NO STRINGS ATTACHED Review (1 out of 5 stars)

No thought attached is more like it.

In this formulaic rom com, Emma (Natalie Portman) and Adam (Ashton Kutcher) are life-long friends, per the official synopsis. (Though they’re really just acquaintances who keep running into each other.) They ultimately make a pact to become sex partners and nothing more. And guess how that works out for them? 

NO STRINGS ATTACHED is plain un-funny – the bulk of its coitally themed one-liners fall flat (Or should I say they’re limp.). It didn’t help that the screening I attended was held in a huge theatre that was less than half full, many of the seats marked reserved yet never claimed. The nonstop sex banter gets boring quickly, the dialogue stale and unimaginative. Characters drop the f-bomb about every thirty seconds, often jarringly: “Did you fuck her?” Oh, and how about that opening scene where the sad-eyed boy blurts out to the girl sitting next to him, “Can I finger you?!” Now that is hilarious. Everyone in the movie talks this way, usually in very public places. It’s too easy imagining some studio exec patting themselves on the back for thinking they’d impress the twenty-something set by just saying “fuck” again and again. But there’s next to nothing clever or humorous in this paint-by-the-numbers script, nor is there anything even vaguely sexy.

Portman phones her performance in. She appears not to have given an iota of thought to Emma, and I’m surprised she bothered doing publicity rounds for the film. This otherwise talented starlet must have been offered buckets of cash, or why else bother with such tripe during what she must have suspected could be the pinnacle of her career with BLACK SWAN? Ashton Kutcher on the other hand has proven himself pretty much incapable of any range. (Though he did nail mimbo Michael Kelso from “That 70s Show.”) How many failed romantic comedies (KILLERS, WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS, JUST MARRIED, this) must he assist in sinking before the biz throws in the towel on this guy? In contrast, he’s proven himself a successful entrepreneur in TV and new media, producing multiple reality shows, generating buzz on Twitter, and co-founding Katalyst, a studio receiving high marks from Ad Age and Fast Company. He needs to put his flat-lining acting career to rest and engage his real talents full time.
 
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THE COMPANY MEN Review (2-1/2 out of 5 stars)

Might’ve been a great film if the director had downsized Affleck.

This is for the most part an upper class story, of wealthy men suffering the loss of their income and nervously eyeing their potential new spots in the middle class. (In other words, none of them have to live out of their cars.) The story is obviously applicable to our dark economic times, and Academy Award winners Chris Cooper, Tommy Lee Jones, and – get this – Kevin Costner all deliver excellent performances. But the typically smirking Ben Affleck sadly and perhaps unsurprisingly strikes out as Bobby, THE COMPANY MEN’s central character.

High-flying corporate exec Bobby Walker is let go from his job alongside fellow masters of the universe Phil Woodward (Cooper) and Gene McClary (Jones). Shaken, the three men must go about reinventing their careers while coming face to face with the real state of their family lives.

Bobby is so obnoxious you have to wonder what his smart, independent-thinking wife Maggie (well played by Rosemarie Dewitt) sees in the guy. Arriving late to his cushy job that fateful morning - bragging about his golf game, no less - he’s simply amazed that his employer doesn’t see the value in keeping him. He condescends to his wife, forgets his son (while Affleck’s old enough to father a teen, it still doesn’t look right) and outright insults his working class brother-in-law for offering him a job – all long enough into the film that his eventual, forced turnaround near the end doesn’t feel earned. After all that, (spoiler) he’s presented with a near perfect job again, and with all his old coworkers to boot. Happy ending! Really? With all the horror stories out there, Walker’s tale doesn’t come across as particularly realistic. And Affleck’s constant virtual wink at the camera – look at me as the rich guy toughing it out among the regular folk! – is neither cute nor amusing. Affleck’s shoddy acting aside, the life education his character receives in THE COMPANY MEN isn’t enough to warrant Walker’s placement at the heart of what would otherwise be a decent film.

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BLUE VALENTINE Review (4 out of 5 stars)

A tragic before-and-after tale of a relationship gone wrong by an acting powerhouse duo. 

BLUE VALENTINE is a sad, dark tale tracing the crumbling relationship between Dean and Cindy, played by Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. The movie shifts back and forth in time, from their giddy Brooklyn-based courtship to five or six years later in rural Pennsylvania as parents to a six year old. Both actors are Academy Award-nominated, and both should be nominated again for their work here. Williams is my bet for a Best Actress Oscar win for her lovelorn, swept-off-her-feet young bride turned wounded and angry, ultimately hopeless working mom. Gosling’s tough-talking Dean morphs from handsome, charming and mysterious to a lost and all too vulnerable soul, eyes hidden, unkempt and balding. In both cases, all smiles transition to fleeting or no smiles at all.
 
