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Tag Archives: justin timberlake
New On DVD: Bad Teacher
Cameron Diaz knows how to play a hot girl with attitude, and that’s exactly what she delivers in Bad Teacher (2011). Director Jake Kasdan makes Elizabeth Halsey (Diaz) the worst possible middle school teacher. Against a backdrop of do-gooder colleagues, she stands out in her skin tight clothing, rebellious attitude, and reckless behavior.
Halsey’s upcoming nuptials to a wealthy man go under when the man’s mother discovers Halsey only wants him for his money. She therefore must return to the teaching job she thought she had left behind. Halsey will do anything to find a rich husband and quit working, which includes hitting on her coworker Scott (Justin Timberlake) who comes from family money, and raising money for breast augmentation surgery through bribery and small-scale extortion. She despises her energetic coworker Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch), resents her roommate Kirk (Eric Stonestreet), and loathes the advances of the gym coach (Jason Segel). Phyllis Smith of The Office steals the screen as the unpopular sidekick who will do anything for Halsey’s friendship. It also stars John Michael Higgins as the clueless principal obsessed with dolphins and Thomas Lennon as an educator Halsey must seduce in order to get what she wants.
True to its name, Bad Teacher can be a bit crude at times, especially in its unrated version. But underneath its bad girl exterior is a film about transformation, friendship, and true happiness being only an attitude change away.
Photo © AVAVA – Fotolia.com
Tagged Bad Teacher, Cameron Diaz, Jake Kasdan, justin timberlake
New On DVD: The Social Network
David Fincher has directed such blockbuster films as Fight Club (1999), Se7en (1995) and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011). The Social Network (2011) was no less of a blockbuster for him, grossing $96 million during its time in theaters. Jesse Eisenberg was expertly cast as Mark Zuckerberg, and the film follows his astounding genius as he created first Face Mash and then Facebook. Zuckerberg is likeable in the film because his genius-level work comes so easily for him, and his motivations seem so relatable. While the story is embellished with falsities and half-truths, it still makes for an entertaining story and provides “Generation Y” with a cast and crew who expertly tell their story.
The character of Zuckerberg creates Face Mash in his dorm room after a painful breakup with his girlfriend. He envies those richer and more suave than him at the same time that he makes fun of them. Because of being socially ostracized, he seeks to connect to others through expert computer code that manifests itself to social networking sites. Andrew Garfield stars as his business partner Eduardo Saverin, Justin Timberlake as Napster creator Sean Parker, and Armie Hammer as Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss—rowing twins who insist Zuckeberg stole their idea. Max Minghella, Brenda Song, and Rashida Jones also star.
The Social Network may be half truth and half fiction, but the storyline as it is manipulated is highly intriguing. It unsurprisingly won numerous Oscars and Golden Globe awards and will no doubt become a “period piece” as time goes by.
Photo © Thomas Pajot – Fotolia.com
Tagged DVD, Facebook, Jesse Eisenberg, justin timberlake
New On DVD: Friends With Benefits
Friends with Benefits (2011) was lucky—or unlucky—enough to be produced around the same time as two other romantic comedies involving friends with benefits. While Love and Other Drugs (2010) and No Strings Attached (2011) premiered first, Friends with Benefits should not be overlooked and is perhaps the most realistic story of the three.
Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake are relative newcomers to leading roles, unlike the protagonists in the other two movies. In Friends with Benefits, no one is dying from an incurable disease and there is no hot female med student who rejects all romantic gestures in a cold-blooded fashion. Jamie Rellis (Kunis) and Dylan Harper (Timberlake) are both working professionals who have been burned too many times that they don’t want to be burned again. They like each other in equal amounts but the timing is always off. They do everything they can to avoid living a life like a romantic movie, only to succumb to the inevitable plotline at the end, thus making fun of the genre as they are creating it, which makes for a smart script.
Produced by Will Gluck, this movie includes Jenna Elfman and Richard Jenkins as Dylan’s sister and father, Patricia Clarkson and Bryan Greenberg as Jamie’s mother and periodic love interest, and Woody Harrelson as the story’s slapstick character who, in this movie, is a flamboyant gay man. Kunis and Timberlake have obvious chemistry, but they also both possess a girl- and boy next door quality that makes their characters entirely relatable. And while the crux of the storyline isn’t that hard to predict, it makes for an entertaining ride.
Photo © Gabor Takacs – Fotolia.com
Friends With Benefits
New romcom Friends with Benefits centers on two young professionals, Jamie and Dylan, who are both too busy to find a partner. The solution? A purely physical, ‘no strings attached’ relationship! Of course, things are bound to get messy …
The heroine is a young female New York-based headhunter who persuades a prospective new hire to take a job in the Big Apple. The attraction between the two of them is obvious. But when both realize the other person is everything they’ve been striving to avoid in a relationship, they decide to keep emotion out of their liaison.
Mila Kunis (who was so brilliant in Black Swan) and Justin Timberlake play the couple. This is the first time Timberlake has taken a leading role, making the film one of the most eagerly anticipated of the summer. (The trailer’s YouTube release attracted more than a million views in two days, making it YouTube’s second most watched video of that day and the most viewed video in the category of “film” worldwide.)
The picture is directed by Will Gluck, with Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone and Patricia Clarkson among the supporting cast. It hit US theaters on July 22.
Gluck rewrote the original script for Kunis and Timberlake, and has compared the story to a classic Hepburn andTracyproduction. But he has said: “The two characters are in the generation where they have grown up on romcoms. They comment on them throughout the movie, realizing that they’re in a romantic comedy story, and embracing the fact that they’re going through a romantic comedy moment, as two regular people who aren’t in a movie would do.”
Early reviews described some aspects of this movie as rather formulaic and predictable. It also received criticism for being released too soon after No Strings Attached, with Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher, which had a very similar premise. Nevertheless, critics and audience members alike have agreed that this film features fun, intelligent writing, and that Timberlike and Kunis shine and sizzle with palpable chemistry.
You, of course, will have to decide for yourself!
Photo © Alice – Fotolia.com
Tagged Friends with benefits, fun, funny, justin timberlake, mila kunis, romantic comedy, romcom, sexy