AWN Blogs

This is the first of the POTTER films where I read the book before I saw the film. Despite the book being better, the film is still a wonderful treat, keeping up the quality of the series. New director Alfonso Cuaron (Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN) replaces Chris Columbus at the helm, moving the franchise in a more mature direction.

The awe-shucks wonder of the magical world is over for teenage Harry (Daniel Radcliffe, TAILOR OF PANAMA). He's become bitter about the murder of his parents and lashes out against his muggle (non-magic) family for insulting his parents' name. This time around Voldemort has taken a rest from trying to kill Harry, but it seems that escaped convict Sirius Black (Gary Oldman, THE PROFESSIONAL) is taking up the reigns. Where Ron (Rupert Grint) played a bigger role than Hermione (Emma Watson) in the second film, it's visa versa in the third. Despite a continuous war between Ron and Hermione over her cat attacking his rat, the film does develop the two teens' ever growing attraction for each other.

From master documentary maker Errol Morris comes this intriguing look at the life of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara. Now in his 80s, McNamara is still vibrant and quite reflective about his role in WWII and Vietnam. How about this for candor, McNamara admits that if the U.S. would have lost WWII he and others would have probably been brought up on war crime charges for the fire bombing and nuclear attack on Japan. This gives you an idea of the overall sentiment of the film, which gives the first hand account of the mechanics of war, which are often paradoxical and seemingly insane.

It's an interesting irony that while McNamara worked for the Ford Motor Company he was instrumental in making cars safer even introducing seat belts, but participated in the death of hundreds of thousands of people in two wars. It's quite fascinating to hear what McNamara says and doesn't say throughout the film. Through the spry 85-year-old, we get a firsthand history lesson of the key military and political events of the past 60 years from WWII to Vietnam. The man who would play such a huge roll in later wars recalls memories from when he was two, watching a WWI victory parade. McNamara scarily relates just how close we were to nuclear war with Russia during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He also candidly talks about his mistakes during Vietnam and the day he realized the war was lost.

This is an intense emotional ride through the mob underworld from the perspective of a FBI spy. Based on the true-life story of FBI agent Joseph D. Pistone, who is still in the witness protection program, the film feels informed by the reality what a cop really goes through. But down deep the film isn't about cops and criminals, but about loyalty. If you're an undercover cop, who do you stay loyal to — the job that puts you in danger every moment and takes you away from your family, or the criminal who has become your friend?

Johnny Depp masterfully plays the title character, the FBI agent who infiltrates a mob organization through a low-level thug named Lefty (Al Pacino, HEAT). Pacino has played a lot of gangster-like characters, but this is his best since THE GODFATHER (I must admit I have not seen SCARFACE, yet). I love how the characters are developed and how Brasco takes on the personality of the gangsters. Lefty is the perfect in for Brasco, because he's the kind of guy who wants people to believe he's bigger than he is, so he says things that he shouldn't.

The amazing thing about this film isn't that its concept is anything groundbreakingly original, but that it succeeds in telling a familiar tale with such originality and genuine heart.

After losing their son Frankie in an accident, Johnny (Paddy Considine, 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE) moves his family – wife Sarah (Samantha Morton, MINORITY REPORT) and daughters Christy (Sarah Bolger, TV's A SECRET AFFAIR) and Ariel (Emma Bolger, INTERMISSION) – to New York City to try his hand at an acting career. The family struggles living in an apartment with junkies and overcoming the great sorrow of losing Frankie.

The way the story uses the mundane problems of a poor family -- like living in an overly hot apartment – to such poetic extent is amazing and powerful. The family befriends their downstairs neighbor Mateo (Djimon Hounsou, AMISTAD), who is an angry, struggling artist suffering from AIDS. This relationship brings up insecurities between Johnny and Sarah as well as larger life and death issues.

I have wanted to see this film for over a year and a half now. Ebert ranked it the second best film of 2002. It was released in U.S. theaters in January of 2003. Despite this fact (which usual hurts a film because Academy members forget) it was still nominated for four Oscars in 2003 -- Best Cinematography, Best Director, Best Editing and Best Adapted Screenplay. It was a smash hit in its native Brazil and imdb.com ranks it as its readers' 31st most popular film of all time. Have I made you want to see it yet?

Here's the story: Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues, GOLDEN GATE (PALACE II)) lives in the ghetto of Rio called the City of God – where corrupt cops fruitlessly try to control the street gangs. Rocket is the narrator of the film, which chronicles two decades of life in the slums. Rocket starts out by telling the story of his brother's gang and how Lil' Dice (Douglas Silva) grows up to become Lil' Ze (Leandro Firmino), the most ruthless gangster in town. Lil' Ze does this by murdering whomever stands in his way and accomplishes it by the age of 18. The only person who keeps Lil' Ze under control is his best friend Benny (Phellipe Haagensen), who serves as a peacemaker, especially between Ze and rival gang leader Carrot (Matheus Nachtergaele).

This film is a meandering ode on school shootings. Unlike the TV's movie BANG, BANG, YOU'RE DEAD, this film doesn't try to make a grander message about why school shootings happen. It just shows this particular event unfolding. The film watches as the characters go through their day — one that many won't survive.

John (John Robinson) is the son of an alcoholic and has had many visits to the principal's office. Elias (Elias McConnell) is a photography student. Nathan (Nathan Tyson) is the big man on campus and a lifeguard. His girlfriend is Carrie (Carrie Finklea), who may or may not be pregnant. Jordan (Jordan Taylor), Nicole (Nicole George) and Brittany (Brittany Mountain) are a gaggle of popular girls who have an unusual group ritual they do. Michelle (Kristen Hicks) is a nerdy girl, who doesn't like to wear shorts in gym class. Benny (Bennie Dixon) is an African-American athlete who helps John's girlfriend Acadia (Alicia Miles) escape from the school. Alex (Alex Frost) and Eric (Eric Deulen) are the killers. While watching them prepare for their murderous actions, we get glimpses of some of their motivations for doing what they do, but nothing is definitive.

