Day 20 -- Speed

Released: June 10th, 1994

Starring: Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, Dennis Hopper, Jeff Daniels, Alan Ruck

Writer/Director: Graham Yost/Jan de Bont

Description: A young cop must prevent a bomb exploding aboard a city bus by keeping its speed above 50 mph.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

***

There was a time in cinema where great action movies thrived. The early-80s to the mid-90s were the golden age with films such as "Die Hard", "First Blood", "Predator" and "Terminator 1 and 2". A time when action films had some semblance of a plot, and weren't an excuse for giant CG set pieces (Cough*Michael Bay*Cough).

While "Speed" doesn't reach the level of those previously mentioned, it holds its own and still sucks me in when it comes on TV. It has three simple things that a great action movie needs: a plausible story (more Dennis Hopper's motivation than the bomb on a bus), pure moments of comedy, and good cat and most game between the protagonist and antagonist. Reeves and Hopper create a nice brains versus brawn dynamic that really drives the action.

Reeves is in his heyday here, starting with "Point Break" in 1991 and concluding with "Matrix" in 1999. He is terrific in this movie, and gives off a John McClane vibe with his performance as Jack Traven. It's too bad he didn't make it back for the sequel, I guess he was too busy making that classic film "The Devil's Advocate". Sure, "Speed 2" was terrible, but with the roll he was on I'm sure Reeves would have at least make it mediocre, and Jack Traven could have been a household name like Rambo, McClane, and the Terminator.

Obviously, there were a couple of completely implausible stunts, but at least they were live action. The first, which the Mythbusters disproved, was the bus making a 50-foot leap while going 70-MPH uphill, and the second was the Subway jumping the tracks and them not getting a scratch. But bending reality is what makes these pure action movies fun to watch. It's much different when the stunts are done by a computer and completely look impossible; I much prefer the natural way.

Yet, these movies would be irrelevant if there wasn't a great villain, and I believe Hopper's Howard Payne is the most underrated of the genre. He's smart, cunning and vindictive while being full of hubris, which is needed in these films. Payne's enjoyment of torturing Traven is something that only Hopper could pull off. Only a few actors can look creepy and terrifying at the same time. Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter is the best example for the type of evil. 

Without Hopper's contrast to Reeves' white knight hero, the movie is just about explosions. It's a shame that the performance gets lost behind the 'oh, yeah, the movie about the bus that can't go under 50 or a bomb explodes' memories most people have of the movie.

Rating: 7/10 -- Top notch action flick with good performances from Reeves, Hopper, and a young Sandra Bullock. This movie should be included within any action movie marathon. Wish the work done by the actors would be noticed more than the main plot device.

Day 19 -- Prince of Persia

Released: May 28th, 2010

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Ben Kingsley

Writer/Director: Boaz Yakin, Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard/Mike Newell

Description: A young fugitive prince and princess must stop a villain who unknowingly threatens to destroy the world with a special dagger that enables the magic sand inside to reverse time.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

***

Most of the desert action-adventure period piece movie have started to blend together. "The Mummy" is a fantastic movie, but after that was "Mummy 2", "Scorpion King", and the meh, "Mummy 3". Even "Aladdian", despite being an animated movie followed the same sort of formula.

In Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time -- was the colon plus subtitle needed -- Jake Gyllenhaal plays Dastan, who was a peasant orphan that was adopted by the King of Persia. After a great victory, he is framed for the death of his father, and becomes a fugitive. Unbeknownst to him, he acquired the Sands of Time dagger, which can turn back time and only the holder of the dagger knows this has occurred.

The rest of the story is very shakespeareian in nature. The king's brother is the real assissian, and wants to use the dagger to go back to the moment he saved his brother from death as a child so that he can become king. It's a slight retelling of "Hamlet", and Kingsley even gives off a Scar from "The Lion King" vibe. Also, there's a character that resembles Jafar from "Aladdin" just in case you didn't know this movie was made by Disney.

Despite the Disney backing, this movie is honestly not bad. It's your standard sword-fighting action adventure, and Gyllenhaal doesn't look out of place. The only thing that bothered me was his accent because there were times -- probably near the beginning of filming -- where the accent sounds forced and rushed. I know the accent is needed because of the setting, but I would have rather had another British actor play the role.

Speaking of British actors, Gemma Arterton, had her Kelly Hu/Rachel Weisz breakout moment. Arterton is familiar to those that suffered through "Quantum of Solace", as Strawberry Fields. She is one in a recent wave of young British actresses including Emily Blunt and Carey Mulligan, who have come along in the past few years that are both beautiful and well-trained. I would keep an eye on her in the future.

This movie is the kind of stupid fun that movies like "The Mummy", "National Treasure" and "Transformers" have always made people pay to see in theaters. Everything is pretty solid, even though the writing does tend to dumb down some scenes, but that's to be expected with Disney. A very polished movies from start to finish that never had a moment where I regretted watching it.

Rating: 7/10 -- Fun action movie with Gyllenhaal for the girls, Arterton for the guys, and Sir Ben Kingsley for both. Great family flick that your kid will love, and you won't hate.

Day 18 -- The Last Song

Released: March 31, 2010

Starring: Miley Cyrus, Greg Kinnear, Liam Hemsworth,

Writer/Director: Nickolas Sparks and Jeff Van Wie/Julie Anne Robinson

Description: A drama centered on a rebellious girl who is sent to a Southern beach town for the summer to stay with her father. Through their mutual love of music, the estranged duo learn to reconnect.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

***

There's this weird curiosity I have with seeing stars of Disney Channel and Nickelodeon in movies that are outside of their most famous roles. It not really limited to those two channels, but more so, child actors that get crammed down our throats. I want to see if there's some semblance of talent, or if they just get by on their looks, personality and/or gimmick. 

There are always good examples, Josh Peck (of Drake and Josh) in "The Wackness",  and bad examples, Raven-Symone in just about anything, of this test. In "The Last Song", Miley Cyrus toes the line between good and bad. She does about as good as she can with a Nickolas Sparks story -- Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams are the exception to the rule. She has her moments with Kinnear, but everything with  Liam Hemsworth is forced and a little Hanna Montana-ish.

The story is your typically young adult novel stuff. Rebellious girl, Ronnie (Cyrus) is sent to live with her father, Steve (Greg Kinnear), for the summer against her will. She fall in love with the beautiful rich guy, William (Hemsworth), and through that love, she reconciles with her father, and the two bond again over Ronnie's musically talent. But unbeknownst to her, he is dying of cancer. You know, that old story.

By far the best performance is Kinnear, who seriously need to get more dramatic lead roles. He played the part with ease and grace that I was actually upset when he neared death, and eventually succumbed to the disease. 

It's like a theory I have, good comedic actors can kill in dramatic roles, but dramatic actors fail miserably in comedic roles. Kinnear is a lesser known talent, but is on the same level of a Jim Carrey. The best example of this theory is Tom Hanks.

This movie, as with most Nickolas Sparks stories, has a good narrative in it, but the execution is so melodramatic that we lose the actual heart of the story, or it comes too late into the film. Many could theorize that leaving the emotional scenes between Cyrus and Kinnear to the end of the film validates the rest of the movie, but I believe they focused too much on the love story and not enough on the real drama of the story. 

