*** WARNING *** THIS PAGE MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS              Films Seen in 2004

Upside of Anger, The

Small Upside to Anger

The Upside of Anger was a movie that I knew I wanted to see from the minute I saw the first trailer.  I mean, come on, how could a guy not want to see a movie with Joan Allen, Alicia Witt, Keri Russell, Erika Christensen, and Evan Rachel Wood together.  The cast also included an actor that gets allot of flack, but makes mostly good movies, Kevin Costner.  The only thing that I knew about the actual plot was that the lead, placed by Allen is left by her husband and goes through a bit of a breakdown when a local friend, Costner, starts becoming more and friendlier to her and her daughters.

The Upside of Anger is the about how a woman living a quiet, but nice life nearly looses her sanity when her husband takes off with his young secretary.  The woman, Terry Wolfmeyer(Allen), is a stay at home mother who is normally all smiles and flowers until one day her husband doesn’t come home from work.  She immediately knows why and falls into a deep depression.  She begins spending all day drinking, smoking, and sleeping.  She eventually gets around to coming to the kitchen table and telling her daughters; Hadley(Witt), Emily(Russell), Andy(Christensen), and Lavender “Popeye”(Wood) that their father has left them to live with a maid in a foreign country.

They take it fairly well and try to continue with their lives of school, dance, dating, and cooking.  However, a variety of emotions are creeping under the surface. 

A few days after the departure, a somewhat friend of the family and burnt out baseball player/radio show host, Dennie Davies(Costner) stops by to continue a conversation with the family about selling the lots behind their house.  However, when he arrives, he finds out that the man of the house has taken off and convinces Terry to take on a drinking buddy. 

The two begin to spend more and more time together drinking as Denny has nothing to do besides his show and Terry has little to do besides drink.  Denny is a fairly free thinking man and one night, after being invited to dinner by the girls brings Terry a drink while she is in the shower.  He sits on the toilet and waits as Terry exits the shower and to her shock he is there watching her.  She tells him to leave, but the drink that he entices her with is too much for her to press the issue.

The girls continue to grow fonder of Denny when he takes time to talk to Popeye and even manages to get Andy a job at the radio station where he works.  Emily is continuing her dance training and Hadley is off at college.  However things are too good for this now somewhat dysfunctional family to handle and you know that it is only a matter of time before things begin to fall apart.

Andy is taken under the wing of an older man at the radio station who is notorious for dating young girls and before anyone knows it they are a couple and are caught together in Andy’s bed.

Popeye falls for a boy who is obsessed with bungee jumping, although he is too scared to do it himself.  She tries multiple times to kiss him, but he pulls away each time.  He eventually tells her that he is gay.  She offers him the chance to check and make sure by having sex with her, but declines stating that he is gay and he’s ok with it.  Later, the boy straps up to a tree in the girl’s yard and bungees off of the limb and eventually through a window of the house.

Meanwhile, Emily is dancing more than ever and is being constantly harassed by her mother that she is too thin and should eat more.  Little could they know that the reason for her diet was that she had a stomach condition caused by nerves.  This became obvious when she was rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night.

Finally, we have Hadley.  Her situation was not bad for herself, but more so for her mother.  This is because after her graduation from college she states that she has an accouchement to make.  Jokingly, Popeye blurts out that Hadley is probably pregnant and getting married.  As it turns out she is correct.  Hadley had picked about the worst possible time to tell her mother this.  She was still emotionally unsound and with the stress of the graduation and the thoughts of the other girls she was starting to loose it again.  Unfortunately, her fiancé had also chosen that day to invite Hadley to lunch to meet his parents.

The entire family came and things were destined to go badly when before she even sat down, Terry ordered a bloody mary.  After a few drinks, she began to talk too much and began to say bad things and was eventually hushed by Hadley.

Things begin to get better, but there is a fact that nobody knows that decides to rear its ugly head as the film begins to wrap up.

The Upside of Anger was a decent film, but I was hoping for much more.  The plot itself was fairly silly and not as good as I was hoping for.  The major flaw in it came in the writing of the main character, Terry.  The character does not act consistently throughout the film and makes decisions and says things that the character built up to that point would not have. 

This was furthered by the performance of Joan Allen.  At times she was very good in her portrayal of the depressed and extremely pissed off woman.  However, at times she brings her outbursts over the top, to a point of absurdity for the character.  These were moments that appeared to be scripted specifically for the trailer, outbursts that may be funny at a glance, but that do not fit into the overall character or story.

Of the girls, the one that is probably focused on most was Andy.  Her character was probably the worst written and least active daughter in the film.  Christensen did what she could with the role, but although there were situations ripe for drama, she was held back.

This was done many times throughout the film.  On most occasions, instead of letting the daughters show some emotion, they remained laid back, I assume to make Joan Allan’s performance stand out more in the film.

The other three girls gave slightly better performances in their slightly more showy roles.  Alicia Witt’s character was the only one that had any sway over her mother, since she was in college and out of the house, allowing her to be a bit more firm with her.  However, she probably has the most going on in the film, but gets little screen to make it matter.

Keri Russell gave a solid performance as Emily, the dancer who was believable in her portrayal and understated in her portrayal of her illness.  Kudos to Russell, it was a small role but she did better with it than I expected.

Finally we have one of the strangest conflicting name characters that I have seen in a while, Lavender “Popeye.”  It actually works in this film with the character, though.  You have the role played by Even Rachel Wood who is a beautiful young woman with soft features, lending themselves to the Lavender name.  Yet, at times, she was very serious firm, going more towards the Popeye name.  It is silly no matter how you look at it. However, despite the name, I enjoyed her performance.  Sometimes you can have two people do the exact same thing in a role, but one just seems to stick it completely, while the other reads the lines.  This is how I looked at her performance in the film.  There wasn’t much to work with, but when she was on the screen, she pulled me in; maybe it’s in the eyes… I don’t know.

Finally, we have Kevin Costner as Dennie.  Costner seemed to play the role well, but the character just didn’t work for me.  The guy had no redeeming qualities, except that he had a good heart.  He drank, was a slouch, had no ambition, smoked pot, went after a woman hours after she was left by her husband, and is perfectly content with his life.  I didn’t care for the way the story had this character just come out of the blue and hit off a relationship with the depressed woman that continued to work.

The biggest problem with the film, though, was the ending.  The hit and miss writing and the way the main character was played had me wary, but still happily enjoying myself until the big finish.  I won’t ruin it for the two people that may read this and not seen the film yet, but want to, so suffice to say every character in the film is affected by what happens, yet nobody seems to react.

Everyone treats it as if nothing happened.  So, instead of pissing off the audience with lack of reaction, why not just cut the scene a couple of others pertaining to it from the film and give a bit more screen time to Wood, Russell, Witt, or Christensen.  They deserved it.

Over all I did enjoy the film a bit, which was difficult with the disappointment that I felt with it around every corner.  However, the performances, especially of the daughters, were good enough to keep me going with it and keep me interested.  I wish they would have tweaked a few things such as Terry’s character, Dennie’s character, the over the top antics of Terry, the ending and attached scenes, and given the younger girls more time to shine, but I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy the film.  If nothing else, take a couple hours out to see a few young women that are on their way up in Hollywood.  I give The Upside of Anger a 6.

The Interpreter

Really good movie marred by blatant inaccuracies.

Going in, I knew very little about this movie.  I knew that it stared Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn and also included in the cast was a little known, but good actress named Catherine Keener.  I knew the plot had something to do with Nicole Kidman’s character working as an interpreter at the U.N. and something happening where she overhears two people threatening to kill a foreign political figure at the U.N.  Beside this I was coming in clean and didn’t realize how much would be involved in this film.  I applaud the company for not giving everything away in the trailers and actually letting the audience figure out some things for themselves.

The story begins with three men driving along an African dirt road.  They pull up to an abandoned stadium where the driver and a man appearing to be a reporter step out and approach.  They are met by three children playing soccer with a makeshift ball who tell them where they can find the bodies of massacred young men.  The two men are led to a room under the stadium where they find piles of dead bodies.  The children then warn them of an incoming car and they head back up to the field where they are met by gunfire.  It is the children, they open fire on the two men and quickly both are dead.

Meanwhile, back at the car is a third man.  He was not supposed to come, so he had to wait in the car while the others went inside.  The man is a photographer who is documenting the struggles and atrocities that lay before him in the country.  When he hears the gunshots, he quickly jumps out of the vehicle and hides in the tall grass.  He is only there for a moment when he sees a car arriving.  Multiple nicely dressed men step out of the vehicle and go inside the stadium.

Halfway across the world we meet Silvia Broome(Nicole Kidman) who is an interpreter for the United States at the United Nations.  She can translate multiple languages and is liked by her coworkers.  This day at work, there is a malfunctioning metal detector, so everyone is evacuated from the building as they do a sweep to make sure that nothing made it in during the lax security.  They go through the building and check every room and run dogs throughout, but find nothing.

That night, Silvia had to go back to the building to retrieve her flute that she needed for her lesson.  She went up to the interpreter booth and went to grab her bag when she heard a voice.  Apparently the microphones at the podiums are left on and she could hear two men talking in a language that only a few people in the U.S. could understand and they were being fairly cryptic.  At this point, the light that she had turned on finally sparks to life, revealing her in the booth.  She quickly turns it off and hides behind a sound tower, but it is too late, she has been spotted. 

The men hastily exit the room before she can see them and she is out the door speedily as well.  She runs out of the building and all the way back to her apartment.  She tries to contact her friend Philippe via e-mail, but does not receive a response back.

The next day, she is asked into a side room to interpret the conversation between the United States and the country she is from.  She hears rhetoric similar to that used by the two men in the room the night before and decides that it is time to contact the authorities.  She tells the security officers at the U.N. what she heard and they immediately contact the Secret Service department that handles security for foreign dignitaries.

The officers that are assigned to the case are Tobin Keller(Sean Penn) and Dot Woods(Catherine Keener).  Tobin approaches Silvia in the lobby and begins to ask her difficult questions about her past and her future including involvements with her former country.  She is defensive and surprised by the aiming of the questions and quickly finds out that the agents are not there to protect her, but rather to protect the man whose life may be in danger.  She also quickly finds out that she is the lead suspect, even though she was the one to report the activity.

