Catching up with Netflix...

Three films this week as we get back to basics and stop talking about San Diego TV news...at least for a little while.

Jumper is one of those films I THOUGHT would be right up my alley. Unfortunately, my alley is clean and orderly with neatly stacked trash cans (arranged by height), hosed down regularly, and has likable, nice garbagemen and homeless people (I prefer to think of them as "characters") populating it. Jumper's alley is a mess. And it's a mess that could have been substantially avoided from the very beginning with attention better paid to one basic movie-making concept: casting.

I'm sure there's a decent role waiting out there somewhere for Hayden Christensen, but I have yet to see him in it. He's one-third the problem with this muddled, borderline sci-fi-themed thriller which has an interesting premise--mutants with teleporting abilities and the cult that hunts them down--pissed away. The other two-thirds? The vacuous valley girl, Rachel Bilson, as the love interest, and absolutely pedestrian direction by Doug Liman.

The latter is the real problem for me--Bilson is a lost cause, and I'm perplexed as to why anyone casts her in anything-- but Liman has directed three films that I love: Swingers, The Bourne Identity, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The last two are action thrillers, so you'd think he'd be perfect to do one tinged in science fiction, but this movie is just so bad it's not worth watching. Oh wait, there's one thing worth noting: Sam Jackson wearing a piece of white shag carpet glued to his head. That, my friends, is something to see.

Definitely, Maybe is an effective little rom-com from those lovable Brits who brought us Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, About A Boy, Love Actually, and those Bridget Jones movies with Texas princess Renee Zellweger packing on a few pounds and adding a cute little accent. In this one, they've replaced Hugh Grant with Ryan Reynolds (good move) and London with New York City (the only other city in the world that could compete). It's the tale of Reynolds telling his daughter, Maya (Abigail Breslin), the story of how he met her mother, who he's just divorced. He turns it into a love story/mystery, disguising the names of the women he's loved, so the kid--addled and shell-shocked from her first sex-ed lesson in school--has to figure it out. And so do we.

That's part of the charm of the flick, which is much more "rom" than "com." The three possible candidate for Mrs. Will Hayes (Reynolds) are his college sweetheart, "Emily" (Elizabeth Banks), the quirky copy girl he meets while working on the Bill Clinton campaign in 1992, April (Isla Fisher), and the smart, sophisticated writer he meets in NYC, Summer (Rachel Weisz)--who may or may not have had a hot, college-era tryst with Emily (a scene they unfortunately forgot to film). The other part of the charm is the three actresses playing the women, a trio of the most fetching and engaging actresses in the film biz today. And I say that realizing that at least two of them--Banks and Fisher--are "guy things." Maybe Weisz is, too.

The real stars, though, are Reynolds and Breslin. I'm convinced Reynolds would have chemistry with a flagpole playing alongside him and while I'm sure Breslin has gotten used to a show-biz life, she's still refreshingly non-actory on screen, unlike other little girls who grew up on celluloid. (She may be young enough to be growing up on digital, for all I know. Go figure.) One of the cute things about the film--and it's VERY cute, almost too cute at times for its own good--is that we--or at least I--didn't figure out who the mom was. I thought I did. I was wrong. Let's see how you do.

Finally, there's the gem in this trio of weekend viewing, the one film I didn't expect to like oh, so much. In Bruges is absolutely wonderful: profane, violent, wicked, charming, and--dare we say it--almost "fairy-tale like."

It's the story of two British hitmen, Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson) who botch the killing of a priest in England and are sent off by their boss, Harry Waters (Ralph Fiennes), to Bruges, in Belgium, to lay low. That's all I'll tell you about the plot, because I don't want to give too much of it away.

I was prepared not to like it for one reason: Colin Farrell. Like Ms. Bilson mentioned above, his appeal is utterly lost on me. He's likable enough in this, but I'm not converted. I'm still not a fan. I am, however, a fan of the writer/director Martin McDonagh, who crafted this smart, funny, um...let's see, I mentioned violent, right, but violent really needs to be repeated, I think...at times lovely little picture postcard from Belgium. (I'm also a big fan of Clemence Posey as the fetching Chloe, who along with Gleeson and Fiennes makes this film seem like a little side project they shot in between Harry Potter appearances). If you pay any attention to my ramblings here, this is the movie you need to rent. Trust me on this. If you can stand the blood and shooting, that is. Did I mention it's violent?

Comments

[Guil V.]

In Bruges is totally cool film. I'm not much of a fan of Colin Farrell, but this movie is a riot. If you can handle the blood and violence, this movie rocks.

Listen to the dialogue it's hilarious.
Yea a bit dark, but the lines and violence made it hilarious. For a short budget flick, this was a masterpiece. A def. must see!

[Angela]

I've been meaning to rent Definitely, Maybe. But I'm curious as to why Banks/Fisher are "guy things"... I rather like both of them. They did, after all, appear in two of my favorite romantic comedies: "The 40 Year Old Virgin" and "Wedding Crashers", respectively.