A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

The Life Before Her Eyes is adapted from a novel of the same title by Laura Kasischke and stars Uma Thurman, Evan Rachel Wood, and Eva Amurri. Diana and Maureen are best friends coming of age in a small town when a fellow classmate comes to school with a gun and massacres untold numbers of students and teachers. What transpires leading up to that day, in the midst of the confrontation between the gunman and his victims, and in the aftermath of the tragedy is told from the perspective of one of the friends while she continues to deal with the effects of the tragedy during the fifteenth anniversary observance of the incident. Ultimately the viewer must question whether we are indeed witnessing one woman's long delayed emotional and mental breakdown in response to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of an extremely traumatic tragedy or are we witnessing something else entirely? This movie is both haunting and disturbing; the cinematography captures beautiful imagery. It is ...

The library is adding two new documentary series on DVD to its shelves. We hope you'll check out these series the next time you visit the library. The History Channel Presents The Decades Collection . Made up of twenty DVD's, each decade of the twentieth century is covered in this series. DVD/577 -DVD/596 The History Channel Presents 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America . This three DVD series examines such events as Albert Einstein's letter to President Franklin Roosevelt urging him to develop a new weapon to the assassination of President McKinley to Shays' Rebellion to the gold rush and how they impacted the history of America and our lives as Americans today. DVD/574 - DVD/576

Shoot 'Em Up stars Clive Owen, Monica Bellucci, and Paul Giamatti. This movie is part love story, part urban western shoot out, and part dark comedy. The action literally explodes in the first minute of the film with a storm of bullets flying before it careens into conspiracy/government cover up territory. Its mysterious, eccentric characters possess unbelievable shooting skills; if Mr. Smith (Owen) is not an extremely skilled black ops trained marksman, then he is an extremely lucky man. Mr. Smith, who has a yen for carrots, is drawn into the fight of his life when he defends a mother and her baby from ruthless guns for hire who want both mother and child dead. Smith quickly realizes that if the child is to survive, it is up to him to make sure it happens. To achieve this end, he enlists the help of a hooker from the local brothel. The two end up on the run from a brutal, violent man, who will stop at nothing to kill the baby--and anyone who stands in his way. This movie is comin...

Across The Universe stars Evan Rachel Wood, Jim Sturgess, and Joe Anderson as Lucy, Jude and Max respectively. This is the story of Lucy and her brother, Max, and his best friend, Jude (who also becomes Lucy's lover) from Liverpool, England. The story focuses on the blossoming romantic relationship between Lucy and Jude that is set against the turbulent backdrop of 1960's riots, protests, drafts, war and the changing times in America. Max is drafted and deployed to Vietnam while Lucy immerses herself in the radical anti-war movement. Lucy's activities in the peace protests can be seen as a reaction to Max being drafted. However, an early scene in which Lucy confesses to a friend that her decision to not have children is based on the opinion that having children is "narcissistic" reveals Lucy to be a rather radical, free thinker, who is unafraid to buck societal expectations and roles for women. Meanwhile, her boyfriend, Jude, is a struggling artist living in the ...

The Descent is a scary horror movie that stars six British actors I've never really heard of... and chances are if I've never heard of them, most other American viewers haven't heard of these people either. Apparently they are well-known in Britain. The Descent tells the unfortunate story of six women who take a weekend to explore a cave in the Appalachia region of the U.S.A. Things go horribly wrong for the women when their path back to the entrance of the cave becomes blocked by a cave-in. Eventually this becomes the least of their problems. The women blindly press on deeper into the cave hoping to find another way out. Soon it is made clear to them that a freaky, carnivorous, cannibalistic, gross looking, species also calls the cave home. In addition to looking for another entrance, the ladies must also avoid becoming the species' next meal. This movie is very dark--literally and figuratively. I mean, really, how much light can you expect to find in a cave? It is a...

Smokin' Aces stars Ben Affleck, Ray Liotta, Ryan Reynolds, and Jeremy Piven among others. It's an ensemble piece that tells the story of Buddy Israel, a Las Vegas magician mixed up with the mob. The mob wants him dead, and Israel wants a deal with the FBI for protective custody in exchange for information on the mob operations in Vegas. Meanwhile, news of the $1 million dollar price on Israel's head spreads like wildfire, and more hitmen, bounty hunters, and bail enforcement agents are all on Israel's trail in addition to the two FBI agents tasked with taking him into custody the minute the deal goes through. Everything starts to spiral out of control as these various eccentric and dangerous personalities all converge on a Nevada hotel gunning for Israel. Some want him dead; others want him alive. This movie is fast paced and has quite a few colorful characters; with its ensemble and myriad twists, it reminds me of the Ocean's Eleven movies. There are many differ...

The movie stars Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans and Rose Byrne and five other actors, but those were the ones that I recognized in previews before viewing the film. I also happen to be a Chris Evans fan, and, admittedly, he was the main reason for checking out the movie. This movie has a very small cast... There are only eight characters in most of the film, and it takes place on board one space ship. These two factors make for a pretty contained film and contribute to a slightly claustrophobic feeling throughout the film. I mean, would you want to be confined with the same eight people for about four or five years on one ship travelling to the sun and, hopefully, back to earth again? I don't think I would. Okay, maybe if the fate of the earth and all mankind depended upon it, then maybe I would. But I would have to think long and hard about this. The sun is dying and once our closest star dies, so will we, mankind, and all life on earth. In a risky move, the earth (I'm ass...

