Ms. Overcute Overdone.

Anna Kendrick overacts and Sam Rockwell tae-kwon-dances his way through MR. RIGHT, a breezy black comedy about a lonely girl (Kendrick) who falls for a hitman (Rockwell) who has turned over a new leaf and is on a mission to whack every person who hires him for a job rather than the target.

After an unconvincing breakup scene with her previous boyfriend, Martha (Kendrick) meets mysterious stranger Francis (Rockwell) who sweeps her off her feet. They have such a powerful connection that when Martha discovers he is a hitman, Francis promises her he would stop killing for her (only wounding the scores of hitmen that come after him from various cartels for reneging on jobs).

Tim Roth, who is great in anything, is a former hitman colleague of Francis’s, simply out to “rescue” Francis from the new “moral principles” he has embraced. James Ransome and Michael Eklund are two gangsters who kidnap Martha to bait Francis, but we realize they’re stupid when they tie her up and then never take the opportunity to rub their faces over her smooth swells. RZA is a gangster working for Ransome, who is abused so much he turns to the side of Francis.

Rockwell is superb, in another role that showcases his devil-may-care acting ability, as he dons a clown-nose to go into action and literally dance through hand-to-hand combat against foes (an interesting device and character trait for a hitman), and Kendrick overdoes the cuteness by a factor of ten Hello Kittys, which is the standout problem that ruins this otherwise enjoyable diversion. She’s already the cutest thing on Earth, with that jutting jaw, flawless face and high tight chest – why is she trying to climb the Everest of cutiepie with all that pouting and sassy affectation? Her “indicating” attempts at comedic inner-voice dialogue shatter our suspension of disbelief, and we feel like we’re watching someone auditioning for a madcap comedy. And blowing the audition.

Please don’t make this any hotter or I’ll have to take my pants off.

Yes, the gangsters are stock bad guys who can’t aim, with the boss (Anson Mount) taking up the screentime that B-List Superstar Eric Roberts has left behind; and Martha’s roommate (Katie Nehra) is a ditzy blond that doesn’t approve of Martha’s choice of lover; and Martha is treated as an object by the script, with seemingly no job and no goals except the immediate one of assuaging her yearning loins after a breakup. Martha also seems to have some kind of innate combat ability, which Francis brings out in her, not through any training, but simply because he tells her she has the ability, and suddenly she can catch knives and beat hired killers to death. What I’m saying is, there are lots of stumbling blocks that MR. RIGHT has to overcome to suspend our disbelief, so Kendrick’s unsuitable Woody Allen-lite isn’t helping any.

Written by Max Landis and directed by up-and-comer Paco Cabezas, the artlessly named MR. RIGHT might have been more in line with its malfunction had it been named MS. WRONG.

END

Apoca-Lips and a great rack.

It’s The Apocalypse, and everything is pretty much the same… except the Anti-Christ is Walking The Earth and trying to get off with your girlfriend.

RAPTURE-PALOOZA is atheistic, irreverent and very funny, with just the right amount of C-cup. Just the way I like it.

For those irreligious and sensible enough not to know what The Rapture is, it’s from the biblical Book of Revelations when God physically takes Justin Bieber fans up to heaven– no, sorry, I’ve been told he only takes Believers not Beliebers. Then, in his infinite wisdom and compassion, he leaves all the One Direction fans behind. And everyone else. RAPTURE-PALOOZA is about the people left behind.

In Seattle, after being left behind, Lindsey (absolutely luscious Anna Kendrick) and her boyfriend Ben (John Francis Daley) try to make a life amongst the intermittent foul-mouthed locusts and crows and fiery falling rocks.

The Anti-Christ has also appeared Walking not The Earth, but just Walking Seattle. His name is Earl, but he prefers that people call him The Beast. And he’s Craig Robinson. Of course! It’s so obvious! Jesus is a white bitch, so natchelly, the Anti-Christ has to be a BLACK MAN!

The new Broadway smash: Poffy Palooza

While Lindsey’s parents (John Michael Higgins and Ana Gasteyer) weep and gnash their teeth over the misery of being left behinders, Ben’s father (Rob Corddry with a porn-stache) embraces the new life-after-normal and goes to work for the Beast at his mansion.When Lindsey and Ben are introduced to the Beast (who is looking for love, but not with a slut), he immediately falls for Lindsey, not least because she’s a virgin. And has a nice rack.

Funniest line is Beast referring to the androgynous-looking Ben as Rachel Maddow.

