Eat Love Pray is the new film with Julia Roberts that focuses on the plight of an upper class woman struggling with her identity, lack of spirituality and her failed romantic existence. The film itself is a grade below mediocre with pretty scenery, good acting and a shallow exploration of spiritually in food, meditation and love.

Eat Pray Love is based off the popular memoir by writer Elizabeth Gilbert. In the film though she is known as Liz. Now books are different than films. I have not read the book but strongly believe that the two should not be compared because they are different mediums. That is a different discussion all together.

In the film, Liz (Julia Roberts) is in an unhappy marriage. She also feels that her life has lost it's passion and meaning. Her search for greater meaning in life is ignited by a conversation with a medicine man on a trip investigating meditation and yoga in Bali. The medicine man spoke to Liz concerning her unhappiness with her marriage and how she will lose all that she has only to regain it again. She returns home to New York City and decides to divorce her husband (Billy Crudup) which her husband contests, move out of her home, date and then end things with a young actor (James Franco).

After the divorce and new romance, Liz is still unhappy. She says that she has lost her passion for life which leads her to go on a one year journey to Italy, India and Bali. In Italy she will eat and enjoy life. In India she will meet her guru and pray. In Bali she will reconnect with the medicine man and learn all that the medicine man knows.

It can be difficult to show a character's passion for food, growth in spirituality and enlightenment through knowledge and meditation without the character overtly expressing it. Eat Pray Love tries to do this and fails. We see Liz eat lots of pasta, little pastries and drink wine in Italy. Julia Roberts still has a wonderfully unique smile but her smile after devouring tasty food does nothing to show the growth of her character and her embracing "life." While in India there are several scenes in which Roberts is seen praying or trying to pray. Watching her pray over and over again is meant to imply spiritual growth but the film also fails to capturing that. She goes to Bali to learn from the medicine man but she spends more time sleeping and hanging out with Bardem rather than learning from the medicine man. She is not even willing to hand copy his lessons intended for her. She takes them and photo copies them which is meant to be cute but in many ways displays how shallow her exploration towards harmony and balance really is.

The film itself is very shallow. We don't explore living life, prayer, meditation, yoga or love in any profound way or with any depth. Watching Julia Roberts eat a couple bowls of pasta, pray here and there and meet guys doesn't explore the themes of the film but casually presents them in a manner that makes finding balance in life all too simple. It's a middle class yuppie notion of spirituality and love. Little is truly known about Liz's character as her exploration only reveals how her marriage failed and nothing about what brought her to such unhappiness.

The film might be best served as a travelogue for Italy, India and Bali. Throughout the film, Liz goes to these places and enjoys the classic beauty of these places with little to none of the flaws. She travels for a year with one bag, yet her outfits are different every time but she always looks fabulous. She is always clean, never sweats and fails to experience any of the hardships of the people that reside in her vacations hot spots. Because of this, the film superficially suggest that you can find balance in your life by going on a long vacation, drinking, eating, praying and meeting a nice man.

The film does have some decent qualities. Julia Roberts is very strong in the lead, in what could be defined as a transitional role. As someone over the age of 40, Roberts may struggle to find roles that don't make her look silly by trying too hard to show how young she might be. Tom Cruise has yet to discover this, as the almost 50 year old Cruise still believes he can play a 30 year old. Roberts is quite good. She doesn't rely on her laugh or smile to propel her through the role. She is subtle and very charming. She is able to bring a a certain child like discovery to her journey but a certain sadness of youthful exuberance lost during down periods. In her 40's Roberts could not have played the early 30's Liz while in her 30's. It seems like a role Roberts was meant to play during this stage of her career. Javier Bardem is also excellent as Liz's love interest in Bali. Bardem does a lot with his screen time. We see him cry, laugh, be charming and argue with Roberts in a way that is both alarming and agreeable.

The dialogue is also very resourceful. Eat Pray Love is written by director Ryan Murphy and Jennifer Salt. It uses the dialogue very well in understanding the minor characters we see for only 1/3 of the film. Unfortunately in many ways we learn small details about the minor characters that we never learn about Liz. This could also be a problem. We learn so much about the other characters and hardly anything about Liz. It is because of that the film tends to drag. It drags because there are so many characters, so many places and the pattern of the film becomes far to apparent early in the film.

