Quick Reviews: May 2012

Since I continue to procrastinate and waste time (not entirely wasting it, as I've had some stuff to deal with as well), I have to lump together the films I've seen instead of trying to do post after post. After today I've got seven that I've seen since the start of the "summer" movie season (which this year was, I suppose, the week "The Avengers" was released, which was before Mother's Day). Since I saw four of them in May, I'll wrap them up. Really, though, what's finally spurring them on is the one I just saw a few hours ago, so stay tuned.

Marvel's The Avengers: Do I really have to refer to this as "Marvel's"? Anyway, I am a bigger fan of the DC superheroes -- although with their "New 52" crap driving me away from the comic book stores, not to mention the better success of the Marvel character movies, it's a bit harder to say that. I have high hopes for "The Dark Knight Rises," but once Christian Bale's final Batman movie is over with, anyone trying to make a DC movie will seriously need to step up their game to come close to what "The Avengers" pulled off.  I was so dazzled that I had to really think of a reason to not give this a perfect A-plus grade. I finally came up with this: there's an obligatory scene where some of the heroes fight each other. This happens in the comic books and almost always is contrived -- they have to fight each other before teaming up to fight the bad guy. Even though in this movie it was almost plausible and understandable plot-wise, it was still there. My grade: A.

Dark Shadows: It started with a surprisingly long prologue before getting to the 1972 setting for the main story, which turned out to be quite disappointing. I love that Johnny Depp throws himself into these roles, and there were a few moments that were enjoyable, but resurrecting this old TV show just seemed totally unnecessary. My grade: C-minus.

The Dictator: If my generalization is correct, people mostly loved Sacha Baron Cohen's "Borat" and mostly hated "Bruno," although I loved both,

Quick Review: What's Your Number

In "What's Your Number" Anna Faris is a woman who is horrified when she reads an article in a women's magazine stating that a woman who's had 20 lovers will most likely never marry. After all, she'd been with 19 men -- and then ends up having a drunken one-nighter with her ex-boss, a d-bag played by Joel McHale (speaking of whom, I really like "Community" even though I didn't begin watching it until Season 2), hitting the not-so-magical 20 plateau. She decides that one of her old boyfriends must be "the one" and, with the help of her hot neighbor, who has many one-night stands of his own (but no magazine cares whether a man has too many lovers), starts tracking them down. But it's a mostly predictable plot and we all know who ends up together at the end, don't we? But I love Anna Faris in almost anything. And Chris Evans, as the neighbor/man-slut, isn't quite as wooden as he's been in the past (plus, I assumed he filmed this after "Captain America" because his chest hair was starting to grow back in). My grade: C-plus.

Quick Review: Take Me Home Tonight

Some things you should know about the film "Take Me Home Tonight" whether you see it or not:

• It was filmed in 2007 and has been sitting around ever since.
• The film takes place in 1988, according to Wikipedia. I knew it was set in the 80s but not specifically which year. More on this in a moment.
• It stars Topher Grace as a college grad who can't decide what to do with his life, so he works at Suncoast Video. He lies about this when he has a chance encounter with his high school dream girl (Teresa Palmer), whom he's always regretted never asking out.
• Later, after seeing each other at a wild party and getting some quality time, she tells him that the thing she likes most about him is his honesty.
• I saw that line coming from ten miles away. The movie is that predictable.
• Grace's character's twin sister is played by Anna Faris.
• I normally love Anna Faris but this film somehow turned her into a version of Drew Barrymore.
• And not a good version of Drew Barrymore.
• An opening scene, which takes place in a record store, shows large displays of 1980s records.
• Record stores back then (maybe they do still this now, but the only chain I have access to is FYE, and their displays don't quite fit the mold) had those large displays to sell current album releases.
• Among the 1980s records displayed: "Touch" by Eurythmics and "Bad" by Michael Jackson.
• "Bad" was released in 1987. "Touch" was released in 1983.
• Perhaps the worst offense of all: of all the 1980s songs in the film, there was one in particular that was missing.
• You guessed it: no love for Eddie Money's "Take Me Home Tonight." My grade: D-plus.