Other than the obnoxious people sitting behind me at the cinema when I saw My Blueberry Nights, it was pretty good. Norah Jones makes her acting debut as Elizabeth, a heartbroken girl who journeys around the US after a painful relationship. Before she leaves, however, she meets Jeremy (Jude Law), who runs a cafe and who has also been jilted in the past. Though they build a friendship, Elizabeth nonetheless leaves without saying goodbye.

In her travels around the US, Elizabeth finds herself wrapped up in other people’s lives and dramas, and writes her thoughts about her experiences back to Jeremy on postcards. Elizabeth, who goes by Lizzie in one place, Beth in the next, finds bits of herself in the quirky and sometimes sad people she meets along the way, and by the time she finds her way back to where she came from she is no longer a Lizzie or a Beth, but a whole Elizabeth.

My Blueberry Nights is a little depressing at times, and a lot predictable, but as far as nice chick-flicks about love and soul searching go it’s not bad. Coming from someone who usually hates that kind of thing, that’s saying a lot. It even has an easily read metaphor that gives it a slight but crucial edge over the vast majority of mid-grade girly movies. The soundtrack, which obviously features Norah Jones, is very well put together and fits the film like a glove. As far as the acting goes, I’d say Jones’ first try was a success. Natalie Portman and Jude Law are also decent, and David Strathairn as Arnie, a town drunk in Memphis, is positively heartbreaking. Though it’s not stupendous, it’s not bad either. Ideally paired with a moderately priced meal for a date night, perhaps.

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When I went into this movie, I was not in a good mood. Though I wanted to see the film, I just wasn’t really in a movie mood. But, I thought, what’s better for feeling crappy than a good portion of the hilarious Jack Black? Well, I didn’t get the exact brand of Jack Black-ness I was expecting, but I still left the cinema feeling much better than when I came in.

Be Kind Rewind claims to be about two guys who remake all of the films in a small video store when all of the VHS tapes are erased. While this is not untrue, the more important plot is that of the struggling working class community that comes together as an unexpected result. Jerry (Jack Black) is eccentric, lives in a junkyard, and believes the nearby power plant is controlling his brain. Within the first 15 minutes of the film, he decides to combat the plant by sabotaging it. The plan predictably goes awry, and Jerry’s brain becomes magnetized. While that particular part is just silly and makes no sense, Jerry’s magnetized brain is really just the MacGuffin for the rest of the film. Mos Def plays Mike, who operates the video store, and together with Jerry and the hastily recruited Alma (Melonie Diaz), remakes Ghostbusters for an elderly customer. As the trio is forced to remake more films, they begin to catch on within the community.

Jack Black, as I said, is not funny in the way that I expected him to be; but that’s not to say he’s not funny. His character is eccentric, but also very serious about what he believes. Black plays the character well, and it’s the seriousness about ludicrous ideas that makes him so hilarious in this film. Mos Def, however, is truly triumphant in this film. He portrays the character of Mike flawlessly. He is awkward, he stutters sometimes, and is a bit mush-mouthed, but all of this is believable and endearing. His inarticulation works for him in much the same way it worked for Marlon Brando in his early years.

Be Kind Rewind also offers cameos and bit parts of big Hollywood names. Danny Glover plays Mr. Fletcher, the actual owner of the store who is absent for most of the film. Mia Farrow is the cantankerous Miss Falewicz, for whom the initial ’sweded’ Ghostbusters was made for, and Sigourney Weaver plays a Hollywood lawyer with screen time of Buy monopril about 3 minutes.

In the end of the film the entire community comes together to celebrate Jerry, Mike and Alma’s creativity and their common heritage despite the fact that their neighbourhood is run-down, poor, and scheduled to be torn down. Be Kind Rewind definitely delivers as a comedy, but it’s also got heart.

