Twilight

First Hit: The young teen girls in the theater cheered and swooned, the rest of us watched a mediocre story that was generally poorly acted.

Stephanie Myers wrote a book about a young girl falling in love with a vampire whose family only drinks animal blood (the vegetarians of vampires), not the blood of humans.

Kristen Stewart plays Bella the young girl having to move from Arizona to a small town in Washington State where her father lives. She is the new girl in school and becomes immediately attracted to one particular boy who is very pale and doesn’t come to school on sunny days.

The boy, Edward (played by Robert Patterson), hangs out with his family. His relatives all go to school together. They look and act a lot older than the rest of the high school kids which is mostly because they’ve been stuck at approximately age 17 for hundreds of years.

Edward is confused by and attracted to Bella because she is the only person whose mind he cannot read. She is fascinated by his shy reluctance, cute paleness, and brooding nature.

The film is about their trials and tribulations of becoming an accepted couple by their families and the community. Just as things start going well, a renegade trio of human blood sucking vampires come across Bella and would like to suck her blood. This, of course, leads to a fierce battle between two vampire types.

Stewart plays her character reasonably well as does Billy Burke who plays her quiet introverted policeman father. I didn’t think Patterson did much with his character except to look sullen, needy and wanting to be saved from his destiny. The story seemed haphazard and all over the place with filler stories trying to make this whole thing plausible. Catherine Hardwicke, who directed a very good Lords of Dogtown, did well to keep this thing on a track. I just don’t know if it was a poor story or a poor translation of the book.

Overall: There must be something about young girls wanting to save or fall in love with a vampire because the girls in the theater got off on this film. I think that a more interesting story would have been to explore the local Indians who made a deal with the vampires centuries ago. This was only briefly touched on a few times during the film.

Elegy

First Hit: A wonderful textured romantic film.

Consuelo (played by Penelope Cruz) is a sophisticated college student in a class taught by David Kepesh (played by Ben Kingsley).

At the end of each class he invites all his students to his house for a party. As an aging professor, he finds his sexual thrills by having an affair with his young women students but only after grades are submitted – hence the party.

He had been scoping out Consuelo during class and now at the party he seeks her out for conversation and showing off an original letter by Goya. Because Consuelo is sophisticated and doesn’t fall for overnight flings, David realizes he will have to “woo” her. As a side story to this film is his relationship and friendship with George (played by Dennis Hopper) who also is a serial dater but still married.

In their meetings George gives David advice about is budding relationship with Consuelo. However, at first he doesn’t heed George’s advice, falls in love Consuelo and can’t bring himself to say so or acknowledge his feelings. He also discovers something new; jealousy and experiences this emotion whenever they aren’t together.

When David decides he cannot meet her parents because of his age (he is 30 plus years older than her) she stops the relationship. However, in the end their true feelings for each other find a way to be expressed.

Kingsley is staid and powerful yet he lets the audience see his feelings which are right underneath the surface. As the film progress they become more accessible and we, the audience, get to see a wonderful subtle shift. Cruz is a revelation. This is the second film I’ve seen her in, in the last month. She has become a powerful actress staking a claim to being a great actress. In this film she is seductive, intelligent, beautiful, and powerful. I cannot say enough about her performance. Additionally, the director, Isabel Coixet, got very strong acting from her actors and her interpretation of the novella “The Dying Animal” by Philip Roth was extraordinary.

Overall: This is a strong romantic film with Cruz giving a powerful performance.

What Happens in Vegas

First Hit: There is nothing in this film that makes it romantic and little to make it funny.

Cameron Diaz plays Joy a floor broker on the New York Stock Exchange. She is engaged to a guy who decides that she is no fun and too controlling (schedule time to make a schedule).

Ashton Kutcher plays Jack who is generally irresponsible and gets fired by his father because he just screws around at work. These two, through some convincing of their best friends’, head to Las Vegas so that they can get away from it all and relax.

By happenstance the four of them end up in the same hotel room. After sorting it out with the front desk they end up spending an evening together getting drunk, gambling, dancing and Jack and Joy get married.

Through their hangover haze the next morning they decide they must get an annulment or divorce as quickly as possible because they don’t like each other and despise each other’s lifestyle. As they make this decision Joy’s quarter ends up in Jack’s hand and he puts it into a slot machine and wins 3 Million dollars.

