The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Q: What’s the movie about?

A:  Based on the book of the same name, this remake of the movie of the same name that came out two years ago, retells the Swedish story of a defamed journalist and his assistant (Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara) who try to solve the mystery of a teenage millionaire's untimely death in the 1960s-- only this time, it's American-style!

Q: Who’s in the movie?

A:  Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgard, Steven Berkoff, Robin Wright, Yorick van Wageningen, Joely Richardson, Geraldine James, Goran Visnjic, Donald Sumpter, Ulf Friberg

Q: Is this movie worth the price of admission?

A:  Go!  I was lucky enough to have missed the first version of this movie as well as the book, so I got to enjoy this clever thriller as if for the first time, because it was my first time.  

Q: Will this movie make me laugh?

A:  Bizarrely, yes, about three times.

Q: Will this movie make me cry?

A:  It's pretty cold, but there is one part that will break your heart.

Q: Will this movie be up for any awards?

A:  Clearly David Fincher and Trent Reznor are trying for a two-peat, and I think they have a chance.

Q: How is the Acting?

A:  It was a big deal when they cast Rooney Mara (best known as the girl who dumps Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network creating the impetus for him to start The Facebook) in the part of Lisbeth Salander.  Well, she lives up to the hype.  Then again, I never saw Noomi Rapace in the part, so for all I know she's just imitating the original performance.

Q: How is the Directing?

A:  There's a reason David Fincher is considered the David Fincher of movie directing.  He brings movement and artistry to scenes that would be stagnant in a lesser director's hands.  With him, you can see where the script stops and the vision begins.  And yet he does it all without drawing attention to his own work-- which may be what I respect most about his style.

Q: How is the story/script?

A:  A good story is a good story in any language.  The people who read the book thought so.  The people who saw the Swedish movie thought so.  And the people who see this version will think so, too.

Q: Is there anything else worth mentioning about the movie?

A:  I'm assuming there will be two more parts, as with the Swedish version, but I'm still waiting to find out the significance of the Dragon Tattoo.

Q: Where can I see the trailer?

A: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Trailer

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The Change-Up

Q: What’s the movie about?

A: A married man (Jason Bateman) and a single man (Ryan Reynolds) switch bodies and try not to f-up each other's lives.

Q: Who’s in the movie?

A: Jason Bateman, Ryan Reynolds, Leslie Mann, Olivia Wilde, Alan Arkin, Sydney Rouviere, Mircea Monroe, Grogory Itzin, Ned Schmidtke, Lo Ming, Craig Bierko, Bailey Anne Borders

Q: Is this movie worth the price of admission?

A: Proceed with Caution. If you go to a body-switch movie, and your main complaint is that the set-up and the ending are predictable, then you only have yourself to blame. That's what body-switch movies do. You're supposed to watch a body-switch movie for the second act. That's where you get to find out if the actors where able to transform to the point of making you believe they are inhabited by the other, and it's where you get to see the ways in which they screw up each other's lives while they are inhabiting them. So let's talk about the second act, which isn't anywhere near as bad as the buzz on it. In fact, once it's released on VOD and DVD, I predict that many people will find themselves telling a friend, "You know what I saw last night, that wasn't half bad?"

Q: Will this movie make me laugh?

A: Not out loud much, because the writers rely too heavily on swear words instead of humor, and the insulting nicknames the characters lob at each other incessantly quickly begin to feel overbearing and self-conscious.

Q: Will this movie make me cry?

A: What makes me cry most is how all the nerds and haters are so quick to say this movie is the end of the raunchy R-rated comedy being hot. Some of us love comedies, don't consider them a phase but rather a necessity, and don't start screaming about how it's the end of your stupid comic book movies, just because Green Lantern came out and sucked. (Disclaimer: I didn't see it.) Hey, I'm noticing a pattern. Maybe we could all get along if we instead went around screaming that it's the end of Ryan Reynolds?

Q: Will this movie be up for any awards?

A: I'm giving Judd Apatow a Tolerance Award for letting the mother of his children show her boobs. It takes a truly secure man to be okay with that... Or maybe a truly twisted one. Either way, we should start counting down to their divorce.

Q: How is the Acting?

A: Jason Bateman does an amazing job of making you forget that he doesn't actually have Ryan Reynolds inside his body. Ryan Reynolds does an amazing job of making you forget why he's become such a hot commodity.

Q: How is the Directing?

A: David Dobkin directed Wedding Crashers, so my first instinct is never to say anything bad... But. There are several pivotal pissing scenes, where we get full frontal shots, and before you get all grossed out, let me clarify that my complaint is that neither one of these men seems to have a penis. Now I know you can't show that in an R-rated movie, but what I don't know is why the director chose to shoot an angle that makes it so obvious that they're holding little water hoses rigged to come out of their flies. It would have been so easy to use only angles that don't show the pants' opening. The way it is shot, you can't help but peek, and seeing nothing there is disturbing.

