Cloverfield |کلاورفیل| 2008

Cloverfield (2008

کلاورفیلد

Alternate Title: Untitled Abrams/Paramount Project
Director: Matt Reeves
Cast: Michael Stahl David, Odet Jasmin, Mike Vogel, Lizzy Caplan, Blake Lively
Rating: PG-13 (Violence)

Movie Details

Title: Cloverfield
Running Time: 85 Minutes
Status: Released
Country: United States
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Thriller
It was only last month that Will Smith started up boogeyman patrol in Manhattan in “I Am Legend,” and yet here we go again with the end of the world, or at least some of the city’s most exclusive ZIP codes. This time, the annihilation comes courtesy of a reptilian creature with a slithering, smashing tail, multiple grabby appendages and an apparently insatiable appetite for destruction. At one point in “Cloverfield” you get a close, very personal look at that hungry mouth, which agape recalls that of the adult monster designed by H. R. Giger for the first “Alien,” though without any of the older beastie’s freakily sexualized menace or resonance.

Like “Cloverfield” itself, this new monster is nothing more than a blunt instrument designed to smash and grab without Freudian complexity or political critique, despite the tacky allusions to Sept. 11. The screams and the images of smoke billowing through the canyons of Lower Manhattan may make you think of the attack, and you may curse the filmmakers for their vulgarity, insensitivity or lack of imagination. (The director, Matt Reeves, lives in Los Angeles, as does the writer, Drew Goddard, and the movie’s star producer, J. J. Abrams.) But the film is too dumb to offend anything except your intelligence, and the monster does cut a satisfying swath through the cast, so your only complaint may be, What took it so long?

As it happens, “Cloverfield” clocks in at 84 minutes, a running time that includes the usual interminable final credits. The movie moves relatively fast, though it’s nowhere near as economical as its colossus, whose thunderous shrieks and fiery projectiles bring a downtown loft party to a merciful, abrupt end. The loft belongs to a blandly pretty young thing named Rob (Michael Stahl-David), who, on the eve of relocating to Japan for work, has been thrown a farewell party by some other blandly pretty young things. The names we’re meant to remember are those of Rob’s brother, Jason (Mike Vogel), and Jason’s insignificant other, Lily (Jessica Lucas); a bored, boring single, Marlena (Lizzy Caplan); and Rob’s nitwit buddy, Hud (T. J. Miller), who has been recruited to videotape the party.

“Cloverfield” is nominally a monster movie, but mostly it’s a feature-length gimmick. It opens with some official-looking United States government text claiming that the following images were retrieved from what was once known as Central Park. The big (or rather only) idea here is that almost everything we subsequently see is the presumably unedited video material shot by Hud, who, though initially reluctant to pick up the camera, develops a mania for documentation once the monster strikes. So consummate is his dedication to his version of cinéma vérité that he keeps the camera plugged to his eye even while he’s running through hailstorms of debris, trying to cross a fast-collapsing bridge and witnessing friends melt down, bleed out and even die.

For a brief, hopeful moment, I thought the filmmakers might be making a point about how the contemporary compulsion to record the world has dulled us to actual lived experience, including the suffering of others — you know, something about the simulacrum syndrome in the post-Godzilla age at the intersection of the camera eye with the narcissistic “I.” Certainly this straw-grasping seemed the most charitable way to explain characters whose lack of personality (“This is crazy, dude!”) is matched only by their incomprehensible stupidity. Smart as Tater Tots and just as differentiated, Rob and his ragtag crew behave like people who have never watched a monster movie or the genre-savvy “Scream” flicks or even an episode of “Lost” (Hello, Mr. Abrams!), much less experienced the real horrors of Sept. 11.

And, so, much like a character from a crummy movie, Rob hears from an estranged lover, Beth (Odette Yustman), who, after the attack, begs for help on her miraculously working cellphone. Against the odds and a crush of fleeing humanity, he tries to rescue her (unbelievably, ludicrously, the others tag along), which is meant to show what a good guy he is. But heroism without a fully realized hero proves as much a dead end as subjective camerawork that’s executed without a discernible subjectivity. Like too many big-studio productions, “Cloverfield” works as a showcase for impressively realistic-looking special effects, a realism that fails to extend to the scurrying humans whose fates are meant to invoke pity and fear but instead inspire yawns and contempt.

Rarely have I rooted for a monster with such enthusiasm.

 

“Cloverfield” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Monster violence and bloody wounds.

CLOVERFIELD

Opens on Friday nationwide.

Directed by Matt Reeves; written by Drew Goddard; director of photography, Michael Bonvillain; edited by Kevin Stitt; production designer, Martin Whist; visual effects by Double Negative and Tippett Studio; produced by J. J. Abrams and Bryan Burk; released by Paramount Pictures. Running time: 1 hour 24 minutes.

WITH: Lizzy Caplan (Marlena), Jessica Lucas (Lily), T. J. Miller (Hud), Michael Stahl-David (Rob), Mike Vogel (Jason) and Odette Yustman (Beth).

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• iran-buy.com | kingcomputer.ws © New York Times

كارگردان: مت ریوز

نویسنده: درو گدارد

بازیگران: میشاییل اشتال دیوید، مایک ووگل، ادت یوستمان

رنگ: رنگی

ژانر: : تریلر :: علمی-تخیلی :: اکشن :

درجه فیلم: PG-13

کشور: ایالات متحده

استودیو: پارامونت پیکچرز

افتتاحیه: 18 ژانویه 2008

فروش هفته: 12.7

فروش کل: 64.29

مدت زمان فیلم: 90

امتياز منتقدان از 100: 64

جملات تبليغاتي: یک چیزی ما رو پیدا کرده است.

خلاصه داستان: فیلمی درباره حمله یک هیولا به شهر نیویورک که مهمانی خداحافظی یکی از دانش‌جویان شهر را به یک جهنم تبدیل می‌کند.

حاشيه هاي فيلم: – هزینه تولید فیلم 25 میلیون دلار است.

ویژه: می‌گویند این فیلم اولین فیلم پرفروش امسال خواهد بود. تهیه‌کنندگان روش‌های بسیار موثری برای تبلیغات فیلم‌شان انتخاب کردند و از اینترنت کمک زیادی گرفتند. تهیه‌کننده قدرتمند فیلم جی جی آبرامز که سریال‌های تلویزیونی بسیار موفقی هم تهیه کرده در انتظارات بوجود آمده برای فیلم دخیل بوده است. منتقدان از فیلم نسبتا استقبال خوبی کرده‌اند و فروش هفته اول با توجه به هزینه ناچیز تولید خبر از یک سود هنگفت برای کمپانی تولید کننده می‌دهد cinemaemaa.©

Cloverfield — 1-18-08

Cloverfield (2008)

Cloverfield – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Bucket List | فهرست آرزوها | 2007

The Bucket List (2007

فهرست آرزوها

Director: Rob Reiner
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, Serena Reeder, Jonathan Mangum
Rating: PG-13

Movie Details

Title: The Bucket List
Running Time: 97 Minutes
Status: Released
Country: United States
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Adventure

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For Geezers Gone Wild, Too Little, Too Late

“The Bucket List” operates on the hope that two beloved stars rubbing their signature screen personas together can spark warm, fuzzy box office magic. I wouldn’t count on it. Stars or no, it is an open question whether audiences will flock to a preposterous, putatively heartwarming buddy comedy about two men diagnosed with terminal cancer living it up in their final months.

