Back to School Part II #38: Here On Earth (dir by Mark Piznarski)

Posted on September 14, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here on Earth is a wannabe melodrama from 2000. When I first started watching it on Netflix, I was convinced that I had never seen it before. Sure, the name sounded familiar but I figured that was just because Here On Earth is such a generic name that it could have been used for any number of different films. In fact, even as I sit here typing this, there’s a part of me that keeps wanting to call the film either Back On Earth or Heaven On Earth.

But then as I watched the film, I realized to my horror that I had seen Here On Earth before. I watched it on cable back when I was in high school and, as much as I may not want to admit it, I think I actually cried at the end of it.

I didn’t cry this time, though. In fact, I laughed. Here on Earth is such a stereotypically melodramatic romance that it actually feels like a parody. It didn’t help that the film starred Chris Klein, who goes through almost the entire film with this sort of steely look in his eyes. No matter what emotion he’s supposed to be showing, Chris Klein’s impassive face remains frozen. In fact, it’s tempting to wonder if his character was supposed to be a robot sent from the future. Maybe Here On Earth was originally meant to be a Terminator film.

Here On Earth takes place in one of those little towns in Massachusetts where all of the poor townies resent the rich kids who go to a nearby boarding school. (Judging from the movies I’ve seen, it appears that every small town in Massachusetts is also home to an exclusive boarding school. A part of me suspects that this might not actually be the case. Fortunately, several TSL writers are from Massachusetts so, the next time I get a chance, I’ll just ask Gary, Leon, or Pantsu if any of them grew up near a boarding school.)

Chris Klein plays Kelly Morse. He’s a student at that boarding school. He’s rich. He’s snobby. But he’s also really, really smart. In fact, he was originally meant to be the school’s valedictorian until he got in some legal trouble. See, Kelly was having a street race with a townie named Jasper Arnold (Josh Hartnett). The street race led to the local gas station blowing up. I have to admit that I started laughing as soon as that gas station went up in flames because … well, let’s just say that I imagine it’s a lot more difficult to blow up a gas station than this film makes it look. Judging from this film, the gas station down the street from the office should be blowing up right now.

Anyway, that exploding gas station also causes a local restaurant to burn down. Both Jasper and Kelly are sentenced to help rebuild Mable’s Table. (That’s right, the name of the restaurant was Mable’s Table. It’s a good thing that Mable rhymes with table. If the place had been started by someone named Gretchen, I guess they’d call it Gretchen’s Kitchen.) The judge literally says, “They’ll be building a restaurant but building character too!”

Okay, your honor, thanks for spelling that shit out for us! Yay abuse of the justice system!

Anyway, Jasper has a girlfriend. Her name is Sam Cavanaugh (Leelee Sobieski) and her father (Bruce Greenwood) is the town sheriff. And guess what? HER FAMILY ALSO OWNED MABLE’S TABLE! This may seem like a lot of coincidences but these things happen when there’s only a dozen or so people living in a town.

Sam’s mother always tells her, “As long as we’re all alive, it’s nothing worse than a bad day.” Because they’re poor but honest and that’s how poor but honest people talk, don’t you know? Her father also tells her, every morning: “Good to be your father.” “Good to be your daughter,” Sam replies.

BECAUSE THEY’RE POOR!

But honest…

In fact, they’re so poor but honest that they help Kelly come out of his snobby shell. Soon, he’s opening up to Sam. He’s telling her his secrets. He’s revealing his inner self and probably asking her, “What is this thing you humans call pleasure?” (Because he’s a robot from the future!) Suddenly, they’re in a love…

But guess what? Sam only has a few months to live…

Or I should say that she only has a few months to live here on Earth. She’s at peace with the idea because she’s a saint and she has a pretty a good idea that heaven is going to kick serious ass! Can she make Kelly into a better man before she dies?

