Review: Jason Reitman's 'Men, Women & Children' starring Adam Sandler, Jennifer Garner, and Ansel Elgort

At one point do we admit that Jason Reitman peaked with Up in the Airand now he's basically finished? Okay, one could make a case for Young Adult based solely on Charlize Theron's performance, but it seems Reitman is more intent on delivering messages than telling stories. His latest film, the blandly-titled Men, Women & Children is like a relic from 1999 when fear of the Internet was at its peak and every episode of 60 Minutes had some new horror story to peddle. 

A desperate grab to seem relevant and profound, the film actually begins with a few from a satellite hovering deep in space, analyzing and collecting data about all of the people down on Earth below. Emma Thompson's super-serious narration leads us into the lives of the people below, who have all had their lives changed by the Internet and technology. Like the similarly-themed Disconnect from last year, a series of connected stories show us the absolute worst of what the social networking age has to offer, boiled down into Afterschool Special simplicity. Adam Sandler, taking a break from vacationing with his pals in terrible comedies, goes dramatic as Don, whose marriage to Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt) has gone stale. We know he's sad because even his beard is tragic. He masturbates to porn so much the spyware has killed his computer, forcing him to use the one belonging to his teenaged son, Chris. Chris has watched so much Internet smut he can no longer get it up with real girls. Damn libido-killing Internet.

So what else is happening in this "Pale Blue Dot" of ours? Yes, the film quotes Carl Sagan in a lazy attempt at profundity. Body image issues crop up with a pair of high school cheerleaders: Hannah (Olivia Crocicchia), who has a modeling website of questionable legality run by her celebrity-seeking mother (Judy Greer). Hannah's pencil-thin friend Allison (Elena Kampouris) has basically quit eating because she frequents chat rooms with others obsessed with being thin. They tell her to sniff her dinner but eat celery, instead. The girl needs a visit to the Golden Corral buffet, STAT. But not nearly as badly as hyper-protective Patricia Beltmeyer (Jennifer Garner) needs to get herself a life. You think wireless wire-tapping is bad? Patricia tracks her daughter Brandy's (Kaitlyn Dever) every move, every keystroke, every phone conversation and text message, leaving the quiet and sensitive girl afraid to even have friends. When she makes one anyway in MMORPG-obsessed Tim (Ansel Elgort), it's the kind of freeing experience we know is doomed from the start.

This is not a happy movie, or even really a hopeful one. We get the message within the first 30 seconds: the proliferation of social networking and online communication has made us less capable of forming new relationships, of experiencing the real world around us. The rest of the film is a sledge hammer exercise, with Reitman and co-writer Erin Cressida Wilson adding nothing new to the discussion.

This is too talented of a cast for it to be a total buzzkill, though. Individual scenes and certain relationships work better than others, and perhaps this film would have been served by pairing down the number of stories it's trying to tell. Dever and Elgort, standouts from Short Term 12 and The Fault In Our Stars most recently, have genuine chemistry in the film's most complicated romance. His character Tim is struggling with abandonment issues and found a sense of camaraderie in online gaming that he couldn't find playing football. Brandy is as much a lifeline for him as he is for her, and their relationship feels more genuine than any of the film's many overdone dissections of the digital experience. When Don and Rachel's marital malaise leads to Internet dating sites, hook-ups with paid escorts, and her begging a creepy Dennis Haysbert to give her a good f**k, things have gotten so ludicrous it's impossible not to laugh.

Seriously, though, it does seem as if Reitman is sinking right before our eyes. The guy who gave us perfectly contemporary films Juno and Up in the Air is now trying too hard to be relevant. Men, Women & Children wants desperately to make an impact on your life, but chances are you wouldn't even "Like" it on Facebook.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

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Review: 'Kill the Messenger' starring Jeremy Renner

In today's world of infotainment and dwindling newspaper sales, the idea of the vigilant, crusading journalist is all but gone. Newspapers can't afford the kind of long-form investigative reporting to crack the biggest stories, even if there were more than a handful of reporters interested in that kind of thing. To that end, Gary Webb was old school, a reporter who put on his walking shoes and exposed the connection between the CIA and the influx of cocaine into this country. For his trouble he was discredited by the government and shunned by trusted peers, and his story should make for a thoughtful, compelling story in Kill the Messenger.

