Ladder 49 movie review

So often we take what others do for us for granted. While impolite, it is not so bad. What is really bad when we take for granted even when others risk their lives for us. Yes, police officers, firefighters, and women and men in the armed forces, risk their lives every day so that we can be safe. If you are one of those people who just think of firemen when there is a fire in your house, we strongly suggest that you watch Ladder 49.

This is a very depressing movie; so don't plan on being entertained. In fact if it were not for its movie stars, it could very well be categorized as a documentary about the life of Jack Morrison (played by Joaquin Phoenix) as a firefighter. After starting his career as a firefighter, Morrison takes on the job of search rescue because he wants it, despite being warned about its dangers by his boss and mentor Mike Kennedy (John Travolta) and his wife, Linda (Jacinda Barrett).

The film traces Morrison's life in flashbacks as he lies unconscious after being trapped insided a building while performing a rescue. When his colleagues go to rescue him, he radios back to Kennedy telling him to pull them out since his case is hopeless and he does not want anyone else hurt.

Scent of a Woman movie review

Can you imagine a movie called "Scent of a Woman" with no women? Indeed, there is a pivotal sequence in the movie in which Al Pacino takes beautiful Gabrielle Anwar to the dance floor at the Waldorf Astoria for an impromptu tango performance, but other than that it is a movie about men. I enjoyed watching this movie even more because it reminded me so much of my days at the Birla Public School in Pilani.

Retired (and blind) Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade (played by Al Pacino for which he got the Oscar) is a man with a very complex and powerful personality. When his daughter hires Charlie Simms (played by Chris O'Donnell, who is a student from a poor family at a prep school in New Hampshire) to take care of him over the Thanksgiving weekend, he is in for a roller-coaster ride. Within moments of the daughter leaving for a family reunion, Slade and Simms are on a plane to New York City. Slade's plan: stay at the Waldorf Astoria, eat at the Oak Room, dance and make love to a beautiful woman, and then kill himself. Simms has to simply help Slade do all of this.

Simms is facing some of his own challenges at school. He has been asked to attend a disciplinary hearing in which he is expected to confirm the identity of three pranksters.

The duo has a lot of adventures in the City and Slade does not kill himself. In fact, he comes back and defends Simms at the discliplinary hearing. His powerful speech was instrumental in Simms being acquitted.

It is indeed a beautiful movie and Al Pacino is at his very best. If you like good acting, or have attended a boarding school, this is one movie you shouldn't miss.

Marcus movie review

Horror is a genre that I tend to explore occasionally (and mostly alone) and I have enjoyed some good movies during recent months (Vampyros Lesbos, Night of the Living Dead, etc.). But when I received the press kit for Marcus, I had no idea what the movie was about. It didn't take me long to find out. Within seconds, it was obvious that it was a horror film.

In my opinion, there are two types of horror movies. The first category includes movies with monsters and ghosts - these don't scare me because I know that they are unreal and more often than not include just computer-generated characters. The second category includes sick human beings (or animals) - these do manage to scare me because they are depictions of real people and without our knowing it, they might be around us.

Marcus belongs to the second category. You would not dream of any monsters or imagine that there are ghosts in your bedroom, but the image of this heartless killer will stay in your mind.

Here is the plot in brief. Brooke has invited her brother Roger for a Christmas meal and he has decided to bring along his fiancee Gwen to surprise his sister that he hasn't seen in several years. When they arrive at her door, they first meet his estranged friend Charles, who is now dating Roger's ex-girlfriend Kate. Not a great start. When they walk into the house, Brooke is nowhere to be found but Marcus, a man that no one knows, shows up claiming to be the man Brooke is dating. While the guests are not aware of this, but we see that Brooke is counting her last moments in the bathtub.

No one in the movie is comfortable with each other and they are all waiting for Brooke to come back home (Marcus informs them that she had a minor car accident and is on her way home). It turns out that Marcus is a scary psycho and pretty much kills everyone by the end of the movie without losing the mean smile on his face. You are left wondering that how a man who looks like a professional can be so brutal!

What makes this movie interesting and powerful is that with just a $35,000 budget, it manages to elicit superb acting from Ross Kurt, Marc Rose, Frankie Ingrassia, Jade Dornfeld, and Samantha Shelton, and has some excellent music that provides a contrast to Christmas carols that also play throughout the movie.

Strongly recommended.

America's Sweethearts movie review

Lorena was disappointed from the get-go that "America's Sweethearts" was not the movie she expected - that there was no humor so typical of Billy Crystal. On the contrary, this is a very light comedy that reminded so much of what Woody Allen (Shadows and Fog, Casino Royale) comes up with. There are some comic moments, but at no point are you falling off the couch, or as is typical of Woody Allen movies, smiling at the cleverness of the joke or the subtlety of the dialogue.

