WHEN IN ROME (Mark Steven Johnson)

-

Those who went and saw this movie expecting some sort of higher aesthetic cinematic value must be mad. I only saw it because of Kristin Bell.

But not even her charm, or her perkiness, or Josh Duhamel's suaveness can salvage the movie's lack of imagination. In summation, it's a formula film right down to the core, featuring characters who are lifted off of templates, and a rollercoaster ride that ends in textbook romcom fashion.

But for someone looking for a light movie, there's plenty to be enjoyed here. The quad ensemble of Dax Shepard (ZATHURA), Will Arnett (LET'S GO TO PRISON), Jon Heder (THE BENCHWARMERS) and Danny De Vito (BATMAN RETURNS) are hilarious, especially when they torment Bell's character Beth across New York City. Nevertheless, the story's plausibility can be compared to the existence of Santa Claus. 

One more scene which does not make sense: during the climax, Beth drops a poker chip from the fifth level of the Guggenheim, and the chip rolls down all the way to the ground floor. Again, if your film's plausibility is a laughingstock, why not go all the way after all?

And we're supposed to believe the culprit is the priest? Wait until the church hears of this poker-playing priest.

The extra star in the rating is for Anjelica Huston's (who plays Beth's boss) piercing stare during that scene where Beth asks for a two-day leave to attend her sister's wedding in Rome. Move over, Miranda Priestley.

At least there was one catchy line, which was said by Beth during her sister's wedding: "This marriage has the shelf life of a banana!"

RATING: 2/5



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ANINO SA LIKOD NG BUWAN (Jun Lana, 2015)

-
Image
* English title "Shadow behind the Moon" The best term to describe Jun Lana's latest film would be a cinematic charade- a game of identities, of motives, of suppressed passions, and of uncertainty. Or the film equivalent of a Russian doll, if you will. "Anino sa Likod ng Buwan" only has three characters- husband and wife Nando (Anthony Falcon) and Emma (LJ Reyes) and military man Joel (Luis Alandy). What started as a seemingly routine banter among friends gradually and intensely escalated into an examination of society, where the definition of immorality is blurred during a time of insurgency.  And in fact, the film does discuss the subject of immorality from various paradigms. When does adultery become acceptable, and to whom? Is sexual liberation more heinous than murder? Why is immorality always a double standard? The film plays out the ideas in endless games. Or are they really games at all? Lana could have stopped there, but he didn...
Read more

TUHOG (Jeffrey Jeturian)

-
Image
Film within a film-structured movies are always interesting watch. Not only do they provide a much-needed deconstruction of form and content of cinema itself, but also that much-needed emotional punch a cinephile would surely love.  Like in BAD EDUCATION (Almodovar, 2004), we witness the characters tell the back story via montage, as if we are part of the cast of characters watching an actual movie. The form was successful in evoking pain and regret, and also of empathy. In TUHOG, Jeffrey Jeturian and screenwriter Bing Lao tackles sensational media in the Philippines, especially in cinema. The film opens as a film producer hears a pitch for a possible movie- a story of a grandfather who rapes his own granddaughter.  The director of the film soon after visits the victim of the crime, Floring (Ina Raymundo). Coercing both she and her mother, Perla (Irma Adlawan) to sell them the movie rights to their story, we witness as exploitation cinema unfolds. To think of it, capitaliz...
Read more

BIGKIS (Neal Tan, 2014)

-
Image
As an advocacy film, BIGKIS (INTERTWINED) gets its message across. The state of maternal healthcare in the Philippines is downright depressing, with mothers seated on the floor of public hospitals due to shortage of beds, medical equipment and hospital staff. The baby better be gaping through the birth canal before the mother receives serious medical attention.  Such social issue has been featured countless times in local documentaries and even in a feature film (2011's BAHAY BATA), but BIGKIS pushes the envelope further by bridging a connection between mother and child by means of breastfeeding, and in doing so, promoting breastfeeding in the process.  As a drama, the film tends to squeeze too much tragedy from the downtrodden lives of its characters that a lot of the dialogue feels staged for us to feel sorry for their countless miseries. Mariel (LJ Reyes), a teenage mother deals with an unwanted pregnancy and worse, the abandonment of her baby's father (Pancho ...
Read more