DARK WOODS Movie Review

Dark Woods is what I would call a dark independent psychological thriller. It follows the story of Henry (John Muscarnero) who brings his terminally ill wife, Susan (Tracy Coogan), in a cabin in the woods far from the hospital so she can die in piece. While there they have a weird encounter with an intruder which sort of leads to Henry finding and rescuing a young girl, Alicia, in the woods. The sheriff (James Russo) then convinces Henry to let Alicia stay with him and his wife for a few days until foster care can place her somewhere else. And that's when things get a little bit out of hands.

The concept for the story and trailer had me intrigued, but it just didn't live up to my expectations. To be completely honest I just couldn't get into it. The film just dragged on and I didn't understand what the point of it was. The characters are not very likeable, especially Alicia. It feels like she has a dissociative identity disorder. One minute she's nice, one minute she goes insane. I just didn't understand why Henry didn't throw her out, which actually made me want to shake him so that he would stand up for himself and his wife. But instead, Henry starts to get attracted to Alicia, while his wife is lying in bed in the other room dying.

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WOMEN IN TROUBLE Movie Review

Women in Trouble will be released to theaters this Friday November 13, 2009. Women in Trouble starring Carla Gugino, Adrianne Palicki, Connie Britton, Marley Shelton, Cameron Richardson, Garcelle Beauvais, Caitlin Keats, Paul Cassell, Simon Baker, Elizabeth Berkley, Josh Brolin, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Sarah Clarke, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Isabella Gutierrez, Rya Kihlstedt and directed by Sebastian Gutierrez. If you are planning to go see the movie, here are a few reviews from around the web to help you make up your mind.

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UNCERTAINTY Movie Review

Uncertainty will be released to theaters on November 13th, 2009 (limited). UNCERTAINTY stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Lynn Collins, Olivia Thirlby, Assumpta Serna, Madeline Lee, and directed by David Siegel and Scott McGehee. If you are planning to go see the movie, here are a few reviews from around the web to help you make up your mind.

Huffington Post
We make millions of decisions everyday, any one of which might prove to be the linchpin of some unexpected outcome that changes everything forever. Life is full of those moments which, upon reflection, make you think: what if...? Or: if only...? Read More

Cinema Viewfinder
Something of a dilemma exists between Kate Montero (Lynn Collins) and Bobby Thompson (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Standing on the Brooklyn Bridge on the morning of July 4th, they resolve to decide what to do about their predicament by flipping a coin. Read More

Slash Film
Uncertainty has a brilliant set-up: After it is discovered that Kate (Lynn Collins) is pregnant, the young couple finds themselves uncertain about their future. With a magical flip of a coin, the story is split into two alternative realities, showing two vastly different directions their immediate future could take ala Sliding Doors. I am certain that the film never lives up to the magical promises of the plot synopsis, and was baffled at the lack of explanation of why both stories differed so greatly. Read More

Uncertainty Synopsis: What if? A couple at a crossroads in their relationship, facing, one fateful July 4, the seemingly simple decision between a family barbecue or dim sum in Chinatown. Splitting the tale in two, exploring what happens as the couple follow both options and the consequences of making a choice--or not.

You can watch the trailer below.

PIRATE RADIO Movie Review

Pirate Radio will be released to theaters this Friday November 13. The movie stars Bill Nighy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Kenneth Branagh, Nick Frost, Rhys Ifans, Gemma Arterton, Emma Thompson, January Jones, Jack Davenport, and directed by Richard Curtis.

Washington Post
In town to introduce a preview screening of "Pirate Radio," writer-director Richard Curtis ("Love Actually") described his comedy about a boatload of renegade DJs who broadcast rock-and-roll from a ship anchored off the coast of England in the mid-1960s as only "partly true." Read More.

Blog Critics
I remember the first time I watched a Richard Curtis film. I was 14 years old and I sat down with my grandma to watch a little film called Four Weddings and a Funeral which then went on to receive a Best Picture nod. I have always been just as interested in who made a movie as much as I was interested in the final product. Read more.

Film School Rejects
If you know me personally, or read anything I write, you know that I worship the 1960s and the music of the time. I grew up behind the seat belt of my dad’s Chevy Silverado, driving around town with the Oldies station blaring out songs about Brown Sugar tasting so good, My Guitar Gently weeping, and People Trying to put down my father’s generation. I fell in love with grinding guitars, amps that never worked quite right, and the homemade sound of just trying to be louder and more soulful than the guys who were just on stage. Read more.

