The Nut Job Probably Won't Make A Splash in Animated Feature

The only reason I sat down and watched The Nut Job was in the very unlikely situation that it managed to break into the Oscars' Best Animated Feature category. Just a heads up, it won't.

The Nut Job has a respectable enough premise. A group of animals plan to pull off a heist of a local city nut shop in order to feed their park through the winter. It has really interesting animation and a very respectable cast... Will Arnett, Brendan Fraser, Liam Neeson, Katherine Heigl... and an endless list of other name actors too long for this review. But the film is also overtly formulaic. It uses every trick in the book even commenting on how predictable it's going to be at one point.

And while I respect Peter Lepeniotis' ability to get this film made with the level of quality it does have, I just can't imagine it actually getting into the category. The animated scene has been impressively loaded this year without a Pixar flick in sight. And even if The Nut Job miraculously got in, it certainly has no shot to win. Just too many better products out there this year.

Sure, this film may actually be pretty good for kids. But it's not really for the whole family.

Third Person Was Sort Of Kind Of Okay

I was iffy walking into the latest Paul Haggis film, Third Person. To be honest, I've never been a huge fan. I enjoyed the work he was doing on the Daniel Craig James Bond films, but that's really the only positive I've ever pulled from his career. Crash is legitimately one of the biggest jokes of the last fifty years and I will never get over the statement (or lack of one) the Academy made when they gave it best picture. But let's talk about this new movie. Third Person had a pretty bad title, but the cast still intrigued me, so I had to give it a chance.

The basic concept is, Liam Neeson's a writer at a point in his career where he's pretty much lost all of the joy in his life. He's practically a robot just droning on. So he sets out to write a bunch of weird stories that loosely come from his own recent experiences. And those stories are what we're forced to watch...

It's odd because I actually got into the "drama" for a little bit, there was something intriguing about trying to understand all of these different characters, but the extensive run time kept pulling me out (a hazard of these "ensemble" concepts). Somehow Third Person managed to go over the two hour mark. Why? There were so many unnecessary scenes. And, in fact, entirely unnecessary plots.

Adrien Brody's story (though the only "positive" one) probably could have been left out completely. But then I guess they had to keep it in to give us an example of just how petty a writer Liam Neeson had become. When I think about the overall concept... something that Liam Neeson states in the first fifteen minutes or so... I just don't understand why someone thought this was a movie. It certainly would never have made a book as the film tries to make us believe it would.

The performances, however, were pretty great. Liam Neeson carried this cold neediness that felt just perfect. Mila Kunis dropped a bomb with a similarly needy, rather crazed, overemotional character...

something I hadn't seen from her before. I appreciated the work she clearly put in. Likewise, Olivia Wilde nailed her own schizophrenic character. And I did think Adrien Brody was pretty good despite having the weakest... and awkwardly, most fleshed out story.

If you want to see a bunch of solid character performances, that's probably a good enough excuse to go see a weird, insecure, and rather petty movie like Third Person. Paul Haggis certainly doesn't get it right, but I think he got really lucky with such an entertaining cast. At least you won't be bored the whole time...

A Million Ways To Die In The West

I had a much better time watching A Million Ways To Die In The West than I expected. Sure it was mostly potty humor, but it had a proper and interesting plot and well defined characters. The cast was almost completely on their game and the pacing and humor seemed to match the concept as well as I could have hoped.

After all, that's what got me into the theatre... the concept. People with modern sensibilities born in the wrong time... the hardened old west. COOL. I'm on board. Sure, I've had my misgivings about Seth MacFarlane, and to be totally honest I didn't enjoy Ted all that much. But this idea was enough for me. It made a complete movie and I appreciate that, because it seems relatively rare these days.

Now I will say, you've already seen the best jokes in the trailer. That's on the ad department. But it doesn't hurt the movie. It was just simple fun. A good time for adults who hopefully already understand how ridiculous the whole scenario is. There're plenty of cameos as well, but I don't wanna ruin those for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. The truth is, I don't have a whole lot to say about this one other than, I had a good time in the theatre. It's not a classic, but it did just enough to keep me onboard throughout. And the cast just looked like they were all having a blast on set. If your looking for a solid comedy this summer... you probably wanna check this out over, say, Blended...

Man, Was I Surprised By Non-Stop!

It's not like the filmmakers broke new ground with this movie... rather, they put together a fun, action-filled experience in much the same style as old genre flicks like Air Force One. If you've ever seen that movie, you know being compared positively to it can only mean one thing... Non-Stop is pretty awesome!

Liam Neeson had already found his new niche with the advent of Taken back in 2008, but to be honest, I never really got a whole lot of enjoyment from the attempts that came after. Unknown was extraordinarily awful, and while I did enjoy The Grey to some degree it would seem Taken 2 left a bad taste in everyone's mouth. So I went in to see Non-Stop pretty much holding my breath. My expectations couldn't've been lower. And somehow I came out the other side with a big old smile on my face.

Essentially what you need to know is:

1) They got the action just right... there was a certain fight in a bathroom that was both surprisingly cool and weirdly funny at the same time... and a certain moment with a gun toward the end of the film that I'm gonna remember for a long long time (it could've been bad cheese, but instead it was good).

2) The film was very well cast... obviously Liam Neeson's been doing this for a while and he's really beginning to develop a nack for his own brand of fun/funny but good action... Julianne Moore was just a very welcome surprise and once I saw her doing her thing before the flight I knew there was going to be at least a small amount of quality to this film... add in Scoot McNairy, Michelle Dockery, Corey Stall, and the Oscar winning Lupita Nyong'o and you've got yourself a pretty well rounded group of performers.

3) The cheese was not too cheesy... this film lived on action and awkward cheesy wit... but sometimes that can work against a movie... this is a good example of the cheese factor giving the movie a boost and welcome applause rather than boos.

4) The mystery really stays a mystery until you absolutely need to know... and then, when the reveal does take place, I promise everything that has happened that seemed unlikely for one reason or another really does make sense... it may seem outrageous at times, and the reveal is not of the earth shattering variety, but it absolutely works for what kind of movie this wants to be... and is.

I'm not afraid to say it, I really like Non-Stop!