You Don't Know Jack

This is a movie that, like most other movies pertaining to controversial issues, will definitely make you think. It is about whether or not someone has the right to reach out for assistance in committing suicide due to suffering from a terminal illness and whether or not it would be considered a crime for another person to assist in that suicide. The movie is focused on Dr. Jack Kevorkian who broke the law and assisted over 100 people in committing suicide. He would assist only those who were suffering the most with no chance of recovering from their conditions. Through many accusations and charges by the courts, the "doctor of death" pleaded his case, always determined that he was right in what he was doing and that he was not killing, but helping these people.

The film, though it does not necessarily portray both sides of the argument equally, is still a good historical reference to Jack Kevorkian, his terminally-ill patients, and the court proceedings that followed his assisting their suicides. There is actual footage in the film of Kevorkian's interviews with dying patients that are real and heart-wrenching. It adds a lot to the integrity of the film and really makes viewers aware that this is a true story, especially for those like me who were too little to remember the early '90's. No matter what your stance is on the issue, I'm still not sure about my own, you can come away from this film with a good sense of Kevorkian's true intentions and how his actions have made a substantial social impact in this country since the '90's.

In addition to the abundance of information you receive from this film, you can also enjoy outstanding performances by Al Pacino, playing Dr. Kevorkian, Susan Sarandon, John Goodman, and Danny Huston. This film has already won an Emmy and is now nominated for 2 Golden Globes and 3 SAG Awards. So, if you are in the mood for a good drama based on real life I highly recommend this one.

Overall rating: 7 out of 10

Screen Actor's Guild Nominations

The SAG nominations are out! This is the award show where the actors, themselves, vote for their favorite performances by their colleagues in various categories. Check out the link below to find out who got snubbed and who's in the running. The SAG Awards will air Sunday Jan. 30th on TNT and TBS @ 7pm central time. 

SAG Award nominations

Black Swan

Creepy...and then some. This is a beautiful, elegant film that also happens to be a fast-paced, psychological thriller. Who would have thought someone could make a movie about ballet so disturbing? Natalie Portman's performance as Nina may very well win her an Oscar this year. She basically plays two characters in the same body; a fragile, innocent perfectionist that is brilliant as the White Swan, and a careless, dark and free Black Swan. Throughout the film she slowly transforms herself from one to the other in haunting ways. Portman's facial expressions combined with lots of close-up camera shots and constant Swan Lake music are what gives this film an eerie undertone. On the surface it is just a dedicated young woman realizing her dream of getting to play the Swan Queen in Swan Lake. Underneath it is so much more disturbing. There are elements of mental instability and self-destruction that will leave you with shivers and goosebumps...no pun intended.

Mila Kunis as Lily

The film also stars Mila Kunis as Lily, Nina's competition, and Vincent Cassel as the ballet coach. Mila Kunis is also nominated for both a Golden Globe and SAG award for the film in the best supporting actress category. I highly recommend this film as one of the must sees of the holiday season, especially if you are planning to tune into the Globes and the SAG's in January. This is one of the most nominated films so far. Though I will add that if you are not a scary movie/thriller type of person you may not enjoy it. But I always encourage people to think outside their favorite genre and give new movies a try. You might be surprised by what you end up liking.

Overall rating: 9 out of 10

Winter's Bone

Since we are into award season now, I am reviewing one of this year's nominated films that has not gotten much attention in the main stream, but impressed audiences at the Sundance Film Festival enough to earn it best picture and best screenplay. As for the Golden Globes, the focus is on Jennifer Lawrence, the film's young leading star, who picked a nomination for best actress in a motion picture-drama, the film's only nomination. 

The Story centers on teenager Ree Dolly (Lawrence) who, due to the absence of her drug-dealing father, must care for her two younger siblings and mentally ill mother in the mountainous Ozark territory. From shooting, skinning and stewing up squirrels to making sure her little brother and sister go to school and learn what they need to, Ree acts as the only capable head of the family. That is until the police show up and inform her that, should her father not show up for his scheduled court date, their land and home will be taken from them. As a result, Ree is determined to do almost anything to find her father dead or alive and save her family from homelessness. With some extremely unfriendly neighbors, Ree must endure things no one should have to endure, much less a 17-year old girl.

The story is dark and obviously a bit depressing, but it portrays real, rich characters living in a part of the country that is very rural and cut off. The strength and courage that Lawrence portrays as the no bullshit-taking Ree will have you rooting for her throughout the film. After watching this amazing character do everything she can to save her family, I am not surprised in the least that Jennifer Lawrence is up for best actress. It does contain some drug use and violence, but those things are relevant to the storyline. One scene in particular may be hard for some of you to watch, but it's worth it, I promise. This film is now available on DVD and through Netflix. I hope everyone will take the time to see this one.

Overall rating: 8.5 out of 10

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year: AWARD SEASON!

Hello, readers (what few I have). I have decided to switch things up on my blog. This post will not be a review of any movie in particular, but just a discussion of movies in general and the actors that appear in them. What sparked this you say? Well, the start of the 2011 award season, of course! Yes, today the Golden Globe nominations were announced, thus beginning the crazy wonderfulness that is award season!

I have been an avid award show viewer for the last 10 years now, and this, of course, includes the red carpet, because who doesn't like seeing who came dressed like an idiot...cough...Bjork! I like to begin the season researching upcoming films, learning which are predicted to be nominated, and of course watching as many of them as I can and making my own assumptions on whether or not that one should have been snubbed or not snubbed. You might be wondering how I make time for all of this research and movie watching. Answer: a true movie-lover will always make time. Some might see it as pointless, but hey, movies are something that have always made me happy. If just for two or three hours they allow us to escape from reality into new worlds of endless possibilities created by brilliant imaginations. As far as I'm concerned, movies wouldn't even exist if we didn't have to take a break from our own lives every once in a while and delve into someone else's. I suppose it's as close as we'll ever get to body-snatching. Moving on...

