Ed's Review Dot Com

Gaumont, Screen Australia, Ciné@,

Naomi Watts, Robin Wright, Xavier Samuel, James Frecheville, Ben Mendelsohn, Sophie Lowe, Jessica Tovey, Gary Sweet, Alyson Standen, Skye Sutherland, Sarah Henderson

Two friends, Lil (Naomi Watts) and Roz (Robin Wright) live beside with their young sons on the sea coast in Australia. They have been friends through their whole lives. The boys are also very good friends. One is single, the other married to a man who is distant and not present most of the time. He wants to move to the mainland but his wife rejects moving with him in lieu of staying with her friend which leads people to think they are a couple. But far from it, an affair starts between the two mothers and each others sons. This, of course, requires extreme secrecy, even between the two friends until one of the sons wants to get married, and things start falling apart sending shock waves through the entire community.

This is a rather useless film. There is drama and fighting, and lots of screaming, but there’s no real point to it. The movie doesn’t take a side on this kind of behavior, but rather just gives us the attitude of “it is what it is”. To say I was shocked by this film is not true, but at the same time, I was not disgusted either. Disappointed, perhaps, is a better term. These people are acting stupidly and hiding it makes things much worse. I just was not into this movie, and found it a little off-putting. I’m not sure why it was made, but it did not have anything really that could keep my interest. It was like watching the Jerry Springer Show. You know the people are acting badly for the cameras and it really can’t shock us anymore. So pass this one by. It’s not worth it.

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Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Regency Enterprises, Wild West Picture Show Productions,

Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Rose Byrne, Max Minghella, JoAnna Garcia Swisher, John Goodman, Will Ferrell, Jessica Szohr, Dylan O’Brien, Josh Gad

Billy McMahon (Vince Vaughn) and Nick Campbell (Owen Wilson) are salesmen suddenly put out of work when their company shuts down due to the competition from the internet. They find themselves out of work, and not really qualified for anything else. Billy finds a job for them as interns for Google, but this turns into a giant competition. The interns are divided up to teams and then sent out on a quest to gain the most points for their team in a serious of competitions, and only the winning team will be hired. But of course no one wants to team up with these two, since even though they try to hire their tech savvy ignorance at every step, it still is apparent that they can’t complete with the college geniuses they’re up against, so they end up assigned with the group of losers and misfits.

This turned into a new age version of “Revenge of the Nerds” in a way, but I found it much better than I ever expected. There was some real humor in this flick, along with some real heartfelt moments. Immediately everyone rules them out as useless, but the boys prove that experience is an advantage and pretty soon the team looks up to them. With Vince and Owen in the film, obviously the humor is good, and there are some really classic moments. All in all I found this an interesting film, and I had the chance to witness the lifestyle in this film first hand for a week when I was invited to the Microsoft Campus one week back in 1999. I was amazed at the amenities on campus and had the same kind of wide eyed wonderment that Nick and Billy felt when I saw what life is like in this world. The purpose is to keep these genius kids busy and to have them never leave the campus. It’s a great place to live, and basically anything thing you could want or need is available here. Though it’s unbelievable, that’s a lot like how it really is. This movie was much stronger than I expected, mostly due to the supporting cast which did an excellent job. Not to take away from Vince and Owen, they give us just what we expect from them, but the rest of the cast was unexpected. One other unique thing about this film. This is my very first ever experience renting a film from RedBox. I’ve been wanting to do that for years and years, but I’ve never really needed to make a DVD run like the old Wherehouse and BlockBuster days, but it was a good experience. This movie got caught up in the “Long Wait” problem at NetFlix as I didn’t get it on release day, and soon was buried down in the queue. I like to review new releases as soon as possible after release to give you a heads up on what I like and what I don’t, but this one slipped through the cracks. I think I will utilize the RedBox thing more often in the future. It was a nice experience.

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Occupant Films,

Amber Heard, Anson Mount, Whitney Able, Michael Welch, Edwin Hodge, Aaron Himelstein, Luke Grimes, Melissa Price, Brooke Bloom

Mandy Lane (Amber Heard) has turned into a beautiful girl. Orphaned and raised by her aunt, Mandy is not only beautiful, but very selective. But all the guys want to get her. Some friends plan a weekend outing on a secluded ranch owned by one of the boys, and they are delighted when Mandy agrees to join several other girls and go to the ranch. No one is home except for a rough ranch hand who doesn’t seem too happy to have all the kids around, but Mandy takes a liking to him and tries to invite him into their Truth or Dare game, but when bodies start piling up, it looks like no one is going to end up with Mandy, and perhaps no one will survive the trip.

