Archive for April, 2012

Before The Door Pictures, Benaroya Pictures, Washington Square Films,

Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Penn Badgley, Simon Baker, Mary McDonnell, Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci, Aasif Mandvi

This exciting drama brings us into the middle of a large investment bank on a day when half of the floor is being let go to lower costs. Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci) has been with the company nineteen years, and has been working on some theoretical financial formulas that are likely to cause chaos in the entire financial world. As he is walked out of the building, he hands a zip drive to one of his co-workers with the instructions to look at this right away. His last words were, “Be careful”. Then he walks out and disappears. As the co-worker discovers, all hell is about to break loose, and he calls his new boss who calls his boss who calls the CEO and they set out on an all night marathon session to decide whether to do the right thing or to cut their losses and run, trying to liquidate before anyone catches on.

I found this drama to be very exciting. The cast is awesome, with Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Demi Moore, and many more. The pace is exciting and they explain the financial world in a way that’s possible to understand. I usually find banking and finance rather boring,but this one was very interesting from start to the very end. In a week where I was really disappointed in the films I got to watch, this was one bright spot. I didn’t expect a lot going in, but was very pleasantly surprised. There was a lot of dialog, but it did explore each person’s concerns and their set of values under which they operate. It was interesting to see how each person dealt with the situation when everything was out of their control. This is typical of big business in general. Some are the greedy bastards, just looking out for themselves, and others really have a conscience. This was a very interesting film.

Click here for the trailer for Margin Call.

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Follow Spot Entertainment, Brave New Films,

Elisabeth Harnois, Clea DuVall, Sean Patrick Flanery, Jensen Ackles, Danneel Harris, Alice Krige, John Doe, Sean Wing, Adair Tishler, Matt Barr

Piper (Elisabeth Harnois) moves to Santa Cruz, Ca. to go to the Institute of Art. She’s an artist and finds work at a sandwich shop. Run by long time hippie Trucker (John Doe), she makes friends with a group of colorful poeople. But her main purpose is to try to locate the daughter she gave up for adoption when she was 15 years old. When she meets a single dad with a little girl named Julia (Adair Tishler) not only does her name match what the adoptive mother named her, but she resembles Piper, and she also is blessed with talent in drawing, Piper wiggles her way into their lives, but the lies pile up. To top it off, there is a lot of drama with the other employees in the shop. Everything has to be resolved before the end of this cute romantic comedy.

This is one of those “way below the radar” films, but is actually a cute little rom-com that was a surprise to me. I had never heard of it and expected a film about a boy with a little 10 inch tall plastic soldier that comes to life and saves the world or something. I forgot that hero also applies to a sandwich (duh) and like a six inch sub or a foot long sub, you could have a ten inch hero!!!

This has a lot of stuff going on. I barely scratched the surface. The story of Piper and her long lost daughter is only one, but there are other stories for each of the other employees of the sandwich shop that make this a very interesting story. There’s romance, heartache, and drama. This is a film that is available for download in many places (including NetFlix Watch Instantly) and is sometimes on Cable. It’s worth seeking out if you’re a fan of Romantic Comedies. It has a lot of laughs, and enough drama and excitement to make it a pleasant experience to watch. I was pleasantly surprised with this film, and was not disappointed at all.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

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Aliquot Films, Deerjen Films, Four of a Kind Productions,

Nick Stahl, Rachel Nichols, Kellan Lutz, Jonathan Tucker, Grace Gummer, Laura Benanti, James McCaffrey, Michael Cerveris, Norman Reedus

Noah Cordin (Nick Stahl) is a country sheriff in a small town who is called in to investigate the break in and murder of a small child. Upon investigation, all leads point to the small town where he was raised, so he has to go back home to investigate this crime. Everyone, it seems, is out to deceive him, and the town is looking out for it’s own.

This is a pretty good direct to video mystery crime thriller. There is no mystery about who the killer is, but the suspense part of this movie is the difficulty Noah has in getting people to talk, and to put the pieces together. The town wants a quick arrest and is pressuring Noah to arrest anyone, but he wants to simply find the truth. This is very much like a Hitchcock thriller where we know the killer, but everything in the investigation tries to lead him astray. It’s not a shoot-em-up car crash spectacle, but it’s a smart intelligent crime story, and quite a surprise as a direct to video film. The actors are not well known, but they are all pretty much up to the task, and it’s a decent film to watch. It’s worth tracking down if you’re able to find it.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

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Michael De Luca Productions, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation,

Jonah Hill, Max Records, Ari Graynor, J.B. Smoove, Sam Rockwell, Landry Bender, Kevin Hernandez, Kylie Bunbury, Method Man, D.W. Moffett, Dreama Walker, Jessica Hecht, Alex Wolff

Noah Griffith (Jonah Hill) is a bit of a screw-up. He’s been kicked out of college and is sitting around home. Mom finally has had it and insists he takes a babysitting job for the 3 neighbor kids. Noah is not in the mood, but finally agrees, only to get a booty call from a girl he has been trying to score with for some time. There is a problem though. He has to make a stop first to pick up a “package” for her, and has to leave for the party right now. So Noah naturally decides to take the kids along for the ride when things quickly spin out of control when dangerous drug lords are out to kill him, and end up chasing the kids and him all over town.

A lot of this film is really silly, just as you would expect it to be. But at the same time it has a lot of jokes that I haven’t quite seen before, and it is pretty funny. Jonah has this character down now, but he has a lot of help in this film. One of the kids is Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez) who was adopted by this lily white family, and has a really bad attitude and loves explosives! He’s a riot sometimes. The bad guys are funny too with J.B.Smoove playing Julio, the first mate of the drug lord who is a riot sometimes. He does a great job in a role that could have been custom built for Arsenio Hall! The story moves along at breakneck speed with a good many laughs and lots of gross outs. This is just what you would expect from a film in this genre. It’s not for everyone, so beware of the crude humor, but if you like this kind of film, you could do much worse in the crack up department. I had fun with this.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

Below is the Red Band (R-Rated) Trailer for this movie

 

 

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Studio Canal, Karla Films, Paradis Films,

Gary Oldman, Kathy Burke, Benedict Cumberbatch, David Dencik, Colin Firth, Stephen Graham, Tom Hardy, CiarĂ¡n Hinds, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Konstantin Khabensky, Svetlana Khodchenkova, Simon McBurney, Mark Strong

This story of the Cold War tells the story of George Smiley (Gary Oldman), a retired agent(due to a failed operation in Hungary), back into work to uncover a Soviet spy within MI6. Due to the failure in Hungary and what has happened since there are 4 senior agents who are suspect, and it’s tough to pin down who has sold out.

This film is a remake of a 1979 TV Miniseries starring Alec Guiness in the role played by Gary Oldman (Smiley). It was a much longer production, and this one probably suffered in the cutting room, trying to get it down to just over two hours. Even though I have not seen the original, I was really unimpressed with this film. It has its fans, that’s for sure. Some people love long slow drawn out spy melodramas, very short on any action, and very cerebral. I think if you’re like this, you’d be more satisfied with the book, however. Not only is the film very deadpan and extremely slow (Dare I say boring?), but a lot of it is left resolved, never explained, and just plain missing any info on it at all. This is one of those films where fans sit around discussing why this happened, and what that means.

For me, I was basically bored silly for two hours, and didn’t really care if they found the mole or not. After all, Reagan’s going to get them to tear down the wall, and the Soviet’s days were numbered anyway.
Not to dis a most likely fascinating book, the film was a disappointment. I didn’t really get into it, and was not happy with the ending in the least. I’d say skip it.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

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