Based on a classified bank robbery that took place in 1971 London that resulted in no arrests and no money recovered, The Bank Job is a compelling story about what crime can get you and where it could ultimately take you. According to the closing remarks of the film, the story was prevented from ever being told to protect a prominent member of the British Royal Family. This film reveals the truth about the heist for the first time with the names being changed to protect the guilty.

Terry Leather (Jason Statham), a car dealer with money troubles, is offered a lead on an infallible bank heist in London. He recognizes the opportunity of a lifetime and accepts the offer. With a crew of his trusty friends, Terry targets a roomful of safety deposit boxes worth millions in cash and jewelry. What Terry and his crew don’t recognize is that the safety deposit boxes also contain a bundle of dirty secrets that will thrust them into ultimate danger with London’s criminal underworld, the highest forces of the British government, and the Royal Family itself.

Limited by the lack of story, Director Roger Donaldson is left to fill the blanks in the story. How much of this story is actually the truth? Don’t really know, but what we do know is that Donaldson and his writers have mixed together fact, fiction, and the gossip of many decades to form a complete film. The story is complicated by multiple plot lines that slow the flow of the film leaving many viewers confused. The first half of the film has the feel of the Ocean’s Trilogy with less passion, and the second half dives off with a feel of Mission: Impossible without the kick.

Long since separated from the days of Snatch and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, Jason Statham returns to a similar acting style, which vaulted him into stardom in those two films. Statham abandons his butt-kicking, tough guy ways for a sleek, bank-robbing family man in this bank heist, similar in story to The Italian Job, in which Statham also stars.

Rated R for sexual content, nudity, violence and language, the film is too mature for anyone under the age of 18. Prepare yourself before going in for many scenes that contain more than brief nudity. Also, prepare yourself for raunchy British accents containing many spats of “bloody hell”, “arse”, and “bollocks”.

Remember when Jim Carrey was the go-to-guy for hilarious comedy before his act became repetitive, old, and outdated. This same process is happening to Will Ferrell. With early successes in Anchorman and Talladega Nights, Ferrell has become one-dimensional with his characters. This will be Will Ferrell’s fourth sports comedy in four years, and in this case, he again plays the drunk, fat sports figure. Wait, didn’t he play that character in Blades of Glory? No, wait that was Talladega Nights. They all start to run together.

Will Ferrell is Jackie Moon, a one-hit wonder who used the payoff from his hit song “Love Me Sexy” to buy the Flint, Michigan Tropics in the now dissolved American Basketball Association (ABA). Along with owner, Moon becomes the head coach and starting power forward for the team. When he finds out that only four of the ABA’s teams are going to be absorbed into the NBA at the end of the 1976 season, Moon proposes that the four teams with the best records at the end of the season should be absorbed. What you get next is your typical “underdog story”, common to many sports comedies.

Unlike Jim Carrey, Will Ferrell requires a solid supporting cast to work from. The supporting cast in Ferrell’s films is usually what keeps the film a float. In Anchorman, Ferrell had Paul Rudd and Steve Carell. In Talladega Nights, he had John C. Reilly and Sacha Baron Cohen. In Blades of Glory, he had Jon Heder and Craig T. Nelson. And in Semi-Pro, he has Woody Harrelson and Andre Benjamin. Woody Harrelson is Ed Monix, in what could be called a serious role, who plays a NBA player who is traded to the Tropics and brings a sort of professionalism to the team. Andre Benjamin is Clarence “Coffee” Black, the very talented, yet very lackadaisical star of the Tropics, who eventually has to make a decision about his professional basketball career with a little help from Monix.

Screenwriter Scot Armstrong recycles many of Ferrell’s past jokes, which many fans will acknowledge. To lure larger crowds to Tropics games, Moon agrees to wrestle a bear. It’s similar to when Ferrell wrestled a cougar in Talladega Nights, and is precisely like the time he wrestled a bear in Anchorman. In a variety of his films, Ferrell’s characters are often drunk and fat, and continuously find themselves ripping off their clothes and running around in a pair of dirty tighty-whiteys.

As an avid basketball fan and quality player, I don’t know if I should be offended or gratified by this film. On one hand, the film promotes team basketball and getting everyone involved. On the other hand, the film continuously mocks the game of basketball by utilizing showboating and cussing, something not needed for the younger generations. I did enjoy the skit about the invention of the alley-opp, where everyone was in confusion on how the player could receive a pass in flight and dunk the ball.

