Easy A

First Hit: Very smart film and Emma Stone is one of the few young actresses that could have pulled it off.

Films about high-school always seem to wallow in jocular and simple gross humor. Not that this film doesn’t play off of that type of humor, but what makes this film different is the way it’s done.

Stone plays Olive Penderghast who wants to be asked out on a date, seems to be not seen by the boys, doesn’t like the Christian club group at school, and has a best friend Rhiannon (played by Alyson Michalka) whom she shares her intimate information.

The backing and support she receives from her hip parents Dill (played by Stanley Tucci) and Rosemary (played Patricia Clarkson) allow her to be the smart, quipping, and intelligent girl she plays. To fix her non-existent reputation and the reputation of her gay friend she pretends to have sex with him at a large party given by the most popular girl in the school. They make it real enough that everyone thinks she puts out.

By doing this other guys think the gay guy is not gay and think that if they pay her, she will solidify their reputation as a hot guy. The thing is that nothing ever happens, she takes their money and spins the story the guys want spun about themselves.

The downside is everyone at the school thinks she is a slut. Because they are studying “The Scarlet Letter” in school she decides to sew a red “A” on her outfits. This causes additional negativity towards her and also allows her to also be more flippant and sarcastic.

Despite the fun she has with creating all the high school rumors about herself, it’s also causing problems in her life. Her parents support and share stories with her as a way to allow her to find her own way to resolve the lies being told about her. It has to start by changing the lies she told about everyone else.

Stone is dead on perfect for this part. She embodies the smart-alecky, good looking, somewhat plain, intelligent and self-understanding to carry this part from beginning to end. Tucci is wonderful as her father and it is easy to see the intelligent connection between the two. Clarkson is equally good as her mother and the talk they have on the hood of the Volvo is precious. Thomas Haden Church as Mr. Griffith is strong as Olive’s favorite teacher and Lisa Kudrow as Mrs. Griffith is good as the school guidance counselor who has her own shenanigans. Bert V. Royal wrote a strong and smart script. Will Gluck took this smart script and great cast and made a funny and thoughtful high school aged film.

Overall: This film was fun and joy to watch. It is smart and funny and not foolish.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

First Hit: Inventive filmmaking and acting made this a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

I like when people take some risks. Edgar Wright took the story written by Michael Bacall, Bryan Lee O’Malley and Wright, himself, and turned it into a visual reality based on the combination of comic book graphics and real life.

Like in the very old days of TV Batman, Wright’s team used graphics in expressing actions and words while adding interesting patterns of staging and lighting to this story. Telephone rings and you see “rrrriiiiinnnngggg” super imposed on a wall or table. People fly through the air like they do in amazing Asian martial arts fighting scenes. Edgy music adds a powerful punch to the background visuals and adds to the fun and enjoyment of this film.

And I just loved the names of the characters including: Pilgrim (played by Michael Cera) who is in a band named Sex Bob Ombs, had an old girlfriend name Kim Pine (played by Alison Pill) that broke his heart (he was pining for her), finds Knives Chau (played by Ellen Wong) who is a high school girl who likes Pilgrim and cuts to the chase, runs into Ramona Flowers (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) whom he falls in love with immediately and she changes hair color weekly, and discovers that to hang with Ramona he must defeat her seven evil ex’s.

The band members’ names are Stephen Stills (played by Mark Webber), Young Neil (played by Johnny Simmons) and Julie Powers on drums (played by Aubrey Plaza). When the band gets invited to play a "battle of the bands", Pilgrim also has to defeat the seven ex’s if he wants to keep his new girlfriend. In these scenes he is a martial arts master and as soon as he conquers an evil ex, a pinball score rises over the ex’s head and the person turns to coins (a payoff).

All through this, there are other amusing and funny moments as the story unfolds. There are lessons to learn for all the characters and the film is fun to watch. It has a level of freshness to it that felt like I was seeing something interesting on the screen that didn't measure its worth by how big the explosion had to be.

Cera is still playing the nerdy boy with some smarts which he occasionally uses. He plays this role often and someday he might want to try something totally different. Wong was fabulous as Knives. She captured the character extremely well. Winstead was also very strong as Ramona. Pill was good as the previous girlfriend who broke Pilgrim’s heart. Webber, Simmons and Plaza were great as band members who put up with and supported Pilgrim through the adventure. Kieran Culkin was fabulous as Pilgrim’s gay roommate. Wright directed with film with fun and an eye for color and scenes which spoke clearly.

Overall: Not sure I’d like to see a lot of films shot this way, but when one comes along that is this well crafted, it is definitely worth it.

The Other Guys

First Hit: An insipidly lost film with little direction and a hopeless story.

I’ve mentioned this before that I don’t think Will Ferrell is much as an actor and somewhat bankrupted as a comedian. That is a given. But what was a good actor like Mark Wahlberg thinking by being in this film?

The writing by Adam McKay and Chris Henchy was completely lost, had no focus, and devoid of a meaningful subject and worse as comedy.

The opening sequences with Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson were mildly amusing as a spoof on super-hero cops, but then to have them jump off building and commit suicide while in pursuit of criminals was totally lost on me. What was the point of this?

