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Weekend Movie Forecast: The Virginity Hit Vs. I'm Still Here

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After weeks of passing those "Still A Virgin?" help-hotline billboards on your way to work and briefly wondering whose agenda they touted, their benign promotee opens in theaters today. Directed by <a href="http://www.funnyordie.com/">Funny or Die</a> founders Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, <a href="http://www.thevirginityhit.com/">The Virginity Hit</a> takes what Superbad and American Pie did for the teenage sex movie trope and spins it mockumentary-style. Four boys' attempts to help their scarcely post-pubescent friend lose his virginity is chronicled on video cameras and cell phones, maintaining a YouTube motif throughout. According to Cinematical's <a href="http://www.cinematical.com/2010/09/10/the-virginity-hit-review/">John Gholson</a>, the intermittent use of improvised scenes and characters who use their real names "infuse the movie with an energy that I wasn't quite expecting. It's a sneaky one." Variety's <a href="http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117943482.html?categoryId=31&cs=1">Andrew Barker</a> warns that "most viewers' eyeballs will be exhausted before the end," but sees the comedic appeal of the film: "The gonzo approach makes everything a little more real, however, and this gives life to the characters and makes the more outrageous comedic sequences seem a little less off-the-wall. Future generations may view The Virginity Hit as a curiosity, but today's audiences, provided they're primed for the subject matter and the manner in which it is presented, should enjoy the hell out of it."

Gothamist

We all saw a heavily bearded Joaquin Phoenix get <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBoGNBSLYRY">ripped to shreds</a> for his rapper aspirations by David Letterman, and we may have dismissed it as another crumbling-celeb stunt. In <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1356864/">I'm Still Here</a>, the new documentary from Phoenix's brother-in-law Casey Affleck, one watches the actor's transition from clean cut to disheveled, and the line between genuine unraveling and PR farce becomes even less clear. <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/17388/201006">Peter Travers</a> for Rolling Stone articulated the question of authenticity that many are already pinning to the film, but was engrossed regardless: "I'm not sure I believed a word of this film. Actors who melt down on camera are usually, well, acting. But I couldn't take my eyes off I'm Still Here. Affleck's provocative, postmodern take on JP as half-joke, half-victim is the damnedest plunge into the dark heart of our "reality" culture since Sacha Baron Cohen invented Borat. My guess is it'll knock you sideways."

Gothamist

The Resident Evil empire has churned out a fourth one. In Resident Evil: Afterlife, the tireless search for safe haven from the undead takes the perpetually unflustered Milla Jovovich to L.A., where, alas, the city is crawling with more undead. But hey, it's in 3D! Despite sweeping frames and daring camera angles, critics are wholly unimpressed. The Daily Mirror's <a href="http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/the-ticket/2010/09/resident-evil-afterlife-3d-fil.html">David Edwards</a> finds Jovovich "relaxed and at ease in her role; another dozen or so Resident Evil films and she might even be quite good." The plots 'twists' lack depth at all, and "only fans of the series will care with the film looking suspiciously like a series of barely connected action scenes and unimpressive 3D welded to a who-the-hell-cares? plot."

Gothamist

Directed by the original novelist Galt Niederhoffer, The Romantics follows the wedding weekend of Lila (Anna Paquin) and Tom (Josh Duhamel), attended by the couples clique of college friends. Laura's (Katie Holmes) romantic history with Tom provides the narrative tension, and comedic drama ensues. According to <a href="http://www.boxofficemagazine.com/reviews/theatrical/2010-09-the-romantics?q=romantics">Box Office Magazine</a>, it's our favorite fang banger, Paquin, who deserves top billing over Holmes: "Paquin sizzles with her overwhelming sense of entitlement and it's too bad that none of her bitchiness trickled over onto Holmes."USA Today's <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/reviews/2010-09-10-romantics10_ST_N.htm">Claudia Puig</a> is unimpressed, scoffing that the title is woefully unfitting: "'The Spoiled Melodramatics' would be more accurate. Or better yet, 'The Pretentious Ones.' Neither the film nor its 30ish characters, former members of a tight college clique, come off as romantic. Entitled and bland, yes. Passionate, hardly. Can Yale grads possibly be this vapid?"

Gothamist

Adapted from the Australian stage musical, <a href="http://www.brannuedaemovie.com/#/home">Bran Nue Dae</a> follows the life of an aboriginal teen boy's misadventures in Catholic school, at bars and with girls in the late 1960s outback. The musical numbers are rollicking and often crude, the climax is heartwarming, and the characters are cartoonish. But the "exuberance gets you only so far" according to TONY's <a href="http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/film/88807/bran-nue-dae-film-review#ixzz0z8wp3pa6">David Fear</a>: "If Tyler Perry and the kids from Glee remade The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, this is exactly what itâd look like."

Gothamist

Wrestling celebrity John Cena and Dexterâs Devon Graye star in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1563704/">Legendary</a>, a WWE Studios film about an undersized teen (Graye) trying to live up to a family tradition of dominance in high school sports. Graye turns to his championship-wrestler-turned-alcoholic older brother, played by Cena, despite their mother's (Patricia Clarkson) preventive efforts. Yes, that's right, WWE has cast a wrestler as a wrestler, but apparently you needn't cringe. According to <a href="http://www.avclub.com/articles/legendary,44969/">AV Club</a>, the "steroid-fueled multimedia empire has given the beefy grappler a role that challenges his acting muscles more than his biceps or abdominals." Still, though, it's as sappy as you think it is, especially with Danny Glover as man-mysteriously-linked-to-the-family thrown in for good measure. "Television veteran Mel Damski gives Legendary a sleepy autumnal look and a sentimentality heightened by a score that goes overboard with sappy strings...WWE Studios has made a film that wouldnât feel out of place on the Hallmark Channel."

