Synopsis: The last couple of weeks have offered up the odd little treat at the movies, like an amuse-bouche to get our taste buds primed for the tastier stuff to follow in December. Not only does the 12th month give us Christmas, Boxing Day, Kwanzaa and New Year’s Eve, we also get a delicious buffet of great movies. This week the Reel Guys look ahead to the 31 days that sate our appetite for great movies while feeding the voraciously hungry Oscars.
Richard: Mark, people complain that trailers give away too much of the story, but one upcoming movie has been releasing trailer after trailer — usually not a good sign — and has yet to reveal itself. Apparently The Wolf of Wall Street, directed by Scorsese (do I have to write his first name? I don’t think so) and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Matthew McConaughey, is going to clock in at three hours, so no trailer, no matter how long or how many, can give away all the good stuff. All they have done is make me eager to see this stockbroker meltdown story. What’s grabbed you? Mark: I’m looking forward to The Wolf of Wall Street too. But I’ve already decided that Inside Llewyn Davis, the new Coen Bros movie about the Greenwich Village folk scene in 1961, will be my favourite movie of the year. Perhaps I should actually SEE the film before making my decision, but I know, Richard, I just know! I’ve been waiting for someone to make a movie like this for a long time, and who better than the Coen Bros? The trailer looks terrific and Justin Timberlake looks perfect in his orange alpaca cardigan, not that it would influence my decision in the least.
RC: Timberlake is such a conundrum for me. He’s a wildly talented guy whose movies frequently don’t work. My fingers are crossed that for him, Llewyn is more Social Network than Runner Runner. Saving Mr. Banks is another one I’m looking forward to. I’m a sucker for old Hollywood so the story of Walt Disney (played by Tom Hanks) wooing P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) for the rights to Mary Poppins is up my alley. That, and I’d watch Thompson do anything — bake a chicken, read the phonebook or play an uptight spinster.
MB: Here’s a guilty pleasure: Grudge Match, the story of two aging boxers facing off for the first time in 50 years. Since the boxers are played by De Niro and Stallone, it’s like a dream mash-up: Raging Bull vs Rocky! I’m hoping Will Smith gets a dream sequence cameo as Ali. And let’s not forget American Hustle, David O. Russell’s new film about greed, lust, politics, and the Mafia. Sounds like a perfect title. RC: Three things make me want to see American Hustle: the trailers (which are awesome), Christian Bale’s beer gut and Jennifer Lawrence’s extravagant hairdos.
MB: Wait! Make that De Niro’s beer gut and Stallone’s hairdo and it’s a Grudge Match!
“It’s the gambling business in Costa Rica,” says internet gaming mogul Ivan Block in “Runner, Runner,” “sometimes you get punched in the face.”
And sometimes moviegoers get slapped in the face by a really bad movie.
Justin Timberlake is Richie Furst, a Princeton student who works for an on line gambling site called Midnight Black. He earns a commission every time he signs up one of his fancy-pants classmates, but when the Dean’s Office discovers what he’s up to they call his bluff: Quit Midnight Black or quit Princeton.
He opts to stop recruiting for the site, but short on tuition money, pulls an all-nighter on line, hoping to earn enough to cover his expenses. Up $50,000 it looks like his plan is working until he is cheated out of his winnings and left with nothing.
Eager to confront the site’s main man Ivan Block (Ben Affleck) he travels to Costa Rica. Block, impressed with the young man’s spirit ups the ante, offering him a job. Soon Richie is Ivan’s protégé but with the position comes some wanted attention from Block’s ex-girlfriend Rebecca (Gemma Arterton) and unwanted attention from the FBI (Anthony Mackie).
“Runner, Runner” is a thriller without any thrills, a movie about cheating at gambling that feels like a cheat. It’s the kind of film where characters say things like, “Do you know how crazy this is?” to remind the audience that what they’re watching is interesting. Or, at least, is supposed to be.
From stilted narration and dialogue—“This isn’t poker,” sez Richie, “this is my life and I have one play left. Put all the chips in!”—to characters with all the depth of a lunch tray to a by-the-numbers story, “Runner, Runner” is one of the worst movies to escape… er… get released this year.
