We Bought a Zoo

First Hit: Despite its obvious intentions to elicit emotions, it effectively works on all cylinders.

It is hard to think that Matt Damon can be in a bad film.

I wondered about the title of this movie and the previews that I saw had me thinking - maybe. But as he said on The Daily Show “It’s a Cameron Crowe film.” Yup, it is true and it is good.

The overall acting by everyone is top notch. Crowe got what he needed from everyone.

This film is about a Benjamin Mee (Damon) who loses his wife and is left with two kids; Dylan (played by Colin Ford) a 14 year old boy and Rosie (played by Maggie Elizabeth Jones) a 6 year old girl. They miss their mom just as Benjamin misses his wife every single day.

Benjamin gets advice and support from his very close brother Duncan (played by Thomas Haden Church) who is an accountant and has his own life struggles. Feeling stuck in their lives, Benjamin leaves the city and moves his family outside into the country by buying a rundown and soon to be closed down zoo.

Rosie is happy, Dylan is angry, Duncan is confused, and Benjamin is doing his best to find a way to let go of the memories of Katherine is wife (played by Stephanie Szostak). Running the zoo is the former zoo keeper apprentice Kelly Foster (played by Scarlett Johansson). All the zoo workers are unique in their own way and this film lets them all have their moments.

The story’s goal is to get the zoo open by July 7th and they only have a few months. This journey is one of forgiveness, letting go, letting love, hard work and the results of “giving yourself 20 seconds of insane courage”.

Damon is amazing. He brings courage, confidence, thoughtfulness, anger, sadness and laughter to his character. Ford is wonderful as the frustrated teen who is very lost. Jones is unbelievably wonderful as the wondrous daughter. Church is perfect as the supportive but ever skeptical funny protective brother. Johansson is sublime as the zoo keeper who has confidence and is looking for someone to match this. Elle Fanning as Lily was super as the open fearless girl who has a crush. The entire cast is simply wonderful and that is because of the well written story by Aline Brosh McKenna and Cameron Crowe and the perfect direction by Crowe.

Overall: This is a very good and heart-warming PG film.

Dinner for Schmucks

First Hit: Parts of this film are very very funny while other segments seemed only to exist to extend its length (think long setups) and to make the film more serious.

This is a remake (or re-hash) of the French film Le diner de cons (The Dinner Game) in which a group of people bring the dumbest person they can find for dinner.

In this film Paul Rudd plays Tim, a well-meaning man who is overextended financially, works for a company that is financially struggling, has a great girlfriend and is out to impress her and others.

His next step is to move from the sixth floor to the seventh floor in his office building which means he’ll be one of the executives who gets paid a lot more money and has some clout in the company. He thinks that with this promotion he'll be able to afford the lifestyle he thinks he needs to have for him and his girlfriend Julie (played by Stephanie Szostak).

When he makes a gutsy move during a business meeting, he catches the eye of his boss who tells him he can move up to the seventh floor if he passes an initiation. The initiation is going to dinner at the bosses house and to bring an idiot.

Julie hears of this event and trusts Tim to turn down the dinner because it's cruel to invite an idiot to dinner for the sole purpose of making fun of him. But Tim wants to do both and is afraid if he doesn’t go through with it he’ll lose Julie.

This is where Steve Carell as Barry the idiot comes to the rescue. He’s an IRS agent who is kind of heart, creates havoc wherever he goes, has good intentions, and takes dead mice, stuffs them, dresses them and makes idyllic scenes of love with them.

How all this ends up you’ll have to watch the film, but let it be known, there are some very funny scenes and some long winded sequences which could have used some shears to make this film really crisp and funny.

Carell is absolutely perfect as the well-meaning guy who could use some real friends, has an odd hobby, and is well intentioned in his actions. I loved the playing dead sequences – perfect. Rudd is pretty good at staying close to his base character and not over acting to more closely mirror some of the action around him. Jemaine Clement is superb as the artist who is really self absorbed and thinking he is the gift of man to all women. Zach Galifianakis is great as Carell’s IRS co-worker who believes he has the power of mind control. Szostak is OK as Rudd’s girlfriend but as if she didn’t bring anything unique to the part or film.

Overall: I really laughed hard as many of the films segments and bits but there were moments I was just waiting for the next thing to happen.