The Scenester: The Ugly Truth, Orphan,(500) Days of Summer and more

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The Scenester: The Ugly Truth, Orphan,(500) Days of Summer and more

POSTED: Friday, July 24, 2009, 9:28 PM

Filed Under: Movies | Scenester trailer!

Admit it, you want more from this week's Movie section.

The Ugly Truth - D+

The only thing to praise about The Ugly Truth is that it tries to break the romantic comedy formula by dirtying it up. They try. But they fail. What's worse is that the team of director Robert Luketic and co-screenwriters Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith already broke the mold with their previous collaboration, Legally Blonde, in which a strong, smart heroine in a pretty package refuses to compromise her values for anyone ' man or woman. Abby (played by Katherine Heigl, once again in neurotic, controlling bitch mode) is the producer of a low-rated Sacramento morning show who's forced to take on smarmy cable access host Mike Chadway (Gerard Butler), who purports to tell the "ugly truth" about relationships, but really just belittles women. Abby lets Mike take over her love life and she succeeds in landing a man ' too bad he knows only the superficial Abby that Mike constructed. Snooze. Look, adding vag jokes and letting your leading lady say "fuck" doesn't give her agency or a personality. It's when writers figure out that not all women are control-freak disasters (or a series of quirks with no actual substance ' I'm looking at you, (500) Days of Summer) that the mold will truly be broken. 'Molly Eichel

The Orphan - C+

Yes, there's something wrong with Esther. And there's also something wrong with Orphan, a meat-and-potatoes creeper from Jaume Collet-Serra (House of Wax). The movie, drawn up in the killer-kiddie tradition of The Good Son (murderous child, extreme Eddie Haskell Syndrome), features no unforgivable flaws, and there are tense moments aplenty. But it's all a little too familiar. Recovering alcoholic mom Kate (Vera Farmiga), who's an emotional wreck from losing her third child during birth, adopts the seemingly sweet and precocious Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) from a nun-run orphanage with husband John (Peter Sarsgaard). Things are fine at first ' then kids start falling off jungle gyms, luxury SUVs start rolling into oncoming traffic, feeble minds start getting warped by the power of insidious suggestion, and so on. Kate wisely places the blame on Esther and her creepy Gashlycrumb Tinies style of dress, but John defends his new daughter's honor, widening the rift in the couple's already-tenuous marriage. A fourth-quarter revelation succeeds in providing an appetizer-size surprise, but in the grand scheme it's less a twist than a campy face-palm moment. Oh, and to the windbag advocates calling this movie anti-adoption propaganda ' you are ridiculous. Should Single White Female be considered a screed against roommates?'Drew Lazor

More after the jump ...

(500) Days of Summer - B+

Hey! Remember when we interviewed (500) Days of Summer writer and Penn grad Scott Neustadter? 'Cause we do:

CP: Why does Hollywood ' for all its guns and glory ' still love a tenderly offbeat romantic comedy?

SN: I think the best movies are the ones you can identify with on a personal level. For me, those tend to be superhero/tough guy movies ' anything with a renegade cop, and those that star Patrick Swayze. But for other, more sensitive types, there are these offbeat romantic comedies.

CP: What else is there to do in Margate growing up other than writing?

SN: Plenty. Listen to music. Watch movies. Go to the beach. Some people had sex. I wasn't one of those people.

CP: How did you get from a gorgeous Jersey shore to Hollywood? And 'practice' is not an optional answer.

SN: It took balls to leave Margate. Big ones. And like the good East Coast kid that I am, I was always terrified of L.A. I saw Annie Hall. I knew what a horrible, culture-less, soul-sucking city it was. There was no way in hell I was ever moving there. Then, when I was 25, I went to visit. I found out that this place is awesome. So now I live in Santa Monica, which is basically the Margate of L.A. You cant beat it.

Read the rest here.

The Answer Man - B-

Afghan Star - B-

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Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

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