9909 Movie

The Ugly Truth

Hoping to cash in on Gerald Butler’s new status as hansom Scottish heartthrob, The Ugly Truth stars Butler as macho TV personality, Mike Chadway, and Katherine Heigl as a morning show producer whose biggest crime to date is that she’s single. The film charts Abby Richter’s (Heigl) desperation for true love while working in the stressed out world of entertainment. The film lost me on two counts. Firstly the characters occupations sent me in a spin and bored me to tears. Entertainment writers can be so smug in believing that their own working lives are incredibly more interesting and more important than other lives and careers. If the two lead characters were written as working in a restaurant I would have pricked up my ears. And secondly, Richter is a hopeless romantic, of course, and just desperate to find the right man. Every time I see female characters like these I leave the cinema with a puzzled look on my face. Why are these women so desperate to get hitched? But I was also reminded that the jocks in these movies fair no better. These guys are always portrayed as macho, single, and as violently against marriage as their female counterparts are for it.

The ugly truth of The Ugly Truth is that this romantic comedy is a lazy paint-by-numbers tale with our two protagonists starting off disliking one another and then, well you can guess the rest. Both Butler’s charisma and Heigl’s personality are enough, however, to draw in the dating crowd and reap some success at the summer box office.

Shrink Trailer

I’m happy to see Kevin Spacey back on form in the indie flick Shrink, where he plays a pot-smoking psychiatrist to Hollywood stars. Aside from the predictable bevy of alcoholic, vein, and paranoid clients that keep Henry Carter’s (Spacey) office ticking, Spacey delivers his usual sympathetic yet detached demeanor with charisma and flair.

Carter’s routine life begins to take its toll. While others around him see the doctor’s charmed life as savoir to the stars, Carter has to battle inner demons of self worth. When he is asked to take on a pro bono case of a teenage girl whose life and worries are far from the Hollywood spotlight, he begins to take stock of his own life and career.

Watchmen Trailer

300 director, Zack Snyder, turns cult graphic novel, Watchmen, into a stunning adaptation. The story in set in 1985 in an alternate world where costume heroes are a part of everyday life. The effects are stunning and the performances are as equally attentive. Billy Crudup, Patrick Wilson, Matthew Goode, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan star.

Alice in Wonderland Trailer

Posters for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland staring Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter, were released last month to tease fans. Now the trailer is out and it has already received mixed reviews from purists of the classic 19^th century tale from author Lewis Carroll. The film is released in 2010.

I’m happy to see Kevin Spacey back on form in the indie flick Shrink, where he plays a pot-smoking psychiatrist to Hollywood stars. Aside from the predictable bevy of alcoholic, vein, and paranoid clients that keep Henry Carter’s (Spacey) office ticking, Spacey delivers his usual sympathetic yet detached demeanor with charisma and flair.

Carter’s routine life begins to take its toll. While others around him see the doctor’s charmed life as savoir to the stars, Carter has to battle inner demons of self worth. When he is asked to take on a pro bono case of a teenage girl whose life and worries are far from the Hollywood spotlight, he begins to take stock of his own life and career.

The Ugly Truth

Hoping to cash in on Gerald Butler’s new status as hansom Scottish heartthrob, The Ugly Truth stars Butler as macho TV personality, Mike Chadway, and Katherine Heigl as a morning show producer whose biggest crime to date is that she’s single. The film charts Abby Richter’s (Heigl) desperation for true love while working in the stressed out world of entertainment. The film lost me on two counts. Firstly the characters occupations sent me in a spin and bored me to tears. Entertainment writers can be so smug in believing that their own working lives are incredibly more interesting and more important than other lives and careers. If the two lead characters were written as working in a restaurant I would have pricked up my ears. And secondly, Richter is a hopeless romantic, of course, and just desperate to find the right man. Every time I see female characters like these I leave the cinema with a puzzled look on my face. Why are these women so desperate to get hitched? But I was also reminded that the jocks in these movies fair no better. These guys are always portrayed as macho, single, and as violently against marriage as their female counterparts are for it.

