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Columbus Circle starring Selma Blair, Amy Smart, Jason Lee, Beau Bridges & Giovanni Ribisi

Posted on March 4, 2012 Written by ripitup

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Columbus Circle Movie Poster
Columbus Circle Movie Poster from left: Giovanni Ribisi, Selma Blair, Jason Lee, Amy Smart & Kevin Pollak.

Plot

Formerly abused wealthy heiress Abigail Clayton (Selma Blair) has been living in her loft, refusing to leave her apartment. The concierge Klandermann (Kevin Pollak) runs all her errands, making her agoraphobic existence possible. Her only visitor is the family friend Raymond (Beau Bridges), the only person she trusts.

Her peaceful and structured existence is disrupted when her elderly next-door neighbor is killed and the young couple, Lillian (Amy Smart) & Charles (Jason Lee) move in. Things get complicated for Abigail when she witnesses Charles being violent, which bring back her own memories. She helps out by letting her in, but unfortunately Lillian is not the innocent abuse victim she is pretending to be. And Lilian may actually be the only person Charles is not ready to hurt…

It seems that all the characters have a secret, apart from the cop (Giovanni Ribisi) determined to solve the case. Can he solve it in time before things get out of hand for everyone?

*

Fun Level: Mediocre

Columbus Circle is -on paper- a good idea. A good cast, a good premise. Unfortunately it has severe editing and directing problems which stalls a lot, as well as making its twists way too obvious. The first important “twist” is already given in the trailer, and what you don’t know, you guess at the spot.

Despite the expected turns, it could be fun, except it is astounding how stupid the villains can be. You’d think someone attempting a con of millions of dollars would use their brains better. And of course there is the ending – which could have been a lot better if it was a little more difficult for a certain character, and a little less ridiculous for our villains.

Better with Multi-Tasking

It is all in the name of good fun, and it is certainly not the most boring film out there. But if you want to get the best value for your time, you might want to multi-task and not give the movie your full attention. You don’t need to.

Written by Kevin Pollak and George Gallo. Directed by George Gallo.

 

 

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Filed Under: Movies and Actors Tagged With: Amy Smart, beau bridges, columbus circle, columbus circle dvd, columbus circle movie, columbus circle movie review, George Gallo, Giovanni Ribisi, jason lee, kevin pollak, Selma Blair, thriller

Fracture starring Ryan Gosling & Anthony Hopkins

Posted on February 9, 2012 Written by ripitup

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Fracture Movie Poster
Fracture starring Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling. 2007.

Fracture Premise

Ted Crawford (Anthony Hopkins) is a very smart, rich and successful man married to the beautiful  Jennifer (Embeth Davidtz) who is many years his junior. Of course she is cheating on him with a guy close to her age- cop Robert Nunally (Billy Burke).

So Ted decides to kill his wife, destroy Rob and get away with it. He plans everything- from how Rob is the cop that shows up because there was a shooting in his house to how he will confess…

Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling) is a young and very successful prosecutor dying to move up to the corporate world. He has only one case left, and then he will leave for his glamorous new career.

The case seems easy enough- they have the weapon, the confession, the guy. They just don’t have the body since Jennifer has gone into a coma. But hey, they have everything they need. Moreover, the defendant, Ted, seems crazy enough to represent himself…

But of course Ted is a lot smarter and a lot more meticulous than they could have ever imagined. He plays his cards well, and he seems to have foreseen every move.

As the case goes on, and Willy gets to see Ted for who he really is, but both his relationship (with corporate lawyer Rosamund Pike) and career get jeopardized. How the hell can he win against Ted?

**

Worth Watching

Fracture is a real treat for the lovers of a solid legal thriller. The actors, unsurprisingly, do a great job. The script is so cool that you think it was probably adapted (and adapted well) from a bestseller.  Sure, the movie has flaws, and I couldn’t have cared less about Willy’s romance with the gorgeous  lawyer Nikki (Rosamund Pike), but bear with it.

Their relationship gives us a good idea about Willy, and it carries elements that move the plot forward. The villain is extremely clever and well-prepared, and well… the only reason the movie got 7.1 (and not an 8 on IMDB) is because people don’t agree on the ending.  Frankly, I loved it. Watch it.

Directed by Gregory Hoblit, written by Daniel Pyne & Glenn Gers.

 

**

Fun Notes on the Cast

–          English actress Rosamund Pike plays Elizabeth Bennet’s older/prettier/milder sister Jane in 2005’s movie Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth is played by Keira Knightley.

