OBSERVE AND REPORT

Written and Directed by Jody Hill
Starring: Seth Rogen, Anna Faris, Michael Pena and Ray Liotta


Nell: You shouldn’t give up on your dreams no matter how many people laugh at you.

It isn’t often that this happens but this movie actually dares me to do my job. Well, I have observed and I am here to report that the actual act of observing Seth Rogen’s latest starring vehicle, OBSERVE AND REPORT, is an experience I would not recommend to many, if any. Under the mostly absent direction of Jody Hill (who, it is necessary to note, is a man, in case the name caused any confusion), this hapless comedy goes from mildly amusing and intriguingly edgy to suddenly misogynist and offensive half way through and finishes in completely ludicrous and entirely unfunny frustration. Having been inundated with lovable losers in most recent comedies, Hill makes sure there is nothing redeeming about any of these sad sacks and subsequently, absolutely nothing redeeming about his film. And all this time, I thought comedies were supposed to make you feel good.


Like I said, OBSERVE AND REPORT starts out funny enough. Rogen is Ronnie Barnhardt, head of mall security at the Forest Ridge Mall. For most people, mall security is a joke – just ask Paul Blart. For Ronnie though, heading mall security is one small step below being a real police officer. He is important; he matters more than most and this is the promising premise that Hill presents but eventually puts aside. Just like the tagline of the film says, right now, the world needs a hero, and Ronnie wants to be that hero. Albeit only four letters, hero is a big word that everyone strives to be these days. In America, if you don’t matter to many, than you don’t matter to anyone and Ronnie wants his day in the sun just like everybody else out there. The problem is that not everyone is meant to shine and OBSERVE AND REPORT glorifies all misguided attempts to do so.


All of this would be funny enough, insightful even, if it weren’t pieced together so sloppily or told so ridiculously. Ronnie feels his whole life moving on an upward tick and decides that this would be the perfect time to come off his bipolar disorder medication. As Ronnie unhinges, so does the film. Before you know it, Ronnie is in the middle of what is, save for one supposedly justifying line of dialogue, essentially date rape with the love/lust of his life, Brandi (the grossly underused, Anna Faris). You try to look past it but then he goes off and does a ton of drugs, so much so in one day that I would think he would have been hospitalized. Instead of overdosing though, he beats the living crap out of a bunch of teenage skateboarders. Literally, he breaks their boards over their heads in plain daylight. I’m sure some of them probably died in the hospital but consequences do not exist in Hill’s mind. Stupidity exists and he brings its plainness to life quite vividly but he makes no effort to show where it can lead.


It’s not that Hill has any responsibility to tell it like it really is in a mall cop comedy but it is impossible to look past morally reprehensible filmmaking, especially when it isn’t the least bit funny. The laughs in the screening I attended pretty much dissipated after the first act, leaving the few of us present to sit in silence and awe for a painfully long time. Having made a minor impression with his first feature, THE FOOT FIST WAY, I fear that Hill may fall prey to the same fate as Ronnie Bernhardt. If this is the direction his films will take, then it seems to me that Hill will soon be deluded to think he is actually talented. If there is one thing that OBSERVE AND REPORT taught me though, it's that no matter how dumb or how useless or how completely off the mark you are with your own self-image, all you need to do is own it and everything will work out just fine.

ONE WEEK

Written and Directed by Michael McGowan
Starring Joshua Jackson, Liane Balaban and narrated by Campbell Scott


Narrator: What would you do if you knew you only had one day or one week to live?

The words above are spoken by the narrator against a black screen in Canadian filmmaker, Michael McGowan’s ONE WEEK, diving distinctly into cliché before an image has even appeared. The question has been asked countless times before – whether it be in face of a serious illness or as a hypothetical scenario at a mundane dinner party. It is supposed to be treated seriously in this context but every decision McGowan makes as both writer and director make the question as flat as the Canadian plains that play setting to the ensuing drama. ONE WEEK may earn its place in Canadian film history for bringing the road trip to the beautiful Canadian countryside but the real journey is the one McGowan takes from a laughable starting point to a contemptible final destination. Oh, and the whole thing is cheekily narrated by Campbell Scott. Joy.


