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Director: Drew Barrymore

Starring: Ellen Page, Marcia Gay Harden, Eve, Kristen Wigg, Drew Barrymore, Juliette Lewis, Jimmy Fallon, Landon Pigg, Daniel Stern,

Drew Barrymore’s feature directorial debut is a success! Well, sort of. Working with novel author Shauna Cross’ screenplay, Barrymore does manage to keep the energy level up an does a fantastic job of casting a talented cast of actors who both look and play the roles they are in. The story is unique (at least unique within the cookie cutter confines of Hollywood) and interesting. Ellen Page is as great to watch as ever and Jimmy Fallon steps in from time to time with some comic relief. Where Whip It loses its roll a little is with a story that dulls its edge too much and with the roller skating scenes that could have been punched up with bit more action.

Ellen Page is Bliss Cavender, a high school girl competing in beauty pageants to please her frustrated mother played by Marcia Gay Harden. Bliss needs something of her own, however, and finds it, with her friend’s Pash’s (Alia Shawkat) I-dare-you encouragement in the resurging world of roller derby, but her challenges are many. Can she evade her mother (and league rules) to play? Can she fit in with the raucous crew of boisterous women and, most of all, can she hold her own on the track where bigger, meaner opponents with names like Iron Maven (Juliette Lewis) are playing rough and hard? Let the credits roll. They are dotted with fun outtakes.

Whip it is a good film about women stepping out and doing things by themselves and for themselves. It’s flavour and feel are rather like “A League of Their Own”, but lacks the polish of the latter. It is still an enjoyable film. It’s a fun, upbeat film with a charismatic cast and an interesting subject.

The Wrestler Trailer
Director: Darren Aronofsky

Starring: Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood

The Wrestler is a product of the creative mind behind such dark dramas as The Fountain and Requiem for a Dream, and Darren Aronofsky still isn’t going to win any laugh fests with this bleak character drama about a broken down professional wrestler. Mickey Rourke, who showed such talent and promise twenty years ago, in such projects as Barfly and Angel Heart before falling into a decade or two of obscurity, powers this film with an Oscar worthy performance. He is helped out by a noteworthy effort by Marisa Tomei, and by the grim, but engrossing story. The direction is dark and overuses the hand held camera to achieve an authentic look. The end result is an excellent art house film that deserved more attention than it got.

The flagging career of Mickey Rourke may just be revived with his role as Randy “The Ram” Robinson, an aging, good-hearted performer in the hard knock wrestling world of heels (bad guys) and baby faces (good guys). Randy was once a big name, but any money he made is gone and only a glimmer of fame remains along with a lifetime of injuries and regret, as he tries to rebuild a relationship with his daughter and find a place in the world outside wrestling. Marisa Tomei joins him in this journey as an aging stripper and would-be girlfriend just trying to find her own way out of an even grimier world than his.

Imagine the movie Rocky, where Rocky doesn’t get a million to one shot to change his life, but instead the film follows him through his sombre, empty life at the beginning of the film. This is best way to describe The Wrestler. Still, for fans of powerful dramas, the great acting and genuine story of a man stripped bare is worth seeing.

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Director: Morgan Spurlock

Starring: Morgan Spurlock

The documentary genius of Morgan Spurlock returns! In his first effort since the brilliant look at fast food, Super Size Me, Spurlock is about to become a dad, and decides he has to make the world safe for his offspring. The best way to do this, he determines, is to track down western public enemy #1, Osama Bin Laden. This premise is handled quite lightly, though this feature has less appeal than Spurlock eating MacDonald’s ninety times. Still it is another wonderful film that eases us into an uncomfortable subject and then offers an engaging introspective view of it. The film clocks in at less than 90 minutes and offers enough animation and cheesy CGI, that the whole thing looks just a little cheap, but is still entertaining and compelling.

Finding the most wanted man in the world, seems like it could be a tricky goal, but undaunted, Mr. Spurlock sets out on his task. His plan is simple. Just visit countries where he may be and ask people if they’ve seen him. Hmmm, why hasn’t western intelligence thought of that? Anyway, Morgan visits several Muslim and middle-eastern countries, and talks to people. Some are people of power and influence, while most are average citizens. Besides the inquiry into Bin Laden’s whereabouts, he asks them what they think of the terrorist leader, the United States and of their own circumstances. The results are interesting and range from chilling to amusing.

“Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden?” plays like ‘political science light’ and will should make the rounds of grade twelve classrooms for the next few years. It is light enough to be fun and serious enough to offer a little insight, but with a feature like this, its best to keep in mind that its not difficult to give the viewer any message that the filmmaker wants to give.