While Renner and director Michael Cuesta have their heart in the right place, Kill the Messenger very rarely goes beyond the basic points of Webb's story. What happened to Webb was atrocious by any measure, but it's more than just black/white or right/wrong; there's a lot of gray area that we never see touched upon, or is glimpsed only in the slightest of strokes. Granted, it's tough to live up to the example of All the President's Men (in impossible standard) but the film reads too much like a Cliffs Notes look at Webb's exposing of one of the biggest cover-ups in U.S. history.

Like the man himself, Renner's version of Webb is a dogged and determined muckraker for the San Jose Mercury News. "Dogged and determined" comes off as brash and arrogant to some people, though, and Webb always seemed like a big fish in a very small pond. He was like many reporters looking for that one big story. Renner looks nothing like the real-life Webb, not that he needs to, but there was clearly an attempt to make him "cooler", to look the part of a rebel reporter. Webb got his wish when he happened upon a story linking the CIA's arming of Contra rebels in Nicaragua and the U.S. cocaine boom of the '80s.

It was the kind of story any reporter would kill for, but it was also toxic in a way that would warn most people off. Despite numerous warnings from people on the inside telling him the story was dangerous, Webb soldiered on. His editors (led by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) pushed for it then hung Webb out to dry when things got too hot. His wife (Rosemarie DeWitt) grew suspicious and then fed up with his single-mindedness to see the story through to the end. As the powers that be began to slander him in public and ruin his career, the people closest to Webb also kept their distance. The story may have won him Journalist of the Year but it cost him everything else that mattered.

Where the film stumbles is in finding any deeper meaning in Webb's struggle, beyond showing how badly he got screwed in his pursuit of the truth. The film works considerably better as he's putting together the pieces of this gigantic puzzle, making for a cracking good political thriller in the process. Perhaps a shift in focus would have served screenwriter Peter Landesman better than this all-encompassing approach where we see Webb's unfortunate downfall. What's strange about it is Landesman, who wrote and directed the JFK assassination film Parkland, was a journalist who presumably knows the ins-and-outs of the trade, but he fails to include much of that in this story when it would have been beneficial. Shot economically and generically by Sean Bobbitt (12 Years a Slave), the film never reaches beyond the familiar and certainly doesn't have the snap of Cuesta's Emmy-nominated episodes of Homeland.

An abundantly talented cast from top to bottom (Michael K. Williams, Paz Vega, Andy Garcia, Oliver Platt, Barry Pepper and many more) has been assembled and they all do solid, if somewhat forgettable work. There are so many tiny, bit parts that nobody gets much of a chance to shine. This is Renner's film to carry and his Webb is a bulldog with a chip on his shoulder, but he's also fiercely loyal and when his friends turned on him the betrayal he feels is palpable. Kill the Messenger ends with the kind of finger-wagging speech that you don't get often in movies anymore because so few films are actually about anything. So for that reason  

Kill the Messenger deserves credit for teaching us a needed lesson on questioning authority, it's just unfortunate the film is hardly front page news.

Rating: 3 out of 5

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New Trailer for Jason Reitman's 'Men, Women and Children'

In case you haven't figured it out, social networking isn't always so social. For all the ways the Internet has connected us to the world at large it has also disconnected us personally. This is nothing new, and Hollywood has already told that story umpteen times. So what makes Jason Reitman's Men, Women and Children different from the rest? The phenomenal cast he's put together with Adam Sandler, Ansel Elgort, Kaitlyn Dever, Emma Thompson, Jennifer Garner, Judy Greer, Rosemarie DeWitt, J.K. Simmons, and Dennis Haysbert,

The latest trailer introduces us to a number of characters whose lives have been affected, generally for the worse, by the Internet. This trailer seems to be dealing mostly with the search for love and companionship, which technology has made easier and complicated at the same time. While incredibly somber, this looks like a step up from Reitman's last film, Labor Day. Then again that one looked good in trailers, too, and Reitman has since written it off as a mistake. The reviews out of the festival circuit have been mixed, and their doesn't seem to be much buzz for a film opening in just a couple of weeks on October 1st.