It was probably because they were appealing to a younger, more Cyrus-centric fan base than a normal audience. The movie had a chance to be a pretty good drama, if it knew the right things to focus on.

Rating: 6/10 -- Little too melodramatic for me (I know, I know), but still a solid movie which never really made me roll my eyes. Cyrus shows potential, but still needs to be willing to shed her Disney image on-screen (God knows she does it in music) to become successful.

Day 17 - Shutter Island

 

Released: October 2, 2009

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams

Writer/Director: Laeta Kalogridis/Martin Scorsese

Description: Drama set in 1954, U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels is investigating the disappearance of a murderess who escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane and is presumed to be hiding nearby.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

 

***

Twist ending are somewhat of a staple in the thriller genre nowadays. Whether it a movie, film, or video game, there an obsession in our culture to have the rug pull from under our feet in the third act. There are plenty of examples out there from all mediums: "Six Sense", "24", and "Call of Duty: Black Ops" are the first that comes to mind. Obviously some of these are better than others, but that because a good twist ending is extremely rare.

"Shutter Island" almost reaches the level of a "Six Sense", but falls just short. The story and performances in this movie are what make the ending almost legendary.  The story begins as U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels arrives at Shutter Island to investigate an escaped prisoner. As the investigation continues he begins to uncover a conspiracy to experiment on those incarcerated on the island. But everything is not what it appears to be.

 

DiCaprio's performance is what makes this movie believable, and his reaction to the twist is what puts him on a different level of acting. From "The Departed" to "J. Edgar", he consistently creates complex characters, especially Hoover, whom he embodies instead of impersonates. His desperation as things domino out of control, is slow and steady, and not those finger-snap collapses that most actors employ.

 

Scorsese's direction isn't his best, but he does a pretty good job of setting the mood. The island is spooky and mysterious. I especially enjoyed his use of flashbacks and the insertion of Daniels' wife, played by the extremely underrated Michelle Williams. 

Alright, let's talk about the twist. Hopefully, you have seen the film already, if you haven't and also ignored my warning, you only have yourself to blame. The reveal that DiCaprio's character is a patient in the hospital the whole time, and his name is actually Andrew Laeddis, the man he's been searching for on the island, is pretty brilliant. The confrontation between Kingsley and DiCaprio is amazing to watch. The amazing dramatic moment is ruined when Mark Ruffalo enters the scene.

After finally convincing him that he's not Teddy Daniels -- which features a flashback that has a terrific performance by Williams -- the scene shifts to outside the hospital where Ruffalo gives him one last check; he fails. Or did he?

My conclusion is that after realizing everything that happened, Laeddis makes the decision that he would rather become a "zombie" then live through the nightmare again. So I believe that he didn't revert, but rather, he volunteered to have a lobotomy. The ending, while good, doesn't reach "Six Sense" level because I honestly could see it coming, especially after he "found" another Rachel.

Rating: 8.5/10 -- Twist ending movies that are actually good are as rare as a well directed movie by Sofia Coppola. DiCaprio's performance is top notch, and the interactions between him and Kingsley are a sight to see.

Day 16 -- American Psycho 2

Released: June 18th, 2002

Starring: Mila Kunis, William Shatner, Lindy Booth

Writer/Director: Alex Sanger and Karen Craig/Morgan J. Freeman

Description: A girl named Rachael has developed a taste for murder and will stand at nothing to become a college professor's assistant.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

***

Why do people insist on making sequels to movies without any of the main players from the original? I only have one rule for sequels, make sure it's an actual continuation of the story, even if it sucks, at least it was an attempt and not a money grab. Sequels should try and build upon the original's foundation. A few of the best examples are: Rocky, Star Wars (original trilogy), and the best sequel of all-time, Godfather.

Since "American Psycho 2" has absolutely no connection to the brilliant Christian Bale film, the writers had to create a convoluted way to introduce us to our new protagonist. What they came up with was world class crap. As a young girl, Rachel Newman (Mila Kunis) watches as Patrick Bateman (Not Christian Bale) kills her babysitter, but instead of becoming another victim, she kills Bateman with an ice pick. Way to have one of the best characters in the past decade killed by an adolescent. 

This is supposed to be her spark to becoming a psychopath, but it felt way too shallow. As the movie goes on, I begin to get the idea that the writers fell more in love with their character than making a good movie. Every scene screams, 'hey, look how clever and slick Rachel is.' While Kunis pulls it off alright, she seems like the wrong person for the role. I guess they thought they were going for femme-fatale, but actual became more of a parody, especially the ridiculous twist ending.

This made me realize that Kunis has made some terrible movies. I'm not sure if I have anymore of her movies coming up, but it will be an interesting case study to see just how many awful films she's been in. But for some reason, I will watch every single minute of them. 

While we like to claim that we don't pick movies based on actor's attractiveness, I dare you watch an awful movie full of average looking people. You won't. Whether it's a Brad Pitt or a Mila Kunis, their sex appeal will keep you interested even if the movie is bad. And producers will take the appeal of a good-looking actor over a great film every single time.

There always a reason why sequels like this one and "Cruel Intentions 2" are direct-to-video sequels, usually it's because production values are low, but in the case of these films, it's because they shot this whole film, and then thought they could sell because of the title alone. And as I said before, my one rule is that a sequel need to continue the story with the same characters, and when you don't you get "American Psycho 2".

Rating: 2.5/10 -- Mila Kunis, that is all.

Day 15 -- Holy Rollers

Released: May 21st, 2010

Starring: Jessie Eisenberg, Ari Graynor, Justin Bartha, Q-Tip

Writer/Director: Antonio Macia/Kevin Asch

Description: In Brooklyn, a youth from an Orthodox Jewish community is lured into becoming an Ecstasy dealer by his pal who has ties to an Israel drug cartel.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

***

This movie was originally chosen by me after watching Jessie Eisenberg's turn as Mark Zuckerberg in the "Social Network", and I was curious to see how he was in other works. Honestly, I didn't know much about the film until I looked at the info last night, and it raised my interest level a bit. I haven't seen many movies with Hesidic protagonist, let alone a movie based in the culture. Also, this is based on a true story.

Sam (Eisenberg) is a practicing Hesidic Jew, who follows every rule in the religion to perfection. He's set to marry through an arranged marriage with a women who comes from better means than his own family. His toughest decision is whether to be a rabbi or work in his father's store. That is until the woman's family rejects him and he begins to make so unconventional life choices for a person from his culture. His mentor through all of his new activities is Josef (Justin Bartha), who is in way too deep to see that's he out of control.

Bartha's performance is actual pretty good. He's as far from his "National Treasure" character as he can be. But he still finds a way to charming and interesting throughout the movie. I believe he could be a first-billed actor in either a drama or comedy, sort of the Paul Rudd mold.

Even though her performance wasn't spectacular, I couldn't forget about the female lead, Ari Graynor. She is one of those rare actresses that I find more appealing on film or television than I do in photos. I don't know what it is but I get mesmerized. It not really about sex appeal, she usually creates some dynamic character, but she slightly misses the mark in this film.

