Ed's Review Dot Com

Open Road Films (II), Rice Films, Gulfstream Pictures,

Jennifer Aniston, Jason Sudeikis, Julia Roberts, Jon Lovitz, Kate Hudson, Timothy Olyphant, Britt Robertson, Aasif Mandvi, Sarah Chalke, Grayson Russell, Shay Mitchell, Margo Martindale, Loni Love, Ella Anderson, Cameron Esposito, Jack Whitehall, Lucy Walsh

Mother’s Day is an ensemble film, telling four different stories that all tie together in the end. There are many different kinds of mothers, and many different situations, but we all stop on Mother’s Day to remember and honor those special women in our lives. As this story unfolds, we meet different families and different situations, but all are touched in the end in different ways.

Directed by Garry Marshall, this is the same team that brought us Valentine’s Day and New Years Eve. It is a great cast, and it’s a very touching story. Each situation is unique, yet they manage to tie it all together in the end. It’s got funny moments, and of course, the cheesy romantic ones. It’s a very clever put together tale and was fun to watch. If you have seen these hinds of stories, there have been dozens, where a number of different stories come together in the end. This is a very good one. Julia Roberts does a very great job as a childless, driven TV host, as does Jason Sudekis as a single widower dad trying to raise his two daughters. Jennifer Anderson is really good as a divorced mom of two boys who is trying to deal with her situation. It’s a very well developed story line that comes together beautifully. This is a touching movie, and one I can highly recommend for anyone who is a mother, who has had a mother, or knows a mother. If you don’t fit into any of those categories, you’re out of luck. This film is a tribute to mothers. This is a really good film, and I recommend this, especially now that it’s on DVD.

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Weinstein Company, The, Jean Doumanian Productions, Smokehouse Pictures,

Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Chris Cooper, Ewan McGregor, Margo Martindale, Abigail Breslin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Juliette Lewis, Dermot Mulroney, Julianne Nicholson, Sam Shepard, Misty Upham

Violet Weston (Meryl Streep) has an addiction to drugs and booze, and now is suffering from Cancer. She’s tough to put up with, and her husband has finally had it and has walked out. Her daughters come back home to visit, and during the time together, all the family secrets come out and long built up resentments bubble out in a classic family battle. Each one is forced to look at herself and what they see is not all that pretty.

This is a story of a really, really dysfunctional family. Most people have no idea what it’s like to grow up like this, and the problems you have to face, but I can imagine it’s a lot more common than most of us might think. I was impressed with the acting put in by these excellent performers. What a stunning lineup of stars. But I wasn’t as impressed with the story line. I can’t put my finger on what I didn’t like, but the story is just uncomfortable. Now sometimes a story can be uncomfortable for a greater purpose. But in this one, I didn’t get that feeling at all. It was kind of like being on a double date with a friend and his girl when they suddenly get into a horrible fight. You’re trapped in the back seat with nothing to do or say to but just feel uncomfortable. That’s the kind of feeling I had here. I sat through it, but never really felt at ease. The relationships are badly broken. This is a very unusual character for Meryl Streep. You want to feel bad for her, but you just can’t, she’s not a nice character. It’s a very unusual film, and may be well liked by the right crowd, but as for me, I could have skipped this one. It’s ok, but just not that stellar.

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Relativity Media, Yucaipa Films, Goldmann Pictures,

Julia Roberts, Lily Collins, Armie Hammer, Nathan Lane, Mare Winningham, Michael Lerner, Sean Bean, Danny Woodburn, Martin Klebba, Sebastian Saraceno, Jordan Prentice, Mark Povinelli, Joe Gnoffo, Ronald Lee Clark, Robert Emms

Another retelling of the classic Grimm’s Fairy Tale of a girl who is left with her stepmother, the queen, after her father dies. The queen (Julia Roberts) is very jealous of Snow (Lily Collins) because of her beauty. This dark tale, closer to the story than the Disney version, tells of Snow’s adventures to try to gain back the throne which is rightfully hers. The seven dwarfs are seedy little guys, but agree to help Snow to return to the throne.

There were two Snow White films that came out this summer. The other was “Snow White and the Huntsman”. Of the two, I really feel the other one was better, and Chalize Theron really did the wicked queen to the hilt! But Julia Roberts gives it a good try in this version, but it’s a lot harder to forget that she’s Julia Roberts after all, and not an evil queen. Still the special effects are pretty good, and it’s not a bad film at all. It’s too bad that it gets compared all the time to the other film, as it would have done really well had it been the only one. But it’s not a story that we haven’t seen before, and that turns off a lot of people, so it didn’t get great treading in the Box Office department. Still, not that the other film is out of our minds, and this one is available on DVD, why not give it a chance. It’s a bit scary for little kids, but for anyone above about 10, it’s going to be a pretty decent family adventure. It’s nice that Show White is not “that girl from Twilight” and it gives us a chance to get to know her at Snow White and not some famous actor in the role. At the same time she is very good at it.

