Doubt (R-2008)

Here is the formula for a great movie: Take the script of an award-winning play (NOT a musical), get some heavy-duty actors (not "big stars", there is a difference), film it and you have gold. This was the formula for "Doubt", which pits Philip Seymour Hoffman against Meryl Streep in a head-to-head battle for control of a local parish. The story is very reminiscent of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", where Randle Patrick McMurphy comes into Nurse Ratched's psych ward and pits himself against Nurse Ratched, who needs to take him down to assert her power. In "Doubt", you have an old-school nun in Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep), who runs her catholic school and parish with an iron fist ("No ball-point pens!!!") and Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a priest who is fairly new to the parish and is a more progressive thinker ("Why not add some secular songs to the Christmas pageant? "Frosty the Snowman"?). It is clear pretty early that Sister Aloysius does not like this kind of thinking. When a nun/teacher (Amy Adams) mentions to Sister Aloysius that she believes Father Flynn may have been "improper" with one of the young boys in her class, Sister Aloysius sees her opportunity and comes after him with all she's got. This conflict makes for some great confrontations and terrific dialogue exchanges, which makes this an acting seminar in itself. The script is carefully written so that you are not sure who to root for. The evidence of impropriety is so flimsy and circumstantial that you want to believe Father Flynn. Clearly, Sister Aloysius is the villain, right?? As much as you feel that way, you really can't commit because IF Father Flynn is guilty, then all is fair in taking him down. This movie has it all, well-written, amazing acting and crisp direction. If anything, it is completely dialogue-driven, so it is a little slow, but the dialogue is so good that it does not matter. I loved the movie, I LOVE Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep reminded me that she IS as great as you think she is!

Grade: A+

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Yes Man (PG-13-2008)

"Yes Man" has a very simple concept: What would happen if you said "yes" to every opportunity to come your way? Believe it or not, this is loosely based on a true story: a British author decided to do exactly this for a while and wrote a book about the experience. In this version of the story, Jim Carrey plays Carl, a man who is sort of down on his life and has settled into a routine of sitting at home and avoiding going out, despite the efforts of his best friend, Peter (Bradley Cooper). One day, he runs into an old acquaintance (the always funny John Micheal Higgins), who turns him on to a new personal empowerment philosophy called simply "YES". Carl joins him at a seminar and finds himself agreeing to live the philosophy of saying "yes" at every chance. The movie then follows Carl's adventure as he reinvigorates his new life of "YES", leading him to better career opportunities, more friends and a budding romance with a quirky girl he meets when his car runs out of gas (Zooey Deschanel). Of course, saying yes can't always be a good thing, so there are plenty of bad experiences that come along. This is the perfect Carrey role and he plays it very well, despite sometimes making this feel like you are watching "Bruce Almighty" again. The movie is practically stolen by Rhys Darby, who plays Norman, Carl's boss at the bank. Norman is very funny in every scene in which he appears. This is an entertaining movie: not Carrey's best, but certainly not his worst. It is a "typical Jim Carrey" film and that is not necessarily a bad thing!

Grade: B-

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Marley and Me (PG-2008)

If you live under a rock and have no idea how this movie ends, I strongly recommend you do not read this review. There is almost no way to properly review this without discussing the end. "Marley and Me" is the story of the building of a family set against the backdrop of a dog's life. It is a very warm, sweet and funny story which begins when John and Jennifer Grogan (Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston) decide early in their new marriage to get a dog and they pick up Marley, a rescued puppy who seems to enjoy getting into trouble. We watch as Marley grows and the Grogans build a family, adding kids along the way and going through the trials and tribulations of life. Jobs change, dreams are realized and missed and, through it all, Marley is there to create mischief and mayhem. Wilson and Aniston do a very nice job showing the growth of a family as their needs and frustrations grow with the family, but manage to keep their love intact. As the movie follows all of this change through the "life of a dog", the movie follows the family to the end of Marley's life. The ending is extremely emotional and powerful as John Grogan says a prolonged goodbye to the dog he has been through so much with. For personal reasons, this ending really hit home for me and the family, but I think it would be very emotional for anyone who has ever lost someone close to them (which is, well, everyone). The movie was very well acted and although some of the "dog mischief" was very reminiscent of earlier dog movies, the total story made this a much better film than those aforementioned dog films ("Beethoven" comes to mind). This was a very good movie, but be warned: There WILL be tears!!

Grade: B

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The Tale of Depereaux (G-2008)

I have to admit this up front: When the ads for "The Tale of Despereaux" were running, I was not really insterested in this at all. It seemed too similar to "Ratatouille" or "Stuart Little". Having now seen it, it was better than I had expected, but I didn't really love it. Right off the bat, you spend a good 10 minutes following a character called Roscuro (Dustin Hoffman), a rat who dreams of a better life. So much time is spent with him, it started to look like we were watching the wrong movie. Finally, you meet Despereaux (Matthew Broderick), who is.....a mouse who dreams of a better life! To round out the main stories, you meet Miggery Sow (Tracey Ullman), who is....a commoner who dreams of a better life. I think you see where this is going. The movie is a story about never giving up and not accepting your expected station in life. It is a fine moral, but really nothing new and the three disparate characters you follow makes the film somewhat hard to follow. Once the characters are established and start to come together, it becomes easier, but it really takes too long to get to that point. This was not a horrible movie and has its entertaining moments and really a pretty good storyline, but it did not really "captivate" me. As it was over, I had a "take it or leave it" attitude.

