Documentary Film
Runtime: 100 minutes
Color: Color
Sound Mix: Mono
Language: English
Country: USA
Directors: Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Ellen Hovde, Muffie Meyer
Release Date: 09/27/75(premiere at NYFF), 02/19/76(limited release)

Grey Gardens is a documentary offering nothing more than the beautiful personalities of Big and Little Edie Beale. I found this 1975 documentary almost ten years ago in one of my favorite video stores. Back then, it was a cult classic and it seemed that few people knew of this bittersweet saga. The story has recently been taken up by HBO and made into a feature with much acclaim. What I am writing about here refers to the original documentary by Albert and David Maysles. “Truth is stranger than fiction,” and there is no comparing with this candid look at the life of these two women.

“Big Edie” is Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter is Edith Bouvier Beale, or “Little Edie”. What once had been a mansion, you now see as a decrepit hovel filled with garbage, cats and other wildlife. “Little Edie” runs out to meet the Maysles with a big smile and an aristocratic East Hampton accent. From the very beginning I fell in love with Little Edie.

Little Edie was the first cousin to Jackie (Bouvier Kennedy) Onassis. The Beale family was rich, well-connected and definitely high-society in their time. Some disappointments are revealed from these mostly tight-lipped women. A divorce, failed attempts at stardom, and endless and naïve optimism resulted in these well-bred women not able to provide for themselves.

As their wealth crumbled around them, they relied on each other. They fought all day and night about the most inane things. The house had no running water, no television, nothing. The two women entertained themselves with singing to old records and sitting in the lovely Hampton sun. The ladies were once the most beautiful and popular in all New York. Their minor successes and memories are cluttered around them in a single room as they share their tinned tuna with feral cats.

Little Edie is especially endearing as she explains the reasoning behind her outfits: “This is the best thing to wear for today, you understand. Because I don’t like women in skirts and the best thing is to wear pantyhose or some pants under a short skirt, I think. Then you have the pants under the skirt and then you can pull the stockings up over the pants underneath the skirt. And you can always take off the skirt and use it as a cape. So I think this is the best costume for today.” You can find “Little Edie” re-appropriating different pieces of her wardrobe on different days. One day she wears a skirt, the next day it is on her head with a brooch.

The special look you get into these women gave me mixed feelings. I started to feel like a voyeur and wondering if my enjoyment came from their misfortune. The Beales are a unique mix of pride, humor and strength. I felt like, if they invited me into their home, then I must be welcome. I kept wishing that some of their famous family would come to their rescue and restore their former glorious place in the Hampton society.

Grey Gardens is a hovel, an eyesore and unfit for humans to live in. Several times the County Health Department tries to condemn the house for its horrendous conditions. It seems that every time they are just about to be kicked out, just enough money comes in to save their house. The new improvements are put into their house and “Little Edie” is still feeding the raccoons in the house loaves of bread.

I love this movie for the spirit and fun the Beales show. They are adorable and sad at the same time. Grey Gardens is a timeless classic that will make you laugh, cry and dance with the indomitable Beales.

Runtime: 120 minutes
Color: Black and White
Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1
Language: English
Country: USA
Director: Billy Wilder
Release Date: 03/29/59
Film star: Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon
Awards: Won Oscar Best Costume Design, Black-and-White

This classic is one movie that has it all! I love Some Like It Hot for its jazzy music, gangsters peddling liquor, and of course, Marilyn Monroe’s sexy dresses. With director Billy Wilder and an all-star cast, there is something for everyone to enjoy about this movie.

Sirens, car chases and gunshots ring out. Prohibition was the boom time for the Chicago mobsters. Spats Colombo is the archetypal gangster character that runs a hot speakeasy using the Mozzarella Funeral Home as his covert front. He’s called Spats because of his fastidious dressing and impeccable care he has for the white spats he wears every day. From the very beginning the excitement kicks off and there is a chase scene with cops opening fire on a hearse. The shots rip holes through the casket inside and brown streams of whiskey come flowing out.

