Genres: Sci-Fi

Actors: John Billingsley, Ellen Crawford, William Katt, Annika Peterson, Richard Riehle, David Lee Smith, Alexis Thorpe, Tony Todd, Steven Littles, Chase Sprague, Robbie Bryan

Director: Richard Schenkman

Country: USA

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An impromptu goodbye party for Professor John Oldman becomes a mysterious interrogation after the retiring scholar reveals to his colleagues he is an immortal who has walked the earth for 14,000 years. Acclaimed Sci-Fi writer Jerome Bixby conceived this story back in the early 1960’s. It would come to be his last great work, finally completing it on his deathbed in April of 1998.

The film is almost intentionally controversial in some of the views, with some challenging ideas on the subject of religion (this isn’t really a film for the easily offended religious types) that lead to some on-screen tension between the religious character and the main character, who has ironically titled himself John Oldman.  Save for a brief interlude or two to develop the relationship between John and Linda, the film is all talk and no action, and takes place in a single location - which is in no way a bad thing when you have such an clever and thought-provoking script to work from. The film does not try to be a thrill ride, but it manages to be suspenseful and captivating and with an ideal running time of 90 minutes, it doesn’t drag on.

The acting is exceptional for an independent film, with David Lee Smith giving an excellent performance as the central character. The presence of John Billingsly, one of the better known members of the cast, is one of a couple of Star Trek references that act as a tribute to the late writer Jerome Bixby, who was best known for his work on Star Trek.

This is a great film, minimalist in the best sense of the word. The filmmakers have not attempted to make this into a thriller, yet they have crafted a film which was as entertaining to me as many of the best action films of recent times. One of the reasons being that The Man From Earth manages to do what so many high budget sci-films couldn’t dream of doing; the scientific explanations actually make the story seem plausible. It is often said that a good film leaves unanswered questions, and this film leaves quite a few, but that was to be expected from such a theoretical story. Obviously, I can’t guarantee that you’ll enjoy it, but if you have any interest at all in the subject matter then you’ll find something to like about this film.

By Richard from BlueSunCorp

Genres: Drama | Family | Romance

Actors: Daniel Radcliffe, Teresa Palmer, Christian Byers, Lee Cormie, James Fraser, Jack Thompson, Kris McQuade, Suzie Wilks, Victoria Hill, Sullivan Stapleton,
Ralph Cotterill, Frank Gallacher

Director: Rod Hardy

Country: Australia , UK , USA

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Set in Australia in the 1960s, the touching drama tells the story of Maps (Daniel Radcliffe), Sparks (Christian Byers), Spit (James Fraser) and Misty (Lee Cormie), four close friends who were all born in December. They live in a Catholic convent and look forward to being adopted. Years pass, the boys grow older, and they come to realize that their dreams may never come true.

But on a summer holiday at the seaside the orphans are given hope of ever gaining a real family. The boys make friends with a young couple, Teresa (Victoria Hill) and Fearless (Sullivan Stapleton), who are unable to have kids and ready to adopt one of the orphans. While Maps experiences his first love, the other boys put their friendship to the test by competing for adoption.

Genres: Western

Actors: John Wayne, Geraldine Page, Ward Bond, Michael Pate, James Arness, Rodolfo Acosta, Leo Gordon, Tom Irish, Lee Aaker, Paul Fix, Rayford Barnes, Frank McGrath, Morry Ogden, Chuck Roberson

Director: John Farrow

Country: USA

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Hondo Lane, a despatch rider for the cavalry, encounters Angie Lowe, a woman living alone with her young son in the midst of hostile Apache territory. She presumes she is safe because the Apaches, under their chief Vittorio, have always left them alone. Later Lane has a run-in with Angie’s reprobate husband and is forced to kill him, not knowing who he is.