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Daniel Day-Lewis plays the part of Daniel Plainview, a wealthy oil tycoon at the turn of the century. He and his son travel the country buying oil-rich land from towns that, more often than not, are no match for Plainview’s business sense. When he is tipped off (for a price) about a huge amount of oil in a specific location, a tumultuous relationship between Plainview and a small, desperate town begins. The aptly named Sunday family sells Plainview their land as well as run the local church, of which their young son is the preacher. Plainview brings wealth and education to the town, but also greed and tragedy in the form of exploding oil derricks. The Sundays wish only to provide the community with a sense of faith, but their ideas and practices of Christianity are extreme and disturbing to say the least. The tension builds between these two pillars of the community and culminates in a dramatic mix of humiliation and tragedy.

Perhaps what I liked best about this film is its complexity. It’s definitely not the kind of film that allows the viewer to turn off his or her brain while a story plays itself out in front of their eyes. The characters have real depth, in that you’re not quite sure you like the protagonist, and the antagonist is really just doing what he thinks is best. Paul Dano’s performance as both Paul and Eli Sunday is nothing short of superb. He manages to be threatening, disturbing, and desperately genuine all at once. Daniel Day-Lewis’s portrayal of Plainview is just as good, but different in that his voice is just as important to the character as anything betapace else. It absolutely resonates.

There Will Be Blood is certainly not mindless entertainment, and some parts don’t seem to make sense the first time around. It’s the kind of film you can watch numerous times and understand and enjoy it a little more each time.

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Remember voltaren-xr Grumpy Old Men? The one with two formerly great actors (Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau) grasping desperately at a comeback by playing two old guys with a love/hate friendship? Yeah, well The Bucket List is pretty much Grumpy Old Men, only worse. At least Jack and Walter only argued over a woman. In The Bucket List Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman are both terminal cancer patients going out in a blaze of glory by fulfilling every dream they’ve ever had before their time is up. I suppose it helps that Jack Nicholson’s character is a multi-millionaire and offers to finance their shenanigans.

Edward (Nicholson) is a stereotypical businessman - lots of money but no friends or family. Carter (Freeman) is a hard-working family man. Throughout their trip around the world, Edward predictably learns all about friendship and the importance of family and love from Carter. At the same time Carter gets to have the trip of a lifetime which he would never have been able to afford on his own. Edward made his money in buying hospitals and making them centres of business rather than places to receive quality care. He all too soon finds out that these corporate style hospitals, which are becoming all too common in the United States, are not always the most pleasant places. The film could have redeemed itself a bit if any sort of stance was taken on the issue, but no. The plot meanders and is extremely dry for much of the film.

It’s almost painful to watch actors with such talent ageing so disgracefully. These guys were Red in The Shawshank Redemption and Jack Torrence from The Shining - and The Joker from Batman! (Sidenote: why does Jack Nicholson always play characters named Jack?) There is no rational reason why they should have to stoop to things like The Bucket List. Honestly, neither should we.

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Ah, yes, the one with all the media attention and buzz around it. Anyone interested in current movies knows that this film is about a teenage girl who accidentally gets pregnant and the cute, stammering boy she likes. While, yes, that is the basis of the plot, there is much more going on in this film. Maybe it’s just because I am female, but to me the story is just as much about motherhood as it is about teenage angst and emotion.

Juno gets pregnant and soon decides that adoption is the best option for her. In no time she finds an ideal couple and begins the process of adoption. The couple, played by Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman, are young, beautiful and pretty pretentious at first. Their relationship with Juno, their complete social opposite, forces them to confront the differences between them and the problems with their picture-perfect marriage.

It’s definitely fun to watch this movie and remember being 16 and in love - and all the teenage drama and tragedy Buy capoten that went along with it - and Ellen Page (Juno) and Michael Cera (Paulie) look better doing it than we did. Juno is what every teenage American girl secretly wants to be - quirky, dark, unpopular, but still beautiful, and Paulie is what all those girls want in a guy - shy, emotional, and completely unaware of how cute he is. That mix gives the film a bit of an idealistic feel, but the characters are so enjoyable the audience is willing to forgive that. The script also seems a little, well, scripted at some points in the film, but again this is forgivable because the dialogue is so amusing.

