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>Director: Peter Billingsley

Starring: Vince Vaughn, Jason Bateman, Faizon Love, Jon Favreau, Malin Akerman, Kristen Bell, Kristin Davis, Kali Hawk, Tasha Smith, Carlos Ponce, Peter Serafinowicz, Jean Reno

Really, the best thing I can say about Vince Vaughns newest comedy is that he has given us worse films. I just cant think of any right now, but Im sure he has. Minor actor Peter Billingsley is behind the camera here and underutilizes his magnificent location possibilities and never finds the right pacing for this film. Lets not be too hard on him though, because the script (credited to three writers – usually not a good sign) is about two or three re-writes short of a hit. There are too many characters, too few jokes and the result is a plodding work that never gets the viewer to care about the outcome.

The mighty Invincible Vaughn is playing Vince as usual, though his name is Dave this time out and he is the hub of a circle married friends that includes Jason, who is played by Jason Bateman. Can everyone follow that. Jason has come to the conclusion that his sputtering marriage can only be salvaged by a week at a beautiful couples retreat. The catch is he can only afford such an extravagance if he can get the whole group to go and secure a better rate. There is some contrived blah, blah, blah (thats ok, most films, esp comedies do this in the beginning, but it is pretty obvious here and not very funny. Once there the group is subjected to an anal retentive concierage (or whatever he is supposed to be), an overly amorous yoga instructor and a control-obsessed, mysterious relationship genius played by Jean Reno. The couples discover exactly what you think they will discover after alot of lukewarm sexual jokes and hot bikini usage.

Not much to offer here, beyond the obvious. Vaughn fans and particularly easy to please comedy fans will find this one worth renting. I found it to be worth nothing unless one is planning to finish their film studies thesis with a treatise on the most forgetable work of the worlds most mediocre film stars.

Review coming This Week!!!!!

Paul Blart: Mall Cop Trailer

Director: Seth Gordon

Starring: Vince Vaughn, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Jon Favreau

The holiday season is a time that perennially fills itself with movie releases. There are the giant blockbusters that usually only fulfill the bust part, the built for the Oscars group that have been held back until the fourth quarter so that people don’t forget about them when it is time to vote for the awards and of course their is the full slate of obligatory Christmas themed comedies that are usually horrible and are only moderately successful because they have the word Christmas in the title. This last group is how Tim Allen has fed his family for the last several years. They are usually not funny enough for any real laughs, to cheesy to digest easily, with an ending sweet enough to put you in an insulin coma. There have been some notable exceptions to these trappings like, The Santa Claus, Bad Santa, The Ref and others you can find in our list of the best Christmas movies of all time. Four Christmases fallss into the last category (Christmas themed Movies) but is good enough to make its way into your Christmas movie rotation.

Four Christmases is the story of a self centered, narcissistic yuppie couple (if you want to see the birth of these characters, pay attention to Clark Griswald’s neighbors in Christmas Vacation) Brad and Kate. They spend every Christmas holiday finding elaborate excuses to avoid spending the holidays with their dysfunctional families and take lavish vacations in Bali and Fiji. When their flight to Fiji is cancelled due to Bay area fog, they are ambushed by a reporter asking for their thoughts on the cancellations. This impromptu press conference, in spite of Brad’s best efforts to say nothing, is broadcast on live television. Their families see the footage and realize that Brad and Kate are not actually going to be inoculating impoverished children in Burma and demand that the couple visit. Their Christmas circuit of his mom, his dad, her mom and her dad, takes them on a whirlwind of misadventures but it also takes them on a journey of discovery where they start rethinking their relationship with their families and each other.

Four Christmases is one of the few holiday movies that successfully toes the line of tradition and irreverence. It has enough of a sweet message to make you want to call home when you are finished and enough good laughs to make it fun. Vince Vaughn delivers a great performance and displays the great delivery and comedic timing that has kept him busy since he jumped onto the scene in swingers. Both he and Reese Witherspoon always seem to find roles that allow them to just be themselves and it works. If you are looking for a fun night out with plenty of laughs that will get you in the holiday spirit, don’t miss this one.

