Elizabethtown

Easily director Cameron Crowe’s worst film. The horribly boring Orlando Bloom tries to mask his accent in vain as the creator of some sort of stupid sneaker that loses a Nike-like company close to a billion dollars. While attempting to commit suicide with an exercise bike (I shit you not), he gets a phone call telling him that Dad has died, and he’s in charge of the funeral. Bloom then embarks on an incredible odyssey where he is stalked by Kirsten Dunst, who, at one point, is able to map a cross-country trip with musical accompaniment that is shockingly precise, timed out exactly with landmarks on Bloom’s trip (horse crap!). The soundtrack is OK, with the exception of a “Freebird” performance that ends in a fire and everybody being artistically soaked by sprinklers. If it sounds moronic, it is. Crowe, normally so perceptive, hits not one true note with this misfire. It’s an awful mess.A lousy remake of a not-so-good John Carpenter film. Leper ghosts return to the home of their demise to throw knives and whatnot at people for the sins their ancestors committed. Maggie Grace looks good on screen, but her acting leaves much to be desired. (She looks like she’s constantly on the verge of laughter.) Tom Welling (Smallville) is a dullard in the leading man role, a job that requires him to look perplexed while driving his truck all over town. Sure, the fog looks better than it did in the original movie, but the ghosts are a letdown. (The hook-hands are gone!) Selma Blair replaces Adrienne Barbeau as the lighthouse radio DJ, and she is perhaps the worst DJ in cinematic history. Not a single scare, and this is yet another in a long line of neutered PG-13 horror films that should’ve shot for an R. Three divine performances make what could’ve been a drab soap opera shine. In Her Shoes, the latest from director Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential, Wonder Boys) provides a showcase for Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley MacLaine, and each of them takes full advantage of it. Bad girl Maggie (Diaz) gets in trouble with her sister, Rose (Collette), and finds herself seeking out her long lost grandmother (MacLaine). Both siblings eventually reunite with her, discovering the history of their dead mother and attaining a bright new outlook on life. In the hands of lesser talents, this could’ve been mundane crap, but Hanson and company make it all very entertaining. Diaz gets her first great role in a long while. Collette is her always reliable self. The film’s biggest triumph is MacLaine’s, who finally gets to play a real person after a long line of caricatures. Director Tony Scott goes a little too nuts with the flashy editing, and Mickey Rourke spits way too much while speaking to make this one enjoyable. Keira Knightly plays Domino, real-life model turned bounty hunter who actually died recently due to mysterious circumstances. The story is an improbable one, made all the more nuts with writer embellishments. Brian Austin Green is sort of funny, playing himself as a TV bounty hunter show host who suffers a few major injuries due to his wise mouth. Knightly is sometimes engaging, but her attempts at rage are a little too much. (I wished she would just shut up.) Rourke is OK as a career bounty hunter but, as I mentioned before, he spits too much. It’s gross. It’s really, really gross.