From the pages of Electric City and Diamond City, two of Northeastern Pennsylvania’s premier arts and entertainment publications, comes Richlier founder Jeff Boam’s weekly column:

 

Previews (Opening this Weekend):

 

9

Voices of Elijah Wood, Christopher Plummer

 

And your reviewer thought that HIS bosses were tough! Imagine being a first time writer/director and having to answer to producers Tim Burton (Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street) and Timur Bekmanbetov (Day Watch). This proved to be the challenge for Shane Acker, who dreamt up and executed the fantasy world of 9. In this PG-13-rated animated adventure, nine “stitchpunk” heroes (Wood, Plummer, John C. Reilly, et al) fight for survival against predatory machines in a post-Apocalyptic future. The Plus: The players. Burton has been down this road before (Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride) and Bekmanbetov has been down a similar road, adapting a comic book into a smash film (Wanted). Wood (The Lord of the Rings trilogy) and Plummer (The Insider, Up) are the leads in a vocal cast that also includes Reilly (Boogie Nights, Step Brothers), Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind, The Day the Earth Stood Still), Martin Landau (Ed Wood, City of Ember), Crispin Glover (Back to the Future, Beowulf). The Minus: The competition. One weekend…four high-profile debuts. Even though it is the only animated adventure opening, 9 could face a challenging weekend amidst the other movies going into wide release.

 

Sorority Row

Briana Evigan, Rumer Willis

 

First, those dastardly H’Wood butchers went after director John Carpenter’s catalogue (The Fog, Halloween, Last House on the Left). Then, they went after New Line Cinema’s slasher catalogue (A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th). Now, they have apparently set their sights on the bottom-of-the-barrel catalogue (the 1986 gem Sorority House Massacre). By ‘butchers,’ your reviewer speaks of remaking horror movies. In this R-rated remake, five sorority girls (Evigan, Willis, et al) inadvertently cause the death of one their own after a prank goes amuck, only to be stalked by a mysterious killer. The Plus: The genre. If The Final Destination is any indication (two weekends at number one), horror can be a cash cow even with a no-name cast. Evigan’s biggest movie has been Step Up 2: The Streets and Willis, daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, had a supporting gig in The House Bunny. To hedge their bets, however, the producers of Sorority Row have included Carrie (‘Princess Leia’) Fisher and reality TV staple Audrina Patiridge (The Hills) are in on the bloodshed. The Minus: The odds. Even though a sequel has already been optioned, Halloween 2 did not open nearly as big as H’Wood had anticipated. In a busy weekend like this, a low grossing opening could spell disaster for a lil’ horror flick like this.

 

Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself

Taraji P. Henson, Mary J. Blige

 

H’wood can officially call Tyler Perry a “mogul.” Through his smash successes on stage (I Know I’ve Been Changed), television (House of Payne) and screen (Diary of a Mad Black Woman), Perry has amassed a gi-normous following of fans, big grosses, and clout…so much, in fact, that he has opened up his own studio in Atlanta and even had a role in the blockbuster Star Trek. In this PG-13-rated drama based on one of Perry’s plays, some delinquent sisters (Blige, Hope Olaide Wilson) are charged with caring for their sole relative, a boozy nightclub singer (Henson) who wants nothing to do with them. The Plus: The players. Again (Madea’s Family Reunion), again (Meet the Browns), and again (Madea Goes to Jail), Perry has opened big with his name firmly planted above the movie’s title. And he always includes some big-name talent in on the action—legendary Gladys Knight is in on this go-round. The Minus: The odds. But everyone in H’Wood stumbles at one time. And if you haven’t picked up on it yet, dear readers, this weekend is spread kind of thin.

 

Whiteout

Kate Beckinsale, Gabriel Macht

 

Former music video director Dominic Sena has only made three H’Wood films, but they have mostly been all-star blockbusters. Crime thriller Kalifornia (1993) featured Brad Pitt as a rising star, the Gone in 60 Seconds remake (2000) starred Nicolas Cage and Angelina Jolie, and Swordfish (2001) boasted the likes of John Tavolta, Halle Berry, and newbie Hugh Jackman. In this R-rated thriller, Sena’s first film in 8 years, a U.S. marshall (Beckinsale) gets assigned to a murder in Antarctica only to become embroiled in a deeper mystery. The Plus: The players. Time (Evolution) and again (Rise of the Lycans), Beckinsale has helped the Underworld franchise to open big. Gabriel Macht (The Spirit) and Tom Skerritt (Tears of the Sun) are along for the ride. The Minus: The competition. Based on the marketing campaigns, if Tyler Perry doesn’t somehow take the pole position, then Sorority House or 9 will, which leaves this thriller in a whiteout.

