My Favorite Movies

Welcome to my Movies’ page, You’ll find good information about the latest movies I’ve watched and it’s not suppose to be new movies but I can assure it will be good movies…

Movie romances must have two things: an obstacle to keep the apart and a reason to root for them to get together. This has both. Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock have so much chemistry (perhaps based in part on our fond memories of Speed) that we can feel it even though this story gives them only one real scene together. And the obstacle is a nice one. They live in two different time zones. And by that I don't mean EST and PST. They both live in CST -- they're in Chicago. I mean that Alex (Reeves) is an architect living 2004 and Kate (Bullock) is a doctor living in 2006.

Yeah. Don't try to think it through too thoroughly. Just go with it. The tenderness of the story just might make it worthwhile.

Alex and Kate are connected by the title residence. It is a house on the lake, and by that I mean ON the lake. It is on stilts, made all of glass. The view is breathtaking but it is isolated. Kate moves out, leaving a note for the new occupant about forwarding her mail. But he is confused. As he moves in, no one has lived there for years. She refers to pawprints and a box that he can't see. And the date on her note is two years in the future.

It seems the mailbox is a time/space continuum wormhole. Or maybe it is enchanted. The movie does not waste any time with explanations. It just shows us Kate and Alex, revealing themselves to each other through their letters and to us through their interactions with their friends, family, and colleagues. We see them grow toward each other, the very distance and strangness of the connection creating a place for each of them to thaw a part of them that has been isolated and frozen. We realize how -- and why -- destiny is bringing them together, and when it does, it is sweet and satisfying.

Bullock lowers the pilot light on her usual twinkle and allows herself to be vulnerable and even a little aloof. Reeves turns up the pilot light a little bit, giving us more than his usual blankness, letting us feel how much he wants to be with Kate and what he is willing to do to make it happen. If the two elements are there, a romantic story has an essential rightness that makes is possible, even a pleasure, to let ourselves believe in it. So, don't ask whether there could be a house made of glass on top of a lake or whether Kate kept driving back to the mailbox. Just enjoy it.

This movie, based on a true story, takes it a step further. Coach Ken Carter (Samuel L. Jackson), a star athlete himself in an inner-city California high school returns to coach the team. He insists that each member of the team sign a contract that includes wearing jacket and tie on game days, attending all classes and sitting in the front row in each one, and maintaining a higher grade point average than the minimum required for participation in sports. He wanted more for the young men than a winning season. Coach Carter wanted them to have a winning life, and that means that they had to have grades that would get them into college. In his view, student athletes were students first, athletes second.

This seems simple and straightforward enough unless you are a sports fan. Or unless you are the kind of person who calls himself a "realist" and thinks these kids are not worth trying to save. Their principal falls into that category. She figures that they are not going to graduate anyway, so the best she can do is give them one great experience they can hold onto for the rest of their lives. But Coach Carter wants more. And he wants them to want more.

He brings them together as a team, turning them from playas into players.

Many of the team members are struggling with other pressures, from a pregnant girlfriend (played by pop star Ashanti) to the money and excitement of street crime. Carter shows them that the biggest obstacle is their own fear of trying for more than they have. "Starting today, you will act like winners, play like winners, and, most of all, you will be winners."

Some of the players drop out. They have no interest in school or rules. But some stay in, and the team begins to win. In most movies, there would be one setback as they lose to their cross-town rivals (the kids from the snooty school), and then they would pull themselves together for a rousing defeat of that same team for the state championship. But this movie is different.

On January 4, 1999, the players arrived at the gym to find it padlocked. Carter discovered that they were not living up to their contracts. While a few were attending class and meeting or exceeding the required grade point average, most were not. And Carter would not let them play until all of them were caught up with their schoolwork and made good on all of their promises.

The response by the school and the parents was outrage. Carter was threatened and a brick was thrown through his store window. It became a national news story and the focus of debate.

­­­­­For Carter, this was not about a winning season. It was about a winning life. He wanted his team to qualify for college scholarships. And he wanted them to learn discipline, teamwork, and self-respect.

