Just Friends

Just Friends is the latest comedy from Ryan Reynolds, whose restaurant comedy Waiting... came out just 2 months ago, and got a very good review from me. This time around Reynolds is under the helm of Roger Kumble, who brought us the first two Cruel Intentions (first one great, second one has a lesbian scene, which means is also great), and they will team up again next year for the action comedy Ride Along (btw, Reynolds has 6 movies coming out next year). To complete the naming, the movie is written by Adam 'Tex' Davis is his feature debut and the cast is rounded by Reynolds’ Waiting... costar Anna Faris, American Pie's Chris Klein and Road Trip's Amy Smart (she's naked there, not here).

The story is simple: Reynolds plays Chris, a fat guy in high school who’s been Jamie's (Smart) best friend since forever. They spend all their time together, sleep in the same bed at times (as friends), talk about everything, etc. But Jamie is super hot, and she dates all these jocks, so when they graduate and are ready to go on with their lives, Chris sees it as the chance to confess his love for her. Problem is, he's doing it at the graduation party at Jamie's house, and with a letter, but someone else ends up reading the letter, showing it to everybody and Chris is even more embarrassed than he was before. Jamie reads the letter too, but kills him with an "I love too, as a friend right?" that makes him leave and swears to never come back to his home town in New Jersey. Reynolds’ fat suit is amazing, and you barely notice the face fat chin and cheeks. And he's really funny too, especially when lip-syncing a song he wrote Jamie called "I Swear".
We jump ten years and Chris is a successful young man in Los Angeles. He's working in the music industry, he plays hockey, dates girls hotter than Jamie and best of all, he's thin. But a problem arise when his boss (a cameo appearance by Stephen Root) orders him to accompany Hollywood's It girl Samantha Jones (Faris) to France to sign a record deal with their agency, but when they are on the air, problems with the plane make them land in New Jersey, where Chris is forced to stay for a few days with Samantha, so they end up going to his house. Samantha Jones is meant to be Paris Hilton of course (or Ashley Simpson, though both Ashley and Jessica are mentioned during the movie so I'm sticking with Paris), and Faris must've had some fun with the character. She played it like a total psycho. What's funnier is that Samantha Jones has only one awesome hit single called "Forgiveness" that is loved by every little girl in the world, but she thinks she's also got a seriousness to her that will appeal to adults too and so she wants Chris to take her to play at a local blues club, which doesn't end up very well. Here is also Chris Marquette (The Girl Next Door's Eli) who plays Chris' little brother. He's obsessed with Samantha Jones (he masturbates multiple times a day thinking about her, he tells her), and so Chris is always ditching Samantha and putting her in the car with his brother, so he can instead go and work on Jamie. Jamie is still living there, and still hot, working as a bartender in the local bar, she's also a substitute teacher. We also meet Chris Klein's Dusty again here. We'd seen him before 10 years ago when he was a nerdy and full of acne weirdo also in love with Jamie just like Chris. Now Dusty is a firefighter, helps at the local hospital, and is pretty much a town hero. And he's still in love with Jamie, so is natural that they will compete for her.
And here's where the movie could've been excellent instead of just good, as Dusty at one point says "The two former geeks are now going to make everyone pay" or something like that, and I think they should've gone with that idea and make it work throughout the entire movie. Instead, they only fight over Jamie, and we see how Chris thinks he's what Jamie always wanted now, a thin jock guy with money, but all she wants is her best friend back, who she may really love now.

The movie then gets very formulaic and predictable, but it's funny anyway. The movie would've benefited by going with the two former geeks getting revenge idea, which would've made Chris Klein's role bigger too, but is ok with what it ended up being. Just like Waiting..., Just Friends is not ground breaking and is not going to be a classic, but is a funny movie, easy to watch, with beautiful people, those two amazingly funny songs, and a crazy Anna Faris whose performance alone makes the movie worth watching.

Rent

Based on Puccini's La Bohemia, Rent is the big screen adaptation of the Jonathan Larson hit Broadway musical of the same name, about 7 friends trying to survive life in East Village New York in the 80s. Half of them have AIDS, are taking drugs or used to take drugs, they don't have jobs or the ones that have a job are just making enough money to barely eat, and of course that they can't pay the rent. They don't care though, because they are bohemians and that's the life they want, focusing on their friendships and loves.

It's a musical, so for those who don't like musicals this is not for you. The story is dated too, I mean, AIDS is not that big these days as it was back then (still very important though), and the bohemian life is sadly kind of forgotten. Luckily for me that doesn't matter, I love the 80s and I also like musicals very much. I enjoy them. I'm also a lover of liberalism and the way of life portrayed in the movie. About Rent though, I've never seen the play, and I'm embarrassed to admit that before Team America last year I had no idea what this was about. I got a better picture earlier this year with the trailer, but my first impression that it looked gay and that the song was annoying. Upon repeated viewing though, the song got stuck in my head and I started liking it. After seeing the movie now, I still can't get Five Hundred Twenty Five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes off my head, but is ok, because I truly love it.

The celebrated lives are those of Angel (Wilson Jermaine Heredia), Collins (Jesse L. Martin), Maureen (Idina Menzel), Roger (Adam Pascal), Mark (Anthony Rapp), Joanne (Tracie Thoms) and Mimi (Rosario Dawson). And there's also Benny (Taye Diggs), who used to be their friend and roommate to Mark and Roger, but he married the building's landlord and failed his promise to not charge their friends living there. He's a suit now, and is trying to empty the buildings to build a cyberspace company. Mark and Roger still live there. Mark is a wannabe filmmaker who starts filming his and his friends' lives for a documentary. Roger is a musician still trying to write that one perfect song. He's emotionally down though, because he lost a girlfriend due to drugs and AIDS, so when Mimi, an exotic dancer, puts an interest in him, he pulls away because he knows she does drugs. They are both HIV positive. Mark was recently dumped by Maureen, a revolutionary performer who starts a protest against Benny, who Mimi used to go out with. Maureen’s new love is Joanne, a Harvard lawyer who gets easily jealous (rightly so) when Maureen flirts with other women and men, which happens a lot. And finally, and the hearts of the movie, Collins and Angel, who meet after Collins is beat up and robbed in an alley near the guys' apartment, and they quickly fall in love. Collins is an unemployed professor, and Angel is a street performer drag queen. They are also HIV positive.

