Halloween II

There's no excuse for neglecting a blog. None whatsoever. But it happens, especially in a summer where movies have not inspired me to write much.

In short order, though I did love 500 Days of Summer and the new Transformers, though for vastly different reasons. I refused to watch G.I. Joe, it's sheer awfulness revealed in the trailer, which is never a good sign.

And finally, there's Rob Zombie's Halloween II. Two years ago, Zombie gave us back Michael Myers, the William Shatner-wearing mass murderer that stalked Jamie Lee Curtis in that 1978 movie. It was a brutal, slash-happy remake, brought down only by Zombie's insistence that we must understand the monster. Monsters are not made to be understood. They are made to kill and scare the living crap out of us.

The sequel picks up where the last movie left us, with Laurie Strobe (this time played by Scott Taylor-Compton) all bloody and hysterical and in the hospital. But unlike the original Halloween II, this movie takes up the action a year later.

Laurie Strobe is in therapy and haunted by nightmares, and our dear Dr. Loomis is hawking a book on Michael Myers in which he reveals that Strobe is Michael Myers' long-lost sister, Angel.

Of course, Michael Myers, bullet-proof as he is, isn't dead, as some insist. He's alive and just waiting to come back to Haddonfield to kill some more and reclaim his sister.

Zombie is good at creating tension from dark hallways and blood-soaked floors. The violence is immediate and undeniably in-your-face.

And it is often unnecessarily graphic. Myers plunges his knife into his victims a sickening number of times that it ceases to be scary and becomes increasingly just gross.

We even see Myers eat a dog. That's just too much.

But when Zombie focuses on Myers' bloody reign of terror, the movie works. The acting is a bit over-the-top but effective. We get a sense of how a traumatic event changes people.

And there's a clever (okay, somewhat clever) twist at the end that brings the whole thing home and maybe, maybe, makes room for a sequel.

Michael Jackson

The gloved one is gone, the one who bedazzled the world with his moves and touched the world with his music.

Michael Jackson was and is a pop culture icon, one so entrenched in our everyday language and existence that his death leaves a hole immediately felt by anyone who ever listened to that falsetto voice of his.

As a kid, I mimicked his dances, trying to get that moonwalk just right. I remember the night his video/mini-movie "Thriller"premiered. I ran into the bathroom as Michael Jackson's angelic face transformed into that of a monstrous werewolf to terrorize the beautiful Ola Ray. And I came back just in time as he did those smooth dance moves in zombie makeup.

I also remember when Michael Jackson electrified the world with his hit-making performance of "Billie Jean" on the 25th Anniversary of Motown, how he moonwalked across the stage in perfect motion, effortlessly.

Those moments I held dear as I saw his career decline, his later albums never reaching the success of Thriller. I cringed as his face became lighter and his nose narrower, the plastic surgery turning a handsome man into a human skeleton.

His behavior could not be explained. That massive amusement park home of his that he called Neverland and to which he brought children whom he was later accused of molesting. The now strange marriage he had to Lisa Marie Presley and the uncomfortable kiss they shared on MTV. The shot of him danging one of his sons out of a hotel balcony.

Michael Jackson was, no doubt, a disturbed man, a man twisted inside out by a dysfunctional childhood marked by early success and an abusive father. He never learned how to be an adult because he had never had a chance to be a child.

And throughout his life, he chased youth. He feared growing older.

It is something, though, that we all fear, our youth fading, the aches and pains of age creeping up on us. Many of us spend our lives keeping a little bit of that youth in plastic surgeries and injections of Botox or just sitting out in the sun to get that nice tan line.

We chase youth because we loved our innocence. We loved that time when things seemed simple, when the complexities of adulthood hadn't tarnished our rainbow-colored view of the world.

Michael Jackson touched us because we loved that he looked at the world with child-like wonder, that he believed love was so powerful that hate could not win.

Being grown up sometimes robs us of that belief. We become cynical, hardened by life's rough blows. But Michael Jackson had an optimism that good conquers evil, that one person could truly change the world if he cared enough.

And in many ways, Michael Jackson did change the world. He did change us. There was a purity in the pop confections that he made. Love was always the theme in his music, love of self, love of a woman, love of humanity. It was always there, for all to see.

So as disturbed as I was by the weirdness of Michael Jackson's behavior, I was always touched by his music, the songs that made you dance ("Don't Stop Until You Get Enough" and "Remember the Time") and the ones that made you think ("Man in the Mirror") .

It is hard, now in the immediacy of his death, to measure the impact Michael Jackson had on us. I just know there would be no Justin Timberlake, Usher or Chris Brown without him. There would be no New Edition, New Kids on The Block or InSync, without him. I know that pop music divided into two eras --- pre-Michael Jackson and post-Michael Jackson. The landscape of pop music changed when he came on the scene. The possibilities for what pop music was expanded under his tutelage.

Michael Jackson gave us entertainment performed with a perfectionist's excellence. He gave us his all on and off the stage, and in the end, we forgave him his eccentricities because his music was about love and we were in love with him.

Today, I am still wrapping my head around his death. He was too full of life to ever die. And really, as I listen to that voice of his, that beautifully sweet voice full of wonder, he is yet alive, telling me life ain't so bad at all. Let the madness of the music get to you.

I will, Michael, I will.

The Taking of Pelham 123

Tony Scott is known for action movies that whiplash audiences with spinning cameras and flashes of images broken up with brief glimpses of character.

Here in The Taking of Pelham 123, Scott is no different, going for the jugular as much as possible.

But what keeps the movie from turning into another shallow blockbuster are the performances. Scott picks his actors well, and he couldn't have gotten a better actor than Denzel Washington, who has appeared in a number of Scott's movies. Washington grounds the movie and allows the audience to gloss over those logic holes that always appear in summer blockbuster.

This is also a remake of a movie I never saw, the 1974 thriller of the same name that starred the late Walter Matthau in the Denzel Washington role.

