Ed's Review Dot Com

Antena 3 Films, Mount Santa Fe,

Charlie Cox, Wes Bentley, Dougray Scott, Unax Ugalde, Olga Kurylenko, Pablo Lapadula, Golshifteh Farahani, Rusty Lemorande, Ana Torrent

The story of a young journalist, investigating the life of Josemaria (Charlie Cox) who is a candidate for sainthood. JoseMaria was involved in the Spanish Civil war, who had a friend, Manalo (Wes Bentley) who is the journalists own estranged father who is in bad health and on his deathbed. As he learns more about the terrible times his father had, and the tough choices he had to make, the story becomes about forgiveness most of all.

This is an epic film. It tells three stories, really, the modern story of gradual understanding and forgiveness of the journalist for his father. The story of his father, and the hard choices he had to make, and the story of Josemaria and what he did. Manalo and Josemaria were childhood friends whose lives went in different directions, yet still touched each other in numerous ways as they went through the horrors of the civil war. The movie is very big, and the photography is stunning. But the story is a bit too confusing and misses the mark, in my opinion. Some historians, who are scholars on the time period, loved it. For me though, it was kind of a confusing mess. I guess the problem is that I didn’t identify with the story, and therefore didn’t really get caught up in it. I found it to be rather boring and lost interest frequently.

It’s been a bad couple weeks with movies that were disappointing. It’s funny how that seems to go in cycles. We had a period of great historical dramas for a while, and suddenly several that I really didn’t care for. This is one that I felt was a waste of time for me to watch, as I just was simply not interested. I felt disappointed in this film, and didn’t think it was worth the effort. Another dud.

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Filmax Entertainment, Icon Entertainment International, Elixir Films,

Emilio Estevez, Martin Sheen, Deborah Kara Unger, James Nesbitt, Yorick van Wageningen, Spencer Garrett, Antonio Gil-Martinez, Carlos Leal, Simón Andreu, Santi Prego

Tom (Martin Sheen) is an eye doctor, fully involved in his life, when suddenly a call arrives (on the golf course) telling him his only child, a son who is 40 years old was dead. Daniel (Emelio Estevez) was estranged and didn’t agree with his father on very much, and he was in the midst of a pilgrimage along El Camino de Santiago, the Road of St James, across Northern Spain. For centuries, pilgrims have made this 500 mile walk across Spain to stand at the feet of the statue of St. James in the Cathedral at the end of the road. He died on the first day. Tom rushes to Spain to collect Daniel’s body, and decides to finish the walk in Daniel’s name and to find out why his son was doing this thing, and to find himself.

This is a wonderful independant film. You may have seen Martin and Emelio talking about this film during the pre-show at your local theater or on TV. They decided, rather than doing a huge Hollywood film, to make and promote this film independantly. They correctly figured that the public was looking for a really good story that is frewh and new, and not a recycled remake, sequel, or rehash of what we’ve seen before. They pulled this off. The method for making this film is unique too. There was no caravan of equipment, trailers, and busses! They filmed it with portable equipment and, as Emelio loves to point out, with no director’s chair! Emelio has a small part in this film, as he dies in the first couple minutes, but he directed his Dad in the film, and the two did a wonderful job.

Tom meets a bunch of colorful characters along the way, but I’m not going to talk too much about them here as getting to meet them along the way is part of the charm of this film. But I will say that Tom starts out as an angry grouchy old guy who has to learn as much about himself as he does about his son.

This is a wonderful film, very fresh and interesting, and a remarkable story. In addition, the views and stories along the road as fabulous as well. I really enjoyed this film from start to finish, and I’m very glad they took on this project, and completed it with all the love and care they could muster. I highly recommend this movie. It’s truly one of a kind.

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Samuel Goldwyn Films, Whistleblower (Gen One), Barry Films,

Rachel Weisz, Benedict Cumberbatch, Monica Bellucci, Liam Cunningham, David Strathairn, Vanessa Redgrave, David Hewlett, Luke Treadaway, William Hope

The true story of Kathryn Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz) who is a policeman from Nebraska who was sent to Bosnia as part of the UN Peacekeeping force. But she uncovers information that senior U.N. personnel are involved in the sex-trafficking business, and as she tries to rescue the girls and reveal the crimes, she finds that every way she turns is blocked by higher-ups. Feeling they are above the law, they manage to thwart the truth at every turn.

