That’s right, my write-up for rentals has changed yet again.  This time around (and hopefully I will stick to it this time) I will write up little blurbs about the movies I have seen in the past week on Fridays, giving you suggestions for what to pick up and what to avoid when considering what to rent that weekend.  On this weeks list we’ve got: The Back-up Plan, The Last Song,  Operation: Endgame, Repo Men, The Runaways, A Single Man, and The United States of Tara.

Fight for the Last Copy:

United States of Tara: Season One

This Diablo Cody created, Showtime TV show is about a woman who has recently gone off the medications that have helped to suppress the other faces of her multiple personality disorder (or dissociative identity disorder).  Toni Collette plays Tara, and the way in which she moves in and out of these other personalities is pure artistry.  Though this is a serious topic, it does not shy away from the humor of it all, thanks in large part to the people she becomes.  In the beginning she is aware of three: Alice is a 1950s housewife, Buck is the redneck hick with a heart of gold, and T is basically the teenage slut, but eventually another emerges (but I will not spoil in for those who want to watch) in response to the overriding story arc of Tara digging into her past to discover what caused this disorder to take form during her teen years.

The show does not just stop with how this disorder effects Tara, but shows the strain it puts on her family.  John Corbett plays her supportive husband who i leading the search to discover her past and must constantly coral the other personalities (though he is far from ashamed of his wife). They also have two children together played by Brie Larson and Keir Gilchrist, each with their own issues to work through during the season, both in relation to Tara and just being a teenager.  Also, Rosemarie DeWitt adds another point of view as Tara’s sister, who is still unwilling to believe that this is something Tara can’t control.

The first season is only 12 episodes long, each about 30 minutes each.  This may not seem like a lot of time for a dramedy, but they are able to fit an amazing story arc and plenty of character development into this short amount of time.  In a nutshell, it is a must see.

Final Grade: A

A Single Man

To state it simply A Single Man is a beautiful, artsy film that is not afraid to experiment with the editing and presentation of the story as apposed to a more conventional approach.  The acting from the cast is great on all accounts, with appearances by Matthew Goode, Julianne Moore, Nicholas Hoult and Ginnifer Goodwin, but a huge, heaping amount of praise should be thrown at Colin Firth for his representation of George Falconer as he goes about his day after finding out that the love of his life has died.  As the day progresses memories and the inner working of Falconer’s mind affects how the film is presented, working in flashbacks as they naturally flit through a person’s mind, as well as simply editing out sound, slowing down time, etc. to further present Falconer’s internal processing and evaluation of the world around him.  A beautiful, ominously solemn soundtrack tops adds a great finishing touch.

Final Grade: B+

Rent:

The Last Song

I will say that like many others I went into this film with the predisposition to hate it.  The movie has Miley Cyrus in it, for crying out loud!  But hey, Nicholas Sparks wrote the book the film is based on, and though I know there will never be a movie that quite lives up to The Notebook (*sigh*) I am more than willing to give his other attempts a try to fill the void.

When the movie starts I was nitpicking and in all honesty Cyrus’ depiction of her moody “I hate the world” mentality gave lots of material for snarky commentary.  Eventually her character comes around and actually starts smiling and being a decent person, and I will admit that Cyrus does a better-than-expected job during this time.  And she can emote too, something that is much needed for Sparks’ works.

The locations and story is also something that seems a little worn in his work.  There is always a part of the Eastern coast in close proximity, love, a wrench thrown in said love, someone with some type of illness, etc., but he still makes me fall for his magic each time.  Though I won’t say that this film was perfect in any way, it still managed to win me over from hating it as I thought I would.  And a cute boy sure doesn’t hurt.

Final Grade: B

Repo Men (Unrated)

At this stage in the future disease has yet to be cured, but man has found a way to skirt the issue as we have a tendency to do by creating artificial organs to replace those that have gone defective in the potential client.  The problem is that these organs aren’t really covered by insurance, with the money putting a huge dent in the patient’s wallet, if they can pay at all.  If they get behind on their monthly installments, well that’s where Jude Law comes in.  He plays a man that does the dirty work for this miracle company, acting as the title suggests as a repo man, or someone who will take back what is no longer yours.  Eventually he has a change of heart (literally), and must come to terms with the company he works with as he is forced to see things through the eyes of those who usually look back at him in fear.

Forest Whitaker takes the role of Law’s partner in (questionably legal) crime and it is pretty fun to watch these two men at the peak of their professional careers, yet as the same time it is sad to think how desensitized to watching violence I have become.  The blood will flow in this film, with a splash of blood here as a throat is slashed or a pool will form there as it drains from a recently vacated chest cavity, but it isn’t until they actually start performing extractive “surgery” that the visuals become disgusting.  These moments of violence fill out an otherwise imperfect story that seems familiar at times, but it is still entertaining enough to forgive the similarities and forgive the tacked on relationship between Law Alice Braga.  Then again, without it we wouldn’t have gotten an awkwardly grotesque and provocative scene towards the end of the film.