Washington is Walter Garber, a New York City subway dispatcher who happens to be there when Ryder, played by an amped-up John Travolta, hijacks a subway train, threatening to kill passengers if he doesn't get $10 million in an hour.

The heart of the story lies in the relationship that's built between Garber and Ryder. It's a tense one as Ryder cajoles and menaces all in one breath, while Garber tries to be the voice of calm in a chaotic situation.

Scott builds the tension well and breaks it every once and a while with large helpings of gallows humor.

Washington has mastered the art of playing decent guys who have a smidgen of a dark side. It's no different here, as we soon find out that Garber has been demoted after being accused of taking a bribe.

And there's more to Ryder, of course, than what we at first see, but you'll have to see the movie to find that out.

The supporting cast includes John Turturro as a hostage negotiator and James Gandolfini as the New York City mayor who is part Rudy Guliani and part Michael Bloomberg, and they all give good performances.

The weak leak, to be honest, is Travolta. He overacts and instead of being scary, he ends up being unintentionally funny, especially when he continues to utter one particular profanity that starts with "mother."

That's a minor quibble, though. I watched this movie after only having five hours of sleep, and not once did I fade out. This I consider an accomplishment.

Being whiplashed, at least in this movie, isn't always a bad thing.

Terminator Salvation/Star Trek

Arnold Schwarzenegger, you should have come back. And Christian Bale, you should have stuck to being The Dark Knight.

Either scenario might have salvaged Terminator Salvation from being a tired reshoot instead of the thrilling sci-fi adventure it could have been.

Bale stars as John Connor, who is destined to be the leader of the resistance against Skynet, the computer program that went nuts, took over the world and got machines killing humans. The year is 2018, and Connor is not that leader yet, just a cog in the resistance movement.

Soon, he comes face to face with Marcus (played by Sam Worthington), a mysterious man who turns out to be more machine than human (or is he?). Also in the mix is Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin). Fans of the Terminator series know that Reese was once played by Michael Biehn in the 1984 classic who goes back in time to save Connor's mother, Sarah, from Arnold and then ends up getting her pregnant before getting himself killed. Her child? John Connor.

You get all that because this time travel business can get a bit confusing. Eventually, Connor and Marcus will have to work together to save Reese because if Reese dies, Connor won't exist.

This could have been all heady cool stuff but director McG paints the whole movie in a dull gray that is supposed to represent how apocalyptic everything is.

Bale plays Connor with an unceasing intensity. What marked the first two Terminator movies was a quirky sense of humor underneath all the world-is-ending foreboding.

Not here. Things are just dark. Which makes the movie a long, lumbering, angst-filled experience for the audience, with sparks of well-filmed action thrown in.

Star Trek, on the other hand, is everything a sci-fi movie should be. It is a true reboot, finding something in the classic television series that's fresh. We see old characters in new light, mostly because they're played by younger actors. But also because we see them at the beginning of their lives: Spock as a young man struggling between his human and Vulcan sides, Kirk as a James Dean kind of rebel looking for purpose in his life.

J.J. Abrams directs the movie with a verve, ably bringing new insights to old material. And all the while, he makes a damn good action movie, one filled with thrills and characters you care about.

Abrams succeeds where McG fails. He builds characters. He shows relationships. He makes their struggles relatable. McG gives us a Connor who keeps us at a distance, who we are never allowed to see inside. So in the end, we don't root for him. We don't care about him at all.

Only through Marcus do we get a glimpse of a compelling character, a man/machine who causes all around him to question who is really human.

Emotion rules the day in Star Trek, spilling all over the place just as easily as the blood that's spilled. But in Terminator Salvation, only blood is spilled, and the emotions are kept firmly in check.

And we are so much the less for it.

Wolverine

The claws are dull.

Or at least that's my conclusion after seeing the underwhelming X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Wolverine is supposed to be a bad-ass, the beserker-angry superhero with the enigmatic past, the retractable claws and the indestructible adamantium-lined skeleton that makes him hard to kill.

And yet, this bad-ass is watered down, the joy of seeing him rip apart some bad guys muted, all by a sucky script and confusing directing by Gavin Hood, who was responsible for the much better art-house film, Tsotsi, a few years back. Some directors have successfully made the jump from independent film making to the big leagues (David Fincher comes to mind, for example).

Hood isn't one of those cats.

He doesn't film action that well so that you're on the edge of your seat in awe of what's on the screen. The film, instead, felt flat, though there were some action sequences that did thrill to the bone, especially the fight scenes between Wolverine and his brother, Victor (aka Sabretooth), who desperately needs a manicure (a man shouldn't have nails that long).

And Hugh Jackman tries mightily to imbue his Wolverine with enough soul to make audience members, both fan and non fan alike, give a damn about what happens to his character. Liev Schreiber gives his Victor a charismatic snarl, and the movie lights up a bit everytime he's on the screen.

Ryan Reynolds as the sword-swiveling Wade and Will.I.Am as John Wraith make their mark in the short time that they have in the movie.

The real problem is the script. The story just isn't compelling. Not that I expect the why-so-serious philosophical underpinnings of The Dark Knight. But here, we get no explanation about why Wolverine and Victor hate each other so much. We gain no more insight into Wolverine that we didn't get from the previous three X-Men movies. And the climactic fight scene was merely meh.

Don't get me wrong. The movie wasn't awful. We'll save that descriptive to movies that truly deserve it like Daredevil or The Punisher.

But for a movie that was so anticipated that it got leaked online, I was expecting more. I wanted sharper claws.

