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Review: Sex And The City (2008) R 148min
2008-06-02 20:03:00
My wife made me watch it! We made a pact: she sees a Jackie Chan movie with me in exchange for me watching S&C with her. Alas, the stars of the successful HBO series that ran for what… 6 years? are back together again for another glorified episode. One of the reasons for its success ...
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Review of ?Son of Rambow? (2007) PG-13 96min
2008-05-25 08:30:00
“Son of Rambow” is a British comedy/drama written and directed by Garth Jennings. The plot: Early 1980s. England. Summer. Will Proudfoot, the eldest son (8) in a fatherless religeous family. The code of the sect is strict: they are not to mix the the other “worldies”, no music and no television. Which is why when Will’s school teacher shows school ...
More About: Comedy , Movies , Drama , Germany , France

Killed: Rob Knox, an actor from new ?Harry Potter? movie
2008-05-25 07:04:00
Rob Knox, an 18 year old actor who plays minor role of Ravenclaw student Marcus Belby in the upcoming 6th installment of “Harry Potter ” called “Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince”, was stabbed after he got caught up in a fight outside a bar in southwest London early Saturday, London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement. The ...
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Review of ?Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? (2008) PG-13
2008-05-23 22:16:00
19 years after “The Last Crusade”, Indiana Jones is back. So excited to see the favorite character of my childhood. The plot: 1959. Indiana Jones is kidnapped by KGB agents to help them find the Crystal Skull, whose powers they plan to use to create a mind-controlling ultimate weapon. The expedition is sent to South America. Part-time professor ...
More About: Movies , Kingdom , Action , Adventure , Harrison Ford

Hot new DVD releases for May 20, 2008
2008-05-21 05:31:00
National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007) PG-13 Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage) and Dr. Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger) — who found riches and romance at the end of their first hunt for national treasure — reteam with their wisecracking partner in crime, Riley Poole (Justin Bartha), for another romp through U.S. history. Now, armed with a stack ...
More About: 2008

Review of ?Cloverfield? (2008) PG-13 85min
2008-05-20 19:26:00
The plot: A monster attacks Manhattan. A guy at a go-away party has a camcorder and keeps filming the story of survival of him and his friends among the devastation caused by the monster. The good: Lots of loud explosions and cool CGI effects. The movie has no musical score - just “natural” sounds that help you ...
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Review of ?Redbelt? (2008) R 99min
2008-05-12 23:08:00
This is a mixed-martial arts movie written and directed by David Mamet, a man behind scripts for The Untouchables, Ronin and Hannibal. Starring Chiwetel Ejiofor in main role, as well as Tim Allen, Mike Goldberg, Alice Braga and Ricky Jay. The plot: In West-side Los Angeles mixed-martial arts instructor Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor) believes competitive nature ...
More About: Movies , Action , Review , 2008

Evan Almighty (2007) PG 90min
2008-04-23 07:27:00
A.k.a. “Bruce Almighty-2″, this is a sequel directed by same Tom Shadyac and starring Morgan Freeman as God and Steve Carell as TV anchorman-turned Congressman Evan Baxter. The plot: Evan Baxter retires as Buffalo newscaster to become the Congressman for his state with the slogan “Change the World!”. Then magic begins to happen: The Almighty appears ...
More About: Comedy , Movies , Adventure , Tom Hanks

Hot new DVD releases (April 08, 2008)
2008-04-08 09:54:00
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story John C. Reilly stars as fictional pop star Dewey Cox in this parody of the increasingly predictable rags-to-riches music biopic. On his hard-knocks journey toward stardom, Dewey crosses paths with the likes of Elvis, Buddy Holly and the Beatles. Before long, Dewey is writing hits, making women swoon and doing ...
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Into The Wild (2007) R 148min
2008-03-18 06:57:00
Director: Sean Penn Writer: Sean Penn (screenplay), Jon Krakauer (book) Producers: David Blocker, Frank Hildebrand, John J. Kelly, Art Linson, Sean Penn, William Pohlad Original Music: Michael Brook, Kaki King, Kaki King Cinematography: Eric Gautier Art Direction: John Richardson, Domenic Silvestri Paramount Vantage | River Road Films | Art Linson Productions | River Road Entertainment The plot: a young man Christopher McCandles (Emile Hirsch) from ...
More About: Drama , Vince Vaughn , Adventure , Wild , Biographical

Across The Universe (2007) PG-13 131min
2008-02-11 22:09:00
This is a musical set in the 1960s. The music is based on over 30 Beatles’ songs. The plot: an dock worker comes to United States from England to find his estranged father. There he falls in love with a teenage girl Lucy. When her brother is drafted into Vietnam, the young couple become peace activists. The good: I liked the allegories and imagery used to describe horrors of war and the war machine. It also serves as a reminder of racism, drug abuse, abuse of human rights. As always, the young people were most active participants of human rights and peace movement with their “make love not war” message. There were some nice scenes in this movie. My favorite was one where Max is drafted and goes through the pipeline of the army bureaucracy, where he is processed, pre-sorted, packaged, and shipped to Vietnam: reminded me of “We don’t need no education” from Pink Floyd’s movie “The Wall”. Which ironically leads me to… Th...
More About: Universe , The Universe , Across the Universe

There Will Be Blood (2007) R 158min
2008-02-11 07:19:00
“There Will Be Blood ” based on the novel “Oil!” by Upton Sinclair and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (Cigarettes & Coffee, Punch Drunk Love, Magnolia, and of course several episodes of Saturday Night Live) who also wrote the script. It was in theatres in wide release for a month now, but the seats were all sold out when I went to see it. Surely, a few things help to sell tickets, like nominations for 8 Oscars, an Eddie, BAFTA film award along with over 30 other wins and nominations. The plot: In 1998 in New Mexico Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) was working in the silver mine, where he discovered some minerals that are typically associated with presence of oil. He hired a crew to drill for oil, including a man with an infant son. They indeed discover oil there, but the father of the infant dies in the industrial accident. Daniel adopts his infant son and names him H.W. (Harrison Taylor, Stockton Taylor). Nine years later he had a few productive ...
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Movies to see this weekend (Feb 1, 2008)
2008-01-31 02:13:00
Opening in theatres (wide release): The Eye (2008 ) PG-13 1h 37min In this remake of 2002 Hong Kong movie “Jian Gui”, a woman-violinist who’s been blind since childhood receives an eye transplant that happens to let her see into supernatural world. Terified by what she now sees, she tryies to find out to whom her eyes used to ...
More About: Movies , Weekend

Rambo (2008) R 93min
2008-01-27 08:10:00
20 years since Rambo III Sylvester Stallone has revived Rambo. He wrote and directed this new action flick. I went to the theater with very low expectations because Rambo in Afghanistan was a major disappointment. The plot: John Rambo lives peacefully in a jungle in Thailand. When Christian aid-workers disappear amidst war in Burma, Rambo leads ...
More About: Movies , Drama , Action , War

?Murder she said? night
2008-01-26 08:17:00
Tonight has been the night for detective stories. USA was showing new episodes of Monk and Psych, but before that I also watched a couple of Agatha Christie ’s mysteries, some from Netflix’s collection. I loved Miss Marple series since I was a kid. Agatha Christie is brilliant. No wonder she made more money selling books ...
More About: Movies , Murder , Night , Foreign

Movies to see this weekend (Jan 25, 2008)
2008-01-24 08:23:00
Opening in wide release in theatres: Meet The Spartans (2008 ) PG-13 Yet another spoof making a parody of everything from “300″ to “You Got Served” to Britney Spears. This movie was created by the same guys who made “Epic Movie”, which was complete garbage. Comedy. Rambo (2008)  R (a.k.a. Rambo IV, a.k.a. Rambo IV: Blood Ties, a.k.a. Rambo IV: Holy War) Silvester Stallone is back as John Rambo, who was living peaceful life in the jungle in Thailand, but when aid workers are captured by Burmese army, Rambo decided to rescue them and goes alone into the war zone. Action/Adventure/Sequel/Thriller. Untraceable (2008) R Diana Lane plays a detective working in FBI unit investigating and prosecuting crime on the internet. But a serial killer is displaying his graphics murders on his website. The more visitors hit the website, the faster victim dies. The killer also uses a sophisticated that prevents FBI from tracking down his website. Thrille...
More About: Movies , Weekend

