Crash

Paul Haggis follows up his award winner screenplay of Million Dollar Baby with another brutal story, this time about the lives of people of different race and nationalities in Los Angeles, California. The characters are real, and the actor's portraying them are all excellent, in Crash, cowritten by Bobby Moresco.

There's rich DA Rick (Brendan Fraser) and his wife Jean (Sandra Bullock), LAPD officer Ryan (Matt Dillon) and his rookie partner Hanson (Ryan Phillippe), Detective Graham (Don Cheadle) and latina partner and also lover Ria (Jennifer Esposito), Movie director Cameron (Terrence Howard) and wife Christine (Thandie Newton), thieves Anthony (Ludacris) and Peter (Larenz Tate), Mexican locksmith Daniel (Michael Peña), and finally Persian shop owner Farhad (Shaun Toub). Some of them discriminate, some of them are discriminated, and all of them suffer in one way or another.

Top performances go to Matt Dillon as a corrupt officer who abuses a black couple because he can, but that at home suffers with his father, an old man with an urinary track infection his insurance wont cover. Then Terrence Howard and Thandie (I can't believe I'm giving her props and I usually hate her) Newton as the abused couple who then have problems with their marriage. Ludacris was also a real surprised as a thief who likes to point out the different ways black people are abused by the white people, and then he goes on to steal from them. Shaun Toub was also very good as a man whose shops gets trashed all the time because people assume he's Iraqi, when he actually is Persian, so he blames the Mexican locksmith who changed the locks of the shop but also advised him to change the entire door which he never did. Michael Peña, as the hardworking Mexican locksmith who moved his family to a new and better neighborhood, has a great scene with his 5 year old daughter. Great performance by him. The rest of the cast was also very good with Brendan Fraser being the weakest link if I had to pick one. His character is not very likeable though so that helps picking him.

The heart of the movie is in the dialogue, with the characters always making very tough comments about other races, even with people from that race being in the same room. It's brutal and kind of uncomfortable to hear, but is brilliant. There's also a couple of excellent scenes towards the end of the movie when some of the characters connect and we suffer with them these tragic happenings.
The movie is backed by a superb score that gives us the right tunes every time making the scenes more powerful.

Paul Haggis' second directorial job (after 1993's Red Hot) is close to perfect, boosted by very strong performances by a huge and talented cast of actors, and is one of the best movies of the year.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I've never read Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy nor I knew that it even existed before I started reading casting news for the movie last year so forgive for not being excited at all about it, but one thing I was, I was happy, because I read last week that MJ Simpson, Adams' biographer and apparently book's biggest fan, watched the movie last week in a special screening and he hated it, and he actually wrote about it and trashed it from the start to the end credits, and so I immediately though that there was a chance then that by me not having read the book, but being a sci-fi lover, could end up loving the movie so much it would end up in my top ten of the year.
Well, I'm sad to report to that it wont end up in my top ten, and it would actually end up in my bottom ten if I would have been one of those excited about it. I wont be so critical about it as MJ Simpson, mostly because I haven't read the book like I've before and so I can't compare them, but I'll try to critic it enough so it shows my hate for the movie, yes hate.

The story is my biggest complain because it doesn't make any overall sense and it feels like they just put parts of the book that fans like (maybe not, according to MJ Simpson). Much of the book still was left out, I'm pretty sure, so I'm pretty surprised because Douglas Adams cowrote the movie with Karey Kirkpatrick (Garth Jennings directed), so it's weird that an author would put together a screenplay so that doesn't work at all compared to it's great source.
The beginning of the movie was good, It was clever and I liked it (though it'd been better with a shorter version of the dolphin song which went on and on), and then scene at the bar and Arthur's house being demolished, it was good. But I have a little complain here too, what was up with Arthur's introduction? Total copy of Shaun's in last year's instant classic Shaun of the Dead.
After that, many things happen, but nothing remarkable that was really good or worth commenting.

