Rampart

Q: What’s the movie about?

A:  A very dark cop (Woody Harrelson) gets involved in some dark cop business, and before long his life and his state of mind get even darker than the darkness they began in.

Q: Who’s in the movie?

A:  Woody Harrelson, Robin Wright, Sigourney Weaver, Brie Larson, Ben Foster, Ned Beatty, Cynthia Nixon, Anna Heche, Sammy Boyarski, Ice Cube, Steve Buscemi, Jon Bernthal, Stella Schnabel, Jon Foster, Robert Wisdom

Q: Is this movie worth the price of admission?

A:  Proceed with Caution.  It's just another character story with not much story-story to it, but there's no denying that this character is interesting-- at least so long as there's a screen standing between us, and keeping him at a safe distance away from my scorn.

Q: Will this movie make me laugh?

A:  One guy talks about a barrel of monkeys, and monkeys are always funny.

Q: Will this movie make me cry?

A:  It's too cold for tears, but it could freeze your heart.

Q: Will this movie be up for any awards?

A:  Woody Harrelson is certainly in the running for the Oscar with this one-man-show of a film, and Oren Moverman has a good chance at an Indy Spirit Award for his directing.

Q: How is the Acting?

A: Supporting Woody you'll find a plethora of A-level pros who never bomb, including Sigourney Weaver, Robin Wright, and Ben Foster.  You'll also find a breakout performance by the youthful Brie Larson.

Q: How is the Directing?

A:  Very hand-held and indy, but deliberate in an interesting and often original way.  Oren Moverman makes particularly daring choices when it comes to his high and low angles.

Q: How is the story/script?

A:  There are moments of intrigue, but you sort of know the whole time that it's not really going to lead to anything, and after about an hour and a half, it starts to feel extraneous, and you start to feel like if you got up and left you wouldn't really miss anything.  You'd be right.

Q: Where can I see the trailer?

A: Rampart Trailer

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The Green Hornet

Q: What’s the movie about?

A: A spoiled rich kid (Seth Rogen) who's mad at his dead dad (Tom Wilkinson) teams up with his dad's newly unemployed barrista/mechanic (Jay Chou) to fight crime in Los Angeles.

Q: Who’s in the movie?

A: Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, Cameron Diaz, Christoph Waltz, Tom Wilkinson, David Harbour, Edward James Olmos, Jamie Harris, Chad Coleman, Edward Furlong

Q: Is this movie worth the price of admission?

A: Proceed with Caution. There is something very exciting about this movie... But it might just be the car.

Q: Will this movie make me laugh?

A: The humor is very dark and a little weird. I liked it... But I might have just been excited about that car.

Q: Will this movie make me cry?

A: Seth Rogen loses his mother, then his father... But I mostly felt bad about what happened to the car.

Q: Will this movie be up for any awards?

A: Better Car than the Batmobile. Yeah, I said it, Batmaniacs, bring it on!

Q: How is the Acting?

A: Jay Chou is not John Cho with a Chinese accent. Although, he's equally as funny, in a much more Taiwanese way.

Q: How is the Directing?

A: Michel Gondry plays down his abilities for the first time ever, simply telling the story without drawing excessive attention to his own superb directing skillz. He only showboats in two scenes. The first one is the opening party scene which feels forced and out of place next to the style of the rest of the film. The second showboating scene, though, where all of L.A.'s criminals spread the word about a million dollar bounty, leads your eye in so many interesting directions that you want to watch it more than once just to figure out how he did it.

Q: How is the story/script?

A: Seth Rogen co-wrote the script, so I'm surprised he didn't make his own character a little more likeable. It's probably the one thing that could've really taken this movie from slightly off-putting and vaguely disturbing to just plain great.

Q: Where can I see the trailer?

A: The Green Hornet Trailer

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The Black Balloon

Q: What’s the movie about?

A: An Australian coming of age drama about a teenage boy (Rhys Wakefield) who tries to lead a normal life, despite the fact that his older brother (Luke Ford) has autism and ADD.

Q: Who’s in the movie?

A: Rhys Wakefield, Luke Ford, Toni Collette, Erik Thomson, Gemma Ward, Firass Dirani

Q: Is this movie worth the price of admission?

A: Proceed with Caution. It's beautiful to watch how this family stands by each other as chaos ensues all around them due to their uncontrollable autistic son, but unless you have similarities to the people and situations in the story, their pain isn't always that relatable.

Q: Will this movie make me laugh?

A: Only if you think it's okay to laugh at retarded people acting retarded. Which, of course, you don't.

Q: Will this movie make me cry?

A: The person I saw it with cried, but I asked her why, and her reasons were personal. No, I swear, I'm not telling.

Q: Will this movie be up for any awards?

A: It won some Australian Award for writing, but their film industry is pretty small, so I can't vouch for how important that is.

Q: How is the Acting?

A: The two young leads, Rhys Wakefield and Gemma Ward, are very easy on the eyes and will probably have big careers ahead of them. The two boys playing the autistic kids are of more questionable talent, but since I don't have any first hand experience with autistic kids, it's hard for me to judge how accurately they were portrayed. All I can do is refer you back to Tropic Thunder, where we learned that it's never a safe bet to go full-retard.

Q: How is the Directing?

A: Elissa Down is young, cute, and would do well in a meeting-- in other words, she has what it takes to slowly chip away at that oh-so-lopsided ratio of female to male directors. The fact that she cut her teeth doing 6 short films before tackling her first feature (that's 5 more than most people do), proves that she means business. And the added bonus that she's already attracting talent like Toni Collette, should give her some pull if she plans to make her move to the Hollywood studios.

Q: How is the story/script?

A: Some interesting arenas are tackled but not pinned. The script is subtle, and the beats are hit, but there's not quite enough of an emotional spine pulling you through, from incident to incident as the autistic boy acts out and the normal boy suffers for it.

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

A: This is the second film I've seen in the last two days containing a graphic poop scene. Please don't let this become a movie-making trend. Nobody wants to see that.

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