This is a true based on real facts. The facts of the story are despicable. This a subject that needs to be revealed. This film is also graphic enough to show us some scenes that are very hard to look at. But, unfortunately, it didn’t grab me. I know this film was long in making, and that a lot of poeple, including Ms. Weisz worked very hard on that, and I give them the greatest respect for the effort, but it didn’t grab me. It didn’t touch me. We don’t get into the life and personality of Kathryn. We don’t really know how she ticks, or why she did what she did. Also, the story is just not told in a way that’s interesting to grab and hold your attention. She’s a one woman crusader, much like Batman, trying to take on all the bad guys, but she doesn’t get into our head. It’s like any superhero. This is a serious and terribly horrible situation that is going on here, and yet, we don’t get really involved. I am afraid this will not reach many poeple. It deserved a lot more.

Now I will take some of the blame. As an amateur reviewer, I can’t always look through unbiased eyes. I have seen so many times when our mood is great, and we’re feeling good, we can go into a mediocre film and think it’s absolutely wonderful. Likewise, a really good film, just doesn’t catch on a day when our mood is not right going in. Maybe in my own head, I just wasn’t in the fright frame of mind to really get this. But in my humble opinion, it is a story that needs to be told, but just wasn’t outstanding enough in the presentation to accomplish what it should have.

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Regency Enterprises, New Regency Pictures, Contrafilm,

Anna Faris, Chris Evans, Ari Graynor, Blythe Danner, Ed Begley Jr., Joel McHale, Chris Pratt, Zachary Quinto, Andy Samberg, Thomas Lennon

Ally Darling (Anna Faris) is a “twenty-something” who reads an article about the average number of sexual partners and she realizes that she has a lot of ex-boyfriends that all turned out to be losers. She feels like there must be a Mr. Right in there somewhere if she just looks closer, so she takes a vow to not sleep with any other partners and to find her soul mate among her exes. But when she finds it hard to find them, she recruits her neighbor, Colin Shea (Chris Evens) to help her locate them by offering him permission to user her apartment to hide out. He has a new girl every night, but likes to sneak out in the morning to avoid talking to them.

This is a clever romantic comedy. It’s not extremely original, as most of the jokes in here have been used before, but it is upbeat and pretty funny most of the time. Chis Evans’ character is quite interesting. He’s a nice guy living a life that isn’t fulfilling because he doesn’t seem to know any better. Anna Faris is typical Anna Faris. She is flaky and scatterbrained as she always is. But there’s some character of desperation here, and disappointment, that makes it a decent story. There’s some really good chuckles here, and this film is well worth it if you’re in the mood for a simple romantic-comedy to kill some time. After you get to know the Darling family, you’ll see why Ally turned out the way she did! 🙂 Life can be a challenge sometimes. Let’s hope Ally finds the right Mr. Right after all.

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Regency Enterprises, New Regency Pictures, Strike Entertainment,

Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy, Vincent Kartheiser, Olivia Wilde, Johnny Galecki, Alex Pettyfer, Matthew Bomer, Yaya DaCosta, Ethan Peck, Toby Hemingway

In the future, money doesn’t matter, time does. At 25 years old, a clock embedded in your wrist suddenly activates. The good news is that you never age a day past 25. But the bad news is that you only get one more year. Everything costs time. If you are lucky to be born wealthy, you’ll have an unlimited supply of time and you can live forever, but if you are the unlucky one to be born poor, you must never let your clock drop to zero or you will die. Will Salas is one of those who never seems to have more than one day left, is suddenly given the gift of a century from a rich man who is tired of living for centuries and wants to die. With the help of the Sylvia Weis (Amanda Seyfried), the rich daughter of the worlds richest man, Will sets out to help others and fight the system. The Time Keepers, a sort of police squad, are after them as they have become infamous robin hood like robbers.

This is most of all an allegory. TTime is money in this story, and the real underlying story is as simple as rich versus poor. But it’s very interesting because of the clever way they tell the story. There are so many zinger lines and puns about time being like money, that they’re fun to look for as you go through the story. Then, in addition, it is an exciting action film with very suspenseful chase scenes and car crashes.

This is a very intriguing story, and very interesting to watch. With the benefit of the action and adventure, that’s a sure winner. I enjoyed this film, and I recommend it.

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