My January 2008 Viewings

Includes my personal ratings.
Recommended DVDs in bold.

Jerry & Tom 01/31/08 (C+)
Bob Roberts 01/31/08 (B-)
Mr. Bean's Holiday 01/30/08 (B-)
Secretary 01/29/08 (C)
Igby Goes Down 01/28/08 (B+)
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys 01/28/08 (B+)
Hoax 01/27/08 (B-)
License to Wed 01/26/08 (D)
Quinceanera 01/24/08 (C)
Intolerable Cruelty 01/24/08 (C)
Our Very Own 01/24/08 (C)
Big Love 2:4 01/21/08 (B)
Nobody's Fool (1986) 01/21/08 (C)
Ratatouille 01/21/08 (A)
Relative Strangers 01/17/08 (C+)
Paris, Je T'Aime 01/17/08 (B)
Divided We Fall 01/15/08 (A-)
Ballykissangel 6:2 01/15/08 ( B)
Knocked Up 01/14/08 (C)
Ballykissangel 6:1 01/11/08 (B)
High Fidelity 01/11/08 (B+)
10 Items or Less 01/10/08 (B+)
Short Cuts 01/08/08 (B)
Waitress 01/07/08 (A-)
Live Free or Die Hard 01/07/08 (B)
Ballykissangel 5:3 01/07/08 (B)
Big Love 2:3 01/04/08 (B)
The Snapper 01/02/08 (C)
Ballykissangel 5:2 01/02/08 (B)
Boston Legal 3:7 01/02/08 (B)

Secretary (2002)

Hinky Love

Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is being released from the psychiatric hospital on the day her sister (Amy Locane) is being married. With weepy eyes, Lee's mother (Leslie Ann Warren) picks her up and brings her home.

But Lee is quickly drawn back into her old ways of self-mutilation when she sees her parents are still fighting, her father (Stephen McHattie) is still drinking, and her sister is still beautiful while Lee is just plain.

She begins dating a geeky old friend, Peter (Jeremy Davies) and attends secretarial school. Soon she's applying for a job with the tense and demanding lawyer E. Edward Grey (James Spader).

Lee develops an obsessive crush Grey and fantasizes about him as she hurts herself. Grey becomes aware of this and a masochistic relationship ensues in which Grey readily becomes the dominator.

While the experience is leaving Lee awakened and falling deeper in love with Grey, he is struggling with his guilt and shame in the involvement and breaks up with her -- sexually and professionally.

In desperation, Lee accepts Peter's marriage proposal but thoughs of Grey are disconcerting to her.

James Spader so often plays strange characters in unusual films and, as usual, he makes this role very real. Maggie Gyllenhaal won the Golden Globe for Best Actress for this role and other Best Actress awards including the Central Ohio Film Critics, Gotham Award, Breakthrough Award, Independent Spirit Award, National Board of Review Best Breakthrough Actress, and Online Film Critics awards for Best Breakthrough Actress and Best Actress.

Directed by Steven Shainberg. Patrick Bauchau plays Dr. Twardon, Lee's psychiatrist.

Rated R for strong sexuality, some nudity, depiction of behavioral disorders, and language.

Igby Goes Down (2002)

A Delicate Balance

Seventeen-year-old Igby Slocumb (Kieran Culkin) has every reason to be rebellious and sarcastic. His father Jason (Bill Pullman) is schizophrenic. His mother Mimi (Susan Sarandon) is self-absorbed and highly favors Igby's older brother Ollie (Ryan Phillippe) who is as cold and calculating as their mother and an elitist, too.

Igby intentionally flunks out of several prep and military schools which are paid for by his sleazy, amoral and very wealthy godfather D.H. Banes (Jeff Goldblum), who is brazen enough to invite his mistress to his party in the Hamptons, right under the nose of his wife Bunny (Celia Weston).

