Woody Allen announced today the full cast for his upcoming MIDNIGHT IN PARIS. This is his latest film which is now in pre-production. The film stars, in alphabetical order:  Kathy Bates, Adrien Brody, Carla Bruni, Marion Cotillard, Rachel McAdams, Michael Sheen and Owen Wilson. Co-starring in the film, in alphabetical order, are:  Nina Arianda, Kurt Fuller, Tom Hiddleston, Mimi Kennedy, Alison Pill and Corey Stoll. The film shoots this summer in Paris.

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS is a romantic comedy that follows a family travelling to the city for business. The party includes a young engaged couple that has their lives transformed throughout the journey. The film celebrates a young man’s great love for Paris, and simultaneously explores the illusion people have that a life different from their own is better.

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS is produced by Letty Aronson, Steve Tenenbaum and Jaume Roures. It is part of a three-picture financing deal between Allen’s Gravier Productions and Mediapro, the Spain-based company which also funded Allen’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” and the upcoming “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” to be released domestically by Sony Pictures Classics this fall. Imagina International Sales is handling international sales for MIDNIGHT IN PARIS for most territories.

What do you think? With a cast like that it should be a home run right?

It has been a  cold, cold winter.

Snow has been piled high here in Baltimore since late January and it’s been raining down indiscriminately from the heavens since mid December. Snow shovels have become my ally and stolen parking spaces the bane of my existence, but the promise of spring looks set to melt that all away.

Unless, of course the chill returns and with it more seasonal storms. Thanks to the recent blizzards, we are entering the merry month of March and all of us are still looking over our shoulders, waiting for Jack Frost to give us an icy wedgie.

And when you are there, lodged in your home, with no way to get out, it’s understandable that a bit of stir craziness might set in. What better way to counteract that than with some good old fashioned cinematic madness?

Here’s hoping the rest of the year is smooth sailing from a meteorological standpoint, but if it isn’t, here are ten creepy chillers you can snuggle up with on a cold evening:

30 Days of Night-

Before they were fey emo poets, vampires were not just fearsome entities but walking signposts of death and decay. When you get down to it, what better season for the Nosferatu than winter? The sun is dim, the evenings long and the days short, and with everyone wrapped up tight and shivering, it’s easier to go unnoticed. Lately, we have had a trio of cinematic vampires who have chosen the dreary northern climes to inhabit; Frostbiten, Let the Right One In, and this comic adaptation that sees a tribe of dying vamps lay waste to a town in Alaska during a month of perpetual darkness. The other two films fall out of the range of horror/thriller but 30 Days has the creepy color palette, the perfect menace, and the right setting for a terribly enjoyable action/horror romp. Hartnett isn’t the most believable action hero, but Danny Huston as the head vamp is a baddie with real menace. When the remaining survivors discover a young girl who has been bitten, the creep factor goes through the roof.

Wind Chill-

I never really took inventory of Emily Blunt until I saw this 2006 indie ghost story that casts her as a self absorbed college student who catches a ride home with a guy on campus she doesn’t really know. Then, the two find themselves stranded together on a freezing back road during Christmas break. Sound romantic? It isn’t. In addition to the mounting unease that Blunt feels when she realizes her driving buddy might be a stalker, there’s also the possibility of hypothermia setting in before they are rescued, and the fact that the road they broke-down on is inhabited by a plethora of real ghosts. Blunt really delivers a strong performance and for entire chunks of the movie she is alone, pitted against the supernatural forces of this stretch of highway. There’s a feel of Jack London survival stories in all of the tragic details and in the nature of the ghosts themselves, who are playing out a long forgotten misery that traps all who come that way. It’s not a classic, but it does what it does effectively with a good amount of spookiness.

