The Lake House (2006) [PG] ****

It's March, and physician Kate Forster (Sandra Bullock) is leaving the lake house she's rented, and moving to Chicago to be close to her hospital job. She leaves a note in the mailbox with her forwarding address, and it's found by architect Alex Wyler (Keanu Reeves), who's bought the lake house to renovate - it had originally been built by his architect father twenty years earlier.

Mystified by the contents of Kate's letter, Alex begins to correspond with her through the mailbox; they discover that they are separated not by space, but by time; Alex lives in 2004, and Kate lives in 2006. As they continue to correspond they begin to fall in love with one another. In the film's pivotal scene*, Alex appears at Kate's birthday party in the autumn of 2004, six months after they've begun to correspond in his time, but a year and a half before she's become aware of his existence. Here is a YouTube video of the last part of that pivotal scene (link updated Feb 13, 2019). YouTube video

Having grown to care deeply for Kate, Alex searches for a way to connect with her physically, to tell her who he is and how he feels about her, knowing that he risks destroying their relationship before it blossoms. Time passes, and through their letters they fall passionately in love with one another; they decide to meet at a restaurant on St. Valentine's Day, but inexplicably Alex fails to show up, and Kate, despondent, asks him not to write to her any more. Then, by chance, Kate learns the tragic reason why Alex didn't meet her, and she becomes determined to change the course of events, so they can have a second chance at life and love together.

Reeves and Bullock have wonderful romantic chemistry, the soundtrack is hauntingly beautiful, and the supporting cast is terrific, especially Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Alex's younger brother Henry, Christopher Plummer as their father, celebrity architect Simon Wyler, Dylan Walsh as Kate's sometime-boyfriend Morgan, and Shohreh Aghdashloo as Kate's physician co-worker Anna. If you enjoy second-chance romances like Persuasion, and romantic dramas in which time is not linear, and the future can potentially affect the past - films like Somewhere in Time, Peggy Sue Got Married and The Love Letter (1998), then you won't want to miss The Lake House. 

* A pivotal scene in a romantic drama or comedy is one with a strong flow of emotion between the leads, one which the director tries to capture all in one take. If the pivotal scene is believable, it insures that the film will be believable.

Labels: drama, fantasy, romance, rom-drama-faves, space-time
Internet Movie Database 6.8/10
Metacritic 52/100
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=50, viewers=70)
Blu-ray

Although The Lake House is one of my favorite films, I understand that it provides an opportunity for humor, as this dialogue from The Big Bang Theory, Season 2, Episode 9 The White Asparagus Triangulation demonstrates:

[Sheldon is discussing Leonard's failed relationship with Penny]
Sheldon: So what is the down and the low, and don't worry, this is all entirely confidential, so you feel free to include any and all shortcomings in the bedroom.
Penny: We never got to the bedroom.
Sheldon: Because...?
Penny: OK, all right. You know what? I'll tell you what happened. We were young, we were very much in love, but we could only communicate through a time-traveling mailbox at my lake house.
Sheldon: It's not enough that you made me watch that movie, but now you mock me with it?!

YouTube video link to the above scene from TBBT

Casino Royale (2006) [PG-13] *****

A film review by James Berardinelli, for ReelViews.net.

When Pierce Brosnan took over the role of James Bond for Goldeneye, much was made about how the franchise was being modernized. In reality, the only apparent changes were cosmetic. Brosnan's 007 was easily connected to the character previously played by Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, and Timothy Dalton. With the ascension of Daniel Craig to the gun, tux, martini, and license to kill, seismic changes have occurred. This is no longer the James Bond we know from the '60s, '70s, '80s, and '90s. Welcome to the new world of MI6's most storied agent.

The purpose of Casino Royale is to re-boot the franchise. Craig isn't succeeding Brosnan; he's re-inventing the role. As far as this movie is concerned, nothing in the previous 20 entries has happened. This is Bond's origin story and the only thin bit of continuity is Judi Dench's return as Madam M. Forget everything you think you know about 007. For years now, the Bond formula has been drowning in a sea of rip-offs and pretenders, each more over-the-top than its predecessor. In order to retain a market niche, the Bond franchise had to strike out in a different direction - something less cartoonish and closer to the Ian Fleming source novels. It's impossible to say where the filmmakers will take Bond from here, but Casino Royale hints that it may be in a more down-to-earth direction than we're accustomed to.

