The Apartment: A Quick Review

"The Apartment," released in 1960 was directed and co-written by Billy Wilder.  The movie won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture.  The movie surrounds C.C. "Bud" Baxter, played by Jack Lemmon, who works for a insurance company in New York City...which generally is a great place for a movie to be set.  He loans his apartment to various higher-ups in the company so they can have affairs.  Obviously this is an awful thing to do on several moral and logical levels.  However, for Bud, lots of promotions sound like a good idea...apparently whatever the cost...at least at first.  He ends up falling in love with his boss's (Fred MacMurrary) mistress, played by Shirley MacLaine.  To say the least, this complicates things slightly. Well this movie is considered to be a comedy and at times it's funny, but not necessarily laugh-out-loud...because we all know those movies very rarely win Oscars.  There also is a nice element of drama to the film.  The characters are all played by great actors who have chemistry with each other and play convincing people who are far from perfect.  I really enjoyed this movie.  I had never seen it before and had heard good things about it and I thought that it was very well made and had an interesting story, that makes it a lot better than many romantic comedies out there.  For the record there are very few romantic comedies that aren't a horrible movie-watching experience.  If you like any of those actors or just enjoy classic black and white movies then give it a try. 

-Joseph Sbrilli

Psycho: A Quick Review

In 1960 Alfred Hitchcock's "Pyscho" was released. It was a lot different than his previous films. Whereas he had been known for thrillers and mysteries like "Rear Window" and "North by Northwest," "Psycho" was definitely a horror movie...with plenty of thrills and suspense. It stars Janet Leigh as Marion Crane, a woman who steals $40,000 from the bank she works at. That was her first huge mistake. The next huge mistake is deciding to stay the night at the Bates Motel, run by Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). This of course leads to the infamous "shower scene" and several other things which I won't spoil for those who haven't seen it...because everyone should. It's one of the best movies and my personal favorite. Alfred Hitchcock was an amazing director who was so good at visually building up the suspense. The quick cuts and great views of the scene just add to the intensity. Bernard Herrmann's fantastic score only made things better...something about about violins is just so intense and murderous. By today's standards the violence is very tame (in 1960 the censors were ridiculous), but "Psycho" has stood the test of time. Nearly 50 years have gone by and the film is regarded as a classic, one of Hitchcock's best and continues to entertain and scare whoever decides to watch it...


-Joseph Sbrilli

Shutter Island

"Shutter Island" was directed by Martin Scorsese. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, and others. It was based off of the book of the same name by Dennis Lehane.

It's 1954. Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) are the two U.S. marshals  who are sent to Ashcliffe Hospital for the criminally insane...for the select few people in America who haven't seen this trailer 87 times. They are there to investigate the disappearance of a female patient from the hospital. Michelle Williams plays Delores, Teddy's deceased wife who is frequently seen in flashbacks and such. Ben Kingsley plays Dr. John Cawley, the head of the hospital. There's a brief plotline...there are several twists in the movie. And I have decided to not ruin it for people because I think everyone should go out and experience it for themselves.

Well, Leonardo DiCaprio is a great actor. I used to not like him, until I saw him in "Catch Me If You Can;" then that all changed. But, in my defense, he was really annoying in "Romeo & Juliet." After Martin Scorsese decided to ditch Robert DeNiro, after 22 years of working with the actor, he decided to jump on Leonardo DiCaprio next and has casted him in all of his movies since. This turned out to be a great idea and we learned that Martin Scorsese brings out the very best in Leonardo DiCaprio. He is great as the lead character in "Shutter Island" and shows range in the character that is not immediately evident. The rest of the cast is great as well and everyone works very nicely with Leonardo DiCaprio. Good thing too, because otherwise the movie would have been a disaster. And one more thing, Sir Ben Kingsley is a great actor. I love the man and thought he deserved to be mentioned by name in this section. He also gives a fantastic performance in this movie.

"Shutter Island" is ridiculously visually appealing. I guess we have Martin Scorsese and the person actually operating the camera to thank for that one. There are great shots of the island, aerial, long, close-ups...everything - it's really great. The camera movement is also great with the quick zooms and quick shifts between different parts of a scene. Most of the scenes are dark, dull colored, making for the appropriate dramatic tone for this type of movie.

