Despicable Me

Despicable Me falls somewhere in the middle range of animated films targeted at kids, featuring none of the delirious wit of How to Train Your Dragon andCloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and certainly not the outright Pixar genius, but also absent the mindless pandering and obvious plotting we all fear in children's films. With a smart concept, some clever gags and well-choreographed action it moves along nicely, but it also squanders considerable voice talent and doesn't really take advantage of the twisted world it successfully creates. You get the feeling that a darker and more clever Despicable Me may have existed at some point before the studio, still trying to break into the animated market, defaulted to the safe side.

As Gru, a hunched supervillain conducting all his plots from the suburbs for some reason, Steve Carell uses a constricted German accent to great effect, abandoning his typical Michael Scott comic persona for someone even more insecure and struggling. Gru gets the big idea to steal the moon after new kid in town Vector (Jason Segel) starts upstaging him with dastardly deeds of his own, but Gru's plan is foiled when the Bank of Supervillains (formerly Lehman Brothers) won't float him a loan. Making matters worse, Gru's flashy new rival Vector steals the shrink ray Gru needed to capture the moon, and now all the evening news reports focus on Vector, with poor Gru stuck abusing his freeze ray and popping childrens' balloons for his evil deeds. For pretty flimsy reasons Gru decides that the only way to steal back his shrink ray is to adopt a trio of orphan girls, whom he plans to use as bait and otherwise ignore while locking them in the kitchen and tinkering away in his underground lair.

The girls-- voiced by Disney star Miranda Cosgrove, Elsie Fisher and Dana Gaier-- have other plans, of course, and slowly go about melting Gru's heart even when he'd rather skip the bedtime stories and let them walk to ballet class. Gru's developing relationship with the girls doesn't fit all that well with the supervillain rivalry plot, and the script by Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul bounces somewhat haphazardly between family bonding and Gru's scheming in the basement. Each has their moments-- a trip to the amusement park is fun and funny, and a heist at Vector's house is pure well-executed tension-- but you miss the airtight script of a Pixar or DreamWorks Animation film, or even a plot that doesn't feel utterly predictable from moment to moment. It's also a shame to see all kinds of other talent, including Russell Brand as Gru's elderly lab assistant and Kristen Wiig as the meanie orphanage manager, either shoved to the sidelines or forgotten about entirely by the scattered script.

Adding insult to injury, an incomprehensible amount of screen time goes to Gru's minions, those little globular yellow guys in the overalls who scurry around Gru's lab doing all kinds of jobs and bear the brunt of the film's physical comedy. Clearly the studio and directors Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud think they've come across gold here, but the minions never develop distinct personalities or even meaning within the plot, popping up from time to time to be cute but, like all the other disjointed plots, never amounting to much. The focus on the minions, so disproportionate to their actual quality as characters, speaks again to the disorganization of Despicable Me, a movie with a few good ideas and vocal performances and no idea where to go with them.

Bucket List

The Bucket List is a 2007 comedy-drama film written by, directed by Rob Reiner and starring Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, Sean Hayes, Beverly Todd, and Rob Morrow. The story follows two terminally ill men (Nicholson and Freeman) on a road trip with a wish list of things to do before they "kick the bucket."

Blue-collar mechanic Carter Chambers (Freeman) and billionaire hospital magnate Edward Cole (Nicholson) meet for the first time in the hospital after both have been diagnosed with cancer. They become friends as they undergo their respective treatments. Carter is a gifted amateur historian and family man who had wanted to become a history professor, but in his youth had been "broke, black, and with a baby on the way" and thus never rose above his job at the McCreath body shop. Cole is a corporate tycoon, eccentric loner, four times divorced, who enjoys nothing more than tormenting his personal valet/servant, Matthew, whom he calls Thomas (Hayes). He quickly befriends Carter, making Matthew serve Carter as well as him and ordering his doctor (Morrow) to familiarize himself with Carter's health.

Both are diagnosed with a year or less to live. Carter begins writing a "bucket list," or things to do before "he kicks the bucket." After hearing he has less than a year to live, Carter wads it up and tosses it on the floor. Matthew comes in the next morning and picks it up with other things that are on the floor. Cole finds it among the items and reads it. Cole pushes Carter (by suggesting he add things like seeing the world, sky diving, "fun things," etc.), and promises to finance the trip. Despite the protests of his wife, Virginia (Todd), Carter eagerly agrees.

The pair then begin an around-the-world vacation, embarking on race car driving, sky diving, climbing the Pyramids, and going on lion safari in Africa. Along the way they discuss faith and family, and learn from each other that Carter has long been feeling less in love with his wife and Cole is deeply hurt by his estrangement with his only daughter, who disowned him after he sent some people to "take care" of her abusive husband.