Ben Tyler (British Columbia born, Joshua Jackson) has just been told that he is in stage four cancer and that he has a couple of years tops left as a maximum and a minimum that may not go past his doctor’s appointment. Oddly enough, this is where the laughs really get started. Let alone that I’m not entirely clear how he missed the first three stages of his cancer completely but check this subtle set up to the film’s road trip plot. Ben, upon hearing the news that he is going to die, runs out of the his doctor’s office only to almost be hit by an oncoming vehicle. How unbelievably ironic is that? He could go at any time due to his cancer and then he almost dies a whole other way. It was mindblowing. After having almost been hit by a car, Ben runs down a Toronto back alley until he can run from his inevitable death no more. Out of breath, he looks up and there stands an old man and his bike. That destiny, always stepping in to show you the path to your bliss. Needless to say, but I’ll say it anyway as the film itself seems to admire needlessness, he buys the bike.


Traveling by bike from Toronto through the plains of Saskatchewan, past Alberta’s Rocky Mountains and finishing on the shores of a beach in Vancouver is certainly scenic. It is also rarely seen on film in such grandeur and with such admiration on the part of the filmmaker. Still, one can overdo it. As a Canadian who loves this country, it is even a little much for me to take when the hero rolls up the rim on his Tim Horton’s coffee cup to reveal the direction he should travel in and settles into a motel along the way to smoke a joint with Gord Downie of the Tragically Hip. It’s highly doubtful to me that anyone who has never spent any significant amount of time in Canada would have any idea what my last sentence meant and that’s precisely the point. While the film may speak directly to Canadians, it says very little to any other audience about the country it is supposedly so proud of outside of a few clichés set to some very pretty pictures.


What it does say outside of trying to glorify Canadiana, and thus bringing the film from laughable formula to practically despicable, is said through Ben's soul search. His perspective is the film’s and it is distinctly male in its stubbornness and needs. Apparently, facing the possibility of death amounts to mostly needing to find someone who isn’t your girlfriend to have sex with. Given that his girlfriend (Liane Balaban, who, along with Jackson, provides ONE WEEK with its most endearing moments) is sitting at home the whole time Ben is out for his joy ride, it certainly does nothing to bring any sympathy to Ben. As he is dying, you’d think sympathy would be easy to inspire but instead, McGowan’s script goes the route of Sean Penn’s INTO THE WILD, honouring selfishness and calling it following one’s own true path in spite of society. If I were waiting for Ben at home, I would have probably written him off before he even reached the Rockies. Watching him go through it all though and neglect everything that made his pathetic life half livable, I wished a little near the end that he would just pull over to the side of the road and die already.

I Love You, Paul Rudd

I remember the first time I saw Paul Rudd on screen. It was 1995 and Rudd, named Josh long before everyone in film and television seemed to don that moniker, played a college boy who had come in to Los Angeles to help his former step father with a heavy legal load but ended up falling for his distant former step sister, Cher, played by then it-girl, Alicia Silverstone, instead. Not only did CLUELESS permanently ruin the language limits of a generation I must unfortunately count myself among but it gave us that face – that smooth, earnest face with the smile that tells you he’s not going nowhere. Rudd may not have taken over Hollywood there and then but his appeal is better appreciated over time. With his latest comedy, I LOVE YOU, MAN, getting the masses laughing up the brotherly love, it is clear that Rudd’s time has finally arrived.


Rudd, having first gained notoriety on the NBC hit, “Sisters”, followed up his CLUELESS breakout with a thankless part in Baz Luhrmann’s ROMEO+JULIET. His first lead role didn’t come until 1998’s THE OBJECT OF MY AFFECTION, opposite “Friends” star, Jennifer Aniston. Of course, with Aniston in the project, the media focus was on her to see how well she could carry a film outside of her safety “Friends” zone. The experiment was not a success but then again, I don’t think it was ever meant to be. In this Nicolas Hytner film, Rudd plays, George Hanson, a private school first grade teacher with a big heart that he allows to be trampled on again and again. Aniston plays Nina Borowski, a social worker with a walk-up in Brooklyn and a controlling boyfriend. After George’s boyfriend breaks up with him, he moves in with Nina and the two quickly learn the meaning of unconditional love – that is until they realize how unrealistic the whole thing is. THE OBJECT OF MY AFFECTION is surprisingly sensitive, progressive and ahead of its time. These characters explore new relationship possibilities without any judgment or embellishment. Instead, it is just a bunch of ordinary people looking for love. It remains to this day one of my favorite romantic weepers. In fact, I just teared watching it again on a bus, surrounded by strangers.


