Author: David Riedel

Let’s answer your most pressing question about Obvious Child: Yes, Paul Simon’s song “Obvious Child” appears in the movie. Twice.

Unless you’ve been avoiding press about movies since January, you know Obvious Child is a romantic comedy in which the main character, Donna (Jenny Slate), has an abortion. But that’s not entirely what the movie is about; it’s a complete tale of a woman at an important point in her life. The decision to have an abortion is just one of many things that happens in Donna’s life throughout the movie.

But with that plot point comes a lot of baggage. There hasn’t been a movie since roughly 1982 (Fast Times at Ridgemont High for those keeping score at home) that treats abortion as a judgment-free fact of life. Slate used the phrase “matter-of-fact” in a recent interview with Canada’s Q Radio, and that’s the best way to describe the movie’s handling of Donna’s decision. (Alexander Payne’s 1996 film Citizen Ruth treats abortion as spectacle.)

And here’s the kicker: Obvious Child is funny as shit. It’s possibly the most laugh-out-loud comedy of 2014. The fact that it features a character who terminates a pregnancy will no doubt piss off a lot of people. And maybe it will change minds about abortion (though I doubt it), but it does something important: It treats women and their health decisions with respect. It’s worth noting that Obvious Child is written and directed by Gillian Robespierre (a woman, in case you’re wondering).

Donna is a struggling stand-up comedian who works in a bookstore during the day. After one stand-up set when she reveals too much about her personal life, her boyfriend dumps her; he’s been resenting her openness on stage for months. Then she loses her job when she’s told the bookstore is closing. Then she has a one-night stand with Max (Jake Lacy), a guy she meets after a show. They’re both so drunk she can’t remember whether they used a condom (her hazy recollections make for a few good scenes).

When Donna discovers she’s pregnant, she decides almost immediately—though not without serious consideration—to have an abortion. Slate’s performance in the doctor’s office is award caliber; she schedules the procedure for Valentine’s Day.

Donna leans on her friends for support, including her roommate, Nellie (Gaby Hoffman). Her mother (Polly Draper), with whom she usually butts heads, also becomes a source of support.

Then Obvious Child goes on being a movie about a human woman living her life. It can’t be overstated how refreshing it is to hear characters in a movie use the word “abortion” without shame or judgment, or to use the word at all (I’m looking at you, Knocked Up).

Romantic comedies seem to feature two jobs for women: Successful magazine writers who never seem to report and world-class PR mavens (does any Hollywood screenwriter actually know anyone in PR?). It’s a boon to the genre to see someone real, flawed, and whole. But Obvious Child isn’t just a romantic comedy, and it’s not just about abortion. It’s about time someone made a funny movie that reflects real life.

Playing this week

22 Jump Street
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Belle
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Chef
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Edge of Tomorrow
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Fault in Our Stars
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Godfather (Wed.)
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Godfather Part II (Wed.)
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

How to Train Your Dragon 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Ida
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Jersey Boys
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Maleficent
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Million Dollar Arm
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Rover
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Think Like A Man Too
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Words and Pictures
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

X-Men: Days of Future Past
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Movie houses

Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213

The most beguiling thing about Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida is its look. Its cinematography, by Ryszard Lenczewksi and Lukasz Zal, is so beautiful that it’s easy to forget you’re watching a challenging drama about faith, love, loss, and the ravages of war on identity.

Each shot is so artfully composed, in fact, that the photographic artistry at times threatens to eclipse what is otherwise an emotional journey. So many times Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) sits, her head centered in the lower third of the frame, an enormous window (or wall or door or cross) rounding out the top two-thirds, that it’s easy to get lost in the expanse of the background.

That’s a long way of saying Ida will have an effect on its viewers, though what effect will be entirely subjective—even more than most movies. I was moved more by its style, the way the characters are often dwarfed by their surroundings, and how the sun never seems to shine in the section of Poland where Ida takes place.

Maybe that’s part of Ida’s purpose, to show us how bleak and unknowable everything is. Its characters’ lives are overshadowed by World War II—Ida takes place in the early 1960s—communism, and it seems no one cares about the horrors perpetrated on them in the 1940s.

Those horrors are past but ever-present: namely, the lingering and horrible ramifications of the Holocaust. Anna is young, perhaps 20 years old, and weeks away from taking her vows and becoming a nun. She’s summoned to the city by her only surviving relative, an aunt named Wanda Gruz (Agata Kulesza, who should be nominated for every award), a judge and former prosecutor. Wanda is filled with regret, and decides she must let Anna, an orphan, know exactly whom she is.

