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)

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.

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

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)