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You have those movies where you keep scratching your head all the time, wondering, “What’s the point of this all ?”. Titles come to mind like Thirteen and Requiem for a Dream. And usually, you end up with the answer, it must’ve been all for the shock value or misguided controversy. Not a satisfying answer at all, but you can’t applaud a pointless movie just because it shows graphic violence and abuse not shown anywhere else.
Focusing on two boy in a small town in Kansas, one geeky boy has is obsessed by his blackouts, and think alien abduction caused this, while the other lives carefree as a hustler, doing mostly whatever God forbids. The obsession of the one leads somehow the the other one. While a cloud of mystery conceals the truth, it’s directed in a devious way, yet it’s easy to figure out. The acting is good, but not brilliant.
In the end, the message might have been, the truth will set you free, but even that doesn’t come across. Hence, it’s a movie not to be recommended, unless creating your own depression is your cup of tea.5½.

Virgin power at the box office, as Steve Carell’s character stays on top this week, with $16.4 million. Second was The Brothers Grimm. No fairy tale there, as it only opened with $15.1 million. Red Eye drops one place, $10.4 million. Also dropping one is Four Brothers with $7.8 million. That leaves the fifth spot for the Wedding Crashers, still crawling towards the well deserved $200 million mark, with $6.3 million.

The novel idea (or at least, I think it is) of crashing weddings with the sole purpose of picking up girls makes for a very decent if immoral movie. Born comedian Owen Wilson teams up with better late than never Vince Vaughn (already an established comedian, but only started doing these roles halfway through his career). The acting of the supporting characters are quite there on par.
The story is full of new and fresh ideas, and character design isn’t something forgotten either. With a quick setup and collage to get in the atmosphere of things, we delve right into the dialogue heavy crashing adventure, with a quick pace all the way to the end. Probably one of the most enjoyable comedy of this year.8.

Late bloomer Steve Carell opens with this week’s number one movie (starting out as a correspondent on The Daily Show, and now starring in NBC’s The Office), The 40-Year-Old Virgin was interesting enough for a $20.6 million premiere. Second is Wes Craven’s Red Eye, scaring up about $16.5 million for a second place.
Four Brothers drops two spots, with $13 million, while the Wedding Crashers held steady at four with $8.3 million, only a few weeks more to cross the $200 million mark. Rounding out the top five is The Skeleton Key, losing a bit of its voodoo powers, with $7.4 million.

Sequel to Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, also written and starring Rob Schneider. This one too has a thin story, filling the gaps with vulgarity and meaningless jokes. Set mostly in Amsterdam, the jokes are predictable too (Red Light District, lenient drug policy). Also Hollywood policy is to dub over the Dutch voices with as much German accent as possible (happens a lot in other movies too), including naming the characters.
All in all, there will be a chuckle here and there, but for it to be really fun, you’d probably have to be drunk or high.6-.

Sometimes you have those good movies that are hard to market (US Box Office won’t even get a quarter of their production money back), or maybe it’s the all-too-revealing trailer. Anyhow, this is one of them.
From director Michael Bay, who over the years turned to producer duties as well, comes another fine combination of a decent story with stunning gut-wrenching action sequences. Over the years he did prove himself quite able to continually churn out these combo’s (The Rock, Bad Boys and sequel, etc., with only Armageddon disappointingly too special effects focused), where the screen is filled with stunning visual effects and CGI effects seamlessly mixed in (thanks to good ol’ reliable ILM). The pace is also as usual quite high, and there’s no boring moment to be detected (enough Scarlett Johansson for the guys, and enough Ewan McGregor for the gals). Clocking in well over 2 hours, it’s well worth your money.8+.

A typical low-budget thriller with supernatural elements mixed in. The result is actually something done before (traveling back and forth in time), and anyone into this stuff can actually predict the outcome. Directed with a really claustrophobic feel to it, it also employs flashy psychedelic visuals with flashback imagery to add to the confusion. Story-wise, it’s not too complicated, but the acting is quite good (Adrian Brody (his first real role after The Pianist) and Keira Knightley). Without something really special to offer, it’s just a nice movie, not a WOW movie that hits with a bang (like Memento did).7+.

Terrific pop-corn movie. Not so complicated story, and well executed. Balancing light-hearted humor with nice action sequences at a perfectly evolving pace.8-.

