Ed's Review Dot Com

K. JAM Media, Persistent Entertainment, Vocal Yokels,

Jessica Biel, Jake Gyllenhaal, Catherine Keener, James Marsden, Tracy Morgan, James Brolin

Alice Eckle (Jessica Biel) is a waitress in a small town. She is dating a policeman Scott (James Marsden) who has decided to propose to her. But a freak accident leaves her with a nail embedded in her skull inbedded into the brain. When she arrives at the hospital for emergency surgery, once the doctor (Bill Hader) learns she has no insurance, he throws her out. Alice sees a commercial for a junior senator, Howard Birdwell (Jake Gyllenhaal), so she heads off to Washington with the idea for a new bill to provide emergency health care for anyone who does not have insurance. But life in the Capitol is not at all what she expected, and she finds some very interesting effects of having a nail in your brain. Things get very complicated right very soon.

This is a movie that has bubbling in my queue for a couple years. I finally got enough “Very Long Wait(s) in front of it that it popped up in my mailbox. This is a light and funny film, with lots of decent characters. WIth the likes of Beverly D’angelo, Kirstie Alley, Tracy Morgan, and more, there’s plenty of funny stuff going on. This is a really weird movie as it’s really a morality play about the government and the dirty tricks, lies, and schemes that go on. There are some problems that held this movie back. A lot of it is a little silly. Well maybe I’d say a lot silly. A bunch of the jokes fall pretty flat, and many of the characters seem to be cardboard cutouts. I was entertaining, but not all that enticing. I wasn’t blown away with it, and I have a really hard time recommending this movie, but if you’re so inclined, it does a few decent moments, as long as you have nothing better to do.

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Columbia Pictures, Skydance Media, Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE),

Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds, Rebecca Ferguson, Olga Dykhovichnaya, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ariyon Bakare

A crew of astronauts are in a space lab and come across a single celled creature that appears it could have been alive. Through their investigation they are able to determine that it was in a deep form of hibernation on Mars since a time in the past when Mars had more oxygen. But once they wake it up, they find that it grows very fast, and is not particularly friendly Trapped in space with this creature with no chance of ever bringing it to Earth to study, it is protected by three levels of firewalls to make sure it cannot escape. But it is very smart and figures out a way to attack the crew anyway, and unless a plan can be found to stop it, it is going to kill the entire crew.

This film is not Alien. It’s good that it’s not because Alien is copyrighted and you can’t steal someone’s move. This is a terror filled suspenseful space monster film that holds it’s own, although it fought an uphill battle against critics and the public alike which I think is a shame. I was anxious to see this while in the theater, but never had time for it, yet now that it’s out on DVD, I am really happy I got a chance to see it. It’s a well done feature, and the suspense and horror aspect is really terrifying. Granted there are a few scientific blunders in here, and a couple plot holes that you could drive a truck through, but remember that this is science-FICTION and so it has to stretch reality a little bit for the sake of the story. Actually the cast did a good enough job. They were all pretty good. The effects are also pretty impressive, and it’s a good well told little story that kept me on the edge of my seat. Give this film a chance if you like Sci-Fi as much as I do, and I think you’ll find it good enough to be worth your time. I liked it and found it very frightening.

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Bold Films,

Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Bill Paxton, Kevin Rahm, Riz Ahmed

Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a young man living on his own and trying anything to make ends meet. On one evening he runs across an accident, and watches the “Nightcrawlers” the loners who track police calls to compete for live action footage to sell to the TV stations. Louis is a fast learner and listens and catches on quickly to become the top guy in the business. But does Louis go a little too far over the line of what is appropriate? This is the dark side of TV news.

This movie did very well in the theaters. I was really not clear what it was even about. I thought it some kind of war film. So when the DVD arrived, I had no expectations going in. I was stunned by the depth of this film. It’s very, very dark, and extremely realistic. The accidents, tragedies, and crimes are very realistically depicted, and it is VERY intense and quite deserving of the R rating. But I think the thing that impressed me so much was the depth of the character that Jake plays. We really get to the bottom of this character, yet even at the end, we’re not sure if he’s the cleverest guy we’ve ever seen, or if he’s totally mad. Rene Russo has the role of a local TV News producer who feeds on the stuff Louis brings in even though it’s borderline illegal. Bill Paxton is the mentor that he naturally turns on, but steal from all the time. But the suspense is very intense, and the story is very well written. Jake really pulls it off, and the story is not a nice one, but it’s riveting from start to end. Not since “The Talented Mr. Ripley” has there been a character as sneaky as Louis Bloom. This is an awesome film and very well worth seeking out as it’s very nicely done.

