Hard Candy
Lions Gate
Exploring the dangerous internet connections underage girls make with older men, Hard Candy should be shocking. But despite its strong cast, the film flounders from beginning to end. When fourteen year-old Hayley (Ellen Page of Xmen: The Last Stand) meets hunky 32-year-old Jeff (Patrick Wilson of Angels in America) their attraction is only obvious because they're telling us about it. And the script, written by Brian Nelson (JAG, So Weird) falls short of mediocre with its cliché' writing. Director David Slade's experience came primarily from music videos and it shows in the extreme close-ups and choppy filming. Worse than his camera technique is his inability to direct such an impressive cast of actors, including a cameo by Sandra Oh (Sideways, Grey's Anatomy.) With a real director and a quick rewrite, this film may have stood a chance. Instead it melts in neither your hands nor your mouth.—Angela Lovell
Arrested Development— Season 3
Fox Studios
In this Emmy Award-winning series' final season, the writers hold nothing back to induce our laughs - laughs you'll need to stifle so you don't miss all the quick-witted and overlapping humor. With everything from alluding to inside jokes created at the show's start, to pairing siblings Jason and Justine Bateman for some awkward chemistry, Arrested Development made sure to go out with a bang. In the final season George Sr. is placed under house arrest as Michael dates Charlize Theron, leading to an uproarious payoff. The bonus features are sure to charm you as the giggly cast and creator, Mitchell Hurwitz, give us an idea of just how much fun they had working on this show. You'll find yourself hooked on this quote-worthy series featuring our favorite dysfunctional family and their unintentional innuendoes as we watch them go full circle, wrapping up their final episode with integrity and hilarity.
—Angela Lovell
The Lake House
Warner Brothers
How do you hold on to someone you’ve never met? This is the premise of the blissful time traveling romantic drama called The Lake House, starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. Bullock plays Kate, a single doctor moving out of her glass enclosed lake house for a job at a Chicago hospital. Alex (Reeves) is an architect moving into the same house to deal with his past mistakes. Kate leaves a card with mail forwarding instructions for the next resident and soon Alex notices the date on the card is two years into the future. This sets off a pen-pal exchange using the lake house mailbox as their way to connect through two years of separation, Alex in 2004 and Kate in 2006. They soon become close, expressing romantic aspirations, remembering their tragedies, and hopeful to meet one day, but unsure how to arrange such a moment. The Lake House is a remake of the 2000 South Korean film called Il Mare, and marks the 12-year reunion of Reeves and Bullock, who last starred together in Speed. The two actors still have a dynamic onscreen chemistry. With the theme of love and how its ability to change someone’s life ever so present in the film, the time traveling aspect is a welcoming twist to the tired Hollywood romance genre. The Lake House is a beautiful film on all levels, from the story to the acting and to the picturesque cinematography.
—Paul Chi