With a rating of R for language and some sexual content, this film is not for anyone under the age of 16. Semi-Pro is a film for the die-hard Ferrell fans. Ferrell’s career as a comedic genius is in decline, and I don’t know if he will be able to get out of this rut if he keeps doing the same characters in each of his films. With Jim Carrey and now Will Ferrell going into decline, the go-to-guy in comedy has now passed to Judd Apatow, of The 40-Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Superbad fame. Hopefully, Apatow will avoid those repetitive storylines and characters that have plagued Carrey and now Ferrell’s careers.

If you think you have seen it all, look again. Vantage Point director Pete Travis has assembled a topnotch cast to selfishly exploit the thought of global terrorism. Pacing a half an hour of a fatal day from multiple points of view, the screenplay tosses the story upside down and every which way before actually making progress in the story. The film has no rhythm resulting in unintentional laughs and outbursts of frustration, which outnumber the moments of suspense. If you think this film is the best action film of the year, look again.

Two secret service agents (Dennis Quaid and Matthew Fox) are assigned to protect the President of the United States (William Hurt) at a summit in Spain about world terrorism. Chaos ensues when the President is shot and shortly afterwards a bomb explodes killing many people. The two service agents have to recuperate to catch the assassin, unknown to the fact that something much bigger is at work.

The plot focuses on 8 stranger’s points of view, the plot being rewound several times to the beginning of the story to focus on what the different characters were doing at that particular time. The multiple rewinds conveys to the audience how each individual stranger reaches that point in the story, including their roles as being pieces to the puzzle that combine to complete the big picture. In comparison to Groundhog Day on steroids, the rewinds become frustrating to watch taking away from the overall flow of the film making each rewind redundant. With multiple points of view of the same scenes, the film lacked the precise editing needed to ensure that every point of view coincides with the others. The film comes to a disappointing conclusion leaving many loose ends and many viewers in the audience asking, “What just happened and why?” I found a couple of the points of view unnecessary and pointless to the development of the story, such as Forest Whitaker and Sigourney Weaver’s characters. This film should have only lasted about 30 minutes, but with the redundant rewinds, the film lasted an hour and a half. With a better developed story, better acting, and the lose of the rewinds, this could have been an entertaining, edge-of-your-seat thriller. Instead, the audience finds itself feeling confused and antsy waiting for the moment the film finally moves forward.

Even with a topnotch acting ensemble, the acting itself was poorly performed with too much overacting and a lack of developing believable characters. Dennis Quaid and William Hurt give their best efforts to try and save this film, but it is not enough. Director Pete Travis seemed out of his element and overwhelmed with this film. He had one of the main characters getting into two very fatal car accidents during a high speed chase, in resemblance to the high speed chase in The Bourne Ultimatum, and coming out with barely a scratch, while the terrorists never seemed to fare nearly as well. Too much reliance on the fancy, when the simple would have been good enough.

Being rated PG-13 for sequences of intense violence and action, some disturbing images and brief strong language, this film is not for children under the age of 13. This film requires extreme patience as the story takes a while to develop. If you are one that is easily frustrated by a slow moving film, Vantage Point is not for you. The best vantage point for seeing this film may just be from the parking lot outside the theater.

Everyone is from a city called Hope, and hope is where the heart is. It sounds corny, I know, but everyone needs a little corny sometimes. Definitely, Maybe is that corny. The film itself is not corny as in lame or uncreative. The film is corny as in sentimentally hokey, the basic foundation for any classic romantic comedy and just in time for Valentine’s Day!

When his young daughter learns the truths about sexual activity in a school class and becomes interested in the story of how daddy met mommy, soon-to-be-divorced Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds) becomes backed into a corner. After much deliberation, Will finally gives in to her and tells the story to his daughter, Maya (Abigail Breslin). His story revolves around love, politics, and ultimately the pursuit of happiness. Starting with the Clinton Campaign in 1992, Will relives his past as an ambitious young man learning the ins and outs of big time politics and the history of his romantic relationships with three very different women. He tells his story in a much softer interpretation for his daughter changing the names so Maya has to guess who the woman is her father finally marries. As the story goes along, Maya tries to put the pieces together to determine which of the three women is her mother. She determines from the story that love is not as easy as she thought, and helps her father understand that it is never too late to look for lost happiness.

After dominating comedies (National Lampoon’s Van Wilder, Waiting…), action (Blade Trinity), and horror (The Amityville Horror), Ryan Reynolds brings his diverse acting skills to the film genre of romantic comedy. Being so versatile as an actor with no role seeming to faze him, Reynolds shows no ill-effect of being a rookie to the genre. With no kids of his own, Reynolds plays a convincing father-figure being witty, affectionate, and willing to open up. His on-screen daughter, Abagail Breslin, is quick-witted and is quick to warm to, comparable to her character in Little Miss Sunshine.