Q: How is the story/script?

A: From the writers of The Hangover, comes a film that feels like it's from the writers of an ABC Family Film-- with tits, swearing, and male leads. I think the lesson here is that you shouldn't try to do a body-switch movie for the R-rated audience. It would seem they don't care for the conceit. Oh well, I guess I'd better scrap my plans to write that body-switch movie between a hooker and her pimp.

Q: Where can I see the trailer?

A: The Change-Up Trailer

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Morning Glory

Q: What’s the movie about?

A: An up-and-coming morning show producer (Rachel McAdams) gets hired way out of her league on a show that's tanking in the ratings, has a majority of difficult personalities working on it, and the morale of a prison camp.

Q: Who’s in the movie?

A: Rachel McAdams, Harrison Ford, Diane Keaton, Patrick Wilson, Jeff Goldblum, John Pankow, Matt Malloy, Ty Burrell, J. Elaine Marcos, Arden Myrin

Q: Is this movie worth the price of admission?

A: Go! It's predictable and fluffy, but considering its main point is to validate the very fluffiness we all seem to give our attention to when asked to choose between things that are mindless and things that are intellectual, it's almost impossible to judge it adversely for ultimately being trite.

Q: Will this movie make me laugh?

A: Physical morning show comedy from a particularly untalented weather caster will have you belly laughing for a good minute and a half.

Q: Will this movie make me cry?

A: No, but it might get you banging your head against a wall about how often Rachel McAdams' character purposely bangs her head against a wall, or her hand, or whatever may happen to be in her proximity. Personally, I haven't banged my head against a wall since I was 9, and I found out that Ronald Reagan had just won the Presidency. Shortly thereafter, I found out that banging your head against cement hurts, and when something has just made you feel bad, the bruises and scratches on your forehead will only make you feel worse. By the end of the movie, McAdams actually has a line of dialogue where she says, "I feel like I'm banging my head against the wall." Which for me only aggravated my aggravation, because as a nine-year-old I knew that yes, banging your head against the wall does make you feel like you're banging your head against the wall.

Q: Will this movie be up for any awards?

A: This movie is being compared to an update of Broadcast News, which was nominated for 7 Academy Awards. But this movie is not Broadcast News, this movie is the fluffication of Broadcast News if you were to fast-forward Broadcast News 23 years into a future society where nobody has the intellectual capacity anymore to care about real news. Welcome to today, and just remember, when you choose to watch junk, you cause the ratings of junk to go up, which leads to being served more junk. But that's what you want, right?

Q: How is the Acting?

A: The acting is the one aspect of this movie that truly is comparable to Broadcast News. Rachel McAdams has a scene where she goes from excited to depressed in one stagnant shot, and the only thing that changes on her entire smiling face are the tears that suddenly, almost imperceptibly show up in her eyes. Diane Keaton gets hotter and funnier with age. And I'm not mentioning Harrison Ford because I'm too busy wondering how a man who over-acts, under-acts, and has virtually no comic timing, has a career... Oh yeah, he was Han Solo, 33 years ago. Lucky for him.

Q: How is the Directing?

A: One shot, when she finds out she gets the job, is overly showy and obvious, but in the rest of the film, Roger Michell finds ways to work around difficult transitions and even add laughs.

Q: How is the story/script?

A: Aline Brosh McKenna has a way of making it all look so easy. The dialogue is cute, though not often laugh out loud. The happy Hollywood ending, on the other hand, has a few elements to it that made me very uncomfortable about how things are going to be for these people about two months after the movie ends. Once you've seen it, let me know if you felt that, too.

Q: Where can I see the trailer?

A: http://www.moviefone.com/movie/morning-glory/31567/trailers

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Paul Blart: Mall Cop

Q: What’s the movie about?

A: A fat, pathetic loser (Kevin James) falls for a girl who's way out of his league, and despite her rejection, puts his life on the line to save her from a robbery in which she is taken hostage. Do girls ever really fall for that old trick?

Q: Who’s in the movie?

A: Kevin James, Jayma Mays, Keir O'Donnell, Raini Rodriguez, Shirley Knight, Stephen Rannazzisi, Peter Gerety, Bobby Cannavale, Adam Ferrara, Allen Covert, Jamal Mixon, Adhir Kalyan, Erick Avari

Q: Is this movie worth the price of admission?

A: Proceed with Caution. If you're the kind of person who laughs at absolutely anything, this movie is for you. If you have standards of any kind, skip it. And separately, if that giant tub of man hadn't done 9 years on TV as the King of Queens, that girl wouldn't give him the time of day, even if he did save her life. She'd say thank you, and ask if they could be friends... Just in case she happened upon an unattractive lonely woman to set him up with.