Director: Timur Bekmambetov

Starring: James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Terence Stamp, Thomas Kretschmann, Kristen Hager, Chris Pratt

Well, the summer action season is here, and along with it, the promise of three months of high octane, low-intel action explosions that plug their gaping plot holes with expensive CGI and Dolby surround sound. Wanted made its way to the big screen as a comic book series, which explains the nonsensical plot and overdone action sequences which are becoming the all too typical style of today’s action features, and the end result is a yawning formula film.

James McAvoy’s character, Wesley starts out as a discontented office worker – aka Ed Norton’s Fight Club character, but his life takes a turn to the exciting when he is thrust into the midst of a violent war within a secret thousand year old fraternity of assassins, to which it turns out he was born to be part of. His sexy, but unconvincingly scrawny guide into this world is Fox, played by Angelina Jolie, who mostly just poses for the camera between comic book battles. Morgan Freeman is Sloan, the fraternity leader who monitors Wesley’s progress to determine when he is ready for his very special mission. The story strains credibility, but does manage a couple of decent surprises.

The action scenes of Wanted will remind viewers of pictures like Jumper mixed with Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Jumper at least had an original premise but the ancient secret society of assassins is not original enough to carry this feature, but it should still pack enough punches and bullets to keep the action crowd happy for a couple of hours.

Director: Tom Vaughan

Starring: Ashton Kutcher, Cameron Diaz, Rob Corddry, Lake Bell, Jason Sudeikis, Queen Latifah, Dennis Farina

What Happens in Vegas is a mediocre formula film with a predictable formula story, stock characters right out of the screenwriters’ handbook, and ending that you see from two hours away and an over reliance on not-so comical fight scenes between men and women.

Ashton Kutcher is Jack, a fun, but aimless guy who can’t even hold a job when his father is the boss and Cameron Diaz is Joy, an successful, but uptight stock trader who can’t hold on to her man, even though she is a successful stock trader who looks like Cameron Diaz. Go figure. Anyway, these two both decide that the solution to their problems lies in a wild weekend trip with their friends, Hater (Rob Corddry) and Tipper (Lake Bell). The pairs are drawn together by fate and while Hater and Tipper zinging each other with insults, Jack and Joy have an alcohol-fueled evening of debauchery and marriage. Yup, they awake in Holy Matrimony and are all set to pursue an annulment when a 3 million dollar jackpot gets in the way. Now a fed up judge sentences then to ‘six months hard marriage’ and the story is off and limping.

What Happens in Vegas is funny in some spots and blandly interesting in others, but it is really too silly and predictable to stand out from the crowd, leaving it as the default choice for couples who can‘t agree on what they really want to see and teenagers who are young to know what they really want to see.

Director: Rob Reiner

Starring: Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Bruno Kirby, Carrie Fisher

Rob Reiner gave us this romantic comedy classic that has set the standard for the entire genre. Nora Ephron’s stellar screenplay has well-formed characters exchanging fabulous dialog that will remind new viewers of Seinfeld. Crystal gives his usual appealing neurotic, but laid back, portrayal, while Ryan shines in the leading role, including the unforgettable restaurant orgasm scene. This hit would make her the go-to gal for rom-coms for the next decade. The story is gentle, patient and authentic and, aided by talented and charismatic performers and makes this film a wonderfully pleasing experience.

Harry (Billy Crystal) first meets Sally (Meg Ryan) when both have just finished university in Chicago and are sharing a car ride to NYC. They click like motor oil and mustard and soon forget about one another. Over the years, a couple more chance encounters paves the path to an unlikely friendship between two very different young, single adults. There are charming scenes set in during time passages featuring interviews of older couples talking about how they met. Adding humor and story depth that is stereotypical, but still amusing, are ‘friends’ played here by Bruno Kirby and Carrie Fisher.

When Harry Met Sally looks a little dated now with its 80’s hair and fashions, but this near-perfect screenplay is still interesting, touching and funny. If you have never seen this before, it’s better than you think. If you have seen it before, it’s better than you remember.

Director: Robert Greenwald

Put down your debit card and watch this documentary that reveals how Wal-Mart has managed to become the retail Godzilla that it is today. The argument is compelling in a Michael Moore kind of way, but forget any concept of balance in the filmmaker‘s viewpoint. Director Robert Greenwald would have been more persuasive if he had offered more comparisons between Wal-Mart and other large retailers, but it should serve to be thought provoking for the unconvinced, as self-righteous confirmation for those of us who have already turned against this monolithic monster.