Vittorio captures Lane and to save his life, Angie tells the Apache chief that Lane is her husband, unaware that Lane has killed her real husband. In order to protect her from a forced marriage with one of the Apache, Lane reluctantly goes along with the lie, though he knows the truth must eventually come out, to Vittorio and to Angie, both.

Genres: Documentary | Family

Director: Sarah Robertson

Country: USA

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An excellent documentary movie for the whole family tells the story of two remarkable inhabitants of the Arctic — a polar bear and an arctic walrus. It chronicles the lives of Nanu, a baby polar bear, and Seela, a walrus calf, from birth through adolescence, and finally parenthood, depicting the problems the two species must contend with, living in one of the coldest places on Earth.

Genres: Drama | History | Mystery

Actors: Morgan Freeman, Nigel Hawthorne, Anthony Hopkins, Djimon Hounsou, Matthew McConaughey, David Paymer, Pete Postlethwaite, Stellan Skarsgård, Razaaq Adoti, Abu Bakaar Fofanah, Anna Paquin, Tomas Milian, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Derrick N. Ashong, Geno Silva

Director: Steven Spielberg

Country: USA

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"Amistad" is about a 1839 mutiny onboard a slave ship that is traveling towards the Northeast Coast of America. Much of the story involves a court-room drama about the slave who led the revolt.

As the ship is crossing the Atlantic, Cinque, who was a tribal leader in Africa, leads a mutiny and takes over the ship. They continue to sail, hoping to find help when they land. Instead, when they reach the United States, they are imprisoned as runaway slaves.

They don’t speak a word of English, and it seems like they are doomed to die for killing their captors when an abolitionist lawyer decides to take their case, arguing that they were free citizens of another country and not slaves at all. The case finally gets to the Supreme Court, where John Quincy Adams makes an impassioned and eloquent plea for their release.

Another Steven Spielberg cinematic triumph, Amistad garnered four Academy Award nominations – among them, Best Music Original Dramatic Score (John Williams) and Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Anthony Hopkins).

Cinque (Djimon Hounsou), the central character of the film, is lured from the safety of his African village, trapped like a wild animal, and placed in bondage aboard a large slave trading vessel bound for the Caribbean. Chained to the floor and crammed side-by-side in the hull of the galleon, hundreds and hundreds of kidnapped Africans endure brutal and barbaric treatment. They are rarely fed (and very little when food is given), and each must use the bathroom where he sits, vomit where he sits, and some even die while chained to others. The conditions are best described as a literal hell on earth.

These opening scenes, just like Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, are the most vivid and powerful of the entire movie, conjuring an abundance of images certain to brand themselves in your mind forever. In one such scene, around fifteen to twenty African captives are shackled together and bound by a series of chains when one is thrown overboard. This barbarous act results in a chain reaction that drags each of the connected persons to the bottom of the sea.

But the men and women of Amistad don’t submit easily. One of them decides to fight back. Late one night, the opportunity for revolt presents itself and Cinque sparks an uprising against the ship’s crew. He and his fellow countrymen take the ship by force and kill their captors. Now free from bondage, the men attempt to sail home to their native land, but in the darkness of night, they inadvertently sail to America instead.

The grounded ship gains national political interest when the survivors of the Amistad are treated as slaves. Even President Van Buren (Nigel Hawthorne) takes an interest in the matter. When a young and idealistic lawyer named Baldwin (Matthew McConaughey) and a freedman named Joadson (Morgan Freeman) take up the task of representing Cinque’s interests in an American courtroom, the case takes on a life of its own. Cinque reveals the tale of his capture, details of the island sorting facility where future American slaves are processed, and the general torture and mistreatment of human beings in the pursuit of monetary profit. When the case goes before the Supreme Court, former President John Quincy Adams (Anthony Hopkins) enters the picture in an attempt to win a victory for freedom and individual rights…

