Plot summary (from the studio): Soon after a rising young singer-songwriter (Garrett Hedlund) gets involved with a fallen, emotionally unstable country star (Gwyneth Paltrow), the pair embark on a career resurrection tour helmed by her husband/manager (Tim McGraw) and featuring a beauty queen-turned-singer (Leighton Meester). Between concerts, romantic entanglements and old demons threaten to derail them all.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• Garret Hedlund was by far the best thing about this movie. He was sexy, his character was a bit more complex than the others, and I just plain bought him as a country singer wannabe. He was mesmerizing in this role and I was riveted pretty much whenever he was on screen.
• I also liked the Chiles character. I don’t think Leighton Meester is a great actress or anything, but her wholesome, naive character reminded me of Taylor Swift or Carrie Underwood (not that I know anything about those two; I’m just going by pictures). Although the wide-eyed newcomer is kind of a cliche in movies like this, I still enjoyed the character and am glad she didn’t sleep with James (unless I missed something) or constantly scheme for Kelly’s downfall.
• I thought the scene where Kelly told Chiles how to succeed in the industry was a good one. Both of them seemed really sincere in it. Kelly wasn’t being bitchy or condescending; she was offering genuine advice. Chiles wasn’t listening just to humor Kelly; she was truly interested in what the woman — the legend — had to say. At that point, the viewer knew something was going to happen to Kelly, and this scene took on even greater significance after the suicide reveal.
• I’m glad Chiles came back for Beau. I don’t know if that meant she was going to stay with him in that little small-town fantasy of his and work a ls2208 barcode scanner for the rest of her life, but at least there was hope for their relationship. I thought they made a good couple.

Disliked:

• There was too much damn singing! Yeah, yeah — it was a movie about country singers, so what did I expect, right? But still… there seemed to be an awful lot of full-length song performances in this one, and since I’m not a country music fan per se, it made the movie drag for me. There’s something to be said about mainstream appeal, ya know!
• The bird storyline needed/deserved some kind of resolution. I mean, I get that the bird was symbolic of James and Kelly’s lost child, and that’s why James took such meticulous care of it while being reluctant to let Kelly have it. But then at the end the bird was just dropped, completely forgotten. I doubt the screenwriter did that, so I’m just going to assume that some scenes were left on the cutting room floor.
• I found it odd that Tim McGraw, the only bona fide country singer out of the main cast, didn’t sing a single tune in the film (the soundtrack notwithstanding). It would have been cool if he had done something — like pick up a guitar and give Beau or Chiles pointers or whatever.
• That ending was such a downer! I know country music has a reputation for all these worst-case scenarios, but good lord that was rough. Couldn’t they have found a way for Kelly to work through her issues? After all, that would have been more befitting the title, right?

Rating:

I know Country Strong has received mostly terrible reviews, and while the plot was predictable and not particularly original, I found that I actually didn’t mind watching the film. It wasn’t wholly enjoyable, but it wasn’t pure drudgery either. Hedlund was fun to watch, the Meester character was likable, and there was just enough tension and drama to keep things moving along. I give it 3 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (from the studio): Hereafter tells the story of three people who are haunted by mortality in different ways. Matt Damon stars as George, a blue-collar American who has a special connection to the afterlife. On the other side of the world, Marie (Cécile de France), a French journalist, has a near-death experience that shakes her reality. And when Marcus (Frankie/George McLaren), a London schoolboy, loses the person closest to him, he desperately needs answers. Each on a path in search of the truth, their lives will intersect, forever changed by what they believe might — or must — exist in the hereafter.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• I liked the stories about Matt Damon’s character and the London twin the best. Those were very compelling to me and perked up my interest whenever they were the focus on screen.
• George’s gift/curse was handled well. I think a lot of people with his “ability” would try to capitalize on it and make as much money as possible, but he was clear about how much of a curse it was. Still, he knew he had the power to set other people at ease and bring them a measure of peace, so he occasionally gave in and did some readings.
• George’s reading for Marcus was probably my favorite scene in the film. I thought it was heartbreaking when Marcus lost his twin, and being the shy one, it was clear that he’d have trouble trying to continue on. I’m glad that after seeing so many quacks, he was finally able to make a connection with Jeremy–through George–and get the encouragement he needed to move on.
• I loved George’s cooking class partner’s remark that George “got the looks” in the family after she saw a picture of the utterly gross Jay Mohr.
• Any character that reveres Dickens is fine by me! It was cool that George listened to David Copperfield to relax and had a portrait of the writer in his apartment.

