＜Review in English＞ This movie is a science fiction thriller directed by Duncan Jones. Although this movie was in low budget way (the CG is not so special), I had some fun delving into the mysteries though the story. It's quite an interesting parallel universe and/or time travel based story with a bit of a twist at the end. However this movie suffers from Hollywood-ending syndrome, I didn't understand the ending at first. I finally found out the meaning through some spoilers and internet posts. Overall, it was more interesting than I expected.
＜Review in English＞ If you like "Valentine's Day (2010)" or "Love Actually (2003)", you will enjoy this movie. This is a romantic comedy film directed by Garry Marshall. He directed "Valentine's Day" in 2003. So, it's like a sequel to Valentine's Day. But more specifically, it's not. The movie tells the stories of eight couples on New Year's Eve in New York City. Parallel stories on New Year's Eve ensue, but all revolved around the annual midnight ball drop in Times Square with accompanying scenes leading up to the event. I preferred the story of Ingrid (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Paul (Zac Efron). Ingrid is a 50-something personal assistant who works for Ahron Records. When her boss denies her vacation time, she wants to change everything and do something with her life. Paul is a bicycle courier and delivers the tickets of the Ahron Records Masquerade Ball to her. These tickets are the hottest in town, as the ball's invitation list includes only A-list celebrities. Ingrid offers him to give the tickets if he can make her list of New Year Resolutions come true. Paul tries everything to get the tickets. Ingrid and Paul tick off her New Year's Resolutions list thanks to Paul's creative help. It was the most heartwarming part of the movie. This story was touching, and was one of the highlights of this film.
Paulの献身的な協力に次第にIngridの心はほぐれていく
＜The Plot＞
The lives of several couples and singles in New York intertwine over the course of New Year's Eve.
The movie tells intertwining stories of a group of New Yorkers as they navigate their way through romance over the course of New Year's Eve. Robert De Niro will play a bitter dying man in a hospital, while Michelle Pfeiffer will be a frustrated executive secretary who decides to tackle her unfulfilled resolutions. Hilary Swank will play a producer of the famed Times Square New Year's Eve show. Ashton Kutcher will play a guy who hates New Year's Eve. （From Movie Insider)
＜Review in English＞ I like Spy movies. So really enjoyed this movie. Although the plot was a little fa-fetched, it had great twists and turns to keep you on the edge of your chair. Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) is an action heroine just like Jason Bourne or James Bond.
＜The Plot＞ CIA agent Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) is rescued from being tortured by North Koreans just in the nick of time when her boyfriend Mike arranges a prisoner swap. A few years later, they have married and are living in Washington D.C. Mike pursues his professional study of spiders. Suddenly, a Russian spy master, named Orlov shows up at the CIA as a defector. He reveals a scheme whereby a large number of Russian spies have infiltrated American society. The spies were trained and brainwashed by the KGB as children. He names Salt as one of the spies. Salt claims that she is innocent and asks her boss, Ted (Liev Schreiber) to call her husband. Salt decides to flee to seek out her husband. Ted does not believe she is a Russian spy but Secret Agent, Peabody(Chiwetel Ejiofor) orders his agents to capture Salt. The movie follows her while she is on the run.
身近なものを武器に変え、CIAからの追跡を逃れる様はまさに女Jason Bourne
＜Spoiler warning＞ Actually, Salt never kills people during the movie. She only wounds or disables them until she can escape. Orlov and his well-trained henchmen have hatched a bold plan to assassinate the US President and send nuclear bombs to the Middle East. Where will her allegiance lie? The truth is that Salt is a Russian spy, sent to work at the CIA in the US as a double agent. But when Orlav has her husband killed, she starts to question her loyalties. Although she used to think of Orlav as her comrade, the murder of her husband and her knowledge of Orvol's plot to kill the US president, convinces her to put an end to Orlov and his henchmen. In the end, she escapes by jumping out of a helicopter into a lake and as the movie ends we see her running through the woods. I think this means a sequel, as she had explained that there are lots more embedded Russian spies in the US.