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First Trailer and Images from Jason Reitman's 'Men, Women, & Children'

What amounts to a slump for someone like Jason Reitman are the solid reviews and underwhelming performance by his dark comedy Young Adult, and the overall disastrous response to Labor Day. That last film in particular didn't truly feel like Reitman at the height of his powers, which is finding humor and truth in uncomfortable relationships. His first three films; Thank You for Smoking, Juno, and Up in the Air hit on that difficult tone perfectly. And now with his latest film Men, Women, & Children on the way it seems Reitman is doing something new by exploring the dark side of technology.

Gathering a large and varied ensemble that includes Adam Sandler in a rare dramatic role, Jennifer Garner, The Fault In Our Stars' Ansel Elgort, Short Term 12's Kaitlyn Dever, Emma Thompson, Rosemarie DeWitt, Judy Greer, J.K. Simmons, and Dennis Haysbert, the new trailer suggests an interconnected story about relationships ripped apart in the Internet Age. Is it possible to find a human connection in a world dominated by social networking? It's a pretty gloomy piece of footage and is totally free of Reitman's usual brand of humor, but with Eric Cressida Wilson (Secretary) co-writing the screenplay there's bound to be some offbeat laughs in there somewhere.

Men, Women, & Children will hit the Toronto International Film Festival before opening this October.

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Jeremy Renner Takes on the CIA in First 'Kill the Messenger' Trailer

As issues of national security, whistleblowing, and the freedom of information are more prevalent than ever thanks to the continued chatter of one Edward Snowden, a movie like Kill the Messenger couldn't be more timely. And while we've seen many movies dealing with this subject of late, such as last year's underwhelming The Fifth Estate, this one has the benefit of Jeremy Renner in the lead role as a man who went head-to-head with the CIA and lost everything.

Renner plays real-life journalist Gary Webb in the first Kill the Messenger trailer, which looks like a cracking good political thriller. Webb was a writer for the San Jose Mercury News whose series of "Dark Alliance" articles exposed the CIA's connection to Nicaraguan drug smugglers. For those reports he was smeared in the media, ruining his personal and professional life with tragic consequences. Renner is surrounded by a great cast including Rosemarie DeWitt, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Barry Pepper, Paz Vega, Michael K. Williams, Michael Sheen, Oliver Platt, and Ray Liotta.

Directed by Homeland's Michael Cuesta, Kill the Messenger opens October 10th.

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Joe Swanberg Adds Anna Kendrick, Orlando Bloom, and Jenny Slate to 'Digging for Fire'

Is Joe Swanberg the American version of Takashi Miike? It certainly seems like it. Swanberg is no less prolific than the famed Japanese filmmaker, completing about a dozen movies over the last three years. What started out as the template for the indie "mumblecore" movement has since broadened out to include high-profile stars, such as with two of his most recent films, Drinking Buddies and Happy Christmas. And now Swanberg has brought back the casts of those movies for his next film, the already-wrapped Digging for Fire.

Drinking Buddies stars Jake Johnson and Anna Kendrick are part of a phenomenal cast that includes Jenny Slate (Obvious Child), Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt, Brie Larson, Orlando Bloom, and comedian Mike Birbiglia (Sleepwalk with Me) for the film Swanberg co-wrote with Johnson. Plot details are being kept hidden but DeWitt and Johnson are said to be the leads with the rest having supporting roles of varying size. Ben Richardson, who gave Beasts of the Southern Wild its unique visual look, shot the film on 35mm.

No word on when this will open, but I'd be shocked if it doesn't hit a few upcoming film festivals. Swanberg's latest, Happy Christmas, arrives in July and you can check out my review of it here. [TheWrap]

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Jason Reitman Eyes 'Men, Women and Children'; Adam Sandler, Rosemarie DeWitt, Jennifer Garner and Cameron Diaz May Star

Jason Reitman's Labor Day only just debuted at Telluride and already it has some talking Oscars. As the crime drama makes its way into Toronto before opening this Christmas, Reitman is already looking forward to his next project, an adaptation of Chad Kultgen's novel Men, Women, and Children, and he may have another starry line-up to work with.

