Ed's Review Dot Com

Walt Disney Pictures, A113, Babieka,

George Clooney, Hugh Laurie, Britt Robertson, Raffey Cassidy, Tim McGraw, Kathryn Hahn, Keegan-Michael Key

Casey Newton (Britt Robertson) is a dreamer, an optimist. Frank Walker (George Clooney), on the other hand, is a pessimist. He once was a dreamer, but lost his way. The story of Tomorrowland, a Utopian city which may be the last best hope for Earth in the future, begins when Frank was a little boy. He was a child inventor, though not too successful, but he made his way to the New York Worlds Fair in 1964 to try to win. He was given a special pin that allowed him to go to Tomorrowland having been recruited by a little girl, Athena (Raffey Cassidy). Jump to today, and Casey, who’s father Eddie (Tim McGraw) worked for NASA, and she has not given up hope. She keeps reaching for the stars and surprisingly finds one of these little pins too. Together Casey, Frank, and Athena are going to try to go back to Tomorrowland and meet with Nix (Hugh Laurie) to try to repair the damage that has been done.

This was a hell of a little Science Fiction thriller from the folks at Disney with the help of Lucasfilm special effects. It’s stunning in beauty, and very, very fresh in presentation. I saw it in Imax and was blown away by the effects, and simply the beauty of the whole thing. There are many ties back to Disneyland/Walt Disney World and the New York Worlds Fair which provided Walt with some of the most beloved attractions of the parks. From the music to the scenery, even to Athena’s look and dress (She’s Wendy from Peter Pan, I swear), it’s like a trip down memory lane with a stopover in the future we all dreamed about back in the 50’s and 60’s. The story is exciting, and thrilling, and very suspenseful, and they don’t give too much away, so you get to figure it out step by step. Yes, there’s some similarities to other future world movies, but those are mostly homage rather than copying, and truthfully this is certainly one of those films that you never want to end, and you’re sad when the trailers come up. The only thing that would stop this movie from being perfect is, like Wall-E, about an hour and half or so into it they have to go off on their anti-human, anti-American global warming crap and get all preachy and stuff, but don’t let that stop you from enjoying the story. It doesn’t last long, and the preachy guy gets shut-up pretty fast, to the delight of most of the audience. I’m not sure why Disney has to get all Nazi environmentalist on us. Walt used to love and present nature in an educational way teaching us to appreciate the world without getting all “the world is going to end in 10 years if we don’t stop driving cars and producing goods” on us. I don’t want to dwell on that as I’ve gotten up on my soapbox many times about my feelings on Global Warming, so I’m not going to do it again. But that truly is the only negative I could give this film. Even George Clooney does a really decent job as the grown up Frank, which impressed me. He’s carried some heavy duty roles, but this was a stretch for him, and he did it well. Britt Robertson was really good as the dreamer who would never give up, and she was an excellent casting choice, but the absolute star of this film by far is Raffey Cassidy. She absolutely NAILED this role, and was practically perfect in every way! She did such a good job, I have to give her tons of credit. This film is not one to miss, and I must say it was one of the most enjoyable afternoons I’ve spent in a long, long time. Disney did this one really well, and I have to give them the credit for producing a wonderful film. Make sure you see this on the BIG SCREEN while you can. I highly recommend plopping down the money to see this one in the theater.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Columbia Pictures, Fox 2000 Pictures, Smokehouse Pictures,

George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville, Cate Blanchett

World War II is obviously wrapping up, and as the Nazi’s retreat, they are burning cities and towns to the ground and leaving nothing behind. In addition, they know that the world’s history is tied to the thousands of works of art throughout Europe in homes, museums, and such, so they have a definitive plan to steal and cart off, hide, or destroy everything they can get their hands on. The armed forces is naturally concerned about winning the war, so they’re not very much interested in art work. But Frank Stokes (George Clooney) convinces FDR to task him to put together a team of museum curators, museum directors, and art critics to go behind the enemy lines, find where the Nazi’s have hidden these treasures before the war ends, or the Nazi’s destroy the lot. It’s a tough task, but these guys are willing to risk everything to save the history of mankind. Based on the true story.

This is a very inspiring film. It’s a generous mix of big battles and war scenes, treachery and detective work, danger and loss. It is an exciting story, very well told and well acted, with a slew of top stars. There are funny moments, naturally, but mostly it’s a suspense filled war story. George Clooney directed and wrote the screenplay, and I must give kudos to him for that. He did an excellent job of presenting the story that kept it very interesting throughout. It’s highly entertaining, yet somehow educational at the same time. I learned a lot about an unknown part of the war for me. I had never thought about it before, but the history of man is truly told through it’s art. On a recent trip to visit my daughter at University of California, Santa Barbara, we were able to take some time to visit the Art Museum in Santa Barbara. She had been there before, but she wanted to take me as I have always wanted to visit an art museum but have never had the chance. I was really impressed with their collection of famous artists and pieces going back thousands of years from China and Egypt and other places. It was a real pleasure. After seeing this film, I couldn’t help but wonder if any of the ancient European pieces were saved by this team of seven brave men. I completely enjoyed this film, and I highly recommend it to anyone who would enjoy the war story, or the hero story, or even the art story, as this one has something for everyone.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Warner Bros., Esperanto Filmoj, Heyday Films,

Sandra Bullock, George Clooney

Dr Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a medical engineer who has signed on to the space program to continue her work when her grant was cut. She is partnered with Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) who is an old timer, with lots of experience as an astronaut, and an attitude to boot. Alone with a third engineer, they are working to repair an experiment on the Hubbel Space Telescope when they are struck by space debris and knocked free of the satellite and flying untethered freely through space.

