Check Out the Trailer

South Korea is an emerging film powerhouse. This film proves that filmmakers working anywhere can rival Hollywood in production value and storytelling skills. For lack of a better description, this is a Korean SAVING PRIVATE RYAN with shades of PLATOON and APOCALYPSE NOW.

Jin-tae (Dong-Kun Jang, TV’s GHOST) is a shoeshine boy who dreams of opening his own shoe shop. He works to support his mother, his fiancée Young-shin (Eun-ju Lee, GARDEN OF HEAVEN), her young siblings and his 18-year-old brother Jin-seok (Bin Won), who is college material. Their life is simple, but they are happy. But then the Korean War breaks out and everything changes.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

This is a fairly standard romance rapped in a fascinating cloak. Set in 1660s England when only men were allowed to act on stage, the film follows Ned Kynaston (Billy Crudup, ALMOST FAMOUS), the most famous female impersonator.

His assistant Maria (Claire Danes, ROMEO & JULIET) studies every overwrought gesture that Kynaston does. One night she pays a shabby pub for the opportunity to play Desdemona in OTHELLO. This performance starts a sensation through London, spurring King Charles II (Rupert Everett, MY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING) to outlaw men playing women on the stage. We witness Ned and Maria’s attraction for each, which is torn apart by his declining career and her rising stardom.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

This dramedy from Iceland was made in 2001 and had a small release in the U.S. in 2004. The film is somewhat of a coming of age tale set in 1978, following teenager Agga (Ugla Egilsdottir, film debut).

Her cousin Freyja (Margret Vilhjalmsdottir) (really the daughter of her grandmother’s friend) moves back to Iceland from America. Her husband has died and Agga suspects Freyja is the Devil incarnate. What Freyja is is a sensation in the small town with her sexpot attitude and new fashionable clothes. We quickly discover that her motivations are to spite everyone in town who use to make fun of her for her appearance as a child. She attempts this by trying to seduce the town’s most eligible bachelor Bjorn Theodor (Heino Ferch, DOWNFALL).

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

When SAW is good it’s quite good, but when it’s bad it’s quite bad. It’s a seesaw of a flick. (That’s the only bad pun of this review.)

Adam (Leigh Whannell, THE MAXTRIX RELOADED) and Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes, THE PRINCESS BRIDE) wake up in a grungy bathroom chained to the wall in opposite corners of the room. Between them just out of reach is a dead body. They have no clue how they got there or why. A serial killed nicknamed Jigsaw is playing a game with them as he has done before with other victims. Jigsaw feeds them clues that increase the morbidity of the situation and test the two men’s moral fortitude. Det. David Tapp (Danny Glover, LETHAL WEAPON) is investigating the murders and becomes consumed with them. This is all of the plot I will reveal as that is the fun of the film.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

This film definitely has a gimmick, however it’s dealt with in an extremely natural and psychological way. Louise Harrington (Laura Linney, KINSEY) is a 39-year-old admissions chief for Columbia University. She is divorced, but is still friends with her ex, a science professor named Peter (Gabriel Byrne, GHOST SHIP). One day she comes upon an application with the name F. Scott Feinstadt on it and becomes enraptured by it. This is due to the fact that Louise’s high school love had the same name.

She makes an appointment with the student – played by Topher Grace (IN GOOD COMPANY) – and discovers that he looks amazingly like her former love, who was killed when they were young. This bit of whimsy opens up a vibrant affair between Louise and F. Scott, who is 20 years her junior.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

Takashi Miike is a cult figure in Asia and an underground legend in the U.S. for his DEAD OR ALIVE series and ICHI THE KILLER. His films are violent and often stylized. In this film, Miike makes a “grudge film,” a popular horror subgenre in Japan.

The premise has innocent victims receiving cell phone calls from themselves, which predict the day and time of their deaths. Melancholy college student Yumi (Kou Shibasaki, BATTLE ROYALE) has seen two of her friends killed by the grudge and her friend Natsumi (Kazue Fukiishi) goes to a TV exorcist when she receives a call. Helping Yumi figure out the mystery is Hiroshi Yamashita (Shinichi Tsutsumi), a morgue worker whose sister was killed by the same ghost.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

This film was a surprise hit of last summer. This lovely old-fashioned romance deserves it. Based on a Nicholas Sparks novel, the film chronicles the summer romance of young lumberyard worker Noah (Ryan Gosling, MURDER BY NUMBERS) and pampered vacationer Allie (Rachel McAdams, MEAN GIRLS). This story is being told, however, by Duke (James Garner, VICTOR/VICTORIA) to Mrs. Calhoun (Gena Rowlands, A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE), a woman in a nursing home suffering from dementia.

Of course, Allie’s snobby parents John and Anne Hamilton (David Thornton, A CIVIL ACTION, and Joan Allen, ICE STORM) don’t approve of the romance. To describe, the plot of the film would be to describe the plot of hundreds of other romance tales. However, this film is filled with original detail and cliché bending characters, which make the entire film fresh and delightful.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

To be honest I know little about Che Guevara. And after watching this film, I still know little about Che Guevara.

The picture is based on Guevara’s diaries as he (Gael Garcia Bernal, BAD EDUCATION) and his friend Alberto Granado (Rodrigo De la Serna) traveled South America first on an old motorcycle and then on foot. This trip is created as inspiring Guevara’s revolutionary ideas.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

The topic of this film isn’t revolutionary — its been done more complexly before. However, the well-observed characters from first time feature director and writer Jacob Aaron Estes make this film intriguing and captivating.

Sam (Rory Culkin, YOU CAN COUNT ON ME) is a young teen on the smaller side. He is often beat up by classmate George (Josh Peck, SPUN), a slow, heavy kid. Sam and his older brother Rocky (Trevor Morgan, JURASSIC PARK III) joke around about beating up George. Sam’s girlfriend Millie (Carly Schroeder, TV’s PORT CHARLES) even asks him if he could snap his fingers and George would drop dead would he do it. The sensitive Sam struggles with this moral question.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

Sometimes it’s the details that make a film. This film is fairly rich in detail, chronicling the ins and outs of firefighting. Some of the stuff in this film you might swear you’ve seen before, but this film is really the most fully realized look at firemen.

The structure of the film is flashbacks. Jack Morrison (Joaquin Phoenix, SIGNS) gets trapped in a burning building and thinks back over his life since becoming a firefighter. It shows his introduction to his mentor Capt. Mike Kennedy (John Travolta, PULP FICTION) and the courtship of his wife Linda (Jacinda Barrett, THE HUMAN STAIN). We see him fight his first fire and witness the hardships of the demanding job. The firehouse is filled with a cast of characters including cynical vet Lenny Richter (Robert Patrick, TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY), jokester Tommy Drake (Morris Chestnut, BOYZ N THE HOOD) and brothers Dennis (Billy Burke, ALONG CAME THE SPIDER) and Ray Gauquin (Balthazar Getty, THE CENTER OF THE WORLD).

Read the rest of this entry »