DVD Review: The Informant!

Rated R for language

Starring Matt Damon, Melanie Lynskey, Scott Bakula, Joel McHale, Tom Papa

In the early 1990s, biochemist Mark Whitacre has been moving up the ladder at food industry giant ADM, having been brought over into the business side of things. After getting a call from a foreign competitor offering a cure to a virus that affect the company's products for the price of $7M - the exact amount that Whitacre also notes is suddenly missing from the company - he tells his boss Mick Andreas about it and the FBI soon get involved, tapping Whitacre's business home line in case the competitor calls again. While he's working with the FBI, Whitacre also informs them of unethical business practices that ADM and other international food industry giants are involved in, most notably being price fixing. Serving as the FBI's mole, Whitacre records hundreds of tapes in which company heads discuss and agree on various price fixes. Once it's learned that he was the mole though, the company fights back, digging up dirt on Whitacre that could not only cost him his job, home and luxuries, but also cause him to serve jail time as well.

Based on a true story, The Informant was quite interesting, most especially for me as it takes place in Decatur, IL (not far from me) and involves the food industry in the 90's (which was the industry my dad worked in at the time). However, presented in all the trailers as a quirky comedy, this movie was anything but. While there were some laughs, they were few and far between, as we watch a man get used by his government while he's lost in his own made up delusions.

Unless you like films based on true stories, feel free to skip this one.

DVD Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats

Rated R for language, some violence, brief nudity

Starring George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey

Bob Wilton is a journalist who goes over seas to follow the war in Iraq after his wife leaves him for his editor, however without having a way in to cross the border, he is stuck in Kuwait, waiting for a story. While sitting around drinking at the hotel, he stumbles upon a former Special Forces operator named Lyn Cassady - he heard about Lyn earlier, when he interviewed another man who claimed to have psychic powers. Lyn confesses that he was part of a top secret military group that formed in the '70s called New Earth, in which they trained men to become Jedi Warriors, using invisibility, remote viewing, cloud bursting, walking through walls and intuition. Wanting to hear more Lyn's story and report on it, Bob follows Lyn into Iraq and into an adventure through the desert as Lyn is on a mission that he doesn't know what the objective is.

While the movie had its moments that were pretty humorous, and presented an interesting story about a supposed psychic military unit, the movie was lacking something, despite the clever Star Wars references (which you'll like not get if you're not familiar with Star Wars).

It wasn't a terrible movie, but it wasn't great either - it was just okay. If you have time, check it out, otherwise, don't worry - you aren't missing much.

DVD Review: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Rated PG13 for brief language, brief sexuality, some scary images

Starring Heath Ledger, Christopher Plummer, Lily Cole, Andrew Garfield, Verne Troyer, and Tom Waits with Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell

Old Doctor Parnassus runs a traveling sideshow with his daughter Valentina, confidant Percy and aspiring apprentice Anton. We see a drunk crash onto their stage, chasing Valentina through Parnassus' magical mirror into a strange place of imagination where at the end he has to choose between a bar and enlightment; of course he choose the bars, which blows up soon after he enters.

During their travel to their next stop, we learn that Doctor Parnassus, as well as Percy, are former monks, with Doctor Parnassus being over 1000 years old. He's been able to live that long as he once made a bet with the devil, Mr. Nick, in that he could win 12 souls over to craving stories and imagination rather than addiction and desire before Mr. Nick could - Parnassus won and was granted immortality. Although he still aged, he once met a woman during this time that he fell in love with, and made another deal Mr. Nick that he would be granted youthfulness in exchange that any child born would be given over to Mr. Nick at the age of 16 - Valentina will be turning 16 in just a few days, a day in which Parnassus is dreading. He makes a new deal with Mr. Nick - the first to win over 5 souls in 3 days wins, and if Parnassus wins, he gets to keep his daughter.

