Ratings based on four-star system.
'Couples Retreat'
PG-13
1 1/2 stars
This is what life might have been like if the guys from "Swingers" had grown up, moved to the suburbs and turned into lame, sitcommy cliches. Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn team up again, on screen and on the script (along with Dana Fox), for this broad comedy about four couples who go on a tropical vacation together. In theory, they're all there to support their friends Jason (Jason Bateman) and Cynthia (Kristen Bell) as they try to save their marriage through the couples' counseling the resort offers. Little do they know they'll get sucked into agonizing therapy sessions that reveal their own rifts. Under the direction of Peter Billingsley, another longtime Vaughn friend and collaborator making his first feature, "Couples Retreat" veers back and forth in a jarring way between crude sexual humor and supposedly poignant moments. The couples endure forced nudity and a wildly erotic yoga class; Favreau's character, Joey, and his wife Lucy (Kristin Davis) each try to get it on with their respective massage therapists. But they also must bare their souls. Each of these characters is exactly the same person the whole way through, until one night when they all magically experience an epiphany that makes them more communicative, patient and loving. During such moments, a distracting, feel-good score — surprisingly from "Slumdog Millionaire" Oscar-winner A.R. Rahman — pipes in early and often. A few funny lines emerge here and there, but "Couples Retreat" mostly feels repetitive and overlong at nearly two hours. You wouldn't mind getting voted off this island.
'An Education'
Rated PG-13
4 stars
Sixteen-year-old Jenny learns the ways of the world in this coming-of-age drama, but there's a revelation in store for us, as well. We get the pleasure of meeting an exciting young actress who surely deserves to become a star. Carey Mulligan is radiant as a suburban teenager in 1961 London who's curious and clever beyond her years but still rather innocent and impressionable. Although she's a diligent student and dutiful daughter, she sits alone in her bedroom at night longing to be grown-up enough to live in Paris on her own, basking in the culture. Mulligan maintains a beautifully believable balance of these contrasting forces, even as Jenny gets drawn from the sedate and boring life she knows into a glamorous new one. Her guide is David (Peter Sarsgaard doing a solid British accent), a thirtysomething man with whom she experiences an immediate connection. He whisks her away in his flashy sports car to nights filled with concerts and late-night suppers and, eventually, weekend trips out of town. Even her protective parents (Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour), who are initially skeptical of David's intentions because of the age difference, fall for his urbane charms. Director Lone Scherfig and writer Nick Hornby find just the right touch here with some tricky material, based on the memoir by Lynn Barber. The challenge is: how to make David, and this ill-advised relationship, seem thrilling rather than creepy? Through Jenny's eyes, we get caught up in the excitement, too, but as bystanders we know it can't last — even before David's dark side starts to surface — and that's what gives "An Education" an inescapable tension.
'Good Hair'
Rated PG-13
3 stars
What's so funny about so many black women wanting "white" hair? Plenty, it turns out, in Chris Rock's surprisingly insightful documentary. The well-known history of black people straightening their natural curls is more tragedy than comedy, rooted in the bygone belief that all things European were better than anything African. But Rock sheds new light on this old story through a poignant mix of interviews, investigation and his trademark satire. More than a dozen famous and beautiful black women sit for Rock's camera, ranging from the sage Maya Angelou to video vixen Melyssa Ford to an interior designer with a skin disease that has left her proudly bald. Their testimony illuminates today's reality: Black women who straighten their hair are not ashamed of their heritage — like women the world over, they just want to work with what they have. There are many scenes in beauty and barber shops across the country, where the various meanings, rules and ramifications of black hairstyles are discussed. But the best revelations come when Rock examines the sodium hydroxide relaxer that turns nappy heads silky, and the origins of the shorn human hair that is "weaved" into shorter tresses to create the illusion of length and fullness. Rock is the perfect host. His ad-libbed quips and silly-serious questions put interview subjects and viewers at ease with this sometimes painful reality, keeping them laughing instead of crying.
