Ted

A falling star brings a teddy bear to life and young John (Mark Wahlberg) has a friend for life. Now as a young annoying adult, John continues to live with Ted much to the annoyance of his hot partner, Lori (Mila Kunis). Now most young men when presented a choice between a teddy bear and Ms. Kunis would not hesitate in shredding the toy to smithereens. But for the sake of comedy John secretly chooses Ted and we spend the rest of the movie trying to laugh in vain.

Rating: *

Black Swan

Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) wins the lead role in the epic ballet, Swan Lake. She seamlessly fits in to the role of the White Swan, however playing the Black Swan proves elusive. As she strives to get under skin of the darker alter ego, she she finds her own dark side seeping out. Darren Aronofsky as always pushes the limit to shock and thrill. The film is very watchable in an edge of your seat kind of way but it felt like a watered down version of Helen Oyeyemi's Icarus Girl.

Rating: * * +

Extract

A potpourri of interesting characters are thrown together in the vain hope of making a comedy for the ages. Joel (Jason Bateman) runs an extract factory while dealing with a sexless marriage and employee suing for damages to his balls. His buddy Dean (Ben Affleck) convinces him over some horse tranquilizers that the best plan to relax is to hire a gigolo to have sex with his wife (Kristen Wiig) so that Joel can have a guilt free romp in the sack with a hot factory worker (Mila Kunis). A pathetic attempt by Mike Judge to recreate his glory days that ended with Office Space.

Rating: *