BuzzSugar

Couples Retreat: Not Exactly a Relaxing Getaway

BuzzSugar — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:30:11 -0700

Everyone loves a vacation, right? Beautiful scenery, tropical drinks, fun in the sun. Add a few of your closest friends and you could have the trip of a lifetime - or a romantic getaway gone horribly awry.

To be fair, the four pairs in Couples Retreat don't realize what they're agreeing to when they head to Eden East, a swanky resort on a remote island. But once the relationship boot camp begins, the friendships quickly break down, and it's often more depressing than hilarious. To see what I mean, just read more.

The movie's couplings range in age, family size, and personality, with Vince Vaughn and Malin Akerman at the epicenter. As Dave and Ronnie, they are perhaps the most "normal" of the bunch. Between Dave's demanding job making video games (hello, Guitar Hero product placement) and raising two young sons, Dave and Ronnie don't even realize their problems until they are forced into couples skill-building. Vaughn is his typical wise-cracking character, but a touch of sweetness makes his on-screen relationship with Akerman the most enjoyable to watch. You can actually believe that they love each other and aren't using the trip as a band-aid for a bullet hole.

Jason and Cynthia (played by Jason Bateman and Kristen Bell), on the other hand, are a lot harder to relate to as two type-A personalities with an undying love for organization and PowerPoint presentations. Jason and Cynthia present the idea of the group vacation to their friends as a last-ditch effort to save their marriage (promising that the therapy sessions are optional, of course). Bell is her typical adorable self, but Bateman is insufferable. His character is painfully meticulous and overbearing, making the audience feel just as suffocated as Cynthia does.

Joey (Jon Favreau) and Lucy (Kristin Davis) represent the worst of the worst: the couple that's been together so long that they don't even notice each other anymore. The high school sweethearts take the trip not as an opportunity to re-kindle the flame, but to chase skirts (or in this case, bikini bottoms) and muscular yoga instructors. Favreau gets a few laughs with his quest to get to Eden West, the "singles" side of the island, but age-wise, Davis doesn't quite fit in with Bell and Ackerman. It's also hard to laugh at characters that embody one of the biggest fears for young couples, and their ice-cold relationship is almost too realistic to scoff at.

Then there's Shane (Faizon Love), who's newly separated from the wife he still loves, but brings along his 20-year-old girlfriend for the ride instead. As Trudy, Kali Hawk steals a lot of the laughs as she yearns to drink and party all night long while her boyfriend would rather take a nap. One joke that never gets old: Trudy's insistence on calling Shane "Daddy" throughout the entire film.

With such a strong headline cast, it's disappointing that the supporting actors steal the show. I laughed the hardest at Dave and Ronnie's adorable boys (who get very little screen time) and at the motley crew of therapists and other wacky workers at the resort dedicated to making this the trip from hell.

At the end of it all, you'll get a few laughs along with some very beautiful imagery, but you might just want to put your money toward your own vacation instead.

Photos courtesy of Universal Pictures

Movie Preview: Couples Retreat

BuzzSugar — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:02:27 -0700

This movie stars a whole slew of actors who are no strangers to comedy (Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Jason Bateman, Kristin Davis, Kristen Bell and a bunch more), though the trailer for their upcoming movie Couples Retreat doesn't really elicit the big laughs. It does look pretty cute, though, so maybe it's more of a silly-funny thing than a ha-ha-funny thing.

The story follows four couples - some happy in their relationships and some on the brink of separating - who attend a couples retreat together in a beautiful tropical location. As they go about working on their relationships, funny stuff happens, I guess. I will say that it's very cool to see Jon Favreau back in a more central role (he also wrote the movie). I love it when he directs movies, but I love it just as much when he's being funny on the big screen. The comedy opens Oct. 9. To check out the new trailer, read more.

Watchmen: Fun For Fans

BuzzSugar — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 09:30:33 -0800

It's obviously difficult to adapt a beloved written (and, in this case, drawn) work for the big screen - and it’s downright impossible to make an adaptation that satisfies every viewer (or certainly every megafan). I truly enjoyed reading the comic book series Watchmen by Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore, and having seen the film adaptation, I don't dislike it. It's probably the best we could have asked for as far as adaptations go. And I know it's useless now to say that the work should never have been brought to film in the first place (though I do feel that way), so now that it has been made into a movie, is it any good? From a fan's perspective I say, sure, it's fine. But I don't have any other perspective to go by.

I have no idea how this movie comes across to someone who has never read the comic book series. I can't even pretend to be unbiased about this - as a fan, just seeing these characters come to life is incredibly exciting. But as a standalone movie, I can admit that it's probably not great. Essentially, it's made for the fanboys (and fangirls) and other viewers may not understand or like it. It's campy, sometimes resembling a silly soap opera, and truthfully I am hard-pressed to remember any distinct images or scenes from the movie, just a few days after seeing it. It's certainly temporary entertainment, and for some it may be frustrating to watch. For more about the movie and my take, read more.

