Starring: Mel Gibson, Ray Winstone, Danny Huston, Bojana Novakovic"Edge of Darkness is a crowd-pleaser much like "Taken"(but not as good), in that your definition of pleasing has to involve a long list of bad-guys that need to be shot by the end. This is the kind of movie Mel Gibson used to make every other time before he went all seriously religious, verbally-attacked a Jewish cop and became known in certain circles as "Da Fuhrer." He returns here after 8 years (his last acting role was "Signs") looking flabbier and wearier. He's not the action hero we've come to know, which is fine cause "Darkness" is less about action (take out a car hitting a woman and people getting shot at point-blank range and there would be none here at all) and more about the drama.
And unfortunately dramatically it's not the comeback we'd hope for from good ole Mel. He plays Craven, a veteran cop welcoming his visiting, estranged daughter (Bojana Novakovic), only before he can even say "how ya been?", she is gunned down in brutal fashion in a hit that, at first, looks to be intended for him.
Of course things are not what they seem. His findings take him to the office of Jack Bennett (Danny Huston), the head of a nuclear energy company that employed Craven's daughter. Craven is also confronted by Jedburgh (Ray Winstone), a security consultant usually brought in to clean up messes.
Gibson turns in a good performance, angry and distraught,but the constant dreams and flashbacks of the daughter alive are sentimental, forced, and unmoving. More of a gimmick to move the plot along.The more interesting role is played by Ray Winstone, whose objective in all this remains the movie's only real mystery. And being that he isn't really called upon to do much until the very end, you have a long time to try and guess what that might be.
And there lies the problem. In addition to being long, dull, and nearly action-less, it's high on talky Q and A scenes but low on any kind of surprise. Director Martin Campbell ("Casino Royale") can't do much with the predictable screenplay by William Monohan and Andrew Bovell (based on some BBC series). It's easy to tell who the villains are, who is going to get killed next, and what big bad corporation will have seedy secrets. And it feels like it takes forever to get to the final shoot-out.
The lack of emotional pull and surprises just leaves us with a lot of people getting shot, and with "Darkness" not being nearly as edgy as advertised."
Designer Remy Hou had only four days to complete this jacket for Lil' Mamas 21st birthday bash held on January 24, 2010, a variety of setbacks and only one shot to impress Lil Mama and her stylist Jason Griffin. Racing against the clock to produce the perfect look for the artist’s MTV taping wasn’t easy, but was it worth it?
Amazed at the quality of work within the 72 hour window for production (day four was all about last minute inspections and shipment clear across the country), the jacket was a hit! Lil Mama had yet to see it but everyone including her dancers was in awe.
Original Author: Ericka Santos
Starring:Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid, Lucas Black, Tyrese Gibson"In the beginning God created light and the heavens and the earth and the little fuzzy animals and human beings. On the 8th through the 2,000th days, humans created tax shelters, beer helmets, crack cocaine, Armani dog carrier handbags, the “dirty sanchez” and Showgirls. By the 2,600th day Heidi Montag had turned herself into a blow-up doll with a heartbeat and super blinking action. God had had enough. Having lost faith in the human race, he sends his angels down from heaven to wipe us from the planet. The angel Michael refuses to end his love affair with the hairless monkeys (us), so he speeds down to Earth to head off the attack and attempt to save the human race. Apparently our fate rests in the small, chubby hands of an unborn child. Wait. What??
-author, Nomad (visit dreadcentral.com and vote them for Best Horror Blog!)
"I met a Filipino girl on Yahoo right before I moved from USA back to Scotland. She is an airline stewardess based in Dubai and after a few weeks we were chatting everyday for hours sometimes and she is a beauty also.
We get back to Dubai and I have one more day before I fly back to UK and she makes the mistake of turning on her computer in front of me and the offline messages from Yahoo pop up, "where’s my baby?", "I love you" and that kind of shit! I had seen this guy's name on her phone in Bangkok when a reminder went off on her phone and she said it was her cousin.
y forgiveness and I play along so I don’t get stuck in an Arab country not knowing anybody. I get my flight, barely, only one seat left. I get back to London and right away I send an email telling her to get lost. I get endless crying phone calls about how much she loves me, she has never met the guy in person, (because her attempt at getting a visa to visit USA was rejected as I find out later).
