"New Year's Eve"

Richard's Review: 1/2 stars

"New Year's Eve" isn't so much a movie as it is a cavalcade of familiar names in situations geared to make you understand why everybody hates December 31st.

This mishmash of easy sentiment, romance, illness, musical numbers, product placement -- Disaronno anyone? -- tradition and a version of "I Can't Turn You Loose" that makes the kids from "Glee" sound like Otis Redding, flip flops from story to story so often it's like a five-year-old grabbed the remote and is wildly channel surfing.

There's Robert De Niro as a terminally ill man; Halle Berry as his kindly nurse. Then there's Michelle Pfeiffer as a dowdy "executive secretary who decides to tackle her unfulfilled resolutions," and Zac Efron as the courier who makes her dreams come true. Hilary Swank is the acrophobic producer of the Times Square New Year's Eve show, Katherine Heigl and Jon Bon Jovi are a caterer and a rock star with a romantic history, Ashton Kutcher is a curmudgeonly cartoonist who gets trapped in an elevator with back-up singer Lea Michelle and even Ryan Seacrest pops up playing -- who else? -- himself.

Have I left anyone out? Probably, there are more stars here than in the heavens, but rest assured. By the end of the movie stories have woven together and no hearts are broken.

Like its predecessor "Valentine's Day," "New Year's Eve" takes a bunch of stars with little or no box-office cache on their own -- Zac Efron, Jessica Biel -- and packages them into one large, over-stuffed package that somehow, in terms of star power, is bigger than the sum of its parts. To quote the movie, "there's more celebrities here than rehab."

Too bad they are wasted in a movie that is little more than a collection of clichés salvaged from every romantic comedy, Hallmark holiday special and sitcom you've ever seen. From its generic opening song played over generic shots of New York City, every moment of "New Year's Eve" inspires déjà vu, the feeling of been there and done that.

There are Walmart commercials with more real emotion than director Gary Marshall manages to bring to this manipulative mess. His idea of romance is Josh Duhamel doing the romcom run through the streets of New York as the ball drops in Times Square. His idea of humor is old people saying inappropriate things and by the time Mayor Bloomberg kicks off the New Year's Eve countdown with the words, "Let's drop the ball," it's abundantly clear that Marshall already dropped the ball with this movie.

"The Sitter"

Richard's Review: 1 1/2 stars

You're first clue that "The Sitter" isn't "Mary Poppins" is star Jonah Hill's name above the title. Hill, the star of "Get Him to the Greek," "Superbad" and "Funny People," is no Julie Andrews. The second clue comes in the first thirty seconds of the movie, which cannot be described in this family-friendly place without me blushing and turning beet red.

Hill plays Noah Griffith, a university dropout and general coach potato, roped into babysitting for the neighbour's kids. Even though he tells the kids -- 10-year-old celebutante wannabe Blithe (Landry Bender), troublemaker Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez) and anxiety-ridden Slater (Max Records) -- he's a "sit on the coach, eat a burrito, do what I say or I'll kill you kind of babysitter," he takes the kids on a "field trip" to buy cocaine for a girl he has a crush on. Their night out involves accusations of pedophilia, cherry bombs, a baby dinosaur egg filled with drugs, stolen cars, a theft at a Bat Mitzvah and, in the end, like "Mary Poppins" a greater understanding of the importance of family.

That's right, "The Sitter" is actually a bit more like "Mary Poppins" than you might first think. But in most ways it's completely unlike the practically-perfect-in-every-way nanny. Take away the drug turf war, the grand larceny and racial stereotypes and you are left with a movie about familial relationships, doing the right thing, acceptance of others and loyalty. Trouble is the drug turf war, the grand larceny and racial stereotypes take up ninety percent of the movie.

Hill doles out advice like, "You shouldn't waste your feelings on people who don't value you," between buying cocaine and robbing his father's jewelry store.

