Quick Review: The Roommate

While the plot of "The Roommate" is mildly reminiscent of 1992's "Single White Female" -- both feature two female roommates, one of whom becomes obsessed with the other -- "The Roommate" is not so horrifying as inept. At the start we're introduced to Sara (Minka Kelly) arriving at college for the start of her freshman year and being assigned to a dorm. After some partying with friends, she returns to her room that night and we meet Rebecca (Leighton Meester). The film immediately telegraphs the fact that Rebecca is going to be trouble, removing all suspense as she becomes close to Sara while alienating (and, eventually, doing much worse to) Sara's other friends, including her new boyfriend (Cam Gigandet) -- not to mention a stray cat that the roommates adopt early on. You know that the poor cat's not going to last long. As Rebecca lures the cat to its doom, I just laughed at how obvious a plot device it was. And then there was Billy Zane as a sleazy professor...again, obvious from the beginning. Two things: one, clearly I don't watch "Gossip Girl," nor do I date Derek Jeter, because I spent the whole film thinking Leighton Meester was Sara. Two, the new year in movies is off to a bad start: of four movies I've seen, only one earned a grade higher than this one...My grade: D

Quick Review: The Other Guys

In "The Other Guys," Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg are NYPD detectives Allen Gamble and Terry Hoitz, who don't get to do anything exciting, while other cops (Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson) are in wild car chases and shootouts, and get all the hero worship and media fawning over them. Allen doesn't care, but Terry wants the action. (His career derailed after an unfortunate -- at least if you're a Yankees fan -- incident involving Derek Jeter.) Allen and Terry stumble upon a huge financial fraud scheme in progress, and try to prevent the crime before it takes place. Basically, "The Other Guys" is a somewhat smarter version of "Cop Out." It falls into the action-comedy-mismatched partners genre but plays around with the formula a little. It also has Michael Keaton as the precinct captain, whose name is...Gene Mauch (baseball fans will get it); and Eva Mendes as Allen's wife, and a running joke about how she's incredibly hot while he insists she's not. Will Ferrell can be annoying when he goes really gonzo, but he was a good fit here. I'm not quite yet sold on Mark Wahlberg as a comic actor, particularly compared to his small role in "Date Night," but perhaps he'll develop  more comedy chops. My grade: B.