Love Eat Pray is probably a very good book but as a movie it seems like a self indulgent travel guide. Is it beautiful to look at? At times, yes? Does it make you hungry? Yes. Would you want to travel to these places afterwards? Probably. Is it funny or profound? Maybe as funny or profound as a fortune cookie can be. In the end, Eat Love Pray seems to reach only a small audience of upper class, superficially lost women that don't need spirituality but a man in their lives. Maybe Eat Pray Love will be the Starbucks drinking, Banana Republic wearing, Oprah book club reading version of Sex and the City.... oh boy.

Inception - Review

Inception is the new Christopher Nolan film that focuses on dreams as well as memories to understand the harsh consequences of guilt. Unfortunately the movie is not very good because it lacks structure and identity. Inception has unlikable characters, a complicated plot that has a lot of rough edges, a shocking ending that is not shocking and a lot of notions about memories and dreams that are underdeveloped.

First, Christopher Nolan is a film maker focused on memories and guilt. Memento is a film about a man who has no long term memory and with the aid of clues searches for the man that killed his wife. His remake of Insomnia is about a detective who accidentally shoots his partner and is haunted by those memories. In the first Batman, Nolan explores Bruce Wayne's inability to cope with his parents murder and how his memories of his parents influence his decision to become Batman.

Inception is about a top notch group of thieves that enter your dreams while you sleep and steal secrets. Their job is basically super sophisticated corporate espionage. The leader of this team is Leonardo DiCaprio as Mr. Cobb. Mr. Cobb is a wanted criminal in the US and struggles to efficiently perform his job without memories of his dead wife interrupting his dream state. Mr. Cobb and their team typically do extraction jobs until a new employer, Saito (Ken Watanabe) offers Mr. Cobb a proposition to plant an idea into the mind of one of his business competitors. Placing an idea in another person's mind is called inception.

Upon being approached with this idea of inception Cobb and his business partner Arthur (Joseph Gorden-Levitt) immediately reject the idea and tell Saito that inception is impossible. The reasons why inception cannot be done are not very convincing. Immediately after the proposal is dismissed Saito offers Mr. Cobb a chance to see his children again. Cobb takes the job explaining without reason that inception can be done. While everyone doubts whether or not inception can be done, Cobb is holding something back from his team. His secret is that he has done inception to his dead wife. This plot twist is meant to be a surprise but it isn't as Cobb keeps it a secret from his team.

So the chase is on. Cobb and Arthur assemble their crack team of mind thieves which include Ariadne (Ellen Page), Eames (Tom Hardy) and Yusuf (Dileep Rao). It's seem hard to believe that all of these characters are needed and it does not help that their job description and training are roughly explained. Ariadne as the architect of the dreams, Eames as the forager, Yusuf as the chemist, Arthur as the team lead and Cobb as the principle thief that really doesn't do anything, not even come up with the plan. By the way, the plan to insert an idea in the target Robert Fischer Jr. (Cillian Murphy) seems really easy.

So the plan goes like this... the team plus Saito plan to invade Mr. Fischer's dreams while on a 10 hour flight from Sydney to LA. The 10 hour flight is important because an hour of dreaming translates to a week in the dream and the plan needs months of dreaming to develop, hence the 10 hours needed. It seems reasonable but the film follows this principle very, very loosely. On the plane the team will take some heavy sedatives so nothing will disturb their sleep because they will be exploring multiple levels of dreams, a dream within a dream to plant the idea. Before entering this set of dreams, the viewer has already seen a dream or two and is somewhat familiar with the rules of what should be done and can be done in dreams. Somethings go wrong in the first layer of dreams and the rules change. Things going wrong in all the levels of dreams and frequently so the team improvises with a new plan seemingly contradictory of what was thought capable, but it all works out anyway.

One of the major obstacles is the target Robert Fisher Jr. has been trained to handle mind espionage and his mind sets out traps to capture those attacking it. Fisher's mind defense is something not shocking since the idea had been introduced early in the film. Each dream encounters a problem that seemingly comes from nowhere but is resolved with ease because after all the characters are in a dream and in a dream you can do whatever the fuck you want. Yes, in a dream you can do whatever you want. No need for rules or previous notions of what can, cannot, should or should not be done in the dream because Nolan was going to throw them out the window.