'The Invention of Lying'
Rated PG-13
1 1/2 stars
It would be such a joy to bend the truth and say that "The Invention of Lying" lives up to the potential of its inspired premise. The conceit — that an alternate universe exists where everyone tells the truth all the time — sets up an uproarious beginning, but then the movie plummets precipitously. It's not just the high-concept gag wears thin, which it does. The bigger problem is that Ricky Gervais, in his directorial debut (alongside co-director and co-writer Matthew Robinson), zig-zags awkwardly between dark humor and heavy melodrama. One character is suicidal and another is on the verge of dying, both of which are played uncomfortably for laughs. It certainly doesn't help that "The Invention of Lying" is lighted so hideously, everyone looks like death — even Rob Lowe and Tina Fey. This is especially obvious given Gervais' fondness for cutting back and forth between close-ups his actors, which he does with distracting frequency. On camera himself, he's likable enough as Mark Bellison, a wisecracking sad sack who discovers the unheard-of notion of lying one day and explores its many benefits. But sharing scenes with him are Philip Seymour Hoffman, Edward Norton and Jason Bateman, who go to waste in barely-there cameos. Comedians like Fey, Jeffrey Tambor and Louis C.K. get a bit more time on screen but their characters are flatly one-note. Gervais deserves credit for approaching the idea that God and heaven are part of an elaborate lie meant to assuage the masses — a bold move for a big-studio comedy with lots of stars — but then backs off, as if he and Robinson hadn't thought it through all the way.
'More Than a Game'
Rated PG
2 stars
An inspiring story that works very hard to remind you it's an inspiring story at every opportunity. "Hoosiers" looks subtle by comparison — and this is a documentary. "More Than a Game" traces the origins of LeBron James before he was an NBA superstar, when he and his high school teammates rose from being scrappy Akron, Ohio, kids to three-time state basketball champions. With his first film, director and co-writer Kristopher Belman combines old home videos and TV news footage with fresh interviews with James, his buddies and their coach, Dru Joyce II. Feel-good speeches and proclamations abound, frequently accompanied by the swell of uplifting music. ("Our kids just had a never-say-die attitude," recalls the coach, speaking in one of many sports cliches, even though the tears in his eyes at the memories seem genuine.) Too often, Belman also states the obvious; we could have figured out for ourselves, for example, that Joyce served as a father figure to James, who was raised in the projects by a single mother who gave birth to him at 16. The fact that James' talent and discipline allowed him not only to overcome his childhood hardships but thrive on a stratospheric scale is a compelling story in itself — and to his credit, he's not the sole focus of the film, even though he's an executive producer. "More Than a Game" also takes plenty of time to let us get to know his teammates, their back stories, and how they found a way to work together and win.
'A Serious Man'
Rated R
3 1/2 stars
It's hard to put a finger on exactly what a Coen brothers movie is. That's part of the allure of them. As writers and directors, brothers Joel and Ethan Coen don't just pump out the same movie over and over, as so many filmmakers do. From the comic antics of "Raising Arizona" to the noir of "The Man Who Wasn't There," the goofballs of "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" to the outlaws of "No Country for Old Men," they're all strikingly different. They surprise us. But there are some thematic threads that frequently run though them, which get tangled together here in the Coens' most personal film yet. Basically the point is that the universe is random, it gives you insurmountable challenges, and there's nothing you can do about it. The concepts of justice and karma are irrelevant: Things happen to people whether their behavior is good or bad, and you can question them all you like, but good luck finding any answers. You could invoke "The Big Lebowski" in trying to explain this philosophy: They're nihilists. But the Coens are clearly having a little fun in making life so difficult for the nebbishy Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a physics professor raising his family in a predominately Jewish suburb of Minneapolis in 1967. Larry tries to do the right thing at home and at work — tries to be a serious man — but out of nowhere one day, the troubles start piling up until they reach an absurd level. Watching and wondering how and when he'll snap provides laughs, but also a mounting sense of unease, and it should provoke lengthy debate about the nature of faith.
