Kinky Boots

How far would YOU go to save the family business? This twisted funny British comedy is not for everyone, but it certainly will tickle many. Fashionistas should enjoy, folks in the lifestyle should enjoy, and anyone who has ever taken over a family business should at least relate.

Joel Edgerton plays the son who inherits a shoe factory long past it's profitable prime. Challenged to close or change products he finds help in an unexpected place. Chiwetel Ejiofor is way past funny in his role as the drag queen with all the right ideas.

Based on real events, this story is full of great one-liners and classic British humor situations. It is fast-paced and be prepared for some great accents.

Watch this with someone who appreciates a good pair of boots.

9

What started as a 10-minute short for graduate school became this much-discussed movie-with-a-message. Visually stunning, dark, and nightmarish, this animated feature is not for the wee ones. It clearly has Tim Burton's influence stamped all over it. Not many animated projects earn a PG-13 rating.

Featuring the voice talents of some greats including Christopher Plummer and Martin Landau, there are also some newer famous voices like Elijah Wood and Jennifer Connelly.

Just what IS the message or the moral of this story? Paraphrasing one character early in the film, 'Some things in this world are better left as they are found.' That is one way to look at this movie. Another is the last line - 'this world is ours now, it's what we make of it'. That is a different moral, but clearly meant to have an impact on the audience.

Watch this movie with someone who will help you figure out what we are supposed to learn from it.

The Ultimate Gift

Based on Jim Stovall's book of the same name this movie is a classic moralistic work. If you are anything like the main character here you will NOT like this movie. For the rest of us, this piece can be quite moving and educational.

Drew Fuller does a very nice job here portraying the evolution of fairly nasty character. James Garner and Bill Cobbs are his educators and benefactors. Abigail Breslin and Ali Hillis are the recipients of the lessons learned. All-in-all the cast is worthy of the Christmas Eve showing on the Hallmark channel. Enough said?

There are plenty of stereotypes to enjoy, and more than enough tear-jerking scenes. But, that is the point. This story plays on our emotions and our sentiments to teach us a lesson.

Watch this movie with someone who will not mind if you cry a bit during the show.

La mujer sin cabeza (The Headless Woman)

At worst, this is an incomplete story. At best this is a page from the notebook on life about how guilt impacts the mind. Either way it's not that fun to watch.

Filmed in Argentina it lacks any of the beauty Argentina has to offer, perhaps on purpose. It could have been done in any dry barren location. It is in Spanish with English subtitles. Mercifully it is only 87 minutes long.

If you have 90 minutes to blow, watch this with someone who will not hate you for it.

(500) Days of Summer

As the narrator points out early in the movie, this is not a love story. It is however a very clever tale of 20-something angst, self-absorption, and Relationship Theory 101. I'm guessing the people who liked Zach and Mira's porno and Away We Go will most likely like, or at least relate to, this movie also. To me, this is by far the best of the three. Perhaps it's a generational thing.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel make awkward chemistry, but that is the point. While they might have been very good for each other, there were not "right" for each other. No, that should not spoil things for you if you have not seen it yet.

My favorite character however was the supportive, beyond-her-years wise, younger sister. Chloe Moretz is great, as is her character.

Musically this movie is all over the place, and yet perfect at the same time. There are tributes to French, Swedish, and other European cinema stereotypes. There is out-of-sequence storytelling, and MTV editing. There are also some very smart split-screen scenes towards the end of the movie. These are my favorites actually.

Watch this movie with someone who will not be so put off by the negative beginning that they will miss best parts of the movie.

Perro Come Perro (Dog Eat Dog)

Columbia's entry for the 2008 Academy Awards won several awards from Latin American film festivals and were nominated for more from some north of the border, including Sundance.

The acting is first rate and the music is perfect. The story moves a little slow, but has a very interesting point for the patient. It is billed as a thriller, but I suggest it is more of a crime drama.

