Review: Pitch Perfect

There are so many reasons to hate Pitch Perfect, and yet it's impossibly tough to do so. It's a movie that you'll laugh at as much with, then store in the back of your mind until you meet someone else who's seen it. You'll start talking about how awful it is, then start trying to top each other by talking about the parts that were the most awful.

Then, after you've spent half an hour of your life talking and laughing about a movie you were sure you didn't like, it will occur to you that you actually hate-liked it to the point that you wouldn't mind seeing it again.

Pitch Perfect is one of those movies in which a mismatched performance group gets together, overcomes infighting and strives to win the championship of whatever while at the same time uniting the lead characters in everlasting love. The hook here is that the groups are preciously choreographed a capella song-and-dance groups like what you'd see on Glee or The Sing Off.

You come for the electric song and dance numbers and feel free to take a bathroom break, snack bar run or nap when the drama starts getting all dramatic. Characters may have problems to solve, but you may as well block out what they're saying and imagine the dialogue actually goes:

"Oh no! We're not singing and that means we're really boring again!"

"Quick, let's start singing and dancing again!"

"But we're stuck in a dull story scene!"

"OK, let's just shout at each other until it's time to sing and dance again!"

For all its awfulness, there are aspects of Pitch Perfect that are undeniably good. For one, Rebel Wilson, who plays the group's answer to Honey Boo Boo, an overly self-assured plus-size bundle of joy who calls herself Fat Amy. A dynamic performer cast from the mold of Melissa McCarthy, Wilson is so exuberantly funny that if she met female comedian-bashing Adam Carolla, he would undoubtedly declare her to be a man - his highest compliment.

Also winning is Anna Kendrick, who does her eternally annoyed eye-rolling thing as Beca, a college freshman who is coerced by her dad into joining the Bellas, the all-female a capella squad, and chief rival to - not the Edwards, but the Treblemakers.

Beca's rival is Queen bee Aubrey (Anna Camp) bosses around her fellow Bellas, including sidekick Chloe (Brittany Snow) and has the adorably irritating tendency to tack on the prefix "aca" to the beginning of things the way Smurfs do the word "smurf." Aubrey forbids hook-aca-ups with the hated Treblemakers, so Beca's budding romance with Jesse (Skyler Astin) is un-aca-ceptable.

Forget about the plot, though. The filmmakers sure do. There's little rhyme or reason for anything that happens. Things are so free and loose that eventually you stop questioning why the contest announcing team of John Michael Higgins and Elizabeth Banks are following around the Bellas just about wherever they go, deriding them for spending too much time on their Ace of Base routine.

There are just enough wacky jokes to keep things fun and lively. A shy girl making snow angels in a pool of vomit, women referring to their lady parts by male names and Fat Amy mistaking burrito residue on her outfit as evidence that she's been victimized by a drive-by shooter are some highlights. Not to mention aca-puns. Aca-puns galore!

Those are the things that stick with you when you're mulling over your inability to hate a movie that's just too easy to love.

Starring Anna Kendrick, Brittany Snow and Rebel Wilson. Written by Kay Cannon, adapted from Mickey Rapkin's book. Directed by Jason Moore. Rated PG-13. 112 minutes.

My novel, Stormin' Mormon, is available as a Kindle book for $1.

Review: Looper

Movie studios play this little game where they try to pretend the source of movie piracy is people recording preview screenings on their cell phones. They post security guards at the door to make sure people don't bring their phones inside, then those guards stand in the aisles during the show, scanning the crowd for non-existent offenders.

Looper is so good that the security guards were absolutely useless. Instead of watching the crowd, they were staring at the screen the whole time. I wouldn't have noticed, except for the fact that it occurred to me every 10 minutes or so how amazing this movie was, and how impossible it was to watch the crowd instead of the screen. Just to prove myself right, I darted my eyes over to the security guards to make sure they were watching the movie just like I had been.

And then, in that tenth of a second in which my eyes were on the guards instead of the screen, I got insanely jealous of them for watching such a great movie when I wasn't, so I immediately went back to watching. At least until I needed to verify that they were watching the movie just like I should have been.

So oblivious were the guards to what was going on, I could have propped my phone on top of one guy and adjusted the picture by shining a light off the other one's forehead while doing a celebratory tap dance with a peg leg, while wearing a parrot on my shoulder and an eye patch.

I couldn't blame them. Looper takes parts from Terminator, Blade Runner, Inception, Back to the Future, Wanted and the three and a half good Die Hard movies, creating a super movie that shoots rainbow pixie dust out from the screen and makes viewers into better people.

Writer/director Rian Johnson, who wowed everyone with the fast-talking high school film noir Brick in 2005,  but hadn't done much since, lives up to his potential with a time travel movie that makes you wish you could go back to 2005 to show everyone who watched the awful time travel movie A Sound of Thunder to deliver the message "It gets better."

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who is contractually obligated to star exclusively in mind-bending sci-fi thriller and seminal Zooey Deschanel anti-romances, plays a Looper, which is future-talk for Guy Who Shotgun Blasts Dudes The Mafia Sends Back In Time To Get Whacked.

