Sunday, October 30, 2005

STAY




Thriller

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Ewan McGregor: Dr. Sam Foster, a New York university psychiatrist
Ryan Gosling: Henry Letham, a university art student
Naomi Watts: Sam’s girlfriend Lila
Elizabeth Reaser: Athena, part-time actress
Janeane Garofalo: Dr. Beth Levy, one of Sam’s colleagues

REVIEW
Certainly there are times it’s worth the effort to sort out all the twists and turns in a movie of this nature. In this case, it is impossible to figure out what is going on, other than the fact reality and illusion are all mixed up. This convoluted, rambling, dragged out jumble of scenes is all supposed to make sense when the “twist” at the ending is revealed. Don’t I wish.

CLASSIFICATION
for language and some disturbing images

PS
I’m not sure, but probably the movie title is meant to overcome your natural reaction by midway through it and not stay?

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

WILD SAFARI 3D




IMAX documentary

NARRATOR
Liesl Eichenberger: South African zoologist and field guide

REVIEW
This is not the first movie about the search of the so-called Big Five (the lion, leopard, elephant, rhino, and Cape buffalo). What sets this one apart is the 3D effect and the positioning of the camera. Set up on the back of a 4 X 4, it feels like you are looking over the driver’s shoulder rather than seeing what is going on from some soaring overhead position. For most of us, this is as close as we are ever going to get to taking part in a real African safari.

CLASSIFICATION

NORTH COUNTRY




Drama

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Charlize Theron: Josey Aimes, an unemployed single mother of two children
Elle Peterson: her daughter Karen
Thomas Curtis: her teenage son Sammy
Sissy Spacek: her mother Alice
Richard Jenkins: her dad Hank, long time employee at the mine
Frances McDormand: her friend Glory, a mineworker
Sean Bean: Glory’s husband Kyle
Woody Harrelson: Bill White, an attorney from New York City

REVIEW
Based on a true story, it is at times difficult to watch. Great acting conveys the plight of women in what is considered a "man's world". But it’s not all doom and gloom; there are moments that are really touching.

CLASSIFICATION
for sequences involving sexual harassment including violence and dialogue, and for language

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
1. Josey returned to her parent’s place in the winter of 1989 and on the television we see snippets of Anita Hill, a law professor at the University of Oklahoma, testifying before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee that Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her. These hearings did not take place until September 1991.
2. One of Josey’s co-workers organised a demonstration party at her house. Included in the items for sale are Tums Ultra. These antacid pills were not introduced to the market until June 1994, some four years after these events took place.
3. The female defence lawyer remains standing while conferring with the company President. Her small handbag with very short straps is slung over her right shoulder and fits snugly right under the armpit. This manner of carrying a handbag has become fashionable only in the last couple of years.

DREAMER




Sports drama

BACKGROUND
Age - all thoroughbreds count January 1 as their birth date
Breeders' Cup - thoroughbred racing's year-end championship, a multi-million dollar extravaganza held on the last Saturday in October each year, that brings together the world's best horses to compete in one of the eight races run that day
Colors - racing silks, the jacket and cap worn by jockeys. Silks can be generic and provided by the track or specific to one owner
Filly - female horse, four-years old or younger
Foal - a baby horse
Furlong - ⅛th of a mile
Mare - female horse, five-years old or older
Stud - male horse used for breeding

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Kurt Russell: Ben Crane, horse trainer
Elisabeth Shue: his wife Lily, a part-time waitress
Dakota Fanning: their daughter Cale
Kris Kristofferson: Ben’s father, Pop
David Morse: stable owner Palmer
Freddy Rodriguez: horse jockey, Monolin
Luis Guzman: stablehand, Balon

REVIEW
This movie is like a favourite bedtime story: there is nothing original about it, the story is well known, the ending predictable, yet it’s fun to read over and over again because it is a “feel-good” type of story.

CLASSIFICATION
for brief mild language.

