Every once in a while, you’ll find a cynic who proclaims Valentine’s Day is a holiday invented by greeting card companies in order to sell their products an additional time per year. Of course, that person is right. Weddings aren’t necessarily the same thing, but they’re close. The wedding industry is absurdly huge and I have to wonder why it’s so many little girls’ dream to have the perfect wedding. Did advertisers get to them? We have countless bridal magazines and reality shows like “Bridezillas,” either glorifying or deifying the act. We see those bridezillas as crazy, but they’re only into getting what they want, which is what they were programmed to want from a young age. The perfect wedding. It’s supposed to celebrate the love of two people, but it’s more of a corporate sham than Christmas. Weddings cost tons of money, get couples instantly in debt and they’re still not finished with the celebration they think they’re supposed to have. The honeymoon comes next. It’s all in an effort to achieve perfection. After the stress on themselves and they’re pocketbooks, they deserve an opportunity to get away from it all. That’s where the main characters find themselves in A Perfect Getaway.

Cliff (Steve Zahn) and Cydney (Milla Jovovich) are newlyweds. Both of their names start with “C,” isn’t that cute (Even worse, did you read about the couple with the exact same name)? They decide to travel to Hawaii for their honeymoon, more specifically the island of Kauai, to go hiking and a little adventure-seeking. Cliff is a recent film school graduate who’s sold his first script (making him a screenwriter, but not screenplay writer), which is currently in pre-production in Canada. However, another writer has been brought onto the project to do a two-week touch-up, thus negating his need to be on set and freeing him up for his honeymoon. What Cydney does is a bit more of an unknown, but she is the consummate newlywed: chipper at all times, missing Cliff after being away from him for just nine minutes and already having their lives planned out, with two boys and three girls.

C&C (music factory?) take their rented Jeep through the forestation and happen upon another recently wed couple, Kale and Cleo, hitchhiking their way up the mountain. Since vacationing in Hawaii as husband and wife is so new to Cliff and Cydney, Cliff decides to do something else uncharacteristic by stopping for the hitchhiking couple and offering them a ride. Cydney becomes immediately apprehensive to the idea, as does Cliff once he sees the tattooed, muscular Kale. The ride is eventually offered, but Kale, sensing their hesitation, angrily tells Cleo to get out of the Jeep and let them go on alone.

Cliff and Cydney get to where they’re going and set to have their first adventure, hiking up a cliff-side trail. They encounter a watery passage that if not approached properly would lead to their deaths far below. A former black ops officer, Nick, helps them navigate around the slippery surface and the couple attaches himself to him for the rest of the hike. Near the end of the day, the three of them run into a group of girls whose father had ordered them home, as police have reported the brutal slayings of a newlywed couple on another Hawaiian island just the day before. Cliff and Cydney follow Nick to a hideaway where his longtime girlfriend, Gina, resides. Kale and Cleo show up unannounced as well, and Cliff and Cydney become increasingly paranoid about whether the couple they’re hanging out with or the one they blew off is out to kill them next.

Olyphant's shirt says "Carolina Basketball." North Carolina's colors are light blue and white. South Carolina's are burgundy and black and is called "South." I'm unaware of any school called "Carolina."

Steve Zahn as the lead in a tropical thriller may sound a bit odd at the outset, but I assure you, his and every one of the six main roles are cast to perfection. It may take until the end of the film to seem that way and I can’t give you specific details as to why without spoiling it, but trust me, it’s true. I’ve never seen Milla Jovovich actually act like a “girl,” before. It was a new experience, but I liked it. She’s always been relegated to portraying the badass heroine from the Resident Evil franchise, Ultraviolet and The Fifth Element. You’d never see her in a romantic comedy and she doesn’t need to reduce herself to that. She’s great here. The standout performance goes to Timothy Olyphant (or Oly-phantasitc as Kevin Smith refers to him) as Nick, though. It’s a shame the star-making role Hollywood handed to him was in Hitman, as he deserved better and proves so in this. Give him something better, Hollywood!