Given the gay subject matter, which incidentally, Rudd pulled off without the least bit of cliché, this was not the vehicle to get Rudd noticed. It did get him on Aniston’s mega hit series, “Friends” though, as Phoebe Buffet’s (Lisa Kudrow) fiancé in the last season. That in turn led to a number of sidekick roles that would come to define him for a while. Rudd fell in with some very funny people, from Will Ferrell (ANCHORMAN) to Judd Apatow (KNOCKED UP). Rudd’s perfect buddy role is exemplified in Apatow’s breakout, THE FORTY-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN. When Steve Carrell’s Andy freaks out after realizing the damage he has done to his life after admitting he is in fact forty years old and a bonafide virgin, it is Rudd’s David that chases him through a crowded shopping complex to sit him down and tell him that there is nothing wrong with him. When Andy can’t handle the pressure of being hooked up with countless girls with the sole purpose of losing his virginity, it is David that tells him that he doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to. Rudd exemplifies reliability and reassurance. You can count on him to not only help you out when you need it but to get you smiling as well.


Rudd stepped up his game last year by starring in and co-writing the moderately successful ROLE MODELS, co-starring Seann William Scott. This mostly conventional film features a fairly relatable premise. Here you have two 30-ish guys who don’t know thing one about kids who find themselves forced to mentor a couple of misfit kids. I am 30-ish guy and I wouldn’t know what to do with an infant. I would probably plop it down in front of the television, force it to watch Pixar films all day and throw food at it every once in a while to make sure it doesn’t start crying. Rudd’s kiddie problems aside, ROLE MODELS stepped up his visibility significantly and leads us to his final stepping stone, the leading man. Just like THE OBJECT OF MY AFFECTION, Rudd’s leading man in I LOVE YOU, MAN is no ordinary leading role. Sure, it follows to proper structure of a romantic comedy; Rudd meets girl, gets girl, loses girl and we must then wait to see if he gets said girl back. The major difference here is that the girl in question is actually a guy, Jason Segal, and this time Rudd isn’t playing gay. In I LOVE YOU, MAN, directed by John Hamburg, Rudd plays Peter Klaven, a guy so regular that he still has the package default ringtone on his iPhone. (And yes, I only know this because we share the same ring and I felt like my phone was going off the whole way through the film.) Peter has always had an easier time being friends with the ladies and now, as his wedding approaches, he embarks on a series of man dates in search of a best man. To watch the romantic comedy genre hilariously subverted not only allows for the glorification of male bonding but it also allows Rudd to discover new sides of himself that make us love him even more.


Today is April 6th and therefore, Paul Rudd turns 40 today. When interviewed, Rudd is adamant that he loves his life. He loves his wife, Julie Yeager, and their three-year-old son, Jack Rudd. He loves his life in New York City. He especially loves the direction his career has taken. He loves that he gets to do what he does and he gets to have his private life as well. It just seems to me that Paul Rudd is loving his life and the laughter that embodies it. You can see it right there, plainly on his smiling face and that, my friends, is why I love that man.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Big Cars, Big Names, Big Money

Friday was my birthday. Every year when my birthday roles around, there are two things I wonder about. The first is whether all the snow will be gone by that day and the second is what horrific mess Hollywood will unleash on my special day. You see, April is considered in the industry to be the biggest dumping ground for films after January and the first week of April is the worst of all. This year was no different and nothing was expected to fare well. Certainly no records were expected to be smashed. Hollywood will learn a new lesson though now. April should not be dismissed and Vin Diesel should never be underestimated.