The geezers chafing at death’s doorstep are Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson) and Carter Chambers (Morgan Freeman), cancer patients who meet cute in the room they share in a hospital owned by Edward. A greedy billionaire health care mogul, Edward is a victim of his own ruthless cost-cutting program that decrees two to a room in his cramped establishment.

Obviously, no billionaire in his right mind would endure such humiliation in an institution he is knowingly bleeding to death; he would have his own deluxe private suite somewhere else. Edward, however, does have gourmet food supplied by his obedient assistant Thomas (Sean Hayes), which he lustily consumes until chemotherapy takes away his appetite along with his hair.

Slipping into their stock screen personas of rampaging fool (Mr. Nicholson) and pious wise man (Mr. Freeman), neither actor adds a note that we haven’t seen before. Given less than a year to live, Edward and Carter flee the hospital to board Edward’s private jet for a final blowout underwritten by Edward.

Along the way they become best pals who help each other learn the usual lessons about living life to the fullest. The movie strenuously denies medical reality. As they undertake their journey, both men, in temporary remission, appear as robust as the rejuvenated seniors in “Cocoon.”

Their initial adventures, like sky diving and race car driving, are high-adrenaline stunts embraced with macho zeal; they even visit a tattoo parlor. As they follow an itinerary that takes them to the south of France, the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the Himalayas and Hong Kong, these stopovers, obviously filmed on a soundstage, have all the reality of snapshots photographed in front of travel posters.

On the sexual front, the happily married Carter demurs when opportunity presents itself. But nothing has ever prevented Edward, who has been married and divorced four times, from pursuing continuous novelty. The movie mercifully spares us the spectacle of Mr. Nicholson, whalelike at 70, in full rutting mode.

Directed by Rob Reiner from a sketchy screenplay by Justin Zackham, “The Bucket List” fails its stars in fundamental ways. Mr. Nicholson has played wealthy rogues before (most recently in “Something’s Gotta Give”), but this particular bon vivant is unsalvageably repellent. The actor’s frantic mugging, guffawing and eyebrow twitching only underscore the character’s pompous self-satisfaction. By the time the movie allows Edward a token gesture of humanity (his guilt-stricken attempt to reunite with an estranged daughter he cruelly betrayed), it is too little too late.

Carter is the one who initially brings up the notion of “the bucket list,” a roster of must-have experiences to be pursued before “kicking the bucket.” We are asked to accept that this dignified sage has been happily toiling as an auto mechanic for 46 years after forgoing his higher education to support a family. Anyone this articulate and composed would have risen far above day-laborer status.

Largely self-taught, Carter keeps himself in mental shape by watching “Jeopardy!” and competing out loud with the contestants. During their travels he is a font of geographic and historical trivia.

For all the kindly gravity he puts into the role, Mr. Freeman cannot begin to make you believe that a quiet family man like Carter would abandon his loyal wife (Beverly Todd) during his final months of life to go on a spree with a rascally egomaniac. I don’t imagine Mr. Freeman believes it either.

Saddest of all, the professed spiritual goals on the pair’s checklist of things to do — “laugh till you cry,” “witness something majestic” — are the kind of pallid bromides found in the pages of a quickie self-help book: “I’m Not O.K., and Neither Are You.”

“The Bucket List” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has off-color dialogue.

THE BUCKET LIST

Opens on Tuesday in New York, Los Angeles and Toronto.

Directed by Rob Reiner; written by Justin Zackham; director of photography, John Schwartzman; edited by Robert Leighton; music by Marc Shaiman; production designer, Bill Brzeski; produced by Craig Zadan, Neil Meron, Alan Greisman and Mr. Reiner; released by Warner Brothers Pictures. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes.

WITH: Jack Nicholson (Edward Cole), Morgan Freeman (Carter Chambers), Sean Hayes (Thomas), Rob Morrow (Dr. Hollins) and Beverly Todd (Virginia).

Copyright © New York Times | iran-buy.com | kingcomputer.ws

كارگردان: راب راینر

نویسنده: جاستین زاکام

بازیگران: جک نیکولسون، مورگان فریمن، شان هیز

رنگ: رنگی

ژانر: : درام :: کمدی :: حادثه ای :

درجه فیلم: PG-13

کشور: ایالات متحده

استودیو: وارنر برادرز پیکچرز

افتتاحیه: 25 دسامبر 2007

فروش هفته: 19.54

فروش کل: 20.96

مدت زمان فیلم: 97

امتياز منتقدان از 100: 45

خلاصه داستان: دو پیرمرد بیمار که با سرطان دست و پنجه نرم می‌کنند فهرستی از کارهایی که باید تا زمان مرگ انجام دهند را برمی‌دارند و به جاده می‌زنند.

نظر منتقدان: • كايل اسميت از نيويورك پست: بازيگرها به ما مي‌گويند فیلم ساختن درباره مرگ راحت است و كمدي دشوار. اما كمدي‌هايي كه درباره مرگ هستند از همه دشوارترند. • تاد مك‌كارتي از ورايتي: فهرست آرزوها فيلمي است درباره مرگ كه احساس خوبي در تماشاگر به جا مي‌گذارد و در كل كمدي است درباره فناپذيري. اما اين فيلم كه درباره مواجه دو بيمار سرطاني با واقعيت و تصميم‌شان درباره گذران آخرين روزهاي زندگي است؛ متاسفانه به هيچ عنوان رويكرد واقع‌گرايانه‌اي نسبت به اين مضمون ندارد. • استفن هولدن از نيويورك تايمز: متاسفانه اين فيلم ستارگانش را به بدترين شيوه ممكن ناتوان كرده است. جك نيكلسون قبلا هم در نقش آدم‌هاي ثروتمندِ پست‌فطرت و حقه‌باز بازي كرده است ولي در اين‌جا اين شخصيت خوشگذران واقعا و به‌‌تمام‌معنا زننده و منزجركننده است.

ویژه: کمدی تازه راب راینر کارگردان فیلم‌هایی مثل «چند مرد خوب» و «رییس‌جمهور آمریکایی» پس از مدت‌ها فیلمی ساخته که مورد توجه قرار گرفته است. اما باز هم نه آن‌قدرها.cinemaema ©

The Bucket List (2007)

he Bucket List – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Bucket List

First Sunday |اولین یکشنبه |2008

First Sunday (2008

اولین یکشنبه

Director: David E. Talbert
Cast: Ice Cube, Regina Hall, P.J. Byrne, Katt Williams
Rating: PG-13

Movie Details

Title: First Sunday
Running Time: 98 Minutes
Status: Released
Country: United States

 Genre: Drama, Comedy, Crime

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Mend Your Foolish Ways, Would-Be Church Bandits

Ice Cube’s recent movie roles, in the “Barbershop” and “Are We There Yet?” franchises, have emphasized his cuddly, family-man side. In “First Sunday,” which is not a new installment in the earlier “Friday” series, he departs a bit from the upright-citizen persona, playing a man driven to crime by desperate circumstances.

But “First Sunday,” the first theatrically released feature film written and directed by David E. Talbert, is a comedy. Like Tyler Perry, Mr. Talbert has had a successful — and to the white media, nearly invisible — career as a playwright and theatrical entrepreneur, and his movie debut fuses social observation and raucous, clean humor with a message of redemption.Ice Cube, not exactly a mirthful performer, requires an antic sidekick, and he has a pretty good one here in Tracy Morgan. Mr. Morgan plays LeeJohn, the feckless stoner half of a hapless pair of robbers. Durell, Ice Cube’s character, is the more practical half of the team. Because he needs $17,000 to prevent his ex-girlfriend from moving with their son from Baltimore to Atlanta, Durell decides to rob a church.

