Yet another New York fairy tale, trying to get us to believe that Manhattan is filled with exclusively lovely people and ghosts, except, perhaps, for the dentist Ricky Gervais (the Brit we frowned upon recently, in "A Night At the Museum") mimics so superbly that you can even watch this film twice and still laugh at his antics.
Although the backdrop of this movie couldn't be more cliché-ridden: another wedding (or rather, a whole bunch of'em), in the "most wonderful city on earth," inhabited by "the most wonderful people on earth," - as if New York City were the epitome of paradise, instead of just another stinking, over-sized, overcrowded, over-prized and over-rated city, the story has a refreshing twist, and is one of the best in-depth character studies I've seen of late.
Especially those familiar with the Enneagram will be delighted to find the proto-type of a professional TWO, who is being thoroughly dissected by the man who dares to question everything she ever loved and stood for, but whom she also ultimately winds up together with - which, of course, is, where the realism stops again, but then, you never know...
Wrap the whole thing up in the well-flavored humor, pretty decent acting, and try to ignore the seen-it-a-thousand-times-before "N.Y. = Fairyland" backdrop, and you'll find yourself an actually thoroughly enjoyable film.
Every now and then something happens that threatens to shake all my "Woe-is-America" convictions and what some people would term anti-American sentiments in its foundations.
I think the first thing one would have to say about this movie is, that it's refreshingly different. Maybe only so because of the performance of the main actor, a kid I'd never heard about, (Anton Yelchin,) or maybe because it was made in Canada...
Love is forever, and if this movie doesn't prove it - since it's based on a novel - then at least it proves that there are other dreamers beside myself who believe it.
Set against the backdrop of one of the most gloriously beautiful countries on God's earth, "Love In the Time of Cholera" tells a slightly different love story, one perhaps too good to be true, and yet in some ways more true to life than the evening news, and definitely truer than the outgrowths of Hollywood's pop culture with its never ending hails to youth, and labeling anything past a certain age as unfit for life.
That's probably what I love most about this movie: it tells the truth about who really are the dead ones and who are the alive, or at least rings home the fact that love - as well as life (truly lived) does not have anything to do with age.
During the first few minutes into "Lions for Lambs" I thought I was watching Another 15 minutes into the movie I figured this must have been the smartest piece of U.S. propaganda I had ever watched.
Thankfully, it turned out to be no Neocon propaganda, after all, just a pretty good screen monument to the times we're living in, some sort of "golden finger" on the pulse of our times. The type that carries a message, which, sadly, will require a miracle for any significant amount of people to grasp, but part of the message was that it doesn't matter if it's just a single person who gets it, as long as that person does something about it for a change.
As someone who grew up on the '71 album "Who's Next" by "The Who," THE album by that band that's worth listening to, I was particularly thrilled about the little historic gem woven into this film when Meryl Streep (posing as awakening journalist Janine Roth) quotes one of my favorite songs from the album. A line that has come to my mind repeatedly in my life, whenever I see one regime or administration replaced by another, only to change absolutely nothing, especially not for the better: "Meet the new boss; the same as the old boss!" - Taken from the classical piece of rock music "Won't Get Fooled Again."
Except that the title couldn't be further from the truth. If there's anything that hits you about the general public per se, it's that they've been fooled over and over and over again since the song came out.
The bad guys in the movie are the politicians, sharing the blame with the news media, and the ray of hope is supposedly the beacon of education. What American producers like Robert Redford lack the guts to realize, of course, is that the sacred golden cow of education is just as much a hoax as politics and the media, and what's worse, movie makers who paint a reality a far cry from what's really happening. As long as people around the world can keep their Hollywood scope of things, the world isn't desperate enough yet for anyone to actually do something else besides watch movies and talk, even though this one was at least an effort to be a voice for the truth, even if the trumpet is sounding a signal that won't be understood by many, much less spur more than a handful to action, or even more than that special, chosen one...
Everybody has heard about the big bad guys like Hitler and Stalin, and maybe a few others. This movie tells the story of one more of the probably countless other little Hitlers most of us have never heard about and some of his victims. It makes you wonder where the people who stood up against them in spite of the odds took the courage. But they did. Somehow God must have given it to them, and in the end, the good side finally won. It has always been like that, and it will always be like that, even during the time of the greatest Hitler this world will have ever seen.
I’m not into soccer, and if you’re not either, this movie might help you relate to those who are, plus get a glimpse of Indian immigrant culture in England…
In the light of how we’ve become just another monkey see, monkey do society, my admiration for those who dare to stick out & rise above the norm grows by the hour. Two such people were Sophie and Hans Scholl, who died for their convictions of what was right.
While I wouldn’t recommend this movie for everyone, nor consider it doctrinally kosher (like the role of “Gabriel” in this movie – ouch!), it generally does have a positive slant in the end, and any movie in which the Devil is licked gives me a little bit of personal satisfaction…
The comedy is just that, a neat little comedy, until you begin to realize how much we’re all like the girl in the movie, who has to be reminded each day anew of who she really is, and how much she’s being loved.
Sweet movie about the contrast between latino culture and average white suburbia, (for the viewer to decide which of the two is more real,) plus the conflicts that can arise from the same… 
What I liked about this movie is the wise warning Achilles receives from his mother before going to Troy: “Your great exploits are your downfall.” Seems like whatever efforts we make to make a name for us and make ourselves immortal, that stuff always kills us…
I liked the lessons on discipline and loyalty in this movie, though younger folks might find it a bit too slow…
Time travel movie of a slightly different sort, which brings out the qualities of the past (they weren’t all dumb Neanderthalers a hundred years ago, you know), which turns out to be the destination of choice for the protagonists… “Back to the past”, instead of “Back to the future…”
Finally a Gospel movie that stuck to the book! No Nicodemuses in broad daylight, no mother Maries crawling on marbles floors, no happy-go-lucky Hollywood Jesus, just the good old and plain Gospel truth, portrayed in the most powerful, blunt and yet anointed way ever. Henry Ian Cusack is the best Jesus you've ever seen on a screen!
One of my absolute top favorites, and, apart from the "monkey scene," in my opinion one of the top ten efforts to bring across God's point through the movies, especially for people who think they've been cheated by life... How anyone can give higher ratings to the recent sequel "Evan Almighty" perfectly eludes me.
