Remember Me (Movie Review)

‘Remember Me’ does a fine job at making you part of it without you realizing it. If you are into romantic dramas you are going to love it, it is more than just romance though, the importance of family is felt strongly as well. The plot is made up of love and loss and the sense that we have to ‘live in the moments’ because we don’t know when our last day on Earth will be. It is your typical boy-meets-girl story but with a sense of reality in it and a twist of faith.

Our main character Tyler Hawkins (Robert Pattinson) is a troubled soul, who feels completely helpless, he wants to be a hero or a voice to those that need it, like his younger sister Caroline (Ruby Jerins). He had a privileged life growing up, but now wants to make it on his own, away from his workaholic father (Pierce Brosnan); who doesn’t expect anything good out of him. With his poetic boy looks and the sadness he has about him, he has a way with the ladies. His roommate Aidan (Tate Ellington) convinces Tyler to date the daughter of a police officer (Chris Cooper), to spite him for arresting them one night. Tyler has no problem sweeping Ally Craig (Emilie de Ravin) off her feet. Tyler gets lost in his own game and ends up falling for Ally’s quirky personality. She has the ability to show him through their connection by their troubled pasts, that he can live again despite of all the pain he’s felt. She brings out the best in him.

The love connection here is strong; Pattinson and de Ravin make the romance as well as their life stories very real to the audience. It’s hard not to fall in love with Pattinson in this film; he is the typical artsy passionate guy every girl would want. The quarrels among characters, especially “the big fight” between the couple is a bit ridiculous. The script tries to create drama where there really isn’t.  Admittedly the ending is the strongest part of the movie, the filmmakers took a cheap shot at the audience, but it is the reason for the ½ star. It is a cheap shot that works, without it the movie wouldn’t have an impact and it would be easy to forget. We are given subtle hints about the ending throughout the whole movie but we only connect the dots when we arrive to it, it is what will make the audience feel a stronger connection to the story.

I definitely recommend it to the hopeless romantics; it will touch your hearts and leave you a little depressed. You are left with the sense that we do need to cherish every moment and live as if today was our last day.

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

Rated: R for sexual content, brief nudity, some drug material and language.
Release Date: 2009-11-27
Starring: Rebecca Miller
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country:USA
Official Website: www.pippalee.com

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This is definitely a chick flick for smart viewers; the drama which drags most chick flicks is taken lightly and sprinkled with unsuspected moments of hilarity. I didn’t know exactly what to expect of it but I came out glad to have gone through Pippa’s journeys along with her.
 
The film by director Rebecca Miller explores the life of Pippa Lee (Robin Wright Penn) a suburban housewife who seems to have it all together and be leading the perfect life. Her husband (Alan Arkin) an accomplished publisher who is 30 years older than her decides to move them out of NYC to a retirement community in Connecticut. Pippa as the perfect wife follows willingly, although we get a sense there’s something stirring within her that’s about to explode. She begins the narration of the life she has led up to the point where she met her current husband. We start seeing Pippa’s troubled past and wonder how she is so together in her present, but a series of weird occurrences take place which make everything fall in place. As her retired husband decides he can’t live in complete retirement she fills her time with activities and meets a younger man (Keanu Reeves), they begin to help each other through their paths of self-discovery.
 
Blake Lively from ‘Gossip Girl’ plays the younger version of Pippa Lee, her character’s fun, sensual personality combined with her innocence makes us want to help her out of the hole she digs herself into. Younger Pippa loves her mother (Maria Bello) but as she grows up she realizes her household is not what she thought it was, her mother’s addiction to drugs and her father’s (a priest) indifference takes her life for a spin.  
 
These great actors are part of a puzzle that forms a beautifully imperfect picture. All the funny moments make the dramatic plot easy to watch without feeling overwhelmed or sad. Seeing how Pippa’s life turns out despite the complicated “lives†she’s led is delightful, seeing her come in to her own and finally realizing that there was no need to make a perfect persona but that accepting herself and the fact that life is full of surprises was the answer, gives us an uplifting conclusion.

Cop Out (Movie Review)

‘Cop Out’ is well-rounded movie in the sense that each character contributes something different to it, it is this characteristic that makes it entertaining. It is not an original piece though, it is like seeing another sequel of such movies as ‘Lethal Weapon’, although the humor in it does make it stand out more. There are a lot of stereotypes that took away from the movie as well as some bad choices on secondary characters.

