Defiance

I love a good war movie. Heck, I usually like a bad war movie. Especially when it's about World War II. It is such a fascinating part of our history. Almost the ENTIRE planet was at war. How crazy is that?

Defiance is a war story that is a true story about a not-so-glamorous part of the war. The movie is set in Eastern Poland in the woods. There, the Bielski Brothers have fled their village after a German invasion and while roaming in the woods happen upon a group of wandering Jews who had fled the Nazis. Note that I separate Nazis and Germans. They were 2 distinct groups. The Germans were the soldiers. The Nazis worked for the political party and for the most part are the ones that ran the concentration camps and the Jew extermination policy. One could be a part of both groups, but being a German did not make one a Nazi, just as an American in the army is not necessarily a Democrat.

Defiance stars Daniel Craig (James Bond in both Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace) as Tuvia Bielski and Lieve Schreiber (The Manchurian Candidate and RKO 281) as Zus Bielski, 2 brothers. While both men acted with fake Russian\Polish accents, Liev Schriber actually made a good Polish Jew, whereas Daniel Craig makes a good Brit speaking in a Polish accent who probably doesn't go to church as often as his mother would like.

Once the first few families of Jews were found, Tuvia decides that they must protect them. Over time, the refugees number in the thousands. Zus, on the other hand, wants to be a fighter rather than a protector and leaves to join a Russian detachment. Meanwhile, Tuvia, the now default leader of the refugee, finds himself fighting not only a war, but partisan bickering and struggles for gathering food, protecting the people, and trying to remain unseen by the occasional German observation planes.

Almost the entire movie is set in the woods of present-day Belarus, though filming was actually done in nearby Lithuania. Another notable fact is that many of the cast were relatives of surviving refugees, which number in the tens of thousands.

Defiance was directed by Edward Zwick, no stranger to directing big films, also known for Glory, Legends of the Fall, The Last Samurai, and Blood Diamond.

The movie states that it is 2 hours and 17 minutes long, though my DVD player was able to knock it out in 2 hours and 5 minutes. Perhaps I have an aggressive DVD player. Defiance is rated R for violence, mostly for violent gun battles and exploding bombs, and language.

Though an interesting story, the acting was a bit melancholy and dialog was slow. After watching the movie, I read about the true story and found it to be fascinating. However, I will have to give the movie 3 stars. I think it could have been a little better.

Rachel Getting Married

I once read that Anne Hathaway has doe-like eyes. I think that is right on. Best known for her portrayal of Mia Thermopolis in the Princess Diaries series, Hathaway has grown up and is now fancied by many a man.

In her latest movie, Rachel Getting Married, she gets all slummed up and plays Kym, the drug-addict sister of the bride. Tensions are high from the beginning of the movie and they never ease. Kym has been in drug rehab, but continues to be brought down by a tragic event in her past.

To make things worse for her, the family only offers her shallow support as they still blame her for the tragic event. Not helping the matter is Kym's inconsistency in life and in rehab.

Meanwhile, Rachel is getting married in the most eclectic marriage ceremony ever performed. She is marrying an artsy African-American, which is really not even a conflict in the movie, which is nice to see. However, Kym, Rachel and the rest of the family are in a constant struggle that lasts throughout the movie.

As I've mentioned before, I'm not really into artistic films. I should have been clued in when Netflix mentioned that the movie was nominated for Best Feature Independent Spirit Award. I think the entire movie was filmed with a cellphone video camera. At best it was filmed with a held-held camcorder. This got to be really annoying. Especially when people were standing in front of the camera or when substances got on the lens of the camera and it was not removed.

I found the plot to be absolutely ridiculous and without end. The acting wasn't too bad, but when you're acting to a horrible story, it doesn't help too much.

The movie, which was directed by Jonathan Demme (Philadelphia , Silence of the Lambs, & Manchurian Candidate), also stars Rosemarie DeWitt as Rachel, Sebastian Stan as Walter, Kym's boyfriend, and Debra Winger as Abby, their nutty mother.

The movie is Rated-R for language, some brief sexuality, smoking (Anne Hathaway, nonetheless), and horrible editing.

As you can probably tell by now, I didn't like the movie. I give it 1 star and recommend that you avoid this movie, unless you are an artsy film student.

Slumdog Millionaire

I finally got around to watching Slumdog Millionaire. I wasn't in too much of a hurry to see this movie being that it won the Academy Award for Best Picture. In my mind this usually means that the movie sucked. Funny how my stereotypes continue to be accurate in my own mind.