＜Review in English＞ The movie was made as a comedy drama film written and directed by Stephan Elliott in Australia in 1994. Actually, I didn't know about it. When I decided to watch a show in London, I checked which show is the best in the west end. Priscilla's reputation is good. I needed to understand the story before I watch the show. The story and music are wonderful. I discovered this good movie by chance.
3人のドラッグクィーン（女装する男性同性愛者）のロードムービーだ
＜Plot＞ The usually menacing British actor Terence Stamp does a complete turnaround as Bernadette, an aging transsexual who tours the backwaters of Australia with her stage partner, Mitzi (Hugo Weaving) and Adam/Felicia (Guy Pearce). Their act, well-known in Sydney, involves wearing lots of makeup and gowns and lip-synching to records, but Bernadette is getting a bit tired of it all and is also haunted by the bizarre death of an old loved one. Nevertheless, when Mitzi and Felicia get an offer to perform in the remote town of Alice Springs at a casino, Bernadette decides to tag along. The threesome ventures into the outback with Priscilla, a lavender-colored school bus that doubles as dressing room and home on the road. Along the way, the act encounters any number of strange characters, as well as incidents of homophobia, while Bernadette becomes increasingly concerned about the path her life has taken.
3人の掛け合いが実に面白い
What a great movie! Not only are the actors wonderful but also the musical numbers (ABBA, Gloria Gaynor, the Village People, Charlene etc) are worth watching. I laughed at their barnyard jokes and bitchy banter. I was moved to tears by the story of two drag queens and a transsexual. Watch it it's well worth it ! It well deserves 9 out of 10. If I have a chance to see the show, I'll absolutely see "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert ".
＜レビュー日本語＞ この映画はステファン・エリオットによって脚本及び監督された映画で1994年にオーストラリアで作られている。実のところこの映画は知らなかったのだが、ロンドンウエストエンドでミュージカルのショーを観る前にどれが一番人気なのかあれこれ調べているとこの「The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert」が評判が高く、観劇の前にストーリーを知っておこうと思ったのである。 ストーリーも音楽も素晴らしかった。（映画の方、ミュージカルは未見） 思いがけずいい映画に巡り会ったと思う。
＜Review in English＞ I enjoyed this movie. Law Abiding Citizen has very unique, clever story twists that kept me tightly on my seat waiting to see what was going to happen next. It was unpredictable and thrilling. It is not only a thriller, but also raises questions about the American justice system. I didn't know about the detail of plea agreements, but I got to know about them through this film.
興行的にあまり話題にならなかったがもっと評価されていい作品だと思う
<Plot> Clyde Shelton(Gerard Butler) is a family man whose wife and daughter were brutally murdered during invasion. When the killers are caught, Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), a hotshot young Philadelphia prosecutor, is assigned to the case. Against his will, Rice is forced to offer one of the suspects a lighter sentence in exchange for testifying against his accomplice. Ten years later, the man who got away with the murder is found dead and Shelton coolly admits his guilt. Then he issues a warning to Rice: either fix the flawed justice system, or key players in the trial will die. Soon Shelton follows through on his threats, orchestrating a string of ingenious assassinations from his jail cell. Now Rice finds himself in a desperate race against time facing a deadly adversary who always seems to be one step ahead.
Gerard Butlerの壊れっぷりが半端ないので恐がりの人は注意
Gerard Butler does a fantastic job of taking out his vengeance against the justice system. Although he is a brutal killer, I realized that I am on his side. The movie has several twists and turns that will keep you guessing, and on the edge of your seat. The ending is controversial. But I agree with it.
＜Review in English＞
Actually, this movie is not my type. But I think that I should write my review to say something about the wonderful cast in this movie.
The fighter is not just a sports drama. It's rather close to a family drama with a boxing background.