What's missing? Quite a bit, actually. Until its rousing introduction during the end credits, the James Bond Theme is heard sparingly, during brief, subdued passages. The signature line of Bond, James Bond keeps us waiting. There are no gadgets - in fact, there's no Q. Nor is there any Moneypenny. There's action, but it's surprisingly low-key (at least for Bond). Absent are the over-the-top, gravity-defying stunts that have characterized 007 movies over the years. This time, things get brutal. Not only is there a nasty fight in which Bond beats the crap out of a bad guy (he has to kill two people to get his double-zero status, but the deaths don't have to be neat) but our hero ends up on the receiving end of some vicious treatment. One can't imagine Connery, Dalton, or especially Moore going through that ordeal.

The plot follows Fleming's story a lot more closely than the original Casino Royale (a pathetic and uneven spoof) did. It's the early days for Bond. Having completed the requirements for graduation to the elite level, he has been assigned 007, although M is convinced he's not ready. His first assignment is to track down one of the most elusive worldwide suppliers of terrorist money. After following the clues, which first take him to the Bahamas then to Miami, Bond learns the identity of his quarry: Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), who's about to enter an exclusive poker game at Casino Royale in Montenegro. Bankrolled by MI6, Bond enters against Le Chiffre, with accountant Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) watching the money. As the action at the tables heats up, Bond finds himself in trouble away from them as Le Chiffre and some of his associates try to eliminate the British agent.

It has been a long time since Bond has been this human. Not since On Her Majesty's Secret Service - the last time he fell in love - have we seen this side of the super agent. It's s curious thing to see Bond develop deep feelings for Vesper. We're used to him treating women like disposable commodities. Oh, he has affection for them, but love is not in his vocabulary. Yet there's no better way to humanize a superhero than to make him fall in love. We have seen that with Superman and Spider-Man. Now we see it with 007. This aspect of the movie is one reason why Casino Royale is a cut above anything we have gotten from the Bondmakers in decades.

The plot is oddly constructed, and plays out in three clearly defined acts. The first is the most like a traditional Bond film, with James hopping from country to country, engaging in a meaningless romance (with Caterina Murino), and chasing after two henchmen (a foot chase that involves scaffolding and a rush to stop a bomb at Miami Airport). Act II takes place mainly at the poker table. Surprisingly, there's a lot of tension even though there's not much action (except a staircase fracas), and the movie uses this segment to build the romantic tension between Vesper and Bond. I won't say much about the third act, except that it goes some unexpected places and initially seems disconnected with what precedes it.

For Daniel Craig, this is a triumphant debut. Not since early Connery have we seen a Bond this magnetic. Craig manages to show us both the human and the inhuman sides of Bond, and the portrayal is free of fatuousness. This Bond isn't beyond uttering the occasional quip, but when he does so, there's not a lot of humor in the delivery. Not since the closing moments of On Her Majesty's Secret Service have we seen such a vulnerable 007. While there's always a certain sadness associated with waving goodbye to a departing actor, Craig's performance makes us ask Pierce Who?

With everything else changing, one wonders whether it might have been time to bring someone else in to play M. That's not a knock on Judi Dench - no one can deliver M's acerbic one-liners like her - but if the intent is to make a clean break, why is she here? Eva Green, still best known for taking off her clothing in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers, is the right mix of hard and soft as Vesper - it's not hard to see how she could beguile Bond. Mads Mikkelsen is intense enough to pull off the villain role even though he lacks the megalomaniacal bent evidenced by most Bond bad guys. Additional support comes from Giancarlo Giannini as Mathis, the British agent based in Montenegro, and Jeffrey Wright as old friend Felix Leiter.

It's interesting to note that the radical revising of Bond is being done by the usual team. It's not as if an entirely new group was brought in for the re-boot. The producers continue to be Michael G. Wilson and Barbara (daughter of Cubby) Broccoli. The writers are Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (with an assist from Paul he's everywhere these days Haggis), who were involved in scripting the last two Brosnan movies. Director Martin Campbell oversaw Goldeneye with Phil Meheux as his cinematographer. And David Arnold has been composing Bond scores since he took over from John Barry in the '90s. (The title song, You Know My Name, which Arnold co-wrote with Chris Cornell, sounds eerily like something by Barry.)