The only recourse for Igby is to escape to the Bohemian world of NYC where he pairs up with his first lover, the bored Bennington dropout Sookie Sapperstein (Claire Danes), a drug dealing, cross-dressing performance artist Russel (Jared Harris), and his godfather's heroin addicted mistress Rachel (Amanda Peet).

Can Igby clear himself of the dysfunction surrounding him and find a way to keep from "going down" into the depths himself?

Some of my favorite lines from the film include:

Sookie: What kind of name is 'Igby'?
Igby: The kind of name that someone named 'Sookie' is in no position to question.

Sookie: You call your mother "Mimi"?
Igby: "Heinous One" is a bit cumbersome. And Medea was taken.

Igby: Oliver is majoring in neo-fascism at Colombia.
Ollie: Economics.
Igby: Semantics.

I have to say, I was highly impressed with the acting talents of young Kieran Culkin in this fine character study and another of his films I saw recently and I'll be watching for his other films in the future. And I couldn't help but notice his remarkable resemblance in appearance, mannerisms and acting methods to Robert Downey, Jr., another of my favorites.

This film was written and directed by Burt Steers whose uncle, Gore Vidal, has a brief cameo as a Catholic priest. Rory Culkin, Kieran's brother, plays the young Igby in a few scenes.

Rated R by MPAA for language, sexuality, and drug content.

---

viewed January 2008

Our Very Own (2005)

.
Actress Sondra Locke is the biggest best thing that's ever come out of Shelbyville, Tennessee, according to five teenagers who are desperate to attract Ms. Locke's attention when she visits the town for the annual horse show and the premier of her new film in the early 1970s. They're in hopes Ms. Locke will take them away to Hollywood and away for the no-wheres-ville of Shelbyville.

While the womenfolk of town -- Joan Whitfield (Allison Janney), Sally Crowder (Cheryl Hines), Virginia Kendal (Beth Grant), and Athylene (Faith Prince) -- prepare for the big festival, Joan's son Clancy (Jason Ritter, who often bears a remarkable resemblence to his father John Ritter), Virginia's daughter Melora (Autumn Resser) and their friends Ray (Derek Carter), Glen (Michael McKee) and Bobbie (Hilarie Burton) work hard to create a musical that will show their talents and honor Ms. Locke..

Meanwhile, Joan's alcoholic and abusive husband Billy (Keith Carradine) makes life difficult and embarassing for Joan and Clancy.

Written and directed by Cameron Watson.

No MPAA rating however it would likely garner a PG-13 for some adult themes, language and a bit of sexuality.

Ratatouille (2007)

"Those handling food will walk on two legs" ~ Rémy

Since I am not an artist and not geeky proficient, I am always in awe when I see a well done animated film. Perhaps never as awed as when I watched this one. The folks at Disney-Pixar are brilliant!

Rémy (Patton Oswalt) is a rat who lives with his pack including his brother Emile (Peter Sohn) and his father Django (Brian Dennehy), who is the pack leader. They live in a house in the French countryside.

Rémy is different from the other rats. For one thing, he has an amazing sense of smell and is assigned to sniff all edibles to keep his fellow rats from ingesting rat poison. But he also is fascinated by cooking and finds a wonderful cookbook -- Anyone Can Cook by Chef Auguste Gusteau (Brad Garrett), the noted Parisian restaurateur. Rémy watches the chef's television show and studies the cookbook and experiments in the kitchen when the homeowner sleeps.

In time, the homeowner realizes there's a rat infestation and the exterminator arrives thus forcing the rats to go on the run -- Rémy with his beloved cookbook. They end up in a storm sewer and are swept away but Rémy is separated from his pack. He ends up "coming ashore" in Paris where the recently deceased Chef Gusteau's ghost guides him to the chef's own restaurant.

Rémy arrives just in time to see young Linguini (Lou Romano) applying for a job and the evil and cruel former sous chef Skinner (Ian Holm), who now heads Gusteau's kitchen, scoffs at him. What kind of job would Skinner have for someone who knows nothing about food? But when Skinner reads Linguini's letter of recommendation, he knows he must hire the young man, if even only as a dishwasher and trash man.

