Titanic

...On Dec. 19, 1997, James Cameron's Titanic set sail in theaters nationwide. The 193-minute blockbuster epic went on to dominate the 70th Academy Awards, nabbing 11 wins including best picture. The Hollywood Reporter's original review is below.

Paramount should replace that white mountain in its logo with an iceberg for the next several months. The studio will navigate spectacularly with its latest launch, Titanic, the most expensive movie ever created about what was once the largest moving object ever built.

Not only will James Cameron's formidable cinematic vessel sail sensationally on domestic waters, but 20th Century Fox, which has international rights, will find that Titanic will propel blockbuster results around the world.

A masterpiece by James Cameron in my opinion! A gripping and emotional telling of the fateful story of the Titanic. The cinematography aboard the ship was outstanding. I don't know how they filmed all the water aboard the ship. The portrayal of the sinking of the ship drew audible sobs from the audience. I dare say there wasn't a dry eye in the theater as the Titanic slowly succumbed to it's fate. Cameron took us there! We experienced the desperation of the passengers as they became increasingly aware of their impending doom and watched those desperate hours bring out the very best and the very worst that is within us. The telling of the Titanic as seen through the eyes of Rose and Jack was so well done. The chemistry between them was strong and engrossing. Their love story allowed us moments of reprieve where we could rest and smile for a moment as we shared in the strength of their growing love. Casting of all characters hit the mark! I thing this movie tops the charts in every possible category of achievement - truly a memorable masterpiece.

Shakespeare In Love

...William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) is on a cold streak. Not only is he writing for Philip Henslowe (Geoffrey Rush), owner of "The Rose," a theatre whose doors are about to be closed by sadistic creditors, but he's got a nasty case of writer's block. Shakespeare hasn't written a hit in years. In fact, he hasn't written much of anything recently. Thus, the Bard finds himself in quite a bind when Henslowe, desperate to stave off another round of hot-coals-to-feet application, stakes The Rose's solvency on Shakespeare's new comedy, "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter." The problem is, "Romeo" is safely "locked away" in Shakespeare's head, which is to say that not a word of it is written. Meanwhile, the lovely Lady Viola (Gwyneth Paltrow) is an ardent theatre-goer -- scandalous for a woman of her breeding -- who especially admires Shakespeare's plays and, not incidentally, Bill himself. Alas, she's about to be sold as property into a loveless marriage by her mercenary father and shipped off to a Virginia tobacco plantation. But not before dressing up as a young man and winning the part of Romeo in the embryonic play. Shakespeare soon discovers the deception and goes along with it, using the blossoming love affair to ignite his muse. As William and Viola's romance grows in intensity and spirals towards its inevitable culmination, so, too, does the farcical comedy about Romeo and pirates transform into the timeless tragedy that is Romeo and Juliet. ~ Merle Bertrand, Rovi

Infinity

...Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman tries to save the woman he loves from a terrible disease. Based on a true story.

Richard Feynman is a talented young physics student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when he meets Arline Greenbaum. They quickly fall in love and plan on getting married. But when Arline discovers she has tuberculosis, and Feynman is hired by the government to work on the creation of the atomic bomb, his faith in science is thrown into doubt.

Starring Patricia Arquette, Matthew Broderick, James Hong.

Renoir

...Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) still reigns as one of the most popular Impressionist artists. He's known for his paintings of beautiful people, scenes from nature, and lovely still lifes. "Why shouldn't art be pretty" he said. "There are enough unpleasant things in the world." He is certainly right about that. Toward the end of his illustrious career, Renoir returned to painting nudes in the open air. He wrote: "Out of doors there is a greater variety of light than in the studio . . . It is not enough for a painter to be a clever craftsman; he must love to 'caress' his canvas too."

Much hay is made around the question of whether the old master painter is, as expected, sleeping with Andrée; the film is less a physical love triangle than emotional one, with the actress-model as the baton being passed from one generation of Renoir to another, culminating with a toast handed down from father to son in approval. Ultimately, the only thing Bourdos seizes on with any intelligent conviction is a rarified, nostalgic type of beauty. Proliferated for its own sake, that becomes a flourish the younger Renoir would have despised, for its shallowness and lack of chest hair. But if closer to the elder Renoir’s work, the film never properly achieves its magisterial stillness, its anti-pretension. And so, Renoir approaches the towering legacies of its nominal heroes with such gawky reverence that its art is, held up to theirs, pretty much worthless.

Cast: Michel Bouquet, Christa Théret, Vincent Rottiers, Thomas Doret, Romane Bohringer Director:Gilles Bourdos Screenwriter: Jérôme Tonnerre, Michel Spinosa, Gilles Bourdos Distributor: Samuel Goldwyn Films Running Time: 111 min Rating: NR Year: 2012

Sweet Land

...A tender and touching film about the blooming of love, the poignant tug of place, and the challenges of openness in a rural Midwest community in the 1920s.