The team gets the job done and Cobb again get his man. By completing the job, Cobb is freed of his criminal charges and gets to see his children again. He also deals with the memory of his dead wife who has been plaguing his dreams and making the jobs much more difficult. The memories of his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) continue to interrupt each mission Cobb goes on, at the point that it puts his team in significant danger. In the end, all is resolved or is it?

The drama of what happens within the dreams seems very over blown. Earlier in the film, if you died in your dream you woke up but in this new set of dreams with the many levels of dreams and the heavy dose of sedatives, if you die you might be in a coma or some type of mental limbo when you wake up. Such threats of a coma or mental limbo at some point seem weak since the rules of the dreams continue to change. For example Saito is shot in the first level of dreams but must complete the mission and awake as according to plan or else mental limbo. Later on Fisher is shot but is somehow found in Cobb's dream and comes back to life. What? There is an explanation given on why this works and with this explanation you easily just want to toss your hands up in the air and wonder why they don't use super powers to fend off their attackers, fly or call upon giant mythological monsters to play a game of dodge ball.

There is a moment in the first layer of Fisher's dream sharing in which Arthur is in the middle of a shoot out, using a large rifle and having little success. Eames comes to help by simply saying, "you must not be afraid to dream a bit bigger" or something of that sort and in his hands magically (seemingly so) a hand cannon appears which quickly relieves them of their pursuers. Why isn't this method of dreaming bigger explored more often? I do not know. Maybe because it would easily squash any of the drama in the film. In some aspects one has to admire Nolan for wanting to keep the violence so grounded, making it concrete and realistic but in the end the drama rises and falls without any reason. Something bad happens, a plan to resolve quickly arises and then resolution. Is it because they are in a dream and within a dream anything can be done? If that is true then doesn't that kill any of the drama? I think so.

Their are several twists in the plot that might require debate or a second viewing. I am not opposed to see anything twice but it seems that much of the film requires a second viewing for cheap purposes. The end is a twist that anyone should see coming. The plot twists seem intentionally confusing rather than profound in which the sole purpose is to mask a lame duck plot with self absorbed characters.

Mr. Cobb is an incredibly selfish hero. He is hard to like as he continually puts the plan and his team in danger. Ariadne is meant to be our moral center but consistently forgives Cobb and allows him to continue his selfish ways. DiCaprio as Cobb plays the role in a straight manner and is solid but not exceptional. He doesn't play Cobb as an obsessive or a guilt stricken man which are both reasonable and might have made the character more interesting. There is no humor or sadness which leaves the performance kind of flat. You have to wonder if the choice to play this role in that particular fashion was his or Nolan's. DiCaprio does deserve some kudos for his recent string of playing characters struggling with identity. Page as Ariadne is mediocre as she seems type cast to play a snotty youth who consistently gives her characters an attitude that embodies a self righteous teen. Joseph Gorden-Levitt is an interesting cast as the team manager Arthur. He doesn't really have the persona or body type for the role nor does he use those distinctions to build upon the role in a new way. His rigid portrayal just comes off as flat. Ken Watanabe as Saito, Tom Hardy as Eames and Cotillard as Mal are probably the most efficient and entertaining performances. It is nice to see Nolan having a group of actors that routinely appear in his films such as Watanabe, Cillian Murphy and Michael Caine (as Cobb's step father?)

Inception is not an inventive film. It is a charade. It doesn't really explain how dreams work, how time works within the dreams, what can be done and what cannot be done. It's very confusing for the sake of being confusing. It doesn't try to explore the philosophy of dreams. The film slogan, "your mind is the scene of the crime" is misleading and odd since we follow the criminals. Plot twist after plot twist don't reveal anything new about the characters or the plot. Everything in the film seems underdeveloped. The cast seems all wrong despite my admiration for much of the players. The sub plots are weak while the issues about mothers and parenting within the film are unclear. It is also a shame that Nolan, his cinematographer and editor must rely on flashbacks in a film about memory. They are either unable to recreate film shots and use montage editing to build upon the themes of the film or they don't think the average audience is able to understand those techniques. After all Inception is not Hiroshima Mon Amour.

