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"(500) Days of Summer" - The movie's tagline really says it all, "Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn't." There is no need to look any further than the narrator's opening monologue to realize this independent summer film, so easily pegged as a romantic comedy, is "not a love story."
Hopeless romantic and greeting card writer Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt of "10 Things I Hate About You") falls hard for self-proclaimed non-believer of love and co-worker, Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel of "Almost Famous" and "Weeds"). The movie chronicles (but interestingly, not chronologically) the 500-day relationship between Tom and Summer.
The audience essentially knows what the ending will be within the first five minutes. So then, what keeps this movie so captivating from start to finish? This film sets itself apart from others in its overplayed and over calculated genre by stripping away all the preconceived notions about romantic comedies and setting forth a simple, honest and at times heart-wrenchingly believable story about two people with polar opposite viewpoints on love.
Deschanel and Gordon-Levitt, both relatively unknown, compliment each others' performance so well that we just cannot help but like them and allow them to charm us for 90 or so minutes. With a well selected and talented cast, and possibly an even better soundtrack featuring Deschanel's own band She & Him as well as The Smiths and Simon and Garfunkel, "(500) Days of Summer" leaves the audience feeling, maybe not satisfied, but like they just got a unique glimpse into an actual couple's life instead of just another mundane look at two characters that lack the appeal all romantic comedies are striving for.
-Sydney Syverson
"Inglourious Basterds" - In a well-known essay, George Orwell took the author Rudyard Kipling to task as a "good bad poet ... almost a shameful pleasure" for giving the reader a "sense of being seduced by something spurious, and yet unquestionably seduced."
One shudders to think what he would have made of Quentin Tarantino, whose epic WWII picture, "Inglourious Basterds," was unleashed upon the general public last month. Tarantino's first film in two years, "Basterds" is the story of a small band of Jewish-American scalp-hunters set loose in Nazi-occupied France, who, not being in the "pris'ner-takin' bidness," proceed to terrorize the Third Reich from local storm troopers all the way up to the Fuhrer himself.
It's an entertaining premise carried to a morally repellant end, but the movie is almost impossible to walk away from - with trademark Tarantino dialogue, violence and cinematic scholasticism, it is, in a word, highly seductive. Brad Pitt's Lt. Aldo Raine is a compellingly comic foil to the frighteningly omnipotent Col. Hans Landa (in a staggering performance from the German actor Christoph Waltz).
As tempting as it is to approach "Basterds" as post-war wish fulfillment, it's hard to shake the feeling that Tarantino ventured a little too far into the deep end; after all, this is The Holocaust we're talking about. More troubling is the movie's implication that perhaps if European Jews had acted a little more "American" - i.e., more badass - they wouldn't have been shipped off in cattle cars to the concentration camps.
-Elliot Boswell
"Funny People" - Speaking of getting into deep water, Judd Apatow's first directorial effort since the massive success of "Knocked Up" suffers from the same problems as its predecessor: An inability to adequately address the questions it raises. "Funny People" is the story of George Simmons (Adam Sandler), a successful stand-up comedian who made a fortune in movies, leaving him rich and friendless.
When Simmons is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, he decides to make the most of his remaining months, which includes hiring Ira Wright (Seth Rogen) as his assistant and surrogate friend and re-kindling his former flame Laura (Leslie Mann), who's now married with children.
This is all well and good, and the jokes (often concerning either dicks or Jewishness) are more often hits than misses, but when "Funny People" starts to leave the stage and move into the home, it begins to falter. The characters speak of the importance of establishing a rhythm in comedy routines, but unfunnily enough, Apatow never really finds a comfortable zone, instead jerking us around with reversals of fate and domestic life.
And ultimately, the very serious question of breaking up a marriage is treated rather glibly, even to the point of degenerating into slapstick-y gimmicks. The comedy sequences, however, are among the best things Apatow's done yet, and Jason Schwartzman is especially memorable as a narcissistic, philandering sitcom star.
-Elliot Boswell
"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - The Harry Potter saga continues with "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," portraying growth in the characters while also setting the stage for the final movie. It becomes Harry's duty to befriend Slughorn, who returns to teach potions, in order to retrieve the missing memory of Tom Riddle's horcruxes.
Dumbledore hopes to discover a weakness in order to kill Voldemort once and for all, but little do they know that Riddle's followers also have a sinister plan to do away with Dumbledore.
The characters go through a lot of growth in this movie. Ron has a slightly obsessive girlfriend, Hermione finally shows her true feelings for Ron, Draco becomes a death eater and Harry realizes his place in the wizard world. Emma Watson portrays a growing girl who wants more than to just be the head of the class. This movie shows another side to her, one that longs for romance.
The tone of the movie was the most series of the movies so far. From the lighting to the action, this movie took on a darker, serious and more pensive tone than anything else with the lack of light-hearted scenes. As people are cursed, and sides become more defined and revealed, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" reveals much about the characters and sets the stage for the final movie. The ending leaves the viewer with an empty, unsatisfied feeling along with the subconscious knowledge that things have drastically changed for Harry and his friends, not just in circumstance, but also in whom they are.
-Elizabeth Tertadian
"Up" - With the recent releases of "Finding Nemo," "Ratatouille" and "WALL-E," Pixar has risen to the top of the animation world, and with over twenty Oscars under its belt, the top of the cinematic world as well. We can now add "Up" to the list, a movie in which the studio wonderfully coheres its imagination, pop-savvy and maturity better than it ever has before.
Carl (voiced by Edward Asner) is a square-jawed curmudgeon, who, after recently losing his wife, Ellie, unmoors his house in an act of surreal rebellion and floats down to South America to fulfill a childhood fantasy. On board is a stowaway, a pudgy, young Wilderness Explorer named Russell (voiced by newcomer Jordan Nagai), and together they weather the heights and perils of an Indiana Jones-style adventure.
Like its more recent animated predecessors, "Up" is geared for both children and adults, but unlike, say, the "Shrek" series, it doesn't designate certain jokes for one demographic or the other, and with the one exception of a malfunctioning voice modulator, there aren't any cheap gags either. The creators don't use the limitless palette of cartoons to overwhelm us, even with the temptation of 3-D screenings.
Most memorable, however, are the opening ten minutes, a wordless montage of Carl and Ellie's life together, which may the most moving animated sequence ever put to film.
-Elliot Boswell
