Reviewing movies, recommending live music

For more reviews and comments, head to the Real to Reel blog at http://realtoreelchicago.wordpress.com/

"Jennifer's Body" - ***

As much as I despise the “Transformers” movies, as much as I love when “Chelsea Lately” blasts her, and as ill as I feel just seeing pictures of her (I literally feign scratching dirt off my arms and see visions of her born on the floor of a biker bar), Megan Fox is great in “Jennifer’s Body.”

And as much as I’d like to scoff at her “Juno” success and hate on her blogs-to-riches story, Diablo Cody is definitely a talented and unique writer.

So it is to my surprise, that I actually enjoyed “Jennifer’s Body.” The horror comedy isn’t the least bit scary and it’s not sidesplittingly funny, but there’s something pleasant in its reasonably clever set up and modest delivery. You get the sense that Cody and the talented director Karyn Kusama (“Girlfight”) operated on the same page. Never does the film push too far in a horror/supernatural direction or push too far in a comedic direction. The visuals are slick but not overwhelming; Cody’s uncanny pulse for teen-voice and Twitter-like one-liners go for chuckles but are within the realm of the characters.

The brief set up: Jennifer (Fox) plays a demonized cheerleader, a man eater, who lures in her lunch with sex appeal. Her inadequate best friend Needy (Amanda Seyfried) is the only one who can stop her. At the crux of this dilemma are the hilariously named emo band Low Shoulder (fronted by Adam Brody) — boy, the lengths a band will go to for Maroon 5 levels of fame. The premise works as sarcasm and on its own.

“Jennifer’s Body” is mainstream, gunning for a young audience and a few MTV movie awards (it has best kiss locked up, Kanye would agree), but it avoids just enough clichés and sprinkles in just enough sass that it’s likable. We shall see if anyone agrees with me, because how much you like this movie depends on whether you fall for Cody’s teen characters and the stupid way they talk.

I loved the kids. Set in the small town of Devil’s Kettle, Jennifer is the school’s resident hot chick but her best friend is the nerdy Needy. They have been friends since childhood (“sandbox love never dies”). Needy’s boyfriend is Chip (the charming Johnny Simmons) and he’s just along for the ride. It’s refreshing that while they may seem like clichés (nerdy student and cheerleader) they fit within the high school like regular kids. Many high school films push so hard in the clique direction that kids no longer look like kids but cartoons of the jock, the cheerleader, the nerd. The jock, punk kid, nerds and everyone in “Jennifer’s Body” just exist in the school. Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, but maybe the high school social politics that we’re used to are gone.

Cody’s high schoolers carry over the “Juno” linguistics, however, and no one says them better than Fox. A few of her choice lines are, “Nice hardware, Ace” (as she eyes a boy’s unit), and “Move on dot org” (expressing frustration). My other favorite line comes from Needy, saying that the country “has a tragedy boner” for the town (responding to the national news coverage of its gruesome murders). You either find all of this clever or annoying.

If there’s a knock on “Jennifer’s Body,” it’s that the film doesn’t really have a point. Jennifer really isn’t all that evil, which is what I liked, but people expecting to see a high school hellion of the social kind will not be happy. She’s not that. The movie is odd, too, (just see how they react when the bar sets fire). But oddity keeps you on your toes. The ending is too long, giving us an MTV nominee for best fight sequence, but you’re pretty much done with the movie by then.

One last thought: There is a brilliant Swedish horror film called “Let the Right One In” that is rumored to being remade (because Americans can’t handle foreign films) by the director of “Cloverfield.” I say, if you’re going to ruin that film by making it more widely accepted, hire Kusama and Cody. They can bring the flair of “Jennifer’s Body” and just maybe create a different type of movie that would still work.

Send me a note at danochwat@hotmail.com or reach out to me on MySpace or Facebook.

Click here for more Real to Reel