SiCKO (2007) PG-13 123min
2008-01-24 01:22:00
I live in LA, and I remember a recent “episode” that was all over local news when a security camera noticed the ambulance pull over in Skid Row and dump a lady with head trauma with almost no clothes on the street. The lady was disoriented, didn’t know where she was and had bandages over her head. This and other horror stories about American health care system had made it into new Michael Moore’s documentary. I had not seen it when it came out in theatres because there were other movies to see, and it had been in my Netflix queue in “Long wait” status for several months. Finally it had arrived. The DVD case for this movie says, “You’ll laugh till it hurts. One of the year’s best”. But unlike other Michael Moore’s “mockumentaries”, this movie is actually very sad. Almost every story told by people interviewed by Mike made my eyes fill up with tears. I was so frustrated and angry that in the richest count...
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Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) PG-13 145min
2008-01-16 23:25:00
It’s interesting that Steven Spielberg was the executive producer of this movie. I didn’t read the book, but I interviewed some people who did and they said that the movie is mostly faithful to the 1997 best-selling novel, with just a few scenes dropped from the book for the sake of making film short enough. The plot: in 1929 9-year old Chiyo and her sister, who lived in an impoverished fishing village, are sold to a geisha house in Kyoto’s Gion district. There Chiyo (Suzuka Ohgo, later Ziyi Zhang - American audience knows Ziyi Zhang mostly for her roles in “House Of Flying Daggers“, “Rush Hour 2“, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Hero“) is harshly treated by the owner, woman known as Mother (Kaori Momoi), and picked to be trained to become geisha (courtesan), while her elder sister was turned away. A beautiful but spoiled and arrogant geisha Hastumomo was giving Chiyo hard time, promising to help her find he...
More About: Memoirs , Geisha

HD-DVD still well positioned against Blu-Ray
2008-01-15 17:57:00
Toshiba slashed prices to its HD-DVD players again this week. Now the entry-level Toshiba HD A3 player has suggested retail price of just $150 - very close to what regular DVD players sell for, while medium and top players, HD A30 and HD A35 with 1080p output now have MSRP of $200 and $300 respectively. The 5 free movies deal with the purchase of HD-DVD player has been extended, and Toshiba promised to go on “extensive advertising campaign” to promote advantages of HD-DVD over Blu-Ray. Although the advertising campaign may be too late to revive HD-DVD, it may annoy Sony, which is interested in ending format war as soon as possible. Can Toshiba force Sony to pay them a bribe to make HD-DVD go away? So what are the advantages of HD-DVD over Blu-Ray? Price. HD-DVD players use cheaper hardware, and it costs next to nothing to upgrade existing DVD manufacturing facilities to produce HD-DVD, while Blu-Ray requires more expensive hardware and special process of manufacturi...

The Bucket List (2007) PG-13 93min
2008-01-15 00:50:00
The plot: two terminally ill old men (Morgan Freeman and Jack Nickolson) in the cancer ward of the hospital owned by Jack Nickolson character decide to write a list of all the things they’d like to do before they die. Then they escape the the hospital to actually go on the road trip to see the world and do everything on that list. Directed by Rob Reiner. Written by Justin Zackham. The good: it’s a story of two completely different people that don’t like each other in the beginning, but their sickness is something that they share in common and something that sparks friendship. The story is wonderful in the sense that it tells what dying people go through when they fight terminal illness and what they are prepared to do to feel good about themselves and how they want to be remembered after they die. Morgan Freeman is always amazing and brilliant. Funny at times. Skydiving shot and Egeptian pictures were awesome. The bad: Jack Nickolson was playing a grumpy and sic...
More About: List , The Bucket List

HD DVD format is not dead, Toshiba says.
2008-01-08 21:04:00
Toshiba marketing executive Jodi Sally told the audience at Consumer Electronics Show (CES) HD DVD remained the best technology, but acknowledged the Warner Bros announcement on Friday took her by surprise. “It’s difficult for me to believe when all the pundits declare that HD DVD is dead,” Sally said. “Clearly, the events of the last few days have led many of you to that conclusion. We have been declared dead before. The reality is we ended 2007 with a majority of the year-to-date market share.” BluRay movies outsold HD DVD movies almost 2:1 this holiday season, while the best BluRay player, Sony’s PS3 console, sold 2.1 million units. These numbers should be put in perspective, however. PS3 had been very popular, but Sony’s older PlayStation2 had sold 10 times as many units - just goes to show the adoption rate. Also, while HD-DVD player sales at regular retailers had not been great compared to PS3, Amazon and Buy.com had sold record qu...
More About: Toshiba , Dead , Format

Premonition (2007) PG-13 96min
2008-01-02 19:26:00
The plot: A housewife (Sandra Bullock) is devastated when her husband (Julian McMahon) dies suddenly in a car crash. But when he reappears the next day as if nothing happened, she realizes that it may have been a premonition. Can she prevent the horrible tradgedy from happening all over again, or is she powerless to redirect ...
More About: Movies , Drama , Supernatural , Fantasy , Premonition

