Year of nines: District 9 was the best of the movies with that number in the title.
Maybe the ghost of Bob Fosse came and helped him out this time. Note: This film is not to be confused with 9 (the one about the rag-doll robot people) or District 9 (the one about aliens). What’s up with the “nine” titles this year? Is it because it’s 2009? I don’t remember any movies called Eight in 2008. Why can’t more movies have titles like Quentin Tarantino’s World War II epic Inglourious Basterds? First of the Best: Coraline set a high bar early in the year. Roberta: It has a twisted sense of humor that I find hysterical, ur fearless Sun Screeners tackled a year’s worth of and it’s just Tarantino all the way. His humor isn’t like other peomovies. Here, in no particular order are their top picks ple’s humor. I found myself laughing at things that were horrible, for 2009 … and the ones they wish were but not in a mean way. And it’s satisfying, because he never made. lets the bad guys get theirs. Worst runners up Brent: It’s interesting how his movies explore the The Time Traveler’s Wife, Brent: Coraline was the first movie that made mystique of movies. The image of the “Giant Face” Night at the Museum: me think, “Yeah, this is going on the Best of on the movie screen getting revenge is such a classic Battle of the Smithsonian 2009 list.” It’s a journey into a unique dream Tarantino moment. Moving on to a whole other kind world, courtesy of the fertile of comedy ... I Love You, Man is on the list, landing imaginations of author Neil there because, in addition to a lot of big laughs, it also Gaiman and Director Henry has a lot of heart. You actually care about whether or not these Best runners up Selick (The Nightmare Before two guys are going to stay friends. Star Trek, The Hangover, Christmas). Stop-motion Roberta: It’s a good concept, with two guy friends. Usually movFunny People, Julie and Julia, animation perfectly suits the ies don’t show that. It’s about the guy trying to get the girl. In The Blind Side, Cloudy with a offbeat sensibility of the film, this, he already has the girl he’s going to marry, but he’s looking Chance of Meatballs, Extract as it does for our next pick, for a best friend to be his best man. I’m still waiting for my inviFantastic Mr. Fox. tation into the “man cave” (the friend’s bachelor pad). From “Man” to “Men” brings us to The Men Films we'd like to see Brent: Who Stare at Goats, an “inspired by a true story” What’s it worth, Brent? $20.09 Sherlock Holmes, comedy about a program to develop peace-oriented What’s it worth, Roberta? $20.09 Invictus, The Informant!, soldiers with superpowers. As I said in our review, Me and Orson Welles, the film achieves a wonderful balance between letting The Imaginarium of Dr. Roberta: I really liked that, too. Again, unique you laugh at the ridiculousness of some of the things Parnassus, Up In The Air, story. The voices were excellent in both these they do, while conveying a reverence for what they Precious, The Road, An movies. So much so that when I was watchwere trying to do. Education, Public Enemies, ing it, I was thinking that they just were those Roberta: I think Avatar is my pick for the year’s best. Police, Adjective, Crazy character’s voices. So much imagination went into it. It delighted my Heart, Serious Man, The Brent: Then there’s Up. It’s Pixar. Need I say senses. The whole concept of going into the avatar, Hurt Locker more? the whole story, I thought it was pretty clever. Roberta: It’s delightful, and it stays with you. Brent: One thing that it has Brent: Particularly memorable is the wordless sequence that over Up is the variety of the Films we’d like to avoid depicts Carl and Ellie’s marriage, and the fantastic image of the creatures. Pixar’s offering had Old Dogs (Brent: the trailer house soaring through the sky, suspended by hundreds of mulone dazzling tropical bird, but alone took years off my life), ticolored balloons. The head honchos at Pixar were also instruJames Cameron’s film provided The Pink Panther 2, 2012, mental in bringing about Disney’s return to hand-drawn animaa whole alien menagerie. On Aliens in the Attic, Shorts: tion, The Princess and the Frog. the topic of aliens, how about Adventures of the Wishing Rock Roberta: I loved it, but I don’t know why I’m not dazzled enough District 9? to say it’s on my top list. Maybe I’m being unfair because I’m Roberta: That was really, really comparing it to the other Disney stuff that captured my good. I liked Avatar more, but heart, and maybe eventually so will this. I still really liked District. A little boy alien Brent: I wouldn’t put it on the list of Best Disney movies won me over. Did you like that better than of All Time, but it easily lands on my best-of-the-year Avatar? list. Classic Disney songs were the soundtrack to my Brent: I liked them both. It was just very childhood, and this score is a fresh addition to that different, even though the concepts were tradition. I just start humming these tunes, and I’m so similar. With District 