I’m sure no one at Universal saw this coming. They brought back the original cast of a waning franchise and instead of pulling in modest returns that would eventually justify its budget, FAST AND FURIOUS pulled out of the garage and way up in front of the rest. Not only did it outpace the entire domestic gross of the last installment, it also boasts the biggest April opening weekend ever and the second biggest opening for any film outside of the summer or holiday seasons and frames, behind THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST. It’s $20K per screen average exceeds every other title in release but its true test will be longevity. Fast out of the gate does not always mean a first place finish in the end. Still, if I was wearing a hat right now, I would tip my it to Universal; you definitely pulled a fast one on me and have left me somewhat furious.


This weekend’s only other Top 10 debut fell in line with expectations, as ADVENTURELAND opened in sixth place. The film stars TWILIGHT sensation, Kristen Stewart but she cannot open pictures yet and this is hardly her picture to open. Someone should have told helmer, Greg Mottola that teenagers don’t like their movies with perspective, just profanity. Meanwhile, indie favorite, SUNSHINE CLEANING snuck into the Top 10 in its fourth week of release. In its widest expansion yet, the film seems to have reached its saturation point, seeing its per screen average dip below $4K.


Two sophomore efforts debuted to solid starts this weekend in the art house world. LES CHORISTES director, Christophe Barratier returns with PARIS 36. Opening on just 7 screens, this amusingly theatrical romp pulled in an average of over $10K. And you would think that after making a splash and directing Ryan Gosling to an Oscar nomination in their first effort, HALF NELSON, that Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck would be looking to make bigger inroads toward Hollywood but they played things very indie with SUGAR. Unfortunately, the baseball film opened on 11 screens to the tune of a mediocre average of under $7K. Good word of mouth will be needed for both to flourish.

NEXT WEEK: April tries to earn back its reputation as a garbage month with DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION (2100 screens). Seth Rogen will try to fly without a mustache in the second comedy this year to have a mall cop as a protagonist in OBSERVE AND REPORT (2500 screens). Neither will be able to trump Miley Cyrus though. HANNAH MONTANA: THE MOVIE will be rolling out on over 3000 screens. Cover your ears; the screaming girls are coming this way.

ADVENTURELAND

Written and Directed by Greg Mottola
Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig and Ryan Reynolds


James Brennan: I’m amazed at how small my pay cheque is.
Joel: Well, we are working the jobs of pathetic, lazy morons.

Step right up! Step right up! Toss the ring on to the milk bottle and win a giant panda for your sweetheart! Ring toss not your game? Throw a ball and knock the hat off the dummy then. Win yourself a stuffed banana with googley eyes! But if you’re really looking for high stakes risks, try this game on for size. Go to college; make plans for the summer between your graduation and start of graduate school; watch it all fall apart at the last second; and then get yourself a job running games at the dilapidated amusement park you used to frequent when you were a kid. See if you’re smiling at the end of that one. This game is just as impossible to win and the prizes are nearly just as lame. Yes, there is plenty of supposed adventure to be had inside the safe confines of ADVENTURELAND, the name of both the aforementioned amusement park and the new movie by Greg Mottola, but the real adventure is waiting outside the supposed greatest place on earth. You just don’t know it yet.


The premise just vaguely described is actually the plight of one James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg, THE SQUID AND THE WHALE). Being a young man and therefore inevitably naïve, he thought he had everything figured out. He was ready for a summer trek through Europe. He was ready to get an apartment in New York City and attend grad school in the fall. He was ready for everything except for the unpredictability of life. ADVENTURELAND may take place in 1987 but not much has changed as far as lofty ambitions being crushed by the harshness of real life goes. And this is the lesson that James must learn in what is described as one of those summers where it seems like nothing significant really happens but yet in hindsight ends up being momentously character building. For the viewer though, there really isn’t that much happening in this slice of life picture. The kids go to work, they smoke a lot of drugs and they hang out at lame yet popular local spots. Fortunately, love is in the air to make everything go that much faster.


Eisenberg and his young love interest, Em Lewin (Kristen Stewart, TWILIGHT) are two talented and compelling young actors. It is their presence that carries ADVENTURELAND from mildly bland mediocrity to slightly elevated decency. I realize that this is hardly a compliment but the remaining characters are hardly developed and ADVENTURELAND is often extremely unadventurous. Still, this lack of activity is precisely what gives the film its meaning. James and Em have put their lives on hold as though they believe that have no other choice. Their lives are just another amusement park game that is rigged and cannot be won under any circumstances but yet they keep playing because they cannot see that there are other games, other parks, other lives just waiting for them to pursue. Their childish profession only further exaggerates their halted development but their introduction to each other’s lives shows them both possibilities they had never imagined. James is a sensitive guy who never gets the girl and Em doesn’t believe she deserves a guy like James. Yet here they both are, enjoying each other. How did this happen and what else is waiting?


