Movie Poster 1951

I liked Keanu Reeves interpretation of Klaatu. This is an update, and updates invite comparisons. I liked it overall, however I did not like the part of the Kid. He was the Brat From Hell. Jaden Smith, Son of Will Smith Plays the kid. He plays the part so well you keep wishing Jennifer Connelly would give him a swat across the rear. Jennifer Connelly was excellent. This movie is cerebral just as the original. Not a lot of flash or whiz bangs, but enough to keep it interesting. I rented it in Blue Ray, which also makes it a bit more interesting. I recommend it.

ANNA PAQUIN

Set in a rural, swampy Louisiana parish, the show centers around Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) and her clan, Season 2 is more Sexier, the story-line is more muscular, and new and mysterious characters have joined the clan. Also they are beginning to get into back stories of some of the vampires and how they were created. Season 2 takes the story into the state of Texas. Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis) finds himself in a very bad situation, but Sookie comes to the rescue. Each episode leaves you wondering what the heck is going to happen next. Season 2 takes you more and more to the Dark Side. Anna Paquin, the award winning lead actor gives another superior performance in each and every episode. Season 1 was great, Season 2 is fantastic. Well worth renting, I highly recommend it.  During the second season, the influence of Maryann Forrester and the conflict between vampires and humans is expanded. Most of the cast from the first season returns and several new main characters are introduced. The same style of interconnected story telling used in the first season is repeated, with the foremost plot focusing on Maryann Forrester being revealed as a maenad.  While Maryann begins establishing her hold on Bon Temps, Sookie is recruited by Eric to investigate the disappearance of his 2000 year old maker and the sheriff of Area 9 in Texas: Godric (Allan Hyde).While Sookie is absent from Bon Temps, Sam hires Daphne Landry (Ashley Jones) to join the Merlotte’s staff. Daphne begins a romance with Sam, is revealed to be a shapeshifter, and then later also exposed as working for Maryann. Jason also leaves Bon Temps for Dallas to join the Fellowship of the Sun, which Reverend Newlin has steered in a new militant direction despite the protestation of his wife Sarah (Anna Camp). It’s discovered that Godric is in the custody of the Fellowship,and one of Godric’s lieutenants, Isabel (Valerie Cruz), sends her human boyfriend Hugo (Christopher Gartin)to assist Sookie in infiltrating the church. Though Eric’s primary interest in Dallas is finding Godric, he also attempts to place himself between Sookie and Bill. To accomplish this, he enlists the aid of Bill’s maker Lorena (Mariana Klaveno); making a more prominent contribution to the cast after a brief introduction in the first season. In the penultimate episode of the second season, once the conflict in Texas is concluded, the vampire queen of Louisiana Sophie-Anne (Evan Rachel Wood) is introduced. Both Bill and Eric visit her in an attempt to find out how to defeat Maryann.

Anna Paquin

Anna Paquin & her Beau Vampire Bill

Beautiful and Sexy Paz Vega

PAZ VEGA is CARMEN: I loved this film, because of the story, the acting, the beautiful cinematography. This is one of the Sexier Carmen’s. Paz Vega wears the character of CARMEN as if she was born to play the part. A sexy, very breathy Carmen, a woman who gets very close and touchy with the men in her orbit. She says she has made a pact with the devil. This is a dark and almost demonic Carmen. A Carmen that invites men to the Dark Side. She demands violence from her suitors, and when other women gets in her way, she will draw blood. This is a lusty Carmen, very sexy, and there is ample nudity. This Carmen is even nude in church. It is worth renting.

Vega made her television debut in the Spanish TV series, Menudo es mi padre, which starred pint-sized rumba singer El Fary. After appearing in two other series in 1997 – Mas que amigos and teen drama Compañeros – she went on to grace the silver screen in 1999 in Zapping. The same year she also had a minor role in the David Menkes movie I Will Survive (Sobreviviré) alongside Emma Suárez, Juan Diego Botto and a cameo from Boy George.

