Kate (June Diane Raphael) and Chloe (Casey Wilson) have been best friends their entire lives, finishing each other’s sentences, sleeping in the same waterbed, they even have a catch phrase when introducing themselves to people (“Kate and Chloe! Her Chloe, me Kate. Kate and Chloe.”) It is endearing how the girls support each other unconditionally with positive affirmations and constantly reminding each other they are on the verge of greatness – Kate is the CEO of her own company! (Kate is an egg doner.) Chloe is on the verge of becoming a big star! (Chloe is a go-go dancer.) But unfortunately, Kate and Chloe are co-dependent messes who have no idea how far from greatness (or even acting their age) they truly are. Despite living large in New York City, when the girls receive an invitation to return to their hometown’s beauty pageant circuit, you can tell they both want to go back and compete. Kate and Chloe came in dead last when they competed in the pageant as children and they believe this could be their chance to show everyone they are no longer losers. After getting evicted from their apartment (a minor set back!), the girls hit the open road and the hi-jinx hit the fast lane.

Kathryn Bigelow‘s Zero Dark Thirty is currently in limited release and about to go wide, but while it’s unclear what the film’s box-office reception will be the critical one has been fairly unanimous. Unless you count the Academy Awards. Bigelow’s previous visit to the Middle East netted six Oscars including Best Film, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay (for Mark Boal), and like her new one, it faced its fair share of criticism over accuracy. Director and writer both sat down for a commentary track, and while they don’t comment directly on those claims, Boal in particular seems very aware of them. Keep reading to see what I heard with this week’s The Hurt Locker Commentary Commentary…

For anyone who has been clamoring for Robert Zemeckis‘s return to live-action, Flight should appease those fans of the director who haven’t embraced his recent motion-capture adventures. This isn’t exactly a triumphant comeback, but with Flight he mostly knows what buttons to push in order to please. It’s a true testament to Denzel Washington‘s performance that the blunt drama doesn’t fall on its face. Washington has major obstacles to overcome in making the character of Whip Whitaker as empathetic as he is. From frame one, Zemeckis and screenwriter John Gatins unflatteringly show us who this guy is: a bad father, an alcoholic, a coke addict. There is nothing to admire about him, not even his surface level charms, which are best showcased in scenes between Washington and John Goodman.

The high school reunion film genre has been so flooded with entries that it’s reached the point of being nothing short of played out, so any new entry needs to justify its existence by offering some kind of unique spin on the usual, or at least by featuring characters that transcend the normal archetypes. Writer-director Jamie Linden fails on both counts in his 10 Years and seems to think that the film’s all-star cast compensates for those deficiencies. It doesn’t. No matter how much you love Channing Tatum, Aubrey Plaza, Anthony Mackie, Chris Pratt, Ari Graynor, or any of the other notables who turn up here, there’s no getting around the simple, basic fact that Linden’s movie doesn’t tell a story. It merely brings to life the world’s least interesting reunion, featuring a swath of staggering dullards played by talented people.

Prior to writing this article I tried to come up with a better headline than “New Hurt Locker Poster Explodes,” but I just couldn’t.

We’ve been telling you for months now that Kathryn Bigelow’s upcoming Iraq war action film The Hurt Locker is hands down the best movie of 2009. And we aren’t effing kidding here, people.

Behold, you first look at an exclusive clip from one of the premieres from the CineVegas 2009 line-up, writer/director Kyle Patrick Alvarez’s Easier With Practice.