At this point, Silvia becomes a bit upset and she leaves.  Later, she is called in to do a polygraph test, which comes back inconclusive.  The tester stated that she was stressed, which caused all answers to show up the same. 

Later, she is in her apartment and she decides to practice her flute.  After this, the phone rings and she answers it, only to hear static.  As she is trying to find out what is going on, she notices that a mask is missing off of her wall and her eyes scan past the window where there is a man in the mask with his finger up to the lips, telling her to be quiet.

She screams and a neighbor calls the police.  The man escapes to the roof and cannot be found.  The same agents that Silvia had met before arrive on the scene to check on the situation and find a hair in the discarded mask.  Tobin decides to take Silvia out for a drink and is able to get a bit more information from her about her pas then he was before. 

As the movie continues, we find out who the man in the mask is and that he is low on the rung of players in this film.  We find out what happened to her brother, why Tobin is so messed up himself, and what happens to the foreign dignitary.

The Interpreter had a good bit of potential despite the acting by the two leads.  It is difficult to say this because I love Nicole Kidman in many, many ways, but after the run of movies that she had, she has done a couple of  stinkers.  At least this is a step back in the right direction, but it is still not up to the standards that she has set for herself.  Penn, on the other hand, I have never really liked, even though during this film I did hope that at some point he would go back to I am Sam mode and start shouting about his “Da-Ter.”  What can I say, I’m a simple man.  However, he played the role fairly well, but I did not agree with the choice for the way it was played.  One moment he would be on the ball, in charge of everything, coordinating multiple units of the federal government to stop a terrorist and the other he would be completely apathetic about everything.  The second part was where I had problems.  He seemed completely detached from everything that was going on.  Most of the time, less is more in acting, but not in this performance.

The one person that did shine through a bit was Catherine Keener as Dot Woods.  She seemed a little off with a bit of her one-liners, but it seemed to fit her character and make her more real.  There was a whole back story that she alludes to with various looks and motions that she lets the view think about when she is around Tobin.

The story itself was actually pretty good, but killed itself in a few areas.  I liked the strange beginning and how they leave you guessing the true motives of many of the characters throughout the film.  You never really know Silvia’s true intentions, even though you spend most of the movie with her. 

The things that killed the film for me were small things that just should not have happened in this film.  One was SS Agent driving Silvia to the bus stop and leaving her to board.  They try to act like he didn’t know it would happen, but it was very obvious.  Another thing that shouldn’t have happened was the actual kiss between the two leads, there is no way this would have happened between the two characters in my opinion.  Look, and don’t touch… maybe.  Touch, but eventually pull away… possibly.  Kiss while she is trying to be killed and he is still in morning over his wife… not the way it was done here.  It just screamed out that it was wrong.

These are small issues compared to the last and worst problem with the film.  After the large and very illegal action that is taken by Silvia in the conclusion of the film, she is only told that she must leave the country.  There are no charges brought up against her and they just let her leave the country.  Not only this, but Tobin still liked her.  She was going against everything that he believed in and he still wanted to be with her.  This just ruined the ending for me.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie.  The plot was pretty good besides the above mentioned points and the acting was above average, although not great.  It was interesting if nothing else.  So, I give The Interpreter, a film that could have been better, a 7.

Ice Princess

Ice Princess a bit cold at time, but thaws the heart at others

Staring: Michelle Trachtenberg, Joan Cusack, Kim Cattrall, Hayden Panetteire, Trevor Blumas, Kirsten Olson, Connie Ray, Juliana Cannarozzo, Jocelyn Lai, Michelle Kwan, Brian Boitano, Colleen Collins

Well, this week, I had planned to watch both of the new movies on opening day until I decided to get into hard core March Madness mode and watch all of the games on TV.  I was looking forward to seeing The Ring Two, but the previews made me a bit skeptical.  The other movie to come out was Ice Princess.  I knew little about it up until a few days before I watched it.  I knew that it stared Michelle Trachtenberg of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame, but little else.  I was able to find out that from reviews that the film also had a few other names in it, but was supposed to be very preachy and over the top and times, mixed in with lots of overly wholesome moments.

Ice Princess is the story of how Casey Carlyle(Michelle Trachtenberg) goes from science geek to Queen of the Ice.  Casey, is a talented young woman in her senior year of high school.  She makes very good grades, especially in physics, which she seems to have a knack and love for.  Her teacher tells her about a scholarship that she can apply for concerning physics, but she must come up with a personal project to submit with the rest of the material.

She is watching figure skating that night with her best friend when she begins to marvel at the precision of the skaters.  She realizes that their must be a formula for the best way to do the moves and realizes that she has found her topic.  She also loves to skate, taking time when she can to carve up the frozen pond at her house when she can. 

She begins to take initial readings and comes up with some formulas concerning the skating.  However, in order to get the raw data she needs, she has to see it in action and record it.  So, she takes her digital camcorder down to the local ice skating rink and begins to film the girls skating.  She is then attacked by a woman who states that she is the coach of the girls and believes that Casey is spying on them to find out how good they are and what routines they will be using.  She denies these claims and tells her the truth about her project.  After seeing her notebook full of high level physics formulas, she agrees to let her watch as long as she gets permission from the parents and does not interfere.  So, she gets a letter of reference from her teacher and referrals from people that she has babysat for.  The parents eventually relent with a few comments, such as not talking to their daughters.

So, she begins to film the skaters and after a bit begins to walk out on the ice to get closer shots.  She is quickly scorned for wearing normal shoes on the ice and comes back the next day with skates.  She moves around, capturing the different skater’s moves and a bit more when she sees the coach arguing with her daughter.

She shows the project to her friend, who tells her that it is good, but dry.  She says that there needs to be more of Casey in it.  So, she decides to try to apply her theories on herself.  She asks the coach about signing up for classes and the coach tells her that the offer classes for lower levels but there is a cost.  So, Casey begins selling snacks rink side to earn the money.  The girls are all trying to get good enough to pass a test from three judges in order to move to the next level.  They will do this in a competition, which Casey is not interested in.

As she continues to skate, though, she changes her mind and asks the coach if she can perform in the recital.  The coach agrees and after Casey tells her that she has nothing to wear, she invites the girl over the next day to see if she has anything that will fit her.  She ends up finding an old red outfit with lots of sequins on it and gives it to Casey to use.  That day, Casey has a Harvard get together that she must attend and therefore is late to the recital, but is able to get there in time to perform.

So, they have the recital with Casey as the base of most of the movements.  She also finishes well with a few jumps.  All of the girls are excited afterwards, as most of them passed the test.  They ask the older girl how she did and she tells them that she made juniors.  The girls begin to gush, telling her that the girls that she had been recording are on a junior level.  Casey becomes very excited and asks the coach if she can train with her.  She tells Casey that she cannot.  The price of a coach, conditioning, new skates, ice time and the like are too much for her to afford.

However, she does not take no for an answer. She continues to use her old skates and conditions herself.  She is able to come up with the extra cash for ice time by using her recorded data on the girls that she had been filming to help them fix problems with their routines. 

She trains up and is ready to compete at the local competition.  She skates well in the short program, but falls once.  At one point, you can tell that her old worn out skates are about to give out, so the coach decides to buy her a pair of skates and blade which are very expensive.  Casey doesn’t know what to say and graciously accepts them.  She goes out to do her long program and misses her first jump, something is wrong.  She finishes up shakily and ends up placing fifth.  When she goes back to the locker room, the rebel, punk skater asks her if she is wearing new skates and Casey tells her of her coach’s generosity.  The girl stares at her and tells her that you cannot perform on new skates; they are too tight and take at least ten days to work in.  Casey removes her skates to find large sores on her feat where they have rubbed against the new material.  Armed with her new knowledge, she confronts her coach, knowing that if she had not sabotaged her, then she would have probably made it to the next round over her daughter.  Only the top four go on to Regionals, so her dream stops here.   In her grief, Casey accuses all three; the mother, daughter, and son (who she has begun a friendship with) of the sabotage and calls her mother to come pick her up.  Her mother was unaware of the skating, and therefore is shocked by the call, but shows up and berates the coach as well.   

Later, at school, Casey sees the daughter who is trying to talk with her, but she will not listen.  The coach then shows up to berate her daughter who was supposed to be practicing half an hour earlier.  The daughter finally looses it on her mother and tells her that she is sick of skating.  She wants to go to school and maybe college and is sick of not knowing math because she has no time to study.  The coach tells her that maybe she went a bit overboard, but the daughter tells her that it is over and she wants out.

Casey hears the conversation and apologizes for berating her after the competition.  The girl says that it is ok and that she is ashamed of what her mother did.  She also tells Casey that with her dropping out, Casey is now the forth person and can compete at Regionals.  Casey doesn’t want to hear this, though and tells her that she already has a plan, she is going to Harvard.  However, when she goes to her Harvard interview, she realizes that she really wants to skate and walks out.  This devastates her mother, who cannot believe that she would just walk out.  Casey tells her mother that it is time to do what make her happy and not what makes her mother happy.

So, she goes back to the coach and asks her about the event that got her banned from competitive skating.  The coach tells her that there was an unfortunate accident where she bumped and injured a skater during warm-ups and she wasn’t even considered to be reinstated until she was 26, when she was too old.  She also tells her that she regrets it everyday.  So, Casey tells her that she wants her to coach her since she no longer has a skater to train. 

They begin training and they get ready over the next two months, while Casey barely talks to her mother.  Finally, the night of Regionals arrives and she gets ready to perform.  She has a clean opening round and ends up in fifth.  Then the time for the long program comes and she misses a jump and falls.  She gets back up and sees her mother.  This gives her all the extra energy and confidence that she needs and she begins throwing extra jumps into her routine, which raise the difficulty.  She finishes the very difficult set with only the one fall.  Her numbers begin to come in and she realizes that she has a chance for first.  She falls just short, though, but gets the silver.

The announcers, real life skaters Michelle Kwan and Brian Boitano say how good she is and to look out for her in the Olympics.  She makes back up with the son of the coach and he walks out on the ice after it is over to give her some roses.  As they leave, Casey’s mother and coach begin to argue about where they go from there and the little details as Casey remains silent between them.  She finally tells them to stop arguing as they fade out.

