Reviews and Editing by R. Allen Leider
with CJ Henderson, Andrew Johnson and Monis Rose

December 7th, 2011

"Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy "

Based on the bestselling thriller about cold war espionage is unglamorized and moves as slowly as the real operation. No car chases, fancy weapons or big explosions. It's more in the vein of the Len Deightton Harry Palmer stories.

Director Tomas Alfredson's romantic vampiric tale "Let the Right One In" trained him for the atmospheric, uncompromisingly 'thinky' and austere account of John le Carré's cold war espionage novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. While it lacks the charisma of the BBC's Tv version with Alec Guiness inthe lead role, Gary Oldman plays melancholy agent George Smiley, brought out of his humiliating retirement and charged with rooting out a Soviet mole in the upper reaches of the secret service.

In 1970's England, Control (John Hurt), the head of MI-6, dispatches a spy (Mark Strong) to meet with a Hungarian general who knows the identity of a Soviet spy within the organization's ranks. However, the mission goes wrong, and the general dies before he can reveal the information. Undersecretary Oliver Lacon (Simon McBurney) calls veteran semi-retired agent Smiley to remedy the situation. Could it be Alleline (Toby Jones), Haydon (Colin Firth), Bland (Ciarán Hinds), Estherhase (David Dencik) – or someone unknown? Smiley's pokerface is a mask of icy determination. He is also suppressing emotional agony as he knows that one of his own peers has betrayed him personally.

The Players: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong, Ciarán Hinds, and John Hurt

The Filmmakers:
Directed by Thomas Alfredson
Screenplay by
Released by Focus Features

"Young Adult "

Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) is a 'successful ghostwriter' of a young teen literature series Waverly Prep that has one book to go before it is discontinued and her career may disappear with the books. The series, whose self-absorbed heroine, Kimberly Sutherland isd a thinly disguised Mavis in her long-ago glory days and philosophizes that “Sometimes, in order to heal a few people have to get hurt.”

She decides to return to her Minnesota hometown - a boring, 1960's culture development with a dual mission: to relive her glory days, and steal away her now-married high-school sweetheart (Patrick Wilson).

Mavis problem is that she peaked early at her rural high school where kids grow up with the one ambition to get out of Minnesota as soon as possible for anywhere else. Mavis was more or less the admirable, adventurous bad girl-slu of the schoo. She was the prom queen and Blond Bombshell, she thought she might become a successful writer. All the girls wanted to be her and most of the boys wanted to have sex with her...mostly for bragging purposes. While she was promiscuos, her one and only love was stud athlete Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson) but something went wrong somewhere and mavis married and divroced somebdy else who was so insignificant i don;t think his name is mentioned int he film. Buddy also married a sweet young thing who is much more reliable, trustworthy and boring than Mavis.

Flash forward 20 years one divorce and many nameless one night stands and Mavis mission does not go exactly to plan, and she finds her homecoming more problematical than she expected. Instead, Mavis forms an unusual bond with a former classmate (Patton Oswalt), who has also found it difficult to move past high school since he was beaten to a pulp by parties unknown in a gay bashing incident that was unwarranted becvause he is later discovered to be straight - just very nerdy. Over and over again Mavis tries to reconnect with new daddy Buddy only to be thwarted by Buddy's naivity as to her purpose. Eventually she has a meltdown at the naming party for Buddy new daughter and reality closes in on all parties real fast.

The Players: Charlize Theron, Patton Oswalt, Patrick Wilson, Elizabeth Reaser, Collette Wolfe

The Filmmakers:
Directed by Jason Reitman
Screenplay by Diablo Cody
Released by Paramount Pictures

"The Sitter "

A ho hum almost comedy with an underdeveloped plotline that was evidently rushed into production in the first month of gestation about cardboard character Noah Griffith ( Jonah Hill) a college student on suspension who is coaxed into babysitting the three brattiest kids in New York City, 13-year-old social outcast Slater (Max Records ); little sister Blithe (Landry Bender), a junior party girl who is spray painted in makeup like a toddler pageant contestant, and their adopted Hispanic brother, Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez), a destructive nemesis with an arsenal of cherry bombs. The The kids are also obnoxious as is Ari Graynor as Noah's girlfriend, whose promise of sex sends him cruising Manhattan's worst neighborhoods in search of cocaine, taking the kids along in their parents' minivan. Sick!

Though Noah is fully unprepared for the wild night ahead of him. Will Noah survive the night and deliver his charges safe and sound? Stripped of the essentials, this is about one TV episode worth of semi-interesting material. The kids are cute. Screenwriters Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka's jokes are banal and they compensate by packing the film with half-assed and racially offensive sight gags.This twisted 'adventure in urban choas' comedy chalks up yet another disappointing hack job from director David Gordon Green. Rent or download it for a buck it if you must.

The Players: Jonah Hill, Sam Rockwell, Ari Graynor, Max Records, and J.B. Smoove

The Filmmakers:
Directed by David Gordon Green
Screenplay by Brian Gatewood, Alessandro Tanaka
Released by Twentieth Century Fox

"New Year's Eve"

This is the 'sequel' to Garry Marshal's Valentine's day is another wobby emsemble cast, multi-overlapping storyline soap opera. New Year’s Eve has detailed the intertwining love-lives of assorted New York residents on the final day of 2011. For starters, it's too similar to Marshall’s 2010 film Valentine’s Day. It's hard to bellieve that this mish mosh of worn plot elements comes form the director of ''Pretty Woman''. New Year's Eve supposedly celebrates love, hope, forgiveness, second chances and fresh starts, in intertwining stories told amidst the pulse and promise of New York City on the most dazzling night of the year if one was to believe the hype from the studio. The film assaults the audience int he first scenes with 15-year-old actress Abigail Breslin flashes her underwear and yells “this is not a training bra”. It's all downhill from there.

The Players: Halle Berry, Jessica Biel, Abigail Breslin, Jon Bon Jovi, Michelle Pfeiffer, Josh Duhamel, Ashton Kutcher, Sarah Jessica Parker, Zach Effron, Robert DeNiro, Cary Elwes and Fiona Choi.

The Filmmakers:
Directed by Garry Marshall
Screenplay by Katherine Fugate
Released by Warner Brothers Pictures