The three women, played by Isla Fisher, Elizabeth Banks, and Rachel Weisz, are each different from the other with each bringing their own unique element to the film. The women each have more than one layer providing the audience with different aspects of the characters. The audience will enjoy the romantic challenge of trying to determine which of the three women is Maya’s mother.

We also receive a surprise appearance from Kevin Kline as the often drunk Hampton Roth. Seems like I haven’t seen him since Wild Wild West.

Don’t let the sight of Abagail Breslin confuse you. With a rating of PG-13 for sexual content, language, and smoking, this film is no place for children under the age of 13. This film is a perfect example of a “chick flick” which is perfect for a first date, a sunny afternoon, or in my case, a wonderful Valentine’s Day film.

I recall the yesteryears of high school days walking into my Honors English class preparing to read the Old English heroic epic poem, Beowulf. A great hero who battles three monsters, sounded like an interesting story. My early perception of the poem was completely false as the story was totally dull and lifeless. Coming into this film expecting the story to have improved under the visual expertise of Robert Zemeckis after his brilliance in The Polar Express, I had high hopes for this film. My hopes for a better story then the dreadful poem were dashed from the get go.

The story is probably known by most so there is no reason to retell it around these parts, as I don’t want to bore you; that was already accomplished in the film. The film deals with a legend composed for entertainment and does not separate between fictional elements and real historic events.

The animation too often is a distraction as the animated versions of the actors cannot provide emotion or even basic facial differentials like the real actors. As a result, we receive flat performances from the likes of Anthony Hopkins, Angelina Jolie, Robin Wright Penn, Ray Winstone, and especially John Malkovich, who seemed to give little to no emotion to his character. Overall, the visuals were fantastic in comparison to a real-time, real-life motion picture.

Coming into this film, it was unknown that so much sexual innuendo would be accessible throughout the film. The character of Beowulf fights and defeats Grendel completely in the nude, his privates being perfectly covered throughout the entire scene which resembled the opening credits from Austin Powers – The Spy Who Shagged Me.

This film was a major disappointment falling back too much on motion capture technology or ridiculously over-the-top action sequences which were neither engaging or death-defying. After being incredibly impressed with Robert Zemeckis’ motion capture technique in The Polar Express, I had high hopes dashed after viewing this film. I found myself bored and wanting much more.

Oil has the power to change people. Look at today’s world, the United States has blatantly taken over Iraq with the intent of consuming the masses of oil under the desert. Iraq, we claim, was coveting “nuclear weapons” when we all know the take over was about the oil. Look out Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, you may be next. This type of pillaging is no different than the oil tycoons who would conform to greed and corruption during the oil boom in California during the turn of the century a hundred years ago. Based on Upton Sinclair’s novel, “Oil!”, There Will Be Blood is a crude and peculiar story about the oil tycoon, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), and his quest to control the oil under his feet.

In all, the film lacks the basics for a fundamental story. The first 15 minutes or so are shown without a single word spoken by Daniel Plainview, who strikes it rich with a discover of oil. The film takes place in a rundown town in California, where the main excitement centers around the sermons of devout preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano). Even with the fortunes from the wells, nothing remains the same for Daniel Plainview after his strike of oil as conflicts intensify and every human virtue is complicated by corruption, deceit, and the discovery of oil. Many themes were brought up in the story without any further explanation with a lot of jumbled information, which just skimmed at the surface. And yet, even with the lack of a story, Paul Thomas Anderson delivers a provocative film in comparison to last year’s Oscar winner for Best Picture, The Departed.

Where would we be without the great American conflicts between greedy corporation and religious fanaticism? This story proves that business people can be blinded by their desires just like religious fanatics.

Daniel Day-Lewis is the reason to see this film. His performance is a lock for the Oscar for Best Actor. His speech, his walk, his powerful presence during the film command respect from the audience. Utterly provocative, awe inspiring, a performance which hasn’t been seen since Denzel Washington in Training Day. Paul Dano plays the overzealous religious figure of the town. Dano’s performance seemed over the top and not believable as a charismatic preacher who only thinks about the good for others.

Of course, the film has an ending that no one will see coming, but is relevant to the rest of the film. Who would have thought that bowling was such a violent sport?