In the chronologically latter half of their story, which is where BLUE VALENTINE both begins and ends, Dean insists on a romantic night out at a dumpy motel, and Cindy is left with no choice but to give in. He reserves the establishment’s comically ugly “Future Room,” bathed in unflattering neon blue light and decorated with fake gizmos, mirrors, a wall-sized moon photo and spinning bed. The childlike Dean finds it all delightful; the more sophisticated Cindy reacts as most of us would – with dismay - but tolerates it nonetheless. They both commence drinking with dedication. But despite some genuinely romantic moments on this fateful night, their contempt for each other comes to the surface after a series of strange, drunken moments of canoodling on the motel floor, and Cindy later leaves him passed out in the bathroom.
 
Cindy and Dean are good people but find themselves in different places in their lives – something both seem to recognize but only he is unwilling and unable to acknowledge. While their contrasting outlooks and socioeconomic backgrounds weren’t an issue early on, those factors clearly pose real-life obstacles in their later lives, as both her devotion to nursing and his apathy toward minimum wage jobs du jour grow. His laissez-faire bachelorhood in New York worked out fine, but that aimlessness and refusal to grow up carry consequences later as a husband and father. When the younger Dean meets his girlfriend’s parents for the first time, you sense that Cindy’s father recognizes this contrast in ambition. And while Dean’s relationship with their little girl, who they both love fiercely, is endearing, he relates to her as more of a playmate than a dad; Cindy has to do all the actual raising, it seems.
 
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THE TEMPEST Review (4 out of 5 stars)

A sumptuously shot Shakespeare classic led by an ensemble of acting luminaries.

Julie Taymor’s cinematic adaptation of this supernatural tale employs gorgeous cinematography and a cream-of-the-crop cast, not to mention it’s an excellent an and vastly entertaining literary brush-up. And really, what more could you ask for? It’s also one of only two of the Great Bard’s works steeped in sorcery, so there’s the constant feeling just about anything can happen onscreen.

Taymor adds a fascinating twist to the plot, turning the sorcerer Prospero into a sorceress, Prospera, played by none other than Helen Mirren. When her enemies shipwreck on the island she and her daughter Miranda call home, Prospera wreaks magical havoc on the beleaguered men as revenge for her banishment from a royal perch in Italy. And thus follow elements of tragedy, comedy and romance in almost equal measure.

As seen in her ACROSS THE UNIVERSE (2007), FRIDA (2002) and adaptation of another Shakespeare play, TITUS (1999) – not to mention her smash theatrical adaption of THE LION KING on Broadway – Taymor views the screen (or stage) as her canvas and applies colors liberally as one would to a painting. THE TEMPEST is gorgeous and sumptuous, a feast for the eyes. Not only artistically, but through the startlingly dramatic natural scenery of black lava rock, towering cliffs, exploding surf, barren landscapes and open skies I never realized Hawaii could provide. The film also employs just the right amount of CGI to further its storyline instead of shrouding it. Such can be seen in the spirit Ariel’s dances across the stratosphere or Prospera’s magical deliberations in her lair: celestial shapes and light patterns whirling, potions bubbling, flasks combusting. Ariel’s dramatic transformation into a jet-black harpy to terrify and stupefy the lost royals is for me one of the visual high points. Along these lines, Taymor always prioritizes her costumes, and so for THE TEMPEST enlisted the considerable talents of Oscar darling designer Sandy Powell. The sorceress’s shimmering feathered cape, rainbow array of her wardrobe and strictly corseted black dress as she confronts her equally black-clad royal prey add so much to this banquet of imagery.

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CASINO JACK Review (2 out of 5 stars)

A so-so dramedy on super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

On Tuesday The Washington Post ran a short update on Jack Abramoff, who’s out of federal prison and on probation for the next three years. The article reported that he was leaving his workplace of the past six months, Tov Pizza in Baltimore. I remember my shock months ago upon first learning he’d taken a minimum wage job, but based on the man’s now toxic reputation and his unsavoriness as represented in the late George Hickenlooper’s CASINO JACK, I realize I shouldn’t be surprised.

CASINO JACK stars Kevin Spacey as the man at the heart of 21^stcentury America’s most resonant political scandal. He’s everyone’s favorite K Street boogeyman, “super lobbyist” Jack Abramoff. Jack cons his way into amassing an empire composed of restaurants, casinos, and his own private Hebrew “academy” (complete with ice hockey rink and Zamboni machine) - and that’s just for starters. To score this loot, he and business partner Michael Scanlon (Barry Pepper) engage in endless, illicit quid pro quo deals with Indian tribe-run casinos and other special interests. They then curry favor with crooked politicians willing to pass legislation for those parties’ incoming cash. Former House majority leader and self-described “Hammer” Tom DeLay (recently found guilty for conspiracy and money laundering and awaiting sentencing) and Ohio congressman Bob Ney (who served seventeen months in prison) are among those influential figures implicated in the corruption. Abramoff and Scanlon’s ripples of high-end bribes become more and more reckless until a sleazy former mattress salesman they have connections with (Jon Lovitz) enlists his mob ties to commit murder, and the dominoes begin to fall for everyone. And the once high-powered Jack Abramoff quickly descends into worldwide infamy.

