Pix Watch

The Adjustment Bureau

2011-10-07T04:19:00.000-07:00

The Adjustment Bureau is a 2011 American film loosely based on the Philip K. Dick short story, "Adjustment Team".
A romantic thriller, the film was written and directed by George Nolfi and stars Matt Damon and Emily Blunt.
The cast also includes Anthony Mackie, John Slattery, Michael Kelly, and Terence Stamp.

On the brink of winning a seat in the U.S. Senate, ambitious politician David Norris (Damon) meets beautiful contemporary ballet dancer Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt) - a woman like none he's ever known. But just as he realizes he's falling for her, mysterious men conspire to keep the two apart. David learns he is up against the agents of Fate itself--the men of The Adjustment Bureau--who will do everything in their considerable power to prevent David and Elise from being together. In the face of overwhelming odds, he must either let her go and accept a predetermined path...or risk everything to defy Fate and be with her.

Heavy topics are gingerly handled in "The Adjustment Bureau," possibly the breeziest movie yet to be adapted from a story by Philip K. Dick, the drug-fueled, possibly psychotic science-fiction writer who also inspired "Blade Runner," "Total Recall" and "Minority Report." Dick's original story addressed notions of insanity, death and God; the movie version mentions free will but is mostly concerned with love.

Writer and debut director George Nolfi (who co-wrote "The Bourne Ultimatum") deftly juggles seriousness and self-satire, depicting the bureaucrats as beleaguered rank-and-filers even while treating the star-crossed lovers with great tenderness. Damon and Blunt are terrific together; it's impossible not to root for them. All the wit and charm, however, are obliterated by the movie's sappy, preachy, thoroughly Hollywood ending. For a while there, "The Adjustment Bureau" almost escaped the inevitable.

Anyway, the point is: True love is a powerful force. That's a perfectly fine premise. It's a shame the dialogue is laden with clichés, and loopholes to the adjustment concept abound. Turns out the bureau is not as omniscient as they purport — hats, doorways and rain can at least temporarily throw these stealthy operatives off the case. And then there's the element of chance, which still inexplicably figures into this deterministic vision.

The Adjustment Bureau is compelling enough, a sort of Inception-lite, but the plot holes take it off course. Still, this mind-meld of sci-fi thriller, morality play and passionate romance is worth seeing, mostly for the palpable chemistry between the lead actors.

Critics generally gave the film generally positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 72% based on 208 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6 out of 10. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three out of a maximum four stars, describing the movie as "a smart and good movie that could have been a great one if it had been a little more daring. I suspect the filmmakers were reluctant to follow its implications too far." The New York Times called the film "a fast, sure film about finding and keeping love across time and space... [which] has brightened the season with a witty mix of science-fiction metaphysics and old-fashioned romance."

RocknRolla

2011-05-18T09:13:00.000-07:00

RocknRolla is a 2008 British crime film written and directed by Guy Ritchie, and starring Gerard Butler, Tom Wilkinson, Mark Strong, Thandie Newton, Idris Elba, Ludacris, Gemma Arterton and Dragan Micanovic.

The film revolves around Lenny, a "rocknrolla" (a successful crime boss and jack-the-lad), and was made in London. It was released on 5 September 2008 in the UK, hitting #1 in the UK box office in its first week of release.

In London, a real-estate scam puts millions of pounds up for grabs, attracting some of the city's scrappiest tough guys and its more established underworld types, all of whom are looking to get rich quick. While the city's seasoned criminals vie for the cash, an unexpected player -- a drugged out rock 'n' roller presumed to be dead but very much alive, comes in and changes the plans.

Critical reaction to the film has been mixed to positive, with 60% positive out of 134 reviews on the film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. The website Metacritic, which compiles and then aggregates major film critics' reviews, gave the film a 53 out of 100, which is categorized as having mixed or average reviews.
Chris Tilly of IGN UK gave the film a positive review with four out of five stars, saying "He's hardly re-inventing the wheel with this movie, but RocknRolla is nonetheless a comedy thriller that is every bit as accomplished as his early work, and without doubt a witty, adrenalin-fuelled blast from start to finish.".
Roger Ebert gave the film three stars, stating that "It never slows down enough to be really good, and never speeds up enough to be the Bourne Mortgage Crisis, but there's one thing for sure: British actors love playing gangsters as much as American actors love playing cowboys, and it's always nice to see people having fun."

Children of Men

2011-05-08T12:07:00.000-07:00

Children of Men is a 2006 American-British dystopian science fiction film directed by Alfonso Cuarón and loosely adapted from P. D. James's 1992 novel The Children of Men. It stars Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Pam Ferris, Claire-Hope Ashitey and Chiwetel Ejiofor.
Set in the United Kingdom of 2027, the film explores a grim world in which two decades of global human infertility have left humanity with less than a century to survive. Societal collapse, terrorism, and environmental destruction accompany the impending extinction. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom—perhaps the last functioning government—persecutes a seemingly endless wave of illegal immigrant refugees seeking sanctuary. In the midst of this chaos, Theo Faron (Clive Owen) must find safe transit for Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey), a pregnant African "fugee".

Children of Men works on every level: as a violent chase thriller, a fantastical cautionary tale, and a sophisticated human drama about societies struggling to live. This taut and thought-provoking tale may not have the showy special effects normally found in movies of this genre, but you won't care one bit after the story kicks in, about a dystopic future where women can no longer conceive and hope lies within one woman who holds the key to humanity's survival.

Children of Men used several lengthy single-shot sequences in which extremely complex actions take place. The longest of these are a shot in which Kee gives birth (199 seconds); an ambush on a country road (247 seconds); and a scene in which Theo is captured by the Fishes, escapes, and runs down a street and through a building in the middle of a raging battle (454 seconds). These sequences were extremely difficult to film, although the effect of continuity is sometimes an illusion, aided by CGI effects.

The film received very positive reviews. According to the review tallying website Rotten Tomatoes, Children of Men received a 93% overall approval out of 196 reviews from critics, and on Metacritic, the film has a rating of 84 based on 36 reviews. According to Metacritic's analysis of the most oftenly and notably noted films on the best-of-the-decade lists, Children of Men is considered the eleventh-greatest film of the 2000's.

The Social Network

2011-04-19T11:34:00.000-07:00

The Social Network is a 2010 drama film about the founding of the social networking website Facebook and the resulting lawsuits. The film was directed by David Fincher and features a cast including Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Brenda Song, Armie Hammer, Max Minghella, Rashida Jones, Joseph Mazzello, and Rooney Mara.

Aaron Sorkin's screenplay adapts Ben Mezrich's 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires. Sorkin makes a cameo appearance as a would-be advertiser. Neither founder Mark Zuckerberg nor any other member of Facebook was involved with the project, although Eduardo Saverin was a consultant for Mezrich. The film was released in the United States by Columbia Pictures on October 1, 2010.

Is The Social Network the 100% true story of the creation of Facebook? Not likely, as none of the principal players agree on what exactly is the truth. What The Social Network does is lay out one interpretation of the events as they went down, without actually coming right out and saying who did what to whom. And what Sorkin and Fincher do with this tale told Rashomon style is make the audience alternate between feeling sympathy for and contempt toward the film's version of Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg as well as toward his ex-best friend and the first CFO of Facebook, Eduardo Saverin, and the Winklevoss twins who claimed Zuckerberg stole their idea and ran with it. By the end of the film, each player has had a chance to explain their side of the story and it's left up to the audience as to who is telling the version of the story closest to the truth.