Toshiba HD-A35 HD DVD player
2007-12-25 09:18:00
As I promised when I wrote “Who is winning the format war: Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD“, I am reviewing Toshiba HD-A35 HD DVD player. Why HD DVD and not Blu-Ray? Despite a seeming stalemate between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD in the war for the eyeballs, I did not want to buy a proprietary technology from Sony, especially considering most of their previous attempts to create new standards have failed miserably. Also, HD-DVD players tend to be cheaper then Blu-Ray disk players, with a sub-$200 HD DVD player already on the market. The proprietary technology is most bothering - I don;t want to be bound to a single manufacturer - I prefer more open standards. What I wanted? An HD-DVD player with 1080p output and 24fps (cinema mode). Preferably black to match my other components and furniture, as thin as possible and quiet: since I had a bad experience playing Blu-ray movies on Sony PlayStation 3 I wanted to be sure the player is quiet. What I got? Since Toshiba is the biggest proponent an...
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Charlie Wilson’s War (2007) R 97min
2007-12-24 09:35:00
Pretty good! The plot: Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) is a congressman from Texas. He’s been known for being a womanizer and alcoholic. In 1979 the policy of US regarding Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was to stay out of the conflict. While the government officially morally supported the Afghans, they were not helping practically because they were afraid that in the time when the Cold War was at it’s peak, it would mean a direct armed conflict between US and USSR. Charlie Wilson was the only politician in Washington who, lead to the cause by the ”richest woman of Texas” and a socialite Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts), turned to a rouge CIA agent Gust “Gus” Avrakotos (Philip Seymour Hoffman) for help and was able to covertly provide Mujaheddin with weapons including “Stinger” missiles. He was able to ramp up the covert support to the budget of roughly one billion dollars from the budget of 5 million dollars before his intervention. T...

Juno (2007) PG-13 92min
2007-12-16 10:04:00
*** WARNING: This review contains spoilers. *** This is a funny, witty and sweet comedy from director of Thank you for smoking Jason Reitman and 29-year-old writer Diablo Cody. The plot: Juno McGuff (Ellen Page) is a Mid-Western girl in high-school. One day she decided to have sex with her boyfriend Polly Bleeker (Michael Cera or Superbad). She soon explains ...
More About: Comedy , Movies , Family , Drama

Arthur and the Invisibles (2006) PG 103min
2007-11-28 10:17:00
This film comes from a great French director Luc Besson, who is the king of French action movies. Here in the U.S. of A. we know him for creating “The Fifth Element“, which he conceived when he was a teenager, for [briefly] being married to Milla Jovovich, and producing such action flicks as Leon with Jean ...
More About: Movies , Animation , Adventure , Fantasy , Arthur

No Country for Old Men (2007) R 122min
2007-11-25 09:04:00
Written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, this is the best chase movie ever! The plot: a hunter named Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) walks on the aftermath of a drug deal gone bad in the middle of th desert somewhere in Texas and discovers suitcase with two million dollars. He tries to disappear with the money ...
More About: Movies , Drama , Country , Crime , Gangster

Movies opening this weekend (Nov 23, 2007)
2007-11-24 07:48:00
August Rush (2007) PG 100min - a talented, but charismatic young Irish guitarist and a cellist-girl have a magical encounter one night above New York’s Washingon Square, but at her father’s insistence are torn apart, leaving behind a child, August Rush, who becomes an orphan by circumstance. Now he’s cared for by mysterious stranger, and he’s ...
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Iraq In Fragments (2006) 94min
2007-11-22 08:47:00
This powerful Oscar-nominated documentary from director James Longley is a depiction of stories of modern-day Iraq is as they try to cope with the war, with life without Saddam, without law and order, occupation, violence and division of country into sectarian regions. Finally a documentary that talks about Iraqis and their suffering, unlike many documentaries recently ...
More About: Movies , Documentary , War , Shia

Redacted (2007) R 90min
2007-11-15 08:23:00
I was driving home from work and listening to NPR and they were just interviewing Brian De Palma about this movie. When I got home and turned TV on - there it was - the movie I just heard about. Brian De Palma is writer and director famous for such films as Scarface, Wise Guys, The ...
More About: Movies , Iraq , Drama , Redacted