but that's just one of the original and awe-inspiring plots the movie has to offer. Other stories include Jenny (Kay Penabaker), an actress who is sheltered and guarded, but begins to open up when she starts to romance fellow actor Marco (Asher Brook). Her relationship and career are put to the test when a slimy young actor (Tony Longo) offers her a role on his show, if she will have sex with him. There's a dancer named Kevin (Paul McGill), who is talented, but not quite talented enough, and has to come to grips with reality that he'll never be the professional dancer he dreams of being. And poor Joy (Anna Maria Perez da Tagle) is an actress who has to choose work over school, when she gets a job working on Sesame Street, and it begins affecting her grades at school to the point that she may flunk out. We've seen variations on all of these characters and plotlines in countless other films, and it gets to the point that Fame almost seems to be trotting these cliches before us like prize horses. It's just showing that it can use these moldy old plot elements, but doesn't want to do anything interesting with them.

That's because screenwriter Allison Burnett (Untraceable) doesn't give us enough to care about with these characters. Not only are the problems they deal with generic, but so are the characters themselves. They're talented kids, but that's it. They're not allowed to have personalities or lives outside of the school. What little we do see of their home lives seems to be built around parents who exist simply to disagree with the kids, or put them down. (One of the parents actually asks their son, "Who told you you were so special?") This is a strange school these kids are enrolled in. They're seldom in class, the teachers only pop up now and then to give them a little inspiration or tough love when needed, and most of the time they're free to roam the halls and stage elaborate impromptu musical numbers that are often well put together, but have little purpose of being in the current scene. The movie is rated PG, so the whole thing feels sanitized for the "tween" audience it's aiming for. Not only is it sanitized, but the whole thing's on autopilot. We know exactly what role a character is going to play in the story almost the second they walk on the screen.

So, what does work here? Aside from the obviously talented young cast, I also liked the few scenes where the teachers actually got screen time. Kelsey Grammar, Charles S. Dutton, Bebe Neuwirth, and Debbie Allen (from the original 1980 Fame movie and TV series) play members of the staff, and they bring a certain quiet dignity to their scenes. Too bad they're mainly treated as a cameo. (Grammar has been reduced to almost a walk-on, which leads me to believe most of his scenes were cut.) The movie's also slick and stylized, which sometimes works against it. This is a movie that should show the gritty realism these kids go through in order to experience their dreams of being on the stage or screen. Instead, most of the performance scenes have been shot like a music video. This actually prevents us from seeing the progress the kids make over the four years the movie covers. We never get a true sense of growth or accomplishment.
I'm certain Fame will have its fans, but anyone who is really trying to become part of the entertainment world will probably see this for the shallow and hollow piece of fluff it really is. It's brightly colored and energetic, but there's just no realism or heart for us to grab onto. The movie ends with the class graduating, and I really had a hard time picturing any of them going on to great things. As talented as they seemed to be, it never feels like they learned anything during their four years of school. I could relate, though. During the time I spent with the characters, I didn't learn anything about them either.

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This is not a great movie, but Surrogates kind of grew on me as it went on. Its premise is a little loopy, but not so much so that we can't buy it. It's set in an alternate future, where humans spend all days in their homes hooked up to a machine, where they control a human-like cyborg known as a Surrogate. Through them, people can live the lives they want to lead without any consequences whatsoever, or without fear of illness or injury.

It's a little far-fetched, but intriguing. It also kind of reminded me of Gamer, that mindless action movie that came and left theaters over the Labor Day weekend. That was the movie about people who could live out their lives through video game characters and other people under their control. This is a much better take on the idea. Bruce Willis stars here as an FBI Agent named Greer. Like everyone else in this movie, he has a Surrogate that he uses on the job. Willis plays the Surrogate as well, and it's a little creepy how they made Willis as the robot version of himself look 20 years younger. Greer is partnered with another Surrogate named Peters (Radha Mitchell), and early on, they're both called in to investigate a murder that led to the death of both a robotic Surrogate and its user. Normally, when a Surrogate "dies", the connection with the human is terminated, and the human just has to go out and get another one. But someone somewhere has developed a weapon that can kill a Surrogate, and kill whoever's mind is hooked up to it at the same time.

The murder victim is the son of famed scientist, Dr. Canter (James Cromwell), who initially designed the Surrogates for use of the disabled and paralyzed. Eventually, he lost control of his own invention, was kicked out of the company he helped build from the ground up, and now Surrogates are used by everybody in everyday life. He doesn't know who would want to murder his son, but then starts to think maybe the killer mistook his son for him, since at the time of the murder, the son was using one of Canter's Surrogate personalities for a night on the town. Greer and Peters begin to gather information, and all signs seem to point to a hostile group of "anti-robot" humans, who are led by a street preacher who calls himself The Prophet (Ving Rhames). Naturally, it's not that simple. I'll leave it up to you to discover the rest, but the story moves at a very brisk pace, and never gets bogged down.

With a running time just under 90 minutes, Surrogates seems to fly by, which is a bit of a let down. There are some interesting ideas that I wish the film had explored deeper. About halfway through the film, Greer's Surrogate is dismantled, so he has to step into the outside world himself for the first time in order to continue the investigation. There's a great scene when he steps outside his apartment for the first time in who knows how long, and he's just overwhelmed by the sights and sounds around him. He looks at the people on the street in paranoia and fear, since he doesn't really know who anyone is, since everyone is a robotic representation. They could be anyone, and he doesn't know who to trust. There's also a kind of touching subplot concerning his wife, who is hooked up to her Surrogate at all times - He hasn't seen his real wife in years, and it's starting to bother him. Like I said, the whole concept is pretty far-fetched, but the screenplay by Michael Ferris and John D. Brancato (Terminator Salvation) gives the material just enough human emotion that we can at least sympathize.

The filmmakers seemed to care about giving us an interesting world here. There are different models of Surrogates - The cheaper and more basic models are pretty low rent, and then there are the more expensive ones that are hard to discern from actual humans. I would have liked to have seen more of it, since director Jonathan Mostow (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) has a strong visual style, and knows how to shoot an impressive action sequence. I got the feeling that there was a lot left on the cutting room floor. We learn just enough about the characters to get by, but not much more than that. We also learn some elements of the plot (such as the military's involvement) that don't seem as fleshed out as they should be. Something tells me a director's cut would solve some of the nagging questions I had when the end credits came.
Regardless, Surrogates is a fun little movie. It's well made, and has some interesting ideas, while not exactly breaking any new ground for the genre. September is usually a time of the year when the studios either release the stinkers, or the movies they couldn't place in either the big summer or winter months. The latter is the perfect way to describe this film. It won't have the box office impact of heavy hitters like District 9, but it held my interest.

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With The Informant! (and yes, the exclamation mark is part of the title), filmmaker Steven Soderbergh seems to be trying to channel the spirit or at least mimic the offbeat comic style of the Coen Brothers. His take on the true story of a whistle blower who brought down a major food corporation involved in a price fixing scheme, without telling the Feds about his own embezzling and dirty dealings up front, is breezy and sometimes charmingly off the wall. Not exactly the tone you'd expect from such a story. It's this unexpected take on the story that grabs our attention most of the time, rather than the story itself.

Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns (The Bourne Ultimatum) admit up front that they're going to be playing loose with the facts, with an opening disclaimer that pretty much states that many of the facts have been dramatized or changed. (The disclaimer ends with a defiant "So there!") If the exclamation mark in the title didn't set you off, this is not a subtle movie. It's broad and breezy, and sometimes resembles kind of a live action cartoon set in a world of corporate morons. Even the music seems charmed by its own whimsy, with its retro light-hearted 70s style that sounds like something out of a cheesy sitcom. The film's star, Matt Damon, even looks a little like a cartoon character himself with his nerdy hair and mustache, and puffed up face. He's a Vice President at Archer Midland Daniels (ADM) named Mark Whitacre , who gets fed up with the price fixing and illegal activities his company frequently participates in. He turns informant for the F.B.I., and starts kind of getting caught up in the spy business, secretly recording and video taping meetings, and getting his fellow employees to name names and information. He gets so wrapped up, he even starts referring to himself as 0014. ("Because I'm twice as smart as 007"!)

So far, so good. But it gets a lot more complicated. The agents that Mark is getting the information for (portrayed here by Scott Bakula and Joel McHale) learn too late that he hasn't been telling them the truth from the very beginning. It seems there's some details Mark left out, details that include him stealing money from the company and forging papers. The FBI is left with egg on their face, and even though Mark can't seem to get his facts right, he refuses to see the fact that he's done anything wrong. After all, he brought down a lot of corrupt individuals within his company. He did the right thing, didn't he? His wife, Ginger (Melanie Lynskey), stands by his side, both in private and in front of the media, which starts camping outside his front door when word of his informant activities and secret crimes gets out. To say that Mark is an optimist would be an understatement. Not only does he see himself as doing nothing wrong, but he also thinks he'll be able to take control of the company because of his actions. Since the story was big news when it happened, it's not a spoiler to reveal that Mark did end up going to prison for his own crimes, and even got a longer sentence than those he helped the Feds capture.

A little bit of self-whimsy goes a long way, and in The Informant!, it goes so far as to render some potentially interesting elements of the story completely mute. We never fully get to see how all of this affects his wife. We see her support him, but we never truly learn if she does it out of loyalty to him, or if she really and truly believes that he has done nothing wrong. Is she just as self-delusional as Mark comes across? The fluffy and light hearted tone works well when Mark is working as a bungling informant, never exactly sure of what he is doing, but somehow always getting exactly the kind of incriminating evidence he needs, but whenever the story turns to the personal side of the story, the tone works against it. Damon's performance is fine throughout, but it remains a caricature from beginning to end. We never truly get inside his head, although the movie does provide us with many personal monologues telling us what Mark is thinking about.

This is an odd movie that works sometimes because of its bizarre tone, and sometimes not. My reaction seemed to switch back and forth from going along with the approach, and sometimes being annoyed by it. So, I guess this should be read as a somewhat positive, but mainly middle of the road review. I do kind of wish the movie was a little bit more savage with its satire. At this point of the economic crisis, the movie could have taken some big swipes at corporate crooks and big business, but everything is mainly handled with kid gloves here. The main intention does not seem to be to truly explain what happened, but to ridicule Whitacre. He comes off as a narrow-minded, self-congratulating buffoon, while everyone else at the ADM office involved in the scandal are basically ignored. Instead, we get some bizarre cameos including Patton Oswalt, the Smothers Brothers, and cartoon voice acting legend, Frank Welker, in a rare live action appearance as Mark's father. Don't get me wrong, it's fun, but I would have liked more meat to the story and less quirky cameos.
Yesterday, I described Jennifer's Body as an experiment that didn't work out as well as it should have. The Informant! is a better movie, but could probably be summed up the same way. You can tell that everyone involved was having fun making this movie, but maybe they should have just spent a little more time going deeper. This is a film that is sometimes enjoyable, but always flawed. Sure is an odd little movie, though.

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Megan Fox does not make a very convincing demonic Hell spawn. Maybe that's an odd way to open a review, but it's the first thing that springs to my mind when I think back on why Jennifer's Body doesn't completely work. It's impossible to be terrified of her, because she doesn't exactly have an aura of menace or fear. No matter how much fake blood is splattered around her mouth, or how often she spews out black bile, I was not afraid.

To be fair, the movie is not really supposed to be taken entirely seriously. Yes, it has thriller elements, but I get the sense that we're supposed to be laughing through most of this. It works a little bit better as a dark comedy, but not enough for me to recommend. The film is the much-hyped second project of Diablo Cody, the writer who launched to fame two years ago with her Oscar-winning script to Juno. That film was a strong showcase for her style of humor and pop culture-referencing writing style, but here, it seems off. It sounds forced when characters are having a conversation about a person's death, and someone blurts out "Oh my God, just move on.org". It's like she's trying too hard to replicate her past success. I liked the idea behind the film. The movie sort of wants to be a supernatural spin on Mean Girls, or maybe the late 80s cult classic, Heathers. But the execution by Cody and director Karyn Kusama (Aeon Flux) misses the mark more than it hits.

At the beginning, we're introduced to two life-long best friends, Jennifer Check (Megan Fox) and Needy Lesnicky (Amanda Seyfried from Mama Mia). They grew up together in the small town of Devil's Kettle, and now in high school, they're still together, despite the different paths life has led them. Jennifer is the popular cheerleader - hit on by every boy in school. She understands the power she holds, and uses it over everyone, including Needy, who is quiet and meek, and generally does whatever Jennifer asks without question. Needy has a nice boyfriend named Chip (Johnny Simmons), but she clearly belongs mainly to Jennifer. They have the kind of friendship where if they go out together, Needy is not allowed to wear something better than Jennifer is. The movie also hints at feelings possibly deeper than friendship between the two girls, but doesn't quite go far enough with it, other than a scene in Needy's bedroom late in the film that is supposed to be shocking, but given the context of the scene itself, is just awkward and unnecessary.

The two girls hit a local bar early on, because Jennifer wants to hear a rising indie band named Low Shoulder that's performing there. The lead singer of the band (Adam Brody) takes an interest in Jennifer - an interest so strong that not even the fact the bar burns down due to an electrical malfunction during their song can break it. The fire claims almost everyone in the bar, except for Jennifer, Needy, and the band. The singer does not seem that disturbed by the events of the evening, and instead invites Jennifer to come with the band in their van. Needy protests, but Jennifer goes along. The next time Needy sees her friend, she's covered in blood, letting out demonic shrieks, and spewing black ooze. And the next time after that, Jennifer seems perfectly fine, as if nothing had happened the night before. It's right about this time also that a mysterious series of cannibalistic murders start hitting the quiet town, the victims being various young men from the high school.

I won't go into too much detail, but you already know from the commercials that Jennifer has somehow become possessed by a demonic monster, and needs to feed upon human flesh in order to stay strong and youthful. Needy puts two and two together, and realizing she's the only one who can stop her, visits the occult section of the school library to find more information. ("We have an occult section?", Chip asks her.) I liked the angle of Needy having to rely on herself for the first time. She had always been a wallflower, and using Jennifer as her strength. She finds herself alone when Chip doesn't believe her, and she doesn't know who to turn to. If the movie had played upon this dilemma more, it might have resonated, but the screenplay is too interested in cheap thrills that do not thrill, and laughs that miss more than hit. The tone constantly seems off. It's never scary, and it's never quite as clever as it seems to think it is. I smiled at a couple of the lines, but the movie never got the big laughs it was obviously aiming for.