Gothamist

Written and directed by FranÃ§ois Ozon, known for his disturbing and sexually charged dramas like Criminal Lovers and Sea The Sea, he brings something far more subtle to the table with <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1504429/">Hideaway</a>. Isabelle CarrÃ© plays Mousse, who after barely surviving a heroine overdose learns she is pregnant with the child of her boyfriend, whose overdose was fatal. Retreating from society, the emotionally bottled-up young woman rents a cottage and awaits the birth with her late boyfriend's gay brother, played by Louis-Ronan Choisy. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marshall-fine/huffpost-review-ihideaway_b_712037.html">Marshall Fine</a> at the Huffington Post finds the subtly hard to swallow, noting that "Ozon examines that equation from a variety of angles and, thankfully, has the acidic but beautiful Carre as his central subject," but "given his sharp focus, you will either buy into this film or find yourself irritated and impatient. See it for the pleasures of watching Carre play a character with no interest in acceptance by any oneâor stay far away."

Gothamist

In her documentary <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1437364/">Race to Nowhere</a>, Vicki Abeles looks at the fiercely competitive world of today's school children and shakes her head. Drawing from her own experience as a parent and the opinions of doctors and school teachers, Abeles draws a very clear line from the premature pressure to succeed, the overscheduled extracurriculars and the stress of standardized testing to the abundance of eating disorders, self-mutilation, and adolescent suicide found in America's youth. While a noble cause, and one that perhaps needs more widespread attention, the <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/movies/10race.html">Times</a> found the documentary poorly executed. "The social pressures of adolescence are barely addressed," and Abeles "doesnât entirely succeed" in combining the wide range of societal symptoms into "a single, clear narrative."

Gothamist

<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1486548/">Ahead of Time</a> is a documentary look at the remarkable life of Ruth Gruber, born in 1911 and raised in a Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, whose accomplishments don't retain impressiveness only in the context of her generation. At 15, she began at NYU, at 20 she earned her doctorate at the University of Cologne. <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/movies/10ahead.html">According to the Times</a>, "By 1936 she was in the Soviet Union, reporting for The New York Herald Tribune; by 1941, she was filing reports from Alaska for Harold L. Ickes, Rooseveltâs secretary of the interior, describing its suitability for homesteading soldiers. But World War II and its aftermath were her finest hours: she secretly escorted Holocaust refugees to America in 1944 and documented the attack on the refugee boat Exodus by the British in 1947." That is a life certainly worth putting on screen, and, unusually, it is has been done while Gruber, 98, is still alive.

Gothamist

Lovely, Still begins heartbreakingly with 82-year-old Robert, played by the effortlessly sweet Martin Landau, wrapping his own gifts, alone and lonely near Christmastime in Omaha. Along comes Mary (Ellen Burstyn), a pretty widow, and the two court with as much glee as junior highschoolers. It is clear that watching these two on screen, "who can still teach a younger generation a thing or two about the skill and craft that have largely disappeared from movie acting today" according to <a href="http://nymag.com/listings/movie/lovely-still/">NY Mag</a>, is the film's winning feature. For <a href="http://www.observer.com/2010/culture/golden-oldies">Rex Reed</a> of the Observer, "it soon becomes apparent that it is also going nowhere special" with "the worst soundtrack shmaltz ever assembled, from gloppy carols that grow intrusive and annoying faster than you can hum "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire."

Gothamist

<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0756727/">Who is Harry Nilsson (And Why is Everybody Talkin' About Him)?</a> documents the life and music of Harry Nilsson, the Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter whom John Lennon told a reporter was his favorite musician in 1968. Nilsson, who died in 1994 at 52, never became a household name, but this documentary, according to the <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/movies/10who.html">Times</a>, lovingly "sets out to tell us who Nilsson was and why everybody should be talking about him," from his hardscrabble early years to his lucky breaks and moments of celebrity, to his fall and too-young death, with testimonials from friends and family, as well as big-name admirers like Yoko Ono and Micky Dolenz of the Monkees.

Gothamist

For the next week <a href="http://www.filmforum.org/films/uncle.html">Film Forum is screening</a> Jacques Tati's 1958 comic masterpiece My Uncle, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film when it came out. <a href="http://artforum.com/film/id=26344">According to Art Forum</a>, the film "represents the peak of pantomime genius Jacques Tati's career... and reaches a high point in a posh party that disintegrates into anarchy as one accoutrement after another is destroyed or else wittily reconfigured for alternate use. Laugh-out-loud moments are rare but well earned; 'aha' moments in which one recognizes the follies of technological absurdity are constant."

Gothamist

Two Manhattan careerists first hate, then like and eventually love each other over the course of 12 years in Rob Reiner's 1989 rom com When Harry Met Sally, screening this weekend at midnight <a href="http://www.landmarktheatres.com/Films/films_frameset.asp?id=1003">at the Sunshine</a>.

Gothamist

Weekend Movie Forecast: <em>The Virginity Hit</em> Vs. <em>I'm Still Here</em>