Watch and find out! Or don’t. This is one of those extremely silly and misjudged melodramas that doesn’t really work. The adult roles are played by dependable character actors like Bruce Greenwood, Michael Rooker, and Annette O’Toole but Chris Klein and Josh Hartnett go through the entire film looking like they’d rather be anywhere but here on Earth. Leelee Sobieski gives the film’s best performance, bringing as much credibility as she can to an idealized role. (She’s beautiful, she’s sassy, she’s saintly, and she’s dying!) It’s a shame that she has since retired from acting but maybe she didn’t want to spend her entire career making movies like Here on Earth.

Anyway, Here on Earth made me laugh for all the wrong reasons. Maybe it will do the same for you!

Film Review: Good Kill (dir by Andrew Niccol)

Posted on June 2, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Good Kill is an angry film that is somewhat grounded by a strong lead performance from Ethan Hawke. Hawke was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Boyhood and … well, he probably won’t be nominated for anything for Good Kill. The film’s coming out too early in the year and it’s not really a crowd-pleasing Oscar movie. It’s too angry and polemical but still, Ethan Hawke gives an excellent performance.

Hawke plays Thomas Egan, an air force pilot who, after serving 6 tours in Afghanistan, is reassigned to pilot drones from a base in Las Vegas. For 12 hours a day, Egan sits in a cramped room where he and three other pilots spend their time staring at video monitors and observing people going about their lives on the other side of the world. Occasionally, a phone rings and they are given orders by a never seen CIA supervisor. All Egan has to do is push a button and, in just ten seconds, he can blow up a stranger 7,000 miles away.

Of course, it’s not just the targets who get blown up. Anyone unlucky enough to be standing nearby ends up getting blown up as well, which is something that Egan’s commanding officer (Bruce Greenwood) insists is a regretful but acceptable consequence of fighting the War of Terror. Except, of course, nobody’s quite sure that they’re actually blowing up terrorists. Instead, often times, it’s a matter of guesswork. People are blown up because they could be terrorists, not because they definitely are.

While most of the members of Egan’s unit are unconcerned about the ethics or the legalities of drone warfare, Vera Suarez (Zoe Kravitz) is an exception. She worries that they’re just creating more terrorists. (And yet, interestingly enough, she still follows orders whenever she’s told to blow someone up.) Egan is troubled by the implications of what he’s doing but, for the most part, he keeps his feelings to himself.

From the beginning, the tightly wound Egan struggles with the pressure of being a drone pilot. After spending half of the day killing strangers who may or may not be terrorists, Egan finds it difficult to spend the rest of the day with his wife (January Jones) and his children. Slowly but surely, cracks start to appear on Egan’s facade. He starts drinking. He drives recklessly. He yells at his family. He grows paranoid about the neighbors. When a cop asks him how the War on Terror is going, Egan smirks and replies that it’s going as well as the War on Drugs…

Even though I agreed, for the most part, with everything that the film had to say, I still found it to be incredibly heavy-handed. There is something to be said for subtlety and Good Kill is definitely not a subtle movie. Rabidly anti-military audiences will enjoy having their own prejudices confirmed but, with everyone other than Egan and Vera being portrayed as being bloodthirsty and ignorant, you can be sure that this film won’t change any minds. Politically, this a political film that’s not going to make a bit of difference.

At the same time, there is an interesting subtext running through the film. During the 12 hours that Egan spends in that room, he essentially ceases to be a human being and becomes an extension of that drone. Both literally and figuratively, he becomes a part of the war machine. Just imagine if a director like David Cronenberg had handled this material. Director Anrew Niccol briefly touches on the Cronenbergian aspects of the story but, in the end, he gets too bogged down in all of the speeches.

The problem with political films like Good Kill is that they often feel very artificial and that’s why you’re thankful for Ethan Hawke’s performance. Hawke gives a performance of such raw power that he cuts through all of the polemical bullshit. The film is nearly smothered under the director’s heavy hand but Hawke breathes it back to life. Hawke’s performance brings much needed authenticity to Good Kill and, as a result, he elevates the entire film.

