SEVEN POUNDS

SEVEN POUNDS: THE HYPE BETTER THAN THE ACTUAL FILM

This is Will Smith's world and we're just living in it. When this film was in theaters I heard so many people talking about it without really saying anything. The movie trailers didn't really show anything either. So, I finally sat down and watched. All I saw was Will Smith. Ben Thomas (Smith) did something very, very, very bad. So now, he is finding people. How he got their names and information is a HUGE stretch of reality. SPOILER ALERT! So, after finding all seven people, we discover that he caused a car crash that killed his fiancee and the occupants of the other vehicle. DON'T TEXT AND DRIVE! Now we see what Will Smith is doing and his last action is to "swim with a jellyfish" which stings and kills him. His executor makes sure the organs are donated accordingly. In concept, it is an interesting premise. However, I missed out on the emotional connection everyone else has seemed to make. It just didn't speak to me.
BITE ME: Interesting plot that feels empty inside. I didn't need a Kleenex.

MIRRORS

MIRRORS NEED A GOOD CLEANING

Ex policeman Ben Carson (Kieffer Sutherland) takes a job working at a former department store which was burned so many years previous. He is a recovering alcoholic who lives with his sister until he can make amends to his family. Earnestly trying to begin again, Ben takes the job and not long after, scary things start to happen. After a while, Ben questions his own sanity before remembering his police academy training and launching an investigation on his own. This begins as a good thriller/horror story, and even continues to be until the end where things go terribly wrong. Anyone have an idea of what the department store used to be? The number one greatest place to tell a ghost story. This wasn't a terrible film (a remake of "Espelhos da Morte", Mirrors of Death), but that doesn't make it good.

BITE: Even if not very good, it still makes for ghastly and thrilling fare before the cornball ending.

FROZEN RIVER

FROZEN RIVER NOT TOO COLD

What an amazing and fresh film. There are not many movies like this that really show an American reality of living from paycheck to paycheck, in an uneducated, low income family. Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo) is the single mother of two boys; one that can see the reality and one that is too young to have been corrupted by life. She was nominated and should have won that Oscar. Ray is real, raw and rough around the edges. She gets mixed up in a "get rich quick" scheme, all in the name of buying a new trailer home for her family. Misty Upham plays Lila Littlewolf, Ray's co-conspirator. Neither of them look like they are acting. Upham says so much by saying so little. Fantastic, even so bleak, of a film.

BITE: Stunning performances and an interesting plot. What more could you ask for?