Film

Where's Guttenberg and Bobcat?In the Jody Hill-directed comedy Observe and Report, Seth Rogen plays a
bi-polar, egomaniacal security guard who beats up children. So yeah,
Rogen fans can be forgiven if they think their hero is being cast
against type.

But then again, Observe and Report doesn't adhere to
many rules at all. In some ways, it's a drama about a grown-up kid
finding his way through manhood without a father. Then it's a farcical,
slapstick comedy about inept stooges who somehow convinced even more
inept powers-that-be to entrust them with authority. There's a sweet,
romantic subplot involving a pair of underdogs who seem born for each
other. Finally (and most weirdly) it's a vicarious, Chuck Norris-like
action vehicle. Any other day and I'd say that there are too many
movies cooked up in this mess. But each one has such an entertaining
lift, I refuse to be unimpressed.

Auschwitz? No, just Oregon. At first glance Wendy and Lucy seems to revel in simplicity. Wendy
(Michelle Williams) is a girl. Lucy is a dog. Together they seem
inseparable. But what unfolds is an intimate look at a road-weary
girl's predicament and her marooned isolation. Wendy and Lucy is a tale
of things going wrong and the resulting whirlpool of consequences.
Wendy is on her way to Alaska to work at a fish hatchery and en route
gets stranded in Wilsonville, Oregon, losing her dog in the process.
One bad thing leads to another. The irrepressible dent it leaves on
Wendy is mesmerizing to witness.

This movie's realism is almost
painful. Time seems to slow down. This is not nail biting stuff. It's
more like watching laboratory animals squirm. In a weird voyeuristic
effect, the audience is forced to root for her while fighting the urge
to jump in and help. The surrounding characters do their best to steer
Wendy in the right direction, but are too immersed in their own hard
times to get involved. Watching Wendy's big dream getting smaller every
second adds to the calamity. When Wendy's car breaks down it's truly
the car hell we all can relate to.

Explosions? Check. Hot rod? Check. Beefed up professional wrestler? Check.I am operating under the assumption that fans of Milk or Like Water for
Chocolate are probably not interested in reading a review of a movie
starring a WWE icon. So forgive me if, for the remainder of this
review, I actually take this film seriously. Because lord knows it
takes itself seriously.

12 Rounds stars John Cena, the WWE wrestler
and rapper (yes, rapper) as Danny Fisher, a New Orleans cop who foils
an international terrorist's plan to steal diamonds or something.
Anyway, during the pursuit, the terrorist's girlfriend is killed, and
the terrorist captured. Then the terrorist goes to jail. Then,
naturally, he breaks out a year later, kidnaps Danny's fiancé, and
torments Danny for an entire day with a number of impossible tasks that
have Danny running, jumping and flexing to save his girl. But mostly
flexing.

Something tells me you're not in a good place right now. If nothing else this film confirms my theory that a movie with the word
"haunting" in the title is doomed before the opening credits. If it's,
"based on a true story," doubly so. Based on the documented 1986
paranormal happenings to the Campbell family, The Haunting in
Connecticut stretches truth like county fair taffy. There's nothing new
here. The haunting flick is one heckuva tired old genre, even with
beefed up hyper-kinetic special effects to mask the absolute emptiness
of the action on the screen.

The plot goes something like this: a
family in turmoil…Mom (Virginia Madsen) is a big Christian, Dad (Martin
Donovan) is a big drunk and son Matt (Kyle Gallner) is dying of cancer.
They buy a house on a whim to avoid long drives for rigorous cancer
treatments. The house is a bargain but has a "history"-turns out that
it was a funeral parlor in which séances were conducted to raise the
dead. Now the dead want revenge or possession of a soul or something.
In other words the house is, um…haunted.

A Ray Bans man.This quick-paced espionage comedy (apparently part of an emerging genre
when combined with Burn After Reading) trades blazing guns for
sharp-tongued dialogue and finely honed performances. But despite the
unconventional delivery, this movie is, at heart, an off-kilter love
story that ultimately turns out to be quite conventional.

Duplicity
starts off promising with crisp, tricky photography, split-screen
images and inventive camera angles. The two main characters, Ray (Clive
Owen) and Claire (Julia Roberts), come from different secret agent
backgrounds and the story unfolds as their romance and inherent
distrust of each other progresses. Forming an alliance of sorts, they
use their spy talents to go after two huge multinational conglomerates,
pitting CEOs Howard Tully and Richard Garsik (Tom Wilkinson and Paul
Giamatti, respectively) against each other to embezzle the bejeezus out
of them. Ray and Claire plan on cashing in on the divulgence of a new
secret product about to bust open on the market. But of course, nothing
is as it seems. While gearing up to pay close attention, I found that
it wasn't necessary…everything is spelled out for you, albeit
disjointedly, then taken away and re-explained.

Caution: (working) man in progress.If nothing else, the gay-rights revolution in this country has
definitely breeched the dam of repressed, man-on-man hetero love in
Hollywood.

In the summer of 2007, we had Michael Cera and Jonah
Hill (channeling Richard Gere and Julia Roberts) rocking each other to
sleep at the end of Superbad. In Knocked Up, Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen
seemed to have more romantic chemistry than Rogen and his female
co-lead, Katherine Heigl.
Now, instead of dancing around the
issue of uninhibited man-love, I Love You, Man plunges in. Rudd is
back, starring with Jason Segel (the owner of the penis that stole any
early scene in Forgetting Sarah Marshall) as a newly engaged
real-estate agent who has one big hurdle to his wedding: he doesn't
have any true male friends, ergo he doesn't have a best man.

YOU WAVIN' TO ME?From the remnants of what was one of the most offensive, sadistic and
warped revenge flicks of the '70s, the grimy remake of The Last House
on the Left limps into theatres. The 2009 version gives us a gruesome
yet watered-down film, rendering it completely unoriginal in every way.

Wes Craven directed the 1972 original with a creepy, seedy home movie
effect that made us wonder if all the horrid things happening were
actually real. Craven (credited as producer here) based his tale on
Ingmar Bergman's Virgin Spring, using the slow-moving psychological
dilemma to opposite extremes putting all the stomach-churning cards on
the table. The result was one of the top drive-in classics: not only
did you gasp in disbelief at the extent of the sadistic rape and
murder; you shuddered at the vile techniques of revenge.

DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR? OH RIGHT…When you fork over nine bucks for Miss March, you're signing up for
graphic viewings of explosive diarrhea, deformed male genitalia,
animals pissing into champagne glasses, abuse of coma patients, jokes
about epilepsy, jokes about epilepsy combined with fellatio, racist
stereotypes, and about two dozen more isolated attempts at eliciting
cheap laughs from … someone?

To paraphrase Winston Churchill: Never
have so few punch lines been owed to so many setups. If you spend too
many bored hours scouring the Internet or the Independent Film Channel
("IFC" on your Bend Broadband dial), you may already know the
perpetrators of Miss March: It's the "Whitest Kids U Know" sketch
comedy team, helmed by writer/director duo Trevor Moore and Zach
Cregger. After a brief overview of videos on their website and
YouTube.com - along with sitting through their first feature-length
film - it's difficult to imagine them conjuring up a joke that doesn't
involve some aspect of the male member and its various uses.