Of course, Rémy, from his skylight perch, is stunned by the amazing restaurant kitchen. He watches as Linguini mops the kitchen floor and accidently spills some of the soup simmering in a pot. Rémy jumps down to help Linguini salvage the soup with seasonings by directing Linguini how to do it. But Skinner walks into the kitchen and accuses Linguini of tampering with the soup. By then, a bowl of the soup has already been served to a food critic. In a panic, the kitchen staff watches the reaction and are stunned when the critic shows vast appreciation of the soup.

Meanwhile, young Linguini is befriended by the only female in the kitchen, Collette (Janeane Garofalo). She is talented but hindered by her gender in a fine French kitchen. She and some of the others, cook Horst (Will Arnett) and waiter Mustafa (John Ratzenberger), urge Skinner to let Linguini cook since the critic gave the soup such high praise.

Skinner is forced to give Linguini a job as a cook but Linguini knows he can't really cook, even though he'd like to. Rémy, however, forms an alliance with him -- Linguini will allow Rémy to direct the cooking efforts and teach him about food in return for Linguini hiding Rémy from the already suspicious Skinner.

Without giving away more of the story -- which is a joy to watch unfold -- there is a romance, a visit from the pompous restaurant critic Anton Ego (Peter O'Toole), an enraged Skinner who is ousted from his kitchen, a rat raid on the pantry, a visit from the health inspector, and Rémy's pack coming to the rescue when the kitchen staff learns the reason for Linguini's culinary prowess.

Directed by Brad Bird and Jan Pinkava.

Rated G.

My personal rating: B

Paris, Je T'Aime (2006) Part I

Paris, I Love You

An unique collection of 18 love stories featuring various districts of Paris by 21 directors and an ensemble cast and writers including American, French, British and others. Transition sequences were written by Emmanuel Benbihy and directed by Benbihy with Frédéric Auburtin.

This is a multi-post blog entry so scroll down for details on all the stories in this charming film.

1. Montmartre (XVIIIe arrondissement)
After a man (Bruno Podalydès, who also wrote and directed this vignette) parks his car on a Parisian street, he looks around and muses that all the women are either pregnant, strolling with baby carriages, or escorted by men they are obviously in love with. A woman (Florence Muller) suddenly faints next to his car and passersby, including a doctor (Hervé Pierre) come to her assistance. Mistaking her for the man's wife, they assist her into the back seat of his car where he has a sweet fantasy about her being his partner.

2. Quais de Seine (Ve arrondissement)
A young man, François (Cyril Descours), is hanging out with two rude, crude friends who make smarmy comments to the women who walk by. But the young man makes eye contact with a striking young Muslim woman, Zarka (Leïla Bekhti), who is sitting nearby and comes to her aid when she stumbles while walking away. Despite being mocked by his friends, he ends up following the young woman to the mosque where he waits for her — and her grandfather (Salah Teskouk) — to leave for home.
Directed by the husband-and-wife team of American screenwriter Paul Mayeda Berges and Indian-British director Gurinder Chadha.

Rated R for language and brief drug use/

My personal rating: B

Paris, Je T'Aime Part II

Continued from above...

3. Le Marais (IVe arrondissement)
A young man ((Gaspard Ulliel) escorts his boss (Marianne Faithfull) to a printshop where he is immediately smitten by a young printshop worker (Elias McConnell). The visitor pours out his heart to the printshop worker saying they are soulmates and should be together forever. Little does he know that the other young man is American with little grasp of French.

Directed by American Gus Van Sant.

4. Tuileries (Ier arrondissement)
An American tourist (Steve Buscemi) breaks the cardinal rule in Paris -- he looks into the eyes of Parisians -- and suddenly enters the middle of a dispute between two young lovers (Axel Kiener, Julie Bataille) who are also waiting in the Metro's Tuileries stop.