The characters didn't work for me either, very poorly written. Martin Freeman plays Arthur, and he is ok. I really liked him in Love Actually a few years ago but I was not impressed here. This is his first big role though so it's forgivable. Then Mos Def as Arthur's best friend though secretly not from this planet Ford Prefect. He is great at the beginning when saving Arthur but then becomes a towel-carrying character that does nothing besides carrying that towel and tell everybody to carry their towels, which is never fully explained btw, though I did get the idea.
My lovely Zooey Deschanel plays Trillian and she was wasted here. The character is not stupid or anything but she just has nothing to other than follow Arthur or Zaphod Beeblebrox, played by Sam Rockwell, which was by far my favorite character. Very energetic and charismatic and funny, but again, half into the movie it was just too much of him.
Then two other great actors wasted in very little roles: John Malkovich as Humma Kavula and Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast. I wanted a lot more of them.
Finally the voice work, starting with Marvin the depressed robot. I don't know how does it work in the book but while robots are usually great characters in the movies, this one isn't one. He just makes a comment every now and then, and it's supposed to be funny but is not. And other than that, Marvin is just useless. A big complain here because Alan Rickman voices Marvin, and is one of the worst voice works I've ever seen. Alan Rickman talks exactly like that all the time in all his movies. His voice really doesn't work for me here. Then Stephen Fry as the voice narrating the Guide. It's just too much narration and it makes it worse because most of the time it's about random stuff that is just not interesting or has nothing to do with the story of the characters.

So for me it badly written, and that took away any fun the movie could've had. And though I usually love Jim Henson's work with creatures, I didn't love them here, though maybe it's because I was not happy with the movie. I guess just didn't feel its magic.

A Lot Like Love

Ashton Kutcher continues a very good year so far for him with the Nigel Cole directed A Lot Like Love, a very likeable romantic comedy costarring Amanda Peet. The movie is really sweet, and it's more of a romance than a comedy, though sometimes we get some stupid moments but they come out very real.

The movie starts with young Oliver (Kutcher), just graduated from college a year ago, getting to the airport when a very goth looking Emily (Peet) also arrives with her rocker boyfriend. They break up in front of him, and soon these two strangers are making eye contact while waiting for their plane. Oh coincidence that they board the same plane, and when Oliver goes to the bathroom Emily rushes right after him to get him into the mile high club. Ah, the dream.
From there on the movie kind of like goes into When Harry Met Sally territory as they start a very cute friendship and love affair, but Oliver is a man with a plan, and will be ready with his life in 6 years, so nothing can happen now. So they go separate ways and continue to meet every couple of years when one needs the other, only to find out that the other is in a relationship, just out of it but not ready for a new one or too busy with their career (Oliver is in the internet business, while Emily is a photographer, thanks to Oliver btw).
You can guess the ending by now, but it doesn't matter because what romantic comedy doesn't ending with the leads together?

So Kutcher is very good as Oliver, and if you erase 2003's My Boss's Daughter and Just Married from our memories, he's actually lead very good movies in his career, after he starred in the awesome Dude, Where's My Car?. Amanda Peet is also very good, though I didn't buy her being in her early 20s at the beginning of the movie, just like I didn't buy Kutcher being 30 at the end of the movie, he looks too young even though he grew a beard.
The supporting characters are funny, but add very little to the story but it's not a problem because Ashton and Amanda do a perfect job in these performances, specially when they are together on screen.

So the movie works, and it works very well. It's sweet, funny and cute, and the characters are very likeable all the time. Also, Kutcher and Peet have a great chemistry and it shows. Of course, don't expect them to win an Academy Award (though he may have a chance at the MTV Movie Awards), but do expect to be entertained by them.

In my Country

Samuel L. Jackson and Juliette Binoche star in In my Country, one more of the many African genocide based movies we've had these days. Directed by John Boorman, who gave us Deliverance in the 70s and Hope and Glory in the 80s, In my Country fails pretty much everything it tries and are only a couple of actors the ones that bring something watchable to the screen.