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I wasn’t expecting this film to be as serious as it was. A story about two brothers who have both gotten themselves into financial trouble and decide to rob their own parent’s jewelry store, to me, screams dark comedy. Which it is, to an Buy hydrea extent. There are definitely some pretty hilarious moments. However, I’d say that’s only 40% of the film. The other 60% is tragic family drama. Things inevitably go wrong during the robbery, and how the two very different brothers attempt to rectify the situation just leads to more problems that involve their father, sister, and the older brother’s wife. Add that to heroin use, drug money, and low lives out for revenge and you get one giant mess with no way out.

Both the casting and acting are stupendous. I wouldn’t have thought that rugged, attractive Ethan Hawke and doughy Philip Seymour Hoffman would be compatible as brothers, but their character’s personalities are so vastly different, and the characters are played so wonderfully, that the odd pairing works. They even begin to look more and more like brothers as the film progresses. The roles of Gina (Marisa Tomei) and Charles (Albert Finney) are also wonderfully and subtly executed.

It’s not a particularly happy film, but it does say a lot about upper-middle class American family life - mostly about the desperation and ineffectuality of those living it. A bit of an unsung gem, and definitely overlooked at this year’s major film award ceremonies, Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead is one of those films that you can watch over and over and understand something new about it every time.

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Ugh. Not good. I know it’s nominated for more than one prestigious award, but I honestly am not sure why. I knew not to expect what I have come to know as a typical Coen Brothers film, but I did expect the typical Coen Brothers genius. I shouldn’t have. The plot is weak, and only loosely held together by fact that the same air-gun-wielding guy shows up everywhere.

In this modern take on a western, a man stumbles onto the remains of a drug run gone bad and, instead of doing what any decent person would do, he takes the guns and money he finds and goes on his merry way. The person who was supposed to end up with the money, Anton, wasn’t too happy about that. Surprise, surprise. Anton then proceeds to hunt down his money relentlessly, killing anyone who gets in his way, and sometimes simply because he wants to. Tommy Lee Jones plays a sheriff who tries to help, but really can’t. That’s honestly the whole movie right there.

The main question that sprung to mind over and over throughout this film was: Does forensic evidence not exist in Texas? Sure, the film takes place in 1980, but in 1980 I’m fairly sure the sciences of fingerprints, blood groups, and footprints were pretty well established - even in Texas. Oh, and I’m also thinking that border patrol between the United States and Mexico is just a tad tighter than this film suggests (i.e. if you were going to try and walk by the border patrol office covered in blood and carrying a suspicious, big black case, I doubt you’d make it very far).

There Buy grifulvin V online is also the issue that the film has no real ending. By that I mean there’s no resolution. Sometimes ambiguous endings can be fantastic - this one just made me more bitter about the two hours of life I had just spent and would never get back. If you’re in the mood for a Coen Brothers movie, my advice is to stay at home with a bottle of wine and watch O Brother, Where Art Thou?. If it’s the western outlaw thing you’re after, still stay home with a bottle of wine, but watch Stagecoach instead.

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Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, arguably one of the most magical director/actor combinations in film history, come together yet again in Sweeney Todd. At this point, someone buying a ticket for a Burton film, especially one with Depp in it, should have a pretty good idea of what they’re about to see. Even the fact that Sweeney Todd is a musical shouldn’t be too much of a surprise - there are musical numbers in Monkey Bone, The Nightmare Before Christmas (which Burton wrote but didn’t direct), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the list goes on. It is a bit strange, then, to have all the usual components of a classic Burton film with the exception of a Danny Elfman score. I realise that the film is an adaptation of a play, and all of the music had already been written for it by Stephen Sondheim, but I was a little disappointed in the lack of Elfman nonetheless. That’s not to say the music was bad, it’s just that I am a die hard Burton fan and as such have come to expect certain things. No one likes change.

Depp plays a man once banished from London by a judge who sought only to steal his beautiful young wife and baby daughter. When he returns from his exile, Sweeney Todd is no longer the mild mannered barber he once was, but a broken man out for ultimate revenge. A visit to his old home and barber shop leads him to his accomplice, Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), who is the most entertaining character in the film. Together they form a thriving business which suits both of their needs until, of course, Buy endep it all comes crashing down around them.

