Mike (Mos Def) takes care of Mr. Fletcher’s (Danny Glover) run-down VHS rental store while Fletcher pretends to be on a holiday attending a Fats Waller memorial service. Fats Waller is the famous jazz musician who was born in the very dilapidated house where Fletcher’s store Be Kind Rewind struggles to survive - at least he was born there according to Mr. Fletcher. Mike is trying hard to do everything right, but his best mate Jerry (Jack Black) gets “magnetized” in an attempt to sabotage the local power plant (because, you know, the power plant is an important part in the conspiracy to control people’s minds with microwaves) and erases all VHS tapes in the store.
To cover up the problem, Mike and Jerry have a crazy idea - they shoot their own 20 minute-versions of the movies people want to rent. In the early stages, they hope to come away unnoticed, but then word of mouth spreads and more and more customers show up to rent a so-called sweded movie. But can their moderate success save the old-fashioned VHS rental against the competing DVD-stores and the imminent demolition of the ramshackle hut it’s located in?

Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind is a celebration of the independent filmmaker, imagination and the old-fashioned way of “hand-made” films, and it’s as sentimental as this sounds. But hey, didn’t you expect a hilarious comedy? With lots of funny attempts to recreate famous scenes from lots of well-known films? Unfortunately, there are no big laughs and not enough of those “Wow, it’s hilarious how they did this scene from that movie”-moments. It’s all endearing, amusing, and the cast is charming, but it’s too much sentimentalism and may raise some chuckles but no screaming with laughter.
Just watch the sweded version of The Lord Of The Ring and some other sweded films on the Be Kind Rewind website instead.

Be Kind Rewind movie trailer

Dennis Doyle (Simon Pegg) has not grown up since he went running from his own marriange with pregnant Libby (Thandie Newton) six years ago. He loves his boy Jake (Matthew Fenton) and is annoyed when he meets Libby’s new friend Whit (Hank Azaria), a “perfect” man with manners, money, taste and good looks. And he even runs the Nike River Marathon for charity!
Dennis decides it’s time to grow up and finally finish something in his life - he announces he will also run the marathon, trained by his best mate Gordon (Dylan Moran) and his landlord Mr. Goshdashtidar (Harish Patel) and motivated by the fact that Maya Goshdashtidar (India de Beaufort) will kick him out of his flat when he doesn’t finish the marathon. But it takes passion, determination and stamina to finish a marathon - all the things Dennis never had.

Co-written by Simon Pegg (from Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz fame) and directed by David Schwimmer (yes, the one from Friends ) Run Fat Boy Run is not as quirky as Hot Fuzz or Shaun of the Dead, and it shows that it was written for the US initially. And it was a wise decision to move it to London, because without the British-ness - and without Simon Pegg - it would be just another mediocre rom-com with a stereotyped story and stereotyped gags. But it’s how Simon Pegg delivers those gags which makes you laugh despite the clichés. Kudos go as well to “assistant coach” Harish Patel, Dylan Moran, and the incredibly beautiful India de Beaufort.

What would you do if you could go anywhere you want, with just a little concentration and in no time at all? What if you could teleport, or “jump”, as it is called in this film loosely based on Steven Gould’s novel Jumper: Griffin’s Story (Jumper)? Probably you would enjoy the additional sleep you could get because you can jump right from your home into office without having to deal with traffic jams, traffic lights or delayed public transport. With enough experience, just like Griffin (Jamie Bell) has it, you could even take your car and jump with your car past congestions or red traffic lights. What a thrill! And you could teleport right to your holiday destination, saving the money, time and hassles associated with travelling by plane!
But what if you are only fifteen years old, bullied in school, abandoned by your mother when you were five, and living in a run-down house with your no-good father? David Rice (Hayden Christensen) is such a teenager, and of course he does what you would expect. He jumps into bank vaults, “borrows” loads of cash, runs … well, jumps away from home and starts to live the high life - luxury apartments, hot girls - an eternal holiday, money no problem - there is always a bank vault he can jump into to refill stock.
Years pass before he is confronted with an inconvenient truth - there are people who are royally pissed, not only because of his regular bank jobs but also because they think that “only God should have this power”. They call themselves Paladins, and Roland Cox (Samuel L. Jackson) is one of them. He is black, big, equipped with the latest gadgets to trace and catch jumpers, and it’s his greatest satisfaction to ritually kill a jumper with his knife. And the jumper’s friends and family as well if possible. Griffin, another jumper who is on a mission to kill Paladins, tells David more about his abilities and impairments as a jumper and about the Paladins, and reluctantly agrees to temporarily team up with David to save his father (Michael Rooker) and his highschool girlfriend Millie (Rachel Bilson) and to kill Roland.

