Cineplexus

Youth in Revolt ★★★½

Michael Cera was in a rut. In order to get what he really wanted, he'd have to create a new, unfamiliar persona that pushed him to new lengths. Er…wait. That wasn't Cera, at least, not exactly, It was his nerdy-yet-plainjane, deadpan character in Youth in Revolt, Nick Twisp. The role of Nick is not exactly a stretch for Cera (examples), but both Cera and his fictional counterpart shake things up a little by creating an alter-ego, François.

Think of François as the blue-eyed, mustachioed devil on Nick's shoulder...and there's no angel to counter his influence. Rather than sitting on his shoulder, though, François (also played by Cera) walks along side Nick, invisible to the world and always encouraging him to make the baddest possible choice. He is nothing like Nick's normal persona. I can't help but think of this as a small victory for Cera, who's so often accused of being a kind of one-note actor (by haters; Cera lovers can't get enough of his deadpan).

At it's heart, Youth in Revolt is a love story; on the surface, it's a kitschy, fantastical farce. These two sides combine for some serious laughs as Nick (accompanied by his evil twin, françois) do some sweet, crazy, and (in some cases) downright disturbing things to keep his/their first and only love, the wise, beautiful Sheeni (Portia Doubleday) close at hand. It combines periodic animation, science fiction, and hyper-reality with gusto.

The zany, fast-paced nature of the film, alas, causes some structural issues. Characters are trotted out for major scenes and then never heard from again. Sheeni's brother (an open-minded drug enthusiast played by Justin Long) appears out of nowhere in Act 3 and then becomes a major catalyst for the rest of the film. Her too-good-to-be true ex-boyfriend, Trent Preston, is only the stuff of legend until the movie's final scenes. He'd have been more ominous and impressive if he'd never been revealed to us. Then there's Nick's friends, Lefty and Vijay. One could argue that they represent the differences between Nick's pre- and post-Sheeni existence, but that doesn't excuse the film's reckless practice of presenting them for a few scenes and then totally forgetting about them.

Sloppiness aside, Youth in Revolt is a funny, joyfully off-kilter comedy that really does capture the skewed priorities of the teenage male, if in an extremely extreme way. It's not the first film to do so, nor will it be the last, but damned if it doesn't help to keep the proud tradition alive.

2 Movies About Young Francophile Girls Coming of Age

Okay, I'm not really going to go there. But the last two movies I saw – Youth in Revolt and An Education had some pretty odd things in common. Each featured a star-crossed couple much to wise and cultured for the world around them. Each couple contained a young woman obsessed with all things French, and a male counterpart eager to make her Parisian dreams come true.

Surprisingly enough, these movies have these key points in common and virtually NOTHING else. The former is modern love story, a quirky, tongue-in-cheek adaptation of a quirky, tongue-in-cheek book. The latter is an elegant story of the dubious appeal of the lush life, set in the 1950s and based on a true story. The tone of the two films could hardly be more different. So I will review them separately, later this weekend. I just couldn't resist making my parallel observation. It's a weakness.

The Informant! ★★★½

 In a time when business corruption has trashed our economy and polluted our government, who doesn't want to see a movie that sends up the businessmen responsible? The Informant! (based on Kurt Eichenwald's non-fiction book of the same name) tells the story of Decatur-based agro-conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland. In particular, it tells of Mark Whitacre, their unassuming President of BioProducts, and his seemingly noble attempt to out the agribusiness practice of illegal price fixing.

Matt Damon's physical transformation (he gained 30 lbs. to play the role of Whitacre), combined with an outstanding performance, is reminiscent of DeNiro's for Raging Bull. The rest of the cast is also spot on, led by Scott Bakula (one of my favorites) and about a million comics – Joel McHale, Tom Papa, Paul F. Tompkins, Patton Oswalt, and others were cast in roles both large and small for the film.

For all the comedians taking part, is the final product funny? Yes. It's actually very funny, though most laughable (in every sense) is Damon's Whitacre, especially during his scores of non-sequitur voiceovers, which illlustrate that this man is rarely concentrating on even the most important things that occur aroung him. The movie excels at making this story more amusing that sad, though it is most certainly both. By highlighting the assinine and confusing details of this true story, the film creates the same sense of confusion in the viewer that everyone around Whitacre felt all the time.

