Vanilla Sky (2001)

After Tom Cruise separated from Nicole Kidman I feel he started a different path that allowed him to explore more of his acting. Where he did not have to rely so heavily on his good looks and winning personality. In all honesty I actually like his films and the characters he portrays. I had tried to watch Vanilla Sky years ago and could not see where it was going and gave up about 15 minutes in. Anyway on the second watch I actually knew what was happening and was able to follow it pretty well.

Tom Cruise plays David Aames a rich publishing heir who is a playboy around town, he starts with a weird dream and then wakes up next to Cameron Diaz, this could be many people’s dream. At his birthday party his best friend brings Penelope Cruz and there is a spark. He leaves her in the morning and makes a mistake by getting in the car with Cameron Diaz who feels jilted and she causes an accident that leaves Tom disfigured. You then follow him as he tries to regain his life and recover from the accident.

This film was captivating and kept me enthralled to the end and I have to say that I was not exactly sure where it was going but the ending really worked for me and I have to say that they way it all worked out in the end ticked all the right boxes for me. Overall this comes under the strong three star recommend catagory for me and I think most of you will actually enjoy it.

Bad Teacher (2011)

Film of 2012 #41

Cameron Diaz as a teacher, I know that I would have enjoyed that when I was at school and how she goes about teaching her students works for me to begin with and I know that I would have learned lots from her. This is comedy with several good jokes going on in it and there were several good laughs with Cameron Diaz trying to get the money, however she can to have a b**b job and to then woo the rich teacher in this case played by Justin Timberlake. And you have her battles with the well liked Miss Squirrel who is also competing for the affections of Justin. 

This is a grown up coming of age and works quite well in the world where nobody wants to grow up and you have seen the basic story told so many times before, the difference in this film is that it is not portrayed by teeneagers. There is a nice scene when you have Cameron Diaz explaining something to a pupil and the light comes on in her eyes about her own situation. The real issue with the film is that it is not total slap stick so it borders on the unrealistic but reality and there were a lot of things that do not jar well with this and there is an obvious ending that has questionable morality. 

Overall this is a light hearted comedy played well by the main characters and shows how someone will go as far as they can to get what they think that they want and it shows their coming of age. This is a hard film to recomend it is a weak 3 star for me some of the jokes are worth a giggle and if you saw it on, it is worth seeing but will not be a great miss if you do not see it. 

The Green Hornet (2011)

I actually chose to watch this film even though like seemingly quite a lot of people something about Seth Rogen just puts me off, his voice performance in Paul was great but this is the only good thing I have heard him do. He just has this way of being annoying, which worked in this film as a he was supposed to be annoying. So your story is Seth Rogen is the son of a Paper Mogul, played by Tom Wilkinson they do not get on and he has to take over the paper when his father dies. He hooks up with Kato his fathers mechanic and they decide randomly to become crime fighters and ingratiate themselves with the bad guys so they can bring them down and using the newspaper they start their campaign of crime against the criminals.

Now as a premise it works quite nicely, the biggest flaws in this film is the humour does not work properly as there seems to be something missing. I think that it is the crossover between slapstick and intelligent and it fails to work. Also I did not believe the relationship between Seth Rogen and Jay Chou who plays Kato and when you throw Cameron Diaz in to the mix the chemistry is just not there between the trio. Christoph Waltz plays an excellent bad guy and with James Franco getting a cameo the cast of this film was actually really good, Edward James Olmos also shows off his chops as the editor of the paper.

Overall I had low expectations and they were barely met, this is a 2 star avoid unless you like Seth Rogen a lot. Will give him credit he does look like he has lost a bit of weight but his style just does not work for me at all in this film or any of the others I have seen him in.