2008 Moview Review Index

Film Reviews and commentary by Tom Condon, OP (St. Martin Province) listed alphabetically by title
Atonement When Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) was 13 years old, she was witness to a lewd act between her older sister Cecillia (Keira Knightley) and Robbie (James McAvoy), a servant's son, that ends up sending the boy to jail. Several years later, Briony (Romola Garai) is a young woman who tries to heal the wound the previous incident inflicted on her family. READ MORE	WINNER Golden Globe Award: best film drama best original score.
Brideshead Revisited Aficionados of Evelyn Waugh 1945 masterpiece and of its faithful 1981 Granada Television adaptation will find the film version of "Brideshead Revisited" (Miramax/BBC) well acted and lushly outfitted, but substantially re-imagined in its essentials. READ MORE
The Counterfeiters In Nazi-era Germany, Salomon "Sally" Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics) is a master counterfeiter who is arrested and thrown into a concentration camp. Once his captors notice his unique skills, he's soon forced to become part of a scheme to produce fake foreign currency. What would you do? READ MORE	WINNER Academy Award: best foreign language film (2007)
Dark Knight Batman, Gordon and Harvey Dent are forced to deal with the chaos unleashed by an anarchist mastermind known only as the Joker, as it drives each of them to their limits. READ MORE
Enchanted A fairy tale princess, Giselle (Amy Adams), is banished from her perfect animated realm by an evil queen (Susan Sarandon) and forced to make her way on the mean streets of New York City. Lost and alone, Giselle befriends a divorce lawyer (Patrick Dempsey) who may turn out to be her prince charming, even though her hand is promised to an actual prince (James Marsden) back home. READ MORE
Frozen River Two days before Christmas in rural upstate New York, Ray Eddy’s husband has left her in an impossible situation—not only is he gone, but he has gambled away all of the family’s meager savings. Then she meets someone with an idea that changes everything. READ MORE
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull The return of our hero of 20 years ago promises to be a summer blockbuster, but Tom Condon has a different point of view. Are the thrills and spills worth your hard earned cold cash? READ MORE
Iron Man Billionaire industrialist Tony Stark builds a high-tech suit of armor and leads a double-life as the superhero, Iron Man. Even though it promises to be the first of the summer block busters, find out why film critic Tom Condon disliked the film. READ MORE

Juno Juno (Ellen Page) is a Mid-Western highschooler, who decides one day, out of boredom or curiosity, to have sex with her friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera), a member of her school's track team. She likes him well enough, but isn't hung up on him. This one time encounter results in Juno's pregnancy. She and her best friend Leah (Olivia Thirlby) decide to take control of the situation by browsing for prospective adoptive parents in the local Pennysaver newspaper... READ MORE
Man on Wire A look at tightrope walker Philippe Petit's daring, but illegal, high-wire routine performed between New York City's World Trade Center's twin towers in 1974, what some consider, "the artistic crime of the century." READ MORE
Michael Clayton Michael Clayton (George Clooney) is what is known in the legal world as a "fixer," or in the character's own pejorative version, a "janitor" who cleans up legal messes for VIPs and corporations on behalf of a prestigious New York City law firm. READ MORE
No Country for Old Men No Country is set in Texas in 1980. It follows three characters: Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), who happens upon a suitcase full of money from a botched drug deal; the psychopathic killer Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), who is fast on Llewelyn’s tail, and Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) who is trailing both of them through the border towns of West Texas. READ MORE	Winner: Best Picture Oscar
The Savages Two siblings (Laura Linney, Philip Seymour Hoffman) who have drifted apart over the years are forced to get reacquainted when they both must care for their elderly father (Philip Bosco). READ MORE
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street The thriller is based on the hit Broadway musical and Depp actually sings in the film. Depp plays Benjamin Barker, a man who was falsely imprisoned for 15 years after a judge sets him up in order to take his wife and daughter. Barker escapes and takes on the name of Sweeney Todd. Todd, who is a barber by trade, seeks to take out revenge on all of the people who have wronged him. READ MORE	WINNER: Golden Globe: best film musical and best actor in a musical for Johnny Depp
There Will Be Blood Daniel Day-Lewis gives a stunning performance as a self made oil man, with many secrets, who tries to buy up the oil rights in California in the early years of the 20th Century. Tom Condon loved this film, find out why... READ MORE	Winner: Best Actor, Academy Awards

The Visitor Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins) is an unassuming economics professor who is completely fed up with his boring life. But on one of his trips to New York city, he finds a couple, Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and Zainab (Danai Gurira), squatting in his apartment. Striking up an unusual friendship with the couple, Walter helps them out, especially when Tarek is thrown into a detention center after being caught living in the country illegally. READ MORE
WALL-E For hundreds of years, WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) has been taking out the trash, and collecting precious knick-knacks in order to stave off the boredom of his dreary routine. Little does WALL-E realize that he has recently stumbled onto a secret... Tom Condon loved this film; find out why everybody is so excited. READ MORE

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Film Reviews from 2007

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