The work is steady and pays well, but there are drawbacks. Like, say, when future you is Bruce Willis, sent back in time to be murdered by you, who then roundhouse kicks you instead, then totes you around trying to convince you to murder 5-year-olds who may grow up to be Looper eradicators.  

Yeah, Loopers really need to unionize.

Then again, the downside of the job is canceled out by perks, such as the occasional moments when you're stranded on a farm run by a character named Hottest Single Mom Farmer Evaaaa! (Emily Blunt), who is not opposed to sexing up Loopers when she's absolutely certain her child, Five Year Old Whom Bruce Willis Wants To Shoot Like The Dog In Duck Hunt, is fast asleep.

The plot, though awesome, doesn't quite encompass what's great about Looper. What does encompass what's great about Looper is all the ramifications of hanging out with your future self. For instance, if you want to send him a message, you can text him. But if one of you doesn't have a phone, you can carve a message into your skin and it will show up on his arm in the form of a scar. Just wait until AT&T figures out a way to charge you for that.

The movie is set in 2044, a future of hover motorcycles -- Meaning season 37 of Sons of Anarchy must totally rock -- boomerang-shaped phones and tiny frog toys that Emily Blunt uses to make booty calls to Loopers.

Although the future is amazing, the people of the era will no doubt be nostalgic for 2012, back when that amazing time travel movie came out, and security guards were powerless to stop people from pirating it.

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt and Bruce Willis. Written and directed by Rian Johnson. 118 minutes. Rated R.

My novel, Stormin' Mormon, is available as a Kindle book for $1.

Review: Hotel Transylvania

The whole time Hotel Transylvania played I sat frozen in terror. Judging by the general lack of creativity on display, I was absolutely sure the cast of gangly animated monsters would break out into a rendition of Monster Mash. If they couldn't work it in to the regular running time, they sure wouldn't miss the opportunity to shoehorn it into the credits.

I wasn't going to be able to handle the Monster Mash performance when it came. I knew it was destined to force me to hate a movie that I sort of liked, and I loathed that prospect. Luckily the catastrophe never came, and all my suspense was for naught.

That's just the way the movie goes, doing little to dazzle you but less to offend. Given half a chance, the kid-friendly monster romance will sink its fangs into you and convert you into its ranks of the gleeful undead. Like a giddy grandma on Halloween, it dispenses candy giddily, at least for your eyes and ears. The Count Chocula/Boo Berry-like animated style, along with the impossibly star-studded voice cast, jolts electric shocks into the dead, patched-together screenplay to pump what passes for life into the stumbling, Karlovian monstrosity, which you can only gawk at as it innocently stumbles about.

Adam Sandler voices none other than Dracula, who has created a sanctuary from monsterkind by building a mansion boardinghouse sequestered beyond a haunted forest. Mummies, hags, trolls, werewolves and the like scurry for protection from humans, which they imagine to be terrifying hunters of their kind. They all adore Drac's shelter, except for Mavis (Selenea Gomez), Drac's daughter, who longs to escape and check out the world of man for herself. Looking to protect his fresh-faced 118-year-old girl, Dracula conspires to trick Mavis into wanting to stay.

There's a lot of Monsters Inc., Little Mermaid and even a little Finding Nemo going on here. Drawing from classics, however, does not necessarily a great film make. The slapstick tries too hard, the verbal exchanges are as limp and tattered as the mummy's bandages, and the love story, pairing Mavis with extreme-dude Jonathan (Andy Samberg) is about as appetizing as Drac finds garlic.

But at least there is no Master Mash, which counts for something. Plus, the movie openly mocks Twilight, which scores it enough points to get me to drop my torch and pitchfork.

Starring the voices of Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, Fran Drescher, David Spade, Jon Lovitz, Molly Shannon, Kevin James, Steve Buscemi and CeeLo Green. Written by Peter Baynham and Robert Smigel, based on a story by Todd Durham, Dan Hageman and Kevin Hageman. Directed by Genndy Tartakovsky. 91 minutes. Rated PG.

My novel, Stormin' Mormon, is available as a Kindle book for $1.

I work for Consumerist again*

*I don't work for Consumerist.

But I do according to Real Simple, which ignored me saying that I have not worked there since April during a 'fact check.'

Real Simple October 2012 - Virtual Currency

At least it was cool to be interviewed by such a huge magazine, and especially to get the title of my book mentioned.

Review: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The problem with life is that it disobeys the rules of a coming-of-age movie. Whenever you address your problems head-on, start to discover yourself, only to sink into doubt during a crisis of confidence only to overcome that doubt and emerge changed and better, the credits don't roll, leaving you happy ever after.

Instead, something awful happens that makes you realize you really haven't learned anything. You're no better off than you were before, and the only thing that came of your coming of age is more age.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is determined to be more like life than a coming-of-age movie, and it's worse off for it. It lures you into the corner of Charlie (Logan Lerman), a tortured, friendless freshman, then lets a few good things happen for him, only to torpedo everything and have him sink to lower depths than before, with tougher problems and less hope.

