Movies This Week: Natalie Portman Enjoys Casual Sex, Ben Affleck’s Fired

By Neal - Johns Hopkins January 21, 2011 3:30 pm Posted in Cool Stuff, culture, Funny Stuff, Movies, Video Neal - Johns Hopkins g+ page

The Green Hornet beat out The Dilemma at the box office over MLK weekend with nearly twice the revenue, $40 mil to $20 mil. January’s a tough month for theatrical releases; it’s a timeframe where studios dump their less than stellar projects and productions with modest to low expectations. For The Green Hornet to perform like it did is a surprise. This week’s new entries feature casual sex, unemployment, hired help, and the long road to freedom. Amazing how each of those themes can lead to the other. Hired help gets fired and must use a f*ck buddy to gain financial independence. I pump out gems, people. Check our preview of this week’s new releases below…

No Strings Attached
Paramount Pictures

Two lifelong friends have sex one morning then worry their friendship might be ruined, so they make a pact to have casual sex without falling in love with each other. This opportunity for Natty Port to have one last fling before awkwardly laughing with one man for the rest of her life is among the dishonorable mentions on our Most Anticipated Movies of 2011 list. I’m sorry but if you think Ashton Kutcher doesn’t cheat on Demi, then you’re a better man than me. For some reason, I can’t take Natalie seriously in this film. I just don’t think she’s believable as the sex-crazed doctor who just wants guilt free intercourse. My guess is the news about her getting engaged and preggers via a dance choreographer kinda ruined it for me. Film also stars Kelly from The Office, Juno’s best friend, and Children’s Hospital’s Lake Bell.

The Company Men
The Weinstein Company

This film follows a white-collar corporate employee who loses his six-figure salary job then helps out his blue-collar working brother-in-law installing dry-wall while looking for a new gig. The New York Observer wrote the film “does a piercing job of making you feel the dehumanizing effects that losing a job can have on grown men, but it’s more truthful and devastating than that.” The film was named one of the best films of 2010 by The New Yorker. It was also named eligible for the 2010 Academy Award for Best Picture. Film stars Ben Affleck, Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones, Maria Bello, and Craig T. Nelson. This will draw comparisons to the Oscar-nominated 2009 flick, Up In The Air, but can Affleck outdo Clooney’s performance? Can Costner carry the Boston accent without sounding goofy? We’ll see.

The Housemaid
IFC Films

This intensely erotic melodrama features a young, hot, POA who’s hired as a nanny in a lavish mansion by a debonair businessman and his very pregnant wife. She gets romantically involved with the head of the household and falls victim to a series of traps laid by the preggo wife, her villainous mother, and their housekeeper. The nanny must outwit the vicious family to escape with her life. The international premiere took place at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival and The Hollywood Reporter called the film “a flamingly sexy soap opera”.

The Way Back
Newmarket Films

This indie drama based on the novel “The Long Walk” comes from six-time Oscar Nominee Peter Weir (Master & Commander, The Truman Show, Witness). It focuses on 7 courageous multi-national prisoners who escape a Siberian labor camp in 1940 and embark on an epic journey that takes them across thousands of miles of hostile terrain en-route to India and their freedom. Film stars Ed Harris and Colin Farrell. I gotta say, Colin’s been doing a sh*t ton of indie releases lately. Is he fed up with the major studios or is this his way of hitting on hipster chicks?