What kind of person would rob a church? This question occupies most of the movie’s slow, talky middle third, in which an easy in-and-out safecracking scheme turns into a hostage drama. Durell and LeeJohn’s captives include the wise pastor (Chi McBride); his pretty, headstrong daughter (Malinda Williams); a shifty deacon (Michael Beach) and the flamboyantly queeny choir director (Katt Williams), among other easily recognizable church-movie stock figures.

Mr. Williams pretty much steals the movie by rolling his eyes and muttering under his breath. And if Mr. Talbert does not quite manage the shift in tone from rambunctious comedy to earnest uplift, he is nonetheless generous with both the characters and the audience. “First Sunday” sometimes feels more like a script read-through than like an actual movie, but its warmth is likely to carry you through the stretches of cliché and tedium.

“First Sunday” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has mild profanity and drug references.

FIRST SUNDAY

Opens on Friday nationwide.

Written, directed and produced by David E. Talbert; director of photography, Alan Caso; edited by Jeffrey Wolf; production designer, Dina Lipton; produced by Mr. Talbert, David McIlvain, Tim Story and Matt Alvarez; released by Screen Gems. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes.

WITH: Ice Cube (Durell Washington), Katt Williams (Rickey), Tracy Morgan (LeeJohn Jackson), Loretta Devine (Sister Doris McPherson), Michael Beach (Deacon Randy), Keith David (Judge B. Bennett Galloway), Regina Hall (Omunique), Malinda Williams (Tianna Mitchell) and Chi McBride (Pastor Mitchell).

Copyright © New York Times | iran-buy.com | kingcomputer.ws

كارگردان: دیوید تالبرت

نویسنده: دیوید تالبرت

بازیگران: آیس کیوب، کت ویلیامز، تریسی مورگان

رنگ: رنگی

ژانر: : جنایی :: کمدی :

درجه فیلم: PG-13

کشور: ایالات متحده

استودیو: اسکرین جمز

افتتاحیه: 11 ژانویه 2008

فروش هفته: 19

فروش کل: 19

مدت زمان فیلم: 96

امتياز منتقدان از 100: 41

جملات تبليغاتي: سرنوشت را نگه دار. بقیه را بزن.

خلاصه داستان: دو سارق خرده‌پا برای نجات جان بچه یکی‌شان مجبور می‌شوند تن به نقشه عجیب و بزرگی بدهند. سرقت کلیسای همسایه. ماجرا به جاهای وخیمی کشیده می‌شود. cinemaema ©

First Sunday – Official Site

First Sunday (2008)

First Sunday – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Juno | جونو | (2007

Juno (2007

جونو

Director: Jason Reitman
Cast: Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Olivia Thirlby, Jennifer Garner
Rating: PG-13

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Seeking Mr. and Mrs. Right for a Baby on the Way

Juno MacGuff, the title character of Jason Reitman’s new film, is 16 and pregnant, but “Juno” could not be further from the kind of hand-wringing, moralizing melodrama that such a condition might suggest. Juno, played by the poised, frighteningly talented Ellen Page, is too odd and too smart to be either a case study or the object of leering disapproval. She assesses her problem, and weighs her response to it, with disconcerting sang-froid.

It’s not that Juno treats her pregnancy as a joke, but rather that in the sardonic spirit of the screenwriter, Diablo Cody, she can’t help finding humor in it. Tiny of frame and huge of belly, Juno utters wisecracks as if they were breathing exercises, referring to herself as “the cautionary whale.”

At first her sarcasm is bracing and also a bit jarring — “Hello, I’d like to procure a hasty abortion,” she says when she calls a women’s health clinic — but as “Juno” follows her from pregnancy test to delivery room (and hastily retreats from the prospect of abortion), it takes on surprising delicacy and emotional depth. The snappy one-liners are a brilliant distraction, Ms. Cody’s way of clearing your throat for the lump you’re likely to find there in the movie’s last scenes.

The first time I saw “Juno,” I was shocked to find myself tearing up at the end, since I’d spent the first 15 minutes or so gnashing my teeth and checking my watch. The passive-aggressive pseudo-folk songs, the self-consciously clever dialogue, the generic, instantly mockable suburban setting — if you can find Sundance on a map, you’ll swear you’ve been here before.

But “Juno” (which played at the Telluride and Toronto film festivals, not the one in Park City, Utah) respects the idiosyncrasies of its characters rather than exaggerating them or holding them up for ridicule. And like Juno herself, the film outgrows its own mannerisms and defenses, evolving from a coy, knowing farce into a heartfelt, serious comedy.

A good deal of the credit for this goes to Ms. Page, a 20-year-old Canadian who is able to seem, in the space of a single scene, mature beyond her years and disarmingly childlike. The naïveté that peeks through her flippant, wised-up facade is essential, since part of the movie’s point is that Juno is not quite as smart or as capable as she thinks she is.

It’s not simply that she has impulsive, unprotected sex with her friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera), or that she decides, against the advice of parents and friends, to have the baby and give it up for adoption. These, indeed, are choices she is prepared to defend and to live with. Rather, Juno’s immaturity resides in her familiar adolescent assumption that she understands the world better than her elders do, and that she can finesse the unintended consequences of her decisions.

The grown-ups, at first, seem like familiar caricatures of adolescent-centered cinema: square, sad and clueless. But Juno’s father (J. K. Simmons) and step-mother (Allison Janney) turn out to be complicated, intelligent people, too, and not just because they are played by two of the best character actors around. Ms. Cody’s script and Mr. Reitman’s understated, observant direction allow the personalities of the characters to emerge slowly, and to change in credible and unpredictable ways.

This is especially true of Mark (Jason Bateman) and Vanessa (Jennifer Garner), the baby’s potential adoptive parents. The audience’s initial impression of them, like Juno’s, is of stereotypically smug yuppies trapped in rickety conventions of heterosexual domesticity. Vanessa is uptight and materialistic, while Mark tends the guttering flame of his youthful hipness, watching cult horror movies and trading alternative-rock mix CDs with Juno.

Juno is, on the surface at least, a familiar type, surrounding herself with and expressing herself by means of kitschy consumer detritus (she calls the clinic on a hamburger phone) and pop cultural ephemera. She could be the hero of a Judd Apatow comedy (like, say, Mr. Cera, the boneless wonder of “Superbad” and a purely delightful presence here). Except, of course, that she’s female. Ms. Cody, Mr. Reitman and Ms. Page have conspired, intentionally or not, to produce a feminist, girl-powered rejoinder and complement to “Knocked Up.” Despite what most products of the Hollywood comedy boys’ club would have you believe, it is possible to possess both a uterus and a sense of humor.

“Juno” also shares with “Knocked Up” an underlying theme, a message that is not anti-abortion but rather pro-adulthood. It follows its heroine — and by the end she has earned that title — on a twisty path toward responsibility and greater self-understanding.

This is the course followed by most coming-of-age stories, though not many are so daring in their treatment of teenage pregnancy, which this film flirts with presenting not just as bearable but attractive. Kids, please! Heed the cautionary whale. But in the meantime, have a good time at “Juno.” Bring your parents, too.

“Juno” is, somewhat remarkably, rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has sexual situations, obviously, but no nudity or violence and not much swearing.

JUNO

Opens today in New York and Los Angeles.