The film received widespread acclaim, with numerous critics praising it for its editing, acting, score and screenplay. The Social Network appeared on 78 critics' top 10 list for 2010, of those critics 22 had the film in their number one spot. Rolling Stone's Peter Travers said "The Social Network is the movie of the year. But Fincher and Sorkin triumph by taking it further. Lacing their scathing wit with an aching sadness, they define the dark irony of the past decade." It received eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director (David Fincher), and Best Actor (Jesse Eisenberg), and won three for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Film Editing. It also won the Best Motion Picture – Drama Golden Globe at the 68th Golden Globe Awards on January 16, 2011. The film also won the awards for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Original Score, making it the film with the most wins of the night.

Source:
http://movies.about.com/od/thesocialnetwork/fr/Social-Network-Review.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Network

Exam

2011-01-16T11:13:00.000-08:00

Exam is a British thriller film written by Simon Garrity and Stuart Hazeldine, directed by Stuart Hazeldine and stars Colin Salmon, Jimi Mistry, Luke Mably and Gemma Chan. The plot is based on the play The Grönholm method by Jordi Galcerán Ferrer. This play inspired the screenwriter Mateo Gil and the director/screenwriter Marcelo Piñeyro to write the screenplay for the Spanish movie El método, already released in 2005.

Eight talented candidates have reached the final stage of selection to join the ranks of a mysterious and powerful corporation. Entering a windowless room, a man gives them eighty minutes to answer one simple question. He outlines three rules they must obey or be disqualified: "If you try to communicate with myself or the guard... If you spoil your paper intentionally or accidentally... if you choose to leave this room for any reason you will be disqualified." He starts the clock and leaves. The candidates turn over their question papers, only to find they're completely blank.

It's essentially a stage play for sci-fi and language nerds, as the characters, given a set of rules at the outset, analyze the Invigilator's opening statement as a whole, word by word, sentence by sentence, clause by clause, trying to use it as a behavioral guide and a clue as they attempt to figure out the elusive question. They make alliances among themselves, then break them; reveal clues about themselves that sometimes turn out to be lies; and gradually forget basic rules of polite interaction as their desperation grows. This must be a hell of a job.

The film premiered in June 2009 as part of the Edinburgh Film Festival and was then part of the Raindance Film Festival 2009. It was released in UK cinemas on 8 January 2010.
On 11 February 2010, IFC Films acquired the rights for the US release where it released as part of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. The DVD and Blu-Ray were released in the UK on 7 June 2010. There was no theatrical release in the US, but IFC Films released the film via video on demand on 23 July 2010 and on DVD on November 16, 2010.
According to Rotten Tomatoes, the movie received 62% positive reviews out of 29 reviews, with an average rating of 5.9 out of 10.

Body of Lies

2011-01-16T10:57:00.000-08:00

Body of Lies is a 2008 American spy film directed by Ridley Scott. Set in the Middle East, it follows the attempts of the CIA and Jordanian Intelligence to catch al-Saleem, a fictional jihadist terrorist. Frustrated by his elusiveness, differences in their approaches show and strain relations between a CIA operative, his superior and the head of Jordanian Intelligence. The CIA orchestrate a staged bombing in Turkey, making it seem to be the work of a previously unknown terrorist, betting that al-Saleem's pride will encourage him to make contact with those responsible.

Based on Washington Post columnist David Ignatius' 2007 novel about a CIA operative, Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio), who uncovers a lead on a major terrorist leader suspected to be operating out of Jordan. When Ferris devises a plan to infiltrate his network, he must first win the backing of cunning CIA veteran Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe) and the collegial, but perhaps suspect, head of Jordanian intelligence. Although ostensibly his allies, Ferris questions how far he can really trust these men without putting his entire operation - and his life - on the line.

William Monahan based the screenplay on the novel of the same name by David Ignatius. The film was shot in the United States and in cities and studios in Morocco, after authorities in Dubai refused permission to film there due to the script's political themes. Marc Streitenfeld arranged the musical score.

Scott's direction and visual style were praised by critics, but they criticised his formulaic handling of the story and use conventions from the spy genre, such as surveillance shots from high altitude spy planes. The performances by Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe and Mark Strong as the three principals, were particularly mentioned, including DiCaprio's involvement with his character, Crowe's put-on accent and weight and Strong's urbane sophistication.

The film has received mixed reviews from critics with a rating of 53% on Rotten Tomatoes with the consensus that the film relies too heavily on the performances of DiCaprio and Crowe to lift it above a conventional espionage thriller.
Mark Strong's performance was mentioned by several critics, Scott called it "a marvel of exotic suavity and cool insinuation" and Ebert "particularly admired" his aura of suave control.

Any Given Sunday

2010-08-09T08:22:00.000-07:00

Any Given Sunday is a 1999 American drama film directed by Oliver Stone depicting a fictional professional American football team. The film features an ensemble cast, consisting of Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz, Dennis Quaid and Jamie Foxx.

The film deals with the Miami Sharks, a once-great team now in turmoil and struggling to make the playoffs. It examines many different aspects of American football, including the players, staff, front office, politicians, and press, and the pressures that they face.

Although professional football provides the action-packed backdrop of Any Given Sunday, the film takes a simultaneously epic and intimate look at the men and women who comprise the milieu of the film, from the modern-day gladiators of the gridiron, their coaches and often beleaguered families, to the moneyed team owners and business concerns who attempt to control the game as big business, to the hungry sports media, and hangers-on trying to get a taste of the glamour.

Dark City

2010-07-23T07:27:00.000-07:00

Dark City is a 1998 science fiction film directed by Alex Proyas. In the film, human inhabitants live in a city where the sun is not seen, and their lives are manipulated by Strangers studying humanity. The film was written by Proyas, Lem Dobbs, and David S. Goyer, and stars Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Kiefer Sutherland, and Jennifer Connelly.

A man struggles with memories of his past, including a wife he cannot remember, in a nightmarish world with no sun and run by beings with telekinetic powers who seek the souls of humans.

Dark City is a retelling of the Allegory of the Cave used by Greek philosopher Plato, who conveyed the allegory as a fictional dialogue between his teacher Socrates and Plato's brother Glaucon. In the film, the city inhabitants are prisoners who do not realize they are in a prison. John Murdoch's escape from the prison parallels the escape from the cave in the allegory. He is assisted by Dr. Schreber, who explains the city's mechanism as Socrates explains to Glaucon how the shadows in the cave are cast. Murdoch however becomes more than Glaucon; Gerard Loughlin writes, "He is a Glaucon who comes to realize that Socrates' tale of an upper, more real world, is itself a shadow, a forgery."

Murdoch defeats the Strangers who control the inhabitants and remakes the world based on childhood memories, which were themselves illusions arranged by the Strangers. Loughlin writes of the lack of background, "The original of the city is off–stage, unknown and unknowable." Murdoch now casts new shadows for the city inhabitants, who must trust his judgment. Unlike Plato, Murdoch "is disabused of any hope of an outside" and becomes the demiurge for the cave, the only environment he knows.

The city in Dark City is described by Higley as a "murky, nightmarish German expressionist film noir depiction of urban repression and mechanism". The city has a World War II dreariness reminiscent of Edward Hopper's works and has details from different eras and architectures that are changed by the Strangers; "buildings collapse as others emerge and battle with one another at the end". The round window in Dark City is concave like a fishbowl and is a frequently seen element throughout the city. The inhabitants do not live at the top of the city; the main characters' homes are dwarfed by the bricolage of buildings.

