THE READER

SUMMARY: The Reader is a romance film, originally a book, that crosses over very well.  The story is about a young German teenager who meets an older woman and begins an affair with her.  Coming from two different generations, sparks fly during the movie, but love knows no bounds....right?  

ACTING: First and foremost, congratulations to Kate Winslet for winning her Oscar.  She is amazing in the movie and deserved every bit of praise.  Her passion was very realistic and had me in awe the whole time.  I didn't know Ralph Fiennes was such a good actor either.  Surprising me with his off reality perception and always in the past gases, he makes you wonder what he has been through.  David Cross is also an up and coming actor who seemed to grow with his character grew.

SCRIPT: Probably an amazing book because the dialogue was so good, but also each scene keeps you engaged with another thought and another feeling every time.  Since people were suppose to be speaking in German, there was still that no nonsense feel to their speaking even though in english.

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Like most good movies now a days, there is very specific and perfect camera placement.  Allowing for what would be the best spot to view the specific scene, thus it needs to be appreciated.

RE-WATCHABILITY: A top romance in my opinion, your choice if its date worthy, but I enjoyed it even though I'm not much a romantic kind of guy :).  

PLOT: I call this film a Drama as well because it has so many turns and keeps you guessing all through the movie.  My jaw was dropping constantly on every twist in the story.  No way to guess what happens.

RATING:☃☃☃☃☃

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

SUMMARY:  Slumdog Millionaire is a beautiful romance between two childhood friends, but also shows how money can come between brothers.  The story follows two Indian orphans, Jamal and Salim Malik.  The movie begins with Jamal on the hot seat in the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire.  Jamal answers the questions by recounting his childhood memories and telling how he hustled, scraped, and survived to this point in his life.  

ACTING:  Most of the action and lines were done by the two younger actors who must have been at the most nine years old.  These kids gave a convincing role about how it must have been to live in the slums of India at a young age.  They showed fear, anger, jealousy, and playfulness with amazing skill.  The older version of the brothers also gave a persuasive performance - continuing the feud that was started at the young age.  The love that is shared between Jamal and his love interest, Latika, is apparent and heartfelt.

SCRIPT: The writers of this movie developed very funny dialogue between the two brothers, making them seem playful towards each other while offering a hint of problems to come.  The way the story is set up has the viewer off balance and wondering what's really going on.  This helps keep the romance interesting to ALL movie goers.

CINEMATOGRAPHY: The placement of the cameras provide interesting view on what happens in the story.    The camera views give a slightly confusing angles so that everyone's off balance.  Not many stand still shots, but more movement instead.

RE-WATCHABILITY:  A romance can always be watched again for a "warm and fuzzy" feeling but usually thrillers don't have the same "thrill" the second time.  Yet, since this movie encompasses something more passionate, it gives the film a new feeling every time it's watched. 

PLOT: Using a "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" theme to tell a story sounds very tricky, and would be if the writer wasn't confident and good.  This idea, given to the wrong person would probably turn out to be corny and unimpressive.  But, the way the story is woven together in this film, makes the movie so much better and gives little chapters in between the story.  This movie brings the concept of a game-show and life together, providing an interesting look on what fate can bring and love can accomplish.

RATING:  ☃☃☃☃☃ no doubt.

HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU

SUMMARY: This romance movie (first a novel) is about getting past denial and facing the truth about how the opposite sex feels about you.  When it comes to love and relationships there are many signals that get misinterpreted, and this movie has most of them figured out.

ACTING: The acting was not the best I've seen in a romance but there were some good performances.  Jennifer Aniston did an amazing job with bringing emotion as well as comedy to the scene.  Ginnifer Goodwin also was a shinning star in the film, naive and stupid as she was, it was apparent that her role was to show the fairy tale version of love.  Yet, the person I was most displeased with was Drew Barrymore, it seemed that she had learned her lines about ten minutes before filming.  Besides her though, everyone else did a fair job.

SCRIPT: The script was quite entertaining.  There were hits and misses for the comedy but the emotion was in the right place. 

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Normal camera views.  Sometimes the fade to black was kind of random and transitions needed work.

RE-WATCHABILITY: If you've watched this movie once the twist wouldn't amuse anyone again but its still a sweet and lovely film.  Not on the same level with The Notebook but the romance is still there and could bring a tear to someone's eye.... somewhere out there...

PLOT: Quite a genius topic because of how current the dating situations are today.  A lot of the twists were easily figured out but with the huge amount of characters there were still good surprises at the end.

RATING: Started off ☃☃ but got bumped to ☃☃☃.