Nine (2009)

Genre: Drama/Romance/Musical

Starring: Daniel-Day Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Judi Dench

Coming from the director of Chicago, this musical entertainer promises to live up to the name of its predecessor. Rome, 1965, famous director Guido Contini (Day-Lewis) has announced a new movie. Contini is finding it increasingly difficult to come up some inspiration for this movie, and although the film exists on paper, it does not in the maestro's head. To make things worse, his married life with a once famous actress Luisa (Cotillard) is on flimsy grounds and he seeks sexual respite with Carla (Cruz). Everything coupled together make his life one big mess, as if it wasn't already from the beginning. The movie somehow fails to bring out the song and dance the way Chicago did and fails in more than one aspect. It has some nice dance moves and a huge sex-appeal but that's about it. The performances were indeed good, but not enough to cover up for the movies flaws. Daniel-Day Lewis looks amazingly different from his previous hit There Will Be Blood and his brilliant performance does little to make the movie more appealing. An average entertainer which could have been much better

Thumbs up: Performances
Thumbs down: Storyline not good enough

Rating: 6.0/10

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A Night at the Roxbury (1998)

Genre: Drama/Comedy

Starring: Will Ferrell, Chris Kattan, Gigi Rice, Elisa Donovan, Molly Shannon

Two very stupid and annoying brothers, Steve (Ferrell) and Doug (Kattan) Butabi go club-hopping in big hopes to find some good girls to flirt with and get laid. Their over-enthusiastic attitudes coupled with a stupid dressing sense doesn't get them anything except slaps and kicks. They have a huge ambition to start a nightclub of their own which would allow people like them to gain free access without standing in lines. Their brotherhood breaks over a disagreement and both their lives go for a toss. A pretty lame attempt at trying to make the audience laugh at stupidity which lacks any aspect of humour. The entire getup of Ferrel and Kattan are enough to put one off from watching the movie and any sane person should entirely stay away from this one.

Thumbs up: Tough to figure this one out
Thumbs down: Almost everything

4.1/10

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Crazy Heart (2009)

Genre: Drama/Romance/Musical

Starring: Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jack Nation

An alcoholic veteran country singer, Bad Blake (Bridges) has taken the road, performing at various towns and cities. Cigarette's and whisky being his only companion, he befriends and later falls in love with a young Santa Fe journalist, Jean (Gyllenhaal). Bad's friendship extends to Jean's son Buddy (Nation) and the three are all set to become a nice happy family. Bad's affinity for alcohol gets the better of him and circumstances give Bad and Jean a new outlook on how things have happened over the past few months. The story has nothing which makes you want to sit right till the end or wait to see what happens. Its simple and sober, apart from Bad and Jeff Bridges' phenomenal acting makes him a deserving recipient for the Oscar. The country music played in the movie may not be to the liking of all and hence puts the movie on dicey grounds. A good watch but not an entertainer.

Thumbs up: Jeff Bridges
Thumbs down: Slow, music not to everyone's liking

Rating: 7.0/10

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Black Sheep @ The Box Office

And Black Sheep returns to the box office after a long and arduous awards season. Arduous might be a bit of a stretch but I'm in a bit of a dramatic mood today so just roll with it. It would have been great to come back last weekend to celebrate the phenomenal success of ALICE IN WONDERLAND but there were those pesky Oscars last weekend. Instead, we're here to see the Tim Burton film cross the $200 million mark in only its second weekend. In fact, at ten days to cross, it is the 11th fastest film in history to accomplish the feat, just a few million shy of AVATAR's same pace. I'm not suggesting that we should expect AVATAR size business here but it's only about $40 million shy of surpassing BATMAN as Burton's most successful film.


Four other films debuted in the Top 10 this weekend but none made any sort of significant dent. Leading the charge was the Paul Greengrass / Matt Damon pairing, GREEN ZONE. Pulling in an average of less than $5K per screen means it will be a big stretch for this one to make back any of its reported $100 million budget. Stealing third place from Robert Pattinson is Canadian boy, Jay Baruchel's headlining act, SHE'S OUT OF MY LEAGUE. The lighter fare brought in a light gross but one that improved over teen romance, REMEMBER ME as the weekend went on. Subsequently, the Pattinson vehicle had to settle for fourth, proving lack of interest in the star past his turn in the "Twilight" movies. Opening in sixth place was the Fox Searchlight title, OUR FAMILY WEDDING. Essentially, with ALICE IN WONDERLAND monopolizing the global business these past two weekends, little interest is being generated for anything else.


Speaking of little interest, although the Oscar telecast last Sunday was the highest rated since 2005, most of the films that took home awards were no longer playing in theatres. Best Picture winner, THE HURT LOCKER, was rereleased in 75 new theatres and took in about $825K, allowing the film to actually make back its reported budget. DVD/BD sales saw great increases but this is the lowest grossing Best Picture winner in Oscar history and that is not about to change. Meanwhile, if it had won, AVATAR would have been the highest grossing Best Picture winner and it suffered another scant 18% decline this week. CRAZY HEART, starring Best Actor winner, Jeff Bridges, slipped just 6% and THE BLIND SIDE, starring Best Actress winner, Sandra Bullock, saw a bum of 24% seventeen weeks into its run for a grand total of $252 million.