A solid soft-drama with good portions of work, family life and romance mixed in. It actually results in a lot of short stories, and the overall feeling isn’t too wonderful. The acting is good though, and any movie starring Scarlett Johansson warrants my attention, so even without the solid writing, it’s still enjoyable.7+.

The remake winning streak at the box office is still not over, this time Jessica Simpson’s shorts are enticing enough to get $30.6 million worth of ticket sales for Johnny Knoxville/Seann William Scott starrer The Dukes of Hazzard.
Crashing less weddings than last week is The Wedding Crashers, with a runner-up spot with $16.5 million. Also selling less sweets is Johnny Depp starrer Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with $10.6 million.
At four, Sky High drops one place, with $9.1 million. Comedy Must Love Dogs rounds off the top five with $7.4 million.

Another fortunate event where waiting pays off (my motto has always been, just wait for the movie, it’ll save ya a lot of reading hours, which are better spent with CS online). Just like the book, this movie will ring a bell for sci-fi fans and nerds along, and will be weird for everyone else. As a movie, it’s a pretty well-rounded short story, filled with weightless silly jokes. Hence, even normal people in a giddy mood might enjoy it. As I’m a bit of both, it was light entertainment. While some people mark this book as a must read (If you use Google as a ranking system, using quotes and add must read as your query, The Bible ends up at 1 with 3.460.000 hits, second is this book with 625.000 hits, and third is The Da Vinci Code with 242.000 hits), but this movie certainly is not. Hence a solid average grade.7.

Swapping places, the Wedding Crashers takes the top spot with $20 million, leaving last week’s topper, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, behind with $16.4 million. Both are at their third week of release with Charlie cashing in more dough, a cume of $148 million, against the $116 million the Wedding Crashers cashed in.
At three, a cheapoh kiddy superhero movie, which brings back Kurt Russell to Walt Disney, where he started his career, with Sky High, earning a mediocre $14.6 million. At four, flying totally under the radar (especially if you calculate it with the $130 million budget), is Stealth with $13.3 million.
At 5, a comedy starring Diane Lane and John Cusack, Must Love Dogs barks together $12.9 million.
Last week’s bomb (just like this week’s Stealth, also from Sony Pictures) is a truly sinking island, The Island is now worth $5.96 million, good for a number 7 spot and a total cume of $24.3 million (still short some $100 million to break even).

Stephen Chow has already earned his feathers big time in the niche Hong Kong cinema. From cameos to small starring roles in the early eighties to more prominent roles later in the decade. Then came writing and directing later on. His King of Comedy (1999) might have been his turning point towards stardom (that’s as far as I have tracked him down, at least), and the title is nothing short of fitting. His movies have always had a wonderful sense of humor, always written in an unconventional way.
And again, after the worldwide success of Shoalin Soccer, he ups the ante with this one. Superlatives over superlatives, and hence the special effects gets used more and more (while it was only subtly used in Shoalin Soccer). But also again, is the strange but fun way the story unfolds, where you can’t guess where it’s going, and hence being more enjoyable. Tied to that, characters get the same treatment, with no heroic stereotypes around to spoil the fun.
While I have to admit his two previous movies had a more focused storyline, this one is still a hustle you don’t want to miss.8+.

No tooth decay to be seen with all the sweetness going on at Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with $28.3 million easily retaining it’s lead. Number two is also the same, Wedding Crashers with $26.2 million drops only a 19% !!
At three, also the same, is Fantastic Four with $12.3 million. At four, possibly the biggest disappointment this year, is The Island, lonely and deserted, bringing in only $12.1 million. Rounding off the top five is a remake, Bad News Bears starring Billy Bob Thornton growls together some $11.5 million.

Another indie project from the highly praised director Danny Boyle (though I think he’s pretty standard, have seen his previous film, 28 Days Later). This time it’s a more homely script, with many fantasy elements in it. It’s set around a family, but seen from the outside. It focuses on two brothers and how they handle the money that’s miraculously thrown in their laps. There’s no way to identify with the boys, as their dialogue is written somewhat unrealistically (too bright – I for one, wasn’t that smart at that age, and I haven’t seen others being that clever either), keeping the viewer at a distance (what the fantasy element already did). That said, there are a few pretty smart things to find in the script, and the boys aren’t pushed to act in an unnatural way, so it’s very bearable. In the end, it’s not a strong drama, nor a comedy, but something in between. And again, direction was nice (though the scene transitions and musical score are too overpowering), but not deserving the level Greatness, as most people tend to make you believe.7+.