Credit director Stephen Chbosky for nailing the rhythms and hells of adolescent life. His movie is based on his screenplay, which is based on his book, which is probably based on his memories, which is definitely based on a mess of insecurities and dread. The movie amounts to a brain dump about how hard it is to make friends, keep them, find romance and not screw it up, all while hanging on to your fleeting sanity.

Wallflower would be even more of a downer if not for the presence of Ezra Miller, who was Kevin in We Need to Talk About Kevin. As a flamboyant social outcast named Patrick, he takes the movie by force as the ringleader of a group informally called the Wallflowers, which is high school's version of the Island of Lost Toys. Chbosky seems more interested in coloring Patrick's character than the one that's probably based on himself, so he gives him all the best lines, most entertaining things to do and most absorbing conflicts.

Patrick may be the king Wallflower, but he's more like the giant man-eating piranha plant in the center of the room. Charlie, on the other hand, is so effective at living up to the Wallflower title that it's tough to see what Sam (Emma Watson), Patrick's stepsister and equally interesting wild child, would ever see in him.

Watson's got more talent than her Harry Potter classmates -- she was Hermione, in case you only ever knew her as That Girl Who Played Hermione Eight Times -- and it's exciting to see her trash her prim typecast to play the sort of girl moms warn their sons about. Patrick and Sam are too interesting to be relegated to sidebars in Charlie's long, dull descent into doom, and deserve their own movie so much that you start to coordinate your bathroom breaks and cell phone time checks to when they're off the screen.

The movie's other stars also have far too little to do. Paul Rudd plays Charlie's awesome English teacher, who cultivates the talent he sees in the kid. You hope he's got a plot twist or extra dimension somewhere up his tweed sleeves, but there's nothing. Kate Walsh and Dylan McDermott are Charlie's clueless parents, but you'll have to check IMDB to verify that they were even in the movie.

No such check is necessary to make sure Lernman plays sad, aloof and bored Charlie, who proves the greatest perk of being a real Wallflower is that at least you don't get stuck watching a movie about one.

Starring Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, Ezra Miller, Kate Walsh, Dylan McDermott and Paul Rudd. Written and directed by Stephen Chbosky, based on his novel. 102 minutes. Rated PG-13.

My novel, Stormin' Mormon, is available as a Kindle book for $1.

Review: Lawless

The square-dancing whiskey runners in the Prohibition-era Virginia-set movie Lawless may not think much of regulations from smarmy, moonshine-hating Yankees, but they sure do abide by melodramatic cliches.

If you're a timid would-be gangster who looks up to your invincible, cold-blooded criminal mastermind brother, you're sure to step in when your bro goes down to overcome your hang-ups and become a marauding booze baron.

If you're a pent-up preacher's daughter, you're sure to fall for the timid would-be gangster, gritting your teeth as he sinks deeper into a self-destructive web.

If you're a smarmy Yankee federal agent sent to Virginia to clean up the corrupt, booze-swilling backwoods, you'll hurl gratuitous insults at all comers until you're smacked with a climactic comeuppance.

If you're an innocent sidekick hobbled by a childhood case of rickets, your life is as fragile as a glass bottle in a bar fight. 

There's nothing in the movie that takes you by surprise, but it's still as much Southern-fried fun to watch as a Dukes of Hazzard marathon. There's something inherently awesome about watching a moonshine-hauling jalopy skid down a winding dirt road, just out of target range of Johnny Law. 

The dim-yet-fun thriller casts Shia LaBeouf in the lead role -- the timid would-be gangster, if you're keeping track. His performance is memorable because he's finally managed to find a script that doesn't order him to talk to himself throughout, as he did in all the awful Transformer movies, Disturbia, Eagle Eye and that Indiana Jones movie Harrison Ford likes to pretend he never made.

It's a welcome change of pace to see LaBeouf play a likable bad guy in front of a movie camera, rather than a Walgreens security cam. He sheds his peach-fuzzy innocence to slip on a grimy pair of boots, no doubt lined with lead to slam on the gas when it's time to make a getaway.

Tom Hardy, free of the ridiculous Bane mask from The Dark Knight Rises, is LaBeouf's grisly older brother who e v e r  s o  s l o o o o w l y comes a'courtin' to an exiled Chicago dancer (Jessica Chastain). Taffy-pull-speed flirtation must run in the family, because LaBeouf also takes his time romancing the preacher's daughter (Mia Wasikowska), who somewhere under several layers of petticoats and underwear is a naughty girl yearning to hide out in tent distilleries.

Guy Pearce has some fun with the thankless villain role, a Chicago agent determined to shake down the boozehounds, attacking not only with tommy gun fire and rude kicks in noses, but words. He says the word "hick" as often, and with the same tone, that GOP convention speakers utter "liberal." The ungentle gentleman has end boss battle written all over his Pomade-slicked head.

Watching the movie unfold is a lot like witnessing a heated game of checkers go down. Only with booze, blood and bullets. Which makes the movie pretty much a win, especially for LaBeouf, since there are no CGI sentient robots swiping all the best lines and no sacred franchises or Walgreens destroyed.

Starring Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Guy Pearce, Jessica Chastain and Mia Wasikowska. Written by Nick Cave, based on the Matt Bondurant book. Directed by John Hillcoat. 115 minutes. Rated R.