Crime is contagious. Individuals get down on their luck and look to any means to get back on the good side. These individuals seek out help from other individuals who are also down on their luck hoping they will assist on the process to get back on top of society. Crime seizes the best of these individuals usually resulting in being caught and doing some jail time. Crime is greed. Crime is Mad Money.

The story begins when Bridget Cardigan (Diane Keaton) and her husband (Ted Danson) get themselves in a huge debt. To get out of debt, Bridget takes a job at a Federal Reserve Bank in Kansas City. With the help of two co-workers, Nina Brewster (Queen Latifah) and Jackie Truman (Katie Holmes), the three devise a plan to steal money from the bank, but the catch is that the money is moments from being shredded. The plan is successful, and the three women are rewarded with enough money to improve their daily lives. When the women become greedy, and continue to steal without knowing the consequences, their greed would eventually get the best of them.

The three leading ladies in this film seem out of their usual film elements. Not one of these actresses seem right in this film with their usual film personalities consisting of sweetness and comedy. These two aspects do not seem to fit well with story. I have to admit coming into this film, I was not expecting much. But in fact, this film impressed me with its quick wit and quality. I truly believe that this film could have been much better if three different actresses were chosen for the leading roles. Diane Keaton, Katie Holmes, and Queen Latifah don’t rob banks. They are heads of households, teens who hang out by creeks, and beauty shop owners. Crime is not for them.

Diane Keaton carries most of the dialogue being the key character of the story, Queen Latifah brings the heart and soul, and Katie Holmes brings in the loony fun. Ted Danson, as Keaton’s helpful spouse, provides a comic performance that is lacking with the three leading actresses. I wonder if Katie Holmes is kicking herself for not reprising her role as Rachael Dawes in the Batman Begins sequel, The Dark Knight, instead of taking this role. What a big career move in the wrong direction. She is mad for not taking the money that The Dark Knight would have brought her, not to mention the publicity.

The film that had everyone buzzing with curiosity and irritation has final arrived after being kept under the radar by producer J.J. Abrams, the creator of Alias and LOST. Kudos has to be given to the studio and J.J. Abrams for taking a chance on a film that, for example, sent out a casting call to actors and actresses who had to sign on without even reading the script prior to filming. Cloverfield is the first great film of 2008 giving its audience everything it wanted from a roller-coaster film and much, much more.

Warning to the audience: if you are one of those moviegoers that gets motion sickness when watching extremely shaking films with a lot of quick movements, then this film is not for you. Being presented to the audience as found footage from Central Park, Cloverfield focuses on the idea that you’re not just watching a movie but rather, something that was personal and real to people within the footage and is filmed in the form of an unprofessional documentary. With really no established plot or story, the audience is thrown right into the middle of Manhattan where a group of people are throwing a party for a friend who is leaving the country on business. The names and background of the characters is of no importance to the story, which really begins when some enormous creature attacks the city, destroying everything in its path even decapitating the head of the Statue of Liberty. Many people have wondered what the creature is. “What is that thing?” was the question that was on everyone’s mind. The suspense and hype grew to outstanding levels. Well, I will not spoil what the creature is for you here, you will just have to see the film to find out. I will reveal this: the creature is something that will knock you back into your chair and have you leaning forward in anticipation for more.

Cloverfield is The Blair Witch Project meets War of the Worlds. The choice of War of the Worlds fits the “story” of Cloverfield much better than the obvious choice of Godzilla due to the fact that both Cloverfield and War of the Worlds deal with a small group of people unlike Godzilla, which deals with the entire city of New York plus government personal. Some moviegoers may find this film eerie and unbearable to watch with its comparisons to 9/11. The film in a way could have been a documentary about 9/11 with instead of planes hitting buildings in was a giant creature.

The praise has to go to J.J. Abrams for providing his audience with such a unique film that has never been experienced before to this magnitude. Abrams delivers the monster within a few minutes after the initial attack although he does so in stages; a glimpse here and there, a little bit more, and several full image views throughout the last half of the film. The film in a nutshell is a thunderous thrill ride that will toss you upside down and spin you round and round before setting you down in an explosion of havoc and leaving you pleading for more.

Sin City, the place where the people do what they want to do, when they want to do it. To the naked and unknowing eye the movie Sin City may seem to be overly violent and sexist. However, the film is done in the style of film noir, so if one understands and knows what film noir is, it’s easier and more enjoyable to sit down and watch the extraordinarily well done Sin City.