Much is made about this film and it's approach on dreams. Nolan is not a surrealist and that doesn't hurt this film but at times the film seems to be lacking imagination. If he were a surrealist would that make Nolan more creative? I doubt it. Nolan is very grounded. His action sequences are classic in many ways with chase sequences, subtle gun play, a timely explosions and clever fist on fist fights. He doesn't rely on special effects and films in a grand epic scale that David Lean would admire. He shoots on location and there is much about this film that seems like it could have been done with old school movie tricks according to new school rules. When cities fold it almost looks like two overlapping rolls of film but better. When the zero gravity sequence occurs in a fun over overdrawn action sequence, it is nothing more than a room that twirls like on a rotisserie causing the appearance of walking on walls. All of these old school tricks might be done with new school technology but if anything Nolan should be saluted for doing what has been done before in better ways. Nolan should also be given props for making challenging large scale films, even if, at least according to this review are not fully developed.

In the end, Inception is a great idea crudely done, questionably performed with a lack luster script and an ending encouraging debate over good film making.

Death at a Funeral - Review

You have to wonder why Chris Rock chooses some of his pictures. Death at a Funeral might be a noble effort but fails in a variety of ways to capture the original's clever and offbeat humor. If that seems like an unfair criticism by comparing it with the original, then it fails to be funny on its own terms.

Death at a Funeral is about a family's struggle to deal with the loss of one of their loved ones. Chris Rock is Aaron, the insecure want to be writer who recently lost his father. He is married, a tax accountant and trying to have a baby with his wife. Martin Lawrence is Ryan, his younger brother who enjoys the bachelor life and is a successful novelist in New York City. Ryan comes back home for the funeral and while his brother struggles with the financial burden and organization of the funeral, Ryan is more focused on hooking up with a hot young thing. The two brothers argue about money, who should give the eulogy, writing, and family responsibilities.

There is also Aaron's cousin, Elaine (the oh so beautiful Zoe Saldana) who is nervous about telling her father that she is engaged and pregnant to drug induced Oscar (James Marsden). Luke Wilson is Derek trying to win Elaine back. Tracy Morgan is Norman, the fat friend adding absurdity to any situation. Danny Glover is the angry Uncle Russell and Peter Dinklage is Frank, the former gay lover of Aaron and Ryan's father.

A whole bunch of shenanigans ensue, starting with misplacement of the deceased, a couple of hallucinogenic highs and blackmail. Humor is supposed to surround these antics but most fall short except for Marsden who takes takes acid thinking it was a Valium in an attempt to relieve his anxiety. Much of the humor is poorly timed. Many of the actors never seem comfortable or able to make the subtle humor funny. Poor and choppy editing also disturbs the flow making the some of the punchlines stand alone, causing them to fall flat.

The movie is very brave in casting the actors against type. Chris Rock as the straight man? Martin Lawrence as a ladies man? James Marsden playing a straight laced guy on a drug high? Owen Wilson as an arrogant stock broker? The only one that succeeds is Marsden. As funny as Rock can be and he can be very funny, he is still trying to find his straight man ability. Chris Rock has been acting in movies for almost 20 years and still has yet to find his breakout comic performance. Eddie Murphy had Beverly Hills Cop. Jim Carrey had Ace Ventura. Will Pharrell had Anchorman. It seems hard to pin point a huge comedic success for Chris Rock on the silver screen. Are films like this, a remake of an English Comedy, along with other films like Down to Earth (remake of Hollywood classic Heaven Can Wait) and I Think I Love My Wife (remake of French classic Chloe in the Afternoon) attempts to show audiences that Chris Rock is more than his upfront and aggressive humor portray? I think so. Is Chris Rock like every other comedian, trying to prove he can act as well as be funny? Probably. Is he successful? No, not really but you have to admire his desire to be more than just a comedian. Adam Sandler knows a little bit about this too.