Slumdog Millionaire is about a young man named Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) who is retelling the story of his life and how he knew the answers as a contestant on India's Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The movie traces his life from his early childhood growing up in the slums of India, meeting a young girl (Freida Pinto - a very attractive young lady!), a girl who's love will forever be in his heart, to the struggles with his brother and his keeper.

If you've never seen anything about India you will most likely be struck by the hopelessness and poverty that lie across the country. However, there are signs of life and a desire to do good that can overcome the evil that seems to have penetrated everything.

Throughout the movie Jamal is being held in a police station and being grilled about correctly answering so many questions on the game show. How can a slumdog know so much?

Many will find the movie inspiring, while others, like me, see this as a movie which exploits a formerly popular game show which just connects the dots in the contestants life to get the answers. I find this to be a more convenient storyline than intriguing.

The movie is 2 hours long and was directed by Danny Boyle, also known for his independent movie Trainspotting. Slumdog Millionaire is rated R for violence, disturbing images, especially of children, and some language. They also made us watch a cricket match or football (soccer) game, also worthy of an R-Rating.

Not a big fan of this movie. I give it 2 stars.

Last Chance Harvey

I kept my expectations in check with Last Chance Harvey, staring Dustin Hoffman, one of the most formidable actors of our time, as the quirky Harvey Shine and Emma Thompson as shy but strong Kate Walker. My latest Netflix movie didn't get great reviews and some of Hoffman's movies can be a bit bazaar.

Harvey is a jingle writer and his daughter is getting married. He hasn't seen her much because she lives in London and, coincidentally, the wedding is in London. Upon arrival he passes one of those people that tries to gather information by conducting a survey. He's not interested and brushes off the lady. Once in his hotel, he learns of the wedding plans and starts to realize that he's not really welcome there. At the rehearsal dinner that night those feelings are confirmed.

At this point in the movie I was ready to kick his daughter's ass. His ex-wife wasn't much better. I could not believe how rude both were being to him and he coiled in defeat and surrendered into seclusion. I felt horrible for him and almost felt like I was there with him.

And then things got worse. Fortunately for Harvey, the lady that he shunned at the airport on his inbound flight shows up again and it goes from being that awkward obnoxious guy to that feeling of fresh sunshine and thinking that things can get better. Will Harvey be able to make good on his relationship with his daughter and find happiness again?

The movie is mostly predictable and quite short. It's only an hour and 30 minutes long. Though the reviews that I read were mostly disappointing, both Hoffman and Thompson both won Golden Globe nominations for their performances.

Last Chance Harvey also stars Liane Balaban as Susan, Harvey's daughter, Eileen Atkins, Kate's mother, Kathy Baker as Harvey's ex-wife, and James Brolin as Kathy's new husband.

The movie was directed by Joel Hopkins, a relatively unknown director who's only other direction came with Jump Tomorrow.

Last Change Harvey is rated PG-13 for some brief strong language and an attempt at boosting ticket sales because PG movies usually don't bring in as much money.

While the beginning of the movie was much more powerful to me than the end, I still thought the movie was decent and give it 3 stars.

Nothing But the Truth

Government conspiracies and corporate shinanegans always make for good movies. Remember Barbarians at the Gate or Thank You For Smoking?

Nothing But the Truth sort of fits that vein. The movie stars the lovely Kate Beckinsale as Rachel Armstrong, a reporter for the local D.C. newspaper who has just exposed a C.I.A. agent who recommended that the United States not invade Venezuela after an assassination attempt on the President, but the agent is the wife of a writer critical of the White House Administration. Does this all sound familiar? It should. There's a strong similarity between this movie and the Valerie Plame / Scooter Libby / Bob Novak incident during the Bush 41 Administration.

Armstrong knows that the government will probably come down hard on her, but she has no idea of the intensity of their persuit. A rocky relationship with her husband and an unfettered obligation to conceal the truth behind her source drives her to unimaginable emotional and physical pain. Additionally, her Pulitzer Prize nominated article not only exposes the government for its shinanigans, but may unintentionally ruin the lives of many involved.

Federal prosecutor Patton Dubois (Matt Dillon) goes after Armstrong and will not back down until she exposes the leak that gave her the information. Armstrong refuses to back down.

This drama had me furious and hating the federal prosecutor, getting pissed off at Armstrong's arrogant attorney Alan Burnside (Alan Alda), and sympathetic to the pain and betrayal felt by the CIA agent, Erica Van Doran (Vera Farmiga). Furthermore, throughout the movie and into the night and again this morning I kept running through the story in my mind trying to see if I could resolve the dilemna before I could remind myself that this was just a movie.

