Browsing: Film Reviews

Directed by Gabriele Muccino, “The Pursuit of Happyness” is more than a movie, it’s a lesson on the indomitable spirit; an inspirational tale of one man’s trials and tribulations. Will Smith plays Chris Gardner in 1981, a real man with real problems who rose from the darkened ashes of despair with his then five year old son Christopher (played adorably by Jaden Christopher Syre Smith). Gardner suffered a copious amount of hardships and went from being an unpaid broker intern at Dean Witter to becoming a millionaire with his own brokerage company- Gardner Rich. Many of us seek happiness yet…

Read More

Bond 21. There’s a new Bond in town. Despite all the talks and doubts about Daniel Craig transforming into the newest Bond, this Bond is with an edge as sharp as a razor. In fact, Craig’s portrayal of 007 comes closest to Ian Fleming’s original formulation of the British Agent. A Bond devoid of campy one liners, funky gadgets and perpetual rolling in the sack with Bond-girls, Daniel Craig delivers a taurine Bond that is extremely battle hardened (and it shows), a down right dirty unarmed combat exponent (with well executed martial arts techniques). This is Bond in his rawest…

Read More

Director Stefen Fangmeier’s stylistic adaptation of novelist Christopher Paolini’s tale of Eragon, the tale of a young farmer boy who discovers he is destined for greatness as a Dragon Rider is a refreshing look at the bond humankind has with the dragon realm. At the start of our tale, Eragon discovers what appears to be a blue stone in the forest during a hunt mysteriously transported by a young maiden. Young Eragon contemplates that this find will bring untold prosperity to his family. However, unbeknownst to him this blue stone is actually a dragon egg in need of its rider.…

Read More

What if there was a way to go back ever so slightly in time to right a wrong and rescue an impossible love worth more than your lonely life? Agent Doug Carlin falls at first sight for a beautiful dead woman killed in an act of civil war rivaling the Oklahoma City bombing in scope and terror. Entering into the high tech realm of super physics, territory commonly reserved for mad men and magicians, Carlin is visually escorted by several eccentric young government scientists, armed with well researched string theory jargon and an array of complex viewing screens, into a…

Read More

One bullet. One bullet is the sole catalyst which propels the theme of miscommunication and dire consequences in Director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s, “Babel”. The third installment following Inarritu’s “Amores Perros” and “21 Grams”, follows four seemingly unrelated stories which start in a remote mountain village in Morocco. A goat herder purchases a high powered rifle to ward off predatory jackals gets more than he bargains for when his two sons experiment with the shooting range of the rifle. In a test of sibling rivalry, the bullet which is fired on a lone road at a touring bus, connects with our…

Read More

Director Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins, Memento), takes the viewer into the minds of two rivaling practitioners of the illusionary arts, Robert Angier (played by Hugh Jackman), and the other the darker, Alfred Borden (played by Christian Bale). Throw also into the mix an aged Cutter, played by Michael Caine who creates the machinery to give the illusions “life”, and you initially have all the makings of what Caine remarks as the three acts of magic show: The Pledge, The Turn, and The Prestige. Now, The Pledge- where the magician will show you the ordinary, next is The Turn- where the…

Read More

Kevin Costner stars as the callous Ben Randall, a U.S. Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer legend who battles throughout the film to rescue his failed marriage with his wife played by Sela Ward. Paralleling this, Randall loses his entire crew on a rescue mission in the Bering Sea near Kodiak, Alaska. Taking the loss to heart, Senior Chief Randall is offered an instructor position at the famous “A-School”, to train fledgling swimmers by his commander. Randall reluctantly takes the offer to regain some control over his life and sift through his troubled past. Among the recruits which have enough heart for…

Read More

Director Clint Eastwood takes us on a brilliant two-fold look at the events at The Battle of Iwo Jima, where in 1945, U.S. Marines stormed the island of Iwo Jima which was Japanese occupied territory. Iwo Jima was the first territory fought on Japanese land during WWII. The island was defended by 22,000 troops on treacherous and unforgiving black sand terrain. The key directive was the capture the high point on the southern end of the island, this point was Mount Suribachi, a 546ft. mountain. Rapid and continuous attacks against the 30,000 troops which landed at Iwo Jima occurred. The…

Read More

You will wish he was running for president or What happened in there?Barry Levison’s “Man of the Year” is a fragmented Political/Comedy/Romantic/Thriller that may leave audiences either confused or cheering – or in my, case both. The film stars Robin Williams as Comedian/TV show host Tom Dobbs who runs for president and wins by a computer error. Sound familiar? The fragmentation sets in when the film becomes a political thriller at the point where Eleanor Green (Laura Linny), a programmer, finds a glitch in the polling system derived by her employer. The company decides to offshoot her as a drug…

Read More