Everything's Gone Green (2006) R - 2½ Stars

A young man trying to get a head legitimately, find everyone including his father growing pot and everyone trying to get a head. The movie takes place in Vancouver, the only town I could ever move to and be completely happy in the lush greenness. However, I didn't find it very funny, the story line was weak and the acting is not all that great. I guess you'll like it if you like Vancouver greenery, or your a stoner, if not, it's not a great pick.

Ryan (Paulo Costanzo) is beginning to think he comes from a family of losers. His father is growing pot in the basement, and his brother is scamming foreigners out of their money selling properties, the buyer will never see. But today is not a good day for Ryan. After loosing his job, he comes home to find his girlfriend has dumped him too. He's pushing 30 and finds employment with the lottery, writing about the lives of lottery winners. Along with their photograph, the winners are featured in the magazine. Ryan enrolls in a Mandarin language class and meets Ming (Steph Song). While trying to win over Ming from her current boyfriend Bryce, he pretends and starts to live the life style of a rich lottery winner. He needs to convince Ming to leave Bryce and how he really is a different person than he looks.

First Independent Picures
Director: Paul Fox
Writer: Douglas Coupland
Producers: Henrik Meyer, Elizabeth Yake, Chris Nanos

I viewed 1/07

Divine Trash (1998) NR - 3 Stars

Wow, me a movie lover and I felt pretty naive after seeing this documentary as why I had not heard of John Waters before. Pink Flamingos doesn't show up at Blockbuster, so I will be on the hunt for a copy.

The documentary focuses on his early career of bad taste cult film making. He's famous in the underground midnight movie world for his shock value and pushing the envelope as far as he could. A pencil thin mustache adorned his top lip giving him a distinctive unique look.

From Baltimore, Maryland in 1972, Waters released the most important underground film ever made, Pink Flamingos. Waters managed to sell out almost all of his shows just by advertising his movies by word of mouth alone. As a child, Waters was obsessed with car crashes, storybook villains, and puppets and frequently ran many puppy shows at $25.00 a show. Not bad for a 10 year old. And when his parents asked therapists if it was normal for him to crash any new car or truck toy he was given, there merely replied, "if it makes him happy, let him."

The film interviews directors that inspired Waters and also those Waters has inspired with his films. Roman Candles, Mondo Trasho and Multiple Maniacs drove film censors like Mary Avara, crazy with what see called complete trash. When "Divine" (born Harris Glenn Milstea), stared in Pink Flamingos, she was involved in the infamous doggy-doo scene which Waters says is the first and last time it will ever be done. And there was no law against it. It also features other odd characters like the "egg lady", "talking asshole" and "mink stole" as well as his pretty straight and narrow parents. It was his father that loaned him the money to make Pink Flamingo, which neither parent ever want to see. His dad was also shocked that within a year, their son paid them back every dime.

1998 - Divine Trash - Sundance Film Festival - Filmmakers Trophy: Documentary.

Divine Trash Productions
Director: Steve Yeager
Writers: Kevin Heffernan, Steve Yeager
Producers: Cindy Miller, Steve Yeager

I viewed 7/08

Definitely, Maybe (2008) PG13 - 3 Stars

While the movie is cute and fairly well acted, I didn't find it all that funny.

Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds) is a political consultant Manhattan dad going through a nasty divorce. His daughter Maya (Abigail Breslin), is trying to figure out why her father is not very happy. Though she is very sad over her parents breakup, she wants to know all about how her dad and mom first met. Will is reluctant to talk about his past with his 10 year old daughter, but she persists and finally he gives in.

This bed time story starts in 1992 when Will moves to New York from Wisconsin in order to work on the presidential campaign of Bill Clinton. Along the way he meets 3 very different type of women and explains his relationship with all of them to his daughter cause after all, she's just had a sex education class in school and now dad can discuss anything with her???

Universal Pictures
Director: Adam Brooks
Writer: Adam Brooks
Producers: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner

I viewed 7/08

Down to the Bone (2004) NR - 3 Stars

Definitely not a glamorous movie at all but then again, addiction isn't glamorous. Vera Farmiga does a great job in her role as Irene.

Irene (Vera Farmiga) is a working class mom living in upstate New York. She constantly struggles raising her two sons and trying to keep her marriage to Steve (Clint Jordan), together while hiding her cocaine addiction. When her life seems to be falling apart and meaningless, she checks herself into a rehab center and a series of NA meetings as she tries to kick her drug habit.

