Almost two years ago, a little Swedish horror film called Let the Right One In was released to critical acclaim and raving audiences. It followed the development of a relationship between two young people, one of whom is a vampire, and it’s original take on the already-on-its-way-to-becoming annoyingly trendy vampire genre and serious tone made it one of the best movies of 2008. So, you can imagine how surprising it was when an American remake was being announced just a year after the release of this pretty popular foreign movie, prompting a lot of confusion and questions. Were American audiences really that opposed to subtitles? Was there something keeping these people from just renting the DVD? Were there no studios that saw the potential in perhaps marketing an already great film to a larger audience? And finally, what was the point?

Well, another year later, and that movie is now finally being released, only this time it’s called Let Me In and it’s being directed by the guy who made Cloverfield, and stars the kids from Kick Ass and The Road. And now, having sat through it, I find myself asking one more question, trying to decide just how to go about deciding whether or not this movie was good: would I have liked Let Me In, had I never seen its predecessor? Usually, it’s rare we think about how our opinions on even the furthest thing from a movie can shape our opinion of it, but when it comes to remakes, it’s easy to find yourself thinking of how much better the original is, as you’re trying to watch the newer version in front of you. Seeing familiar scenes and a story that only disappoint because you’ve seen them presented and told in a better fashion. This is the case with Let Me In, not a bad movie, but painfully not as captivating or ingenious as the far superior film it’s based on.

But that’s the trouble with remakes: if you stray too far then it might as well be a different movie, and if it sticks too close, you see the flaws and wonder what the point was. Unfortunately, Let Me In never attempts to stray, sticking to the same source material as Let the Right One In, repeating the same scenes very closely in content, but not in style or atmosphere. This is an American movie in the worst sense of the term, its only major changes being an action scene inserted into the middle of the movie, and terrible special effects, that make even the weak CGI of the original look good. It’s shot well enough and the two leads do their best with the material, but, again, it’s all been done before, and better. As repetitive as this complaint is getting, sitting through a worse version of a movie you consider great gets even more repetitive, and worse, boring.

The most unfortunate aspect of Let Me In’s Americanization is by far its clinging to the idea that nothing must be left to the imagination, and no emotion or feeling must rely on itself to make the audience care. One of my favorite composers, Michael Giacchino, provides a score that is not only distracting and annoying, but also hurts the film that it supports. Like makeup, costumes, or editing, I know music is really good when it gets me so into a movie that I tend to not even notice it at all, and Giacchino’s score was constantly reminding me of its presence, accenting quiet scenes with sappy strings and Danny Elfman-esque choirs that are meant to tell us how emotional the scene is, or destroying any tense or scary moment with blaring orchestras, making the audience laugh, rather than sit on the edge of their seat.

If I had never heard of Let the Right One In, I would think that Let Me In was a slightly above average horror movie with an interesting story that was bogged down with too many of the clichés that have plagued many modern horror movies, and some awful CGI. There would have been some good scares, and I could appreciate the cinematography more, perhaps even liking some of the more interesting sequences, like the climactic pool sequence and the car chase added to the middle of the movie. But I have seen Let the Right One In, and therefore, all I can think about Let Me In is how much better it was the first time I saw it, and how unnecessary and poorly made this shoddy rip-off was.

Considering The Original: 3 out of 10.

Coming In Fresh: 6 out of 10.

Totally whatever movie. Totally annoying screening experience.

SYNOPSIS: This dude gets accused and convicted of murder. He didn’t do it. His sister, named Betty Ann, becomes a lawyer and fights for him for nearly 20 years until she finally succeeds in getting him exonerated and released from prison. Oh joy.

The post-screening Q&A was such a damn disappointment. No one asked Mr. Rockwell about MOON or IRON MAN 2 or CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND and no one asked Tony about GHOST. It was lamers. Ppl took that shit so effin serious, bro. They asked Betty Ann most of the questions and they were mostly boring. We were in the presence of stars and the audience chose to ask questions of the real-life inspiration. C’mon!

See CONVICTION if you like great actors in boring roles and titles with blatant double meanings.

