The Perks of Being a Wallflower

First Hit:  Despite the clichés of roles, it was easy to suspend belief and enjoy this film.

Entering high school can be traumatic as well as exciting.

I remember my first day, walking and gazing at 3 senior girls who were beautiful beyond belief and as I was walking and gazing, I turned to see where I was headed and I immediately ran into a metal pole – yes they all saw and laughed. I was embarrassed and tried to hide for a week while I licked my wounds.

Despite the good-looking main wallflower characters, it was the pain that each brought from within that made the film work for me. Charlie (played by Logan Lerman) is the main character from which we take this journey. He’s got problems which are not laid out to the audience when the film starts.

He talks of trying to find just one friend. The people he knows of through his older sister and a couple of childhood friends refuse to acknowledge his existence when in school. Maybe it is because he spent time in a mental hospital after his Aunt died – but we don’t know yet.

Charlie happens to meet up with Patrick (Ezra Miller) who is gay, having an affair with Brad (played by Johnny Simmons) - a football player, but Patrick sees Charlie's pain and reaches out to him. He introduces him to his step-sister Sam (Emma Watson) and their friends and they accept him.

For the first time in his life he feels at home and his internal demons subside for a moment. But his ghosts start coming back with memories of his aunt. The sub-plots with Emma and her choice in boys to date, his sister Candace (played by Nina Dobrev) and why she would let her boyfriend hit her we’re all engaging.

Lerman was very good as the guy trying to discover why he is so lost. Miller was truly outstanding as the vocal gay student who is trying to keep busy and his life together. Simmons, was good and convincing as the very confused gay football player. Watson was superb as Lerman’s heartthrob who also was trying to receive the love she deserves. Dobrev was strong as Lerman’s sister who was supportive when it really mattered while learning her own lessons. Stephen Chbosky both wrote and directed this film with a pretty good feel for the internal anguish of young teens.

Overall:  This was an enjoyable film but not a great one.

The Words

First Hit:  It started well, fell flat in the middle and fell off the cliff in the end.

Clay Hammond (played by Dennis Quaid) plays a writer of acclaim who’s written a book people are very taken by.

We slip reality/time/space venues (but were not supposed to know it) and watch Rory Jansen (played by Bradley Cooper) struggle to be a writer. His adoring wife Dora (played by Zoe Saldana) supports his struggle and believes in him. His first self-reflective and deep novel is rejected by all publishers. He gets a regular job deliver mail in a publishing house.

On his honeymoon he finds a briefcase which has a typed manuscript inside. It reflects a story around WWII in Paris. He decides to type it up word for word and publish it. The real author as an old man (played by Jeremy Irons) reads it and makes himself known to Rory.

Rory is panicked, Dora is upset, and his life is turned upside down. So now we have viewed the story and life the old man wrote about, the story of Rory and Dora which is laid on the first story, with Hammond relating this all as a story.

Even worse we have to get to know Hammond a little towards the last 1/3 of the film and it is mediocre.

Quaid was a poor fit as Hammond the author and worse as he bared his truth to a younger admirer. Cooper was good but thought he was hemmed in by the part. Saldana was very good and more interesting than her husband the author. Irons was oddly crusty and philosophical about his plight. Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal both shared writing and direction roles. This is probably why the vision and execution of this story was mixed up and unclear.

Overall: This film wastes the words used to tell these stories and, in the end, it felt gimmicky and doomed to any good acting that could have been delivered.

Celeste and Jesse Forever

First Hit:  Earnest at times while failing to state the obvious at other times. In the end it left me wanting something with more growth and substance.

This is a film about a couple who are best friends but weren’t willing to really work on making their romantic relationship work.

One of the best lines from the film, and I’m paraphrasing here, came from one of Celeste’s (played by Rashida Jones) clients, a pop star named Riley (played by Emma Roberts), “you are contempt towards people without doing any homework or knowing anything about them.”

This perfectly captured Celeste’s attitude in the film, which I disliked about her character. She was self-righteous and right. She was oblivious to the truth about her and others. Her codependent partner Jesse (played by Andy Samberg) lived in a studio behind the house they once lived in together.

His character was like a lost little boy who depended on his strong former wife to maintain him. Their friends didn’t like how they were together and actually I thought it was unreal and their private games together, like masturbating a small tube of lip-balm or baby corn was OK maybe once, but multiple times?

There were moments in this film where the point for making this film was going to stand tall, only to be dragged down by self-indulgence of the characters.

There is a good film in the subject matter, couples have to work on their friendship in a romantic relationship and vice versa, but the inconsistency of this effort mimicked my dislike for each of the characters or actors, I don’t know which.