Transsiberian-

The atmosphere alone in Brad Anderson’s wintry suspense thriller makes it worthy of a place on this list. Anderson, who has channeled unspoken fears before in Session 9 and The Machinist,tells the story of a couple of missionaries (Mortimer and Harrelson) riding a train from China to Moscow, meeting up with a sketchy young couple, and getting involved with murder, international intrigue and a stone-faced Ben Kingsley who looks ready to snap. Mortimer and Harrelson have an odd chemistry as the couple, and Kingsley flip-flops between sinister and benign. All of this helps craft an uneasy sense that we can’t trust anything we see. The desolate, snowy scenery is matched against the cramped, claustrophobic confines of the train to deliver a thriller that moves single-minded about the business of fraying our nerves. Hitchcock would be proud of this one.

Ravenous-

Foreboding and gritty, Ravenous is half thriller, half dark comic farce. All of it is revolting in a thematic way. Guy Pearce and Robert Carlyle play two opposing forces battling it out at a military outpost in the Sierra Nevadas circa 1847. Pearce is Boyd, a disgraced soldier sent to the fort as punishment by his superior, and Carlye is  Colqhoun, a pioneer whose party was lost in the wilderness and went cannibalistic. Colqhoun is the only survivor and he finds he not only has a taste for human flesh, but in keeping with Native American legend, he can absorb his victim’s power. The stage is set for all kinds of dark hi jinks as Carlyle starts eating his way through the outpost, and making converts as he goes. The cinematography is stunning and beautiful and director Bird captures several disconcerting shots of suspicious meat cooking on the stove. A thoughtful and cheerfully gross horror movie that will help curb that winter desire to snack all day.

Misery-

Got cabin fever? Well, no one handles the idea of cabin fever or interior isolation better than Stephen King, who has two titles on this list. There’s even a snowstorm in this one, albeit it mostly serves as a plot device to keep James Caan’s Paul Sheldon in the helpless care of the psychopathic Annie Wilkes, played to passive-aggressive perfection by Kathy Bates. What Annie does to Paul over the course of months he is in her ‘care’ ranges from subversively funny to downright harrowing. If you ever end up house bound as a result of the weather, or have to hole up for an extended period of time with company that isn’t exactly cheerful, just remember Sheldon’s misfortunes and that hot cocoa will taste all the sweeter. To this day, I can’t watch that scene involving the sledgehammer and Caan’s ankles without turning away.

Cold Prey-

A Swedish production and little known here in the US, Cold Prey is one of the best slasher films in recent memory and the arctic setting has almost everything to do with that. A couple of ski buddies head up to a remote and abandoned (aren’t they always?) resort in the mountains and there they find a force bent on dispatching them one by one. I gave up on dead teenager movies ages ago, but the style and suspense of Cold Preyreally works. The snow-capped mountains and ice glaciers are a spectacular canvas upon which to splash a little blood and viscera. The killer, a hulking giant in a snow parka, is a satisfying villain and among the ranks of the hapless youngsters, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal proves she can swing an ice-pick with the best of them. The perfect remedy for that long-distance ski vacation you’ve been planning. The film also has a sequel which manages to be similarly unnerving.

Runaway Train-

Based on a screenplay by the legendary Akira Kurosawa, Runaway Train is an action spectacle that never lets up and what really makes it sing are the performances by Jon Voight and Eric Roberts and the dazzling, snowy landscapes that the train hurtles through as it heads towards it’s destination. Runaway Train has a harsh, near existential quality to it that distinguishes it from other thrillers of the same era. Voight and Roberts, as two prisoners trying to make a getaway, are seemingly up against the whole universe in their bid for freedom. Although there’s much that feels metaphorical, the frozen, craggy wasteland that these men are thrust into pushes reality and consequence front and center. Intelligent, emotional and entertaining, Runaway Train is the perfect popcorn thriller for a cold afternoon.

A Simple Plan-

Quite possibly Sam Raimi’s best movie, and probably one of the most underrated, A Simple Plan captures the melancholy and eerie loneliness that can accompany a long winter. Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton are brothers who stumble upon a bag of money in a downed plane while they are out hunting. With Paxton’s wife Bridget Fonda, playing lady Macbeth, Paxton, Thornton and a family friend conspire to keep the money for themselves and then things begin to go amiss and haywire. A treatise on greed and the dangerous nature of moral compromise, A Simple Plan is heartbreaking in its emotional depiction of a family pulling apart in the face of temptation. Thornton, particularly, is poignant as a man who isn’t terribly bright, but is enough so that he understands how it is exactly that he doesn’t fit in. Paxton is compelling as a good man driven quickly and devastatingly from the path. The shivery scenery casts exactly the right funeral pall for the film’s events. Crows dangle menacingly from an icy tree and Thornton muses contemplatively “They eat dead things. What a weird job to have.”