Film critic Roger Ebert cited it as the best film of 1998. In 2005, he included it on his "Great Movies" list.
Ebert uses it in his teaching, and also appears on a commentary track for the original DVD and the 2006 Director's Cut.
Steve Biodrowski of Cinefantastique found the production design and the cinematography overwhelming, but he considered the narrative engagement of Sewell's amnesiac character to be ultimately successful. Biodrowski writes, "As the story progresses, the pieces of the puzzle fall into place, and we gradually realize that the film is not a murky muddle of visuals propping up a weak story. All the questions lead to answers, and the answers make sense within the fantasy framework." The reviewer compared Dark City to the director's preceding film The Crow in style but found Dark City to introduce new themes and to be a "more thoroughly consistent" film.
Biodrowski concluded, "Dark City may not provide profound answers, but it deals seriously with a profound idea, and does it in a way that is cathartic and even uplifting, without being contrived or condescending. As a technical achievement, it is superb, and that technique is put in the service of telling a story that would be difficult to realize any other way."

Original Source: Wikipedia

Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

2010-06-11T09:31:00.000-07:00

Precious is a 2009 American drama film directed by Lee Daniels. Precious is an adaptation by Geoffrey S. Fletcher of the 1996 novel Push by Sapphire. The film stars Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, and Paula Patton. The film marked the acting debut of Sidibe.

At 2009 Sundance Film Festival, it won the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize for best drama, as well as a Special Jury Prize for supporting actress Mo'Nique. After Precious' screening at Sundance in February 2009, Tyler Perry announced that he and Oprah Winfrey would be providing promotional assistance to the film, which was released through Lions Gate Entertainment. Precious won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. Precious was also an official selection at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival (particularly the Un Certain Regard category).
Precious received six nominations, including Best Picture, for the 82nd Academy Awards. Supporting actress Mo'Nique and screenwriter Geoffrey S. Fletcher were selected as the winners in their respective categories.

In 1987, obese, illiterate, 16-year-old Claireece "Precious" Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) lives in the ghetto of Harlem with her dysfunctional and abusive mother, Mary (Mo'Nique). She has been impregnated twice by her father, Carl, and suffers long term physical, sexual, and mental abuse from her unemployed mother. The family resides in a Section 8 tenement and subsists on welfare. Her first child, known only as "Lil Mongo", has Down syndrome and is being cared for by Precious' grandmother.

Following the discovery of Precious' second pregnancy, she is suspended from school. Her junior high school principal arranges to have her attend an alternative school, which she hopes can help Precious change her life's direction. Precious finds a way out of her traumatic daily existence through imagination and fantasy. While she is being raped by her father, she looks at the ceiling and imagines herself in a music video shoot in which she is the superstar and the focus of attention. While looking in photograph albums, she imagines the pictures talking to her. When she looks in the mirror, she sees a pretty, white, thin, blonde girl. In her mind, there is another world where she is loved and appreciated. Inspired by her new teacher, Blu Rain (Paula Patton), Precious begins learning to read. Precious meets sporadically with a social worker named Miss Weiss (Mariah Carey), who learns about incest in the household when Precious unwittingly conveys it to her. Precious gives birth to her second child and names him Abdul. While at the hospital, she meets John McFadden (Lenny Kravitz), a nursing assistant who shows kindness to her. After Mary deliberately drops three-day-old Abdul and hits Precious, Precious fights back long enough to get her son and flees her home permanently. Shortly after leaving the house, Precious breaks into her school classroom to get out of the cold and is discovered the following morning by Miss Rain. The teacher finds assistance for Precious, who begins raising her son in a halfway house while she continues academically.

Precious recounts the details of the file to her fellow students and has a new lease on life. Her mother comes back into her life to inform Precious that her father has died of AIDS. Later, Precious learns that she is HIV positive, but Abdul is not. Feeling dejected, Precious meets Miss Weiss at her office and steals her case file. Mary and Precious see each other for the last time in Miss Weiss' office, where Weiss questions Mary about her abuse of Precious, and uncovers specific physical and sexual traumas Precious encountered, starting when she was three. The film ends with Precious still resolved to improve her life for herself and her children. She severs ties with her mother and plans to complete a General Educational Development test.

Precious received extremely positive reviews from film critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 91% of 162 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 7.9 out of 10. Among Rotten Tomatoes' "Top Critics", which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film holds an overall approval rating of 91%, based on a sample of 32 reviews.The site's general consensus is that "Precious is a grim yet ultimately triumphant film about abuse and inner-city life, largely bolstered by exceptional performances from its cast." Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from film critics, has a rating score of 79 based on 35 reviews.

Up in The Air

2010-04-02T11:18:00.000-07:00

Up in the Air is a 2009 American comedy-drama film directed by Jason Reitman and co-written by Reitman and Sheldon Turner. It is a film adaptation of the 2001 novel of the same name, written by Walter Kirn. The story is about a corporate downsizer Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) and his travels. The film follows his isolated life and philosophies along with the people he meets along the way. Filming was primarily in St. Louis, Missouri, which substituted for a number of other cities shown in the film. Several scenes were also filmed in Detroit, Michigan, Omaha, Nebraska, Las Vegas, Nevada, and Miami, Florida.

After getting Oscar attention for JUNO, director Jason Reitman turns to this adaptation of Walter Kirn's comic novel. Academy Award-winner George Clooney stars as Ryan Bingham, a businessman on the verge of reaching five million frequent flyer miles when his company decides to cut back on travel. But his goal isn't the only thing just out of reach: he now won't be able to see a fellow frequent traveler (THE DEPARTED's Vera Farmiga) who has caught his eye.

Ryan Bingham works for Omaha based Career Transition Counseling whose contracts are in corporate downsizing. In other words, they fire people. Ryan is flying around the US over 320 days of the year, which he feels is the best part of his job. He does whatever he can to rack up frequent flyer miles, the goal not to use them but just to accumulate them to a specific number he has in his mind. A secondary job he has is to give motivational speeches on relieving one's life of excess physical and emotional baggage. He truly does believe what he espouses as he lives out of his carry-on suitcase (his apartment in Omaha is really in name only), he is not close to his siblings (although he does do a favor for his sister while on his travels), nor does he have or want a significant person in his life. Ryan's life may change when the company hires Natalie Keener, a young overachieving woman who recommends that the company change the nature of the work by conducting the "firings" via remote computer access. Ryan believes that Natalie does not fully understand the nature of the business, and as such, their boss, Craig Gregory, suggests that she accompany Ryan on a business trip. Ryan is also trying to protect his way of life, which now includes meeting up with a woman named Alex Goran whenever their flight schedules mesh. Like Ryan, Alex, who he met in an airport hotel bar, is constantly traveling for work, and is as equally turned on the by the concepts of "elite status" or "preferred member" as Ryan is.

The National Board of Review and the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association have named it the best picture of 2009. It received eight Broadcast Film Critics Association nominations and garnered a win for Adapted Screenplay, six Golden Globe nominations, earning a win for Best Screenplay, and three Screen Actors Guild nominations. It received six Academy Award nominations, but did not win in any category. Up in the Air received recognition from numerous critics' associations.

Wonder Boys

2010-03-25T05:11:00.000-07:00

Wonder Boys is a 2000 feature film based on the 1995 novel of the same title by Michael Chabon. Directed by Curtis Hanson, it stars Michael Douglas as professor Grady Tripp, a novelist who teaches creative writing at an unnamed Pittsburgh university. He has been unable to finish his second novel, his young wife has left him, and he is sleeping with his boss’s wife (Frances McDormand), who is also the Chancellor of the university. Grady's editor (Robert Downey Jr.) is in town to take a look at the book and becomes interested in a book that a student (Tobey Maguire) from Grady's creative writing class has just completed.