Nothing But the Truth was directed by Rod Lurie who also brought us the infuriating movie with Robert Redford, The Last Castle. Nothing But the Truth is an hour and 40 minutes long and is rated R for language, violence, and sexuality.

(--Slight Spoiler Alert--)
I was not able to figure out the movie, which means it is a good movie in my book. The answer is provided to the viewers, but not to the characters, and in retrospect, you probably could have found it.

(--End of Slight Spoiler Alert--)

I enjoyed this movie and it kept my attention throughout. I attached emotions to all of the characters, including the seemingly primodonna Rachel Armstrong. I thought the actors did a fine job with their portrayals and it made this a great movie. On an interesting side-note, I read that this movie had very limited release in the theaters before it was released onto DVD because it ran into financial trouble, probably because of the economy. Another victim of the recession, though Nothing But the Truth did not get a bailout.

I give this movie 4 stars. I would definitely watch it again.

Twilight

Generally speaking a movie is targeted to a specific audience. Sometimes I fit those demographics. Sometimes I do not. For instance, I am probably not the target audience of Teletubbies - the Magic Pumpkin. Nor is my 9-year old daughter the target audience of the latest bare-breasted Kate Winslet movie.

That being said, I was a bit skeptical about Twilight, the "romantic" vampire movie. Everyone said it was an awesome book and an awesome movie. Whenever something gets hyped up that much it usually sucks. And this is the first in a series of movies, so you know they're going to leave you hanging.

The movie starts off innocently enough. A girl moves in with her father and starts a new school. On her first day of school she ends up sitting next to this pasty white emaciated boy with wall-to-wall carpeting over his eyes. They don't hit it off very well and she obviously thinks he's a freak. I never got past my first impression.

Make-up boy later returns and is friendlier than ever and from there the attraction grows. However, she eventually finds out that he's a vampire (no secret to the viewers unless you've been hiding on Facebook for a year). Now she's caught in a world where she knows too much and can't go back, but she's also in love.

One of the main problems here is that vampires like to eat people. To me this is like having a crush on a slice of pepperoni pizza. Eventually one of us is going to get eaten. Can she date a vampire, or will their love for each other be divided by their circumstances?

The movie was made with many colors filtered out so that all images are mostly white, grey, black, and blue. It's an interesting effect and appropriate for a movie about vampires and darkness and all that. Twilight stars Kristen Stewart (Into the Wild, What Just Happened?) as Bella and Robert Pattinson (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) as Edward Cullen, the mysterious vampire boyfriend. The movie was directed by Catherine Hardwicke who also directed The Nativity Story and 13.

Twilight is 122 minutes long and rated PG-13 for violence and sensuality.

Overall, the movie kept my interest, but I think it was more because people told me it was supposed to. I found the movie to be fairly predictable and the screenplay a bit too artistic. If you like this kind of movie, then you will probably enjoy Twilight. I, however, like to be forced to think about the movie and be surprised by plot twists, or just slap me in the face and make me laugh. This one did neither. I give this movie 3 stars. Not great. Not horrible. It's average.

The Americanization of Emily

I love watching Turner Classic Movies. Today, April 7th, is James Garner's birthday. In his honor, they are showing a James Garner-a-thon. Today I watched The Americanization of Emily, staring Garner and Julie Andrews, best known for The Sound of Music.

The comedy is set in London during World War II, prior to the D-Day invasion. The premise is that Garner is sort of an aide-de-camp to Admiral Jessup (Melvyn Douglas). His job is to make sure that the Admiral has all of the goods, drinks, company, and back-rubs that he needs. Anything the General wants - Garner makes sure he gets it.

Upon arriving Garner meets Emily Barham, a staff member at headquarters. His flirtations with her are scoffed, though he does not end his pursuit. Over time she opens up to him, but learns that he is not what he appears on the outside. Instead, he's a coward who hates war, and is spiteful towards the arrogant and hypocritical British.

His plans to stay where it's safe get torpedoed when General Jessup goes nuts and decides that in an effort for the Navy to get more of the action in D-Day, they will make a documentary filming the invasion. The General wants the first casualty of the invasion to be a sailor and he wants Garner to be there to film it.

This movie is an adaptation of Paddy Chayefsky's play, based on the book by William Bradford Huie and directed by Arthur Hiller, not Arthur Miller. Being a big fan of James Garner and older movies, I found this black and white (talkie) movie to be very funny.

Too old to be rated, the movie is fairly innocuous, though Garner does make some sexual references that may have been taboo at the time, and we do see some girls in bras, and a naked back of a girl caught in bed with James Colburn. It probably would have been given a PG-13 rating had it been rated today.

I like this movie and gave it 4 stars. Happy Birthday, James Garner!