Ice Princess was a surprisingly decent movie.  That’s not to say that there were many problems with it including; the extremely overbearing mother, the too over-the-top coach, Casey going back to the coach, the main skater becoming friends with Casey’s friend at the drop of a hat, among many others.  However, there was a certain charm to the film.  The lead character was someone who went after what she wanted, no matter what she had to do to get it.  She also seemed a like a good person.  She is someone who was very caring, although a bit absent minded, goofy, and a babbler.

This is a big step for Trachtenberg, who showed that she has enough charisma and talent in various areas to pull of a staring role in a film.  This may be a jumping off point for her or it could merely lead to more Disney or WB roles, we shall see.

I did find that I liked the movie, though.  It was simple uplifting.  This movie was nothing that will change the world, but enough to change a mood.  I give Ice Princess a well earned 7.

Ring Two

Ring Too Little Too Late

I really enjoyed the first film; it was suspenseful and a bit scary for a while.  I saw it for a second time right before it left theaters and I liked it even more.  So, when I went in to see Ring Two, I was hopeful that my enjoyment would increase again.  However, after seeing a few trailers and knowing how the first movie ended, I didn’t really know how they would make a good movie to continue the series with the same people.  However, with a bankable star in Naomi Watts, this was not really an option.  Plus the little kid was fairly creepy and everybody likes a creepy kid.

Ring Two starts out with a young woman sitting on a couch.  She is waiting for a guy who comes in carrying a tape.  He asks her if she’s ever seen anything so scary that she had to show someone else.  She seems a bit confused by this question and he tells her that what he is talking about is a movie.  He tells her to watch the movie and leaves the room.  She grabs the VHS tape and puts it in the VCR and hits play.  She then walks back to the couch and sits down.  Meanwhile, the boy is in his kitchen staring at the clock.  There are only two minutes left and we know instantly that his week and almost run out.  We then see a hand print on his arm and he yells at the girl to watch the tape.  He then hears the sounds of the tape and takes a deep breath.  Then the phone rings.  He expects it to be the voice, but instead it is his friend.  He tells him that he has made it since the week has come and gone.  The boy agrees, then sees brown water seeping under the door into the kitchen.  He drops the phone and opens the door.  He sees the image on the television and notices the damp carpet.  He runs to the girl and asks her what she has done.  When he turns her around, he notices that she has her hands over her eyes.  She had put on the tape, but couldn’t watch it.  However, she does see the young woman coming towards the camera and through the screen for the boy.

We also have the family from the first film, Rachel(Naomi Watts) and Aidan Keller(David Dorfman) who are getting settled in their new home in a new town.  Aidan is still struggling with what they did to get the little girl away from them and is worried about what might happen.  Rachel tries to convince him that they did what anyone would have done and that they are past it now. 

Rachel has taken a position at the local paper and is having troubles fitting in with the smaller close nit community.  However, when she hears about a possible homicide things change.  She finds out that a boy was found with a horribly disfigured face and a girl was found in the basement in shock.  So, she gets the address and drives to the scene of the crime where they are just removing the body of the boy.  She sneaks into the ambulance and opens the body bag to see the misshapen face of the boy.  She realizes immediately what caused it and begins to close the bag.  However, she catches the zipper on some hair and must unzip a bit.  When she does, Samara (the young girl who terrorized them in the first film) jumps out of the bag and grabs her arm.  Rachel throws her back in the bag and zips it up and things go back to normal.  The ambulance cranks up and she jumps out.

She then makes her way down to the police department where she tries to give them a heads up about the situation, but after telling them that she is a reporter they won’t talk to her.  So, when she sees the shocked girl alone, she sneaks over to her and questions her about the tape.  She is able to get enough information from her to confirm her suspicions and quickly makes her way back to the scene of the crime.  Once there, she sneaks into the house and takes the tape out of the VCR.  She then drives out to a secluded area and burns it in a large barrel.

As the tape burns, Aidan is woken by an odd sound in the living room.  He walks in and notices that the TV is on, but there is only noise.  So, he grabs the remote and tries to turn it off, but it will not.  So, he approaches the TV and he is still unable to turn it off.  So, he begins to get worried and then the end scene from the tape begins to play.  The girl grabs him from the television and the next thing he knows he is being awoken by Rachel.  He is very wet and shaking when he is awoken.  He also is very cold; however, he plays it off and tells her that he is fine.  He goes to school and afterwards Rachel picks him up.  That weekend, they go to a local arts and crafts fair in town when Aidan becomes suspicious.  He goes into the bathroom and tries to turn on the water, but nothing will come out.  He then looks at the mirror and sees Samara on the other side of the room, but when he turns around she is gone.  He turns back to the mirror and she is still nowhere to be seen, but he begins taking pictures of himself in the mirror.

Rachel is running around frantically trying to find him and finally hears the camera going off in the bathroom and pulls him out.  They get in the car and she tries to pry some information out of him when he yells out.  There is a large buck in the road that she swerves to miss.  Aidan tells her not to stop, but she keeps talking to him until the car is rocked as a deer smashes it from each side.  More and more deer come out of the wood and surround the car, but they are eventually able to steer through them and get away.  Back at home, Rachel finally realizes how cold Aidan is and we also see hand prints on his back.  She takes his temperature and it is five degrees lower than it should be.  She looks it up and he should be hypothermic.  She goes into the room and sees Samara scratching the wall.  She runs to the bed to grab Aidan, but he is not there, she turns around and he is scratching the wall.  She grabs him, but the scratching begins to burn and makes tree shapes into the wall and ceiling.  The two run out of the house and she brings him to the paper. 

There, she talks a co-worker into taking them in as their power went out before they left.  He agrees and after they arrive, they run Aidan a warm bath to try to raise his temperature.  He is very hesitant about getting in the bath, but eventually does.  Rachel has to leave for a minute to get some clothes and personal items so that they can run again and the co-worker gets distracted by a phone call.  The bathroom door closes and water begins to seep out from underneath.  The man tries to open the door, but it won’t budge.  Then Rachel shows up and the door opens for her.  She comes in to see water droplets seemingly floating in air all around her.  There is also water floating on the ceiling.  However, there is no water in the tub; it is all flowing to the ceiling.  When Rachel looks in, she’s her son with Samara holding onto him.  She rips Aidan away and the water comes crashing down.  She then looks down in the water to see only Samara and tries to drown her.  At this point, the man shows up and tells her to stop.  She looks back and it is her son.  She pulls him out of the water and apologizes to him. 

At this point, the man demands that they go to the hospital and Rachel agrees.  They see that Aidan is very cold and put him in a bed while trying to warm his body temperature and he falls asleep.  At this time, a psychiatrist comes in and tells Rachel that she needs to ask her some questions.  She begins throwing veiled accusations at her and Rachel tells her to leave, however, she is the one who has to leave after the psychiatrist pushes the emergency button, which calls multiple staff members with grim faces who force Rachel to leave until after they have everything figured out.

So, she takes advantage of the free time to try to track down Samara’s true mother, who she believes is the key to finding out how to stop Samara.  She goes to the old house of the adopted parents where she finds out that they are trying to sell it.  The responses to her questions by the sales agent are shockingly false to what is commonly known at this point.  She tries to act like a potential buyer and is let into the basement where the items that were left behind by the previous residents are kept.  There she finds a few hundred antlers, explaining a bit why they were attacked and also finds a book of some sort of witchcraft and a shirt from a shelter.  So, she follows her only lead to the shelter where they freely talk about the situation.  The mother came to the nuns about eight months pregnant claiming that the child had no father.  She stated that something from the waters of the other world had impregnated her.  She seemed stable enough, though, so they didn’t do anything against her until she tried to drown her baby.

The nuns stopped her and sent her to a mental institution.  So, Rachel goes there and it let in by a man that states that every couple of years a mother will come for help with her child and that the woman will help them.  So, Rachel gets in to see her and she tells Rachel to listen to her baby who will tell her to kill him.  She says that she cannot and the woman says that it is the only way.  The man comes back in and tells Rachel that she has to leave and she starts back toward her co-worker’s house.

Meanwhile, Aidan wakes up, but it is obvious that he is no longer Aidan, but Samara in Aidan’s body.  After being bugged by the nurse who will not allow him/her to see Rachel, he/she has the woman kill herself by injecting air into her neck.  He/she then walks out of the hospital and makes his/her way towards the co-worker’s house.  He/she arrives and watches cartoons.  Soon, the man shows up and tells Aidan that he can’t just leave the hospital when he wants to, but Aidan says that he/she is fine.  He/she continues watching television while the man picks up Aidan’s camera.  Rachel told him about the pictures he took in the mirror where you can see Samara getting closer and closer until she seems to become one with him.  So, the man starts to take a picture of Aidan who tells him not to.  The man asks him to tell him what is going on and he/she agrees as long as he doesn’t take the picture.  The man agrees but sets the timer on it and points it at Aidan anyway.  He sits across from Aidan and as the flash hits, the screen cuts.

Soon, Rachel arrives and finds Aidan surprisingly sitting on the couch.  She is a bit worried and when he begins calling her mommy instead of Rachel, she knows that something is going on.  She says that she’s going out to the car and finds her co-worker dead in his truck with the disfigured face.  She goes back inside and tells Aidan that she is going to make him a sandwich after he/she tells her that he/she never sleeps.  She has found out that this is the only time that she can communicate with him. 

So, she slips sleeping pills in his sandwich and he/she is soon asleep.  Rachel then falls asleep herself and is laying on a bed with Aidan in her sleep.  He tells her that he is always sleeping now that Samara has taken over his body and that she must submerge him in water; show Samara that she will kill her in order to get her to leave.  At this point, Rachel realizes that Samara actually doesn’t want Aidan, she wants a mother.  You can tell by the fact that she has only killed annoying people and liars since she has take over Aidan’s body. 

So, Rachel wakes up and grabs the still unconscious Aidan and puts him/her in the tub.  She begins to drown him and before long we can see the specter of Samara come out of the tub and disappear.  She then pulls Aidan out of the water and gets him to start breathing again.  They walk out of the bathroom and go into the living room where the TV turns on and Samara again comes out of the well.  She walks towards the television and Rachel decides to do battle for her child.  So, as Samara’s hands come out of the television, she clasps them with her own.  Samara pulls her into the television where she comes up in the bottom of the well.  She notices that the rock is off and realizes to add to the torment that the well is always open, but Samara couldn’t get out.  She then begins to climb up the stones towards the top.  Then Samara rises out of the water and begins chasing her up the rocks.  As Rachel reaches the top, Samara grabs onto her leg and Rachel kicks her off.  So, Rachel finally gets out of the well and Samara climbs back up and nearly gets to the top when Rachel closes the top of the well. 

