Reviews

Killing Eleanor is the story of two women who are unable to move forward in their lives for very different reasons. Forced together, they must build a bond on an unsteady foundation to find a path out of their respective doldrums.

The screenplay, written by co-lead Annika Marks, delves into the complicated subject of assisted suicide with nuance and humor. Keeping a film like this both grounded and funny is a huge task and it starts in the writing.

The film never loses sight of who Natalie and Eleanor are as people, unafraid to show their flaws but also their strengths. Its clear the people telling this story care about these characters. Marks and O'Hara are pitch perfect and have great chemistry bringing them to life.

Subtle direction from Rich Newey along with a terrific cast allows the story to unfurl at its own pace. The result is an unflinching, funny, and touching film.

I left Killing Eleanor reminded that it is our impermanence, in part, that fills our time here with potential. Please go watch this film.

Overall Michael Mann's choppy direction and a wandering script really hold back what could have been a great movie. Mann is obsessed with the music of the time period and while at times it does create a nice atmosphere, he also extends several scenes to unneeded length because of it. The script goes into great detail in certain areas of Ali's life, yet leaves other areas strangely glossed over. For instance, a great deal of time is spent on his father, whereas almost none is spent on the relationship between Ali and Joe Frazier, who many consider to be his greatest enemy, most interesting foil, and Ali's greatest triumph, yet the Thrilla in Manilla is not even mentioned.

In the end, it works to a certain extent thanks to a wide range of excellent performances including, Jamie Fox, Jada Pinkett Smith, Ron Silver, Mykelti Williamson, Jeffrey Wright, and especially Jon Voight and Mario Van Peebles. The last two portray historic figures in their own right and give them the proper scope those men deserved, while still being deferential to Ali. Finally, Will Smith gives the finest performance of his career to date and continues to grow as an actor as he impersonates Ali perfectly while creating a flawed, but larger than life man who becomes a legend.

Red Eye is an up-tempo thriller than continues to build suspense through out the movie. Ultimately it is about a political assassination but it takes place almost entirely on an airplane where the bad guy (Cillian Murphy) is trying to get the good girl (Rachel McAdams) to help him set up the assassination. This is where the movie is at its best as McAdams and Murphy both keep up with Wes Craven's breakneck speed and carry the movie.

Once the action moves off the plane holes start to appear and questions pose themselves. Some times it is simply ludicrous. There is no way Murphy could have expended the energy he did for as long as he did after he was stabbed. When they call for security on the plane the entire airport would have gone into lock down and neither would have made it out. Assuming they both did get out of the plane and the airport why wouldn't Murphy just call his man outside the house and send him on his mission. If he had done this immediately he would have been in and out long before Mc Adams ever reached there. McAdams had bullet proof glass on the car she stole. What are the odds of that. Also don't you think the Coast Guard inspection crew would have noticed the giant cable hanging over the side of the boat to hold the rocket launcher? Just stupid mistakes that detracted from the enjoyment of the movie. It is still an interesting idea and worth seeing but it just seems to me they didn't think it all the way through.

I came away from this film fairly angry. I thought the several talented actors all gave strong performances, the direction was good and in general a pretty well done production. My main problem with the movie was on a moral standpoint.

Samuel L Jackson plays a man living in the prejudiced south who's daughters are raped by two white bigots. In search of revenge he goes after them and kills them. The main part of the movie centers around Jackson's trial. McConaghey is the heroic lawyer for the defense and Kevin Spacey is the oily prosecutor. Sandra Bullock, and Keifer and Donald Sutherland round out the talented cast. After a heated trial and many looks at the ugly racism of the south, even in present day, Jackson is acquitted. In our society a man must be punished for his crimes. You are not allowed to kill another man period. I deeply empathize with Jackson's position, I might have done the same myself, but if we allow the public to take law into their own hands, we will create a vigilante society where no one is safe and the law means nothing. No matter how evil those two men were and how much they deserved to be punished, they needed to be punished by the law, not Jackson. I agree that sometimes the law does not always fulfill its duty but that is something we must fix with the legal system. We cannot use that as an excuse to allow civilian killings. I also think racism is a problem still and is something else we as a society must address, but this movie gives the message that killing in revenge is OK, and killing is never OK.

Every so often a movie comes along that totally changes the way people define a good movie. Usually its an action flick, like the Matrix, that uses some new camera work combined with stunning visuals and everyone calls it a masterpiece. This movie, American Beauty, is truly a work of art. Every frame, every line carefully crafted by rookie director Sam Mendes. There are no battle scenes, no technology. It is just a family in suburbia.

This movie should affect everyone who sees it because it is true for us all. American Beauty is actually a social satire of suburban America. These people have an image of what they are "supposed" to be implanted in their brains. One day Lester (Kevin Spacey), snaps out of it. Lester realizes there is more out there than a dead end job, a wife who bosses him around and is obsessed with material possessions, but more importantly Lester realizes there is more in him. As Lester starts to change himself, it also affects his environment. His wife Carolyn (Annette Benning) is totally thrown off keel by his actions. Lester has discovered that they are not the average middle class suburban family but a completely unique group of human beings. When he tries to get this message across to Carolyn, she rejects him, has an affair, and convinces herself she is the victim. Lester and Carolyn's message and the main message of the movie is that we all wear masks, put up facades. And unless we become ourselves, we can never truly be happy. It is said multiple times in the film that it would be terrible to be ordinary.