BOOM?

Other reviews in this series: Friday the 13th, Friday the 13th Part 2, Friday the 13th Part III, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI, Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood

Part Eight- Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

Jason Takes Manhattan is like a teenage skateboarder. It is trying to be cool and different but mostly it falls on its face. In the world of Friday the 13th, it turns out that the unstoppable force can, in fact, be stopped by the immovable object. After two excellent movies in a row, the filmmakers decided to create a gimmick. “Let’s put Jason on a cruise ship to Manhattan, then let him do all kinds of out-of-place stuff. Jason versus New York. How hilarious!”. I apologize for my repeated usage of sarcasm and simile in this paragraph. This movie just upsets me so.

A group of students and a few chaperones are taking a cruise from Crystal Lake to New York City. Jason secretly climbs aboard the ship (I guess because he has never seen the Statue of Liberty). He methodically kills half the people on the ship before it arrives at its destination. He then follows the survivors around the city. The city is portrayed as being so crazy that nobody even notices the masked serial killer. Just another New Yorker. The final encounter between Jason and the survivor girl takes place in the sewer. Jason gets really wet and turns back into a crying, deformed child. That is how this movie ends. If I was speaking these words rather than writing them, I would insist on repeating that sentence. There is no reason or explanation for him turning into a crying kid. He just does. OK?

 
When a series of movies, especially a horror series, attempts to throw in a gimmick, it usually spells the end. We saw this when the Leprechaun went to space, Chucky had a baby, and Michael Myers became a web star. Jason Takes Manhattan is the most shameful case of all. If you make seven movies with a similar premise, and they are successful enough to call for an eighth, why change the formula? It is almost as if they were trying to sabotage the series. There is nothing amusing or clever about putting Jason out of his element. There is only one scene in this entire movie that is even remotely interesting. One of the students is a boxer, and he decides he is going to fist fight Jason on top of a roof. He pounds away on the killer, knocking him closer and closer to the roof’s edge. He eventually wears himself out, his hands bleeding from the blows to the hockey mask. Jason then takes his turn and in a single shot, punches the kid’s head off. I have to admit, not bad.

This entry is a train-wreck. A true piece of crap. One of the worst movies in the series, and of all time. 2 out of 10.

God damn, 1998 was a great year for movies.

Of the four “My Favorite Movies” columns I’ve done so far, three have been movies from 1998, and, while I hope to one day write about some of the older movies I also love, I have no regrets about featuring so many movies from that year specifically. This, however, is probably the first movie I’ve written about that all of the writers here can agree is probably one of their favorites too. It’s the first movie we all try to watch every year, and Josh and I recently got to go to a midnight screening of an original print this past weekend, prompting this article. Despite the print burning up just as Walter and the Dude arrive at the big Lebowski’s mansion to discover Bunny’s convertible in the fountain, it was still such an amazing experience to see John Goodman show a goldbricking teenager what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass and experience the feeling of being in a bowling ball along with the Dude in his violence induced hallucination.

I feel like I’ve strayed from using these articles to express why I like these movies, and instead use them as ways to objectively describe what makes them good. An original and well-told story, creatively and memorably shot and acted, and, overall, just an entertaining experience. There. That’s why The Big Lebowski’s a good movie. And there are hundred, even thousands of movies that can be described using these terms. But the reason I like any movie enough to call it one of my faviorites can usually be summed up in three factors: a quotable script, an awesome soundtrack, and infinite rewatchability value.

As far as the script goes, at this point I think I’ve heard literally every line of dialogue, even the most obscure, unintelligible background ones, quoted and printed on t-shirts by fans. Josh screen-printed a shirt that says, “Ever thus to deadbeats”, a line I still don’t remember hearing after my who-knows-how-many-ith viewing of the movie. And along with the lines themselves, the delivery by the actors makes them as memorable as they are (no one says or will ever say again “God dammit” like John Goodman does in that funeral home), creating characters that are as iconic as they are hilarious.

