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How Do You Know (2010)
How do you know it's love?
Filmmaker(s): James L. Brooks

After being cut from the USA softball team and feeling a bit past her prime, Lisa finds herself evaluating her life and in the middle of a love triangle, as a corporate guy in crisis competes with her current, baseball-playing beau.

Structure, Team Play Some filmmakers you just fall into. The ones I hold most dear are those that are both expert cinematic storytellers and attempt to reshape me. These are rare, but there is a second tier of cinematic storytellers; although they do not work at...


Published February 22, 2024
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The Next Three Days (2010)
What if you had 72 hours to save everything you live for?
Filmmaker(s): Paul Haggis

A married couple's life is turned upside down when the wife is accused of murdering her boss. Her husband John would spend the next few years trying to get her released, but there's no evidence that negates the evidence against her. When the strain of being separated from her husband and son gets to her, John decides to find a way to break her out.

Pregnant I don’t like Paul Haggis as a man. His work does nothing for me; I am not altered or improved by experiencing his shapes. But I have to admit that the man knows how to tell a story. He engages, and those working with him —...


Published February 22, 2024
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Edge of Darkness (2010)
Some secrets take us to the edge.
Filmmaker(s): Martin Campbell

As a seasoned homicide detective, Thomas Craven has seen the bleakest side of humanity. But nothing prepares him for the toughest investigation of his life: the search for his only daughter Emma's killer. Now, he is on a personal mission to uncover the disturbing secrets surrounding her murder, including corporate corruption, government collusion and Emma's own mysterious life.

Knowledge Aforehand Careful, this contains not only spoilers for this film, but the original teleplay as well. I’ve had the opportunity to see this close to the extraordinary original. In a fascinating superposition, both are by the same director. The original is one of the best long...


Published February 19, 2024
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Secretariat (2010)
The Impossible True Story
Filmmaker(s): Randall Wallace

Housewife and mother Penny Chenery agrees to take over her ailing father's Virginia-based Meadow Stables, despite her lack of horse-racing knowledge. Against all odds, Chenery - with the help of veteran trainer Lucien Laurin - manages to navigate the male-dominated business, ultimately fostering the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years.

The Good Mom ‘Seabiscuit‘ was a film worth watching. It was masterfully structured, as I noted at the time. It was not about a horse so much as the people of America coming from behind and besting the fat cats who had thrown them into penury....


Published February 19, 2024
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Eat Pray Love (2010)
Let Yourself GO
Filmmaker(s): Ryan Murphy

Liz Gilbert had everything a modern woman is supposed to dream of having – a husband, a house and a successful career – yet like so many others, she found herself lost, confused and searching for what she really wanted in life. Newly divorced and at a crossroads, Gilbert steps out of her comfort zone, risking everything to change her life, embarking on a journey around the world that becomes a quest for self-discovery. In her travels, she discovers the true pleasure of nourishment by eating in Italy, the power of prayer in India and, finally and unexpectedly, the inner peace and balance of true love in Bali.

Selfishness Writing about how bad this movie would be about as boring as the movie. What is so interesting is why. I don’t know the book; I assume it has some engaging qualities for its target audience. But the quality of the book on which movies are...


Published February 19, 2024
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Tomorrow, When the War Began (2010)
Where were you when everything changed?
Filmmaker(s): Stuart Beattie

Ellie Linton, a teen from an Australian coastal town, leads her friends on an excursion to a camp deep in the woods, dubbed "Hell." Upon their return, the youths find that their town has been overrun by an enemy army, and their friends and family have been imprisoned. When the hostile invaders become alerted to their presence, Ellie and her friends band together to escape -- and strike back against -- this mysterious enemy.

Kids I suppose studios have genre classifications that would put this as ‘action,‘ with a (Australian) patriotic flavour. But my own personal genre classification system has this as a teen stereotype movie. Maybe 20-25% of all movies are of this type, even those featuring adults. I...


Published February 19, 2024
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The Book of Eli (2010)
Some will kill to have it. He will kill to protect it.

A post-apocalyptic tale, in which a lone man fights his way across America in order to protect a sacred book that holds the secrets to saving humankind.

Can't Tickle Shucks. I thought for the first 45 minutes that I had found a Denzel Washington film that was right for him and worth watching in ways he helps. Mixing Kung Fu and Jesus is alarmingly common, but this seemed more pure, more cinematic than...


Published February 19, 2024
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Sanctum (2011)
The only way out is down.
Filmmaker(s): Alister Grierson

Master diver Frank McGuire has explored the South Pacific's Esa-ala Caves for months. But when his exit is cut off in a flash flood, Frank's team—including 17-year-old son Josh and financier Carl Hurley are forced to radically alter plans. With dwindling supplies, the crew must navigate an underwater labyrinth to make it out.

Enclosed We still have things to discover about 3D movies. It is not at all clear that market forces and corporate interests will drive us toward more powerful art. A basic problem is whether the brain will allow itself to be fooled. I suppose it can...


Published February 17, 2024
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Inside Job (2010)
The film that cost $20,000,000,000,000 to make
Filmmaker(s): Charles Ferguson

A film that exposes the shocking truth behind the economic crisis of 2008. The global financial meltdown, at a cost of over $20 trillion, resulted in millions of people losing their homes and jobs. Through extensive research and interviews with major financial insiders, politicians and journalists, Inside Job traces the rise of a rogue industry and unveils the corrosive relationships which have corrupted politics, regulation and academia.

Frippery Okay, with everyone else on the planet, I suffer because the economy broke. And I was curious about a documentary supposedly Oscar-worthy. This is very good storytelling, and economical filmmaking. But it is pretty damning to say of anything that Oliver Stone‘s simplification was richer. The...


Published February 16, 2024
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Encounters at the End of the World (2007)
Off the map, things get strange.
Filmmaker(s): Werner Herzog

Herzog and cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger go to Antarctica to meet people who live and work there, and to capture footage of the continent's unique locations. Herzog's voiceover narration explains that his film will not be a typical Antarctica film about "fluffy penguins", but will explore the dreams of the people and the landscape.

Death in the Ice There is no denying the man. He has already changed me, and others. Interestingly, it seems that this is less by design than by accidents that occur because he chooses to put his camera in places where the cosmos is unstable. Sometimes it...


Published February 16, 2024
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