She meets her new best friend Lucy Negron (Caridad de la Luz) who helps support her many ups and downs. And while rehab does help her for a while, she meets Bob (Hugh Dillon) at the meetings who seems to be the perfect distraction for her. But instead, he is a former user and after the two start a love affair they both relapse back into addiction. Now their commitment to each other and staying clean, is broken.

2005 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards.

Laemmle/Zeller Films
Director: Debra Granik
Writers: Debra Granik, Richard Lieske
Producers: Anne Rosellini, Susan Leber

I viewed 6/08

Harvest of Redemption (2007) NR - 3 Stars

Based on a true story about a family drama from the 1920's. It's the coming of age story of a young boy growing up in a migrant fruit picking family who witnesses his father's death over taking 3 ears of corn. It's a low budget film, but I still enjoyed it and parts of the movie are spoken in Spanish with subtitles. I liked the way it starts out in B&W, then changes sepia tone as Oscar is 12, and finally to color later when Oscar seeks redemption on this wrong doing from his youth.

The story takes place in the cotton and corn fields of South Texas Rio Grande Valley, where Oscar's father and grandfather have both worked. Oscar (J.R. Villarreal) and Sonny (Dominik Chilleri) are best friends coming from two different family cultures. Sonny is the son of white family that owns the fields. Oscar is the son of a Mexican family that picks the crops. But the boys are inseparable and do not see the difference between them.

When Oscar and his father Pedro Escobedo (Jimmy Gonzales) were out hunting one day, he asked Oscar to go to the field and take some fresh corn. Sonny and his father Mr. Wilkens (Thomas Daniel) are driving up and saw them take the corn, a major no no from any of the workers. Sonny's father orders Pedro to put the corn back and as he goes to retrieve the corn from their box, he shoots Pedro in the back killing him. Oscar must now grow up with the resentment of watching his father murder at the hands of this white man. Shortly after, his mother Maria (Rosa Anzaldua) dies giving birth and Oscar is under the care of his grandfather Juan Escobedo (Juan Cuellar).

The years pass and Oscar (Joey Partida) meets Carmelita (Laura Perez) and falls instantly in love with her. But once again he feels belittled when Carmelita's father calls him a migrant worker and forbids her from seeing him. He finally feels he must seek revenge on the man who murdered his father. Begging for forgiveness in advance from God, he confronts the killer and wants him to know the pain he has caused him living without his dad. He fires his gun and shoots with the bullet landing in grown up Sonny (Zach Freeman) instead.

Oscar flees to Juarez Mexico until his return to the U.S. enlisting as a Marine to show Carmelita he can be something. But on his dying bed, he asks for forgiveness once again from the man who killed his father, by returning the box of stolen corn to him. This is his Harvest of Redemption.

2007 - International Film Awards - Best Foreign Drama

Hippo Films
Director: Javier Chapa
Writers: Javier Chapa,Eddie Howell,Laura Perez
Producer: Arturo Ayala

I viewed 7/08

The Killing of John Lennon (2006) NR - 3 Stars

There were mixed emotions about viewing this film. One one hand, I didn't want this killer to be glamorized and on the other hand, I was curious to know what the reasons were behind his motivation to kill John Lennon. The movie does a pretty good job about explaining the type of man that Mark David Chapman was/is. The narration in the film is Chapman's own words taken from interviews and his diaries and the film is shot on location where the actual events took place. "I was Mr. Nobody until I killed the biggest somebody on earth."

Mark David Chapman, (Jonas Ball) was living in Hawaii with his troubled marriage to Gloria (Mie Omori). His father was basically out of the picture and his mother (Krisha Fairchild) was not setting good examples for him by running all over the island with younger men. He seemed to hold a lot of anger inside of him.

Chapman spent a lot of time at the library where he got a copy of J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. As he begins to read the book, he identifies with "Holden Caulfield" the main character of the story. He reads the book over and over again until he is obsessed with the meaning of the Caulfield's ranting about phonies. While at the library, he glances through a book about John Lennon. As he looks at the images, he gets the image in his head of what a phony Lennon really was. The verse "Imagine there's no possessions" from John Lennon's song, Imagine, sets him off till he knows in his core, he has to kill John Lennon. He chants, "The phony must die said the Catcher in the Rye."