–          Cliff Curtis, who plays Rob’s partner, co-starred in Colombiana as the uncle of the main character (Zoe Saldana) and he also guest-starred in two episodes of Body of Proof as the love interest of the main character Megan Hunt (Dana Delany).

–          Billy Burke, who plays the lover/cop, is Bella’s father in the Twilight series.

 Recommended Reading feat. The Cast

Ryan Gosling:

The Ides of March feat. George Clooney, Ryan Gosling, Evan Rachel Wood, Paul Giamatti & Philip Seymour Hoffman

Crazy, Stupid, Love starring Steve Carell, Julianne Moore, Ryan Gosling & Emma Stone

Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone Trivia

All Good Things starring Ryan Gosling, Kirsten Dunst & Frank Langella

Movie Reviews of 4 Nicholas Sparks Adaptations: A Walk to Remember, Nights in Rodanthe, Message in a Bottle and The Notebook

Anthony Hopkins:

The Devil and Daniel Webster starring Alec Baldwin, Anthony Hopkins and Jennifer Love Hewitt

3 Movies with “Tristan” Protagonists feat. Legends of The Fall, Stardust, Tristan & Isolde


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Filed Under: Movies and Actors Tagged With: Anthony Hopkins, billy burke, buy fracture dvd, cliff curtis, crime, Daniel Pyne, drama, elizabeth davidtz, Fracture, fracture cast, fracture dvd, fracture movie, fracture movie review, fracture on dvd, Glenn Gers, gregory hoblit, movies, Rosamund Pike, Ryan Gosling, ryan gosling movies, thriller

Straw Dogs starring James Marsden, Kate Bosworth, Alexander Skarsgard & James Woods

Posted on December 30, 2011 Written by ripitup

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Straw-Dogs-2011-Movie-Poster
Straw Dogs starring James Marsden, Kate Bosworth, Alexander Skarsgård & James Woods. Image viaa whysoblu.com

Straw Dogs- Plot Summary

  • The review part has spoilers. For the unspoiled version, please read the preview.

Actress Amy (Kate Bosworth) and her screenwriter husband David Summer (James Marsden) go to her hometown so that he can have a writer’s retreat. It’s a beautiful lake house, and things are supposed to be just productive and romantic.

Unfortunately their peace is short-lived as their roof needs repair and David unknowingly hires Amy’s ex, the former football-star Charlie (Alexander Skarsgård) and his crew. To call them bullying, ignorant and intolerant and hypocritical rednecks would be an understatement. They are quick to hate David for being rich(er), being married to the town hottie, for being a city boy…

To make matters worse, Charlie he is also still obsessed with Amy, and the rest of of the town folk aren’t any smarter or more open-minded and Amy is acting like she is still in Los Angeles…

Review

That’s right. This is your plot. Now, I didn’t see the original Dustin Hoffman version, and I only had the trailer and the plot summary to make my guesses about the film. It seemed like it’d be a decent thriller, and I really like James Marsden. And while it ended up disturbing and thrilling enough, it was disappointing to have two of the stupidest female characters in the history of movies.

Let’s see:

Ideally, Amy wouldn’t have come back without telling her husband what the men can really be like. Ideally, she would have never come back.

So she absolutely had to go? She would have to hire a few men like John Reese (see Person of Interest). Do you think I’m being paranoid? I don’t care how trusting people are in that town- it is a remote house where the cell phones don’t get reception. Non-paranoid people shouldn’t be allowed to live there.

Amy walks around half-naked around perverted and horny men. And when her husband suggests that she could wear a bit more, she flashes to these men. Men who would have been tempted enough if she was wearing sweatpants and the ugliest, baggiest jumper the universe had to offer.

She provokes the men in more ways than one. No, I’m not saying she would have been safe had she been smarter. But as a viewer, her stupidity and provoking really pisses you off. And it is funny how she switched from “We don’t lock our doors around here” to “They killed our cat, let’s sleep with a gun!”

They should have left when the cat was killed.

Yes, of course the husband shouldn’t have ever, ever left her alone in the house. But he certainly didn’t see that they were psychopaths.

As for Janice (Willa Holland), she was even stupider than Amy. She repeatedly went after, tried to seduce and flirted with the town’s big man/little brain Jeremy (Dominic Purcell). Yes, she knew his father (James Woods) would kill the guy if he was ever seen with her. She knew there was an incident where another girl was hurt.  And the funniest thing? She got killed by him- not because he was trying to hurt her, but because he got so scared when he was trying to hide from her father. And her disappearance is what finally caused the ultimate battle between the Summers and the rednecks.

