I was invited to attend a special screening of On Broadway,  an independent film shot entirely against the backdrop of Boston. This movie featured a little more fanfare than your typical independent production due to the impressive list of luminairies appearing in the movie – Mike O’Malley, Joey McIntyre, Amy Poehler, Will Arnett, and Eliza Dushku.

The premise is simple but effective: Joey McIntyre attends his uncle’s wake and is heavily moved by the coming together of family & friends. He decides to encapsulate his experience by writing a play, and furthermore, bringing it to stage in hopes of reinvigorating his sour relationship with his father.

Along the way this movie features spurts of comedy, drama, emotion, and most importantly – inspiration. Sure the plot setup may have dragged a little slowly in the beginning, but the latter two thirds of the movie creates a relationship with the viewer that we all can relate with because we’ve all had similar challenges.

Though it’s a low budget independent film, the feel good smile on your face as you leave the theater is worthy of a big time blockbuster.

On Broadway is about family, heritage, pride, and taking chances.  I recommend it.

Admittedly, it’s hard to offer up a review of No Country for Old Men without dishing out spoilers, but here goes…

One of things I hate about seing movies that are ripe with so much fanfare is that I tend to go into the theater with such elevated expectations, and typically they never live up to the hype (read: Little Miss Sunshine).

Couple that with the fact that for Best Picture this movie is currently the leader in the clubhouse, and thus you can imagine my apprehension about getting too excited to see it.

I’ll say this: This is a good movie. Is it great?  Gosh, I don’t know.  The acting is solid (as evidenced by all the Academy Awards nominations). And the storyline is, well, okay I guess.  If I had to encapsulate it in a sentence, it would be along the lines of “Man stumbles upon a briefcase with a lot of money, only to have a psychotic bounty hunter chase him, while the local sheriff gets philosophical about life” or something like that.

If anything, I think Josh Brolin’s performance has gone somewhat unnoticed, and Kelly McDonald somehow skillfully shed her heavy Irish accent to play a housewife from Texas.

If this movie wins Best Picture, definitely no complaints from me. The Coen Brothers have certainly earned it with this one.  But… if there’s an upset and this movie doesn’t win, then no harm no foul.

Make sense?

When watching Employee of the Month (starring Dane Cook, Jessica Simpson, and Dax Shepard), I knew that this would be a hit or miss proposition… but I guess I was hoping to catch lightning in a bottle by way of a funny movie with a bunch of laughs, good actors, and perhaps some zany character development.

The verdict?  No.

I knew I was in trouble right away when the storyline was revealed in the first 5 minutes – an eye-catching cashier transfers to a store where it is learned (via her “personnel file”) that she tends to only sleep with men who are Employee of the Month winners.  That’s all you need to know.

I’ll give Dane Cook a pass here, though his acting was well below par. Perhaps his poor acting was heavily overshadowed by Jessica Simpson’s terrible performance. Not only was her role not convincing, but it was annoying. 

There is one saving grace in this movie – the outstanding performance of Dax Shepard.  He plays the villain in this movie, but sells the part with great machismo and believabilty, while keeping me laughing the entire time!  He makes seeing this movie worth the experience, but unfortunately that’s the only worthwhile reason.

I won’t recommend this movie, but if you must see it, enjoy Dax Shepard’s performance, and little else.

Every now and then, a movie comes along that not only scrapes a tickle brush against our emotional senses, but hits at the nerve of some sort of social nirvana. And make no mistake –  these movies come in mysterious packages, usually with unforeseen fanfare and predictability.

Enter Juno.

I had first heard about Juno about a year ago when listening to a Jason Reitman podcast about the making of Thank You For Smoking. In that podcast, Jason started talking about his next feature film, Juno. 

Juno works on many levels. Nevermind the social issues surrounding pro-life vs pro-choice, but apply it against the backdrop of a devilishly hip teenage girl who is as fierce as she is determined.  Couple that with great dialogue (screenwriter Diablo Cody) and a witty, humorous beat that is not funny ha-ha but instead funny in the heart.

The actors also sell this movie. JK Simmons and Allison Janney prove the worth of great supporting actors, while Michael Cera stays out of the way enough not to make this into a Super Bad spinoff. Enter Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner, who both are perfectly cast  in this movie.

But without a doubt, the refreshing highlight of this little gem was its star Ellen Page.  Admittedly, I never really heard of her prior to this movie. But after sitting through 90 minutes of her craft, it’s became no surprise that she was nominated for an Oscar in the category of Best Actress.

Juno is a movie that not only would I see again, but would even do the unthinkable: I would place my advance DVD order now.

Juno is what truly is wonderful about film… It’s a reprieve – an emotional “time-out” that will make you leave the theater glowing with a smile.