Obsessed

The new movie, Obsessed, is tripe. Trash. Not anywhere close to being Oscar bait. But it is well-made tripe. Entertaining tripe. And you know where this movie is going the moment you plop your behind in the seat.
This is an over-the-top, crowd-pleasing movie that teases and taunts its way to the grand finale that everyone is blood-thirsty for -- that catfight between Beyonce Knowles (aka Sasha Fierce) and Ali Larter, who plays the femme fatal.
A much milder rip-off of Fatal Attraction, the film features Idris Elba as Derek, a happily married man (you would be happy too if you were married to the fineness that is Beyonce) with a new house, a successful career and a son named Kyle.
All is perfect until Larter's Lisa comes into his life, a cute blond who is temping at his agency. Somehow, she ends up being a permanent and very seductive presence in his life, tempting him with racy e-mails and saucy come-ons accompanied with sneaking a drug into his drink. Unlike Fatal Attraction, nothing happens between Derek and Lisa, despite Lisa's fervent attempts.
But that doesn't stop Lisa from creating some crazy fantasy in her head that Derek and she are destined to be together, if only Derek's wife, Sharon, wasn't in the way.
And that's when Beyonce shines. This ain't deep. Beyonce gives Sharon that around-the-way, don't mess with my man kind of attitude. That ready to take her earrings and serve some self-righteous beatdowns swagger that only Sasha Fierce can bring.
Too bad it takes a lot of shouting and not-too-subtle attempts by Lisa before the showdown comes in the last 15 minutes of the film.
Elba and Beyonce have some nice scenes together, and Larter does a good job of making Lisa the kind of sick bitch we like to see get her comeuppance at the end. Plus, the catfight is worth the wait. Trust me.
Predictable? Absolutely. Poor script? No doubt. Entertaining? Hell yes. And even with blood trickling down her chin, Beyonce is still gorgeous.

State of Play

For more than a decade, I have toiled away as a reporter, scribbling away in my notebook, talking to all kinds of people, filling a blank screen with words that turn into a story against tight deadlines. I am a journalist, and as I watched the new movie, State of Play, I looked for the tiny details that rang true in Russell Crowe's Cal McAffrey, the grizzled reporter for the fictional Washington Globe.

And there was much that I recognized in myself -- the disorganized chaos of a desk, the gallows humor of a newsroom and the somewhat gritty work of loosening the lips of sources for information. A little over-the-top for dramatic effect but mostly accurate, except for the constant worry of being shot at.

This is a typical political potboiler done well by Kevin McDonald, who also directed the brilliant The Last King of Scotland. Here we find McAffrey trying to help his former college roommate, Sen. Stephen Collins, who is caught in a scandal after his lead researcher and mistress ends up dead. Collins also happens to be on a committee investigating a Blackwater-like company accused of committing fraud and atrocities in its work in Iraq.

As with most political thrillers, McAffrey stumbles upon a grand wide-ranging conspiracy whose tentacles reach the highest levels of government. Helping McAffrey is young political blogger, Della Frye (played by the always wonderful Rachel McAdams). McAffrey and Frye develop an uneasy working relationship, the just-the-facts veteran reporter versus the gossip-mongering blogger.

And as they work together to find the truth in all this mess, McDonald also finds time to enter into the debate about the on-going crisis in the news industry, a crisis that I am unfortunately all too familiar with. Newspapers are dying, and there's legitimate concern that investigative journalism may be dying with it, as the business model for newspapers crumbles quickly in a sour economy.

Business concerns crop up against the expensive, time-consuming work that goes into producing quality journalism, and we see that very clearly as McAffrey and Frye plug along, sometimes in the face of grave danger.

The twists come fast and furious in this movie, which moves at a rapid pace that hardly ever drags. There are holes, but the performances, particularly from Crowe and the lovely Helen Mirren, as McAffrey's boss, Cameron Lynne, makes you forgive them, for the most part. (Side note: I can't, however, quite forgive the shot of the black woman wearing rollers in the newsroom. Something's just not right about that.)

Like All The President's Men, this movie shows the power of quality journalism to inform us so that we can make better decisions. I shudder to think what our democracy would look like without it.

I Love You, Man

The world of dude friendship is simple yet complicated, governed by its own set of unspoken rules. And as for how to cultivate dude friendships, well there are no rules or any guidelines. You just, for some weird reason, start hanging out together.

Unless you happen to be one of those guys who gets along better with women than he does with men, and that is where you find real-estate agent Peter Klaven in the raunchy and sweet film, I Love You, Man.

Klaven (Paul Rudd) is engaged to his gorgeous girlfriend, Zooey (the lovely Rashida Jones) and as he prepares for the wedding, he realizes he has no suitable candidate for a best man because he'd rather make fancy coffee drinks for his women friends than shoot pool with the guys.

In fact, poor Klaven is what you'd might call a metrosexual, a straight guy very in tune to his feminine side but completely straight.

What is a man with only female friends to do? Well, you go on a man date, of course. A series of man dates until you find the perfect male friend who will be your best man.

This could have been a disaster of a movie, but Rudd plays Klavin with such sweet sincerity that you can't help but root for him. And you cheer when he finally meets his soul dude, Sydney Fife, somewhat of a successful loser who mooches food at Klaven's open houses.

Fife is 365 degrees the opposite of Klaven. He lives in a trailer, refuses to pick up his dog's poop and likes to yell really loud in public, causing all sorts of embarrassment for anyone who decides to be his friend.

Yet, as played by Jason Segel (the star of Forgetting Sarah Marshall), Sydney has a sweet sensitive side hidden beneath all of that grossness. And the dude-esque chemistry between Rudd and Segel is just hot. Well, maybe not hot. Umm, adorable? Oh, screw it. The chemistry works.

And the movie works, in a sort of predictable romantic comedy way, except we're talking about guys, though this isn't the comedic version of Brokeback Mountain. In an funny way, the movie gets at the awkwardness of male friendships, the facade of masculinity we guys use to keep our distance, to not express our feelings because hey, only women do that sort of thing.

But men need love, too. They need man love, and in this movie, you can be man enough to say I love you to another dude and still be a man.

