UNSTOPPABLE: unremarkable but engaging

There's nothing particularly new about the plot to UNSTOPPABLE, and it certainly couldn't be accused of possessing depth or subtext but it does nonetheless offer 90 minutes of clenched fists, buttock squeezing, edge of the seat excitement.

Director Tony Scott has fashioned a rollercoaster ride out of the simple storyline of a runaway freight train and the veteran train driver (Denzel Washington) and his rookie conductor (Chris Pine) who must catch the half-mile long 'missile' and stop it before it comes off the rails in the middle of a Pennsylvania town and explodes, spraying its cargo of toxic chemicals into the atmosphere.
While Scott does pause long enough to give the two leads some back story - Washington has been fired by the train company whose ass he's trying to save, and Pine's fiery temper has estranged him from his wife and daughter - all that is irrelevant to the action that unfolds as the two trains barrel through the Pennsylvania countryside.
The climax is entirely predictable but that doesn't detract from the enjoyment to be had from the various distractions and mini-climaxes Scott sets up along the way, and the relationship that develops between the two main characters.
Suspend your disbelief, switch your critical faculties to the 'off' position, then sit back and enjoy the ride. UNSTOPPABLE is brainless entertainment at its best.

RABBIT HOLE: grown up storytelling at its best

RABBIT HOLE is a gutwrenchingly sad experience.

Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart give such powerful and compelling performances as a couple struggling to cope with the death of their young son in a road accident that it's impossible not to be drawn into their world of inconsolable pain.
Eckhart wants to let it all out while Kidman insists on keeping everything bottled up. It's a recipe for relationship disaster as both turn to people and pursuits outside of their marriage to help them get through the nightmare that their life has become.
It's obviously impossible to imagine what it must be like to face the loss of a young son or daughter but RABBIT HOLE gives us a pretty good idea.

THE TOWN: revisting a familiar neighborhood

Crime thriller THE TOWN comes off like Martin Scorsese-lite.
Set in the rough, apparently crime-riddled Boston neighborhood of Charlestown and populated by characters doing their damndest to get that distinctive Bohwston accent just right the film reminded me of a stripped down version of 'The Departed."
Writer-director-star Ben Affleck has gone for a much simpler take on the familiar cops and robbers genre. There's much less depth to the characters, their back stories and the plot than Scorsese achieved with his multiple Oscar winner.
And that's why 'The Departed' has stuck in my mind for years while THE TOWN is already a fading memory less than 24 hours after I watched it.

BLACK SWAN: look beneath the glossy surface

If BLACK SWAN sweeps the board in the upcoming awards season a terrible injustice will have been done.
Because this film is only half as fabulous as its supporters like to make out.
I don't blame them. It's easy to be taken in.
Firstly there's the reputation of the director, Darren Aronofsky. His impressive, if short, resume ("Requiem for a Dream", "The Fountain", "The Wrestler") has endowed him with the reputation of a stylish arthouse director, and he certainly has an engaging way of telling the story of characters who are chasing a dream.
Then there's the subject matter. Aronosky's succeeded in making the rarefied and most definitely artsy world of ballet interesting and accessible to a multiplex audience.. There's not been this much buzz about ballet on the big screen since Powell and Pressburger's 'The Red Shoes' way back in 1948.
And then there's Natalie Portman's performance as Nina Sayers - the ballerina who loses her mind in pursuit of perfection.
It all adds up to a mesmerizingly shiny surface which can blind one to the reality beneath. 
And the reality is that - at best - this is a good film but it's certainly not one of the great movies of 2010.
The idea of an artist striving too hard for perfection and finding themselves taken over by the character they're interpreting on stage is nothing new. Ronald Colman won the Best Actor Oscar in 1947 for doing something very similar in 'A Double Life.' The big difference now is that technology and a lack of censorship allows Aronofsky to create images that Colman could only dream about.
What did impress me about BLACK SWAN was Portman's performance. Her portrayal of the timid, virginal and repressed dancer who has the technique but not the passion to become a great ballerina is sensational. Her descent into darkness is genuinely disturbing, as she pushes herself beyond what she's capable of, constantly harangued by sadistic ballet company director Vincent Cassel, bullied by her domineering mother Barbara Hershey, and tormented  by the imagined rivalry with sexy uninhibited fellow dancer Mila Kunis.
If anyone connected with this project is deserving of awards it's Natalie Portman. BLACK SWAN is good but she is great.

MONKEY BUSINESS: a superstar just having fun

MONKEY BUSINESS is fun - lots of very silly fun - and the main reason for that is Cary Grant.
He's clearly having a ball playing a rather stodgy middle-aged research scientist who 'discovers' a fountain of youth elixir that causes him to behave like a teenager.

What makes this 1952 comedy so enjoyable is that the 48 year old Grant's impression of an 18 year old is just that - an impression. His teenager bears not the slightest resemblance to James Dean's tortured teen in 1955's 'Rebel Without a Cause.' It's a caricature of a stereotype that probably only ever existed in Hollywood films.
But let's face it. If Grant were going for authenticity he'd have essayed some Dean-like character and we'd have had a drama devoid of any belly laughs.
Grant's a gas and he's got some great support - from Charles Coburn as his exasperated boss with an eye for a pretty young lady; from a pre-superstar Marilyn Monroe as the pretty young thing who's not as ditzy as her boss would like; and from a chimp who follows direction so perfectly you'll be convinced it must be a midget in a monkey suit. The only square in this board of otherwise round pegs is Ginger Rogers as Grant's long suffering wife. When she finally chugs some of the magic water her transformation into an oversize kid is considerably more broad than it is amusing.
MONKEY BUSINESS reunites Grant with director Howard Hawks for the first time since the latter directed the former in the strained and not very funny 'I Was a Male War Bride' and the difference is like night and day.
If you're looking for proof that a film comedy can be genuinely funny without resorting to swearing, nudity, gratuitous violence, or gross-out stunts let me offer MONKEY BUSINESS as exhibit A. It's as silly as the title suggests.

CYRUS: not what you think but better

What I liked most about CYRUS is that it didn't do what I expected it to do.

Consider the facts. The film stars two comedians - John C.Reilly and Jonah Hill - in a story about John (Reilly), a middle aged loser in love who miraculously attracts an attractive single woman, Molly (Marisa Tomei) at a party. She falls hard and heavy for him and everything goes swimmingly until he discovers her guilty secret. She has a 21 year old son, Cyrus (Hill) still living at home and the two are - well - unnaturally close to one another. And Cyrus doesn't appreciate the new man in his mom's life.
It sounds like the perfect set up for a film full of slapstick comedy and gross-out incest jokes with John and Cyrus getting ever more physically violent with one another as they battle for Molly's affections. But that's not exactly what happens.
Directors Mark and Jay Duplass have created that rarest of creatures - a dramedy that keeps the viewer constantly off-balance by refusing to deliver what's expected of this scenario and offers up instead something entirely more satisfying.
I don't mean by this that the story veers off on some bizarre tangent because it doesn't. It really never strays from the straight and narrow, yet it remains unexpectedly fresh and subtly surprising. Both Reilly and Hill demonstrate a depth and restraint in their performances which allows us to believe in them as credible characters rather than simply comic creations. Neither of them exist just to get a laugh. Tomei also surprises as the mom who finds herself torn between her son and her beau. She resolutely refuses to do the things that mom's do when they find themselves in this situation in a Hollywood drama.
In short, nothing about CYRUS is predictable. If you're expecting a wacky comedy you'll be sorely disappointed, but if you're looking for a comedic breath of fresh air this is most definitely the film for you.