The performances are amazing, with emphasis on Wilson Jermaine Heredia and Idina Menzel's. All of them put their hearts in these characters and you can feel it. The music is really amazing too. Many songs to love like the aforementioned Seasons of Love, and then Another Day and La Vie Boheme. The singing is great, and is all lip-syncing except for Over The Moon, which Idina Menzel sings live. But the lip-syncing works great here, especially if they actually filmed in the cold of New York. Either that or they did an amazing job simulating it, especially the breathing. Directed by Chris Columbus (Home Alone and the first two Harry Potter movies) and adapted for the screen by Steve Chbosky, Rent is affecting and engaging, and after you understand that is ok that these people are singing on the screen, it all becomes natural and like me, you'll find yourself singing with them every song until the credits are done.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

The wizard world gets real though losing some of the magic it had before in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, adapted once again (like all the previous movies) by Steven Kloves from the ultra popular J.K. Rowling's book. And this time around Donnie Brasco and Four Weddings and a Funeral director Mike Newell is at the helm (he reportedly turned down an offer to direct the first movie). The entire cast is back and with them the actors growing up, it fitted perfect as our young wizards are also growing up. Now is all about the kids' first dance, boys and girls liking each other for the first time, and really tough competitions that feature real danger, and even death. There's a lot I liked about the movie, and a couple scenes I really loved, but there's also a couple items that needed more work.

But lets start with the beginning of the movie which I love, as Harry, Ron, Hermione and the rest of the Weasleys travel to the I wish it was longer Quidditch World Cup. We only get to see the beginning of the tournament and it's big. It has a great feel of greatness and it makes the world of Harry feel much bigger with the addition of international characters. A comment about the match, it wasn't clear for me if the kids were all just rooting for Ireland or if it was because they were from there. I know Ron and his family are supposed to be Irish just by their looks, and I thought Harry and Hermione were English but there's no mention or explanation about it. We are introduced here to Viktor Krum (Stanislav Ianevski) who is the star of the Bulgarian team.

Then we learn about the Yule Ball and the TriWizard Tournament. I loved everything about the ball and the dance. It was a teen drama and it worked really well. Harry and Ron not getting dates. Harry getting rejected by Cho Chang (played by Katie Leung), whose role is surprisingly small and nothing like I was expecting). The girls giggling for the big boys and then Hermione going to the dance with the jock. Neville going with Ginny. Everything was great. Even the adults like Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane ) getting close to the very tall Madame Maxime (Frances de la Tour) from the French school, and Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) dancing with Minerva McGonagall (Maggie Smith). Excellent.

I mentioned the French school head mistress Madame Maxime and her school, Beauxbaton, is also part of the movie. The Beauxbaton girls and the Durmstrang students are visiting Hogwarts for the TriWizard Tournament in which one participant from each of the three schools must compete. The titular Goblet of Fire selects the contestants after the kids nominate themselves. Good guy Cedric Diggory (Robert Pattinson) is the choice for Hogwarts, Viktor Krum for Durmstrang and the beautiful Fleur Delacour (Clemence Poesy) for Beauxbaton. The Goblet also selects Harry even though he didn't nominate himself and he's not eligible to participate because he is only 14 and the tournament is for kids over 17 only. But since the Goblet allowed him, there's nothing Dumbledore can do about it.
The competitions are amazing. Especially the second one, which is underwater (the French girl is hot!), though what the hell with the kids being tied underwater? I mean, they were in actual danger there as far as we know and I don't think they volunteered for that. The first competition was a fight against a Dragon in which the kids had to take a golden egg from him and that egg would give them clues on the third competition, the very scary and dangerous maze. The entire maze sequence, which ends with Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort, is brilliant. There's great tension, someone dies, and the transformation of Voldemort was an excellent effect. Voldemort looks very different from what they hinted at in the first movies. He's got a kind of blob like skin and his face is like Fiennes' but without a nose, he looks just great.

I loved all that, yes, but there are a few plot holes that I didn't like and I don't know if they were cut because of time for the movie or were not in the books either. But some for characters, especially the evil ones, I need some explanations because it's like they just let them be there in the movie and there's never a confrontation. We learn here that Snape (the brilliant Alan Rickman) was a Death Eater before and then became a spy for Dumbledore. He's always been both good and bad in the previous movies so it makes sense, but then here Harry sees him Igor Karkaroff (played by Pedja Bjelac) who is the head master of Durmstrang, and they are looking at Karkaroff's arm tattoo of the Voldemort symbol (the snake) which is the same one Barty Crouch Jr. (played by David Tennant, who looks a lot like Stuart Townsend) has. Harry had seen the tattoo before in his nightmares, which we see at the beginning of the movie and a couple more times later. In the nightmare Harry sees Voldemort (not visible though, he's sitting on a big chair and he's not transformed yet), Barty Crouch Jr. and Wormtail (Timothy Spall) as they killed an old muggle in an old mansion. The thing is that after Harry sees Snape, Karkaroff and the tattoo together, he doesn't say anything to anybody. And he knew that Barty Crouch Jr. was a bad guy. And then Lucius Malfoy (Jason Isaacs), who at the end is on Voldemort's side but Harry doesn't say anything either about him when he gets out of the maze (apparently something does happen in the book though). That those two characters are still untouched in the story (of the movies at least) is amazing to me.

As for the acting, I thought it was just fine. The Weasley twins (James and Oliver Phelps) are excellent throughout the entire movie and thankfully they get a lot more on screen time than they did in the 3 previous movies combined. The most fun characters of all. Daniel Radclife and Rupert Grint were good too as always and just perfect for their roles. Rupert is getting huge, giant arms. They should change the ages of the kids for the next movies and make it different from the books. There's no way they can make them look 14, as they should be according to the books. And then the only ones that I've never been sure about, Emma Watson as Hermione (sorry, she's cute and will be super hot in the future but her acting is not great) and Tom Felton who plays Drako (the kid can't act). Matthew Lewis who plays Neville was pretty good though.
Then the adults, who were pretty much all great. Glad to see more of Dumbledore who's had almost nothing to do in the first 3 movies. Then a little bit for everybody else though I would've liked to actually see Sirius Black (Gary Oldman). But Brendan Gleeson as Mad Eye Moody, the new professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, was excellent. I did not like Miranda Richardson's Rita Skeeter though. Robbie Coltrane ruled as in all the previous movies and as mentioned before, Ralph Fiennes was perfect in those 10 or so minutes he was there as Voldemort.