Mottola, who struck it big Hollywood styles last time out with SUPERBAD, took a decidedly much quieter approach with his follow up and comparisons would be entirely unfair. Like the summer that changed everything but only did so in retrospect, ADVENTURELAND is an adventure that is only fully appreciated when you realize just how much of its tone and themes have stayed with you long after the park has shut down for the night. After all, the real adventure of life only comes once you stop trying to delay it with excuses and obligations and take the themes out of the park.

DVD Review: TELL NO ONE

Written and Directed by Guillaume Canet
Starring Francois Cluzet, Marie-Josee Croze and Kristen Scott Thomas


There are times when I sit down to my computer to write about a film and I am stumped over how to convey my admiration, or lack thereof, without giving everything away. This is exponentially more difficult when the film itself explicitly insists you say nothing. And so I have decided to say very little about French director, Guillaume Canet’s TELL NO ONE. I can tell you this; it takes place approximately eight years after a man has lost his wife in a brutal murder and a new development in the case calls his innocence into question. I can also tell you that you’re better off not knowing anything else as the experience is all the more mesmerizing with just the right amount of ignorance going in.


Parlez vous francais? If you cannot answer that question, then I have my answer. TELL NO ONE contains just one extra in its DVD form, an hour long documentary chronicling the film’s making, and it is entirely in French. While the film is suitably subtitled, I guess the distributors decided that English speaking admirers of the film should be happy enough to enjoy the film and stop there. Given the film’s strong international success, they could have definitely splurged on a translator. That said, if you do speak French, I’m not sure you’re in any better position. The documentary itself goes absolutely nowhere and serves to showcase the director mostly as a young genius in the making, doing little to enhance the appreciation of the film itself.


TELL NO ONE is both tender and tense, both playful and sinister. Canet guides you along a journey that is consistently unexpected and yet never gimmicky or contrived. All you have to do is sit on the edge of your couch and wait with horrible impatience to be let in on the secret.

FILM


DVD

It isn’t exactly foreign, or alien if you will, to see an animated feature come out on top of the chart with massive numbers. This specific debut though certainly packed a particularly monstrous wallop. Dreanworks’ MONSTERS VS. ALIENS is Dreamworks’ second biggest opening for an animated film after last summer’s KUNG-FU PANDA. It is the third best March opening after Zach Snyder’s 300 and the second installment in the ICE AGE series. More importantly though, MONSTERS VS. ALIENS establishes the viability and profitability of the budding 3D market. Representing just 28% of the entire theatre count, 3D screens amassed 58% of the final weekend gross and will inevitably get all of Hollywood talking about the future of the cinema.


The box office saw two other Top 10 debuts this week. The first is yet another horror film, THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT. Despite its certainly impressive debut, it will likely sink down the same route as the countless other horror films that open strong and die off faster than the first disposable victim in, well, all these equally disposable horror flicks. The week’s other debut goes to 12 ROUNDS, the latest Renny Harlin action film. The film was not heavily promoted and stars B-list action star, John Cena. This would most likely explain for the paltry $5 million it took in for a seventh place finish.


Continuing its squeaky clean expansion, SUNSHINE CLEANING just missed out on the Top 10, finishing in 11th place. The film officially goes art-house wide next week when it reaches 500 screens but at 167 screens this weekend, its gross improved 100% over last week and the Amy Adams/Emily Blunt vehicle maintained a per screen average of over $8K. A handful of other very limited runs saw impressive averages this weekend. Debuting this week on three and four screens respectively, Independent Spirit nominated, GOODBYE SOLO brought in $13.5K per screen and French export, SHALL WE KISS? secured an average of nearly $8K. Just like last week though, the highest per screen average belongs to VALENTINO: THE LAST EMPORER. The film added one screen this week for a whopping total of two screens and nailed down an average of $15K for a 38% increase over last week.


slumAnd the Top 10 says goodbye this week to one its longest mainstays. After a total of 12 non-consecutive weeks in the Top 10, Best Picture winner, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE suffered a great descent this week. With its impending DVD release coming on Tuesday, the little movie that not only could but did, saw a drop of nearly 60% and a loss of over 1200 theatres. Still, at a total domestic gross of nearly $140K and a total of eight Oscars, I’d say the Danny Boyle picture definitely fared better than it would have had it been released straight to video, as it was originally intended.