Anna’s parents were Jews who were killed during the war. Anna’s real name is Ida, and there’s a family farm where Wanda wants to take her to learn her real family history.

One of the strengths of Ida is Kulesza, and the other is Trzebuchowska, who makes the choice to play Anna as largely passive and composed. Where Wanda smokes and drinks and gets into trouble, Anna quietly takes in her surroundings and observes.

The aesthetic refinements of Ida, ultimately, do get in the way of the story, though there is something refreshing about a camera that doesn’t move much, and lets its characters have space. There’s also a matter-of-factness to the drama, and Pawlikowski wisely lets things play out quickly, never letting a scene linger when it should end (perhaps that’s why Ida is 82 minutes long).

In the movie’s final half-hour, Anna is faced with many choices, most of them stemming from existential questions—live as a Jew? Live as a Catholic? Choose something different?—and there are no answers, at least not by the time the credits roll. Ida is a markedly different movie in a summer full of schlock, and the perfect antidote to mindless entertainment. There’s plenty of thinking to do during its brief run time and after its conclusion.

Playing this week

22 Jump Street
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Belle
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Chef
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Dirty Dancing
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Edge of Tomorrow
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Fault in Our Stars
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

For No Good Reason
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Godzilla
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

How to Train Your Dragon 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Maleficent
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Million Dollar Arm
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

A Million Ways to Die in the West
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Neighbors
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Words and Pictures
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

X-Men: Days of Future Past
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Movie houses

Regal Downtown Mall
Cinema 6 979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213

It’s not unreasonable to imagine that Tom Cruise, perhaps the last of the old school movie stars, had lost it. He hasn’t had a bona fide hit since 2011 with Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol, and as good as some of that movie is, it certainly coasts on the strength of being part of a big franchise.

And as good as moments of Jack Reacher are, it left audiences cold (though how could anyone not want to hear Werner Herzog describe eating his own fingers to stay alive?). And forget Rock of Ages. Just forget it. And forget Cruise’s personal life, too.

How wonderful it is to report that Edge of Tomorrow has all the signs of a creative team and studio wanting to make a good, borderline great, action spectacular.

Cruise is at his best, leaving behind his maniacal laughter and smirk (mostly). His character, Major William Cage, is a U.S. Army public relations official, the American face of the Armed Forces in the wake of a deadly alien invasion that’s spreading through Europe and on the verge of destroying the planet.

When in London to meet General Brigham (an appropriately dark Brendan Gleeson), the man in charge of a multinational assault against the invading aliens, Cage is informed he’ll be on the front lines of the attack in France, filming with a PR camera crew. Cage, showing genuine cowardice, protests, and Brigham has him arrested, drugged, busted in rank to private and sent to the front, not just to cover the invasion, but fight in it.

On the beach in France, Cage meets Sergeant Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), the face of Army recruitment, and the only soldier to successfully kill a bunch of the so-called alien mimics. And then, unceremoniously, they both have their asses handed to them. And then Cage wakes up the morning before the invasion as if nothing has happened to him.

Jokes about Groundhog Day aside, the reason Cage keeps getting killed and then waking up the day before he dies makes sense—at least as much as it needs to. It also becomes a nifty plot device and a source of humor between Cage and Vrataski as it’s revealed she once had the power to start over, too.

The several screenwriters and director Doug Liman (rebounding well after a bomb and a misfire, Jumper and Fair Game, respectively) make a wise choice in delivering Vrataski as the action hero, and Blunt nimbly toes the line between hard-ass and human being. She carries the movie as much as Cruise, and it will be interesting to see whether Blunt ends up in more action flicks.

And Cruise takes a risk—though “risk” to a movie star is a relative term—not just playing a coward but reveling in it and having fun. The aliens are creepy without being gross, the screenplay is smart, and Cruise and Blunt make a great team as they try to find the alien leader. Plus, Bill Paxton pops up giddily in a supporting role. Cruise’s next movie is apparently Mission: Impossible 5, so enjoy him in an excellent non-Ethan Hunt action film while you can.