 

Reviews (Now in Theaters):

 

All About Steve

Sandra Bullock, Bradley Cooper

 

Sometimes, a script isn’t worth the recycled paper its printed on. Within the first 2 minutes of a comedy, the audience should know WHO the story is about. Within the first 20 minutes, they should pretty much know WHAT hi-jinks they are going to get into. 20 minutes into Some Like it Hot—kapow, moviegoers know that Joe and Jerry are unemployed actors who have to disguise themselves in drag to escape the mob. With All About Steve, moviegoers get to know their screwball lead character and where the hell she’s headed only after sitting through a tortuous 90 minutes. Worse, she really wasn’t worth getting to know. Your reviewer gets the feeling that Billy Wilder, let alone first-time director Phil Traill, could not have passed this piece of shit off as the ice cream it pretends to be.

 

In this PG-13-rated screwball comedy, Bullock falls head over heels for Cooper’s TV cameraman after one blind date and follows him and his crew (Thomas Hayden Church, Ken Jeong) around the country.

 

Sandra Bullock has officially made the worst movie on her CV. Her character is supposed to be a highly intelligent crossword puzzle writer who is mistaken for a kooky stalker. There is no mistake about it—the character IS a kooky stalker. And sadly, Bradley’s Cooper’s wooden cameraman is so uninteresting that he isn’t worth a ‘hello’ let alone stalking. It is so awful that Rhonda Shear would have passed it up for bad movie showcase USA Up All Night back in the day.

 

Down-to-the-Wire: All about nothing.

 

Extract

Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis

 

If this review were based on the movie trailer and not the movie itself, Extract – and not The Hangover - would be heralded as the laugh-riot of the year. It goes beyond epitomizing that old cliché: “the best parts of the movie were in the trailer.” The preview simply makes the whole she-bang seem a whole lot funnier than it actually is, which is a pat on the back for the trailer’s editors…and also somewhat of an untruth in advertising. The reel deal is that Extract was not what your reviewer was expecting, which was a knee-slapping raucous comedy along the lines of Superbad. It is a more muted comedy, rife with more observational humor as opposed to bust-a-gut outrageous bits. While the director does a phenomenal job of portraying blue collar versus white collar America, his comedy comes on like a lamb when, perhaps, moviegoers were expecting a lion.

 

In this R-rated comedy from Mike Judge (Office Space), a flower plant extract owner (Bateman) deals with workplace issues and a string of bad luck, including his wife’s (Kristen Wiig) affair with a gigolo.

 

If Jason Bateman were a salesman, your reviewer might very well own the Brooklyn Bridge. Every knee-jerk reaction that nice-guy Bateman pulls out of his bag of tricks is wholly believable—from backpedaling from a neighbor to apologizing to the woman who screwed him over. The rest of the cast (especially Ben Affleck, in another great supporting turn) hit their marks and remember the lines for set-ups that elicit more chuckles than guffaws.

 

Down-to-the-Wire: Waste of office space.

 

The Final Destination: Death Trip

Bobby Campo, Shantel VanSanten

 

In this 3-D R-rated gross-out (also available in 2-D), a vexed young man has visions of death-capades and races to stop them from coming true to himself and his friends. That pretty much sums up this 90 minutes blown to all Hell. It is a gratuitous excuse for director David R. Ellis to merge the America’s Funniest Video-style hokum of Faces of Death with the cunning technology that dubiously made Jaws 3-D blockbuster entertainment back in 1982. He accomplishes this, but not without sacrificing a piece of our ever-living souls. He sets it up only to either throw away the moment (escalator of terror) or ignite the action (messy Nascar lap) to the dubious delight of moviegoers checking themselves for stray gray matter…presumably their own.  