Every aspect of this movie is interesting. From the Hesidic Jewish family to the slow decline of Sam's morals. Underneath all of its unique settings is an above average fall from grace movie. As Sam becomes more successful and tangled in the life of drug smuggler, Sam's slowly loses all of what makes him pure, and what originally drew him into favor with the drug smuggling crowd.

A solid movie from start to finish. Yes, it was sleepy at times but the performances drug the film through those moment and actually made me care for the ending, especially Sam's story. The only thing I kept thinking was that Sam needed to die because of how he lost his values. This thought seeped into my head thanks to my friend, Anthony, who makes it a point to punish characters in his writing who lose their way. This was the first time I actually thought death was appropriate for a character in a movie.

Rating: 7/10 -- Good movie with a unique setting. Definitely worth seeing once. Gave me a little more insight into Hesidic culture, and I always like to learn something in a movie.

Day 14 -- Gamer

Released: September 4, 2009

Starring: Gerard Butler, Michael C. Hall, Terry Crews, Amber Valletta, Ludacris

Writer/Director: Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor

Description: In a future mind-controlling game, death row convicts are forced to battle in a 'doom'-type environment. Convict Kable, controlled by Simon, a skilled teenage gamer, must survive 30 sessions in order to be set free. Or won't he?

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

 ***

If this was an actual movie, I would be offended. They take every cliche and stereotype about gamers and multiply it by a thousand. Everything from fat guys in rascal scooters to guys teabagging (yes, they did this. In a movie.) a kill during a game. It's supposed to be a love letter to gamers, but it comes off as making fun of them.

Kable, or Tillman (Gerard Butler), is a convicted murder on death row, who has been give a chance at freedom if he can survive 30 sessions in a video game call "Slayers". The movie begins as he inches toward his freedom, but as he plays his final session, he escapes with the help of a rouge group called Humanz (yep, they use a Z) led by Ludacris.

This is actually where I stopped caring about the movie. Eventually, he finds his wife who is a part of a real life Sims game called Society. They break Castle's (Michael C. Hall) -- who is this maniac/genius that found a way to control the human brain -- control of her, and try and find their daughter who's been adopted anonymously. Guess who's the adopter? Castle. Holy plot twist, Batman.

Hall is terrible in this movie. It looks like he's trying to be Dexter, but more mad genius than killer. Either way, he fails. There's even this really dumb dance sequence near the end that almost made me turn it off, but I kept watching for you.

On second viewing (yes, I watched this before), this movie is one of the worst directed action movies I've ever seen. To give you an idea, remember that first-person scene from "Doom" that's supposed to be like the game, well, now imagine that for most of the first hour of the movie. They even include a save point, a HUD, and a distance to the checkpoint countdown. 

It was an okay concept, that was poorly, poorly executed. Even the usually terrific Terry Crews, couldn't save it. Crews does have the best scene though. He's in an elevator trying to kidnap Kable's wife, and the person controlling her dares him to kill the other actors in the elevator, so what does Crews do: lick his knife in a way only he can. Everything else was a waste of film.

Rating: 3.5/10 -- Well, it wasn't Battlefield Earth. That's something.

Day 13 -- Blown Away

Released: April 1, 1993

Starring: Corey Haim, Corey Feldman, Nicole Eggert

Writer/Director: Robert C. Cooper/Brenton Spencer

Description: Teenage beauty tries to convince her new boyfriend that her father murdered her mother and that he should die too.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

***

As you can probably tell, this is not the amazing Jeff Bridges movie of the same name, which was released a year after this "Blown Away". No, this one stars the Coreys, Haim and Feldman that is, and a very hot Nicole Eggert. To call this an erotic thriller would be a stretch. Yes, it's erotic, but it is nowhere near a thriller.

"Blown Away" is your typical femme-fatale movie from the early 90s with the most notable being the Drew Barrymore "classic" "Poison Ivy". And just like the "Poison Ivy" series this movie takes a former popular child star and shows her in a sexier way. To say Eggert did a few nude scenes would be vastly underselling it. The barely over-20 actress at the time, was nude for practically half the movie, including a sex scene with Haim less than 15 minutes in. 

The film's plot, if there's even is one, is your stereotypical revenge/thriller story. Eggert's mother dies from a bomb placed on her car in the beginning, and after seducing Haim like a good femme-fatale, she convinces him to kill her father since she thinks he's the murderer.

Eggert's performance is average. If she wasn't so beautiful, you wouldn't buy that Haim would commit murder for her. She's sexy, but not as sultry as she needs to be. She appears to be more like an angry teen than a conniving seductress.  Even with the big reveal that Feldman, who played Haim's half-brother, and Eggart were in cahoots to take her inheritance by killing her father and Haim, she didn't come off as vindictive.

While watching this movie, I kept thinking that it's a shame that Haim was more into drugs than he was acting. There were actual moments in this and many of his films where you could see that he had actual talent, but it vanished when he began partying too much. Feldman, on the other hand, never had talent.

Honestly, the only reason to see this movie is if you want to see a pre-Baywatch/post-Charles in Charge, Nicole Eggert naked. The movie is generic and the acting is sub-par, with one exception being Kathleen Robinson of "Beverley Hills, 90210" fame, who was solid as jilted lover, Darla.

Rating: 2/10 -- Really, this is for Eggert's breasts because there was nothing else really worth noting in this film.

Day 12 -- Paranormal Activity

Released: October 16, 2009

Starring: Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat

Writer/Director: Oren Peli

Description: After moving into a suburban home, a couple becomes increasingly disturbed by a nightly demonic presence.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

***

It took me a while to think of what to write about this movie because I had very mixed emotions about it. Obviously, I will leave my comments on the end scene until later so that people can stop reading if they want.

There's this phenomenon in horror movies today where they want us to believe that the footage is real, and I guess with the rise of shows like "Ghost Hunters", it's a good plot device because people want to believe in the paranormal so bad that they will buy into anything that they are told is real.

I personally, think it is a terrible way to tell a story. By making everyone believe it's real takes the challenge out of trying to actually scare the audience. If the people believe it happened in real life, thier own personal fears will make things more spooky to them than they really are.

When I began to watch this movie, I already had the fear that I was going to hate it like I did "The Blair Witch Project", which I also saw after it was revealed as "scripted" and not real. And the first hour or so I was bored, but hopeful that the final act would be satisfying; it was...sort of.

The movie opens with Micah (Micah Sloat) filming with his brand new camera which he says to his girlfriend, Katie (Katie Featherston), cost half of what he made that day. He begins filming every little moment of the first evening, which I found strange and creepy, but maybe it's because I never owned a camera that good. After a little banter between the couple, and Micah constantly wanting to make a sex tape, we get to the actual plot of the film. Katie has been haunted by a demon since she was eight years old and they are trying to capture it on tape.

Just like "Conversation With Other Women", Sloat and Featherston are in every frame of this film, which has only three other "actors" besides the couple in it. Sloat's and Featherston's performance are vital to the movie, and they are hit and miss, more for Sloat, though.

