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"Bruno" movie review

This follow-up to Borat by Sasha Baron Cohen didn't quite live up to the standards he set with his Kazakhi documentary from 2006.

Bruno, a flaming homosexual fashionista, travels the world in the hopes of becoming the "most famous Austrian since Hitler". 

Bruno does similar outrageous gags like Borat did, taking advantage of unsuspecting people and one annoyed terrorist. 

The result isn't as shocking as Borat, but the humor is much more crude, with an inordinate amount of full-frontal nudity.

It is good for a couple of laugh-out-loud moments, but not on the scale of Borat.

Rating:  2 1/2 Schnauzers

Movie Review- "Angels & Demons"

Based on the best-selling novel by Dan Brown, "Angels and Demons" is thrill ride that kept me on the edge of my seat throughout the entire movie.

Much like "The Da Vinci Code" for me, I had not read the book going in.  The setting in the book takes place before the time in DVC, but in the movie, "Angels and Demons" comes after Tom Hanks' Robert Langdon cracks the secret of the bloodline of Jesus.

In "A&D", Langdon is brought to the Vatican to help with a threat being perpetrated by the Illuminati, a secret society said to be far more powerful in the story than they actually were.

The pope had just died, and the cardinals were about to enter "conclave", where they would elect a new pontiff.  The movie takes place over one night as Hanks and a female scientist, Ayelet Zurer. 

The story has a bunch of different twists, and since I didn't read the book, I didn't see most of them coming. 

It was an intense story, but certainly not as controversial as the topic and theme of DVC.

Overall, it was a great movie and great follow-up by Ron Howard to DVC.

Rating:
3 1/2 Schnauzer

"Defiance" Movie Review

Defiance, starring Daniel Craig and Liev Schrieber as two of the four Bielski brothers, tells the story of a large group of Jews on the run from the Germans deep in the forests of Poland and Belorussia.

Craig leads as commander of the forest "community" and does a nice job in a role completely different from that of James Bond. His character tries to have morals, though in a time of war and where his family and friends have been brutally murdered, morals are hard to come by.

The group starts small but grows and grows throughout the film, making survival hard to come by. The people had to forage for food, live in makeshift huts and survive through the heat of summer and the dead of winter.

The story was one I was not familiar with before watching this film. It is an amazing story, one that is called "A True Story" before the movie begins. If this story is true, it is nothing short of remarkable.

What continues to amaze me though every time I see a movie about World War II and the Nazis, is that the United States, supposedly the most powerful nation in the world, did nothing for years while Hitler eliminated millions of innocent human beings from the earth.

The movie has a powerful message and by the end, you are cheering for the community and just hoping they can continue to survive.

Grade: Four Schnauzers

"Valkyrie" Movie Review

I was very happy to finally get to see this movie (thanks, Colleen). The release was delayed by MGM four separate times, but it was worth the wait.
The movie stars Tom Cruise as Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, the main figure in the July 20, 1944 assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler. This plot was the last of 15 known plots against the Nazi leader, and the movie did a fairly solid job showing how the plot took shape.
Cruise's character became the central figure of a plot that led to the hangings of about 200 people). The task of making it an enjoyable movie was compounded by the fact that everyone knew the outcome; that Hitler survived and continued in power until the following year). Director Bryan Singer uses an ensemble including Kenneth Branagh, Oscar-winner Tom Wilkinson, Eddie Izzard and Bill Nighy to tell his story.
I would recommend this movie to fans of history. Cruise, while the big "star", didn't dominate the screen like he does in other movies (Mission: Impossible, etc), but fans of his will not be disappointed.

Grade: Three-and-a-half Schnauzers