Hayden Christensen shows that he can act and we can (almost) forgive him for what he did do Darth Vader in Star Wars Episodes II and III, Samuel L. Jackson is menacing as usual, Jamie Bell brings the right amount of crazyness to his revenge-seeking Griffin, and Rachel Bilson shows she can do more than teenage telly drama The O.C..
But of course it’s not about the acting, it’s about the thrill and the ride - and there are enough questions left open (Who exactly are those Paladins and who supports and funds them? Why this ritual killing with this knife? How many other Jumpers are there and what are they doing? Are Jumpers really turning evil? What’s this business with David’s mother (Diane Lane)?) for Return of Jumper and Sister of Jumper - bring on the sequels!

JUMPER movie trailer

Sir Thomas Boleyn (Mark Rylance) has two daughters, Ann (Natalie Portman) and Mary (Scarlett Johansson), and he has ambitions for his family. The benign Mary is married to a merchant, but for the more ambitious Ann Sir Thomas and his brother have other plans. They want her to beguile King Henry (Eric Bana) and improve their family’s status by positioning Ann as his mistress. The king’s marriage with Katherine of Aragon (Ana Torrent) is still childless, and when Ann can bear him a son, the family’s fortune will be made.
But the king falls for Mary instead, who doesn’t want to go to the king’s court but can’t withstand King Henry’s wish and the pressure of her father and her uncle. Despite her initial reluctance, Mary can’t resist the King’s courting for long and even falls in love with him. But when she gets pregnant, Henry loses his interest in her, and Ann, who has learned how to tease and fascinate a man in France, seizes her chance.

A historical drama (but not an epic), The Other Boleyn Girl concentrates on the fortunes and misfortunes of two sisters (Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman) and their ever-changing relationships to each other, their family and King Henry VIII. Traded like cattle for the advancement of men by their father and uncle, both sisters still develop strong personalities and try hard to follow their own path. Treachery, intrigues, love, hate and ambitions determine the fates of the unequal sisters, and both actresses use the opportunity to convince. Scarlett Johansson is touching as the modest, pure Mary who knows her place but is so much stronger than she seems - she is able to forgive the inexcusable and to fight like a lioness when necessary. And Natalie Portman is better than ever as the prickteasing Ann who wants to fly too high and has to pay dearly for her unlimited ambitions and overestimation of her capabilities.
The supporting roles are acted in varying grades of quality, but camerawork, set decoration and costumes will not disappoint.
Overall, The Other Boleyn Girl is a worthy “prequel” to Elizabeth and Elizabeth: The Golden Age.

*** SPOILER WARNING ***
Michael Clayton (George Clooney) is the “fixer” of a law firm who does the non-official and - if necessary - dirty work. And he is a gambling addict, the restaurant he has opened with his brother Timmy (David Lansbury) just went bankrupt, and he owes $75.000 to the mob. And that are just his personal problems. His friend and workmate, Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson), one of the top lawyers of his company, just had a mental breakdown during the negotiations in a class-action lawsuit against U-North, an agricultural products conglomerate and one of their biggest customers. Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton), just recently promoted to U-North’s chief counsel and and overstrained, finds out that Arthur is in possession of secret company documents proving U-North has knowingly produced and sold a carcinogenic herbicide, and that he is in contact with the plaintiffs. Karen will do anything to protect U-North’s interests and to prove she is up to the job. It’s Michael Clayton’s job to fix the problem, but is he good enough to fix it - or is he already part of the problem?

A cleverly constructed corporate thriller that opens with a bang (literally) and then goes back in time four days to unravel the incidents leading to the explosion of Michael Clayton’s car. But the real thriller is not about lawsuits, car-bombs and dirty legal tricks. The real questions are: What is sanity? What’s integrity worth? and Are you a human being or a corporate drone?
And that are important questions everybody should ask himself. When you are dealing with people in your professional life, it doesn’t matter if you are a top manager, hotshot lawyer or a mere clerk, the questions remain the same.
If you prefer to ponder less grave questions, then at least ask yourself if there is still space for childlike fantasy and wonder in your busy schedule - it might save your life (at least it did for Michael Clayton).

Trailer trash-cowboy Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) disovers the remains of a drug deal gone bad in the Texan desert - dead bodies, one wounded man, a truckload of drugs and 2 million dollars in a satchel. He takes the money but returns in the night with water for the dying survivor. But then Mexican gangsters turn up and he barely escapes them, leaving behind his truck.
Moss takes the money, tells his wife Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald) to go to her mother, and flees from psychopathic killer Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) who has been hired to retrieve the satchel.
Local sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is way out of his depth trying to protect Moss - all he can do is picking up the bodies Chigurh leaves wherever he comes through.