A Chicago city cop uses a snitch, Toothpick Charlie, to get into the super secret and exclusive funeral home. One of my very favorite things about this movie is the fast-talking dialogue. You have to listen closely to their quick and dry one-liners. This humor is something I find rarely in American movies, but is totally laugh out loud funny.

The speakeasy’s musicians are none other than Tony Curtis as Joe and Jack Lemmon as Jerry. They notice the cop in the front row and escape just before the big raid. Jobs were lean and money tight, so they trawled their agent for some new gigs. They overhear a great gig that is open in Miami! The only problem was that the gig was a women-only troupe of musicians. Defeated, the guys leave instead for a small-time gig, heading first to the garage to pick up a friend’s car.

Joe is so handsome and charming that he can get away with just about anything! He can talk his best friend Jerry into any hare-brained idea he can scheme. He wriggles the car away from the agent’s secretary with a whisper in her ear. While in the garage, Spats and his gang rolls in. You see the same Toothpick Charlie sitting around a poker table with some of his friends. Spats guns down all of the wise-guy poker players for “singing” to the cops. The musicians try to duck and hide, but they have been discovered. They escape only by the skin of their teeth and decide they must go into hiding if they are to stay alive.

The girl’s musical troupe is boarding a train, and joining the train are two new girls: Josephine and Daphne. Yes, Joe and Jerry decided to take the gamble and get out of Chicago and catch some sun in Miami. They are suited up and ready to play the role of women. With wigs, makeup, fashionable dresses they are making their best attempt to pass in order to stay below the gangsters’ radar. Who comes jiggling up to catch the train to Miami is none other than the gorgeous Sugar Kane Kowalczyk, played by Marilyn Monroe. Jerry says she looks like, “Jell-o on springs”.

Daphne and Josephine pass for women, but not without arousing some suspicion. The problem that this presents is ludicrous, but Wilder completely succeeds in selling it. Together with the talents of the top-rate actors and the suspension of disbelief the audience is willing to accept, Some Like It Hot is outstanding.

Tony Curtis’s character Joe begins to fall for Sugar – who wouldn’t! He cooks up a brilliant plan to introduce himself to her as a man. Once they arrive in Miami, Joe manages to confiscate some men’s clothes and impersonates one of those millionaires that flock to the sun. One of these millionaires has fallen for the clever and acerbic Daphne. So it seems that both Joe and Jerry have found their match! What a tightrope walk both men accomplish to keep their identity undercover and Joe has even managed a third identity!

Marilyn Monroe is as lovely as ever in Some Like It Hot. She is warm, adorable, witty and sexy. Her character, Sugar, is so fed up with her poor taste in men. She has also “escaped” with this female-only band to keep away from the sexy sax players that have brought her heartbreak in her love life. She is drawn to Josephine’s personality. When she meets the millionaire Joe is pretending to be, “Junior”, she has no idea she is falling for another no-good sax player.

As the story finally begins to calm down from the gender-bending, gravity-defying games of Joe and Jerry, the gangsters roll into Miami. As coincidence would have it, the gangsters are having an annual meeting in Miami! What are the chances? They do identify the “big girls” in the jazz group as the two that escaped the garage earlier. A great big chase threads in and out of that Miami hotel but there is a happy resolution in the end.

The ending ties up all the loose strings into a beautiful package. Movies from this era are totally implausible with gaps in the logic of reality, but, so what. Like I said in the beginning, this movie really does have something for everyone. If you love gangster movies, comedies, or Marilyn Monroe, then you will love Some Like It Hot.

Runtime: 107 min (theatrical version) USA
Color: Color
Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1
Language: English
Country: USA
Director: Errol Morris
Release Date: February 2004 (USA)
Film star: Robert McNamara, Fidel Castro, Barry Goldwater, Lyndon Johnson
Awards: Won Oscar Best Documentary, Features

Fog of War is the 2004 documentary by Errol Morris that won the Oscar (Best Documentary) that year for its look at the life of Robert McNamara. I am too young to remember the importance of Mr. McNamara as he served under presidents Kennedy and Johnson. However, the lessons that he offered from the wars at that time, seemed to be timely again as the then Bush administration was looking for the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; but I digress.

History buffs, political pundits and the like would love this movie and have a field day ripping it apart for good or bad. However, I don’t claim to be an expert on either of these subjects but this film moved me no less. What is so unique and captivating about Fog of War is Mr. McNamara himself. The story goes that he agreed to sit with Morris for an hour interview for a PBS special. It turned out that they sat together for 8 hours that first day. McNamara came back again and added more tape on subsequent days.

McNamara is able to maintain direct eye contact with his audience thanks to Morris’ own invention, the “Interrotron”. You might not notice the difference of an interviewee looking off to the side of the interviewer or directly at the audience unless I told you. But the subtle difference gives an intensity and personal touch that you just don’t get otherwise.

The documentary quickly introduces the audience to a young McNamara and his success story as a determined and ambitious student through University of California and the MBA program at Harvard. He was a professor at Harvard and then joined the Army Air Force under Major General Curtis LeMay. All of these experiences were important to him and led to his appointment as Secretary of Defense under President Kennedy.

McNamara recounts his experiences as a lieutenant colonel under General LeMay and the firebombing of Tokyo. 100,000 Japanese civilians were killed in one night, one million others across 67 different cities before the nuclear bombs were dropped to end the war. As McNamara recounts this with great emotion, he does not offer apologies, but I felt that his act of remembering these lessons were his legacy to our generation. “Lesson #5: Proportionality should be a guideline in war.”

Under Kennedy, McNamara was the negotiator during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He emphasizes how truly close the Russians and Cubans were to completely launching a full-scale nuclear holocaust while the rest of the world was wholly oblivious to that fact. Lesson #2: “Rationality will not save us.” McNamara says, “I want to say, and this is very important: at the end we lucked out. It was luck that prevented nuclear war.”

The death of President Kennedy causes McNamara to become very emotional. The change of presidents during Vietnam was very messy. The details of Vietnam are presented by Morris’ use of historical video and recordings from the Oval Office. I found this candor so elucidating and eye-opening to how decisions are made behind the closed doors of the most powerful people in the world.

Lesson #9: “In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil.” There were so many evil things that happened around the Vietnam War both in Vietnam and back home in the USA. The retrospective looks at the Quaker that sets himself on fire in protest in front of the Pentagon to the Agent Orange blanketing the green hills of Vietnam.

The Fog of War is history told by Robert McNamara. He offers his lessons learned and his wisdom. He does not offer any apologies, but after he is done talking I didn’t expect him to. He is proud, he is shrewd and he did what he was hired to do. The real issue that is at stake is if generations now and in the future will learn the lessons of these wars and never repeat them?

Errol Morris takes the twenty-odd hours of interview material and pulls out these eleven lessons as a structure for the film. I thought everything about this movie from Morris, to McNamara, and even the soundtrack by Phillip Glass made genius collaboration. This is one film that you will catch even more as you watch it a second time.

Runtime: 96 minutes
Color: Color
Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1
Language: English
Country: USA
Director: Pete Docter, Bob Peterson (co-director)
Release Date: 08/04/09
Awards: Won Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score Michael Giacchino and Best Animated Feature Film of the Year Pete Docter
More: Computer-animated family-oriented adventure film

One lazy evening, I rented Up, and was totally blown away. This movie is a great story of adventure and one of those rare films that lives up to the “for the whole family” label. When Disney and Pixar team up, you know that you are in for a treat.

The story is about a little boy, named Carl Friedricksen that loves to hear all about the adventures of his favorite explorer Charles Muntz. Muntz is some great combination of a Jacques Cousteau and astronaut to little Carl and you can see the eagerness in Carl’s eyes to be in his own adventure. Poor Carl, however, is not the most athletic kid that you will ever see, and in fact he is charmingly klutzy.

Little Carl passes a condemned house and decides to investigate the racket he hears inside. Cautiously peering inside, he sees there is a person. Of all the good fortunes, she is dressed in the same flight cap and goggles as he. Little Ellie is a gap-toothed, fast-talking wonder. She shares all the same passions for adventure as Carl and they become fast friends. Ellie makes Carl promise that he will go to Paradise Falls, South America with her.