This is a 2006 movie that is just newly released on DVD, and apparently had a brief theater run. I’m not sure why this was held so long before release in the US. It has been available for some time in other countries. This is a horror film, most of all, but it starts out like one of the teen movies that are so common. It takes a dark twist in a hurry and ends up with a bit of a surprise ending. Some of you may see it coming, but I was caught by surprise. The acting is way better than normal in this type of film, and though the formula is familiar, it does a pretty good job of making it fresh by the surprises along the way. The film is not the most bloody and gory movie I’ve seen. It has a few moments of gore, but it’s not a heavy handed as some of the genre. It is definitely not a movie for kids though, and deserves the R rating it earned. If you’re a fan of horror films, this is definitely not a classic, but it’s well worth the effort.

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Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Animation, Hemisphere Media Capital,

Neil Patrick Harris, Sofía Vergara, Christina Ricci, Anton Yelchin, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Alan Cumming, Brendan Gleeson, Hank Azaria, Jayma Mays, Katy Perry, Fred Armisen, J.B. Smoove, George Lopez

For years we’ve known that the evil wizard Gargamel (Hank Azaria) absolutely hates the Smurfs. But he’s created some little creatures similar to the Smurfs called “The Naughties” who are going to help him with this efforts to replace the Smurfs, but they won’t work. Gargamel needs the Smurf essence to turn them into real Smurfs that he can control. Only Smurfette (Katy Perry) has the knowledge to obtain the essense, so Gargamel convinces her that the Smurfs have forgotten her and kidnaps her and brings her to Paris to help him in his plan. The rest of the Smurfs have to find Smurfette and convince her to come back home.

First of all, I have to warn you that I’m too old to have grown up with the Smurfs. For some reason, I never got into watching them with my kids, so I’m not a Smurf fan by any means, and I always found the little rats a bit annoying. Well, maybe more than a bit. Therefore, the Smurfs start off with a big mark against them in my book. I wasn’t a fan of the first Smurfs movie, but I admit this one was probably at least as good, if not better than the first one. The acting is corny, the animation is corny, but I suspect that’s what the Smurfs are about anyway, so I’m sure anyone with a soft spot for the little fellows and one lone adopted girl Smurf will enjoy this revisit to their world, plus the added benefit of bringing them to Paris for an adventure. I am giving this movie a bit higher rating that I probably would if I was basing it on my own enjoyment, but I do realize there are Smurf fans out there, and this is not that bad of a movie, really. So if you have a Smurf fan in your group, this makes a decent rental film, but of course if you’re a Smurf grouch like I am, it’s more of the same old, same old.

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Summit Entertainment, Di Bonaventura Pictures, DC Entertainment,

Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Byung-hun Lee, Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren

Frank (Bruce Willis) is retired CIA, and happily married to Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker) and no longer interested in CIA matters. He’s been classified though as “Retired, Extremely Dangerous”. One day he’s met by Marvin (John Malkovich), his former partner in crime, in a supermarket. Marvin informs him of top secret data released by Wikileaks implementing them in the loss of a top secret portable nuclear device that was hidden in Russia. All the different spy agencies are after them to find out where the various parts of the device are hidden, and Frank is sucked back into the business as he and Marvin put the team back together and try to locate the device before someone else does.

The first “Red” movie was really hysterical. I was blown away by it when I watched it. This one was a letdown. It is nowhere near as good as the first. That being said, it does have some really funny moments. It’s also a relatively decent adventure spy story. Malkovich is really good as an effective agent, but is so inappropriate sometimes, it’s hysterical. He says anything he thinks. Half of Frank’s job is to keep Marvin out of trouble for his big mouth. These guys breaking into the Kremlin is a good adventure, but when you put it up beside the first film, it pales in comparison. If you’re in the mood for a decent action adventure spy story, then go ahead and watch this. It’s certainly very watchable. Just don’t expect it to be as hilarious as the first one was.

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