Journey To The Center Of The Earth (2008) NR - 1½ Stars

No, not the Brendan Fraser version but believe it or not there were three movies produced this year all named Journey to the Center of the Earth. And having not seen the other two yet, please tell me there's something better done with the original 1959 classic movie by Jules Verne. This one is pretty lame and was produced for cable TV rather than the big screen, for good reason. First off nothing in the movie remotely looks like it was filmed in the center of the earth. Instead, this version looks like it was filmed in the Santa Monica mountains, complete with blue sky and the foliage that grows along the mountainside.

A team of 6 women are getting ready to be beamed from where they stand to another location to engage in combat. Sort of like in Star Trek "beam me up" and I'm sorry I don't remember the term for this type of transportation. Well something goes wrong and instead the team is transported to the center of the earth complete with hungry dinosaurs and large spiders. The girls have conflicts with the beasts as their numbers are being eaten away.

Meanwhile, the crew (ha ha), that sent them there by mistake, get in a huge machine and travel to the center of earth to rescue the girls. They make it just in time to bring four back home alive and live happily ever after. All they had to do is put some fake CGI background with it and it could have raised the rating for the film. You can avoid this one from the three.
Starring Greg Evigan, Dedee Pfeiffer.

The Asylum
Director: Scott Wheeler and Davey Jones
Producer: David Michael Latt, David Rimawi, Paul Bales
Writers: Steve Bevilacqua and Scott Wheeler

I viewed 8/08

Noise (2007) NR - 3 Stars

Personally I have experience a ringing in the ears for almost a month so I know how annoying it can become when you can't shut your brain off due to the noise and struggle to not think everything you hear sounds alien to you. Our star is an Australian policeman, with tinnitus (ringing of the ears.) Because his life is made up of confusion, with the noise playing out in his head, the movie choose to add that effect to drive the viewer mad too. It's not crazy mad, it just gets annoying to listen to, as I'm sure it does to anyone that has tinnitus. Thus the title of the movie.

One night a young girl, Lavinia Smart (Maia Thomas), is taking the train home with her new prize possession, a photo just framed of herself. When she enters the train, she finds it filled with a gruesome murder scene. Though she sees the killer, and even has a gun put to her head, the murderer spares her and flees with her photo instead. Since her name is on the photo and she can identify the man, she fears for her safety as she thinks she was spared only for the killer to come back and finish her off.

At the same time, Melbourne police officer, Graham McGahan (Brendan Cowell), has a hard time concentrating on his work as a patrolman with all the noise going on inside his head. He collapses while riding the escalator and is taken to the hospital. When released, his commander feels he is no good anymore to his squad and assigns him to a desk in a trailer in a quiet community that sees little action. His girlfriend Constable Caitlin Robinson (Katie Wall) and he are fighting constantly and he takes a liking to Lavinia as he gets information about her case. He starts to take her seriously when the killer leaves a message, while returning the photo to his quite office. Christmas Eve alone, Graham will have to overcome his tinnitus to determine what is real and what is noise, when the murderer confronts him at his doorsteps.

THINKFilm
Director: Matthew Saville
Writer: Matthew Saville
Producer: Trevor Blainey

I viewed 8/08

Yellow (2006) R - 3 Stars

I must say this girl has the skinny body perfectly made for dancing. Almost too skinny. Roselyn Sanchez, co writer, also stars as Amaryllis Campos, who's danced all her life but finds herself falling apart when her father / dance teacher Franco (Jaime Tirelli), commits suicide. The movie has an erotic twist when Sanchez works as a stripper temporarily trying to make ends meet. I liked her relationship with with her new neighbor Miles and I wish the movie would have touched on that a little more. Especially when Mile's son comes to visit, but all and all, I thought the acting was fairly decent all the way throughout. The movies starts out in Spanish with English subtitles but ends in English for all of you who can't do a "sub-titled" movie, this one is really only at the beginning.