Oh, never mind the Sheriff who tries to calm a group of rednecks – where one guy is a well-built 6’4”, and the other one is a crazy, alcoholic father- by himself. Right. That is of course smart. I don’t care how safe they claim their town to be. Guns+ alcohol+ hot blooded men don’t equal safe, and it is not a one-man job!

*

So yes- the characters act like they have read a book called “How to Be Extremely Stupid”  and lived by it. Yes, the villains were disgusting, and had nothing to redeem them. The victims set a new low for being idiots.

*

The hypocrisy? Oh yes. According to our villain Charlie, it is rude and not nice to walk out on a sermon- but it is completely OK to rape his ex, and then watch while another friend rapes her too.

*

But I don’t rate movies on the intelligence of characters alone.  The movie was nicely-shot, the actors did a good job, and I love a good old fighting-back sequence when the “victim” finally gets rid of the villains one by one.

Rated at 5.6 on IMDB, Straw Dogs is underrated. But I won’t give it a 7 when the victims make the villains’ jobs so much easier. 6.5 from me.  It could have been a bit shorter, and could have repeated some stuff a lot less.

Other James Marsden Movies & Articles

The Box starring James Marsden, Cameron Diaz & Frank Langella

Stardust, The Air I Breathe, Playing by Heart, The Good Shepherd, Hairspray & He’s Just Not That Into You: 6 Good Movies with Brilliant Casts (Hairspray features James Marsden

Enchanted starring Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey & James Marsden

Movie Reviews of 4 Nicholas Sparks Adaptations: A Walk to Remember, Nights in Rodanthe, Message in a Bottle and The Notebook (The Notebook co-stars James Marsden)

Gossip starring James Marsden, Lena Headey, Norman Reedus, Kate Hudson & Joshua Jackson

The 24th Day starring James Marsden and Scott Speedman

 

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Filed Under: Movies and Actors Tagged With: Alexander Skarsgard, Dominc Purcell, drama, James Marsden, james marsden movies, james marsden straw dogs, James Woods, Kate Bosworth, movies, Straw Dogs, straw dogs 1971, straw dogs 2011, straw dogs 2011 cast, straw dogs 2011 movie, straw dogs dvd, straw dogs movie review, straw dogs plot, thriller, Willa Holland

Person of Interest starring Jim Caviezel & Michael Emerson

Posted on November 27, 2011 Written by ripitup

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Person-of-Interest-jim-caviezel-michael-emerson
Person of Interest starring Jim Caviezel & Michael Emerson.Image via divxplanet.com

Harold Finch (Michael Emerson) is a rich computer genius who the world believes to be dead. After 9/11, he has built a smart machine for the government which can detect potential mass crimes before they happen. Unfortunately, the machine can also detect other crimes. Since the government wasn’t interested, and Finch couldn’t let it go, he  the machine to send him the suspected person’s social security number. Finch wants to help these individuals who the government isn’t interested in helping, and needs a man with a certain skill set.

John Reese (Jim Caviezel) is an ex-military/government agent, and he is damn good at tracking, fighting, using weapons, disappearing and a lot more. The world also thinks he is dead, and ever since he lost the love of his life, he doesn’t care about anything anymore. Spending his days like a homeless drunk, he is spotted by Finch, who of course knows that Reese isn’t dead.

When a subway incident puts Reese on the radar of the NYPD detective Carter (Taraji P. Henson), Finch bails him out and offers him the job of helping people that alerted his machine. At first Reese is reluctant, but Finch persuades him that he can help others from getting hurt, and he indeed has the resources to provide him.

After that, they start their cases with a number. They find out who the number belongs to, but they don’t know what the crime will be, or if the person will be the victim or the guilty party. Finch feeds Reese the intel, and Reese starts tracking their person of interest.  Nothing is ever what it seems to be, and they always find a way to get advantage of it. For instance instead of killing or jailing one of the dirty cops (Kevin Chapman) they catch, Reese makes him his inside source.

Of course there are two big puzzles: what happened to Finch (he has had a serious injury and walks with a strong limp- we don’t know how that happened or he wanted to disappear) and Reese (who killed his girlfriend and why).

person-of-interest-jim-caviezel-as-john-reese
Reese (Jim Caviezel) is on the job, tracking their current person of interest.