Featherston is powerful in this movie given the fact that it was almost entirely ad-libbed. There was no actual written script, so the fact that she knew the exact cues to raise her emotions and how to react to Micah like a real girlfriend would, was quite a feat. I genuinely felt her fear, pain and anger as the events progressed from spooky to downright scary. She was much, much better than anyone in "The Blair Witch Project".

Which brings me to the ending. Seriously, stop reading if you actually want to not be spoiled!

Since I watched this on Netflix, I didn't have the advantage to watch the alternate endings, so I assume this is the Steven Spielberg inspired ending. This was the first actually scary part of the film because you don't see anything that occurs downstairs, as the camera is fixed in the bedroom, until Micah comes flying into the camera and knocks it over. Then, a blood stained Katie stands in the doorway, she slowly walks into the room and apparently becomes the demon, or has always been the demon, I'm honestly not sure, and attacks the camera.

I have to believe that it's my sense of horror that makes me roll my eyes during these creepy movies where not much happens. I'm sure knowing it wasn't real helps, but I didn't jump once, nor did I ever gasp. Maybe it's all my time playing Resident Evil as a teen that has prepared me to anticipate when things are going to happen in these settings, or maybe I don't get scared by films. Either way, the film did not have it's desired effect on me. But one thing I have to give it is that this film was a million times better than that piece of crap, "Blair Witch".

Rating: 6.5/10 -- Some parts were well done in the story telling department, but it also had some major hole that it couldn't overcome. The biggest example is their shitty burglar alarm system, which never goes off when they move around the house. Also, Micah's forced acting didn't allow me completely buy into the characters.

Day 11 -- Star Trek (2009)

Released: May 8, 2009

Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Eric Bana, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban

Writer/Director: Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman/J.J. Abrams

Description: A chronicle of the early days of James T. Kirk and his fellow USS Enterprise crew members.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

***

First off, I'd like to put out the disclaimer that I'm not a diehard Star Trek fan, or Trekkies as they are known, so this will not be a review picking apart differences in the films. This will be a stand alone review. With that said, the reboot of "Star Trek" is a fantastic action movie.

The movie is an origin story for the two most iconic figures in the franchise's history, Kirk and Spock. We are given back story on the pair as children, and how they meet for the first time. And to my surprise, they avoided fan service and made them adversaries, which was much better for the narrative. The writers do a great job of making their eventual friendship feel organic and not forced. You believe these two would respect each other, and see the need to be the yin to the other yang.

Even though it maybe sacrilege, Chris Pine's performance as James Kirk was light years better than William Shatner's in the original; he was much more Kirk. I bought into the swagger, toughness, and street smarts of Kirk. It was exactly what I thought Kirk should be from what I could pick up watching the few episodes I did of the television show. It was one of the best action movie performances in the last decade.

The choice of Zachary Quinto as Spock was sublime. From the his work on "Heroes", I knew before seeing the movie that he could easily play the emotionless parts of the character, as well as, the times when he would break the Vulcan code and show his human side. 

The casting of Quinto and Pine shows that there's no need to get an a-list actor to get a top notch performance. If the relationship between Spock and Kirk doesn't work, the movie crumbles. So it shouldn't be surprising that the person in charge of casting also knock it out of the ballpark with the supporting characters as well. 

Anton Yelchin, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, and John Cho all excel as the crew of the USS Enterprise and add to the light hearted nature that the original portrayed. The only miss was Zoe Saldana, who was not as sassy as I had interpreted the character to be, but I'll give her a pass because she does succeed in making Uhura sultry enough that you believe someone like Kirk would be infatuated with her.

If you haven't seen this movie, do it. Even if you hated the original, and "Next Generation", this movies is so far removed from that kind of storytelling by not being campy. It is a fantastic action movie that should satisfy the palates of sci-fi and non sci-fi fans alike.

Rating: 8.5/10 -- Must see movie. Pine's performance as Kirk is pitch perfect. There's no need to see the original to see this, but having a working knowledge of the series gives you insight into some inside jokes.

RIP Joseph Vincent Paterno 1926-2012

Today is a very sad day here at Off The Mark Thoughts. As a Penn State graduate, and former sports journalist for The Daily Collegian, I have a very warm place in my heart for Joe Paterno. He was everything you aspired to be as a man: honorable, loyal, tough, and loving. I know that the Sandusky scandal will leave a black mark on his legacy, but it will never change my opinion about the man I had the pleasure of meeting a few times.

Every one that attended Penn State has a Joe Pa story. Whether it was a funny anedote from a press conference, or a personal moment that was not spectacular, but still impacted you for life. I have two stories, but the one that always sticks with me is when I ran in to him before the first men's basketball press conference during my junior year.

I was walking toward the entrance to the press room at Beaver Stadium with my friend and co-host of a basketball radio show, Mike Wolf. As we approached the door, which for you Penn State fans is right next to where the team enters the stadium from the bus, a dented-up BMW sped up Curtain St. and came to a sudden stop right across from us, and out pops Joe. His hair is a little disheveled, and he looks like he had just remembered that he had a press conference that day. The 80-plus year old coach begins to speed walk toward the door, and Mike and I arrive at the door at the same time as the legendary coach. To our surprise, instead to ignoring us and entering the stadium, Joe engages in some small talk as he holds the door open.

I'll never forget that small talk, which consisted of Joe saying, 'Crazy weather, huh? Very windy,' and us nervously nodding and saying, 'yes, coach.' As we entered the press conference room, Joe hung back and said, 'Have a nice day,' as he walked over to the director of sports information.

That moment has stuck with me not because it was the moment I met a legend, but because despite being a legend, he treated us like we were equals. He didn't need to say anything. If he had walked by in silence, we would have thought no less of him, but he didn't. That's the Joe Paterno that should be remember, not the one who made a terrible mistake in an otherwise virturious life.

Rest in Peace, Joe. You will be missed!

Day 10 -- Southern Belles

Released: March, 2005

Starring: Anna Faris, Laura Breckenridge, Justin Chambers

Writer/Director: Brennan Shroff and Paul S. Myers

Description: Bell and Belle want to break out of their trailer park lives and get up and out to the "Big City" of Atlanta. Just when they think they are on their way to getting a nest egg Bell falls for a handsome police officer named Rhett Butler.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

***

"Southern Belles" is one of those movies that I think got lost in translation somewhere with me. I didn't find it funny at all, and thought it was kind of insulting to southern people. It made some of them out to be caricatures of what they really are like. And without great storytelling, the movie is just painful to get through.

The film's plot revolves around two good ole southern girls from the small Georgia town of Johnson's Mark, Bell and Belle (really?). Bell (Laura Breckenridge) has been friends with Belle (Anna Faris) since they were kids or as she puts it, 'knee high to a grasshopper', and have only known lot number 314 in the trailer park. And after Belle decides that the pair was meant for a better life, the plot is off and running as they plan how to get to their dreamland, Atlanta. I'll wait for you to stop laughing before I continue. Done? Alright.