International Trailer: Good Kill

Posted on January 7, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Everyone seems to be in agreement that Ethan Hawke is going to get an Oscar nomination next week for his performance in Boyhood. Everyone also seems to be in agreement that there’s no way anyone other than J.K. Simmons is going to actually win the Oscar for best supporting actor. But that’s okay. Whether you’re watching him in Before Midnight or Dead Poets Society or even Sinister, one thing that is always obvious is that Ethan Hawke is a very good actor. And he will definitely have other opportunities to win an Oscar or two.

He might even get another chance later this year, with the release of Good Kill. In Good Kill, he plays a drone pilot who spends his day dropping bombs on people on the other side of the world. As the job starts to take a toll on both his family and his sanity, he wonders whether the “mission” is really worth it.

This film got a lot of attention at the Toronto Film Festival last year and it was there that it was picked up by Voltage Pictures for a 2015 release. And, just from watching the international trailer that was released yesterday, Good Kill looks exactly like the type of film that’s always more popular with festival goers than it is with mainstream audiences. The trailer looks heavy-handed, with Bruce Greenwood doing his Bruce Greenwood thing as Hawke’s commanding officer and January Jones looking way too glamorous to play Hawke’s estranged wife.

But, even if the film itself looks like it might have problems, Ethan Hawke’s performance looks impressively intense. Of course, we won’t know how impressive (or non-impressive, as the case may be) Hawke’s performance actually is until the film itself is released.

Here’s the international trailer for Good Kill!

Film Review: Devil’s Knot (dir by Atom Egoyan)

Posted on January 2, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After having spent close to a year hearing only negative things about it, I finally watched Atom Egoyan’s Devil’s Knot last night. On the basis of what a lot of critics had said about the film, I have to admit that I was mostly watching it to see if I needed to include it on my upcoming list of the 16 worst films of 2014.

But you know what?

Devil’s Knot really isn’t a bad film. It’s just an extremely unnecessary one.

Devil’s Knot opens with a title card that reads, “Based on a true story.” Honestly, the title card could have just as easily read, “Based on a true story and if you doubt it, there’s four other movies you can watch.” The trial, conviction, and subsequent imprisonment of the West Memphis Three is perhaps the most famous miscarriage of justice in recent history precisely because so many documentaries have been made about it. Paradise Lost and Paradise Lost Part Three are two of the most disturbing true crime documentaries ever made.

(As for Paradise Last Part Two, it displays a stunning lack of self-awareness as it attempts to prove the guilt of John Mark Byers by using many of the same techniques that were used to convict the West Memphis Three. The less said about it, the better.)

The story is so well-known that I almost feel like retelling it would be like taking the time to inform you that George Washington was our first president. But here goes — in 1993, 3 eight year-old boys were murdered in the small town of West Memphis, Arkansas. Three teenagers were arrested for the crime and, on the flimsiest of evidence, were convicted. As is seen in the documentaries, their conviction had more to do with community hysteria and paranoia than anything else. The supposed leader of the West Memphis Three, Damien Echols, was accused of being a Satanist. Why? Mostly because he wore black clothing.

Eventually — and largely as a result of the documentaries made about the case — the West Memphis Three would be freed from prison. (However, their convictions would still legally stand, meaning that their exoneration would be limited to the court of public opinion.) Devil’s Knot, however, doesn’t deal with any of that, beyond a lengthy scroll of “this is what happened after the movie” information that rolls up the screen after the final scene. Instead, Devil’s Knot deals with the first trial of the West Memphis Three and the small town atmosphere of fear and hysteria that led to them being convicted in the first place.

And — though the film is surprisingly conventional when you consider the reputation of director Atom Egoyan — it’s all fairly well-done. As a former resident of and frequent visitor to Arkansas, I was happy to see that Egoyan didn’t indulge in as many stereotypes as I feared he would. (One need only watch the self-important Northern activists in Paradise Lost Two to see the attitude that I feared Egoyan would bring to the project.) Reese Witherspoon is perfectly cast as the mother of one of the murdered boys. Kevin Durand is properly intimidating at John Mark Byers. Even Colin Firth manages to make for a convincing Arkansan.

But, ultimately, Devil’s Knot just feels so unnecessary. It doesn’t bring anything new to the story and there’s ultimately nothing here that you couldn’t have learned from the original Paradise Lost.