Person of Interest is very addictive. It has character development, drama, mystery and plenty of action. It has two main and two supporting characters, and the relationship between Finch and Reese is a lot of fun.  While Reese at first seemed angry and depressed, each episode slowly reveals his subtle sense of humor and dibs at uncovering more about Finch. Finch knows a lot more about Reese than the audience, and the audience has a lot of questions about both. He is very determined about keeping himself a closed box, and Reese is tempted to open it up slowly.

Reese is the ultimate action hero. Yes, he is a good guy. Yeah, he doesn’t feel great when he has to kill people. But he really doesn’t mind if he has to kill scum. He kicks ass, and it is fun trying to see a bunch of mean but no-so-skilled and/or well-trained bad guys try to go at our 6′ 2″ (1.88 m) hero.

And as cool and professional Reese is, he is not short of using empathy with the people he is trying to save. Everything isn’t black and white with him. Example? An ex-soldier who’s robbing banks to look after his dead friend’s kids without killing anyone is a guy who deserves a second chance in Reese’s book.

I also love the fact that Finch and Reese aren’t trying to save the whole world. They’re helping one person at a time, and entertaining us while doing so.

It’s a lot of fun to see Carter trying to catch Reese when she constantly ends up with the description “Tall man in a suit”…

Recommended. Currently 8.2 on IMDB. 10/10 from me. But then again, I have always been a sucker for the cool spy stuff without the supernatural elements where we are not saving the world. And as my favorite shows are slowly losing their edge (Castle got darker and less funny, where as The Mentalist got lighter and funnier), A Person of Interest hooked me from episode 1. And you know a shows rocks when it is great enough with a higher purpose (catching Red John) or without presenting a possible on-screen couple.  Just pure good writing and good acting. Try it!

 

Favorite Lines & Scenes:

Season 1, Episode 5

Finch: Mr. Reese-any sign of a threat?

Reese (not having spotted a threat for a while and watching the judge eat fast food): Does cholesterol count?

*

Season 1, Episode 5

Reese: Thank you.

Finch: I beg your pardon?

Reese: For giving me a job

Finch: (offering the personal suggestion he refused in the beg. of the episode) Try the eggs Benedict Mr. Reese, I’ve had them many times. (Reese smiles after Finch leaves).

*

Season 1, Episode 6

Finch: Do you know what she does yet?

Reese: She does favors. For a price. She’s a fixer.

Finch: Assuming that she’s the victim, any idea who’d want to take her out?

Reese: Who wouldn’t?

*

Season 1, Episode 6

The Fixer (Zoe): You never did tell me your name.

Reese: John. My name is John.

The Fixer: (amused) Of course it is. So, John, how did you know I’d be in trouble?

Reese: Given your choice of career, doesn’t seem much of a stretch. You might consider a new line of work.

The Fixer: You’re the one to judge.

*

 

Season 1, Episode 7

Reese is watching a high school teacher whose number came up.

Reese (on the site, talking to Finch through his earpiece): What’s the story, Finch?

Finch: He’s a high school history teacher working in the Brighton Beach School District. Lives alone. Never married. Not much to go on.

Reese: (teasing) Maybe he has students after him. You know teaching can be a dangerous profession.

Finch: Yes, I imagine espionage is a much safer choice, Mr. Reese.

Reese laughs.

 

person-of-interest-jim-caviezel-michael-emerson
Finch and Reese image via whataboutmichaelemerson.wordpress.com. The scene dialogue is below. Enjoy.

 

Season 1, Episode 7

Finch: What if you miss?

Reese: Wouldn’t know. Never have.

*

Fun Notes:

  • The series is produced by J.J. Abrams (Lost, Alias, Alcatraz) but not written or created by him. The series was created by Jonathan Nolan.
  • Michael Emerson also starred in Lost, J.J. Abrams hit show that went on for 6 seasons.
  • In episode 7, The Witness, Reese is trying to protect a high school teacher from two different mobs and eventually they hide out with one of his students. His student is reading The Count of Monte Cristo, and upon the student’s comment that the character Edmond is “cool, a survivor” a subtle grin appears on Reese’s face- as  Jim Caviezel starred as Edmond, aka The Count of Monte Cristo in the 2002 movie version.

 

Other Posts on Jim Caviezel

Jim Caviezel Trivia: Interesting Facts about the Person of Interest Star

High Crimes starring Jim Caviezel, Ashley Judd & Morgan Freeman

 

 

 

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Filed Under: TV shows Tagged With: drama, Jim Caviezel, jim caviezel person of interest, kevin chapman, michael emerson, person of interest, person of interest cast, person of interest jim caviezel, person of interest quotes, person of interest review, Taraji P. Henson, thriller, TV shows

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