The story revolves around two NYPD officers who get into a whole lot of trouble for a baseball card that leads them to solve a major gang plot. Jimmy Monroe (Bruce Willis) seems to have done everything wrong in his life, so he wants to fix his mistakes by paying for his daughter’s wedding. The only issue is that he has the salary of a cop therefore can’t afford the wedding, unless he sells a rare, mint-condition baseball card he owns. His partner, Paul Hodges (Tracy Morgan) is devoted to help him despite of him having his own problems such as dealing with insecurity issues in his marriage. In their journey they loose their card to Dave (Seann William Scott) who becomes their assistant and leads them to the mexican gang who not only is in possession of the card but are also the ones to blame for other crimes in the area. Their leader Poh Boy (Guillermo Diaz) is bloodthirsty and wants nothing more than to expand his drug-dealing business out of Brooklyn, he begins by capturing Mexican beauty Gabriela (Ana De la Reguera) who holds the key for him to accomplish his master plan.

Director Kevin Smith did a good job at casting, Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan. They make a great team, Morgan is hilarious and comes up with the weirdest funniest things to say and do; while Willis with his strong character carries the movie forward as the responsible role he depicts, although he looks most comfortable in the action scenes. Sean William Scott has a love/hate relationship with Morgan, that is very funny in a ‘annoying younger brother’ kind of way. Diaz plays the role of a villain with a comedic side which he does well and De la Reguera is a tough damsel in distress that balances things out. The rest of the latino crew does a horrible job starting by their Spanish. Cory Fernandez should be ashamed of his performance as well as his nonexistent Spanish. I was disappointed with all the stereotypes in the film towards hispanics (mexican gangs, brute unintelligent men, violence, etc).

Overall the film is entertaining, a good laugh. There is lots of unnecessary cursing so make sure to go with adults only. Check out our interview with Willis and Morgan so you can look out for their favorite scenes in the film, as well as the Spanish they picked up on the set.

The Wolfman (Movie Review)

Unfortunately The Wolfman was exactly what I expected it to be, a movie where action prevails and the plot is predictable and hollow, it is basically secondary. I had a moment of hope during the climax of the movie that it was going to be better than I expected, I was wrong. I do give credit to the animation crew as well as those who worked on the settings because they are fantastic.

The main character, Lawrence Talbot (Benecio del Toro) belongs to a theater group in London; he’s a man who is lonely and hasn’t spoken to his family since he was a child. His father sent him to the U.S. to keep him away from his childhood traumas. He’s a man full of pain and suffering, he only returns
home because his brother’s fianceé Gwen Conliffe (Emily Blunt) writes to him about his brother’s disappearance and at his arrival asks him to solve the mystery of his murder. His father (Anthony Hopkins) greets him coldly but with loving words, he’s mysterious and he’s estranged from his family. He lives in a castle where we start to learn about Lawrence Talbot’s childhood and begin to see that although he had a privileged childhood he didn’t have it easy.

The movie develops at a nice rhythm, but since very early on we are able to make conclusions about how it will end. The Puerto Rican actor Benicio del Toro does the role of a man with a dark past and an even darker future perfectly; as a fan of the original movie and a collector of ‘wolfman’ paraphernalia, he studied his character well. I can’t imagine anyone else playing the main role, although there is not much to work from; Del Toro did a good job, especially in the scenes where his physical pain was very real. Hopkins was perfect for the role of the creepy and enigmatic father, it was almost like seeing Lecter with a ‘paternal’ side.

I knew the movie was a thriller but I didn’t know it was also supposed to be a horror flick; it does have moments that startle you but it is far more gory than scary. The cast did a good job and the panorama is beautiful, also the fact that it is placed in the times of Jack the Ripper makes it more attractive. It would have been a better movie if the plot were more engaging. It is definitely not for kids, although at some point it becomes a version of ‘The Beauty and the Beast’ but for adults.

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (Movie Review)

This is definitely a chick flick for smart viewers; the drama which drags most chick flicks is taken lightly and sprinkled with unsuspected moments of hilarity. I didn’t know exactly what to expect of it but I came out glad to have gone through Pippa’s journeys along with her.
 
The film by director Rebecca Miller explores the life of Pippa Lee (Robin Wright Penn) a suburban housewife who seems to have it all together and be leading the perfect life. Her husband (Alan Arkin) an accomplished publisher who is 30 years older than her decides to move them out of NYC to a retirement community in Connecticut. Pippa as the perfect wife follows willingly, although we get a sense there’s something stirring within her that’s about to explode. She begins the narration of the life she has led up to the point where she met her current husband. We start seeing Pippa’s troubled past and wonder how she is so together in her present, but a series of weird occurrences take place which make everything fall in place. As her retired husband decides he can’t live in complete retirement she fills her time with activities and meets a younger man (Keanu Reeves), they begin to help each other through their paths of self-discovery.
 
