Lilo & Stitch 2

IMO, Lilo & Stitch is one of the best animated movies of all times. It was so good that after the pseudo-sequel “Experiment 626″ I was a little skeptical on even watching Lilo & Stitch 2, the “official” sequel. The animation and the voices are (at least nearly) as good as in the original, but the plot of Lilo & Stitch 2 is quite straightforward – there’s a problem with Stitch which threatens not only his family relations but his life altogether.. Jumba, Stitch’s creator, must try to find a cure before it’s too late.

Lilo & Stitch 2 does have some funny and moving moments but overall, it’s definitely not as good as the original Lilo & Stitch. Still, it is way better than “Experiment 626″ – a semi-worthy sequel which could’ve been better but could’ve also been a lot worse. 3½ out of 5.

Something New

Something New is, to put it shortly, a comedy about race. Kenya McQueen is a successful African-American lawyer who doesn’t really have a time for a life. A blind date with an architectural landscaper Brian doesn’t go all that smoothly – at first anyway. The primary reason? Color. He doesn’t see a problem with it, but she certainly does. She ends up commissioning him to design her garden anyway and the two end up spending increasing amounts of time together. There’s very little in the plot or the movie that we haven’t seen in other movies, but it works nice enough anyway. Overall an average 3 out of 5.

Knocked up

Knocked Up is a drama/comedy on what will happen – and to many, probably has happened – if you get a little too excited, a little too drunk, with the wrong person and when the repercussions aren’t limited to bad feelings the morning after. You get the drift.

Many critics have hailed Knocked Up as a more realistic romantic comedy – and to a certain degree it is just that. However, I think it’s been stripped of even too much of the “unrealistic” happy stuff and in the process ends up coming across as a somewhat pessimistic movie. There’s some very over-the-top acting especially on the part of the supporting cast. Even the main characters have been made quite, well, simple and black and white. It manages to entertain but also annoy; a good enough movie but not the breakthrough critics think (how come I’m not surprised..) – 3½ out of 5.

Dear Frankie

Frankie is a 9-year old boy living with his mother – his father he communicates with via letters, believing he’s working on a ship. The only thing is that it’s not Frankie’s father who is replying those letters, it’s his mother. The precarious situation is made even more complicated when HMS Accra, the ship his dad is supposed to be on, will soon arrive at the harbor of the town he lives in and Frankie desperately wants to meet his dad.

So what is her mother to do? Hiring a stranger to play his dad may not seem like the appropriate thing to do, but that’s what she does. Dear Frankie is a very warm-hearted movie with a good story and great acting. 4 out of 5.

Bourne Ultimatum

If you can sometimes go to the movies and put your brain on the shelf, not over-analyze things too much, Bourne Ultimatum will hit you like a ton of bricks – in the first few minutes, the restless camera style may seem distracting, but one quickly gets used to it. The movie starts fast and simply flows forward without losing its momentum for even a moment. Still, we’re not talking about an entirely mindless plot and one benefits to some extent from having seen the previous Bourne movies. The Bourne Ultimatum is, IMO anyway, simply as good as action thrillers get. 5-/5.

Little Children

Imagine your normal neighborhood with children; playgrounds get crowded with children and their parents, usually mothers. This seemingly normal setting is the environment for this movie. Throw in some marital problems, a stay-at-home dad and a pedophile to the mix and you instantly have some potential for an interesting plot. Little Children is a somewhat slow-moving drama of loneliness, romance and company – and a little bit of paranoia also. Despite the slowish plot development, this was a very good movie with some great low-key performances. 4 out of 5

The Pursuit of Happyness

Chris is a salesman with a product that doesn’t have that great of a market; problems with income exacerbate problems with his marriage and soon enough he finds himself living only with his son with little money to pay for anything. Together they try to struggle – try to sell the weird machines, try to find a place to sleep, try to get a new job. Finally an opportunity comes knocking in the form of an internship; an internship that is unpaid, creating some extra challenges.

A warm-hearted movie with yet another good performance from Will Smith as well as Jaden Smith (his son as his son). 3½ out of 5.

Breaking and Entering

Will (Jude Law), a landscape architect, sets up his firm in a bit of a shady area of London. Incidentally, the place gets robbed – twice. In the process of figuring things out, Will gets involved with the perpetrator’s mother and becomes quite interested in her.. perhaps even too interested, at least when it comes to his wife and daughter at home. A nice enough thriller but I generally dislike Jude Law’s relatively expressionless acting style and this movie is no exception in that regard. Overall I’d say 3- out of 5.

Mini’s First Time

Mini, a canny teen, is fed up with her drunk mother so she makes plans to get rid of her. To help her in her quest, she seduces her stepfather. The plans, as would be expected, turn a little bit sour and soon there’s a suspecting cop questioning the two. How far will the deceit work before someone has to pay the price?

The movie starts off quite slowly but picks up after about half an hour. The acting isn’t anything to write home about, but it was still another good enough (but certainly not stellar) thriller at 3+ out of 5.

Maria Full of Grace

Quite appropriately taglined “Based on a 1,000 true stories”, Maria Full of Grace focuses on the story of one young Columbian woman. Very few things seem to be going her way in her life – not least the unplanned pregnancy with a boyfriend who doesn’t love her. So when an opportunity comes to make a lot of money seemingly easily, she takes it. The only problem is that it involves becoming a drug mule to USA and all the related risks that go along with it..

Maria Full of Grace is a wonderful movie of a subject that’s far from wonderful. It also helps you begin to understand why drug mules accept such dangerous jobs in the first place. Highly recommended – 4½ out of 5.

Without going too deep into discussing how idiotic this is on many levels – I mean for one, how stupid is it to publicly demand to get access to the competitors’ subscriber databases?! – I was reminded of the following photograph of a great situation which is one of the few cases I’ve ever seen where defacing an advertisement of sorts is justified and even funny as heck. The photographer is unfortunately unknown.

Indeed.

