Yes/No Films

Oscars 2012: Who will and should win

2012-02-26T12:41:00.000-05:00

Credit: allvoices.com

The main event is tonight: the 2012 Academy Awards, aka the Oscars, at 8:30pm EST on ABC, with the red carpet events usually starting an hour to an hour and a half before that. There are a lot of talented nominees and exceptional movies nominated this year, and the race is going to be pretty tight. Here are my picks for who/what WILL win the major categories, and who/what SHOULD win.

Read more at Examiner.com.

Gone

2012-02-24T00:02:00.013-05:00

Amanda Seyfried has come a long way since 2004's Mean Girls, and Gone showcases her at her best. Although there are various supporting characters throughout the film, the movie focuses primarily on Seyfried's character, and audiences must decide if her character really did get abducted two years ago or if it's all in her head, as the police seem to think.

Jill (Seyfried, In Time) lives in Portland (Oregon) with her sister, Molly (Emily Wickersham, I Am Number Four), a student. Jill works nights at a local diner, and she's vigilant about walking by herself at night; in one scene, a man wearing a hoodie walks briskly down the street towards Jill, who crosses to the other side of the street to avoid him, just in case. One night, Jill returns from work around 6:30am and goes to wake up Molly, who has an exam that day; Molly, however, is nowhere to be found. Jill quickly canvasses the house, but all she finds missing are her sister's purse and an old picture taken out of a picture frame. Panicked, she drives to the police station, and tells them that the person who abducted her two years ago, from the very same house, has taken Molly. They also must find her quickly because he will probably kill her that night, like he intended to do with Jill.Read more »

Wanderlust

2012-02-24T00:02:00.012-05:00

I watched both the regular and the "red band" (R-rated) trailers for Wanderlust before the screening, but the movie was even raunchier than its trailers led me to believe. Most of the time the jokes in it were pretty funny, though, and the audience was laughing throughout the film. Although the movie held my interest for most of its runtime, there were a few scenes where it slows down a bit too much for my tastes.

George (Paul Rudd, Our Idiot Brother) and Linda (Jennifer Aniston, Horrible Bosses) are Manhattanites who have just bought their very own "microloft" (aka, studio apartment) in the West Village. Linda is still "trying to find her major," as George puts it, but currently she has made a documentary about penguins with cancer, which she is trying to pitch to HBO. George is searching for a new job as the FBI recently brought his former boss outside in handcuffs. When Linda's documentary doesn't sell either, they decide to sell their apartment and move to Atlanta to live with George's moronic brother (Ken Marino, TV's Childrens Hospital) and his wife, and George will work for him until they are back on their feet.Read more »

Act of Valor

2012-02-24T00:01:00.001-05:00

Act of Valor is interesting because it didn't actually start out as a movie: originally, it was to be a documentary about Navy SEALS, and it then changed into a recruitment video. Finally, the directors had the idea of making it into an actual feature-length movie, which is what you will see in theaters today. The Navy SEALs portrayed in the film are all active duty Navy SEALs in real life, as well, and although the acting may suffer because of this, the situations they find themselves in are all too familiar for them.

The film starts out with a kidnapping of two CIA agents by terrorists, who had blown up a device at an international children's school that same week. The Navy SEALs are deployed to secure and stop the terrorists, and they find out that the terrorists are planning on smuggling immigrants into the U.S. via Mexico as suicide bombers. The immigrants will be wearing vests that are undetected by metal detectors, thus proving very dangerous, as they can get through any security system. The SEALs only lead is a man who has been working with the terrorists, and they corner him on his yacht in the ocean to try and get information out of him. They must find the immigrants and stop them from entering the U.S. before it is too late.Read more »

BlogHer 2012: August 2-4, 2012

2012-02-22T22:12:00.000-05:00

I've heard a lot about BlogHer from past attendees. In summer 2010, Yes/No Films was in its "infancy" - it started in January 2010 - and so I didn't go to BlogHer, which was in NYC that year. Last year, I considered it, but it was in San Diego, which was a bit too expensive for airfare and hotel. This year, however, it's back in New York, and I am hoping to go.

However! I would definitely need a roommate. This year it's at the Hilton, and although BlogHer provides a discounted rate for its attendees, it's still New York City, where hotels are crazy expensive.

