The Kids Are All Right

First Hit: Very good performances but felt the story lacked something.

The basics are this; a gay marriage between Jules (played by Julianne Moore) and Nic (played by Annette Bening) is shaken when their daughter Joni (Mia Wasikowska) makes contact with her and her brother Laser’s (played by Josh Hutcherson) sperm donor.

She does this at Laser’s insistence who, perhaps, feels like he’s missing something by not having a father. The donor in this case is Paul (played by Mark Ruffalo) who happens to live nearby, is a restaurant owner and a bit younger than the mothers.

What didn’t work for me in this film is I didn’t think Laser’s character was fleshed out enough to know why he wanted to meet the sperm donor. I didn't think that it was probable that the donor would live within a few miles of the kids. I didn’t quite think the aging differences of Jules, Nic and Paul worked well.

Nic seemed too old for Paul and Jules but the director tried to fix this by having a Joni Mitchell discussion at a dinner table. By having Nic and Paul get into a long discussion of Joni’s musical work tried to make them equal in age but it fell short for me.

I also didn’t like how we were left with nothing about what happens to Paul towards the end of the film. What did work about this film was Nic’s and Jules’ relationship, its ups and downs, and how they had gotten lost with each other. I thought Joni and Laser’s relationship with their mothers, each other and with Paul was effective and true.

A lot of the dialogue was really well developed and created effective scenes. I also liked Jules character a lot.

Moore was really good as the more female role of this couple. Her letting Bening know that she felt controlled was a good reflection of what happens in many relationships. Bening was very strong as the breadwinner and person who sets the tone of the family. Wasikowska was the real surprise for me. I thought she held her own with the two aforementioned actresses. She effectively portrayed a young woman who was just learning about her own boundaries and strengths as a human being. Hutcherson was good as the brooding younger brother and son. He was on target with his actions and reactions to the things going on around him. Ruffalo was good as the sperm donor dad. However, I’m not sure his character fit fully into the film. Was it important that he was a skirt chaser? Did he really make the transition to wanting a true partnership with Moore? However, this was probably more of poor story cohesiveness than Ruffalo’s acting ability. What was on the screen was well directed by Lisa Cholodenko, however she and Stuart Blumberg missed some important stuff in the writing, mostly with Ruffalo’s character.

Overall: This was a good film, there were some great funny and dramatic scenes but overall it didn’t quite hit the mark.

Toy Story 3: 3D

First Hit: An outstanding film. Creative and thoughtful story executed with perfection.

The animation of both the toys and humans was wonderful. The subtle distinction between human characters and toy characters was incredible.

The story line was sweet and thoughtful. It was aimed at a level which was accessible to both young and old alike. In essence, the toy’s human, Andy, is too old to play with toys and is going off to college. It's time for him to move on from playing with toys and possibly get rid of them.

He decides to take one (Andy) with him to college and put the others in the attic. However, the bag with the attic headed toys gets thrown out and ends up in a day care center. At first the toys think it’s going to be good but they soon find out it is toy hell on earth. Andy finds them and they plot a course to break out of the center.

Director Lee Unkrich did a fantastic job of putting this story together. Writers Michael Arndt and John Lasseter did a great job of creating an adult and young person accessible story.

Overall: This film could very well be nominated for a best picture Oscar.

Cyrus

First Hit: Disturbing, insightful, funny and well-acted film which surprised me.

I’m not a Jonah Hill fan; however as Cyrus he is dead-on perfect. He plays a character who is disturbed, overly protected by his mother Molly (played by Marisa Tomei), intelligent, and very shielding of his relationship with his mother.

However, the film is really a vehicle for John C. Reilly to display both his comedic and dramatic talents. John (played by Reilly) is lost after his divorce 7 years ago. His ex-wife Jamie (played by Catherine Keener) is getting married but spends a lot of time trying to get John better adjusted because he is floundering. She makes him go to a party where he makes some funny and very awkward attempts to make conversation with some of the guests.

Then he meets Molly who sees him and accepts him immediately. They spend the evening together and eventually he meets her son Cyrus who pretends to like him, but really is plotting to get him out of the house. There is nothing hidden from the audience but it doesn’t matter the characters are strong enough to make it work.

Reilly is very good as the lonely guy who thinks of himself as Shrek with no hope of meeting someone as amazing as Molly. He is able to show a multitude of feelings and expressions without it being forced. He is natural in this role. Tomei is wonderful. Seeing her in a role reminded me about how good she is and why I like seeing her in films. Hill, as I stated before, is very good in this role and embodies Cyrus, a boy/man who is lost but talented and intelligent.