Speaking of Josh’s shirt, little lines like this, among other details and quirks, are just one of the many things that make The Big Lebowski so much fun to watch over and over again. Seeing it on the big screen this past weekend, for the first time I noticed little things like Philip Seymour Hoffman’s pose after handing the Dude the ransom letter, and the way his nostrils flare while he laughs after Tara Reid offers to give a blow-job for a thousand bucks. Last year, Kyle and Dave competed in a trivia competition at the Philadelphia Lebowski Fest, and after hearing some of the questions they were asked (who knew that Smokey played for the Cavaliers?) it became apparent that I would never be able to see this movie enough times to catch all of the little details, which is fine, seeing how awesome the broad strokes alone are.

But, again, there is nothing that makes a film more memorable or entertaining than when the Coen brothers activate their wonder-twin powers for the sake of filmmaking. I can say without reservation, there is not one movie by the Coens that I dislike. Sure there are some I enjoy more than others, but every time I sit down to watch one of their movies, I know I’m in for something that’s at least got a few memorable moments and performances in it. The Big Lebowski is my favorite of their movies, their irreverent and nonsensical sense of humor moving at full force with Altman-esque overlapping dialogue and outrageous characters who pop in and out of the movie in seemingly random intervals, yet making bigger impressions than any character from, oh, say, a big budget, event movie like Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. It’s incredible to think that, this being their follow up to the Oscar winning Fargo, The Big Lebowski was considered a huge flop when it was released, but is now their most popular movie, having found a huge cult following.

Speaking of cult status, it’s funny how some people find a movie that is loved by many, and will dismiss it simply for its popularity or its acceptance into mainstream culture. The Big Lebowski and its characters and story have attracted many people for many reasons, be they stoners who love it for its perpetually high protagonist, or teenagers who think middle-aged bowlers with AK-47s are hilarious, and there’s no wrong reason to like this movie. These people will often search for movies and music that are too obscure or idiosyncratic to have been widely accepted in popular culture, as if their love would be diluted if too many people share the same piece of work. However, the opposite seems to be true, as the popularity of, say, The Big Lebowski is based far more on the excellence of the movie than on the fact that it has developed a fan-base at all. In the paragraphs above I described the reasons why I like The Big Lebowski, and whether or not these are the same reasons others love means nothing to me. It’s nice to know that there are others out there I can share this movie with, but if there are those this matters to, that’s too bad for them. As they say, sometimes you eat the bear, and, well, sometimes the bear eats you.

But above all this, the crazy twists, the hilarious sequences set to a perfect soundtrack, and the incredible dialogue, the main reason I love The Big Lebowski has got to be the Dude. Never before has such a character been so forcefully pushed to the center of such of complex series of simple misunderstandings and conflicts, that the resulting adventure is funnier and more engaging than it would be with any other character in any other movie. Looking back at all of the intersecting stories and characters, who all end up at the Dude’s doorstep, all looking for something different, I find it hilarious to see how out of control everything gets only because of the laid back and frivolous attitude the Dude brings to every situation, never simply resolving anything by following through with any of the tasks he’s given. Seeing the Dude finally give in to his assumed persona as star of his own personal film noir at Jackie Treehorn’s house, and be rewarded with a doodle of an erection, makes me laugh harder every time I see it than I do when watching most other comedies.

I don’t know what else to say about The Big Lebowski. Ask anyone who claims to be a fan, and you’ll probably get something along the lines of, “It’s just awesome, man.” or, “You’ve just got to see it.” And that’s a pretty fair assessment of what makes it so good: there’s no underlying thing that all the cool kids are in on, it’s just the movie is so different and entertaining, seeing it is the only way to understand what all the fuss is about. There have been other movies that tackle the film noir genre in an unusual setting (Brick), and there have been other movies about stoners getting in way over their heads trying to complete simple tasks (Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle), but there has never been, and never will be a movie quite like The Big Lebowski ever again. There’s something magical about how all of these actors were brought together at that point in their careers to play these characters, in a movie by the Coen brothers, and that this is the movie they made.

Magical.

And that’s why The Big Lebowski is one of my favorite movies.