Final Grade: B

The Runaways

The Runaways is a biopic of The Runaways (surprising, I know), an all girl rock band that only lasted a year or so during the mid 70s.  Like any film like this (Ray, Walk the Line) the story follows the group as they get caught up in the excitement of the lifestyle, leading to the coveted sex, drugs and rock and roll that eventually leads to their downfall.  Even with this familiar story this film is still worth at least one viewing.

Director Floria Sigismondi is able to create a gritty, dirty look to the film that sometimes seems hyper-exposed at times, reacting to the transitions of the people being portrayed.  The performances from the cast are all great, and a wise choice was made to cast Dakota Fanning as lead singer Cherie Currie.  Obviously we all know that the girl has the acting skills, but seeing this girl that I feel like I have watched grow up in front of me made her role all the more poignant and painful to watch.  She starts out as a more-or-less normal girl of the 70s with a meeker, not that impressive singing voice, but before long she has gained confidence and becomes a presence before her downward spiral into a drugged out trance.  In addition to Fanning, Kristen Stewart gives an equally strong performance both acting wise and vocally as Joan Jett.  However, the surprise star is Michael Shannon as the band’s manager Kim Fowley, who is like a cracked out hamster with poetic words of questionable wisdom.

Going in I didn’t really know a lot of the music from The Runaways (though I didn’t realize how much Joan Jett music I actually know), but the performances of the actors make this a film far more than just another rock-and-roll biopic, even though it is still full of similarities.

Final Grade: B

Possibly Consider:

Operation: Endgame

In some underground facility two highly top secret and volatile teams within the CIA can be found sharing office space.  The Alpha Team and Omega Team act to balance each other out, but today there are different plans when the facility is shut down and armed to explode in two hours.  Instead of working hand in hand to find their way out an all out fight for the death ensues with any weaponry they can make out of the items found within the offices.

The story doesn’t really pan out for me, but that didn’t stop me from loving the idea of this story.  The fights are fun and it actually works well as a comedic action film thanks to the outlandish duels and writing, the cast compiled, and the editing between the brutality and the commentating from Michael Hitchcock and Tim Bagley as they watch and react in horror to these gruesome murders going down on their surveillance big screen.  Yet somewhere it loses its edge, especially with the ending they went with, which seriously knocked the film down a full letter grade for me.  PS (Kind of a SPOILER!!!) – there is no way that Maggie Q would go down like that.

Final Grade: C+

Chop Off Your Hand Before Picking This Up:

The Back-Up Plan

No.  In all truthfulness that is really the only thing that I would need to say about this film.  It just does not work at all.  Jennifer Lopez plays Zoe, a woman who decides to go ahead with the artificial insemination process instead of waiting around for the perfect man.  As an act of cruel fate she meets Alex O’Loughlin when leaving the doctors office.  Surprise surprise.  The story continues as by the book as possible, with jokes that fall flat and acting that makes you cringe.  I couldn’t say that I am surprised on Lopez’s part because I haven’t really loved her in anything since Selena, but I do feel bad for O’Loughlin considering his abs get more praise than the character he is stuck with.  Other than his ripped body, the only other things worth mentioning are Michaela Watkins as Lopez’s hilarious and underused best friend, and Lopez’s handicapped dog.  My advice, find a different back up plan cuz this one will let you down.

Final Grade: F+

Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass have teamed up on an adaptation of Imperial Life in the Emerald City and the result is a decent political action hybrid that runs into some pretty big third act issues that really hurt the picture.

The story follows Chief Miller a WMD team leader for the Army and is coming up empty repeatedly on sites that are supposed to be legit and he begins to wonder why the hell he is over here in Iraq if there are no WMD’s.  After getting a tip from a local citizen, Freddy, who sees some top officials ducking into a secret meeting, Miller, is pulled into a chain of events that might uncover one of the government’s biggest secrets about the war.  Miller then starts to get pulled from both sides by a pair of clashing department heads for the White House and the CIA and he has to sort out whose intel he will believe to actually making a difference here in Iraq.