She then begins to hear Aidan’s call and walks towards it.  She notices that she had made her way to the cliff where Samara’s adopted mother had killed herself.  She hears Aidan’s voice coming from the rocks below and sees static as if from a TV.  She then flings herself over the edge and as she hits the water she wakes up on the living room floor.  Everything is well… or is it?  As the camera pans out of the house we faintly see static on the television screen and barely hear the sound of the static. 

Well, this movie was decent, but nothing special.  The plot was all sorts of silly, but it had enough interesting little turns to keep me interested.  However, one thing that I really couldn’t understand was when Rachel finds out that this evil creature that has been terrorizing them wants to play nice for a bit she does everything that she can to piss her off again.  Another odd thing that I seemed to notice in the film, which I’m not sure was done on purpose was with Aidan.  When he was himself he had very thin pale lips, but when he was possessed by Samara his lips were big, plump, a much darker red, and shiny almost as if he was wearing makeup.  Now, this is nothing odd in an actor, but I was trying to figure out if this was a subtle clue for the audience to know when he was being possessed and when he wasn’t.  It was a bit odd with the girl being hideous most of the time and no mention of any cosmetics, but it was something that just struck me as odd.

Meanwhile, the scares weren’t nearly as good this time, with us knowing what was going to happen, but the first film really wasn’t about scares as much as suspense and that notion went right out the window this time when the best suspense in the whole movie only takes up the first five minutes.

One thing that pissed me off, which was not the fault of the film was the audience with which I saw it.  The theater was fairly small, but about a third full.  There were a group of about eight kids that came in at the end of the previews cutting up and talking very loud on purpose to piss people off and they came in and out of the theater a few times during the movie.  Surprisingly, though, they were not the people that pissed me off the most.  This went to a guy sitting about four seats to my right next to his girlfriend.  Every time there was a jump out scare, even if it was telegraphed from Pluto so everyone and their cat knew that it was coming, he would jump up in his chair and scream like a girl and then whimper a bit.  This led me to two trains of thought.  One, he was really a little girl and therefore he should not see this movie, especially in a theater with others.  The other is that he was just being annoying and we should have all started taking pot shots at him.  Instead, everyone laughed the first time, even though it cut the tension of the scene, which really needed the tension to work.  The laughs did decrease as the movie went on and this continued, but idiots still laughed up until the last time he did it.

I can’t hold this against the film, though, so I have to give it a bit of credit.  It wasn’t bad, the stuff with the deer started out cool, but the explanation made no sense.  The water effect in the bathroom was very good.  I wish that since they were spending time on Samara possessing Aidan that they would have dug into that a bit more instead of running in every other direction.

Alas, I enjoyed the film a bit, but not even as much as my other film of the night, Ice Princess.  So, I will give them equal scores, but know that this film was really a disappointment and lost in the head to head to a Disney movie for little girls.  I give The Ring Two a 7.

Meet the Fockers

Fairly Funny Fockers

Going into the film I wasn’t sure what to expect from the film.  I had enjoyed the first film and the second appeared to be more of the same, however, the previews made me wonder whether or not the sequel could live up to its predecessor.  The movie would add a few new characters, Gaylord Focker’s(Ben Stiller) parents Bernie(Dustin Hoffman) and Roz(Barbra Streisand) and Little Jack(Spencer and Bradley Pickren).  Whether or not they could meld these new additions in a comical way would tell how well the movie would do.  However, no matter how bad this movie is, it is destined to make 150-200 million in theaters, due to its opening date, cast, and original movie.

 Meet the Fockers begins with Gaylord giving birth to a baby, his first at the hospital where he works.  This quickly segues to his home where he attempts to contact his parent about some issues he would like to discuss concerning his trip with the Byrnes to meet them to hash out some pre-wedding ideas.  The way to the Byrnes residence is straight out of a commercial, everything possible goes well and they arrive without incident, however, as soon as they arrive things begin to quickly go downhill. 

 After declining the rental insurance which he claims is a scam, Gaylord helps Jack(Robert De Niro) test the bulletproof glass on his motor home by throwing a brick at it, which bounces off and right into the windshield of his rental car.  Things get even worse along the way, as Gaylord realizes that Jack will take this opportunity to scrutinize Gaylord’s parents to see if Gaylord is worthy of marrying his daughter.

 Along the way, Gaylord finds out many troubling things about his new environment.  Jack is having back trouble, he is also having problems with his marriage, and the Byrnes are sitting their grandson for a while, which brings in tons of problems on its own.  Jack has become singularly focused on the child, is breast feeding him out of a fake breast that he wears, is teaching the child to separate by letting him cry all the time, and refuses to let anyone speak to it as a child, they must instead speak to him normally and the child who cannot yet speak will reply in the sign language that Jack has taught him.

 So, they finally arrive at the Focker residence, where Roz is finishing a sex therapy class for seniors and Bernie is practicing a dancing martial art of some sort.  The first impression is not a good one, and is not helped when the Focker family dog chases the Byrnes cat and is eventually flushed down a commode.  Things continue to get worse when Jack finds out that they do not put much emphasis into winning and instead focus on love and passion.

 When things don’t seem to be able to get worse, Jack meets a young man that he believes to be Gaylord’s bastard child and begins a process of DNA testing to check for certain.  He also injects Gaylord with Sodium Pentothal which forces him to go crazy at the engagement party and reveal many things, some of which are not real.

 At this point, things hit rock bottom, when Gaylord reveals that his fiancé, Pam(Teri Polo) is pregnant.  This would not be so bad, but Jack is a very strict traditionalist who does not believe in premarital sex.  Gaylord is also caught while watching the baby with Scarface playing and the child’s hands stuck to a bottle of bourbon.

 Will it ever be possible for the two families to come together?  Will the tension break the young couple apart?  Why does the baby love breasts so much?

 Well, I went into this movie, with a so-so mindset as to whether or not this film would be any good.  I enjoyed the original and must say I enjoyed this film as well.  However, there were many funny jokes and sight gags in the film, but it definitely lagged at times.   There were many jokes that fell flat and the story itself was not as good as it could have been due to the extreme plot and characters.

 Two of the women in this film gave fairly good performances, but did not get enough screen time to really flesh out their characters.  Teri Polo and Blythe Danner(Dina Byrnes) should have gotten more of the screen time that instead went into Gaylord’s relationship with his father Bernie and his father-in-law Jack.  De Niro’s character Jack is good in smaller doses, but when you try to let him carry another movie of similar design, it doesn’t have the effect that it needed.

 What it boils down to is that this would be a good film to go too if you just need a couple of good laughs and don’t want to have to worry about concentrating on a plot.  Don’t get me wrong, though, I don’t tend to laugh an awful lot in the theater and this film got a few genuine laughs out of me, especially the humor with the child.  However, it is not a solid movie or great by any stretch of the imagination and repeated too many jokes.  With the hit and miss comedy, combined with what I feel to be too strong an emphasis on singular characters, I give Meet the Fockers a 7.

National Treasure

National Treasure worth a ton

This was a movie that it took me a while to see, but one that I very much wanted to see.  After missing out on it the first few weeks at the box office, I began to hear very good things about this movie from all sorts of people.  This was one of those movies that very few didn’t like and that people that usually don’t on movies all agree on.  This made me very excited.  However, it was a Nicolas Cage movie in which he seemed to be trying to go back a bit to his action roots from the upper class comedy and drama that he had been doing more of recently.  Hearing the good reviews and seeing the large box office, I decided to check this one out for myself.

 National Treasure is the story of a man that is trying to live out the dreams of his ancestors.  Ben Gates(Nicolas Cage) is trying to do what his family has attempted for many generations; to find the treasure of the masons.  He has worked long and hard to track down clues that may lead him to this “El Dorado.”  On one such trip, he leads his group to a ship, housed in ice for many years.  As they begin to explore, things begin to change in the party’s dynamic.  A few of the men begin to become agitated by the lack of discovering anything except for gunpowder.

 Then Ben makes a discovery.  The skeleton of the once captain of the ship is holding a small barrel.  When Ben opens it, he finds a very ornate pipe with raised letters on the handle.  He cuts himself to apply to the raised letters and rolls it on some parchment.  He has discovered another clue and begins to try to uncover its significance.  During this puzzle solving, he realizes that the next clue will be on the back of the Declaration of Independence.  At this point, his partner and financer, Ian Howe(Sean Bean) declares that they must steal it.  Ben, a lover of history and its artifacts, declares that this should not be done.  At this point, the partners are at a standoff, but Ian holds all the cards. 

 Ian attempts to kill Ben and his sidekick Riley(Justin Bartha), but Ben is too quick for him and escapes with his friend.  They make their way to Washington D.C. where they attempt to warn the government about the upcoming theft of the Declaration of Independence, but they are laughed out of every meeting they get.  Therefore, they decide to choose one last avenue.  Ben visits Abagail Chase(Diane Kruger) who is a history fanatic and one of the higher ranking staff at the archives where the Declaration of Independence is held.  However, she does not believe him; she is intrigued by him personally, though.

 After this setback, Ben decides that they must steal the Declaration of Independence first so that Ian does not get a hold of it. They have a fairly simple, under the radar plan of getting it, but during the course of the heist, Ian shows up blowing holes in things.  Eventually Ben is able to obtain the document and makes his way out of the building.  However, Abagail spies his odd exit and follows him outside.  After giving her a fake copy, she begins back to the Archives, until his is abducted by Ian.  She fights with him as Ben chases him in a mid-speed chase.  Eventually, she is rescued, only to find out that she was captured for the decoy map.

 At this point the pheromones begin to fly between the two, and although she pretends to want to leave, she is fascinated and quickly becomes one of the small group.  The pace begins to pick up as they try to find the hidden message on the back of the Declaration of Independence.  They then must go to try to find a hidden object which will unlock even more of the puzzle.  Here they find one of the final clues which lead both sides down an old rotting staircase under a church where the treasure may actually reside.

