Reviews by Matt

There are times when watching a movie that you can tell a director truly loves what he does. This is not to say that the others do not love what they do, just that there are some who are movie geeks. The king of these is Quentin Tarantino. His past few movies have been tributes to the films he grew up watching. “Kill Bill” was his homage to Japanese kung-fu movies, “Death Proof” was his version of the grindhouse movies he watched and now there is “Inglorious Basterds” his war/western movie.

There are a couple of stoylines in the movie so I will do my best to address them.

During World War II a group known as “The Basterds” had a mission: kill Nazis. Led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), they go around Nazi-occupied France and kill and scalp any Nazi they come in contact with.

Shosanna Drefyus (Mélanie Laurent) is a young woman who owns a movie theater in France. When she was younger Nazis killed her family, but she managed to escape. She soon finds herself with the opportunity to get revenge on those who murdered her family.

Then there is Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) is hunting down Jews and killing them.

All three of these storylines cross and intersect in many ways throughout the movie.

This has been marketed as an action movie and that is not completely accurate. There are very few scenes of traditional action.
What it does is very tense scenes that need know action. Tarantino writes some of the best dialogue scenes in movie history and there are plenty here. The opening scene is just dialogue but it is riveting. I cannot get into details without spoiling the tension that I felt. Many scenes in the movie involve deception. Much of the tension comes from wondering if the truth will come out and the liar will be killed.

The star of the movie is not Brad Pitt. It is Christoph Waltz. Landa is so evil, but he is smart and has a charisma about him. He does not really have loyalty to the Nazis; he does what he does because he is good at it. He says in the first scene that he has an ability that other Nazis do not; he can think like a Jew. He knows where they hide is able to flush them out. Everything he says or does in the movie is for him and no one else. He is truly evil, not because he is a Nazi, but because he has no loyalty to anyone but himself.

Besides taking place during WWII, there is nothing historically accurate about this movie, and as a viewer you could not care less. The enjoyment of watching these intense scenes of pure dialogue is what makes this movie what it is. If you are a fan of Tarantino’s work, you will love this movie, I know I did. If you have never seen a Tarantino movie before you might enjoy it (I know my Dad loved it).

9 out of 10
Rated R for strong graphic violence, language and brief sexuality.
153 min

One of the downsides to being someone who spends a lot to time looking at movie news and watching movie trailers is that I have trouble going into a movie blind. I usually know some detail of the movie either from the trailer or from news items I have read about the movie.

It is a rare thing when I can go into a movie and know little more than the basic plot. “District 9” was one of those rare opportunities.

Over 20 years ago an alien ship settled over Johannesburg South Africa. After weeks of no contact or movement, the government sent a team up to the ship to investigate. What they found was a group of aliens who had fled their home planet.

The South African government relocated them to a slum outside the city called District 9. They are treated with disrespect and contempt. They are largely ignored by the government and hated by the people. Years later the government decides to move them to a new home. MNU agent Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley) is charged with leading the eviction.

“District 9” is stunning in every respect; even more so when you take into account that it was made for $30 million dollars. The effects are incredible and the story is riveting. Sharlto Copley does a great job as the bumbling agent. This is his first big acting job and had no acting aspirations leading up to this role. He is as much of a jerk to the aliens as anyone else is. He refers to them by the racial slur of “prawns” and makes jokes as he and others destroy the eggs of the aliens. It is not until he is sprayed with an alien substance and the resulting consequences that he finds himself on the side of the aliens.

$30 million. That was all it cost to make this. James Camreon’s “Avatar” will come out within the next year and it was made for over $400 million. “District 9” shows that you do not need a lot of money to make a good sci-fi movie. The aliens are really well done and look so real it’s scary.


9 out of 10
Rated R for bloody violence and pervasive language
112 min

A while ago, maybe three years or so, I decided to see how long it would take me to watch every DVD I owned. Movies and television, nothing would be missed. I did not give myself a deadline; I just saw it as something to do. Well, like I said it has been three years and my guess is I am less than halfway though. It not that I have a lot of DVDs, though it has not helped that I keep adding to the collection, it is that time has not allowed. Mostly though it is a mood thing. Some of the movies I have you have to be in the right mood to watch.

Now imagine that I gave myself a deadline of a year and I did a review of each movie? One of the reasons I decided to not be a journalist was the constant deadlines. Also I would be repeating myself a lot since I own many of the movies I have reviewed.

That is not the case in “Julie and Julia.”

Julie (Amy Adams) decides to get herself out of her rut by cooking every recipe in Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” and must do it in one year. She puts her life in cooking up on a blog and begins to gain notoriety for her project as her marriage suffers.

Cut between Julie’s story is the story of how Julia Child (Meryl Streep) became a household name. She is in Paris with her husband when she decides to take cooking classes. She is very good at it and when she finally completes the classes, she is asked to help revise a French cookbook for Americans.

Allow me to gush here for a second. I love Amy Adams. In every movie I have ever seen her in she is full of charm and charisma. She was the best part of “Junebug,” and “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.” She knocks every role out of the park. Even with all that in mind, her storyline was the weakest part of the movie. There were some funny/interesting parts, like when she has to boil the lobster, but it not add anything to the movie that was not covered by the Julia part.

Streep was amazing as Julia Child. When I saw the preview, I was worried her voice was going to get annoying, but Streep plays her in such a way that it is endearing. Most of the humor comes from the Julia half. She has such a quick wit and a humor about herself and it makes for some great scenes.

I understand why the movie was cut as it was. Julia has some success and then we see Julie have some success. Julia fails and Julie fails. It just seemed to be a bit too much and way to coincidental at times. There were times when it was blatant that it was trying to show how similar these two women were. You could really do that with anyone, the only connection that these women had was that cookbook.

Yes, this review looked a bit more at the bad than the good, but the movie is really quite good. I actually found myself enjoying it. The performances are good and it is really funny, I just wish there was one story and not two.

7 out of 10
Rated PG-13 for brief strong language and some sensuality.
123 min

As someone who follows the movie industry, I keep up with just about every bit of news that comes out. A big part of the year is the Sundance Film Festival. The big movie to come out of the last Sundance was “(500) Days of Summer.”

The opening voiceover warns you that while this is the story of boy meets girl, it is not a love story. Tom Hanson (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) met Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel) when she came to work at his office. He immediately fell in love with her. She was not as quick to return the feelings. The movie is about the 500 days of their relationship.

I’m going to keep this short and sweet because it is sweltering in my room and the A/C in the house is broken. The acting is amazing and both leads do a superb job and continue to show why they are indie movie superstars. What I loved the most was not the acting, directing or even the great soundtrack. What I loved the most was the editing.

The story is not told in chorological order. It cuts between different days in their relationship: some good and some bad. Title cards tell you what day of Summer it is. The movie opens with them broken up, somewhere around day 300. He is brokenhearted and vows to get her back. Then it is day 1 when he first sees her. It cuts back and forth like this for most of the movie. Tom recalls all the things he loves about her and the things they did together. The audience can slowly see the relationship fall apart while Tom cannot.

This is one of those movies I cannot wait to see again. It is truly a great film and its going to take a lot for it not to be on my top 10 list when the year is over. This is a movie you could wait for the DVD to see, but why would you? It is not everywhere yet, but do whatever you have to do to see this.


9 out of 10
Rated PG-13 for sexual material and language
95 min