The plot is essentially a satire on Hollywood relationships. Estranged couple Gwen (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Eddie (John Cusack) have no choice but to come together to promote their latest movie (which is otherwise and may not do much to lift the sagging career of Gwen), and only some drama at the press junket at a luxury resort in the Nevada desert can get good reviews from the media.

Billy Crystal, who is an experienced publicist, takes charge and produces situations that will delight fans of Shakespeare's plays. Like all of us, the press too is obessed with the drama of relationships of Brad Pitt-Jennifer Aniston, Britney Spears-Kevin Federline, or Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes. That is exactly what Billy Crystal is able to do and the critics lap it all up.

Overall, a movie that you won't rememember the rest of your life, but is worth watching over a glass of wine after dinner. And by the way, Julia Roberts has a small, but impressive part, as Gwen's assistant/sister "Kiki."

I, Robot movie review

Whether it is Pinky or androids or Stepford Wives or robonauts, we will soon see robots the way we look at pets: friendly, helpful, and part of the family. Will that be in 2035? That is the premise of the movie I, Robot, which like The Day After Tomorrow is a visual masterpiece full of special effects.

In Chicago of the future, robots are everywhere and definitely that is good news for US Robotics, the company that manufactures them. If the robots were simply to follow our orders and make life easy for us, everything would be great, but what if robots could evolve or even have emotions? Even worse, what if robots could also try to protect us from ourselves, which is not inconceivable considering that by not fighting global warming, we are deliberately destroying the chances for survival of the human race?

If you are a fan of science fiction movies and get excited by robotics, this is an excellent movie to watch. Will Smith delivers a remarkable performance but we thought that Sonny (the robot) was even better. Like ET, it is easy to fall in love with Sonny. While some of the issues raised in the movie are somewhat premature, but considering that we all spend more time with machines than humans now, it is not a bad idea to ponder some of the ethical and social implications of bringing robots into our daily lives.

The Day After Tomorrow movie review

Global warming is a hot topic and there are a whole bunch of movies that use it in various forms. Some that I have seen and reviewed are Ice Age The Meltdown and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. If you are still in denial about global warming (How to fight global warming), we recommend that you watch The Day After Tomorow, especially if you work for a polluter.

The movie is very dramatic and is only meant to highlight what is possible, not necessarily what will really happen (unless a catastrophic event like a nuclear war or an asteroid hitting the planet raises the temperatures quickly). Even a fifth grader now knows that climate changes slowly, not within a matter of days, as the movie shows, but the point is made.

The Day After Tomorrow tells the story through the eyes of Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid), his son (Jake Gyllenhaal) and friend Laura Chapman (played by Emmy Rossum). While New Delhi gets it first snowstorm ever and grapefruit sized hailstones drop in Tokyo, the United States is not prepared for the unpredictable weather that causes flooding and massive snowstorms within a matter of days completely paralyzing the northern half of the country, specifically New York City. Bad weather is seen in other parts, particularly Hollywood.

The film has excellent special effects and while it clearly looks impressive, it is also incredible (see the photo above of how the Statue of Liberty first gets flooded and then covered in snow towards the end of the movie). We were also not impressed with a part of the plot in which Jack literally walks all the way from Washington DC to New York Public library to (successfully) rescue his son while hundreds of thousands of people simply froze to death in the extreme weather. Nevertheless the movie is entertaining (grossed over half a billion dollars) and drives home the message that we must act to save the planet during the coming years. Strongly recommended to fans of science fiction.

Ice Age The Meltdown movie review

Global warming was the last thing on our minds when we watched "Ice Age The Meltdown," but the message was loud and clear: we have to fight global warming, even more because so many idiots are in denial about global warming.

If you enjoyed the original movie "Ice Age," you should find the familiar characters (Scrat, Sid, Manny, Diego, etc.) even more adventurous and funny. Again, I wish this movie was rated G since it is a beautiful movie to watch with your family. And while we were not particularly impressed with the sequel "Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest," this sequel is a good one.

Like so many people who refuse to believe that climate change is for real, the movie starts off with many animals who just can't seem to accept the reality that what they had known their whole lives would change right before their eyes. Fortunately, there are no dead-enders and almost everyone listens to the warning and decides to escape. After a lot of adventure trying to escape from the rising water level - and with a lot of emotion on the way - most animals survive, even the mammoths. Strongly recommended as family entertainement.

L'Annam restaurant review

Not far from Rosa Mexicano Union Square location is the University Place area, popular among NYU students as a place to find good, inexpensive food. Being from the Boston area (that has so many students from all over the world), we know that the chepeast (and often with great good) places to eat are around the campuses. After doing some research, we decided to eat at L'Annam restaurant (at 13th Street) during our trip to New York.

We are not new to Vietnamese food and often eat at Le's (formerly Pho Pasteur), that has several locations in our area. What we like about Southeast Asian food is that if you pick the right dish, you can eat a meal with lots of fresh ingredients with little to no fat.