Amaryllis Campos (Roselyn Sanchez) is a dancer from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Her father is a proud man and has trained Amaryllis in her dancing, all her life. When he can no longer bare his life in a wheel chair, he takes his own life with a bullet. When Amaryllis walks in on her fiance and her mother involved in some dirty dancing of their own, she flees town to New York City, where she hopes she can make it big. She's housed next to a funny old man, Miles Emory (Bill Duke) whom she listened to his tales for hours. But she wants more and heads to the streets to find a dancing job.

Amaryllis applies to a flyer only to find out it's not the type of dancing she's used to. At this gig, she has to undress undignified, to make ends meet. But she'll never be happy till she can make it in the Big Apple, as her father did. It's her way on honoring her father, even if it means turning away from her true love, Christian (D.B. Sweeney).

Hannibal Pictures
Director: Alfredo de Villa
Writers: Nakoma Whobrey, Roselyn Sanchez
Producers: Stephen J. Brown, Roselyn Sanchez, Dennis Murphy

I viewed 8/08

21 (2008) - 4 Stars

I must say I liked this movie a lot. Kevin Spacey is one of my favorites and he is great in this movie and even involved in it's production. Actually most of the characters were believable after you get to know them. The movie is based on the true story of a group of smarties who took Vegas for millions of dollars. I've always been fascinated about people counting cards and the methods they use and this scheme seemed pretty high tech yet simple. What I didn't understand is why keep hitting the same casino? Why not travel to each and every casino and take them all for a chunk of change instead of causing suspicion at the same one?

Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) is an extremely bright student trying to get excepted in the college of his dreams. He also has his eyes focused on one lovely girl but too shy to do anything about it. His best friends and room mates are involved in a project of building the best robot. And that works fine for Ben until one day he is approached by his math teacher Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey), and fellow students, to join in on a plan to make more money than he could ever dream of. Ben just desperately needs 300 thousand to get into medical school to become a doctor. Though reluctant about doing anything illegal, he notices the girl he's had his eye on, Jill Taylor (Kate Bosworth), a member of the team, seduces him into taking a chance.

The gang meets to decide their plan of action and stage a trial run to make sure that Ben is up to the job. Once he passes, they lot set off for Vegas staying in the finest room and living the life of luxury. The team takes the tables for thousands and then returns back to their homes during the weeks to reengage with school and work. But there's lots of money to be made and jealousy and conflicts break out amongst the team when Ben gets sloppy and bets big loosing a lot in one big hand, eventually getting him busted by Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne), of casino security. Cole knows what counting cards looks like as he has tackled with Mickey Rosa years before, and still has a grudge about nailing him.

Sony Pictures
Director: Robert Luketic
Writers: Allan Loeb, Peter Steinfeld
Producers: Kevin Spacey, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca

I viewed 8/08

Atonement (2007) R - 3½ Stars

You know how sometimes things gets so much hype, you have certain expectations of them and then you're let down? Well, that is how I felt over this movie. Don't get me wrong, it was a quality movie, however I just didn't enjoy it as much as I had hoped from all the reviews and nominations. The acting is great and the set and costume design and wonderful for the 1935 time period, and the story believable for such the era of sexual taboo.

Briony Taliis (Saoirse Ronan) at age 13, lives with her family and older sister in a mansion complete with all the luxuries. Briony is bored though and spends her time getting into everyone elses business, including her sister Cecilia's (Keira Knightley.) Robbie (James McAvoy) is the housekeeper's son, and Briony sort of has a crush on him or at least, thrives on his attention. But Robbie keeps giving that attention to Cecilia. When Briony sees from her window, Cecilia go into the fountain on their estate, removing most of her clothes to do so, she is in shock that Robbie stood before her sister watching. Later, Briony finds the two about to make love in the house library. When a crime is committed in the woods, Briony decides to become a witness and point the finger at Robbie to remove him from his sister's presence.

It does change the situation, that is for sure. So much so, that Robbie is sent away to do time for a crime he did not commit and also be denied his true love Cecilia. Cecilia's heart is never healed and years later when Briony (Romola Garai) is 18, she returns to her sister's side to tell her the truth. But changing the lives of so many people are some things you can never make up for.

