Film

The Norton effect. A family of Irish cops and police corruption… sound familiar? Yes,
Pride and Glory has all the makings of a formulaic, seen-it-before
storyline, but at the hands of writer/actor/director Gavin O' Connor
(Tumbleweeds) it takes on an original, seedy life of its own. This is
actually a pretty good movie.

Dark and disturbing from the beginning,
there is not one lighthearted moment. From the initial body-laden
bloodbath of dead cops and drug dealers to the yelling, crying,
relentless violence and inevitably bitter end, this movie doesn't let
up. Shot in gritty and grainy blue hues depicting the evil beating
heart of NYC, Pride and Glory takes its stand among such movies as
State of Grace, Serpico, King of New York, Training Day and (the
underrated) Monument Avenue.

1) Texas Chainsaw Massacre (dir: Tobe Hooper) 1974

By far the best
horror movie ever is this original TCM classic. It's surprisingly not
as gory as the title infers, but the twisted saga of Sally and
wheelchair-bound Franklin travelling with some friends goes hazardously
awry after they pick up a hitchhiker whose brother makes "headcheese
real good." Enter cannibalistic inbred nut-jobs and good ol'
chainsaw-wielding Leather Face and you're off and running. This movie
is so demented that it keeps you on the edge of your seat not only due
to the sheer terror involved, but also the hilarious dialogue and goofy
acting.
2) Evil Dead (dir: Sam Raimi) 1981
Horror at its
frenetic peak! This is the one of the most hilarious, knuckle-biting
and gory creep fests ever made. Lantern-jaw Bruce Campbell and pals
wig-out royally in a cabin in the woods possessed by at least three
Linda Blairs from The Exorcist and blood spews like wretched wine. This
is one fast-paced inventive gore-fest that can make you laugh as hard
as you scream.
3) Audition (dir: Takeshi Miike) 1999

Japan's hardest working and most prolific film maker, Miike, has made
arguably the creepiest movie ever. It seems to be a tragic, almost
boring love story until the halfway mark. Then something happens
causing the movie to take so many jaw-dropping turns, bending into
unfathomable sadistically evil and surreal images that your guess is as
good as mine as to what the hell went wrong.

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).

Over the falls in a barrelAt first I thought I was watching a trick movie. This is no scathing statement on the evils of the Bush administration, nor does it take a feel-good, pro-Bush stance. W. paints an unflattering yet surprisingly sympathetic picture of George W. Bush. This is perhaps even more surprising given the man at the helm of the film, Oliver Stone. Where's the conspiracy theory? Where's the self-righteous anger? I get the distinct impression he doesn't want to kick a dead horse when it's down.
Stone has said that while George W. Bush was completely unfit to be president, he also learned that he's not such a bad guy. And so it goes in this saga of W (Josh Brolin). We get to see the fraternity days and his penchant of calling everyone by nick names, his years of heavy drinking and carousing, his stammering courtship of Laura Bush (Elizabeth Banks), his relationship with his pastor (a big and beefy Stacy Keach) and his subsequent switch from booze to born again. But the main crux of the movie is his relationship with "Poppy," aka Bush senior (James Cromwell), and his inability to please him. It's the age-old Oedipal story. After dodging all responsibility. Bush still wants to please his dad, and finds God in the process. In essence, he spends the rest of the movie trying to please both of his fathers: the biological and the heavenly one.

Oh, how awkward.It took five years for director Peter Sollett to follow-up his sparkling feature debut Raising Victor Vargas with his adaptation of Rachel Cohn and David Levithan's novel Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist. And while the road along the way surely was littered with Hollywood-typical stories of aborted projects and collapsing funding, he should take comfort in this: He has now established himself as cinema's reigning genius of awkward young love.

Maybe a filmmaker might consider it problematic to be so pigeonholed. It becomes too easy to ignore the other facets of someone's talents, like when Quentin Tarantino became "fast-talking, pop-culture-referencing super-violence guy" and the world conveniently ignored his profoundly moral humanism. But it can also mean that a talented director gets to keep working. And when you've seen something as effortlessly charming as Raising Victor Vargas followed up with this sweet little keeper, you want Sollett to keep working.

The New Year Parade shows strong at BendFilm.BendFilm's list of movies once again can be summed up in one word:
Diverse. That seemed to be the overriding theme of almost every movie I
saw

The New Year Parade (Best Director Award, Tom Quinn) was
perhaps the most interesting, focusing on a divorce and the subsequent
fallout of family and friend alliances. The context is South
Philadelphia and its marching band orchestra. Using actors and plain
ordinary people gave it a forceful character study of good people, bad
reactions and even worse relationships.

Somewhere in the slipstream, between nostalgia and morality, resides the American western. It's proved to be a worthy packhorse for values clarification and sagas about justice for generations.

Blindness is a strange movie. It's like a diary of someone paralyzed by fear, a metaphor for socio-politico human tendencies, plus a vision of personal chaos and mass insanity.

Is that a head you got there?You gotta hand it to Spike Lee. He's willing to take risks. With
Miracle at St Anna, the risk is a larger-than-life mainstream war movie
that tries to hold onto his visionary/radical/art-house/civil rights
themes
From the first scene of an ex-Buffalo soldier watching The
Longest Day with John Wayne on TV, to a final scene of extremely
questionable merit, this is an epic saga of redemption cloaked in a war
story mystery. While working at the post office, Hector Negron (Laz
Alonso) shoots a man he recognizes from his past. Subsequently, the
head of an extremely rare statue is found in his closet. His story is
then told in flashback form, following the trials of the Buffalo
soldiers' of the 92nd Infantry Division. A big oafish soldier, Train
(Omar Benson Miller), carries around (for good luck) the aforementioned
statue head he found in some ruins. The soldiers, under the command of
Staff Sergeant Stamps (Derek Luke), travel out of radio contact to an
Italian village and hole up with an Italian family. The impending
arrival of German troops adds tension and the plot gets almost too big
to handle, but even when it meandered I liked it. The use of clips that
could've easily hit the editing floor captures the kind of idiotic
small talk that might prevail when doom waits around every corner.

Run shia, run.Even if you normally pick up a double Americano on the way to the
movies, I would advise against it if your destination is Eagle Eye. You
may find yourself on your back with electric paddles on your chest and
a medic screaming, "Clear!" This movie is one all-out-Space
Mountain-on-acid-thrill ride where you won't need any supplements to
boost your heart rate.

Even veteran high octane cinema junkies may be
surprised at Director D.J. Caruso's ability to bury your head against
the headrest and put a cinematic G force on you that may cause your
date to scream.
After US forces bomb a Middle Eastern terrorist
target - despite computer warnings there is barely 50% probability we
have the correct target - we jump to Jerry Shaw (Shia LaBeouf) - a card
shark and copy shop employee whose prospects are dim. After an earlier
collaboration with Caruso in Disturbia and a major role in the last
Indiana Jones movie, LaBeouf moves into the action hero mold alongside
actors like Matt Damon and Daniel Craig. And LaBeouf handles the role
with both believability and style.