Cinema Paradiso

Actors: Phillipe Noiret, Jacques Perrin, Salvatore Cascio, Marco Leonardi
Rating: 8 out of 10, this is the first movie with subtitles that I ever sat all the way through. Any true lover of movies should have this movie which tracks the life of a true movie fanatic and film director from the age of five until middle age. The young actor does extremely well and the relationship with his secret father, who is the projectionist at the cinema, is so poignant. The movie is set in post WW2 Sicily but it has some universal truths as well as the characters that seem to inhabit all small towns. There are so many funny moments as the denizens of this town evolve with the movies they watch. The ending scenes, where we see the modern village, you share their sense of loss of innocence. It was an interesting mix of French and Italian actors but this movie works on so many levels. The movie ends with one of the best scenes in movie history as the adult Toto watches the bequeath of his recently deceased father, a compilation of all the on screen kisses that the village priest had required be excised before the film could be viewed. If you love movies and you haven’t seen Cinema Paradiso then you are not complete.
MVP: Noiret as Alfredo the beloved projectionist and secret father of Toto who nurtures his love of the movies

Jackie Brown

Actors:  Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Forster, Michael Keaton, Robert Deniro, Bridget Fonda

Rating;  8 out of 10, another great addition to the work of Tarrantino that includes one of the most detestable villains in movie history in Jackson’s Ordel Robbie.  I think Jackson breaks some sort of record for the number of times he uses the F word.  This was great fun as we watch the almost shy romance develop between the grizzled bail bonds man Max Cherry (Forster) and Jackie (Grier), the world weary flight attendant.  This takes place in the whirlwind of crime “masterminded” by Jackson and his befuddled, ex con employee Louis, played with great aplomb by Deniro.  He is so good in supporting roles like this.  Fonda as the drug soaked beach bunny is so gratingly good that you almost cheer when Deniro finally has had enough.  This is what Tarrantino does, surrounding his really memorable characters with a convoluted plot that moves right along.  Of course you have to include any discussion of this movie, the Chicks with Guns video (Ordel’s marketing tool), a great extra on the blu ray.  This was a very long movie that is well worth the time spent, great fun.

MVP:  Forster as Max Cherry the smitten hero who serves as the stable character with all the craziness swirling around him

The Warrior’s Way

Actors:  Dong-Gun Jang, Kate Bosworth, Kate Bosworth, Danny Huston, Tony Cox

Rating:  8 out of 10, this is a movie that shouldn’t work but does because it doesn’t try to be something it is not.  This is just great, ass kicking action laid on top of a paper thin, implausible plot with great set design.  This is how you bring a graphic novel to the screen and make it shine.  The lead actor is superb, while saying almost nothing.  He combines with Rush to overcome the shortcomings of Bosworh who is again, almost unwatchable as the female lead.  The impossible fight scenes are flawlessly choreographed.  Huston is a little over the top as one of the villains but that’s what’s called for; again, this movie does not try to be anything it is not – just a lot of fun.  There are small touches throughout that makes a kung fu master somehow running a Chinese laundry in a wild west ghost town with a second rate French circus run by a midget a very compelling movie.  This is great popcorn fare.

MVP:  Jang as Yuan, the very dangerous assassin  

Red Riding Hood

Actors:  Amanda Seyfried, Julie Christie, Gary Oldman, Billy Burke, Shiloh Fernandez, Virginia Madsen, Max Irons, Lukas Haas

Rating:  3 out of 10, I was really looking forward to this movie when I first saw the previews.  I thought it had a chance to be something special.  I missed it at the theater and bought it, unseen, when it came out on blu ray.  Before I saw it I told my son and he laughingly told me that I would hate it.  Boy was he right!  This is a terrible movie.  There is a great cast and Seyfried, Christie, and Oldman deliver but the rest were terrible, bordering on despicable.  The two young male leads could not have been worse, especially Fernandez, with Irons almost as bad.  It’s hard to believe he’s Jeremy Irons’ kid – apparently acting doesn’t breed true.  Neither was believable and seemed to be posturing for the entire movie without actually bothering to act.  The director is most likely to blame for this disaster as he/she seems to go for “cool” camera shots instead of noticing if the cast is actually acting or not.  I get the impression this movie was made for prepubescent teenage girls, I don’t have that t-shirt.  There is nothing to recommend this movie – it just flat stinks.

