{Something Borrowed opened in Seattle on Friday, May 6, and is playing at the Metro, Meridian, and Oak Tree Cinemas}

I'd like to tell you that Something Borrowed takes a gutsy stab at making something painfully unfunny, funny - but honestly, there's just no way to spin "sleeping with your best friend's fiance" into something hilarious, no matter how hard you try to pad it with stereotypes and OMG! LOL! moments.

This packed-with-cliches rom-com is dependent on many unbelievable things. The first of which is that best friend Darcy (Kate Hudson) is so smoking hot that no one would take a second look at Rachel (Ginnifer Goodwin) - which is of course, incredibly ridiculous. Even if you stick Goodwin in plain clothes and bad hair, hi. She's still GORGEOUS.

That doesn' t really matter though, because Rachel is such a sad-sack doormat that she let Darcy steal the man of her dreams years earlier because "hot guys don't go out with girls like me". Uh. or something.

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{Kill the Irishman opened in Seattle on Friday, April 8th, and is screening at The Metro}

If you love them mobster movies featuring up-and-coming wise guys in the 70s- then have I got a film for you. It's like a slightly gentler Goodfellas, but without Joe Pesci...and not quite as good. Though on the bright side, lots of character actors who may have been hurting after the Sopranos finale got some work out of this decent (if not standout) film.

Based on a true story, Kill the Irishman starts with our protagonist Danny Greene (played by Ray Stevenson) tooling around town in his sweet 70s ride. Then we see smoke from the cassette player followed by the car exploding. But wait - it seems somehow Danny, the "Irishman" of the title has survived, and he's shouting to the winds about how it's gonna take more than a bomb to kill him. Then the flashback starts, and Val Kilmer begins to tell the tale.

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{Happythankyoumoreplease opened in Seattle on Friday, 3/25 and is playing at the Metro}

There's a point where a movie can be just a little too indy and a little too cute for it's own good.  Happythankyoumoreplease skates right up to that line but never crosses it, resulting in an experience that was actually rather enjoyable.  Like a more serious episode of When I Met Your Mother with  artsy photography, considerably better music, and none of that bullshit where they pretend to be a comedy but kill off someone's dad when the ideas start to run dry.  Also Ted kidnaps a kid…

In addition to being the bane of spellcheckers, the film Happythankyoumoreplease was written/directed, and starred in by Josh Radnor.  An actor familiar to many as the character Ted who each week tells horribly inappropriate tales to his children on the TV's show How I Met Your Mother. In point of fact other thant it being the same actor playing men of the same life stage, the film bears little resemblance to the TV show.  Other than both have something to with friendship, love, and growing up. The comparison is mostly just a cheap way to start - but seriously, why did they have to kill off Marshall's dad?!?

Anyhoo…

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{Paul opened in Seattle Friday, March 18 and is screening at the Metro, AMC Pacific Place, and Oak Tree Cinemas}

To paraphrase a popular T-shirt,  there are 11 types of people in the world:

- Those who are confident in the belief that they who would NEVER enjoy a road movie about two guys picking up a wisecracking, foulmouthed, pop culture-obsessed ET hitchhiker (personally I think such people are weird - but I'm sure they exist).
- Those who are now sort of curious, but are unable to view the idea of attending Comicon in a non-ironic light, and
- Readers who both get the joke that started this list, have attending Comicon on their bucket list, and have now probably stopped reading to check their local theater listings for when they can catch a screening of Paul.

To those in the first group - all I can say is: how far has this alleged self awareness really gotten you? In this case, it's going to keep you from seeing one of Seth Rogen's best performances since Freaks and Geeks. Those in the second segment - I feel pretty confident saying you're going to get good comedy value for the money. As an added bonus, you'll finally be able to point to folks from SNL in a movie that doesn't at all suck.  

But for those in the last group? Bottom line is: you sort of have to go. This is the movie you hoped Fanboys was gonna be.

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{The Rite opened in Seattle Friday, 1/28 and is playing @the Metro, the Oak Tree, the Meridian, and Crossroads}

So if you believe the trailer, The Rite is supposed to be a kick-ass horror/thriller with tons of action and suspense. But really it goes like this: handsome Michael Kovak (Colin O’Donoghue) works at his father’s funeral home, and he’s depressed. So he decides to go to a Catholic college to become a priest, and he’s depressed. Then he tries to quit, but instead gets talked into going to Rome to attend one of the Vatican’s new-fangled training courses on exorcism, and he’s depressed.