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
The Breeders’ Cup was first run in 1984 so the 22nd running takes place in 2005. October 29 of that year was a Friday, not a Saturday.

Saturday, October 22, 2005

FLIGHTPLAN




Thriller

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Jodie Foster: Kyle Pratt, a jet propulsion engineer
Marlene Lawston: her 6-year-old daughter Julia
Peter Sarsgaard: Gene Carson, the in-flight air marshal
Sean Bean: Captain Rich

REVIEW
A thriller should be just that. And this one delivers, in part because the mood is set early on and the well-constructed plot builds from that point. The acting is top-notch with Jodie Foster being called upon to portray a range of emotions, which she does superbly.

CLASSIFICATION
for violence and some intense plot material.

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
1. Ms Pratt and her daughter take a taxi from their Berlin home and arrive shortly thereafter at the airport. But during the flight, the chief steward says she reviewed the passenger list with gate personnel at the Munich airport when she should have said at the Berlin airport.
2. Shortly after the aircraft has reached its cruising altitude on its way to the States, we are told they are flying at 37,000 feet. Aircraft tracking 180-359° (Westbound) are assigned altitudes in even (not odd) thousands.
3. At one point in time the Captain suggests the flight might be diverted to Goose Bay Labrador. This airport is used exclusively by the Canadian Armed Forces as a military air force base. Nearby Gander International Airport handles civilian air traffic in the area.

PAPER CLIPS




Documentary

BACKGROUND
In 1998 school educators in a small rural Tennessee community started an after-school project aimed at “teaching tomorrow’s leaders the value of remembering yesterday’s mistakes, to ensure that the future is brighter for everyone.” The students began by studying the Holocaust to learn how prejudice and power in the wrong hands can be catastrophic.

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Linda Hooper, Principal of Whitwell Middle School
David Smith, the school’s Deputy Principal
Sandra Roberts, an eighth-grade teacher

REVIEW
Although sometimes disturbing because of the images shown and the facts presented, the movie is both touching and entertaining. And to think it all started because of one question: “What does 6 million look like?”

CLASSIFICATION

Thursday, October 20, 2005

THE RUSSIAN DOLLS




Romantic comedy
Original title: Les poupées russes
In French with English subtitles

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Romain Duris: Xavier, a free lance writer
Audrey Tautou: his ex-girlfriend, Martine
Cécile De France: his friend Isabelle, a television reporter
Kelly Reilly: Wendy, an experienced writer for English television “soaps”
Kevin Bishop: her brother William, a stagehand

REVIEW
Relationships are not always easy. That point is well made in this movie about a group of five people who once shared an apartment in Barcelona when they were students. They’ve grown up now but face other issues, like commitment.

CLASSIFICATION
Not officially classified but given the fact that there are at least 3 sexual encounters, brief drug use, partial nudity and a lengthy scene where one couple runs down the street completely nude with lingering frontal shots as they tire themselves out, I think the R rating I assigned is appropriate.

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
While a girl walks down the center line of the road, her shadow at first is on the left hand side but sometimes it can be seen on the right and then back again to the left.

During the wedding ceremony, the presiding official asks the bride if she, Natasha, will take this man etc but the sub-title incorrectly shows her name to be Natalie.

P.S.
As an added bonus we get to see parts of Paris, London and St. Petersburg. Almost as good as going there in person…well not quite.

PROOF




Drama

BACKGROUND
In mathematics, a proof is a demonstration that, given certain axioms, some statement of interest is necessarily true. That which has proven to be true becomes a theorem and is used as the basis to prove other mathematical statements.

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Anthony Hopkins: Robert, a brilliant University of Chicago mathematician
Gwyneth Paltrow: Catherine, his 27-year-old daughter
Hope Davis: Claire, his other daughter, now living in New York city
Jake Gyllenhaal: Hal, a young protégé of mathematics at U of C

REVIEW
Solid acting coupled with a compelling story that rings true make this an interesting movie. The frequent use of flashbacks is effective. Even though little time is spent trying to explain the proof itself, it’s enough to know how important it is to the science of mathematics.