Jennifer's Body is also supposed to obviously be a real role for Megan Fox to prove she can do more than be eye candy for Michael Bay. I guess she's okay for the most part, but like I said at the very beginning, she's not scary or threatening, and that sort of sinks her performance. It doesn't help that she spends a lot of her scenes with Seyfried, who is much better here. She makes Needy into a more three dimensional heroine than we usually get in the horror genre. There are a couple interesting supporting characters that I wish the movie would have spent more time with. These include Kyle Gallner (The Haunting in Connecticut) as a surprisingly sweet-natured and sympathetic Goth teen at the school, and J.K. Simmons giving another offbeat, but criminally underused, performance as a teacher with a hook for a hand. Simmons has spent a good part of 2009 appearing in small roles where he barely registers. He's much too interesting of a character actor to be treated this way, and I hope he can get his hands on another stand-out role soon.
My mixed feelings for this movie carried all the way to the end. The wraparound opening and ending sequence seemed unnecessary, but the additional scene that plays over the first half of the ending credits brought things to a satisfying conclusion. Jennifer's Body is like an experiment that just didn't work out the way it was planned. You wish Cody would have allowed herself another rewrite or two. Whether it was at the conceptual, screenplay, or filmmaking level, something held this movie back.

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I guess this movie wasn't for me. That's not to say Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is a bad movie. It's imaginative, it's bright and colorful, and it has a wonderful voice cast. The movie just never really clicked with me. I remembered watching Ponyo last weekend, and how the characters felt honest to the point that I could relate to some of them. I never got that feeling watching this.

I think the main thing that turned me off is that this is essentially a one-joke movie, and that joke is falling food. The story centers on an eccentric and kind-hearted young scientist named Flint Lockwood (voice by Bill Hader), who decides to build a machine that can turn water into food. The device is launched into the sky, and starts turning the water vapor in the air into junk food that it sends raining down on the people below. The movie changes the food that falls (pizzas, pancakes, spaghetti, ice cream), but the gag is essentially the same - Food falls from the sky, and people run away. It's kind of funny and whimsical the first couple times it happens, but it starts to wear out its welcome as the movie goes on. Eventually, the machine goes out of control, and starts dropping massive pieces of food. So, the gag's essentially the same, only now the food is bigger. In this case, bigger is most certainly not better.

The movie obviously means well, just like its lead character, Flint. He invented the machine in order to stop a food crisis that had hit his small town. It used to be a salmon fishing village, and when business dries up (people outside the village stop buying salmons because they're gross), everyone in town is forced to eat nothing but salmon, since they can't sell it anymore. Flint really just wants to be loved by the local people, especially by his dad (James Caan), who has always been emotionally distant. When the machine initially makes Flint a celebrity, he starts to let it go to his head, since he unwisely listens to the town's crooked Mayor (Bruce Campbell). There are a lot of bizarre side characters, chief amongst them is Sam Sparks (Anna Farris), a meteorologist who is sent to cover the story of the "food storm" Flint creates, and eventually develops feelings for him as they work together to stop the device. Other characters include an over-zealous cop (Mr. T), a guy who used to be a baby model mascot, and still wears a diaper in order to hold onto his past glory (Andy Samberg) and a monkey named Steve, who is Flint's best friend, and talks with the aid of a device that "speaks" what the monkey is thinking (Neil Patrick Harris).

I liked a lot of the characters, especially Sam Sparks, who stands out thanks to Farris' spirited voice acting. But the movie never wants to slow down and let us enjoy them. It plows full-speed-ahead to a chaotic climax where the food machine goes out of control, and begins to threaten the entire world. We get a lot of disaster movie parodies thrown at us one after another, we get a lot of gags of different types of food falling on people, and then we get more food falling on people. The writers try to shake things up by actually giving some of the food a personality. The movie throws pizza slices that act like fighter jets, and fried chicken that has somehow developed an appetite for people. It started to get to be too much, especially since the last 40 minutes or so of the movie are devoted entirely to attacking food. In a way, I can understand. The film's designed to be seen in 3D, and is obviously a demo to show off what the studio can do. It never feels like anything more than a gimmick, though.

So, what are we left with? Not much, unless you're in the 10 and under crowd. There were some aspects of the film I thought were clever. I liked the fact that Flint's hi-tech lab was actually his childhood treehouse, which he somehow converted into something out of a James Bond film. The relationship that Flint builds with Sam and with his father also have some moments of truth to them. Still, I wasn't that involved. I was distracted by the somewhat bland character designs, and the sometimes juvenile humor. (If there's a monkey in the movie, you just know he's going to start throwing his own feces at one point.) The one sequence in the film that truly seems magical is a sequence where Flint and Sam frolic inside a giant Jell-o mold. It's a cute little scene, but just like everything else that works here, it doesn't last long enough.
I'm sure Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs will be a big hit with kids. The family film well is looking pretty dry until Where the Wild Things Are hits next month. I wanted to like this movie more than I did. The characters are there, and the heart shows up in certain scenes, but it's all overpowered by repetitive scenes that repeat the same idea. When it was all over, I felt exhausted, and maybe a little hungry. But not delighted.

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We're introduced to Eckhart's character first. He's Burke Ryan, a self-help guru who helps people get over the death of loved ones. He's written a best-selling book, and goes coast-to-coast doing seminars where he preaches his words of wisdom. The irony is he doesn't believe his own words. He suffered a loss himself when his wife died in a car accident three years ago, and can't get over his own grief. The people at his seminars who hang on his very word treat him like a celebrity, but there are some, like his father-in-law (Martin Sheen), who see him as a hypocrite. Enter Aniston's character, Eloise. She's a florist who does the flower arrangements at the hotel where he's currently hosting a seminar for a few days. They meet when they literally bump into each other in the hall. He tries to strike up a conversation, but she pretends she's deaf, because she just broke up with a boyfriend and doesn't want anything to do with men. It's the first of many artificial sitcom-like situations the screenplay throws into what was supposed to be a story about getting over loss and emotional healing.

Burke eventually convinces Eloise to go out to dinner with him. Before long, they're hanging out together, and visiting trendy night spots. Things get serious after that. They go to a rock concert together, he visits her mother (Frances Conroy), and she helps him break into his father-in-law's house so he can steal a pet bird that used to belong to his wife, so he can set it free. (It's a long story.) All this happens, but we never feel a real connection between them. I get that this is supposed to be a very guarded relationship. Everywhere Burke goes, he has flashbacks of his dead wife. But the screenplay by director Brandon Camp and co-writer Mike Thompson (Dragonfly) never goes deep enough into the characters, their problems, or even what draws them to each other. Both writers have a lot of experience writing for television, and it shows. The drama is neat, tidy, non-threatening, and sanitized. The comic moments also have a sitcom-like quality, with the characters intentionally putting themselves in awkward situations (you can almost hear the laugh track), or provided by the two comic relief characters (Dan Fogler as Burke's agent, and Judy Greer as Eloise's best friend and co-worker).

It's these contrived, safe decisions that holds Love Happens back from the movie it obviously wants to be. It's afraid to truly confront the issue of loss and recovery, and gives us simple answers. There's a recurring character who keeps on showing up at Burke's seminars named Walter (John Caroll Lynch). He used to be a successful contractor, but then his son died in an accident on a job site, and now he feels like he has nothing left. He even gave up on being a contractor. Burke tries to reach him, but Walter keeps on resisting. That's when he gets the brilliant idea to take Walter on a field trip to a Home Depot. Through this trip, Walter seemingly has a life-changing experience. He can hold onto a hammer again without thinking of his son's death. He tells Burke that he's going to be okay, and that's all we get. So, instead of actual closure to the character, we get a music montage as Walter picks out tools, and a plug for the Home Depot. If only all emotional problems could be solved with the aid of corporate product placements.