(disclaimer: I don’t have a TV and thus I don’t have a license.)

The Illusionist

Set in the turn-of-the-century Vienna, The Illusionist tells the story of a brilliant magician, Eisenheim (Edward Norton), who returns to Vienna after many years to rediscover his childhood crush under the most unopportune circumstances. The two try to get together, but the woman in question is unfortunately under the iron rule of the Crown Prince who also suspects and tries to debunk any mystery in Eisenheim’s magic. But as things in the world of magic are rarely what they first seem, what will happen?

The story is narrated and told by Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti) – while I typically don’t care for narrated movies, it worked nicely here as the timeline jumps a bit. Illusionist definately has elements of a romantic drama, but I find it hard to classify it purely as such as it’s also a first-class thriller supported by a well-performing (great work from Norton in particular), seasoned cast, well-developed characters and good storytelling, not to mention very nice staging. Overall excellent cinematography, one that I’ll give 4½ out of 5.

A Good Year

Max Skinner (Russell Crowe) is a ruthless banker, not exactly loved by anyone; hist last warm relationship was with his uncle Henry Skinner (Albert Finney) when he was a young boy spending summers at his uncle’s vineyard in France. Now living in London, he hears of his uncle’s death and the vineyard that he supposedly inherited – immediately thinking of selling the place for profit. Once down there, however, he semi-reluctantly ends up spending more than 24hrs at the villa. Could it be that the estate is worth something more than its selling price?

The movie is categorized as a romantic drama / comedy, which I suppose is fair though it’s a bit light on the comedy part. The plot is somewhat predictable but manages to throw in a couple of small surprises. With no unpleasant surprises in the acting or other categories, A Good Year turns out to be a good movie – but not excellent. 3½ out of 5.

The Last Kiss

If there ever was a movie with us as the target audience in terms of life situations, this is it. The Last Kiss is a story about a few couples struggling to find balance and retain expectations of surprises in their lives as they start to settle down in their 30s – and get babies. Anxieties arise especially for the men as Michael (Zach Braff) feels his life is now all planned out for him – and in the process conveniently meets an exciting young girl. One thing leads to another and his pregnant common-law wife Jenna (Jacinda Barrett) finding out about what’s going on is only getting to be a matter of time. At times a clever drama, The Last Kiss manages to be a rather believable and realistic film. Most of the performances are pretty good, though I disliked Braff’s somewhat detached acting. Anyway, a pretty good movie and as such, 3½ out of 5.

Shawshank Redemption

This movie had been sitting on my DVD shelf for close to a decade, so it was about time I actually watched it Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is wrongly convicted of murder and sent to the Shawshank prison for life. The prison life turns out to be just as unpleasant as one can imagine, but he eventually forms a close friendship with “Red” (Morgan Freeman), a man who can get some things delivered to the prison. As Andy starts to build a life for himself in the prison, he eventually discovers that warden is far from a friendly one. Over the years it becomes clear that when they send you away to Shawshank for life, your life is what they take from you.. despite the somewhat boring-sounding plot, this is a remarkable and emotional film and instead of giving away the plot, I’ll highly recommend it and score it at 5- out of 5.

Freedom Writers

Erin Gruwell (Hilary Swank) is a young, inexperienced teacher who is put to the test teaching a restless bunch of high school students. As one would expect, there are massive troubles with the kids at first but gradually they become to accept and even respect her. Erin’s troubles don’t, however, end with the kids she’s teaching as she’s also fighting another fight at home where her husband feels neglected and another one at school where she feels the the school management neglects her students. A run-of-the-mill MTV movie that suffers from too slow a start and from being quite predictable. As such, maybe 2½ out of 5 is in order.

Because I Said So

Daphne Wilder (Diane Keaton) is worried about her daughter Milly (Mandy Moore) – specifically, she’s worried about her luck with men, or the lack thereof, so she decides to help fate along a bit and place a personal ad for her daughter. And screen the candidates. Of course this spells for a disaster to begin with, but added complexity comes from the fact that by chance, two eligible bachelors enter Milly’s life, only one of the mom-approved. Overall an okay movie, though the acting somewhat over the top at times, there were no surprises in the thoroughly predictable plot, the acting was a bit off at times etc – a bit of a substandard romantic comedy. 2 out of 5.

Notes on a Scandal

A sort of a psychological thriller/drama, centered around an older teacher, Barbara Covett (Judi Dench) who befriends a newcomer, Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett). The friendship starts off well and when Sheba hits a crisis that could cost her her job, Barbara is there to bail her out. But in the overall, is the friendship completely normal? Does Barbara really want just a friend … or something more? Good performances abound and the plot holds together to the end. Nothing stellar, but a thoroughly enjoyable psychological drama anyway. 3½ out of 5.

Stranger Than Fiction

Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) is a tax auditor with a remarkably boring and simple life. But one morning Harold’s life takes an unexpected turn as he begins to hear someone narrate his own life – and once it begins to seems that the narrator knows more about Harold’s life than Harold himself does, he becomes a bit unnerved. The narration begins to affect his whole life, and for the most part for the better. At least there’s now some excitement in Harold’s life – perhaps a little too much after some surprising news. A very clever movie with a good idea but even better realization. Despite – and maybe also because – of it’s unusual storytelling, highly recommended at 4½ out of 5.

Painted Veil

Set in the early 20th century China, a somewhat introverted doctor Walter Fane (Edward Norton) brings his reluctant, adulterous and estranged wife Kitty Fane (Naomi Watts) along for a dangerous mission of helping out in a cholera outbreak in a remote village. Surrounded by death and danger and with few friendly faces, Walter and Kitty must face their own problems and work out something themselves. Another great performance from Edward Norton, The Painted Veil turns out to be a very good movie. Not a happy one, but not without a laugh or two. Not a love story as such, but not without love. Not only a drama either, but definately not without drama. Recommended. 4 out of 5.