Director: David Koep

Starring: Ricky Gervais, Greg Kinnear, Tea Leoni, Bill Campbell, Aasif Mandvi,

David Koep who has an impressive list of writing credits and a list of unknown directing credits co-wrote and directed this intermittently warm and occasionally humorous project with the very funny Ricky Gervais (The Office). The dialog could have been much better, and the low-on-laughs story is all too familiar, even for a comedy. The charismatic cast does manage to pull enough entertainment out to save this from being a poor movie but the end result is unremarkable.

Ricky Gervais is Bertram Pincus, an incredibly rude, people-hating dentist, whose main goal in life seems to be to avoid any human contact and get back to his lonely condo as quickly as possible, each day. This would seem like an incredibly rich opportunity to have us rolling in the aisles, but, incredibly, writers, Koep and John Kamps were unable to do more than pull out more than a few chuckles from me. At any rate, following what should have been routine medical procedure, poor Pincus, has a lot more humans to avoid on his way home, since he can now see huge numbers of dead people walking around in addition to all those pesky live ones. Pincus’ confusion over which are alive and which are dead, and living observers seeing one side of his conversations with these human-looking ghosts, who all want him to do something for them, provides the main base for cliche humour for the rest of the film. The most persistant ghost is Frank (Greg Kinnear), who wants Pincus to split his widow (Tea Leoni) from her new love (Bill Campbell). Pincus reluctantly agrees, but of course, promptly falls in love with her himself. Who would expect that kind of zany plot twist?

Ghost town, was a lot less funnier than I had expected, but did offer a slightly touching cliched story to pass the time with the result being a pedestrian project from beginning to end, that will stay in my mind about as long as my last golf score. Imagine a movie that crosses Ghost with Sixth Sense, with half the appeal of each, and you will know what you can expect here. Worth seeing for Ricky Gervais fans, perhaps, but if the popular TV actor and podcast star, wants to make it at the box office, he will have get better features than this one.

Director: Ethan and Joel Coen

Starring: George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, J.K. Simmons

The Coen brothers who do everything on their films but the catering, have snap fired from the hip with this light, quick comedy that is more about characters and performances than it is about story and dialog, but what a great group of characters played to the hilt by a crew of seasoned performers who were clearly had alot of fun making this movie. I still find Tilda Swinton to lack charisma to truly fit into the star role, while J.K. Simmons (best known as Juno’s dad and Peter Parker’s boss) impresses me every time I see him.

John Malkovich is a disgruntled CIA guy whose memoir notes end up in the hands of a goofy fitness worker and his sad, pathetic co-worker (Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand), who come up with the world’s worst blackmail plan. This is backed up by George Clooney as a treasury department officer with more testosterone than brains. For a film that seems to be set up as a comedy, it turns a little slow and depressing in spots, and could have benefitted from some more zippy dialog. The end result is an uneven but entertaining look at fidelity and intelligence and a group of characters who lack both. The whole thing ends strongly and has one of the funniest final scenes in recent memory.

Don’t go to Burn After Reading and expect Fargo or No Country For Old men. This feature is closer to The Big Lebowski or O’ Brother Where Art Thou, though is distinctly different from their previous efforts. Not a bad film for fans of off-beat comedies, or the Coen brothers body of work.

Director: Jared Hess

Starring: Jon Heder, Jon Gries, Aaron Ruel, Efren Ramirez, Tina Majorino, Haylie Duff

Written by the husband and wife team of Jared and Jerusha Hess, and directed by Jared, this film has more reasons that I should dislike it than lots of acclaimed films that I consider a waste of my time and somebody else’s money. It’s silly, has a story on par with a bad sitcom and has a whimsical setting that never does completely decide on a time period with valium-powered performances are understated to the extreme, giving this project an extraordinarily slow pace for a comedy, but the fresh, deadpan humor is magnified by these creative choices, and it is all lovingly presented with the low budget TLC that only an independent film can muster. The result is uneven cinema that grabbed a stack of award nominations and is considered to the funniest film of 2004 by many, including myself and was picked as an overrated head scratcher by many others.

