Ed's Review Dot Com

Paramount Pictures, Denver and Delilah Productions, Indian Paintbrush

Charlize Theron, Patrick Wilson, Patton Oswalt, Elizabeth Reaser, J.K. Simmons, Emily Meade, Collette Wolfe, Brady Smith, Louisa Krause, Jenny Dare Paulin

Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) is a girl who left the small town where she was raised to become a writer of fiction. She is under pressure for the next book when she receives a baby notification from her old boyfriend and it really makes her MAD. It really bugs here that her ex, Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson) and his wife Beth (Elizabeth Reaser) would have the gall to send a new baby notice to an ex sweetheart, so she becomes obsessed with him and heads off back home Buddy has no idea why she’s back and he doesn’t see what coming on the horizon. Happily married, he is not interested, but Mavis is so persistent that she is not going to let him escape. Patton Oswalt plays a fried to both of them who is caught in the middle.

To call a movie quirky is easy, but this one fits that description better than most! It is not really a outstanding movie, but it’s definitely not bad. It was well worth watching. To be honest, Patrick Wilson was kind of wooden, and I am not sure why she wants him back so bad. But her life is a mess, and I guess she’s trying to go back to a happier place. Patton Oswalt plays his character very well. He has a back story that is as funny as it is tragic, and he plays this guy very well and brings a lot to the film. The character he plays reminds me of the guy he played in Showtime’s US of Tara series. He’s the same kind of lovable looser that he plays so well.

All in all, Young Adult is really about a girl who never grew up who has a lot to learn about herself, and it’s fun watching all the destruction and devastation along the way. I enjoyed it, and if you you’re up for a romantic comedy with more comedy than romance, but not fall off the couch, roll on the floor laughs, but a more grown up look at a girl who is coming to know herself, then this is the one. I enjoyed this.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Indigo Film, Medusa Film, Mercurio Cinematografica,

Kseniya Rappoport, Filippo Timi, Antonia Truppo, Gaetano Bruno, Fausto Russo Alesi, Michele Di Mauro, Lucia Poli, Edoardo La Scala

Guido (Filippo Timi) is a former cop and trying the speed dating scene. He meets a Slovenian immigrant Sonia (Ksenia Rappoport) who is a maid at a local hotel. The two fall for each other and it turns into a passionate affair until something terrible happens to Sonia and her past comes back to haunt her. What follows is a dark and twisty story, part real, and part unreal, that leads us into a convoluted mess of an existence.

This film is a foreign film, in Italian actually, with subtitles. There are so many twists and turns that you have to follow closely to catch the direction changes as they come along. I watched this on NetFlix Watch Instantly, and I don’t know if I’m the only one, but my PC speakers seem to work fine for everything else, but typically NetFlix films are very soft. The sound just doesn’t come through. Watching DVD’s and streaming videos are fine, but NetFlix films have had this problem before. My attempts to follow the subtitles without musical and sound effects queues made me lose a lot of the story. Then it was so complicated that I found it very hard to keep up. The whole thing seem contrived to me, and took twists and turns just to confuse the story. I wasn’t impressed with the actors or the script, and the story seemed unnecessarily complex. I was tempted to turn it off multiple times, but stuck through it to the end and was very disappointed with the surprise ending. Not much redeeming quality here, and I don’t recommend this one!

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Recorded Picture Company (RPC), Lago Film, Prospero Pictures,

Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender, Vincent Cassel, Sarah Gadon, André Hennicke, Arndt Schwering-Sohnrey, Mignon Remé

This movie is a historical drama based on the lives of several famous people. The story revolves around Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) who is a young Russian girl suffering from mental problems and admitted to a mental hospital where she was treated by Dr. Carl Jung (Michael Fassbinder) who found himself attracted to her. She was treated and became much more stable, and actually began studying to become a psychiatrist herself. Meanwhile Jung became friends with Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and the two formed a lifelong friendship and collaboration, even though Jung didn’t always agree with Freud’s theories. Jung was much more open minded about things that were not understandable. Based on a book about Spielrein, it covers the conflicts in each of their lives and this interesting trio of early pioneers in the shrink business.

This is a rather slow and unfortunately boring story. This week has been full of films that have a good idea, and a good premise, but don’t seem to go anywhere. Knightley’s attempts at a Russian accent was commendable, but not very good. Anytime things got to dramatic, the English accent would return. It was nerve wracking sometimes. Being her story, it focused less on Jung and Freud who are rather interesting subjects. Speilrein, on the other hand, was a flamboyant and colorful character, but her short life wasn’t actually that spell-binding. The story seemed to drag on. As time goes by, I found myself not liking any of the characters, and it was a relief when it was finally over. I didn’t absolutely hate the movie, as there were some good scenes, especially early one when Speilrein was really nuts. She did a good job playing the insane woman. But as time went on, I just found myself wishing it would end. Not highly recommended, unless you’re really interested in the characters, but I’m sure there are better studies on the lives of these famous doctors, better than this one.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Movie Rentals Releasing Tuesday April 10, 2012

• The Iron Lady
• The Darkest Hour
• Into the Abyss
• Pastorela

Universal Pictures, Relativity Media, Studio Canal,

Rowan Atkinson, Dominic West, Gillian Anderson, Rosamund Pike, Daniel Kaluuya, Richard Schiff, Ben Miller, Pik Sen Lim, Togo Igawa, Mark Ivanir, Burn Gorman

Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson) has been sent off to learn kung fu fighting techniques in a form of rehab. After his screw-ups in Johnny English (2003), he was mostly just sent away to get him out of everyone’s hair. But the leadership of MI-7 has changed, and now Pamela (Gillian Anderson) is in charge, and much to her despair, she’s forced to call Johnny back in to protect the Chinese from assassination by Vortex, the evil group that wants to disrupt the balance of power in the world. Enter Johnny English who does his best to do the job with the help of perhaps his only friend Kate Sumner (Rosamund Pike) who can tell when someone is telling the truth by reading their body language.

Johnny English Reborn is just as silly as the original was. You’ll probably have a hard time remembering back to 2003 when the original came out. It’s been so many years, that I probably should have done a refresher on the old one before watching the sequel. By this time, it’s nearly a new concept again! Of course it’s silly. That’s what Rowan Atkinson does….think of Mr. Bean with a license to kill. He hams it up through his way bungling and screwing-up in a way that actually works, if you wait long enough.

I’ve always been a Mr. Bean fan, so I enjoyed this film a fair amount, just because of the character. It is a ripoff of Peter Sellers work in The Pink Panther and Leslie Neilsen’s Naked Gun movies, for sure, but in a Beany way that makes it ok. My wife and I enjoyed it. But I wouldn’t run out to purchase this one on BluRay to add to your collection, unless you’re really a Rowan Atkinson fan. It is, after all, very silly and probably not worth multiple viewings! But it’s definitely worth a rental if you like films like I mentioned above that have comedy and inept cops or secret agents that stumble their way to success. Personally, I think it’s good harmless fun, and worth renting. But if you’re not a fan of these kinds of “silly” comedies, then avoid it, for goodness sake.

Welcome back Johnny English. Nice work.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog