Lonesome Jim

Lonsome Jim stars Casey Affleck and Liv Tyler as a couple fighting Jim's obsession with his loneliness and depression. "Jim" comes back home to see his brother in an equally vulnerable state and his mother in a fraud accusation. "Jim" is forced to combat his lonely state so that his family can reap the benefits. He finally comforts himself with his female relations, like his mother and "girlfriend". The film has solid cast work and is true to a sensitive script. A solid truthful indie film on display.

The King

The King was an interesting film with a solid working cast of William Hurt and Gael Garcia Bernal. It dealt with the controversy of Religion and the hypocricy that some members of the church use for personal gain. Bernal plays the son of Hurt's character and he comes back to his father with a sense of "immorality" which frightens the Christian town. He sleeps with his father's daughter and kills his father's son. The film was good but nothing great, but it was interesting for a film to take a unique viewpoint of the religious popularity of some American landscapes.

Oscar Predictions

Best Picture

*Babel
*The Departed
*Dreamgirls
*The Last King of Scotland
*United 93

Best Director

*Bill Condon, Dreamgirls
*Paul Greengrass, United 93
*Alejando Innaritu, Babel
*Kevin MacDonald, Last King of Scotland
*Martin Scorsese, The Departed

Best Actor

*Leo DiCaprio, The Departed
*Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson
*Derek Luke, Catch a Fire
*Peter O'Toole, Venus
*Forest Whitaker, Last King of Scotland

Best Actress

*Annette Bening, Running With Scissors
*Penelope Cruz, Volver
*Helen Mirren, The Queen
*Meryl Streep, Devil Wears Prada
*Kate Winslet, Little Children

Best Supp. Actor

*Ben Affleck, Hollywoodland
*James McAvoy, Last King of Scotland
*Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls
*Jack Nicholson, The Departed
*Brad Pitt, Babel

Best Supp. Actress

*Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine
*Jill Clayburgh, Running With Scissors
*Maggie Gyllenhaal, World Trade Center
*Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
*Carmen Maura, Volver

12 And Holding

12 and Holding is a work of underrated masterpiece. Director Michael Cuesta reaffirms the brilliance we all saw in L.I.E. This film has three stories: First off, Jacob gains revenge for his brother's death, Leonard fights his "hunger" and Malee needs her affectionto be met. These three stories is underlined by the major theme of adolescence and immaturity; and who has it: the children or its adults. Brilliant work with a strong cast, most notably Zoe Weizenbaum as Malee and Jeremy Renner as Gus. Hopefully more people will get to see this film, as it is truly insightful of our adult/children relations. Thanks to Cuesta for this film.

So far, from the movies that i've seen this year, here is the order of quality for me.
The first three are really good.
1. United 93
2. Half Nelson
3. 12 And Holding

4. The Departed
5. Sorry, Haters
6. Game 6
7. Akeelah and the Bee
8. Hard Candy
9. American Gun
10. Thank You For Smoking
11. Art School Confidential

Game 6

Game 6 was an interesting look at the juxtaposition between reality and sport. Michael Keaton delivers a very strong performance as a theatre writer and Boston Red Sox fan. His goal for Red Sox victory(or cursed loss) is stronger than his personal, aesthetic goal of playwriting. This was a solid movie. Some questions in this film is: What happened to his father? I feel that it was kind of answered as again, his importance to Game 6 outweighs others. It's a situation that sometimes happens to me when i want to watch football on Sundays and am constantly agaitated when i have other commitments. This was a solid film which includes a good supp. cast with Robert Downey Jr. and Catherine O'Hara. Very underrated script.

Sorry, Haters

Sorry, Haters is one of the most compelling films that i've seen in a long while. It deals with terrorism in a most unique manner. It is a social satire on a political coercion. The film stars Robin Wright Penn and Abdellatif Kechiche as an unlikely pair that meet and it goes haywire. The story is somewhat complicating but i do grasp the major themes, which i feel was pitured quite interestingly. I feel that this film is a satirical look at how Westerners and Western power dictates or manipulates the way we understand the Muslim world. Wright Penn's character seems to be a perfect representation of Western elites gaining power by exploiting Muslim imperfections for their success. It is one of the most intriguing pieces of film one will witness this year. It's one of those movies that shouldnt slip through the cracks.

