Jacob's Ladder (1990)

Vietnam vet Jacob Singer's life begins to take a horrifying shape when he begins to see demonic creatures and reality itself begins to wrap before his very eyes.

    This is a terrifying movie. The best thing about it is its direction, which focuses in on the chaos of Jacob's terror as the people he loves, both dead and alive, begin to take on different, hellish forms and sift in and out through so that he doesn't know if he's awake or asleep. Neither does the audience. 

    The coloring of the movie is very well-done, it's very gritty, almost as if the camera lens is rubbed in dirt and cobwebs, and the violence is shadowy, so you're not quite sure if what you're seeing is human or demon. One of the most frightening scenes is when after being thrown from a car, Jacob is taken to a hospital where the doctors say to "take him down to X-ray." Suddenly, the atmosphere changes from normal, white-light hospital to flickering, filthy bulbs, a rickety hospital cart upon which our poor hero is strapped, and a hall populated by misshapen "patients" who alternately bash their own heads on bloody windows and strewn with body parts. You're just as confused and scared as Jacob is. 

   The movie is a little slow, but that adds to the suspense as you climb up Jacob's ladder (ha ha ha) to the shattering climax. 

A Single Man (2009)

British Professor George Falconer (Colin Firth) has lost his lover of 16 years and goes through a day in which he explores issues of death, life, and sexuality. 

    This is a very interesting movie. It's relatively short at an hour and 40 minutes, but it moves slowly. Fashion designer Tom Ford's direction is fascinating especially in how he uses color to express certain states of mind - gray means hopelessness and grief, while much brighter, saturated tones represent youth and life. It wasn't my favorite movie because I found it very sad, but Colin Firth is brilliant.

    Homosexuality is the key in this movie - Colin Firth's character is gay and Tom Ford is gay, so we see things from that perspective. If that sort of thing makes a person uncomfortable, there are several scenes in this that will make them turn away, but it's all handled very tastefully. 

     I don't want to say much more about this because it's hard to describe the film without giving anything anyway, but I will say it is very slow, very sad, and very well-done in its genre. For a first film, it is excellent. I absolutely loved the art direction and costumes, they were beautiful and made the whole film look like the classiest fashion ad I've ever seen. My favorite scene: Colin Firth gets a phone call about his lover's death, and for about three minutes we watch him gradually begin to break down, run out in the rain, and weep in Julianne Moore's arms. That should have won him the Oscar.

Shrek: Forever After (2010)

The fourth "Shrek" movie finds everyone's favorite ogre getting exhausted from his married life with children, and so strikes a deal with Rumpelstiltskin, with horrible consequences that has Shrek racing against time to get back the life he loves. 

    Wow. This has been a long quadrilogy. I remember where I was when I saw the first Shrek, way back in 2001. I was not especially pleased. Then the second one came out in 2004. It was much better. Then the third, which I actually saw a few hours ago, after I saw this fourth one. The third one was painfully forgettable. But I digress. This last Shrek tried to bring together what made the movies unique, but fell prey to what happens to so many of these series: repetition and crowding. 

     The concept of the "Shrek" franchise is brilliant: fairy tale satire. It was achieved best in the second movie because the filmmakers still had a lot fairy tales to work with and gags to pull: there was the Puss in Boots, the Prince Charming, the Fairy Godmother, Pinocchio, the Frog Prince, and many other little nuggets of fairy tale gold. They also axed the excessive gross humor of the first and focused more on wit. The problem with this fourth one is they basically ran out of ideas. Sure, we have the witches. That was good, but how long can that go on? We have Rumpelstiltskin, but he is pretty straightforward. The story was stolen from "It's a Wonderful Life," and the movies have been spaced out far enough where you can get away with a few repeated jokes. The concept is tired. 

    The other problem is the overcrowding of characters. No voice actor gets more than a few lines, it seemed, and there was just a crowd of witches and ogres. There were a few standouts in this gumbo of faces: Kathy Griffin as a witch, Jane Lynch as an ogre (who sadly had only one line where you can actually tell its her), and Craig Robinson as an ogre. In the second movie, we were introduced to King Harold, Prince Charming, Puss in Boots, and the fabulous Jennifer Saunders as The Fairy Godmother. Those were memorable characters. No one will remember any one witch or ogre from this fourth film. 

   Like the third Shrek, this movie wasn't terribly "bad," it was just very flat. There wasn't anything I felt I hadn't seen already. 

Ondine (2009)

An Irish fisherman finds a mysterious woman in his net. His daughter believes the woman is a silkie, a mythical creature who takes the form of a seal and also a woman. 

