What is a frontrunner at this year’s Academy Awards is expected to open this weekend.
The Artist is a true homage to silent film as it is silent itself, is in black and white and even has the same aspect ratio of 1.33:1. This is similar to a non-high definition television picture and that is how all films were shown during the silent era.
The story is set in 1927 about a silent movie star named George Valentin whose career is at an end due to the emergence of talkies.
At the same time, Peppy Miller is a young actress and dancer whose star is on the rise. Even though their lives and careers are going in opposite directions, they forge a relationship literally made in the movies.
Although it is a French film and stars French stars Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo, it features Americans John Goodman, James Cromwell, Missi Pyle, Penelope Ann Miller and Brit Malcolm McDowell.
The Artist recently won three Golden Globe awards including Best Picture—Musical or Comedy, Best Actor—Musical or Comedy and Best Original Score.
Based upon the novel of the same name, One for the Money is an action comedy starring Katherine Heigl as Stephanie Plum, who is out of work and out of cash. Desperate, she turns to her disreputable bail bondsman cousin Vinnie for work.
Despite having no equipment, training or particular skill, she starts chasing bail jumpers. Without handcuffs and armed with pepper spray, she goes after one of Vinnie’s biggest bail-jumpers, a former vice cop and murder suspect who just happens to be the guy who seduced and dumped her back in high school. Not only will he result in a hefty payday for her, but will be a satisfying payback.
In Man on a Ledge, an ex-cop and now wanted fugitive (Sam Worthington) stands on the ledge of a highrise building while a hard-living New York police department negotiator (Elizabeth Banks) tries to talk him down. The longer they are on the ledge, the more she realizes that he might have an ulterior objective.
The Grey reunites Liam Neeson with his A-Team director Joe Carnahan in an action thriller about a group of oil-rig roughnecks who are left stranded on the sub-Arctic tundra after their plane crashes in the remote Alaskan wilderness. Suffering from injuries, biting cold and ravenous hunger, the survivors are also relentlessly hunted by a vicious pack of wolves.
Produced by brothers Ridley and Tony Scott, The Grey was shot in Smithers.
Back to the Sea is an animated adventure about a young flying fish named Kenny who lives in New York Harbour. He dreams of leading his family back to Barbados but gets captured and displayed in the fish tank of one of New York’s most famous restaurants. He meets a quiet young boy and together they begin a quest to get Kenny back to the sea.
Back to the Sea features the voices of Christian Slater, Tim Curry, Mark Hamill and Tom Kenny—the voice of Spongebob Squarepants.
–– Rick Davis is the manager of a movie theatre in West Kelowna. His column, Movie Guy, appears every week in the Kelowna Capital News.
