Genre: Animation, Comedy, Drama

Year: 2009

Country: Australia

Rating:

Starring: Toni Collette, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Eric Bana, Barry Humphries, Bethany Whitmore

Director: Adam Elliot

My Review: A stop motion clay animation feature. Featuring the 'voices'? of Toni Collette, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Eric Banna, here's a tragic tale of pen-pal love. When an 8 year old girl from Australia writes a random person in New York city, she creates a bond of friendship between Max and Mary. Two very different people. Mary is a sweet, shy, and awkward girl from a typical Australian town. Her parents are less than perfect (Taxidermist father and Alcoholic mother), and her life is typical for any girl growing up in a dysfunctional family environment. Max is a middle-aged, overweight New Yorker with plenty of problems. Notably, Asperger's syndrome, a weight problem and chronic unemployment. There pen-pal friendship spans twenty plus years of life's ups and downs. The animation was superb, the story a bit too dark, and the dialog non-existent. The story is told through narration of the letters the two exchange. The rather quirky nature of the characters keeps the viewer at a distance and blunts the emotional impact of the story. The broad focus on all of life's trials and tribulations lessens the viewers investment, and the detached narration further reduces the story to a clinical examination of this odd couple. I give it a 3 out of 5.

Summary: In the mid-1970's, a homely, friendless Australian girl of 8 picks a name out of a Manhattan phone book and writes to him; she includes a chocolate bar. She's Mary Dinkle, the only child of an alcoholic mother and a distracted father. He's Max Horowitz, living alone in New York, overweight, subject to anxiety attacks. He writes back, with chocolate. Thus begins a 20-year correspondence, interrupted by a stay in an asylum and a few misunderstandings. Mary falls in love with a neighbor, saves money to have a birthmark removed and deals with loss. Max has a friendship with a neighbor, tries to control his weight, and finally gets the dream job. Will the two ever meet face to face?

Genre: Action, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Year: 2010

Country: USA, UK

Rating:

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe

Director: Christopher Nolan

My Review: Leonardo DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb, a corporate spy. An operator who invades the minds of his targets, and steals their deepest darkest secrets. But stealing secrets from dreamers is simple compared to 'Inception' - planting a memory that the sleeper believes to be their own. It's a multi-layered, sci-fi, thriller, exploding with action. Very reminiscent of the original Matrix. Here is a mind-bending movie about the surreal landscape of dreams. Cobb and his team are hired by a rich industrialist (Ken Watanabe) to plant an idea inside the mind of his competitor. While the mission itself isn't without risks, Dom brings along an extra case of baggage when his dead wife tries her best to sabotage their efforts. It's a sleek, elegant and highly polished thriller, full of amazing detail and surreal scenery. The action is excellent. The cast is great, and the acting precise (a little too clinical at times). The direction was great and the special effects amazing. Free-fall fight scenes that left me wondering - How'd they do that?! I give it a 5 out of 5.

Summary: Dom Cobb is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb's rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved. Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible-inception. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse: their task is not to steal an idea but to plant one. If they succeed, it could be the perfect crime. But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move. An enemy that only Cobb could have seen coming.

Genre: Comedy, Horror, Sci-Fi

Year: 1986

Country: USA

Rating:

Starring: Diane Franklin, Gerrit Graham, Mary Woronov, Chad Allen, Jon Gries

Director: Ted Nicolaou

My Review: So awful it's funny. This late 80s movie (released 1986) is an unabashedly bad sci-fi horror flick of epic proportions. The cast can't act, and the special effects are truly amateur. Rubber suited monsters, costumes so bad you'd have to pay people to wear them, music that made me cringe, set design that left me nauseous and a story so silly it made me laugh out loud. Planet Pluton has lost it's mutant - He's on his way to Earth and the unlucky Puttermans are picking up his signal on their brand new satellite dish. The slimy, tentacled, barking, pile of ooze is intent on eating all the Humans it can find. Can Gramps and young Sherman defeat this menace from outerspace? People of Earth - Destroy your televisions! This movie is so bad, you'll swear off the boob tube for at least 200 years. No wonder this movie isn't available on DVD. So bad it made me laugh. OMG - Were they intentionally trying to make it bad? 3 out of 5 (for making me laugh throughout).

Summary: A civilization on a distant planet has found a way to solve its garbage problem: turning it into energy and beaming it into outer space. A flaw in this system is found when the signal is accidentally picked up on Earth by the Putterman Family's home satellite dish. While this would ordinarily be just another mess, this particular transmission contains a hungry trash monster who quickly begins snacking on various Puttermans. Only young Sherman Putterman has any clue what is going on, but nobody will believe him. Is there any hope for the Earth?

Genre: Horror

Year: 1982

Country: USA

Rating:

Starring: Ronny Cox, Bibi Besch, Paul Clemens, Don Gordon, R.G. Armstrong

Director: Philippe Mora

My Review: Not bad for a b-movie. Definitely below par production, but the music made up for much of the poor production and acting. The sound effects/production was poorly handled, the lighting far too dark, and the camera work seemed hurried. The acting wasn't the best and there were other issues. The acting wasn't too bad for the cast. The story was a bit odd, but it didn't skip a beat. A rather tight script with very little room for suspense was nonetheless gripping. Again, the music helped considerably. The story - The movie opens when some sort of swamp beast rapes newlywed Caroline MaCleary on the outskirts of Nioba, Mississippi. The married couple raises the boy as their own, but medical problems begin to plague him when he reaches 17 years of age. Looking for answers, the family finds themselves back in Nioba poking around for information about the rape, and any crimes that might help them figure out who the boys father really was. What follows is a murderous mystery (without the mystery) wrapped in a b-horror wrapper. The make-up and effects were designed to gross you out, and they did a pretty good job. The gratuitous titty shots weren't all that bad, and the movie comes full circle towards the end. Thankfully the music and a well paced script kept me interested throughout. I give it a 3 out of 5. Like I said, not bad for a b-production.

Summary: In the beginning of the movie you see a woman getting raped by a man-creature of some sort. The movie takes place years later when the child that was a result of that rape is on the rampage looking for a girl to rape to start the process all over again.