Now, there is a second message. A parallel story is being told. That of Lester's daughter Jane and her boyfriend Ricky. While these two stories are deeply intertwined and connect with each other, Ricky and Jane's message is equally important. Ricky lives in a world of beauty. Beauty is everywhere and in everything. Jane, who at the beginning of the film believes she is ordinary and plain, is brought into this world by Ricky and is shown how much she has to offer. Their message is that there is beauty in everything and all you have to do is look for it.

To make a film of such deep content, it takes a skilled cast and crew to come across as not preachy. Director Sam Mendes (Road to Perdition) has a long and successful career ahead of him. He was able to draw such subtle performances from a magnificent cast and then tie it all together with a tremendous score by Thomas Newman. Alan Ball, another fairly new name, gives a screen play with such audacity, wit, and deeper meaning its almost scary. And of course any review of American Beauty would not be complete without mentioning Kevin Spacey. Before I saw this movie I didn't think it could get much better than his role as Verbal Kint in the Usual Suspects. He was better in American Beauty. This is a tremendous actor in the role of a lifetime. This is one of the finest cinematic achievements I've ever witnessed, and there wasn't one explosion.

I went into this movie with great anticipation and was not let down throughout all but the final three minutes of the movie. Yes there were a couple of plot holes, but overall it was incredible. The score was excellent, Cruise was very good, Dakota Fanning has a big career ahead of her if she keeps acting like this. But above all this Spielberg was in his element. He kept it tense, fast-paced, enough character development to keep it interesting, but not so much as to bore us. He never bothered to question man's existence or anything like that. He was just taking us on a no expense spared thrill ride. I had no idea what would happen next for most of the movie. This had some of the most fantastic camera work, unbelievable effects. All in all i was having a heck of a time. Then they killed the final Alien and walked up that Boston street to find....... the mother and the son both alive. Not only that but they happened to be looking out into the street right as Cruise comes walking up it. After doing about as good a job as a director of a disaster picture can do in avoiding clichés, Spielberg unloaded a giant dumpster of them on the audience in the final minutes. If it had been just Cruise and Fanning, Cruise would have had to become the father he had already started to change into, Fanning would grow to trust him and they would rebuild their life as civilization rebuilds. THat would have been a far superior ending and I would have given this at least a 9 out of 10 without hesitation. But the complete breakdown of holding off Hollywood, even though it only occurred in the final seconds was very disappointing. In any case its still worth seeing, especially on a big screen.

Alright lets get the bad things out of the way first. It was very predictable and it started out a little slow. All done.

Now heres the good part, everything else. However, while everyone involved with this did a terrific job, there is one man who deserves special mention. Ron Howard. He did an amazing job really making the audience care about Braddock (Crowe). Despite the fact that I knew exactly what was going to happen Howard manipulated me to where I was in fear of Braddock's life and on the edge of my seat throughout the entire final fight. Kudos must go to the entire cast, especially the scene stealing Craig Bierko, and everyone else who was involved with this film, but as of right now Howard has my vote for the Oscar.

The Longest Yard was a movie with great potential. It had two of the hottest comedians around in Sandler and Rock, a recognizable name for the older crowd in Burt Reynolds, an excellent villain in James Cromwell(watch LA Confidential if you don't believe me), and finally it was based off of a pretty good original (which starred Burt Reynolds). Despite all this the sum of the parts was disappointing. Here is why.

The plot holes are enormous. Sandler does not look anything like a football player for obvious reasons of stature. The scene where the guards try to pick a fight with Nelly is ridiculous because when he doesn't fight back the guards don't do anything. Earlier in the movie Sandler is beaten up by the guards without picking a fight and they were looking to injure Nelly. They didn't want to injure Sandler.

Many of the jokes were way overused and stale. Cheeseburger Eddie was not funny at all and his putting a burger on Rock's grave was almost insulting. The male cheerleaders in drag was not very funny the FIRST time they showed them. By the end of the movie the cheerleaders had been on the screen for at least 10 minutes. The football player on estrogen was funny however. But only for the first few times. They just kept showing it and showing it. Keeping with the overuse theme, the use of the slow-motion technique. The first time with Nelly running was cool. After that is was boring. I think that movie would have been another 10 minutes shorter if that was taken out.

Finally the script was just bad. It gave Rock nothing to sink his teeth into. Sandler looked like he was bored half the time. And many scenes were just not needed (the secretary who has the hots for Sandler, the Brucie character's on again of again relationship with the lead male cheerleader).

I will admit i laughed at some scenes. The cameo by Rob Schneider was funny. The whole scene leading up to Sandler's arrest was funny. I also enjoyed the cameos by the football players and announcers. Irvin and Chris Berman especially. But it just wasn't enough to save the movie. I'm saying this as a big fan of both Sandler and Rock. I love Waterboy and Happy Gilmore, but The Longest Yard is nowhere near up to the standards of those two.

One heck of a movie if you take it for what it is. U-571 is a submarine thriller about a crew who takes over a German U-Boat and then is stranded on it. The movie explains it better than I do and it is fairly believable for the most part. The movie even adds a little character study of it's main character(played by Matthew McConaughey). Not much though. This film's purpose is keeping you on the edge of your seat and it succeeds to the fullest. It has great special effects, decent acting, and is not dragged down in the slightest by its script or plot. If you want to have a thoroughly enjoyable movie watching experience then rent U-571.