At the onset of Martin Weisz’s Los Angeles-based Squatters, two raggedy drifters awake on the beach under a lifeguard station. The sun slowly rises and two of the most glammed out drifters of cinema are revealed. The beauty of the girl is made abundantly clear through her cherry red lips while the boy could be mistaken for Green Day lead singer Billie Jo Armstrong. Seriously.They are Kelly (Gabriella Wilde) and Jonas (Thomas Dekker), and they’re a couple who soon find themselves trespassing in a Pacific Palisades mansion after the owners leave for a month-long vacation. The young streetwise duo revel in their luxurious new life, but once the smoke disappears from the proverbial mirrors, they must acknowledge the truth and separate fact from fiction.It doesn’t take long to realize there is an “interesting” style to Squatters, so it wasn’t surprising to later discover that director Martin Weisz is a successful commercial director and has worked with a variety of successful pop artists.
Unfortunately, Weisz’s focus on style over substance doesn’t allow much room for the development of Justin Shilton’s flimsy script to connect nor does it help in differentiating from other “trading places” films as the standard youth angst clichés can all be found in abundance.An early acid-dropping scene reminds of Sofia Coppola’s “The Bling Ring,” as the drifters dance on the beach after a minor robbery and don’t have a care in the world. The similarities are unavoidable.In others scenes — all with Oscar worthy dialogue like, “Everybody can go fuck themselves” and “That’s how it works in this fucked-up world” — key sensibilities are lost. For example, while most street kids would celebrate the cracking of a safe, count the cash and hightail it from the scene, Jonas throws money in the air and remarks on Kelly’s appearance after a bath. Astonishingly, there is no reference to the safe that was just cracked, or how it was opened. In another ridiculous moment, a love scene takes place seconds after Kelly and Jonas spot a car in the driveway of the house they are trespassing in.
This could be a simple editing error (or perhaps Weisz got lost in the moment and said, “Well, this will look cool”), but it’s another huge distraction and makes little sense.To make matters worse, the film also boasts a nemesis straight out of an Austin Powers film and how convenient that the sexy drifter Kelly would end up alone in movie theater with the dashing son of the family she robbed?Squatters does feature a solid performance from Gabriella Wilde, who recently appeared in 2013’s “Carrie” and has the goods to become a major star. Her character doesn’t quite have the edge that one might expect from an opportunistic drifter, however, the sense of longing for a new life makes her Kelly endearing and likable and Wilde’s tender softness is undoubtedly the highlight of the film.Thomas Dekker (“Plush”), while perhaps a talented actor in some sense, is not utilized effectively due to his troubling dialogue and unnatural natural rebel appearance. Evan Ross (“Jeff, Who Lives at Home“) stands out as the streetwise friend and Luke Grimes (“Taken 2“) has just the right amount of confidence and charm to be a potential suitor for Kelly.In fact, Squatters would have been a much better film with Grimes cast in the lead.
And with all the inconsistencies, undeveloped plot points and characters, and unintentional comedy, the film probably would have been that much better had Shilton and Weisz rethought their roles too. JOURNEY TO THE WEST 2 THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIEEditor's note: This story includes some of the informal dialect that Mark Twain liked to include in his writing. We have provided explanations of some of the expressions after the story. Our story is called "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." It was written by Mark Twain. Here is Shep O'Neal with the story. A friend of mine in the East asked me to visit old Simon Wheeler, to ask about my friends friend, Leonidas W. Smiley. I did as my friend asked me to do and this story is the result. I found Simon Wheeler sleeping by the stove in the ruined mining camp of Angels. I saw that he was fat and had no hair, and had a gentle and simple look upon his peaceful face. He woke up, and gave me "good-day." I told him a friend had asked me to find out about a friend named Leonidas W. Smiley, who he heard was at one time living in Angels Camp.
I added that if Mr. Wheeler could tell me anything about this Leonidas W. Smiley, I would feel a great responsibility to him. Simon Wheeler forced me into a corner with his chair and began telling me this long story. He never smiled, he never frowned. But all through the endless story there was a feeling of great seriousness and honesty. This showed me plainly that he thought the heroes of the story were men of great intelligence. I let him go on in his own way, and never stopped him once. This is the story Simon Wheeler told. Leonidas W. …. hm… Le… well, there was a man here once by the name of Jim Smiley, in the winter of 1849--or may be it was the spring of 1850. Anyway, he was the strangest man. He was always making money on anything that turned up if he could get anybody to try to make money on the other side. And if he could not do that, he would change sides. And he was lucky, uncommon lucky. He most always was a winner. If there was a dog-fight, he would try to win money on it.
