Mr. Popcorn (mrpopcorn)

"Prepare to get served"

The most delicious event since macaroni met cheese. Inspired by the beloved children's book, the film focuses on a town where food falls from the sky like rain.

REVIEW
Based on the popular children's book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Sony Pictures takes a stab at the Pixar dominated world of CGI animation. Despite some flaws in the narrative, it's a solid hit for the company.

With the voice talents of Bill Hader, Anna Faris, and James Caan, this light-hearted comedy is well worth the watch. Perhaps it's too light. There's no deep powerful message to be learned that you haven't heard before. It's very aesthetically pleasing as some of the other animated films this year. The land of ice cream scene was especially appetizing. And there is a terrific love story at the core of the film. Flint (Hader) and Sam (Faris) are the cutest of cute in terms of geeks in love. Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller were very clever in the execution in the beauty of their relationship despite being based on the book.

Is this the Oscar frontrunner for Animated Feature film? Absolutely not. With Up, Coraline, and Ponyo so far ahead of the game, the film is quite forgettable when placed amongst other contenders. Give it a taste however, it'll satisfy the craving.

"You're my only reason to stay... alive. If that's what I am."

When Edward leaves Bella, her hole world is turned upside down. With Bella's heart broken, she turns to Jacob (Jake) her best friend to fill the void that was left by Edward. As Bella spends more time with Jake, she learns that there's more than vampires in the town of Forks.

REVIEW
How many times can "I can't live without you" or its variant be said in a movie? Too many when it's New Moon, the new teen tease of the Twilight Saga. I get the idea that teens long for each other much more than adults do, making teens the horniest animals on the planet. Wait. Wait. "Animals": That's the big motif because were-wolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner) substitutes for vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson), who is on vacation from Bella (Kristen Stewart). It's just another sexual frustration for her. This girl might stand a better chance in a nunnery. The slow teen romance has some of the worst dialogue this year. Bella says, for instance, "The absence of him is everywhere I look. It is like a big hole has been punched through my chest." While she says this, she gives her endlessly distracted look, the one that says how difficult life is for a teen with two wild hunks pursuing her.

When the teens are not mooning in the second half, there is some satisfactory action as Jacob and his shirtless boys turn into very big wolves. In fact, so many shirtless boys and no scantily-clad girls leave me to suspect a homo erotic sub theme. Do girls really want to date gay men?

Who would have thought vampires and were-wolves could be dull? When they're teens, that's when.

"Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free." Two imprisoned men bond over a number of years, finding solace and eventual redemption through acts of common decency. REVIEW It is very hard to think of something bad about this film.The direction is incredible, bringing about highly memorable performances, and a beautifully shot film. Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman are sensational, carrying this film on their shoulders as if it were the easiest job in the world - a tribute to them as this film must have been an incredibly demanding shoot - it is a long and emotional film. The development of their friendship is wonderful to watch, as is Andy's gradual assimilation into the prison society - however sad it may well be. Frank Darabont it seems was the ideal man to take the helm of this movie. Many films in this sort of genre can feel like they are missing something, as if there were sections left on the editing room floor - not this film, everything fits perfectly in to place. This leads to a very long film, (which could perhaps be its only criticism - be warned it is long - though the longer the better for me) but one which sucks you right into the prison world, and keeps you right there until the utterly stunning last shot of the film! Viewers should be warned that some scenes are of a disturbing nature, dealing with issues that may offend some people. However, this should not put you off seeing this film. It deals with the realities of prison, and in no way glorifies the goings on. What we must realise however, is that this film is not necessarily about the brutality of prison and the way prison society operates, it is about human connection and interaction, and the indomitable nature of the human spirit. By the last scene we should feel uplifted at what has been achieved - not only by the characters in the story however, but by the film makers!

"Where's Olive?" A family determined to get their young daughter into the finals of a beauty pageant take a cross-country trip in their VW bus. REVIEW Much of "Little Miss Sunshine" shouldn't work, yet almost all of it does. One of the best ensemble casts in recent memory delivers this outrageous material with a tremendous amount of heart and conviction and, as a result, a screenplay that threatens to stretch the bounds of credibility comes across as believable and achingly poignant. The characters are given such strong motivations for their actions that everything they do and say feels utterly plausible, even when the film itself threatens to teeter into Faulknerian Southern Gothic crossed with National Lampoon's "Vacation." The writers, director and cast stubbornly refuse to allow us any tidy character assessments. Therefore, we see the brittle and harsh side of Toni Collette's otherwise loving mom; the warm, charming and please-like-me vulnerability of Greg Kinnear's otherwise smarmy and nearly intolerable dad; the intellectual pompousness and snobbery that peeks its head through Steve Carell's otherwise emotionally wounded suicide case; and the affectionate patriarch lurking behind the otherwise gruff and offensive exterior of Alan Arkin's grandfather, whose greatest crime may be that he's too honest. "Little Miss Sunshine" hands over this motley cast of characters and lets us glory in their imperfections, and through doing so helps us feel better about our own. As the movie points out, perfection isn't possible, and the aggressive pressure in American culture to achieve it is only making people miserable about failing at something they never had a chance of succeeding at in the first place. The movie is so warm hearted though, that its ultimate lesson isn't a downer. At the end, this close-knit family realizes that they're proud to be ordinary, and dammit, so am I.