Kung Fu Panda movie review

I love to watch animation films and it took me a while to get to "Kung Fu Panda" but I am glad I did. It is an excellent movie that you can watch with your family.

The plot is intriguing and the visual effects are remarkable. Obviously, there is a powerful underlying message that is important to kids as well as adults.

What I got from the movie is that there really is no magical power or secret to success (I am obviously excluding being born to rich and/or powerful parents) other than believing in yourself and doing the hard work.

Po (Jack Black) is a panda who leads a mundane life as a family owned restaurant worker but making noodles is definitely not what he wants to do his whole life. What he really wants to do is to be kungfu master. By a stroke of good luck, he is selected to be the Dragon Warrior (the best in kung fu) who must fight Tai Lung (Dustin Hoffman) to protect the people of the Valley of Peace. For a food-addicted, overweight panda, the journey is a tough one but he realizes that when he realized that he had power, he had enough to defeat the evil snow leopard warrior. He is then accepted as the supreme master by the people.

Chocolat movie review

Here are some simple rules for life:

1. Never join a religion that denies you chocolate, or for that matter, simple pleasures like food, unless you eat so much that you end with a health emergency.
2. Never support the integration of church and state. It is always a dangerous mix regardless of how politicians and church leaders may want to help each other out to screw the people.
3. Always enjoy what you have. On your death bed, you will not regret what you did, but would surely regret all those places that you did not visit or the time that you did not spend with your family or the things that you did not try.
   

Chocolat is a great movie for anyone who likes chocolate or enjoyed "Like Water For Chocolate." Vianne (Juliette Binoche) and daughter Anouk (Victoire Thivisol) show up in a tiny French village, where the main square appears to be literally just as big as my backyard (it is important to understand this because it shows how small the minds of the residents were). Vianne does not go to church, does not have a male companion, wears red shoes (rather than black as all other women did), and opens a chocolaterie at a time with Catholics are supposed to resist temptations.

Thus begins the mother of all battles with the mayor Comte de Reynaud (Alfred Molina) who is literally in bed with the Catholic church and even edits the priest's sermons till they say what he wants to say.

Contrary to his expectations and disappointment, the chocolaterie not only thrives but also becomes a place for all the outcasts (Judy Dench as Armande who wants to enjoy her final years rather than go on a diet to fight her diabetes or Johnny Depp as Roux who as an Irish gypsy is not welcome and battered wife Lena Olin). In the end the whole town is literally licking chocolate off their fingers.

A beautiful family movie with something for people of all ages.

Get Smart movie review

I always enjoyed Steve Carell on The Daily Show but when I watched him for the first time in "The 40 Year Old Virgin," I was disappointed. The humor was lame and the plot was weak despite some good acting by Carell. Then I had a chance to watch "Little Miss Sunshine" and I realized that if the plot was right, Carell could be at his best.

I have been a big fan of Anne Hathaway since I saw her in "The Devil Wears Prada."

In "Get Smart" movie, Carell and Hathaway are both agents (Maxwell Smart and Agent 99) for a fictitious intelligence agency. The two go on a mission together to Russia to find out how KAOS, a terrorist organization, was getting nuclear weapons. There is a lot of action-filled comedy and eventually Smart is suspected to be a double-agent. He proves that he is not a double agent by preventing the explosion of a bomb at a concert in Los Angeles attended by the president.

If you are looking for spy-thriller, this is not the movie for you, but if you like satire and comedy, it is a good one. I was also pleasantly surprised that there is a lot more action in the movie than I would have expected from demure Hathaway and least likely spy Carell.