Suddenly, in the midst of a storm, they come across a man hanging from a bridge and rescue him. With no recollection of how he ended up under the bridge, in addition to amnesia, the man (whom Parnassus determines is a philanthropist named Tony) tags along with the troupe and offers up suggestions on how they might improve their sideshow and appeal to more people. While Parnassus is hesitant at first to accept the change, as his show has been the same for years, after witnessing the crowd they start to draw (with the help of Tony and his charm and sex appeal), he begins to think they might have a chance at winning the bet. But then jealously grows, as Anton sees Valentina bonding and becoming close to Tony, causing problems for them all.

Will Parnassus be able to win over 5 souls before Mr. Nick and keep his daughter or will jealously and lies get in the way?

This film is classic Terry Gilliam (who also directed Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas), as the imagination sequences are pretty trippy! And just like classic Gilliam, he has the worst luck with films, as it seems something ALWAYS goes wrong for him - in this case being that Heath Ledger died before they finished filming all his scenes.

Fortunately, the scenes that hadn't been shot were the ones where Ledger's character Tony goes through Parnassus' magic mirror and into various imaginations. Because the scenes took place in several different people's imaginations, they were able to use a different actor for each scene, giving Tony a different look in each imagination. It was helpful that prior to the transition into his first imagination scene, Ledger was actually channeling Johnny Depp, using quirky mannerism of his, so it only made sense to cast Depp as the first imagination Tony, making the transition from Ledger to Depp very natural - given the mask he's first wearing in the scene, unless you're listening carefully to the voice, you don't even notice it's Depp until a little ways into the scene!

If you liked Gilliam's previous works (most notably Fear and Loathing) you'll enjoy this fun fantasy film into the world of imagination. It's a shame Heath Ledger died, as he really did a great job in this film!

Toy Story 3

Rated G
Starring Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Blake Clark, Don Rickles, Estelle Harris, John Ratzenberger, Wallace Shawn, Jeff Pidgeon, Jodi Benson, R. Lee Ermey, John Morris, and Laurie Metcalf

Our story picks up shortly after the 2nd movie - Buzz, Woody, Jessie and the rest of the gang of Andy's toys are playing together in Andy's wild imagination adventures. Due to a montage via home video footage, we see Andy beginning to grow up and fast forward and he's now 17 and getting ready to go off to college. Stuck in the old forgotten toy chest for so long, the toys make a few last attempts to get Andy's attention, in hopes of one more rendez-vous with him, but with no such luck.

Andy's mom tells her son to go through his toys and everything else in his room and decide what he's taking to college, what can go in the attic, what can get donated to the daycare and what should be thrown out. While he decides to take his old pal Woody to college with him, the rest of the toys he puts in a trash bag to take up to the attic... however mom mistakes the bag for trash and promptly places it on the curb. In an attempt to rescue his friends, Woody dashes out to save them, in which they all wind up being donated to the local daycare.

While the rest of the gang is thrilled to be welcomed by the rest of the daycare toys and are thrilled to learn that there's no owners and always kids who'll play with them, Woody insists they all go back to Andy's as they're still Andy's toys and he didn't mean for them to get thrown out or donated. Wanting a second chance to get played with, the gang decides to stay so Woody sets out for home on his own. Soon after he leaves though, him and the rest of the gang learn that Sunnyside Daycare isn't all it's cracked up to be - the new toys get stuck in the Caterpillar room with the toddlers who don't know how to properly play with toys and strawberry smelling leader Lots'o Huggins Bear isn't the gentle old sweet wise bear they first thought he was!

Woody has to go back and rescue his friends before things get much worse!

Once again, Disney and Pixar have done it again - creating a wonderful family film that all can enjoy. It's got hilarious moments and pop culture references, homage to a lot of the previous Pixar films, excitement, thrills and even touching moments that really pull at you - everyone I know that's seen it has sad they teared up during the movie at one point or another (I know I did at one part in particular near the end).

Kids will love all the excitement and adventure that this one continues to offer in the same fashion as the previous installments, and parents will be laughing at all humor thrown in that kids might not get (the scenes with Ken doll are pretty hilarious, as he's very metro-sexual despite repeatedly refusing to admit and comes to terms with being a girl's toy!).