Awards are many and include:

2007 - Atonement - Academy - Best Original Score.
I was going to try and list the people involved in the best original score department but they are too numerous.

Working Title Films
Director: Joe Wright
Writer: Christopher Hampton
Producers: Paul Webster, Eric Fellner, Tim Bevan

I viewed 8/08

The Planet (2006) R - 2 Stars

I may even be high in rating a 2 on this one, but I did like the big giant electrical being at the end. However, the other beings, the stars of the movie, well they need some serious acting lessons. Talk about cheese. This has got to be one of the lowest budget films I've seen lately. However, I did enjoy the last scene the best.

This is a group of macho heavy accent fighter dudes. After they are involved in a battle on their ship, those that were not killed, telepod away from danger and land on the closest planet. Oh yeah, they had a prisoner on board who got away too and lands on the same planet. The planet is deserted but lucky there is oxygen for them to breath. But the prisoner escapes and wonders off into the distance knowing exactly where to go. There's an evil force lurking on the planet and the prisoner is looking for it to full fill his destiny. Causing havoc on the team, and turning them against each other, their only chance of survival is to send a pod back into space to contact the closest ship for rescue. If they fail, this evil force could infect the rest of the universe.

I really couldn't tell you who is who because I didn't connect with any of the characters but, the movie starred Mike Mitchell as Captain Morgan, Scott Ironside as Vince, Michael G. Clark as Taylor, Graham Robertson as Williams, Ashley Branston as Roberts, Colin Morrison as the Prisoner, Patrick Wight as McNeal, Shawn Paul Hastings as Leyton, Steve Tomas as Marsh, Tim Branston as Mitch and Mark Wyness as Daak.

Charon Film AB
Director: Mark Stirton
Writer: Mark Stirton
Producer: Michael G. Clark

I viewed 8/08

Waking Ned Devine (1998) PG - 4 Stars

Filmed in a quaint little country side of Ireland, this was such a refreshing little movie. The kind of town where everyone knows each other and their business. I don't remember seeing these actors before but they were a great bunch of characters. From Fin who chases away his girl because he smells liked pigs, to Jackie and Michael, the two skinny dipping motorbike riders.

The town, Tulaigh More, consist of mostly elderly people with their grown children and a few kids here and there. Everyone lives a meager live style and visits their church and pub. Jackie (Ian Bannen), and Annie O'Shea (Fionnula Flanagan), are an older married couple living to make ends meet. Everyone in town plays the lottery, hoping for that chance to strike it rich and have the finer things in life. When Jackie learns that someone in the village is holding a winning ticket, he and Annie try to narrow down who it must be. But when Jackie stumbles across the winning ticket, is held by one of his older friends, Ned Devine. Problem is, when Ned looked at the winning ticket, a huge smile came to his face and then he died, but not before signing the back of the ticket.

Now if the lottery commission finds out that Ned has died, the money will be forfeited. And with Ned having no family left behind, the only other thing to do is cash in the ticket. With the help of his friend Michael O'Sullivan (David Kelly) the two decide to pretend Ned is still with us and claim the ticket.

The lotto man (Brendan F. Dempsey) shows up to meet with Ned Devine and fill out required forms to prepare the winnings and he wants to question the town to make sure Ned is who he says he is. This is something Jackie hadn't thought of. Now with the man coming back in a few days, the two must convince the town to go ahead with their plans and split the money 52 ways with everyone. Everyone, that is, except for the town witch Lizzy Quinn (Eileen Dromey). She's convinced there is more money to be made for her by turning the town in for fraud. Can the town convince Lizzy to go along with their plans in time?

Fox Searchlight Pictures
Director: Kirk Jones
Writer: Kirk Jones
Producers: Richard Holmes, Glynis Murray

I viewed 8/08

Touching the Void (2003) R - 4 Stars

I'm amazed how real the footage looked to what it must have been like for these two young mountain climbers. At first, I thought I was watching their own documentary of their journey up the mountain. Bravo for such a great reenactment of the actual events of their climb. It's amazing and a miracle that either of the men survived their ordeal.

In 1985, Joe Simpson (Brendan Mackey) and Simon Yates (Richard Hawking), went to the Andes to climb the treacherous west face of Siula Grande which had never been done before. One thing I learned was the term Alpine Style of climbing. This means that you are attached to the other climber by a rope where if one messes up, chances are you are going to take the other one with you. You really have to trust the person you are climbing with as he can be your umbilical cord to your life line.

The two young men were experienced climbers and decided to climb the face in one move straight up rather than carry extra rope and equipment for making base camps along the way. This way they could reach the summit sooner. Many storms plagued the men and made climbing even more treacherous as the snow would turn to powder and provide no safe place to attach themselves. On the third day, they finally reach the summit of approximately 21,000 feet. After enjoying their panoramic view victory, the men must struggle now to get down the mountain as soon as possible as they have no reserve food, no gas to melt snow for water and no base camp to make it to providing shelter.

On the climb down Simpson fell and broke his leg shoving the bone far up inside of his thigh. In Alpine climbing this usually means certain death as your partner must cut loose and you are left to fend for yourself. However, Yates decided to try to lower Simpson down the mountain by combining their two ropes into one. This way he could lower Simpson down approx. 300 feet at a time and then climb down to reach him and start the process over again. In almost white out conditions, the two make their way down the mountain till Yates accidentally lowers Simpson over the side of a cliff. Unable to grab anything to take his weight off the rope, Simpson lays dangling over the edge. Yates can not see what is happening and the tow can not hear each others cries. Yates struggles to hold Simpson as his make shift seat on the mountain side is blowing away like sugar around him. When he can take no more, his only choice is to cut the rope or risk certain death by being pulled down from the weight.

Yates pulls a small pocket knife out and makes the cut sending Simpson to his certain death. But somehow, Simpson survived the fall as his body was flung deep into a crevasse with no chance of his climbing out of. As he lay there calling for Simon's assistance, he realizes his calls will never be heard. Yates struggles with his quilt and his own predicament as he tries to make it the rest of the way down the mountain. While Simpson barely able to move must find a way to climb farther down the crevasse as he can't go up. After seven days on the mountain, both climbers will make it back to the bottom and that base camp.

2004 - Touching the Void - Boston Society of Film Critics - Best Documentary Runner up.

IFC Films
Director: Kevin MacDonald
Producer: John Smithson

I viewed 8/08

To Die For (1995) R - 4 Stars

I can't believe I missed this movie when it first came out. No wonder Nicole Kidman won a Golden Globe award for her great performance of a prissy, bitchy, news woman, weather girl, reporter, and even accomplice to murder. All she wants in her life is to become a television anchorwoman and will stop at nothing to get there. The movie is shot in a documentary, "after the fact", format and Larry's sister Janice (Illeana Douglas) is great at recapturing the warning signs she saw from the start.

Suzanne Stone (Nicole Kidman) lives in Little Hope, New Hampshire and has big dreams of someday becoming a prominent broadcaster, reporter, anchorwoman. She has always imagined she would be famous on TV. Almost living in her own world of obsession, the signs are not apparent at first. She meets Larry Maretto (Matt Dillon), who owns a restaurant and she thinks he can giver her what she needs to help her achieve her goal. Larry works for his father as the manager of a restaurant which someday he will own. Their lives seems pretty great until Suzanne feels Larry is asking too much of her attention, taking her away from her hair brain projects that will make her famous in her mind.

Her determination finally pays off when she gets her foot in the door at the local station and convinces them, she could do the weather reports. That actually starts out well but Suzanne is not satisfied and her growing obsession causes her to venture out in her own way. She gets use of the stations equipment and starts to prepare a documentary about teens in today's world. At the local high school she pitches her idea to a classroom and three sign up.