The musical score was fantastic in this movie. Just like in Alfred Hitchcock movies, ("Shutter Island" is being called a "Hitchcockian" thriller...yes, it's a thriller and not a horror movie no matter what people say) music is essential. The music is dramatic and intense and fits each scene so well and just adds to what the audience is seeing on the screen. Without it, the movie would have been significantly less entertaining and successful. Many times the score to a movie is even more important than the actual visuals. They should go together perfectly.

Normally a movie that is over 2 hours long (this one is 138 minutes if anyone was wondering) would cause my ADD to set in at least a little bit. That actually didn't happen. The movie is very well paced. Some scenes do seem a bit long, but they just help to explain things a little which is always good. The movie never got boring and as it progresses new things are revealed and obvious things are not as they seem...because that would suck the fun out of literally everything.

This movie currently has a 68% on Rotten Tomatoes. I'm not quite sure how that happened because this movie is way better than that. I assume that some of these reviewers just hate all movies and thus ruined the average for everyone.

Some people had a problem with the end of the movie. They felt like too much is blatantly explained to the audience. Once again I don't know what these people are talking about. I thought things wrap up well for the movie. Since when is explanation bad? It's better than having the audience completely make up in their own mind what actually is happening. It worked well in "Psycho" - having the ending explain what was going on...and it works well in "Shutter Island" as well...although "Psycho" is the best movie ever...but after Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese is my second favorite director of all time.

So this movie was supposed to come out last October, but it didn't...so I had to wait an extra 4 months. It was really depressing, but completely worth it. "Shutter Island" will most likely never be considered classic like some of Martin Scorsese's older films like "Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull," and "Goodfellas"...all three of those are amazing movies by the way and are highly recommended for everyone to see at least once in life. That doesn't stop "Shutter Island" from being a 4 star movie as far as I am concerned. It's the first great movie of 2010 and Martin Scorsese once again proves what a great filmmaker he really is. The acting directing, score, etc, come together to form an extremely well-made and highly entertaining movie. I will most likely be seeing it again in theaters and will one day own it on DVD...

-Joseph Sbrilli

Law Abiding Citizen: A Quick Review

Well...this movie was very violent and bloody. All the blood does not add to the movie. I know...crazy thought. Gerard Bulter plays Clyde Shelton. His wife and daughter were brutally killed in front of him. Ten years pass, one of the murderers is set free, and Clyde goes insane and is determined to kill the man who killed his family and go after anyone else involved in setting the murderer free. It's no big surprise where this is going to lead...let's just say the movie earned its R rating. Gerard Bulter and Jamie Foxx are far better actors than this movie shows. The plot was good, the execution not so much. The movie was okay, just too simple and nothing made the movie especially interesting to watch. I'm glad I didn't see it in theaters...definitely not worth 8 bucks...but I did get my dollar's worth out of my rental. Of course I did almost fall asleep toward the end, but in my defense it was getting late.

-Joseph Sbrilli

The Road

If anyone hasn't read Cormac McCarthy's novel "The Road," it's a great book. It is a novel that has the potential to be popular for decades and it definitely gets my vote for the first great novel of the 21st century. Pick it up and immerse yourself in the end of the world.

Obviously, I love the book, but how does the movie fare? The last novel-turned-cinematic masterpiece by McCarthy was "No Country for Old Men" and last time I checked that won awards from some guy named Oscar. I could be wrong, maybe I'll IMDb it later.

One of the aspects that makes "The Road" a timeless work of literature, is its lack of names. Viggo Mortensen plays "the father" and Kodi Smit-Mcphee plays "the boy." The father and the boy live in post-apocalypse America. It has been ten years since the entire country was devastated by some form of war. The sky is permanently darkened, most animals have died or been eaten, even the trees have started dying and fall at regular intervals, and the entire human population has degenerated into roving bands of cannibalistic cults. The father is trying to reach the coast with the boy before the onset of winter, to try and find something better for themselves.

If your Lit teacher asked you for the themes of "The Road" you would probably say: despair, hopelessness, moral degradation. "The Road" shows us a future where there is no food, and no hope - where the people turn to eating each other because literally there is no alternative. The father and the boy seem to be the only ones left who haven't let themselves destroy their humanity. They survive off each other. Their love for each other is the only thing that keeps them going and it shows. I almost teared up...almost.

