Dear Mr. Watterson

Here's a fabulous idea for a movie. Take a book - a not particularly well-received book - written by somebody else and then copy that book, only in movie form. Be nice about it, though, so you can get the author of the book to participate in your movie. And that's what we have here as Joel Allen Schroeder copies the book Looking for Calvin & Hobbes by going to Bill Watterson's hometown and interviewing lots of people about him and his comics. While there's some useful information here (though not much), in the end we don't learn much. Watterson, as always, didn't participate, so we don't get anything from him. So we're left with a bunch of cartoonists talking about how awesome C&H was, mixed in with a visit to the library at Ohio State where almost all of Watterson's original artwork is stored. Whoop dee doo. 3/10.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Bruno is the 8-year old son of a Nazi concentration camp commandant. Being an innocent, he thinks the camp (which he can see from his window) is a farm. While exploring, he goes up to the camp and meets Shmuel, an 8-year old prisoner in the camp. They strike up a friendship, each not knowing about the situation to be able to fully comprehend what is going on. This is a heartbreaking movie told with a very deft touch. The two young actors (Asa Butterfield and Jack Scanlon) are absolutely brilliant. I'm told this was a book but I have not read it. Anyway, the movie is fantastic and well worth watching. 9/10.

Godzilla

One of the more polarizing movies of 2014, that's for sure! Saw this in 3D and liked it a lot. Godzilla looks like Godzilla (except the head being a bit small) and there's a suitable amount of carnage. I could quibble over the major fights all being done at night so we don't get a great look at them but that's a quibble. It was also really misleading how the ads and trailers gave Bryan Cranston a much-larger role than the movie actually did. The 3D was a non-factor in the heart of the movie so save your money. Bring on the sequel! 8/10.

The Lifeguard

Kristen Bell is a 29-year old AP reporter who is really angsty over her life so she quits her job, moves back home with her parents, takes her old high school job as a lifeguard and screws a local teenager to figure everything out. This movie hits all the indie checkboxes - Disproportionate number of characters smoke? Check. Smoking plays a role in multiple scenes? Check. Angsty characters who are all angsty for no apparent reason? Check. The only semi-stable adults portrayed as being the bad characters because they're not dope-smoking idiots banging teenagers? Check. Angsty guitar folk hipster soundtrack? Check. This movie is just a mess with Bell's character being just...unlikeable. Ugh. 4/10.

Lovelace

Amanda Seyfried plays porn star Linda Lovelace in this bio pic. It's based on Linda's version of events and this is highly suspect at best. They ignore stuff that goes against Linda's story (like her...uh...love for dogs) and generally paint everybody that isn't her as a major scumbag. The movie itself isn't all that well-done either. It's essentially a half-movie done twice, with the second half being the "real" version of events. Seyfried is good enough as Lovelace but isn't given too much to work with. The rest of the cast is fine, this just never reaches any heights. Watch Inside Deep Throat instead. 5/10.

Pain & Gain

Marky Mark is Daniel Lugo, a bodybuilder personal trainer dude who hatches a plot to kidnap one of his rich clients and force him to give him all of his possessions. The Rock and Anthony Mackie are his bodybuilder compatriots. This is a black humor movie that's funny and beautifully shot and that's the problem. See, this is a true story and it adheres to the facts fairly tightly but changes them just enough to turn real life psycopathic killers into goofballs who didn't intend to hurt, let alone kill, anybody. And that's what makes it messed up. The movie is enjoyable and entertaining and then you're reminded it's a true story and that these guys really did torture some poor guy for a month and that they really did use a chainsaw to dismember two others and that's just messed up. So you end up entertained and feeling conflicted about it. 7/10.

Don't Stop Believin' - Everyman's Journey

Documentary from 2012 charting the selection of Arnel PIneda to join Journey as their new lead singer. Pineda is a real-life version of the movie Rock Star, literally plucked from a cover band thanks to a video of him singing on Youtube. The movie covers that process a bit, Pineda's life in the Phillipines before joining Journey, and the band's first tour together. This is a fun look behind the scenes with everybody in the movie coming across pretty likeable, particularly Pineda who's having the time of his life. I got a chance to see these guys on the tour covered in the movie and they were awesome. Anyway, if you're a fan of the band, or rock documentaries in general, this is a good one. 8/10.

