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):

 

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Voices of Bill Hader, Anna Faris

 

In an age when modern network sitcoms are all but dead (rest in peace, Larry Gelbart), it stands to reason that two young television writers would never want to give up a gig on one of the few programs that actually challenges this rule. While most sitcom writers have taken refuge at the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon as a last resort, former How I Met Your Mother executive producer/writers Phil Lord and Chris Miller have embraced their inner PG on their own terms—by adapting their favorite childhood book, Judi and Ron Barrett’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. In this PG-rated 3-D animated adaptation (also available in 2-D), a scientist (Hader) tries to solve the world hunger problem and inadvertently causes food to fall from the sky in abundance. The Plus: The players. Hader has done some hilarious supporting work in some high-profile comedies (Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) while comedienne Faris has wowed funny bones at the box office (The House Bunny) and in the critic’s corner (Observe & Report). Their voice castmates include Neil Patrick Harris, James Caan, Andy Samberg, Bruce Campbell, and Mr. T. The Minus: The odds. Though Sony Animation has done relatively well at the B.O. during their short run (Open Season, Surf’s Up), the grosses came in well below those of Pixar (WALL*E, Up) or DreamWorks Animation (Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa). Factor in moviegoers’ sometimes prickly reception to classic kid lit adaptations (How to Eat Fried Worms) and this movie’s forecast could be quite cloudy.

 

The Informant!

Matt Damon, Scott Bakula

 

Ever since Steven Soderbergh broke onto the H’Wood scene with the 1989 indie classic Sex, Lies, and Videotape, this director has consistently teeter-tottered between experimental personal films (Schizopolis, The Girlfriend Experience) and popcorn entertainment (Out of Sight, Oceans Eleven). Occasionally, audiences, critics, and Oscar voters alike fall into perfect cadence (Erin Brockovich, Traffic)…occasionally not (The Good German, Che Parts One and Two). Warner Brothers is hoping for the former scenario with the release of The Informant! In this R-rated comedy based on a true story, Damon plays a bumbling but high-ranking whistleblower of a major corporation who begins to fancy himself a de facto secret agent when he begins dealing with the FBI. The Plus: The players. Soderbergh directed Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich) and Benicio Del Toro (Traffic) to Oscar wins. Bourne trilogy superstar Matt Damon, who packed on 30 pounds to the play the title role, could very well be headed in that direction himself. The Minus: The odds. Kurt Eichenwald’s book on which this film is based takes the subject matter as serious-as-a-heart-attack…will Soderbergh’s liberties make filmgoers happy?

 

Love Happens

Jennifer Aniston, Aaron Eckhart

 

Former Friends star Jennifer Aniston runs hot and cold at the box office. For every winning streak (Bruce Almighty, Along Came Polly), she seems to have a…well, less-than-winning streak (Rumor Has It…, Derailed). Aniston has been burning hot as of late, however (Marley & Me, He’s Just Not That Into You)—a run that Universal is betting will continue with Love Happens. In this PG-13-rated romantic dramedy, a fan (Aniston) of a best-selling self-help author (Eckhart) may just be the woman who can help him to help himself. The Plus: The players. While it’s true that Aniston runs hot and cold, she surprisingly has not done many romantic comedies (The Break-Up notwithstanding). This genre – especially when supported by Aaron Eckhart, hot off of The Dark Knight – seems like a perfect match for a woman considered to be a modern ‘America’s Sweetheart.’ The Minus: The odds. Romantic comedy All About Steve is performing well below expectations at the box office—a movie featuring bona fide movie star Sandra Bullock to boot. Perhaps, romantic comedies are a bad bet now that the kids are back to school and the adults have their attention divided by TV’s new Fall season.

 

Jennifer’s Body

Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried

 

This may come across as the most obvious statement ever spoken by a true-blooded American male, but all eyes are sure to be on Megan Fox’s body this fall. To be more specific, filmgoers will feast their gazes upon FHM’s ‘Hottest Woman in the World’ as she plays the ghoulish title role in Oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody’s follow-up to Juno. In this R-rated comedy-thriller, a cheerleader (Fox) seemingly living the perfect life literally becomes the girl from hell after she gets possessed and starts killing off high school boys in a small town. The Plus: The players. While Cody’s screenplay won an Oscar, Fox has been gracing every magazine cover imaginable in support of both Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen and just being hot. Seyfried, however, is no small potatoes after turning heads with her performance in Mamma Mia! The Minus: The rating. If this movie is supposed to appeal to the same teen audience that flocked to see Juno and helped to make it a smash success, the ‘Restricted’ rating sure puts a damper on things. And 20^th Century Fox seems to be marketing it more as a thriller - not a comedy –which will confuse moviegoers.

