Every movie season, there’s about ten to twenty films that the critics just go to town on, and Adam Sandler’s “Jack and Jill” seems to be one of those films. Well, not seems–it is one of those films. It was destined to be such once critics found out he was making it as well as starring in both the brother and sister roles.

Before Sunday, the film was at a measly 2% on Rotten Tomatoes. Now, it’s at 3%. The audience was far kinder by giving it a rating in the double digits, 57%, but it’s still terrible. The movie was so terrible, MovieLine wrote an article about the nine most scathing reviews about the film. Let’s see what some of the critics said, and if anyone had anything good to say about “Jack and Jill”:

“Sandler has become a good actor of late, but here he gives over most of his talents to Jill, who is so screechy, needy, and lovelorn that you can hardly blame Jack for wanting to fade into the background.”–Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor

“A marathon of Tyler Perry’s Madea flicks is preferable to ‘Jack and Jill,’ a noxious PG comedy starring Adam Sandler as a pair of middle-aged male-female twins that should have been separated at birth to spare us from this movie.”–Jennie Punter, Globe and Mail “The apocalypse starts here.”–Tom Long, Detroit News Cruel, huh? What did you think about the film? Was it, as Long said, the beginning of the apocalypse? Give your opinions below.

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The evil king, Hyperion of Crete seeks to invade Greece and conquer the Gods of Olympus by using the fabled Epirus Bow to unleash the Titans from their imprisonment in the bowels of Mount Tartarus. Planning for this moment, a disguised Zeus has been giving guidance to Theseus since his boyhood and now hopes for Theseus to inspire the Grecians to thwart the king.

That's the basic premise of the latest movie from director Tarsem Singh, "Immortals." Tarsem's past movies have included the serial killer movie "The Cell" (which I really enjoyed) and "The Fall" (which I haven't seen, but I'll have to rectify that), and are both marked by his unique visual style. That unique visual style is also the real star of "Immortals."

But that's not to say that there isn't more at work here, there certainly is. I know liberties have been taken with Theseus' story for this film which I'm sure will upset the purists. The myth gets translated into a new version that has a real emphasis on bloody pulp adventure more than anything else. As I said in my review for "The Three Musketeers," I'm a big comic book fan and I'm used to seeing classic characters get new translations, and that's certainly at play here. I'm open to this, but can certainly understand that others might be upset by it. If you're thinking about seeing this and you absolutely have to see the pure story of Theseus, you're probably going to be disappointed.

I wasn't and just had a real ball with this movie. Oh, I'll certainly grant that it has its holes and that its characters are somewhat limited, but for this film, that just didn't bother me. As I said above, Tarsem's visual style is the big star here and oh... this film just revels in it.

There is an artificiality in the look of the film that I just find really appealing and gives the film more the sense of watching it play out on a really big and elaborate stage more than being filmed on live locations. Last year's "The Warrior's Way" did this with spectacular results and it's also in evidence on Starz's terrific Spartacus TV series. Of course, many comparisons are being drawn to what Zack Snyder did with "300" which is inevitable, but Tarsem steps that up a bit with a few of his own tricks, in particular a little twist on the slow-motion fight sequences that occur at the end of the film between the Gods and the Titans. These sequences have the Titans falling in battle in slow-motion while simultaneously having the Gods continue their fight in a sped up way. It's absolutely stunning watching these play out, even moreso considering the color palette used in the scenes and having the Gods stand out in their gleaming golden attire.