It could have been something. Director Brad Furman’s last film, “The Lincoln Lawyer,” was an elegant thriller with interesting performances and some tension, none of which is present in his latest film.
It’s too bad, because the components are all there, they are simply let down by a derivative script by Brian Koppelman & David Levien that is unconcerned with logic, realism or creating interesting characters.
It’s too bad because the actors struggle to bring something to the table, but for someone who drips charisma onstage J.T. is bland as rice pudding here and Arterton is given little to do but bat her eyelashes.
Affleck seems to be having fun as the villain—he even has man eating reptiles!—and has the prerequisite steely-eyed glare down pat but he’s not exactly menacing. He underplays the part and yet because his dialogue is so overwritten he actually adds some unintentional humor to a movie that takes itself too seriously.
“Runner, Runner” is a slickly made but dull movie.
I couple of years ago I had the soul crushing bit of bad luck to have to sit through movies with names like “Just Go With It,” “Friends with Benefits,” “No Strings Attached” and “New Year’s Eve.”
Romantic comedies. Rom coms. Whatever you want to call them, it was a punishing year spent watching good looking do the same thing over and over again—meet cute, fall in love, then fall out of love before walking off into the sunset, happily ever after.
Kathryn Heigl, Jennifer Aniston, Justin Timberlake, Kate Hudson and Chris Evans not only tested my love of movies, but my love of love in that grim year.
At the time I declared the rom com dead.
I suggested it could be resurrected if someone like Quentin Tarantino came along and completely reinvented the genre, but the chances of that happening were about as great as Kristen Bell finding herself alone as the end credits roll.
Then along came Joseph Gordon-Levitt and “Don Jon.” Tarantino must be too busy reinventing the grindhouse genre to bother with rom coms, but the former “Third Rock from the Sun” star isn’t.
Gordon-Levitt, who also wrote and directed, stars as Jon Martello, nicknamed Don Jon because he is the godfather of meeting women in bars. He and his pals (Rob Brown and Jeremy Luke) troll nightclubs in search of “dimes”—perfect tens—but in secret Jon prefers the company of his computer. Addicted to porn sites, he spends an inordinate amount of time surfing the net, looking for the perfect video to “lose himself in.”
He can’t even give the habit up after he meets Barbara Sugarman (Scarlett Johansson), a beautiful, gum snapping Jersey girl who thinks people who watch porn are sick. She encourages him to go back to school, to better himself, which he does, all the while watching porn.
The porn addiction (SPOILER ALERT) eventually drives a wedge between them, but he soon learns about true intimacy when he meets an older woman (Julianne Moore) at night school.
“Don Jon” is a rom com is disguised as a character study. Jon’s romantic dalliances are a context for his intimacy issues, but the romance comes in unexpected places, subverting the formula that makes movies like “Sweet Home Alabama” so predictable.
The comedy comes from the characters. Imagine all the guys from “Jersey Shore” rolled into one porn-obsessed lothario and you have Gordon-Levitt’s foul mouthed but spot on portrayal of Jon.
Johansson, who swallows her words in what may go down as one of the greatest Jersey accents ever to be captured on celluloid, is the movie’s McGuffin. She appears to be the girl of his dreams, but she is simply the physical embodiment of his bombshell porn dreams come to life. It’s because he doesn’t love her that he learns what love actually is.
Cudos also go to Tony Danza as Jon’s father. He’s a carbon copy of the hot headed horn dog, and living proof that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
“Don Jon” is a stylish, crude look at romance with loads of laughs. It shows off Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s promise as a filmmaker, but more importantly it reinvents the rom com in a fun—although vulgar—way.
The success of “Black Swan” last year didn’t open the floodgates for more adventurous movies or even more psycho ballet flicks. Nope, instead it enabled the stars of that movie to go on and make two virtually identical rom coms released in the same year.
Natalie Portman teamed up with Ashton Kutcher earlier in 2011 to make “No Strings Attached,” a story about a couple who find that being friends with benefits is more complicated than they thought it would be. Now Natalie’s “Black Swan” co-star Mila Kunis and boy toy Justin Timberlake discover pretty much the same thing in a ??? movie opening this weekend. Isn’t that the actress version of wearing the same dress to the prom as your best friend?