9, I really liked instantly happy. Animation fans of all ages should give the combination of gritty realism and scithis film a try. fi intrigue. I actually had a dream recently Roberta: I was surprised that Nine, being a musical, about seeing a huge spaceship floatwasn’t one of your picks for Best of the Year. ing silently over the city, which goes to PHOTO COURTESY movieweb.COM Brent: Not quite, but it had its moments. Maybe some show what a memorable image that was. Lame! Fame was a totally of the best moments of the year. Speaking of memorable imagery, check Roberta: I guess I liked the main character, filmmaker unnecessary remake. out Where the Wild Things Are. Director Guido Contini (Daniel Day Lewis), because he was Spike Jonze took the sparely worded clasItalian. sic picture book and expanded it into an emotional and psychoBrent: (Mom’s from a New York Italian-American family.) logical cinematic experience that was more aimed at adults. Roberta: I also enjoyed being able to hate him for cheating on Roberta: It was really fun to see this one, because I used to read his wife all the time. And the costumes and the sensual dancing the book to Brent when he was a kid. were great. Brent: I don’t recall seeing that many outright bad movies this Brent: I was surprised that Director Rob Marshall (Chicago, year. Most of them fell somewhere in the middle. But when they Memoirs of a Geisha) was able to convey that kind of sensuality. were bad, they were really, really bad. Transformers: Revenge
O
PHOTO COURTESY movieweb.COM
PHOTO COURTESY movieweb.COM
PHOTO COURTESY movieweb.COM
Best and worst
Sun Screen
Lofty heights: Pixar continued its knockout animation and storytelling with Up.
of the Fallen—I’m aware a lot of people liked this movie. Its defenders (I’m looking at you, Steve Miller of SLO’s New Times) often say they enjoyed seeing giant robots beating each other up (or in Steve’s case, Megan Fox posing). But nobody ever seems to stick up for whiny “Chosen One” Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf), or the Fallen’s convoluted backstory, or the unfunny “ethnic relief,” all of which took up a pretty big chunk of the movie. Cap it off with a cacophonous, drawn-out climatic battle, and it just wasn’t worth it for me, awesome robots and all. The Transformers sequel and The Twilight Saga: New Moon are like “his and hers” bad movies. Again, I admit New Moon delivers on what it promises: shirtless supernatural boys (doesn’t appeal to me, but I’m not the target audience). There were some atmospheric moments, but far too much screen time was devoted to the pouty face of Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart). Roberta: I can’t stand that kind of melancholy. Here she has this sexy boyfriend, and she’s making him depressed. I don’t know PHOTO COURTESY 20TH CENTURY FOX FILM CORPORATION
Eye-popping end: James Cameron closed out the year with the much anticipated Avatar, which literally leaps off of screens in 3D.
if the actress is a genius and this is how they’re telling her to act, or if that’s just the way she is. I don’t want to pay to see that on a screen. Bella’s so depressed, maybe she should go watch a movie like I Love You, Man to cheer her up. Brent: Brace yourselves, folks, we’re about to go down to a whole other level of bad films. Biblical Times period comedy Year One made cinematic history by being the first movie to get a double zero rating from us. Jack Black eats poop. Roberta: He might as well have eaten the movie. Michael Cera has the same dumb expression throughout the whole thing. Oh, don’t even get me into it. I don’t even wanna talk about it! Brent: Wow, you’re this distraught and we haven’t even gotten to Fame yet? Roberta: I can’t say anything good about it. The entire movie was annoying. The only reason I stayed to the end was so I could write the review. Otherwise, I would have just left. Brent: I’m a theater fanatic, but this depiction of a performing arts school was utterly uninspiring. You told me you thought this was the absolute worst—but what about, I Love You, Beth Cooper? Roberta; Oh, God! That’s even worse! Brent: Geeky high-school graduate Dennis Cooverman supposedly spends the “night of his life” partying with cheerleader Beth Cooper. If this was the high point of his life, I’d sure hate to see what the rest of it looked like. Roberta: The whole story was so stupid and farfetched, and they didn’t know what to do with it. Nothing’s romantic or sexual ...
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FILM from page 26 the whole thing was just a mish-mosh. Brent: Fame had Naturi Naughton’s beautiful singing. Year One had cool sets. This film has nothing. NOTHING! Characters like wanna-be-cool Dennis make me appreciate Luna Lovegood from the Harry Potter series, and other geeks who are happy being who they are—like me! m Brent M. Parker is a writer, artist, and aspiring animated filmmaker. Roberta Slutske is his proud mother who taught him everything he knows. Contact them at mail@santamariasun.com.