It's about Langston Whitfield (Jackson), a Washington Post journalist sent to South Africa to report on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, which were held against Africans (mostly white), who tortured and killed people during the genocide in 1993.
Langston meets Anna Malan (Binoche), a white African journalist covering the hearings for the local radio. This premise is pretty interesting, it could've been an amazing movie but I'm afraid is not.
Out of nowhere, Langston and Anna start this love story while working together investigating the tortures and killings. And I have to comment about this because that is an interracial relation is fine, but there are 3 or 4 jokes about it, which she makes herself, even to her own mother ("He likes his coffee white", was just painful), and while all this is happening, she goes back to her house every weekend to see her husband and 3 children, but there's no mention at all of problems in the marriage or anything, so the entire love story comes out just as stupid.

The hearings are also problematic for me, because Langston and Anna are in there and we get to listen to around 10 hearings, and out of nowhere, Anna starts crying as soon as the tortured or their families start talking about it, and she's the only one crying, and it was very exaggerated. I really didn't like Binoche's acting in these scenes. There's also a scene in which she laughs instead of cry, and it's another horribly acted scene.
And worse of all is that we only listen about the tortures, but we never see flashbacks of them or anything, which really made them less tragic, and just not emotional enough to justify all the crying Anna does, which is a lot.

Then we have Anna's family, who may or may not have participated in the genocide. Hints of this are throughout the entire movie, and even her father comes up at one point and gives a whole speech about what happened and trying to justify things, but there's nothing admitted, and then he's out of the movie, so his character is just pointless. In fact, the entire subfield with her family is just unneeded, and it disconnects you from the main story which should be the genocide hearings and the investigation.

There's another subplot going throughout the movie and is about Langston interviewing Colonel De Jager (played by Brendan Gleeson), one of the biggest torturers back in the day. Langston tries to get him to give up the names and actions of his superiors, and these scenes are the highlight of the movie as Gleeson and Jackson put some strong performances here.

Overall, the movie just didn't work for me, and I think it would've worked much better if it were filmed as a documentary instead of as a multicamera movie, and they should've have keep it about the hearings and showed the real terror of the genocide and the tortures, instead of putting us through that horrible love story.
Though this movie was made last year too, it's clear that it tries to be a great African genocide movie, and bank on the praise received by the truly should've been nominated masterpiece we had last year, but In my Country fails, and is no Hotel Rwanda.

The Interpreter

The Interpreter is an action thriller set in the world of politics. World Politics that is, as the story occurs in the United Nations which for the first time ever allowed a movie to be filmed in the actual building, and director Sydney Pollack took advantage of it and made a movie that felt very real, and that by adding the excellent performances by Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman, was really good.

Kidman plays Silvia Broome, an American born English translator working for the United Nations. She used to live in Africa and was part of a revolutionary group against Zuwanie, the President of Matobo. This is a country made up for the movie so there wouldn't be real political problems but this doesn't really affects the story.
It turns out President Zuwanie is being accused of genocide in his country so he plans to come to the United States (though the U.N. building is actually international territory) and speak in front of the U.N. to cool things off.
One night Silvia goes at night to the U.N. to pick up some stuff she had left behind and overhears a conversation in Ku, one of the dialects spoken in Matobo. There's a plot against President Zuwanie to kill him when he comes to the U.N. in a few days, so she goes to the police to tell them, and then the intrigue begins as Secret Service agents Tobin Keller (Penn) and Dot Woods (Katherine Keener) must find out if she's telling the truth or not, as they learn why Silvia was in that revolutionary group when she was in Africa, and may want the death of President Zuwanie too. At the same time, they must do everything in their power using everything they want (CIA, FBI and whatever other agencies they want) to protect President Zuwanie when he comes in case she's not lying.