The ugly truth of The Ugly Truth is that this romantic comedy is a lazy paint-by-numbers tale with our two protagonists starting off disliking one another and then, well you can guess the rest. Both Butler’s charisma and Heigl’s personality are enough, however, to draw in the dating crowd and reap some success at the summer box office.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

It may have come to your attention that this year has been unprecedented with blockbuster after blockbuster being unleashed on the ticket buying and tie-in merchandise starved public.

It started with X-Men Origins: Wolverine at the end of April clawing a massive $87 million in its first week at the pre-summer box office, making it the top earner in the franchise. The film wasn’t perfect but it gave little time for doubters when Star Trek was released to the masses the following week. Hugh Jackman was forgotten as Chris Pane and Zachery Quinto where the new studs in the long awaited franchise prequel updated with a contemporary cast and dazzling special effects. First week box office returns were behind X-Men Origins, taking $76.5 million in its opening weekend. Star Trek all ready enjoyed a secure fan base and was looking to attract a younger generation quite clueless to the original 1960’s series and subsequent movie franchise. Scheduling paid off as Star Trek and X-Men Origins enjoyed blockbuster domination for a few weeks until Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was released to the masses at the end of June, while kids and parents around the globe were bombarded with Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, and merchandise tie-ins. The film was an unprecedented success, earning $591 million worldwide in less than two weeks. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs was hot on its tale raking in record international box office sales for an animated feature and just tipping the status quo to beat Transformers tally of best ever five-day domestic sales.

The two films have been neck and neck ever since but are about to be blown out of the water by the biggest blockbuster of them all, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The film has scored the biggest midnight box office tally of all time with $22.2 million and this weeks domestic release promises to cause the kind of fan frenzy that only comes round once every ten years.

The sixth installment of the Harry Potter franchise has a guaranteed global fan base as fans of the original film have grown up and are now taking their kids to see the grown up students at Hogwarts. J.K. Rowling’s books captured the imagination and enthralled children and adults who treated the tombs as real life instruction books to wizardry. Five adaptations followed, starting with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001).  The movies were magical as we watched Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson mature on screen. The franchise has also been a whose who of the best of British thesps with Half-Blood Prince co-starring Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter, Jim Broadbent, Michael Gambon, Timothy Spall, and David Thewlis all acting their socks off.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is the last in the series. With its grown up cast now in their sixth year at Hogwarts, things take a darker turn as the school is no longer the safe haven it once was. Harry and Dumbledore prepare the final battle to knock down Voldemort’s defenses while romance threatens to keep the young leads distracted.

Bruno Trailer

Bruno enjoyed a strong day at the box office over the weekend but it seems word-of-mouth delivered a powerful blow as cinemagoers preferred to stay away and not be drawn into the hype. Bruno was disappointing if you were expecting undertones of ironic social commentary about the treatment of homosexuals in the world. I couldn’t help but cringe whenever Bruno’s (Sasha Baron Cohen) silly antics did nothing more but degenerate homosexuals. Many of the people, staged or not, have had little known contact with the gay population and any fears and bigotry they previously held was certainly magnified ten fold.

It’s all very well making “gay” poses and wearing bottomless pants for laughs but making overt sexual advances on guarded straight men is insulting. The only political comment of any worth is the final wrestling scene, where Bruno and his boyfriend are quite literary protected by metal barriers from a lynch mob. It was quite terrifying to watch. What a shame that Cohen didn’t use his much publicized position as a pretend homosexual to show this crowd of red necks that being gay isn’t all about sex.

The Haunting in Connecticut has enough frights to keep me away from the east coast for a very long time. The Campbell family moves to upstate Connecticut and into a Victorian house with a freakish history. Formerly a funeral parlor where unlawful acts took place, strange things start to happen around the home and only get worse when clairvoyant son Jonah (Kyle Gallner) becomes a demonic messenger and hell raiser to his unsuspecting family. The story is based on a true story and stars Virginia Madsen and Elias Koteas as the parents.