Thank god for Juno.

The premise of The Kingdom sounded like a home run.  In a post-911 era, a group of renegade FBI agents with a conscience are deployed to Saudi Arabia to investigate the the murder of helpless Americans in a western base.  Add to this mix the great actors Chris Cooper and Jamie Foxx, you would think you’ve found box office gold.

However, after watching The Kingdom, my assessment of this movie can only be characterized as “okay” or “decent” but not great.

A few reasons, but primarily storyline.  I know we live in a day of suspending disbelief and taking creative license, but c’mon, when three FBI agents take on at least a dozen soldiers in a shootout (equipped with machine guns nonetheless) and none of the good guys are shot, one has to wonder about authenticity.  It’s not director Peter Berg’s fault.  Movies such as Syriana prey heavily upon the reality of terror, and not the procedural storyline of getting from point A to point B with no bullet wounds.

One of the redeeming parts of The Kingdom is it’s eloquent ending. Without providing spoilers, let’s just say that the movie does a great job (and fair) of showing us both sides of the story.

Chris Cooper is solid as always, and Foxx cashes in a good performance as the leader. Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman add lukewarm performances in a supporting role (I’d rather see those two together in Juno).

The Kingdom is okay, but not great.

Okay, stop me if you’ve heard this before — you’re surfing channels late at night and stumble upon that silly movie that catches your attention just long enough to keep you watching…  and watching…. and watching.

Sound familiar?   Of course it does, because it happens to all of us. 

This is what happened when I came across the small masterpiece known simply as “Clerks II.”

First, a bit of disclosure:  I have never seen the original Clerks (which I’m told is a must-see because it clarifies much of the storyline in Clerks II).

I guess what makes this movie a guilty pleasure is it’s very screwy sense of humor combined with its surreal perspective of life.  Also, this movie doesn’t doesn’t sell out or compromise; there’s no abiding by any type of “formula” in that it spits out humorous set pieces without any preconceived explanation or cliche’ setup.

Needless to say, the original Clerks is next on my Netflix list.

Enjoy.

Stumbled upon a nice gem today when surfing through my cable channels.  And… when I spotted the name of the movie “When Stand Up Stood Out” I figured this would probably be one of those documentary types about the birth of some comedy scene somewhere in the US. 

But… after watching the intro, I was surprised (pleasantly) to find out this was about the boom of the comedy scene here in the Boston area in the early 80’s.

Captivating stuff… and featuring names that today are all household fare, including Lenny Clarke, Dennis Leary, Steven Wright, Jimmy Tingle, etc…

Like any good documentary, this movie touches upon the good AND the bad… including the envy, the fights, the cocaine…. and for those familiar with the Boston scene, the backdrop of this movie is fueld by the story of two notorious comedy clubs – The Comedy Connection and the Ding Ho in Cambridge.

Of worthy note is one neat anecdote about the legendary “breakthrough” of the Boston comedy scene when Steven Wright makes his first television appearance on The Tonight Show. The movie effectively pinpoints how this served as the rite of passage for any and all comedians hailing from the Commonwealth.

Furthermore, this movie is doused with dozens of interview cutaways and some fascinating home video from the scene in the early 80’s. Plus, as a bonus, you get to see a thin Lenny Clarke (not to mention an oldie-but-goodie TV promo for his show on the old TV38).

“When Stand Up Stood Out” is a good watch.

While thumbing through the some movies playing on cable recently, I noticed The Ringer was playing on HBO. I figured I would put it on and use it as background filler while I worked on some other things. However, much to my surprise, I got sucked in and watched the entire movie (and credits, for which The Farrelly Brothers are notorious for being creative).

I vaguely recalled that The Ringer was the movie that stirred up some controversy a couple of years ago because of it’s unusual premise: A normal man fakes being mentally-challenged so that he can participate in The Special Olympics.

The movie stars Johnny Knoxville, Katherine Heigl and Brian Cox. As far as Knoxville is concerned, if someone would ever tell m that I would be commending Johnny Knoxville for his “acting” then I would tell you to shoot me (can you say “Dukes of Hazzard?”). But as hard as it is to believe, he  actually cashes in a good performance in The Ringer. This movie also featured Katherine Heigl just before her Grey’s Anatomy star took off. Her performance was decent enough to keep the movie moving at a comfortable speed. And what can I say about the great Brian Cox. As usual, he was awesome in his supporting role as a degenerate gambler who pressures Knoxville’s character to enter the Special Olympics as a way to pay off his bookies.