Death at a Funeral fails in several ways. It isn't that funny. Marsden and Morgan provide some laughs but not enough to keep the film from dragging. Poor editing and a lack of direction fail at creating what kind of film Death at a Funeral could be. Is it slapstick? Is it a family comedy? Is it all that and more? In the end, it is none of these things. In the end, Aaron (Rock) learns something but we aren't exactly sure what. In the beginning of the film, he seems like a perfectly good guy, a good husband and son, a want to be writer with some confidence issues. In the end, he discovers his confidence but the viewer never witnesses his lack of ability to understand his growth as a writer. Ryan, his brother seems to learn nothing and Elaine learns to stand up to her father out of must have circumstances rather than choice.

In conclusion, Death at a Funeral is nothing but disappointing.

Date Night - Review

Date Night stars Tina Fey and Steve Carrell as a married couple looking to spice up their usual date night but get involved in a black mail scheme involving sex and the mob. Ultimately the film is funny but leaves you wanting more, maybe more than is really possible.

Tina and Steve are great on the their hit shows, The Office and 30 Rock but this is the big screen and Date Night has them trying to be funny in slightly different ways. Steve Carrell is easily type casted in the nerdy, nice, goofy and sometimes clumsy male. Tina Fey is the smart mouthed, un-hip, sexually tame mother. The two are married with kids. They both feel a bit trapped as their marriage has lost that spark. A married couple close to them split and as a reaction they go out to the city instead of the local eatery for a night of fun and adventure. What they get is a night of guns, blackmail, crooked cops and Mark Wahlberg bare chest. They get involved in a black mail scheme that has nothing to do with them but are confused for some one else and the adventure begins. They have to find the couple with the restaurant reservation they stole, the blackmail goods that could solve the mystery and save their hides while alluding, crooked cops and Mark Wahlberg's oily chest.

Date Night has some funny moments, both involving speedy or not so speedy chases. One involving a motor boat, the other involving a spiffy Audi colliding into a taxi cab with hilarity to ensue. Fey and Carrell are fine. Might the movie have been better if they were allowed to improvise or roam free with the script? I don't know. I am not sure improvisation are their strengths. Fey's best talents are as a writer, not an actor or even a comedian. Carrell also seems like someone who best works with set material and is funny when working with quality material like on The Daily Show or The Office, not so much with Get Smart or Evan Almighty. Towards the end of the film, Carrell and Fey are involved in a strip tease scene involving a stripper pole that is humorous but a little bit of a let down. It should be the scene everyone talks about the next day or at the water cooler but it's not that memorable. It might be because the pole dance sequence requires a good sense of physical humor and neither of these two comedian are known for their physical humor.

Date Night is not bad but it is not memorable. The crooked cops chasing the simple married couple from New Jersey might be the dumbest bad guys ever and their stupidity isn't even played up for any amount of humor. None of the one liners are that funny and many of the smartest jokes are after the fact (punchline) jokes. Even the gag reel during the credits is not up to par and displays Fey's and Carrell's lack of ability to improv or do physical humor. If you don't believe me that Fey is nothing special at improv then why was her best character on SNL, a portrayal of herself on the Weekend Update Segments. It is only till recently that she discovered new success as Sarah Palin.

Date Night will go down as one of those movies that could have been so much more but until then will go down as pretty good, well sort of.

Kick Ass - Review

Kick Ass is the new comic book movie aimed at not being a comic book movie but being a analysis of a comic book movie dressed up as a comic book movie. Confused? It seems like a lot of comic book movies have been diving deep into self exploration and if that is not your cup of tea then Kick Ass is not for you. If you like comic book action, self aware humor and 11 year old with ninja stylings and the mouth of a sailor than maybe this film is for you.

Aaron Johnson is Dave, a geek who wonders why no one has ever tried becoming a super hero. It seems logical that someone at least one person would have dressed up in cape and cowl and fought crime. So one day, after getting beat up and no one doing a thing, or even caring, he decides to buy a wet suit, put on a mask and fight crime. He doesn't have any powers or even any gadgets. His method of fighting crime is really no different than a neighborhood watch. Except when he patrols the neighborhood, he does it in a mask.

