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Saturday, December 31, 2011
MOVIE REVIEW
New Year's Eve
Drink Away This Film From Your Celebrations Tonight: Toast To Its Quick
Disappearance
Ashton Kutcher and Lea Michele in Garry Marshall's romantic comedy "New Year's
Eve".
Warner Brothers
by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
FOLLOW
Saturday, December 31,
2011
Camera-ready and made to order like one of Ashton Kutcher's Nikon
point-and-shoot camera commercials, Garry Marshall's lazy, plastic "New Year's
Eve" is essentially one long cameo of red carpet appearances of some two dozen
stars, actors, singers and has-beens, busy preening on camera for the 30 seconds
of fame they had a long time ago. Repetitive and without any discernable
or fresh ideas, Mr. Marshall's romantic comedy takes place on December 31, 2011
-- namely today -- but it feels like a film I saw years ago.
What better time than now to review this film, which opened three Fridays ago?
Well, it's most appropriate now because many filmgoers will be too busy
celebrating to care much about a long, dreary and predictable festival of
sappiness, contrived scenarios and Hallmark card clichés. "New Year's Eve"
is supposed to be a series of anthologies but it feels like a New York City
tourism ad, complete with a cameo from New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.
You expect him to say, "come to New York, it's a great place!" Which, of
course, it is.
Michelle Pfeiffer makes a Hollywood big screen appearance after several years
away as a lonely woman who quits her Manhattan job to fulfill her dreams, a
bucket list of adventures. She's shepherded into action by Zac Efron, her
boy genie, ushering her from location to location to enjoy all of the virgin
moments of her life's experience before 2012 comes along. Josh Duhamel is
trying to get from upstate New York to Manhattan just in time for midnight to
meet the mystery woman he met a year ago at the same time. (Smells a
little like "Same Time, Next Year", only not as smart a comedy.) Then
there's Mr. Kutcher, the film's bah-humbug, Mr. Killjoy to New Year excitement.
He hates New Year, but Lea Michele will get stuck with this moody man in an
elevator and sing until his cold heart melts.
I could go on and on. I think however, that you get the picture --
especially if you've seen the film. I won't go into how much Sofia Vergara
mocks and over-exaggerates the Latina image to such a degree that it is racist
and rather uncomfortable to watch -- make that cringe-worthy to watch -- as bad
as Mickey Rooney's infamous portrayal of an Asian man in "Breakfast At
Tiffany's", a bitter-sweet movie perfect for this time of year and whose own
misadventures in racist stereotype aren't mentioned by many as they laud the
film a classic. George Lopez did the same thing in
"Valentine's
Day", as did Carlos Mencia in
"Our Family
Wedding", both 2010 films that set film portrayals of Latinos -- and
blacks for that matter -- way back.
Notice that for this review I've deliberately avoided giving out character
names, for it is only the faces of stars that the filmmaker wants you to
remember. Had this film been cast with no-namers, it would have been
instantly forgettable. Audiences would have stayed away. Yet "New
Year's Eve" is even more of an embarrassment and disgrace because it has a
high-caliber glitterati of stars all of whom have ready-made smiles, or, in the
case of Robert De Niro, an on-cue bedridden posture and expression. "Just
let me see get to see the ball drop," he whines. Dear oh deary me.
Mr. Marshall, who has done so much better with films like "Pretty Woman" and
"Runaway Bride", has been deciding lately to celebrate occasions ("Valentine's
Day") and now today's exciting (and for quite a few, depressing) night, on the
big screen. It's how he celebrates them that is the biggest issue.
And his latest film could have been just five minutes long -- the blooper reel
during the end credits -- funnier than anything that has preceded, includes a
shameless plug of "Valentine's Day". Get your copy not!
With: Every Hollywood star or aspirant you've ever seen on the big screen,
including Halle Berry, Common, Sarah Jessica Parker, Katherine Heigl, Jon Bon
Jovi, Ryan Seacrest, Til Schweiger, Abigail Breslin, Seth Meyers, Hilary Swank,
Hector Elizondo, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Jessica Biel and many more.
"New Year's Eve" is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association Of America for
language including some sexual references. The film's duration is
two hours.
COPYRIGHT 2011. POPCORNREEL.COM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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