Disliked:

• I thought the French journalist’s story was sooo boring! I don’t know if it was the actress or having to read subtitles or what, but I just didn’t get into that part of the film at all. Ugh, just thinking about it makes me cringe again!
• The ending was a little too pat, what with all three of the main characters finding peace and happiness. It seemed that they were far too damaged for that to happen so quickly.
• Why did the French woman’s publisher suddenly change his mind and find potential homes for her manuscript? Saying he just felt they were too hard on her at the meeting was a rather thin excuse. There had to be something more to it than that!
• The boys’ mother made me so angry. She had these great kids at home, but she would rather be out drinking and doing drugs while leaving them to fend for themselves?? I know there are plenty of parents like that in “real life”, but that doesn’t make it any easier to watch in a movie. Marcus and Jeremy seemed like they deserved so much better than her.
• Jay Mohr is sleazy and disgusting and took me out of the film whenever he was on screen.

Rating:

After reading some professional reviews and IMDb comments, I thought I wouldn’t like Hereafter very much, but I was wrong. I think it’s because I’m in a bit of a strange place with regards to death, having recently lost someone relatively close to me. Because of that, I feel the need to believe in something beyond the here and now, and Hereafter provided me with some hope. George and Marcus’ stories made the film worthwhile, and despite its weaknesses, I give it 4 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (from the studio): An international traveler reaches into the snack bowl at an airport bar before passing her credit card to a waiter. A business meeting begins with a round of handshakes. A man coughs on a crowded bus….

One contact. One instant. And a lethal virus is transmitted.

When Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) returns to Minneapolis from business in Hong Kong, what she thought was jet lag takes a virulent turn. Two days later, she’s dead in the ER and the doctors tell her shocked and grieving husband (Matt Damon) they have no idea why.

Soon, others exhibit the same mysterious symptoms: hacking coughs and fever, followed by seizure, brain hemorrhage…and ultimately, death. In Minneapolis, Chicago, London, Paris, Tokyo, and Hong Kong, the numbers quickly multiply: one case becomes four, then sixteen, then hundreds, thousands, as the contagion sweeps across all borders, fueled by the countless human interactions that make up the course of an average day.

A global pandemic explodes.

At the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers mobilize to break the code of a unique biological pathogen as it continues to mutate. Deputy Director Cheever (Laurence Fishburne) tries to allay the growing panic despite his own personal concerns, and must send a brave young doctor (Kate Winslet) into harm’s way. At the same time, amid a rising tide of suspicion over a potential vaccine—and who gets it first—Dr. Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard) of the World Health Organization works through the network of connections that could lead back to the source of what they’re dealing with.

As the death toll escalates and people struggle to protect themselves and their loved ones in a society breaking down, one activist blogger (Jude Law) claims the public isn’t getting the truth about what’s really going on, and sets off an epidemic of paranoia and fear as infectious as the virus itself.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• I tend to like movies with ensemble casts made up of famous faces. This helps me keep everyone straight, even when there is outright character overload, such as in this film.
• I liked that the film jumped right into the story without a long preamble and without wasting 14 minutes establishing characters and their routines.
• There was no miracle cure here. The vaccine took a good, long time to develop, which is what would most likely happen in real life.

Disliked:

• Since most of the big “action” happened off screen, it was hard to get emotionally involved in this movie. I mean, the virus was supposed to have caused a “global pandemic”, yet we saw no real signs of death and destruction. After Paltrow, the boy, and Winslet, most of the deaths were off screen. The vaccine was developed off screen, too, which means there was nothing to watch except random scenes of people acting like lunatics.
• WTF was up with Jude Law’s teeth in this film??? Either that was an ill-conceived look on the part of the makeup department, or he has become a meth-head since his last film. Whatever the case, it was distracting as hell.
• When did Matt Damon get so pudgy? He wasn’t outright fat, exactly, but man did he look big. What happened to that chiseled Jason Bourne look? He can obviously afford the best weight loss pill available, so why not use it??
• Kate Winslet’s character was a total waste. She was one of the best of the ensemble, so why have her make an inglorious exit so early on?
• The previews really should not have made this look like an action film. I thought Matt Damon was somehow going to run around and try to find the cure in the nick of time, but obviously that wasn’t the point of this movie at all. Yes, this was much more realistic in terms of how governments, the WHO, and the CDC would handle an actual pandemic, but it sure as hell made for a boring two hours.
• There was absolutely ZERO tension in this film. There wasn’t even a ticking bomb (so to speak), despite the fact that there was a deadly pandemic sweeping across the globe. No one seemed in a particular hurry to get anything done and there was NEVER a sense of urgency. What a waste.
• Because there were so many characters, I didn’t relate to or care about any of them. I thought Matt Damon was going to be the main guy, but that wasn’t really the case. If he had more significantly more screen time than anyone else, it didn’t feel like it. Plus, we knew he was immune from very early on. The rest of the film basically consisted of him staying in his house until his daughter could get the vaccine. Yawn.