CLASSIFICATION
for some sexual content, language and drug references.

SEPARATE LIES




Thriller

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Tom Wilkinson: James Manning a high-powered London solicitor
Emily Watson: his wife Anne
Linda Bassett: Maggie, their housekeeper
Rupert Everett: Bill Bule, an aristocratic playboy neighbour

REVIEW
One has to be careful and not give away too much when discussing a thriller movie. Suffice it to say the acting is generally good, the English countryside never looked better and the editing is crisp. The one thing I would change though is the ending.

CLASSIFICATION
for language and sexual references (a rating which in my opinion is not justified)

Sunday, October 16, 2005

WALLACE AND GROMIT:
THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT




Animated cartoon

BACKGROUND
Clay animation began a short time after the invention of plasticine back in 1897 when people started moulding figures just for the fun of it. The first film that used clay animated sculptures, A Sculptor's Welsh Rarebit Nightmare, was released in 1908. For over 40 years, clay animation was not a very popular technique until The Adventures of Gumby was shown on The Howdy Doody Show , a children’s television program in the late ‘50’s. It proved to be so popular it became The Gumby Show on NBC. Today clay animation is a popular method for producing animated films, several of which have won Academy Awards.

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Wallace: a bit of a crackpot cheese-loving inventor
Gromit: his faithful canine companion (and perhaps a lot smarter than his owner?)
Lady Tottington: a beautiful, wealthy, animal-loving carrot-grower
Victor Quartermaine: her suitor, a gun-happy snobby cad

REVIEW
This has all the “essential” elements of any Wallace and Gromit movie: crazy complicated inventions, sight gags, verbal puns, double entendres for the adults, cute characters for the kids. In a word, a must see.

CLASSIFICATION

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
The fingerprints of the animators can be seen in some of the shots, a nice reminder that this form of movie making still needs the human touch.

P.S.
Anyone who sticks around right to the end of the credits get a bonus chuckle.

Saturday, October 15, 2005

IN HER SHOES




Drama

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Cameron Diaz: Maggie Feller, an unemployed party girl
Toni Collette: her sister Rose, a top notch Philadelphia lawyer
Ken Howard: their father
Candice Azzara: their stepmother
Shirley MacLaine: their maternal grandmother, Ella Hirsch

REVIEW
The story about the lives of two women having little in common except for their parents, encompasses many aspects of a dysfunctional family. Toni Collette and Shirley MacLaine both do a fine job of acting; Cameron Diaz spends most of her time parading about.
One complaint though: it’s over 2 hours long and frankly the story doesn’t warrant that much time. Some serious editing would fix that problem.

CLASSIFICATION
for profanity and some sexual content.

L’AUDITION




Drama
In French with English subtitles

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Denis Bernard: Phillipe Chevalier, an experienced French Canadian actor
Luc Picard: Louis Tremblay, a 40-year old thug with aspirations
Suzanne Clément: his wife Suzie, a waitress
Alexis Martin: Marco, partner in crime with Louis

REVIEW
This movie is a real mixed bag. It is serious, funny, brutal, predictable, shocking, beautiful and thought-provoking. Generally the acting is excellent and the pacing is right on.

CLASSIFICATION

Monday, October 3, 2005

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE






Thriller

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Viggo Mortensen: Tom Stall, owner of Stall’s Diner
Maria Bello: his wife Edie
Heidi Hayes: their daughter Sarah
Ashton Holmes: their teenage son Jack
William Hurt: Richie, an Irish mob boss
Ed Harris: Carl, his right hand man

REVIEW
The slow paced “nothing much going on” opening scenes pretty much sets the tone. Knowing it’s almost too good to be true creates a certain amount of tension. And well it should.

The acting is uniformly good and the story riveting. However this is not a movie for the squeamish as some scenes are pretty graphic.

CLASSIFICATION
for brutal violence, graphic sexuality, nudity (brief frontal shot), language and drug use (one joint shared between friends)