Lars and the Real Girl (2007)

Lars and the Real Girl is just one more example of how to make a movie...NOT! It features Ryan Gosling as Lars Lindstrom in a largely forgettable performance.

The plot skirts the border of the ridiculous, and falls off into stupid at several points. Lars is a cubicle worker, good natured guy, who lives in his brother's garage despite owning half the house. He's kind of lonely, so despite several interested woman, he decides to order a full size, made to order sex doll from the internet. The funny thing is that he then mentally constructs her into a real live woman, and brings her into his daily routine, taking her to the doctor, family dinners and company parties, as his friends, family and coworkers look on a la "The Emperor's New Clothes." This all progresses until it just stops without any real explanation, and he goes out with a coworker.

Lars and the Real Girl just fails to make the sense it could have, and plunges along aimlessly for too long of this painful to watch film. As I was watching it, to pass the boredom, I was trying to remake it. It probably could have worked better as some type of romantic comedy as Margo, the coworker is competing with the life sized doll for his attention. It definitely could have been improved if we made it into a more serious drama as Lars is working through some unresolved relationship issues, guided by the doctor. This gets very cursorily insinuated, but never synthesized into anything, or even confirmed and brought together like it could have.

What we are left with is a drama that's not serious enough, with the ridiculous elements of a comedy that don't make one laugh, or even raise a smile. You understand my reasons why Lars and the Real Girl simply doesn't make for a film worth watching.

Overall Grade: D

Reviewed by Jonas

Charlie Wilson's War (2007)

Want to know why the national deficit of the US is so high? Look no further than Charlie Wilson's War which stars Julia Roberts, Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

This film is the story of how a congressman from Texas, Charlie Wilson (Hanks), aided by a Texas socialite (Roberts) were able to fund a war in Afghanistan. This Charlie Wilson was hardly a model public servant as he owes everyone a favor, and hardly keeps a low profile with the ladies. It comes to his attention in 1980 that the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan, and the atrocities they were committing forced many to flee to neighboring countries like Pakistan. By equipping the resistance with the latest in weapons, the Afghanis were able to turn this into "Russia's Vietnam," as Stinger shoulder fired missiles took down the Russian helicopters. In order to buy this technology, Wilson took the budget for clandestine operations from $5 million to $500 million. Hoffman plays Gust Avrakotos, a disgruntled CIA agent who is finally getting a chance to help kill some Russians. Eventually, the Russians retreated, and the film mentions how "we screwed it up in the end."

While I'm generally a big fan of highlighting obscure history, Charlie Wilson's War just didn't do it for me. Maybe it was because Wilson has too many flaws to be a hero as he incessantly throws money on a problem he barely understands. Hanks does a good job of portraying this flawed congressman, but by the end, you hardly think he should be getting an award for anything, and you wonder where the White House was in any of this as a Congressional committee ratchets up the spending into the stratosphere.

My other problem is that this film really doesn't give enough background history. I would venture to say that not too many Americans were aware of what was going on in Afghanistan in 1980, and even less recall it. The film needed to do a better job reminding us that this was less than a decade after the end of Vietnam, the bungled Iran hostage rescue was even more recent and Americans would not have supported troops in Afghanistan. While arming the resistance was a reasonable option at the time, the film does not mention that at least some of those same weapons we supplied were used against American troops when we invaded for the War on Terror and had to be bought back(which makes this taxpayer think that we should be very careful who we hand out our missiles to).

This film ends by saying we didn't do enough. I'm not sure anyone in the 80's could have foreseen the Taliban coming to power in Afghanistan, or what else we were supposed to do. I'm also not sure what the implication is to the Iraq War- does the film suggest we should never leave or spend even more money? For this reviewer, raising questions without any answers made for an unsatisfying experience. Despite the star power, Charlie Wilson's War doesn't twinkle.

Overall Grade: C

Reviewed by Jonas

Candles On Bay Street (2006)

You can always count on a Hallmark movie to provide a tearjerker, and Candles On Bay Street is no exception.