The Other Guys, who are the wanna be cops in the squad room, was totally a misrepresentation of anything cops do, or don’t do, and if it was supposed to be ironic it totally missed the mark. Terry Hoitz (played by Wahlberg) is a damaged cop because he mistakenly shot Derek Jeter in the leg and now the whole city of New York hates and reviles him.

His partner Allen Gamble (played by Ferrell) was a desk cop, who worked in accounting, but now has to be a real detective and risk himself on the streets. They are a mismatched partnership and don’t get along.

There are a few moments of real laughter as they display their differences, but mostly they go through this film mugging and pretending to work on a case together. The aspect that all beautiful women are attracted to Gamble falls flat and is nowhere believable.

The story line that they tracking down a racketeer is only reasonable because Gamble worked in the accounting department, nothing else works.

Ferrell cannot act. The difference between a good comedian acting as a straight man and a bad one is to watch Steve Carell in his latest film and watch Ferrell in this one; night and day. Carell is great and Ferrell is insipid. Wahlberg must be having a crisis of confidence to take on this film. He is can be a very good actor but here he must be just picking up a paycheck. It was nice to see Michael Keaton again on the screen in the role as Ferrell’s and Wahlberg’s boss. Jackson and Johnson are a good team together and their egos work well. Maybe the film needed to focus on them. McKay co-wrote and directed this mess and if he gets to direct another film he better be watched over by someone who knows something about film making.

Overall: This film is useless at all levels.

Dinner for Schmucks

First Hit: Parts of this film are very very funny while other segments seemed only to exist to extend its length (think long setups) and to make the film more serious.

This is a remake (or re-hash) of the French film Le diner de cons (The Dinner Game) in which a group of people bring the dumbest person they can find for dinner.

In this film Paul Rudd plays Tim, a well-meaning man who is overextended financially, works for a company that is financially struggling, has a great girlfriend and is out to impress her and others.

His next step is to move from the sixth floor to the seventh floor in his office building which means he’ll be one of the executives who gets paid a lot more money and has some clout in the company. He thinks that with this promotion he'll be able to afford the lifestyle he thinks he needs to have for him and his girlfriend Julie (played by Stephanie Szostak).

When he makes a gutsy move during a business meeting, he catches the eye of his boss who tells him he can move up to the seventh floor if he passes an initiation. The initiation is going to dinner at the bosses house and to bring an idiot.

Julie hears of this event and trusts Tim to turn down the dinner because it's cruel to invite an idiot to dinner for the sole purpose of making fun of him. But Tim wants to do both and is afraid if he doesn’t go through with it he’ll lose Julie.

This is where Steve Carell as Barry the idiot comes to the rescue. He’s an IRS agent who is kind of heart, creates havoc wherever he goes, has good intentions, and takes dead mice, stuffs them, dresses them and makes idyllic scenes of love with them.

How all this ends up you’ll have to watch the film, but let it be known, there are some very funny scenes and some long winded sequences which could have used some shears to make this film really crisp and funny.

Carell is absolutely perfect as the well-meaning guy who could use some real friends, has an odd hobby, and is well intentioned in his actions. I loved the playing dead sequences – perfect. Rudd is pretty good at staying close to his base character and not over acting to more closely mirror some of the action around him. Jemaine Clement is superb as the artist who is really self absorbed and thinking he is the gift of man to all women. Zach Galifianakis is great as Carell’s IRS co-worker who believes he has the power of mind control. Szostak is OK as Rudd’s girlfriend but as if she didn’t bring anything unique to the part or film.

Overall: I really laughed hard as many of the films segments and bits but there were moments I was just waiting for the next thing to happen.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

First Hit: The story isn’t terribly new nor is the dialogue particularly interesting but it has its charm.

The name of the film brings up fantasies of the enormously beautiful and powerful 1940’s film "Fantasia" by Walt Disney.

I didn’t sleep for days after watching "Fantasia" because of “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” segment where Mickey gets in trouble with the magic broom. Those brooms popping out of nowhere and multiplying as Mickey tried to stop them with his hatchet is unforgettable.

Alas, here we are with Nicolas Cage as Balthazar Blake a man who is a direct apprentice of Merlin. He is here to find the next in line to Merlin’s throne and the person who will keep the evil wizards, who are stuck in a Russian doll, from coming back to life and destroying the world.

Balthazar finds Dave (played by Jay Baruchel) who fits the bill when the special ring left by Merlin fits him. Being skeptical, Dave finds Balthazar a bit eccentric but soon learns that he’s on to something big.

The film takes us through Dave’s disbelief, acceptance, promotion, and finally conquering the evil forces within himself and the ones trying to destroy the world. Much of the film is overdone, the dialogue trite, but there are nice and fun segments including a tip of the hat to Mickey’s magic broom sequence.

Cage is very dramatic adding fun and life to the character and the film. Baruchel is good enough to make his character work and geeky enough to be believable. Teresa Palmer as Becky Barnes is OK but I couldn’t buy her caring about Baruchel’s character. Alfred Molina as head evil apprentice, Maxim Horvath, full of life and fun to watch. His scenes are entertaining to say the least. Director Jon Turteltaub spent too much time giving Producer Jerry Bruckheimer big effects. I think there was a better film somewhere than what was produced.

Overall: This film is entertaining, has some nice, if not overdone, special effects, and keeps one minimally satisfied throughout its 109 minutes.