Rating:

Even though I was expecting a different kind of film, I still resolved to give Contagion a fair shake due to all the great actors that appeared in it. However, not even the ensemble cast of Damon, Paltrow, Winslet, Law, Laurence Fishburne, Elliott Gould, Enrico Colantoni (aka Keith Mars), Bryan Cranston, and Marion Cotillard could sustain my interest through this snoozefest. I give the movie 2 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (from the studio): BLACK SWAN follows the story of Nina (Natalie Portman), a ballerina in a New York City ballet company whose life, like all those in her profession, is completely consumed with dance. She lives with her retired ballerina mother Erica (Barbara Hershey) who zealously supports her daughter’s professional ambition.

When artistic director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) decides to replace prima ballerina Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder) for the opening production of their new season, Swan Lake, Nina is his first choice. But Nina has competition: a new dancer, Lily (Mila Kunis), who impresses Leroy as well. Swan Lake requires a dancer who can play both the White Swan with innocence and grace, and the Black Swan, who represents guile and sensuality. Nina fits the White Swan role perfectly but Lily is the personification of the Black Swan. As the two young dancers expand their rivalry into a twisted friendship, Nina begins to get more in touch with her dark side with a recklessness that threatens to destroy her.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• Natalie Portman’s performance was terrific. It’s a bit hard for me to watch Oscar winners after the fact because my expectations tend to be much higher than usual, but Portman lived up to the buzz in this one. She brought a likability and vulnerability to the character that made her ultimate descent into madness painful to watch.
• I thought Vincent Cassel did an excellent job as well. Obviously any director who makes his leads perform sexual favors is a scumbag, but let’s face it, it happens a lot. What I liked about Cassel was the fact that he didn’t come off as merely another smarmy old perv. He also seemed genuinely interested in making Nina the best dancer she could be, which gave his character a bit of added depth.
• The relationship between Nina and her mother was one of the more compelling subplots in the entire film. I wish Aronofsky had spent more time developing it. I’ve read that some viewers are convinced that there was sexual abuse going on, particularly with the, “Are you ready for me?” comment before Nina went to bed one night. But while the mother was definitely overbearing and creepy, I don’t think there was anything sexual to it. To me it seemed like she was more concerned about keeping Nina innocent and childlike than anything else. Thus she helped Nina with things like cutting her nails, getting dressed, tucking her into bed, etc. That’s also why Nina’s room was filled with stuffed animals and why the mother set up that ballerina music box every night. Those are things you do for a child, not a grown woman. The mother was definitely disturbed and emotionally abusive, but I don’t think there was anything sexual to it.

Disliked:

• I’m not into artsy-fartsy cinematic techniques, so I found director Darren Aronofsky’s choices to be more annoying than anything else. All the initial close-ups on Portman practically gave me claustrophobia, and the shaky hand-held camera made me close my eyes or look away numerous times. If that’s your thing, then great, you’ll love this film. If not, just be forewarned!
• All the, uh, self-gratification scenes were weird. I get that Nina was trying to learn to “let herself go,” but come on, really? Was it necessary to have two separate scenes there? The other much-talked about scene with Mila Kunis I could at least understand, if not exactly appreciate. But the two masturbation scenes felt rather gratuitous.
• I didn’t like the more obvious hallucinations, such as when Nina’s mother’s drawings started moving and talking. I preferred the understated stuff that left me wondering if the event really happened or not.
• I could have done without the quite literal transformation into the black swan. Feathers, webbed feet, and birdlike skin? Um, no. I guess Aronofsky is not one for subtlety.
• What was the ultimate message here? That in order to achieve artistic perfection you have to go completely crazy and sacrifice everything (even your life) to “become” your work? Eye roll.

