Charlize Theron plays Mavis Gary, a divorced 37-year old author of young adult novels whose book series is coming to an end. She is a hot mess, and not in a good way. She sits around her Minneapolis high-rise apartment watching reality TV, binges on booze and fast-food, hooks up with random guys and looks down on pretty much everyone. In the midst of her emotional breakdown, Mavis decides to return to the small Minnesota lake town where she grew up. It’s a desperate attempt to revisit her glory days as the prom queen who dated the hottest jock in school, Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson). And speaking of that jock, she also intends to seduce him and get him back, even though he’s married with a newborn baby.

Once she gets there, she checks into a hotel to avoid seeing her parents and heads straight for a bar. She ends up sitting next to a former classmate she doesn’t recognize until she see his crutches and realizes he’s the “hate-crime guy” — who was beaten by a bunch of jocks back in high school and left crippled for life. Together Mavis and “hate-crime guy,” whose name is Matt, form an unlkely alliance — the pretty girl and the geek — a couple of emotionally stunted wrecks. It’s their relationship that is at the core of this movie.

Most of the outright laughs in Young Adult come courtesy of Matt who is played by comedian turned actor Patton Oswalt. He turns in an excellent performance. But it’s Theron who is truly outstanding as the high school mean girl who never got over being mean. She plays Mavis without flinching, without giving you even a hint of something to find remotely likable in the character. She totally embraces the role and I hope she gets some recognition for it this awards season.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Gary Oldman, who is barely recognizable as Smiley, leads an outstanding ensemble cast. Toby Jones, Colin Firth, Ciaran Hinds, and David Denick are excellent as the quartet of mole suspects, as is John Hurt in the role of “Control.” Smiley is aided in his endeavors by a renegade field agent named Ricki Tarr played by Tom Hardy, and his handler inside “the Circus,” Peter Guillam, played by Benedict Cumberbatch. It’s a lot of Brits to keep track of, and there are a lot of details to piece together before the truth is revealed. Good thing Smiley is there to sort it all out because like I said this is a plot full of twists.

This one is a thinker. But if you’re in the mood for something more than mindless movie escapism (not that there’s anything wrong with that), it doesn’t get much better than Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

The couple is Jacob (Yelchin) and Anna (Jones). They meet at a university in California where she is studying English and he is learning furniture design. She leaves a vaguely stalkerish note on his car and they meet for coffee. They bond over Paul Simon’s Graceland album (seems an odd choice, but okay) and quickly become a couple. The connection between them is powerful. Then senior year is almost up and they wonder “What are we going to do after we graduate?” What she should do is go back to England where she’s from so that she doesn’t overstay her student visa. But, matters of the heart trump legal matters for her and she stays. Too bad love doesn’t actually conquer all – especially immigration law. When she takes a quick trip back to the UK and then tries to return to the U.S. and Jacob, Anna isn’t allowed back into the country. This is when things get difficult.

She can’t resolve her immigration issues and he can’t/won’t give up his furniture business to move to England. So what are they to do? They text, he visits, they both fall into other more convenient relationships. He with a California blonde played by Jennifer Lawrence (who will most likely become a household name come March when The Hunger Games hit theaters). She with a yuppie Brit named Simon. As the months and years go by, Anna and Jacob drift apart and back together trying to figure out if they can overcome all the obstacles and whether this thing they have is really worth the effort.

It’s a fine little love story, well acted and directed. But like I said I just didn’t care about the couple. In fact, they kind of annoyed me. Her heartfelt poetry… His block-like furniture… Graceland? Really? One thing I did admire was Anna’s penchant for single malt whisky. I left the theater wanting a scotch. And one of the reasons I didn’t want to leave early to get one was the movie only runs 90 minutes. I can put up with anything for 90 minutes. I suspect if you consider yourself a romantic, you may enjoy this one more than I did. So don’t let me put you off it completely. I’d say get it on pay-per-view or Netflix when it’s available and you’re in the mood for some sappy romance, and pour yourself a scotch.

It’s time to play the music. It’s time to light the lights…

It’s been more than a decade since Kermit and the gang were together on the big screen and this movie’s plot is all about reuniting them. It begins with a trip to the now decrepit Muppet studios in Hollywood by the world’s biggest Muppets fan, Walter (a Muppet himself although he doesn’t realize it yet), and his friends Gary (Jason Segel) and Mary (Amy Adams). While they’re there, Walter overhears a plot by nefarious oilman Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) to gain ownership of the place so he can tear it down and drill for oil.  Walter is devastated.

