Never Let Me Go

A film that is basically a story about lost love amongst three friends but delves into science fiction also. The first part of the film is set in the 80's where Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth are three friends growing up at a private boarding school called Hailsham. Kathy and Ruth are best of friends who do everything together. The two are watching a baseball like game where the pitcher throws what looks like a softball sized ball to the "batter" who has what looks like a tennis racket to hit the ball with. The ball is hit and Tommy has a chance to catch the ball. It sails over his head and over the fence past the boundary of the school. Tommy looks at the fence and decides to not go after the ball. In class the teacher Miss Lucy (Sally Hawkins) who is new at the school asks the students why didn't Tommy get the ball. They tell her because no one's allowed past the boundary of the school. One boy ran off and they found him later with his hands and feet cut off. Miss Lucy asks who told you these things and how do you know they're true. The children answer "everybody knows the story". Miss Lucy then reveals to the class what they are really here for. I was going to reveal what Miss Lucy said to the class but thought otherwise because it is quite powerful in the film and it takes the movie to a much different place where I thought it was going. Here is a movie that the least amount you know the better and more powerful so I advise you not to look at the synopsis on the back of the dvd case or read any reviews that reveal too much and just put the dvd in and push play. On the next day the students are told that Miss Lucy has been relieved of her duties and other teachers will take turns to teach her class. After a few more minutes we jump to years later and we see Ruth (Keira Knightley), Tommy (Andrew Garfield), and Kathy (Carey Mulligan) as twenty somethings. They now live together at a different location and are soon going to drift apart due to decisions made by all three parties involved. This film has great performances from the three leads but the one that was really great was Andrew Garfield's. In one scene we see Tommy saying to Kathy that he's got to get out of the car, he just needs to breath, we the viewer have just seen an important plot point between the two, so when Tommy gets out of the car he walks a little ahead on the road and just starts yelling at the top of his lungs, with rage and sadness, while Kathy rushes to Tommy and they embrace. A great scene considering what is going on within the film. I would also have to say that the musical score is one of the best I have heard in ages. It is mainly an overriding theme that you hear and later you hear again. It is mainly the cello which is a great instrument for conveying love, sadness, and loss. And this movie has all these three things. It's tough to watch sometimes because of the children's fate but stick with it because it's worth it. Carey Mulligan shows here that her turn in An Education was no fluke while Keira Knightley was fine in her own right as well. Highly recommended.

Chain Letter

This one's for Jessica B: A nice little horror film that begins with an "oh shit" moment and takes off from there. A group of high schoolers get an annoying chain letter email and are informed if they don't send it to 5 more people they will die within 24 hours. Starring Nikki Reed (my second movie of the night with her but a much better performance) as Jessie Campbell, and among others Keith David as detective Jim Crenshaw, Betsy Russell (!) as sergeant Hamill and Brad Dourif as Mr. Smirker, one of the teachers at the school. How'd you like to have Mr. Dourif as one of your teachers, huh? The man exudes creepiness in all of his roles and that's why he's always so fun to watch as he is in this film as well. Yeah I know all the high schoolers look like they're too old to go to high school but has that ever stopped us from liking a horror film? Um...no! Eventually more and more people are dying and it's up to Crenshaw to figure out who's doing it and why. With only some chain links with a unique symbol on them at the murder scenes for clues, he will have to work quickly to figure out the killer. Part of this movie reminded me of the Final Destination series a little bit while at other times it was a lot like the horror movies of 4-5 years ago (Cry Wolf, Stay Alive which got a lot of their foundation of stories more or less from the late 90's horror renaissance: Scream (1996), The Faculty (1998), I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998), Urban Legend (1998)), so if you're interested in seeing a somewhat solid horror thriller with snappy pacing, some good kill scenes with an interesting mode of death (chains) try this on for size. Recommended.

F

Last Day Of Summer

Here's a movie with an identity crisis and ends up disappointing the viewer because there's not enough comedy and too much drama that seems mean spirited and forced. Starring D.J. Qualls (good god man, eat a sandwich!) and Nikki Reed with William Sadler as Joe's (Qualls) asswipe of a boss Mr. Crolick where both of them work at a burger joint.