Directed by Jason Reitman; written by Diablo Cody; director of photography, Eric Steelberg; edited by Dana E. Glauberman; music by Mateo Messina; production designer, Steve Saklad; produced by Lianne Halfon, John Malkovich, Mason Novick and Russell Smith; released by Fox Searchlight Pictures. Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes.

WITH: Ellen Page (Juno MacGuff), Michael Cera (Paulie Bleeker), Jennifer Garner (Vanessa Loring), Jason Bateman (Mark Loring), Allison Janney (Bren MacGuff), J. K. Simmons (Mac MacGuff) and Olivia Thirlby (Leah).

كارگردان: جیسون ریتمن

نویسنده: دیابلو کدی

بازیگران: الن پیج، مایکل سرا، جنیفر گارنر

رنگ: رنگی

ژانر: : درام :: کمدی :

درجه فیلم: PG-13

کشور: ایالات متحده

استودیو: فاکس سرچ‌لایت پیکچرز

افتتاحیه: 5 دسامبر 2007

فروش هفته: 14

فروش کل: 71.25

مدت زمان فیلم: 92

امتياز منتقدان از 100: 83

جملات تبليغاتي: یک کمدی درباره بزرگ شدن … و موانع سر راه.

خلاصه داستان: دختر جوانی که دچار یک حاملگی ناخواسته شده درباره بچه به دنیا نیامده‌اش تصمیم عجیب و غریبی می‌گیرد.

ویژه: فیلم بسیار موفق جیسون ریتمن که پیش از این هم کمدی بسیار تحسین شده «از سیگار کشیدن‌تان متشکرم» را ساخته بود که به احتمال فراوان مانند فیلم قبلی در فصل جوایز حضور موفقی خواهد داشت. cinemaema C

Fox Searchlight – Juno – Official Site

Juno (film) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Juno (2007)

Alvin and the Chipmunks |آلوین و موش‌خرماها | 2007

Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007

آلوین و موش‌خرماها

Director: Tim Hill
Cast: Jason Lee, Cameron Richardson
Rating: PG

Familiar Faces With a Digital Makeover

Hollywood continues its tired milking of old television properties with “Alvin and the Chipmunks,” a slick updating of the musical-cartoon franchise created by Ross Bagdasarian Sr. in 1958. Remodeled over the years on television and recordings, the ’munks have been given a digital coat of paint this time out, but the movie doesn’t skimp — lasso those nostalgic parents! — on the memories of old.

Jason Lee (doing a perfect “Alvin. Alvin! Alvin!”) plays David Seville, a rejected songwriter who meets the mischievous Alvin, brainy Simon and pudgy Theodore, transplanted tree dwellers who have raided his kitchen. When he discovers their unique vocal harmonies, he’s off to a record executive (a delightfully despicable, movie-stealing David Cross), who whisks the trio away to exploit their talent for all it’s worth.

As fans of the television series know, Dave is the critters’ surrogate dad, and the film concerns his need to embrace that responsibility and save the boys from a showbiz life they’re too young for. The movie gets mileage out of the chestnuts “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late)” and “Witch Doctor” (you remember: “Oo-ee, oo-ah-ah, ting-tang, walla-walla, bing-bang”), its digs at the music industry and the cheap laughs of the big-beseeching-eye effect of Puss in Boots in the “Shrek” movies.

But, alas, its animated protagonists are egregiously eclipsed by the live-action characters. Despite its shout-outs to the holiday season, this is essentially airplane fodder, not a perennial. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the sequel.

“Alvin and the Chipmunks” is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested) for some mild rude humor.

ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS

Opens on Friday nationwide.

Directed by Tim Hill; written by Jon Vitti, Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi, based on a story by Mr. Vitti; director of photography, Peter Lyons Collister; edited by Peter E. Berger; music by Christopher Lennertz; production designer, Richard Holland; produced by Ross Bagdasarian Jr. and Janice Karman; released by 20th Century Fox. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes.

WITH: Jason Lee (David Seville), David Cross (Ian Hawk) and Cameron Richardson (Claire).

WITH THE VOICES OF: Justin Long (Alvin), Matthew Gray Gubler (Simon) and Jesse McCartney (Theodore).

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كارگردان: تیم هیل

نویسنده: جان ویتی، کریس ویسکاردی، ویل مک‌راب

بازیگران: جیسون لی، راس بگداساریان،جنیس کارمن

رنگ: رنگی

ژانر: : کمدی :: خانواگی :: انیمیشن :

درجه فیلم: PG

کشور: ایالات متحده

استودیو: فاکس قرن بیستم

افتتاحیه: 14 دسامبر 2007

فروش هفته: 16

فروش کل: 177

مدت زمان فیلم: 92

امتياز منتقدان از 100: 40

جملات تبليغاتي: و دردسر فرا می‌رسد.

خلاصه داستان: براساس سری کارتون‌های دهه 80 بر مبنای یک گروه موسیقی از موش‌خرماهای شیطان به سرکردگی آلوین و همراهی سیمون بلندقد و آرام و تئودور خپل.

حاشيه هاي فيلم: – هزینه تولید فیلم حدود 60 میلیون دلار بوده است.  cinemaema©

Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007)

Alvin and the Chipmunks – This Christmas

Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007) – Movie Info – Yahoo! Movies

Charlie Wilson’s War |جنگ چارلی ویلسون| (2007

Charlie Wilson’s War (2007

جنگ چارلی ویلسون

Director: Mike Nichols
Cast: Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams

Good-Time Charlie’s Foreign Affairs

Most of the recent films we’ve seen about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq remind us what a drag those conflicts are, which may be why so few of us have bothered to go see them. Of course all wars are terrible, but good movies have a way of mitigating that dreary fact even as they acknowledge it. Take the cold war: a “long twilight struggle” (as John F. Kennedy put it) that brought the world to the brink of annihilation and provided a persistent source of tension, anxiety and dread for hundreds of millions of people around the world. Horrible, to be sure. But also kind of a blast.

That, at any rate, is pretty much the gist of “Charlie Wilson’s War,” which may be more of a hoot than any picture dealing with the bloody, protracted fight between the Soviet Army and the Afghan mujahedeen has any right to be. As the film observes, that fight, in which the United States semi-secretly armed Muslim anti-imperialist freedom fighters for much of the 1980s, was a prequel to later trouble with anti-Western Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

But let’s not get ahead of the story. Before the blowback, after all, a mighty blow for freedom was struck by a congressman with an alleged fondness for snorting blow. And let’s not be too quick to dismiss the wisdom of his sidekick, a C.I.A. operative with a bad temper and a worse haircut: “If you’re gonna do this, you might as well have fun with it.”

Fun is this movie’s unlikely and persuasive motto. If it’s the best politically themed movie to come around in a while, that may be because the director, Mike Nichols, and the screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin, grasp that politics, for all its seriousness, is an essentially comic undertak- ing. Their film is never glib or flippant, but instead shows a lightness of touch and a swiftness of attack — 96 minutes to drink some cocktails, make some deals and send the Russians packing — that stand in welcome contrast to the plodding, somber earnestness of some recent movies I will tactfully refrain from naming.

Not that discretion is necessarily the better part of valor. And it’s hard to imagine a hero as indiscreet as Charlie Wilson, a Democrat who represented Texas’s Second Congressional District in the House of Representatives. Mr. Wilson, who retired from the House in 1996, is played with sly, rascally charisma by Tom Hanks. It is always a pleasure to see Mr. Hanks play against clean-cut type, and here he has the devilish smile of a middle-aged playboy who has woken up in a long-lost guilt-free sequel to “Bachelor Party.”

