Old Stone Music Series: Tony Furtado, Chic Gamine, Peppino D’Agostino

Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan has garnered respect over the years for his long list of eclectic and stylish movies, including The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica and Felicia's Journey. Now with Chloe, his newest entry into the erotically charged pseudo-thriller genre, Egoyan cannot rest on his laurels, as his reputation will certainly backpedal as a result of Chloe, one of the most tedious movies I've had the displeasure of seeing.
Chloe begins promising enough, with Amanda Seyfried adorning black stockings and garters in soft-focused photography resembling a Penthouse magazine cover. While we listen to her monologue rationalizing why it's perfectly acceptable to be a prostitute because it's rewarding to be someone's dream girl, we stop and think, “How farfetched is this going to be?”

Since writer-director Noah Baumbach came out with The Squid and the Whale five years ago, imitators have have tried to emulate his style. Yet each copy was lighter and smudgier than the last until we finally got handed the hateful Smart People. Not his fault, of course, but it's been annoying nonetheless. With Greenberg, Baumbach picked Ben Stiller, an actor best known lately for the Night at the Museum franchise, to play Roger Greenberg, his self-absorbed slacker protagonist. It's reasonable enough then to be suspicious of how this pairing might pan out given the familiarity we all have with Baumbach's formula.