Awwww, ain't that so sweet.

Watchmen

Watchmen, for all the hype the past few months, is simply a good movie but not great, dragged down as it is by an all-too faithful rendering on screen of the infamous graphic novel of the same name and the hard-to-please expectations of comic book fans worldwide.

And it is by far way too long.

Director Zach Snyder wanted to make a movie that gives tribute to the many-layered graphic novel it is based upon. He wanted to create the ultimate superhero movie, a disturbing meditation on what superheroes would look like and be like in the real world. What kind of impact would they have on history and would we be better off because they were here and real? Or are superheroes just like us, just as messed up as we are?

Well, the answer is maybe and maybe not.

Between 1986 and 1987, Watchmen came out in 12 issues, each one telling a complex story of a world in which Richard Nixon is serving his fifth term and the United States is in a nuclear standoff with Russia. Dr. Manhattan, a physicist turned naked blue Superman via some freak accident, singlehandedly wins the Vietnam War but is now increasingly detached from humanity.

And The Comedian, a right-wing sociopathic mercenary, is murdered.

The story begins with The Comedian's death, and Rorschach, a paranoid masked avenger who has no remorse for killing the scum of the earth, wants to find out who's knocking off costumed heroes. He recruits other Watchmen, long retired after a 1977 federal law banned superheroes, to find the answers.

The movie flashes back and forth in time, revealing the origins of first the Minutemen and then years later the Watchmen. In addition to The Comedian, Rorschach, Dr. Manhattan, there's also Nite Owl, a Batman-like character who's now a middle-aged man longing for the glory days, and Silk Spectre, who relunctantly dons the costume her mother wore back in the day and who is in a strangely distant relationship with Dr. Manhattan.

The upshot: A grand conspiracy is uncovered, and a surprising villain reveals himself.

The movie picks up steam in the second half. The action is well shot and the performances aren't half-bad.

But for all of Zach Snyder's efforts, the movie doesn't wow. The plot drags in places, and you really wonder what all the hype was about.

The Dark Knight was better, with incredible action set pieces, a truly frightening villain, and a superhero faced with impossible choices. It was a dark ride that stayed with you months after you saw it.

In Watchmen, we have an absurdly dysfunctional family of superheroes, some good, some sick but kind of lovable in a weird way, some just lost souls trying to find their way in a corrupt world. And in the end, you wonder what the message was, what the meaning behind it all was. Then you discover it was just a lot of silly ballyhoo, well filmed but forgettable nonetheless.

Madea Goes To Jail

Maybe Tyler Perry needs to hang up the wig.

His latest movie, Madea Goes to Jail, which is based on his hit play of the same name, is a hilarious mess that suffers from a thin script and a weak ending.

Perry has talent and ambition, both of which have led him to unparalleled success. He has built a loyal following that has catapulted his movies to box office glory and made him a name outside of the hard-to-break Hollywood movie studio system.

He, like Frank Sinatra, did it his way.

But Madea has, in many ways, become a creative crutch for Perry, a way to clumsily mix in broad humor with tear-jerker drama. It has worked in powerful ways in his previous movies, The Diary of a Mad Black Woman, and Madea's Family Reunion. And Madea is as funny as ever in Madea Goes To Jail.

But the story that surrounds Madea's antics is just not up to par. In the movie, Derek Luke portrays Joshua, a young prosecutor whose life is going smoothly. He is successful and he is about to marry another ambitious prosecutor by the name of Linda (Ion Overman).

Life is almost perfect until Candace (Keshia Knight Pulliam) shows up. Candace is a childhood friend who once had a promising future but is now addicted to drugs and working as a prostitute. Joshua is moved to help her but Linda urges Joshua to look the other way and tells him Candace and every poor person like her dug the ditch that they find themselves stuck in.

Meanwhile, Madea leads police on a car chase and then later dumps the car of a woman who stole her parking space at K-Mart. And she goes to jail (the title is indeed literal).

As is true in most Tyler Perry movies, predictability rules. You could, if you wanted to, write the script yourself. We know Madea and Candace will cross paths. We know Joshua is in love with Candace. We know Candace has a dark secret that led her on the path she is on. We know that in the end, God will fix everything if you have faith and believe and take responsibility for the choices you have made. All of these are good messages that Perry unfortunately piles on a bit too thick.

The movie is entertaining. Madea is a trip, and Perry knows what his audience wants and delivers it.

Yet as funny as Madea is, it doesn't make up for the weak script and the huge lapses in logic that you see. There's no gray in Perry's movies. The characters are either saintly good or demon-seed bad.

And no matter how awfully deep the situation, it somehow works out in the end, like the movie is a sitcom with the problem fixed in under 30 minutes. I don't mind happy endings but I do mind happy endings that aren't well-earned and lack credibility. A drama has to have some level of believability or else it doesn't move you. Or at least, it doesn't move me.

I applaud Perry for what he has been able to do in movies. I think it is important. But Perry has to do better than this. Take the wig off now, Mr. Perry.

He's Just Not That Into You

The whole thing started with a six-word phrase uttered on an episode of that chicky show, Sex and The City, which turned into a bestselling self-help book which in turn became a movie starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Aniston. Don't you just love Hollywood?

"He's just not that into you" cut through all the perceived crappiness of dating, the messiness, the mixed signals, the overanalyzing, the nonsensical rules we try to follow.

The complicated became simple. If you're a woman and a man doesn't call you after the first date, guess what, he's just not that interested in you, as Alex (Justin Long), a bar manager, tells hapless unlucky-in-love Gigi (Gennifer Goodwin) after his best friend, Conor, fails to call her after a first date.