Blake Lively from ‘Gossip Girl’ plays the younger version of Pippa Lee, her character’s fun, sensual personality combined with her innocence makes us want to help her out of the hole she digs herself into. Younger Pippa loves her mother (Maria Bello) but as she grows up she realizes her household is not what she thought it was, her mother’s addiction to drugs and her father’s (a priest) indifference takes her life for a spin.  
 
These great actors are part of a puzzle that forms a beautifully imperfect picture. All the funny moments make the dramatic plot easy to watch without feeling overwhelmed or sad. Seeing how Pippa’s life turns out despite the complicated “lives” she’s led is delightful, seeing her come in to her own and finally realizing that there was no need to make a perfect persona but that accepting herself and the fact that life is full of surprises was the answer, gives us an uplifting conclusion.

Mammoth (Movie Review)

Unfortunately the movie ‘Mammoth‘ doesn’t match the expectation that the trailer makes us build. The film was all drama and I had hoped to see more than that. It tries too hard to create tension and suspense but at the end nothing happens. It tries to take on too many themes, but doesn’t fully explore anything specific and this is why it fails.

This is the first movie in English by the Swedish director Lukas Moodysson, he is full of new ideas that are not found in Hollywood. ‘Mammoth’ focuses on a upper-middle class family that lives in New York City. Leo (Gael García Bernal) creator of a website for video game fanatics, enters a world new to him of travel and more money which he is not used to. Business takes him away from his family to explore Thailand, a third world country where he is all alone and out of place, at this point the movie touches upon the brutal poverty and child abuse found there. His wife Ellen (Michelle Williams) is a doctor and because of the demands her career entitles she doesn’t have much time for her family, with her husband’s absence she realizes that at home she feels like a stranger and bored. Their only daughter Jackie (Sophie Nyweide)  spends most of her time with her nanny, Gloria (Marife Necesito) and although she has no other option she prefers this than spending time with her mother; on the other hand Gloria who is from the Philippines treats Jackie like a daughter but is always thinking about her family in her native land.

Despite the fact that the movie is not good enough to welcome Moodysson with open arms, we have to appreciate the fact that he chose a Latin star in Gael García Bernal to be his main character in a movie that opens the door to him to the English speaking world. It’s surprising to see Gael García Bernal playing the role of an American who doesn’t have a trace to the latin world whatsoever. It’s a good thing that Moodysson tries to make the movie universal by filming in different places of the planet, but it’s disappointing that the film doesn’t have much essence.

The movie tries to leave us with the moral that family is more important than anything.

The message at the end is confusing though, it goes in a circle that makes us feel as if nothing happened; there’s no resolution or epiphany. It is also hard to feel bad for a family who seem to have everything, although the contrast with Gloria’s family who lives almost in complete poverty in the Philippines is a very interesting touch. I would like to support a director that doesn’t focus on Hollywood and an actor like Gael García Bernal who with his talent will get far, but I don’t think this movie will help much for that.

I don’t think it’s worth coming out of the movie theater confused and a little upset because this movie makes a twirl that leaves us dizzy.

2012 (Movie Review)

If you’ve seen the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” by the same director Roland Emmerich then you’ve seen most of “2012”. It is definitely what one expects after seeing the preview, a movie that has a lot of entertainment value because it is action packed, there is not much more to take from it.
 
Emmerich seems to be stuck in the same genre with the last couple of movies he’s made, movies about the apocalyptic end of the world, this one just adds to that agenda. Not only do they develop a similar plot but the characters also seem to be the same just played by different actors. The movie which lasts 2hrs and 35minutes has a slow beginning and then slowly builds up to the earth cracking and the world sinking in, to comply with a myth from the Mayan calendar about the end of the world. Putting the Mayan calendar into play gives it a good backbone but it is barely discussed in the film, giving a little more thought into it would have made the film less surreal and the ending less utopical and carefree.

Our hero John Cusack (Jackson Curtis) was perfect for the role; he delivers every time and seems to be in control despite of the world falling around him. He is in charge of saving his family and what remains of the human race. Jackson is part of the broken family on which the film mainly focuses on; despite of the length of the film there’s not a real connection between these main characters. Amanda Peet (Kate Curtis) fails to convince me of her role as a caring mother. Chiwetel Ejiofor (Adrian Helmsley) who plays the all knowing scientist is pretty believable and takes on the role of leader with ease.
 
Emmerich wanted to make a film to entertain the audience and it does. The movie doesn’t drag but the fact that the world is ending and these few people are smarter than anyone else and are able to surpass a lot of the obstacles, made the film to me ridiculous to the point that I was laughing on scenes that I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to. If you still want to see the movie it might be best to watch it in the movie theater to appreciate the special effects, otherwise save yourself the money and rent any of Emmerich’s latest films.