While he’s brooding his way through Rome, he runs into a hot female journalist (of course!), and gets a talking to from Father Xavier, who recommends he drive out to the middle of nowhere to visit Father Lucas (Anthony Hopkins), who will prove to Michael once and for all that the devil does, in fact, exist. Wait a minute. Why does everyone in the church want to help this guy out, when he’s told them all over and over he doesn’t believe in god? “Oh, great. So you don’t believe in god and you don’t want to be a priest. You’d make a perfect exorcist!” I…don’t get it.

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{Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 opens in Seattle 11/19 and is playing at the Metro, the Neptune, the Majestic Bay, Pacific Place, IMAX® at the Pacific Science Center, and the newly re-opened Cinerama}

As anyone who pays even slight attention to these things knows, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 is just a set-up for the LAST HARRY POTTER MOVIE EVER (queue shrieking teenage girls), so it’s one long 146 minute tease with a huge cliffhanger at the end, and you won’t find out what happens until next year….unless you read the books, that is.  Since I’m assuming almost everyone in the audience HAD read them, I guess it shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone there that 3 people die within the first 20 minutes, although the hysterically sobbing girls next to me seem to suggest otherwise.

Anyhoo, HP & the DH showed some promise initially, starting out with a bang in the form of the Potter kids organizing the removal of Harry to a safe house in the country, juxtaposed against a long table of gothy villains led by creepy no-nose Lord Voldemort. All the “volunteers” change into Harry doppelgangers (which leads to some obligatory laughs), while the bad guys discuss some mumbo-jumbo about how Voldemort’s wand won’t work against Harry’s so he needs a new one (HELLO FORESHADOWING)—and oh yeah, they murder someone too and feed them to a snake.

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{Life As We Know It opened in Seattle Friday, 10/8 and is playing at The Metro, Thornton Place and AMC Pacific Place}

Yet another effort to turn out a money-making romantic comedy (psst – hey guys? There will never be another When Harry Met Sally), Life As We Know It should be re-titled “Life As We Know It if Everyone Looked Perfect and Had Amazing Houses and Jobs”.

*ahem*

So get this, Katherine Heigl (as Holly) and Josh Duhamel (as Messer) play polar opposites who hate each other but get stuck raising their best friends’ baby together after a car accident and then GUESS WHAT HAPPENS. Actually, you don’t need to guess, as that part is all in the preview.

After brief deliberation, they determine that keeping little Sophie and raising her together is the best option, since all of the friends’ family members are completely incompetent (guy w/oxygen tank, couple with 9 kids, a touring stripper!).  And then, my friends, hilarity ensues –but you’ve also seen all of that in the preview.

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{Going the Distance opened Friday, September 3 in Seattle and is playing at The Metro, Thornton Place and AMC Pacific Place cinemas}

Nanette Bernstein’s (American Teen & The Kid Stays in the Picture) first non-documentary feature, Going the Distance, could have easily been a disaster (as most romantic comedies are), but there’s something about the realness of the two main characters that makes it all work.

Would-be journalist Erin (Drew Barrymore) and hip record label employee Garrett (Justin Long) meet at a bar in New York, and agree after a fun night together that they’ll continue to date, despite Erin’s caveat that she’s leaving in six weeks to finish school back in San Francisco, and Garret’s “just-got-out-of-a-relationship-last-night” jitters.

Of course, those six weeks are ultimately fabulous and they fall in love (DUH), deciding to embark on a long-distance relationship to see what happens. The question is, will the miles between them make them grow apart? Or closer together?

Pretty standard stuff – but this movie makes some surprisingly real choices, instead of going for an easy over-the-top resolution.

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{Inception opened in Seattle Friday, July 16 and is playing at the Metro, The Neptune, The Majestic Bay, The Big Picture (Seattle) and Thornton Place IMAX®}

I was a little nervous going in to this; mostly because Director Christopher Nolan’s lockdown on any and all information left us with a vague teaser trailer that made me think of the “tuning” in Dark City – but I needn’t have worried: Inception is mind-blowingly AWESOME.

The breakdown: Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) are “extractors”, hired to thieve secrets from people’s dreams, and are contracted by one of their former victims to try something new: inception, AKA planting an idea instead of stealing one.

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{The Sorcerer's Apprentice opened in Seattle on Wednesday, July 14 and is playing at The Metro and The Meridian}

I banned Nicolas Cage movies since he ruined The Wicker Man in 2006, yet for some reason I was curious about this because I love Jay Baruchel (Led! Zepplin! Signed my shirt!”), even though I was sure Cage would brand it with his trademark over-the-top ridiculousness.

I also went into this knowing that because The Sorcerer's Apprentice was based on a segment from 1940’s animated Fantasia—with the Mouse himself, even—and directed by the man responsible for the National Treasure series, it was probably going to be some of the worst stuff I’ve ever seen on film, but I have to tell you even I wasn’t prepared for the awfulness that ensued.

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