Sunday, March 15, 2009

Movie Reviews



















































Race to Witch Mountain

“I will get you to your destination, because that is what I do.” Which mountain is that?Dr. Alex Friedman, a discredited astrophysicist UFO expert, enlists the help of Jack Bruno, a Las Vegas cab driver, to protect Sara and Seth, two young siblings with paranormal powers, from the clutches of an organization that wants to use the kids for their nefarious plans. It turns out that the kids are extraterrestrials and that in order to prevent an invasion of Earth, Jack the cabbie must help them reach their spaceship which is buried within Witch Mountain."

Movies like this are rediculous. I really don't buy a movie that is so scientifically implausable. What a silly story. I don't buy the premise that a UFO expert has any creditibility at all anyway. And anybody with paranormal powers? The only slight concilation would be "The Rock." It's a script consistent with his intellectual ability.

Confessions of a Shopaholic

Shop until you drop addiction, or toxic asset? A cautionary tale for the bill collector is onto the scent.Rebecca Bloomwood is a sweet and charming New York City girl (cute as a button) who has a tiny, little problem that is rapidly turning into a big problem: she's hopelessly addicted to shopping and drowning in a sea of debt ($16,000). When she shops, “… the world seems better.”While Rebecca has dreams of working for a top fashion magazine, she can't quite get her foot in the door -- that is, until she snags a job as an advice columnist for a new financial magazine published by the same company. Overnight, her column becomes hugely popular, turning her into an overnight celebrity, but when her compulsive shopping and growing debt issues threaten to destroy her love life and derail her career, she struggles to keep it all from spiraling out of control -- and is ultimately forced to reevaluate what's really important in life. Yes, and there is a little romance at play here as well.


Wow, this looks silly. Making crass materialism look like innocent fun. This silly superficial character how gets a silly superficial job (and probably laughs just like Ann Coulter). When is cute little Rebecca going to get over being 11 years old and join the world of reality? Oh, but she is so cute. She looks like a Republican cheerleader I used to know. Isn't it cute that the movie has a nice little moral lesson that will let little Rebecca evolve from an 11 to a 12 year-old, all in one movie! This is movie is pandering to the uneducated; the director should know better.


Last House on the Left

It is only a movie, a very nasty movie.The night she is to arrive at the remote lakehouse of her family, Mari Collingwood and her friend Paige are kidnapped by Krug, a prison escapee, his lover Sadie and his brother Francis. Brutally raped, terrorized and left for dead, Maria’s only hope is to make it back to the house of her parents John and Emma. Unfortunately, her attackers unknowingly seek shelter from the authorities at the one place she could be safe and are taken in by her parents. When her family becomes aware of the horrifying story, suppressing their rage they lure the killers into a trap. Can they succeed, and will their vengeance make the three strangers curse the day they came to the last house on the left?

I wouldn't want my 14 year-old son to see this movie. even though he would say, "Cool Dad!" He is addicted to "24" and that is enough that he idolizes Jack Bauer, HA. "24" does allow us to talk about it together, but I'm sort of divided on it. Back to the movie, this is as the "R" warning says, "R for sadistic brutal violence including a rape and disturbing images, language, nudity and some drug use." Sadistic brutal violence. There are much better movies out there, and until my son sees the subtle evil going on in these movies, there is no convincing him. As an adult, I hope he will learn to discern on a higher ethical plane, but until then..... Please don't go to this movie, but I know the mainstream(including a lot of Christians) will be salivating over it, completely controlled by the Id of Hollywood. Sorry for the Freudian slip Craig.

Taken

Former government operative Bryan Mills begins the longest 96-hours of his life -- and the hunt for the fearsome organization that has taken his 16 year-old daughter Kim. Mills had only recently given up his government career as what he calls a “preventer” to be near Kim, who lives with Bryan’s ex-wife Lenore and her new husband in Los Angeles. To make ends meet, Bryan joins some former colleagues for special security details (like guarding a pop diva), but most of his time and energy are spent re-connecting with Kim. Bryan’s familial goal is nearly derailed when Kim requests his permission to spend time in Paris with a friend. All too aware of the dangers that could lie ahead for Kim in a foreign land, Bryan says no, but Kim’s disappointment leads him to very reluctantly relent. Bryan’s worst fears are realized when Kim and her friend Amanda are suddenly abducted in broad daylight from the Paris apartment at which they’ve just arrived. Moments before Kim is dragged away by the as yet unseen and unknown assailants, she manages to phone Bryan, who begins to expertly piece together clues that will take him to the darkness of Paris’s underworld, and to the City of Light’s plushest mansions. He determines Kim and Amanda have been taken by Albanian traffickers, who kidnap unassuming young women and, usually within 70 hours, ship them away forever. Bryan Mills will now face nightmares worse than anything he experienced in black ops -- and let nothing and no one stop him from saving his daughter. Once the central characters are introduced, “Taken” morphs into a highly-charged brutish and loud action movie driven with frenetic energy.

Taken has that "24" energy, that paranoia that makes you believe that the "evil" is superintelligent and that beating it is nearly impossible. The suspense formula( which is usually predictable in general) proceeds getting people killed in the process, but justifying the warlike behavior of justifiable homicide. It plays with us by pushing the envelope of justifiable homicide. In a recent show of "24", Jack Bauer says that innocent life sometimes needs to get snuffed out in the cause for freedom. The same rationale that calms the unformed consciences of Iraqi soldiers no doubt propells the confidence of the warlike, justifying their warlike impulses.



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