Now that's not to say that the cast doesn't do a good job, they certainly do, but they take a back seat to the visuals. Henry Cavill (the new Superman for Zack Snyder's upcoming movie) plays the part of Theseus and certainly has conviction to the role, though the character doesn't have any real complexity, but then for this type of movie, I thought that was just fine. He absolutely looks the part and after this, I'm even more enthusiastic to see what he'll do as Superman. Frieda Pinto (last seen in one of the big surprise hits of the year, "Rise of the Planet of the Apes") plays Phaedra, the oracle who sees what's to come. She certainly has more to do here than she did in "Rise" and she's an stunning beauty. Luke Evans (last seen as Aramis in "The Three Musketeers") and John Hurt share the role of Zeus with Hurt playing Zeus as he appears to the mortals and Evans as Zeus appears to the Gods. Both are a lot of fun to watch, though Evans gets the best of it by being showcased in some of the spectacular end fight scenes. Steven Dorff (who I wouldn't have expected to see in a movie like this) plays Stavros, a thief turned sidekick to Theseus, and while he doesn't quite shine as brightly as others, he stills looks like he's having a ball with the part.

The real standout in the cast though is Mickey Rourke as King Hyperion. Rourke is at the top of his game here, not just physically but really giving out this whole atmosphere of threat and sadism. He's just magnetic in the part and shines every time he's on screen.

I saw this in 3D and I thought it was really well done, though not necessarily for in-your-face effects. Opinions vary wildly on 3D and certainly with good reason, though now I'm becoming more and more convinced that it really does depend on where you see it. At the theatre that I regularly attend, "Immortals" was being shown in their newest and most state-of-the-art presentation. The picture was bright and detailed with the 3D really highlighted things like planes in faces and subtle differences in character placement. As I said above, "Immortals" has an artificial look that looks like it's being played out on a huge stage and for me, the 3D heightened that effect. I don't think it's absolutely necessary to see this in 3D, but if you're still supportive of the gimmick and have access to a room with primo presentation, I'd certainly recommend seeing "Immortals" that way.

I saw "Immortals" with three other friends and we all came away with this just having a fantastic time with it. It certainly does have its shortcomings with some aspects of its story and characters. But, its stunning visuals and pure bloody pulp presentation drive it in such a way that at least for me was just electric. I'd very much recommend seeing it, though I suspect I'm going to be in the minority for my enjoyment.

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Clint Eastwood’s biopic of the innovative, paranoid lawman who became as notorious as the criminals he hunted as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar is a modest chamber drama that doesn’t offer its audience many of the comforts of the usual Hollywood historical epics – Eastwood’s whispering piano score and a monochromatic look that almost appears black-and-white in many scenes are evidence that he is not interested in exaggeration. J. Edgar may strike many as a somber slog when confronted with its deeply flawed characters, measured pacing, and stoic emotional moments – the first scene gives false hope for excess-junkies when it opens with a bomb blast, but most of the picture is a weary overview of Hoover’s influence on modern methods of law enforcement, his intimidating later presence in politics, and a private relationship with one Clyde Tolson.

In a stellar make-up job that is at first distracting and at some point utterly convincing, Leonardo DiCaprio reigns in some of his flamboyant acting tics to play a grousing, psychologically tormented Hoover aging out of relevance, voyeuristically cataloguing the private lives of others in secret files, and dictating his memoirs as a series of mythmaking epochal moments with him at the center. DiCaprio’s complex take on Howard Hughes in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator has seasoned him well to play the hermitic, less daring role of Hoover in a performance that may go unheralded but is in some ways a greater feat for its lack of vanity and willingness to portray a rather mundane (even pathetic) figure.

Writer Dustin Lance Black, fresh from an Oscar win for the Milk screenplay, has a knack for episodically touching on key historical events like the trial and execution of leftist radical Emma Goldman, the rash of marquee-ready gangsters during the Prohibition era, and the JFK assassination, but reserves a large chunk of the running time to the most famous crime of its day – the “Lindbergh baby” kidnapping.

Black’s script gives most of its emotional heft to the fragile homosexual bond between Hoover and his lifetime companion Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer first seen as an alien-looking silhouette outside Hoover’s office). The greatest hurdle this movie faces is being mistaken for camp by those unfamiliar with Hoover’s leanings (especially his penchant for cross-dressing) and unprepared for the tender and volatile love between the two men. Since his secret life was made public by biographers, J. Edgar Hoover has become a punch line in a dress; now is a good time to set that aside and appreciate the subject for his private torment brought on by a domineering mother (Judi Dench) and the long-term consequences of his ego-damaged control of a government agency.