The Departed

Matt Damon is an undercover mafia guy working with the Boston police. Leo DiCaprio is an undercover cop working in the mafia. Jack Nicholson is the big mafia boss working with the FBI. People get shot, people turn sides, people use cell phones. But whats so great about this film? I agree with many critics who praise the movie, because it was very entertaining, exvciting and thought invoking but i dont see a great film here. How did Matt Damon's character never find out about his wife and Leo? The worst scene for me was when Leo finds the sheet that says "Citizens" and he wakes up to find out that Damon is the "rat". It seemed stupid to me that this film is supposed to tackle with the mob/cop intelligence yet the littlest things get through the cracks. Once i left the theatre, i found myself thinking that this film was another cop/criminal movie and nothing more. I do agree with some of the positive reviews because the film was good and innovative but im not a big fan of it overall. The best part of the cast was DiCaprio and Nicholson. Damon was average. I think the Avaitor was better and i dont feel that the Departed should be a best pic contender. If i would give a nom it would be for DiCaprio as bestactor/supporting but barely.

Art School Confidential

The satirical implication of pretentious art schoolings dealth within this film is worth a quick look, but its play is meaningless in its plot. What does this story tell us? Art is something banal and questionable in its motive but the true sense of aesthetics is not adequately represnted and therefore warrants half a grade. The film had good solid casting, led by Max Minghella, John Malkovich and Jim Broadbent but i thought a better story would have been told minus the detective and the murder plot. I understand the critique of how art can be coerced and i understand that Broadbent's character had commited murder for his art but i saw many flaws in the handling of its murder mystery approach. Overall, i would reccomend this film as its script had some good moments and very funny but i feel that it has flaws.

American Gun

I just saw American Gun and i found it to be one of the more genuine films that i've seen this year. It shows the effects of school shootings towards the family of the assailant, the school exposed, the police officer that witnessed the event and the gun stores. They show how many people are influenced by school shootings. The story looks deeply inside the aftereffects of gun crimes and discusses indirect correlations of this violence. The paths that the characters take are complicating and we dont know what ending this people will find. Whether will they happy or sad. That is the true beauty as our society replicates this action. We will not resume understanding on the Columbine shootings and the recent Dawson school shootings. Instead, we will keep comparing statistics and study variables. What makes a school shooter? The answers cannot be explained unless one talks to every individual in the world with deep connection. This film looks at the subtle trappings of individual liberty and cooperation post-shooting.

While watching this film, i was reminded of how talented Marcia Gay Harden and Forest Whitaker are. Also great were some of the good work by the supporting cast including Nikki Reed, Christopher Marquette and others. Director/Writer Aric Avellino shows great promise in his debut. This film should not be ignored by film critics and analysers of social theory. A great piece.

Thank You For Smoking

I just saw "Thank You For Smoking". I'll be honest, i wasnt too impressed. I like the main question of the film: Do we choose or are we influenced? As a smoker, i do feel that i have the ability and will to choose against smoking but i do it anyways. I feel that the film gave excuses to cigarette advertising, the "freedom" of gun property despite its final attempt to the opposite. I do not feel that the atmosphere of these cigarette firms were created very realistically. I understand that it was meant to be somewhat satirical at all times but i didnt find that the attempt to this satire was succesful. I have a couple of questions about the script: Why are the cigarette guy, the alcohol girl and the gun guy all close friends? It doesnt make sense. Why would Aaron Eckhart's character bring his son into the Marlboro Man's house? Why is the wife angry at the boy? In reality, i dont feel that either of those things would happen.

The best part of the film was Aaron Eckhart's performance. I dont want people to see this as a truly negative "review" but i do feel that their attempt at a satirical observation of the "commercialization" and "moralisation" of cigarettes, alcholol, big business isn't as well narrated as i thought it would be.

Just to say, i have seen a couple of the movies of this early season and would like to put them in order of how good they were.

1. United 93(great work by Paul Greengrass in making us remember the details of 9/11 in an aesthetic complexity)
2. Half Nelson(great performaces. Knock, knock: Who's there. The Interrupting cow. The(WOOOH)
3. Akeelah and the Bee
4. Hard Candy
5. Thank You For Smoking