About Time

ROMANTIC COMEDY, SCI-FI

Picking the Right Moments

7.8 out of 10 | DVD or RENTAL

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Rated: R  Language and some sexual content
Release Date: November 8, 2013
Runtime: 2 hours 4 minutes

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Director: Richard Curtis
Writers: Richard Curtis
Cast: Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy, Lydia Wilson, Lindsay Duncan, Richard Cordery, Joshua McGuire, Tom Hollander

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SYNOPSIS:  At the age of 21, Tim discovers he can travel in time and change what happens and has happened in his own life. His decision to make his world a better place by getting a girlfriend turns out not to be as easy as it sounds.

REVIEW: Richard Curtis, director of Pirate Radio and Love Actually, writes and directs a new romantic tale taking place on the British Isle. Can his new effort stand up to the success of his previous works? Only time will tell.

A young man Tim (Domhnall Gleeson, Dredd 3D) is told by his father (Bill Nighy, The World's End) on the day after a huge annual family New Years Eve party that all the men in the family can travel back in time. Will he try and gain riches and fame with his power? Actually, all he really wants is to find a girlfriend. Moving to London to pursue a career as a barrister, Tim finds himself on a date with a young woman Mary (Rachel McAdams, The Vow). Completely smitten, Tim does all he can to make every moment perfect with her. Will his time traveling lead to a perfect life, or will he alter it so much that it will be unrecognizable?

Built as a dramedy with a science-fi plot device, About Time can be categorized in the same genre as Keanu Reeves' Lake House, Paul Dano's Ruby Sparks, and Eric Bana's The Time Traveler's Wife. Time traveling is paramount to the story and serves it well, but the story is more than just that notion, revolving about love and loss, regrets and realizations, and life decisions made.

Decidedly British, About Time's Tim is a young Hugh Grant, awkwardly stumbling around his words around girls and strange situations. As he grows up, he matures but keeps his innocence and naivety. Time travel is not an easy concept to wrap one's mind around, but Tim does his best to find his way through it. Tim's dad tries to guide him in the intricacies of the legacy ability as best he can without keeping Tim from finding his own way and own voice. The American Mary is the perfect blend of girl next door and romantic pursuit. She is worthy of Tim's time and the audience's investment. rounding out the ensemble is Lydia Wilson as the free spirit and younger sister Kit Kat, Richard Cordery as the eccentric Uncle D, and Joshua McGuire as barrister pal Rory.

The sci-fi time travel angle is quaint and its rules simplistic. The traveler can only move along his own lifeline and affect only immediate change in his own life. He does not overlap with multiple versions of himself, instead embodying his one body at any one time. There are other rules, but they are more important to the story, so they will be left unsaid. Needless to say, some of Tim's actions do result in increasingly obvious consequences.

Tim and Mary are fun to watch, their chemistry evident. Dramatic with dry comedic edges, you root for their success. Add in the light sci-fi angle and you have an intriguing and engrossing tale of sweet romance, no matter what time it is.

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The Vow

Points of Impact

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Rated: PG-13  Sexual content, partial nudity, some language and an accident scene.
Release Date: February 10, 2012
Runtime: 1 hr 44 mins

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Director: Michael Sucsy

Writers: Jason Katims, Abby Kohn, Stuart Sender, Marc Silverstein, Michael Sucsy
Cast: Rachel McAdams, Channing Tatum, Jessica Lange, Sam Neill, Jessica McNamee, Scott Speedman

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SYNOPSIS: A car accident on a snowy night puts Paige in a coma. When she wakes up with severe memory loss, her husband Leo works desperately to win her heart again.

REVIEW: Michael Sucsy, the writer and director of the Emmy and Golden Globe winning TV movie Grey Gardens, takes a script from the collaboration of Jason Katims (Parenthood, Friday Night Lights), Abby Kohn (Valentine's Day), Stuart Sender (Power of Peace) and Marc Silverstein (Valentine's Day) to create a story based on true events. 