Maybe the borderline kitsch of some scenes is down to Eastwood’s unsure handling of the homosexual subtext. He finds more confident artistic ground in the Lindbergh storyline – just take a look at the lineage of children-in-peril at the center of Mystic River, Changeling, and A Perfect World. The movie switches genres a few times (gangster yarn, domestic drama, historical Cliff Notes) but nowhere does Eastwood excel more than in the grim account of the Lindbergh case.

Make no mistake though, the events of history serve only as background to the unrequited attraction of Tolson and Hoover in closeted America that, given the proper empathy, turns out to be one of the saddest, truest love stories of the year. J. Edgar feels unbalanced at times (the later Kennedy and Nixon years feel rushed), but the overall effect is the humanizing of an often-times reprehensible public figure without slipping into gossip or aggrandizement with a mature, interior performance from Mr. DiCaprio.

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It’s the end of the world as we know it, and Lars von Trier feels … well, depressed. That’s not an entirely unusual state for Mr. von Trier, the cinematic provocateur whose highly stylized indie film spectacles — including such acts of big-screen cruelty as “Antichrist” and “Dogville” — have plumbed the depths of human depravity.

His latest, “Melancholia,” is a film about the spectacular destruction of the Earth — before the end of the first reel, a long-hidden planet sneaks out from behind the sun and blows the whole planet to bits. It’s a disaster movie of sorts, like “2012” for the Euro-friendly art-house set.

The difference is that the destruction that has Mr. von Trier down is on a much smaller scale than any Hollywood blockbuster. With “Melancholia,” he offers a gorgeous, self-serving lament about the general miserableness of everything — marriage, family, work, advertising, wealth, capitalism and human relationships in general. It’s (by design) a movie only people who hate everything can love.

After opening with a jaw-dropping slow-motion setpiece that ends when the two planets collide, Mr. von Trier steps back in time to capture a different sort of disaster: a wedding. The bride and groom, Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgard), arrive hours late to their own reception, held at the mammoth estate of Justine’s tightly wound sister, Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her endlessly frustrated husband (Kiefer Sutherland). She’s just in time to watch her bitter, selfish parents (Charlotte Rampling and John Hurt) hurl insult-laden speeches at each other, and to be pressed repeatedly by her advertising company boss (Stellan Skarsgard) to complete yet another product tagline before the night’s over.

Mr. von Trier spins viewers through an hourlong fun house of domestic triviality and tragedy — isn’t it so maddeningly awful to be comfortably middle class? — before scaling down even further with a second hour focused on Claire, and Justine’s declining mental state.

It’s a moody, misanthropic fantasy that throws up its hands and declares that the world is so awful it would be better if it was just over — and then goes ahead and literally smashes the planet into a million beautiful pieces.

That’s right, beautiful. Many of Mr. von Trier’s previous films were constricted, formalistic exercises in intellectualized sneering — part juvenile Brechtian brutality, part Artaud-inspired cinema of cruelty. They reveled in their off-putting ugliness, their lack of emotional hooks; the idea was to be difficult.

But “Melancholia” is an altogether different sort of creation — at once both bigger in scale and more intimate in its humanity. It’s melodrama recast as mega-drama. And this time around, Mr. von Trier has made it lush, sweeping and intensely romantic, alternating between candlelit golden hues and endless starry vistas. Neurotic and apocalyptic, rarely entertaining but often amazing, it’s a movie that’s both hard to watch and hard to look away from.

Which is probably the point. Like so many depressives, Mr. von Trier seems overly taken with the perceived grandiosity of his own little story. The difference is that he can stage a planet-sized catastrophe to prove he’s right.