Bad guys steal from other bad guys and they do bad things to each other in the process.
Bottom line, everyone loses in this slice-of-life crime story.

Entirely in Spanish with subtitles, here is another movie worth reading.

Watch this movie with someone who either speaks very common Spanish or will not mind the subtitles and the weird, freaky, black magic bits.

Inglourious Basterds

Because somebody else already had the title spelled correctly for another project, that's why.

If you liked the spaghetti westerns of the 60's and 70's you will love this movie. The drama building up to something bad happening is thick and slow. You know something is going to happen, but you don't know what or how. And when it finally does happen, it is nothing like what you expected. Delicious.

Quentin Tarantino is wild genius. He worked on this script for over 10 years before getting serious about it. And in his world, anything is possible. History be damned. No spoilers here. Enjoy the film.

This movie is as much a foreign film as it is a domestic effort. Subtitles are frequent. German and French are spoken as often as English. Be prepared to read. The dialogue is fast and worth enjoying.

This is Brad Pitt's best acting effort since Snatch. He never breaks character. That snarky expression never leaves his face even when he is pretending to be an Italian escort. I predict this character will achieve cult status like other over-the-top Tarantino characters.

Mélanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, and Daniel Brühl, all big names in European cinema show how great they truly are. Hopefully we will see more of them each in future films.

There is really only one bonus feature on the DVD worth watching, and I think it is critical to the movie. "National Pride" is a fictional propaganda film which really should be watched in it's entirety before watching the full film. It will help tremendously with knowing whats going in later in the film. It might be a bit shocking to watch but compared to what's in store, it's rather tame.

Watch this movie with someone who will not get hung up on history, continuity, or the facts.

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

The original was better, but this is a worthy entry. Superstars make it watchable. I can't help it, I like John Travolta better as a bad guy that as a good guy. There is much about this character we can't really understand or appreciate, but you have to enjoy the performance.

Denzel Washington is part victim part suspect here, and he plays it well. As usual Denzel represents us all. "Everyman" is neither a saint nor a total scoundrel. It is the constant wavering between the two that allows us to relate to his characters. There are several obvious nods to Walter Matthew who played his character in the original.

John Turturro and James Gandolfini are great in their supporting roles here. For Gandolfini it must have felt like his Tony Soprano character had been elected Mayor of New York. Not too much difference. I found it a little hard to believe Turturro in the hostage negotiator role given some of his other work, but that is my problem, not his.

Now to the movie itself, this is best if you don't watch with too much of a critical eye on plot and continuity. Like the NY subway itself - it's easier to enjoy the ride if you don't focus too much on the details.

Watch this movie with a big pastrami sandwich like they serve at the Stage Door Deli, it might feel more real that way.

Julie & Julia

Based on two true stories of women who were "saved" by cooking 50 years apart, this is a fun movie for anyone who likes to cook. Nora Ephron has brought us another classic. Thank you.

Meryl Streep plays the one and only Julia Child. For those of us who remember watching her on TV way back when, this story is a wonderful flashback. Her lesser known husband is played brilliantly by Stanley Tucci. We should all be such good spouses.

Amy Adams plays a government worker turning 30 who feels lost in New York City. She discovers blogging and cooking and finds herself again. Chris Messina plays her husband while she cooks her way through Julia's book and posts her successes and failures online.

With a very healthy dose of fact these two stories are told parallel to show the many similarities. Foodies should enjoy many of the scenes where both good and bad practices and ingredients are used. Can you spot the biggest, most obvious error in the boeuf bourguignon scenes? No doubt Juia would groan.

Anyone who has been to cooking class should appreciate those scenes and anyone who has blogged will enjoy that association.

Watch this movie with someone who likes butter.

The Cove

This documentary is difficult to watch. The DVD actually contains 2 documentaries which should probably be watched by anyone who likes seafood, cooked or raw. They both overlap topics of mercury levels in seafood. The movie however is primarily about a group of activists who set out to expose dolphin slaughter at a particular town in Japan. There is a little topic-creep as it gets into the mercury issue however, but it ties in okay at the end.