Directed by Americans Ethan and Joel Coen.

5. Loin du 16e (XVIe arrondissement)
A young Spanish woman (Catalina Sandino Moreno) sings a sweet lullaby to her infant as she dresses him and settles him in the crib at his daycare. Then, after a very long train commute, she arrives at her employer's home, where she is an au pair, and sings the same lullaby to her employer's baby.

Written and directed by Brazilians Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas.

6. Porte de Choisy (XIIIe arrondissement)
A mature beauty supply salesman (Barbet Schroeder) visits a Chinatown beauty salon where he encounters a seductive young shop owner (Li Xin) in this comic vignette.

Directed by Australian Christopher Doyle who also wrote the script with Gabrielle Keng and Kathy Li.

---

See blog entries below for additional information on the other segments of this film.

Paris, Je T'Aime Part III

Continued from above . . .

7. Bastille (XIIe arrondissement)
A man (Sergio Castellitto) plans to leave his wife (Miranda Richardson) for his younger lover but when he finds out she has a terminal illness, he decides to stay. By acting like he loves her, he rekindles his affection for her.

Written and directed by Isabel Coixet from Spain.

8. Place des Victoires (IIe arrondissement)
A mother (Juliette Binoche), grieving over the death of her little boy, is comforted by a magical cowboy (Willem Dafoe).

Written and directed by Nobuhiro Suwa from Japan.

9. Tour Eiffel (VIIe arrondissement)
A boy (Dylan Gomong) tells how his parents, both mimes (Paul Putner, Yolande Moreau), meet in prison and fall in love.

Written and directed by French animator Sylvain Chomet.

10. Parc Monceau (XVIIe arrondissement)
An older man (Nick Nolte) and younger woman (Ludivine Sagnier) meet for a "date" but the man keeps reminding the woman that Gaspard might not approve. Eventually Gaspard's identity is revealed.

Filmed in one continuous shot by Mexican writer-director Alfonso Cuarón.

11. Quartier des Enfants Rouges (IIIe arrondissement)
An American actress (Maggie Gyllenhaal) obtaines some exceptionally strong hashish from a dealer (Lionel Dray).

By French writer-director Olivier Assayas.

12. Place des fêtes (XIXe arrondissement)
An African man (Seydou Boro) is dying from a stab wound on the street and asks a woman paramedic (Aïssa Maïga) for a cup of coffee. He realizes that he had fallen in love with her at first sight some time before.

By German writer-director Oliver Schmitz.

---

See blog entries below for additional information on the other segments of this film.

Paris, Je T'Aime Part IV

Continued from above . . .

13. Pigalle (IXe arrondissement)
A mature couple (Bob Hoskins, Fanny Ardant) keep a spark in their marriage by acting out an argument in front of a paid prostitute.

Written and directed by American Richard LaGravenese.

14. Quartier de la Madeleine (VIIIe arrondissement)
A young American backpacker (Elijah Wood) falls in love with a vampiress (Olga Kurylenko).

The work of Canadian writer-director Vincenzo Natali.

15. Père-Lachaise (XXe arrondissement)
A young woman (Emily Mortimer) breaks up with her fiancé (Rufus Sewell) while visiting Père Lachaise Cemetery. The fiancé then listens to advise from the ghost of Oscar Wilde (Alexander Payne).

By American writer-director Wes Craven.

16. Faubourg Saint-Denis (Xe arrondissement)
A young blind man (Melchior Beslon) mistakenly believes his girlfriend (Natalie Portman) has broken up with him.

From German writer-director Tom Tykwer.

17. Quartier Latin (VIe arrondissement)
A woman (Gena Rowlands, who also wrote the script) meets her estranged husband (Ben Gazzara) at a bar (run by Gérard Depardieu, who also directed this film) for one last drink before their divorce is final. Ahhh, should all divorces be this amicable.

