January 2010

When in Rome New York

  • Title: When in Rome
  • IMDB: link

The first thing you need to know about When in Rome is it doesn’t take place in Rome (give or take ten minutes).

I wanted to like this film. But nothing, not even the talents of Veronica Mars and Tad Hamilton, could save the film from a flurry of romantic comedy cliches and contrivance we are forced to witness.

Kristen Bell stars as Beth, a workaholic museum curator. Although Beth is the youngest curator of the Guggenheim, her job which pays her enough for the following: a spacious Manhattan apartment, a last-minute flight to Rome, and a closet of designer fashion. Who knew curators got paid so well?

Anywho, Beth travels to Rome to attend the wedding of her more impulsive younger sister and fall for her new brother-in-law’s best man, Nick (Josh Duhamel). They meet cute, have a few misadventures over the course of the evening, and then part due to a misunderstanding (didn’t see that coming!) that only ever occurs in movies like this.

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Psych – Private Eyes

  • Title: Psych
  • tv.com: link

Even if NBC seems to be doing its damndest to make sure no one ever watches their network again (‘cept for the inherent awesomeness of Chuck, of course) the USA Network (which is owned by NBC Universal) seems to be going strong.

Psych returns tonight to round out a schedule which already includes new episodes of White Collar and Burn Notice. To help you get Psych-ed (sorry, couldn’t resist) here’s the “Private Eyes” commercial featuring the cast of the show.

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The Lovely Bones

  • Title: The Lovely Bones
  • IMDB: link

Peter Jackson might have been the luckiest director of the 00s. A virtual unknown, the Kiwi hit the jackpot when New Line gave him hundreds of millions of dollars for those Lord of the Rings that came out a few years back (you may have heard of them). He only got luckier when the films turned out to not just be successful, but hugely loved and adored by both the novels’ fans and regular Joes alike. His reward was a $200 million budget for his vanity project, a remake of King Kong that received a less ecstatic response than his previous work.

Jackson closed out his decade with The Lovely Bones, which began playing in limited release last month, about the aftermath of a teenage girl being raped and murdered. Unfortunately, it again fails to live up to Jackson’s work on the Tolkien trilogy; but it’s also a film with moments that should not be dismissed.

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Broken Embraces

  • Title: Broken Embraces
  • IMDB: link

As far as I can tell, Pedro Almodóvar is the most well-known Spanish filmmaker, and has a shot at being the most well-known European one, too. It’s been a lonely three years since his last film, Volver crossed the Atlantic, but now we get Broken Embraces, another story of the consequences and rewards of love. Was it worth the wait? Of course it was.

The story is a complicated entanglement of a filmmaker, Harry Caine, as he recalls his affair with his lead actress Lena (my wife, Penélope Cruz). Though they’re madly in love, they’re kept from happiness by Lena’s boyfriend, the millionaire and producer of Harry’s film, Ernesto. Afraid he’ll ruin the film, they don’t keep the relationship from Ernesto, but not without severe difficulties and consequences.

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The Book of Eli

  • Title: The Book of Eli
  • IMDB: link

Stop me if you’ve heard this before. In a post-apocalyptic wasteland a wanderer (Denzel Washington) travels across a ruined landscape avoiding robbers, thieves, and cannibals.

He carries with him something important and valuable which the intelligent but mean-spirited head of a small town (Gary Oldman) will kill to possess.

This is The Book of Eli, and no one will ever accuse it of having a single original idea.

Part western, part post-apocalyptic thriller, and part psuedo-religious mess, the Hughes brothers (the guys who also screwed up From Hell) deliver a trainwreck of a film about one man’s quest to deliver the last bible in existence to the West Coast and the many, many men he kills who get in his way.

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