Mark Wahlberg at The Cinema Society's Pain and Gain premiere.

"It was creepy, but also awesome," said Charl Brown of meeting his real-life counterpart as revelers sipped Qui cocktails.

Ariana DeBose, who understudies for Diana Ross (played by the Tony-nominated Valisia LeKae) and performs as Marie Wilson, said of meeting the two women: "It was incredible...during curtain call, all the people who the show is about actually came on stage. Diana Ross was actually there."

So too, were Mr. Robinson, Berry Gordy, Mary Wilson and Stevie Wonder.

We didn't want to be rude, but ah, how did Mr. Wonder get from the packed house onto the set?

"Oh, didn't people hoist him up to the stage?" Ms. DeBose asked her costar.

"I think so...he was great, had a beautiful date," Mr. Brown replied.

Meanwhile, rumors were circulating that Mr. Wahlberg's appearance at the film was almost canceled due to the bombing in Boston. Instead, the actor showed up to the premiere and gave a heartfelt speech, the gist of which was: "I was thinking about not coming, but I thought 'I have to keep going.'"

The actor--whom it was also rumored had found out earlier in the day that a friend's young son had been one of the three casualties in yesterday's horrific tragedy at the Boston Marathon-- then asked for the audience to say a silent prayer for the people of Boston.

Wahlberg and Ted (voiced by MacFarlane) in Ted.

Wonders never cease. Who ever dreamed I could (or would, even on a dare) sit through a two-hour movie about Mark Wahlberg and a talking teddy bear? Or that I would (or could, even at gunpoint) possibly enjoy it so much? But here is Ted—a genre-screwing Donnybrook that defies description and guarantees, I swear, open-mouthed hilarity. It is refreshingly oblivious to the kind of political correctness that is going to be the death of us all. It is rude, raunchy and repellent to the point of almost being a send-up of the Farrelly Brothers, Judd Apatow, Adam Sandler and the rest of the ozone polluters giving movies a bad name. (Address your complaints to the nearest sewer.) It contains dialogue and depicts situations that cannot be described in a family newspaper—including the ones that are read only by the Addams family. It has nudity, profanity and X-rated detritus unsuitable for anyone with an I.Q. of 50. It is also creative, adorable, ingenious and devilishly, thigh-slappingly hilarious. Do not take my pulse. It must be the heat.

Boston, 1985. John Bennett, an unhappy 8-year-old boy and victim of school bullying, gets a teddy bear for Christmas. He kisses it, names it Ted, and vows to love it forever, making only one wish—that Ted could really talk. The next morning, when the neighborhood bullies are busy beating up the Jewish kids on Christmas Day, a miracle has turned Ted into a talking Pooh that becomes a national celebrity and a popular guest on Johnny Carson. Nobody can shut Ted up, including Seth MacFarlane, the multitasking hyphenate power player responsible for the outrageous animated TV sitcom Family Guy. He is the voice of Ted, and this is his feature-film debut as a director. I have never been a fan of the TV show, but among his other talents, Mr. MacFarlane has recently unveiled his secret passion for singing Broadway and movie show tunes and big-band jazz on a sensational new CD that has not left my player long enough to mix a fresh cosmo. His music is good, and there’s plenty of that, too. Whatever else you think of the movie, the soundtrack swings.

But I digress. Twenty-seven years pass, John grows up to be a 35-year-old Mark Wahlberg, and Ted grows up to be a potty-mouthed, pot-smoking, beer-guzzling, woman-chasing reprobate everybody would like to send back to any toy store that will take him. Ted does everything to break up John and his loyal, long-suffering girlfriend, Lori (Mila Kunis), but John is a grown man who still can’t sleep in a thunderstorm without his stuffed teddy bear. Lori doesn’t get a minute’s peace, even in bed. She even comes home from a lovely romantic anniversary dinner to find Ted entertaining four hookers, one of whom has done something on the living-room floor no maid will clean up. Forced to choose, John moves Ted into his own apartment, but the funny antics (contrived, I admit) are just beginning. A creepy guy with a humongous son who wants Ted for his own kinky nursery games stalks him in an ominous van. “Who was that?” asks John. “That was Sinead O’Connor,” says Ted. “She don’t look so good no more.”