18. 14e arrondissement (XIVe arrondissement)
A solo American tourist (Margo Martindale), on her first European holiday, recites in rough French what she loves about Paris.

Written and directed by American Alexander Payne.

Divided We Fall (2000)

Musíme Si Pomáhat

The Power of The Human Spirit

1939. Occupied Czechoslovakia. Josef Cizek (Bolek Polívka) and his wife Marie Marie Cizková (Anna Sisková) watch as their Jewish neighbors and employer, the Wieners, are moved from their home to a very small spare room in the home. Two years later, the family is then taken away by the Nazis.

In 1943, David Wiener (Csongor Kassai), the son of Josef's employer and the only survivor of the entire family, returns to the street in the dark of night and asks Josef and Maria for help. Without hesitation, the Christian couple knows they must help this young man survive so they secret him away in their basement at great personal risk.

The Cizeks have to be ever vigilant and clever to keep the secret, especially from their nosy friend Horst Prohaska (Jaroslav Dusek), a Nazi collaborator with a little Hitler mustache, who is quite smitten with Marie.

Truly a marvelous film with enormous humor despite the horrors of the Nazi regime and all it was. Definitely a 'not-to-be-missed' experience. Stunning cinematography and near-sepia lighting only enhance the story. Subtitles.

Writer/director Jan Hrebejk won the prestigious FIPRESCI Prize from the Cottbus Film Festival of Young East European Cinema "for daring an approach to the theme of collaboration which is rareley seen in contemporary film, as well as for the simple human statement that good people can be found on both sides of historical barricades." The film, director, writers and actors were nominated for and won many other significant Czech and international film awards.

Rated PG-13 for some violence and sexual content.

---

viewed Jan-2008

Ballykissangel (BBC Series)

1997-2005

Charming Warm Humor

I've been addicted to the people and stories of Ballykissangel since I viewed the very first episode.

It's the story of a young English priest, Peter Clifford (Stephen Tompkinson), who is assigned to the rural village of Ballykissangel in coastal Ireland, and his adjustment to this new environment.

Among the townspeople who have prominent roles in the story are the agnostic barkeeper Assumpta Fitzgerald (Dervla Kirwan), the dodgy entrepreneur Brian Quigley (Tony Doyle), his daughter Niamh (Tina Kellegher) who is married to the village police officer Ambrose Egan (Peter Hanly), Quigley's comical handymen Liam Coghlan (Joe Savino) and Donal Docherty (Frankie McCafferty), the mechanic Padraig O'Kelly (Peter Caffrey) and his teenaged son Kevin (John Cleere), the community veterinarian Siobhan Mehigan (Deirdre Donnelly) and her friend-with-benefits teacher Brendan Kearney (Gary Whelan), the curmudgeonly farmer Eamonn Byrne (Birdy Sweeney). the nosy shopkeeper Kathleen Hendley (Aine Ni Mhuiri), and Father MacAnally (Niall Toibin) who is Father Clifford's superior.

The series makes some marked changes after the third season when Father Clifford and Assumpta Fitzgerald are no longer around. Added to the cast are the new prelate, a monk on his first parish assignment, Father Aidan O'Connell (Don Wycherley) and his beautiful and well-traveled sister Orla (Victoria Smurfit), a former resident Sean Dillon (Lorcan Cranitch) who returns to the community despite a long history of bad blood and his teenaged daughter Emma (Kate McEnery), and Eamonn's young nephew Danny Byrne (Colin Farrell).

Further cast loses and additions over the remaining seasons but the stories remain consistently about the people of Ballykissangel.

A BBC production.

My personal rating: B

Knocked Up (2007)

Parenthood

Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl) is a successful employee of E! TV who has just been promoted to an on-air personality. While celebrating at a club with her sister Debbie (Leslie Mann), she meets Ben Stone (Seth Rogen).