She made her big break in 7 Vidas, also in 1999. The series was billed as a Spanish Friends and went on to become one of the country’s best-loved domestic sitcoms. Vega played Laura, a perky Andalusian girl who had come to stay with David, who had recently come out of a coma. The series was broadcast on Telecinco and finished April 12, 2006, albeit without Vega. The saucy 2001 film Sex and Lucia brought the actress to the attention of a larger audience. She then became much better known in the United States after a star-making role in the 2004 James L. Brooks film Spanglish opposite Adam Sandler. In 2007, she co-starred with Morgan Freeman in the independent film 10 Items or Less. In 2008, she co-starred with Gabriel Macht, Samuel L. Jackson, and Scarlett Johansson in The Spirit. Vega is also a model. She is signed to 1/One Management in New York City.

Paz Vega very Sexy

The Lovely Paz Vega

Ernie Dingo & Cate Blanchett

Burned Bridge is a brave and confronting 13-part series about the mysterious death of an Aboriginal girl in (Brooklyn Waters) a small coastal town. Burned Bridge is a love story involving two people convinced of the innocence of the prime suspect. Cate Blanchett, & Ernie Dingo are the lovers, this was very controversial when this film was made. Ernie Dingo heads a fine cast in Burned Bridge. He plays Vincent Burunga, the Aboriginal Liaison Officer at Brooklyn Waters who lives on the razor’s edge between loyalty to his people and and his official Government job as Liaison Officer. Cate Blanchett plays Beth Ashton, while recovering from divorce she inherits her grandfather’s estate in Brooklyn Waters. She arrives as an outsider but discovers more about her grandfather’s life. She finds out that her grandfather has had several children by Aboriginal women. Beth is now a blood relative of several inhabitants of Brooklyn Waters. The growing relationship between Burunga and Ashton is put to the test, having to survive the hostility between the Aboriginal and white communities as well as the obstacles of their very different backgrounds, attitudes and cultures. Cate Blanchett gets a challenging and confronting insight into his background when she travels with him to his home in outback Western Australia where traditional law is still strong within the community. Ernie Dingo must deal with her urban white environment when they pursue the accused youths case in Sydney. The third piece of the mini-series concerns the people of the Binbilla Aboriginal community just outside of Brooklyn Waters and its battle to reconstruct their community in their own way and restore their self-esteem. This is a strong and very satisfying series, Cate Blanchett before she was Cate Blanchett. She later Starred in Elizabeth, and the rest is history, as they say. I highly recommend it. well worth renting.

DOMINIC CARTER

POMONA, N.Y. — Big political names abound in New York: Mario Cuomo. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Rudy Giuliani. And for political climbers seeking a stage in the media, a platform to join or displace the powerhouses, the man to go through for years was Dominic Carter — until last month.

Carter, a longtime political anchor for New York City’s cable news channel with influence that spread well beyond the nation’s largest city, recently took a far, fast fall in a bizarre cascade of events that began last month when charges that he beat his wife became public.

That led to his being pulled off the air by managers at NY1; revelations of contentious workplace behavior; his wife’s recantation of the abuse allegation and a new story that a day laborer beat her; and dubious reports that he was considering suicide. A judge could rule this week on the domestic assault case after papers are filed Thursday.

This from a man photographed with Donald Trump and Caroline Kennedy and once introduced by “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer as the person most likely to have his finger on the story about Kennedy’s prospects of becoming a U.S. senator.

Carter did not respond to an e-mail or answer his doorbell in attempts to seek comment for this story, and his home phone is unlisted.

The morning after Mayor Michael Bloomberg won re-election to a third term Nov. 3, a pile of newspapers lay untouched in the driveway outside the house belonging to the 46-year-old Carter. For the first time since 1992, he wasn’t around to work because of the leave of absence he had taken five days earlier.

Kenneth Sherrill, a political science professor at New York City’s Hunter College, called Carter a “kind of an iconic figure in that if you’re a political junkie or you’re active in politics, or for that matter if you want to be an informed citizen, there wasn’t much choice other than to watch ‘Inside City Hall’ every night.”

Carter was pulled off the air the day of his Oct. 29 hearing and hasn’t come back.

“We have no plans for him to return since he has personal issues to resolve,” NY1’s general manager, Steve Paulus, said shortly after Carter’s departure.

But he said Tuesday that “we’re awaiting a final resolution. Dominic hasn’t been convicted of anything yet.”

His sudden demise interrupted a career that made him a familiar face on New York City television and gave him influence in city and state politics. He had been with NY1 since it was launched in 1992 and had interviewed every major New York politician.