Jimmy (Joaquin Phoenix), is actually infatuated with her looks and masturbates to her weather reports so he signs up first. Russell (Casey Affleck), signs up as his teacher forces him to after his behavior in class and Lydia (Alison Folland), desperately needs something to do with her life. When Suzanne pays attention to her, she feels important and finally like she is somebody and has a friend.

Now most of Suzanne's time is consumed with the project and Larry tries to convince her they should start a family. Larry's gotta go and Suzanne starts to flirt with Jimmy in order to enlist his help in her plan. She figures if she seduces and sleeps with Jimmy, she can convince the three teens to take care of business by doing away with Larry. But can use her swift talking mannerism to get away with murder?

1995 - To Die For - Broadcast Film Critics Association - Best Actress.
1995 - To Die For - Golden Globe - Best Actress - Musical or Comedy.

Sony Pictures
Director: Gus Van Sant
Writer: Buck Henry
Producers: Laura Ziskin, Jonathan Taplin, Joseph M. Caracciolo, Jr.

I viewed 8/08

Raising Jeffrey Dahmer (2005) R - 2½ Stars

Fascination into the mind of a serial killer, got me to rent this one. However, it's not what I expected. My vision was more of actual footage of his childhood and his real parents, not actors. But it says the movie was made based on his parents acknowledgement. Not sure how many liberties the movie takes with the truth, but I really didn't find it real informative. If you believe, as the movie tells it, there were many signs the father saw in Jeffrey way before he actually murdered anyone. It doesn't appear he was abused as a boy, though they don't really spotlight on the mother much. More just the father and his new wife, (Jeffrey's stepmother).

As a boy, Jeffrey used to collect road kill of the street and was fascinated by some old smelly bones of a skunk that he and his father dug up from the side of their house. "Fiddle sticks", as he called them. His father was a scientist and Jeffrey's first experiment was pouring chemicals onto some of the road kill, to see how they would react. Now I don't know about you, but hello, that sounds like a major warning sign to me? Poured oil on goldfish and rumors think he also beheaded his dog. Okay so I guess I did learn a few things. But basically on the slow side and just not enough insight into what may have pushed him in that direction besides his alcoholism.

Renegade Pictures
Director: Rich Ambler
Writers: Christopher Ryan, Wood Dickinson
Producer: Wood Dickinson

I viewed 8/08

Doomsday (2008) R - 3 Stars

I think this movie wanted to be like a Mad Max or Thunder Dome type of movie and though no where near as good, parts of it was worth my rental. I loved the costuming and our macho hero is a chick so that's always a good thing. Though it has some gory parts which aren't really my thing, it's not "constant in your face" gore and I can handle that. Sometimes, just implied.

A pandemic has erupted in Northern Europe. An extremely contagious virus nicknamed "Reaper" has wiped out most of the population of Scotland. The virus was first detected there and now the country is known as a hot zone where no one goes in or out. A great wall has been put around the country to contain the virus and because it is so contagious, automatic weapons will kill anything that moves on the other side of the fence.

But the government has not solved their problem with a new outbreak of the virus turning up in London decades later. Now they must research the conditions of the old hot zone. Images show there are survivors moving around. A vaccination can be made from the right blood.

A team is assembled to go through the wall and find the cure. Major Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra), is returning to her home after she was taken from her mother, 25 years ago and put on a helicopter, fleeing the city. It's made her cold and tough and she knows real well how to take care of herself. On her team is Sargent Norton (Adrian Lester), Bill Nelson (Bob Hoskins), John Hatcher (Alexander Siddig), Kane (Malcolm McDowell) and Canaris (David O'Hara).

Once inside the quarantined city, they are on their own but nothing can prepare them for the flock of wild human survivors lurking inside. Time is of the essence for the team to find a doctor they think may have the cure. Problem is, most of these humans tribal survival instincts are really starting to show.

Universal Pictures
Director: Neil Marshall
Writer: Neil Marshall
Producers: Benedict Carver, Steven Paul

I viewed 8/08