That being said, is there anyone out there planning on attending BlogHer '12 and looking for a roommate? I will probably be arriving either that Thursday or early that Friday morning, and staying until Sunday. I would prefer a Detroit-area blogger so that we could meet in person beforehand, but I have a Skype account, so really anyone is fine.

If you need a roommate, please email me at
liz [at] yesnofilms.com! I would love to hear from you.

I am also accepting sponsor(s) for BlogHer 2012, for any amount. I've calculated that between hotel ($239/night plus taxes) and airfare (currently $285 on Delta) and the BlogHer ticket itself ($99 for the party/expo hall pass only, or $299 for the full pass, but going up to $399 starting March 1st) - it's going to cost about $800-1000, depending on what kind of pass I buy. I'm willing to promote your company on my blog, wear your t-shirt(s) to BlogHer, or basically do whatever you want me to do (within reason, of course!).

I would love to attend BlogHer this year ... hopefully I will make it happen!

This Means War

2012-02-17T00:02:00.002-05:00

I had heard various reviews of This Means War before I saw a screening of it, because it had screened a few times already in the metro Detroit area. Some people had thought it was horrible, and others though it was really cute. I found the movie to be uneven, hilarious and times and unfunny at others. Even so, This Means War is a good "fluff" movie, or one to save for a matinee.

FDR (Chris Pine, Unstoppable) and Tuck (Tom Hardy, Warrior) work together in the CIA. When the movie opens, they are at a party about to bust some bad guys. The mission goes awry, however, and one of the bad guys ends up dead; his brother, the CIA cautions, will be wanting revenge on the two of them. Shortly afterwards, Tuck, who is a father and divorcee, sees an ad for an online dating site, and he decides to sign up for it, since he hasn't dated much since his divorce. Lauren (Reese Witherspoon, Water for Elephants) has a friend who has sneakily signed her up for the site as well. Lauren is about to bail on the site, but then she sees Tuck's profile, and they decide to meet.Read more »

The Secret World of Arrietty

2012-02-17T00:01:00.007-05:00

The Secret World of Arrietty took a long path to American theaters: it was first released in 2010 in Japan, and then in the U.K. 2011 with all British voice actors. Now Arrietty is being released in the U.S., redubbed with American voice actors. Although the presence of Japanese writing on various boxes betrays the fact that the movie is set in Japan, the film has definitely been "Americanized": the main boy in the film is now named Shawn, although Arrietty's name has not been changed. It's also one of those rare movies that is marketed towards younger children, but is actually more meant for adults and older kids; the younger kids in the screening I went to started getting restless throughout it, as you really need to listen to the dialogue to understand the film.

Shawn (voiced by David Henrie, TV's Wizards of Waverly Place) has been sent to his great aunt's house in order to get some rest before his heart operation; his mother, a busy businesswoman, is currently out of town. His aunt and her housekeeper, Hara (voiced by Carol Burnett, TV's All My Children), tell him about the "little people" that live under the floorboards, and how his mother was always certain they existed but they never actually saw them. Meanwhile, Arrietty (voiced by Bridgit Mendler, TV's Wizards of Waverly Place), one of these "little people," actually does live under the floorboards, with her parents (voiced by Amy Poehler, TV's Parks and Recreation, and her real-life husband, Will Arnett, 30 Rock), and they are "borrowers": they survive by borrowing little things that the "beings" (humans) won't miss, such as tissue paper and sugar cubes.Read more »

Michigan-made Machine Gun Preacher to headline Birmingham's Uptown Film Festival

2012-02-14T13:42:00.001-05:00

It was announced today that the feature film Machine Gun Preacher, originally released in late 2011, will be headlining the Uptown Film Festival, taking place March 8-10. Gerard Butler stars in the film, and it tells the true-life tale of Sam Childers, a former criminal who did a complete 180 and helped orphaned and kidnapped children in Sudan. You can buy tickets to the film at uptownpalladium.com starting February 20th, and a portion of the ticket profits will be donated to Gleaners and Defeat the Label, a nonprofit.

Read the rest of the story at Examiner.com.