Still, purposefully confusing is still confusing. It's hard to feel totally satisfied by a production that leaves key questions unanswered, and leaves everyone (except maybe Whitacre) guessing not until the last moment, but beyond the last moment, into the credits, and on the drive home. And these aren't questions that can be answered by a few hours of puzzling. It is doubtful that anyone knows exactly how the true story of the Informant goes.

The real Mark Whitacre is still alive. Perhaps, on his deathbed, he'll reveal a tell-all memoir that tells the tale of the real man and of the real corn industry. But at this point, I seriously doubt anyone will believe any of it.

Extract ★★★½

Who doesn't love Office Space? Ten years ago, that now-classic captured the spirit of the disgruntled code monkey, and of the office worker in general, so well and with such irreverence that it's become a cultural icon. No wonder writer/director Mike Judge waited so long to release another movie.

Extract, which stars Jason Bateman as the owner of a baking extract business and factory, has several things in common with its predecessor. Both films avoid taking themselves too seriously at all costs. Both have a handful of characters that are cartoon-silly - not a huge surprise, perhaps, considering Judge's roots. And I'm thrilled to report that Extract has at least as many, if not more, gut-busting, laugh-out-loud moments. But where Office Space's everyman leads had you rooting for them no matter how low they stooped, Extract's Joel (Bateman) has somewhat unrelateable, petty problems that he bungles further through his own self-pity.

Joel is urged along on a totally assinine (though amusing) plot to cheat on his frigid wife without feeling guilty by Dean (Ben Affleck), a stoner bartender who really shouldn't be trusted for anything. Affleck, to be fair, is completely hilarious here, but one wonders how Dean and rich, straight-laced Joel have managed to stay friends. Meanwhile, the talents of Kristen Wiig are woefully underutilized in the wife character, Suzie; Wiig excels at creating awkwardness, but is hardly allowed a chance to, be it by the script or the editing. The "Other Woman" in the script, Cindy (played by Mila Kunis) has no character traits at all beyond being attractive to men and criminally manipulative. Kunis's natural likeability helps her character way more than the film's script or plot ever attempt to.

Mike Judge has created a fun movie that will make you laugh, but maybe only the first time. But if a bottle of Reynold's Extract ever becomes as iconic as, say, a red Swingline stapler, I'll be more than a little surprised.

Public Enemies ★★★½

There's always a sheepish excitement in the air when a movie is filming in town. For those of us that live outside of Hollywood or Toronto, it's kind of a rare thrill that reminds us of the glitz and allure that cinema has had since it's early days. There's that goofy feeling that only a brush with fame can provide. In Chicago, the experience is surprisingly rare; any major films shooting in the city are typically heard about more than seen, as they do their business on the outskirts of town, late in the evening, or otherwise out-of-sight.

Not so with Public Enemies. Shot in several different locations, the film used the Windy City as it's home base, and appropriately so, as John Dillinger did live and die here. When the film was shooting, it did so on largely his real home turf, meaning that tons of Northsiders had to avoid walking onto the set for several weeks last year as they went about their business. A nuisance for some, I know that many were willing to overlook it because of the sheer cool-factor of having Johnny Depp hanging out on your street corner, not to mention Christian Bale's exodus from the dark depths of Lower Wacker to the relative sunniness of Lincoln Park.

Grim and dangerous, there's little sunny about Public Enemies, but it certainly has a cool-factor of its own, thanks to the great performances we've come to expect from actors like Depp, Bale, and Marion Cotillard (see La Vie en Rose, please). The costumes, makeup, and music are all spot on, and the added effect of the sets make one wonder how the producers were able to afford a time machine to send the cast and crew back to the 1930s. This is even true for scenes set in Chicago, where somehow the most familiar streets have lost their modernity. It is truly something to behold.

Perhaps it is this high standard the film has set for itself visually, and for its nuanced characters, that left me wanting more overall from the script and editing. We're told the story of a stretch of John Dillinger's life that's interesting, but so long that it must be recounted through often disconnected anecdotes. He's in prison, he's out of prison, he's in Indiana, he's in Chicago, he's in Florida, he's back in prison again, he's…well, it's not hard to find oneself wondering how he managed to get from one scene to the next. Characters are often introduced with an abundance (J. Edgar Hoover) or dearth (Baby Face Nelson) of fanfare that's inconsistent with their importance to the script. Entire scenes exist simply so we get to hear a single "classic" Dillinger quote.