Their life in Johnson's Mark is really just a whole bunch of southern cliches lumped together. Nosy neighbor who has an overweight child that likes to fart, a drunk boyfriend who tries to act black (he doesn't listen to hip hop, it's hill hop)and likes fast cars, and they both work at soul sucking jobs; Bell as a bartender and Belle as a clerk in a supermarket. There's not much more depth than that, and the characters really feel 2D. The only glimmer of an interesting story is the throwaway scene near the end where they hint that Belle may be a lesbian, but of course since she's a southern girl, there's no way this could be revealed.

The direction was kind of simple. There was only less than 10 locations and none of them all that dynamic, which confuses me because this was filmed in Wilmington, N.C. There are some pretty locations down there that could have at least made the visuals better even if the script was crap.

Faris's performance is best described as, meh. She performs her normal mannerisms and line delivery, but you could tell she didn't really believe what she was saying, and Breckenridge was very mediocre. No one really stood out, but the best performance was by Justin Chambers as, Officer Rhett Butler (yes, he did deliver an 'I don't give a damn line). Best is relative though as the whole movie was very forgettable.

"Southern Belles" attempted to be a light-hearted southern comedy, but came off as slightly insulting. While not a masterpiece in its own right, "Sweet Home Alabama" with Reese Witherspoon did a better job of telling a story without turning the residents into cartoons versions of real life southerners.

Rating: 4/10 -- I don't remember even laughing once. But the acting wasn't bad so it's probably now a complete disaster. Probably has a niche audience as a guilty pleasure.

Day 9 -- Triple Dog

Released: September 21st, 2010

Starring: Brittany Robertson, Scout Taylor-Compton, Alexia Fast, Janel Parrish, Emily Tenant, Aubrey Mozino

Writer/Director: Barbara Marshall/Pascal Franchot

Description: On the night of a sleepover, a group of teenage girls venture out in a competitive game of challenging dares. As the antics escalate, and the dares become more extreme, the girls unravel the truth behind a former student's rumored suicide.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

***

"Triple Dog" begins as your average teenage slumber party movie, and all your typical characters are there: The queen, the nice girl, the snobby girl, the follower, the girl who wasn't invited, and of course, the rebel. The structure of the movie is basically a barely-R rated version of the 2004 film "Sleepover", which oddly enough starred Scout Taylor-Compton as well.

The movie begins with the girls meeting at the party, and we are introduced quickly to our main players: Eve, the birthday girl (Alexis Fast), Sarah, the nice girl (Emily Tenant), Cicely, the snob (Janel Parrish), Nina, the follower (Carly McKillip), Liza, the unwanted weird girl (Compton), and Chapin, the rebel (Brittany Robertson). 

After a few stereotypical teenage girl discussions on how to spend the evening, Chapin (really who names their kid Chapin) decides that they should play "triple dog", which is roided-up truth or dare -- minus the truth, and adding head shaving. This is where the plot slowly becomes interesting, but the terrible dialogue writing keeps it barely watchable.

I understand that they are supposed to be talking like high school girls, but the speech felt forced and unnatural on the actresses. Only Robertson and Compton come off as compelling during long dialogue scenes. The writer appears to be trying to inject slang terms as much as possible to show the audience, 'see I know how you talk'. The terms shizz (shit) and totes (totally) are the only ones I've heard used before in real life. I'll admit some of the flat dialogue does fall on the mostly new actresses because Robertson and Compton do a solid job with what they're given.

The movie's third act is where it actually becomes an okay movie, and not one full of cliches. As we slowly find out, through some of the worst delivered questions on film, exactly how Stacey St. Claire (Julia Maxwell) died, the pace picks up as it should. This is where Robertson takes her castmates to acting school (not that she hadn't been doing it the whole movie). As Chapin spins out of control after it's revealed that she dared St. Clair to jump off the bridge to her death, Robertson turns up the emotion and actually leads the movie to a satisfactory climax.

The whole movie is unremarkable except for the performances of Robertson, and the vastly underutilized Compton. When these two square off verbally, it really shines a light on the lack of experience and/or talent of the other actresses. Compton did a great job of showing the her character's emotion without saying a word. I never though, 'I wonder what Liza's feeling.'

It was clearly a case where the lead was perfectly cast (Robertson), and Compton played the role of scene stealer. Not like Matthew Lillard, but scene stealer in a way that she played the character well in every scene she was in and you were more interested in her than the inconsistent Fast, the movie's second lead.

"Triple Dog" had moments where you could see that there was a good story and theme, but it kept getting in its own way by constantly reminding us that these were high school girls. The drama would have been better if they made the dares a little more suspenseful, and spent more time with the mystery of St. Clair's death then reminding us every so often, 'hey, remember this girl jumped off a bridge and no one knows the real story.' I was more interested in that story than the dumb conflicts between the girls.

Rating: 5/10 -- Honestly, Brittany Robertson carried this movie without her it's probably a 3, and without Compton's Ally Sheedy-like performance as the loner, it would have been a 1. Guilty pleasure for girls, but not much more to anyone outside the pre-teen sect.

Day 8 -- Peggy Sue Got Married

Released: October 10th, 1986

Starring: Nickolas Cage, Kathleen Turner, Jim Carey, Helen Hunt, Kevin J. O'Connor

Writer/Director: Jerry Leichtling and Arlene Sarner/Francis Ford Coppala

Description: Peggy Sue faints at a High school reunion. When she wakes up she finds herself in her own past, just before she finished school.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

***

First, I would like to dissect the poster. The most glaring omission is not having Nick Cage anywhere. This is probably because Cage was not as big of a name as Kathleen Turner at the time. She was fresh from her role in "Jewel of the Nile" with Michael Douglas a year earlier. But the first time you set eyes on Cage in this movie you knew he should have been front and center. And what was with the key and keyhole? A complete miss.

Still sporting his long hair from "Valley Girls", which is now pushed up into an awesome pompadour, Cage has one of the best entrances into a movie that I've seen in a while: He crazily breaks fortune cookies in a commercial. There is one thing you can say about Cage, he never holds back in a performance. Anyone that's seen "The Wicker Man" can attest to it. The only thing I can't figure out is what accent he is trying to do, I know he had said in an interview that he was channeling Pokey from the Gumby show, but it was weird and almost got him fired.

The movie itself came out at a time when time travel and science were front and center as technology was changing quickly in the mid-80s. Movies such as "Weird Science", "Short Circuit", "Real Genius" and of course, the most famous, "Back to the Future", had dominated the box office and were targeted at young adults. But "Peggy Sue", had a slightly more adult theme of the bunch.

The idea of a depressed, divorced mother of two getting the chance to relive and/or change her life as teenager was something that I think a more adult audience could appreciate, rather than 18-to-24 year-olds that most science-centric movies had targeted in the past. Writers Jerry Leichtling and Arlene Sarner did a good job of keeping Peggy's reaction to everything realistic. She did everything I would do: Freak out, make mistakes, and most of all try and take advantage of her knowledge. Something "Back to the Future" avoided until the second movie.

Despite a solid job of framing the narrative, the major flaw I saw was Turner's character and her performance in particular. While her choices were believable, I never thought she blended in enough by the end to not make her parents want to throw her in a nut house. Remember this was the 60s. She still felt awkward right up to the final scene, and even in the present day, she couldn't decide whether she was nervous, sad, or happy. I do not know how she was nominated for an Oscar. Maybe it's just hindsight here.

The direction by Francis Ford Coppola was fantastic. He captured the early-60s perfectly, and did nostalgia only slightly worse than his counterpart Robert Zemeckis did in "Back to the Future". This movie appeared to give his career a shot in the arm after he had lost some of his magic following "Apocalypse Now". Even though he didn't do much with it, and only directed one movie of note, "Jack" (no, I do not count Godfather III, just like Rocky V never happened). The only mistake he made in this movie was casting his daughter, Sofia, as Peggy's little sister.

The movie had a few holes in it, mainly of the time paradox kind. Peggy's on this quest to "better" her life, but never realizes until the last scene that she can't go back to her old life unless she marries Charlie. This could also be seen as great writing, but I guess after watching the Back to the Futures, I couldn't believe that someone could not realize this.

Rating: 7/10 -- Solid movie that doesn't get to the level of a Back to the Future, but a much more adult story separates it from the pack. A little bit of a "Wizard of Oz" ending, with a did she or did she not dream it, but I think the book written by Michael shows it wasn't a dream.

Also it would be a Nick Cage review without embedding this beauty of a YouTube video.

Enjoy:

Day 7 -- The Men Who Stare at Goats

Released: November 6th, 2009

Starring: George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey, Goat

Writer/Director: Peter Straughan/Grant Heslov

Description: A reporter in Iraq might just have the story of a lifetime when he meets Lyn Cassady, a guy who claims to be a former member of the U.S. Army's New Earth Army, a unit that employs paranormal powers in their missions.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

***

Finally, a comedy that made me laugh. After the train wreck that was "Moving McAllister", it was nice to watch a well-structured comedy. It didn't hurt that "The Men Who Stare at Goats" had actual actors in each role, even the minor roles filled by Stephen Root and Stephen Lang were acted well.

Sure, the movie isn't an all-time comedy, but when the writing is good to pretty good and the acting is good to great, you have the formula for a solid movie-watching experience. From the opening scene of Bob Walton (McGregor) interviewing Gus Lacy (Root), who begins to reveal the secrets of the New Earth Army without much provoking from Walton to the final scene of a high Jeff Bridges and George Clooney flying away in a Helicopter, the entire movie takes absurd moments and makes them not cringe inducing. Sort of in the same vain as "The Big Lebowski".

Bridges, who once again is awesome as a stoner, steals the movie in the scenes he's in. If there was ever a role that fit an actor, this would be it. It's in the same vain of Keanu Reeves and Ted Logan, where the personality of your most famous character tends to slip through to your every performance. Luckily, for Bridges, he's a good enough actor that it's not as noticeable in his more Oscar worthy performances.

The meat of the movie is great comedic chemistry between McGregor and Clooney. These two appeared to be having a lot of fun with the characters and this came through in their performances. It's more than just being able read your lines, the actor needs to nail the nuances of the role, which both do to perfection. There are moments where you literally believe that Clooney's character is completely out of his mind, and that McGregor's is petrified for his life. If this relationship failed, the entire movie would crumble.

It is not a flawless movie by any means, there are moments that make me scratch my head. Maybe it's sacrilege, but the goat bit really didn't resonate with me. I know what the meaning behind it was, but I didn't find it all that funny. And Kevin Spacey's character was a bit of a throw away because it felt like they needed a villain so bad that they made it the most cliched one they could. He was good in the role, but I think it could have done without it. Even if they just had a change in leadership, and that's what disbanded the New Earth Army, would have sufficed for me.

My enjoyment of this film was probably enhanced by my viewing of "Moving McAllister" prior to this, but nonetheless it was an enjoyable experience from start to finish. It won't be on anyone's top-ten list, but it's not something that set the industry back decades, either.

Rating: 6.5/10 -- Good performances keep this movie entertaining enough that I wasn't checking the counter ever ten minutes.

Day 6 -- Moving McAllister

Released: September 7th, 2007

Starring: Mila Kunis, Jon Heder, Benjamin Gourley

Writer/Director: Benjamin Gourley/Andrew Black

Description: Rick Robinson is a ladder-climbing law intern from Miami with four days until the Bar Exam. Desperate to score points with his boss, he commits to a favor he can't afford. He ends up in a rundown truck headed to L.A. with his boss's possessions, his Hollywood-bound niece, and her pet pig. Amidst hitch-hikers, breakdowns, and assorted local yokels, Rick finds love, life and maybe himself in this trans-American road trip from hell.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

***

I know I warn about spoilers before the article, but I try to avoid them just so I don't potentially ruin a movie for someone. But for this "movie", I honestly don't care. The protagonist gets the girl. The end. Everything else in this movie is inconsequential. The jokes fall flat, the writing is bad, and the acting is absolutely horrendous.

Must like the last movie I reviewed, "Good Dick", the lead actor is also the writer. But that is where the similarities end. Benjamin Gourley uses way too many cliches in the writing of Rick and the performance of said character. He's supposed to be a kiss-ass guy that would do anything to get noticed, as well as being his law school valedictorian, but all he comes off as is a socially inept guy who would wither in a courtroom. It's easily one of the worst performance ever.

If that wasn't enough, he wrote the character of Orlie, played by Jon Heder, which was a bad mix of Napoleon Dynamite and his awful character from "Just Like Heaven".  I guess he was there for comic relief, but I didn't find him all that funny. I couldn't tell if it was Heder mailing it in, or that he had absolutely nothing to work with in the script.

If it wasn't for the on-screen charisma of Mila Kunis, who obviously was the reason I chose this "film", I don't think I would have watched past the first act. Her beauty is what attracts you to the screen, but her acting is what keeps you watching. Even though she didn't have much to work with either, she still gave far and away the best performance in the movie.

Gourley tried really hard to mix a road movie with the odd comedy of a Napoleon Dynamite, which was made more obvious by the inclusion of Heder, but failed miserably. There was also this Clark Kent to Superman transformation that involved his glasses, which he didn't wear for much of the third act. I don't know if that's what he was going for to make us believe Kunis' character would actually like him, or not, but I honestly don't care.

Rating: 2/10 -- Really failed in ever aspect of movie making. Looked like a "C" student's senior film.

Day 5 -- Good Dick

Released: October 10th, 2008

Starring: Marianna Palka, Jason Ritter, Mark Weber

Writer/Director: Marianna Palka

Description: A look at the relationship between a lonely introverted girl and a young video store clerk vying for her attention.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

***

The way a movie starts will always determine how interesting it is. If it grabs you in the first 10 minutes or so, you're hooked, but if starts off weird and completely unbelievable, the movie never really comes together for you. "Good Dick" suffers from the latter. 

The way it set up the character's relationship is really creepy and stalker-ish.  Jason Ritter's character gets the address of Marianna Palka's character by stealing it from his work computer. He then, proceeds to sleep outside her apartment for about a week in his car as he knocks on her door every day in order to talk to her, and after she finally let's him in, the movie forgets the ridiculous beginning and becomes more realistic.

