3 Stars***

Angelina Jolie continues her consistent spell with action movies that really show character; (Wanted being the exception) you feel you really get to know Evelyn Salt in this fast paced chase movie.

What’s it all about?

A Russian spy walks into their offices and offers a vital piece of information: the President of Russia will be assassinated during his forthcoming visit to New York City to attend the funeral of the recently deceased U.S. Vice President. The name of the assassin: Evelyn Salt. Concerned about the safety of her husband, who she cannot contact, she goes on the run. Winter refuses to accept that she is a mole or a double agent but her actions begin to raise doubts.

Written by Kurt Wimmer and Brian Helgeland, the screenplay must have raced off the pages as it’s almost one continuous chase scene. It’s just the locations that move across the northern part of the US. The excellent twists add to the fun of this movie. You may guess one of them, but you certainly won’t guess all three (expert twist guessers who are disallowed.)

Of course we know that what the star actress does on screen is impossible to all but a few mere mortals on this earth. I mean, how many of us can easily jump from the tops of moving trucks to cars moving at high speed, land safely without a scratch to show for it apart from the bullet in the stomach. The slug doesn’t slow this girl down at all. It’s great the way she manages to move quicker than the speed of a bullet fired at her from close range by a secret service agent, who we would wish to believe has received fire arms training to quite a high level.

The music by James Newton Howard is also exceptionally dependable. Once you see this guy’s name you know what the music will be like. Strong thumping background music that’s good enough to stand alone, but not intrude so much into the movie that you miss the acting.

It’s a good 100 minutes worth the ticket price and proceeds from those tickets will easily outweigh the $100million budget. I’m sure by the time we get to DVD extras they’ll have seen why they paid the star so much money.

3 stars****

The new people playing the old characters have done their jobs well. If you haven’t seen the ‘old’ A Team, then this ‘new’ A team fits in well.

So what’s it all about?

A group of Iraq War veterans looks to clear their name with the U.S. military, who suspect the four men of committing a crime for which they were framed and there’s lots of explosions, lots of blowing things up and generally expensive stunts.

The story is quite thin, but the action very energetic. You can see where most of the money went; straight into the explosions that appear to fill so many (yawn) movies these days.

Unfortunately, while I used to watch the A Team on television, I can’t remember enough about the stories to remind myself whether this Joe Carnahan, Brian Bloom and Skip Woods screenplay is true to the old storylines or just moves along hoping we’d all forgotten the past, even though this is the prequel to the series, so I guess we’ll have a long franchise to follow soon.

I felt as though I was watching a mixture of Mission Impossible crossed with any of the recent James Bond movies. The entertainment value was good, but you won’t need your common sense with you. Leave it at the door. To be fair, I don’t believe the director was aiming any higher. It wasn’t supposed to be mind numbing or a college degree.

There’s one twist that will leave no-one wondering; it’s so obvious they might as well have written it in big letters on the screen. I might also guess that the ‘Murdock’ character might have a hand in writing this script, while still in character.

All in all, it’s good on the entertainment level, but does little to give you any belief in the world they’re living in, but that’s why we’re at the movies isn’t it?

2 stars**

What a fabulous movie title, but ‘Lesbian Vampire Killers’ is wasted here as this movie isn’t (really) about lesbian vampire killers in the traditional sense; it’s more a comedy about two lads (James Corden and Mathew Horne) caught up in strange situations, and could have been called ‘lads having fun’ but that wouldn’t have made the screenplay such a success, would it?

So what’s it all about?

When Jimmy is dumped by his girlfriend and his best mate Fletch gets fired, they decide to put their troubles behind them by embarking on a debauched weekend away in Wales. It all starts swimmingly as they arrive in a small Welsh village teeming with Swedish female students and not much else. After finding accommodation in a cottage at the edge of the hamlet, the boys unearth an ancient curse that turns all the girls in the village into–yep–lesbian vampires. It’s now up to Jimmy and Fletch to fight off the bloodthirsty pack and break the curse.

Surprisingly, the movie is quite funny, but not consistently. The gags are okay, but not enough to make you want to rush out and hire the DVD. If you’re expecting lots of lesbian sex you’ll be totally disappointed. If you’re expecting lots of blood and gore you’ll also be disappointed. As I whispered, it’s a comedy.

The screenplay does achieve one main success; the two main cast members do manage to say what you’d want them to say in the way they talk together. You can see that plenty of research had paid off well here instead of the often used speech between friends that doesn’t sound realistic, but the screenplay writer thought would sound ‘cool.’

