DVD of the Week – Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
by HELEN GEIB
Slumdog Millionaire is a crowd-pleaser of the highest order. It tells the rags-to-happiness story of a young man named Jamal Malik, a contestant on the Indian version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” who started life in a Mumbai slum. Danny Boyle directed from a screenplay by Simon Beaufoy adapted from Vikas Swarup’s novel “Q&A.” Dev Patel as Jamal heads the fine cast, a mix of professional and non-professional actors. The original music for score and songs, part of a soundtrack that contributes immeasurably to the film’s appeal, is by A. R. Rahman. Read more 
Movie Review – Monsters vs. Aliens (2009)
by HELEN GEIB
The five monsters of DreamWorks’ new animated film Monsters vs. Aliens are refugees from low-budget 1950s science fiction movies. There is Susan, a 50 or so foot tall woman who was normal before she was clobbered by a radioactive meteorite on her wedding day. Dr. Cockroach, Ph.D., a formerly human mad scientist who experimented on himself and wound up with a cockroach’s head. Link (as in “The Missing”), a creature from a black lagoon thawed out from a block of polar ice. B.O.B., a blob. And finally Insectosaurus, a gigantic insect from a Pacific island nuclear test site. Read more
DVD of the Week – Review of Rachel Getting Married (2008)
by RISHI AGRAWAL
When I put Rachel Getting Married on my Top Ten list for last year, I remarked that it was like watching someone’s wedding video. That is a testament to the realism of this film. With its handheld camera work and intimate portrayals of the characters, we really feel like we’re observing the actual preparations for a wedding. Read more
Movie Review – Knowing (2009)
by HELEN GEIB
Knowing really creeped me out. This is not the reaction the film intends. The script, direction by Alex Proyas, and performances practically drown in sincerity; the film aims at various times to inspire feelings of tender sympathy for the characters, fright, dread, and spiritual uplift. I felt instead a mounting distaste. My review is an attempt to parse out why, and necessarily discusses the plot in detail. Anyone looking for a spoiler-free review should stop reading here. Read more
Movie Review – Drunken Angel (1948)
by NIR SHALEV
Every Akira Kurosawa film opens with titles overlapping a single image or a series of related images that symbolize the theme of the film. In Drunken Angel, we are staring into a bubbling, filthy bog enclosed by the town that serves as the setting for the story. It is a small town, but it is prosperous, with its bars, dance hall, marketplace and young yakuza punks. Read more
Anime Feature Film Review – Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986)
by HELEN GEIB
Writer-director Hayao Miyazaki’s anime feature Laputa: Castle in the Sky begins as it means to go on with an action-packed pre-credits sequence. A girl is being held captive in a sleeper cabin on an airship. Her captor Muska has “evil secret service agent” written all over him and commands a contingent of regular army soldiers. The ship is attacked by air pirates Mama Dola and her large brood of overgrown sons. The pirates are also after the girl, who in the confusion, seizes at the chance to escape by breaking a bottle over the secret service man’s head, retrieving her pendant necklace from him, and climbing out the window. One of the pirates grabs at her as she inches her way along the outside of the airship, she loses her hold, falls, and is lost to sight in the clouds. Read more
DVD of the Week – Let the Right One In (2008)
by HELEN GEIB
Oskar is 12 years old. He lives with his single mother in an apartment building in a depressed suburb of Stockholm. It is the depths of winter, his alcoholic father puts the bottle before his child, he has no friends, and he is the target of vicious, petty bullying at school. Read more
Top Ten Films of 2008 by Geoff Geib
by GEOFF GEIB
2008 was the worst year I have spent at the movies in my adult life. This is partly the fault of Hollywood (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Happening, The Love Guru, 10,000 B.C., Prom Night to name just a few of the appallingly bad films of last year) but in complete and utter truthfulness, the fault is just as much mine. I simply didn’t get out to the movies with anywhere near the regularity I normally do, and as a result, I struggled to put together a ten best list. Since I agree with other posters on this site that context is important in these matters, I felt it was important to state as much at the outset. The following movies are all good, but in fairness, many of them would not normally make a ‘best of’ list, with the exception of the top three, which would grace any top ten list in any year. Read more
Movie Review – Race to Witch Mountain (2009)
by HELEN GEIB
Las Vegas cab driver Jack Bruno is in for the ride of his life when he discovers the teenaged brother and sister in the passenger seat are aliens on a mission in Disney’s Race to Witch Mountain. Directed by Andy Fickman from a script loosely based on Alexander Key’s young adult novel “Escape to Witch Mountain,” the film stars Dwayne Johnson as Jack, AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig as the young extraterrestrials Sara and Seth, and Carla Gugino as astrophysicist ally Dr. Alex Friedman. Read more
Anime Feature Film Review – Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984)
by HELEN GEIB
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind is an enjoyable ecological fable for older children and teens. Highly regarded by anime enthusiasts for the quality of the animation, it is the second feature film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, who also wrote the screenplay based upon the first part of his own, then on-going manga series of the same title. Read more