Being such a perfect match, they get married and live their life happily married with a sweet little house. Just as our childhood dreams turn into nothing more than a memory, so did the Friedricksen’s promise to travel to Paradise Falls. As the couple grows older, Ellie passes. Carl mourns her and misses her, but continues his daily routine. The dream of Paradise Falls seems like nothing more than a childish fancy.

However, the world all around Carl is changing. There are high-rise developments going up all around his home. He is determined to keep the house, as if Ellie’s memory still lives in the walls. Due to some big trouble he gets into, he is sentenced by the courts to move into a retirement home. Carl has one last trick up his sleeve and it couldn’t possibly be more dramatic! Carl unfurls the thousands and thousands of colorful balloons that lift his life-long home off the ground and set course for Paradise Falls. His promise to Ellie is at last fulfilled and he is able to squeeze in a great adventure in his final years.

There is a knock on the door. A knock on the door as this house is sailing through the air! What a great surprise for the audience who thought the story was already tied up nice and neat. A wilderness scout named Russell has been trying to convince Carl, the oldest man around, to let him be helped across the street in order for Russell to receive his final badge: assisting the elderly.

Russell is the perfect new partner for Carl. Russell is young, rotund and so very much like a young Carl. Everyone can see that except the grouchy old sour-puss Carl. With the house on its way to Paradise Falls, Carl is forced to deal with Russell which is a million laughs for the audience. Carl is so earnest and loveable that he attracts the affection of a large blue bird in the jungle. The guys are tugging the balloon-float house to its perfect spot and begin a whole new series of adventures that tests their mettle.

Dug is a sweet mutt that is searching through the jungle when he runs into the guys and the house. Dug is wearing the greatest imaginary invention ever imagined. He has a collar that can vocalize his dog thoughts. If you have ever had a dog, then I am sure, like me, you will be in stitches. Dug is so funny, loving and distractible. Just like a real-life dog.

The guys come to find out that Dug belongs to, none other than, THE Charles Muntz. Muntz is the very same explorer that young Carl idolized decades earlier. Muntz had disappeared in the jungle surrounding Paradise Falls in search of the big blue bird, that Russell named Kevin. After all this time, the bird had continues to allude him. Muntz was unable to return to the USA and restore his reputation without the bird, Kevin.

Muntz turns out to be a very greedy man, either because he is consumed by this life-long bird-search or because he has always been this way. There is a strong connection between all three of the guys there: Carl, Charles and Russell. Carl and Charles are at the end of their life and wondering what their legacy will be to the world. Carl thought that his would be to fulfill his promise to his wife and land his house on the waterfall of Paradise Falls. In the end, he has one amazing adventure that only a child could have thought possible.

Russell returns home to his scout troop ceremony where Carl pins him with the same grape soda pin that a young Ellie pinned him with when they first met. The adventure story is warm and sweet. The technology that Disney/Pixar uses is so gorgeous that you can feel the colors and movement so exactly. I love that their movies are top notch on every level. I love good animation and I think that you can feel the love and detail that has been scrutinized. Up made me laugh, cry and laugh again. I loved it because I am feeling that slip into adulthood and loss of childish fantasies. But the childish fantasies and adventures may very well be our own legacy to the world.

Runtime: 125 minutes
Color: Color
Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1
Language: English
Country: USA
Director: Garry Marshall
Release Date: 02/12/10
Film star: Bradley Cooper, Ashton Kutcher, Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel and Eric Dane

This year, just a few days after Cupid’s holiday of romance and roses, I decided to get into the spirit of things by heading to the theater to see Valentine’s Day. I hadn’t heard much about this romantic comedy, aside from it’s long list of all star cast members, and went in with a completely open mind and no expectations at all. Only later did I begin hearing about the ghastly reviews this film has been getting and I’m sorry to say that I will have to agree with most of them.

But let’s start out with the positive things about this film, which follows in the footsteps of the British love story hit, Love Actually. The film follows the lives of a number of couples and singles as they intertwine on Valentine’s Day. The characters are played by a star-studded cast (maybe the largest in history!) including Ashton Kutcher, Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Patrick Dempsey, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Topher Grace, Anne Hathaway, Queen Latifah, Taylor Swift, Julia Robert, Shirley McLaine, George Lopez and Cathy Bates, just to name a “few.” Personally, I thought that it was cool to see such a large number of hugely popular actors together in one film. However, the fact that the cast was so huge didn’t really allow any one character to take the limelight and really stand out.