My novel, Stormin' Mormon, is available as a Kindle book for $1.

Review: Social Media is Bullshit

Due out Sept. 4, B.J. Mendelson's Social Media is Bullshit aims to tear down the curtain propped up by so-called social media gurus who peddle their consultant services to clueless companies looking to stay competitive in the changing media landscape.

Using wit, humor and formidable on-the-job experience, Mendelson demystifies the powers of Facebook, Twitter and the blog world to spread influence and maintain popularity. The book should be must-reading for any organization that hires a 20-something hotshot and hands over free reign over its internet branding, expecting magical results.

Far from the teeth-gnasihing teardown implied by the title, the book includes some solid advice about how to build a strong social media profile as a business or individual. He doesn't have any stunning revelations -- his point seems to be that genuine influence spawns from organic mastery of content rather than SEO-style tricks -- but that dovetails with his overarching point. Online, just as offline, there are no shortcuts to success.

Review: Cosmopolis

I try hard to convince myself that movies are fictional stories played out by actors pretending to be different people than they are, but can't convince myself that Cosmopolis is anything other than unscripted documentary about the life of Robert Pattinson, shot by security cameras. Especially now that his possibly PR-concocted relationship with KStew is on the rocks.

When I imagine Pattinson's daily life, I picture him being driven around in a gadgeted-up stretch limo, being all rich, pompous and entitled, screwing everything that moves either inside the limo or out — whichever he prefers at the time. I also picture him waking up in a coffin, because the dude needs no makeup whatsoever to look exactly like a vampire, but they must have cut that part out of the movie to avoid confusion with the Twilight movies. Which I also picture as an accurate depiction of Pattinson's life.

That said, I'll play along and assume director David Cronenberg is on the level and that he actually directed this thing, and got the story from some book. If that's indeed the case, I have to credit Cronenberg for economically telling a riveting, passionate and unpredictable story mostly through the spoken word. Eighty or 90 percent of the movie takes place inside the limo, but the cramped world never seems constricting — much like Phone Booth (2002) or Tape (2001).

Pattinson gets dinged for his soulless, dead-eyed performances, but I don't hold them against him. Not only because he's a vampire but because according to the movie, he has sex so often that he's probably exhausted but there's never any time for a nap. His flat, clinical performance in Cosmpolis is perfect for the character, who has piled up his billions by looking at the world as a matrix logic puzzle, exploiting his angles to obliterate his competition and suck funds out of investment sectors, consequences by damned. To him, life and love are little more than games that he's long since mastered and gotten bored with. Even as the fluctuation of the Chinese currency plunders his fortune, or rumors of deadly activities outside the car threaten the well-being of himself and others, he stays plugged in and absent — a passenger rather than a driver of the charade that passes for his existence.

Pattinson's blank performance is a magnifying glass that amplifies the work of the supporting actors. Samantha Morton, Sarah Gadon, Juliette Binoche and Jay Baruchel color Pattinson's character with various levels of introspection, fear a loathing for their master/lover/secret or not-so-secret enemy. No actor's flame flickers brighter, though, than Paul Giamatti, whose unhinged ferocity ricochets harder off of Pattinson's ice.

As fine as the performances are, Cronenberg's machine gun dialogue is the main attraction. The film bulges with verbose, highbrow debates and vicious monologues smacked back and forth like tennis balls. The sheer amount of words spoken in the movie is staggering. Its script could probably crush someone's foot if dropped.

Cosmopolis is a heavy movie indeed, and one that demands multiple viewings. But surely no viewing would slap you so hard in the face and make you like it as much as the first one would.

Starring Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, Sarah Gadon, Jay Baruchel and Paul Giamatti. Written and directed by David Cronenberg, based on DonDeLillo's novel. 108 minutes. Rated R.

Review: My Sucky Teen Romance

The product of teen horror filmmaker prodigy Emily Hagins, the high school vampire romance mocks the bloodsucker-obsessed pop culture world while simultaneously sucking the lifeblood from its veins. Rounding up a gang of raw, fresh-faced actors, Hagins tells the story of a group of friends at a sci-fi convention who encounter real-life vampires and try to use knowledge gleaned from movies, comic books and panel discussions to stay alive.

Elaine Hurt plays Kate, the proudly geeky protagonist who wants more than anything to become Bella to the Edward of Paul (Patrick Delgado), who proves to be not just a brooding vampire wannabe, but the genuine article. When an unlucky break finds Kate and her pals battling to save her soul, she struggles to reconcile her feelings for Paul with the movie tropes ingrained in her mind, as well as the need to protect her friends.

The dialogue and story twists are entertaining — for once, here are people who look and talk like actual teenagers, rather than 30-year-olds pretending to be younger — but the amateurish acting drags the production down to student film levels. The movie didn't quite do it for me, but I'd like to see what Hagins could do with a better cast and budget.

Review: Sparkle

There may or may not be an actual movie hidden among all the showstopping musical numbers in Sparkle. Not that there needs to be.

Sparkle is all about the music, and seems to have been created for Jordin Sparks, who so thoroughly owns the affair that you'd swear it was named after her. It's cosmically appropriate that Whitney Houston looms in the background as Sparks's mom, and it seems as though there's a passing of the torch from one generation's crossover star to the next.