Kunis and Timberlake are Jamie and Dylan, newly single twenty-somethings—she was dumped by her boyfriend Quincy (Andy Samberg), he by Kayla (Emma Stone)—who decide to have a relationship based entirely on sex. “It’s just a physical act,” says Dylan, “like playing tennis.” No strings attached as Ms. Portman might say. But like many before them (including Portman and Kutcher) they soon realize that getting physical also means getting personal.
Rom coms needn’t be as long winded as “Friends with Benefits.” At almost two hours the inevitable conclusion–I’m not telling you want happens but if you’ve ever seen a romantic comedy you already know–is WAY too long in coming. The set up on these things is pretty basic, and while filmmakers have to throw in some other story elements to keep things interesting “Friends with Benefits” stretches things a little too thin.
JT and Mila acquit themselves well enough, although they don’t exactly sear the screen with their chemistry. Too bad, they’re both likable, attractive performers but for me they didn’t seem to click, and for this story to really work sparks should be flying.
“Friends with Benefits” has some fun supporting performances–Woody Harrelson as a gay sports writer and Patricia Clarkson as Mila’s free spirited mom have fun with their roles–too bad the leads aren’t in on the fun as well.
“In Time,” a new sci fi film starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried, is as timely a movie as will be released this year. It’s an allegory for the haves and the have nots. In this case 1% of the population controls 99% of the world’s most precious commodity–time. Instead of occupying parks, however, our hero JT sets out get time back on his side.
This movie has a lot of time of its hands, or should I say forearms. “In Time” takes place in a world where people are genetically engineered to stop aging at twenty-five. Sounds like Eden, but this is a dystopian world where once the calendar clicks on your twenty-fifth birthday the clock starts ticking. Literally. A digital readout appears on your forearm and you have one year until time runs out. But, because time is money–again, literally–your wages top up your clock, buying more time. When a time millionaire willingly gives Will Salas (Timberlake) a century of his time, Salas finds himself on the run from the Time Keeper police and one step closer to discovering the secret link between immortality and poverty.
Insert the word “money” for “time” at any point during “In Time” and the story reveals how run-of-the-mill it is. Stripped of its sci fi premise it should have been an interesting comment on the divide between rich and poor but, is instead, content to be a tepid action film. Not smart enough to be an interesting metaphor and not wild enough to be a thriller it falls between the cracks.
JT hands in a performance that makes you wish he would bring the sexy back. The more leads he does in movies, the more i can’t help but think his triumph in “The Social Network” was some kind of fluke.
But, as bad as the movie is Amanda Seyfried somehow remains compelling. She is so unusual looking, like an alien cupie doll, and that otherworldliness gives some flavor to her disconnected rich girl character.
Neither is helped by a script which provides as many unintentional laughs as genuine ones and whose idea of witty banter is: “You forget I almost killed you a few times.” “I’m willing to overlook that.”
“In Time” has an interesting-ish premise, but unfortunately there is not enough quality time in the movie to earn a recommend.
Comedies don’t usually come with the kind of baggage that is dogging The Love Guru. It hits theatres cursed with a trailer only a mother could love, negative babble from bloggers and fighting against the strong reactions of Hindus, who, in India called for the film to be banned. Is the movie worth all the fuss? As the Guru Pitka himself might tell the naysayers, “To be enlightened you must first lighten up.”
The Love Guru is an extremely silly comedy that features jokes so old many were likely originally written in Sanskrit centuries ago, but it is so relentlessly upbeat, so good natured—and at 88 minutes, mercifully short—that it makes up in exuberance what it lacks in originality or actual laughs.
In the film self-help expert Guru Pitka (Mike Myers)—an orphaned American raised by gurus in an ashram in India—is hired by Toronto Maple Leafs owner Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba) and Coach Cherkov (Verne Troyer) to reunite star hockey player Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco) and his estranged wife (Meagan Good). It seems after their split Roanoke’s wife took up with a rival, L.A. Kings star goalie Jacques “Le Coq” Grande (Justin Timberlake), and the thought of the two of them together has sent the Maple Leaf into a tailspin both personally and professionally. Pitka must work his mojo on Roanoke and his wife before the beginning of the Stanley Cup Finals if the Leafs have a chance at breaking the 40-year-old “Bullard Curse” and winning the championship.
