Flipped

Director: Rob Reiner
Writers: Rob Reiner, Andrew Scheinman, Wendelin Van Draanen (author)
Starring: Madeline Carroll, Callan McAuliffe
Release Date: August 27, 2010
Length: 1 hour 30 minutes

Rob Reiner directed phenomenal films in the past including When Harry Met Sally, Misery and Stand By Me. When you hear his name, you think of his films from 1984-1995, you don’t think or even know about the films he has made recently because they are nothing compared to his previous films. Although it is cute, Flipped is no comeback for Reiner. Taking place in the early 1960’s, Flipped tells the story of Bryce and Juli, two 14-year-old neighbours whose families come from different economical backgrounds. When the pair first met, when they were 7, Juli smothered Bryce, as she had an enormous crush on him and he detested her. As the film progresses, the audience get’s to see the change in relationship as their feelings for each other start to flip. The screen literally flips each time the film goes back and forth between Juli’s and Bryce’s perspective. They both narrate through the whole film to show the different sides of what is happening. Based off the book by Wendelin Van Draanen, Flipped stayed completely faithful to the book. When I say completely, I mean not one little thing changed. That should be a good thing, and it’s hard to complain about this, when I find myself complaining about a film adaptation that doesn’t stay true to the book. However, as someone who read the book, I knew exactly what was going to happen next and there were absolutely no surprises. That unfortunately took away a huge chunk of my interest. I was still able to enjoy the innocence and charm of a story about first love. The lead actors, Madeleine Carrol (Swing Vote) and Callan McAuliffe were adorable to watch on screen and the fact that the film takes place in the 60’s makes everything a little sweeter. Changing the setting of the time was the only difference between the book and the movie and may have been what I loved most about the film. The costumes, to the old dialogue with the 60’s catchphrases, and even the cinematography all kept my interest. What I mentioned before about the perspective changing meant that some scenes were replayed twice to see what both characters were thinking. Some scenes worked because they showed lots of different things that were happening in the scene. In scenes just between the two of them, I did not need to see the same thing twice because I just didn’t care that much and my interest was once again lost. If you haven’t read the book, I’ll bet you’ll enjoy this a lot more than I did. At the same time though, you can do without it because Flipped is not that special.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Director: Edgar Wright
Writers: Edgar Wright, Michael Bacall, Bryan Lee O'Malley (author)
Starring: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead
Release Date: August 13, 2010
Length: 1 hour 52 minutes

From the director of Shaun Of The Dead and based off the graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley, comes one of the most original, hilarious, knock out comedies of the decade, and the best part is…it takes place in my hometown. That’s right, Scott Pilgrim’s a Torontonian. Set in the amazing city of Toronto, 22-year-old slacker, Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) lives with his gay roommate, Wallace (Kier Culkin) and plays in a band, “Sex-Bob-Bomb” with his fellow slacker friends, Stephen (Mark Webber), Kim (Alison Pill), and Young Neil (Johnny Simmons). While at a boring party, Scott spots the girl of his dreams (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), he has seen a few times already. After finding out her name is Ramona Flowers and that she works for Amazon.ca, she shows up at his door to deliver a package he ordered and he gives her an ultimatum to go on a date with him. She reluctantly agrees and the two have a pretty successful date. The next time they see each other is at Sex-Bob-Bombs first battle of the bands, and during their performance, a man named Matthew Patel comes from the ceiling and demands a fight with Scott. Soon after, Scott discovers Matthew is the first of Ramona’s evil exes he has to defeat in order to date Ramona. At first, I was a little apprehensive to see this movie because as much as I love Michael Cera, I’m beginning to get sick of the boy playing himself over and over. I cannot tell you how quick that annoyance left me when I sat down to watch this hysterical movie. The writing couldn’t have made me laugh any harder than I did. It’s one of those movies you might miss the joke because you’re laughing so hard from the last one. Sometimes, it wasn’t just the writing, but the fact that the film would say bam or ka-pow or that more and more coins would rain down from the ceiling, each time Scott defeated an ex. The way director Edgar Wright used special effects gave the film a balanced video game and superhero feel. The writing of the characters was also great because there was no small character that was just there in a scene. Each person, even if they only had two lines made you laugh in a different way. Each small and big character had a distinct hilarious personality that wasn’t clichéd or stereotyped. To bring these unique characters to life was an unbelievable cast, that couldn’t have been better chosen. Scott’s band was filled with humorous actors. Mark Webber as Stephen, the paranoid, band-obsessed lead singer, Alison Pill (Milk) as Kim, the harsh, pessimistic drummer, and Johnny Simmons (Jennifer’s Body) as young Neil, the stoned, video game lover who fills in as a bassist all gave the audience something to laugh at. The exes were all quite funny especially Brandon Routh (Superman) as the buff vegan with powers and Jason Schwartzman as the confident rich music producer. Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Recreation) gave a hilarious performance as the downer, Julie Powers, someone in Scott’s social group.  Brie Larson (United States of Tara) was great as Scott’s sexy ex-girlfriend, Envy and Anna Kendrick once again generated laughs, this time as Scott’s annoying sister, Stacey. The most comical performance though was from Kier Culkin as Scott’s gay roommate, Wallace. Perhaps it was the relationship between these two characters or that they slept in the same bed and Scott was still straight that made me laugh so much. Or maybe it was that every time Scott woke up, there were two other guys in their bed, whom Wallace had just picked up. On a personal level, I felt this film captured Toronto perfectly, with landmarks like Casa Loma to the characters sipping their second Cup coffee, to the characters riding the nasty TTC. This film’s one default was that by the time we reached the last fight, we had already seen six long ones and were beginning to get bored of the same thing. However, this film was filled with laughs from beginning to end. I can assure you this is one of the best movies of the year because you’ve never seen anything like it before. 

