My primary reason for going to movies is to be entertained.  I don’t need the best acting in the world or the best script in the world — just something that, when all put together, entertains me for 1 1/2 — 2 hours.  I appreciate the heavy dramatic pieces, but I have found that as I have gotten older, I just want to laugh or enjoy some action or both.

I raced out of the closing credits of Life As We Know It to get into the theater for the midnight showing of RED.  I grabbed a refill of Coke on the way and got settled just as the previews started.

RED is based on a DC-Comics series about a retired CIA agent.  The movie’s plot line is simple: someone is targeting random people to be killed by CIA teams in order to cover up past dastardly deeds.  While offering an okay through-thread, the story has a lot of holes in it if looked at any closer than a casual glance.

What makes this movie is the casting.  Bruce Willis is our hero, with Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, and John Malkovich rounding out his team.  What stood out to me with this cast was the sheer joy you could see on their faces as they went from absurd situation to absurd situation.  Malkovich, in particular, had some of the best “crazy” moments.  Richard Dreyfuss, Karl Urban, Ernest Borgnine, and Mary-Louise Parker round out a great cast.

My Advice: see it at full price, leave brain at the door, and just enjoy a roller-coaster ride of actors having fun on-screen…

In my review of The Ugly Truth, I was fairly harsh on Katherine Heigl.  I mentioned concerns of being typecast and coming across as an “ice princess” in her last few roles.  So when I heard she had a new movie coming out, I wasn’t exactly running towards the box office to buy a ticket.

So, I found myself leaving work on a rare Thursday night and wanting to see a movie.  I knew RED was premiering at 12:01, so I looked for a movie that I could watch and still make the midnight show of RED.  The only movie that fit was Life As We Know It.  So I settled in at the AMC Altamonte for doubleheader night.

The story centers around two people who have mutual friends that are married.  Heigl is an organized, small business owner, while Josh Duhamel is a typical “man-about-town” sports director.  The two are paired on a disastrous first date and are made to interact closely together because of their friends.  One night, the friends die and leave guardianship of their baby girl to our two “heroes.”  What follows are the typical new-parent jokes, nosy neighbors, and soulless Child Services.

However, in the midst of all of the easy jokes and predictability, a good story starts to emerge.  We see actual changes occur in the two leads as they evolve into people we care about.  Heigl shows elements of the “ice princess” early; but as the movie progresses, I start seeing why casting directors keep giving her shots at romantic comedies.  By the time the credits roll, I find that I have not wasted my money on another bland movie.

My Advice:  matinee price or dollar theater; full price is not necessary, but you won’t feel cheated if you do pay that.  Not a bad date movie, but I would not use it as a first date movie.

As a guy, I have a deep, dark secret…

One that I is sure to have people look at me as if I was some horrible person…

I do not like Angelina Jolie.

There, I said it and the world did not stop spinning.  While I know she has a lot of fans based on her acting, and even more based on her looks, she has not really impressed me with either.  The only two movies I have liked with her in them have been Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow; and Mr. & Mrs. Smith.  So it was no surprise that when I saw the trailer for Salt, that I was not interested.  Rich, to his credit, kept trying to talk me into seeing it, but I was resistant.

So I found myself leaving work on a Wednesday and wanting to see a movie.  After looking over the times, the only movie playing that seemed remotely interesting was Salt.  So, I bought my ticket and headed in.

Salt is about a CIA agent named Evelyn Salt.  A defector comes in and accuses her of planning to murder an important Russian diplomat.  What follows is a tightly-scripted/filmed cat-and-mouse game where nothing is as it seems.  As I watched it, I was reminded of the 80s flick, No Way Out, where Kevin Costner was in a similar plot.  I soon forgot I was watching Angelina Jolie on-screen and got more invested in the story.

My advice:  worth full price; I actually saw it twice – I just hope they do not do a sequel, even though the door was left open…

Back in 1995, I went back to college to finish my degree.  While there, I joined Alpha Phi Omega, a co-ed service fraternity.  Once I was finished with school, I continued to work with the students in various advisory roles.  Of course this meant getting up to spped quickly with an ever-changing Internet landscape.  Instead of problems being limited to in-person encounters or phone calls, people were now doing it through new tools such as LiveJournal.

As my responsibilities grew within the fraternity, so did my level of education regarding tools for students.  I started hearing about FaceBook from students who would report issues to me and say, “Well, the pictures are on FaceBook.”  However, to get into FaceBook, you had to have a .edu email address.  Then FaceBook was opened to the public, and the Internet and society has never been the same.  I still have issues with aspects of FaceBook, but I can not deny its overall positive impact.

So what does that all have to do with movies?

Well, The Social Network is a movie adapted from a book (The Accidental Billionaires) that loosely tells the history of the founding of FaceBook and the struggles within.  Jesse Eisenberg (Adventureland, Zombieland) stars as FaceBook founder Mark Zuckerberg.  The story starts off showing how an argument with a girlfriend led to computer hacking and the evolution of the idea of FaceBook.  What follows is a story with stereotypical “villains” and internal fighting.

The story is told as a series of flashbacks told during depositions for lawsuits.  It follows the typical trappings of the tragic hero tale: the rise, the temptations, the forgetting of friends, and then the fall.  Granted his fall only involved the loss of friends, but it was still a fall nonetheless.  The casting in the movie was good.  Justin Timberlake’s performance as Sean Parker (of Napster fame) was particularly good.  At no point did I feel like I was seeing Timberlake on-screen; I just saw the character.  If he keeps doing performances like that, Timberlake may make a better movie star than a singer.

The major downside to this movie is the ability to get repeat viewers.  I enjoyed the movie, but it is not one that I would necessarily sit through again.  That factor cuts into box office numbers and DVD/Blu-Ray purchases.  That being said, it is still doing ok in the box office race.

My advice: worth seeing at matinee or dollar-movie theaters; just keep in mind that a lot of literary license has been used in crafting this story…