Sydney Pollack has done some great movies (like Out of Africa or The Firm, one of my favorites) and also some pretty bad ones (like his previous one, Random Hearts), and I'm happy to say this one is really good, but the ending disappoints and plain sucks, but more about that later.
As mentioned before, he uses the United Nations' building perfectly showing us almost every inch of it and how it all works, and it gave the movie a great sense of realism. Again, this is all up until the ending but before that the U.N. gave the movie a great cinematography.
There's also a great deal of scenes with cameras very close to the actor's faces and it really works as both Kidman and Penn put some very strong performances. Kidman had a really great SouthAfrican accent too, and some awesome crying scenes. Penn has the devastated type of character all worked out by now and he's the one working actor that probably does it the best these days.
Catherine Keener was also pretty good but her part was too small. And she was good because she's such a great actress, because the character itself was pretty useless to the story even though a few times it seemed like she liked Penn's character and something could happen but then nothing else ever happened related to that. Having someone like Catherine Keener in that role was a huge waste of talent.
The best scene of the movie happens in a bus around the first hour of the movie. We have several principal characters all doing different and separated stuff and out of nowhere they all end up together for a very tense and thrilling climax to the scene. It was just perfect.

Now the ending, and there are very HEAVY SPOILERS ahead so be warned.
This killed me, it was all explained but it just brutalized the entire movie. I just don't understand how can they forget about all the excellent security stuff they showed about the United Nations and overall about diplomacy and the Law.
Kidman just appearing out of nowhere in what is supposedly the most secure room in the building is a joke. And then, after she pointed a gun to a President's head, she's let go without charges? Another joke. And I don't understand what they tried to explain at the end with her final words about being sent back home but it didn't sound like she was going to prison for life. And this movie should've ended either with that, or with her killing herself after killing the President. The killing of the President of course didn't happen either and what he was doing there was another joke.

So yes, the last 15 or 20 minutes are horrible and the movie loses all its credibility, but everything before that is really good, with strong acting from everybody (even director Sydney Pollack pops up every now and then as Penn's boss), and there also great camera work and an awesome score. Worth a shot in my opinion as it will keep people glued to the screen for 2 hours, and then yelling at it at the end, but at least it gives you something to talk about.

The Amityville Horror

The original The Amityville Horror from 1975 is a mild classic these days. It was likeable, but nothing as good and loved a Romero's Dead movies or the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Now those got remakes these past years, the latter produced by Michael Bay, and it got mixed reviews from fans, some liked it, some didn't, and those hadn't seen the original, like me, loved it. Now Michael Bay gives us The Amityville Horror remake, and having seen the original last month, having it fresh in my mind, I have to say the new one is much better than the original.

The movie is based on true events that happened to the Lutz family when they moved to their new house in Amityville, NY in 1973. A year before that in the same house, the eldest son of the DeFeo family that was currently living there, killed his parents and 4 siblings because the house told him to, as he said.
Now George and Kathy Lutz, and her 3 children, suffer through 28 days of horror before leaving the house to never come back again.

Great work by Ryan Reynolds here as the mood swinging and then total psycho George Lutz. I was skeptic before the movie, because every time I see him I can't avoid thinking about his Van Wilder and laugh, so I was scared that I he wouldn't work in a horror movie kind of slow paced like this one. But he does work, and he's really good. Australian beauty Melissa George (who was in Playboy once btw) plays Kathy Lutz, and she's great too.

There are tons of differences between this one and the original, starting with the priest. Phillip Baker Hall plays Father Callahan and he's the only member of the church that appears in the movie and he's role is not as big as the priest in the original. It's a big change, but I think it works good because now they added more Defeo ghosts appearances and also the story of the house and why it was possessed (before the DeFeo's), which was a great part of the movie and I don't understand why it wasn't done in the original. This new stuff made the movie gorier and scarier.
Something else I noticed is that the alarm clock showing 3:15 is used way less now. In fact, it appears only three or four times during the movie. Same for the movie telling us which day it is within the 28 count. It only happens at day 1, 15 and 28, while in the original I remember it seeing it a few more times.
Also different, and for good, are the kids, specially Billy (the big one) played great by a kid named Jesse James. The kids staying with the babysitter sequence is also kind of different, but much better. And the babysitter herself and her talk with the kids is pretty great (plus she's hot now instead of a little girl with braces).
By the way, IMDB lists the children as being Lutz's but I think that's incorrect since they had a different father, and they didn't have a last name in the original.
Another upgrade? The dialog. More real now and Ryan Reynolds had very good lines at totally unexpected times. It sounded wrong but funny, and just right for the movie. And luckily, the cheesy "To a perfect house and to a perfect family" line from the trailer didn't make the final cut.
Now the ending, basically the same as in the original, with the family leaving the house forever, but it happens totally different here and though now gone is my favorite part from the original, the new ending works just as well or better.

