THE FOUNTAIN


starring the sexy HUGH JACKMAN

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.

Director:  Darren Aronofsky
Writers:  Darren Aronofsky (screenplay), Darren Aronofsky (story), and 1 more credit »
Stars:   Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz and Sean Patrick Thomas

I cried watching this film. It has a sliughtly confusing but simple storyl.ine and a very spiritual aspect.  Hugh Jackman is beautiful in the role and he has a cry scene to tear your heart out and make you cry as well, stunning - it was very moving - more so that I thought his acting capable of.  Truly beautiful.

 

This is one of the best films I have seen in a very long time - a real FEEL GOOD FACTOR FILM.  Full of stars,  this easy and delightful film will be a favourite of us ' older generation' who can relate more with the story and where we go after we reach a certain age.  One friend I showed this film to, then went on to watch it around 30 times in the next few weeks and I have to admit that I bought it as a DVD gift for all my guests at Christmas and have since gone on to give it to around 20 people and have had a few strange looks in the shops when buying so many copies.

5 stars




WATCH THE PREVIEW HERE

INTO THE WILD

A friend itroduced me to this delightful film and I was mesmerized from the start. Telling the true story of a young mans search for some answers by taking himself off into the wilds of Alaska and living for a while in an old bus out in the middle of nowhere and the adventures he experiences along the way,  made me stop and think for a couple of days after.  This film stays with you and haunts your thoughts with questions that have no answers.  

Beautifully acted by Emile Hirsch - who I had never heard of before,  he made the film very watchable and is spookily similar in looks to the man the film is based on.

Along his journey he meets some interesting people and in his way, he helps each one of them and I really did find a tear in my eye many times.

Pay attention as it does flit in time zones and through flash backs shows you the journey he made to get to where he was going and where he ended up, and if you click on the name of the film above you can see a youtube promotion for the film.

Well worth watching.  Deep and thoughtful. Compassionate and embracing of the human soul.  

5 STARS

IDIOCRACY - the movie
 

Idiocracy is a 2006 American film, a satirical science fiction comedy, directed by Mike Judge and starring Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph,Dax Shepard, and Terry Crews. The film tells the story of two ordinary people who take part in a top-secret military hibernation experiment, only to awaken 500 years in the future in a dystopian society full of extremely dumb people. Advertising, commercialism, and cultural anti-intellectualism have run rampant and dysgenic pressure has resulted in a uniformly stupid society devoid of intellectual curiosity, social responsibility, and coherent notions of justice and human rights.

Despite its lack of a major theatrical release, the film has achieved a cult following.

It reeks of some home truths, where a corporate power has taken control of just about everything you eat and drink and this has caused turmoil with the environment and peoples health.  This reminds me hugely of Monsanto - the company responsible for Agent Orange, Aspartame and for GM food , and the companyis currently  trying to own - and I mean own, every single seed product on the planet.  

Light hearted film, worth an evening with some friends for a laugh,  and just see if you can figure out how the people in the story got to be so  dumb.  It's as bad as the  Jeremy Kyle Show out there... ha ha 

2 SOUPS

This amazing sketch with Julie Walters, written by Victoria Wood, is an epic.  if you were to read the actual script, you would wonder why it even got made as the dialogue is almost nill - and yet it is hillariously funny because of who it is - Julie Walters.
Victoria Wood is certainly onE of the UK's finest comedy writers and there does seem no end to what this amazing women can turn her hand to, and this simple yet amazing comedy sketch would be lost on American audiances who do not understand pathos or any kind of humour without a deliberate funny punch line. 

Click on the title and watch it for yourselves.

Camp value  * * * * *

 
WIZARD OF OZ - ALTERNATIVE ENDING
 

CONNIE & CARLA 

Connie and Carla is a 2004 American comedy film directed by Michael Lembeck and starring Nia Vardalos, Toni Collette, and David Duchovny.

The film was filmed in Vancouver and featured a number of local drag queens.

Nia Vardalos and Toni Collette play the titular characters, whose lifelong friendship and co-obsession with musical theatre have brought nothing but career dead ends. Despite this they continue their optimism, hosting a variety act at an airport lounge. After accidentally witnessing a mafia hit in Chicago, they go on the run, landing in Los Angeles. Initially working at a beauty salon, they wind up posing as drag queens and auditioning to host a drag revue at a gay club.Because they sing their own songs (a rarity for queens), they are hired, and their variety show (first entitled What a Drag (Pun Intended!) then called Connie and Carla and the Belles of the Balls after they add a few friends to the act) becomes a hit.