On another day this movie title would bring in large ticket sales purely on its title, but with the lack of lesbian sex, blood and gore, it won’t win by word of mouth.

We all know the title is a joke, a play of the original terrible titles used in sex movies and the vampire genre and that the movie is really a homage to the vampire movie industry, but the title is still such a waste. I expect a number of lesbians (and males wanting to see lesbians) were quite disappointed at the waste unless they buy the movie for vampire parties.

The trailer really says it all – it avoids showing the movie! http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/lesbian-vampire-killers/teaser-trailer

2 stars**

That was fun; Maramaduke was amusing all the way through and most surprisingly, the movie kept animals to their usual way of life instead of teaching them tricks and behaving unnaturally. Well at least until they started dancing, but we knew that the quality of CGI has improved somewhat these days.

So what’s it all about?

A suburban family moves to a new neighborhood in Orange County, California with their large yet lovable Great Dane, who has a tendency to wreak havoc in his own oblivious way. But its not all living large for the Duke, who finds that fitting in with his new four-legged friends – and a potential romantic interest – isn’t always easy for a super-sized teenage dog.

The seven year kid’s verdict:

It was okay. It wasn’t great and it wasn’t bad. The frightening part towards the end of the movie was very worrying, but they all came through okay. The dog was very good.

Adult verdict:

It was okay. There are plenty of dog movies to choose from and this is one I’d watch again when it comes on television but I probably wouldn’t want to download or buy the DVD. Once you’ve seen it you don’t need to see it again for a while.

The screenplay from Vince Di Meglio and Tim Rasmussen with Brad Anderson (comic strip) is predictable enough and follows Hollywood structure format. The talking animals fit in perfectly; it’s as though that’s what the animals would really say.

The moral of the story is not to dump your friends because when you move into the glory collection of friends, they’ll drop you quickly and move on leaving you all alone. Stick with your real friends.

The new people playing the old characters have done their jobs well. If you haven’t seen the ‘old’ A Team, then this ‘new’ A team fits in well.

So what’s it all about?

A group of Iraq War veterans looks to clear their name with the U.S. military, who suspect the four men of committing a crime for which they were framed and there’s lots of explosions, lots of blowing things up and generally expensive stunts.

The story is quite thin, but the action very active. You can see where most of the money went; straight into the explosions that appear to fill so many movies these days.

Unfortunately, while I used to watch the A Team on television, I can’t remember enough about the stories to remind myself whether this Joe Carnahan, Brian Bloom and Skip Woods screenplay is true to the old storylines or just moves along hoping we’d all forgotten.

I felt as though I was watching a mixture of Mission Impossible crossed with any of the recent James Bond movies. The entertainment value was good, but you won’t need your common sense with you. Leave it at the door. To be fair, I don’t believe the director was aiming any higher.
There’s one twist that will leave no-one wondering; it’s so obvious they might as well have written it in big letters on the screen.

I might also guess that the ‘Murdock’ character might have a hand in writing this script, while still in character.

3 stars***

The major twists were not at all expected, which is great for a movie these days where some are so formulaic that you know you’re never going to get surprised again – and then along comes a movie like Chloe.

So what’s it all about?

The main character discovers that her husband is cheating on her. She decides to pay a Parisian prostitute to have an affair with her husband, and report back to her.

Just once does this movie fail to live up to its own expectations and that’s in the penultimate scene when the screenplay writer, Erin Cressida Wilson, takes the easy option and goes for the happy ending when she could have taken a number of alternative routes and given us more pleasure in finding out what happens next. Following her hit screenplay of 2002, Secretary, her scripts are a little edgy for the mainstream which is why this movie will be a hit, but only with minor clout against the box office blockbusters.

Julianne Moore takes her clothes off a lot and when she is fully clothed she really shines in her skimpy garments that would outshine many a twenty year old, never mind a lady looking at 50 around the corner. Amanda Seyfried also takes her clothes off a lot which is quite difficult if you only know her from her angelic virginal performance in Mamma Mia! For either lady this could be a make or break move in a career, but both these actors have a long enough movie history now to know that judgement will be over the longer period, rather than just for this exploitative dalliance.

What makes this movie are the unexpected interweaving stories that will either throw you off kilter or leave you feeling smug if you guessed where it was leading. Unfortunately, the trailer shows you one of the key twists, but in a way that was guaranteed to gain more viewers as the potential lesbian relationship unfolds.

Chloe will keep you talking for hours after seeing this movie. That can only be good because at least your brain gets a little exercise, mostly aimed at ‘why the choice of ending?’ Certainly Chloe’s choices of sexual partner in this movie are vast and varied!