 I must start off by saying that over the past few years Nicolas Cage has really changed my mind.  I believe him to be in the same acting category as Keanu Reeves, however, I am now seeing that there is much more talent in him than this and he had merely fallen in a small phase of his career.  Cage was not great in this film, but good, and someone that you could believe in the role. 

 This was one of the first times that I have seen Diane Kruger on the screen and I was pleased by what I saw.  She appears to have what it takes to make it big time.  My first impression is that she is gorgeous and seems comfortable in many different situations.  She also held her own against one of the best actors working today.

 Overall, this movie ended up surpassing my expectations.  Instead of being a mindless commercial popcorn flick, it was interesting and even a little thought provoking.  Don’t worry, though, you won’t use your mind too much and there is enough action to keep most people going and make them want to pay attention.

 National Treasure was a good film that I was glad I saw.  There is a little bit in it for everybody.  With the mostly good acting, plot, and action, this is one of the better post summer films so far this year.  I give National Treasure an 8.

Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Steve Zissou Sinks the Life Aquatic, Colorfully

I have not had a good history with Wes Anderson films.  Many of my friends like them; I guess that’s just the crowd that I hang out with.  When we talked about older films that we loved, one or two people would always bring up Rushmore.  When Royal Tenebaums was released a few years ago, those same friends flocked to the theater’s to find the film and spoke of how much they loved it. However, I never found the greatness in these films.  I saw them more as very independent ideas which were interesting, but not necessarily put together well or acted well and in the end not a very good movie.

However, when I saw the preview for this film, I immediately know it would be a Wes Anderson film, but something strange happened.  As I was watching the trailer, I found myself laughing.  I thought about it and for the first time I actually wanted to watch one of these films.  The plot and dialogue looked funny.  They had a bunch of crazy looking sea creatures; it looked like a bunch of fun.

So, Life Aquatic begins with a screening of Steve Zissou’s(Bill Murray) newest film in which he and his friend Esteban du Plantier(Seymour Cassel) are exploring the depths.  They are finding all sorts of crazy fish including one, which I believe was called the electric salmon.  They were in a bigger school than either diver had ever seen.  Then, tragedy struck.  Out of nowhere came a creature that no man had ever seen before.  All that is seen is a churning, frothing, sea of red.  Then Steve pops out of the water and wide-eyed exclaims that his friend was eaten by a Jaguar Shark. 

At this, the audience is more than a bit skeptical and the movie become a flop and a sort of joke.  However, they still come to the after party and even later to a post opening night party on their ship.  Onboard, Steve comes face to face with a man who may be his son, Ned Plimpton(Owen Wilson).  They talk and decide that he should come back to base camp, their own island to talk some more.  Here, they meet Jane(Cate Blanchett), who is a pregnant reporter who wants to write a cover story on Steve even though no other reporter will even interview him. 

Ned ends up hitting it off famously with Steve and Steve asks him to join the crew, therefore angering Klaus (Willem Dafoe) who is Steve’s right hand man.  Things seem to be looking up until…

Steve’s wife Eleanor(Angelica Huston) leaves him, the boat is attacked by pirates in international waters, Ned is injured, his bond stooge is taken hostage by the pirates, he is forced to steal equipment from a rival, take in a stray three legged dog, and is forced to beg for more money to rescue the stooge and finish the film.

Now I have to say, there was allot going on in this film, but the good stuff seemed to go by very fast, leaving large gaps of bad.  The screenplay was very original, but again, the movie just couldn’t seem to come together in a way to make the overall film very good.  Also, Bill Murray is not a great actor.  He gave one of his best performances in last year’s Lost in Translation, but for the most part, he’s average.  Willem Dafoe… oh, Willem, what were you doing?  I tend to enjoy Willem in almost everything that he does, but this was just a bad role.  The only two characters that I ended up carrying with me after the film were Ned and Jane.  They had a quirky little love story going that almost made the movie salvageable, but alas it wasn’t enough.

Now there were certain aspects of the movie that I enjoyed, including the created creatures.  From the (electric salmon?) to the crayola seahorse, to the sugar cane crab, to the Vietnam Man O’ Wars to the Jaguar shark, they were all very well done and put the movie in a whole new world.  However, if you are going to do something like this, do it all the way.  They showed about 5 new creatures.  This isn’t obviously going to be a franchise, so give us a bit more to work with.  Throw in the occasional new creature a bit more or don’t do it at all.

One other thing that really stuck out was the crewman who would sing popular English songs in French while playing his guitar from time to time.  This character, Pele(Seu Jorge) was an interesting one as he was a real character in the film, who just played from time to time.

Overall, the Life Aquatic was very disappointing.  After finally thinking that I was going to be able to agree with my friends and like a Wes Anderson movie, I was let down again.  With bad acting, bad pacing, poor direction, and lack of interesting plot, the Life Aquatic sunk rather quickly.  I give Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou a 6.

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events

Lemony Snicket, Unfortunate that he’s no Harry Potter

This was one of the few films that I’ve ever seen that I read the book before seeing the movie.  However, I read the book a few months ago, and therefore didn’t remember all that much about them when I saw the movie.

 No matter how much anybody might want the links between Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket to remain minimal, the franchises are too similar to look at them completely separately.  Whereas HP decided to stick with the strictly British cast, Lemony Snicket went with the most American cast including a few big names in Jim Carey, Jude Law, and Meryl Streep.

 One thing that I knew would make the task of competing with the HP franchise was the writing.  In my opinion, the HP books are better to the nth degree than the LS books.  The writing, the characters, the plot, the tone, and the way the writer “speaks” to the reader.  HP whips LS in every aspect on paper, but would that carry over onto film?

 Well, Lemony Snicket begins very well, with a piece of a short claymation type cartoon about a happy elf.  Things change quickly, though, as we are introduced to our narrator, Lemony Snicket(Jude Law).  Mr. Snicket is not a part of the story, per se; he is the recipient of the tale of the Baudelaire children and had the duty of putting it together into a story to tell of their stories.  When he put these together they became, Lemony Snicket’s a Series of Unfortunate Events.

 While the Baudelaire children were playing at a desolate beach one day, they were approached by a large man, slightly known to the children, Mr. Poe(Timothy Spall).  Mr. Poe had the unfortunate circumstance of being the one to tell the children that they had just lost their home to an odd fire caused by some sort of refracting lights.  Not only had they lost their huge mansion home, but their parents who were in it as well.

 The children were very sad, but were soon ushered to live with the person of their parents’ wishes, should such a thing occur, their closest relative, Count Olaf(Jim Carrey).  Count Olaf was a horrible man who wanted nothing more than to receive the orphans’ huge inheritance and would stop at nothing to get it.  He worked the children day and night, cleaning the house, cooking, and doing anything which pleased him at the time.  He would then throw the children in a dark and disheveled room to wait until the next morning to do more of his bidding.

 However, the children were not as helpless as you would think.  Given the circumstances they were very good and well behaved children who all were incredibly bright for their age.  The eldest was Violet(Emily Browing).  She was the leader of the Baudelaire children and also an inventor.  You could tell that she was in the midst of a Da Vinci like creation when she tied her long hair up in a ribbon.  Next, the middle child was Klaus(Liam Aiken).  Klaus was a reader.  However, his retention was photographic and he could pull the needed information at a moment’s notice.  The youngest, and still just a toddler was Sunny(Kara and Shelby Hoffman).  Her gift is a very strong set of teeth, which she can use to latch onto nearly anything. 

 So, together, the trio tries to rid themselves of the horrible Count Olaf.  After he attempts to get them hit by a train, and they are able to come up with a way to escape, they are taken out of Count Olaf’s care and placed with Uncle Monty(Billy Connelly), the snake lover and scientist.  Uncle Monty loved all snakes and everything to do with snakes.  He was also a kind hearted man who loved the children as if they were his own, even though he had not seen any of them in years.  However, the children’s quick happiness was not to last, as Count Olaf murdered Monty and his assistant in order to try to get the children back.  He then got even worse as he seduced their next guardian, Aunt Josephine(Meryl Streep), who seemed to be scared of everything, and then trapped her in a waterfront cave.

 The children tried to rescue her, but again Olaf stood in the way and made sure that things did not end well.  So, after tricking the authorities, they were back to the beginning, living with Count Olaf.  However, this time he actually had a fairly ingenious plan of how to get the money from the children.  He set up a play, where he would marry Violet.  Now, this would be a little creepy normally, but this was also malicious.  Count Olaf hired his neighbor Justice Strauss to play the judge in the wedding, therefore making it a legally binding contract.  What was even worse was that Violet would have normally had nothing to do with a wedding to her evil relative, but he had captured Sunny and suspended her in a birdcage, hanging outside of the tower. 

 Can things get worse for these Baudelaire orphans?  Will they ever find a decent guardian to stay with?  Can they ever rid themselves from their evil Count Olaf?  You’ll have to go see to find out.

 Lemony Snicket truly was a series of unfortunate events.  Think about it… You’ve got three young children that loose their parents and home very abruptly, loose faith in the people that are placing them with relatives, are abused by relative, almost get hit by a train, see two other relatives come up dead, and one gets married to a family member… this is pretty tough stuff.

 That was what made this movie fun.  You wouldn’t see too many movies that put children through all of these trials and tribulations.  Of course, you rarely see child actors that can put up with the situations and handle them on screen either.  However, these children did a magnificent job.  Emily Browning, especially was good among the children.  Of the more experienced actors, I found Jim Carrey’s’ performance a bit over the top and not really what I remembered from the books, but good all the same and memorable.  However, Meryl Streep was even more over the top than Carrey, which is a difficult feat and didn’t work for me.  I did thoroughly enjoy the performance of Billy Connelly.  Even though his character was a bit odd, you could feel his warmth and compassion for the children from the first frame.

 Overall, the film was made well, good costumes, sets, music, design, acting, plot, everything.  However, nothing was great.  In the HP franchise, the plot, acting, costumes, design, production, effects, sound, everything is top notch, not just good.  Therefore, I don’t foresee this franchise giving HP a run in any area.  The next film, if they indeed make one could definitely get better, there are some good ideas, characters, and actors to work with, but I would definitely look at getting a different director for it if they are looking to market it at a bit of an older or more universal audience.