All of this creates a notion that John Dillinger was a complex and interesting – even likeable – man, that Melvin Purvis (Bale) was trying to compensate for having a ridiculous name, and that the '30s were a hell of a time for anybody fortuneate enough to have a little of what money there was to go around. But Public Enemies fails, as so many biopics do, to hold together as a great film in and of itself, absent of its subject's (in)famous greatness. That said, it's hard to imagine any film living up to the grandeur of this particular character, and many of the moments recreateed here are truly spectacular. How perfect, for example, is the parallel tthe film offers us between the film Dillinger sees in the Biograph before he's shot (Manhattan Melodrama) and Dillinger's real life as a criminal? Leave it to Hollywood, I guess, to create that kind of magic. Hollywood…or Chicago.

Terminator Salvation ★★★½

Confession time: I have a problem. I am essentially unable to visit a movie theater without buying popcorn. I can't explain why, but regardless of what I've had to eat that day or what type of movie I'm seeing, I just can't break the link between Movie Outing and Popcorn Eating.

So, standing in an absurdly long line a the local AMC, I found myself in a pickle. If I stayed in the line, complete with apparently just-hired cashier slowly moving about at the helm, and a family of five buying virtually everything on the menu, I might miss the beginning of the movie. If I left the line, I'd have no popcorn to eat during Terminator Salvation.

I stayed in line. Popcorn would be necessary.

It was the right choice. Not only did I not miss the beginning of the film, but it wouldn't have mattered if I had. Despite the fact that a lot of crazy stuff is going down, Salvation devotes little energy to trying to explain it to the audience. There is one exception right off the bat: the film's opening minutes are devoted to explaining that Marcus Wright, the man who would later be abused by SkyNet's efforts to make human-looking Terminators (no spoilers here; that part was in the trailer) was a condemned murderer in his "first" life. I'm sure the writer or director indtended this to be a motivational device for the character, one that would add a touching, bittersweet humanity to his future-machiney self, but the effort was unnecessary. This was not a movie about motivation and nuance. This was a movie about blowing up giant, scary robots.

If someone buying a ticket for Terminator Salvation is expecting anything more than scary robots and big explosions, well, shame on him. We shouldn't let any film's mega-hype – least of all a sequel's – keep us from considering what its intended goal is. And what is Terminator Salvation trying to be if not the final chapter (okay, no proof if it's actually the final one) in a series of decidedly summer blockbusters? It seems logical to expect more of what people love from the Terminator movies, updated to match modern expectations and for what it's worth, Terminator Salvation does that very well. The film, like its predecessors. Tons of action, a bit of schlock, but with enough excitement and tension to balance things out.

As for the modern expections bit, I think it's safe to say that digital animation and motion graphics has come a VERY long way since 1984 or 1991…hell, even since 2003, when T3 was released! The art in this film reflects that in spades, and masterfully combines a gritty, deserted post-apocolypse with impossibly modern machinery, every item as perfectly rendered as if it had really been captured with the camera.

Of course, action, suspense, and motion graphics alone do not a great movie make. They make a fine movie, as in "just fine," and in this case, a fun one. Call me a pushover, but I'm not looking for more from this Terminator or any other.

Earth ★★★1/2

Happy Earth Day, everyone. I consider myself part of the whole "Earth Day is Everyday" crowd, but I think it's great to really focus in our planet every April, especially now when we have so much work to do. But, hey, we're not here to get political; we're here to talk about Earth, DisneyNature's first big release, which is in theaters today.

Earth, which was released in 2007 in the UK, albeit in a slightly different form, and with a different narrator, is actually made up of footage culled from the groundbreaking hours-long special Planet Earth, which aired in 2006 on the BBC and in 2007 on the Discovery Channel. The British voice of Patrick Stewart was replaced with a slightly lower and more American one, that of James Earl Jones. The film, like the miniseries, has been distributed in other nations with other narrators as well.

