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BLINDNESS (Running Time: 120 min; Rated: R)
Reviewed by Denise Castillón

MURKY “BLINDNESS”, THRILLING TO BEHOLD

In the powerful and disturbing dramatic thriller, BLINDNESS, quarantined victims of contagious blindness form their own society. When circumstances become dire, the imprisoned citizen’s will to survive overtakes the significance of morality and humanity. One woman (JULIANNE MOORE), with “true vision”, leads a small group out of the chaos.

Do not seek realism in this fantastical political parable. Instead, allow your imagination to accept the story’s nameless characters portrayed by multi-national actors speaking a common language -English, and its environment set in an unidentified, non-North American city.

Julianne Moore heads this notable ensemble cast composed of Mark Ruffalo, Alice Braga, Danny Glover and Gael Garcia Bernal as the ruthless, self-proclaimed “King of Ward Three”.

Directed by Brazilian filmmaker and Oscar-nominee Fernando Meirelles, (“The Constant Gardener”, “City of God”). Screenplay written by Tony Award winner Don McKellar, (who has an acting role in the film as the “Thief”). The screenplay for BLINDNESS is based on the bestselling novel "Ensaio Sobre a Cegueira" by the Portuguese novelist and Nobel Prize-winner José Saramago.

Cinematography by César Charlone. Film Editing by Daniel Rezende. Production Design by Matthew Davies and Tulé Peak. Art Direction by Joshu de Cartier. Set Decoration by Erica Milo. Original Music by Marco Antônio Guimarães.

Produced by Andrea Barata Ribeiro, Niv Fichman, Sonoko Sakai. Executive producers are Simon Channing-Williams, Akira Ishii, Victor Loewy and Tom Yoda. Released by Miramax.

Alyn’s Movie Picks Of The Week

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

Reviewed By Alyn Darnay

The Hilarious Simon Pegg (Shawn of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) is back again, this time in a true “fish out of water story” as bumbling celebrity journalist Sidney Young.

Hired away from his own little British Magazine by Jeff Bridges, head of the leading upscale celebrity rag “Sharps Magazine” in New York City, Sydney tries to maintain his integrity while everyone around him throws theirs out the window. It’s the stuff true comedy is honed from and this is a very funny film.

Watching Sydneys decent into success is a true joy rife with tons of miscommunications, poor taste, boorishness, and lucky accidents. Example: He walks into work the first day wearing a bright red tee shirt reading “Young, Dumb, & Full of Come”, and proceeds to offer a like one to his new boss.

Along for the ride are, or maybe being ridden are, Kirsten Dunst as Sydney’s only friend in the office, Megan Fox as the starlet that’s his love interest, and Gillian Anderson, almost unrecognizable and wonderful as a powerful press agent.

If you want to laugh hard for and hour and half, this is the film for you.

4 Stars

BLINDNESS

Reviewed By Alyn Darnay

 “Blindness” is the latest film from talented director Fernando Meirelles, who gave us the fantastic ‘City of God” back in 2002. Unfortunately this time around he gives us a bleak and brutal portrayal of the collapse of civilization through an epidemic of blindness.

Visually stunning, it takes place in an unnamed metropolitan city and charts the course of the epidemic from its very first patient through a mass quarantine and beyond.

As the quarantine facility fills up, the outside world begins to take less and less care of the inmates until a new society is created inside the facility. A society based upon survival of the fittest where inmates are forced to trade their valuables and then their bodies for food.

Based on a 1995 novel by the Portuguese Nobel Prize winning writer José Saramago, “Blindness” stars Mark Ruffalo as an ophthalmologist stricken early with the disease, Julianne Moore as his wife who joins him in quarantine though she’s actually sighted, and it features Danny Glover and Gael García Bernal among the patients.

 “Blindness” is not an easy film to watch and you should pay heed to its R-rating.

3.5 Stars

Eagle Eye

Reviewed By Alyn Darnay

Eagle Eye is a terrorist thriller revved up and set into non-stop action. It’s the big screen used to it’s state-of-the-art visual potential to lay you back in your seat and take you on a trip through the imaginary landscape of today’s governmental and military plot contortions.

Shia LaBeouf plays Jerry Shaw, a Chicago copy clerk whose life is turned inside out by an anonymous female voice on his cell phone. Joining him on this intricate and confusing quest is single mom Rachel (Michelle Monaghan) and together they manage to become the most wanted fugitives in the country after the voice informs that they’ve been “activated."

Chasing them are two government agents, Billy Bob Thornton playing a by-the-book FBI agent, and Rosario Dawson, beautiful as a hard edged Air Force investigator. Along for the ride in a wonderfully underplayed role is Michael Chiklis ("The Shield") as the straight-laced secretary of defense.

The film is reminiscent of a number of Hitchcock films, most notably “North By Northwest” with it’s wrongfully accused person on the run, and the omnipresent 2001: A Space Odyssey undertone is hard to ignore as well.

Don’t try to make sense of this movie, just go enjoy it, it’s a fun ride all the way through. Eagle Eye is also playing in IMAX, and I highly recommend you spend the extra $2 to see it in this format; it’s well worth money for the experience.