A slimmed-down Sparks seizes the spotlight with the ferocity that fellow American Idol alum Jennifer Hudson did in Dreamgirls. There's no Hudson-like Oscar in store for Sparks this time out, but she finds something at least as valuable -- a new dimension to her growing superstardom. There's enough meat in Sparks' role for her to show she's a skilled actress who will show up in future movies because she belongs rather than a Katy Perry-style gimmick.

Sparkle, a 1960s Motown-set historical fiction-style retelling of The Supremes' rise to fame, is a remake of a long-forgotten 1976 movie that starred Irene Cara and Mary Alice. Sparks plays the title character, an unconfident dreamer who writes songs for her more confident sisters, the aspiring med student Dolores (Tika Sumpter) and the appropriately named diva Sister (Carmen Ejogo).

Stix (Derek Luke), a not-quite-trustworthy manager, romances Sparkle and convinces her to round up her sisters into a girl group. The girls shimmy, dance and croon their way up the ladder to fame, dodging slimy record label execs and cokehead comedian boyfriends along the way. And they do it under the nose of Houston's character, their disapproving, Bible-bopping mom.

Houston, a gifted actress who rarely got much of a chance to show what she could do, turns in some of her finest work in this movie. Many of her lines are haunting and almost transcendent with unintended double meanings, such as when she scolds her daughters for not learning from her mistakes.

Describing any more of the movie's plot would be like breaking down the narrative intent of Carly Rae Jepsen's Call Me Maybe video. The movie is mostly an excuse for slick choreography, heart-melting soul grooves and stage-owning razzle-dazzle.

Ejogo shows sexy flash as the group's troubled lead singer, and Sumpter's sassiness fills out the trio nicely. But wouldn't you know it, Houston effortlessly draws all attention to her when given her one chance to perform, belting out a heartbreaking number at the climax that all but ensures everyone in the theater will be wiping their eyes.

Sparkle may be the name of the movie, but in moments such as these, the movie truly shines.

Starring Jordin Sparks, Whitney Houston, Derek Luke, Cee-Lo and Mike Epps. Written by Mara Brock Akil, based on a story by Howard Rosenman, Directed by Salim Akil. 116 minutes. Rated PG-13.

My novel, Stormin' Mormon, is available as a Kindle book for $1.

Review: Goats

No matter how intelligent or well-heeled a kid is coming up, he's just as likely to squander and be crushed by his potential as he is to make some use of it. Ellis (Graham Phillips), a silver spoon-fed high school student who breezes through his studies and is too smart and evolved to take any advice from grown-ups seriously, seems certain to head down a troubled path.

The protagonist of Goats, Ellis drifts through life finding little that engages him. He reacts to his oppressions and influences instead of seeking out his own interests and goals. His role models range from a brain-fried, sexaholic hippie (David Duchovny), a vacant, self-discovery-obsessed mom (Vera Farmiga) and an absentee, success-driven dad (Ty Burrell), whose idea of success is to sacrifice matters of the heart for prestige. Shoved off from his eccentric desert home to a prestigious New England prep school, Ellis is left alone in the rye with nary a catcher in sight.

The antidote to the typical coming-of-age movie, Goats shuffles into the muck of adolescent angst, aware that there are no easy solutions for finding a sense of self, letting go of lifelong resentments or establishing and sticking to a moral code. Mark Jude Poirier did an admirable job of adapting his novel to screen, although camerawork — no matter how well-designed, can't replace the author's uncanny ability to paint scenes or translate his sly, descriptive observations. With the film, Poirier is forced to boil his novel down to dialogue and plot points, and much is lost in the distillation.

Duchovny is maybe too good for this movie, commanding his scenes as a poolboy/drifter/rancher/drug trafficker with effortless glee. His stuff saves the movie while sort of ruining it, detracting from Ellis's journey. Duchovny's out-there antics serve as welcome comic relief apart from Ellis's oft-overserious drama — he tangles with a headstrong, clingy roomie, falls for a possible call girl and wrestles with his grudging admiration and disgust of his dad — that you miss Duchovny's Goat Man when he goes away, and wonder what he's up to. But like Gandalf in Lord of the Rings and Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia, his actual antics are probably best left to the imagination. As a stark opposite to Duchovny, Phillips lacks a compelling command of what Ellis could have been. He's got the blank slate part right, but his character would have been more lovable if he were more precocious.

Keri Russell does well in the thankless role of Ellis's trophy mother-in-law, and Farmiga is a tasty flavor of nutso as his mom. Credit director Christopher Neil and his filmmaking team for wrapping a disjointed package in gorgeous trappings. Pretty, confused and thrilling to analyze and revisit, Goats is just like adolescence.

Starring Graham Phillips, David Duchovny, Keri Russell, Justin Kirk and Vera Farmiga. Written by Mark Jude Poirier, based on his novel. Directed by Christopher Neil. 94 minutes. Rated R.

Because I Told You So: Review: Hope Springs

Because I Told You So: Review: Hope Springs: I'm pretty sure Tommy Lee Jones was born crotchety and bitter. He must have emerged from the womb with a snide remark about the lighting and...

