Toy Story 3 (2010)

The toys are back. Woody, Buzz, Jessie, Mr. and Mrs. Potato head, Barbie and Rex are joined by their friends for some new adventures.

Andy is getting ready to leave for college and the toys are afraid of what will happen to them. Afraid that they may be thrown away, they sneak into a box of toys that Andy's Mom is taking to the Sunnyside Day Car Center for donation. The toys are excited because they are looking forward to being played with again.

When the toys get to Sunnyside, they are welcomed by the toys that live at the Center. The existing toys are led by a pink bear named "Lots-O-Huggin Bear". Other prominent toys include the fashionable Ken doll who refuses to acknowledge that he is a girl's toy and a very creepy doll called "Big Baby". The new toys are sent to the "Caterpillar" room where they are abused by the very young children. The toys can see through the window that the "Butterfly" room toys are treated much better by the older children and send Buzz to the other room to request a transfer.

Buzz is captured and turned into his old serious ranger self by the Sunnyside toys and turns against his friends. Woody decides that he has to escape and hides in a little girl's (Bonnie) backpack and goes home with her. He finds out from her other toys the real story about the Sunnyside toys, especially Lotso.

Woody goes back to the day care center to try and help his friends leave, but find that Lotso basically runs a prison like atmosphere and that leaving will be tough as they have a really scary cymbal monkey that watches their every move on camera. The toys manage to corral Buzz and try to turn him back to his old self and instead push his language button which makes him speak Spanish. The toys almost get out of the center when they are caught by Lotso. Lotso and Woody end up in a dumpster and the toys must follow them to save Woody. All works out in the end.

The toys find their way back to Andy's house and Woody writes a note to Andy suggesting that he give his toys to Bonnie.

The voices of the characters are still the same, including Tom Hanks as Woody, Tim Allen as Buzz, Joan Cusack as Jessie, Don Rickles as Mr. Potato Head and John Ratzenberger as Hammy. Michael Keaton is also in this installment as Ken.

This movie was great! I even paid full price to see it which I never do. I would definitely recommend this movie to everyone, even Brian liked it. Pixar also included one of their movie shorts just before the start of the movie. Beware, I got choked up in a couple of parts, but not in a bad way.

109 Minutes. Rated G. I give this movie FOUR AND ONE HALF STARS.

The A-Team (2010)

This film is a remake of the original t.v. show starring George Peppard as "Hannibal" , Dirk Benedict as "Face" and Mr. T as B.A. (Bad Attitude) Baracus.

Colonel Hannibal Smith (Liam Neeson) and "Faceman" aka "Face" Peck are in Mexico and are finding themselves in trouble with a very corrupt General. He manages to free himself and along with B.A (Quinton "Rampage" Jackson) whom he meets on a road in the middle of nowhere, manages to rescue Face who has gotten himself into trouble by sleeping with the wife of of said corrupt General. They get out of their situation and find themselves at a hospital and needing to find a way out. Enter their pilot, H.M. "Howling Mad" Murdock (Sharlto Copley), a certifiable nut case that they find kept as a patient at the hospital.

They get themselves back to the states and proceed complete many missions for the government over the next few years. They are approached while in Iraq by an agent that wants them to recover some money plates that are going to be used to manufacture counterfeit currency. Their superior officer General Morrison (Gerald McRaney) advises against this covert operation, but they do it anyway. They find that they have competition in this quest by a security company called "Black Forest" which is a Blackwater type of operation led by Brock Pike (Brian Bloom). The members of the A-Team are framed and are given a military trial where they are given dishonorable discharges and sent to prison.

They break out of their separate prisons so that they can redeem themselves and prove their innocence.

This is your typical action flick. It had funny parts, action and a lot of things being blown up. It was pretty good as long as your expectations weren't too high. Pure entertainment value. Jessica Biel's character wasn't even needed here and was obviously just to have a good looking girl in the film.

The characters were basically the same as the t.v. show down to the fact that B.A. is afraid to fly. I pity the fool!!! Hannibal still loves it "when a plan comes together". If you were a big A-Team fan, stick around after the credits (the most credits that I have ever seen) for some cute footage that includes cameo's from the original Face and Murdock.

117 Minutes. Rated PG-13. I give this film THREE STARS.

Precious: Based on the novel "Push" by Sapphire (2009)

The movie takes place in the 80's and Claireece "Precious" Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) is living in Harlem with her horribly abusive mother (Mo'Nique). She gets asked to leave school because she is pregnant. she has a daughter already that lives with her grandmother, the result of sexual abuse from her father. Her mother is more concerned that Precious might steal her man than the abuse that he has inflicted on her. When Precious is experiencing abuse, sexual, physical or mental, she often retreats into a fantasy world where she is the star and is walking down the red carpet and all of the attention is on her.

