Valkyrie

You do not have to be a student of German classical music to appreciate all the subtle plot points that go along with the title, but if you know what the original opera composed by Wagner is about, the movie will mean much more.

This is a movie of fast details with lots of characters mostly wearing similar clothes. One cannot afford to drift off or have a lapse of attention. A score card would help. It is best to watch with someone who is also paying attention so that you can double-check names and reference points.

Tom Cruise plays a very autocratic hero here not unlike his last best work in The Last Samurai. He is surrounded by a wonderful collection of experienced stars. Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, and Tom Wilkinson are all co-conspirators and the group gels very well.

The point of the story is told best in the postscript. This is the last of 15 attempts to assassinate Hitler. All obviously failed for various reasons. The Fuhrer sited divine intervention as the reason for the failures. Nine months later Hitler committed suicide.

This is not an anti-Hitler movie. It is not really even anti-Nazi. It is about how not all German soldiers were 100% committed to the oath they all took in support of Hitler. It is correctly complimentary of the fine structure and organization of the army at the time. It correctly points out how many German officers were not in support of the atrocities committed by so many others.

Watch this movie with someone who can help keep up with the pace and the key points.

Defiance

If you like the Bond character played by Daniel Craig, you will most likely love this role for him as well. This is a great story. Maybe even the best "untold" story of WWII. Edward Zwick is a genius. He does these great stories and makes them so captivating that we don't realize we're being taught history.

Liev Schreiber plays the younger brother of Craig's character. This duo is amazing together.

Make sure to watch the special features before you watch the movie. They are so good you may find yourself tearing up. Tears for special features? Yeah, they are that good and will give you a great history lesson about what really happened and who brought the story to light. Chalk up another one for doing family history?

Alexa Davalos is amazing. She gives the second best, second biggest, monologue in the story.

Watch this movie with someone who has family from Central Europe.

Gran Torino

You have to be patient with this movie. You cannot be like the main character and rush to judgement. If you can do those things you are in store for a delicious, tidy, satisfying ending.

Clint Eastwood, in his 66th screen appearance over the 6 decades he has been working, does his usual accomplished job of acting. He also directed and produced this film. I've yet to see anything he has done which I don't like. Eastwood makes good choices.

With a group of relative unknowns, Eastwood tells a story vaguely familiar to all of us, and painfully real to certain segments of society.

If you enjoy a fairly slow but methodical character-development drama, you may like this one. If you can sit through the main character's constant racist dialogue, you may see how it evolves. There are life lessons to be learned by young and old here. Lessons for natives and those born elsewhere too.

Watch this with someone who WAS born outside the United States and see how they react.

Just Like Heaven

If you like quirky romantic comedies, this one puts a cute spin on an old formula. Without being too sappy, this story puts destined souls together is an odd way. If you are big on fate, destiny, or soul mates, you may enjoy this story.

Reese Witherspoon's character pretty much has to die before she meets the man of her dreams. Mark Ruffalo plays the guy and holds his own with big star Witherspoon and a beautiful San Francisco setting. In fact, the setting is part of what brings these two together. The story even has a tidy, satisfying ending for the romantics in the audience.

There are some good laughs and wonderful scenery. There are some fun comic-relief characters as well in the form of Donal Logue (Tao of Steve) and Jon Heder (Napolean Dynamite).

If you like a challenge, watch the hospital scene with a comatose Witherspoon in the bed AND the standing Witherspoon in the same scene. See if you can figure out how they did that scene without special effects, which I assure you, they did not.

Watch this movie with someone from San Francisco who can point out what's real and what's now, if you can find one.

The International

Not quite as cool as 007. Not quite as hip as Austin Powers. Not quite as international as Bourne. And not quite as believable as The Interpreter. I guess that sums up my opinion of this movie. Not quite.

Clive Owen carries the whole cast on his shoulders here, and almost totally over-acts every scene. Almost. Compared to his melodramatic style everyone else seems stiff. Unless everyone else in the story is also over-acting, Owens seems fake to me.

Naomi Watts had no business taking this part. I found her very hard to believe in this role. She seemed to young, too soft, and too inexperienced, to be a New York District Attorney. Sorry, I just couldn't buy it.

I was doing okay with how things played out in this story until the scene in New York's Guggenheim museum. Two NYPD guys have to "clear" security to get their weapons in the museum, but somehow 10 minutes later there are half a dozen guys with Uzi machine guns shooting at them. And how is it that after a five to ten minute gun fight in one of the most famous places in the city there are no sirens or police outside the museum? These things just didn't feel right to me.

Watch this one with someone who really really likes Clive Owen.

The Village Barbershop

The John Ratzenberger of this movie is the same guy who played Cliff in Cheers, but his character is not even close. This Indy film is a delight to watch. It is a comedy but is slow-moving with superb character development.

Putting Shelly Cole opposite Ratzenberger was genius. The two of them are great together. If you ever thought a romantic comedy could be 99% sexless, this project shows it CAN be done.

Chris J. Ford wrote and directed this, and I salute him for the effort.

The characters are likable and even easy to relate to. The older crowd should "get" Ratzenberger's character and the younger crowd should enjoy Cole's. I enjoyed both. I have similar neighbors and got a good laugh out of the polar comparisons.

Watch this movie with a patient person.

Quantum of Solace

Ian Flemming would have been 100 years old when this film was released. It is the 25th Bond film and only the 2nd time a title was taken from a Bond short story instead of one of the novels.

A quantum of solace literally mean a measure of comfort. This IS what this movie is about. All the major characters seek a measure of comfort via vengeance.

You need not have seen the prequel to this movie to enjoy it, but it would help. Casino Royale was Daniel Craig's first appearance as 007 and we say a whole new kind of Bond. That character has more edge, more flaws, more grit, less sense of humor, and less charm. And, in my opinion, this movie continues the recent trend of not having new technology as part of Bond's aresenal. There is no Q, and that is a big part of what made the Bond films of the 60's and 70's so fun.

The Bond Girls in this film are however, true to form. Olga Kurylenko and Gemma Arterton both did a great job. I would not be surprised to see Kurylenko's character back in future stories.

If you get the feeling that this movie feels more like a Jason Bourne story there is a very good reason for that. Many of the same team worked on this picture's stunt scenes and second unit work. The similarities are very obvious.

Also obvious in this movie are the many continuity mistakes. Bond films have been famous for these since the huge Red Mustang Mistake in Diamonds Are Forever. How many can you spot? There are over 20 significant goofs.

Watch this movie AFTER you have seen Casino Royale.