Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep, Peter Sarsgaard and Alan Arkin star in Rendition, a thriller from director Gavin Hood (Tsotsi). Witherspoon stars as the American wife of an Egyptian-born chemical engineer who disappears on a flight from South Africa to Washington.

 

The woman desperately tries to track her husband down, while a CIA analyst (Gyllenhaal) at a secret detention facility outside the U.S. is forced to question his assignment as he becomes party to the man?s unorthodox interrogation.

 

Timely and intelligent political thriller, November 5, 2007

This movie has it all: Superb direction (by the masterful Gavin Hood of "Crash" fame); a great cast (Meryl Streep, Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Omar Metwally); a riveting and harrowing plot that keeps you on the edge of your seat; even an interesting twist at the end (which I won’t give away) that had us all discussing the movie for an hour afterwards.

And if all of that isn’t enough, this is an extremely timely topic. Our government’s participation in torturing people at secret prisons around the world is something that all American citizens should be discussing and debating. Unfortunately, this engaging thriller is not getting the audience it deserves. The fact that "Saw IV," a warped glorification of brutality, has earned four times as much at the box office as Rendition suggests that for many Americans, out of sight is out of mind and escapism is the name of the game.

Excellent and intelligent political thriller, February 10, 2008

The film itself is flawless. After spending Chinese New year stuck at home with a few dozen movies and plenty of spare time, I can say that most other films that I watched were solidly in the 2 to 3 star class, while this one has everything for it: a solid story, based on current political events, a first class cast, excellent cinematography (the No Country For Old Men crowd might get their desert pictures from here too!), and even a good copy for me.

And then as an add-on the odd reviews here by the political wackos. Very entertaining, if they were not so sad.

The subject is, as the title says, rendition, i.e. the practice of transferring suspects to other countries without proper procedure. A suspect can be anybody by accident. The plot here involves a young CIA agent in ‘North Africa’, who is not used to the practices, it is his first ‘torture case’. He develops a conscience and acts upon it. In parallel we watch a young local couple, the daughter of the police chief, who ran away from home, with her boy friend, an art student, who is of course also something else. The story is skillfully intervowen with the interrogation of the suspect from the US.

August Rush : Music is Harmonic Connection between all living beings — The Wizard

"Music is Harmonic Connection between all living beings — The Wizard", November 25, 2007

Some people hear the rhythm in a step, the strident beauty of a police siren, the whip of a powerline in the wind. Evan Taylor (Freddie Highmore) doesn’t get a decent night’s sleep in the orphanage because of it. His fellow inmates call him freak because he believes both his parents are living and they’ll come for him–if only he call out with the music that connects them.

As he says, "I believe in music the way some people believe in fairy tales." So, Evan decides after eleven years and some days to escape the orphanage and go find the music–and his parents.

Even ends up in New York City with zero street smarts. He really doesn’t even know how to cross the road. A fortunate encounter puts him near Arthur (Leon G. Thomas III), a street busker his age who’s willing to help–for a price. Arthur introduces him to Wizard (Robin Williams) who gives musically talented street kids a place to stay in exchange for half their take. The Wizard quickly discovers that Evan, who he renames August Rush, is a prodigy and is making some plans for the lad.

Meanwhile, we learn that Even’s mom Lyla Novacek (Kerri Russell) had only been with Louis Connelly (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) one night. The Julliard educated cellist was in an accident while pregnant and her father decided to sign her name and give up her son–telling Lyla that he’d died. Instead of the stage career her father envisioned, Lyla mostly gave up music and taught–til Julliard called her for a special concert in Central Park.

Louis has always longed for Lyla, the girl who got away. He gave up his music and became a manager. When he brings a girl to meet his family, they play a song he’d written for the band after Lyla’s departure from his life. He’s determined to find Lyla. When he believes she is married, he ends up in New York with no particular goals in mind except to find his music again.

"August Rush" is just as much about the musical ties that bind us as the three people whose stories it tells. In my opinion, the best performances were the kids: Evan-August, Arthur and Hope (Jamia Simone Nash). This trio kept you captivated and cheering.

Of course, the soundtrack is fabulous. You have Kaki King on the guitar as well as vocals from John Legend and John Ondrasik (Five for Fighting fame). I’m ordering the soundtrack tonight and I really don’t often like movie soundtracks well enough to order.

I wasn’t the only person who’d give this film 5 stars. This is one of the rare films I’ve attended where many of the audience stood and applauded at the end. While this is a family film, I did notice that some of the younger children got restless and needed some explanation of what was going on.