Oh, how I wish the movie were so simple. But it's not. The film gives us a grand cast of characters in various stages of relationships. We have the aforementioned Gigi, who had a disastrous date with Conor, a real-estate developer who is hopelessly in love with Anna. Anna is having an affair with Ben, who is married to Janine, who happens to be friends with Gigi and Beth. And Beth desperately wants her long-time boyfriend, Neil, to marry her, which is tough because Neil doesn't believe in marriage. And oh, there's Mary, played by Drew Barrymore, who's being rejected by seven different kinds of technologies.

Got all that?

Despite all the scattered-yet-linked storylines, the movie actually works for quite a while before it all collapses into romantic-comedy cliches.

The director Ken Kwapis manages to create nice moments and the dialogue is pretty witty. Jennifer Connelly, who plays Janine, brings some depth to her character, and the whole storyline with Beth and Neil works mainly because of the chemistry between Jennifer Aniston and Ben Affleck, though it ends way too neatly and, at least for me, is a cop-out to appease some women who believe marriage-averse boyfriends will eventually cave in and pop the question if they really really are into you. Wouldn't it be nice if a movie like this didn't take the easy way out?

Justin Long brings an incredible amount of charm to Alex as he dishes out harsh dating advice to heartbroken Gigi who is oblivious to what she is doing wrong. Gennifer Goodwin gives her Gigi so cute and adorable and human even as we cringe at every embarrassing act of desperation perpetually single Gigi performs in her pursuit of love.

But we forgive her because we all know what it is like to like someone and hope beyond hope that he or she likes us back.

Too bad the movie soon runs out of ideas near the end, the edginess fading into predictability and dullness. We know how this movie is going to end. Unfortunately, it takes about 15 to 20 more minutes of tidying up loose ends before we get to it.

Just goes to show that as simple and as wonderful a phrase "He's Just Not That Into You" may be, it might not make a movie that we might be into.

Notorious

Notorious, the new biopic about rapper Christopher Wallace, manages to peel the complicated man from the bigger-than-life myth. He was Biggie Smalls, Frank White, the Notorious B.I.G., smooth as the silky sheets he bedded many ladies on, the consummate charmer who could get away with the line, "black and ugly as ever, however," the gangsta rapper whose clever wordplay and poignant story-telling abilities grabbed fans' attention and never let go.

He was all of that, but as the movie shows, he was more. Wallace, played by rapper-turned-actor Jamal Woolard in his first starring role, was also that nerdy Catholic school boy with a strict Jamaican mother (Angela Bassett who, unfortunately, plays her without the Jamaican accent ) who finds himself lured into the dangerous street life of drug hustling. Cash rules everything around Wallace's world, and he succumbs to the addiction of making fast cash, so much that he even deals drugs to a pregnant woman.

We follow him as he goes from negative to positive, avoiding a long jail bid only because his friend believes in him so much that he is willing to serve that bid for him. And we see him connect with Sean Combs (known as Puffy in those days and ably played by Derek Luke), the dance-crazy ambitious producer who founds Bad Boy Entertainment and makes Wallace a star.

We all know how this will end, with Wallace shot to death on March 9, 1997, from a still-unknown shooter on the streets of Los Angeles, six months after his former friend and greatest rival, Tupac Shakur is shot to death in Las Vegas.

Yet, for a little while, we reminisce on the heady days of hip-hop's glory in the mid-1990s, when "we won't stop" seemed like fulfilled prophecy, when thought went into lyrics, when beats banged, when pop collided with the grittiness of gangsta rap.

But this isn't a whitewash, or at least not much of a whitewash as we would expect from a movie produced by Voletta Wallace, Biggie's mother, and Sean Combs. As directed by George Tillman, Wallace is somewhat of a little boy trapped in a big man's body, not sure yet how to be a man.

He cheats on his wife, Faith Evans, and plays his girl-on-the-side, Lil Kim (who by the way is upset at the way she is portrayed in the film) with shuddering coldness. And he deals poorly with baby mama drama, neglecting his children as he pursues his dream of rap superstardom.

Not all is good with this movie. Tillman breezes through the East Coast-West Coast battle and the subsequent death of Shakur, who comes across as a paranoid nutjob, not the well-read son of a Black Panther who flitted between ignorance and intelligence. Shakur's enigmatic allure is never felt, as much as Anthony Mackie tries. He is a side note never fully realized.

Even more troubling is this notion that Wallace was ready to turn a new leaf in his music, a near-fatal car accident forcing him to deal with the responsibility his talent lay at his feet. The movie is filled with scenes of Wallace's best friend exhorting him to take better care of his daughter followed by a scene in which he tells his daughter to never let a man call her a bitch. And on the night of his death, we see him make calls to the women of his life, trying to make amends and become a better man.

It all comes across as a little off-putting, this redemption song, for in his CD, Life After Death, he still spun gangsta tales and misogynistic boasts of sexual conquest. So forgive me if I don't quite buy it.

The power of the movie lies in Woolard's performance, in his ability to embody the man behind the myth, behind all the smooth talk. He finds the scared kid underneath the facade. He finds the layers that reveal the complexities of a literally larger than life individual. He wasn't a saint and he wasn't a monster. He was somewhere in between, just like all of us, a born sinner, a black male misunderstood.

And for the most part, it is all good.

Seven Pounds Revisited

Editor's Note: This contains spoilers, lots of them.

Against my better judgment, I saw Seven Pounds again, thinking maybe this time I would get the movie. I didn't. But it's been hard to say why because no one wants to spoil the twist.

Well, sorry, I am going to have to be the spoiler (and those who don't want to be spoiled, please read the editor's note).

I give a lot of credit to Will Smith for deciding to go after a challenging role like this, portraying someone who is decidedly off his rocker. Too bad the end result comes off as so shallow and self-serving, instead of as selfless as the writers may have meant this to be.

Smith is Ben Thomas, an IRS agent. At least that's what we think. In reality, he is Tim, a once-successful aeronautical engineer who had a beautiful wife and lived the good life. All that ended, when he tried driving and using his Blackberry at the same time. He ends up causing a massive car accident that kills both his wife and a family of six in a van.