 

Reviews (Now in Theaters):

 

9

Voices of Elijah Wood, Christopher Plummer

 

With the premiere of the first feature-length cartoon in 1937, Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, filmgoers saw that animation could perfectly realize a specific vision that is both fantastical and sprawling. Though the work was hatched from a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, Walt Disney had his meticulously precise designs on this tale executed by hand-drawing artisans. Wondrous, ambitious, and optimistic, 9 proves to be a work so mentally and visually striking that Disney’s legendary animators, ironically called The Nine Old Men, would have felt like proud fathers to the computer-rendered modern equivalent. 9 does not reinvent the wheel—it simply rebuilds it with jagged edges and turns it in another direction.

 

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.

 

9’s somewhat spiritual story is singular but its existential tone seems slightly reminiscent of other works—doubtlessly, producer Tim Burton’s macabre animated stories as writer (A Nightmare Before Christmas) and director (Corpse Bride) proved an influence. Still, writer/director Shane Acker breathes life into creatures and machinations as creatively distinctive as anything George Lucas dreamt up back when Star Wars first premiered in 1977. This deserves accolades in an age when each new fantasy world strangely seems recycled from the last. The nine titular heroes each have a separate personality that, though culmed from stock characters, plays an integral part in keeping the compelling story moving—and Acker booked the appropriate talent to back them up.

 

Down-to-the-Wire: Almost a ‘10.’

 

Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself

Taraji P. Henson, Mary J. Blige

 

Based on his past syrupy dramas with the plot structures of Little Golden Books, the prolific Tyler Perry can clearly do bad all by himself. Audience approved but critically disapproved, Perry’s bottomless bottle of feel-good pills starring himself as a 7-foot granny have tested the patience of this reviewer in the past. His latest, however, actually stands testament to this filmmaker’s cinematic strengths as well as weaknesses. More than any of his works, Bad made each of these points glaringly apparent. The movie is still sub-standard, cloying fluff at best, but there shines a hope that success is making Perry a better writer and filmmaker…if only he could lose the 7-foot granny in drag.

 

In this PG-13-rated drama, some delinquent siblings (Hope Olaide Wilson, et al) are put in the care of their aunt, a boozy nightclub singer (Henson) who wants nothing to do with them.

 

Admittedly, your terminally cynical reviewer found himself drawn into the ranking and rising optimism of the powerful second act…only to be let down by Perry’s endless sermonizing. Backed by rousing gospel music (and Gladys Knight), Perry built his very flawed main character up in a revealing worship scene only to chillingly have her confront a villainous boyfriend in the next. For 20 amazing minutes, it proved to be the only time that your reviewer completely bought the dialogue and intentions of these players. Rather than a satisfying wrap up, however, more histrionics ensued. The frustratingly unfunny scenes involving Madea also rankle what could have been a solid effort on Perry’s part.

 

Down-to-the-Wire: Very bad thing.

 

All About Steve

Sandra Bullock, Bradley Cooper

 

In this PG-13-rated screwball comedy, Bullock – in her worst picture yet - stalks Cooper’s TV cameraman after one blind date and follows him and his crew (Thomas Hayden Church, Ken Jeong) around the country. Her character is supposed to be a highly intelligent crossword puzzle writer who is mistaken for a kooky stalker. Make no mistake—the character IS a kooky stalker. And sadly, 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. Billy Wilder, let alone first-time director Phil Traill, could not have passed this piece of shit off as the ice cream it desires to be.

 

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

 

Extract

Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis

 

In this mellow R-rated comedy, 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 this review were based on the movie trailer, Extract would be heralded as the knee-slapping, raucous, laugh-riot of the year. While director Mike Judge 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. If the great Jason Bateman were a salesman, your reviewer might very well own the Brooklyn Bridge. 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.

 

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.