Paige (Rachel McAdams, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows) and Leo (Channing Tatum, Haywire) share a 'once in a lifetime' love with each other. On one random evening, on the way home during a snowy evening after taking in a film, their car is rear-ended and both Paige and Leo are rushed to the hospital emergency room. Paige is kept in a medical coma in order to deal with the head trauma she suffered from the accident. When she wakes up the doctors and her husband Leo realize that she is missing her memories from the last five years of her life, including her entire relationship with Leo. While Dr. Fishman (Wendy Crewson, The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising) urges Paige to return to her daily routine with Leo, Paige's father Bill (Sam Neill, Daybreakers) and mother Rita (Jessica Lange, American Horror Story) want to return their daughter home with them to recover. Paige considers Leo a stranger and their apartment a foreign place but tries to make a go of what the doctor recommended. After he takes Paige home, Leo tries to rekindle a love with her that he still feels and that she cannot remember.

Based on real people and true events The Vow offers a tender but somewhat heart wrenching view of a man completely in love with a woman, his wife, whose last vivid memories include a fiancee named Jeremy (Scott Speedman, The Strangers) that she remembers still being in love with, and a family she has no memories as why she hasn't spoken to them in several years. Without the points of impact of memories that have shaped her life in the past five years, Paige reverts to a remembered life where she in interested in a law degree instead of a career in art. She finds everything in her life with Leo inconceivable and foreign. Even the choice of the shape of her hair confuses her. Why did she abandon her family? Why did she dump her former fiancee? What decisions and life choices brought her to Leo and sparked their love for each other? And how can Leo rekindle that love without the combined memories that have made her the person he fell in love with to begin with?

Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams have both starred, separately, in Nicolas Sparks books turned films. In fact, The Vow was billed as such, referencing Sparks' The Notebook and Dear John in the film's trailers. While not a Nicolas Sparks movie, The Vow would appeal to audiences that appreciated those earlier efforts. For most of the ladies, there will be a couple tears. For any guy brought along as a date or support system, the movie will hold interest but will not cause any embarrassing water work moments. Let's face it, The Vow will not hold the emotional pull for guys that a war-torn The Dirty Dozen has (just ask Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle!).

Channing Tatum uses the same acting chops a little bit in The Vow that he exhibited in Dear John. Both happy and content with the love of his life, and desperate to recreate the same life with a memory-devoid wife, Tatum's Leo gives it his all to reignite Paige's love for him to match the love he feels for his lost wife. Rachel McAdams, no stranger to romantic dramedies, plays Paige with the same confidence and competence that she has brought to other roles. Sam Neill plays Paige's father with a grim determination and patriarchal defensiveness. Jessica Lange as Paige's mother plays the dutiful wife eager to reunite her family by any means necessary. And Paige's former fiancee, Jeremy, played by Scott Speedman, adds enough smugness and cockiness to play both the victim from Paige's dumping and the villain who wants to take advantage of Paige's memory loss as a way to reconnect with her.

Not overly comedic as a romantic comedy/drama, The Vow does deliver some funny lines through Leo and Paige's dialogue and from awkward input from the stable of Leo and Paige's current friends, including former roommates Kyle (Lucas Bryant, Haven) and Josh (Joey Klein, American Gangster). Moreover, Channing uses a little stammering and stuttering to endear himself to the 'new' Paige, as well. And to the ladies delight, the story strategically places partial nude screens with Tatum to maximize his six-pack abs and rear-end.

The Vow works as a chick flick in a season barren of any romantic comedies. Based on true events and the people who have endured those events, this film follows in the style we have come to expect from films sourced from Nicolas Sparks books, but also may disappoint because it is not a Nicolas Sparks adaptation at all. Life is a culmination of series of events that make us who we are at any given moment. Take those events away by way of stolen memories brought on by head trauma, and you may find yourself unable to recognize yourself in the mirror. 

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WORTH: Matinee or Rental

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

A Worthy Adversary

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Rated: PG-13 Some drug material, intense sequences of violence and of action
Release Date: December 16, 2011
Runtime: 2 hrs 9 min

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Director: Guy Ritchie
Writers: Michele Mulroney, Kieran Mulroney, characters from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Noomi Rapace, Rachel McAdams, Jared Harris, Stephen Fry, Paul Anderson, Kelly Reilly

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SYNOPSIS: As Dr. Watson prepares for his wedding day, Sherlock Holmes immerses himself in the hunt for Professor Moriarty, his most vile and intelligent adversary. As the stakes are raised and Holmes' friends are threatened, Holmes reenlists Dr. Watson's aid in the pursuit of his enemy.

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REVIEW: Sherlock Holmes returns! Director Guy Ritchie returns for a follow up to the 2009 Sherlock Holmes. The writer/director of Snatch, RocknRolla, and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Guy Ritchie relinquishes writing duties to a new duo of Holmes scribes, Michele and Kiera Mulroney of Ryan Reynolds' Paper Man. Will this turn for the incomparable Sherlock Holmes be elementary?

The tireless Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr., Iron Man) has used his detective skills since the close of the Lord Blackwood case to follow and compile a string of seemingly unrelated tragedies, deaths, and strange occurrences. All the ribbon threads from his investigations lead him back to the elusive Dr. Moriarty (Jared Harris, AMC's "Mad Men"). To what end to Professor Moriarty's motives serve? As the good doctor 'ties up loose ends' to someone close to Holmes, Sherlock must quicken his pace to unravel the machinations of this most serious foe. The plot involves a gypsy woman, Madam Simza Heron (Noomi Rapace, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 2009) that Sherlock meets during Watson's stag party. After the wedding of his associate Dr. Watson (Jude Law, Hugo), Sherlock ruins the honeymoon plans in order to save both Dr. Watson and his new bride Mary (Kelly Reilly, Eden Lake). Enter Sherlock's ironically more eccentric brother Mycroft (Stephen Fry, V for Vendetta) to aide in the efforts, as snarky and arrogant as his brother. Aiding Professor Moriarty is a former British sharpshooter, Colonel Sebastian Moran (Paul Anderson, A Lonely Place to Die).

Where Sherlock Holmes dealt with the Baker Street detective dealing with Lord Blackwood's technology masked as the occult, the sequel deals with a much more sinister plot and vile villain with Professor Moriarty. Lord Blackwood wanted to return England to its former glory and regain the American Colonies. The genius Professor Moriarty has men and women do his bidding and ultimately ends their lives when their usefulness to him runs its course, all in the pursuit to start a European war that he can profit from.

Professor Moriarty is arguably the greatest adversary to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, although he only appears in the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Holmes tale, "The Adventure of the Final Problem" and mentioned in the subsequently published "The Valley of Fear". In Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Professor Moriarty is ever Sherlock's equal and superior, having genius level intellect and champion boxing skills. Considered the "Napoleon of Crime" by Holmes, Moriarty is certainly his arch-nemesis, Holmes spending months collecting data and thwarting Moriarty's operations at every available turn.


A Game of Shadows focuses on the detective dance between Holmes and Moriarty, but still has time to  expand on the Watson and Holmes relationship. Like an old married couple, they nag and prod at each other relentlessly, all the while suffering in silence at the brotherly love they share and the hollowness they experience when apart. Their affection is infectious, their barbs humorous. Downey Jr's Holmes is becoming the hip version that Holmes would aspire to if not kept primarily on PBS or BBC.

The action is superb, the mix of slow motion and quick edits making for visual candy. Moriarty's master plans deserve the attention of a detective of Holmes caliber and a story set on the silver screen. Ritchie's unique vision and the Mulroneys' story make for a grander stage for Holmes and Watson to work on. Stretching much farther than the streets of London and the surrounding countryside, the sequel at times is both slower and expansive. But keeping with a formula that works from the first film, and breaking the mold whenever possible, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is worth a closer look.

