Extract

Jason Bateman seems to be everywhere lately. We all remember him as the brother of Justine Bateman, the hot girl from Family Ties who disappeared from the face of the Earth. He made a name for himself on the show Valerie, which was then renamed Valerie's Family, then subsequently renamed The Hogan Family. But that's a different story.

Jason Bateman didn't really hit it big again until Arrested Development, one of the funniest shows ever and set the tone for his movie characters to follow. Since 2007 he has been in the following movies that I have seen:

The Kingdom

Juno

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Hancock

State of Play

The Invention of Lying

Up in the Air

Extract

Couple's Retreat

This time, he stars as Joel the owner and manager of a company that makes extract, you know - like vanilla-flavored extract used in baking. His company is doing really well, but his wife Suzie (Kristen Wiig) sucks and won't have sex, his employees are disgruntled and think they should be paid millions of dollars, and his best friend Dean (Ben Affleck) is a crazy bartender who's a little free willy with dolling out the drugs. Meanwhile, Joel is about as straight-laced as you can get.

There is hilarious interaction between him and his obnoxious neighbor Nathan (David Koechner) and the lawyer (Gene Simmons) who represents Step (Clifton Collins Jr) who is injured at work. And then there is the gigilo that he hires for his wife so that he can get a divorce.

Joel thinks he may have found something special when he runs into Cindy (Mila Kunis) who joins the company and takes an active interest in him. However, things start going amok at the factory and Joel is about ready to throw in the towel.

Having worked at a factory, I can totally relate to this movie. There is one line by one of the factory workers that I have heard no less than 3.721 million times - "Everyone knows that I'm the hardest working employee here!" I couldn't stop laughing. I even rewound the movie to hear that again.

Extract was directed by Mike Judge, creator of Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill. The movie is 92 minutes long and is Rated R for language, sexual references, and drug use. Mila Kunis is totally hot, so look for her in some future movies.

The movie also stars J.K. Simmons, no relation to Gene Simmons, the lead singer of Kiss. You'll remember J.K. as J. Jonah Jameson, the chief of the Daily Bugle from the Spiderman Movies.

I really liked Extract for its quirky dry humor. Jason Bateman is becoming one of my favorite actors and this movie was perfect for him. I give Extract 4 stars.

Chasing Amy

I'm not sure which of my friends recommended this movie, but when I figure it out I'm going to punch them in the nose.

Now and then you get a movie recommendation that is absolutely wrong. I know one of my friends, or perhaps several of them, recommended the Kevin Smith movie Chasing Amy to me. I've seen several of his other movies including Clerks, Mallrats, Dogma, and Clerks 2, so I figured it was a safe pick. Boy was I wrong.

My first mistake was thinking that Chasing Amy was a comedy. With nearly an hour and 18 minutes of Ben Afflac and Gay Joey screaming at each other trying to make the other feel guilty I came to realize that the movie is actually a romantic drama, because that's what they do in romantic dramas - scream at each other for long periods of time while trying to make each other feel guilty.

Chasing Amy stars the usual suspects for any Kevin Smith movie, including Kevin Smith, Ben Affleck, Jason Lee, Matt Damon, Brian O'Halloran, and Jason Mewes.

Chasing Amy is rated R for language and drug use, if you can believe that in a Kevin Smith movie, and some sexual content. The movie is 113 minutes long.

Outside of some of the Jason Lee parts and the Jay and Silent Bob bit, the rest of the movie sucked. I give this movie 2 stars. If you ever hear me recommending this movie to anyone please smash my Big Mac into my face. This movie is not as funny as anyone will report it to be. And the worst part about it is I wasted a Netflix spot for it. I could have had Emmanuelle 2!