August in December

Funny People
Starring Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, Eric Bana, Jonah Hill, and Jason Schwartzman

It's funny, it's sad, and it has excellent performances by Sandler, Rogen, and Mann, but this Apatow dramedy is just like every other Apatow film - too freaking long!

Grade: B


(500) Days of Summer
Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel

Some indie films feel indie, probably because they're more indie than others, but I don't really know. "(500) Days of Sumemr" creates a world where the audience knows the ending, knows the heartbreak's looming in the future, and still we hope for the lead man. It's an indie that can stand on its own feet and feel like a high-class film. The point of view is perfect, allowing us not to see the enitre picture at once, and the ending is hilariously perfect. Also, I knew he was going to start a song-and-dance routine!

Grade: A-


District 9
Starring Sharlto Copley

The thing about most sci-fi-alien-attacks-earth movies is that most of them never let you care. "District 9", on the other hand, presents us with a likeable, unknown actor named Sharlto Copley as the shit-on protagonist who undergoes changes that defy the usual character transformations (talking psychological/emotional here), and break into mutating characters physically without losing the character drama that is "District 9".

Grade: B+



Inglorious Basterds
Starring Brad Pitt, Melanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Eli Roth, and Diane Kruger

Tarantino at his best! When screenwriting books and blogs and guidelines tell you NOT to keep your characters in the same scene for too long, they should have a meeting with Quentin. It felt like a play but a kick-some-Nazi-ass one. The screenplay created a sense of entertainment, of old-fashioned Hollywood, like something in between "Casablanca" and "Taxi Driver". "Inglorious Basterds" glues you to your seat, makes you sweat, nervous, and jealous that Pitt and his Nazi-killing thugs are having so much fun. Watch out Oscar, here comes Christoph Waltz - the best villain since Anton Chigurh.

Grade: A

Yes Man

Yes Man
Starring Jim Carrey, Zooey Deschanel, Bradley Cooper, Rhys Darby & Molly Sims

Thank Paris that "Yes Man" - the 2008 find-what's-really-important-in-life-via-some-abnormal-way comedy - steered away from the magic-laced plot of "Click" or even "Liar Liar". Jim Carrey's character, Carl Allen, chose to say "Yes" to everything, contradictory to what the trailers lead you to believe.

However, the plot still worked like the previously mentioned examples. It's not logical or realistic for a grown man, who seems reasonably intelligent, to agree with everything in order to unclog his life. Sure, it worked with learning Korean or learning how to fly an airplane, but when the quirky Allison (Zooey Deschanel) and Carl are running from a security guard, Carl is not empowered by agreeance; there is no spell cast on him.

Thus, the entire plot does not work. Pity. They only reason, "Yes Man" does not receive a "F" is because I laughed. Yes, yes, yes, yes... I laughed a few times. Ugh. Shoot me.

Grade: D+