The Invasion stars Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, and Jeffrey Wright. A space shuttle crash brings to earth an insidious alien infection that turns its victims into emotionless shells of the human beings they once were. Once a human is infected, the virus lies dormant until its victim falls asleep. When they wake up, they are not themselves any longer. Kidman plays Carol, a psychiatrist, who struggles to avoid infection, reunite with her son, solve the mystery of the infection and find a cure/antidote. She has her work cut out for her. Will she survive? Will she find a cure? This movie is scary, creepy, twisty, heart pounding, and suspenseful; you'll keep guessing about the fates of Carol, her son and the world almost up to the very end of the film. Be forewarned: there is a gross factor to this movie. The aliens infect their human hosts by spewing snot and mucus into their faces and mouths or spitting it into the coffee they then serve their unwitting guests. Ew! This mo...

License To Wed is a romantic comedy that stars Robin Williams, Mandy Moore, and Jon Krasinski. In this movie a newly engaged couple wants to get married in Father Frank's (Williams) church, except the only opening is in the next two years is in three weeks. On top of throwing a wedding together in just 21 days, the couple must also successfully complete Father Frank's wacky pre-marriage counseling course. This couple is in for a wild ride throughout this unconventional, unorthodox course that will put them through the ringer as it tests their love and faith in each other with several off-the-wall tasks and exercises. Can this couple's love survive Father Frank's course in tact? The hi-lights of this movie include Krasinski's role as the fed up groom and Williams' unlikely antics as the clergyman. The groom's pal, Joel, is also amusing... what is not so amusing is Mandy Moore's acting in this movie. It's often grating and annoying and sappy an...

The Messengers is a horror movie that stars Kristen Stewart, Dylan McDermott, Penelope Ann Miller, and John Corbett. The movie tells the story of Jess and her family who have moved from the big city to basically the middle of nowhere so that her father can try to make a go of a sunflower farm (yes, you read that right--a sunflower farm!). It is the new start that the family apparently so desperately needs. Before long Jess and her younger brother discover that the farmhouse is haunted with scary ghosts who may or may not wish the family harm. I'm not really sure where to start with this movie. The film makes it obvious that Jess and her family share a troubled history that has created thick tension among its members. The nature of this history and the subsequent tension is alluded to and eventually explained towards the end of the film. However, the vibe that the family gives off on screen is that it's a blended family. For example, the tension between Jess and her mother seem...

Lady In The Water is the most recent film by director M. Night Shyamalan. It stars Paul Giamatti and Bryce Dallas Howard. When this movie hit theaters, critics and reviewers were quick to pan it, and it was not a success at the box office. Honestly, I don't understand what all the ill will toward the movie was about. I enjoyed the movie--it pulls the viewer in to the story and doesn't let go until the end. The movie is based on a bedtime story the director told his children and the movie itself feels like a bedtime story with its weird creatures, fantastical journey and archetypal characters. The odd camera angles and scene compositions add to the strangeness and mystery of the story in which the superintendent of an apartment building finds a sea nymph living in his building's pool. He is forced to band together with an unlikely group of tenants to protect this sea nympth from sinisterly scary creatures and help her find her way home. However, he must first find the right ...

John Tucker Must Die stars Jesse Metcalfe, Brittany Snow, Ashanti, Sophia Bush, and Arielle Kebbel. Although this movie can easily be classified and dismissed as a "teen comedy movie," one shouldn't write it off solely for this reason because the movie lives up to being as funny as its previews suggest. John Tucker is the star of the basketball team, and, as a result, he can date any girl in the school. Frequently he does so and often dates more than one girl at the same time. The girls he dates have no idea that he's dating them simultaneously. This continues until three of the girls meet up and put the pieces together. A fourth girl joins their group (who has not previously dated John Tucker) and gives them the idea to take out their rage on John Tucker instead of each other. John Tucker has no idea he has these four girls setting him to take a big fall. Hilarity and hi-jinks ensue throughout the movie as the girls try and fail a number of times to take John Tucker...

The movie is called Pulse . Now that I think about it, I'm not really sure why it was titled this, but there it is. It stars Kristen Bell (of Veronica Mars fame) and Ian Somerhalder (of Lost fame). According to the DVD box, the dead have found a way to communicate with the living through electronics like computers, cell phones, etc. They can use this technology to reach out and touch the living and this is not a good thing. However, the movie itself never fully explains that the scary, gray beings who "come through" are dead people who just want to live again (as proclaimed by a preview); the characters in the movie only refer to these beings as "they" or "them." Ultimately the film runs in a unexpected direction in that by the end of the movie, the scale of the impact of the dead taking over the airwaves is much more global than originally predicted. In some ways Pulse reminds me of zombie movies, which is, again, not what I anticipated. Fi...