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WORTH: Matinee and DVD

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Midnight in Paris

Surreal Realizations

Director: Woody Allen

Writers: Woody Allen

Stars: Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Kurt Fuller, Mimi Kennedy, Michael Sheen, Corey Stoll, Tom Hiddleston, Kathy Bates, Marion Cotillard

SYNOPSIS: On a trip to Paris with his fiancee, Gil begins to question his life decisions as he wanders around beautiful city at night and meeting an interesting host of characters.

REVIEW: Woody Allen writes and directs Midnight in Paris, a film that defies Allen's recent works and defines many of Allen's works. From Sleeper where the protagonist is revived in the future to fight an oppressive government, to Play It Again, Sam where a film critic tries to return to the dating scene with help from an alter ego in the form of Humphrey Bogart, to any one in a laundry list of visual and deeply meaningful films, whether the backdrop is New York City or abroad. Filled with dialogue that is anything but empty, Midnight in Paris is at once transcendent, beautiful, quirky and meaningful.

Considered to be a romantic comedy, Midnight in Paris is more Gil's (Owen Wilson) romance of Paris and the images it invokes than a romance of his fiancee Inez (Rachel McAdams). Gil is an in-demand Hollywood screenwriter, but aspiring novelist who wonders if his earlier decision years previous to move out of the French capital in favor of the California Sun Coast. He romanticizes the "Golden Age" of art and literature of 1920s Paris and yearns to use present day Paris to inspire and help him succeed in finishing a book worthy of those earlier masters.

One night as his fiancee wants to go out dancing with a friend Paul (Michael Sheen), a tipsy Gil wanders the Paris streets to clear his head and take in the nuances of each cobblestone road and centuries old corridor. At the strike of midnight, a 1920s era Puegot pulls up and beckons Gil to come for a ride with them. Little does be realize, but Gil has travels to the 1920s era to mean and interact with the likes of F. SCott Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston from Thor), Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll from Salt), Pablo Picasso (Marcial Di Fonzo Bo), Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates) and the enigmatic Adriana (Marion Cotillard). First Gil is doubtful but then embraces each midnight rendezvous with his literary and artist idols, even bold enough to ask for help with his relationship and manuscript.

The story is filled with the glorious beauty that is Paris, from the Eiffel Tower to a forgotten alleyway. Allen takes the most mundane event of Gil, Inez and her mother hailing a taxi in the starts of a rain shower and fills the backdrop with a cathedral's dome and terraced landscapes. Gil's nostalgia of 1920s Paris is felt when a cafe where he meets Ernest Hemingway disappears in the blink of an eye and is replaced with a modern day laundromat. Allen even captured the nuances of French life when Inez's father John (Kurt Fuller), at the restaurant where they met for lunch, keeps glancing behind him because of a man with a dog sitting at the table. Anyone who has experienced Paris firsthand can appreciate the culture, the city and the romance it commands.

Owen Wilson is his typical roguish, self-effacing self as Gil, excited for the city and what it holds, but differential to the wants and demands of his fiancee Inez. Marion Cotillard, most recently from Inception, plays Adriana with a wisp of artist's muse and a wistful passion for the nostalgia that both she and Gil long for. Among the colorful characters from Gil's past, most notable are Stoll's Ernest Hemingway as his courageous and poignant prose smoothly comes through Allen's script, Adrien Brody's cameo as Salvador Dali who when Gil meets him is obsessed with rhinoceros, and Vinccint Menjou Cortes's quiet lonesome portrayal of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Any Woody Allen enthusiast, any creative individual, or any fan of quirky romantic comedic misadventures will appreciate Midnight in Paris. Some people may look only to the future with no regard for the past or present, and others may only long back to an age that cannot exist in the present, know that there is both beauty and substance in the here and now.

WORTH: Matinee or DVD