Rating:

I wanted to like Black Swan because of all the critical acclaim and accolades it has received. I went in with an open mind and tried to understand what the filmmakers were trying to achieve, but I simply did not share their vision. I know there are tons of people out there who think this is a work of genius, and I can respect that opinion. It’s just not one that I share. I give this film 3 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (from the studio): Linda Hanson (Sandra Bullock) has a beautiful house, a loving husband, and two adorable daughters. Her life is perfect, until the day she receives the devastating news that her husband Jim (Julian McMahon) has died in a car accident. When she wakes up the next morning to find him alive and well, she assumes it was all a dream, but is shaken by how vivid it felt. She soon realizes it wasn’t a dream, and her world is turned upside down as the surreal circumstances lead her to discover that her perfect life may not have been all that it appeared. Desperate to save her family, Linda begins a furious race against time and fate to try and preserve everything that she and Jim have built together.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• This seemed like a decent premise, and initially I thought it had the makings of a pretty good film. Too bad the execution wasn’t quite up to par.
• Sandra Bullock. I’m a fan, so I’d like her in almost anything. Even though this wasn’t her greatest performance, she was still the best thing about the movie and is the only reason I stuck with it to the end.

Disliked:

• There was very little tension throughout the film. I think the reason for this is that the character’s goal is never clear. What is Linda trying to do? Does she want to save Jim or does she think it’s better for her and the girls if he just dies? She doesn’t choose until the very end, and by then it’s too late for viewers to care. There was too much time spent trying to piece her nonlinear days together and not enough elevating the stakes.
• The studio description of the film says that Linda has “a loving husband,” but I never got that feeling from Jim at all. He seemed like a jerk almost from the beginning. He was cold and distant, and of course was about to have an affair. Linda’s life didn’t turn upside down after he died; it was already starting to spin out of control.
• I’ll admit that I didn’t pay very close attention to what was happening on screen because half the time I was surfing on my iPad checking out the new HD7 phones and some other stuff, but it seemed that some things in the movie just didn’t make sense. For example, the daughter ran through the glass door while Jim was still alive, right? So why did we only see her cuts at the wake? Wouldn’t they have been present from the beginning? I don’t know… trying to figure out these details just makes my head.
• Why did Linda go to see Dr. Roth even though she already knew that he was the one that would have her committed? Wouldn’t she have stayed away instead of presenting herself like that?

Rating:

Premonition had a shot at being a good film, but was plagued by several problems, including sketchy logic, low stakes, and characters that fail to elicit sympathy or concern. Not even Sandra Bullock could salvage this one. I give it 2 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (from the studio): Set in Los Angeles in 1961, A Single Man is the story of George Falconer (played by Colin Firth), a 52-year-old British college professor who is struggling to find meaning to his life after the death of his longtime partner, Jim (Matthew Goode). George dwells on the past and cannot see his future as we follow him through a single day, where a series of events and encounter ultimately leads him to decide if there is a meaning to life after Jim. George is consoled by his closest friend Charley (Julianne Moore), a 48-year-old beauty who is wrestling with her own questions about the future. A young student of George’s, Kenny (Nicholas Hoult), who is coming to terms with his true nature, stalks George as he feels in him a kindred spirit.

A Single Man is a romantic tale of love interrupted, the isolation that is an inherent part of the human condition, and ultimately the importance of the seemingly smaller moments in life.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• I really liked Colin Firth’s performance in this one, even though I didn’t particularly care for his character all that much. I thought Firth’s Oscar nomination was well-deserved, and don’t think I could have sat through this entire thing if a lesser actor had been cast as the lead.
• I thought the flashbacks of George’s good times with Jim were very well done. Those were the only scenes in which I felt anything approaching sympathy for George, and the only ones in which I truly liked him.
• The phone call where George learned about Jim’s death was extremely powerful. Can you imagine being with someone for 16 years, and only being told about their death as an afterthought? Plus you’re not even welcome at the funeral. Wow. Colin Firth nailed the utter shock, despair, and disappointment of getting that kind of news.