The Groomsmen

Paulie (Ed Burns) is getting married. The Groomsmen follows his life and the lives of his four groomsmen leading up to the wedding; the fears and anxieties they have, the personal problems and the usual things: not everyone gets along, not everyone is sure about the future etc. In other words, nothing to write home about plot wise, but considering the not-so-good ingredients, The Groomsmen comes out rather nicely. In short, it’s quite fun but only that – it won’t keep you thinking later on but is decent entertainment. 3+ out of 5

Kiki’s Delivery Service

Originally Majo no takkyûbin; I’ve always liked Hayao Miyazaki movies and Kiki’s Delivery Service was no exception. Kiki is a young witch who decides to leave home and find a city to settle in. She and her cat fly off and land in Korico, a coastal city that provides both pleasant and unpleasant experiences. Mostly in the former category is a certain boy who lays his eyes on Kiki as soon as she lands in the city.. As usual for Miyazaki’s movies, Kiki’s Delivery Service is a great fairytale with wonderful drawing style and warm characters. Definitely worth seeing. 4- out of 5.

Ocean’s Thirteen

I liked Ocean’s Eleven a lot – Ocean’s Twelve was also good, but not as good as Eleven. Now Thirteen gets back on the right track; I don’t want to give away the plot for those who haven’t seen it; the plot at first sight is never very complicated in the “Ocean’s” series, but the details are fascinating. But when you put so many excellent actors together – people like George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Bernie Mac and Al Pacino – can you go wrong? What’s also nice is that the whole cast looks like everyone was genuinely having a lot of fun when shooting the film, something that’s also nice to watch on the screen. A perfect clean and fun thriller. 4+ out of 5.

Blood Diamond

Blood Diamond is a story of the dirty diamonds in Africa; while a fictional film, the circumstances and problems depicted are all too real. The village where Solomon Vandy lives is raided by rebel fighters; Solomon is put to work as a slave in a diamond mine while his family manages to escape – at first. When Solomon finds a huge pink diamond, an opportunity presents itself to hide the diamond; but the existence of such a rock could never remain a secret and one Danny Archer, a smuggler, also hears of the discovery. The story soon involves many people after the diamond as well as a reporter after a good story and, perhaps, imparting a difference.

The movie is engrossing with great storytelling and breathtakingly beautiful African scenery. Every single one of the cast also knows their stuff; in particular I was impressed with Leonardo DiCaprio as Danny Archer in the lead; he pulls off a great performance and definitely deserved the Oscar nomination he got. 5- out of 5.

As a sidenote, I’m constantly annoyed by a couple of things: the terrible Finnish translations in both movie titles and subtitles and the fact that DVDs sold and rented here typically don’t include English subtitles. Why? It wouldn’t cost them anything to put them there, so I can’t figure out why they’re always left out..

Accepted

Accepted tells a story of getting accepted to a college or a university – and the problems if one is not. The plot was believable enough, at first anyway: like many Americans, Bartleby worries about getting to a good college after high school. The only problem is that a) he’s a slacker and b) he isn’t getting into any. And I mean any. With everyone on his case on what he’s going to do after high school, he comes up with a plan that’s not so far-fetched these days: invent a college. So he fakes an acceptance letter from “South Harmon Institute of Technology”, their website and things go smoothly at first – but then his parents want to see the place. And meet the dean. Just how far can he take the scam?

A slightly below average, funny-at-times, comedy at 2½ out of 5.

Little Miss Sunshine

Olive is a little girl with a dream – and a member of a rather dysfunctional family. When she gets to the Little Miss Sunshine final competition in California, the family must try to find the means to get her there; and the only one they can afford is to drive there in a beat-up old VW. Strange things happen and tempers flair up when you put even a normal family inside a small vehicle for extended periods of time, but the Hoover family is far from what one would call normal..

Kind of off-beat especially towards the end, Little Miss Sunshine was nevertheless a delightful road-movie and one that definitely deserves the critical acclaim it has received. There’s some hidden and not-so-hidden criticism at many cultural oddities in US and many of them hit right on the mark. 4 out of 5.

The Devil Wears Prada

A comedy/drama with at least some elements based on reality; the movie is based on a book by Lauren Weisberger that tells of working in an international fashion magazine. Andy (Anne Hathaway) gets a job as an assistant – against all odds – for Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), editor of Runway, one of the hottest fashion magazines. Little does she realize that the job will soon enroach into her private life in a fundamental way with not exactly happy consequences. Free time becomes an illusion as Miranda’s quirks need to be fulfilled immediately. The Devil Wears Prada is a good combination of comedy and drama and manages to pull off a thoroughly believable story with good flow and great performances. The critical acclaim came for a reason; 4- out of 5.

Angel Eyes

A man, “Catch”, is involved in fatal car accident and is saved by a police officer; later, he becomes obsessed by his savior and starts following her (Jennifer Lopez as Sharon), eventually ending up saving her life also. The two develop an odd relationship with Catch’s past blocked from his mind, too painful to remember. Sharon slowly and patiently tries to build up an image of what happened and tries to help Catch come to terms with it also – but it’s a painful journey, one that he’s not willing to take.

A much better movie than I had anticipated, Angel Eyes is a somewhat slow-moving thriller with solid performances by the lead cast. 3½ out of 5.

Children of Men

I had high hopes for this movie, as it touches a somewhat topical subject: the setting is Britain in 2027; it has been 18 years since there was a birth and the world has been flung into a chaos. Tensions are high after the death of the youngest person in the world and with illegal immigrants facing a crackdown. An ex-activist is semi-reluctantly recruited to what becomes a difficult and dangerous but crucial mission – to deliver a pregnant women, an illegal immigrant, to a secret safe have of “Human Project”, the existence of which nobody seems quite certain about.

The mood of the film captures the general despair, apathy and violence very well and the performances by all lead characters are very good. However, it suffers from a somewhat slow-moving plot and plunges at times into irrelevant-seeming scenes of pure war. IMO, the ending also leaves a lot to be desired from, but might appeal to some people. Nevertheless, Children of Men is a depiction of future that’s almost believable and is a quite powerful in that. I don’t know whether to give it a 4 or 3 out of 5, so I’ll settle for 3½/5.