The best part about being in the movies must be the honesty. As the Beast, Robinson gets to say whatever he wants about Anna Kendrick: “Oh God, look at them titties!” We’re ALL thinking it (even Rachel Maddow, and by that I mean the character Ben and the real Rachel Maddow) – but Robinson’s actually getting to say what all of us are thinking! “You’re like Scarlett Johansson and Hilary Swank with a good rack!” “Don’t worry, we’re gonna fuck soon!” “I’m gonna bust all over your face.” “Where do you wanna go for our honeymoon? Not that it matters, cos you’ll be getting face-fucked all the time, am I right?”

I don’t care whether he’s married or how many girlfriends he’s got right now, or how many kids he has, or whether he’s a respected family man or not. He’s actually saying things that we all want to say in reality, and that I’m 100% pretty damn sure the director and writer and all the male crew want to say to Anna Kendrick as well.

Ah, Honesty. God and Satan swear by it.

With the help of Thomas Lennon as a lawnmowing zombie, Ben must save Lindsey from the imminent clutches and even more imminent swinging dick of the Beast. Luckily, Jesus arrives, in a blaze of stallion glory – and is taken out by a missile. But then God appears. God is Ken Jeong, the white bitch spoken of earlier.

And God and Beast engage in thunderclap battle that shakes the foundations of creation… uh, well, they bitchslap each other near Beast’s jacuzzi, eventually falling in and being electrocuted. With the death of God and Satan, everyone starts arguing over who should be in charge. The simple, profound message comes from Lindsey, “Hey nobody’s in charge, which means everybody’s in charge, so we can all be grownups now.” Such wisdom. What does it say in Matthew 21:16? “…out of the mouths of babes…”

And what a babe! I want to bust all over her face– Oh right, when *I* say it, I’m a pervert!.…

END

The Tween Team.

So it has come to this. After the vampire wars and the werewolf killings, after the tempest of accepting a human unto the clan of the undead, after the dark skies of Forks presage death raining  rivers of blood, TWILIGHT ECLIPSE has come to this, the most chilling decision mankind has ever faced:

Team Edward or Team Jacob.

Edward (Robert Pattinson) is a vampire. Jacob (Taylor Lautner) is a werewolf.
WINNER: Team Jacob.

Edward’s acting resembles being doped with chloroform. Jacob can’t act.
WINNER: Team Edward.

When Edward takes his shirt off, his skin sparkles in the sun. When Jacob takes his shirt off, chicks orgasm.
WINNER: Team Jacob.

Edward’s abs are pasty and soft from snacking on Bambi. Jacob’s abs are washboard from all that doggy styling.
WINNER: Team Jacob.

Edward and Jacob both love Bella (Kristen Stewart).
BOTH LOSERS.

Bella flaunts her boy’s botty in front of Jacob – and won’t do anything with him. Bella flaunts her pea-tits in front of Edward – and HE won’t do anything with her.
BOTH LOSERS.

Edward gets to go on innumerable talk-dates with Bella and her insufferable pause-acting; Jacob gets to pout that Bella never goes on talk-dates with him.
WINNER: Team Jacob.

Bella relegates Jacob to The Friend Zone, and never has sex with him. Bella takes Edward as her boyfriend and never has sex with him either.
BOTH LOSERS.

Edward whines that Bella wants to have sex with him. Jacob whines that Bella doesn’t want to have sex with him.
BOTH LOSERS.

Edward looks like he’s run into a brick wall. Jacob looks like a brick wall has fallen on his head.
BOTH LOSERS.

Jacob never meets Bella’s luminous school friend Anna Kendrick, while Edward, through hanging with Bella, is always around the perky Kendrick.
WINNER: Team Edward.

Due to never meeting Kendrick, Jacob also never meets the douchebags that hang around her and Bella like a wet dog smell.
WINNER: Team Jacob.

Bryce Dallas Howard appears as a vampire, and the same thing happens to me as when Jacob takes his shirt off for chicks.
WINNER: Team Poffy.

Edward’s hairstyle looks like he put his finger in a light socket. Jacob also looks like he’s put his finger in a light socket, but based on past glories when it cascaded like a luscious waterfall:
WINNER: Team Jacob

Bella agrees to marry Edward. Bella wants Jacob to remain her Just Friend.
BOTH LOSERS.

Team Edward and Team Jacob team up to battle a clan of vampires that wants to kill them because of their hotness or something, in a CG battle so spectacular I almost woke up.
BOTH WINNERS.

