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Following the mysterious death of his aunt, power lawyer Bryan Becket moves into the elderly woman’s purportedly haunted Victorian mansion. A die hard skeptic, he dismisses one eerie incident after another, until the haunting turns so personal and vicious, Becket’s cool, unemotional veneer begins to unravel. Whispers in the night, things he sees in the darkness, clues of a horrible secret, turn our rationalist into a terrified and reluctant seeker. A seeker of a truth so unspeakable it could destroy him. And the mystery, always just out of reach down the darkened hall, is not fully revealed until the film’s final moments. And even then, it leaves a tantalizing question

Production Status: Released

Genres: Drama and Science Fiction/Fantasy

Running Time: 1 hr. 29 min.

Release Date: May 1st, 2009 (limited)

MPAA Rating: Not Rated

Distributors: IFC Films

Production Co.: Saratoga Studios, Day Dreamer Films

Financiers: Intrinsic Value

U.S. Box Office: $6,223

Filming Locations: Saratoga Springs, New York, USA

Produced in: United States

Somewhere between Asia and Europe lies the god-forsaken desert village of Absurdistan, which a grand total of 14 families somehow manage to call home. For the village, the biggest problem is water--but for the village women, the biggest problem is their lazy men, who won’t lift a finger to remedy the situation.Here, the young Aya and Temelko, friends since birth, have reached the age where their friendship has turned to love. Unfortunately, the date that Aya’s grandmother has determined to be ideal for their “first time” lies 4 years in the future, and to make matters worse, they must first bathe together. When Aya stubbornly tells Temelko that he must solve the water problem before he can come anywhere near her, the village women also take up the cry “No water, no sex,” leaving the good-for-nothing menscratching their empty heads. Soon a crazy war of the sexes breaks out and they divide the town in half with barbed wire.

Production Status: Released

Genres: Art/Foreign and Drama

Running Time: 1 hr. 27 min.

Distributors: First Run Features

Production Co.: Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR), Veit Helmer-Filmproduktion, ARTE, Suedwestrundfunk (SWR)

Financiers: Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg GmbH, FilmFernsehFonds Bayern, MFG Baden-Wurttemberg, Bakcell, BMW, Revlon, Avid Technology, Inc.

U.S. Box Office: $36,979

Produced in: Germany

After fleeing an abusive marriage, a young woman sets off to start a new life. When she finds herself an unwitting witness to a murder, she stumbles into a curious friendship with a depressed hit man.

Finely tuned and nuanced performances from Michael Keaton and Kelly MacDonald (she played Peter Pan in Finding Neverland) highlight an off-kilter film set in New York. A scene between Keaton and MacDonald in a hospital could play in an advanced acting workshop anywhere. Truly great. And supporting contributions from Diane Hunt, Keith Kupferer abd Dave Murcheson are qually excellent. Add to this a beautifully shot vista of New York and you get a great film.

Genres: Drama

Running Time: 1 hr. 39 min.

Release Date: May 1st, 2009 (limited)

MPAA Rating: R for language and some violence.

Distributors: Samuel Goldwyn Films

Production Co.: South Water Pictures

U.S. Box Office: $213,676

Filming Locations: Chicago, Illinois, USA

Produced in: United States

Rebecca Bloomwood is a sweet and charming New York City girl who has a tiny, little problem that is rapidly turning into a big problem: she's hopelessly addicted to shopping and drowning in a sea of debt. While Rebecca has dreams of working for a top fashion magazine, she can't quite get her foot in the door -- that is, until she snags a job as an advice columnist for a new financial magazine published by the same company. Overnight, her column becomes hugely popular, turning her into an overnight celebrity, but when her compulsive shopping and growing debt issues threaten to destroy her love life and derail her career, she struggles to keep it all from spiraling out of control--and is ultimately forced to reevaluate what's really important in life.

