Moneyball (2011) - Movie Review

The Red Sox are one of the teams in baseball that uses a strategy called moneyball as a large part of their team building philosophy. While they use a good portion of this tactic, they didn't invent it or make it popular. Bill James is mainly responsible for this philosophy of baseball and Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane help put it on the map. The movie "Moneyball" is about Beane and how he implemented this approach to his own team. 

After being eliminated by the New York Yankees in the 2001 playoffs, a trio of star players become free agents and leave the Oakland A's for greener pastures. Johnny Damon signed with the Red Sox, Jason Giambi went to the Yankees, and Jason Isringhausen joined the St. Louis Cardinals. Realizing that these moves could severely hurt his team, Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) asks the team's front office for more money and is rejected. After meeting Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), Beane decides to resort to an unorthodox way of building a team by utilizing what is called moneyball or sabermetrics.

Killer Elite (2011) - Movie Review

More intricate than a typical Jason Statham actioner, Killer Elite successfully maintains a surprising degree of intrigue and intensity, not through an overly clever storyline, but with an air of unpredictability within its characters. It's obvious that nothing will turn out the way it seems, but with a cast comprised of so many vicious killers, keeping track of which ones are the real heroes becomes an entertaining quest. While the plot bogs itself down from time to time with an abundance of twists and a location change every five minutes, the seasoned actors will hold your interest - at least until the next adrenaline-filled action sequence can take over.

The past has a way of catching up with you. No one knows this better than Danny Bryce (Jason Statham), a former mercenary who's forced out of retirement to save his old mentor Hunter (Robert De Niro). When an exiled oil sheik kidnaps Hunter, Danny must carry out the tyrant's request - track down and kill the three British S.A.S. officers responsible for the murders of his sons. Gathering his old partners Davies (Dominic Purcell) and Meier (Aden Young), Bryce begins his lethal task while Spike (Clive Owen), the equally exacting enforcer of the secret watchdog society "The Feather Men", attempts to stop him (this movie is based on Ranulph Fiennes' novel The Feather Men, and not the 1975 Sam Peckinpah movie, The Killer Elite).

Limitless (2011) - Movie Review

Limitless is limited, but it proposes something interesting. Granted, its proposal is one we've heard dozens of times, a couple of which were to chilling effect (echoes of the 1968 film Charly, based on Daniel Keyes' short story, "Flowers for Algernon," are plenty), but that doesn't mean it isn't a fun story. The man with nothing suddenly becomes the man with everything. Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) is given a wonder drug that allows him to use all of his brain, rather than just twenty percent.Side effects may include nausea, blackouts, migraines, and Robert De Niro's performance.

The drug is referred to as NZT. When Eddie runs into his ex-brother-in-law, Vernon Gant (Johnny Whitworth), who just happens to be a drug dealer, he's convinced that the drug is street legal and FDA approved. This is because Eddie is a moron, and a former drug addict with a concurrent drinking problem. Also, his girlfriend, Lindy (Abby Cornish), has just left him, and he's a novelist with a pending deadline who can't seem to get past the first word on the computer. After he takes the drug, he's able to open up his mind and pull out everything he's ever seen, read, or heard. He finishes his book in record time, wins at everything he plays, and manages to become a ladies' man just by showering. His narration (which, in terms of past/present/future tense, makes absolutely no sense) asks of us "What would you do?" Well, certainly not that.

The Adjustment Bureau (2011) - Movie Review

Science, philosophy or religion - none has ever been able to put a full stop over questions raised on fate and free will. This movie, The Adjustment Bureau, explores the ever interesting topic, our ability to decide our own fate. This fast paced brainy thriller is also probably the most romantic movie of recent times. In, the adjustment Bureau, Matt Damon plays a rising young politician David Norris. On the eve of US senate elections David Norris meets a beautiful ballet dancer Elise, Emily blunt, and they kiss. She inspires him to deliver a memorable speech. He feels fallen for her. He meets her in a bus, after some time, where her fascination to him translates into true love. But soon David finds that some mysterious men have conspired to keep them apart.

David learns that those men are members of, the adjustment bureau. Those creatures have a job to make sure that things go as per written destiny. They adjust the happenings, if something starts to go out of plan. Meeting Elise was a big deviation by David from written plan. The men of bureau must make sure that the two are kept apart. David Norris is forced kept apart from Elise but true love is too strong to be stopped. A senior from bureau warns David of the consequences and gives some reasoning for the written fate. David keeps himself away from Elise for some time. Elise feels terrible and thinks as if she has been dumped and decides to marry another guy. But when David learns about Elise getting married, he wants to reach her at any cost. He is helped by one of the agents of the bureau. David and Elise risk everything they had to remain together. Their true love even changes the fate.

Johnny English Reborn (2011) - A Review

Okay, I can see that look and I know what's going through your mind because the very same thing went through my mind but believe me, Johnny English Reborn is actually not so bad. It's really pretty funny. In this well-placed and fairly neat parody of Rush Hour, Bond films and all the spy movies that were ever made, Rowan Atkinson again rides as the accidentally tremendous British secret service agent, who has become a little older but his wisdom or the lack thereof, has not really improved.

It has been eight years from the time when English was first seen, and a lot of things have taken place since then. Fired and disgraced following a failed mission in Mozambique, he has been utilizing a monastery in Asia as a physical-training and spiritual retreat. He is given an opportunity to redeem himself when he is re-called by the government to unearth a top secret plot to snuff out the premiere of China while he is meeting with the British Prime Minister. The show features head of operation, Gillian Anderson, whose British accent leaves a lot to be desired, and a behavioral psychologist played by the wonderful Rosamund Pike, who inexplicably falls in love with English. The film also features Pik-Sen Lim, the British-Chinese actress who was a regular staple in the 1970s sitcom. She is debatably the breakout comedic star of the movie in her role as a cruel, vacuuming elderly assassin.