Jackson is terrific, as always, and his talent to mesmerize an audience makes him a great choice to play a coach who can give hope to people who gave up a long time ago. Just the way he says, "Sir," insisting and inspiring his team to call him "Sir" as well, tells you everything about his character and his relationship to the players. The young cast members are more sure of themselves shooting hoops than they are showing emotion, but Jackson holds the screen so well that he gives them extra focus and presence.

I hope that You Enjoy it As I did.

Andy (Steve Carell) collects "action figures" from movies, comic books, and television series, maintaining them with curatorial scrupulosity in their meticulously preserved original packaging. He is pretty meticulously preserved himself. Like his collection, he is an action figure who gets no action. Andy is, as the title says, a 40-year-old virgin.

Andy is a sweet guy who had a couple of bad experiences as a teenager and then just gave up. The pent-up longing has him so tightly wound that he moves as though it requires his full concentration to make sure that he doesn't explode into a volcano of denied desire. He believes that if he just ignores it, it will all go away. So he spends his weekend making egg salad, and then doesn't eat it. And the highlight of his social life is watching television with his elderly neighbors. And the whole world seems to exist to torture him. He can't even escape a sexy bus poster for a cologne called "Eruption."

When Andy's colleagues at an electronics store discover his secret, they vow to help him cross the threshhold into sexual relations with a woman. They have a lot of theories and a lot of advice. Andy ends up trying everything from taking a drunken girl home to speed-dating and a "sure thing," but everything goes excruciatingly, humiliatingly -- and hilariously -- wrong.

Meanwhile, Andy meets Trish (Catherine Keener), a warm-hearted woman who owns a nearby "Sell it on Ebay" store. The more he comes to like and feel close to her, the more he fears disappointing her or looking foolish due to his lack of experience.

This is a performance anxiety movie, a sort of American Pie for grown-ups. It reaches into our deepest fears of appearing ignorant or foolish or clumsy and shows us that as horrifying as our worst fears are, it is possible to come up with scenarios that are even worse. And because they are happening to someone else, they are not just very funny, but very cathartic.

That makes it the best kind of funny. The clever script is more than just a series of skits and the characters are real and endearingly romantic. The script's structure sets up the narrative direction and the change in the lives of the characters beautifully. The already-legendary chest-waxing scene (no special effects or tricks -- that's Carell's hair getting yanked out) is not just a comedy bit. It is sort of primal scream therapy for Andy and -- like all of his other encounters -- a crucial step on his road to getting in touch with all of his feelings.

Too many raunchy comedies make the mistake of confusing outrageousness with humor (take a look at the horrible Say it Isn't So as one atrocious example). What makes this movie work is that the under-used organ it focuses on is Andy's heart. There is comic peril (no serious injury) and comic barfing, and condom humor. One strength of the movie is that it comes down very clearly on the side of truly intimate, monogamous, and romantic relationships. And another is its portrayal of diverse characters who demonstrate loyalty and compassion. Moreover, while there is some sexist and misogynistic talk, the behavior of the men in the movie and the lessons they learn come down on the side of commitment and love.

Sarah Morton (Charlotte Rampling) is a British "crime fiction writer" who seems to have been based, at least in part, on her real-life counterparts, P.D. James and Ruth Rendell. Burned out and fed up, she pays a visit to her publisher, John Bosload (Charles Dance), in search of a little inspiration. John has just the thing for her - spend a few weeks at his country house in France. There, she will have the peace and quiet she needs to write a new novel. She accepts his offer, and, at first, the secluded place, with its wooded grounds and secluded swimming pool, are perfect. Enter Julie (Ludivine Sagnier), John's rebellious, oversexed, teenage daughter, who intends to share the house with the older, more reserved woman. Sarah is not pleased, and her attempts to establish boundaries are continually flouted by Julie, who brings a new man home every night and keeps Sarah awake with the sounds of her lovemaking. Gradually, however, the relationship between the two softens, until a series of events cause a radical shift.  