Playing this week

Amazing Spiderman 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Belle
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Blended
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Chef
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Fault in Our Stars
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Godzilla
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Immigrant
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Maleficent
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Million Dollar Arm
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

A Million Ways to Die
in the West
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Neighbors
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Palo Alto
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Saturday Night Fever
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

X-Men: Days of Future Past
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Movie houses

Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213

Sometimes it’s nice to see a nice movie. “Nice” is a bad word—it’s usually reserved for people who are inoffensive but undatable or your grandmother’s ruminations on her flower garden—but occasionally the word just works. “Nice” is a good description of Chef, writer-director Jon Favreau’s return to smaller stories after the gargantuan (and flat, and wearisome) Cowboys & Aliens.

Favreau is Carl Casper, an amiable but sullen once-hot executive chef at a Los Angeles restaurant who’s feeling stifled by owner Riva (Dustin Hoffman, walking a fine line between empathetic and sleazy). When an influential food critic and one-time fan of Carl’s work comes to review the restaurant, Riva informs Carl he must stick to the menu, which is chic-bland, and not branch out.

So Carl gives critic Ramsey Michel (Oliver Platt) the stuff on the menu, and the review is predictably horrible. That sets Carl off on a series of bad decisions. He starts a Twitter account with the help of his 10-year-old son, Percy (a fine Emjay Anthony), and tweets at Michel, not realizing that tweets are public.

Next: Twitter war. Carl offers to cook a new menu for Michel, who accepts the invitation, but Riva again refuses to let Carl make changes. Carl bails on the second review, and makes things much, much worse when he storms into the restaurant and gives Michel a verbal lashing that ends up on YouTube.

With no job and nothing to lose, Carl takes a trip to Miami with his ex-wife Inez (Sofia Vergara), and Percy. A late-night Cuban sandwich (with Inez’s gentle encouragement that he makes better sandwiches) leads Carl to acquire a beater food truck from Inez’s ex-husband (Robert Downey, Jr.). If it sounds like Carl is getting back to his roots by cooking food he loves, you’re on the right track.

Chef is highly predictable, but in the end that doesn’t really matter. What comes across is a genuine love of food (which Favreau has talked about in interviews) and the joy of doing a job that makes a person happy. It’s not much of a stretch to think Chef is also a reaction to the box office disappointment of Cowboys & Aliens, a big-
budget and highly impersonal misfire. Here Favreau is doing something at which he excels: Writing compelling, flawed characters who are overcoming personal and professional misfortune.

Not everything is perfect. The screenplay, like its characters, is flawed; Scarlett Johansson appears briefly as the front-of-house manager at Carl’s L.A. restaurant, and there’s a glossed-over and dropped subplot that hinges on their maybe-past relationship. I use “maybe” because it’s not clear. What’s also unclear is why Carl and Inez split up. Riva is just a device to push the plot forward.

These are minor gripes. Favreau creates such a feeling of goodwill that it’s easy to forget the script needed a polish. He’s excellent, as is John Leguizamo as his best friend and head line cook, and so is Bobby Canavale as Carl’s sous-chef. When the ending comes, it feels a little abrupt, but given what Carl goes through, why not end quickly, and happily ever after? Chef is too nice to grumble.

Playing this week

Amazing Spiderman 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Belle
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Blended
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Godzilla
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Immigrant
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Maleficent
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Million Dollar Arm
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

A Million Ways to Die
in the West
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Neighbors
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Palo Alto
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Raiders of the Lost Ark
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

X-Men: Days of Future Past
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Movie houses

Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213

It just so happens that Adam Sandler once made good movies. More than once, even. There’s Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore. And on the odd occasion he acts in a drama, he gives good performances in the so-so Punch-Drunk Love, the flawed Reign Over Me and the highly flawed but watchable Funny People.

But whatever. There isn’t room in this review to lament Sandler’s career choices, and his choices are so spectacularly lazy, they don’t deserve lamenting.

That brings us to Blended, which is not the worst movie in the Sandler catalogue. The worst movie in the Sandler catalogue that I’ve seen—That’s My Boy—is so loathsome that if there were any justice, the people who made it would be kicked in the groin repeatedly for not fewer than seven days, annually, to herald the vernal equinox.

No, Blended is not that bad. In fact, nothing could be so bad. (Note: I have seen neither Jack and Jill nor I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry.)

