Footloose

First Hit: There were moments of great entertainment separated by long sections of pure boredom.

This film was so filled with clichés that it was virtually un-watchable at times.

The Reverend Shaw Moore (played by Dennis Quaid) over reacts to events, doesn’t look in the mirror to see his own faults and has a child who rebels against his righteous rule. His opponent, of sorts, is Ren MacCormack (played by Kenny Wormald) who appears to be a rebel but is actually trying to hold his life together after his mother dies of Leukemia.

Then there is Ren’s first friend whom he meets when he arrives at school on the first day, Willard (played by Miles Teller) who cannot dance but we all know that he’ll be great by the end of the film. Ren comes from Boston, Massachusetts to Bomont, Georgia where he finds things a bit different. The town has made dancing illegal (like this is actually believable) because some kids lost their lives while drinking and driving home from a dance.

Reverend Moore’s oldest son caused the accident that killed the five kids and he feels responsible to protect all other children. His daughter Ariel (played by Julianne Hough) is acting out because she feels lost without her older brother.

I was bored at the long sequences of predictable scenes all leading up to moments of great entertainment. Those scenes are the dancing at the drive-in theater, the little girls teaching Willard to dance, the scene where an angry Ren dances in a warehouse, and the final dance scene.

But outside of these entertainment events the characters are way too predictable, the scenes are marginally acted, and waiting for the entertainment was painful.

Quaid made a good uptight Reverend but there was no interesting ground broken here. Andie McDowell played Vi Moore the reverend’s wife, and was great to see again in a film. In her minor role she actually brought some wisdom to the film. Wormald was OK to watch, a very good dancer, but I always felt he was smirking through the role. Teller was one of the best things to watch in the film – engaged and enjoyable to watch. Hough was barely adequate as a girl rebelling. Yes she acted rebellious but there wasn’t anything coming through on the screen about her character being in pain or challenged. It was all outward and nothing came forth from an inward space. Dean Pitchford and Craig Brewer wrote this mostly awful script. Craig Brewer directed great dance scenes but the rest of it was wasteful.

Overall: Barely watchable on video or streaming. The young girls in the theater liked it but it was all hat and no cattle.

Circumstance

First Hit:  A very strong film representing both the oppression of women in the Middle-East and the taboo of non-traditional sexual orientation.

Atafeh (played by Nikohl Boosheri) comes from a wealthy and connected family. Her brother Mehran (played by Reza Sixo Safai) has had drug problems and comes back home to work on creating a clean life for himself.

As part of his transformation he finds himself in mosques praying as a way to keep his sober life. Atafeh’s friend in school is Shireen (played by Sarah Kazemy)  who comes from a less wealthy family and is a beautiful quiet girl. Together they do things they aren’t supposed to do; they go to parties with men, wear sexy clothing, drink alcohol and end up in jail for some of their indiscretions.

The scenes showing the youth having fun, dancing and then being raided by the morality police were interesting and provocative. As I’ve not lived in a country that does this, I can only imagine what it is like.

Added to this is that Shireen and Atafeh love each other and are intimate. This is frowned upon in their society so Shireen marries Mehran to be near Atafeh, but jealousy and control develop on the siblings parts and this creates additional family struggle.

From a film perspective I applaud the film for sharing the views and lives of a different country, but the film’s quality and its presentation waiver throughout its 107 minutes. I did like the music because it combined traditional and hip-hop Iranian sounds.

Boosheri was really strong and excellent in her role as a young confused woman stretching the bounds of her life as set forth by society. Kazemy was immensely beautiful in a quiet way and did a great job of holding in her confusion and difficulties of being poor, gay and a woman trapped in a restrictive society. Safai was strong in showing the shift of being lost to finding solace in prayer. As he conformed to the rules of his society, he becomes clearer in his life. Maryam Keshavarz wrote and directed this film and it is clearly from a woman’s perspective.

Overall: This was a very good film and I appreciated the push to show the audience the difficulty of life in Iran.

One Day

First Hit: Disappointing overall as the chemistry wasn’t there between the leads and I couldn’t care about Dexter.