But, back to Burke and Eloise. We never get to see any sparks, nor do we get a scene where we really feel the characters are connecting. It's strange, because we know that Eckhart and Aniston are very charismatic actors, or at least they have been in the past. There's none of the sharp comic glee that Eckhart usually brings to his roles. As for Aniston, there's something a little muted about her performance here, almost as if her heart wasn't completely into it. We still wind up liking the characters, due to the actors playing them. We just don't like them as much as we want to. At least everyone seems to be trying. You have to give credit for Martin Sheen. It couldn't have been easy to walk onto the set the day of his big scene, which is not only horribly contrived (he walks in just as Burke is giving an impassioned apology to his audience, and he winds up walking on stage to also apologize to and hug his son-in-law), but also includes one of the worst cliches - the slow, building clap, where one audience member starts clapping, and then he is joined by one or two more people, and soon the entire room is in thunderous applause.
I didn't really hate watching Love Happens. It's too bland and safe to build any real feelings of hatred. I just had this constant nagging feeling that I was watching something contrived, when it should have been heartfelt and honest. It constantly felt like the movie was afraid to be what it truly wanted to be. So, while it's not really a terrible movie, it sure is a wimpy one.

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Unless you frequent the world of Japanese animation, the name Hayao Miyazaki probably is not very familiar to you. In his native country, however, he is regarded as a master filmmaker, with each of his recent movies breaking box office records. Watch a Miyazaki film, and it's all too easy to understand the appeal. His films are always completely hand-drawn with hardly a trace of CG, and are awash in color, detail, and life. His stories also always have universal appeal. They are simple enough for children to understand, but emotional and engaging enough for adults.

His latest film, Ponyo, is no exception. This is a wondrous fairy tale that is charming, imaginative, funny, and heartfelt. Like all of Miyazaki's recent movies, it was a massive hit in Japan, and has now been brought to America by the Disney studios. This is not the kind of hatchet job that most anime get when they are dubbed into English. Disney has spared no expense for the English version, hiring John Lasseter (Toy Story, Cars) and Melissa Mathison (E.T.) to faithfully adapt Miyazaki's original screenplay. They have also hired a top-flight cast of voice talent including Tina Fey, Liam Neeson, Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon, Betty White, Cloris Leachman, and Lily Tomlin. I usually view anime dubs with the same level of disgust I view intestinal parasites, but here, they've done a fine job finding actors whose voices not only fit their roles, but don't draw attention to themselves. (Aside from Neeson's unmistakable voice, you're never reminded of who is playing whom.) More than this, this is a fantastic movie for both young and old to experience.

The film opens with a beautiful and mostly dialogue-free underwater sequence, where the aquatic wizard Fujimoto (voice by Liam Neeson) keeps a careful eye over the seas, and makes sure everything is in balance. He generally despises humans, due to the way they pollute and mistreat the ocean, and expects all of the fish under his command to follow his example and never venture up to land. There's one little fish who lets her curiosity about the world above get the better of her. She floats up to the surface with the aid of a jellyfish, and is discovered by a five-year-old boy named Sosuke (Frankie Jonas, younger brother of the Jonas Brothers music group). Sosuke frees the little fish from a jar that she had gotten stuck in during her journey to the surface, and the two manage to strike a friendship before Fujimoto comes up on land to take the little fish back where she belongs. The fish, however, just won't stay put. She has magical powers, just like her mother the sea goddess (Cate Blanchett), and these powers allow her to take the form of a human so that she can return to the surface and be with Sosuke again.

As a human, she can now speak (her voice is provided by Noah Cyrus, younger sister of Miley), and goes by the name of Ponyo (the name Sosuke gave her when he rescued her as a fish). She happily reunites with her new human friend and his mother (Tina Fey), who are worried that the seas seem unusually violent. Sosuke's father (Matt Damon) is the captain of a ship at sea, and they fear he may be in danger. We soon learn that Ponyo's actions to live on land have caused an imbalance in nature, which is causing the sea to grow into a powerful flood that threatens the entire town. Ponyo uses her magic to turn Sosuke's toy boat into a giant one that they can use to navigate the waters of the flooded town to search for his father, as well as his mother, when she goes off to check on the elderly ladies (Betty White, Cloris Leachman, Lily Tomlin) that she cares for at the Senior Center where she works.

The story told in Ponyo is a simple one of discovery, friendship, and the relationship between man and nature. It doesn't get bogged down in a message, or overly complicates itself. It is charmingly disarming. We are immediately drawn to the characters. The opening sequence, where Ponyo sneaks away from her father to go to the surface world, is one of the most endearing introductions to a main character I've seen in an animated film in a while. It's impossible not to fall in love with the chubby little fish with the human-like face. She draws laughter just from some of her facial expressions, and the way her body twists and distorts fluidly as she swims to the world above. It reminded me of the wonder of traditional hand-drawn animation. As impressive and precise as CG can be, it sometimes lacks the warmth and artistic exaggeration of cell drawings. Look at the way little Ponyo's body stretches and bends as she struggles to fight a strong water current, or when she becomes trapped inside the jar. For someone who holds a strong respect for animation, it's wonderful to watch, and I can only hope Disney's upcoming The Princess and the Frog is good enough and successful enough to begin a resurgence in traditional animation.

Even if that movie isn't enough, this one features more than enough evidence as to why the art form needs to carry on. There is a spellbinding sequence where Ponyo (in her human form) literally rides a tsunami wave by running on the backs of giant fishes leaping out of the water. Also impressive are the scenes late in the film, where Sosuke and Ponyo ride the boat through the flooded streets of the town, and we can see fish swimming underneath them across the submerged streets and cities. The visuals alone would almost be worth recommending the film, but Ponyo also has a lot more warmth and heart to its characters than most films targeted at young kids. We worry about little Sosuke when he fears his parents may be lost in the flood, and delight in Ponyo's personal discoveries, especially her love for ham. In a charming change of pace, there are no real antagonists to the story. Even the wizard Fujimoto, who comes across as being very harsh early on, is just trying to protect the balance of the world when he forbids Ponyo from going to the surface. This is a movie that remembers the innocence and wonder of childhood, and doesn't feel the need to fill it with CG aliens or man-eating booger monsters, as seen in Aliens in the Attic and Shorts.
Ponyo has received a larger release than most anime films get for a theatrical run over here, but it's still mostly playing in limited areas. This doesn't make sense to me, as the film holds huge appeal for just about anyone who watches it. Miyazaki is a masterful storyteller, and the people responsible for the English version have carried on his tradition. You can tell that this was a labor of love for everyone involved. When I look back on the summer of 2009, I'll do my best to forget the giant robots and mutant superheroes as soon as possible. But I'll be holding onto my memories of this charming little fish and the movie she inhabits for a long time to come.

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Considering Whiteout was finished back in 2007, and has been sitting on the studio shelf since then, I didn't exactly walk in with my hopes up. Turns out, the movie's not really terrible, it's just very forgettable. Aside from the unusual arctic setting, not a whole lot stands out about this mundane murder mystery. The only things that do stand out is how laid back the whole thing is for a thriller, how the filmmakers seem to have forgotten to give their story a proper climax or ending, and how the mystery at the center of it all is about as complex as your standard episode of Scooby-Doo.