My hope is that Casino Royale has not only re-invented James Bond, but made him relevant for the 21st century. The target audience has shifted. Although there's nothing in Casino Royale that will exclude teenagers, this 007 is aimed squarely at adults. The November release date is also perfect - the film is almost too dark and serious for the kind of lighthearted, mindless fun we associate with summer blockbusters. In recent years, I have come to each new James Bond movie with a series of ingrained expectations. For the most part, the Brosnan films met them across the board. Casino Royale defies many of them, and I couldn't be happier. [Berardinelli's rating: *** 1/2 out of 4 stars]

Labels: action, adventure, spy, thriller

IMDb 80/100

MetaScore (critics=80, viewers=85)

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=79, viewers=84) 

Blu-ray 

Invincible (2006) [PG] ****

Set in Philadelphia in 1976, Invincible is the uplifting, heart-warming story of Vince Papale (Mark Wahlberg), a 30-year-old substitute teacher and part-time bartender whose life spirals downward after he loses his summer school teaching position, and his wife of five years leaves him, taking all the furniture with her. All Vince has left is his group of neighborhood pals, with whom he plays rough-and-tumble touch football, and his bartending job for his pal Max (Michael Rispoli).

Then the desperate Philadelphia Eagles football team, on a downward spiral of its own, hires UCLA football coach Dick Vermeil (Greg Kinnear) as the new head coach, and in a publicity stunt Vermeil stages an open tryout one summer Saturday morning. Along with hundreds of other hopefuls, Vince shows up and, against all odds, he gets invited to training camp, and with it, a shot at making the team. At the same time Max hires his niece Janet (Elizabeth Banks), and while both Vince and Janet have recently been scarred by love, and seem unwilling to take a chance, a tentative romance does blossom between them. During training camp, Vince endures the resentment of teammates with collegiate and professional football experience. However, he's a player with whom the football fans of South Philadelphia can relate, and he ends up raising the spirits of a city depressed by a losing football team as well as by factory closures and rising unemployment. 

While the story is formulaic, the dialogue is clichéd, and the soundtrack of ‘70s tunes is completely forgettable, we find ourselves cheering for Vince, mainly because of Mark Wahlberg’s ability to create a likable, intensely hardworking character.

Although the film implies that Vince had no football experience after high school, the truth is that he played on the Aston Green Knights of the semi-pro Seaboard Football League, and following that he played two seasons for the Philadelphia Bell of the World Football League as a wide receiver, as well as a standout on the special teams. It was his performance with the Philadelphia Bell that earned Vince an invitation to a private workout held by Philadelphia Eagles Head Coach Dick Vermeil in 1976 and, following that, an invitation to join the team.

Regardless of the artistic license taken by screenwriter Brad Gann with Vince Papele’s life and career, if you enjoy uplifting sports stories, films like The Blind Side, Miracle, Remember the Titans and The Rookie, you won’t want to miss Invincible. 

Labels: biography, drama, football
Internet Movie Database
Metacritic 63/100
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=64, viewers=72)
Blu-ray1 
Blu-ray2
Wikipedia: Vince Papale  
Facebook: Vince Papale  

The Secret (2006) [UR] ***

The Secret is another name for the law of attraction. Simply put, the law of attraction says that we can attract to ourselves resources that exist outside of ourselves, to help fulfill any desire, no matter how impossible it may seem. To invoke the law of attraction, all we need to do is to clearly focus our consciousness - our heart, mind and spirit - on our desire, and we will attract to ourselves the energy and the resources we need to fulfill that desire, regardless of any obstacle that might be in our way.

If we think about it, we've known about the law of attraction all our lives. When we make a wish before blowing out the candles on our birthday cake, when we put a tooth under our pillow in hopes the tooth fairy will visit, when we leave milk and cookies for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, when we say a silent prayer before going to sleep, when we make a wish on the first star we see at night, or on a shooting star that streaks across the heavens, when we try to catch the wedding bouquet the bride tosses over her shoulder – each time we are invoking the law of attraction. Often we don't even recognize the law of attraction working in our lives, and it's only when something unexpected happens to us, something we truly desired but never expected, that we begin to wonder if there might be hidden forces working on our behalf. I can highly recommend The Secret as an excellent introduction to the law of attraction, and as a basis for further study. Some of the many, many books available on this subject include: 

Everyday Miracles by David Spangler

Feel It Real! by Denise Coates

In Tune With The Infinite by Ralph Waldo Trine

Jack Canfield's Key to Living the Law of Attraction by Jack Canfield

Law of Attraction by Michael J. Losier

The Law of Attraction by Esther Hicks

The Law of Attraction by Robert Collier

The Law of Attraction in Action by Deanna Davis, Ph.D.