3 stars***

You have to buy into the concept of the movie and relate to the characters to ‘care’ what happens to them and the outcome of the movie. With Inception, I found I didn’t care about either despite the excellent special effects and the wonderful acting.

So what’s it all about?

Dom Cobb is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb’s rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved. Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible-inception. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse: their task is not to steal an idea but to plant one. If they succeed, it could be the perfect crime. But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move. An enemy that only Cobb could have seen coming.

The first word has to go to the special effects; they are quite tremendous and almost set a new standard. You can see where they spent the money. Christopher Nolan and his music writer Hans Zimmer have set a pattern that depicts a ‘C Nolan’ movie.

The second word must go to the screenplay. This shows either an extremely vivid imagination or a long spell on LSD from the late 1960’s. We’ll guess the former as Mr Nolan expresses a certain style. The story is difficult to follow in the beginning which is why they spend a long time giving all the necessary information which is all explained by the end of the movie.

Leonardo DiCaprio has proved time and time again that he has acting quality up there with the best and of course he gets to work here with two of the best, Ellen Page and Michael Caine. They bounce off each other so well that they are totally believable in their roles.

The enormous budget allocated for this film has already been surpassed by over US$100 million in its first couple of weeks. DVD sales will certainly boost that by a few million more.

I’ve read online, elsewhere, explanations about some of the action in this film. Obviously I did miss some major items; but was I dreaming?

Trailers only cover the first third of a movie, so not to give too much away, but enough to get you hooked. Go watch!

Don’t forget to click on the ‘make picture larger’ link to fill your screen! It’s the white square third from the right on the trailer.

Film Trailers by Filmtrailer.com

Beverly Hills, CA (July 6, 2010) — The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting competition has received 6,304 entries for 2010, including first-time entries from Azerbaijan, Barbados, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cameroon, Uganda and Uruguay. The Academy will award up to five fellowships of $30,000 each in November. This year marks the competition’s 25th anniversary.

The Nicholl Fellowships competition is open to screenwriters who have not earned more than $5,000 writing for film or television. Entry scripts must be feature length and the original work of a sole author or of exactly two collaborative authors. The scripts must have been written originally in English. Adaptations and translated scripts are not eligible.

This year, entries have come from all 50 states in the U.S., as well as from Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Barbados, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, Brunei, Cameroon, Canada, China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan), Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, India, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Lebanon, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Puerto Rico, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and Uruguay.

Since the program’s inception in 1985, 113 fellowships have been awarded. Several past Nicholl fellows have gone on to successful screenwriting careers, including Oscar®-nominee Susannah Grant (“The Soloist, “ “Charlotte’s Web” “Erin Brockovich”), Doug Atchison (“Akeelah and the Bee”), Mike Rich (“Radio,” “The Rookie,” “Finding Forrester”), Ehren Kruger (“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” “The Ring,” “Arlington Road”) and Andrew Marlowe (“Hollow Man,” “Air Force One,” ABC Television’s “Castle”).

Several other Nicholl fellows have had success in the film industry; to read more about them, visit http://www.oscars.org/awards/nicholl/fellows/notable.html.

Fellowships are awarded with the understanding that the recipients will each complete a feature-length screenplay during their fellowship year. The Academy acquires no rights to the works of Nicholl fellows and does not involve itself commercially in any way with their completed scripts.

This (Sex and the City 2) could go down as one of the worst movie in recent times. It’s lazy, poorly put together with a screenplay where I expect the writer will be pleased about his salary, but not from satisfaction of work completed.

So what’s it all about?

Who cares? Some will. Most won’t. If you are interested then here goes:

Two years have passed since Carrie Bradshaw finally bagged John “Mr. Big” Preston, the man she was always meant to be with. Just as her friend Charlotte must deal with her young daughter’s “terrible two’s”, Carrie must deal with her relationship taking a turn for the worse – Big likes to watch old black-and-white movies on TV and eat take-out food, which prevents Carrie from feeling like the free-wheeling party girl she used to be. Meanwhile, Miranda copes with a new boss that can’t handle an intelligent, powerful woman, and Samantha works a public relations angle that gets the fashionable foursome an all-expense-paid trip to Abu Dhabi.

I enjoyed the series; I didn’t mind the first movie, but this franchise version 2, is just so disappointing. The character arcs are there, but they’re so weak. The story is also feeble and condescending to those of the middle east traditions and ethics.

Maybe it’s time has passed; perhaps the characters need to have some major life changes to liven it up. I won’t go see SATC3.

It really only gains one star for Penélope Cruz’s smile. She oozed acting ability.