An unapologetic womanizer — the type whose lechery seems like a higher form of gallantry — Wilson staffs his office with long-stemmed babes and casually seduces a pious constituent’s daughter (Emily Blunt). He’s a sharp political operator all the same, and also a man of conscience, as his patient, all-seeing assistant (Amy Adams) is pleased to discover.

When we first encounter Wilson, he’s very much in his element: soaking in a Las Vegas hot tub with a Playboy model and a sleazy television producer, among others, his hand wrapped around a glass of Scotch and his mind focused on the consequences of Soviet aggression. God bless America! As understood by Mr. Nichols and Mr. Sorkin, who have filleted George Crile’s fascinating 500-page bestseller into a trim and lively history lesson, Wilson is both an anomaly and a paragon.

A liberal as well as a libertine, he finds common cause (among other satisfactions) with Joanne Herring, a right-wing Houston socialite who loves Jesus and martinis and hates Communism. She is a splendid American contradiction, standing up for liberty and godliness while getting into bed (literally) with a bachelor congressman and (metaphorically) with President Zia (Om Puri), the military ruler of Pakistan.

Julia Roberts, as golden as an Oscar statue, incarnates Ms. Herring as if paying tribute at once to Barbara Stanwyck and to the legions of anonymous Julia Roberts impersonators toiling in drag clubs across the land. I mean this entirely as praise: Not many movie stars have the wit or the moxie to embrace the camp elements of their own personas, and the character is clearly something of a performer in her own right.

The third player in this high-living, hard-partying jihad is Gust Avrakotos (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a C.I.A. operative whose first appearance in Charlie Wilson’s office sends the movie tipping, momentarily and deliciously, into pure door-slamming farce. Gust, whose Greek blood and rust-belt background make him something of a misfit among the blue bloods of the Agency, is as frustrated as Charlie is by the refusal of the United States to arm the Afghan resistance, and so the two of them cook up an elaborate scheme involving Israel, Pakistan, a belly dancer and a compliant House Subcommittee chairman (Ned Beatty).

It’s quite a yarn, and the filmmakers relate it with clarity and verve. The film’s high spirits are inseparable from its sober purpose, which is to present a gentle corrective to the idea that American heroism resides only in square-jawed, melancholy stoicism. That has been the preferred post-9/11 stance, and there is some evident nostalgia in “Charlie Wilson’s War” for the simpler world of the 1980s, when the bad guys flew MIGs and American political life was perhaps a touch less sanctimonious.

But there is nonetheless a bracing, cheering present-day moral to be found in Charlie Wilson’s story, a reminder that high principles are not incompatible with the pleasure principle. The good guys are the ones who know how to have a good time, and who counter the somber certainties of totalitarianism with the conviction that fun is woven into the fabric of freedom.

“Charlie Wilson’s War” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has nudity, drug references and violence.

CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR

Opens nationwide on Friday.

Directed by Mike Nichols; written by Aaron Sorkin, based on the book by George Crile; director of photography, Stephen Goldblatt; edited by John Bloom and Antonia Van Drimmelen; music by James Newton Howard; production designer, Victor Kempster; produced by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman; released by Universal Pictures. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes.

WITH: Tom Hanks (Charlie Wilson), Julia Roberts (Joanne Herring), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Gust Avrakotos), Amy Adams (Bonnie Bach), Ned Beatty (Doc Long), Emily Blunt (Jane Liddle), Om Puri (President Zia), Ken Stott (Zvi), John Slattery (Cravely), Denis O’Hare (Harold Holt) and Jud Tylor (Crystal Lee).

كارگردان: مایک نیکولز

نویسنده: آرون سرکین بر اساس کتاب جورج کرایل

بازیگران: تام هنکس، جولیا رابرتز، فیلیپ سیمور هافمن، ند بیتی

رنگ: رنگی

ژانر: : درام :

درجه فیلم: R

کشور: ایالات متحده

استودیو: یونیورسال پیکچرز

افتتاحیه: 21 دسامبر 2007

فروش هفته: 11.77

فروش کل: 34.51

مدت زمان فیلم: 97

امتياز منتقدان از 100: 66

جملات تبليغاتي: یک نوشیدنی جاندار، کمی ریمل چشم، کلی قوت قلب، کی میگه این چیزا حکومت شوروی رو زیر و رو نمی‌کنه.

خلاصه داستان: یک عضو کنگره تگزاسی به نام چارلی ویلسون به همراه همکاران سی‌آی‌ای اش یکی از موفقترین ماموریت‌های مخفیانه را به انجام می‌رسانند: مسلح کردن مجاهدان افغان در مقابل جماهیر شوروی سابق.

حاشيه هاي فيلم: – بودجه فیلم 75 میلیون دلار بوده است. – چندین بازیگر ایرانی در نقش شخصیت های افغان در کنار ستاره های هالیوود در آن بازی می کنند. – فیلم نامزد پنج جایزه گلدن گلوب شده است. cinemaema ©

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Charlie Wilson’s War (2007

Charlie Wilson’s War In Theaters December 21st, 2007

Charlie Wilson’s War – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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National Treasure: Book of Secrets |گنجینه ملی : کتاب رازها|2007

National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007)

     گنجینه ملی : کتاب رازها

Alternate Titles: National Treasure II, National Treasure 2

Director: Jon Turteltaub
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger, Ed Harris, Helen Mirren
Rating: PG (Violence)

Review Summary

The hyperactive sequel “National Treasure: Book of Secrets” sends its archaeologist hero, Ben Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage, flexing his deadpan), on a globetrotting quest that might have been devised after a long night of Wikipedia surfing. Returning characters include Ben’s archaeologist daddy, Patrick Gates (the improbably dignified Jon Voight); Ben’s techie sidekick, Riley Poole (Justin Bartha), who extricates Ben from impossible situations and serves up expository softballs; and Ben’s now-ex-girlfriend, Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), whose dalliance with the press secretary (Ty Burrell) of the president of the United States enables the gang to hunt for clues in the Oval Office. Like its predecessor, “National Treasure,” this sequel amounts to a bunch of crossword puzzle answers stitched together with explosions, chases and displays of intuitive reasoning that the “Twin Peaks” F.B.I. agent Dale Cooper would reject as too right-brained. — Matt Zoller Seitz , The New York Times

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كارگردان: جان ترتلتاب

نویسنده: کورمک ویبرلی، ماریان ویبرلی

بازیگران: نیکلاس کیج، جان وویت، هاروی کایتل، اد هریس، دایان کروگر، هلن میرن

رنگ: رنگی

ژانر: : حادثه ای :: اکشن :

درجه فیلم: PG

کشور: ایالات متحده

استودیو: والت دیزنی پیکچرز

افتتاحیه: 21 دسامبر 2007

فروش هفته: 35.63

فروش کل: 124.03

مدت زمان فیلم: 124

امتياز منتقدان از 100: 49

خلاصه داستان: یافتن صفحات گمشده کتاب خاطرات جان ویلکس اولین قدم برای یک جوینده گنج به نام بنیامین فرانکلین گیتز است تا به راز توطئه قتل آبراهام لینکلن دست یابد.

