Porn, Angelina and a wedding...

Zack and Miri Make a Porno - Well, if you expect Zack and Miri to make a porno that's what you are going to get. Here's the thing: if you like Kevin Smith and his 'humor' then you will probably like this movie. If you don't, then you won't. Kevin Smith is very, very hit or miss for me. I liked Dogma and Chasing Amy and that's about it. Call me pretentious, but I like my comedy without dick and fart jokes (and that's just the tip of the iceberg in this movie). Still, it's not all bad. Smith manages to mix the sweetness in with the naughtiness and that actually works for the most part. It doesn't hurt that Seth Rogen (Zack) and Elizabeth Banks (Miri - trying not to look like the goddess bombshell that she is) have great comedic chemistry together. Their love story is actually borderline believable. Everyone knows the plot by now - Zack and Miri can't pay their bills so they decide to make a quick buck the old fashion way - making porn. They enlist help from Craig Robinson (the scenestealer best known as Daryl on The Office), Jason Mewes (Kevin Smith's muse who does full frontal) and a couple of actual porn stars. Then there's Justin Long who all but steals the show in his brief ten minute or so part. For me, Zack and Miri was hit and miss. At times it was very, very funny. At times it was very, very touching. At times it was just silly. And at times it went just a little too far.
Grade: C+

Changeling - About five years ago, Clint Eastwood directed the shit out of a movie called Mystic River. For my money, there were few films better directed than that film. After making something so near perfect (not to mention other great turns with Million Dollar Baby, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters to Iwo Jima), how could Eastwood possibly make a film so... sloppy. Maybe sloppy isn't necessarily the word. The movie starts out like a Lifetime film (not necessarily a bad thing since I've been known to watch a Lifetime movie or two in my day) and eventually turns into a crime procedural. The beginning half works very well. Eastwood makes old school Los Angeles look and feel just right. It doesn't hurt that he's got a top notch performance from Angelina Jolie to work with. As a young mother searching for her son who has gone missing, she's phenominal. There is one particular scene - you've seen it in the trailer when she's yelling "I want MY son back" - that is particularly emotional once you see it in context (SPOILER ALERT - she's actually yelling this at the ten year old boy pretending to be her son). As no real fan of Angelina (I can't think of one thing I actually liked her in...), I'm a big enough person to admit she's stellar and worthy of that Oscar nomination. Still, the second half of the movie falls apart and it's mostly due to some poor editing. Make that very poor editing. There's a particular sequence that jumps between two courtroom scenes that is just jarringly bad. It's almost unthinkable that someone who is as much of a pro as Eastwood would let a sequence in his film. All in all, Changeling isn't necessarily bad... it's just mediocre.
Grade: C

Rachel Getting Married - First off, I love hand held camera work probably more than anything when it's done well. And in Rachel Getting Married, it's done very, very, very well. Jonathan Demme goes for a raw, emotional, intimate feel with his direction and it was a great decision. There's a lot to praise about Rachel Getting Married, starting with the great camera work, continuing on to the smart, clever and emotionally powerful script and finishing with a quartet of stellar performances (from best to even better - Bill Irwin as an overprotective father, Anne Hathaway as an emotionally stunted, volatile young woman recently released from rehab, Debra Winger as a passive/aggressive mother and RoseMarie DeWitt as the titular Rachel, struggling with a sister who constantly steals the spotlight, even on her big wedding day). Still, there's a little bit to dislike as well, starting with a rehearsal dinner that seems like it takes five days (do we really need to see EVERYONE'S toast? we can't just see one or two?), continuing on to a completely waste of space with a dishwasher scene that lasts way too long and finishing with a final act that does little to advance the plot. Nothing really happens in the last ten minutes or so. We spend too much time dancing at a wedding and not enough time dealing with this emotionally stunted dysfuntional family. Still, in the end, Rachel Getting Married is this powerful, viscious, cruel, dangerous film that is also pretty damn good.
Grade: B

Tomorrow - The hidden gem of 2008 and Bill Murray in a tree. Also, I may or may not confess my love for Emily Mortimer.