AWN Blogs

While technology has gotten better since TOY STORY was released, it's not easy to improve on storytelling this clever. John Lasseter's masterpiece could have been so many things with its recognizable brands and pop culture references, but it avoids all the pitfalls of that material and crafts an innocent story about friendship and love. The franchise has become a money making machine since, but, the film isn't about selling toys, but the joy of a toy in the hearts of a child and the joy of being that beloved toy.

TOY STORY presents the whimsical idea that toys come to life when humans are not around. Woody (Tom Hanks, BIG) is the king of the toy chest in Andy's room. He organizes the other toys, which include the comedian Mr. Potato Head (Don Rickles), dedicated Slinky Dog (Jim Varney, ERNEST GOES TO CAMP), insecure dinosaur Rex (Wallace Shawn, THE PRINCESS BRIDE), piggy bank Hamm (John Ratzenberger, TV's CHEERS), and the ceramic lamp Bo Beep (Annie Potts, GHOSTBUSTERS), who has a thing for Woody. It's Andy's birthday and he gets the new spaceman action figure Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen, TV's HOME IMPROVEMENT), who doesn't believe that he's a toy. With his fancy gadgets, Buzz quickly becomes Andy's new favorite, leaving Woody feeling forgotten.

Guillermo del Toro, director of PAN'S LABYRINTH, brings his boundless visual imagination to another screen edition of the HELLBOY saga. Filled with fanciful creatures and whimsical silliness, del Toro nicely balances between humor and action in this fun superhero adventure. While not as fresh as the original, HELLBOY II holds its own in a summer filled with wonderful superheroic antics.

Ages ago the magical creatures of the world made a truce with humans, setting aside their indestructible golden army. They would stay in the woods while humans ruled the cities. However, as the cities spread and humans became consumed with greed, the magical creatures were pushed into the shadows. Now Prince Nuada (Luke Goss, BLADE II) wants the magical world to rule again, so he seeks the three pieces of the crown that controls the mechanical golden army made up of 70 times 70 warriors. With his robbery of the second piece of the crown and the murder of dozens of humans, the U.S. government calls in their paranormal task force of Hellboy (Ron Perlman, THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN), Liz Sherman (Selma Blair, CRUEL INTENTIONS) and Abe Sapien (Doug Jones, PAN'S LABYRINTH).

The epic Oscar-winning blockbuster that captured the hearts of teenage girls for months upon its initial release, making Leonardo DiCaprio a modern-day matinee idol. James Cameron's passion project paid off to the tune of $1.2 billion at the worldwide box office. No film since has come close to its success. Mixing a love story with a disaster tale attracted both women and men. It's beautiful young stars brought in the young viewers, while the historic true-life disaster tale brought in older movie watchers. It was a spectacle that truly had something for everyone.

Against an epic backdrop, the story is simple. Rose Bukater (Kate Winslet, LITTLE CHILDREN) is a 17-year-old girl engaged to the wealthy heir Cal Hockley (Billy Zane, SILVER CITY). She doesn't love him, feeling trapped in a life that was not of her choosing. Her mother Ruth (Frances Fisher, L.A. STORY) needs her to marry rich so that their future is secure, since her husband left them with nothing but debt upon his death. In total desperation, she decides to jump off the back of the ship. But third-class passenger Jack Dawson (DiCaprio, THE DEPARTED) convinces her to rethink her decision. This begins a whirlwind romance much like Romeo and Juliet, however the sinking ship will put their happily ever after in jeopardy.

The dark and cheeky comedy puts a new spin on the story of an assassin. Pierce Brosnan sheds his James Bond persona completely as a foul mouthed, boozin' hitman. The other unique twist is how the average Joe reacts to meeting a paid killer in real life. Would you freak and lock yourself away, or would you be curious and ask what his gun looks like?

Julian Noble (Brosnan) is a flashy dresser for a man who doesn't want to be seen killing people. He travels the globe doing hits for his bosses, because he's one of the best. But recently he's gotten sloppy and his drinking and whoring is becoming habitual. At the hotel bar in Mexico City, he meets struggling business man Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear, AS GOOD AS IT GETS), who is banking on a big deal. During their conversation, Noble says everything wrong offending Danny up and down, so the next day he invites Wright to the bull fights, where Danny asks that seemingly innocent question — so what do you do for a living, Julian?

Recently named by Entertainment Weekly as the best film of the past 25 years and by the American Film Institute as the 7th best gangster film of all time, director Quentin Tarantino's masterpiece, PULP FICTION, is not unaccustomed to accolades. Tarantino and co-writer Roger Avary won an Oscar for their innovative screenplay. Stars John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman were all nominated for acting by the Academy, which also gave nods to Tarantino as director, editor Sally Menke and producer Lawrence Bender for Best Picture. To say PULP FICTION is beloved is truly accurate, ranked near the top among movie fans on IMDB. But for filmmakers, the most important distinction is its influence. No film since has been more influential to the world of cinema.