Plot Based on a true story, The Fighter is about an unlikely boxing hero played by Mark Walhberg. Dicky and Micky are brothers with the same passion for boxing but Dicky blew it all away by straying into the wrong path. Micky on the other hand is the punching bag for his opponents although he has a gutsy left hook. When things get worse, Micky is forced to do the unthinkable, to split with his family and pursue his interest while training without his brother. Micky later gets the shot of a lifetime at a title fight but it soon becomes clear that he will need his family by his side if he wants to win. (written by Klue)
ボクシング映画というより人間ドラマだ。女性でも抵抗なく観れる。
Christian Bale's peformance is amazing. He lost weight and pulled out his hair for the role. He delivers a character who was a former boxer and now wastes his life addicted to crack cocaine.
His performance deserved The Best supporting Actor Oscar.
Christian Baleは元ボクサー、今はコカイン中毒の40男、痩せ方、頭頂部のハゲっぷりなど迫力あり過ぎ。
Amy Adams also excels in her supporting role; a bartender and college dropout.
She seems to be the right person to push Micky(Mark Wahlberg) toward the right path.
She wants to achieve success in her own life by making Micky successful.
＜Review in English＞
Although this movie got a low rating, I enjoyed it very much.
I like the movies which don't use the latest computer graphic techniques and digital gadgets in the story.
You can enjoy a wonderful journey in Venice as you're traveling with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp.
It begins with Elise(Angelina Jolie). She is the girlfriend of Alexander Pearce (a mysterious, unseen) who is an international thief that seals from incredibly rich gangsters. Everyone is looking for him, including the British Secret Service as well as some gangsters who want revenge on him for taking their money. Elise is instructed by Pearce to go Venice by letter. What an old fashioned style! He never sent a text message from his mobile phone. In his letter, he writes "Get on a train to Venice, choose a stranger that looks like me and make the gangsters and the secret service believe it is me". So she picks Frank Tupelo(Johnny Depp) on the train. Frank is an American tourist. He is a math teacher from Wisconsin. He looks a little unsophisticated and boring. After that , Frank and Elise spend the night at a hotel in Venice.
The movie was directed by Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck, who made the Academy Award winning: "The lives of Others".
It's my favorite. It was a heavy human drama.
It's strange for him to move from that dramatic weighty film to something to light and frothy.
The whole story a suspense. However, I didn't need to keep on my toes until the surprise ending. There are boat chases and gun fights, but they were underwhelming.
There are quite a few funny moments (Johnny speaks Spanish in Italy) There was some clever wit in the movie. I saw Frank like Jack Sparrow. The story line of the movie is predictable but it does manage to surprise it's final moment.
I recommend this movie to movie fans who get terribly frustrated by the current noisy fast paced movies. It was more interesting than I thought.
ビッグスター2人（Johnny DeppとAngelina Jolie)で周るベニスの景色は最高
Johnny Deppは野暮ったい冴えないアメリカ観光客。でもさすがJohnnyのウイットの効いたジョークは健在
＜Review in English＞
This is a great chick flick and superb love story.
Garret Blake (Kevin Costner) is a widower. He wrote a message to his deceased wife and put the note in a bottle and threw it in the ocean. Theresa Osborne (Robin Wright Penn), is a divorcee with a son. Theresa is jogging and finds the bottle with the note. The bottle contains a message addressed to a Catherine (Garret's wife), and goes on to say how sorry the writer is for "not understanding" and "not helping in her time of need". The more she reads, the more she feels the love the writer has for this Catherine, and how much she really meant to him.
Theresa has to find out where the writer lives. She is a researcher/writer and tracks him down and decides that she should meet Garret. When she goes to meet him, she meets his dad Dodge Blake (Paul Newman). He and his son are close and they watch out for each other. The cinematography is terrific! This movie is a love story, with touching moments and with sad moments. Especially, there is a big surprise at the end. I enjoyed watching it.
