Drama

Smart People Can Be Dumb Too

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Smart People
  • IMDB: link

“You told me my paper was sophomoric.  I was a freshman.”
“That’s not what sophomoric means.”

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The basic premise of the film is that smart people can be dumb too.  As premises go, it’s not exactly insightful.

Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) is a grumpy professor of English literature who finds himself in need of assistance after an accident involving his car, the campus impound lot, and a fence.  His children are both as miserable as he is (although the film is less sure why) including his Young Republican daughter Vanessa (Ellen Page) and his son (Ashton Holmes) who wants to be a poet.  Enter Lawrence’s brother, by adoption, Chuck (Thomas Hayden Church) the free spirit and a former student, now doctor (Sarah Jessica Parker), to further stir the pot.

I know these characters; you know these characters.  We’ve seen them in countless films.  We’ve got the grump who learns to care.  The uptight kid.  The misunderstood kid.  The smart and attractive woman entering their screwed-up world.  And the dummy with more simple wisdom then all of them combined.

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Stop-Loss

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Stop-Loss
  • IMDB: link

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Stop-loss – the involuntary extension of a service member’s enlistment contract in order to retain them beyond the normal end of service.  The film tells us more than 650,000 troops have been sent to Iraq and roughly one-eighth of that number have been stop-lossed, or forced to return to duty past the time of their enlistment.

We begin in Iraq with the unit under the command of Sgt. Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) which includes his boyhood best friend Steve (Channing Tatum) and the somewhat unstable Tommy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt).

Just before shipping home the unit is caught in an ambush which takes the lives of their friends.  On returning home the threesome are regarded as heroes, but Tommy and and Steve struggle with the readjustment.  Brandon is just happy to be home and free of the army, that is until his C.O. (Timothy Olyphant) informs him he has been stop-lossed and will be returning to Iraq for another tour.

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What’s the Count?

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: 21
  • IMDB: link

“In Vegas you can become anyone you want.”

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The movie centers around Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess), a promising mathematican at MIT who has been accepted to Harvard Medical School but lacks the funds to enroll.

Ben is approached by one of his professors (Kevin Spacey) and offered a unique opportunity to join a team of talented students (Kate Bosworth, Aaron Yoo, Liza Lapira, Jacob Pitts) who count cards in Vegas during the weekend.  At first Ben refuses the offer, but the temptation is strong, especially when the girl he has lusted over for months, Jill (Bosworth), begs him to join the team.  And after all Ben can always stop after he earns enough for school.  Yeah, right.

When the film deals with temptation, it works amazingly well.  Ben is thrust into a world, despite his intelligence and talent, he is ill-prepared for.  He becomes disconnected from his best friends (Josh Gad, Sam Golzari), lies to his mother (Helen Carey), and becomes completely infatuated with winning and the new lifestyle which comes with it.

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Wake Up!

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Sleepwalking
  • IMDB: link

“I’m pretending not to hate my life.”
 

sleepwalking-poster

Joleen (Charlize Theron) is a mess.  She can’t raise her daughter Tara (AnnaSophia Robb) and has just been evicted.  Unable to deal with the harsh realities of her life, she pawns off her daughter on her only slightly more stable brother James (Nick Stahl), and takes off (for most of the film’s running time), without saying goodbye, with promises to return after she hits it big.

Trouble is James is almost as big a screw-up as his sister and promptly loses both his apartment and his job.  Tara is shipped off to Social Services and James goes off to live in a friend’s (Woody Harrelson) basement.

By this point your obviously wondering what the point of the film is.  I was too.  In fact after watching the entire thing I’m still unsure.

Unable to abandon Tara as her mother did James kidnaps her and takes her on a road trip back home to the farm where he and Joleen were raised.  There Tara meets her grandfather (Dennis Hopper) who, let’s just say doesn’t stand a good chance at winning grandfather of the year.

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The Other Boleyn Girl

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Other Boleyn Girl
  • IMDB: link

“Our daughters are being traded like cattle for the advancement of men.”

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The story centers around the two Boleyn girls.  The older, more conniving Anne (Natalie Portman) and the sweeter, though simpler, Mary (Scarlett Johansson), are thrust into a world of societal intrigue and deception for which neither is prepared.

The bond between the sisters is put to the test when their father (Mark Rylance) and uncle (David Morrissey) ask Anne to attempt to seduce King Henry VIII (Eric Bana) and become his new mistress, only to discover he prefers the attentions of the other Boleyn girl – Mary.

What follows are schemes upon schemes, plotting, lies and deceptions which will leave England a far different country, and the Boleyn girls far worse for wear.

The story was adapted by Peter Morgan (The Queen) from the historical novel by Philippa Gregory.  Although the novel became a best seller, the film always seems to be grasping for what made the story work on the printed page.

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