Wonder Boys was filmed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, including locations at Carnegie Mellon University, Chatham University, and Shady Side Academy. Other Pennsylvania locations included Beaver, Rochester and Rostraver Township. The film reunited Katie Holmes and Maguire, who had appeared together three years earlier in The Ice Storm.
After Wonder Boys failed at the box office, there was a second attempt to find an audience with a new marketing campaign and a November 8, 2000, re-release, which was also a financial disappointment.

Douglas delivers one of his most compelling performances as Grady Tripp, a disheveled, perpetually adolescent English professor amiably coasting toward a mid-life crisis. On the inaugural day of his university's literary festival, Grady's third wife leaves him and his mistress, university chancellor Sara Gaskell (McDormand), announces that she's pregnant with their child. Her husband Walter (Thomas), the self-absorbed chair of the English department, suspects nothing, but with a baby on the way scandal looms just over the horizon.

To further complicate matters, Grady's reckless editor Terry Crabtree (Downey), desperate to revive his flaccid career, flies in from New York to pick up the manuscript for Grady's seven-years-in-the-making follow-up to his critically acclaimed first book -- but at 2612 pages, it remains far from finished. As if that weren't enough to keep him reeling, Grady soon becomes an unwilling accomplice to a canine homicide and the heist of a rare jacket once worn by Marilyn Monroe, both committed by his brightest student -- the languid, slightly pathological James Leer (Maguire). Dressed in a ratty pink bathrobe and driving a stolen car with a dead dog in the trunk, Grady must now find a way to return Marilyn's coat, write the great American novel, nurture James's literary talents, discourage the advances of an amorous co-ed (Holmes), avoid the wrath of a petite James Brown look-alike (Knox), and reconcile with Sara...all before the weekend is over!

In its opening weekend, the film opened at #7 in the North American box office and grossed a total of USD $5.8 million in 1,253 theaters. It went on to gross a total of $33.4 million worldwide.

Wonder Boys currently holds an 83 percent "fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes and a 73 metascore at Metacritic. Roger Ebert, a film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times, praised Wonder Boys as "the most accurate movie about campus life that I can remember. It is accurate, not because it captures intellectual debate or campus politics, but because it knows two things:
(1) Students come and go, but the faculty actually lives there, and
(2) many faculty members stay stuck in graduate-student mode for decades".

Source:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185014/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Boys_(film)
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wonder_boys/

Slumdog Millionaire

2010-02-20T07:06:00.000-08:00

Slumdog Millionaire is a 2008 British film directed by Danny Boyle, screenplay written by Simon Beaufoy, and co-directed in India by Loveleen Tandan. It is an adaptation of the novel Q & A (2005) by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup. Set and filmed in India, the film tells the story of Jamal Malik, a young man from the dharavi slums of Mumbai who appears on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (Kaun Banega Crorepati in the Hindi version) and exceeds people's expectations, thereby arousing the suspicions of the game show host and of law enforcement officials.

Slumdog Millionaire was nominated for ten Academy Awards in 2009 and won eight, the most for any film of 2008, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It also won seven BAFTA Awards (including Best Film), five Critics' Choice Awards, and four Golden Globes. Slumdog Millionaire has been criticised concerning language use, its portrayals of Indians, and the welfare of its child actors.

British director Danny Boyle takes another intriguing career turn with this heartfelt underdog tale. Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) is a street kid (or "slumdog") who has landed an appearance on India's version of the hit TV game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Jamal exceeds expectations on the show, and the producers alert the police after they become suspicious of his methods. The young contestant is subsequently arrested and is interrogated at the hands of a nameless police inspector (played by Bollywood star Irfan Khan). As the interrogation proceeds, Boyle tells Jamal's story through harrowing flashbacks that both show the terrible poverty of Mumbai and help explain how he knew the answers to the Millionaire questions.

Slumdog Millionaire is a tightly woven story that has been expertly edited into shape. The contrast between Jamal's upbringing and his chance of escaping it on the show are adeptly juxtaposed. Mumbai is portrayed as a place of terrifying poverty and unforgettable brutality, and Jamal and his brother get into a never-ending succession of challenging situations. But the way Boyle ties together Jamal's life experiences with his answers on the show is quite brilliant, and the film really does run the full gamut of emotions as we see him growing up, falling in love, coming close to death, and teetering on the brink of escaping from his terrible predicament. The film belongs to Boyle's cast, who are mostly unknown outside of India. Patel, in particular, gives a startlingly mature performance that audiences are likely to remember long after the credits role on this affecting feature.

Slumdog Millionaire has been critically acclaimed in the Western world. As of 11 November 2009, Rotten Tomatoes has given the film a 93% rating with 197 fresh and 14 rotten reviews. The average score is 8.2/10.
At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 86, based on 36 reviews.
Movie City News shows that the film appeared in 123 different top ten lists, out of 286 different critics lists surveyed, the 3rd most mentions on a top ten list of any film released in 2008.

Milk

2010-02-20T06:59:00.000-08:00

Milk is a 2008 American biographical film on the life of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk, who was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, and one of the first three in the United States as a whole, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Directed by Gus Van Sant and written by Dustin Lance Black, the film stars Sean Penn as Milk and Josh Brolin as Dan White. The film was released to much acclaim and earned numerous accolades from film critics and guilds. Ultimately, it received eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, winning two for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Penn and Best Original Screenplay for Black.

Attempts to put Milk's life to film followed a 1984 Oscar-winning documentary of his life and the aftermath of his assassination, titled The Times of Harvey Milk, which was loosely based upon Randy Shilts's biography, The Mayor of Castro Street. Various scripts were considered in the early 1990s, but projects fell through for different reasons, until 2007. Much of Milk was filmed on Castro Street and other locations in San Francisco, including Milk's former storefront, Castro Camera.

Milk begins on Harvey Milk's 40th birthday, when he was living in New York City and had not yet settled in San Francisco. It chronicles his foray into city politics, and the various battles he waged in the Castro neighborhood as well as throughout the city, and political campaigns to limit the rights of gay people in 1977 and 1978 run by Anita Bryant and John Briggs. His romantic and political relationships are also addressed, as is his tenuous affiliation with troubled Supervisor Dan White; the film ends with White's double murder of Milk and Mayor George Moscone. The film's release was tied to the 2008 California voter referendum on gay marriage, Proposition 8, when it made its premiere at the Castro Theatre two weeks before election day.

In 1977, Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming the first openly gay man to be voted into public office in America. His victory was not just a victory for gay rights; he forged coalitions across the political spectrum. From senior citizens to union workers, Harvey Milk changed the very nature of what it means to be a fighter for human rights and became, before his untimely death in 1978, a hero for all Americans.

With his beloved Castro neighborhood and beautiful city empowering him, Milk surprises Scott and himself by becoming an outspoken agent for change. With vitalizing support from Scott and from new friends like young activist Cleve Jones (Emile Hirsch), Milk plunges headfirst into the choppy waters of politics. Bolstering his public profile with humor, Milk’s actions speak even louder than his gift-of-gab words. When Milk is elected supervisor for the newly zoned District 5, he tries to coordinate his efforts with those of another newly elected supervisor, Dan White (Josh Brolin). But as White and Milk’s political agendas increasingly diverge, their personal destinies tragically converge. Milk’s platform was and is one of hope – a hero’s legacy that resonates in the here and now.

