All About Steve (2009) Review

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(More customer reviews)People Magazine gave this a 1/2 star out of 5. It truly wasn't that bad.
Here are my thoughts.
Sandra Bullock's character is awkward and that is an understatement. This still-at-home-with-mom-and-dad crossword-puzzle-creator is an unique blend of Cliff Clavin (Cheers) Napoleon Dynamite and Pippi Longstocking. I struggled with whether to like Mary and cheer her on or to just be annoyed and laugh at her when she fell into the big hole. I ended up doing both.
Basic plot: Mary, due to outside pressures, thinks she needs to take her one last shot of normalcy by embracing (understatement) a blind date. When he comes to pick her up and turns out to be "hot" she does this creepy silent stare thing and runs back upstairs to put some sexy on. A truly awkward scene follows when she jumps Steve (Bradley Cooper), not after an okay date but before they even pull away from her folks' house. At first Steve is dazzled by the skin and enthusiasm but then he begins to think she might be crazy so he invents an excuse...a phone call sending him away. While he's attempting to get her out of the van before she truly goes crazy he mentions wishing she could go with him. More circumstances make that a possibility. Some may call it stalking, Mary calls it many, many other things in long paragraphs and polysyllabic words.
Mary is not just a person who talks all the time -- she's a walking encyclopedia of random facts -- and she ends up alienating loads of people on her quest to find Steve. Then she becomes a hero, accidentally, of course. Thomas Haden Church plays the annoying, selfish anchorman wanna-be and he eggs Mary on. Though I wasn't sure what his motivation was exactly his encouragement got Mary to relentlessly pursue Steve. Most of the characters are oddly eccentric, almost cartoonish, from Mary's parents to Haden Church's nemesis. It was almost as if the movie was an attempt to tell a quirky feel good story blended with a parody. It's one of the stranger films I've seen.
Content warnings. The groping scene in the beginning 20 minutes of so of the movie goes on too long and it should be screened before child/young teen viewing. That probably won't be an issue though since most children will likely get bored. Several sexual references are scattered throughout the film. One news story that Steve chases down involves a fight over amputating a baby girl's third leg and there are a few obvious body part innuendo/references. Some language. Some skin, mostly cleavage.
There are several amusing one-liners and descriptives and a pretty sweet tornado besides some great physical comedy and pratfalls. A few scenes are laugh-out-loud funny. Many, many more are shake-the-head shrug inspiring. I'll give it a 3 and I'll probably watch it again when it hits DVD, if for no other reason, to see if I understand it a little better. Maybe it will have that Napoleon Dynamite magic. I didn't like it the first time I watched it either.

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The Accidental Husband (2008) Review

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(More customer reviews)Yes, it's fluff but, to the tell you the truth, I couldn't stop watching it. At first, the premise seems ludicrous - why would anyone engaged to Colin Firth be happy to be married to someone else? As the circumstances of the movie unfold and one realizes that Firth is more the "safe bet" Mr. Darcy character he is so famous for playing, whereas the other man is the epiphany of freedom, adventure, and excitement, the answer becomes quite obvious. At the theaters, this movie will be best enjoyed as part of the date movie ritual; as a rental, this movie will do marvelously.

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Firefighter Patrick Sullivan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) finds his life turned upside-down when his fiancée suddenly calls off their pending nuptials per the recommendation of radio love guru Dr. Emma Lloyd (Uma Thurman). Determined to get back at this "love doctor," Sullivan forges a fake marriage license, "accidentally" marrying him to Emma,who's already engaged to Richard (Colin Firth). But as Patrick's charms begin to wear Emma down, she must decide which of these bachelors is her "Mr. Right." Also starring Sam Shepard, Justina Machado and Isabella Rossellini in this romantic comedy that proves even the experts need to learn a few love lessons now and then.

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Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (2009) Review

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(More customer reviews)What speaks volumes about the overall quality of this movie is that it was released in only half a dozen movie theaters nationwide, and grossed less than 20k at the box office.
At best it's an average movie with no quality acting, which reflects the fact that only 5% of voters on Rotten Tomatoes actually enjoyed it. The complications that arise with our main character as the movie progresses are predictable, as is the "twist" that occurs at the film's conclusion.
The biggest mystery of this film is how they were able to land Michael Douglas on the cast. Douglas has virtually no real screen time in this movie, which is a major disappointment for those of us who enjoyed his work in movies like King of California, Wall Street and Basic Instinct. No need to wait for the jury to return to the courtoom; my verdict is that it's not worth even a Redbox rental.