The script bounces off the wall like a rubber Cassius Clay doll, while movie references abound. Ted talks like Little Caesar and takes bubble baths like cigar-smoking Edward G. Robinson. Jousting with sensitive subjects such as minorities and headline tragedies, flaunting convention in a determined effort to offend just about everybody, Ted (as the voice of Seth MacFarlane) mouths insults in the words of Seth MacFarlane (as the voice of Ted). In no time, you can’t tell one from the other. I ended up loving them both. The CGI Ted has digital features that morph into awesome expressions. He can look and act querulous, hurt, sensitive, impish or obnoxious, depending on the line. When the fat psychotic kid pulls his ear off, Ted yells “Back off, Susan Boyle!” But while you roar at Ted’s aside to the audience (“Someone had to go Joan Crawford on that kid!”) you can also feel the “Ouch!” Peace is restored when Lori saves Ted from his kidnappers, and Ted saves Lori from her oversexed boss, an A-hole who collects lurid artifacts like John Lennon’s glasses and Lance Armstrong’s testicles, “freeze-framed and bronzed.” There’s a guest appearance by an aging Sam Jones who played Flash Gordon, a Norah Jones concert where Mr. Wahlberg reverts to his old Marky Mark days and sings “The Love Theme From Octopussy,” and a vicious duck named James Franco. You had to be there.

In fact, most of Ted eludes description, analysis and explanation. You just have to hold onto your own certifiable sense of humor and let Mr. MacFarlane take you where he wants to go. Then get out of the way and enjoy it. Will it make you wince with embarrassment? That’s a promise. Will you also laugh? In double-time, like a Rockette. I don’t want to see a string of sequels about Ted, who has now worn out his welcome, like Bonzo. But one time around this summertime sandbox has left me cooled off, like a hydrant spray in a heat wave, and limp with laughter.

rreed@observer.com

TED

Running Time 106 minutes

Written by Seth MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild

Directed by Seth MacFarlane

Starring Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis and Seth MacFarlane

3/4

Mark Wahlberg (Getty Images)

If we were Mark Wahlberg's handlers this week, the absolute last thing we'd want to give him was another platform to talk about the September 11th. He's already apologized for the comments he made to Men's Journal-- you know, where he implied that if he'd been on a plane that was hijacked in 2001 (which he should have been, had he not switched his ticket last moment), "it wouldn't have went down like it did," and that "there would have been a lot of blood in that first-class cabin and then me saying, 'OK, we’re going to land somewhere safely, don't worry,'" --which really should be the end of the matter. Let's all forget about Mark Wahlberg and any (fake) connection he has to that tragic day in U.S. history.

Except that some of the families who lost a member on September 11th think that a more fitting way to make amends would be to use his star power to attract visitors to the 9/11 Memorial Museum.
As reported in today's New York Post, Monica Iken, whose husband died in the Southern tower on September, has suggested that Mr. Wahlberg atone for his comments by spending more time talking about 9/11 in an effort to raise funds in order to get the museum open on time.

"He is in a position to help,” Iken said. “He should just be happy he wasn’t on the plane and focus on what he can do, now that he’s overcome it.”

While Mr. Wahlberg donating his time, money, and celebrity visage to a memorial for those who died--after callously boasting that he wouldn't have done so in their shoes--certainly has a certain penance-worthy ring to it (and could really boost ticket sales, as well as get the museum back on schedule for its opening) , it also affords the well-intentioned Mr. Wahlberg too many opportunities to turn the spotlight back on himself. After all, this wasn't the first time the actor has "speculated" on the plane ride he was supposed to take, saying in 2006 "We certainly would have tried to do something to fight. I've had probably over 50 dreams about it."

Donate money? Fine. Help out? Definitely. But we're not sure if giving Marky Mark more photo-ops so he can further associate himself with that grave moment in America's history is really the best idea here. And God help us if it's his voice narrating on the audio tour of the museum.

Mark Wahlberg does not know how to fly a plane. (Getty Images)

Yesterday Men's Journal published some tantalizing quotes from their Mark "Is Anyone Else Still Wondering About That Third Nipple?" Wahlberg profile. Quotes in which Mr. Entourage speculated on how he would have kicked some terrorist ass, had he been on the planes during the September 11th hijacking.