I have seen this film dozens of times and always drag  ( pun ) it out at Christmas as it is a great laugh and fun a minute. Filled with loads of good singing.

Camp value  * * * * *
 

 PRINCE OF PERSIA

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is a 2010 sword-and-sorcery film written by Jordan Mechner, Boaz Yakin, Doug Miro, and Carlo Bernard; directed by Mike Newell; produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. The film is a retelling of the 2003 video game of the same name, developed and released by Ubisoft Montreal.

The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Prince Dastan, Gemma Arterton as Princess Tamina, Ben Kingsley as Nizam, and Alfred Molina as Sheik Amar.

With the cute guy from Bareback Mountain - oops I mean Brokeback Mountain,  he sure has beefed up for the part in this film and as this picture shows,  you see plenty of beefcake in this film.  Full of amazing special effects that we see so much of these days, this is not your typical Disney production - and has loads of laughs to keep it from getting too heavy. Thoroughly enjoyable - and watch for the scene where he falls amidst tons of sand and doesn't get a single grain in his eyes. 

Beefcake value, Special effects  * * * * *

Mrs. HENDERSON PRESENTS
 

After her husband, the Embassador, dies,  Laura Henderson buys an old London theater and opens it up as the Windmill Theatre, a performance hall which goes down in history for, among other things, its all-nude revues.
This is the film people were talking about at the time because Will Young was in it, and is seen briefly naked - and all my friends try and freeze frame the scene - and I always warn them that all you see is his - quite big - butt - and no willy...
This delightful film has an undercurrent of sadness although is a comedy - and i tried finding out more on the real Mrs. Henderson but there seems little available.
Lovely film. Watch over and over again.

Director:  Stephen Frears  -  Writers:  David Rose, Kathy Rose -  Stars:  Judi Dench, Bob Hoskins and Christopher Guest

Camp value  * * * * *

 AVATAR

Avatar is a science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron, starring Sam Worthington, Zoë Saldaña, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, and Sigourney Weaver. It was made by Lightstorm Entertainment and released by 20th Century Fox on December 18, 2009. The film is set in the year 2154 on Pandora, a fictional Earth-like moon in a distant planetary system. Humans are engaged in mining Pandora's reserves of a precious mineral, while the Na'vi — the sapient and sentient race of humanoids indigenous to the moon — resist the colonists' expansion, which threatens the continued existence of the Na'vi and the Pandoran ecosystem. The film's title refers to the remotely controlled, genetically engineered human-Na'vi bodies used by the film's human characters to interact with the natives.

Avatar had been in development since 1994 by James Cameron, who wrote a 114-page scriptment for the film. Filming was supposed to take place after the completion of Titanic, and the film would have been released in 1999, but according to James Cameron, "technology needed to catch up" with his vision of the film. In early 2006, James Cameron developed the script, the language, and the culture of Pandora. He stated that since Avatar was successful, there will be at least two sequels.

The film was first titled Project 880, and was released in traditional 2D and 3D formats, along with an IMAX 3D release in selected theaters. The film is estimated to have cost over $300 million to produce, and another estimated $200 million for the distribution and other costs, thus totaling to about half a billion dollars. Avatar is being touted as a breakthrough in terms of filmmaking technology, for its development of 3D viewing and stereoscopic filmmaking with cameras that were specially designed for the film's production. Opening to critical acclaim, it earned an estimated $27 million on its opening day and an estimated $77,025,481 domestically its opening weekend. Worldwide, the film grossed an estimated $232,180,000 its opening weekend, the ninth largest opening-weekend gross of all time, and the largest for a non-franchise, non-sequel and original film. It is also considered to be a front-runner for awards and nominations at the 82nd Academy Awards. So far, it has been nominated to 4 Golden Globes, 2 of which it won: Best Director and Best Motion Picture (Drama). The film was rated PG-13 by the MPAA for intense epic battle sequences and warfare, sensuality, language and moderate tobacco usage.

The movie has grossed over $2 billion worldwide, the first movie to ever do so. On January 25, 2010, Avatar surpassed Titanic as the highest grossing film of all time, worldwide.

I loved this film and have seen it several times and cannot wait for it to come out on DVD in 3D format.  It is somewhat erotic watching this muscular man almost naked for most of the film, and while CGI, it isd amazing, truly amazing, how the real and the CGI have been married together.