Overall: I liked this film and thought that writers and directors Mark and Jay Duplass created a wonderful, thoughtful and insightful film.

Knight and Day

First Hit: Fun and exciting to watch most of the way but the same jokes got tiring as the film progressed and it needed to be trimmed.

Tom Cruise plays Roy a supposed rogue FBI agent who seems just a bit off center. We pick up him up scouting people with roller carry-on luggage at the airport.

He runs into June (played by Cameron Diaz) who is transporting car parts for a GTO so that she can finish rebuilding the car as a gift to her sister. He slips a world changing battery in her bag so that he can get it through security. He runs into her again to get the battery back and heads off to catch his plane.

Unbeknownst to him she gets on the same plane which is now filled with people who want to kill him for the battery. She gets caught up in the story and from there the film goers take a ride with her and him through various plots of people trying to get this battery.

When things get to a point where Roy thinks June won’t handle a situation he drugs her. When she wakes up she is somewhere else and safe. This goes on and on. Whole scenes could have been cut to keep the laughter and crispness of the plot in check, but they weren't so we see the same type of jokes over and over again. 

The writers and director added unneeded layers to make the film more complex but there wasn't a good reason to do this. If Director James Mangold had left the film a bit more simple, I would have enjoyed it more knowing it was ride of thrills, spills and fun fluff.

Cruise is very good and convincing at being a slightly off kilter FBI agent that’s got skills galore, a funny intelligence and a hidden reason for doing what he is doing. Here he is fun to watch. Diaz is actually a perfect complement to Cruise. She is open, fully exposed, down to earth, and funny. Some of their scenes together are out loud funny and there was a fluidity of their roles which really worked. Peter Sarsgaard plays the villain FBI agent and he fulfills this small role effectively. He carries just the right amount of sinister-ism. Mangold, for the most part, did a good job of keeping the film moving, but the scenes became predictable and therefore trimming would have helped this film to become crisper and more watchable.

Overall: Not a bad film and definitely fun to watch Cruise and Diaz have fun together.

Get Him to the Greek

First Hit: There are moments that this film is really funny and there are times it felt sophomoric and I wanted the scene to move on.

Russell Brand plays Aldous Snow an aging rock star that was a wild child singer who made lots of money making rock albums then made a horribly conceived album. He decided to get clean of drugs but that didn't help his marriage or his career so he starts drinking and doing drugs again.

It is here we pick up the story because Sergio Roma (played by Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs) is a record label producer who looking for something big to create more income so that he can provide Nike Air Jordans for his six kids.

His minions have some stupid ideas but when he calls on Aaron Green (Jonah Hill), Aaron thinks that a 10th anniversary concert at the Greek Theater in LA with Aldous Snow will be a huge hit. He explains how it will be great and generate a lot of money by doing a simulcast with Facebook, Twitter and a "pay for view" cable channel.

Roma agrees and sends Green to fetch Snow and bring him back for the concert. The film has enough moments of well represented typical rock star lifestyle and its juxtaposition to a regular person’s life. There is the; I’ll do what I want when I want to do it thing.

There is the focus on “banging” as many girls as I can thing. And there is the I’ll do what it takes to get high to not feel what my life is really about stuff thing. To Green, at first it is fun but he sees the hurt and shallowness in it Snow and wonders if this is the life for him.

What detracted from the film are the sophomoric bents like the often seen Green vomiting because he can’t hold his liquor scenes.

Brand is great as Snow and held his own as a Jim Morrison, Mick Jagger, and Lars Ulrich version of a rock star. Hill is not an actor I find very entertaining as he appears to play the same sort of guy most of the time. He’s a semi thoughtful, unimaginative guy who longs to have a normal life and is a bit slow on the uptake. He uses his size to create sympathy and humor but there is little coming from his brain and heart. The chemistry between him and Daphne Binks (played by Elizabeth Moss) is virtually non-existent. Combs is funny and great as the music record producer. I love the dialogue about mind fucking. Nicholas Stoller and Jason Segel wrote this and there are moments of truly funny, laugh out loud, scenes and dialogue which director Stoller used really well.

Overall: Where I enjoyed watching Hangover a second time with my girlfriend, this film doesn’t have the ability to be funny or interesting the second time around because the laughs are one shot and some of the stuff gets old quick.