Review: Hope Springs

I'm pretty sure Tommy Lee Jones was born crotchety and bitter. He must have emerged from the womb with a snide remark about the lighting and a dry, sarcastic comeback after the doctor announced "It's a boy!"

Sixty-five years later, Jones is so crusty that ham sandwiches ask that his crust be cut off rather than the other way around. That's why he's an excellent fit for Arnold, the distant, emotionless robo-husband bound by contract to Kay (Meryl Streep), a little old lady who still has enough spunk in her to make the unpeeling of a banana look naughty.

Unhappy with their stale, withered marriage -- they sleep in separate rooms and keep their own bank accounts, which they use to buy each other anniversary gifts such as refrigerators and hot water heaters -- she cashes out a CD and kidnaps, uh, old-man-naps him away to a costly "intensive" couples therapy session in Maine. Things have gotten so dull for Arnold and Kay that when they're filling out applications that ask them to fill out a space under "sex," they write "Not since the Bush administration," unsure which exact Bush administration it was when they last got it on.

Tasked with leading the archaeological excavation designed to discover some trace of what the couple once found attractive in one another is Dr. Feld (Steve Carell), whose clinical approach to matters of the heart would be creepy if he didn't seem to get a little sad at the responses his clients give him.

Carell tones down his silliness to trace levels, allowing the master actors to take control, battering each other with barbs both verbal and unspoken. There are layers to both characters that both Jones and Streep take pleasure in peeling back. Streep is at once a sullen, downtrodden gramma and a pot of simmering rage and resentment. Jones, who spits out raspy, condescending one-liners like sunflower seeds, guards a well of regret, timidity and indecision beneath his hermit crab-like shell.

Director David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada) tells his story with patience and a steady hand, unafraid to let his characters mope in silence for uncomfortably long periods or to keep the camera focused regretfully on seats abandoned in hissy fits. You kinda know, or at least hope, the couple will work out their problems and rekindle their spark, but until it happens you just feel sad. Especially when the lovers-turned-frenemies find flickers of their long lost affection before letting them slip away in the dark once again.

It's frighteningly easy to look at the characters and see your grandparents. Or your parents. Or yourself. After all, no one sets out to become the old, bickering married couple. Only the lucky ones make it that far.

Starring Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, Steve Carell and Jean Smart. Written by Vanessa Taylor. Directed by David Frankel. 100 minutes. Rated PG-13.

My novel, Stormin' Mormon, is available as a Kindle book for $1.

Chick-fil-A Bully Apologizes

Adam Smith, who became infamous and lost his day job an a University of Arizona teaching gig for bullying a Chick-fil-A employee, has posted an apology. Here it is:

Review: Total Recall

It's not uncommon to have hot, sweaty dreams involving Jessica Biel, but the problem with Colin Farrell's Biel dreams is that they only involve him and her shooting bad guys together. So you can't really blame him when he signs up to have a company hack his brain and wire it to help him get busy with Biel or remake an early 1990s cyberpunk thriller. Whichever's cheaper.

Farrell's wife, Kate Beckinsale, isn't happy with the maneuver, given that the couple is so poor that bare-chested, wistfully-staring Farrell can't even afford a shirt, and the producers can't afford a new script. Her solution is that Farrell should dream of her, and when he blows her off she ends up chasing him down and trying to kill him. Marriage can be tough.

The only way you'll get think Total Recall is totally mind-bendingly new is if you're 25 and couldn't convince your parents to let you watch the original Total Recall when you were 3, then got frustrated that you forgot about it. Some settings are swapped out, but the general plot outline and a bunch of dialogue is largely the same, albeit a little unfamiliar because Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone have been replaced by people who can actually act.

Copying the 1990 cult favorite isn't such a bad thing. The new movie also nails the original's sense of heedless, ridiculous fun. As Farrell transforms into a super-spy who can mangle robo-cops with his bare chest, the movie rarely misses an opportunity to step back and subtly make fun of itself. There's something to be said for a movie that can make you chuckle one minute, then genuinely fear for the fate of its unkillable hero as he leaps through a Super Mario-like succession of platforms the next.

The movie is set in a world that's been entirely destroyed except for a Europe-spanning British empire and continent-sized ghetto of Australia. Don't fret, Americans, because no one has British or Aussie accents, so we clearly took over both places before the other continents were crushed. The rich British Americans, led by Bryan Craston of Breaking Bad, exploit the poor Australian Americans for cheap labor. There are revolutionaries out there who want to change things, but they mostly stick to ineffectual activities such as spraying graffiti all over their squalor.

The future may be bleak, but the technology sure rocks. Memory implantation machines are only the beginning. There are flying cars, wall-mounted iPads, phones installed in hands, elevators that go directly through the earth's core to get from one side of the planet to the other, and most importantly, three-boobed hookers.

