Secondhand Lions

Starring: Haley Joel Osment, Robert Duvall, & Michael Caine
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Robert Duvall and Michael Caine are Hollywood legends, who prove their reputation in Secondhand Lions. It's kind of a hokie story that really only works because of its extremely talented cast. Walter is sent to spend the summer with two bizarre and distant relatives, who mysteriously left forty years earlier to travel the world, and whom returned just as mysteriously. Like I said, the story is a bit weird, but it's extremely entertaining. The whole cast is terrific and the film is much more than what it appears to be on the outside. It's about living your life to the fullest and believing in whatever it is that makes you happy. It's a story everyone can relate to, with a cast I can't say enough about.

Back Woods

Starring: David Hayes
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars

How could you not watch a movie with a cover like that! This movie was made on a budget of less than $1000 and it shows! If you think it looks ridiculous, wait until you hear what it's about! A woman, who has been pregnant for 30 years, gives birth, out of her ass, to a 30 year old, 300 pound, retard baby, after which she gets hit by a car. The man-child proceeds to tear her dress off and put it on. He then goes on a murderous rampage, going by the name mangina. He kills, he mutilates, he eats their privates on a gory rampage. This was hysterical, but how this thing ever got national distribution and a sequel is beyond me. As the saying goes, now I've seen everything!

Waiting For "Superman"

Starring: Davis Guggenheim
Rating: 2 1/2 out of 5 stars

Waiting For "Superman" is an inside look at the problems with education in America. The film is extremely eye-opening, showing just how bad a state most of our education systems are in. They clearly illustrate that no matter the area, teachers are failing America's youth at an alarming rate. I found the film to be very biased though, as it only points out what's wrong with the system, and fails to mention any of the positives that still exist in education. It also fails to offer solutions for the problems. Guggenheim throws lots of facts and figures at us and repeats the same themes. It gets to a point where he's just beating us over the head with the same concepts. Many people saw this as an inspirational call to action, but me, I saw it as a guy complaining. Honestly, if you can't offer up a solution than why present the problem? I'm pretty sure that almost everyone in America knows how bad education has gotten, even if they don't have the exact figures in front of them.

Ice Twisters

Starring: Mark Moses & Camille Sullivan
Rating: 1 1/2 out of 5 stars

I realize that certain things in Science Fiction have no basis in reality. I also realize that Syfy uses the small budget that they have to at least make these films somewhat funny, when they know they aren't very good. What I don't understand is why bother making the film at all, when it is this bad? The special effects are a complete joke, the acting was just plain bad, and as for the story...it was a neat concept until they started doing things that were just completely fucking stupid. I can't decide what was stupider, so maybe you can... Driving through a tornado if you do it at the correct angel, a storm cell that chases the scientists that created it, and of course the Sci-Fi author who solves problems, government scientists can't, using just his stories. This movie is ridiculous Canadian garbage and whoever wrote it deserves to be blacklisted!

Mister Foe

Starring: Jamie Bell & Sophia Myles
Rating: 1 1/2 out of 5 stars

Maybe I just wasn't intelligent enough to get this movie, but to me, Mister Foe was just weird and twisted. Jamie Bell (who I'll always associate with Billy Elliott) was phenomenal as Hallam Foe, a seventeen year old voyeur, whose mother had recently committed suicide. Unable to cope, Hallam leaves for the big city, where he finds a woman who looks eerily similar to his mother and Hallam starts spying on her. I get that this film was supposed to be coming of age, sophisticated, and meaningful, but honestly, I just found it creepy. The film was choppy, extremely slow, and just when you thought something was going to happen, it doesn't. In Mister Foe, Jamie Bell really does show just how good an actor he has become. Aside from that, this movie is just weird.

Children of The Corn (2009)

Starring: David Anders, Preston Bailey, & Kandyse McClure
Rating: 2 1/2 out of 5 stars

I've liked Stephen King's Children of The Corn series since I was a kid and I was very interested when I heard that they were remaking them. The new version is different, but that's not always a good thing. It's definitely a lot more gory and frightening, which is a good thing, but they cut a lot out of the story which was a bad thing. We aren't given any background information, characters are missing, and Isaac is so little and cute, that he isn't believable. On top of that, instead of a loving middle aged couple, we get a fighting interracial couple, in 1975, that features a Marine with PTSD and a prom queen who won't shut the fuck up! I'm glad it was a little creepier and bloodier than the original, but they cut out some of the best parts and give absolutely no background information. I felt like I was jumping into a movie after missing the first half hour, besides that, the acting was so-so, and overall the film was okay at best. In my opinion this film does not live up to the original and would have trouble rivaling some of the sequels as well.