This is an absolutely stunning movie. One of the reviewers said that anyone could have played the roles of Ryan and Matt and it would still be a great movie. That was my thoughts exactly too, as I watched this film in 3D. But we’re lucky that they spent the money to get Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, since that only makes it even better. But there is absolutely no arguing that the view is the absolute star of this film. There’s a lot of suspense, and, frankly speaking, some far out ideas of how to move the plot forward, which is all well and good, but it’s certainly the views of the various space vehicles, sunrise and sunset from space, and the views of the Earth that are stunningly beautiful. I was blown away by the simplicity and the beauty of this movie, and it was a surreal experience to see it on a big screen in 3-D.

I remember as a small boy, sitting in the Buhl Planetarium on the North Side of Pittsburgh, watching the stars projected on the screen way above our heads. This was a memory that has stayed with me for 50 years. This film is the same kind of feeling. You don’t have to keep up with the dialog, as there isn’t a lot. Mostly poor Ryan talking to herself to keep her sanity. When Matt asks her what she likes the most about her first trip into space, her reply is simply, “The Silence”. The absolute silence of outer space is awesome. But simple scenes of these two flying across the sky with billions of stars in the sky is simply breath taking. This is certainly a special experience, and one that I’m really glad I didn’t miss. I really loved it, and will not soon forget the feeling of seeing this on a big screen in spectacular 3D. I would highly recommend watching this on a big screen if at all possible. It was a wonderful film.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Focus Features, Goldcrest Post Production London, Greenlit Rights

George Clooney, Violante Placido, Thekla Reuten, Paolo Bonacelli, Johan Leysen, Irina Bjorklund, Filippo Timi, Lars Hjelm

Jack (Clooney) is a hired assassin who is on assignement in Sweeden when things go badly. He vows to his contact that the next one will be his last assignment. He is sent to a small town in Italy, out in the country, and holes up waiting for a new assignment and looking for some rest and relaxation. He makes friends with a parish priest (Paolo Bonacelli) and a local prostitute Clara (Violante Placido) until his contact Mathilde (Thekla Reuten) shows up to give his assignment of constructing a very special weapon for her. He may think he’s relaxing though, but he may be in a lot more trouble than he thinks.

This is not a James Bond spy thriller. This is much more like a foreign film. It’s very slow and peaceful and spends a lot of time developing the characters. We get to spend a lot of time watching Jack building and preparing the weapon which gives us a lot of time to see what kind of man he is and what he thinks. The relationship with the prostitute who he comes to really care for is also very slow developing. There must be a connection with the priest and Jack as well, but we’re slowly told what the story is. But to say that it’s a slow moving film with slowly developing characters is not a bad thing. Its just that you don’t want to rent this expecting fast pace chases and crashes and explosions. This is very meticulous and is more about the story than the action. However it’s a very cleverly crafted character study of Jack’s situation and George Clooney is really good in this role. He’s excellent. The other characters are pretty good as well. I enjoyed this in a way, but after watching “Red” just before it, it seems painfully slow to develop. When it was over I looked back and said, “Well that was really different, but it wasn’t bad.” If you like movies strong on character, you’ll probably enjoy this.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

2oth Century Fox

George Clooney, Bill Murray, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson

Mr Fox is fantastic.  He’s also a born thief.  He went on the wagon to please the Mrs. Fantastic Fox, but can’t help himself from stealing chickens from the biggest, weirdest, baddest, nastiest farmers around.

Reviewers are raving about “the best film of 2009” and “On par with anything out of Pixar”.  Hunh?  Maybe these guys were in the production company or something.   This is NOT the film I watched.  The one I saw was mediocre at best.

I grew up watching stop motion animation, and it was pretty cool back in the day.  And it’s nice to see it well done again like this is.  In fact, if you don’t know it, you almost accept it as normal 3D animation and don’t think about it being “stop motion”.

My problem was with the story.  Some loved it.  I was just pretty bored and disappointed in it.  Mr. Fox is a split personality.  He’s trying to be good but just can’t.  The farmers retaliate and he screws the whole band, so he has to try to save everybody and live happily ever after.  Oh well, that’s what happens, but it’s hard to care about it.  It’s kind of ironic when the fox is acting like a human (talking to his lawyer) and still thieving chickens.   What they talk about it is kind of funny, but nothing as heart wrenching or laugh out loud funny as other better movies.  I think this is a mid range film, worth it if you’re really a fan of stop motion, or if you’re a cartoon junkie, but if you have limited time, I would suggest something else.  Certainly Toy Story3, Dispicable Me, and many others are much better.