Also Known As: The Secret Dream World of a Shopoholic (United Kingdom)

I had reservations about going to see this movie because of what I had seen in the previews. I am such a devoted fan of Sophie Kinsella's; I've read all of her books (multiple times) and have passed them on to all of my female friends and family members. However, I did feel obligated to the movie for this reason.

Though the movie was funny (especially Isla's outrageous dance moves) and in parts accurate, the movie as a whole was absolutely nothing like the novels. I was very disappointed by this. I am fully aware of Hollywood's needs to condense books to fit a two hour time-frame, but I also believe they should, as much as possible, stay true to the novel.

Becky as well as her friends are all from Great Britain, which is where the first novel takes place! Where were the accents? The casting did not stay true to the novel, either. While I think they made an excellent choice in casting Isla Fisher as Becky, couldn't they have insisted on a British accent? Krysten Ritter is a great actress and played her role well, but she was nothing like the Suze character S. Kinsella described. (Not blonde for one!) Luke Brandon was well cast, but it was disappointing seeing him portrayed as such a weak character. Why could they not keep him the founder of Brandon Communications?

Why did this movie center around magazines? Outrageous scenes were invented that were in no way present in the novel. Derek Smeath and Becky actually end up as semi-friends in the novel, not vengeful mortal enemies. Her parents were not thrifty nuts, though I do approve of the casting choice. The list of what I found wrong with this movie goes on and on. I fail to understand how S. Kinsella could allow this movie to be so inaccurately produced.

With that I will say that though we did enjoy the movie, we left feeling very frustrated.

Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance and Adaptation

Running Time: 1 hr 45 min.

Release Date: February 13th, 2009 (wide)

MPAA Rating: PG for some mild language and thematic elements.

Distributors: Buena Vista Pictures Distribution

Production Co.: Jerry Bruckheimer Films

Studios: Touchstone Pictures

U.S. Box Office: $44,239,688

Filming Locations: New York, New York USA

Produced in: United States

A portrait of Valentino Garavani, the man behind the legendary couture label Valentino. Here, we focus on the period between Valentino's seventieth birthday and his final couture show as well as his significant contributions to the field of fashion. However, at the center is a love story: the fifty-year relationship between Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti, his business partner, lover, best friend and confidante.

Director Matt Tyrnauer never could have known when making his new documentary "Valentino: The Last Emperor" that he'd first chronicle the demise of fashion's last true self-made couturier and then release it into a world where, as former Valentino Fashion Group president Matteo Marzotto (and the film's antagonist) recently declared flatly, "luxury is over." Resisting the reality-genre conventions a 21st Century first-timer might be tempted to devolve into in shaping events to fit a narrative arc, Tyrnauer simply lifts the curtain on Valentino's gorgeous, frantic, fragile universe and watches it collapse; a dying star, shining brightest as it implodes.

What began as an outgrowth of a feature story written by Tyrnauer at Vanity Fair, where he is Special Correspondent, "Valentino: The Last Emperor" vaults over similar documentary efforts that fell back on partial scripting (Madonna's 1991 "Truth or Dare") or the discomfiting exploitation of a soon-to-fail relationship (the 1995 Isaac Mizrahi doc "Unzipped," directed by Mizrahi's unseen/all-seeing boyfriend Douglas Keeve). The reasons for this success stem directly from the trust placed in Tyrnauer, who as part of the 2004 Vanity Fair piece effectively managed what Valentino's own PRs certainly could not: the news -- subsequently splashed across European broadsheets -- that Valentino and Giancarlo Giammetti, Valentino's multi-role partner, were gay and had been lovers for 12 years as part of their decades-long relationship.

Five years later, while Italian homosexuality remains a specifically complicated knot to unravel, a paradigm shift has occurred. The presupposition that the men are gay, as are the majority of their peers and male colleagues, is a mute presence in the film, while the expressive energy of the men's post-sexual relationship drives the film and their careers equally.