Safe House

2012-02-10T00:02:00.005-05:00

In Safe House, Denzel Washington actually plays the "bad guy," for once - or so it seems. His character, Tobin Frost, used to work for the CIA, but nine years ago went missing and started selling confidential information and secrets to any foreign governments that would buy them. It is when he turns himself in to the U.S. embassy in Cape Town, South Africa, however, that the story really starts to take off.

Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds, The Change-Up) is a "housekeeper" for a CIA safe house, meaning that he's in charge when "houseguests" need to stay in the facility. Most of the time, his job is fairly boring: he sits by the phones or plays catch by bouncing a tennis ball off the wall. His girlfriend, Ana (Nora Arnezeder, The Words), doesn't know what his actual job is - she thinks he works at a clinic. One day, however, Matt received a call to tell him to prepare for a houseguest who is also very dangerous; the emailed memo he receives says to stay 2 feet away from the guest at all times and avoid eye contact. When the guest is finally brought into the interrogation room in the house, Matt's jaw drops to the floor when he sees who it is: Tobin Frost, whose reputation precedes him.Read more »

The Vow

2012-02-10T00:01:00.006-05:00

The Vow is based on the real-life story of Kim and Krickitt Carpenter, who had been married for 10 months when they were in a horrific car accident in New Mexico. Kim escaped relatively unscathed, but Krickitt has to be rushed by helicopter to a different hospital. When she woke up, the doctors and Kim found that she had an 18-month gap in her memory, and could not remember meeting nor marrying Kim. Kim had the difficult job, then, of making his wife fall in love with him all over again, and this is what Channing Tatum's character Leo tries to accomplish in The Vow.

Paige (Rachel McAdams, Midnight in Paris) and Leo (Channing Tatum, Haywire) live in Chicago, and are very much in love. They are leaving a movie theater one snowy night when they stop at four-way intersection to share a brief kiss. Soon, however, their world is shattered; a semi-truck, sliding on the slippery roads, crashes in to their car, and it is thrust forward and slams into a pole. Paige, who had unbuckled her seatbelt, is thrown through the windshield, and lands on top of the car. After both Paige and Leo arrive at the hospital, Leo soon recovers; however, the doctors choose to keep Paige in a comatose state, since her brain has a lot of swelling.Read more »

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island

2012-02-10T00:01:00.005-05:00

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island is the sequel to 2008's Journey to the Center of the Earth, but you definitely don't have to see the first movie in order to understand this new installment. Unfortunately, although the 3D is great and the visuals are top-notch, Journey 2 is definitely lacking, and the script could have been a lot better; not even Michael Caine and The Rock manage to save this movie.

The film opens when Sean (Josh Hutcherson, The Kids are All Right) breaks into a satellite facility, and gets in trouble with his mom (Kristin Davis, Sex and the City 2) and his step-dad, Hank (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Fast Five), who luckily has some friends on the police force. Sean later explains to Hank that he was trying to decode a transmission from a radio, but his signals weren't strong enough to pick up the full transmission, which is why he broke into the facility. Hank, who was a decoder in the Navy, helps him translate the message, and it says "The island is real" and gives the island's coordinates. This excites Sean, because his grandfather (Michael Caine, Inception) has been missing for two years, and it was always Sean's opinion that he found the "Mysterious Island" that Julius Verne and other storytellers refer to in their adventure books.Read more »

Guest Post: Laura Tremaine, Hollywood Housewife

2012-02-08T08:33:00.001-05:00

Laura is the author and creator of the blog Hollywood Housewife, and is also the wife of Jeff Tremaine, the director of the various Jackass movies (most recently, Jackass 3D). She has kindly agreed to write a guest post for Yes/No Films about what it's like being married to a famous director.

I am married to a director. He’s a very good director, even if he does prefer to yell “Go!” instead of “Action!”

Laura and Jeff before this year's
VMA awards

You might think that being married to a director would be all glamour and excitement, but it actually means that he’s fairly bossy. Directors like to be in charge. It’s how they feel the most comfortable. Even when I pull out my phone to catch a little snippet of video of our toddler daughter, my director husband can’t help but give me instruction on the best possible angle.

Being married to a director also means that our house is regularly a place to shoot. Because our personal home doesn’t require permits or a location fee, I have come home more than once to some sort of interview (or worse) happening in the backyard. My husband’s personal director philosophy is, “shoot first, ask permission later.” This rule also applies to his wife, knowing that I probably would not approve the use of a dildo gun in our backyard.

