Movie Land

Movie Review Land



Juno

juno.jpgThe movie opens in the fall where after three pregnancy tests in Rollo’s (Rainn Wilson) store, Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) discovers she is twelve weeks pregnant by her close friend Paulie (Michael Cera). She calls her best friend, Leah (Olivia Thirlby), and decides to schedule an abortion. In front of the clinic, Juno encounters a pro-life classmate protesting, but she enters the clinic nonetheless only to leave after being unnerved by the other patients’ nervous fingers. She returns home intent on carrying the pregnancy to term and to give the infant up for adoption. Juno and Leah look through the penny-saver magazine looking for couples seeking to adopt children and find an ad from a yuppie-couple, Mark and Vanessa Loring (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner). She breaks the news of her pregnancy to her father Mac MacGuff (J.K. Simmons) and her stepmother, Bren MacGuff (Allison Janney) who both support her decision. Juno and Mac visit the affluent Lorings in their hygienic suburban home where the high-strung and maternalistic Vanessa is put off by Juno’s diffidence and sarcasm but Juno and Mark form a bond over their shared musical interests. Mark reveals that he was once in a punk band but now writes commercial jingles; Juno teases him because Vanessa has restricted all his hobbies – Les Paul guitars, song writing, and comic books – to a single room in the house.

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Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

sweeney toddBenjamin Barker is a barber unfairly sentenced to a life of hard labor by Judge Turpin, who lusted for the man’s beautiful and virtuous wife Lucy and daughter Johanna. Assuming the name Sweeney Todd, he escapes from prison and returns to London, assisted by sailor Anthony Hope. There he is told his wife has poisoned herself and his daughter has become the ward of the villainous judge. The home he once shared with his wife and daughter has now been transformed into the worst pie-shop in London by his departed wife’s former friend, Nellie Lovett, and she takes him in and becomes his sole confidante and co-conspirator in revenge. Not distracted by Mrs. Lovett’s bourgeois ambitions or attempts at seduction, Todd spirals deeper into despair, nihilism, violence and insanity, slitting the throat of most customers who enter his shop. Due to the high price of meat, the bodies of his victims go into Mrs. Lovett’s pies, allowing her shop to finally prosper. The first to fall is Adolfo Pirelli, a rival barber who threatens to expose Todd’s past; his young assistant Toby, who knows nothing of this murder, goes to work for Mrs. Lovett.

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P.S. I Love You

ps_i_love_you.jpgIrishman Gerry Kennedy (Gerard Butler) and Holly (Hilary Swank), are a happily married couple living in Manhattan. When Gerry dies of a brain tumor, Holly is devastated. The grieving young widow and her friends begin to periodically receive letters written by Gerry, each with a task intended to ease Holly out of grief and transition her into a new life.

One “task” is for Holly and her two friends to go on holiday in Ireland, where the couple first met.

At the end of the film it is revealed to Holly and the viewer that when Gerry knew he was going to die he wrote the letters and gave them to Holly’s mother, and that he made her promise to send them one by one to Holly and not tell Holly that she did this.

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This Christmas

this_christmast.jpgThis year, Christmas with the whitfields ppromises to be one they will never forget. All the siblings have come home for the first time in years and they’ve bought plenty of baggage with them. As the christmast tree is trimmed and the lights are hung, secrets are revealed and family bonds are tested. As their lives converge, they join together anf help each other discover the true meaning of family

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No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old MenThe film opens with shots of desolate, wide-open country in West Texas in June 1980. In a voiceover, the local sheriff, Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), tells of the changing times as the region has become increasingly violent. Next, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) escapes police custody by strangling a young officer and steals a car by using a cattle gun to kill the car’s driver.

Meanwhile, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), hunting antelope near the Rio Grande, comes across a collection of corpses and one dying Mexican, the aftermath of a drug deal gone sour. He also finds two million dollars in a suitcase. Moss refuses to help the Mexican, takes the money and leaves, but is later bothered by his conscience and returns with water for the wounded man. During this second visit Moss is ambushed by gunmen and barely escapes with his life, abandoning his car in the process. Moss makes his way to his trailer home, and plans to put his wife Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald) on a bus to stay at her mother’s home until the conflict is resolved.

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