I did not know anything about “Le Week-End” much before I saw it. The trailer captivated me to see it, given the fact that I love movies taking place in Europe. “Le-Weekend” is a dark comedy that is feeling like viewers are watching a retired version of “The Before Trilogy.” However, this is just ok. It is not amazing, it is not heartfelt, and it is not structured.

The two main characters are a couple and their names are Nick and Meg (Jim Broadbent and Lindsey Hunt). Both are a couple that travel to Paris (their former honeymoon location) to try and salvage their marriage. “Le Week-End” barely has any elements to understanding what the conflict is between the couple. If there was any key moment, the only one I recognized was Nick and Meg struggling to feeling like they are young and falling in love.

The dialogue was not very audible. Most of the conversations sounded like watching something through a computer monitor with computer speakers. I understand that independent films make their goal for their films to be low-budget, but what is a film that is not audible? I almost thought of asking for a hearing device from the manager of the cinema.

Director Roger Michell (director of Hyde Park on Hudson (2012) and Morning Glory (2010)) seemed to have lacked the quality of “Le-Weekend.” I remember that “Hyde Park on Hudson” was not that great, but the acting was phenomenal, and the same goes with “Morning Glory.”

The writer Hanif Kureishi wrote for Michell for a variety of his films. The following films include “Intimacy” (2001), “The Mother” (2003) “Venus” (2006), and more. Most of his films have a depressing premise and have received mixed reviews over the years. I do not see thing being an issue because of a lack of ideas or organization, I see this because of the movies they have made to just be very depressing and not uplifting whatsoever.

“Le Week-End” had a good concept, but lacked throughout. This film is intended more for a DVD viewing or on demand viewing. In the cinema, it is not very cinematic or memorable. Would be if the filmmakers cared about the audio.

Now this is a college party movie that is actually awesome. “Neighbors” is satirical all the way through. The characters are funny, the setup is funny, the situations are funny, and above all, it is a film that will make parents wonder if a fraternity house is actually safe for their children. 

The movie starts out with a married couple Mac and Kelly Radner (Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne). They move into a luxurious neighborhood filled mostly wealthy families. They have one kid and they try to blend in with other families as soon as they move in. Rogen obviously still has ways of getting stoned into his films, and he does this in a variety of weird places and can still play the good father.

A few days once they are settled in, they realize they have got some new neighbors as soon as a mover’s truck shows up. After the mover’s truck stops in, a herd of cars filled with college boys fills up around it. Soon to realize that for the Radner family they got a fraternity house living next door.

They two leaders of this fraternity are Teddy Sanders (played by Zac Efron) and Pete (played by Dave Franco). Most of the time we are use to seeing Dave’s brother James be in films with Rogen, but in this one, this one really makes the mark for a comedy by James Franco’s younger brother.

The Radner family tries to be cooperative the fraternity and not to stir up trouble with police authorities. They do everything they can. They party with them, drink with them, and prove they can be trusted.

Neighbors is a hysterical thrill ride and a highly recommend. Four stars.

Billy Ray’s first film for directing, “Shattered Glass,” is one that Hayden Christensen plays the role of Stephen Glass seriously. The process of production was a disaster at first, since Ray tried to convince the real-life people to work on “Shattered Glass” with him. Former news editor of the News Republic Michael Kelly (in the film he is portrayed by Hank Azaria) had a hard time being convinced by the director to be part of “Shattered Glass.” The reason for this hard decision is because Kelly felt embarrassed that he worked with a journalist (Stephen Glass) that fabricated articles and published them. Later though, Ray convinced Kelly to help out with the film once Ray said he was approaching the story as a journalist. He informed Kelly that he wanted the script to be factually accurate as can be. Once that task was a success, two colleagues Charles Lane (in the film he is portrayed by Peter Saarsgard) and Hannah Rosin worked as advisers for Billy Ray. The character Caitlin Avey (portrayed by Chloe Sevigny) is loosely based off of Hannah Rosin.

The film’s introduction is the life of Stephen Glass (Christensen): a smart, and devoted journalist, and a student trying to finish his law degree; his colleague Charles Lane (Saarsgard) is short-fused and gets aggravated easily; another colleague Caitlin Avey (Sevigny) who is a close-friend of Glass but thinks that Lane is too hard on everyone; and a caring editor Michael Kelly (Azaria) that lacks dialogue. An organized man but is not good with confrontations.

 Glass writes a story about a company called Jukt Micronics. Which is a big event that consists of a hacker at the age of fifteen and is trying to make a name for himself.  This story is one that never happened, but the rest of the News Republic is not aware of the problem yet. The issue is that Glass just makes situations worse and does not resolve any of the conflicts he is putting himself into. He just keeps on trying to find ways to cheat his way out of getting caught, and he does this by fabricating article after article.

Before the Jukt Micronics issue happens, Glass was assigned to do research and write an article on Drug Abuse Resistance Education. He did go to the conference regarding what he was suppose to write about, but admits he messed up (where he actually lied). Later though, the News Republic gets letters of distortions and lies that they found written by Glass. Glass’s window is closing.