The Other Man

    

Quick Summary: A man suspects his wife is cheating on him and sets out to confront the other man.    

Full Summary (Warning: Spoilers)    
     We start at a fashion show where we meet the family we'll be following for 88 minutes of this film. Peter(Liam Neeson) a software engineer, Lisa (Laura Linney) a shoe designer, and Abigail (Romola Garai) the daughter. After the show Abigail wanders off with her boyfriend George (Craig Parkinson) while Peter and Lisa head off to dinner. The conversation at the table this husband and wife of 25 years have,will set in motion the events to come. Lisa brings up the open ended and hypothetical question to her husband on what would be his thoughts and comments, if one of them had slept with someone else.
     That night in bed and the next morning, she keeps hinting at him that she has something she needs to say, but, just walks out the door like a normal day. We won't see her again, now we are taken along as Peter starts clearing out all his wife's belongings, including her cell phone. Seeing a voicemail on her phone he can't help listen to it and finds another man leaving a love message for his wife. Now, curiosity has the better of him and has started digging through her laptop files, stumbling upon a passworded file labeled Love. Hitting the roadblock with the password he can't decipher and moving onto the email folder where a message is discovered from a Ralph confessing his love for Lisa and about them being together. Peter is now dead set on finding and confronting this man she's had an affair with.
     Great thing about working at a software company, he has a security person that can trace the email address to it's IP address. While he waits for the address, an endless night of typing in passwords finally meets success as the folder is now unlocked. What's found will take the rage boiling inside to a new level, risque pictures of Lisa and Ralph at a lake in Spain. Only one thing to do now and that's for him to hop to the next flight to the address of the emailer...Milan, Italy. Milan a place Lisa is no stranger to due to her work in the fashion world. We now get to watch as Peter, having found Ralph, plays a daily game of chess at a local cafe with him, learning about the history of the two of them and how Ralph and Lisa met 12 years ago. Abigail has also come to Italy in search of her dad who has also gone missing and left clues to where he has wandered off to, she won't stay long seeing how much rage and hate her dad is carrying for this man. Eventually Peter needs to confront Ralph and does so by setting up a meeting in a hotel Ralph and his wife used to frequent.
     When Ralph gets to the hotel it's not Lisa waiting for him, but, Peter and he has now realized who this man he has been playing chess with actually is. We also are made aware how this whole time Lisa has actually been dead, having died of cancer, explaining why he cleared out her belongings and we never saw her again.  The two then exchange their views on Lisa and won't talk to each other again till the end of the movie when they meet at a party in London, thrown by Ralph in Lisa's honor, which will mark the closure that Peter needs.

My thoughts:   
      If this movie sounds dull, your wrong, it's a snooze fest. A very slow moving drama that goes nowhere really fast. With characters you really never get to know and could careless as to what happens to them in the end. Much of the dialogue is so uninteresting it will just help to loosen your eyes from the screen and attempting a plot twist that doesn't work, just to bring up more questions and head scratching. It's a movie about the length one man will go to find out the truth he already knows. At the end of the movie you'll just be left wondering why you sat through this drab movie and what was the director (Richard Eyre) trying to achieve.

Legion

         Welcome to Paradise Falls, no... it's not the mystical land from 'Up'. It is the name of the rundown gas station / diner in the middle of the Nevada desert where the film plays out. Paradise Falls has been hit with Route 66 syndrome and has fallen off the map and is now a spot for those lost travelers that missed the turn for the interstate.

     The diner is owned by Bob Hanson (Dennis Quaid) who works with his son who's the mechanic, Jeep Hanson (Lucas Black). We are first led to the diner by Kyle Williams (Tyrese Gibson) who is lost on the desert road, we are also introduced to the Anderson's who are stranded because of a broken down BMW that is too technical for the antiquated shop to fix. Also joining into this quaint diner gang is Charlie (Adrianne Palicki) a girl 8-months pregnant and Percy Walker (Charles S. Dutton) the short order cook. Everything is as you would expect in this middle-of-nowhere hideaway, until Gladys Foster, a small old lady with her walker will mark the beginning of a long night for these desert castaways. For this little old lady goes from sweet to crazy and biting people in an instant, leading way for more crazies to come down the old road.

      Along comes Michael, who arms and helps fortify the diner against these crazy people, who are out for blood. It appears that outside of the desert an apocalypse of biblical proportions is taking place, Michael informs us that god has lost all faith with man and is set to exterminate them. These people coming to the diner are possessed by angels sent by god, whose mission is to kill the baby Charlie is carrying. Michael of course is the arch-angel who defies gods order and has vowed to help save the baby's life, the Messiah and stop the apocalypse. Not only do they have to battle zombie-like humans, but swarms of insects and ultimately a showdown with Gabriel the angel who is sent to do the deed that Michael was suppose to do.

     As for my point of view it was an OK supernatural thriller. What I liked was these possessed people still could walk and talk and think, unlike most zombies you usually find. Unfortunately, there isn't much else that really makes this film stand out, the acting wasn't outstanding, besides maybe a couple cool creature effects this movie doesn't have much going for it. The bad about it is... surprise, it's at a gas station in the middle of nowhere and it went a little to biblical for me. Also about half way through it really slowed down as the characters start bickering with each other and confessing the bad in their lives. Also not that original of a plot and nothing to really make this movie stand out in the genre. I can't help comparing certain parts of dialog at the beginning and end to Sarah Connor in the Terminator movies (Which also featured an apocalyptic event). I'm sorry its a short posting but there's only so much you can go on about with 90% of the movie taking place in the confines of a small diner (Flashback to 'Maximum Overdrive').

The Rocketeer

     Based on the graphic novel by Dave Stephens. Setting 1930's, pilot and air racer, Cliff Secord (Bill Campbell) has just accidentally stumbled upon an object of value to the federal government and the Nazi's. A rocket-pack, designed by Howard Hughes (Terry O'Quinn) and sought after as a game changer in the war. Cliff doesn't know exactly what has fallen into his hands until a Nazi spy disguised as a Hollywood actor (Timothy Dalton) kidnaps Cliff's girl Jenny (Jennifer Connolley). To save the day and the country, Cliff must learn to harness the use of the rocket with his mechanic friend Peevy (Alan Arkin) and become to many, a superhero... The Rocketeer.
     I have always loved this film, it has a great story and a really good production design. Director Joe Johnston and Cinematographer Hiro Narita, are able to capture the feel of a comic book movie while keeping the 1930's alive and bringing some aerial filming that was state of the art in 1991. Unfortunately, the nail in the coffin for this movie was another movie released the same weekend 'Terminator 2' which clobbered 'The Rocketeer' in the box office. Disney's plans for a sequel and theme park ride were now lost to a machine. For being almost two decades old it can still hold up today, and is great seeing many now A-list actors back in their beginnings.

A rocket pack and helmet can be found at Disney's Hollywood Studios at Peevy's Polar Pipeline

Movie Count: 6