Eat Pray Love

Director: Ryan Murphy
Writers: Ryan Murphy, Jennifer Salt, Elizabeth Gilbert (author)
Starring: Julia Roberts
Release Date: August 13, 2010
Length: 2 hours 14 minutes

Elizabeth Gilbert’s best selling memoirs Eat Pray Love is being brought to screen by director Ryan Murphy (Creator of Glee). Feeling suffocated in her marriage with her husband, Steven (Billy Crudup), journalist Liz files divorce papers and moves on to David (James Franco), a much younger theatre actor, who leads a bohemian lifestyle. Not feeling satisfied yet again, Liz begins to face a mid-life crisis and decides she needs a huge change of life in order find herself. She plans a year-round trip to where she will travel first to Italy, where she will eat and live life like the Italians. Secondly, she will go to India, where she will find her spirituality. Finally, Liz will go to Bali, where she will meet a Brazlian man named Felipe (Javier Bardem). Honestly, I did not hate this film. In fact, I really enjoyed it in parts. The parts I didn’t enjoy were not because they were poorly written, or because the movie was cheesy or because it was just a romantic comedy and nothing else. It wasn’t any of those things at all. The reason for my disappointment was because by the end, when Liz finally had a self-discovery of some sort (whatever it was), I couldn’t relate to her at all. The audience did not know what was this self-discovery and I no longer cared for her character. Despite my lack of knowledge of the book, I can only imagine that her self discovery would have been much more descriptive and intimate in the book, let alone in her thoughts. It’s not the screenwriters, the director or even Julia Roberts fault, but that self discovery definitely did not work on screen, and that’s what most of the film was leading up to. I also didn’t care for it because by the time it happened I’d say more than two hours had passed by and I was tired and bored. So, if we break the film down into three parts (the three places she was in), Italy, India and Bali, I will swear to you that I loved the part of the film when she was in Italy. That was the only part of the film where she really created a group of friends and learned about the culture and lifestyles of Italy, which kept the audience interested. The second part, India was the least entertaining, despite a wonderful performance from Richard Jenkins. The third part, which took place in Bali, was somewhat interesting at the most. Here, my interest was held by her romance with Felipe, but at this point I did not enjoy or appreciate the film as much as I did at the beginning. I cannot judge these events, though because they did occur in Elizabeth Gilbert’s real experience. All I can say is that I’m sure it would have been much more interesting to read the book than see the movie. Moving on, Julia Roberts gave a compelling performance as Liz. She was very humorous and certainly had chemistry with all three of her costars, Billy Crudup, James Franco and Javier Bardem. Bardem actually gave a surprisingly great performance as Felipe. I am not surprised that Bardem performed so well because I know he is an incredible actor, but I thought from what I had seen of the film in the trailers, that his character would be similar to the one he played in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. However, he played a divorced, complicated, funny Brazilian guy who found himself attracted to Julia Roberts’ character as opposed to a gorgeous Brazilian who wisks Liz off her feet immediately. Overall, I would recommend anyone to rent this film on DVD. It wasn’t terrible, but I think you would prefer to watch this in the comfort of your own home, as opposed to being stuck in a theatre for over two hours.

Step Up 3D

Director: Jon M. Chu
Writers: Andy Andelson, Emily Meyer
Starring: Rick Malambri, Adam Sevani, Sharni Vinson
Release Date: August 6, 2010
Length: 1 hour 45 minutes

Two years after the last Step Up 2: The Streets, director Jon M. Chu is back with almost the same product, an unrealistic, cheesy, clichéd, feel good movie that shows you incredible dancing, only this time it’s in 3D. Moose (Adam Sevani) has graduated from Maryland School of the Arts (the setting of Step Up 2) and is now attending NYU, in his first year. While at orientation, he mistakenly ends up in a dance battle between one of the biggest dance crews in New York. When he surprisingly wins the battle, he is approached by a guy named Luke (Rick Malambri), who wants him to join his dance crew. Luke owns a studio he uses as a home for all his dancers and below is a club that he runs as well. There he meets a beautiful dancer named Natalie() who needs a place to stay. As the whole crew prepares for the most competitive underground dance battle in New York, problems arise with Moose going between school and the crew. Natalie and Luke create havoc for themselves as well, when they become too close and she might be hiding a secret. Sorry for the spoiler alert. When I found out the third installment of the step up franchise was going to be in 3D, I thought it was a perfect way for the film to make that much more money, but now having seen the film, I regret saying that. The use of 3D for the dancing was incredible with every move popping out in your face. The dancing would have been incredible anyways, but the audience can enjoy it even more in 3D. Unfortunately, when there is magnificent dancing, usually that means you’re going to get some bad acting as well. Step Up 3D was no exception. These are professionally trained dancers, not actors and they are very good at what they do, but if you ask them to recite lines (especially badly written ones), things don’t always go so well. Despite what I just said, the lead actor, Adam Sevani was great and had a quick geeky humor that the audience tended to laugh at. He was the only one however, to perform well at acting and dancing in this film. I ended up feeling exactly the same way about this film as I did about the last installment. You don’t need me to tell you that this script could not be taken seriously and that the scenes that were supposed to be dramatic were almost unbearable. With those faults though, this film was adorable. You feel like you’re having a great time watching it, and again I’ll say it was filled with extraordinary dancing. No matter your age or tolerance level, you are guaranteed to enjoy Step Up 3D.