Reviews

Bonneville an adventure that three middle age women (Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, and Joan Allen) embark on when one of their husbands, Joe, dies suddenly. Conflict arises when the daughter (Christine Baranski), by a previous marriage, of the deceased decides she wants to bury him near the family (the daughter's family) home in Santa Barbara. Arvilla (Jessica Lange), the 2cd wife of twenty years must deliver the ashes or risk loosing the house in Idaho that she shared with Joe. Joe specifically requested that his ashes be spread in nature but his daughter does not want to acknowledge the other life he built in Idaho and uses the Idaho homestead as leverage to get Arvilla to hand over the ashes. Lange and posse (Kathy Bates as Margene and Joan Allen as Carol) start a 'Thelma & Louise' style trip in an early-70's Pontiac Bonneville convertible. The movie points out that the three friends are Mormon but the religion of the deceased husband is not discussed. Margene is looking for a autumn romance, and Carol is wound up tight and very devout. All while Arvilla is just trying to cope with the sudden death of the man she loves. Will the three heroines find their way to happiness or contentment? Undoubt-ably. The movie is definitely enjoyable but drags in the center (bathroom break). Never actually seeing Arvilla and Joe together, I never got a feeling of how deep their love was. The Film originally slated for a 2006 released was re-worked for 2007. Since this was an early preview of the re-work things can still change.

There seems to be a rule for super hero movies, Good super hero movies are in the summer (Batman Begins, Superman Returns, The X-Men and Spiderman movies) poor ones in February (Daredevil and Elektra). Ghost Rider seems to be a Fence Rider to that rule. Ghost RIder is certainly not in the summer league but is better then its February-release counterparts.Visually the movie is stunning, the Special effects top notch. However the story is good but convoluted. The plot is very dark and the screenwriters threw in a number of dumb gags through out the movie ('my head feels like it is on fire' and drinking a pot of very hot coffee) that distracts from the characters.

McLibel could have been an underdog story, but film makers had a different agenda. Morgan Spurlock (Supers Size Me) and Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 911) know how to make a documentary entertaining and still get their point across. You may disagree with the filmmakers but it is all-consuming watching the filmmaker unfold the argument in front of you. A more descriptive title would have been 'Greenpeace vs. McDonalds'. Franny Armstrong and the London Greenpeace folks shot for the publicity and controversy. McLibel (read Greenpeace) makes some valid points: • in the UK when you go to trail you get legal representation unless if it is a libel case then you are on your own. Since large corporations have so much in resources ($$$) everyone will just apology rather than face an expensive court battle. • McDonalds and other large corporations use their power and money to affect our buying habits through our children. • Many corporations underpay their worker. However there is no counter-point. The movie spent 83 minutes explaining and fighting what is wrong with society but as far as a solution: 2 minutes to say approximately:'mega corporations are evil. We believe individuals should be making their own decisions on what products and services should be made available.' I see this as a radical stand and I am not sure how Greenpeace actually envisions this utopia. Are they suggesting that everyone should grow their own vegetables like one of the protagonist? Should society be sourcing commercial goods locally? Should we constrain advertising so we eliminate the 'push' market and end up with a 'pull' economy? All of these are a radical change in society. Sorry Greenpeace, there are things I dislike about our society but a socialist reform is not the answer. (6 people found this review helpful.)

This movie was on my see list but not very high, when at the Cineplex it was at the right time. This is a rags to riches story; we get a lot of rags and almost no riches. The riches are in the two lines of text in the epilogue of the movie. Maybe it is my own financial woes of late that are finally turning around but if I commit to traveling this journey with Chris Gardner (Will Smith) through the woes I wanted the pay off and it was not there. We were brought to the edge of his success and left there. That being said Will Smith did an excellent job. I did like that Smith had is own real-life son, Jaden Christopher Syre Smith, play Gardner's son Christopher. As Well as Smith actually solves the Rubik's cube in two minutes.

A film with that is a special effects palooza, in strange fantasy world, with a core group of height challenged heroes; it is 'Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring' right? Well 'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' share more then a title that is so wordy neither cannot fit on any marquee. The film starts out in London during a WWII bombing. Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy are sent off to live in the country stately mansion of Professor Kirke. During an exuberant game of hide and seek, Lucy (the youngest) hides in an ornate wardrobe. Lucy discovers the world of Narnia and befriends Mr. Tumnus, a Faun (a man with a goat's anatomy below the waist). Narnia is in a 100 year winter by the designs of the evil White Witch that has crowned herself queen of all Narnia. Lucy ends up bringing back her siblings and they learn of a prophecy that has four humans (two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve) that are to topple the Queen. The Queen must kill the four-some to continue her reign. The Queen mobilizes her army (that looks not-so-surprisingly like the legions of the Orcs from LotR). The last 45 minutes recreates the battle in 'LotR; The Return of the King', but with almost no blood (Narnia is PG, Return of the King was PG-13). Both films find a 'lost and forgotten' army to save the day. The picture's special-effects blend animal bodies and humans torsos on numerous occasions and seamlessly. Additionally there are talking animals all over the two and half hour movie. There are a couple of blue-screen backgrounds that were notably not up to par but all in all a top quality show.

