Will The House Bunny finally be the movie that makes Anna Faris a star? I’ve watched this young actress with interest since she did a spot-on Cameron Diaz impression in Lost in Translation, waiting for her to catch fire. Since then, she’s been a fixture in that moronic Scary Movie franchise (playing the clueless blonde in distress) and had supporting parts in second rate comedies like Just Friends and My Super Ex-Girlfriend. But she hasn’t had a major breakthrough.
If The House Bunny becomes even a middling hit, it’ll be because of Faris, who is adorable, game for anything, and has pitch-perfect comic timing. She’s a natural.
Here, she plays orphan-turned-Playboy Bunny Shelley Darlington, who luxuriates in the stable sense of home that the Playboy Mansion provides. All that is taken away when she receives a note from Hef telling her to vacate the premises—at 27, she is no longer the D-cup of the month.
Like Reese Witherspoon’s Elle Woods in Legally Blonde, Faris’s Darlington is unfailingly sunny and naively optimistic in the face of any setback. Undaunted by her predicament, she wanders onto a college campus and ends up as the House Mother for a sorority of misfits and nerds.
Everything you expect to happen does: First, Shelley gives the girls makeovers and teaches them how to flirt with boys. Then, she meets a nice scholarly young man (Colin Hanks), who doesn’t fall for any of her sex kitten tricks. Finally, everyone learns life lessons about the value of inner beauty.
Hanks is an appealing romantic lead, although he doesn’t display the star power of daddy Tom. As the sorority sisters, Katherine McPhee of American Idol fame and Rumor Willis (Demi and Bruce’s daughter) are cute, but forgettable. Standouts include Kat Dennings as the house punk and Emma Stone—who’s having a heckuva week (she’s the best thing in The Rocker)—as the house’s brainy, loquacious head sister.
But it’s Faris’s show. She has a recurring joke—as a mnemonic device when learning new names, Shelley repeats the name in a demonic Linda Blair voice—that works every time. Just when you think she’s milked the joke one time too many, she makes you crack up again. Now that’s a star.

Posted at 3:50 pm
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To say that I’m not the target audience for Death Race is a bit like saying that Ray Lewis is not the target audience for Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
Suffice it to say, I held up my end of the bargain: I hated this loud, violent, retrograde movie, a remake of the Roger Corman sci-fi B-movie Death Race 2000.
The year, curiously enough, is 2012. (A sly joke that the world will be radically altered in four years? Or, more likely, the byproduct of a budget too low to get properly futuristic?). Corporations have taken over the prison system and are staging vicious car races to the death for online and television viewing pleasure. The evil prison warden, played by a seriously slumming Joan Allen, presides over the event in power suits and a scowl. Any resemblance to former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is strictly intentional. Ugh.
Into this mix comes former race car drive Jenson Ames (Jason Statham), who is accused of killing his wife. (We know it was the prison warden’s henchman who actually did the deed.)
A few words about Jason Statham: This guy is turning into a major movie star and I simply don’t see the appeal. Bald, pumped up, and ready to rumble, he’s like a (British) Bruce Willis, but without the charm. In the last two films I’ve seen him in (this and The Bank Job, which was pretty great, by the way), he’s been paired with an impossibly fresh-faced wife, as if to convince the audience that he really is a sweet guy beneath that blandly stoic macho routine. I’m not buying it.
You can’t really criticize Death Race for being dumb and cheesy. It’s trying to be a B movie. But last year, there was a similarly slick and in-your-face action flick called Shoot Em Up. At least that film had a sense of irony about itself, some flair, some originality. Death Race is grimly efficient. Even its best parts—Ian McShane as Ames’s world-wise head mechanic, nicknamed Coach—feel half-hearted. McShane gives it a good go, but the dialog he’s contending with (“I love this sport!”) is lame at best. (And don’t even get me started on the inmates from a woman’s prison who arrive—all legs and cleavage and leather—to help the cons in the race).
This is somebody’s idea of a good time. But it sure ain’t mine. And, if I may be so presumptious, it ain’t yours either.