The only way to save the studio is for Kermit the Frog to come up with ten million dollars. Walter, Gary and Mary track him down at his run-down Bel Air mansion and convince him he’s got to try to do it. They set out to find the rest of the gang so they can stage a Muppet telethon to raise the money. The first stop is Reno, where Fozzie Bear is performing with a “tribute” act called “The Moopets.” They track down Gonzo, who’s now a plumbing magnate, and Animal, who’s in rehab for anger management. Then they tell us it’s ”time for a montage” as they pick up the rest of the cast – except for Miss Piggy. She proves a bit more difficult to convince. After all, she’s built a new life for herself as the plus-size editor of Vogue in Paris.

Then it’s a race against time to convince a network, any network, to air their telethon and find a celebrity host. Will they get the show together in time? Will they raise the money to save the studios? It’s a Muppet movie – what do you think? It’s all about the journey, not the destination with the Muppets. And there are classic Muppet elements all along the way: musical numbers – some that, admittedly, I thought dragged a bit – characters breaking the fourth wall – like that “time for a montage” reference – and celebrity cameos galore.

For me, a Muppets fan from back in the day, it was just right and it plays well to the next generation too. My eight-year old movie companion says he loved it too because it was “funny and so cool.” He particularly enjoyed when Miss Piggy jumped on Kermit, and Fozzie’s fart shoes were “hilarious and so farty that they made me laugh like heck!” This movie’s a winner for all ages. Enjoy the show!

I’m not surprised. The dashing feline outlaw, voiced by Antonio Banderas, is irresistible. We first met Puss in the Shrek movies. But this is his story before he met the ogre and his donkey friend. We learn that Puss was raised in an orphanage in a western town called San Ricardo. But because of some youthful indiscretions, he became an outlaw there and had to flee. Now he has returned to redeem himself. To do that he decides to pull off one last caper and steal the goose that lays the golden eggs.

He reluctantly teams up with his old friend/nemesis Humpty “Alexander” Dumpty (Zach Galifianakis) and a rival cat burglar called “Kitty Softpaws” (Salma Hayek) to go after the goose. But to get to it, they to get past the evil “Jack and Jill,” delightfully voiced by Billy Bob Thornton and Amy Sedaris. Yes, there are all kinds of fairytale references in the movie, but what you won’t see are any Shrek characters popping up, and that is a good thing. Doing that would have been a distraction. This is Puss’s tale and it is a good one.

The swashbuckling cat can more than carry his own movie, and he’s got a cast of interesting supporting characters. Humpty Dumpty has some serious issues – you might say he’s got layers – oh wait wrong movie. And in Kitty Softpaws, Puss has met his sword-fighting, flamenco dancing match, and naturally, love interest. Then there’s the “Ohhh Cat” – a minor character but unforgettable.

This is just a fun movie. Like any good animated feature, there’s enough sly adult humor to keep mom and dad amused and a great story with lots of action to keep the little ones happy. If you haven’t seen it already, take the kids, or go alone – like I did – if you’re just looking for 90 minutes of feeling like a kid again.

Olsen plays the title character, a 20-something woman who is fleeing from a cult in the Catskills as the movie opens. She calls her estranged sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson) for help and she comes to pick her up. At that point we learn her name is Martha. They go to Lucy’s Connecticut lake house where Martha tries to adjust to normal life. But we immediately see that is going to be nearly impossible. This girl’s head has been seriously messed with.

The movie cuts back and forth in time from the present at the lake house to her past with the cult. At first, things at the cult’s farmhouse seem safe and supportive to Martha – full of guitar strumming, organic gardening hippies and their leader, the charismatic and creepily calm, Patrick (John Hawkes). Patrick decides Martha looks like a Marcy May and he puts her through the same disturbing initiation ritual all of the women there go through. Patrick’s outward appearance is subdued but he manages to ooze menace from every pore. The guy will totally creep you out. It is a great performance by Hawkes.

As Martha, Marcy May (the Marlene becomes clear later in the movie, but I won’t spoil it here) tries to cope with the memories of what happened to her in the past, she becomes more and more paranoid in the present. The psychological abuse and brainwashing has taken a heavy toll and she struggles to figure out what is real and what is just in her head. It’s a tense and disturbing journey that takes us to a chilling climax.