NOW PLAYING IN SANTA MARIA OR FIVE CITIES Show times listed below: Santa Maria 10, 1-800-555-8355 Stadium 10 in Arroyo Grande, 481-7553 Hi-Way Drive-In, 937-3515 Gemini Lompoc, 736-1306 Movies Lompoc, 736-1558
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prise trading on children’s endless appetite for talking animals, I also have a suggestion for further cost-trimming: Stop paying What’s it rated? PG What’s it worth? $3.00 name actors to have their voices sped up beyond recognition in order for them to “play” talking chipmunks. I strained for Where’s it showing? Hi-Way Drive-In, Movies Gemini most of the movie to hear even the slightest woozy tone of the Lompoc, Santa Maria 10 Say this for the Alvin and the Chipmunks movies: As far as wonderful comic actress Anna Faris from lead Chipette Brittany, until the end credits informed me that Brittany was actually permultimillion dollar affronts to responsible spending go, they are actually pretty frugal. In the first movie, the action was confined formed by Christina Applegate. Apparently, Faris actually plays Jeanette, and equally wonderful comic actress Amy Poehler largely to a small suburban home; the second, this “squeakvocalizes Eleanor; they all sound the same and the supposed quel” you’ve heard so much about, takes place mainly at a presence of these voices feels like a game to keep parents disschool. Presumably the trilogy capper will be set somewhere tracted from thoughts of sending their children to an orphanage equally thrilling, like a mall, or a bus station. to avoid future Chipmunk features. The school where singing sensations Alvin (the brash Then again, pointlessly voicing a chipmunk is a better one), Simon (the brainy one), and Theodore (the fat one) find gig than actually appearing in these films. Jason Lee gets to themselves enrolled is actually a high school, their experience opt out of all but a few strained scenes, leaving fellow NBC as talking and singing animals apparently good for several eleemployee Levi stranded as the ineffectual chipmunk caregiver. mentary school credits. They attend less out of a desire to rise above their wild nature than out of a desire to follow the wishes These movies have the unique ability to make every character, real or animated, seem as if they’re acting against a brick wall. of their legal guardian Dave (Jason Lee), who is laid up in the Only David Cross escapes with a measure of dignity, due to hospital after his latest slapstick adventure with the Chipmunks his ability to put a double-sarcastic spin on lines like “what part brings him closer than ever to the sweet release of death. The of female singing chipmunks Chipmunks are left in the care do they not understand?” He of Dave’s cousin Toby (Zachary PHOTO COURTESY movieweb.COM provides a semi-secret running Levi); his relationship with his commentary on his obvious rodents-in-law is defined more paycheck gig. Director Betty as awkward slacker indifference Thomas, who at least has than the mutual abuse suffered made a few decent comedies by Dave and his pet sons. like The Brady Bunch Movie, The clumsy bonding with neglects to provide one of Cousin Toby is just one of many her own. The screenwriters, weak reiterations of subplots including a Simpsons vet who past, from both the original should know better, might Chipmunks movie and every as well keep quiet about movie about terrible fresh-faced whose idea it was to make musicians ever made. The shouting random pop-culture Chipmunks get involved with catchphrases Alvin’s primary a benefit concert to save the characteristic. In other words: school’s music program by rais- Big rodents on campus: In Alvin and the ing $25,000. You may wonder Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, Theodore (voiced Talk to the hand, screenwriters! Macarena on the lot of you! by Matthew Gray Gubler), Alvin (Justin Long), why they, as internationally and Simon (Jesse McCartney) arrive for their Kids will probably enjoy famous rock stars, don’t have The Squeakquel in the same $25,000 to donate themselves, first day in school. sense that they probably enjoy until you remember that they’re commercials for breakfast cereal; the movie is silly, easy to on a major label and probably still owe the record company understand if you don’t have a strong sense of logic, and, yeah, several hundred grand. a little bit cute (I admit that I like the idea of the Chipmunks Their competition for this event comes not from any bonding by watching Meerkat Manor). But if parents can lead humans playing regular-sized instruments or writing their the resistance and steer their kids away, all the better. The best own songs, but from the Chipettes, a girl-group version of our you can hope for in actually watching this movie is a lesson in heroes, right down to their creepily matching color schemes, just how little effort a major motion picture can require. outfits, and body types. The Chipettes were a staple of later —Jesse Hassenger; filmcritic.com incarnations of the Chipmunks cartoon on TV, where their rivalry (and, I can’t believe I’m saying this, romantic tension) with their male counterparts felt a little more sustained. Here, they’re AVATAR just fuzzy pawns used by Ian (David Cross), the Chipmunks’ What’s it rated? PG-13 What’s it worth? $12.50 former manager from the last movie, now hell bent on dishing Where’s it showing? Movies Lompoc, Santa Maria 10 (in out the cruelest revenge possible: singing-animal revenge. I 2- and 3-D) hope for Ian’s sake that he at least considers simple glue traps Writer-director James Cameron (Aliens, Titanic) for the next squeakuel. returns with this story about an otherworldly battle Seeing as how this series is a half-assed, low-budget enterbetween humans and an alien world’s indigenous popula-