Overall this is a very good movie, great effects and creatures, and a bigger world to work with. In comparison, I think the first two movies were mediocre, and too much for kids. The third one was great. Dark, with a great gothic style and it showed the kids growing up a little bit and it's the best of the series so far. Goblet of Fire is the second best right now. There's a lot to like though there are a few plot holes (lots for those who haven't read the books, like me) that should've not been left unanswered, though for that it would've taken a lot of extra time so I guess I have to let it pass. Add to that an almost non existent score from John Williams (who was nominated for an Oscar for Azkaban) which was weird, and the loss of the great cinematography seen before also in the third movie, and should be more unhappy but despite all that, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is a great movie, because the kids are growing, and we get to see that part of them that we've never seen before, and Mike Newell translated it perfect into the movie. As Hermione says, "Everything is going to change now, isn't it?", and the answer is yes, but with these great team of people making the next movies too, there's nothing to fear because the changes will be for better.

The Ice Harvest

Harold Ramis, the man behind the camera of some of the great comedy classics from the past few decades like National Lampoon's Vacation, Caddyshack, Groundhog Day and Analyze This (he also wrote the GhostBusters movies, Animal House, Stripes and Bedazzled), is back after some years without a good movie with The Ice Harvest, another adult, dark comedy crossed with a film noir crime thriller, set around Christmas time in snowy Wichita Falls, Kansas.

John Cusack stars as mob lawyer Charlie Arglist, and Billy Bob Thornton is Vic Cavanaugh, it's Christmas Eve and the two of them have stolen 2 million dollars from the mob. The crime boss is Bill Guerrard (played by Randy Quaid) and he wont find out until after Christmas, so the boys plan to stay the night in town and leave in the morning, especially since there's a pretty bad ice storm currently hitting the city. They move around the strip clubs, Vic owns one, and Renata, played by Connie Nielsen, owns the other one called the Sweet Cage. Charlie has long tried for Renata's affection, and now that he's got the money and leaving, he hopes to take her with him. Problems arise when Guerrard finds out early, and sends a hitman to get them. Charlie also needs to take care of his best friend Pete who gets terribly drunk, and he also needs to take care of his drinking too since there are a few cops who seem to find him driving around every couple of hours. Pete is also married now to Charlie's ex-wife, and even raising Charlie's children with her. She is a cold manipulative bitch so Pete is suffering now just like Charlie suffered when he was married to her.

As much as the movie is being promoted as a buddy comedy, it's Cusack's movie, the classic Cusack mannerisms are there, and he pulls it off. Billy Bob's Vic is his now also classic sleazy persona he played so well in Bad Santa and the Bad News Bears remake. He's not much in the movie actually but he's got a couple of scenes towards the end that are great. Danish beauty Connie Nielsen plays it great and she has a great mature sexiness even if she's years away from her Devil's Advocate days. Randy Quaid, though a weird choice for a mob boss, works it just fine and his one scene is great. Oliver Platt plays the drunk Pete and he's the very best part of the movie. He makes jokes, new ones even, and they're actually funny, and he plays the drunkenness great.

Cinematographer Alar Kivilo gives us a great look of the icy lakes of Wichita Falls, and the movie also has a nice Christmassy/film noir score by David Kitay. Based on the novel by Scott Phillips, and adapted by Richard Russo and Robert Benton (who also wrote Kramer vs. Kramer and the original Superman), The Ice Harvest is a good movie, not very memorable and it's uneventful, but is violent, it has a nice language, and it's a good movie overall.

Walk the Line

Boasting stellar performances by Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line is a Johnny Cash biopic that is so much like last year's Ray Charles biopic that it will be tough for it to suffer the comparisons, especially since Ray is easily a much better movie overall. I do have to admit that I didn't know one single Johnny Cash (nor June Carter) song before going to see the movie, and I only recognized one of them, Ring of Fire but just because it's been promoted since the movie was announced. So fans of Johnny Cash and country music in general will probably like it better, and I quite liked it.

Poor and having to work during his childhood, with a brother that died when they were kids, a tough time to get into the business, and a drug abuse problem that came with that, all that was part of Ray, and also of Walk the Line now. And both had very strong, Oscar worthy performances. Joaquin Phoenix plays the Man in Black and what a performance he gives. Quite and very interior at times, or putting it all out because of the drug or the alcohol, he makes no mistake. Emotional when needed, funny too. Of course that this is the best performance of his career, and he was great in Gladiator, Quills and Buffalo Soldiers too. If I had to give someone the Oscar the right now, I'd go with Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote though, but Joaquin would be second in line.
A tougher role in the movie was that of Reese Witherspoon who plays June Carter, the love of Johnny Cash's life for a long time before she finally married him. Reese is amazing here, perfectly transforming into June from the beginning of the movie. She has a very thick accent, that must've been easy since being a southern belle herself, and luckily doesn't tiring or anything. Oscar talk again, she would be a lock to win if she were supporting. Still, she has great chances as a lead actress. I liked her better than Charlize Theron in North Country, but I'm not so sure if better than Gwyneth Paltrow in Proof, though both those movies tanked at the box office so it's going to be very tough for them to overpower Reese.

Johnny Cash's story starts with the death of his brother, which happened when they were young and left him with a grudge against his father who made him miserable after the accident (Jack Cash died while working cutting wood on a circular saw). The father, Ray Cash, is played by Robert Patrick who gives a pretty good performance too.
After Johnny got married for the first time he formed a country band with some friends from work (who were not good musicians at all) and then he found a recording company who let them record a song but not before they changed their music which was very mediocre at first, but once Cash found his right sound and style, he was a superstar.
June Carter had been a star since she was a child and around these days she was married and singing with her husband. She played it funny though, as her family of big musicians always told her that she wasn't the best of them, and so she thought of bringing comedy to her act.
She had a tough time having to put up with all those boys she toured with (during their Sun Records days, which gave life to many popular singers back then), which included Elvis Presley (pop-star Tyler Hilton), Jerry Lee Lewis (Waylon Malloy Payne) and Carl Perkins (blues singer Johnny Holiday). And after that she had to live with Johnny Cash's stalking (pretty much) and the people's disapproval of her getting divorced which happened twice before wedding Cash, and during all that she also got put down for forming a relationship with him (just friends though at first) while they were both married. Cash's first wife was Vivian Cash and she is played by Ginnifer Goodwin, who gives a passable performance though she gets very little respect in the story. She's complaining all the time (rightly so though as Johnny was touring and singing duets with June all the time, and he was popping pills like a maniac), crying and yelling, and the writers don't care to give her any dignity like Ray's did with Kerry Washington's Della Bea, Ray's wife who had to go through pretty much if not more (especially being black) than Vivian.

