SNMR 6.22: "Charlie Bartlett"

Tonight's SNMR feature is "Charlie Bartlett" (2007, R, 97 minutes), starring Anton Yelchin, Robert Downey, Jr., Hope Davis, Kat Dennings and Tyler Hilton. The film was directed by Jon Poll.

PLOT SUMMARY: Charlie Bartlett (Yelchin) is a seventeen year old rich kid who has been thrown out of many private schools. His mother (Davis) decides he should try a public high school for a change. When he does, he's not popular and virtually unknown. After being beat up by the school bully, Charlie reads up on psychological behavior and begins to give advice to other students and prescribe medications to them that he gets prescribed to him by his family's on call shrink. Suddenly Charlie is the most popular kid in school and attracts the eye of Susan Gardner (Dennings) who happens to be the daughter of the most hated man in school - Principal Nathan Gardner (Downey, Jr.).

MY OPINION: I had seen the previews for this movie on several recent DVD's I've watched. The movie looked interesting but nothing I'd go out of my way to get. Then when I realized that the title character is played by Anton Yelchin, who also happens to be Checkov in the new Star Trek movie and a young Kyle Reese in the new Terminator movie, that ratcheted up my interest in this movie considerably.

This movie has been compared to Ferris Bueller's Day Off for the student - principal relationship that each film has. But that's as far as I'll go with the comparison. Ferris Bueller was the ultimate 80's high school slacker film and still a classic. This movie takes a more serious turn towards the second half of the film. Hope Davis makes for an excellent ditzy but well intentioned mother and Robert Downey, Jr. is very good as the beleagured principal who gets tired of hearing the name Charlie Bartlett. Yelchin and Dennings performances are so-so.

Jon Poll has an impressive history as a comedy director, having helmed the last two Austin Powers movies and the two Ben Stiller films Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers. He does a good enough job with this movie but doesn't show us anything we haven't seen before.

This movie is decent for a rental, but I wouldn't go out of my way to own it.

*** out of *****

SNMR 5.22: "Charlie Wilson's War"

Tonight's SNMR feature was going to be "Jumper," but the scribester, at the eleventh hour, suggested we review that one over on the BIG SCREEN. So go read our reviews on that one over there. Instead, tonight's SNMR review here is "Charlie Wilson's War" (2007, R, 102 minutes), starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and Ned Beatty. The film was directed by Mike Nichols.

PLOT SUMMARY: This is a biopic of Congressman Charlie Wilson of Texas, and his own private war between the Afghans and the Russians, which took place in the 1980's.

MY OPINION: Right off the bat, I had a feeling that this movie would be good. There's very few movies Tom Hanks has done that I have disliked. Philip Seymour Hoffman is excellent and ably demonstrates here that he is a very talented and versatile actor, who I think is still underrated even if he won an Oscar a few years ago. I really didn't like Julia Roberts in this film. Sure, her acting was decent but I think they could have found a different actress who would have been just as good or better for the part. The rest of the cast is excellent as well.

Mike Nichols is as good a director as we have these days. He is ably suited to take a story based in ho-hum historical events and transform it into something interesting and witty. I like the fact that Nichols virtually seamlessly intertwines real-life footage of the Afghan Soviet War into the movie, giving it a more thorough grounding in reality.

I've never read the novel on which Aaron Sorkin based his screenplay, so I can't say how much variation there is between the two. I think that Sorkin does a great job of capturing the real life quirks and foibles of these people in his script, which helps to make the characters more likeable.

For me, the subject matter makes this is the type of movie that I enjoyed once but can't see the desire to watch again.

***½ out of *****