Mr. Popcorn (mrpopcorn)

"It Can't Rain All The Time"

A man brutally murdered comes back to life as an undead avenger of his and his fiancée's murder.

REVIEW
Having known Ernie Hudson as one of the Ghostbusters, I thought that it made sense to cast him in "The Crow". The movie is of course most famous for Brandon Lee's unfortunate death during filming. Watching the movie, it gave me a real sense of the macabre, in a less than identifiable setting full of chaos. Needless to say, it adds to the feeling knowing what happened to Lee on the set. No matter how you approach it, this is a horror movie without having to be particularly scary, and definitely one that I recommend. Watch on Halloween, right before Halloween, or during any other part of the year, and it's still equally good.

"What would you do if you could change the past?"

An accidental cross-time radio link connects father and son across 30 years. The son tries to save his father's life, but then must fix the consequences.

REVIEW
Since the 21st century began, there have been several movies with several interconnected stories ("Traffic", "Syriana", "Babel"). In that sense, maybe Gregory Hoblit's "Frequency" was a sign of things to come. Granted, it focuses on one story, but uses two other topics (aurora Borealis and baseball) to move the plot along.

Of course, it's probably not too important that aurora Borealis and baseball play the roles that they play. The movie brings up the paradox of time travel, all the while understanding that this is a fictional story. It's not a great movie, but you gotta admire how they lay everything out, with the changes in the past and present. Worth seeing. Starring Dennis Quaid and Jim Caviezel.

"Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free." Two imprisoned men bond over a number of years, finding solace and eventual redemption through acts of common decency. REVIEW It is very hard to think of something bad about this film.The direction is incredible, bringing about highly memorable performances, and a beautifully shot film. Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman are sensational, carrying this film on their shoulders as if it were the easiest job in the world - a tribute to them as this film must have been an incredibly demanding shoot - it is a long and emotional film. The development of their friendship is wonderful to watch, as is Andy's gradual assimilation into the prison society - however sad it may well be. Frank Darabont it seems was the ideal man to take the helm of this movie. Many films in this sort of genre can feel like they are missing something, as if there were sections left on the editing room floor - not this film, everything fits perfectly in to place. This leads to a very long film, (which could perhaps be its only criticism - be warned it is long - though the longer the better for me) but one which sucks you right into the prison world, and keeps you right there until the utterly stunning last shot of the film! Viewers should be warned that some scenes are of a disturbing nature, dealing with issues that may offend some people. However, this should not put you off seeing this film. It deals with the realities of prison, and in no way glorifies the goings on. What we must realise however, is that this film is not necessarily about the brutality of prison and the way prison society operates, it is about human connection and interaction, and the indomitable nature of the human spirit. By the last scene we should feel uplifted at what has been achieved - not only by the characters in the story however, but by the film makers!

"Where's Olive?" A family determined to get their young daughter into the finals of a beauty pageant take a cross-country trip in their VW bus. REVIEW Much of "Little Miss Sunshine" shouldn't work, yet almost all of it does. One of the best ensemble casts in recent memory delivers this outrageous material with a tremendous amount of heart and conviction and, as a result, a screenplay that threatens to stretch the bounds of credibility comes across as believable and achingly poignant. The characters are given such strong motivations for their actions that everything they do and say feels utterly plausible, even when the film itself threatens to teeter into Faulknerian Southern Gothic crossed with National Lampoon's "Vacation." The writers, director and cast stubbornly refuse to allow us any tidy character assessments. Therefore, we see the brittle and harsh side of Toni Collette's otherwise loving mom; the warm, charming and please-like-me vulnerability of Greg Kinnear's otherwise smarmy and nearly intolerable dad; the intellectual pompousness and snobbery that peeks its head through Steve Carell's otherwise emotionally wounded suicide case; and the affectionate patriarch lurking behind the otherwise gruff and offensive exterior of Alan Arkin's grandfather, whose greatest crime may be that he's too honest. "Little Miss Sunshine" hands over this motley cast of characters and lets us glory in their imperfections, and through doing so helps us feel better about our own. As the movie points out, perfection isn't possible, and the aggressive pressure in American culture to achieve it is only making people miserable about failing at something they never had a chance of succeeding at in the first place. The movie is so warm hearted though, that its ultimate lesson isn't a downer. At the end, this close-knit family realizes that they're proud to be ordinary, and dammit, so am I.