Chapman tells his wife and mother he's leaving for New York to travel for a bit. He visits a shop in Hawaii and purchases a hand gun and gets the proper paper work to take it with him to New York. Once he arrives, he visits the sights Caulfield talked about in his book and stays near the Lennon's home. He patiently waits outside the Dakota apartment building where John and Yoko live. But Lennon never makes an appearance and after viewing "Ordinary People" in the theater, he changes his mind and heads back to Hawaii to be with his wife.

But the obsession never leaves him and he re-reads Catcher in the Rye again, as he believes his mission is to return to New York and finish the job. He buys a copy of Double Fantasy, Lennon's new album and gets lucky as the couple are just leaving to go out. Lennon signs and even personalizes the autograph with a date and for a moment, Chapman is thinking how lucky he is to get such a treasure of a souvenir. But on December 8, 1980, after Lennon is returning from a recording gig, Chapman empties his 38, striking Lennon 5 times. The police arrived to rush Lennon to the hospital but it's too late. Today, Chapman is confined to a 6x9 foot cell in solitary confinement as his life has been threatened. His parole has been rejected 4 times.

2007 - The Killing of John Lennon - Tribeca Film Festival - Special Jury Recognition (Spotlight).

IFC Films
Director: Andrew Piddington
Writer: Andrew Piddington
Producer: Rakha Singh

I viewed 7/08

Just Add Water (2008) R - 3 Stars

Lately, I've just been grabbing movies cause I like the title or the way the cover looks and thus why I grabbed this one. It ended up being a pretty cute little movie. A real dead end desert nothing of a town, has been taken hostage by a group of young meth making hoodlums.

Not much happens in the desert of Trona, California. Ray Tuckby (Dylan Walsh), is an underground parking lot attendant by day and a husband and father by night. His wife Charlene (Penny Balfour), suffers from agoraphobia, and is too afraid to leave the house while his dysfunctional son Eddie (Jonah Hill). Ray has to drive down to the local market almost everyday to pick something up for dinner. But it's there he gets to see the prettiest girl in town, Nora (Tracy Middendorf ), his childhood sweetheart. The market doesn't stock much these days as deliveries are few and far between.

The whole town doesn't have much going on for it now that the lake has dried up when water was diverted elsewhere. Along with it the tourists, law enforcement and most of the people, the town has become a real dust bowl. But, it's where Ray was raised and where he calls home. Problem is, now Dirk (Will Rothhaar) bought up all the property and owns just about everything in town and everyone must pay him rent and for utilities. He runs the town with scare tactics. When one neighbor can't pay his rent on time, the whole block suffers without power.

Dirk's busy most of the time with his thugs in his many meth labs around town. But when Merl Stryker (Danny DeVito) comes to town to set a new gas station, Dirk tries to bully him out of town too.

When Ray's life seems to be falling apart around him, his childhood dreams of how great this town once was, resurface. Along with a little help from his friends, Ray turns Trona back into the place they can all call home.

One Part Sugar LLC
Director: Hart Bochner
Writer: Hart Bochner
Producers: Robin Bissell, Clifford Werber

I viewed 7/08

Juarez Mexico (2007) NR - 1½ Stars

That "based on a true story" gets me every time but I have to start reading the covers better when I rent a movie. Mainly I have to keep my eyes open for Maverick Entertainment films as I haven't been happy with one yet. After watching "Border" I was interested in seeing more about the women that mysteriously turn up dead. This movie unfortunately shed no light on much and the acting can't get any worse. The staged fight scenes and cheeeeeeeeezzzzzyyyy acting look like something me and my friends could have done.

Since 1993 more than 400 girls have been killed in Juarez Mexico. According to authorities, most of these young girls were raped and cut up. Johnny Cash (James Cahill), a private investigator goes to Mexico in search of a young girl missing. He stumbles upon a doctor preforming surgeries to give organs to patients who can pay for them.

Not much else to say about it except the story line had a chance. If it could have hired some decent actors, oh wait... that's Border with Jennifer Lopez. Get that version instead. If you would like to read more about these women of Juarez, you can go to the Juarez Project Page.

Maverick Entertainment
Director: James Cahill
Writer: James Cahill

I viewed 7/08

Darfur Now (2007) PG - 3 Stars

This documentary shows the struggles and achievements of six different people all over the world, doing their part to put an end to the genocide in the region of Darfur and bring humanitarian relief to make a difference to millions.