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Among the famous people who make cameo appearances in the new Adam Sandler comedy "Jack and Jill": Johnny Depp, John McEnroe, David Spade, Shaquille O'Neal, Drew Carrey, Christie Brinkley, Michael Irvin, Regis Philbin, Dana Carvey and even Jared Fogle, the guy from the Subway sandwich commercials.

Total number of laughs all this amassed star power generates: one. The bit with Depp, who has an amusing exchange with Al Pacino, made me chuckle. Yes, Pacino is also in "Jack and Jill" playing himself. This is not a cameo but a real supporting role. And Pacino gives the movie his all. Method is Method, whether you're working with David Mamet or Dennis Dugan.

Dugan is a TV and film actor who has directed many of Sandler's pictures ("Happy Gilmore," "Big Daddy," "You Don't Mess with the Zohan"). Why isn't Dugan better-known? Because he's terrible at his job (this movie looks so cheap and crummy that when Sandler attends an L.A. Lakers basketball game, all you can notice is the actor standing in front of a green screen, the athletes behind him pasted in by computer.)

"Jack and Jill" contains long stretches of squirm-inducing tedium in which Sandler riffs and ad-libs far longer than he should, as if he thought that wearing a dress would immediately turn anything he did into comedy gold. Playing Jack Sadelstein, an L.A. ad exec dreading the annual holiday visit of his twin sister Jill (also Sandler), the actor is obviously having fun. But Sandler goes so far over-the-top as Jill — a whiny, needy New Yorker — that I was gritting my teeth 15 minutes in.

Sandler is a capable actor: He's done good, sometimes surprising work when he's paired with a strong director (Judd Apatow's "Funny People," Paul Thomas Anderson's "Punch-Drunk Love"). But left to his own devices, Sandler reverts to his worst, laziest habits. He forgets that what might have been tolerable in a three-minute "Saturday Night Live" skit becomes excruciating when stretched to feature-film length. And this is one of Sandler's PG-rated, kiddie-friendly films, so instead of any edgy humor, you get fart jokes, pratfalls and more fart jokes.

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With a proven action director at the helm, two screenwriters also with solid resumes and a superb cast, "Tower Heist" adds up to a great couple of hours of entertainment.

Brett Ratner, who directed the "Rush Hour" movies and "X-Men: Last Stand," works from a script by Ted Griffin ("Ocean's Eleven") and Jeff Nathanson ("Rush Hour 2" and "Rush Hour 3") to present the story of ordinary people pressed into extraordinary actions to right a terrible wrong.

Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy lead a cast list the includes pros like Alan Alda, Judd Hirsch and Matthew Broderick, along with young talent like Casey Affleck, Gaboury Sidibe and Michael Pe a. Much like "Horrible Bosses" released earlier this year, these decent, hard-working people, in their desperation, turn to crime.

Stiller's Josh Kovacs is the manager of a ritzy apartment complex called The Tower. Among its elite tenants is the mega-wealthy Wall Streeter Arthur Shaw (Alda), who owns the top floor.

Shaw is arrested on charges of massive fraud, and this makes Kovacs nervous because he turned over the management of The Tower employees' pension fund to Shaw. Eventually Kovacs has to admit the pension money may be gone, never to be recovered. He gets cozy with the FBI agent leading the investigation, Special Agent Claire Denham (T a Leoni), and when she tells Josh that charges are going to be dropped against Shaw, he vows to do what he can to get back the money he entrusted to the wealthy man.

Convinced Shaw has the money stashed somewhere in the apartment, Josh plans to break in and find the cash. Kovacs recruits an unlikely group of thieves-to-be, drafting building's concierge, Charlie (Affleck); an elevator operator Enrique (Pe a); a maid, Odessa (Sidibe); a down and out stock trader, Fitzhugh (Broderick); and the doorman, Lester (Stephen Henderson).

