I hadn’t heard much about this film before I saw it.  Just a tidbit here and there from various fests, but nothing that stuck in my head.  Which is apt, considering Trance is a tale about the twisty-turney ways our minds can play tricks on us, and how easy it can be to manipulate what’s in your head.  Or what you think is in your head.

Simon (James McAvoy, X Men: First Class) is a high-class auctioneer.  His job — outside of trying to sell really, really expensive stuff — is to make sure that the most expensive item on offer during an auction gets dropped off into safe storage if there’s ever a robbery attempt.  The number one rule?  “No painting is worth a human life.  Don’t be a hero.”  So when suave art thief Franck (Vincent Cassel, Black Swan) comes for an extremely expensive Goya, what does Simon do?  Yeah, you guessed it.

Simon gets a severe bang on the noggin for his trouble, and he goes to hypnotherapist Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson, Rent) but that’s only the start of this story.  To discuss more would ruin the crazy Inception-meets-Memento storyline.  Who’s really the bad guy, why are characters doing what they’re doing, and are they in fact even doing them; that’s the meat of this tale.  Director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) gets off to a choppy start — it’s hard at the beginning to continue caring about what’s going on when the story begins to shivers and spiral — but it pays off at the end.  Remember when M. Night Shamalan was fantastic?  Trance harkens back to the payoff of Unbreakable.  No superheroes here; McAvoy doesn’t turn into Professor X (though that’d be awesome).  But that same sense of wonder and pleasure at being let in on the final secret rings true here.

 
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Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!  Oh, but in Oz the Great and Powerful, he’s brought in for his close-up, and it’s an interesting look at how a con man from Kansas became the most powerful wizard in all of Oz.  Though this movie may not be “great and powerful”, it’s a lovely romp for fans of the original film, and a fun escape for children of all ages.  Well, except for perhaps the very young’uns, who may get scared of the flying gorillas.  What?  They creeped me out.  Don’t judge me.

Franco is cast well as a steampunk wizard prototype, a young con-man named Oz — his full name being Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs — who accidentally lands in the Land of Oz after a run-in during his stint as a circus magician.  When I say “run-in”, I mean “running away from”.  And when I say “running away from”, I mean “running away from a jealous strongman whose girlfriend Oz was macking on”.  Because this Oz is a pimp.  A weasely mess of a magician whose dreams of becoming a great inventor are always sidetracked by his inability to do more than dream and pick up chicks.  If those of you that were non-plussed by Franco’s turn at the Oscars — and I’ve gotta say I figured he was riding the Pineapple Express the entire ceremony — doubt that he can pull off this character, let’s just say that Franco has an interesting combination of fecklessness and candor that works well here.

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Jeff Chang turned 21 today.  Mazel Tov!  His two best friends from high school decide to pop in and surprise him with a bar-crawl blowout…but Jeff’s got “the” medical school interview at 8am tomorrow morning.  Oh you know this isn’t gonna end well.

21 And Over is made by the folks that gave us The Hangover, and luckily it’s more of the feel-good craziness of the first Hangover and not just warmed-over ideas packed into a college setting.  And the three leads do a fantastic job of taking moviegoers along for the ride.  Justin Chon (one of Bella’s non-sparkle pals in the Twilight series) plays Jeff Chang, a guy ground down to nothing by his overbearing father (François Chau, Lost).  Poor Jeff Chang — his friends call him by both first and last names, sounding like Jeffchang — is so beaten down that he doesn’t even want to celebrate this milestone in his life.  But party guy Miller (Miles Teller) decides to take charge, with their super-achieving friend Casey (Skylar Astin) deciding that one beer couldn’t hurt.  But with Miller’s promise that “I’m gonna fuck you with alcohol!”, it’s not gonna be a one-beer night.

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