Okay, so here the dealio: Alex Ferrari, one of my current favorite indie directors is hoping to create his first big budget, or moderately budgeted action thriller, and has with him a pretty good star in the way of the luscious Paula Garces. Ferrari made “Cyn” which was a sort of prequel, and now we have the animated short “Red Princess Blues” which is a seven minute short being shopped around as a potential launching point for a live action revenge action thriller named “Red Princess Blues.” And you know what? I think Ferrari may pull it off.
10 Seconds to Midnight (2007)
Jason Roberts’ science fiction thriller was a thinker, and by that I mean that I simply didn’t get it. At all. I sat there in the end dumbfounded, confused, and ultimately unsatisfied. And then I thought, and thought, and then figured out that perhaps writer Aretha Donnelly was asking the audience to decide for themselves what she was trying to get across.
Harry Potter Interactive DVD Game – Hogwarts Challenge (DVD)
For you parents out there who just can’t make enough this year to give your kids something huge, and don’t poop golden coins that allow you to spend hundreds of dollars on game systems, controllers, and games, there’s always the cost effective alternative of the “Interactive Harry Potter DVD Game.” Setting aside my hatred of the franchise, I dove into the interactive DVD Game of Harry Potter with an open mind, and prepared to do battle with my remote. Here’s the gist: This game allows up to four people to be able to take the role of a young wizard and test your knowledge and reflexes on games that reference the first three movies.
The Orphanage (El Orfanato) (2007)
Too often we’ve found films that some great director is presenting and too often we’ve been let down, disillusioned and left to wonder why said director would approve of such a horrible title. This is thankfully not the case with “The Orphanage.” Executive Producer Guillermo Del Toro, currently the best director in modern film, presents a film that’s very much in the gamut of the man’s past titles. “The Orphanage” has the touch of Del Toro all over it, and like the previous films, Bayona’s supernatural drama is a wonderful tale about innocence lost, and children ravaged by cruelty.
3:10 to Yuma (2007)
You take two of the greatest actors of modern American cinema, grab a slew of all-star performers all providing excellent performances, match it with the stylish and epic direction of James Mangold, and you have yourself “3:10 to Yuma” a remake of the great western film that’s a contender for one of my favorites of 2007, and damn near superior to its predecessor. Mangold’s film packs an abundance of quality and power with it and that’s due to the fantastic writing by the adapting screenwriters, who takes the simplistic yet original story and turns it something much more unique. It’s the story of a man trying to reclaim his dignity, a story about a man who is very well the devil reincarnated learning about respect, and the story of a young boy discovering that everything he thought he once knew now suddenly was all just a fraud. “3:10 to Yuma” brought with it the stylish marketing and appeal to the modern audiences, but don’t sell it short.
Atonement (2007)
All it took were the words of a child. All it took were the words and accusations of one child, and it set in motion events of one of the most unusual romances I’ve ever come across. “Atonement” is set around the hook of a man accused of a crime, which gives him surprising clarity on his life. Robbie is a servant for a local wealthy family in the countryside on the cusp of World War 2 where Hitler is beginning his reign of terror. But, “Atonement” is less about the lieu of the war, and more about what leads to Robbie’s inevitable interaction with the big war that he didn’t intend on. It begins on a light note, as Joe Wright, known for the moderately entertaining “Pride & Prejudice” adaptation, starts the film off as an odd series of coincidences and happenstances that take a toll on the characters all around them.
1968 with Tom Brokaw
“I think movements create leaders, leaders don’t create movements.” – Mark Rudd
Every time I think I know as much as I can about the sixties, there’s always something introduced that surprises or astounds me, and believe it or not, while “1968” does tell some stories and accounts some events that we’ve seen over and over again, Tom Brokaw brings to the table the perspective of a journalist who happened to be around during some of the most historic moments of American history, and gives an objective view of the sixties. In the two hour special, aptly premiering a day after the twenty seventh anniversary of John Lennon’s death, Brokaw interviews ex-hippies, activists still fighting for freedom in our country, and right wing politicians all of whom have a different view of the sixties than the host does. Brokaw gladly doesn’t depict himself as important, only an observer who was there, and feels the need to show how astonishingly similar 1968 is to the social and political climate of 2007, and these aren’t simply coincidental, either. In one scene, Lyndon Johnson declares how we must go to war in Vietnam and fight over there before the communists come here.
It’s a common scare tactic used by the Bush administration and only solidified my interest in the documentary. Brokaw and the History channel simply don’t disappoint with an excellent account of the sixties and the entire movement for civil rights, feminism and free love, while also showing the hardships of the movements. The sixties were a time where the draft was taking people of any color to war, and protests raged while some of the best leaders fell to the gun. Not a single stone is unturned as we are given interviews with folks like Mark Rudd, and Jon Stewart and take a look into the awfully subversive legacy that was the Smothers Brothers, and their battles with network censors over their anti-war movement and the satirizing. “1968” is a very informative look at a historical decade and a wonderful exploration at the year that signaled change for better or for worse.
Premiering on the History Channel December 9th.