Greenberg

A quick glance at the user comments on imdb.com reveals that not all are content with Greenberg.  "Please, do yourself a favor and spend an evening donating blood or volunteering to be a human canon ball before you waste any time watching this garbage," pleads one reviewer.  ("It was not entertaining at all!" notes another reviewer, less memorably).  It's easy to understand why some would find the movie so off-putting.  For starters, it features one of the least likable main characters of recent memory.  Also, the plot mostly just consists of that character yelling at other people for no good reason.  Apart from that though, the movie is easy sailing.  Although the main character may not be likable, he is complicated, nuanced, realistic, and -- if you look hard enough - may possess at least a few redeeming qualities.  To see Ben Stiller (who hasn't attempted a serious role in over a decade) hit it so far out of the park is something of a revelation.  And as good as Stiller is, he is at least equalled by Greta Gerwig -- the so-called Queen of Mumblecore (the indie subgenre which focuses on people who talk to each other in their apartments) -- who after this should have no problem finding roles in non-mumblecore movies.

extra features:
--A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Greenberg
--Greenberg Loves Los Angeles
--Noah Baumbach Takes a Novel Approach

Ratings:  IMDb - 6.8/10    Metacritic - 76    Rotten Tomatoes - 73%



Chloe

The last decade has not been kind to Canadian director Atom Egoyan.  After establishing himself as a world-class auteur in the mid-1990s with the one-two punch of Exotica and The Sweet Hereafter, it seemed that Egoyan had run out of things to say, and -- perhaps to throw people off his trail -- was overcompensating by coming up with with ridiculously complicated ways of saying it (Ararat, Where the Truth Lies, Adoration).  With Chloe, Egoyan comes frustratingly close to proving that he is still capable of making a good movie.  What begins as a first-rate Hitchcockian thriller about a jealous gynecologist (Julianne Moore) and her far-fetched plot to expose the adultery of her husband (Liam Neeson) devolves in the final fifteen minutes into outright camp.  It's elegantly shot and the acting is first-rate, but it becomes very difficult to take seriously.
    
extra features:
--Commentary with actress Amanda Seyfried, director Atom Egoyan and writer Erin Cressida Wilson
--Introducing Chloe: The Making of Chloe
--Deleted Scenes

Ratings:  IMDb - 6.6/10    Metacritic - 48    Rotten Tomatoes - 53%



The Greatest

The first feature by writer/director Shana Feste features so much hysterical, anguished crying that it's hard to tell if the acting is really, really good, or really, really bad.  Since the film stars such heavy-weights as Susan Sarandon, Carey Mulligan, and Pierce Brosnan, it's tempting to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they are really, really good.  (Then again, since the movie more or less went straight to DVD, it could be that they are actually really, really bad).  The reason for all the crying: a car accident that takes the life of a well-liked and enthusiastic teenage boy.  When his girlfriend (Mulligan) shows up at the door of his parents (Sarandon and Brosnan) and reveals that she is pregnant, more crying ensues.  As far as over-wrought, melodramatic tear-jerkers go, The Greatest is at the very least a cut above the recent adaptations of the novels of Nicholas Sparks.  That Dear John and The Last Song were widely released in theaters and this wasn't is difficult to fathom.

extra features:
--Interviews with director Shana Feste, Pierce Brosnan, Carey Mulligan and Johnny Simmons
--Deleted scenes

Ratings:  IMDb - 6.6/10    Metacritic - 45    Rotten Tomatoes - 50%



The Bounty Hunter
 
The best thing that can be said about The Bounty Hunter is that it's not quite as bad as The Killers -- one of the other movies from 2010 about bickering couples who blow things up while being chased around by dangerous thugs.  That said, if you absolutely must see a movie from 2010 about bickering couples who blow things up while being chased around by dangerous thugs, just wait for the DVD release of Knight and Day.

extra features:
--Making The Bounty Hunter
--Rules for Outwitting a Bounty Hunter
--Stops Along The Road: Hunting Locations

Ratings:  IMDb - 5.1/10    Metacritic - 22    Rotten Tomatoes - 8%