Also, keep your eyes open for all the "easter eggs" in the film - there's references GALORE (here's a link of ones just seen in the trailers)! In one scene the Pizza Planet truck makes an appearance, as well as other toys and versions of characters from other Pixar movies (there's quite a bit of toy cars resembling the vehicles from Cars). There's also a rumor going around online that one of the little girls seen in the daycare is a slightly older Boo from the upcoming Monsters Inc 2, as Pixar likes to sneak in a character from an upcoming movie as a teaser. And keep your eyes open during the scenes with the garbage men - one of them is actually the neighbor boy Sid from the first movie, all grown up but still wearing his skull t-shirt!

This was definitely a great way to tie up the Toy Story franchise and while they could have ended it on a sad, emotional note, I'm glad they didn't - like one teen sitting further down the row from us commented at the end, ending it that way could have scarred the little kids that were watching (it was pretty emotional!). Not to give away the ending, but I'm pleased with how this part of the Toy Story turned out.

Get Him to the Greek

Rated R for language, drug and alcohol use, sexuality, brief nudity, crude sexual humor, slapstick violence

Starring Russell Brand, Jonah Hill, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, Elizabeth Moss, and Rose Bryne

Russell Brand reprises his role from 2008's "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" as larger than life rocker Aldous Snow - the lead singer of Infant Sorrow. Although we learn that just prior to that film, Aldous and his pop singer wife Jackie Q had split from their 7 year marriage and the past 3 years Aldous has spiraled out of control, turning into a hardcore drug addict.

Jonah Hill, who played a waiter and an over-eager fan of Aldous' in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," is a completely different character this time, playing recent college grad Aaron Green, who lives with his overworked hospital intern fiance Daphne and works at a record company and helps brainstorm ideas on how to get the company back on track. A lifetime fan of Aldous Snow and his band Infant Sorrow, Aaron points out that next month will be the 10th Anniversary of when Aldous and Infant Sorrow performed at the historic Greek Theatre in LA.

After thinking it through, his boss Sergio decides it might just work, as they can have companies sponsor and televise the event for millions and make money off the DVD and album. He tells Aaron he has 72 hours to pick up Aldous in London, get to New York for an appearance on the Today show and then bring him out to LA for the gig.

Of course things can't go that smoothly though!

When he arrives to pick up him up in London, Aldous claims they changed the date and are a month early. After a hard night of partying, Aaron finally gets him on the plane. Then he has to make sure Aldous is sober for the Today show. Then, Aldous insists they take a detour so he can he visit his father in the States.

Time is running out and Aldous is starting to rethink his life and his relationship with his former wife. Will Aaron be able to get him to the Greek on time? His job and Aldous's career is riding on it!

If you loved the Aldous Snow character in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" you won't want to miss this spin-off! Aldous is just as quirky and hilarious and clueless as he was the first time, and it features even more hilarious songs by Infant Sorrow. It also cleverly ties the 2 films together with references made to the first.

This one mixes the sweetness of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" with the craziness of "The Hangover" for a great R-rated comedy. If you enjoyed either of those, you'll definitely like this one!

DVD Review: Sherlock Holmes

Rated PG13 for action violence, adult themes, brief sexuality, brief nudity

Starring Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Mark Strong

The film opens with Holmes and Watson racing to stop Lord Blackwood from ritually murdering another young woman. Fortunately, they are just in time, as the inspector shows up to arrest Blackwood and he is sentenced to death.

As his last request, Blackwood requests to speak with Holmes, informing him that his death won't be the end of him and that several others will die in order to carry out his ultimate plan. Holmes doesn't think too much of it though, as Blackwood is soon hanged and pronounced dead by Watson.

3 days later, Holmes is visited by thief and former flame Irene Adler, who requests that he find a missing person for her. Also, Holmes and Watson are informed that a groundskeeper at the cemetery claims to have seen Blackwood alive. The go and investigate and sure enough, Blackwood's grave has been tampered with from the inside out and the body in the coffin is not Blackwood's!

Starting with clues from the grave, Holmes and Watson race to find Blackwood, figure out what his ultimate plan is and put a stop to it before time runs out.

This film was a lot darker than I was expecting it to be, as Blackwood is believed to be an agent of Satan, using dark, black magic. While Holmes is the master at observation and deductive reasoning, him and Watson know quite a bit of Martial Arts it would seem, as they get in quite a few fist fights with the bad guys - not quite the classic detective movie one would be expecting!

Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law make a great Holmes and Watson duo though, as their interactions together were great!

Not quite one for the whole family, as some of the scenes are a bit dark for the young ones, but definitely ones teens and adults would enjoy.

Iron Man 2

Rated PG13 for comic-action violence, some sexuality, brief language

Starring Robert Downey Jr., Mickey Rouke, Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson

Picking up where the previous film left off, Ivan Vanko sees the news of Tony Stark announcing that he is Iron Man. Vanko's dying father tells him that should have been him (Ivan) as he created the arc-reactor with Stark's father, giving him the blueprint of the plans.

6 months pass, Tony Stark opens up a year long Stark Expo in order to continue the Stark legacy as the core of his arc-reactor is seeping poisonous chemicals into his blood stream and Tony feels he might be dying soon. He is also ordered to appear before a Senate Committee who declares the Iron Man suit is a weapon and should be turned over to the government. Stark points out that no one else in the world is near close to replicating it and points out that he has been able to maintain world peace.

All that changes soon in Monte Carlo, when Ivan Vanko, in a suit of his own with whips that spark lightning, shows up and takes on Iron Man, proving to be an equal, as he could have killed him, but didn't. He is captured, but soon broken out of prison, as someone else sees him as a skilled engineer and wants his help in creating an army of Iron Man suits.

Will Tony be able to save his own life and find a cure for his arc-reactor core? And as Iron Man will he be able to stop Ivan Vanko?

Iron Man 2 follows in the same footsteps as the previous installment, showing us to value life and do what's right. While it doesn't really expand much or go above and beyond the first one, it was still just as quirky and entertaining with a plot that was easy to understand.

We also see more of SHIELD leader Nick Fury in this one (his lone scene in the first one was after the end credits) and are introduced to SHIELD member Black Widow, who shows us that tiny petite females can sure kick some butt!

Don Cheadle replaces Terrance Howard as Stark's good friend Lt. Col. James "Rhodey" Rhodes, however, unless you're watching the films back to back, you don't really notice the change that much. We also see the last appearance of DJ A.M. who died in Fall 2009.

And like the first one, be sure to stick around after the credits role for a sneak peak of who the next Marvel film is going to focus on!

DVD Review: Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel

Rated PG for slapstick humor

Starring Jason Lee, Zachary Levi, Wendie Malick, and David Cross, with the voices of Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, Jesse McCartney, Christina Applegate, Anna Faris, and Amy Poehler

Everyone's favorite singing animated Chipmunks are back in this sequel to the 2007 movie.

After a freak onstage accident that lands Dave in the hospital for awhile, he orders Alvin, Simon and Theodore to go home, obey Aunt Jackie who will be watching them, and go to school. Well, Aunt Jackie gets injured soon after the Chipmunks meet her and her slacker grandson Toby at the airport, leaving Toby in charge.

Between playing video games, eating all the food and trashing the house, Toby makes sure the boys go to school, where they first have trouble adjusting - all the girls think they're cute and so naturally all the other guys get jealous of them. Being able to shoot baskets across the cafeteria, Alvin is quickly brought into the "jock" circle and learns how to play sports like football (where he becomes the team's secret weapon), however his increase in popularity soon goes to head and like the other jocks, he begins to pick on Simon and Theodore.

After the 3 get in trouble, they are told their punishment is to compete at a local school talent competition on behalf of the school, as the winning school will win a large money prize.

However, the Chipmunks aren't the only new students at school - ex-music mogel Ian (from the first movie) is back, this time with an innocent group of singing girl chipmunks who call themselves the Chipettes and admire and look up to the Chipmunks. Determined to get back at the top of the business, Ian manipulates the girls into thinking he was a victim of the Chipmunks and decides to have the Chipettes face-off against each them for the school's representation at the talent competition.

While this movie was pretty cute, especially with the introduction of the Chipettes, it didn't seem nearly as good or as clever as the first movie. While the lesson of family and sticking together is a good one, the jokes and the laughs just seemed like more of the same from the first movie, not really improving in quality or substance.