 Despite all of the things that I have pointed out that I did not like about the movie, I really did enjoy it, especially the performances by Emily Browning and Billy Connelly.  However, with the little detractions here and there, I could not fall in love with this film.  Therefore, I give Lemony Snicket: A Series of Unfortunate Events, a 7.

Closer

 As the characters move farther apart, the audience moves Closer to them

 Closer was a film that I really knew nothing about.  I believed going in that Julia Roberts and Natalie Portman were in it, but beside that, I had no idea.

 I quickly found that it was actually getting some talk for award nominations, and it piqued my interest. 

 Closer begins with Dan(Jude Law) walking down the street.  Walking the other way is Alice(Natalie Portman)  They bob up and down with the rest of the pedestrians until Alice tries to cross the street without looking and is hit by a cab.  Dan is the first one their to help her and convinces the cabbie to get them to a hospital.  They talk like old friends on their trip and they get her stitched up and out in no time. 

 Dan writes obituaries for the local British paper and Alice is a former stripper from New York, fresh off the plane in England.  They hit it off quickly and she proves to be his muse as he is an aspiring writer and finally gets a book written an published. 

 While the book is in the process of being published, Dan must go to get his picture take for the book jacket.  Anna(Julia Roberts) is the photographer who takes the snaps.  Dan has a way of talking to someone like they had known each other for years and before you know it, the two are kissing in the studio.  Then the doorbell rings, it is Alice who has come to meet Dan.  Dan has to leave to get something done, but Alice stays behind and lets Anna take her picture, even though Alice had deduced what had happened.

 Over time, Dan becomes obsessed with Anna and as a joke one night when in a sex chat room, set up a meeting with him.  He actually ended up making the guy believe that he was Anna and the guy went to the local aquarium to meet him/her.  There, he met Anna and she eventually figured out what was going on.  The man, Larry(Clive Owen), was a bit odd, but she began to like him.  They began dating and eventually got married.

 However, Dan was always around and after a Larry came back from a business trip, he eventually found out that not only had Anna been sleeping with Dan, but she was going to leave him to be with Dan.  So, Dan breaks it off with Alice and begins his life with Anna.  However, this does not last very long.  When trying to get Larry to sign the divorce papers, Anna sleeps with him.  After a fight about this, Anna and Dan break up and she goes back to Larry.

 Meanwhile, Alice took the breakup with Dan really hard and went back to her former profession, stripping.  So, one night at the club, with her new pink hair, she is approached by a familiar face, Larry.  He gets a private room with her and begins dishing out big money for her to tell him her real name, but she will not.  He keeps paying, but she will not admit that it is her, she continues to give a different name.  Eventually he gets fed up and has her strip a bit for him anyway. 

 So, Anna and Larry are soon back together and Anna wants nothing to do with the weepy Dan.  Dan makes an appointment to see Larry who gives him a bit of a verbal beating and eventually gives him the idea to try to patch things up with Alice.  The then puts in for good measure a detailed account with his meeting with her at the strip club.

 So, Dan goes back to Alice and things are going well, until they are in a hotel room one night, waiting for their flight the next morning when Dan decides that he must hear from her whether or not she had sex with Larry.  They go back and forth and eventually get into a fight about it.  Then she tells him that she is no longer in love with him.  He later turns his back and she is gone.

 The kicker in this story is that when she was giving Larry the false name in the strip club, it was actually her real name.  She had told Dan that her name was Alice in the beginning and just went with it, he never even knew her real name.

 Closer was a very good film.  It took me a while to realize this due to the extent that the story pulled me in.  The original couple of Dan and Alice was very sweet and interesting.  From there the whirlwind of the two couples and the shifts forward in time kept me drawn into the film so completely that I could not spare the time to think about how good it was. 

 The acting in this film was top notch, with all four performances putting in very good performances.  There was really nobody that stood out from the group, they were all very good.

 The script was amazing as well.  It kept your eyes flying around, as you never knew what would happen next.  All of the stories were good on their own and then tied in well together to make an overall high quality product.

 Closer was a very good film, with a great ensemble and script.  It is sure to end towards the top of many categories this year when the awards come around.  I give Closer, one of the most surprisingly good films of the year, an 8.

Finding Neverland

 Depp took me to Neverland in this magical film

 I must say that going into this film I really knew very little about what it was about.  I knew that it was supposed to be the story of the man who wrote Peter Pan and that it was starring Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet.  Now, I really like a good Peter Pan story, but I did not know how much of the story would seep in.  Would this end up a biopic or a fantasy?  After the disappointment of the Peter Pan that came out a year or two ago, I decided to try to keep my hopes to a minimum.

 However, I began to hear this film being named onto many of the top ten lists and being nominated for some awards.  At this point I began to get my hopes up.  A really good film about the life of a famous author and a famous story, starring two great actors; now, this was a film to look forward to.

 Finding Neverland begins with author Sir James Matthew Barrie(Johnny Depp).  He is an educated man who is very well off.  He lives in a two story home with his wife.  A typical day consists of waking up in his separate bed, dressing, grabbing his dog and a few items from his servant, and then walking down to the park.  At the park, he would play with his large dog and then work on writing.  At this point in his life, he is having a difficulty getting to his audience through his art as a playwright. 

 One day at the park he met the most interesting family.  They met, when a few young brothers asked if they could play with his dog and he met another brother, lying under his bench, supposedly imprisoned by an evil prince.  This sort of innocent imagination begins to spark his own.  He begins to show off for the boys and encourages them to live their fantasies through their imaginations. 

 Soon, James is spending most of his days at the park and even at they family’s home.  This is a wonderful treat for their mother, Sylvia Llewelyn Davies(Kate Winslet), who has had a hard time trying to keep the children happy since the death of their father.

 Eventually, to get away from the gossip that had began to grow in town, James brought the Davies family to his summer home, where he and his wife had not went in years.  The boys began to become more and more happy and imaginative and went so far as to put on a play for James and Sylvia.  The play was written by one of the middle children, Peter(Freddie Highmore) who James had been pushing the most.  The boy was more of an introvert and a realist and had the most problems dealing with their father’s death. 

 He is stung again, as during the play; his mother comes down with a very bad cough.  They have to call off the performance and after Peter destroys the set, they go back to their home. 

 During all of the playing and imagining, James had come up with choice bits and piece of dialogue and story to add to his notebook.  So, by this point he has finally come up with a new idea that he is sure to win him back the audience.  Therefore, he goes to his trusted producer Charles Frohman(Dustin Hoffman) who believes that Mr. Barrie had gone a little bit mad.  However, he eventually decides to put on the play and the rehearsals begin.  Things go slowly, and many in the cast do not believe in what they are working on.

 Then once again things get bad for the Davies.  The eldest boy ends up breaking his arm while hooked up to a flying rig used in the play.  However, he refuses to let them set the bones until his mother gets her cough checked out as well.  Unbeknownst to everyone, though, she already has had this checked out and has merely refused to tell anybody what is wrong. 

 Mr. Barrie’s life is constantly changing.  His last play barely made it out of the gate, he met the Davies, his wife had an affair and left him, Sylvia Davies got very ill.  This play could have been the thing to push his life for the better or worse for a long time. 

 So, opening night arrives and James has the producer leave 25 seats unsold in specific spots in the theater.  Right before curtain, the people to fill these seats arrive, orphans.  They are seated around the theater to the incredulous stares of the uppity crowd and are looked down upon with disdain.  However, even worse is that the Davies had not arrived.

 Peter finally shows up and tells James that Sylvia’s condition had worsened and that he was the only one able to come, because she forced him to.  James ran to his friend to find her in very bad shape. 

 The play goes on and the grouchy old crowd has their hearts melted by the innocence of the material and of the children sitting with them.  Peter enjoys the show as well and attends a few moments of the after party with James.

 A short time passes and Sylvia has gotten worse, then she gets a surprise.  James arrives and brings the play with him.  Most of the cast and props are set up in the living room and they do the play for Sylvia, one last good memory before her death.

 Man, did this film ever exceed my expectations.  I was looking through at the different films to see if I enjoyed anything better this year, and so far I have not.  Everything seemed to be done well in this film.  The production values, costuming, cinematography all made you believe in your setting for the first frame, allowing you to fully enjoy the great film laid out for you.

 There were many good performances in this film.  Johnny Depp was wonderful as James Barrie, he may have been the only person who could have pulled off this role and did it amazingly.  Kate Winslet was great as well in a role that had so many emotions.  She was torn so many ways and she mad you feel each pull.  Among the children, who were all good, two stood out, Freddie Highmore as Peter and Joe Prospero as Jack Davies.  Freddie had the most difficult role and gave one of the better young child performances I have seen.  Joe, I say for his change from childhood to adulthood in one speech, it was shockingly good. 

 I could go on and on about this movie and already have, but it was one of the best surprises of the year.  Now, up until this point I was thinking that this movie was a 9.  However, there were two points in the film, that with further thought have bumped it up to a 10.  The first is the scene where they set up the play in the Davies’ living room.  The part where Peter talks of death with Tinkerbell, with these boys’ dying mother inches away was very sad.  Also the scene where Jack Davies grows up in the matter of seconds blew me away.  Unless something changes over the next couple weeks, it looks like we could be looking at the best film of the year.  I give Finding Neverland, a film that is as good as it gets this year and one of my favorite films that I have seen in a while, a 10.

Blade: Trinity

 Blade: Dracula falls well short of divine trinity

 This is one of those franchises that I have really dug over the years.  I remember the first time that I saw Blade with a friend of mine at the old craptastic theater.  It was all about a guy who was pissed off at the world for what it was doing and what it had made him, but at the same time, he was their protector, their only hope.  Accompanied by his mentor, Whistler, who taught him the game, kept him from giving in to his bloodlust, and made him all sorts of super cool gadgets, they stalked the night, taking out the vampires.  I loved it, the characters, the plot, the music, the design.  Obviously the story wasn’t great, there were some pretty silly things, but overall I loved it.  Blade was Wesley Snipes as he always should have been.

 The Blade 2 came along, directed by one of the best up and comers, Guillermo del Toro.  The film was much different but very good in its own way.  It added another twist to the Blade mythos and introduced some pretty cool new gadgets and characters.

 Then they decided to make Blade 3.  Many plots began to surface.  Will Blade be the last vampire; will he be fighting to keep man from becoming extinct at the hands of the vampires; will he go into space?  Well the last one may have been a bit far fetched and allot bad, but it does seem to rather commonplace with horror type films.  However, what they decided to go with was in all actuality Blade vs. Dracula with an under card of The Night Stalkers vs. The Vampire Clan.

