HEREAFTER

with Matt Damon and Cecile De France. A very well done and thoughtful movie. A bit slow moving but Clint Eastwood directs a good movie. It takes its time and answers the questions with elegance. The only reservation I have about the movie is the opening sequence. Cecile De France is nearly killed in a tsunami. This is not the time to see vivid FX of a tsunami, especially not when the real thing is all over the internet.

SKYLINE

Did you ever hear of characters in a novel or short story or a writing class labeled as TSTL? Too Stupid To Live? Well let's make a movie with all of the characters being TSTL. Let's think of cliche's -- cheating on wife in a bathroom? YES. Pregnant girlfriend? YES. Stupid booze party that leaves everyone in a strange place? YES. Old man or lady with little dog that gets sucked up by aliens? YES. Big and little aliens just like Cloverfield and Alien and Transformers? YES... Videogame dialog? YES First person sucked up by aliens is a rotten bastard at the party? YES

This has great visual effects but it never gives any life to the characters. Not only are they dumb but they are unlovable and when the the shit hits the fan, they do the most stupid things ever imagined.

Finally, when all is lost and they are about to be destroyed -- a real story begins. But, to tell you what would reveal the ending. In my mind, the ending that you see on the screen should be where the second half of the movie begins.

UNSTOPPABLE (reminds me of that oldie but goodie - RUNAWAY TRAIN)

This movie is all action. A train loaded with nasty-nasty gets away without an engineer and nothing on earth can stop if from killing a town.

Except for our two heroes. There's actually a tiny story embedded in this.

Nonstop action, train wrecks, helicopter crashes. FUN!

Bring the biggest bag of popcorn to the showing...

LIFE AS WE KNOW IT

Romantic comedy at its boringly pretentious and obnoxious cliched best. A young couple has to write their will and in it, they pick their best friends to be guardians of their child if they die. However, the best friends are not married and do not like each other. So when the couple dies we get diaper jokes and cliche'd situations leading to -- wait, wait, you'll never guess -- a happy ending.

RABBIT HOLE

I spoke of this once before. A very good but very sad tale of a couple (Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart) coping with the death of their 4 year old son. We also meet the teenage driver who did it. Amazingly well written story. I saw it on stage a couple years ago and now onscreen. Take a crying towel because it is so very sad. A magnificent brilliant ending. My hat's off to all involved in this.

Too stupid to live?! HAH! If I have learned anything, I have learned that people who are "TSTL" are more often than not put in charge of things since they are too stupid to do anything correctly.

Now, speaking of some one who really has perfected the "TSTL" image, I just watched the French movie "OSS117: Lost in Rio" (that is the American release title, I think the French title is "OSS117: Cavalcade a Rio"). The French character "OSS117" is sort of like "Austin Powers" only even more "TSTL" if that is possible. This is the second in the "OSS117" spy-comedy movies, the first was "OSS117: Cairo, Nest of Spies," it is worth the rental.

I really enjoy this sort of humor, where the characters are so amazingly STUPID, naive and politically INcorrect... Yet they are ALMOST like a page straight from history. Unfortunately, I doubt the average person would be able to understand the humor, they would not "get it" because the average viewer in the U.S. does not know who DeGaulle was, or what the French intelligence agencies were up to back in the 50's and 60's.

I also just watched a very good independent film, "Get Low" with Robert Duval, Sissy Spacek and Bill Murray. It is a really good movie in my opinion, and it is actually based on real events. Another film worth renting.