Helmiä ja Sikoja

A Finnish movie about four small-time criminal brothers whose father is thrown into jail and they’re left with not only the task of getting by themselves but also to take care of their fathers young daughter, suddenly dumped on them by her mother. The girl, Saara, turns out to be a talented but reluctant singer, so the guys set their eyes on the sorely-needed price money of a talent competition.. The movie suffers from a beginning that’s too damn slow, but once it actually gets going it’s quite ok. Offers some funny moments but nothing spectacular in terms of performances or storyline. 2½ out of 5.

Flicka

Katy comes home for summer to the ranch from her boarding school – which isn’t going to well – to find that her home farm is also in some trouble, not doing too well financially. Then one day, she helps catch – what she thinks is a wonderful training target – a wild horse, Mustang. Unfortunately, her father considers Mustangs be purely bad news and is planning on selling the horse. Flicka is a nice family movie but one that never really manages to get off the ground. There’s also the straightforward, slowly-moving plot that contributes to its score of 2½ out of 5.

Hooligans

Matt (Elijah Wood) is expelled from Harvard as he takes the blame for an incident where the true guilty party is “too important” to be expelled – in essence accepting a bribe from him, he finds himself in London at her sisters place. Unfortunately for him, her sister’s husband doesn’t want him around on the night of his arrival and bribes his brother, Pete, to take him to a football game – and that’s where trouble begins. Turns out Pete is pretty intimately involved with football hooligans and after some reluctance on both his and his friends’ parts, he takes Matt in as a sort of a apprentice. Trouble soon finds Matt from more than one direction and it begins to look like he’s in over his head..

The plot of the movie is good, but I was bothered with how fast Matt gets into the “firm”. Also, Elijah Wood’s performance as Matt is mostly quite mild and unenthusiastic which doesn’t fit the role he’s leading at all. Nevertheless, Hooligans manages to bring out a couple of new viewpoints to the issue and present the story in an emotional, gripping way. Therefore a good movie at 3½ out of 5, but not as great as I had expected from the reviews.

Imagine Me & You

Rachel and Heck, best friends and lovers for a long time, are – finally – getting married. Especially Rachel is a bit unenthusiastic about it and her father’s attitude doesn’t help brighten the mood. To add to the mix, something that begins with an innocent single glance at the wedding slowly starts developing into something more serious over time. What does Rachel do? Does she follow her newfound spark with someone else – even though really, nothing could happen as she’s married – or does she settle for being safely together with Heck?

The movie very nicely portrays that sometimes, there need not be a “bad guy” (or a girl) in case a relationship doesn’t work; as the plot unravels, you don’t end up hating any of the lead characters. A very nice romantic movie with good performances. 4 out of 5

The Departed

Critically acclaimed, The Departed tells the story of two people on two sides of the law – or, actually, both on both sides of the law.. William Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) is assigned to work undercover at Costello’s (Jack Nicholson) mafia-style organization, while Colin (Matt Damon) is working for the police trying to bust the operation – and for Costello. As both sides start to understand there’s a mole in their organization, the hunt for them begins. Who finds who first and how do the undercovers on each side face this challenge?

The plot is by no means crystal clear or simple and it’s not laid out in a way that would make it easy to follow for the viewer; chances are you’re left wondering at some point as to what is going on, which in my books is a good thing. The seasoned cast performs brilliantly, as expected. This is a movie that probably would survive another viewing easily, one with an interesting and complicated story but one that still didn’t feel as good as I was expecting it to be. But the expectations were set so high that even with the disappointment, I’ll give it 4 out of 5.

Pretty Persuasion

The idea is a good one, one that I’m sure has been tried in real-life somewhere: a bright female student decides to accuse her teacher of sexual harassment, and manages to draw in a bunch of other people in her plot for revenge.. but revenge for what? And just who is she playing?

While the plot could’ve been good, the production spoiled it. There are problems with the acting, the directing, the cast and pretty much everything else too. First, the acting was at times downright bad and at best a bit wooden. The storytelling wasn’t too hot either with the “flow” missing from most of the movie. As a whole, maybe 2 out of 5 and a definite disappointment.

Hard Candy

The idea is certainly equally timely and disturbing: girl meets boy. Online.

Oh wait, there’s nothing disturbing there so far. The disturbing part is that the girl, Hayley, is 14 years old while the “boy” is a 32-year-old man, Jeff, who works as a photographer. Hayley meets Jeff in a cafe, they seem to get along well, and she ends up going to his house and maybe pose for a couple of photos..

At this point you think you can already tell much of the rest of the plot, but Hard Candy is something different.. The movie is upsetting, even shocking, thought-provoking and surprising. Highly recommended but not for the faint of heart. 4 out of 5.

Lately, YLE (the television-license-sponsored national broadcasting company) has been making headlines due to their stance on some aspects of the signal delivery. First they said that nobody can use a “central digital tuner” (so that hospitals etc wouldn’t have to buy new tuners for each TV set – there are a lot). Then they gave an exemption to the rule for hospitals. Since then apartment buildings have also been told they can also install a central digital tuner. Now there’s a debate about whether cable companies can continue transmitting analog signals.

Even though I don’t even have a TV and thus could hardly care less about all this on a personal level, I have two fundamental problems with the debate:

First of all, could somebody please explain to me why YLE has a say in any of this in the first place?! YLE is first and foremost a content producer. The signal transmission and broadcast is handled by a different company, Digita. So why would YLE a) care and b) be allowed to care about the digital / analog transmission stuff as long as consumers have the possibility of receiving the digital signal if they so wish?

Second, again as long as consumers have the possibility to receive the digital signal if they want, I don’t understand the commotion about analog cable, analog in-building transmissions or whatever other digital/analog debates. The terrestrial broadcast frequency will be freed no matter what goes on in some cables. That was the primary driver for all of this and that goal will be reached – so what’s the problem?

