Battle for Terra (PG) 6.0

Battle for Terra (2007): A peaceful alien planet faces annihilation, as the homeless remainder of the human race sets its eyes on Terra. Mala, a rebellious Terrian teenager, will do everything she can to stop it. (6.9)

Director: Aristomenis Tsirbas
Stars: Evan Rachel Wood, Luke Wilson and Justin Long

This computer animated film is a science fiction story with an anti-war message. The story is a bit like Avatar but with a fairy-tale ending. Animation is good enough, but the scenes don't have the details the big studio pictures have. Predictable story, but good kid-friendly movie. My Rating: 6.0

The Fall (R) 8.0

The Fall (2006): In a hospital on the outskirts of 1920s Los Angeles, an injured stuntman begins to tell a fellow patient, a little girl with a broken arm, a fantastical story about 5 mythical heroes. Thanks to his fractured state of mind and her vivid imagination, the line between fiction and reality starts to blur as the tale advances. (7.9)

Director: Tarsem Singh
Stars: Lee Pace, Catinca Untaru and Justine Waddell

A fantasy wrapped around a hard truth about broken limbs and a broken heart. The fantasy part reminded me a lot of Princes Bride, but the real life part slowly grows to tell a much larger story. If I say more about the story, I will spoil it for anyone else. The cinematography is fabulous. Acting is superb. The locations are all over the world and wonderful sets/scenes. An independent film and quite obviously a labor of love. (Check the the Wikipedia page about the movie after you watch it.) My Rating: 8.0

Mother of Mine (PG) 7.0

Mother of Mine (2005): During World War II, more than 70,000 Finnish children were evacuated to neutral Sweden to avoid the conflict. "Mother of Mine" tackles that painful patch of history in a tale of 9-year-old Eero, a child who increasingly feels abandoned by his biological Finnish mother and yet not attached to his Swedish surrogate mom.

Director: Klaus Härö
Stars: Topi Majaniemi, Marjaana Maijala and Maria Lundqvist
Languages: Finnish, Swedish (w/ English subtitles)

Looking at the world through a 9-year older's eyes. The above snippet from the IMDB is an accurate description of the story. Good acting the significant details of the storyline bring it to life quite nicely and tackles issues not only of WWII, but those of today's society as well. Who and what's important and why people behave in certain ways various at times ... Made me think about my own life situations. My Rating: 7.0

Fight Club (R) 8.0

Fight Club (1999): An office employee and a soap salesman build a global organization to help vent male aggression. (8.8)

Director: David Fincher
Writers: Chuck Palahniuk (novel)
Stars: Brad Pitt, Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter

With a name like that, I didn't think I'd like this movie. But, it draws you in, grabs you by the scruff of your neck and three quarters of the way in, it drops a bomb. Very cleverly done. I haven't read the novel to see if the sequence of events is the same, but the movie is darn good. Acting is superb. There's a narrator in the movie and sometimes that backfires; not in this one. After seeing the move, the above one line description from IMDB is hilarious. I suppose, it captures the story, but quite deliberately leaves out the important parts. My Rating: 8.0

The Fountain (R) 6.5

The Fountain (2006): Spanning over one thousand years, and three parallel stories, The Fountain is a story of love, death, spirituality, and the fragility of our existence in this world. (7.4)

Director: Darren Aronofsky
Stars: Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz and Sean Patrick Thomas

Three stories, similar in nature in that looking for a way around death. It is loosely implied that the characters in all the stories are connected. If they are, it isn't explained how. Then again, the old one is (?) the present-day writer's work. In the same token, the future one is the last chapter in the same story that is finished by the writer's husband, perhaps. Unlike the IMDB snippet above, I didn't find this story any spiritual or about the fragility of life. Instead, I think, it is about how death is not the end, and there's continuation afterwards. I liked the set director and the cinematographer playing with the "points of lights" in various scenes. The main story reminded me of the tried and true formula of inventor/scientist with a dying spouse and that's why my rating is a bit low. My Rating: 6.5

The Life of David Gale (R) 8.0

The Life of David Gale (2003): A man against capital punishment is accused of murdering a fellow activist and is sent to death row. (7.3)

Director: Alan Parker
Writer: Charles Randolph
Stars: Kevin Spacey, Kate Winslet and Laura Linney

I wanted to pick a movie that I'd seen previously and the choice was between this one and "Princes Bride" ... I picked this one, and, I suppose, that says something about my state of mind. Seeing it the second time around, I knew where the story was going, and hence, I had the time to see details of the storyline. It has quite a few minor (and not so minor) plot lines to make you really think. Capital punishment is the main-line, but then there is murder, rape, student-teacher relationship, divorce, betrayal, cancer, journalistic ethics, murder by the state, suicide, suicide for a cause, etc. etc. And, David Gale's complete lecture scene (where he says "... fantasies have to be unrealistic ...") is quite profound. Usually, the lectures or speeches in movies are just hollow words, but this one had something meaningful. The first time around, I remembered this movie for the suicide method. This time around, I understand the deeper meaning(s) the writer wanted to convey. Still, the "Securitat method" is what sticks in my head, still. "Maybe death is a gift," says David Gale in the final interview. The acting was super good. Highly recommend it. My Rating: 8.0

Steel Toes (R) 5.0

Steel Toes (2006): Rage and intolerance collide with compassion when a Jewish liberal humanist, and a court-appointed lawyer represents a Neo-Nazi Skinhead on trial for the racially motivated murder of an East Indian immigrant. (5.8)

