Romance

Heart-Broken

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Heartbreak Kid
  • IMDb: link

The Heartbreak Kid

Ben Stiller plays his usual self – a normal guy who gets into an unlikely situation that gets worse and worse until finally everything is resolved at the last minute.  Sound familiar?  If you’ve seen There’s Something About Mary, Meet the Parents, Along Came Polly, and the like, then you’ve seen Stiller’s trademark character who he trots out every couple years for another film.

This remake of the 1972 film finds a 40 year-old single man pressured into marrying a relative stranger (Malin Akerman – doing a scary, awkward, and charmless Cameron Diaz impersonation) only to find out on his honeymoon that’s she’s not the woman he thought she was.  Shocker!

Things get complicated further when Eddie (Stiller) falls for a young woman (Michelle Monaghan) vacationing with her family at the resort and tells a small lie about a former wife and an ice pick that leads to all types of implausible misunderstandings.  You know those films where you don’t see things coming?  This isn’t one of those.

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Jane Austen, The Early Years

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Becoming Jane
  • IMDb: link

Becoming Jane

Jane (Anne Hathaway) is a beautiful country girl who enjoys sharing her works with her neighbors.  Into her life arrives young Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy) an Irish scoundrel from the city sent out into the wilderness by his uncle (Ian Richardson) for his inappropriate behavior.  Tom scoffs Anne’s writings and her surroundings, infuriating the young woman.

Fans of Hollywood romances can guess what happens next.  A friendship between the pair begins as Tom introduces Jane to new ideas and Jane shows Tom that the city doesn’t hold all of the world’s wonders.

Although the story is rather straight-forward it is well-handled and enjoyable.  Hathaway proves more than up to the task in making the role her own and carrying the film, though I do wonder at why an English actor (like say Kiera Knightly) wasn’t chosen for the role.  McAvoy provides some good humor to the role and there is nice, if constrained, chemistry between the pair.  Add to all this a supporting cast which includes Maggie Smith, James Cromwell, and Julie Waters and you’ve got a good film.

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No Need For Reservations

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: No Reservations
  • IMDb: link

“You know better than anyone.
It’s the recipes you create yourself that are the best.”

No Reservations movie review

Kate (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is the head chef at an upscale New York restaurant.  She’s also compulsive, anal, controlling, and a times what could be referred to as a bitch on wheels.  All this changes when her sister dies in a car accident leaving her young daughter Zoe (Abigail Breslin) in Kate’s care.  To make matters worse the owner of the restaurant (Patricia Clarkson) has hired a new chef (Aaron Eckhart) to spice things up and pick-up the slack in the kitchen as Kate deals with her grief and new responsibilities.  You can guess where the story goes from here.  Kate learns to be more open and accepting, Zoe struggles with her mother’s death and new surroundings, and the animosity between Kate and Nick turns into love just as movie romances always seem to do.

No Reservations isn’t a bad film, but it’s so predictable and tame that it more resembles a frozen dinner than cuisine.  If not for the fact of casting three remarkably talented and likable leads the film would be almost completely unwatchable.  Though the star power isn’t enough to turn this turkey into a swan it does enough to make the film at least palatable.

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Georgia Rule

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Georgia Rule
  • IMDb: link

Georgia Rule movie review

Many times you go into a film with certain expectations and are let down; however, once in awhile you get the reverse.  I had little hope for Georgia Rule which I expected to be nothing more than your average chick flick.  Imagine my shock when I found a surprisingly intelligent film with strong performances from all three of the its leading actresses.

Rachel (Linday Lohan) is driving everyone nuts.  Unable to control her daughter, Lily (Felicity Huffman) ships her off to her grandmother, Georgia (Jane Fonda) in a small Iowa town, hoping some of the sternness, which rubbed her wrong in her own childhood, might work for Rachel.

Her arrival instantly effects the sleepy town and her rebellious nature chafes under the strict control of her grandmother, the animosity of the local girls (Christine Lakin, Chelse Swain, Mandy Medlin), the interest of a young Morman (Garrett Hedlund) and the fatherly advice of an old friend of her mother (Dermot Mulroney).

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An EX-cruciating Experience

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Ex
  • IMDb: link

Nothing tires me out and makes me more bored than a lazy film that relies completely on formulaic plotlines and predictable story.  The Ex is just such a film, and not even the casting of some truly funny people can save this film from itself.  It’s just a stupid, boring, excruciating bore.

The Ex?  Well, at least we know the same amount of time and energy that went in to making this turkey was also used to come up with the title.  “The Waste” or “The Crap” or “The Disappointment” would all have been (slightly more) appropriate titles as well.

Tom Reilly (Zach Braff) is a nice guy who’s just never been able to hold down a stable job.  Now that his wife Sofia (Amanda Peet) has just delivered their first child Tom decides to leave New York and take Sofia’s father (Charles Grodin) up on his offer to work at his ad agency in Ohio.

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