    This is a rather sweet movie. It uses a very interesting concept to explore what truth is and its mystery keeps you watching. However, I felt it could have been a lot more powerful, and where it fell short is the acting. 

     The main problem I have is the casting of the daughter. She is supposed to be the wonder aspect of the movie, she is the character who drives the fairy-tale of the plot as she becomes convinced this strange woman is a silkie. The actress is sweet to look at, but she is very limited both in her voice dynamics and expressions. If she had inspired tears, the movie could have been much better. Also, I thought Colin Farrell could have improved his diction, he once again proved himself to be the least understandable Irishman EVER, his accent is so thick and so soft it's nearly impossible to hear about 40% of his lines. Other than that, he was decent. The Polish actress who played Ondine had the easiest role, I felt, she just had to look mysterious and alluring, and she did. Kudos to her. 

    The story was good. There were a couple of rather baffling moments, where we ask ourselves: why is this happening? Also, a couple of plot holes. To describe them would be to give the ending away. 

   All in all, this was a good movie, a lot better than most of the romance movies in theaters now, it's very classy, very beautiful, and it doesn't rely on formulaic funny moments or overdone plot twists, whatever surprises we find in the film were set up long before they happen, and so they make sense. 

Toy Story 3 (2010)

The "Toy Story" saga continues in this third installment, which features Woody, Buzz and the gang dealing with their owner, Andy, going off the college. 

   This is a great sendoff to the best trilogy in Hollywood. Everything about "Toy Story" is brilliant - the characters, the story, the animation, the franchise...this third one beautifully sums up all those things that make the movies great. 

    First, the story. It's magnificent. Some might think it's cheesy, but to me, no movies have better summed up the progression of children growing up while maintaining razor-sharp creativity than "Toy Story," and this third one captures the bittersweet aspect of growing up. Andy is going to college. He is moving on from childhood things, including his toys. This is the saddest movie of the three, but also the most touching. The final 5-7 minutes are sheer genius. Oh, and the movie also has hilarious moments. 

    The animation is amazing. Technology has come so far from the original Toy Story done in 1995, it's incredible the kinds of expressions these toys can have. The 3D is done very well, it's not distracting, it gives the movie that beautiful layered look. My favorite scene in the movie involves a tortilla and toys parts, and it amazed me how funny just those few simple items could be. 

    Pixar is absolutely brilliant. They spaced these movies out over the course of fifteen years, so when that final goodbye has to inevitably come, you really feel that you know and love these characters. I grew up with them. It also makes me very, very glad none of my toys are actually alive....or are they? 

    

Paris (2009)

A French film centered around the lives of various Parisians explores the culture of Paris and humanity in general

   More foreign films. This was my first French movie and it was VERY French. The film style was decidedly not American or German, the music was all very jazz-techno-cafe-like, and the acting was so natural some might see it as simply bad acting. However, it was a charming movie that very closely detailed just a short while in our characters' lives. 

    The color of the movie was interesting to me. It was all very brown, gray, and other pale colors. The only real color was in flashbacks of one of the characters, a sick ex-Cabaret dancer who wears a silver suit and blood-red shirt. It rained a lot in the movie, too, or snowed. It looked rather drab, but it added to the grungy realism. 

    The acting as stated before, was very natural. The emotions were raw, characters were neither bad nor good, and most of them were very confusing. Like real people. 

    This is a very long movie. It's over 2 hours, and I wouldn't recommend it as a first foreign-movie experience. It's so European that American audiences would find it tedious. As a film though, it's very well-done, if a little disappointing. 

The Young Victoria (2009)

The story of Queen Victoria's rise to the throne and her love for Prince Albert

   This is a cute movie, if any movie about English monarchy can be called "cute." A lot of people might find it very dull, as nothing terribly dramatic ever happens, but for history buffs and those who understand that true cinematic boredom is found in many films by Merchant & Ivory, it's quite enjoyable. 

    One of its advantages is that it's a short 1 and 44 minutes. It this movie had tried to be a sprawling epic, it would have fell flat. It's not about battles and wars and intrigue, it's about the challenging transition a young woman must undertake when she becomes queen at seventeen. 

   Emily Blunt is very charming as Victoria. She's much prettier than the queen was in reality, but she captures the queen's naivety and desire to work hard well. The actor who plays Prince Albert is also quite good, though very subtle. They have very sweet chemistry. 

    This was not an especially memorable movie, but it's a good family movie as there is no violence, no language, and only one brief sex scene - no nudity- taking place on a wedding night.