In all of the thousands movies I see there is usually one common theme. Be it Jolie with Pitt or Crowe with Zellweger it is all 'boy meets girl'. Brokeback Mountain is a 'boy meets boy story'. There are plenty of gay centric movies that are released direct to video, however direct to video does not have the budget of a big picture or are as well done. And they certainly do not have a career performance that Heath Ledger gives in Brokeback Mountain. The movie starts out in 1963 with Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), a rodeo cowboy wannabe; and Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger), a man of very few words, as they get summer jobs herding sheep. They are to take the herd of 3,000 sheep to the highlands for the summer. Some whiskey and the cold mountain night gets both of them in the same tent together. One thing leads to another. Although the sex is pivotal in the movie it is not what the movie is about. The film looks at the men's relationship as it evolves over years. There is that uncomfortable period immediately after a one night stand. Ennis states that "He ain't no queer". What gets them through this is that up in the mountains there are no one else to turn to and you eventually have to talk. At the end of the summer they say goodbye, Jack is ready to take this relationship further but Ennis is engaged to Alma (Michelle Williams) and he has no intentions of leaving her at the alter. Ennis does marry, as does Jack, they have families that grow. After four years apart, Ennis finds Jack has sent him a post card. Ennis replies with "Hell yeah". We check in with Jack and Ennis several times over the next twenty years. We see the years pass in the fashions and as their children grow up. Jack and Ennis establish a "fishing trip" two to three times a year to return to Brokeback Mountain. The fishing trips comes at the cost of Ennis's marriage to Alma (he never brings home any fish), but it is something that Ennis can not give up. In 1963 Wyoming, two men just cannot live together with out raised eyebrows. Ennis recounts two "bachelor" ranchers in the community that he grows up in. After years together the "bachelors" were the local scandal. One year when Ennis was eight, a group of the local boys decided to teach the "bachelors" a lesson by torturing them, literally, to death. Ennis's father forces him and his brother to view a tortured corpse and it leaves a lasting impression on Ennis. Ennis pays this cost but not alone, he loves Alma but cannot commit to their marriage. Alma loves him but cannot live with his "fishing trips". Jack loves him but Ennis cannot accept that lifestyle. Ennis's Children also pay when he and Alma divorce. Gyllenhaal did a fine job as Jack Twist; It is Ledger's Ennis Del Mar that is amazing (could this be the same Ledger from 'A Knight's Tale'?). Ledger takes the role of a man that has not much to say and speaks volumes. Ledger shows how Ennis struggles with every short sentence. If Ledger fails to take home the Oscar, it will be yet another tragedy.

As film enthusiast, when one chooses to go down the path of a film adaptation of a beloved novel you choose an uncertain journey. The story that unfolds is never as it was when you read it. Additionally, there is always 'Why did the filmmakers cut this scene? It was my favorite'. With recent adaptation successes of the Harry Potter films and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (although I am a firm believer that 'The Return of the King' could have lost the final 20 minutes with no negative effect). There is always the monstrosity of 'Striptease', a hilarious farce by Carl Hiaasen that Hollywood turned into soft-core porn. 'Memoirs of a Geisha'; Novel by Arthur Golden, thankfully, falls into the former category. Although the filmmakers choose to skip some scenes that spoke profoundly to me, all in all they did the book justice. 'Memoirs' is a story of a Chiyo, a poor girl from a small fishing village, sold to a okiya (a geisha house) and her assent to geisha legend. The path is not an easy one, with her desire to find her sister (she was rejected by the okiya and sold to a brothel) and the jealous exploits of the evil Hatsumomo, the head geisha in the okiya. Chiyo is destined to live out her life as a slave to 'Mother' the owner of the okiya until the mysterious Chairman and Hatsumomo's arch rival, Mameha enters her life. The Chairman becomes Chiyo's motivation and Mameha adopts Chiyo as her apprentice and gives her, Geisha name 'Sayuri'. Sayuri and Mameha enter a game of power and strategy against Hatsumomo, and manage to stay one step ahead of her. Sayuri becomes the most famous geisha in Kyoto's Gion district and Nobu's (a powerful business man) object of desire. Her life takes another turn as the horrors of World War II forces her to the safety of the rural countryside for over three years. Her skills as a geisha are called upon by Nobu and the Chairman to gain them favor of the U.S. Military advisors and win them contracts for the post war rebuilding of Japan. The work, both the novel and the film, has been shrouded in controversy for some years. The author of the novel, Arthur Golden, was sued by the women that he based the work on. Their agreement was total anonymity for the main character (there is a serious code of silence in the Geisha world and Golden also hinted that Geishas were high class prostitutes). The two settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. The casting of the film included several Chinese actresses in major roles. Although, I cannot believe there is a shortness of quality Japanese actresses, the casting, for me did not take away from the film at all. Additionally I read a review slamming the picture for not doing the dialog in Japanese with English subtitles. If the picture was done in subtitles I would have waited until the DVD, I am missing much of the content that the director and actors are intending for me when I am reading the subtitle. I end up using the rewind button excessively. Finally lets face it, this is an Oscar bid, and a foreign language film rarely gets nominated for best picture; in the past 30 years there has been three nominated and no foreign language film has ever won the big prize.