Richard O'Barry, the original trainer of TV's Flipper, has spent the last 30-some years of his life as a dolphin activist. This movie chronicles one of his latest points of focus.

I say it it difficult to watch because dolphins suffer and die on screen. That was difficult for me to watch. If that is not the case for you, the movie will at least be informative.

The short "Mercury Rising" in the Special Features is a must see for anyone who eats seafood more than a few times a month. Pay attention to your mercury levels.

Other interesting bits here are all the skills used to capture the footage compared to all the resources used to hide and cover up what is going on. Very much a cat and mouse game.

This movie won audience awards at over a dozen well-known film festivals. Will it win any sympathy in your household?

Watch this movie with an open mind.

Keeping the Faith

This is perhaps my favorite Ben Stiller movie. Don't get me wrong, "There's Something About Mary" is a classic and a very fun movie, but I like this one better. Keeping the Faith is a crisp, funny, topical, real story, that most everyone can relate to. Which of the Mary characters do you relate to?

It starts smart and it ends smart. The writing is superb and the acting is not over done like most other Ben Stiller movies. If you are among those who say Stiller can't act, or that he only plays one basic character, watch this movie and let me know what you think. Rabbi Shram is outside his usual tight circle of characters. Zoolander notwithstanding, Stiller usually plays his perception of "Every Man" and sometimes it works. "Meet the Parents" is the best example of that.

But, back to Keeping the Faith. Edward Norton plays a wonderfully comic Catholic Priest who is infatuated with the same girl as Stiller's Rabbi Shram. Yes, there is a joke in there and if you don't think the opening scene is funny, you probably won't like the rest of the movie. It is a perfect set up. Jenna Elfman does some of her best work here as the long time childhood friend of the religious duo who comes back see them as adults. Brilliant - funny - touching.

Anne Bancroft and Eli Wallach play the senior influence on Stiller's character and Milos Forman does the same for Norton's. Great scenes we can all relate to.

Watch this movie with someone you can squeeze.

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

Perhaps my memory of the first installment of this story has faded, but this movie felt more fun than the first. I liked the first one - enough to watch this one. And I'm glad I did. There were some good lines and some great nods to other films.

Can you spot the tip of the hat to Indiana Jones films, Apollo 13, Top Gun, and others?

Ben Stiller reprises his role as the Night Guard at the museum who alone knows the secret of what happens after closing. Hank Azaria steals the show however, with all three of his characters. Amy Adams is very fun as Amelia Earhart. Robin Williams is back as Teddy Roosevelt as are others. Alain Chabat is great as Napoleon.

Voice talent is interesting too here and includes the Jonas Brothers, Eugene Levy, and Brad Garrett. Surprise!

Watch this movie with someone who has a very good imagination and likes going to museums.

Un conte de Noël (A Christmas Tale)

Talk about dysfunctional family holiday gatherings. American families have nothing compared to this Parisian family of 3 generations. Europeans behaving badly or whatever you want to call it, there are plenty of characters to love, to hate, to related to, and to be baffled by.

Catherine Deneuve leads this brilliant cast. Mathieu Amalric plays the middle and craziest of the siblings in this twisted family and Anne Consigny his tortured older sister. Other sibs, their spouses, their children, their friends, and all are played equally masterfully.

The photography is superb and the soundtrack is delicious. If you enjoy both those things, your time will be well-spent with this movie.

That said, this movie is NOT for everyone. It is slow. It is odd. It is in place morbid. Who holds the family hostage over a life-saving marrow donation? Can we even imagine this happening here? I think not. This movie is also in French - prepare to read. But also prepare to watch scenes more than one to see the scene and a second time to read the dialogue.

Watch this movie at your own risk, but be prepared for treasure if you like this sort of thing.