The word “noir” is French for black, giving us the concept of dark film. Being essentially an action genre to often low budget thrillers, noir uses a strong, punchy film making style for maximum impact. These films’ long, sharply-defined shadows, framed in pitch-black darkness, tilted camera angles and claustrophobic masterpieces create an overall artistic view of the night that is easily recognized. Film noir links this look to its dark story lines to express themes of vague inspirations and dreary projections. Using visual elements in this way to express the story is an extreme visual style of heightened perceptions. This movie isn’t pretending to be an important social interpretation. It’s a pulp novel on steroids. It’s a journey into the darkest side of human nature. It never strays from this message, and never blurs the line between its world and our own. And that is why Sin City is a diabolically brilliant as a film.

This film turns comic book cinema into high art. Its visual style and voice-over narratives make you feel as if you were inside Frank Miller’s graphic novel. And the pace of the film is relentless, like a good comic book. Whether someone’s getting shot, stabbed, blown up, or tortured, the viewer is constantly being punched in the gut and kicked in the groin, without any opportunity to catch their breath. This comic book fiction makes an important semi-documentary like Saving Private Ryan look tame by comparison. The point of the violence and nudity is to mirror the corruption of the city. The story is about three characters, each of whom is trying to do what is right in a city that is corrupt. The portrayal of women is exaggerated intentionally. I am sorry for those who find the film challenging to watch because of the amount of violence and nudity which is, admittedly, rather grotesque, and for those who can’t look at the film on a deeper level other than it appearing to be sexist. The film is about the love a man has for a woman, how that love can make a man do anything, even the impossible. It’s also about one person’s struggle (or in this case, three) against an overwhelmingly strong grip that one society has on a city.

Sick, twisted people can be brought to a sort of justice in the end, even in a place where it’s supposed to be impossible. Just remember; whatever you do, no matter how powerful you are, your misguided actions will catch up to you - if you live in Sin City that is.

Life is unfair. Life is when nothing goes your way. Life seems to always kick you in the face when you least expect it. Life is like a Steven Soderbergh film, full of long and boring stretches of film. All of these aspects put together are culminated in Dan in Real Life.

The story begins with an advice columnist, Dan (Steve Carell), and his three wonderful daughters (take wonderful with a grain of salt). Dan, being a widower, struggles to connect with his daughters on life issues, such as boys, love, and driving lessons. The irony is that Dan writes a parenting column for his local paper taking his own life experiences into the work place. Dan finds himself over matched with his strict rules for his daughters, and finds that his advice isn’t always as easy to give in real life. The family travels to Dan’s parents abode for an annual family gathering. In pops Marie (Juliette Binoche) sparking the interest of Dan after a random meeting at a book store near the parent’s home. As it turns out, this woman he falls in love with is actually the girlfriend of his younger brother, Mitch (Dane Cook). With the girl of his dreams going gaga over his brother, Dan finds himself at odds with himself, his love, and his own advice.

The film makes for a good effort, but doesn’t seem to be all there. Some pieces of the story seem to be missing. With these missing elements in the story, the film becomes long, boring, and tedious. Coming off amazing showings in Little Miss Sunshine and 40 Year Old Virgin, Steve Carell has become somewhat overrated with two unimpressive films in Evan Almighty and Dan in Real Life. Carell could have done so much more with this role but seemed to lack the commitment to bring it up another step. The lack of commitment from Carell can be attributed to the lack-luster script written by Pierce Gardner and Director Peter Hedges. The script seemed to be missing a lot of details that were essential to the success of the film. Dane Cook, usually very annoying and humorless, actually gives an nonirritating performance unlike his character in Good Luck Chuck. I found this film to be in comparison with the film, The Family Stone, the unwitty banter, the awkwardness, so awkward making the movie unbearable and ultimately embarrassing to watch at some moments. Those types of films that are so embarrassing to watch due to its irrelevant content will always get low grades in my book.

The Coen Brothers return to the big screen with their adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men. McCarthy has been considered one of the four major American novelists of his time, and has been frequently compared to William Faulkner and Herman Melville by his critics. This sounds like an author whose books should be easily translated into great American films, Oscar worthy at that. The Coen brothers prove this statement to be a farce as this film has too many plots holes that are unable to be filled.