Despite their bickering, their constant manipulations and mutual interferences, and the unceasing Italianness of their relationship (in one priceless moment, Giammetti stops Valentino cold in the middle of berating his partner's design choices by telling him he has a belly), what makes the center of the film is their love of one another, their love of fighting one another, and their love of being slightly put-upon by the demands of the baroque splendor of their lives together; lives made together, for each other. Unable as part of their generation, as part of La Dolce Vita in the closet, unable to be the men they (or their families) might have wanted them to be, their passions manifested in the exquisite beauty of Valentino's oeuvre and the extensive wealth that Giammetti was able to amass for them from it. Enough beauty, wealth and fame on an international (Jackie, Uma, all of them in between) scale to live, as Giammetti astutely observes, "above."

Valentino is "above control, above partnership" and above, for most of his career, the closet. No wonder Valentino seems happy only when Tyrnauer shows him in the mountains in Gstaad, skiing -- above indeed -- informally dressed for once, alone and beckoning Giammetti to come to him from afar. Both men seem to know, semi-consciously, that separately neither man would have been able to achieve a tenth of what they've done as a couple. In what has rightly been termed their "love story," 1 + 1 = 1,000.

The film has had the bittersweet luck to have been present for the ascendancy of a new math, as European equity fund Permira makes successive hostile takeover plays for Valentino's eponymous house, a late-capitalism tsunami of Euros sweeping away Valentino and Giammetti on the eve of elaborate celebrations and the designer's swansong show. Profit margins through duty-free handbags and trading on Valentino's name are the only products of these harsh calculations, whose cold logic is revealed later to show no mercy to the mercenaries brought in to do Permira's bidding.

Tyrnauer, whose deft cameraman is seemingly everywhere at once thanks to top-shelf editing, wryly shows how these backstage machinations among unspeakable grandeur serve to further compress the schedule and increase the opulence of Valentino's farewell and farewell collection. Here, the film spends as much time in the château with Joan Collins and the Comtesse de Ribes as it does tender, thoughtful time with the house's incredible team of harried and largely unsung seamstresses. Hand-stitching be damned, the new regime looms, and Valentino's house, the last of its kind, will soon float away like the ironically apt motif of the hot air balloon chosen for the final season. It rises, lingers beautifully, and inevitably floats out of reach. As Giammetti says in closing the celebration and the film, "It was beautiful." He says more than he'll ever know.

As multiple fashion luminaries comment throughout the film, the end of Valentino is the end of couture. (Lagerfeld and Armani seem to be out of competition, and aren't couturiers per se.) The current economic turmoil and the underlying social upheaval it implies have sealed present-day couture's fate for good.

Conspicious consumption and the chicanery that funds it is done for a generation or more. Italy's crown jewel industry is in tatters, waiting for government handouts; multiple fashion houses are ruined. Permira's wager on raping the name that Valentino and Giammetti built over 50 years has been called in at the sum of hundreds of millions of Euros when it recently wrote down much of the value of Valentino Fashion Group. We'll go back -- hopefully -- to a time when fashion becomes a meritocracy again and conglomerate oligarchs have no place in whatever remains of haute couture.

Valentino and Giammetti have left the party with one final, masterful flourish; Tyrnauer begins a new career having been there to capture its glory. It was beautiful.

Genres: Documentary and Biopic

Running Time: 1 hr. 36 min.

Release Date: March 18th, 2009 (limited)

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some nudity and language.

Distributors: Truly Indie

Production Co.: Acolyte Films

U.S. Box Office: $949,925

Produced in: United States

CIA officer Claire Stenwick and MI6 agent Ray Koval have left the world of government intelligence to cash in on the highly profitable cold war raging between two rival multinational corporations. Their mission? Secure the formula for a product that will bring a fortune to the company that patents it first. For their employers--industry titan Howard Tully and buccaneer CEO Dick Garsik--nothing is out of bounds. But as the stakes rise, the mystery deepens and the tactics get dirtier, the trickiest secret for Claire and Ray is their growing attraction. And as they each try to stay one double-cross ahead, two career loners find their schemes endangered by the only thing they canâ¿¿t cheat their way out of: love.
The trailer is a bit misleading - I knew I was in for an intrigue and plot twists, but not nearly as many as there were in the movie. Therefore, the trailer brings in a wider audience, whereas the movie is aimed for a patient, intelligent bunch that will not give up on the plot just because it's a bit confusing after the first 30 minutes. I think this explains the poor reviews - people gave up on the movie in the beginning so the ending meant nothing to them, whereas to the people that got it, it was genius.