Tim is distraught, filled with overwhelming guilt. And in his depression, he decides upon a nutty plan of redemption. He will donate his organs to complete strangers, including his heart after he commits suicide.

His mission is accomplished through harsh measures. He poses as his brother, Ben, who is an IRS agent. He culls through financial and medical information, and then he confronts people in bizarre ways to see if they truly deserve his "gift."

At the beginning of the movie, he calls up Ezra, a blind telemarketer played by Woody Harrelson. He interrogates him, makes appalling comments about his being Jewish and asks him teasingly whether he's even had sex. The behavior is infuriating.

And through the movie, as the tale is told through flashbacks, you try to figure out Smith's motivations. You see easily that he is troubled. Smith scrunches up his face to show Tim's immense pain. And you are completely drawn in, no doubt.

The movie brightens when he meets Emily Posa, played by Rosario Dawson in a luminous performance. Posa has congenital heart failure. She's dying and needs a heart transplant. Tim slowly and with reluctance falls in love. It is here that we see some of Tim's humanity coming back. He is being resurrected in some way by Posa's love.

Unfortunately, this bit of happiness doesn't last long. Tim goes through with his plan. He dumps ice into the tub, fills the tub with water and plops in with a jellyfish that ultimately kills him in the most painful way. And Posa has a heart from the man she just made love to hours before.

Tim is presented as somehow being heroic in his actions, selfless in fact. Yet, he is not. This is a man who is emotionally damaged. We know that his logic is affected by his ever-consuming guilt over what he did.

How his best friend, Dan, played by Barry Peppers, agreed to go along with Tim's plan is never really explained. All we get is scenes of Dan weeping as he makes the legal arrangements that allow Tim to donate his organs. We never know whether Dan ever really tried to talk Tim out of his plan or try to get him help. Why would anyone agree to a plan that involves their best friend committing suicide?

Somehow, the audience is supposed to see Tim as a Christ-like figure who gives his life for others, albiet this is a Christ-like figure who is tremendously flawed. Yet, Jesus Christ was following a larger plan laid out by God and it is one that he willingly accepted. Tim, on the other hand, is operating out of a viscerally painful place. He is doing this to assuage his guilt. He is selfish, caring nothing about how his choice will affect those who love him and want to help him.

Some may say that Tim killed himself because he knew he was the only person who could save Posa's life, that his heart was the perfect match. In other words, he did this out of a deep abiding love for Posa and that he would rather see her live a long time without him than a short time with him. I get that.

Yet, the fact remains that in the end, he made this decision, this awful decision, while suffering from deep depression, and I find that problematic. Morally, I was outraged that this film seemed to, even if not intentionally, make suicide kind of okay. It isn't nor is it ever.

Tim is not a hero. He is not a matyr. He is a man who was crying out for help, and no one heard him. He was looking for redemption and he finds it by doing the most self-destructing thing possible. He figures the best way to help people is by killing himself.

Both times I saw this movie, I kept wondering what the message was supposed to be. I kept wondering what I was supposed to get out of it. I kept wondering how Tim could have the audacity to appoint himself a judge of good character of people he doesn't even know.

And in addition, his decision to kill himself seems to be an overreaction to a mistake, horrible as it is, that any one of us is capable of making.

There is no doubt that he was broken. I just wish someone was there to help put him back together again.

Seven Pounds

Will Smith can do almost anything, except make the ending of Seven Pounds easy to swallow. It is mawkish, emotionally manipulative and ridiculous.

Harsh? Yes, but how else would you react after sitting through two hours of a film that begins with the main character calling 911 to report his own suicide?

Smith plays Ben Thomas, an IRS agent down in the dumps over a tragic mistake he made. He has embarked on a plan to help seven strangers.

Smith, to his credit, masks all the qualities that he usually has at his disposal, mainly his considerable charm and sense of humor. We see only glimpses. The rest of the time, Smith is sullen, using bits of his charm to intrude into the lives of strangers to determine if they are in fact good people. It is an intense performance that keeps you engaged throughout much of the film.

You are pulled into the mystery of who Ben Thomas is and what he is doing. At times, he is rude; other times, kind. You, as the viewer, are continually thrown off.

But the director, Gabriele Muccino, shows his hands way too early, and by the first half, the audience has figured out Thomas' secret and what he plans to do. And so the film drags for another hour, as Thomas falls in love with Emily Posa, a vibrant woman with congenital heart failure. He wants to help her, but his plan hits a bump when he develops feelings for her.

Rosario Dawson plays Emily not as a victim but a woman who is trying to face her grim situation with a bit of hope. Her relationship with Thomas brings new life, however brief, to a man run down with grief.

Then the twist comes, not much of a shock, but one that is polarizing. Some in the audience will be touched. Others, like me, will just feel ripped off. The movie never earns the emotional payoff it is seeking. In many ways, the film is a cop out and you don't have once ounce of sympathy for the decision Thomas makes at the end, however altruistic it might seem.

What is this film trying to say? I don't know. The message of redemption is muddled by a main character who somehow sees himself as some flawed Christ-figure who can make amends through masochistic suffering.

I applaud Smith for taking chances with his acting and trying dark roles. But this just doesn't work.

Twilight

Twilight, the first in a four-book series by Stephanie Meyer, is the Romeo and Juliet for the tween generation.

Except, Romeo hates sunlight and must tame his desire to suck the blood of his Juliet. Talk about a compelling reason to stay abstinent.

On the movie screen, the love affair of Bella and Edward plays out, much like it did in the book. But those who aren't fans of the series won't become fans because of this movie.

The film, as directed by Catherine Hardwicke, gets the angst of teenage life, especially in Bella (played brilliantly by Kristen Stewart). As the movie begins, Bella moves from Arizona to a small town called Forks to be with her father, who also happens to be the sheriff.

