Virginia

An Overcrowded And Underdeveloped Story Bolstered By Several Strong Performances
After winning a Screenplay Oscar for "Milk," Dustin Lance Black probably had a fair amount of freedom and leverage to pursue a project that meant something personal to him. The intimate and quirky "Virginia" is undoubtedly the result of that liberation (and I'm sure it didn't hurt that Milk's director Gus Van Sant got an Executive Producer credit as well). Taking the directorial reigns and writing the screenplay for "Virginia," Black proves that he has no shortage of ideas. While that definitely makes "Virginia" feel different, it also makes it seem overstuffed and slightly schizophrenic. The story veers from comedy and satire to tragedy and melodrama and never feels particularly cohesive. Furthermore, so many plot threads (and even characters) are introduced only to languish as undefined, underutilized, or completely irrelevant. Don't get me wrong, I think there's an interesting story at the heart of "Virginia." I just thought the movie lacked sufficient follow-through for the...

Great cast. Great acting. Movie was good but I was hoping for better. Depressing but very much worth watching. I say B.
"Dear Lord please let each of us come out of this in one piece." Virginia (Connelly) is a single mother raising her teen son in a small town. She is not sure of who the father is but she has been having an affair with the local married sheriff (Harris) for almost 20 years and wants it to be his. When he announces his run for state senate things begin to get tricky. This is a very hard movie to explain there seems to be a lot of sub plots going on but it is not hard to keep up with them. Connelly plays the character perfect and while she is psychologically disturbed it is not over the top at all and very believable. I enjoyed this but to me this is another example of a movie's cast being better then the movie. This is still very much worth watching and is one of the better indie movies to come out in a long time it is still a little slow. This movie is very emotional though and really runs you through as many as it can before the ending which is great. Overall, great acting really...

Worth seeing just for Connelly
It is nice to see an actress step out of their comfort zone (I am talking to you Jennifer Aniston) and try something different. Jennifer Connelly usually doesn't play mentally unhinged women but she excels at it in Virginia. It's a shame her talent is wasted by Dustin Lance Black's poor script, and poor direction. If he was more competent doing his job, Jennifer Connelly would be getting more critical acclaim for her work here. This is the best she has been in her career and that is saying a lot considering she won an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind and rave reviews with Requiem for a Dream. The movie is all over the place and the only saving grace is the work of the actors. They are all superb with Connelly the stand out.

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Let Go

A fantastic movie
An amazing cast. A wonderful story. Technically beautiful. A remarkable first film for Brian Jett that restores your faith in movie-making. I hope there are many more.

Enjoyable Movie
What a truly refreshing movie. It is well-paced, thoughtful, visually stunning with great acting. It reminds me of a movie from a long ago era, when movies told stories and weren't relient on special effects and hip soundtracks. Anyway, for something different, definately check this movie out.

Fantastic First!
I really enjoyed "Let Go" by Brian Jett! The cast is fantastic and the story line is wonderful! Actually many stories within the major plot. A wonderful first movie,...what fun to see Ed Asner again.

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The Cottage

A Silly Straight-To-DVD Endeavor: A Potentially Interesting Story With Sloppy Execution
I like David Arquette and he is certainly the best thing about "The Cottage," but that's about the only endorsement that I can give this low-budget chiller. The story at the heart of this film might have been creepy and provocative had it been explored with any sort of depth, but the end result is more cheesy and comical than scary or disturbing. I love that the DVD cover proudly proclaims that "The Cottage" is "based on a harrowing true story" because the screenplay is about as far from plausible as you can imagine. That still might have been OK if the sordid tale had not taken itself so seriously. With a bit more humor, this might have been redeemed as campy fun. But as is, it's just another "thriller" that is completely dependent on every character making the dumbest choices possible at every moment. And with so little thought to writing identifiable protagonists, I didn't much care what evil fate befell this rather lifeless brood.

"The Cottage" starts with a surreal...

Not good at all...
--- SPOILERS ---

The amount of times people were captured without a weapon or real threat was unbelievable, if you tried to kidnap me that way you would be dead. Then the husband and daughter go missing, meanwhile the mother keeps calling the cell phones casually asking where they are, she then thinks someone is in the house so decides to walk the house IN THE DARK.. Hmm, two members of my family have gone missing, and I have a crazy tenant, let me turn all the lights off, leave my baby and walk around the house with no weapon. SO UNREALISTIC.

Also you wouldn't leave your baby for a second if you felt under threat, yet the baby was constantly left alone to get kidnapped 3 times, you didn't learn the first time around? Then the car the baby is in which is driven by a teenager with no weapon at 5 miles an hour drives by you, and instead of chasing the car you scream and cry as if it's hopeless, really??

I want my $3.99 back, I want the 2 hours of my life...

Has the feel of "Hand That Rocks The Cradle". Movie is OK, but worth watching for Arquette, very creepy in this. I say B+.
"You left the door unlocked you obviously wanted me to come back in." After the tenant that Chloe (Dalton) and Michael have set for their cottage falls through romance novelist Robert (Arquette) answers the ad. After meeting him the family thinks they have the perfect person to move in and are excited. But like most things in life some things are too good to be true. This is true in all genres but I think that casting in horror movies has a lot to do with how creeped out you get watching. I have always wanted to write a "Silence Of The Lambs" type movie starring Roma Downey (from Touched By An Angel), to me that would be creepy just because of who she is. Most people know David Arquette has a comedic actor in movie like "Eight Legged Freaks" and "See Spot Run" which is why he comes off so creepy in this. He gives a very laid back performance and the movie has the same vibe as "Hand That Rocks The Cradle" or "Fear". The movie itself isn't that original and if it weren't for Arquette it...

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