If Earth's one goal was to portray a vast array of wildlife as beautiful and elemental, it succeeds. This is not surprising when you consider the astonishing and moving source material. But the film's big failing lies in its desperate aversion to anything that might seem political. Despite frequent mentions of the planet's changing climate, and how it is causing glaciers and rqunforests to shrink while deserts grow ever larger, Mr. Jones' booming voice is never heard naming humans, pollution, or dirty energy as the cause. One stray mention of mankind, injected into the middle, is the movie's most painfully didactic line: "This is the circle of life, that most of us in out urban lives have lost touch with."  

Spare me. If the film's editors truly wanted to keep things so tame, why keep bringing up the subject, only to drop it immediately? Decisions like these made the voice over, silken-toned though it was, seem heavy-handed. The gorgeous imagery speaks for itself; theres no need to be preachy.

Speaking of the gorgeous imagery...wow, is it ever gorgeous. While I didn't love every minute of Earth, there are parts of it I could watch over and over again for their stirring, often frightening beauty and rarity. The time-lapse video of blooming flowers is astonishing, the slo-mo footage of a great white shark is horrifying, and I found myself wishing the footage of birds of paradise would go on forever. Chances are, parts of the movie will strike every viewer that way. As such, the film creates an up-and-down montage of animal life which proves partly great, but only that. In fairness to the film, it seems to be aimed mostly at children and the impatient; anyone with an attention span would likely do better to stick with the original Planet Earth in all its 530 minutes of glory.

2 Movies About Jerks. In Chief.

W. ★★★½ Frost/Nixon ★★★★½

Two heavy-weights of the movie industry have brought us films about presidents 37 and 43. Neither number was particularly lucky for America, but these movies portray men more complex than their respective legacies. W. is out on DVD in early February; Frost/Nixon is in theaters now.

With mere days until his presidency is over, George W. Bush has been traveling the world trying to save face. Turn on your preferred 24-hour news network, and chances are strong that you'll see analysts debating the possibility that W. could somehow be redeemed in the eyes of history. Will future generations see him as a cool dude with a hard-on for liberation, or as the Worst Ever American President?

Enter Oliver Stone. His recent film, W., may provide the most concrete possible reference for future generations wondering just who this Bush guy was. This immense power is one that Stone has exercised before, and thereby strengthened: one might argue that previous films of his, like Nixon and JFK, have created just this type of cultural mirror. So just what kind of picture has he painted of our regrettably fearless leader?

W. is a curious film in that it tells a story that isn't quite over. Starting in the early college days of George W. Bush, it initially depicts a socially smart, marginally lazy guy who seems to have it all, except that his dad won't allow him to enjoy it. Struggling to outshine his father's bleak forecast for the future of such an ambitionless young man – and to do so on his own terms – "Junior" enters the political arena and succeeds both despite and because of his unique personality and priorities.

In discussing Stone's latest film with friends, I heard complaints from some that the movie was too easy on Bush; a select few others complained it was too harshly biased against him. To me, W. seemed, above all, devoutly biographical in its portrayal of the latter-day Bush, with clear allusions to stories and information already brought up in famous biographies like The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty and First Son (neither book is particularly kind to Mr. President). Rather than overtly portray a foolish W, Stone offers us a man faced with increasingly higher stakes, delegating more and more decisions as he climbs the ranks, and all the while constantly demanding he be considered the one who's really responsible for it all: The Decider.

Fascinating in its remarkably plausible depiction of documented events, this is ultimately a film with no ending. Cinematically,  W. suffers for that fact, but how thrilling, philosophically, that the movie itself will help to write the future it didn't dare predict: the fate of its title character.

•••

In those heady days before we knew how truly awful a presidency could be, Richard Nixon was right at the top of every American's shit list. Let's be fair to the late president: he still holds a top spot for many of us. After Nixon's resignation and subsequent pardoning by Gerald Ford, America's faith in government was fractured. Would Nixon ever be asked to pay for his crimes? 

In Ron Howard's new film, Frost/Nixon, this is the cultural climate that sets things in motion. A solution comes from an unlikely source; British talk-show personality David Frost sees a Nixon interview as a great way to shatter ratings records and make tons of advertising money. Not a particularly politically savvy fellow, Frost hires a team of researchers who inform him just how critical it is that he really nail Nixon in this interview. Meanwhile, the Nixon camp only accepts the interview offer because they're expecting the kind of soft-ball love-fest that Frost is known for. Drama ensues!