This is a psychological thriller that will get inside your head. So if you’re looking for a movie that will haunt you this Halloween weekend, this is the one to see.

It’s set in the near future when the sport of boxing no longer involves humans. Instead robots battle it out in the ring because apparently the sight of two humans pummeling each other didn’t involve enough carnage to satisfy bloodthirsty spectators (Commentary on where we’re headed as a society perhaps? Nah. That’s too deep for this movie.)

Jackman plays Charlie Kenton, a down on his luck former boxer who is now a promoter in the world of robot boxing and is not doing well… at all. Just when it seems like things can’t get any worse, Charlie finds out the 11-year old son he hasn’t seen in, well, 11 years has lost his mom and now wants to get to know his father, who has zero paternal instincts. Cue the father-son conflict.

After Charlie loses yet another robot in yet another disastrous fight, his son Max finds an old “sparring bot” named Atom in a junkyard and cleans him up. Despite his dad’s initial hesitation, they start getting the bot fights – and they start winning. Cue the father-son bonding. Eventually they end up with a match fighting the undefeated robot champion, Zeus, who was designed by an evil looking Asian computer genius and paid for by an evil looking Russian heiress. Will the underdog Atom defeat the mighty Zeus? Will Charlie realize he loves his son and likes having him around? I won’t tell you – but this is a Hollywood studio movie, so you can probably guess how everything turns out. And again, I’m okay with that because this  is a sweet movie.

Real Steel is a great movie choice if you’re looking for something to see with the whole family in tow. And it will be perfect for ‘family movie night’ at home once it’s available “on demand” and on DVD.

The plot seems to exist solely to move us from one fight scene to another but here’s the basic breakdown… Statham plays Danny, a former special ops agent who gets pulled back into the business when his mentor, Hunter (Robert De Niro) is taken captive by a Middle Eastern sheik. In order to secure Hunter’s freedom, Danny must kill the three men who killed the sheik’s three sons. The trick is he needs to make it all look like an accident, and he needs to get an on-camera confession from each of them before he kills them. Oh, and did I mention that each of these three men are former British SAS agents? But wait there’s more – there is a secret military society looking out for these former agents and they’ve dispatched their own assassin, Spike (Owen) to take out Danny.  Phew, I’m exhausted just writing it.

Really this movie is all about Statham and Owen kicking butt, shooting at each other, blowing things up, jumping out of windows while tied to chairs – yeah, seriously, and chasing each other. It’s just frantic and really not that much fun.  And for those of you wondering if there are any women in the movie, yes there is one. But her character is completely inconsequential. Sigh.

By the way, I went to this movie with a guy friend and he wrote a review of it as well. So if you’d like the opinion of a “rooster” we respect, you can check it out here.

Cars 2

This time around Lightning McQueen wraps up the race season and is all set to spend some time relaxing in Radiator Springs with his favorite gal Sally and his best friend Mater. But thanks to Mater he ends up reluctantly agreeing to race in the World Grand Prix, which sends the two of them off on an adventure around the world. On their first stop in Japan, two British spies, Finn McMissile (voiced by Michael Caine) and Holly Shiftwell (voiced by Emily Mortimer) somehow mistake Mater is for an American secret agent and suddenly he is caught up in the world of international espionage.

It seems a gang of lemons – Pacers, Yugos and the like – is involved in a nefarious plot to sabotage a new alternative fuel being used by the cars in the World Grand Prix, including McQueen. Once Mater figures out exactly what is going on – and it takes a while – it’s up to him to step up and save his buddy McQueen even though they have had a falling out early in the movie. Of course, he comes through for his friend and of course, there’s a little lesson about friendship and standing by your pals no matter what thrown in for good measure. But the whole alternative fuel, international espionage plot is a little convoluted, even for an animated movie and it just doesn’t live up to the standard we’ve come to expect from Pixar.

However, none of this really mattered for the eight-year old who accompanied me to the movie. He walked away happy with the latest adventures of McQueen, Mater and the gang, and, really, that’s what it’s all about. So if you have kids who want to go, take them. (You will at the very least enjoy the short before the movie that features the Toy Story gang.) But it’s not one of those animated movies that adults should try to find a kid to take so they have an excuse to see it (which I’ve done that many times). This one you can wait to watch on DVD when it inevitably comes out just in time to buy for the holidays.