Music video and TV director David Slade helms this project like a music video and TV director, from the overrated Stephenie Meyer novel for tweens.
WE ALL LOSE.

END

Dead – and Mumbling It.

Kristen Stewart mumbles her way through another TWILIGHT movie.

Synopsis of NEW MOON on the BluRay cover: “In the second chapter of Stephenie Meyer‘s best-selling TWILIGHT series, the romance between mortal Bella Swan and vampire Edward Cullen gets more intense.”

And by more intense, they mean he almost gets to second base.

Stewart once again plays Bella Swan like she has avian flu, mooning after her vampire bf Edward (Robert Pattinson), whose man bits she has never touched let alone seen. He leaves town (bleary Forks, Washington) because his family can’t stand the sight of her blood, and so that another vampire clan will not harm her to get back at him. Naturally, leaving a demonstrably unbalanced, sexy 20-year-old alone in a town haunted by vampires and werewolves is the best thing they could have done to “keep her safe” – kinda like George W. Bush saying he cared about soldiers’ lives while sending them to die in illegal wars. Now, where was I?…

Bella’s constant begging for Edward to “change” her (i.e. bite her and transform her into a vampire) reminds me of those gay guys who WANT to be infected with HIV. (As if gay guys weren’t vilified enough already for being weirdos, there is a strand of REAL weirdos out there who crave infection either because their partners are infected so wish to join them, or so they won’t need to be “safe” after being infected, or that they feel left out of the “in” clique, etc.)

Against all Edward’s Obi-Wan spirit requests of “don’t do anything stupid” Bella takes a midnight ride with a stray biker – don’t know what she was thinking: maybe he would avoid touching her the way Edward avoided touching her. And the “dangerous biker” very courteously drops her off without touching her. Surprised she didn’t fall madly in love with him as well. Maybe because he was such a badass he came to a skidding stop, which almost broke a fingernail…

Bella turns her mooning to werewolf-in-training, Jacob (Taylor Lautner, who hasn’t yet evolved enough to button a shirt); he is part of a clan of werewolf boytoys, who prove to be almost interesting, until they try to act. Bella proceeds to not touch Jacob the same way she not-touched Edward, Just-Friending him with a vengeance, until even he tells her to piss off.

The cool werewolf effects kicked in just before I fell asleep.

So here are the sex symbols for a new generation of tweenies: anemic dullard Kristen Stewart, whose intolerable pause-acting is somehow meant to convey – sultriness? wariness? appendicitis?; soporific Robert Pattinson, who looks like something smashed into his face, and ‘roided Taylor Lautner, who looks like something fell on his head.

All three principals constantly talk about “belonging with each other” yet all they actually do when they’re WITH each other is talk about belonging with each other. It’s like sex hasn’t been invented yet.

TWILIGHT NEW MOON is not a love story or romance – it is a teen-model descent into soporific hell. And not in that good way, like when Satan claims your soul.

Speaking of the Prince of Darkness, shouldn’t His black influence be prevalent in any tale of vampires or werewolves? What happened to all the mythos enshrouding these dark entities? Director Chris Weitz and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg (as well as author Meyer herself) disregard all canon, as people turn into werewolves instantaneously, painlessly and without a hint of full moon; as vampires skulk around in daylight without their skin burning off – on the contrary, sparkling! – and not the slightest whiff of worm-infested coffin soil.

Edward decides to kill himself because he erroneously believes Bella has been killed. This, in a world of psychics, empaths and CELL PHONES. The Romeo and Juliet train is in motion and nothing logical is gonna derail it. Laughable that the writers analogize the greatest love story known to man with their beige bore-fest.

Bet this was the pitch meeting scene: To stop Edward killing himself, Bella must do a desperate dash through the streets of Italy during a religious festival, dodging red-garbed monks, as the bell tolls midday and Edward in slomo starts to expose himself in sunlight and thereby get killed by the religiousness of the monks. The vampire council doesn’t like this, yet where are they when he is slowly unbuttoning his shirt and Bella is running in that man-style to stop him? Apparently, their council chamber is just upstairs – too lazy to walk the twenty stairs to tell Edward he’s a prat. Bella dives on Edward – and I mean that in the most non-sexual way you can imagine it; kinda like a puppy dives on a tennis ball – telling her she loves him and his flat face is overjoyed to see her. Cue magnificent tears of romantic joy from teen girlies.