Blended, you see, has the one thing in a Sandler comedy that can elevate it: Drew Barrymore. It’s not that Barrymore hasn’t made execrable movies (He’s Just Not That Into You; Fever Pitch; Lucky You), it’s just that when she’s with Sandler, she elevates his game. Slightly. Her limited charm raises his populist smarm and the results are mediocre.

They did it with The Wedding Singer (bland but harmless). They did it with 50 First Dates (it’s O.K. despite its best efforts to be stupid). They try it again with Blended.

If only Blended did not open in a bathroom. Lauren (Barrymore) is on the phone to her babysitter, asking her to fake an emergency call in 10 minutes because her blind date with Jim (Sandler) is terrible. Oh, and the bathroom is in a Hooter’s. Because why not set it in a Hooters?

Lauren is divorced (cheating assbag husband cliché). Jim is widowed (sympathy card cliché). She has two rotten sons. He has three nice daughters. Lauren’s best friend and business partner Jen (Wendi McLendon-Covey; just give her a starring vehicle already) is dating a guy with five kids who wants to take her to South Africa, and before long there’s some contrived nonsense that gets Jim, Lauren, their five kids and a whole lotta borderline racist jokes to Sun City. (As current as most of the gags are in Blended, I’m surprised Little Steven Van Zandt doesn’t pop up to chastise the entire cast; Google it.)

Barrymore and Sandler have as much chemistry as two old friends climbing aboard the money train, and there are maybe two laughs in 117 minutes (!). There’s also that maddening undercurrent of sweetness that exists in Sandler’s films to temper the bullying, race-baiting, and sexism. Even jerks have hearts, right? And Sandler’s daughters are written to be nice enough while Barrymore’s sons are written as turds. You know, ’cause boys will be boys or something.

Will Sandler and Barrymore end up together? More importantly, how is Blended not totally terrible? Again: It’s a million times better than That’s My Boy.

Playing this week

Amazing Spiderman 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Back to the Future
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Belle
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Chef
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Fed Up
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Godzilla
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Heaven Is For Real
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Immigrant
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Locke
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Million Dollar Arm
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Neighbors
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Other Woman
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Rio 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

X-Men: Days of Future Past
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Movie houses

Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213

George Carlin used to a do a bit about his favorite movies: westerns in which a bunch of cowboys face off with a bunch of Native Americans. “You know what the big scene is going to be, right? It’s going to be the attack the Indians finally make on the cowboys. You wait for it to happen for an hour and a half, and then it’s over. And they show us for 90 minutes how the cowboys get ready for this attack.”

That sums up Godzilla. Ninety minutes of prep work followed by 30 minutes of Godzilla facing off with two MUTOs (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism).

It feels as if the filmmakers, including story writer Dave Callaham (The Expendables), screenwriter Max Borenstein, and director Gareth Edwards (who has spent most of his time as a visual effects artist) were going for a more nuanced Godzilla, like the film that started this whole mess, Gojira (1954). Because Godzilla eventually spends a lot of time battling Mothra and Ghidrah and other ridiculous monsters, we sometimes forget just what a sincere movie Gojira is. Sure, it looks dated, but it’s a deeply felt rumination on the aftermath of war and the lingering effects of radiation poisoning. Plus, Godzilla stomps on a lot of shit.

Tone-wise, there’s a similar sincerity to Godzilla, but Borenstein and Edwards forgot to put any effort into making their characters human. If they’re just going to be lizard fodder, who cares whether they live or die? In Gojira, everyone has a purpose. In Godzilla, Elizabeth Olsen’s purpose is to look beautiful and stand in the rain, mouth agape, before she begins running (slowly). Her character literally does nothing.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson, as her husband Ford, doesn’t have it much better. He’s a Navy nuclear munitions expert (how convenient) who happens to be in Japan visiting his crackpot father (Bryan Cranston, who gets the early award for Scenery Chewing by a Respected Actor) when the first MUTO appears. Taylor-Johnson is one of the dullest actors of his generation (Kick-Ass notwithstanding), and the script does him no favors.

Neither does the pacing, which is leaden on purpose. In the movie’s first hour or so, we get glimpses of what the big scenes are going to be when Godzilla and the MUTOs meet, but even Return of the Jedi—the least of the first three Star Wars films—knew that when cutting away from action, one should cut to more action. Here there’s lots of cutting from action to pondering and prep work. Has the military ever been so sluggish on screen? And how did no one notice—twice—a 10-story tall monster lumbering around in a major metropolitan area?