I love the fact that all of the actors portraying singers in the movie actually sang all their songs, including Joaquin and Reese who make the perfect singing voices and can really sing in tune and in the same style Johnny and June did. I'm guessing they also played the instruments themselves. The songs during the whole movie are excellent and very enjoyable. The sound department did a great job with the music for the movie. Sadly though, that's the only technical praise I can give the movie. Phedon Papamichael's cinematography is not impressive at all, and I really feel the movie needed some kind of style like Ray had which was that beautiful black and gray tone of smoking. Nothing like that here. Director James Mangold's camera work was also mediocre, poor even. Very disappointing coming from the man who gave us Cop Land and Girl, Interrupted, both great movies that had their own styles, even his Kate & Leopold did.

Co-written by Mangold and Gill Dennis, and based on a couple of Cash's autobiographies, this is a very good movie that does a great job in showing us who Johnny and June were and what they went through, but as a whole it fails because the supporting players are very underwritten, specially Ray, as Patrick could've use more time to develop the character, and Vivian, though if the role would've been bigger I don't know if Goodwin could've make it work. Still, the music and powerful lead performances make Walk the Line very worthy of a watch, and it's made me want to give Cash's discography a try. I'm sure I'll become a fan after a few listenings.

Bee Season

Based on the best selling novel by Myla Goldberg, Bee Season is not the movie you think, not at all. The spelling bee is just the device this drama uses to introduce us to this family of religious intellectuals, who will suffer serious spiritual changes and awakenings before it's over. It is rated PG-13, breaking common MPAA rules, it has 2 'fucks', but should kids see it? I'm not so sure, as it could raise some tough questions about religion that are not for everybody. The main theme here is the study and practice of Kabbalah, which is not just something crazy Madonna does. I had actually no idea what it was before the movie, and now I do, at least some.

The movie centers on Eliza Naumann, an 11-year-old girl who start winning spelling bee competitions, first at her school and then the District tournament. Her family doesn't know about it. Her father is Saul, a Jewish college professor who teaches religion and the Kabbalah. He also practiced Kabbalah once but he could not accomplish it. He's very close to his son Aaron, a teenager who is a gifted violinist. They practice together all the time at night, neglecting Eliza and Miriam, the mom of the family. Miriam is a scientist.
That neglecting is what makes Eliza hide her triumphs from her father and mother, but after winning district, which is when Aaron learns about it as he has to give her a ride, the rest of the family founds out too, making Saul get close to her little girl and start neglecting Aaron now. Meanwhile, Miriam keeps being neglected and for some reason she starts going out at night, not to clubs or anything like that, but getting up in the middle of the night and leaving the house in her pajamas. She drives around, parks in the middle of streets and breaks into empty house taking little objects with her, we don't know why.
After Saul sees Eliza win again, he takes her into her office and starts helping her study for the competitions and then teaching her Kabbalah, a practice that lets those who achieve it (who is almost nobody says Saul) connect with God. A great student of it said that it could be done by working and playing with words, as words reflect reality, but they also create it. So Saul sees Eliza's spelling bee wins and ease with words and wants her to practice Kabbalah, and she eventually does. What Saul doesn't know is that Eliza doesn't need any of it. She hears the words, closes her eyes, and the words appear in front of her, they are there in all forms possible, usually according to the word they are spelling. She explains this to her mother and here's when we learn a bit more about her. Miriam's parents died in a car accident when she was young, and she's had emotional problems about it ever since, those little objects she steals, often shinny or with prismatic shapes, reflect her likeness for kaleidoscopes, which reminds her of the broken glasses from the crashed car. During the movie she gradually gets worse with her problem. Aaron goes into a spiritual journey too because of his father's disregardance and goes in different religious ways. First he attends a Catholic church, then reads a book about Hinduism, to finally get recruited by a beautiful young girl named Chali to the Hare Krishna.
As Eliza keeps winning and getting closer to God, the family falls apart in very different but all interest, educative and very thought-provoking ways.

The performances are top notch here. Eliza is played by French newcomer Flora Cross who is truly an amazing actress at her young age. She has an inner acting going on that is canalized just in the right way with perfect timing. This girl has bright future ahead of her. Max Minghella plays her Aaron and a great performance from him too. He's got an excellent scene with the father that is just a perfect expression of acted anger. Saul is played by Richard Gere, and even though the character is not a great father, nor person by any means, Gere does great here and plays him very well. Juliette Binoche plays Miriam and is a tough performance as she is by herself in most of her scenes she does it well too. There's one terribly good scene she has that will make people jump from their seats.

The movie also has great use of CGI when Eliza works her magic, as signs in the rooms get highlighted right on the correct letters to spell the words, or objects appear out of nowhere and shape themselves into different letters. There's great camera work too throughout the entire movie, with some great innovative shots and angles. Adapted for the screen by Naomi Foner and directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel, Bee Season is a family movie, mindblowing, haunting, and the most powerful movie I've seen all year.

Pride & Prejudice

Emma, Sense and Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice. I've never been a Jane Austen fan, and as an adult in fact, I've never seen any of the TV or film adaptations (save for the P&P Bollywood musical last year) of any of her novels, but I might start now. They are showing the 1995/1996 miniseries tomorrow on TV, so I'm starting there, because I hear that Colin Firth is excellent there, and that the adaptation is the best ever made so far, reason why some people are rejecting the new Pride & Prejudice, directed by Joe Wright and adapted by Deborah Moggach. I'm happy though, because with no comparison possible, I fell in love with it, and I don't think that watching any other adaptation will change that.