大人のラブストーリーとしてはかなり上質
The story line seems unlikely. However the ocean scenery is wonderful.
＜Review in English＞
This movie is a typical chick flick. Most men wouldn't understand the excitement of the the movie. This is a particular way of seeing the world among teenage girls.
Actually, I watched the sequel "The sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (2008)" first.
I recommend to watch them in chronological order.
”16歳の夏”を先に観るべし
Storyline
Tibby (Amber Tamblyn), Lena (Alexis Bledel), Carmen (America Ferrera) and Bridget (Blake Lively) have been best friends since childhood. In the beginning of their summer vacation, they find a pair of jeans that fits each one of them perfectly; they decide to share the pants as a magic symbol fo their friendship and form a sisterhood with manifesto for ten rules. Bridget travels to a soccer camp in Mexico and she has a crush on the coach Eric, who is older than her. Lena visits her family in Greece and has a crash on the local fisherman Kostas and finds that there is a feud between their families. Carmen travels to South Carolina to spend the vacation with her father and she finds that he will marry the divorced Lydia. Tibby stays in town working in a supermarket to raise money to buy new equipment for her documentary and is befriended by the twelve old Bailey that is very ill. After their vacation, they grow-up and their friendship remains as solid as ever.
The jeans which fit them perfectly even though they are different sizes and shapes are the key element as a bond of friendship. They mail the pants back and forth to each other during the summer. I enjoyed the four girls' summer episodes. Each girl learns her own lesson and experiences her own things. I recommended this movie to young teen girls.
This movie is John Lennon’s biopic. It depicts only a couple of years of pre-Beatles John Lennon's life in Liverpool, England.
John Lennon (Aaron Johnson) lives with his stern guardian aunt Mimi (Kristin Scott Thomas) and his uncle George (David Threlfall) in Liverpool. At the film's beginning, uncle George dies suddenly and at the funeral John sees his biologic mother Julia (Anne-Marie Duff) who abandoned John when he was 5 years old. She has already remarried with another man and has two daughters. She is living not far from her sister Mimi.
John seeks out Julia and discovers she is a freewheeling music buff.
Julia’s husband Bobby (David Morrissey) finds John's intrusion into his family unwelcom (they have two daughters) He tries to brush John off. However, as he becomes more fascinated with being with his birth mother, he learns banjo and guitar and gets the urge to imitate Elvis Presley - an infatuation that leads the 15-year-old John to form a band called the Quarrymen, soon joined by Paul McCartney (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) and George Harrison (Sam Bell).
John Lennonを演じるAaron Johnson、メガネをかけるとJohnに凄く似てる
I didn’t know that John Lennon has grown up in a fraught family situation and was a big fun of Elvis Presley.
The story based on a true story. It is sentimental and tragic.
I can see the young Lennon becomes a mixture of the two women (mother and aunt), both women influenced Lennon's personality—he inherited Mimi's discipline and Julia's creativity and rebelliousness.
I enjoyed the true story and music. (Beatles songs are played in the movie)
At the end of the movie, “Mother” written by John Lennon plays. I wanted to continue listening to the song.
＜Review in English＞
This movie was more interesting than I thought.
I don't know why this movie wasn't screened in Japan.
Walter (Ashton Kutcher) is 24 years old, a wrestler on the national team.
He comes home to help his mother (Kathy Bates) after his sister was raped and murdered by a mentally ill man. He takes a dead-end job handing out flyers in front of a pizza restaurant.
He goes to the trial of the accused murderer and meets Linda (Michelle Pfeiffer). Her husband was murdered. They become friend. Linda is raising a teen son, Clay, who is deaf. Clay is a little naughty, so Walter gets Clay into wrestling. Linda accompanies him to events at a center where she works. They wait for the verdicts. How do they handle their grief?
Walter (Ashton Kutcher)
falls in love with Linda (Michelle Pfeiffer)
Walter is broken-hearted.
