Posted on February 14, 2013 at 3:59 pm
Reminiscent of this year’s adorable Oscar-nominated short, “Paperman,” this very romantic Australian short is the story of a lonely office worker who falls for a pretty girl in the window of the building across the street.
Posted on February 14, 2013 at 8:00 am
Some of my favorite movie romances are just right for Valentine’s Day. Cuddle up with your valentine and a bowl of popcorn and enjoy these movies about how love makes us crazy and immeasurably happy at the same time.
1. Moonstruck
Love don’t make things nice – it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren’t here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and *die*.
2. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
3. You’ve Got Mail
4. The Philadelphia Story
5. To Have and Have Not
Posted on February 14, 2013 at 8:00 am
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Posted on February 13, 2013 at 6:00 pm
B| Lowest Recommended Age: | High School |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated PG-13 for violence, scary images, and some sexual material |
| Profanity: | Some strong language, crude insult |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | Drinking |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Supernatural images, violence, peril, characters injured and killed, references to loss of parents |
| Diversity Issues: | Diverse characters |
| Date Released to Theaters: | February 14, 2013 |
| Date Released to DVD: | May 20, 2013 |
| Amazon.com ASIN: | B009AMAGXK |
In a small Southern town that feels far from everything, where everyone is “too stupid to leave or too stuck to move,” a teenage boy named Ethan (Alden Ehrenreich) dreams every night of a girl he has never seen. Ethan has recently lost his mother. His father is never there. He is about to start his junior year in high school “so insanity’s inevitable.” But his mother’s best friend Amma (Viola Davis), the local librarian, looks out for him. There are books that he loves. And the dream feels very real and somehow comforting.
Suddenly it is real as Lena Duchannes (Alice Englart) comes to town to live with her uncle, Macon Ravenswood (Jeremy Irons) in a creepy old mansion. Ethan feels an immediate connection, but Lena seems reluctant to talk to him or to make any friends in her new school. Some of the other kids in the class feel the same way. There are rumors that the Ravenswoods have strange powers.
The rumors are true. “You know how some families are musical and some have money. We have powers,” Lena explains. She is a witch or, to use the term her people prefer, she is a “caster.” She is 15 and on her 16th birthday she will be chosen for the light side or the dark.
No one wants Ethan and Lena to be together. But the love they share is stronger than any caster powers from the dark or the light.
The storyline is fairly basic but touches of self-aware humor help to hold our interest. And it is fun to watch Irons swan around in ascots and smoking jackets, striding past the swooping banister-less staircase in his mansion. Thompson and Emmy Rossum clearly relish the chance to chew scenery with Spanish moss hanging all over it. They revel in the Southern gothic setting, tossing off Dixie-isms like “Slap my ass and call me Sally!” and “She looks like death eating a cracker.” Viola Davis does what she can stuck with an exposition role that includes a completely random Nancy Reagan reference. It is also buoyed by the lushy imaginative settings from production designer Richard Sherman and goth-glam costumes from Jeffrey Kurland and an entertaining assortment of literary and popular culture references, from Slaughterhouse Five and poet Charles Bukowski to the “Final Destination” series, Bob Dylan, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Jane Austen. Most important, writer/director Richard LaGravenes creates a world where strange things seem both wonderful and normal. The various transformations, expanding powers, and sense of alienation seem like a tangible reflection (and only mild exaggeration) of the experience of adolescence.
Parents should know that this film includes themes of good and bad magic, some disturbing images, characters in peril, and sad deaths.
Family discussion: Who makes the choice for the casters? What makes Lena different? What do you learn from the sacrifice in the movie?
If you like this, try: the series of books by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, the books read by Ethan and Lena in the movie, and the “Twilight” films
Posted on February 13, 2013 at 6:00 pm
Chases. Explosions. Guns. Crashes. Wisecracks. Punches. Repeat. Repeat again. Yes, it’s the fifth “Die Hard” movie.
Bruce Willis returns as cop John McClane and this time the setting is Moscow. Though he repeatedly says throughout the film’s zippy 90 minutes that he is on vacation, McClane is in Russia to help his estranged son Jack (Australian actor Jai Courtney of “Spartacus”), who has been arrested for attempted murder. It turns out that Jack, who uses his mother’s last name and has not spoken to John in years, is actually under cover for the CIA. Both the Russians and the Americans want a “file” that has been hidden away by a man named Komorov (Sebastian Koch), who is about to go on trial. It contains incriminating information about a high-ranking Russian official. He wants it destroyed. The Americans want to use it to discredit him. The stakes are very high. The chases are very fast. The explosions are very big. The repartee is….not great, but thankfully minimal.
Unlike his “Expendables” colleagues Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, whose 2013 action film releases managed to be both lackluster and overheated, with so much work done on their faces they looked like bad copies of Madame Tussaud’s replicas of themselves, Willis is every bit as good and better than he was in the first “Die Hard” film a quarter century ago. Regrettably, we get only a glimpse of the fabulous Mary Elizabeth Winstead, briefly returning as John’s daughter, Lucy, to drop him at the airport and admonish him to behave (as if!). But Courtney is well-matched to Willis, with their bullet heads, truculent glares, and cocky pleasure in their own outrageous badassery. John may pause for a brief “Cat’s in the Cradle” reverie with Komorov in between dodging bullets, as they ruefully reflect on their failures as fathers, but shortly afterward, as John and Jack awkwardly observe a tender parent-child reunion, they agree that nothing like that would work for them. “We’re not a hugging family,” Jack says. “Damn straight,” agrees his father.
The locations are exotic, and the chase scene through the streets of Moscow is wilder than any since the last “Die Hard.” The titles may be getting increasingly labored but Willis and the stunts make it work.
Parents should know that this film has constant peril and violence. Many characters are injured and killed, and there is a lot of shooting, punching, chases and explosions, some graphic and disturbing images, and strong language.
Family discussion: How are John and Jack alike? Why was Jack so angry with John? What changed his mind?
If you like this, try: the other “Die Hard” movies, especially the first and third
