Return To Me

      Anytime someone asks me to recommend a good chick flick, Return to Me (2000) is always the first movie that comes to mind.  This is a record breaking movie for me; it has me in tears ten minutes into it.  The first time I watched it, it was more like fifteen minutes in. 
      David Duchovny (The X-Files, Evolution, House of D, The Joneses) is amazing in this movie.  He plays Rob Rueland, my favorite role of his.  The scene when he sits by the front door with the dog …… that gets me every time. He collapses to the floor, the dog comes over and Rob tells him, “she’s not coming home Mel”.  I also love the scene when he yells at Mel, the dog, “Eat in the kitchen like a normal person!”  Such a beautiful mix of comedy and sadness.  Return to Me is one of those movies that you have really got to pay attention to. Every line is so well written.  Even the very first line! Rob says “It’s a shame we’ve gotta’ put roofs on ‘em”  and that comes back around later on. 
       Minnie Driver (GoldenEye, Sleepers, Good Will Hunting, Hard Rain) is simply adorable as Grace. Every single thing she does is wonderful! She is so great in this role. I could never say enough about her.
      Bonnie Hunt (Cars, The Green Mile, Cheaper by the Dozen, Random Hearts) not only is in Return to Me but she also directed it, produced it and co-wrote it. Thank you Bonnie Hunt for such a wonderful movie! She is so awesome.  This was her first time directing.  She does the audio commentary with Don Lake (The Bonnie Hunt show, Life with Bonnie, Cars) who was a co-writer and he has a funny little cameo. 
      The commentary is great! At the beginning Bonnie and Don have a silly little bit about CGI.  Bonnie says “Now this entire crowd is computer generated.” Don says, “No one was there at all?” Bonnie: “No it was an empty room.” Don: “Are you serious?” Bonnie: “No I’m not, those are all real people. I’m sorry. I was trying to act like we were really technically advanced.” Just to give you an idea of what she is like, if you don’t know Bonnie Hunt.  Bonnie used a lot of family members in this movie and she talks about that in the commentary as well.  Her brother, her mother, sisters, nieces and nephews, some crew members kids are all in the movie.  There is a scene where Minnie and Bonnie are with all of Bonnie’s “kids” at the zoo.  Bonnie decided she didn’t want to direct the kids. She wanted to use their real names and just have them behave like kids would.  It is a great scene.  Very real. This is something else she talks about in the commentary. I also found out that John and Joan Cusack’s dad is in the movie. He is a very funny character that makes a “sizable donation” to the zoo and wants to be sure that people know about his “anonymous sizable donation” It’s great!
      My sister has often called me a DVDaholic.  She says I need to join a support group. For as long as I can remember I have had a fascination with movies.  I can remember at the age of 9 or 10 going to see The Man From Snowy River (1982) in the theater. But wait! The Black Stallion (1979) was before that! My mom picked my sisters and I up from school and took us to the theater to see the Black Stallion. At the age of 13 or 14 I remember going to the theater with a group of girlfriends to see Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986). These are some of my favorite memories. I can remember going to the video store to rent a VCR and movies. It was so exciting! I remember buying our first VCR with tax return money, and then my dad coming home from work asking me what I was doing.  The VCR had quit working, or a tape got stuck, or something and I had taken it apart to fix it. I couldn’t wait for him to have time. When DVD’s came out I was in heaven with all of the special features.  Behind the Scenes, Gag Reels, Featurettes, Audio Commentaries ……. It’s so cool! I just can’t help devouring it all.
     Sorry, I digress, this is just one of those things that happens to me when watching movies and enjoying all aspects of them.  Back to Return to Me, Jim Belushi (According to Jim, Red Heat, The Defenders, Salvador) plays Bonnie’s husband. He is, well, you know, Jim Belushi, so he’s great.  He improvises a lot, which you found out in the audio commentary, and it is all great stuff that he does. Who would have thought that Jim and Bonnie would make such a perfectly wonderful couple? 
     There are a group of four old men that are such an amazing addition to this movie.  One of those wonderful old men was Carroll O’Connor (In the Heat of the Night, Mad About You, Point Blank, All in the Family). Return to Me was his last film; it was also the last film for Dick Cusack (The Fugitive, High Fidelity, Chain Reaction, While You Were Sleeping).  Well, I think I have gone on long enough.  This is an older movie but a classic in my opinion.  So, if for some odd reason you have never seen it …… do so. And, if you get a chance, watch the special features as well. 