Blue Chips

I recognize that this is not a "great" movie per se but, man, I love this flick. Nick Nolte plays a virtual clone of Bobby Knight - ironic, since Knight has an extended cameo as himself - as a once-super-successful college basketball coach whose program has fallen down a bit. He's always been a paragon of integrity but gives into temptation and buys off players in order to get back to the top. The result is a terrific, fast-paced movie that, while exaggerated a bit for Hollywood, rings very true as an indictment of big-time NCAA basketball. Lots of real basketball players and coaches in this one - Shaq & Penny Hardaway star, along with former Indiana starter Matt Stover, and there's cameos from Rick Pitino, Bobby Hurley, Calbert Cheaney, Larry Bird, Bob Cousy, and more - and they all do a great job. It's fun to see Shaq all young and athletic again, destroying guys on a 9-1/2 foot rim. Nolte is fantastic as well. I dunno, I just love this movie. Side note: Man, were the early/mid-90s a great time for basketball movies or what? All-time classic White Men Can't Jump, Above the Rim, The Basketball Diaries, this one... and probably a few others I'm forgetting (or intentionally ignoring - like Space Jam). Anyway... 7/10.

The Yards

Marky Mark just got out of prison and is looking for work. Joaquin Phoenix is his cousin's husband and works for a railroad supply company that's a bit ethically challenged. They visit the yards one night to impose their will on a competitor and things go south. This is a movie that thinks it's a lot better than it is and seems to be very impressed with itself. It tries to be some kind of gangster epic or something and never really gets there. Loaded cast - Wahlberg, Phoenix, Charlize Theron, James Woods, Jessica Lange, etc - but ends up as nothing special. 5/10.

Playing For Keeps

I remember for some reason wanting to see this when I first saw ads. Maybe because I generally like Gerard Butler? Maybe. I dunno. Anyway, this movie is AWFUL. Butler plays a former soccer pro trying to rebuild his relationship with his son and ex by being his son's soccer coach. You can write the entire plot beforehand - conflict with the ex, conflict with the son, losing team becomes good, jerk of a parent, and so on. There's literally nothing even approaching mediocre in this, let alone good. And it's not funny. Meanwhile, what the heck happened to Jessica Biel? Remember when she used to be hot? Now she's the 4th hottest woman in this movie (out of 4) - behind Uma Thurman, who I've never thought was good looking. Time to make some changes, Jess. Anyway, this movie is just terrible on all levels. 2/10

Home Run

Alcoholic major league superstar goes off the rails and coaches his brother's little league team to find his way back. This is a Christian movie not up to the standards set by Kirk Cameron's movies. Bad acting, weak plot, and so on. Still, I made it all the way through somehow. 2/10.

JFK Smoking Gun

A documentary that I started, not knowing the theory behind it. Turns out to be a rehash of Bonar Menninger's laughable "Secret Service agent firing from behind did it accidentally" theory. It's so laughable on its face and unsupported with facts, no matter how hard this dreck tries. And, oh yeah, let's not have the movie mention that the agent in question sued over these allegations and got a settlement.

Friend of mine says that a lot of people have basically forgotten that JFK's murder was a REAL incident with REAL people involved. A man REALLY died. A wife REALLY was widowed. And, because, they forget/ignore that real people are/were involved, they feel safe throwing out any cockamamie theory without regard to the damage it might cause. This movie is a great example of that and my friend is dead-on with that theory.

1/10.