And anybody who says digital TV’s primary driver is in all the great services, please show me just one such great service – because so far all Finnish digital TV “services” that I’ve seen have been underwhelming to say the least.

Annapolis

A story of a man determined to get into Annapolis, U.S. Naval Academy; but once there, the difficulties just begin. Getting off on a wrong foot with his superior and not really getting along too well with most of his roommates, Jake (James Franco) enters the academy’s internal boxing competition where he’s also determined to succeed. The determination is not, however, always unfaltering and there are some moments of hesitation. In the end the relationship with his superior(s) also get better, even significantly so.. Overall an average movie with some good moments. It can be filed under the “not bad”-category and scored at 3/5.

City of God

Though well known and almost 5 years old, it was only now that we got around to watching the City of God. Telling a realistic story of growing up in the violent and drug-infested “City of God” housing project neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, it’s a story of many young people who watch and learn from the drug dealers and the violence. The main character, “Rocket”, tries to take a different path and dreams of becoming a professional photographer. With seemingly everyone else pursuing much different “goals” in their lives, it’s an uphill battle for Rocket to try to be apart from all the violence. A good movie at 4- out of 5.

Friends with Money

A drama about three women and their lone single friend – a friend who is financially much worse off than the rest of them. Olivia (Jennifer Aniston) is working as a maid while the others can afford to give a cool million dollars for charity. The supposed teaching of the film is that money doesn’t bring happiness, but it’s it’s an odd movie with most of the characters out of whack one way or another. Olivia is strangely lacking any will of her own and her friends battle with their relationships and other problems. The movie is somewhat unmemorable, but Frances McDormand pulls off a great role as the high-strung Jane. 3 out of 5.

Memoirs of a Geisha

Telling the story of a Japanese girl from a small fishing village who is sold to a geisha house in Kyoto; through tough training and despite her backstabbing competitors, Chiyo was to become one of Japanese most celebrated geisha. The story feels very realistic, but is based on a novel which was based on interviews of Mineko Iwasaki, who however later went on to write a vastly different autobiography – so who knows what elements of the movie are real and what are not. However, it’s an engrossing and fascinating tale of what it takes to be a geisha, and an interesting look inside the (sub)culture. The movie was sometimes a bit slow, but still bearable at 2h 20min. 4 out of 5.

Va, Vis et Deviens

In 1980, black Falashas of Ethiopia were evacuated to Israel as Jews with the help of the USA. Schlomo, a 9-year-old Christian is semi-smuggled out of the country with the evacuations, but faces an uphill struggle in Israel – people there do not really believe he is a Jew and he must go to great lengths to prove otherwise. Luckily he is adopted to a family that isn’t all that regligious. Quickly learning the customs and traditions seems to pay off, but not all the prejudice disappears no matter what; and some still seem to doubt his “jewishness”. I think there was potential for a lot better movie here; as it stands, it was way too long – half an hour could’ve easily be cut and it would’ve been a much more concise and watchable movie. 2½ out of 5.

Inside Man

In short, Inside Man is a story of bank robbery. Without giving away too much of the plot, the robbery turns out to be somewhat unconventional; with dozens of hostages, there seems to be little the police – who quickly surround the bank – can do in terms of storming in. The negotiator in charge (Denzel Washington) has things to prove in his own life / career and doesn’t always get along with other officials; even less so when he chooses to talk to the mysterious Madeleine White (Jodie Foster); nobody seems to know who she is but she convinces everyone that she can help with the situation.

With some excellent performances, Inside Man is an intelligent, well-done and “clean” crime thriller and one I can highly recommend. It manages to keep the suspension right to the end and throws in just the correct amount of surprises and twists. One of the best thrillers since The Usual Suspects. 5- out of 5.

Babel

Babel tells several intertwined stories – Richard & Susan (Brad Pitt & Cate Blanchett) are American tourists traveling in Morocco on a semi-mission to save their relationship when tragedy strikes them; the result of dumb games played by two Moroccan youngsters. We follow both stories, as well as events in US & Mexico where Richard & Susan’s nanny is watching over their two children but must take the kids somewhere they shouldn’t go to. Beautifully shot on location in several countries, Babel tells touchingly of the dangers of making haste assumptions and bad choices; yet, at the same time, it’s a story of people trying their best. In this, Babel shares some of the same feeling and theme as Crash. Brilliant scenery & acting along with a good storyline make Babel one of the best movies of the year, along with Inside Man. Highly recommended, 5- out of 5.

The Miracle

While I’ve never really cared for ice hockey, I usually like interesting real-life stories; The Miracle tells the true story of Herb Brooks (Kurt Russell) who leads the 1980 US Olympic team of inexperienced young players to victory against the seemingly invincible Russians. While there are no glaring faults with any acting or the storytelling, I just failed to get into the movie – I don’t know what the problem was. Maybe there was too much hockey, maybe Herb’s family issues side-plot was too superficial and distracting or maybe it was something else. With movies where you know the ending, the flow of the storytelling becomes that much more important. Here it somehow just didn’t work for me. I’m sure people who love ice hockey will also like the movie, but I just didn’t get along with it too well. Thus, I’ll give it 1½ out of 5 but YMMV.

Casino Royale

I think it goes without saying that I was skeptical of the new Bond actor. In the end Pierce Brosnan turned out to be quite okay as 007, but of course Sean Connery still rules. Anyway, I’m glad to say that Daniel Craig pulled it off quite nicely. Nowhere near Connery, but then the Bond films have changed a bit since then also..

And talking about the changes in the film; this newest (or, well, oldest, depending on how you look at it) Bond movie is definately an updated version of the genre. For one, the new 007 as a character is interestingly both less and more emotional than previous Bonds. Mostly the updates are good, but I still kind of miss the cold war era-007.. Casino Royale itself was quite a decent movie, although maybe a bit too predictable. The flow is nice, the ending is good and action sequences are perhaps a little more realistic than many before. Overall the movie met and in some sense exceeded expectations; there weren’t too many surprises but that’s one good thing about Bond movies usually – you know what you’re going to get. 4 out of 5.