Probably the best thing that I can say about Devil’s Knot is that it’s better than Paradise Lost Part Two.

Film Review: Endless Love (dir by Shana Feste)

Posted on November 15, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh, what a disappointing film this turned out to be!

When the trailer for Endless Love came out way back in the closing days of 2013, both me and my BFF Evelyn were seriously excited about seeing it. The trailer was great! It featured Florence + The Machine! The movie looked hot and sexy and fun and…

Well, let’s just rewatch the trailer, shall we?

Here’s the thing: Sometimes, trailers lie.

I saw Endless Love when it was originally released in February but I didn’t review it. I meant to review it but somehow I never got around to doing so. And, unfortunately, the film itself was so bland and forgettable that I actually struggled to think of anything to say about it. Some movies make you laugh. Some movies make you cry. Some movies make you mad. And some movies are just there.

Endless Love is a just there type of movie.

That said, when I saw that Endless Love would be making its cable debut on Cinemax on Saturday night, I decided to give it a second chance. “Who knows?” I thought to myself, “Maybe I just went into the film with unrealistic expectations. Maybe I was just in a bitchy mood when I saw it. Maybe, on a second viewing, I’ll discover that Endless Love works on a purely emotional level…”

No such luck! Having watched Endless Love a second time, I can now actually remember enough about the film to finally get around to writing a review. However, I have also now been reminded why I didn’t care much about the film the first time I saw it.

Endless Love is essentially a collection of generically pretty scenes that all feature pretty performers thinking about love, talking about, and making love. Recent high school graduates David (Alex Pettyfer) and Jade (Gabriella Wilde) start going out. Jade comes from a wealthy family. David does not. Jade’s overly protective father, Hugh (Bruce Greenwood), does not approve of the relationship because Jade has an ivy league future ahead of her while David has no plans to attend college at all. Jade becomes more rebellious. David lectures Hugh on the fact that nothing is more important than love. Hugh takes out a restraining order against David. Jade goes off to college. David tries to secretly see her. And, of course, there’s a fire.

(Though, unlike in the original Endless Love, the fire is not deliberately set. This is Endless Love reimagined as a Nicholas Sparks novel.)

And who really cares?

The problem with Endless Love is that we’re supposed to care about David and Jade and we’re supposed love how obsessed they are with each other but David and Jade are two of the most boring people ever so who cares? Alex Pettyfer is nice to look at. Gabriella Wilde is pretty. But, as a couple, they have next to no chemistry. Instead, they come across like one of those vapid couples that my boyfriend and I always worry we’re going to end up getting trapped in an endless conversation with.

(“How did you two meet? Wait, before you start — let me tell you how we met… It’s a great story…you guys are going to love this…we were both attending kindergarten on a dance scholarship but the ballet kids all hated the ballroom kids. Then they moved to Iceland and I asked my dad if we could move to Greenland and then…”)

And again, this just shows the power of a good trailer. Watching the trailer, you would never guess how boring David and Jade truly are. Incidentally, the best parts of the trailer are all taken from a “David and Jade dating” montage that occurs about halfway through the film. As such, the scenes that made me want to see Endless Love pretty much just serve as filler in the actual film.

Also, Florence + The Machine are nowhere to be heard in the actual film. And their haunting, atmospheric music would have been out of place anyway. Florence + The Machine embraces the power of ambiguity and Endless Love takes place in a world where there is no ambiguity.

However, there is a lot of blue.

Everyone's wearing blue in htis movie. They should have called it Endless Blue. #EndlessLove

— Lisa Marie Bowman (@LisaMarieBowman) November 16, 2014

Seriously! (And yes, I do realize that there’s a typo in my tweet but everyone is allowed to be illiterate on twitter so get off my back.) This movie opens with a high school graduation where everyone is wearing a blue robe and the entire cast is so oppressively cheerful and overwhelmingly pleasant-looking that I briefly wondered if they were supposed to be a graduating class or a cult. Later on, David works at a valet at a country club and, of course, he wears a blue shirt. Everyone who belongs to the club also appears to be wearing a blue shirt, except that it’s a lighter shade of blue than David’s blue. It’s just odd-looking and reinforces the feeling that Endless Love is less a movie and more a collection of commercial outtakes.