The film was written and directed by David Twohy (Pitch Black, The Chronicles of Riddick), who is only one person, but I wanted to touch upon his job titles individually. You get a sense that David Twohy the screenwriter had a lot of fun with this script. The majority of the film is conversational, with characters telling stories to another and the viewer becomes enrapt with the soliloquies. This is especially the case with the interaction between Cliff and Nick. Nick is a war hero, or at least that’s what all his stories pertain to, who envisions Cliff writing a film about his life. Nick is constantly pitching ideas at him and they’re able to hold conversations about screenwriting. In a similar way to Scream, the screenwriting discussions had between them echo elements in the film we’re watching before our eyes with self-reflexive ingenuity. These are conventions Twohy plays with that the audience can enjoy.

Although a large portion of his script is talkative, Twohy the director certainly doesn’t forget that his film is set in the thriller genre. He possesses the ability to create tension in minute events and even when the audience feels they’re on top of what’s taking place, trying outguess the filmmaker, a new wrinkle is thrown in. A great sequence combining humor, suspense and great visual and aural design comes in a scene where Cliff and Nick sift through vegetation looking for a goat to take down for dinner. Twohy lets character traits move the action and it comes together masterfully. There is a ten-minute or so sequence toward the end of the film in which the killers are revealed, where Twohy used black-and-white nightvision to convey flashback, which I thought carried on too long, but ended up being necessary for the finale.

A Perfect Getaway may not live up to its prestigious title, but it’s at least a good getaway full of thrills and great characterization. Again, the casting is perfect and you’ll know why when you see it. Another positive is for any man looking to get married, but not quite jazzed on spending more money on the honeymoon, maybe this will help talk your wife out of it.

Movies about stalkers are usually thrillers that first involve a romance that leads to deception or murder. Some notable ones would be Fatal Attraction, Swimfan and the forthcoming Obsessed.  One area that hasn’t been explored too much is the stalker film with comedic elements. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is There’s Something About Mary. That film featured several stalkers all trying to get to Mary (Cameron Diaz). It could have been alternately titled It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Mary. I never thought a movie about stalkers could be so funny and it’s why I have a slight interest in seeing Management.

"Whoa! Whoa! The point of bumpers cars is to not bump. The bumpers are just there in case something happens. Like insurance."

Steve Zahn (Rescue Dawn) plays another character with stalker qualities, but has good intentions.  He is Matthew Cranshaw, an employee who works at a roadside motel owned by his parents in Arizona. When Sue Clausen (Jennifer Aniston, Marley and Me), a traveling saleswoman selling art, checks in, Matthew is instantly captivated.  He visits her room with a bottle of champagne, saying it is compliments from management. They start to talk and Matthew ends up asking Sue if he can touch her butt.  Sue, realizing Matthew wants her, agrees to let him.  At this point, I’m not really sure what happens between these two because the trailer blacks out with Matthew commenting that Sue’s butt is “very warm.”  With stupid situations and unfunny lines like these, I may change my mind about seeing this.  After seeing each other that night (whatever the hell they did), Matthew begins his stalker ways by visiting her at work. Sue, perplexed by his presence and well aware of his intentions, begins to hang out with him anyway. Matthew, completely in love with Sue, is crushed when he hears she moved to Washington D.C. without telling him.  When his sick mom (Margo Martindale, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story) tells Matthew he needs to find something in life that makes him happy, he decides to take a cross-country trip to Washington to win Sue’s heart. When he arrives, he discovers Sue has been seeing her ambitious ex-boyfriend Jango (Woody Harrelson, No Country For Old Men). With help from his buddy (James Hiroyuki Liao, “Prison Break”), Matthew goes to any lengths to be with Sue, like playing a keyboard outside her window at night and parachuting into a pool while she is poolside. Sue, at the same time, must figure out what she wants out of life. Is it a stalker?

"To butt touching."

Management was written and directed by Stephen Belber, who makes his directorial debut and has mainly written for television (“Rescue Me”) to this point.

Management seems like a decent romantic comedy and I think the stalking element will be amusing. Let’s hope it doesn’t go overboard with the stupid butt touching jokes, though. “Your butt is round.” Ha. “Your butt is soft.” Haha. “Your butt has more than one cheek.” Hahaha. Yeah, we don’t need that.

Management opens May 15^th.