Lake House

A romantic drama with a well-known leading cast; Keanu Reeves & Sandra Bullock. Both pull off their respective roles well. The plot is a bit unusual; the two start a letter correspondence and soon discover they are living two years apart – this complicates their meeting somewhat and also messes with ones mind a bit, with some of the developments a bit confusing. I’m still not quite sure whether there’s a serious continuity error in the movie or not. Nevertheless, it’s a pretty good romantic drama with plenty of emotional content. 4 out of 5.

Let’s assume that in the future, even more so than now, people want to see their favorite TV episodes wherever, whenever, so on-demand delivery over the Internet of all their broadcast content is made possible by the TV companies. The question is: how much should an episode cost? Nothing? A buck apiece?

To answer that, we need to take a look at how much money is currently being made by the TV companies by advertising.

A 30-second spot goes for around half a million dollars in most popular TV series. As there are 18 minutes of ads per one hour of programming, we can assume the broadcasters take in about 9 million dollars per hour per channel. Not bad. When you divide that by the viewership – say 22 million, which was the season average for Desperate Housewives – you get a per-viewer advertising revenue of about 40 cents.

People don’t exactly love ads, right? So if you wanted to offer those episodes for online download without any ads, a price like 50 cents apiece would cover not only the loss from advertising revenue but also cover the hardware and connectivity costs. 50 cents per episode is something that a consumer might well be willing to pay to be able watch an episode online while being saved from ads altogether.

On the other hand, it’s been shown that consumers prefer free ad-supported online video to paid ad-free content – which brings about an amazing opportunity as video ads online can be targeted far, far better than on broadcast television, making ads much more valuable both to advertisers and to the consumers. As recording episodes and skipping ads on broadcast TV is already trivial with the TiVos of the world, the episode that is placed for download can be completely DRM- and usage restriction-free; just require registration and create a personalized episode for users based on their profile. Plus people would certainly be no less willing to watch ads that are more relevant to them.

It’s such a clear-cut win-win case that it’s difficult to understand why it’s not being adopted. We need to get rid of the DRM-infested, low-quality content that is offered now and offer consumers high-quality (even offering HDTV-quality episodes, something relatively few people around the world can receive otherwise), freely downloadable episodes created on-the-fly with personalized advertising.

It’d be beautiful. I mean everybody wins, so what could go wrong? I welcome any credible refutations to this business model so it could be developed further.

Amazingly, people often get this puzzled expression when they hear I don’t own a TV – a question that usually follows is “So what do you do then?” Invariably I’m like “ehh, excuse me?” as I just don’t get the question. As if there is nothing else in the world to do than watch TV. Instead, what I find amazing is where these people find the time to watch television as much as they do, almost 3 hours a day on average in Finland.

Anyway, the future of TV is on-demand or time-shifted; the line between the two is one drawn in water. What comes to consumption, the number one problem with video on demand is the vast amount of content – there is too much to choose from. People are inherently lazy and they rarely really know what they want – usually it’s just something that is just “good enough” to keep one entertained for a while – so the act of selection becomes too difficult from the vast ocean of media. Cutting down the selection is one area where broadcast excels, as you have to choose from one of the ongoing programs. We all know youtube.com and BitTorrent and other P2P services and what you can do with those. The best content I usually see on YouTube comes via friends’ recommendations. The salvation of VoD would be personalized recommendations done right.

You may wonder what this has to do with anything. The thing is that I recently discovered the Brightcove catalog. I’m planning on sifting through that to find the personally interesting content around and then place it on a dedicated page for others to enjoy also; hopefully that and similar services allow me to create some kind of a personal, automatically updated online video vault. Of course, the video quality (i.e. image quality) on the Internet still leaves a lot to be desired, but it’s constantly improving. Like my personal vault, it’ll hopefully get there eventually.

Meanwhile, enjoy the Sony BMG Top music videos thing below:

Anyhow, here’s the round-up from the past couple of months. This time around there’s a short review of a TV series, too – one which hasn’t been shown in Finland so far, so a spoiler warning is in order.

She’s the Man

I went to see She’s the Man with some reservations; despite consciously trying to avoid reading movie reviews these days, I had bumped into many that slammed this one. While experience should tell me that it’s a sign of a good movie, I was hesitant. The basic plot is that Viola is desperate for playing soccer and the girls team is cancelled… so she joins the boy’s team, disguised as her brother Sebastian.

That hesitation, luckily, proved unnecessary and She’s the Man was very positive surprise. While I’m pretty sure there was a very limited amount of original or otherwise brilliant elements in the movie, but it was a good, fun feel-good romantic comedy. For that, I’ll give it 4 out of 5.

Hell’s Kitchen, season 2

Hell’s Kitchen was one of the best TV serieses of last year, and I was really looking forward to this summers season. Gordon Ramsey really can turn on the heat for the candidates in the kitchen.. I wish I could apply the show but alas, it’s for americans only. Anyway, during the first few episodes, expected characters were gotten rid of and obviously some favorites surface. In the long run I was amazed that the arrogant Sara managed to hold on as long as she did, but was glad to see her go when she finally did.

So it was Virginia and Heather for the final two, and in my opiniong Heather totally deserved to win. Virginia I’m sure is a good chef, but she always seems to crack under pressure.. her admiration of Ramsey was apparent from even her final comments after hearing about her “loss”, which was good for her in that case. All in all a thoroughly enjoyable season and luckily, there’s a third season coming up next summer.. 5/5.

Elizabethtown

Life is not that great for Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) – he has just lost his job after making a colossal mistake, costing the company hundreds of millions of dollars and is about to become ridiculed throughout the industry. As if that’s not bad enough, his suicide attempt is interrupted by news of his semi-estranged fathers’ sudden death. Fully intending to soon come back home and finish his interrupted plan, he heads to his fathers small Kentucky hometown, Elizabethtown, to make funeral arrangements.