"If I was on that plane with my kids, it wouldn’t have went down like it did," he said in the piece. "There would have been a lot of blood in that first-class cabin and then me saying, 'OK, we’re going to land somewhere safely, don’t worry.'"

Responding to some less-than-positive feedback for his "grandstanding" (to put it mildly), Mr. Wahlberg apologized today in a statement released to the press.

Via the Hollywood Reporter:

"To speculate about such a situation is ridiculous to begin with, and to suggest I would have done anything differently than the passengers on that plane was irresponsible...I deeply apologize to the families of the victims that my answer came off as insensitive, it was certainly not my intention."

After the statement, the actor passed around complimentary tickets to Contraband to the victims' families, and everyone was cool with Mark Wahlberg again. (No he didn't; no they weren't.)

Mark Wahlberg: 9/11 revisionist hero (Men's Health)

Mark "Say Hello to Your Mother for Me" Wahlberg might play a rogue vigilante in his new movie Contraband, but his recent boasts in Men's Journal about how he would have handled the hijackers during September 11th is over the line, according to one widow of the attacks.

“If I was on that plane with my kids, it wouldn’t have went down like it did," the actor and Entourage creator told journalist Erik Hedegaard in a profile for the February issue called Mark Wahlberg Handles His Business. "There would have been a lot of blood in that first-class cabin and then me saying, 'OK, we’re going to land somewhere safely, don’t worry.'"

Deena Burnett-Bailey, whose husband Thomas Burnett died after rushing the cockpit of Flight 93 after it was overtaken, isn't so sure circumstances would have turned out any differently just because Marky Mark was there.

"Does Mark Wahlberg have a pilot's license?" the widow asked TMZ. "Then I think hindsight is 20/20 and it's insignificant to say what you would have done if you weren't there. "

"The plan for Flight 93 was foiled by heroes. For him to speculate that his presence on board could have stopped everything is silly and disrespectful. Sounds like someone is grandstanding."

Either that, or he's testing the waters for a controversial Con Air sequel that no one asked for.

In this dysfunctional Lowell, Mass., family full of children with different last names, Mark Wahlberg is Micky, whose hardscrabble life is filled with missed opportunities as he tries to please his trashy, peroxided, chain-smoking motormouth mother, Alice, who acts as his manager (another scenery-chewing, scene-stealing performance by Melissa Leo in high-heel white boots and big hair the size of a hornet nest); and his borderline-retarded crackhead half-brother, Dickie (Christian Bale), who acts as his trainer. There is also a girlfriend named Charlene (Amy Adams)--a tough, sexy, no-nonsense bartender who battles his relatives to stand by her man and save him from his family of demented lowlifes.

The story begins in 1993, when Micky is already over the hill and Dickie is still clinging to his one moment of glory in the ring--the night he scored a knockdown in a losing fight against Sugar Ray Leonard. Micky is loyal to Dickie, but every time he has a bout, they have to drag the trainer out of a crack den. Dickie is so deluded he thinks HBO is following him around making a movie about his own "comeback," but they're really only filming a cautionary documentary about what drug addiction can do to American youth. Factored into the equation are at least five or six sisters (in one scene, I'm sure I counted seven!) who come and go like comic caricatures, resembling a Carol Burnett skit about the Macbeth witches entering show business. (A real David O. Russell example of uncontrolled excess that is fortunately missing from the rest of the film.) With Charlene guiding and supporting him and Dickie behind bars, Micky finally dumps his mother, reshapes his career and starts to focus. After a win at Caesar's Palace, when sports commentators were writing his obit, Micky finally gets a chance for a title bout in London. What happens after Dickie gets out of prison with new teeth and new plans provides fireworks.

The genealogy is baffling. It is never clear why they're all called Eklund except Micky, who is a Ward, even though some of the siblings who are younger than he are called Eklund, too. That bimbo mother apparently really got around. With serrated voices, ratty hair and a passion for beer and processed junk food, they're a perfect illustration of the stuff blue-collar white folks in the Boston suburbs crave--but not the upscale kind. These walking nightmares have never seen a Billy Wilder movie, tasted sushi, listened to National Public Radio or had a flu shot. They are easily satirized and obvious fodder for actors with tattoos.