I dare anyone over 30 to watch this movie without rolling their eyes, needing an aspirin, slapping someone, defenestrating their BluRay, or begging to be put out of their misery.

The only two saving graces of NEW MOON are those fake-looking CGI wolves (they’re massive, at shoulder height standing taller than a man) and Michael Sheen, exceedingly delicious as Aro, the head of the vampire council. (In the UNDERWORLD series, Sheen is the head of the Lycans – the werewolves; talk about audacious crossover!)

And I feel sorry for 16-year-old boys worldwide, this TWILIGHT film series having bred a whole generation of mumbling and moaning high maintenance girlfriends who never put out and erroneously think Just Friends is a viable option; who believe true love means lying in a meadow with all their clothes on and watching your skin coruscate… yet who must follow those very same high maintenance girlfriends into theaters to watch this dreary slop if they ever hope to make it to second base…

You poor bastards.

END

Bloodless.

A chick falls in love with a fey vampire. They don’t have sex. The End.

Vampires used to be scary once. The iconography of the blood-drinking psychotic, the shape-shifting coffin-dweller, reached a horrifying zenith with the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker (published 1897). Then came the startling film NOSFERATU (1922). Modern media has progressively been bleeding out all the horror and sex from the dark, disturbing legends, starting with the camp Christopher Lee DRACULA movies of the 60’s and 70’s, followed by innumerable copycat movies, comedies (ONCE BITTEN, 1985) and overexposure (SESAME STREET’s The Count, BLACULA 1972) that turned vampires into laughingstock clichés. Anne Rice’s Lestat novels, made into INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (1994), went for the jugular on sexiness with Bradley Pitt and Mapother Cruise on fey overdrive, while UNDERWORLD (2003) went hogwild on skintight butt-leather and lace corsets (though its vampires were dangerous not because of their psychoses, but their big shiny guns).

Coppolla’s BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA (1992), though an ambitious failure (due exclusively to its supporting cast of Keanu and Winona), succeeded in bringing back the sex and danger, and also succeeded in conveying the tragedy of being Dracula (aka Count Vlad); that it was a curse, purveyed achingly by the brilliant Gary Oldman.

And now we arrive at the anemic TWILIGHT, exorcising every ounce of sex, danger and tragedy from vampire iconography – leaving us with a tale for 12-year-old girls seemingly written BY 12-year-old girls.

No surprise: novel by Stephenie Meyer, screenplay by Melissa Rosenberg, directed by Catherine Hardwicke. A little more action, a little less estrogen please!

Set in rainy, depressing Forks, Washington, eternally in twilight (not in a sexy libidinous way, but in a rainy depressing way) Kristen Stewart is Bella, a “troubled teen” – excuse me while I whip out my Troubled Teen Flow Chart – who meets the Dangerous Outsider in school, Edward (Robert Pattinson), and falls for his enigmatic moodiness and flat face.

Poffy Cullen – intense teen heartthrob

Pattinson (whom we are told is a sex symbol even though his face looks like he’s just run into a brick wall) delivers all his lines like he’s in a coma, and Stewart delivers hers in a wavering monotone like she’s on the brink of orgasm. Discovering Edward is a vampire is apparently not that big a deal – if her monotonal surprise is anything to go by. Edward tells Bella that his family are goody-goody vampires who abstain from subsisting on human blood, but rather drink the blood of animals. (Keep Fluffy away from him!) For this reason he can’t even make out with Bella because it will drive him into a sensual bloodlust.

But that’s okay with Bella, who would much rather lie in the grass with him with all her clothes on and talk inanely about stuff that not one male in the audience cares about. The one time they’re about to spank it, Edward pulls away and tells her it can never happen. Bella (a character created by three chicks that have no idea What Men Want) is still okay with that because only a 12-year-old girl can believe that true eternal love involves no coitus. But lots of interruptus.

Edward moons morosely when Bella’s childhood friend Jacob (Taylor Lautner) comes sniffing around. Jacob looks oddly Native American (aided by Gil Birmingham, a true Native, playing his dad), yet he’s werewolf-y enough for tween girlies to think he’s peachy keen as well. Other peachy keen “teens” include Anna Kendrick, Kellan Lutz and Cam Gigandet: runway models for the middle background.

