The Boys Are Back opens with Joe (Clive Owen) blasting through the surf of an undisclosed beach in his Land Rover Discovery, kicking up water and sand as he clips along at a rather impressive speed. He gleefully laughs, then we see the trunk of the SUV, adorned with Joe’s son, who of course thinks this is great fun. As soon as the son entered the picture, I became white knuckled, and fretted over the safety of the actor portraying Joe’s son. I never really recovered from that scene, and kind of despised Joe throughout the movie. That makes is rather difficult to be sympathetic to his plight.
Joe is a sports writer at an Australian newspaper, and is happily married with a seven year old son, Artie (Nicholas McAnulty). He travels frequently for work and is somewhat of an absentee father. His wife Katy (played by Laura Fraser) pretty much runs the household entirely on her own. Unfortunately, his wife gets cancer and dies (no spoilers, it happens in the first 5 minutes). The opening scenes are quite upsetting, and I should caution you if you have a loved one suffering from a terminal illness, you might want to skip this movie.
Thrust into the role of primary caregiver, Joe fails miserably. Dishes and laundry pile up, and questionable food items become the norm (ketchup with noodles, anyone?). In the real world, his household would be a prime target for Child Protective Services. The movie depicts Joe’s struggle running the household quite realistically. Complicating matters further, Joe’s teenage son from a previous marriage decides that this is the appropriate time to go hang out with the father who abandoned him when he was six years old.
Let me start by asking doesn’t “Star Trek Trio” sound like a really geeky jazz band? Someone that is musically inclined should totally make that happen. Vegas show, perhaps?
Since the announcement that 
MGM
Every great romance needs a great soundtrack. So one huge problem I had with Twilight (other than the overacting, terrible script, and all the screaming fans around me in the theater) was the music. This movie was part of a pop culture sensation, and the filmmakers had the chance to entwine the romance on screen with some amazing tunes to culture its pre-teen audience. “Flightless Bird, American Mouth” by Iron and Wine was really the only standout track on the soundtrack to me, while Paramore and Linkin Park seemed like obvious choices for the time in which the film came out, and while these bands added to the angsty feeling of teen romance, they just didn’t do it for me.