 

Down-to-the-Wire: Destination unknown.

 

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Dennis Quaid, Channing Tatum

 

In this PG-13-rated cheese platter, an elite covert military organization (Quaid, Tatum, Marlon Wayans) travels the world to battle a mysterious terrorist operation called Cobra (Sienna Miller, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Christopher Eccleston). Well, what do filmgoers expect from a $170 million movie based on a 3 and a half inch-tall tall action figure? There is no denying G.I. Joe’s entertainment factor. Thankfully for the kid in all of us, the story smacks of make believe, the cast chews the scenery, IQs drop, and all involved are somehow baited into an obligatory sequel. Somewhere along the way, however, the adult reality sets in that G.I. Joe - with its overblown terrorist ass-kicking in Paris and randy soldiers - has become the punchline to the joke that Team America: World Police set up.

 

Down-to-the-Wire: More zero than hero.

 

Halloween II

Tyler Mane, Malcolm McDowell

 

 

In this R-rated sequel masquerading as murder porn, Michael Myers’ (Mane) murderous rampage continues…with his sister (Scout Taylor-Compton) seemingly dead in his sights. If John Carpenter directed Twin Peaks or David Lynch directed Halloween, it would probably look a lot like this indulgent mess. With Halloween II, moviegoers are left with a flick so laughably drenched in Karo syrup that it becomes downright silly, not scary. Worse, it puts viewers through dimestore armchair psychology involving visions of the serial killer’s inner child, the director’s wife, and an unfortunate white horse that must have wandered into the shot. This is not psycho-babble—this is psycho-bubblegum…and it plays out about as well as the first craptastic Halloween sequels did back in the day.

 

Down-to-the-Wire: Tainted Trick-or-Treat candy.

 

Inglourious Basterds

Brad Pitt, Eli Roth

 

In this bloody damn good R-rated war flick, Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Pitt) leads an unscrupulous team of Jewish-American Nazi hunters (Roth, B.J. Novack) into German-occupied France. With such a gloriously misspelled title, filmgoers should march into the theater fully expecting an off-kilter war film, but Basterds truly measures up to some of filmdom’s greatest WWII pictures in terms of action and chatter. Christoph Waltz’s portrayal of an unscrupulously brutal and opportunistic Nazi, however, will court Oscar come February—as will the film itself now that the Best Picture category has been extended to 10 selections. Tarantino’s audacious ending will surely cause some head scratching among audiences, but the suspenseful shots (especially the Paris-set movie premiere) and intelligent dialogue (especially the tavern-set face-off) is gloriously keen cinema.

 

Down-to-the-Wire: Basterdly good.

 

Julie & Julia

Meryl Streep, Amy Adams

 

In this PG-13-rated comedy famed chef Julia Child (Streep) and a young blogger (Adams) who embarks on a culinary quest to cook all 524 recipes from Childs’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. In a summer where killer robots from outer space and live action action figures have failed miserably to entertain the Bejesus out of your chauvinistic reviewer, leave it to this chick flick to pick up the slack. Meryl Streep nails the specific eccentricities of Julia Child with such precision that her turn does not come off as imitation—just uncannily spot-on. The other star performance comes courtesy of writer/director Nora Ephron for pulling these dueling storylines together in such an entertaining– though not always seamless or breezy - fashion.

 

Down-to-the-Wire: Bon appetit.

 

Taking Woodstock

Demetri Martin, Imelda Staunton

 

In this R-rated fact-based account, a young man trying to revitalize his parent’s Catskills motel (Martin) inadvertently sets in motion the generation-defining summer of ’69 concert. Though the Zeitgeist tent-pole known as Woodstock certainly deserves epic attention, this cutesy and folksy dramedy does not. There are great moments that endear this memoir adaptation to your reviewer, an unapologetic rock history nut. He knows of no other film – other than Michael Wadleigh’s legendary concert film – that perfectly summons up that electric eclectic atmosphere of what attending Woodstock must have been like. As director Ang Lee expands its reach from documenting the often comical true events described above to becoming a sprawling coming-of-age story, however, the film takes the brown acid, becoming a long strange trip that takes itself way too seriously.

 

Down-to-the-Wire: Take it or leaf it.