Harrelson Helps Kunis and Timberlake in Friends With Benefits

Friends With Benefits is a romcom that carried a ton of buzz into its opening. After the trailer was posted on You Tube, it took only 2 days to reach 1 million views. Special video announcements were made for Facebook and Twitter. And two superstars of the social-media generation (Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake) were secured to each play their biggest movie roles yet.

The only thing missing was a name. The film was originally called No Strings Attached, but that name was taken by a flick, starring Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman, that beat this one to the punch. I guess that means Topher Grace will be the next That 70s Show star in a formulaic movie about friends falling in love. Friends With Benefits was lucky to get out of the gate with this title as well. An unrelated NBC sitcom with the same name is just about set to launch.

So what of the inspired promotional campaign and the uninspired title? The bottom line is that Kunis and Timberlake tend to force their acting a bit, but end up being believable and likable. I'm inclined to say that the storylines of Timberlake's dad having Alzheimer's and not knowing his wife has left him and Kunis' mom as an over-sexed child of the 70s are too serious for the movie's light tone. But, then again, these stories serve to help us understand why the stars have such a damaged view of relationships.

Kunis is a headhunter who helps Timberlake secure a big-time job as art director at GQ. These two are complemented by Woody Harrelson, who plays GQ's sports editor. He appears sparingly, but when he does, he steals every scene. All his lines are golden.

Harrelson, and the chemistry of the two stars, helps propel Friends With Benefits into a better-than-average romcom.

*** out of ***** stars

Hollywood Movies Stink Up a Recent Flight for Me

Being a newish dad, I don't watch the sheer amount of movies I did when I was younger. So I either make sure most of what I see is award-worthy or at the other end of the spectrum and completely brain-dead fun.

Apparently, I'm not missing much out of Hollywood these days. And unfortunately, I only hit the mark of my requirements for three of the movies I watched on a recent really long flight.

Pathetically, the film that met those requirements was Bad Teacher. And when that is the pick of your film marathon, it inspires a big "oh boy."

That said, my expectations were low, and Bad Teacher was actually pretty enjoyable. Cameron Diaz was back near her It's a Shame About Mary level of hilarity, Jason Segal (see The Muppets and Forgetting Sarah Marshall) seems to be can't-miss these days, and Justin Timberlake was sufficient. Perhaps I was delirious towards the end of said long flight, but it seemed to actually be a pretty decent statement on the quality of many of our schools and some of the superficialities of our society in general.

Where the allure of the latest film version of the classic novel Jane Eyre lies, I don't know. I just didn't get the boring BBC production of this one. I think the main problem was that leads Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender had no dramatic range whatsoever, despite the next-big-thing status of each. This is one of the few movies I've seen lately that was almost routinely adored by critics but shrugged off by me.

But the movie I was really disappointed by was Super 8. It seemed like this would be Stand By Me-like, with a bunch of unproven kids steering a Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams (of Lost) production. It starts promisingly, and then a massive train explosion that the group witnesses seems like it will take the story in interesting directions. But then it dragged so slowly towards a completely forgettable conclusion that badly wanted to be E.T. but was more like a SyFy Channel show that gets cancelled after the pilot. I can't begin to understand what Hollywood was thinking with Super 8.

Bad Teacher: *** out of ***** stars
Jane Eyre: ** out of ***** stars
Super 8: *1/2 out of ***** stars