And still, the cast is never less than hypnotic. Mark Wahlberg is both dopey and endearing as the Muscle McGurk with a good heart trying to run away from a crazy, sadistic family of control freaks and a dead-end future. Christian Bale returns to the way he looked as the emaciated, sleep-deprived zombie he played in The Mechanic, like the ghoulish, skeletal Dachau survivors when the Allies liberated the death camps in 1945. Once again, he gives his all for his art in a memorable but repellent performance that reminded me of the painful, grimaced faces in the paintings of George Grosz. All of the actors' voices disappear into boiled-cabbage Boston accents that are astoundingly accurate (especially Amy Adams, eras removed from the nice cookbook author-housewife in Julie and Julia). These are characters so repulsive that it's hard to care what happens to them, but it's to the credit of a superb cast that you do end up caring. At the end, The Fighter shows a clip of the real Micky and Dickie, and all bets are off. As close to a circus sideshow as it sometimes seems, this art not only imitates life, but mirrors it creepily.

rreed@observer.com

THE FIGHTER
Running time 115 minutes
Written by Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, and Eric Johnson
Directed by David O. Russell
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Melissa Leo, Amy Adams

3/4

You won't find Garden State on many Best of the Decade lists, and with good reason: Zach Braff's film nearly suffocates you with hipster twee. But, still, has anything been more influential on the latter half of the aughts? Without Garden State, (500) Days of Summer and a host of other 20-something ennui fests wouldn't even exist. Sure, it has become a punch line—and a litmus test; if someone truly loves Garden State, we immediately raise an eyebrow—but it's easy to see why this film struck such a chord initially: it's funny, it has some great music cues and it features Peter Sarsgaard. What more could any indie-lover want? [IFC, 8 p.m.]

Tuesday: Planet of the Apes

Flipping around the channels a couple of weeks ago, we stumbled upon Tim Burton's ill-advised remake of Planet of the Apes, and, to our surprise, we were oddly transfixed. Not because this film is any good—spoiler alert: it's not—but because a remake of Planet of the Apes actually happened! We would have loved to be a fly on the wall during the pitch meeting when Mr. Burton sold 20th Century Fox executives on not only Mark "Talks To Christmas Animals" Wahlberg in the Charlton Heston lead role, but also Estella Warren as the female lead (non-ape edition). Say hi to your mother for us. [Cinemax, 8 p.m.]

Wednesday: Taken

Three reasons to watch Taken, the surprise sleeper hit from this past February: 1.) Liam Neeson, who combines Jason Bourne with the tenacity of a great white shark in the name of saving his daughter from being sold into sex slavery. 2.) The plot, which can literally fit inside a fortune cookie (see: man saving daughter from sex slavery). 3.) Did we mention how much ass Mr. Neeson kicks, all within the safely re-edited confines of a PG-13 rating (Taken was much more violent when it made the rounds through Europe)? Seriously, this movie is a load of fun because it's as simple as a cheeseburger. Just make sure to check cognizant thought at the door. [HBO, 9 p.m.]

Thursday: It's a Wonderful Life

Enough has been written (and re-written) about It's a Wonderful Life, that, at this point, finding some virgin snow to intellectually play around in is borderline impossible. So we'll just say this about our favorite holiday movie: it's so dark and weird and twisted and sad that parts don't feel like a Christmas movie at all. But then the third act happens—replete with Zuzu's petals and "Auld Lang Syne"—and we're a puddle of tears and hope. 63 years later and George Bailey is still the richest man in town. [NBC, 8 p.m.]

Friday: Till Death

Because it isn't officially the holiday until you watch four consecutive episodes of Till Death, Fox is kind enough to air (read: burn off) a marathon of the sit-com on Christmas night. We doubt you'll decide to watch Brad Garrett crack wise about how miserable married life is over putting on the Season Five DVD of Lost Santa Claus brought you, but Till Death is somewhat compelling. Think about it: this is a show that no one watches and yet it still airs. Do you think that worries the cast and crew, or, like so many others, do they just have the "eh, a job is a job" mentality that is so prevalent in America right now? More important, has anyone ever put this much thought into Till Death? Probably not. [Fox, 8 p.m.]