Along the way, he meets a father and daughter duo called Big Daddy and Hit Girl (Nicholas Cage and Chloe Moretz). Big Daddy and Hit Girl are the real thing and out for revenge. Big Daddy is a former cop who wants to avenge his wife's passing, while his daughter is along for the ride and is there to make her father happy. They are after mob boss Frank D'Amico. Some wild action, a trap involving D'Amico's son (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Superbad's McLovin) as a fake comic book hero Red Mist, some girl chasing and comic book references galore occur in Kick Ass.

Kick Ass is enjoyable. The movie doesn't really discover an identity. Is it an homage or a critique of comic book culture? In his narration, Kick Ass tries to persuade us that his motives are not spurred by revenge or the sudden appearance of super powers but simply by the frustration that no one seems to care about how bad this world has become. It seems like a noble premise until you meet Big Daddy and realize that this is really a revenge movie after all. And then what may seem like an original premise falls under every comic book convention.

The worst thing about Kick Ass the movie is the Kick Ass character himself. The movie follows his dull and rather pointless narration and his feeble attempts at self training. There has to be at least 3 different instances where he is checking himself out in the mirror trying to psyche himself up while displaying his "awesome" fighting movies. A joke that is funny at first but after many other displays of his inadequate training, the joke wears very thin. His attempts at getting the girl are just as awkward, unimportant and a stretch, not only for relevancy but humor.

The best part of Kick Ass is the father and child relationships shared by Big Daddy and Hit Girl, as well as Mob Boss D'Amico with Red Mist. Big Daddy has been training his daughter for these moments since she was 6 and is very proud of her killing ways, While papa D'Amico is hesitant to trust and allow his son to join his mob. It's a shame that the movie focuses so much on Kick Ass that these story lines are a underdeveloped and not the central focus of the film. It is understood that Kick Ass is supposed to be the ordinary Joe, the common figure of which we the viewer should relate to, but his story is just so bland. So he is an awkward teenage that cannot get girls, with no super powers and reads comics. So was I and so were a lot of my friends.... I don't need to spend my time watching a movie that fails to be profound on the subject. Does Kick Ass save the day at the end? Yes, well sort of but his journey to super hero is more out of accident rather than defiance or great act of courage.

Kick Ass does not examine the mind state of super hero's like The Dark Knight was determined to achieve but it does hint at the disturbed nature of the masked hero far better than Watchmen did. Nicholas Cage as former police officer Damon MaCready is a twisted character of pure hate and determination that finds no peace except for time spent with his daughter. The blind faith his daughter has in his plan and violent methods is fascinating. The seemingly ordinary relationship D'Amico has with his son is odd but pleasant. Moretz as the 11 year old Hit Girl is just a treat. She wields a knife as if it were a 6th finger. She swears like she has 50 years of experience with an attitude that somehow doesn't come off as cute but fierce.

The final action sequence is the best part of the film. It truly captures the essence of the film; from the off beat comedic absurdity to the comic book plot, the oddity of people dressed up in costume to fight crime, the outrageous violence and casual misplacement of logic. Kick Ass is a bit long but enjoyable. It might be a fan boy type thing. I never read the original comic strip for which the film is based but you shouldn't feel lost or confused. You don't need to know everything about comics to get the humor or the references. It is a fun movie. At least one I would say is worth watching, even if you dislike it.

Hot Tub Time Machine - Review

Hot Tube Time Machine is a whacky comedy that goes beyond logic to be funny. The film finds three adult males going through hard times heading back to the past for a moment to relive their glory days.

John Cusack (Adam) is in a similar role as a broken heart, recently divorced man taking care of his nephew. Clark Duke (Jacob) is the nephew who would rather play video games than go out and be a teen. Craig Robinson (Nick) is a former musician turned pet groomer who is let down by his marriage and wonders what happened to his rock star days. Rob Corddry (Lou) plays a drunk low life who fails at everything even suicide. After Lou fails to kill himself, the guys get together and decide to take a man trip out to their favorite ski resort. They don't realize that like their own lives, the resort has seen better days. The resort is falling apart but the hot tub outside their suite is fully functional. They get wildly drunk and with the aid of a knock-of Russian power drink like Red Bull which causes a malfunction in the hot tub, they are sent them back to 1986.