Each of them wants the money but a judge decides they have to try to be a couple for 6 months before he will decide the case. Yes you know the outcome, they fight, manipulate and hurt each other but end up in each other’s arms, again.

There is no chemistry between these two on screen. The acting seemed forced and uneven. There is very little that is funny and some of the jabs and jokes are mean spirited (think Joy’s coworker and boss also Jack’s best friend and lawyer remarks' were just plain dumb). Their respective best friends are miscast and only there to provide some mean spirited prompting.

Overall: This film was a waste of time and is what needed to stay in Vegas.

My Blueberry Nights

First Hit: A moving, languidly paced, beautifully shot, and lingering film.

Nora Jones stars as Elizabeth a young woman who, after being jilted by her boyfriend and very hurt, wanders into a small New York neighborhood café where she and her past boyfriend use to eat.

The owner, Jeremy (played by Jude Law) remembers customers by what they order so she asks him if her boyfriend has been in lately. After determining, by food order type, who she is referring to, Jeremy says "yes", he’s been in here with someone else. She takes house keys out of her purse and asks Jeremy to give him to her former boyfriend next time he is in.

However Jeremy places them in a glass bowl with lots of other keys. Elizabeth, needing someone to talk with, comes back a few more nights as Jeremy is closing shop and they share some food, for her it’s Blueberry Pie because nobody else eats it.

During one visit, when she falls asleep with her head on the counter, you see Jeremy starting to fall in love with this beautiful, innocent, troubled creature. Elizabeth then leaves New York to find herself. Along the way she runs into Arnie (played by David Strathairn) a rejected alcoholic police officer and Sue Lynn his separated wife (played by Rachel Weisz).

The complications of their relationship and the pain they both are experiencing give Elizabeth something to learn from. Lastly she meets Leslie (played by Natalie Portman) who is a gambler with an “I’ve got the world by the balls” demeanor but all the while hiding a hurt daughter inside.

All these characters learn from Elizabeth as much as she learns from them.

Wong Kar-wai directed this film with a very caring hand. Staying with shots of people’s faces and scenes for longer than usual so that the audience sees and feels the changes the actors are going through. There are also a couple of shots done at an interesting angle which I found intriguing. Nora Jones is very good in her acting debut as Elizabeth. David Strathairn and Rachel Weisz are excellent as a confused addicted couple showing both resentment and a deep love for each other. Natalie Portman is, as always, great in this role as a troubled daughter attempting to escape and embrace life all at once. Jude Law is very good as Elizabeth’s touchstone and his patience in waiting for Elizabeth made me smile.

Overall: Once I settled into the pace of this film I was truly surprised at how well this film was crafted.

Definitely, Maybe

First Hit: Although Ryan Reynolds wasn’t really convincing, I found the story line and interplay between Ryan and Abigail Breslin, Elizabeth Banks, Isla Fisher, and Rachel Weisz to be engaging and thoughtful.

The film begins with Ryan (as Will Hayes) picking up his daughter Maya (played by Abigail) from school because it is his turn to have her stay with him. It is apparent that he thinks the world of her and having her on these particular days brings great joy to his life.

Will and his soon-to-be ex-wife are on the verge of signing the final divorce decree which was delivered to him at work just prior to his leaving to pick up his daughter from school. That evening with her curiosity running high, Maya begs him to tell her how she met her mom.

Reluctantly, he tells the story but with a twist, he tells her he is going to change the names of the 3 main women that were in his life and she is going to have to guess who her mom is. This makes the story fun and engaging, because as the story unfolds we live the story through the film.

On occasion we come back to him telling her this story while lying on her bed. As the story unfolds from his college days he weaves his lift into how he met each of these woman and what he liked about each one of them. What I liked about the way this narrative presented itself is that it was thoughtful from a thoughtful man’s point of view.

As the story unfolded I found myself guessing which woman it was and why. I liked each of the women and their relationship with Will and also saw why each failed. But the emphasis was the wonderfulness of each of the women and maybe this is just a guy thing, but it is a nice way to remember the women we love. We do find out who Maya’s mother is and then Maya encourages Will to reconnect with one of the other women because she thinks this will make him happy.

Overall: Although I didn’t think much of Ryan’s acting, I thought the way the film was written, directed and the way it fleshed out the relationships more than made up for this and was truly enjoyable.