21 (Robert Luketic, 2008) D+

Robert Luketic needs to stick with romantic comedies. Legally Blonde and Monster in Law are both smarter than average rom coms with impressive comedic performances that still make me laugh the 10th time I watch them. 21, Luketic's first foray away from that genre, is an absolutely grotesque, 99 cent version of Ocean's 11 with unavoidable cliches, awful acting and a putrid script. Jim Sturgess (you might recognize him from Across the Universe and The Other Boleyn Girl) plays a freakishly smart MIT student who can't afford his tuition for Harvard Medical School. He meets a professor (Kevin Spacey) who teaches him to play Black Jack and count cards so, along with a couple of other students, they can make an assload of money in Vegas every weekend. Sturgess does his best with the role, but you know the trajectory of his character from the first 30 seconds: he will go from naive, to out of control in about 30 minutes and then will realize his mistakes and redeem himself just in time. The way Kevin Spacey's character chews him out after losing $200,000 is completely ridiculous; this was the only time Sturgess had done this and he completely goes apeshit while the other douchebag (the one who had been kicked out) had apparently done it quite a few more times before getting kicked to the curb for doing something else completely. Instead of Spacey, I would have rather liked to see Robert Downey, Jr. in this role. I think he could have played up the funniness better with his dry wit and he can be quite a bit intimidating if you give him the chance.

Crumb (Terry Zwigoff, 1994) B

An all-around interesting documentary about underground comic book artist Robert Crumb. I heard that the main appeal of this documentary was not Crumb's work per se, but, instead, Crumb's crazy ass family. Call me the product of a strange family myself, but I simply didn't find them that dysfunctional or bat shit crazy. I will give in that they're a little odd and the one brother who meditates on a bed of nails was slightly disturbing. It's just that their childhood didn't seem that unusual to me as far as the 1950's go (the father was absent mentally, slightly abusive and got into long verbal arguments with the mother...that's out of the ordinary how?). I actually find Crumb as a nice companion piece to Herzog's Grizzly Man; two documentaries about offbeat, slightly megalomaniac men who have a hard time dealing with the real world.

Week End (Jean-Luc Godard, 1967) B-

On the DVD cover for this film, one critic described Week End as Godard's version of hell and there's no way I can possibly disagree with that assessment. There's a long scene that takes place about 20-30 minutes in which the main couple are rudely passing cars during a traffic jam and for about 10 minutes all we hear is the loud honking of car horns. The scene, which, I must add, was seen after a long day in which I dealt with car troubles, made me both queasy and gave me a headache; it certainly felt like hell to me. Even if Week End is too terribly uncomfortable for me to ever see again, I'm glad Godard went all out in making this experience as hellish as possible. This decision shows real balls and makes the film that much more interesting. I do love Godard's fascination with violence here in all the images of horrific car crashes and the unscrupulous main couple's constant comments to each other about how much they want each other dead. I also loved the individual scenes in which the wife, after their car gets wrecked in a huge crash, screams bloody murder about her Hermes scarf and the one in which the couple try to steal a car from a singing Jean-Pierre Leaud. The only thing I truly hated about Week End was the constant political monologues he gives to random characters that seem to go on for forever. I felt that there must have been a more creative way for Godard to mix them in with the rest of the film.

Mamma Mia! (Phyllida Lloyd, 2008) D

Full-length rant here.

Penelope (Mark Palansky, 2008) C

Everything about Mark Palansky's modern day fairytale Penelope, especially coming after the enormous success of Enchanted, seems unbearably average and ordinary. The film isn't bad per se-- the story is appropriately simple and child-like, the actors got their respective jobs done and received their paychecks, the special effects are Tim Burton-lite-- but is so inoffensive in it's refusal to take a point of view. The advertisements for Penelope really ruined whatever surprise the film had in story by showing Ricci's pig nose, but director Palansky does an even worse job of leading up to it. The unnecessary narration from Ricci reveals that she has a pig nose and then expects us to act surprised when it is shown a couple of scenes later. Ricci and dreamboat James McAvoy are merely adequate as the two lovers while Reese Witherspoon, whose tiny role really only amounts to nothing more than a cameo, is clearly having fun playing this fast-talking, "bad girl," but the miscasting is too obvious to even take seriously and Witherspoon just can't let loose and have fun. There's a short scene between her and the bar owner at Penelope's wedding when they're apparently supposed to be improvising about how they think the wedding is supposed to go down that plays really awkwardly because Witherspoon just can't get in the silliness.

Tom Jones (Tony Richardson, 1963) C- (x2)

I've never read the source novel by Henry Fielding (and I probably never will) but I suspect that, as with many novel to film adaptations, the screenwriters had a tough time condensing multiple story lines and subplots and a myriad of characters into a two hour film. Tom Jones feels oddly disconnected to me because none of the subplots seem to add up and are often dropped without a moment's notice. Plus, Richardson's stale British New Wave tricks, which I'm sure were positively retro-chic back in 1963, feel completely dated. I also couldn't get over how misogynistic the whole film was. Tom is allowed to roam the countryside, fucking whoever he wants, but someone like Molly is considered a slut for doing the same. It simply isn't right, especially when I'd rather be following these fascinating women instead of Tom. Albert Finney's casting here is a complete mystery since he isn't exactly the type of good-looker that would turn the ladies' heads nor does he really do anything interesting with the role. If nothing else, I would really love to see the women get more material to work with-- Susannah York especially, who was so good in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? and definitely could have handled more oomph to her tireless romantic lead.