The Shining-

The granddaddy classic of all isolated paranoid thrillers involving winter, Kubrick’s The Shining deviates significantly from the events of King’s book, but it is terrifying and scary nonetheless. Kubrick makes the Overlook a most menacing antagonist through long angle shots, still frames, and tracking scenes that capture the disquieting and the unsettling with no particular fanfare. When evil blossoms in such a potentially mundane scenario, everything becomes charged with fear very quickly. Images of swirling snow, and gently falling flakes have the same effect upon our psyche, and I don’t think there has ever been a more perfect use of interior/exterior contrast where setting is concerned. Forget all of that though, and you still have the main attraction; Jack going crazy and stalking his wife and child with an axe through the art deco halls of the Overlook. The ultimate family dysfunction winter madness medley, this one gets me every time.

The Thing-

This is it, the most distressing and sneaky piece of cold weather paranoia I have ever laid eyes on. John Carpenter designs a foreboding atmosphere with this Antarctic base camp and the star ship long frozen in the snow. It adopts all of the functions of the original Howard Hawks movie but it skews more closely to the short story “Who Goes There?” when it comes the shape-shifting identity of the monster. Kurt Russell testing the blood with fire to determine who among the crew isn’t what he appears to be is spine-tingling tension at its very best. The gooey fx that include a head on spindly spider legs, mutated husky dogs, and Wilford Brimley trying to eat his coworkers are still neat all these years later. I also appreciate the way the weather conditions are presented as merciless and dangerous, and don’t take a side seat once the alien terror shows up. There are few horror movies that work as well as The Thing and fewer still that stick with us when they are over.

How about you? Is there a particular movie that evokes the icy dread of winter? Any titles I missed that help reinforce that feeling of unease when the white stuff starts falling? Share with us below!

How do you feel about Valentine’s Day?

Are you one of those romantics who buys into it wholeheartedly, anticipating the day so you can lavish your loved one with affection and attention? Maybe you  just enjoy getting caught-up in the kitsch of candy hearts, roses and chocolates? Or are you one of the others, who thinks the holiday is a cheap and shameless ploy by the card companies to cash-in on romantic feeling? Maybe it’s all a scam by couples to make single people feel like crap? Have I hit one of your buttons yet?

Well, if you aren’t in the camp you enjoys the kitsch or wholeheartedly buys into the ethos of the holiday, then you should stay far, far away from Garry Marshall’s Valentine’s Day. It has been created with a singular, shallow purpose; cash in on the moonstruck miasma already associated with the day.

In fact, I can’t even guarantee that if you like the holiday, you will enjoy the movie. There isn’t a worthwhile character or thoughtful sentiment in the entire thing. Marshall has produced by-the-numbers claptrap before, but this is his epic of empty feeling. A mammoth herd of stars show up and tromp through several vignettes following a variety of people living through February 14th from start to finish.

I was reminded of Richard Curtis’ Love Actually, where a formidable and lively cast portrayed characters living and loving their way through  Christmas.  This movie has little of that one’s charm, and none of its substance and wit. Curtis may have packed his picture full of twee sentiment, but he had the courage of his convictions. The only conviction that V-Day has is the unfortunate belief that a well-placed pop song will cure any flat or tedious scene. There’s alot of music here as a result.

Are there any highlights? Well, if you enjoy seeing actors you recognize playing themselves and vindicating all those cheesy romantic feelings you have always had about the magic of Valentine’s Day, then maybe. Otherwise, there are snippets of humor and flashes of feeling, but they are buried underneath the grueling script which feels more like an airline schedule than a plot, making sure each thread is taking off and landing on time.