While the lives of the Tutors are sudsy, this soup opera is like chewing on a bar of Dove. The silky costumes and the refined accents don't hide the melodramatic theatrics of something straight out of 1980's DALLAS, not 16th century England. Anne Boleyn — or as my Anglophile aunt always refers to her, the Whore Queen — has never been more scheming as depicted in this affair. However, with the name THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL, shouldn't this film have been about, well, the other Boleyn girl?

Word has trickled down that King Henry VIII (Eric Bana, THE HULK) is disgruntled with his wife Katherine's inability to produce a male heir. Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk (David Morrissey, BASIC INSTINCT 2) sees an opportunity to put a female relative into the view of the king's wandering eye, enlisting his brother Sir Thomas Boleyn (Mark Rylance, ANGELS AND INSECTS) to pimp out one of his girls for the greater good of the family. Anne (Natalie Portman, CLOSER) is chosen to be the bait, but when she makes some errors in dealing with the king, Henry's eye falls on her married sister Mary (Scarlett Johansson, GHOST WORLD). Soon the family has riches from the king, but Sir Thomas' wife Elizabeth (Kristin Scott Thomas, THE ENGLISH PATIENT) wonders how long it will last before the king tires of his new conquest.

The strange bond between brothers is the theme of This Weekend's Film Festival. The five films selected range from epic war to pulp thriller to melancholy character piece to whimsical comedy to powerful drama. They're all recent films, one of which is one of the premiere films of 2008. Some of the brothers are close (in one case very close) and others have grown apart. But in all the films, despite differences, there is a connection that is undeniable.

To begin, we have an epic war tale from South Korea. TAE GUK GI: THE BROTHERHOOD OF WAR follows the affects of battle on the relationship between two brothers. When the Korean War breaks out, both Jin-tae and Jin-seok are drafted. The eldest Jin-tae does everything in his power to protect his little brother, even signing up for suicide missions in an effort to win his brother a ticket home. However, the glory and the gore of battle change Jin-tae, who loses the real reason he fought in the first place. As I said in my original review, "The key metaphor of two brothers in a war where Koreans are killing Koreans is not lost but never beaten into the audience." This powerful drama can be intimate and epic at the same time. Director Je-gyu Kang combines the frantic action-style of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN with the claustrophobic feel of PLATOON. Dong-Kun Jang as Jin-tae and Bin Won as Jin-seok give gripping performances, creating a truly memorable bond between brothers who eventually need to save each other.

Wong Kar Wai is a romantic plain and simple. He bathes his films in simmering neon and classic soul music. This film features beautifully sensual shots of ice cream melting between the crevices of a piece of blueberry pie where you can nearly taste the sweetness. Sometimes his shots take on the color tones of the characters feelings; this film is particularly washed over with blues and purples. Hues of the sad characters that inhabit Wong's world of heartbreak and renewal searching.

Elizabeth (Norah Jones, jazz-pop singer) discovers that her boyfriend is cheating on her from Jeremy (Jude Law, BREAKING AND ENTERING), the owner of a small New York café. He seems to have a great deal of heartbreak come through his restaurant, for he has begun collecting the keys of the brokenhearted in a jar just in case they want to retry a failed romance. Over a few nights, Elizabeth grows closer to Jeremy over his lonely blueberry pie. Needing some kind of release from her life, Elizabeth orders up a new locale in Memphis as a bartender where she serves Arnie (David Strathairn, GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK), a police officer determined to drink his blues away. Turns out his wife Sue Lynne (Rachel Weisz, THE CONSTANT GARDENER) has moved from late night snacks with a younger man into a full out binge. Soon Elizabeth moves on to a casino in nowhere Nevada where she gambles her savings on the cravings of poker player Leslie (Natalie Portman, CLOSER), who has some daddy issues.

Filmed as a short prequel to the feature, THE DARJEELING LIMITED, Wes Anderson's HOTEL CHEVALIER peeks into the troubled romance of two characters. Jack Whitman (Jason Schwartzman, RUSHMORE) has exiled himself in a Paris hotel for weeks. He seems depressed. Then he gets a phone call from the one who put him in this state. His former girlfriend (Natalie Portman, PARIS, JE''TAIME) has found him and wants to drop by. How will Will react to her? How will she treat him?

As a piece on its own, the film is curious at best. It hints at a relationship and its characters, but never gives us concrete answers. Jason desperately wants to make a certain impression and sets the mood to his liking. His ex is rude and flippant about Jason's feelings. He then counters with some stinging words of his own. Some hints are made to why she has returned.But all of this is done in a low key without theatrics. These two people know each other and know what they want too well to let the other get in their way. In context with DARJEELING, the ending curiously swifts. This short film certainly works better with the feature than alone, adding funny winks to that story. But that doesn't diminish its quality as a piece on its own.