Posted at 4:47 pm
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As Hamlet 2 begins, a British narrator (uncredited, but I think Jeremy Irons) begins intoning pretentious truisms about the craft of ahcting, as our hero,  Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan), is shown in one ignominious acting gig—herpes ad; TV shopping network shill; Xena the Warrior Princess villain—after the other. That disconnect, between harsh reality and Marschz’s high opinion of himself, is at the heart of the movie.
Having failed even as a failed actor, Marschz is now teaching high school drama in Tucson, Arizona where he has two devoted students, a Bible-thumping goody-two-shoes named Epiphany (Phoebe Strole) and a closeted gay sycophant named Rand (Skylar Astin, incredibly funny). His students are content to star in Marschz’s ridiculous reenactments of popular films like Erin Brockovich, until a group of new transfers—mostly Latino—arrive.  Epiphany and Rand are mortified by this unruly disruption of their blissful threesome, but Marschz, who tends to view himself as the star of his own life’s movie, is thrilled at the chance to play some heroic cross between Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds and Robin Williams in Dead Poet’s Society.
Further complications include Catherine Keener, brilliantly funny as Marschz’s bitter and hateful wife (naturally, he thinks he’s the apple of her eye) who is having an affair with the couple’s sub-literate boarder (David Arquette). There’s also the school’s pint-sized drama critic who excoriates all of Marschz’s plays; and the school principal, who wants to shut down the drama department.
In an effort to save his job—and work out his own daddy issues—Marschz decides to write a time-traveling musical, a buddy play of sorts, featuring Jesus and Hamlet (together at last!)  called Hamlet 2. Sample song? “Rock Me Sexy Jesus.” Other sample songs? Not appropriate for this family-friendly blog.
Of course, the school wants to shut down the production, which gets  the ACLU involved in the form of ball-busting lawyer Cricket Feldstein (Amy Poehler, always welcome). Also, somehow Elisabeth Shue is on hand, playing herself.
Those not familiar with British actor Steve Coogan are in for a treat—he’s great at displaying the fragility of the human ego (particularly the type that over-compensates with false bravado) and he fully commits to all of Marschz’s delusions of grandeur. However, both his performance and the film itself owe a debt of gratitude to Christopher Guest’s Waiting For Guffman, which Hamlet  2 strongly resembles.
The movie elicits many chuckles along the way, but reserves its real belly laughs for the final act, when the profane Hamlet 2 is finally staged. It’s brilliantly bad—but, of course, Marschz would only focus on the fact that I called it brilliant.

Posted at 4:44 pm
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Behind-the-scenes casting decisions are rarely made public—it’s only way after the fact that we discover that John Travolta turned down the Richard Gere role in American Gigolo, or that Mel Gibson was tapped to play Russell Crowe’s part in Gladiator—but it seems pretty clear to me that Rainn Wilson was not the first choice for The Rocker. The role practically screams Jack Black, and, frankly, he would’ve been better at it.
I like Rainn Wilson well enough—he was deliciously creepy in Six Feet Under and brings his own strange, uptight energy to The Office. But he’s not leading man material. Okay, maybe in some sort of Vincent Gallo-helmed indie film, but in a lovable family-style romp, not so much. His eccentricity has too much of an edge.
In The Rocker, Wilson plays drummer Robert “Fish” Fishman, who was kicked out of the 80’s metal band Vesuvius right before they made it big. (Don’t even ask me to decode the horribly unfunny opening scene where Fish, upon hearing of his ouster from the band, attacks his former bandmates with superhuman strength.) Now, 20 years later, he’s working a low-end job and still bristles at the mere mention of the word Vesuvius. (In another miscue, Vesuvius are still playing metal and still big—please name for me one other 80’s hair band that is relevant today.)
Eventually, his bitterness and unwillingness to grow up leave him jobless and homeless. He’s forced to bunk in the spare bedroom of his big sister (Jane Lynch, wasted), who lives with her dopey, “everyone’s life is cooler than mine” husband (Jeff Garlin), and her overweight, nerdy son Matt (Josh Gad, clearly Jonah Hill also refused the part), who plays in a band.
Needless to say, the band will need a drummer and Fish will agree to fill in, suddenly living out his rock and roll fantasies for the second time.
Pop cutie Teddy Geiger plays the band’s mopey lead singer Curtis and Christina Applegate, winning as ever, plays his sexy mom (and a love interest for Fish—yeah, right). I liked rising starlet Emma Stone as the band’s perma-scowl sporting bass player, who harbors a secret crush on Curtis.
But The Rocker is simply unfunny, uninspired, and at times, desperately gross (Fish likes to vomit into his shirt pocket before gigs). There’s a lot of music—mediocre, Jonas Brothers style kiddie rock—which adds little to the proceedings. The Rocker feels like the work of a cover band—a game imitation, but nowhere close to the real thing.