Kate Beckinsale plays a Federal Marshall named Carrie Stetko. She's stationed at an arctic base that is gearing up to evacuate before a major storm blows in, making air travel impossible. Right away, we see a problem here. Beckinsale's a lovely actress, and it would be a crime to have her covered up in a parka for most of the film's duration. The filmmakers seem to realize this, so they give us a gratuitous shower scene the first time we see her for no other reason than they know what the audience wants. Right after that, she's called in to investigate a dead body that's been found on the ice in the middle of nowhere. It looks like the victim was murdered. We know this, because the dialogue consists entirely of the characters pointing out what they and we are looking at. ("It's a body...It's head has been smashed in...", etc.) As Carrie begins to investigate who could be the murderer in such a desolate and isolated place, more bodies start popping up, and Carrie herself starts having run-ins with a mysterious ax-wielding murderer donning a hood and parka, who seems to have wandered in from a teen slasher film.

There's not a whole lot of plot in Whiteout. We see some flashbacks to Carrie's past, which led to her wanting to isolate herself from everyone else (the main reason she's in the arctic in the first place), and why she shudders a little every time she looks at or picks up her gun. Other than that, it's a fairly standard game of "guess the killer". The cast of faces are rather limited. There's the kindly old doctor (Tom Skerritt), a United Nations investigator named Robert Pryce (Gabriel Macht) with murky reasons for being in the arctic in the first place, and a pilot named Delfy (Columbus Short), who acts as Carrie's main sidekick. It's pretty easy to spot the killer. Just look for the character who keeps on showing up, but has little to do with anything else that's going on, and you'll be one step ahead of the characters the entire time. The inherent problem, of course, comes from the setting. Since everyone's covered up for most of the movie, it can sometimes be hard to tell who are the good guys, and who are the bad.

I was glad for the setting, though. It's the one thing that stands out here. There are some lovely shots of the landscapes, and it gives the movie at least a small bit of novelty. Other than that, there's nothing really worth remembering. Well, except for the climax, and it's for all the wrong reasons. I've seen plenty of anticlimactic reveals in my time, but this tops them all. It's almost like the screenplay gives us a reveal, but no pay off. The whole thing kind of sputters and dies. Not even the killer seems all that surprised when their identity is revealed. They just give a very laid back speech about why they did it, then walk away. Did the filmmakers really pat themselves on the back when this was shot? Were they really satisfied with how everything wraps up in such a way that it seems like not even the guilty even cares?
Whiteout is based on a graphic novel, and I can only hope something got lost in translation, because I can't see anything here that would absorb a reader. My screening got out less than two hours ago, and it's already starting to fade from my mind. Whiteout doesn't aspire to be anything more than what it is, and suffers because of it.

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Watching the latest Tyler Perry movie is like watching an artist struggling with himself. You can see moments in this film where it seems like Perry is trying to break free. Oh sure, he follows the same plot formula as all his other film (woman is involved in a bad relationship, lashes out at those around her because of it, and then discovers love due to a poor, working-class man and her belief in Jesus), and the story is still steeped in melodrama. But, there are moments here where his characters seem a little bit more human than normal. It's fleeting, but during these moments, I found myself caring a little about them.

Make no mistake, though, I Can Do Bad All by Myself is a Tyler Perry movie. It's also easily the best one he's ever done. The characters are ever so slightly more relatable than they have been in the past, and while the drama is still very heavy-handed, it's handled in a somewhat more effective way than before. Before we can get to that, however, we have to get through the opening 20 minutes, which center on Perry's signature character, Madea. As everyone knows by now, Madea is a massive old granny played by Perry himself in a wig and a fat suit. She's built like a linebacker, slurs her words like a drunken sailor, and pretty much threatens physical assault to anyone who crosses her path. Perry's fanbase loves this character, but I for one find her about as appealing as watching Jessica Simpson perform Shakespeare. She grates on my nerves like few characters can, and the fact she's played by a guy in drag makes her come across like a bad Saturday Night Live character. Fortunately, Madea's only here to set up the plot. Some kids break into her house in the opening scene, and she sends them to live with their Aunt when they tell her they haven't seen their mother in four days. Once Madea drops the kids off, she pretty much exits the story altogether.

Their Aunt is April (Perry regular, Taraji P. Henson), a hard-drinking lounge singer who cares only about herself. Having to take care of the three kids creates a problem for her. She's currently dating and living with an abusive man (Brian J. White), who obviously cares little for her, and is even married to another woman. He hates kids, though he's not above attempting to sexually seduce and rape the eldest child, 16-year-old Jennifer (strong newcomer Hope Olaide Wilson). The character of the boyfriend is a typical misstep for Perry. He writes his villains so broad and completely evil, it must take a superhuman effort not to put devil horns on the heads of his antagonists. He sneers constantly, is verbally and physically abusive every chance he gets, and just so we know he's *really* evil, he's racist too. The scenes concerning this character rely on Perry's gift for hit you over the head melodrama. Whenever the villain is on screen, the movie loses all subtlety and honesty. Like Madea, however, he does not appear very often. It's almost like Perry himself is getting tired of his usual theatrics, and wants to try something different, but either his fanbase or the studio won't let him. So, he gives them just enough of what they want, but doesn't try to concentrate on them.

Instead, the movie is mainly focused on April, and her coming to grips of having to be a mother to the children, and how to care about something other than herself. If April seems a little more human than the usual Perry character, it's probably due to the performance of Henson (who was nominated for an Oscar recently for her role in Benjamin Button). She's appeared in a few of Perry's films, but this is her first lead role in one of them, and it was a smart move to build the movie around her performance. It's a surprisingly complex turn, covering all sides of the character. April is not exactly a sympathetic woman, but we can see signs of kindness that makes her transformation at the end at least a little bit more believable than it's been written in the screenplay. The man who begins to turn April around is a Sandino (Adam Rodriguez from TV's CSI: Miami), an immigrant who works as a handyman at the local church, and eventually starts fixing up April's broken down house. The scenes that April and Sandino share together have a kind of sweetness to them. That's because these scenes allow them to be actual characters, and not tools manipulated by the melodramatic plot.

For everything that does work here, there's always something to bring us right back to reality. Perry's filmmaking style is still as flat as a pancake, and sometimes he doesn't even seem to know where to point the camera. You'd think with the clout he's built up in Hollywood by now, he could hire someone to give him a few pointers. The movie also suffers from a number of musical sequences that drag on a little too long, and stop the plot dead in its tracks. It's not that I don't understand why there are musical sequences. Why would Perry cast recording artists like Gladys Knight, Marvin Winans, and Mary J. Blige, if he wasn't going to give them the opportunity to sing in the film? It's just that nothing usually happens during these sequences, and we're stuck just watching them perform on a stage, with occasional cuts to the audience to show how moved they are by the song. Do we really need to see the audience's reaction when Gladys Knight is singing her heart out?
So yes, I Can Do Bad All by Myself is a typical Perry movie, but it didn't annoy me nearly as much as some of his others. He's not exactly learning from his own mistakes, but he does seem to realize by this point that he's doing the same stuff over and over. I hope he can break free of his own formula. I'd love to give one of his movies a good review someday. He obviously knows how to attract some good actors. Now he just needs a script that is worthy of the performances he gets out of his cast.