Other reviews in this series: Friday the 13th, Friday the 13th Part 2, Friday the 13th Part III, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI

Part Seven- Friday the 13th Part VII- The New Blood (1988)

If Jason Lives was responsible for creating the ultimate monster, then this movie is responsible for perfecting him. The person solely responsible for the now perfect Jason is a stuntman named Kane Hodder. Hodder steps in to fill the very heavy role of Jason Voorhees. He plays the part so well that he becomes the only person to appear as the masked monster in more than one movie, as he returns in the next three installments. Although it may seem easy to lumber around and slash kids to death, somehow nobody does it like Kane. Something about his presence adds a whole new, frightening level to the character of Jason. There is no more beating around the bush. Walls and doors don’t stand in his way anymore. He is the ultimate killing machine.

Now if you remember, we last left Jason in his supposed watery grave, chained to the bottom of Crystal Lake. We see him this time- his skin rotting away, the bones in his arms and back exposed. Enter Tina: a teenage girl fresh from the mental ward. She has returned to her family’s cabin with her mother and doctor to confront her most tragic memory, the death of her father. But that’s not all. When experiencing extreme emotion, Tina has developed telekinetic abilities. It was in fact her anger with her father that caused the tragic incident that sunk him into the lake. Once at the lake, Tina decides to use her abilities to resurrect her father. Instead, she resurrects somebody else…

The killings in this movie are about on par with number six. There are some interesting deaths that leave some pretty harsh wounds. The aspect of the movie that puts it a notch above the rest is the ending. When Jason and Tina finally meet, an awesome showdown breaks out. Tina uses her brain power to fend off her attacker in every possible way. I never thought I would enjoy seeing Jason get his ass kicked so much. The best part is that no matter what Tina throws at him, whether it be fire, electricity, nails, or an entire porch, he keeps on getting up. In terms of ridiculousness, this movie takes all the cakes. Perhaps my favorite scene in any F13 movie is the epic backwards fall of Jason through a staircase. It is just unbelievably cool.

I really can’t say enough about how good this movie is. Most reviews of it seem to be pretty negative, but those people don’t understand these movies like you and I do. If you are reading this, it’s because you like horror movies with a lot of crazy cool action, and I can’t think of another that competes with this one.

May be the best in the entire series. 8 out of 10.

Every year, in the world of cinema, there seems to be a few surprises. Last year we had a great resurgence in the horror genre with Drag Me to Hell and Orphan. This year, however, seemed to be lacking in the unexpected. The movies slotted to be good are good, and the rest are the rest. Until last night. I had the privilege of attending an advanced screening of the upcoming thriller Buried. I had read about the premise and watched the trailer, but they do not do justice to the creativity and intensity that this movie encompasses.

Ryan Reynolds plays Paul Conroy, a truck driver delivering medical supplies in Iraq. He is not a soldier. His convoy is ambushed, all of his co-workers are killed, and he is knocked unconscious and buried alive. The other actors… aren’t in the movie. Reynolds bears the responsibility of this entire movie solely on his shoulders. No other character is shown (with the exception of a short cell phone video), and we, along with Conroy, never leave the coffin. I think it’s fair to say that Ryan Reynolds isn’t considered to be an amazing thespian. If you were to tell me I was going to one day watch an hour and a half of Ryan Reynolds in a box, I would have punched you in the chest. Yet, it is Reynolds’ performance that makes this movie worth watching. His fear and anxiety wash over the audience like a Biblical flood. I actually found my legs shaking with anticipation during particularly thrilling scenes.

The direction is absolutely brilliant. Rodrigo Cortés was able to bring us into the grave with Conroy. The problem with seeing as many movies as I do is that it has made me immune to character connections. But throughout this entire movie, I felt everything that Paul Conroy could feel. I was thirsty when he was thirsty. I could almost feel the sand covering my body and lips. And the emotions and frustration that he felt caused my body to tense up. I was in his nightmare, and I wanted to be out of the box as much as he did. 