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Pay full price Good, but not great $ 6.00 Catch the matinee $ 4.00 Rent it $ 2.00 Wait for cable, if ever $0 Don’t waste your time ✵ Recommended movie $ 8.00
tion. But as Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), who’s infiltrated the enemy ranks via an avatar, begins to know his adversaries, he soon switches sides and fights to protect their lives and planet. The naysayers are already singing their sad lament: It’s Dances With Wolves in space; it’s a rehash of The Last Samurai; yada yada yada! Sure, James Cameron has written a derivative plot, telling a story as old as humankind, and that’s exactly why it’s so affecting. So, yes, this story isn’t new or especially inventive, but the world Cameron creates with CGI 3-D technology is new … new and amazing. The 2-D trailers I saw before the film can’t even begin to hint at how amazing this film looks in 3-D. I felt completely immersed in a foreign world, and I believed it the whole time. For pure escapist entertainment, moviegoers will be hard-pressed to find a film equal to the grandeur and wonder of Avatar. (155 min.) —Glen Starkey
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What’s it rated? PG-13 What’s it worth? $7.00 Where’s it showing? Santa Maria 10 Quinton Aaron plays real-life NFL rookie sensation Michael Oher, helped out of homelessness and poverty by Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock) and her former basketball star hubby Sean (Tim McGraw). (129 min.)
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country doctor (David Call), his incredibly dumb receptionist/nurse (Kim Shaw), and not much else. Though told not to contact people back home, Meryl can’t resist. Her quickie call leads the assassin right to their doorstep, where a clash of cultures—and automatic weapon fire—occurs. —Bill Gibron; filmcritic.com
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What’s it rated? PG-13 What’s it worth? $8.00 Where’s it showing? Santa Maria 10 Clint Eastwood’s new film Invictus is constructed with formidable intelligence, though its inspirational bent and inescapable sentimentality may make that hard to suss out at first. The story of Nelson Mandela’s first year in office and the partnership he formed with blond-haired rugby flanker Francois Pienaar in the hopes of winning the World Cup teems with chances to cheapen very delicate emotions, not to mention a combustible racial landscape. But nothing in Invictus feels diluted, falsely amplified, or one-note. Eastwood remains, at 79, a brave and unpredictable director of sincere and beautifully made Hollywood pictures. (133 min.) —Chris Cabin; filmcritic.com
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What’s it rated? R What’s it worth? $4.00 Where’s it showing? Movies Lompoc, Santa Maria 10 It would be great to like this film more. There are pleasant settings and actors, “problems” that don’t really amount to much of anything, and lashings of delicious food and architecture. There are three A-list actors participating in something almost more revolutionary in Hollywood than putting money into a project that didn’t originate with a decadesold comic book—an age-appropriate love triangle. There are even moments of bordering-on-touching repartee. FILMromantic continued page 27 Sadly, none of these things add up to anything more than a generic, easygoing romantic comedy that has about as much lasting power as a thin snowfall on a sunny day. But It’s Complicated is just not a film interested in working very hard. Its heroine Jane (Meryl Streep, slumming with style) should be a figure of sympathy. By the time we run into her, she has been divorced for some 10 years from her philandering husband Jake (Alec Baldwin), and is still single. The last
What’s it rated? PG-13 What’s it worth? $2.00 Where’s it showing? Movies Lompoc, Santa Maria 10 Meryl (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Paul Morgan (Hugh Grant) are separated, mostly because of the latter’s one-off Film continued page 28 dalliance with another woman. She’s a high-profile real estate mogul. He’s an equally prestigious attorney. One night, while walking away from a proposed make-up dinner, the couple witnesses the murder of a noted arms dealer. The killer clearly sees them, and after an abortive attack, the FBI is suggesting a stint in the Witness Protection Program. One music montage later and our uncomfortable duo is being guarded by U.S. Marshall—and local sheriff—Clay Wheeler (Sam Elliot) and his gun-toting spouse, Emma (Mary Love comes around: Alec Baldwin stars as Jake and Meryl Steenburgen). They live in Ray, Wyo., a Streep as Jane in Nancy Meyers’ comedy romance It’s red-state one-horse town with a friendly Complicated. PHOTO COURTESY movieweb.COM
PHOTO COURTESY movieweb.COM
Love it! The funny I Love You, Man took bromances to new, rocking heights and managed to keep its heart intact among the laughs.
Theater listings are as of Friday, Jan. 1.