In No Country For Old Men the Coen brothers mix western, thriller, chase movie and horror together, refine the mixture with top-notch performances (outstanding: Javier Bardem) and finally serve a menu surprise: It’s not about the chase or the thrill, not about Moss, not about a crazy serial killer or 2 million dollars, it’s about luck, chance, and fate.
Ageing sheriff Bell “always figured when I got older, God would sorta come inta my life somehow. And he didn’t.” Instead, he finds himself in a world he doesn’t understand anymore, with killers and crimes he doesn’t know what to make of. But Ellis, a retired cop wounded in the line of duty, already knows what Bell just begins to realize: “Whatcha got ain’t nothin new. This country’s hard on people, you can’t stop what’s coming, it ain’t all waiting on you. That’s vanity.”
It’s not the times that have changed, it’s Bell who realizes that life is not controlled by a god who rewards the good and punishes the bad, but it’s pure chance that decides if you live or die. Chigurh is not only the most chilling killer since Hannibal Lecter, he is an unstoppable force in the tradition of the old slasher films, but there is still more to him. It’s not a coincidence that bounty hunter Wells (Woody Harrelson), asked just how dangerous Chigurh is, responds with “Compared to what? The bubonic plague?”
Unlike those slashers, he doesn’t kill those who “behaved bad”. Instead, he is like a tsunami (or the plague): No matter if his victims are “guilty” or “innocent”, if they fight, give in, beg for mercy or don’t even realize what happens to them - he casually kills those who cross his path. Only sometimes, when he feels like it, he spares a random person, or lets a tossed coin decide if somebody lives or dies.

No matter if you prefer to watch it as a masterfully paced thriller with black humor or as an analogy about life at the mercy of blind fate - enjoy the ride (and live with the anticlimactic no-ending).

No Country for Old Men movie trailer

Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) describes himself as an oil man and a family man with family values when he wants to strike a deal. What he doesn’t tell is that his “son” and “partner” H.W. (Dillon Freasier) isn’t really his son, but the orphaned son of an oil worker who died in an accident, and he uses him merely as a prop to convince business partners of his trustworthyness.
Plainview doesn’t believe in family, god or any other values except of oil and money, and he hates all people as he confesses to a man who appears later and claims to be his brother.
His antagonist is Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), a self-proclaimed priest of his own Church of the Third Revelation. Plainview buys the oil-rich land of the Sunday’s but pays only half of the agreed price, and he humiliates Eli further by publicly refusing to let him bless the first oil well. When the same oil well catches fire, H.W. loses his hearing in the explosion, and Daniel sends him away to a school for the deaf.
Daniel also alienates his competitors from Standard Oil who want to buy him out and threatens to kill the agent who suggests he should take care of his son with the money from the buy-out.
Years later, Daniel Plainview lives alone in a huge estate (just like Citizen Kane), madness, alcohol and a shotgun his only companions, and throws away the last chance to come to terms with his “son” H.W. before his final encounter with Eli Sunday.

Daniel Plainview is the ultimate capitalist - and at the begin of his career, you may admire him for his strength and determination. Everything he achieves, he achieves himself, through hard work and a strong will. But then, all he ever wants is more money, more success, and he doesn’t care if it’s necessary to deceive or defraud people - or to exploit a child.
And he will stop at nothing when he deems it necessary to accomplish his goals. Somewhere deep inside he might realize how empty his life has become, because he totally overreacts and irrationally threatens the Standard Oil agent with murder when he dares to mention Daniel’s (non-existent) family life. But greed has long since eaten his soul, and the only way to go for Daniel is the descent into madness. Daniel Day-Lewis by all means deserved the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance.

Eli Sunday is similar - and at the same time, totally different. He wants to be successful, just like Plainview, and he wants recognition, but he is weak, and while he admires Plainview for his success, he hates him for how he treats Eli and his family. What he lacks in strength, he owns in deviousness, and he gets his revenge for the humiliation he suffered from Daniel. But ultimately, Eli is merely a parasite to Daniel’s predator - and There Will Be Blood.

Two old men, Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson) and Carter Chambers (Morgan Freeman), both suffering from terminal cancer, meet each other in the hospital. Edward is an egocentric billionaire who has made his fortune but despite four marriages has nobody except his assistant, and Carter is a car mechanic with a wife he was faithful to his whole life and a big family which cares for him.
Edward is not very happy to have Carter as his roommate, but when he sees Carter’s “bucket list” - the list of things to do before you kick the bucket - he adds his own things and persuades Carter to come with him and do all those things, money is no problem.