The purpose of any movie is to incite a reaction, whether it be positive or negative. Buried is not the best movie of 2010. But if you are looking for a movie that you can connect to and that will cause you to have the most intense reaction, then you should choose this one over the rest.

After seeing an alarming amount of romantic comedies in theaters during the last year or two (including The Promotion, I Love You Beth Cooper, Going The Distance, Letters To Juliet, etc.), you start to see a lot of patterns forming in these kinds of movies. Generally similar stories which feature two apparently incompatible or previously non-romantically linked friends who find themselves falling in love have become the norm, with almost every joke and situation being stretched to its limit, most of them able to be seen coming from a mile away. Normally, however, the biggest surprises in these kinds of movies end up coming from the smaller roles, usually filled by character actors and lesser known comedians from sitcoms and standup specials on Comedy Central, who get to take their bit parts and expand them into the most memorable characters in movies full of stale archetypes and screechy middle-aged women.

You Again tells the parallel stories of Marni and Joanna (Kristen Bell and Odette Yustman) and their mother and aunt, respectively, Gail and Ramona (Jamie Lee Curtis and Sigourney Weaver), who each were rivals of the other one in high school, and have been reunited as Joanna plans to marry Marni’s brother, throwing everyone in a panic, and igniting several plans of revenge by the tormented parties. Of course, you know how this is all going to end, as true identities and motivations are all revealed in a climactic wedding rehearsal dinner and subsequent food and pool fight, with everything coming together perfectly within the last five minutes, and everyone living happily ever after.

However, the wild card here is Kyle Bomheimer, as Joanna’s ex-fiancée and mental case who is pushed to the brink of a mental breakdown when in her presence, and provides some of the funniest moments in the movie. In a movie filled with clichés and easy fixes, Tim the fiancée distinguishes You Again from the rest of the rom-coms, and will surely be the one element that’s remembered, alongside some funny cameos from Reginald VelJohnson, The Rock, Patrick Duffy, Cloris Leachman, and the great Hall & Oates, from this otherwise average movie.

Easy A on the other hand takes an old story (The Scarlet Letter) and creates a pretty original, well told, and really funny teen romantic comedy. Here we have Olive (Emma Stone), a bright high school senior who creates a reputation as the school slut by faking sex with losers from her school for money, until things inevitably spin out of control, and she finds herself in over her head. In her first starring role, Stone creates a performance here that’s funnier, more memorable, and better acted than any of the main characters in You Again combined. Along with her, almost every supporting character also turns in a memorable and hilarious performance, especially Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson as Olive’s actually cool “cool” parents. These two play off of each other so well, and pull out so many jokes from simple situations, from questioning the origins of their adopted son, to guessing the “t” word that got Olive sent to the principal’s office, it’s hard not to laugh whenever either of them simply appear on screen.

My main problem with Easy A comes from an unnecessary amount of references to other teen comedies, including a montage of clips from John Hughes movies, as Olive wishes out loud that her life could be more like those of the main characters in these classics. Now, this is more of a personal problem I have with some movies, but just because you call something cliché, doesn’t not make it a cliché. Now, this specifically only happens once in Easy A, but the principle is obvious in having this montage, and an entire last twenty minutes devoted to the teen comedies of the 80s, as Easy A basically wants its audience to not think it’s being cliché with its ending by pointing out the main character’s wish for it to end that way. Again, just because you say that your movie is like another movie, doesn’t not make it kind of a cop out.

Again, this is a minor complaint that bothered me as I watched the movie, but really didn’t effect my enjoyment of it overall. I wished the writer could have presented what was the natural conclusion to the story (Olive clears her name and gets the guy) in a more natural way, but it’s fine for this kind of movie, and everything that comes before it is as funny and creative as a teen comedy can be. Of these two movies, it seems clear Easy A will be the one that is embraced by audiences, who will hopefully spread the word around, and get more people to see it, while You Again will prove to be a fairly average movie that hammers another nail into the “Betty White saying raunchy and anachronistic things” coffin that she’s pigeonholed herself into, and will probably be quickly forgotten. At least, we can all hope so.

You Again: 5 out of 10.

Easy A: 8 out of 10.

