Rico Zamora (flickfever)

The Blind Side is a truly inspirational, true story that leaps from the real-life annals of its history onto the big screen with effortlessness and comfortable familiarity. It is a film that we've seen in one plot form or another, but somehow feels genuine and poignant despite it familiar trappings. Even though it's a movie that's been "done-to-death," this one is different.

Sandra Bullock delivers one of her best performances as a southern belle who is determined to improve the life of a down-on-his-luck, black teenager. The boy (played by Quinton Aaron) strikes a chord with his subtly diffused performance as the displaced fellow from the wrong side of the tracks who is caught between two worlds.

The story of a man rising from the ashes of a broken home; non-existent childhood and illiteracy is truly inspirational. But it is the help of Sandra Bullocks character that all of this is made possible. It is because of the spunky, relentlessly no-nonsense approach of this woman that this young man is able to achieve what he never thought possible. And, after he becomes a real part of her family, everything is within reach--and he's grateful.

The dynamic of the family and Michael (the boy) is one that is so great to watch. It's truly a joy to see people embracing someone so different from themselves and taking them in without question as to their background or color. It is inconsequential to them and all that matters is helping out another individual in need--whether that poor, homeless boy had been black or white.

Eventually, the success of Michael as a high school football star and a college-bound student is a remarkable story. The boy ultimately finds it within himself to persevere not because someone is forcing him to; but because he finally realize the value of his life and discovers what having dignity truly represents.

Of course, there are occasional sappy moments; saccharine dialogue and predictable black vs. white encounters and snide, snappy, bitchy episodes with Bullock's character. But, ultimately, the movie moves along quite well; provides more than enough humor mixed with enough heart to make for a more than satisfying time at the movies.

If The Fourth Kind supposed to make you believe in aliens or, at least, make you re-evaluate your beliefs, let me tell you: it probably won't. Even though it's being marketed as "based on the actual case studies," the movie ends up feeling more phony than anything concocted in fiction could have ever felt.

When a group of Nome, Alaska residents begin to encounter strange dreams and eerie night-time episodes of sleeplessness and feeling a presence in the room a Dr. Abigail Tyler (psychologist) begins to sniff around. She thinks, of course, that these strange occurrences have something to do with her own husbands mysterious death some time before. He had been investigating similar, paranormal events in the small frigid community before his demise.

When things begin getting tragic in Nome, Tyler is forced to reconsider what may be happening to the residents. She must hastily acknowledge that the only explanation is that someone or something is controlling the events. When she decided to videotape some of the patient sessions, that when things start to get really bad.

And I mean that in more ways than one. Not only to the events in the plot become more strange and mysterious--but that's when the movie itself begins to dwindle. The gimmick of this film is that the "real-life" evidence recorded by the "real" Dr. Tyler is interpolated throughout the film with the dramatized version of those events. Often, you get split screens with both the real footage and the phony footage. The phony footage being (in my opinion) the real-life videotapes.

It all seems beyond the realm of belief, even for a film that is science fiction. But if anything is supposed to be grounded in fact, it's that this movie would have been better being either all "real-life" or all dramatized. The whole splitting your attention for credibility's sake makes it all too distracting and not engaging enough. It's too much of a ploy to manipulate your discretion and ability to discern fact from fiction.

In the end, all you really end up witnessing is a bunch of static on a videotape. It really proves nothing more than you already may or may not have believed. If anything it cements the skeptics' opinion even more and clouds the murky faith of the believers even more. It really proves nothing or has anything new to say in terms of alien science fiction film.

If the fourth kind of alien contact is abduction, then the fifth kind must be boredom.

A classic screwball comedy from the 1930s, this one star William Powell and Carole Lombard. At the height of the Depression, this film became as much a social commentary picture about the division of classes in America as it did a divine comedy about the division of classes in America; and how it ultimately doesn't matter how much money you've got in your pocket in order for love to flourish.

Wes Anderson is at his best here with a pitch-perfect ensemble cast and an awesomely funny script. The quirky Tenenbaum family is relatable to everybody and the dynamic between the cast and director is evident as the quality of the acting and art direction prove that. A must-see!