(George Clooney) and (Don Cheadle) are two celebrities who joined forces with (Adam Sterling) a UCLA student with a passion to not give up his cause till he is gets a state bill signed and passed to stop any money from going to Sudan. Along with the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (Luis Moreno-Ocampo), and (Pablo Recalde), a major head of the World Food Program, they are able to get food shipments flowing into the refugee camps to save the lives of millions of displaced people. In Darfur, (Hejewa Adam) became a rebel, fighting for the cause to regain her land taken away while she watched her son killed.

"Even the smallest act makes a difference" and if you would like to become involved, this is a very informative site Darfur Now. Another site to take action can be clicked on below.

Warner Independent Pictures
Director: Theodore Braun
Writer: Theodore Braun
Producers: Mark Jonathan Harris, Cathy Schulman, Don Cheadle

I watched 7/08

The World's Fastest Indian (2005) PG13 - 4½ Stars

One of my all time favorite actors, Anthony Hopkins is absolutely incredible in this role. A totally uplifting movie and well acted all around. Based on the true story of Burt Munro, born in 1899 living in Invercargill, New Zealand, he has a dream to come to America and break the land speed record with his motorcycle. In 1967, Burt took the speed record for the streamlined motorcycles under 1000 cc's catagory, which still stands today. Burt returned to Bonneville Salt Flats nine more times.

Burt Munro (Anthony Hopkins) is a funny older man living in a one room garage shack, who's idea of mowing the lawn is setting it on fire. When he turned 21, he bought the first love of his life, his 1920 Indian Motorcycle with a 600 cc engine. Burt was determined to have the fastest speed possible from the bike and altered many parts of the exterior to make it more streamline.

In 1967, at age 68, Burt had a mild heart attack and was put on nitre glycerin tablets and told he could no longer ride his bike. Instead, he sailed to the United States, along with his carefully wrapped Indian. His intentions were to get to Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats in order to break the world's land speed record .

Having never been to the U.S. before, Burt had no idea what to expect. Once in Los Angeles while waiting for his bike in customs, Burt finds shelter at a hotel primarily used by prostitutes. He's befriended by it's manager, a transvestite, and meets a group of colorful people along his journey including Fernando (Paul Rodriguez), a car dealer who helps teach him to drive on the opposite side of the road.

When he finally arrives at the salt flats, he's told his machine is not up to standards and unsafe to ride. He's also told he hadn't officially entered the race and sadly, he's also too old to ride. Luckily, Burt has met a new friend, an American driver Jim Moffett (Chris Lawford), who is able to pull some strings which allows Burt to have the ride of his life.

Magnolia Pictures
Director: Roger Donaldson
Writer: Roger Donaldson
Producers: Roger Donaldson, Gary Hannam

I viewed 6/08

Fool's Gold (2008) PG13 - 3½ Stars

What a cute movie with something for everyone. The good guys, the bad guys, the rich guys, the bimbo, the greedy guy and romance. A couple finds love again, and a worthy treasure to boot, in this comical romantic adventure. Kate Hudson is yet another one of my favorite actors. I see so much of Goldie in her face.

It's been eight long years of hunting the Queen's Dowry treasure from the 18th Century. It's said the treasure was lost at sea in 1715 and hold 40 chest of unimaginable goodies. But Tes Finnegan (Kate Hudson) has had enough of this treasure quest. She quits the hunt and her marriage to Ben "Finn" (Matthew McConaughey). Finn has sunk all of his money into this project along with his boat, "Booty Calls." However the sinking brings up a piece of a plate affirming his beliefs the treasure is close by. Meanwhile Tes is awarded everything in a divorce as Finn can't even make it there on time.

Tes gets a job aboard a yacht owned by millionaire Nigel Honeycutt (Donald Sutherland). But just as she is finding a new life, Finn manages to become a hero to Nidels daughter Gemma (Alexis Dziena) and invited aboard the yacht. Tes must tell her boss about her past life and the treasure as Finn gets the Honeycutt's excited over the possibility of finding the riches. And of course it can't be that easy. There's Bigg Bunny (Kevin Hart) and his thugs to deal with as well as the ever greedy Moe Fitch (Ray Winstone), yet another treasure hunter.

Every time Tes and Finn get closer to the treasure, Bunny and his men are there to grab their latest clue. It's a race against time when everyone converges at the same location to see who will get their hands on the gold first.

Warner Bros Pictures
Director: Andy Tennant
Writers: John Claflin, Andy Tennant, Daniel Zelman
Producers: Donald De Line, Jon Klane, Bernie Goldmann

I viewed 6/08