The Love Guru will bring a smile to your face from time to time, and maybe even a few laughs but the comedy world has changed since Myers last unveiled a new character. In a movie landscape populated by Judd Apatow comedies, movies based in the real world with real world situations and laughs, The Love Guru seems antiquated, like a relic from a different time. It’s broad, anything-for-a-laugh ethos has more to do with Benny Hill than Seth Rogen—another Canadian vying for the King of Comedy crown—and feels about as relevant as a Carry On movie.
The structure of the movie and many of the jokes and situations seem familiar, as though they have been borrowed from Austin Powers and retooled for Guru Pitka. That sense of familiarity with the jokes may be a comfort to some viewers who might see it as a “greatest hits” repackaging of their old favorite jokes, but I was left with a strange sense of déjà vu, as though I had seen it all before, and it was funnier the last time.
Myers is never any less than 100% committed to the role, and his devotion to the character is obvious. He’s in it to win it, but the outrageousness of the character is overwhelmed by an endless stream (no pun intended) of urination and bathroom humor, short gags at the expense of 32-inch co-star Verne Troyer and penis jokes. The humor here can only be described as shameless and juvenile, but if the idea of two elephants having very public sex amuses you, then The Love Guru may be perfect for you.
In an unusual marketing move The Love Guru is being released opposite Steve Carell in Get Smart. The big studios usually try and avoid opening two similar movies on the same weekend but here are two of comedy’s biggest stars going head-to-head. Both films have their virtues; both are retro—Get Smart is based on a 60s sitcom, The Love Guru’s jokes seem somehow, let’s say, traditional—and both stars have considerable audience goodwill. Which will win out? Perhaps it depends on how enlightened, or not, your comedy tastes are.
Yogi Bear, the brown bear with a huge appetite for pic-a-nic baskets, has been in hibernation on the big screen for almost half a century. The last time the “smarter than the average bear” and his sidekick Boo-Boo played in movie theatres Lyndon D. Johnson was president and The Kinks were about to release their debut album. The intervening years have been kind to the big brown bear, who is up to his old tricks in a new self titled film starring (the voices) Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake.
Set, as all great Yogi Bear stories are, in Jellystone Park, the beginning of “Yogi Bear” finds the park teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Attendance is down—mostly because of Yogi’s habit of stealing food from any guests silly enough to try and pic-a-nic at the park—and if Ranger Smith (Tom Cavanagh) can’t figure out a way to raise $30,000 the corrupt mayor of the town (played to smarmy perfection by Andrew Daly) will rezone the land and sell it off to loggers. When Ranger Smith gets reassigned to another posting Yogi must use his smarts to help save the park and his home.
“Yogi Bear”—both the film and the character—is hard to dislike. At an economical 75 minutes the film’s goofy slapstick doesn’t overstay its welcome and will even provide a nostalgic kick for anyone old enough to remember the original cartoon series. The big bumbling bear is a classic character—apparently based on another classic character, Art Carney’s Ed Norton from “The Honeymooners”—and the movie does him justice. They don’t try and reinvent the wheel here, this is a very simple kid’s flick that stays true to the spirit of the Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
The audience of kids I saw the movie with weren’t howling with laughter, but they were engaged with the characters. Aykroyd and Timberlake take pains to do actual character voices, unlike most celebrity voice work which just plays off of the actor’s already established persona, they do bang on impressions of Yogi and Boo-Boo.
“Yogi Bear” is a movie for the whole family but will appeal most to very young kids. It has gentle humor and action, larger than life characters and good messages about loyalty, perseverance and (of course) saving the environment. It may not be smarter than your average kid’s flick but for what it is, it’s enjoyable.
Justin Timberlake is many things: music superstar, a booze baron (he owns a brand of tequila called 901), and all round mogul with a clothing line, restaurants and a record label. All that at just thirty years of age, but like so many singing stars before him, it seems what he really wants to do is act.
In fact he once said he believes it was always in the cards for him to be an actor.
“I got a phone call when I was 14 saying that there’s a record company that’s going to sign me. But two weeks before that, the plan was to drive to Los Angeles for TV pilot season. So I guess everything works out the way it’s supposed to.”