Spoiler -Spoiler I was excited about a movie taking a micro look at the invasion of Earth by aliens. Spielberg draws us into the terror of an invasion by focusing on one family's survival. However, one problem the movie had was I never really liked Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) or his son Robbie Ferrier. By the end of the movie Rachel Ferrier (Dakota Fanning) was beginning to annoy me (always screaming at a bad time and strangely silent when some one is looking for her).

In Spielberg's version of H.G. Wells' tale the aliens have buried tens of thousands of 10-story 'tripods' (think Star Wars' Imperial Walkers) all over the world million of years ago. The tripods have waited to be 'awaken' by lighting bolts. The aliens ride the lighting bolts down under ground into the buried tripods. In the initial sequence it looked like it was buried 30-50 feet (but lets say 100 feet for yuks), in one of the boroughs of New York. Considering how much we like to dig holes in our planet I find it hard to believe that these enormous vehicles remain undetected all over the world for the millions of years or even for one year. I would have thought Spielberg would have abandoned this approach for the original; it would take up too much film time to explain why the ignorant earthlings have not stumbled upon on any alien vessels yet (which by the way was never explained).

While this is going on, everyone is sticking around to see what is going to come out of the ground. It seems more logical that many people would be running the other way, but for the sake of a bloody massacre let's just assume that New Yorkers are fearless.

Some one thought up a gimmick of watching the destruction that one of the tripods makes by means of some one recording it with a camcorder, however this was after the electromagnetic pulse that takes out all electrical devices. Spielberg allows this; although the footage that is taken is not used anywhere else in the story and therefore superfluous.

Our hero takes his kids out of New York to go find their mother at Grandma's house in Boston. On a New England country side, the military engages the aliens, once again everyone is running towards the skirmish instead of away.

The movie changes gears when Robbie Ferrier 'has to see' the battle (again a fearless New Yorker). We are left with Ray and Rachel who end up hiding in an ambulance drivers' (Tim Robbins) basement. I am OK with this, the movie comes down to a very personal level of cat and mouse. The aliens eventually take Ray and Rachel prisoner and we find out that the alien tripods are using human beings as fuel and there is A LOT of blood as exhaust. As a single adult, I pay little mind to the MPAA rating. But PG-13 is light for the amount of blood there is.

Finally defeating a tripod, Ray and Rachel are back on track to Boston. Apparently every one has family in Boston because everyone is going towards the city. We witness the ultimate demise of the aliens and make it to Grandma's townhouse in Boston, despite the very urban setting of Grandma's house (possibly down the block from Cheers), the entire block remains unscathed. The aliens apparently know not to mess with Grandma.

The entire extended family emerges out of the house on queue for Ray and Rachel's arrival and what do we discover? Robbie survived and beats them there! Hugs all around.

With all the liberties that Spielberg took with the original work, he still decided to use Well's original 1898 ending. After 107 years of technological advancement the ending is less believable, a new twist would have been welcomed.

Here is the real dilemma; the movie is not worth the price of admission but a 32- inch TV will not due the special-effects justice.

I am really torn on this one, I am well acquainted on Batman lore, so I expected the beginning to drag but this goes on for half the movie. Things start to move when Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham. It was exciting to see all of Batman's toys fall into place (i.e. the Batcave, the Batmobile, and his costume to name a few) but I still was on the edge of my seat waiting for the action to start.

When a movie is remade I have to ask "What does this adaptation bring other than box office receipts?" Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins brings realism. The idea of Batman is so far out there (a crime fighter with a seemingly unlimited cash flow and access to 'wonderful toys'), that all the characters have to be very grounded. It is apparent that Nolan is committed to this. The villains do not have the flamboyance of previous Batman villains. You will find no hideouts on a perpetual slant, no penguin armies. One of the villains in Batman Begins, The Scarecrow uses only a mask to terrify victim while the victim is drugged.

The key to Batman is the villains no one wants to see a two hour movie about Batman catching purse snatchers. At the end of the movie, one of the villains dies in a horrific crash. Could the villain survive the crash disfigured and becomes the vengeful Two-Face? With the obligatory origin taken care of I am hopeful that the second movie will move quicker and be action packed.

I first want to say I was really hyped to see this movie. Half way through the flick a skeleton does a song telling the tale of the Corpse Bride. The tempo of the song was so familiar but could not place it. I now realize it was Mr. Oogie Boogie's song from "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (one of my favorite films of all time). Once I realized this everything started to unravel. The similarities of Emily (C.B.) to Sally (T.N.B.C.), Scraps the dog (C.B.) and Zero (T.N.B.C.), the Town Crier (C.B.) and Hallowtown Mayor (T.N.B.C.). I still thoroughly enjoyed Corpse Bride, I just feel like I saw summer repeats during fall premier week on network television.