Edward, who proclaims himself psychic, confesses to Bella, “I can’t figure out what you’re thinking.” A stab in the dark: how about, “I want to have sex with you, dude.” The first thing Bella notices when she walks into Edward’s room is the absence of a bed. If course – because it’s the first thing she was looking for. He tells her, “I don’t sleep,” then flips her onto his back and goes frolicking through the trees in lieu of clitoral stimulation. Bella doesn’t mind in the least. After all, her underdeveloped 12-year-old mind believes she wants to “be” with Edward “forever” without thinking it through past the stage of lying in a field with all her clothes on and gazing at his Hayden Christensen lite impression.

Bella wants to “be” with someone who is going to outlive her; with whom she will never coax juice; someone who can never go on a normal dinner date because he doesn’t eat; someone who avoids sunlight; that she can’t share experiences with because he’s already experienced everything; that she can’t teach anything; someone who will never be amazed by her; that she can’t grow with psychologically, that she can’t grow old with physically; that she has absolutely nothing in common with, except that they’re both underactors.

Probably the only action that threatens to happen is a cringeworthy scene when a rival band of vamps intrudes on Edward’s family playing baseball among themselves during a storm. Then nothing continues to happen, thank god. Or I might have to write about something.

END

Loner Class.

UP IN THE AIR is that rare chick-centric movie that doesn’t make me want to vomit or slap someone. It is a story about love, but it’s not a Love Story; it’s a movie about romance, but it’s not a Romantic Movie; it takes us on a bucking and diving flight across the landscape of human emotions and leaves us… up in the air.

Two ships pass in the night. And keep passing.

This movie is refreshing as a bottle of Orange Cream-Mama being shaken and opened in your face. A story about an enigmatic connection between two attractive, intelligent, middle-aged protagonists – not teen hipsters flapping platitudes and doing drugs in tight t-shirts. A movie that doesn’t dumb itself down, nor dumb us down, which surprises even the best of us nihilists.

Ryan Bingham (George Clooney, charm working overtime) and Alex Goran (curvy, sensual Vera Farmiga), two Constant Travelers turned on by each others’ elitism, meet at an airport bar and strike up a steamy, traveling relationship, never daring to get closer than a few cities apart. Clooney and Farmiga work beautifully together, underplaying against each other with an easy chemistry that sits on them like favorite sweatshirts.

Ryan’s job is to fire people from theirs, a kind of Termination consultant brought in by corporations too gutless to face their own employees when letting them go. Much like the impermanence of the job market he sluices through like a shark, Ryan’s life is uncluttered and itinerant – that’s the way he likes it: “All the things you hate about flying are warm reminders I’m home.” He describes the time he spent in his apartment last year as “43 miserable days.”

Alex is a little more mysterious, which will prove to be this movie’s trump card.

Ryan’s boss (Jason Bateman) saddles him with a termination novice, Natalie (Anna Kendrick), whose naiveté about career and love is in stark contrast to Ryan’s and Alex’s mature, intelligent take on life, sex and other mishaps. Natalie is an uncomfortable naif in her own skin, representing the flapping teen demographic and spouting the Chick Flick platitudes to prove it. She details her mundane life plan as something worth aiming for, and Ryan’s brother-in-law to be (Danny McBride, in a poignant, subdued role) details the exact same plan later as if it is a fatalistic dead end.

It is during this opening of hearts that Ryan realizes what he is missing. And here is where the movie comes into its own. We’ve all seen that character arc coming, where a guarded character realizes he is missing “opening up to love” and does the Bride-Running-Through-Streets gag to end up with his soul mate and retch vomit splash-on-shoes. But when Ryan realizes he would like a “co-pilot” to share his life, and tries to do something about it – he is thwarted! The character arced, the redemption awaited, and – as so often happens in real life – it was blown to pieces by the complexities of being human. And that bit of realism was beautiful for its left turn.

Directed and co-written by Jason Reitman, UP IN THE AIR and his other auteur work, THANK YOU FOR SMOKING (2006), are so much more honest and compelling than that girlie crap he merely directed, JUNO (2007, written by Diablo Cody). Movie’s denouement is a welcome shake to the shoulders, heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time. Produced by both Reitmans (Jason and father, Ivan), from a novel by Walter Kim, UP IN THE AIR takes the Chick Flick Handbook and tears out the pages on Making Real Men Vomit. Men (and pussy-men alike) can safely watch this whole movie with the person whose purse holds their balls, and not pretend to fall asleep or threaten a brain aneurysm.

Effective cameos from J.K. Simmons as a sacked employee, Zach Galifianakis as a vengeance-crazed sacked employee, and Sam Elliott, whose mustache is now completely out of control.

END