4.5 Stars

Reviewer Alyn Darnay is a multi-award winning Writer/Director and Scriptwriting Guru whose latest book is  “The Script…A Breakthrough Guide To Scriptwriting.” It is available at www.ScriptWritingBook.com

HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE

Starring: Simon Pegg, Kirsten Dunst, Jeff Bridges, Gillian Anderson, Danny Huston and Megan Fox with Thandie Newton as herself

Directed By: Robert B. Weide

R for language, some graphic nudity and brief drug material

By John Delia

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People may be the year’s best comedy. Loosely based on the true memoirs of Toby Young, the funny antics are hard to believe could actually happen in real life. The sidesplitting dialogue just keeps coming and coming until the last line is delivered. Simon Pegg’s over the top whit and humorous appearance make him the new Peter Sellers. If you want to laugh out loud, then this film should give you the motivation.
The film follows Sidney Young (Pegg) a failing British celebrity publication owner who has bumbled his way through the royal society. About to lose his publication, he puts his nemesis Clayton Harding (Bridges), managing editor of competitor Sharp magazine on his cover in the nude. Soon after, he gets a call from Harding asking him to come to New York and write for his magazine. Thinking he has now become an insider in the world of entertainment, Young goes all out to impress his new boss. Accidentally he insults Alison Olsen (Dunst), a fellow writer who is working her way to the top, and starts finding it difficult to cope within the office. Young doesn't give up trying, finding creative ways in the face of everyone just to get a story, including top New York publicist Eleanor Johnson (Anderson). When Young falls for Sophie Maes (Fox), one of Johnson’s up and coming young starlets, he gets a rude awakening.
The storyline is snappy and full of very funny remarks that make the film fun to watch. I especially liked Pegg’s expression in the elevator when he hits the boss’s daughter in the back with food he chokes up. Another scene has him facing his worst fears when he finds out he is bedding Bobbie, a tranny. There is lot of sight gags and clever comments all coming at you at a quick pace, so don’t forget to take a breath.
What makes the laughter work so well are the support cast of remarkably funny characters. For example, Miriam Margolyes plays the owner of his rooming house who questions him a lot of weird things going on in his apartment; and there’s a belly-laughing interview with Thandie Newton by Young during a cocktail party.
But the winner here is Simon Pegg. He was great in Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, but here he tops them both and gives his best performance ever.
How to Lose Friends & Alienate People is a perfect date film so choose your best girl or a bunch of friends and start laughing. The film contains graphic nudity and drug use, so be cautious when deciding to bring young children.

FINAL ANALYIS: How to Lose Friends & Alienate People’s the right medicine to kick the blues. (4 of 5 stars)

BLINDNESS

Starring: Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Alice Braga, Don McKellar, Yusuke Iseya, Yoshino Kimura and Gael Garcia Bernal

Directed by: Fernando Meirelles

R for violence including sexual assaults, language and sexuality/nudity

By John Delia

Although at first sight Blindness delivers a plot that has a chance to be engaging, engrossing and empathetic, but the film looses with uneven directing, incredulous scenes and an empty ending that spoils the show. If you are looking for a sci-fi thriller, you won’t find it with Blindness; it’s more like The Fog without the monsters.
A blindness creating virus of some sort (we really don’t ever find out what it is) affects an Asian man (Iseya) who spreads it to his wife (Kimura) and a thief (McKellar), who then spread it to innocent bystanders, and eventually to an eye doctor (Ruffalo) who infects his patients, and so on and so on until most of the city has the affliction. The blinded people are all carted off to a medical detention center for isolation from the rest of the city. While at the heavily guarded facility the inmates are separated into three groups, each with their own leader. When the food starts getting scarce, one of the factions steals the last shipment and holds it for ill gotten gain and perverted acts.
The film is spotted with famous faces like Sandra Oh (Sideways) as the Minister of Health who gets a minute of screen time with a walk down a corridor while telling the men following her the dilemma that has taken hold of the city. Danny Glover plays an old man with a black eye patch who shows up once or twice in the film and has fewer lines than he did in the movie Saw. Maybe they were not working at the time and they just wanted a chance to work under director Meirelle, because anyone could have played their meaningless parts.
The film does have some excellent talent, but in some cases it was wasted. Blindness features the fine actress Alice Braga (I am Legend) playing a frightened woman who wears sunglasses throughout the film even while she is getting raped. Not a great role to put in your resume. And then there is Maury Chaykin (Being Julia) play a ‘real’ blind man accountant caught up in the catastrophe who turns into a sadistic letch? The two are above and beyond that stage in their careers.
On the other hand, there is a saving grace in the film and it comes with the performances of Moore and Ruffalo, a married couple who find each other in a position of protecting themselves from all the evils that are being cast upon them. While Moore does a superb job pretending to be blind so she can look out for her husband, Ruffalo admirably takes on the role of the parasitic husband living off his wife’s ability to keep him fit and out of harms way. The two characters play off each other nicely showing the strength of their love even in the face of a pitiful act of lust.
The film contains violence including sexual assaults, language and sexuality/nudity, and should only be viewed by adults who are not easily sickened by visual adulteration.
FINAL ANALYSIS: Blindness looses sight of a potentially good plot with an unfulfilling ending. (1 of 5 stars)