Deadline reports that a deal is coming together for Reitman to direct the adaptation, which centers on "a family with junior high school students and deals with the navigation of sexual awakenings in a digital age where the Internet has made pornography, blogs and social networking just a few clicks away." So basically Disconnect meets Don Jon? Big names are already attached with Adam Sandler and Rosemarie DeWitt circling roles, along with Jennifer Garner and Charlize Theron who worked with the director on Juno and Young Adult. No word on who wrote the script, or if Reitman will take a pass at it himself, but if everything is worked out production could begin this November.

More importantly, Reitman is putting together another of his famous readings, this one of the greatest movie of all-time, Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights. He's been tweeting the assembled talent for it, and it's mostly amazing. Dakota Fanning will take on the role of Roller Girl, Scott Thompson as The Colonel, Jason Sudeikis as Buck, Olivia Wilde as Amber Waves, and unfortunately Dane Cook as Reed Rothchild. Expect somebody awesome to be cast as Dirk Diggler, and they won't even have to show their junk to land the part. At least I don't think they will.

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'Poltergeist' Remake Scares Up Rosemarie DeWitt as Female Lead

Remaking a horror classic is always tough business, and this year we've already seen it done with mixed results in Evil Dead, and in a few months there's the update on Stephen King's Carrie. The jury's obviously still out on that one. But one remake that fans have been especially worried about is MGM's long-gestating Poltergeist, which is due to begin production this fall. While nobody has been cast as the little girl who can see dead people in the TV set (will they update it to an IPAD or something?), Rosemarie DeWitt has come aboard in the female lead.

The choice of Gil Kenan (Monster House) as director threw some for a loop, but having Pulitzer Prize-winning screenwriter David Lindsay-Abaire on hand should calm a few fears, and of course it doesn't hurt to have Sam Raimi producing. The film will follow a family who are terrorized by evil apparitions, and considering how well horror movies have been doing lately it's no wonder that MGM and Fox 2000 have high hopes. The search is on now for a male lead and someone to play the youngest daughter.

DeWitt will be seen next in Lynn Shelton's Touchy Feely, and is currently in production on Kill the Messenger with Jeremy Renner.

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Rosemarie DeWitt Joins Jeremy Renner in 'Kill the Messenger'

Although she first caught a lot of attention for her small role in Cinderella Man, it was Rosemarie DeWitt's quietly confident performance opposite Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married that was her true breakthrough. And she's made the most of it, dabbling in mainstream stuff like The Watch while starring roles in films like Your Sister's Sister help keep her art house cred. Now she's taking a major role in a film centers on a hot-button issue and might make some powerful people uncomfortable.

DeWitt has taken the female lead in Kill the Messenger, which has Jeremy Renner starring as San Jose Mercury News journalist Gary Webb. After exposing a CIA scheme to arm Contra rebels in Nicaragua and import cocaine into California, he became the target of a smear campaign and ultimately committed suicide. It's unclear what DeWitt's role will be, but she joins the recently-signed Paz Vega who plays the girlfriend of a prominent drug dealer hoping Webb can help get him out of prison. With this whole Ed Snowden situation dominating the headlines, and the suspicious death of journalist Michael Hastings, whistleblowing is more of an issue than it ever has been before. So this film couldn't come at a more opportune time for producers.

Michael Cuesta (Homeland) is directing from a Peter Landesman script, which is based on Webb's book Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion and Nick Schou's Kill the Messenger: How the CIA's Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb. DeWitt will be seen later this year in Lynn Shelton's Touchy Feely. [Deadline]

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Trailer Time: 'Your Sister's Sister', starring Emily Blunt and Mark Duplass

When I wasn't raving about The Raid after this year's Sundance Film Festival, I was busy telling people about two other movies that stole my heart. Both, coincidentally, starring indie stalwart, Mark Duplass. The first was the sci-fi comedy, Safety Not Guaranteed. The other was Your Sister's Sister, from Humpday director, Lynn Shelton, co-starring Emily Blunt and Rosemarie DeWitt.

This emotional, insightful powerhouse of a film has Duplass playing Jack, a guy still reeling from the death of his brother the year before. Drowning in misery and self pity, he's subject to an intervention by his best friend, Iris(Blunt), who just so happens to be his brother's ex. Iris basically banishes him to a remote family cabin to clear his head, but upon arrival he discovers Iris's flighty sister, Hannah(DeWitt), who is there for essentially the same reason. After a wild night of tequila drinking leads to some poor decision making, the situation only gets more complicated when Iris shows up at the front door.