The tone of Swimming Pool is much like that of the director François Ozon's Under the Sand (which also starred Rampling) - unhurried, deliberate, and subtly haunting. The director favors long, sustained shots and does not rely too much on close-ups. Swimming Pool is not a fast-paced motion picture, but it has a compelling quality that draws the viewer into its web and traps him/her there. Understanding, however, requires careful attention and constant vigilance. Even in retrospective, the seams between reality and fantasy are not clearly delineated, and it will probably demand a second viewing to complete Swimming Pool's puzzle. A casual, inattentive audience member will either be completely confused by the ending, or, even worse, might miss the twist altogether.

The clues in Swimming Pool require thought and interpretation to decipher. Ozon does not present the answers to his audience in small, easily digestible pieces. There are plenty of hints about what's going on within the movie, but those will mostly be missed or dismissed by even alert viewers. Only at the end does Ozon provide us with a tidbit of evidence that's impossible to ignore.

Swimming Pool does some interesting things with the relationship between Sarah and Julie. At first, these two are obvious antagonists. But, in spite of her anger and irritation at the younger woman's presence, Sarah is also fascinated. Hints of a lesbian attraction are subtle, but unmistakable. And, as things develop and Sarah learns more about Julie, a curious kind of cross-pollination occurs. Julie develops a sense of reserve and Sarah becomes more liberated. The movie stops short of a complete role-reversal, but, before Swimming Pool comes to a close, Sarah has smoked pot and casually offered her body to a handyman and Julie has put on some clothes.

In the middle of a college town, there is evil lurking at the university and hits closer to home.  Professor Andy Safian (Bill Pullman) and his young wife Tracy (Nicole Kidman) are happily married and are trying to have a child.  Andy is concerned by the serial rapes and killings of female college students and wants his student wife to be careful while she is on campus and while coming home.

While visiting his student victim at the hospital, Andy is unexpectedly reunited with surgeon Jed Hill (Alec Baldwin) who went to the same high school.  After a couple of run- ins with Jed, he suggests to Tracy to rent out the third floor of their Victorian home.

After three murders, Andy is suspected of the serial rapes and killings and must have his sperm sample taken at the police station.  Meanwhile, Tracy is experiencing internal bleeding, and Dr. Hill must make a judgment call to also remove her second ovary.  This unfortunate event tears apart Andy and Tracy's relationship and is where the actual thriller begins.  Nicole Kidman, Alec Baldwin and Bill Pullman gave exceptional performances in this murder mystery.

"Is Hitch a noun or a verb?" Sarah (Eva Mendes) asks Alex "Hitch" Hitchens (Will Smith). "It depends," he answers. It's actually a little of both. Hitch is a "date doctor," a sort of Straight Eye for the Straight Guy who advises men on how to appeal to the women of their dreams. Hitch as in "stick with him if you want to get hitched."

He tells his clients that "any man has the chance to sweep a woman off her feet. You just need the right broom." He advises them on everything from the first look ("Sixty percent of all human communication is non-verbal. Thirty percent is your tone.") to the first kiss (he advises the men to lean in ninety percent of the way and let her come that last ten percent toward him). He gives them tips on grooming and attire. And he reminds them to listen and respond, to let the women know really get to know them -- just maybe not all at once.

Hitch has it all figured out -- for other guys. His heart was broken back in college and he's never risked it again.

And in the other corner, ladies and gentlemen, we have Sarah, a gossip columnist who is cynical about love.

Hitch is advising a nebbishy accountant (Kevin James) who is in love with a beautiful heiress (Amber Valetta). This is the very same heiress whose love life is documented on a daily basis by Sarah, who cannot seem to understand this new relationship. Meanwhile, not knowing what his connection is to the the beast to the heiress' beauty, Sarah goes on two dates with Hitch, both of which develop serious, uh, hitches along the way.

It's all familiar romantic comedy territory -- evasions, followed by complications, humiliations, the course of true love's not running smoothly, and then...running a bit more smoothly. And then not smoothly again.

Kevin James is wonderfully funny and just as wonderfully sweet. His joyously dorky dance is sublime, but so is the shyly happy look on his face when he hands the heiress a pen, almost overcome by the thrill of just touching something she will use.