To say that he's a horrible boss is an understatement. He makes fun of Joe constantly and has him cleaning out toilets for most of the time he's there. He constantly tells him he's not much of an employee so basically Joe is feeling rather worthless most of the time. He's fed up with his boss so he sets out to do something about it. But he chickens out and now feels even worse and It is that day when he meets up with Stefanie who is walking out of the restaurant. She doesn't talk to him because she doesn't know him. He thought she had looked at him so he's confused by the silence. What he does next basically ruined the rest of the movie for me because it just didn't make any sense to me within the context of the film. Besides having no chemistry between the two leads the director (Vlad Yudin) can't make up his mind if he wants a comedy or a drama. Basically it's not the actor's fault because they do what they can with the script. Look Qualls and Reed are not going to win any acting awards in the near future but both have done some good decent roles in the past (Reed for Thirteen, Mini's Last Time and Qualls for The New Guy and a small role in I'm Reed Fish). I would say that William Sadler puts in the best performance by far. He is truly a boss you love to hate in this film. I just can't recommend it for that performance alone though. You can pass on this one if you want.

Jack Goes Boating

Philip Seymour Hoffman is one of our better actors working today. He can play almost any character and has. Here he is directing himself from a play written by Robert Glaudini. Hoffman plays Jack, a extremely introverted, shy, scared man who has a job driving for a limousine service. His best friend Clyde (John Ortiz in arguably the best performance here) also works there and he and his girlfriend Lucy (Daphne Rubin-Vega) decide to set Jack up on a blind date. Enter Connie (Amy Ryan, so underrated) who has a few of her own problems with being in other people's company also. Meanwhile Clyde is teaching Jack how to swim because he wants to go boating in the spring since Connie has said she'd like to. You see some growing compassion between the two as the movie continues while the other couple Clyde and Lucy are drifting apart in so many ways. There are a couple of scenes between Clyde and Lucy that seem so real in the way that you the viewer know that something close to dreadful is going to happen. It's about one couple who's just starting out in a relationship and another one drifting apart. I'd have to say I'd watch this more for the performances of the actors than the film itself. They are superb.

You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger

The new one from Woody Allen with a great cast but a lifeless script eventually lets it down for more than one or two viewings. But the cast! One of his best in years: Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Antonio Banderas, all do a great job with what they're given but it's just not enough. There are also some other nice performances from Freida Pinto who plays Dia, the girl that Roy (Brolin) is obsessed with and Lucy Punch who plays Charmaine, the girl that Alfie (Hopkins) ends up marrying after he divorces Helena (Gemma Jones) who is Sally's (Naomi Watts) mother. From an author who is having problems writing his next novel to a older woman who is listening a little too much to a fake fortune teller and a woman who's working for an art dealer who's she's fond of a little bit too much there are a lot of characters who really aren't that likeable in this film. All of these people are dealing with love lost, lust, greed, vanity amongst other things. I just wish it was a better film. A disappointment.

Monsters

A monster movie that's more about two people bonding than the monsters themselves. That's what I'd have to say about this film. If you're expecting something like Cloverfield you will be majorly disappointed but if you're open minded enough about this movie you will be rewarded. But don't think that the monsters aren't impressive though because when they do show up (where the man and the woman are passing through the "infected" zone with their guides) it is an impressive sight. Andrew is a photographer who's in Mexico taking pictures when he is ordered by his boss to take the boss's daughter Sam back home to America. The only problem with that is that through some fault of Andrew's they are left to go through an area of land that's northern Mexico and the southern part of the United States called the "infected zone". It's called that because of a probe sent earlier has returned and brought with it creatures not from our earth. These creatures are living in the zone and are being "contained" within this area. The U.S. even put up a giant wall to keep them out. So the only way back is through the zone. Scott McNairy & Whitney Able do an incredible job here as the main characters as well as all the secondary characters who actually are, from what I've understood, real people interacting with them! This brings a natural element to the film that seems more real. Truly a unique film that will probably be shit on because of some people's own misconceptions of what they thought it should be. Worth the time if you're willing.

A French Gigolo

Okay, I should have known my streak of good foreign films was going to run out eventually. All the warning signs were there too. A french woman who's horny for a lay in the hay with a male prostitute who's married. These are the kind of foreign movies I saw growing up which I never cared for at all. Everybody's always having sex with what seems like not a care in the world for ramifications of said actions. These movies are always the same, some older woman is looking for a little something either on the side (because her husband is just not doing it for her anymore) or in this case because she's rich and doesn't want a commitment (?) I almost shut this movie off a few times but I was hoping it was going to surprise me but I should have known! Utterly a waste of my time and yours if you watch this drivel. Definitely not up to the standard of foreign movies today. You have been warned!

Wild Target

An amusing british comedy about a hit man (Bill Nighy) who can't seem to kill his latest job (Emily Blunt) who happens to be a thief. An innocent bystander (Rupert Grint, who plays Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter movies) is suddenly brought into their predicament and its not too long after that his employer brings in another hitman to exterminate him. After a car chase and a few near misses the movie slows down a little to flesh out the characters so we learn more about them. When the movie speeds up it's not too bad but when the characters are waiting around then the script tends to slow to a crawl. There's just not that much going on. Still, having said that Bill Nighy was good in this role as was Emily Blunt. Rupert Grint on the other hand didn't really bring anything to the table. I thought that anybody could have played his role and it would have been fine. Worth watching for at least one time but more?, I don't know.

The Social Network

As the film The Social Network opens we see Mark Zuckerberg talking to his girlfriend Erica (Rooney Mara, the new Lisbeth Salander in the U.S. versions of the Stieg Larsson trilogy) and we soon learn that he is exhausting to talk to. It seems that he thinks way faster than everybody else and he has to wait for everybody else to catch up. Of course in a regular conversation with a beautiful girl this probably won't get you any points for a stimulating evening as he soon learns. He runs back to his room at Harvard and starts what eventually, with some help from his one true friend Eduardo (Andrew Garfield, the new Spiderman!), who has the algorithim and the cash, to start the worldwide phenomenon that is Facebook. The movie is basically about the lawsuits that were brought to him from the Winklevoss twins who say he stole their idea for a Harvard social networking site and from his best friend Eduardo who says he shut him out of the Facebook company. The movie shows how two friends grew so far apart. There are quite a few scenes in the lawyer's offices where the lawsuits are taking place and it is there where the best lines come in the movie. The lawyers are expecting to intimidate this young kid but in the long run this kid knows more about their profession that they do. The four main characters in this movie have done some amazing work here. Jesse Eisenberg, fresh off his turn in Zombieland was great as Mr. Zuckerberg as well as Andrew Garfield as Eduardo. After just seeing him in the first movie of the Red Riding trilogy he is very good here. Also Armie Hammer Jr. is twice as good since he has to play both of the Winklevoss twins. And we can't forget Justin Timberlake as the Napster creator Sean Parker who stirs up trouble when he arrives on the scene. Excellent direction by David Fincher with a great score by Trent Reznor who may get an Academy Award for his music for the film. A film about a guy who just wants to fit in and get the girl because it's always about getting the girl isn't it? You can tell this film is made by some talented people. Highly recommended.

Middle Men

Luke Wilson is probably lesser know that his brother Owen but he has definitely done some great work in the past and once again he does it here. In this film he plays basically a fixer. When people have a problem he fixes it. Sometimes he's dealing with a little different group of people, say maybe a criminal element. Meanwhile we have these two idiots (well kind of anyways) named Buck Dolby (Gabriel Macht), a former rocket scientist who just moved out to L.A. with his best friend, Wayne Beering (Giovanni Ribisi, here in crazy-paranoid mode), a guy who doesn't have a job and really is not trying too hard to get one. One night, Wayne is looking at porn on the computer (it's the late 80's-early 90's) and is bored by it. He says they could put some pictures up and charge people to look at them. Buck says there's no program for this and keeps repeating this while Wayne keeps telling him his suggestion. All of a sudden Buck tells Wayne to shut up and he goes to his computer and writes code for a billing system that supposedly now all the big corporations use to bill people with. It's not too long when they're making more money than they know what to do with. That's when Jack Harris (Luke Wilson) comes in. He is told by Jerry Haggarty (James Caan) about these two men and comes up with a plan to organize their company. Of course other things have happened that Jack will soon learn about and that's when Jack starts his journey as a "middle man". Superbly written and great acting from all involved especially Wilson, Ribisi, Macht and Rade Sherbedgia (a russian mobster). Laura Ramsey (The Ruins, Venom, Shrink) plays porn star Audrey Dawns, a woman who gets caught up helping, of all people, an fbi operative (Kevin Pollak). I kind of figured this was going to be a good film but was pleasantly surprised by how good. It had an epic feel to it which is hard to explain. The story spread out many years and was always captivating especially with Jack's narration many times. I was torn between 31/2 and 4 stars but went with 3 1/2. Maybe it's a four star movie, we shall see. Needless to say, it is definitely worth your time. Recommended!