I would definitely recommend this movie to anyone that thinks they have the brains and the will-power to sit through this movie. I do agree with people when they say that the time line is confusing as hell, but at the end it really doesn't matter. Also, with people that say that this is a predictable plot, of course it is. We knew that there was going to be a lot of lying and cheating to go around, but you never know what will ACTUALLY happen.

So after it happens, you say, oh that it so predictable, but before it happens you would have never foreseen it. And all the tricks the characters use in the movie are genius, and if/when they don't work out in the end, and you find out why, you are flabbergasted.

Again, if you think you're smart enough, see this movie, and you will not be disappointed.





Production Status: Released

Genres: Drama

Running Time: 2 hrs. 5 min.

Release Date: March 20th, 2009 (wide)

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for language and some sexual content.

Distributors: Universal Pictures

Production Co.: Laura Bickford Productions

Studios: Universal Pictures

Financiers: Relativity Media

U.S. Box Office: $40,474,810

Filming Locations: New York City, New York, United States
New York City, New York, USA
New Jersey, USA

Produced in: United States

The Brothers Bloom are the best con men in the world, swindling millionaires with complex scenarios of lust, intrigue and the most complex literary-inspired setups imaginable. Now they've decided to take on one last job -- showing a beautiful and eccentric heiress named Penelope the time of her life with a romantic adventure that takes them around the world -- from New Jersey to Greece to Russia and Prague -- in pursuit of priceless artifacts wanted by some of their most unsavory competitors.

Production Status: Released

Genres: Action/Adventure, Romance and Crime/Gangster

Running Time: 1 hr. 53 min.

Release Date: May 15th, 2009 (limited); May 29th (wide)

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence, some sensuality and brief strong language.

Distributors: Summit Entertainment, LLC

Production Co.: Endgame Entertainment, Gordonstreet Pictures

Financiers: Endgame Entertainment

U.S. Box Office: $90,400

Filming Locations: Europe
Asia
Scandinavia

Produced in: United States

After murdering his gang's leader, a teenager joins a family of Honduran immigrants making the dangerous journey across Mexico to the United States, avoiding a fellow gang member who has been sent to kill him along the way.

Out of the 13 movies I watched at the Sundance Film Festival this was my favorite, wait, no Push was also a Favorite. Why? Maybe because I didn't have any expectations, but for some reason was immediately sucked into the life of these kids and their dilemmas of survival and the hopes for a better life (and please leave your political views aside, this is a story of someone's life).

Anyway, see for yourself.



Production Status: Released

Genres: Art/Foreign, Thriller and Crime/Gangster

Running Time: 1 hr. 36 min.

Release Date: March 20th, 2009 (limited)

MPAA Rating: R for violence, language and some sexual content.

Distributors: Universal Pictures International (UPI), Focus Features

Production Co.: Primary Productions, Canana Films

Studios: Focus Features

U.S. Box Office: $2,125,271

Produced in: United States

Once the high school cheerleading captain who dated the quarterback, Rose Lorkowski now finds herself a thirty something single mother working as a maid. Her sister Norah is still living at home with their dad Joe, a salesman with a lifelong history of ill-fated get rich quick schemes. Desperate to get her son into a better school, Rose persuades Norah to go into the crime scene clean-up business with her to make some quick cash. In no time, the girls are up to their elbows in murders, suicides and other...specialized situations. As they climb the ranks in a very dirty job, the sisters find a true respect for one another and the closeness they have always craved finally blossoms. By building their own improbable business, Rose and Norah open the door to the joys and challenges of being there for one another -- no matter what -- while creating a brighter future for the entire Lorkowski family.
Sunshine Cleaning" is surprisingly good movie, because the flawed characters have compassion for each other and the recently departed. Avoid this movie, if you blood upsets you. I bristled at some scenes, expecting the worst behavior from the owner of the cleaning supply store. Watch the strugggles of a single mother, dopey sister, and dreaming father... succeed in an unusual business.