This film spans 20 years of time and neither character showed much aging.

Briefly, Emma (played by Anne Hathaway) and Dexter (played by Jim Sturgess) are college mates. The audience sees that Emma likes Dexter but is cautiously afraid of him because she doesn’t feel worthy of his good looks and charm. He is supposedly attracted to her but shouldn't be because she isn't hot enough (that's the feeling I got).

They spend the night together but without sex and the audience is to believe that there is something magical growing between them. They go their separate ways and they keep in touch phone calls and occasional dates. The passage of time is noted by the anniversary of their meeting (July 15th) continues to pop-up on the screen.

Dexter uses his charm and looks to snag a job as a TV host who is supposed to be hip. He spends all his time drinking, snorting coke, and screwing women he doesn’t care about. It isn’t that people cannot redeem themselves, but there must be something that touches the audience where redemption springs up from within the audience want him to redeem himself.

There really isn't anything. Only when he is with his daughter at the end of the film did I even begin to like the guy (and maybe that was the point – but it was too little too late). Meanwhile Emma, wanting to be a writer (poems and a novel) works in a Mexican restaurant in England (where they are both located). Ian (played by Rafe Spall) also works at the restaurant and thinks himself as a comedian. So together they are too lost souls not doing what they believe in but working together in this Mexican restaurant.

Because he is stable, and they are having this pitiful life together, he and Emma decide to move in together. This made no sense as Emma's character just wasn't that dumb to do this and yet the story has her doing this. But she’s supposed to have chemistry with Dexter (her life’s love) and there is none here as well.

As time goes by and both Dexter and Emma find their path back to each other, no matter the dialogue, scripting or scenes, there’s nothing really there between them to make me believe that is a “love of my life” relationship.

For comparison, look at Matt Damon and Emily Blunt in “The Adjustment Bureau” for an example of on-screen chemistry.

Hathaway would have done much better with someone with whom she could create chemistry with along with a director who knew how to get something interesting from his actors. I think her acting here is solid enough, but everything around her is sub-standard. Sturgess has the look of a “player” but there was emptiness about him which made his character two dimensional and not worth caring about. Spall played either did a horrible job at his clueless character or the script was equally clueless. Either way, each time he was on the screen I cringed, he resembled no one I’ve ever run into. Ken Scott (as Dexter’s father) and Patricia Clarkson as the mother were solid in their roles. David Nicholls wrote the screenplay from his book which could have been good. While the direction by Lone Scherfig never captured real characters fully and let the story flail away at drama and romance.

Overall: This film is forgettable and had little to offer in the realm of romance.

Crazy, Stupid, Love.

First Hit: This film had some very funny, sad, thoughtful moments, but wasn’t memorable.

Cal (played by Steve Carell) is married to Emily (played by Julianne Moore) and they’ve been married for a long time. They were each other’s soul mates but they’ve grown apart.

Emily has an affair with David Lindhagen (played by Kevin Bacon) and it devastates Cal. He moves out. They have three children one is grown and gone while the other two are younger. The boy Robbie (played by Jonah Bobo) is smart, wise and in love with the babysitter Jessica (played by Analeigh Tipton) who is 5 years older than Robbie but she has a crush on Cal.

Cal goes to a singles bar to drown his sorrows and watches as Jacob (played by Ryan Gosling) picks up woman after woman each and every night. Jacob, in turn, watches Cal telling tales in the bar about how his wife did him wrong and decides to help him out. He invites Cal on a shopping trip and then lets him listen to how he picks up women. One night Cal picks up Kate (played by Marisa Tomei) who likes his honesty and charm. He learns that Kate is a “5 years sober” teacher.

In the meantime we watch Hannah (played by Emma Stone) get shut down by a guy who offers her a job when she thought she was going to be proposed to. In a fit of upset, she finds Jacob, whom she turned down on an earlier encounter and makes him take her to his house for sex.

However, they end up in a long conversation and begin to fall in love. As they fall in love, Cal is busy picking up a string of women but missing Emily. Emily dates David but misses Cal. Robbie is making Jessica feel uncomfortable with his ever present text messages outlining his undying love.