This film takes place in a typical Maine small town; the kind of place that kids growing up can't wait to get out of, and once they do, they want to return to raise their family. Exemplifying this are the town veterinarians, a husband and wife team. The husband grew up in the town, went away for college, and returned with his wife and started a veterinary clinic. All is status quo until his childhood neighbor/sweetheart bops back into town with a child to reside in her parents old house.

The crisis occurs when it is revealed that the mother is imminently dying of cancer, and there is no one to raise the boy (even though up until this point she was the picture of health). Faster than you can say "Hallmark greeting card," the search is on to find a good home for the boy. With a plot twist you can see from the town lighthouse, you can guess where the boy ends up.

How dismal is this film? Actually for a made for television flick, it's not terrible. The acting is decent, and the setting is engaging. The pacing keeps moving along, and the veterinary cases that get sprinkled into the film helped to keep me interested. Candles On Bay Street, while emotional, makes an ok dramatic film. Catch it on The Hallmark Channel.

Overall Grade: B

Reviewed by Jonas

Mudcrutch (Reprise Records, 2008)

Mudcrutch was a band that formed in Gainesville, Florida in the early seventies. Fronted by singer/bassist Tom Petty, Mudcrutch based their sound on the later recordings of The Byrds, which combined traditional folk and country with hard-edged rock. In addition to Petty, the original band featured the dueling guitars of Mike Campbell and Tom Leadon, with drummer Randall Marsh completing the quartet. By the time the band headed to Los Angeles in 1974 to pursue a record deal, Leadon had been replaced by another guitarist and Benmont Tench had been added on keyboards. They released one single in 1975, but that was as much interest as they could generate. Mudcrutch quickly disintegrated, and the band members crawled their way back to Gainesville. Petty would not be deterred that easily, though. He traded in his bass for a jangly electric 12-string, formed a backing band called The Heartbreakers which included (and still does include) Campbell and Tench, and went back to L. A. to try his luck a second time. The rest, of course, is history.

You might think that the story of Mudcrutch would have ended there, and for thirty-two years you would have been right. But Petty has, on a number of occasions over the past twenty years, stepped at least a little bit away from The Heartbreakers as his whims have suited him. At some point last he year, he decided that he wanted to make the kind of album Mudcrutch would have made. The idea eventually morphed from making an album that sounded like Mudcrutch into having the album actually performed by Mudcrutch. Campbell and Tench were recruited easily enough, but I have to think that Leadon and Marsh were taken aback by the initial phone call.

The album, simply titled Mudcrutch, does have a bit of a throwback feel to it, starting with the traditional American folk standard "Shady Grove" and continuing with a combination of vintage classic rock with a few country songs thrown in for good measure. The album differs from a typical Petty album in several ways. There are several covers, most notably The Byrds' "Lover of the Bayou," and Petty lets both Leadon and Tench take a turn singing lead on the album. The double lead guitar sound on the band's harder rock songs also distinguishes Mudcrutch from what The Heartbreakers generally have done. The band even engages in an extended but subdued jam on the nine-minute song "Crystal River." The performances are strong throughout the record, and Leadon and Marsh hold their own very nicely with three much more experienced professional musicians.

Given those qualifications, Mudcrutch is still dominated by the singing and songwriting of Tom Petty. And that is a good thing, as this is the best Petty album since Wildflowers in 1994. The particularly strong track "Scare Easy" is an obvious single. A lot of Petty's albums are a little too uniformly mid-tempo rock, but this album has an excellent mix of harder and softer songs. In fact, the more energetic songs come across as a breath of fresh air, and Petty sound generally revitalized on this recording.

