Cyrus

This was a movie that got quite a bit of attention back in 2010 from the critics. It did not get much love from the audiences however. Still it would seem that a movie like this is not made with the expecttion to be a blockbuster but a niche film. With that purpose it does succeed.

John C Reilly who has more expression is his face that most any group of actors plays John a lonely divorced man. When his ex wife Jamie played by Catherine Keener tells him that after seven years of divorce she is going to remarry John is devastated. Jamie invites him to a party and he agrees to come. After having little success in meeting new people he retires to the bushes to pee and bumps into Molly (Marissa Tomei.) An awkward way to meet but they chat and talk, hit it off and she goes home with him.

The next might they visit again and for the second time Molly leaves and does not spend the night. John curious follows her home and eventually in snooping around her house comes face to face with her twenty one year old son named Cyrus.

It soon becomes apparent that Cyrus is a bit strange. He and his Mom are exceptionally close, in a way that is a bit awkward to John. Still he and Molly both feel strongly for each other and their relationship blossoms.

Cryus is not happy and begins to manipulate his Mom to try to pull her away from Cyrus. Eventually he moves out, wanting to be begged to stay. His Mom does not and John moves in. One night they come home and begin to be romantic and then realize that Cyrus is sitting alone in the dark. Cyrus wants to move home and he soon starts to be a burden on the relationship.

Eventually John lets him know that he knows what game Cyrus is up to. They go to John's ex's wedding, as they are still good friends, and Cyrus has too much to drink. He confront John and attacks him. As John defneds himself they tumble too the ground and with her mothering nature activated Molly defends Cyrus.

From there Molly must decide what has been going on with Cyrus and how to move forward. Cyrus is played by Jonah Hill in a very strong performance.

Moneyball

When my wife is interested in a sports movie it is a rare thing but as this movie was heavily promoted it did gain her interest. So last weekend we did go see the new film starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill.

Based on a book by Micheal Lewis the book examines the Oakland A's baseball team early in the last decade and the methodology they used to consistently put a winning team on the filed with a limited budget.

Brad Pitt plays Billy Beane the reknown GM who was perhaps the first G M to embrace sabermetrics fully. Overcoming objections from perhaps everyone in his organization Beane sees this as the only way to keep the team competitive after losing Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon and others in one off season.

Pitt is likable in this movie, this in itself is a plus as I do not usually have much good to say about his acting but in this movie he works well. Jonah Hill plays a compostite character, mostly based on Beane's assistant Paul Depodesta. A nerdy kill out of Yale who feels he has found a formula devoid of the attachment to old school statistics such as RBI's and Batting Average.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman has a scene stealing role as Oakland manager Art Howe who hear now in 2011 is not happy with the way he is portrayed in the movie but what seems beyond doubt is he and Beane consistently clashed over the use of sabermetrics in building and managing the team.

In this new world numbers like OBP are more important. As we now know that was just the beginning. Now we have OPS and WARP as numbers that mean more than we may never know in making teams.

This is a good movie. It is interesting. Still if one does not care for baseball it is hard to see the personality of Pitt carrying it to great heights.

Superbad

My wife likes to be popular and at times is more liberal than me. I had this movie taped to preview and last night with little on TV and with my middle son not interested in anything even slightly made to teach a person something we thought about watching this.

She thought it would be ok for him to watch and then 15 minutes in after sex jokes, drug jokes and masturbation jokes a plenty she looked at me like what are we doing.

The movie, one of Judd Apatow's creations, starring Micheal Cena and Jonah Hill is about what one would expect. Teen comedies rely on drinking, sex and drugs. The " McLovin" category is a funny offshoot with Bill Hader and Seth Rogan as police officers.

The movie offers a bit of a moral as both characters after relying on booze to help them " get with " the girl of their dreams" both find out that will not get them to where they want to be.

It is crude and foolish but at times funny. Still hard to advise someone to watch.