The Room

Yes, I saw The Room again. Memo to the drunken idiots who yell things at the screen: you’re not allowed to yell something unless it’s clever or funny. Just yelling “whore” isn’t acceptable. Who knew that seeing a terrible movie and having the audience yelling things at the screen as entertainment could go wrong?

Surrogates

I have nothing profound to say about this movie. Bruce Willis is formidable as always, and the production is top-notch, but it lacked sexiness. The kind of kinkiness and craziness, in fact, that Gamer had way, way too much of. If you could somehow magically combine the best aspects of both movies, you might have something. Otherwise, this is a “C.”

Jennifer's Body

HAS THE WORLD GONE COMPLETELY CRAZY?? What kind of world is it where a rated-R horror movie can be hampered by crippling prudishness and the true terror; the true fear of the boogeyman is foolishly on display at “tea party” rallies and town hall meetings?

Jennifer’s Body screenwriter Brook Busey (aka “Diablo Cody”) has jerry-rigged a tame, irrelevant and indefinable mess. “Edginess” or “coolness” does not come from injecting some hipster teen-speak into a conventional, inert story. The ideas must be edgy as well. It’s embarrassing how non-violent and unsexy Jennifer’s Body actually is. Yes, there is such a thing as gratuitous nudity. But there is also gratuitous non-nudity. If there is a woman in a rated-R horror movie whose m.o. is to seduce innocent boys and eat them, filmmakers should not hesitate to show this seductress in the nude. To see Megan Fox in her most formidable and dangerous state can only help transport the audience to the mindset of the victims. It is no time to be puritanical! It’s a movie! Show us the monster! Instead, after the killer washes off her victim’s blood in a lake swim, filmmakers cut to her FEET as she climbs out of the water!

Numerous frustrating examples of this cheap tactic -- cutting away before the money shot -- litter the film. It’s a shame! It could have been an interesting satire. Performances are all above par. The cast tries their best with this hampered material. One wonders what they would have done with a truly daring, psychosexual script. FOR SHAME!

The Informant!

Matt Damon disappears into this pathological nerd who is greedy for attention and recognition at all costs. Soderbergh uses basic, tried-and-true devices to turn an espionage thriller into a comedy: Zany music, over-the-top characters, and hilariously random inner-monologue narration. Although this movie succeeds on every level it aspires to, the light tone will prevent it from making a big splash. It’s as if Soderbergh et al set-out to prove the frivolity of greed by spinning a dispensable yarn making light of such a humorless subject.

Capitalism: A Love Story

Michael Moore is a filmmaker who clearly loves his country. But he found some things about the U.S. that he’d like to change, so he makes movies about them. What he doesn’t do is offer any kind of suggestion about how to make the necessary repairs, though he seems determined to change the world in a positive way. His emotional stories of corporations and banks screwing people over are gripping and infuriating, and they really succeed in lighting a fire under my ass. But to do what exactly?

Whiteout

A perfect example of a movie made by a studio committee. If they are cooked-up dispassionately, all the necessary ingredients do not always make a good movie. You could feel the meddling story executives in every predictable plot point, every overly-expository line of dialogue, and every shower scene. And it felt like it was developed in the early 90’s, when the big twist; the big novelty of a movie could be that the main character was a woman. “It’s about a cop, but she’s a WOMAN, believe it or not!” The outmoded premise is the least of Whiteout’s problems.

9

It seems like in every animated movie I’ve seen lately the emphasis has been on the beautiful animation and not the script. That is unfortunately the case with Nine, too. The design of the world and the characters is positively gorgeous, but I was never 100% sure what was going on. You could argue that it’s meant to be abstract. But it was frustrating for me feeling left-out of some “deep” symbolism or something that I just didn’t get. Well, even for a shallow guy like me, it’s still beautiful to watch.

Gamer

An affront to the senses. A terrible script that was poorly directed and horribly edited. Too bad. Some of the ideas, though lifted straight from Philip K. Dick, were kind of cool. You feel bad for the talented but wasted cast. Gerard Butler, Amber Valletta and Michael C. Hall deserve better.

Extract

A pleasant comedy, featuring a laid-back, mild-mannered cast of goofballs and idiots. A lot of the comedy is “extracted” from people NOT listening to one another. Jason Bateman’s neighbor, his friends, his employees, and even his dumb pool cleaner never listen and they all seem to be having their own conversations. The terrific Kristen Wiig has a hilarious exchange with the pool boy –- but it’s so acute, it’s almost frustrating. So there are a lot of chuckles during the movie, but not the kind of all-out laughter I can get when there are not one but TWO idiots in a scene, and they’re listening to each other intently. (See It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia or Burn After Reading.) Likeable and worth seeing, but not an imperative.