Sunday, February 27, 2005

OSCAR PREDICTIONS

BEST PICTURE- MILLION DOLLAR BABY
BEST DIRECTOR- MARTIN SCORSESE "THE AVIATOR"
BEST ACTOR- JAMIE FOXX "RAY"
BEST ACTRESS- HILARY SWANK "MILLION DOLLAR BABY
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR- MORGAN FREEMAN "MILLION DOLLAR BABY"
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS- CATE BLANCHETT "THE AVIATOR
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY- ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
BEST ADAPTED SCREEPLAY- SIDEWAYS
ANIMATED FEATURE FILM- THE INCREIDBLES
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE- SUPER SIZE ME

Saturday, February 26, 2005


Smith and Mendes hit it off in "Hitch"
NEW MOVIE OUT THIS WEEK

Hitch

Will Smith - Alex "Hitch" Hitchens
Eva Mendes - Sara
Kevin James - Albert
Amber Valletta - Allegra Cole
Directed by:
Will Smith stars in his romantic comedy debut and he is charming, witty, and fits into his character perfectly. He stars as "Hitch", a date doctor who helps men without the moves with women to get them to fall in love with one another.
Kevin James and Smith are priceless in some scenes that are really funny. The movie has a genuine flow and keeps the laughter and romance at a perfect balance. If you’re in the mood for a valentine’s day get away, hitch yourself down on to see Hitch.

Thursday, February 24, 2005


A moving experience
NEW MOVIE OUT THIS WEEK

Hotel Rwanda

Starring:
Don Cheadle - Paul Rusesabagina
Sophie Okonedo - Tatiana Rusesabagina
Nick Nolte - Colonel Oliver
Cara Seymour - Pat Archer
Directed by:
Terry George
Don Cheadle gives a captivating performance
**** Stars
Hotel Rwanda is about the rare courage inside a hotel operator that will save the lives of over 1000 people in the horrible genocide of Rwanda back in 1994.
Paul is left in charge of a hotel after his boss has left the country. He must make sure he treats everyone including officials with respect for insurance purposes. He realizes that if a crisis does occur, he needs someone high up to be able to bail him out. After their president is assassinated, rebels of the Hutus blame this assassination along with other crimes on the Tutsis, another tribe in Rwanda. They are very similar. There is one scene where a cameraman (Phoenix) is at a bar and asks two people who look almost the same who they are. One replies she is a Hutus and the other is a Tutsis. It is hard to understand why some can live and others must not.
At the end of the genocide, over 800,000 are killed, many others wounded. The film, at its PG-13 rating seemed impossible to be able to capture the horror of what happened. But director Terry George does not use graphic violence. He uses the emotions that come from the actors. Cheadle and Okonedo are absolutely stunning. They are able to bring fear and love onto the screen when needed. This is a film of rare courage by one man whose only job was to run a hotel. And it is portrayed without a flaw. Hotel Rwanda is flawless and one of the best movies of the year.

Sunday, February 20, 2005

TOP TEN UPCOMING MOVIES TO SEE


NUMBER 1
1. Kingdom of Heaven- With great supporting actors (Liam Neilson & Jeremy Irons) and with Orlando Bloom looking over 12 in a film, the film looks really good.

NUMBER 2

2. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith- After 28 years, its finally ending. Lets get one thing straight- it BETTER be good

NUMBER 3

3. The first one was decent but this one looks totally original

NUMBER 5

5 Sin City- With a huge all star cast, Sin City should be a successful comic flick unlike Daredevil and Elektra

NUMBER 4

4. The Interpreter- Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn in a fast paced thriller? Sign me up.

NUMBER 6

6. The Jacket- Adrien Brody and Keira Knightly together is a great combination

NUMBER 7

7. The Longest Yard

NUMBER 8

8. The sequel to Get Shorty

NUMBER 9

9. Cinderella Man- With a brilliant cast of Russell Crowe and Renee Zellwegger and its directed by Ron Howard=78th Academy Awards

NUMBER 10

10. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Saturday, February 19, 2005


Stick with the Live Version
NEW MOVIE OUT THIS WEEK

The Phantom of the Opera

Starring:
Gerard Butler - The Phantom
Emmy Rossum - Christine
Patrick Wilson - Vicomte Raoul de Chagny
Miranda Richardson - Madame Giry
Simon Callow - Gilles Andre
Ciaran Hinds - Richard Firmin
Minnie Driver - Carlotta
Directed by: Joel Schumacher
Overdone
**1/2 Stars
Andrew Lloyd Webber's popular play comes to life on the big screen and it fails because of direction. The movie starts off with a bang and instead of getting better as it progresses, it seems to fall short of its expectations.
The plot is obvious. It takes place in the 1870's at the Opera Populaire, an opera house in Paris. Here lies the Phantom (Butler), a half masked figure who is giving singing lessons to a young woman named Christine. The Phantom believes they are quickly falling in love and wants to be with her. But Christine has other ideas. She meets up with her childhood sweetheart Vicomte Raoul de Chagny (Wilson) and they soon fall in love. The Phantom is hit hard with rejection and will stop at nothing to get her back.
The tension mounts as Christine is now the most popular opera singer surpassing the famous Carlotta (Driver), the most popular soprano at the time. The Phantom realizes that he must kill Vicomte to find true love with Christine, but Vicomte will not give up without a fight. He will stop at nothing to make sure the Phantom never comes near Christine again.
You know the story. The Phantom shares one last kiss with Christine and lets her go with Vicomte. The Phantom feels true love in that kiss which is ther reason he lets them escape away from the city.
It seems that in the middle of the production, director Joel Schumacher (Phone Booth) desides to add in pointless material. There is some scenes where singing should be dialogue. It is a musical but some musicals need the acting to get hyped up for the big numbers.
Don't get me wrong, the music a wonderful. It always was, but at 143 minutes with no intermission, the Phantom of the Opera becomes overdone, dull, and falls shy of being a masterpiece.

Tuesday, February 15, 2005


The Best Horror Movie in Years
NEW MOVIE OUT THIS WEEK

Saw

SAW
Directed by: James Wan
THE ONLY SCARY FILM OF 2004
*** Stars

A young man named Adam (LEIGH WHANNELL) wakes to find himself chained to a rusty pipe inside a deserted cell. Chained to the opposite side of the room is another bewildered captive, Dr. Lawrence Gordon (CARY ELWES). Between them is a dead man lying in a pool of blood, holding a gun in his hand. Neither man knows why he has been abducted; but instructions left on a micro cassette order Dr. Gordon to kill Adam within eight hours. If he fails to do so, then both men will die, and Dr. Gordon's wife, Alison (MONICA POTTER), and his daughter will be killed. Recalling a recent murder investigation by a police detective named Tapp (DANNY GLOVER), Dr. Gordon realizes he and Adam are the next victims of a psychopathic genius known only as "Jigsaw." With only a few hours left to spare, they must unravel the elaborate puzzle of their fate in the midst of mounting terror. The killer has provided them with only a few clues and two handsaws too weak to break their steel shackles, but strong enough to cut through flesh and bone.
The movie has the gore and the suspense to make this the best horror movie of the year. Leigh Whannell, who co-wrote wrote the film, gave this movie the best ending to a horror movie in years.

Another bad year of horror movies...
NEW MOVIE OUT THIS WEEK

Boogeyman

Boogeyman
Directed: Stephen T Kay
By the Book "Horror" Movie
** Stars
The story tells the haunting tale of a young man traumatized by memories of terrible events he experienced in his childhood bedroom and who, years later, reluctantly returns home to face his fears of a monstrous entity that could be real or merely a figment of his imagination.
There is not plot in this film.
Director Stephen Kay uses loud noises that irritate your ears to scare the audience but fails to grasp the concept of what a horror movie is. It has an idea with some cool effects and twists but doesn't bother to tell us what they mean. There is pointless dialogue that any inexperience director would use. When will there be another good horror movie? How can we stop the bloodshed? Here’s some advice, don’t go see it.

The Top Ten Movies of 2004 (revised)

1. Million Dollar Baby
2. Sideways
3. The Aviator
4. Kill Bill Volume 2
5. Collateral
6. Hotel Rwanda
7. Ray
8. Finding Neverland
9. Super Size Me
10. Spiderman 2

The Best Movie of the Year
NEW MOVIE OUT THIS WEEK

Million Dollar Baby

Million Dollar Baby
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
The Best Movie of the Year
**** Stars
Yes it is a boxing movie. But it goes much deeper than that. This is about love and how love is created. Million Dollar Baby is a four star knockout with unbelievable intensity and force. It is the greatest movie of its kind ever made. Separated from his daughter, boxing trainer Frankie Dunn (Eastwood's greatest performance) has been unwilling to let he get close to anyone for a very long time. He owns and rundown gym with little memberships and little chance of becoming popular. He attends church and asks questions about his faith and why life is giving him a bad turn. Then, Maggie Fitzgerald walks into his gym. Maggie (a perfect Hilary Swank), a waitress with absolutely no money asks Frankie if he will train her to become a boxer. Frankie laughs and says he doesn't train girls and walks away. But for some reason, Maggie will not stop trying to become the best boxer she can be. She continuously comes to the gym hours on end until finally, Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris (the great Morgan Freeman), Frankie's oldest pal and gym janitor decides to give her advice. When Frankie sees this, he questions him about his motivation towards the girl. But he soon discovers her motivation and her heart towards the game. He soon begins to train her. While exasperating and inspiring each other, the two come to discover that they have much more in common then they thought. They both work together to get over their horrible pasts, and they discover one another as family. "You're all I got Frankie.” Well, you got me.” The words speak for themselves. Life to them is not about winning and losing. There is more to it than that. Life is about love and how they are able to achieve their greatest goal, having a family that cares for each other.
Million Dollar Baby is the best movie of the year with knockout performances from the three leads.

Wonderfully adapted magic...
NEW MOVIE OUT THIS WEEK

Sideways

SIDEWAYS
Directed by: Alexander Payne
The Best Comedy of the Year
**** Stars
Miles Faymond (Giamatti), a middle school teacher/failed novelist struggling through his divorce, and his soon to be married friend Jack (Church) take a trip in California, tasting wine and thinking about their future and asking themselves questions about their directions in life. You must be asking how can this movie be funny and original? Well, the only way you can know the truth is to go see this movie, which is one of the funniest, and the most original movie in years.
While Miles and Jack are on their trip, Jack wants to get laid one last time before his wedding. But little does he know that once he meets a girl named Stephanie (Oh), he soon becomes unsure about his upcoming marriage.
Meanwhile Miles meets up with his old friend Maya in which he soon becomes involved with. Giving away anymore of the movie will spoil it. All I can say is to experience this beautifully adapted with rare emotion and humor that will purely give you the answer to why they invented movies.

Thursday, February 03, 2005


Please put the ending back in the closet
NEW MOVIE OUT THIS WEEK

Hide and Seek

HIDE AND SEEK
Endings Kill
** Stars
Direction has never been any easy thing, especially with horror movies. You never know what twists and turns you might use to frighten the audience. Hide and Seek had great potential, but the last 20 minutes felt like a lynching.
Robert De Niro (giving a suprisingly solid performance) plays David Callaway, a psychiatrist whose wife predictably commits suicide 15 minutes into the film. After that, David feels that it would be best to move to a quiet place. So him and his daughter Emily (the always great Dakota Fanning), move up to a house in the middle of nowhere with about 3 neighbors. Emily is very shy and still in a state of depression after the death of her mother. She creates a friend named Charlie, an insanely person who starts to blame David for the death of Emily's mother. After crazy and disturbing acts, we realize who Charlie really is. Many think that telling the end will ruin the story but the plot gives it away anyways. Of course the serial killer is David himself, a split personality. There are situations that try to fool you but there is no point but stating the obvious, it was great until the end. The last scenes in the movie had no value and completely lacked the emotion and intensity of a psycholigical thriller.