When a person or thing has “great” as part of its title, expectations for said item grow exponentially. Basketball superstar LeBron James is nicknamed “King,” and his play on the court has backed up the moniker. In contrast, The Great Buck Howard is a film that crumbles under the weight of its name. John Malkovich stars as the titular Buck Howard with the “great” portion of his identification added years ago by talk show host Johnny Carson years ago. Howard is a mentalist, a magician of sorts, who made 61 appearances on “The Johnny Carson Show” back in the day. He hopes to regain the fame that has eluded him of late, aiming to do Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show” and possibly a regular gig in Vegas.

Howard’s career is caught between his being a “has been” and “can still be.” He needs help to make his career work. Enter Colin Hanks, who is on board as Troy Gable. Troy has been bred to be a lawyer, pushed and prodded in that direction by his father his entire life, but he doesn’t see that as the life for him. He drops out of law school and moves to LA to pursue writing, taking a gig as Howard’s road manager to pay the rent. Howard, who is a decade removed from any sort of celebrity relevance, travels the country playing small venues in his variety act, with Troy handling minor assistant duties.

While Buck’s act entertains simpletons in half-empty auditoriums, the story really centers on Troy’s “growth,” of which we see little. On the road he encounters Valerie (Emily Blunt), a publicist in Cincinnati who is trying to assist Howard in getting a crowd for a special trick he plans to perform which could catapult him back into the limelight. A needless love story sidetracks us. Through no rhyme or reason, yet being telegraphed a mile away, the duo fall into a sexual relationship during Troy’s brief stay in the city. They lack any sort of palpable chemistry, despite Blunt’s considerably quirky efforts.

Gotta get the cash, gotta get the dough.

While Malkovich embodies Howard’s self-important diva behavior, I didn’t sense the desperation for a return to stardom that was supposed to be evident in his character. He does his usual yeoman’s work but didn’t elevate his game for a starring role, hitting the big notes but not the subtle ones that could have propelled the film further. Hanks doesn’t help much. While he has little to work with, he also doesn’t flesh any emotion out of Troy’s (and his, perhaps) opportunity to come of age.

Sean McGinly writes and directs, sans flair. His other credits include, well, nothing of any note. There is very little in the way of amusement (I failed to so much as smile), the direction lacks any sort of panache (I was not wowed) and the script is too straight-forward (for this type of film, a veering off-course would have been welcome). It is mostly a fable on how fame is fleeting and difficult to maintain with myopia running rampant in the mind of the fallen star, but it’s also a parable about finding what it is you want to do and living out your dreams. While the message is honorable, it has been done better in countless films.

Colin’s real-life father, Tom Hanks (yes, him), makes a small appearance in two scenes as his father here as well, but he ultimately provides little punch to a largely listless film. Guest shots from the respected Steve Zahn and Ricky Jay don’t provide the wallop we would hope. Stints with several real-life talk show hosts during Howard’s career renaissance (or is it?) conclude in a “too little, too late” sort of wrap to the proceedings.

Part of the “magic” in the story is Troy’s belief that Buck’s most well-known trick, finding his cash payment hidden in the audience at the end of each live performance, is somehow real. While it is never proven how the trick is accomplished, a better trick would have been to add some excitement to this boring affair. This is one film where I would advise you to save your “bucks,” since Buck Howard, as a prominent magazine article declares in the film, is “not so” great.

Some people are born into a natural cleanliness with their lives. It could be brought on by a family life that’s built to be clean and meant to stay that way. Some are born into a family life that needs constant care, because it just can’t keep itself from getting dirty. You have to work hard at achieving that goal. Chemicals and scrubbing tools are necessary. At the heart of Sunshine Cleaning is a family in the latter category. It finds itself in need of a deep cleaning. The question is who’s going to do it and how are they going to get it done.

Rose Lorkowski would find herself alone in the world if she didn’t have a child, a good work ethic and a bright personality. She was the head cheerleader in high school and dated the biggest hunk in school, Mac. She maintains an intimate affair with him long after senior year, sneaking off into hotels with him on a weekly basis, under the guise of classes designed to earn her real estate license. Aside from Rose’s grade school age son, Oscar, the reason for the secretive meetings is Mac, now a police officer, is married and has children. Not the most commendable of acts for a woman in need of cleaning up her life. Then again, it serves as her motivation to do so when she realized Mac’s wife is pregnant again.