The opening credits (which I got to see at Wondercon, awesomely) are perhaps my favorite part of the whole thing as we hear Bob Dylan's "The Times, They Are A-Changing" and go through a series of slow-motion images of what's been happening politically over the Cold War years, along with images depicting the rise and fall of masked vigilantes in the US. Originally revered as society's helpers, by the 1980s masked crime-fighters have become hated, and people want their good ol' police officers back protecting them. One "mask" is the dark outlaw Rorschach, who still wears a mask of ever-shifting ink blots over his face. Now in 1985 New York City, Rorschach notices that someone has been murdering former masked avengers one by one and he becomes determined to get to the bottom of it. Meanwhile, tensions between the US and the Soviet Union are reaching a boil and nuclear war seems imminent. The movie strings together several different stories of the various former crime-fighters while simultaneously increasing the threat of nuclear destruction within the US-Soviet conflict.

Director Zack Snyder is very faithful to the written work (though he makes some decisions to make certain scenes bigger or smaller, like a particular sex scene that seems to go on for approximately forever). So any real issues one has with the story of Watchmen or with the characters are probably issues with the source material itself and not so much with Snyder's adaptation. That said, even having read the series, the movie is way more violent than I thought it would be. At times it's that cartoonish violence that's easy to take, but some of the gore is startling. In movie form it's just gruesome.

Despite this faithfulness to the material, though, there's a weightiness and a complexity to the written work that doesn't quite come through, leaving many of the scenes to fall flat and empty. The written work is expansive and complicated and multilayered - to pare it all down to a storyline people can understand (even in the lengthy running time of approximately 162 minutes) is an insanely massive task to take on. And in attempting to do so, some parts of the book simply don’t translate well. Dr. Manhattan (a physicist who has an accident in his lab, resulting in his becoming an all-powerful blue, glowy giant being), for example, comes across as just silly and in fact, I found myself at times bored or annoyed with him. His scenes with Laurie are even more tiresome.

Perhaps unsurprisingly (but no less satisfyingly), the best moments come from Rorschach. Aside from being a fan favorite in general, Jackie Earle Haley does a marvelous job making us care about Rorschach and see him as a disturbed man with a strong sense of right and wrong. He's pitiable and a little bit frightening, too. It's easy to root for Rorschach; it's easy for the audience to want to be on his side. We know that he's a bit messed up but somehow all the more likable because of it. And the dark electricity Haley brings to the screen in each of his scenes sets the character of Rorschach apart from the rest.

And maybe I'm easily amused, but the ever-shifting mask he wears is unendingly cool to watch.

See, that's the thing. As a fan, I forgive so much. I don't know how to recommend this movie to the uninitiated - I have no idea what it looks like, or if it's worth the nearly three hours in a movie theater. But as a fan I was going to go anyway, and short of total disaster, I was probably always going to think what I think: that it's cool-looking and super satisfying to see these characters come to life.

Photos courtesy of Warner Bros.

BuzzSugar at WonderCon: Watchmen Takes the Stage!

BuzzSugar — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 07:30:07 -0800

Saturday at WonderCon started with a bang: Watchmen director Zack Snyder appeared before an extremely packed house along with his cast to reveal about 20 minutes of footage from the movie, including the opening credits.

The conversation was lively and the footage very exciting. Of course, I can't give my final opinion till I've seen the movie start to finish, but based on what I saw this weekend, it's hard for me to imagine this film stumbling too hard. I'm a huge fan of the graphic novel, so I may be a wee bit biased - though it's hard to tell if that would make me easier or harder on the film. I guess I'll know soon, but to see my thoughts on the panel and more details about the clips, read more.

The ballroom crowd went wild when, in addition to director Zack Snyder, most of the major cast members showed up on stage. They included Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Billy Crudup, Malin Akerman, Jackie Earle Haley, and Patrick Wilson.

After some chatting about the movie, Snyder announced he was showing us the first 20 minutes or so of the movie. The opening credits of Watchmen are astonishing and manage to cram in the history and back story of the movie's alternate reality, all set to Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin."
We also got to see a scene of Rorschach (Haley) in prison that practically had the crowd on its feet by the end. I'll just say this: it's violent, it's kick-ass, and I think it's a taste at how satisfying seeing this graphic novel on the big screen could be.
A couple of funny moments: Morgan said that in approaching his role as The Comedian, he had to somehow make the character seem human in the midst of "killing, raping and pillaging throughout the world." Crudup said in order to make Dr. Manhattan seem distracted, he just thought of "walking on the surface of the sun and things like that."

