Ed's Review Dot Com

Movie Rentals Releasing Tuesday January 31, 2012

• In Time
• Drive
• Dream House
• The Thing
• The Double
• Thunder Soul

The Weinstein Company,

Sarah Jessica Parker, Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear, Christina Hendricks, Kelsey Grammer, Olivia Munn, Seth Meyers

Kate Reddy (Sarah Jessica Parker) is a finance executive who is the primary breadwinner for the family. She has a great job, and a husband (Greg Kinnear) and two children. Kate is the epitome of the working mom. But things just got worse when the task of a lifetime comes along. She’s worked hard to put together a proposal for a big company, and she has another worker, Chris Bunce (Seth Meyers) who is waiting to take over for her and grab the credit for the job. But Jack Abelhammer (Pierce Brosnan) is her counterpart at the other company, and it requires Kate to travel often. Jack is handsome, a widower who is really attracted to someone like Kate. Things are tough all around, as Richard is sick and tired of his wife being gone all the time, and distracted and distant when she is home, and Kate really loves her job, and the attention. If this sounds like a recipe for disaster, it is in this 180 degree turn on the workaholic husband who neglects his wife.

This was a surprisingly cute movie. I didn’t go in expecting much, and I’ve never been a big Sarah Jessica Parker fan, but she was really perfect for this movie. I have to admit, I enjoyed her here more than any film I have seen of hers. Greg Kinnear was really good as the Dad who’s trying to keep his family together in spite of the hardships. It was good to see Pierce Brosnan who was excellent as the lonely widower. Then throw in Kelsey Grammer as Kate’s boss, and a bunch of other great characters, and it was a really fun movie. It’s cute, and it’s touching, and it does show the challenges of being someone who loves their family and loving their job. She doesn’t want to choose between either job, but the stress of trying to do everything is just too much.

I was very pleasantly surprised by this film, and I have to say I really enjoyed it. The time flew by watching one challenge after the other. Though things progress pretty much as you would expect, there are a lot of surprises here. This could have ended really ugly, but it stayed suspenseful up to the closing credits. Truly I don’t know how she does it.

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Screen Gems, Castle Rock Entertainment, Zucker Productions,

Justin Timberlake, Mila Kunis, Patricia Clarkson, Jenna Elfman, Bryan Greenberg, Richard Jenkins, Woody Harrelson, Andy Samberg, Emma Stone

Jamie Rellis(Mila Kunis) is a New York head-hunter trying to get Dylan Harper (Justin Timberlake) to take a job with GQ Magazine in New York and move from the Los Angeles, the area which he loves. When he takes the job and makes the move to the Big Apple, he doesn’t know anyone and is kind of lonely. He and Jamie quickly become friends. As they become friends, they both realize that normal “romantic comedy” stuff is not for them. Sex is great, but the problems and jealousies of the relationship wreck everything. They find they both agree that becoming Friends With Benefits is perfect and they agree not to let any feeling wreck the connection they have. Jamie is emotionally damaged and Dylan just doesn’t want to get attached to anyone. But as time passes, they find they cannot help but develop feelings for each other, and if that is not cut off at the start, it may destroy everything after all.

This is basically the same story as “No Strings Attached” [Click here for EdsReview], but this one had the misfortune of coming second. Both movies are very similar, and I couldn’t really tell you which one is better. I enjoyed the first one because it was fresh. This then, seems similar. But if it were the other way around, this could easily have the 4 rating and the other one the 3.5. 🙂

This film has a lot of funny moments, and Justin and Mila pull it off pretty good. There are some really great supporting characters here too, Patricia Clarkson, Jenna Elfman, Woody Harrelson, Andy Samberg, and even Shaun White playing himself. It’s textbook romantic comedy, and has some very touching moments. So perhaps, not quite as good as No Strings Attached, it’s able to stand on it’s own fairly well. If you’re looking for a decent romantic comedy with a few really good laughs, you could do much worse than this one.

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1984 Private Defense Contractors, Liddell Entertainment, Scott Free Productions,

Liam Neeson, Frank Grillo, Dermot Mulroney, Dallas Roberts, Joe Anderson, Nonso Anozie, James Badge Dale, Ben Bray, Anne Openshaw

John Ottway (Liam Neeson) is in Alaska working for an oil company. His job is to watch out for wolves, and take them out if any come too close to the camp. But Ottway is having a personal crisis. He’s missing his wife, and severely depressed. On a flight with a bunch of the men from the camp, the plane is in distress and crashes out in the middle of nowhere. When Ottway wakes up in the freezing cold, he puts together the few survivors and makes a plan to survive by marching across the snow. But there are packs of wolves in the area, and they’re very defensive of their territory. It’s a huge struggle to get across the plain to search for civilization, and along the way, they’ll all find out what they’re made of.