The biggest higlight of this movie, however, is the performance of the mentally-challenged special co-stars themselves. Their performance was warm, captivating, and incorporated the perfect mix of humor (even self-depracating at time). They helped legitimize this foolish storyline and make it into something that was not only entertaining, but in a way eye-opening and feel-good.

I won’t say that The Ringer is a must-see… but instead I will say that when you see it on the tube, don’t be so quick to change that channel. You might find yourself surprisingly impressed.

Grade: B

“You really don’t remember, do you?”

These very words have created the foundation for the Bourne trilogy — the premise of Jason Bourne not being able to recall his past… and as a result taking us on a dangerous joyride across the world as he mows down his enemy assasins one-by-one while trying to uncover the truth about his past.

This most recent installment of the Jason Bourne series, The Bourne Ultimatum is the best of the three films. There are a number of reasons as to why, so I’ve broken it down as follows:

Dialogue.  Born from this movie (pardon the pun) should be a new college drinking game – everytime Matt Damon speaks in this movie, everbody must drink.  Never has a movie been so good with so little dialogue. The action and cinematography do all the speaking in this one.  The character arc for Jason Bourne doesn’t play to a lot of chit-chat, and that’s definitely apparent this time around.

Cinematography. Any Google search of “Bourne Ultimatum reviews” will probably yield a number of opinionated posts about the camera work in the film – with the reaction being relatively split down the middle regarding the shakey shots and unorthodox shooting angles. I believe the shooting style moves the movie along, and helps build tension when it needs to be there.

Sound. Another key ingredient to the success of this movie. So good that you don’t notice it — it’s natural. The sound and musical score in The Bourne Ultimatum allows this movie to ooze with tension and high drama. It’s what lends to the high energy tempo of the movie, accompanying the action in a very effective, but not forced, way.

Action Scenes.  The Bourne series is already notorious for authentic fight scenes and memorable stunts. And this movie is no exception. In fact, The Bourne Ultimatum easily surpasses the first two installments with fights and stunts that will blow you away. Especially of note is a fight scene that is so well-produced that even Jet Li would be taking notes. The stunts become a signature of this movie, with endless car crashes and shattered glass.

Supporting Actors. The cherry on the Sunday, indeed. This trilogy has been blessed with the best of the best, starting with Chris Cooper & Brian Cox in The Bourne Identity, Cox and Joan Allen in The Bourne Supremacy, and now Allen and David Strathairn in this movie. All the aforementioned thespians drive home their performances, using the little screen time they have to punctuate the storyline with their character’s very complex CIA roles.

If in fact The Bourne Ultimatum is the final movie for this successful franchise, then it goes out on the highest of notes. Very seldom is there a movie that I feel I must see on it’s opening weekend, but I knew that I had to see The Bourne Ultimatum on opening night.

Let The Bourne Ultimatum serve as an ultimatum of its own to movie goers everywhere — see it… or else!

Grade: A

I knew that when I rented The Prestige I would be in for a great acting performance from Christian Bale as well as Michael Caine. Little did I know how impressed I would be with Hugh Jackman and, yes, even Scarlett Johansson. Take into account also the fact that this is a Christopher Nolan directed movie, and if it were anything like his masterpiece Memento, I could easily imagine that this would be one of those movies that leaves you talking about it with your spouse even hours after you’ve seen it.

And indeed it didn’t disappoint.

Ahh, where to begin. Well, Christopher Nolan for starters. As is his usual on-screen signature, the color palette in this film is effective, lending itself very well to this great period piece. His incredible use of dark, non-primary colors along with a hue that screams out of the late 1800’s is impressive. Another Nolan trademark is his healthy dose of flashback in his films, though in The Prestige the constant “jumping arond” made it rather confusing to adhere to the chronological timeline.

The storyline is a large part of the success of this film.  It’s truly an insider’s look at the world of magic, or sleight of hand I should say. The Prestige will get you personally invested in the plot through a slow but methodical education process about the world that these very magicians live in.

And then there’s the acting. Bravo!

Christian Bale was excellent (as always), bringing to life the hard-to-read exterior of a ruthless magician, while showing us occasional glimpses of his human side. Then there’s Hugh Jackman, who capitalized on his theater-trained background to deliver a stellar performance.

Michael Caine’s role was perfect for him; his performance a perfect marinade for the storyline much as was the case when he played Alfred in Nolan’s Batman Begins. And yes, even Johansson, sporting a decent British accent, didn’t get in the way and was effective as a magician’s helper.

Granted there are numerous plotholes in The Prestige, much as there would be with any suspenseful whodunnit. But make no mistake, you’ll find yourself thinking about each character’s every step - long after the movie is over. This movie is rather long (139 minutes), but you won’t care after you see it.

The Prestige is definitely worth seeing.

Grade: A-