Jon Heder, who has since climbed to exalted Hollywood heights with such esteemed projects as Blades of Glory and Robot Chicken, shuffles onto the scene in this film about a pathetic High School loser, dealing with bullies and an equally pathetic family, as well as the unusual name of Napoleon Dynamite. Since I’ve had to go through life with the name, The Manhattan Move Maniac, I know. It ain’t easy. Anyway, Napoleon is just dealing with it one day at a time as he hopes against all odds that life might get better and a new friend named Ramone (Efren Ramirez) and a socially disabled girl named Deb (Tina Majorino) seem to offer up some hope. Could it be?

Napoleon Dynamite has an original and silly collection of offbeat characters pulled together with some very unusual filmmaking, making a bit like the Royal Tenenbaums with teen appeal. For me, Napoleon Dynamite is a shining example of why I should occasionally see a film that I know that I will hate (besides being pulled into one, while whining and stamping my feet, by some woman with strange power over me). For you, it may be a shining example of why you should find better uses for your time than amusing yourself with my movie opinions

Director: Dennis Dugan

Starring: Adam Sandler, John Turturro, Emmanuelle Chriqui

Adam Sandler co-wrote this explosion of muddled accents, weak characters and occasional humor, as he tries to make us laugh and give some kind of light plea for peace in the middle east. Fine supporting actor John Turturro seems a little lost here and Sandler plays a softer, gentler version of his stock leading man, but the comedy is pure Happy Madison slapstick.

Adam Sandler is a Mossad agent/super hero who makes James Bond look like Maxwell Smart. He fakes his own death to get out of the game so he can pursue his real dream of becoming a hairstylist in New York. There, his specialty of….ummm charming elderly women and offering much more in depth service than cutting and styling their hair. It’s silly and an overdone gag and is added to an evil landlord trying to force his boss, played by Emmanuelle Chriqui (a veteran of over a decade’s worth of work that you have probably never heard of ,and high on FHM’s 2008 list of sexiest women) to move. Things get more active when a trio of goofy terrorists recognize him, and when it turns out that the nemesis of his past life, The Phantom, (played by John Turturro) is also in New York. If it sounds like alot going on, it is, but it all leads to a gentle but awkward ending with a sentiment that’s easy to agree with.

You Don’t Mess With The Zohan is cinematic evidence that Adam Sandler is growing up…sort of. The humor is juvenile, but intermittently funny, and the writing is rough but the script shows a social conscience. Like most of Sandler’s efforts the story is weak, but filled with funny scenes of various effectiveness, that should please his fans, but probably won’t win him any new ones.

Directors: Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg

Starring: John Cho, Kal Penn, Rob Corddry, Neil Patrick Harris, Danneel Harris

This effort is the second installment in what is apparently becoming the new standard in stoner movies. Like it predecessors, Cheech and Chong and Half Baked, the Harold and Kumar movies have a very apparent central theme, pot makes everything funny. Although that may be true, unlike the others in this genre, this movie might even be funny if you are not fried!