Through an interesting combination of documentary-style "interviews" from the present day, archival footage, reenactments, and of course the partially-factual story line itself, Frost/Nixon manages to make a movie about a political television event from the Seventies engaging. More than that, the film is frequently funny and occasionally thrilling. Kind of like the whole Watergate debacle. We come away still angry at Nixon, but genuinely sorry for him as well, a testament to the film's powerful script and Frank Langella's positively uncanny and commanding portrayal of the 37th president.

So, alas, George W. Bush fails again. Even his movie isn't as good as Nixon's. Nevertheless, both of these films are absolutely worth seeing, and worth comparing, as they address the question of failed presidency thought two very different methods, and by focusing on two very, very different men.

Apaloosa ★★★½

The Western is such an interesting film genre. Gun slinging good-guys are so tormented, and there’s a fine line between the heroes and the villains that makes for a juicy built-in conflict time and again.

Apaloosa is positively buzzing with this sort of good-guy-that-kills angst. The main characters are law-enforcers for hire, sort of a traveling duo of martial lawmakers. The happen upon a town that needs just this sort of law enforcement to protect it from a gang of bandits (led by a bad-as-ever Jeremy Irons) that are practically running the place, and who just killed the town’s marshal. Ed Harris (who also directed, produced, and co-wrote the film) plays Virgil Cole, the leader of the tag team, while Viggo Mortensen shines quietly as Everett Hitch, the bizarro-world Barney Fife to Cole’s Andy Taylor. Bizarro-world in that he’s smarter than Cole, and is often called on to make decisions and judge the situation at hand. Of course, Cole calls the shots. Literally.

This relationship is the complex centerpiece of a delicate movie, and both characters are expertly, often devastatingly acted by Harris and Mortensen. Throwing a wrench into this balance is the new girl in town, Ally French (Renée Zellweger). When French and Cole get together, the lawmaking future of the Cole/Hitch partnership is put into jeopardy. 

And there you have it: the plot of a modern day Western. Sure, there are a few twists and turns, but aside from the stellar acting, Apaloosa is so non-confrontational that it is occasionally boring. The dialogue is subtle, the characters are subtle, and the plot, especially for the first 30-40 minutes is, to coin a phrase, excruciatingly subtle. Thus, this film full of admirable qualities seems to have a whole that is less than the sum of its parts.

If you are a fan of Westerns or of subtle, well-acted dialogue, Apaloosa is probably worth your time. It’s truly fascinating to watch as the film gradually shifts it focus from one main character (Cole) to the other (Hitch), and the connection between Harris and Mortensen is palpable, with an intensity that hangs in the air. But fair warning: don’t expect it to do much else.

Ghost Town ★★★½

Seriously? Another movie about a mortal who can see dead people? Great. Add it to the list. After all, what actor could possibly manage to make such a hackneyed premise remotely enjoyable?

Oh. Right. Ricky Gervais.

If I'd said I was looking forward to seeing Ghost Town in the hours before I arrived at the theater, I would have meant it in the sense that I enjoy attending the cinema, regardless of how silly the film I'm seeing may be. There was just one aspect of the movie, which is about a man who dies temporarily during routine surgery and is then able to converse with the dead, that appealed to me: its star.

Mr. Gervais more than manages to bring this film up above my (admittedly low) expectations. In fact, his unfailingly dry humor manages to turn a romantic comedy about ghosts into a frequently funny joke at the expense of his jerkwad character, Bertram Pincus, who is desperately in need of reform. That reform comes in the form of a sleazy adulterer (Frank Herlihy, played by Kinnear) who happens to be dead. Once he realizes Pincus can see him, Frank uses his wheeler-dealer skills to convince Pincus that he must convince Herlihy's ex-wife not to remarry. Yeah, it sounds complicated, but it's not. Except for the ghosts. That part I can't explain.

It seems that Gervais's secret – play a jerk, make the audience love him anyway, and make as many self-deprecating jokes as possible – is a winning one. While co-stars Kinnear (ghost-husband instigator) and Téa Leoni (alive-wife love interest) serve their purpose in Ghost Town,  it is Gervais who takes the film from passable to genuinely enjoyable.

But it's still about seeing dead people. Give me a break.

Baby Mama ★★★½

You've seen the trailer, you saw the tv spots, and you thought, "Finally, a film about surrogate pregnancy that's not  a Lifetime Original Movie." Sure enough, Baby Mama is about surrogacy, but I have a feeling the annals of history will remember it instead as the first cinematic effort of comedy superfriends Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. 

As cinematic efforts go, this is a pretty decent one. The pair shine in their roles as a Laurel-and-Hardy-esque straight (wo)man and whack-job. It's also a kind of cavalcade of modern comedy stars (John Hodgeman as a fertility doctor, Will Forte as a successful ex-boyfriend with an unfortunate mustache,  Dax Shepard as a white-trash common-law husband, Romany Malco as the doorman).  Steve Martin plays Fey's boss, for god's sake! But if you go to the theater expecting "hilarious", you'll likely be disappointed. Baby Mama is not a "hilarious" movie. It's a "sweet" movie. A "cute" movie. Even a "funny" movie. It's this slight discrepancy that's left me brooding over my review for over a week now. 

When brilliant comedic minds collide, the results are not always super-profitable, but they are frequently (allow me to use the word again) HILARIOUS. We've seen both Fey and Poehler produce that kind of comedic supernova in the past, if not together. In Poehler's pre-SNL days, you could see her on the brilliant but short-lived Upright Citizens Brigade tv series and in Wet Hot American Summer. Fey and company make explosive magic on 30 Rock week after week, where anything goes, the weirder the better. So why, I wonder, weren't these two geniuses anywhere to be found in the writing credits of this okay movie? I can't help but wonder what might have been if the cast had been put together in a writing room to hash-out the details of some nebulous "Fey/Poehler Baby Movie". 

For me, the film's weirdest moments are its funniest and most memorable. Sigourney Weaver plays the CEO of a surrogacy service, yet is constantly waving her own late-in-life babies in the faces of her clients. As Fey's boss, Steve Martin "rewards" good work with several minutes of silently staring directly into your eyes. Though these moments are often overshadowed by the film's clumsy love story and surprise plot twists, they allow what might have been a mediocre film sparkle a little with that glint of genius. 

The Chronicles of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe ★★★★ Prince Caspian ★★★½

In what could only be called an act of madness, I decided this Sunday that I would spend the hours after work watching, for the first time, 2005's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, to be followed immediately (it was about 30 minutes later) by its sequel, Prince Caspian, now in theaters. While such an exercise can hardly be recommended to the faint-of-heart, it certainly awarded me with a clear lens through which to compare the films.

I initally avoided The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, dubious of a CGI-tastic brutalization of one of the world's greatest children's novels. While the drawn-out introduction left me frustrated (as in "please, for God's sake, take me to Narnia already!), once the wardrobe doors were flung open, the film delivered a mix of fantasy, horror, violence, and yes, even some Christian symbolism, that was frankly rather breathtaking. I was pleased and, frankly, surprised by how satisfying it all proved to be.

Now, I have an inborn aversion to realistically-animated talking animals. Please do not show me a winking tabby cat or a commercial starring a chrous of singing, dancing puppies (I'm talking to you, Frontline!) But I must say, even this element of the Wardrobe was executed with a precision that kept it from grating too much. With few exceptions, digital effects were focused on the many dangerous or powerful subjects the film tackles, rather than working to evoke a sugar-coated dimension of dewy-eyed rodents.

Which brings us to my trip to the theater.

Far from drawing out our quest to re-enter Narnia, Prince Caspian launches us straight into an unfamiliar, human-filled Narnia that left the people behind me wondering if they were in the right theater. They were. It's 1300 years later, and Narnia has been taken over by a group of apparently Spanish humans called Telmarines. Their prince, Caspian X, must flee his kingdom before he's killed by a power-hungry uncle. Of course, he flees right into the forests of Narnia, where he meets a cool badger, some super-sweet dwarves, and, much to my chagrin, this freaking mouse that think's he's soooo hilarious. Even the voice of Eddie Izzard, whom I dearly love, cannot save this character, whose strange behavior and incongruous animation put him up there with Jar-Jar Binks on the list of CGI annoyances.

