Based off of the 1981 film of the same name, Arthur focuses its attention on a drunken but wealthy man who comes to a fork in the road of his life, where he has to choose either love or prosperity. The thing about this film that makes this simple choice interesting, is that our main character Arthur Bach is very eccentric and young at heart. The actor chosen to play this character may be a bit of obvious casting, however I did not find from the trailers that it was a very wise decision in choosing Russell Brand. The trailers definitely play Arthur off as being more of a straight-forward comedy than it really is, and ultimately ends up being about as “chick flick� as it gets. Fortunately for the guys out there the eccentricity of our main character is enough to generate laughter for the entire film, but for the gals I can’t say there’s much here in terms of a quality romance. It’s odd that the film was marketed as a comedy, most likely to disguise its romantic comedy traits, and as it turns out there may have been a reason in hiding it. However, the audience I saw the film with thoroughly enjoyed this retelling of the 1981 comedy classic, and Russell Brand is without a doubt the reason why...[more]...

A movie with the title Animal Kingdom may not get the recognition amongst the common movie-going audience as a film that is anything outside of an animal documentary in today’s recurring nightmare of 3D. Instead, Animal Kingdom is writer/director David Michôd’s first endeavor into feature film with only experience in documentaries and shorts. What makes this film deserving of being recognized and watched by anyone, is that it is without a shadow of a doubt, by far one of the best movies of 2010. If I could go back now to change my end of the year list for best of the year, I would rank it within my Top 5. It’s a movie that takes off from the get-go and puts you right into the shoes of our main character J, and what he has to experience with the instant changes in his life. The film drives hard for nearly 110 minutes, and from the opening scene builds tension until the final second of the film. I would consider Animal Kingdom amongst one of the best crime dramas in the last 5 years, and without a doubt now ranks highly in being one of my favorites of all-time...[more]...

To some, Dwayne “The Rock� Johnson has made many questionable film choices in the last five or so years, but being that I’ve been a fan of his for quite awhile, I can’t say that I agree. While he may have dove deep into the family genre and made two or three movies that were silly of an ex-WWE superstar, he always made them his own. There’s an undeniable characteristic that “The Rock� has in any movie to make it charismatic and entertaining relative to the character he is playing. Obviously, action movies have always been his strong suit, and Faster makes him return to the genre after a five to eight year vacation depending on what you consider his last “true� action movie: Southland Tales [2006], Doom [2005], Walking Tall [2004], or even The Rundown [2003]. Faster however gives us Dwayne Johnson at possibly his darkest and most involved in the action he’s ever been, and it really marks the return of a future action hero. Starring a few other people as well, Faster manages to create a fast-paced action thriller that unfortunately lacks in originality beyond the point of Dwayne “The Rock� Johnson’s character...[more]...