Crossing Over movie review

Directed by: Wayne Kramer Produced by : Kathleen Kennedy,Frank Marshall Written by: Wayne Kramer Starring Harrison Ford,Jim Sturgess,Ray Liotta,Tammin Sursok,Ashley Judd,Alice Eve,Summer Bishil,Cliff Curtis,Merik Tadros Music by: Brian Ross Cinematography: James Whitaker Distributed by: The Weinstein Company Release date(s): February 13, 2009 Running time: February 27, 2009 (limited) Country: United States Language: English

The best we can say is that writer-director Wayne Kramer means well with "Crossing Over" — he means to put a human face on the unwieldy and divisive topic of illegal immigration. Trouble is, he puts a lot of faces on it. Too many, actually; we rarely get a feeling for who Kramer's many characters really are. And the way he weaves their stories together is so heavy-handed, absurdly contrived and, sometimes, unintentionally hilarious that he repeatedly undermines his intentions. His tone shifts uncomfortably from earnest to didactic to incendiary and back again as he tells the tales of various immigrants trying to forge new lives in Los Angeles, as well as the federal employees who may determine their fates. Comparisons to "Crash" are inevitable, especially given Kramer's fondness for overhead shots of the city's sprawling freeways. (Ooh, we're all so different and disconnected, yet we share the same space!) There's also a literal car crash that sets off one of the movie's subplots. But while some critics may have viewed that best-picture winner as overrated, "Crossing Over" plays like a watered-down copycat. Among the ensemble cast, Harrison Ford stars as veteran Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Max Brogan. The main thing we know about him is that he's burned out, which Ford conveys with his typical curmudgeonly understatement. He also has a 27-year-old daughter from whom he's estranged, which is mentioned once and then dropped. Max and his Iranian-born partner, Hamid (Cliff Curtis), are raiding a sweat shop at the film's start, where they arrest Mexican worker Mireya (Alice Braga), who's here illegally with her young son. Hamid's father, a wealthy businessman who fled Iran in the 1979 revolution, is about to become a naturalized citizen himself. There's also British musician Gavin (Jim Sturgess), who pretends to observe his long-neglected Jewish faith for admission to the country, which leads to an amusing scene in which he stumbles his way through a Hebrew prayer in front of a rabbi. Gavin's Australian girlfriend, Claire (Alice Eve), has her own dreams of stardom: She wants to be the next Nicole Kidman or Naomi Watts and will do whatever it takes to get there. This brings us the freakiest story line, in which Claire agrees to have sex in seedy motels with paunchy bureaucrat Cole (Ray Liotta), who will arrange a green card for her in return. Oddly compelling, but it feels like it belongs in a different movie. A subplot involving Bangladeshi teenager Taslima (Summer Bishil), who writes an essay about trying to understand the mind-set of the 9/11 attackers, probably aimed to offer thoughtful discourse on an emotional subject but instead comes out as noise. Bishil, the poised young star of "Towelhead," has some strong moments here, too, though. But then Ashley Judd barely gets anything to do as the immigration attorney who defends Taslima (she also happens to be Cole's wife), and a subplot about a Korean teenager (Justin Chon) who's forced into crime as a gang initiation feels like an inferior version of "Gran Torino." Oh, and his dad happens to be Max's dry cleaner. What are the odds? "Crossing Over," a Weinstein Co. release, is rated R for pervasive language, some strong violence and sexuality/nudity. Running time: 113 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.

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Fired Up Movie Review

Directed by:Will Gluck Produced by :Will Gluck, Matthew Gross, Paddy Cullen Written by : Freedom Jones Starring Sarah Roemer, Nicholas D'Agosto, Eric Christian Olsen, David Walton Cinematography: Thomas E. Ackerman Editing by: Tracey Wadmore-Smith Distributed by: Screen Gems Release date(s): February 20, 2009 Country: United States Language: English Budget: $23 million

Fired Up is an upcoming 2009 comedy film. The main plot follows two high school football players who decide to become cheerleaders in order to be around female cheerleaders. Shawn (Nicholas D'Agosto) and Nick (Eric Christian Olsen) are the star players on their high school's football team. They decide to go to cheerleading camp instead of football camp so they can be surrounded by women. Their school's cheer team happens to be the worst team at camp so they let the boys join in hopes of improving, despite the head cheerleader, Carly's (Sarah Roemer), protest. The guys are having a great time at camp until Shawn falls for Carly, who already has a boyfriend, Rick (David Walton). To win her over, the boys must prove their intentions before the end of camp.

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Friday the 13th movie stills

Directed by: Marcus Nispel Produced by : Michael Bay,Andrew Form,Brad Fuller Written by Story: Damian Shannon Mark Swift Mark Wheaton Starring Jared Padalecki,Danielle Panabaker,Aaron Yoo,Amanda Righetti,Travis Van Winkle,Derek Mears Music by: Steve Jablonsky Cinematography: Daniel Pearl Editing by: Ken Blackwell Distributed by: North America: New Line Cinema Foreign: Paramount Pictures Release date(s): February 13, 2009 Running time: 93 min. Country: United States Language: English

I realize it's not easy to get anyone to feel sorry for movie critics. We work from home in our pajamas, see all the movies early and for free, and spend most of our free time bitching to you about what terrible taste you have in cinema. But keep in mind we often get stuck seeing movies we would never, ever see on our own-- and I don't just mean bad stuff like Confessions of a Shopaholic, or tawdry genre stuff like Underworld. I mean stuff like Friday the 13th, a movie I hated, moment for moment, more than any I've seen this year. I scare easily, and have no fond childhood memories of Freddy or Jason or any supernatural killer targeting teens. I have no idea what appeal anyone can find in this tired formula, especially when it's used so poorly here, 13 years after Scream parodied it so brilliantly. But the people in the theater with me screamed at all the right moments, and even got in a few unintended laughs, so Friday the 13th seems to have a few things going for it. Even so, there are enough needless musical cues, fake scares, and suspense-free moments for even gigantic horror wimps like me to see through it for the trash it is. Whether or not it's good, entertaining trash probably depends on how much you grew up fearing Jason's hockey mask, but fans looking for that same horror jolt they got from the first film 19 years ago will probably find themselves too old for this shit. It's not much that the movie traffics gleefully in the genre cliches-- hot dumb teenagers trapped by a killer in the woods-- but that it doles it all out so haphazardly. The movie opens powerfully by recreating the end of the first movie, the final surviving camp counselor (attractive female, of course) chopping off Mrs. Vorhees' head. Then there's a second prologue that theoretically distills everything you're looking for into 10 minutes, but drags on even longer than you'd think possible for something so content-free. There's sex and drugs, but when it comes time for the gore, director Marcus Nispel has no idea how to pace things to create any kind of suspense. By the time they bite it you're ready, not so much for entertainment but just to finally move on to the real story. When we do, we're "rewarded" with the most obnoxious group of teens this side of The Hills, a handful of bleached blond dudes complemented by some girls in tight T-shirts and the token minorities, an Asian guy (Aaron Yoo) and a black guy (Arlen Escarpeta) who obviously aren't allowed their own love interests. The gang has piled into the summer home belonging to Trent (Travis Van Winkle) and his parents, and we learn that we're supposed to hate Trent both because he's a jerk to his girlfriend and to kindly strangers, and because he's obsessed with keeping the house clean. Meanwhile his pretty, virginal girlfriend Jenna (Danielle Panabaker) is sympathetic when they run into Clay (Jared Padalecki), a soulful guy looking for his missing sister Whitney (Amanda Righetti), who just happens to be one of the victims we saw Jason slice and dice at the beginning of the film. Or did we? As soon as we meet Clay it's pretty obvious that Whitney is alive somewhere, just as it's obvious in which order the stupid teens will die, and how. Jason shows up to dispatch them all in various creative ways, including a truly surprising arrow to the head in one scene and later, a disappointingly generic tire-gauge-to-the-throat. Since this is a franchise reboot, rather than a sequel, Jason doesn't feel the pressure to top his previous antics, and the screenplay follows suit by failing, at every turn, to add anything new to the formula. The flawless production values and rock and roll songs are great, sure, but a reason to care about the characters or even a hint of wit could have gone a long way toward validating this movie's reason to exist. But as I said at the beginning, I'm an automatic hater-- it takes a lot for me to enjoy any slasher movie, which I admit makes me a less-than-objective critic. Whatever you loved about the original movies, be it the blood and guts or the blatantly obvious sound cues that SOMETHING SCARY IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN!, you'll find it here in full force. But mostly Friday the 13th is proof that horror movies haven't progressed at all since Jason first emerged from Crystal Lake, and bothering with the new stuff is mostly going to be exercise in gruesome disappointment.

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