ویژه: فیلم تازه یکی از پولساز‌ترین تهیه کنندگان هالیوودی این سال‌ها به نام جری بروکهایمر که کارش را خیلی خوب بلد است هر چند منتقدان چندان دل خوشی از این دنباله نیکلاس کیجی نداشته باشند. cinemaema ©

National Treasure: Book Of Secrets — The Official Website

National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007)

National Treasure: Book of Secrets – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street |سویینی تاد|2007

سویینی تاد : آرایشگر شیطانی خیابان فلیت

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

Alternate Titles: Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Sweeney Todd

Director: Tim Burton
Cast: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen, Alan Rickman
Rating: R (Graphic Violence)

Murder Most Musical

Tim Burton makes fantasy movies. Stephen Sondheim writes musicals. It is hard to think of two more optimistic genres of popular art, or of two popular artists who have so systematically subverted that optimism. Mr. Sondheim has always gravitated toward the dissonance lurking in hummable tunes, and has threaded his song-and-dance spectaculars with subtexts of anxiety and alienation. Mr. Burton, for his part, dwells most naturally (if somewhat uneasily) in the realms of the gothic and the grotesque, turning comic books and children’s tales into scary, nightmarish shadow plays.

And so it should not be surprising that “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” Mr. Burton’s film adaptation of Mr. Sondheim’s musical, is as dark and terrifying as any motion picture in recent memory, not excluding the bloody installments in the “Saw” franchise. Indeed, “Sweeney” is as much a horror film as a musical: It is cruel in its effects and radical in its misanthropy, expressing a breathtakingly, rigorously pessimistic view of human nature. It is also something close to a masterpiece, a work of extreme — I am tempted to say evil — genius.

As it was originally performed onstage, with all the songs Mr. Sondheim composed for it, “Sweeney Todd” balanced its inherent grisliness with a whimsical vitality. The basic story is a revenger’s tragedy more Jacobean than Victorian, but Mr. Sondheim nonetheless wrings some grim, boisterous comedy out of both the impulse for vengeance and the bustling spirit of commerce. A barber, wronged by a powerful judge, returns to London and sets up shop, cutting throats as well as hair. The bodies of his victims are turned into savory meat pies by Mrs. Lovett, his energetic partner in business and crime. Cannibalism and mass murder as the basis for a hit show — what a perverse and delicious joke.

It seemed a lot less funny in the recent revival, which starred Michael Cerveris and Patti Lupone in roles originated on Broadway by Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury in 1979. Mr. Burton’s film, in spite of the participation of Sacha Baron Cohen (as a mountebank barber in a skin-tight costume) and Timothy Spall (as a louche bailiff) pretty much casts out frivolity altogether. Mr. Burton’s London is a dark, smoky oil slick of a city. Dante Ferretti’s production design, which owes something to the Victorian city confected for Carol Reed’s “Oliver!,” can make even daylight look sinister. Innocence, represented by a pair of young would-be lovers (Jayne Wisener and Jamie Campbell Bower) has virtually no chance in this place; it is a joke played by fate, something to be corrupted, imprisoned or destroyed.

Mrs. Lovett the pie maker is played by Helena Bonham Carter, a witchy fixture of Mr. Burton’s cinematic universe as well as the mother of his children. If the director has an alter ego, or at least an actor consistently able to embody his ideas on screen, it would have to be Johnny Depp. He was the hurt, misunderstood man-child in “Edward Scissorhands,” the cracked visionary in “Ed Wood” and the cold, creepy candy mogul in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” in each case giving form to an emotional equation that had never quite been seen on film before. As Sweeney, his hair streaked with white and his eyes rimmed in black, he is an avatar of rage.

Mr. Depp’s singing voice is harsh and thin, but amazingly forceful. He brings the unpolished urgency of rock ’n’ roll to an idiom accustomed to more refinement, and in doing so awakens the violence of Mr. Sondheim’s lyrics and melodies. Some of the crowd-pleasing numbers, like “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd,” have been pared away, but their absence only contributes to the diabolical coherence of the film, which moves with a furious momentum toward its sanguinary conclusion.

Like nearly every other horror-film serial killer — the outcast teenager abused by the cool kids; the decent man whose suffering has been ignored or mocked — Sweeney starts out as a sympathetic figure. Once upon a time, he was a happy husband and father, until his lovely wife (Laura Michelle Kelly) caught the eye of a malignant judge (Alan Rickman), who transported the poor barber to Australia. Now, after many years, he has returned to find that his daughter, now a teenager, has become the judge’s ward. Finding his old straight razors — “my friends” — under the floorboards of his former shop, Sweeney sets out to ensnare the judge, a project that requires the deaths of quite a few customers along the way.

“They’ll never be missed,” sings the practical Mrs. Lovett. Sweeney’s view is harsher, almost genocidal. “They all deserve to die,” he says, looking out over the rooftops of the city. And Mr. Burton depicts those deaths ruthlessly. The initial geyser of blood may seem artificially bright, but when the bodies slide head first from the chair down a chute into the cellar, they crash and crumple with sickening literalness. You are watching human beings turned into meat.

It may seem strange that I am praising a work of such unremitting savagery. I confess that I’m a little startled myself, but it’s been a long time since a movie gave me nightmares. And the unsettling power of “Sweeney Todd” comes above all from its bracing refusal of any sentimental consolation, from Mr. Burton’s willingness to push the most dreadful implications of Mr. Sondheim’s story to their blackest conclusions.

“Sweeney Todd” is a fable about a world from which the possibility of justice has vanished, replaced on one hand by vain and arbitrary power, on the other by a righteous fury that quickly spirals into madness. There may be a suggestion of hopefulness near the end, but you don’t see hope on the screen. What you see is as dark as the grave. What you hear — some of the finest stage music of the past 40 years — is equally infernal, except that you might just as well call it heavenly.

“Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It’s not “Hairspray.”

SWEENEY TODD

The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Opens on Friday in New York and Los Angeles.

Directed by Tim Burton; written by John Logan, based on the musical by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler from an adaptation by Christopher Bond; director of photography, Dariusz Wolski; edited by Chris Lebenzon; music and lyrics by Mr. Sondheim; production designer, Dante Ferretti; produced by Richard D. Zanuck, Walter Parkes, Laurie MacDonald and Mr. Logan; released by DreamWorks Pictures and Warner Brothers Pictures. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes.

WITH: Johnny Depp (Sweeney Todd), Helena Bonham Carter (Mrs. Lovett), Alan Rickman (Judge Turpin), Timothy Spall (Beadle), Sacha Baron Cohen (Pirelli), Jayne Wisener (Johanna), Jamie Campbell Bower (Anthony Hope) and Laura Michelle Kelly (Lucy/Beggar Woman).

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نویسنده: جان لوگان بر اساس نمایشنامه استفن ساندهیم

بازیگران: جانی دپ، هلنا بونهام کارتر، آلن ریکمن، تیموتی اسپال، ساشا بارون کوهن

رنگ: رنگی

ژانر: : تریلر :: موزیکال :: جنایی :

درجه فیلم: R

کشور: ایالات متحده

استودیو: پارامونت پیکچرز

افتتاحیه: 21 دسامبر 2007

فروش هفته: 9.35

فروش کل: 9.35

مدت زمان فیلم: 117

امتياز منتقدان از 100: 85

جملات تبليغاتي: هرگز از یاد مبر. هرگز نبخش.

خلاصه داستان: در لندن قرن نوزدهم، یک زندانی محکوم به حبس ابد به نام بنجامین بارکر از زندان می گریزد و به لندن باز می گردد و یک آرایشگاه در همسایگی خانم لاوت یک آرایشگاه راه می‌اندازد تا از کسانی که او را محکوم و زن و فرزندش را به مصیبت دچار کرده اند انتقامی خونین بگیرد. اما میان آن‌ها رابطه عجیبی شکل می‌گیرد و به تدریج از تمام جامعه انتقام می گیرند.