If there was a cat-fight, he would take the risk. If there was a chicken-fight, he would try to win money on it. Why, if there was two birds setting on a fence, he would want you to decide which one would fly first so he could win money. Lots of the boys here have seen that Smiley and can tell you about him. Why, it did not matter to him. He would try to make money on anything. He was the most unusual man. Parson Walker's wife was very sick once, for a long time, and it seemed as if they were not going to save her. But one morning he come in, and Smiley asked him how was his wife, and he said she was better, thank God. And Smiley, before he thought, says, "Well, I'll risk my money she will not get well." And Smiley had a little small dog. To look at the dog, you would think he was not worth anything but to sit around and look mean and look for a chance to steal something. But as soon as there was money, he was a different dog. Another dog might attack and throw him around two or three times.
Then all of a sudden Smiley's dog would grab that other dog by his back leg and hang on till the men said it was over. Smiley always come out the winner on that dog, at least until he found a dog once that did not have any back legs. The dog's legs had been cut off in a machine. Well, the fighting continued long enough, and the money was gone. Then when Smiley's dog come to make a grab (at) the other dog's back legs, he saw in a minute how there was a problem. The other dog was going to win and Smiley's dog looked surprised and did not try to win the fight anymore. He gave Smiley a look that said he was sorry for fighting a dog that did not have any back legs for him to hold, which he needed to win a fight. Then Smiley's dog walked away, laid down and died. He was a good dog, and would have made a name for himself if he had lived, for he had intelligence. It always makes me feel sorry when I think of that last fight of his and the way it turned out. Well, this Smiley had rats, and chickens, and cats and all of them kind of things.
You could not get anything for him to risk money on but he would match you. He caught a frog one day, and took him home, and said he was going to educate the frog. And so he never done nothing for three months but sit in his back yard and teach that frog to jump. And you bet you he did teach him, too. He would give him a little hit from behind. And the next minute you would see that frog dancing in the air and then come down all on his feet and all right, like a cat. Smiley got him so the frog was catching flies, and he would catch one of those insects every time. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do almost anything. And I believe him. Why, I have seen him set Dan’l Webster down here on this floor—Dan’l Webster was the name of the frog -- and sing out, "Flies, Dan’l, flies!" And quicker than you could shut your eyes that frog would jump straight up and catch a fly off the table. Then he would fall down on the floor again like a ball of dirt and start rubbing the side of his head with his back foot as if he had no idea he had been doing any more than any frog might do.
You never seen a frog so honest and simple as he was, for all he was so skilled. And when it come to jumping, he could get over more ground in one jump than any animal of his kind that you ever saw. Smiley was very proud of his frog, and people who had traveled and been everywhere all said he was better than any frog they had ever seen. Well, one day a stranger came in and says to Smiley, "What might be that you have got in the box?" And Smiley says, "It's only just a frog." And the man took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it round this way and that, and says, "Hm, so it is. Well, what is he good for?" "Well," Smiley says, easy and careless, "he can out jump any frog in Calaveras county." The man took the box again, and took another long look, and gave it back to Smiley, and says, "Well, I don’t see anything about that frog that is any better than any other frog." "Maybe you don’t," Smiley says. "Maybe you understand frogs and maybe you don’t.
Anyways, I will risk forty dollars and bet you that he can jump farther than any frog in Calaveras County." And the man studied a minute. "Well, I’m only a stranger here, and I do not have a frog. But if I had a frog, I would risk my money on it. And then Smiley says, "That’s all right. If you will hold my box a minute, I will go and get you a frog." And so the man took the box, and put up his forty dollars and sat down to wait. He sat there a long time thinking and thinking. Then he got the frog out of the box. He filled its mouth full of bullets used to kill small birds. Then he put the frog on the floor. Now Smiley had caught another frog and gave it to the man and said, "Now sit him next to Dan'l and I will give the word." Then Smiley says, "One-two-three-go!" and Smiley and the other man touched the frogs. The new frog jumped. Dan'l just lifted up his body but could not move at all. He was planted like a building. Smiley was very surprised and angry too.
But he did not know what the problem was. The other man took the money and started away. And when he was going out the door, he looked back and said "Well, I don't see anything about that frog that is any better than any other frog." Smiley stood looking down at Dan’l a long time, and at last says, "I wonder what in the nation happened to that frog. I wonder if there is something wrong with him." And he picked up Dan'l and turned him upside down and out came a whole lot of bullets. And Smiley was the angriest man. He set the frog down and took out after that man but he never caught him. Now Simon Wheeler heard his name called and got up to see what was wanted. He told me to wait but I did not think that more stories about Jim Smiley would give me any more information about Leonidas W. Smiley, and so I started to walk away. At the door I met Mr. Wheeler returning, and he started talking again. "Well, this here Smiley had a yellow cow with one eye and no tail…"