Recliner Reviews | ‘Cake’ tops list of movies you should rent this weekend

“Cake”

These are some of the weirdest casting decisions ever for a drama dealing with personal tragedy. Imagine sitting in a room when a producer says, “We’re going with that girl from ‘Friends’ with the great hair to play the lead. And she’ll be haunted by the ghost of a suicide victim played by that darling from ‘Pitch Perfect.’ And then, let’s get the guy from ‘Avatar’ to play a grieving husband.”

Surprisingly, Jennifer Aniston, Anna Kendrick and Sam Worthington successfully juggle this script full of depression and dark humor and coping with loss.

This is the role of Aniston’s career – she’s powerful and vulnerable, really layering her performance.

Mexican actress Adriana Barraza does an amazing job of giving and taking with Aniston.

Maybe it’s the content, but this film went unnoticed at the Oscars and under the radar by most audiences. But it could be the sleeper of the year, so you should eat it up – worth a watch.

“Maps to the Stars”

Filmmaker David Cronenberg (“The Fly” and “A History of Violence”) examines cultural phenomena and disguises these examinations under sexual charged, violent movies.

This time, Cronenberg dives into the strange landscape of Hollywood. His characters hide in self-made prisons of fortune. They guard themselves from the ghosts of their past with self-absorbed celebrity lifestyles and self-help and primal therapy. His actors – Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska, John Cusack, Robert Pattinson, Evan Bird and Olivia Williams – crash into each other with brutality and fragility.

Sometimes, the brave nature and the actor’s fearlessness pulls it through. Sometimes, scenes come across as overly obvious and heavy-handed. But you have to give Cronenberg credit for reaching for the stars and smashing them to the earth without prejudice – worth a watch.

“Taken 3”

A small part of Liam Neeson has to be ecstatic about being done with this franchise. This trilogy started with a tremendous action flick and has bumped up and down ever since.

“Taken 2” was predominantly a down. In this follow-up, director Olivier Megaton wants to make up for the mistakes he made in the second installment, so he changed the setting to Los Angeles, brought all the cast back, killed off Famke Janssen to up the ante and added Forest Whitaker give it “The Fugitive” effect.

Once again, Maggie Grace takes more of a starring role, but her scenes feel flat. The overall results are the same – the action is great, but everything else is more of the same. All the while, Neeson has been doing better action films and thrillers over the last six years. You should pass, but you’ll probably check it out anyway just to see Neeson whisper into a phone again, so it’s barely worth a watch.

This story was originally published April 24, 2015 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Recliner Reviews | ‘Cake’ tops list of movies you should rent this weekend."