Jerry Shaw is a loser. He's a smooth talker amongst his friends and full of unfulfilled potential according to his parents. He works at Copy Cabana, and is frequently behind on his rent. This is your everyman, played with a maturing skill by Shia LaBeouf, with a dreadful patch of facial hair.

Rachel, Michelle Monaghan, is a single mom dealing with her dead beat ex. She seems to have it relatively together with her priorities clearly in check. How could a hot milf like this get mixed up with our scruffy protagonist? A strange phone call from a mysterious woman. You see Jerry's twin brother has just died, and peculiar things are starting to happen to him. His bank account is full of money, and some seriously crazy shit has just been delivered to his apartment. Is he being set up? Who's behind it all? Well that's part of the fun of watching Eagle Eye now isn't it?

D.J. Caruso knows what he's doing. He handled last year's surprisingly enjoyable teen thriller throwaway Disturbia, and helmed the criminally underseen Val Kilmer starrer The Salton Sea. He has a way of elevating material, and doing it with flash and style. Here Caruso is taking his first foray into action/suspense film making and he couldn't seem more at home. Eagle Eye takes exactly fifteen minutes to hit the ground running and from then on it's like a turbo boost of adrenaline that doesn't let up until the final credits roll. The action scenes are inventive, edge of your seat fun, and even if you don't enjoy the film on a whole, it's hard to deny the thrills you can have from simply watching these scenes.

LaBeouf is growing up before our eyes and he seems to be transitioning into his role as leading man quite nicely, he carries the film on his shoulders and he does it very well. Monaghan is very passable in her role, while Rosario Dawson and Michael Chiklis are both severely underutilized. Billy Bob Thornton is the only other standout, besides our schlubby hero, who brings a third dimension to his character with his own personal charm.

The film does have it's problems though, and it's best to enjoy without being too critical. Let's just say there are points in the film where you are either with it or you aren't. If you don't buy into the whole world/situation within the first 20 minutes, you aren't going to enjoy yourself. Things are ridiculous, and I'll be the first to admit it, but when its coupled with such flair and enjoyment it's hard to nitpick. 

This is also one of those films that has politics in it without being political, and, if anyone is so inclined to notice, it does raise some interesting questions. It's difficult to go into without treading into some spoiler territory. Suffice it to say, there's action for the fellas, LaBeouf for the ladies, and some conversation to be had over tea for the oldies. Eagle Eye is fun-time film making that taps into the same vein as Enemy of the State and North by Northwest (that Caruso sure does love to rip off the Hitchcock). It's what Disturbia was to Rear Window; it's more stylized, more action packed, and significantly less intelligent.

Review by: Greg MacLennan

Washington-born and mobile home-raised, Chuck Palahniuk has managed to infuse his truly poetic writings with some of the dinginess of his humble upbringing.

In 1999, Palahniuks second novel Fight Club was adapted into a feature film directed by David Fincher. Fincher captured the Palahniuk universe masterfully and yanked two amazing performances out of two amazing performers in Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. Despite opening at No. 1 during its first weekend, Fight Club was received to lukewarm reviews and financial disappointment. Though upon Fight Club's release on DVD, it developed quite the following and became wildly successful. Two years later, Choke was published and became Palahniuk's first No. 1 on the New York Times Bestseller list. This gave way to future success with his novels Lullaby, Diary, Haunted, and Rant. His latest work, Snuff, was released May 20, 2008, to positive reviews.

While many of Chuck's works are currently in one stage or another of development, his second adaptation premiered early this year at the Sundance Film Festival. Choke tells the story of Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell), a medical school dropout and current historical re-enactor, who picks up supplementary income by forcing himself to choke at restaurants and allowing himself to be saved. Upon being saved, he finds that he creates a special bond with these good samaritans, and then goes on to send them letters detailing the fictional troubles of his life, to which he receives responses of cash and checks. All this is done to service a single purpose of keeping his ailing mother in a nursing home he clearly cannot afford. Victor's best friend Denny is along on the quest to find out about his father, himself, his sexual addiction, and about the attractive female doctor caring for his mother.

Directed by Clark Gregg, Choke captures much of Palahniuk's flair and lunacy but somewhat leaves feeling like a neutered version of the book. Gregg, who also penned the script, takes the light and the dark, the sad and the funny, and messes with the Chuck formula resulting with an uneven picture. Rockwell, as Mancini, couldn't have done more to nail the essence of Victor's character -- it's hard to imagine Chuck being more satisfied with anyone else playing Victor. Gregg does succeed at recreating the voice over narration for Victor that Rockwell so expertly delivers, leaving fans with reason enough to view the film.

Anjelica Huston dazzles, as always, as Victor's mess of a mother. She goes from playing the younger version of her deluded self to the batshit crazy, older version with absolute ease. The supporting players are hit and miss, and the same can be said for many of the scenes. To create a metaphor with Victor, its all foreplay and no sex. The film captures you enough to make you want to love it, but leaves you feeling unfulfilled and unsatisfied.

For Chuck Palahniuk fans this movie will be an enjoyable companion piece to the novel. While Fight Club was so expertly crafted with its multiple layers and pitch-perfect Palahniuk tone it could serve as a book substitute, Choke works as a wonderful appetizer for a significantly better novel.

Review by: Greg MacLennan

You may not know who Ricky Gervais is. You should, because he's hilarious on UK shows such as The Office and Extras, but he's not well-known in the U.S. That might be about to change, but given the barren early screening this past week, we're banking on a not so much.

Ghost Town is the tale of Dr. Pinkus (Gervais), who is, frankly, kind of a dick. The dentist hates everyone. Dogs, children, patients, everyone. When he goes in for a colonoscopy and demands anesthesia, he dies for seven minutes due to complications. Because of his (temporary) death, Pinkus can now see dead people. (Cue The Sixth Sense jokes.) And those dead people will not leave him the fuck alone.

Apparently ghosts only stick around if they have unfinished business. Like, duh, Casper taught us that. But in this flick, they demand that Pinkus help them, and when one persuasive ghost, Frank, (the ever-likable Greg Kinnear) cuts a deal with the good doc, that if Pinkus can stop Frank's wife (Tea Leoni) from marrying a supposed prick, he'll get all the ghosts to leave him alone. Cue the cliche romantic comedy crap about girl hating boy at first and then romance ensuing.

But, wait! This romantic comedy has a couple of things going for it, namely Gervais. While the script seems a bit trite at times, the moments when Gervais is going off on his Gervais shtick (we're assuming that the script read, "dialogue, Ricky does his thing for three minutes, and more dialogue") are pure comedic gold. He makes fun of Chinese people, cracks bad jokes about gingivitis, and discusses his disgusting gag reflex. C'mon, that shit is hilarious.

Yeah, okay, it's pretty typical fare with a few golden nuggets, but it definitely provides some good laughs, and the chemistry between Gervais and Kinnear is pretty ad-or-able, even if the supporting characters of Ghost Town are fairly muted compared to the outlandish ones Gervais is used to. And, the throwback to '30s rom coms with extreme happy endings feels sorta like a high-concept Hollywood concoction Gervais would have ridiculed in Extras. Oh well, it made us laugh..and then feel superior with reminiscing the Rickster's funnier works.

Review by: Darcie Duttweiler

Osborne Cox (John Malcovich) has been a CIA analyst for forever, however, it appears as though the people at his work aren't appreciating him as much anymore due to his "drinking problem." So Osborne flies the coop and begins to write his memoirs with all the dirty secrets of his job intact. So where's the snag? His wife (Tilda Swinton) is in the midst of some intensive research to prepare for a divorce so she can be with her lover (George Clooney). Hangup after that? It appears Cox's wife, Katie, picked an attorney with a clumsy secretary, and Katie's research, including Osborne's memoirs, gets left behind in a gym. A gym, I might add, which is host to a gang of bumbling idiots (Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand) who stumble onto said research and then attempt to blackmail Osborne. Still with me? Okay. That's the gist, there's some more interconnectedness, but I'll spare you the spoilers of who ends up having sex with whom and who ends up dying.

This is the Coen Brothers first offering since their Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men. It's hard to say it's not good, because the film is enjoyable and should keep you laughing for its brisk 93 minute run time, but it just isn't all the Coen's are capable of doing. The direction is solid, the dialogue wacky, and the cast of characters are everything you'd expect from a Coen comedy, however, it just didn't add up to anything truly special. Sometimes the dark comedy gets a little too dark while still attempting to maintain the humor, and that's when things feel slightly off and clunky.

Although, Brad Pitt makes a hilarious turn as Chad Feldheimer, the dimwitted personal trainer who finds the information and attempts to extort money for its safe return. Clooney also takes a page out of his funny book and delivers a memorable performance as a sex-addicted Marshall's Office employee who is convinced he is being followed by the CIA. Malkovich also proves to have some comedy chops and I'm sure will be remember for his repetition of the line "What the fuck?" throughout the entire film.

And perhaps that's best how to sum up the film, what the fuck? It's a film about idiots and nothingness and that's the point. The Coens didn't fail by any means, and when things end up in a neat bundle by the end of the film, you're left strangely unsatisfied. It's one of their lesser works, but not one of their lesser lesser works. (I'm talking to you, Ladykillers) Intelligence is relative and this could be one of the more intelligent films about unintelligent people made by intelligent people in an attempt to show the world its reflection and ask, what the fuck?


Review by: Greg MacLennan