The story begins with Lewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin), a Vietnam veteran-turned-welder who goes hunting one bright, sunny day only to stumble upon a drug deal gone terribly wrong along with the drug money of 2 million dollars. The money is also being sought after by Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), a ruthless killer with no feelings towards human life. With his bottle of compressed air always at his side, Chigurh graciously tracks down Moss from rundown hotel to rundown hotel with a tracker that was hidden in the money before ending with one of the greatest sequences of thrilling suspense ever put onto film with Moss being trapped on one side of a hotel door quietly waiting for his killer, Chigurh, who waits for him on the other side. As the film continues, the bodies continue to pile up including Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson), a bounty hunter paid to kill Chigurh but finds himself on the wrong end of a Chigurh bullet. Tommy Lee Jones gives an inspiring performance as Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, the one man on the tails of the two men in pursuit of the money.

Javier Bardem gives a alarming depiction of Anton Chigurh, who is truly a unique and peculiar character that is infatuated with death which follows him wherever he goes, unless he decides otherwise. Many of his victims plead with him stating, “You don’t have to do this,” while Chigurh’s homicidal ways say otherwise. At times, he grants exceptions to the rule allowing his victims to decide their own destiny with a simple flip of a coin. Anton Chigurh reminds in comparison to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator with his unwillingness to quit leading towards his ultimate goal of exterminating the people that get in his way. Josh Brolin plays an appealing character one that the audience roots for to succeed. When the stakes are highest for him, not only does he try to escape with the money but he tries to evade a psycho killer.

The film works as a first-rate thriller for most of the film before taking a sharp turn into mediocrity with an ending seemingly unsuitable for a film that began with such an exhilarating beginning. The Coen Brothers deliver a somewhat entertaining film, but too many plot holes filled by tedious diversions cause the ending to unravel. Well, you have to look on the bright side, at least they didn’t pull a Fargo by giving the characters strong southern accents.

It all started with a chair and continued with orange tic-tacs, blue slushees, a minivan, truncated gold shorts, horror flicks, a wealthy suburban couple, pie flavored condoms, and ended with a quick-witted, smart-ass pregnant girl who is just trying to figure out herself. This film begins and ends with Juno.

The story begins with a sixteen year old named Juno (Ellen Page) who finds out she is pregnant. The man involved is awkward, odd, and shy Paulie Bleaker (Micheal Cera). With strong support from her parents (J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney), Juno decides to find suitable parents for her unborn baby. By searching through of all things the Penny Saver, Juno finds the parents she is looking for in Vanessa and Mark (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman), a well-to-do suburban couple. Vanessa has been dedicating her life in preparing the perfect house for a new child while Mark seems to be a little hesitant about becoming a father. Mark and Juno develop an interesting relationship where they argue about music and horror films. The relationship becomes awkward and unbearable for either of the two to handle causing Mark to crack under the weight of becoming a father coming to the decision to divorce Vanessa. Juno’s world is turned upside down and inside out causing her to have to learn about life on the run, which ultimately leads her to find out what true love really is.

Director Jason Reitman, coming off the success of his freshmen film, Thank You for Smoking, allows the characters to develop at their own pace and permits them to gel together as one cohesive unit. He doesn’t push the comedy in this film, he allows the comedy to occur at its own pace. Ellen Page gives the performance of her life, providing wit and flawless acting that should grant her the Best Actress Oscar at this years Academy Awards. The supporting cast was terrific in this film; the surrounding characters were portrayed with actors or actresses with solid acting pedigrees, who greatly backed Ellen Page as the title character. When we first meet the adoptive couple, Vanessa comes off as awkward and high strung where as Mark was comfortable and easy-going. As the film goes on, the two characters interchange. Mark turns awkward almost creepy towards Juno where Vanessa becomes closer, more in touch resulting in the end result of divorce and Vanessa taking sole custody of the baby. Micheal Cera, coming off his comic hit (Superbad) is Paulie Bleaker, the father of the unborn child. His character in this film compares greatly to his character in Superbad, uncomfortable, unsure, and unusual.

All the credit of this film’s success should go to Diablo Cody, the former stripper turned screenwriter. Her story is so real and educes charm, laughter, and feeling that hasn’t been felt in a film all year. Ms. Cody proves that anyone and I mean anyone can make a difference in this world even if its only on film. Juno is this year’s Little Miss Sunshine, an independent film to come out of no where to touch our hearts.

Charlie Wilson entered into the demented world that is American politics by protesting the senseless killing of his dog by his next door neighbor. As a teenager at the age of 13, Wilson drove poor neighborhood voters to the polls and proclaimed to each of them that the incumbent had killed his dog. Wilson won the election by sixteen votes causing him to take a divine interest in American politics. Wilson would later become the Democratic United States Representative from the second congressional district in Texas. This is where the story in Charlie Wilson’s War picks up.

When Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks), the congressional womanizing alcoholic, hears of the Soviet plan to invade Afghanistan, he aids the Afghan Mujahideen with anti-aircraft weapons that could take down Soviet helicopters with help from CIA agent Gust Avrakotos (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts). Wilson would eventually succeed in moving $300 million of unused Pentagon funds into the Afghan operation granting Wilson a significant influence on the level of support the Afghan Mujahideen received from the United States. With Wilson’s help, Afghan forces were able to defeat the Soviet Union. It is hard to believe that one man was able to sneak behind the majority of the United States government and provide Afghan forces with weapons. It is hard to believe that one man, a lone congressional representative from the state of Texas was the cause of the Afghan victory over the Soviet Union and the eventual cause of the United States victory in the Cold War.

The film portrays the eventual truth that the covert operation was the cause of funding Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, which ultimately led to the 9/11 attacks. Why is it every country we have helped in the past: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., come back to bit us in the butt? Maybe, it is because we only think of ourselves and our greed causes other countries to loathe us. You know what they say, “If you don’t know history you’re doomed to repeat it.” It seems to be a fitting statement for today’s America and the country’s current affairs around the world. Some people will claim this film is Hollywood liberal crap, but it is in reality a story about a heroic man who did what ever he could to bring down the Soviet Union.

Tom Hanks and Phillip Seymour Hoffman make a great duo with Hoffman ultimately stealing the show from Hanks with his hilarious one-liners. Hanks proves once again that he is a versatile actor who can play any role he puts his mind to. Would it have been possible for Amy Adams to play her own character and Julia Roberts’ character at the same time during this film? Amy Adams is a pleasant, sweet actress who would have owned the character of Joanne Herring, but the role was “granted” to Julia Roberts who outright annoyed and bored me in this film. Director Mike Nichols and Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin deliver a political history lesson without drifting too far from the main storyline. James Newton Howard renders a superb score that should be worthy of an Oscar nod. This entire film is filled with potential Oscar nominees and winners.

Coming into this film, my thinking was that their would only be a few songs here and there throughout the entire hour and 57 minutes of this film. The thought was wrong as the entire film is one long musical composition only giving way for a few breaks for story plots. I am usually not a fan of musicals, although I did enjoy Hairspray, and this film was no exception. If you are a fan of musicals, then you will love Sweeney Todd – The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

The film begins with Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp) being unjustly imprisoned by a treacherous judge (Alan Rickman). Barker returns to London from his punishment of transportation as the barber of Fleet Street, Sweeney Todd seeking revenge on the judge and the entire hierarchical society. A barber turned early 1990s postal worker, Todd slits the throats of his customers and proceeds to send them below where Todd’s partner in crime, Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) turns the bodies into delicious yet malicious mince meat pies. As the crimson paint flows as blood and the Cruella DeVil-like gray strip becomes well-defined, Todd becomes crazed with power and revenge with his blade in hand bringing back visions from his role in Edward Scissorhands, which is directed by Tim Burton.

Tim Burton returns to his much darker side like in such films as Batman, Batman Returns, and Edward Scissorhands, where the film is shot in grays and blacks so that scarlet blood is the only real color in the film and blood-red begins to figure into the mix with characters once they have the proverbial “blood on their hands”. Tim Burton is looking for his first Best Director nomination from the Academy and should be granted that honor with this film. Johnny Depp gives an awe-inspiring performance as the demon barber by putting his entire career on the line and unleashing himself in every possible aspect of his acting repertoire. He transforms himself into this dark, tortured, complicated, evil angel that you know you should dislike but you can’t. The only negative aspect of this film is the performance of Helena Bonham Carter. Her performance is so pessimistic and irritating that I found her to be annoying, and was glad when Todd threw her character into the furnace. The film is appreciative to have a great supporting cast in Sasha Baron Cohen and Alan Rickman. I had never expected to see so much blood in this type of film. Think Tarantino blood. This film should have been called There Will Be Blood, instead of the film starring Daniel Day-Lewis with the same name. Be prepared to become a little squeamish and leave the little ones at home.