There were far too many characters and storylines. If you saw a character that you liked they may not appear again in the film for another hour and, in the meantime, you had to sit through a number of much less interesting characters and plot lines. Some of the more experienced actors, such as Julia Roberts, Ashton Kutcher, and Queen Latifah, really stood out in a positive way. However, the younger newbies like Taylor Swift seemed all the more inexperienced next to this huge cast of big stars. Jessica Biel, who hasn’t been seen much since her role of Mary Camden on the TV series 7th Heaven, had an abysmal performance.

I think that what really separates Valentine’s Day from more successful films of the same genre, especially Love Actually, is the fact that they tried to squeeze too much in—too many stars, too many characters, too many plot lines. As a result, as a viewer I felt that I didn’t have anything to connect to. I wanted to be able to connect with the characters on a deeper level and to understand where they came from and where they were going, but they simply didn’t get enough screen time. There were a number of characters and plot lines that didn’t add anything to the film as a whole, such as the youthful romance between Taylor Lautner and Taylor Swift. If these could have been taken out and more time could have been spent on the more interesting plot lines then maybe it would have given the film the “oomph!” it needed to be a successful romantic comedy.

I wouldn’t say that nobody should go see this film. I think that it is a one-of-a-kind experience to see so many amazing stars perform together. However, don’t go in with high expectations. Go in ready to see a lot of stars and you may be slightly entertained.

Runtime: 138 minutes
Color: Color
Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1
Language: English/German
Country: USA
Director: Martin Scorsese
Release Date: 02/19/10
Film star: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams and Emily Mortimer

Going into the theater to see Scorsese s new film, Shutter Island, I wasn t sure what to expect. From the trailers this film looked like a purely terrifying horror film, but I knew that since it was directed by the great Scorsese it had to be more than that. I wasn t disappointed. Shutter Island is a rollercoaster ride-one of the best psychological thrillers I ve ever seen, with ups and downs and turns at every corner.

Shutter Island tells the story of two U.S. Marshals, Teddy Daniels (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) who are investigating the disappearance Rachel Solando, a mental patient who disappeared from her locked room at the Ashecliff Hospital for the Criminally Insane on Shutter Island. Rachel, the missing patient, was institutionalized after she drowned her children, although according to her doctors she thinks that her children are alive and well and that she is at home.

The film follows Teddy and Chuck as they search for Rachel, interview doctors and patients, find Rachel and ultimately discover a very real and surprising truth, which you ll have to watch the film to find out for yourself! As the film progresses we delve into the mind of Teddy, learning about the recent death of his wife and visiting his past through flashbacks and visions, as Teddy slowly seems to deteriorate. Is Teddy really losing his mind? Is it the island that is bringing out these flashbacks in him? What is real? This film really makes you think and wonder about what is really going on under the surface.

I was glued to the screen throughout the entire film, and not just because of the dramatic twists and turns of the plot. The film is a period piece, set in the 1950s and everything from the costumes to the set design and dialogue put you back in that time. Scorsese also did a fantastic job of integrating modern technology into this period piece. The techniques and technologies used to create the eerie atmosphere, Teddy s creepy flashbacks and the ghostly ambiance of the film do not take away from the 50s-era feel of the film at all. Rather, they add to it and result in a mood like none other seen in a 1950s period film.

The acting in the film is superb, of course. Leonardo DiCaprio does an amazing job of convincing the audience of his situation as his mind deteriorates and he gets more and more sucked in to his investigation. Other all-star performances include those of Mark Ruffalo and Ben Kingsley.

If you enjoy feeling scared and uneasy then this film is a must-see. Every twist and turn of the plot makes you question everything, including yourself. It takes a lot to accomplish what Scorsese has in this film-to make the viewer believe everything he is seeing as it unfolds, to make the viewer really get inside the head of the main character, and to end with the biggest twist and turn of all and have it come as a true surprise. But I guess it s not a big surprise that he gets away with it in Shutter Island-after all, he is Martin Scorsese!

Runtime: 105 minutes
Color: Color
Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1
Language: English
Country: USA
Director: Gene Saks
Release Date: 05/02/68
Film star: Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau

I believe there are those timeless stories that, no matter which year the story was originally told, it is still entertaining. The Odd Couple is one of these special stories even though it was first played on the movie screens in 1968. The movie is an adaptation by Neil Simon of his Broadway show by the same name.

The premise of the story is absolutely timeless: two divorcees must start their life again. The twist is that this time they are men starting anew. Walter Matthau plays sportswriter Oscar Madison and Jack Lemmon plays news writer Felix Ungar. These two actors are among my all-time favorites because of their superb comic timing and great chemistry together.

The movie starts out with a very sad and depressed Felix wandering around the town at night. He checks into a dingy hotel room and requests the highest floor. The men at the desk seem to gather, as does the audience that Felix does not plan to check out the same as he checked in. The downtrodden Felix prepares to end his life in that dim hotel room, but is foiled again and again. His failed suicide attempts even make me fell sadder for this pathetic and funny Felix.

In the next scenes you see men around a poker table in a house that is so hot and stinky; you can almost feel the nausea of those men inside. While Oscar has made a great mess of his house, there is still evidence of a woman’s touch who decorated with an eye for style. The phone rings and Oscar speaks to Felix’s wife on the other line. She is worried about him and that he is suicidal since they have decided to split.

The guys, being friends with Felix, all worry and wonder what they should do to find their friend, when the doorbell rings. On the other side of the door is the downcast Felix. What is so funny to me is to see this story that we have heard a million times over for a divorcing woman, we haven’t heard for men. The men around the table behave just like women would. They try to act like they don’t know about Felix and his separation until he tries to jump out the window at Oscar’s house. Felix is such a high-strung and melodramatic fellow, he is the exact opposite to Oscar.

So you may be able to predict, that these two mismatched friends live together and try to heal their wounds from divorce. If you have ever had a roommate, you can sympathize with both Felix and Oscar. Felix is fastidious and obsessively clean. It is not only that he loves to cook and clean, but that he can’t tolerate the way that anyone else would cook or clean. Oscar, on the other hand, is a fantastic mess. He loves to smoke cigars in the house, leave rotten food out and doesn’t mind grinding his potato chips in the rug. Both of them are completely happy with their way and don’t seem to notice how others might see their extreme behavior.

The two men interact with all the same stereotypical complaints that a man and woman have in a marriage. This leads Oscar to suggest a night out with some women. The Pigeon sisters (Pigeon because Oscar says they “coo” when they laugh) are two young English women that live in the same building as Oscar. Maybe if Felix can quit his tendency to dote on Oscar, he can snap out of his divorcee funk. However, it turns out to be too soon for Felix to date. He ends up crying on the Pigeon sister’s shoulders and talking nonstop about his lovely ex-wife and his precious children.

This is the final straw for Oscar who throws his spaghetti in anger at the wall and demands that Felix leave it just like that. Felix leaves and Oscar begins to feel guilty and goes to look for Felix with his poker buddies. When he returns home, he sees that Felix is moving in with the Pigeon sisters. The movie ends with everyone better off than they had started. However, The Odd Couple franchise was just getting started. The Odd Couple 2, the televisions series and loads of other spin-offs were created to satiate our curiosity of how the story would continue.

When you watch The Odd Couple, you can ask yourself how much of you is Oscar and how much of you is Felix. I love this movie first because it is hilarious and second because it is I can relate to both characters. If you want a big laugh timeless story, then The Odd Couple is a great classic to check out.

Runtime: 162 minutes
Color: Color
Aspect Ratio: 1.78 : 1
Language: English
Country: USA/UK
Director: James Cameron
Release Date: 11/10/09
Film star: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez and Stephen Lang
Awards: Won 3 Oscars, another 25 wins and 56 nominations

The Wolfman is a remake of the classic 1941 film of the same name and, as a sucker for horror movies, I was really excited to see it. I have to admit that the story was pretty predictable. However, for me the all-star cast and delicious goriness of the film really made it stand out.

If you aren’t familiar with the plot of The Wolfman I’ll give you a quick rundown. The film begins when Gwen Conliffe (played by Emily Blunt) sends a letter to Lawrence Talbot (played by Benicio del Toro) to tell him that his brother has gone missing. When Lawrence arrives he learns that they have discovered the mauled body of his brother, dead. Lawrence visits a band of gypsies to find out more about his brother’s death during a full moon where he is attacked by a werewolf. He is bitten, but not killed, and is turned into a werewolf himself. He must live with this curse, and through his experience he learns a number of surprising secrets about his family and his past. The film also follows the blooming relationship between Lawrence and Gwen, and it’s ultimate demise.

My main complaint about the film was its predictability. But then again, everyone knows the “rules” about werewolves-they change during the full moon, they can be killed with silver bullets-just as everyone knows the “rules” about vampires. There isn’t much that a screenwriter or director can do to get around these facts. Additionally, the film was a remake of an already released film, and it did stay true to the plot of the original.

Aside from the film’s predictability, it did manage to keep my eyes and ears on screen the entire time. The acting was superb. Benicio del Toro’s performance was fantastic, as were the performances of Anthony Hopkins (who plays Lawrence’s father) and Hugo Weaving (who plays an inspector). However, I felt the most drawn to the performance of Emily Blunt. Blunt’s acting was definitely the shining star of the film, and she really draws you in and makes you understand how it feels to be in love with a beast.

The atmosphere of the film is also enthralling. They went with a very Gothic setting, reminiscent of the original film, as well as other similar films like An American Werewolf in London. Everything from the costumes to the sets for the pub, the gypsy town, Talbot Hall and the institution where Lawrence is sent add to the atmosphere and culminate to create a very realistic Gothic world. I really liked that they decided to stay true to the original, and the film really had the same feel as the classic horror films it attempted to emulate.

Finally, when it comes to the violence and gore, The Wolfman does a great job of finding the perfect balance between gross-out horror and prude. It isn’t so gory that you find yourself having to turn away from the screen, but there is definitely some very well planned out violence. I think that is a necessary part of any horror film-especially one involving werewolves.

Runtime: 162 minutes
Color: Color
Aspect Ratio: 1.78 : 1
Language: English
Country: USA/UK
Director: James Cameron
Release Date: 11/10/09
Film star: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez and Stephen Lang
Awards: Won 3 Oscars, another 25 wins and 56 nominations

I’m going to prerequisite this by saying that I’m a self-proclaimed James Cameron fanatic. I loved all the Terminator movies, True Lies, Titanic, and Aliens so it’s no surprise that I was absolutely ecstatic when I heard about Avatar. I had heard that Avatar combined all the best things about Cameron’s other movies-the romance of Titanic, and the action and fantasy of Alien and the Terminator movies-and incorporated awesome 3D graphics to boot! Sufficed to say, I was excited to see this movie. The movie wasn’t perfect, but when push comes to shove I would definitely recommend it to everyone.

For those of you who haven’t seen Avatar yet, I’ll give you a brief description of the plot. Avatar is the story of paraplegic war veteran, Jake Sully. Jake has recently lost his twin brother, as well as the use of his legs, when he is sent on a secret mission to the planet of Pandora. Pandora is a distant civilization where a colony of creatures known as the Na’vi lives. Pandora is also home to large quantities of Unobtanium, a rare and expensive mineral that can save Earth from an energy crisis. Jake’s mission is to infiltrate the Na’vi civilization, under cover in an “avatar” that makes him look like the Na’vi, and persuade the Na’vi to move to a new location to free up a massive deposit of Unobtanium. However, as Jake spends time getting to know the Na’vi and learn the ways of their culture he begins to see things in a different way.