Director Andrew Douglas did a really good job, specially creating that great atmosphere that helped by the writing team, made the entire movie scary and not just parts. Add to that a great cast with Ryan Reynolds as the highlight and you have a vastly superior remake that makes us forget about the January and February tries (that ranged from horrible to ok), as The Amityville Horror, Bay style, is the scariest movie of the year so far.

Melinda and Melinda

Melinda and Melinda it's really good. Not as good as the classics from writer-director, and usually star (not here though) Woody Allen, but much better than his last 5 or even 10 attempts, and I did like Anything Else.

We start with 4 people in a restaurant talking about life, and how it can be put into theatre plays depending on how you see it. Two of them are playwrights, one makes comedies, the other tragedies. During dinner, each of them continue a story, using the other one's genre, out of a real life happening that a third person at the table started as the opening.
There's a dinner party thrown by a young Manhattan couple to impress a movie producer so he would finance the movie they are doing. Suddenly, the doorbell rings and an attractive woman they know named Melinda is unexpectedly at the door.

That's the story, which then continues in form of comedy where the young couple is composed by Susan, a second assistant director and Indie filmmaker seeking financing for her new movie, and Hobie, a non-working actor who hopes to play one of the parts, which is perfectly made for him, in his wife's movie. Melinda is the neighbor downstairs.
In the dramatic take, the couple is formed by Lee, an actor hoping to get cast for a part, and Laurel, a teacher living Park Avenue's high quality life. Melinda is Laurel's long time friend who got bored and divorced from her rich doctor husband, tried to kill him, tried to kill herself, and even ended up in a mental institution.
In both stories, Melinda is looking for a job, while at the same time the couple is trying to get her a date.

Radha Mitchell plays Melinda, who's the only character is both stories, and she does a really good job in the lead. Specially in the dramatic turn since she has more help for the comedy. Still, I feel she's nothing extraordinary here and certainly not Diane Keaton.

Will Ferrell also leads as Hobie, with Amanda Peet playing Susan. Ferrell is truly a genius (it's no secret I think he's the funniest man alive) and his "Woody" work here is excellent. He does it perfectly and really funny. He also has one of his classic sequences of broad comedy though most of the time he's Woody. His chemistry with Radha Mitchell works really great. Amanda Peet is also very good, with Josh Brolin playing Melinda's brief love interest Greg.

Then Chloë Sevigny plays the third lead Lauren, with Jonny Lee Miller playing Lee. I've always liked Sevigny but I was nervous at first. She starts kind of not interesting to me and her wardrobe is very old lady looking which actually bothered me. But after a while she starts shining and I really liked her after a couple of very good scenes with Chiwetel Ejiofor who plays Melinda's love interest and piano player Ellis. Ejiofor is getting a lot of good critic for his performance, and while I agree that he's good, I think that the part was too easy make it good, and there's was no chance for him not coming as very charming and likeable.

I'm a Woody Allen fan, mostly because of my parents who are really big at that, and so I know his movies, I mostly like them, but I don't study them like some people do. Here I see the great writing by Woody, and I know this could've been an Academy Award hopeful performance by Will Ferrell if the movie would've been all about comedic story, though if that would've happened, we wouldn't have Sevigny and Ejiofor's performances which were also great and I wouldn't like them gone, so I guess the movie is great as it is.

Kung Fu Hustle

I watched Shaolin Soccer for the first time last week, and I already fell in love with writer, director and star Stephen Chow. The movie was filled with physical comedy, but it was about soccer, so it remembered me of Captain Tsubasa, one of my favorites anime series from my childhood. It was like a dream come true seeing something onscreen that was kind of like it. And since last week I've been pumped to see Chow's next work, Kung Fu Hustle, and it didn't disappoint, in fact, it's one of the best movies I've seen so far this year, and one that's probably going to be a classic for me.