Among the cast, I found Jennifer Garner to be the most appealing and likable performer. She’s playing a woman named Julia who is circling potential romantic entanglement with her best bud, Reed, who also happens to run a florist shop on V-Day (how cute). There’s not enough here for her to do anything significant with the character, but she has the energy and the sweetness necessary to make something like this work. Maybe if the film had focused solely on her and Kutcher’s Reed it would have stood a better chance. Instead it throws us Julia Roberts, Hector Elizando, Jamie Foxx, Jessica Biel, Topher Grace, Patrick Dempsey, Taylor Lautner, Anne Hathaway, Kathy Bates, George Lopez and Queen Latifah. I could have done without the lot of them. Well, ok, we can keep Latifah. She’s also one of the few bright spots.

Valentine’s Day is a movie without a single surprise. If you watch the trailer right now, you will understand everything that wants to be said, and what will happen to all of the characters. You will also know if it’s a movie you will like. If you find yourself rolling your eyes, you’re better off sitting this V-Day out.

Rating: ★½☆☆☆ 

In preparing to write this review I struggled with how I wanted to approach the movie and the review. For those of you that know me, I am a Baltimore native and a first-generation fan of the Baltimore Ravens. When the Ravens drafted Michael Oher in the recent 2009 NFL Draft it was all over ESPN and the NFL Network that a movie about his extraordinary young life was being filmed. From April till now I lobbied every month to be able to review this movie. When the trailer came out in September I started lobbying even harder. Eventually I was given the golden ticket to see the early screening. Why was this movie, out of all the other movies I have seen and will see, so big for me? Part of it was the civic pride of seeing one of my guys, a Baltimore Raven, have a story about him on the big screen. The other part was to see why so much was written and said about Michael Oher and to learn why his life turned out the way it is and lead him to Charm City (one of many nicknames for Baltimore).

Director John Lee Hancock takes the real life story of Michael Oher and brings it to the big screen not as a documentary but as a “based on true events” movie. Hollywood liberties were taken as the high school Oher attended and the name of the football team he played for were both renamed; the school is now the Wingate Christian School and the team is the Crusaders.  JLH also made the character of Michael Oher appear slower and dumber then he really was at that time – I’m sure this was done to help bolster the drama of the movie.

Michael Oher’s story started at an early age when he was removed from his mother’s home due to her addiction to crack cocaine. He repeated both the first and second grade and attended eleven different schools during his first nine years as a student. During this time he was also in various foster homes and eventually would run away from the foster home to look for his mother. During his senior year of high school, Oher learned that his father, who he hadn’t seen in years, was murdered.

The Blind Side focuses on Michael Oher’s sophomore and junior years of high school. We first meet Michael Oher (played by Quinton Aaron) as he is being driven to the Wingate Christian School by the father of a friend with whom he was living, sleeping on his couch. At the school, his friend’s father Tony Henderson meets with the coach of the football team in hopes of getting his own son, Tony Jr., and Michael, into the school. The coach takes some interest in Michael but the school administrators don’t think that he fits, nor would he be capable of handling the school’s workload. His grades are below average and he was passed from grade to grade just so the next teacher would have to deal with him – no one took the time to try and help or teach Michael. One teacher, Mrs Boswell (played by Kim Dickens) fights to allow Michael into the school and says that she will help him learn and get his grade point average up to passing level.

During this time Michael leaves his friend’s house due to issues within that household. Because of this, Michael has been living at the school in the gymnasium or at the local laundromat in town. The night before Thanksgiving, Sean and Leigh Ann Tuohy (played by Tim McGraw and Sandra Bullock) with their son S. J. (played by Jae Head) are heading home from the school when they see Michael walking on the side of the road on a cold and rainy night heading in the direction of the school. Feeling sad for Michael, the Tuohy’s offer to take Michael back to their home so he can get a warm night’s sleep. Leigh Ann starts to help Michael by offering to take him shopping for new clothes as well as hire a tutor (played by Kathy Bates) to help him bring the GPA from 0.9 to 2.65 and get him the education he never received.  The Tuohy’s oldest daughter Collins (played by Lily Collins) also helps Michael with his studying. The Tuohys know that Michael can do so much more when given a chance and are there to encourage and help him.

