Rodrigo García is a master at tapping into the psyche and emotions of average American women and their everyday experiences of life, love and struggle. In his latest film, Mother and Child, he explores three interconnecting relationships about women involved in different stages of adoption. Read the full story

The girls of Sex and the City are back for a second installment of the film franchise based on the hit HBO series. The girls find themselves in the exotic location of Abu Dhabi where relationships are put to the test. Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is feeling stagnant in her marriage to Mr. Big (Christ Noth), Samantha (Kim Cattrall) is dealing with the effects of menopause while juggling an active sex life, Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is struggling to deal with motherhood and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is having difficulty gaining respect from her boss at the law firm. The dilemmas facing the fierce foursome are mostly unimportant and never truly pose a threat to their comfortable lives. They exists solely to move the plot forward while the actresses strut around in fashionable ensembles and deliver witty dialogue. Which isn’t exactly a bad thing considering the clothes and conversations are the high points of the film. Read the full story

Music Box Films | Sweden | 152 mins

Adapted from the opening entry to Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy novels, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is a conventional crime mystery type thriller comparable to the team-driven investigation race against time type mood of the Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. While the sound of another Dan Brown edge-of-your-seat formulaic thriller should not sound that appealing, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is served with enough distinctly Euro flair to spice it up considerably for American audiences and make it slightly more appealing.

Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is a very well known and successful journalist for a leading magazine in Sweden and is hired to do some private investigation into the disappearance of a woman 40 years ago. Pierced and bad-ass Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) has been following him throughout his investigation electronically. Lisbeth is a 23-year-old hacker on probation that makes a living by getting paid for small jobs employing her skills as a hacker — however bloated and unrealistic they may be. She begins to uncover details that he has yet to find and starts tipping him off when his investigation begins to slow down. Ultimately, the unlikely duo meet in person and begin working together to uncover a string of murders involving women lasting over 50 years.

The film is being imported to America this year but Europe is much further down the rabbit hole of the saga of Lisbeth Salander. The books were authored by Stockholm journalist Stieg Larsson and were published posthumously following his sudden death in 2004. While America still waits for the third installment of the trilogy, all three books have been long released in Europe as well as all three films.

Sadly, and entirely unsurprisingly, Scott Rudin and David Fincher are already attached to an American remake of the property. The international gross of over $100 million and the fine acting and production values of the already produced and successful films are apparently no match for the unrelenting American aversion to subtitled films as well as the complete lack of original story telling plaguing the studio film industry in the United States. It’s becoming apparent that there is no point in even getting angry when news like this breaks as the American film industry regardless will suck up every successful international property and try to jam it firmly into an American mold. Artistic value and even fiscal success be damned. Will we as the everyday middle class American audience ever happily watch a subtitled film in the theater? We are probably more likely to watch computer animated chipmunks sing or cry our empty souls through Nicholas Sparks painting by numbers the story of love and love lost for the 18th time.

The way the story unfolds is far from revolutionary and it is a textbook example or your standard crime mystery; however, the performances help the film stand out among its peers, of which it has many, and create a level of unique distinction among the mass of look-a-likes. The solid performances and European audience friendly vulgarity and shock play hand-in-hand with the well crafted tension and engaging suspense and deliver a solid adaptation of the first installment of the successful book series. Whether or not this solid foreign film will break through the barricades of the general American ignorance to foreign language film is yet to be seen, but it is a well made and very engaging film despite its flaws in narrative.

8 out of 10

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo had a limited US release on March 19th.

Have you read the book? Interested in the film?

Check out the trailer below.

Apparition | USA | 118 min

By the traditional definition The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day is not a good movie, but as the last few years have taught us with films like Crank, Gamer, Crank 2, Bad Boys II, and most recently Ninja Assassin, sometimes that traditional definition does not apply. Writer/director Troy Duffy has delivered a film that packs a punch of stylized violence and offensive yet still comical (in their own sadistic way) one liners to make anyone who was already a fan of the brothers happy and anyone who was on the fence have an enjoyable experience with the movie. However, anyone who despises the first film will not find anything that will change their opinion of The Saints. Read the full story

Warner Brothers | USA | 115 min.

I am still living in the enjoyable world of Donnie Darko when it comes to writer/director Richard Kelly. But after seeing his latest film, The Box, the film adaptation to Richard Matheson’s short story Button, Button, which Kelly adapted himself, I am beginning to fear that he’s never going to be able to achieve that level of filmmaking again. While The Box does deliver on the classic confusion aspect that the young director is so well known for, and does look pretty good doing it, much of the film is left unanswered and becomes intolerable.

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Woody Allen marks his return to New York with a worthy welcome that recalls back to his earlier films. Whatever Works certainly won’t go down as a great Woody Allen film, but it’s charm is too irresistible to ignore. It falls alongside the minor Allen films, failing to reach the heights of his earlier landmarks.

The film revolves around a sharp-witted New Yorker named Boris Yellnikoff, played by Larry David (Curb Your Enthusiasm). Boris prefers a life of isolation and despises mostly everyone he meets. One day on his way home Boris finds a young beautiful southern girl named Melodie laying by his apartment. Boris decides to take the young girl in and they soon become friends. Boris becomes infatuated with Melodie and the odd couple decide to get married. Later on they discover they must suffer the burden of Melodie’s dysfunctional parents-who seem to despise Boris.

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Moon is one of the most refined science fiction films of the 21st Century. Its a visual feast filled with intriguing themes, ideas, and it even conveys a heartfelt friendship. It is a dramatic character study that uses science fiction as a back drop for the story.

The story centers around astronaut Sam Bell who has been on the moon for three years working to supply earth with it’s primary source of energy, Helium-3. Sam Bell has been suffering with loneliness and stress, and his only companion is his loyal computer friend Gerty. Two weeks before Sam Bell gets to return home, he starts seeing things that may or may not be real.

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The Hangover is without a doubt one of the funniest movies of the year. It’s a gut busting comedy that is consistently hilarious. It is not just a gross out road trip comedy, rather a fun, sharp comedy stacked with memorable moments and characters to love. This may not be a great comedy, it certainly has problems, but its miles better than most comedies released now a days (except for Apatow produced films).

The story revolves around three friends named Stu, Alan, and Fil. Two days before there best friend Doug’s gets married the four of them decide to head out to Las Vegas for a bachelor party. Stu, Alan, and Fil wake up the next morning with no memory of the events of Doug’s bachelor party and Doug is missing. With no idea of Doug’s whereabouts, the three of them set out to retrace there steps to find him in time for his big wedding.

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Pixar has delivered a true classic adventure that is both heartfelt and uplifting. Up is filled with joy, sadness, and suspense as it tells one of the most dramatic stories to grace the screen in recent years. No characters have ever been so authentic in an animated film before.

Up revolves around Carl Fredricksen who has spent his whole life hoping to explore the world and to live grand adventures. Now at age 78 Carl feels as if has unfulfilled this life long dream and decides to finally take on a new adventure by traveling to South America. He’s accompanied on his journey with the persistent boy scout Russell who soon shows Carl sides of life he has never seen before. While on their grand adventure they become close friends who must strive through the many mishaps they encounter on their journey.

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This weekend the fourth installment of the Terminator franchise Terminator Salvation was released, but has received an extremely negative response. The film is currently tracking at 34 percent over at Rotten Tomatoes. Skeptics have been calling it “dumb” and they say it lacks “depth”. If you’ve read my review then you know that I rather enjoyed it and found many aspects of the film to be quite impressive, most notably and surprisingly McG’s direction. The lackluster response not just from critics, but also a few members of the fan-base comes off illogical and hypocritical.

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