Be Kind Rewind (Michel Gondry, 2008) C

Gondry has a great concept here somewhere buried underneath Be Kind Rewind, but the execution of said concept is extremely poor. The film should have focused more on the making of these "sweded" movies and less on the uninteresting backstory of Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) trying to save his video story and the weird friendship between Jerry (Jack Black) and Mike (Mos Def). Nothing about Be Kind Rewind is especially bad, per se, just completely disappointing. How is it the director of such visual and poetic masterpieces like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep not take advantage of the opportunities presented here. If he couldn't get lost in the silliness and fun of the sweded movies, then how is the audience supposed to care about anything going on on-screen? Let's just hope that this was one slip-up in the repetoire of Gondry and not the first sign of him showing his limitations.

Picture This! (Stephen Herek, 2008) C-

I must admit that I was nervous viewing Picture This!, my beloved Ashley Tisdale's first film after the wild success of the HSM movies. Would she be as good of an actress as I thought she was in HSM2? Would Picture This! give her something to do comedically or would the script and/or direction let her down majorly? The answer to the first question: a definitive YES. If nothing else, Picture This! proves that La Tisdale is a complete natural on screen and can make anything, and I do mean anything, funny. The answer to the second question: kinda. The beginning of Picture This! is rather predictable-- loser Mandy (La Tisdale) is in love with hott jock Drew Patterson and eventually gets him to notice how great she is after rescuing her when she nearly drowns-- and, after some gooey romantic crap was thrown in, I wanted to barf right then and there. Eventually, however, a clever comedic situation straight out of a Buster Keaton short emerges (kicking and screaming, I might add, since the screenwriters try their damnedest to hide it underneath teenage movie cliches and shitty romantic situations) and nearly saves the picture. After finding out about Mandy and Drew, her overprotective father grounds her- on the day of Drew's big party! To get out of the house, Mandy lies about having to study with a friend and her father only lets her go on the condition that he'll call every 30 minutes and she needs to prove, using her brand new video cell phone, that she's at her friend's house every time. Well, of course she's not going over to study and is instead getting ready for the party. So the next 45 minutes of screen time is spent with Mandy trying to fool her father while at the mall, at a battle of the bands concert, driving in her car and a few other various situations. This is where La Tisdale truly shines, proving her skills as a comedienne are top-notch. Why doesn't someone give her a role in a proper film instead of forcing her to slum it in this kind of dreck? The ending of this film is horribly shody, complete with a weird chanting from the mean girls trying to keep Mandy from the party that ends up with the Regina George vomiting for no reason and the most fucked up prom queen ceremony that was so surreal it should have been in a David Lynch film, and nearly destroys those precious 45 or so minutes of comedic genius.

The Music Man (Morton DaCosta, 1962) D+

Egad, this movie is painful. I'm not going to say that DaCosta's adaptation of The Music Man is the problem here since most of the trouble spots stem from the actual story itself. The people are complete caricatures, the jokes are hokey at best and the film is way too long to be stabilized on the one joke. By the 45 minute mark, I thought the townspeople deserved to be swindled because they were so stupid. Seriously, they were so retarded I swear I caught some of them with drool hanging off their chin; I don't know how they function in the real world. I understand that all musicals are fantasies by nature, but there are times when the suspension of disbelief is too great to bear. The only brightside are the Meredith Wilson songs up through "76 Trombones." I thought they were original and creative enough to keep me interested even when the story was leaving me numb (seriously, how could no one seen that juvenile delinquent put that firecracker behind the presenters at the 4th of July meeting? He wasn't exactly subtle or anything). After "76 Trombones," the songs got progressively worse and that's when the film became nearly unwatchable.

The Joy Luck Club (Wayne Wang, 1993) A-

The Joy Luck Club has a couple of minor problems, mainly in it's transitions from story to story and the overall depressing nature of each of the stories, but how can you quibble when such a fascinating story about the life of Chinese immigrant mothers and their Americanized daughters is being told and there's an ensemble cast so on the top of its game it's incredible to witness? I've never read the original novel, but I've heard it's nearly unfilmable, so you have got to give credit to the screenwriters who carefully adapted the novel and made it nearly completely cinematic. The cast is so good it's hard to choose favorites, but I have to say the best in show were Tsai Chin and Tamlyn Tomita as Lindo and Waverly, respectively. Not only was their story the most universal (to me, anyways) but their handing of the final scene at the hairdresser was impeccably done-- it could have come off corny, but it came out completely touching and emotionally honest. And that final scene between June and the twins made me sad and happy at the same time-- if I was more emotional, I probably would have cried during that scene.