Production Status: Released

Logline: A single mom and her slacker sister find an unexpected way to turn their lives around.

Genres: Comedy and Drama

Running Time: 1 hr. 32 min.

Release Date: March 13th, 2009

MPAA Rating: R for language, disturbing images, some sexuality and drug use.

Distributors: Overture Films

Production Co.: Big Beach Productions, Back Lot Pictures

U.S. Box Office: $11,215,844

Filming Locations: New York, New York, USA
New Mexico, USA
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

Produced in: United States

Genres: Documentary

Running Time: 40 min.

Release Date: February 13th, 2009 (limited)

MPAA Rating: G

Distributors: Warner Bros. Pictures Distribution

U.S. Box Office: $7,763,851

This new IMAX adventure transports moviegoers to some of the most exotic and isolated undersea locations on Earth, including Southern Australia, New Guinea and others in the Indo-Pacific region, allowing them to experience face-to-face encounters with some of the most mysterious and stunning creatures of the sea. It offers a uniquely inspirational and entertaining way to explore the beauty and natural wonder of the oceans, as well as the impact of global climate change. In IMAX 3D, the images will literally leap off the screen and float around the theatre, putting the audience in the movie.

This is a wonderful movie for the entire family.
Children have a great time with this film, they were reaching up to touch the fish and trying to pop the bubbles it was so real. It does make reference to global climate change and its effects on the environment, however it doesnt place blame but points out ways we can all help.
If you have ever been diving you will appreciate the efforts it took to make this film, if you havent been diving this is as close as it gets without a wet suit.

The indestructible hopped-up hitman Chev Chelios, played to the hilt once again by Jason Statham, returns in Crank High Voltage, picking up where the first film left off -- except this time, Chelios is chasing a Chinese gangster who hijacked his heart and substituted it with a mechanical one that needs to be jolted with an electric charge to stay pumping. Back for the fun is Chev's girlfriend Eve (Amy Smart) and his physician Doc Miles (Dwight Yoakam), who, as luck has it, turns out to be an ex-heart surgeon. As Chelios delves deeper into the mystery surrounding his stolen heart, he discovers that the answers to his questions lie within the chest of a 100-year old head of the Triad gang, Poon Dong (David Carradine. The maverick directing/writing team of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor returns to inject more caffeinated craziness into Lionsgate's burgeoning action series, with Efren Ramirez, Bai Ling, Clifton Collins Jr., and Corey Haim rounding out the supporting cast.

The seriously cute, seriously corny 17 Again is Zac Efron’s first real challenge as an actor outside the safety of the High School Musical cocoon. Sure, he played the heartthrob in Hairspray, but that role didn’t require him to stretch his acting muscles. He sang well and provided teen girls with some eye candy, and that was pretty much all that was required of him. But with 17 Again, Efron actually proves he can handle the lead in a non-musical. Surprise, surprise.

17 Again isn’t ground-breaking cinema. The story’s been done many, many times before and in some cases much, much better. Still, the moral is an important one and if it gets through to even 10% of Efron’s fanbase, then I guess you could say its recycled premise was worth revisiting.

