Maxim’s Movie Reviews and Opinions Blog

I got the DVD for La Môme (it’s released in USA under the title La vie en rose) from Netflix a few days before the Oscars but haven’t seen it until after. Needless to say, I was anxious to finally see it after [...]

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Well today the sky finally cleared up, and I could get to the telescope early enough after work. The moon is rising 3 hours after Saturn does today. Saturn is very far, and it looks like a tiny star to the naked eye. [...]

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The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

The plot: Andrea Sachs’s (Anne Hathaway) dream was to become a journalist. A naive young woman, she comes to New York and scores a temporary job for the Runway [fashion] magazine working as an assistant secretary to ruthless, if [...]

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Today’s eclipse is the last one until 2010.
Unfortunately I missed the beginning, but as soon as I got home I set up my rig and began shooting. I captured the full eclipse and the beginning of the end, when the Moon started to [...]

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The entire slideshow is here: http://public.fotki.com/MaxiMovieBlog/moon-and-mars-photos/
I looked up in the sky and saw Mars almost lined up with the Moon. I set up the telescope and the tripod with Canon EOS 20D camera, 300mm image stabilzing zoom lens and 2x telephoto adapter.
The difficulty [...]

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Lady in the Water (2006)

M. Knight Shyamalan, the creator of “The Sixth Sense”, wrote, directed and starred in this fantasy movie based on the book he wrote for his own daughter.
The plot: an apartment building superintendent Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti) rescues a woman [...]

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This is a new romantic comedy from the makers of Noting Hill and Love Actually.
The plot: Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds – Sabrina the Teenage Witch, In Cold Blood, The Outer Limits series, Dick, Van Wilder, Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle, Blade: [...]

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It has become known on Saturday that Toshiba will abandon its HD-DVD format, resulting in the complete victory for Blu-Ray by companies like Sony, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co, Hitachi and Sharp. The format war has been going on since 2003. HD-DVD format has many advantages over Blu-Ray, [...]

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You need to have flashplayer enabled to watch this Google video
Video of the Moon shot through Meade ETX-125AT telescope with just a simple cheap Canon A620 7.1MP point-and-shoot camera that can also take 640×480 videos at 30fps. The camera is mounted on top [...]

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The plot: Ben Finn Finnegan (Mathew McConaughey) and his wife Tess (Kate Hudson) were passionate about each other and treasure hunting, but now they are fed up with each other and decide to get divorced. Just as Tess has begun to rebuild her [...]

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The official trailer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Directed by Stephen Spielberg.
Starring Harrison Ford and Shia LaBeouf. Karen Allen is also playing Marion Ravenwood – back from Raiders of the lost Ark. Also starring Cate Blanchett and John Hurt.
Just [...]

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Director: Julian Jarold
Writers: Kevin Hood, Sarah Williams
Producers: Jeff Abberley, Robert Bernstein, Julia Blackman, Graham Broadbent, Noëlette Buckley, Nicole Finnan, James Flynn, Tim Haslam, Morgan O’Sullivan, Douglas Rae, James Saynor
Original Music: Adrian Johnston
Cinematography: Eigil Bryld
Winner of American People’s Choice Award (Best Independent Film)
The plot: [...]

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This is a feel-good drama starring Hollywood sweethearts John Cusack and Amanda Pete based on a novel “Martian Child” by David Gerrold.
The plot: a widowed science fiction writer, who writes about Mars, decides to adopt a child. He picks a 6-year old who [...]

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This is a musical set in the 1960s. The music is based on over 30 Beatles’ songs.
The plot: an dock worker comes to United States from England to find his estranged father. There he falls in love with a teenage girl Lucy. When [...]

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“There Will Be Blood” based on the novel “Oil!” by Upton Sinclair and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (Cigarettes & Coffee, Punch Drunk Love, Magnolia, and of course several episodes of Saturday Night Live) who also wrote the script. It was in theatres [...]

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Vanity Fair (2004)

I didn’t read William Makepeace Thackeray’s classic novel yet, but looking forward to it (should have read it when I was a kid – everyone I know did). The movie is directed by Mira Nair and script written by Matthew Faulk [...]

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Opening in theatres in wide release:

Fool’s Gold (2008) PG-13 113min – Action/Adventure/Romance. Matthew McConaughey plays Ben Finn Finnegan, a treasure hunter on the hunt for legendary 1715 century Queen’s Dowry lost at sea, while trying to keep his wife Tess Finnegan (Kate Hudson) [...]

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This is one of the best Bill Maher’s stand up comedy shows. He performs on stage in Boston in jeans and t-shirt, some time after the Bush’s “surge” began and presidential campaigns were at full speed, probably summer of 2007 when it came [...]

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This Vietnam War drama was written and directed by Werner Herzog. The movie is vaguely based on Dieter Dengler’s book, “Escape From Laos”. The actual Dieter Dengler died just before the movie came out of ALS – Lou Gehrig’s Disease. Herzog previously filmed [...]

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Away From Her (2006)

This movie is a debut as a director for young Sarah Polley, based on short story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” by Alice Munro.
The plot: A man (Gordon Pinsent) who’s wife Fiona (Julie Christie/Stacey LaBerge) loses her memory due [...]

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