Ed's Review Dot Com

CineSon Entertainment, Medici Entertainment, Lucky Monkey Pictures, Gremi Film Production, Filmsmith

Andy Garcia, Julianna Margulies, Steven Strait, Domenik Garcia-Lorido, Ezra Miller, Emily Mortimer, Alan Arkin

I really have to recommend this movie, and very likely it’s one that missed your attention.  It’s an independent film, and is really well acted. Andy Garcia should get an oscar nod for his performance in this movie.  He played it just perfectly.

Andy is a prison guard who hides a secret.  It’s not a bad or an evil secret, in fact, it’s a pretty good thing, but still he’s scared to death his wife will find out what he’s doing.  Yes, this is they typical Bronx family, who all shout at each other and rarely talk.  When they do try to talk nice to each other, things escalate very quickly to a shouting match.  But they do love each other,  it’s just that they don’t know what to do with it.   Every member of the family has secrets, some worse than others, but I don’t want to give them away, as finding out about them is the fun of the movie, and figuring out how they’re going to deal with it is fun too.  One day at the prison, as new prisoner is broght in who should be paroled, but he has no family.  Vince decides to bring him home to live with them, because he is a “friend” of the boy’s mother who is deceased.  The way this new guy blends into the family is funny, and Steven Strait does an excellent job in his character as the ex-prisoner who everyone wants to confide in.  He’s forced to keep everyone’s secrets, and the misunderstands and wrong conclusions escalate to the final climax.  The message of this movie is “Why can’t people just talk to one another?”.

This is one little known movie that you ought to give a chance.  It’s really clever, funny, and really well done.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Summit Entertainment, Applehead Pictures

Amanda Seyfried, Christopher Egan, Vanessa Redgrave, Gael García Bernal, Franco Nero, Luisa Ranieri, Marina Massironi, Lidia Biondi, Milena Vukotic, Luisa De Santis, Marcia DeBonis

This is a COMPLETE chick-flick.  So, keep that in mind.  It’s a love story.   There’s not much more in it than that.  No real excitement, except broken hearts and long lost loves!  It’s has a lot of cliche’s as well.  There is a formula for these kinds of films.  So what makes it so special?   Well, for one thing the scenery is breathtaking.  If you aren’t ready to book a trip to Italy after watching this, you much be dead inside or a total couch potato.  It’s beautiful.  Secondly, it’s a little different twist on the thing. Yeah, the same things happen, but the way they happen are somewhat unique.

Sophie is engaged.   Her boyfriend is a sweet guy, and they’re soon to be married.  But because his pasion is his soon to open restaurant, they decide to take the honeymoon before the wedding.   Besides, running a high end Italian restaurant means a lot of your ingredients will come from Italy anyway, and it’s a great time for him to meet his suppliers.  Sophie is a “fact checker”.  That means you don’t write anything, but you check other’s poeple’s work to make sure everything that is claimed, actually is true.   Sophie is dreaming of being a writer, so writing while on her trip might be the thing she needs.

Well, on a trip to visit Juliet’s home in Verona,  Sophie accidentally crosses paths with the “Secretaries of Juliet”.  The women come to the house, and leave a message to Juliet on the wall, and these fine ladies pick them up, and answer the letters Ann Lander’s style.   Pretty balsy, but they deserve an answer, right?

Well, Sophie sets off on a quest that is perfect for her fact checkers skills, and the adventure begins.  

The movie touches your heart, as everyone faces their own heart and tries to find out what’s most important in their life.  This is a romatic film, and there’s not much for the macho guys who want car chases and explosions.  But if your guy has a soft spot somewhere deep inside him, he’s going to be touched by this story too.  Vanessa Redgrave plays an older English lady who missed out on finding her true love and played, “What if” for the rest of her days.   She steals the show, and does an excellent job. 

So, if you’re a lady asking your other half to watch this with you, feel free.  But warn him first that it’s a love story.  And DON”T be smug or tease him if you see a tear or two throughout the story.  If it’s there, leave him alone, as he’ll be embarrased, but you’ll know in the end, he was touched by it too.  An excellent film that deserves all the buzz.  And it sort of redeems Amanda Seyfried for her awful role in Dear John.  My teenage daughter hated her from the character she played in that film, and was going to give up on her, but after seeing her in this film, she’s a fan again.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog