So...Movie...Last One You Saw...Go. Vol XXII

The Vow (2012)
Dir. Michael Sucsy



Gave this a chance as we both are fans of Rachel McAdams. I had some reservations because I do not like Channing Tatum as an actor. It's not that he's terrible, it's that he's so... mediocre, which somehow appears even worse.

But focusing on this movie, it turned out to be a pretty basic rom-com. Husband and wife get in a car accident, wife wakes up with part of her memory missing: the years in which she met and married her husband. I found the premise pretty far-fetched except it's apparently based on a true story. So the husband's formerly vegetarian artist wakes up as a meat-eating law student (as this is the life she remembers). Naturally she is pretty disturbed by the discovery that she is married to a stranger. Reconnecting with her parents strengthens her memories of her previous life (the one she had before marrying her husband) and creates a distance with her husband. Obviously we get the stereotypical scene where the douchey father-in-law (Sam Neill) tries to bribe the good husband to divorce his daughter. And I will leave it to you to guess if they end up back together or not...

In the end, neither of us really liked it too much. Tatum lacks... something for this kind of material. I wouldn't call it emotional depth, since it's a pretty straight-forward rom-com. A better description would be the ability to convey basic emotions convincingly.

McAdams is better, but the material is so paper-thin that it ends up being instantly forgettable. I'm surprised they did not offer this movie to Heigl, as it could not be more up her alley.

Haywire (2011)
Dir. Steven Soderbergh



This was very much a double experience, and it was once again due to Soderbergh's casting choice. I'm not entirely certain what he is trying to prove by casting novice actors (a porn star in "The Girlfriend experience", a MMA fighter here) in lead roles, but it's very much a double-edged sword. In Haywire, it leads to Carano excelling in any fight/physical scene, as she is far more believable as a bad-ass fighting machine than the large majority of male and female actors. Conversely, she falls well short in any of the dramatic scenes, and she is not aided by being surrounded with a cast of truly talented actors (Fassbender, McGregor, Banderas, Douglas, Kassovitz), which further highlights her own shortcomings in that department.

For some reason, this movie made me think back to the countless 80s and early 90s Arnie action vehicles. Unlike Carano, Arnie found a way to convince in spite of his accent and lack of acting background. Part of that was the fact that the scripts were tailor-made to him, but another part of it was that he had some genuine talent, in spite of a very limited range.

It might be a bit cruel to Carano, but I feel like this movie would have been better if she had merely been the body double for the stunt/fight scenes and they hired someone like Kate Beckinsale to do the more dramatic work.

I dare you to go through all of Katherine Heigl's movies.

Going over her filmography, I think I have actually seen most of them.

Beyond the black rainbow. One of those movies you either love or hate. Beautifully shot. Personally loved all the old school references to Kubrick, Coscarelli, Cronenberg, Carpenter (music)
It's slow paced, but you REALLY have to concentrate to understand it.

For his first offering i'd say it was pretty damn good

Hospitalité (2010)

Quirky Japanese comedy that takes a swipe a xenophobia in Japan and "polite society" in general. Full write up here.