One of the more dramatic and important films, Amistad opens your eyes to past injustice and provides a general sense of gratitude for the times in which we live. It will make you angry at the horrible practices of preceding generations. But more importantly, Amistad serves as a reminder to both current and future generations that freedom is not to be taken for granted. It is the birthright of all men, and it is our obligation to fight for it whenever we can. This important message, and its historical lessons, make Amistad one movie no American can afford to miss…

Genres: Adventure | Drama | Fantasy

Actors: Charlie Cox, Claire Danes, Robert De Niro, Sienna Miller, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jason Flemyng, Ben Barnes, Mark Burns, Adam Buxton, Henry Cavill, Jake Curran, Elwin ‘Chopper’ David, Frank Ellis, Rupert Everett, Dexter Fletcher

Director: Matthew Vaughn

Country: UK, USA

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In a countryside town bordering on a magical land, a young man makes a promise to his beloved that he’ll retrieve a fallen star by venturing into the magical realm.

"Stardust" based on the best-selling novel by Neil Gaiman illustrated by Charles Vess, takes audiences on an adventure that begins in a village in England and ends up in a magical world.

A young man named Tristan (Charlie Cox) tries to win the heart of village beauty Victoria (Sienna Miller) by promising to bring her a falling star. His journey takes him beyond the walls of his village to a mysterious and forbidden land. When Tristan finds the star, he is stunned to discover that it is, not a lump of meteoric rock, but an angry, injured girl named Yvaine (Claire Danes) – who has no desire to be dragged across the world and presented to anyone’s girlfriend.

But Tristan is not the only one seeking the star. A dying king’s (Peter O’Toole) four sons – not to mention the ghosts of their three dead brothers – all need the star as they vie for the throne. Three evil witches, led by the murderous Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer) seek the star’s heart to make them young again. Tristan and Yvaine are forced to flee together, encountering the captain of a flying pirate ship (Robert De Niro) and a shady trader named Ferdy the Fence (Ricky Gervais) along the way. As they travel Tristan discovers the meaning of true love, but does not realize he’s leading Yvaine into even more danger…

Often as dark and brutal as a tale by the "Brothers Grimm", "Stardust" is decidedly not for young children. There’s an adult sensibility to the romance and the fight scenes are fairly violent. Still, with its heart worn proudly on its sleeve, it’s one of the best date movies of the year, a compatibility litmus test for starry-eyed romantics. (Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer)

There are a few great, wonderful effects in "Stardust" - the pirate airship that flying through the clouds, and Pfeiffer’s zillion-year-old witch, who ages and youthens before our eyes.

Genres: Comedy | Drama | Romance

Actors: Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, Greg Kinnear, Cuba Gooding Jr., Skeet Ulrich, Shirley Knight, Yeardley Smith, Lupe Ontiveros, Jill the Dog, Timer the Dog, Billy the Dog, Bibi Osterwald, Ross Bleckner, Bernadette Balagtas, Jaffe Cohen

Director: James L. Brooks

Country: USA

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The trials and tribulations of a compulsive writer, Melvin Udall. After his homosexual neighbor is brutally beaten, he is entrusted to the care of the neighbor’s dog, with a difficult relationship with a waitress to add on top of that. What develops is a weekend trip/triangle between these three individuals, and together they learn the true meaning of "the sunny side of life".

A slow-burning romantic comedy that builds upon a witty script and smart cast, As Good As It Gets ably distracts our attention from its few flaws. In the hurly-burly of Manhattan even someone as obviously weird as Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson) can get by, ignored by the swell of humanity. Haphazardly picking his way along the sidewalk, avoiding the cracks, Melvin is comfortable in his routine. He scrubs his hands obsessively, harangues anyone who upsets him and expects breakfast to be served by Carol Connelly (Helen Hunt). She’s just one of the cafe’s many waitresses but Melvin won’t accept service from another, maybe because Carol tolerates his vile stream of invective.

In his high-rent apartment block Melvin counts no neighbour as a friend and doesn’t consider this to be a loss. Just as long as Melvin’s not disturbed in his writing (successful romantic novels, amazingly) he’ll refrain from railing against all and sundry. Yet disturb his equilibrium, as gay neighbour Simon Bishop (Greg Kinnear) is wont to do, and Melvin will pin your ears back with his no-holds-barred language. Simon’s art-dealer buddy Frank Sachs (Cuba Gooding Jr.) can’t quite believe the unwarranted attack that he is witness to, all down to Simon’s little dog. The crisis comes when Carol’s son Spencer (Jesse James) falls ill, meaning that she can no longer wait on Melvin… Read more

It’s a great Christmas movie. Story takes place during the Yule season, so many of the plot elements are straight out of Charles Dickens’ "A Christmas Carol".

Genres: Crime | Drama | Thriller

Actors: Al Pacino, Alicia Witt, Amy Brenneman, Leelee Sobieski, Benjamin McKenzie, Deborah Kara Unger, William Forsythe, Neal McDonough, Stephen Moyer, Michael Eklund, Michal Yannai, Brendan Fletcher, Carrie Genzel, Dexter Bell, Paul Campbell
Director: Jon Avnet

Country: Germany, USA

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88 Minutes - A suspense-thriller that concerns a college professor who moonlights as a forensic psychiatrist for the FBI receives a death threat that says he has only 88 minutes to live. To save his life, he must use all his skills and training to narrow down the possible suspects, which include a disgruntled student, a jilted former lover and a serial killer on death row.

88 Minutes is a supremely implausible thriller that will probably88 Minutes Movie disappoint many viewers expecting that Pacino would never be involved with something so obviously bad. As it played, I remembered that this is the same Pacino that, for the past five years, has been making less-than-stellar films like Two for the Money, People I Know, and The Recruit, and even made a significant appearance in the film every critic loves to hate, Gigli. While it’s to his credit that he does breathe personality into his otherwise cookie-cutter role in this film, in this case, it proves to be a double-edged sword. Bringing the semblance of intelligence to a film this blatantly stupid only serves to make each contrivance and obvious red herring that he falls for seem all the more mystifying. For a leaned professor and psychologist, this is one dumb guy. Well, he isn’t a dumb guy, he’s just written that way, to paraphrase Jessica Rabbit a bit here.

Many stupefying scenes abound. As part of the countdown from 88 minutes, such reminders appear in other forms. The amount of remaining minutes appears on an overhead projector. Later, it is written on the back of his car. The killer seems to be not only omniscient, but also impeccable in the timing and nature of Gramm’s actions that he would not only notice these things, but that he would do so at just the right time. Although there are several characters that are thrown in to fool us as to who the real culprit is, it won’t be much of a mystery to savvy thriller junkies. While a learned professor and forensic psychologist with a knack for putting things together ingeniously is bewildered, you will probably have it figured out an hour before the end of the film. As too many plot holes abound to warrant diligent attention, the only thing left to keep your interest is what will happen at the end of the countdown, and the reason behind it all.

I’m certain I haven’t always followed the news when serial killers are about to be executed, but it seems to be that Forster is given an extraordinary amount of freedom on his final day. He gets interviewed live on a national news broadcast for an interminable amount of time, and even takes phone calls. Not that it seems plausible that someone could presumably even get convicted and receive the death penalty based almost solely on one psychologist’s testimony on his state of mind when he purportedly committed these heinous acts, but once it’s established, at the very least, the media probably wouldn’t allow such a reviled man free reign to potentially damage the psyche of the family and friends of the victims one more time by giving him an open forum to the world.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to find that 88 Minutes ends up being substandard fare if you look at the filmography of its writer and director. Screenwriter Gary Scott Thompson’s previous work includes such junk food material as The Fast and the Furious, Timecop 2, and K-911 — not exactly indicative of someone that would pull off the crackerjack thriller of the year. Avnet, who replaces initial director James Foley at the helm, has done slightly better, though his only notable film is Fried Green Tomatoes, which is a pretty far cry from the kind of film that 88 Minutes is. Mediocre films like Red Corner and Up Close and Personal are his others.
One gets the impression that the film was meant to star someone much younger, as the diminutive 66-year-old actor plays a college professor who happens to get a lot of very fine 20-something tail on a frequent basis.