We were not disappointed at L'annam either. It is obviously a neighborhood eatery and at dinner time you see both a lot of students and families (we were told that during lunch time, it is popular place among the office workers). The portions are big for the price and all dishes are really well done. I had cellophane noodles with shrimp and vegetables while Lorena designed her own vegetarian dish.

Recommended for fans of Vietnamese cuisine if you want to stay away from so many tourist traps in New York City.

How to eat healthy?

As a followup to our article "How to be healthy," we also wanted to share more tips that come from AP9 At Home Rewards. We follow all of them, except the one on eating garlic. While we love the flavor and occasionally use it for most of our Italian dishes, the flavor is a bit too much later on during the day/night. So our tip for garlic: avoid it on warm days and when you know you will be intimate.

• Use olive oil. An essential ingredient of Mediterranean cuisine, olive oil contains polyphenols, the potent antioxidants that have been shown to help reduce blood pressure and cholesterol levels. The extra-virgin is the best kind.
• Switch to brown rice. The taste is great, and it's a whole grain, which makes it an excellent source of fiber. Brown rice is also rich in vitamins, manganese, selenium and magnesium, elements that help produce energy, improve the health of the nervous system, and help reduce the risk of colon cancer. It's a little bit chewy but you will soon acquire the taste.
  
• Cut down on salt. At least cut salt in half in your daily cooking. The easiest way to cut it is to reduce the foods that may have a lot of salts already added, for instance, potato chips. The taste will not change noticeably, and your body will thank you. You can replace salt with garlic or onion powder, flavored vinegar or your own mix of garlic, onion, paprika and parsley flakes.
• Add garlic. Raw, crushed garlic is the best, so try to use it as often as possible. Garlic is full of antioxidant properties, which benefit the cardiovascular system most. Recent studies have also shown some weight-control properties, if eaten frequently.
• Boil and steam. Both cooking methods maintain flavor, color, and nutrients. Other great and low-fat options are roasting, stir-frying, poaching and grilling. Keep in mind that extended heat and liquid can destroy valuable nutrients of the meals you are preparing.
• Eat more fatty fish. Yes, salmon, herring and sardines are full of omega-3 fatty acids, a highly neuroprotective component. Add fish to your meals at least once a week if you want to aid the communication between nerve cells, improve your learning and memory skills, and reduce your risk of Alzeihmer's disease. Since I don't like most fish (I can only eat tilapia), I take supplements.
  
• Eat more veggies. Whenever possible, add vegetables to your meals throughout the day. The recommended quantity is five portions a day. Add new vegetables to the traditional soups, salads, stews and casseroles you prepare, and add veggie juice to the grocery-shopping list.

Pirate of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest movie review

As anyone who has ever watched a sequel knows, the sequel is almost always less interesting, though that does not mean you shouldn't watch this one. When we watched the "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," we were mesmerized by the costumes, the sets, and some excellent acting by Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, and Keira Knightley.

In "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," you will not be disappointed - just not as fascinated since the novelty is not there any more. That does not mean the plot is not engaging or the acting is poor or the cinematography unimpressive. In fact, the movie improves upon the previous one in all of these.

This time, the search is on for a chest that is linked to a key which is linked to a compass that Jack Sparrow has. Actually the plot is even very confusing, espcially if you saw the first movie a long time ago. But like any fantasy, don't get too involved with the plot or don't think too hard about the movie - after all almost everything in the movie is one big fantasy.

Finally, I would have really liked this movie to have less violence. Such movies are excellent for children but we felt that the violence was a bit too much for little children.

The Hispanic Paradox

When we first read of the "Hispanic Paradox" in The New York Times, we were indeed intrigued. Our assumption was that all those delicious Latin dishes were deadly if not consumed less frequently and in small volumes.

Looks as if we were right. Maybe there is no Hispanic paradox; the way some smokers outlive healthy people, similarly, a few Latinas may also do better than most others. According to research conducted by Dr. John C. Teeters (University of Rochester), compared with white women, Hispanic women develop risk factors for heart disease (and cardiac arrest) about a decade earlier. Dr. Teeters emphasizes that these disparities are most likely caused by both genetics and lifestyle.

What can you do?

• Read how to be fit.
• Limit your consumption of those exotic Mexican dishes.
• If you are a Latina, head over to Lindisima.com and check out tips on diet, exercise, and weight loss.
• If you happen to know a Latina, do her a favor by telling her about this research. Forward this page or print it and pass on a copy to her.

Beyonce and Jennifer Hudson Oscar performance video

While American Idol judge Simon Cowell trashed Jennifer Hudson, she went on to win the Golden Globe and the Oscar for her acting talent. But let us not forget, first and foremost, she is a singer. When I recently watched her interview by Barbara Walters, I was blown away by her voice when she sang without any music at all right there in the middle of the interview with no preparation whatsoever.

So when she and Beyonce performed at the Oscars, it was a delight to watch them live. These two ladies are simply the best and it goes on to prove that American Idol is not a perfect competition. Watch the video clip below to see for yourself how good Jennifer Hudson is - we all have seen how good Beyonce is.