The nightly “Inside City Hall” was “watched by the people who watched politics, who were in the know or wanted to be in the know,” said Douglas Muzzio, a politics professor at Baruch College.

Carter “always seemed like a street kid and had a street kid’s sensibility and a street kid’s nose for bull,” Muzzio said.

Though Carter projected a certain image on camera, his personal history wasn’t always so controlled. In 2007, he described childhood abuse at the hands of his mentally ill mother while growing up in the Bronx in a memoir called “No Momma’s Boy.”

And turmoil apparently carried over into his workplace relationships. Paulus acknowleged that “there have been incidents involving many employees” at the newsroom with Carter, but he wouldn’t say whether the arguments grew physical.

“I’m not saying Dominic didn’t, but I’m not attaching any importance to it,” Paulus said. “It’s a newsroom.”

Carter bragged about his political connections during the assault case at a hearing in December as he sought a quick dismissal.

“I covered the state attorney general and chief judge of the court of the state of New York,” he told Ramapo Town Justice Arnold Etelson, according to a court transcript. He also called former state Chief Judge Judith Kaye and Manhattan District Attorney Bob Morgenthau “personal friends.”

The assault complaint by Carter’s wife of 24 years, Marilyn, was more than a year old when it was first publicized. Carter said then that prosecutors had leaked the complaint because they were about to lose the case.

“I am about to be vindicated,” Carter said. “This was all a misunderstanding.”

Assistant District Attorney Richard Moran played a 911 tape on which Marilyn Carter told police that her husband “hit me several times in my face, my back, my stomach, all over my body.”

He showed the judge photos of her swollen lip, cut ear and a bruised arm and leg. The policeman who answered her call testified her clothing contained drops of blood.

Marilyn Carter recanted the charge, saying that a day laborer whose name she couldn’t remember beat her instead. She said she told police her husband had beat her because she was angry about an argument they had about care for their epileptic son.

The prosecutor suggested she was lying to preserve her marriage and her husband’s livelihood.

When the judge said he would reserve decision, Carter complained from the defense table, pleading that unless he was quickly cleared, “My career is over.”

On the weekend after the trial, they traveled to Kansas City, Mo., and someone identified as a family member called the hotel, supposedly fearing Carter was considering suicide.

Carter told police he was fine but said his wife was missing. She was found the next day at the Kansas City airport and said she simply wanted to get home early, a police spokesman said.

“Inside City Hall” has continued with replacements for Carter. Sherrill said he’ll miss Carter’s “good sense of theater, as well as his good sense of politics.”

“He was a rather aggressive interrogator,” Sherrill said. “You’d hear his voice booming out, ‘Are you telling me … ?’ and you’d know he thought it was something surprising or shocking or newsworthy.”

ANNE HATHAWAY

Rachel Getting Married is a tense look at a dysfunctional family coming together around a wedding. This is a Anne Hathaway Showcase. It is certainly an award winning performance of a woman tormented by the past, and daily fighting the daemon alcohol and the daemon drug. Kym out of rehab for the weekend to go to her sisters’ wedding must face every one of her daemons. It is a heart-tugging watch, not a tearjerker but exhausting, also because it is a wedding it is a celebration, and it is beautiful to watch. I loved this movie and I highly recommend it.

Rachida Brakni

CHAOS. The best movie I have seen all year!!!, and last year as well. This is why I love movies, why I rent movies, because every now and then you come across a gem. This movie reminds me of “DIVA”, but it is ten times better the DIVA. It starts with a bang when an Algerian prostitute named Noemie begs for a ride from Paul and his wife Helene as they drive by the scene of her merciless beating at the hands of three pimps. Paul locks the doors and, after the pimps have gone, leaving Noemie unconscious, Paul gets out of the car only to wipe Noemie’s blood off the windshield. The story is about Noemie and the the other female characters’ struggles to find individuality and freedom from under the thumb of the men in their lives. But the film doesn’t stop there – it also makes observations (and hence, commentary) about French society, Muslim cultures, and a variety of other aspects of modern life. The movie starts off fast and it does not slow down a bit. I loved this movie, it is CHAOS. A GEM. THE BEST MOVIE I HAVE SEEN THIS YEAR.