Ben is the total antithesis of anything and everything Alison could ever imagine as a romantic interest. He's a 23-year-old in a 33-year-old body with the attitude and interests of a 15-year-old. He and his pals, who are also his roommates (Jason Segel, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Martin Starr) are drinkin', dopin' slackers who run a website that discloses the minutes until nudity in popular films.

When Debbie gets called home due to her daughter's possible chicken pox, Alison decides to stay at the club because she's celebrating her promotion. In a weak moment, she has a one night stand with Ben.

Predictably, eight weeks later, she's on the phone to Ben to inform him of her pregnancy. Taken as off-guard as Alison was, Ben decides to make a commitment to Alison and the baby.

Judgemental, controlling sister Debbie doesn't think Alison should get involved with Ben. She feels her sister is worthy of so much more. Meanwhile, her own marriage to Pete (Paul Rudd) is rocky because Pete just doesn't measure up to Debbie's standards.

Can it work? back and forth it goes.

Directed by Judd Apatow. Loudon Wainwright III contributed original music and also appears as Alison's doctor. Additional credits include Joanna Kerns (as Alison’s Mom) and Harold Ramis (as Ben's Dad).

I rented this movie because it was on the Top 10 list of several respected critics, but once into it. I didn't like it. I didn't like it. I didn't like it. But, to be honest, by the end, I liked it, however the 2+ hour movie could have/should have used a judicious editing down to about 100 minutes or less. There was just too, too much demonstration of what lumps Ben and his friends were. Most of it quite unnecessary.

Katherine Heigl really is a beautiful woman in that Charlize Theron way. In fact, I kept thinking how good the two of them would be cast as sisters in a film someday.

Rated R for sexual content, drug use and language.

High Fidelity (2000)

Life, Love Work, and the Inability to Commit

Rob Gordon (John Cusack), owner of a used vinyl shop, is enduring yet another romantic breakup when his girlfriend Laura (Iben Hjejle) takes up with the guy who lives upstairs (Tim Robbins).

He's trying to run his Chicago shop with the "mental moron twins" -- the shy, sensitive Dick (Todd Louiso) and the rude, crude Barry (Jack Black) when his friend Liz (Joan Cusack) takes Laura's side and forces Rob to review the top breakups in his life starting with the girl he loved in junior high, Alison Ashmore (Shannon Stillo), proceeding to high school's Penny Hardwick (Joelle Carter), and then to Charlie Nicholson (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Sarah Kendrew (Lili Taylor).

In the midst, he meets singer Marie DeSalle (Lisa Bonet) at a club and later she visits the vinyl shop leading Rob to fantisize about her.

Through most of the film, Rob looks into the camera to tell his story, similar to the method used for Micheal Caine in Alfie.

Directed by Stephen Frears from a novel by Nick Hornby. Cusack also cowrote the script and produced the film.

Small cameo roles by Sara Gilbert as Annaugh Moss, Dick's new girlfriend.

Rated R for language and some sexuality.

My personal rating: B

10 Items or Less (2006)

You Are Who You Meet

What a charming, sweet little comedy.

When a famous actor (Morgan Freeman) considers breaking his four year dry spell, he decides to research a role in a small film he may be interested in accepting. He's dropped off at a Latino market in south LA by the annoying kid brother (Jonah Hill) of the film's young director. The actor -- referred to in the credits as 'Him' -- plans to spend about an hour observing the market manager and what happens in such a shop.

In doing so, he can't help but to be entranced by the lovely young 10-items-or-less cashier, Scarlet Morales (Paz Vega), who runs the check-out rather rigidly and seems to have a sense of desperation and futility.

Over the span of a few hours in market, he grows even more curious about her and her life and why she is the way she is. When her shift is over and his driver hasn't picked him up, 'Him' asks if she can help him get home. She begrudginly agrees but first she needs to swing by her trailer park home where she has yet another spat with her husband (Bobby Cannavale) and his pregnant girlfriend.

'Him' observes it all. He already knows she's going to a new job interview (which he calls an audition) as she's changed into an attractive blouse. But when the blouse is damaged in the spat and she despairs about the poor impression she'll make, he tells her he'll buy her a new one.

And that's how we get to the Big Movie Star's first encounter with Venture and $8 designer T-shirts that are like the ones he pays $100 for and buying a mop because a demonstrator convinced him it was a good deal and all the other every day occurances in the lives of people significantly not of the Big Movie Star class.

Meanwhile, Scarlet is surprised at how he can spend so much and just put it on his Diner's Club card.

All the while he's trying to instill confidence in Scarlet -- confidence so she knows she can get a better job and live a life free of her sleazy husband.

After a fun trip through the car wash -- to spiff up her old car -- he goes with her to the interview/audition and waits patiently in the outer office.

What follows as she drives him to his mansion in Brentwood is a serious bonding of these two people from different lives, perhaps it could be considered a romance of a different nature.

Written and directed by Brad Silberling, Morgan Freeman is executive director. Unbelievable, this was entirely shot in just under 15 days for $2 million -- an amazing thing in Gollywood.

Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman have tiny roles.

The relatively sparse music throughout lovingly enhances the film.

Don't miss the outtakes at the end of the film and the Special Features on the DVD I saw offered interesting insight into the film.

Rated R for language (which is a darn shame as the only foul language I heard was one single F-bomb).

Short Cuts (1993)

Chance and Luck, Deceit and Death

Another Robert Altman all-star epic, this time based on a collection of short stories by Raymond Carver.

Twenty-two lives intersect in 10 individual stories woven into this 3+ hour film. Sometimes it's quite interesting, in fact, for me, most of the time was quite interesting, but other times were perfect for a potty break. I just had trouble either relating to or being concerned about a few of the characters and their tales.

Dr. Ralph Wyman (Matthew Modine) and his wife, Marian (Julianne Moore) meet Stuart and Claire Kane (Fred Ward and Anne Archer) and make a Sunday dinner date which both couples come to regret over the weekend as their marriages are tested.

Among other things, Claire is disgusted when she learns that Stuart and his fishing buddies (Buck Henry and Huey Lewis) discovered a woman's body in the lake where they went for an overnight fishing expedition but the men, not wanting to lose precious angling time, left the body in the water until they were ready to leave the site.

TV news anchor Howard (Bruce Davison) and Ann Finnegan (Andie MacDowell) endure the heartache of seeing their young son in a coma -- being cared for by Dr. Wyman -- after having been hit by a car driven by waitress Doreen Piggot (Lily Tomlin). Doreen thinks the child is okay since he walked away but wasn't aware that his injuries were severe. She confesses to her drunken husband Earl (Tom Waits).

Howard's father (Jack Lemmon) appears at the hospital after a decades-long abscence presumably to be at the bedside of his comatose grandson, but in reality, he needs to confess the circumstances concerning his own affair with his sister-in-law when Howard was young. Meanwhile, Anne is enduring phone harassment from a strange baker (Lyle Lovett) who is incensed that the birthday cake for the hospitalized child hasn't been picked up.

Doreen's daughter, Honey (Lili Taylor) and her sadistic husband Bill (Robert Downey, Jr.) party hearty with their friends Lois (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and Jerry Kaiser (Chris Penn). Lois is a phone-sex operator who is cold as a fish with her own husband who enjoys peeping a nude women as he goes about his business as a swimming pool tech.

Sherri Shepard (Madeleine Stowe) has long known about her cop husband Gene's (Tim Robbins) infidelity with realtor Betty Weathers (Frances McDormand). Sherri's confidante is her sister, Marian Wyman (Julianne Moore).

As you can imagine, there are more twists and turns and lies and traumas -- and characters -- in the few days covered in this film.

Rated R for graphic sexual language, and for nudity.

