Movie Reviews By Movie Reviews Pro

Alice in Wonderland

Rating:

Movie: Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Studio : Paramount Pictures

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 108 min

Website : aliceinwonderland

Trailer :http://www.dailymotion.com/videoxcevm5

Review:

Roger Ebert was the person who got me started reviewing movies for my middle school newspaper. In preparing for my reviews, I usually read his, and he came to an epiphany about Alice in Wonderland: Lewis Carroll didn’t write it for children. As I watched the film, I reflected back to when I was six years old, when I first saw the film. I remembered being completely confused throughout the film and somewhat frightened when Alice was being chased by the Queen and her mob of cards (I also thought back to why my friends and I were so fascinated by it during college). As I write this review, I realize Tim Burton was the perfect candidate to direct this version, which plays like a tripped-out nightmare (which Carroll’s story essentially is).

This version starts off with little Alice having just returned from Wonderland, being comforted by her father. We quickly cut to Alice at age 19 (likably played by Mia Wasikowska), who is about to enter an arranged marriage with Hamish Ascot, a total doofus (Leo Bill). Rightfully afraid of the monotonous life that awaits her, she flees in the middle of the ceremony and chases another white rabbit down a hole. Two seconds later, she’s back in Underland and off on a new adventure.

The visual elements here are amazing, as is characteristic of Burton. Bonham Carter has (literally) taken on a swelled head for the role of the vengeful, jealous Red Queen, and Tweedledee and Tweedledum are complete grotesques. Burton also gives this world a very dark-looking tone, which is actually even more fitting for the story than the generally pleasant-looking one of the 1951 animated version.

Burton mainstay Tim Burton gives the Mad Hatter (who turns out to be an instrumental ally in Alice’s quest) a third dimension. The story, while slow in spots, picks up when Alice is thrust into a war between the Red Queen and her sister, the benevolent White Queen (Anne Hathaway). There’s also one memorable exchange between Carter and Hathaway that allows us to peer into the mind of the evil Red Queen and infer how she came to be the creature that she is.

I enjoyed the movie, but I’ll warn parents of very young children that this is only for ages 8 and up. A very young child left the theater with his mother, in tears at one of the more violent sequences. However, in a few years, the kid probably will be enthralled by it, as will the parents.

-Craig Wynne

Adventure, Family, Fantasy Adventure, Alice in Wonderland, Family, Fantasy, tim burton

Up in the Air

Rating:

Movie: Up in the Air (2009)

Studio : Paramount

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 109 min

Website : upintheairmovie.com

Trailer :http://www.dailymotion.com/videoxavvdg

Review:

I once read an article in which George Clooney revealed that he sometimes sleeps in a closet with only his pet potbelly pig to keep him company. All that fame and adulation, I remember thinking, and yet he still sounds like a lonely guy. The same may well be said of Ryan Bingham, whom Clooney portrays so admirably in Up in the Air.

Bingham’s job is firing people on behalf of employers who haven’t got the chutzpah to do it themselves. An upmarket loner, he prowls the sterile airports and corporate offices of the nation, stoically clocking up as many employee scalps and air-miles as he can manage. Like any good sociopath worth his salt, he uses an expert line of bullshit to convince himself that he performs all of his duties with the utmost respect and humanity. Once he meets Alex, his soon-to-be lover and fellow traveller, however, cracks in the charming but smugly emotion-free facade begin to show.

The notion of home, and all that it entails, forms the gentle backdrop to the abrasive foreground of this movie. What is brave and refreshing about how Reitman depicts Bingham’s estrangement from ordinary life is that he does not ram it down your throat. It would have been an easy target perhaps to simply accuse Bingham of being the bad guy for firing people in recession-era America and to leave it at that. Instead Reitman builds a subtle web of choices into which Bingham treads at the same time as the viewer. How will he treat Natalie, the snot-nosed young Stanford upstart as he brings her out on the road for training? Will he ever have the balls to step up to the plate and declare his growing feelings for Alex? Thanks to Reitman’s taut and cliché-free direction, we learn the sometimes uneasy answers to these questions at the same instant as Bingham does and this keeps you on your toes throughout. In an age of predictable plots and unearned emotional resolutions this sort of approach to character – where you’re genuinely not sure what he will do in the end – is almost revolutionary.

Interestingly, the people you see being fired by Bingham throughout the movie are in fact all real-life employees who have recently been let go from their jobs. Up in the Air doesn’t lay out the political or economic reasons why this has happened – but it does successfully burrow under the surprisingly sensitive skin of the kind of character that eased it right along.

