“Due Date” aims the slow burn of Robert Downey Jr. at the addled idiocy of Zach Galifianakis in a “Hangover” director’s version of “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.”
And shockingly, it’s funny. Often in shocking or at least wildly inappropriate ways.
Uneven and sloppily sentimental, “Life as We Know It” is still the best Katherine Heigl comedy since “Knocked Up.”
Credit her co-star, Josh Duhamel for that. As he has done in many a less worthy romantic comedy, he amplifies her charm. And she, in turn, brings out his sweet side. And credit the script, which gives her more to play than your average “Ugly Truth.”
Yes, he’s married to Fergie. And for all the hits he’s turned up in, he hasn’t quite broken out. Yet. Josh Duhamel has classed up many a flailing romantic comedy (“When in Rome”), propped up many a failing leading lady (“Life As We Know It”). And always come out of it grinning.
He’s survived the “Transformers” franchise more or less un-scathed. Will he be able to say that about going all Nicholas Sparks on us? Hey, that did wonders for Channing Tatum and Ryan Gosling, among others.
I’m talking to Josh (his bio is here) about “Safe Haven,” and I’d love some ideas for lines of questioning. As always, post them as comments, and as always, thanks for your help!
The onslaught of good reviews (mine here) for the zombie romantic comedy “Warm Bodies” may not turn it into the Zombie “Twilight.” But they won’t hurt.
“Bullet to the Head” (review here) will let us see if Stallone can drag a middling actioner into hit territory, something Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn’t able to pull off with “The Last Stand.” Weak to middling reviews for this one.
“Stand Up Guys” (my review here) has three Oscar winners, and Lucy Punch. And Julianna Margulies.
It’s pretty much stillborn, but when Alan Arkin shows up to join old gangster pals Al Pacino and Christopher Walken, we get a taste of the movie it might have been. Weak reviews for this one.
And remember, at select cinemas in select cities this year’s Oscar nominated animated, live action and documentary shorts are being shown as complete programs — five short films in one sitting.This is a VERY good year for the field, with five strong films in each category.
Enzian here in Orlando is showing the Live Action shorts (review here) and Animated ones (ditto, here), starting this weekend.
Josh Duhamel and Julianne Hough are probably hoping for a Channing Tatum/Amanda Seyfried style bounce from this latest Nicholas Sparks adaptation to reach the big screen.
It’s got beaches and undying, everlasting love. You know, Sparks stuff.
I like to think of him as the Liberace of literature. Ask him about his bad reviews and it’s “I cry all the way to the bank.” “Safe Haven” opens Feb. 8. Think I’m interviewing Duhamel, one of my favorite actors — funny and charming, even if the movie is humorless and charmless.
“You’re going nowhere,” his school headmaster tells him.
“Is nowhere full of geniuses, sir?” the young John Lennon snaps back. “Because if it is, I do belong there.”
The quick wit, sarcasm and self-confidence are evident in the young Lennon, played here with rebellious verve by Aaron Johnson of “Kick-Ass.” But “Nowhere Boy,” the movie, doesn’t really make the case for Lennon’s sense of self. The Lennon here wasn’t a genius — a boy with competitive drive and a fierce desire for the sort of fame that impresses the girls, a boy with a troubled upbringing, but with parents who encouraged and indulged his musical interests.
Whatever its shortcomings, director Jim Sheridan and stars Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz and Naomi Watts deserved better than the give-away-the-store trailer that Universal delivered for “Dream House.”
Secretariat, the 1970s super horse, was no Seabiscuit. And that creates problems that “Secretariat,” the movie, never overcomes. A well-acted tale of an underdog’s triumph that sorely lacks an underdog, it teeters between pleasantly generic film biography and rank manipulation.
Oh, that “RED” was the giddy romp it might have been, it promises to be or it thinks it is. It has the best cast of any action comedy movie, maybe ever: four-Oscar-winners plus Bruce Willis. But despite that and a winning concept — that somebody, maybe in government, is trying to kill off aged, retired CIA assassins — director Robert “Flightplan” Schwentke never lets this one achieve takeoff.
Clint Eastwood’s late life/late career fascination with mortality, death and grieving devolves, at long last, into a cheap parlor trick in “Hereafter.” This wholly unsatisfying variation on “what lies beyond” shows him to be ill-suited to the subject and to the sort of tale that involves setting three disparate characters on a path toward one another for a finale that isn’t so much a pay off as a “Yeah, and?”