Draft Day

Kevin Costner is the GM of the Cleveland Browns and it's the first day of the NFL draft. Costner is under pressure from his owner to "make a splash". He's under pressure from his coach to "get him players". Jennifer Garner is Ali, the Browns' salary cap guru and also Costner's girlfriend. This movie is something of a mess. The storyline with the Browns and Seahawks throwing around the #1 overall pick is decent but not realistic - typical overdone Hollywood sports movie stuff. The problem comes with the "other" stuff. You've got Garner - a football fanatic and Browns employee - deciding that the day of the NFL draft is the perfect time to inform her GM boyfriend she's pregnant - and then she's miffed that he doesn't respond properly. You've got Costner's mom coming to his office in the middle of the day - dragging along his ex-wife, to boot - to ask him to participate in a memorial for his dad right then. Her husband was a lifelong NFL coach and she knew it was draft day. Both of these things, with the women doing stuff that makes absolutely no sense, drag the movie down big-time. Add in the fact that Costner gets a brand-new intern that day who then claims his "whole life" is on a company laptop that gets destroyed (say what? he's been there less than a day). Topping it all off is that Costner isn't that busy. It's the biggest day of the year and he's not BUSY. Phones in the office aren't ringing. People aren't hustling around. And so on. And yet, even with all that, the movie ends up being pretty entertaining. It's got football, Jennifer Garner, and some decent work from Costner. That's OK for a Sunday afternoon. My wife, presumably the target audience for all the forced "drama" stuff that's added in, came out of the movie wishing for more football in the movie. I agree. Entertaining but not great. 5/10.

Don Jon

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Jon, a New Jersey stud whose real relationships with women come in second to his addiction to online porn. Scarlett Johansson is the woman he "falls in love" with. She's a control freak who finds it "embarrassing" that he cleans his own apartment (that's women's work) and breaks up with him because he lies about watching porn. Julianne Moore is a widow taking a night class at a college with Jon. After Jon's breakup, he connects with Moore's character and finally discovers a real relationship. Anyway, this is a movie with a good idea, a good cast and mediocre execution. It never really gets above mediocre, which is too bad. 6/10.

Death Wish

Yeah, the Charles Bronson original. I remember liking this as a teenager. Probably because it was "scandalous" or something. Charles Bronson is a man whose wife and daughter are attacked and he's had enough. He's gonna take out the punks who did it! Look for Jeff Goldblum in an early role as one of the douchebag punks. Anyway, the version on Netflix is at least slightly shorter than I remember, with the rape scene being a bit shorter. Anyway, this movie isn't very good and time has not been kind to it. 3/10.

The Central Park Five

Ken Burns documentary on the five black teenagers (wrongfully) convicted of a 1989 attempted murder and rape of a white female jogger in Central Park. If you want to be angry at a whole bunch of people at once, this is a good choice to watch. You've got the cops focusing on this group of teenagers for no apparent reason other than they were somewhere in the park that same night. And then they interrogate them for hours and hours without attorneys or family, eventually coercing factually incorrect false confessions from four of them. Then the DA pushes forward with a prosecution with - literally - only the confessions as evidence. The defense attorneys are incompetent, either doing nothing or claiming "well, he just watched" instead of actually saying their guy was not present. It's all a big mess. And, oh yeah, the cops had DNA from the case and DNA from the guy who actually committed the crime and either never compared the two or ignored the results. The end result is a powerful documentary that is well-made but not a complete home run. The question of what crimes the five may have actually committed that night is never answered, for example. Still, this is a good doc. 8/10.

* - The end of the movie states that the boys' lawsuit against NYC and others had yet to reach resolution. Since the making of the movie, a settlement was announced but I don't know if that ever came to fruition. Meanwhile, the DA in the case still thinks the boys are guilty even though the only DNA present at the scene was that of the guy who confessed.

The Company Men

Ben Affleck plays a sales guy who gets downsized in the wake of the economic crisis. Tommy Lee Jones is his boss and Craig T Nelson is the CEO. Kevin Costner plays the brother-in-law. This is a somber movie with a few light moments that takes a pretty realistic look at what happens to upper-middle class (or above) folks who lose their jobs and their employment prospects afterward. Affleck is solid, Nelson is good, Tommy Lee plays himself, and Costner demonstrates the hilarity of his (in)ability to do a good accent. Good movie that doesn't really strive for greatness and thus never gets there. I did get a bit of a chuckle out of the financial situation Affleck is in - he makes $125k + incentives and is his family's sole paycheck, yet they live in a home that's worth well north of $1m. If that doesn't just explain the mortgage crisis in a nutshell, LOL. Anyway, good movie that just creeps over the Tabedoza line - 8/10.