Fate aside, is his desire to act justified?
From his film debut in the 2000 Disney Channel movie Model Behavior to this weekend’s Friends with Benefits there have been the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.
He’s earned praise from his co-stars. “I only had a couple of scenes with him but he did a really great job,” said his Alpha Dog co-star Bruce Willis. But critics and bloggers haven’t always been so kind. “Dear Justin Timberlake,” read a 2010 blog headline, “STOP ACTING!”
Forgettable supporting roles in flops like Edison, Black Snake Moan and Southland Tales did little to enhance his reputation, but didn’t hurt it much either. Casting director Billy Hopkins said, “The way he’s handling his career is smart. If a movie fails, it’s not just his failure.”
Everything changed when he was cast in The Social Network. His take on the fast talking Sean Parker, inventor of Napster and an early supporter of facebook, was his breakthrough and won praise from critics.
That inspired performance, coupled with hilarious guest shots on Saturday Night Live (“Put any grown man in a leotard and that’s already funny,” he says.) have earned him the respect of the industry and fans, but he still doesn’t have his pick of roles.
Even though he didn’t get the lead in The Green Lantern, a part that went to Ryan Reynolds, (“I don’t think I’m the superhero type,” he joked.) he wants everyone to know he’s willing to put himself out there.
“I make no bones about the fact that I have always wanted to work in the forum of film.” he says. “I take this seriously.”
I don’t need a calendar to tell me when January has arrived. I have a special sense that has nothing to do with the weather or the Christmas trees left on the curb. I can tell by the movies that get released. It’s the dog days of the movie biz, a time when movie studios empty out their closets and quietly release oddball movies.
Some are so bad that they don’t actually get released… they escape, while most fall into the ho-hum category and would make better rentals than theatrical releases. Such a movie is Alpha Dog that features pop star Justin Timberlake as a tough guy who lives with his father.
Directed by Nick Cassavetes, who romanced audiences with The Notebook a couple of years ago, Alpha Dog is based on the true story of a young thug with the unlikely name of Jesse James Hollywood. Hollywood and cohorts—all renamed for the movie—impulsively kidnap the brother of a psychopathic drug runner who owes them money. Without a firm plan the kidnapping doesn’t go as planned and panic sets in.
It’s an odd little movie. One that seems to on one hand condemn the thug lifestyle portrayed by these suburban wannabes while at the same time exploiting it by throwing in many scenes of violence and nudity. Like the great cheesy exploitation flicks of the 50s and 60s Alpha Dog tries to portray a certain kind of morality, while offering up plenty of examples of how NOT to behave. It makes for kind of a schizophrenic viewing experience.
Also odd is Cassavetes’s decision to frame the movie as a documentary. It starts with an interview with the main character’s drug dealer father (well played by Bruce Willis), and unnecessarily flits back and forth between the story and the documentary elements. The story stands on its own and doesn’t need these intrusions that don’t really accomplish much except to take the viewer out of the story.
But no one is going to see this movie for its morality or style choices. The audience for this movie, and the reason, I suspect that it didn’t go straight to video is Justin Timberlake. His big screen debut, Edison, only earned a limited release in Europe and a half-hearted DVD release in the rest of the world, but that was before his last album went stratospheric and his relationship with Cameron Diaz became hot gossip. I’d bet Universal is banking on his audience to put bums in seats for this movie.
Timberlake acquits himself well enough in the movie, although as I watched I couldn’t help but wonder why he seems to be drawn to roles that seem so inappropriate for him. In Edison he played a tough guy reporter, here he plays a suburban wannabe gangster who has probably watched Scarface one too many times. He’s a charismatic performer, so he gets by in both these films relatively unscathed, but next time I’d like to see him play toward his strengths and perhaps do a romantic comedy or at least something with a lighter touch.
Synopsis: The last couple of weeks have offered up the odd little treat at the movies, like an amuse-bouche to get our taste buds primed for the tastier stuff to follow in December. Not only does the 12th month give us Christmas, Boxing Day, Kwanzaa and New Year’s Eve, we also get a delicious buffet of great movies. This week the Reel Guys look ahead to the 31 days that sate our appetite for great movies while feeding the voraciously hungry Oscars.