Endless Love, of course, is a remake of a film from the early 80s. The first Endless Love isn’t very good but it’s at least a lot of unintentional fun! And you can read my review of it (and even watch the film!) by clicking here.

Embracing the Melodrama #58: The Place Beyond The Pines (dir by Derek Cianfrance)

Posted on July 16, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 2013, the underrated (and, as far as end-of-the-year awards ago, underappreciated) The Place Beyond The Pines is actually three cinematic melodramas in one. Much like a great novel, this movie is split into multiple pieces with each part telling a different part of a larger story. It’s an interesting and ambitious concept, the type that we sometimes fear that audiences are no longer capable of appreciating.

The first third of the story centers on Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling), a motorcycle stuntman who performs at state fairs. During one such fair in upstate New York, he meets and has a brief affair with Romina (Eva Mendes, giving an excellent performance). When he returns to New York a year later, Luke discovers that he is now a father. Luke quits the fair and decides that he wants to be a part of his son’s life but Romina, who is now in a stable relationship with a good man named Kofi (Mahershala Ali), asks him to stay away. Determined to be part of his son’s life and also looking to win back Romina, Luke stays in town and gets a job working with Robin (the always excellent Ben Mendelsohn). Robin owns an auto garage and, as he explains to Luke, he also used to be a bank robber. Soon, with Robin’s help, Luke is robbing banks and sending the money to Romina.

Luke’s story is probably the strongest in the film. Ryan Gosling is charismatic as the dangerous yet likable Luke and he and Eva Mendes have a lot of on-screen chemistry. Ben Mendelsohn brings yet another one of his trademark burned out characters to life and Mahershala Ali is sympathetic as Kofi, a man, who despite being good and responsible, is simply no Ryan Gosling.

The second part of the story deals with Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), the cop who chases Luke after one of his bank robberies. Avery is the politically ambitious son of a former judge (Harris Yulin) and, much like Luke, he also has newborn son. When Avery is originally hailed as hero for his pursuit of Luke, Avery’s feelings are far more ambivalent. It gets even more difficult for him when he catches some of his fellow cops (led, of course, by Ray Liotta) stealing the money that Luke sent to Romina. When Romina rejects Avery’s attempt to return the money to her, Avery is left with little choice but to try to take down the crooked cops himself. It’s the only way for him to clear his conscience.

And, finally, in the third part of the story, teenager Jason Cankham (Dane DeHaan) meets and befriends Avery’s son, AJ (Emory Cohen). What neither one of them realizes is that Jason is Luke’s son. The interesting thing here is that the two sons have, on the surface at least, turned out to be the exact opposites of their father. Jason is the good kid while AJ is probably one of the most despicable movie teenagers of all time. When Jason learns the truth about both of their fathers, he has to decide whether he’s his father’s son or if he is his own human being.

As you might be able to guess from the above plot description, The Place Beyond the Pines is a big epic of a film and, perhaps not surprisingly, the end results are intriguing if occasionally uneven. The film starts out so strongly with Ryan Gosling roaring down empty roads on his motorcycle that it’s hard for the rest of the movie to live up to that opening’s promise. And yet somehow, the film manages to do just that. Even the parts of the film that didn’t particularly intrigue me — like the whole subplot with the corrupt cops — were saved by the efforts of a perfectly chosen cast. The third and final part of the film provides the perfect climax, helping us to both understand the legacy of Luke Glanton and Avery Cross but also to understand why both of their stories are important, both as individual tales and as parts of a greater whole.

The Place Beyond The Pines may not be perfect, not in the way that a film like Winter’s Bone is perfect. However, we should still be glad that films like it are being made.

Trailer: Star Trek Into Darkness (International)

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Arleigh

Less than two months remain before the sequel to J.J. Abrams surprise reboot hit of Star Trek arrives in the theaters this summer. It’s set to be one of this summer’s tentpole event films and this later trailer looks to set to prove that to be true.