Worse, there’s no levity in Godzilla. At first, it’s refreshing. But after an hour of deadly serious people doing deadly serious things, a wisecrack or two may take the pressure off the non-story. There’s also some borderline tasteless 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami visual references that are hard to swallow.

But when the monsters finally fight? Pay dirt. Lots of tail-whapping, screaming, and building destruction.

In the end, Godzilla is good for one thing. It puts to rest the age-old question, “What raises a movie’s rating from ‘Terrible’ to simply ‘So-so’?”

Spectacular monster fights, ladies and gentleman. Nothing more, nothing less.

Playing this week

Amazing Spiderman 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Captain America:
The Winter Soldier
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Fed Up
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Heaven Is For Real
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Locke
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Million Dollar Arm
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Mom’s Night Out
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Neighbors
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Only Lovers Left Alive
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Other Woman
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Railway Man
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Rio 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Spartacus
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Movie houses

Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213

It’s mid-May: The crushing tide of summer movies is just around the corner. Gear up.

Actually, we don’t really have a summer movie season anymore. Of all the traditions Star Wars ushered in—it was released on May 25, 1977, just in time for Memorial Day—summer release dates have largely gone kerblooey. To wit: Captain America: The Winter Soldier was released on April 4, a previously unheard of time for big budget action flicks.

But there is still mucho big, big explosion-filled stuff coming this season. And, just in case you don’t want your eardrums to explode along with a bunch of robots, cars, and buildings, there are some smaller releases, too.

Godzilla

Another year, another movie about a giant something-or-other smashing stuff. Last year it was Pacific Rim. This year, it’s a giant radioactive lizard-thing. The trailer reveals little of the plot, and one of my colleagues, a bona fide giant robot/monster movie fan, thinks the movie looks deadly serious, just like the Japanese Gojira from 1954 (that’s the one sans Raymond Burr). It can’t be worse than the 1998 Matthew Broderick-starring Godzilla. (May 16)

X-Men: Days of Future Past

The Wolverine, the 2013 Hugh Jackman standalone, was the X-Men apex. Why crap it up with a Bryan Singer-directed prequel/sequel? Sure, Singer is the brains behind the bulk of the X-Men franchise, but his last job helming Professor X and the crew was the good X2 (2003), and he hasn’t directed a decent movie since. (And Jack the Giant Slayer is just terrible.) Happy news: Almost every cast member from previous X-Men films appears, so the star wattage will be blinding. (May 23)

Maleficent

A live-action expansion of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty story is needless, but if any actor was born to play Maleficent, the Mistress of All Evil, it’s Angelina Jolie. It will likely be worth seeing for that reason alone. (May 30)

A Million Ways to Die in the West

Seth MacFarlane returns to live action with this aware-of-itself western. The trailer, which features five deaths—one of them funny—and a musical number, seems like standard MacFarlane: We’ve been told he’s funny by people we respect, so why not just assume it will be funny (even if Ted wasn’t great)? (May 30)

The Fault In Our Stars

Shailene Woodley, apparently not content with conquering YA action films (Divergent), will also conquer YA weepies. She has cancer. Her boyfriend has cancer. I read somewhere even cancer has cancer, which, like two negatives in algebra, actually cancels the cancer out. Cancer is now hosting a podcast and writing a memoir about working with Woodley. (June 6)

Edge Of Tomorrow

It must be summer if Tom Cruise is starring in an action movie that looks terrible! He dies a lot (which he sort of did in the rotten Oblivion). Emily Blunt is in EoT, too, and she looks like an ass-kicker. Good. Action movies need women kicking ass more than they do in the Marvel movies, which relegate women to non-ass kicking roles unless they’re Scarlett Johansson. (June 6)

22 Jump Street

It looks exactly the same as 21 Jump Street, which can’t be bad. Unless it’s exactly the same like The Hangover II was exactly the same as The Hangover—you know, a remake without jokes. But Jonah Hill is a savvier writer than the Hangover crew, right? Right? (I hope I’m right.) (June 13)

The Rover

Another YA alum, Robert Pattinson, makes his non-YA thriller debut. He stars with Guy Pearce in grizzled mode, and if history has taught us anything that means there will be lots of killin’. (June 20)