ges. It seems her boyfriend in Dubai who I have just discovered has just got a 6 month visa to the UK. I confront her and she won't talk, tries to lie some but I just give her boyfriend a call and introduce myself and inform him that I just shagged his girl and give her the phone. They speak in Tagalog so I don’t know what she says but she tries to play it off and lie some more when she gets off the phone. She won't let me leave, holds on to me with a death grip and tells me just to stay and listen and she will tell the truth. I sit down and she says she’s been with this guy for years and he won't marry her cause is already married to a woman in Philippines and they don’t have divorce there and that I’m the one she really loves and she will move me to Dubai if I give her another chance. I don’t give in this time and go back to Scotland after lots of tears and talk from her.
author, anonymous
Starring: Gary Oldman, Denzel Washington, Mila Kunis"In the future, according to "The Book of Eli," we'll all dress like we're in a Nine Inch Nails video. It is written.
Most everyone wears goggles and leather in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of "The Book of Eli." A meteorite and a subsequent war 30 years earlier has scorched the Earth and the population.
The landscape (shot in New Mexico) is much like an old Western: bandits (albeit cannibalizing bandits) lurk the desert roads, while rough crowds take refuge in hardscrabble towns. At the downtown saloon, water, not whiskey, is "the good stuff."
Across this charred land strides our Christian cowboy, Eli (Denzel Washington), a mysterious, solitary man who carries the last remaining Bible in his backpack. He also carries a gleaming silver knife and a shotgun, both of which he's expert with.Like a prophet, he has heard God's voice in his head and he walks West with divine determination. He says to himself: "Stay on the path."
After "the flash" of the cataclysm that rocked the Earth, many blamed the troubles on religion. All the books were burned, making the few that remain precious cargo indeed. Those born after this event (and this might not seem so futuristic) don't have any knowledge of books — what they mean or how to read them. The eld
ers are the exception, those who lived "before." Among them is Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a villainous man who presides over the town Eli wanders into.
He sends his minions out in search of a Bible, though all they can do is return with "The Da Vinci Code" — which apparently even meteorites can't destroy. An intellectual (we first meet him reading a biography of Mussolini), Carnegie believes the Bible's power will make him a great leader: "It's a weapon," he says.
When Eli and Carnegie meet, much fighting ensues. A young woman, Solara (Mila Kunis, oddly fashionable in tattered clothes), gets roped into the fracas. Tom Waits makes a good cameo as a simple, somewhat quirky shopkeeper.
"The Book of Eli" is the first movie from Albert and Allen Hughes — the filmmaking brothers of "From Hell" and "Menace II Society" — in nine years.
Post-apocalyptic tales are all the rage these days, and it's easy to see the imprint of Cormac McCarthy's far more deeply felt "The Road" — just recently adapted with disappointing results — on "The Book of Eli." Like McCarthy's great novel, "The Book of Eli" follows a wandering man on a lawless road while carrying his charge (a boy, rather than a book, in "The Road").
"The Road" even included an Eli: "Ely," played by Robert Duvall in the movie. We might take both as a reference to the prophet Elijah. But "The Book of Eli" doesn't get too Biblical, mostly content to spout a few cool-sounding verses before a battle.
The Hughes brothers don't let nary a bullet or arrow fly without sending their cameras behind to track it in slow-motion. That such a Christian-themed film enthralls in violence so much (the body count is in the dozens) is obviously contradictory to its message of civilization saved by the Bible.
Blink and you'll miss the only allusion to other religious tomes — a cheap, belated try at tolerance. One senses the Bible was chosen for "The Book of Eli" earnestly, but perhaps also to take advantage of its cultural weight. Such travails might not be plausible for one carrying the last copy of "Moby Dick," or, for that matter, "Jonas Brothers: Inside Their World."
Cinematographer Don Burgess has drained the film to a sepia. What breathes life into "The Book of Eli" is the performances, most notably by Washington and Oldman.
It's fun to see Oldman, made relatively boring in the Batman films, return to full, theatrical villain mode. He's not over-the-top like he was in "The Professional," but a rational, intelligent survivor — a frustrated dictator. He wants order, only he wants to control it.
Washington, too, is in his wheelhouse. Ever able to play a man with purpose, he propels the film on a straightforward, linear path: a charismatic man-of-few-words with a whole lot of them in his sack."
-review author, Jale Coyle, AP
