Country Strong *

Director: Shana Feste

Cast: Gwyneth Paltrow, Garrett Hedlund, Leighton Meester

Tim McGraw, Marshall Chapman

Calling a bad movie "the devil's work" is one of the easiest, most economic quips one can use to describe a cinematic work's lacking qualities. Yet the levels of mediocrity and plain incoherence in Country Strong are such, that perhaps not even the devil would be willing to take credit for it.

The movie feels essentially as if you grabbed Nashville, squeezed all the poignancy and humanity out of it, and reworked it as a parody of Dynasty.

The story is so filled with stereotypes and thinly shaped characters that at no moment are you unaware that you're watching a movie, and a very bad one at it.

Paltrow stars as alcoholic country singer Kelly Canter, who checks out of rehab early and sets out on a cross country tour. Why would someone sign an artist straight out of rehab, for what seems like a multi million dollar tour? Who knows? The film seems to be content as long as there's a nice musical intermission to make us forget our troubles (and those of the characters).

Joining Kelly in her journey are two rising stars: bad boy Beau Hutton (Hedlund) and beauty queen Chiles Stanton (Meester), yes, that's what they're called...

All of them are such thinly disguised stereotypes that sometimes you wonder what's the point of the entire film.
We know that Kelly will be jealous of Chiles because she's younger and because she gets all the boys' attention. We know that Beau will be a sexual symbol who exudes masculinity and punches people to get his points across.

What we never really know though, is why are they even in the company of Kelly. All along we're supposed to think of her as a superstar and her supporting characters aren't even famous in their hometowns.

Director Feste seems to have forgotten that movies need more than cute concepts, beautiful artists and self contempt to actually work.
Her characters are so shallow that not only do you wonder how are we supposed to believe they are artists, we start by wondering how do they even stand up from the screenplay.

For all of its propensity to disappoint, the one thing Country Strong gets right is the music, Paltrow may never seem non-New England-ish enough to convince us she's the yee-haw ready Canter but she belts out the tunes like a pro.

Even GOOP dissenters might agree that what she lacks in conviction in this movie, she more than makes up with her Dixie Chick-ness...and that's perhaps all that can be rescued from a movie that's not even sure it wants to help itself.

While Watching the "Country Strong" Trailer...

...a few things caught my eye. Here they are in chronological order.


Yay the first trademark Gwyn "ugh followed by eye roll" I'd seen in ages!


This whole moment featuring Garrett Hedlund (yowza by the way) and Tim McGraw was very Brokeback Mountain and for the first time I found anything that reminds me of that movie to be slightly sexy.


OMG it's Blair!


OMG it's Serena!
OK it's not but isn't Gwynnie doing her best Blake Lively impression here? Or wait, is Blake doing Gwyn all the time?

Also this...


Totally reminds me of this...



I was slightly worried that even if this movie is an obvious awards bait (already being touted as the female Crazy Heart) we didn't get the "Academy Award winner" title before Paltrow's name...
Usually movies aiming for Oscar, squeeze every AMPAS reference they can get out of their whole cast and crew. This movie therefore should have more of a "if you liked the two time Oscar winning Crazy Heart and Jeff Bridges Oscar winning performance you are going to love Oscar winner Gwyneth Paltrow doing something similar and singing soon-to-be Oscar nominated songs!" vibe, instead of just plain mentioning who stars in it.
For that matter I'm already dreaming of Gwyn performing at the Oscars, it never will happen obviously but wouldn't it be amazing if she did a number with her husband?


The hair is glorious by the way!


Watching Gwyn and Tim gave me a very dark thought...
Unconsciously I wished that Tim became a good luck charm for actresses to win an Oscar. Which means that for a second or two I was OK with Sandra Bullock's win!
What's wrong with me?


Finally "that's how it's done."

I'm incredibly excited about this movie even if country music doesn't really do a thing for me (I love the Dixie Chicks but country connoisseurs say they don't count...).
What are your thoughts? Is Gwyn back? Doesn't Leighton look magnificent? Where the hell did this Garrett man come from? Are you singing the title song already?

The Blind Side *1/2

Director: John Lee Hancock
Cast: Sandra Bullock
Tim McGraw, Quinton Aaron, Lily Collins, Jae Head
Ray McKinnon, Kathy Bates

The phrase "based on a true story" becomes a warning in this movie.
A warning that the events we are about to see are pimped versions of a person's life, tampered with so that Hollywood will continue its crusade for establishing middlebrow conservative values as the status quo.
It grabs the story of NFL player Michael Oher (Aaron) and deforms it to turn it into an "old fashioned" account of how good sportsmanship, strong family ties and money can help overcome any adversity.
Born and raised in the projects of his hometown in Tennesse, Oher is a big, silent teenager who is accepted in a Christian school (after the coach, played by McKinnon, sees his potential and manipulates the board by suggesting taking him in is the Christian thing to do).
But Michael feels out of place in a school where he's the only poor, black, taller than the average student, he even writes an essay about it, proving to his teachers that he can write and read.
Things change for him when he's taken in by the Tuohys a good, wealthy family who feeds him, clothes him and teaches him about football.
Mom Leigh Anne (Bullock) is the family, and the film's, center, her husband Sean (a charming McGraw) is there for moral support and their kids Collins and S.J. (Collins and Head) serve for comic relief mostly.
The thing with "The Blind Side" is that as it indulges in its own sense of morality and joy, it works like a 1940s movie minus the age factor.
This is no longer the day and age where Bing Crosby could get away with singing a song and fixing divorces, alcoholics and evil landlords. Try as it may, the movie's "all American goodness" is in fact racism hidden under Bullock's perkiness.
It has to be said that her performance is a surprise because the actress has rarely shown this maternal, Earthy side.
But her charm and star power aren't enough to justify the fact that this woman had the nerve to star in a movie that has the guts to say that even an eight year old kid can do better reasoning than an eighteen year old black man. Of course they use it as comic relief and Head is a charmer, in the right doses.
But as the white characters fend accusations of "white guilt", this is in fact precisely where the movie falls.
Oher is compared to "King Kong" and the screenplay tries to fix this by making reference to the Jessica Lange version, to prove that these people are too ignorant for the original.
And even when sassy tutor Ms. Sue (Bates) compares Oher to a Charles Dickens character, the intended uplifting plays out like disdainful condescension.
Oher is reduced to the role of the "magical negro" and the worst part is that the movie is so blind that it thinks it's actually doing good to him.