Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief is a new film from director Chris Columbus (first 2 Harry Potter movies, RENT, Adventures In Babysitting) and writer Craig Titley (Cheaper by the Dozen) based on the bookby Rick Riordan. It is the first part of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.

The film is about a teenager who discovers he is the son of the Greek god Poseidon and that he himself is half-god.  His entire life is changed by this discovery, also Zeus’ lightning bolt has been stolen and Zeus thinks Percy is to blame.  If the bolt is not recovered in a few days the gods will all go to war and it will change everyone’s life as they know it.  He’s brought to a camp for demi-gods and sets out to find his mother, who has been taken by Hades, and clear his name.  He’s joined by his protector (Brandon T. Jackson) and Athena’s daughter Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario).  Along the way to the underworld they run into some other Greek figures like Medusa.

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It’s that time of the year.  On March 7th the 82nd Academy Awards will happen.  I have to say I’m not a big awards show person.  They’re boring, and to be honest I really could care less.  Although when something I like wins (very rare) I do find it to be satisfying.

The following are my Oscar picks for this years awards, some followed by commentary.  My first pick will be in bold, my second will be italic (if I have one).  I base this totally on personal preference.  I’m not doing any analysis of what I think will win based on historical records, etc.  I’m picking what movies I think are deserving of some praise.  I’m also skipping some categories where I either haven’t seen any nominees, feel like I’ve seen too few to have a say, or just don’t care.  Here we go.

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The Messenger is about a soldier (Ben Foster) who was badly wounded in Iraq and with 3 months of service left is assigned to the Casualty Notification Office.  It becomes his job, along with his mentor/partner (Woody Harrelson) to inform soldiers next of kin as soon as possible after they are killed.  It’s directed by Oren Moverman and written by Moverman and Alessandro Camon.  Both are troubled men and while Harrelson’s character deals with alcoholism, Foster’s deals with the loss of his girlfriend (Jena Malone) and his feelings for a wife they notified about her husband’s death (Samantha Morton).

So first off most people searching for this movie are just looking for naked pictures of Jena Malone.  I do not blame you.  Besides being a terrific actress, she’s also very attractive.  So click the censored image to get a bigger uncensored version.

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Sorority Row is a horror/slasher film that was released last year.  It’s plot is pretty simple.  A bunch of sorority girls are throwing a party and decide to get back at a guy who cheated on one of them by playing a prank.  So one girl gives the guy (who is incidentally another of the girls’ brother) fake roofies to give to the girl (played by Audrina Partridge of fake reality show fame).  The girls all gather and watch on a webcam from the next room while he tries to have sex with her unconscious body (doesn’t this sound wonderfully funny? Apparently it is as the girls crack jokes the whole time), then she pretends to have a seizure or something and die.  They drive him and her out to an abandoned mine (you know cause there’s just abandoned mines all over the place) and pretend like they’re going to dump her body there.  When the girls split up for a second, the guy who is freaking out actually takes a tire iron and shoves it through her chest, actually killing her.  Then they have to actually dump her body in the mine.  This is all only slightly more complex then I’m making it sound.

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This movie has received a ton of press and awards already so you probably know the plot but if you don’t here’s a simple summary: The Hurt Locker is about a military bomb squad unit in Iraq.  The squad gets a new leader who’s a rogue type.  The film follows the squad’s day to day operations during their deployment.

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Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant is a movie about Darren Shan (Chris Massoglia), a teenager who with a friend attends a mysterious freak show where it turns out the freaks are really supernatural in nature.  Through a course of events he winds up having to become the assistant to a vampire (John C. Reilly), becoming half-vampire himself in the process and joining the Cirque to save his best friend’s life.  But his best friend may not be such a great person after all.

The movie is directed by Paul Weitz (American Pie, American Dreamz) and written by Weitz and Brian Helgeland (Salt, Conspiracy Theory).  It is based on the first three booksof the Cirque du Freakseries of Young Adult books by Darren Shan.

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The Informant! is a comedy directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Matt Damon as Mark Whitacre, an executive for a food company who comes forward to the FBI about his company price fixing a food additive in virtually everything called lysene.  These are the same people who pretty much put high fructose corn syrup in everything.  It’s based on a book of the same name (also available through Audible: ) that is actually a true story written by Kurt Eichenwald.

I really did not know what to expect from this.  I went in knowing pretty much nothing.  The advertising was horrible.  I mean look at that poster above.  It gives you no clue of what this movie is about.  The commercials were similarly vague and only hinted that it was funny.  The idea that I formed for myself would be that it’d be like a sort of funny version of The Insider.  It really wasn’t though.  The narrative is mostly driven by a voice over delivered by Damon’s character.  This voice over is probably the best part of the movie.  It is extremely funny.  They mostly have nothing to do with what is going on and just give you an inside line into the character of Whitacre’s brain on some level.  Here’s an example:

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An Education is a true coming of age story set in 1960’s suburban England.  It’s about what happens when a 16 year old girl (Carey Mulligan) meets an older man (Peter Sarsgaard) who seems to be cultured, refined, and much more interesting than anything else in her life.  It’s based off of a single chapter of the memoir of Lynn Barber, a british journalist, with both the book and the chapter sharing the movie’s title.  The screenplay was written by novelist Nick Hornby (High Fidelity) who has had several of his own books adapted for the screen and the film is directed by Lone Sherfig.  As of the time I am writing this An Education is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, Carey Mulligan is nominated for Best Actress, and Nick Hornby is nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.

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Doghouse is a british horror comedy directed by Jake West.  It’s about a group of friends who travel out to a small town in the middle of nowhere for a boys weekend to help one of them get over his divorce.  When they get there though they find an empty town.  Unfortunately for them it isn’t as empty as it first seems as all of the women have turned into zombies.

This is an alright movie.  There isn’t really a lot to write about it.  It’s pretty standard fare.  Nothing stands out as being great, but nothing stands out as being bad either.  It’s certainly enjoyable and would be a good party movie to watch with some friends.  The plot is not really anything you haven’t seen before and everything is pretty predictable. The action starts pretty early on and never lets up.  It certainly could have done with a little break for some breathing room.

My one real problem with the movie is that it doesn’t have an ending.  There is an ending but then it doesn’t end and instead continues to what is not at all an ending.  Anyway it’s fun and I’d recommend it for a rental. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be currently available in the US.

The real title of this movie is  Män som hatar kvinnor which translates to Men Who Hate Women but it is known in the US as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.  It’s based on the book of the same name that I reviewed yesterday.

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