When this mouse, whose name is apparently Reepicheep, leaves the screen, the movie progresses admirably, with Caspian unknowingly summoning the ancient kings and queens of Narnia – our stars, Lucy, Edmond, Susan, and Peter. (Incidentally, the magic of Narnia seems to have transformed Peter into a super-hunk . Chill out – it's okay for me to say that, because the actor who plays him is 21. Seriously, though, it was distracting. Sweet Jesus.) The remaining mystical inhabitants of Narnia, led by these five nobles, must fight the Telmarines for their freedom. There are good-and-evil struggles reminiscent of the dark side, and clever, violent battle scenes that make you wonder if this is really a kids' movie. And then, in comes Reepicheep and his ilk, completely undermining all the coolness the film has amassed. What we're left with is two movies: the mature, exciting movie that shows through in the majority of scenes, and the goofy, pandering kiddie flick that should have been left on the cutting room floor.

The verdict? Both films are interesting and packed with moments their cast and crew can be very proud of. Neither film is perfect, but I would like to officially put to rest all of this "better than the original" talk that's surrounding Prince Caspian. At best, the film is an exciting appendage to the first Chronicles of Narnia movie. The indulgent desire to provide a little "something for everyone" frequently derailed the story's progression and ultimately distracted from the astonishing effects and fascinating darkness that gilds many of Caspian's scenes. We'll get to return to Narnia on The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in 2010; hopefully they'll leave the goofy characters at the pier.

In Bruges ★★★1/2

With the trailer alone, In Bruges conveys upon one the idea that the Belgian city is a bizarre and dreary one, peppered with some shocks of unexpected color. I have no idea if this is true of Bruges, but it is most certainly true of the film itself.

For me, writer/director Martin McDonagh's latest effort plays out as a so-so film with a handful of very high points. It boldly clashes together the genres of drama, action, and comedy, for which it deserves a lot of credit. In a similar stroke of daring, it seems to care very little about the typical conventions of film narrative. Case and point: the film essentially has no beginning and no ending, at least not in the traditional sense. But rather than launching us right into the action, the film merely skips the formality of introductions. We just have to sit back and wait for something to happen.

Enter my biggest problem with In Bruges. A major plot point of the film is the fact that main character Ray (Collin Farrell) hates being in Bruges from the moment he arrives there. His complaining playfully annoys his partner in crime, fellow and more senior hitman Ken (Brendan Gleeson). Guess who else it annoys? Me. I'd essentially had enough of Ray's bitching by minute 5 or 6. I've been on quite enough trips to foreign countries with companions who were determined to make the least of it, thank you. While the film eventually offers some insight as to why Ray's in such a bad mood, I couldn't help but feel irked that I had to listen to 30 minutes of complaining before things got rolling.

Things do get rolling, to be sure, and they're frequently bloody and often surprising. But were they worth waiting for? For me, the brilliant moments of comedy, action, and poignancy in the film's latter half never quite washed away the bad taste the first 30 minutes left me with. I can't say if it will be the same for you. In this case, I'd say its worth finding out for yourself.

Be Kind, Rewind ★★★1/2

If movies were food, dreamer/auteur Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Science of Sleep) would be the bold, unpredictable gourmet chef whose recipes sound impossible or ridiculous in theory but, once executed, prove to be delectable masterpieces. In this analogy, then, Be Kind Rewind would have to be Gondry's latest dessert. But not just any dessert: this is spun sugar atop a cotton candy soufflé; in short, Gondry's latest film is by far his lightest, and possibly one of the sweetest films I've ever seen. And though "sweetest" or "most endearing" are likely the only superlatives the strange project will earn, that's hardly a total loss.

The film, which stars one of my favorite people (Mos Def), and that love-him-or-hate-him mad elf, Jack Black (is that too harsh? For the record, I really like Jack Black), casts the two as somewhat deranged citizens of a small New Jersey town. When Black becomes magnetized during an attempt to sabotage the local power plant, he erases all the videotapes at the movie-rental store that's being run temporarily by Mos Def's character (his boss and surrogate father, played by Danny Glover, is out of town). When pressed by devoted customers to deliver the tapes they want ASAP, the two are unable to track down VHS copies of pretty much anything, and resort to the next logical solution: remake the films, on demand, one at a time, with their camcorder. They name this process "Sweding," maintaining to customers that the technique has something to to with Sweden.