Directors: Mark Adam, David Gow
Stars: David Strathairn, Andrew W. Walker and Marina Orsini

The story is good. Dialog is a bit stiff and quite un-real. It feels like the emotions are being forced into the conversations rather than emerging from the characters' interactions. The acting is a bit over-dramatic. I kept waiting for the courtroom drama and arguments but the drama is really between the lawyer and the client in the jail visiting room. My Rating: 5.0

Mother (R) 7.5

Mother (2009): A mother desperately searches for the killer that framed her son for a horrific murder. (8.0)

Director: Joon-ho Bong
Stars: Hye-ja Kim, Bin Won and Ku Jin
Language: Korean (w/ English subtitles)

Under the surface of the storyline, this movie has a lot of things going on. A mother, a mentally handicapped son, their past, their memories, and also the on-going suspicion about who committed the crime. A movie that makes you think ... think about who's right, what's right and what's justice. It seems to have been filmed in a picturesque place, but the cinematographer didn't use a lot of it. Character development in the movie (ie: the interactions of everyone in a small town) was done nicely. My Rating: 7.5

Time Traveler's Wife (PG-13) 7.5

The Time Traveler's Wife (2009): A romantic drama about a Chicago librarian with a gene that causes him to involuntarily time travel, and the complications it creates for his marriage. (7.1)

Director: Robert Schwentke
Writers: Audrey Niffenegger (novel)
Stars: Eric Bana, Rachel McAdams and Ron Livingston

Also see the post in my book blog about the novel. As I said there, I like the book a whole lot more. The book is a lot more descriptive and has a lot more stuff. This is the second time I watched this movie. Something about the time travel concept always intrigues me. In the story Audrey Niffenegger keeps one of the main premises of time travel in tact: don't/can't change past events. This is in contrast to Primer which I watched a few nights back where they want to go back and sabotage the building of the prototype in the first place ... thereby not being able to make the device that allows them to go back and ... ugh, there's your paradox! Watching it this time around, something about Henry knowing the date/time of his death made me quite interested in the whole idea of death. I've seen Rachel McAdams in a couple of other movies, but here she is simply stunning, specially in the early scenes. My Rating: 7.5

Following (R) 7.0

Following (1998): A young writer who follows strangers for material meets a thief who takes him under his wing. (7.7)

Director: Christopher Nolan
Stars: Jeremy Theobald, Alex Haw and Lucy Russell

Quite and unexpected storyline in this British movie. An original story with a couple of twists. Black and White was refreshing. Enjoyed the couple of jabs about 80s music. Good dialog. My Rating: 7.0

Primer (PG-13) 8.0

Primer (2004): Four friends/fledgling entrepreneurs, knowing that there's something bigger and more innovative than the different error-checking devices they've built, wrestle over their new invention. (6.9)

Director: Shane Carruth
Stars: Shane Carruth, David Sullivan and Casey Gooden

This is a very low budget (~$7000) Sci-Fi movie. After watching it the first time, I read the Wikipedia article about it. It has a nice diagram that explains the time-travel things. And then I watched it a second time. Still, there are several places I'm not sure about. The story is wonderful and the acting, the plot, etc are right on target. I will watch this several more times. There are parts in the movie that aren't fully explained (on purpose). It is fun to speculate on various time travel paradoxes and consequences. I like this movie a lot, specially since it is done with such a low budget and yet with the quality, care, effort and thoughtfulness that's lacking in most Hollywood blockbusters. My Rating: 8.0

Children of Invention (PG) 6.0

Children of Invention (2009): Two young children living illegally in a model apartment outside Boston are left to fend for themselves when their hardworking mother disappears. (6.3)

Director: Tze Chun
Stars: Cindy Cheung, Michael Chen and Crystal Chiu

The movie is a look at what people would do to make a buck and what the immigrants wouldn't do to make ends meet. Unfortunately, in this day and age, those two intersect with varying degrees of consequences, sometimes to the kids. Below the surface of this movie is a huge iceberg of a problem in the US society. I think, in an effort to appeal to the mainstream society, the director/writer uses mainly English as the language. It would have been more realistic, had the mother talk to the kids in Chinese and the kids answer back in English. That would also have shown the difference between the immigrant generation and the second generation. I sure am glad that my family and I didn't fall into scams when we first came to the US some 25 years back. My Rating: 6.0

Loose Change 9/11 (UR) 5.5

Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup (Video 2009): Does History Repeat Itself? (7.1)

Director: Dylan Avery
Stars: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Richard Gage

Um ... I dunno. This movie is looking at various "evidence" in the 9/11 attacks and calling it a conspiracy. To me, it feels like a picking and choosing the the items that support your claim. I felt like the writer did not attempt to explain anything away using the simple methods, but went looking for small odd things to support his theory. Occam's razor suggests that there could be quite a lot of simpler explanations. I'm saying this after having seen the movie Why We Fight (2005) that has a lot of details about why the US keeps fighting various wars and looks at what shapes our foreign policy. There could be a grain of truth in this movie, but to suggest that 9/11 was, at the very least, allowed to be carried out by the US government having been known in advance (like the Pearl Harbor) ... a bit far fetched, IMHO. I give it a lower score because it did not attempt to look at any plausible explanations. My Rating: 5.5