CHAOS POSTER

SCARLETT JOHANNSON

Scarlett Johannson perfectly embodies the great melting pot nature of New York City – her father is a Danish architect and her mother an Ashkenazi Jew from the Bronx. They grew up with very little money, and her mother’s love for film served as a common point that they could rally around. Scarlett attended the prestigious Professional Childrens’ School and began acting in childhood. We first sat up and took notice with her role in the graphic novel adaptation Ghost World, but her real breakthrough came with 2003’s Lost In Translation, where she kept up with Bill Murray without breaking a sweat. Many more roles followed, as the Rubenesque beauty brought her creamy, milk-white skin and gorgeous body to the screen in films as diverse as Michael Bay’s The Island and Woody Allen’s Match Point. Throw in a music career and a ton of charity work and you have one class act who’s easy on the eyes.

SANDRA BULLOCK

LOS ANGELES — Sandra Bullock looks like a movie star as she lounges in a swanky hotel suite. She’s resplendent in her expensive chocolate designer dress and perfectly styled hair.

The actress’ facade might be resting comfortably in La-la Land, but her heart’s in her adopted hometown of Austin, Texas, where she lives with her husband Jesse James.

Bullock left the hairy Hollywood hype for the less pretentious Texan city almost seven years ago when she came to the conclusion that all the glitz was getting her glum.

As far as she’s concerned, L.A.’s a nice place to promote a movie, but she wouldn’t want to exist here anymore.

Those were the days, though. She had her Speed breakthrough, followed by another hit, While You Were Sleeping, and then there was the treadmill of movie upon movie.

Some were good, some not so good and some were in between — until 2000’s Miss Congeniality had Bullock showing up as producer and star.

Nothing improved for her, though. And along the way, she realized she was all about being a part of the movie business, not about being herself.

Now she’s the happily married owner of a downtown Austin bakery, but was in the city of angels to chat about her latest film, The Blind Side, which opens Nov. 20.

Based on a Michael Lewis non-fiction book, the John Lee Hancock movie version follows the teen years of pro football player, Michael Oher.

A homeless vagrant in Memphis, the picture tracks Oher, who’s allowed to enrol on a sports scholarship at Briarcrest Christian School, and is subsequently adopted by the school’s backers, the Tuohy family.

Bullock plays the feisty southern belle Leigh Anne Tuohy, who leads the charge to make the African-American Oher (Quinton Aaron) feel comfortable at the all-white Christian school and pushes him to excel at school and on the gridiron.

Country star Tim McGraw plays Leigh Anne’s husband, Sean. Real-life U.S. college coaches such as Nick Saban, Lou Holtz, Phil Fulmer and Tommy Tuberville have cameos.

Still, the driving force is Bullock. So it’s surprising to learn that Bullock initially turned down the role, which seems so right for her on screen.

“But I kept thinking it wasn’t going to work for me,” the 45-year-old says. “Politically, I am not like that person at all, and I don’t buy the Christians who use their banner like a shield.”

Writer-director Hancock, who spent time with the Tuohys to develop the film, persuaded Bullock to visit the family at their Memphis mansion.

The filmmaker says he knew Bullock would respond to the type-A personality. And she did.

Besides being exhausted from spending the day with Leigh Anne, Bullock admits she eventually became impressed with her, because “she walks the walk, and doesn’t just talk the talk.”

“And you don’t meet an energy like Leigh Anne’s, ever,” adds the actress. “So when I decided to do it, I felt a sense of fear in trying to tackle the portrayal, but also a sense of obligation.”

There was another reason she hesitated. Bullock doesn’t like to waste her time making a movie for the sake of it.

She did that too many times to count, during her “churning-them-out” phase, and she wasn’t always thrilled with the results, professionally, or with the after-effects, personally.

“Now, when I stare at a stack of scripts, I can’t bear to open them,” she admits. “I don’t want to step into that world. I want to enjoy where I am.”

That new Austin attitude seems to be working for her.

Pre-release buzz for Bullock’s Blind Side performance has been enthusiastic.

Last summer, she had a big hit with the romantic comedy, The Proposal, which earned an impressive $296 million US worldwide at the box office.

That’s thanks to Bullock, the lots-of-laughs script, and an oft-discussed scene when a nude Bullock slams into equally nude co-star Ryan Reynolds.

“Aside from all the right people and the right elements being in the right place,” jokes Bullock, “I think that the nudity in The Proposal had a great deal to do with it. Had I known, I would have done it a long time ago.”