The Bucket List is - absurdly - a feel-good dying-of-cancer movie, and it spares the audience any real fear of death, real despair and real agony, revelling in a hollywoodesque carpe diem mood instead. Edward and Carter have fun racing cars, skydiving, eating in posh French restaurants and seeing the wonders of the world, including the Pyramids, the Tadj Mahal and the Himalaya, discussing the meaning of life and death and flying around the world in Edward’s executive jet.
All that would be annoying if it wouldn’t be so much fun to watch Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman doing what they usually do (Nicholson showcasing his well-known selfish persona you can’t hate, and Morgan Freeman embodying the sage half-saint). But it’s not all fun, and even Nicholson’s atheist Edward is impressed by the Egyptian legend Carter tells him on top of the pyramid: When the ancient Egyptians died, their gods would ask them two questions at the gates of paradise: Have you found joy in your life? And: Has your life brought joy to others?
And if only a couple of the people who see The Bucket List will contemplate about this questions, and decide to do something about it, then this otherwise lightweight buddy movie/cancer comedy/road movie has achieved something.

The Bucket List movie trailer

US Army virologist Lieutenant Colonel Robert Neville (Will Smith) is the last living man in New York, and maybe the world, after a genetically altered virus - intended as a cure for cancer - has mutated and killed 90% of the world’s population, and has turned another 9% into a kind of rabid vampire-zombies (remote cousins of the zombies out of 28 Days Later, obviously) who have killed most of the remaining 1% of immune people.
By day, Neville exercises to keep fit, hunts for food and DVD’s, and works in his laboratory on a cure for the virus. He broadcasts a recorded message and asks other survivors to meet him at midday at the South Street Seaport where he waits every day - since three years - in vain. By night, he hides from the infected who have developed an intolerance for UV-light just like the mythologic vampires and hide in dark places during daylight and roam the city by night.
Neville is on the brink of breakdown, his dog Sam, a collection of mannequins in the DVD store and his work in the laboratory the only things between his sanity and madness.

I Am Legend is the chance for an actor to shine - playing The Last Man On Earth means the lead actor is in almost any single scene and has both the opportunity and responsibility to carry the whole film alone. And Will smith (rather surprisingly) accomplishes a good job - no grimaces, no falling back on his The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air-persona, he really convinces as the last survivor. And supporting him is the deserted city of New York, beautifully photographed and a character in it’s own right with it’s empty streets, sprouting vegetation and wildlife recapturing the city. That’s New York and Will Smith by day.
But then there are the nights, and when the sun sets and darkness creeps over the city, the infected rise - and the movie’s appeal drops. The “zombies” are CGI-creatures running through the night and shrieking like a herd of badly animated Gallimimus out of Jurassic Park, the other survivors who turn up later (Alice Braga and Charlie Tahan) don’t help either, and the syrupy ending is just the last straw that breaks the camel’s back.
A wasted opportunity, then, and a waste of Will Smith’s acting bravura of the first half of the film.

I Am Legend movie trailer

King Philip ll of Spain (Jordi Mollà) wants the throne of England for his daughter Isabella and conspires with a group of Jesuits to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England (Cate Blanchett). Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots (Samantha Morton) is also involved in the “English Enterprise”.
Queen Elizabeth meanwhile is busy with rejecting potential husbands and flirting with Sir Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen), who fascinates the Virgin Queen with his tales from the New World and the oceans - and with his honesty and straightforwardness.
The assassination plot fails, and Elizabeth has no other choice than to agree to Mary Stuart’s beheading because of high treason, and that’s Philip’s raison de la guerre. Sacrificing the woods of Spain, Philip has ordered to build a fleet of war ships for an invasion of England - the Spanish Armada.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age is less a historic epic (actually it’s historically quite inaccurate) than a medieval soap-opera, concentrating more on the (fictitious) relationship between Queen Elizabeth and the pirate Sir Walter Raleigh, with Elizabeth Throckmorton (Abbie Cornish) completing a love triangle, than on the conflict between Catholics and Protestants and Spain and England. Costume and production designs are as well worth seeing as the always great Cate Blanchett, and Clive Owen is a convincingly charming and dashing pirate, but unfortunately, their Elizabeth and Raleigh are virtually the only normal people in this movie, while most other characters (especially the evil ones) are hardly more than caricatures.
Lush production values and flashes of brilliant performances are regrettably not enough to outweigh a poor script, so Elizabeth: The Golden Age is watchable and even enjoyable due to Cate Blanchett and the elaborate custome and set design, but that alone doesn’t make a great film.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age movie trailer