In Hong Kong, Cole hires a prostitute (Rowena King) for Carter , who has never had sex with any other woman than his wife, but Carter declines, finding that the love he had for his wife is still strong. He asks to return home, and in gratitude for helping him, he tries to reunite Cole with his daughter. Cole lacks the courage to face her, however. He angrily storms off and Carter returns home to his wife, children, and grandchildren.

The family reunion is short lived. In the preparation for a romantic interlude with his wife, Carter suffers a seizure and is rushed to the hospital. The cancer has spread to his brain. Cole, who is now in complete remission, visits him there, and they share a few moments together where Carter reveals the origin of the "world's most rare coffee" (Kopi Luwak), along with the factors that contribute to its unique aroma and taste. They share a good laugh and Carter crosses off "laugh till I cry" and insists Cole finish the list without him. Carter then goes into surgery, but the procedure is unsuccessful and he dies on the table.

Cole delivers a eulogy at his funeral, explaining that he and Carter had been complete strangers mere months before his death, but that the last three month's of Carter's life were the best three months of his (Cole's life). He then crosses "help a complete stranger for a common good" off the list. This list item was one that Carter added. Cole says Carter had helped him (Cole), a complete stranger, with Carter knowing it before he (Cole) did. We see Edward finally attempt to reconcile with his daughter. Much to his surprise and joy, she not only accepts him back into her life, but she also introduces him to the granddaughter he never knew he had and he crosses "kiss the most beautiful girl in the world" off the list.

Cole goes on to live to 81 years of age. When he finally passes away, he has his ashes, which were placed inside a Chock full o'Nuts coffee can, placed alongside Carter's, also in the same type of can, on the top of Mount Everest, which Carter (who has been narrating the film) mentions that Cole would have liked, as it was against the law. Matthew does this and as he does so he crosses off the last item on the Bucket List (witness something truly majestic) and places it with them and closes the small black box and reburies it in the snow. This closing makes it unclear whether Carter's ashes initially arrived during a trip made by Cole, or through Cole's behest.

The "Bucket List"

Witness something truly majestic

Help a complete stranger for a common good

Laugh till I cry

Drive a Shelby Mustang

Kiss the most beautiful girl in the world

Get a tattoo

Skydiving

Visit Stonehenge

Spend a week at Louvre

See Rome!

Dinner @ La Cherie D'or

See the pyramids

Get back in touch (previously "Hunt the big cat")

Hong Kong

Victoria Falls

Serengeti

Ride the great wall of China

This movie really made me cry...Applause to all the cast and the creators of this movie.

Ballistic: Ecks vs.Sever

Two former government agents square off as they search for the most deadly new weapon on Earth in this white-knuckle thriller. Sever (Lucy Liu) was once a top agent with the Defense Intelligence Agency, but she quit when her son was killed in a bungled raid organized by Gant (Gregg Henry), and has sworn to take vengeance against him and his colleagues. When Sever learns that Gant and his team are in possession of a remarkable new weapon -- a microscopic device injected into the victim's bloodstream which is benign until triggered, then kills immediately without leaving a trace -- she is determined to get her hands on it, whatever the cost. However, Gant has turned rogue, and FBI agent Julio Martin (Miguel Sandoval) has been ordered to find him and recover his new weapon. Martin needs the best man he can find for the job, and calls upon Jeremiah Ecks (Antonio Banderas), a former FBI tracker, to do the job. Ecks quit the Bureau when his wife was killed, but Martin informs Ecks that his spouse is actually alive and in hiding, and if he can bring in Gant, she will be returned to him. But Ecks has to face the most formidable adversary of his life in Sever, a master of mayhem bent on revenge. Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever was the first English-language feature from Thai filmmaker Wych Kaosayananda (aka Kaos), whose first feature Fah was a box-office blockbuster in his homeland.

Action packed movie.

Havoc

Havoc is an American film which stars Anne Hathaway, Bijou Phillips, Shiri Appleby, Freddy Rodriguez, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Biehn and Laura San Giacomo. The movies evolves in the life of two teenage girls,Allison( Hathaway) and Emily (Phillips) who were exposed to hip-hop culture which later on inspires them both to imitate a gangster lifestyle. To amuse herself she adopts a faux gangster personality with her friends, and during a drug buy-gone-sour one night, she becomes enamored with the real thing. That's it in a nutshell, though the story is more about how alienated Allison is in the real world, and how her gangsta persona is really just a sad put-on. Ultimately, a romance with gang leader Hector (Freddy Rodriguez, unrecognizable from his clean-cut Six Feet Under days) feels forced and wholly unrealistic, and it quickly grinds the film to a sudden ending.