She has no friends, she is awkward and given to fits of clumsiness. And worst of all, she gets a beat-up red pick-up truck to ride around in.

On her first day of class, she meets Edward Cullen, a pale-faced heartthrob who almost becomes sick at the sight of her. Not a good impression, but Bella finds herself both disgusted and drawn to the mystery man.

It certainly doesn't hurt that Edward saves her life in a way that physics just can't explain. By the time she discovers Edward's secret -- he's a vampire who prefers animal blood -- she is "unconditionally and irrevocably" in love with him.

This is where things get tricky. Maybe in the 600-plus page book the movie is based on, we can believe that real love exists between Edward and Bella. But not in a two hour movie do you fully believe it.

The tension comes in the desires of both being unfulfilled because Edward cannot risk hurting his love by loving her. He cannot lose control even though every bit of his body wants to. Their love is unrequited.

But the "bite me so I can be with you forever" is a bit much to take, and guys dragged to this movie by their girlfriends will have to sit through an hour and a half of this overwrought dialogue to get to any action. And unfortunately, the action sucks. The special effects are awful and cheesy beyond belief. No teeth are bared, and all we get is a bunch of flying vampires. What is this? Super Vampire.

Nothing in this movie made me curious about the books or made me interested in seeing the

sequel. Maybe this is because I am not a teenage girl all in love with the whole idea of Edward Cullen. Oh well. Forgive me.

But I like vampire movies, and this wasn't one of the best. Sorry. I need something to sink my teeth in.

Quantum of Solace

In Casino Royale, Daniel Craig gave James Bond something he had never had before -- edge, a smoldering rough, dare I say, thuggish quality missing in the more debonair, witty and smooth incarnations of Bonds past (i.e. Sean Connery).

And that edge is on full angry display in Quantum of Solace, an adrenaline-rush of a sequel that rarely stops for quiet introspection.

Not once does Bond say his signature line, "Bond, James Bond." He's way too busy going rogue, driving his boss, M (played by the always wonderful Judi Dench) crazy and killing people in awfully messy ways.

I was never much of a James Bond fan to begin with, but through Craig, we saw a James Bond that was more visceral and vulnerable, one who fell in love with a beautiful woman only to have her betray him and then die.

The new movie takes up where the last one left off, with Bond mourning the death of his lover, Vesper, and intently searching for her killer. What he discovers is a much greater conspiracy than he could have ever imagined, one that lurks in dark places.

At the center is Dominic Greene, a pseudo-environmentalist who is more interested in the kind of green that stacks. Joining Bond in his adventures is a different kind of Bond girl who, for a change, doesn't bed Bond because she's too focused on seeking revenge for the violent tragedies of her own life.

Marc Foster, the director of such moody pieces as Monster's Ball, gives us an action thriller with an actor's heart. He simply gives space for Craig to work.

Craig gives a muscular performance, both literally and figuratively, saying much in a simple look or gesture. And his scenes with M pop off the screen.

As a friend pointed out, this movie very much reminds one of the Bourne movies, very action packed with thrilling chases and bloody fist fights. I agree but I also think this movie continues an interesting reimagining of the Bond character.

Here, Bond has layers that we see peeled back. We see a heart beating behind the cold exterior. We discover glimpses of Bond's humanity that were hidden in other incarnations.

No, Quantum of Solace isn't nearly as good as Casino Royale, but it does very much leave you wanting to see what other secrets lie behind the seemingly inscrutable facade of 007.

Zach & Miri Make a Porno

In the mind of Kevin Smith, crude and sweet occupy the same space. His films reflect that. Look past the profanity of Dogma, and you will find a semi-serious meditation on religion and spirituality.

Chasing Amy, a testosterone-drenched film about a man who falls in love with a lesbian, has one of the most heart-felt and eloquent declarations of love (from Ben Affleck, no less) from a man to a woman I have heard in quite some time.

And here we have Zach & Miri Make a Porno, which sums up the plot pretty well.

Zach (Seth Rogen of Knocked Up fame) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks who plays Laura Bush in Oliver Stone's W.) are best friends with dead-end jobs who struggle to pay the bills. When their lights go out and the rent is due, they decide they're going to make a porno featuring the two of them having sex.

Yes, there's nudity and yes, there are crude jokes galore. And there are actual porno stars like Traci Lords, who can blow bubbles, just not from her mouth.

The real center of the story is Zach and Miri and how the simple act of sex changes their relationship forever.

This is a syrupy sweet love story about two friends discovering that they might be more suited as lovers. But the trip from friends to lovers is littered with scatological humor that is not meant to be heard or seen by the innocent. Hey, this is about making a porno and it is rated R for a reason.

Banks is the perfect straight woman, and Rogen plays the same lovable slacker he always seems to play in every movie, but you have to admit he is good at it.

The jokes fall flat in the beginning but build up steam throughout. And Smith's usual cast of characters join in on the fun, including Jason Mewes, who usually plays the Jay of Jay and Silent Bob but here plays Lester who has a certain talent that only fans of pornos can appreciate.

We all know what's going to happen at the end, but the sweetness at the end of this crude machine feels worth it.

And after enduring all of that trashy talk, you somehow come out of the movie smelling good. That's a talent Kevin Smith can be proud of.

The Secret Life of Bees

There is a quiet power to The Secret Life of Bees that sometimes threatens to spill over into over-the-top melodrama and pure sappiness.

It doesn't and that is a credit to the performances of the all-star cast anchored by rapper/actress Queen Latifah and Dakota Fanning, who is growing up to become a fine actress.

The movie, directed by Gina Prince Bythewood, is based on the novel by Sue Monk Kidd. The story is set in South Carolina in the 1960s when blacks were still fighting for their citizenship rights.

Fanning plays Lily Owens, a 14-year-old white girl carrying a dark secret who loves to write and is fascinated by the bees that swirl into her room one night.