Greenwald starts out by looking at long time retailers who were crushed by Wal-Mart and goes on to examine the company’s anti-union activities and its exploitation of government resources. He goes on to question the company’s behaviors in several other areas, that will hopefully cause consumers to take a hard look at which companies we support with our dollars.

How far will we allow corporations to go before we stand up to say ‘enough‘? How much does it take for us to say that we will no longer participate in the exploitation of workers both in our hometowns and throughout the world? How much money can a corporation take out of public coffers, before we call our politicians to task to account for allowing this? I don’t know.

Director: Paul Schrader

Starring: Woody Harrelson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Lauren Bacall, Ned Beatty, Mary Beth Hurt, Lily Tomlin

Taxi Driver writer Paul Schrader wrote and direct this slow, dreary blueblood mystery. It sounds like it will be similar to Schrader’s 80’s Richard Gere hit, American Gigolo, but there aren’t that many similarities left by the end. The story here is mildly compelling and is helped along by wonderful performances by the veteran cast, but the end result just isn’t engaging enough to recommend it over other entertaining choices.

Woody Harrelson is Carter Page III, a member of the upper crust Washington society who seems to specialize in being the gay friend of middle-aged rich women. Life is a comfortable blend of parties, cards and gossip until he helps a friend avoid involvement with the police following the death of her secret married lover, and soon Carter finds himself getting in deeper and deeper.

Mystery fans may consider The Walker to be a worthy waste of a couple of hours, but most will be checking their watch half way through. No real flaws, except a story that moves too slowly and characters that are not interesting enough to make us care about the conclusion.

Director: Jay Russell

Starring: Alex Etel, Ben Chaplin, Emily Watson, Priyanka Xi, David Morrissey, Brian Cox

CGI meets the formulaic story of a boy’s relationship with an unusual creature. This has been done with dogs, bears and even killer whales, but has never been done with the Loch Ness Monster until now. The graphics are enjoyable, though the story is a little disjointed and lacks the emotion that these features can deliver (Anyone else seen Old Yeller?). The stock characters are bland, but sufficient, and dialog is standard family film fare.

The story here begins in a modern day Scottish pub with an elderly stranger (Brian Cox) offering the real story behind a famous picture of ‘Nessie’ to a couple of tourists. He tells the story of a serious, water-fearing young boy named Angus (Alex Etel) living with his mother and sister in a country inn along the shores of Loch Ness, while his father is off fighting in WWII. One day while wandering near the Loch, Angus finds a strange egg, that soon hatches into an even stranger little water creature. Angus’ attempt to raise the baby sea monster are complicated by his mother, a regiment of soldiers billeted at the inn and their new handyman, Lewis (Ben Chaplin).

The Water Horse is an ordinary family animal film, where the animal happens to be a mythical creature (Remember Harry and the Hendersons?). If you (or your little ones) enjoyed features like Free Willy, then this is an inoffensive, but ultimately forgettable choice. Nessie fans will probably want to see it, too, and will enjoy the CGI on the creature and the building upon the Loch Ness legend, but for a better choice (for Nessie fans, not family viewing) check out The Incident at Loch Ness.

Director: Philip G. Atwell

Starring: Jason Statham, Jet Li, John Lone, Devon Aoki, Luis Guzman, Saul Rubinek, Ryo Ishibashi, Sung Kang, Terry Chen,

War is a BS action flick, just like a thousand before it, and worst than most them. The job of taking this poorly written script that was probably written on the back of a cocktail napkin long after happy hour had vanished into an alcoholic haze. Seriously, the dialog is embarrassingly bad and the characters are cardboard cutouts that you’ve see in most of those previous 1,000 action movies and even the character actors blow lines like coke addicts at a Hollywood house party. Some of the action scenes are good, but there isn’t even enough of that to keep your mind off how bad the rest of this flick is.

Jason Statham is FBI agent, Jack Crawford, whose partner, Tom (John Lone) is killed by the mysterious assassin with the comic book name, Rogue (Jet Li). Jack’s life becomes consumed by his thirst for revenge. What a clever and original opening! Soon he is the middle of a gang war between the Yakuza and the Triads, most of whom seem unable to lay their hands on guns and fight randomly with clubs, like its 10,000 bc., or something. There is a pretty good sword fight and some other decent action, but not enough to make this one worth it. There isn’t much to say about the ending except that even most action fans hated it.

War is a waste of time for all but the most die hard (speaking of great action movies) Jet Li and action fans. Li has made a lot of better films than this and Jason Statham continues to be typecast in junky slo-mo action orgies after his promising start in Snatch. This like Face Off meets Black Rain, and if you liked those films (both of which were at least a little better than this), then this might be worth renting, but only if Shoot ‘em Up is not on the shelf.