NEXT WEEK: Sundance hit and directorial follow-up to SUPERBAD, ADVENTURELAND lands ion1800 screens. More importantly though, its time to reboot and revisit FAST AND FURIOUS with the entire original cast and two less usages of the word, “the”, on over 3400 screens.

SUNSHINE CLEANING

Written by Megan Holley
Directed by Christine Jeffs
Starring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Steve Zahn, Clifton Collins Jr. and Alan Arkin


Rose Lorkowski: Do you think all I can do is clean up other people’s shit?

When some lonely soul walks into a sporting goods store and blows his brains out all over the ceiling with a 20-gage shotgun from behind the counter, someone has got to come in and clean up that mess. Not only would it deter potential shoppers to find leftover bits of brain mass mixed in with the fishing poles but, more importantly, the violence that ripped through the fabric of everyday life needs to be cleaned from memory in order to return to our blissful existences. Enter Rose and Norah Lorkowski (Amy Adams and Emily Blunt), two sisters who reasonably could be a few steps away from the same fate as the man with the shotgun if they got to seriously thinking about their lives. Despite their troubles, the two have paired up to clean up the messes no one else wants to touch. What they lack in style, they make up with smiles as the two try to find life by facing death head on in SUNSHINE CLEANING.


The people who brought you LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE have brought you back to Albuquerque, New Mexico. They also tried to bring back that signature quirk you enjoyed so much last time, even going so far as to cast Alan Arkin in the role of a loud, unconventional grandfather. While they may not have succeeded in recreating that same kind of wide satisfaction, they have crafted a sensitive film that will definitely speak to the millions struggling in America today to forge their own path and bring some semblance of meaning to their lives. When we meet Rose, she is cleaning people’s houses just so she can afford her dilapidated little house. Her sister Norah can’t even be bothered to get out of bed to show up for her pointless waitress job. These are not girls with hope but they find very quickly that hope can come back into your life faster than you would expect and even when after you’ve given up on it.


As far as sisters go, Adams and Blunt are a pretty believable pair. You can tell they care about each other but you know that they also infuriate each other too. Adams’ mousy and unobtrusive demeanor gives Rose, a former prom queen whose popularity has been waning ever since, the delicate balance of hope and resigned defeat necessary to make her sympathetic and likable. You just know that when she exits the shower to repeat the affirmations written on a post-it stuck to her foggy mirror that she only half believes what she’s saying, if that. Blunt on the other hand is not looking for anyone’s acceptance, not even her own. She makes good on her own name and delivers Norah with a direct frankness that reveals more than she realizes. For Norah, hope is not something she tries to force into her life; no, hope for Norah, just finds her and sneaks its own way into her consciousness.


SUNSHINE CLEANING definitely brings the sunshine in but it does so in such a downtrodden fashion that it makes it all the more meaningful to catch a glimpse and easy to ignore the clouds in the sky. It is a healing experience that never feels as though it is forcing its cleansing on the audience or itself. Instead, the sisters just feel compelled to clean because their lives have been dirty for far too long. What they find beneath the grime is an unexpected and infectious grin.

BLU-REVIEW: TWILIGHT

Written by Melissa Rosenberg
Directed by Catherine Hardwicke
Starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson


Edward Cullen: I wanted to kill you. I never wanted a human being’s blood so much.