Since this band of workers has zero experience in safe-cracking, Kovacs brings in a childhood acquaintance, Slide (Murphy), whose only real qualification is that he's been arrested a few times.

This is a bumbling group for the most part, although Kovacs turns out to be resourceful in improvising when plans go awry; and Odessa proves adept and cracking safes. There are comedic misadventures along the way, and the usual verbal sparring and general goofiness of the characters that provide laughs.

Josh is a rock of optimism despite dealing with people way out of their element. Slide is vintage Murphy - a lot of cockiness and questionable motives. Charlie and Fitzhugh are the obligatory wimps while Pe a is likeably silly as a person who goofs up a lot but just may come through in a pinch. Sidibe, so wonderful in "Precious," is steady and imposing as Odessa. And Alda just oozes the arrogance of a man who makes too much money but insists he's entitled to more and perceives himself as being superior to the workers.

Leoni has some nice moments as the dedicated law enforcement official having to play by the rules even when those rules fail, and naturally finds herself frustratingly two steps behind what should be an error-prone group of novice thieves.

There are some nice twists in the movie, plenty of laughs and an ending that does not have everybody walking away in a happy situation - although overall the result they accept is satisfying.

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Tower Heist, which opens this weekend in theaters, is an entertaining film that hits its stride about 20 minutes in and shortly thereafter turns on the cinematic cruise control. There is nothing inherently bad about the film, save for its ridiculous finale, but Tower Heist ultimately amounts to barely more than squandered potential. The main draw of Tower Heist is quality work by its cast: Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, and Matthew Broderick with a truly standout performance by Tea Leoni. The script has a witty edge without needing to resort to vulgarity, and obviously the plot, based on the Madhoff scandal, is timely. Unfortunately, where Tower Heist falls short is in its execution or, better yet, executioner – directorial hack, Brett Ratner.

Like all Brett Ratner films, Tower Heist is high on concept. In the past Ratner took on Marvel’s mutants in X3: The Last Stand, Hannibal Lecter in Red Dragon and made Jackie Chan a household name via his Rush Hour films. All of those movies tell epic tales featuring international locales, over-the-top heroes & villains, and are packed with enough violence and explosions to distract audiences from their complete lack of substance. Any questions about Tower Heist’s substance can be answered in its climax, featuring a high-flying robbery in an NYC penthouse as the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons float by.
At first blush, Tower Heist seems to be Ratner’s attempt at substance – being a character driven, political comedy with a little bit of Ocean’s 11 thrown in for good measure.

Ratner has a knack for picking great casts and Tower Heist is no exception. Alan Alda plays Arthur Shaw, a Bernie Madhoff-esque investment broker who everyone implicitly trusts because he comes across as a kindly grandfather figure. Shaw is beloved by the staff of the building he lives in, known as The Tower.  The building is run by an unusually understated Ben Stiller playing The Tower’s manager, Josh Kovacs. When it is revealed that Shaw is actually a greedy con-man, who has stolen The Tower staff’s entire pension fund, Josh assembles an incredibly rag-tag team to get back their money stashed somewhere in Shaw’s penthouse.

Kovac’s inept gang of thieves includes Eddie Murphy as thief, Matthew Broderick as an unemployed stock broker, Michael Pena as an elevator operator and Tea Leoni as the world-weary FBI agent assigned to Shaw’s case. The rest of the cast is also stellar (save for Gabby Sidibe’s Jamaican patois) as the working class victims of corporate greed. Unfortunately this is where the compliments about Tower Heist end.