Jones felt self-absorbed and self-righteous both as a person and character. Samberg was too weak to be the second lead. Roberts was very good as Riley the pop-star. Ari Graynor as the couple's friend Beth, did well to show and hold her contempt for Celeste and Jesse while balancing with her love for them. I also liked Rebecca Dayan as Veronica the woman who was attempting to let Jesse grow up. Her quite demeanor was one of acceptance. Jones and Will McCormack (who also was a character in the film) wrote a script that required some subtlety and balance in the characters. Lee Toland Krieger directed this mediocre film.

Overall: This film could have said a lot more than it did about the importance of couples nurturing a friendship and each other as people while embracing romance.

Hit and Run

First Hit:  Felt like it was put together in a hurry – low craftsmanship – yet it was enjoyable with a solid set of points.

Stay in the present. People can change. Forgiveness of oneself and others is important. And, how a person shows up to you now may be different from how they were in the past. I liked these points.

However, does this film make them well? Not really and that is the down fall of this film. Hit and Run is a title that is more about how the film was made than the action in film itself. Yul Perkins a.k.a. Charles Bronson (played Dax Shepard) is a man who in a witness protection program and guarded by a totally incompetent Sheriff, Randy Anderson (played by Tom Arnold).

Not sure why this character had to be this incompetent throughout the movie only to show up in the last few scenes as competent – but that is part of the problem of this film. Then you have Annie Bean (played by Kristen Bell) who is a very beautiful woman, living with Charles, and who is going to lose her job in a local college but gets a chance to head up a nonviolent communication school in LA. This causes Charles to talk about his real past, name, and why he is in a witness protection program.

Yul was once a bank robber with Alex (played by Bradley Cooper) and Neve (played by Joy Bryant) and drove the getaway car. Alex’s introduction into the film was one of the more interesting scenes of late. He loves dogs, doesn’t want them mistreated, and sees a dog who is unhappy in front of a store, makes a few comments to the owner, and from there, the violent tendencies of Alex are brought forth.

The story is about settling scores, forgiveness and making a new life. Shepard as writer, co-director and actor is obviously more than he can handle.

The film felt rushed in execution, the writing for some parts (Arnold’s and his own) was amateurish.

As an actor Shepard does not command the screen but does make other in a scene stand out. Bell is perky and refreshing but I’m not sure this was the part for her. She almost seemed out of place. Arnold was mostly unwatchable. His nervous quirkiness ended up on the screen as someone completely lost as to what to do. Cooper was actually the most interesting to watch. His relaxed way in how he expresses his violent nature in this part was very good and I liked him a lot. Bryant was OK as Alex’s sidekick who was once engaged to Perkins. Dax Shepard wrote the script and also co-directed the film with David Palmer. The script was unpolished and bumpy at times while the direction and whole feel of the film was rushed - sort of hit and run.

Overall: This mostly chase film is amateurish, however there were moments of laughter, action and wisdom.

Hope Springs

First Hit:  Poignant and well-acted film about how love and real romance begins with communication.

Kay (Meryl Streep) and Arnold (Tommy Lee Jones) have been married for 31 years, sleep in separate rooms, and barely talk to each other.

Arnold complains or is critical about everything and appears to always be worried about spending money – he’s a tax accountant. Kay is a housewife with a part-time job in a clothing store. Kay is unhappy with the whole situation while Arnold seems complacent with the status quo. Kay decides to seek the assistance of Dr. Feld (Steve Carell) who helps couples re-find their magic through communication.

Kay throws down the gauntlet to Arnold by telling him, she’ll be on the plane and he can choose to go or not. Through Dr. Feld’s sessions Arnold and Kay struggle and learn to find their love and caring for each other again.

The story is filled with the truth of what happens to couples when they quit communicating with each other. Each person is stuck in their own comfort zone and struggling to find a way to move forward as their life is reaching their later stages.

The fearless quality of the script to have this couple in dialogue about real issues was fantastic. The acting by both Streep and Jones was outstanding.

Carell showed honest restraint while facilitating the direct discussion with dialogue between the couple with pointed questions.

The only fault I found with the film was that I didn’t believe that Jones and Streep had any real or believable romantic and physical chemistry. But this didn’t take away from the point of the film.

Streep was perfect as the woman who followed or, maybe better, acquiesced to her husband’s path for their life together as demonstrated by accepting of a water heater for Christmas. Jones was fantastic as a man who has insulated himself from life especially his wife. He’s loyal but he ignores her. Carell is really good here as a therapist and enjoyed the way he portrayed Dr. Feld. Elizabeth Shue had a minor role as Karen, a bartender in a Maine seaside bar, and it made me wish she was doing more films – she was really engaging. Vanessa Taylor wrote an outstanding script. David Frankel did a great job of bringing a pointed script to life and it has got to help when you have two actors like Streep and Jones.

Overall:  This was a thoroughly enjoyable film.