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Rhombus Media, Roxbury Pictures, Mecanismo Films,

Jake Gyllenhaal, Mélanie Laurent, Sarah Gadon, Isabella Rossellini, Jane Moffat, Joshua Peace, Tim Post

Adam Bell (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a boring history professor living a humdrum life with his live in girlfriend Mary (Melanie Laurent). While watching a rental movie, he sees an actor who looks exactly like him. Curious, he tries to find everything he can find out about Anthony (Jake Gyllenhall) who is an actor in Toronto. As he becomes more interested (obsessed) with Anthony, he arranges a meeting where they find out they are absolute twins of each other, including the same scars. But their personalities seem to be very different.

This is a very, very strange movie. But it is a very good story, although I do think most people are going to hate it. It is a very weird story. It bends your mind! There have only been a few films with this kind of mind bending storytelling. The ending of The Sixth Sense and The Village, two (in my opinion) M. Night Shaymalan films twisted my mind. Certainly I didn’t see the twist in A Beautiful Mind coming, and I was completely disappointed in myself that I never saw that coming. There have been some others. But these films twisted you up in knots and then blasted you with the truth suddenly and you came away saying WOW! This film is NOT going to tell you the truth, or let you know how any of this is possible. I struggled for days after watching this thinking it was the biggest waste of opportunity in film making ever! The focus of this story is WAY off. Here we have a situation where there are two guys who do not know each other who are identical in so many ways that obviously something very strange is going on. All the way through I was looking for the big payoff. It never came. The ending knocked me down, but I was left thinking “What the hell was that?” There was no payoff. But I thought and I read and reviewed what was going on, and finally it hit me. I don’t want to give away any secrets, but think long on hard about how two guys could be so alike but so different. Think of how they’re alike and how they’re different. After having fought my way through this I found that this was actually a very good film, but in a way far different than what I expected. This is a very thoughtful story, and if you don’t like to think long and hard, but like your movies tied up neatly with a bow, then you’ll probably hate this movie and you should avoid it like the plague. But if you like a mental puzzle and a major challenge, you may find that this is really an awesome story. So far the vast majority of people I have talked to hated it, so watcher beware!

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Exclusive Media Group , Emmett/Furla Films , Hedge Fund Film Partners,

Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Peña, Anna Kendrick, Frank Grillo, America Ferrera, Natalie Martinez, Cody Horn, David Harbour, Shondrella Avery, Gene Hong, Kristy Wu, Maurice Compte

Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Michael Pena) are partners in the NYPD. They’re street cops in South Central. Mike is married and has a baby on the way, and Brian is a single guy longing to settle down and get married. But he’s also longing to be a detective and sometimes goes a bit too far in sticking his nose into affairs that are a little too deep for these guys to handle. He’s working on a project to document his day to day adventures using a video camera and the self recording equipment. This film feels like a documentary as we watch these guys on their route day after day. The dangers and problems these guys have in this war zone is extremely exciting and suspenseful to watch.

This is a unique movie. It’s not the greatest cop flick I’ve ever seen, and it certainly is very, very realistic and extremely violent and gory, but it’s really like that in South Central Los Angeles. They went really far in trying to make it as realistic as possible. Parts of it feel like “found footage” films like Blair Witch Project, and some of it is like a long episode of Cops. The two primary officers played by Jake and Michael are very well done. Michael has the calm serenity and good judgement, and Jake has all the passion. These guys hassle each other constantly, but at the same time we can see these guys really love and respect each other. The last third of the movie is extremely suspenseful, and quite disturbing, but the reality is overwhelming. This film is not for everybody, and it’s really hard to watch, but you’ll come away with a greater respect for what the men in blue go through every day, especially in these extremely tough areas. If you can handle the violence, gore, and language, you’ll be forever changed by watching this, but if you have the urge to cringe or turn away, this movie may well be too intense for you to enjoy, so be forewarned. It is really realistic.

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