 Blade: Trinity begins with Blade and Whistler out on a hunt for vamps.  A building explodes and disintegrating vampires run out with Blade in hot pursuit.  Of the bat, he shows that he is still as cold and hardcore as ever, quickly dusting a handful of vamps with a modified handgun.  He is then surrounded by a group and goes to plan B.  He pulls and item off of his belt with a sharp top, smooth base, and an extremely sharp cord that extends as he swings it.  With this weapon he quickly dispatches the group.  However, a few take off in cars and on motorcycles, so Blade jumps off of an overhang onto the back of an 18-wheeler driven by Whistler where he retrieves his car.  He chases down the two on motorcycle and then kills the driver of the card with UV headlight rays.  However, the last kill, with a silver stake does not cause the beast to explode, instead it bleeds.  This was actually a human who set Blade up while filming the entire incident to feed to the media to force an outcry for justice from the public.

 Meanwhile, a group of vampires have uncovered an ancient vampire and lock him in a room with victims to feed upon.  However, they soon find out that they have recovered the original vampire, the patriarch of their kind, Dracula.  They also find out that he isn’t all that pleased with this resurfacing.  He had put himself in a self isolation centuries before when he became fed up of the way that the world was changing and things had only gotten worse in the meantime.  The vampires had brought him back in order to have him kill Blade so that they could proceed to the final solution.

 Back at HQ, Blade and Whistler are discussing their failings from the previous outing when they begin to hear sounds.  They are soon swarmed by the FBI who begin bombing and shooting at them.  Blade begins taking out the police, but not killing them.  Whistler on the other hand is taking down handfuls with a shotgun while he transfers data from his computers.  However, his last shut down blows up a few FBI as well as himself. 

 Blade is captured and brought in for questioning where he finds out that many of these men are connected to the vampires.  He is about to be taken by the main vampire group until two people crash the party, Abigail Whistler(Jessica Biel) and Hannibal King(Ryan Reynolds).  They begin to take out vampire and police officer alike and eventually get to Blade.  They eventually make it outside where transportation awaits and they head back to base camp.

 Here, Blade tries to act high and mighty to the young men and women trying to kill vampires and sounds like an idiot.  However, they eventually talk him into joining with them and they are off to try to find out more about the vampire conspiracy.  However, after Blade and Abigail leave one night, Dracula strikes.  He kills everyone except for Hannibal and a young child, who he takes with him.  When Blade and Abigail return, they are furious and know that they must attempt to strike back. 

 The Night Stalkers had more than one base, and at another they find out that the blind scientist of their group, Sommerfield(Natasha Lyonne), had left their counterpunch to the vampire’s offensive, a virus that attacks the cells that make a vampire a vampire.  However, it is not completely effective yet.  It must mix with the original vampire’s blood to make it 100% deadly. 

 So, off they go in search of Dracula.  Blade and Abigail storm the compound, Blade coming in guns blazing, while Abigail stays back, release Hannibal and begins picking off targets with her bow.  Eventually the numbers of vamps begin to thin, with Blade doing most of the damage, until he is confronted by Dracula.  Meanwhile, Abigail takes out a few additional vamps, before bringing out the virus arrow and preparing to release.  Also, Hannibal has finally defeated a rather large vampire that had been getting on his nerves throughout the movie before moving on to his former sire/vampire girlfriend Danica(Parker Posey) who had threatened to make him her slave once again.

 Blade and Dracula square off, with the fighting going fairly equal.  Although Dracula is faster and stronger than Blade, he turns the tide with his battle prowess, getting a blow in here and there.  The battle turns when Abigail shoots the arrow at Dracula, who although not expecting it is able to catch it before it strikes him.  He throws it to the ground as Blade attacks him while he is distracted.  He beats Blade back, but Abigail shoots him with a normal arrow, giving Blade enough of an opportunity to pick up the discarded virus arrow and stab it into the ancient beast.

 As the virus works, the monster is eaten away and all that is left is the man.  Dracula was impressed by what he saw from Blade and is confident that he can die in peace as he is no longer needed; Blade will carry on the legacy of the vampire.  Due to his appreciation for finding someone with virtue during his time in the light, Dracula gives Blade a parting gift.  He uses one of his special abilities, the ability to shift the thousand of small bones in his body, to look like Blade.  So, when the authorities arrive they bring him in, assuming that they have Blade, only to have him turn back into the human Dracula before their eyes, and throw them completely off of Blade’s trail.

 I have to admit, this was not a great movie, but I enjoyed it allot.  First off, the graphics were very good in this film.  The dusting effects were top notch, including the disintegration while the body is still in motion.  The effects of the virus turned out pretty good as well.  The animal face morphs were done well, but were a bit silly.  The weapons in this film were rather cool as well.  Blade’s opening weapon, the swinging wire of death was particularly cool.  The other extremely cool weapon teetered on the edge of cool.  One the one hand it was a glowing wire that could cut through vamps like a hot knife through butter.  However, on the other side, it looks like a bow, but cannot shoot anything.  It also has an automatic transformers type way of shrinking down, this could have been done better, but overall a cool weapon.

 As far as acting, I didn’t expect much and didn’t receive much back, but enough to make the film entertaining.  Snipes was good as Blade, but it seems that he may be getting a bit old in appearance for the role.  Jessica Biel was good as Abagail.  Although the whole product plug for IPod was cheesy, her character overall was fun and exciting and very aesthetically pleasing.  Ryan Reynolds was surprisingly funny as Hannibal King.  He joked around a bit too much, but overall was likeable as a character.  Surprisingly Parker Posey as Danica was a big let down.  The character was just bad, I never enjoyed her performance.

 Overall, Blade: Trinity was a fun film with good effects, gadgets, and fights.  However, it seems to be a bit of a step down from the other films.  The plot was much weaker and the characters, even though pretty good here, seem to have taken a step down as well.  This, however, is not as big of a drop off as you normally see by the third film in a trilogy/franchise.  There is still plenty of blood left in this one as long as they bring in the right people to continue it.  I wouldn’t mind seeing Abigail back in the next on either.  Let’s hope we get a bit of a better plot, though.  Well, I liked it, but did not love it, but it was good enough to receive a 7.

Darkness

 A completely dark screen may have been better than the Darkness

 I had no idea what this film was about coming in.  I knew that Anna Paquin was in it, who I really like, so that was good.  I also knew that it was a low budget horror film, so that was cool.  However, I was scared that the coolness would stop their.

 The Darkness is the story of a family that moves from the United States to Spain to be closer to the father’s father.  The family buys a large old house and begins to move in.  However, the young boy, Mark(Iain Glen), is afraid.  Weird things happen in his room.  The wind up merry go round begins to move without being wound, colored pencils disappear under the bed, and little kids appear in flashes of darkness. 

 It is then shown that the father had a strange disease, which makes him enraged and psychotic from time to time.  This is not a good situation for the family as the father has began to lapse back into his old ways and the mother is living in denial.  She refuses to see the signs of her husband’s mental collapse.

 The only one that seems to be able to realize that things are not right is the daughter, Regina(Anna Paquin).  She sees what is happening to her father and believes her brother that something strange is going on in the house.

 Then the plot begins to develop.  We discover that there was a kidnapping spree forty years prior where seven children were kidnapped and only one was ever found.  The young boy could not remember anything except that he was in a dark house.

 We then find out that this young man is actually the father of the family and this traumatic experience is probably what has caused his troubles.  Then we find even more bad things about the family as it turns out that the grandfather not only knew about this, he was a part of it.

 The house was specially built in the shape of a temple and there were seven families who were trying to conjure a spell through the sacrificing of a young loved one.  The grandfather couldn’t do this at the last moment and let his son escape.

 Now he is trying to complete the ritual by having his son in his psychotic state come so close to killing someone that his wife will have to kill him.  We learn most of this near the end of the film when Regina is captured by her grandfather.  However, after giving her all of this information, the softy can’t follow through again and lets Regina go, to try to stop the death. 

 However, when she arrives things are different.  Her father had been raving around until he went into a sort of seizure and could not breathe.  Her mother was laying over him on the floor with a pin in order to give him a tracheotomy, which she could do being a nurse.  However, she could not bring herself to do this to her husband and gave up the needle to her daughter.  She did this to buy time and before she could really commit herself to thinking about helping her father, he was already dead, thus breaking spell.

 However, for some unexplained reason all this did was really piss of the spirits of the parents and children who were killed there.  So, they began to imitate the other occupants of the house in order to get them to turn off the lights.  Again, I’m not sure why they wanted them to do this, since they obviously had plenty of power in the dim light and we merely hear a scream or two when the lights go out.

 This gets rid of the mother, but the two children are able to break a window and run outside where Regina’s boyfriend is pulling up in his car.  However, seconds later we see him pull up again and walk into the dark house.  Then in the end we see the car driving into a pitch black tunnel.

 Man, this was a pretty darn crappy movie.  The reason for the explicative free opening is due to the rating of this movie, PG-13.  This wouldn’t have bothered me, even though I prefer my horror films R, unless it was obvious when they had to cut back.  Such scenes as the crazy father banging on the door and screaming, “Open the ..darned… door is only one example of the obvious toning down for a lesser rating.   It didn’t really matter though, crap doesn’t care what it is rated and neither do theater goers, they just know that they are not going to see it.

 I must say that this was one of the worst plots that I’ve ever seen put to film.  We drag along for the first hour with nothing of interest happening and then in the final 30 minutes we go through a crazy amount of information that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and doesn’t amount to much in the end.

 I had a bunch of problems with that information.  One is that the information about the crimes and magic from years ago doesn’t end up meaning anything.  Also, you would figure that after the father dies, the magic would stop, but it only seems to escalate even though there is no possible way at that point for the overall magic to be completed. 

 The performances were pretty good except for that of the father.  Anna Paquin is showing that she is having some growing pains as an actress, going from a child to a young woman, but this film was made two or three years ago, so it’s really hard to tell, the other things that she has done recently showed her well.

 Overall, this film was pretty darn bad.  If there would have been anything scary about it or the plot would have made any sense, the movie could have been ok, but as it was, the film stunk.  I will never pass up a chance to see Anna Paquin on film, but I was hoping for at least a little more when I do.  Anyway, too much time spent on this film.  I give Darkness a 4.