Tropic Thunder

2010-02-06T23:13:00.000-08:00

Tropic Thunder is a 2008 American action satire comedy film directed and produced by Ben Stiller. The film stars Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey, Jr. as a group of prima donna actors making a Vietnam War film. When their frustrated writer and director decide to drop them in the middle of a jungle, the actors are forced to portray their roles without the comforts of a film set. Written by Stiller, Justin Theroux, and Etan Cohen, the film was produced by DreamWorks and Red Hour Films and distributed by Paramount Pictures.

When the box office champ Ben Stiller's comedic performances aren't a variation on a soft-spoken, put-upon everyman with an eventual fuse, he's usually playing a full-blown absurdist monster with an apoplectic Napoleon complex. These bizarre creations usually adorn films in which the funnyman provides the supporting work, but, whenever he's directing, he's free to build an entire filmic universe around his asinine, ludicrously funny, culture-skewering characters and premises.
A desperate director named Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) trying to make a Vietnam war movie drops his pampered actors into the heart of the jungle. Cockburn's stars include Stiller as an action hero who's starting to make bad career choices, Jack Black as an insecure low-brow comedy star going through heroin withdrawals, and Robert Downey Jr. as an Australian Oscar winner so lost in his "craft" he underwent a procedure to become black for his role. In the jungle, they remain under the delusion that they are still being filmed even after they encounter a dangerous gang of druglords.
Simply put, this raucous satire knows big-budget filmmaking, the delusional narcissism of actors, and even the good points of those actors--perhaps why they're celebrated--like the back of its hand.

In January 2009, Entertainment Weekly included Tropic Thunder in its list "25 Great Comedies From the Past 25 Years" for its "spot-on skewering of Hollywood." The film also appeared on several critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008. Stephen King placed it at the fourth position, calling the film "the funniest, most daring comedy of the year." The Oregonian's Marc Mohan, placed it sixth, and several critics placed it seventh: Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News, Premiere magazine, Mike Russell of The Oregonian, as well as Peter Hartlaub of the San Francisco Chronicle. David Ansen of Newsweek placed it eighth and Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly included the film in the tenth position. A table developed by Movie City News indicates that the film appeared in 27 different top ten lists out of 286 critics lists surveyed. It received the 35th most mentions on a top ten list of the films released in 2008.

The Counterfeiters

2010-01-10T01:23:00.000-08:00

The Counterfeiters (German: Die Fälscher) is a 2007 Austrian-German film written and directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky. Based on the memoir by Adolf Burger, the film tells the inspiring story of a pre-World War II criminal whose cunning and fiery spirit enable him to overcome deadly odds and survive life in Germany's Sachsenhausen concentration camp. It fictionalizes Operation Bernhard, a secret plan by the Nazis during the Second World War to destabilize the United Kingdom by flooding its economy with forged Bank of England currency. The film centers on a Jewish counterfeiter, Salomon 'Sally' Sorowitsch, who is coerced into assisting the Nazi operation at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The film is based on a memoir written by Adolf Burger, a Jewish Slovak typographer who was imprisoned in 1942 for forging baptismal certificates to save Jews from deportation, and later interned at Sachsenhausen to work on Operation Bernhard. Ruzowitsky consulted closely with Burger through almost every stage of the writing and production. The film won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar at the 80th Academy Awards in 2008.

Before the war, Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics) was one of the world's most ingenious counterfeiters, until he was finally caught and arrested by Friedrich Herzog (Devid Striesow). Years later, as the Nazi movement is in full swing, the nefariously charming Herzog--now a Nazi leader--recruits Sorowitsch to lead an enormous counterfeiting project called Operation Bernhard. Placed in a horrific position of moral corruption, Sorowitsch is forced to decide whether or not to save his own life or prevent the Nazis from causing further damage on an even grander scale. His fellow prisoner Adolf Burger (August Diehl) is determined to sabotage the operation, but Sorowitsch understands how dangerous a proposition this is. While The Counterfeiters is based on real-life tragedy, it never loses its primary objective as a work of dramatic entertainment. This deft balancing act is what keeps Ruzowitzky's moving tale from becoming too bleak and depressing. The result is a deeply impressive work that addresses a topic not often explored in Holocaust cinema--the dilemma of victims who were forced to act immorally and illegally for the betterment of their captors. Powerfully acted by Markovics, The Counterfeiters is the type of film that the Oscars were made for.

Reference:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0813547/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Counterfeiters_%28film%29
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/die_falscher/

City of God

2010-01-04T09:07:00.000-08:00

City of God (Portuguese: Cidade de Deus) is a 2002 Brazilian crime drama film directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, released in its home country in 2002 and worldwide in 2003. It was adapted by Bráulio Mantovani from the 1997 novel of the same name written by Paulo Lins. It depicts the growth of organized crime in the Rio de Janeiro suburb of Cidade de Deus, between the end of the '60s and the beginning of the '80s, with the closure of the film depicting the war between the drug dealer Li'l Zé and criminal Knockout Ned. The tagline is "Fight and you'll never survive..... Run and you'll never escape."

The cast includes Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino da Hora, Jonathan Haagensen, Douglas Silva, Alice Braga and Seu Jorge. Most of the actors were, in fact, residents of favelas such as Vidigal and the Cidade de Deus itself.

The film received four Academy Award nominations in 2004: Best Cinematography (César Charlone), Best Directing (Meirelles), Best Editing (Daniel Rezende) and Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) (Mantovani). Before that, in 2003 it had been chosen to be Brazil's runner for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but it was not nominated to be one of the five finalists.

Meirelles and Lund went on to create the City of Men TV series and film City of Men, which share some of the actors (notably leads Douglas Silva and Darlan Cunha) and their setting with City of God.

Youth gangs took over the slums of Rio de Janiero during the 1960s and didn't relinquish their stronghold until the mid-1980s. Only a sucker wouldn't have turned to crime and this is exactly how naive teen Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues) views himself. His attempts in illegal activity fail as he finds potential victims too friendly. Equally unsuccessful in love, he regularly fails to lose his virginity. Blood spills throughout the streets of the Ciudad de Deus as gang leader Li'l Ze (Leandro Firmino da Hora) is challenged by local druglords and a gang of pre-teens known as the Runts. Rocket shoots all of this action with his weapon of choice, a camera. Director Fernando Meirelles combines visual flashiness with dark history in telling the story of three decades of unrest in underground Rio de Janiero. Technically flawless, the Brazilian film uses a rapid-cutting style to flash back and forth in time. Cinematographer Cesar Charlone shoots with an overexposed glow in a film that may seem numb to violence, but reveres photography. Director Meirelles was assisted by Katia Lund, a filmmaker who had previously shot in the Rio ghettos

The film was screened out of competition at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. Brazil, City of God garnered the largest audience for a domestic film in 2002, with over 3.1 million tickets sold, and a gross of 18.6 million reais ($10.3 million). The film also grossed over 7 million dollars in the U.S. and over 27 million worldwide. City of God is listed at #16 in the Internet Movie Database's Top 250 Films as voted by the site's users.

City of God received impressive positive acclaim from major publications in the United States, gathering 93% of favourable reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Empire chose it as the 177th best film of all time in 2008, and Time chose it as one of the 100 greatest movies of all time. In the UK it was ranked 3rd in Film4's "50 Films to See Before You Die".

