“Pirate Radio” (my 0-10 rating: 5)
Genre: Comedy
Director: Richard Curtis
Screenplay: Richard Curtis
Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Darby, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Sturridge, Talulah Riley, January Jones
Time: 2 hrs., 15 min.
Rating: R (for language, and some sexual content including brief nudity)
What to expect? Nostalgia, that’s what.
Hey, having been a part of the [...]

“2012″ (my 0-10 rating: 7)
Genre: Action
Director: Roland Emmerich
Screenplay: Roland Emmerich. Harald Kloser
Cast: John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt,
Thandie Newton, Danny Glover, Woody Harrelson, George Segal
Time: 2 hrs., 38 min.
Rating: PG-13 (for intense disaster sequences and some vulgarity)
I d’no. Is there really any room to criticize a movie when it’s so much illuminating fun?
Take [...]

“The Men Who Stare at Goats” (my 0-10 quality rating: 6)
Genre: Comedy
Director: Grant Heslov
Screenplay: Peter Straughan, based on the 2004 Jon Ronson nonfiction bestseller
Cast: George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey
Time: 1 hr., 33 min.
Rating: R (vulgarity, some drug content, brief nudity)
OK, yeah,… I can see the creative poker-faced comedy it’s shooting for, but [...]

“Amelia” (my 0-10 rating: 8 )
Genre: Biography, Drama.
Director: Mira Nair.
Screenplay: Ronald Bass, Anna Hamilton Phelan, based on the books “East to the Dawn” by Susan Butler and “The Sound of Wings” by Mary S. Lovell.
Cast: Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston
Time: 1 hr., 51 min.
Rating: PG (some sexuality, vulgarity)
A fine and continuously entertaining, [...]

BOTTOM LINE: “District 9″ wins big points for originality, execution and its decidedly risky story and execution, given its pitch as a mainstream film. The film however overstays its welcome and descends into typical Hollywood convention, action and noise by the end.
THE GOOD: There is much to praise in this film by young upcoming director [...]

This weekend I was one of the many who went to see Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds.”
The movie begins in the idyllic French countryside at the home of a dairy farmer and his three daughters. Down the country road rumble the Nazi soldiers led by the much dreaded Col. Hans ‘Jew Hunter’ Landa (a terrific Christoph [...]

“Julie & Julia” (my 0-10 rating: 7 )
Director: Nora Ephron
Screenplay: Nora Ephron, Julie Powell
Cast: Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci, Chris Messina
Time: 2 hrs., 13 min.
Rating: PG-13 (brief strong language and some sensuality)
One of the chick-flickiest of chick flicks, with superb intelligence and refreshing respect for its audience’s intelligence. Expect to be surprised that you [...]

“The Proposal” (my 0-10 rating: 6)
Director: Anne Fletcher
Screenplay: Pete Chiarelli.
Cast: Sandra Bullock, Ryan Reynolds, Mary Steenburgen, Craig T. Nelson, Betty White
Time: 1 hr., 47 min.
Rating: PG-13 (sexual content, nudity and vulgarity)
Yes, it’s old, old material but as always, it ain’t the joke, it’s the way it’s delivered. “The Proposal” is solid entertainment, well-romanced by reasonable [...]

In ‘An Introduction To Film Studies’, Allan Rowe states ‘In normal film viewing we experience simultaneously a number of codes: visual, sound and the codes controlling the linking of one sound or image to another’. These cinematic codes work to produce meaning in a film.
In David Lynch’s 1992 film Twin Peaks : Fire Walk With [...]

By Marty Meltz
“Up” (my 0-10 quality rating: 10) 
(animation) 
Director: Peter Docter, with co-director Bob Peterson 
Screenplay: Bob Peterson 
Voices: Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer, Delroy Lindo, Bob Peterson 
Time: 1 hr., 36 min. 
Rating: PG (perilous action)
A masterpiece of adult-level art and craft of animated films, not to say a wonderfully refreshing plot quality exploring seriously the trials and tribulations of [...]