'Whip It'
Rated PG-13
3 stars
Drew Barrymore has forged a persona as both an actress and producer with movies that exude a playful sense of girl power, so it only makes sense that her first feature as a director would share that same sort of vibe. What is surprising, though, is Barrymore's ability to find just the right tone all the time, which would be a difficult feat for any first-time filmmaker to achieve — even one who's had the benefit of spending her entire life on movie sets. "Whip It" is funny without trying too hard to be wacky, sweet without being overly sentimental. It has an appealing sort of low-budget, '70s-style kitsch. And after a recent string of femalecentric films including "All About Steve" and "The Ugly Truth" that wallow in the worst kinds of stereotypes, it is such a relief to see women depicted as strong, smart, cool individuals. It's also a joy to see Ellen Page play a character other than the impossibly clever smart-alecks she's become known for in movies like "Juno" and "Hard Candy." Here, Page stars as Bliss Cavendar, a misfit growing up in the nowhere town of Bodeen, Texas, and working as a waitress at the local barbecue joint. Bliss is reluctantly following in the footsteps of her beauty-queen mother (Marcia Gay Harden), but on a visit to the big city of Austin, she sees a flier for the local roller derby league and is immediately intrigued. Not only does she secretly try out, she makes it and becomes the league's petite, speedy star. Kristen Wiig, Alia Shawkat, Juliette Lewis, stuntwoman Zoe Bell and Barrymore herself are among the solid supporting cast.
'Zombieland'
Rated R
3 stars
You'd be justified in thinking you've visited "Zombieland" before. There's been no shortage of zombies at the movies in recent years, just as there's been no shortage of vampires. And within that genre, a crop of zombie comedies has arisen, from "Shaun of the Dead" to "Zombie Strippers" to "Dead Snow." Like "Shaun" before it, though, "Zombieland" mostly finds that tricky balance of the laugh-out-loud funny and the make-you-jump scary, of deadpan laughs and intense energy. It's a total blast even if the story is a bit thin, and it does run out of steam toward the end, but thankfully our trip to "Zombieland" is appropriately quick. First-time director Ruben Fleischer grabs you from the get-go with stylized visuals, and the script from Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick is hilariously bizarre while still remaining rooted in contemporary reality. Jesse Eisenberg stars as an uber-nerdy college student who's managed to survive a viral zombie outbreak by adhering to a strict series of rules, which are inspired by his innate fear of everything. While trying to get home to Ohio to see what's become of his parents, he runs into a fellow survivor (Woody Harrelson) who's his brash, butt-kicking opposite. They come to regard each other by their destinations — Columbus and Tallahassee — rather than their real names to avoid forging a personal relationship, should potential zombiedom force either of them to take drastic action against the other. Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin co-star as Wichita and Little Rock, sisters who join them in hopes of staying alive.
'Brief Interviews With Hideous Men'
Not rated
1 1/2 stars
The "brief" part is one of the biggest problems here. In adapting the late David Foster Wallace's book of the same name, writer-director John Krasinski spends so little time with each of the male "subjects" being interviewed about their fears and fantasies, it's hard to connect with any of them or feel intrigued or moved by their stories. They mainly come off as neurotic, obnoxious or both. And the actors playing them are so self-consciously performing, their soliloquies feel stagey and false. By contrast, the woman questioning them for her doctoral thesis in anthropology, the reserved Sara (Julianne Nicholson), exhibits so little personality, she's a cipher. Krasinski makes his debut behind the camera here, but the star of TV's "The Office" is actually more effective in front of it. He appears in one of the stronger sequences in this scattershot production as Ryan (or "Subject No. 20," as he's known scientifically), the man who's come in and out of Sara's life and inspired her study. But then he undermines his own performance with copious jump cuts, a distracting and gimmicky device he uses far too frequently. Krasinski intersperses the interviews with dramatic segments showing Sara interacting with her various subjects, but neither approach provides much insight into the male psyche. Too often, we get cliches: Men view women as objects, they have commitment issues, they don't understand what women want. Timothy Hutton, Dominic Cooper, Bobby Cannavale and Josh Charles are among the ensemble cast.
— Associated Press
