earching for a movie to attend with my youngest brother a few weeks ago, my task quickly narrowed to avoiding Limitless at all costs.
Despite the hype, The Hangover and fawning coverage in The New York Times and elsewhere, I just don't buy Bradley Cooper as a leading man, and the effort to prop up him up as one felt forced and hollow.
The corollary question remains, though: With most of Hollywood's male A-list stars fast approaching AARP eligibility, who will step up to take their place?
Enter Jake Gyllenhaal, arriving promptly on the scene this week with Source Code , helpfully pointing out the needlessness of Cooper's elevation.
Gyllenhaal, with a director for a father and screenwriter for a mother, was born into filmmaking, and his career began early when, at age 11, he played a small part in Billy Crystal's City Slickers .
He began his ascension to stardom playing awkward adolescents in Bubble Boy, The Good Girl and cult classic Donnie Darko , a personal favorite.
Gyllenhaal's effortless charm and emotive face make him one of the most watchable stars in recent memory. With the exception of one ill-advised attempt at franchise-making ( Prince of Persia ), he has selected varied, thought-provoking roles.
He has been a Marine (Jarhead) , a Marine's deadbeat brother (Brothers) and a CIA analyst (Rendition) . His turn as Robert Graysmith in David Fincher's Zodiac was a high point and came after his powerful portrayal of Jack Twist in Brokeback Mountain .
Despite the crude jokes that greeted Brokeback Mountain , it's a film whose resonance has grown with each passing year (and the passing of its other star, Heath Ledger). It might take 50 years, but I think Brokeback Mountain will eventually be regarded as a masterful, important achievement.
As for Source Code , the trailer (and title) is pretty bland, but the film has been garnering mostly positive reviews. Gyllenhaal's presence, along with the direction of up-and-comer Duncan Jones and co-stars Michelle Monaghan and Vera Farmiga, means I'll likely catch Source Code while it's in theaters.
If you left Limitless feeling less than satisfied (and you probably did), and you haven't filled your science-fiction thriller quota with The Adjustment Bureau , I say give Source Code a try.
NO CAR TROUBLE: In avoiding Limitless , my brother and I settled on The Lincoln Lawyer , which meant spending time with Matthew McConaughey, another leading man with suspicious stardom.
Having grown tired of his jogging sessions with Lance Armstrong, his dreadful romantic comedies and his general penchant for shirtlessness, I had soured completely on McConaughey.
Luckily, I didn't allow my negativity to turn me away from this movie, a serviceable courtroom drama with a few good twists.
McConaughey plays a lawyer, which called to mind his performance in A Time to Kill , the solid John Grisham adaptation. In The Lincoln Lawyer , also an adaptation of a novel, McConaughey is greasier in appearance and morality, and downright terrific in the role.
I enjoyed it from start to finish, and I recommend it to anyone who can't turn away from a good Law and Order episode.
I was able to put aside my distaste for McConaughey so quickly because of his co-star, Marisa Tomei, whom I couldn't stop thinking about since her appearance at the Academy Awards, where she stood out among plastic starlets by looking naturally and stunningly gorgeous.
Tomei might have won her Oscar in the 1990s for My Cousin Vinny , but she's earned it in the 2000s with films like In the Bedroom, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead and The Wrestler .
She wasn't given much to do in The Lincoln Lawyer , but I appreciated her presence nonetheless. Somehow the woman whose Oscar win was widely mocked as undeserved has, slowly but surely, become a national treasure.
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