All in all this is a nice family rental, and a good evening at home movie night film. I really did enjoy myself watching this.

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Universal Pictures, Vendome Pictures, Playtone Productions

Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Bryan Cranston, Cedric the Entertainer, Taraji P. Henson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Wilmer Valderrama, Pam Grier, Nia Vardalos, George Takei, Rob Riggle, Rami Malek

Larry Crowne (Tom Hanks) was a navy man for 20 years. He’s the superstar at a big retail corporation, and when his names is called, he’s expecting to be named Employee of the Month — Again! Instead, he’s being laid off because he doesn’t have a college degree. Downsized, he starts looking at his options, but there are no jobs anywhere, and he’s upside down on his mortgage, and there are no options other than to walk away from the house, get a small apartment and go back to college. Larry reinvents himself and finds some new meaning in his life, including a few new friends, Mercedes Tainot (Julia Roberts) his speech teacher, Lamar (Cedric the Entertainer) his neighbor, and a Hispanic biker girl, Alvarez (Roxana Ortega), who teaches him some style. Larry finds that when everything goes wrong, you can still turn things around an reinvent yourself.

I looked forward to a Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts movie when I saw posters in the theater, but somehow it came and went before I got a chance to go see it. Now I can see why. This has to be the worst Tom Hanks movie since Joe vs. the Volcano!! I didn’t hate the movie. It has a bit of humor, and a bit of romance. It’s just not extremely interesting, and pretty unrealistic. Tom Hanks wrote the film, and perhaps some people are correct in assuming that because Tom Hanks hasn’t experienced the economic impact of what’s happening to people today, he can’t write it very accurately. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it really seems more like a TV movie than a Hollywood blockbuster. Larry is kind of annoying, and Julia has certainly done better work. The funniest thing in the movie is George Takai as a really narcissistic economics professor who is so full of himself he’s hysterical. As for Larry, I wish him well in the life he has chosen, but I am not very concerned about him. There are some people who are very excited by this film, mostly because they identify with one of the characters. There’s either Julia Roberts who is a teacher with a boring lump of a husband who she is dumping for good cause, or Larry who is an older 50’s guy going back to school. I think the ultimate summation of the mood of this film is Cedric the Entertainer’s character who when his wife points out that he stood up on his own and hasn’t called anyone his boss for years, has Larry remind her that winning the lottery may have something to do with that.

Everything just kinds of happens in this film, and nothing is very exciting or meaningful. It’s not an awful film, but I was just kind of disappointed that it wasn’t nearly as good as it should have been. That’s why it was in and out of the theaters in a very short time.

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Columbia Pictures, Plan B Entertainment

Julia Roberts, Billy Crudup, James Franco, I Gusti Ayu Puspawati, Hadi Subiyanto, Viola Davis

This is a major chick flick.  In fact, this may be the chick-flickiest movie I have ever seen.  It made me feel like I was watching a marathon of  Bridges of Madison County it was that painful.   This is the story of a woman who doesn’t know who she is and is trapped in a marriage she doesn’t want.   So she does what everybody does, takes a journey around the world.   This is a writer who never writes, so I truly don’t know where the money for this journey comes from, but around the world she goes.

This is a long film,  well over two hours, and it was painful to sit through the first part, for me.   I found myself halfway through this wishing something interesting would happen.  Then suddenly just before the end, I think I finally got it.

The words in the title Eat, Pray, and Love have to do with the 3 countries this lady visits.  It becomes obvious.  For a dense guy like me,  it took a long time till I caught on to the point of the story.   We are all sometimes looking for the wrong thing.  We look for peace, we look for love, we look for fame, we look for wealth.   But what we all are really looking for is balance.

There are other thoughtful things in this movie too.  During her journey she meets some pretty crazy people.   That’s part of the fun, and there are a few funny parts.  But this movie never got to a chemistry level like the other Julia Roberts movies, like Notting Hill for example.  It’s really hard to get into any of the characters in this movie.

So basically, if you’re into chick flicks, or if you read the memoirs of the writer of the novel this movie was made from and are interested to see the places in the story, (the cinematography is beautiful), then this will be a big hit for you.  But if you’re a macho guy, and your wife/girlfriend wants to drag you here, and you can’t talk her into a “girls night out”, make sure you make an especially great deal because guys are mostly not going to dig this.

I have to give this a rating in the middle, mostly because I know the number of women that are going to love it are going to be canceled out by the men who are going to hate it.   But I wish I could have talked my lady into seeing something different.