Chloe (2010)

This business transaction, which is what this was, is over!

— Catherine Stewart

I have heard of Atom Egoyan’s latest movie, Chloe earlier this year when I saw the trailer for it. I wanted to see the movie, but it never came around my area. When it finally came out on DVD, I had to end my Julianne Moore bender with one of her latest movies. I knew that the basic premise of the movie was taken from a 2003 French film called Nathalie… This movie tried to be Fatal Attraction, but failed miserably.

A marriage that seems to be in disrepair when the wife, Catherine Stewart (Julianne Moore) is suspecting that her college professor husband, David (Liam Neeson) is cheating. She comes up with this because he misses his flight to come home from a guest lecture on his birthday. The next morning when he finally does come home, he tells her that he would be working late.

Her suspect ions grows when David accidentally leaves his phone behind and it rings. Curious, Catherine checks the phone to see a suspicious email from a woman thanking her husband for the good time last night. She is devastated and tries to put on a brave face to keep up the charade. Catherine meets up with a young beautiful call girl named Chloe (Amanda Seyfried) who she has seen coming out of the hotel across the street from her OB-GYN office. She hires Chloe to try to seduce her husband and see what he would respond.

After the first meeting with David, Chloe reports back to Catherine about going to David’s favorite lunch spot. Chloe pretends to be David’s type, a student that is studying language. She tried her feminine wiles on David, but he was just friendly, nothing more.

Catherine is not convinced that David was not incapable of going further. She asks Chloe to go a little further with her husband and she would pay her. After the next meeting, Chloe say that David and her went on lunch date where he asked her to kiss him. Catherine’s suspicions are confirmed and doesn’t want to involve Chloe in their lives anymore. Chloe has another motives to involve herself in both of their lives.

I understand that Egoyan wanted to make a movie about longing and desire, but then it descends into another woman scorned movie that we have seen a billion times. The movie felt vapid. Devoid of any kind of depth of the subject. The biggest selling point of the movie is the pivotal sex scene. It certainly was titillating, but I thought it was tacked on. I understand that Catherine was having a thrill on the lurid details Chloe told about the trysts with David, but it was like a romance novel nightmare.

Judgment: It’s a movie with cheap twists and turns and leaves you unsatisfied.

Rating: **

Jennifer’s Body (2009)

It smells like Thai food in here. Have you guys been fucking?

— Jennifer

Jennifer’s Body is the follow up to screenwriter Diablo Cody’s Oscar winning, Juno. After watching some of her work on television with The United States of Tara and this, I have a feeling that she was just a one trick pony.

Taking place in Devil’s Kettle (how fitting of a name?), the story mostly revolves around Needy (Amanda Seyfried) spiraling into madness after what happened to her classmates months prior.

She recounts the good times that she had with her boyfriend, Chip (Johnny Simmons) and her best friend, Jennifer (Megan Fox). The girls are the unlikeliest of friends, she is nerdy girl and Jennifer’s the popular beautiful cheerleader. Everybody questions why they are hanging out together. She doesn’t see anything wrong with that.

One night when the girls are at bar, there is a fire. Lots of death and destruction. Needy is torn up about it, but Jennifer is cavalier about it. She goes into the back of the van of the band playing that night, Low Shoulder. Needy has a bizarre incident when Jennifer back at her house when she appears covered in blood and puking black sludge.

Needy notices a change in her friend. It turns out that Jennifer is not “high school evil”. She is possessed by soul sucking sex demon that is killing the boys in the school in order to keep up her exterior beauty. If she doesn’t feed, she would look like a hot ass mess.

There is a reason why Jennifer is turned into the demon. I will discuss that in the spoiler section of the review.

The reasons to see this movie is Amanda Seyfried. She is very good in the movie. Very convincing. There is also the signature Diablo Cody dialogue that saves the film from being total shit.

Megan Fox is not horrible in the movie. She was fine. I think she was better when she was in her bitchy dark humor mode. Everything else falls flat.

Judgment: This movie tries to be a 2000 version of Heathers. Fail.

Rating: ***

Mamma Mia! (2008)

It’s my last night of freedom… which is what some might see it, but for me it’s the last night before the greatest adventure of my life.

— Sky

I was bored yesterday and I wanted to see a dumb movie. I heard that people hated Mamma Mia! I had a morbid curiosity to see if it was as atrocious as everyone thinks. The movie is not schlock, but it’s not Moulin Rouge! quality either. I’m sorry, Hugh Jackman, but the musical is not all the way back.

First, I heard about the Broadway production on the 2002 Tony Awards. It was nominated for Best Musical and all that. It seemed like a fun ride. It had the music of ABBA, which is always nice.

I heard that they were turning this into a film with Meryl Streep in the lead as Donna, I was scared. Yes, she did sing in Postcards from the Edge and A Prairie Home Companion, but this was a much beloved musical for last couple of years.

The plot is pretty thin. It centers around a weekend in the Greek Islands in the late 1980s. Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is getting married to Sky (Dominic Cooper). She wants to have her father give her away at her wedding. The problem is that she doesn’t know who her father is. She reads her mother, Donna’s diary and finds out that she has three possible fathers: Bill Anderson (Stellan Skarsgård), Sam Carmichael (Pierce Bronsan) and Harry Bright (Colin Firth). Hilarity ensues.

The movie was okay. The scenery was gorgeous. The editing was horrible. Some of the performances had me scratching my head.

Everybody is talking about how Pierce Bronsan’s singing would kill his career. I don’t think that. At the beginning, he sounded like Lurch trying to carrying a tune. In the uptempo selections, he was not good, but the slower ballads were better for his voice.

Judgment: If you want to see a slow moving train wreck, then this movie is for you.

Rating: **