First Word

Rating: ***1/2 The Other Woman was a cute comedy with heart. The set up goes like this: Carmen Diaz's character unwittingly falls in love with a married man and one night decides to surprise him at his home in Connecticut. To her shock and embarrassment her man doesn't open the front door, but (a-hem) his wife greets her. Realizing her boyfriend is married, Diaz's character leaves, but his wife Kate (played by Leslie Mann) is suspicious. She looks on her husband's phone bill and is able to track down Diaz's character, a high-powered lawyer, at work. After realizing it's true that her husband is having an extramarital affair, Kate hyperventilates and causes such a scene that Diaz's character attempts to rescue her. From there, the real mayhem gets under way as the newly bonded women discover more than one mistress. As a divorced woman who also had a relationship with a man who cheated, I felt Mann's pain. They did not gloss it over and make it cute ...

Rating: ** I am a Ridley Scott fan. One of my all-time favorite movies Gladiator is a Ridley Scott film; so I went to see The Counselor with hopes of a movie that would be worthy of a five-star rating. I was disappointed. This movie was less action than cerebral exploration of life, greed, love and grief. I have to get my superficial comments out of the way. First, the costumes and slick fashionista approach to the story distracted from the realism. From the sunglasses to the hokey hairdos, it was much too much. Yes, we got the impression of the world of the rich and well-to-do, but at the same time, I found myself staring at the colorful wardrobe and ridiculous hairdos than paying attention to the story itself. The actual story revolves around an attorney's fall from grace as he lets his pursuit of money get him involved in a drug cartel scheme to move drugs across the Mexican border to Chicago. This movie is a who-is-screwing-who mind-bender, except about halfway through C...