Ted 2, A Little Chaos, Infinitely Polar Bear, Eden, Glass Chin, 3 ½ Minutes 10 Bullets, Batkid Begins

Ted 2

A Little Chaos



Infinitely Polar Bear

Eden



Glass Chin

3 ½ Minutes 10 Bullets





Batkid Begins

Ted 2 (Scruffies' rating)

Ultra-quick capsules (sounds like an antihistamine ad) on a mostly poor week of movies:

Entourage

Doug Ellin should call Steve Pink to thank him personally.

American Sniper, The Gambler

American Sniper

The Gambler

War movies are not, as Daniel would say, my very favorite genre.

Lone Survivor, The Invisible Woman, The Selfish Giant

Lone Survivor



The Invisible Woman

The Selfish Giant

A trio of discommendations round out the year in film. Call it Bleaker, Bleak House, Bleakest.

2 Guns

I don't know why "2 Guns."

Pain & Gain

"Pain & Gain" is a comedy, folks. A Michael Bay comedy. And believe it or not, it's funny, sometimes very funny. Mark Wahlberg stars as Daniel Lugo, a Miami personal trainer with dollar signs in his eyes who puts together a ragtag crew of dim-bulb criminals (Dwayne Johnson as an ex-con who found Jesus in stir and, from "Night Catches Us," Anthony Mackie as a juicehead who's sacrificed his family jewels at the altar of anabolic steroids) to kidnap the ultimate wrong guy, one of Lugo's clients, a seemingly unbreakable Colombian deli owner with the great movie name of Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub).

Broken City

Of all the movies I've ever seen, "Broken City" is one of them. There's just nothing distinctive or memorable about this chop-shop amalgam of stock characters, overdetermined plot points, and empty political rhetoric - which is disappointing, given the solid cast.

Ted

I have little use for those who don’t love teddy bears. For a child (or a child at heart), a teddy bear can be a source of comfort in moments of fear and sadness, a bosom friend, a gateway to the wonderful world of the human imagination. So my reaction to Seth MacFarlane’s teddy-come-to-life comedy “Ted” was always going to depend largely on whether MacFarlane fundamentally loves bears or not. The answer, I think, is that he does, and that the movie’s coarse vulgarity does not reflect an abiding animus toward teddies. Unfortunately – and it’s close – the four-letter words ultimately overwhelm the actual funny bits.

Contraband

Mark Wahlberg stars as Chris Farraday, a Mark Wahlberg-esque Mark Wahlberg and top international smuggler who, not wanting to rot in stir with Pops now that he's married to Kate Beckinsale and has two athletic young sons, has gone straight installing alarm systems. But Kate's kid brother owes a whacked-out hood (Giovanni Ribisi, typecast) seven hundred large, so Chris has to make one last run to Panama for the huge score that'll solve everyone's problems. He enlists best bud Sebastian (Ben Foster) to reunite his team and watch over Kate and the kids (Sebby's also trying, but failing, "to bring you a show with no intoxication").