The story I've known since forever of course, poor, strong and smart girl hates the rich tough boy to then fall in love at the end against the family and society's rules and traditions. But it's a lot more than that.
Keira Knightley stars as Elizabeth Bennet, the second in age of the Bennet sisters, who are five in total. Rosamund Pike plays Jane, the most beautiful and eldest sister, who is first in line to be married according to tradition. Jenna Malone is Lydia and Carey Mulligan is Kitty, the playful sisters who want love and be married even though they are too young. Talulah Riley is Mary, the youngest of the bunch, and the only one who doesn't care for marriage yet. She's kind of like the Goth girl if that existed back in the 18th century when the novel and movie take place. I know I mentioned marriage there a lot, and it's because that's what this is all about. The girls' mother and matriarch of the family, played by Brenda Blethyn, takes it as her job to get them wed to wealthy men. The first opportunity arises when young Mr. Bingley (played by Simon Woods) comes to town and moves next to the Bennet's house. Mrs. Bennet arranges for her daughters to meet Mr. Bingley at the dance, and puts Jane right in front of him, and even though their meeting is staged, they immediately fall truly in love. Elizabeth is next, and Mr. Bingley's best friend is Mr. Darcy who is played by Matthew MacFadyen (this is the character that Firth played in the miniseries). He is cold, rich and doesn't say good things about her after they first meet. She's very opinionated and dislikes the rich. But they fall in love too, even though they don't know it yet. Elizabeth will later have another love interest in Mr. Wickham (played by Rupert Friend), an officer who used to be Darcy's best friend in their childhood. She will also get a proposition to get married from Mr. Collins (Tom Hollander), an older man with some money her mother wants her to marry since Jane is already taken. He also talks a lot, and is a man of the clergy. Elizabeth declines with the help of her father (played by Donald Sutherland) after her mother goes crazy about it. Mr. Collins will then marry Elizabeth's best friend Betsy (Sinead Matthews). And Lydia will also get married, and Dame Judy Dench will appear in a villainy role before we get to the inevitable but well deserved and satisfactory conclusion of Elizabeth and Darcy's union.

I have to apologize to Mrs. Knightley first of all, I'm never been a fan, and I've even said before that I really don't like her. I've never said that about her performances though, she's always good to great. I've said that because I didn't think she was beautiful (of course, who am I to complain that about her), I'd never fell in love with her on screen, but that changed today. She was the most beautiful creature of the planet, and her performance is excellent. She smiled and I smiled, she was glowing, vibrant and radiating an amazing energy. Her Lizzy is also smart and funny. I loved everything about her. This is truly an Award worthy, perfect performance. The supporting actors are great too, with Brenda Blethyn and Donald Sutherland giving very strong performances. Rosamund Pike is also a highlight and makes me forget that she was in Doom and didn't get naked there, or here. Nobody does here (not that is needed).

The movie is also technically perfect. Gorgeous cinematography from Roman Osin, who gives a great look to the foggy English countryside. The costumes, makeup, sets and decorations, everything is great. The entire art department and production team have made a perfect job here. I love period pieces, so getting into the movie was not a problem to me as it is for some people. I hope everybody can get past that and give Pride & Prejudice a chance. Excellent work like this, with these amazing performances deserve to be watched and must not be neglected, and the movie is really one of the best of the year.

The Matador

Pierce Brosnan leaves James Bond behind in Richard Shepard's The Matador, where he plays Julian Noble, an international hitman who's been loosing it lately, and he finds a friend in Greg Kinnear's Danny Wright while in Mexico for a job. A buddy comedy about middle-age men bonding, but with a thriller sideplot, the movie is really fun.

I have to describe Julian better, because on paper it doesn't seem at all that this is a departure from the man that liked his martini shaken, not stirred, but it is. Julian is a sleazy, dirty man, going after teenage girls, delivering some crazy dialogue about nailing girls behind the Gap, he's amazing. And Brosnan plays him no holds barred, with the ugly mustache and the beer belly showing. Then Kinnear's Danny is a regular guy, a small time salesman in business in Mexico City. He meets Julian in the bar, and after the two of them form a friendship over their problems (Julian is having problems concentrating lately in his jobs, Danny is not sure he'll get the account he came to Mexico to get) and alcohol, he ends up helping Julian and Julian ends up helping him. Also in the story is Hope Davis (American Splendor, Proof) who plays Danny's wife Bean. She's funny, and when she first meets Julian all she wants is to see his gun. Hope Davis is excellent in the 20 or so minutes she gets here. Very funny and a radiant beauty, though still looking like a regular woman.
Great performances from all of them.

The movie has great dialogue and excellent direction courtesy of Shepard. And a great cinematography too from David Tattersall (the Star Wars prequels, The Green Mile), with great shots of Mexico City, especially the aerial ones of the Plaza de Toros and the actual bullfighting. Great colorful shots very well taken there. Funny, entertaining, and character driven, there's not much to say about The Matador other than recommend it.

Derailed

Clive Owen and Jennifer Aniston star in Derailed as Charles Schine and Lucinda Harris, two executives who meet on a train while on their way to work, flirt a little bit with each other, and after a few encounters for lunch when they go over their lives (professional and personal) they decide to get a hotel and sleep together. They are both married and have families of their own though, but after a few maybe-we-shouldn'ts they decide to do it anyway. When they're about to do it though, Vincent Cassell's Philippe Laroche breaks into the hotel room, knocks Charles out and rapes Lucinda. They don't call the cops because they would have to say what were they doing there. Then a few days later, Philippe calls Charles and blackmails him for money or else he'll tell his wife about Lucinda.

Directed by Mikael Hafstrom and written by Stuart Beattie from a novel by James Siegel, the story is well written and keeps everything tight and well paced, and there aren't many wrong decisions taken by the characters so it works quite well. There's not much dialogue (the movie is very simple) but what is said is realistic and not goofy. It's serious movie, and the times that make for a laugh it's an actual scary laugh because of something Philippe says or does.
Clive is great here. A simple performance but very well done. Aniston is good too, though she doesn't have as much to do. Her few emotional scenes (she's the lady is distress), especially when she gets raped, are very well acted. Cassell is very good and entertaining as the classic crazy sleazy bad guy. The RZA and Xzibit are both in the movie too and they're actually pretty good. They play Charles' friend from work and Philippe's sidekick, respectively.
There's also Melissa George who plays Charles' wife Deanna. She has pretty much nothing to do and is there because Charles needs to be married in order for the story to work, and there's also a subplot about Charles and Deanna's daughter Amy who has diabetes and so they have been saving money for a long time to buy a new drug that could cure her. And that's the money Philippe wants.