The Story of Luke

Luke is a 25-year old autistic man raised by his grandparents from an early age. His grandmother, who taught him to cook and homeschooled him through high school, has just passed away, leaving Grandpa to go into a nursing home and Luke to go live with his aunt and uncle. They are nearing a divorce, the aunt is unlikable, and Luke thinks he'd like to get a job and "screw". The movie centers on Luke's different relationships with the folks in his life - the bitchy aunt he helps to soften, the receptionist at the job place that he decides he should date, the cousin who helps him look for jobs, etc. And those relationships work well. It's the one with his job trainer, played by Seth Green, that doesn't. Green plays an autistic man very aware of his condition who pretends to be normal but mostly just spends the movie screaming at Luke and calling him "retard". It's a painfully awful exaggeration of a character and a huge negative on the movie. He's also developed a software program that imitates "normal" people so Luke can talk to it and practice being normal. That's about as realistic as me dating Julianne Hough & Amy Adams - at the same time. Good grief. Green's entire character drags the movie down big-time. Luke himself is awkward but a lot higher functioning than expected, in that he's able to understand sarcasm and figures of speech, etc. In the end, this is a movie that could have been a nice, sweet tale of a young man overcoming difficulties but instead is just a mediocre maudlin attempt at doing that. 6/10.

Twisted

Sometimes you just want something pretty mindless playing in the background while you're occupied with something else. Hence this movie. It was either that or Boys Don't Cry, but I figured that would require a bit more of my attention. Anyway, Ashley Judd is a very promiscuous homicide detective who gets a big promotion on the back of solving a series of murders. The twist is she's also the daughter of a former cop turned serial killer who also killed her mom. Soon, another killer is active and he's killing...her sexual conquests. And she's got no alibi for the times of their murders, soon becoming a prime suspect. Or is the killer her partner? Or ??? When I chose this as a "mindless movie", I was definitely right. Another thriller that fails to rise above the mediocre entries in its genre. The cast is good - Judd, Andy Garcia, Samuel L Jackson - but they've got nothing to work with. Ho hum... 4/10.

Taking Lives

Angelina Jolie is an FBI profiler called to Montreal to assist with a murder case. Seems some guy is killing people and then taking their identities. Except Jolie is the one who figures that out, so why she got called in the first place is a mystery. Ethan Hawke is a witness to one of the murders. He and Jolie solve the case, hook up, etc. This is a pretty much by-the-numbers thriller that mostly is designed to have Jolie walking around looking "sexy professional" in her suits. That you never for one second believe she could possibly ever actually have that job is secondary. Another movie for the "not great" category - 5/10.

Enough

Remember when Jennifer Lopez was trying to become a big movie star and thought that a female empowerment vehicle was the way to go? Yeah, this is that movie. Anyway, J-Lo plays "Slim", a waitress swept off her feet by a millionaire into a wonderful life. There are signs early on that he's a creep but nothing too obvious. Years later, she learns he's being unfaithful. When confronted, he becomes physically abusive and tells her, basically, learn to live with it, Jenny From the Block. Well, Jenny ain't havin' it, so she flees. It all comes to a head with a showdown at his house after she's had roughly a month of training - becoming a super-awesome ninja/MMA god/assassin in the process. Anyway, this is essentially a big budget Lifetime "woman gets revenge on abusive man" movie. There are some gigantic plot holes and leaps in logic along with some weird side things (J-Lo is called, essentially, unattractive a couple times in the movie. WTF?) This is a dumb movie but not exactly terrible to watch. Wonder if her new movie, which undoubtedly will play out almost exactly the same, will be much different or better? Anyway... 4/10.