MVP:  Seyfried, as always, is solid as Valerie, the female lead surrounded by apocalyptic level incompetence

Midnight in Paris

Actors:  Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Michael Sheen, Mimi Kennedy, Kurt Fuller, Marion Cotillard, Kathy Bates

Rating:  9 out of 10, my daughter brought me to see this movie this past summer when she was up for a visit.  I was a huge Woody Allen fan back in my youth but his efforts over the past couple of decades were, for me, self indulgent junk.  I was therefore less than enthusiastic, but I trust my daughter, so we went and my faith in her was totally redeemed.  This is just a great movie.  It involves time travel but without all the usual attendant sci fi slap and dash.  This is, in truth, a homage to writing in general and seeking the truth.  Wilson really steps up in this movie.  I’ve always thought he was an underrated actor but he won’t be after this.  There are great actors spread throughout the movie in bit parts playing some of the literary colossi of the 1920s.  I like the message that everyone wishes for life in a simpler, more romantic time but in reality we’re all blessed with the life in the time we inhabit.  I love reading and seeing a new legendary figure unveiled in each succeeding scene was a great deal of fun.  Woody also added in his usual zingers, comic lines hidden in the dialogue that you would miss if you aren’t paying attention.  A smart movie that was a lot of fun watching again.

MVP:  Wilson as Gil, the lost author who ultimately finds himself in the 1920s – best part of his career

Red

Actors:  Bruce Willis, Mary Louise Parker, Karl Urban, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Brian Cox, Ernest Borgnine, Richard Dreyfuss
Rating:  10 out of 10, just look at that cast, a truly great movie that most critics would dismiss as pure popcorn.  What's wrong with that - on a certain level that's what all movies should hope to be.  This movie is pure entertainment with Willis in the lead along with Parker and the rest of the cast of distinguished actors doing good work when it would have been easy to just sleep walk through it.  Willis is a very underrated actor and his romance of Parker which starts off with his kidnapping of her to save her from assassins is extremely sweet.  He is more than capable of the physical parts his roles called for but can also insert nuance as well in all of his scenes with Parker.  He's a guy you root for almost instinctively - one of those actors that almost forces you to like him.  The pace is great as new characters are added and subtracted to keep the plot bouncing along. You sense the real bond between the characters as well as the futility of their post operative lives. Mirren and Malkovich are especially fun - I'd watch anything they're in.  It looks like they had a lot of fun making this movie and it translate to a great movie that most serious critics will hate - screw em - this one was fun.
MVP:  Willis as the love struck ex-super agent Frank Moses

Columbiana

Actors:  Zoe Saldana, Michael Vartan, Amandla Stenberg, Jordi Molla, Lennie James, Cliff Curtis
Rating:  8 out of 10, a lot of great action in this movie with a lead in Saldana that is more than capable of carrying the entire movie.  Saldana is a very interesting actress, from the outside she looks like a skinny waif but when the camera role she totally sells the ability to be a bad ass.  She's done it in several movies now and she is awesome in this.  The story is completely implausible, a la Luc Besson, but as usual with his movies, it works.  Here more so than his Jovovich efforts because he has in Saladana, an honest to god actor.  The rest of the cast does a great job of supporting Saldana, especially Cliff Curtis as the assassin mentor.  One of my favorite actors from Snatch, Lennie James, plays the FBI agent in pursuit, only barely able to cover his British accent.  Stenberg, the girl who plays the young lead is very good, especially during the parkour chase through the streets of Bogota.  Vartan plays the romantic interest but is barely used, he's very good and I wonder why he doesn't do more.  This is a very good movie and more than worth the watch.
MVP:  Zoe Saldana, who else, is sexy, vulnerable and extremely dangerous as the graceful assassin Cataleya