Movies : March 2006

24 March 2006

Thank You For Smoking

A fitfully amusing satire of the world of the corporate flack follows Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart) as he provides the spin that the tobacco industry so desperately needs. While well cast, the production starts on an off note placing the Academy for Tobacco Studies in the Forrestal building along Independence Avenue. Also, it’s missing what the title is talking about, of all things, smoking. Like one of those movies whose main character loves his dog but never walks it, Nick stares into empty cigarette packs but never lights up… so when a twist of fate prevents him from smoking, we never experience his need not to smoke, a curious omission which leaves the screenplay flat. Surprisingly cheap looking, with a newspaper office seemingly based on the one in Kissing Jessica Stein. There’s a lot of talk about the physical attributes of the reporter (Katie Holmes) but the movie never delivers.

93 minutes.

18 March 2006

She’s the Man

There are no storm-tossed seas, so this adaptation of Twelfth Night is loose. Amanda Bynes carries the film as Viola. Once her school cancels the soccer program for the girls (but not the boys) and her mother sees the chance to increase her interest in the debutante ball, Viola is game to impersonate her brother Sebastian, who’d rather play with his band in England than show up at his new school the first two weeks. She’s attracted to her roommate at the dorm, Duke (Channing Tatum), while Duke is very interested in Olivia (Laura Ramsey) who’s sweet on Sebastian. Sprightly nonsense that relies on a broken family (which doesn’t communicate) and a society not primed for the possibility of gender-bending impostors.

116 minutes.

04 March 2006

Aquamarine

On a Florida shore, two young girls face the last weekend of the summer having done nothing about their crush on the lifeguard or their imminent separation. Hailey (Joanna JoJo Levesque) dislikes the idea of moving to Australia, her single mother’s a marine biologist, but Claire (Emma Roberts) has issues relating to why she’s living with her grandparents and can’t bear to see her best friend leave. An unusual storm deposits a new denizen in the small resort’s outdoor pool, though. Okay, it’s a story about a mermaid (Aquamarine, Sara Paxton, Sleepover) in which not one of the three leads is older than 16… but there’s nothing cringe-inducing about the plot or the characters or the themes, and the cast includes Bruce Spence as the—what else? slightly creepy—caretaker of the beachside establishment run by Claire’s grandparents.

About 100 minutes.

Entries subject to editing at any time. Last edited on: 26-Mar-2006