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Sometimes when I'm watching a rather run of the mill or drab movie, the slightest one-liner can make me laugh, just because it's unexpected. Such was the case in Sorority Row, when some college girls discover the rotting corpse of a friend who has been dead for about a year, and is now found hanging from the ceiling in their house. The girls' response? Instead of screaming, one of them cringes in disgust, and simply says in all seriousness, "Oh my God, it's Megan. She looks horrible".

Not exactly sparkling wit, but in a movie like this, I take what I can get. I also liked Carrie Fisher's character. She plays Mrs. Crenshaw, the House Mother of the sorority girls, who seems quite calm and level-headed for most of the film, but when things start to get out of control, she somehow gets her hands on a pump-action shotgun, and starts shooting at the mysterious killer who is picking off her girls. I liked these things, because they caught me off guard with their absurdity. If only the rest of Sorority Row could be so surprising. The rest of the movie is depressingly mundane. It recycles the 80s slasher cliches with plenty of energy, but not a whole lot of imagination. You've seen it all before, and the movie seems to know it. The little one liners thrown into the screenplay by Josh Stolberg (Good Luck Chuck) and Peter Goldfinger (TV's Avatar: The Last Airbender) seem to almost be there to keep the writers awake at the word processor.

The movie itself is a remake of an obscure 1983 slasher called The House on Sorority Row, which has been unseen by me, and will most likely remain so. Despite this, anyone who has seen 1997's I Know What You Did Last Summer will find the material here quite familiar, as well. As they begin their Senior year of college, the head girls of the Theta Pi sorority get involved in a prank gone wrong. A girl named Megan (Audrina Patridge from TV's The Hills) learns that her boyfriend (Matt O'Leary) has been cheating on her. So, Megan and her Theta Pi sisters play a prank where Megan pretends to die during sex, and the rest of them go out with the boyfriend to hide the body, hoping to scare the poor dope. When Theta Pi "queen bee" Jessica (Leah Pipes) jokingly suggests that they look for something sharp to dismember Megan's body, the boyfriend takes her suggestion a little too literally, and winds up actually killing Megan by stabbing her with a tire iron. After much panicking, the group decides to hide Megan's body in a nearby mine shaft, as if word of the murder got out, it could ruin their dreams of a successful future.

The story fast forwards to Graduation Day, and the girls have managed to keep the death a secret all this time, though it's obviously taking a toll on two of them - Good girl Cassidy (Briana Evigan) and timid Ellie (Rumer Willis). It's right about this time that all the girls involved in the incident start receiving threatening text messages on their cell phones by someone who knows what they did that night. Not long after that, a mysterious figure dressed in a black graduation cloak and hood starts roaming the campus, armed with a souped up tire iron weapon, and begins picking the girls off one-by-one. Is it the boyfriend? Is it Megan's sister (Caroline D'Amore), who started appearing around the campus around the time the killer did? The answer, which I will not reveal here, is pretty underwhelming, and makes less sense the more logic is applied. You'd also think the killer would be spotted by more people, since the cloaked and hooded figure makes little effort to hide itself during the film, and is always brandishing that weapon everywhere. Subtlety is obviously not what this movie is aiming for.

What Sorority Row is obviously aiming to be is a fun throwback to the slasher flicks of my youth, and while that's admirable, there never seems to be a lot going on at any time. It takes almost an hour for the killer to show up. There's too much set up, and nothing really that deserves much time devoted to it. Even when the tension is supposed to be ratcheting up, the movie never quite raises any suspense. Then again, it's hard to raise suspense when it's glaringly obvious who's going to be alive, and who's going to find themselves at the receiving end of the killer's tire iron by the end credits. The movie follows a tried and true formula, and that's just the problem. Aside from a handful of clever, self-knowing lines, the whole thing's on autopilot. We start waiting for the obligatory scenes when the girls will separate, or start creeping around dark areas to investigate on their own. The killer strikes, the girl screams, we yawn.
Watching this movie, I thought back on My Bloody Valentine 3D. That film also tried to capture the mood and spirit of an 80s slasher, and did a better job of it. It was livelier, more atmospheric, and had better kills for the villain to pull off. Compared to that, Sorority Row just doesn't stand out. It is, however, a better movie than both The Final Destination or Rob Zombie's Halloween II. Not saying much, I know, but considering the other options out in theaters for horror buffs, beggars can't be choosers.

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When you think about it, it's strange that we don't see more real sci-fi films done in animation. After all, the genre relies heavily on imagination, and there is no film media that allows more imagination than animation. The opening moments of 9 brought this thought into my head. It's a stunning, almost dialogue-free sequence, as a strange little creature is brought to life in a desolate world that seems abandoned and dead at first. He quickly discovers that there are others like him. There are also giant robot monstrosities known as "the beasts".

The creature in question is a strange little rag doll like being that awakens in a lab, unaware of who or even what he is. The only clue to his creation is the number "9" written on his back. He cannot speak, but he does have a strong curiosity, which leads him to venture outside the window of the lab, and into the wastelands of the Earth outside, which have been ravished by war. 9 soon learns that he is not alone, as there is another being similar to him, roaming the ruins. He bears a "2" upon his back, and seems wise in the ways of the world around him. Unlike 9, he can speak (his voice is provided by Martin Landau), and is soon able to fix 9 so that he himself can talk as well, his voice supplied by Elijah Wood. Before 9 can learn much information, his friend is carried away by a large mechanical robot that carries the helpless 2 off into an unknown region of the land.

We learn through the background story what happened to this world. A war raged between humans and machines, and in the end, all living creatures were wiped out. The only survivors are the remains of the mechanical army, and a small group of nine doll-like creatures that were created by a scientist as the last chance to carry on humanity. 9 discovers that there are others like him, living under the guidance of the elder 1 (Christopher Plummer). 9 tries to convince them to venture out into the world to find what has happened to 2, but the elder will not hear it, preferring the safety of hiding. Fortunately, 9 finds some brave allies willing to venture into the wastelands of the Earth, including the kindly 5 (John C. Reilly) and the brave and adventurous 7 (Jennifer Connelly). Together, they will discover not only the truth behind the machines, but also about themselves, and the purpose that they were created for.

The opening momets fueled my imagination, and excited me for what was to come. While the movie constantly held my interest, the story itself and the characters seem somewhat undernourished. 9 is barely over 70 minutes long - nowhere near long enough to fit in all the intriguing ideas that the opening moments promise. The screenplay by Pamela Pettler (Monster House) seems to constantly be content to skim the surface. We learn just enough about the backstory, the characters, and the situation to go on, but I still wanted more. In a way, this just shows how involved I was. I wanted to know so much more about this world and the things that inhabit it. I especially liked the little creatures, my favorites being 3 and 4, twin beings who are mute, but can communicate through film clips, newsreels, and documents about the world's past that they store in their memory.

One advantage to the film's short running time is that it constantly seems to be moving, and never once slows down. There are a number of impressive action sequences where the little beings must out-think and sometimes outrun the giant robot monstrosities. These sequences are skillfully staged and edited, and are surprisingly intense for an animated film. (Most likely the key reason it is rated PG-13, as the movie itself is pretty tame overall.) The movie itself is a visual wonder, especially for an independently made animated film. Director Shane Acker (who based this movie on a short film he made years ago, and was nominated for an Oscar) creates a believably bleak atmosphere for the world itself, but it is continuously crisp, and never murky or blurry. As for the characters, although the doll creatures all look similar, they are different enough so that we can tell them apart without the numbers on their backs. The talented voice cast also help distinguish them, and although there are some recognizable names in the cast, they play the characters appropriately low key and don't draw attention to themselves. This allows the characters to come to life on their own, instead of us focusing on who's playing them.

