100 Movie Challenge 2014 - # 96: A.C.O.D.

Director: Stu Zicherman

Genre: Comedy

Runtime: 90 minutes

Year: 2013

Starring: Adam Scott, Richard Jenkins, Catherine O’Hara, Jane Lynch, Amy Poehler, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jessica Alba

Description: Carter (Adam Scott) is a grown man caught in the crossfire of his parents' 15-year divorce discovers he was unknowingly part of a study on divorced children and is enlisted in a follow-up years later, which wreaks new havoc on his family.

Review: In America the chance of a marriage ending is fifty percent. At least that’s what the beginning of this movie tells us. A.C.O.D. stands for Adult Children of Divorce and the successful Carter is the classic example of that. Always the mediator between his parents, trying to get their approval and always insecure. Then he discovers a book written by a child psychologist, and he is one of the subjects. When Carter’s brother is getting married, he needs his parents to act civil around each other.

Carter’s personality crisis is told in a light fashion and is never dull. This is director Stu Zicherman’s debut film and scenarist Ben Karlin wrote episodes of “Modern Family”. Together they manage to get some good jokes and funny dialogues. Adam Scott fulfills his leading role very well, but it’s his on screen parents Richard Jenkins and Catherine O’Hara that give “A.C.O.D.” the living color. And also Jane Lynch, as psychologist Dr. Judith, steals the show.

There is a good balance between comedy and drama, but towards the end it’s losing that balance. It gets more serious and is trying to go a bit deeper. The humor doesn’t have the edge like a satire, so it doesn’t work.

“A.C.O.D.” is an enjoyable film, a pretty good debut by Stu Zicherman. Sadly it didn’t manage to keep that same level the entire runtime, but it’s still a fun film.

Rating: 3/ 5

Movie Trailer Sunday (101)

Here are this weeks trailers.

Fading Gigolo
Description: Fioravante (John Turturro) decides to become a professional Don Juan as a way of making money to help his cash-strapped friend, Murray (Woody Allen). With Murray acting as his "manager", the duo quickly finds themselves caught up in the crosscurrents of love and money.
Director: John Turturro
Starring: John Turturro, Woody Allen, Liev Schreiber, Sofia Vergara, Sharon Stone, Vanessa Paradis, Max Casella, Bob Balaban, Aida Turturro, Jill Scott
Trailer: Trailer "Fading Gigolo"
Comment: Woody Allen in a movie and not directing. Interesting. John Turturro is very cool, finally a leading role.

A.C.O.D.
Description: A grown man, Carter (Adam Scott), is still caught in the crossfire of his parents' 15-year-old divorce. He discovers he was unknowingly part of a study on divorced children. He's enlisted in a follow-up years later that wreaks new havoc on his family.
Director: Stu Zicherman
Starring: Adam Scott, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Catherine O'Hara, Jane Lynch, Richard Jenkins, Clark Duke, Amy Poehler
Trailer: Trailer "A.C.O.D."
Comment: Looks like a lot of fun. I kinda like Adam Scott...

The Monuments Men
Description: An unlikely World War II platoon, tasked by FDR with going into Germany to rescue artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and returning them to their rightful owners. It would be an impossible mission: with the art trapped behind enemy lines, and with the German army under orders to destroy everything as the Reich fell, how could these guys, seven museum directors, curators, and art historians, all more familiar with Michelangelo than the M-1, possibly hope to succeed?But as the Monuments Men, as they were called, found themselves in a race against time to avoid the destruction of 1000 years of culture, they would risk their lives to protect and defend mankind's greatest achievements.
Director: George Clooney
Starring: George Clooney, Matt Damon, John Goodman, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murrat, Jean Dujardin
Trailer: Trailer "The Monuments Men"
Comment: George Clooney is a fantastic director, looking forward to seeing this.

Philomena
Description: When she fell pregnant as a teenager in Ireland in 1952, Philomena Lee (Judi Dench) was sent to the convent at Roscrea in Co. Tipperary to be looked after as a fallen woman. She cared for her baby for three years until the Church took him from her and sold him, like countless others, to America for adoption. Coerced into signing a document promising never to attempt to see her child again, she nonetheless spent the next fifty years secretly searching for him, unaware that he was searching for her from across the Atlantic. Philomena's son, renamed Michael Hess, grew up to be a top Washington lawyer and a leading Republican official in the Reagan and Bush administrations. But he was a gay man in a homophobic party where he had to conceal not only his sexuality but, eventually, the fact that he had AIDs. With little time left, he returned to Ireland and the convent where he was born: his desperate quest to find his mother before he died left a legacy that was to unfold with unexpected consequences for all involved.
Director: Stephen Frears
Starring: Judi Dench, Steve Coogan
Trailer: Trailer "Philomena"
Comment: I'll probably get this on DVD.

Vampire Academy
Description: Rose Hathaway (Zoey Deutch) is a Dhampir: half human/vampire, guardians of the Moroi, peaceful, mortal vampires living discretely within our world. Her legacy is to protect the Moroi from bloodthirsty, immortal Vampires, the Strigoi. This is her story.
Director: Mark Waters
Starring: Zoey Deutch, Lucy Fry, Danila Kozlovsky, Gabriel Byrne, Sarah Hyland, Joely Richardson, Cameron Monaghan, Sami Gayle, Claire Foy, Ashley Charles
Trailer: Trailer "Vampire Academy"
Comment: Never read the books.