...An elderly woman (Lois Smith) lies dying in her home on a Minnesota farm; her grandson Lars is nearby. After her passing, a local real estate agent delivers a bid from a developer who wants to build 1200 houses on the land. Contemplating whether to sell their homestead, Lars recalls being with his grandmother after his grandfather died a few years ago. She brings out a box containing memorabilia from the past and shows Lars a photograph of herself as a young mail order bride...

Sword of Lancelot

...Cornel Wilde directed, co-produced, & starred in Sword of Lancelot (1963), & obviously strove to make it a bit more adult than most Arthurian movies.

Cornel is a fine actor whether in costume films like At Swords Point (1952) or a classy film noir like The Big Combo. But I'm afraid I found him a little crusty (being already in his fifties) to play Sir Lancelot, a character I've always imagined as a young knight.

His attempt to fake a French accent sometimes slips into more of a Brooklyn accent. And in this particular film, he manages somehow to look enough like Tony Curtis to be difficult to take seriously.

But Cornel had real skills as a swordsman & has put a good deal of thought & heart into the fight choreography for lance, sword, axe, & mace.

On at least two occasions, the realistic injuries from medieval combat made me gasp with horror, & that degree of brutality must have been even more gasp-inducing in 1963 when grue was so much rarer at the movies. A brain-cleaving early in the story, & the lopping off of shoulder & arm near the end, would never pass muster in a "family" film even today.

Tourney costumes for horses & men are beautiful. The story is familiar from Mallory & scads of imitations, with relatively few innovations of plot.

On the journey to bring Guinevere to Arthur at Camelot, she & Sir Lancelot fall in love. When ambushed enroute, Lancelot is impressed to see Guinevere using her own ...

Little England

...Set in 1930’s seafaring community of Andros, Greece, Orsa loves the ambitious but poor 2nd mate Spyros. Orsa is betrothed against her will to a wealthy captain despite promising Spyros that she would wait for him to return from a lucrative trip. Years later, Spyros has made his fortune as a cargo ship captain but tragedy unfolds when the Germans begin attacking the Greek maritime industry.

Starring Penelope Tsilika, Andreas Konstantinou, Sofia Kokkali

Set during the 1930's on the Greek island of Andros, a Cyclades archipelago with a long history of military embroilment and seafaring turmoil, Little England is not only he title of this film but also the name of a symbolic enterprise introduced to the viewer as the story progresses. The opening scene of rolling ocean waves and crashing surf is ominous of the film's schedule of turbulent events. 20 year- old Orsa (Penelope Tsilika) is passionately in love with second mate Spiros Maltabes (Andreas Konstantinou), a secret she dares not reveal anyone, least of all her domineering mother, Mina. Her energetic younger sister, Moscha (Sofia Kokkali), is determined to leave Andros and escape the typical woman's fate on the island marrying sailors, who are the mainstay of Andros's economy and constantly absent due to their seafaring duties. Mina (Anneza Papadopoulou), herself the wife of a captain who prefers the Atlántico Sur over his home, constantly ponders the reward for a life of blind marital faithfulness and inadvertently attempts to pass her beleaguered logic onto her daughters to protect them from heartache. Without the slightest consideration of her daughters' desire to marry out of love, Mina conspires and uses her societal connections to wed her daughters off to the wealthiest suitors Andros has to ofer Orsa to ship owner and captain Nikos Vatokouzis (Maximos Moumouris) and later Moscha to the very man she rejected as a potential husband to Orsa, Spiros Maltabes, who returns to the island as an accomplished captain after spending years in the lower rankings of the ship's hierarchy. The devious Moscha wastes no time torturing her sister with vivid descriptions of the intimate moments with her new husband, for whom Orsa still harbors deep feelings. A final tragedy later seals the fate of the family as the story progresses into the throes of World War 2, the events of which do nothing to make hauling cargo on the high seas any safer.

Niagara

...Niagara is Marilyn Monroe's best film where she strays from her ditzy blonde routine. Here she is an unfaithful wife who wants to bump off her husband. Her character is manipulative and conniving. This is one blonde who gentlemen do not prefer.

A married couple, Ray and Polly, come to Niagara Falls for business and a belated honeymoon. In the cabin next door, are a moody gentleman and his too sexy to be true wife, Rose Loomis (Monroe). Monroe makes a memorable entrance in a tight dress. Ray asks Polly: "Why don't you ever get a dress like that?" Polly answers, "Listen. For a dress like that, you've got to start laying plans when you're about thirteen."

From the start, Polly suspects something is going on next door. Rose acts a bit to wanton to be married. She sings a song called "Kiss" in a way that suggests she is thinking of someone other than her husband. Later, Polly confirms her suspicions when she sees Rose in a passionate embrace with another man. "Didn't that Mrs. Loomis say she was going shopping?" Polly asks Ray. "Yeah. Why?" He replies. "Well," Polly explains, "she sure got herself an armful of groceries."