As much as I cringe at having to watch a family doggie movie, MARLEY & ME is not ordinary Hollywood pet film.  For one, the film is based on an actual book by John Grogan that people read with a rare theme that centres on a couple’s coming-of-age. 

Director Darren Aronofsky’s latest film, THE WRESTLER is an entire metaphor in itself.  Has-been actor Mickey Rourke plays has been wrestler Randy “The Ram” Robinson.  The redemption is a personal one and (quite likely) reflects the one Rourke has undergone in the making of this film.

Though touted as an animated documentary, WALTZ WITH BASHIR feels more like serious fiction animation as the film tells through dreams, flashbacks and experiences of filmmaker Ari Folman as he goes through the 1982 Beirut conflcit as a young man.

Compare the humour of these two scenes of someone admitting to breaking wind in an elevator.  In Jim Carrey’s LIAR LIAR” where he is forced to tell the truth, he screams at the top of his voice with flailing arms: “I did it! I did it!” In one Brit ad, all the people in the elevator turn around to look at the black lady who quietly admits shyly, “Yes, it was me!”

Who could ever possibly guess that the emotionless man-with-no-name of the Italian spaghetti westerns would eventually make gutsy dramas brimming with human feeling and life?  Like his recent CHANGELING, Eastwood’s new film tackles a personal problem that affects all those around the person concerned.