Sam’s Place

3:10 to Yuma (2007) 

Sam: ****

• A Brit & an Aussie have fun co-starring in a neo-Western. It starts out too violent & gets (literally) unbelievable at the end but the standard movie elements are good enough to keep it interesting.

Emma: ****

• Good plot twists.

Juno (2007)

Sam: ***

• I’ve said it before but… there’s quirky and there’s bad-quirky. This is the latter. The dialog is fake-sounding (and there’s narration — usually a bad idea), there are vintage toys, cool band name-dropping, ironic costumes, etc. It’s hard to get the suspension of disbelief going when the filmmakers are constantly showing off.

Emma: ***

• Tried too hard to be cutesy and clever but it did pick up after a surprise about midway through the movie. Still, I don’t understand why this movie was so popular.

Life Begins: Series 1 & 2 (2004)

Sam: ****

• An above-average British laughter-through-the-tears suburban drama. (Netflix calls the DVDs of Season 1 & 2 “Season 1,” and there’s an episode missing. And the third, & final, series isn’t available on disc — not yet, anyway.)

Emma: ****

• Good acting.

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Secret Smile (2005)

Emma: ***

• This made-for-TV British suspense film took a while to get going and the main character was a little silly in the way she handled the psycho, but otherwise not bad.

Sam: ***

The Tudors: Season 1 (2007)

Sam: ****

• This telling of the story of Henry VIII, starts off slow & tacky, like a Playboy Channel/Victoria’s Secret co-production but by the end of the season I was caught up in the story. Great costumes, an interesting semi-true tale, & mostly good acting. Reviews say the 2nd season is even better — can’t wait.

Emma: ****

• Maria Doyle Kennedy, as Queen Katherine, and Sam Neill, as Cardinal Wolsey, are the best.

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The Counterfeiters (Die Fälscher) (2007)

Sam: ***

• Not a caper, as some of the advertising for this movie suggests — it’s a concentration camp movie (from Austria), and appropriately depressing.

Emma: **