Like it or not, the fact that the store rents only VHS tapes is one of the most believable elements of the film. The magnetization, while at times hilarious, often feels pretty ham-fisted, forced upon us and Black, and later pulled away, just because it's convenient for the story. Much like the videos being hastily created in the film, many of the scenes in Be Kind have the fingerprints of the production process all over them; as we see the actors seemingly making up their dialogue as they go along, you can almost hear someone in the background shouting "move, move, we've got to get this scene over with!" And as amazing as many of the slapdash remakes are (in real life, Jack Black had never seen at least one of the films they had to reenact!), the faster we are pushed through them, the more gimmicky they become. I found myself wishing that more of the film was spent on showing us the creation of a few remakes; in fact, there is a point where we go from shoot to shoot as the camera pans down the block, and the names of the movies in question appear on the screen.

Despite a lot of attention and advertising surrounding the remaking, or "Sweding" of famous films as a plot point, Be Kind, Rewind wants more to be a movie about small-town folks coming together to support something they care about. Initially, it's the creation of the Sweded films, which the locals go crazy for. Ultimately, though, it's the preservation of their local movie shop and the local legends that are contained within it. And even when prospects look grim, the inherent power of coming together in support of something seems to be enough to sustain them and make a happy ending.

See? I told you it was sweet. While I found a lot of major flaws in this film, the positive spirit it maintains makes it difficult for me to speak ill of it. I would gladly watch it again, in fact, despite my better judgement; after all, who can say no to more dessert?

2 Days In Paris ★★★1/2

d. Julie Delpy

About a month before its Chicago release, I got to hear Julie Delpy talk about her new film. And 2 Days In Paris is "her" film as much as anything could be; she not only wrote, directed, and starred in it, but also edited it, scored it, and sang a song in the closing credits.

Normally I might be dubious of a film so tightly controlled by one person, but the opportunity to hear the auteur speak about it definitely turned me into a believer. Ms. Delpy spoke with a personality both confident and self-deprecating, both intelligent and sweet, while still managing to squeeze in the words "blow job" and "penis" 5 or 6 times.

That personality translates magically, for the most part, into the voice of 2 Days In Paris. The film is both genuine and hysterical, providing a bitingly frank look at the romantic problems of two very independent people. Delpy plays Marion, a somewhat bi-polar French photographer whose neurotic boyfriend, Jack (masterfully depicted by Adam Goldberg), finds something to worry about around every Parisian corner during a two-day stay with her parents in the city of lights. Not surprisingly, the film conjures up images of Woody Allen, but it's Delpy's voice that shines through above all. For my part, I hope that, like Allen, she'll go on to helm enough pictures like this one to create her own little subgenre.

If that does happen, there are one or two requests I'd like to make of Ms. Delpy. Well, just one. There's just this little problem with the narration. Delpy's actual voice, as Marion, hangs like a cloud over this story, always threatening to rain down some extraneous information or rush us through an interesting scene. At one point, she comes in to tell us about her childhood. This aside, while interesting, is never brought up again in the film. And while I firmly believe that old filmmaking rules like "Show, Don't Tell" were made to be broken, such rebelliousness should be reserved for times when a voiceover is actually serving a purpose. Worse yet, in the final minutes of the film a truly critical conversation between its 2 main characters is bewilderingly reduced to a few mere sentences of voiceover explaining what happened. Then we're left with very little else before the closing credits roll. After 90 minutes of gradually coming to sympathize with these two lunatics, I felt like my final moments with them had been snatched away by the very hand that crafted them.

If I shake off those final minutes, Ms. Delpy's film is a fantastic experiment with not real conclusion. With the last few minutes, it's a fantastic experiment with a disappointing conclusion. Either way, 2 Days In Paris is a project whose creator deserves to be commended for introducing her unique voice into the world of cinema. Hopefully, next time – and I do hope for a next time – that voice will be heard even more clearly, and not quite so literally.