The principal from her school points her in the direction of an alternative school so that she can continue her education. Her teacher, Blu Rain (Paula Patton) teaches her to read. The girls in her class eventually become just like family, even spending time with her in the hospital after she has her baby. Along the way she meets some people who want to help her including a social worker (Mariah Carey) and a nurse (Lenny Kravitz).

After the birth of her son, her mother abuses the newborn and Precious finds the strength to leave the house. Her teacher helps her find shelter and she begins to look toward improving her life. She later finds out that her father died of AIDS. She sees her mother for the last time at the welfare office while her mother is trying to hold on to benefits. Through all of this, Precious continues to move forward with her life.

This was a very good movie albeit rather depressing. There was a lot of abuse portrayed here so it might be difficult for some to watch although the acting was excellent. Mo'Nique, who won both the Golden Globe and Oscar for her role here, deserved it. Even though she was an evil person, she still seemed to invoke some sympathy, especially at the end when she is at the welfare office. It is a powerful performance. Gabourey Sidibe was also nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of Precious. I didn't see what all the hoopla was about Mariah Carey. Her performance was O.K., but nothing to get excited about. I guess any improvement is good, anyone remember "Glitter", oh yeah, no one saw that.

109 Minutes. Rated R. I give this movie FOUR STARS.

Letters To Juliet (2010)

Sophie Hall (Amanda Seyfried) is a fact checker at the "New Yorker" magazine and wants to be a writer. Her boss Bobby thinks that she should stay a fact checker. She is engaged to Victor (Gael Garcia Bernal) who is opening a new Italian restaurant in the next few weeks. The two decide to go on a "pre-honeymoon" since things will get crazy when they get back and the restaurant will be opening.

When they get there, all Victor wants to do is tour wineries and the inventories of his suppliers. Sophie goes along with this for a while, but soon can't take it any more. While Victor goes on one of his tours, Sophie explores the town of Verona where they are staying. Verona is also the town where Romeo and Juliet lived. She locates the house that Juliet supposedly lived and finds people writing letters about their love lives and sticking them to the wall of the house. At the end of the day, a woman comes and removes all of the letters. Sophie follows and finds that there is a group of women that respond to the letters and send them back to the writers. They are known as "Juliet's Secretaries".

Sophie befriends these women and finds a letter written by a woman way back in 1957 when she was studying art in Italy. Sophie responds and is surprised when this woman's grandson shows up asking her what the heck she is doing writing to his Grandmother. She meets Claire (Vanessa Redgrave), the writer of the letter who decides that she wants to try to find her old love, Lorenzo Bartolini (Franco Nero), that she left waiting for her when she went back to England.

Sophie decides to join them, much to the chagrin of Claire's grandson Charlie (Chris Egan). They find that there are many Lorenzo's and decide to check out as many of them as possible.

I won't reveal the outcome. Let's just say that this movie is an enjoyable chick flick. I left the theater feeling happy. Yay! It's not great, but entertaining. Isn't that the point? Hey, I just watched the trailer and it made me smile!

The shots in Italy were incredible, it is definitely on my list of places to go! Vanessa Redgrave is married in real life to Franco Nero, her Lorenzo in the movie. She met him while filming "Camelot" in 1967 and had a son with him, but did not marry him until 2006. She had a long relationship with Timothy Dalton in between.

105 Minutes. Rated PG. I give this movie THREE AND ONE HALF STARS.

Crazy Heart (2009)

Jeff Bridges plays Otis "Bad" Blake, an alcoholic has-been country singer who plays a series of one night sets to scratch out a living. He was once a star, but those days seem gone along with his many marriages. He had a son 28 years ago, but has not seen him since he was small.

The film opens as Bad is getting ready to play at a bowling alley. He meets a journalist named Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal) who wants to write a story about him. They begin a relationship and he becomes attached to her young son Buddy. Bad gets a call from his agent that country star Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell) wants Bad to open for him at a concert. Bad doesn't want to do this as Tommy was once HIS protege, but he needs the money. After the concert Tommy asks him to write him some songs. Bad thinks that the songs would be duets for the both of them, but Tommy just wants him to write them and he would sing them.

This kind of puts Bad over the edge and he begins drinking. He crashes his car and ends up in the hospital. The relationship with Jean makes him rethink his life and he calls his son asking about him and his mother and finds out that his mother had died and his son hangs up on him. After Bad loses Buddy while drinking, Jean breaks it off with him.