حاشيه هاي فيلم: – ششمین همکاری تیم برتون و جانی دپ و چهارمین فیلمی که این کارگردان با بازی نامزدش هلنا بونهام کارتر ساخته است. – فیلمنامه فیلم در بیش از دو دهه در دست کارگردان هایی همچون آلن پارکر و سام مندز چرخیده است. – هزینه تولید فیلم 50 میلیون دلار بوده است. cinemaema

Sweeney Todd | Official Movie Site | Johnny Depp | Tim Burton

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007 film …

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Gone Baby Gone| رفته عزیزم رفته|2007

Gone Baby Gone| رفته عزیزم رفته|2007

Alternate Titles: Gone, Baby, Gone

Director: Ben Affleck
Cast: Casey Affleck, Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman
Rating: R (Violence/Profanity/Drug Content)

Title: Gone Baby Gone
Running Time: 115 Minutes
Status: Released
Country: United States
Genre: Drama, Adaptation, Crime

For his first time behind the camera as a director, the actor Ben Affleck has chosen a brooding, serious drama about missing children, wayward parents and idealism lost and regained. “Gone Baby Gone” is based on the novel by Dennis Lehane, who wrote the similarly themed “Mystic River,” which Clint Eastwood turned into a modern classic. If Mr. Affleck hasn’t raised his material to that rarefied level, he has taken a satisfyingly tough look into conscience, to those dark places where some men also go astray.

The story wants to break hearts: 4-year-old Amanda McCready, a blond doll, has disappeared without a trace amid the squalor of her South Boston neighborhood. The cops are out in formation, as are the television news vans, antennas raised high and all but trembling for blood. Staring into the cameras, the neighbors eagerly offer ready-made headlines and self-flattering condolences: they’re coming together, everyone loves Amanda. The days tick past and the child’s anxious aunt, Bea (Amy Madigan), seeks help from a local private investigator, Patrick Kenzie, a squirt who looks as if he just dropped out of college and is played without an ounce of actorly ingratiation by Casey Affleck, the director’s younger brother.

I’m not sure exactly when Casey Affleck became such a good actor. Steven Soderbergh tapped him a few years back for recurring third-banana duties in the “Ocean’s Eleven” films, and Gus Van Sant put him in “Gerry,” his 2002 avant-garde feature, in which Mr. Affleck roamed around a merciless desert landscape with Matt Damon, with whom he took turns playing Beavis and Butt-head, Vladimir and Estragon.

More recently he stole the show from Brad Pitt in the western “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.” One of the unusual things about his performance as Ford was its lack of sentimentality. He didn’t plead the character’s case or remind us of his own humanity; he just played the role.

Most actors want you to love them, but Casey Affleck doesn’t seem to know that, or maybe he doesn’t care. Patrick doesn’t cuddle or kiss up. He takes the job Bea offers despite the reluctance of his live-in girlfriend and partner, Angie (a solid Michelle Monaghan), but he doesn’t look like anyone’s idea of a savior. With his sneakers and jeans and small-man’s swagger, he comes off like one of those toughs who never leave the neighborhood and would sooner swing a bat at your head than at a ball.

Mr. Affleck is already deep into the character right from the start, but neither he nor his director let on all they know about Patrick. There’s something about this guy that needles, that helps keep an already tense story on edge.

Despite its terrible question marks — who stole Amanda and why, is she alive and for how long — “Gone Baby Gone” pays closer heed to the enigmas of soul and heart than to clues and guesswork. There are false leads, dead ends, brandished guns and nightmarish discoveries, as well as shadows and controlled camerawork, but mostly there are human frailties and thrown-away, forgotten lives. The screenplay by Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard whittles down but doesn’t reduce Mr. Lehane’s material, pulling out details and types that stick to the screen, including Amanda’s mother, Helene, played by a ferocious Amy Ryan. Talk about not wanting our love! Ugly in voice and deed, Helene is the underclass mother from hell, a hazard, a druggie, a villain in waiting.

Helene is a nightmare, or at least the embodiment of a certain familiar fear: the bad woman (welfare queen) periodically held up as a symptom of some grave social disorder. Working with her supportive, encouraging director, Ms. Ryan plays with this stereotype and our sympathies to the breaking point. Deploying her broad Boston accent like a weapon, she whines and retreats, testing Patrick’s sympathy with each one of her pathetic excuses. It’s a gutsy, sensational performance that adds layers to an already spiky, provocative creation. At first you hate the woman and love the actress, though because Ms. Ryan and Ben Affleck are wise to the ways of scapegoating, you learn why that hate is misplaced.

It isn’t all that surprising that Mr. Affleck is so good with his performers, or at least most of them. The film has been wonderfully populated with character actors like Titus Welliver, who plays Lionel, Helene’s straight-talking brother, and Michael K. Williams, one of the outstanding villains from the HBO drama “The Wire,” who shows up here as a friendly cop.

Just as memorable are two unfamiliar faces: the newcomer Jill Quigg, who has a few startling scenes as Helene’s comically, scarily belligerent friend Dottie; and the Boston rapper Slaine, whose cool, dead-eye performance as the drug dealer who leads Patrick right into the heart of darkness adds menace to one of the film’s strongest, most harrowing scenes.

Mr. Affleck trips up now and again, mostly with his older, famous peers Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman, who delivers one of the more unpersuasive performances of his career as the head of the police department’s missing-children division. The director does better with Mr. Harris, who plays a hotheaded detective in a distracting hairpiece, though again Mr. Affleck doesn’t control the performance as well as he does those of the other cast members. He also wavers when he lingers too long over the crumpled faces and bodies of what appear to be real South Boston natives.

Even so, one of the graces of “Gone Baby Gone” is its sensitivity to real struggle, to the lived-in spaces and worn-out consciences that can come when despair turns into nihilism. Mr. Affleck doesn’t live in these derelict realms, but, for the most part, he earns the right to visit.

“Gone Baby Gone” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). There are several scenes of intense and bloody violence, and a horrifying subplot involving a pedophile.

نویسنده: بن افلک

بازیگران: کیسی افلک، مورگان فریمن، کتی کالانان، اد هریس

رنگ: رنگی

ژانر: : مرموز :: درام :: جنایی :

درجه فیلم: R

کشور: ایالات متجده/ انگلستان/ استرالیا

استودیو: میراماکس فیلمز

افتتاحیه: 19 اکتبر 2007

فروش کل: 17.2

مدت زمان فیلم: 114

امتياز منتقدان از 100: 72

جملات تبليغاتي: هر کسی حقیقت را می‌خواهد … تا زمانی که آن را بیابند.

خلاصه داستان: دو بازرس ایالت بوستون درباره یک بچه‌ربایی تحقیق می‌کند و در نهایت به یک بحران حرفه‌ای و شخصی بدل می‌شود.

ویژه: اولین فیلم بن افلک که بسیار هم مورد تحسین منتقدان قرار گرفته است. © cinemaema

Gone Baby, Gone

Gone Baby Gone – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

قطب‌نمای طلایی | The Golden Compass (2007

قطب‌نمای طلایی | The Golden Compass (2007

Director: Chris Weitz
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Dakota Blue Richards, Eva Green, Daniel Craig
Rating: PG-13

Official Golden Compass New Movie Trailers: Eva Green, Nicole …

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Movie Details

Title: The Golden Compass
Running Time: 114 Minutes
Status: Released
Country: United States
Genre: Drama, Adaptation, Adventure

A fantastic bestiary inhabits “The Golden Compass,” prowling and flapping and slithering and fluttering. The animals, most of which are called daemons and are manifestations of the human soul, hover at the side of their people and near the story’s edge, where their coos and barks mix with the ambient clatter and clang. Every so often, an animal leaps forward, its fur raised in alarm, its feathers fanned in flight. And because these are no ordinary animals, they also offer words of comfort, advice, warning. In this otherworldly realm, humans have no dominion over these creatures, yet they are not merely equals, either. They are one.

