Broken Flowers (dark comedy?): Bill Murray stars as a 50 year old bachelor who gets a mysterious, unsigned letter informing him that he has a 20 year old son. Unfortunately, the letter offers no further information on who the son is. His best friend convinces him to track down all his possible girlfriends from the time his son could’ve been conceived and sends him on a journey to track the boy down. This is a character movie, and I find a lot of depth in the drier, semi-depressed characters that Murray has been taking on in recent years. It was also directed by Jim Jarmusch, who directed Mystery Train and Night on Earth, which are a couple of my favorites. Unfortunately, Jarmusch believes that making movies that tell a complete story is not as important as making movies that the viewer will make something out of long after the film is over. And while I respect that kind of goal, I don’t like it in my films. C+

Thumbsucker (drama): Oh look, I picked another indie character movie. How unusual. As the title would suggest, this is a movie about a boy who sucks his thumb. Actually, the boy is more of a teenager. And the story is more about him not sucking his thumb. In the process, the movie sort of makes a point about replacing what people need with what is socially acceptable, and how strange and hollow the replacement can be. I have to say that this was the first role since Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure that I thought wasn’t over Keanu Reeves head. I didn’t question him or think he was an idiot. Not even once. B

The Weather Man (dark comedy) Nick Cage plays a weather man whose life is falling apart around him. His father is dying, his wife is divorcing him, people on the street throw things at him, and his overweight daughter has been nicknamed “camel toe” at school. On the other hand, the guy is a successful weather man with a shot at a national spot. Because he can’t focus on anything more than trying to become his father, he remains a professional success and a personal failure. There were some great shots in this movie, and some really great dialogue. B

The Island (sci-fi): I really think that in a Hollywood brainstorming meeting somewhere, someone just said, “Fuck it. Why don’t we save some money on writing and just combine The Matrix and I, Robot into one film? Even if it sucks, we’ll hire Michael Bay to blow enough shit up that no one will notice.” The story was mindless and fast, but if it wasn’t for Bay’s over-the-top action sequences, it wouldn’t be worth much. B

Walk the Line (drama): I will admit that this movie had great songs, great performances and a bunch of cool cameos (I was pretty proud of myself when I picked out a young Waylon Jennings before he was identified by name), but and I have to say that when there wasn’t any music playing, I was pretty bored. I don’t know why. Maybe there was something wrong with the story. Maybe I spent time wondering how many times I have to be subject to the whole “junkie sweating in bed and throwing things across the room” scenes? Maybe it was that the whole movie seemed too much like “Ray” for country folk. If you’re not a Johnny Cash fan, I can see this movie being sort a waste of time. C+

Sahara (action): Some action movies are just so good that they grab your attention and keep your heart pounding until the end. Then, there are movies like Sahara that make you appreciate those movies. I really don’t think they thought about the story or the action sequences at all when they made this movie. I think they found 2 rejected short stories in a bottom drawer somewhere and decided to tenuously blend them into a single story just to put Matthew McConaughey in an action movie. This was a waste of time on a major scale. D-

American Pie presents Band Camp (comedy): This is technically a sequel in the American Pie series based around Stiffler’s little brother, now 18, who is forced to go to band camp as punishment for pepper spraying the band during graduation. There were only 2 people from the original American Pie cast in the movie, it was released straight to DVD, and it relies on another movie in its title without getting the official sequel title of “American Pie 4.” These are clues that indicate a highly sucky movie that I completely missed before watching. In all fairness, if you cut half the comedy out of the original American Pie and replaced them with boobs, you would be left with Band Camp. The best part of the movie is one of the special features where the camp nurse gives a typical sex ed class. The school nurse is played by (ex?) porn star, Ginger Lynn, whose performance was so straight laced, it was not only funny, but comically impressive. D+

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