Never Let Me Go will probably divide critics more than most other movie this fall, with some claiming that it’s a brilliant, beautifully crafted film about love and life, and others calling it an empty, ponderous exercise in tedium, or whatever bullshit language critics use. But the thing is, they’re both right. Well, “beautiful” and “brilliant” are a bit excessive, but if you can look past some pretty illogical plotting and some of the slower moments here, it’s not a bad little movie.

With a plot that is eerily similar to Michael Bay’s The Island (which itself is a remake), here we follow three students who attend a British boarding school that turns out to just be housing for children who are being raised to donate organs to the sick and dying. A love triangle forms between the three students as they grow up, eventually tearing them apart, until the last few weeks of their “donations”, in which they discover there may be a way to defer their surgeries: if they can prove that they are in love. Despite presenting a more politically correct and ethical way to raise the donor children, I surprisingly found the methods used in The Island to be far more realistic, especially when considering the health of the subjects and the investment behind their imprisonment.

In Never Let Me Go, eventually the students are let loose to roam the towns and country-sides, eat and drink whatever they’d like, and even learn to drive, yet, they never even think of escaping. Some claim this is an example of the stiff upper lip of British culture, and others claim that they were raised to have no other expectations of life, but this doesn’t really make sense considering what the audience is presented with. If these people were supposedly at ease with their fates, to being relegated to human incubators for organs, then why would they even try to apply for the deferment? And if they are supposed to have been trained to accept this fate, then why is their teacher punished for telling them that that’s what the future holds for them? When were they supposed to find out? It’s questions like these that make it very hard to look past the gaping holes in logic, and enjoy what is otherwise a tragic, but meaningful love story.

Carey Mulligan is great here, although, unfortunately, she’s the only one who’s really given anything to do or has a character who’s fully fleshed out. Carrying the movie (for at least the last two-thirds), she and director Mark Romanek give us some really nice, emotional moments, watching her as she sings along to the title song, hugging her pillow as if it were her would-be boyfriend, Tommy (Andrew Garfield), all the way up to her final monologue, exemplifying the themes of the futility of life and destiny that fill the movie. These are all wonderful, and the whole movie is incredibly shot with this sense of great nostalgia, but the whole thing is really thrown off by the previously mentioned plot inconsistencies and contrivances. I wish that there was more here to like, but, unfortunately, Never Let Me Go feels like it all happens far too fast, and doesn’t get to make the grand statements about love and life that it seems to strive for, making it simply average.

6 out of 10.

Call it some kind of sick, masochistic urge, or an inexplicable desire to see the once great M. Night Shyamalan finally prove audiences and critics wrong by finally making another good movie, but last Friday, I went to see Devil. As the first installment of “The Night Chronicles”, a new series of movies with stories from and produced by M. Night, Devil follows the simple premise that five people get stuck in an elevator, unaware that one of them is the devil. And, you know what? It’s pretty good, which, unfortunately for M. Night, probably doesn’t bode too well for his future as a writer or director.

The reason it’s taken so long for me to write this review is that I was waiting for Josh or Kyle to write theirs, as we all saw it together, and they seemed pretty excited to ruin the twist of the devil’s identity for anyone who stumbles onto our site. Although, as with any M. Night movie since The Sixth Sense, the main reason anyone is interested in this kind of movie is simply for the twist, there’s a lot going on here outside of the last five minutes. While the idea of a movie about five people stuck in an elevator seems like it could get old fast, clever camerawork, and having the action alternate from the elevator car to the building security team and police trying to figure out what’s going on in there keeps things exciting. Along with some cool twists and a very entertaining cast, there’s a lot to like about Devil, even though that little bit of M. Night still sneaks through every once in a while.

