Rachel Purcell

You’re right, they do smell like peanuts.Seven Pounds is a film that you will think about long after you leave the theater. Conversations and phone calls that were so frustratingly unclear in the midst of the film must be re-conjured, mulled over and made sense of long after the final credits roll. This film is shrouded in mystery, from the main character's tragic past to his plans for the seven strangers he has chosen and the roll they will play in his redemption.

A gaunt and disheveled Will Smith plays Ben Thomas, an IRS agent looking to change people's lives, to "drastically change their circumstances." While not equal to his Ali brilliance, the film is sustained by Will Smith's ability to be at once cold and ambiguous without the audience losing faith that his intentions are ultimately good. More than one supporting character asks, "Who are you?" a question for which he has no answer. The audience will ask the same: Is this a megalomaniac or a man seeking to repay an impossible debt?

Smoke on the water. Winner of the Sundance Audience Choice Award and now being considered for an Academy Award nomination, Fuel is an amazing resource for those wishing to know more about the hottest issue of our time, energy independence. Not as sensational as a Michael Moore production (there is no equivalent to standing on a boat outside of Guantánamo Bay with a bullhorn demanding healthcare), it is far more practical and the main themes are knowledge and action.
Fuel is a comprehensive look at energy in America. A history of where we have been, our present predicament and a solution to our dependence on foreign oil, given an effort by the American people and our government. The film flows seamlessly through scientific data, facts, history and personal narrative and is never dull or overwhelming. Quite the opposite in fact, there is intrigue, conspiracy, murder, and greed, which is made all the more infuriating because this is not fiction.

Even Bond is feeling the recession.Daniel Craig has that mysterious quality, that je ne sais quoi, that truly defines the James Bond character. This is a man who draws women effortlessly, kills efficiently and looks incredible in a tux.

James Bond has long been a cultural icon for masculinity at its best. Operating outside of the bounds of society, he is free from its restrictions, a man who protects the women, saves his country or often the world and does so with unparalleled style. Daniel Craig as James Bond, more than any other actor who has tackled the iconic role, brings a seriousness and enigmatic depth to Bond that makes the character even more fascinating.

The milkman always rings twice. You can try to distract me, Kevin Smith, but despite the gratuitous
nudity, rampant profanity and every euphemism for male and female
genitalia in existence, Zack and Miri Make a Porno is full of poorly
written dialogue, boring characters and sentimentality that plays
cheesy and awkward.
Zack (Seth Rogen, Knocked Up) and Miri (Elizabeth
Banks, Definitely, Maybe) are high school best friends come roommates
that are struggling to pay the bills. The night of their 10-year high
school reunion they come home to find their utilities shut off. Huddled
around a trash can fire in their living room, they decide in a flash of
entrepreneurialship to make a porno.

The Queen BeeCasting can be everything. A well-chosen cast can make the fairly unimaginative adaptation of a well-loved novel into something worth seeing. Writer/director Gina Prince Bythewood (Love and Basketball)did well by the characters from Sue Monk Kidd's best-selling novel The Secret Life of Bees, though at the expense of plot development.
A waif-ish and often disheveled Dakota Fanning (War of the Worlds) plays the emotionally fragile and love-starved Lily Owens. At four years old Lily was responsible for her mother's death, "And that's all I know about myself," fourteen-year old Lily narrates in the opening scene. Accompanied by housekeeper Rosaleen (played by Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson of Dreamgirls), Lily runs away from her harsh and emotionally abusive father (Paul Bettany, sans British accent). The two travel to Tiburon, South Carolina where they are taken in by the beekeeping Boatwright sisters.
It is August Boatwright (Oscar winner Queen Laitfah, Chicago), the ubiquitous and wise head of the family that decides to take in Lily and Rosaleen against the wishes of her sister June (Alicia Keys, Smokin Aces).