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04 Jan

Rachel Getting Married

Grade: C+

Rachel Getting Married stars Anne Hathaway as a young woman fresh out of rehab who returns home for her sister’s wedding.  Anne Hathaway does a great job in this role, she successfully sheds her “princess” persona and gets really raw and real with her emotions.  Jonathan Demme directs.  The good parts about the movie are the wedding itself, it’s not traditional in any way, and the family is not traditional either.  They’re an interesting group of people.  But the downside is that the family, and the story, is full of dysfunction.  And that’s not a great movie-going experience.  The other problem is the camera work.  It’s mostly shot in an informal hand-held style.  It’s distracting on the large screen.  And there’s a lot of time when the plot is just not moving forward.  It’s a very long movie, and if about 15 minutes of this downtime were cut out I think it would have been much better.
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04 Jan

Rabbit Hole

Grade: B+

Based on the Pulitzer prize winning play, Nicole Kidman produces and stars in Rabbit Hole.  A husband and wife struggles to recover some normalcy in their lives after the accidental death of their young son.  Aaron Eckhart plays the husband, and he and Nicole have wonderful chemistry.  Dianne Wiest is Nicole’s mother in the film, and gives a raw and heartfelt performance.  This is a tough subject to explore, and Rabbit Hole does it very well.
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04 Jan

Quartet

Grade: B

Quartet is a heart warming movie set in a retirement home in England.  This particular retirement home is for retired musicians, so there is a lot of music, energy and creativity throughout the place.  As the movie starts the residents are preparing for their annual concert, a fundraiser that keeps the business going.

Then a new resident arrives, an opera diva played by Maggie Smith.  Old friendships, and rivalries, are kindled.

Lovely movie, great cast, wonderful music throughout.
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04 Jan

Quantum of Solace: 007

Grade: B

Daniel Craig stars in his second installment as James Bond, agent 007.  This movie is a sequel, and really a continuation, of the first one, so it does help to have that background.  Lots of action – one chase scene after another.  He’s still a rough-around-the-edges James Bond – and there are some scenes that give a wink and a nod to that – like when a bartender teaches him to make a martini “shaken, not stirred.”

The Bond girls in this one are particularly strong – score one for the girls!
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04 Jan

Push

Grade: C-

The best way I can describe “Push” is that it is like the X-Men without costumes.  It seems there are these people who are born with certain supernatural talents among us in this movie, and they can use those talents for good or evil, and the government wants to know who they are and recruit them for their own use.  So they stay under the radar as much as they can, except for when the good ones meet the evil ones and they end up tearing up the place.  The movie takes place in Hong Kong, I guess because it’s one of the places they hide out – and because there are lots of markets and places they can crash up in their fights.

The title “Push” comes from the people who can push thoughts into other people’s minds, making them do things they otherwise wouldn’t do.  Then there are the Bleeders, who scream until you bleed from your ears.  And there are the Sniffers, who basically sniff people out by their smell.  And Shadows, who can hide people just by hanging around them, and Watchers, who can see the future.

Dakota Fanning is a Watcher, and she’s roaming around on her own because the bad guys have her mom.  She goes to a Mover, a guy who can move stuff with his mind, to help save her mom.  They look for an escaped Pusher girl, who just happens to be his old girlfriend, and the three embark upon a kind of mystery and end up in a bunch of fights.

Dakota Fanning is a good little actress and she’s growing up.  Teen boys will probably dig the movie, but I thought it was a bit trite.  They ending was left wide open for a sequel should the movie score big at the box office – but I don’t think that’s likely.
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04 Jan

Proof

Grade: C+

Gwyneth Paltrow, Jake Gyllenhall and Anthony Hopkins star in “Proof” the movie based on the play. Whenever a movie is based on a play you can bet that it will be dialogue driven, and this film certainly is. The lines are well written, and sharp, but somehow not translated well to the big screen. They are the kind of lines that make you aware of the writing. Gwyneth Paltrow gives an outstanding performance as the stressed and worn out daughter of a genius mathematician. As his caretaker, she loses herself, only to be left with bitterness and confusion when her job is done. She plays it on the edge as she struggles to regain her identity, and we watch her teeter precariously. Anthony Hopkins is his usual brilliant self. And Jake Gyllenhall is so natural and comfortable in his skin, he’s a joy to watch.
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04 Jan

Promised Land

Grade: B

Matt Damon and John Krasinski both wrote the original screenplay and star in Promised Land.  We first see Matt Damon and Frances McDormand as city slickers, hired by an oil company to come to a small town and basically buy out leases on the land so that the company can get its oil by “fracking.”  It looks like a good deal to the town that has been hit hard by the economy, but then Hal Holbrook, the local science teacher, raises some serious questions.  John Krasinski’s environmentalist comes in to rally the troops.  In the meantime, Matt falls for one of the cute young ladies in town, but given his background, he truly believes that he’s helping the town with this deal.  And then there’s a twist.  The ending is predictable, but how we get there is a refreshing surprise.
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04 Jan

Prometheus

Grade: D+

Prometheus is a Sci-Fi flick that features Charlize Theron, although Charlize isn’t the star – she gets to look good in her sci fi outfits and she gets to wield some big guns.  Michael Fassbender is the robot – and we’re never quite sure which side he’s on.  So the crew goes off in a space ship looking for the origin of man – and what they find is quite scary, of course.  Thank goodness for the brilliant and brave doctor on board – and she’s a woman!  Go girl power!  Alas, that’s not enough to save this film from being cliche.
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04 Jan

Prime

Grade: C+
Sweet movie, with great characters, but lacking in depth because the subject doesn’t really sustain a feature film. This would have been better off as a TV movie – maybe an hour and a half long once you cut out the commercials. “Prime” refers to the sexual prime that both divorcee Raffi, played by Uma Thurman, and her new boyfriend, the much younger David, are both in. Meryl Streep plays David’s mother, who also happens to be Raffi’s therapist. If you’ve seen the trailers, you’ve basically seen the movie. All of the actors are good, and the writing is sharp – it’s just that it’s ultimately unsatisfying. You’re left to feel like nothing really happened. Ok- some issues were explored, and the characters got to know themselves better as people, but is that enough to make you feel like you had a good time at the movies? I was hoping for more.
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04 Jan

Pride

Grade: A

Pride is a true story set in the U.K. in 1984. Gay activists take up the cause of helping striking mine workers and an uneasy, but interesting and ultimately successful, alliance is formed. In 1984 the AIDS epidemic was a major concern, and along with the political issues of the day, it created a harsh atmosphere for gays and lesbians. Somehow this group of forward thinking, big-picture thinking individuals were able to break barriers and support each other.

Inspiring, compelling, funny, heartwarming, and even at times heartbreaking, Pride is highly recommended.

 

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