It may occasionally sound like a vampire movie but TWILIGHT certainly doesn’t look like any vampire movie I’ve ever seen. For starters, some of these particular vampires are vegetarians. It is much less a movie about vampires as it a movie that just happens to have vampires. You might even say it is the BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN of vampire movies. This is not to say it is anywhere near as good; just that director Catherine Hardwicke cleared the path so that you could see the love and not just the blood lust one would expect. That love is shared between Bella and Edward (played by Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson). She just moved back to this tiny town to spend some time with her estranged father and he too just moved back to this same town after being away for a few decades. She is 17 and he looks like he’s 17 (he also looks like he’s ready for an all vampire cabaret revue with all that face makeup but that’s besides the point) but really he was born way back near the turn of the century, the last century. Doesn’t anyone else see something wrong with this picture? He could realistically be her great grandfather, people.


This is Bella’s story really and her perspective is what brings both sensitivity and assertive confidence to TWILIGHT. Bella’s relationship with her father is understandably tricky. Her newfound friends from school take some definite getting used to. And as if her life weren’t complicated enough already, what with the big move and the inevitable adjustment period, she just had to go and fall “hang upside down from the rafters” in love with a vampire. The best part about the somewhat ridiculous premise (I say somewhat because maybe vampires really do exist, even vegetarian ones), is that Hardwicke has grounded it firmly. Imagine a teenage movie where none of the “youngins” utter inspired brilliance every time they open their mouths. No, these folks are actually awkward; they actually don’t know what to say sometimes. And they actually live in a place where not everything they wear is right off the runway. All of this realism helps make the supernatural element all the more plausible but it also brings to light a couple of points of concern about the teenage girl.


TWILIGHT reinforces one of the most unfortunate clichés around these days. Every girl out there just really wants a bad boy. They don’t even care if they have admittedly drained innocent bodies of all their blood before. We should definitely make sure that the legions of young girls who see this film, or read the Stephanie Meyers book it is based upon, believe that love can resolve any obstacle, be that a difference of opinion, a disagreement or the distinct possibility that your boyfriend may one day wake in the middle of the night to find he can no longer resist the urge to drink your blood. It is easy to get sucked in to TWILIGHT’s lore (Get it? Sucked?) because we all have these distorted ideas of love ingrained inside of us but last I checked, a guy who sneaks into your room to watch you sleep is called a stalker, not a romantic. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from TWILIGHT though, it is that a teenage girl’s love is infinitely stronger than a vampire’s lust for blood. Oh, and that girls love all things that sparkle.


My apologies to the technical geeks and true fans out there. I had too much to say about this film to go into detail about all the blu-ray special features. I will just say that if you are a fan of this film, you will not be disappointed with which your admiration has been rewarded. There is feature commentary with the director and two leads; the behind the scenes featurettes go through most of the production stages and can be seen picture in picture on blu-ray (which, if you're like me and didn't know what that was before, means that you can watch the film and a separate screen will appear in the corner to give you information about the scene that is playing). On the whole, all the special features point towards the care with which this production came to life and how much it has meant to legions of fans. There are even music videos by Linkin Park and Paramore. You tell me, what more could a bloodthirsty teenage girl want?

FILM

BD

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: I Knew It

Nicolas Cage wasn’t worried. He knew that his latest action masterpiece, KNOWING, would come out on top. It was written in binary code or something on some scrap of paper that was buried in a time capsule for over fifty years. Does that sound ludicrous? You should see KNOWING then. And see it, you did, to the tune of nearly $25 million. The film’s future as the box office champ was sealed on Friday when KNOWING took in in one day what Cage’s last number one “hit”, BANGKOK DANGEROUS, took in all weekend. Critics were less than enthused about Cages latest stagy offering but when has that ever deterred fans from seeing one of his films?


Two other wide releases tried hard to top Cage but could not. If only they too had read that code from fifty years ago, they would known it was never going to happen. Still, the Paul Rudd-Jason Segal bromance, I LOVE YOU, MAN, has nothing to be ashamed of with its second place debut. The film did similar business to Rudd last film, ROLE MODELS, and Segal’s first starring effort, FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL. With good word of mouth, the film could experience similar strong holds as their predecessors and find its way to a $60+ million gross. Coming in for a somewhat disappointing third place finish in Tony Gilroy’s follow up to MICHAEL CLAYTON, DUPLICITY. Sure a $14 million gross for reasonably wide release is decent business but this picture stars bonafide movie stars, Julia Roberts and Clive Owen. Their charisma alone should have carried this to a much stronger start. Reviews have been mixed so returns should dwindle fairly quickly, as should the two stars’ asking prices.