The movie is good, I have to say that. There's some good suspense, pretty good acting, good R rated dialogue and the scenes when they fight (nothing big though, no action) are done very well. If I had to compare the movie with something else I'd say that is kind of like Red Eye which was also very simple and low key, but effective and suspenseful.
Oh yes, there's a twist at the end. I figured it out 5 minutes into the movie though, as there is a line one of the characters says that gives it away. In the case that you miss that line or don't get it, then you may end up really eating it all up and loving it.
Whatever happens, Derailed still works well because after the final twist there are still ten or so more minutes of movie when we get a regular and satisfactory ending.

Paradise Now

Paradise Now tells the story of Said and Khaled, two Palestinian childhood friends who work together as mechanics, they smoke together, talk about life, and they spend time with their families. Said has a love interest in Suha, the daughter of an important man who is a leader for the Palestinians. She's is slowly falling in love with him too. You wouldn't know what the movie is about from its first 20 or so minutes, as we follow the two friends on their daily lives. But it all (rather quietly) changes when they are visited by old friends who tell them that they have finally been chosen to sacrifice themselves for their country's cause in a suicide bombing attempt in Tel-Aviv in a couple of days.

The movie is not completely religious. Of course that comes into play, especially when they start questioning, though still very sure they will do it, if it's worth it to die this way. And it's even worse for them when Suha finds out about it. She's against the suicide bombings, arguing that it only makes the Israelis strike back and the confrontation will never end. But what's great is to see the preparation the terrorist group takes with them. They give them new suits, cut their hair and shave them, they make their final videos when they explain why are they doing it and they also say a last goodbye to their families. This is a fantastic scene as Khaled makes his recording, but the camera wasn't working, so he has to repeat it again. It could be taken as funny, but is actually terrible that he has to say goodbye like that twice. They also have their final meal, a scene purposely made to look like The Last Supper, in which all the men in the group are seated on the same side of the table full of food, and Said and Khaled are in the center of it. I don't really want to spoil it but they finally end up crossing the border to Israel and there is a bombing at the end. But it's done so sublime and perfectly well done that is not the horror I was expecting.

Kais Nashef plays Said and Ali Suliman plays Khaled. Suha is played by Lubna Azabal. Amazing performances. The movie is directed by Hany Abu-Assad, and written by him, Bero Beyer and Pierre Hodgson. As for the movie itself, I think that what was done with the bombing scene was great, but everything else before it should've been played more dramatic. I would've want to see more of these characters' lives, and more about how the idea of going to kill themselves for their country and their religion affected their lives for during the time they learn about it until it's time to actually do it. I think that more of all that would've made this a terrific film. As it is, Paradise Now is a great experience that could and should have been better.

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

Showtime, Taxi, Hollywood Homicide, Bad Company, The Man? All horrible, and for children. The Bad Boys movies? People went to see them but they're crap in my book. Where are the buddy action comedies for adults these days? They are gone. No 48 Hrs, no The Last Boy Scout or The Long Kiss Goodnight, and most importantly, no more Lethal Weapons. Those masterpieces that defined the genre in the 80s and early 90s, and the man behind most of that was screenwriter Shane Black, who is back after years absent from Hollywood to bring us his directorial debut Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, an amazing homage to those film noir full of mysterious twist, explosive comedic action with a million lines to quote movies that we all used to love back in the day.

The story is all twisty, a mystery getting more and more ideas and possible killers and victims as our heroes try to solve it, or as they don't at times. They are Harry Lockhart and Gay Perry, classic names already. Harry (played by Robert Downey Jr.) is a small time thief who lands at a movie audition by accident when escaping from the police, gives the performance of his life, and ends up taken to Hollywood to try for a role in a big studio movie. He's going to play a detective in the movie, so they put him under the tutelage of Gay (Val Kilmer), a Los Angeles Private Detective that is actually gay. He takes Harry with him to follow someone for a case he's currently working on, but things start going wrong when the person they were following ends up dead, or killed someone, and then there's a body in a lake, and a body that ends up pissed in the shower, and a millionaire movie stars turned businessman (Corbin Bernsen) who's been fighting with his daughter over some money. There's also 2 hit men called Mr. Fire and Mr. Frying Pan, the latter didn't like to be called Mr. Ice so he changed it, and there's a pink hair girl beauty played by Shannyn Sossamon, and finally, a star making performance by the super amazing and delicious Michelle Monaghan who plays Harmony Lane, who may have a childhood connection with Harry.

I'm not going more into the story because a) It'd be a lot of spoilers and b) I'm not entirely sure I can get it right after what it took me to figure it out. But don't worry, you'll get it, and what's more important are the performances here. Robert Downey Jr. is possible at the height of his career with this performance, and yes, I'm counting Chaplin. He rules in this movie, exuding energy in each scene even when he has little idea what is going on or doing something wrong. He's Mel Gibson's Riggs, or tries to be, because when he tries to defend a girl that is about to be molested he gets his ass kicked, but at least he stops the guy. And there's lots of other stuff happening to him that I won't spoil either because this is seriously one of the funniest movies of the year.
The easy laughs could come from Kilmer's character just because he's gay, and many come but most in part because they are smart. Kilmer is so gay is crazy. And he's huge after all that weight he put for Alexander. He also gets some of the best lines of the year if not ever like his response when Harry asks him if he's really gay: "No, I'm knee deep in pussy, I just can't get rid of the name" or "This isn't good cop, bad cop. This is fag and New Yorker". He's also got a faggot gun, just wait to see it and what it does. And the way these 2 guys work together is great, perfect chemistry.
As I mentioned before, Michelle Monaghan is beautiful, but she can also act. I can't believe how well she managed to be a presence on screen having to share it with those two acting monsters. She's fearless and funny and serious, and her character is not the usual damsel in distress from these kind of movies which kind of helps.

