Crush of the Week.

Yes, for mere physical reasons.

The Back-Up Plan *

Director: Alan Poul
Cast: Jennifer Lopez, Alex O'Loughlin
Eric Christian Olsen, Anthony Anderson, Michaela Watkins
Melissa McCarthy, Linda Lavin

We all learned during high school that the order of factors does not alter the product, which is why The Back-Up Plan's intention to disprove this, or convince us it does, results in a disastrous romantic comedy attempt.
Lopez plays Zoe, a successful pet shop owner who one day decides all she's missing in life is a child. She gets artificially inseminated and as she leaves the doctor, wondering if she's pregnant or not, she just happens to meet the guy of her dreams.
This guy is Stan (O'Loughlin), an organic cheese maker with perfect abs and just the right amount of scruffiness to make Zoe swoon and distrust his intentions.
Of course she ends up being pregnant and the rest of the movie consists of how she breaks and makes up with Stan as she deals with her own insecurities.
The pregnancy then is merely a device, a McGuffin if you will, used to talk about the same issues romantic comedies usually talk about.
Whatever pretensions the film has of conveying post feminism, dysfunctional relationships and single mother empowerment are lost the moment the audience discovers it's actually using these subjects to revert the characters back to the same old archetypes we're accustomed to.
This wouldn't be a problem if the film was straight forward about it (most people know what they're getting into with current rom-coms...) but its notion that just rearranging the story will work, makes it disrespectful of the audience.
Lopez gives a satisfying, somewhat charismatic, performance, this after all is her movie (notice how there are no recognizable actors besides her) and she's meant to hog the spotlight at all times. She's not as contrived as she usually is (despite the film trying to make her too cute for her own good) and whatever serious flaws are found in her character are due to the poor screenplay which goes from the stupid to the offensive (Zoe's disabled dog isn't only called Nuts but his name sounds like a certain political party when Zoe adds a "-y" in the end).
This being the J. Lo show and all also robs us from the opportunity to watch the ensemble shine brighter. Watkins who plays her best friend delivers the funniest lines in the film and the usually funny Anderson has a character who doesn't even get a name...
The Back-Up Plan is as hormonal and irrational as its lead character; it goes from feeling like a Tampax ad to a parody of Sex and the City in less than a minute and audience members might not feel inclined to satiate its cravings.

Whiteout *

Director: Dominic Sena
Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Gabriel Macht
Alex O'Loughlin, Shawn Doyle, Columbus Short, Tom Skerritt

US Marshal Carrie Stetko (Beckinsale), who is just three days away from resigning-of course-begins to investigate the mysterious death of a geologist.
Soon she's involved in a Cold War era conspiracy, while sorting out who she can trust in the middle of nowhere.
Enter the usual suspects: attractive, but too good to be true therefore mysterious UN operative Robert Pryce (Macht), father figure with a tendency for enigma (Skerritt), a pilot (Short) who's too nice and willing and Aussie bad boy who can't help but be interesting (O'Loughlin).
To say that nothing happens in this movie would be an understatement, the "action" sequences are one part "Scream" (minus the fun), two parts "Frosty the Snowman" as in the fact that you can't really see what's going on.
It's as if the filmmakers knew they had nothing interesting to show and tried to hide it with a snow curtain.
Of course they give us a gratuitous scene of Beckinsale in the shower and try to give her character deep psychological background.
She did something awful that's been haunting her forever and every new thing she sees reminds her of it. The grainy, ominous flashbacks are appropriately tinted for the place: orange for Florida, blue for Antarctica.
The best thing that can be said about "Whiteout" is that it had one of the most effective trailers in years. Why? Because the trailer for one doesn't give up the entire plot of the movie, in fact it makes it look as if it was an episode of "Lost" in the snow, what with mysterious nature references, bodies falling from the sky and explosions.
Sadly, the movie takes its cue from another television program and becomes "CSI:Antarctica".