To say the least, it's very strange to see a band that had basically been a footnote in another band's history for over thirty years show up and make the debut album that never happened in 1975. But Tom Petty has some experience making strange ideas work. The combination of Petty being in fine form, Campbell and Tench providing their usually solid support, and Leadon and Marsh taking full advantage of their long-delayed big break makes Mudcrutch a solid album. Petty fans will have no difficulty getting into this, and people looking for something new in a classic rock vein will find plenty to like as well.

Overall grade: A-

reviewed by Scott

"Scare Easy"

"Lover of the Bayou"

Blue Angels Over Jones Beach

Over this past weekend, I saw the Blue Angels perform over Jones Beach. I thought about posting some pics, but I took on the challenge of remixing the stills, and some video into a very short movie type piece, in an Armchair Critic first. It's a bit of a challenge to capture the planes as they're either (a) flying by too fast, or (b) too far away. Given those limits, let me know what you think. FYI, this is the first time I've edited video or tried this type of thing.

Jonas

Shinobi: Heart Under Blade (2005)

Wild kung-fu meets political intrigue meets troubled romance in Shinobi: Heart Under Blade. This wire-fu Japanese martial arts movie blends several elements together in a story that works pretty well.

In 17th-century Japan, two clans -- Manjidani Koga and Tsubagakure Iga -- have Shinobi, warriors with almost supernatural powers. The two clans, living in hidden villages, have a longstanding hatred of each other but maintain a truce brought about by a previous emperor. Fearing the power these clans have, the current emperor rescinds the truce and declares a battle to the death between the five greatest warriors of each clan.

In the midst of these politics are the star-crossed lovers Oboro (Yukie Nakama) and Gennosuke (Joe Odagiri). They are not only members of the opposing clans, but the grandchildren of the clans' leaders. Gennosuke believes it's only a matter of time until they can marry, while Oboro fears their destiny will keep them apart and their marriage can happen "only in our dreams." When clan leaders Ogen (Lily) and Danjo Kogo (Minoru Terada) slay each other, Oboro and Gennosuke become the leaders of their clans. Gennosuke sets off with his warriors to confront the emperor, while Oboro pursues them for combat.

Shinobi: Heart Under Blade has plenty of highly stylized action. The Shinobi have a variety of powers, from the feral man-beast with steel claws, to the warrior whose sleeves and wires can let him fly through the air or capture enemies, to the seductress who breathes poison. (It's very reminiscient of the anime cartoon Naruto, from warriors bouncing from tree to tree to their swatting throwing stars out of the air.) Unfortunately, as with many ensemble movies (such as the X-Men franchise), most characters are one dimensional and exist only to show their powers. (The second disc has plenty of behind-the-scenes material on the action, from storyboards to the filming of the battles.)

As for the non-action scenes, be they romance or poltical, they work to a certain extent. While Shinobi: Heart Under Blade has beautiful visuals, it lacks the subtlety and grandeur of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but still manages to include intelligence in-between the fight scenes. Many characters argue that violence is the only life they can ever know, and the division between clan destiny and personal desire is handled well by Nakama and Odagiri.

If you're looking for a martial arts film that's more than just fighting, I highly recommend Shinobi: Heart Under Blade. This movie isn't perfect, but it blends preternatural kung-fu with romance and intelligence.

Overall Grade: B+

Reviewed by James Lynch

The Old 97's -- Blame It On Gravity

Ready for some rock-country songs about heartbreak and being unlucky in love? Blame It On Grvaity, the Old 97's first fully new album in four years, has the band doing what they always do, which is also what they do best.

After the too-clever opening track "The Fool," Blame It On Gravity jumps into the losers in love formula that is the bread and butter of the Old 97's. Whether it's a mournful ode to being alone ("The Color of a Lonely Heart Is Blue") or a rough morning after ("yeah I got brains and I got brawn oh but not enough of either one to wanna go on"), these tunes are for someone who missed romance, by design or accident, and wails about it. For this, Rhett Miller's slightly awkward but passionate voice nails the mood perfectly. (The one non-romance song is "Here's to the Halcyon," in which a sea captain with a disreputable past is going down with the ship and bargaining with God. It's a funny piece, finding humor in the contrast between his promises and life: "I'll pore over my Bible and I'll pour out all my gin.")

