Chloe

First Hit: A middling film which never fooled me for a moment by its supposed premise.

I love when I’m fooled by the premise of a film. Whereas you are set up to believe one thing but find out that it is something else.

"The Sixth Sense" was one of those films which did this well. I watched that film two more times just to see if there were obvious holes in the premise that I missed, there weren’t.

In Chloe we are given the premise that David Stewart (played by Liam Neeson) is having an affair. This is fueled by his wife Catherine’s (played by Julianne Moore) sneaking a look at his cell phone, his lack of affection, his nightly work meetings, and his charm with waitresses. She decides to hire a hooker named Chloe (played by Amanda Seyfried) to test her husband’s fidelity. Chloe reports back to Catherine about her rendezvous’ with David.

As Chloe’s stories get more vivid and sexual, Catherine becomes excited and eventually engages with Chloe in intimate ways. As the story plays out we end up seeing communication between Catherine and David would have resolved any misperceptions but then again the film wouldn’t have been made.

Neeson holds his part of the story rather well. Moore’s character needed additional background as to why she felt so threatened. Their son Michael, played by Max Thieriot, seemed out of place most of the film until his presence is required by Chloe to create a twist.

Seyfried was cute and somewhat effective as Chloe, but with little understanding as to her background we have no basis for knowing why she moves in the direction she does in this film. The story by Erin Cressida Wilson and Anne Fontaine is weak and doesn’t really have enough character background to create suspense. Atom Egoyan directed this film evenhandedly but either he didn’t push a strong story or had a weak story and did the best he could.

Overall: At best this is a video film to watch when you’ve nothing else to do.

The Runaways

First Hit: A very enjoyable film which treads evenly on many different themes.

Because I play guitar and attempt to sing and was in a high school band, I’m always up for a film on rock bands or personalities which have something to say or that I’ve followed.

The biggest interest for me with The Runaways was that they were one of the few all girl rock bands that actually fought through the primarily male focus business and made a name for themselves.

This film chronicles the bands birth by Joan Jett (played by Kristen Stewart), her meeting with producer Kim Fowley (played by Michael Shannon) and him putting Jett together with other musicians. The film also highlights the lead singer Cherie Curry’s (played by Dakota Fanning) rise and fall.

The script, taken from Cherie’s book “Neon Angel: A Memoir of A Runaway” is clearly a firsthand account of her coming of age and the beginnings of a history making band. These girls were very young (Curry was 15 at the time) and their ability to make their presence known in the very macho world of rock was amazing.

This movie shows that it was a combined effort of gall, talent, driven determination, and a bit of luck.

Stewart is really wonderful to watch as she embodies Jett’s mannerisms and drive to be a successful rock and roll musician. Fanning surprised me, in a positive way, with her grown appearance and ability to take on this roll of a young girl who becomes the lead singer and face of the band. Fanning creatively embodied and captured the naivety of the experience Curry went through. Shannon was a blast to watch and probably enjoyed doing this film.

Overall: Definitely a fun and interesting film giving life to the mid 1970s and what it must have been like for all girl rock bands.

The Good Guy

First Hit: After, what I would call, a clunky start this film ended up being pretty good.

There have been numerous Wall Street based films showing the attitude and lifestyles of the people who work there.

This films starts near its end then rewinds 6 weeks to show how one Wall Street player gets to the point where he’s standing in the rain, without his wallet and borrowing money from a girl to pay another one off.

However, this isn’t the point of the film, and for this I was grateful. The rewind gives you an illusion that Tommy (played by Scott Porter) is really an up-front guy especially when he goes against his boss Cash (played by Andrew McCarthy) for letting Tommy’s top broker leave the company.

As his replacement, Tommy wants the honest quiet guy Daniel (played by Bryan Greenberg) to take his place. Tommy takes Daniel under his wing and attempts to teach him how to be a player in the market and in life. He tries to show him how to pick up women and be the kind of guy clients want to trust.

But Daniel holds true to form and although he can put a deal together, when it comes to interpersonal relationships he is simply a nice, open and thoughtful kind of man. He meets up with Tommy’s latest girlfriend Beth (played by Alexis Bledel) only realize that he genuinely likes her.

The story line is reasonably and surprisingly strong and the film has a way of capturing your interest after the initial 10 minutes of clumsy set-up.