The Blind Side chronicles the hard times and new times that Micheal Oher experiences.  Tim McGraw and Sandra Bullock do incredible jobs portraying the Tuohy’s and both show the warmth and compassion that is in the hearts of the real-life people they are playing.  Both managed to become the Tuohys and you forget that this is a movie as you fall into the real-life struggles and trials that the family goes through in helping Michael Oher. Quinton Aaron does a great job at playing Michael Oher. He manages to capture the physical size and athleticism of the character. He also does a wonderful job in showing the softer side of Oher, although as stated earlier, the director does play on the “slowness” to help push the drama. The comic relief of the movie would be Jae Head as S.J which is short for Sean Tuohy Junior.  S.J. manages to work up the laughs and isn’t the stereotypical cute kid/brat but is the light-hearted support  that is needed to push the dark subject to the side.  S.J. manages to help Oher with his college offers and eventual pick of which college he will attend. The Tuohys want Michal to go to Mississippi University, Ole Miss, as that is where they attended college, but let Michael hear offers from other colleges.  Because this is based on real life you are treated to screen cameos of current and former college coaches as they try to get Oher to go to their college/university. It’s amazing to see what coaches will do and what deals are made to entice someone to play for their organization.

The Blind Side is an emotional roller coaster as there are laughs and teary moments throughout the movie. There is a very touching scene in the movie when Leigh Ann finds Michal’s mom and asks for permission to adopt Michael even though he has been a ward of the state for years.  No matter how different the social class is between the two women, they are both mothers that have children and were able to relate with each other over the well-being of Michael.

The last scene of the movie was a great added bonus that helped complete the first chapter of Michael Oher’s story and lead into the next chapters of his life. The crowd that attended the screening was clapping and cheering when this scene came up on the screen and I have to admit, I joined in with the celebration.  I’m left wondering how this will play out in other cities as I’m sure it will be big in Baltimore. I can’t wait to see The Blind Side again to compare the different audiences and see how they react to the last scene of the movie.

The Blind Side is rated PG-13 due to one scene of drug usage, violence, and sexual references. Some of the content is dark and not suitable for younger viewers (just saying, not telling you to not take your 3-year-old but hey, that’s up to you). After you’ve seen The Blind Side, post a comment and let me know what you thought. I know that I’ll be revisiting this review and adding some comments of my own once I’ve seen it a second time. The Blind Side is a movie so nice that you’ll want to see it twice.

Rating: ★★★★½ 

Cheri is under the impression it’s a play with cameras watching it. Missing are the set changes in favor of editing to the next scene but the exchanges between the characters feel like they’re on stage rather than trying to emulate life on film. Director Stephen Frears brings it in terms of set design and production value, but something feels lost when it comes to the narrative and the acting. The film presents an interesting tale, and it wants to be great but it falls well below it’s goal.

Cheri stars Michelle Pfieffer and while she’s in full Catwoman mode, she gives one of her best performances in a good while. She gives Lea life, and plays her subtly as a woman fearing her latter days where her sex appeal has worn off. She’s takes things as they happen, and Pfieffer hits all the right notes. When she’s crying over the loss of her dear Cheri, it feels like raw, pure emotion she’s giving. She’s also believable as a sex icon and never comes off as awkward or out of place. Yes, it’s Catwoman-like but that’s the point of her character.

Too bad the rest of the cast isn’t up to snuff. Rupert Friend portrays the title character as someone who just stepped out of a My Chemical Romance concert. He’s too distant when he’s ignoring everyone in his life, which is what the character needs. However, when it comes to his interaction with Lea, Friend is too much like the child he’s trying to grow out of. When the end of his arc finally arrives, one wonders if he turned up MCR prior to it. The worst of the bunch though is Kathy Bates. She’s out of place as Cheri’s mother and her line delivery is way off. Bates seems to be talking at her fellow actors rather than to them.