On the way there, he meets an eccentric flight attendand Claire (Kirsten Dunst) who gives him thorough instructions on how to find Elizabethtown, among other things. What Drew finds in Elizabethtown is not what he expected – there’s a whole small city mourning his father and welcoming him there with open arms. Later, bewildered about all that’s going on, Drew calls Claire and the two end up talking hours and eventually meeting – but do things really click between them or not? Elizabethtown starts out feeling a somewhat strange movie, but ends up feeling great. Dunst is wonderful in her role as Claire and the rest of the cast is not too bad either. 4½ out of 5.

The Break-Up

The idea had some promise; describing what happens when a couple still lives under the same roof after breaking up. However, The Break-Up is clumsy from the beginning – the initial break-up is dumb and not a real break-up since neither really wants to end the relationship.. Then comes a series of dumb and dumber moves by both parties until there is very little left in the relationship to salvage; it is only at the very end that the two can talk on the level that they should’ve been talking all along.

While I have no doubt that such non-communicating couples exist, it makes one wonder how they stayed together so long to begin with. Not without a funny moment or two, but generally not so great acting and the movie comes across as just a series of ploys instead of a real movie with developing characters. As such, an average 3 out of 5.

Failure to Launch

Tripp is 35 and living at home. Home where he’s not wanted anymore and his parents are starting to realize he may need a big kick in his butt to get him to move on. So that’s where Paula comes in, a professional “interventionist”, who Tripp’s parents hire to get Tripp to move out of the house.

Things’d be boring if everything worked smoothly, so of course they don’t. Tripp and his past turn out to be more complicated than Paula is used to seeing in her clientele – not to mention that she might actually be falling for him. Further complicating things can be found from Tripp’s friends and Paula’s roommate, who all manage to get involved in a messy situation. Failure to Launch was a nice enough comedy, but nothing too special – another average movie at 3 out of 5.

Anja & Viktor

A Danish movie with a promising idea; high-school sweethearts Anja and Viktor face a crisis when Anja finds a good job and moves downtown; her life is suddenly filled with exciting work and attention from men – including her ex who now works with her, to Viktor’s great disappointment. Viktor decides to solve their problems by becoming a janitor in the house Anja lives in, but somehow that doesn’t ease things.. soon feeling estranged and hurt, Viktor ends up doing all kinds of dumb things. With Anja given a chance to go to New York for some months, can they work things out or is it over?

Like I said, the idea was promising, but that’s about where the positives end. There’s a confusing and entirely unbelievable sub-plot of Viktor’s younger brother and his friend doings weird stuff and the movie would’ve been better off without them. Also, the characters are left very shallow without much depth. With a few tweaks the movie could’ve been a good one, but now it was a bit of a shallow and disjoined story and as such, I’ll give it 2- out of 5.

Ice Princess

Physics nerd Casey (Michelle Trachtenberg) is just what her feminist mother would want her to be – excellent in science and on her way to Harvard. Only there’s a glitch; in reality, she loves figure skating and decides to pursue that dream. Since her mother is vehemently against skating, she has to do it secretly. Eventually, of course, her mother also finds out about it and is enraged – but does she realize that Harvard may not be Casey’s dream but, in fact, hers?

Ice Princess is a typical Disney movie – nice, clean & fun although without great surprises. Still, not a bad movie at 3½ out of 5.

La Tigre E La Neve (The Tiger and the Snow)

Attilio (played by the director Roberto Benigni) is a divorced man who is desperately in love with Vittoria (Nicoletta Braschi) – the problem is that Vittoria doesn’t want to have anything to do with Attilio who is constantly following her and spying on her. When Attilio finds out that Vittoria has been injured in war-ridden Baghdad, he tries to beat all odds to get there and save her.

La Tigre E La Neve could’ve been a much better movie if Benigni would’ve been able to contain his acting a bit better – his hyperactive and fidgety style of acting goes, IMO, a bit over the top. I think the movie is a mixture of a romantic comedy, satire and drama, but the combination doesn’t always mix that well. Some scenes especially in Iraq are so obviously fake and over-the-top that it detracts from the overall credibility of the movie. It does have its surprises though, and if you tend to like Benigni’s movies, you’ll probably like this one too. In my books, however, an average 3 out of 5.

Die Weisse Massai

Die Weisse Massai or “The White Masai” is a movie about a German woman who, when vacationing in Kenya with her boyfriend, takes one look at a Masai warrior and is mesmerized by him for the rest of their trip – to the point that she decides to stay there, find the warrior and eventually live with him in a rather primitive environment. The movie is based on an autobiography by Corinne Hoffman and depicts her life, with joys and sorrows, triumphs and difficulties as well as the vast cultural differences between Kenya and her native country. Having no understanding of the local language doesn’t help things as even her lover / husband can only speak very little English – and that’s not the only trouble in paradise.

Even though some small things bothered me (e.g. why does she speak German to her man when he can only speak English?), the movie is a fascinating look into what life is like in the middle of Kenya. I’m tempted to read the book as it would probably have a much richer description of her life there, but before I get to that, I still highly recommend the movie. 4+ out of 5.

The Family Stone

The Stone family faces an internal crisis when their son, Everett, brings home his girlfriend Meredith for Christmas. Not that there’s theoretically anything wrong with the prospect of bringing a girl there, but the girl/woman as quite an uptight person turns out to be rather incompatible with the family. And they’re not letting her off the hook easily either. Upset and lonely, Meredith calls her sister over to help her with the worsening crisis – but how do they all manage to pull things together? Not a bad movie as such, but nothing spectacular either. Perhaps more of a romantic drama than comedy, I’d give it 3+ out of 5.

