World Traveler

Grade: D

Moments before the movie began, a little old man with a cane entered the theater. Painstakingly, he clutched the railing as he slowly made his way up the steps, stopping to catch his breath before climbing yet another mountainous stair on the way to his seat. When he finally sat down, one could almost feel the weight being lifting from his shoulders, as though he had been desperately waiting for this opportunity to relax and catch his breath from the world’s worries...Halfway through the movie, the same old man picked himself up and left the theater.

We’re talking a really bad movie here.

Any movie that begins with a dream sequence automatically gets one strike against it. This movie is so poorly written, so full of a sense of its own self-importance, so drearily slow, that it’s a downright chore to sit through – just ask the little old man with the cane. A man leaves his wife and child, much the same way his father left him, and travels around the country to “find himself.” Along the way, he meets one uninteresting person after another, in a screenplay so totally written there’s not a moment that rings even slightly true. Julianne Moore is so extraordinarily irritating as one of the people he meets that you just want to slap her silly, and nobody else fairs much better. It is a credit to Billy Crudup’s enormous talent that he creates a credible central character that simply doesn’t exist on the written page – will somebody please send him a commercial screenplay that will also live up to his talent so he can get the plaudits he so richly deserves? As for this dreck, one should keep on driving, breaking the speed limit, past any theater where it’s playing.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0262911/

My Big Fat Greek Wedding

Grade: D-




Ingredients:

3,627 Clichés
1,974 Stereotypes
875 Caricatures
73 Bad Accents
1 Gallon Maple Syrup
1 Box Filo Dough

Directions:
Mix all dry ingredients, until you get an over-the-top, marginally offensive, flaky ball of dough. Be careful not to over mix, or you may actually end up with some believable characters or a central romance that is even slightly real or genuine. Wrap chunks of this mucky consistency into sheets of the filo dough, then drench in syrup until you are left with a sappy, drippy, melodramatic mess. Half-bake for 95 minutes, then air the thing on the Lifetime channel for women (and gay men) in their 3-5am slot.

More Movie Info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0259446/

Changing Lanes

Grade: A-

It doesn’t get much better than walking into a theater hoping for a distracting and lightweight couple of hours, only to discover an intense, provocative, thought-provoking piece of dynamite. Ben Affleck, who I have never been terribly impressed with truth be told, gives an Oscar-caliber performance here as a politically naive and brooding young lawyer, who slowly but surely comes to terms with both his dog eat dog surroundings, and his own self-corruption. Samuel L. Jackson is a bit more one note as a recovering alcoholic struggling to get his life back, but the movie develops fascinating storylines as the lives of these two men converge. The supporting performances are equally compelling – dialogue in scenes between Jackson and Bill Hurt, Sydney Pollack and Affleck, Jackson and Kim Staunton, Affleck and Amanda Peet, and Jackson and Affleck crackle with intensity and meaning – they’re each mini-plays within themselves. These are all flawed characters – manipulative, self-destructive, desperate, calculating, power hungry and money grubbing, yet there are no stereotypical villains here, just real people living in a cold and corrupt world. The ending is surprisingly hopeful, believable and satisfying, and the film leaves one chewing on its themes of morality, healing, and redemption for days. A screenplay that would make David Mamet proud.

More Movie Info: http://chevy.imdb.com/title/tt0264472/