Culture

It wouldn’t be horror flick without the obligatory hot chicks.Yep, The Ruins gets ruined, taking a huge turn for the worse-for the characters, not the audience. I actually let it bypass my "despise-o-meter" entirely.
It starts off in a formulaic manner: the four main vacationing characters (med student, geek-girl, slut, surfer-dude) are all white, yuppified and overtly nauseating, making you wish they could be killed within seconds. But oddly enough, the director (first-timer Carter Smith) doesn't waste a bunch of time forcing these people down your throat and had the foresight to add some nudity almost immediately.

Little Miss Sunshine goes tropical.Feeling the need to escape the desperate last gasp of winter, I decided to go to the one movie with the word "island" in its title. The film Nim's Island sets sail in the Pacific, stowing away somewhere near the Cook Islands in a tree house resembling a high tech version of the classic dwelling in Swiss Family Robinson. Surrounded by a tropical paradise (punctuated by the occasional storm), friendly animals and good books, I could have spent the entire 135 minutes there. Alas, such serenity soon dissolved as if it were a sandcastle.
 
Life on Nim's Island initially seems idyllic, and although there wouldn't be much of a story if it stayed that way, the film's identity clearly suffers from having two directors (Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin) and four screenwriters. It gets mired in at least three different genres; is it a cutesy adventure movie, a high tech/deserted island survival story, or the charming tale of a child who lives with her marine biologist dad while using her wits and imagination to create an exciting and richly self-sustaining life? The film is most successful when in the latter mode, wading in the turquoise waters of Nim's (Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine) imagination, while fending off the intermittent intruder.

No, that's not your spin class.The funniest thing about this movie is its title. Other than that, the talents of Simon Pegg, Thandie Newton and Hank Azaria are totally wasted. It is corny from the second it starts, and the corn never stops. Fat Boy is schmaltzy, poorly written, not-so-well acted and just plain BORING! This movie is insidious and not in a good way. It is vapidly tedious to the hilt.
From the first minute, you know exactly how it will end. The main character Dennis (Pegg) leaves his pregnant girlfriend Libby (Newton) at the altar, literally running away. Cut to five years later and Dennis is out of shape, smokes a lot and has unexplained visitation rights to see his son. Enter Libby's new boyfriend Whit (Azaria) who's rich, successful and runs marathons. In order to win back his girlfriend, Dennis decides to run a marathon. Maybe this looked good on paper; on screen it's unbearable.

Kenny Rogers was a much better gambler.Greed and need fuel our hero's intoxication with Las Vegas. And director Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde) sets up a house of cards in the film adaptation of Ben Mezrich's best-selling book, Bringing Down the House, which follows the true-life adventure of several MIT braniacs - led by math whiz Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess, Across the Universe) - as they rake in millions by outsmarting casinos.
 
Smarmy but brilliant MIT math professor, Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey) first recognizes Ben's aptitude for gaming when Ben gives an inspired answer to a challenging question during a class. Ben has been accepted to Harvard Medical School but needs to come up with cash for the $300,000 education. The powerful Professor Rosa lures Ben into a supposedly legal card-counting scheme with a group of gifted young math scholars. The result is a fortune made at the Vegas blackjack tables. At various intervals over a two-year period, they escape a drab, wintry-looking Boston to live like high-stakes rock stars in Sin City. Ben's original goal is to make just enough money to pay for Harvard and then stop. As fate would have it, greed and his own ego get the best of him. But, for a guy in the grip of temptation, Ben's understated character seems kind of flat.

Personally, I think the uniforms are definitely working."Once, not long ago," says the text at the start of Eran Kolirin's The Band's Visit, "a small Egyptian police band arrived in Israel. Not many remember this. It was not that important."
 
The dry introduction sets the tone for Kolirin's bittersweet, thoughtful film: Sure, it wasn't that important - unless it happened to you. In subdued, gentle scenes, through careful performances and wonderful casting, against unusual skylines, Kolirin weaves a gently observant story about the things beyond physical borders and boundaries that set people apart or bring them together.
The blue-uniformed band that arrives in Israel is Egypt's Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra, led by Tewfiq (Sasson Gabai), a serious, order-loving man who's feeling the pressure of possible budget cuts that would lead to the dissolution of his orchestra. When no one meets the band at the airport, Tewfiq is certain they can manage on their own and thereby help prove their worth. But juggling Hebrew, Arabic and English while asking for directions proves more than just awkward.