Blame It On Gravity is an inconsistent album, with some killer tracks and others that fall flat. And while it's not uncommon for a band to tackle the same themes all the time, this album sometimes has music that's extremely similar to older song the Old 97's have done. But there's plenty here that lends itself to multiple listenings, and an average album by the Old 97's is still superior to most music that gets released!

Overall Grade: B

Reviewed by James Lynch

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Paramount/Lucasfilm Ltd., 2008)

One of the silver screen's biggest action movie icon returns as Harrison Ford reprises his legendary role in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Directed by Steven Spielberg, this movie marks the first appearance of Indiana Jones on film in 19 years. Now it's 1957, at the height of the Cold War, when Professor Jones meets up with Mutt Willams (Shia LaBeouf), a rebellious young man who has a proposition for the Dr. Jones: help him find the coveted and feared Crystal Skull of Akator. Their quest leads them to the remote corners of Peru, where they come upon a cadre of Soviet agents, led by Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), who is also scouring the globe for the precious skull. But along the way they save Marion Ravenwood Karen Allen). And only Indy, Mutt, and Marion can stop this powerful artifact from falling into the hands of those who plan to use it to dominate the world. But it's a great movie, so go and see it. For more info go to www.indianajones.com.

Overall Grade: A+

reviewed by Ian Mylott

Mark Fry, Dreaming with Alice (Sunbeam Records, 2006 re-issue, originally released 1972)

About a month ago I reviewed Shooting the Moon, the second album by the intriguing English musician Mark Fry. Part of what makes Mark Fry so intriguing is that his sophomore effort followed a mere thirty-six years after his debut, Dreaming with Alice. Fry was studying art in Italy in 1972, and a friend set him up in a recoding studio in Rome to cut an album with a handful of musician friends whose names Fry has long since forgotten. The original LP never got released outside of Italy, but somehow the album's reputation spread by word of mouth, and for fans of psychedelic folk the album is considered a classic. Bootleg versions popped up all over the place, and copies of the original release have sold for over $2000 at auction. Fry, meanwhile, tried unsuccessfully to get a record deal back home in England, and has spent most of his life between traveling and making a living selling his paintings in France. While he had long stopped pursuing music professionally, he enthusiastically lent his support and participation when Sunbeam Records re-issued Dreaming with Alice in 2006. Thirty-four years after its recording, it was officially released outside of Italy for the very first time.

After listening to Dreaming with Alice, it's not hard to figure out why the album appeals so strongly to a specific group of music listeners. Fry's style on this recording evokes performers like Donovan and Syd Barrett, with all the hippie mysticism and other accessories (legal and otherwise) which that implies. But if you're into psychedelic music, especially with acoustic guitars, then you'll find much to like on Dreaming with Alice. The music is as dreamlike and trance-inducing as the album's title implies, but it is also quite melodic. The title song is unique in that its nine verses are not played together, but with one verse at a time prefacing each of the other tracks. The playing, considering it was done in an inferior studio (the soundproofing was so poor they couldn't use drums), is remarkably solid and tight as well. The highlight for me is a six-minute song called "The Witch," a steady, determined jam that makes as good a use of the sitar in a rock context as any song outside of "Norwegian Wood."

Dreaming with Alice probably won't please everybody. For reasons both good and bad, hippie music doesn't quite have universal appeal, or even as broad an audience it had when this album was made. But this album is an excellent example of its genre, worthy of the cult reputation it has garnered. As for Mark Fry, he has as remarkable a story as any singer I'm aware of, and his copious liner notes are as fascinating as the music is. I have no idea how often he goes back to Wonderland to visit Alice these days, but as long as he brings some good music back with him I'm OK with it.

