Playing for Keeps

When you have the name Gabriele Muccino associated with your movie, you have to expect a lot of – and I really mean it when I say it – A LOT OF TEARS. He has that innate capability to build in moments that are poignant and force your lachrymal glands into overtime action. And if you don’t believe me then you have to watch Pursuit of Happyness and Seven Pounds.

But, if you walk into the screen expecting a tear jerker but intense movie like what you have seen Muccino make in the past – you are in for one hell of a shock. Playing for Keeps has only some amounts of background music that shows some semblance of his previous work. If anything, PFK, looks more like Nancy Myers has somehow found her way into Muccino’s mind.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am a huge Nancy Myers fan. But Muccino is expected to get some really intense and gut wrenching scenes into the movie. He is supposed to make you think about stuff. He is supposed to make you debate about right and wrong. Not trail the life of an erstwhile soccer player who is separated from his wife and kid and is now looking at some kind of redemption by trying to get back with them.

George Dryer (Gerard Butler) is our victim of a failed marriage. A famous soccer star in from Scotland in his hey days, his relationship with the love of his life – Stacie (Jessica Biel) – has always been strained thanks to his priorities being slightly warped. It has nothing to do with the fact that Stacie comes from across the Atlantic. However, when the marriage fails, George makes the arduous trip across the Herring Pond to do the right thing – finally.

He tries his hand at sports-casting without success. And after watching his son Lewis’ (Noah Lomax) soccer coach teaching the wrong things, he steps in to be the school soccer coach. Of course, doing that comes with its benefits (read – 3 soccer moms). Denise (Catherine Zeta Jones), Patti (Uma Thurma) & Barb (Judy Greer) are either divorced or cheating on husbands with guess who – George!!! – I thought you would never guess.

By now, you are sure that this is anything but a Muccino movie right? So you will agree with the disappointment that I faced. However, to its credit, it is only the story that is not Muccino. Everything else is. I am also convinced that if there is a serious romance movie that you need a lead actor for then Gerard Butler has to be your man. No one else can get the male emotions of being in love better than Butler. And of course it is an added benefit for you women that he is eye candy. 6 on 10. Decent watch. But wait for the DVD.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3070338073/

What to Expect When You're Expecting

There are RomComs with hot women all over the place like sesame seeds on a Big Mac. And there are RomComs with hot PREGNANT women all over the place like sesame seeds on a Big Mac. This one falls in the latter section. I did try to get a look at the trailer before I went to watch What to Expect when you’re expecting (WTEWYE – sounds like a weird computer anagram).

And the trailer was uninspiring to say the least. Should have taken a cue I guess. But then old habits die hard don’t they? The sucker for punishment continues to take the road not travelled – sometimes on a ridiculous whim (makes note to self that he should try and avoid it as the days go by).

There are a whole host of characters in the movie and I will try to describe them over the next few sentences. There is ex race car driver Ramsey (Dennis Quaid) who is forever in competition mode – even with his son Gary (Ben Falcone). Ramsey is with a woman half his age – Skyler (Brooklyn Decker) – who can make your tongue fall to the ground. Gary on the other hand is married to Wendy (Elizabeth Banks) who doesn’t come remotely close to Skyler – so even here the contest continues because both Wendy and Skyler get pregnant at the same time.

Then there is Jules (Cameron Diaz) who is the host of The Biggest Loser and a fling with her choregrapher – Evan (Matthew Morrison) and gets knocked up. There is Alex (Rodrigo Santoro) who is married to Holly (Jennifer Lopez). Holly cannot conceive and has been pushing Alex to consider adoption for quite sometime now and is slowly making progress. And lastly there is Marco (Chace Crawford) & Rosie (Anna Kendrick) who were in high school together but now are competing stall owners at the local park.

I have not had the opportunity to watch any Kirk Jones movies (Everybody’s fine / Nanny McPhee) but I am not brimming with confidence after my experience. The entire cast seemed to be going through the motions more than anything else. As if there was a desperate need to finish the movie on a tight deadline. There was not one sequence where there was any attempt at getting intensity. It was one hell of a drifter of a movie.

I wasn’t the most thrilled about acting, directing, screenplay, editing or anything for that matter. It was a chick flick which wasn’t close to being great. Now you all are aware of my weakness for chick flicks. But I didn’t think this was worth it. 4 on 10 is what I say. Watch at your own risk.

Trailer on http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2841223449/

Footloose (2011)

I must admit that the reason I saw Footloose (1984) for the nth time was that Footloose (2011) was also playing in-flight en route to Oz. I first noticed the 2011 version was playing and luckily the 1984 original also happened to be on the list. I am glad I saw the 2011 version in-flight and not in the theatre because it is really not a movie that will finish with a feeling of you having utilized your time well for nearly 2 hours.

Firstly let me dispel any doubts that anyone may have had about the 2011 being different from the 1984 hit. 27 years on, Craig Brewer has done nothing to add any value to the classic. In fact if anything, he has eroded the classic tag that the movie had and ruined any possibility of a fan following from the generation of today. Neither Kenny Wormald nor Julianne Hough can come close to the acting capabilities of Kevin Bacon or Lori Singer. Maybe I am begin harsh when I say that of Hough because Singer wasn’t anything much of an actress as such. So I could reconsider that opinion. But Wormald has a long way to go and if he harbours any hope of becoming as versatile as Bacon turned out to be, then I guess he has to put in many times more the effort that what Bacon had to. What disappointed me most was the severe cut in the role of Dennis Quaid and therefore I am probably not surprised with his lack luster effort. Surely Quaid is a better performer than what I saw. More or less the same analysis for Andie MacDowell.

The 2011 version of Footloose is so uncreative that Brewer has taken the concept of a “remake” to the level of a Xerox Machine. Even the dialogues are the same. And the famous scene where Ren reads out passages from the Bible just falls so flat on its face that it ceases to get funny after a while. Changes if any are exceptionally few in number and may get missed as well. The feet tapping in the titling is marginally different but nowhere close to being better.

Footloose (2011) hasn’t released yet in India and for once I would say that the people in the business have made a sensible decision. It really doesn’t have much to offer that is different, new, inspiring or fresh from the original. If you would really want to watch the movie, see the original. Even if I were to ignore the existence of an orginal, independently, Footloose (2011) would be an average movie at best. With the benefit of the doubt – 5 on 10. Sorry Craig Brewer. Got this one wrong I guess.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1510841369/