The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles

The Secret by Rhonda Byrne

Labels: documentary, drama 
IMDb 56/100
Amazon

DVD Verdict Review by Michael Stailey

In the Land of Women (2007) [PG-13] ***

Writer/director Jonathan Kasdan's film is a character-driven study of how five women, ages ten to eighty, grow and evolve through their life experiences. The story is told from the viewpoint of Carter Webb (Adam Brody), an introspective twenty-something writer who's recovering from the breakup of his first love affair.

Following his rejection by Sofia (Elena Anaya), Carter moves from L.A. to quiet, suburban Michigan, where he hopes that caring for his aged grandmother Phyllis (Olympia Dukakis) will give his broken heart a chance to heal. Hardly has he unpacked his suitcase than he begins to connect with the three women in the household across the street; wife and mother Sarah (Meg Ryan), teenage daughter Lucy (Kristen Stewart) and pre-teen daughter Paige (Makenzie Vega). As caregiver and confidant, Carter offers compassion, friendship and wisdom to these women. And as he begins to heal, he discovers that he has something to say, and he begins to write a children's book.

This isn't a perfect story, and ten years from now Jonathan Kasdan may look back and see how it could have been done differently and better. But it's a good story, and it contains some valuable life lessons. One is that a loving relationship will be more rewarding if we accept the other person as they are, rather than trying to change them into our ideal of what they should be. Another lesson is that sometimes the person we're meant to be with is right there in front of us, and has been there the whole time. 

Labels: comedy, drama, romance 
IMDb 64/100    
MetaScore (critics=47, viewers=55)    
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=54, viewers=64)

James Berardinelli's 3 out of 4 star review

Imagine Me & You (2006) [R] ****

Imagine Me & You is a refreshing, mainstream girl-girl romantic comedy, set in modern-day London. Rachel (Piper Perabo) is walking down the aisle to marry Heck (Matthew Goode) when she has a love-at-first-sight experience with Luce (Lena Headey), her wedding florist.

In the weeks following the wedding, Rachel and Luce grow closer as friends, and as their mutual attraction grows, so does Rachel's uncertainty and ambivalence toward her new husband. Then, when Rachel discovers that Luce is a lesbian, she begins to reevaluate her own sexual orientation.

The film offers excellent screenwriting, and subplots that support the main plot and propel the action forward. There is incredible romantic chemistry between Perabo and Headey, and Rachel's awakening to her true sexuality is similar to that of Heather Graham in Gray Matters. The film's London locations, production values and happy ending are all reminiscent of films written by Richard Curtis, particularly Notting Hill and Love Actually. 

Labels: comedy, drama, lesbian, romance, wedding
IMDb 67/100
MetaScore (critics=49, viewers=74)
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=50, viewers=78)

Copenhagen (2014) [NR] ****

A film review by Sheila O’Malley for rogerebert.com on Oct. 3, 2014.

A guy and a girl bicycle slowly through the streets of Copenhagen, the colored buildings and wide canals their placid and beautiful backdrop. The sun is setting, the shadows lengthening, making the city seem less like an actual place than a dream space, one where truth can come out, where the regular rules of everyday life no longer apply, where something else is possible. In its best moments, Copenhagen, the debut feature of screenwriter / director Mark Raso takes place in that dream space.

On the surface, the film sounds like Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise or any number of other meet-cute-in-a-foreign-city stories. But very quickly, other things start to come to the surface, things that don't quite fit. The tension between the expectations that arise due to the familiar genre and what is actually happening onscreen makes Copenhagen special, and a bit strange. There's also the undeniable fact that the girl in the film is, in actuality, a girl. She's half the age of William, the lead character. So any possibility of romance is distinctly illegal in nature. Copenhagen doesn't shy away from that, and is unafraid to allow that queasy reality to come to the surface. The film doesn't entirely work, but sometimes things that don't entirely work are interesting, bringing tension and unresolved issues that start to take over the film, almost by stealth. It's nice to watch something that isn't neat, that doesn't play it safe.

