Hall Pass (2011)

My Rating : 2/5 STAR
MovieStudio Quote >> “A long tiring movie with less laughs and lots of old sex jokes.”

Rick (Owen Wilson) and Fred (Jason Sudeikis) are best friends who have a lot in common, including the fact that they have each been married for many years.

But when the two men begin to show signs of restlessness at home, their wives (Jenna Fischer, Christina Applegate) take a bold approach to revitalizing their marriages: granting them a “hall pass,” one week of freedom to do whatever they want…no questions asked.

At first, it sounds like a dream come true for Rick and Fred. But it isn’t long before they discover that their expectations of the single life-and themselves-are completely, and hilariously, out of sync with reality.

 

Let Me In (2010)

My Rating : 4/5 STAR
MovieStudio Quote >> “Chloe drove me crazy, the performances are truly praise worthy. A decent vampire flick in a long long time!”

John Ajvide Lindqvist’s celebrated vampire novel makes the leap to the big screen once again with the second feature adaptation in so many years (Tomas Alfredson’s critically acclaimed 2008 hit Let the Right One In, being the first). The sensitive target of vicious bullying at school, 12-year-old Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a social misfit from a broken home. By day Owen dreams about laying waste to his classroom tormentors; by night his attentions turn to his reclusive neighbors in their austere apartment complex. One evening, as Owen takes out his pent-up aggressions on a tree, his new neighbor Abby (Chloë Grace Moretz) appears over his shoulder.

A young girl wise beyond her years, Abby just moved in next door to Owen with her stoic caretaker (Richard Jenkins), who seems to harbor a sinister secret. Compelled by Abby’s apparent imperviousness to the harsh winter elements, her frail disposition, and the fact that she’s nowhere to be found before the sun falls, Owen senses a kindred soul, and strikes up a friendship with the girl, despite her repeated attempts to maintain an emotional distance.

Simultaneously, their community grows vigilant following a series of vicious murders, and Abby’s caretaker vanishes without a trace. Later, as Abby begins to grow vulnerable, her bond with Owen strengthens. By the time Owen begins to suspect that his evasive new friend is something other than human, it starts to seem as if Abby could use a good friend after all. Given that his bullies are growing more emboldened by the day, so too could Owen.

Dear John (2010)

My Rating: 3.5/5 STARS
MovieStudio Quote >> “Except for the climax, the movie was tear-jerking and romantically melodious!”

Director Lasse Hallstrom and screenwriter Jamie Lindon collaborate to adapt author Nicolas Sparks’s novel about a young soldier who falls for an idealistic college girl. Savannah Curtis (Amanda Seyfried) was on spring break when she first met John Tyree (Channing Tatum) while he was home on temporary leave.

For the smitten soldier, it was practically love at first sight. Though the love letters that Savannah sent John were one of the only things that kept him going over the course of the next seven years, when each deployment seemed more treacherous than the last, those loving and heartfelt correspondences would ultimately yield consequences that neither the brave soldier nor his one true love could have ever foreseen.