Month: January 2011

What do talented cast members Natalie Portman, Kevin Kline, Greta Gerwig (Greenberg), Olivia Thirlby (Juno) and Ludacris have in common?…An utter inabilty to save No Strings Attached from strutting itself into January oblivion. Something about a freaking hook-up-without-any-relationship-trappings romance or, emotion-free non-romance that turns romantic, while all the while Kevin Kline as Ashton Kutcher’s celebrity father, keeps stealing his son’s ex-girlfriends.

Multiple ex-girlfriends but not our dear Portman, who remains chaste in her “sex-only, Ashton, I’m-a-busy-medical-resident” stance and sees through Kline in a flash…. Question is, what’s Portman doing in this movie? Is her post-traumatic Black Swan-stress disorder this acute that she lost all perspective in what constitutes an acceptable dumb movie? Did Barbara Hershey and Mila Kunis knock all sense out of the Harvard grad?

Director Ivan Reitman, who actually produced the outstanding Up In The Air last year, here Loses! All! Perspective! Perhaps we needed Kutcher’s real-life wife Demi Moore to play a jilted ex-lover of Kline who comes after him to avenge his inconsideration for son Ashton’s feelings. Then we’d be in the turf of intentional camp humor. In this film the camp is unintentional and not a little pathetic.

2 “stars” out of 10

What do talented cast members Natalie Portman, Kevin Kline, Greta Gerwig (Greenberg), Olivia Thirlby (Juno) and Ludacris have in common?…An utter inabilty to save No Strings Attached from strutting itself into January oblivion. Something about a freaking hook-up-without-any-relationship-trappings romance or, emotion-free non-romance that turns romantic, while all the while Kevin Kline as Ashton Kutcher’s celebrity father, keeps stealing his son’s ex-girlfriends.

Multiple ex-girlfriends but not our dear Portman, who remains chaste in her “sex-only, Ashton, I’m-a-busy-medical-resident” stance and sees through Kline in a flash…. Question is, what’s Portman doing in this movie? Is her post-traumatic Black Swan-stress disorder this acute that she lost all perspective in what constitutes an acceptable dumb movie? Did Barbara Hershey and Mila Kunis knock all sense out of the Harvard grad?

Director Ivan Reitman, who actually produced the outstanding Up In The Air last year, here Loses! All! Perspective! Perhaps we needed Kutcher’s real-life wife Demi Moore to play a jilted ex-lover of Kline who comes after him to avenge his inconsideration for son Ashton’s feelings. Then we’d be in the turf of intentional camp humor. In this film the camp is unintentional and not a little pathetic.

2 “stars” out of 10

You ain’t gonna catch traces of Waylon Jennings or Townes VanZant in the brand of songs young whippersnappers Leighton Meester or Garrett Hedlund serve up like confetti in Country Strong, a semi-strong vehicle for the acting prowess of Gwyneth Paltrow. The film scatters verbal references to these and other country icons–Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn (Paltrow’s character, country superstar Kelly Canter names her pet infant bird after Lynn–a young chirper stolen out from under it’s Mom after Kelly “waited 20 minutes” for her to show up). Problem is, the only talent in the film who’d be capable of approximating these name-dropped legends, Tim McGraw (here playing Kelly’s manager/husband) doesn’t utter a single song!

While McGraw has acted before and Paltrow has sung on film (“Duets”), here it’s over-ambitious casting. Though adequate within their characters’ limited emotional range and capable of cutesy tete-a-tetes, Hedlund (“Tron: Legacy”) and Meester (“Gossip Girl”) hardly evoke the country hall-of-fame. And Paltrow, despite a nuanced performance, is so saddled with such hyperbolic over-production on her musical numbers, I swear I heard her pet bird cringe. So it’s actors-as-musicians and musician-as-actor, mixing it up in a film that stirs but; doesn’t blend the elements of concert film and addiction-going-to-rot showbiz biopic. Had the film done more work in building and explaining characters and events, we might have something more than a climax sadly unworthy of our empathy.And you can bet your Waylon and Merle and Townes, they’d all die laughing at what’s-all-this gritty-as-jello honky tonk.

Four out of 10 (and I’d hate to think what number it would be without Paltrow.)

You ain’t gonna catch traces of Waylon Jennings or Townes VanZant in the brand of songs young whippersnappers Leighton Meester or Garrett Hedlund serve up like confetti in Country Strong, a semi-strong vehicle for the acting prowess of Gwyneth Paltrow. The film scatters verbal references to these and other country icons–Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn (Paltrow’s character, country superstar Kelly Canter names her pet infant bird after Lynn–a young chirper stolen out from under it’s Mom after Kelly “waited 20 minutes” for her to show up). Problem is, the only talent in the film who’d be capable of approximating these name-dropped legends, Tim McGraw (here playing Kelly’s manager/husband) doesn’t utter a single song!

While McGraw has acted before and Paltrow has sung on film (“Duets”), here it’s over-ambitious casting. Though adequate within their characters’ limited emotional range and capable of cutesy tete-a-tetes, Hedlund (“Tron: Legacy”) and Meester (“Gossip Girl”) hardly evoke the country hall-of-fame. And Paltrow, despite a nuanced performance, is so saddled with such hyperbolic over-production on her musical numbers, I swear I heard her pet bird cringe. So it’s actors-as-musicians and musician-as-actor, mixing it up in a film that stirs but; doesn’t blend the elements of concert film and addiction-going-to-rot showbiz biopic. Had the film done more work in building and explaining characters and events, we might have something more than a climax sadly unworthy of our empathy.And you can bet your Waylon and Merle and Townes, they’d all die laughing at what’s-all-this gritty-as-jello honky tonk.

Four out of 10 (and I’d hate to think what number it would be without Paltrow.)