Reference:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317248/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/city_of_god/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_God_(film)

Boy A

2010-01-04T08:36:00.000-08:00

Boy A is a 2007 BAFTA award-winning film adaptation of Jonathan Trigell's critically acclaimed novel of the same name which shares some similarities with the notorious James Patrick Bulger case. The film premièred at the 2007 Toronto Film Festival. It is directed by John Crowley and stars Andrew Garfield (who won the 2008 Best Actor BAFTA TV Award for his performance), Peter Mullan and Katie Lyons. The USA cinematic release is distributed by the Weinstein Company. It is a story of a young ex-con Jack, newly released from serving a prison sentence for a murder he committed as a child.

Bright futures are undercut by dark pasts in Boy A, a quiet, ruminative tale about a violent act committed by a man in his tormented youth, and his haunting inability to find a way to have a peaceful adulthood years later. Fresh out of a 14-year prison sentence, 24-year-old Jack (Andrew Garfield) arrives in Manchester looking for a new start. He has a new name, a new job, and a carefully sealed criminal record, but an entire boyhood spent behind bars has left him permanently looking over his shoulder. Guided by his fatherly caseworker, Terry (Peter Mullan), Jack attempts to forge meaningful ties with a local girl and a chatty co-worker, but what happiness he finds is challenged when his true identity seeps (and then floods) through the cracks of his new façade. Directed with claustrophobic flair by John Crowley, Boy A unfolds in tight hallways and on narrow roads; for Jack, even in freedom, every room's a prison. As the story of Jack's new life moves forward, sharply lit flashbacks continually offer new details of his childhood crime. The backward glances work as both a compelling narrative technique and a glimpse into Jack's conscience (and the viewer's); the harsh reminder of his former self seem to play endlessly in his mind, impossible to reconcile with the gentle, introspective adult he longs to become.

Efficiently directed by John Crowley, Boy A avoids exploitation while never soft-selling its thorny subject matter. The movie is taut with suspense but culminates in wise resignation as the hero comes to understand he's running from a part of himself. Boy A is one of those rare movies that takes the idea of rehabilitation seriously. In the end, it may present a worst-case scenario, but it does so with unusual depth and conviction. Boy A currently holds a 91% approval rating based on 53 professional critical reviews on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

Reference:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1078188/

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/boy_a/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_A_(film)

Inglourious Basterds

2010-01-03T04:16:00.000-08:00

Inglourious Basterds is a 2009 war film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino and released in August 2009 by The Weinstein Company and Universal Pictures. It was filmed in several locations, among them Germany and France, beginning in October 2008. The film, set in German-occupied France, tells the story of two plots to assassinate the Nazi political leadership, one planned by a young French Jewish cinema proprietress, the other by a team of American soldiers called the "Basterds".

Tarantino has said that despite it being a war film, Inglourious Basterds is a "spaghetti western but with World War II iconography". In addition to spaghetti westerns, the film also pays homage to the World War II "macaroni combat" sub-genre (itself heavily influenced by spaghetti-westerns).

Inglourious Basterds was accepted into the main selection at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival in competition for the prestigious Palme d'Or and had its world premiere there in May. It was the only U.S. film to win an award at Cannes that year, earning a Best Actor award for Christoph Waltz. It also has been nominated in four categories in the 67th Golden Globe Awards, including Best Picture – Drama and Best Director for Tarantino.

Inglourious Basterds begins in German-occupied France, where Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) witnesses the execution of her family at the hand of Nazi Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). Shosanna narrowly escapes and flees to Paris, where she forges a new identity as the owner and operator of a cinema.

Elsewhere in Europe, Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) organizes a group of Jewish soldiers to engage in targeted acts of retribution. Known to their enemy as "The Basterds," Raine's squad joins German actress and undercover agent Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) on a mission to take down the leaders of The Third Reich. Fates converge under a cinema marquee, where Shosanna is poised to carry out a revenge plan of her own.

The title of the film was inspired by director Enzo Castellari's 1978 Dirty Dozen-like war film The Inglorious Bastards. Though Tarantino acknowledges that both the former and the latter were inspirations for the film, and there are noticeable similarities, he stresses that Basterds is an original work and not a remake of the 1978 film. To date, there has been little explanation of the title spelling. When asked, Tarantino would not explain the first u in Inglourious and said, "But the 'Basterds'? That's just the way you say it: Basterds." He stated in an interview that the misspelled title is "a Basquiat-esque touch." He further commented on the Late Show with David Letterman that "Inglourious Basterds" is the "Tarantino way of spelling it."

The movie received an eight to eleven minute standing ovation by the critics after its first screening at Cannes. In particular, Christoph Waltz was singled out for Cannes honors, receiving the Best Leading Actor award at the end of the festival. Movie critic Devin Faraci of Chud.com stated: "The cry has been raised long before this review, but let me continue it: Christoph Waltz needs not an Oscar nomination but rather an actual Oscar in his hands.... he must have gold". The film received four Golden Globe nominations including Best Motion Picture (Drama), Best Performance By An Actor In A Supporting Role In A Motion Picture for Christoph Waltz, Best Director (Motion Picture) for Quentin Tarantino, and Best Screenplay (Motion Picture) for Quentin Tarantino. The film also received three Screen Actors Guild Award nominations including Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, Outstanding Male Actor in a Supporting Role for Christoph Waltz, and Outstanding Female Actor in a Supporting Role for Diane Kruger.

Reference:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0361748/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inglourious_Basterds
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/inglourious_basterds/

Appaloosa

2010-01-01T06:12:00.000-08:00

Appaloosa is a 2008 American Western film based on the 2005 novel of the same name by crime writer Robert B. Parker. The film was directed by Ed Harris and co-written by Harris and Robert Knott. Appaloosa stars Harris alongside Viggo Mortensen. The film premiered in the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, was released in select cities on September 19, 2008 and expanded into wide-release on October 3, 2008. A traditional genre western, Appaloosa sets itself apart with smart psychology, an intriguing love triangle, and good chemistry between the leads.

The movie shares some narrative similarities with the 1959 Western Warlock, directed by Edward Dmytryk and starring Henry Fonda, Anthony Quinn and Richard Widmark. There is also a 1966 Western named The Appaloosa which stars Marlon Brando, but the two films are unrelated.

Actor Ed Harris takes only his second stab at directing, following the Oscar-winning feature Pollock with this spirited western. Harris draws on a strong cast, many of whom have acted with him in previous films, to tell the story of two gunfighters attempting to bring peace to the small town of Appaloosa in the late 1800s. Virgil Cole (Harris) and Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen) ride into the windswept New Mexico town and are hired to bring vigilante entrepreneur Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons) to justice. Bragg has imposed a reign of terror over Appaloosa, but his murderous actions are tempered when Cole and Hitch take control. Matters get complicated when widower Allison French (Renee Zellweger) flounces into town and variously woos Cole, Hitch, and Bragg, allowing Harris to throw in a few neat twists as his two principal characters attempt to bring the miscreant entrepreneur to justice.

Appaloosa is a slow-moving and beautifully shot feature that perfectly translates the dusky New Mexico landscape to celluloid. This film draws heavily on deeply affecting performances from his leads. Irons is particularly affecting as the baleful Bragg, who brings a real air of menace to the screen any time he appears on camera. The nuanced turns by Harris and Mortensen play like a master class in subtlety, with the two seasoned actors perfectly delivering two stoic characters who are masking a lifetime of pain and suffering.

