Given the summer movie season with so much silly junk coming out and nothing worth seeing, I hadn't been to see a movie in awhile. So with today's release of Jessica Biel's latest venue, Easy Virtue, I thought maybe there was something worth making an extra trip to Reno to see. I was wrong.

This year I am volunteering time to help with the festival.  I have the time am I enjoy the festival, why not give a little back?  The Rivers family has been working hard over the years to turn this into a true international festival and the whole island is involved.  For more information see

http://www.mauifilmfestival.com/

Aloha -AL

<!--Session data-->

Saw Sugar today in Reno. It is a wonderful, well done story about a young man from the Dominican Republic, his dream to pitch for the NY Yankees, and coping with the reality of life in the US. It is a very human story very well acted. The hero, named Miguel, has grown up poor with his mother, grandmother and a sister and brother, his father having been killed when he was very young. His family has focused on his ability as a baseball player since his youth and his chances to make it from a training camp in the Dominican Republic to the major leagues in the US.

Saw Angels and Demons the 2nd in the sequence of movies based on the novels by Dan Brown about a secret Roman Catholic society called the Illuminati. The first movie was The DaVinci Code based on the long time best seller of the same name. I enjoyed this one at least as much as the first. This one was a bit less spectacular (the other was over the top) but this one also starred Tom Hanks, whom I do not like so much. Hanks is kind of like John Wayne. No matter who Wayne was playing, you always thought "John Wayne" was on the screen and not the character he was supposed to be.

Paris 36 is pretty good for a musical, not my genre. Story centres around a variety theatre in the Fauborg area of Paris which is closed down when the owner is forced to sell out to the neighborhood fascist goon and then commits suicide. After several months, the actors, director and staff decide to occupy the theatre and re-open it on their own. The goon thinks he can win over the community if he pretends to be nice, including a sweet innocent young singer from rural France.

Is Anybody There? is a cute if somewhat slow film wherein Michael Caine plays an old man with creeping senility who moves into a small old folks home in mid-80's Britain. The home is an attempt by a couple with a young son to survive financially in their large old house. The kid is bored and belligerent and hates the old folks and is not happy with parents who are more focused on keeping their business going than they are with raising a young son.

The movie begins with the climatic birth of James T. Kirk  (Chris Pine).  Born on an escape shuttle running from an attack from a Romulan Spaceship that absolutely dwarfs it in ship. A troubled but brilliant youth.  In another part of the galaxy on another planet,Vulcan, Spock (Zachary Quinto) is be teased as an outsider, another brilliant youth but with the "disadvantage" of being half human.  With a will to rebel established, the two are of course destined to meet at Star Fleet.

Battle for Terra is an animated science fiction tale of an invading species trying to take over another planet.  What is different is that humans are the invading species.  We have ruined Earth through over population and war an a small group have escaped to space to look for a new planet and colonize it.  Adding o the invaders dilemma and sense of urgency, is the fact that their space ship is just plain getting old and breaking down.

I hate to admit there are times when the dialog in this movie will make you laugh.  However, saying that, in today's world I find little to admire in the Character of Conner Mead, played by Matthew McConaughey.  Right from the start you will hate him as womanizer that sees every woman as a sex object.  He disguises it in euphemisms of like " I love all women" , the point is he wants all women for sex, then just as quick dumps them, once in a an online conference call with three at once while a another is waiting in his office to be serviced!  This is not a rede