Easy A (2010)

3/5

Easy A is a forgettable teen comedy about a girl (Stone) who is way too smart for high school. Once a rumor is spread by her friend Rhiannon (Michalka) that she lost her virginity to a college guy on a first date, she earns a reputation as an easy lay. She helps a gay friend (Byrd) pretend he's straight by having fake sex with him at a party. The rumors continue to swirl among the popular crowd (Badgley) and offended Christians (Bynes), while the truth makes its way around the losers of the high school. Eventually she realizes that her actions may have bigger consequences than she thinks.

The movie is unimpressive in almost every way except for its dependence on clichés and 80's movies references. The cinematography is bland and the pacing was somewhat uneven. The writing as a whole was superficial. I never really understood anybody's motivations for doing what they were doing and the pointless narration in the form of a webcast didn't help. But this movie is hilarious. The dialogue is sharp and witty and Emma Stone delivers her lines with precise comic timing. The jokes are even better when it comes to the adults (Haden Church, Kudrow, Clarkson, Tucci), each of which are shining, unique gems in an otherwise dull film. But that's not enough to make this film memorable. Watch it if you want a quick laugh, but don't expect anything more than that.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1282140/

Bolt (2008)

3/5

Bolt is the story of a young dog brought up in a Truman Show-esque world where he's a superhero with the ability to melt metal objects with his laser eyes and explode city blocks with his superbark. A studio exec comes to the shooting stage and informs the producers that the show is too happy, which is causing them to lose the 18-34 demographic. To capture that age group, the director ends a shoot with an exciting cliffhanger, only to have Bolt escape his trailer in an attempt to save his owner Penny. And that's when he accidentally gets shipped to New York, meets an array of animal friends, and road trips back to Hollywood to save the day. In the happy, sappy way they previously suggested 18-34 year olds do not appreciate.

Bolt is probably Disney's first non-Pixar CGI film (the movie isn't good enough for me to spend time fact-checking my own arbitrary allegations) and it's certainly not as good as their Pixar ones. There's a reason for this discrepancy. Pixar movies are surprising, fresh, new, and invigorating; Bolt is formulaic and predictable. Bolt plays right into expectations. Granted, it does so in a cute (but not adorable) way, but that's simply not enough these days. I can see this movie originating as a pitch to financiers instead of a novel idea built from the ground up and smoothed out over a long time by a love for filmmaking instead of test audience reaction surveys. Still, it's an enjoyable enough film if you feel like spending 90 minutes watching a cute dog, but don't expect anything even approaching Pixar quality.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0397892/

Halloween (2007)

1/5

Rob Zombie's remake of John Carpenter's classic Halloween flabbergasted me. Because of its utter disregard for anything that might give someone an excuse to like a movie. Everything about this movie either bored me or pissed me off. The changes Zombie made to the original story were vastly inferior; even the parts he copied were done in a much less frightening manner.

Zombie's version adds 30 minutes to the beginning that attempts to humanize, justify, or reason Michael Myers's homicidal tendencies. Zombie seems to have no idea that it is precisely Myers's lack of background that makes his evil so menacing and terrifying--his actions must always be inexplicable. Not only is Myers given a reason to start killing, the reason is quite possibly the silliest thing about this movie. He kills people because he has an ugly face and wants to hide it from the world with equally ugly masks so that people will stop making fun of him. How is that the recipe for a subhuman serial killing machine?

The rest of the movie is essentially a copy of Carpenter's creation, only crap. Myers's escape from the sanitarium is much less impressive and frightening in this film. All the shots that made you jump in the original are absent. Before, Myers would be in the shadows and dark backgrounds, but you wouldn't see him until he moved. His ubiquity was subtle, and more horrifying for it. Now it just cuts to him, or rack focuses on him; where is the horror? Additionally, the best part about the original--the music--is incredibly underused in this version. And the nudity is gratuitous and tacky in its use. Awful, awful movie.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0373883/