Early reviews of Appaloosa from the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival were lukewarm. Brad Frenette of the National Post said "the film feels double its 114-minute running time, but Appaloosa redeems itself through unexpected moments of levity, Harris's steady direction and the god amongst men, Lance Henriksen." Frenette also said Renee Zellweger is "mostly a bust" and Viggo Mortensen "oozes cool." Popjournalism reviewer Sarah Gopaul said Harris and Mortensen spend too much time talking and discussing their feelings, which she said made the film too light for the gritty Western genre. Gopaul said Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen delivered decent performances and that Renee Zellweger's character has more depth than the traditional romantic interest in a Western. The New Yorker’s David Denby called it “a well-made, satisfying, traditionalist Western with some odd quirks and turns.”
On Rotten Tomatoes, Appaloosa is currently rated at 76% on the Tomatometer, based on 149 reviews.
The film appeared on some critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008. Ray Bennett of The Hollywood Reporter named it the 8th best film of 2008, and Mike Russell of The Oregonian named it the 10th best film of 2008.

Reference:

Invictus

2010-01-01T05:01:00.000-08:00

Invictus is a 2009 biographical drama film based on Nelson Mandela's life during the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa. Directed by Clint Eastwood, the film stars Morgan Freeman as South African President Mandela, and Matt Damon as Francois Pienaar, the South African team captain. The story is based on the John Carlin book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation.

Delivered with typically stately precision from director Clint Eastwood, Invictus may not be rousing enough for some viewers, but Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman inhabit their real-life characters with admirable conviction.

The film tells the inspiring true story of how Nelson Mandela joined forces with the captain of South Africa’s rugby team, Francois Pienaar, to help unite their country. Newly elected President Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid.
His immediate challenge is "balancing black aspirations with white fears." The country's still-present racial tensions are shown, in part, through Mandela's security team, which comprises both new black and old white officials, with the groups immediately hostile to one another despite sharing the same job and goal. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa’s underdog rugby team as they make an unlikely run to the 1995 World Cup Championship match.

The film had won the following awards from the National Board of Review in the following categories:
* Freedom of Expression Award

* NBR Award for Best Director - Clint Eastwood

* NBR Award for Best Actor - Morgan Freeman

The film had been nominated for two awards from the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association awards in the following categories:
* Best Actor - Morgan Freeman
* Best Director - Clint Eastwood

Reference:

Role Models

2010-01-01T03:37:00.000-08:00

Role Models is a 2008 American comedy film directed by David Wain about two energy drink salesmen who are ordered to perform 150 hours of community service as punishment for various offenses. For their service, the two men work at a program designed to pair kids with adult role models. The film stars Seann William Scott, Paul Rudd, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bobb'e J. Thompson, Jane Lynch and Elizabeth Banks. Role Models is a frequently crude, always funny comedy with the cast providing solid work throughout. Wild behavior forces a pair of energy drink reps to enroll in a Big Brother program.

Director David Wain capably mixes the saucy and the sentimental in the bawdy boys-to-men comedy Role Models. Stuck-in-a-rut Danny Donahue (Paul Rudd) and womanizing man-child Wheeler (Seann William Scott) work together promoting Minotaur energy drink to high school students. But when Danny's girlfriend Beth (Elizabeth Banks) dumps him because he lacks maturity, his lashing out threatens to land him and Wheeler in jail. Their only way out is to act as mentors at Sturdy Wings, a Big Brother-esque organization run by reformed addict--and unrepentant flirt--Gayle Sweeny (Jane Lynch). There, Danny is paired with the decidedly dorky Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) while Wheeler is the latest victim to take on foul-mouthed Ronnie (Bobb'e J. Thompson).

After a bumpy beginning, both Danny and Wheeler connect with their kids over everything from sword-and-sorcery role playing to the chick-scoring power of the band Kiss. But when these two presumptive adults put their charges' well-being in jeopardy, they face both jail time and the loss of everyone's respect. With their own friendship on the brink of ruin, Danny and Wheeler--not to mention a little help from the magic of Kiss--must reach deep inside to prove to the world how responsible they can truly be. Role Models features a healthy dose of sharp humor and juvenile gags balanced by a feel-good message that growing up doesn't mean giving up what makes each of us special.

Reviews for the film have been positive with the comedy receiving a "certified fresh" rating of 76% positive based on 115 reviews at review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. In their year end review, IGN awarded Role Models with "Best Comedy Film of 2008". Eye Weekly selected Role Models as one of the best films of 2008.

Reference:

The Visitor

2009-12-31T07:37:00.000-08:00

The Visitor is a 2008 American drama film written and directed by Thomas McCarthy. The screenplay focuses on a lonely man in late middle age whose life changes when he is forced to face issues relating to identity, immigration, and cross-cultural communication in post-9/11 New York City. For The Visitor, McCarthy won the 2008 Independent Spirit Award for Best Director, while Richard Jenkins was nominated for Best Actor in the 2009 Academy Awards.

In a world of six billion people, it only takes one to change your life. In actor and filmmaker Tom McCarthy’s follow-up to his award winning directorial debut The Station Agent, Richard Jenkins (Six Feet Under) stars as a disillusioned Connecticut economics professor whose life is transformed by a chance encounter in New York City.

Sixty-two-year-old Walter Vale (Jenkins) is sleepwalking through his life. Having lost his passion for teaching and writing, he fills the void by unsuccessfully trying to learn to play classical piano. When his college sends him to Manhattan to attend a conference, Walter is surprised to find a young couple has taken up residence in his apartment. Victims of a real estate scam, Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), a Syrian man, and Zainab (Danai Gurira), his Senegalese girlfriend, have nowhere else to go. In the first of a series of tests of the heart, Walter reluctantly allows the couple to stay with him.

Touched by his kindness, Tarek, a talented musician, insists on teaching the aging academic to play the African drum. The instrument’s exuberant rhythms revitalize Walter’s faltering spirit and open his eyes to a vibrant world of local jazz clubs and Central Park drum circles. As the friendship between the two men deepens, the differences in culture, age and temperament fall away.

After being stopped by police in the subway, Tarek is arrested as an undocumented citizen and held for deportation. As his situation turns desperate, Walter finds himself compelled to help his new friend with a passion he thought he had long ago lost. When Tarek’s beautiful mother Mouna (Hiam Abbass) arrives unexpectedly in search of her son, the professor’s personal commitment develops into an unlikely romance.

And it’s through these new found connections with these virtual strangers that Walter is awakened to a new world and a new life.

The film was named best of the year by the Washington Post, the Charlotte Observer, and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. It also was cited as one of the year's ten best by numerous publications, including the Chicago Reader, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Hollywood Reporter, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post.

Reference:

Defiance

2009-12-29T22:46:00.000-08:00

Defiance is a 2008 war film written, produced, and directed by Edward Zwick, set during the occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany. The film is an account of the Bielski partisans, a group led by four Jewish brothers who saved and recruited Jews in the Kresy region of Poland during the Second World War. The film stars Daniel Craig as Tuvia Bielski, Liev Schreiber as Zus Bielski, Jamie Bell as Asael Bielski, and George MacKay as Aron Bielski. The film was an adaptation of Nechama Tec's book Defiance: The Bielski Partisans.

Defiance is a different kind of World War II movie, one that looks at the Holocaust from a unique angle--telling the true story of a group of Jews in Eastern Europe who fought back. Jewish brothers in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe escape into the Belarussian forests, where they join Russian resistance fighters and endeavor to build a village in order to protect themselves and about 1,000 Jewish non-combatants.

On the run from the Germans and the local police, the three Russian Bielski brothers--Tuvia (Daniel Craig), Zus (Liev Schreiber), and Asael (Jamie Bell)--hide out deep in the forest. Their numbers swell as more and more refugees join them, coming together to form a community while also patrolling with guns and shooting the enemy to stay alive. But Tuvia and Zus have a falling-out over what future direction to take: Tuvia thinks it best to remain in the forest despite the coming vicious winter, but Zus wants to join the Russian resistance, which is aggressively attacking the Nazis.

