Movie Reviews

Inkheart

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  • Title: Inkheart
  • IMDB: link

inkheart-posterHow much do you like fantasy films aimed at kids? That’s really the only question to ask yourself when considering seeing Inkheart. If you enjoyed similar films such as The NeverEnding Story, The Spiderwick Chronicles, and Eragon, you might want to give it a chance. Maybe.

Brendan Fraser stars as a good-hearted but slightly dimwitted hero (hmm, sound familiar?) Mo Folchart. Years ago, accidently, Mo discovered he had the ability to read characters, objects and events out of books. That’s kinda cool, right? But there is a catch – whenever something, or someone, comes out of a book something, or someone, must take its place.

Years have passed with Mo hiding his gift from his daughter (Eliza Bennett) and searching for a copy of a book which holds something precious to them both locked deep inside. Things come to a head when characters from the book finally catch up to the “Silvertongue” with their own demands on how he should use his gift.

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Chandni Chowk to China

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  • Title: Chandni Chowk to China
  • IMDb: link

chandni-chowk-to-china-poster

If you took equal parts Bollywood musical, martial arts film, hero tale, screwball comedy, love story, and then upped the crazy blender to 10x what you would get would look an awful lot like Chandni Chowk to China.

The first Hindi film ever to be shot in China includes bright musical numbers, battle scenes, wire work, a hero training montage, mistaken twins, and an excess of buffoonery.

Akshay Kumar stars as Sidhu, a vegetable chopper from Chandi Chowk, India, who is mistaken for the second coming of a great Chinese warrior. Along with his unscrupulous friend Chopstick (Ranvir Shorey) Sidhu makes the travel to China not realizing the responsibility of his new fame. Also included is the tale of a former cop (Roger Yaun) and his displaced twin daughters Sakhi, an Indian television personality, and Meow Meow, Hojo’s personal assassin (both played by the lovely Deepika Padukone).

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Last Chance Harvey

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  • Title: Last Chance Harvey
  • IMDB: link

last-chance-harvey-posterAn American divorcee finds love in London with a goodhearted single woman. Well, that’s not exactly the most original idea I’ve heard for a movie, but the casting of Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson adds at least the air of respectability to what otherwise might have been just another forgettable romcom.

Harry (Hoffman) travels overseas for the wedding of his daughter (Liane Balaban), who announces she doesn’t want him to walk her down the aisle. Along with this news his job is hanging by a thread and his ex-wife (Kathy Baker) and her marvelous second husband (James Brolin) are running the festivities, much to Harry’s chagrin.

So, as you might imagine, Harry’s London adventure is a bit of a bummer, until he meets Kate (Thompson), a lonely airline worker who spends most of her time taking crap from angry, tired passengers…

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Gran Torino

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  • Title: Gran Torino
  • IMDB: link

gran-torino-posterGran Torino isn’t a bad way for Clint Eastwood the actor to go out (if this is indeed his last starring role), but Eastwood the director lets us down. Walt (Eastwood) is s a recently widowed grumpy old racist living in a neighborhood which has been taken over by the large immigrant population he refers to throughout the film as “gooks,” “chinks,” “zipperheads,” “barbarians,” and other terms of affection. Charming.

Walt is inconvenienced further when he becomes intertwined in the lives of his neighbors, a Hmong family, when the young boy (Bee Vang) is recruited by a local gang to steal Walt’s 1972 Gran Torino. Against his better judgement Walt takes the kid under his wing, finds him a job, and even helps out his sister Sue (Ahney Her) when she gets accosted on the street.

I could go into further detail about the other storylines involving a persistent priest (Christopher Carley) and Frank’s sons and grandchildren with whom he has nothing in common, but each are so predictable simply vaguely mentioning them is all that’s necessary.

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Frost/Nixon

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  • Title: Frost/Nixon
  • IMDB: link

“What made you exceptional, they said, was that you were a person who had achieved great fame without possessing any discernible quality.”

Sometimes it takes David to bring down Goliath.  David Frost (Michael Sheen) was a likable talk-show host who mortgaged his future and career with an interview with former President Richard Nixon (Frank Langella).  Nixon, in need of money and a change in his public perception, agreed to the interview with the man whom his aide (Kevin Bacon) stated simply “isn’t in your league.”

After an intial montage summing up the Watergate scandal, the film follows Frost on his journey to land, finance, and prepare for the interviews which would almost break him, all while the rest of the world looked on and laughed.

Sheen (The Queen, Music Within) once again gives a great performance on which the film rests.  Over the last two years he’s become one of my favorite actors working today.

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