Posted at 2:29 pm
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When it comes to the more recent works of Woody Allen, we film critics have begun to rely on a standard script. There’s the “he’s washed up!” line that came on the heels of such disappointments as Hollywood Ending and Anything Else. There’s the “it’s not half bad but he’ll never be truly great again” line that followed efforts like Melinda and Melinda and Sweet and Low Down. There is the “Woody’s back!” line that came breathlessly after Match Point.
I suspect that there will be more “He’s back!” enthusiam with  Woody’s new film Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Such praise will be followed by more lines from the Woody review script: “Scarlett Johannson is his new muse!” (Oh yeah? Then how do you explain Scoop?) “He’s so energized by these foreign locations!” (Hmmm, then why was Cassandra’s Dream such a flop?)
So let’s try to avoid knee-jerk responses to his new work. Here’s how I see Woody today. He’s not as funny as early Woody, he’s not as artistically fertile as middle period Woody, and he clearly cranks out way too many films. These films are capable of being mediocre, good, and even great. Just don’t expect any patterns.
That being said, Vicky Cristina Barcelona is one of the good ones—and damn close to being great. Here Woody is exploring his favorite subject (other than himself)—love.
Vicky (Rebecca Hall) is smart, beautiful, and pragmatic. Her best friend Cristina (Scarlett Johannsson) is smart, beautiful, and wildly unpragmatic. Together, they embark on one last summer fling to Barcelona, where they meet artist Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem). Although they have literally just met him, Juan propositions that they join him on a weekend getaway to the Spanish countryside. Vicky thinks he is brash and vulgar; Cristina thinks he is glamorous and exciting. Naturally, both young women will fall head-over-heels in love. Matters are complicated by the arrival of Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz), Juan’s fiery ex-wife.
The Spanish scenery is seductive in its own right, and Woody’s insights into human behavior, especially how our love lives play into our larger myths about ourselves, are spot on.
Some people may object to the travelogue-style voiceover that narrates the girls’ sexual and spiritual journey, but I found it amusing and droll.
As for Bardem, he injects a real sensual earthiness into his performance—the scenes between him and the two leads are quite captivating. And when you throw Penelope Cruz into the mix (check out the posters for the film to get a sense of her gloriously disruptive role in the proceedings), and what can you really say, but “muy caliente”?
Yes, a Woody Allen film that is smart and sly and all kinds of sexy. Woody is back! Oh no . . . wait.

For the complete Vicky Cristina Barcelona review, check out the September issue of Baltimore. 

Posted at 1:51 pm
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About 5 minutes into Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the new animated film from Lucas Studios, I turned to my friend Travis and said, “Wait. I thought Anakin went bad in Revenge of the Sith. Then why is he swashbuckling right alongside Obi-Wan Kenobi?” “Because this film takes place before that one,” he explained.
Let me get this straight: The most recent three Star Wars films—Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Sith—were not sequels, but prequels, right? So what does that make this? A midquel? Episode 2.5? A palate cleanser? The mind reels.
Actually, the mind doesn’t reel at all. It’s quite clear what Star Wars: The Clone Wars is—a giant advertisement for Lucas’s next project, an animated Star Wars TV series that will run on the Cartoon Network and TNT.
Surely, that explains why the animation is so horrible—the faces are so stiff and robotic they bring to mind Max Headroom—and the voice work done by a cast of no names (except for a random cameo from Samuel Jackson). Why set up fans for a quality you won’t be able to deliver? It also explains why the plot doesn’t move the mythology in one way or another—nary a clue that Anakin is going to turn evil. (Each episode, presumably, will be it’s own discrete adventure). And finally, it explains the addition of a spunky new girl power heroine, Anakin’s new apprentice (or “padawan,” in the film’s parlance) Ahsoko. If you’re going to do a cartoon series, you better appeal to the kids.
In this feature-length version, Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoko are trying to rescue Jabba the Hutt’s infant son, who has been kidnapped by Count Dooku. The rescue mission is important, as Jabba controls airspace that will be needed in the Jedi’s fight against Dooku’s droid army. (Or something like that.) Light sabers are wielded. Yoda speaks in mangled platitudes and at one point, Anakin is attacked by an army of what appears to be giant beer cans.
As for Queen—in this episode, still Senator—Amidala, who is Anakin’s one true love? She makes a brief but truly strange appearance as she tries to appeal to Jabba’s uncle Ziro, for the safety of the knights. I mention this only because the actor who voices Ziro (Corey Burton), is doing some sort of strange Truman Capote impression and Ziro is dressed in drag. And no, I didn’t doze off during the film and dream this—although that certainly would’ve been an appealing option.