I’m no fan of Peter Jackson, but as much as I hated the 2005 remake of King Kong and all of those silly, overrated Lord of the Rings comic books, the New Zealand director’s trademark recipe of fantasy, realism and computerized visual effects turns The Lovely Bones into a thrilling adventure. I love the exquisite blend of chilling murder mystery, suspenseful crime story and domestic melodrama, and especially the way Mr. Jackson lets his imagination run barefoot through the flames to deal with very difficult material indeed. My heart was pounding in my throat from start to finish. Take a Valium. The suspense could kill you.

The movie’s based on the acclaimed Alice Sebold novel about a serial killer on the loose in a placid Pennsylvania neighborhood and a dead 14-year-old girl who helps solve her own murder from beyond the grave; this was challenging stuff on the printed page, almost impossible to adapt to the screen. But great acting, relentless fantasy sequences and dark undercurrents of terror propel the creepy narrative with a cinematic rhythm as sinister as it is mesmerizing. Since we know the identity of the gentle-looking maniac who rapes and kills teenager Susie Salmon on her way home from school, you might think the plot is ruined from the beginning. Wrong. Susie’s friends and her parents (Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz) will not abandon the search for the missing child, even after the police have given up. In the movie, like the book, Susie is stuck somewhere between heaven and earth, where she relives her life posthumously, feverishly sending clues and signals about Mr. Harvey, the weird neighbor who watched her unnaturally from the green house down the street, and the fatal day she allowed him to lure her into a candlelit playroom beneath the cornfield, filled with toys, teddy bears and comic books. As the years pass, forensic evidence like the blue jacket and yellow corduroys Susie wore home that day is juxtaposed with the surreal spaces and seasons of an in-between place beyond life where Susie waits to be rescued. This is the blue horizon of Salvador Dali beaches, leaves that blow from tree branches and back again like detachable feathers, a lighthouse rising out of the misty murder scene. The cinematography is breathtaking. Even a shot of a sailing ship in a glass bottle looks like an oil painting brushed with polyurethane. When your hair isn’t standing on end, you always have something to look at, peruse, sift through like a police file. The scene where Susie’s suspicious sister (Rose McIver) sneaks into Mr. Harvey’s house and rummages through his desk drawers while he slowly climbs the stairs is as bloodcurdlingly scary as anything I’ve ever seen on film.

The performances are truly remarkable, from Ms. Weisz as a mother so anguished that she leaves home to pick fruit in California; to Mr. Wahlberg as a father so driven by grief that he loses reason; to Susan Sarandon as a chain-smoking grandmother who runs the vacuum cleaner in her mink coat and copes with a bottle of kitchen sherry. But two electrifying performances, without a hair out of place, dominate this film and leave you drained from excitement: As the tortured victim seeking closure, the fetchingly beautiful young Irish actress Saoirse Ronan (the lying little sister who caused all the trouble in Atonement) makes a memorable Susie; and as the benign monster with yellow hair, spectacles and a voice soft as a kitten’s tongue, living in the sinister house down the block, Stanley Tucci gives one of the most sensational performances of his versatile career. Look for him to make some noise when awards season arrives.

The Lovely Bones is a complex and unusual film, alluring, enthralling and perturbing. Weeks after seeing it, it still gives me nightmares.  rreed@observer.com

Need a movie to keep you company until you literally can't keep your eyes open? Join us tonight when we pass out to Three Kings [starting @ 1:30 a.m. on AMC]

Why we’ll try to stay up and watch it: 1999 might have been the best single year for movies in the last ten. Seriously! In fact, there is a chance it ranks as one of the greatest ever. While it might be a tough slog to find 10 worthy Best Picture candidates this year (Star Trek, come on down?), 1999 could have filled up a new-fangled Oscar ballot with ease. There was an embarrassment of riches: Fight Club, American Beauty, Election, Being John Malkovich, The Matrix, The Sixth Sense, Magnolia, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Eyes Wide Shut and The Insider. And that list leaves off movies like Boys Don’t Cry, Go, Run Lola Run, The Limey, Toy Story 2, Office Space, The Blair Witch Project and, of course, Three Kings.