Disliked:

• Kenny, the student that was stalking George, was totally creepy. Yeah, he was cute in a boyish way, but he was annoying as hell. From the way he called George “sir” (even when standing naked in front of him) to the way he kept hinting around at what he wanted without coming right out and saying it, he got on my last nerve.
• The weird fantasy scenes involving the neighborhood children. I don’t really care what they were supposed to mean; I just thought they were totally boring.
• The ratcheted up color saturation during certain tete-a-tetes and the over-stylized production value of the whole thing were incredibly distracting. I know all the director’s choices were supposed to “mean something”, which apparently I didn’t get. I just thought the look and presentation of the film felt too much like a scream for attention.
• The ending was terrible. I know it was supposed to be soooo ironic that just when George decided maybe he had stuff to live for after all, his heart goes and gives out on him, but I thought it was too much of a cliché. Come on… really?
• The lack of a sex scene was bothersome. I totally hate random sex scenes in action and horror movies because they feel so damn out of place, but in a movie like this, it was noticeable that there wasn’t a sex scene. There should have been one, either a quickie with the Spanish dude from the liquor store or with the student.

Rating:

I was really looking forward to A Single Man because of all the great reviews it has received, but I was supremely disappointed in the film as a whole. There were some very good scenes sprinkled throughout and a tremendous performance by Colin Firth, but I still came away feeling as though I had been let down. I kept waiting for something significant to happen, but not much ever did. I give this film just 2 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (from Columbia Pictures): Every age has its visionaries who leave, in the wake of their genius, a changed world – but rarely without a battle over exactly what happened and who was there at the moment of creation. The Social Network explores the moment at which Facebook was invented — through the warring perspectives of the super-smart young men who each claimed to be there at its inception. The film moves from the halls of Harvard to the cubicles of Palo Alto to capture the heady early days of a culture-changing phenomenon in the making — and the way it both pulled a group of young revolutionaries together and then split them apart.

In the midst of the chaos are Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), the brilliant Harvard student who conceived a website; Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), once Zuckerberg’s close friend, who provided the seed money for the fledgling company; Napster founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) who brought Facebook to Silicon Valley’s venture capitalists; and the Winklevoss twins (Armie Hammer and Josh Pence), the Harvard classmates who asserted that Zuckerberg stole their idea and then sued him for ownership of it. Each has his own narrative, his own version of the Facebook story in this multi-level portrait of 21st Century success – both the youthful fantasy of it and its finite realities as well.

Liked:

• This provided a terrific (even if mostly fictional) account of how a worldwide phenomenon such as Facebook could literally get started overnight. It was amazing to see how the idea constantly evolved until it got to the form that most people know.
• I found it interesting that Zuckerberg didn’t even seem to care about how much money his idea could generate. Not once did he rejoice about the millions or billions that were coming his way, nor did he ever look for the highest bidder after he realized Facebook was a winner. Wow. And it seems that that part is accurate. Zuckerberg lives in rented house of modest size and wears t-shirts and hoodies to work.
• I really liked the Eduardo character and hope that he got at least $500 million for his contributions to Facebook. The settlement figure was undisclosed, but the fact that his name is back on the masthead makes me think he was able to make his case and get a sizable chunk of cash for his efforts. He deserved it.

Disliked:

• Zuckerberg really came off as a giant asshole. Again, I don’t know how accurate this portrait of him is, but for his sake, I hope it’s way off base. What a douche to treat his friends like that — especially if he “doesn’t care about the money”, which even Eduardo said many times. I know money can make people do shitty things, and people have acted way worse for far less than $25 billion, but still. Dislike.
• Speaking of $25 billion, I will never understand how Internet properties are valued. Sure, Facebook has 500 million active users, but how does that translate into actual money? There’s advertising on the site, but does anyone actually read those ads? To me it seems anyone that’s been using the Internet for more than two days automatically ignores ads. And even if they do click through, how many actually buy anything? I don’t know… I could see Facebook being worth a few million, but $25 billion??? That boggles the mind.
• I didn’t particularly care for Jesse Eisenberg in the lead role here. He went through almost the entire film with a pinched, annoyed look on his face that bothered me to no end. It looked like he was in dire need of a colon cleanse or something, and was highly distracting. Perhaps that was Eisenberg’s way of communicating smugness or boredom or the fact that Zuckerberg was 10x smarter than everyone else in the room and didn’t have time for their nonsense. Whatever the reason, I couldn’t stand him in this role.
• The film felt a little boring and repetitive after a while. I think the multiple lawsuits had something to do with that, as a lot of stuff overlapped. I liked the storytelling device at first, but lost interest at times.