Now be warned, this is not an action movie, don’t believe what the trailer is selling.  With that said, the film does move along without any dry spells and there are a number of set pieces built more around tension rather than action that will hold your attention.  The characters though are paper thin with little to no depth to them and everyone is clearly playing a part.  Some characters even seem completely useless, i.e. the reporter, but I won’t complain too much because their scenes didn’t drag the picture down they just didn’t do much when you look back at the picture.  The film is solid, nothing amazing but quality stuff, until the third act hits and things begin to just get a bit ridiculous.  The film turns into a cat and mouse game and logic gets thrown out the window and I will just leave it at that.  The preachy stuff also starts to eek out at this point and the last two scenes are a bit too much if you ask me.

The actors in the film while given pretty thin roles at least do a fine job in the picture even if nobody delivers their best work.  Damon is serviceable as a military man and we believe that he cares as much as Miller does, I just don’t know how believable the character is when starts to go off the reservation.  This isn’t Damon’s fault though, I think his work sells the character and saves the believability of some of the bits and successfully creates an original character to add to his repertoire.  Greg Kinnear plays sleazy White House rep Poundstone to a T though we have seen him in this part before.  Brendan Gleeson plays one of the most reserved characters in his career but it would have been nice to have his character be a bit more illusive, but again this isn’t really his fault.  Amy Ryan is completely wasted on as the journalist trying to get to Poundstone’s source on WMD’s and does nothing but help move the plot along when necessary.  Jason Isaacs stars as the pseudo bad guy in the movie, a Special Forces member, and again he is serviceable but has nothing to really do other than be bad for no good reason.

In the end, Green Zone starts as a serviceable enough political thriller but runs into some issues in its third act that make it a tad forgettable.  The movie is still very watchable but don’t expect anything special or new brought to the table.  This isn’t the next Bourne movie like they are selling it and you can get a much better Middle East thriller out of recent entries like The Hurt Locker or Body of Lies.  There isn’t a lot to be learned here as most of the facts they throw at us are common knowledge about the War and the political message is tired and been beaten to death.  So if you are looking for a mildly entertaining thriller, that doesn’t have a ton of thrills and throws logic into the wind in the end game then go ahead and check out Green Zone as it is fairly safe and sterile experience.

Green Zone is a C-

Flash of Genius is a serious drama about the true life struggles of Bob Kearns who had to fight the major motor companies for vindication on his creation, and the results are a solid offering, even though it might be a bit of heavy material.
Bob Kearns (Greg Kinnear) is an engineering professor who was always coming up with something. For as long as he could remember he was always creating useful ways to improve things and make things work better, so one day when he noticed a problem with his windshield wipers, he sought out something to do about it. What he created was the later to be named intermittent wiper that we all know and love today and he began on the process to sell it too the major motor companies in his home town of Detroit.
Partnering with his friend Gil Privik (Dermot Mulroney) Bob sets out to produce and sell all intermittent wipers to the major car companies and live out his new found dream he has always been looking for. Unfortunately, the road does not go as planned and Ford backs out of the deal, only to find Bob’s model in use six months later on the new line up of Ford vehicles. Bob quickly falls into a tail spin as he tries to earn his due and it has an effect on his personal, work, and family life in turn.
Bob’s struggles for credit are the focus of the picture and it is a passionate fight that he ends up having to try to take all the way to court. Greg Kinnear does a fantastic job of capturing Kearns and all of his subtleties, and I imagine he nailed the way this man was. Though outside Kinnear there isn’t a lot for the rest of the cast to do, it’s all kind of Kinnear’s show. But that isn’t a horrible thing at all, as he is great, but Dermot Mulroney is able to shine in his work and Lauren Graham does a fair job as Kearns wife. The child actors also do admirable jobs as the Kearns family and Alan Alda is great as Bob’s pro bono attorney; though he is just basically a nice version of his Aviator character.
The thing that holds this film back though is the heavy mood over all the proceedings. And I understand the material is rough and a hard row, but they could have done a better job of injecting some humor here or there or do a better job of not dragging out the miserable times of this man’s life as long as they did. Thankfully, when the film hits it’s final act, it is running at its best, and does a great job of finishing strong in the end; which a lot of movies can’t really say nowadays.
In the end, Flash of Genius is a solid drama that tells a great little story of the little guy fighting for what is his. The material seems a bit stretched for a feature, but the editing and pacing mis-steps that pop up might be to blame for that. Greg Kinnear is great and deserves any and all the praise he will get for this and easily carries this film on his shoulders. If your looking for a great little untold story, and don’t need a film with a ton of pick-me ups, this is an enjoyable endeavor.
C-