If there's a sequel, it probably won't involve Snyder, who called such rumors "crazy talk" and added, "To me it seems impossible to even talk about. That's like a sequel to Moby Dick."
For the record, Snyder couldn't be cuter in person.
If the film does well it will almost certainly get a director's cut re-release this July. Currently, the movie is 2 hours and 43 minutes long, and the director's cut will be 3 hours and 10 minutes.
When talking about all the cuts Snyder had to make for the theatrical release, he mentioned the studio requesting less of two things: violence and Dr. Manhattan's blue, er, private areas.
Snyder also said that the companion story to the comic, Black Freighter, has been created as an animation and will be released on DVD a week after the movie hits theaters.
Dave Gibbons, the novel's illustrator, had nothing but kind words for the movie, saying "It's completely surreal" and "This is like the movie I saw in my head, and these are like the people I saw in my dreams."
Fun fact: Little Rorschach, whom we see in the opening credits, is played by Snyder's own son.

New Watchmen Trailer Provides More Info

BuzzSugar — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 05:30:11 -0800

OK, I'll admit it: When I first saw the teaser trailer for Watchmen, I didn't really get it. I liked the look of it and I think the use of that Smashing Pumpkins song "The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning" is inspired. But I didn't understand what was going on, unfamiliar as I was with the source material. Well, I decided to become familiar with the source material and now that I have, I'm a wee bit obsessed. To find out why and to see a new trailer, read more.

Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's comic book series Watchmen has received overwhelming critical praise ever since publication in 1986 and 1987. In 2005 it was included on Time's list of "the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present," and Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof has called it ''the greatest piece of popular fiction ever produced." Unlike other superhero franchises (Superman, Spider-Man, Batman, etc.), Watchmen was deemed "unfilmmable," with director Terry Gilliam stating that "by reducing it to a two or two-and-a-half hour film, it seemed to me to take away the essence of what Watchmen is about.”

Well, in this superhero-happy era of filmmaking, Watchmen was going to be made, and admirably enough (at least in my opinion) 300 director Zack Snyder took on the project mostly because he loves the work and he worried that the wrong director wouldn't do it justice.

Now I'm almost done reading Watchmen and while I wasn't sure I'd like it, I have to say, I'm totally mesmerized. I think I see what all the fuss is about. And yesterday I (somewhat) patiently waited until 5:00 p.m. my time to catch the latest trailer for the film, which opens March 6, 2009. I've rarely been this intrigued by something I won't see for another four months. The new trailer provides more information on the story, so check it out below and tell me what you think.

Images courtesy of Warner Bros.

Buzz News Roundup, 10/15

BuzzSugar — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:30:55 -0700

Don Cheadle is replacing Terrence Howard in the role of Col. James "Rhodey" Rhodes for Iron Man 2. - ComingSoon
The sequel to Wall Street is actually happening and will "center on Gordon Gekko, who has recently been sprung from prison and re-emerges into a much more tumultuous financial world than the one he once lorded over." - Variety
Amy Sedaris has signed a deal to create, write, and star in a new comedy series. - Hollywood Reporter
Amy Adams is in negotiations to star in the comedy Leap Year, the story of a woman who travels to Dublin to propose to her boyfriend on Feb. 29, a day when he has to say yes, according to tradition. - ComingSoon
Comedian D.L. Hughley is getting his own comedy/news show on CNN. - Broadcasting and Cable
Kristen Bell, Kristin Davis, and Malin Akerman are joining the cast of Jon Favreau's comedy Couples Retreat. - Hollywood Reporter
Best Week Ever is changing its format, with just one host: Paul F. Tompkins. - New York Times
Marilynne Robinson and Aleksandar Hemon are among the finalists for the National Book Award. - AP
Starz has picked up a series called Party Down co-created by Rob Thomas and Paul Rudd. - Hollywood Reporter

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27 Dresses: Formulaic but Enjoyable

BuzzSugar — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 05:30:00 -0800

If you have just the right mindset before viewing 27 Dresses, you just might - dare I say it?- love this movie. It's not deep, it won't win any awards, but it's the perfect complement to a big buttery bucket of popcorn. And really, isn't that what going to movies like this is all about? If your expectations are low, and mine admittedly were, you will be surprised at how enjoyable this movie is. Don't get me wrong, the movie is dripping with wedding clichés, but luckily it's smart enough not to take itself too seriously. In fact, the movie takes those wedding clichés head on. My favorite example is how many times Katherine Heigl's character is told that "the great thing about the bridesmaid's dress is you can shorten the hem and wear it again." Hilarious.

True to the title, Katherine Heigl's Jane has been a bridesmaid 27 times. The movie begins with number 26 and number 27. That's right: She's a bridesmaid twice in one night. What follows is a hilarious comedy of errors as she tries to navigate two weddings: one in Manhattan, another in Brooklyn. It's quite a feat considering that Jane has to jump back and forth between the weddings, requiring, as you can imagine, a quick change in the back of a cab. The resulting antics catch the eye of Kevin, a wedding journalist played by James Marsden. But Jane's heart belongs to her boss George (Edward Burns). Smell a love triangle?

