Moon is a 2009 film starring Sam Rockwell. What makes this film so great; a. the story b. the very well done special effects. The story is about a company man that is on the moon finishing up a 3 year contract. Besides doing his job, all he thinks about is getting home to his wife and daughter.

The problem – he’s in an accident while checking on one of the mining vehicles and is rescued by —– himself. Or as we later learn – his clone. You’ll have to watch the film to find out the rest!

The special effects are excellent; the producers and directors took full advantage of the 2008-2009 union strikes and got work done for the film that otherwise would have cost them more than they had. The result is this beautiful film with great moon shots, special and visual effects. All done on a tiny budget.

Great film to own!

Budget: $5 milllion
Director: Duncan Jones
Staring:
Sam Rockwell
Kevin Spacey
Dominique McElligott

After the awesomeness of the first Transformers, people were really excited for this one to come out. Overall, it was a good film, but unlike the first one, this film seemed to be more about the special effects, Megan Fox, and a forced plot. Most of the things I recall reading about the film, turned out to be momentary snippets that didn’t amount to much.

The film is about Megatron being brought back to life by a crew of Decepticons that are hiding on earth. From there, they have to find the key to a machine that has been hidden on the planet for thousands of years. The Decepticon behind all this is named Fallen.

So, the film, while loaded with action and awesome special effects, really lacked an attention grabbing plot. For a film that is 150 minutes long, you really need one of those.

Budget: $200 million
Director: Michael Bay
Starring:
Shia LaBeouf
Megan Fox
Josh Duhamel
Tyrese Gibson
John Turturro
Isabel Lucas
Rainn Wilson
Ramon Rodriguez

Horton hears a Who is a great kids movie starring Horton the elephant, who one day hears something coming from a small speck as it floats by his ear. After catching the speck on a small flower, he soon discovers that on the tiny speck is an entire town of Who’s, who are going about their lives as normal, completely unaware, that they are in danger. The film is fun and creative, as Horton takes it upon himself to find a safe place to hid the speck, protecting it from the other animals and nature. During his mission, the other animals in the jungle become concerned about Horton talking to the speck and try to take it from him so that they can prove that there is nothing smaller than them and that Horton is wrong.

Again, it’s a great film, one that the whole family will enjoy.

Budget: $85 million
Director: Jimmy Hayward
Starring (voices):
Jim Carrey
Carol Burnett
Steve Carell
Will Arnett
Seth Rogen
Isla Fisher
Jonah Hill
Amy Poehler
Jaime Pressly

Mia Wasikowska and Johnny Depp star in Tim Burton’s remake of Alice in Wonderland. Alice (Mia Wasikowska), 19, returns to wonderland and meets up with her old friends after being gone for years. It’s quickly made known to the audience, that while Alice has been to Wonderland before, she doesn’t remember any of it.

Wonderland has been taken over by the evil Red Queen and it’s been told to Alice, that she is to fight and defeat the Jabberwocky. The film is loaded with all the characters from the original story – with a Tim Burton twist on most of them.

Overall, it was entertaining, funny, and a good film.

Budget: $250 million
Director: Tim Burton
Starring:
Johnny Depp
Mia Wasikowska
Helena Bonham Carter
Anne Hathaway
Crispin Glover
Matt Lucas
Stephen Fry
Michael Sheen
Alan Rickman

Bee Movie is a great family film for you and kids. It stars the voices of Jerry Seinfeld and Renee Zellweger. The plot is about a bee that finds himself getting ready to spend the rest of his life, working one job, and that isn’t very attractive to him. With a day to think about what he plans to do, he decides to join the other bees that leave the hive, so he can see what the world looks like. To his dismay, he finds that their precious commodity, honey, is being taken by the humans without their permission. He decides to do what no other creature has ever done, sue the humans.

Budget: $150 million
Director: Steve Hickner
Starring (voices):
Jerry Seinfeld
Renee Zellweger
Matthew Broderick
Patrick Warburton
John Goodman
Chris Rock
Kathy Bates
Ray Liotta
Sting
Oprah Winfrey

This is a great family film about a grumpy old man who ties thousands of balloons to his house and goes —UP. The film by Walt Disney is sure to become a family classic.

UP is a tale of an old man who flies away in his home, olny to discover that a little boy has come along for the ride. The adventure continues with them encountering strange new lands, loaded with lost of fun and comedy.

Budget: $175 million
Director: Peter Docter
Starring (voices):
Ed Asner
Christopher Plummer
Jordan Nagai
John Ratzenberger

Elastigirl is so interesting in this movie! Having kids does not prevent one to be cool. Stretching yourself to grab a falling bottle five yards away or eavesdropping a conversation also from that distance is awesome.

Mr. Incredible’s sagging belly (which he eventually had after retiring as a superhero) was one of the things that made his character so relatable.

But the character that I loved most in this movie was the feisty midget costume designer. I thought she’s cute and amusing, and damn filthy rich!

The Incredibles is an extraordinary family-oriented CGI film. It has great animation, great storyline, screenplay, and direction. Truly a Pixar masterpiece! Rated PG

I wonder how Roger Ebert (my idol movie critic) would react to his own review of Cars after the film went on garnering awards. He said Cars was the least beautiful of John Lasseter’s earlier works, Toy Story and A Bug’s Life. I tend to disagree since there are lots of factors that make this movie beautiful. First, the computer filmmakers excruciatingly put the once-glorious Route 66 into detail. To make the movie a comic relief, they cast Owen Wilson. Also, this is the very first movie that I saw which featured cars in lieu of animals as a fable. Even cows were replaced by tractors. Also, I like Paul Newman’s voice performance in this movie. He had really perfected his role as Doc Hudson, the old wise racing car.

Monster House is an experiment to merge children’s animation with horror. And it succeeds. This actually is Robert Zemeckis’s follow up to Polar Express, Zemeckis having fallen in love himself to children’s animation, big thanks to the influence of Steven Spielberg. There is one memorable scene in this movie – the liplock between Jenny and DJ who are both still in their preteens. I have seen a preteen girl kissed a preteen boy in a movie (Great Expectations) but that was for a mature audience. This one, however, is a kids’ movie. I think I have some reservations on that. But anyhow, it is your choice as a parent whether you want them to see this movie or not. After all, this is also available in 3D so you may just want to make it a hell of a ride.

It’s kinda abnormal for animals to possess intelligence as humans but that’s the fun in fables where humans are involved, right? And so it is in this movie. The actors are so engrossed with their animal characters that even Nick Nolte had to research his role just as his voice would be that of a bear. But to be “fair” to the animals too, in this movie, they just want to get back at the humans for pursuing a development project in the wilds and creating a hedge between them.

Full riot from start to finish. Fun fun fun, kids will be delighted to watch, grown-ups as well.

 Trivia:

The art department went to a bowling alley to sketch the design of the ‘perfect’ vending machine. They went to various supermarkets to sketch chip bags and bottles. They eventually got kicked out of a Safeway because the manager felt uncomfortable with them being there for such an extended amount of time.