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By Arty Chick, on February 21st, 2010
 This is a wonderful film! It should be on the expanded Academy Awards list for Best Picture, but sadly it isn’t. At least both Christopher Plummer as Tolstoy and Helen Mirren as his wife Sofya are nominated in their respective acting categories. The Last Station is the story of the last years of the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy’s life, his tempestuous relationship with this wife, his coterie of adoring sycophants who turned him into a cult figure, and a young man who became his personal secretary and family confidante.
Fear not though; this is not a [... Keep reading]
By Mainstream Chick, on February 13th, 2010
 Dear John seemed to come out of nowhere Super Bowl weekend to rake in more than $30 million and overtake Avatar atop the Box Office charts. But those aliens of Pandora needn’t worry too much. Movie-goers will write off Dear John way before it gets anywhere near Avatar’s record-breaking totals. Not that it’s a bad movie. It just doesn’t resonate beyond the theater walls. And I didn’t cry once!
Dear John is the latest in a slew of Nicholas Sparks novels to be turned into a big screen romantic drama (The Notebook, A Walk to Remember, Nights [... Keep reading]
By Mainstream Chick, on January 23rd, 2010
 The Private Lives of Pippa Lee is one of those small arty films starring an impressive roster of accomplished actors who probably took the gig for the love of the material rather than box-office glory. It’s a psychological drama tinged with wry humor and melancholy. So if you like that sort of stuff, you’ll probably like this film.
Robin Wright Penn plays Pippa Lee, a middle-aged woman who’s married to a much older man (Herb, played by Alan Arkin) who decides the couple should live out their remaining years together in a staid retirement community in Connecticut. [... Keep reading]
By Mainstream Chick, on January 4th, 2010
 A Single Man is a good movie, but not an entertaining one. Colin Firth delivers a quietly stunning performance as George Falconer, a middle-aged college professor struggling to get through life after the accidental death of his longtime partner, Jim. The movie is set in 1962 Los Angeles against a backdrop of fear involving the Cuban Missile Crisis and an undercurrent of anti-gay sentiment. The story revolves around a single day in George’s life – a day in which he goes about his usual routine while also preparing to commit suicide. Brief, intermittent flashbacks provide [... Keep reading]
By Arty Chick, on January 4th, 2010
 I heard about Chéri when it was around, but being in small town USA, it was only here for an instant and I missed it. Fortunately, it is now on DVD and it is a great chick flick, especially for women over 35. 50+ and still ravishing, Michelle Pfeiffer is lovely playing Léa, a courtesan of a certain age in Belle Époque Paris. Rupert Friend (Albert in The Young Victoria) plays Chéri, the 19-year-old son of one of Léa’s old courtesan rivals (Kathy Bates). He has known and loved Léa since childhood, and [... Keep reading]
By Arty Chick, on January 2nd, 2010
 Another post-apocalyptic movie? Seems there can’t be too many of them these days. The difference though with The Road is that it has a real story and isn’t reliant on special effects to tell it. Adapted from the brilliant Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Cormac McCarthy, it stays very close to the book’s original plot. And that may be why it never gets beyond being a good movie.
The Road is a very bleak, very quiet story of a father and son trying to make it to a better, warmer location after some unnamed cataclysm has turned the [... Keep reading]
By Arty Chick, on December 12th, 2009
 Two questions come to mind when you watch Clint Eastwood’s new feel good movie Invictus. Did rugby really make that big a difference in race relations in South Africa? And just what in the hell are the rules of rugby?
Invictus is a true story (adapted from John Carlin’s book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation) set in 1995 S. Africa shortly after Nelson Mandela was elected President. Racial relations were still very strained and Mandela in his infinite wisdom saw a way to diffuse some of the tension by uniting the country [... Keep reading]
By Mainstream Chick, on December 5th, 2009
 Simply put: If you liked Jerry Maguire or Antwone Fisher (both excellent films, by the way) then you’ll definitely like The Blind Side. It’s not so much a movie about football as it is a movie about human kindness, defining family, overcoming adversity, and beating the odds. In other words (if you’re a sap like me), bring Kleenex.
The Blind Side is based on the true story of NFL rookie Michael Oher before he joined the pros (go Ravens!). It chronicles Oher’s journey from a quiet, troubled, homeless teen to the adopted son of an affluent, compassionate, football-obsessed family in Memphis.
Newcomer [... Keep reading]
By Mainstream Chick, on November 20th, 2009
New Moon is a guilty pleasure for fans of the Twilight series. It starts off a bit slow, but eventually sucks you in (yes, pun intended). I actually liked it better than the first installment, which managed to make over 300 million dollars despite being a pretty bad movie. So my guess is that the second (and third and fourth and god help us, possibly even fifth) will do pretty darn well no matter what the critics say. Watching this movie is like watching an extended episode of a soap opera or dramatic series that you’re embarrassed to admit [... Keep reading]
By Arty Chick, on November 15th, 2009
 I went to see Precious expecting to tear up during the first scene and go through a box of tissues by the ending, but the trailer gave the wrong impression of this movie. And that is a very good thing. Yes, Precious, the 16 year old heroine of this story, is obese, functionally illiterate, expecting her second child by her father, and is constantly beaten and abused by her mother as Precious opens, but these smart filmmakers have crafted a story that handles all of this with a warm compliment of humor that doesn’t negate the horror, only makes [... Keep reading]
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