Archive for September, 2008

Perhaps this middling film might play better in England, where audiences can pick up on cultural cues invisible to us dumb Yanks. But for those of us here Stateside, its hard to buy the conceit that the little guy in the big city will triumph with integrity. We know better. Out here in the real world, intelligence and wit are no match for towering stupidity.

After a plane crash, a young therapist, Claire Anne Hathaway, is assigned by her mentor Andre Braugher to counsel the flights five survivors. When they share their recollections of the incident -- which some say include an explosion that the airline claims never happened -- Claire is intrigued by Eric Patrick Wilson, the most secretive of the passengers. Just as Claires professional relationship with Eric -- despite her better judgment -- blossoms into a romance, the survivors begin to disappear mysteriously, one by one. Claire suspects that Eric may hold all the answers and becomes determined to uncover the truth, no matter the consequences.

In The International, a gripping thriller, Interpol Agent Louis Salinger Clive Owen and Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman Naomi Watts are determined to bring to justice one of the worlds most powerful banks. Uncovering myriad and reprehensible illegal activities, Salinger and Whitman follow the money from Berlin to Milan to New York to Istanbul. Finding themselves in a high-stakes chase across the globe, their relentless tenacity puts their own lives at risk as their targets will stop at nothing -- even murder -- to continue financing terror and war. Directed by Tom Tykwer Run Lola Run from an original screenplay written by Eric Singer, The International is being shot on location in Germany and throughout Europe.

The Women didn’t interest me as much as it did for other people, but since I went to the movies with other people who wanted to watch it, I decided to give it a shot.

The Women is a about woman’s relationship with her husband, her family, her friends and her personal life. Meg Ryan is Mary Haines, the wife of a Wall Street honcho who has sacrificed her career to give her husband and daughter the care they need. Annette Benning is her best friend, Sylvie Fowler, a hot-shot editor-in-chief of THE fashion magazine. The story starts when Sylvie finds out, from her manicurist, that Mary’s husband has been cheating on his wife. Together with their other friends, Edie (Debra Messing) and Alex (Jada Pinkett-Smith), they try to hide the truth from Mary. What follows is a story that will test the relationships between family, friends and their own personal lives.

This movie had nothing entertaining to offer me. Going right into the story never gave them a chance to establish and develop the characters of the movie, therefore never giving the viewers a chance to get to know them and have sympathy for them.

And I find it hard to believe that these totally different women even became friends in the first place. Meg Ryan plays a designer who was quite content letting others take the credit. Annette Benning plays a career-driven woman who doesn’t see the need for a family. Debra Messing plays a new age mom who is satisfied with building a bigger family. Jada Pinkett-Smith plays an artist who happens to be a lesbian. They may have had something in common when they met for the first time, but nothing was ever established to make sense of the fact that they are still friends.

Everything was just all over the place and never reached the destination. In fact, I don’t think it ever went on a journey. It jumped from one story to another, and it seemed like none of the stories were quite connected to the other.  It was simply a forgettable movie. Keep that in mind if you do decide to watch this movie.

Based on Washington Post columnist David Ignatius 2007 novel about a CIA operative, Roger Ferris Leonardo DiCaprio, who uncovers a lead on a major terrorist leader suspected to be operating out of Jordan. When Ferris devises a plan to infiltrate his network, he must first win the backing of cunning CIA veteran Ed Hoffman Russell Crowe and the collegial, but perhaps suspect, head of Jordanian intelligence.

Early on in IReligulousI, Bill Maher throws up a bar chart illustrating the number of people in America who are non-religious. That number is 16, more than blacks, more than Jews, more than numerous other minority groups who seem to have no problem making themselves heard and getting Congress to do their bidding. Maher wonders aloud why non-religious people are so underground...

Two friends and business partners find their lives turned upside down when strange circumstances lead to them being placed in the care of 7-year-old twins.

As Hannah Montanas popularity begins to take over her life, Miley Stewart Miley Ray Cyrus, on the urging form her father Billy Ray Cyrus taken a trip to her hometown of Crowley Corners, Tennessee to get some perspective on what matters in life the most.

A disjointed amalgamation of Kirk Cameron fireman scenes and how to go soul-winning leaflets, IFireproofI is at least sixty-five percent hard Christianity pitch, but in between all of that proselytizing, theres a below-average--but not terrible-- family drama waiting to break out. Too bad it was smothered to death by preachy asides and a pathological need to thank El Shaddai for creating all of us.

Starring: Omar Benson Miller, Michael Ealy, Derek Luke, Laz Alonso Review: Critics are raining down hard on Spike Lee's first war epic. And it's not like I don't have objections. Miracle at St. Anna is too long, lazily constructed, and crammed with too many characters and subplots for any director to develop fully outside of an HBO miniseries. But Lee isn't any director. He's an African-American maverick with a legit gripe against the white face that Hollywood puts on war. The first scene in Miracle shows us a black World War II veteran watching John Wayne on TV lording it over the D-Day invasion in The Longest Day. "We fought that war too," says the vet. Point taken. It's no surprise that Lee decided to make a film of James McBride's well-received novel about the Buffalo Soldiers, black GIs segregated from the regular Army, who served with the 92nd Infantry... Rating: 2 Stars