Up & Coming Weekly

28 UCW OCTOBER 7-13, 2009 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer COMMENTS? 484-6200 ext. 222 or editor@upandcomingweekly.com Jennifer's Body (102 min- utes) is an utterly bizarre mix of awesomeness and foolishness. I wanted to love it and declare it splendid, but that just isn't possible. Was it the writer's fault? Well, Juno, Diablo Cody's screenwriting debut, was lovely, and The United States of Tara is good enough to watch twice. Normally, the easi- est way to explain the abounding sil- liness of a movie with a first-class writer (that should have ruled!) is to blame the director. In this case, the director is legend in the making K aryn Kusama, who directed both Girlfight AND Aeon Flux. She's okay in my book, so we can't blame her. Let's take the easy way out and blame Megan Fox! She is far too vapid to inject the inten- sity needed to pull off the titular character and isn't quite mean enough to play the Mean Girl. She knows how to pair tight jeans with a cleavage baring top, but that's about all she's bring- ing to the table. And Fox is bad enough, but Amanda Seyfried's only real talent is her ability to play a teenage whinypants. For a film that is meant primarily as a nod to female empowerment, the people in charge of casting really missed the boat. Wasn't Ellen Paige available? Make-up artists do their best to nerd-ify Seyfried for the role of Anita "Needy" Lesnicki. Securely disguised in lumpy flan- nels, glasses, and a ponytail, she trails along behind the busy, popular Jennifer (Fox). Though they are supposed best friends, their friendship is confined to Megan ordering Needy around while Needy sublimates her Ginormous Jennifer Envy into pleasing her boyfriend, Chip (Johnny Simmons). After a day of casu- ally feeding Needy's insecurity, Jennifer is ready to party. She takes her friend to a seedy dive bar where she shoots flirtatious energy over the lead act, with obvious consequences. This blandly generic, vaguely emo boy band proceed with their hilari- ously specific agenda, despite the attempted intervention of her sensibly cautious friend. Later that night, a severely wrecked Jennifer creeps out Needy in her darkened kitch- en, wasting a perfectly delicious looking chicken in the process. In the days following, mysterious deaths begin to disturb the populace. The plot creeps towards interesting, but all the best nar- rative developments are torpedoed by a combination of poor dialogue delivery and bad acting. Luckily for the audience, there was plenty of gratuitous sex and violence, not to mention some very romantic scenes between the two female leads. All the sexiness prevents the audience from noticing how quickly the plot degenerates into a series of meaningless encounters between the leads, culminating in a semi- interesting conclusion. Really, there are moments of brilliance. The soundtrack is great, with even the made up bands fitting perfectly into the overall canvas of the movie. The relationship dynamic between Jennifer and Needy works, even if the two leads don't do a great job of selling it. Unfortunately, everyone is trying too hard. The big screen is not doing this film any favors. The movie is tanking at the box office because once you have seen it, you won't need to watch it again. Equal Parts Awesome and Foolish Jennifer's Body (Rated R) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS MILLSTONE 14 910-354-2124 3400 Footbridge Ln . (Camden Rd. off of Hope Mills Rd.) w w w . S t o n e T h e a t r e s . c o m O P E N S O C T 1 6 ! O P E N S O C T 1 6 ! 14 Wall-to-Wall Screens 2600+ Seats High Back Luxury Leather Rockers State-of-the-art Digital Surround Sound (DOLBY and DTS) and multiple 3-D feature screens Gourmet Concessions Rear Window Captioning for the hearing impaired Wall-to-Wall Screens Wall Scr c The Cumberland County Board of Commissioners believes that all citizens should have the opportunity to participate in governmental decisions. One way of participating is by serving as a citizen member of the Cumberland County Mental Health Board. The Mental Health Board has a vacancy in each of the following categories, Openly Declared Consumer with Mental Illness, Representative with a Family Member or from a Citizen's Organization who Advocates for Persons with a Developmental Disability and At Large Member. If you feel you are qualified and wish to be considered for appointment to the Mental Health Board under one of these categories, please contact the Office of the County Commissioners at (910) 678-7772 to request an application. Applications are also available online at www.co.cumberland.nc.us. YOU MUST BE A RESIDENT OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY TO APPLY. Applications must be submitted for consideration no later than Tuesday, October 27, 2009. Please note that some of the Mental Health Board meetings occur during the day. If you are unable to attend meetings during the day, you may want to check the meeting schedule of the Mental Health Board before submitting an application by contacting the Mental Health Area Board Clerk at (910) 222-6133. N O T I C E

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