When it comes to the story, Avatar isn’t the most original movie in the world. It takes elements from Pocahontas and Braveheart as well as a number of other action films and cross-culture romances throughout history. The film is stretched out over three hours and the dialogue is, at times, a bit cliche and cheesy, as it is in many of Cameron’s films. However, despite the lack of originality in the story, I still thought Avatar was amazing simply because of its amazing use of 3D and the advances it shows in movie-going technology.

Not only does Avatar bring photo-real CG to life for the first time in history, but it also takes 3D to a whole new level. As 3D has become more and more common in the film experience over the last couple of years we have seen a wide variety of children’s animated 3D masterpieces. However, Avatar is the first film to really bring a mix of live action and realistic CG elements to life. The 3D in the film isn’t in-your-face. It is subtle and beautiful and really makes you feel like you have entered the magical alien world of Pandora, as you fly through the lush mountains and view the planet all around you.

The landscapes and creatures in the film are masterfully designed. Everything truly is beautiful, from the arresting environments to the creatures, including the Na’vi and other beautiful and frightening beings. What really separates Avatar from many other animated films is that all of the characters, including the CG, blue, catlike Na’vi show real human emotion when they speak and act for a truly realistic and amazing experience.

When it comes to the acting there is some give and take. Sam Worthington shows a lot of heart in his role as Jake, although he has some problems with his accent from time to time, and Sigourney Weaver, who plays Dr. Grace, has a fantastic on-screen dynamic with Worthington. However, I thought that the best performance of the film came from Zoe Saldana, who plays Neytiri, a Na’vi huntress who grows close to Jake.

What the film lacks in originality it makes up for with beauty. I would recommend this film to everyone for the sheer perfection of the landscapes, the inventiveness of graphics and the amazing use of 3D.

Runtime: 158 minutes
Color: Color
Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1
Language: English/Russian
Country: USA/Canada
Director: Roland Emmerich
Release Date: 11/11/09
Film star: John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Danny Glover, Thandie Newton and Woody Harrelson

I have to admit that ever since I was little I have been slightly nervous, maybe even slightly terrified about the whole 2012 prophesy. You know the one I’m talking about-the end of the world, the sun crashing into earth, the world crumbling beneath us, Armageddon, and whatever else is supposed to happen. Therefore, when I heard that the film 2012 was coming out I was a little bit uneasy.

Who wants to watch a movie about the end of the world, especially when a lot of people think this is really going to happen in less than two years? But I decided that I might as well face my fears, so I headed to the theater to see 2012, and I can now safely say that I am no longer afraid. The outlandish situations in this movie, paired with the shallow dialogue and incredulous action scenes make 2012 seem so farfetched that it eased my fears.

If you haven’t seen 2012 or heard anything about it, the plot is really quite simple. An American geologist visits India where he learns that the core of the earth is rapidly increasing in temperature. He returns to the United States to inform the President, played by Danny Glover, that this will ultimately result in the end of the world as we know it. The solution is to choose 400,000 people who will be saved from the destruction in a series of arks.

We follow another character, Jackson Curtis, a Los Angeles writer played by John Cusack, as he and his children outrun earthquakes and tsunamis, escaping just in the knick of time as entire cities fall off the edge of the earth into the ocean. Who will survive? Who will die? Will the entire human race be wiped out? I guess you’ll just have to watch to find out!

The good thing about this movie is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously, and maybe that’s the reason why it was able to assuage my fears of our impending 2012 doom. You can sort of laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation as John Cusack drives a limo through LA as streets and skyscrapers crumble all around him and escapes, unscathed. Planes take off just in time for the runways to crumble into nothing behind them, well-known landmarks like the Sistine Chapel collapse and characters escape from the most inescapable situations imaginable. The visual effects in this movie are nothing short of amazing. However, despite the fact that they may look realistic, the sheer ridiculousness of what is going on around the characters makes you feel safe and unafraid of what may or may not lie in our own futures.

All that being said, I can see how a lot of people could have been disappointed by 2012. The dialog is incredibly cheesy, none of the characters showed much emotion and it was hard to get attached to any of the characters that were killed in the disaster (and a lot of them were killed). The constant close calls that all of the surviving characters had to go through made the movie extremely unrealistic. However, if you are looking for a completely outlandish action-disaster film then 2012 is a must see.