Kids will enjoy it, and like I said, the Chipettes were a pretty cute new addition, however unless you have kids that really want to see this one, you can probably just skip this chapter of the Chipmunks and watch the original or the classic animated episodes instead.

DVD Review: Julie and Julia

Rated PG13 for brief language, brief sexuality

Starring Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci

In 2002, Julie Powell is an aspiring writer but works in a cubicle at a government office in New York taking calls to lend an ear for hurting 9/11 victims. All her friends having successful jobs though and as she reaches her 30th birthday, Julie feels miserable as if she hasn't really done anything with her life, and to make matters worse, her and her husband have just moved into a tiny apartment in Queens above a pizzeria to be closer to his job. After hearing a shallow friend of hers has begun writing a blog, Julie quips that she could write a blog too, afterall, she is a writer! But what to write about? Her husband points out that she enjoys cooking, so why not write a blog about cooking? Julie likes the idea and decides that she'll cook her way through Julia Child's cookbook "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in one year - 524 recipes in 365 days - and blog about her experiences.

As Julie goes about the year, her story is segmented with the story of Julia Child's time living in France and how she became the cook we all know her as.

In 1949, Julia and her husband Paul move to Paris for a government assignment of his, where they'll be living there for 4 years. Not wanting to work as a clerk at another government agency, Julia decides she should find a fun but useful way to spend her time. She tries hat-making and then an attempt at French lessons before she realizes that she loves to eat. Having a hard time finding a French cookbook in English, Julia decides to take up cooking and enroll in Le Cordon Bleu. She also meets a duo of like-minded women who are working on a French cookbook for Americans and teach cooking as well - Julia teams up with them, having to revise the entire book for publication and well, the rest is pretty much history.

As Julie cooks her way through the infamous book, she learns plenty of lessons along the way from Julia.

Based on true stories, Julie and Julia is a heartwarming and inspirational film. Meryl Streep is spot on as the famous cook with her mannerisms and quirkiness and I love the pairing of Streep and Tucci (previously together in The Devil Wears Prada). Jane Lynch also makes a brief appearance as Julia's sister Dorothy, and plays the part very believably as it's a nice change from the usual characters she plays.

If you're curious about the life of Julia Child or enjoy fun inspirational movies or food, don't miss this one!

DVD Review: Tron

Rated PG for adult themes, tense moments

Starring Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, Cindy Morgan, Dan Shor, David Warner

Video arcade owner Kevin Flynn is a former ENCOM software engineer who has created several video games that became popular after another ENCOM employee, Ed Dillinger, stole them from him. Knowing the files have his name on it, Flynn continues to hack into the ENCOM system and find them to prove he is the rightful creator of the games. After Flynn's most recent hack attempt, Dillinger and his Master Control Program (which has a mind of its own) decide to shut down access to the level group Flynn had access to, thus locking out fellow software engineer Alan Bradley who was working on a program called Tron which would serve as a watchdog program and keep even the Master Control Program in check.

Frustrated, Alan and Flynn come together, with the help of ENCOM employee Laura. They sneak Flynn into the building so he can distract the MCP and hack in long enough to grant them all level 6 access so Alan can get his Tron program up and running, which would help find the files proof that Flynn created the games and not Dillinger.

MCP does not like though and decides to physically trap Flynn into the the world of Bytes and Bits. Having to band together with other "user controlled" programs, including Tron, Flynn must fight for his survival and work with Tron to defeat the MCP from the inside in order to escape back to his world.

Released in 1982, I'm sure this sci-fi action adventure film was groundbreaking and in a lot of ways it reminded me of Bladerunner or The Running Man. Viewing it almost 20 years later though, it's extremely dated and the graphics and special effects are just laughable. We can only hope that the upcoming Tron: Legacy film has much better, updated graphics than the original.

I have to admit, while this is a Disney film and was marketed towards families, if I had watched this in the 80s as a little kid, I would have been extremely bored and confused as to what was going on. This is definitely not a movie meant for kids, as they most likely won't understand much of what's going on.

If you like classic sci-fi films from the 80s, this is one you might be interested in.