Rating:

I was pretty much predisposed to like The Social Network because I think Aaron Sorkin is one of the best writers around. While I wasn’t exactly blown away by this film, I wasn’t all that disappointed, either. There are some slow spots, but there is a lot of great drama as well. And seeing how a simple idea can turn into a $25 billion behemoth… how could that not inspire you even just a little bit? I give this film 3 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Jenny (played by Carey Mulligan) is a 16-year-old high school student whose father Jack (Alfred Molina) is always reminding her to study so she can get into Oxford. Jenny handles the pressure relatively well and is an exceptional student whom teachers such as Miss Stubbs (Olivia Williams) believe will go far in life.

Jenny’s track to Oxford takes a significant detour, however, when she meets David (Peter Sarsgaard). Despite their age difference — David is in his thirties — the two pursue a romantic relationship that involves concerts, nightclubs, fancy restaurants, and weekend trips with David’s friends Danny (Dominic Cooper) and Helen (Rosamund Pike). As Jenny spends more time with David, she spends less on her schoolwork and her grades begin to slip. Surprisingly enough, parents Jack and Marjorie (Cara Seymour) don’t seem to care, as they are as much charmed by David as Jenny is.

As the story progresses, we see Jenny and David becoming more serious about each other. Jenny loses her virginity to David, and he eventually proposes to her. Jenny, accepting the proposal with her parents’ blessing, decides to drop out of school and skip her college entrance exams. But then a shocking revelation changes everything and sends Jenny’s life into a tailspin.

Liked:

• Carey Mulligan was brilliant in the lead role. She managed to make Jenny a sympathetic character, and made me care about what happened to her. The Oscar nomination was well-deserved.
• All the characters were intriguing in this film. Indeed, this was mostly character-driven, so it was important that everyone be well defined and substantial. I was expecting only David and Jenny to have any sort of substance to them, but got so much out of Jack, Marjorie, and Helen — as well as Miss Stubbs and Miss Walters (Emma Thompson) in their limited roles.
• I absolutely loved the scene where Jenny went to Miss Stubbs’ apartment to ask for help. As someone who has had close relationships with teachers in the past, the situation really resonated with me. Plus, Miss Stubbs’ response of, “I was so hoping you’d say that” was pitch perfect.
• I had to admit that I was caught off-guard by the reveal about David. I probably should have seen it coming, but I didn’t. I mean, I knew something was not quite right about him, but couldn’t guess the cause.
• I also liked how Jenny’s mistake didn’t mean her life was essentially over. The things you do at 17 sometimes have lifelong consequences, but usually not. You can make mistakes and move on, which is precisely what she did.

Disliked:

• How is it that none of the main characters commented about the age difference between David and Jenny? He was twice her age, for God’s sake! And though this might not have been as bad as Humbert and Lolita (who was 12), Jenny was still a schoolgirl, no matter what the age of consent was. But no one, not even the parents, so much as batted an eye about David’s age despite the fact that he looked like he should be checking into medicare supplement plans while Jenny was as fresh-faced as you might expect a high school girl to be. Very, very odd.

Rating:

Overall, I thought An Education was a surprisingly good film. The acting is top-notch, the story is engaging, and the characters are worth watching for 95 minutes. I really liked this one and give it 5 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (with spoilers): In 1975 in Northern Ireland, 17-year-old Alistair Little (played by Mark David) is the leader of a Protestant Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) cell. He wants to make a name for himself with UVF leadership, so he volunteers to execute a Catholic IRA sympathizer named Jim Griffin (Gerard Jordan) as sort of a warning to other IRA members to stay out of UVF territory. Little carries out the execution right in front of Griffin’s 10-year-old brother Joe (Kevin O’Neill), which has a devastating effect on the boy.

The film flashes forward to the present day, where adult Joe (James Nesbitt) has agreed to meet adult Alistair (Liam Neeson) for a TV talk show. The ostensible rationale for the meeting is to promote reconciliation between the two men, but it’s obvious the producers are after big ratings.

Through flashbacks and exposition, we learn what the men have been through in the intervening years. Alistair served 12 years in prison for his crime, but has been clean since then. Joe’s mother never recovered from losing Jim, and blamed Joe for not stopping the killing — even though he was just 10 and Alistair had a gun. Joe thinks of taking revenge on Alistair for ruining his life, and even goes so far as to conceal a knife in his jacket prior to the meeting.