The Aviator

Aviator Soars

I knew going into this film that The Aviator is regarded as one of the top films of the year.  It has not gotten great box office, but it was a lengthy 3 hours.  So, I don’t know if people were not ready to spend that much time at the theater over the holidays or if it just wasn’t that good.  I was intrigued to see how some of today’s hot young actors would portray the likes of Howard Hughes, Ava Gardner, Katherine Hepburn, Jean Harlow, and Errol Flynn.  However, I know very nearly nothing about Howard Hughes so I had no idea of what to expect.

The Aviator begins on set with Howard Hughes(Leonardo DiCaprio) on his first year filming his epic Hell’s Angels.  He is meeting with Noah Dietrich(John C. Reilly) who is and up and coming accountant.  This is where Howard begins his tradition of only hiring the best and the brightest to work for him, and pays them double of what they had made in the past, to make them loyal to him.  Dietrich appears to like the spunky young man, but this young man will eventually make him earn his money many times over.

Hughes refuses to do things the way that everyone else says they must go.  He makes his film completely outside of the studio system, which at its time was unheard of and for anyone else disastrous.  However, this same pioneering spirit would be the fuel of his film, as he sported the largest personal air force in the world while filming.  From time to time, something would hit him and he would have to improvise.  When the planes appear too slow on film, he decides that he needs a point of reference to make them look as fast as they are.  He decides that the best thing in the sky for this is clouds.  However, there are none around, so he hires Professor Fitz(Ian Holm) who is a meteorologist, so show him when and where the clouds will be.  He then goes on to add sound to the film, spend over $200,000 on a single plane, and use 26 cameras in one shot.

The studios believed him to be insane and that he would loose so much money that he would never make a film again.  Little did they know that this was just the beginning.  The film opened as a huge success and there on Mr. Hughes arm was none other than Jean Harlow(Gwen Stefani).

At this point, Howard began to diversify a bit.  He continued to create films, but at the same time he entered the aviation industry.  He had a mind for planes and seemed to instinctively know what they needed to make them faster.  However, he also had a knack for crashing.

One day, Mr. Hughes landed his personal plane near a movie set where Katherine Hepburn(Cate Blanchett) was sitting.  He spoke with her and asked her for a game of golf, which she accepted.  The two became fast friends and although he couldn’t keep up with her constant dialogue, partially due to his being a bit hard of hearing.  Their relationship was cemented when he took her flying one night after rescuing her from an incredibly boring discussion with Hughes’ press man and Errol Flynn(Jude Law).

Not only did he soar with her above the city, he moved the steering device over to her side and let her fly the plane for a while.  Not long after, he finally approved of a plane that he had helped to design, which he flew and broke the speed record.  Later, he took this plane and flew around the world quicker than anyone else had done before.  While he continued to make movies and help design airplanes, their relationship grew as well, until he went for dinner at her parent’s house.  Howard was not comfortable in situations where things were moving quickly around him and due to his bad hearing; a table full of multiple conversations, including many aimed at him was not a good environment for him.  After being mocked, humiliated, and badgered, he finally cracked and stated in response to the statement that money doesn’t matter, that money did not matter to them, because they never have to work for it.

This angered everyone and before long they left.  Not long after that, Katherine found someone new, Spencer Tracey and left Howard by himself.

In true Hughes style, he wasn’t alone for long.  While interviewing an actress, he found out that she was only 15, but signed her anyway, and she became his partner around town.  This was Faith Domergue(Kelli Garner) who would be on an off with him for a while.

Meanwhile, Howard had designed a few new planes and again had chosen a new leading lady for his arm.  This lady was Ava Gardner(Kate Beckinsale).  Ava was different from the others.  She seemed to only want to spend small amounts of time with Howard and did not like it when he bought her presents.  Therefore, she would always tell him at these times to buy her dinner instead. 

So, after Howard buys TWA, he begins to butt heads with Pan Am head Juan Trippe(Alec Baldwin) who wants to keep certain things the same, such as his company’s monopoly of foreign air travel intact.  During this struggle, Howard begins to loose it.  This begins when he makes a statement to his aircraft engineer and then continues to repeat it without being able to stop.  Eventually, he ends up stuck in his screening room alone, where he only allows people in to bring him milk and food.  He goes slowly crazy.  If Mr. Trippe would have let things continue their course, things may have continued downward for Howard.  However, with only days before he would be subpoenaed, Mr. Trippe arrives to taunt Howard and to try to get him to sell TWA to him.  This was enough to spark Howard into getting out of the room and into his home.  When he arrives, though, things go badly again, and it takes Ava Gardner to come to his rescue.  After a difficult break up of their friendship after she found out that he had extensively bugged her room and had her followed, she was still the only one to come for him, to help in out in a crunch.  She speaks with him and helps to shave him and gets him going again, so that he can be the real Howard Hughes as his trail.

Hughes is put on trail because of his attempts to get into the foreign air travel business.  Juan Trippe had the senior senator from Maine, Ralph Owen Brewster(Alan Alda), in his pocket and bought many others as well.  So, when Howard threatens to move in on him, he has them attempt to pass a bill to forbid it and put him on trail to show that he had received over $50 million from the military for planes that he was building, but never delivered a single plane. 

Howard, quickly turns the tables on the arrogant senator and shows that he was paid for and only their due to his ties to Juan Trippe.  This puts the final nail in the coffin of the bill and opens things up for TWA.  However, things are still rocky as TWA has not yet gotten off of the ground, and Hughes enormous plane, Hercules, has yet to fly.  Hercules was the first plane designed as a troop and vehicle transport.  After the many accidents and bouts with his insanity, Hughes, as in the past, is the first one to fly the plane.  On the day, hundreds of people show up for what is to only be a test run to see if they can get speed and whatnot, but instead, they actually fly.

The Aviator was a very good film that covered many different topics in its three hour running time.  The look at the movie industry was done very well.  We see how things used to work in the early 1900’s and how things changed a bit.  We also get a look at what some of the major stars were like.  The look at the aviation innovations was an eye opening experience and was done with a good enough mix of technical and dramatic scenes that you actually believe the story.  We also see relationships, illnesses, and a good ole’ corporate battle.

I must say that I was surprised at how well DiCaprio played Howard Hughes.  The performance is sure to get him nominated for many awards as Best Actor, however, from the other performances I’ve seen this year, I don’t think that it will be enough to win many of them.  However, the performances by Kate Beckinsale in a limited character and even more so by Cate Blanched were great.  I can see nominations mounting up and possibly some victories for Blanchett’s performance as Katherine Hepburn.   Overall, the acting was very good in this film and could easily bring home some ensemble awards.

The film was shot beautifully, the music was good, design was top notch, and the story was amazing.  This is definitely one of the best films of the year.  It almost makes me wish that there weren’t so many at this level, this year.  I just believe that movies such as Finding Neverland, Passion of the Christ, and the like will end up taking most of the awards this year.

I would definitely suggest to anyone to see this film. It hit on so many cylinders that it was amazing.  My hat’s off to the people in this film that I usually do not enjoy that proved me wrong for once…i.e. DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese.  I give The Aviator a 9.

Kinsey

The Bug Man Cometh

Going into Kinsey I knew two things.  One, Kinsey is played by Liam Neeson and two, Kinsey was some sort of sex doctor/scientist.  This was about it.  Now, I didn’t even know if this was based on a true story, a biopic, or a comedy.  I didn’t know much of anything, but I did know that it is getting allot of awards buzz and that we were lucky enough to actually get it at a theater in town after it came to a theater about 80 miles away.

Kinsey begins with two young boys, scouts, who talk about male puberty through codes that they have created with each other.  However, this is scary for them since their father is a highly religious man who would do horrible things to them if he ever found out.  So, they keep it hidden and move on.  This is until one of them, Alfred Kinsey(Liam Neeson) finally strikes back against his father.  When they deliberately set up a grocer to sell the young man cigarettes, to be followed by his father who rants and raves at the man.  Eventually Alfred reaches his breaking point and snaps on his father and at the same time tells him that he has left engineering school to attend biology school.

We then advance to Kinsey in college as a professor.  He has a small class of student who he explains the intricacies of the gall gnat to.  They do not seem very enthused; only one, Clara McMillen(Laura Linney), show him any respect and really pays attention.  Then, one day on the quad, as Kinsey is making himself lunch, he is approached by Clara.  She asks if she can sit with him and when he asks why, she states that they are the only unattached male and female on campus, so it is the nature of things.  This argument appeals to him, so he lets her and their relationship begins.

Not long thereafter he asks her to marry him.  However, she says that she must consider it and that she has another offer as well.  This nearly drives him crazy, but eventually she comes around and they get married.  However, there are problems.  When they try to have sex, things don’t go well.  She is in intense physical pain and they cannot complete the act.  They soon visit his parents to tell them the news of their marriage, but are met with hostility as always.

So, while they are joking on his father, Kinsey gets an idea.  For their problem what they really need to do is to go see a specialist.  So, they take off in the middle of the night and head back to town to see a sex problems therapist.  They found out that the problem was that her hymen was thicker than normal and he was more well-endowed than normal, so they didn’t really work well together at first.  However, the specialist showed them a different way to go about it, which eliminated the first problem and led them to a much happier relationship. 

Kinsey was a man who had committed more than 20 years of his life to the study of gnats, but now with his children growing and his studies not been read, Kinsey was frustrated, he needed a new challenge.  This opportunity presents itself when some of the college kids petition the school for a sex education class.  It is originally turned down, however, the kids start coming to Dr. Kinsey asking for help with their problems after he helps a few of the other students with their problems.  Finally, the school allows him to offer the course to faculty, graduates, and married couples on campus.  He begins the class to a giggling bunch of kids, but before long the class is serious and truly learning things.

At this point, Kinsey gets another idea.  He learned so much about the gnats from gathering a bigger collection than anyone else, so he would do the same for sex.  He would gather more sexual histories than anyone and through this would be able to make the best conclusions.  To do this he needed helpers.  He took a few of the top students in his class and began with his interviewing process.  One such student was Clyde Martin(Peter Skarsgaard).  Clyde was one of the optimum first subjects of the interview due to his dualistic sexual