Shortly after the movie ended, my opinion seemed to be on the fence. I had admired much of it, but was also annoyed by the fact that I was left wanting a lot more when it came to detail and storyline. Looking back on 9 now, I seem to mainly remember the positives over its faults. I remember the wonder I felt during the opening moments, and the excitement during the first robot attack, and the rescue attempt on 2 a little later on. Even if the movie did eventually frustrate me in some ways (some of the action sequences seem to come too soon after one another), I was never bored, and constantly engaged. Sounds like a recommendation to me. If anything, it gives me a lot of hope for Acker's next project. He obviously has a lot of imagination and the skill. All he needs is a fleshed out story, and a studio willing to take a chance to truly let him show what he can do with a big budget.
One final observation: This is one of the few times I would actually be open to a prequel story of some sort. If not a movie, then maybe a novel or comic book. I was intrigued by what little we see of the war against the machines, and I'd like to know more about certain roles that people played. There's a lot of possibilities to flesh out 9's story in other media, and I hope it can be exploited.

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In All About Steve, Sandra Bullock plays a deranged, mentally unhinged woman who is socially awkward, talks way too much, and shows dangerously obsessive tendencies. The problem is that this movie treats these traits as cute little quirks. We're supposed to like her character, Mary Horowitz, because she's sunny, perky, and determined. Despite the movie's best efforts, I was repulsed by Mary, and by the entire film in general now that I think about it.

It's hard to believe that professionals were involved in the making of All About Steve, because everything about it is amateurish and wrong-headed. The movie's been sitting on the studio's shelf for a while now, quietly being shuffled through various release dates, and is now being dumped onto screens over Labor Day weekend (a weekend where very few people generally see movies). The studio obviously saw a chance to strike while the iron was hot, after Bullock had a surprise hit this past summer with The Proposal. That movie was cliched and predictable as all get out, but it knew how to use Bullock and the rest of the cast, so it managed to be charming and likable. Here, Bullock is completely miscast and misused. She doesn't look right to play the character in the first place. Here is an actress in her forties, playing a woman who dresses like she's in her twenties, and acting like a hyperactive teenager with a mental disorder. It's like the filmmakers went out of their way to make her unappealing. The fact that Bullock herself is credited as head producer of the movie makes me question not only what was she thinking, but what sort of bet did she lose?

Her character starts out as a crossword puzzle writer for the local newspaper. I'd like to know how anyone could make a living simply writing crosswords, especially one that's only printed once a week. We never get to see what kind of place she can afford, as she explains it's currently being fumigated, so she's temporarily living with her parents (Beth Grant and Howard Hesseman). Mom and dad are concerned that Mary still has not found a stable relationship, so they set her up on a blind date with Steve (Bradley Cooper from The Hangover), a cameraman for a cable news network. Mary is instantly drawn to him, so much so that she throws herself upon him for sex as soon as they leave her parent's house. Steve doesn't know how to react, but sees an opportunity to lose this obsessed woman when he's called into work to cover a story. Mary, however, becomes infatuated. So infatuated, that her next crossword puzzle she submits is based entirely on Steve. This causes her to get fired, which she sees as a sign from above that she should leave everything behind, and follow Steve on the road wherever he goes and whatever story his team happens to be covering.

Mary clearly becomes obsessed, to the point that she begins stalking Steve. The movie treats this as "cute", but anyone with an adult's I.Q. will see it as being creepy. Steve actually becomes terrified by this woman who will not leave him alone. He works for a small news crew that consists of an egotistical anchorman (Thomas Haden Church), and a guy named Angus (Ken Jeong) who never really does anything during the movie. They travel cross country, covering stories like a hostage situation at an old west-themed tourist trap, a deadly tornado, and a bunch of deaf kids who fall into an abandoned mine shaft on their way to a theme park. Mary's there every step of the way, waving her arms and smiling a sunny grin that becomes more psychotic as the movie goes on. She's helped along the way by friendly truck drivers who give her lifts to Steve's next destination, and a guy who likes to carve apples into famous faces (D.J. Qualls). The movie makes a half-hearted attempt at tension when Mary arrives on the scene of the kids falling into the mine shaft to be with Steve, and ends up falling in the shaft herself. Somehow, the entire world rallies behind her, and Steve suddenly realizes what a smart and wonderful woman she is.

Does this sound like a movie you would like to see? Does this sound like a movie at all? The screenplay by Kim Barker (License to Wed) barely has any structure, and no genuine laughs to speak of. It's so far removed from reality that it tries to make us think that Mary is this little ray of quirky sunshine, when it's painfully obvious to the audience that she is clearly off her rocker. We don't laugh with her or at her, we pity her, and maybe even fear her a little. I don't remember the last time I hated a lead character in a romantic comedy so much. No one in this movie comes across as being the least bit genuine. Part of this is due to the fact that no one is allowed to act like a human being. A much bigger part, however, is due to the fact that most of the cast seem to have their minds on other things. Thomas Haden Church is a charismatic and funny actor, but you wouldn't know it here. Brandon Cooper just looks exhausted, like he's had enough long before I had. But, I still found myself sympathizing. No one, no matter how talented, could make this material work.
Just last weekend, I considered Halloween II to be the most unpleasant film experience I had in 2009. I know better now. All About Steve is simply toxic, and will do a lot of damage to a lot of bright careers. Everyone involved should have known better. I hated this movie from beginning to end, and now that it's over, I find myself hating it even more as I think back on it.

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The main character is Joel Reynolds (Jason Bateman), small-business owner of the local Reynold's Extract factory. He's a nice guy, never yells at his employees, even when they intentionally sabotage daily production when they just decide to stop working (because they think someone else on the plant floor isn't working harder than they are), or when they cause accidents that results in one of his workers (Clifton Collins, Jr) having to have a testicle removed. The victim of the accident, named Step, doesn't initially plan to press charges against the company. He's a laid back guy, and he understands that it was an accident. But then Step is approached by the beautiful young woman who has replaced him at the factory. The woman is Cindy (Mila Kunis). We know she's a con artist, and when she reads about the accident in the newspaper, she takes over Step's position and uses information from the factory to find out where he lives, and get close to and seduce him. She convinces him to sue the company for millions, so she can ultimately run off with the money. Cindy even convinces Step to hire the best known lawyer in the local area (his faces are on all the bus benches), Joe Adler. Adler is played by rocker Gene Simmons, and it's a lively role. Probably his best performance since Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park.

Cindy catches Joel's attention, as well. He's struck by her the day she joins the factory, and is thrilled they have something in common. ("She's interested in food flavoring extracts"!) Joel's personal life is dire, due to the fact that his wife Suzie (Kristen Wiig) won't allow sex after 8 PM. She symbolizes that he's too late for sex by putting on her sweat pants, and tying the cord on the pants extra tight around her waist. Joel tries to get home at the right time, but he's frequently ambushed by his annoying neighbor, Nathan (David Koechner), who seems to be waiting in the bushes for Joel to come home so he can talk his ear off as soon as the poor guy pulls into his driveway. Joel is frustrated sexually, and frequently turns to a burned-out bartender named Dean (Ben Affleck) for advice. Dean's advice? Joel should hire a gigolo to seduce his wife. That way, Joel can pretend to not know about it, and when he eventually "learns" that Suzie has been having sex with another man, he can cheat on her with Cindy guilt-free. Joel seems like too smart of a guy to listen to the advice of Dean, who doesn't come across as the brightest bulb out there. The gigolo that Dean hires for him (Dustin Milligan) is even dumber than he is. The fact that Joel goes along with it can be summed up to poor judgement and the horse tranquilizers Dean accidentally gave him to calm his nerves.