No, I don't have the Catwoman suit anymore.

Another negative factor is the film’s script which keeps the focus squarely on Lea and not enough on the supporting members. The supporting cast is supposed to be built around the lead, yet it feels no one has any sort of spark to Lea. Even when Lea and Cheri are engaged in scenes it can come off forced and stilted, carried only by it’s actors. Everyone else around her is uninteresting, and seem to show up and come out only when the script wants them to. The audience never gets to know them, and the film might be aware of this as they try to make them as obscure as possible. No matter, we never spend anytime getting to know them or their names and their gone just as quickly as most the men in Lea’s life. To be fair though, the set and production designs are stellar. This is a living, breathing France of the 1920s that’s colorful and lively. The costumes as well are very elegant and all of this is complemented by some stellar camera work from Darius Khondji.

If this review has seem uninterested, then I apologize but that’s how the film comes off. Cheri, save for its two leads, has uninteresting characters and somehow manages to marr a dull plot. Cheri aspires to be a great film and falls well short of that mark. Pfieffer dazzles, but the rest of the cast seems out of touch with their characters. Again, it has wonderful set design and costumes but like most summer blockbusters, it’s all for nothing if you don’t have a good characters and an interestingly told story.

Rating: ★★½☆☆ 

Let’s address the Titanic comparisons first.  Yes, Leonardo and Kate are again the love interest, this time as Frank and April Wheeler.  You’ll have to imagine all but a scene or two or their falling in love  - before you’ve finished the popcorn, they are 1950′s suburbanites with two kids.  And yes, there are other spoiler comparisons that don’t need to be spelled out here.  But how about this one: Kathy Bates also plays a significant role in each.  She was something of a maverick in Titanic as the wealthy socialite who lent Jack a tux for the ball, but here her character is a very conventional – a crushing force of oppressive conformity.

The movie’s best moment is when April talks Frank into checking out of the stultifying conformity of their suburban life and moving to Paris to figure out how to be more alive.  They have tried to “find life” in Connecticut but can’t.  He knew Paris from the war, and has spoken longingly of how alive he felt there.  The scenes that follow create a hopeful and optimistic mood once again – the characters’ intimacy, the sense of childlike delight they display as if sharing the same hilarious inside joke, completely takes over the movie.

But that mood does not last.

Besides the knock-down drag out fights between the main characters, the movie’s most telling moments are their conversations with a crazy man.  They are visited by a former mathematics PhD on leave from the state mental institute.  Whether the result of his brilliant mind or his electro-shock therapy, John is consistently honest and unbound by any of society’s conventions.  His scenes create great tension – the audience laughs, his parents cringe, and in the heat of this crucible, the changes in the main characters are brought into sharp focus.  John’s mocking of their safe little suburban life turns to admiration when they reveal their plans to jump up and move to Paris.  He has never met anyone else that honestly deals with the “emptiness and hopelessness” of conventional life like the Wheelers.

But while the lunatic embraces their idea, others are more skeptical.  The idea of a poorly financed, find-your-true-self at age 30 with two kids in tow does not make much sense to their friends and co-workers.  And when, for complicated reasons, their plans change, so does their relationship with the lunatic.  John turns the whole force of his very strong personality into a probing analysis of their decision and relationship with an ugly, ugly result. You are left saddened, but wondering if crazy is the new sane.

Can I use a genre-bending comparison here?  I can’t think of too many ways Harry Potter is like Revolutionary Road, but it does portray a sharp division between two kinds of people – the magical wizards and the clueless and ordinary muggles.  Real life is experienced by wizards, while muggles, whether through fear or ignorance, just blindly bumble through life.

The Wheelers seem caught in-between – they want to be exceptional and magical, but they also like the comfort and security of a successful, ordinary life.  They think for a time that they can be wizards in the muggle world, but they eventually become what they do, transformed by their world instead of transforming it.  Once they realize this, they think their Paris plan will free them to become the wizards they believe themselves to be.

We are left with questions – were they wizards who failed to grasp their full life or are they muggles who fancied themselves wizards and flew too close to the sun?

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