The MacGuffin

A young orca whale wanders away and loses his family. He makes his way to the west coast of Vancouver Island, in British Columbia. Alone and in need of companionship and company, the whale decides that if he cannot be friends with those of his own kind, then he would become friends with the next best thing—human beings. He will integrate into their lives, play with them, work with them, and have them fall in love with him as he apparently has with them. But is human interaction with this wild animal a positive experience or a negative one? Is it better for humans to interact with this whale, or leave it alone, maybe even help him find his family? Human interference with nature is a tricky balancing act, with both sides understandably wanting what’s best for the whale, even though they are of completely different mindsets.

I can only imagine what the pitch meeting was like when the idea to make The Change-Up (2011) was decided upon. The people who convinced the studio executives to greenlight this film must have been expert salesmen, because the premise is a tired and recycled comedy setup that was old more than fifteen years ago. Not only that, but the tone of the film is slapstick—a gross-out comedy that masquerades as a tale about finding one’s true place in life, but in reality shamelessly caters to the lowest common denominator. Sure, there are times when it tries to be better than what it is, but at the end of the day, it’s too afraid of taking that step. This is an unfunny film about two people who have no business being associated with one another, let alone temporarily taking each other’s lives as their own.

Let me first start this review off with a disclaimer. I never read the Green Lantern comic book as a kid or as an adult. I did not know his backstory, or the intricacies of the world he is a part of, or where he stands in the pantheon of classic DC characters. The only thing that I knew about Green Lantern was that he had a special ring that can help him create just about any kind of object through his own mind and willpower, which is actually kind of cool. Obviously, I’m a rookie when it comes to Green Lantern knowledge. Now that we got that out of the way, I walked in to Martin Campbell’s Green Lantern (2011) with low expectations. Nothing from what I’ve seen in the trailers or read in press releases gave me much to be excited for. I thought I was going to see a silly, flat, overproduced, unexciting movie with bad dialogue and uninteresting characterizations. Unfortunately, I got exactly what I was expecting.

Spencer and John preview the movies slated to be released during the summer of 2011, before closing out with their DVD picks of the week.

There are a few reasons why I was interested in Buried, the film from director Rodrigo Cortés and writer Chris Sparling that opens today. Surprisingly, the Adonis Ryan Reynolds was only number three on the list. The first reason was that I’m always intrigued when a film starts out with a premise that inherently limits in such a way that it feels like a problem to overcome. Whether that limitation comes from setting, perspective, timeline, or something else, I’m a sucker for that sort of thing. The second reason is that, frankly, I weirdly love ‘buried alive’ stories. Whether it’s Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” the greatest sequence in the Kill Bill films, or that one sweet serial killer storyline on Bones—I just have a weakness for the plot point. Call me morbid if you must, but with promising buzz added in, I was definitely psyched for this movie.