Read the synopsis and watch the trailer below.

Pirate Radio Synopsis: THE BOAT THAT ROCKED is an ensemble comedy, where the romance is between the young people of the 60s, and pop music. It's about a band of DJs that captivate Britain, playing the music that defines a generation and standing up to a government that, incomprehensibly, prefers jazz.

In 1966 – British pop music's finest era – the BBC played just 2 hours of rock and roll every week. But pirate radio played rock and pop from the high seas 24 hours a day. And 25 million people – over half the population of Britain – listened to the pirates every single day.

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THE MESSENGER Movie Review

The Messenger will be released to theaters on Friday November 13, 2009 and stars Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson, Samantha Morton, Jena Malone, Eamonn Walker, and directed by Oren Moverman. If you are planning to go see the movie, here are a few reviews from around the web to help you make up your mind.

The Washington Post
In modern warfare, which is more powerful: The IED or the NOK? That's the question posed by "The Messenger," a drama about a young army officer assigned to deliver death notices to soldiers' next of kin ("NOKs" in military parlance) while home recovering from injuries -- both physical and psychological -- that he suffered because of an Iraqi improvised explosive device. Read More.

Screen Crave
This is it, with The Messenger in theaters, the time for possible Oscar films has begun! First time director and co-writer Oren Moverman shows us how to make a movie with his debut film, which is as subtle and beautiful as it is poignant and dramatic. From an amazing script, to beautiful performances he has unknowingly made himself Oscar-bait. Read More.

The Canadian Press
It's an unenviable task, making films about the war on terror for audiences that don't want to sit through dramatizations of the same bad news they get for real out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Less enviable is the task the key characters are charged with in "The Messenger": Providing word to people back home that a loved one has died in action.
After Kathryn Bigelow served up the first great Iraq War film with this year's "The Hurt Locker," Oren Moverman delivers a moderately engaging homefront counterpart on "The Messenger," a story that strays about without finding its centre. Read More.

The Messenger Synopsis: In his most powerful performance to date, Ben Foster stars as Will Montgomery, a U.S. Army officer who has just returned home from a tour in Iraq and is assigned to the Army’s Casualty Notification service. Partnered with fellow officer Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson) to bear the bad news to the loved ones of fallen soldiers, Will faces the challenge of completing his mission while seeking to find comfort and healing back on the home front. When he finds himself drawn to Olivia (Samantha Morton), to whom he has just delivered the news of her husband's death, Will’s emotional detachment begins to dissolve and the film reveals itself as a surprising, humorous, moving and very human portrait of grief, friendship and survival.

You can watch the trailer below

LOVE HURTS Movie Review

Love Hurts will be released to theaters on November 13, 2009 (Limited). The movie stars Richard E. Grant, Carrie-Anne Moss, Johnny Pacar, Jenna Elfman, Janeane Garofalo, Camryn Manheim, Rita Rudner, Jeffrey Nordling and is directed by Barra Grant. If you are planning to go see the movie, here are a few reviews from around the web to help you make up your mind.

Hollywood Reporter
The protagonist of Barra Grant's "Love Hurts" is an absent-minded physician more or less stuck in the '80s, and the movie suffers from a similar problem: It's a romantic comedy that takes as its model TV sitcoms from bygone days. Read more

Variety
There's a perfectly likable, sitcomish romantic comedy buried somewhere deep inside Barra Grant's indie "Love Hurts," but it would have taken some very significant rewrites to unearth it. What's left on the surface is an ungainly, at times cringe-worthy succession of tame, telegraphed romantic mishaps, well-intentioned if unconvincing sentimentality, and some of the least authentic teenage dialogue this side of the "Friday the 13th" franchise.
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DVD Talk
The karaoke scene. It's become an epidemic. I've seen an inordinate amount of comedies over the last few years employ a karaoke bar as a comedic device, typically involving a fuddy-duddy character finding screechy vocal salvation at the hand of a memorable '80's hit. If there's anything that immediately signals lazy screenwriting, it's staging slapstick at a karaoke bar. "Love Hurts" features such a scene. Actually, a few of them. However, it's the least of the offenses contained within this dreadful comedy, which runs through a checklist of clichés to make it to a contractually obligated 90-minute running time. It's a long 90 minutes. Read more.

