Shall We Dance? Tuesday, Sep 29 2009

John Clark is a lawyer who writes Wills. He has a humdrum existence but a loving family that he seems happy with. One day on his home from work, he spots a beautiful woman gazing out of the window of a dance school. On a whim he gets off at the stop, and decides to take dancing lessons.

What follows is a very sweet and heart-warming journey about following your heart and finding happiness wherever you can.

What I LOVED about this movie is that he doesn’t leave his wife or family for this woman. In fact, she actively discourages him from pursuing her. But John finds something fulfilling and something he’s good at.

And the scene where he’s coming up the stairs to his wife with the rose, one of the most romantic scenes ever! You can tell he’s crazy about her even after 20 years of marriage!

A lovely heart warming film about dance, life and love.

5 out of 5 stars.

Random fact: About $4,000 worth of jewelry worn by Susan Sarandon during the filming of the movie was stolen and recovered at murder scene in Winnipeg on 4 July 2003. According to news sources, the jewelry was stolen from a vehicle on the movie set and found in a downtown hotel room.

Shall We Dance? [DVD] [2004]

3 Responses »

 

Easy Virtue Tuesday, Sep 22 2009

I’d been looking forward to this film since I found out Ben Barnes of Prince Caspian fame was in it – not that I’ve seen the second Narnia movie.

Set in the 1920s, John Whittaker has married an American Racing Car Driver who is a widow. This is her second marriage. He takes her home to meet his eccentric English family, who all immediately hate her. She finds an ally in her father in law, Jim. John thinks Larita is imagining things when she tells him his family doesn’t like her, but Larita tries her hardest to fit in – in her own unique way of course.

This film is a funny period film. I haven’t had this much fun with a period film since Mrs Pettigrew Lives for a Day! The dialogue is fascinating and sharp. Larita is sassy, beautiful, funny but also sad and steely. John is fun loving but slowly realises his responsibilities once a few home truths hit him.

But its Kristin Scott Thomas as Mrs. Whittaker who steals the film. Her firm dislike of her daughter in law is fun, but also the sadness, desperation and the way she tries to keep a crumbling family and house together is touching.

I’d recommend this film if you’re in the mood for a fun period piece with an edge and a bite.

5 out of 5 stars.

Easy Virtue [DVD] [2008]

Random Fact: In the vintage Monte Carlo scene which opens the movie, when Larita first sees John both her and John’s movements are slowed down while the rest of the cast play at ‘normal’ (i.e newsreel) speed. This was accomplished by filming the crowd, Larita, John, the background and the foreground mechanics separately against green screen and compositing them together at different speeds.

Leave a Response »

 

Wild Child Friday, Jun 26 2009

Wild Child follows Poppy Moore an angry young American girl who’s annoyed when her father moves his girlfriend into his house. Poppy decides to trash the girlfriends furniture which pushes her father too far and he sends her to boarding school in England. There Poppy does her best to try and get expelled whilst contending with the evil Head Girl for the Headmistress’s son’s affections.

Along the way she makes friends and learns who she really is as well as making a profound discovery about her deceased mother.

I didn’t like this film to be honest. It doesn’t have the heart or the bite that Mean Girls has, but its a cute film if you want to drool over Alex Pettyfer who provides the eye candy as Freddie, the Headmistress’s son.

I like Emma Roberts better in Nancy Drew to be honest, this role didn’t really suit her.

3 out of 5 stars.

Random fact: Actress Daisy Donovan, who also appeared in the film, contributed some additional dialogue to the screenplay, mainly consisting of contemporary phrases or sayings. She said one of the ways she did this was to go to the library and listen to teenagers talking to their friends whilst revising their A levels.

Wild Child [DVD] [2008]

One Response »

 

Suburban Girl Thursday, Mar 5 2009

Brett Eisenberg is an Associate Editor at a publishing house. Her boss is replaced by a younger, prettier and meaner version of her. Brett is now assigned drudge work but meets an older, charming publishing legend in Archie Knoxx when she attends a book signing.

