Short Take on "What's Your Number".

It's a shame that this movie begins with a joke that feels rehashed from the vastly superior Bridesmaids (people in the theater whispered it without realizing that both movies were probably in production at the same time) and kicks off its proceedings by wondering about the sexuality of a character played by Zachary Quinto (and on the week when he decides to come out!). Truth be told, all in all the film isn't any good, it feels like an episode of Sex and the City gone bad and it hides some disturbing chauvinism under the face of being who you are and defending your right to have sex with as many people as you want. The film still sells audiences the good old fashioned idea that finding "the one" is some sort of panacea that everyone should dream about! Even women who enjoy having sex can be rescued by the notion that out there there's someone willing to forgive them for their previous sluttiness and make honest beings out of them.

Why then, might this movie be worthy of even a minute of your time? Anna Faris. The way in which this woman puts herself through all sorts of incoherent episodes in the name of comedy makes her the ideal heir to a long tradition that features women like Mae West, Carole Lombard and Lucille Ball. Watching Faris' expressive eyes can sometimes deliver a funnier punchline than the words her character is given! Not to mention she even makes the endlessly dull Chris Evans seem funny (and with his shirt on!).

She crafts delightful chemistry with every actor in the film. Her scenes with Martin Freeman are hilarious, her encounters with real life husband Chris Pratt makes you wish they invited you to their home and entertained you with their humor and her moments with Joel McHale encompass the terrors of dating with such sweet sincerity that you can't help but fall for her.

Why hasn't anyone given Ms. Faris the movie she actually deserves?

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs ***

Directors: Phil Lord, Chris Miller

Just when it seemed that the computer animated market had been divided between the brilliant, timeless masterpieces of Pixar and the moneymaking, ludicrous pop exploitations of Dreamworks Animations here comes Sony Pictures with a movie that's quite a treat.
Based on the children's book by Judi Barrett and Don Barrett, "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" is a delightful satire that takes the best from both animated moguls' visions.
It tells the story of Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader) a scientist living in a tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic known for its sardine industry.
All of his life he tried hard to create things that would make people's lives easier, but after failing constantly he finds his opportunity when the sardine industry dies.
People are left eating the remains of their unsold production and the whole town becomes sad and dull, "life became gray" as one of the characters say.
Flint comes up with a machine that transforms water molecules into any food you want (everyone wants junk food of course) and accidentally he aims at the sky causing a hamburger rain to come down and put smiles on people's faces.
Soon he's the town celebrity and he takes requests from everyone to fill the sky menu, but as it usually happens with excess, things get bad before long.
The clever plot works as a satire in two remarkable ways; children will notice that none of the foods featured include liver, soup or Brussels sprouts, instead the town becomes flooded with ice cream, pizza and giant meatballs.
They might not understand the nods to extreme consumerism and world hunger that adults undoubtedly will, but they might think after the movie that maybe living in a house made out of cake isn't as good an idea as they thought...
Grownups on the other side will have a feast with all the movie references (which are not particularly about current pop culture events, but about B movies, Irving Allen disaster flicks and "The Wizard of Oz"), the intelligent take on how it's not so easy to fix world hunger and above all with the brilliant voice cast.
Hader headlines an ensemble that includes the wonderful Anna Faris, the incomparable James Caan and even Mr. T. They all deliver splendid work that creates characters instead of just lending their voices to them.
It's in their everyman-and woman-ness that the film strikes its most tuned chord. Sure it's also insanely funny, sweet and even features a very complex Oedipal, well, complex at the center of it all.
Most interesting of all is the depiction of a colorful world filled with perky TV hosts, ambitious politicians that rely on charisma to gain power, people without food and jobs and governments that distract their people with shiny attractions...
Not so far from the world we live in huh?

While Watching "I Love You, Man"...

...I was delighted to see a Hollywood film that actually put some interest into friendship and wondered when did movies become so love-centered? (summed up beautifully when Jaime Pressly's character asks one of her friends "why does everything have to revolve around you?", to which she anwers "because I'm single!").
In this one the typical rom-com plot is tampered with when the guy (Rudd) already has the girl (Jones) but needs the friend to be his best man.
Enter Segel and all sorts of testosterone driven insanity and sensibility a la Judd Apatow.
The screenplay by director John Hamburg and Larry Levin pokes at both men and women and raises some fascinating ideas (the first half hour is laugh out loud funny!) but then the movie misses its aim and becomes so damn formulaic.
You know, just because you change the characters' genders doesn't mean you can get away with playing by the same rules plot wise (reason why I'm one of the only living people who seriously disliked "Brokeback Mountain").
Even if Segel and Rudd have awesome chemistry (unlike Rudd's with Jones...although that could've been on purpose) the last part of the film falls flat on its face declaring the only universal truth Hollywood has learned about men and women after a century of filmmaking: that we might indeed be from different planets.