The problem with Brett Ratner’s direction is laziness. Most of his outdoor scenes are clearly shot on sound stages –something a good director would mask. He also doesn’t understand character development, so instead, he uses large casts of good actors and loads of over-the-top action as a means of glossing over the underdevelopment. Ratner’s biggest lazy downfall though is his tendency to allow his films to devolve into mindless action set pieces – which may work when Jackie Chan is the lead, but not so much with Ben Stiller. Without spoiling Tower Heist’s finale, there is definitely an ever-increasing level of stupidity injected into the film that coincides with an increase in its action. By the time viewers are offered a bird’s-eye view of the parade float, through the windshield of a car, the film has dissolved into a messy pile of ridiculous action clichés and impossible physics that serve to belittle its original message about working America’s plight amidst unchecked corporate greed. In the end, Tower Heist is merely a fun, fluffy, and forgettable movie that could have been so much more.

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After James Cameron revolutionized the 3-D process with “Avatar,” every major studio dumped a big, self-serious, three-dimensional popcorn epic into theaters, determined that every bit of action needed to be flung into the stadium seating. “A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas” is the long-awaited rejoinder to all those bloated event movies: An enthusiastically stupid comedy that makes the most of its technology in the service of a barrage of inventive sight gags.

Those who take “enthusiastically stupid” as cutting criticism miss the point, because in the third installment of the “Harold & Kumar” series, the only stupidity worth having is the enthusiastic kind. The good news is that the slack tedium of 2008's “Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay” is gone, replaced by a barrage of bad behavior and the constant prospect of a character flinging an egg or a beer pong ball into the theater or exhaling a ribbon of slightly green smoke into the faces in the audience. The bad news is that “A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas” suffers from an uneven distribution of the good stuff, whereas 2004's “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle” still reigns as one of the best comedies in the stoner subgenre, behind “The Big Lebowski” and well ahead of all Cheech and Chong films — even “Up in Smoke.”

“Christmas” takes place six years after “Guantanamo Bay,” and Harold and Kumar aren't the inseparable heroes they once were. Harold (John Cho) is now a Wall Street banker who has to worry about getting pelted with eggs whenever he leaves his office for the suburbs (screenwriters Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg should receive an award for prescient scripting on that one). Meanwhile, Kumar (Kal Penn) has broken up with Vanessa (Danneel Harris), failed a urinalysis for a hospital position and is bonging his life away in a pizza box-filled apartment and rooming with an inferior dweeb named Adrian (Amir Blumenfeld, a dead ringer for a young Ira Glass).

There is no movie if the boys don't get back together, so a fateful Christmas package must be delivered, and the result is a series of misadventures involving Christmas trees, the daughter of a notorious Russian mobster (Elias Koteas), a toddler getting a jump start on her college-age party regimen, and of course, the illustrious Neil Patrick Harris.

As usual, Harris is the designated hitter — his arrival comes during an extravaganza of Christmas-themed Broadway badness, and it gives “A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas” an adrenaline shot just when the film needs it. For those unfamiliar with the legend, “White Castle” portrayed Harris as the antithesis of his true self, an over-the-top womanizer with a nose full of drugs and a mean criminal streak. The first “Harold & Kumar” comedy to be made since Harris came out as gay, “Christmas” finds a clever way to work that reality into this “Bizarro World” depiction of the star.

None of these films would work if both Harold and Kumar weren't such nice, relatable characters: If they were maniacally grinning madmen like Stifler from the “American Pie” franchise, no one would want to spend 90 minutes with these guys. They smoke a lot of marijuana and their emotional development peaked at age 14, but it makes sense that their sidekick in “A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas” is Wafflebot, a toy that operates a little like a cute Roomba dispensing waffles, syrup and good tidings. Sure, the movie is often too coarse and nasty for its own good, but Harold and Kumar are all about the love.
If the whole Wafflebot concept sounds stupid, don't forget — “A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas” is enthusiastically stupid: After all, Harold and Kumar hallucinate that they have become perversely Claymated after drinking eggnog spiked with belladonna root. And it's not a great comedy — up until Harris' appearance, first-time director Todd Strauss-Schulson seems to be huffing and puffing to make it all work. But then it all falls into place and it's as if Wafflebot just gave all the arrested-adolescent fans an extra helping of the maple.