The movie succeeds at stringing together these disparate elements - including Abramoff’s increasingly wacky sequence of crimes - into a comprehensive narrative. However, the film fails to introduce much new material to this ripped-from-the-headlines story. Its failure to do so brings to mind such similarly missed cinematic opportunities as this year’s FAIR GAME (on the Valerie Plame scandal) and WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS (which partly touched upon Big Business’s complicity in the recent economic meltdown).

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THE FIGHTER Review (4 out of 5 stars)

Inspiring, funny and boasting outstanding performances.
 
THE FIGHTER is, surprisingly to me, a great movie – I normally don’t expect much of Mark Wahlberg since his atrocious performance in 2008’s THE HAPPENING, but he’s adequate enough here so as not to distract. The real stars of the show are its supporting cast: Christian Bale is incredible as Dicky, Melissa Leo astounds (as always) as tough matriarch Alice Ward, and Amy Adams is very good as the no-nonsense girlfriend who inspires Micky to finally break his losing patterns. THE FIGHTER also greatly inspires - it aims to be the next ROCKY and actually comes close. The film shows enough heart and inventiveness that it’s now one of my favorite films of the Oscar season. 

Dicky is blue-collar Lowell, Massachusetts’ former boxing champ, having long ago fought Sugar Ray Leonard in the ring. But his boxing days are now over, replaced by drug addiction and a life of petty crime. He trains his younger half-brother Micky (Wahlberg), the town and family's new hope despite a losing streak and his advancing age for a fighter. Their hardscrabble mother Alice (Leo) manages Micky’s flailing fighting career until new girlfriend Charlene (Adams), convinces Micky to drop his family’s professional involvement in his career and go on his own. After doing so, Micky’s record takes a dramatic upturn, and he must ultimately decide whether to allow his newly rebounded brother and the rest of his dysfunctional family into training for the fight of his life, the World Championships. 

This is an impressive cast, down to the smallest of characters, all so gritty, flawed, and complex: the red-faced Jack McGee as Micky’s father, Mickey O’Keefe (playing himself) as the town’s police sargent and Micky’s part-time trainer, and Micky’s hilariously obtuse sisters, among them “Tar,” “Beaver,” “Pork,” “Red Dog” and yes, many more. Their crazy hairstyles alone should get an award. Your heart latches on all of these individuals because you somehow know and recognize them – it’s real life translated perfectly to the screen. David O. Russell should be proud. Heck, he should be proud for simply creating a boxer movie that stands out in such a long line of them. And for making someone who utterly detests boxing and boxing movies sit up straight and pay beady-eyed attention. (Tisk-tisk for using a poster so similar to THE WRESTLER’s. Interestingly enough thought, that film’s director, Darren Aronofsky, served as an executive producer on this film.)

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TRON: LEGACY Review (2 out of 5 stars)

Exciting visuals but a severely lacking screenplay and characters.
 
In TRON: LEGACY Garrett Hedlund plays 27-year-old Sam Flynn, son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), the protagonist of LEGACY’S 1982 predecessor TRON. Following up on a strange message from his father’s old office, Sam suddenly finds himself thrust into the cyber universe his dad’s been trapped in for the past 25 years. Together with the help of Quorra (Olivia Wilde), father and son fight to prevent the elder Flynn’s digital alter ego Clu (also Bridges) from crossing into the real world while simultaneously trying to find their own way home.
 
The only reason to see this movie is for its special effects, which are indeed incredible. I felt pure, unadulterated joy seeing characters throw themselves into the air, form motorcycles or glider-like planes around their bodies and fight to the death in races on a neon grid. The disc-hurling matches are also thrilling, figures shattering into a thousand shards of glass upon being pegged. Many of these scenes arise in the first third of the film, while the glider-slash-plane chase is near the end. The hulking “Recognizers” of the original are back and, like everything else, are cooler looking and more menacing than ever. The movie is so visually stunning that after doffing our 3D glasses and exiting the theatre, the real world felt visually boring. (Daft Punk’s slick orchestral and electronic score aid and abet the graphics perfectly.)

The one CGI letdown is Bridges’ digitally altered face, used on his maddened alter ego Clu and also the younger Kevin Flynn, in flashbacks. The unintentionally creepy end result unfortunately looks nothing like the real-life Jeff Bridges of yesteryear. Nor does it look real-life, period. In case you didn’t see this controversial pseudo mug in the trailer, just picture the robotic-looking visages of FINAL FANTASY or THE POLAR EXPRESS. Perhaps first-time feature director Joseph Kosinski could have gone for an purposely digitized-looking Clu not intended to look human, which may have proven both genuinely frightening and more suitable for the role of Bad Guy.
 
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