All that stuff works because of the real star of the movie, Shane Black. He puts Robert Downey Jr. to narrate the movie from the star and this has to be the greatest narration of a movie ever. As Downey tells the story, at times he has to stop and go back a few scenes because he forgot to tell us something, he even talks to us and tells us how a scene was not necessary in the movie, or how the ending wont go to long ala Lord of the Rings. But what's better is that the movie is a satire of this kind of movies, and Downey comments on that too, how something should happen just because it always happens in this kind of movies, and then it happens, and it's the funniest thing ever. If I have to describe it, I'd say that it's like Not Another Teen Movie, where they were mocking teen movies but everything was happening in their movie too. This is the same, but seriously funny, and not stupid.

A great fast paced 80s feeling story, sharp, smart and funny dialogue made for today's world that only Black could make, and an excellent score by John Ottman. Add to that the remarkable performances, the funny comedy and the beautiful women in hot outfits and there's no other fact other than Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is brilliant. One of the best movies of the year, one that we, not knowingly, have been waiting for, and needed. Shane Black, please don't leave us again.

Jarhead

The nickname the Marines get after the way their hair grows because of how it's cut when they enlist, Jarhead is Sam Mendes' follow up to the great crime drama Road to Perdition. Here, the story is about a rookie Marine going to fight in the First Gulf War, or going to not fight actually because that's what they did, and the movie is all about that. It's not anti-war like many are claiming, but is not a war movie either, and there's some political commentary but not much.
Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Anthony 'Swoff' Swofford, the real life soldier who wrote his memoirs from the war into the book the movie is based in, of the same title, adapted for the big screen by Apollo 13 and Cast Away's scribe William Broyles Jr. He's a young man who made a bad turn on his way to college, he says at one point, dumb enough to sign a contract, he says later, and ended up going to The Suck, Saudi Arabia 1990.
But before that Mendes lets us know what the movie will be about, and submerges us in these soldiers lives, not before they joined but during their training camp (purposely like Full Metal Jacket), and as they violently watch Apocalypse Now on the big screen, the helicopter raid scene with Ride of the Valkyries at maximum volume. It's like an orgy for them, they're imitating the movie, they're chanting, they're throwing popcorn and getting pumped up, and so are we. Suddenly the movie is cut, and they are notified that they are going to war, hoorah. Sadam has infiltrated Kuwait, and they must go there to help, and here's the political stuff because they don't go to fight, they go to the middle of nothing in the desert to protect the Saudi's oil refineries, because they're America's friends.

But that's what they are trained do, Swoff's platoon of Scout Snipers, they are trained to fight, and that's all they do, train, rest, and hydrate, all the time under the orders of their insatiable and war loving Staff Sgt. Sykes, who's got a little R. Lee Ermey's Sergeant Hartman going on (it is meant to be that way). The routine is really well narrated to us, taken literally from the book I'm told, but it's also reminiscent of Mendes' American Beauty scene when the lead character tells us what he does all day, both routines including the very important masturbation several times a day. But they also read letters and write home, and his one of the big ideas of the movie, how the war destroys your pre-war life, how the wives and girlfriends back home cheat on you and then send you a tape of her fucking your best friend on camera. It's not like that for everybody, but it is for many.
And so they don't fight, but they do scout, walking aimlessly through the emptiness of the Arab dessert during the day, and then again during the night between the black oil fires that darken the sky and make it rain oil. When the war finally starts, they become Operation Dessert Storm, but as we all know, the war only consisted of a handful of days and it was over. Many, including our heroes, never got the chance to even shot they're riffles once.

Gyllenhaal is excellent here, tremendous energy, charisma, and a pretty great voice over. And he's huge now the way he's bulked up. He's truly one of the best actors of his generation, not a bad performance to date. Peter Sarsgaard is Swoff's sniping spotter Troy, and I'm sad to report is criminally wasted here. He's the second actor in the movie but has nothing to do in it other than a kind of big scene at the end, but before that he's always in the background looking at the situations and bringing some reason to what happens. Everybody has been talking about this being his chance to get awarded by the Academy after being snubbed for Shattered Glass a few years ago and Kinsey last year, but this part is not going to do it. The rest of the jarheads are the usual cliched ones, a black, a Hispanic, a geeky and scared guy, a crazy one (Evan Jones), and the against the war soldier (Lucas Black), but they all play them very good too.
Chris Cooper is only in the movie for 2 scenes, around 5 minutes total, but he's great in it as Lt. Col. Kazinski. Same for Dennis Haysbert who plays another high ranked marine, and John Krasinski from theAmerican versionn of The Office. And then Jamie Foxx as Sykes, following up his Oscar winning performance in Ray last year (yes, I've erased Stealth from my mind already), he's amazing. He's credited "and Jamie Foxx" but he's got more to do and even more lines than many, even Sarsgaard. There are a couple speeches and badass situations where he really shines. If anybody is getting a supporting performance award here, it's him.

The soundtrack is great too. Kanye West, The Doors and Ride of the Valkyries as mentioned before. The movie is also brilliantly shot by cinematographer Roger Deakins, specially those oil fires scenes. The movie is pretty uneventful though, when we are finally going to see what we and the characters have been waiting for the entire time, they are stopped, and a big event occurs that we don't care to see, because it's not what Swoff and Troy wanted.
The uneventfulness caused that the movie didn't blew me away, it was excellent anyway. It's an A-, 9 out of 10, almost perfect. Don't expect FMJ, AN or Platoon, is not that type of movie, but Jarhead is a must see, and one of the best movies of the year.
Like Swoff says, "Every war is different, every war is the same", what's important is how it affects you, and this one changed his life forever, he'll be a marine forever, his rifle will be a part of him forever, and he didn't even get to shoot it.

Chicken Little

Walt Disney Pictures made a terrible a mistake by letting Pixar go a few years ago, it was a really bad idea. Now they've made their first CGI solo project and the result is Chicken Little, based on the fable about a young chicken who claims a piece of the sky fell and hit him in the head. His town of Oakey Oaks goes into a big debacle, half the city gets destroyed, and it turns out that no piece of sky fell on anybody's head, and that the titular character just got hit in the head by an acorn that fell from a tree. He then becomes the joke of the town, a humiliation to his father, and Hollywood is even making a movie about him and craziness. A year later, he's determined to put behind what happened and show everybody what he can do, though he doesn't know how to do anything, but he'll try, especially with his friends at his side to help him. But he's in trouble again when a real piece of the sky falls on his head, and soon an Alien invasion comes to town, and is up to him to save the day.