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Wanna learn positivity and audacity learn it from our Himesh Bhai. Despite of all the flak the multi talented Himesh Reshammiya is back and now he is smiling... After a series of dim and gloomy films Himesh is returning to silver screen in an all new avatar, in a different spirit with romantic comedy DAMADAMM. And if this was not enough the courageous star's film releases beside superstar Shahrukh Khan's much hyped and keenly anticipated film RA.ONE. But will DAMADAMM be able to stand the RA.ONE onslaught? Well it seems so...

DAMADAMM is a simple story of a marketing wizard Sameer (Himesh Reshammiya), who works in a film distribution company, torn between two women. He has a suspicions, insecure live-in girlfriend also the colleague at his work, Shikha (Purbi Joshi), very loving, very caring, very possessive, very nagging which irritates our freedom lover Sameer. When his girlfriend is off to her home town Indore for a fortnight (for the first time in their 5-year courtship), its freedom time for our carefree man. He does everything which his girl dislikes - deliberately dirties house, lets his shirt buttons open, dances on road, parties, goes to discos & pubs, lives upto fullest. Then enters a pretty new girl at office Sanjana (Sonal Sehgal), sister of the chief of company, very refreshing and perfect girlfriend material obviously she has that one quality predominantly any man desires for - she gives him his space. The two instantly hit it off while working together and develop a great bonding, a fact that irks Shikha as she returns. Matters move quickly and he dumps Shikha. He moves on in life and decides to marry Sanjana. Does Sameer marry Sanjana? Or he returns to Shikha? is to be seen.

The film begins on a good note with a well thought out premise. With its realistic approach it shows great potential to entertain. However, after a confident and intriguing first half, the film falters in the second half.

Himesh Reshammiya's story about a young man torn between two women is not new to the ears as it's a tried and tested formula. Although it's the execution and fresh & natural treatment which works for the film, makes it a watchable fare. The pain of going through a break-up with someone you have to face at work every day, watching an ex move on to another partner in front of your eyes, accepting that your relationship is over and being happy for the person you once loved are treated delicately.

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There's nothing more dispiriting about a movie than a trust in star magnetism that isn't returned in actual projected wattage. For the astrologically themed "5 Star Day," writer-director Danny Buday invests in bland hunk Cam Gigandet to such an extent that Buday assumes we will be mesmerized by every interstitial action: parking a car and crossing a street, walking across a lobby, lying on a hotel bed and watching television, even paying a highway toll. Twice.

Frankly, it's hard to imagine even George Clooney making such ill-used screen minutes interesting. But the movie around those moments is even worse, a preposterously thin story in which one man's terrible birthday — job loss, stolen car, cheating girlfriend — becomes a quest to blow the lid off horoscopes that falsely promise awesomeness. So poor-me Jake (Gigandet) decides to track down three others born at the exact time he was — a single mom (a strangely edge-less Jena Malone), a nurse (Brooklyn Sudano) and a lounge singer (real-life crooner Max Hartman) — to determine if they had crappy birthdays, too.

This all, of course, leads to an epiphany about picking oneself up, dusting oneself off and you know the rest that any sane person would have arrived at by getting drunk, whining to a friend or simply waking up the next day. But Buday's setup is so tortured and schematic — veering superficially into damsel-in-distress territory and an illness story line, before forcing a romance at the end — that it louses up even the movie's kindness-of-strangers message.

While Gigandet has a nice enough smile as he worms his way into people's lives, he'd rather come off like an affable angel than suggest anything obsessive, stalkery or psychologically broken about Jake's patently weird mission. He's more wandering visitor than answers-seeking leading man. But we know he pays his tolls.

As for Jake's "astrology lies!" theory, when all signs point to a planet-aligning ending that puts everyone on an even emotional keel — no matter who had worse tales of woe — it's a safe bet the zodiac is going to get off scot-free.

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