The Last Song (2010) 1/2

T

The Last Song is a movie that is supposed to break your achy breaky heart. Yes, I went there. Do you want to know why? It's because this movie sucks as much as that song. This is another melodramatic mess from the Nicholas Sparks cash cow that have permeated news stands and book stores throughout the world. Now I've never read the books, but if they're as bad as the films then America has gone wrong somewhere along the line.

The film revolves around Ronnie (Miley Cyrus) who is a rebellious teenager. She is sent to spend the summer with her father (Greg Kinnear) in Georgia. You know what's going to happen, she meets a guy that is not in her class, yet they still fall in love. Aaaaaaawww. But, alas, this is a Nicholas Sparks story- someone is going to die.

That's your basic plot in a nutshell. Very simple, seen before, will be seen again as long as Nicholas Sparks can still create sentences. There is one essential problem with The Last Song. One thing turns this movie from a mediocre-average romantic comedy to complete garbage. That problem is Miley Cyrus. You see, she can't act. Not at all. It's not there. Not even close. Whoever told her she could go from her pop bubble gum bullshit to drama like this is an idiot. This is the worst single performance I have seen in years. Years! I would call her acting skills on par with anyone in the original I Spit On Your Grave. That crap may work on the Disney Channel, but in real movies it's called shit. Pure shit.

Like I said, take away the Cyrus performance and you have a mediocre movie to begin with. She sends this to oblivion. There's probably a dozen young actresses out there that should have gotten this role, but they don't sell lunch boxes and movie tickets as well. Let's hope Miley's fifteen minutes ends before she soils a movie screen again.

Mad Dog and Glory (1993) ****1/2

People are never happy with where they are. You can always do more, even if you think you have what you want. It's never enough when you get there. For Wayne "Mad Dog" Dobie (Robert De Niro) the thought of a good retirement and health care as a police forensic photography, but he craves to be an artist. He craves to have a girl. He craves to be a tough man, the American ideal like John Wayne. One night he stops by a convenience store and in his own way saves Frank Milo (Bill Murray) from a robber. Frank wants to re-pay Mad Dog for saving him so he gives him a girl named Glory (Uma Thurman) for a week of... whatever. It's in that week that Mad Dog takes to first steps to be the person he wants to be, the problem is that when the weeks up Frank, who happens to be a mobster, wants Glory back to work off the rest of the tab she owes him. 

There's some weird casting in this. De Niro is the quiet, sky photographer while Bill Murray is the crime lord. It's different and it works. The pair play off each other in a way that is mesmerizing on screen. Bill Murray goes beyond his usual schtick and allows a peak at a dark demon that underlies his character who also spends time as a Mafia stand up comic. This film is one of Uma Thurman's greatest performances, balancing out a naive girl who has learned some street smarts since being under Franks thumb.

Frank tells Mad Dog when they meet that he had the ability to fulfill his dreams and that's basically what the film shows in a warped sort of path. Mad Dog and Glory is a great movie with some classic performances that may have been forgotten over the years. It's a lost gem of the early 1990's.

Clash of the Titans (2010) **

Going back to the well, we get to see Perseus (Sam Worthington) battle not the Harryhausen creations of the original film, but the CGI goliaths of todays 3D and IMAX enriched screens. The basic story is Zeus (Liam Neeson) is tired of not being honored by humans so he enlists his brother Hades (Ralph Fiennes) to make them pray, giving Zeus power. The Kracken is coming. No, not the Pirate movie Kracken, this one is a little more bad ass. It's up to Perseus, being the son of Zeus, to find a way to stop the Kracken and save Jack Sparrow-eh-the city of Arcos.

Let's be honest. The original film wasn't that great to begin with. It was a dull experience that came out during the Spielberg/Lucas era so it looked cheesy and old even in 1981.  The story wasn't much either. So what's the big difference almost thirty years later? The effects are better. They're actually not that bad. Otherwise the film is a cliched, dull film that proceeds with walking, fight, back at the ranch, repeat scenes like every other epic quest movie. Scratch that, this film isn't very epic. It's just a quest. It was OK entertainment, but don't expect to be wowed because you've seen it all before. Many, many times before. This is good Sunday afternoon viewing when you don't care if you fall asleep or not- you won't miss anything.

The Other Guys (2010) ***1/2

There's been a ton of comparisons between The Other Guys and Cop Out. They've been pasted together in the buddy-cop-comedy genre, but that's unfair to both films. After sitting down to The Other Guys I can give you the distinct difference between both films, namely that Cop Out is a cop movie that happens to be funny while The Other Guys is a parody of those kinds of films.

To illustrate this point just take a look at the first five minutes. A duo of supercops played by perennial bad asses Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson tear up New York City in a blaze of glory to stop a couple of hoods. These guys are playing a parody of themselves and when parody meets real life and ends tragically, the other guys step in. 

The Other Guys of the title are Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) and Gamble (Will Ferrell) are a couple of desk jockeys. Hoitz is haunted by a shooting that he or the city of New York can't quite get over. Gamble is Mr. Safe, sitting at his desk and doing everyone elses paper work. As the film progresses Hoitz's anger and Gamble's paranoia build into an uneasy partnership in which they leave their office and pursue a crime that keeps getting bigger and bigger with every clue they uncover. Yeah, the plot's a little typical.

The Other Guys is a decent late summer comedy. There are some of those Ferrell guffaws but Wahlberg is able to play along and gets some good lines in himself, outshining Ferrell in some respects. What helps The Other Guys is the supporting cast, particularly Michael keaton as their captain and Steve Coogan as the money man/key to the whole thing. They help out when the interplay between the two leads starts to get a bit stale. It's a pretty good comic romp all around. Don't expect much more than that and you'll be satisfied.

Date Night (2001) ****

D

Date Night celebrates one of those time honored traditions of any marriage, the one night of the week where the kids get ditched and mom and dad go out on the town which usually includes dinner at a chain restaurant, a crappy movie, and possibly a trip to Wal Mart in the wee hours of the morning. Phil and Claire Foster (Steve Carell and Tina Fey) are one of these couples in a marriage that has become the "P" word- predictable. Seeing their friends slipping into divorce they worry that the same fate awaits them. There has to be more of a spark than going to the Sizzler. So they leave the suburban droll and go into the city for this particular Date Night. They go to the stereotypical trendy restaurant without a reservation and stereotypically, they are brushed off by the creep at the front door. So they do something that suburbanites shouldn't do because it's bad- they take the reservation of a couple that have no showed. The Fosters are now the Tripplehorns. Time to eat.

Of course their night isn't going to go as easy as that. No, no, no. The Tripplehorn's have been blackmailing a big crime lord (Ray Liotta). Crime bosses don't like to be blackmailed so his two henchmen (Common and Jimmi Simpson) arrive to encourage the "Tripplehorn's" to either pony up the goods or drop dead. And tonight playing the Tripplehorns is Phil and Claire Foster. 

With a title like Date Night the first thing that pops into your mind is romantic comedy. Date Night really isn't a rom-com. It's a witty film that has great moments and isn't too sappy or too raunchy. It balances a middle ground that isn't seen to much anymore- a simple comedy where people get into extraordinary circumstances and the comical path they take to resolution without resorting to an overload of drama or an overload of poop jokes. The stars have great chemistry and Mark Wahlberg turns an entire film into a MacConaughey scene and creating a running joke throughout the film about being topless. Date Night is an overall crowd pleaser.