In limited release news, Sundance favorite from this year, SIN NOMBRE, opened strongly, while Sundance favorite from last year, SUNSHINE CLEANING continued its successful expansion. SIN NOMBRE walked away from Sundance with the cinematography prize as the prize for dramatic direction and this weekend, opened to the tune of a $12K per screen average on six screens. SUNSHINE CLEANING, jumped its theatre count from 4 to 64 and saw its returns explode over 200%. The Amy Adams-Emily Blunt indie comedy is being well received and jumps its count to over 250 next week. Meanwhile, the largest per screen average of any film in release belongs to VALENTINO: THE LAST EMPEROR. The documentary about the great fashion designer opened to over $20K per screen on just one screen in all of North America.


NEXT WEEK: The latest Renny Harlin action flick, 12 ROUNDS finds its way to 2,200 screens. It’s been a whole week without a wide horror release so THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT steps in to fill the void next week on 2,600 screens. And the Dreamworks Animation folks are hoping for a big score with the big film, MONSTERS VS. ALIENS (3,500 screens).

Source: Box Office Mojo

DUPLICITY

Written and Directed by Tony Gilroy
Starring Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti


Claire Stenwick: If I told you I loved you, would it even matter?
Ray Koval: If you told me or if I believed you?

Can you think of anything more satisfying than pulling a fast one on someone? It’s even more delicious when that particular someone is someone you care about or who has gotten you more times than you would like to remember. The look on their faces when they realize they’ve been had is worth every painstaking effort you had to make to pull it off. You would think then that DUPLICITY, a film in which two very likeable and sneaky folks, Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, who have proven chemistry together from working previously in Mike Nichols’ CLOSER, would be sticking it to each other so bad that you would delight in every jab they made at each other. Well, the ultimate joke would be on you then because, while writer/director, Tony Gilroy, positions DUPLICITY as a feisty heist movie by stepping up the cool factor any way he can, it is actually nothing more than a failed prank fallen flat on its pretty Hollywood face.


When we first meet Claire Stenwick and Ray Koval (Roberts and Owen), they are drinking it up in Dubai at the US consulate. She isn’t the least bit interested in him and he is working her as hard as he can. I didn’t hear it but he must have said the right thing at some point because they end up in bed together. Of course, she was only sleeping with him so that she could drug him and steal some super secret international spy stuff. And naturally, he put aside all of his super secret spy training and allowed himself to be taken in by her beauty. It is fleeting though - the moment, not her beuauty - and with very little chemistry or connection. Yet this is supposed to be the instance that binds the two in a lust that spans years and leads to what we’re told is true love. They reconnect years later in some other exotic shooting location and concoct a plan to dupe two high profile rival corporations (run by over acting Paul Giamatti and understated Tom Wilkinson) and make off with millions of dollars that will allow them to bask in exorbitantly rich bliss for the rest of their lives. It’s a fine plan but I wasn’t buying anything.


Gilroy’s last directorial effort was his first. MICHAEL CLAYTON earned him respect from critics and contemporaries alike as the film went on to earn a number of Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director for Gilroy himself. Gilroy enlisted some of the same players he worked with last time out, including composer, James Newton Howard, cinematographer, Robert Elswit and even Wilkinson rejoins the gang. How is it then that when all these folks got together last time, they achieved such subtle perfection while this time, Howard sounds as though he were ripping off the OCEAN’S 11 through 13 scores and Elswit is practically washed out? (Wilkinson is still great as he can do very little wrong in my book.) Perhaps the blame can be placed on Gilroy’s most tired screenplay in years. By keeping corporate espionage grounded in reality last time out, he made it fascinating and relatable. By infusing it with Hollywood convention, the whole game was played out before it even began.


DUPLICITY boils down to very little more than two pretty people running games on each other and anyone else they can. The trouble is that the games they’re running are amusing only to them and entirely transparent to the rest of us. The truly duplicitous nature of DUPLICITY it would seem is just that everyone on that side of the screen thinks they are so much funnier, so much sneakier and so much more dubious than what we on this side of the screen actually see. Once again, the cool kids are too ignorant to notice that they are nowhere near as cool as they think they are.