Ricky Gervais teams with David Koepp to make a great debut as a film lead for American audiences in a film that is a bit familiar but fresh and funny enough to keep you entertained.
Frank (Greg Kinnear) is walking along the streets of New York having a cell phone conversation with his wife, followed by his real estate agent, and over the course of these conversations we discover he isn’t the most faithful of husbands’ right before he dies. We are then introduced to Bertram Pincus (Gervais), a dentist who isn’t a fan of people, keeps to himself, and has to prepare himself for a routine colonoscopy. After the procedure he begins to see and be able communicate with dead people and is harassed by them to help them solve their problems so they can move on. Upon returning to the hospital Bertram discovers that he died for nearly 7 minutes and that might explain is current situation.  Frank begins following Bert, trying to get him to help him out with his widowed wife Gwen (Téa Leoni), who lives in Bert’s building, from marrying an alleged ‘bad guy’. The two begin scheming and trying to figure out how to win her over and the film and comedy ensues.
The film itself is a great, smart, and dry piece of comedy. It doesn’t really go for the gas, or site gimmicks, it is just great banter and humor coming out of the mouths of Greg Kinnear and Ricky Gervais. The film doesn’t feel entirely original and seems familiar to any other movie with ghosts that you have seen; luckily this one is funnier than most movies about ghosts you will probably see. It never tries to creep you out or scare you; the ghosts are peaceful and are simply trying to find their way home. The character arcs and plot turns are fairly predictable and unoriginal as well, but the actors are able to entertain with ease and make the story worth watching for what happens next; they do sneak a couple curve balls in on you though.
Gervais easily carries the film and is full of endless rants of hilarious dialogue throughout by him alone. He does a great job playing the “I hate everyone role” and is equally convincing in the tender and sweet moments when he opens up. The work is a bit below his performances on The Office and Extras, but that bar is so highly set, it’s still a pretty great level he is performing at. Kinnear gets out of the type he has been stuck playing the last few years, the nice guy schmuck that is just down on his luck, and gets to have fun playing a sort of selfish jackass that has no bounds of what he can say because he is dead. He also is intriguing as you try and figure out why he is trying to change his wife’s life, when he was cheating on her already in the first place. Téa Leoni also does a nice job in her role, selling her struggles to decide on the men in her life, while also bouncing off of Gervais well. Special mention must go out to Kristin Wig who plays Gervais’s doctor at the hospital as she is hilarious in every scene she is in, especially when she tries and deflect the obvious question from Gervais, as to what happened.
In the end, Ghost Town is a very good comedy that never really drags and remains consistently funny throughout. Gervais is a great lead and I can’t wait to see him in more stuff down the road. And while this film doesn’t really break any ground or do much new for the genre, it solidifies Gervais a true comic talent that can hold his own in American cinemas, and this film will grow with further viewings as you catch one of Gervais’s many improvised lines. Definitely check this out if you are a fan of Gervais or dry, smart, comedy.
B-

An interesting look at love that dissects a number of individuals’ lives that are all closely connected and the consequences and effects love has on this group of individuals.
Morgan Freeman serves as a mediator and father figure for all of these individuals as he deals with his issues with his family while trying to protect those that he still can. Greg Kinnear is the other lead and we follow him through his mis-steps and successes in relationships as well that spans over the course of three women.  Another plot line is a young couple that meets at Kinnear’s coffee shop as they find love and fate and family stands to get in their way.
The film is more or less a window into these people’s lives as we watch them deal with love and the hurdles and joys that come with it. Some cheat, some lie, some just need a dog. The film can be a tad pretentious at times and is very graphic and raw when it comes to sex and making love. The film also can come across as a little to convenient and think it’s deeper then it really is as well. The film as a whole is feels like it was aiming higher then it actually ever achieves, but is by no means a failure.
Kinnear does an excellent job as the oblivious lover that always seems to find the wrong women as he moves through tragic relationships. One of his girlfriends is bravely played by Radha Mitchell who has racy scenes with a cheating husband that she might wish for more from. Selma Blair’s brief appearance is solid and sets up Kinnear’s characters arc and vulnerability. The young couple is anchored by an excellent turn by Alexa Davalos who bares all and brings a believable understanding and love to her relationships with everyone she encounters in the film. Morgan Freeman is Morgan Freeman and while doing nothing extraordinarily new, he is as solid as a rock throughout.
The film’s pacing is also very good, though leaves you a bit jarred at how much time is passing as it jumps forward with little to no notice. Director Robert Benton’s work on the film is solid and engaging but upon reflection there seems too little below the surface and doesn’t really stand for much rewatchability.
Feast of Love is an interesting indie film that leaves me feeling not much for one way or the other. A couple of the actors stand out, Kinnear in particular, but the story and message doesn’t really have much impact. While I didn’t hate it by any means, I didn’t really go crazy for it either. It remains a watchable film though and if you are interested you should definitely give it a shot, I just don’t know how much of an effect it will have on you.
D-