Remember Me - **

Remember Me is a strange movie.

In it, we have a great coming-of-age story about a tormented college-age guy with no direction, filled with interesting characters, excellent camerawork, and, unlike last year's (500) Days of Summer, a romantic fling that doesn't feel so contrived and pedestrian. The worst part about it is that I can't really say anything more without ruining the experience for you because there is an event that takes place, a real-life event, that is so jarring when it happens because it just doesn't fit. You'd know exactly what I'm talking about if you saw it, and I don't want you to go into the movie expecting it. To solve this problem, I will simply skate around it and finish this review without ever having mentioned the actual event that I am making reference to. However, I will make several hints at it.

The film opens on a subway platform. In the background, we can see the twin towers of the World Trade Center. In the end, the main character is in an office on the 86th floor of a building in the middle of Manhattan. This all takes place on a Tuesday in the middle of September of 2001. This is where the event that I mentioned earlier occurs.

The sad fact remains that there are thousands of true stories that could have been made, some of which we've already seen (twice in 2006!), and they're probably all better than this one. We've also seen this device before, and it always leaves an awful taste in a viewer's mouth. Who wants to be tricked into seeing a movie about this? And why? Why did it have to be this event? It could have been anything else and would still have been just as "memorable", at least in his family's case.

Remember Me isn't a terrible movie, though. The first 90 minutes are engaging and showcase a very talented young actor in Pattinson. I didn't ever think I'd say that, after everything I'd heard about the Twilight series. At the very least, this movie makes me not dread seeing Eclipse so much. So, thanks for that.

But that fucking ending.

The Ghost Writer - ****

There is a scene toward the end of The Ghost Writer, Roman Polanski’s latest film, in which a note is passed through a group of partygoers, hand to hand, for what seems like minutes. Calendar pages fall as we see it pass by half-full glasses of champagne, through ringed fingers and finally to the hands of the person it was meant for. The audience knows what the note reads, and the suspense which has built over the previous 60 seconds of screen time has nothing to do with finding out what it says, but how this person will react. It is a shining moment in what is one of the first great films of 2010.

The film opens with a meeting at a publishing house. Ewan McGregor plays a “ghost writer” – one who writes a book but receives no credit; someone who comes in handy when a noted politician is trying to write his autobiography but has no more talent than the person writing this review. In this case, we have Adam Lang, played by Pierce Brosnan, a former Prime Minister who is involved with several scandals involving an ongoing war. In the midst of writing his book, Lang is accused of several crimes and his first ghost writer ends up missing. It is at this point where McGregor enters, and the puzzle begins. What is so enticing about the mystery is that it isn’t just whether or not he is guilty, but who it is that might benefit from Lang taking the fall, and the ways in which the supporting cast, including Tom Wilkinson, Kim Cattrall and the always fantastic Olivia Williams try to push “the Ghost” in different directions.

I think what is most impressive about the film is the pacing. In addition to the passing of the note, there is a chase scene later in the film involving slowly-moving cars which end up on a ferry boat. Once aboard, the passengers take foot, quickly scurrying about both tiers of the vessel until one of them escapes. It travels at a snail’s pace, but is one of the most exciting sequences in the movie.

In the end, The Ghost Writer is more than just a captivating thriller. It serves as a statement on politics today and the idea of power and where it comes from in this age. I will also say that I hated writing this review because of how fond I am of the film, and look forward to tearing apart all of the muck and grime that was movies in March 2010.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief - *

Uh-oh. Somebody stole Zeus' lightning bolt, the most powerful weapon in the universe, and he thinks it's Poseidon's son, Percy Jackson. Thus we have all of the elements that comprise the clumsy, franchise-fishing title, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, and I hope that franchise never bites.

It seems like a joke that Chris Columbus directed this film, because it feels like a cheap rip-off of the Harry Potter films, whose first two installments were directed by Columbus. But then again, maybe it is a joke. Columbus has proven to be a capable director in the past, with films like Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire, and this latest "effort" uses the same structure: a wacky situation is established in the first fifteen minutes, gags follow. Only with this film, he neglects any kind of character development or dramatic depth, and the action is so far from interesting or entertaining that it making fun of it almost becomes boring after a while. Almost.

There are too many stupid, ridiculous details and plot points to mention, like when the kids go to a casino to get a magic pearl that will let them of the Underworld and get high on Lotus Flowers in a weird rap-video-like montage in which Percy's sidekick, who is half goat, has his hooves painted by beautiful women. A large portion of the rest of the film involves big-name actors taking turns embarrassing themselves in cameo roles as gods along the journey, with bizarre make-up, costumes and accents, like Pierce Brosnan, who begins the film as a teacher in a wheelchair, but later he reveals his lower-half to be that of a horse. But Uma Thurman wins first prize as Medusa, sporting CGI snake-hair and sun-glasses on a decapitated head the kids carry around for most of the film. She even beats Anthony Hopkins' bald, flaming, evil-eyed Wolfman head for worst decapitated head of the February 12th weekend (I wish there had been some competition from Valentine's Day, a film that really needed to decapitate some of its characters). Despite being about gods and quests, the film's only genuine hero is Rosario Dawson's cleavage, because for three and a half minutes it is actually worth it to look at the screen.