Letter's To Juliet

Amanda Seyfried is sweet Sophie who is A fact checker for The New Yorker with dreams of being a writer.  She jets off to Verona with her fiance Victor (Bernal) for a pre honeymoon and instead of romantic time of togetherness that she envisioned the two end up on different paths and hardly spend any time together at all.  Instead, Sophie ends up on a little adventure where she helps Claire (Redgrave)  who still feels the sting of love lost find her long lost love whom she fell in love with and never saw again after a teenage summer romance.  Her and Claire hit it off immediately but she can't exactly say the same for her grandson Charlie (Egan).  The unlikely trio set out on their search and turn up all kinds of surprises.

• Amanda Seyfried is so sweet and gentle.  The face of an angel indeed as she pushes her disappointment over her absent fiance aside and embraces Claire and her search for Lorenzo.
• Bernal is quite obnoxious as the passionate foodie who seems to love food more then anything else in life including his fiance.  I knew right away that their relationship was doomed when he was more interested in Pasta then her.
• Such a sweet story.  The tears were rolling towards the end of the movie as the sounds of Taylor Swift's "Love Song" began sweloling in the background.  I'm in love and so moved by the very notion of soul mates and true love so this was right up my alley.  If that isn't your cup of tea then this movie probably won't be for you but I LOVED it

5 Stars

Alice In Wonderland

Starring:  Johnny Depp, Mia Wasikowska, Anne Hathaway
Fantasy, 2010 (Rated PG)

Nineteen year old Alice has a huge imagination.  So huge in fact that she is the only one who notices the rabbit in the waist coat running across the lawn.  After running away from an unwanted marriage proposal she follows this rabbit and finds herself falling down a rabbit hole and into another land.  Here she must figure out a way to help the characters in this world restore the white queen to power and oust the evil Red Queen who rules the land with decapitation for anyone who does not agree with her.

• I really wasn't all that interested in watching this but hubby wanted to so I went along with the program. 
• I found that it was an OK movie.  This is coming from someone not really so into animated fantasy type movies.
• The graphics are excellent and Depp does a great job as the quirky mad hatter.
• I am not all too familiar with the original story having never taken a huge interest in it so I can't say much regarding the adaptation of the original but the movie itself was entertaining for the most part.

4 STARS

Leap Year

Starring:  Amy Adams, Matthew Goode, Adam Scott
Romantic Comedy, 2010 (Rated PG)

Amy Adams stars as Anna who is after the perfect apartment and the perfect life with her perfect boyfriend.  Since he hasn't proposed after all this time she decides to take matters into her own hands by following him to Ireland where he is attending a medical conference.  According to an Irish tradition a man can't refuse a proposal from a woman during leap year so she hops on a plane to get her man only to find out it's not nearly as easy or simple as she thought it was going to be. 

• I love Amy Adams and just about every movie she's done.  She is pert, lively, pretty, and a darn good actress.  As perfect as Anna is in this movie she somehow still manages to come off as down to earth and relatable.
• Just about everything that can go wrong does on this trip but Ana refuses to give up.
• Oh, the dilemma's that arise in matters of the heart!  Ana's boyfriend Jeremy (Scott) is as perfect as perfect can get.  It's clear that he loves her but the question remains...is it enough? 
• There are unwanted and surprising sparks between Anna and Irishmen Declan (Goode) who is quite an unpleasant character who begrudgingly helps her along her travels.  His heavy Irish accent is sometimes hard to understand so my habit of watching movies with subtitles on came in handy.

4 STARS

Extraordinary Measures

Starring:  Brendan Frasier, Kerri Russell, Harrison Ford
Drama, 2010 (Rated PG)

Brendan Frasier stars as John Crowley the father to two children with a rare and deadly disease called Pompei.  He feels helpless as he watches his two children become sicker and sicker until one day he decides to take matters in his hand.  He contacts a brilliant rough around the edges scientist (Ford) and teams up with him in a next to impossible attempt to get his research off the ground and into the labs so that a new drug can be developed that might save his children.  There are so many ups and downs along the way.  Is there time to save his children's lives?

• Ford is excellent as a hard nosed, rude, and quite impossible to get along with scientist.  As brilliant as he is he is hopeless at working with others and as the movie goes on I grow to sort of hate him and wish I could reach through the TV myself and give him a kick in the head.
• This is based on a true story and you can't do anything else but root hard for John Crowley as he seriously does everything that is humanly possible to save his children.
• Great story, great acting, great movie.

5 STARS

The Young Victoria

Starring:  Emily Blunt, Rupert Friend
Drama, Romance-2009 (Rated PG)

Emily Blunt plays Queen Victoria who began her reign of England at the young age of 18.  As the only child of three uncles she was as protected as she was the object of a power play among many who would try to manipulate their way into her good graces as a means to exact some type of control over the crown.  When she finally does take the crown she insisted she was not too young to handle it does not go as smoothly as she had hoped.  The Queen is feisty, stubborn, and independent which is likely a direct result of her isolated, and controlled upbringing.  Finally free of the clutches of her mother and her hated advisor she is reluctant to take on a husband. Prince Albert courts her from Germany at the request of his family and waits patiently for her to make her decision.

• It was really interesting to take a look inside the world of Royalty with it's ladies in waiting, petty coats, formal dinners and familial obligations of marriage and gender roles.
• I loved it that Queen Victoria refused to sign over her crown and was her own woman at a time when woman were kept and considered the inferior sex.  She was a feminist at a time when the meaning of that word was not known.
• It was also interesting to see what it might look like when the roles are reversed and it is the woman who is the leader and the man who is relegated to the ruler's spouse.  She was so adamant that her role not be usurped by her husband just because she was female.  So intent was she on keeping him in his place that she overlooked the possibility that he might have something of value to contribute.
• The acting was great.  This was basically a love story and although there really wasn't too much of a plot or storyline I still found myself engaged throughout.

4 Stars

Bright Star

Starring: Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw
Drama: 2008, Rated PG


This is a period drama set in 1800's london and is the true story of Fannie Brawne (Cornish) who falls in love with writer John Keats (Whishaw). Initially, John thinks not much of her kindness to him while his brother is dying and her subsequent interest in poetry piques his interest. John's friend and Fannie have an utter dislike for each other but despite this John is smitten. Their love can go no further because Keats does not make an income and therefore does not have the money it would take to marrie Fannie.

• I got this movie because Abbie Cornish is in it. I think she is beautiful and quite a talented actress. I also like love stories.
• She did a great job in this movie but nothing much could help the fact that the movie was dry and quite boring for the most part.
• It just went on and on and to be honest I shut it off probably missing the last 10 minutes or so because something was coming on TV that I wanted to watch. Instead of finishing it later I just figured I wasn't missing much and called it a day.

2 Stars