At the Movies With Peter Travers: “The Informant!” and “Jennifer’s Body”
The fall movie season gets off to a flying start as Rolling Stone movie critic Peter Travers has not one but two films to recommend in this week’s At the Movies. Leading the way is Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant!, with an emphasis on the exclamation point to let audiences know that this film is both funny and shocking. The based-on-a-true-story film stars an unrecognizable Matt Damon as four-eyed biochemist Mark Whitacre, a strangely fascinating man who embezzles and defrauds the firm he’s working for, all while assisting the FBI in an investigation against the firm. The duplicity of Whitacre’s actions is just one of the threads holding this smart and funny look at the world we live in now, Travers says.
Also out this weekend is Jennifer’s Body, starring current Rolling Stone cover star Megan Fox. Sure, Hollywood is advertising this thing like it’s just another cookie-cutter bloodfest, but this movie does something that’s nearly impossible to pull off:
The dangerous combination of comedy and horror. Thanks to Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody, director Karyn Kusama and its leads Fox and Amanda Seyfried, this film about the prom queen who is sacrificed to Satan and ultimately does his bidding is a winner. And besides, is there anything more horrifying than being in high school?
Over the past few weeks, Travers has done a review of the summer’s best films and a Fall Movie Preview, so by turning away from what entered theaters the last days of summer, he’s stored up new filler for his Scum Bucket. There was Gamer. You know that saying “Don’t hate the playa, hate the game.” Travers definitely hated the Game[r]. Sorority Row, or the anti-Jennifer’s Body, also gets scummed, as does Kate Beckinsale’s Whiteout and the atrociously sappy drama Love Happens, starring Aaron Eckhart and Jennifer Aniston.