Once the movie moves away from the borderline illegal way that the couple meets, Palka's direction, acting and writing begins to shine. As her character backstory is slowly unraveled, she becomes more relatable as a person and therefore, her actions have meaning behind them. Her violent mood swing and odd behavior begin to make sense as Palka make wonderful choices in the role, especially later in the film. She does a good job of portraying a child-molestation victim in a very 3D way without resorting to cliches. You can tell she cared about this character.

Ritter's character's, on the other hand, feels more like a predator-ish guy than a nice guy. It's as though he's only interested in the girl at first because she enjoys soft core porn films, and is probably easy. And until it becomes obvious near the end of the film that he wants to help her, there is no sign that he wants anything but sex. Even his backstory is rushed and never explained fully explained. Just a weird character from start to almost finish. A little disappointed since he's the reason I chose the film.

There was never a moment where I wasn't uncomfortable watching this movie, and I didn't really hate it. There was a very well thought out story that was hampered by an awful beginning. Good cast with good performances but it never really recovered after the first act.

Rating: 6/10 -- Palka does a great job in her triple role, but a bad start kills an otherwise solid experience.

Day 4 -- Conversations with Other Women

Released: August 11th, 2006

Starring: Helen Bonham Carter, Aaron Eckhart

Writer/Director: Gabrielle Zevin/Hans Canosa

Description: When a man and woman flirt with each other at a wedding reception, the sexual tension seems spontaneous. As they break from the party to a hotel room, the flirtation turns into a night filled with passion and remorse.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

***

In movies, when something is different then any other movie you've seen, you tend to pay closer attention. Whether it be the storytelling in "Memento", or the video game like edits in "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World", a change in film-making has the chance to either enhance the movie or completely drag it down by repetition (I'm looking at you, Matrix Trilogy).

In "Conversations with other Women," director Hans Canosa uses a split screen the entire movie. One frame is reserved for Arron Eckart's character, and the other is occupied by Helen Bonham Carter's. What this allows the editors to do is splice in flashback scenes while still keeping the principal actors in focus, and the side of split that the flashback appears on depends on who's thinking about it. Being able to show emotion from a character in two different time period was pretty brilliant.

During the first act, this choice allows for the storytelling to feel more natural, and helps to reveal the twist of the movie in a very organic way. The promotion and marketing of this film did a great job hiding the fact that this was about a divorced couple reuniting for one night. This revelation comes to light as you begin to notice that the same young actors are being used in both flashbacks.

Add in that Gabrielle Zevin's writing is clever enough tha she doesn't have to outright say what the relationship is between the leads. She allows the audience to do some of the work by connecting the dots through the events that they mention, which doesn't happen in storytelling much anymore. Even the obvious reveal that they know each other still leaves enough mystery that you are excitied when you begin to unravel the story.

But the writing would be nothing without the extraordinary work of Carter and Eckhart, who occupy every single frame -- mostly two frames -- of the movie. Both do a tremendous job of keeping the audience engaged. Even inducing a fear that they might miss a great moment if they focus on one half of the screen.

While not one of her top performances, Carter -- was the reason I chose this movie -- shows her versatility once again, as the married, step-mother of three, who has decided to have one last fling with her ex-husband. Every choice made by her character is very believable, you feel her remorse when she goes in the bathroom to call her husband after her sex-filled night, but you also feel enough chemistry between her an Eckhart that it wouldn't be all that terrible if she stayed with him.

Eckhart's turn from confident flirt to desperate, jilted lover is pretty remarkable. It's not over acted, except in one scene where he starts pumping his arms up and down, and he convinces us that these completely different guys can inhabit one person. Sure, he still over-smiles and exaggerates his laugh at times, but at least with this character it's not as noticeable because most guys would act the same way in this situation. While it's not Oscar-worthy, his performance is the pay off for all the work he's put into his craft; he's not thinking, he's inhabiting.

A few very interesting film-making choices occur in this movie, but none of them really take away from the story. It's a well told story that shows exposition without ramming it down the audiences' throat. The split-screen flashback are something I would mind seeing in future films.

Rating: 7.5/10 -- Strong performances from Carter and Eckhart keep this move from being sleepy. Young directors and writers in the romance/drama genre should take note that this film never has a melodramatic scene, yet it is sad and dramatic. I know I have.

Day 3 -- Remember the Daze

Released: April 11th, 2007

Starring: Amber Heard, Leighton Meester, Melonie Diaz, Brie Larson, Lyndsy Fonseca, Alexa Vega

Writer/Director: Jess Manafort

Description: A glimpse into the teenage wasteland of suburbia 1999 that takes place over 24-hours, and the teenagers who make their way through the last day of high school in the last year of the past millennium. A glimpse into the teenage wasteland of suburbia 1999 that takes place over 24-hours, and the teenagers who make their way through the last day of high school in the last year of the past millennium.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these film have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

***

There are plenty of teen ensemble comedies. Some focus on sex. Some focus on drugs. Some focus on cheerleading. "Remember the Daze" finds a way to focus on all three.   

Most movies in this genre either draw back to John Hughes era, or the first American Pie, but "Daze" uses a different template. The 2007 comedy has more in common -- including part of its name -- with a cult classic from the early-90s: Dazed and Confused. The Parker Posey/Jason London comedy about the last day of school in a small, suburban town in 1976.

During the opening scenes, "Daze" borrows a lot from its inspiration. It's the last day of school in a  small, suburban town, but the twist here is that its 1999. There's even the obligatory Y2K joke. Despite the eerie similarities to Richard Linklater's classic, this movie doesn't have the same charm. It tries very hard to capture that magic, and deliver unforgettable characters, but its fails. If it wasn't for my notes, I would have forgotten the names of most of the characters. The most useless, but surprisingly captivating and interesting, was Bree Larson as the younger sister of Heard's character. I wish they would have developed her more.

Here's a list of similarity: Incoming freshman trying to impress the seniors, a kegger in the middle of a field, destroying property (trash cans instead of mailboxes), and an older character who hangs around with the high schoolers, and a lot of drug use. Similar, but nowhere near as good.

But the one thing it had going for it, and the reason I chose it, was that there were a lot of female characters that were easy on the eyes. Amber Heard was who drove me in original, but the cast was a who's who of actress that have either had past success, or would go on to become part of pop culture. At the time of release, Heard looked on her way to stared with a starring role on "Hidden Palms," but it was a few of her cast-mates that would go on to successful TV work: Leighton Meester of "Gossip Girl" fame, and Lyndsy Fonseca of "Nikita", but better know as the Great White Buffalo from "Hot Tub Time Machine."

Meester and Fonseca have minor roles, but they out-act most of the leading actors. They do the best they can with very generic storylines. Meester is the goody-two-shoes, who finally does some thing irresponsible (take mushrooms while baby sitting), and Fonseca played the in the closet lesbian in a relationship with a friend, which they use to remind us of the time period. The one good surprise was the real of the lesbian couple, when Fonseca character walked in the bathroom and started making out with Melonie Diaz's character.