Special effects, Story line, Emotional depth  * * * * *

 2012

2012 is a 2009 American science fiction disaster adventure film directed by Roland Emmerich. It stars John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton, Danny Glover and Woody Harrelson. It was produced by Emmerich's production company, Centropolis Entertainment and distributed by Columbia Pictures. Filming began in August 2008 in Vancouver.

The film briefly references Mayanism, the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar and the 2012 phenomenon in its portrayal of cataclysmic events unfolding in 2012.

The special effects are amazing and the concept of the storyline is an interesting theory of what is about to happen when the magnetic poles of the earth move.  Trouble with this movie - it is so full of superflous storylines that just slow the plot down and - I actually found myself wanting to fast-forward through great scenes of it as it was boring.  It is well padded out to be an epic, which it did not need. The interactive story between various people was not needed... I just wanted more of the action, which there is plenty,  it was just slowed down under a too weighty storyline of people that were of no real interest.

Special effects * * * * *
Waffley storyline * * *

 MISS POTTER

Inspired by a true story set in Victorian England, a tale charting the life of Beatrix Potter--a literary phenomenon of the early 20th century.
At a time when most young women of her class aimed only to make a good marriage, Beatrix became an iconic figure, swimming quietly, but with great fortitude, against the tide. She created a series of books and characters that are as beloved today as they were a hundred years ago, and since their publication they have never been out of print. She was also a distinguished painter and--had she been a man--her botanical drawings would have been snapped up by the Royal Horticultural Society at Kew Gardens. In addition, by the time she died in 1943, Beatrix Potter had purchased vast swathes of the Lake District that she left to the then fledgling British conservation trust, the National Trust. That so much of this glorious countryside that inspired her, remains as it was in Beatrix Potter's day for others to enjoy, is her bequest to the nation.

Loved this film and watched it a couple of times in the first week of buying the DVD.  I was reduced to tears at the end.

Feel good factor * * * * *

 CONVERSATIONS WITH GOD

I must confess to not yet seeing this film, but I read the book 20 years ago when it first came out and is the one book I premote above all others for those starting out on a spiritual path.  I only recently heard it had become a film and if you have seen it, please let me know what you thought. 

It tells the story of a man whose life was fast going down the toilet and he wrote a letter to God complaining, and through 'automatic writing' a dialogue opened between him and the Almighty, answering all those questions he had asked and which affect every one of us in different ways - relatonships, jobs, money, need, and probably most important of all, what is God ?  

I cried and laughed all the way through the book and it - literally - changed my life - and I shall keep an eye out for the film.


CLICK HERE FOR A BEAUTIFUL MOMENT FROM THE FILM

ALSO

THE CELESTINE PROPHECY



The Celestine Prophecy is a 1993 novel by James Redfield that discusses various psychological and spiritual ideas which are rooted in many ancient Eastern Traditions and New Age spirituality. The main character of the novel undertakes a journey to find and understand a series of nine spiritual insights on an ancient manuscript in Peru. The book is a first-person narrative of the narrator's spiritual awakening as he goes through a transitional period of his life.
I wasn't aware until recently that it was also a movie and like the one above, I have not seen it and would dearly like to hear from those who have.  I loved the book and it sold millions of copies and was a BEST SELLER - and I know the movie will be good.

YENTL 

PAPA CAN YOU HEAR ME  

Naturally,  Barbra Streisand has to be here somewhere.

Based on Singer's short story "Yentl the Yeshiva Boy," it centers on a young girl who defies tradition by discussing and debating Jewish law and theology with her rabbi father. When he dies, she cuts her hair, dresses as a man, and sets out to find a yeshiva where she can continue to study Talmud and live secretly as a male named Anshel.

 As early as 1968, Barbra Streisand had expressed interest in a film adaption of Singer's short story. Using the Napolin/Singer play as her source material, she wrote a detailed forty-two page treatment, the first to conceive of the movie version as a musical. The resulting 1983 production veered dramatically from the original short story and play by allowing Yentl to reveal her true feelings for Avigdor and having her return to her female self and sail for the United States at the end. The film received a scathing review from Singer[1] but was well received by others, including reviewers at Time, Variety and Newsweek. Box office receipts were also healthy, both domestically and internationally, and the film was ranked 19th in the year's moneymakers. At awards time, Streisand was famously snubbed at the Oscars, but the film itself received 5 nods, winning for Best Original Music Score. Yentl won two Golden Globe Awards for Best Director and Best Motion Picture

Music value   * * * * *