For the rest of my take on the generically enjoyable 27 Dresses read more.

Jane's love for George is unrequited, as he is so oblivious to Jane's affection that he bypasses Jane for her sister Tess (played by Malin Akerman, Ben Stiller's wife in The Heartbreak Kid). The two fall madly in love, which leaves Jane planning a wedding for her sister and her boss. Enter Kevin.

You can take the plot from here. Jane loathes Kevin, then falls in love with him, then something happens to tear them apart, then it ends in a way that won't surprise you. What is surprising is that, despite the formula, the movie still feels fresh. I commend the cast, specifically Katherine Heigl and James Marsden. Heigl, with last year's blockbuster Knocked Up, is clearly proving that she can hold a film. And the adorable Marsden (have you seen him in Enchanted, or better yet, Hairspray?) continues to delight.

All in all, it's no Atonement, but if you typically like movies in the same vein as How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, you'll adore 27 Dresses.

To see the trailer and more clips from 27 Dresses check out movies.ivillage.com.

Photos courtesy of Fox Movies

The Heartbreak Kid: Middle-of-the-Road Comedic Fluff

BuzzSugar — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 15:15:37 -0700

When it comes to The Heartbreak Kid, here's the bottom line: If you loved Along Came Polly, chances are you'll probably enjoy The Heartbreak Kid. The two movies are very similar: Ben Stiller plays the lead and yet he's not the most interesting character by a long shot. The female characters are far more compelling than he is and the male peripheral characters are way funnier. The premise includes comical misunderstandings and amusing misadventures. It's not bad. It's not exactly charming, either.

Stiller plays Eddie Cantrow, a commitmentphobe who meets Lila (Malin Akerman), the woman of his dreams, and impulsively marries her. While honeymooning in Cabo, however, Eddie sees another side of his new bride and discovers that she's a wild child with a sketchy past and an insatiable desire for rough sex. Moral of that story: talk to your fiancee about things like money and sex before taking the plunge. Seems easy enough. Anyway, in Cabo Eddie meets a real dreamgirl, Miranda (Michelle Monaghan), who is vacationing with her family. They hit it off, but Eddie refrains from telling Miranda and her fam that he's married. The lies! The lies are so funny! To find out more, read more

The script, a remake of Neil Simon's 1972 version, is actually somewhat clever - some offensive fat jokes and the implication that illegal immigration is laugh-out-loud hilarious (or at least it is when a white guy does it!) notwithstanding. Many of the characters are great, and the actors playing them are even better. Rob Corddry, Malin Akerman and Jerry Stiller (playing, adorably, Eddie's dad) particularly stand out.

My biggest problem with the whole thing is Ben Stiller who, coasting on his former success with similar fare like There's Something About Mary, seems to think that he can now phone it in and audiences will stupidly gobble up anything he does. He doesn't bother with things like changing his expression (ever) or putting any sort of earnestness into his delivery. He seems to shrug at us, "Why bother?" He gets paid either way. Stiller aside, however, as yet another Farrelly Brothers comedy, the movie gets the job done.

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Movie Preview: 27 Dresses

BuzzSugar — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 15:35:31 -0700

The movie doesn't open until January 11, 2008 but we already have a trailer for Katherine Heigl's next romantic "comedy," 27 Dresses. She plays a woman who has been a bridesmaid 27 times and, surprise surprise, never a bride. It appears that her tendency to be kind of a doormat has something to do with her getting stepped on a lot.

Judy Greer (13 Going on 30) yet again plays the shrill friend and James Marsden looks beautiful but seems slightly dull. I wished this would be a better-looking movie, but the trailer makes it look pretty generic. To get a load of Heigl and her 27 Dresses, read more

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Katie Holmes Is Feeling Romantic

BuzzSugar — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:30:53 -0800

Katie Holmes in on a roll. Fresh off last week's Cocktail on Broadway news, the star has now jumped on board an indie film. Holmes is joining the comedy, The Romantics, taking over a role from Liv Tyler. (No reason has been given for Tyler's departure.)

Romantics follows a group of college friends who come together one night for a wedding. Holmes will be playing the maid of honor to the bride (Anna Paquin), and both women have a long history with the groom (Josh Duhamel). Malin Akerman, Elijah Wood, and Adam Brody round out the cast.

The storyline sounds cute, even if it's not the most original concept - a few eighties Brat Pack movies come to mind. I'm also interested in tracking this one because Holmes is making her debut as an executive producer. I'm glad to see her taking on more of a business role in Hollywood for a change, instead of letting Tom have all the clout.

What do you think about this new project? And what do you make of the ensemble? (Kind of a weird mix of actors, isn't it?)