Although it’s not perfect for a few reasons, my one big problem with Devil is personified in the character of Ramirez, an ultra-religious security guard played by Jacob Vargas. Now, Vargas doesn’t really do anything wrong here, as he’s simply reading the lines he’s been given, but the lines he’s given nearly make Devil an unintentionally hilarious mess. Everything that’s wrong with the last four or five M. Night movies is exemplified in Ramirez, the character whose sole purpose is to deliver exposition that is both unnecessary and horribly unnatural. If someone asks a rhetorical questions, such as, “But why these five people?”, the audience knows that it’s because they are bad people. They don’t need Ramirez to chime in with some awful monologue about evil, the nature of humans, and stories his mom used to tell him, all interspersed with random praying and bible verses. This, alongside some gems of dialogue (“Suck my butt!”), make for some very funny, but very distracting moments, that leave the movie worse off for it.

However, after the horrendous Last Airbender, it seems near impossible that anything “from the mind of M. Night Shyamalan” could eclipse that movie in career-killing terribleness, and, thankfully, Devil doesn’t. It’s one of the few original horror movies I’ve seen in the last few years that’s actually delivered some good, tense moments, a few surprising deaths (that are bloodier than they have any right to be in a PG-13 movie), and a story worth sitting through. With this new experiment in packaging M. Night to the general movie-going public who have lost faith in him, “The Night Chronicles” just may prove to save his flailing career, as long as he continues to provide the ideas, and stay far, far away from any major creative decisions.

7 out of 10.

Release Date: 2010 (DVD)
Plot: An author returns to his hometown to deliver a commencement address to a class of graduating high school students, and in doing so has to deal with his feelings for an old flame, as well as the advances of a student who has the hots for him.

Review: This movie is probably the worst movie you will never see nor hear about.  I don’t like to bother with low-budget, straight to DVD movies but this one had a lot of promise: A plethora of great actors, the presage of a story about a middle-aged man, and a poster that looks like it was doodled on a piece of paper. Come on, a movie about a high school and the poster has little scribbles and drawings on it. It’s awesome and completely original.  How charming! In most cases, when a movie goes straight to DVD… it is an indication of a bad movie. The movies usually aren’t picked up by a studio for a reason. But with movies like Unthinkable proving that gems are sometimes overlooked, it’s only fair to give a straight to DVD release a chance.

Stay Cool follows 37 year old author Henry McCarthy as he heads back to his home town to give the commencement speech to the high school’s graduating class. Everything would be fine but, ruh-roh, he still has feelings for his high school crush.  Henry has a book called “How Lionel Got Me Laid” which is a novel chronicling his geeky high school career while talking about his enormous love for his high school crush. Now the plot of this movie is nothing to write home about. It is a very generic, middle-aged man returns to his home town, reunites with old buddies, runs in to people from high school, and tries to obtain the love that never was type of movie. My problem with the story is that it just isn’t interesting at all. The plot has been done many times before and was done again in this movie, only with very little diversity.

The movie is sporadically narrated by Henry with snippets from his book. Through this narration, we learn about the girl he was once in love with in his Chemistry class. This girl is Scarlet, played by Winona Ryder. The narration is fun and gives us a sense of what has been going through Henry’s mind for the past 20 years since graduating high school. What’s going through his mind is he just wishes the hot cheerleader noticed him. Since this movie plays out formulaically, it only makes sense for Henry to return to his home town and meet up with Scarlet who wishes she would have paid attention to the now “hot” nerd. There isn’t much to their relationship. And how could there be? They’re only together for a few days or so. Winona Ryder doesn’t strike me as the hot former cheerleader. She tries to play cute and charming but cute and charming just aren’t enough to keep us interested in her character. Cute isn’t a character Ms. Ryder should play. She attempts to repress her character but she ends up acting like this teenager in a high school play instead of a 37 year old woman. Henry and Scarlet have their rom-com moments in the movie, but the two as a couple just aren’t convincing at all. And it’s ironic because even though it’s trying to show that these two characters like each other, their relationship proves that the love just may not exist 20 years later.

