I am reviewing the action movie Gravity which stars Sandra Bullock & George Clooney & is an excellent film. Sandra has a much bigger role than George but both give excellent performances. The film starts with a space shuttle mission where both Sandra & George along with another astronaut are working in space. A rogue missile has caused a chain reaction that threatens to knock out the communication satellites and anything else in its path including them. Only George & Sandra survive the initial devastation. George is in charge of the mission and advises Sandra to keep talking because maybe mission control can hear her even though she has lost touch with them. The space shuttle is destroyed and they have to go to the International Space Station in the hope they can hitch a ride on the escape pod. That doesn't work out and George is presumed lost in space. Actually the space station is badly damaged in the explosion that destroyed the space shuttle and there is a raging fire going through the station. I think Sandra has to try a chinese space station which is less badly damaged and by then George has done the longest space walk in history. There is a reasonably happy ending and it would have been nice to see George in a larger role but although most of the film just features Sandra it does keep your interest throughout. I did read before that Sandra does a big budget movie once every few years but likes to do mostly indie films. Obviously this is a big budget film which is also in 3d. I think this film is a winner.

I am reviewing the animated movie Spirit which is a very good family film. I think this film should appeal most to people who are involved with horses in some way as the theme of the film is horses. It's set at the time of the war between the American Indians and the other Americans which is mostly the cavalry. The main character is a wild horse who lives with a herd. Initially he is captured by cowboys who sell him to the cavalry who try to break him but he befriends a captured Native American and they both escape. I think this film contrasts the rather cruel methods used by the cavalry to break horses with the methods used by the American Indians which seem almost like animal psychology. An example of this is when you greet a horse you look him up and down which of course is what horses do. Anyway the American Indian has a young mare and the key character is really attracted to her even though he longs to back in the wild. He is recaptured by the cavalry who put him to work helping drag a steam locomotive and of course this results in chaos. He gets reunited with the young mare and there is a happy ending naturally. It's quite funny when the cavalry are trying to break him especially when things happen like someone falling off him and being chased by him. It's quite an enjoyable movie. Matt Damon provides the voice of the American Indian & John Cromwell provides it for the cruel colonel. Both are great in their roles. I think nowadays there is a lot more emphasis on using psychology with animals & I know when I bought a dog, someone suggested I get a book on dog psychology and it was a great help.

I am reviewing the film We Are The East which is an excellent ecothriller. This film stars Brit Marling & Ellen Page. Marling plays someone who is concerned about an ecoterrorist group called The East who target people in business who do things like sell unsafe drugs or pollute the environment and agrees to infiltrate the organisation. She is taken on by an agency that works on behalf of paying customers in big business and they operate similiar to a spy organisation. As she infiltrates the terrorist group she starts to see their point and while disagreeing with actually killing people wants to help them. Ellen plays a fellow terrorist whose father is a corrupt businessman who pollutes the water tables in many areas with illegal waste but has somehow got away with it. At one point Ellen dies in the film and there is a poignant scene where another ecoterrorist says he would gladly give up they have achieved to get her back alive. It's an unusual topic and a great story & I really enjoyed it. Also the agency Marling works for is only interested in pleasing clients and getting new ones and couldn't care less about upholding the law. As time gores on the ecoterrorists who believe in do unto them as they would do unto others starts out dumping oil in the house of someone responsible for a big oil slick but do get more extreme ie they try to force Page's parents to bathe in a polluted creek which should result in a painful death due to the toxins dumped in it. By the end of the movie the terrorist group is coming apart at the seams and Brit must choose where her loyalties lie. Neither side is perfect.

I am reviewing the horror film Insidious Chapter 2 which is fairly good. I think the first film in this series was excellent and they would have been better off not making a sequel. This film almost puts you off the first and looks as though it was done in a hurry and was planned at the last moment. The plot for those who have seen the first film is the lady medium is lost in the spirit world and the police suspect the father of killing her. Unknown to the others the father's spirit is still in the spirit world having been sent there by the medium to retrieve his son and his body is inhabited by an evil spirit. The son's spirit is back in his body but he can still visit the spirit world in his dreams which is how all this trouble started in the first place. There was an evil spirit trying to take over the son's body that left him in what appeared to be a coma. Anyway the spirit in the dad is the Black Bride, a notorious serial killer who was a man who dressed as a black bride prior to commiting his crimes. There is 3 men who assisted the medium in the earlier film who are trying to sort out this mess in this film. The father is played by Patrick Wilson who starred in Hard Candy among other films. They do achieve some tension in him trying to harm his son but otherwise this film falls flat on its face. I think it's a shame because some of the team on this film worked on Sinister & the first 2 Paranormal Activity films which were quite good. I found myself looking at my watch more than at the screen with this film which I couldn't wait to end. It does have a happy ending but there is a tacked on bit that makes a sequel likely.