I can see him seducing needy, scholastically-challenged students in exchange for better grades, but when they throw themselves at him without any expectations, it does stretch the credibility of the film. In one incredulous scene, Alicia Witt’s character, Kim, decides that in the middle of a stressful chase, she would allure Gramm into talking about the possibility of starting a family with him. My only question is: what magical cologne does Gramm use and how can I get some?

For such a bad, poorly developed movie, I think that 88 Minutes will find an audience among people who will watch any contrived thriller if it contains enough sensationalism and energy to allow for a bit of escapism. To Avnet’s credit, there actually is some intrigue generated through wanting to know just what awaits at the end of the countdown, and also the hows and whys behind the death threats to Gramm. With a brisk pacing and a bevy of beautiful actresses, it’s not difficult to watch as long as you aren’t expecting anything remotely plausible or intelligent to transpire. A Pacino performance, mysterious plot, and eye candy actresses can titillate, even if the vehicle they are in fails to properly stimulate the mind.

Of course, even if the mystery in the film is answered, the bigger one still remains. At this point in Pacino’s esteemed career, why does he stoop to making b-grade, straight-to-video caliber schlock? A few more of these and we can start a countdown of our own — the irrelevancy of his appearances in future films.

Genres: Drama | Romance

Actors: Romola Garai, Charlotte Rampling, Lucy Russell, Michael Fassbender, Sam Neill, Jacqueline Tong, Janine Duvitski, Christopher Benjamin, Jemma Powell, Simon Woods, Alison Pargeter, Seymour Matthews, Tom Georgeson, Una Stubbs, Rosanna Lavelle

Directors: François Ozon

Country: UK, Belgium, France

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Plot Summary: Based on the book by Elizabeth Taylor, "Angel", this is the story of a young woman with incredible imagination who refuses to accept the world around her, and creates her own realities.

François Ozon continues to flirt with literature, melodrama and comedy camp in Angel, which is the closing film here at the Berlin Film Festival. The first full English-language project from the French director is based on the 1957 Elizabeth Taylor novel, which recounts the rise and fall of the titular penny novelist in early 20th century Britain. Like Almodóvar’s La mala educación (Bad Education), Angel is the fullest expression of the director’s obsessions, combining the high camp of 8 femmes (8 Women) with moments of pure melodrama while continuing to explore the intersecting realms of real life and fantasy that were also an important part of Swimming Pool and Sous le Sable (Under the Sand) — as well as Bad Education. What kind of audience would accept Angel on its own terms is hard to say, though an intimate knowledge of Ozon’s previous work would certainly be helpful.

In Ozon’s previous film Le temps qui reste (Time to Leave), which is as austere as Angel is extravagant, a terminal illness forces a young man to face his own mortality, which makes him decide not to tell anyone about his condition but his aging grandmother. In Angel, a successful young novelist is exactly his opposite: she would not dream of not telling anyone anything. Her work is writing romances and her own life is a fairytale that is constantly being rewritten for the press, her friends and even herself. Every dramatic event becomes a lot more bearable when one realises it is all just another plot twist that will lead to the inevitable happy ending. (Only then, life might have another plot twist up its sleeve, as in this film’s teasing coda.

Angel Deverell (Romola Garai, acting her socks off) grows up in a house above her mother’s modest grocery shop in Norley. She dreams of becoming a famous writer and her wish is fulfilled when a publisher (Sam Neill) decides to publish one of her romance manuscripts, much to the dissatisfaction of his icy wife (Ozon regular Charlotte Rampling, who played the writer in Swimming Pool), who sees in Angel an uneducated brat with only mediocre talent (when asked who her favourite writer is, she says: "I don’t have much time to read. I quite like Shakespeare, except when he tries to be funny").

