Ed's Review Dot Com

Warner Bros. Pictures, Malpaso Productions,

Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams, Justin Timberlake, John Goodman, Matthew Lillard, Robert Patrick, Scott Eastwood, Joe Massingill, Matt Bush, Chelcie Ross

Gus Lobel (Clint Eastwood) is a pro baseball scout. But his health is failing and his eyesight is getting very bad. Still he’s trying to get by for one last trip. His daughter (Amy Adams) tags along more to keep an eye on him than anything else. She’s a high powered lawyer, but her first love is baseball, and she’s still suffering some emotional damage from the death of her mother and the abandonment of her father through most of her youth. She’s after him to find out why he left her alone.

This is a really nice vehicle for Clint Eastwood. This is exactly the right kind of role for Clint, a crotchety mean old man. Amy is light and bubbly as his daughter, but she has to deal with a lot of issues. They are joined by a young scout and former baseball player played by Justin Timberlake who adds a bit of sanity to the group. Basically this is a good baseball film that has a lot of family relationship issues and great performances by Amy and Clint. I found this movie to be very interesting, and a good baseball movie at the same time. For the guys, the sports stuff is enough to keep it going, and it’s a bit like Moneyball in that respect. For the ladies, the interpersonal relationships between Clint and Amy, Amy and Justin, and all of them with John Goodman, and crusty executive who really likes Clint and Amy and want to give them their best shot to get back together again.

This is a very worthwhile film, and very enjoyable to watch. I would highly recommend this one, especially to Clint fans.

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Fox Searchlight Pictures, Bona Fide Productions,

Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Antonio Banderas, Annette Bening, Steve Coogan, Elliott Gould, Chris Messina, Alia Shawkat, Aasif Mandvi, Toni Trucks, Deborah Ann Woll

Calvin Weir-Fields (Paul Dano) is a writer. He wrote the great American novel when he was very young, but is now stuck. He’s suffering from writer’s block, and is trying to work through it. As a project given by his therapist, and based upon a dream he had of a loving and understanding girl named Ruby, he begins writing about her, only to find she has come to life and is living in his house. She’s actually real, but he can control her every action, even her personality, by what he writes. But he finds that it’s more difficult to create the perfect girlfriend than he thought.

This is an interesting film. It’s not at all like I expected. I could have been very childish and “Zapped” like, where he writes her into many situations, but this story is very much deeper than that. This is much more like a Twilight Zone episode that has been expanded to full length. In fact, there was an episode a lot like this where a writer dictates the perfect woman to replace his nagging wife. This is very similar to that episode, but with the extended time, we get to look much deeper into mind of both Calvin, and his muse, Ruby, who is a real person who is quite confused at why she acts like she does.

It’s actually a very good character study. There are some lesser characters that have a lot of development as well, such as Calvin’s therapist and his brother who is unhappy in his relationship and very jealous of the power Calvin has to make Ruby into whatever he would like. The problem is that, as in real life, no matter what we think we want, we find we don’t really want it after all. It takes the good and the bad, the happy and the sad, the sweet and the bitter, to appreciate any of it at all. This is very poetic, and I’m sorry to be writing that way, but that’s the message of this entire film. A lighthearted and very enjoyable look at the human existence. Very well done, this is thinker. It’s a film that will let you keep thinking long after you’ve seen it. I really enjoyed this story.

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Apatow Productions,

Emily Blunt, Jason Segel, Alison Brie, Chris Pratt, Rhys Ifans, Chris Parnell, Mindy Kaling, Brian Posehn, Dakota Johnson, Mimi Kennedy, Kevin Hart, Adam Campbell, Jim Piddock, David Paymer, Jacki Weaver, Michael Ensign, Clement von Franckenstein, Jane Carr, Randall Park, Lauren Weedman

Tom Solomon (Jason Segel) and Violet (Emily Blunt) have been together for a year, living together in San Francisco. Tom has planned a very special night to propose to Violet, and she accepts. But setting the date is a whole ‘nother problem. Tom is a sous chef at a local restaurant and he is running the place while Violet is an experimental psychologist who is hoping for a grant. When that falls through, she takes a job in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Tom supports her, and gives up his dream, but has a hard time fitting in and unable to find a decent job. Years go by, and by the time Violet is ready, Tom may have lost his will to get married. This is a romantic real-life story of two people who love each other, but just can’t seem to make it to the end together.

This was a really cute story, that is oddly happy and sad. The pain that these two have to go through is really real, and these two seem to pull it off perfectly. I am amazed at how good Emily Blunt is getting. She’s really good in this movie. It has really good fun, and really touching heartbreak. There are lots of colorful supporting characters, but these two pull off the lead so well, that it would be good anyway. So the addition of the rest of the cast just adds to our enjoyment.

If you’re in the mood for a cute little romantic comedy, this is a pretty good one. It was refreshing, and very enjoyable. I really liked it and recommend it.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

RSN Productions,

Torrey DeVito, Callard Harris, Matthew Felker, Kenneth Choi, Alix Elizabeth Gitter

Kate (Torrey DeVito) is a psychiatris in a children’s mental institute who is caught in an earthquake. A young man, Nick (Callard Harris) protects her and saves her from harm in the earthquake, but he falls and hits his head and knocks himself out. When he wakes, he thinks he’s Santa Claus, so Kate takes him to the hospital to care for him. While he’s there, he brings Christmas spirit to all the kids, and to the whole place except for Kate’s boss who hates Christmas. As Nick gets closer to the kids, he looks for a way to reach them, especially one troubled little girl, but all the while the sparks begin to fly between Kate and Nick and it becomes very clear they like each other a lot.

This final new 2012 Christmas Movie premier is a pretty nice little film. Torrey DeVito may look familiar to you, as she’s appeared in many different TV series and has a pretty decent career. She’s really a pretty good actress and this movie has enough twists and turns to keep it interesting. The patients each have their own issues and troubles. This should be another repetative, “Santa gets hit in the head” movie, but it’s actually quite unique in it’s own way. I suspect this one will be back next year, any maybe once or twice more this season, and if you get a chance to catch this new Lifetime premier, it’s well worth the time and error to see it. It’s a really sweet little gem.

Here is the web page for this brand new Lifetime premier film.

Chesler/Perlmutter Productions,

Casper Van Dien, Rachel Wilson, Ella Ballentine, Natalie Lisinska, Art Hindle

Two lawyers don’t get along at all. But their siblings have met and married and are now expecting a child at Christmas. So off to New York they trek to try to make peace and offer their support for the birth. But when they arrive, they find out that their siblings are in deep financial trouble. He has lost his job and the bank is going to foreclose on their house. To top it off, one of them is working for the law firm whose client is foreclosing the houses to purchase the property for high rise buildings. To make matters worse, the mother to be is having health issue that could risk the delivery and herself. All have to come together despite their rocky relationship.

This Hallmark film has been released for Christmas 2012 and perhaps is one of the weakest. It’s not a bad film, and there is a lot of tension between the son and his father that needs to be resolved. Perhaps he is an overachiever due to the neglect by his father. But this is probably the best relationship in the film. The relationship between the two stars is rather contrived, and not very believable to me. The go through the motions, but there’s not a whole lot to latch on to here. The suspense of the baby’s delivery is not really that suspenseful, really. It’s pretty obvious that hospitals today can take care of these kids of problems every day. There is a little girl for the cute factor, older daughter of the expecting parents, but she’s not really given much to do either. Basically, this film is rather ho-hum, and never really gets rolling. It’s okay to pass the time, but not really worth searching for. Skip it unless you’re bored and there’s nothing else to watch.

Here is the link to the Hallmark web page for this film.