John Cho and Kal Penn star once again as(in their only leading roles to date), straight laced, stick to the plan Harold Lee or Roldy and this is bullshit my dad is a tyrant, damn the man Kumar Patel. Two lovable also rans, who despite their very different personalities are best friends, probably because of their mutual adoration of ganja. The two decide to take a week off, Harold from his job at the bank and Kumar from whatever it is he does to pay for weed, and head to Amsterdam to meet a girl who is apparently (although it is never actually explained) Harold’s long distance girl friend and of course smoke weed. After some trouble at the security checkpoint the boys run into Kumar’s ex Vanessa played by Danneel Harris who is on her way to Texas to marry her new boyfriend in Texas. Obviously since he is from Texas he is the dream son in law for any parent, tall, handsome, rich and connected (and of course according to Kumar, a douche bag) While on the plane Kumar decides that he can’t wait for 6 hours to get his smoke on and busts out a smokeless Bong. Since the he is darker skinned but not African American or Mexican, he is already under suspicion and when he breaks out this strange contraption the has some kind of blinking light (i have seen a lot of bongs in my time and even i was not sure what this was) and rhymes with the word bomb, you can imagine what happens next. Thanks to an wildly over zealous Homeland security agent played by Rob Corddry and the patriot act, the boys are shipped off to G-bay with their only hope being Vanessa’s connected boyfriend in Texas.

This movie, unlike so many before it, surprised me in a good way. Having seen the first Harold and Kumar movie which centered around having the munchies, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect walking in. It would be filled with random scenes that have nothing to do with the story but have everything to do with what happens when you are stoned. It would also have some unexpected cameos that would be entertaining and perplexing. Moreover, it would be predicated on a story that is as thin as craft paper. This is all true but the difference with this movie is that the writers took the things that made the first one almost unwatchable and replaced them with more of the stuff that made the first one extremely funny. Now, I am not going to say that this is Forrest Gump because it isn’t and the story has some obvious holes (you might be able to park in a few of them) like sure it wasn’t a bomb, but they were still smoking pot on a plane!!! But taken for what it is, this movie has enough humor to keep you laughing. It also has some very funny political humor with it’s pokes at stereotypes. And like the first one, it has a great sequence with Neil Patrick Harris playing himself, you will never look at Doogie Howser the same way again. If you combine half baked with Jay and silent Bob strike back, you will get a decent idea of how this movie will feel when you try it on.

Director: Sturla Gunnarson

Starring: William Hurt, Andy Jones, Molly Parker

Icelandic-born director Sturla Gunnarson made this charmingly offbeat Canadian small scale feature. The Newfoundland setting is fresh and the characters are likable and interesting, with good performances all around. There is an interesting little story and a few funny lines, making this an appealing distraction for a couple of hours.

William Hurt is Dave, the owner of a dying restaurant in small town Newfoundland with an absent wife and a quirky friend named Phonce, who has built himself a submarine as a recreational vehicle and has a plan (plus a plan B – “always have a have plan B, Dave.”) to help the restaurant, involving a couple sightings of a duck believed to be extinct which brings bird watchers flocking to the little town. It would be simple if that was all there was to worry about here…

Rare Birds is a pleasant and entertaining little film that may be worth watching if you bump it into it on TV.

Director: Calli Khouri

Starring: Diane Keaton, Ted Danson, Queen Latifah, Katie Holmes,

Writer/director Calli Khouri (Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood) decided it’s time that women have a light-hearted caper film of their own, and here it is. This story began as the true tale of some British women ripping off the Bank of England, turned into a made for TV film and now this Americanized version. The music and style has a 70s feel to it. Keaton gives an exaggerated, wearisome performance and the script isn’t all that funny, but I’m always up for a decent scam picture.

Diane Keaton is Bridget an upper middle class housewife whose life is turned upside down when her hubby, played by Ted Danson loses his job. Times quickly turn tough and she gets a job at the Federal Reserve Bank. That’s one way to help out. Another is to team up with single mom, Nina (Queen Latifah) and Jackie (Katie Holmes) and steal old cash before it gets destroyed. You don’t have to guess which method they choose, since the film opens with police interviews and flashes back to them throughout.

Imagine The Thomas Crown Affair blended with Thelma and Louise (which Khouri also wrote) and you will have some idea of what to expect from Mad Money. Movies like this have been done better and done worse, but if you enjoy the caper genre then its worth catching on DVD.