Grade: C-

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Monsters vs. Aliens: The 3D IMAX experience (PG-2009)

"Monsters vs. Aliens" was a very pleasant surprise. It looked like it would be an OK, somewhat entertaining movie aimed for a younger audience. It was so much more than that. It was an amazing 3-D experience, with an intelligent, very funny script. For older audiences, it worked beautifully as an homage to old-school sci-fi/horror classics with plenty of references to more modern films like "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Mars Attacks!". For the youngsters, it was simply a very funny movie with lots of great characters. Susan (Reese Witherspoon) is about to get married when a meteor strikes and changes her into "Ginormica", an immensely tall woman. She is immediately whisked away by the government to a Top Secret monster holding facility where she meets Bob (Seth Rogen), a gelatinous blob with one eye, Dr. Cockroach (Hugh Laurie), a one-time doctor who is the subject of an experiment gone wrong, The Missing Link (Will Arnett), a part-fish, part-lizard, part-mammal creature, and Insectosaurus, a grub turned into a huge monster by nuclear waste. She is told that she cannot leave as she is too scary for regular people. However, when an alien force attacks the Earth, General W. R. Monger decides their only defense is to unleash the monsters. A great battle ensues with some amazing visuals, including a Golden Gate Bridge sequence that is simply incredible. After that, the film slows down a bit for some character development, which builds up to a final confrontation with the alien mothership, which includes homages to "The Wizard of Oz" and "Star Wars". While the strong script and great animation will make this work just as well in 2-D, the 3-D effects are well worth heading out to the theater to see. This was a great time in the theater for kids and their parents alike.

Grade: B+

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The Midnight Meat Train (R-2008)

"The Midnight Meat Train" comes from the mind of Clive Barker, writer of "Hellraiser" and what a twisted mind it is. The basic plotline is a photographer (Bradley Cooper) that is trying to get more "edgy" photos, so he starts taking late night forays into the streets and subways of New York to capture "the heart of the city". When one of the passersby he photographs turns up missing, he finds himself getting more and more obsessed with a man (Vinnie Jones) he sees get off the same train he last saw her go into. As it turns out, this man calmly and quietly rides the same train every night and when the train passengers thin out, he brutally murders the last few riders. His main murder weapon is this huge meat tenderizing hammer that packs quite a wallop. While the title makes it sound like a gore-fest (and it is!), the movie actually does a nice job portraying the photographer's deepening obsession with proving that this is going out, spiraling nearly into madness himself. The gory scenes are especially gory with "eye-popping" special effects, but there is much more to this movie than gore. It works very well as a psychological drama. It is not perfect though. The ending sort of goes off the rails (pun intended) a little bit and, at one point, the final third of the movie becomes a bit too much "action movie" (the hero packing a belt with the weapons he will use to take down a bad guy, a prolonged fight sequence), but still a very good movie overall. When the reason for the nightly slaughter is revealed, it is a bit anti-climactic and goes down a strange road. I would definitely recommend this one highly for horror movie fans.

Grade: B

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Slumdog Millionaire (R-2008)

For starters, you really have an interesting concept here. Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) is a contestant on the Indian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?". When he is one question away from the big prize, he is apprehended and accused of cheating because there is no way a "slumdog" from the streets of Mumbai could have the knowledge needed to answer these questions. The movie takes you from the interrogation room, to the stage of "Millionaire" to the streets of Mumbai as Jamal explains his life experiences helped him answer the questions that were on the show. Against a backdrop of severe poverty and a life of survival living on the streets, you have a love story as Malik is determined to help rescue his beloved Latika (Freida Pinto) from the life of "slavery" she finds herself in. Along the way, he is both helped and hurt by a brother (Madhur Mittal), who finds the only way out of the slums is to embrace and work with the criminal element that is present where they live. This film is deep, dark, entertaining and inspirational. The cast is exceptional and Danny Boyle's direction paints a great picture. The only element that bothered me were the subtitled scenes, which use some strange "decorative" way of displaying the subtitles which actually make them more difficult to read. I found even the performance of the "Millionaire" host, Prem Kumar (Anil Kapoor), to be layered and crucial to the story. He nails the stage presence of the smiling, humorous host who is loved by everybody, but is a quite different man when the lights go down. I loved the movie and found that it worked so well on just abour every level. The powerful themes cut across all cultures (in fact I understand the framework of the story is based heavily on the Greek myth of Euridice and Orpheus), while still giving you a look at the tremendous class struggles present in India. I highly recommend this, but I will say this: I found it to be just short of being worthy of all of the hype that has surrounded it the last few months.

Grade: A

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