This year our host and model Brooklyn Decker takes you on a tour of the world with her special friends Tori, Marisa, Oluchi, Daniella and many, many more! You’ll see Bar in Israel, Irina in Russia and Selita in the Cayman Islands! And of course what SI Swimsuit show wouldn’t be complete without body paint!

 

What’s not to like?, February 22, 2008

After reading the other reviews, I thought I’d give you all the opinion of a straight guy. Beautiful girls, beautiful locations and beautiful photograpy. What’s not to like?

Extremely Hot !!, February 24, 2008

Very good video quality on my 37" HD LCD TV.

You will love it !

A dramatic series about a young police detective who is actually many hundreds of years old after being brought back to life by a Manhattan Native American chief in the seventeenth century. After spending many lifetimes in New York City, he now solves crimes while trying to find his true love, who can restore his mortality.

not earth-shatteringly great, but still. . ., March 27, 2008

By Gabriela Perez "Oy! So many books. . . ."

 

There are things I don’t like about this show. I can see that already, and I’ve only viewed two episodes. For example, I am a bit irked by how knowing the main character is. He seems almost psychic, but then–he has the advantage of wisdom gained over decades and decades of living. When I keep that in mind, I can ignore how know-it-all he sounds at first listen. I do like that lead character, though. The actor who plays him (whose name I won’t destroy by mucking up the spelling here) does a good job of walking that line between humor and sarcasm, and he’s good with emotion, too. There’s one scene in the pilot where his heart gives out on him, and the expressions crossing his face were just excellently done.

The premise is a neat one, too. I like the whole idea of him searching for his soul mate, and I like the fact that he’s clearly been really searching for her and that he hasn’t been a user and abuser in his search. He’s pretty liberal in his approach to humanity, and I like that as well.

The photography is nicely done as well, as are all the scenes showing New York shifting and changing from John Amsterdam’s early life to the current landscape.

HBO premieres the first 15 episodes of In Treatment, a new half-hour drama series starring Gabriel Byrne, and adapted from an enormously popular Israeli series. Set within the intimate confines of individual psychotherapy sessions with five sets of patients, the series centers around a therapist who exhibits an insightful, confident demeanor when treating his patients, but displays a crippling insecurity while counseled by his own therapist.

Incredible Serious. Downright Captivatingly Real., March 20, 2008

I don’t know how to describe how amazingly real this series is. As someone’s not only studied therapy, couseling and psychology academically, but who has also been "in treatment" for over 100 hours, this is the closest thing to real thing. Byrne is exceptional. Wise, smooth, suave, composed, compassionate, and real. His supporting cast (the patients) are equally captivating.

Michael Clayton, a former prosecutor, takes care of Kenner, Bach & Ledeen’s “dirty work.” The firm’s top litigator sabotages a case and the firm sends Clayton to tackle this disaster.

The Bad and the Beautiful, October 12, 2007

Tony Gilroy has already proven that he can weave/write a great story via his writing for the "Bourne" franchise. And the striking thing about "Michael Clayton" is how Gilroy has written ironic, conflicted, complicated characters that are at once "good" (and in the world that Gilroy has created here…this is in itself a term that is up for interpretation) yet are often bad as in unethical, mean, misanthropic.

These characters can and do betray themselves and others: There’s no one to truly love or hate, from Sydney Pollack’s quietly devious law firm CEO, to Tom Wilkinson’s holy madman of an ace courtroom defense attorney, to Tilda Swinton as a tricky senior partner in nice suits that peel off to reveal sweaty armpits and a gift for rationalization.

Even our hero, Michael Clayton as portrayed by George Clooney is a loser: a 12 year veteran at his law firm who is utilized as a bag man, a fixer usually dispatched to do what amounts to private eye work.: cleaning up the firm’s client messes.

Clayton is a failure both professionally and personally: a failure as a father, brother, husband and Clooney strikes just the right notes here as Clayton struggles, fights to regain his dignity both as an officer of the court and more importantly as a father and a human being.

The central plot revolves around a large chemical firm’s responsibility for sickness and deaths in a farm community and because Gilroy weaves and bobs among the big ensemble cast and among the various plot points, I was hard pressed to figure out just exactly what was going on for the first half hour. But this is to Gilroy’s credit: he refuses to foreshadow or explain thus adding texture and ambiguity to the film.

Moral and social dilemmas multiply as "Michael Clayton" races to its exciting denouement: a denouement that satisfies both emotionally and morally. Yet all is not as it seems here as Gilroy manages to leave a small festering wound of deceit and decay not quite healed: ready to re-open and re-infect itself.