NEXT WEEK: Big week people ... THE BOUNTY HUNTER, starring Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler, hits 3000 screens. On 3100 screens, family hopeful, DIARY OF A WIMPY KID opens. Jude Law and Forest Whitaker are REPO MEN on 2400 screens. Sundance film, THE RUNAWAYS, with Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett hits 225 screens. And the latest film by one of my favorite directors, Noah Baumbach, GREENBERG, starts its limited run on 3 screens.

SOURCE: BOX OFFICE MOJO

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GREEN ZONE

Written by Brian Helgeland
Directed Paul Greengrass
Starring Matt Damon, Amy Ryan and Greg Kinnear


Freddy: It is not up to you to decide what happens here.

GREEN ZONE marks the third time actor, Matt Damon, has worked with director, Paul Greengrass. Their previous work on the second and third “Bourne” films must have been pretty mind blowing because Damon has since vowed never to reprise the role that brought him international fame unless Greengrass is at the helm. This action pairing is a new Hollywood powerhouse or at least that’s what Damon and Greengrass would like to think and what the studio is selling. Just like the weapons of mass destruction that are being sought out in the movie though, these claims are based on false intelligence.


Perhaps if Greengrass had not kept Damon running up and down dark alleys all the time, he might have been able to see that the premise of GREEN ZONE had already been brought to light years ago. Damon plays Miller, an army chief on mission to locate WMD’s in the weeks following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Shockingly enough, he does not find any and Miller, being the super soldier that he is, figures out that there must be something wrong with the intelligence if he keeps coming up empty handed. He then decides to take matters, and by matters I mean the entire Iraq war, into his own hands and figure out why the U.S. is there to begin with. You may not believe this but the conspiracy involves the C.I.A., the press and the American government.


Maybe if Greengrass hadn’t given instruction to the entire cast to yell at the top of their lungs most of the way through the film, he would have heard how dated the script was. How is accusing the American government on film of fabricating reasons to invade Iraq innovative at all? I almost wanted to laugh at how serious GREEN ZONE takes itself, as if it truly believes it is making a brave point. The laughter stopped pretty quick though and then turned to anger. This is not a brave point. This is exploitation of a now mainstream acceptance of how America duped the world. Brave would have been saying this years ago. Pretending to be brave is just plain cowardly.

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Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

Genre: Action/Adventure/Thriller/ Fantasy

Starring: Harrison Ford, Amrish Puri, Kate Capshaw, Jonathan Ke Quan

The great American archaeologist, Dr. Indiana Jones (Ford) is doing business in China when things turn out to be terrible wrong. Along with showgirl Wilhelmina (Capshaw) and a young Chinese boy Short Round (Quan), he soon finds himself in the jungles of India. The nearby villagers help him and believe that he has been sent by Lord Shiva to remove their worries. The villagers believe that the king of the nearby Pankot Palace has stolen their sacred stone which gives them power along with their children. They request him to bring back the stone and the kids. On arriving at the Palace, despite multiple assurances that the villagers claim is untrue, Indiana stumbles upon a secret passage which leads him right to a Thuggee ceremony, led by the high priest Mola Ram (Puri). There were originally five sacred stones of the Thuggee cult out which three exist and two are buried under the palace. Mola Ram has kidnapped the children to dig and excavate the remaining two stones. The movie is quite typical of the series with astonishing stunts and a highly predictable plot. The movie doesn't harp of anything different and its simply the action and thrilling stunts that make this movie a classic favourite.

Thumbs up: Stunts and action
Thumbs down: Predictable outcome, poor depiction of India

Rating: 6.7/10

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X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

Genre: Action/Science-fiction/Drama

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen, Anna Paquin, Shawn Ashmore, Patrick Stewart

A human scientist develops a cure for the mutants. All mutants would become human if they inject themselves with the new medicine. The cure in-turn has been developed by the help of a young mutant boy whose mere presence would make mutants temporarily human. Magneto (McKellen) along with his followers are against this cure and are lobbying to withdraw it. Meanwhile, Jean (Janssen) who is supposedly dead, has been found alive but with a psychic imbalance. She has grown stronger but has lost control over her power and gets manipulated to join Magneto. With Charles Xavier (Stewart) dead and with Jean by his side, Magento wishes to destroy anyone in support of the cure. Wolverine (Jackman) and Storm (Berry) are the only X-Men left and they have to assimilate a new army to fight Magneto. Although the movie still sings the 'saving the world' tune, it has gone a long way in showing something different from what we have been seeing in the previous movies. The mutant powers were explored with more depth which makes the movie all the more interesting. Astounding action sequences only makes this movie more desirable.

Thumbs up: Mutant powers, action
Thumbs down: Still saving the world

Rating: 7.0/10

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