This is the setup for what I think was the funniest and most interesting scene in the film. I won’t spoil it, and it has to do with people meeting people and the police having to separate all the men fighting each other.

Carell is good as a heart broken man and good as the newly coiffed player. However the word I used was good, not great as I continued to feel separateness from and not an embodiment of of the character he was playing. Moore was very good as the woman who was searching for femininity and inner glow again. Bacon was perfect for the short but important part as the “other man”. Bobo was very good, although some of his lines and actions seemed more than what a 12 year old would say or do. Tipton was wonderful and perfect as the babysitter who is beautiful, doesn’t know it, and feeling the pressure of her first crush. Tomei was outstanding as the teacher who finds out she slept with, yet another man, who lied to her. Gosling was fully engaging as the guy with the photo-shopped body and used his charms to pick up women but then was able to meet someone whom he really cared about. Dan Fogelman wrote a strong and, at times, surprising script although I think the 12 year old lines were overly adult at times. Glenn Ficarra and John Requa directed the film with skill in many places including the little surprises that lead to a nice climax. However, it was longer than needed and there could have been some pruning of a number of scenes (including lawn raking and bar pickup bits).

Overall: The film was enjoyable and surprising moments that were really funny.

Friends with Benefits

First Hit: Smart fun writing and great chemistry result in a totally wonderful, engaging and interesting film.

There is nothing like a smart script to make a film satisfying.

The dialogue here is clever, interesting, up-to-date, and downright spot on. The next step for a film is to have a clear idea of what the film wants to say, and here Will Gluck directed this with clear unfailing vision.

The coup de grace was the choice of actors. Here Justin Timberlake plays Dylan, a mathematically challenged designer, to the hilt. He is handsome, slightly “damaged” by his childhood, caring of people, wanting to do the right thing, but doesn’t have the chops to settle down with one woman.

In the other camp is Mila Kunis playing Jamie a high-level headhunter who wants her prince charming to sweep her off her feet and her damaged view of relationships keep men away after a few short go-a-rounds. She is whippet smart, outgoing, fun, and has a mom that cannot even tell her the ethnicity of her father.

Jamie contacts Dylan while searching for a head designer for GQ magazine. He comes to New York City to “check out his options” and go through the interview process. From the get go there is chemistry. It is fun, spontaneous, quick-witted and a delight to watch. She “sells” him that this is the right move for him and he takes the job.

Arriving in New York, knowing no one, he and Jamie become fast friends. And here is the kicker as to why this film works; you believe they are and can be friends. One evening while they are lamenting about past relationships, they decide they can have sex with each other without any emotion or feelings; “just like playing tennis”. Of course they do (hence the film title) and their sex is amazing for each of them.

The frank repartee in and out of the bed is out-loud funny and inwardly touching. Their family representatives as played by Richard Jenkins (Dylan’s dad) and Patricia Clarkson (Jamie’s mom) are amazingly great in their roles and only add to the intrigue. Woody Harrelson, playing Tommy GQ’s gay sportswriter is hilarious and perfectly cast.

 Timberlake is downright perfect in this role and, in my mind, has shown he has wonderful acting chops. My personal favorite scene is in the bedroom when he starts to dance and rap to a Kris Kross song. It shows his musical talents, dancing ability, all while staying in character. Kunis is sublime. She is open, beautiful, sharp, and downright loveable. She carried her share of the load fantastically. Jenkins had me in tears when he talked about the “love of his life” while in his underwear at the airport. Clarkson was a perfect blend of part hippy, part fox, and part mother who could never really stay in one place or with one man. She is a hoot. Harrelson seems to know how to play so many different characters with belief. Here, as a gay man, he’s fun. Keith Merryman and David A. Newman get kudos for writing such a smart script. From the outset the words clearly define the times while engaging the audience. Gluck caught the mood, and dynamics in a perfect way – outstanding.

 Overall: We all know the end of the film when it starts, but it makes no difference because the joy in this movie is in the ride so don’t miss it.