Posted at 1:42 pm
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Never has the expression “no guts, no glory” been more apt than in describing the new comedy Tropic Thunder.
The film demonstrates tons of guts—it has one character in blackface, another making fun of a mentally disabled man, and yet a third who is a vulgarian Jewish film executive. (What, no jokes about killing pandas? Oh wait. . .it has that, too.). With those risks comes a fair amount of glory. When Tropic Thunder is funny, it is awesomely so. However, when it fails, everyone involved looks like a bunch of schmucks.
Directed and co-written by Ben Stiller (who also stars), Tropic Thunder depicts a film crew making a war movie in Vietnam. Stiller plays Tugg Speedman, the fading action star hoping for big screen legitimacy. Jack Black plays Jeff Portnoy, a comic actor (and closet crackhead) best known for farting on cue. Most famously, Robert Downey Jr. plays Australian method actor and multiple Oscar winner Kirk Lazarus, who undergoes a “controversial” skin-dying procedure to play a black sergeant.
When newbie director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) decides his actors are too spoiled for their roles, he sends them deep into the jungle, rigging it with scary obstacles set up by the film’s gung ho special effects guy (comedic flavor-of-the-month Danny McBride). But unbeknownst to Cockburn, a group of drug warlords are hiding in the jungle, putting the cast in real danger.
Okay, so here’s what works: Robert Downey Jr.’s Lazarus is a brilliant send-up on the kind of method actor whose “selfless” immersion into a role is actually a form of giant egoism. Of course, a white actor playing black, even in a satire, is a huge risk, but Downey Jr. insulates himself by being so damn good. He’s so funny, so smart, so committed to the role that you have no choice but to sit back and watch the man work.
But here’s what doesn’t work: Ben Stiller’s Simple Jack. This, you see, was Tugg Speedman’s first attempt at legitimacy, playing a stuttering farm hand with a bowl cut and buck teeth. (The film is riffing on the notion that actors who play disabled characters often win Oscars.) Tugg, not exactly a mensa candidate himself, got wildly lambasted by the critics. “Never play the full retard,” Lazarus sagely advises him, noting that Dustin Hoffman won an Oscar for Rain Man, while Sean Penn tanked in I Am Sam. Okay, so far, so funny—even if I felt a little uneasy over the use of that insensitive word. (Hey, I was an All in the Family fan, too.) But that should’ve been the end of it. Instead, for reasons I won’t disclose, Stiller plays a big chunk of the movie in his Simple Jack persona. Those scenes are painfully unfunny and offensive—a case of a not-so-great-to-begin-with joke taken to an awful extreme. (Not surprisingly, a coalition of disabled rights groups have called for a boycott of the film.)
And here’s what sort of works: Tom Cruise’s Les Grossman, the profane and blustery (not to mention fat and bald) studio exec who only cares about the bottom line. For Cruise, taking this part was a no-brainer: He’s doing something over-the-top and buzzworthy. As for the performance itself? It’s undeniably funny, but I’m not sure if it’s funny because Cruise is good, or because it’s such a departure for the famously uptight star. (If, for example, your boss came to the company party in drag, you would find it funny even if your boss wasn’t really a great drag queen, if you know what I mean.) Like Downey Jr., Cruise commits to his part fully. He’s just not as good at it.
Still, in a summer where Judd Apatow’s plotless, low-concept comedies have soared, it’s refreshing to see such a high-concept comedy in action. When it works, Tropic Thunder is by far the funniest film of the summer (please, film promoters, don’t take that quote out of context). When it fails, at least it does so prodigiously.

