Paradise (now on video)

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Just about every year some entertainment writer (who's not laid off yet) announces it's the "Year of the Woman" in film or TV because Tina Fey has another magazine cover shot, or something. I always love that: `Year of the Woman.' Notice that it's never Year of the WOMEN. Like, there can be only one at a time. "Move over, Kathryn Bigelow, you're done, crone. This Catherine Hardwicke is the hot new... Oh, get out of here, Catherine Hardwicke, Kristin Wiig is the It Girl right now. Oh, Kristin Wiig, take your wrinkly, menopausal self out of our sight, we like Lena Dunham now." By the time this review runs, some other fresh meat will get Lena Dunham's premium parking space.

Diablo Cody was a hot property with her celebrated script for JUNO, catapulting her to majors, nabbing her a column in Entertainment Weekly, and gaining her a director's chair. But Cody's much-anticipated followup was the teen-horror semi-satire JENNIFER'S BODY...Which wasn't even bad, in my opinion, especially by the gutter standards of most teen-horror. But it was still ungood enough to cost Diablo Cody the Dorothy Parker esteem that the media had briefly bestowed upon her. That and maybe daring to get a year or two older than she used to be. The bitch.

Young Adult

Review by Bob Ignizio

For some people, the time spent in high school really was the best years of their lives. The question is, if you've already peaked as a teenager, where do you go from there, especially when the future you saw for yourself hasn't materialized? That's the issue facing Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) in YOUNG ADULT, the new anti-romantic comedy from the JUNO team of writer Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman.

Mavis has been successful enough in her career as ghost writer for a series of high school-themed novels to move away from her hick town to the big city of Minneapolis, but little else about her life could be termed a success. Her marriage ended in divorce, she spends most of her free time watching reality TV, and now the book series is being canceled. But rather than look for a new direction in life, Mavis turns to her past. Specifically her ex-boyfriend Buddy (Patrick Wilson). The fact that Buddy is happily married and his wife Beth (Elisabeth Reaser) has just given birth to their first child seems only a minor inconvenience as Mavis heads back home determined to get her man no matter what the consequences.