William (Gethin Anthony) and his pal Jeremy (Sebastian Armesto) are traveling through Europe, crashing in youth hostels. The whole point of the trip is to end up in Copenhagen, where William can try to track down the grandfather he's never met. William's dad was abandoned by his father. And William's dad was no great shakes in the father department either. William has a lot of free-floating resentment and rage because of that. He found an unsent letter his father wrote to his grandfather. It's in Danish so he has no idea what it says, but he wants to deliver the letter, decades after it was written. You get the sense that William is not looking for a loving reconciliation but confirmation that father figures suck.

The trip immediately goes off the rails because Jeremy has brought along his girlfriend Jennifer (Olivia Grant). William is so hostile and unpleasant from the get-go that it starts to call into question his presence as the lead of the film. He's nasty to Jennifer in a particularly lecherous way; he's vicious to Jeremy when they argue about her; he's a whiny petulant figure. This nastiness is not just an attitude, it's William's default personality. Gethin Anthony is excellent in that he does not soft-pedal these qualities, and does not try to plead his character's case for the audience. He allows William to be as nasty as he is written. It can make Copenhagen a trying experience, but there is interesting stuff on the other side of it.

After William and Jeremy part ways, William is left to his own devices in Copenhagen. He needs to find the address on the envelope because he thinks maybe his grandfather still lives there. His initial queries are unsuccessful. Everything changes when he meets Effy (Frederikke Dahl Hansen), a young student interning as a waitress in the hotel cafe where he is staying. She clumsily spills coffee on his table, and he doesn't seem to realize that it is supposed to be a meet-cute moment because he is rude and ungracious in response. In a later encounter, he tells her about his search for his grandfather and her interest is piqued. To Effy, it's kind of like a detective story, and she takes the lead: she knows that address on the envelope, she wants them to go check it out together.

Effy is intelligent, resourceful, and seems to have an unlimited amount of time to wander around Copenhagen with this rude American, tracking down leads. At first it seems that Effy will be forced to take on the burden of having to be the now-predictable Manic Pixie Dream Girl, the one whose only purpose in life is to lighten up the gloomy male lead. She has a pink plastic camera and is impulsive to the point of recklessness. But Effy, like William, does not quite fit into the genre requirements. She starts to emerge as an individual. Much of this is due to the grounded performance from Hansen. She suggests that Effy is not complete yet. She's still in formation, acting a role a little bit, as young girls sometimes do.

There's a beautiful and strange scene where Effy takes William into one of the museums in Copenhagen. She wants to show him something. It's a bust from ancient times, a female, and she moves to stand right next to it, her silhouette and the bust's silhouette highlighted by the thin white stream of light coming in from the window. Mark Raso allows that image of the two heads side by side to just sit there for a long time, still and silent. As the image settles, it becomes clear that Effy and the bust are practically identical twins. Effy whispers, I've never shown this to anyone. William runs his fingers over the bust's face, in wonder at the resemblance. There's an eroticism in the moment, problematic and uncomfortable due to the age discrepancy.

What is so beautiful about that scene, though, is that it is beyond meaning. The image onscreen is what is important, and what it might mean is up for grabs. It makes Effy's inner life a place of mystery and power. She has gone to this museum a lot to visit her doppelgänger. She has wondered about that woman in ancient Greece or Rome, wondered at the connection. She feels in touch with something eternal in herself. None of this is stated explicitly but it pulses off the screen.

What one may expect to happen does not exactly go down as planned. Copenhagen remains true to its own original and somewhat prickly course. There are moments when it is not clear at all why Effy is even choosing to hang out with William, who is rude and combative (in moments big and small). But she wants to know what happened to William's grandfather. Over the course of the film an interesting thing starts happening. William starts to take responsibility for the words he uses. He starts to actually listen to himself and do his best to change course. A lifetime of being a rude rage-boy will not vanish overnight, and a lesser film would have made it Effy's job to show him the better way. But Copenhagen isn't really about that. Nobody can save you. You have to save yourself.

Talented cinematographer Alan Poon gives us dreamy beautiful shots of the city, its buildings, canals, cobblestone alleyways, crowded nightclubs. His work helps ground the film. Copenhagen knows life is complex, and knows that most of us are messes most of the time. Hopefully we all do our best and try not to hurt one another; try to be kind. William doesn't quite get that, not yet, because he's too self-righteous and pissed off. But the film is, in many ways, his lurching journey towards starting to understand that his character is up to him and him alone. [O’Malley’s rating: *** out of 4 stars]

Labels: adventure, drama, romance
IMDb 71/100
MetaScore (critics=71, viewers=84)
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=72, viewers=78)
Sheila O’Malley review
Netflix