Her father is abusive to her and crippled by the tragic loss of his wife years ago. Owens yearns to get away, and after Rosaleen, the black housekeeper played by Jennifer Hudson, is beaten and then arrested for trying to vote, Lily and Rosaleen run away to a small South Carolina town that is somehow connected to Lily's mother.

In that town, they find the Boatwright sisters, three black women who run a successful honey-making business. August Boatwright (Queen Latifah) is the oldest sister, followed by June (a feisty Alicia Keys), a civil-rights activist too serious for love, and May (Sophie Okonedo) who feels so deeply that she has built a wailing wall outside the house to cry her blues away.

The sisters offer a welcoming home in which Lily and Rosaleen can heal and find comfort. And August is the one who becomes a deep well of knowledge for Lily who must finally deal with the pain she has buried for so long.

Nothing really comes as a surprise in this movie. Even the death of a major character later in the movie isn't that much of a shock.

But in the end, it doesn't matter. Strong performances by all help keep the sappiness at bay, especially Queen Latifah, who could have easily allowed her character to fall into a stereotypical black mammy. She instead brings a complexity to her role. As does Alicia Keys, who gives June some layers as a woman too focused to focus on the fact that she needs love in her life.

Okonedo has the hardest job of all but finds the balance between being Sean Penn in I Am Sam and Dustin Hoffman in Rainman. She manages to maintain May's dignity and grace in a role that could have, in other hands, dispensed with both.

And the ending is just right, a wonderful high note in a movie that manages not to fall flat.

Miracle at St. Anna

Spike Lee is not subtle. His movies yell, pound you over the head to get your attention. If you wonder why, pick up Ralph Wiley's Why Black People Tend To Shout.

His intention is to provoke and he has done it in compelling ways, from Do The Right Thing to his most commercial outing, Inside Man. And Miracle at St. Anna is no different.

This story of an all-black Army unit fighting in Italy during World War II begins with an old man sitting in his apartment watching John Wayne in the movie, The Longest Day. Anger is sketched out in the wrinkles of his face as he quietly says, "We fought for this country too."

That sentiment is the theme that runs through this movie, an acknowledgement that black men sacrificed their lives for a country that refused to treat them as U.S. citizens.

A few minutes later, that old man, working in New York at a post office, inexplicably shoots another man. In his apartment is the head of a statute in Italy that's been missing since 1944.

And it is to this time that we are taken, where the old man is now a young Cpl. Hector Negron fighting as part of the all-black 92nd Infantry Division in Italy. The mystery of that statute head and why he shot that man will be solved by going back in time.

In 1944, alongside Negron is Sgt. Bishop Cummings (Michael Ealy), 2nd Staff Sgt. Aubrey Stamps (Derek Luke) and Private First Class Sam Train (Omar Benson Miller).

The four men soon find themselves trapped in an Italian village even as German forces plan a secret counterattack. Train forges a special relationship with a young boy he finds in a barn. And Cummings and Stamps boil over how to deal with an America that treats Germans better than black Americans as well as fight over the affections of an Italian woman.

Lee packs a lot into the film and sometimes the effort pays off. Especially poignant are the burgeoning relationship between the boy, Angelo, and Train.

And Lee gets at in powerful ways how ironic it is that black Americans feel freer in Italy than they do in their own country. No more is that hit home than in a scene in Louisian where the soldiers come to get something to eat and then are refused, even as German prisoners are given top-shelf service. The racism is of the in-your-face variety and it stings.

But this movie is not just about racism. It is about the tragedy of war and the humanity that sometimes rises out of that muck. We see evil in its worst form at the massacre at St. Anna where Nazi soldiers shot men, women and children begging for their lives.

Yet we also see compassion and the power of human kindness in a harsh world of betrayal and brutality.

There is a rough beauty in this film anchored by Lee's powerful direction, a more than appropriate score and wonderfully rendered cinematography.

Unfortunately, Lee may have been too ambitious, which is not a bad thing if you can hold your movie together. That doesn't happen. The film falls apart in the later half with an over-the-top ending, sentimental in ways Lee has never been and ripped from the much better The Shawshank Redemption. Even worse, having Stamps and Cummings fight over a woman doesn't reveal anything about their characters but only serves to distract from the seriousness of the movie.

Here, Lee forgets the simple power of a story beautifully told. He forgets to pull back.

But that's Lee, never suble, always yelling, resulting in a film that's sometimes too noisy for its own good.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

Michael Cera may become the teenage romantic comedy hero of a new generation, possessing a sweet geeky charm no woman can apparently resist.

Or at least the women in the last few movies he's appeared in, including the wildly successful Juno, which also made Ellen Page a star.

In Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, he plays Nick, who plays in a band called The Jerkoffs. He makes mix CDs for his cheating girlfriend that he continues to pine after to the disgust of his fellow bandmates, who know he deserves someone better.

And someone better comes in the form of Norah, played by Kat Dennings, who scoops up Nick's mix CDs after his girlfriend throws them away.

As you can tell by the title, Nick and Norah are destined for each other. But their journey of love is filled with all kinds of wacky obstacles as they make their way to see fav band Where's Fluffy, which is playing somewhere that night.

First, though, Norah and Nick must find Norah's friend, Caroline (played by Ari Graynor), a perpetual drunk who has what we might tactfully call a special attachment to her gum. Her alcohol-fueled adventures are some of the most hilarious and outrageous and most enjoyable parts of this movie, and Graynor goes all out in her role, never pulling back regardless of how horrible she ends up looking. That is the essence of any comic actor.

Michael Cera and Kat Dennings display a cute chemistry toward each other, and when they finally do figure out how they feel about each other, it seems real, not forced, not fake.

This is a sweet movie without being an overly cheesy, puke-fest of romantic comedy cliche. And it doesn't hurt that the music rocks.