Close proximity to a director is really the best of all worlds in the film industry. It’s creative and prestigious, and recognized as a true talent by those who matter, without having to deal with all that comes with traditional fame (unless you’re very, very well-known). But the down side, of course, is that so much rests on you as the captain. A film set can be a pressure-cooker, and a good director knows that he sets the tone for a project every day, from day one.

I met my husband on the set of the first film he was directing. He is one of those very rare people who - and this is quite improbable - wakes up one day and just decides to direct, and turns out to be very good at it. My husband’s particular body of work is full of scenes that almost look like they weren’t directed. In fact, sometimes people think that his most famous movies didn’t even have a director. But this is a facade. It’s like wearing a lot of makeup to appear like you’re not wearing any. Every form of quality entertainment you’ve ever seen has been directed.

And my husband’s movies are most definitely “quality entertainment.”

You can follow Laura at her blog and on Twitter at @hollywoodhwife.

The Woman in Black

2012-02-03T00:02:00.002-05:00

Full disclosure: I am not a fan of "scary movies." I usually avoid them, but since Harry Potter (erm ... Daniel Radcliffe) was in this one, and one of my friends really wanted to see it, I decided to attend the screening. The Woman in Black has a few "jump in your seat"-type moments, but for the most part it was fairly tame compared to other horror movies I have seen. The acting in the film, though, was very good.

Lawyer Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe, the Harry Potter series) has a four-year old son, whose mother, Arthur's wife, died in childbirth. His firm has asked him to go to the Eel Marsh house to sort through some papers belonging to the recently deceased inhabitant. When he arrives, Arthur is strongly encouraged to return to London immediately; Mr. Daily (Ciáran Hinds, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) says that he will mail him the paperwork. Arthur doesn't want to get fired, though, so he insists on being taken to the house, where he begins to see signs of the "woman in black" who haunts the marsh and the house.

Arthur later finds out that the woman in black was the not-entirely sane Jennet, who was forced to give her child over to her sister, the recently deceased inhabitant of Eel Marsh. The child drowned in the marsh one day and Jennet never forgave her sister. Jennet hung herself in the house and now, whenever someone sees her ghost, she forces one of the children in the town to kill him/herself; the same day that Arthur arrives and sees her, one of the town children drinks lye and ends up dead. Mr. Daily begs Arthur to return home, but now he is more convinced than ever than he needs to go through the paperwork and complete his job there.Read more »

Big Miracle

2012-02-03T00:01:00.012-05:00

Big Miracle is based on true events that happened in 1988 in Barrow, Alaska, one of the coldest places in the United States. Three gray whales were trapped under the ice, and unable to migrate south to warmer water because there was a barrier of ice blocking their way. The whales also needed to breathe, and to even swim to the ice barrier would have been five miles, which was unfeasible. At first, the president and the governor of Alaska wouldn't help the whales, but with the persistence of the newspeople portrayed in this film, who soon turned the small local story into a national one, the government and the National Guard were persuaded to help the whales.

Adam Carlson (John Krasinski, TV's The Office) is a small-fry newsman in Barrow, Alaska, where he reports on such exciting stories as the food quality at the town's only Mexican restaurant. [He follows the national news, though, and admires a pretty L.A. newswoman named Jill Jerard (Kristen Bell, Burlesque). When Nathan (newcomer Ahmaogak Sweeney) asks Adam to film a story on him and his cousin performing "awesome" snowmobile tricks, Adam stumbles upon something bigger: three gray whales, trapped under the ice. He films a story about it which is aired on the local Alaskan network, and later picked up by the national networks, inspiring people to want to help the whales. Adam's ex-girlfriend Rachel (Drew Barrymore, Going the Distance), a Greenpeace activist, rushes to Alaska to help as well, and Adam finally gets to meet Jill Jerard when she is sent to Alaska to cover what one of the senior newsmen calls "a cat stuck in a tree"-type story. With the help of the local Inuit people and the Barrow residents, they must free the whales before the whales die from not being able to breathe.Read more »

Is your name John Carter?

2012-02-01T20:45:00.001-05:00

Disney is doing an interesting contest where you can win a trip to Peru and also attend an advance screening of John Carter.

The catch? To enter, your name must be John Carter! However, Disney is allowing variations of the name as well; in the official rules, they say:

An entrant’s legal name must be composed of the following elements: (1) a first name of: John, Jon, Jonathan, Jonathon, Jawn, Gian or Juan; and (2) a last name of: Carter, Cartur, Cartir, Karter, Karter, Kartar, Khartar, Kharter or Kartir.

So if your name is John Carter (or Juan Kartin, or Jon Kartar, or even Jonathan Karter!) make sure to enter this sweepstakes. You can enter by going to http://realjohncarter.com and signing in with your Facebook account or or your email address. You can also get additional entries by participating in weekly "challenges."

Good luck!

Guide to the SAG Awards, this Sunday at 8pm EST

2012-01-28T23:19:00.000-05:00

The 18th annual SAG Awards will be aired this Sunday at 8pm EST, on both TNT and TBS, live from the Los Angeles Shrine Exposition Center. Here are the nominees for the major film categories, with my picks in italics:

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture:

The Artist

Bridesmaids

The Descendants

The Help

Midnight in Paris

~This is a tough call. I'm hoping that either The Help or Bridesmaids wins, but really any of these movies could win, as they all have great ensemble casts.

Read the rest of the article and my SAG Awards picks at Examiner.com.

Pina

2012-01-27T00:01:00.032-05:00

The documentary Pina is about the life works of choreographer Pina Bausch, who died suddenly in 2009, five days after being diagnosed with cancer. A documentary was supposed to be made about her, but she passed away during the preparations for it; production was canceled, although the dancers involved still wanted to make the film. It focuses on modern dance, which is a little hard to understand for some, and the film was strange but many of the dance sequences were very beautiful.

The movie has four separate sequences: Le sacre du printemps, Café Mueller, Kontakthof, and Vollmond (Wikipedia). In Le sacre du printemps, we see men with rakes cleaning the stage, as it is covered in what looks like sand, but which is actually peat. It's a strange way to start the film, but it does catch the audience's attention. In Café Mueller, we see a cafe with various chairs strewn about, and different people doing repetitive actions in each of the corners and in the middle. Kontakthof, which was my favorite, features a ballroom of sorts; at first, you see younger dancers in a line, but as the camera shifts, all of a sudden older dancers, wearing the same dresses and suits, are in their places. The last, Vollmond, features a flooded stage, as Pina was a fan of using the elements in her work, and the dancers are splashing about and moving through the water.Read more »

Man on a Ledge

2012-01-27T00:01:00.031-05:00

Man on a Ledge does something that no movie in recent memory has done: it combines two different types of movies, the "desperate man hanging off of a ledge" movie with a heist film, because the "man on the ledge" is covering up the bigger picture, a robbery happening at a nearby building. When you combine these two "genres" with an all-star cast, you get an interesting, crazy ride that never fails to hold the audience's attention throughout its 102 minute runtime.

Former police officer Nick Cassidy (Sam Worthington, The Debt) was sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit - stealing the 40 carat diamond of one of New York's "movers and shakers," David Englander (Ed Harris, Salvation Boulevard) - and when he is released for a day for his father's funeral, he disarms the guards that were assigned to him and escapes. A year or so later, he finds himself perched on the ledge of the Roosevelt Hotel building, threatening to jump and saying that he will only talk to Detective Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks, Our Idiot Brother). Once Mercer is retrieved, she tries to talk him down from the ledge, but she soon finds out that there is a lot more going on here than just a desperate man trying to commit suicide: Cassidy's brother, Joey (Jamie Bell, Jane Eyre) and his girlfriend Angie (Genesis Rodriguez, TV's Entourage), are breaking into Englander's safe to prove that he still, in fact, has the diamond, and the "show" that Nick is doing out on the ledge is simply a cover-up for this.Read more »

Albert Nobbs

2012-01-27T00:01:00.028-05:00

Early on in Albert Nobbs, Mia Wasikowska's character calls the title character "a weird little man," and the same can be said about this movie: it's a little strange, but somehow it works, and either way you'll be thinking about it long after you leave the theater. As a testament to the acting in the film, Glenn Close has been nominated for an Oscar for playing Albert.