He gets help with his drinking from his old friend Wayne (Robert Duval) and cleans up his act. He goes to Jean's to try to patch things up, but she thinks that it isn't a good idea. He moves on and writes a song for Tommy that becomes a big hit and he runs into Jean at one of Tommy's concerts and sees that she is wearing a ring. The last scene is of her interviewing Bad.

This movie is just like a lot of others that I have seen. The difference, I think, is the acting of Jeff Bridges. He was nominated for almost every award out there for this role and won both the Golden Globe and the Oscar. Check him out in "The Big Lebowski".

This movie is based on the novel by Thomas Cobb. The main character is rumored to have been based on a number of real country singers. You do not have to like country music to like this movie.

111 Minutes. Rated R. I give this movie THREE AND THREE QUARTER STARS.

Splice (2009)

Clive Nicoli (Adrian Brody) and Elsa Kast (Sarah Polley) are genetic engineers and a couple working for a pharmaceutical company that is splicing together different kinds of animal DNA to create new kinds of animals.

Their last experiment seemed to work o.k. so they would like to splice together human DNA with animal DNA to see what the results are. The pharmaceutical company rejects their proposal and they decide to proceed anyway to see what happens.

A creature that they agreed would be elimated once it got to a certain stage is created, but Elsa can't bring herself to kill it. She becomes attached to it and it grows and learns at a very fast rate. She names it Dren (nerd spelled backward) and they move Dren to an old farmhouse when they realize that the lab that they work in is going to be remodeled and they can't keep her there. During the course of the movie, the couple who were once so close become divided.

This movie is not really my genre, so it wasn't my favorite. It wasn't an awful movie until the last half hour which I found to be disturbing. I don't know if I didn't like the movie because it deals with mixing DNA's and I find that scary (it is probably already being done but I don't want to know about it), or if the movie was bad. Other critics seemed to like it.

104 Minutes. Rated R. I give this movie TWO AND ONE HALF STARS.

Sex And The City 2 (2010)

This follow up to the first movie was not as good as the first, but not as bad as the critics said it was.

It is a couple of years after Big (Chris Noth) and Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) got married and Carrie is finding that her marriage has begun to be more Ho Hum that she would like (Duh!). Miranda is unhappy with her job, Charlotte is overwhelmed as a Mom and Samantha has been struggling with menopause and is trying to get her mojo back.

Samantha has a client from Abu Dhabi that has offered to fly her there for a business venture and she decides to take her friends.

Most of the movie takes place in the middle east and their adventures in the desert. The opulence is extraordinary as are the over the top fashions, although there is none of the concentration on fashion as a subject as there was in the first movie. There were a few funny parts, although I did not like some of the parts when they were in the middle east markets.

I thought that the movie was just o.k. Let's put it this way, to this day if I am flipping through channels and I see the first movie, I stop (much to Brian's chagrin). If I am flipping and I see THIS film, I won't feel the need to stop. Don't get me wrong, as I said earlier it is not as horribly awful as most of the critics said it was (they hacked it to death) but it isn't nearly as good as the first one and I certainly didn't laugh as hard as I did when Charlotte "poughkeepsied" in her pants! It was also much too long and the plot much too thin. Also, Anthony and Stanford's wedding made me want to vomit swan feathers. Liza Minelli's "Single Ladies" rendition just went on and on.

The movie was actually filmed mostly in Morocco as they couldn't get permission in Abu Dhabi because of the film's content. This movie also has plenty of great cameo's by celebrities like Liza Minelli, Penelope Cruz and Miley Cyrus.

146 Minutes. Rated R. I give this film TWO STARS.

The Messenger (2009)

This independent film, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, gave Woody Harrelson an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor this year.

This film follows Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) as he is assigned to the Casualty Notification Department upon his return to the U.S. from Iraq after almost being killed himself by a bomb. He is not pleased with the assignment, but takes it on. His superior officer is Captain Tony Stone (Harrelson) who is his partner and shows him the ropes. Will finds it hard to be as emotionless as the job requires.

He finds it especially hard when the duo must notify Olivia (Samantha Morton) that her husband is killed. Will finds himself drawn to the woman despite the advice given by Tony.

This is a good film. I can't say that I enjoyed it as it's subject matter is difficult. However, all performances are quite good, especially Harrelson's which resulted in an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor this year. This movie did not get the play in the theaters that it should have, probably due to the subject, but hopefully more people will see it on video. Ben Foster was also good. You can see him in a number of films including his villainous performance in "3:10 to Yuma" with Christian Bale.

113 Minutes. Rated R. I give this film THREE AND ONE HALF STARS.