I know most people don't even watch the award ceremonies anymore, which is why the the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences has been making so many changes to their program of late. The expansion of the Best Picture category from five nominees to ten, and the interesting new choices of hosts over the last few years, such as Hugh Jackman at 2009's "musical Oscars" and the Steve Martin/Alec Baldwin duo at last year's show, are all attempts to pull in viewers. This year will be no different. The ten-film category is back along with James Franco and Anne Hathaway co-hosting, which seems like a totally random selection. But they are two of Hollywood's younger and more popular actors, so perhaps the Academy's ploy will work to bring in viewers from the younger generation. They don't have to worry about me. In fact, I am here writing about this stuff to try to get more people as excited as I am about the movies nominated this year, because there are some great ones!

I will be writing more reviews about nominated films as soon as they become available for me to watch. I have already written reviews on four films that are nominated for Golden Globes this year: Red, Love and Other Drugs, 127 Hours, and Burlesque. I will write about my predictions and just anything related to the subject of the awards that I feel the need to mention. So I hope this will encourage, rather than discourage you from going to see nominated films of the year and deciding for yourself which should win. Then, tune in on Jan. 16th for the 68th Annual Golden Globe awards. This is the first big movie award show of the season and more often than not the winners of Golden Globes go on to win Oscars. But the Globes are my favorite of the award shows because A: the Foreign Press Association members who vote for the nominees have similar tastes as I do so I get to see my favorites win more often, B: the hilarious Ricky Gervais is hosting again and C: it is the only award show where the nominees are allowed to drink booze, which always makes for some great speeches!

Below is a link to the list of this year's Golden Globe nominees! Enjoy!
GG nominees

Burlesque

Burlesque is simply a fun and highly entertaining musical! The fantastic musical numbers in this movie make up for the few things it lacks, good dialogue and Christina Aguilera's acting skills. However, Christina dances her little heart out and belts out the songs like no one else could; except maybe Cher, who performs a few songs in the film that are pretty powerful, especially "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me." Cam Gigandet as Jack (love interest), Stanley Tucci as Sean (Cher's sidekick), Kristen Bell as Nikki (Christina's arch-nemesis), and Eric Dane as Marcus (sexy bad guy) make up the rest of the colorful cast. You can also spot the always odd, but entertaining Allen Cummings as Alexis, the doorman of the Burlesque nightclub.

The main plot involves Cher's character, Burlesque owner, Tess, being threatened with losing her club while the business vulture, Marcus, is ready to move in for the kill with an offer on her club that she can't refuse, but stubbornly does anyway. And then Ali shows up at the club, a small-town girl new to the big city in desperate need of a job and determined to get up on the stage of Burlesque. Sound familiar? Yeah, you can pretty much guess the rest. Basically if Chicago and Coyote Ugly had a lovechild, Burlesque would be it.

All in all the movie is good and the soundtrack is better. It's an uplifting, go after your dreams kind of story that we've all seen before. There are definitely no surprises in the not-so-original script, but the music, dancing and costumes alone are reason to see it. So get out there and enjoy. I guarantee you'll want to dance your way out of the theatre after this one!

Overall rating: 7 out of 10

Love and Other Drugs

I'm just going to cut right to the chase and say that this movie was a disappointment for me. Especially when its director, Edward Zwick, has directed some really amazing movies such as: Defiance, Blood Diamond, The Last Samurai, Legends of the Fall, I Am Sam, Traffic, Shakespeare in Love, and more. So, let's go over the pros and cons before you head out to see this one.

Good things: Well the acting was great, especially by Anne Hathaway, who plays Maggie Murdock, and Oliver Platt, who plays Gyllenhaal's sales partner and sort of mentor, Bruce. Gyllenhaal, as Jamie Randall, was good too, but how hard can it be to play a shallow ladies' man? There were also some touching scenes with great emotion where Hathaway is dealing with having stage one Parkinson's disease at 26 years old, as well as entertaining scenes when Gyllenhaal is selling the Viagra wonder drug, dancing around medical offices throwing around samples, with classic 90's music playing in the background (as the movie takes place in 1996 when Viagra first emerged onto the scene).

Not so good things: All of the unnecessary sex scenes got annoying after a while. It felt like they just wanted to fill in the gaps where the script was lacking so they kept throwing in sex scenes. I'm okay with sex scenes as long as it is relevant to the film and is nicely done. This was not the case with Love and Other Drugs. Also, I believe they could have cut out the entire character that was Jamie's brother, because everything his character did was crude, sexual and unfortunately not even funny. One scene in particular was just painful to watch. It involved Jamie's brother watching a sex tape made by Jamie and Maggie and then Jamie catching him in the act. Seriously? How am I suppose to take the movie seriously after that? All of the extra, unneeded crap they put into this movie only hinders viewers from sympathizing with the characters and takes away from the integrity of the film. I suppose they think that this is the kind of stuff we want to see in a movie, but not me. And I suspect not most people. Finally, one of the opening scenes in which Jamie is having dinner with his family was awful! They all don't get along so they start swearing at each other all at once. I think they meant it to be somewhat comedic, but it was so off rhythm that it came off as obnoxious and irritating. It was not a good way to start out the film. Bad vibes.

This movie had real potential and could have been done a lot better...sorry Zwick. I think mixing crude sexual humor with a dramatic love story will not give you a good result. And for the most part, people who like the dramatic, somewhat sappy love stories don't tend to like the toilet humor comedy movies, and vice versa. So, either way you're going to piss some people off. I hope this gives you a good sense of what this movie involves so that you aren't surprised by anything should you decide to see it.

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 10