Complicating the situation are the women in their lives, known as forest wives--Lilka (Alexa Davalos) shows interest in Tuvia, Bella (Iben Hjelje) grows close to Zus, and young Chaya (Mia Wasikowska) and Asael flirt with the tingles of first love. As food grows scarce, diseases increase, and the Nazis become determined to find and kill them, the Bielski Otriad struggles to survive, battling back when necessary, including taking up arms.

Defiance is a powerful thriller filled with tense human emotion, a gripping story about brotherly love and the basic human instinct to survive against all odds. Craig, Schreiber and Bell are terrific as the Bielski brothers, three very different individuals who simply refuse to just lie down and die.

Son of Rambow

2009-12-27T04:02:00.000-08:00

Son of Rambow is a 2007 British comedy-drama film written and directed by Garth Jennings. The film premiered 22 January 2007 at the Sundance Film Festival. It was later shown at the Newport Beach Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, and Glasgow Film Festival. The film was also shown at the 51st BFI London Film Festival. Son of Rambow was released in the United Kingdom on 4 April 2008 and opened in limited release in the United States on 2 May 2008. Set during an English summer during the early 1980s, the film is a coming of age story about two schoolboys.

SON OF RAMBOW is the name of the home movie made by two little boys with a big video camera and even bigger ambitions. Set on a long English summer in the early 80's, SON OF RAMBOW is a comedy about friendship, faith and the tough business of growing up. We see the story through the eyes of Will, the eldest son of a fatherless Plymouth Brethren family. The Brethren regard themselves as God's 'chosen ones' and their strict moral code means that Will has never been allowed to mix with the other 'worldlies,' listen to music or watch TV, until he finds himself caught up in the extraordinary world of Lee Carter, the school terror and maker of bizarre home movies. Carter exposes Will to a pirate copy of Rambo: First Blood and from that moment Will's mind is blown wide open and he's easily convinced to be the stuntman in Lee Carters' diabolical home movie. Will's imaginative little brain is not only given chance to flourish in the world of film making, but is also very handy when it comes to dreaming up elaborate schemes to keep his partnership with Lee Carter a secret from the Brethren community. Will and Carter's complete disregard for consequences and innocent ambition means that the process of making their film is a glorious rollercoaster that eventually leads to true friendship. They start to make a name for themselves at school as movie makers but when popularity descends on them in the form of the Pied Piper-esque French exchange student, Didier Revol, their unique friendship and their precious film are pushed, quite literally, to breaking point.

Writer-director Garth Jennings and producer Nick Goldsmith, who as Hammer & Tongs have made music videos for such groups as Fatboy Slim, Supergrass, Blur, and REM, follow up their 2005 film, THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, with the charming indie SON OF RAMBOW, a love letter to the movies. A success at such festivals as Toronto and Sundance, SON OF RAMBOW stars Bill Milner as Will Proudfoot, a shy, reserved young boy who is different from the other kids because his family is part of the Brethren, a religion that shuns the outside world, not allowing him to have friends at school or to watch television. While in the hallway in school one day because he can't watch an educational film in class, Will gets into a fight with Lee Carter (Will Poulter), a tough kid who gets into trouble all the time. Lee forces Will to help him make a homemade version of the Sylvester Stallone film FIRST BLOOD, but after watching the original, Will is captivated by the movie and writes his own sequel, casting himself as the son of Rambow (he misspells the name of the character). Will and Lee use their imagination and lots of grit to get the project off the ground, bonding as only blood brothers can. But soon the entire school wants to participate in the movie, including ultra-cool French exchange student Didier Revol (Jules Sitruk), jeopardizing the integrity of the production as well as Will and Lee's growing friendship. Milner and Poulter, both making their feature-film debuts, are engaging as the lead characters. Jennings sets SON OF RAMBOW in the 1980s, before cell phones, digital cameras, and YouTube changed the way people communicate. Amid a soundtrack that includes music from such seminal period bands as The Cure and Depeche Mode, the two young boys learn about family and friendship, jealousy and ego as their carefully controlled worlds threaten to implode.

Son of Rambow received generally favourable reviews from critics. As of 10 January 2009, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 74% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 113 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 66 out of 100, based on 29 reviews.

The film appeared on several critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008. Both Kimberly Jones of The Austin Chronicle and Ty Burr of The Boston Globe named it their eighth best, and Marc Savlov of The Austin Chronicle named it his ninth.

Reference Links

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0845046/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_Rambow

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/son_of_rambow/

In Bruges

2009-11-30T07:43:00.000-08:00

In Bruges is a 2008 black comedy film, directed and written by Martin McDonagh. The film stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as hitmen in hiding, with Ralph Fiennes as their gangster boss. The film takes place – and was filmed – within the Belgian city of Bruges. In Bruges was the opening night film of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. The film opened in limited release in the United States on 8 February 2008; premiered at the Dublin Film Festival on 15 February 2008; later went on full release in Ireland on 7 March 2008; and opened 18 April 2008 in the United Kingdom.

Colin Farrell won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for the film, while Martin McDonagh won a BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Mr. McDonagh makes his feature directorial debut on the film, from his own original screenplay. His plays (which include The Lieutenant of Inishmore and The Pillowman) have brought him two Olivier Awards and four Tony Award nominations. He wrote and directed Six Shooter, starring Brendan Gleeson, which earned him the 2006 Academy Award for Best Live-Action Short Film. In Bruges was filmed on location; Bruges (pronounced "broozh"), the most well-preserved medieval city in the whole of Belgium, is a welcoming destination for travelers from all over the world.

But for hit men Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson), it could be their final destination; a difficult job has resulted in the pair being ordered right before Christmas by their London boss Harry (two-time Academy Award nominee Ralph Fiennes) to go and cool their heels in the storybook Flemish city for a couple of weeks. Very much out of place amidst the gothic architecture, canals, and cobbled streets, the two hit men fill their days living the lives of tourists. Ray, still haunted by the bloodshed in London, hates the place, while Ken, even as he keeps a fatherly eye on Ray's often profanely funny exploits, finds his mind and soul being expanded by the beauty and serenity of the city.

But the longer they stay waiting for Harry's call, the more surreal their experience becomes, as they find themselves in weird encounters with locals, tourists, violent medieval art, a dwarf American actor (Jordan Prentice) shooting a European art film, Dutch prostitutes, and a potential romance for Ray in the form of Chloë (Clémence Poésy), who may have some dark secrets of her own. And when the call from Harry does finally come, Ken and Ray's vacation becomes a life-and-death struggle of darkly comic proportions and surprisingly emotional consequences.

In Bruges was nominated for a total of seven awards by the British Independent Film Awards,[8] including nominations for The Douglas Hickox Award for Best Debut Director and Best Actor and Best Screenplay, the latter of which it won.[9] It was also been nominated for two IPA Satellite Awards for Best Actor (Brendan Gleeson) and Motion Picture (Comedy or Musical).[10]

In November 2008, Martin McDonagh won the Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild (IPSG) award for Best Film Script for In Bruges.[11]

The film was also nominated for the 2008 Best Motion Picture — Comedy or Musical, and both Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell were nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture (Comedy or Musical), which Farrell won at the 66th Golden Globe Awards. McDonagh won the Best Screenplay BAFTA Award in February 2009.

The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 2009.
The film won the Irish Film and Television Awards for Best International Film in 2009.

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