Written by Stephen Gaghan, the film has more in common with his lesser works like Abandon than it does with his vaunted Traffic. And while the press has focused on what a departure this is for Hathaway, less has been said of its director: Oscar-winning documentarian Barbara Kopple (Harlan County, U.S.A., American Dream, Wild Man Blues), who creates her first and only narrative feature film here, after 30 years in the business. While Kopple's done similar work for TV shows like Oz, I was stunned to see how adept she was with what amounts to an undeveloped script and a difficult story.

Genre: Drama

Synopsis: 'Havoc' is a searing vision of teen culture as it clashes with the real world of urban Latino gangsters. Compelling and comic, contemporary and tragic, this music-driven tale follows two beautiful girls on their journey from the safety of their suburban homes into the dangerous underworld of East L.A., where they learn that even innocent actions have consequences.

Love Story

A must read and must watched movie.

Probably one of the best love stories ever told, Love Story is one romantic novel that is sure to move you. Love means never having to say you’re sorry. Erich Wolf Segal has done a brilliant job in portraying two characters with which an entire generation could identify themselves. He has balanced the competition between father and son and the love of husband and wife. Opposites in nearly every way, two people immediately attract, share a love that defies everything … yet will end too soon. This story is sure to linger in your heart now and forever. Given here is a short summary of the novel “Love Story”

Plot
Love Story revolves around the lives of two young college lads, whose love for each other was immortal. Oliver Barrett, heir to the Barrett fortune and legacy and Jennifer Cavilleri, daughter of a poor baker who does not own a huge bank account but has lots of love. Oliver was expected to follow in his father's huge footsteps, while Jennifer, a music major, was to go on and study in Paris. But when they meet, the sparks flow, and we get involved with them as their love grows deep and strong.

Oliver turns his back on his family and fortune to marry Jenny. Jenny gives up her dreams of Paris and being a musician. They are happy with each other in their lives and the stable flow of income that is enough to sustain them. But life can be cruel and Jenny is diagnosed with leukemia. With just a few days to live, the novel speaks about the emotional pain they both go through. The novel portrays that love has no language but feelings. “Love Story” moves the compassion of love in you.

My First Wedding

Nick (Kenny Doughty) is fixing the inside of a confessional, in a Church and suddenly hears a woman confessing to him. His attempts to tell her he is just a carpenter fails, especially when he finds Vanessa (Rachael Leigh Cook) to be a very attractive young woman and he falls for her. He takes on the role of a priest, attentively listens to her, and determines to gain her confidence and wins her for himself even if she tells him she is getting married in three days. They appear to be on different wave lengths: she thinks that he is helping her to curb her sensual feelings, actually he is doing everything to make her succumb to his own urges.

The story centers on three unbelievably witless characters in unlikely situations that bring about exaggerated effects. Leigh Cook as Vanessa, Doughty as Nick and Paul Hopkins as Andre, the boyfriend/fiance of Vanessa, lack the capacity to enliven their roles; most of the time they seem to be looking at or reading from the prompter. Thus the rare comic moments misfire. Nick and Vanessa's characters are not pleasant to watch. Neither are they funny.

Nick is a character who succeeds in convincing Vanessa that he is a priest willing to listen to and guide her, even to the extent of having after-hours counseling sessions with her. Vanessa is willingly led; her trust in him is absolute, so much so that he is invited to her wedding rehearsal and to marry her and Andre when the assigned priest celebrant gets sick. Before the last happens, Nick manages to get the bride-to-be in a "bed session" with him. Nick is shown as one capable of convincing everyone, throughout the film that he is a priest in his black soutane, except his parish priest who comes in at the end of the story. He appears with no sense of wrong doing, no regret for all the lies and deceptions he has committed. Vanessa appears to be too much of a simpleton to be real. She is not a Catholic, yet she decides to go to confession in a Catholic Church to a Catholic priest. She says her Andre is a Catholic and believes in being chaste before marriage. But she's finding difficulty in controlling herself. Andre happens to be shown having a tryst with Nick's sister, despite what Vanessa thinks. Nick dupes him into believing that he (Nick) is devil-possessed and he (Andre) must watch over him (Nick) all night long. Andre does not suspect anything and keeps watch over Nick who is actually preventing the bride and groom to-be from being together. He does not show regret when he loses Vanessa.

After Sex

An all star cast movie released on 2007. The story is about an edgy relationship comedy that uses sex as a background to examine intimacy and vulnerability. It's a humorous, yet honest look at the complexity of modern day relationships told through nine separate couples. Through witty dialogue and compromising situations, the film takes us from the beginning of a relationship to the aftermath of one, and examines every stage in between while somehow finding humor within the drama, heartache and confusion of it all. What is learned about human emotions and vulnerability is enlightening and entertainingly sexy and fun.