This beastly attitude and the conception of the soul as being somehow separate from its corporeal vessel are, as far as I can tell, the most irreligious conceits in the movie adaptation of “The Golden Compass,” a novel that was first published in Britain as “Northern Lights.” Written by Philip Pullman, it quickly became a critical and commercial success for the most obvious of reasons: It’s a charming romp set in a parallel universe stuffed with magical creatures, spooky villains and mythopoetic conceits, and propelled by a young orphan, Lyra Belacqua, who embarks on the hero’s journey with her shape-shifting daemon, Pantalaimon (Pan for short). The book has attracted voluble criticism for equally obvious reasons: Its army of darkness is a totalitarian institution called “the Church.”That ecclesiastical entity is pretty much nowhere evident in the film, which otherwise hews as close to the original source as can be expected from a 114-minute, big-screen translation of a 400-or-so-page novel. Directed by the American Chris Weitz, who wrote the heavily condensed script, “The Golden Compass” has many of the virtues of a faithful screen adaptation and many of the predictable flaws. Agnostics and atheists may, for starters, regret the explicit absence of the Church (others may see lingering traces), but the movies have never been a particularly good pulpit for any gods other than those of cinema’s own creation. It’s a tradition that this film honors with a goddess of icy perfection played by the wickedly well-cast Nicole Kidman.

As Mrs. Coulter, an emissary of the reigning powers (known only as “the Magisterium” in the film), Ms. Kidman has rarely looked more beautifully and exotically alien. When she first appears, she pours across the screen like liquid gold, her body provocatively shifting inside a shimmering, form-fitting gown, her gilt-blond hair and alabaster skin all but glowing. She’s the film’s most spectacular special effect (her wonderfully vicious little daemon-monkey runs a close second), and for once, the smooth planes of her face, untroubled by visible lines, serve the character. This masklike countenance helps hide Mrs. Coulter’s malignant designs from Lyra (the newcomer Dakota Blue Richards, spunky and serviceable), who, not long after the story lifts off, falls into her care through a series of complicated developments.

Mr. Weitz crams so many events, characters (computer-generated and otherwise), twists and turns, sumptuously appointed rooms and ethereally strange vistas into his film that he risks losing you in the whirl. It zips from the Gothic grandeur of Jordan College, the Oxford institution where Lyra has been raised and somewhat educated by her guardians (“Scholars”), to Mrs. Coulter’s swank London home, where the Art Deco touches bring to mind the dreamiest Astaire-and-Rogers cheek-to-cheek. Much like the neo-Victorian aristocrats in Neal Stephenson’s science-fiction novel “The Diamond Age,” the characters in “The Golden Compass” populate a world that resembles our own, despite being also seductively foreign. In Lyra’s universe zeppelins putt-putt through a period twilight zone, evoking both a knowable past and a possible future.

Despite the pit stops and lovely clutter, some of it visibly influenced by David Lynch’s “Dune,” the story unwinds in fairly straightforward fashion. Lyra, using a nifty, compasslike device called an alethiometer, must face danger and destiny, along with some hard truths. Among the hardest and headiest are those involving her uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig), an adventurer who dashes in and out of her life accompanied by an elegant snow leopard for a daemon. Aided and abetted by assorted quirky types and acting legends (Tom Courtenay in person, Ian McKellen in voice), Lyra follows Lord Asriel to the snowy north, where further perils await, along with a creepy intrigue involving stolen children and hints that the book’s two sequels are ready for their big-screen close-ups.

The sequels are a welcome idea, if only because they might persuade Mr. Weitz and his team to take it slower next time. “The Golden Compass” is an honorable work and especially impressive, given the far smaller, more intimate scale of his last film as a director (with his brother, Paul), “About a Boy.” But it’s hampered by its fealty to the book and its madly rushed pace, which forces you to dash through the story like Lord Asriel.

Among other things, I would have liked to spend some quality time with Lyra’s friend and protector the warrior bear Iorek Byrnison (voiced by Mr. McKellen), a gorgeous creature whose ferocity is, alas, tempered by his resemblance to some familiar cuddly polar bears. It is, I discovered, hard to keep your mind off the concession stand when you are waiting for Iorek to offer Lyra a Coke.

“The Golden Compass” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Some intense scenes involve children in danger and warfare between bears and humans.

THE GOLDEN COMPASS

Opens today nationwide.

Written and directed by Chris Weitz, based on the first novel of the “His Dark Materials” trilogy by Philip Pullman; director of photography, Henry Braham; edited by Peter Honess, Anne V. Coates and Kevin Tent; music by Alexandre Desplat; visual-effects supervisor, Michael Fink; production designer, Dennis Gassner; produced by Deborah A. Forte and Bill Carraro; released by New Line Cinema. Running time: 1 hour 54 minutes.

WITH: Nicole Kidman (Mrs. Coulter), Dakota Blue Richards (Lyra Belacqua), Sam Elliott (Lee Scoresby), Eva Green (Serafina Pekkala), Daniel Craig (Lord Asriel), Christopher Lee (First High Councilor), Tom Courtenay (Farder Coram), Derek Jacobi (Magisterial Emissary), Ben Walker (Roger), Simon McBurney (Fra Pavel), Jim Carter (Lord John Faa), Clare Higgins (Ma Costa), Jack Shepherd (Master of Jordan College) and Magda Szubanski (Mrs. Lonsdale).

WITH THE VOICES OF Ian McKellen (Iorek Byrnison), Ian McShane (Ragnar Sturlusson), Freddie Highmore (Pantalaimon), Kathy Bates (Hester) and Kristin Scott Thomas (Stelmaria).

كارگردان: کریس ویتز

نویسنده: کریس ویتز رمان فیلیپ پولمان

بازیگران: نیکول کیدمن، دنیل کریگ، داکوتا بلو ریچاردز

خلاصه داستان: در دو جهان موازی لیرا بالاکوای نوجوان به قطب شمال سفر می‌کند تا بهترین دوستش را که از دزدیده شدن توسط یک موسسه مخفی می‌رسد نجات دهد

نویسنده: کریس ویتز رمان فیلیپ پولمان

بازیگران: نیکول کیدمن، دنیل کریگ، داکوتا بلو ریچاردز

رنگ: رنگی

ژانر: : تریلر :: درام :: خانواگی :: اکشن :

درجه فیلم: PG-13

کشور: ایالات متحده / انگلستان

استودیو: نیولاین سینما

افتتاحیه: 7 دسامبر 2007

فروش هفته: 9.02

فروش کل: 40.97

مدت زمان فیلم: 113

امتياز منتقدان از 100: 51

جملات تبليغاتي: این التیومتر (ماشین حقیقت‌گو) است. این ماشین حقیقت را می‌گوید. باید خودتان یاد بگیرید که چطور آن را بخوانید .

خلاصه داستان: در دو جهان موازی لیرا بالاکوای نوجوان به قطب شمال سفر می‌کند تا بهترین دوستش را که از دزدیده شدن توسط یک موسسه مخفی می‌رسد نجات دهد.

حاشيه هاي فيلم: – هزینه تولید فیلم 180 میلیون دلار بوده است.

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