Slumdog Millionaire, 2008

Slumdog Millionaire follows the life of Jamal Malik (Dev Patel, Tanay Chheda and Ayush Mahesh Khedekar). A boy from the slums of Mumbai, Jamal and his tough older brother Salim (Ashutosh Lobo Gajiwala, Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail) are left to fend for themselves after their mother dies. Throughout, Jamal tries his best to protect his best friend, and later love interest, Latika (Freida Pinto, Rubiana Ali).

When Jamal becomes a winning contestant on the TV show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, he finds himself defending his correct answers to the police. Highly acclaimed and well recommended, I expected a lot from this film. While it did not disappoint, I expected more.





I would give this movie only 3 stars but because of the beautiful cinematography (Anthony Dod Mantle) it is worth seeing in theaters. I also really enjoyed the soundtrack.

Directed by Danny Boyle. Co-director (India) Loveleen Tandan. In English and Hindi with English subtitles.


Melody's Stars: ****


Rating System:
*****=Worth Buying
****=Worth Seeing in Theaters
***=Worth Renting
**=Worth Watching on TV
*=Worth Watching if also cleaning house or doing paperwork
0=Total waste of time
Fail=So bad it doesn't even make the rating system

Taken, 2008

When the daughter of former a spy, Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson), wants to go traveling around Europe with her best friend, he reluctantly agrees. His ex-wife thinks that he is being an over-protective Dad, until the two girls (played by Maggie Grace and Katie Cassidy) are kidnapped and sold as sex slaves.



A story about a father's love for his daughter, Mills quickly flies to Europe where he has to use his skills and old work connections to try and rescue his daughter and friend before all tracks are gone.

While Taken is a well-produced, compelling story I really wish that I did not watch this movie because it has some pretty horrible scenes in it and I left with nightmares.

Directed by Pierre Morel.

Melody's Stars: ***


Rating System:
*****=Worth Buying
****=Worth Seeing in Theaters
***=Worth Renting
**=Worth Watching on TV
*=Worth Watching if also cleaning house or doing paperwork
0=Total waste of time
Fail=So bad it doesn't even make the rating system

Quantum of Solace, 2008

Believe it or not, this is the first James Bond movie that I have ever viewed. From what I'm told, it is typical Bond: lots of fighting, objectifying women, and Bond doing whatever it takes to capture his guy. I'm also told that the older Bond movies had a lot of cool invented gadgets that he would use. This film could have used a few of those.



I cannot compare this to other Bond movies, so I compare it to other Action/Adventure spy movies that I've seen.

Directed by Marc Forster, the movie stars Daniel Craig as 'James Bond,' Judi Dench as 'M,' and Olga Kurylenko as 'Camille.'

Melody's Stars: **


Rating System:
*****=Worth Buying
****=Worth Seeing in Theaters
***=Worth Renting
**=Worth Watching on TV
*=Worth Watching if also cleaning house or doing paperwork
0=Total waste of time
Fail=So bad it doesn't even make the rating system

Lakeview Terrace, 2008

I'm really not sure what the point of this movie was. If it was supposed to be a suspense/thriller movie, it failed. If it was supposed to be a horror movie, it failed. If it was supposed to be an insightful drama it also failed in doing that. If it was supposed to show how people can be really stupid sometimes, I guess it partly succeeded.



Directed by Neil LaBute. Stars Samuel L. Jackson, Patrick Wilson, and Kerry Washington.

Melody's Stars: 0


Rating System:
*****=Worth Buying
****=Worth Seeing in Theaters
***=Worth Renting
**=Worth Watching on TV
*=Worth Watching if also cleaning house or doing paperwork
0=Total waste of time
Fail=So bad it doesn't even make the rating system

Righteous Kill, 2008

Al Pacino and Robert De Niro pair up in a movie that really should be better. They are cops on the hunt for a serial killer--similar to the TV series Dexter, the serial killer only makes "righteous" kills. The plot gets kind of confusing at times but despite that I was still able to predict the ending about half-way through the movie.





Melody's Stars: **


Rating System:
*****=Worth Buying
****=Worth Seeing in Theaters
***=Worth Renting
**=Worth Watching on TV
*=Worth Watching if also cleaning house or doing paperwork
0=Total waste of time