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There are three storylines in Hereafter, Clint Eastwood's latest flick. These focus on three characters who all have some connection to death and/or the afterlife: Matt Damon's George in San Francisco, Frankie McLaren's young Marcus in London, and Cécile De France's Marie in Paris. The film jumps around between them until their stories slightly converge.

George is a humble psychic who doesn't like to give readings and tells his brother (Jay Mohr), "A life that's all about death is no life at all." He blames his "gift" for his lack of a social life. Marie is a French journalist who barely survives the Asia tsunami and becomes obsessed with the "hereafter" after that experience. Marcus is dealing with the death of a very close relative (and his story is made to coincide with the 2005 London bombings).

Covering such a heavy topic as death and what comes next, it's disappointing how emotionally detached Hereafter leaves the viewer. As Marcus says good night to the container holding his relative's ashes, I felt slightly connected to his plight. However, this is primarily due to the performance by McLaren, and is only one of a few such moments.

Please welcome our newest contributor, Mike Saulters, to Slackerwood. Mike was braver than the rest of us when it came to seeing and reviewing Jackass 3D, which opens in theaters today.

To call me a fan of the Jackass franchise would be an overstatement. I have seen the first two films on DVD as well as a smattering of the MTV episodes. Jackass, however, was never something that generated much excitement for me. Some of the stunts could occasionally make me laugh, or cringe, but I found at times that things felt formulaic as the same stunt was repeated ad nauseam. I can admit without shame that when first exposed to the series, I got my snob on and pooh-poohed the poo-poo humor of the show.

In case you have somehow been living under a rock or spent ten years studying silverback apes, I should explain the Jackass concept. Jackass began as a series on MTV in 2000 and made the necessary jump to movies in 2002. I say "necessary" because too much of the source material could never make it past network censors. Jackass has no plot, no story, no normal redeeming values you would expect to find in a film. It is a series of vignettes in which the performers subject themselves or other people to asinine, stupid and generally dangerous stunts such as application of a taser to the testacles or lighting one's hair on fire. Often, stunts will have a name attached such as "Poo Cocktail" but others are simply presented with no name or introduction.

Why do I let myself believe in Woody Allen anymore? I see a movie of his and am unimpressed, and then someone talks me into seeing another one, and I get my hopes up that this one will finally be up to the standard he maintained through, say, the early 1990s. And then my hopes are shattered and it takes another two or three Woody Allen films before I will try again and be disillusioned. The last film of his that I liked was Scoop, which my husband persuaded me to see (and it took some persuading).

Now we have You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, which opens today at the Arbor, with a splendid cast and an intriguing title and other reviews (from cities where it opened earlier) proclaiming that although old-fashioned, it is one of the best Woody Allen movies in possibly a decade, and so my hopes were raised and one more time, they were dashed. You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger was tedious, tired, unbelievable and rarely amusing, with a rather unsatisfying ending. Woody, you tease.

The movie has an ensemble cast with several stories entwined, providing an excellent opportunity to sigh over the wide range of acting talent wasted in this film. Helena (Gemma Jones) is at the center of the London-based action, an older woman who has started visiting a "fortune teller" after psychiatry failed to help her deal practically with her husband Alfie (Anthony Hopkins) leaving her. Helena also enlists the fortune teller to attempt to see the future in regards to her daughter Sally (Naomi Watts), who is an assistant to art gallery owner Greg (Antonio Banderas), and Sally's husband Roy (Josh Brolin), who can't seem to sustain his career as a novelist.

It's Kind of a Funny Story is not quite aptly titled, as the title doesn't give the movie enough credit for its humor or pathos. It's a Very Funny Story, Except When It's Tragic might be more accurate.

This quirky and endearing film is part dark comedy, part teen romance and part biting social commentary, and it's one of the most entertaining films I've seen this year. Even Zack Galifianakis -- hold on to your popcorn! -- gives a fine, unexpectedly understated performance.

Based on a novel by Ned Vizzini, It's Kind of a Funny Story is the tale of smart but insecure 16-year-old Craig (Kier Gilchrist), who suffers from the usual pressures of teenage life. Aside from trying to find his place in the world, he has an unrequited crush on a good friend's girlfriend, Nia (Zoë Kravitz), and his parents are pressuring him to apply for a prestigious academic program. Stressed beyond his coping skills, Craig checks himself into Argenon Hospital, a Brooklyn psychiatric facility.

Never Let Me Go is an artful and elegant work. Director Mark Romanek uses a muted palette throughout the film, so moments of vibrant color stand out and are few and far between. The main characters have little control over their own fate, and the drab costuming (lots of dull browns and grays) and color tone of the film enforce this theme.

Twenty-eight-year-old Kathy H. (Carey Mulligan) narrates the film, which takes place in a sort of alternate past. In this alternate (but seemingly possible) past, Kathy and her friends Tommy and Ruth attend school at Hailsham in the 1970s. Their headmistress tells them, "Students are Hailsham are special." Their class learns why they are "special" when their new teacher Miss Lucy (Sally Hawkins) confesses their true purpose: to serve as living organ donors. That is "the life that is already set out" for them. With this, any semblance of free will they may have assumed they had disappears.

In his heyday, the racehorse Secretariat was a national celebrity. The 1973 Triple Crown winner -- the first in 25 years -- achieved fame far beyond the rarefied world of horse racing, appearing on the covers of Time, Newsweek and Sports Illustrated and gaining millions of fans. Secretariat's blazing times in the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes are records that still stand today, and he's generally considered the greatest racehorse of all time.

Unfortunately, the movie Secretariat is a tepid tribute to its titular horse. For a film about the inherently exciting and unpredictable sport of horse racing, Secretariat is surprisingly dull and predictable.

According to my research, the film (opening today in wide release) is a generally accurate account of the real Secretariat's backstory. Homemaker and mother of four Penny Chenery (Diane Lane) takes over her ailing father's Virginia horse farm, Meadow Stables, thus entering the entirely masculine world of horse breeding and racing. After a complicated series of breeding agreements culminating in a fateful coin toss (consult Wikipedia if you’re really interested), Chenery ends up owning an unborn foal with a prized bloodline. Soon the colt is born and -- this being a thoroughly Disney film -- shows great promise immediately by standing up and talking his first halting steps less than a minute later.

I have a fondness for geek characters in movies -- they're often oddly attractive underneath those glasses, and I find it attractive when they start talking about mathematical formulas or programming code or scientific theories. What can I say -- I knew my husband was the man for me when he made a joke about how he'd be happy to put Linux on my computer. Go figure.

So naturally I enjoyed watching The Social Network, although I must admit that Jesse Eisenberg's portrayal of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is one of the few geek characters I would not want to spend any time with, or make dreamy eyes over, even if he were closer to my age. Eisenberg may bear a slight physical resemblance to a geek guy I dated in college, but the minute his character opens his mouth, it's hard not to want to give him a good smack.

The Social Network is based on the real-life birth and development of Facebook, which Zuckerberg started while at Harvard, trying to prove himself so he could get into a Final Club. The movie jumps back and forth from the main timeline of the early days of Facebook, to scenes where characters in earlier scenes are giving depositions for two Facebook-related lawsuits filed against Zuckerberg.

Last year, I had the luck to attend an all-night movie fest where Quentin Tarantino treated us to a screening of Inglourious Basterds. We were also treated to a number of cool exploitation/action movies. The final movie of the night was a true gem known as Ip Man. Ip Man stars Donnie Yen and is set during the Japanese occupation of China during World War II. The film is the true story of Ip Man, a legendary Kung Fu master, and tells the story of what it was like in China before and during the Japanese occupation. It is a tale of family and honor when faced with oppression. Ip Man quickly rose to the top of my all-time favorite kung fu movies.  

Enter Ip Man 2. When the list of Fantastic Fest 2010 movies was announced, this was one movie that  caught my attention immediately. When it screened at the fest, I sat in my seat with excitement and trepidation. Would this sequel deliver or would it fall like sequels typically do? Let me tell you: it delivered from the starting frame to the end. 

Is The Thin Red Line a war film? When Terrence Malick's monumental film was released in 1998, there was much debate about its true nature. Many critics hailed the film, set during the battle of Guadalcanal, as one of the best war films ever made. Others argued that labeling The Thin Red Line a war film misses its point entirely, for it is really a meditation on the nature of life and death.

The elegant new Criterion release of The Thin Red Line, available today on DVD and Blu-ray, will only reignite the controversy, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Films of this caliber deserve to be endlessly analyzed and debated.

Based on James Jones's 1962 novel, The Thin Red Line tells the story of C-for Charlie Company, a group of young soldiers sent to Guadalcanal to battle the Japanese for control of the island. Victory on Guadalcanal is crucial to an Allied victory in the Pacific, because the island's airfield will serve as a base for the Allies' Pacific campaign. C-for-Charlie's mission is to break the final Japanese resistance, and the film follows the men through a costly, hellish, protracted battle to take control of the few remaining Japanese strongholds.

The action is seen from the perspectives of many soldiers in the company, among them Lt. Col Tall (Nick Nolte), Capt. Staros (Elias Koteas), 1st Sgt. Welsh (Sean Penn), Sgt. Keck (Woody Harrelson), Cpl. Fife (Adrien Brody), Pfc. Doll (Dash Mihok), and Pvt. Witt (Jim Caviezel). As the soldiers slog their way through Guadalcanal's dense jungles and steep hills and finally earn some long-overdue R&R, they share their thoughts through dialogue and numerous voiceovers (and, for Witt, gauzy flashbacks to his childhood and newlywed days). These thoughts are about far more than the battle at hand, however; they're poetic and deeply philosophical musings about everything from the meaning of death to humanity's relationship with nature.

I mentioned recently how much I enjoyed the History of Film class I'd taken at Texas A&M, but what I didn't share was how much I disliked much of the required Liberal Arts curriculum. I found philosophy and classic literature to be dry, boring and uninspiring. However, if I'd had Tim Blake Nelson as a classics professor perhaps I would think differently now and my life would have taken an alternate path. As writer and director of  Leaves of Grass, Nelson introduces themes of classic literature in a very modern and engaging manner. Leaves of Grass is not a typical stoner comedy, as it switches to more of a drama and thriller about halfway through the film.

Edward Norton stars as Bill Kincaid, a conservative Ivy League college classics professor who reluctantly returns to the backwoods of southeastern Oklahoma after learning of the murder of his identical twin Brady (also played by Edward Norton). However, Bill discovers that his pot-growing brother is not actually dead but rather faked his death so that Bill would come home for his wedding -- although we quickly learn Brady has alterior motives. The more selfless motive is for Bill to reconcile with their hippie mother (Susan Sarandon), who lives in an adult care residence despite the fact that she is ten years younger and healthier than the other residents.

Turns out that Brady is in debt for his state of the art pot-growing facility to Pug Rothbaum (Richard Dreyfuss), a Jewish druglord from Tulsa. He and his sidekick Bolger (Tim Blake Nelson) come up with a plan to deal with Rothbaum who is wanting them to branch out into harder drugs. Meanwhile, Bill meets Janet (Kerri Russell), a writer who can "noodle" and quotes Walt Whitman while gutting a catfish. This comedy of errors results in a rather tragic resolution.