Waitress (2007)

A Pie With A Heart in the Middle

Waitress Jenna (Keri Russell), trapped in a horrible marriage to the abusive Earl (Jeremy Sisto), is trying to find a way out, away from Earl and out of the small Southern town when she finds out she's pregnant.

She continues her day-to-day life, waitressing and making the most imaginative and talked-about pies at Joe's Pie Cafe and dreams that she might have a chance to win the $25,000 prize for the coming pie bake-off. Meanwhile she shares her anxiety with co-workers Becky (Cheryl Hines) and the pasty, pale, plain Dawn (Adrienne Shelley), deals with her bossy manager Cal (Lew Temple) and befriends the curmudgeonly old Joe (Andy Griffith) who owns the pie cafe.

Things get complicated when Jenna and the new doctor in town, Dr. Pomatter (Nathan Fillion) have a deep affair and very much desire a future together.

The pie-making scenes behind the opening credits and some of the other pie-making scenes are among the most sensual food scenes I've seen since Like Water for Chocolate.

One of my favorite monologues in the film was when Jenna was writing a letter to her unborn child:
Dear Baby,
I hope someday somebody holds you for 20 minutes straight.
And that's all they do.
They don't pull away.
They don't look at you.
They don't try to kiss you.
All they do is wrap you up in their arms and hold you tight without an ounce of selfishness about it.

Waitress made it to the top of many film critics' "Best of 2007" lists and I really have to agree. It's a sweet story of strength and making decisions and living life the right way.

This film debutted at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007 shortly after the murder of writer/director Adrienne Shelly who also played Dawn.

Rated PG-13 for sexual content, language and thematic elements.

Live Free or Die Hard (2007)

"Just Another Day in Paradise" ~John McClane

Okay, so I admit I'm a sucker for bad boys -- as long as there's a TV screen between us. But while I'm not a big fan of the unbelievable adventure flicks, I don't mind a dose of Bruce Willis-style chaos once in a while. He's the goodest baddest bad boy of my generation.

In this one, Detective John McClane (Willis) is directed to bring in a hacker to FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, because a terrorist hacking may be underway. McClane appears at a college dorm to take Matt Farrell (Justin Long) into custody only to find his 'handlers' are already aware he may be interrogated so they, too, appear at the dorm to kill the kid. The kid, of course, has no idea he's part of a terrorist attack. He thought he was hired to do a cyber security check.

Mayham ensues as McClane single-handedly takes out the operatives sent to kill the kid and then heads out to get the kid to D.C. Of course, the bad guys are in hot pursuit but in inimitable McClane style, he manages to take out a low-flying helicopter by hitting a fire hydrant with his car and letting the gyser take down the 'copter and then launches his unoccupied car out of a tunnel, over a toll booth, and then making a direct hit on the other low-flying helicopter. "Yippi-kay-ay!"

Soon we discover that the disgruntled Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant), former Homeland Security security director, is staging a "fire sale" -- hacking systems to take out communication, transportation, and utiiities in D.C., and then the eastern seaboard, followed by the central and western zones of the USA. Matt Farrell, along with other innocent young hackers, are unknowingly involved and one by one, each of these hackers is being eliminated. Farrell remains the last and Gabriel and his team are determined to silence him.

Instead, Farrell uses the weapons at his disposal -- computers -- to help win this battle while McClane uses a seemingly endless supply guns and bullets, cars, helicopters, semi-trucks, and pure machismo to do the same. A real team!

Of course, when McClane's daughter Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is held hostage by Gabriel, everything escalates.

Long live the Die Hard franchise!

Favorite quotes:

Farrell: Do we have anything resembling a plan?
McClane: Find Lucy. Kill everybody else.

McClane: Hang on Lucy, I'm coming.

Lucy: Dad, you're crazy!
McClane: What?
Lucy: You shot yourself.
McClane: Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Directed by Len Wiseman.

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, language and a brief sexual situation.