As I mentioned before, I am a big Tim Burton fan. I believe he will be remembered as an autour and master of his craft for his creativity and unique signature style. Maybe because all of that I was expecting too much. I won’t say I was disappointed in Sweeney Todd, but I was a bit underwhelmed. It just didn’t seem to reach its full potential. And perhaps it’s because this is an interpretation of a play and as such a little extra dramatic flair was in order, but the blood spewing forth from Todd’s victims was simply laughable. It was red-orange paint. Maybe that was intentional - maybe it was supposed to make the violent scenes more comical and easier to watch, but still. This is 2008 and horror movies are extremely popular. Realistic movie blood is not hard to come by.

Another problem I had with this film was the lack of a climax. When Todd isn’t plotting his revenge, he is mourning his long-lost daughter. Though she and her would-be suitor, a friend of Todd’s, are an important part of the plot, the film ends with that part of the story unresolved.

In its defence, though, Sweeney Todd does offer a dark film with not only murder and revenge central to its plot, but also voyeurism, incest, cannibalism, and perhaps just a touch of insinuated necrophilia. All of that, coupled with a good cast and a brilliant director, definitely redeems it a little. Though it could have been better, in someone else’s hands it almost certainly would have been worse.

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What begins as mainly innocent, if a bit rebellious, camaraderie between young 12 year old Shaun, who regularly gets bullied at school, and a group of older boys gradually becomes more sinister as they are presented with the realities of the skinhead movement of 1980’s England.

Though the friends Shaun initially makes are largely harmless, things change when an old member of the group, Combo, gets out of prison and takes the shaved head and preference for Doc Martens to another level. A line is drawn (literally) and Shaun’s sense of duty to his father, who died in the Falklands War, leaves him and Combo on one side and most of their friends on the other. What follows is an increasingly disturbing, yet realistic, account of racism and violence in the 1980’s.

Now, you may ask yourself, why are all of these teenagers and young adults hanging around with a 12 year old boy? Because Shane Meadows is a great screenwriter (and director), that’s why. Not only does it illustrate how the skinheads recruited the naive, but also how they themselves were just angry and immature, yet impotent in that they were unable to affect social change. Shaun is every kid in 1980’s England - scared, confused, hurt and angry. This provides and explanation for both the violence, as well as the great music, of the time. That’s another aspect Meadows didn’t skimp on - the soundtrack for this film is perfect. The performances of Thomas Turgoose as Shaun and Stephen Graham as Combo are equally amazing.

Thought Buy altace online provoking about the institutions of government, war, social unrest, and what happens when rebellion becomes as corrupt as its enemy, This Is England is truly a phenomenal piece of work. It’s the best I’ve seen since Amores Perros. This kind of film restores my faith in the medium as an art.

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The childhood memories of Nazneen (Tannishtha Chatterjee), a Bangladeshi woman living in London, haunt her as she goes through day to day life with her husband and two growing daughters. Her life is a classic/stereotypical story of a girl getting shipped off at the tender age of 17 in order to marry a man she has never met. Letters from her sister in Bangladesh and an insinuated case Buy zyloprim of chronic depression lead Nazneen through a myriad of emotions and different attempts to validate her existence. In the first 20 minutes of the film the audience is introduced to the strong bond between Nazneen and her younger sister and their mother’s severe depression that leads to her suicide.

While it’s not action-packed, Brick Lane manages to convey intense emotion and insight into womanhood, female sexuality, the Muslim community, and being a mother to children vastly different from oneself. Possibly the single most articulate scene in the film shows Nazneen coming home to a flat in an enormous run-down tower block; conveying both the typical living situation of Muslims in London, and that Nazneen is simply one of thousands in respect to her feelings of isolation and melancholy.

The film ends with Nazneen realising certain truths about her sister, love, and herself when she finally learns not only to ask for what she wants, but what exactly that is. Though it is a tad slow, I would certainly recommend this film to anyone up for an interesting story and maybe a good cry.

Rating: 7 hand-sewn saris out of 10