Jun 17, 2011
(rated R, 105 mins) “About Adam” could have been called All About Eve. Too bad the name is taken. It’s about a woman and a lot of temptation. Adam, (Stuart Townsend, a Jude Law lookalike), is handsome, witty, sexy, sensitive, owns a gallery and even bought a Jaguar in memory of the car his parents were killed in. He’s almost perfect for the “Almost Famous” star Kate Hudson who portrays Lucy Owens his girlfriend, a singer in a hip Dublin café, with a charming, infectious energy. It’s seems like paradise when the two agree to wed and Adam, an orphan, is brought home to meet the family. Becoming part of the Owens clan is an understatement when he wins over her two sisters, Laura (Frances O’Connor) the bookworm type, doing her thesis on filtering through the Bronte sisters, and Alice (Charlotte Bradley) the sophisticated/bored with her husband, sister. As Adam mischievously winds his way through their hearts, minds and lives he gives new meaning to the biblical term “And Adam said: ‘The woman you put beside me, gave me fruit, and I ate”; Genesis 3:12.. Not since “Shakespeare In Love” has there been a Miramax movie that so well hits on confusion, passion and betrayal in a rare comedy.
Jun 17, 2011
(rated PG-13, 101 mins.) Based on the Nick Hornby’s novel comes a comedy drama starring Hugh Grant as Will, a rich, self-absorbed, spoiled and irresponsible Londoner playboy that the audience should clearly hate yet miraculously loves. (must be Grant’s dead-on charm and a good screenplay). One day in his latest concocted scheme to score women, Will joins SPAT (Single Parents Alone Together) because divorced moms are supposed to be easy, wild and not looking for commitment. As planned he meets a lovely divorcee named Angie (Isabell Brook) who comes with a package of her own child and another kid named Marcus (Nicholas Hault) who joins them for a picnic. Slowly Marcus worms his way into Will’s life by mirroring Will’s own childhood and faults. When a tragedy strikes, it changes the “Will Show Sitcom” into a single mom ensemble drama. Once Will opens up, life floods him with all he’s been missing — new friends, Marcus’s mom (Toni Collette) and finally the real thing arrives in Rachel Weisz. This is a story about the meaning of meaning something to somebody. About A Boy is about making life mean something. About A Boy is about time for Hugh Grant at home in this role as the guy we fell in love with from “Four Weddings and A Funeral”. He’s vulnerable, sympathetic and truly delightful in being an oh-shucks bad guy. This year’s “Bridgette Jones”. This year’s best so far. Don’t miss it.
Jun 17, 2011
(rated PG-13, 146 mins.) Everyone’s been waiting for this E.T.-style-feeling flick. It’s Steven Spielberg’s return to directing (he’s been absent since 1998’s Saving Private Ryan), featuring Haley Joel Osment, in this sci-fi fantasy, about an artificial being. Professor Hobby (William Hurt) of Crynogetics laboratories proposes to develop a sensory toy with intelligent behavior that can love. A robot child that will love its parents with a ‘mecha mind.’ Enter Henry and Monica; (Sam Robbards and Frances O’Connor) who long for a child and are up for the experiment. Once imprinted with a special code, the child becomes yours for life, (and that’s putting it mildly). Jude Law does a sidekick role as the convincing robotic Gigolo Joe. Spielberg demonstrates his ingenious charm of “E.T.” and “Close Encounters” using his famous ten pages and a whammo (scene) to pump up this modern day Pinocchio (blue fairy and all). But, something is missing and perhaps like Mecha, we never really love it either. This starts-out-ok story turns overly drawn out and dramatic at the over two hours ending, leaving parents squirming and kids surely to be kicking seats in front of them.
Jun 17, 2011
(Rated PG, 100 mins.)
Based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks, and set in the lowlands of North Carolina in the mid-1990s, the story follows the right of passage of Landon (Shane West), a jaded, aimless high school senior sentenced to do community service. He falls in love with Jamie Sullivan (MTV pop princess Mandy Moore), a young woman that he and his friends once scorned. Jamie is shunned by others not for the usual teen scenario of weird-not-fitting-in, but for goodness-not-fitting-in. She’s a preacher’s daughter. In the months that will follow, Landon discovers truths that take most people a lifetime to grasp including the power of love. While the movie is not another teen flick of who will take me to the prom, it manages to deliver a Christian message in a story that moves from “My Girl” meets “Sixteen Candles’ to “Love Story. What saves this film is its sincerity with a lesson in values.
Jun 17, 2011
(rated NR, 80 mins)
Co-winner of Camera d’Or, Cannes 2000, this is the kind of movie that leaves you asking ‘could it get any worse’ and it does. Not in the poor quality of the film, but in the subject matter. This should be required viewing for all American children who think the world revolves around Gap clothes and N Sync music. It’s the story of a poverty stricken boy who is raised just off the Iran/Iraqi border by his older sister and brother since both parents are deceased. These five, tightly bond children manage to smile every night despite hardships we never even dreamed of. These siblings will stop at nothing to save each other including heart wrenching scenes of the oldest son traveling numerous times through blizzards to the other side of the mountain in Iraq to make measly food money. The terrain is such a treacherous war zone, they must intoxicate the horses to move them (thus the movie’s title). When the eldest son fails to raise money for the little brother’s operation, the eldest sister gives her hand in marriage to an Iraqi who offers to pay for the surgery . Of course nothing comes easy and it’s one sad episode after another. Even the journey for the horses is a snowy uphill to the story’s downhill tragedy. Excellent performances by Nexhad Ekhtiar, Dini and Amaneh Ekhtiar-Dini who made me believe I was with them and not in front of a sub-titled screen. A humble tribute to the cultural heritage of the director, producer and screenwriter Bahman Ghobadi who should be proud of his achievement.