Being a history major at a fine university in Iowa, I find the National Treasure films to be unusually entertaining considering the type of made-up history that is portrayed in the films. You think this type of drivel that Disney calls ‘history’ would bother me, but I am in fact intrigued by the conspiracy theories that are proposed in National Treasure – Book of Secrets. Nicholas Cage returns as the treasure hunter, Benjamin Gates in the sequel to the 2004 hit, who finds himself trying to clear the name of his great-great grandfather who is being linked as a traitor along with John Wilkes Booth in the Lincoln assassination. Treasure pirate Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris) calls out Ben and the entire Gates family claiming that their ancestor was a fraud and the leader of the whole plan to assassinate the 16th president after Wilkinson recovered missing pages from John Wilkes Booth’s personal diary. Along the way of proving his great-great grandfather’s innocence, Gates discovers clues that lead him to the White House and his discovery of the President’s Book of Secrets. The book contains the inner most secrets of the United States, including Area 51, the Roswell landing, the Kennedy Assassination, and the secret to the location of the lost city of gold, which contains a treasure so great that it could have changed the outcome of the Civil War in favor of the Confederates. With puppet/director Jon Turtletaub being restricted by puppeteer/executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer, the film struggles with character development and character plots. Character modifications are thrown at you without any development or forewarning such as Ben having a falling out with Abigail (Diane Kruger); Riley (Justin Bartha) having a turn of misfortune between himself and the IRS; and Gates’ father (Jon Voight) having to deal with meeting up with Gates’ mother (Helen Mirren) again after thirty odd years. Like in the first film, Justin Bartha again provides the comic relief, which is lacking from Nicholas Cage. Jon Voight and Helen Mirren, coming off her best actress Oscar from her role in The Queen, provide a great comic team not available in the first film. Ed Harris gives a grand performance as the sly villain, a role he has mastered from past films like The Rock and A History of Violence. I have to give it to Bruckheimer for his ability to provide outstanding visuals and settings. Turteltaub and Bruckheimer keep the film moving at a rapid pace, seldom letting things settle long enough to question the obvious plot holes that were in the script. At least the script set up the possibility of making another sequel with the introduction of Page 47 in the President’s Book of Secrets, which would provide for another rip-roaring, historically cheating rollercoaster.

Everyone in the world has wondered what it would be like if they were the last person on earth. Everyone has had those days when they wished everyone else would vanish and be the only person on the face of this planet. This film plays out everyone’s greatest fantasy with an extra hint of danger. Will Smith stars as the military scientist Robert Neville, the last man on earth after a potential cure for cancer goes wrong turning into a dangerous virus, which turns all humans into blood sucking zombies known as the “dark seekers.” Neville becomes the uncontested mayor of New York, the President of the United States, and the Supreme Ruler of the World who is immune to the virus and works constantly everyday for a cure to the virus that might revert the creatures into the humans they once were in his Washington Square bunker. Smith, along with his german sheppard, Sam, goes along on a daily routine to keep from insanity even setting up mannequins around the city to have conversations with. He spends his days hunting deer, gathering food, listening to Bob Marley, watching Shrek, and capturing “dark seekers” to perform tests on. Hope seems to be lost when Sam becomes infected leaving Smith with no choice but to end her life. Two unaffected humans come in contact with Neville claiming to be heading to Vermont where their is a unaffected colony set up, but the ‘dark seekers’ have another plan setting up one final siege on the Washington Square bunker. I Am Legend is Cast Away meets 28 Days Later. The film is parallel in comparison to the Tom Hanks’ led Cast Away. Smith dominates the screen for much of the film just as Hanks did in Cast Away with a few differences between the two films. Instead of a volleyball as a companion, Smith has a german sheppard. Instead of an island holding him back, Neville has man eatting zombies holding him back. Director Francis Lawerence does a good job keeping this film away from being a strictly sci-fi or horror genre and mixes them both in together to become a compelling drama. Along with his crew, he has created quite a haunting image of an empty New York City that becomes a significant character within the film itself. The CGI is the most disappointing aspect of this film. The “dark seekers” look like the mummys from The Mummy especially the way they open their mouths very wide, and the deer look similar to the deer in The Ring Two. Will Smith provides an Oscar worthy performance (although it will never be acknowledged due to the Academy’s ignorance towards these kind of movies) creating laughs, excitement, tears, and nail-biting suspense that made the whole theater jump. Smith’s commitment towards the character brings out the best in his acting ability which someday will grant him with an Academy Award. After seeing the film, I Am Legend, I believe that Will Smith should have been cast as the voice for Donkey in the animated film, Shrek, instead of Eddie Murphy after Smith impressed me with his precise impersenation of the four-legged talking Donkey during this film. A hidden message is seen in this film reflecting on today’s world that is said by Will Smith quoting Bob Marley: “Even the evildoers of this world don’t take a day off.” No matter the circumstance the good people in this world can not let their guard down to allow the evil people of this world to destroy our way of life. The good people of this world must unite to “light up the darkness.”