Brett makes many faux pas’ with Archie, like offering him candy when he’s diabetic.

But she slowly falls in love with him, and becomes a better version of herself. However, Archie ruins it all and cheats on her. This betrayal causes Brett to move out and on a visit to her parents, learn her father has cancer. She’s angry that her family didn’t tell her as they thought she couldn’t handle it.

Meanwhile, Archie meets her parents finally and they address the issue that he is 7 years younger than her father. And then Archie is taken into hospital and Brett must deal with this as well.

I’m probably not explaining this as well as I could, but my original summary got eaten by WordPress.

Its a good movie though, something Sarah Michelle Gellar should do more often to break out of the teen/comedy genre she seems to typecast in. Alec Baldwin is fantastic as the savvy, sexy and sophisticated Archie who offers her advice to make her way in publishing.

All in all, a really good film I enjoyed.

Random fact: Based on the Melissa Banks book, The girls guide to hunting and fishing. This is a short story in the collection.

4 out of 5 stars.

Suburban Girl [DVD] [2007]

Leave a Response »

 

27 Dresses Sunday, Dec 7 2008

Kathryn Heigl plays Jane, a woman who has been a bridesmaid 27 times but has never had a wedding of her own.

Jane is in love with her boss, but her kooky and spoilt younger sister meets up with him and sparks fly, and Jane finds herself planning her sister’s wedding to the man she loves. Along the way she meets a writer for the Commitments page for the New York Journal who is incredibly cynical of weddings and thinks Jane is crazy. Eventually Jane realises she has to stop planning other people’s weddings and live her own life so she can have a wedding of her own.

I found this movie funny, cute and a little bit different to what’s already out there in terms of Romantic Comedies. Kathryn Heigl despite being very beautiful, is very funny, as shown in Knocked Up. Her facial expressions are hilarious and she has really good chemistry with James Marsden who plays the writer who tells her to start living her own life.

Overall, a good film with good storytelling and natural progression, but for some reason I just didn’t connect with this story as I would have liked to.

Random fact: The wardrobe department reported that their initial designs for the dresses all looked too good on Katherine Heigl because of her figure, and they were hard-pressed to design bridesmaids dresses that would look bad on her.

4 out of 5 stars.

27 Dresses [2008]

2 Responses »

 

Hitch Sunday, Nov 23 2008

Alex Hitchens is a man who helps guys create opportunities to get together with girls who they’d never normally have a chance with. Hitch helps Albert to get together with heiress, Allegra Cole. Along the way, he falls in love with gossip columnist Sara Melas, who’s out to expose the Love Doctor after his advice hurt her best friend.

Its a very funny story, very well acted and has some laugh out loud moments! Will Smith is fantastic as the suave Hitch who helps guys create opportunities, and tries to be the perfect date, little realising that in love there is no such thing as perfection.

Very much recommended!

Random fact: Kevin James (Albert) made up all of the dance moves for the scene where Albert is dancing in Hitch’s apartment.

5 out of 5 stars!

Hitch [2005]

Leave a Response »

 

Jodhaa Akbar Sunday, Nov 2 2008

Jodhaa Akbar is based on the life of the muslim King, Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar who became King at 13 and fought to unite Hindustan (As India was known then) as it was separate Kingdoms. He forms an alliance with the Rajput people, and marries the King’s daughter, Princess Jodhaa. Jodhaa puts two conditions on the marriage, she must be allowed to keep her religion and ways and to have a temple built into the Palace so she can practice her religion.

Jodhaa doesn’t want to marry Akbar, but eventually they learn to live together and fall in love, despite the interferences of Akbar’s nanny and political enemies who are against the match.

This is a film I wanted to see for ages, and I’m glad I finally got to watch it! It was beautifully crafted, and really gave you a sense of the time period that it was set in.

Aishwarya Rai Bachan and Hrithik Roshan have fantastic chemistry as seen in Dhoom 2, so it was nice to see them in this film. The battle scenes were too long for my tastes, and I feel the film could have been shorter if they didn’t focus so much on the political enemies.