This French, Canadian and Belgium animated feature is the most original animated film I've seen since TOY STORY. Paced by catchy music, this genre-bending film has a beautiful hand drawn aesthetic, painting a lush surreal world. Like Bill Plympton's brilliant I MARRIED A STRANGE PERSON, this film has an anything-goes approach that is witty and silly and altogether fun.

Madame Souza is raising her grandson after his parents' death. He's sad and his grandmother does everything she can to cheer him up including buying him a dog named Bruno. In the end, she discovers that he loves bicycles and ends up training him into a world-class cyclist. Then during the Tour de France, the Mafia kidnaps her grandson to use in a shady gambling ring. Madame Souza, with trusty Bruno by her side, heads out across the Atlantic to the city of Belleville (i.e. New York City) to rescue her grandson. There she teams up with '30s singing sensation the Triplets of Belleville in her attempt to out smart the gangsters.

I guess you could call this a romantic comedy, but it's more of a character study. Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise, MAGNOLIA) is a high-powered sports agent, who one day has a crisis of conscience and writes a mission statement that urges his business to focus less on money and more on the clients. Its title is "The Things We Think, But Do Not Say." Despite a standing applause for the gesture, he is quickly fired. Bringing to mind the statement – some things should be left unsaid.

Maguire tries to round up his clients to come with him, but he is only able to sign cocky wide receiver Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr., AS GOOD AS IT GETS) and a verbal agreement from the father of college quarterback sensation Frank Cushman (Jerry O'Connell, TV's SLIDERS). In a dramatic exit from his work, he calls for people to come with him, creating a very nervous silence. However, accountant Dorothy Boyd (Renee Zellweger, CHICAGO) stands up and joins Maguire in his noble (if not foolhardy) cause.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this film is one of the best slice of life films ever made. It does for the 1970s what AMERICAN GRAFFITI did for the 1950s. And yet both films seem to be telling the same story. I guess kids of all generations pretty much go through the same sort of stuff.

The story follows various groups of high school students on the last day of school in 1976. Seniors, both girls and boys, look forward to starting the hazing traditions of the new freshmen when the bell rings. If the film really has a main character it's Randall "Pink" Floyd, played by Jason London (THE MAN IN THE MOON), the starting quarterback and Mr. Popular. His couch has given him a "Pledge" form to sign stating that he will not do drugs. It's one of those silly things that schools make kids do to make parents think that the school is actually addressing an issue. It's the kind of thing kids sign, while smoking a joint. Pink out of principle doesn't want to sign the form and debates in his head the purpose of sports, cliques and living by other people's rules.

If you know enough about Alfred Hitchcock to recognizes his style, but not enough to know all his films than you could easily think that CHARADE is one of his pictures. This is not a slight against director Stanley Donen (TWO FOR THE ROAD), but his film embraces all that is Hitchcockian. The innocent thrust into dangerous situations. The unexpected humor. Witty dialogue. And Cary Grant.

Regina Lampert (Audrey Hepburn, TWO OF THE ROAD) wants to divorce her husband because he lies to her. Then she returns home from vacation to discover that he has sold all their things and has gotten himself murdered. She goes to his funeral where she meets a trio of shady men — Tex Panthollow (James Coburn, ADDICTION), Herman Scobie (George Kennedy, COOL HAND LUKE) and Sylvie Gaudel (Dominique Minot, THOMAS). She is then called in to the American consulate by CIA agent Leopold Gideon (Walter Matthau, MIRAGE), who explains to her that the men at her husband's funeral and her husband stole $250,000 during WWII and may want to kill her for the money, which she doesn't know it's whereabouts.

A lot of debate has arisen over the splitting of KILL BILL into two parts because it was indented to be one film. Does the film work as two films? Yes. Mainly because they have two different tones. Audiences going into VOLUME 2 thinking they are going to get the same non-stop action as the first film will be disappointed. The first film was closer to samurai and kung fu films, where as the second is closer akin to spaghetti Westerns.

What's so strikingly different about this film from the first is the time it pays to developing the characters. The film starts with a black and white recap of the first film by The Bride (Uma Thurman, GATTACA), reminiscent of old film noir trailers. Then the story flashes back to the massacre at the Bride's wedding rehearsal where we get more background on The Bride, including what she's been doing with her life since leaving the assassin's crew of Bill (David Carradine, TVs KUNG FU). This is the quiet before the storm.

How faithful this adaptation is to the James Fenimore Cooper novel I do not know. The plot for the most part is a standard romantic adventure. Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis, GANGS OF NEW YORK) is a white man raised by Indians, who falls in love with Cora Munro (Madeleine Stowe, BAD GIRLS), the oldest daughter of British colonel Edmund Munro (Maurice Roeves, TV's DAVID). Or course like most great romances, their needs to be a love triangle so we get shady British officer Duncan Hayward (Steven Waddington, SLEEPY HOLLOW), who loves Cora, but she does not return the same feelings.

Cora, Duncan and Munro's younger daughter, Alice (Jodhi May, THE HOUSE OF MIRTH), fall into grave danger and Hawkeye, along with his Indian brethren Chingachgook (Russell Means, BUFFALO GIRLS) and Uncas (Eric Schweig, TOM AND HUCK), rescue them, leading Hawkeye to fall in love with Cora to the dismay of Duncan. It's pretty standard stuff really. But what makes this film so good is the detail.