What Happens in Vegas (2008)

2/5

What Happens in Vegas should have stayed in Vegas instead of being made into a movie. The plot follows Jack Fuller (Kutcher) and Joy McNally (Diaz) who get hitched in a drunken stupor after respectively being fired by his father and dumped by her fiance. They decide the marriage was a mistake and agree to get a divorce. As they are bitterly parting ways, Jack takes Joy's last token and plays the slot machine and wins 3 million dollars. They both feel entitled to the money, but the judge in the divorce hearings sentences them to 6 months of attempting a real marriage before he releases the funds to either one of them. They soon realize that they don't have to fake trying to be married to each other as long as they make it seem as if the other person isn't trying (e.g., by tempting them with attractive sexpots and/or Zach Galafianakis of The Hangover fame).

The directing in this movie is atrocious, as is every other aspect one might look for in a respectful movie. The only redeeming quality about this movie is the acting by Diaz and Kutcher after about the one hour mark. Before the one hour mark, their characters are despicable lowlifes and the jokes/pranks they play on each other are equally mean and petty. Once they start developing a real connection to each other is when we finally see some depth and honesty in their roles. It really is a pretty remarkable transformation. The leads' sassy best friends (Bell and Corddry) are pretty engaging and humorous throughout the film, however. They were the only things keeping us from turning the movie off after ten minutes and throwing the disc into my brand new shredder. If you give this movie a chance and find that you've made it through an hour of this film, you will be pleasantly surprised by a heartfelt ending (followed by an awesome punch in the balls). But avoid it if you can.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1033643/

Bringing Out The Dead (1999)

3/5

Bringing Out The Dead follows Frank Pierce, a paramedic in New York's Hell's Kitchen who hasn't saved anyone in several months and has become haunted by ghosts of those he lost, for three of the busiest days of the year. The cinematography is absolutely breathtaking. There is one extremely surreal sequence in wintertime, with snow falling upwards, that is almost too powerful. The visual imagery throughout was awe-inspiring. The editing was brilliant as well. The intro credit sequence was the best part about the movie, although it set my expectations impossibly high for the rest of the piece to follow. The music throughout was exceptional at setting and maintaining mood. Without the music, the movie would be a completely different experience--a much worse experience.

The exotic cast of characters, while played extremely well by more than capable actors, felt a bit too exaggerated for my tastes. (Also, every time I saw Marc Anthony on screen, I thought of Johnny Depp.) It seemed as if Scorsese didn't know whether the film should speak to us on a dramatic level or a surrealist level, so he did both. The result is an uneven movie that doesn't quite satisfy. On another note, I wasn't too keen on the depiction of the paramedics and people in the health profession overall--they all just seemed insane. And I felt a lot of the dialogue and voice-over narration was stale, uninspired, and just plain boring. Also, the stock plot conflict and resolution was predictable and painfully simple/bad. Whatever. It's a Scorsese picture, so you gotta see it. And for the quality of the cinematography, editing, and music you've come to expect in his pictures, you won't be disappointed.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0163988/

Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

4/5

Stranger Than Fiction is one of those ambitious movies that tries to be every kind of movie imaginable. It's a romance-comedy-drama that's happy and sad and happy again with an impossible storyline treated in a strictly realistic manner. It manages to be emotional and meaningful without being sappy. It manages to be sad and touching without being depressing. It manages to be hilarious without being outlandish. It succeeds on almost every front, but it never really exceeds in any of them. It would never stand out amongst any movie that is solely romance or solely comedy or solely drama. Where this movie did exceed in was the acting and directing. Will Ferrell gives without a doubt his best performance here: quirky, cute, and lovable. I love Marc Forster movies because he always manages to elevate the script beyond the words and truly make it into a film.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0420223/