The dialogue of the film was hard to understand as it was in very formal Hindi, so I was glad of the English subtitles and why I waited so long to watch this film on DVD. The music was beautiful and really appropriate for the time period. The cinematography was excellent and really showed the scale of the Indian empire.

Overall, a fantastic story and a great addition to any DVD collection.

Random fact: Hrithik Roshan (Akbar) had a very “filmy” horse. The horse used to know what words like action meant and so when she heard action, she would take off, even if the scene required her to be stationary. Hence the crew would use other words instead of action to avoid the horse taking off. The names of his horses were Chandni and Superman.

5 out of 5 stars!

Jodhaa Akbar

One Response »

 

The Jane Austen Book Club Saturday, Oct 25 2008

The Jane Austen Book Club focuses on the fortunes of a group of women and one man, who form the Jane Austen Book Club. All Jane Austen, all the time!

There’s Bernadette – a 60 years young divorcee who’s been married six times. Prudie teaches High School French and is married, but is attracted to one of her students. Sylvia – a 40 something housewife who’s separated from her husband after he had an affair. Allegra her 20 year old daughter. Joceyln, Sylvia’s best friend a breeder of dogs. And Grigg – the only male of the group who works in tech support at a university but is very wealthy, in his 30s and attracted to Joceyln.

The group meet once a month to discuss Jane Austen’s characters and the themes in the novels which resonate with their own lives. Each of them is changed through the experience and forms a lifelong friendship with each other.

I’ve read the book this is based on and I enjoyed the film much more. It visualises what I couldn’t in my head and the cast are perfect for their characters. Emily Blunt and Hugh Dancy have convincing American accents, and it was nice to see Marc Blucas in an understated role. Maria Bello and the rest of the all star cast are great. Maggie Grace was unrecognisable as Allegra – a far cry from her character Shannon on Lost. She puts in a much better performance here as the fearless and opinionated woman that Allegra is.

I watched this movie twice because I enjoyed it so much, but on the second viewing, I found myself skipping the bits regarding the characters personal lives and getting to the book club discussions as it makes me want to read the books now.

Fantastic story but not quite what I was looking for.

Random fact: Each cast member was required to read the said book they had to discuss in the picture.

4 out of 5 stars.

The Jane Austen Book Club [2007]

Leave a Response »

 

PS I Love You Saturday, Oct 18 2008

PS I Love You focuses on young widow, Holly Kennedy who has lost her husband to a brain tumour at the tender age of 30. Holly is 29 and has spent most of her adult life with Gerry, marrying him at 19 despite her mother’s disapproval. Now, she must learn to face life alone and is finding it difficult despite the concerns of her family and friends.

But Gerry sends Holly a series of messages to help her cope with his loss and to discover the new chapters in her life without him. Gerry goes on a journey to say goodbye to her true love.

As a HUGE fan of the book, I hated this movie as an adaptation. The charm of the book is that its set in Ireland and as a former Irish resident, I could identify with Holly’s family and the country, which plays a backdrop in the story.

But, if you get into the film and realise they will change literally everything and move it to New York, and despite Gerard Butler’s amusing Irish accent, it was a good film. Not amazing, because I couldn’t get lost in it. One of the funniest scenes was when Holly’s in her party clothes and turning her new bedside lamp on and off after Gerry tells her to save herself the bruises every night when it came to turning the light off and finding her way to him in the dark. Its a touching scene straight from the book which made me love Holly more.

Ireland does play a huge part in the story, and I’m glad people saw its beauty and majesty in the film. Some characters are invented just for the film, but stand out performances from Hilary Swank, James Marsters and Lisa Kudrow make this film worth watching.

If you’ve never read the book, this is a funny and feel good film. If you have, then be prepared to suspend disbelief.

Random fact: During the filming of a strip sequence, Gerard Butler’s suspenders hit Hilary Swank on the forehead. She received a cut and had to be brought to a hospital where she received several stitches.

Overall, 3 out of 5 stars.

P.S. I Love You [2008]

One Response »