The Story
Matthew Perry plays Mike O’Donnell, a man disappointed with every choice he's made since one fateful day in high school. Sad and bitter, Mike just got passed over for a promotion at work and he’s in the process of divorcing Scarlet (Leslie Mann), his wife of 20 years. The two were high school sweethearts but now Mike seems to believe it’s all Scarlet’s fault he didn't follow his dreams and has become, at least in his mind, a failure.
At 17, Mike was a basketball stud on the verge of earning a scholarship to college. However the day the college scouts showed up to watch him play was the same day Scarlet told him she was pregnant. Mike chose to wed his pregnant girlfriend instead of grabbing his one chance at a future in hoops, and has regretted passing up his shot at being something ever since.
Now 37, Mike makes a wish that he could be young again and voila, a ‘spirit guide’/high school custodian makes that wish a reality. Mike wakes up as Zac Efron (because this is a fantasy tale we have to just go with the idea that Perry looked like Efron at 17). Totally confused and weirded out, Mike seeks help from his lifelong best friend, Ned. Ned’s a geeky billionaire with no social life and a house filled with the sort of movie memorabilia every comic book fanboy would kill to own. After a battle involving light sabers and other props, Ned comes to terms with Mike’s sudden regression. Ned thinks the best way to deal with the bizarre transformation is to enroll in the same high school they attended growing up - the same high school where Mike’s two kids now spend their days.
At first Mike’s convinced he’s been sent back to change his own destiny. But soon after enrolling in school Mike gets to talk to - really talk to, not talk at - his kids and quickly learns he really knows nothing about them. He also figures out that maybe helping them through the trials and tribulations of their teen years is what his spirit guide actually meant for him to do. That insight leads him back to his old home and back into the life of his soon-to-be-ex-wife who sees an astonishing resemblance between this new kid and the guy she dated in high school. And you just know that all this interaction with his family leads to everyone involved learning significant lessons about life and doing what’s right.


The Cast
Efron’s terrific as Mike, engaging and sweet, and showing real comedic timing. Plus, he actually pulls off the more dramatic moments with surprising success. Thomas Lennon plays nerdy Ned with a lot of gusto, and truth be told Ned’s the most fascinating character of the bunch. 17 Again would have only benefited from more shared screen time between Lennon and Efron. The always dependable Leslie Mann once again shows why audiences just adore her onscreen. Mann helps keep the film real and grounded, playing a strong, determined mom who’s tried her best to save her marriage but who’s prepared to move on when she realizes it’s a lost cause.
Melora Hardin as the high school principal and newfound object of Ned’s affection is good though underused. Michelle Trachtenberg as Mike’s kind of wild daughter and Sterling Knight as Mike’s introverted son who blossoms under his 17 year old father’s tutelage are fine in supporting roles.


The Bottom Line
17 Again starts off with a man coping with his failures, living with regret, and dealing with the serious issue of divorce. Then the film goes through a screwball comedy period as Mike pops back into his 17 year old body with unexpected side effects (the boy can’t stop eating, has too much energy, etc.).
Things turn a bit creepy as his female classmates compete for his attention, his own daughter hits on him, and he discovers he’s still got deep, deep feelings for his soon to be ex-wife that as a 17 year old are highly inappropriate. And then when the lesson has obviously been learned, 17 Again gets all serious and wraps up with a gooey, sweet scene that brings the film back full circle. It’s a predictable story littered with clichéd characters and a few downright ridiculous scenes (no high school bully is going to stand still while the new kid in school delivers a 10 minute monologue on why he’s just a loser hiding behind a thick layer of bravado). But Efron’s got a presence on screen that saves the film from being just another toss-away teen comedy.
Director Burr Steers does a decent job of taking an old concept and making it maybe not feel new, but at least sincere. Still, there’s something stagey about the production that made 17 Again not work for me. Maybe it was kicking the movie off with a basketball game in which Mike joins the cheerleaders for a high energy dance number right before the biggest game of his high school career...

Despite its shortfalls, the teens in the preview audience were into the film, applauding the second Efron appeared onscreen and laughing at the appropriate moments. The adults...well, there were a few chuckles from the non-Zac Efron-adoring crowd.

If all you're looking for is silly escapist entertainment, you could do a lot worse.