A Single Man

This is a beautiful movie. If you can deal with the subject matter, mainly gay lovers, then this movie is worth seeing. I personally thought this was the best movie of 2009. I saw Avatar and that was amazing, but as far as a serious and well made movie, this was the best of the year.

Colin Firth plays a professor at a small community college in Los Angeles who just lost his lover to a car accident. He is traumatize and contemplating suicide when he meets a number of interesting characters as he battles with his loss. Julianne Moore plays his best friend and is a great supporting actress in this movie, carrying some great scenes and witty dialogue.

For a first time director, Tom Ford does a great job of making this movie look like a fashion ad for the 1960's. Every shot is flawless and the colors are magnificient. Definitely rent this one if you can handle male nudity. If you can't, Broke Back Mountain is an alternative, or maybe The Hurt Locker.

Whip It!

I admit it. I like Drew Barrymore movies. I'm not ashamed that I watched Fever Pitch and enjoyed it. And this movie is no different. It's a good little story about a young girl, Bliss (Ellen Page) living in a small town in Texas and struggling to break out.

Her parents are completely dysfunctional and while her dad wants her to be a football player, her mom wants her to win beauty pageants. Geeze, no wonder the kid's confused. All the acting in it is good really with the exception of Drew Barrymore who's character is a stoner and really just not essential to the plot. I think if the character were a little different it would have been funny.

As the movie progresses, Page discovers roller derby is her way to express herself and so she lies and then tries out for the worst team, the Hurl Girls. She finds herself surprisingly good at skating and takes to it with passion. There's a romantic lead thrown in which really isn't terribly romantic. I think they hired a guy from a band who should have stuck to music rather than try to act. The whole movie is more like a coming of age story on roller skates. Page is still her self deprecating self but not as acidic as she was in Juno. Good movie for a date night at home.

-M

She's Outta My League

I thought this movie would be a cute little romantic comedy and that's pretty much what it was, and nothing more. The lead character played by Jay Baruchel is very likeable as is Alice Eve, but it's not really that great of a movie.

First of all the film's premise is really not all that believable. Not because she's hot and he's not. No, the real problem I had is that it takes place in Pittsburg! Pittsburg?! A hot girl like that in Pittsburg? No...I don't think so. Don't get me wrong there are beautiful women everywhere, but they never stay in the town they're born in, and if they do stay in a town like Pittsburg, they're fat and pregnant by the time they're 26 years old.

Yeah that's my biggest problem with the movie.

Now all you steel town lovers, don't be pissed at me. (Actually, Pittsburg is a big financial hub now). It just doesn't make sense, and then the fact that her boyfriend is a big time pilot, who flies in Pittsburg. No...not working for me.. Alleghany Airlines became US Airways years ago and moved to Nashville, so don't pull that crap with me. That's compeletely unbelievable. Other than the setting the support characters are funny, and there are some good parts. Alice Eve is devastatingly beautiful, but it's definitely a rental...even in Pittsburg.

-M