Culture

Unstoppable is the fifth collaboration of director Tony Scott and actor Denzel Washington and is merely by-the-numbers stuff. That's not to say Unstoppable isn't engaging, because as a suspenseful thriller it works fine, but it plays out as Hollywood mainstream schlock at its most finely tuned.

Morning Glory's Becky Fuller (Rachel McAdams) is relatable, but at the same time her character is flawed. We all know her, or at least we've all met someone exactly like her. She (or he) was the person sitting in the front row in every class. She's enthusiastic about her job and she's incredibly driven. For those of us who studied broadcasting, it goes a little further because we know someone who is a Becky Fuller incarnate – the person who was always the first in the editing room and the last to leave, and when they said they'd someday work for The Today Show, you believed them.

I recently read an article in the New York Daily News, in which Due Date director Todd Phillips divulges that the secret ingredient to making a great comedy is danger, and by danger he means the element of surprise. Anyone who's watched his smash hit The Hangover can agree with that statement, but when it comes to Phillips' most recent film, it would be fair to say he played it safe, rather than dangerous. Sure, cars are flipped and stolen, and the odd-couple duo of Robert Downey, Jr. and Zach Galifianakis face danger in the most physical sense of the word, but the storyline and comedy are anything but dangerous.

On what would've been John Lennon's 70th birthday, comes the docudrama Nowhere Boy, which chronicles Lennon's early years in Liverpool and the women who were instrumental in raising him. Or more aptly put, who provided him with the trauma that fueled his creativity.