Posted at 4:18 pm
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Anyone who watches the new documentary American Teen, about high school life in a small town in Indiana, will be compelled to cast a fictitious version of the film in their mind. Alt-rocky, angsty teen girl Hannah Bailey could be played by Julia Stiles, who played a similar character in 10 Things I Hate About You. Nerdy, but deceptively self-aware Jake Tusing could be played by Michael Cera, who played a similar character in Juno (and Superbad). Wealthy queen bee Megan Krizmanich, who is probably just responding to fierce pressures at home, could be played by Rachel McAdams, who played a similar character in Mean Girls. Sensitive popular kid Mitch Reinholt, who dates Hannah until peer pressure compels a break-up, could be played by Zac Efron, who plays a similar character in the High School Musical movies.  And so on.
These similarities point out what is good—and not so good—about this documentary. On the one hand, American Teen is extremely watchable—it’s fast paced, suspenseful (will Megan get into Notre Dame? will Hannah leave Indiana for San Francisco?) and often quite funny (“I am like this sock,” says droll Jake, comparing his social life to a pairless sock in the dryer). It has some raw moments, too, such as when Hannah breaks up with a  boyfriend and goes into a deep, dark depression; or when basketball player Colin misses the last shot and cries in the locker room, but for the most part, it glosses over the real troubles of these kids in favor of funny montages (such as when Jake goes to visit his older brother in college and has a few too many beers) and pat resolutions.
We don’t learn much about these kids that we don’t already know—that teens face lots of pressures, from their parents, from their peers, from themselves—and director Nanette Burstein doesn’t seem interested in the stories that don’t fit our comfortable stereotypes. (For example, Hannah has a best friend who is a male—he even takes her to prom. What’s the nature of their relationship? Is he gay? A straight boy secretly pining for her? That more out-of-the-box, complex relationship is never explored.)
Still, it’s the kids—equal parts smart, candid, and clueless—that make American Teen worth watching. You’ll root for them, even while wishing that this documentary on their lives dug a little deeper.

Posted at 4:07 pm
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I have a vague early memory of a blurry picture in my parents’ New York Times of some nutjob who strung a wire from one Twin Tower to the other and walked across it.
That nutjob was Philippe Petit and he was an acrobat, provocateur, performance artist, and utterly magnetic life force. In Man on Wire, filmmaker James Marsh chronicles Petit’s death-defying adventure—and his devoted band of accomplices (some in love with Philippe, some in love with adventure, others simply bored), who helped make this high-wire feat possible.
Filmed almost like a heist film—the Twin Towers were still being built at the time (1974) and, while construction crews came and went, security was high—the film uses a remarkable mix of historic footage (much shot by Petit and his crew), sly re-enactments (not distracting, I promise), and present-day interviews (virtually the entire crew is alive today, including Philippe, who tells a story almost as deftly as he crosses a wire) to recreate the events. When Petit finally does his mid-air dance, you experience a cathartic mixture of relief, awe, and elation. It’s a stunner.

Posted at 3:33 pm
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There’s a certain contract that the creators of a stoner comedy make with the audience: There will be lots of doobie jokes, lots of infantile men over-reacting (and sometimes, drastically under-reacting) to the madcap misadventures they’ve gotten themselves into, and, most importantly, the whole proposition will be amiable, no-consequence fun. While Pineapple Express follows most of the rules of stoner comedy—it’s funny and the pot jokes fly a plenty—it commits a cardinal sin: The violence in this film has consequences—people get maimed and they even die. Duuuuude.
Seth Rogen, channeling a young Albert Brooks, plays Dale Denton, a process server who witnesses a drug kingpin commit a murder and, in his haste to leave the scene, drops the rare strain of pot he was smoking. The drug kingpin (Gary Cole), who has ties to Dale’s dealer, Saul Silver (James Franco), immediately recognizes the contents of the roach: Pineapple Express pot. Now both Saul and Dale are on the run.
The best thing about Pineapple Express is Franco’s Saul, a happy wanderer, who, when he isn’t sitting on his couch howling over The Jeffersons reruns, visits his “bubbe” in a retirement home. Franco is just doing another iteration on the stoner dude we’ve seen many times before—from Spicoli to Keanu’s Ted—but he brings to the character a blissed-out sweetness all his own.
The shlubby and neurotic Rogen is also funny—if less of a revelation—and they make a gloriously incompetent and spastic pair as they try to elude the bad guys. (At one point, while they’re being chased by Rosie Perez’s corrupt cop, Franco simply stops driving. Some barely firing synapse must’ve remembered a somewhat similar strategy working in a movie he saw once. Of course, in this case, Perez screeches next to them and begins shooting. “I thought she’d drive past us,” Saul demures.)
Pineapple Express is yet another film from the increasingly less reliable Judd Apatow comedy factory—in this case, directed by arthouse auteur, David Gordon Green, a curious choice. At it’s best, it has a kind of sublime silliness, but it’s not nearly as affecting or insightful as Apatow’s best work. Plus, all that extreme violence left me with a bad taste in my mouth. In short, it harshed my mellow.

Posted at 10:13 am
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