Match Point

Chris Wilton, a former tennis pro, starts to work as a a tennis instructor. In that role he encounters an upper-class family; one that he desperately wants to be a part of. Chloe of this family, a young woman, falls in love with Chris – who plays along, while eyeing her brother’s fiancee Nola, obviously more interested in her than Chloe. Becoming involved with a rich family has enticing fringe benefits and it turns out breaking up with Chloe, whom he does not really love, is not that simple after all.

A strange love triangle develops with Chris leading a double life – something that Nola has a bit of a problem to deal with. But how will Chris solve the problem? One of the relationships has to end, but which one? And how? I’ve never really liked Woody Allen films and this was not a major exception – all in all, Match Point is an average movie of a wretched man, lured by the riches and unwilling to let go of them, no matter what the price. 2 out of 5.

Saving Face

As the name of the movie would suggest, Saving Face deals with cultural differences and how they can be crucially important to some people. A young Chinese-American woman, who happens to be a lesbian, ends up balancing her work, (at first, near non-existant) social life and largely conservative attitudes of the Chinese community – her unmarried mother showing up at her doorstep, pregnant, does not make things any easier. An enjoyable movie that was nevertheless lacking that something – 3 out of 5.

Shackles

Ben Cross is a teacher whose career took a nose dive some years earlier due to a violent incident with one of his students. Now, he’s trying to get back to the teaching business, but it seems that the only place willing to offer him a position is a prison school, at Shackleton Penitentiary. Teaching there is, as one might imagine, not very easy as he has to face prejudice as well as his own past.

The actors are all quite unknown but I thought the movie worked quite well. The performances are mostly believable and the story flows nicely, too – plus there are some unexpected developments also. Quite nice at 3½ out of 5.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

Four kids, sent to the countryside for safety during WWII, find a magical wardrobe from the house of an eccentric professor. The wardrobe leads to another world, Narnia, which shortly after its initial discovery envelops the kids to its world and ultimately their role in rescuing the world from an evil spell. Narnia is another one of the fantasy stories (like Lord of the Rings) that I have neglected to read when younger. However, I still quite enjoyed this film – it’s a good, clean adventure. I thought it’d be even more suitable for kids than it is (there’s lots of fighting), but I’d still consider it a good family film. 3½ out of 5.

Just Like Heaven

I had some initial doubts about Just Like Heaven, mostly based on its strange idea of a plot: Elizabeth (Reese Witherspoon) nearly dies in a crash and while comatose and slipping away, her apartment is rented by David (Mark Ruffalo). David soon starts seeing Elizabeth(‘s ghost), who still thinks she lives in the apartment. Through a stormy start, the two develop a relationship once David realizes that Elizabeth is actually real – sort of; and so begins a race to bring her back to life. A warm, nice romantic movie; the supernatural elements create some funny moments and the acting is superb. 4½ out of 5.

Proof

Robert (Anthony Hopkins) was a brilliant mathematician – but unfortunately also a wack job. Taking care of him after the onset of his disease was his daughter, Catherine (Gwyneth Paltrow). It is obvious Catherine had inherited his fathers genius; but what about the mental health part? The movie essentially starts when Robert has died and Catherine is trying to put her life back together, with the help of a not-always-so-helpful sister of hers and Hal, a student who is interested both in her fathers work as well as her. An important discovery is made, but whose is it? As Catherine starts to doubt her own mental health also, who can tell or know the truth? A very interesting and gripping drama, 4 out of 5.

Derailed

The movie starts in a rather predictable manner. Charles (Clive Owen) meets Lucinda (Jennifer Aniston) on the way to work on a commuter train. Though both married, they start talking and later meet again. And again. Eventually the two end up in a motel room, just about to commit adultery, when a thief barges in the room, incapacitates Charles & rapes Lucinda.

Neither obviously wants their spouses to find out what was about to happen, so they can’t go to the police – which turns out to be the start of a long, slippery road for Charles. Soon the robber contacts Charles and asks for money – money that is sorely needed for other purposes in his family. As he thinks he doesn’t have a choice but to give in, it can be expected that there will be more and more demands.. until something or someone breaks. Somewhat of a dark movie but with a clever plot & some good moments – overall an enjoyable thriller. 3½ out of 5.

The Da Vinci Code

By now I would imagine that everyone knows the basic plot of the Da Vinci Code, so let’s not get into that. The movie is a fairly straightforward and faithful translation of the book, although obviously lots of detail has to be left out. I think the movie may suffer from similar effects than the Lord of the Rings movies; if you’ve read the books, you’ll like it, if not, you may be left disappointed or confused. I had read the book (and liked the book) and I thought the movie was quite okay. In the end manages to be a pretty good film. I’d say 3½ out of 5.

Guess Who

I believe Guess Who is a refilmatization of an older movie. The plot is quite simple; Theresa (Zoe Saldana) is dating Simon (Ashton Kutcher) and it’s time to introduce him to her parents. There are several problems, but the main one is that Simon is white while Theresa and her family are not. This is especially prorblematic for Theresa’s father, Percy (Bernie Mac), who also has other personality conflicts with Simon besides just the skin color. There is the expectable amount of bad jokes relating to the color-issue, but a few good ones too. Overall a nice, though very average and predictable comedy. 3- out of 5.

Bee Season

Bee Season was a prime example of movie whose cover image (and text at the back of the DVD) is completely misleading. Judging by the cover it looks like a positive, happy family movie. The story is about a young girl who is brilliant in spelling, winning spelling bee competitions one after another. When her father notices how talented his daughter is, he takes a sudden and intense interest in training her – at the expense of practising with his son. It soon becomes apparent that no one in the family is particularly mentally stable and/or healthy; the young girl, Eliza, is oddly restrained in her emotions, the mother of the family breaks down after building an elaborate secret, Eliza’s brother is searching for himself in what the family considers “wrong” religions and the father of the family is cherishing hopes that her daughter might actually posses the gift of acting as a conduit from God.. Needless to say, all of this was a bit more and different than I expected, and thus I was a bit disappointed. If the movie had been properly portrayed, it might’ve been a decent experience – but as it wasn’t, I can only give it 2½ out of 5.