Rose also has a dedicated-only-to-herself younger sister, Norah, who still lives at home with their retired father. Norah is a waitress for a small restaurant, who apparently has little interest in continuing, as she quits in an instant bit of embarrassment/frustration. Norah is left to babysit Oscar during Rose’s weekly escapades with Mac, and it’s the only time she appears to be an adult to anybody. Her bedtime stories prove to be a bit too influential for him and he reenacts a bit at school, which lands him in the principal’s office. As cliché goes, the school suggests medication for him and Rose is so embarrassed/offended by the suggestion, she decides to rip Oscar out and put him in a private school. How she affords it is another matter.

Her hourly wage at a maid service just won’t cut it, and Mac suggests a service he encountered at a crime scene. It combines Rose’s skills for cleaning up and his detective world, and will give her a large boost in pay: crime scene clean-up. He gives her the first bit of work and she recruits Norah, freshly unemployed and indirectly responsible for Oscar’s need for private school, to help her in the newfound endeavor. Newbie’s they are, they treat a crime scene like any dirty house and throw blood soaked mattresses in dumpsters and maggot infested material in garbage bags, undercutting competition with their unprofessionalism and lower asking price. Rose and Norah must band together and grow within themselves to create unity for their four-pointed nucleus.

"Did you just sneeze?" "It wasn't me!"

Amy Adams has made a living playing naïve, but bubbly characters. Rose isn’t much of a different take on her usual persona, but I’d argue that it’s her most grown-up role to date. I’ve always thought she was good at what she does. She’s earned two Oscar nominations for her previous supporting efforts in Junebug and Doubt. Here, she has a fatherless child, plays a part in an adulterous affair and drops f-bombs in frustration. This could be the role where she turns a corner into a new stage of her career. This isn’t her finest performance, nor is it her finest role, but she’s easily the best thing in an underwhelming film.

If you take a look at the cast list, you might get the impression of a well-acted film, and that could be the case if the players had any sort of material to work with. Alas, this was not the case. Emily Blunt continues to get closer and closer to starring roles since appearing in The Devil Wears Prada, but her Norah is left completely to fend for herself. There’s a slight subplot involving her quest to befriend a daughter of a clean-up self-victim which develops at a rapid pace to go absolutely nowhere. Alan Arkin plays the aimless father, looking to gain funds off of what can only be described as harebrained schemes. Kind of like a blue-haired Wile E. Coyote. Clifton Collins Jr. plays Winston, a superfluous one-armed character, whose importance didn’t even grant a mention in the plot analysis, but who made enough of irritating impression I felt the need to mention him here. Why does he only have one arm? Beats me. It’s mentioned on two different occasions, but never addressed. Remember Herman, the one-armed ex-vet from “The Simpsons?” The idea was that each time someone asked how he lost the arm, he’d give a different explanation. Just one explanation from Winston would’ve been warranted to enable him to rise above “completely worthless.”

The script was written by Megan Holley and directed by Christine Jeffs. It seems to jet off into several directions, never really grounding itself to tell a fully realized story. There are elements to be admired, one in the concept of crime scene clean-up. It’s not a job I’ve ever seen put to screen before and seems destined to be captured in an episode of The Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs.” There’s a cute story of Rose and Norah always watching out for movies with diner scenes, as their now deceased mother once had a bit role in a movie they knew about, but never were able to glimpse. The difficult part is trying to ascertain what the film is trying to say. Most of the jobs they encounter come from the aftermaths of suicides, and there is an attempt at making a statement on that subject, but it never comes to fruition. I felt after 90 minutes with these characters, I was no closer to understanding who they were than when I first encountered them. They seemed like decent people, but never bothered to reveal themselves.

Amy Adams beginning to headline films is a good thing for all of us, and although this isn’t the calling card she may have wanted, it serves as a stepping stone into the next stage of a career. It’s the script that truly falters her and the rest of the cast. It almost felt to me like I was making up the metaphor of cleaning up one’s life just to serve the purpose of this review, because it’s not something the film willingly presented. Pieces of better material were present, but were gunked up. It’s the script that needed a good wiping down.