Overall grade: A-

reviewed by Scott

Household Gods - Judith Tarr and Harry Turtledove (1999)

Household Gods is a fish out of water tale, where a high powered 90's lawyer and single mother is transported back to the body of an ancestor living in the Roman city of Carnuntum towards the end of the 2nd century AD. Nicole, our protagonist, finds life in the distant past jarring and most of the action and conflict in the book comes from her adjusting to daily life in a frontier town during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Nicole learns a lot about herself during her time in Carnuntum and when she is returned to the present she's a better and happier person.

If you think that sounds like a heartwarming Disney or Lifetime channel movie, you're not too far off the mark. This book annoyed me, which is not to say that I didn't finish reading it. To be a bit clearer, Nicole annoyed me. Her constant culture shock, powered by late twentieth century American self-righteousness, was an almost constant grating presence through the first half of the book. Ironically (at least, ironically for those of you familiar with my "Daily Life ..." reviews), this was the portion of the book where Nicole learned to deal with "Daily Life in the Roman Empire". The problem was that every new facet of daily life was viewed through Nicole's eyes, which meant that it was all horrible, primitive and barbaric. That means that almost every bit of history which appears in the book is prefixed by a sentence like, "Everything was suddenly horrifying." After the first twenty times, that gets a little old.

As far as the history goes, that works rather well. The Daily Life portion of the book is interesting and even pointing out the differences between now and then isn't a bad idea. If only you didn't have to endure Nicole's whiny internal debates.

The book does settle down by the middle, and even if it resolves itself into a rather too tidy ending, it has some very enjoyable moments. As a fictionalized account of life in a frontier Roman town, it's fascinating and well executed. The grafting of a rather cliche plot on top of it works less well, but is only really intrusive at the beginning and the very end. I can't recommend the book whole heartedly, but neither is it without merit.

Overall Grade: C+

Into The Wild (2007)

A look at one teen's attempt to toss it all and start again is the story behind Into the Wild. While it's based on a true story, and could have been fairly compelling, it simply is not.

Emile Hirsch plays Chris McCandless, a spoiled recent college grad. His parents are buying him a new car for his college graduation, and he is going to law school in the Fall. So what does he do? He carefully lays a plan to drive cross country, and escape out West. Along the way he spends all of his money, and abandons his car. He does meet a few interesting characters, and he mooches lives off other's generosity along the way, including some hippies that grew older, but never grew up. When it all gets to be too much, he seeks out the desolation of Alaska, and makes a home in the bush of Alaska (yes, that's the term according to the one person I ever met from Alaska, who drove to NY camping out along the way on what passes for a highway "up there" that was really a gravel road, but alas I digress). He spends what's left of an Alaskan winter camping out in an abandoned bus, believing he is finally free. He then realizes that he is trapped by the river of melting snow, eats some plants he found, and succumbs to their toxicity. His family (William Hurt as his father) had searched for him in vain, but eventually some moose hunters find him dead.

For starters, the timeline of the film is just too confusing. Rather than do a simple start to finish, they insist on going between the current Alaskan camp out, and the background story of how we got there. The result is a disjointed mess, despite liberal use of the text titles that are artificially flashing across the screen incessantly. My other criticism of this film is that it drags on like a miniseries that is trying to fluff in the scenes between commercials. It's got more long pans of nature scenes than the National Geographic Channel, but in this type of film it just delays the story. Speaking of delay, Into the wild is lopsided. While half the fun may be getting there, we spend like 75% of the film on getting to Alaska, and then maybe the remaining quarter on what happens there, the more compelling part. Had we equalized it some, or at least streamlined the journey, we could have kept my interest longer.

Into the Wild, while compelling in concept, fails to execute what it started, and is too slowly paced to recommend it.

Overall Grade: C-

Reviewed by Jonas

The Final Season (2007)

The Final Season is a look at a small town's love of their local high school baseball team. It stars Sean Astin and Tom Arnold.