-Paul Meade

Comedy, Drama, Family, In Theaters, Reviews by Genre, Reviews by Status

The Princess and The Frog

Rating:

Movie: The Princess and The Frog(2009)

Studio : Walt Disney Animation Studios

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 97 min

Website : disney.go.com/disneypictures/princessandthefrog/

Trailer :
http://www.dailymotion.com/videoxaghsp

Review:

Set in New Orleans (or “N’awlins” if you’re a local), Disney’s newest “Princess” is anything but that. Tiana is not a girl who makes demands but fulfills them. She is a workaholic who loves her parents enough to make it all she ever thinks about. Her goal is not a fantastic dream, but the American dream: starting her own restaurant where the world will come and acknowledge her late father’s cuisine.

Her foil is a prince who is comparable to the villainous Gaston from Beauty and The Beast. As royalty, he cares only to entertain himself, and to woo women. When he is cut from his parent’s fortune with an ultimatum to marry into a rich family, he immediately accepts until he encounters a Shadowman (voodoo magician) with plans of his own. It is only their adventure along the way that slowly lets these two understand what they actually wanted and needed in life.

This film is so different from what you would expect out of Disney that I consider it a welcome surprise. One point I particularly like to point out is Tiana’s best friend Charlotte, who is not only someone who shares a mutual friendship with her, but is not the rival you would expect these kind of movies would shape her into. Even more surprising, there is actually a subtle suggestion of racism from one of the characters that gets in the way of Tiana’s dream. To be frank, even the idea of an interracial relationship may not seem very daring these days to a generation that grew up past Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever, but in my eyes it’s another surprise from a conservative company like Disney.

Originally, I was led to believe that this film was going to be totally cel-drawn, but then found out that it was not totally done that way, and I’m glad. There are certain scenes in the film that could only be done with CGI without looking messy. That aside, everything about this film melds together and you really feel this tapestry of N’awlins as you are guided along.

After dealing with a lineup of films that included such awful ideas like an endless torrent of Dwayne Johnson movies and show-inspired teeny bopper fodder, I am glad Disney has finally come to their senses and brought something not only a little more daring, but something that everyone can enjoy for once that doesn’t have a Pixar logo on it.

-Donald Lee

Animation, Family, In Theaters 2009, animated film, daring disney films, disney, Family, princess, princess & the frog, return to Disney's roots

A Serious Man

Rating:

Movie: A Serious Man (2009)

Studio: Studio Canal

Info: Click Here

Runtime: 105 min

Website : filminfocus.com/a_serious_man

Trailer :http://www.dailymotion.com/videoxadxvj

Review:

The Coens appear to be in overdrive at present, spitting out cinematic gems with phenomenal speed and style. From the intimidating and enigmatic No Country for Old Men to the anarchic and whimsical Burn After Reading, there appears to be no end to their ability to redefine both themselves and, in the process, American cinema. A Serious Man is no exception.

The story focuses on the seemingly mundane life of Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a neurotic college professor with a domineering wife, two self-obsessed kids and an idiot-savant brother. Gopnik is a man who likes to live his life with precision and regularity – he is after all a mathematician. However, when the unexpected begins to muscle its way into the cosy but dysfunctional life he has created for himself, the good professor quickly starts to unravel.

Cue his cheating wife and her nauseating but hilarious suitor; cue the son who spends his time finding ways to raise cash to buy marijuana and Santana albums; cue the temptingly sexy neighbour who likes to sunbathe naked in her back yard. In search of a way to overcome his troubles, Gopnik visits a series of Rabbis, two of which offer pretty much useless advice (but the second of which provides the Coens with the opportunity to deliver one of their most dazzling cinematic sequences yet). The third, and allegedly wisest, Rabbi refuses however to see Gopnik, who becomes obsessed with the idea that, if he can just talk to the Rabbi, then his problems will be over. This desperate search for answers, as his marital and financial problems continue to mount, seems though to only lead to more questions.

Channelling the despairing spirit of The Big Lebowski’s German nihilists, A Serious Man carries forward the same brutal themes about the random nature and cruelty of life that were laid out so bleakly in No Country for Old Men. Tapping into their own Jewish upbringing, the Coens deftly manage to portray the rituals and traditions that people invent for themselves as both a perfectly worthy and a perfectly ridiculous way to spend their time. It’s as though they are saying, enjoy the show for now – but don’t forget that the big, bad wolf is waiting outside the door to devour you.

And yet, the way they tell you these cruel truths still makes you laugh and marvel at the beauty of it all.

-Paul Meade

Comedy, Drama, Family, In Theaters