Despite how crazy it all sounds, Mike Judge is able to keep a pretty tight reign on his characters. The movie is very low key, focused on sharp dialogue that catches you off guard, instead of broad laughs. Extract is a smart little movie about very stupid people. It likes to find humor in little, everyday things. I enjoyed the way that the workers on the plant's assembly line were constantly finding fault with each other's performance, while ignoring their own flaws in their work. These are the kind of things that happen everyday in our lives, but we seldom see them happening to people in movies. I have heard some critics complain that the movie lacks focus, but I disagree. It may not exactly be a plot-driven film, but it is focused strong enough on the characters that it still comes across as a very strong ensemble piece. The screenplay allows each of the movie's large cast of oddballs a chance to stand out. I liked the characters, and I found a lot of the things they said to be funny. It doesn't quite have the manic energy of Judge's earlier cult classic, Office Space, but it's not supposed to. This is a quieter movie, but not exactly a gentler one. (The conclusion to the subplot about the obnoxious neighbor is a wickedly funny surprise.)

The main thing that makes the movie work, though, is the cast obviously seems to be enjoying themselves. Jason Bateman is great in his slow-burn role. His Joel is a guy who obviously keeps a lot of things bottled up, and although he never really comes close to exploding, you can sometimes tell he would like to. Mila Kunis also seems to be enjoying her role as the sexy con woman who manages to use and seduce every man in her path, although her last scene with Bateman does suggest she has at least a little bit of heart. The real stand outs, though, come from the smaller characters. J.K. Simmons is a wonderful actor who has been wasted in throwaway roles so far this year. He finally gets a part suited for him as Joel's partner in the company, who can never remember the names of the employees, so he just refers to them by insults. Ben Affleck also throws himself completely into his part, and seems to be loving every minute. He gets some of the film's biggest laughs, like when he explains that Xanax is the cure for everything, even head colds. Other strong supporting performances come from Koechner as the neighbor, and Milligan as the dim-witted gigolo who doesn't seem to understand anything, no matter how you try to explain it to him.
My fear is that Extract will be ignored by audiences. After all, it's being released over Labor Day weekend, a time that is usually box office poison. Hopefully people will eventually discover this film like they did Office Space, though I hope it doesn't take as long. There are a lot of laughs here, and even when I wasn't laughing, I was smiling or at least involved. You won't see this movie on any "10 Best" lists at the end of the year, but it is a lot of fun to watch.

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Games need rules and structures. In Gamer, we're introduced to a futuristic video game of sorts that seems to be built upon total chaos, and is not that interesting to watch. Well, maybe it would be interesting to watch if writers and directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (Crank and its recent sequel, Crank: High Voltage) could keep the camera steady long enough for us to see what we're supposed to be looking at. The visual style in this movie is next to incoherent, and the cliched, half-baked script doesn't come across much better.

But, back to the game itself. It's called "Slayers", and in the futuristic world this movie is set in, it's a world-wide phenomenon. It's a game where players control a living person in combat. The "characters" that are being controlled are all death row inmates. They're thrown into what looks like hand-me-down sets from other action movies, and forced to fight each other. The thing is, the convicts can only do what the player controlling them tells them to do. How does this work? The movie gives us an explanation that sounds scientific and has something to do with replacing parts of the brain, but doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Neither does the game itself, as there seems to be no base rules or guidelines. I understand that it's kill or be killed, but the inmates fighting and the players controlling them frequently seem to be able to bend the rules at will without any explanation. Just when we think we're starting to understand the thing, the movie changes the rules on us. There appears to be a vague goal (reach a "save point" before you get killed), but it's never really established. No one ever seems to run out of ammo, either. Where's the tension in that?

The mastermind behind Slayers is an evil and reclusive billionaire named Ken Castle. He's played by Michael C. Hall from TV's Dexter, and despite Hall's efforts, he never comes across as a genuine threat or as a real character. He disappears for most of the movie, so when he returns for the final showdown with the hero at the end, we almost forget he was in the movie in the first place. But then, characterizations are not this film's strong suit. The main character, Kable (Gerard Butler) is a convict who has become the best player in the history of the game, due to the fact that he's being controlled by a teenage gaming wiz named Simon (Logan Lerman). We learn next to nothing about either character. They're just empty shells, and seem to be the heroes by default. Kable has some kind of past pain that the movie keeps on hinting at. He has a wife (Amber Valletta) and daughter waiting for him in the outside world, and hopes he can earn his freedom, as if any convict can survive 30 rounds of the game, he or she gets released. This is all we're pretty much allowed to know about Kable. He's not so much a character, as he is a person who can hold onto a gun and run. He's the main character because the script says he is, not because we develop any sort of emotional attachment to him.

Kable is able to escape from prison and the game with the help of an underground resistance movement that is trying to stop the evil Castle. They hang out in an abandoned video arcade, and have access to technology that can not only overrule Kable's control mechanism so he can move on his own whenever he wants, but also can apparently bring Castle down. Once again, don't ask how or why. The movie just keeps on tossing ideas out there, and then just lets them fend for themselves. It's easy to feel overwhelmed while watching this movie. The non-stop chaotic action sequences are all but interchangeable, and also incoherent, thanks to the numerous tight shots and rapid-fire editing style. Gamer also keeps on throwing characters our way, but forgets to give anything to go along with them. Rapper Ludacris is the head of the resistance, John Leguizamo turns up as an inmate, and Kyra Sedgwick is a talk show host who gets wrapped up in the whole situation. They enter the story seemingly at random, and exit just as abruptly, sometimes with no resolution whatsoever. Also random is the point the movie seems to be making, as it seems to change in each scene. Is it about futuristic violent sports? Is it a comment on mankind's over-reliance on technology? Is it trying to be critical about our over crowded prisons and even our health care system? The movie tries to be all of this, and fails, because the ideas are dropped as soon as they seem to enter the characters' heads.

I said the movie was overwhelming, but it also manages to be underwhelming. The performances, for one, are not the least bit convincing. Butler looks tortured and pained, but he never says or does anything of interest in the entire movie. Come to think of it, I don't think he hardly says anything during the film's first half hour or so. He just shoots people, and looks depressed. Everyone else is obviously cashing a paycheck, given the final result up on the screen. This is what happens when you cast a bunch of actors adrift in a screenplay that seems to have been barely finished, let alone started. The way the plot jumps around, you get the sense that large parts of the script were misplaced, or were butchered in the editing room. That could explain why there are so many inexplicable scenes in this movie, such as Kable's final showdown with Castle, which starts out as a song and dance number that seems somewhat inspired by West Side Story.
It'd be bad enough if Gamer was a trashy movie, but it's an incoherently trashy movie. I tried to follow this thing, I really did. The film will obviously have its defenders, but they'll have to make huge leaps of logic just to sort it all out. I say it's not worth the effort. Anyone who tries will put a lot more thought toward this movie than the filmmakers ever did.

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