The action takes place in Norway, Iowa. It's a small midwestern town that makes Des Moines look like big city. With a town of 500 folks, many farmers, and a school of 100, what this town lacks in sheer numbers, it makes up for in heart. Despite the small talent pool, their high school's baseball team has won 19 championships in a row, no small feat by any measure. Unfortunately, due to downsizing and budget constraints, some genius comes up with the bright idea to close the local public school, and combine districts. While this makes sense financially, the town loses their baseball team in the process.

The school board decides that that Norway can have one final season, but they want the winning team to go out as losers to ease the transition. To do this, they nix the longtime coach, and put in his understudy that was with him for two months, and coached girl's volleyball before that. Enter Coach Kent Stock, played by Sean Astin. Needless to say, he has shoes so large that his hobbit sized feet will never fill. After gaining the respect of his players, he goes on to lead the team in one final season.

The Final Season reminds me of the opposite of another baseball film, The Bad News Bears. Here we have another team, but they're all high school all stars, fighting for the chance to play. It's based on a true story, which always helps in the realism department. My only real criticisms of the film are that it's a little too slowly paced, and some of the characters are too stereotypical. Other than that, if you want a movie about baseball, it's a decent film, and too bad it didn't get more attention.

Overall Grade: B

Reviewed by Jonas

Anna Ternheim, Halfway to Fivepoints (Decca, 2008)

A couple of months ago, Anna Ternheim released a self-titled EP which I reviewed very favorably here. The six songs on Anna Ternheim were gleaned from two full-length albums and a handful of EP's that have been available in her native Sweden and the rest of Europe for a while, but the EP was her debut American release. A full-length album and tour were promised for the spring, and Halfway to Fivepoints came out in late April. Most of the songs on Halfway to Fivepoints were also previously released in Europe, but a few tracks are new. But the album reflects the same remarkable songwriting ability that caused me to rate the EP so highly.

Everything I say about Anna Ternheim needs to come with the disclaimer that all her songs come from a very dark place. Ternheim's work follows in the footsteps of the early recordings of Sarah McLachlan and Beth Orton, in that she taps into emotional depths that most people would just as soon pretend aren't there. However, despite English not being her native language, Ternheim combines a stark lyrical directness with a great poetic sensibility, to a degree that McLachlan and Orton can't match. The subject matter of the lyrics is often quite intense, and Ternheim frequently sings from the perspective of characters who don't necessarily reflect herself or are even admirable. On "Bridges," for example, Ternheim takes on the role of the controlling person in a very unhealthy relationship. On "Such A Lonely Soul," the woman in the song contemplates how to keep her lover's wife in the dark about what's going on. "Why trouble her lonely soul, she doesn't have to know, why tell her, it would hurt her so," Ternheim sings with no small amount of irony. Even the happiest song on the album, "Today Is a Good Day," is about a break-up.

Musically, Ternheim and producer Andreas Dählback aim for a cross between folk and alternative. Ternheim generally sounds more in her element on the quieter material, both with her own compositions and with her cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Little Lies." Like her cover of "China Girl" on the EP, Ternheim sings "Little Lies" in her own distinct style, and the cover is both radically different from, and considerably more compelling than, the original. On the album's best track "No Subtle Men," Ternheim sings about continuing to turn suitors away even though she's not so young anymore, and the conflict of emotions that result. By contrast, the arrangements on the album's rock songs don't always do the lyrics justice. "To Be Gone," an otherwise strong song about teenage depression, felt too retrained to be, while the electric version of "Lovers Dream" sounds cluttered compared to the stunning orchestrated acoustic version the was released on the EP.

In fact, despite having twice as many songs as the EP, Halfway to Fivepoints isn't quite as good. The EP's two strongest songs, "I'll Follow You Tonight" and "My Secret," are both better than anything included here. I also didn't see the point of having two songs overlap on both releases, and I'm really sorry they didn't include the song "Better Be" that I've seen on YouTube. Having said all that, Halfway to Fivepoints is still a solid release, full of extremely well written but very challenging, unnerving songs that are both beautiful and brutal in their emotional impact.