Farrell's attempt at memory implantation -- an installation of Norton Biel Dream Enhancer -- either unlocks sleeper agent memories or frazzles his brain so he thinks he's a spy who finally gets to make out with Biel but adorably hold hands with her while running around, fleeing certain death. There are some Inception-like is-he-dreaming-or-not trickery, but subtlety and misdirection are not the strong suits for filmmaker Len Wiseman, whose credits include the first two Underworld movies and the fourth Die Hard. So you pretty much can tell what's happening. Meaning, stuff will explode. And then explode some more. And Farrell will once again wind up shirtless.

This may be Wiseman's best movie yet, yet it's only the second-best Total Recall. But it will have to suffice until Suri Cruise and a baby to be named later make another one in 22 years or so.


Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel and Bryan Cranston. Written by Kurt Wimmer and Mark Bomback, based on a screen story by Ronald Shusett, Dan O'Bannon, Jon Povill and  Wimmer, which is in turn based on a short story by Philip K. Dick. Directed by Len Wiseman. 116 minutes. Rated PG-13.

My novel, Stormin' Mormon, is available as a Kindle book for $1.

Winning A Tricky Hospital's Reindeer Games

It sucks to get a colossal hospital bill, but it's almost worth the pain (almost) for the chance to take advantage of the secret-handshake discount program operated by seemingly all medical billing offices. All you have to do is ask for a discount in exchange for paying the remaining amount in full upfront, and your bill will be magically shrink. Hospitals and doctors do this to grab your cash while they can out of fear that you'll ignore the bill and stiff them.

But the enemy is doing what it can to make things tougher on patients looking to slash their medical bills.

My son, Zack, was born three weeks ago, and the hospital sent me a bill yesterday. I found it odd that the bill's contact number had an (800) prefix, but still thought I wouldn't have too much trouble getting a discount like I did three years ago when Emma was born.

How wrong I was.

Not only did the first guy I spoke to turn me down, but so did his supervisor. They insisted the hospital didn't offer such a discount and never had. After I presented evidence to the contrary the supervisor admitted her operation was nothing more than a call center contracted out by the hospital. She recommended I call the mothership.

Once I did that — having to look up the number myself, because the call center didn't have it and couldn't or wouldn't transfer me — I got a 20 percent discount nice and easy. It's sad that those who don't have the perseverance to play billing office whack-a-mole will have to pay full price.

The lesson here, folks, is to never take "no" from an agency that lacks the power to make things right for you.

Review: The Watch

There's a scene in watch in which the four leads are crammed into a car on a stakeout, complaining about how bored they are.

It's all too easy to identify.

A bizarro action comedy, the Watch squanders the ample talents of Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill and Richard Ayoade, each of whom are so naturally funny that it takes a significant effort for any of them to not make you laugh. Most of the time the movie is well up to the task.

The slumming temporarily un-funnymen play four overenthusiastic, small-town morons who form a neighborhood watch after some guy's skin gets ripped off inside a Costco. It's most definitely a Costco, not Sam's Club or a generic stand-in, because the store's sign gets prominent display in half the movie's scenes and the characters call it by name, going the Adam Sandler route of justifying product placement by taking it to such an extreme that it becomes a joke.

Give the script, as well as Costco brass, credit for not being afraid to taint the warehouse store's image with murders and shootouts on the premises. That's impressive for a place that doesn't even let you bring your drinks inside.

That's about the extent of the praise this thing deserves. Other than a few can't-miss awkward sex gags -- for example, the part in which the guys compare their thoughts on the texture and taste of a certain bodily fluid --  the writing is lifeless and the movie has all the edge of a dull razor. It's almost as though screenwriter Seth Rogen, who teams up with Evan Goldberg and Jared Stern, is sick of Hill getting all the roles he used to get so he intentionally wrote something awful to bring him back down to earth.

To his credit, Hill fares the best, with his boisterous, inappropriate one-liners keeping things halfway watchable. Vaughn, who gets far too few chances to strut his stuff these days, gets carried away with his motormouth shtick and goes off on overlong monologues that enter diminishing returns territory that Robin Williams knows all too well. Ayoade is the noob of the bunch, not able to contribute in a meaningful way, while Stiller, the eternal put-upon straight man, has nothing consistent to work with.

The plot takes a ridiculous turn that you're probably aware of if you've read anything about the movie, but in case you're in the dark, I'll let it stay a secret. Not so much to avoid spoilers, but to spare you the indignity of  having to suffer through brain-tainting dullness. Suffice it to say that the unwatchable watchmen end up facing a threat that's more dangerous than the egg-tossing kids they confront early on. What might have been a welcome shock turns out to be a groaner. 


My best advice is to avoid wasting big money to see The Watch in the theaters. Wait a few months, and if you still feel driven to try your luck with the movie, look for the DVD, which is sure to snag some prime shelf space at Costco. Maybe you can take advantage of the store's legendarily lax return policy and return the movie as defective because its jokes don't work.

Starring Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill and Richard Ayoade. Written by Jared Stern,  Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. Directed by Akiva Schaffer. 100 minutes. Rated R.

My novel, Stormin' Mormon, is available as a Kindle book for $1.

5 Expressions That Only Foreign People Can Get Away With

1. No worries - Only works for Aussies. SoCal folk have attempted to co-opt this but it's just not taking.

2. Cheers - Solely for Brits. Non-Brits attempting to sound worldly just come off as desperate Anglophiles when they use this.