The characters are amazing, from Landlord and Landlady of Pig Sty City to the Taylor to the Axe Gang to the Beast to the Lollipop Girl and finally to Stephen Chow's Sing. And they have powers, different ones, and they way they use them and are revealed, just excellent. That's when this remembered me of Dragon Ball Z, another of my favorite anime series, because there are kung fu masters, and super kung fu masters, and ever more.

The story is simple, happening in China in the 40s, where we have the all powerful Axe Gang (they look like Kill Bill's Crazy 88s) battling the people of Pig Sty City, normal and peaceful people, most of them at least. So when the Axe guys get their asses kicked (and not know by who exactly), they decide to get the #1 Killers to help them, and after more fights, The Beast (who's the real #1 on the killers list only he was in jail) is also battling and that's when new fighters are born, and powers are awakened, and it all becomes a big masterful clash of mighty forces.

Stephen Chow is one step away of becoming my favorite filmmaker, it all depends if his next movie is something even close to armor-wearing fighters, the signs of the zodiac, and Greek mythology (it's possible, I just know it), but right now, he already is one of my favorites, because his movies are funny, exciting, full of fantastic characters, and most important, his movies are fun. Watching Kung Fu Hustle with mostly a college crowd was probably the most fun I've had at a movie in years, if not ever.

Sahara

It's National Treasure meets Flight of the Phoenix while trying to be Indiana Jones. Yeah, all that, and while those movies range from classic masterpieces to just ok, Sahara fails in most departments, only succeeding in the funny section thanks to its supporting players.
And I know this is based on a Clive Cussler's novel and all that but I've never heard of those before, so I'm going to disregard them simply my review would be wrong if I had read the novel, and also knowing that it was written before all the movies I mentioned before were made.

Anyway, it's the story of Dirk Pitt (played by Matthew McConaughey), a cocky Indy-like marine explorer and treasure hunter in search of a Civil War ship that is somehow probably somewhere in Africa, in the Sahara desert. So he goes to Niger and Nigeria to find out joined by his best friend and exploring partner Al Giordino (Steve Zahn). They are financed by an ex-Admiral named James Sandecker played by William H. Macy. While in Africa, they meet a UN doctor named Eva Rojas (Penelope Cruz) who's trying to find out about a decease that's killing people in Mali. The 3 of them join forces in trying to find out about the problem, and go to Mali while the country is in the middle of a civil war of their own.

McConaughey is ok, though I don't like his Dirk Pitt character at all. Same goes for Penelope Cruz, who's totally non believable as a doctor and is only there because she's hot. And I do think she can act. In fact, she's a great actress, but not here in the US, she needs to go back to Almodovar and Amenabar in Spain.
What saves the movie is its comedy, specially when coming from Steve Zahn and Rainn Wilson who plays another fellow explorer. The CIA is also involved with the participation of Delroy Lindo. These two the funniest scenes and it's the only thing the movie has going on as it fails completely storywise despite having an African Civil War going on which I would usually love.
I do give credit to the writers for at least keeping the romance for the final scene of the movie instead of having the main characters engage in a love story in the middle of the story while there's a million things going on which is what usually happens in these type of movies. On the other hand, of course that the American Civil War ship plot comes back at the end.

So I didn't like the leads, the story was too much like previous movies we've seen before, and though yes, it was funny, it wasn't fun enough. In fact, this movie makes me want to watch National Treasure again and wait for that sequel.

Fever Pitch

Fever Pitch is a romantic comedy based on a novel by Nick Hornby, who also wrote About a Boy and High Fidelity, and it's worth noting because though he didn't adapt them for the big screen, there's something common to them, which I can't quite describe, but it's there, and I could feel it constantly while watching his latest, the Farrelly Brothers directed Fever Pitch.