Overall grade: A-

reviewed by Scott

Witness (1985)

This week's 80's film is Witness. It stars Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis and Danny Glover in this dramatic film.

Harrison Ford is John Book, a Philadelphia police detective. He gets involved investigating a murder at a train station of a fellow police officer that was undercover. There is one witness to the crime, Samuel, a young Amish boy, who is like a fish out of water in the big city. He was traveling with his mother Rachel (Kelly McGillis) to visit a family member in Baltimore. As John looks into the murder, and delves deeper, it becomes clear that the crime is bigger than originally suspected, and now his, Samuel's and Rachel's live are all in danger. Faster than we can say "plain people of Lancaster County," the trio is off to the Amish Experience make themselves scarce and stay among Rachel's kind. Along the way, we get a firsthand look into Amish life, and even a barn raising (after all Harrison Ford had worked as a carpenter before he hit stardom so it wasn't much of a stretch). It all ends in a climax that has John Book taking out the baddies singlehandedly, and the Amish folks doing their best to stay out of the way.

I think this may be the third time I'm seeing Witness. It's one of those classic films that everyone should see at least once, and stands up to repeated viewing. I remain a Harrison Ford fan, and while his Han Solo and Indiana Jones roles get all the attention, this film shows his flexibility, and what he can do with a more serious role. In fact, I think this may be one of his best performances, but he has had so many, it would be hard to narrow it down to one best. On top of that, in Witness the care taken to show the Amish in a realistic fashion was well done.

Witness is a very strong film. If you haven't seen it yet, it's worth seeking out, and if you've seen it before it's a treat to watch it again.

Overall Grade: A

Reviewed by Jonas

27 Dresses (2008)

We've all heard the phrase "always the bridesmaid, never the bride" to describe a woman that has been to everyone's wedding except her own. In 27 Dresses this saying forms the basis of this romantic comedy.

Katherine Heigl plays Jane Nichols. She's the overefficient personal assistant to George (Edward Burns) at a outdoor oriented catalog clothing purveyor. Jane has been to no less than twenty-seven weddings as a bridesmaid, and her closet is stuffed with the hideous dresses. Seriously, Jane could be a professional bridesmaid, and she is often roped into called upon to be the maid of honor at these affairs. The film starts as she is attends two weddings on the same night as she hops back and forth in a taxi (how NY!).

The conflict comes as she loses her Day Runner in the cab, and a newspaper reporter, Kevin, that just happens to cover the weddings section happens upon it. He tries to ask her out, but she would rather pursue an interest with her boss, who only sees her professionally, and ineptly wonders aloud "Who should I take to this function?" as Jane stand idly by hoping in anticipation. The second plot twist is that Jane's sister, Tess comes into town, and faster than we can say "sisterhood" Jane's boss is head over heels with Tess, who he hardly knows, and isn't as compatible as he thinks he is with.

Stop this bus, I want to get off! Ok, I'll grant you this is all predictable with a capital "P." This is the overdone romantic comedy formula film, and we're not breaking any ground here. However, 27 Dresses does have redeeming features aplenty.

First of all, Katherine Heigl is excellent. Maybe I'm just a fan of her work from "Grey's Anatomy," (ironically a show I haven't reviewed, but faithfully watch, and know a thing or two about the setting and plot line). Then, unlike many films that fall under the category of romantic comedy, this one actually has some humor in it. Let's agree that most bridesmaid dresses give new meaning to the word hideous, and would never be worn outside of a wedding. To have an entire closet of these montroscopies, that she models is quite amusing to watch as we see the various themes of weddings she has attended (pictured in this post are the dresses from the Caribbean and Indian weddings). Finally, while predictable, 27 Dresses just provides some solid entertainment. For two hours of diversion, it nicely fits the bill.

Overall Grade: B+

Reviewed by Jonas