Our title character Albert (Glenn Close, TV's Damages) lives in a hotel in Dublin, where he works as a butler. "He" is actually a she, but nobody else knows, because if Albert was to reveal his true identity, he would not be able to support herself and probably would be working as a maid instead and making lower pay.

(I will refer to her as "him" in this review, however, to avoid confusion)

A Mr. Page (Janet McTeer, Tideland) comes to paint the hotel one day and the hotel owner says he can sleep with Albert in his bed; when Albert is undressing, Mr. Page finds out that he is a woman, and Albert, in the only scene where he is very emotional (like a woman), begs him not to reveal his identity to anyone. Mr. Page has a secret of his own, however, and is more like Albert than Albert would have guessed.Read more »

The Grey

2012-01-27T00:01:00.016-05:00

The Grey could be used as an anti-tourism ad for Alaska: your plane will crash in the snowy wilderness somewhere and you will get eaten by wolves ... welcome! However, the film was better than I expected - even if it's grisly and bloody in parts - and Liam Neeson gives a great performance, as does his supporting co-stars.

Ottway (Liam Neeson, Unknown) is preparing to fly back to Anchorage with his coworkers. He is a hunter of sorts for the company; he kills wolves when he sees them get too close to where the men are working outside. Ottway just wants to be left alone so he can sleep, he tells the man who sits next to him (Joe Anderson, The Crazies), whom quickly switches seats when he encounters the grouchy Ottway. The plane hits some turbulence mid-flight, and a digital map shows they are somewhere over Alaska.

What follows is most intense plane crash I have seen in any movie, even including some 9/11 films. When Neeson wakes up, he is shivering and his face is half-covered with snow; he appears to be alone, but when he walks over the snowbank, he sees the wreckage of the plane and bodies and suitcases strewn everywhere. He quickly finds himself a hat and a heavier coat out of one of the suitcases, and then looks for survivors - there are no more than ten. They huddle in the plane and try to decide what to do, and Ottway quickly establishes himself as the leader of the group, because of his survival skills. This is a good thing because on their first night they encounter an unpleasant surprise: there is a pack of wolves in the area who are angry at them for disturbing their hunting space. Ottway and the others decide to head for the trees in an effort to avoid the wolves, but the survivors soon begin to be picked off one by one.Read more »

INTERVIEW: Chandler Massey, 16-Love and Days of Our Lives

2012-01-23T08:34:00.000-05:00

Chandler Massey is currently starring in the feature film 16-Love, where he plays Farrell Gambles, a tennis amateur and the love interest of Ally, Lindsey Shaw's character. I got the opportunity to interview him via phone about the movie, playing tennis, and his character on Days of Our Lives; here's what he had to say.

How long did it take you to learn how to play tennis like you do in the movie?

Actually – fortunately – I grew up playing tennis with my family, so I didn’t have to completely learn.

Did you take tennis lessons when you were a kid?

Yes, I did. I took lessons. I lived in Georgia, and they had these young ALTA and young USTA tennis teams and I was always involved with those.

Read the rest of the interview at Examiner.com.

INTERVIEW: Lindsey Shaw, from 16-Love, Pretty Little Liars, and 10 Things I Hate About You

2012-01-22T12:43:00.002-05:00

Lindsey Shaw is currently starring in the film 16-Love (click here for review), which is playing in limited release across the country and on On-Demand. She is also a recurring guest star on the TV show Pretty Little Liars, and from 2009-2010 she played one of the leads, Kat Stratford, in the TV series version of 10 Things I Hate About You. I recently got the chance to chat with Lindsay via phone about the movie and her other roles.

I watched 16-Love and it was really cute. I was wondering how long it took you to learn how to play tennis like that.

Thanks for watching it. When I first booked the role, they hooked me up with a tennis coach right away and I did three-hour practices with him every day. That was for about a week and a half. Then we went down to San Diego for a week of rehearsals first and they matched me with a tennis coach down there as well, for the same thing – every day practices, for two hours a day. It was only for about two and a half or three weeks that I really got to have intensive practice - and then, of course, during filming. It wasn’t long, but it was very intensive.

Read the rest of the interview at Examiner.com.