Scott Porter effectively carries the look and feel of a Wall Street player who makes more money than he needs and has let it go to his head. The scenes when he gets blown off by one of his sex partners and leaves the club angry only to be standing in the street making call after call to find a girl he’s going to sleep with that night is effective and telling. He dials the number, puts on his game face, only to leave a message that says he’s ready to see her if she's available. McCarthy is good as Porters boss and sarcastic enough to be believable. Bledel is very good at walking the line of trusting and not trusting her boyfriend Tommy. Her words and facial expressions are very good at portraying this. Greenberg is also very good at holding his character in place. He’s thoughtful and yet trying to be in a business that is thoughtless and he does this very well.

Overall: I would have thought that this film would do better than it has done so far and would recommend seeing it if it shows up at a theater, DVD, or On Demand sometime.

Remembr Me

First Hit: A good film about two young people who have obvious wounds and are looking to grow through them.

I’m waiting for Robert Pattinson to be offered and/or accept a role which has his character be something other than dark, moody, mumbling his words, and wounded in some way. 

In this film he is a wounded character again and I must say he has it down pretty good. It has a wonderful effect on young girls in the theater (the whole row behind me) want to save him.

Anyway Pattinson plays Tyler Hawkins estranged son of a rich powerful New York executive named Charles Hawkins (played by Pierce Brosnan). As the story unfolds he’s estranged because his older brother Michael killed himself and Tyler blames some of it on their dad. He also has a younger sister named Caroline (played by Ruby Jerins) who depends on Tyler for love and guidance.

One evening Tyler tries to assist two innocent men from getting beat up by a couple of bullies and ends up mouthing off to a police Sergeant (played by Chris Cooper) who, in-turn, beats him and then throws him in jail. His roommate, Adin (played by Tate Ellington), gets him to date the sergeant’s daughter Ally Craig (played by Emilie de Ravin) to somehow get back at the Sergeant.

Ally’s own life is tragic because she witnessed her mother's murdered on a subway platform when she was 11 years old. These two wounded people like each other and go through their individual trials and tribulations as the relationship evolves.

The story line has a unhappy ending which I found intriguing, however I did see this ending prior to the major clue being given in the film.

Pattinson, as I mentioned before, has sullen and troubled down pat and here he does it well again. Ravin was compelling as Ally and I liked her involvement during the film. Jerins was great as the young sister and felt she glued a lot of the story together. Brosnan was effectively distant, cold, and affected as the hurting father. Although Cooper is usually dead on perfect with his character, here I didn’t buy his character. There was something missing. The story by Will Fetters was good and I liked how he linked Gandhi and other philosophical points view into the script. Ellington was the worst part of the film. I couldn’t see him being the actual roommate as his character was overly insensitive and mostly clueless. Allen Coulter directed and although it isn’t a groundbreaking film, the lighting and shots effectively captured being in New York. He also kept the pacing even and it seemed the actors were well in hand.

Overall: This isn’t a great film. And, it probably will do well with the teenage and early twenties crowd as it has appeal. It also has strong lines sprinkled throughout if one really listens to the dialogue.

Green Zone

First Hit: Intense, interesting and powerful film providing a telling view of just how bad and desperate our previous administration was.

Paul Greengrass creates an intense film by using heavy shaky camera moves during opening sequences which have a team of soldiers looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) at sites identified by US Intelligence.

Matt Damon plays “Chief Miller” a Chief Warrant Officer heading up a team of people looking for these WMDs which was the reason why we invaded Iraq. Each site they encounter there are no weapons, only bird shit and emptiness.

Miller starts to outwardly question the intelligence to his superiors and he is told to stifle his comments and just do as he is told by these commanding officers. The intelligence for these validated WMD sites comes from an Iraqi insider code named “Magellan”.

As Miller starts asking questions, a longtime CIA operative, a reporter and an Iraqi civilian make contact adding pieces to the puzzle as to why all the sites are empty and why US government is very adamant about keeping their deceit about their validated intelligence from the public.

Greengrass did an outstanding job of making dramatic, the story about how the Bush Administration fooled us all just so he could be a bully on the block and topple a man and government in another country. Damon is, as always, compelling, believable, and outstanding in his role as a man who is true to the truth even if it is against the his government’s version of the truth. Yigal Naor is very strong, steady and perfect as Hussein’s top General who provided accurate WMD information that was ignored by Clark Poundstone (played by Greg Kinnear). Kinnear is great as a the lead orchestrator in Iraq of our deceit.

Overall: This is a very compelling dramatic film about how the US Public and the world was misled about our “verified” intelligence about WMD stored in facilities around Iraq.