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High profile lawyer, Martin Hunter (Michael Douglas) has an impeccable record putting criminals behind bars and is a shoo-in for governor in the upcoming election. But when ambitious rookie journalist, C.J. Nicholas (Jesse Metcalfe) begins investigating Hunter for tampering with evidence to secure his convictions, the district attorney’s perfect record is up for scrutiny. Commencing a risky game of cat and mouse with Hunter, C.J. frames himself as a murder suspect to catch the corrupt D.A. in the act. Stills from Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (Click for larger image)

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The Ugly Truth (Widescreen Edition) (2009) Review

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(More customer reviews)"The Ugly Truth" represents something I never thought I'd see: A romantic comedy that both women and men will appreciate. Granted, it probably won't be for the same reasons. Women will like it because underneath it all, it's a fairly typical romantic comedy, the story of Girl Hates Boy, Boy Hates Girl, Boy and Girl Fall in Love Anyway. Men will like it because one of the main characters expresses much of what they think and feel on a daily basis. Everyone will like it because the story is engaging and the characters are not mere cardboard caricatures. You can actually invest in them, and you're able to care about what's going on. What could easily have been a routine date night movie is instead a surprisingly good movie that need not wait until date night. It's also genuinely funny--a bit raunchy, yes, but funny just the same.
Much of the film's success is due to the wonderful onscreen chemistry between Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler. They continuously make us laugh, yet the comedy is not so broad that you can't believe them in their roles. They make a point of interacting with one another, not as comic relief but as real people. Heigl plays Abby Richter, the romantically challenged, neurotic, controlling producer of a failing Sacramento morning talk show. Butler plays Mike Chadaway, the chauvinistic host of a public access relationship program called "The Ugly Truth." He's unapologetically tell-it-like-it-is in matters of men and women. There's no such thing, he claims, as a sensitive, nurturing man who wants to connect at an emotional level. Men just want sex, plain and simple. And they only want it with attractive women.
Abby, who thinks Mike's rhetoric is appalling, is horrified when she learns that he has been hired to her station in an effort to boost ratings. They clash at every turn ... until he learns that she's interested in dating her next door neighbor--an orthopedic surgeon named Colin (Eric Winter) who just happens to be incredibly handsome. Sensing she's doing everything wrong to initiate a relationship, Mike offers to help Abby by having her test his relationships theories on Colin. She reluctantly agrees, and sure enough, Mike's methods work wonders. She dresses more provocatively. She learns to stop being critical and avoid discussing her personal problems. She learns to be the embodiment of both the saint and the sinner, or as Mike puts it, "The librarian and the stripper."
And that's when things start to get more complex. Abby is succeeding with Colin, but only at the expense of not being herself. On the other hand, could anyone love her as herself? She is, after all, known for bringing background checks and printed topics of conversation to blind dates. As for Mike, he has very definite reasons for believing that loving relationships are a sham. They're gradually revealed not only through carefully structured scenes, but also through Butler, who shows he can find the right balance between smug and sensitive. We see that Mike is the closest thing his young nephew has for a father, and even though he playfully gives the boy relationship advice, he's also quick to remind him that kids should never, ever watch his show.
Heigl also manages a balancing act with her performance, specifically between strength and vulnerability. Abby overachieves at work to compensate for a lack of a love life, which initially seems funny but steadily grows desperate. For reasons she doesn't care to admit to, she's falling in love with Mike, and he too is falling in love with her. But what about Colin? Is he with Abby only because of the façade Mike told her to put up? There's a scene between her and Colin late in the film that directly addresses this issue, and to my delight, it's handled in a way that avoids just about everything that would happen in the average romantic comedy. There are no shouting matches. There are no flying fists. There are no confrontations. There's only a quiet moment of realization that the truth is indeed ugly.
Scenes like these are wonderfully juxtaposed with moments of well written comedy. There are some very amusing moments between Cheryl Hines and John Michael Higgins as unhappily married news anchors who share the same desk and time slot. The film's single funniest scene takes place in a restaurant and involves Abby, an extremely stimulating pair of underwear, and a control device that ends up in the wrong hands.
I can say with complete honesty (and some embarrassment) that I wasn't expecting such a strong film. I certainly wasn't expecting a strong film belonging to this particular genre. What floors me is that two of the three writers of this film are Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith. There are the same two that brought us "The House Bunny," one of the worst films of 2008. They certainly got it right this time around. "The Ugly Truth" is one of the best romantic comedies I've seen in a long time, a delightful and absorbing tale about the fronts people display. It's funny without lowering itself to the level of cheap gags, and this is in spite of the film's well-deserved R rating. Heigl and Butler convincingly pull off a romance, no small feat given the contrived nature of these kinds of films. At last, a date movie both the man and the woman can enjoy.

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Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler star in this wildly funny battle of the sexes. Abby (Heigl), a successful morning show producer, is looking for a lot in a man. Mike (Butler), her obnoxious TV star, knows men only want one thing. Determined to prove that she's not romantically challenged, Abby takes Mike's advice during a promising new romance, but the unexpected results will stun everyone.

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