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Eric's Blog July 30, 2010

Friday movie roundup - July 30

In keeping with the official theme of summer 2010 -- "Eh, Good Enough" -- this week's new wide releases are all B-minuses. They fall within the "good" range, but not very far into it. They're good enough that I wouldn't try to discourage anyone who was thinking of seeing them from doing so, but neither would I recommend them to anyone who wasn't already considering them. Basically, whatever your plans were this weekend, go ahead.

Movie Review: "Dinner for Schmucks" (B-) July 30, 2010

Don't ask me to take them seriously

Hollywood rarely does farce right. A pure, all-out farce usually has something dark at the center (death and adultery are common favorites), broad physical gags, clever misunderstandings, and buffoons in need of comeuppance. Most importantly, a farce never takes anything seriously. Its characters are two-dimensional, and any lessons they happen to learn are basic.

Movie Review: "Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore" (B-) July 30, 2010

007 -- that's like 049 in dog years

I don't know why it took them nine years to make a sequel to "Cats & Dogs," an amusing but largely forgettable family flick that had domestic canines and felines running a secret war against each other. I don't know why they made a sequel at all, other than that the first one was profitable. But "Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore," while hit-or-miss in the joke department, is a reasonably clever spoof of spy movies, with all the elements translated to the animal world. It's good fun.

Movie Review: "Charlie St. Cloud" (B-) July 30, 2010

A boy's best friend is his dead brother

Zac Efron is too pretty and has starred in too many films with the words "High School Musical" in the title to be taken very seriously as an actor, but he's getting there. He acquits himself fairly well as the title character in the sentimental, teen-focused melodrama "Charlie St. Cloud," tackling a lot of grown-up-actor tricks like Crying and Mourning and Being Sad. If some unknown 22-year-old actor had given the same performance in the same movie, I think there'd be a lot less automatic scoffing from those outside the teen-girl demographic.

Movie Review: "The Kids Are All Right" (B) July 28, 2010

But the adults are kind of messed up

The relationship at the center of "The Kids Are All Right" is unorthodox -- spoiler alert, they're lesbians -- but it's depicted more realistically than most movie relationships are. It turns out you can be loving and committed and still have disagreements. There isn't always one partner who's immature and selfish while the other is saintly; sometimes both parties are flawed. Astonishing but true!

Eric's Blog July 26, 2010

Angry letters: Leave Michael alone!

Several weeks ago, a Twitter person called @LadyRobyn sent me the following succession of messages:

Eric's Blog July 23, 2010

Friday movie roundup - July 23

It's a weekend of girl power at the moving-picture shows! The better of the two options is "Ramona and Beezus" (review at Film.com), a perfectly pleasant (if narratively jumbled) G-rated confection based on the beloved children's books. Don't see it if you don't have kids with you, though, because that's weird.

Movie Review: "Ramona and Beezus" (B-) July 23, 2010

I can see Cleary now, the rain is gone

As you probably know if you were born anytime after 1950, Ramona Quimby is an imaginative, spunky little girl who's always getting into trouble without meaning to. She was a central figure in eight novels written by Beverly Cleary between 1955 and 1999, yet somehow she has never been the subject of a movie until now. It's a little disgraceful that Marmaduke got a movie before Ramona did.

Movie Review: "Salt" (C+) July 23, 2010

These pretzels are making me thirsty!

"Salt" has most of the ingredients for a tasty, Bourne-style espionage casserole. It just doesn't have them in the right amounts. You need action sequences, of course, and a butt-kicking hero, and a certain degree of uncertainty about whether the good guys are all completely trustworthy. A nefarious plan to assassinate, oh, say, the president adds flavor. For a nice retro feel, it doesn't hurt to bring back a favorite villain from yesteryear, like the Russians.