But then Joe decides he cannot go through with the meeting after all, and leaves quickly. Alistair, who wants to put the situation to rest just as much as Joe does, travels back to Lurgan, contacts Joe, and arranges a meeting. The two fight and injure each other, but both walk away with their lives intact. A while later, Alistair receives a call from Joe, who says, “I’m done with you” and hangs up. Both men then presumably go on with their lives.

Liked:

• I thought Liam Neeson was good in this. His character had a few compelling scenes, and I was definitely more interested in the film when he was on screen.

Disliked:

• I disliked practically everything else about this movie. I had read some good reviews and decided to give it a try, but it simply wasn’t for me. I thought James Nesbitt was good at times, but mostly just overbearing and annoying. I couldn’t muster up any sympathy for his character at all. It’s too bad he was there chewing up most of the scenes in this project.
• The pacing was incredibly slow. It was very hard for me to get into the film because it took so long for the characters’ stories to come out. The pace was more suited to a book than a movie, so I consequently found myself checking email, reading about the latest apidexin scam, or playing around on Facebook instead of paying close attention to the film.
• The fight at the old house was just dumb. I was hoping both men would die when they went crashing through the window, but no such luck. Oh, well.

Rating:
I suppose Five Minutes of Heaven might mean more to someone more familiar with the religious conflicts of the time or with the historical figures involved. Otherwise, you might be just as lost and bored as I was during this one. I give it 1 star out of 5.

Plot summary (with spoilers): Ashton Kutcher stars as Nikki, a gigolo who targets rich cougars in Los Angeles. Nikki is approaching 30 and still doesn’t have anything to show for his life. He is homeless, his possessions fit into a single cardboard box, and he is wholly dependent on women for money, food, and shelter. Of course, since he is good looking, it doesn’t take him long to go from one conquest to another, so the lifestyle is working out for him at present.

Nikki’s current cougar is Samantha (Anne Heche), a wealthy and successful lawyer who looks like she knows her way around anti wrinkle creams. Things are going relatively smoothly until Samantha takes a business trip to New York, leaving Nikki alone in her mansion. He has a wild party, and when she returns early, she predictably finds him with another woman. Nikki and Samantha fight, but quickly make up. From there, they have a sort of understanding about exactly what their “relationship” entails.

Then Nikki meets a waitress named Heather (Margarita Levieva). They have sex, which would usually be the end of things for Nikki and any woman his own age, since for him it’s all about the conquest rather than anything long-term. But there’s something about Heather that draws him to her, and soon enough he finds that he’s in love. The problem is that Heather is the female version of Nikki, and is more interested in marrying the guy who owns the New York Rangers than in taking up with someone who has zero prospects.

Once Nikki accepts that Heather is gone, he tries to turn his life around. He gets a place of his own, gets a “real” job delivering groceries, and gradually leaves his old lifestyle behind.

Liked:

• This was a semi-interesting look at a culture/lifestyle I would never otherwise learn about. Watching these people was like watching the proverbial train wreck. Everything was so disgusting, yet I couldn’t quite turn completely away.
• At least things didn’t work out well for Nikki in the end. They shouldn’t have. His life was a mess, and people in those situations don’t tend to crawl out of their holes so easily.

Disliked:

• Sigh, another portrayal of professionally successful women as somehow desperate or incomplete if they don’t have a man attached to them. How could Samantha have sex with Nikki 5 minutes after he was receiving fellatio from another woman?? That was totally disgusting.
• What the hell was up with Ashton Kutcher’s wardrobe in this movie? Why was he wearing suspenders all the time? And what was with those jeans rolled up to mid-calf? Please tell me that look is not “in” right now.
• Gah, I can’t stand movies where characters fall in love in about 2 seconds. Nikki, a professional whore, sees a waitress and without knowing anything else about her decides that she’s the one and is consequently worth all that extra effort? Whatever.

Rating:
Spread was not my kind of movie at all. I started watching it because it ended up in my Netflix queue somehow (a related recommendation from watching Killers or whatever), and finished because I was curious about what would happen to Nikki. I guess the filmmakers get credit for making me care at least that much. But otherwise, I wasn’t too impressed with this movie overall and give it 2 stars out of 5.