16-Love

2012-01-21T11:38:00.001-05:00

16-Love is an indie film that opened yesterday (January 20th) in limited theaters and also on video-on-demand, and is from the same writer/producer as A Cinderella Story. When I first heard about it, I knew I wanted to see it, mostly because the trailer looked very good but also because Lindsey Shaw, an actress I like from TV's 10 Things I Hate About You and Pretty Little Liars, is in it. The movie focuses around her character being the #1 tennis player, and what happens to her when she twists her ankle and can't play for a few weeks. Some of her co-stars, too, are no strangers to the big (and little) screen, and they make for a fun group of teens to watch.

Ally Mash (Lindsay Shaw), aka "Smash Mash," the 16-year-old tennis veteran, is playing against one of her rivals, Katina Upranova (Susie Abromeit, Battle Los Angeles), when she lands awkwardly and twists one of her ankles. Her father, Dave (Keith Coulouris, Shadow People), a former tennis pro and U.S. Open winner, orders her to default (lose the game), and he hires a bevy of professionals that will help Ally repair her ankle, both physically (a yoga instructor) and mentally (a sports psychologist). What he doesn't count on, however, is Ally being distracted, as she's just met an amateur tennis player named Farrell Gambles (Chandler Massey, TV's Days of Our Lives), and is starting to fall for him. Ally helps Farrell improve his tennis game, and in the process, he shows her what life can be like for a normal teenager. Ally must still train once her ankle heals, however, because the championship game is fast approaching, in which she will be facing Upranova again to try to reclaim her #1 spot.Read more »

Red Tails

2012-01-20T00:03:00.004-05:00

Red Tails tells the true story of the Tuskegee Airmen, an all African-American Air Force unit that served as pilots in World War II in Italy at a time when many Americans believed that African-Americans were not "mentally and physically able" to serve in the military. The Airmen, who fought in Italy during World War II, not only proved that they were able, but in fact quite adept members of the armed forces, and their story is one that has never been told on the big screen until now.

The pilots and their commanders include Major Stance (Cuba Gooding Jr., The Hit List), Colonel Bullard (Terrance Howard, The Ledge), "Easy" (Nate Parker, The Secret Life of Bees), "Junior" (Tristan Wilds, TV's 90210), "Joker" (Elijah Kelley, Hairspray), "Smoky" (singer Ne-Yo), Joe "Lightning" Little (David Oyelowo, The Help), and others. Some of the boys had their own side plots as well; Joe Little was dating a local Italian woman (Daniela Ruah, TV's NCIS: Los Angeles), even though he couldn't speak Italian, and Major Stance was fighting for the Airmen's right to serve in the war, as there were still a lot of racists around who didn't like the idea of African-American pilots. Because of Stance and their natural talents, the Red Tails soon get a major opportunity - escorting bomber planes into Berlin - and they take advantage of it to show their flying abilities.Read more »

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

2012-01-20T00:01:00.008-05:00

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was released in limited markets on Christmas Day 2011, to qualify for Oscar season, but is just now being released nationwide. It's based on the acclaimed novel by Jonathan Saffran Foer, whose novel Everything is Illuminated was also made into a movie. EL&IC is one of the more realistic 9/11 movies I have seen, and the fact that it is told from a child's point of view, for the most part, makes it all the more powerful.

Oskar Schell (newcomer Thomas Horn) lives in New York City with his mom (Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side), and his father (Tom Hanks, Larry Crowne), a man of science who owns his own jewelry store. Oskar is definitely precocious, and was tested for Asperger's Syndrome but "the results were inconclusive," he explains early in the film. Indeed, it appears he does have Asperger's, as he has a hard time talking to people, he carries around a tambourine that helps him through his fears, and he obsesses over anything and everything. His father assigns Oskar clever assignments, masquerading as "challenges," that involve him having to interact more with people and the world around him, and this seems to be helping his condition. Oskar's world is turned upside down on 9/11, however, as his father is in the Twin Towers for a meeting, and cannot escape. Oskar's world already revolved more around his father than his mother, and is changed irrevocably. After finding a key of his father's that he thinks was meant for himself, Oskar embarks on a "challenge" to find the lock in which it fits, convinced that it is a message of sorts from his father.Read more »