Even though it's coming out in the summer where blockbusters will swallow up any hope of success, if Your Sister's Sister is in your local theater be sure clear some time to check it out. You won't be disappointed. The film will have a presence at the Tribeca Film Festival starting today, then will hit theaters on June 15th. Check out the new trailer below, and then my review here....

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Rosemarie DeWitt heads to Gus Van Sant and Matt Damon's 'Promised Land'

Rosemarie DeWitt got her big break a few years ago as the titular character in Rachel Getting Married, although her magnificent performance was drowned out by Anne Hathaway's more showy one. Since then she's kept herself plenty busy, playing the flighty sister in The United States of Tara, along with a number of smaller films. This year promises to be her biggest yet, as she'll star with Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn in Neighborhood Watch. My hope is that when people see how good she is in Lynn Shelton's small budget dramedy, Your Sister's Sister(my review here), she'll finally start getting the larger roles I think she's so perfectly suited for.

Maybe Gus Van Sant sees what I see, because he's chosen her to be the lead in Promised Land, the film that once was to be the directorial debut by Matt Damon. Conceived by writer Dave Eggers and John Krasinski, the film centers around two rival executives in a small town, with one having his entire life thrown into question. Damon will star alongside Krasinski, with both also teaming up on the script. The tone has been compared to some of the wholesome, message laden films of Frank Capra.

Filming should kick off in April. DeWitt should be seen next when Your Sister's Sister opens in June, followed up by Neighborhood Watch in July. [Deadline]

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Sundance Review: 'Your Sister's Sister', starring Emily Blunt and Mark Duplass

Dig this. Jack, (Mark Duplass) who is still struggling to deal with the death of his brother a year later, is suggested to by his best friend, Iris,(Emily Blunt) to take some time alone at her family's secluded cabin to clear his head. There, he finds that the place isn't so secluded, as his best friend's lesbian sister, Hannah,(Rosemarie Dewitt) is there, and the two share a night of drunken chatter which leads to equally intoxicated(not exactly intoxicating) sex. Then the best friend shows up suddenly the next morning. Awkward!

Sounds like something out of a bad sitcom, right? So did 2009's Humpday, Lynne Shelton's witty, razor sharp comedy about two very male, very heterosexual best friends who make a pact to have sex with each other as some sort of art project. Silly as it seemed, Shelton's understated, realistic writing made it work, navigating the tension that comes from guy relationships. Here, she's working on a slightly different playing field, but the results are no less dynamic than before.

Shelton weaves an intricate web connecting these three people. Iris is more than just Jack's friend, she was also his brother's ex-wife, a fact which has made their tightening bond awkward. Hannah, who just ended a relationship with her long-term partner, is suffocating under feelings of being unwanted, a ticking biological clock, and loneliness. That last point is one afflicting them all, really, and it drives them to hurt one another in ways that are unexpected. Much like Humpday, the story may end up in a familiar place, but the route it takes getting there is full of unexpected, natural swerves.

What separates Shelton from other writers is that she seems to have every single facet of these characters figure out. She understands them on levels others were never attempt to explore. Here, that gift is put to extraordinary use in in the sisterly bond between Hannah and Iris. Emily Blunt, no stranger to roles like this(such as in Sunshine Cleaning opposite Amy Adams) is a natural fit for Shelton's low-wattage style. Rosemarie Dewitt, who first blew down festival doors a few years ago in Rachel Getting Married, is a perfect jumble of contradictions. Duplass, however, is having the Sundance of a lifetime. With three very different projects(Black Rock, Safety Not Guaranteed), Duplass is showing he's someone to be reckoned with both behind and in front of the camera. His Jack is someone every guy both would aspire to be more like, and yet never want his life in a million years. He's self deprecating, charming, a little bit nervous, and also an emotional train wreck, yet there's a warming heart underneath that draws people to him. Duplass is quickly becoming a personal favorite.

While there are moments when the film gets a bit too chatty for it's own good, and Shelton's crude camerawork can occasionally be a drag, Your Sister's Sister never ceases to be engaging. It's one of Shelton's great talents, to create characters you want to see succeed. They're so genuine you root for them to be happy, even when(or perhaps because of) they slip up and make mistakes.

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