Like 8 femmes, a Technicolor musical riff on the Agatha Christie murder mystery, Angel starts outside in the snow and pays careful attention to sets (by Katia Wyszkop), costumes (Pascaline Chavanne), music (Philippe Rombi) and cinematography (Denis Lenoir), underlining the Gesamtkunstwerk approach of Ozon when working on a large canvas. Like another rousing cinematic Gesamtkunstwerk, Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge!, it revels in its penny novel plot and uses it as an excuse for a design that seeks to be on par with the oversized emotions of the story, bothering less with historical accuracy than with emotional truth. Indeed, many of Angel’s dresses, to name but one aspect, look like something the girls from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert would be proud to wear to a costumed ball.

Both 8 femmes and Angel pay obvious homage to Technicolor studio films and especially Douglas Sirk’s brand of constructed melodramas, ostentatious back projection and all. Angel is nevertheless a distinct creature that also includes honest moments of pure melodrama that hark back to the seriousness of 1930s and 1940s studio pictures. Quite miraculously, they enhance the drama rather than detract from its more than occasional tone of period piece pastiche. The explanation of their peaceful coexistence lies in the fact that Angel, like Ozon, is a storyteller by profession, and you can feel the joy of both in being swept up in the events of their own creation, in Angel’s case to the extent of believing that her life will follow the pattern established by her romances, which makes her a tragic and deeply flawed character that becomes compelling even as the film keeps reminding us she is but a construction herself (of Taylor and, of course, Ozon and Garai).

Angel’s undying love for Esmé (Michael Fassbinder), the brother of her admiring acquaintance-cum-secretary (Lucy Russell) is the stuff romances are made of, though she derives her rules for their romance from the airy, pink-covered confections she writes but he plays by the rules of the dark, expressionist kind of stories that resemble his paintings. The film’s tonal shifts may be more than an audience expecting a straightforward period piece can handle, and like a good old British novel originally published in instalments in a newspaper, the story is stretched over decidedly more episodes than necessary (something that also plagued 8 femmes). Ozon lovers and adventurous filmgoers, however, should definitely try to catch Angel on the big screen.

Release Date: 24 August 2007 (USA)

Genres: Comedy | Drama | Romance

Actors: Scarlett Johansson, Laura Linney, Paul Giamatti, Chris Evans, Donna Murphy, Alicia Keys, Nicholas Art, Nathan Corddry, Cady Huffman, Brande Roderick, Nina Garbiras, Judith Roberts, Alison Wright, Heather Simms, Sakina Jaffrey

Directors: Shari Springer Berman

Country: USA

Plot: A college graduate goes to work as a nanny for a rich New York family. Ensconced in their home, she has to juggle their dysfunction, a new romance, and the spoiled brat in her charge.

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The Nanny Diaries certainly has to be a feel good summer movie, it’s entertaining and sweet and a coming of age story as told through one characters point of view. The ever beautiful and attractive Scarlett Johansson stars as Annie Braddock a suburban New Jersey girl who just graduates college and she has dreams of becoming an anthropologist.

While the main focus of the movie seems to be on the evils of luxury and the importance of raising children, Annie’s sweet, lovable mother consistently nags Annie to enter the world of business and finance in pursuit of a "better" life.

The mother reminds Annie that she worked years of overtime, etc. as a nurse to give Annie the chance to go to a good school and work towards the high life.

She is also appalled to learn of Annie’s waste-of-time job raising a child.The film does have it’s saving graces. Johansson and Evans are both very charming in the film and the rest of the cast do a good job.

But what they succeeded in doing was establish a relationship between Annie and Grayer. Their relationship and could see how much they meant to each other. Their relationship was truly touching and believable.