The Case of the Sad Movie

Films are pretty bleak these days, and Robin Givhan, award-winnng fashion writer for The Washington Post, tells us why. Bleak is good but today, even though I should watch There Will Be Blood, which has managed to sneak into my little city of Winston-Salem, I opted for more fun fare, namely the dance movie with heart, How She Move.

Cloverfield

YouTube is the new diary, or so it seems in Cloverfield, a Godzilla-like monster movie tailor-made for a generation used to video-taping their lives.

Here, we follow a group of successful 20 something Manhattans celebrating one of their own who has nabbed a cool new job in Japan.

The revelry is caught on tape as a guy named Hud lugs around a video camera. Partying soons turns into running when power outages and earthquakes intrude.

Turns out a monster is terrorizing Manhattan, knocking down buildings and beheading the Statue of Liberty.

Everything, and I mean everything, is seen through Hud's eyes via the camera. The result made my friend's head hurt. But it also gives the film a surreal touch in the first hour or so, leaving the audience with only glimpses of the mysterious monster stomping his way through the city.

The acting isn't Oscar-worthy in the least, and most of the characters are either forgettable or immensely annoying, like Hud.

But the feeling of dread is ever-present, a steady knot in the stomach, with the occassional kick in the gut when the monster gets a little too close to the camera.

Produced by Alias-creator J.J. Abrams and directed by Matt Reeves, Cloverfield is a throwback to the Godzilla movies of the past with some edge.

Does everything make sense? Of course not; this is a monster movie, and you yell at characters who insist on going toward the monster instead of away. And the small efforts at character development don't work. We don't see these films to care about people; we see them to see people get sidewiped by big teeth and sharp claws.

And on that front, the movie delivers, a gnarly scarefest with an indie spirit.

First Sunday

Some have called David Talbert the next Tyler Perry, though he scoffs at such comparisons.

And for good reason. His first film, First Sunday, isn't nearly as preachy as many of Tyler Perry's films. Nor is it as funny.

Ice Cube, who seems to have a permanent scowl etched on his face, is Durell, an ex-con trying to keep his baby mama from leaving Baltimore for Atlanta with his son. Durell can't leave the state because of his probation.

His sidekick is LeeJohn, played by Tracy Morgan, a comic blessed with often manic energy.

Durell's girlfriend needs about $17,000 to pay off her debts and keep her from leaving. And LeeJohn is indebted to some Jamaican gangsters.

They hatch a plan to rob the local church. As is often the case, the plan goes haywire and they end up taking the pastor and a bunch of church members hostage. Hilarity ensues.

Well, not as much as one would hope, unfortunately. Tracy Morgan manages to get some laughs, but the real star of this movie is pimp-worshipping comedian Katt Williams, who plays a effeminate choir director. His facial contortions are a hoot, and the script gives him the best lines.

When Williams appears on the screen, there's a guaranteed belly laugh or two.

Loretta Devine, as the church secretary, has one sweet, tear-inducing scene with Morgan's character.

Talbert does a decent job of pulling out some good performances out of the actors, who include the always-great Chi McBride as the pastor, Malinda Williams as his daughter and Regina Hall as Durell's ex-girlfriend. Plus, the movie thankfully moves along at a rapid pace, before the audience can even begin to detect the obvious holes in the plot.

Somehow, despite the problems, Talbert manages to effectively slip in positive messages about faith and accountability in a movie dependent on the most part on very broad comedy.

But Talbert hasn't mastered the formula yet, and by the end, the movie all but falls apart, with a sappy happy ending that just doesn't feel earned. Which means that instead of saying Amen after walking out of the theater, you might be more apt to say what a shame.

Juno

Juno MacGuff is what every girl would want to be at 16, if she had her dialogue written for her by snappy ex-stripper turned wunderkind writer Diablo Cody. Well, except she's pregnant by her kind-of boyfriend Paulie Bleeker and she finds her adoptive parents through the classified section.

Somehow, this all holds together in Jason Reitman's wonderfully realized Juno. Named after the queen of the Roman gods, Juno is a smart-alecky teenager with a snappy comeback for everyone. And when she is unexpectedly pregnant, she deals with the situation in her own plucky way. After being scared away from the abortion clinic, she finds Vanessa and Mark. Vanessa, played by Jennifer Garner, desperately wants to be a mother. Mark, played by Jason Bateman, may or may not be ready.

Backed by her no-nonsense father and kick-ass stepmother, Juno maneuvers through her nine-months of pregnancy. Ellen Page gives an audience-pleasing performance that revels in Juno's hyperarticulate banter, but the real joy that Page provides is her slowly tearing away the facade Juno's snarkiness hides. She's just a girl still not sure who she is. She wonders if she is in love and she is naive to the complexities of adult relationships.

Reitman balances the laughter with the pathos. My only quibble is that sometimes Juno is too smart-alecky, making it hard to relate to her. After all, real teenagers don't talk like this. At least I didn't when I was that age and no one I knew did either.

Dawson's Creek had this problem. The teenagers gave impossibly eloquent soliloques reminiscent more of Shakespeare than any of the slang-driven drivel one expects of young people these days. Juno's comebacks are entertaining but surreal, and keep her at arms length for most of the film.

Nonetheless, you do begin to care for her, as Diablo Cody's script begins to reveal the confused teenager underneath all of the tough talk.

And then this all becomes real and touching and poignant. And every girl will want to be just like Juno. Well, maybe they'll skip the unplanned pregnancy part, though.