This is a wild epic film with beautiful scenes of mountains and snow, and intense suspense and downright horror. But it’s not only a grand adventure, it’s a close introspection of self, what you believe and what you doubt, and what you’re made of. Ottway is determined to survive, at any price, yet it’s hard to figure out why. But in extremely harsh times, someone steps up and takes the lead, and that falls to him. He has the only experience with wolves, and therefore knows more about what it takes to survive than anybody else.

If you see this on the big screen with a spectacular sound system, you’re in for quite a few jolts!!! My wife grabbed my arm so hard at one point, I thought perhaps I’ll have a bruise. I truly jumped several times. But additionally, this film does a better job of putting you INSIDE the movie than any I’ve seen in a long, long time. The plane crash is edited in a way that you’ll think YOU were inside the plane. It’s terrifying. The cold and wind and snow is so close and you are in the fight with the wolves from start to finish.

There are many critics of this film. Some people hate it. There are a couple reasons for this. One is that wolves just don’t act like that. Well, ok, perhaps that’s a fact. Certainly you can’t dismiss Jaws because sharks don’t behave that way either. In this case, I will accept that wolves probably don’t hunt humans for sport, but that’s not important to this film. I don’t want the wolves to get a bad rap here, but the story is about survival, introspection, faith, and true grit. It’s not about wolves hunting people. The other reason is that some people claim that it’s a superficial story and the writers and director are too “full of themselves”. I dismiss this. This is really great work by Liam Neeson, and his supporting cast, and it’s a very exciting and suspenseful movie. So the job of writers and directors are to bring exciting and suspensful…and entertaining films to the screen. This is what they did, and they did a great job.

This is way too intense for youngsters, so please follow the guidelines for R rated film. It’s R because of the violence and intense FEAR in this movie, and it would provoke nightmares in kids, so please please don’t frighten your kids. But you want to see an extreme adventure with very intense, edge of the seat suspense, and downright terror, this is a great ride. I completely enjoyed this film, completely forgot that I was watching a movie, and felt as if I was in the middle of the terror. It is an excellent terror filled thriller!

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Universal Pictures, DreamWorks SKG, Reliance Entertainment,

Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell, Paul Dano, Noah Ringer, Keith Carradine, Adam Beach, Clancy Brown

The year is 1873, it’s in the desert in Arizona and Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) wakes up with no idea who he is or where he came from. The only clue is a mysterious metal bracelet. Meanwhile, life goes on in the town, with some ruffians who think they own the town. Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) and his sons and helpers give fits to every decent citizen in the town, but especially Sheriff John Taggart. But there are bigger problems as a race of aliens have crash landed in the desert with a plan to take over the earth. It seems that everyone is going to have to work together to fight the aliens, and as Jake gradually remembers who he is and what he’s there for a mysterious woman (Ella Swenson) seems to know some of the secrets.

This is a very unusual story based on a very unusual book. I have never heard of a story set in the old west that involved outer space killer aliens, but why not? Why are the modern people and the ancient Aztec’s the only ones who could see aliens. I was very excited for this film to come out, but I missed catching it in the theater. There were just too many other films at the time. So now it’s available on DVD.

I am really torn on this film. In one way there is a lot of action, terrible alien creatures that are nightmare inspiring. Harrison Ford is really good, and the western in this film isn’t half bad. But there is something fatally wrong with this film, and it’s really hard for me to put my finger on it. There just doesn’t seem to be any heart here. There is no depth to the story, no meaning, and no feeling. They are fighting alien creatures without purpose other than just to save their skin. If there’s nothing noble or meaningful, then it’s just fighting. Director Jon Favreau is known for his action scenes in films like Iron Man and Iron Man 2, but in this film, there just seems to be action and violence without much purpose.

I don’t mean that it’s a bad movie. I am glad I watched it on DVD, and if you’re a fan of westerns (these are very few and far between in these days), or huge action films with guns and explosions and lots of thing getting blown up, the for sure, catch this if you haven’t seen it. But if you’re look for a touching story, or a real intense drama, I’m afraid this didn’t quite cut it in that department. Acting is passing, storyline is a bit weak, and explosions are plenty. A good action film, and worth the rental, for sure.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog