Released in Japan in July 2010 as Kari-gurashi no Arietti, the US version, The Secret World of Arrietty is a simple and beautifully told story of small people called Borrowers. (When I mean small, think grasshopper small.) It mainly focuses on one family who has been isolated from their kind and struggling to survive while also steering clear of the human “beans” they “borrow” from. I am not familiar with the children’s series, The Borrowers by Mary Horton, of which this film is based, and perhaps it’s my adult brain, but I found it silly to call them borrowers, when they are clearly just taking things. However, I do have the capacity to imagine myself as a child and can appreciate the fantasy.
Corruption within a police department is one thing, but in Rampart, the focus is on one character and seeing how it takes place through his eyes. Taking place in 1999, in the Rampart division of the LAPD, Oren Moverman’s film follows Officer David Brown (Woody Harrelson), a man who plays by his own rules without thought of the consequences of his actions until it’s time to cover them up. This may imply comedy, but it’s far from it. The officer uses any means “necessary” to subdue suspects, often including violence, and during one of these altercations, it’s captured on video. After it comes out, Brown’s complete lack of remorse causes his world to spiral out of control in his professional and personal life.
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island is a sequel to 2008′s Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D, and like the original is very loosely based on the titular Jules Verne novel. In fact, the catch is that in these movies Verne’s trailblazing sci-fi novels are treated as factual. But unlike the first movie this is a Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson family movie, so don’t expect to see Brendan Fraser, star of the original. Also, don’t expect it to be very good.
Ryan Reynolds as Matt Weston, a young CIA agent whose primary responsibility is to watch over a Safe House in Cape Town and make sure his guests have everything they need. After 12 months pass with no guests, Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington), a man wanted on four continents, is captured and brought in for interrogation. When the safe house is breached by heavily armed intruders, Weston escapes with Tobin and has to “protect” both Tobin and himself if he wants to live and secure a new position as a field operative.
One of the films nominated for this year’s Foreign Language Oscar race is the Polish film, In Darkness, directed by Agnieszka Holland and starring Robert Wieckiewicz, Benno Furmann, Agnieszka Grochowska, Maria Schrader and Herbert Knaup.
Based on a true story, the film follows Leopold Socha, a sewage employee and petty thief who discovers a group of Jews in his sewer attempting to escape the Nazi liquidation of the Ghetto in Lvov, Poland. Socha decides that instead of turning the Jews in for a reward, he would hide them deep within the sewer system in exchange for money. As you might imagine, what starts off as a simple business exchange of money for protection evolves into Socha growing a conscience and dedicating his life to the protection of these men, women and children for the next 14 months.
I give Perfect Sense writer Kim Fupz Aakeson and director David Mackenzie a lot of credit – they have made a film with the depressing “world is slowly coming to an end” tone like Children of Men and somehow found a way to make a romance out of it. Then again, calling the relationship between chef Michael (Ewan McGreggor) and scientist Susan (Eva Green) a romance might be a bit misleading – it begins as a desperate search for feeling in a world that is slowly losing all feeling.
In the film, humanity is slowly losing its sense perceptions because of an unknown virus. First goes smell, then taste, then hearing (and, then by default, voice), and accompanying each loss is a different emotional outburst. It’s a much more unsettling end than the less imaginative nuclear explosion, alien invasion, or giant flood in the average apocalyptic
Jay (Neil Maskell) and Shel (MyAnna Buring) are your average English family. They’re middle class, live in a nice suburban house and have a child named Sam (Harry Simpson). The only thing that might be construed as a bit odd is that Jay is a hitman, rather an unemployed hitman, who, after messing up a job in Kiev, has been sitting at home rotting for eight months with his wife getting to her boiling point because he isn’t making any effort to get another job or to fix their hot tub.
When Gal (Michael Smiley), Jay’s business partner, comes over for a dinner he offers up details on a new job that will offer a big payday. Three assassinations and the two are going home happy. After the first is completed without incident, something happens during the recon stages of the second that turns Jay’s world upside down and his newfound paranoia leads him to a dark and disturbing place.
I have nothing against whales – except that hardly any of them bothered showing up during a 9th grade whale watching trip I went on for Biology class – but it’s tough to watch a movie like Big Miracle, based on the 1988 multi-million dollar campaign to save three whales trapped under ice in northern Alaska, and not realize how the movie “expects” you to feel about what some people see as an uplifting moment in animal rights history and others see as a colossal waste of time, money, and resources.
At first glance, you might dismiss The Woman in Black as “Harry Potter and the Haunted Mansion,” and you’d be wrong. Watching TWIB is akin to taking a tour through a well-conceived fun house with expertly crafted spooks and scares around every corner. Best of all, the film successfully does what most horror movies fail to do; frighten you.
I’ve been very curious over the past few months to see what Ti West’s new film, The Innkeepers, was all about. Having heard some good thing about one of his prior films, House of the Devil, and then reading all the positive buzz about this one from the festival circuit, I started getting really excited about seeing it. I shouldn’t have built up my expectations without understanding exactly what the film was about because then I wouldn’t have been as let down as I was.
Starring Liam Neeson, Frank Grillo, Dermot Mulroney and Ben Brey, The Greytells the story of a group of oil drillers in Alaska whose plane crashes in the wilderness on their flight home. Only a handful of men survive and now, with most of them harboring some sort of injury, they must work together if they want to survive the fierce icy weather and the pack of ferocious wolves who are hunting them down.
As you may have guessed, the self-appointed leader of the survivors is Liam Neeson, known as Ottway in the film, as his job while working at the oil drilling sites was to shoot and kill any wolves who tried to attack the workers while in the field. Ottway is an interesting character because the day before the crash he was contemplating suicide since his wife left him. As the men travel through the wilderness, we see flashbacks of Ottway’s most profound memory with his wife. While it is a source of
Margaret Thatcher served as the first woman Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to her resignation in 1990. The trailer presents the story as Thatcher’s triumph in male-dominated political landscape, but in actuality, The Iron Lady, provides a view into her world as a person who put the needs of her country in front of anything else in her life.
Directed by Phyllida Lloyd (Mamma Mia), the film presents the life of Thatcher with honesty and without prejudice. The film could have easily made gender the prevalent issue, but instead puts that aside as well as her politics and focuses on how her relationships suffered.
At the very end of 2011 I lamented the fact that the Judd Apatow crew — Seth Rogan, Jason Segel, Jonah Hill, and Paul Rudd — didn’t perform well in 2011 in Apatow-style comedies, with Rudd in particular having an awful year (his only major appearance in 2011 being...
Raising Renee gives an incredibly honest and intimate portrait of two sisters vying for their own independence whether they know it or not. Award-winning husband and wife team Steven Ascher and Jeanne Jordan spent six years following artist/teacher Beverly McIver coping with her new responsibilities as caretaker of her...
I have come to the conclusion that Asia loves historical epics as much as Hollywood loves superhero films…and that makes me very happy. They get churned out like butter and the latest one that I had the chance to view was Kim Han-Min’s Korean bow and arrow epic, War...
Released in Japan in July 2010 as Kari-gurashi no Arietti, the US version, The Secret World of Arrietty is a simple and beautifully told story of small people called Borrowers. (When I mean small, think grasshopper small.) It mainly focuses on one family who has been isolated from their...
The screening notes to Thin Ice describe the film as “blending dark comedy and delirious Midwestern noir” which to me perfectly describes another film, Fargo, which Thin Ice seems to really want to homage. Thin Ice isn’t Fargo by any stretch of the imagination – it’s less dark and...
When you hear the name Jet Li the first thing that probably comes to mind is that he’s Asian. I’m just kidding. The first thing you probably think of is his amazing martial arts abilities but today, on Valentine’s Day, you’ll be able to experience Jet Li in a...
I went into watching What’s Your Number? starring Anna Faris (House Bunny) and Chris Evans (Captain America: The First Avenger) with the preconceived notion that the comedy would be cheap and the story would be predictable. Well, I was only half right and I’m wondering how come the rest...
Corruption within a police department is one thing, but in Rampart, the focus is on one character and seeing how it takes place through his eyes. Taking place in 1999, in the Rampart division of the LAPD, Oren Moverman’s film follows Officer David Brown (Woody Harrelson), a man who...
Ryan Reynolds as Matt Weston, a young CIA agent whose primary responsibility is to watch over a Safe House in Cape Town and make sure his guests have everything they need. After 12 months pass with no guests, Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington), a man wanted on four continents, is...
