Valentine’s Day is a bunch of good actors, looking pretty, and doing decent work in paint by numbers plot and unimaginative entry into the rom-com genre; whose formula has been done much better in a few films still fresh in the memory.
Now, this film is bound to bring in the bank for a number of reasons; lots of big name stars, appropriately timed release over the romantic holiday weekend, and its familiar plot lines a plenty being peddled in the film’s trailer. Now beyond this surface assessment people can make from the trailer and the poster, the film will gel with audiences once in the theaters because it offers up plenty of comfort food for the average viewer in a multitude of so obviously planned elements it is almost laughable. This is how I imagine some of the production meeting going on this film;
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Review: Valentine's Day
Review: The Blind Side
The Blind Side is exactly what it is selling itself as, a heartfelt and emotionally inspiring story that avoids sap and stereotypes for the most part to create a film that deserves our emotional response.
Following the high school years of Michael Oher an at risk student who gets a second lease on life when a wealthy family takes him under there care. Sandra Bullock breaks her type and plays a fast talking southern belle that gets what she wants and delivers a fine performance as a mother bonding with her adoptive son. Michael Oher was given a chance to get a good education in a good school and while this is being sold as a football film it just as much as a student’s story overcoming his personal obstacles to learn. The football aspect of the film doesn’t show up until the final third of the film, so don’t expect an all out sports movie here. Instead what we get, and this isn’t a bad thing, is a wonderful story about family and how anyone can defy there preconceived image and surprise people. [Read more...]
Review: Chéri
The latest from Stephen Frears starts off well enough, having fun and well spirited but by the end is a bit of a sappy, overly dramatic, melodrama that almost negates the good start.
Lea is a courtesan, one of the best at that, in France. She is so successful at what she does that she is even able to lives a lavish and expensive lifestyle even when she isn’t courting and entertaining a man. She owns her own place, has beautiful clothing, and in home service help. The only problem is that she got this being a courtesan and that does not bode well for her social life as no decent woman of her social stature will socialize with a know courtesan. So Lea is left to socialize with her peers, both retired and working, and while she didn’t particularly enjoy there company she was left with no other options. Madame Peloux was one of these women, since retired, but wealthy and in good living conditions as Lea she spends her time entertaining guests having dinners, tea, and social functions seemingly all the time. Peloux and Lea spend most of the time going back and forth trying to out class or out wit one another with who is leading a better life in what is ultimately a dick measuring contest between two women. Peloux’s son Chéri, a nickname derived by Lea, is a bored and socially exhausted nineteen year old. [Read more...]
Review: Revolutionary Road
Sam Mendes’ latest is his darkest film yet, but it really gets you to think about ones own life as you can easily see both sides of the argument laid out by the terrific performances by Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio.
April and Frank hit it off right from the start at a party. Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio) is fresh off the boat while serving a tour in the navy, with dreams of returning to Paris and slowly spending time finding what he wanted to do with his life. April (Kate Winslet) has dreams of being an actress in New York and there chemistry just rips through the screen. Flash forward a number of years and the two now have kids, and on the ride home from a decidedly not so great play April is staring in, the two erupt into a vocally violent assault on one another proclaiming how they are trapped in each others fates and both are clearly unhappy in their situation. Oh how things can change. After the dust settles, April begins reflecting on her past and Frank’s dreams and she discovers they have enough money to move and live off of in Paris for close to a year, and she could get a job at a high paying secretary position that would allow Frank to stay home and figure out what he wants to do with his life. [Read more...]
Review: The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)
Keanu Reeves stars in this remake of the lauded cautionary tale original, putting a relevant green spin on things; the effect is a solid sci-fi thriller that operates with reserve instead of going way over the top.
Helen Benson (Jenifer Connelly) is a scientist that deals with studying bacteria and elements on outer space bodies like the moons of Jupiter when she is quickly called by an anonymous voice and is swooped away by the government to advise on a potential collision with a fast moving object heading directly for earth. The object is traveling near the speed of light and is able to switch directions to pinpoint itself on a Manhattan target and the impending destruction does not pan out, as the object slows down and lands in the middle of Central Park without damage. What lands is a large swirling orb of light that an alien of some sort emerges from barely visible through a blinding light. When a shot goes off and injures the alien, Helen who had landed in the park after the object touched down, rushes to his side just as a large robot emerges from the light emitting a piercing noise that “paralyzes” everyone and causes all electronics to fail in the area. [Read more...]
Review: Bee Movie
What we have here is Dreamworks newest piece of animation that continues on a healthy run of quality, outside the atrocious Shrek 3, following Over the Hedge and Flushed Away. Bee Movie is equally as ridiculous as Flushed Away with the whole, Bee World, and it is just impossible to believe that the animals that exist in our world have this secret under lying society no one knows about. [Read more...]