While the first two trailers went light on the main narrative of the sequel this international trailer looks to really focus on Benedict Cumberbatch’s character who is either going to be this Star Trek alternate timeline’s Khan or Gary Mitchell or an amalgam of the two. Either way the trailer is all about action and Sherlock-Smaug looking, talking and acting all superior evil towards Kirk and the rest of the Enterprise crew.

Star Trek Into Darkness is set for a May 17, 2013 release date.

Trailer: Star Trek Into Darkness (Super Bowl Exclusive)

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Arleigh

The sequel to J.J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek is just months away. It returns not just Abrams into the director’s chair but also the whole cast of the rebooted franchise back to boldly go where no one’s gone before.

Star Trek Into Darkness (still an awkward title but then we don’t to watch a film in the theaters because we like or don’t like how the title sounds) just released it’s latest trailer (this time a TV spot) during Super Bowl XLVII. The spot has new scenes and images that the previous teasers and trailers didn’t already show. We may have gotten a hint into the villain portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch in the film. While the name Khan has never been mentioned in any ad and marketing spots since the film was announced I’d be very surprised if the villain is not some sort of analogue of that classic Star Trek rogue.

Star Trek Into Darkness is set for a May 17, 2013 release date.

Source: Joblo Movie Network

Trailer: Star Trek Into Darkness (Official Trailer)

Posted on December 17, 2012 by Arleigh

Over ten days ago we saw the release of the teaser trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness. This sequel by J.J. Abrams for the reboot of the storied scifi franchise looks to be one of the most-anticipated films of 2013 (if the world doesn’t end in a couple days of this posting that is). Today we get the release of the official trailer which adds in a couple of new scenes and images not included in the teaser.

Again there’s some debate as to which villain Benedict Cumberbatch is really portraying despite being listed in the cast as the character of John Harrison. The even money bet is that he plays a version of Kirk’s archenemy Khan Noonien Singh which is a strong possibility since the early draft for the Khan character was suppose to be a Nordic superhuman by the name of John Ericssen. Even Abrams himself has never said outright that he would never use the Khan character as the villain in this rebooted franchise. Whether he uses the classic Trek villain in this sequel or the next should get an answer as we get closer to the film’s release date.

Star Trek Into Darkess has a release date of May 17, 2013.

6 More Films From 2012: 4:44: Last Day On Earth, First Position, Flight, The Paperboy, Red Tails, and The Trouble With Bliss

Posted on December 10, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Continuing my ~~desperate~~ attempt to review all of the 2012 films that I’ve seen but haven’t gotten around to reviewing yet, here’s six more reviews.

1) 4:44: Last Day On Earth (dir. by Abel Ferrara)

Whether it’s because of the Mayan calendar or the fact the Obama got reelected, people seem to be obsessed with the end of the world right now and it’s been the subject of several recent films. 4:44: Last Day On Earth is one of the more low-key entries in this genre.

Willem DaFoe plays a New York-based actor who deals with the impending end of the world by meditating in his loft, having sex with his much younger girlfriend, and having awkward conversations on Skype with his daughter. As opposed to the characters in several other end of the world films, DaFoe doesn’t use the situation as an excuse to go on a quest for true love. Unlike 2012, there’s no talk of escaping the apocalypse. Instead, the world is ending and DaFoe has no choice but to accept it. From a cinematic point of view, DaFoe’s passivity can be frustrating (4:44 is a film that’s willing to be boring to make its point) but, at the same time, it does force a viewer like me to wonder how she would handle the end of the world in a way that a film like Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World does not.

One interesting thing that distinguishes 4:44 from other end-of-the-world films is that, in 4:44, the world ends specifically because of the actions of mankind. Whereas films like Melancholia and Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World presented a random apocalypse, 4:44 presents the apocalypse as the fitting punishment for the sins of humanity. While I could have done without the scenes of DaFoe listening to Al Gore droning on and on about global warming (because, seriously, Gore always sounds like the creepy community college professor who you know is having an affair with one of his students), this still adds an interesting element to the film.