I wouldn't mind the warm-hearted sentiment if it didn't simply exist as a lame attempt to temper the movie's raunchier elements. It's not a kid's movie by any stretch so why the kid-friendly -- and seemingly out-of-character -- platitudes from Hill? I don't think audiences primed for a raunchy comedy will care about the G-rated messages. The only family who could possibly sit down and enjoy this together would be the Addams Family.

The slapstick is low-energy, but at least Hill, in his last role before his extreme weight loss, raises the occasional laugh with his spot-on comic delivery. It's a not enough to rescue this hybrid of R-rated jokes and family-friendly sentiment.

"The Artist"

Richard's Review: 4 stars

"The Artist," a new film about old Hollywood, is a silent movie about talking pictures. When we first see star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) in the movie's film-within-a-film, a title card reads, "I won't talk! I won't say a word!" and so it is for the next ninety minutes.

Beginning in Hollywood before the advent of sound, when we first meet Valentin he is a big star, a screen idol who headlines action-adventure movies with melodramatic titles like "The Thief of Her Heart." A chance encounter with a pretty girl named Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo) sets her on the path of movie stardom in the talkies, just as Valentin's star fades, ruined by his pride and inability to change with the times. Soon the story takes on "Hollywood Babylon" overtones as Valentin becomes a Hollywood castoff. Will the former superstar end up like Karl Dane and Marie Prevost, real life silent stars, now forgotten? Or will he find the humility to reenter the movies?

"The Artist" could have simply been a glossy tribute to the silent age. The details are all there, the luscious black and white photography, classic soundtrack and the old school 4:3 aspect ratio. But the film is much more than that. Director Michel Hazanavicius has made a joyous movie that shows the tricks of modern-day cinema aren't necessary when you have interesting performances, a good story and chemistry.

Shot on Hollywood sound stages and on locations like the Bradbury Building, "The Artist" has an authentic look and feel, but it is the actors that clench the deal. Dujardin shimmers with charisma as he brings echoes of John Gilbert to the screen and Bejo finds the kind of balance of innocence and vamp that elevated the likes of Clara Bow from starlet to It Girl. To paraphrase Norma Desmond, they don't need dialogue; they have faces! Luckily Hazanavicius allows their faces to do the talking, figuratively, not literally.

Ditto for the other members of the star-studded cast -- John Goodman, James Cromwell, Penelope Ann Miller and Uggy, who hands in the pluckiest on-screen dog performance since Rin Rin Tin was the canine king of Hollywood.

"The Artist" is a treat, a film that forces the viewer to reexamine how we watch movies. Unlike so many of today's films that do all the work for you, it allows imagination to become part of the experience. Every time you expect dialogue the movie remains silent, which prompts the viewer to connect with the characters and story in a much different way than we are accustomed to. In doing so, it becomes one of the most engaging movies of the year.

"The Eye of the Storm"

Richard's Review: 3 1/2 stars

Patrick White's novel "The Eye of the Storm" is the only Australian book honoured with a Nobel Prize for literature. It is perhaps the novel's intimidating reputation -- and dense prose -- that has kept filmmakers away for almost forty years.

The action centers around socialite Elizabeth (Charlotte Rampling), the terminally ill matriarch of the Hunter family. On her deathbed she lives life as she always has, controlling and manipulating everyone around her. That includes her nurses (one of whom is played by the director Fred Schepisi's daughter, Alexandra), a flamboyant housekeeper and her two sycophantic kids, the lecherous stage star Sir Basil (Geoffrey Rush) and down-on-her-luck princess Dorothy (Judy Davis). Elizabeth has decided to dictate the terms of her passing, Basil has decided to try and bed younger women and Dorothy wants to get her hands on some much needed cash.

There's a taste of "King Lear" in "The Eye of the Storm." The similarities in the family dynamic are obvious. Beyond that, there is theatricality to the movie which works well for the material. Normally, I would find the movie's monologues and posturing distracting. But it is a pleasure to watch Rush, Davis and Rampling clearly relishing the opportunity to immerse themselves in White's world.