Cowboys & Aliens

      The title really says it all doesn’t it?  Almost as plain as when Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction, Unbreakable, Jumper, Lakeview Terrace) introduced Snakes on a Plane (2006) “It’s about snakes …… on a plane.” Enough said.  Well, Cowboys & Aliens (2011) is just that easy as well. It’s about cowboys …… and aliens.  What a fun idea.  I always figured the aliens didn’t come to earth until they crashed in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. I mean sure maybe they did a few fly-bys to check things out but that was really all. I never once thought about them coming during the old west. 
     Jon Favreau (Iron Man, Zathura, Elf, Made) is quickly becoming a favorite of mine as a director, writer, producer and actor.  I am really liking the things he is doing, both in front of and behind the camera. He directed Cowboys & Aliens.  It probably helped that he had an awesome cast to work with.  They all did a great job.
      Daniel Craig (Quantum of Solace, Munich, Dream House) is excellent, he plays Jake Lonergan.  This is my favorite role I have seen him in.  Harrison Ford (Hanover Street, Blade Runner, Witness, Firewall) is well, Harrison Ford. When is he not fun to watch? It isn’t very often we get to see him as a bad guy. He is a bit of a bad guy in this one.  Not nearly as bad as he was in What Lies Beneath (2000) but still a little bit of a mean tough guy.  Olivia Wilde (The Change-Up, Tron: Legacy, Year One) is gorgeous, and her performance was wonderful as well. I really liked all of the other characters as well. Too many to go on about. Adam Beach (Smoke Signals, Windtalkers, Flags of Our Fathers) as Nat, Sam Rockwell (Moon, The Green Mile, Iron Man 2) as Doc, etc. etc. etc.
      Anyway, moving on, the aliens reminded me of the vampires on Priest (2011) very creepy and weird. Almost as good as the aliens in Alien (1979) yea, they reminded me of those ones as well.  The Alien aliens are, after all, the best aliens. Aren’t they? Still Cowboys & Aliens is a fun, entertaining movie and worth watching.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

      Quite possibly one of the best New Year’s Eves ever! The girls where all busy so my husband and I had the evening to ourselves.  We decided to go to a movie.  This is always okay by me. We saw the new Sherlock Holmes (2011) movie.  I really enjoyed it.
      Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man, Tropic Thunder, Lucky You, The Soloist) plays the role so well.  I enjoyed this one even more than the first one.  The chemistry between Holmes and Watson was great! Dr. Watson is played by Jude Law (Cold Mountain, Enemy at the Gates, Repo Man) he is just amazing and makes Watson a wonderful character.  The entire cast was great and the story line was so good.  I get tired of seeing the same story over and over.  Even though I love movies and I will watch the same “boy meets girl” or “good guy catches bad guy” story again and again I love it when I come across something new.  Sherlock Holmes was not predictable.
      A Shadow of Games is a really fun title and a concept that is, of course, carried out throughout the movie.  There is an amazing chess game that was so fun to watch! If you saw the first Sherlock Holmes (2009) then you are familiar with Guy Ritchie’s (Snatch, RocknRolla, Swept Away) directing style for these movies.  It is one of the things that really make these movies very entertaining to watch.  His slow motion camera of what Holmes is thinking is so cool. 
      There are some fun new characters introduced in this Sherlock Holmes adventure. Stephen Fry (V for Vendetta, A Bear Named Winnie, House of Boys) plays one of those new characters.  He is an actor I have really come to like.  I love his character Gordon Gordon on Bones and now, thanks to my mom, I am loving him on Kingdom. Kingdom is a British TV series that ran from 2007-2009, Stephen Fry plays the main character Peter Kingdom. It was fun to see him in Sherlock Holmes and I really didn’t expect to see THAT much of him. No one, should see that much of Kingdom.
       Jared Harris (Extraordinary Measures, The Ward, Mad Men, Fringe) plays Professor James Moriarty, another new addition.  He is pretty creepy and plays an excellent villain. The match up between Moriarty and Holmes is really good. After all, aren’t all superheroes only as good as the villains they face.
      A Game of Shadows picks up right where the first Sherlock Holmes movie leaves off.  Spoiler alert if you haven’t seen the first.  Watson is getting married. Kelly Reilly (Eden Lake, Pride & Prejudice, Me and Orson Welles) plays the wonderful Mary Watson. She is great. All in all I really liked this movie, so much so that I would buy it for my collection.  Guess I need to buy the first one too then.  I can’t have a sequel in my collection and not have the first.

Apollo 18

      I still haven’t processed how I feel about this one.  It was a very interesting idea.  I would like to say a very original idea except for the fact that I kept having thoughts of The Blair Witch Project (1999). Anyone remember that one?  Film students out in the woods, horror strikes, supposedly found the camera the next morning with some terrifying footage.  Well Apollo 18 is kind of the same idea.  “Decades-old found footage from NASA's abandoned Apollo 18 mission, where two American astronauts were sent on a secret expedition, reveals the reason the U.S. has never returned to the moon.”
      The film is set up as if you are viewing actual footage that has been uncovered.  There is old home movie footage to introduce the characters and then the rest of the movie is made to look like actual footage from the astronauts cameras. It is very well done in that respect.  The footage looks very authentic and old.
      Apollo 18 is really a first for both the director Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego and the writer Brian Miller.  (Interesting fact, the Blair Witch project was also a first for its writer and director)  I like to see new talent and then watch to see what they do next.  This is a very interesting movie with an interesting concept.  It isn’t very mainstream at all. It also may not really be for everyone. However, it is a very interesting movie all the same.