Transformers: Age Of Extinction

The only thing worse than a Shia LaBeouf-starring Transformers movie is a Mark Wahlberg-starring Transformers movie (that’s a guess). People of Earth: Stop buying tickets to these shit shows. Hopefully this movie’s subtitle hints at the shelf life of this franchise. (June 27)

Tammy

Melissa McCarthy wrote the screenplay for this comedy with her husband Ben Falcone, who also directs. Even in the darkest moments of The Heat and Identity Thief—and there are plenty—McCarthy shines brightly. Let’s hope Tammy is Bridesmaids-funny. (July 2) 

Jupiter Ascending

Mila Kunis is Jupiter, a janitor (yeah, O.K.), who just happens to be someone who could save the universe from an evil queen. This movie is the brainchild of the Wachowskis, which explains why its trailer feels so much like The Matrix. It can’t be worse than Cloud Atlas, and if we’re lucky it will feel as fresh as Neo’s first adventure before the two sequels killed the good vibes it created.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

“From Producer Michael Bay” reads the first title card in the trailer. So that’s why it feels like another Transformers movie. If you read the Interwebs, you’ve heard the grumbles about changes in the turtles’ origin story. That doesn’t mean the movie is good or bad; that just means longtime fans are butthurt. Will TMNT be good? Honestly, it doesn’t look half-bad. Plus, William Fichtner is Shredder, so you know one thing: Shredder is ridiculously handsome. (Aug. 8)

The Expendables 3

Man, Sylvester Stallone is really milking this old-guys-blowing-shit-up routine, and to be fair, he’s done it better than anyone else—admittedly a low bar. Good news: Wesley Snipes is out of prison and in an action movie again. It hasn’t really raised the star power of the other olds in the series, and it didn’t hurt or hinder current stars. But Snipes was always fun to watch, even in rotten movies (Blade: Trinity). Here’s hoping he’s back, and that Stallone can still provide the goofy fun. (Aug. 15)

Enjoy the air conditioning, kids. See you in the fall for the awards-hungry movies.

Playing this week

Amazing Spiderman 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Bears
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Brick Mansions
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Captain America:
The Winter Soldier
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Fading Gigolo
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Heaven Is For Real
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Le Week-end
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Lunchbox
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Mom’s Night Out
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Monuments Men
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Neighbors
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Other Woman
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Railway Man
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Rio 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Titanic
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Movie houses

Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213

By this point, we’ve all seen the ads for Neighbors. Family vs. frat. Thirtysomethings vs. drunk 20somethings. Seth Rogen and gross-out humor.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster. Plus, the last movie Rogen starred in, This is the End, is so bad that any reasonable adult could be forgiven for thinking Rogen had jumped the shark and would never star in anything decent in the future.

Good news: Neighbors is hilarious. It has a simple formula—the aforementioned family vs. frat—solid jokes, and above-average performances. But, and this is key, it knows it’s a goofy idea and uses that to its advantage. Plus, director Nicholas Stoller specializes in making good movies out of thin premises; he’s also responsible for Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him to the Greek, and the underappreciated The Five-Year Engagement.

Mac (Rogen) and Kelly Radner (Rose Byrne) are a married couple in their early 30s with a newborn. They’re happily adjusting to domestic life and love their neighborhood.

The trouble begins when a fraternity moves in to the house next door. To prove they’re cool, and also to politely warn the neighbors about loud partying, Mac and Kelly introduce themselves and bring some weed as a gift. The weed (and the baby, funnily enough) is a big hit with the fraternity brothers, and the president, Teddy (Zac Efron), and vice president, Pete (Dave Franco), promise to keep the noise level down. They also ask that if Mac and Kelly have problems with the fraternity, they bring it to the house and not the cops.

Mac and Kelly attend a party and everything is cool. But then a subsequent party is too off the rails, and Mac calls the police. Teddy and Pete consider the police intervention a breach of trust and decide to make life miserable for the Radners, even though everyone still finds the baby really cute.

From then on it’s pranks and silliness—hard R-rated silliness. Stoller has edged toward complete outrageousness before (the stabbing scene in Get Him to the Greek, for example), but Neighbors is the first time he’s fully embraced it (chalk that up to Andrew Jay Cohen and Brendan O’Brien’s script). Mac and Kelly work up a cockamamie scheme to get the fraternity banned from the college, and have some uproarious exchanges with the over-it-all dean (Lisa Kudrow).