Q: Will this movie make me laugh?

A: If you find an hour and a half of a guy riding around on a Segway funny, all I can say is... Your mother must be very proud.

Q: Will this movie make me cry?

A: I will say this, it is very depressing.

Q: Will this movie be up for any awards?

A: Yes, First Mall Cop Movie to Come Out this Year. (Seth Rogen has one coming soon called Observe and Report, which will undoubtedly be compared to this. Without having seen it, I can guarantee that the Seth Rogen one is better.)

Q: How is the Acting?

A: The ninja gymnastics was the best thing the acting had going for it. I don't know who decided that ninja skateboarders, bmx riders, and half-pipe-riding roller skaters would make for a compelling band of robbers, but if you overlook the ridiculousness of it all, you will notice that their stunts are still more interesting than the parts of the acting that involve words.

Q: How is the Directing?

A: In the scene in the Rainforest Cafe, where Blart takes down the grand majority of the bad guys, you have no idea how he got them. Why? Because the director doesn't show us those parts. Why doesn't he? My guess is because they had run out of ideas by that point in the script. After all, it's not so easy to convince an audience that an out of shape Mall Cop could take on 6 athletic ninja villains, who are all coming at him at once, and win.

Q: How is the story/script?

A: While it couldn't be more lowbrow if it had been a straight to DVD movie, it did have a few clever moments in which Paul Blart had to "outsmart" (in quotes) the robbers, in order to take them down. Considering how much money it's made, you probably have a friend who's already seen it, so maybe you can just get the Cliff's Notes from him.

Q: Is there anything else worth mentioning about the movie?

A: They somehow forgot to mention in the promos that this was a Christmas movie. Maybe because there's no more relevant time to put out a Christmas movie than 2 weeks after Christmas is over. God I hate January movies.

Q: Where can I see the trailer?

A: http://www.moviefone.com/movie/paul-blart-mall-cop/31338/trailers

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RockNRolla

(Guest Review by Russ)

Q: What’s the movie about?

A: A real-estate scam leads some underworld tough-guys to millions in cash, but not before a lot of double-crosses with a lot of colorful characters set in the colorful city of London.

Q: Who’s in the movie?

A: Gerard Butler, Tom Wilkinson, Thandie Newton, Jeremy Piven, Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges, Mark Strong, Karl Roden, Jimi Mistry, Toby Kebbell, Tom Hardy, Idris Elba

Q: Is this movie worth the price of admission?

A: Proceed with Caution. RockNRolla signals a nice return to form for writer/director Guy Ritchie, so if you loved Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, you will eat this up. If thick British accents, dark humor and plot-twists for days aren’t your thing, then maybe skip it.

Q: Will this movie make me laugh?

A: When criminals, Russian mobsters, gay and straight tough-guys and sexy accountants are all this smart, this dumb, this lucky and this snake-bitten, it’s hard not to laugh. But fortunately, you’re supposed to.

Q: Will this movie make me cry?

A: No. If you want to see a Guy Ritchie movie that’ll make you cry, go rent Swept Away. On second thought, don’t, I can't want to be responsible for your suicide.

Q: Will this movie be up for any awards?

A: Probably not, but there would be no shame in seeing Tom Wilkinson and newcomer (at least to America) Toby Kebbell (as rocker Johnny Quid) get acting nominations.

Q: How is the Acting?

A: It’s all so natural that it makes you forget how good everyone is, and it’s always nice to see some fresh faces that are lesser known on American shores. How does Tom Wilkinson find these roles year in and year out and become such completely different characters? He’s amazing. Gerard Butler is slyly funny, confident and freaked-out all at the same time. And one more mention to Toby Kebbell (I know: Who!?) as the RocknRoller (i.e. singer) who wants to be a RocknRolla (i.e. gangster) that everyone is trying to find. He starts out as a side-note, until you realize he’s the most pivotal character in the film, and probably the most interesting.

Q: How is the Directing?

A: Guy Ritchie is never at a loss for directing with true style that doesn’t come off as showy, but rather informs his story and characters. RockNRolla is less hyper than his past films, but in this case, that’s a good thing.

Q: How is the story/script?

A: The thin plot is what makes RockNRolla a lesser film than either Snatch or Lock, Stock…, but it’s just engaging enough to keep you interested. And after an over-explained set-up that can be hard to follow, it doesn’t turn out to be that hard to follow. The final intersection of the two divergent stories could have been smoother, but that’s a minor quibble. Overall, it’s a satisfying framework in which to let these oddball characters loose, so they can rattle around and bump up against each other for two hours.

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