Love Hurts Synopsis: Ben Bingham has slipped into a fossilized middle-age, unlike his vibrant wife Amanda. When she finally leaves him, Ben is at a loss. He drowns himself in gin and refuses to get out of his pajamas until his popular 17 year-old son Justin takes over. He changes Ben's "look" and pushes him out into the social scene. Before Ben knows what is happening, he is the most popular single man in town, pursued by his nurse, his trainer, and karaoke-singing twins. Things change when Justin falls in love for the first time and now finds his father's lifestyle incredibly superficial. Ben is forced to refocus, recapture his humanity, his heart, and most importantly his wife... who is now with another man

You can also watch the trailer below.

THE FANTASTIC MR FOX Movie Review

The Fantastic Mr. Fox will be released to theaters on November 13, 2009. The movie is voiced by George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Bill Murray, Michael Gambon, Owen Wilson, Helen McCrory, Willem Dafoe, Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody, Wes Anderson, Brian Cox, Roman Coppola and directed by Wes Anderson. If you are planning to go see the movie, here are a few reviews from around the web to help you make up your mind.

Huffington Post
Perhaps Fantastic Mr. Fox will be the film that convinces adults that animation isn't just for kids.
Indeed, given the sensibility of writer-director Wes Anderson, Mr. Fox is barely a movie for kids, despite its Roald Dahl pedigree. Anderson's delicious take on life and movies may amuse youngsters -- but not as much as it will tickle adults, with its delightfully anthropomorphized forest creatures who can't quite escape their animal nature. Read more

NJ.com
“Fantastic Mr. Fox” Movie Review -- With his snug corduroy suits, encyclopedic knowledge of British Invasion B-sides and polite obsession with the eccentric and dysfunctional rich, director Wes Anderson has been a whimsical presence in American film since his 1996 debut, “Bottle Rocket.”
His new, stop-motion “Fantastic Mr. Fox” helps give whimsy, and Anderson, back their good names.
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Film School Rejects
Fantastic Mr. Fox marks the first time Wes Anderson, that connoisseur of whimsy, has worked with animation. If the switch required an adjustment it’s hard to tell. From the use of slow-motion to Alexandre Desplat’s jaunty soundtrack the world of this stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl’s children’s classic looks and feels a lot like the offbeat ones of The Darjeeling Limited, The Royal Tenenbaums and Rushmore. Read more.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox Synopsis: The stop-motion film, marking Anderson's first foray into animation, is an adaptation of Roald Dahl's classic children's story, centering on a clever fox who must outwit three mean, dimwitted farmers who try their hardest to hurt Mr. Fox and his family.

You can also watch the trailer below.

DARE Movie Review

Dare will be released to theaters on November 13, 2009 (limited). The movie stars Emmy Rossum, Zach Gilford, Ashley Springer, Ana Gasteyer, Alan Cumming, Sandra Bernhard, Rooney Mara and directed by Adam Salky. If you are planning to go see the movie, here are a few reviews from around the web to help you make up your mind.

CinemaBlend.com
Dare, for a movie about teenagers in their last semester of high school, is a deeper movie than you’d expect. The film, directed by Adam Salky, is broken up into three parts with each part focusing on one of three teens.
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Variety
Essentially the anti-"High School Musical," "Dare" rejects the notion of senior year as a time when greeting-card emotions come true, portraying it instead as a randy petri dish for sexual experimentation. Focusing on three drama students who do a bit too much extracurricular bonding, this "Cruel Intentions"-style cesspool of teenage hanky-panky may be more scandalous than its chaste Disney counterpart...Read More.

The Los Angeles Independent
Dustin Hoffman’s mother/daughter fixation in “The Graduate,” Christian Slater’s avenging slayer in “Heathers,” and Alicia Silverstone’s quintessential Beverly Hills princess in “Clueless” — there have been some indelible cinematic examples of adolescent confusion.Read More

Dare Synopsis:Three very different teenagers discover that, even in the safe world of a suburban prep school, no one is who she or he appears to be.

Dare is in theaters now. Watch the trailer below.

2012 Movie Review

2012 will be released to theaters on November 13, 2009. The movie starring John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and directed by Roland Emmerich. If you are planning to go see the movie, here are a few reviews from around the web to help you make up your mind.

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FROM PARIS WITH LOVE New Movie Posters With John Travolta & Jonathan Rhys Meyers

Check out new posters from FROM PARIS WITH LOVE starring John Travolta, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Kasia Smutniak, Richard Durden and directed by Pierre Morel (Taken).

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