Another thing Neighbors does well is shine a light on how easy it is to forget what it’s like to be young. It’s not necessarily groundbreaking, but Mac and Kelly face questions we all face when we get older: What the hell happened to us? Are we no longer fun? Do we take our lives so seriously that we get bent out of shape over a loud rave? Aren’t we justified in feeling this way?

The entire cast is excellent, particularly Byrne, who continues to show a gift for comedy. She’s matched by Rogen, who excels at this type of role (which is not all that different from what he does in every movie), and Efron and Franco, even if they’re a little too old to play college seniors.

Enjoy Neighbors. It’s smart (in its stupidity), it looks better than any college movie should, and it’s laugh-out-loud funny. And you get to see an almost naked Seth Rogen. Who could ask for more?

Neighbors/R, 96 minutes/Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Playing this week

Amazing Spiderman 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Ben-Hur
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Bears
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Brick Mansions
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Captain America:
The Winter Soldier
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Divergent
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Draft Day
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

A Haunted House 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Heaven Is For Real
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Jodorowsky’s Dune
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Le Week-end
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Lunchbox
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Monuments Men
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Other Woman
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Quiet Ones
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Railway Man
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Rio 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Transcendence
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Movie houses

Regal Downtown Mall
Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213

The Other Woman has approximately 1 million things working against it. First, we’re expected to believe Kate (Leslie Mann) is some sort of undesirable fuddy-duddy. Mann has played this role before, mostly in her husband Judd Apatow’s movies, but at least here she has a chance to use her goofy muscles instead of just reacting to Paul Rudd acting like a bonehead.

Secondly, there’s Cameron Diaz as Carly, an ice queen high-powered attorney. Diaz has certainly played her share of ice queens (In Her Shoes, Bad Teacher, The Counselor), and it’s not much of a stretch for her, but at least she does it well.

Thirdly, there’s Kate Upton as Amber, a beautiful innocent. She has so few lines of dialogue it’s hard to tell whether she’s a decent actor, but she beams at the right moments, makes frittatas, and has a few good lines—or what passes for good lines in a screenplay as lazy as The Other Woman’s.

Finally, the story operates under the pretense that a woman needs a man to make her happy, or to complete her in some way. That’s not an original idea (or a particularly good one). In 2014 you’d think we’d move beyond such limited gender bias.

But you can’t have everything, especially in a big budget Hollywood comedy. And somehow, miraculously, The Other Woman isn’t going to be the worst movie of the year. Some of it is actually quite funny.

In the movie’s first scene, we see Carly (Diaz) making out with hot guy Mark (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau who plays Jaime Lannister on “Game of Thrones”). Before long they’re spending many waking and sleeping moments together, and soon they’ve made plans for him to meet her father (Don Johnson, who plays the old lothario with ease).

What Carly doesn’t know—and what we all know because the title of this film is The Other Woman—is that Mark is married to Kate (Mann). After Mark cancels the father meeting to spend time with his wife, Carly is pissed off, but her assistant, Lydia (Nicki Minaj, who should be in every movie from now on) convinces her to pop in on Mark unannounced. When Carly arrives at Mark’s house, Kate answers the door. Carly is mortified, even falling into the bushes (ho ho!), and Kate is confused.

That sets the stage for what becomes a fairly typical revenge comedy. Carly and Kate conspire to make Mark pay for his infidelities, eventually roping in third other woman Amber, who’s eager to go along with them. They put a laxative in his drinks (eww—and yawn), find out he’s doing a bunch of illegal business (no surprise given this jerk’s track record and his propensity to have Kate sign legal documents without letting her read them), and give him estrogen (prompting a very weird racist joke in the middle of the movie).

Somehow it’s not a total wash. There’s something rather delightful in watching these women act like total idiots. And Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifinakis, and Ed Helms did that for three Hangover movies, so why not give Diaz, Mann, and Upton a shot?

I’d come down harder on The Other Woman if it were meant to be taken seriously, but the whole thing is so absurd, it’s impossible to take seriously. And who couldn’t use some silliness?

Playing this week

Amazing Spiderman 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

A Haunted House 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Bears
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Brick Mansions
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Divergent
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Dom Hemingway
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Draft Day
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Gladiator
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Heaven Is For Real
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Lunchbox
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Oculus
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Quiet Ones
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Railway Man
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Rio 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Transcendence
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Under the Skin
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Movie houses

Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213