David O. Russell’s Desert Storm serio-comedy doesn’t hold up as well as you might remember—in part because of a third act that gets treacley and message-y—but for large swatches of time, Three Kings is as good as any of the big boys from 1999. Mr. Russell keeps the pace moving at a ridiculously quick clip, perfectly balancing the absurdist M*A*S*H-like humor with the Bruckheimer-ian action set pieces; this isn’t Courage Under Fire we’re talking about here. That he gets great performances from the disparate cast of George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube and director Spike Jonze is just gravy. Under no circumstances would anyone ever imagine these four people having chemistry together, but in Three Kings they blend like the perfect team.

After Spanking the Monkey (Jeremy Davies for life!) and Flirting with Disaster, Three Kings seemed like the film that would help launch Mr. Russell onto the A-list; his “Hal Ashby–on–an–energy-drink” style was perfectly suited to the new-wave Hollywood ascetic. Ten years gone, however, and the director is best known for his lack of output—when The Fighter with Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale comes out in 2011, it’ll be Mr. Russell’s first film in seven years—and his C-word–enhanced rant against Lily Tomlin on the set of I Heart Huckabees. We’re still waiting for his one great film. Here’s hoping that comes around eventually.

When we’ll probably fall asleep: Like we said, the third act of Three Kings gets a little stale. So we’ll clock out a bit beforehand, at 2:45 a.m., 75 minutes into the film, after a fantastic little interrogation scene between Mr. Wahlberg’s Sgt. First Class Troy Barlow and an Iraqi solider played by Said Taghmaoui. At once reasonable and terrifying, Mr. Taghmaoui—who you know from this past season of Lost and countless other roles where he’s asked to be the “Middle Easterner with a secret”—rails against what America forced the late Michael Jackson to do to his face, with the disconnected monotone of Sir Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man (with “Is it safe?” replaced by “What is the problem with Michael Jackson?”). When it comes to “that guy” character actors, Mr. Taghmaoui will always be our “main man.”

We have to hand it to Christian Bale. For as long as we could remember, he was always a conundrum: a brilliant actor that seemed to actively sabotage his stardom by appearing in mostly limited-appeal dreck. Then, something fascinating happened: Caught up in the wave of counterintuitive superhero casting choices—you can thank Tobey Maguire for this—Mr. Bale wound up starring as Batman and vaulting onto the A-list. Only he wasn’t just front and center in Batman Begins; the film surrounded him with a load of talented, big-name actors (Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine). And while we have no proof of this—though if Mr. Bale wants to send us a message on Facebook, he’s more than welcome to—it seems that the experience on Batman Begins gave the cantankerous star a new blueprint for how to manage his career: never star alone.

We thought of this after seeing the news that Mr. Bale has signed on to star opposite Mark Wahlberg in The Fighter, from director David O. Russell. If this project sounds familiar, it’s because for the last few years it was in the hands of Darren Aronofsky, with Brad Pitt attached to star alongside Mr. Wahlberg. Matt Damon was involved, too. But they all dropped by the wayside, leaving the role to Mr. Bale. It’s the second film in the last few weeks that he has agreed to do with Mr. Wahlberg: The two will be seen together in Bryan Singer’s The Prisoners. Of course, both of these films will come on the heels of Mr. Bale’s dual appearances this summer in Terminator Salvation, with a load of giant killer robots, and Public Enemies, with Johnny Depp. Are you seeing a pattern yet?

Sure, he’s the biggest name in Terminator Salvation, but that movie is being sold on the franchise and not Mr. Bale’s star wattage. Hell, the name “John Connor” carries more weight for the fans of Terminator than “Christian Bale” does anyway. Meanwhile, in the trailer for Public Enemies, he is barely shown, taking a backseat to Mr. Depp (that Mr. Depp has become the biggest movie star in the world is a story for another day). Even in his post–Batman Begins roles, Mr. Bale used this strategy: He co-starred with Hugh Jackman in The Prestige and with Russell Crowe in 3:10 to Yuma.

In the end, the plan is quite genius. If the movie fails, he’s mentioned but never forced to take full brunt of the damage; if it succeeds, he gets credit for being sturdy and reliable. For an actor who once seemed adrift on his way toward movie stardom, Mr. Bale has found a comfortable resting place. Now if he can only get through a shoot with David O. Russell without the two of them murdering a craft services employee, everything will be fine.