Now this is actually a remake from the 1997 British movie of the same based on the same book (though that one was actually adapted by Hornby) about soccer. This time around, writer Lowell Ganz adapted the story for the States and made it about baseball, rewriting the ending after the Red Sox won the World Series last year.
So we have Lindsay (played very cutely though nothing remarkable by Drew Barrymore) falling in love with 9th grade teacher Ben, only to find out afterwards about his sick passion (justified though) for the Boston Red Sox. "His apartment is like a gift shop", she says at one point. And it doesn't stop there, as he even has season tickets (for two) right behind home base and he never misses one game, previously sharing them with his friends (Willie Garson and Armando Griesco, who have to win the right to go to the games they want) and now sharing them with Lindsay who must balance her career (where she's trying to land a big promotion) and her new almost daily appointment of following the Red Sox.

Jimmy Fallon plays Ben, and as I write this I can already imagine all you remembering Taxi, and automatically eliminating any chance of going to see this movie, but please don't. Try to remember the great work Fallon did in Saturday Night Live, and the promise he showed with just little parts in Almost Famous and Anything Else a few years ago. Please try, because he's great here. And it's no secret he can nail the comedic scenes, but he's also great in the few dramatic pieces, and I give credit to Hornby and his writing for this.

Now, shouldn't I be giving credit for the actor's performance's to the director? And in this case directors, the comedy genius Peter and Bobby Farrelly, who brought us Dumb & Dumber, Kingpin, There's Something About Mary, Me, Myself & Irene, Shallow Hal, and Stuck on You? All great and most even classic comedies? Well, the answer is no, because I wouldn't know they directed the movie unless it wasn't on the credits (and props to a friend that pointed out how the commercials barely say its a Farrelly Bros movie). There's nothing about them here. Not one scene that could make me say it's from them. And I should say that this makes no difference, as the movie works perfectly anyway.

So overall I'm surprised, because the movie is really good, and it's great that the ones that get to see it will see that Jimmy Fallon is actually good (despite Taxi), even great here, he has great chemistry with Drew Barrymore, the rest of the cast is very good too, and it all makes for a really good story that everybody should give it a chance.

The Ballad of Jack and Rose

Jack (Daniel Day-Lewis in an excellent performance) and his 16 year old daughter Rose (Camilla Belle, who played the young Sandra Bullock character in Practical Magic) are living in an island commune off Connecticut. They live there without TV, limited use of electricity, and just isolated from everything. They even have the phone unplugged in a box, and they connect it only when they need to use it.
They have a very close relation, to the point where we're not actually sure they are father and daughter when the movie starts, and during the whole running time of The Ballad of Jack and Rose, written and directed by Rebecca Miller, we see hints of incest, and though those hits were kind of distracting me at times, the movie is not about that, is about innocence, and a father and daughter that love each other deeply.

During the first minutes of the movie we learn that Jack is having heart problems and is going to die. And it could be soon. Their close relation makes Rose say she'll die too when her father dies, to which he makes her promise she wont kill herself. She replies she'll try.
We also learn that Rose has been out of school since she was 11, and Jack has home-schooled her since then. They don't go to they mainland much, together that is, because Jack does go there, and he even has a girlfriend named Kathleen (Katherine Keener). Jack knows Rose is growing up and she wants to experience new things, so he invites Kathleen and her 2 sons to move in with him and Rose as an experiment as he says. They soon move in, much to the surprise of Rose, who didn't even know about his father having a girlfriend before they get there. This brings much complications, mostly a jealous Rose, who turns her life around and becomes a free spirit, cutting her long beautiful hair, losing her virginity to one of Kathleen sons (trying with both) and even bringing home a snake to maybe hurt Kathleen.
The story then goes back to the father-daughter relation and finishes on a high note with Jack coming to terms with the idea of progression on the island, thanks to a subplot showing the hippie and idealist Jack fighting Beau Bridges who plays developer building new houses on the island.

The father-daughter story is great, despite having many long scenes with only dialog coming out of Daniel Day-Lewis which I found boring and slow at times. But my main problem is that there is too much happening when the strangers move in and though that brings a much needed energy to the movie, I think it would have worked better without it, even though it would have probably been a 2 hours and 18 minutes borefest.
Overall, the performances are excellent, and I know it's a very good movie, but I just couldn't get myself to like it.