3. Hola - If you're not a native Spanish speaker, stop kidding yourself. Same with 'no problemo.'

4. Gesundheit - Just go with 'bless you' unless you're German. Even if you're an atheist. The words have no meaning so you're not undermining your beliefs.

5. Aboot - It sounds adorable when Canadians say it. Out of anyone else's mouth it comes off condescendingly.

Review: The Dark Knight Rises

"Mmmph blrrg grug Batman glogg freedom raaar!"
-Bane, The Dark Knight Rises


The movie's gimp mask-wearing, MMA fighter-like villain no doubt has many profound things to say. But he talks like he's got an Egg McMuffin lodged in his trachia, so you're left to guess as to his motives for destroying a city, trapping every single police officer in a sewer, beating up Batman and rocking a smelly tanktop.


Bane stands as a symbol for his movie, which may as well be called The Dark Knight Bloats. Christopher Nolan followed up his two Caped Crusader masterpieces with a dud of a finale that, like Bane, is giant, slow-moving, talks too much and doesn't have a heck of a lot of reason to exist.


The movie runs a little long at nearly three hours, but I recommend taking a nap for an hour or so in the middle to make it pass quicker. Nolan helps you out with that by making the mid-section into a sort of cinematic lullaby that rocks you to sleep with board meetings, emo conversations and many, many, many scenes that do not show Batman being Batman.


This is not a movie to watch if you'd care to see Batman in action, doing Batman-like things like catching crooks or swooping down and punching people in the back of the head. The first act is mostly a poetry slam of one character after another reciting expositional monologues about how and why Batman has been away for eight years, and why that's a good thing or a bad thing. 


Bruce Wayne is holed up in his stately manor, which really should be called Wayne's World, limping around with a cane like Willy Wonka when he first appears in his 1970s movie. Bruce Wayne has made some questionable business decisions, such as hiring Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) as a maid and spent all his money on a nuclear fusion bomb that could either provide the world an eternity of free energy or explode the city, depending on who's got it at the time.


You know how Bruce Wayne always kept it a deep, dark, double secret that he was Batman? Well, he's pretty much done with that now, willing to have a heart to heart about it with a cop (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) he's just met. Bane also knows, probably because he's -- as Rush Limbaugh has cleverly deduced -- a stand-in for Mitt Romney, and figured it out because he's best pals with many billionaires. Also, I'm pretty sure Catwoman figures it out, unless Batman has a special Bat-kiss that differentiates his Bruce Wayne smooching experience.


It doesn't really matter that people know Bruce Wayne is Batman because he doesn't want to be Batman anymore. It takes a heck of a lot of boringness to get him back in his suit, and shortly thereafter something bad happens and he's no longer Batman again until just in time at the very end.


If I'm being a little hard on the movie, it's because I expected so much more from it, and because it does a great job of reminding you how good the other two were by flashing back to scenes from those films again and again. The point of the flashbacks is to restate profound philosophical points from those movies, I guess to avoid having to come up with any new ones of its own.


The Dark Knight Rises isn't awful and is perfectly watchable, but just doesn't make much sense or build upon the groundwork laid by the earlier movies. It's this series' version of The Matrix Revolutions, The Godfather Part III or Caddyshack 2. Nolan's other Batman movies were stylish, deep, exciting and shocking. This one is just content to sort of hang out on the porch and watch the cars pass by.


I'll close with a quote from Bane: "Mrkl mumf unite argyle frankensense blarg."


The words are as true today as they were during the midnight screening.


Starring Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gary Oldman, Marion Cotillard, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine. Written by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan, based on a story by Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer, using characters created by Bob Kane. Directed by Christopher Nolan. Rated PG-13. 165 minutes.

My novel, Stormin' Mormon, is available as a Kindle book for $1.

Review: Brave

After Cars 2 and the middling but still enjoyable Brave, Pixar has proven it's no longer the immortal dynamo it seemed to be for its first decade and a half of feature film production. The studio has fallen to earth, and seems more interested in grinding out a film a year rather than strictly releasing animated perfection.

The result of this outing is an entertaining family film with an idiotic plot and horrible yet still somehow likable protagonist who spends most of the running time fixing a terrible, irresponsible decision she makes early on. Forget that the title makes no sense, because bravery isn't apparent in any of the personality attributes expressed by Princess Merida (Kelly Macdonald), who refuses an arranged marriage that her parents tell her is necessary to preserve peace throughout factions they're associated with.

If the movie has anything that kids can can away, it's that whining and stubbornly sticking to your own self-absorbed opinions no matter what will pay off. Eventually your parents will fear you, and you'll always get your way. Not exactly a positive lesson, but frighteningly truthful.

The movie is beautiful and exciting, and nothing less should be expected from such cinematic wizards. When Merida befriends an anthropomorphic bear, whose identity I won't spoil in the off chance you haven't watched a trailer or read an article about the movie, the screenplay has a lot of fun with the comical cross-species interplay.

At the end of the day, you're left with 90 minutes or so burned in favor of heedless, forgettable fun. Faint praise is all that this movie is worth, but that's much more than you could say about Cars 2.