4:44 requires a bit of tolerance and a lot of patience but it’s still a film that’s worthy of being seen.

2) First Position (dir. by Bess Kargman)

First Position is a documentary about ballet so, of course, you know that I loved it. The film follows six young dancers as they prepare for the Youth American Grand Prix in New York City and it brought back a lot of memories (both good and bad) for me. First Position captures both the beauty and the pain of both dance and life.

3) Flight (dir. by Robert Zemeckis)

In Flight, Denzel Washington plays a cocky and talented pilot who is also an alcoholic and a drug addict. In a truly harrowing sequence, the plane that Washington is piloting goes into a nosedive over Atlanta. After Washington manages to crash-land the plane with only a few fatalities, he finds himself hailed as both a hero and also under investigation. Working with a union rep (Bruce Greenwood) and a slick attorney (Don Cheadle), Washington tries to cover up his mistakes while, at the same time, romancing a recovering heroin addict (Kelly Reilly).

Flight has a brilliant opening and a strong ending. Unfortunately, the middle of the film tends to drag. Flight also suffers from the fact that cinematic addicts are always more fun to watch when they’re under the influence as opposed to when they’re getting sober. On the plus side, the film itself is well-acted and the cast is always fun to watch even when the rest of the film is getting bogged down. Washington is brilliant in the lead role and John Goodman has a great cameo as the world’s most helpful drug dealer.

4) The Paperboy (dir by Lee Daniels)

In 1960s Florida, Hillary Van Wetter (an amazingly sleazy John Cusack) is on death row for the murder of a small town sheriff. His girlfriend, the flamboyant Charlotte Bess (Nicole Kidman), convinces reporter Ward Jansen (Matthew McConaughey) to return to his hometown and investigate the case against Van Wetter. With the help of his younger brother (Zac Efron) and an arrogant colleague (David Oyelowo), Ward works to get Van Wetter off of death row but it becomes obvious that all of the film’s characters are hiding secrets of their own.

The Paperboy has a few isolated moments where it achieves a certain pulp poetry but, for the most part, Lee Daniels’ follow-up to his Academy Award-winning Precious is a total and complete mess. Unfortunately, it’s not even all that interesting of a mess. Nicole Kidman’s vampish performance and her white trash femme fatale outfits are definitely the film’s highlight. As for Zac Efron, he’s not much of an actor but he’s pipin’, boilin’ hot. It’s just too bad the character that he’s playing isn’t that interesting.

In the end, The Paperboy showcases everything that didn’t work about Precious and nothing that did.

5) Red Tails (dir. by Anthony Hemingway)

Red Tails was one of the first “major” releases of 2012 and it’s also one of the most forgettable. The film, which was executive produced and reportedly co-directed by George Lucas, is based on the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of African-Americans who served in the U.S. Air Force during World War II and who had to not only fight Nazis abroad but racial discrimination at home. There’s undoubtedly an inspiring story to be told here but Red Tails is such a predictable and corny film that it feels as if Lucas and Hemingway essentially wasted the real life story of the Tuskegee Airmen on a painfully generic movie.

6) The Trouble With Bliss (dir. by Michael Knowles)

Morris Bliss (played by Michael C. Hall) is the type of guy who always seems to show up in quirky independent films. He has no job, he has no money, and he lives in a tiny apartment with his father (Peter Fonda). Since there’s nothing more attractive than a middle-aged guy with no future, he finds himself being pursued by an 18 year-old (Brie Larson), who also happens to be the daughter of a former high school classmate, and his married neighbor (played by Lucy Liu).

I have a weakness for quirky indie films but the nonstop quirkiness of The Trouble of With Bliss feels less like narrative imagination and more like total desperation. Michael C. Hall’s a likable actor but he essentially turns Morris Bliss into Dexter Morgan and, as a result, I kept expected for the trouble with Bliss to turn out to be that he had about a few dozen bodies hidden away in a closet somewhere.

Now that would have been a quirky film!