The movie stays fairly close to the book, barring a few annoying flashbacks. Some scenes have been removed, and some added, but it's about as accurate as it can be. That said, the book is twenty times better. There is something about the written word and a person's imagination that can't be translated to screen. The book moved me farther than this movie ever could.

Somehow, Viggo Mortenson wasn't nominated for best actor. In my opinion, this is the biggest snub, because he does absolutely amazing and he always has, in every movie he has ever been in.

Three out of Four stars

-Christopher O'Connell

Manhattan: A Quick Review

Once there was a middle aged named Woody Allen. In 1979 he made a great movie called "Manhattan." He wrote, directed, and starred in the aforementioned movie. He filmed the movie in black and white and on location in New York City. This director also surrounded himself with a exceptional cast including Diane Keaton and Meryl Streep. The plot surrounds Woody Allen as Isaac Davis. He's in his 40s and his girlfriend is not quite a legal adult. Yes, that is disgusting and repulsive and yet pretty typical of a Woody Allen movie...just bear with me though. It really is a great movie. He finds out he's not in love with the young girl...I'm sure multiple people in New York could have told him that was an awful idea. But I guess when your ex-wife played by Meryl Streep becomes a lesbian things get a bit crazy. Well anyways Isaac then starts falling for his best friend's mistress (Diane Keaton). The dialogue is great and the characters are dynamic and real. They are severely screwed up and have multitudes of problems that they need to work out. People aren't perfect...so why should movie characters be? The film is a great romantic comedy...or relational comedy...the whole romance thing gets kind of sketchy. The dialogue is smart and funny...something sadly missing from many, many romantic comedies out there. The cinematography and scenery is beautiful! The only thing better than New York City, is New York City in black and white. Woody Allen and the person actually handling the camera got some great shots that add so much to the overal plot and theme of the movie. And a little...actually a lot of George Gershwin music doesn't hurt. I'm not sure, I might like this better than "Annie Hall." Watch this and then watch "Whatever Works"...the second movie will completely depress you...Woody Allen is a much better director than that movie showed. See "Manhattan" though...and if you don't like it...don't even bother to explain it to me.

-Joseph Sbrilli

When In Rome

Stupidly, I walked into "When In Rome" assuming it was going to be a comedy. I mean with people like Kristen Bell, Dax Shepard, Danny Devito, Jon Heder, and Will Arnett would you expect anything less?

Well, you shouldn't if you said yes, you silly person. The answer is no. I expected a comedy and got a subpar chick flick, which if we look at the international ratings for entertainment quality, rates slightly above indie horror flicks about mutated animals/people/piranhas, and slightly below chopping oneself's foot off.

Kristen Bell plays Beth, the very young and attractive curator of the Guggenheim museum in New York - which, as you know, only hires young, attractive women to run the place. Beth feels like no one loves her because her boyfriend is getting married and she loves her work too much to find a guy. The obvious solution would be to not work as hard and find a husband, but being a chick flick, rationality is thrown out the window faster than a dead mouse.

After being all mopey about her ex-boyfriend getting married, Beth discovers that her sister is getting married in Rome. Beth flies to Rome and gets involved with the best man Nick (Josh Duhamel, "Transformers") But when she sees Nick kissing another girl she climbs into the fountain of love and takes people's coins from the fountain. I guess this is some Roman legend, I'm not entirely sure, but every guy who threw a coin in the fountain that Beth picks up, falls instantly and magically in love with her.

Plot is not this movies strong point, but at least it starts getting funny around now. Several guys fall in love with her, a struggling magician (Heder), an Italian painter (Arnett), a model (Shepard) and a sausage company owner (Devito). Beth knows these characters don't actually love her, but she's not sure if she picked up one of Nick's coins who seems to have fallen in love with her as well.

Unfortunately, their scenes are incredibly underutilized, although amusing. If "When In Rome" has anything going for it, it has a great supporting cast who do their best to make this movie enjoyable. Shout out to Bobby Moynihan, an SNL regular who is great as Nick's best friend.

"When In Rome" fails on a lot of different levels, and if you do see it, do your best to enjoy the great scenes with the supporting cast.

One and a half out of four stars

-Christopher O'Connell