Hot Tub Time Machine is actually pretty funny. Much of the humor works because despite being an absolutely stupid and awesome premise, the movie doesn't rely on crude, disgusting or crass humor. When the film does that like when a bell boy's arm is ripped off it comes off as a shock rather than funny. Disgusting humor exists but shock humor isn't the only thing that makes this film funny. While Corddry might be a little exhausting as he tries to find ways to make money in the past by using his knowledge of the future, the humor finds laughs because the chemistry from the four is very believable. The characters are very sarcastic and are capable of using the f-bomb to a smart and playful degree. There are also some very funny situations, for instance when Nick who has been struggling with his wife's affair calls his wife, in the past, at the age of nine and unloads on her for being a cheating bitch. The banter Lou and Jakob share as they insult one another is fun and spirited. Cusack provides little humor but his role as Adam is the emotional center. Even as the film's producer and biggest star, Cusack doesn't let his character dominate the film which could have caused the film to drag.

Hot Tube Time Machine struggles with some logical errors. Despite taking place in 1986 there is a rousing gambling scene that involves the 1987 AFC championship game. Cleveland Browns fan (like myself) might enjoy this moment as John Elway's historic drive falls short. There is also a joke that Lou forms Motley Lue and enjoys the celebrity of being a rock star. This is not necessarily possible because Motley Crue was formed in 1981. Despite these errors, the goof ball premise of a hot tub time machine already dismissed any sense of logic or reason. It's a funny movie. It doesn't matter that the Chevy Chase character is never really explained or why the group is so reluctant to relive their past, make the best of it or improve on their future by fixing the past. It is probably a smart move that the movie doesn't really take the time to examine their emotional state or explain the time wizard that is Chevy Chase's character.

The real break out star of Hot Tube Time Machine is Craig Robinson. You might recognize him as a recurring character on The Office or small roles in Pineapple Express and Zack and Miri Make a Porno. In this film, as part of an ensemble cast, he gets to display a wide range of comedic skills. He can get your sympathy, be enraged, be sarcastic and be funny at the same time. There is a fair amount of sincerity in his comedic delivery. This sincerity makes a great deal of what he does either funny or charming.

Hot Tub Time Machine is funny if you accept that logic does not exist and just go with the flow. It's a guy movie, not like Wild Hogs or even The Hangover. The guys aren't good looking, on a road trip or in a fashionable hot spot like Vegas. Even the ski resort, past or present looks like a bad movie set or sound stage but this adds to the movie's charm. It has the Cusack production stamp all over it and I am sucker for Cusack's personal and sometimes morbid romantic explorations. Plus any film where the Cleveland Browns go to the Super Bowl cannot be all bad.

The Cleveland International Film Festival

The Cleveland International Film Festival.

Before you say anything, It does exist. It is not a made up festival or anything. The festival has for 34 years shown movies from around the world in all forms; short, full length, documentary, fictional, animated, and so forth.

For example today, on the 4th day of the festival I saw a french romantic comedy and a documentary on the history of film criticism. You can catch a plethora of films at the festival. You can see an Iranian film about guys wanting to lose weight who then train in sumo wrestling or a documentary about Allen Iverson. Variety - the spice of life.

I love talking about movies. I get into plenty of conversations about movies. I consistently hear people complain about the movies that are being made and shown in local theaters. Since many people out there do not know of or cannot make it to an art house cinema where foreign films or low budget movies are a regular occurrence, they are then stuck with the general milieu of Hollywood cinema at your near by megaplex. But countless amounts of people out there yearn for something more than some romantic comedy starring Hugh Grant as the awkward British guy or some over-hyped teen drama with countless minutes (which feels like hours) of intense yet unsatisfying staring.

What I am saying is... if you want more than what is available to you, then you have to seek it out or you can attend a festival in which there are dozens of options, easily packaged and available to you. Kind of like a buffet for movie lovers. If you cannot make it to Cleveland, fear not because most likely a film festival is closer to you than you think. There are countless amounts of festivals all over the world. In big cities, small cities, universities and even small local theaters organizing festivals ranging from genre festivals showing three nights of horror classics to international festivals displaying a world of cinema beyond your individual grasp.

I suggest going to the Cleveland International Film Festival. Supporting the arts never hurt anyone, plus you might be surprised by what you see or you might be surprised by what you like.