Zach Braff, using that kiddy voice he uses in Scrubs sometimes, voices Chicken Little, and he's very good at it and has great comedic timing. Chicken Little himself is a good enough character though I'm not sure how many movies, if any, can be made out of him. His group of friends are the best characters in the movie. Abby Mallard aka Ugly Duckling is voiced by Joan Cusack who is a must have whenever you need to voice a lead female. The character is also pretty good, the voice of reason, always giving Chicken Little advice which she gets from magazines. Then Runt of the Litter, voiced by Steve Zahn, is the big pig always afraid of everything and eating whatever he can find when he gets nervous. And finally, the best character of the pack in my opinion, Fish out of Water. He doesn't talk (though someone called Dan Molina is credited as his voice on IMDB), but he's always there doing something funny in the background. And he always comes through when needed. He's awesome. To complete the kid characters we have Chicken Little's nemesis and the town's star athlete Foxy Loxy, voiced by Amy Sedaris, and Morkubine Porcupine, voiced by the movie's director Mark Dindal. None of these 2 characters worked for me, especially the Porcupine who was supposed to be super cool but ended up being a total waste with just a couple one-word lines every now and then.

Now the adult characters, and this is something that Disney picked up from Pixar and it always works really well (against the all-stars from the Shrek series). Kids won’t have any idea who they are but for us adults is a great and pretty impressive group of character actors and even legends. Garry Marshall voices Chicken Little's father Buck Cluck. The Andy Griffith Show regular Don Knotts (who I know little about and I even thought he had died this year but he actually didn't) is Turkey Lurkey, the town's Mayor, and Wallace Shawn plays Principal Fetchit. And then comes the coolest: it's geek's heaven as Patrick Stewart (Star Trek, X-Men) plays Mr. Woolensworth, one of the schoolteachers, and then there's parts for superheroes Patrick Warburton (The Tick) and Adam West (TV's Batman), and Christopher Guest's regulars Harry Shearer, Fred Willard and Catherine O'Hara.

So that worked well, but what Disney didn't learn from Pixar is to balance the story's maturance (invented word I think) to make it for all types of audiences. Sure, kids loved those Pixar monsters, underwater creatures and superheroes, but their stories had so much more than that, they had stuff that kids did not really understand, but that worked for the adults, especially the ticket buying parents who are the ones that decide if their kids are going to watch the movie or not. And that's Chicken Little's biggest problem, despite a clever (though exhausting) promotional campaign in which the characters simulated classic scenes from other movies, the story ends up being just for kids. They also rip off several sci-fi classics (mostly Spielberg's) like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., and even the new World of the Worlds which is totally insane since this movie was before, so it's like the writers decided to update their stolen ideas to make it look cooler. They also make a big reference to King Kong (twice) and there's some Indiana Jones in there too.
Some of that stuff bothered me a little bit, and some I didn't care about, but the thing is that there's already Shrek to do that kind of stuff, and then there's Pixar for original ideas and Hayao Miyazaki for the fantastic stories with his Japanese animation, so it's like there's no need for Disney to come do CGI movies (same goes for Fox). Maybe if they started bringing their classic characters to this new CGI era but I don't think we are ready to accept a computerized Mickey or Donald.

I'm being too hard on the movie actually, because despite all that, I enjoyed it, and it wasn't even close as bad as I was thinking it was going to be. The CGI is the usual perfection, and the big variety of characters, though all over the map with so many different animals, works just fine. Overall, thanks to an (though not original) ok story and a pretty great cast of actors, Chicken Little is a good enough start for Disney in this CGI world, and I wish them good luck in the future, just think a little bit more about us adults for your next entry.

Zathura

Money Director Jon Favreau aims to please his Elf audience once again with the space adventure Zathura, a kind of Jumanji sequel, both based on books by Chris Van Allsburg who also wrote The Polar Express book. Does Favreau succeed? Yes, he does. Is it better than Jumanji? No, but is much cooler.

Once again the story is that of kids, two brothers (10 and 6) who spend their young lives fighting with each other over their father (Tim Robbins)'s attention, though all Danny (Jonah Bobo) really wants is to play games with his brother Walter (Josh Hutcherson) but him being the older, can't be seen playing with kids, or playing at all (I mean, he even has a girlfriend).
But they're left alone at the house one day, and after a fight that ends up with Danny getting locked in the creepy basement, they find a board game called Zathura. Danny immediately starts playing next to his brother and the adventure begins. A meteor shower hits the house, a old looking cool robot (kind of like the Sky Captain ones, and is voiced by Frank Oz!) attacks them, Alien lizards called Zorgons bomb the house from their spaceships, and yes, the house is floating in space too and there's no way to know where they are. During their are adventure, they are visited by a lost Astronaut (played by Dax Shepard) and later joined by their teenage sister Lisa, who's been upstairs in her room sleeping all day, and later cryogenized in the bathroom, thanks to the game. Lisa is played Kristen Stewart, the Panic Room kid now looking hot, though still young enough to put me in jail.

Comparing it with Jumanji, I have to say that there's a lot less comedy, but we can all agree that Shepard is no Robin Williams so that's ok. The kids were better before, especially in the acting department. You could see Kirsten Dust’s terror in her face and with her screams. There's not much of that here. I don't know what happened but with everything that was going on around them, it didn't look as if the kids knew that they could die any second. That would be the only negative point I could give the movie. Still, they did an awesome job at fighting like brothers really fight, to the point of getting annoying but that is totally credible, something that most movies with kids fail to accomplish.

There's great job by Favreau here. He used models instead of CGI and that shows, as everything looks incredibly realistic when they're in space. And besides all that cool stuff mentioned before, he adds some really nice touches like a Steve McQueen's Bullitt poster in Tim Robbins' studio. And the movie is sure to work great with kids and parents too, as it has some good hearted brotherly lessons to go along the amazing stuff they encounter in the adventure. Though I wish that Favreau would go back to make something more for adults (his next project is John Carter of Mars but that's geek stuff), I'm still happy with him doing this kind of movies, especially if they are as good as Zathura.