I have a stereotyped imaged of Ashton Kutcher. He usually gets to play handsome romantic fellows in the romantic comedies. However, he played a sad young man who is introverted and broken-hearted. I was surprised because his performance was excellent. I've changed my opinion of him.
I like the story line and the twists at the end.
The movie depicts the sadness of the victim's families very well. ＜あらすじ＞ レスリングのナショナルチームに所属するウォルターは、双子の姉をレイプ殺人で亡くして以来、母と姪と三人で静かに暮らしていた。一方、酒に酔った男に夫を撃ち殺されたリンダは、耳の不自由なひとり息子のクレイと共に生活をしていた。ある日、ウォルターは練習の合間に訪れた裁判所でリンダに出会う。心に傷を抱えた二人はまるで魂が呼び合うかのように惹かれ合い、ウォルターは父を失った喪失感で内気なクレイともレスリングを通じて交流を深めていった。数週間後、姉殺害事件の判決が下る。それは証拠不十分で容疑者は無罪という信じ難いものだった。憤りを隠せないウォルターと彼を慰めるリンダの姿を見たクレイは、父親の形見である銃を手に、釈放された容疑者の家へ向かっていた・・・。 ＜レビュー 日本語＞ この映画、思ったより面白かった。何故、日本では公開されなかったのかな。 ウォルター（アシュトン・カッツチャー）は24歳、全米代表のレスリングの選手である。妹がある精神障害者にレイプされ殺された後、故郷に帰ってきた。しかしピザレストランでチラシを配るアルバイトをする情けない日々。被告の裁判のため裁判所に通ううちにリンダ（ミッシェル・ファイファー）と知りあう。彼女も夫を殺されていた。二人は意気投合。リンダにはティーンの息子クレイがいたが、耳が聞こえない障害があった。クレイ（息子）は少し乱暴者でウォルターはレスリングやるようを勧めた。一方、リンダはウォルターを彼女が勤めているセンターのイベント連れて行く。二人はそれぞれの裁判の行方を待っていた。 はたして二人はどのように悲しみを乗り越えるのか？ アシュトン・カッチャーと言えばお決まりのイメージがあった。いつもラブコメではハンサムでロマンティックな役どころ。しかし、今回は内向的で失意の若き青年というちょっと今までにない役柄。それをすごくうまく演じていて、見直した。彼に対する見方も変わった。（単なるハンサムだけがウリじゃないのね）話の筋も気に入ったし、最後のどんでん返しもなかなか良かった。 殺人事件の被害者の悲しみをうまく描けている作品だと思う。 ＜雑記＞ オリジナルの”Personal Effects"はどういう意味か調べてみると所持品・身の回りの品とある。このストーリーから何故このタイトルがついたのか不明。
＜Review in English＞
This movie is a very simple, funny romantic comedy. Toula is 30 and Greek. She works in her family's restaurant in Chicago. Her father wants her to get married to a nice Greek boy and have a lot of babies.
However, Toula is looking for more in her life. She wants to study computer science at college. Her father says Toula is already smart and doesn't need to study more. Her mother convinces him to let her take some computer classes at college. She takes over her aunt's travel agency with those classes under her belt.
She meets Ian Miller, high school English teacher , a typical WASP, in the travel agency. They had met in her restaurant before. She didn't have any sexual appeal and wore no makeup at all. She also had made a fool of herself then. She gains the courage to break out of her introverted shell and gradually changes herself into a lovely woman. That is when her story begins. If she hadn't gone to college, she wouldn't have seen Ian.
They date secretly for a while before her parents find out about their relationship. At first, her father is opposed to her dating Ian because Ian is not Greek. Finally he accepts him. Meanwhile Ian has to accept Toula's huge family.
This movie indicates the difficulty of international marriage. One has to follow another's culture and customs.
In this film Ian got baptized in the Greek Orthodox Church. It's difficult for me to find such a nice broad-minded man.
