Little Miss Sunshine
This is a funny/drama movie about a girl that goes to this beauty contest. The brother doesn't speak due to a vow, the uncle just got out of the hospital after an attempt to commit suicide, the grandpa does drugs, and they all have to drive in the same van! It is the type of comedy I like, with funny situations and events rather than relying on comedians (like Jack Black's Nacho Libre. brrr....). At the end, I left from a movie that I wanted to watch again.The Last Kiss
This was a huge surprise for me: the best movie I have seen about relationshiops. It deals with a bunch of friends approaching their 30's and they have to deal with all the serious issues of getting married, dealing with everyday problems with their spouses, cheating etc. It is written by Paul Haggis who won the best picture Oscar for Crash last year, and it has similar flavors: concise dialoges, lots of stories running in parallel, and huge depth into the characters. At some points I couldn't believe how real and raw was the words that the people were saying. As Stavros said, it is one of the few movies tha focuses on the important things of life... This is the best movie of this group.HollywoodLand
The infamous hollywood sign was once "Hollywoodland", before they removed the final 4 letters. The movie deals with a real murder a a famous actor of that age trying to figure out how he died. The movie was overall good but with very few risks: it is not anything new or anything that we haven't seen before. It is very well done and has attention to detail, with great casting also. It will be among the oscar considerations for sure.The Black Dahlia
The Black Dahlia has a very similar story to Hollywoodland: a girl is murdered and two detectives are trying to figure out why. The direction, style, photography, looks, and colors of this film is superior to anything else this year. However the story is not so well crafted. Towards the end with the big revelations, we get lost as to what happened and who did what. They tried to to a super climax but what they achieved was a super why? It is worth watching but I just don't get he facts straight...Two seemingly good movies come out in the next two weeks: Scorcese's The Departed with Jack Nicolson in (finally!) a non-comic stupid role, and The Prestige, a magioc movie with great cast. Let's see...