Mediocre. There no other way to describe it. I would watch it again, but I wouldn't seek it out. At times it looked like the writer copy and pasted from the "Dazed and Confused" script. But he missed one key element: the music. None of the music in this movie really reminded me of 1999 -- when I graduated 8th grade, so it should have felt like a memory  -- so the nostalgia factor, which Linklater really captured, was sorely really missed.

Rating: 6/10 -- Rent Dazed and Confused if you want to see this movie done well. Also, it's a good lesson in how to not make your material look too close to its inspiration.

Day 2 -- Moonlight Serenade

Released: December 8th, 2009 (Original filmed in 2005)

Starring: Amy Adams, Alec Newman, Moon Bloodgood, Harriet Samson Harris

Writer/Director: Jonathan Abrahams/Giancarlo Tallarico

Description: A piano player discovers that the lovely girl at the coat-check of a jazz club has the voice of an angel, and persuades her to form a musical act with him.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these film have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

***

Where to start. This movie is terrible. And that is not a hyperbole. Everything from production, writing, directing, and acting -- minus Amy Adams, of course. She is the reason I selected this film in the first place, and I'm glad that she wasn't awful. Sure, she didn't deserve any awards for this, except maybe for carrying her fellow cast-mates.

A direct-to-video film, and boy does it shows it, Moonlight Serenade appears to be written by a high school girl who really loved musicals. It tries so hard to use the songs to drive the narrative, but it fails so bad. On top of that, the financial wizards plot really makes no sense. Actually, I shouldn't say that, it would make sense if they would have fleshed it out more. Rather everything was so generic. Protagonist Nate Holden (Newman) is an evil stock short-seller, then he falls in love with singer Chloe (Adams), then he decides to change gears and try to make other people money, he then gets fired, and in the end, finds happiness playing in a jazz bar.

Seriously, that's it. The plot was so easy to follow, and probably one of the many reasons this didn't get a theatrical release. I actually put a load of laundry in while the movie was playing, and I didn't miss an important moment. There was a lot of "paycheck acting" in this movie, too. Everyone seemed happy to collect their money and move on. The biggest culprit was Joey DeFrancesco, who was responsible for the movie's "music", as Frank D., the local jazz bar's piano player.

The only positive thing that came out of this movie is that Adams probably used her singing parts, which were actually quite good, to land her breakout role in Enchanted. I actually felt bad for her while watching this movie, but all actors go through it, and I bet its not the last time I see a great actress in an underwhelming feature.

Rating: 3/10 -- It actual made me hate jazz music for a while. It felt like a practice movie.

Day 1 -- The Answer Man

Released: January 18th, 2009

Starring: Lauren Graham, Jeff Daniels, Olivia Thrilby, Kat Dennings, Lou Taylor Pucci

Writer/Director: John Hindman

Description: A reclusive author of spiritual books, is pursued for advice by a single mother and a man fresh out of rehab.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these film have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

***

There are these rare moments in films that I choose to watch where I'm drawn in by an actor or actress, but come to find out that there another performer in the movie that I didn't know was involved, and I get much more excited. The Answer Man is one of those films, which I had originally chosen because of Lauren Graham. The movie had two of my favorite scene stealing actresses: Kat Dennings and Olivia Thirlby.

Dennings and Thirlby have rather small parts in the film, but I was drawn to their characters every time they were on screen, especially Thirlby's Anne. Anne, the obsessive compulsive receptionist for Graham's character's chiropractor office, was played so innocently, and in such a contrast to her sultry roles in other films, that is was genius. Ditto for Dennings, whose portrayal of Dahila, a dim-witted bookstore employee, showed a side I hadn't seen in the normally sassy and sarcastic actress.

It's a wonder to me that an actress, like Thirlby, who can be so captivating on screen hasn't really made an impact in the mainstream. If you don't believe me, watch "The Wackness," which also has a breakout performance from Josh Peck. Hopefully, she'll be the standout star of the Judge Dredd (Really?!) remake, and make a little noise outside of the indie world.

Despite the attempts by Thirlby and Dennings to completely steal the movie, Lauren Graham, Jeff Daniels and Lou Taylor Pucci do a good job of holding down the starring roles. Arlen (Daniels) is a spiritual self-help author who hit the big time 20 years ago, and immediately became a hermit. He doesn't really interact with anyone until he throws his back out and need the help of newly licensed chiropractor, Elizabeth (Graham). As he readjusts to life outside of his home, he can't help but be the angry recluse when a recovering alcoholic, Kris (Pucci), come to his door seeking advice. From there it's you typical rom-com, where Arlen and Elizabeth begin to fall in love, but it's destroyed when Kris' Dad dies and Elizabeth sees Arlen's "true side". Then, Arlen is finally honest with himself, and everyone lives happily ever after. Ugh.

I felt bad for the cast because they weren't given much help with the script, even though some of the advice from Daniels' Arlen Faber was well written and/or researched that it actually makes you think. For the most part, the writing was mediocre because I really didn't care if Arlen and Elizabeth ended up happily ever after or not, which meant that everything up to that point wasn't well told.

Graham's character is a less-quippy Lorelai Gilmore, but she still makes us care enough about that the scenes between Daniels and her at least come off as believable. I believe if they had more scenes with her child, played beautifully by Max Antiselli, the audience would've cared more about her and Arlen. They tried to show her as this over protective mother, but I didn't believe it. Again, more scene with the kid would have been helpful.

Oddly, Daniels' character was both great and confusing at the time. His performance was a little over the top, but I can forgive it since he's Jeff Daniels and he made me laugh a few times. My real problem with his character was that I never understood why he acted differently toward Kris then he would with his own fans. I guess the explanation was that the popularity of his books was too much to handle and his fans reminded him of that, but something in Kris reminded him of himself. Maybe I missed something, but in a romantic comedy I shouldn't be guessing like it's Inception.

The only story I truly cared about was Pucci's recovering alcoholic, Kris. His arc was actually well threaded throughout the movie. Despite Pucci tendency to overact in the opening scenes, he showed his characters emotions well. I caught myself wondering what was going on with him while Graham and Daniels were on screen, which isn't meant to criticize their acting, but rather praise Pucci performance. His line reading and emotion during the scene where he almost relapses was one of the highlights of the film.

Overall, the direction was just fine. John Hindman did a good job of capturing the mood of the film, and made great use of his location. I may be bias, but I believe Philadelphia, mainly Olde City and Center City, provide a great canvas for any director to use. It can be upscale, and urban at the same time, very similar to New York, but not as overdone.

The ending was a real problem for me. Sure, it resolved Arlen's issues and the mystery surrounding the book, but it did little to really finish the other character stories. I guess I'm supposed to believe that Kris' money problem disappeared because Arlen showed up and sold some book, which by the way wouldn't he have to give part of the sales to the publisher. I digress, the ending wasn't one of my favorite, but it didn't ruin the movie, either.

Rating: 7/10 -- Kept me interested through out, but nothing really special about it. If you a fan of Dennings or Thirlby, it's a good early work to check out. Especially, if you've only seen Nick and Nora, and The Wackness. But it could have been much better.