Henry, played by the movie’s writer, Mark Polish (as well as being the twin brother of the director Michael Polish who goes by the pseudonym Ted Smith), returns to his high school and is greeted by his former principal, the great Chevy Chase. And what can one really say about a Chevy Chase performance? Chase is Chase. He’s arguably funny even when he’s not trying to be. It’s too bad for Chase that, despite his limited screen time, his character wasn’t written very well. He treats Henry like he’s a student. He even suspends him in the movie. Don’t get me wrong. It’s funny. Just out of place. This movie seemed to suffer with lots of things that are out of place. One of Henry’s best friends, Big Girl, is played by Sean Astin, who is supposed to be this over the top flamboyantly gay character complete with purple leopard print seat covers, flowing robes, and a Mini Cooper named Liza. I think it’s safe to say that Sean Astin is better at accidentally playing a gay character as Sam from Lord of the Rings than playing Big Girl in this movie. Watching him try to queen out is enough to make Adam Lambert cringe. He gets the point across as Henry’s outcast friend but it’s not as easy playing a screaming ‘mo as it may seem.

Another out of place character is Shasta O’Neil, played by Hilary Duff. Unless her character went completely over my head, Shasta is supposed to be the hot high school senior Henry couldn’t get with then, but can get with now. The problem is Shasta is supposed to be a love interest and is supposed to be Henry’s second chance at the hot popular senior, but that plot point isn’t conveyed very well. Shasta ends up being just some girl who has an interest in Henry. She gives him sideways glances when he sits in on the class, and she tries to make him her rebound when she breaks up with her boyfriend. What makes her unnecessary is that Henry shows no interest at all in her. He ends up escorting her to the senior prom (weird, I know) but he seems to only do it to amuse her and to give him something to do. Whenever she came on screen I found myself rolling my eyes. She brings nothing to the story and she doesn’t really advance Henry’s character along since Henry has zero interest in her.

As generic as the story is, it’s just not put together very well. This movie seems to want to be so many things. If this were a romantic-comedy, a drama-dy about being middle-aged and still in love with your high school crush, or just a flat out comedy, then it may have scored better. But, unfortunately, it’s all of those things and it’s a bit of overkill. It just all feels very disjointed.

Henry isn’t a very likable character. I think this is mostly due to Mark Polish’s acting. Some people are meant to write, some people are meant to act. But some aren’t meant to do both in the same movie. We’re meant to connect with Henry. How many of us have had that crush in high school that we knew was completely unobtainable? But how many of us are still brooding over said crush 20 years later? Maybe it’s because I’m but a young naïve twenty-something or maybe it’s because I was created without an emotional microchip, but even in my twenties I know hanging onto a high school crush for 20 years merits a few hours in therapy. From what I gather, Henry comes off as the creepy nerdy kid who sat in the back of the classroom and spent the entire time staring at his crush and writing her name with his last name over and over. There is just nothing that makes me want to have the least bit of sympathy for him. He’s boring, annoying, and doesn’t have an interesting personality.

Not all the characters are bad though. Josh Holloway plays Wino Henry’s weird, tattoo artist (and I’m assuming pot head based on the movie poster) best friend who provides a great deal of laughs. Frances Conroy’s character is supposed to be there to kick Henry in the butt but she seems underused. We’re supposed to hate her coming down so hard on Henry but then suddenly smile when she helps him at the VERY last minute. She’s another underdeveloped character but her acting is flawless as usual. Michael Gross (you know that guy from those movies) and Dee Wallace are hilarious as Henry’s parents despite being a bit cheesy at times. Oh and Jon Cryer is there too but whatever.

When it comes to low budget indie movies, it’s always best to give some wiggle room with production. But, one part of production that couldn’t be ignored was the editing. Like many other aspects of this movie, the editing was weird and out of place. There were lots of unnecessary quick cuts and transitions that were just awkward and too quick. Much of the editing made the movie feel too rushed. But a redeeming quality for production is the way the movie is shot. There are lots of rich colors that translate very well onto the screen. Whether this was on purpose or not is questionable at this point, but it’s still a redeeming quality. The composition is great in many parts of the movie. This movie is what happens if one were to give college film students a decent budget to make a movie. Just like the straight to DVD movie Operation Endgame, this movie has a decent cast but a horrible script.

3 out of 10

And the title Stay Cool is just a bad title for a movie despite its usage in the movie!